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 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS
 
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 ABOUT ENGLAND 
 WITH DICKENS 
 
 ALFRED RIMMER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 RAMBLES ROUND ETON AND HARROW,' 'oUR OLD COUNTRY TOWNS, ETC. 
 
 WITH FIFTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS 
 By C. A. P'AADERtlOOF, ALFRED RIMMER, AA'D OJ//ERS 
 
 Hoittion 
 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1883 
 
 r I II ^:^i.t„ „^„...-.., ./I
 
 ISAAC FOOT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ]
 
 n O UNIVERSn » Or ClLIFORNIiT 
 
 SAixTA ilAitii.iiiA 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 David Copperfield i 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 Pickwick Papers 40 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 Nicholas Nickleby 88 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Oliver Twist i33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Martin Chuzzlewit 160
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop 195 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 DOMBEY AND SON . . . . . . . .221 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 Our Mutual Friend and Miscellaneous . \ . 246 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Bleak House and Little Dorrit .... 260 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Mystery of Edwin Drood 280 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 A House and some Characters .... 290
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 LiMEHousE Side 
 
 Portrait of Charles Dickens . 
 
 The Rookery, Blunderstone, Suffolk . 
 
 Blunderstone Church, Suffolk 
 
 Group of Ancient Buildings, Canterbury 
 
 Falstaff Inn 
 
 Goswell Road 
 
 Rochester Castle 
 
 Bull Hotel and Old Bridge, Rochester 
 
 White Hart Inn 
 
 Abbey Gate, Bury 
 
 "Great White Horse" Inn, Ipswich 
 The Green Gate, St. Clement's, Ipswich 
 
 Gray's Inn 
 
 Dean's Court 
 
 Frontispiece 
 Viznette 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 9 
 31 
 
 To face 32 
 42 
 45 
 48 
 
 53 
 66 
 
 72 
 
 75 
 To face 78
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The George Inn 
 
 New Inn, Greta Bridge 
 
 DoTHEBOYs Hall 
 
 Yard and Pump at Dotheboys 
 
 Ralph Nickleby's Mansion 
 
 Portsmouth Theatre . 
 
 Seven Dials 
 
 Barnet 
 
 St. Andrew's Church . 
 
 Kew Bridge 
 
 London Bridge 
 
 Rotherhithe . 
 
 Old Bailey Prison 
 
 Hendon Churchyard . 
 
 Hatfield .... 
 
 48 Doughty Street 
 
 Market-Place, Salisbury 
 
 Mrs. Gamp's House, Kingsgate Street 
 
 Fountain Court, Temple 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop .... 
 
 The Little Wooden Midshipman 
 
 Warwick and Leamington . 
 
 
 PACK 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 lOI 
 
 To face 
 
 102 
 
 
 104 
 
 
 109 
 
 
 121 
 
 To face 
 
 132 
 
 
 135 
 
 
 145 
 
 To face 
 
 146 
 
 11 
 
 150 
 
 II 
 
 152 
 
 
 154 
 
 To face 
 
 157 
 
 
 158 
 
 
 159 
 
 
 169 
 
 
 189 
 
 
 193 
 
 
 196 
 
 227 
 
 234
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kknilwoktii Toface2T,(> 
 
 Warwick Castle, in the Hall 238 
 
 Warwick Castle To face 240 
 
 Inner Court, Warwick Castle 240 
 
 Dickens's House in Devonshire Terrace . . -245 
 St. John the Evangelist's Church, Smith Square . 252 
 
 Cooling Churchyard To/ace 258 
 
 Tavistock House 261 
 
 Courtyard, Marshalsea 264 
 
 Chancery Lane To face 269 
 
 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields 275 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Gateway To face 276 
 
 Hall of Lincoln's Inn „ 278 
 
 Clifford's Inn „ 280 
 
 The Nook of Staple Inn 284 
 
 Staple Inn To face 286 
 
 House in Furnival's Inn 291 
 
 Dickens's Characters To face 290 
 
 Gadshill 299 
 
 One of Dickens's Houses 303
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 THE ROOKEKV, BLUNUEKSTONE, SUFFOLK. 
 
 D I VI D Copper I iel d 
 is the favourite work of 
 Dickens. He says in the 
 preface : " It would con- 
 cern the reader httle, 
 perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at 
 the close of a two years' imaginative task, or how an 
 author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of him- 
 self into the shadowy world when a crowd of the creatures
 
 2 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet I had 
 nothing else to tell, unless, indeed, I were to confess 
 (which might be of less moment still) that no one can ever 
 believe this narrative in the reading more than I believed 
 it in the writing. Of all my books I like this the best. 
 It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to 
 every child of my fancy, and that no one can love that 
 family as dearly as I love them. But like many fond 
 parents I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child, 
 and his name is David Copperfield." This work has 
 sometimes been called an autobiography of the author, 
 and in a certain sense this is correct, for, though the in- 
 cidents may differ from those which actually befell him, 
 they have something in common with his history, and the 
 feelings of childhood are painted evidently from his own 
 recollection. For Yarmouth and its neighbourhood, where 
 the first scenes are laid, 'Dickens always had a great 
 fondness. He says, speaking of Yarmouth, that if any 
 one had a grudge against any particular insurance com- 
 pany, the best way to gratify it would be to purchase a 
 heavy life annuity and then retire to Yarmouth, drawing 
 the dividends regularly; and he says that finally the insur- 
 ance would conclude that " they had got either Old Parr 
 or Methuselah in their books." 
 
 Blunderstonc is situated about seven or eight miles 
 from Yarmouth, but there is a station at Lowestoft, which 
 is only about half that distance. The living is a rectory, 
 and that a wealthy one. It combines Flixton with it.
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 and the united population of the two parishes, which 
 cover a vast district, is less than a thousand, according 
 to the clerical directory. 
 
 Blunderstone is pronounced Blundstone or " Blunston" 
 by the inhabitants, and it is just one of those pleasant 
 quiet country villages that Dickens would have been 
 likely to select for a tale so full of homely recollections 
 as David Copperfield. The cottages in it are detached, 
 and if they are not of large dimensions they are charming 
 to look at. Red brick is the material that has commonly 
 been used in their construction, and this is often covered 
 over with green creepers and ivy. Sometimes a white- 
 washed or yellow-washed house breaks in and adds a 
 little variety to the small village street. The cottages 
 are shut off from the road by high thorn and holly hedges, 
 and are often only seen through the white wicket -gate. 
 Importers of wine and spirits have apparently found many 
 customers for their empty pipes and hogsheads, as one of 
 these vessels generally figures at the corner of a dwelling. 
 But there are a goodly number of pumps, and wells with 
 quaint old winches, or even more primitive cans fixed on 
 long poles. Beehives flourish here ; and I saw on the 
 walls between Yarmouth and Blunderstone many placards 
 announcing that prizes of iJ^ioo were to be given away to 
 the most successful of bee-keepers. As we pass through 
 the village towards the church which Dickens has made 
 immortal, we hear at intervals the hum of bees, and it 
 seems in sweet harmony with the scene. And then
 
 4 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Blunderstone is a perfect show-ground for roses ; there are 
 standard roses including most of the varieties from the 
 Duke of Edinburgh to "China Tea" roses, and another class, 
 which some might consider equally as charming as either 
 — the old-fashioned cabbage rose that seems to thrive in 
 a half- neglected garden, and sheds almost bushels of 
 sweet-scented leaves while the younger buds are coming 
 to maturity. The counterpart to Mr. Barkis might easily 
 be found at Blunderstone, and the wish to sit up all 
 night is natural in David Copperfield when he obtained 
 his mother's permission to go and see old Mr. Peggotty 
 and the memorable house on the sands. " The day soon 
 came for our going. It was such an early day that it 
 came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, 
 and half afraid that an earthquake, or a fiery mountain, 
 or some other great convulsion of nature, might interpose 
 to stop the expedition. We were to go in a carrier's cart 
 that started in the morning, after breakfast. I would 
 have given any money to have been allowed to wrap 
 myself up over night and sleep in my hat and boots." 
 This is exceedingly natural ; the writer can well remem- 
 ber, when he was about the same age as David, stopping 
 in a farm-house in a remote part of Lancashire, and it was 
 decided that he should return to Liverpool, about fifteen 
 miles away, in the Saturday's market-cart, which left at 
 two o'clock in the morning. The romance of such a con- 
 veyance was enchanting. To get up at one, and have 
 breakfast, and then to climb into the covered vehicle, and
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 see the sun rise, as the strong heavy horse tramped slowly 
 through the lanes, was perfect bliss. 
 
 Little did Copperfield suppose that he was leaving 
 his happy home for ever behind him, and that when 
 he returned all would be completely changed. " I am 
 glad to recollect," he says, " that when the carrier's cart 
 was at the gate, and my mother stood there kissing me, 
 a grateful fondness for her and for the old place I had 
 never turned my back upon before made me cry." Ne- 
 cessity knows no law, even in house property. When 
 Queen ElizabetH wanted the Bishop of Ely's mansion in 
 Holborn for her chancellor, the prelate had to yield. He 
 may have protested ; indeed, he does seem to have derived 
 what consolation he could in that direction, but his protest 
 was not far from costing him very dearly. As for the 
 house that is represented here as Copperfield's birthplace 
 and early home, I should almost doubt if the family who 
 lived there did very closely resemble the Copperfield 
 household, but as it is the only house visible from the 
 churchyard on any side, it must be appropriated, and 
 one has the less hesitation in doing this from the circum- 
 stance that it corresponds with what we require. " On 
 the ground floor is Peggotty's kitchen, opening into a back 
 yard, with a pigeon-house on a pole in the centre without 
 any pigeons in it, a great dog kennel in a corner with- 
 out any dog, and a quantity of fowls that looked terribly 
 at me, walking about in a menacing, ferocious manner." 
 
 "When I visited Blunderstone it was on a glorious
 
 6 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 summer day in the third week of August ; the cottages 
 were closed and the street deserted. A country waggon 
 with garden produce had stopped before a Httle public- 
 house, and the driver was probably sheltering inside for a 
 short time from the rays of the sun, while his horse was 
 slaking his thirst from a trough of clear well-water on the 
 outside of the hostelrie. This was almost the only sign 
 of life that was apparent to the eye. Harvest had begun 
 and everybody was at work in the fields, and the summer 
 air that carried the sweet scent from the meadows, brought 
 with it the hum of labourers, and the distant sound of the 
 reaping machines. It was just a day to delight in, and 
 I thought that it was such a one as poor Mrs. Copper- 
 field and David would have spent from morning to night 
 out of doors. A loud and most bellicose crowing roused 
 me from my reverie, and, on turning round, there was a 
 huge barn-door cock standing on the top of a gate. He 
 most certainly wanted to see who I was, and appeared to 
 think I should be in the fields working. I remembered a 
 passage in Coppcrficld^ which I referred to after arriving 
 home, " There is one cock who gets on a post to crow, 
 and seems to take particular notice of me as I look at 
 him through the kitchen window, who makes me shiver, 
 he is so fierce ;" and I fancy this must certainly be a de- 
 scendant. The geese were at the edges of the stubbles ; 
 there were only one or two in the village, and they would 
 seem unhappily to have followed the example of the 
 waggoner in their tastes. Instead of joining their fellows
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 on the stubbles, so as to make a respectable show on 
 Michaelmas day at Yarmouth market, they affected the 
 neighbourhood of pumps, and when water had been drawn 
 they made small drinking parties round the pools that 
 had collected on the pavement. Their ancestors seem to 
 have surely troubled Copperfield in his youthful days — 
 " Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling 
 after me, with their long necks outstretched, when I go 
 that way I dream at night, as a man environed by wild 
 beasts might dream of lions." 
 
 The interior of the house is graphically described : 
 " Here is a long passage — what an enormous perspective 
 I make of it! — leading from Peggotty's kitchen to the 
 front-door. A dark store-room opens out of it, and that 
 is a place to be run past at night ; for I don't know what 
 may be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests, 
 when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, 
 letting a mouldy air come out at the door, in which there 
 is a smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all 
 at one whiff." Then Dickens speaks of the two parlours. 
 The dimensions of the house are enlarged since Copper- 
 field was written, but doubtless these could be traced yet. 
 The parlour they sit in of an evening has most charms for 
 David. They use the best one on Sundays, but Peggotty, 
 his nurse, has told him something about his father's funeral, 
 when they all assembled in it in black, and put on mourn- 
 ing, and this has given him an antipathy to the room ; 
 and when his mother one night read about Lazarus and
 
 8 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the raising of the dead, Copperfield was so frightened 
 when he went to his room that, as he says, " they are after- 
 wards obHged to take me out of bed and show me the 
 quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the 
 dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn 
 moon." 
 
 Blunderstone church is small, but it is an exceedingly 
 interesting building. It seems to have been principally 
 built in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and the 
 tracery in the windows has a French appearance, not at 
 all unlike some we may see in Normandy. There is a 
 very peculiar round tower which is ancient, and quite un- 
 like any other I remember to have seen in England. It 
 seems unproportionably small, and it is not in the middle 
 of the gable, but stands on one side. The grass in the 
 yard is certainly very green and healthy, and the white 
 and red gravestones are all in excellent preservation. 
 One or two sheep had found their way into the consecrated 
 ground, and were calmly enjoying the rich pasturage. 
 This is almost vcrbatun with the text — " There is nothing 
 half so green that I know of anywhere as the grass of 
 that churchyard ; nothing half so shady as its trees ; 
 nothing half so quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are 
 feeding there when I kneel up, early in the morning, in 
 my little bed in a closet within my mother's room, to 
 look out at it, and I see the red light shining on the sun- 
 dial, and think within myself, ' Is the sun-dial glad, I 
 wonder, that it can tell the time again ?'" Unfortunately
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 the old oak Hanoverian and Queen Anne pews, which 
 used to form such a charm in country churches, have 
 
 BLUNDEKSTOXE CHURCH, bUFFOLK. 
 
 fared no better than their fellows in other parishes, and 
 plain ugly open benches have taken their place, but when
 
 lo ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Coppcrfield was written they were there. " Here is our 
 pew in the church. What a high-backed pew ! with a 
 window near it, out of which the house can be seen, and 
 is seen many times during the morning service by Peggotty, 
 who hkes to make herself as sure as she can that it's not 
 being robbed or is not in flames." 
 
 The childish feelings and sympathies of Copperfield 
 are among the best of Dickens's writings. When his eye 
 wanders and his old nurse catches sight of it, and frowns 
 that he must look at the clergyman, he is afraid almost 
 that he will stop and inquire what induces him to stare 
 so ; then he looks at his mother, who pretends not to see 
 him ; and then at a boy in the aisle, who makes faces ; and 
 finally, overcome by the heat of the day and the mono- 
 tony of the pastor's voice, he succumbs to drowsiness, and 
 falls off his seat. 
 
 One thing struck me as curious ; there seem to have 
 been stray sheep coming in and out of the yard, and one 
 of these almost made up its mind to enter the church. 
 Now, exactly between the church and the house there is a 
 pound for stray sheep. Did this suggest the idea ? 
 
 The Suffolk lanes about here are dry and hardly 
 leave traces of a shower ; hence there are great numbers 
 of butterflies. Red admirals and peacock butterflies 
 and many others chase each other past the hedgerows. 
 We read in Copperfield, " Now I am in the garden at the 
 back, a very preserve of butterflies, as I remember it." 
 There is a small lane near Blunderstone, that leads to a
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 stile-road across some fields, that is very curious. It is 
 not more than six feet wide. The path in the middle of 
 it has become evenly lowered, and forms a segment. 
 The thorns on each side of the narrow road are planted 
 very closely together, and meet in a perfect curve of dense 
 foliage overhead, forming with the roadway a perfect 
 circle, and as the little lane is straight, it conveys the idea 
 of a long tube through which the light is shining at the 
 other end. So completely do the l&aves over-canopy it 
 that thrushes, or mavishes as they are called there, and 
 wood-pigeons do not stir till the pedestrian is under their 
 perch, and then they fly with a flutter and loud chirpings, 
 quite unseen from below. 
 
 This lane is on the road to Yarmouth, or at least on 
 one of the roads, for there are several, and they are all of 
 nearly equal length. To revert to the memorable jour- 
 ney. The horse — the carrier's horse — was the " laziest in 
 the world," and Barkis dropped sleepily forward, leaving 
 his steed to find the way, — the route that his cart took 
 is clearly the highway through Hopton, and by Hop- 
 land Hall. On this road we see just such bylanes as he 
 speaks of, and the surface undulates in the manner he 
 describes. Then Yarmouth is seen a long way off, and 
 looks flat and oozy for a long time before it is reached, 
 and on the other roads we see very little of the flat lands. 
 " As we drew nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect 
 lying in a straight low line under the sky, I hinted to 
 Peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it ;
 
 12 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 also that if the land had been more separated from the 
 sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so 
 mixed up together, like toast and water, it would 'have 
 been nicer — sentiments in which the dame who said she 
 was proud to call herself a ' Yarmouth Bloater ' did not 
 concur." " Here's my Am ! growed out of knowledge," she 
 at last exclaimed, as they reached Yarmouth, Ham 
 was waiting for them at the public -house, where the 
 Blunderstone carrier put up. He asked David how he 
 found himself, and David imagined he must have known 
 him much better than he knew Ham ; and the visitor to 
 Yarmouth who arrives there for the first time will be sur- 
 prised to see how many Peggottys and how many Hams 
 there are in the streets, especially when the boats have 
 returned from fishing, though at any state of the tide there 
 is no lack of them. Ham, who was now six feet high and 
 robust in proportion, took Copperfield on his shoulders to 
 the boat-house of world-wide fame. It no longer exists, 
 but there was such a building at the time when Copper- 
 field was written, and the inhabitants remember it well. 
 It stood right away on the open beach below Yarmouth, 
 and a short description of its locality might throw some 
 light upon the most popular work of Dickens. 
 
 Just where Norfolk and Suffolk join stands the ancient 
 town whose name is almost synonymous in most parts 
 of England with bloaters. The Waveny divides these 
 counties, and joins the Yare, which is a Norfolk river, and 
 flows through the old capital of Norwich. These streams
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 13 
 
 join, on their way to the German Ocean, through a broad 
 pool called Breyden Water ; and this again contracts at 
 Yarmouth, and flows through a contracted channel to the 
 sea. It is with this channel we have to deal now. 
 
 From the bridge, which is called Southtown Bridge, 
 and which joins the counties, the united streams have a 
 course of three miles from Yarmouth to the sea. A 
 tongue of land which averages about half a mile in width, 
 and which is formed of silt and deposit, has gradually 
 risen along the German Ocean, and on this tongue was 
 situated the home of the Peggottys. The notes which I 
 made as I went to this strip of land show how Dickens 
 wrote everything down as he saw it. There were many 
 timber yards, — some filled with square timber, and others 
 with the knotted trunks of elm for ships' knees, — and 
 between these were cottages with tiled roofs. The tiles 
 were nearly always of the continental type that are set 
 picturesquely in gutters, and overlap each other. Nearly 
 all of these cottages had gardens, and they were well filled 
 with flowers and vegetables, all of which were the pictures 
 of health. Then there were shipbuilders' yards, with pots 
 of boiling tar, and neat, trim cutters on the stocks that 
 seemed fit to ride over any seas. There has been a great 
 improvement in cutters since Copperfield's time, and some 
 I saw on the stocks might very well compete for cups at 
 the Harwich regatta. This description well corresponds 
 with that we find in Dickens. " Ham carrying me on his 
 back, and a small box of ours under his arm, and Peggotty
 
 14 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes 
 bestrewn with bits of chips, and little hillocks of sand, and 
 went past gasworks, rope -walks, boat -builders' yards, 
 ship -Wrights' yards, ship -breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, 
 riggers' lofts, smiths' forges, and a great litter of such 
 places, until we came out upon the dull waste I had 
 already seen at a distance." 
 
 There is another road from Blunderstone to Yarmouth 
 which the country carrier often takes, and it is more 
 beautiful than the one through which Barkis and Copper- 
 field went on the morning which was the precursor of 
 such trouble in after years ; and if any one meditates a 
 pilgrimage to these parts, it may be well to describe it, for 
 I found some slight difficulty in procuring correct infor- 
 mation. Partly this was owing to the circumstance that 
 about four out of five people one met were strangers, 
 and a large proportion of the others were seafarers or 
 fishermen. Supposing that we are staying in Yarmouth 
 we cross over a bridge which is called South-town, and we 
 see an announcement that trams run to Half-way House 
 and Gorleston every fifteen minutes. It was through 
 Gorleston that the journey described was made, and this 
 is two miles from the starting-point of the tramway. If, 
 however, we desire to take the other way, we must disem- 
 bark at Half-way House, and there wc pass through a 
 place called Browston Green, and over a very picturesque 
 rustic bridge, below which is a very sluggish stream or 
 canal, that is lost on each side of the bridge in high flags
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 15 
 
 and bulrushes ; but we really are in the middle of a large 
 duck decoy, which is so carefully concealed that there is 
 no wonder that immense numbers of ducks are annuall}- 
 taken. This is called Fritton decoy, and the lake must 
 be nearly two miles in length, of which the cutting we 
 pass forms a small part. The lanes in this part are well 
 shaded, and they would have delighted Gainsborough or 
 Cresvvick. The distances along each road are about 
 equal. Dickens was well acquainted with both of them, 
 and spent many pleasant days in wandering under the 
 branches that overhang them. 
 
 So many scenes in Copperfield are laid at Yarmouth, 
 that a short description of the town may not be quite out 
 of place. It is very ancient, and it was formerly sur- 
 rounded with walls. Changes have continually ^^assed 
 over it, and many of the old features have left it. Still 
 there is abundant employment both for the antiquary and 
 the artist in the compact old town. The principal in- 
 dustry is of course the herring -fishery, and this would 
 naturally be what occupied the principal part of Peggotty's 
 and Ham's time during the season, which commences in 
 September. But they dealt also in other inhabitants of 
 the deep. Copperfield told his nurse in confidence that 
 the house smelt so strongly of fish that if he took out his 
 handkerchief, it smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a 
 lobster ; and then he learned that Peggotty caught them 
 for sale in Yarmouth, and he afterwards found a large 
 number of lobsters and crabs and cray-fish, in an out-
 
 1 6 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 house in a wonderful state of conglomeration, and always 
 pinching whatever they could get hold of Saturday is 
 the great day for Yarmouth ; and in the busy season, 
 when the environs of the town are well filled, and the 
 lodging-houses are reaping their harvest, it is a day to be 
 remembered. Yarmouth market-place is open, and it is 
 probably the largest in England ; the " market-square " it 
 is called, though it is most irregular in shape and very 
 much longer than it is broad. On one side, near the great 
 church, which looks out on the square, is a boulevard of 
 lime and elm trees. They have not attained any great 
 growth, and at first would seem to be hardly more than 
 half a century old. I asked an old verger if he could 
 remember their being planted, but he said that they were 
 as they are at present as far back as his memory could 
 reach. " And how far is that, friend ?" I asked. " Seventy- 
 seven years come Michaelmas," he replied ; and I could 
 not help recalling the eulogium that Dickens passed upon 
 Yarmouth as a place that was conducive to longevit}', for 
 the verger certainly did not appear to be more than 
 sixty or sixty-five years old. 
 
 The vast market square is surrounded with a very 
 quaint assemblage of houses that would almost seem to 
 have been designed with no other aim than irregularity ; 
 no two adjoining are of the same height, and if there is 
 a yellow-washed one, its neighbour is sure to be white or 
 gray or dark-red brick. Some of them have a bow- window 
 their whole width which runs up to the roof, and a i^w
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 17 
 
 have old-fashioned wrought -iron balconies, from where 
 there is an excellent view over the great square. Gable 
 lights appear in the steep roofs here and there, and there 
 are many stacks of great brick chimneys that must have 
 caused much anxiety during the storm which forms almost 
 the closing scene of Copperfield, and which is a graphic 
 and vivid description of a terrible storm that actually 
 occurred during a visit of Dickens to his favourite 
 resort. 
 
 Any one who has been accustomed to see a covered 
 market like those in London and Liverpool and Man- 
 chester will be rather surprised at the readiness with 
 which a vacant space of two or three acres is literally 
 roofed in, and all this has happened between Friday night 
 and Saturday morning. There are seven rows of booths, 
 each of which is protected from the weather, and different 
 trades seem to cluster together — the butchers and vegetable- 
 dealers keeping as separate as possible from each other's 
 quarters ; and on the lower side of the market there is a 
 long row of stalls for shell-fish, and dried herrings, and 
 Finnan baddies. At the extreme end of the market-place 
 is a dining-room, two stories high, that has a great bow- 
 window overlooking the square, and generally is very busy 
 on Saturdays and Wednesdays from twelve o'clock till 
 three. Genuine Yarmouth bloaters may be had in this 
 market, as indeed they may in the principal fish shops of 
 the town ; and it would seem as if some natural taste of 
 the inhabitants lay in curing herrings, and as though this 
 
 C
 
 i8 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 natural taste had developed in many generations into an 
 exquisite talent. 
 
 The fishing grounds of Yarmouth are of very great 
 extent. They reach for fifty to sixty miles along the 
 coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, and extend for nearly forty 
 miles to seaward. The depth of water varies from ten to 
 twenty fathoms. 
 
 On the tongue of land where Peggotty's house is 
 situated is a lofty column erected in honour of Lord 
 Nelson, who was born not far from here. 
 
 When Copperfield in early youth came to Yarmouth 
 on his road to London to continue his education at Mr. 
 Creakle's academy he went in the carrier's cart across 
 South-town bridge, and to stay at an inn that was so new 
 to him that he says : " I at once abandoned a latent hope 
 I had had of meeting with some of Mr. Peggotty's family 
 there, perhaps even little Em'ly herself. 
 
 " The coach was in the yard, shining very much all 
 over, but without any horses to it as yet ; and it looked in 
 that state as if nothing was more unlikely than its ever 
 going to London." The inn where this occurred was the 
 Crown and Anchor, the place where Dickens used to stay ; 
 but it is much altered now, and though the actual inn 
 remains as it was, a long bar-room has been projected in 
 front towards the street. ^ 
 
 When the coach left for London it travelled back over 
 the same road, or nearly the same road, that Copperfield 
 had just traversed in the journey from Blunderstone, which
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 19 
 
 village it left a mile on the right hand, while it pursued its 
 course towards London through Lowestoft, Saxmundham, 
 and Ipswich. The town of Yarmouth, that Dickens so 
 delighted in, was only just entered, and it would have 
 required a walk of ten minutes or more to reach the 
 market-place and to make an exploration of even a {q.\y of 
 the wynds or " rows," as they are called down there. 
 These are the very narrowest of passages that remain in 
 England, and they connect the four principal streets of the 
 old town. Guide-books say that there are a hundred and 
 fifty of them ; but whether this number is accurate or not 
 I cannot exactly say ; at any rate it is very great. Some 
 of them are so narrow that it seems unaccountable why 
 they should ever have been built. Dickens is said to have 
 enumerated some three or four where two friends he 
 would undertake to select could not possibly pass each 
 other, but, if they did happen by ill fate to meet, one 
 would have to turn round or back-out and shelter in the 
 first yard with an open door till his friend 'had left the row- 
 clear. There are certainly not a few where a boy of ten 
 or twelve years of age could, without the least difficulty, 
 put a hand on each wall of the row ; and yet the buildings 
 are not squalid or particularly small. They are of stone 
 and brick, and among them are shops with various kinds 
 of provisions or wearing apparel, and with the inevitable 
 Yarmouth bloaters strung up in rows. Sometimes there 
 are yard walls, and in these may occasionally be seen the 
 tarred fishing-nets for deep-sea fisheries, and boat-hooks,
 
 20 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and lobster-pots, and many baskets, showing at once the 
 calling of the occupant ; and in one or two dwellings, 
 where a door was open, there was a fireplace and groups 
 of fishermen or their friends round a fire, and the whole 
 scene looked so like a Dutch kitchen of the most pictur- 
 esque type that Ostade or Teniers would have found it 
 abundantly worthy of their pencil. 
 
 The new part of Yarmouth that faces the sea is like 
 Brighton or St. Leonards, or any other watering-place. 
 There are terraces of excellent houses, with bow-windows, 
 glazed with plate glass, and thrown back from the road- 
 way by small gardens, in which, as a general rule, every 
 colour of the rainbow, and some colours that were never 
 seen in it, are abundantly represented. It would not be 
 doing even scanty justice to dismiss Yarmouth without 
 some further reference to the bloater, and the fisheries that 
 occupied Ham and Peggotty. The class of boats they used 
 to employ has nearly disappeared from the scene, though 
 some of them may be found high and dry on the Suffolk 
 coast, and even yet, inland, parts of them are utilised as 
 outhouses or stores. W'c cannot walk very far outside 
 Yarmouth without coming across many such relics, and 
 some of them are so convenient that they look as if they 
 had almost been fashioned, instead of merely adapted for 
 their use. 
 
 The boats, when they are on the trawling-ground, are 
 under the command of an admiral or some experienced 
 fisherman, who directs them in their trawling operations
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 and receives some extra pay for his labour. Fast cutters 
 go out to meet them and bring the take to Yarmouth. A 
 steamer is ahvays in readiness to tow these cutters in, and 
 as all those belonging to one owner carry the same flag, they 
 are not difficult to distinguish and collect together. The 
 herring has more enemies than any other created being 
 in the universe. If we look at a map of Suffolk we shall 
 see the immense sand -banks that lie outside the coast 
 covering hundreds of miles. All these are vast spawning- 
 grounds for herrings, and they attract nearly all the fish 
 of the ocean. The dog-fish, the hake, the cod, and nearly 
 every other that swims through the water, preys upon the 
 herring at some state of its existence, and yet the powers 
 of reproduction are so great that no diminution is or can 
 be made in the supply. It has been computed that the 
 nets used by the Scotch and Yarmouth fishermen are ten 
 thousand miles in length, yet the quantity captured by 
 the hand of man is literally as dust in the balance if 
 compared with those which are consumed by other fishes, 
 and in some stages of their existence even by their own 
 species ; and it is well it is so, otherwise the herring would 
 probably disappear from the earth. When we consider 
 that the roe of a single herring, if allowed to arrive at 
 maturity, would produce fish that weighed between four 
 and five tons, we can easily understand that some 
 parasitical growth or some law of nature would step in, 
 and the herring would become a thing of the past. 
 
 When Peggotty told Copperfield — who wanted a few
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 hills about to improve the landscape, and suggested several 
 physical alterations — that " we must take things as we find 
 them, and that for her part she was proud to call herself a 
 Yarmouth Bloater, she not only used a word that is com- 
 monly applied to inhabitants or natives of the great fishing 
 town, but she actually was making allusion to the coat of 
 arms of the town. Formerly these were three bloaters, 
 one over the other, but in consequence of the services 
 which the inhabitants rendered to Edward III. during the 
 French wars, he conferred upon them the inestimable privil- 
 ege of dividing the bloater in two, and fitting on the latter 
 half to the head and shoulders of the British lion, powers 
 being also granted to the herald to represent the moiety 
 of bloater in what is called by sculptors " heroic size." 
 
 The visitor to Yarmouth will notice many red-brick 
 buildings something like the stunted hop towers in Kent, 
 and these are the drying-houses for Yarmouth bloaters. 
 When the herrings have really come to Yarmouth, which 
 may be calculated on in September or the end of August, 
 the great harvest begins, and boats that have been out 
 cruising for seven or eight weeks at a time close into the 
 old town, and are only away from the herring wharf for 
 about two or three tides. A dark night suits their pur- 
 pose best, because the fish cannot then see the nets, for 
 even with herrings the net may be set in vain in their 
 sight. Early in the morning it is exceedingly interesting 
 to watch the boats moored alongside the wharf and dis- 
 charging their silvery freight. The herrings lie in the rays
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 23 
 
 of the rising sun brighter than any silver plate, however 
 well burnished, and the heaps are enormous. If a very- 
 benevolent moralist begins to think that all these shoals 
 were cleaving the tides of the German Ocean but yesterday, 
 he may console himself with the reflection that their end was 
 quite momentary, and a surprise, possibly a pleasant one, 
 or, at any rate, we do not know anything to the contrary 
 — they were free from pain and forecasting of their fate. 
 
 " The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
 And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufiferance finds a pang as great 
 As when a giant dies.'' 
 
 The Yarmouth bloater can only be known in perfection 
 in its native town. The so-called bloaters that can be 
 purchased anywhere in England, and will keep in the same 
 condition as they are when we purchase them for many 
 days, bear no comparison to the genuine Yarmouth 
 bloater. This blooms only for a very brief period, and it 
 almost involves a journey to the great seat of the indus- 
 try to taste it in perfection. The very finest and primest 
 fish are selected from the baskets, and these are strung 
 together along a stick through the gills. These sticks are 
 placed in rows, one above another, to a considerable height. 
 Plenty of hands are employed, so that the salt water frag- 
 rance hardly has time to leave the fish, and an oak log is 
 lighted below, and left to smoulder. The curing lasts some 
 eighteen or twenty-four hours, and then the fish, which are 
 as carefully watched by skilled hands as is the fermentation
 
 24 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 at a Burton brewery, are sent into consumption. The finest 
 of course must remain on the spot, or else be shipped 
 to some neighbouring town like Lowestoft, and the ship- 
 ments for London or Birmingham or Liverpool have to 
 be salted in some degree, and dried a little more than 
 those required for home consumption. It is not at all an 
 impossibility that any one with friends, or friends' friends, 
 in Yarmouth might be able to secure the shipment of a 
 box which would cost in Yarmouth about 3s. 6d. for some 
 fifty fish, I think that is the number, and if he waited the 
 arrival of the train, and allowed no time to elapse, he 
 might partly know what a bloater is ; but the glory of it 
 is evanescent, and the natives look on it as 
 " The snow-fall on the river. 
 One moment white, and passed for ever.'" 
 
 Omer and Joram's place at Yarmouth, where poor 
 Copperfield went on his road from the school at Black- 
 heath to attend his mother's funeral, is easily identified. 
 
 There is an old-fashioned shop at the corner of a row, 
 miscalled Broad Row, that precisely corresponds with the 
 description, and singularly enough it is used as a clothing 
 establishment, and in silver letters on a black board inside 
 the shop is the announcement, " Funerals furnished." 
 Here the cheerful family of Omer passed their days, and, 
 if we cannot say that their occupation was conducive to 
 merriment, it seems to have no effect in damping their 
 spirits ; nor does this necessarily imply any want of feeling, 
 perhaps in some measure it might argue the reverse.
 
 DA VID COPPERFIELD. 25 
 
 "'Well, how do you get on, Minnie ?' Mr. Omcr asked 
 his daughter. 
 
 " ' We shall be read}' by the trying-on time,' she said, 
 without looking up, ' Don't you be afraid, father.' 
 
 "Mr. Omer took off his broad -brimmed hat, and sat 
 down and panted. He was so fat that he was obliged to 
 pant some time before he could say : 
 
 " ' That's right.' 
 
 " ' Father !' said Minnie, playfully, ' what a porpoise you 
 do grow ! ' 
 
 " ' Well, I don't know how it is, my dear,' he replied, 
 considering. ' I am rather so.' 
 
 " ' You are such a comfortable man ; you take things so 
 easy,' Minnie rejoined. 
 
 " And Mr. Omer added, ' No use taking 'em other- 
 wise, my dear.' 
 
 " And when Minnie added, ' We're all pretty gay 
 here,' " Copperfield was sorely puzzled. Yet Minnie was 
 the kindest hearted of girls, and when poor Copperfield 
 lay down on the sofa, not able to touch his breakfast, 
 " she put away his hair from his forehead ^\■ith a kind 
 soft touch ;" and when Mr. Omer subsequently said, 
 
 " Would you like to see your ," Minnie quickly 
 
 stopped him with " No, father." It was of course the 
 coffin they spoke of. When they drove to Blunderstone, 
 and at the funeral, Copperfield was shocked out of all 
 propriety at the seeming happiness of Minnie and her 
 lover, Mr. Joram, and though it was not hilarious by any
 
 26 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 means, he wondered that a judgment did not overtake 
 them. 
 
 The common expression, " as solemn as an undertaker," 
 must be considered as applying only to the professional 
 look which it becomes one to assume when he is on duty. 
 In one of Dickens's works he speaks of one of these gentle- 
 men who had made a felicitous remark on the uncertainty 
 of life in some ante-room where preliminaries were being 
 arranged, and he caught sight of his face in a glass oppos- 
 ite, but was shocked to see a broad smile upon it. And 
 would their work be better done if they carried on their 
 features the melancholy nature of their calling ? The 
 gloomy Hamlet says, " Has this fellow no feeling of his 
 business, he sings at grave-making ;" but Horatio reminds 
 him that " Custom hath made it in him a property of 
 easiness." 
 
 The drive from Yarmouth to Blunderstone and the 
 scene in the churchyard are among the best descriptions 
 in all Dickens's writings. " I do not think," poor David 
 says, " I ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life 
 as that of being with them, remembering how they had 
 been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride." The old 
 man drove, and Minnie and her admirer sat behind. They 
 stopped to bait the horse on the way, and this would be 
 at Hopton, which lies nearly in the middle of the journey. 
 There is a very pleasant country inn here that stands away 
 back from the road, and before it is a long low trough 
 full of clear water for horses and cattle. The old church,
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 27 
 
 which was thatched, stands some way above it ; and when 
 Copperficld was written it was in perfect order, and an 
 extremely interesting example of a country church ; but 
 they tell us at the inn how the clerk overheated a flue, 
 and the thatch caught fire, and soon the whole church 
 was in a blaze, which left behind it only the tower and 
 some portions of the walls ; but David could not touch 
 anything, though they kindly enough offered whatever the 
 inn could afford ; and when they arrived at the house he 
 dropped out of the vehicle from behind, that he might get 
 out of their company as soon as possible, and then he saw 
 " those solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed 
 eyes once bright." Then the sabbath-like stillness of the 
 day, the awe in the little village, the dreamy way in which 
 he heard the clergyman beginning " I am the Resurrection 
 and the Life," and the feeling of utter loneliness, are in- 
 imitably pictured. 
 
 " It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to 
 come away. Before us stands our house, so pretty and 
 unchanged, so linked in my mind with the young idea of 
 what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to the 
 sorrow it calls forth." And then he adds with inimitable 
 pathos, " All this, I say, is yesterday's event. Events of 
 later date have floated from me to the shore where all 
 things forgotten will reappear, but this stands like a high 
 rock in the ocean." After the funeral David becomes 
 neglected ; Peggotty receives a month's warning ; and 
 he says, " Happy would they have been, I dare say, if
 
 28 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the}' could have dismissed me at a month's warning 
 too." 
 
 The next phase in Copperfield's life is his sojourn in 
 London at Murdstone and Grinby's, and it would require 
 a very old resident in London to remember the place as 
 it was then. " It was down in Blackfriars. Modern im- 
 provements have altered the place ; but it was the last 
 house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill 
 to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people 
 took boat." All this region has been so completely 
 altered that it is almost impossible to select any place 
 remotely like Murdstone and Grinby's. The Thames 
 Embankment has made sweeping changes, though still 
 there are several winding passages that lead down from 
 Upper Thames Street, and which look very like the 
 description of the narrow lane that Copperfield speaks of. 
 " It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own 
 abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the 
 mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with 
 rats. Its panelled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and 
 smoke of a hundred years, I dare say, its decaying floors 
 and staircase, the sciueaking and scuffling of old gray 
 rats down in the cellars, and the dirt and rottenness of 
 the place, are things, not many years ago, in my mind, 
 but of the present instant." The shamefulness of putting 
 poor Copperfield to such a place, where his occupation 
 was simply to wash bottles for the supply of ships going 
 to India and America, was something shocking. His treat-
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 29 
 
 ment here was no better than if he had been an outcast, 
 as indeed he was ; but still he made the acquaintance of 
 the immortal Micawber. There is little to represent pic- 
 torially in this part of Coppci'ficld. The old warehouse 
 has disappeared, and Windsor Terrace, the home of 
 Micawber, is as commonplace and unpleasant to look at 
 as can well be imagined. Micawber the mercurial could 
 no more be sunk than a cork. " I have known him come 
 home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration 
 that nothing was now left but a jail ; and go to bed 
 making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-win- 
 dows to the house, ' in case anything turned up,' which 
 was his favourite expression." At last his troubles came 
 to a crisis, as they were in the habit of doing periodically, 
 and he went to the King's Bench Prison, Borough. All 
 Copperficld's life is very sad here, until he decided to run 
 away from Murdstone's employ, if such it can, by any 
 straining of language, be so called. Being robbed by a 
 youth in London, he had to make the best of his way on 
 foot to Dover, to his aunt's, the resolute Betsey Trotwood, 
 and he was compelled to part with his wearing apparel on 
 the road. The distance is about seventy miles from Lon- 
 don, and his road lay through Blackheath, where he sought 
 his old school, Salem House, and secured one night's 
 shelter under a haystack that was found in the old spot 
 where he had before remembered one to be. Many of 
 his old friends would be there then, but he got away in 
 good time, and found the road which he had heard called
 
 30 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the Dover Road before Traddles or any of his old asso- 
 ciates were stirring, and he pursued his weary footsore 
 journey through Rochester to Chatham, where he slept 
 near a gun and heard the sentry pacing backwards and 
 forwards, and even felt that this was some kind of pro- 
 tection. Then he pursued his way through Milton and 
 Faversham till he came to Canterbury, and finally arrived 
 at Dover, where, with some difficult}^ he succeeded in 
 tracing out Betsey Trotwood's cottage. The district where 
 this was situated is now entirely altered, and costly 
 lodging-houses are to be seen instead. Miss Trotwood's 
 house was not far from Dover Castle, which rises magni- 
 ficently towards the sea at an abrupt elevation of between 
 three and four hundred feet above the level of the water. 
 The French coast is clearly visible at times from here, and 
 whenever it is seen, rainy weather is not far off Donkeys 
 will always be found, and no doubt they trespass as much 
 as the donkeys of Miss Trotwood's time did. 
 
 But the chief interest of Dover in Coppcrficld is its 
 proximity to Canterbury. It was here that Copperfield 
 went to complete his education, and find his partner for 
 life. When it was settled that David must go to school in 
 Canterbury, very little time was lost in preparation. David 
 had become accustomed to his aunt's sudden ways, and 
 said that he should like to go very much. The road lay 
 past Broompath, the seat of the ancient family of Oxen- 
 den, and through a delightful country, entering the cathe- 
 dral city by the west gate, which is the only one of the
 
 DA VII) COPPKRFIELD. 
 
