The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-04 00:00:00

been a success of the most decided character.

The

public interest in them has never abated, and
his closing reading in New York last evening
was given to as overflowing and appreciative

an audience as that which listened to the first

one in Boston six months ago. The American
people know Mr. Dickens better, and he knows
them better, than ever before, and it is evi-

dent that on both sides the admiration has been

vastly increased during his half-year's sojoura in
this country. Mr. Dickens's friends who are con-

netted with the American Press bade hire farewell

at a banquet at Delmonieo's, in New York, on
April 18, the gathering being said to he the

largest and most influential assemblage of newspaper
men ever seen in America. Two hundred gentle-
men, from all parts of the country, sat down at table,

and, Horace Greeley presiding, addresses were made
by Henry J. Raymond, George W. Curtis, Wiliam
H. Hurlburt, Charles Eliot Norton, and several
others. Mr. Dickens was somewhat indisposed, but
he made on thepccasion a characteristic address, so
full of genuine affection for America and her people

,hat it has silenced all cavillers. Had he made this

speech on his first arrival here it might have been
thought that he desired to propitiate favour, but his
making it on the eve of his departure is taken as a

renewed proof of sincerity. As his farewell to the

United States Mr. Dickens said :

" Gentlemen,--I cannot do better than take my
cue from your distinguished prasident, and refer in
my first remarks to his remarks in connection with
the old, natural association between you and me.
When I received an invitation from a private asso-
ciation of working members of the press of New
York to dine with them to-day, I accepted that
compliment in grateful remembrance of a calling
that was once my own, and' in loyal sympathy

towards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have

never quitted. (" Good, good," and applause.) To
the wholesome training of severe newspaper work,
when I was a very young man, I constantly refer
my first successes ; and my sons will hereafter tes-
tify of their father that he was always steadily
proud of that ladder by which he rose. (Great
applause.) If it were otherwise, I should have but
a very poor opinion of their father, which, perhaps,
upon the whole, I have not. (Laughter and cheers.)
Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances,this com-
pany would have been exceptionally interesting and
gratifying to me. But whereas I suppOsed that,
like the fairies' pavilion in the " Arabian Nights" it
wouli be but a mere handful, and I find it turn out,

Lke the same elastic pavilion, capable of compre-

heading a multitude, so much the more proud am
I of the. honour of being your guest; for you will
readily believe that the more widely representative
of the press in America my entertainers are, the
more I must feel the goolwill and the kindly senti-
ments towards me of that vast institution. (Ap-
plause.) Gentlemen, so much of my voice has
lately been heard in the land, and I have for up-
wards of four hard winter months so contended
against what I have been sometimes quite admir-
ingly assured was ' a true American catarrii'—
(laughter)—a possession which I have throughout
highly appreciated—(renewed laughter)—though
I might have preferred to be naturalised by
any other outward and visible signs—(shouts of
laughter)—l say, gentlemen, so mach of my voice
has lately been heard that I might have been con-
tented with troubling you no further from my pre-
sent standing-point, were it not a duty with which
I henceforth charge myself, not only here, but on
every suitable occasion whatsoever and wheresoever,
to express my high and grateful sense of my second
reception in America, and to bear my honest testi-
mony to the national generosity and magnanimity.
(Great applause.) Also, to declare how astounded
I have been by the amazing changes that I have
seen around me on every side— changes moral.
changes physical, changes in the amount of land.
subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast
new cities, changes in the growth of older
cities almost out of recognition, changes in the
graces and amenities of life, changes in
press, without whose advancement no advance-
ment can be inade.,anywhere. (Great applause.)
Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose
that in five and twenty years there have been no
changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and
no extreme impressions to correct when I was here
first. (A voice, " Noble," and applause.) And,
gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I
have, ever since I landed here last November, ob-
served a strict silence, though tempted sometimes
to break it, but in reference to which I will, with
your good leave, take you into my confidence now.
(Laughter and applause, and cries of " Silence.")
Even the press, being human—(laughter)—may
be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I
rather think that I have in one or two
rare instances known its information to be not
perfectly accurate with reference to myself.
(Laughter and applause,) Indeed, I have now
and again been more surprised by printed news
that I have read of myself than by any printed
news that I have ever read in my present state
of existence, (Laughter.) Thus, the vigour and
perseverance with which I have for some months
past been collecting materials for and hammering
away at a new book on America have much asto-
nished me—(renewed laughter)—seeing that all
that time it has been perfectly well known to my
publishers on both sides of the Atlantic that I posi-
tively declared that no consideration on earth
should induce me to write one. But what I have
intended, what have resolved upon (and this is
the confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my re-
turn to England, in my own person, to bear, for the
behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the
gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted
at to-night. (Immense applause.) Also, to
record that wherever I have been, in the
smallest places equally with the largest, I
have been received with unsurpassable politeness,
delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration,
and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily
enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation
here and the state of my health. (Applause.) This
testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my de-
scendants have any legal right in my books, I shall
cause to be republished, as an appendix to every
copy of those two books of mine in which 1 have
referred to America. (Tremendous applause.) And
this I will do and cause to be done, not in mere
love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an
act of plain justice and honour. (Bravo, and
cheers.) Gentlemen, the transition from my own
feelings towards and interest in America to those of
the mass of my countrymen seems to be a natural
one ; but whether or no, I make it with an express
object. I was asked in this very city, about Christ-
mas time, whether an American was not at some dis-
advantage in England as a foreigner. The notion of
an American being regarded in England as a foreigner
at all, of his ever being thought of or spoken of in
that character,was souncommonly incongruous and
absurd to me that my gravity was, for the moment,
quite overpowerel. (Laughter.) As soon as it
was restored, I said that for years and years past I
hoped I had had as many American friends and re-
ceived as many American visitors almost any Eng-
lishman living— (applause)—and that my unvary-
ing experience, fortified by theirs, was that it was
enough in England to be an American to be received
with the readiest respect and recognition anywhere.
Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, suddenly
spoke out two, one an American gentleman, with
a cultivated taste for art, who, finding himself
on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a
certain historical English castle, famous for its
pictures, was refused admission there, ac-
cording to the strict rules of the establishment
on that day, but who, on merely representing that
he was an American gentleman, ou his travels,
had, not to say the picture gallery, but the whole
castle placed at his immediate disposal. (Laughter.)
The other was a lady, who, being in London, and
having a great desire to see the famous reading-
room of the British Museum, was atsurcd by the

