The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-11-24

so far as Charles Dickens was able to
shelter and console her.
Bertha Phillips was the daughter OF
Charles Phillips, for many years, except
Lord Brougham, the most eloquent man
at the bar of the United Kingdom. That
his name is heard so little now is only
another proof that the orator, like the
actor, may occupy the front of the stage
while he lives, but that after his death and
the generation that was contemporary
with him his fame perishes utterly, leav-
ing scarcely a name behind. Charles Phil
lips was Familiarity known as Napoleon
Phillips, on account of the Grafton with
which he celebrated the downfall of the
great soldier. He is Fallen" was one of
the stock readings in the school books of
twenty-five years ago. All that remains
of it is two lines in a dictionary of famil-
lar quotations: Grand, gloomy and pc
culiar, he sat upon the throne sceptered
hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own
one who saw Phillips often thus de-
scribes him: "A stout gentleman, elderly,
gray-whiskered and inclined to corpu-
lence, whose look and bearing were man
~, dressed in a dark-blue paletot, so
popular fifteen years ago; black trous-
ers, boots of the kind called highlows, a
carefully brushed hat with a curly brim.
settled well back on his head; a black
silk handkerchief bound loosely. around
his neck, surmounted by high shirt col
lar In his early life he must have been
eminently handsome"
Phillips was born in Sligo, Ireland, in
17SS. He was educated al Trinity College,
Dublin, and practiced for a time at the
Irish bar 1t was to one of the great lights
of that bar. Curran, that he owed his
professional rise. He was intimate with
Barry O'Meara, and with him allevated
the suffeTings of Napoleon a. St. Hell
ena. He was O'Connelfs second in the
duel with D'Esterre. He shared lodgings
tory, Richard Lalor Shiel. Phillips won
enormous Nerdicts in the courts. but the
often insoivent debtors. When Phillips,
without a superior at the Irish bar, re-
moved to England he had to encounter
Brougham, then in his prime.
In the first case in which they were
on opposite sides, Brougham in steel-like
cpldness made such fun of Phillips over
ornate rhetoric that Phillips fell into
ridicule and was threatened with ruin,
when, for reasons never clearly known,
Brougham took him up and threw so
much professional business in his way
that Phillips was speedily on the road
to fortune. Broughan secured for him
a commissionership, first in bankruptcy,
then i'm the insolvent debtors court, Lon
don. This was worth $500 year, a
large sum in those days, and with the
income from his profession Phillips soon
became a rich man. for unlike most of
his race, he was frugal and saving
How Augustus Dickens came into con-
tact with the daughters of Charles
Phillips remains for some other time to
disclose, if it ever shall. The family were
attractive naturally and their home was
one of the places in London where
everybody who was anybody" was sure
to be found. Phillips lived to 1853 and
LETT a fortune valued at $500 600. One
of his houses in King street had no less
than Louis Napoleon for tenant, and it
passed after Phillips death to one of
his daughters.
After the death of her father, of her
husband and of Charles Dickens, Bertha
or Mrs. Augustus Dickens. found herself
hopeless and desolate. The infatuation
that had supplanted the blind Henriette
had worn itself out Perhaps she had
ceased to have communication with the
surviving members of her own family
Perhaps she had hoped to the last that
| Charles Dickens, after the death of poor
| Henriette, would forgive his wayward
| brother and restore him to his old place
/ in his heart. What the truth was, will
never be known.
Charles Dickens could neither condone
/ the fault the two abSconders had COM
/ mitted nor could he repair its conse-
4 quences. He could make no explanation
/ in his own defense that would not have
/ exposed the innocent to shame and incul-
! pated in statutory crime his own brother
4 and one whom that unfortunate man
/ was bound to protect as best he could
/ since they had chosen to cast aside ali
/ moral obligations and take the conse-
quences.
4 Every trace of the blighted household
! disappeared long since from this city
! The occupants of the old site of Angus
4 tus Dickens home are not even aware
/ of the tragic history connected with the
] act