 31 
 
 5 -c-1 
 
 ^>, six barriers that remains. It was built by 
 ^^^ Archbishop Sudbur}-, who was barbarousl}- 
 =^^ murdered by Wat Tyler. 
 Just before we enter 
 under this gate we shall 
 ^11 pass one of the most 
 '-' smgular old mns in Eng- 
 land — the Falstaff Inn, 
 01, as the name has 
 been coirupted in 
 lecent times, 
 tl ^ -^ the Fal- 
 staff Hotel. 
 There is a 
 sienboard 
 ith a 
 
 
 GROUP Oh ANCIENT BUILDINGS, '^^ 
 C \N 1 hKBURY 

 
 32 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 picture of Sir John on it ; and this extends for an 
 enormous distance into the street, supported by cast- 
 iron rods turned into beautiful designs, such as we so 
 often see in the ironwork of old towns, and even in 
 some parts of London itself Indeed, it would be well 
 worth any one's time who may happen to visit some 
 country town, after he has exhausted the sights — the 
 church, or as much of interest as the Vandals of the 
 present day have left after " restoring " it — the grammar 
 school, the black-and-white market, and the curved gables 
 or any other object that is a relic of past days — to walk 
 through the streets and look at the wealth of wrought- 
 iron designs he will find at street corners, or supporting 
 signs or unused lamp brackets, or even railings. These 
 just want a little looking out, and they are to be found 
 nearly everywhere. 
 
 The Canterbury gateway has yet the grooves for a 
 portcullis, and the two great towers remain with their 
 battlements to guard the bridge over the left branch of 
 the Stour, in whose waters the foundations are laid. 
 When Coppcrficld was written there were some quaint 
 old houses with gables and bow-windows, which are illus- 
 trated in Britton's Picturesque Antiquities. 
 
 When they arrived at Canterbury it was market-day, 
 and it is not to be wondered at that the vehicle met with 
 much obstruction in the narrow streets of that grand old 
 cathedral city. Copperficld had endeavoured to obtain 
 some information about Mr. Wickfield, to whose office his
 
 FAT.STAFF INN.
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 33 
 
 aunt was driving, but he only was able to learn that he 
 was a lawyer, and not a schoolmaster at all ; and further 
 inquiry was stopped by the arrival of David and his aunt 
 at one of the quaintest and grandest cities in Europe. 
 The Cathedral Close, with all the ancient piles that sur- 
 round it, the Norman staircase of singular picturesqueness, 
 the baptistery, the cloisters, and the venerable gateways, 
 form a hundred groups of beauty that can never be for- 
 gotten, and an attempt has been made to incorporate these 
 in a picture that would present itself to Copperfield. The 
 chaise with the gray pony would seem to have fallen 
 on rather evil days, as Miss Trotwood drove through the 
 crowded streets of the city on a market-day, " My aunt 
 had a great opportunity of insinuating the gray pony 
 among carts, baskets, vegetables, and hucksters' goods. 
 The hair-breadth turns and twists we made drew down 
 upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing 
 about, which were not always complimentary ; but my 
 aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say 
 would have taken her own way with as much coolness 
 through an enemy's country ;" indeed to some extent this 
 may have been converted into an enemy's country by the 
 circumstances of the case. 
 
 When they finally arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house 
 Copperfield had an opportunity to look about him. There 
 is no such house now. I went again and again over the 
 city to identify it, and even made a sketch of one house 
 
 D
 
 34 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 that seemed to approach the descriptions most nearly ; 
 but this would not answer the requirements, and so it was 
 suppressed from the present series of sketches. But in- 
 habitants tell me that such a house did exist, and that the 
 description is accurate enough, but that it has been pulled 
 down to make room for the premises of a bank. Another 
 disappointment in this part of the work was that no trace 
 could be found of the academy presided over by Dr. 
 Strong, where Copperfield went to renew his long-ne- 
 glected studies. This was "a grave building in a courtyard, 
 with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited 
 to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the 
 cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the 
 grass-plot." Then we read of " tall iron rails and gates 
 outside the house ;" and almost at the top of the red-brick 
 wall, at regular distances, were the well-known great stone 
 urns " like sublimated skittles for time to play at." 
 
 There is a school in the Cathedral Close called King's 
 school, and it was doubtless to this that Copperfield went, 
 but the buildings are entirely different. The influence of 
 Dr. Strong, the Principal of the school, is admirably told 
 by Dickens ; and it must have been a grateful task, after 
 describing such academies as Squeers' and Creakle's, to 
 turn to this happy seminary, and to tell how well the 
 Doctor's system of kindliness worked ! " The Doctor 
 himself was the idol of the whole school : and it must 
 have been a badly-composed school if he had been any- 
 thing else, for he was the kindest of men ; with a simple
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 35 
 
 faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of 
 the very urns upon the wall." 
 
 In going with Dickens through England we must 
 remember that he was a pioneer, and, just as the Yorkshire 
 school system disappeared, many an abuse vanished after 
 he had exposed it. Coppcrfidd has been said in a literary 
 review to be one of the most instructive books in the 
 English language ; and if there are critics who think that 
 Mr. Dick and Miss Mowcher might have been left out 
 with advantage, there are none who can deny the bright- 
 ness he gives to ways of virtue, and the gloom that he 
 shows must follow deeds of cruelty and vice. " Adams, 
 our head boy," who seems to have been of an arithmetical 
 turn, did indeed calculate that the dictionary Dr. Strong 
 was writing would take one thousand six hundred and 
 forty-nine years, counting from his last birthday ; but 
 Adams and his audience loved him none the less. Then 
 there was a scandal that some beggar woman on a frosty 
 day in winter did actually receive the gaiters of the bene- 
 volent Doctor to wrap up a baby she was carrying, and 
 that appeared very cold, and that the gaiters were seen 
 afterwards outside a second-hand shop of no very good 
 repute, where they were readily identified by every one 
 except the Doctor himself, who was seen to stop at the 
 door and handle them approvingly " as if admiring some 
 curious novelty in pattern, and considering them an im- 
 provement on his own." Of course this is only a very 
 clever fiction, just such as boys would be apt to make,
 
 36 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and even the manufacturers of the story might be among 
 his most devoted admirers. How sincerely attached the 
 boys were to him is beautifully told in the same page. 
 When he walked up and down tlie quadrangle that joined 
 to the house, stray rooks and jackdaws would regard him 
 " with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much 
 more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he ;" and 
 " if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to 
 his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence 
 of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next 
 two days." Yet nothing can show the devotion of the 
 boys more clearly than their watchful care to protect him 
 against such marauders. They " took pains to cut them 
 off at angles, and to get out at windows and turn them 
 out of the courtyard, before they could make the Doctor 
 aware of their presence ; which was sometimes happily 
 effected within a few yards of him without his knowing 
 anything of the matter as he jogged to and fro." This is 
 true to the life ; and when boys are treated as he treated 
 them, good boys and indifferent ones too, would fly to 
 save such a master from harm or annoyance, even if it 
 were never to be known they had done so. Indeed, any 
 one who took advantage of his simpleness to wrong him 
 in any way would be scorned by nearly every schoolboy 
 I ever knew. 
 
 Yet how many would stir to help such worthies as 
 Crcakle or Squeers ? or how many would regret if an 
 accident, say for example a broken limb, had befallen
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 37 
 
 them ? Let any one suppose himself a schoolboy once 
 more and answer the question fairly. That some gentle 
 natures, perhaps Smike himself, might, is just possible. 
 That all should do so I know — but that such abundant 
 charity will ever prevail I much doubt, until the whole race 
 of Squeerses and Creakles is gone. Dickens had a high 
 motive in Coppcrfield, and two examples of this will close 
 the notice of the book. 
 
 When David's mother died her annuity of a hundred 
 guineas a year ceased, and Mr. Murdstone did not send 
 him back to Creakle's, so that he was allowed to wander 
 about the lanes and the house pretty "much as he desired, 
 until he was sent away to the bottling store of Murd- 
 stone and Grinby, to herd with common boys little better 
 — perhaps no better — than street arabs, but he says in 
 Chapter XL: " I know enough of the world now to have 
 almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by 
 anything ; but it is a matter of some surprise to me, even 
 now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such 
 an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong 
 powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon 
 hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that 
 nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But 
 none was made, and I became at ten years old a little 
 labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby." 
 How easily he might have slid off into the criminal class 
 anyone may see, and there is a terrible reflection that if 
 we could only know the true history of many a convict,
 
 38 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 perhaps of a much larger number than we suppose, we 
 should find circumstances to extenuate his misdeeds that 
 would almost make us wish to see him free. 
 
 The other example is Steerforth ; his temptations were 
 in every way different, he had every advantage of person 
 and ability, and had the singular faculty of attracting 
 any one towards him. He was in circumstances of 
 abundant affluence, and had, so to say, no cloud in his 
 summer's sky. He was not altogether bad — far from it. 
 When Copperfield went to Creakle's, and was brought, 
 as it were, in judgment before the winning youth, he 
 declared that the label " he bites" on his back was a 
 "jolly shame ;" and though his selfishness soon cropped 
 out when he found that David had seven shillings in 
 pocket money, he treated the orphan boy kindly, and 
 even to the last was honestly fond of him, and loved his 
 company. Across the channel that separates Norfolk 
 from Suffolk there is a ferry which Copperfield used 
 sometimes to take in order to reach Peggotty's boat, and 
 the ferry is there yet, and once when he crossed and 
 suddenly laid his hand on Steerforth's shoulder, the 
 latter said, almost angrily, " You come upon me like a 
 reproachful ghost." And in this, almost his last interview 
 with Copperfield, he said, " David, I wi.sh to God I had 
 had a judicious father these last twenty years." The 
 terrible ruin he meditated upon the poor fisherman's 
 house was causing him these many pangs when Copper- 
 field said —
 
 DAVID COFPERFIELD. 39 
 
 " My dear Steerforth, what's the matter." 
 
 " I wish with all my soul I had been better guided," 
 
 he exclaimed, " I wish with all my soul I could guide 
 
 myself better ! "
 
 40 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 
 
 The "argument," as old books used to term it, of Pick- 
 wick is this. There was a club called the Pickwick 
 Club, and its members at one of their meetings received 
 a proposal from Messrs. Pickwick, Tracy Tupman, Snod- 
 grass, and Winkle to form a corresponding branch of the 
 club, and to travel through England at their own 
 expense, and forward, from time to time, parcels and 
 letters to the central stem. But soon after they had 
 commenced their researches adventure after adventure 
 came upon them, and they devoted their time, apparently, 
 to enjoying these, without, indeed, adding much to 
 scientific knowledge. Some of the antiquarian and topo- 
 graphical societies do now make annual excursions to 
 places of interest in England, and good service is done 
 in this manner ; but we want, in addition to these, an 
 humbler and more searching investigation of the bye- 
 ways and less trodden parts of our grand island. 
 
 Pickwick rose up early in the morning from his 
 slumbers on the 13th of May, as we are told, in the
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 41 
 
 year 1827, "and threw open his chamber window and 
 looked out upon the world beneath. Goswell Street was 
 at his feet, Goswell Street was at his right hand — as far 
 as the eye could reach, Goswell Street extended to his 
 left, and the opposite side of Goswell Street was over 
 the way." " Such," thought Mr. Pickwick, " are the 
 narrow views of the philosophers who, content with 
 examining the things that lie before them, look not to 
 the truths that are hidden beyond. As well might I be 
 content to gaze at Goswell Street for ever without one 
 effort to penetrate the hidden countries which on every 
 side surround it." These were his reflections when he 
 packed up his portmanteau and met his confreres on their 
 road to Rochester. Goswell Street, it has been said in 
 some reviews of Dickens, is hardly the place which such 
 a philosopher as Pickwick would have chosen for his 
 lodgings. But though it is much altered now, it seems 
 by no means ill -adapted for the residence of a quiet 
 bachelor ; indeed, it was the writer's good fortune to 
 know a resident lodger who lived at one of the houses 
 shown on the left hand side of the illustration, and who 
 was one of the rare class we meet with that are always 
 ready for a " good long country walk." His occupation 
 did not detain him in town, any more than Mr. Pickwick's. 
 His landlady was a more or less comely widow, 
 and we had just finished examining an ordnance map, 
 and looking out the best road to Uxbridge across the 
 country, intending to return in the evening to dine at
 
 42 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 his lodgings, when a message came from the landlady 
 to know what he would please to order for his dinner ; 
 and on being appealed to, I said I made a point of always 
 ordering anything for which a locality was celebrated, 
 such as bloaters at Yarmouth, or smoked bacon in Wilt- 
 shire, etc. etc.; and he rather shuddered when I reminded 
 him that his neighbourhood was celebrated for " chops 
 and tomatoe sauce." He found, he afterwards said, that 
 the locality was extremely comfortable, and just such a 
 one as Mr. Pickwick might have selected. It has altered 
 since he resided there, and many of the old houses have 
 been converted into shops, where a quiet trade is carried 
 on in rather out of the way manufactures. The shops 
 are generally extended into the street, to the edge of the 
 property, reaching over what was formerly the area, and 
 the old front of the house stands back. The North Metro- 
 politan tramways now run through Goswell Road almost 
 continually, and are a great convenience to the residents, 
 as the width^of the road prevents their being in the way. 
 They go to Archway Tavern, Dalston Junction, and Lea- 
 bridge Road. Taverns with many gin-palaces have made 
 their appearance in the street ; and Combe, Delaficld 
 and Co., Meux, and the London Breweries Co. may be 
 read in gilt letters on many signboards. When Pick- 
 wick went on his memorable Rochester trip, he walked 
 down the street as far as St. Martin's -le- Grand, and 
 called a cab, which he ordered to drive to " Golden Cross," 
 and he heard the cabman say sulkily to his friend, the
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 43 
 
 waterman, that the fare was " only a bob's worth." It 
 was the post office at St. Martin's - le - Grand that so 
 astonished John Browdie when he came to London with 
 his wife on their wedding trip. And I found in the 
 Harleian MS. a counterpart to the Yorkshire corn 
 factor, who with his wife had come to London for the 
 first time. Browdie said, when he saw the cathedral, 
 " see there, lass ! there be Paul's Church. Ecod he be 
 a soizable one he be." 
 
 " Goodness, John! I shouldn't have thought it could be 
 half the size — what a monster," his wife replied ; and then 
 he pointed out the post-office which Mr, Pickwick had 
 referred to in his journey, and said that if his wife 
 guessed at it she would come near within " twolve month." 
 " Its na-but a post-office, they need to charge for double 
 letters." In the Harleian MS. the rustic closely 
 resembles John Browdie. 
 
 " When I came first to London Towne 
 I was a novice, as most men are ; 
 Methought ye king dwelt at ye sign of ye Crown, 
 And the way to heaven was through the Starr. 
 
 " I set up my horse, and walkt to St. Pauls's : 
 ' Lord,' thought I, ' what a church is here !' 
 And then I swore by all Christian soules 
 'Twas a mile long, or very neere." 
 
 This, however, referred to the old St. Paul's, which 
 was destroyed at the fire, but which must certainly have 
 ranked amonsf the finest buildings in the world.
 
 44 ABOUT ENGLA ND 1 1 ITH DICKENS. 
 
 The destination of Pickwick and his followers was 
 the Bull Inn, which is still the principal one in Rochester. 
 It has, since his time, taken the more euphonious title of 
 Victoria Hotel. The character which Jingle gave of it 
 is certainly not deserved now : — " Dear, very dear ; half a 
 crown in the bill if you look at a waiter ; charge you more 
 if you dine at a friend's than they would if you dined in 
 the coffee-room — rum fellows very." The room where 
 the celebrated ball was held is of course shown, and Mr. 
 Winkle's remarks will at once occur before he victimised 
 Tupman for the tickets. "Mess on the staircase, waiter — 
 forms going up, carpenters coming down ; lamps, glasses, 
 harps. What's going forward ?" and when the susceptible 
 Mr. Tupman had heard that Kent was celebrated for 
 apples, cherries, hops, and women, and the waiter said 
 that tickets were " to be had at the bar — half a guinea 
 each, sir," the temptation proved too strong for him to 
 resist. The long room where the musicians were securely 
 confined in " an elevated den " is pointed out yet. On 
 the archway that leads into the house is the inscription, 
 " nice house, good beds," vide Pickwick. The ball-room 
 sees only few guests now, but the encounter between Dr. 
 Slammon and Alfred Jingle will immortalise it. Though 
 only a small part of Mr. Pickwick's observations concern- 
 ing Rochester are narrated — " the principal productions 
 of these towns appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, 
 shrimps, officers, and dock-yard men," — there is much in 
 Rochester that would be of especial interest to a scholar
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 45 
 
 and antiquarian such as we might fairly suppose him to 
 have been. There is the Temple farm, Strood, with its 
 Norman apartment and great long narrow windows ; the 
 George and the Crown ; these contain some early English 
 vaulting, and in the George are some quaint old bosses and 
 corbels that were cut when Strongbow invaded Ireland. 
 The Crown has a basement and ground-floor that were built 
 when John signed the Magna Charta, and the entrance 
 gateway was erected at about the same time that Henry 
 VIII. came to it and met Anne of Cleves ; while near 
 the cloth house, which was built by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 
 is the house from which James II. escaped in 1688, 
 and the Cathedral would be a mine of wealth to the genial 
 antiquary. 
 
 Rochester Castle was of course in itself a charm to 
 Mr. Pickwick, and though he may have seen it a hun- 
 dred times before, it would always present itself again with 
 the force of novelty. "Magnificent ruin!" said Mr. 
 Augustus Snodgrass, with all the poetic fervour that dis- 
 tinguished him when they came in sight of the fine old 
 castle. "What a study for an antiquarian !" were the very 
 words which fell from Mn Pickwick's mouth, as he applied 
 the telescope to his eye ; and Mr. Jingle's interpolation — 
 " Glorious pile — frowning walls — tottering arches — dark 
 nooks — crumbling staircases. Old cathedral too, earthy 
 smell " The castle now is just as it was when Pick- 
 wick saw it. It was built more than seven hundred years 
 ago by Archbishop Wm. de Corbeyl, and w^as only inferior
 
 46 ABO UT ENGLA ND J J VTH DICKENS. 
 
 in size to Dover. But in grandeur and elegance it was very- 
 superior to any castle of its age. There were great state 
 apartments, of which there are yet remains, and the walls 
 of Kentish rag and Caen stone are twelve feet in thickness. 
 
 Dickens, it is said, used to be intensely interested in 
 all that related to the history of the castle, and often told 
 visitors of its latest days when one Walker Welldone, 
 who was the heir of Sir Anthony Welldone, " sold the tim- 
 bers to one Gimmit, and the stone stairs and other squared 
 and wrought stone of the windows and arches to different 
 masons in London ; he would likewise have sold the whole 
 materials of the castle to a paviour, but on an essay 
 being made in the east side, near the postern leading 
 to Bully Hill, the effects of which are seen in a large 
 chasm, the mortar was found so hard, that the expense of 
 separating the stones amounted to more than their value, 
 by which the noble pile escaped a total demolition." 
 Dickens very naturally remarked upon the inaptness of 
 the name of the man who has become famous through his 
 connection with Rochester Castle. The castle contains a 
 deep well which is two feet nine inches in diameter, and 
 Welby Pugin, the architect, when he was exploring the 
 castle nearly lost his life in it. 
 
 The fifth chapter of Pickwick introduces us to Roch- 
 ester bridge. " Bright and pleasant was the sky, balmy 
 the air, and beautiful the appearance of every object 
 around, as Mr. Pickwick leant over the balustrades of Ro- 
 chester bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for break-
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 47 
 
 fast. The scene was indeed one which might well have 
 charmed a far less reflective mind, than that to which it 
 was presented. On the left of the spectator lay the ruined 
 wall, broken in many places, and in some, overhanging 
 the narrow beach below in rude and heavy masses. Huge 
 knots of seaweed hung upon the jagged and pointed 
 stones, trembling in every breath of wind ; and the green ivy 
 clung mournfully round the dark and ruined battlements. 
 Behind it rose the ancient castle, its towers roofless, and 
 its massive walls crumbling away, but telling us proudly 
 of its old might and strength, as whei;i, seven hundred 
 years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded 
 with the noise of feasting and revelry. On either side 
 the banks of the Medway, covered with corn-fields and 
 pastures, with here and there a distant church or a wind- 
 mill stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting 
 a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by 
 the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it." 
 
 Kit's Coty house was a favourite resort of Dickens, 
 and it might naturally be supposed to have great attrac- 
 tions for Mr. Pickwick. Wonderful and exhaustinsf 
 debates have been raised upon the origin of its name. 
 Even in Elizabeth's reign a painstaking antiquary said 
 that this relic was the " tomb of Categern." " Categern, 
 honoured with a stately solemn funeral, is thought to 
 have been interred near unto Aylesford, where, under the 
 side of a hill, I saw four huge rude hard stones, erected, 
 two for the sides, one transversal in the middest between
 
 48 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 them, and the hugest of all piled and laid over them in 
 manner of the British monument which is called Stone- 
 henge, but not so artificially with mortice and tenants." 
 Grose, Lambard, and Holland, and many other antiquarians, 
 have sorely puzzled themselves about the origin of the 
 name Kit's Coty house. Kit, according to Grose, is an 
 abbreviation of Categern the British general, and coty is 
 coity, coit being the name for a large flat stone. It 
 would be useless to extend the remarks upon various 
 theories that have been propounded about the origin of 
 the name, but it is clear that they suggested the idea of 
 the celebrated stone that Pickwick found. " In a count}- 
 known to abound in remains of the early ages, in a village 
 in which there still existed some memorials of the olden 
 time — he — he — the chairman of the Pickwick Club, had 
 discovered a strange and curious inscription of unquestion- 
 able antiquity, which had wholly escaped the observation 
 of the many learned men who had preceded him," and 
 this quite determined his return to town the following 
 day, in order that the " treasure " might be deposited 
 where it would be appreciated and properly understood ; 
 and though Mr. Blotton made a journey to Cobham and 
 found Mr. Stumps, who believed the stone to be old, but 
 positively declared that he was the author of the inscrip- 
 tion, his statement only procured his ejectment from the 
 club. 
 
 The bridge at Rochester, which so often appears in 
 the pages of Dickens, is not the one which now spans the
 
 \K 
 
 
 nil I'll li^i^lB^i'fe' 
 
 # 
 
 =vi' 
 
 BULL HOTEL, ROCHESTER. 
 
 ROCHESTER OLD BRIDGE.
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 49 
 
 Medway, but a noble old structure that boasted of ten 
 fine arches, and was built in the reign of Edward III. Sir 
 R. Knowles was the builder, and it is estimated that the 
 sum it cost would be equal to about i^70,ooo sterling. 
 When the old bridge was demolished the contractors 
 made Dickens a present of one of the balusters as a 
 memorial. He set it upon his back lawn, and placed a sun- 
 dial upon it. A favourite walk of our author's was from 
 Gadshill to Rochester, and on a market-day, when the 
 country carts came lumbering along the road, and the 
 rustics with smocks and old-fashioned costumes formed pic- 
 turesque groups in the city streets, he was in his glory. 
 He was especially fond, on a hot summer day, of going 
 into the cool shades of the cathedral, and its legends 
 never tired him ; he would describe to his visitors how it 
 had been twice converted into huge stabling, once by Simon 
 de Montfort, and once by the army of Cromwell, who made 
 a great saw-pit in the nave. The tomb of St. William 
 had great charms for Dickens. In the year 1201, 
 William of Perth, a wealthy baker, paid a visit to Rochester 
 on his way to Jerusalem. His liberality was well known, 
 as he made it a point to bestow every tenth loaf he baked 
 upon the poor. He was a guest at the priory, and de- 
 lighted the Benedictines with his pleasant manners and 
 his generosity. When he left Rochester to continue his 
 pilgrimage to the east, his servant was tempted by the 
 large amount of money he carried with him, and murdered 
 him outside the city walls. His fate excited the deep 
 
 E
 
 so ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 sympathy of the good monks of Rochester, and he was 
 buried in the cathedral. Miracles were soon performed 
 at his shrine, and about fifty years after his death he was 
 canonised. His tomb is on the north aisle of the choir, 
 and so many pilgrims used to visit his shrine that in the 
 thirteenth century the offerings they brought enabled the 
 monks to build a great part of the present cathedral. 
 
 Not only in Pickwick does Dickens introduce memo- 
 rials of Rochester, but under the name of Cloisterham he 
 introduces us again to the city. " An ancient city Cloister- 
 ham, and no meet dwelling-place for any one with hanker- 
 ings after the noisy world. A monotonous, silent city, 
 deriving throughout an earthy flavour from its cathedral 
 crypt. A drowsy city Cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem 
 to suppose, with an inconstancy more strange than rare, 
 that all its changes lie behind it, and that there are no 
 more to come. A queer moral to derive from antiquity, 
 yet older than any traceable antiquity. 
 
 So silent are the streets of Cloisterham (though prone 
 to echo on the smallest provocation) that of a summer's 
 day the sun-blinds of the shops scarce dare to flap in the 
 south wind, while the sun-browned tramps who pass along 
 and stare quicken their limp a little that they may the 
 sooner get beyond the confines of its oppressive respecta- 
 bility. This is a feat not difficult of achievement, seeing 
 that the streets of Cloisterham city are little more than 
 one narrow street, by which you get into and get out of 
 it, the rest being mostly disappointing }'ards with pumps
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 51 
 
 in them, and no thoroughfare — exception made of the 
 Cathedral Close, and a paved Quaker settlement, in colour 
 and general conformation very like a Quaker bonnet, up in 
 a shady corner. In a word, the city of another and a by- 
 gone time is Cloisterham, with its hoarse cathedral bell, its 
 hoarse rooks hovering about its cathedral tower, its hoarser 
 and less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath. 
 
 Dingley Dell and Muggleton are generally considered 
 to be mythical places, though the hospitable residence of 
 Mr. Wardle may be seen in every county in England. 
 In Kent he would be called a yeoman, for the yeoman of 
 that county are proverbial for their affluence ; in other 
 counties he would be called a squire. There are three 
 towns within the radius from Rochester that Dickens 
 gives as the locality of Muggleton, namely Faversham, 
 Tunbridge, and Seven-Oaks, but these have no feature in 
 common with the enterprising borough that had "presented 
 at divers times no fewer than one thousand four hundred 
 petitions against the continuance of negro-slavery abroad, 
 and an equal number against any interference with the 
 factory system at home ; sixty-eight for permitting the 
 sale of benefices in the church, and eighty-six for abolishing 
 Sunday trading in the streets." There is a corporate town 
 that is once mentioned by Dickens in another of his 
 works that lies in the York Road which does answer the 
 description of Muggleton, but it is a hundred and fifty 
 miles away, so we must be content to suppose that the 
 latter is imaginary, or has been transported from Netting-
 
 52 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 hamshire. " Mr. Pickwick stood in a principal street of 
 this illustrious town and gazed with an air of curiosity 
 not unmixed with interest on the objects around him. 
 There was an open square for the market-place, and in the 
 centre of it a large inn with a sign-post in front display- 
 ing an object very common in art, but rarely met with in 
 nature — to wit, a blue lion with three bow legs in the 
 air, balancing himself on the extreme centre claw of the 
 fourth foot. There were within sight an auctioneer's and 
 fire agency office, a corn factor's, a linen-draper's, a saddler's, 
 a distiller's, a grocer's, and a shoe shop — the last mentioned 
 warehouse being also appropriated to the diffusion of hats, 
 bonnets, wearing apparel, cotton umbrellas, and useful 
 knowledge. There was a red -brick house, with a small 
 paved courtyard in front, which anybody might have 
 known belonged to the attorney. There was, moreover, 
 another red-brick house with Venetian blinds and a large 
 brass door-plate, with a very legible announcement that it 
 belonged to the surgeon." 
 
 The slight description of Dingley Dell is very charming. 
 Mr. Pickwick had risen soon after the sun, and thrown 
 open the latticed casement. " The rich sweet smell of 
 the hay-ricks rose to his chamber window ; the hundred 
 perfumes of the little flower garden beneath scented the 
 air around ; the deep green meadow shone in the morn- 
 ing dew that glistened on every leaf as it trembled in 
 the gentle air ; and the birds sang as if every sparkling 
 drop were to them a fountain of inspiration."
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 
 
 53 
 
 But the pleasant days at Dingley Dell were destined 
 to be rudely cut short, by the outrageous conduct of Mr. 
 
 Jingle, who eloped with Mr. Wardle's sister. He was 
 pursued by Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle, and finally
 
 54 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 hunted down at the White Hart, which yet stands, and 
 is situated in High Street, Borough. Two storeys of the 
 gallery are not shown in the illustration, for they are 
 overhead, and the beam on the foreground supports the 
 ballustraded fronts of the landings as we see in the right 
 hand side of the picture. The courtyard of the Saracen's 
 Head, opposite page 38 in NicJiolas Nicklcby (original 
 edition), gives a very good idea of one of these quadrangles 
 in full working order, with the coach loading up, preparatory 
 to its journey. The White Hart singularly resembles some 
 of the inns in old German towns, such as we may always see 
 in the towns along the Rhine, or Moselle, or at Strasburg, 
 and the likeness is increased by the red Dutch tiles that 
 cover the roof — they are hollow in form, overlapping each 
 other, and are always eminently picturesque. The left 
 hand side of the picture shows a restaurant that has been 
 added in recent times, and projects into the court, for 
 formerly the curb-stone was in the middle of the enclosure 
 and the galleries travelled round the three sides. The 
 square entrance opens into High Street and through it the 
 Rochester and Canterbury coaches used to roll in Pick- 
 wick's time. It was in this yard that Sam Wellcr was 
 first encountered by Wardle and Pickwick as he was 
 " engaged in burnishing a pair of painted tops, the 
 personal property of a farmer, who was refreshing himself 
 with a slight lunch of two or three pounds of cold beef, 
 and a pot or two of porter after the fatigues of the 
 Borough market."
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 55 
 
 The reflections of the " boots " at the White Hart are 
 quite worthy of his fame, when Mr. Perker advanced and 
 blandly addressed him as " My friend." " You're one of 
 the adwicc gratis order or you would not be so werry 
 fond of me all at once." But he only said — " Well, sir," 
 and then the subtle inquiries of Mr. Perker, who was 
 acting in strict conformity with legal precedent, were cut 
 short by the rough and ready method of Messrs. Wardle 
 and Pickwick, who offered Weller a half guinea if he 
 would only answer a few questions regarding the inmates. 
 In vain Mr. Perker protested in polite language against 
 such an unprecedented intrusion, and anxiously addressing 
 each of them as " Now, my dear sir — now, my dear sir," 
 begged them to place implicit trust in him, and assured 
 them that he would willingly receive any suggestions, but 
 they must be to him as coming from an "amicus curiae," and 
 he was beginning to show from Barnwell that his view 
 was unassailable, when Weller, as it were, entered an 
 appearance upon the scene, and confirmed the justice of 
 the calculations of Mr. Pickwick regarding the power of 
 the half- guinea, and gave a professional resume of the 
 sojourners at the inn. "There's a wooden leg in number 
 six ; there's a pair of Hessians in thirteen ; there's two pair 
 of halves in the commercial ; there's these here joainted 
 tops in the snuggery inside the bar ; and five more tops in 
 the coffee-room," — "Nothing more?" inquired Perker, 
 when Sam recollected that there was " a pair of Vellingtons 
 a good deal worn, and a pair of lady's shoes, in number
 
 56 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 five," which shoes were identified by him as having been 
 made in Muggleton. The apartment where this colloquy 
 occurred was in the room in the right hand of the yard 
 that leads through the square -headed door. There is a 
 somewhat curious iron crane which is shown here, and 
 which was designed to lift heavy weights or carcasses of 
 oxen from trucks to remove them to the cellarage of the 
 inn. The old traveller's room is entered through this 
 door, and there is a fireplace several centuries old, and a 
 groined apartment that certainly dates back to the time 
 when Canterbury pilgrims used to rest here : a great part 
 of the lower rooms are occupied by a " bacon drier," whose 
 carts are often seen in the streets of London. 
 
 Perhaps a still more picturesque view of this hostelry 
 might be had from the modern restaurant, where two 
 double rows of galleries are seen, and from this point 
 of view we have a more adequate idea of its former 
 importance. At one time travellers of the highest dis- 
 tinction stayed here, before railways landed any one at 
 their destination at almost any time that was required. 
 In its galleries Waterloo and Trafalgar have been talked 
 over when the news of the victories were fresh. Walpole 
 and Pitt were living powers, and even the tidings of 
 Oudenarde or Blenheim had not reached the tavern 
 l)recincts until it had acquired a venerable age. Now 
 cottagers of humble means live in its apartments, and 
 along the galleries clothes are hung out to dry, and shoe- 
 less children play at games. But in an afternoon's sun
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 57 
 
 the appearance of the quadrangle is very striking and 
 picturesque. There are quaint deep effects of liglit and 
 sliadc, and some few scarlet -runners and creepers climb 
 up the supports and seem to flourish. Even in Pickwick's 
 time the White Hart was on the declining side of life. 
 " The yard presented some of that bustle and activity 
 which are the usual characteristics of a large coach inn. 
 Three or four lumbering waggons, each with a pile of 
 goods beneath its ample canopy about the height of the 
 second -floor window of an ordinary house, were stowed 
 beneath a lofty roof which extended over one end of the 
 yard, and another, which was probably to commence its 
 journey that morning, was drawn out into the open space. A 
 double tier of bedroom galleries with old clumsy balustrades 
 ran round the two sides of the straggling area, and a double 
 row of bells to correspond, sheltered from the weather by 
 a sloping roof hung over the door leading to the bar and 
 coffee-room. Two or three gigs and chaise -carts were 
 wheeled up under different little sheds and pent-houses ; 
 and the occasional heavy tread of a cart horse, or rattling 
 of a chain at the farther end of the yard, announced to 
 anybody who cared about the matter that the stable was 
 in that direction. When we add that a few boys in 
 smock frocks were lying asleep on heavy packages, wool- 
 packs, and other articles that were scattered about on 
 heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be the 
 general appearance of the White Hart Inn, High Street, 
 Borough, on that particular morning in question."
 
 58 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 The restaurant that runs along one side of the first 
 quadrangle (for it must be remembered that there are 
 two) though it is in the White Hart, is not of //, and it 
 is the only trace of the hospitality which once made the 
 inn famous. But even in this flicker of its former life it 
 is pleasing to be able to add that its traditions are not 
 quite forgotten. The steaks and chops are of the very 
 best, and when I was there at the latter part of August 
 a variety to these was offered in the shape of a dinner of 
 half a grouse with bread sauce, for eightcenpence, includ- 
 ing the vegetables that were in season. 
 
 Beyond the quadrangle that has been described there 
 is another which has lost still further any traces of its 
 former greatness. Whatever is left of the stablings and 
 buildings which surrounded it in its palmy days is now 
 a ruin, and no use at all is made of the roomy space. 
 There is a lamp in the middle that doubtless has been 
 lighted at some time, but now it presents a most dissolute 
 tumble -down appearance, and round it are high dust- 
 heaps. Several flocks of fowls frequent the yard, and 
 seem to find some mysterious subsistence in its close, 
 but if they could be identified by any owner involves a 
 question that might admit of doubt. They would appear 
 to have reversed the general order of nature in adopting 
 a London life, and, so far from showing the bright plumage 
 of a farmyard with all its varieties of colour, to have 
 reverted back to some original type, and all have become 
 self-coloured under the garb of a smoky gray. It was im-
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 59 
 
 possible to avoid a desire to take them to a village green, 
 and, from motives of curiosity only, to see how they would 
 have compoited themselves under their changed condition. 
 In this second yard there was a most wonderful collec- 
 tion of waggons of many ages and periods — some had 
 certainly long been out of use when Mr. Pickwick inter- 
 viewed Weller. The square was a perfect Greenwich 
 hospital for them, and there were some so much out of 
 any known fashion that I could hardly imagine what use 
 they were ever intended for. 
 
 While I was wondering at the collection of vehicles, a 
 dapper man, who belonged apparently to some part of the 
 decaying establishment, and who must have been a 
 descendant of Sam Weller's, asked me, respectfully 
 enough, if I wanted to buy any of the articles, and on 
 learning that I had at any rate no present intentions of 
 making such a venture, he told me confidentially that 
 there was " money in them." " Then," I said, " it must 
 be under the floor, or what is left of one, for some have 
 certainly not earned much, I should think, since Crom- 
 well's time." This speech seemed to make him friendly, 
 and he suggested that if any city firm had an article to 
 advertise they might announce that there would be a 
 procession of the White Horse yard waggons at some 
 certain date, and these would contain the article, whether 
 it were medicine or washing soap, for the convenience of 
 customers. On my remarking that the waggons would 
 hardly hold together till they had reached Waterloo
 
 6o ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Bridge, he quickly said, " Well, then, repair them, and do 
 the provinces after on the strength of the new bolts." 
 
 Some idea may be gathered of the altered times since 
 Pickwick was written, and the present. Railway trains 
 did not originally run on Sundays, and I remember that 
 some adverse remarks were made when the wife of a 
 cabinet minister was summoned to her father's deathbed, 
 but she could not find a Sunday train. She said that no 
 post-horses could by any offer be procured, because the 
 inn-keepers told her they were not " on the road now." 
 But in Pickwick's time any one seems to have been able 
 to go into a coaching house and ask for a carriage and 
 pair with the most perfect confidence that their order 
 could be complied with. " Chaise and four directly ! out 
 with them, put up the gig afterwards ; now boys!" cries 
 the landlord, " chaise and four out, look alive there ;" and 
 then the bustle that might be expected to occur followed 
 in the inn-yard, as the lantern glimmered and the horses' 
 hoofs clattered on the pavement of the yard, and the 
 chaise rumbled as it was drawn out of the coach-house. 
 Then they seem to have had no difficulty in procuring 
 another chaise with post-boys at some inn on the rcxid. At 
 the present time there are few of the largest hotels in 
 the kingdom that would not be taken a little aback at 
 such an order. 
 
 The " White Hart " comprises more than one freehold, 
 and the properties are singularly interwoven, but its days 
 are numbered, and at the expiration of a lease the whole
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 6i 
 
 of the property is to be pulled down. But there are other 
 old hostelries besides this one not far off. In the same 
 chapter that introduces us to the White Hart it is said 
 that " There are in London several old inns, once the 
 headquarters of celebrated coaches in the days when 
 coaches performed their journeys in a graver and more 
 solemn manner than they do in these times, but which 
 have now degenerated into little more than the booking- 
 places of country waggons. The reader would look in 
 vain for any of these ancient hostelries among the Golden 
 Crosses, and Bull and Mouth, which rear their stately 
 fronts in the improved streets of London. If he would 
 light upon any of these old places he must direct his steps 
 to the obscurer quarters of the town, and there, in some 
 secluded nooks, he will find several still standing, with a 
 kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst the modern innovations 
 which surround them. In the Borough especially there 
 still remain some half-dozen old inns which have preserved 
 their external features unchanged, and which have escaped 
 alike the rage for public improvement, and the encroach- 
 ments of private speculation. Great rambling, queer old 
 places they are, with galleries, and passages, and staircases, 
 wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials 
 for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we should ever be 
 reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and 
 that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the 
 innumerable veracious legends connected with Old London 
 Bridge and its adjacent neighbourhood on the Surrey side."
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Directly below the White Hart is the George Inn, also 
 an old coaching house, built round a quadrangle. Unlike 
 its neighbour it is a very good house, and all its appliances 
 arc in thorough working order, indeed, for any one who 
 wished to stud}' the economy of an ancient English inn, it 
 would offer an excellent opportunity. The present 
 hostelry is at least three hundred years old, though many 
 of the parts which meet the eye date from a more recent 
 period than the walls. The quadrangle which it contains 
 is scrupulously clean and always white-washed ; creepers 
 run up the shafts that support the galleries, and on a 
 summer day it is difficult to believe that you are not in a 
 pleasant roomy countr}- inn in Kent or Hampshire. In 
 the courtyard is the booking-office for parcels of the Great 
 Northern Railway ; and when a covered van lumbers 
 through the archway, and the ancient hostelry can just be 
 seen in glimpses from High Street, the view is intensely 
 picturesque. 
 
 Next to the George Inn is the Queen's Head, which I 
 was assured b)' the landlord dated back as far as 1432 
 for a tavern, and I have no difficulty in supposing that his 
 information was perfectly correct. This inn is not so 
 much used by travellers as the George, it is more of a 
 tavern, but it has many objects of interest, such as an old 
 smoke-jack, and a fireplace that dates back either to 
 IClizabeth or James I. There are, as Dickens says, some 
 three more such inns in the Borough, and perhaps, indeed, 
 there are traces of more than this, but the three described,
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 63 
 
 which arc perhaps only partially known even to Londoners, 
 arc abundantly worth a visit. 
 
 The fine old church of St. Saviour, or St. Mary 
 Overy, stands hard by on the opposite side of the street, 
 the name of which for some cause has been altered from 
 High Street to Wellington Street, and it was a source of 
 perpetual delight to Dickens ; he especially used to pore 
 over the epitaphs, some of which are very amusing and 
 quaint, and their name is legion. I remember the last 
 lines of one upon a grocer — 
 
 " Weep not for him since he is gone before 
 To Heaven, where grocers there are many more." 
 
 The railway buildings and the high level road dwarf the 
 ancient fabric, but it is one of the architectural gems of 
 England. 
 
 Eatonswill is, of course, entirely a fictitious place, quite 
 as much so as Muggleton. It was situated on the 
 Norwich road, and Pickwick, accompanied by his three 
 faithful followers, and this time by Sam Weller, booked 
 places on the Norwich coach, and went there to pursue 
 their investigations and researches. At Eatonswill they 
 met Mr. Leo Hunter. " We have all heard of your fame, 
 sir," said Mr. Leo Hunter, as he made a very polite call 
 upon Mr. Pickwick, to ask him to pay a visit to his resi- 
 dence, which was perhaps not inaptly called " The Den." 
 While seated round the festive board at Mr, Hunter's it 
 was that Mr. Charles Fitzmarshall was announced as a
 
 64 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 guest, and Mr. Pickwick and his friends were amazed 
 beyond measure to find on his appearance at the hospitable 
 entertainment, that Mr. Charles Fitzmarshall was Mr. 
 Alfred Jingle disguised in a bran-new suit of naval uniform. 
 Mr. Leo Hunter told the astonished Pickwick that he was 
 a gentleman of fortune, and was then staying at Bury St. 
 Edmunds, at the Angel. No persuasion would induce 
 Mr. Pickwick to remain any longer, so he at once made a 
 speedy exit towards Bury accompanied by the faithful 
 Sam Weller, who, however, was destined this time to find 
 his match in Job Trotter, the accomplice and ci-devant 
 footman of Alfred Jingle. 
 
 The delight that Dickens has in country scenes breaks 
 out here again, as Pickwick and Weller, " perched on the 
 outside of a stage-coach, were every succeeding minute 
 placing a less and less distance between themselves and 
 the good old town of Bury St. Edmunds." We might 
 possibly consider that Eatonswill was Sudbury, though this 
 is more from its locality than any other connecting circum- 
 stance. The country through which they drove is delight- 
 ful. On the south and south-west the enclosed country 
 is a picture of fertilit}', and there are many noble trees 
 along the lanes. ]-5ury is charmingly situated on the river 
 Lark, and it commands such extensive views that it has 
 often been called the Montpcllier of England. The halls, 
 where yarns were deposited, yet stand, but they arc empty, 
 and only the name of Bury as a great centre of industry 
 remains. Still it is a very delightful old town, and the
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 65 
 
 abbey gateway might well have entranced even a less 
 enthusiastic antiquary than Mr. Pickwick. 
 
