The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-20 00:00:00

DICKENS IN SCOTLAND.

CHARLES

[The following graphic description of the brilliant
success achieved by Mr. Charles Dickens in Glasgow
—where on Wednesday night he read to a densely-
crowded and enthusiastic audience his Monologue of
" Doctor Marigold," and his " Nicholas Nickleby
at Do-the-Boy's Hall"—we take from the columns
of our contemporary the Scotsman of yesterday :
" A man can't write his eye (at least I don't know how
to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the quickness
of his action, nor his general spicy way." So says Doctor
Marigold ; and in the saying lies all the difference between
reading Dickens and hearing Dickens himself read his
own works. Whence the enthusiastic desire manifested
here the other day to be present when Thomas Carlyle,
" writer of books," spoke in this same Music Hall, but that
every one learns, or thinks he learns, something of and
from an author by seeing him face to face, and listening
to his living voice, more than can be gathered even from
the most gifted and speaking of his printed pages ? And
if the eye, and action, and voice of the abstruse thinker,
untrained as these are to express his thought, serve to
illustrate and expound it to the student of his works, how
much more expressive must such living illustration be in
the case of a delineator of character like Dickens, ac-
complished in all the arts of such exposition, and using
all those arts in his own " general spicy way ? The
popularity of Charles Dickens's readings is thus due
both to an obvious and a more occult cause. As a dis-
play of a modified and most pleasing form of histrionic
talent, they can be enjoyed by the least literate ; while
those who aro familiar with his books find their pages '
illuminated by his own rendering of them, with a vivid-
ness like that implied in the hyperbolical compliment, that
to see Kean's acting was like reading Shakspere by flashes
of lightning. But, in the present case, the light is not
fitful: it is a clear and full, but well-ordered name—a
Lamp of Power, as Mr. Ruskin might call it, in the hand
of the maker and master. Thackeray said that Fielding's
wit flashed upon a rogue like a bull's-eye ; and the homely
simile exactly suited the sort of every-day flavour of
Fielding's genius. The light, again, which Dickens throws
on his characters—rogues and their opposites alike—is
always tinged by the hues of his own varied and power-
ful imagination. If to read a story of Dickens' may be
said to remind one of looking on a painted window,
crowded with characters and full of cunning devices, to
hear the story read by Dickens himself is to look on the same
window with the sun shining behind it; when the figures glow
afresh, and the quaint devices come forth with a grace
and force before unappreciated, if not oven altogether
unnoted.

Something like this must have been the feeling of moss
of the large audience in the Music Hall last night who
listened to "Doctor Marigold." This little sketch is one
of the latest, and it is one of the best, of Mr. Dickens's now
numerous Christmas stories. It appeared originally in the
extra Christmas number of All the Year Round for 1865.
It is full of all the best qualities of " The Cricket on the
Hearth" and " The Carol," published some quarter of a
century before it. It is a monologue : the story of a tra-
velling Cheap Jack told by himself—how he conducted his
business ; how ho married ; how his wife had a temper
and cruelly beat their only little girl, when, but for the
temper (and " thirteen year of it in a cart would try the
best of you") " we might have had such a pleasant life !"
—how his little darling died in his arms even when he was
plying his ear-tickling trade ; and, latterly, how for her
sake ho adopted an ill-used deaf and dumb orphan, who
became to him even like his o vvn lost daughter. From the
moment he took his place on the platform, and began "I
am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum
Marigold," Mr. Dickens became the very Marigold he had
drawn from the depths of his own consciousness, and
fashioned into a living shape by his own wonderful
power of realisation. It was only by a touch of by play
now and then that we were reminded, so to speak, that we
had Frankenstein himself before us, and not the mere
imago he had created, so thorough was the identification of
the reciter with the imagined hero and teller of the tale.
A marvellous memory, aided no doubt by considerable
practice, enabled Mr. Dickens to speak the whole story,
which took a full hour to tell, with only a single reference
to the book that lay beside him—a command of his subject
which, of course, greatly enhanced its effect, as he was left
the free exercise of that surprising power of facial expres-
sion which he uses as only the most finished actors can
use such a gift and accomplishment. For his most comical
looks never degenerate into grimace ; and ho can in a
minute command the wrapt attention of an audience that
ho has just been provoking to uncontrollable laughter, by
an earnest sternness, or a quiet lapsing into gentleness or
pathos. It was rather, however, where his humour was
pathetic, where the repressed tear trembled in the twink-
ling eye, that last night's audience 'r as most obviously
affected. The other figures are comparatively shadowy—
they aro mere heads, as it were, beside the full-length
figure of the Doctor ; but they were heads that lived and
spoke when they were put in by Mr. Dickens. They wore
all made to play their little parts in a delightfully quiet and
illustrative fashion, which never obscured but rather lighted
up the central actor in this perfect little Dickens-drama—
doubly perfect as presented last night—exquisite in its
original conception and execution; equally so in its vocal
presentation and illustration. The second part of the read-
ing was "Nicolas Nickleby at Do-the-Boy's Hall." It was
thoroughly enjoyed by the audience. To-morrow night.
Mr. Dickens reads three favonrito selections iu the Queen-
' street Hall ; and on Saturday forenoon, in the same place,
gives his wonderfully fine and amusing condensation of
" The Story of David Copperfield."

