The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-17 00:00:00

HER MAJESTY.

WINDSOR CASTLE, Nov. 16:
The Queen, accompanied by Princess Beatrice,
went out this morning.
The Crown Princess of Prussia (Princess itoya)'
and Princess Louise also went out.

CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.

Sikes and Nancy—from "Oliver Twist,"
On Saturday evening last, at about half-past
eight o'clock, there were assembled together in
front of the great platform in St. James's Hall,
Piccadilly, as " fit audience but few," somewhere,
about fifty of the picked critics, artists, and literal*/
men of London. They had been bidden, there, hi
a card of invitation stamped with a fac-simile ei
the well-known signature of Charles Dickens:
countersigned by Chappell and Co., and beaded
with a witty significance of words, "Private 'Vs'
of the Murder in Oliver Twist." The occasioo
was simply this—the tentative or experimental
reading by Mr. Dickens in the presence of those
probably the best qualified that could be found
anywhere to pronounce a dispassionate opinion a°
to the suitability of a public presentation by the
great Novelist of one of the most powerfully tragi°
incidents ever depicted by him in the whole range
of his voluminous contributions to imaginative lite-
rature. The passages selected to this end from his
celebrated story of " Oliver Twist" were those re'
lating more particularly to the murder of Nancy br
Bill Sikes : and in the reading (if it must still be
called reading) of these wonderful passages, it most
be said at once that Mr. Charles Dickens has /re'
measurably surpassed anything he has ever achieved
before now in this way as tha impersonator of his
own marvellous creations. In speaking thus a
his performance on Saturday evening we use
in no respect whatever the language
exaggeration. It was as splendid a niece
of tragic acting as any one of that selee",
audience has had the privilege of witnessing withie
the interval of the present generation. Four of the
principal characters of the novel were introduced;
or it should rather be said were severally produce'
before us as by an actual embodiment of each'
Occasionally during one of the earlier scenes the
gentle voice of Rose Mayley, it is true, was audible,
while a few earnest words were spoken there als°
at intervals by Mr. Brownlow ; but, otherwise, the
interlocutors were four, and four only, to wit--
-Nancy, Bill Sikes, Morris Bolter (othervrise
Noah Claypole) and the Jew Fagin. Than thee
same characters, no four perhaps in the whelie
range of fiction could be more widely contrasted.
Yet, widely contrasted, utterly dissimilar, though
they are in themselves, the extraordinary hi°-
tronic powers of their creator, ena',,le him
to present them to view with a rapidity of segue°
or alternation so astonishing in its mingled fauiliti
and precision that the characters themselves eera,
not only to be before us in the flesh, but sometimes
one might almost have said, simultaneously. Each°
turn as pourtrayed by Mr. Dickens—we don't wear;
here simply as pourtrayed by him in the book, h°
now by himself, in person—is a masterpiece. Lo°l‘'
ing at the great author, as he himself embodies 13'
creation—Fagin, the Jew, is completely, audibil'
visibly, a transformation. His very stature i°
changed. Instantaneously—whenever he speaks".
there starts before us—high shouldered, with coo'
tracted chest, with bird-like claws, eagerly antiej;
pating by their every movement the passionatt
words struggling for utterance at his lips—ths
most villainous old tutor of young thieves, receiver
of stolen goods, and very devil incarnate, his fen:
tures distorted with rage, his penthouse eyebroW.:
(those wonderful eyebrows !) working like le
antennas of some deadly reptile, his wh°
aspect half vulpine, half vulture-like in its hungrJ,
wickedness. Instantaneously, again, whenever /in
speaks, Morris Bolter is there before us just ne
visibly and audibly, though all the while, of course'
we are perfectly conscious that we are listening t°
him through the protean voice, and looking at hi°
through the mobile features of the Novelist—see;
ing, however, no longer the Novelist, but On