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English family with whom she stayed that it was
unfortunately impossible, because the place was
closed for a week, and she had only three days
to stay. Upon that lady's going to the Museum, as
she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced
as an American lady, the gate flew open, as it
were, magically. (Laughter and applause.) I
am unwillingly bound to add that she certainly
was young and exceedingly pretty. (Laughter.)
Still, the porter of that institution is of an
obese habit—(laughter)--and, according to the
best of my observation of him, not very
impressible. (Great laughter and cheering.)
Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a col-
lateral assurance to you that the Englishman who
shall humbly strive, as I hope to do, to be in Eng-
land as faithful to America as to England herself,
has no previous conceptions to contend against.
(" Good, good !" and cheers.) Points of difference
there have been, points of difference there are,
points of difference there probably always will be
between the two great peoples. But broadcast in
England is sown the sentiment that those two
peoples are essentially one— (great applause) --and
that it rests with them jointly to uphold the great
Anglo-Saxon race, to which our president has re-
ferred, and all its great achievements before the
world. (" Bravo," and applause.) And if 1 know
anything of my countrymen—and they give me
credit for knowing something—if I know any-
thing of my countrymen, gentlemen, the English
heart is stirred by the fluttering of those Stars
and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies
except its own. (Tremendous applause, and three
cheers.) If I know my countrymen, in any and
every relation towards America, they begin, not as
Sir Anthony Absolute recommended that lovers
should begin, with " a little aversion," but with a
great liking and a profound respect—(applause)--
and whatever the little sensitiveness of the moment,
or the little official passion, or the little official
policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be, take
my word for it, that the first enduring, great, po-
pular consideration in England is a generous
construction of justice. (" Bravo," and cheers.)
Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to
your correction, I do believe that from the great
majority of lione.t minds on both sides there
cannot be absent the conviction that it would
be bAter for this globe to be riven by an earth-
quake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg,
and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that
it should present the spectacle of these two great
nations, each of which has, in its own way and hour,
striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, o'er
again being arrayed the one against the other.
(Tumultuous applause, the company rising to their
feet and greeting the sentiment with enthusiasm.)
Gentlemen, I caanot thank your president enough
or you enough for your kind reception of my health
and of my poor remarks, but, believe me, I do thank
you with the utmost fervour of which my soul is
capable." (Great applause.)
The band then played " God Save the Queen,,,
the company joining in it with enthusiastic voices.

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