 " There is no month in the whole year," Dickens 
 proceeds, " in which nature wears a more beautiful appear- 
 ance than in the month of August. Spring has many 
 beauties, and May is a fresh and blooming month, but the 
 charms of this time of the year are enhanced by their con- 
 trast with the winter season. August has no such 
 advantage. It comes when we remember nothing but 
 clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers — when 
 the recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has 
 faded from our mind as completely as if they had dis- 
 appeared from the earth, and yet what a pleasant time it 
 is ; orchards and corn-fields ring with the hum of labour, 
 trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which 
 bow their branches to the ground, and the corn piled in 
 graceful sheaves, or waving in every slight breath as it 
 sweeps above it as if moved by the sickle, tinges the 
 landscape with a golden hue. A mellow softness appears 
 to hang over the whole earth ; the influence of the season 
 seems to extend itself to the very waggon whose slow 
 motion across the well-reaped field is perceptible only to 
 the eye, but strikes with no harsh sound upon the ear." 
 And then is described the sleepy interest which the coach 
 excites as it rolls along the Suffolk high-road. The reaper 
 stops his work and stands with folded arms looking at 
 the vehicle as it whirls past ; and the rough cart-horses 
 bestow a sleepy glance upon the smart coach team, which 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 says as plainly as a horse's glance can, " It's all very fine 
 to look at, but slow going over a heavy field is better than 
 warm work like that, upon a dusty road after all." At 
 last they arrived at the Angel in Bury. 
 
 This Angel is a most excellent inn on a somewhat 
 extensive scale, and formerly it was a long- wished goal 
 with mail-coach travellers, who were sure of a hospitable 
 reception from the landlord. A private room was soon 
 engaged for Mr. Pickwick, and dinner ordered by Weller. 
 Mr. Fitzmarshall was among the guests, as the faithful 
 
 Sam soon dis- 
 covered, and in 
 half-an-hour Mr. 
 Pickwick was 
 seated to an ex- 
 cellent dinner. 
 
 It was at Bury 
 that Sam Weller 
 found for once his 
 match in Job 
 Trotter when he 
 directed the way 
 to \ V e s t g a t e 
 house. " You turn 
 a little to the 
 right when you 
 get to the end of the town ; it stands by itself, some little 
 distance off the high road, with the name on a brass plate 
 
 ABBEY GATE, BURY.
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 67 
 
 on the gate." And here was the somewhat absurd scene 
 at the boarding-school, where Sam's informant, Job Trotter, 
 had persuaded him to induce Mr. Pickwick to go to stop 
 the elopement of Captain Fitzmarshall with the great 
 heiress. Bury St. Edmunds was always a favourite place 
 with Dickens. He speaks of it as a " handsome little 
 town of thriving and cleanly appearance," over the " well- 
 paved streets of which the coach rattled and stopped before 
 a large inn situated in a wide open street, nearly facing 
 the old abbey." Suffolk was the county of all England 
 which, next to Kent, Dickens delighted in. His remini- 
 scences of Blundcrstone, Yarmouth, which lies partly in the 
 county and Ipswich, are always charming in his descrip- 
 tions, and these show how well he liked them. 
 
 The abbey of Bury St. Edmunds was only second in 
 importance to Glastonbury, and the remains that yet are 
 left show on what a grand scale it was built. Here were 
 fields of research for all the members of the Pickwick Club, 
 and it is here, in all probability, that their steps were at 
 first to be directed from Eatonswill. Through the gate- 
 way we pass along an avenue of limes beyond the church- 
 yard, where we come across the churches of St. James 
 and St. Mary, and the shire hall, erected on the site of 
 St. Margaret's. Lydgate lived at Bury, and his abode is 
 yet pointed out in the abbey precincts. He was one 
 among the many instances of the haven which monasteries 
 afforded to men of culture and research, and which enabled 
 them to pursue their studies. He was versed far beyond
 
 68 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 his day in the walks of science and art, and the powerful 
 abbot even allowed him to open a school in the liberties 
 of the monastery for the instruction of the sons of noble- 
 men. Mr. Pickwick would also, as an enthusiastic reader 
 at the British Museum, where, after retiring from business, 
 he almost daily directed his steps through Clerkenwell 
 Green and Hatton Wall, be familiar with the name of 
 Lydgate. The magnificent MS. which contains the life 
 of St. Edmund was his gift to Henry VI., and that studi- 
 ous and refined but ill-starred monarch conferred a life 
 pension upon him of a sum which would now equal about 
 ;^I50 of our money. But Bury would possess the great- 
 est interest to Mr. Pickwick from its connection with the 
 baronial struggle for the great charter. In October 12 14 
 John arriv^ed in England full of rage and mortification at 
 his defeats and humiliation at Tournay, and with charac- 
 teristic wickedness he resolved to repay himself for his 
 losses by increased and cruel exactions from his subjects. 
 Fitz-Peter, the justiciary, had died during his absence, and 
 John, who always held him in dread, said that " Now he 
 was King of England," and he added characteristically 
 that " In hell he may shake hands with our late Primate, 
 for he is sure to find him there." But the barons were 
 quite prepared for him, and they said the time was most 
 opportune, for the feast of St. Edmund was approaching, 
 and they would make a pilgrimage to his shrine at Bury, 
 and, according to their seniority, they advanced to the 
 high altar, and one after another laid his hand upon it
 
 PICK 1 1 'ICK PA PERS. 69 
 
 and swore that unless the kin^^^ granted their requests, 
 they would at once withdraw their fealty and wage war 
 upon him. Of course the sequel is too well known to 
 require reference, and Runnymede was the result of the 
 meeting of the barons at Bury. 
 
 The Abbot's Bridge here is extremely beautiful, and is 
 one of the most charming sights we can see in an old 
 country town. It is approached by a steep narrow lane, 
 which is pleasantly shaded with trees, and has rows of 
 gabled cottages all along one side. There are as many 
 picturesque views in it as would suffice to fill half a room 
 of the Water Colour Society, and at the foot of the street 
 the Abbot's Bridge stretches across a clear stream of such 
 modest dimensions that one is almost surprised to find 
 that it can support a rope ferry, which it does, a little 
 way below the ancient bridge. Many parliaments were 
 held in the abbey that Dickens was so fond of exploring, 
 and no one better than he knew that at one of these, held 
 in the first part of the fifteenth century, the undoing of 
 " Good Duke Humphrey " was decided on by Margaret, 
 the Queen of Henry VI., and her favourite, Suffolk, though 
 it is needless to say that the scholar- like King had no 
 part in the plot, but chided the crafty, cruel court that 
 
 surrounded him — 
 
 " But shall I speak my conscience ? 
 Our kinsman Gloster is as innocent 
 From meaning treason to our royal person 
 As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove : 
 The duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given 
 To dream on evil or to work my downfall.''
 
 70 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Business, however, connected with the Bardell suit brought 
 Mr. Pickwick to town, and after he had given vent to his 
 virtuous indignation he asked his faithful servant where 
 he could procure a glass of brandy and water to soothe 
 his ruffled nerves, and received for answer in a moment : 
 " Second court on the right hand side, last house but vun 
 on the same side the vay ; take the box as stands in the 
 first fireplace, 'cos there aint no leg in the middle o' the 
 table, vich all the others has, and its wery inconvenient." 
 " The room was of very homely description, and was 
 apparently under the especial patronage of stage-coach- 
 men, for several gentlemen who had the appearance of 
 belonging to that learned profession were drinking and 
 smoking in the different boxes." Here Sam Weller en- 
 countered his father after two years' absence from that 
 portly parent, and informed him how he had been duped 
 by Job Trotter, much to the astonishment and sorrow of 
 his sire. " I'm werry sorry, Sammy, to hear from your own 
 lips as you let yourself be gammoned by that ere mul- 
 berry man. I always thought that the names of Vellcr 
 and gammon never came into contract." Mr. Weller, 
 senior, however, was able to recognise both Job Trotter 
 and Alfred Jingle from the description that was given of 
 them, and had himself happened to overhear them on the 
 top of the Ipswich coach laughing and saying how they 
 had done " Old Fireworks." Mr. Weller said that he 
 actually heard this on the top of the coach. " I work an 
 Ipswich coach now and again for a friend of mine. I
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 71 
 
 worked down the wery day after the night as you caught 
 the rheumatiz, and at the Black Boy at Chelmsford, the 
 wery place they'd come to, I took 'em right through to 
 Ipswich, where the man servant, him in the mulberries, 
 told me they was agoing to put up for a long time." 
 
 Chelmsford is directly on the London and Ipswich 
 road, and is situated in a beautiful valley between the 
 Chelmer and the Cann. The High Street is exceedingly 
 well built, and the Black Boy is still the principal inn 
 in the town. This town is less than half the size of 
 Colchester, which lies directly on the Ipswich road, 
 and is rather more than half way to that old-fashioned 
 town. 
 
 Il^swich is well worthy of a visit, if only for the sake 
 of its antiquities, though the county all round it is ex- 
 tremely beautiful. " In the main street of Ipswich, on 
 the left hand side of the way, a short distance after 
 you have passed through the open space fronting the 
 Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide as ' the 
 Great White Horse,' rendered the more conspicuous by 
 a stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing 
 mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse 
 which is elevated above the principal door. The Great 
 White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood in the same 
 degree as a prize ox or county paper, chronicled turnip 
 or unwieldy pig, for its enormous size. Never were such 
 labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, 
 badly -lighted rooms, such large numbers of small dens
 
 72 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 for eating and sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are 
 collected between the four walls of the Great White Horse 
 
 GREAT WHITE IIOKSK INN, U'SWICH 
 
 at Ipswich." In Key Street there are a number of old 
 Dutch-looking houses, and the " Ram " Inn is a very old
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 73 
 
 hostelry. It is said to have been the birthplace of Henry 
 Toolcy, who left by will, dated 1550, the sum of money 
 which built and endowed the extensive almshouses in 
 Foundation Street, and in the steeple of the church we 
 see there is a large key, showing that the church is dedi- 
 cated to St. Peter. The old house, called Sparrowes 
 House, is one of the most interesting town -houses in 
 England. Now it is occupied as a very excellent book- 
 store, but it has been preserved in its entirety, and it is 
 not so very long since that it was the residence of the last 
 of the Sparrowe family — a family that had occupied it for 
 many generations. Tavern Street leads from the front 
 of the Town-Hall, and in this the celebrated White Horse 
 is situated. It takes its name from this hostelry, which 
 was formerly called the " White Horse Tavern." The 
 front of the " Hotel " has been altered, but in the quad- 
 rangle within we may still see traces of its antiquity. " It 
 was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the London 
 coach stopped at the same hour every evening ; and it 
 was from this same London coach that Mr, Pickwick, 
 Sam Weller, and Mr. Peter Magnus dismounted on the 
 particular evening to which this chapter of our history 
 bears reference." 
 
 It would almost seem as if Dickens had some recollec- 
 tions of the "White Horse" that were not pleasant ones. 
 Thus we read that a corpulent man, with a " fortnight's 
 napkin " under his arm, and " coeval stockings," inspected 
 Mr. Pickwick, and finally condescended to call the porter
 
 74 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 to take his luggage ; and then we read that after the lapse 
 of an hour " a bit of fish and a steak were served to the 
 travellers," and when the dinner was cleared away Mr. 
 Pickwick and Mr, Magnus drew their chairs to the fire, 
 and having ordered a bottle of the worst possible port wine 
 at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, 
 drank brandy and water for their own." This must refer 
 to some previous condition of the " Hotel," as it is called 
 now, a name which has superseded the older ones of Tavern 
 and Inn. The traveller now, as far as my slight experi-' 
 ence is of value, may expect a more hospitable reception. 
 Mr. Pickwick's awkward mistake of the bed-room, and his 
 subsequent discovery of his own, assisted by Sam Weller, 
 are among the best known events in Dickens. 
 
 On the morning when Mr. Weller left for London, 
 and rallied Sam so much upon his being taken in by Job 
 Trotter that the former for once meekly acknowledged 
 his error, and said he "ought to ha' knowed better ;" but 
 added, " it's no use talking about it now ; it's over, and 
 can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always 
 says in Turkey ven they cuts the wrong man's head off. 
 It's my innings now, governor, and as soon as I catches 
 hold of this here Trotter I'll have a good un ; " and the 
 senior having consulted a large double-cased silver watch, 
 and saying it was time to go to the office to get the 
 " vaybill, and see the coach loaded," took a really affec- 
 tionate farewell of his son, to whom he was quite as much 
 attached as Sam was to him. " Here's your health, Sammy,"
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 
 
 75 
 
 he said, " and may you speedily vipe off the disgrace as 
 you've inflicted upon the family name." How long the 
 return match was coming the same chapter tells. 
 
 Among the many charms of Ipswich are its ancient 
 churches. There are not less than twelve of these, and 
 through many alterations some trace of ancient beauty 
 has been preserved in each. St. Clement's Church is 
 among the most interesting, and would seem to have been 
 built about the time of the dissolution of monasteries, 
 though some 
 parts are of ^ 
 earlier date. 
 There is much 
 in its noble ap- 
 pearance that 
 would attract 
 even Sam Wel- 
 ler, though in- 
 deed archaeo- 
 logical studies 
 were more in 
 his master's 
 way than his. The clerestory is twelve windows in 
 length. The emblem of the anchor appears continually 
 in its old work, for St. Clement was the father of sea-faring 
 men, and there are brasses and monuments of great inter- 
 est. Possibly Sam's comprehensive knowledge might also 
 have told him that the remains of Thomas Eldred, who 
 
 THE GREEN GATE, ST. CLEMENt's, IPSWICH.
 
 76 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 sailed round the world with Cavendish, had found a resting- 
 place here when his voyages were over. 
 
 This church stands just outside the old town wall, and 
 its graveyard is both extensive and picturesque. In St. 
 Clement's fore street are many traces of the domestic 
 architecture which were characteristic of the later Tudor 
 and the earlier Stuart period, and gables and bow windows, 
 and carved beams are yet to be found in its quaint limits. 
 The parting words of Mr. Weller to his son affected him 
 when he said how much depended on him. " The family 
 name depends wery much upon you, Samuel, and I hope 
 you'll do what's right by it. Upon all little pints o' breed- 
 ing I know I may trust you as well as if it was my own self" 
 
 It was in the contemplative mood that his father's last 
 words had awakened that the }-ounger Mr. Weller " bent 
 his steps towards Saint Clement's Church, and endeavoured 
 to dissipate his melancholy by strolling among its ancient 
 precincts. He had loitered about for some time when he 
 found himself in a retired spot — a kind of courtyard of 
 venerable appearance — which he discovered had no other 
 outlet than the turning by which he had entered. He 
 was about retracing his steps when he was suddenly 
 transfixed to the spot by a sudden appearance, and the 
 mode and manner of this appearance we now proceed to 
 relate." And then the celebrated return match came with 
 a vengeance, and though, by having Pickwick and Tupman 
 summoned for a projected duel. Trotter and Jingle man- 
 aged to raise a side issue, they were cleverly tracked and
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 77 
 
 captured by Sam Weller. The next part of Pickwick 
 introduces us to the devious and uncertain bye-ways of 
 the law. Tlic brief respite was nearly over that inter- 
 vened between Pickwick's summons from Mrs. Kardell 
 and the time when his cause was to be heard in open 
 court. At last he came to London, and there, " scattered 
 about in various holes and crevices of the Temple, are 
 certain dark and dirty chambers, in and out of which all 
 the morning in vacation, and half the evening too, in term 
 time, there may be seen constantly hurrying with bundles 
 of papers under their arms and protruding from their 
 pockets an almost uninterrupted succession of lawyers' 
 clerks. There are several grades of lawyers' clerks — there 
 is the articled clerk, who is a lawyer in perspective, who 
 runs a tailor's bill, receives invitations to parties, knows a 
 family in Gower Street, another in Tavistock Square, goes 
 out of town every long vacation to see his father, and is, 
 in short, the very aristocrat of clerks." But it was not one 
 of these that Mr. Pickwick had to meet when he encoun- 
 tered Mr. Jackson of the house of Dodson and Fogg, 
 Freeman's Court Cornhill. Then " there is the salaried 
 clerk — out of door or in door, as the case may be — who 
 devotes the major part of his thirty shillings a-wcek to 
 his personal pleasure and adornment, repairs half price to 
 the Adelphi at least three times a w-eek, dissipates majesti- 
 cally at the cider cellars afterwards, and is a dirty carica- 
 ture of the fashion that expired six months ago." 
 
 Then Dickens goes on to describe the copying clerk.
 
 78 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 who has a large family, and is often drunk; and again we 
 see the office lads in their first surtouts, who feel a befitting 
 contempt for boys at day-schools, and who club together 
 as they go home for saveloys and porter, and think there 
 is nothing like life. Then there are sequestered nooks, 
 "where writs are issued, judgments signed, declarations 
 filed, and numerous other ingenious little machines put 
 in motion for the torture and torment of His Majesty's 
 liege subjects, and the comfort and emolument of the prac- 
 titioners of the law." And it was into one of these that 
 Mrs. Jackson went and procured the requisite documents 
 to summon Mr. Pickwick and his adherents to the Guildhall. 
 They were found at the George and Vulture, George 
 Yard, Lombard Street. " Call Mr. Pickwick's sen^ant, 
 
 Tom," said the barmaid of the George and Vulture, 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself," said Mrs. Jackson, " I've come 
 on business. If you'll show me INIr. Pickwick's room 
 I'll step up myself." This George and Vulture is spoken 
 of as " good, old-fashioned, and comfortable quarters," 
 but now it is transformed into a chop-house of great ex- 
 cellence, and is specially noted for its steaks and stout. 
 There is a long dining-room, with civil waiters, and the 
 most unblameable linen and crockery, and judges of stout 
 say that the quality there is " supreme." 
 
 Mr. Perker, who conducted the case for Mr. Pickwick, 
 had offices in Gray's' Inn, and thither he wended his way 
 to consult the lawyer, and suggest an interview with the 
 great Sergeant Snubbin, who sends for Mr. Plumkey of

 
 PICK J J ICK PA PEPS. 79 
 
 Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, which is now called South 
 Square, but Gray's Inn appears in other works of Dickens, 
 and will have a fuller notice. 
 
 Dickens had real characters for most of his magis- 
 trates. The worshipful Justice Fang- who presided at 
 Clerkenwell differed very little even in name from his 
 prototype, and the good Mr. Brownlow who appeared in 
 Oliver Twist's case only- received treatment similar to 
 other witnesses. The Ipswich justice had also his counter- 
 part, and Dickens himself was present on an occasion 
 where some one was called to answer a charge, but the 
 prosecutor failed to appear. The presiding magistrate 
 inquired with some dignity what he had to say for him- 
 self, and the defendant not unnaturally replied, " I don't 
 see that I have any call to say anything, when there's 
 nothing sworn to agen' me," to which his worship re- 
 marked, "Hullo! what have we here — a lawyer, eh? come, 
 fellow, there are lawyers enough in court outside the dock 
 — we don't want one in. Though," he said suddenly, 
 brightening at the prospect of making a joke, an accom- 
 plishment that he thought he excelled at, " some of 
 them are on the wrong side of the dock too, I daresay ;" 
 and looked towards where the representatives of the legal 
 profession sat for the common expressions of hilarity 
 that usually followed his jokes, but they were so obtuse 
 than none of them saw it, and then it devolved upon the 
 inspector to support the bench by allowing a saturnine 
 smile to play over his features, though as it were under
 
 8o ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 protest for the loss of dignity. How his worship would 
 have disposed of the case is not very certain, but for- 
 tunately the clerk came in and had a few words with him, 
 after which he cleared his throat, and after making a short 
 speech to the defendant he told him that " under all cir- 
 cumstances he would be acquitted." The original, also, of 
 Mr. Justice Starleigh (who sat in the absence of the Chief 
 Justice, occasioned by indisposition) was well known at 
 the time, and though he has long ceased to be, his 
 memory is fresh at the law courts. Guildhall, the scene 
 of the celebrated Pickwick and Bardell trial, is a place 
 of great historical associations that would quite fill a 
 volume, and then pass many by. Perhaps it is not 
 always known in the provinces why the Bardell trial 
 should occur in a place that is celebrated over the whole 
 world for the magnificence of its entertainments. A 
 classic ground where at every banquet some fourteen tons 
 of coal are consumed, and forty turtles are gathered to 
 their ancestors, and every item is on the same stupendous 
 scale. But the Lord Mayor's court is held at Guildhall, 
 and it has jurisdiction over all actions without any limita- 
 tions as to the amount, if the amount exceeds ;^5o sterling, 
 and if the cause of the action took place within the city 
 limits. In cases where the amount claimed is under that 
 sum the plaintiff may still obtain a hearing if he dwells 
 or carries on business in the city. The court sits every 
 month, and the presiding judge is either the recorder or 
 the common sergeant, or else a deputy appointed b)- them.
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 
 
 There is one thing that might ahnost be asked. Such a 
 case as Pickwick's was appealable from this court, and \vh}- 
 did Mr. Perker not advise him of this ? Still that is a 
 small matter, and perhaps h}-percritical. Some of the old 
 city customs yet prevail here ; one of the most curious is 
 that of foreign attachment, ^\■hich enables the plaintiff, if 
 the defendant does not enter an appearance, or if he is not 
 within the jurisdiction of the city, to attach any goods or 
 any debts owing to defendant if they are within the juris- 
 diction of the city. 
 
 It can hardly have been consolatory to Mr. Pickwick 
 to hear Mr. Perker say, " Ten minutes past nine ; time 
 we were off, my dear sir : breach of promise trial ; court 
 is generally very full in such cases. You'd better ring 
 for a coach, my dear sir, or we shall be rather late." 
 There is no denying the fact that a breach of promise 
 case is the rnost attractive that ever comes before a court. 
 From the constable to the judge every one in court seems 
 to regard such a thing as a comedy that has been pro- 
 duced entirely for public amusement. The defendant 
 need not fear that his odes will suffer the fate of many 
 other minor poems of perhaps equal merit. They are 
 quite safe in the bundle of papers that lie before the Q.C. 
 who is conducting the plaintiff's case. And before long 
 he will have the pleasure of hearing them read before a 
 delighted audience. No attempt will even be made to 
 interrupt their demonstrations of satisfaction — demon- 
 strations in which the journals commonh- record that 
 
 G
 
 82 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 " his Lordship joined heartily." Then there is no danger 
 of the verses being spoiled in the reading. The Q.C. 
 may fairly be trusted to for that, and he will be sure to 
 bring out each point to its greatest advantage, and then 
 the result of the action is quite a certainty. I can at 
 present only remember one instance where the plaintiff 
 was nonsuited, though doubtless an ardent reader of 
 these cases could tell of some more. In a number of 
 suits it is clear that the action is brought by the cupidity 
 of friends or through jealousy, and there is the frailest 
 'evidence to support anything like a genuine claim. In- 
 deed, the cases that would really excite our sympathy are 
 those we never hear of and are unknown beyond the 
 family or the immediate friends of the sufferer. But there 
 are instances, and those not isolated ones, where a young 
 life is blighted through broken promises^ and where the 
 forsaken one would rather die than parade her grief in 
 public, or even think of bringing her former admirer to 
 account for his false professions. The case alluded to, 
 where a verdict was given for the defendant, was curious, 
 and at least it shows that there is nothing like " trying it 
 on." A damsel would seem to have possessed such 
 attractions that she haci two admirers ; the second one 
 appeared on the scene some time after the first ^^'as ac- 
 cepted, but his w^orldly circumstances were superior to 
 those of the less fortunate suitor. To the latter she wrote 
 a letter full of s}'mpathy and much high-toned moral 
 advice ; she reminded him how often our brightest and
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 83 
 
 best prospects were delusive, and even took the trouble to 
 suggest some chapters and texts that suited his lot, and 
 she said circumstances beyond her control forced her to 
 impose upon him. She would always look upon him as 
 a dear, good friend, and even hoped he might not be 
 long before he found some one more worthy of him 
 than she was, and who would make him as happy as he 
 deserved to be. Like a very sensible man he took the 
 advice which the missive contained, and every one will 
 hope that he has never had cause to regret it. 
 
 The heroine of the trial was now thoroughly off 
 with the old love, and had no let or hindrance to take on 
 with the new. This was, however, not quite such an easy 
 matter. She had reckoned without her host ; she found it 
 was only some passing fancy, and without having ever 
 declared himself, or possibly even thought of doing so, 
 he became engaged to quite a different lady. This was 
 rather getting serious, and the enterprising belle had to 
 consider the next best thing. An action was accordingly 
 brought against admirer No. i on the very general prin- 
 ciple that plaintiffs in breach of promise cases are sure to 
 win. A thousand pounds, which he could perhaps have 
 paid, was estimated as a fair equivalent for her blighted 
 hopes, and the case proceeded with all due solemnity, 
 till the letter was read on behalf of the defendant. This 
 was rather too much, and the jury stopped the case just 
 at the same time that the counsel sat down on his own 
 account and returned his brief to the lady's solicitors.
 
 84 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 who would seem to be worthy successors of Dodson and 
 Fogg. 
 
 From some of the technical points of law, such as the 
 neglect on the part of Dodson and Fogg to attach his 
 property, which was easy of identification, we may dissent. 
 " I have no objection to admit," said Sergeant Snubbin, 
 " if it will save the examination of another witness, that 
 Mr. Pickwick has retired from business, and is a gentle- 
 man of considerable independent property." But though 
 this has been a difficulty with many admirers of Dickens, 
 who are too matter-of-fact, the truth of the trial is beyond 
 a question, and the writer knows of damages that were 
 obtained against a tradesman in a quiet cathedral city, 
 by a claimant whose pretences to recompense rested on no 
 stronger rights than those of Mrs. Bardell on Mr. Pickwick. 
 Mr. Pickwick was led by Mr. Perker to the low seat just 
 beneath the desks for the King's counsel, who from that 
 spot can whisper into the car of the leading counsel in 
 the case any instructions that may be necessary during 
 the progress of the trial. The occupants of this seat arc 
 invisible to the great body of spectators, inasmuch as they 
 sit on a much lower level than cither the barristers or 
 the audience, whose seats are raised above the floor. 
 
 13ut the Guildhall is memorable in English history. 
 Here it was that Garnet the Jesuit was tried for his con- 
 nection with the Gunpowder Plot, and, after a defence of 
 wonderful ability and forensic skill, condemned ; and here 
 the noble Anne Askew was doomed. In the Guildhall
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 85 
 
 also the crafty hypocritical Duke of Gloucester was pro- 
 claimed king by Buckingham. His appeal on behalf of 
 Richard was not listened to, and he felt " marvellously 
 abashed;" and he asked the Mayor, "What mean the 
 people by this?" and the Mayor replied, "Sir, perchance 
 they perceive you not well ;" and then Buckingham ; 
 " somewhat louder rehearsed the same matter again, in 
 other order and other words so well and so ornately, and 
 nevertheless so evidently and plain, with nice gesture and 
 countenance so comely and so convenient, that every man 
 much marvelled that heard him, and thought they never 
 heard in their lives so evil a tale so well told." Shakes- 
 peare has dramatised the Guildhall scene in Richard III. 
 very grandly, Buckingham says : — - 
 
 " And when my oratory grew to an end 
 I bade them that did love their country's good 
 Cry — God save King Richard, England's royal King ! 
 
 Glo. — And did they so ? 
 
 Buckingham. — No, so God help me, they spake not a word, 
 But, like dumb statues or breathless stones, 
 Stared on each other and looked deadly pale." 
 
 Among other celebrated characters Richard Whitting- 
 ton was associated with Guildhall, and his executors gave 
 a sum equal to ^^500 of our money to have the hall paved 
 with Purbeck marble ; so great is the strength of its walls 
 that it withstood the great fire of 1666, and towered 
 above the flames, " in a bright and shining coat, as if it 
 had been a palace of gold or a great building of burnished
 
 86 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 brass." The hideous structure we see is one of Dance's, 
 who designed several public buildings in London, but the 
 old crypt (141 1) is a splendid piece of architecture. 
 
 When the trial w^as over and Mr. Pickwick's heroic 
 resolve not to pay a shilling of costs was made, and when 
 he decided to make a journey to Bath, he sent Weller to 
 take places on the Bath coach at the White Horse cellar. 
 This still remains in Piccadilly, but under very changed 
 exterior, and we should hardly recognise the description 
 of the traveller's room, which was, " of course, uncomfort- 
 able ; it would be no traveller's room if it were not. It is 
 the right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fire- 
 place appears to have walked, accompanied by a rebellious 
 poker, tongs, and shovel. It is divided into boxes for the 
 solitary confinement of travellers, and is furnished with 
 a clock, a looking-glass, a live waiter, which latter article 
 is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses in a corner 
 of the apartment." 
 
 Deans Court was happily described by Weller. " Paul's 
 Churchyard, low archway on the carriage side, bookseller's 
 at one corner, hotel on the other, and two porters in the 
 middle as touts for licenses." And here David Copperfield 
 resolved to follow the profession of the law as a proctor. 
 He asks Steerforth what a proctor is, and receives for reply 
 that he is a " sort of monkish attorney. He is to some 
 faded courts held in Doctors' Commons what solicitors 
 are to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary 
 whose existence in the natural course of things would
 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 87 
 
 have terminated about two hundred years ago." The 
 courts consisted of ecclesiastical lawyers who in 1567 
 purchased a site near St. Paul's, and erected houses for 
 the residence of judge and advocates. In 1768, how- 
 ever, a Royal Charter was obtained, which enabled the 
 members to exercise ecclesiastical and admiralty claims. 
 The president was called the Dean of Arches, and the 
 proctors were Doctors of Law who had passed at Cambridge 
 and Oxford. It has, since the time when Dickens wrote, 
 been dissolved, and all its practice is open to the bar. 
 Mr. Spenlaw considered it the perfection of human juris- 
 prudence, and told Copperfield that " there was nothing 
 like a disputed will when there was a neat little estate of 
 thirty or forty thousand pounds. In such a case not only 
 were there neat little pickings in the way of arguments 
 at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon 
 mountains of evidence upon interrogatory and counter- 
 interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying first to 
 the delegates and then to the Lords) ; but the costs being 
 pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both parties 
 went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expense 
 was no consideration." A lawyer of much ability who 
 used to practise in this court summed up the constituent 
 parts of a case very concisely when he said there were three 
 phases of a suit. " The first was the costs, the next was 
 the custom of the court, and the third was the merits of the 
 case ;" and to such a luminous exposition of the privileges 
 that are conferred, I would not add one single word.
 
 88 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 In Nicholas Nicklcby, though the plot and the narrative 
 are very sad, the spirits of Dickens rise gaily at times. 
 He finds himself among his beloved coaches and quaint 
 hotels, and luxuriates in a coach journey to Yorkshire. 
 The inns that Dickens described and chronicled so well 
 have disappeared from London, at least in the form that 
 they were known to him, but on the Surrey side of the 
 river we may yet find traces of genuine ancient hostel- 
 ries which he delighted in. The Saracen's Head, Snow 
 Hill, has for long been a thing of the past — the Holborn 
 Viaduct and its approaches have swept it away — but when 
 Nickleby was written there were some very quaint houses 
 here. There are still, however, many bits of old London left 
 in the neighbourhood, such as the quaint row of overhang- 
 ing gables that we see in the houses a little farther west 
 opposite Furnival's Inn, and in Shoe Lane and Fetter Lane. 
 All these places had a fascination for Dickens, even from 
 his early days. " To be taken out," Foster says, " for a 
 walk into the real town, especially if it were anywhere
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEB V 
 
 about Covent Garden or the Strand, perfectly entranced 
 him with pleasure. But most of all he had a profound 
 attraction of repulsion to St. Giles. If he could only induce 
 whomsoever took him out to take him through Seven 
 Dials he was supremely happy. " Good heavens ! " he would 
 exclaim, " what wild visions of prodigies of wickedness, 
 want, and beggary arose in my mind out of that place !" 
 Let anyone see Snow Hill now and he will hardly believe 
 that the picture of it which Dickens gives could have de- 
 scribed it as it appeared almost at the middle of the present 
 century. " The pavement of Snow Hill had been baking 
 and frying all day in the heat, and the twain Saracen's 
 heads guarding the entrance to the hostelry, of whose 
 name and sign they are the duplicate presentments, looked 
 — or seemed in the eyes of jaded and footsore passers-by 
 to look — more vicious than usual, after blistering and 
 scorching in the sun, when, in one of the inn's smallest 
 sitting-rooms, through whose open window there rose, in a 
 palpable steam, wholesome exhalations from reeking 
 coach-horses ; the usual furniture of a tea-table was 
 displayed in neat and inviting order, flanked by large 
 joints of roast and boiled, a tongue, a pigeon-pie, a cold 
 fowl, a tankard of ale, and other little matters of like kind 
 which are generally understood to belong more particularly 
 to solid lunches, stage-coach dinners, or unusually sub- 
 stantial breakfasts." This was the same inn that intro- 
 duces us to Squeers in the fourth chapter of the book, 
 and the descriptions in each case are minute and graphic.
 
 90 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 One great value of Dickens's writings is that he gives 
 Httle details of passing things which will always illustrate 
 the days in which he lived and the condition of the 
 people, and that by pen as clearly as Hogarth has re- 
 corded his own age by pencil. The coach which left the 
 Saracen's Head for the north country passed through the 
 quiet towns that studded Bedford, Northampton, and Not- 
 tingham, and that had never been startled by a railway 
 whistle. Few of the inhabitants had ever been to London, 
 at least few if compared with those that now are quite 
 familiar with it, and Dickens speaks of the vague ideas 
 they had about Snow Hill, and how often they must 
 wonder what sort of a place it was. They see the name 
 on the coach as it passes by, and the " words emblazoned 
 in all the legibility of gilt letters and dark shading," but 
 they have some " shadowy and undefined notion of a 
 place whose name is frequently before their eyes or often 
 in their ears ; and what a vast number of random ideas 
 there must be perpetually floating about regarding this 
 same Snow Hill. The name is such a good one. Snow 
 Hill too, coupled with a Saracen's head : picturing to us 
 something stern and rugged." He thinks that people in 
 the more northern towns must have imagined that it was 
 a bleak moor, open to piercing storms, a dark and gloomy 
 heath, " lonely by day and scarcely to be thought of by 
 honest people at night." This, he says, was probably the 
 impression of the rustic population " through which the 
 Saracen's Head rushes each day and night with mysterious
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 91 
 
 and ghost-like punctuality, holding its swift and headlong 
 course in all weathers, and seeming to bid defiance to the 
 very elements themselves." But the " reality is rather 
 different," though, as he adds, " it is by no means to be 
 despised notwithstanding." 
 
 It was situated "just on that particular part of Snow 
 Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think 
 of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney 
 cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by acci- 
 dent." Two Saracens' heads and shoulders guarded the 
 portal, and it was formerly the pride and delight of the 
 Toms and Jerries of the day to remove these to other 
 and less suitable quarters. 
 
 There was, of course, a quadrangle, as was customary 
 with all inns of any pretensions, and on each side of this 
 were ranged the galleries and bedrooms. The etching that 
 appears opposite page 38 in the edition of 1839 conveys 
 a good idea of the old inn as it appeared in those days, 
 and the accessories are very complete. 
 
 The journey from the Saracen's Head to the north is 
 told with all the power of Dickens in his best moments. 
 Very little is said in the way of actual description, but he 
 has evidently written the account of Nickleby's departure 
 as he stood in the yard of an inn. " A minute's bustle, a 
 banging of coach-doors, a swaying of the vehicle as the 
 heavy coachman and still heavier guard climbed into their 
 seats ; a cry of all right, a few notes from the horn, and 
 the coach was gone, rattling over the stones of Smithfield."
 
 92 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Now in this graphic account, which only occupies a few 
 lines, and would hardly tell us more if even it were much 
 longer, we see the daily departure of the intercourse 
 between London and York and the north. Of course there 
 was the Liverpool coach, and the Western and Eastern 
 coaches, but we can gather from the short extract how 
 isolated different parts of England were. The "swaying" 
 of the vehicle is very suggestive ; it tells us of a high 
 chariot coach on springs, such as we see on page 3 8 of the 
 first edition of Nicholas Nickleby. One is reminded of 
 the celebrated picture in Hogarth's Country Inn -yard, 
 where the coach is almost like one of the bathing-machines 
 we see at the watering-places. 
 
 The coach owners of Dickens's time might indeed 
 look back with astonishment at their predecessors. In 
 1673, a writer, who styles himself "The Lover of his 
 Country," asks, "What advantage can it be to a man's health 
 to be called out of bed into these coaches an hour or 
 two before day in the morning ? " and then he describes 
 the shortcomings of the service, in which the passengers 
 are not only crippled with boxes and bundles, but, 
 " laid fast in foul ways, and forced to wade up to the 
 knees in mire, till teams of horses can be sent to pull 
 the coach out." Even in 1725 a journey by stage- 
 coach from London to Exeter was thought worth pub- 
 lishing in book form. It occupied four days, and was 
 beset with trouble and difficulty and danger. Hogarth's 
 coach, which is small in accommodation, is hung on immense
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LE BY. 93 
 
 springs back and front, to accommodate its movements to 
 the inequalities of the road, and Dickens's coach in Nicholas 
 Nickleby was indeed perfection itself if it is compared 
 with any of the vehicles of a preceding age. It too was 
 perched high on springs, though the necessity for such 
 contrivances was greatly diminished, owing to the even 
 macadamised roads that then intersected the country. 
 So level were the roads when Nickleby was written, and 
 so perfect was the service of the coaches, that unless the 
 weather was very much against them indeed their arrivals 
 might be calculated upon with as much certainty almost 
 as those of railway trains. The coaches may indeed have 
 been very inferior in convenience and accommodation to 
 modern omnibuses, but the horses and the drivers and 
 the stable helps were in the highest state of efficiency, 
 and the one in which Nicholas was seated no doubt 
 deserved the high " approval of all judges of coach-horses 
 congregated at the Peacock, but more especially of the 
 helpers who stood with the cloths over their arms watch- 
 ing the coach till it disappeared, and then lounged admir- 
 ingly stablewards, bestowing various gruff encomiums on 
 the beauty of the turn-out." So perfect was the service 
 in the year when Nickleby was written that the writer 
 can remember an amazing feat being the subject of general 
 conversation. It occurred, if he remembers well, on the 
 London and Liverpool road, and was completely success- 
 ful. The four horses of a coach were changed without 
 the wheels ever actually stopping for two or three stages
 
 94 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 of the journey. This was performed by having in readi- 
 ness an extra number of grooms — some very handy private 
 ones had been secured — and the men ran by the horses, 
 which had slackened their speed, unbuckled the harness, 
 new horses were attached, the traces drawn before the 
 wheels had actually come to a standstill, and the men 
 running alongside the horses, which were kept on slow 
 time, completed the toilet. 
 
 At Eaton Socon, which the coach reached in those 
 days at one o'clock, there was all ready a " good coach 
 dinner," which the passengers were quite ready to partake 
 of Either by accident or design this place is called Eton 
 Slowcombe in Dickens. Coaching dinners were very 
 different from anything we see now at railway stations. 
 The writer can just remember one or two, and they 
 formed the most agreeable episode in the day's journey. 
 There was hot steak or chops, and a good supply of 
 poultry, with a cold boiled ham and generally a round of 
 beef. The charge was moderate, and there was time, too, 
 allowed quite sufficient to appreciate the good fare. The 
 coachman was in his proper place at the tabic, and how- 
 ever rampant the steeds might be, it was certain they 
 could not start without him. All was peace and quiet — 
 no frightful steam whistles within a few yards, and no 
 bells or shoutings. With railways now what is in grim 
 pleasantry termed refreshment is only an allowance of 
 four or five minutes and the chance of securing what a 
 crowded counter can afford. In old coaching days there
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 95 
 
 were no sandwiches of problematical age under glass bee- 
 hives, or any of the other substitutes for lunch with which 
 modern travellers are so familiar ; but the mid-day meal 
 was cheery and genial. Now, at the railway buffet, the 
 exigencies are so great and the time so little to spare that 
 it must be remembered, in behalf of the employes, they 
 are, by the force of circumstances, almost compelled to 
 assume a semi-hostile attitude to the travellers. Indeed 
 the sojourners themselves do not as a rule look particularly 
 amiable. Railway travelling is not very exhilarating, and 
 the occupants of the various compartments when they meet, 
 let us say at Rugby, from their various carriages, and 
 probably in strange attire, are apt to assume the expres- 
 sion of "who in the world are you .-'" as plainly as if they 
 expressed the inquiry in as many words. 
 
 The coach dinner, however, was over at Eaton Socon, 
 and the coach resumed its journey; "a stage or two 
 further on the lamps were lighted." This is quite in 
 keeping with the time of day, and confirms the tale that 
 Dickens in this journey is narrating one of the passages 
 of his own life. The snow-storm had begun to set fairly 
 in upon them. The easterly winds from the " wash " as 
 they pass over the vast fens of Crowland and Spalding 
 make this in winter one of the most desolate and dreary 
 parts of England. " The weather was intensely and bitterly 
 cold, a great deal of snow had fallen from time to time, 
 and the wind was intolerably keen." 
 
 But one of the most graphic descriptions in all
 
 96 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Dickens's writings is the entry of the coach into Stam- 
 ford. The time they were due at this quaint old town 
 would be about eight or nine o'clock, for they were much 
 impeded by the snow-drift. " The night and the snow 
 came on together, and dismal enough they were. There 
 was no sound to be heard but the howling of the wind ; 
 for the noise of the wheels, and the tread of the horses' 
 feet, were rendered inaudible by the thick coating of 
 snow which covered the earth, and was fast increasing 
 every moment." 
 
 Probably the coach would just pull up at the George 
 and then proceed to change horses at the Stamford. The 
 George is on the south side of the Welland, and one of 
 the curious sign -boards that are now so uncommon 
 stretches across the road with the name of the hostelry 
 painted on it. After leaving the George an ancient 
 bridge spans the Welland, and on the right hand side, not 
 far from the water's edge, rises the beautiful spire of St. 
 Mary's, a spire which was built in the earliest part of the 
 reign of Edward I., and has been more frequently used as 
 an example for modern masonry than any other in Eng- 
 land. The later spire of St. Martin's appears almost at 
 once on the left, but farther on in the town, and it is full 
 of interest as containing the monuments of so many of 
 the Cecil family, whose chief, the great Lord Burghley, lies 
 buried here ; and though these churches have not escaped 
 the cruel hand of the " restorer," there is plenty of interest 
 left untouched in them.
 
 iXICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 97 
 
 Stamford contains five churches in all, though at one 
 time it could boast of nine more, and those parish ones. 
 