BARNED'S BANKING COMPANY.—The announce
ment in The Sun of yesterday that the bills of this bank
had been returned by their London agents caused the
greatest excitement in Liverpool, and from an early hour the
bank in Lord-street was thronged by an anxious crowd. As
announced by telegram from Liverpool yesterday the bank
suspended payment, and shortly after the time for
opening a notice was posted on the door of the bank
to the effect that owing to the withdrawal of facilities by
their London agents the directors regretted to bo com-
pelled temporarily to suspend payment. A number of state-
ments are current as to the assets and liabilities of the con-
cern, but there is nothing authentic. The directors are
hopeful of either carrying on the bank or of transferring it.
They announce that a meeting will be held at the earliest
opportunity. Many of the depositors aro tradesmen. Great
sympathy is expressed.
THE Loss OF TIIE GIIANADIAN.—The Court
which has conducted the Board of Trade inquiry
into the circumstances attending the abandonment and loss
of the -West Indian steamer Grenadian have delivered the
following judgment :—" The Court has carefully con-
sidered the evidence which has been given in the course
of this protracted inquiry. Cases of abandonment are
always difficult to deal with. While, on the one hand, it
it is impossible for those who have to judge the conduct
of the master of a vessel after the event, however closely
they may sift the evidence which is brought before them,
to look into his mind at the time so as to ascertain all the
reasons which influenced him, on the other hand it is
essential that the Court should be perfectly satisfied that
nothing was omitted to be done to avoid the necessity
for the act of abandonment—a course, it seems scarcely
necessary to say, which should never be taken by the
master except in the last extremity, when he has tried
every other means without success, and is driven to leave
his ship in order to save life. There can be no doubt that
for 12 days Mr. Swainson navigated the Grenadian
rt
under
very difficult and trying circumstances, with his disabled
engines and a leaky vessel. His efforts to
ntreach a !ao
of safety seem to have been thwarted by contrary w s
ind
and stormy weather, rendering the ship unmanageable and
preventing the carrying out of his intentions. But
.the
Court, while giving the master full credit for his exerti
it .on
is
s
up to the morning of the 18th of February, regrets that
compelled to pronounce an adverse opinion upon his conduct
at this juncture. Within three or four miles of land, and
in smooth water, he left his ship without having made any
signals for assistance, it being admitted on all hands that at
the time of abandonment there was no immediate danger,
and, in fact, some of the officers and crew were willing to
remain some time longer by the ship, provided a boat was
loft with them. That such assistance was obtainable was
probably then unknown to the master, but ho did not make
I env attempt to ascertain if it could be had, nor did he return
to his ship when he met boats full of men coming out front
shore as he was making his way to land. The fact is undis-
puted that the Grenadian remained in sight till late in the
afternoon of the day following the abandonment. Had the
master and his officers been present to direct the efforts of
the islanders much might have been done. At any rate,
had the master made the attempt he could not have been
blamed by a Court of Inquiry had ho failed to succeed ' •
and even had his vessel drifted to sea some five or six
miles, as he suggests in his own statement would have been
the case, he would have had the boats from the shore, in
in addition to those belonging to his ship, wherein,to roach
the island when lie found all efforts to save her useless. It
is much to be regretted that the attempt was not made, as
there is evidence before us to show that if the water could
have been reduced so that the fires could have been re-
lighted, tho engines were in sufficient working order to
have enabled the ship to reach Fliyal, about 20 miles dis-
t:int. The court sincerely regrets that it is obliged to pro-
nounce a censure on the master of this vessel, but having a
duo regard to the interests alike of shipowners and of the
public in this and other large commercial ports of the
United Kingdoms', it is compelled to say that Mr. Swainson
committed a default in leaving his ship on the morning of
Feb. 18. The court has read with great satisfaction the
high testimonials to character for zeal and ability in the
discharge of his professional duty which Mr. Swainson has
received from officers of the Royal Navy and others whom
he has served ; but, though anxious to maye every allow-
ance for the difficulties of the master's position, it cannot
avoid the conclusion, from the facts of this case, that the
master in this instance did not make the attempt which
he might and should have done, on the morning of the
18th of February, to save the valuable ship and cargo
which were committed to his charge, and for this the
Court holds him in default: Taking all the circumstan ems
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