chuckleheaded, long-limbed, clownish, aneakleg
varlet, who is the spy on Nancy, the tool of Fagan'
and the unconscious evil genius of Sikes, hounding
the latter on, as he does, unwittingly, to his 1410
dreadful deed of homicide. As for Mr. Dickens
embodiment of Sikes, the burly ruffian with thevi
too
of iron and voice of stentor, it is only necessary 1,
hear that infuriated voice and to watch the 9130.0
ling blows dealt by his imaginary bludgeon 10
the perpetration of the crime, to realise te
force, the power, the passion informing, in the
author's mind, at once the original conception a tm
character, and now, so many years afterwards, ite
v
quite as astonishing representation. It is la t.(l
portrayal of poor Nancy, however, that the genl d
of the author-actor finds the opportunity beyt
-
all others for its most signal manifestation. l's" 0
thing can be more exquisitely pathetic than tm
whole of this most affecting delineation. The elarf
ratter is revealed to us with perfect consistel3%
throughout—from the scene of suppressed emotion
upon the steps of London-bridge, when she thrills°
us with the eltrich, eyrie horror of her forebodings'
to her last gasping, shrieking apostrophies to „,
dear Bill," when she is sinking, blinded by bloom
under the murderous blows dealt upon her 3;
turned face by her brutal paramour. And the
horror of the assassin afterwards! How shall is
speak of that the most aptly, the most befittingqo
It is as grand a reprehension of all murderers
ever band has penned or tongue has uttered',
It is like the articulation of an avenging vc)ieeil
not against Sikes only, but against 130
who have ever outraged, or dreamt of outraging, t
sanctity of human life. It is this which sublimate:
an incident otherwise of the ghastliest horror ant
e,
homily of burning eloquence—the impressive
mory of which those who have once read it, ho
still more now those who have once witnessed it
hole
it is revealed to them by the lips, the eyes, the Wm i,
aspect of Charles Dickens, will not easily find
terated. The moral drawn from it—and there
tl3°
grand moral interpenetrating or impregnating
00
whole—becomes vividly appreciable, even as °
might sayto Sikes himself, from the first momeo 0t th,
the ruffian realises that his crime has been abs
hitely accomplished. It speaks trumpet-tongued/7v
the very instant when he first recoils from—"it l
Nancy no more, but now mere flesh and b 7.,
" But—such flesh, and so much blood !"
Dickens, on Saturday, when he uttered that while
mation of abhorrence—recoiling, as it were, "Wijt,,
he did so, from the ghastly spectacle at his fee
repeated the word " such" before blood as Well° 010
before flesh. We have not looked into the 13°01,
since then to verify the accuracy of our own re el*
lection as to the actual wording of the pass t
but we feel absolutely certain, nevertheless, tl3.,pd
we are right in our remembrance of it.
original wording, precisely as we have gl ad,
it above, even he cannot improve upon : ante
therefore, minute though the exception so
are now taking may appear in itself, We of
he will revert to those very words as they ofigittit is
fell from his pen. Another suggestion—but
,ete,
one of rather larger import—we would, eyaret
earnestly commend to his consideration in rb„ad
to this wonderfully powerful reading of Sil'e tot,
Nancy from " Oliver Twist." And it is this -70 at
prior to his bringing it before the nobadwit
large, he should so far extend it as t°
trikieg
one or two at least among the more St ouP,'
incidents related in " The Flight. " 'eude"
plementary instalment such as this alliorlf
Reading the Readin would tend all the more tive-1
to elucidate the moral latent in the narr3eigheo
a moral that, otherwise, might be env rviegf
against by the more captious or the less disue be
as simply there perdu. 'Whatever else o'ne'vv. ti/
thought of it, Mr. Dickens's "Sikes and N3,,,,"An0
a triumph of art, both histrionic and
a triumph, too, of a very memorable desc„rT,l
It is incomparably the most powerful
.of
s'4: and
more striking delineations or impersonattoe. `till
whenever it may be brought before the
for certain excite as much astonishment as
ration.