 The Welland runs through ancient buildings that 
 remind one of the Loire or the Rhone ; but when Nickleby 
 passed through, all its charms were sealed. The town 
 was ill lighted, and the inhabitants were in-doors. " The 
 streets of Stamford were deserted as they passed through 
 the town, and its old churches rose dark and frowning 
 from the whitened ground." 
 
 The road from Stamford to Grantham is pleasant 
 enough in summer time, but in the winter everything 
 was exceedingly dreary. About eight miles of it lie in 
 the woody county of Rutland, and at the 99th milestone 
 from London it again enters Lincolnshire, and proceeds 
 to Grantham. A vivid picture of the comforts that 
 awaited coach travellers who had time on hand is con- 
 veyed. Twenty miles farther on two of the front outside 
 passengers, wisely availing themselves of their arrival at 
 one of the best inns in England, turned in for the night 
 at the George at Grantham. 
 
 What a picture the next sentence conveys of the 
 condition of those who were left behind ! " The remainder 
 wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks, 
 and leaving the light and warmth of the town behind them, 
 pillowed themselves against the luggage, and prepared, 
 with many half- suppressed moans, to again encounter the 
 sweeping blast that swept across the open countr^^" 
 
 If we continue the coach road towards Newark we 
 
 H
 
 98 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 shall reach Long Bemington and Bemington Common, 
 and this precisely answers the description of the spot 
 where the vehicle was upset, and the travellers, not much 
 the worse, exchanged their quarters for the much greater 
 comforts of a country public-house, with its sanded floor 
 and blazing fire. It was not till nearly morning that the new 
 coach which had been sent for to Grantham arrived, and 
 the passengers once more resumed their dreary journey. 
 
 Little is said about the rest of the route, but the 
 passengers arrived by six o'clock in the evening at Greta 
 Bridge, having thus been thirty-four hours on the road 
 from London, 
 
 The little boys, Nicholas, and Squeers, were put down 
 with their united luggage at the George Inn. It is now 
 a large granary and flour store, and the part which was 
 the inn has been converted into a comfortable, roomy 
 dwelling-house. The bridge which is shown crosses over 
 a branch of the Tees, and the house on the opposite side 
 from the arch which is shown seems almost to rise out of 
 the beautiful stream. 
 
 There appears to be some little confusion about the 
 inns here. Dickens says that Squeers and his party were 
 put down at the George and New Inn. Now these were 
 two separate houses of call, and were about half a mile 
 from each other. It may have been that Dickens did not 
 desire the identification to be quite too easy and close. 
 New Inn is less picturesque than the George, though it 
 will be seen that it is a roomy and comfortable dwelling-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 99 
 
 place. But the beauty which fringes the valley of the 
 Tees has gone, and it looks out towards the moors. 
 
 THE GEORGE INN. 
 
 Dickens does not exactly say in as many words where 
 the village is situated that holds the Dotheboys Hall of
 
 loo ABOUT EXGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 world-wide fame ; but if we take a map of Yorkshire we 
 shall have no difficulty at all in identifying the village of 
 Bowes as the place of such shocking memory. 
 
 Greta Bridge was the destination of the party, and the 
 coach rolled on to Barnard Castle. There are two roads 
 besides the one the coach took — one to the right, which 
 leads to Old Richmond and Wycliff and Orrington ; and 
 the other to the left, which leads past Rokeby Castle to 
 Bowes. Had they been bound for any of the places 
 mentioned as the destinations of the former road they 
 would have dismounted at a place called Newsham, some 
 two miles before they came to Greta Bridge, and there 
 they w^ould have been considerably nearer their destination. 
 There is therefore only one road left where Dotheboys 
 Hall could be found, and that is to the left. 
 
 Squeers and Nicholas went first in the pony-chaise 
 and left the cart in which the boys were to follow at their 
 leisure. "'Are you cold, Nickleby?' inquired Squeers, 
 after they had travelled some distance in silence," and 
 receiving an affirmative reply, was asked how far it was to 
 Dothebo}'S, and was told that it was " about three mile 
 from here." Now in a general way of conversation or 
 description this might be fairly considered in all to amount 
 to five or six miles, and this exactly lands us in Bowes. 
 
 ■ At the top of Bowes is the long house w^iich is shown 
 here, and is even sometimes called Dotheboys Hall in 
 their humorous moments by the older inhabitants. The 
 village is steep and picturesque, and about the middle of
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 =-M 
 
 NEW INN, GKETA BRIDGE.
 
 I02 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 it is the Unicorn Inn, where Dickens stayed for a consider- 
 able time when he wrote the book. It is a comfortable 
 little place, and the wainscoted room which he occupied 
 was pointed out to me. Now it may be a somewhat con- 
 genial task to remove some of the obloquy that attaches 
 to the memory of this house, though in doing so I would 
 carefully avoid imputing any but the most praiseworthy 
 motives to Dickens. 
 
 The fact is that school did actually require reform, but 
 so did others, and those which were destined for the use 
 of scholars who possessed many more advantages than the 
 students at Dothebo}'s. Some schools where the sons of 
 the wealthy were sent, but which were presided over by 
 bilious or dyspeptic tyrants, were flourishing when Nicholas 
 Nickleby was written, and they are yet very fresh indeed in 
 the memory of men not advanced beyond the middle 
 stage of life. There are the memories, at any rate, of one 
 Exeter College man, who was an undoubted scholar, and 
 who conducted a private school at a great maritime port 
 in England with abundant financial success, for no sum 
 was grudged to get a boy placed with him ; yet, though 
 the pupils for the most part resided within a radius of 
 ten miles, and could either walk or drive to some home of 
 comfort, there arc few that would not have preferred 
 Dotheboys Hall with all its shortcomings to four or five 
 years under this learned but irresponsible tyrant. There 
 is an excellent article in Belgravia of July 1881, entitled 
 the " Unrepresented Majority," in which the early life of
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 103 
 
 some of the upper classes is told with great power and 
 feeling. It would be a very grateful task to make some 
 extracts from it, but it ought to be read at length (for it 
 is only nine pages long) by every one. 
 
 Mr. Squeers was the representative of a great number 
 of Yorkshire schoolmasters, who undertook to educate and 
 board pupils at ;^20 or 20 guineas per annum. His 
 actual name began with the same initial letter as the fic- 
 titious schoolmaster of Dickens, and ended with w, and 
 was only one syllable in length, but it was one we fre- 
 quently meet with in every part of England. He was not 
 an ignorant man, but he had acquired even some knowledge 
 of Latin, if not Greek indeed, at a public school, though I 
 do not know if he went to any university. He had an 
 enormous school, and rented rooms at the houses in the 
 village or the farm-steads in the neighbourhood, to accom- 
 modate his numerous scholars. His gross takings were, 
 it is said, from ;i^3000 to ;i^4000 per annum. Oatmeal 
 porridge formed a decided staple of diet, and the pupils 
 were employed for part of each day in tilling the land that 
 belonged to the house, and which was of considerable 
 extent. When Squeers and Nickleby arrived at Dothe- 
 boys, the first inquiry seems to have been, " How are the 
 cows ?" and the next, " How are the pigs ?" and when he 
 received satisfactory replies to these queries he appeared 
 satisfied. The fact is, that he kept a fair head of live 
 stock, and one was slaughtered each week for the use of 
 the school. A connection of the schoolmaster who is in
 
 I04 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 independent circumstances lives now at the house, and 
 some of his immediate descendants yet live, and, it is said, 
 enjoy the good regards of their neighbours. 
 
 YARD AND PUMP AT DOTHEBOYS. 
 
 It was not, as before stated, Squeers's school that 
 ought alone to be gibbeted, but others of that period in 
 high station, whose evil influences have descended to the
 
 NICHOLA S NICKL EB V. 105 
 
 present day. One sentence in the eighth chapter of 
 Nicklcby accurately represents the way in which pupils 
 were regarded in many private schools of all degrees. 
 " The fact was, both Mr. and Mrs. Squeers viewed the 
 boys in the light of their natural and proper enemies." 
 
 Smike appeared when Squeers arrived at the house on 
 the first night ; and Nicholas had time to observe that 
 the school was a long, cold-looking building, one storey 
 high, with a few straggling outbuildings behind, and a 
 barn and stable adjoining. This is the view looking 
 through the gate at which Smike appeared, and through 
 which Squeers entered and directed Nicholas to go to the 
 front door, while he went round to let him in. The pump 
 is visible from the road, and it suggested the pleasant re- 
 mark Nicholas heard from Mr. Squeers the first morning 
 he came. " Here's a pretty go, the pump's froze . . . 
 You can't wash yourself this morning." 
 
 The weary days passed by as Nicholas saw the cruelty 
 and wickedness of the schoolmaster ; and only one slight 
 interlude, when Miss Squeers invited her friend " 'Tilda " 
 to come, with her accepted admirer, John Browdie, and be 
 introduced to the unsuspecting Nicholas, whom she be- 
 lieved that she had smitten deeply. The scene is an admir- 
 able one, because it only dawned upon Nicholas during the 
 evening what the gathering was for, and his amazement 
 knew no bounds. Mrs. Squeers had some business that 
 took her two days away from home, and got up outside 
 the coach when it changed horses at Greta Bridge. On
 
 io6 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 occasions such as these, when Mrs. Squeers was away, it 
 was the custom of her husband " to drive over to the 
 market town every evening on pretence of urgent business, 
 and stop till ten or eleven o'clock at a tavern he much 
 affected," so that his acquiescence in the proposed gather- 
 ing was very readily granted, offering indeed as it did " a 
 sort of compromise with Miss Squeers." 
 
 The town he drove to was Barnard Castle, about four 
 miles away, on the borders of Durham, and the inn was 
 the King's Head. The people there recollect Dickens well, 
 and show the room in the hostelry where he used to write. 
 The same King's Head remains, though it has recently 
 been much enlarged, but the old part has not been touched 
 at all. It is to this inn that Newman Noggs alludes in 
 his letter to Nicholas, when the latter left the Saracen's 
 Head yard in the north country coach : " When porters 
 were screwing the last reluctant sixpences, itinerant news- 
 men making the last offer of a morning paper, and the 
 horses giving the last impatient rattle in their harness, 
 Nicholas felt some one softly pull him by the leg. He 
 looked down, and there stood Newman Noggs, who pushed 
 a dirty letter into his hand." This letter Nicholas only 
 thought of when it fell from his pocket the first night of 
 his introduction to the school, and then he opened it. 
 Newman Noggs was a borrower at his uncle Ralph 
 Nickleby's at one time, having spent a patrimony in horses 
 and hounds and general extravagance. He is a real char- 
 acter, and was known at Barnard Castle and the neigh-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 107 
 
 bourhood. When Ralph Nickleby had quite exhausted his 
 means he took him on as a clerk at a low weekly stipend ; 
 and there is a thread of truth even in this part of his his- 
 tory. The letter said that he knew the world, which 
 Nicholas did not, or he would not be bound on such a 
 journey as he was going ; and he invited him to his 
 lodging in London if ever he had the necessity to go there, 
 which he described as the "corner of Silver Street and James 
 Street, with a bar door both ways;" and this may easily be 
 identified now. He adds in a postscript, " If you should 
 go near Barnard Castle, there is good ale at the King's 
 Head. Say you know me, and I am sure they will not 
 charge you for it. You "may say Mr. Noggs there, for I 
 was a gentleman then — I was indeed." The inn still 
 draws ale which those who are qualified to judge declare 
 is excellent. And not only Dickens, but the prototype of 
 Newmann Noggs are yet remembered. Opposite the 
 King's Arms, and a little lower down the street, is a watch 
 and clock maker's establishment, which was plainly in view 
 of Dickens's sitting-room at the hotel. The proprietor of 
 this establishment is called Humphreys ; and it was from 
 this that Dickens took the name of one of his most beau- 
 tiful works, Master Hiunphreys' Clock. He sent the pro- 
 prietor of the shop a letter that still exists and is valued 
 beyond price. 
 
 Little is told of Nickleby's tramp to London afterhehad 
 left Dotheboys Hall, followed by poor Smike. The first 
 night he lay at a cottage where beds were cheaply let, and
 
 io8 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the next he arrived at Boroughbridge, which rate of jour- 
 ney would average about 20 miles a day. Boroughbridge 
 is a pleasant town on the Ouse, a few miles below Ripon, 
 and is remembered in history as the place where Edward 
 II. defeated the Earl of Lancaster and sent him to his 
 castle at Pontefract for execution. 
 
 While Nickleby was away, however, the peace of his 
 sister Kate was disturbed by the machinations of Ralph 
 Nickleby, who perhaps in this instance went farther than 
 he intended. 
 
 The house shown as Ralph Nickleby's mansion in 
 Golden Square is a large double one, and there is no other 
 which at all would suit the requirements of the case. It 
 is, indeed, the only double one in the Square. The one 
 which was occupied by Cardinal Wiseman has been pointed 
 out, but in every way this one which is shown appears to 
 have superior claims. It is the only double house in the 
 Square; and the splendourwhich Kate saw,and the spacious 
 rooms both upstairs and dowmstairs, could not possibly be 
 contained in any other. This the more especially as "Ralph 
 Nickleby was not what you would strictly speaking call a 
 merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a 
 special pleader, nor a notary." But in addition to the 
 spacious rooms he had so splendidly furnished, his own 
 business premises were under the same roof, so that there 
 must have been two frontages. His business was simply 
 that of a quiet usurer — one who has abundant resources, 
 and advances on a reversionary interest, or discounts
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 109 
 
 paper that may be secure enough in time, but whicli 
 
 r 
 
 ^v ' t\ t: ir^i r'^^'-^n %-t: 
 
 KALl'H NICKLEBY S MANSION. 
 
 the timid borrower has some reason for keeping quiet and 
 out of the knowledge of his friends. There is no incon-
 
 no ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 sistency whatever in Ralph Nickleby being a grasping 
 usurer, and coveting every shilHng he had even a remote 
 chance of securing, and being also most lavish in his 
 private expenditure. That we see every day in life, and 
 among no class perhaps more conspicuously than the Jew 
 money-lenders. They have their pound of flesh, and 
 haggle over sixpence ; but when they go to Brighton or 
 Folkestone they are the very best customers to the hotels. 
 Their wives and daughters quite eclipse all other citizens 
 in purple and fine linen ; and not only do their lords fare 
 sumptuously every day, but no vintage of Chateau Mar- 
 gaux or Clos de Voiigeot is too costly for their tables. 
 Here Dickens is quite consistent, and the grandeur that 
 Kate saw is not at all inconsistent with the class that Ralph 
 Nickleby belonged to. Kate, when she expected to see 
 at the most Newman Noggs, in a clean white shirt front, 
 and rather got up for the occasion, was surprised to find 
 the door opened before the cabman's knock had ceased, 
 and " to see that the opener was a man in handsome 
 livery, and that there were two or three others in the hall. 
 There was no doubt about its being the right house, 
 however, for there was the name upon the door ; and she 
 accepted the laced coat-sleeve which was tendered to her, 
 and entering the house was ushered upstairs into a back 
 drawing-room, where she was left alone." 
 
 There seems to be a little obscurity about this part of 
 the work ; but it would appear as if in reality Ralph 
 Nickleby's intentions towards his niece were of no exactly
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 unworthy kind. He seems to have been as fond of her 
 as he was capable of being of anything in human shape, 
 and would certainly have shielded her from wrong ; and 
 it is not improbable that the idea to be conveyed is that 
 he wished her to become the wife of Lord Verisopht, 
 though indeed such a fate would have been far from a de- 
 sirable climax. Still he could have secured her in her own 
 right an ample revenue ; and though such a scheme is not 
 set forth very fully in the narrative, it is the only possible 
 explanation of his conduct, and furthermore it is very much 
 such a view of life as the usurer would be apt to take. 
 
 The eventful journey from London to Portsmouth is 
 told with all the enthusiasm that Dickens has for the 
 country in every phase of its appearance, either in 
 summer, or spring, or winter. 
 
 Nicholas and Smike had made up their minds to leave 
 London and push their way in the world, or rather 
 Nicholas had made up his mind to do so for them both, 
 and they left London before sunrise in the morning of an 
 early spring day to journey on towards Portsmouth, 
 where Nicholas had some vg^ue idea that he could ship 
 on board a sea-going vessel and learn his work on the 
 voyage, and that Smike would be able to do the same. 
 
 The manager of the troupe that he met on the way, 
 Mr. Crummies, when Nicholas had communicated his 
 intention to him, showed him the futility of his expecta- 
 tions. "'There's not a skipper or a mate that would think 
 you worth your salt when he could get a practised hand,
 
 112 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and they are as plentiful there as the oysters in the 
 streets.' 
 
 '"What do you mean?' asked Nicholas, alarmed at 
 this prediction, and the confident tone in which it was 
 uttered. ' Men are not born able seamen, they must be 
 reared, I suppose?'" 
 
 Happy, indeed, it would be, if Mr. Crummies' estimate 
 of the abundance of seamen were true now, but the fact is 
 that since his resume of the supply of British seamen, 
 British ships are manned by such hands as Nicholas and 
 Smike to an extent that is not generally known, always 
 excepting that the unskilled hands are hardly likely to 
 bring with them such good characters as the heroes of 
 Dickens. 
 
 All the means that Nicholas possessed amounted to 
 little over a pound, and so it behoved him to make the 
 best of his time and his money. 
 
 The way from London to Guildford lies through 
 Kingston-on-Thames. There is, indeed, another King- 
 ston, called Kingston-on-Rail, which has sprung up into 
 existence since Nickleby was written, and happily this has 
 left the old Kingston untouched. Here Nicholas would 
 tell Smike that the Saxon monarchs were crowned, and 
 here they resided, and he would point out the stone on 
 which they sat for their coronation, but poor Smike's 
 thoughts were far away, and as they passed through the 
 town Nicholas endeavoured to draw from him some sort 
 of history of his early life, little suspecting that he was his
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 113 
 
 first cousin. All this conversation seems to have occurred 
 as they passed on their road through Wandsworth and by 
 Richmond Park. 
 
 " It was a cold, dry, foggy morning in early spring. A 
 few meagre shadows flitted to and fro in the misty streets, 
 and occasionally there loomed through the dull vapour the 
 heavy outline of some hacknc)^-coach wending homewards, 
 which, drawing slowly nearer, rolled jangling by, scattering 
 the thin crust of frost from its whitened roof, and soon 
 was lost again in the cloud." This is even yet an exact 
 description of the east end of London in early spring. 
 Public-houses are not open, the earliest of shopmen are in 
 bed, and will be for an hour or two, and those people we 
 meet with are either hardly bent on an honest errand, or 
 else some very exceptional occurrence has called them out 
 of doors so soon. 
 
 " At intervals were heard the tread of slipshod feet ; 
 the chilly cry of the poor sweep as he crept out shivering 
 to his early toil ; the heavy footfall of the official watcher 
 of the night pacing slowly up and down, and cursing the 
 tardy hours that still intervened between him and sleep ; 
 the rumbling of ponderous carts and waggons ; the roll of 
 the lighter vehicles which carried buyers and sellers to the 
 different markets ; the sound of ineffectual knocking at 
 the doors of heavy sleepers ; — all these noises fell on the 
 car from time to time ;" and this vivid description is true 
 to the present day, even though the whole face of Eng- 
 land has changed through railways. Still, let an}^ one 
 
 I
 
 114 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 walk not only through London, but through any consider- 
 able English town ; supposing, for example, he wishes to 
 catch a train at four or five o'clock in the morning, and 
 he will find just such intcrjectional noises as those which 
 fell with a dull echo on the ear of Nicholas. 
 
 No mention is made of Guildford, through which the 
 travellers passed, and which was very familiar to Dickens. 
 This is rather singular, as its steep street and quaint old 
 town hall, with the well-known clock projecting far over 
 the road on ornamental iron scroll-work, would have been 
 a happy subject for the author's pen ; but at any rate they 
 passed through the old place, and, after a walk of about 
 six miles farther, they arrived at Godalming where they 
 rested their weary limbs for the night, and slept soundly 
 in two humble beds they had bargained for. 
 
 An early spring day is wonderfully well described in 
 this part of Nicklcby. It was of course raw and foggy 
 when they left London, but as they emerged from the fog 
 the sky grew bright, and Nicholas and his charge walked 
 on in the hopefulness of youth, and in the most buo}'ant 
 of spirits. The city, when they turned round to look at 
 it, was still enveloped in a dense vapour, which reminded 
 them almost of the exhalations of those who had left 
 London for the country, but whose souls remained behind 
 to pore over their schemes of gain, " as if they found 
 greater profit and attraction there than in the cj^uiet region 
 above." " It was clear and fair in the open air, but 
 occasionally in some low spots they came upon patches of
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 115 
 
 mist which the sun had not yet driven from their strong- 
 holds ; but these were soon passed, and as they laboured 
 up the hills beyond, it was pleasant to look back and see 
 how the sluggish mass rolled heavily off before the cheer- 
 ing influence of day. A broad, fine, honest sun lighted 
 up the green pastures, and dimpled water with the 
 semblance of summer, while it left the travellers all the 
 invigorating freshness of that early time of year. The 
 ground seemed elastic under their feet ; the sheep-bells 
 were music to their ears ; and exhilarated by exercise, 
 and stimulated by hope, they pushed onward with the 
 strength of lions." Sheep-bells may sound strangely to 
 those who are not accustomed to downs or great expanses 
 of country where sheep are pastured, but their utility is 
 obvious ; the strayer from the fold can be heard and 
 tracked out and recovered. 
 
 " The day wore on, and all these bright colours sub- 
 sided, and assumed a quieter tint, like young hopes 
 softened down by time, or youthful features by degrees 
 resolving into the calm and serenity of age. But they 
 were scarcely less beautiful in their slow decline than they 
 had been in their prime ; for nature gives to every time 
 and season beauties of its own ; from morning to night, as 
 from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes 
 so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their pro- 
 gress. To Godalming they came at last, where they 
 bargained for two humble beds, and slept soundly. In 
 the morning they were astir, though not quite so early as
 
 ii6 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the sun, and again afoot, if not with all the freshness of 
 yesterday, still with enough of hope and spirit to bear 
 them cheerily on." 
 
 The taste for natural scenery is conspicuous in all the 
 account of this journey, and the description of a walk 
 through Surrey will remind any one of the natural features 
 of this beautiful county, a county that has much to show 
 us just as nature left it, and that can boast of at any rate 
 one stretch of country that covers two hundred square 
 miles and never has heard the railway's whistle. 
 
 Dickens brings us to the region of the Downs — the 
 North Downs and South Downs — that are so dear to the 
 artist and the holiday-seeker. The district we call the 
 North Downs had been passed over by Nicholas and 
 Smike long before they had the good luck to fall in with 
 Mr. Crummies and his gifted family, and this district is 
 vividly pictured in the twenty-second chapter of the book. 
 There is a system of chalk ranges south of the Thames 
 which would seem to have their centre in Salisbury Plain 
 in Wiltshire. The North Downs run in an easterly direc- 
 tion through Surrey and Kent, and terminate in the 
 familiar cliffs of Dover. The South Downs run through 
 Sussex, and terminate in Beechy Head ; and it is the 
 scenery of the Downs that is so graphically described in 
 the twenty-second chapter of Nicholas, which is one of 
 the most popular and beautiful in the book. 
 
 " It was a harder day's journey than they had already 
 performed, for there were long and weary hills to climb,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 117 
 
 and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go 
 down hill than up. However, they kept on with unabated 
 perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to 
 heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at 
 last. They walked upon the rim of the Devil's Punch 
 Bowl, and Smike listened with greedy interest as Nicholas 
 read the inscription upon the stone which, reared upon 
 the wild spot, tells of a foul and treacherous murder 
 committed there by night. The grass on which they 
 stood had once been dyed with gore, and blood of the 
 murdered man had run down, drop by drop, into the hol- 
 low which gives the place its name. ' The Devil's Punch 
 Bowl,' thought Nicholas, as he looked into the void, 
 ' never held fitter liquor than that.' Onward they kept 
 with steady purpose, and entered at length upon a wide 
 and spacious tract of downs with every variety of little 
 hill and plain to change their verdant surface. Here 
 there shot up almost perpendicularly into the sky a 
 height so steep as to be hardly accessible to any but sheep 
 and goats that fed upon its sides, and there stood a huge 
 mound of green, sloping and tapering off so delicately, 
 and merging so gently into the level ground, that you 
 could scarce define its limits. Hills swelling above each 
 other, and undulations, shapely, uncouth, smooth, and 
 rugged, graceful, and grotesque, thrown negligently side 
 by side, bounded the views in each direction, while 
 frequently, with unexpected noise, there uprose from the 
 ground a flight of crows, who, cawing and wheeling around
 
 iiS ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the nearest hills, as if uncertain of their course, suddenly 
 poised themselves upon the wing, and skimmed down the 
 long vista of some opening valley with the speed of very 
 light itself." 
 
 The talc of the murder does not appear in any of the 
 reviews of Dickens's works ; but it is one of exceeding 
 wickedness and barbarity. Near Esher in Surrey, where 
 Cardinal Wolsley was banished by Henry VI 1 1., three 
 sailors, Edward Lonagan, Michael Casey, and James 
 Marshall, fell in with some one whose name is unknown, 
 but who is said also to have followed the sea. They 
 were impecunious, and he showed them hospitality, and 
 not only so, but he promised to bear their expenses to 
 Portsmouth, where they were going to ship. At the Red 
 Lion Inn in Road Lane, beyond Godalming, they stopped 
 for refreshment, and there, as it came out in evidence at 
 the trial, two labouring men met with them, and soon 
 after on returning homewards they fell upon their track, 
 and when they came to the " Devil's Punch Bowl," they 
 thought they saw a sheep that had fallen down, but not 
 being quite certain about their conjecture they descended, 
 and found the body of the murdered man. His com- 
 panions, as it appeared by the evidence, and as one of 
 them afterwards confessed, had hiurdcred him under 
 circumstances of great atrocity too great indeed even to 
 record, and robbed him of the money he proposed to 
 share with them. They stripped him afterwards of his 
 apparel, and w^ere in the act of selling it at Sheet, near
 
 NIC I 10 LA S NICKLEB Y. 119 
 
 Petersfield, when they were apprehended, for the 
 labouring men at once raised an alarm, and the atrocious 
 murderers were captured. They were tried at the en- 
 suing Spring Assizes, and on the 7th of April they were 
 hanged and gibbeted at Hind Head Common, near the scene 
 of their shocking crime. There are persons yet living 
 who remember to have seen the gibbet on which they 
 were exposed ; and in some of Turner's early pictures of 
 this part of Surrey this gibbet is shown. Now, of course, 
 it is down, but Sir William Erie has erected a granite 
 cross upon the spot where it stood. The stone that com- 
 memorates the foul deed yet stands as it did when 
 Nicholas read the history to the wondering ears of poor 
 Smike. It stands on the edge of the deep amphitheatre 
 called the Devil's Punch Bowl : — 
 
 Erected 
 
 In detestation of a barbarous 
 
 murder 
 
 committed here on an unknown sailor 
 
 on September 24th 1786 
 
 by Edward Lonagan, Michael Casey,' 
 
 and James Marshall, 
 
 who were all taken the same day 
 
 and hung in chains 
 
 near this place 
 
 Whoso sheddelh man's blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed. — Gen. chap, ix., verse 6. 
 
 and on the other side of the stone is inscribed —
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND UlTH DICKENS. 
 
 This stone 
 
 was erected 
 
 by order, and at 
 
 the cost of 
 
 James Stibwell, Esq. 
 
 of 
 
 Cosford, 1786. 
 
 cursed be the man who injureth 
 
 or removeth this stone. 
 
 The murdered man was buried in Thursley Churchyard, 
 and there is a headstone with a curious sculpture in bas- 
 rehef, representing three ruffians killing a sailor. It was 
 erected by subscription, and has the following singular 
 epitaph : — 
 
 In memory of a generous but unfortunate sailor, who was bar- 
 barously murdered on Hind-head on Sep. 24 1786 by three villains 
 after he had liberally treated them and promised them his further 
 assistance on the road to Portsmouth. 
 
 When pitying eyes to see my grave shall come. 
 And with a generous tear bedew my tomb, 
 Here shall they read my melancholy fate. 
 With murder and barbarity complete : 
 In perfect health and in the flower of age 
 I fell a victim to Three Ruffians' rage. 
 
 iQn bended knees I mercy strove t'obtain, 
 Their thirst for blood made all entreaties vain, 
 
 ^ This would seem from the confession alhulcd to not to liave been a 
 figure of speech, but a literal record of fact.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 No dear relation or still dearer friend 
 Weeps my sad lot or miserable end ; 
 Yet o'er my sad remains — my name unknown 
 A generous Public have inscribed this stone. 
 
 Portsmouth, the resting-place of Nicholas ,and Smike 
 for a brief period of comparative quiet, has retained all 
 the features that they saw nearly unaltered. 
 
 
 I'OKTSMOUTH THEATKE. 
 
 The carriage that had conveyed the party stopped at 
 Portsmouth Bridge, and there they disembarked. " We'll
 
 122 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 set down here," said the manager, " and the boys will take 
 him round to the stable, and call at my lodgings for the 
 luggage. You had better let yours be taken there for the 
 present ;" and then they accompanied the manager to the 
 theatre. 
 
 " They passed a great many bills pasted against the 
 walls and displayed in windows, wherein the names of 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies, Mrs. Vincent Crummies, Master 
 Crummies, Master P. Crummies, and Miss Crummies, were 
 printed in very large letters, and everything else in ver}- 
 small ones. And turning at length into an entry, in 
 which was a strong smell of orange-peel and lamp -oil, 
 with an under-current of sawdust, groped their way through 
 a dark passage, and, descending a step or two, threaded a 
 little maze of canvas screens and paint-pots, and emerged 
 upon the stage of the Portsmouth Theatre." The descrip- 
 tion of a theatre in daylight is graphically told. There 
 was the reassuring voice of Mr. Crummies. " Here we 
 are ;" and all to him seemed most proper and fitting. He 
 was, as it were, on his native heath, and whether all was 
 lit up, or whether the nakedness of the land was apparent 
 in the daylight, it was one to him. It was a matter of 
 business, and Crummies was honestly and sincerely a 
 believer in himself, his art, and his family. " It was not 
 very light, but Nicholas found himself close to the first 
 entrance on the prompter's side, among bare walls, dusty 
 scenes, mildewed clouds, heavily daubed draperies, and 
 dirty floors. He looked about him ; ceiling, pit, boxes,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 123 
 
 gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of every kind — 
 all looked coarse, cold, gloonny, and wretched. 
 
 '"Is this a theatre?' whispered Smike, in amazement, 
 ' I thought it was a blaze of light and finery.' 
 
 '" Why, so it is,' replied Nicholas, hardly less surprised ; 
 ' but not by day, Smike.' " 
 
 Troupes of travelling actors seem to have disappeared, 
 or at any rate to have altered entirely, since the days 
 when Dickens wrote Nicklcby. Then they seem to have 
 travelled from tov/n to town carrying scenery and adjuncts 
 to the various stages they proposed to visit, and they 
 contained within their company every constituent part 
 for acting a play of Shakespeare, of Congreve, or Sheridan. 
 Of course celebrated actors travel now, and they are 
 supported by a few notables of local celebrity, who take 
 some secondary part with more or less ability, and pre- 
 vent the great principal from being swamped by very bad 
 acting. In the Crummies' troupe they seem to have 
 enjoyed the privilege of conveying even supernumeraries 
 about, so that there could be no chance of any accident 
 through a member of the company being unequal to the 
 occasion. The house where Mr. Crummies lived might 
 almost be pointed out with certainty yet. It was in St. 
 Thomas Street, at the abode of " one Bulph, a pilot, who 
 sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the same 
 colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on 
 his parlour mantel-shelf, with other maritime and natural 
 curiosities. He displayed also a brass knocker, a brass plate,
 
 124 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and a brass bell-handle, all very bright and shining ; and 
 had a mast, with a vane on the top of it, in his back yard." 
 
 The lodgings that Nicholas secured for himself and 
 Smike were on the Common Hard, which seems to be the 
 name pertaining to a part of Portsmouth where the 
 wharves are. What its origin may be I could not dis- 
 cover ; but the people there point out, in a narrow lane 
 leading to the wharf, the house where Nicholas is supposed 
 to have sojourned. It certainly is a modest dwelling, and 
 somewhat dreary, but from the narrow street it is easy to 
 see great forests of masts and yards that are harboured 
 below. When Mr. Lenville and his friend Mr. Folair 
 made an early call on Nicholas, they contrived, as he 
 was not up, much to the astonishment of their new 
 recruit, to beguile the time with a fencing bout on the 
 small landing-place with their walking-sticks ; and they 
 made use of many theatrical expressions, " to the unspeak- 
 able discomposure of all other lodgers downstairs." 
 
 One thing is noticeable in this work, and it illustrates 
 a period in the age of copyright. When Nicholas joined 
 the company, he was asked by the manager if he could 
 write a play, or at any rate adapt a French play to his 
 stage, and Nicholas replied affirmatively, and then worked 
 away at the piece, which was speedily put into rehearsal ; 
 and then worked away at his own part, which he studied 
 with great perseverance, and acted, as the whole company 
 said, to perfection. Then, as the story records, the bell- 
 man went round, and posters appeared on all the walls,
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LE BY. 125 
 
 and play-bills were distributed broadcast, etc. etc., as 
 though to secure a rapid return for the modest outlay the 
 play had cost. Perhaps it might be well here to remark 
 that about two years before Nickleby was written the pro- 
 perty in the copyright of a play was not secured. Our 
 principal Encyclopaedia says that in Shakespeare's time 
 some of his audience used to take note-books and write 
 down what they heard, which in some measure accounts 
 for the doubtful and different readings we have. But at 
 any rate the play Nicholas adapted was not safe for a 
 single hour. All the security he had was in keeping the 
 MS. in his trunk ; and at that time all the remuneration 
 that playwriters could claim was the sum that the original 
 employer gave, and any small amount that booksellers ^ 
 gave for copyright, together with any sum that London 
 managers might be disposed to give till the play was 
 issued and the copyright secured. But Sir E. Bulwer 
 brought in an Act in 1833 that secured twenty-eight 
 years' copyright for a playwriter, and this greatly delighted 
 Dickens, who all through his life had a sincere admiration 
 for the author of Eugene Aram. 
 
 The Brothers Cheeryble have often been identified 
 with a London firm ; but however this may be, it is hardly 
 likely that any firm would have risen to great wealth and 
 prosperity who had such an easy routine of business as to 
 let a youth like Nicholas, who never was in a merchant's 
 
 ^ In a bookseller or publisher's hands, of course, anything became copy- 
 right if he desired.
 
 126 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 or banker's office before (and the Brothers Cheeryble seem 
 to have combined both callings) suddenly see the great 
 ledgers before him, and then without any hesitation " dip 
 his pen into the inkstand before him, and plunge into the 
 books of Cheeryble Brothers ! " This has always seemed a 
 great drawback to the work, and unhappily Dickens was 
 illustrated by an artist who is not at all times worthy of 
 the prominent position he was destined to fill as the illus- 
 trator of one to whom in all probability every Englishman 
 is now in some degree indebted ; and if we turn to page 356 
 of the first issue of Nicholas Nicklcby we are introduced 
 to the Brothers Cheeryble, who are linking arm in arm 
 in their own office, and looking at Nicholas as he is trying 
 his hand at book-keeping. They are grotesquely dressed 
 in this drawing, and apparently inebriated. I write this 
 to defend, as far as I can, the memory of Dickens from 
 his illustrator, though indeed the latter has done good 
 work, if somewhat grotesque, as the pages of 404, 500, 
 and 5 I 8, in Nicholas, and many — very many others in 
 other works can testify. A great responsibility lies at 
 the door of an artist who illustrates an author. If his 
 figures are vapid or inane, or, on the other hand, if they 
 are vulgar, it tends to give a tone to all they say. 
 Thackeray had the advantage of being very well illustrated. 
 Sometimes, as in the Virginians and Pcndcnnis, he was his 
 own artist, and has left us pictures which have in them as 
 much latent humour as the text itself, and sometimes he 
 was well seconded by Doyle, as in the Newconics.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 127 
 
 The London scenes of Dickens are very able and 
 suggestive. Mr. P^'orster says ; " There seemed to be not 
 much to add to our knowledge of London until his books 
 came upon us, but each, in this respect, outstripped the 
 other in its marvels. In Nicklcby the old city reappears 
 under every aspect ; and whether warmth and light are 
 playing over what is good and cheerful in it, or the veil 
 is uplifted from its darker scenes, it is at all times our 
 privilege to see and fjsel it as it absolutely is. Its interior 
 hidden life becomes familiar as its commonest outward 
 forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of 
 the places we supposed that we knew the best." 
 
 Golden Square has already been alluded to. The 
 "Crown Inn," which was the abode of Newman NoeSfS, 
 still stands, though it has a new front. When Nicholas 
 first arrived at Dotheboys Hall he found a letter he had for- 
 gotten, which Newman had put in his hand at the Saracen's 
 Head, and there he found the invitation from Newman 
 Noggs. " If ever you want a shelter in London (don't be 
 angry at this, I once thought I never should), they know 
 where I live, at the sign of the Crown in Silver Street, 
 Golden Square. It is at the corner of Silver Street and 
 James Street, with a bar door both ways. Once nobody was 
 ashamed — never mind that. It's all over." In a P.S. he 
 admits that days were different once with him. "If you 
 should go near Barnard Castle, there is good ale at the 
 King's Head. "Say you know me, and I am sure they will 
 not charge you for it. You may say Mr. Noggs there.
 
 128 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 for I was a gentleman then. I was indeed." Newman 
 Noggs was an old client of Ralph Nickleby's, who had 
 spent his patrimony in excessive living, and at one time, as 
 Ralph said, he kept his horses and hounds. Degraded he 
 may have become, but in some way he always had the feel- 
 ings of a gentleman. When Sydney Smith invited 
 Dickens, whose merits he was slow at first to perceive, to 
 meet some friends at his house, he assured him that he 
 might delineate their characters, and give them a place in 
 any future number of his works ; and he said, " Lady 
 Charlotte in particular you may marry to Newman 
 Noggs." 
 
 The office of the Cheeryble Brothers is not easily 
 identified. " The City Square has no enclosure save the 
 lamp-post in the middle, and no grass but the weeds that 
 spring up around its base. It is a quiet, little-frequented, 
 retired spot, favourable to melancholy and contemplation, 
 and appointments of long waiting. In winter-time the 
 snow lingers there long after it has melted from the busy 
 streets and highways. The summer's sun holds it in 
 some respect, and, while he darts his cheerful ra)-s spar- 
 ingly into the square, he keeps his fiery heat and glare 
 for noisier and less-imposing precincts. It is so quiet that 
 you can almost hear the ticking of your own watch when 
 you stop to cool in its refreshing atmosphere." But how- 
 has London altered since this was written ; the same page 
 in Nicholas describes the London squares before railways 
 had invaded the city precincts. " And let not those whose
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 129 
 
 eyes have been accustomed to the aristocratic gravity of 
 Grosvenor Square and Hanover Square, the dowager 
 barrenness and frigidity of Fitzroy Square, or the gravel 
 walks of Russell or Euston, suppose that the affections of 
 Tim Linkinwater had been kept alive by any association 
 of leaves, however dingy, or grass, however bare and thin." 
 
 This was written before Euston had ever heard a 
 railway whistle, and long before the most enthusiastic 
 prophet could have predicted that the quiet square, would 
 become the busiest centre for passenger traffic in the world. 
 
 The house where Madame Mantalini lived was near 
 Cavendish Square, and we have no difficulty in identify- 
 ing it with Wigmore Street, which crosses Welbeck Street 
 and Duke Street at right angles, and connects Cavendish 
 with Portman Square ; and in this street we may now see 
 such establishments as Mantalini's with a " liveried foot- 
 man and spacious hall." The shop to the house where 
 the Mantalinis dwelt was let off to an importer of otto of 
 roses. " Madame Mantalini's show-rooms were on the first 
 floor ; a fact that was notified to the nobility and gentry 
 by the casual exhibition, near the handsomely curtained 
 windows, of two or three elegant bonnets of the newest 
 fashion, and some costly garments in the most approved 
 taste." And then Dickens, whose e}'e seems to have 
 missed nothing either indoors or out-of-doors, gives a 
 wonderful description of first-class show-rooms, when the 
 modiste led Kate and Ralph Nickleby into the saloon, 
 " which comprised two spacious drawing - rooms, and 
 
 K
 
 I30 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 exhibited an immense variety of superb dresses and 
 materials for dresses ; some arranged in stands, others 
 laid carelessly on sofas, and others, again, scattered over 
 the carpet, hanging upon the cheval glasses, or mingling 
 in some other way with the rich furniture of various de- 
 scriptions which was profusely displayed." Ralph was 
 well known to at any rate Mr. Mantalini if not to his 
 wife, for he had not unfrequently discounted long-dated 
 paper .of customers to the establishment, whose names 
 were good enough but whose promise to pay lay at such 
 a distance of time that the ordinary banking world were 
 debarred by their rules from advancing money upon it. 
 Mantalini is drawn from the life, and, indeed, if we refer 
 to the records of one London Court, that deals especially 
 with domestic trouble, we shall have no difficulty in 
 soon finding his counterpart. His name was originally 
 " Muntle," but it had easily been converted into Mantalini, 
 as his wife, to whom he had only been married six 
 months when Kate Nickleby first made her appearance at 
 the establishment, thought that an English-sounding name 
 would injure the establishment. He was not, by any 
 means, all bad ; there are men who marry for money that 
 are a hundred times worse, and he \\as amusing and 
 fantastic. In some respects he may remind us of Lucio, 
 in Measure for Measure ; and indeed he is Lucio treated 
 according to the formulas of what is termed the jesthetic 
 school. " He had married on his whiskers, upon which 
 propert}' he had prc\"iously subsisted in a genteel manner
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 131 
 
 for some years, and which he had recently improved, after 
 patient cultivation, by the addition of a moustache, which 
 promised to secure him an easy independence ; his share 
 in the labours of the business being at present confined 
 to spending the money, and occasionally, when that ran 
 short, of driving to Mr. Ralph Nickleby to procure dis- 
 count, at a percentage, for customers' bills." 
 
 Kate lived with her mother in a miserable house in 
 Thames Street, of which the description that is given is 
 so vivid, and it so exactly describes an enormous number 
 of London houses, that it must be reproduced. The 
 house had been benevolently placed at the disposal of 
 Mrs. Nickleby and her daughter by Ralph Nickleby, into 
 whose possession it had obviously come as some collateral 
 security for a loan. The distance which Kate had to 
 traverse each day to her work, from Wigmore Street to 
 Thames Street was two miles and a half; and the de- 
 scription of the house as it was when Newman Noggs first 
 took her and her mother to it in a cab, is in the eleventh 
 chapter. " They went into the City, turning down by the 
 river side ; and after a long and very slow drive, the 
 streets being crowded at that hour wath vehicles of every 
 kind, stopped in front of a large old dingy house in 
 Thames Street, the door and windows of which were so 
 bespattered with mud that it would have appeared to have 
 been uninhabited for years. The door of this deserted 
 mansion Newman opened with a key which he took from 
 his hat, in which, by - the - by, in consequence of the
 
 132 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 dilapidated state of his pockets, he deposited everything", 
 and would most likely have' carried his money if he had 
 had any — and the coach being discharged, he led the 
 way into the interior of the mansion. Old and black 
 and gloomy in truth it was, and sullen and dark were the 
 rooms, once so bustling with life and enterprise. There 
 was a wharf behind, opening on the Thames ; an empty 
 dog -kennel, some bones of animals, fragments of iron 
 hoops, and staves of old casks, lay strewn about, but no 
 life was stirring there. It was a picture of cold silent 
 decay." Newman Noggs had thoughtfully, and who 
 knows by what possible means ! succeeded in procuring 
 some furniture for Mrs. Nickleby and her daughter, and 
 he appears in this part of the book to his best advantage. 
 Newman Noggs belonged to a type that was much more 
 common half a century ago than it is at present. He 
 was born with advantages, and lived the life of a country 
 gentleman ; but the habits of Englishmen were commonly 
 more lax than they are now, and he expended his patri- 
 mony in excesses.
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 133 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 
 
 When Dickens wrote Olivcj'- Tivist he desired, as he saj^s, 
 to paint vice in its true characters, without the fascinations 
 of highway adventure, or snug robbers' caves, or anything 
 approaching the attractions that too often pervaded the 
 Hterature of profligacy. He wished to answer those who 
 
 Proved, by cool discriminating sight, 
 
 Black's not so black, nor white so veiy white. 
 
 The dens and stews of London are painted from hfe, and 
 the picture is not inviting. In the character of Nancy 
 there is some redeeming quahty — she might have been 
 different under different circumstances ; in the characters 
 of Fagin or Bill Sikes there is none ; they are simply bad, 
 as bad as they can be, without one silver thread lining 
 the edge of the cloud. Unfortunately for the artist, 
 but fortunately for the rest of the world, the haunts of 
 vice that were standing when this work was written are 
 demolished ; and whatever remains of the Bill Sikes or 
 the Fagin element is left in the cold ; but if we read 
 the police summaries we are sadly reminded that they
 
 134 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 arc hardly extinct. " Whether every gentler feeling is 
 dead within such bosoms, or the proper chord to strike 
 has rusted and is hard to find, I cannot say ; but there 
 are such men as Sikes who, being closely followed 
 through the same space of time, and through the same 
 current of circumstances, would not give, by one look or 
 action of a moment, the faintest indication of a better 
 nature." Dickens further asks, " What manner of life is 
 it that is described in these pages as the every -day 
 existence of a thief? what charms has it for the young 
 and ill-disposed? what allurements for the most jolter- 
 headed of juveniles ?" 
 
 In Oliver Tzuist, in fact, vice is treated as Hogarth 
 treated it ; " in whose works," Dickens says, " the times 
 in which he lived, and the characters of every time, will 
 never cease to be reflected with a power and depth of 
 thought which belonged to few men before him, and 
 will probably appertain to fewer still in time to come." 
 " Cervantes laughed Spain's chivalry away by showing 
 Spain its impossible and wild absurdity. It was my 
 attempt, in my humble and far-distant sphere, to dim the 
 false glitter surrounding something which really did exist, 
 by showing it in its unattractive and repulsive truth." 
 Much more like Hogarth than Cervantes, Dickens has 
 left a name that will probably endure as long as either of 
 theirs. The shadow of the man in the "cockpit," by 
 Hogarth, who is suspended from the ceiling, according 
 to the etiquette of such places, for not paying his bets, is
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 
 
 135 
 
 represented as holding out his watch, desperately resolved 
 
 to offer one bet more 
 
 on the fight that is 
 
 going on upon the 
 
 \ table. And in 
 
 
 the well-known 
 churchyard 
 
 scene, in the 
 Industrious a)id 
 Tdh Apprentice, where the 
 feiiule is about to de- 
 scend upon the idle ap- 
 pi entice, who is playing 
 pitch and toss on a grave- 
 
 ISARNET. 
 
 stone, the hand of the 
 beadle is arrested by the interest he takes in the result of
 
 136 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 the toss. Touches of humour Hke these, which sparkle 
 all through the pictures of Hogarth, enHven even his 
 grim scenes, and are much in the vein of Dickens. 
 
 As for the exact locality of the town where Oliver 
 first saw the light, and Bumble immortalised beadledom, 
 there is some little difficulty in the way. In the eighth 
 chapter we rea^ that after Oliver had fled from the 
 tyranny of his oppressors he found himself, after the 
 seventh morning, " limping slowly into the little town of 
 Barnet." It is, as Mr. Dickens says in his admirable 
 Guide to London, " a pretty and still tolerably rural 
 suburb, but on the north side of London, and on the clay. 
 Perhaps the best situation on that side, and standing 
 high, its full name being, in fact. High Barnet. Locally 
 it is considered the highest ground between York and 
 London." It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Charles 
 Dickens, who wrote it, is the son of the great novelist ; 
 and here I may venture to clear up, what is sometimes 
 alluded to as an inconsistency, namely, why Mr. Dawkins, 
 the " artful dodger," had gone so far as the Barnet road 
 to meet Oliver, for whom he was not supposed to have 
 been looking. But the plot is cut rather abruptly short 
 in several parts, or else it is certain that the " Lhis is 
 him, Fagin," from the artful dodger, " my friend, Oliver 
 Twist," would have been shown to point out that Oliver 
 had been looked for by Monks, and he had taken I'agin 
 into his schemes. Monks was, indeed, not exactly 
 known as a regular frequenter of the den. " He goes by
 
 OLIVER riVIST. 137 
 
 some other name among us then," said Nancy to Miss 
 Mayhe. But to return to Ohver. 
 
 After he had left his native town for some five miles he 
 saw a milestone on the road-side " which bore in large 
 characters an intimation that it was just seventy miles 
 from that spot to London." By that showing we should 
 find ourselves, if we continued the road, in the quiet ancient 
 city of Peterborough, and though Market Harborough 
 might be reached at the end of the same mileage, the 
 description of the town or city where the immortal 
 Bumble reigned coincides more particularly with Peter- 
 borough. 
 
 One is disposed to be a little surprised in the first 
 part of Oliver Tzuist being taken up with such a subject ; 
 but it was the humour of Dickens to indicate some notable 
 being or character, that had in their turn filled a place 
 in Bumbledom, and that, in fact, coincides with all who 
 ever in any station in life spoke the English language, 
 or perhaps, if we could know it, any other. There are 
 Bumbles in Royalty, and there are Bumbles in the foot- 
 men at Brighton who asked Weller to the " swarry," and 
 at first treated him very superciliously, but soon found 
 they had reckoned without their host. 
 
 It may be well to remark here that the cause of 
 Oliver's going away was the cruelty of the master he was 
 bound to as an apprentice from the work -house. The 
 magistrate's room would accord well with that in the town 
 indicated at that time, and the picture of the chimney-
 
 138 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 sweeper who saw a premium of five pounds for an 
 apprentice is all in keeping with the time in which Oliver 
 Tii'ist was written. Mr. Gamficld, chimney-sweeper, 
 jumped at the idea of having to handle such a sum, and 
 only the magistrate's veto, the magistrate before whom 
 Oliver was taken to sign the indenture, prevented his being 
 handed over to the chimney-sweeper. 
 
 It may be necessary to remind the present generation 
 that very small slim boys were apprenticed in earl}- life 
 to sweep the great broad chimney flues which ■ prevailed 
 before the glazed socket pipes carried away the heat and 
 smoke ; and here again Dickens appears as a reformer. 
 
 It used to be the custom in England. — I cannot say 
 how far it was on the Continent — to send these boys up 
 chimneys with a sweeping-brush, and they were enlisted 
 for the service as best they could be. Their duties were 
 to climb up by the projecting bricks, and their heads w^ere 
 covered with a loosely woven cloth, to prevent them from 
 being choked, and when a chimney flue diverged, and 
 the soot had accumulated, the place was not only narrow, 
 but uncertain, black, and cavernous. In this service Mr. 
 Gamfield wanted Oliver ; but he was disappointed. A 
 tale used to be told, and was generally believed, of a 
 young boy being kidnapped in Liverpool by some chimney 
 sweeps, and compelled to serve under threats. For five 
 years he was lost, and proved to be the heir to a property 
 at the north end of the town, which had increased enor- 
 mously in value.
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 139 
 
 Those who may wish to revisit the haunts of Fagin 
 and his promising school of apprentices at Snow Hill and 
 Field Lane will be doomed to disappointment, as the Hol- 
 born Viaduct has cleared them away; but in a word they may 
 be described as nests for stolen goods ; there were plenty 
 of shops, and those shops were what would be called in 
 America " open stores." There was not a window, glass 
 was rather too costly, but there was a fall shutter, and 
 though in summer this was perhaps even an advantage, 
 in winter the inhabitants were to be seen in the back part 
 of the shop with their hands in their pockets conversing 
 over a charcoal stove. But it is really a fact that in the 
 most open form pocket-handkerchiefs were exposed for 
 sale, and that when gentlemen used nothing but bandanas 
 which cost from 7s. 6d. to los. each. This will at once 
 explain to modern readers the singular scenes of " sorting 
 the wipes," etc., that occur in the first part of Oliver Tiuist, 
 and hanging them to dry on a "clothes-horse," after the 
 stitches that marked them had been picked out. 
 
 Oliver and " the artful " " crossed from Angel to St, 
 John's Road, struck down the small street that leads to 
 Sadler's Wells Theatre, through Exmouth Street and 
 Coppice Row, down the little court by the side of the Work- 
 house, across the classic ground which once bore the name 
 of Hockley.-in-the-Hole, then into Little Saffron-Hill, and 
 so into Saffron -Hill the Great, along which the Dodger 
 scudded at a rapid pace." He had, it would seem, some 
 coquettish objections to showing himself in London before
 
 I40 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 night, and so it was nearly eleven before they commenced 
 their town journey. The Angel still stands, and is the 
 stopping-place of the "Favourite" omnibuses, and St. 
 John's Road, but is somewhat altered, and Sadler's Wells 
 Theatre yet remains. This was called originally after a 
 man named Sadler, who discovered a chalybeate spring 
 in the seventeenth century, which spring was remarkable 
 as possessing the same qualities as Tunbridge Wells. 
 Royalty resorted there ; a theatre, which often is mentioned 
 by Dickens, was built, and which has numbered among its 
 managers, Howard Payne, Dibdin the poet, Phelps the 
 tragedian, and the well-known Grimaldi the clown, and 
 was afterwards under the conduct of less notable directors. 
 Sadler's Wells Theatre was reopened long after 
 Dickens's time ; indeed, within the last tv/o years, 
 a London paper, commenting on the event, says — " The 
 Duchess of Sutherland will be present at the opening of 
 the old theatre at Sadler's Wells, and literary London 
 will be there, not so much for the sake of the musical play 
 'Rob Roy' which is a little old-fashioned, but because 
 it is an event of the highest interest in theatrical annals." 
 The locality, as it then presented itself, is well described 
 b}' Dickens. " The streets were narrow and muddy, 
 and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. There 
 were a good many small shops, but their only stock in 
 trade appeared to be the heaps of children who, even at 
 that time of night, were crawling in and out of the doors, 
 or screaming from the inside.
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 141 
 
 " The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the 
 general blight of the place were the public-houses, and in 
 them the lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might 
 and main. Covered ways and yards, which here and 
 there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots 
 of houses where drunken men and women were positively 
 wallowing in filth, and from several of these doorways 
 great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, 
 to all appearance, upon no well-disposed or harmless 
 errand." Before Oliver could escape from scenes of such 
 horror, his companion pushed him into the house they had 
 been journeying to, and after some pass-word they mounted 
 rickety stairs to the room of the now world -renowned 
 Fagin. Why Dickens should have made him a Jew is 
 not apparent, for Jews are, as a rule, among the most 
 law-abiding of subjects in any land ; but it is said that he 
 was a real portrait — still he is not a representative character. 
 Men bred and born in London, or Birmingham, or Liverpool 
 — Gentiles, let us say, of no very defined creed, could much 
 more easily be found to fill the character — but that is a 
 small matter : the abode is no " robbers' cave," but a den 
 of thieves. Fagin was before a fire, and " in a frying-pan 
 which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantel- 
 piece by a string, some sausages were cooking." A 
 toasting-fork was in his hand ; he was a " very old 
 shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive 
 face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair." 
 To poor Oliver the prospect of something like a savoury
 
 142 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 supper, and a warm room to sleep in after his weary 
 bruised feet had brought liim so far, one might think there 
 was a sense of reHef, but even here no avenue is left for 
 looking at his so far improved prospects with anything 
 but aversion. " The walls and ceiling of the room w^ere 
 perfectly black with dirt and age. There was a deal 
 table before the fire, upon which was a candle stuck in 
 a ginger-beer bottle ; two or three pewter-pots, a loaf and 
 butter and a plate ; several rough beds made of old sacks 
 were huddled side by side on the floor ; and seated round 
 the table were four or five boys, none older than the 
 Dodger, smoking long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with 
 all the air of middle-aged men." When Oliver, in the 
 " height or the depth of his simplicity, accompanied the 
 ' Dodger ' and Charley Bates on one of their pilfering 
 expeditions for the first time, he noticed with surprise 
 that the Dodger had a propensity for pulling off the caps 
 of small boys and throwing them in areas, and Charley 
 Bates, with even less respect for property and its rights, 
 used to purloin onions and apples nimbly from stalls, and 
 drop them in his capacious pockets." 
 
 Ikit the Dodger's appearance became suddenly altered 
 and more business-like " as they emerged from a narrow 
 square in Clerkenwell, which is called, by some strange 
 perversion of terms, 'the Green'" — this is a short way to 
 the north of Farringdon Street Station, and remains very 
 much as it was when Dickens saw it. Clerkenwell has 
 not altered to any great extent. In this part of London
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 143 
 
 there used at one time to be a great number of wells fed 
 by springs. One of these was marked by an inscription 
 on a pump at the corner of Ray Street, and was interest- 
 ing as the Clerks' Well, " Fons clericorum," that gave the 
 name to Clerkenwell, which Stow says " took its name 
 from the parish clerks of London, who of old were 
 accustomed then yearly to assemble, and to play some 
 large history of Holy Scripture." This partly corresponds 
 with the Chester mystery plays that took place in that 
 city every Easter, and were grotesque representations of 
 sacred scenes. 
 
 The Sessions House at Clerkenwell yet stands, and 
 charges are heard in it from 10 to 5 every day. It was 
 to this building that Bumble was bound when he said to 
 Mrs. Mann that a " legal action was coming on about a 
 settlement, and the Board has appointed me — me, Mrs, 
 Mann — to depose to the matter before the Quarter 
 Sessions ; and I very much question whether the Clerken- 
 well Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box 
 before they have done with me," 
 
 The house where the Jew lived was like other houses 
 in some of the lower parts of London ; and when Oliver 
 was permitted to wander about in it he saw panelled 
 rooms with high mantel -pieces and ornamental ceilings, 
 and he concluded that before the Jew was born it had 
 belonged to better people, and been quite gay and hand- 
 some. The loneliness of the boy in the dark deserted 
 mansion is well told, and he did not leave it till he was
 
 144 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 taken away to assist Sikes in the ill-starred expedition to 
 Chertsey, which led to Oliver's final escape from his cruel 
 captivit}-. 
 
 The local descriptions here are literal!)' crowded to- 
 gether, from the clock of St. Andrew's to the final destina- 
 tion at Chertsey. One of the most accurate descriptions 
 of Smithfield Old Market is to be found in Oliver Tiuist. 
 It was abolished in 1852, and I can well remember as a 
 boy being taken to sec it at the early hour in the morning 
 when Dickens described it, and the barbarous scene it 
 presented is in no way overdrawn. " It was on a market 
 morning. The ground was covered nearly ankle -deep 
 with filth and mire;" and as for a Bill Sikes in the crowd, 
 there was not one but a hundred ; nay, in some parts of 
 the market square, where the lights were burning inside a 
 corner public -house, the crowd appeared to consist of 
 little else, and it seemed to me at one time that the onl)' 
 living creatures with any pretension to respectability of 
 character were the cattle. In the twenty-first chapter of 
 Book I. this is admirably described, and evidently the 
 account was written on the spot. 
 
 In singular contrast to this scene is the house-breaking 
 expedition to Chertsey, where the robber took Oliver to 
 assist in the burglary by putting him through a pane in 
 the window to open the front door, and a house is still 
 pointed out as being the scene of the attempted theft. 
 
 The church of St. Andrew's is here, and Sikes re- 
 marked to Oliver as they passed the clock, " Now, then,
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 
 
 145 
 
 young 'un, it's hard upon seven ! You must step out. 
 Come, don't lag behind already, lazy-legs. 
 
 ST. ANDREWS CHURCH. 
 
 They went past Hyde Park corner, and through Ken- 
 sington to the Hammersmith and Brentford road ; but as 
 Mr. Sikes saw " Hounslow " painted on a cart he asked 
 the driver, with such civilit}- as he could assume, if he 
 
 L
 
 146 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 would give them a lift as far as Isleworth ; and here all 
 the road brings up to the recollection scenes of beauty 
 and delight, though it is but little of these that poor 
 Oliver could enjoy. 
 
 Isleworth, through which they went, is one of the 
 places from which Covent Garden, so often mentioned in 
 Dickens, draws its supplies. The county is perfectly 
 charming round here, and Sion House, built b\- the " Lord 
 Protector Somerset," and now a residence of the Duke of 
 Northumberland, is remembered with pleasure by every 
 one who has sailed up the Thames. Hammersmith almost 
 joins Kensington, and Chiswick, through which Oliver 
 passed, is nearly now swallowed up in the advancing tide 
 of city extension. Still there are some few rural features 
 left, and here lies buried Hogarth, who in pencil did pre- 
 cisely what Dickens did by pen. Nay, the epitaph on his 
 tomb might, with little alteration, be used on that of 
 
 Dickens : — 
 
 " Farewell, great painter of mankind. 
 Who reached the noblest point of art ; 
 Whose pictured morals charm the mind, 
 And through the eye correct the heart. 
 If genius fire thee, reader, stay : 
 If nature touch thee, drop a tear : 
 If neither move thee, turn away, 
 , 'Tis Hogarth's honoured dust lies here." 
 
 " Kew Bridge was passed," the narrative adds, " and 
 yet the\- kept on as steadily as if they had only begun 
 their journe)'." The bridge is accurately enough shown
 

 
 OLIVER TWISr. 147 
 
 on the wood-cut, and the precision of Dickens's descriptions 
 in all this expedition are very remarkable. This Kew 
 Bridge was built by Robert Tunstall in the year 1789, 
 and it replaced one that was built by his father in 1759. 
 The earlier bridge was entirely of wood. There is a 
 pleasant rustic air about it, and, as may be seen, London 
 improvements have not as yet swept away its sunny sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Brentford was reached at last, and, though it is not a 
 town that offers many attractions to a traveller, it doubt- 
 less was classic ground to Sikes as the seat of the great 
 distilleries of Sir Felix Booth, where the celebrated " Old 
 Tom " is made. Beyond Brentford Sikes and Oliver, who 
 little knew the fell purpose for which he was required, 
 went into a public-house, of which more than one would 
 answer the description, and had some dinner among a 
 rather rough lot of farmers, one of whom was going in his 
 cart to Lower Halliford. This is on the left bank of the 
 Thames between Walton and Shepperton, and it is a per- 
 fect paradise for roach anglers. Oatlands Park and the 
 Surrey hills arc charmingly seen from here, but they 
 would not interest the felon and his victim even if there 
 had been light or time to see them. 
 
 The description of the ride in the cart is finch' told. 
 The night was dark and dreary, and the man had grown 
 sleepy, while Sikes was in no mood for conversation, and 
 Oliver sat huddled in the corner of the cart in fear and 
 apprehension. " As they passed Sunbury Church the
 
 148 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 clock struck seven. There was a light in the puny house 
 opposite that streamed across the road, and threw into 
 more sombre shadow a dark yew-tree with graves beneath 
 it. There was a dull sound of falling water not far off, 
 and the leaves of the old tree stirred gently in the night 
 wind." The church of Sunbury, when this was written, 
 was not the Byzantine chapel that we see now, but an 
 edifice built in George II.'s time. The rendezvous was 
 finally reached, and the burglary attempted. The house 
 where this took place stands in a lonely situation near 
 Penton Hook, and is pointed out by any of the inhabitants. 
 It is quite worth a visit, and it is most suggestive of such 
 a midnight excursion as that which took Sikes there. 
 
 In a very popular work on Dickens that has been 
 published and written in America a tale is told that is 
 not exactly an accurate account of the way in which 
 Oliver Tivist first suggested itself to Dickens. It is said 
 that Dickens called on George Cruickshanks and waited 
 while he finished an etching — that he turned over a book 
 of etchings and found Fagin in the condemned cell, and 
 then assured Cruickshanks that he was disposed to alter 
 the plan of his work from the original. He had intended 
 to bring Oliver Twist through adventures in the country, 
 but seeing the life of a thief so strikingly illustrated 
 Cruickshank consented to let him use the designs as he 
 best thought fit, and hence Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy were 
 created. But Dickens, as has been said, conceived the 
 idea from an antacionistic feelincr to the Poor Law Act of
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 149 
 
 1834, in which he differed so seriously from Miss Mar- 
 tineau. The more ancient Poor Laws of England, if indeed 
 they can be called Poor Laws at all, we read with astonish- 
 ment now ; they were more savage than any in Europe, 
 and, in fact, by them any person seeking for employment 
 out of his own parish was to be whipped on the first offence, 
 sold as a slave for the second, and hanged for the third. 
 This was the feudal system with a vengeance. Of course 
 it was not to last ; but a very able writer in the Edinbitrgh 
 Rcviezu says that " When a man w^as paid eight shillings by 
 the overseer for standing six days in the pound — when he 
 was put up to auction and received threepence a-day from 
 his employer, and one shilling and ninepence a-day from 
 his parish — when he w^as billeted on a farmer, who was 
 required to pay him two shillings and sixpence a-week if 
 single, four shillings if married without children, and 
 eighteenpence more a -head if he had children — these 
 payments were not wages. Such, however, in the begin- 
 ning of 1834, was the condition of the labouring population 
 in many thousand English parishes." 
 
 Now it is true that much which Dickens speaks of has 
 passed away, but Bumble will never pass away ; and the 
 scene between him and Mrs. Bumble — Mrs. Corney that 
 was — is a perfect example of a character sketch. He 
 would have been in youth one of those cowardly boys that 
 torment lesser ones and arfe abject towards their superiors, 
 and it takes even Dickens to light up the character with 
 humour. Mrs. Alann, who farms the children, fully appre-
 
 ISO ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 ciated him when she " officiously deposited his cocked hat 
 and cane on the table before him," at which he " glanced 
 complacently." 
 
 But almost the finest scene in Dickens's writings is in 
 the fourteenth chapter of the second book. Bumble was 
 master of the workhouse, and the gorgeous paraphernalia 
 had descended to another beadle ; and, what was of more 
 importance, he had made Mrs. Corney Mrs. Bumble. His 
 social position was improved as master of the workhouse, 
 and even his pecuniary position, but " the laced coat and 
 the cocked hat, where were they ?" He was in plain dress, 
 and the " mighty cocked hat was replaced by a modest 
 round one." Nothing could replace that loss. 
 
 " ' And to-morrow two months it was done,' sighed 
 Bumble, ' it seems an age.' 
 
 " ' I sold myself for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar- 
 tongs, and a milk-pot, with a small quantity of second- 
 hand furniter, and twenty pound in ready monc}- — I 
 went wery reasonable cheap.' 
 
 "'Cheap!' cried a shrill voice in Mr. Bumble's ear, 
 ' you would have been dear at any price, and dear enough 
 I paid for you, the Lord above knows that.' " 
 
 Then the scene changes with quite dramatic swiftness. 
 The " eye " which Bumble invited her to look at, and which 
 had so often cowed a pauper, was lost upon the widow of 
 Mr. Corney, and the matron " even raised a laugh that 
 sounded as though it were genuine." 
 
 How she afterwards tried tears, at which Bumble was
 
 LONDON BRIDGE.
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 151 
 
 delighted, as being accustomed to them and showing his 
 own power ; and how when he got up to leave the room in a 
 jaunty way and in triumph, but how so skilful a general 
 as the late Mrs. Corney was not to be defeated so easily ; 
 how he heard a hollow sound, that betokened his hat 
 being suddenly knocked off", and, after the slightest of 
 skirmishes, the late Mrs. Corney was not only matron but 
 master of the " Union," are matters of history. 
 
 After the girl Nancy had captured Oliver in his flight, 
 and brought him back to his cruel bondage, she seems to 
 have been struck with some remorse, and in the end, after 
 he had finally escaped, she met Mr. Brownlow and Miss 
 Maylie on London Bridge, which is picturesquely described 
 in Dickens. She asked Rose Maylie to go to the steps 
 "at the farther end of the bridge that she might speak to 
 her alone. " The steps to which the girl pointed were 
 those which are on the Surrey bank and on the same side 
 of the bridge as St. Saviour's Church form a landing-stair 
 from the river," and here she told the tale of Monks that 
 enabled Oliver to regain his rights. Here also, on these 
 steps, the miserable Claypole waylaid her, and listened to 
 the conversation that he afterwards reported to F'agin and 
 Sikes, which led to the murder of poor Nanc}', and, as is 
 said, was the worst of all the bad deeds that " had been 
 committed in London's bounds since night hung over it." 
 And here we may notice how a murderer, as described b}- 
 Shakspeare, corresponds with one drawn by our author. 
 Macbeth was, in many respects, even more despicable than
 
 152 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Sikcs, for he was a coward, and had all the ills that go with 
 one. " Infirm of purpose," " to let I dare not wait upon 
 I would," give us a glimpse of the character of Macbeth. 
 Sikes had at any rate nothing of this — better it would 
 ha\c been if he had, but after their crimes the same un- 
 certainty took hold of both. Sikes went up Islington to 
 Highgate, and arrived finally at Hcndon, where he stopped 
 to get meat and drink, sometimes loitering, sometimes 
 running, wandering miles, and retracing his steps, till he 
 reached Hatfield, where the noble old palace stands that 
 once sheltered Elizabeth. Here he went to another public- 
 house, and left it abruptly, and so on. In this we notice 
 the irresolution of IMacbeth at the last, — putting on his 
 armour and taking it off again, speaking in half sentences 
 to every one, knowing he is more than suspected, and only 
 consecutive when he communes with himself " My way of 
 life is worn into the sear and yellow leaf" But Sikes 
 reaches Rotherhithe at last, a dreary locality down the 
 Thames. The church which is here shown contains a 
 monument to Prince Lee Boo, the amiable son of the 
 King of Pelew Islands, who treated the shipwrecked crew 
 of the Antelope with great kindness after they were 
 wrecked in 1783. It is a wretched locality; we can 
 always see filthy unemployed labourers here, and men, too, 
 who do not look as if they wished to be employed either ; 
 dismantled walls, chimneys that seem as if they were 
 hesitating whether to fall or not, and in wet weather so 
 much mud that an American Indian could take his canoe
 
 / ,«N 
 
 1,7? \
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 153 
 
 along the streets without difficulty, at least if not poisoned 
 in the attempt. It was to this locality that Sikes betook 
 himself finally ; some old friends were here, but they were 
 shy of him, and he presented only a ghost of his former 
 appearance as he entered the tumble-down old mansion 
 they had occupied, and the cry of, ' In the King's name," 
 showed that justice had reached him at last, until he 
 made a desperate effort to escape, and in doing so termi- 
 nated his own evil existence. 
 
 The death of Fagin by the hand of the law finished 
 the book, for the episode of Rose Fleming and Harry 
 Maylie is only introduced to liven the gloomy tale. The 
 last night of the Jew introduces us to the interior of the 
 Old Bailey prison, of which the entrance is shown. The 
 architect was George Dance, who also designed other 
 public buildings in London, such as the Mansion House 
 and the Guildhall, and may be said not to have left a 
 name known to fame. The gate shown here, however, is 
 fairly good for a prison gate. The fetters, Dickens says 
 in one of his works, he used to believe were real ones, 
 ready to be taken down at a moment's notice to manacle 
 some new prisoner ; and in his childish days he almost 
 expected to see a brass plate on a door with " Mr. Ketch" 
 on it. The most powerful pictures he has ever drawn are 
 in Oliver Twist, where the Jew, taken from his haunts, 
 and having his evil actions brought to light, seemed to be 
 surrounded by a firmament all bright with gleaming eyes, 
 and as his eye wandered to the gallery of the court he
 
 154 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 could see people rising above each other to get a sight 
 of his face ; in the same way he turned his eyes towards 
 the Judge, and w^ondered at the fashion of his dress, and 
 
 OLD li.MLEY I'KISON. 
 
 saw a stout old gentleman on the bench who returned 
 after a half- hour's absence, and wondered if he had been 
 for his dinner, and where he had been for it, and so pur- 
 sued some train of idle thought until a fresh object caught
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 155 
 
 his eye. There can be no doubt that this is a true de- 
 scription of what a man generally feels when being tried 
 on a capital charge. It has fallen to my lot to see several 
 such trials, and, as far as the expression of countenance was 
 an indication, the prisoner was in a state of abstraction, all 
 was turning out so differently from what he had expected, 
 and the slightest irrelevant incident was noticed as a relief 
 Dickens has left a description of internal economy of 
 the Newgate of that time in another of his works, and an 
 allusion to it may serve to explain some of his scenes, for 
 it differs entirely from anything we see now. Formerly 
 criminals were taken from Newgate to Tyburn for exe- 
 cution, and a nosegay was presented to every prisoner on his 
 way there. Publicans, it is said, used almost to emulate 
 each other for the honour of presenting them with the 
 parting cup. They were considered heroes by the crowd 
 who followed, and hoped they would, in the horrible 
 language of the day, " die game." Yet even here we can see 
 some ray of better things. Perhaps this was in some way 
 a protest against the criminal laws of England, that even 
 in the present century were the most cruel and senseless 
 in Europe. We can scarcely believe that Dickens's one 
 is of our own generation, and a man whom most of us may 
 have seen, when we read the following in Sketches by Bos, 
 " where he describes the press-room, day-room, and cells 
 at Newgate, and the apartments about them, in one of 
 which were five and twenty or thirty prisoners, all under 
 sentence of death, awaiting the Recorder's report, men of
 
 156 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 all ages and appearances, from a hardened old offender with 
 swarthy face and grizzly beard of three days' growth, to a 
 handsome boy not fourteen years old, and of singularly 
 youthful appearance even for that age, who had been 
 condemned for burglary." May this have suggested 
 Oliver's expedition with Sikes ? for he was liable to death, 
 and if the Chertsey people were of what was called "consider- 
 ation," and the old lady had been laid up in consequence 
 of the attack on the house, the " Recorder's report," might 
 fairly have been looked to w^ith apprehension. One is sadly 
 reminded of Burns' pathetic lines — 
 
 " Mankind is unco' weak, 
 And little to be trusted, 
 If self the wavering balance shake 
 It's rarely right adjusted." 
 
 In another room Dickens saw three men, of \\hom the 
 fate of two was sealed, as the turnkey whispered to him, 
 " they are dead men," but the third, entertaining some 
 hope of escape, lounged by a window as far away from the 
 others as possible, who were not very visible, one, with his 
 head on his arm, covered over the fire, and the other was 
 " leaning on the sill of the farthest window." 
 
 Opposite Newgate is St. Sepulchre's Church, where the 
 tolling bell announces the last dread act of the law ; and 
 here at one time the ringer of St. Sepulchre's used to ring 
 a hand bell under Newgate, and admonish those who in 
 the condemned cells could readily hear him reciting some 
 verses at midnight, of which the last two lines ran —
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 157 
 
 " And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls, 
 The Lord above have mercy on your souls." 
 
 After the terrible murder of Nancy Bill Sikes fled 
 into the country, but all his efforts to escape from himself 
 were in vain. Horace's apothegm is as true now as it 
 was when he wrote it, and it will be true for ever : — 
 " Patriae quis exul, se quoque fugit." 
 
 After he had wandered without any apparent purpose, 
 in the first roads that he hit upon, unsteady of purpose 
 and all uncertain where to go, he skirted Lord Mansfield's 
 Park at Caen Wood, and came out on Hampstead Heath, 
 and at last lay down to sleep under some bushes on the 
 Heath, and slept. But slumber did not hold him long. 
 " Where could he go to that was near and not too public 
 to get some meat and drink? Hendon. That was a good 
 place, not far off and out of most people's way. Thither 
 he directed his steps — running sometimes, and sometimes 
 with a strange perversity loitering at a snail's pace, or 
 stopping altogether and idly breaking the hedges with his 
 stick." He turned back from Hendon without having the 
 courage to purchase any refreshment at all, and still the 
 phantom of his crime pursued him, as Duncan's image did 
 Macbeth. He fancied all the children knew him even, 
 and at last he shaped his course towards Hatfield, fright- 
 ened now even with inanimate things. 
 
 " Stones have been known to move and trees to 
 speak," and at " nine o'clock at night, quite tired out, and 
 the dog limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise,
 
 158 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 he turned down the hill by the church of the quiet 
 village," and crept with his dog into the sitting-room of 
 a quiet tavern, and entered the tap -room, and some 
 countrymen drinking before it, who made way for the new 
 comer, but he sat as far away as possible, and ate and 
 drank alone. The scene is terribly dramatic as the 
 pedlar came in and produced some rustrum that was to 
 cure anything, and take out any kind of stain. " Wine 
 stains, fruit stains, beer stains, water stains, paint stains, 
 pitch stains, mud stains, blood stains," and then he took 
 up Sikes's hat, on which, as he said, he saw a stain " not 
 wider than a shilling, but thicker than half-a-crown," and 
 this he said he would do before the " gentleman " had time 
 to order him a pint of ale, when Sikes snatched it away 
 with an oath and left. Hatfield has been well shown here 
 by Mr. Vanderhoof, and this is its most picturesque aspect. 
 The tavern where Sikes and his dog entered for the 
 much-needed refreshment may be identified with at least 
 three or four in the little town, and the visitor cannot but 
 be struck with the dilapidated condition of a place that 
 skirts the walls of a great palace like Hatfield House. 
 The pedlar, who seemed to be well known to the audience, 
 was proceeding to take Sikes's hat, which lay on the table^ 
 and to remove the stain, running over a list of stains that 
 his certain remedy was a specific for, and when he came 
 to blood stains Sikes, with a hideous imprecation, over- 
 threw the table, and tearing the hat from him burst out of 
 the house. Then, \\\\q.x\ he was out of the house he began 
 to think that his conduct might excite suspicion, and with
 
 HATFIELD.
 
 OLIVER TWIST. 
 
 159 
 
 strange perverseness he sought the old-fashioned Httle 
 town again. 
 
 There is one dramatic incident recorded here that is 
 incomparably told. The 
 murderer, in doubt, soli- 
 tude, and darkness, felt 
 a dread coming over him, 
 and reached Hatfield 
 once more, where he 
 stopped at the post-ofl(ice 
 just as the mail-coach 
 arrived. 
 
 A gamekeeper had 
 come from the Marquis 
 of Salisbury's or some 
 other residence near, and 
 he took up a parcel he 
 had been expecting. 
 While Sikes watched the 
 proceedings vacantly he 
 heard the murder dis- 
 cussed, and shrunk again 
 away. 
 
 Oliver Tzi'ist was 
 written at 48 Doughty 
 
 Street, Mecklenburg Square. Dickens removed here from 
 his apartments in Furnival's Inn, after he was married, 
 and here also he wrote the concluding numbers of /'zV/^- 
 luick, and commenced A'^icholas Nicklc-by. 
 
 DOUGHTY STREET.
 
 i6o ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARTIN CIIUZZLEWIT. 
 
 In the beginning of Martin Chiizzlcivit Dickens shows 
 his dehght in the charms of nature. He describes the 
 country town where Pecksniff resided and carried on his 
 occupation of land-agent and architect and receiver of 
 pupils who contributed a round sum for learning the 
 profession, and paid him handsomely to be boarders in 
 his house. " It was pretty late in the autumn of the 
 }ear, when the declining sun, struggling through the mist 
 that had obscured it all day, looked brightly down upon a 
 little Wiltshire village within an easy journey of the fair 
 old town of Salisbury ;" and though very little indication 
 is given of the village to which allusion is made, there is 
 only one small country town that corresponds at all with 
 the locality or the requirements, and that is the little 
 town of Amesbury, which lies about seven or eight miles 
 to the north of Salisbury, on the river Avon, and is 
 hardly more than two miles from Stonehenge. 
 
 " Like a sudden flash of memory or spirit kindling U]) 
 the mind of an old man, the sun shed a glory upon the
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. i6i 
 
 scene in which its departed youth and freshness seemed to 
 Hve again. The wet grass sparkled in the h'ght ; the 
 scanty patches of verdure in the hedges — where a few 
 green twigs yet stood together, bravely resisting to the 
 last the tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts — took 
 heart and brightened up ; the stream, which had been 
 dull and sullen all day long, broke out into a cheerful 
 smile ; the birds began to chirp and twitter on the naked 
 boughs, as though the hopeful creatures half believed 
 the winter had gone by, and spring had come already. 
 The vane upon the tapering spire of the old church 
 glistened from its lofty station in sympathy with the 
 general gladness ; and from the ivy-shaded windows such 
 gleams of light shone back upon the glowing sky that it 
 seemed as if the quiet buildings were the hoarding-place 
 of twenty summers, and all their ruddiness and warmth 
 were stored within." 
 
 If there is any discrepancy about the architecture of 
 the church it is not more than the slight license that 
 Dickens sometimes takes to idealise his subject. There 
 might be those who almost think he carries his license too 
 far, as, for example, when he says in the twelfth chapter, 
 " the towers of Salisbury Cathedral rise before them." 
 Nobody knew better than Dickens that Salisbury has no 
 towers, but only a single spire. Still all this in no way 
 mars the beauty of his descriptions of nature. I would 
 not have a line altered, and only mention this to answer 
 any possible objection to the identification of his localities; 
 
 M
 
 i62 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and if he speaks in Copperfield of the spire of Blunder- 
 stone Church instead of a squat, round tower, this in no 
 way mars his exquisite and truthful description of the 
 place, but simply supplies what every one must feel is a 
 want to the church. 
 
 iVmesbury, where Mr. Pecksniff and his family lived, 
 was once the seat of an abbey, and it was well endowed, 
 but it came to the ear of King Henry that the abbess 
 and her nuns had not quite renounced the vanities of this 
 wicked world, and in 1177 it was dissolved. Indeed, 
 according to Dugdale (whose history of the monasteries 
 will always rank among the most complete works in the 
 world), the abbess herself, while instilling high moral 
 maxims, as was her duty, into the minds of the novices, 
 hardly enforced her teachings by that which is said to be 
 " better than precept." 
 
 When the monastery was dissolved it was made a cell, 
 as it was called, of the Abbey of Fontevrault in Anjou, 
 and Eleanor, daughter of Geoffrey, was buried here. After 
 this it became the retreat for ladies of high rank, and so 
 well was it endowed from time to time by its inmates 
 and their friends that its revenues, when the dissolution 
 of monasteries transferred half the property of England to 
 other's hands, amounted to a sum equal to ;^95oo per 
 annum of our present money. 
 
 The church where Tom Pinch played the organ was 
 at one time a part of this great foundation ; and though 
 Amesbury may not boast of a hostelry called the Dragon
 
 MARTIN C MUZZLE WIT. 163 
 
 it does of the George, which is only a humorous play on 
 the name, just as when, in the sixteenth chapter, Martin 
 Chuzzlcwit is introduced to a professor in America by Mr. 
 Jefferson Brick, who was said to have written some power- 
 ful pamphlets under the signature of " Suturb," or Brutus " 
 reversed. 
 
 At Amesbury there is a house of great beauty that 
 stands in a well-wooded park ; and as this and the estates 
 that surround it have changed hands several times, it is 
 not impossible that Mr. Pecksniff may have found many 
 opportunities of turning a more or less honest penny in 
 transfers of leases or holdings. The house stands back 
 in a picturesque park, and the river Avon separates the 
 grounds from the village. It was built by Inigo Jones, 
 and belonged at one time to the Duke of Oueensberry. 
 Gay the poet lived there at one time, and now it is the 
 seat of the Antrobus family. 
 
 But the house where Mr. Pecksniff practised and lived 
 is in the middle of the country town, and in the road 
 before it the signs of coming winter are beautifully 
 pictured by Dickens. " The fallen leaves with which the 
 ground was strewn gave forth a pleasant fragrance, and, 
 subduing all harsh sounds of distant feet and wheels, 
 created a repose in gentle unison with the light scattering 
 of seed hither and thither by the distant husbandmen, and 
 with the noiseless passage of the plough as it turned up 
 the rich brown earth and wrought a graceful pattern in 
 the stubbled fields. On the motionless branches of some
 
 1 64 ABOUT ENGL A ND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 trees autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as 
 in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels ; 
 others, stripped of all their garniture, stood each the 
 centre of its little heap of bright red leaves, watching their 
 slow decay ; others again, still wearing theirs, had them all 
 crunched and crackled up as though they had been burnt ; 
 about the stems of some were piled in ruddy mounds the 
 apples they had borne that year ; while others (hardly 
 evergreens this class) showed somewhat stern and gloomy 
 in their vigour, as charged by nature with the admoni- 
 tion that it is not to her more sensitive and joyous 
 favourites she grants the longest term of life. Still 
 athwart their darker boughs the sunbeams struck out 
 paths of deeper gold ; and the red light, mantling in 
 among their swarthy branches, used them as foils to set 
 its brightness off and aid the lustre of the dying day. 
 
 "A moment and its glory was no more. The sun went 
 down beneath the long dark lines of hill and cloud which 
 piled up in the west an airy city — wall heaped on wall, 
 battlement on battlement. The light was all withdrawn, 
 the shining church turned cold and dark, the stream forgot 
 to smile, the birds were silent, and the gloom of winter 
 dwelt on everything. 
 
 " An evening wind uprose, too, and the slighter 
 branches cracked and rattled as they moved in skeleton 
 dances to its moaning music. The withered leaves, no 
 longer quiet, hurried to and fro in search of shelter from 
 its chill pursuit ; the labourer unyoked his horses, and,
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLE WIT. 165 
 
 with head bent down, trudged briskly home beside them ; 
 and from the cottage windows Hghts began to glance and 
 wink upon the darkening fields." 
 
 This extract has been made at some length because 
 often in the more exciting personal adventures that 
 Dickens introduces us to his charming descriptions of 
 country scenes are passed over. In David Copperfield, 
 notwithstanding the earnest purpose he has in delineating 
 the gloomy characters of the Murdstones, the cruelty of 
 Creakle, or the selfishness of Steerforth, his whole soul is 
 in Yarmouth, with its quaint seamen and fishing-boats, 
 and its wonderful streets and passages, and the memorable 
 drive to Blunderstone in the carrier's cart, with all the 
 country beauties that surrounded the church and the old 
 homestead. In Nickleby the picturesque features of the 
 drive to Dotheboys Hall are not lost sight of, even though 
 the destination was so dismal ; and when the somewhat 
 fortunate acquaintance of Mr. Crummies was made on the 
 journey to Portsmouth, the soul of Dickens seems to 
 linger on the picturesque beauties of the Surrey Downs 
 that shed a ray, if even a feeble one, on Nicholas and 
 Smike. If the many graphic descriptions of country 
 scenes w-ere collected from the works of Dickens and made 
 into a volume by themselves, and if they could have been 
 illustrated by such pencils as Creswick's or Foster's, 
 Dickens would live in memory for long, even if he never 
 depicted a human character. When Verisopht and Hawk 
 went out to fight the fatal duel all the sympathy of
 
 1 66 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Dickens was with the country lanes they passed through as 
 the morning was only dawning on the night, and hardly 
 had chased away the darkness. " It was already daybreak. 
 Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, — everything looked very 
 beautiful ; the young man scarcely seemed to have noticed 
 them before, though he had passed the same objects a 
 thousand times." 
 
 Napoleon used to say, and he said well, that he would 
 live by his contributions to the arts of peace more than to 
 those of war ; and if Jena and Austerlitz had never been, 
 the Code Napoleon, at which he was almost as assiduous 
 a reviser as Mr. Tronchin himself, was the work that 
 he felt more pride and more pleasure in than all his con- 
 quests. 
 
 Not only does his delight for scenery break out in the 
 country, but he sees even in town, and in the most re- 
 pulsive parts even of town, there is something picturesque 
 to cheer him. In a storm of rain in any town or city all 
 we desire is to get out of the way, and find some shelter 
 in a porch or gallery, and we not unnaturally think it a 
 great nuisance ; but Turner, or Prout, or Copley Fielding 
 can see beauty in it, and depict the indigo sky with a 
 break of light beyond, and the waggoners covering their 
 horses or hurrying to a covered passage. 
 
 There is another very beautiful description of an early 
 winter's morning in the fifth chapter. Tom Pinch had 
 to go to Salisbury in a " hooded vehicle " that looked 
 " like a gig with a tumour " to bring the new pupil,
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEIVIT. 167 
 
 Martin Chuzzlewit, to Mr. Pecksniff's. " This was the 
 glad commencement of a bracing clay in early winter, 
 such as may put the languid summer season (speaking 
 of it when it can't be had) to the blush, and shame the 
 spring by being sometimes cold by halves. The sheep 
 bells rang as clearly in the vigorous air as if they felt 
 its wholesome influence like living creatures. The 
 trees, in lieu of leaves or blossoms, shed upon the 
 ground a frosty rime that sparkled as it fell, and might 
 have been the dust of diamonds ; so it was to Tom. 
 From cottage chimneys smoke went streaming up high — 
 high, as if the earth had lost its grossness, being so fair, 
 and must not be oppressed by heavy vapour. The crust 
 of ice on the else rippling brook was so transparent and 
 so thin in texture, that the lively water might, of its own 
 free will, have stopped — in Tom's glad mind it had — to 
 look upon the lovely morning." 
 
 If this village at which Pecksniff lived was really 
 Amesbury, Tom Pinch might probably drive along the 
 river side through Great- Durnford ; and the description 
 exactly corresponds with the scene that would present 
 itself. The picture of an early, exhilarating winter's 
 morning is not excelled by anything in Sir Walter Scott. 
 " And now the morning grew so fair, and all things were so 
 wide awake and gay, that the sun seeming to say — Tom 
 had no doubt he said : — ' I can't stand it any longer ; I 
 must have a look ;' streamed out in radiant majest}'. 
 The mist, too shy and gentle for such lusty company, fled
 
 i68 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 off, quite scared, before it ; and as it swept away, the hills 
 and mounds and distant pasture lands, teeming with placid 
 sheep and noisy crows, came out as bright as though they 
 were unrolled bran new for the occasion. In compliment 
 to which discovery the brook stood still no longer, but ran 
 briskly off to bear the tidings to the water-mill three 
 miles away." 
 
 At last the spire of Salisbury arose before Tom 
 through the mist, and he was soon in the ancient city 
 which is one of the most interesting and venerable in -all 
 England. The spire was built as a guide in the flat lands 
 that surround it, and it is marvellous at what great 
 distances it can be seen on a clear day from remote parts 
 of Salisbury Plain. Dubious roads intersect this plain, 
 sometimes lost in the scanty growth that is only a bare 
 pasture for sheep, and sometimes their direction is so un- 
 certain that a great landmark is necessary to direct the 
 steps of the wayfarer. There are those who think that 
 from a distance the spire looks thin and weak, and who 
 would compare it somewhat unfavourably with the pro- 
 portions of Norwich, or St. Mary's, Stamford, which is 
 perhaps coeval with it, though on a much smaller scale ; 
 but at any rate it shows itself clearly and incisively in the 
 sky, and has for six centuries been a landmark to the 
 tillers of the scanty soil who have sought the old city with 
 their produce of poultry and butter. 
 
 The market-place is a perfect picture of a light and 
 graceful building of the fifteenth century. The buttresses,
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 
 
 169 
 
 the arches, and the graceful canopy, may be copied by 
 modern architects, but they cannot be improved. 
 
 .mai;ki-.t-1'L.\ce 
 
 Sahsbury is a thoroughly English city, without any 
 trace of Roman or Norman work about it. Indeed there 
 are not even the remains of a baronial fortress. Clear, 
 bright water runs through its streets, and if we look over 
 a parapet of a bridge we sometimes see a trout of fair 
 dimensions dart away like a shadow. 
 
 The market that Tom Pinch saw was the successor of
 
 1 70 ABOUT ENGLA ND J I ITH DICKENS. 
 
 one granted b}- Henry III.; and even now Salisbury 
 market day presents us with a scene of unusual life and 
 vigour. There are two market days in each week — Tues- 
 day and Saturday — and it was, as is apparent from the 
 history, on the Tuesday's market that Pinch went to 
 Salisbury to meet the new pupil. 
 
 The house at which Tom Pinch put up his trap and 
 horse, though it is not mentioned by name, can easily 
 be identified. It is in High Street, near the quaint 
 Dutch-like houses with overlapping tiled walls and red 
 roofs, and the quaintest of oriel windows, and it is near 
 the gateway that spans over the street and is yet called 
 the city gate, with its battlements, and its coats of arms, 
 and carved spandrils, that yet remain in entirety. 
 
 But Tom Pinch had some notion that Salisbury was a 
 desperate, harum-scarum sort of place, and in general 
 terms a most dissipated city ; and having consigned his 
 horse to the ostler, with a promise that he would in an 
 hour or so return and see him take his corn, he set out for 
 a stroll among the streets, "with a vague and not unpleasant 
 idea " that he was doing a very dissipated sort of thing. 
 
 Salisbury is certainly a charming city for a stroll, and 
 to one of Tom's quiet, habits a world of life seemed to be 
 going on in its confines, " the thoroughfares about the 
 market-place being filled with carts, horses, donkeys, 
 baskets, waggons, garden stuff, meat," etc. etc. The farmers 
 also that we meet at Salisbury market seem almost to be 
 of a different type from any other we meet in England.
 
 MA R TIN CHUZZLE WIT. 1 7 1 
 
 It was the writer's fortune to dine at a farmers' ordinary 
 in the city, and though, when he happened to ask a ques- 
 tion, he received an intelligible answer, the farmers, when 
 they spoke among themselves, used a patois that was 
 literally quite as if it had been the language one might 
 expect to hear on market day in Dalmatia or Herzegovina. 
 Somerset dialect, or Yorkshire, or even Lancashire, one 
 may in an hour or two become familiar with, or at any 
 rate it is possible to know what the conversation is about 
 even if one could not exactly join in it with credit ; but I 
 endeavoured to listen to the farmers, who spoke quite 
 audibly, and in one hour I did not recognise a single 
 word they spoke — literally not one single word, whether 
 it was yes or no. Yet, when they addressed me, whatever 
 they said was clear enough, and in good English. 
 
 Tom Pinch might or might not have found the same 
 difficulty, but he saw just the same scenes that any one 
 now may witness if their business or their pleasure leads 
 them to Salisbury on a Tuesday or a Saturday. " There 
 were young farmers and old farmers, with smock frocks, 
 brown great-coats, drab great-coats, red worsted comforters, 
 leather leggings, wonderful -shaped hats, hunting whips, 
 and rough sticks, standing about in groups or talking 
 noisily together on tavern steps, or paying and receiving 
 huge amounts of greasy wealth with the assistance of such 
 bulky pocket-books, that when they were in their pockets 
 it was apoplexy to get them out, and when they were out 
 spasms to get them in again. Also there were farmers'
 
 172 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 wiv^es in beaver bonnets and red cloaks, riding shaggy- 
 horses purged of all earthly passions, who went soberly 
 into all manner of places without desiring to know why, 
 and who, if required, would have stood stock-still in a 
 china shop with a complete dinner service at each hoof 
 Also a great many dogs that were strongly interested in 
 the state of the market and the bargains of their masters ; 
 and a great confusion of tongues, both brute and human." 
 
 Then we have Pinch's journey among the booths, and 
 his wonder at the cutlery and all the tempting wares of 
 the itinerant vendors, and his purchase of a sevcn-bladed 
 knife, of which none of the blades would cut. Then he 
 wandered along High Street and the market square, look- 
 ing in at the shop windows, after taking a long and 
 wondering look at the bank, which must be the Wilts and 
 Dorset banking house, and wondering in which direction 
 the caverns ran that contained the bullion. There were 
 book-shops, with Qiiarll and his Host of Imitators, Robin- 
 son Crnsoe, The Arabian Nights; and this poor Tom 
 found to be the most trying shop of all. Then he sur- 
 veyed the theatre with awe, which was not diminished 
 when a sallow man with long hair came out and told a 
 boy to run home and fetch his broadsword. 
 
 There is a beautiful little episode here on Salisbury 
 Cathedral, Tom Pinch was of a musical turn, and used, 
 indeed, to play the organ on Sundays at the church in the 
 small country town where, as Pecksniff said to old Martin 
 Chuzzlewit, he " took the liberty of dwelling." Whenever
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 173 
 
 he performed Mr. Pecksniff used from his square pew to 
 look quite benevolently at the congregation, for poor Tom 
 was so entirely like a piece of property belonging to him- 
 self that he somehow gradually came to believe that it 
 was he who played upon the organ, and, as the performance 
 was gratuitous, he fancied that he was conferring a great 
 boon upon the congregation, and felt very benevolent. 
 The organist's assistant at Salisbury was a friend of 
 Pinch's, and when he went to the cathedral it was his 
 great delight to listen to his performances, and join in the 
 matins or vespers, as the case might be. "He had been, 
 like Tom, an old fashioned boy at school, though well 
 liked by the noisy fellows too ;" and on the afternoon 
 when Tom went it so happened that the assistant was on 
 duty all alone, and there was no one in the dusty organ- 
 loft but Tom and his friend. 
 
 The organ 'was the gift of George III., and it greatly 
 interfered with the perspective of the cathedral in Pinch's 
 time. The organ screen was there then, and it was not 
 in good taste, but Wyatt, who designed it, was better 
 versed in classical architecture than Gothic. " Tom helped 
 him with the stops ; and finally, the service being over, 
 Tom took the organ himself. It was then turning dark, 
 and the yellow light that streamed in through the ancient 
 windows in the choir was mingled with a murky red. As 
 the grand tones resounded through the church they 
 seemed to Tom to find an echo in the depth of every 
 ancient tomb." The farmers had jogged homewards,
 
 174 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and left Salisbury quiet, when Tom repaired to the inn in 
 High Street and sat down to his dinner, " a well-cooked 
 steak and smoking hot potatoes," and this was flanked by 
 cheese and celery, and a jug of mighty Wiltshire ale, till 
 the new pupil, Martin Chuzzlewit, arrived, and they took 
 their journey home across the southern part of Salisbury 
 plain to Pecksniff's residence. Once more the road they 
 traversed is brought up again in the narrative, and that 
 with equal interest. There is something always fascinating 
 about Salisbury Plain. The great remains at Stonehenge 
 were of venerable antiquity even a thousand years 
 before William the Conqueror set his foot upon English 
 soil, and the great stretches of unenclosed waste make one 
 wonder why pains are not taken to bring so many almost 
 wasted miles into cultivation. Then again Salisbury 
 plain is connected in our reading with extinct fauna ; 
 the bustard used to roam at will over it, and indeed it 
 was the author's good fortune to see two of the splendid 
 birds in 1871, perhaps good fortune is hardly, under the 
 circumstances, the right word, for they had been shot by a 
 gamekeeper, and were sent in to Salisbury. Surely one 
 thinks the benefit of the law should be extended to these 
 almost extinct birds, and the {q.\v specimens that are left 
 might be rigidly protected. 
 
 Before Salisbury was again visited is narrated the 
 journey to London which Pecksniff took to see his 
 relative, Martin Chuzzlewit. The old miser had sent for 
 him, and pretended that he wished to remember him and
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 175 
 
 his daughters in his will, and even paid his expenses, 
 while Pecksniff was an easy bait, and arranged that he 
 should live at his house in Wiltshire. The Pecksniff 
 family went by the heavy coach to Salisbury through 
 Andover, Leverstock, Basingstoke, and Bagshot. De- 
 lightful enough the road was in summer weather, but on a 
 winter's night the inside of the coach was inferior in com- 
 fort to the inside of a railway carriage, — even an ordinary 
 third-class one, such as we see now in the principal lines 
 in England ; and Dickens has left records of the travelling 
 by coaches in nearly all of his works. " The night wore 
 away in the usual manner . . . the coach stopped and 
 went on, and went on and stopped times out of number. 
 Passengers got up and passengers got down, and fresh 
 horses came and went, and came and went again with 
 scarcely any interval between each team as it seemed to 
 those who were broad awake." On this road the horses 
 were often changed after a run of seven miles ; but all 
 journeys came to an end, and at last Pecksniff, looking out 
 of the window, said, in language that any one would be apt 
 to use without the fear of Lindley Murray before his eyes, 
 " Now it is to-morrow morning, and we are there." Soon 
 after the coach stopped at the office, where Pecksniff had 
 the luggage left, and, taking a daughter under each arm, 
 he managed, with much more dexterity than we should 
 have given him credit for, to dive " across the street, and 
 then across other streets, and so up the cjueerest courts, 
 and down the strangest alleys, and under the blindest
 
 176 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 archways, in a kind of frenzy — now thinking he had lost 
 his way, now thinking he had found it — until at length 
 they stopped at a kind of paved yard near the monument 
 before a very dingy house " — and this house was Todgers' 
 boarding-house. Todgers' seems to have been in a kind of 
 labyrinth that nobody could be certain about finding, and 
 some guests who had occasionally been asked to dine at 
 Todgers' are said to have wandered round and round the 
 boardinsf-house and become so lost in the maze of streets 
 that they have finally discovered their bearings by some 
 steeple or distant object, and struck some highway they 
 knew, and with relieved feelings recovered their homes. 
 There is a district between Trinity Square, the Minories, 
 and Crutched Friars that possibly corresponds in some 
 measure with the district that is alluded to as Todgers', 
 but it is doubtful if Dickens had any precise spot in his 
 mind ; the description is simply a very good one of many 
 parts which lie between St. Katherine's Docks and White- 
 chapel. There was the staircase window which tradition 
 said had not been opened for a century, and the cellar 
 which had no connection with the house, " and which was 
 reported to be full of wealth, though in what shape — 
 whether in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine, or casks 
 of gunpowder — was matter of profound uncertainty and 
 supreme indifference to Todgers and all its inmates." 
 
 But the " observatory on the top of the house was 
 not the least characteristic part of the establishment. It 
 contained posts and fragments of rotten lines once in-
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 177 
 
 tended to dry clothes upon ; and there were two or three 
 tea-chests out there with forgotten plants in them like old 
 walking-sticks. Whoever climbed to this observatory was 
 stunned at first from having knocked his head against the 
 little door in coming out, and, after that, was for the 
 moment choked from having looked perforce straight 
 down the kitchen chimney." But, as Dickens says, when 
 once the summit was reached the sight was a very remark- 
 able one. There were miles of housetops to gaze at if the 
 day were bright, and the great monument which Wren put 
 up, and steeples, towers, and belfries rose above the smoky 
 atmosphere with shining vanes, and a whole forest of ships' 
 masts. 
 
 It was while staying at Todgers that Pecksniff received 
 the memorable rebuff from the wealthy brassfounder, at 
 whose house Tom Pinch's sister was a governess. He had 
 consented, in the height of his benevolence, to take some 
 little parcel from her brother to her, and his daughters, 
 under protest, as it were, consented to accompany their 
 philanthropic father. A one-horse fly was hired, and, 
 crossing London Bridge, they passed all the old inns that 
 Dickens delighted in, and, driving through Newington and 
 Walworth Road, they finally arrived, after a drive of a 
 little more than two miles, at Camberwell. The descrip- 
 tion of the great brassfounder's residence is so well told 
 that it must be quoted. It was " so big and fierce that 
 its mere outside, like the outside of a giant's castle, struck 
 terror into the vulgar minds, and made bold persons quail. 
 
 N
 
 178 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 There \vas a great front gate with a great bell, whose 
 handle was in itself a note of admiration ; and a great 
 lodge, which, being rather close to the house, rather spoilt 
 the look-out, certainly, but made the look-in tremendous. 
 At this entr\' a great porter kept constant watch and ward, 
 and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang 
 a second bell, responsive to whose note a great footman 
 appeared in due time at the great hall door." The pre- 
 cise tone of a London footman is well hit off here. Miss 
 Pinch, as may be supposed, had but few visitors, and this 
 caused a momentary difficulty with the official who had 
 to announce the Pecksniffs. If it had been visitors for 
 the family they would have been announced with cold 
 respect, or if for the cook they would have been ushered 
 in with a warm, personal interest. But, rising to the 
 occasion, the skilful adherent just hit off the happy 
 medium, and finally introduced the members of the 
 Pecksniff family into a small room in the mansion. Miss 
 Pinch's pupil made her appearance, and though not per- 
 haps a very engaging young lady, she was, on account of 
 her great expectations, embraced and flattered by all the 
 visitors. 
 
 " A sweet face, my dears," said ]\Ir. Pecksniff, turning 
 to his daughters ; "a charming manner!" and then, pro- 
 ducing a professional card, he begged of the young lady 
 to assure her " distinguished parents " that, so far from 
 intruding, he merely called to take some notice of Miss 
 Pinch, whose brother was in his employ ; but at the same
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWir. 179 
 
 time he could not leave the chaste and elegant mansion 
 without adding his testimony as an architect, however 
 humble, to the correctness and elegance of the owner's 
 taste, etc. etc. Then, as they left, Mr. Pecksniff in loud 
 terms expatiated upon the beauty of all the interior 
 arrangements and furniture of the hall and passages ; and, 
 indeed, by the time he had reached the front door he had 
 delivered quite a compendious lecture upon internal house 
 decoration. He was proceeding in the same strain to 
 canvass the exterior of the building, and \\o\\' the fluted 
 Ionic well matched the console cornice and the window 
 pediments with their dentils, when a window was thrown 
 up, and the great apostle of art, with his well-trained 
 daughters, thought the climax had now come, and the 
 wealthy proprietor would arrest his exit by the lodge 
 until he could come down to welcome the great man. 
 But, alas for the vanity of human expectations ! All that 
 Pecksniff heard was a peremptory order to " keep off the 
 grass !" Not hearing the first command, Mr. Pecksniff 
 merely took off his hat, saying — 
 
 " ' Your servant, sir ; I am proud to make your 
 acquaintance.' 
 
 " ' Come off the grass, will you !' roared the gentleman. 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon, sir,' said ]\Ir. Pecksniff, doubtful 
 of his having heard aright ; ' did you ?' 
 
 " * Come off the grass !' repeated the gentleman warmly. 
 
 " ' We are unwilling to intrude, sir,' Mr. Pecksniff 
 smilingly began.
 
 i8o ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 "' But you arc intruding, — unwarrantably intruding, — 
 trespassing. You see a gravel walk, don't you ? What 
 do you think it's meant for? Open the gate. Show that 
 party out.' " 
 
 This is really a charming scene, but it is probable that 
 the brassfounder knew a little more of Mr. Pecksniff than 
 the latter supposed. 
 
 The young ladies were more apt to fit themselves to 
 London life than might have been expected from such 
 recruits from a remote Wiltshire town, and were soon the 
 life and soul of Todgers' boarding-house, even though it 
 seemed to have numbered among its guests young gentle- 
 men who believed they were, and perhaps really were, fit 
 to be trusted alone in London. 
 
 The old-established firm of Anthony Chuzzlewat and 
 Son, Manchester warehousemen, " had its place of business 
 in a very narrow street somewhere behind the post-office," 
 and in this street every house was gloomy, even on the 
 brightest June morning ; and in the hot dog-days each 
 light porter watered the pavement before his master's 
 premises with fantastic patterns from a water-can. We 
 can yet see, in other parts of London, in nearly all the 
 streets that run up from the river-side, some such other 
 premises ; and, ^v•hat may seem almost out of place, we 
 also see " spruce gentlemen, with their hands in the pockets 
 of symmetrical trousers, contemplating their undeniable 
 boots, in dusty warehouse doorways, which appeared to 
 be the hardest work they did, except now and then carr)--
 
 MA R TIN CIIUZZLE J 17 T. 1 8 1 
 
 ing pens behind their ears." And indeed it may seem 
 singular to man}/ visitors to London how frequently great 
 industries are represented with hardly a sign of life. The 
 smallest cutlery establishment in Sheffield or Birmingham, 
 and the most unpretending of mills in either Manchester 
 or Oldham or Rochdale, makes twenty times as much 
 show and bustle as some of the greatest financial centres 
 in London. 
 
 " A dim, dirty, smoky, tumble-down, rotten old house 
 it was as anybody would desire to see, but the firm of 
 Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son transacted all their business 
 and their pleasure, too, such as it was ; for neither the 
 young man nor the old had any other residence, or any 
 other care or thought beyond its narrow limits." 
 
 There was a grim humour in old Martin Chuzzlewit, 
 who inveigled Pecksniff into being his host under the 
 idea that he really believed him to be quite a single- 
 minded relative, and had no designs at all upon his 
 accumulated wealth. 
 
 All the scenes in London are life-like, and speak of a 
 very different city from that we now know. But the 
 time came at last when the Pecksniffs must part from 
 their friends and the lodgers at the boarding-house whom 
 the ladies had captivated. Mrs. Todgers took a regretful 
 farewell of them, and even a more tender leave of the 
 great architect, who, as it would seem, had been more 
 than gracious to her. But the coach knew of no delay, 
 and as the horn sounded the young ladies lay back in
 
 1 82 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 their respective corners with melancholy reflections upon 
 the close of their holiday. Their worthy parent, however, 
 had fallen into old Martin Chuzzlewit's easy snare, and 
 was reflecting upon the most summary way of dislodging 
 his grandson as the coach rolled along through the plea- 
 sant lanes of Berkshire and Hampshire to their dwelling- 
 place. 
 
 The two young men in Pecksniff's office little knew 
 the storm that was brewing as the great and good man 
 was approaching the Wiltshire village, and in happy 
 ignorance they received Mr. Westlock's invitation to dine 
 with him at Salisbury. He, too, had been a pupil of Mr. 
 Pecksniff's, and found out the manner of man he was, 
 but his time of service was over, and he had inherited a 
 competence, and most naturally asked his well-tried friend, 
 Tom Pinch, to come to the long-promised dinner at Salis- 
 bury and to bring the new pupil, Martin Chuzzlewit. 
 
 Mr. Pecksniff's horse was regarded as a kind of sacred 
 animal, that could only be used by him or by some one 
 duly commissioned by him, so both Pinch and Martin 
 Chuzzlewit decided to go on foot to Salisbury. It was a 
 grand walk on a cold day. The distance was eight miles, 
 and as they left their dwelling the milestones fairly came 
 and went, as though no distance had intervened between 
 them. But when, as Dickens says, " ' the towers of the 
 old cathedral ' rose up before them a fall of snow had set 
 in, and they came into the 'sheltered streets' as if they 
 were walking upon a \\hitc carpet."
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLE WIT. 1 83 
 
 The inn they went to was not the homely one where 
 Pinch first met Martin Chuzzlewit, but another ; and from 
 the description we have very Httle difficulty in identif}'inj^ 
 the Angel. It was winter time, so that nearly everything 
 was in season, and " the hall was a very grove of dead 
 game and dangling joints of mutton." They could also 
 recognise " an illustrious larder, with glass doors, develop- 
 ing cold fowls and noble joints." 
 
 Nothing can exceed, in a few words, the description 
 given of a comfortable room filled with all appliances for 
 a pleasant evening which Dickens gives of the private 
 dining-room at the Angel. " In a room with all the 
 window curtains drawn, a fire piled half-way up the 
 chimney, plates warming before it, wax: candles gleaming 
 everywhere, and a table spread for three, with silver and 
 glass enough for thirty." This was the picture that pre- 
 sented itself to the two new friends after their walk of 
 eight miles on a frosty evening. 
 
 There is a graphic little description of the London 
 coach coming down to Salisbury as the two friends, Tom 
 and Martin, for such they had become, waited for Mr. 
 Pecksniff on his road from London. As we may often 
 see on frosty days in early winter, the premature frost 
 had given way to rain, and nothing is more splashy than 
 a December thaw, and, as Dickens has observed, it rained 
 hard. Perhaps in the interest which is excited by the 
 arrival of the virtuous architect at the lane which joined 
 the Andover road and the meeting between him and the
 
 1 84 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 somewhat selfish though by no means unkindly Chuzzle- 
 wit junior, the description of waiting for a coach on a 
 winter's morning may be overlooked. 
 
 But for all this it is very graphic. We all know how 
 interested we feel in waiting at some by-station for a 
 stopping train, and if it is a winter's night and we seek 
 the fire in the waiting-room, our repose is brief. The 
 station-master tells us that our train is a quarter of an hour 
 late, but the goods train that backs up into a siding to 
 make way for the express, and the frightful steam whist- 
 ling, render quietude all but impossible. In old coaching 
 days it was different, and if we were waiting for a four-in- 
 hand there was little fear of the vehicle being missed. 
 Pinch and Martin were at the finger-post half-an-hour be- 
 fore the time the London coach was due. " It was not 
 by any means a lovely morning, for the sky was black 
 and cloudy, and it rained hard," and Mr. Chuzzlewit's 
 temper was so severely tried that his equanimity quite left 
 him, " for while he and Mr. Pinch stood waiting under a 
 hedge, looking at the rain, the gig, the cart, and its reek- 
 ing driver, he did nothing but grumble ; and but that it 
 was indispensable that there should be two parties to any 
 dispute he would certainly have picked a quarrel with 
 Tom. 
 
 " At length the noise of wheels was faintly audible in 
 the distance, and presently the coach came splashing 
 through mud and mire with one miserable outside 
 passenger crouching down among wet straw under a
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEIVIT, 
 
 saturated umbrella, and the coachman, guard, and horses 
 in a fellowship of dripping wretchedness." There is some- 
 thing, however, in this outward phase of coach travelling 
 that has its picturesque side. The four bays brought to 
 a stand-still, steaming and breathing loudly, and the glare 
 of the coach-lamps making the surrounding darkness more 
 intense — then we knew that in a few moments the horses 
 would start off at a gallop, and be quite lost in the dark- 
 ness, guided not by rails laid down with mechanical 
 precision, but by the steady hand, and the keen eye of the 
 coachman. 
 
 The trip to America hardly falls within the limits of 
 the present work, except indeed in so far as the setting 
 off from Liverpool is concerned, but of this Dickens says 
 very little. At the time he wrote, nearly all the emigrant 
 traffic was in the hands of the Americans, and it was im- 
 possible to walk along the Liverpool docks, especially from 
 the " Prince's " to the " Trafalgar," without being struck 
 with the great number of flags that bore the stars and 
 stripes ; again and again have I wandered along the quays, 
 some few years after Chuzzlewit was written, and been 
 struck as a boy with this ; but the American ships were 
 better models, more neatly kept, and far more intelligently 
 commanded than our own. They taught us our business, 
 as we may say, and if, like England, they had struck off 
 all shackles from shipowners, they would indeed have been 
 formidable rivals, and of the twelve steamers that leave 
 Liverpool for America w^eekly, it could hardly have been
 
 1 86 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 said that every one was built and owned in England. 
 But if a change has come over the harbours of England, 
 we can recognise another and a much more important one 
 in the cities of America, and that since the great civil war 
 has ended. When Martin landed with his faithful hench- 
 man Tapley in New York, he was taken possession of by 
 a journalist, who treated him hospitably enough, but, to 
 quote Dickens again, Martin was greeted by " Here's the 
 Sewer — the New York Sewer ! Here's the Sewer's ex- 
 posure of the Wall Street gang. Here's the Sewer's article 
 upon the Judge that tried him day afore yesterday for 
 libel, and the Sewer's tribute to the independent jury that 
 did not convict him, and the Sewer's account of what they 
 might have expected if they had. Here's the wide-awake 
 Sewer now in its twelfth thousand, and still a printing off. 
 Herd's the New York Sewer." 
 
 " It is by such enlightened means that the bubbling 
 passions of my country find a vent," said Colonel Diver, 
 who was the editor of the N'ciu York Rozvdy Journal to 
 Martin Chuzzlewit, as he invited him to see the offices of 
 the great journal, and partake of a bottle of Champagne 
 of his own importation, which bottle increased from one to 
 three as the morning passed. The introduction to Jefferson 
 Brick, the "war correspondent" of the journal, was as 
 follows — " You have heard of Mr. Jefferson Brick, I see, 
 sir," quoth the Colonel with a smile. "England has heard of 
 Jefferson Brick, Europe has heard of Jefferson Brick ;" and 
 in repl}-, when Martin began to apologise for his ignorance,
 
 MARTIN CHUZZLE WIT. 187 
 
 he was quickly stopped by the Colonel, " Oh, )'ou Euro- 
 peans ! I have reason to know, sir, that the aristocratic 
 circles of your country quail before the name of Jefferson 
 Brick," etc. etc. 
 
 Now, at one time Jefferson Brick had some sort of 
 a prototype in America, and if the picture we see in 
 Dickens is somewhat over coloured, it is not more so than 
 many others of characters that are drawn from English 
 life, like "the Shepherd," or Sam Weller, or Sergeant Buz- 
 fuz. But the Americans are quite a changed people, it is 
 a pleasant thing to record, since the days of Mr. Brick. 
 There is much less of inflated language, and, as the writer 
 can speak from personal knowledge of the country, both 
 before and after the war, he may add that the national 
 character is so much improved, and so raised, and Ameri- 
 cans are so much more worthy of their traditions and their 
 flag, that they might adopt for their motto, "per castra ad 
 astra " with more aptness than the words were ever used. 
 
 Kingsgate Street, where the immortal Mrs. Gamp 
 resided, has altered but little from its old form. It runs 
 from High Holborn to Queen's Square, and is yet so well 
 supplied with barber's shops and very small traders, that 
 one might almost fancy it must needs depend for its sub- 
 sistence upon the outside world ; }^et let there only be any 
 commotion in it — let a policeman, for example, have a 
 difference with some resident or wayfarer, and the popu- 
 lation that suddenly appears is something amazing. 
 Eastern travellers tell us how, when a camel or goat or
 
 i88 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 any other animal of the desert has paid the debt of nature, 
 and lies on the gravelly sands, that troops of vultures, 
 unseen before, appear on the confines and cover the 
 remains of the carcase ; and when some excitement appears 
 in Kingsgate Street it is not too much to say that it would 
 hardly be possible to follow the channels through which 
 the expectant crowd blocks up the roadway. As I hap- 
 pened to pass through it two ladies who resided there 
 would seem to have had a difference, or at any rate they 
 were expecting one, for they were addressing each other 
 in terms of such studious politeness, quite diplomatic 
 indeed, that it was clear the protocols before an engage- 
 ment were going on, and doors began to unlatch slowly, 
 and at intervals, though they soon would be all as open as 
 the doors of an excursion train ten minutes before its time 
 of starting. The combinations in the nineteenth chapter 
 are humorous. Pecksniff, mistaken for Mr. Whilks w^hen 
 he knocked at the door, and hearing, " Don't say it's you, 
 Mr. Whilks, and that poor creetur Mrs. Whilks, with not 
 even a pincushion ready. Don't say its you, Mr. Whilks!" 
 
 " It isn't Mr. Whilks," said Pecksniff. " I don't know 
 the man. Nothing of the kind. A gentleman is dead, and 
 some person being wanted in the house you have been 
 recommended by Mr. Mould, the undertaker," 
 
 Mrs. Gamp with her large bundle, " a pair of pattens, 
 and a species of gig umbrella, the latter article in colour 
 like a faded leaf, except where a circular patch of lively 
 blue had been dexterously let in at the top." But the
 
 MA /i TIN CHUZZL E WIT. 
 
 189 
 
 finest humour is where Mrs. Gamp in her measure hits off 
 Pecksniff's vein 
 and morahses 
 to him in the 
 cab. She was 
 the more estim- 
 able party of the 
 two, possibly 
 a little more 
 honest, but at 
 any rate she was 
 able to boast of 
 a better know- 
 ledge of her 
 own profession 
 than Pecksniff 
 had of his. The 
 scene is almost 
 as full of hum- 
 our as Harry 
 Foker's meeting 
 with Major Pen- 
 dennis at the 
 coffee-room of 
 the George Inn, 
 Beymouth,when 
 he suddenly 
 woke up after 
 
 MRS. GA.MI- 
 
 ,A'ii-; .sTicKi-,r.
 
 I90 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 his dinner and found the Major sitting with his usual 
 dignity, and entered upon a conversation with him in such 
 familiar terms that his biographer is constrained to say 
 that there were moments in his hfe when he would have 
 " winked at the Duke of Wellington." 
 
 As for Mrs. Gamp, she was " like most persons who 
 have attained to great eminence in their profession, she 
 took to hers very kindly ; insomuch that, setting aside her 
 natural predilections as a woman," she attended a birth 
 or a death with quite an equal amount of zest and relish. 
 
 " And so the gentleman's dead, sir ! The more's the 
 pity." She did not even know his name. " But it's what 
 we must all come to ; it's as certain as being born ;" and 
 then, being quite a match for Mr. Pecksniff even at his 
 own weapons, and also being of much more humorous turn, 
 she informed the stately architect how, " When Gamp was 
 summoned to his long home,and she see him a-l\-ing in Guy's 
 Hospital with a penny-piece on each eye, and his wooden 
 leg under his left arm, she thought she should have fainted 
 away, but she bore up;" and this would seem true if the ru- 
 mours in Kingsgate Street were founded in fact ; for Mrs. 
 Gamp had comported herself with such fortitude that she dis- 
 posed of the remains of her deceased husband for the benefit 
 of science. A drive of ten or twelve minutes brought them 
 back to Chuzzclwit's, where Mrs. Gamp's professional 
 duties commenced. Kingsgate Street is also the scene of 
 the memorable quarrel between Mrs. Gamp and Betsy 
 Prigg, in which the latter was certainly in the wrong.
 
 aMARTIN CHUZZLFAVIT. 191 
 
 The Bull Inn, Holborn, where Mrs. Gamp attended Mr. 
 Lewsome, yet stands, though it seems to be not quite in 
 as flourishing a condition as it was when she ministered 
 to the wants of the apparently dying man. He took his 
 draughts regularly, the experienced nurse said, and indeed 
 her system of administering one was so simple that 
 much trouble was saved with her patients. It consisted 
 of " clutching them by the windpipe till they gasped," 
 and immediately pouring out the quantity which was 
 mentioned in the prescription. Indeed, she told the 
 doctor when he called in the morning, and inquired 
 whether he had taken his medicine regularly, that while 
 either she or Betsy Prigg were in attendance there was 
 " no fear of that." 
 
 Of Mr. Tigg Montague's career it is not too much to 
 say that it was at once considered too absurd and over- 
 drawn when it appeared. The Anglo-Bengalee Loan 
 and Life Assurance Company, with its great brass an- 
 nouncement looking " bolder than the Bank ;" " the 
 offices newly plastered, newly papered, newly painted, 
 newly countered, newly floor-clothed, etc., with goods that 
 were substantial and expensive, and designed like the 
 company to last," would hardly be needed now ; there is 
 a somewhat less expensive way of making a show of 
 capital. But when Tigg Montague, for he had now 
 reversed his name, explained to Jonas Chuzzlewit, who 
 was as simple in knavery as honest men are in fair deal- 
 ing, that the system was this : " B is a little tradesman
 
 192 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 who wants a loan, — say fifty or a hundred pounds, 
 perhaps more, — no matter. B proposes self and two 
 securities. B is accepted. Two securities give a bond. 
 B assures his own life for double the amount, and brings 
 two friends' lives also, just to patronise the office. 
 
 " Besides charging B the regular interest we get B's 
 premium, and B's friends' premiums ; and we charge B 
 for the bond ; and whether we accept it or not we charge 
 B for inquiries — and in short we stick it into B up hill 
 and down dale, and make a devilish comfortable little 
 property out of him." This is almost exactly the system 
 that was pursued in a very notorious office in Chancery 
 Lane, which came to a sudden ending in consequence of 
 a professional gentleman, who was not to be trifled with, 
 applying for some temporary loan, and being in a suffi- 
 ciently independent position to demand a scrutiny of their 
 affairs. 
 
 Fountain Court has altered since the days when Tom 
 Pinch used to meet his sister Ruth. She had walked 
 briskly all the way from her lodgings, and now she crosses 
 Fleet Street, dodging the cabs and omnibuses, enters the 
 Temple Gate, and passes down the lane into Fountain 
 Court — there to wait for her brother. The Temple 
 figures again in Martin Chuzzlcwit at the climax of the 
 story, when old Martin Chuzzlewit appears in his true 
 colours, and Pecksniff is treated in the way that his 
 assumption and fawning hypocrisy merit. 
 
 London Bridcre is airain introduced in this book — for
 
 MARTI X CHUZZLEWIT. 
 
 193 
 
 it had a fascination for Dickens. It was a bright morn- 
 inci. when Tom who had come out with Ruth for an 
 
 FOLNTAIN COURT, TE.Ml'LE. 
 
 early stroll before the commencement of the day's work. 
 " There the steamboats lay alongside of each other ; hard 
 and fast for ever, to all appearance, but designing to get 
 out somehow, and quite confident of doing it ; and in 
 that faith shoals of passengers, and heaps of luggage, were 
 proceeding hurriedly on board. Little steamboats dashed 
 up and down the stream incessantly. Tiers upon tiers of 
 vessels, scores of masts, lab}'rinths of tackle, idle sails, 
 
 O
 
 194 ABOUT E y GLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 splashing oars, gliding row-boats, lumbering barges, sunken 
 piles, with ugly lodgings for the water-rat within their 
 mud-discoloured nooks; church-steeples, warehouses, house 
 roofs, arches, bridges, etc. etc., were all jumbled up to- 
 gether, bc\'ond Tom's powers of separation."
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 195 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. ' 
 
 In some respects the Old Curiosity Shop is the most dis- 
 couraging of all the works that Dickens has written, to 
 illustrate with a pencil, because he has left little beyond 
 descriptions of places and English scenes, without even 
 indicating their whereabouts. Even the shop itself has 
 disappeared, and Mr. Vanderhoof has adopted, very happily, 
 another establishment of a similar character, and one that 
 certainly would seem to fill all the requirements of the 
 residence of little Nell and her grandfather. Those who 
 are acquainted with the Holborn district will have no 
 difficulty in remembering the original. When Kit had 
 children six and seven years old he used to take them to 
 see the place where the house had stood ; " but it had 
 long been pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its 
 place. At first he would draw with his stick a square 
 upon the ground to show them where it used to stand. 
 But he soon became uncertain of the spot, and could only 
 say it was thereabouts, he thought, and these alterations 
 were confusing." The old gentleman who tells the story
 
 196 ABOUT EXGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 in the first chapter gives some indication of the kind of 
 place it was, but none of the direction in which it lay. 
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOK 
 
 Some descriptions in this chapter are v^ery beautiful. 
 " Covent Garden Market at sunrise, too, in the spring or 
 summer, when the fragrance ot sweet flowers is in the air, 
 overpowering the unwholesome streams of last night's 
 debauchery, and driving the dusky thrush, w^iose cage has 
 hung outside the garret window, half mad with joy. Poor
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 197 
 
 bird, the only neighbouring thing at all akin to the other 
 little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot 
 hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path 
 alread}', while others, sodden by close contact, await the 
 time when they shall be watered up to please more sober 
 company, and make old clerks, who pass them on their 
 road to business, wonder what has filled their breasts with 
 visions of the countr)'." Though indeed the market 
 stands in such strange and unfit surroundings, it cheers 
 many a denizen of the city, and reminds him of sunny 
 skies, and shady lanes, and broad gardens. David 
 Copperfield speaks of the delight with which he strolled 
 into Covent Garden Market to look at the pine apples, 
 after he had inspected the windows of a venison shop in 
 Fleet Street. Yet what a picture we have of it, our 
 mutual friend. " The market of Covent Garden was 
 quite out of the creature's line of road, but it had the 
 attraction for him that it has for the worst of the solitary 
 members of the drunken tribe. It may be the companion- 
 ship of the gin and beer that slip about among carters 
 and hucksters, or it may be the companionship of the 
 trodden vegetable refuse, which is so like their own dress 
 that perhaps they take the market for a great wardrobe ; 
 but be it what it may, you shall see no such individual 
 drunkards on doorsteps anywhere as there. Of dozing 
 women drunkards especially, you shall come upon such 
 specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you might 
 seek out of doors in vain throujjh London."
 
 198 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 " There is a swarm of young savages always flitting 
 about this same place, creeping off with fragments of 
 orange chests and mouldy litter — Heaven know^s into 
 what holes they convey them, having no homes ! — whose 
 bare feet fall with a blunt dull softness on the pavement 
 as the policeman hunts them." 
 
 Dickens has many, allusions to Covent Garden Market 
 in various of his works, and there is no place where the 
 variety of character, which he could so readily hit off, is 
 better adapted for study. Alton Locke speaks of the 
 sound of lumbering wheels that met his w^akcful ears all 
 through the night, as the string of heavy waggons followed 
 one after the other with country produce, and he used to 
 go to the garret window where he lived to contemplate 
 them, and the country delights that in his fancy they 
 had left. Such feelings are common to thousands who 
 pass by Covent Garden on an early summer or spring 
 morning, w^hen the demand for vegetables is unlimited at 
 the West End and the City. The loads these waggons 
 bear is enormous, and it is no uncommon sight to see 
 the cauliflowers and cabbages and turnips built up to a 
 height of twelve or thirteen feet from the carrying planks 
 of the waggon ; indeed the work of packing must have 
 been performed by very practised hands, or else the high 
 load would never have reached its destination ; but the 
 vegetables are as neatly piled as the ashlar or the bricks 
 in a carefully - built wall. As the vehicles begin to 
 unload, the shandries and light trucks of the green-
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 199 
 
 grocers from every quarter of London put in an 
 appearance, and the vast piles of produce melt away ; a 
 skirmishing and active contingent of costermongers' carts 
 close in as the light traps of greengrocers retire, and in a 
 short time the market has settled down to its usual 
 routine of business ; for of course the stall-keepers there 
 are among the purchasers just the same as the owners of 
 the vans. 
 
 The flowers arrive later, and are soon divided among 
 customers. And as Mr. Dickens has said in his Guide 
 to London before quoted, " There are hundreds of women 
 and girls among the crowd purchasing bunches of roses, 
 violets, and other flowers, and then sitting down on the 
 steps of the church or of the houses round the market 
 dividing the large bunches into smaller ones, or making 
 those pretty button-hole bouquets in which our London 
 flower-girls can now fairly hold their own in point of 
 taste with those of France or Italy." Yet so fresh are the 
 vegetables, and years of skill have done so much to 
 retain their freshness, that gentlemen who live near 
 London, and at great care attend to their gardens, 
 sadly admit that the best and by far the cheapest garden 
 near London is Covent Garden. 
 
 The old gentleman, who appears but once in the old 
 curiosity shop, describes the premises, and when he met 
 the still older grandfather of Nell, to whom he consigned 
 her after she had lost her way, described the shop as 
 " one of those receptacles for old and curious things which
 
 200 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 seem to crouch in odd corners of this town, and to hide 
 their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and 
 distrust. There were suits of mail standing like ghosts 
 in armour here and there ; fantastic carvings brought 
 from monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds ; 
 distorted figures in china, and wood, and iron, and ivory ; 
 tapestry and strange furniture that might have been 
 designed in dreams." Such establishments have long 
 disappeared, and the treasures that Nell's grandfather 
 owned within the confines of the old curiosity shop would 
 now, in a much more important establishment at the West 
 End of London, realise him abundant wealth, even enough 
 to satisfy his intentions towards his grand-daughter. 
 
 These old curiosity shops yet remain in ancient 
 English cities, especially if they are resorted to by 
 visitors, but even among these such collections as those 
 which Mr. Trent had gathered together about him 
 would now command a much higher value than they 
 would have done of old. In Chester there are a number 
 of old curiosity shops, and they are much frequented by 
 American purchasers. One or two of the principal ones 
 have occasional suits of armour, and china ornaments, 
 and punch-bowls of forgotten age and design, and many 
 examples of every kind of chest and press — all of them 
 more or less genuine and authentic. Some of these 
 antique stores arc of a humbler type, but seem to drive 
 a fine business. Chairs are bought up from farm-houses 
 at prices that continually are rising, and these are carved
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 
 all over. Chester would furnish some perfect pictures 
 of the old curiosity shops that Dickens drew, for some 
 of these are ancient buildings themselves, with carved 
 gables and overhanging fronts, and decorated outside 
 with the quaintest of carved panels. The profits of old 
 Mr. Trent's magazine were not enough, apparently, for 
 the expectations of the old man, and he betook himself 
 to the fatal avenues of the gaming-table to increase his 
 stores; — with what result need not even be chronicled. Of 
 course his accumulations — for he would seem himself at 
 one time to have acquired some wealth — were soon swept 
 away, as were also the sums he could extract from Ouilp. 
 There is little indication of the direction which little 
 Nell and her worthless grandfather took, but it is prett}' 
 clear that it must have been to the East of London. 
 "The town was glad with morning light ; places that 
 show ugly and distrustful all night long now wore a 
 smile, and sparkling sunbeams, dancing in chamber 
 windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before 
 sleepers' eyes, shed light into dreams, and chased away 
 the shadow of the night. Birds in hot rooms covered 
 up close and dark felt it was morning, and chafed and 
 grew restless in their little cells ; bright-eyed mice crept 
 back to their tiny homes and nestled timidly together ; 
 the sleek house cat, forgetful of her prey, sat winking at 
 the rays of the sun starting through kej'hole and 
 cranny in the door, and longed for her stealthy run and 
 warm sleek bask outside. The nobler beasts, confined
 
 202 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 in dens, stood motionless behind their bars and gazed 
 on fluttering boughs." " Two pilgrims, often pressing 
 each other's hands, or exchanging a smile or cheerful 
 look, pursued their way in silence. Bright and happy 
 as it was, there was something solemn in the long 
 deserted streets, from which, like bodies without souls, 
 all habitual character and expression had departed, 
 leaving one dead uniform repose that made them all 
 alike." Then came, as they journeyed on, straggling carts 
 and coaches rumbling by, and there were tradesmen 
 beginning to open their shops ; only the very enterpris- 
 ing ones at first, and those at long intervals, until as day 
 dawned all the shops began to show some signs of life, 
 and finally they reached " the haunts of commerce and 
 great traffic, where many people were resorting, and 
 business was already rife. The old man looked about 
 him with a startled and bewildered gaze, for these were 
 places that he hoped to shun . . . ; again, this quarter 
 passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood, 
 where the mean houses, parcelled off into rooms, and 
 windows patched with rags and paper, told of the 
 populous poverty that sheltered there." 
 
 Here we have a clear indication of the road which 
 they took. It could only be such a direction as would 
 lead from somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tottenham 
 Court Road, through Holborn and Cheapside, and on to 
 Shadwell and Limehouse. The neighbourhood of the 
 Tower would naturally remind the old man of the Tower
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 
 and the consequent proximity of Ouilp's dwelling, even 
 though they had left him behind sleeping in unconscious 
 ignorance of their departure. Then come the tumble- 
 down tenements of Limehouse and Shadwell, and finally 
 the straggling off of the town into country as they 
 reached the borders of Essex. There were " pert 
 cottages with garden plots " of angular shape laid out in 
 beds with box- wood borders, and here and there a public- 
 house with a bowling-green or tea gardens, that scorned 
 its old-fashioned neighbour with the long wooden horse- 
 trough before the door. But if any positive indications 
 were wanting that they were travelling east it would be 
 removed by the circumstance that they saw, in some of 
 the little gardens passed, summer-houses made out of 
 parts of old boats, " grottoed at the stems with toad 
 stools or tight-sticking snail-shells." They then must have 
 passed the Roding river ; and having breakfasted they 
 could the better enjoy " the freshness of the day, the 
 singing of the birds, the beauty of the waving grass, the 
 deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand 
 exquisite scents and sounds that floated on the air." 
 They had walked many miles from London ; it could 
 hardly have been less than sixteen, when they rested at 
 a cottage, and were very kindly treated, and urged to 
 finish their day's journey ; but the old man said they 
 must go to the next county town, which was five miles 
 farther ; but a waggon soon picked them up, and set them 
 down at their destination ; and this would be a little more
 
 204 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 than twenty miles from the IMetropoHs. This would 
 land the pilgrims at Chipping Onger, where they 
 naturally slept well after their weary journe}\ The 
 direction they took from London is indicated with 
 perfect certainty, and Chipping Onger is the town they 
 would certainly arrive at. The next day's \\alk was 
 with Codlin and Short, about whose names there is 
 much humour, and the changes that they rang upon 
 them were characteristic of itinerant showmen. Thus 
 " the real name of the little man was Harris, but it 
 had gradually merged into the less euphonious one of 
 Trotters, which, with the prefatory adjective Short, had 
 been conferred upon him by reason of the small size 
 of his legs. " Short Trotters " being, however, a com- 
 pound name, inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, 
 the gentleman on whom it had been bestowed was 
 known among his intimates either as Short or Trotters, 
 except in formal conversations, and on occasions of 
 ceremony. 
 
 Into this strange company Nell and her grandfather 
 fell in the churchyard at the end of the first day's journey; 
 on the second, they travelled with them, and made the 
 best they could of the accident of meeting them, and 
 they wound up at an out-of-date public-house, called 
 the " Jolly Sandboys," almost more dead than alive, and 
 wet through. "A mighty fire was blazing on the hearth 
 and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful sound, 
 which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and simmering in
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 
 the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell. There was a 
 deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the land- 
 lord stirred the fire, sending the flames skipping and 
 leaping up, when he took off the lid of the iron pot and 
 there rushed out a savoury smell, \\hile the bubbling 
 sound grew deeper and more rich, and an unctuous steam 
 came floating out, hanging in a delicious mist above their 
 heads, — when he did this Mr. Codlin's heart was touched." 
 The next day's journey on the same road would bring 
 them to Thaxtcd or Safl'ron Walden — the latter probabl}-, 
 though indeed this would involve a long tramp, and, as it 
 would 'appear, the journey was occasionally stopped when 
 any promising neighbourhood presented itself to the 
 enterprising Codlin for a rehearsal ; but it w^as gradually 
 becoming more apparent to the watchful eyes of the little 
 girl that Short and Codlin had a purpose in keeping 
 them near their company, and their proceedings naturally 
 made the child watchful and suspicious ; and she soon 
 observed that whenever they halted to perform outside a 
 village alehouse or other place Mr. Codlin, while he went 
 through his share of the entertainment, kept his eye 
 steadily upon her and the old man, or, with a show of 
 great friendship and consideration, invited the latter to 
 lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until the repre- 
 sentation was over and they went forward again." And 
 now the end of the third day's journey is reached, and 
 they find themselves near a town that would, according to 
 the work done, correspond with the old Roman station of
 
 2o6 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Newmarket. It is thus described by Dickens — " They 
 were drawing near the town where the races were to 
 begin next day, for, from passing numerous groups of 
 gipsies and trampers on the road, wending their way to- 
 wards it, and straggling out from every by-way and cross 
 country lane, they gradually fell into a stream of people, 
 some walking by the side of covered carts, others with 
 horses, others with donkeys, toiling on with heavy loads 
 upon their backs, but all tending to the same point. 
 The public-houses by the wayside, from being empty and 
 noiseless as those in the remoter parts had been, now sent 
 out boisterous shouts and clouds of smoke, and from the 
 misty windows clusters of broad red faces looked down 
 upon the road. On every piece of waste or common 
 ground some small gambler drove his noisy trade, and 
 bellowed to the idle passers-by to stop and try their 
 chance ; the crowd grew thicker and more noisy, and 
 often a four- horsed carriage, dashing by, obscured all 
 objects in the gritty cloud it raised, and left them stunned 
 and blinded far behind. It was dark before they reached 
 the town itself, and long indeed the few last miles had 
 been. Here all was tumult and confusion ; the streets 
 were filled with throngs of people, many strangers were 
 there, it seemed, by the looks they cast about ; the church 
 bells rung out their noisy peals, and flags streamed 
 from windows and house-tops. In large inn-yards waiters 
 flitted too and fro and ran against each other, horses 
 clattered on uneven stones, carriage steps fell rattling
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 207 
 
 down, and sickening smells from many dinners came with 
 a heavy lukewarm breath upon the sense. In the smaller 
 public-houses fiddles with all their might and main were 
 squeaking out the time to straggling feet ; " and so 
 Dickens goes on through all the dismal revelry of the race- 
 course. " Quickening their steps to get clear of all the riot 
 and uproar, they at length passed through the town and 
 made for the race-course, which was upon an open heath." 
 The poor child was " frightened and repelled b\' all she 
 saw." She went early in the morning to gather some 
 wild flowers to make a few nosegays to sell on the race- 
 course, and during the races she could not help wondering 
 that such fine honest creatures as horses should make the 
 men they drew about them such shocking vagabonds. 
 She might have been reading the travel in Gulliver when 
 he was drifted to some far-off shore where the horses 
 were the rulers, and were served b\' the most degraded 
 specimens of humanity, such indeed as constitute the 
 rank and file of race-course meetings ; and he was at last 
 politely told that he must leave, as he belonged to the 
 species with which the horses were too familiar, though 
 himself a superior specimen of the degraded order. 
 When the showmen were engaged in their professional 
 duties Nell watched the opportunity for them to escape 
 into the countr}-, fearing as she did that Short and his 
 partner would take them to London, and then she had 
 some vague terror that they would be handed back again 
 to Quilp, but she pressed on through the shady country
 
 2o8 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 lanes, which had, even in all their sorrow and forlornness, 
 still something refreshing and hopeful. When the grand- 
 father was startled at some sudden noise Nell told him that 
 it was only the wind whistling or some dead branch falling, 
 until at last the serenity and cheerfulness which she had 
 at first assumed " stole into her breast in earnest, the old 
 man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but felt at ease 
 and cheerful, for the further they passed into the deep 
 green shade the more they felt that the tranquil mind 
 of God was there, and shed its peace on them. At length 
 the path, becoming clearer and less intricate, brought them 
 to the end of the wood and into a public road. Taking 
 their way along it for a short distance they came to a lane so 
 shaded by trees on either hand, that they met together 
 overhead, and arched the narrow way. A broken finger- 
 post announced that this led to a village three miles off, 
 and thither they resolved to bend their steps. The miles 
 appeared so long that sometimes they thought the}' must 
 have missed the road. But at last, to their great joy, it 
 led downward in a steep descent with overhanging banks, 
 over which their footpath led, and the clustered houses of 
 the village peeped from the woody hollow below. It 
 was a very small place, and men and boys were playing 
 at cricket on the green." This is a beautiful description 
 of a t\'pical English village, and one thing is quite clear, 
 that it must have been to the eastward of the race-course 
 they had left, for to the westward they would have found 
 their way into the fen-country, but by travelling eastward
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 209 
 
 they would reach the favourite county of our author — 
 Suffolk, and near Hadleigh, or Ipswich, or Stow Market, 
 they would find many villages such as the one which has 
 been so charmingly described, but as the road so far has 
 been tracked out with certainty, it may be as well not 
 to mar what is done by conjecture, or else there are 
 two that could be pointed out in the district named that 
 nearly fulfil the requirements. There was a school-house 
 here, and the schoolmaster was smoking at the door, in 
 almost a fit of abstraction, when Nell timidly asked him 
 if he could recommend them to any cheap place to lodge 
 at for the night, and laying down his long pipe he looked 
 earnestly at her, and asked her to come in, and took them 
 to his room, where he laid out some supper and bade 
 them rest. Then we have the incident of the sick scholar 
 that roused Nell's quick sympathy, and, finally, the school- 
 master, who was also parish clerk, begged of them to rest 
 one day, as he wanted little Nell's company for a short 
 space. The old man and Nell sat in the village school- 
 room and heard the master instructing the boys in his 
 quiet way, and though they were as rampant and unruly 
 as boys generally are in such an establishment, when he 
 told them about the sick pupil, who was the chief favourite, 
 and who had written the beautiful texts and maxims that 
 adorned the walls of the room, there was a calm. • The 
 boys who eat apples in school-time, and pinched, and 
 made grimaces, and, in a word, improved the school hours, 
 as boys too often will, when he told them what the dying 
 
 P
 
 2 1 o ABOUT EXGLA ND W 'ITH DICKENS. 
 
 child had said last night, and how nearly his little race 
 was run, were awed at once into silence. At twelve o'clock, 
 when the time to disperse came, the schoolmaster told 
 them that they need not return that day, and endeavoured 
 to gain a hearing in the sudden demonstrations of joy 
 which this news had caused. But for some time his 
 efforts were in vain, and he only could at last obtain a 
 hearing by holding up his hand " as a token of his wish 
 that they should be silent;" they were quiet enough, and 
 when he told them to be quiet for the sake of their little 
 school-fellow there was a general and sincere murmur of 
 acquiescence. Here Dickens has faithfully hit off an 
 English school, and if such an appeal were addressed to 
 any scholars, the uproarious students, whether they be- 
 longed to a village school or to Harrow or Eton, for the\' 
 are not confined to any social class, would always be still. 
 Nor does it greatly detract from their sincerity if, when 
 they saw the sun shining and the birds singing as only 
 the sun shines and birds do sing on holidays and " the 
 hay entreating them to come and scatter it to the pure 
 air," it was for a moment more than boys could bear, 
 " and with a joyous whoop the whole cluster took to their 
 heels, and spread themselves about shouting and laughing 
 as they went." It was all over at the close of the day, 
 and the little scholar died with his hand in broken-hearted 
 Nell's, whose own sands had now so nearly ebbed out. The 
 child as they left timidly offered the school-master some 
 money which the lady on the race-course had given her.
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 
 and of course it was at once refused. There is a beauti- 
 fully told incident connected with this money. When 
 Nell and her grandfather were wandering with what 
 Mrs. Jarley called " a vulgar punch," and when they had 
 come to Newmarket, Nell stole away early in the morning 
 to gather a few wild flowers to make into bunches to sell 
 at the carriages on the course, but there were bolder 
 beggars and adept fortune-tellers that generally elbowed 
 her away, though some ladies did say, " See what a pretty 
 face," " and then let the pretty face pass on without 
 thinking how tired and hungry it looked. One lady 
 seemed to understand the child, and only one ;" she sat 
 alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in 
 dashing clothes who had dismounted from it talked 
 and laughed loudly at a little distance, appearing to 
 forget her quite. There were many ladies all around, but 
 they looked another way and left her to herself She 
 motioned away a gipsy woman urgent to tell her fortune, 
 saying it was told her already, and had been for some 
 years. What that fortune was, indeed, we hardly need a 
 gipsy woman to tell. 
 
 In the city parts of the Old Curiosity Shop Dickens 
 again visits the region of the Tower where Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ouilp had their residence, and which was a part of London 
 that many scenes are laid in. Of Quilp himself one hardly 
 knows what to say ; he is not drawn from any living 
 character, and it would almost seem that in him some 
 confirmation of the Darwinian theory might be found.
 
 212 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Types of species, according to the great naturalist, some- 
 times reappear, after having been lost in the cycles of 
 time — even if only for a moment — and the " dog-like 
 smile," and the impish cunning, that are almost libels on 
 the brute creation, can but be accounted for upon the 
 Darwinian theory. He was a little dwarfish deformity, 
 of much ability, and of great physical strength ; and he 
 seemed to have little pleasure excepting in mischief He 
 was enormously rich, and " collected the rents of whole 
 colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the water side, 
 advanced money to the petty officers and seamen of mer- 
 chant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers mates 
 of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under 
 the very nose of the Custom-house, and made appoint- 
 ments on 'Change with men in glazed hats and round 
 jackets pretty well every day." 
 
 At the time when this was written there is no doubt 
 that with an abundant command of means like Quilp 
 possessed, great returns might be looked for in many 
 ventures, and hence he so easily fell himself a prey to 
 Nell's grandfather, the imbecile, wretched gambler, partly 
 on account of his supposed wealth, and partly, as it would 
 seem, from the respectability that his honest-eyed and 
 beautiful grand -daughter conferred upon him. When 
 Quilp began to suspect that something was wrong, and 
 taxed the old man with haunting the gaming-tables, and 
 losing the large sums he had lent and advanced to him, 
 the only reply was, as he turned his gleaming eyes to the
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 213 
 
 dwarf, " Yes, it was my mine of gold, — it is — it will be 
 till I die;" and then Ouilp, with a contemptuous look that 
 he might be well excused for, said, " That I should have 
 been blinded by a mere shallow gambler ! " The resid- 
 ence of Quilp and his wife was on Tower Hill, " and in 
 her bower on Tower Hill Mrs. Quilp was left to pine in 
 the absence of her lord, when he quitted her on his business 
 which he has been already seen to transact." He had a 
 rat-infested dreary yard on the Surrey side of the river, 
 which was called Ouilp's Wharf, " in which were a wooden 
 counting-house, burrowing all awry in the dust, as if it had 
 fallen from the clouds, and ploughed into the ground ; a 
 few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings ; 
 some piles of rotten wood ; and two or three heaps of old 
 sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered." Mr. Quilp 
 was by trade a ship breaker, which would easily' account 
 for the miscellaneous collection of goods about him, and 
 these all have a market price in London, at which they 
 can at once be converted into cash. Mrs. Quilp was a 
 pretty blue-eyed woman, " who, having allied herself in 
 wedlock to the dwarf in one of those strange infatuations 
 that are by no means scarce, performed a sound practical 
 penance for her folly every day of her life. 
 
 There is hardly a pleasanter trip from London than 
 the sail down the river to Greenwich, and the life on the 
 river almost reminds us of the floating population that we 
 read of in the eastern rivers. "A fleet of barges was coming 
 lazily on, some sideways, some head first, some stern first ;
 
 214 ABOUT ENGL A ND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 all in a wrong-headed, dogged, obstinate way, bumping up 
 against the larger craft, running under the bows of steam- 
 boats, getting into every kind of nook and corner where they 
 had no business, and being crunched on all sides like so 
 many walnut shells ; while each, with its pair of long 
 sweeps struggling and splashing in the water, looked like 
 some lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at 
 anchor all hands were busily engaged in coiling ropes, 
 spreading out sails to dry, taking in or discharging their 
 cargoes. In others no life was visible but two or three 
 tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to and fro 
 upon the deck, or scrambling up to look over the side, 
 and barking the louder for the view. Coming slowly on 
 through a forest of masts was a great steamship, beating 
 the water in short impatient strokes with her heavy paddles, 
 as though she wanted room to breathe, and advancing 
 in her huge bulk like a sea monster among the minnows 
 of the Thames, On either hand were long lines of colliers, 
 and between them vessels slowly working out of harbour 
 with sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noises on 
 board echoed from a hundred quarters. The water and 
 all u})on it was in active motion dancing and buoyant, 
 and bubbling up ; while the old gray Tower and piles of 
 building on the shore, with many a church spire shooting 
 up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their 
 chafing restless neighbour." All this confusion may be 
 seen at any time in a trip to Greenwich, and the passenger 
 wonders more and more how the great traffic of London
 
 OLD C URIOSIT Y SHOP. 2 1 5 
 
 can be carried on through it all, but it is becoming a 
 serious question if the time has not arrived for attempting 
 to amend the growing evil. 
 
 There are two kinds of barges, the sailing barge and 
 the dumb barge, and the fleet of both of them is very 
 large indeed. More than five hundred of the sailing 
 barges leave the London docks daily to distribute their 
 freight and, besides these, there is the enormous fleet of 
 dumb barges ; these literally, as is said, come on sideways 
 and endways " but all in a wrong-headed obstinate way." 
 These dumb barges, in fact, are presided over by a man 
 with a sweep-oar, whose office it is to keep the boat 
 moderately straight, and as free as circumstances will 
 admit from collisions with other vessels ; but all the 
 motive power is derived from the ebb and the flow of the 
 tide, and the barge has no more independent action than 
 a broken spar. If the men who should guide them were 
 at all skilful the helpless junks would still be a scandal, 
 but they are not even that, in the greater number of cases, 
 and they do not always make the best use of the little 
 craftsmanship they have ; they do, indeed, excel at vituper- 
 ation when they get under the bows of a steamer, which 
 is an event of constant occurrence with them. Indifferent 
 as is the character of the men who work the dumb barges, 
 and too well known as many of them are to the police, it 
 is only just to say that the navigators of the sailing barges 
 who work the boats lower down the river arc a different 
 class of men. They are skilful and careful, and under-
 
 2i6 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 stand how to give and take when a steamer is before 
 them. Some of these have quite handy vessels, which are 
 capable of considerable speed. One of the reasons why 
 they are so much better is that they belong to an open 
 service, while the river men are members of the Water- 
 men's Company, and if they subscribe to its funds the 
 assessors, who seem to be judge and jury and everything, 
 grant their license. 
 
 In Bevis Mark's was situated the residence and the 
 office of Mr. Sampson Brass. Dickens writes to Mr. 
 Foster : " I intended calling on you this morning on my 
 way back from Bevis Marks, whither I went to look at a 
 house for Sampson Brass." This was once the great 
 Jewish quarter of London, and gentlemen of the Hebrew 
 persuasion were generally to be found here and at Aldgate, 
 and Hound's -ditch and the Minories, Whitechapel, and 
 Petticoat Lane, now called Middlesex Street, but it is more 
 familiar even now to some of the ancient race as "the lane." 
 Such was the character of Bevis Marks when the Old Curio- 
 sity Shop was written. There are certainly not many private 
 houses here now ; the place is principally occupied with 
 warehouses ; but there Miss and Mr. Brass used to practise 
 as attorneys. Miss Brass was indeed the more acute 
 lawyer of the two, and " had not wasted her speculations 
 upon its eagle flights," but had carefully explored its 
 more devious courses and pit-falls. Here also Mr. Ouilp 
 introduced Richard Swiveller as a clerk, and, as Ouilp said, 
 Miss Brass would teach him law. Sampson Brass pleaded
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 217 
 
 some engagement in the city, and left Swiveller to make 
 a fair copy of an ejectment, while his sister, in whom 
 Swiveller took an especial interest, was deeply engaged in 
 making out a bill of costs, taking no notice of Dick, " but 
 went scratching on with a noisy pen, scoring down the 
 figures with evident delight, and working like a steam- 
 engine." Then Mr. Swiveller gradually began to address 
 himself to his task of copying out the ejectment, " a fair 
 copy," as Mr. Brass said, and occupying for tllfe time the 
 stool Mr. Brass had left. That gentleman promised 
 Ouilp that he would soon find another stool in some 
 second-hand shop for his new clerk. Here it was also 
 that the eccentric single gentleman lodged, and paid all 
 the Punch and Judys so handsomely for performing, 
 hoping that at last he might obtain some tidings of his 
 relatives, Nell and her grandfather. The residence of Mr. 
 Garland at Abel Cottage, Finchley, might be identified very 
 easily, and the quiet life they all led is very beautifully 
 described in the fortieth chapter. Kit, as will be remem- 
 bered, came to the notary's office and worked out the 
 shilling in holding Mr. Garland's horse, as he had received 
 such a sum in consequence of his employer having no 
 smaller change about him. Mr. Garland, who had retired 
 from business and lived at Abel Cottage, seems to have 
 led a pleasant quiet life among his rustic surroundings. 
 " On a fine day they were quite a family party, the old 
 lady sitting hard by with her work-basket on a little table;" 
 and then we have a picture of the old gentleman retaining
 
 2i8 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 his health and vigour by digging and pruning in the well- 
 sheltered garden, while Kit, on a short ladder against a 
 southern wall, is trimming the leaves, and nailing up the 
 shoots of wall fruit, and just as Kit had become valued 
 by his employer, who discovered his honest worth, a new 
 master, l\Ir. Witherden the notary, who said he could find 
 him a much better employ, which indeed was wdth the 
 single gentleman to go with him to find out the rendez- 
 vous of Nell and her grandfather. When Kit found out 
 that this was what they required he at once consented, 
 and learned in the notary's office that they were " from 
 sixty to sevent}' miles aw^ay." This identifies the localit}' 
 more clearly with what has already been conjectured. 
 
 The church and school -house where Nell finall}- 
 rested from all her toils have no counterpart in any dis- 
 trict where she may be supposed now to be. Her old friend 
 the schoolmaster showeci her his new house with much 
 pride. " The room into which they entered was a vaulted 
 chamber once nobly ornamented by cunning architects, 
 and still retaining in its rich groined roof and beautiful 
 tracery some remnants of its ancient splendour. Foliage 
 carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of nature's 
 hand, }'et remains to tell how many times the leaves out- 
 side had come and gone while it lived on unchanged. 
 The broken figures supporting the burden of the chimnc)'- 
 piece, though mutilated, were }-et distinguishable for what 
 they had been, — far different from the dust without, — and 
 showed sadly by the empty hearth like creatures who had
 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 219 
 
 outlived their kind, and mourned their only too slow 
 decay." The house had apparently been part of some 
 monastic building which had formerly adjoined the church, 
 and the room had been partitioned off at some compara- 
 tively recent time by a richly carved panelled oak screen, 
 so as to form a sitting-room and bed-closet, and an open 
 door that led into a small oratory or cell through which a 
 ray of sun-light broken by ivy leaves was stealing. A 
 few strange-looking chairs, and an old oak chest that 
 once had held the records of the church, with a quaint 
 table, and several articles of convenience, together with a 
 stack of firewood laid in for winter, completed the furni- 
 ture of the apartment, and naturally excited the admiration 
 and delight of the poor wanderer ; and as she lay down to 
 rest and saw the " glare of the sinking fire reflected in the 
 oaken panels, whose carved tops w^ere dimly seen in the 
 dusky roof, — the aged walls where strange shadows came 
 and went with every flickering of the fire, — the solemn 
 presence within of that decay which falls on senseless 
 things the most enduring in their nature : and without 
 and around about on every side of death, filled her with 
 deep and thoughtful feelings, but with none of terror or 
 alarm." All the descriptions of this church and its sur- 
 roundings are very beautiful, though, as has been said, w^e 
 must seek for anything like them in some distant part of 
 England. I know three such places are in a far western 
 county, one near the Severn and one in the north. In 
 the earliest edition of this work there are some illustrations
 
 220 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 of great beauty by Cattermole, all in his very best style. 
 There is one especially of Nell sitting in a chantry or 
 some ancient private chapel which opens into the choir 
 through a iine Norman arch. There is a font in it, — 
 perhaps it may be urged that the place is an unusual one 
 for such an article, — but it is not in its original place for the 
 step has been cut to fit it in, and there are three knights 
 in armour on rich tombs of the fourteenth century. The 
 composition of this picture, and the play of light and 
 shade, are very fine ; and there is farther on in the book 
 anotlier drawing by Cattermole of another rich chantry 
 where she is buried, and her grandfather is sitting by the 
 tomb he has done so much to make an early one.
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 
 
 The localities of Donibey and Son, so far as they relate 
 to London, are rather less definite than some others in 
 different works of Dickens ; and this seems hardly 
 accountable at first, for the tale is one that especiall)- 
 relates to London and various phases of London life. 
 
 The description of Mr. Dombey's mansion is vague. 
 " It was a large one on the shady side of a tall, dark, 
 dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland 
 Place and Bryanstone Square. It was a corner house, 
 with great wide areas, containing a whole suite of drawing- 
 rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt 
 trees with blackened trunks and branches rattled rather 
 than rustled, their leaves were so smoke-dried. The 
 summer sun was never on the street but in the morning 
 about breakfast-time, when it came with the water-carts, 
 and old clothes'-men, and the people with geraniums, and 
 the umbrella mender, and the man who trilled the little 
 bell of the Dutch clock as he went along." 
 
 When Mrs. Dombey was buried Mr. Dombey ordered
 
 222 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 all the furniture to be covered up, and great chandeliers 
 were robed in holland, and card -tables and sofas were 
 heaped together with arm-chairs, and covered up with 
 holland, looking Hke " a great winding-sheet." 
 
 The apartments which were reserved for Mr. Dombey 
 himself " were attainable from the hall, and consisted of a 
 sitting-room, a library (which, in fact, was a dressing- 
 room, so that the smell of hot-pressed paper, vellum, 
 morocco, and Russia leather, contended in it with the 
 smell of divers pairs of boots), and a kind of conservatory 
 or little glass breakfast-room beyond, commanding a pros- 
 pect of the trees before mentioned, and, generally speaking, 
 of a few prowling cats. These rooms opened upon one 
 another." In these rooms Mr. Dombey used to sit in 
 solitary state, and his youthful son Paul and his nurse 
 Richards only saw him at a distance among the dark 
 heavy furniture. 
 
 Now there may seem to be a little vagueness here, 
 and if we seek for the house we must look for it in the 
 neighbourhood of Manchester Square, or Baker Street, or 
 Cavendish Square ; and I have never been able to identify 
 any particular mansion with the residence of the head of 
 the house of Dombey and Son. There are, indeed, two 
 that might answer the description, and in one a surgeon 
 of great skill lives, while the other is occupied by a rather 
 costly boarding-house. But there is some cause for this 
 vagueness, and much excuse, for Dickens wrote the 
 principal part of Dombey when he was at Geneva, and he
 
 DOM BEY AND SON. 223 
 
 says that he felt a Httle astray. He missed his genial 
 streets of London, with their quaint life and their strange 
 dwellings. For myself, if I might venture to record my 
 own experiences in the same page as those of Dickens, 
 I would say that there are few more picturesque recollec- 
 tions than an early walk almost in any part of London, 
 especially in summer, when the city is full of activity, and 
 nearly every shop front has begun to show some signs of 
 life, and water-cresses and prawns are being heralded in 
 squares and past terraces in not unmusical tones by 
 costermongers and basket carriers. 
 
 Mr. Pemberton, in his Dickens's London, has said that 
 probably the circumstance that the author was residing on 
 the Continent during the writing of the first part of 
 Donibcy and Son may account for there being less of 
 London in it than in any other of his works ; and this 
 must account for the vagueness of the localities. In one 
 of his letters to Foster he complains how sorely he misses 
 the London streets, in which he was accustomed to walk 
 daily and gather fresh food for his imagination ; indeed, 
 he goes so far as to say that he finds it almost impossible 
 to do without them. 
 
 We have, in a preface to one edition, a curious instance 
 of the individuality that connects itself with the surround- 
 ing objects while he writes. " I began this book by the 
 Lake of Geneva, and went on with it for some months in 
 France before pursuing it in England. The association 
 between the writing and the place of writing is so curiously
 
 224 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 strong in my mind that at this day, although I know in 
 my fancy every stair in the Httle midshipman's house, and 
 could swear to every pew in the church in which Florence 
 was married, or to every gentleman's bedstead in Dr. 
 Blimber's establishment, I yet confusedly imagine Captain 
 Cuttle as secluding himself from Mrs. Macstinger among 
 the mountains of Switzerland. Similarly, when I am 
 reminded by any chance of what it is that the waves were 
 always saying, my remembrance wanders for a whole 
 winter night about the streets of Paris, as I restlessly did 
 with a heavy heart on the night when I had written the 
 chapter in which my little friend and I parted company." 
 
 Similarly, in a preface to Copperfield, he says : " It 
 would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how 
 sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two 
 years' imaginative task ; or how an author feels as if he 
 were dismissing some part of himself into the shadowy 
 world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going 
 from him for ever. Yet I had nothing else to tell, unless, 
 indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment 
 still) that no one can ever believe this narrative in the 
 reading more than I did in the writing." 
 
 In Dojnbcy we are introduced to a character whose 
 class has become now a matter of history, or at least very 
 nearly so. When Toots called on Captain Cuttle at Gill's 
 shop he was accompanied by the " Game Chicken," whom 
 he introduced to the Captain, though he felt much surprise 
 that the latter did not even recognise the name. " Mr
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 225 
 
 Toots explained that the man alluded to was the celebrated 
 public character who had covered himself and his county 
 with glory in his contest with the nobby Shropshire one ; 
 but this piece of information did not appear to enlighten 
 the Captain very much." He is aptly described as a 
 " stoical gentleman in a shaggy white great-coat and a flat- 
 brimmed hat, with very short hair, a broken nose, and a con- 
 siderable tract of bare and sterile country behind each ear." 
 
 It is somewhat singular that Dickens has so little to 
 say about this fraternity. He must have known every 
 celebrated professor in London very well, and there was 
 always a grim humour about them and their ways. The 
 challenges which appeared in the papers that devoted 
 themselves especially to their interests, and even the 
 encounters themselves, were curious. Pierce Egan was 
 their bard and historian, and some of his accounts were 
 almost homeric, and were veiled in such excellent language, 
 and all so full of metaphor, that there seemed to be nothing 
 at all shocking in his narrative. 
 
 In Dickens's time the ring was in what its admirers 
 would have called its glory. Not only was it patronised 
 by the aristocracy, but a combatant was sometimes taken 
 to the scene of his encounter in a coroneted chariot. 
 
 The friendship of Toots for the Game Chicken was 
 quite in keeping with the ordinary life of men of leisure 
 and education. It was no more derogatory to be on 
 intimate terms with them than it would now be for a 
 gentleman to walk along Regent Street with Messrs. 
 
 Q
 
 226 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Archer or Fordham. Caunt, or Bendigo, or Ward, num- 
 bered members of both houses of ParHament among their 
 acquaintances ; though I would attach no credit to the 
 often asserted statement that this acquaintance was so 
 cathoHc as to number even occupants of the bench — not 
 the judicial one, the other. 
 
 The only account of a passsage-at-arms that I can 
 remember in Dickens is in Donibey. When Susan Nipper 
 left Dombey's employ she told Florence that she was 
 going to her brother's, " a farmer down in Essex," and 
 with the money she had in the savings' bank they might 
 be comfortable ; and when she went home to her brother's 
 she stayed for a rest with the cook at Mr. Toots's dwelling. 
 The Game Chicken was there, and at once supposed she was 
 Florence Dombey, whose father Toots had " doubled up," 
 and so far relieved the Chicken of any anxiety about his 
 master's or protege s game quality. The Chicken himself 
 caused Miss Nipper some slight astonishment, for he had 
 just tried issues with " the Larkey one," and had been 
 worsted, as it appeared, in the combat. " His visage was 
 in such a state of dilapidation as to be hardly presentable 
 in society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken 
 himself attributed this punishment to his having had 
 the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the pro- 
 ceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey 
 one and heavily grassed. But it appeared from the 
 public records of that great contest that the Larkey Boy 
 had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 
 
 227 
 
 Chicken had been tapped and winged, and had received 
 pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up 
 piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange 
 inconveniences, until he had been 
 gone into and finished." 
 
 It is indeed to be feared that 
 easy times and the liberal purse 
 of Air. Toots had been the 
 Capua of the once emi- 
 nent Chicken. 
 
 THE LITTLE WOODE-N" MIDSHIP.MAN. 
 
 It may be curious to remark that the name is not 
 quite a haphazard one, but a professional gentleman of
 
 228 About ENGLAND with dickens. 
 
 more or less skill and eminence did assume the title, and 
 was to be seen in London during the earlier part of 
 Dickens's lifetime. 
 
 With reference to the woodcut of the " wooden mid- 
 shipman," it would seem that the artist has adopted the 
 nautical instrument shop at No. 99 Minories as being a 
 more genial and natural place where we should be intro- 
 duced to Sol Gills and Captain Cuttle ; and Mr. Pemberton 
 has adopted this as the more ideal spot. But the real 
 wooden midshipman yet stands at No. 1 5 7 Leadenhall 
 Street, opposite the old East India House; and until lately, 
 probably even till the present time, a naval and nautical 
 instrument maker carried on a successful business there. 
 " Just round the corner stood the rich East India House, 
 teeming with suggestions of precious stuffs and stones, 
 tigers, elephants' howdahs. Anywhere in the vicinity might 
 be seen pictLU'CS of ships speeding away full sail to all parts 
 of the world ; outfitting warehouses ready to pack any- 
 body anywhere, fully equipped, in half an hour." 
 
 The proprietor of the little wooden midshipman had 
 occupied his mart for as many years as a midshipman 
 ever spends, even taking an extreme case, till he gets his 
 promotion, and was looked up to as an authority in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 When little Paul Dombey lost his mother Mrs. Toodle 
 was selected to take care of him, and was thoroughly put 
 through all her facings by Mrs. Chick, Mr. Dombey's 
 sister, and the two Toodles, apple -faced children, were
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 229 
 
 produced for the confused inspection of the lofty London 
 merchant. The London and North-Western Railway was 
 at that time coming into London, and Mr. Toodle was 
 working in the tunnel that we now pass through on our 
 way to Euston. The name of Toodle was, of course, far 
 too plebeian for Mr. Dombey, and Richards was substituted 
 with the full consent of Mr. Toodle, who, indeed, would 
 have consented to anything if his wife ordered it. Staggs's 
 Gardens, where the Toodle family lived, was situated in 
 Camden Town, or, as the inhabitants called it, " Camber- 
 ling Town." " It was a little row of houses with squalid 
 patches of ground before them, fenced off with old doors, 
 barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes ; with 
 bottomless tin kettles, and exhausted iron fenders, thrust 
 into the gaps. Here the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet 
 beans, kept fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer- 
 houses, dried clothes, and smoked pipes." A graphic 
 description of the cutting of the tunnel is given. This, of 
 course, is the tunnel at Primrose Hill. 
 
 " The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at 
 that period, rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. 
 Traces of its course were visible on every side. Houses 
 were knocked down, streets broken through and stopped, 
 deep pits and trenches dug in the ground, enormous heaps 
 of earth and clay thrown up, buildings that were under- 
 mined and shaking propped up with great beams of wood. 
 Here a chaos of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, 
 lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep, unnatural hill ;
 
 230 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 there, confused treasures of iron soaked and rusted in 
 something that had accidentally become a pond. Every- 
 where were bridges that led nowhere, thoroughfares that 
 were wholly impassable. Babel towers of chimneys 
 wanting half their height ; temporary wooden houses and 
 enclosures in the most unlikely situations ; carcases of 
 ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and 
 arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, 
 and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above 
 nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and 
 substances of incompleteness wildly mingled out of their 
 places, upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in 
 the air, mouldering in water, and unintelligible as any 
 dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the usual 
 attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of 
 confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved 
 within dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar 
 of flames came issuing forth ; and mounds of ashes blocked 
 up rights-of-way, and wholly changed the law and custom 
 of the neighbourhood. 
 
 " In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad 
 was in progress, and from the very core of all this dire 
 disorder trailed smoothly away upon its mighty course of 
 civilisation and improvement. 
 
 " But as yet the neighbourhood was shy to own the 
 Railroad. One or two bold speculators had projected 
 streets, and one had built a little, but had stopped among 
 the mud and ashes to consider further of it. A bran-new
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 231 
 
 Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting 
 nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms ; 
 but that might be rash enterprise — and then it hoped to 
 sell drink to the workmen. So the Excavators' House of 
 Call had sprung up from a beer-shop, and the old- 
 established Ham and Beef Shop had become the Railway 
 Eating-House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through 
 interested motives of a similar immediate and popular 
 description. Lodging-house keepers were favourable 
 in like manner, and for the like reasons were not to be 
 trusted. The general belief was very slow. There 
 were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and 
 dust-heaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, 
 and carpet -beating grounds, at the very door of the 
 Railway. Little tumuli of oyster -shells in the lobster 
 season, and of broken crockeiy and faded cabbage leaves 
 in all seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, 
 and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of 
 mean houses, and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it 
 out of countenance. Nothing was the better for it, or 
 thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground lying 
 near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to 
 scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours." 
 
 When Paul Dombey was in his last illness he had a 
 great desire to see his old nurse, and he sent Susan Nipper 
 to try to find her. The coachman who drove the cab was 
 nearly in despair ; and Walter Gay, who had been a long 
 stroll, happened to pass. He had spent his Sunday
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 beyond Hampstcad, " listening to the birds, and the 
 Sunday bells, and the softened murmur of the town ; 
 breathing sweet scents ;" sometimes thinking of going 
 away on his distant voyage, and putting the thought from 
 him as fast as it rose. When he had approached the 
 city he was called from a cab, and he recognised Susan 
 Nipper, who had gone in quest of Mrs. Toodle, and was in 
 despair of finding Staggs's Gardens. The coachman 
 appealed to Walter with a sort of exulting rebuke : 
 " That's the way the young lady's been a'goin on for 
 upwards of a mortal hour, and me continually backing 
 out of no thoroughfares where she zvoidd drive up. I've 
 had a many fares in this coach, first and last, but never 
 such a one as this." 
 
 When Susan appealed to Walter he at once went into 
 the search with enthusiasm, and the author's account of 
 his search will prevent us from spending much time in 
 trying to find the locality, for, indeed, it bears traces of 
 having been written on the Continent, or at least in some 
 distant place. " There was no such place as Staggs's 
 Gardens. It had vanished from the earth. Where the 
 old rotten summer-houses once had stood palaces now 
 reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth 
 opened a vista to the railway world beyond. The 
 miserable waste ground, where the refuse matter had been 
 heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone, and in its 
 frowzy stead were tiers of warehouses crammed with rich 
 goods and costly merchandise. The old bye-streets now
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 233 
 
 swarmed with passengers and vehicles of ev^ery kind ; the 
 new streets that had stopped disheartened in the mud and 
 waggon-ruts formed towns within themselves, originating 
 wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging to them- 
 selves, and never tried nor thought of until they sprung 
 into existence. Bridges that had led to nothing led to 
 villas, gardens, churches, healthy public walks. The 
 carcases of houses and beginnings of new thoroughfares 
 had started off upon steam's own speed, and shot away 
 into the country in a monster train. As to the neigh- 
 bourhood, which had hesitated to acknowledge the 
 railroad in its struggling days, that had grown wise and 
 penitent, as any Christian might in such a case, and now 
 boasted of its powerful and prosperous relations. There 
 were railway patterns in its drapers' shops, and railway 
 journals in the windows of its newsmen. There were 
 railway hotels, coffee-houses, lodging-houses, boarding- 
 houses ; railway plans, maps, views, wrappers, bottles, 
 sandwich - boxes, and time - tables ; railway hackney 
 coaches and cab stands, railway omnibuses, railway 
 streets and buildings, railway hangers-on, and parasites, 
 and flatterers out of all calculation." 
 
 When ©ombey and Major Bagstock made their 
 memorable journey to Leamington the springs had not 
 been in any great public estimation for more than about 
 thirty years, although Camden spoke of their excellence 
 in the reign of Elizabeth. Now its population is not only 
 great and wealthy, but daily increasing, and numbers
 
 234 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 some thirty thousand. At the beginning of the centui}- 
 it was hardly more than a pleasant country village, called 
 Leamington Priors, from its connection with the Priory of 
 
 
 WARWICK AND LEAMINGTON. 
 
 Kenilworth, and a very beautiful melodious name it was. 
 But it had achieved importance when the Major and Mr. 
 Dombey arrived at the " Ro\'al Hotel," which, of course.
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 235 
 
 is an alteration of the " Regent." Mr. Dombey and the 
 Major met Mrs. Skewton at the pump-rooms, which then 
 were perhaps the finest in England. Mrs. Skewton's 
 daughter, Mrs. Granger, had been travelling over England 
 with a view of changing the single condition of one, or 
 perhaps both of them, and, as Edith Granger sadly said, 
 when her mother remarked that they had been travelling 
 from place to place for a change, " all the places were 
 very much alike" — that is Harrowgate, Scarborough, and 
 Torquay, and all such resorts of fashion. 
 
 There are many delightful rambles round Leamington, 
 indeed it lies in the centre of the most beautiful part of 
 England. Mrs. Skewton sighs after " nature " to Mr. 
 Dombey, and eagerly embraces the idea of a journey or 
 an excursion anywhere in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " Seclusion and contemplation are my what's -his - 
 name?" said the ancient dowager ; to which her daughter 
 replied, that " If she meant ' Paradise ' she had better say 
 so, to render herself intelligible." 
 
 The hotel where Dombey stayed is as well known as 
 if he were the proprietor, and to be daily seen. Mrs. 
 Skewton was also well known, her name was Mrs. Camp- 
 bell, and the tradesmen in private alluded to her as Mrs. 
 Skewton. So thoroughly had she become identified with 
 her soubriquet, that when a manager of a principal drapery 
 establishment was serving her he unwittingly addressed 
 her as Mrs. Skewton ; she sharply replied that that was 
 not her name, and of course all that could be done was to
 
 236 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 sa}-, with an apparent surprise, " Oh, I beg your pardon." 
 Her perambulator, which is a word that has come into 
 use since Dombcy was written, was moved by an invisible 
 page behind, and steered by the Honourable Mrs. Skewton. 
 The page reappeared above the back when the Alajor and 
 Dombey met the procession, and ducked down when 
 orders were given for marching again. 
 
 How thoroughly lodging accommodation has altered in 
 Leamington may be learned from the following account 
 of what were, forty years ago, fashionable and very 
 expensive apartments : — 
 
 " The Honourable Mrs. Skewton, being in bed, had her 
 feet at the window and her head at the fireplace, while the 
 Honourable Mrs. Skewton's maid was quartered in a closet 
 within the drawing-room, so extremely small that, to avoid 
 developing the whole of its accommodations, she was 
 obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful 
 serpent. Withers,, the wan page, slept out of the house 
 under the tiles at a neighbouring milk -shop," and the 
 wheeled chair was kept in a sort of .shed in the milk-house, 
 where there was also a broken donkey-cart, in which the 
 hens that laid the eggs (which were sold at full market 
 prices) roosted, " persuaded to all appearance that it grew 
 there, and was a species of tree." How different this is 
 from even moderate lodging accommodation now any 
 visitor can say. Here, however, ]\Ir. Dombey and the 
 Major called upon Mrs. Skewton and her widowed 
 daughter, who was then in the prime of youth and beauty.
 
 KENILWORTH.
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 237 
 
 She was the widow of Colonel Granger, and twenty years 
 his junior, though, as Bagstock informed Mr. Dombey 
 when they walked along the Leamington boulevard, 
 Granger died at the early age of forty-two. He was the 
 colonel of the regiment in which the major held his 
 distinguished command, and of course the ages of the 
 colonel and his wife, with any other light gossip, were well 
 known to him. The party met again and again in the 
 pump-room. Mrs. Skewton had learned that Dombey was 
 a man of vast wealth, or, perhaps to speak more correctly, 
 was reputed to be, and she and the major managed to 
 arrange a trip to Warwick Castle, the latter enlarging 
 upon the splendour of Dombey's establishment, and the 
 entertainments they would enjoy there. 
 
 " You have been to Warwick often, unfortunately ? " 
 said Mr. Dombey to Edith. 
 
 " Several times." 
 
 " The visit will be tedious to you, I am afraid ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, not at all." 
 
 And then Mrs. Skewton narrates how her cousin. Lord 
 Feenix, had been to Warwick Castle fifty times, and if he 
 came to Warwick next day he would make " his fifty- 
 second visit." It was arranged that the ladies should 
 dine at the Royal with the gentlemen, and then, in a 
 barouche that had been waiting, they drove to the most 
 perfect baronial residence in England ; indeed, the view 
 of the castle which looks across the mill pool has hardly a 
 rival anywhere for picturesque beauty. Distance lends
 
 238 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAXD WITH DICKENS. 
 
 some enchantment to the " feudal customs that 
 
 in the Rhenish castles ; and so Mrs. Skewton, in 
 
 ingf over the q'reat rooms, 
 
 broke out mto ec^ta^iics o\ci 
 
 the daihnij b} f^one tunes 
 
 V ith then deai old 
 
 d ungeons, 
 
 and then , , 
 
 prevailed 
 wander- 
 
 C^^. .^ ^^-r--/^ I - -— ^,- 
 
 WARWICK CASTLE, IN THE HALL. 
 
 delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, 
 and their picturesque assaults, and sieges, and every- 
 thing that makes life truly charming." " We have no 
 faith in the dear old barons, who were the most de-
 
 DOM BEY AND SON. 239 
 
 lii^htful of creatures, or the dear old priests, who were 
 the most warHke of men, or even in the days of that in- 
 estimable Queen Bess upon the wall there ;" and so they 
 went through the halls of the grand old fortress, a fortress 
 that was founded by a daughter of King Alfred, rebuilt 
 in Edward III.'s time, after being destroyed by insurgent 
 barons, spared by Cromwell in its entirety for the lo}-alty 
 of its noble owner to his cause, and, after having suffered 
 terribly from a fire in 1871 — which nearly consumed the 
 great hall — it yet remains one of the grandest and most 
 perfect relics of feudal times in England. 
 
 Indeed Warwick Castle figures most conspicuously all 
 through the history of England. Piers Gaveston was 
 led through its portal to execution, and if Guy is to some 
 extent mythical, which, by the way, Dugdale, who is our 
 final authority in monastic history, does not admit, War- 
 wick the king-maker is not legendary, and his history is 
 even more amazing than Guy's. Stow says that when he 
 came to London " six oxen were eaten at a breakfast, 
 and every tavern was full of his meat ; for who that had 
 any acquaintance in that house he might have had as 
 much sodden and roast as he could carry away on a long 
 dagger ; " and it is computed that no less than thirty 
 thousand men were daily fed at his various palaces during 
 the days of his prosperity. The Wars of the Roses, with 
 which he was intimately connected, were so horrible that 
 one is almost obliged to Mrs, Skewton for her suggestion 
 that it is the " darling b}gone times " that makes dungeons
 
 240 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND IVITH DICKENS. 
 
 and torture delightful. The gateway here shown is the 
 inner court of Warwick Castle, and it is the one through 
 which Gaveston was taken out to execution. 
 
 The surroundings of Leamington are lightly sketched 
 and probably from memor}-, but the\^ are truthful if they 
 
 are only suggest- 
 ive, and those 
 who know the 
 charming lanes 
 will at once re- 
 cognise the walk 
 tliat Carker took 
 before breakfast 
 when he came 
 iJown from Lon- 
 don to see his 
 principal. "He 
 strolled beyond 
 the town and re- 
 entered it by a pleasant walk, where there was a deep 
 shade of leafy trees, and where there were a few benches 
 here and there for those who chose to rest ;" in his walk 
 beyond the town he had " strolled about meadows and 
 green lanes, and glided among avenues of trees." 
 
 The town of Warwick, which the party visited re- 
 peatedly, and which almost forms a part of Leamington, 
 is one of the most picturesque in the kingdom, and for 
 quaint beauty it would seem hardly possible to improve 
 
 INNEK COURT, WARWICK CASTLE.
 
 V"^ '"^-'^ 
 
 -yt4>^^ ^ 
 
 »g^c^^- 
 

 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 241 
 
 the Leicester Hospital, which stands at the entrance to 
 the ancient town. A noble gateway stretches across the 
 road, and forms the basement to a chapel. The road- 
 way runs in a tunnel form under, and there is a curious 
 terrace walk round the chapel and over the gateway, 
 which is somewhat difficult to describe, but which, with 
 its surroundings has few parallels in England. Joining 
 this chapel is the hospital for pensioners founded by Earl 
 Leicester, which encloses a quadrangle of astonishing 
 beauty. The dark oak beams of which it is built, and 
 the rich tinting that time has given the plaster, a tinting 
 that shows through new coats very soon, make it a perfect 
 paradise for lovers of antique architecture. 
 
 Of course the motley party visited Kenilworth, though 
 probably none of them cared in the least for either that 
 place or Warwick. Perhaps the most respectable of them 
 all was Mr. Dombey himself; loftily pompous and ignorant, 
 he was at least honest ; so indeed was Bagstock, though 
 he resembled one of the old style of noisy and turbulent 
 ship captains in the good old slave days, who threw boot- 
 jacks or any missiles at any one who was in their emplo\-. 
 "Where is my scoundrel?" said the major, looking wrath- 
 fully round the room. The native had no particular 
 name, but answered to any vituperative epithet, presented 
 himself instantly at the door, and ventured to come no 
 nearer. " You villain," said the major, "■ where is the 
 breakfast.'" then when he upset a spoon the major "en- 
 couraged him with an awful shake of the fist." 
 
 R
 
 242 . ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Mrs. Skewton and Mrs. Granger had hardly a re- 
 deeming- feature ; they were the shallowest and the most 
 exceptionable output of a vicious system that ignores 
 domestic comfort, and believes that true happiness con- 
 sists in an " establishment," as it is conventionally termed. 
 One almost grudges them the opportunities they had of 
 enjoying one of the most beautiful parts of Europe. 
 When Carker rode behind the barouche to Warwick 
 Castle the description of the drive is much more like 
 that which he would take from Leamington to Kenilworth, 
 and indeed it so closely resembles that, that I have no 
 hesitation at all in adopting it as this. The ride to 
 Kenilworth was the day after the one to Warwick, and 
 each was to be preceded by a breakfast with Dombey and 
 his friend. Carker, the manager, who had come from 
 London, and was in attendance, we are told, rode on horse- 
 back to the destination, and this is certain!}- Kenilworth. 
 " Whether he looked on one side of the road or the 
 other, over distant landscape, with its smooth undula- 
 tions, wind -mills, corn, grass, bean -fields, wild flowers, 
 farmyards, hay-ricks, and the spire among the wood — or 
 upwards in the sunny air, where butterflies were sporting 
 round his head, and birds were pouring out their songs — 
 or downward where the shadows of the branches interlaced 
 and made a trembling carpet on the road — or onward 
 where the overhanging trees formed aisles and arches, 
 dim with the softened light that steeped through the 
 leaves — one corner of his eye was ever on the formal
 
 DOMBEY AND SON. 243 
 
 head of Mr. Dombey, addressed towards him, and the 
 feather in the bonnet drooping so neglectfully and scorn- 
 fully between them, much as he had seen the haughty 
 eyelids droop ; not least so when the face met that now 
 fronting it. Once, and once only, did his wary glance 
 release these objects, and that was when a leap over a 
 low hedge, and a gallop across a field, enabled him to 
 anticipate the carriage coming by the road, and to be 
 standing ready at the journey's end to hand the ladies out." 
 
 The party dismount at the grand old ruins, that Dug- 
 dale quaintly describes as the work of the able Geoffrey 
 de Clinton, though the courtly writer is forced to say 
 that blue blood did not run in his veins, for he was " of 
 very mean parentage, and only raised from the dust by 
 the favour of the said King Henry, from whose hands he 
 received large possessions and no small honour, being 
 made both Lord Chamberlain and Treasurer to the said 
 King, and afterwards Justice of England, which advance- 
 ments do show that he was a man of extraordinary parts. 
 It seems he took much delight in this place, in respect of 
 the spacious woods and that large and pleasant lake 
 (through which divers pretty streams do pass) lying 
 among them ; for it was he that first built the strong 
 castle here, which was the glory of these parts, and for 
 many respects may be ranked in a third place, at the 
 least, with the most stately castles in England." 
 
 Its familiar history connects it with some of the most 
 prominent figures in our history, — with the heroic Simon de
 
 244 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Montfort, the stern and fearless John of Gaunt, and with 
 Bolingbroke, all of whom in turn possessed it, and lived in 
 regal splendour in its halls ; but it is better known from 
 its connection with later history, and the halo that Scott 
 has thrown over its ruins. He peoples these again with 
 Elizabeth and her court, and Leicester and his court, and 
 with all the barbaric splendour of feasts, and tournaments, 
 and music, and dancing, and with the strange and often 
 boisterous pageantry in which Queen Elizabeth would 
 seem to have delighted, or at any rate to have always 
 been ready to participate with good nature. We are met 
 at every stage in Donibcy and Son with the difficulty that 
 is encountered in starting, the want of greater precision 
 in the details of the places alluded to, which is simply the 
 result of the work having been written on the Continent 
 of Europe, where, of course, he could have no opportunity 
 of " sketching from nature." A record of the place 
 where it was produced yet exists at Gadshill, in the 
 shape of a summer-house that was presented to him by 
 some of his English friends. 
 
 I will quote Mr. Pemberton on Brigg Place, the house in 
 which Mrs. MacStinger lived and attended to the welfare of 
 Captain Cuttle. " It is another place of which the London 
 Directory owns no knowledge, but its locality — except that 
 increase of business has obliterated some of its character- 
 istics, and is fast making valuable every available yard 
 of ground — is still easily to be recognised." Some parts 
 of Donibcy were finished in London at a comfortable
 
 DOMBE V AND SON. 
 
 245 
 
 house in Devonshire Terrace, New Road, which is here 
 shown. It is a pleasant roomy house with ample bow- 
 windows, and dormer lights in the roof. Here Dickens 
 
 DICKENS S HOUSE IN DEVONSHIRE TERRACE. 
 
 lived after removing from Doughty Street, and here he 
 wrote a large part of the 0/d Oiriosity Shop, Barnaby 
 Rudge, Martin Chiczsleiuit, and also put some finishing 
 touches on Donibey and Son.
 
 246 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 It is suggested by Mr. Pemberton, that while Dickens 
 was making his waterside researches for Great Expecta- 
 tions, he also took note of the spots that figure in Oitr 
 Mutual Friend. Shadwell, Wapping, and Rotherhithe 
 have abundant materials for his pen ; and where an 
 indifferent spectator sees nothing but discomfort and 
 annoyance, he can individualise character and find 
 something of interest in every passer-by. His acute 
 sight enabled him to make a shrewd guess at the history 
 and antecedents of those he met with in his rambles, 
 and even to invest them with romance. 
 
 If we take the sketch which ]\Ir. Vanderhoof has 
 made of Limchousc Reach, it is impossible to deny it a 
 very considerable amount of quaint picturesque grouping. 
 The chimneys travel from the front to the back of the 
 one -storey building that is in advance of the higher 
 dwelling, and then there are verandahs that have at one 
 time looked on a scene less squalid, with steep steps and 
 gangways, all mingled in picturesque confusion. The
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 247 
 
 barges, too, have not lost their old picturesque Dutch- 
 looking form, though, indeed, their days are numbered, 
 and the reforms in the city, which can hardly be far distant, 
 will embrace even these, and more useful and cleanly if 
 less picturesque merchantmen will supplant the ancient 
 shipping. 
 
 Dickens always delighted, even as a boy, in the ex- 
 cursions he made to these regions to see his godfather. 
 He conducted a business which at one time was a 
 profitable one, but has now quite succumbed to a new 
 form of industry. Mr. Huffham was a block-maker and 
 rigger, and his godson was always a welcome visitor. 
 This district to the last of his life was always a pleasant 
 one to him. There was the fresh smell of new wood 
 shavings, and the wholesome odour of boiling tar and 
 pitch, which, when not too pungent, is far from unpleasant ; 
 the shaping of oars and the adzing of masts and yards 
 to a circular form by men who seemed at first sight as if 
 they were hitting anywhere, and had no regular plans to 
 go by, but who brought out a shapely spar with perfect 
 certainty. Blocks are now almost a thing of the past. 
 Iron rigging has superseded them, and an old salt who has 
 not been at sea for some years would actually find a little 
 difficulty in laying his hand upon the required rope ; and, 
 as one remarked to me, he would have to look up aloft 
 and follow the halyard or brace down to the belays. 
 
 Gaffer Hexham lived in some nook in the Limehouse 
 part of the Thames, and part of his business in life was to
 
 248 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 search the river for any floating waifs and strays that might 
 swim upon its surface, whether this proved to be spars, or 
 planks, or drift-wood, or a more dismal merchandise — the 
 dead bodies that ebbed and flowed with the tide from 
 Southwark Bridge to Millwall. A reward is offered for 
 these, and sometimes a few valuables are found in their 
 pockets, though this cannot be calculated on with any 
 degree of certainty. 
 
 When Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn \\-ent to look 
 at one of these ghastly prizes the route was " down by the 
 Monument, and by the Tower, and by the Docks ; down 
 by Ratcliffe and by Rotherhithe ; down by where accum- 
 ulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher 
 grounds, like so much moral sewage, and to be pausing 
 until its own weight forced it over the bank and sunk it 
 in the river. In and out among vessels that seemed to 
 have got ashore and houses that seemed to have got 
 afloat; among bowsprits staring into windows, and windows 
 staring into ships ; the wheels rolled on until they stopped 
 at a dark corner, river washed, and otherwise not washed 
 at all, where the boy alighted and opened the door." The 
 rest of the way they had to walk. It was not far, and 
 they were soon at Hexham's house. 
 
 " The low building had the look of having been once a 
 mill. There was a rotten wart of wood upon its forehead 
 that seemed to indicate where the sails had been, but the 
 whole was very indistinctly seen in the obscurity of the 
 night. The boy lifted the latch of the door, and they
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 249 
 
 passed at once into a low, circular room, where a man 
 stood before a red fire looking down into it, and a girl sat 
 engaged in needlework. The fire was in a rusty brazier, 
 not fitted to the hearth, and a common lamp shaped 
 like a hyacinth root smoked and flared in the neck of a 
 stone bottle on the table. There was a wooden bunk or 
 berth in a corner, and in another corner a wooden stair 
 leading above, so clumsy and steep that it was little better 
 than a ladder. Two or three old sculls and oars stood 
 against the wall, and against another part of the wall was 
 a small dresser, making a spare show of the commonest 
 articles of crockeiy and cooking vessels. The roof of the 
 room was not plastered, but was formed of the flooring of 
 the room above. This being very old, knotted, seamed, 
 and beamed, gave a lowering aspect to the chamber ; and 
 roof, and walls, and floor, alike abounding in old smears 
 of flour, red lead (or some such stain which it had prob- 
 ably acquired in Warehousing), and damp, alike, had a 
 look of decomposition." 
 
 Quite corresponding with this weird description of the 
 component parts of one of the waterside houses is the 
 graphic picture of the interior of the Six Jolly Fellowship 
 Porters. " The wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, 
 partitions, floors, and doors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship 
 Porters, seemed in its old age fraught with confused 
 memories of its youth. In many places it had become 
 gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees ; 
 knots started out of it, and here and there it seemed to
 
 250 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 twi-st itself into some likeness of boughs. In this state of 
 second childhood it had an air of being, in its own way, 
 garrulous about its early life. Not without reason was it 
 often asserted by the regular frequenters of the Porters 
 that when the light shone full upon the grain of certain 
 panels, and particularly upon an old corner cupboard of 
 walnut wood in the bar, you might trace little forests there 
 and tiny trees like the parent tree in full umbrageous leaf. 
 
 " The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a 
 bar to soften the human breast. The available space in 
 it was not much larger than a hackney coach, but no one 
 could have wished the bar bigger, that space was so girt 
 in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial bottles radiant 
 with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, 
 and by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls 
 that made low bows when customers were served with 
 beer, and by the cheese in a snug corner, and by the 
 landlady's own small table in a snugger corner near the 
 fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid." 
 
 It is not difficult to select from the group of houses 
 which form the river front here one which might represent 
 the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, though I could not find 
 the exact sign anywhere ; but the description answers 
 well for many a one, not only here, but in Bristol or New- 
 castle-on-Tyne, and formerly in Liverpool, until the in- 
 creasing demand for dock accommodation swept them 
 away. Dickens thus describes it : — 
 
 " The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters already mentioned
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS, i^i 
 
 as a tavern of dropsical appearance had long settled down 
 into a state of hale infirmity. In its whole constitution it 
 had not a straight floor, and hardly a straight line, but it 
 had outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a better 
 trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. Exter- 
 nally it was a narrow, lop-sided, wooden jumble of corpu- 
 lent windows heaped one upon another, as you might heap 
 as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah 
 impending over the water, — indeed the whole house, in- 
 clusive of the complaining flagstaff on the roof, impended 
 over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition 
 of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the 
 brink that he will never go in at all." 
 
 This description applies to the river frontage of 
 " The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters." The back of the 
 establishment, though the chief entrance, was there so 
 contracted that it merely represented, in its connection 
 with the front, the handle of a flat-iron set upright on 
 its broadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of 
 a wilderness of court and alley ; which wilderness 
 pressed so hard and close upon " The Six Jolly Fellow- 
 ship Porters " as to leave the hostelry not an inch of 
 ground beyond its door. For this reason, in combination 
 with the fact that the house was all but afloat at high- 
 water, when the " Porters " had a family wash, the linen 
 subjected to that operation might usually be seen drying 
 on lines stretched across the reception-rooms and bed- 
 chambers.
 
 252 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 There is in Oiir Mutual Friend an account of an old- 
 fashioned church at Millbank, of which the somewhat 
 
 ST. JUHN THE EVANGELISTS CHUKCH, SMITH SQUARE. 
 
 fantastic description is given in Our Mutual Friend. 
 " In this region are a certain little street called Church 
 Street, and a certain little blind square called Smith
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 253 
 
 Square, in the centre of which last retreat is a very- 
 hideous church, with four towers at the four corners, 
 generally resembling some petrified monster, frightful 
 and gigantic, on its back with its feet in the air." This is 
 the description of St. John the Evangelist, a church that 
 occupies all the centre part of Smith Square. Yet the 
 church was the work of an architect who enjoyed great 
 honour in his day, and whose designs figure worthily 
 among stately elms in some of the most beautiful parts of 
 England. By some strange mutation in affairs the archi- 
 tecture that exercised Dickens is again coming in vogue, 
 and the Church of St. John the Evangelist is greatly 
 admired by architects and artists. A happy issue even 
 this is, out of the iconoclastic spirit that has within the 
 last half century destroyed the interest and the beauty of 
 some — it is supposed nearly eighty per cent. — of the 
 parish churches of England. The quaint high pews 
 that are now so prized among artists and antiquarians, 
 and that are unhappily becoming so rare, were of the 
 date of this church ; and the details of the church 
 itself are chaste and good. Probably the revived interest 
 in this style may preserve the remnant that remains of 
 our old parish churches ; they are nearly all destroyed, 
 but some portion may escape. Of the origin of Mr, 
 Venus's establishment we have Mr. Foster's authority 
 for saying that his trade was brought under Dickens's 
 notice by Marcus Stone, who had seen such a place 
 at Seven Dials in St. Giles ; and we may quote . the
 
 254 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 words of the proprietor, as he sums over a Hst of his 
 valuables to ]\Ir. Wegg : " You're casting your eye 
 about the shop, Mr. Wegg. Let me show you a light. 
 My working bench. My young man's bench. A nice 
 tub. Bones, various. Skulls, various. Preserved Indian 
 baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. 
 Everything within reach of your hand in good preserva- 
 tion. The mouldy ones a-top. What's in those hampers 
 over them again ? I don't quite remember. Say human, 
 'warious!' Cats! articulated English baby." A list 
 of curiosities that Dickens would have built a world of 
 romance and history upon. 
 
 Our Mutual Friend gives us a graphic account of a 
 London fog. Those who have not seen what Mr. 
 Guppy used to call a " London particular, or what in 
 the Metropolis is termed a " pea-souper," can form very 
 little idea of what one really is. When the Americans 
 come over to London, they are rather apt to smile at 
 an English fog, that is, if they have never seen one, and 
 speak of those on the banks of Newfoundland that 
 cover a thousand miles and more. I have seen many of 
 the latter, and some that would be considered dense ones ; 
 and it has also been my lot to see several of the London 
 fogs, though the worst I ever saw was, I am assured, 
 hardly up to what Guppy designated the London parti- 
 cular. Well, any fog that ever stole over the " banks " 
 is simply a blaze of light, if compared to the cloud that 
 settles over London in winter when a continuance of
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 255 
 
 easterly winds has driven the damp mists from the 
 Essex and Kent marshes into the Metropolis. The damp 
 air is light, for mists always ascend, and the sulphurous 
 carbonetted gas that rises from thousands of chimneys 
 cannot escape. There are doubtless many other minor 
 causes that produce the phenomenon known as a London 
 fog, but at any rate it stands all alone. Then those 
 who stay at home have the advantage of those who live 
 out of town and return to their daily business by Euston 
 or Paddington stations' and have to make their way 
 through a darkness that may be felt. The Hebrew 
 residents of Bevis Marks or Hound's-ditch can fairly 
 rejoice in the gas that rather brightens up their places 
 of business which they have no call to leave, and taunt 
 the West-Enders as they grope their way with their 
 own happier lot, the Children of Israel have light in 
 their dwellings. But let Dickens himself describe one. 
 " It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy 
 and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and 
 irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking ; 
 inanimate London was a sooty spectre divided in 
 purpose between being visible and invisible, and so 
 being wholly neither. Gas-lights flared in the shops 
 with a haggard and unblest air, as knowing themselves 
 to be night creatures that had no business abroad under 
 the sun ; while the sun itself, when it was for a few 
 moments dimly indicated through circling eddies of fog, 
 showed as if it had gone out, and w^as collapsing flat
 
 256 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 and cold. Even in the surrounding country it was a 
 foggy day, but there the fog was gray ; whereas in 
 London it was at about the boundary Hnc, dark yellow, 
 and a little within it brown, and then browner, and then 
 browner, until at the heart of the city — which call St. 
 Mary Axe — it was rusty black. From any point of the 
 high ridge of land northward, it might have been dis- 
 cerned that the loftiest buildings made an occasional 
 struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea, and 
 especially that the great dome of St. Paul's seemed to 
 die hard ; but this was not perceivable in the streets 
 at their feet, where the whole Metropolis was a heap of 
 vapour charged with muffled sounds of wheels, and 
 enfolding a gigantic catarrh. 
 
 At nine o'clock on such a morning the place of 
 business of Pubsey and Company was not the liveliest 
 object in St. Mary Axe ; which is not a very lively spot 
 with a sobbing gas-light in the counting-house window, 
 and a burglarious stream of fog creeping in to strangle 
 it through the keyhole of the main door. But the light 
 went out, and the main door opened, and Riah came 
 forth with a bag under his arm. 
 
 The " Seven Dials " was alwa}-s a place where 
 Dickens was able to see life in the phases in which he 
 loved to contemplate it. It is within the west end of 
 London, but it contains a population as poor and 
 almost as lawless as any that are to be found in the 
 precincts of London Bridge. The readiest way to reach
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 257 
 
 it is through St. Martin's Lane, crossing between Cran- 
 borne Street and Long Acre ; and Mr. Dickens, in his 
 Guide to London, to which not only these pages, but 
 every one who is a visitor to London is indebted, says 
 that " turning up northwards the stranger finds himself 
 in a street altogether unique in its way. It is the abode 
 of bird-fanciers," and in it ev^ery variety of lop-eared or 
 Russian rabbit, or any other kind, may be purchased. 
 Pigeons of every sort, from Almond bald-pates to carriers, 
 are represented here, and even rare foreign cage-birds may 
 be had at any time by a purchaser. Dog-fanciers, also, 
 are well represented, and perhaps they are advisedly 
 called " fanciers," for if there is a very choice " King 
 Charles " or fashionable which any of the dealers happen 
 to " fancy," and which is supposed to be following its 
 mistress, it will probably soon have a temporary home 
 at the Seven Dials. 
 
 Seven streets meet here, and hence it derives its name. 
 The shops only sell second or third class articles, old 
 dresses, old coats, old hats, or shoes, and anything in 
 fact that has seen more prosperous days ; yet even in its 
 thronged thoroughfares may be seen youths who are 
 devoted to the sports of childhood, such as tipcat, battle- 
 dore, and shuttlecock, and tops, or marbles, and they 
 pursue their amusements even under the most untoward 
 circumstances with great energy, and sometimes indeed 
 not without peril to the passer-by. 
 
 Public houses abound in the Seven Dials, and on Satur- 
 
 S
 
 258 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 day nights they are in the full glare of light and noise 
 showing that whatever may be wanting at home there is 
 money enough to spend upon alcohol. Sometimes we 
 may see the men's wives anxiously waiting outside, 
 and almost hoping against hope that they may come out 
 before all their week's w^ages are done, and quite as often 
 the women themselves are participants in the orgies. I 
 had the fortune to see one episode that in all probability 
 would have struck the humour of Dickens if he had wit- 
 nessed it. Some reveller had left the precincts of a gin 
 palace, either to get tobacco or meet a friend at a neigh- 
 bouring place of like entertainment, or some such cause, 
 when he fell into the hands, if not the arms, of his better 
 half He was not what is called very far gone, and had 
 not indeed passed the amiable stage of inebriation, and 
 addressed his lady in terms of great affection, repeatedly 
 saying that she was his " diamond darling." He seemed 
 to be a lusty fellow, and had clog boots on, which at a 
 later period of the evening he might have put to evil use, 
 but he was quietly captured and " cuffed," and indignantly 
 told to " talk sense," and probably the lucky find saved 
 his week's money, and may have enabled him to pass the 
 ensuing week in comfort. 
 
 In Great Expectations the little village of Cooling 
 figures. It was a favourite walk of Dickens by way of 
 Higham, and it lies on the marshy lands that are between 
 the Thames and Med way, and were at one time, and 
 that even recently, a paradise for snipe and plover. Its
 
 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 259 
 
 neglected roads are grown over with thistle and brier, 
 and there are but a few scattered houses about it, and 
 these almost partake of the desolate character of the church 
 and its surroundings. "The churchyard was a bleak place, 
 overgrown with nettles." The visit to this place should 
 be made on a cloudy day, such as Dickens himself used 
 to select, for it is then that the strange weird landscape 
 is seen at its best. "As we stand in the graveyard, looking 
 across the low wall over which the convict climbed before 
 Pip dared to start away, we may see the same dreary 
 marshes, and the same limitless stretches of low land and 
 grass and mud, intersected with dykes and mounds and 
 gates, and beyond this the silvery streak of the Thames 
 appears at intervals." 
 
 On a hot July day all wears a roseate hue, and we 
 can hardly suppose that the marshes, which are completely 
 bathed in faint golden mist, are accumulating the materials 
 for a London fog which will culminate in about four 
 months from the time the prospect is delighting the eye 
 of the wayfarer.
 
 26o ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BLEAK MOUSE AND LITTLE DORR IT. 
 
 The house which is here shown is in Tavistock Square, 
 and while residing in it Dickens wrote Bleak House and 
 Little Dorrit among other works, such as a Child's History 
 of England, etc. All this part of London is suggestive 
 of the great house of Bedford, who own vast wealth here. 
 We have Tavistock Square, Bedford Square, Russell 
 Square, Woburn Place, and many other reminders that 
 the family to which was granted the great estates of 
 Woburn Abbey are as much represented by the surround- 
 ings of the district as the house of Westminster is by 
 Pimlico and Bclgravia. The dwelling which is shown 
 here was the residence of Dickens until the year i860. 
 He had resided in it for nearly ten years, and before he 
 went to live there it was the residence of Mr. Perry, the 
 once famous chief of the Morning Post. The monotony 
 of this part of London is very striking, though it might 
 surprise any curious inquirer if he saw the interiors of 
 some of those monotonous houses. Once they were the 
 abodes of the aristocracy, who crowded into London in
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT. 261 
 
 spring and summer, and there are chimney-pieces and 
 ceilings of the early Hanoverian days, often inaccurately 
 
 TAVISTOCK HOUSE 
 
 described as being in " Queen Anne's style," and now 
 again in great favour with the public, through the
 
 262 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 excellent skill of Mr. Norman Shaw, who recognised a 
 merit in them that to me always seemed apparent. I 
 say nothing of the weary unbroken facades we see in 
 what wc might call Woburnia, but only speak of the 
 architectural details. The streets themselves, and the 
 depressing effect of the architecture that frowns on them, 
 are graphically described by Dickens in Little Dorrit, 
 and there is no difficulty in supposing that he must have 
 resided principally at home when he wrote the tale. " It 
 was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and 
 stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of disson- 
 ance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, 
 made the brick and mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy 
 streets in a penitential garb of soot steeped the souls of 
 the people who were condemned to look at them out of 
 windows, in dire despondency." Mr. Arthur Clcnnam, who 
 was newly arrived from Marseilles by way of Dover and 
 by the Dover coach, '' The Blue-eyed Maid," was sitting in 
 the window of a coffee-house in Ludgate Hill, and he was 
 surrounded by " miles of houses, where the inhabitants 
 gasped for air;" and yet, as he truly says, "Through the 
 heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in 
 place of a fine fresh river." 
 
 Mr. Arthur Clennam was full of these reflections, and 
 putting on his coat to shield him from a passing shower 
 he could not but remember that " in the country the rain 
 would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and every 
 drop would have had its bright association with beautiful
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DO REIT. 263 
 
 forms of growth or life. In the city, it developed only 
 foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained 
 wretched addition to the gutters." 
 
 "He crossed by Saint Paul's and went down at a long 
 angle almost to the water's edge, through some of the 
 crooked and descending streets which lie (and lay more 
 crookedly and closely then) between the river and Cheap- 
 side. Passing now the mouldy hall of some obsolete 
 worshipful company, now the illuminated windows of a 
 congregationless church, that seemed to be waiting for 
 some' adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover 
 its history ; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and 
 here and there a narrow alley leading to the river where 
 a wretched little bill, ' Found Drowned,' was weeping on 
 the wet wall — he came at last to the house he sought. 
 An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, stand- 
 ing by itself within a gateway. Before it a square court- 
 yard, where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as 
 rank (which is saying much) as the iron railings enclosing 
 them were rusty ; behind it a jumble of roots. It was a 
 double house, with long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. 
 Many years ago it had had it in its mind to slide down- 
 ways ; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning 
 on some half-dozen gigantic crutches ; which gymnasium 
 for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, 
 and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days 
 to be no very sure reliance." But the " crooked and 
 descending streets " that lie between the river and Cheap-
 
 264 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 side are being really improved off the face of the cit}', and 
 more commodious ones are taking their places. Queen 
 Victoria Street is indeed one of the greatest improvements 
 of modern London. 
 
 LOLK i YANU, IMAKSHALSEA. 
 
 In Little Dorrit the Marshalsea holds a very prominent 
 place indeed ; and if we refer to Forster's Life of Dickens
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DO REIT. 265 
 
 we shall find that the incidents which he himself relates 
 of his own experiences show how keenly he was alive to 
 observe human nature, and even at an early age to begin 
 to collect materials for his future career in literature. 
 
 There was, as it would appear, a meeting held by the 
 inmates of the Marshals'ea to devise the best means to 
 forward a petition from the inmates to ask for a bounty 
 to drink His Majesty's health on his forthcoming birthday, 
 and commenting upon this he says : " I mention the cir- 
 cumstance because it illustrates, to me, my early interest 
 in observing people. When I went to the Marshalsea of 
 a night I was always delighted to hear from my mother 
 what she knew about the histories of the different debtors 
 in the prison ; and when I -heard of this approaching 
 ceremony I was so anxious to see them all come in, one 
 after another (though I knew the greater part of them 
 already to speak to and they me), that I got leave of 
 absence on purpose, and established myself in a corner 
 hear the partition. It was stretched out, I remember, on 
 a great ironing board under the window, which, in another 
 part of the room, made a bedstead at night. The internal 
 regulations of the place for cleanliness and order, and for 
 the government of a common room in the ale-house — 
 where hot water, and some means of cooking, and a good 
 fire, were provided for all who paid a very small subscrip- 
 tion — were excellently administered by a governing 
 committee of debtors, of which my father was chairman 
 for the time being." Then there is a picture of Captain
 
 266 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Porter standing over the petition with dignity, as the 
 unhappy petitioners filed in, and, as it were, taking 
 possession of them and theirs when they entered the room 
 to sign the momentous document. The Captain had, it 
 would seem, felt the importance of the occasion, and had 
 " washed himself," and when any one had the pen presented 
 to him to affix his signature he was asked if he had heard 
 it read, and if there was the slightest disposition to do so, 
 or even if there happened to be a faint suspicion of waver- 
 ing, Captain Porter at once took advantage. 
 
 In one of his works Dickens has said that people 
 always enjoy themselves over any legal affirmation or 
 oath, — perhaps such things are rather less in vogue now 
 than they were, — but he says that all such expressions as 
 " I do by these presents solemnly declare and avow," or 
 " and I will hereafter well and truly and to the best of 
 my ability and knowledge," give intense satisfaction. 
 
 If any hesitation appeared on the part of a signer of 
 the petition Captain Porter at once cleared his throat and 
 read it full from end to end, and he doubtless enjoyed 
 himself over the opening sentence that set forth the 
 " humble petition " in due legal phraseology, and the 
 closing one that the " humble petitioners ever will pray," 
 even though there is a little obscurity in the last promise. 
 
 Near the Marshalsea was the lodging-house and 
 academy kept by Mr. Cripples, where old Frederick Dorrit 
 and his niece had their home ; just across the road was a 
 pie-shop, where Flora led Little Dorrit for conversation.
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DO REIT. 267 
 
 As for the prison itself, in the collected edition of 
 Dickens he says, in the preface to Little Dorrit : " Some 
 of my readers may have an interest in being informed 
 whether or no any portions of the Marshalsea Prison are 
 yet standing. I myself did not know until I was 
 approaching the end of the story, when I went to look. 
 I found the outer front courtyard often mentioned here 
 metamorphosed into a butter shop, and then I almost gave 
 up every brick of the jail as lost. Wandering, however, 
 down a certain adjacent Angel Court leading to Bermond- 
 sey, I came to Marshalsea Place, the houses in which I 
 recognised, not only as the great block of the former 
 prison, but as preserving the rooms that arose in my mind's 
 eye when I became Little Dorrit's biographer. Whoever 
 goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court 
 leading to Bermondsey, will find his foot in the very pav- 
 ing stones of the extinct Marshalsea Jail ; will see its 
 narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered 
 if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the 
 place got free ; will look upon the rooms in which the 
 debtors lived ; and will stand among the crowding ghosts 
 of many miserable years." 
 
 Southwark Bridge contends with Blackfriars the 
 honour of being the handsomest bridge over the river. It 
 rests on two piers, and the centre span of 402 feet was 
 the widest in England until tubes were invented. On this 
 bridge Little Dorrit loved to walk, because it was quieter 
 than the others, — owing, doubtless, to its approaches being
 
 268 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 less convenient — and here she saw Clennam for the first 
 time, and felt attracted towards him. Here also young 
 John, who had the excellent gift of seeing everything 
 in a favourable light, and could transform a yard of 
 drying clothes into a grove of trees by a happy effort 
 of the imagination, declared his undying attachment to 
 her. 
 
 Where Mr. Casby lived we cannot now discover, for 
 the place has long since disappeared, but the description 
 of it is a life-like picture of many suburbs of London, and 
 indeed of many other suburbs of growing cities where 
 country scenes and associations are being crowded out. 
 Even Chester itself, where these lines are written, and 
 which is a walled city, cannot prevent such transformation 
 within its ancient gates, but occasionally a high wall that 
 has perhaps for centuries shut out some fruit garden which 
 lies within its enclosure, and possibly was at one time part 
 of a monastic establishment, is removed. First the coping 
 goes down, then, as course after course is lowered, the 
 ancient pleasaunce is exposed to passers-by who never 
 even knew of it. Gnarled old fruit-trees are open to the 
 street, and then masons and bricklayers usurp the place 
 and a new street is formed, and every trace of garden land 
 is lost. This is, in a small scale, a picture of what John 
 Casby used to see from his home. It was " in a street 
 in the Gray's Inn Road, which had set off from that 
 thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat 
 down into the valley and up again to the top of Penton-
 
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 fiS: 
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 ■■'■ #'e'waia^«'#sf^ 
 
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 1
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT 269 
 
 ville Hill, but which had run itself out of breath in twenty 
 yards, and had stood still ever since." 
 
 There is no such place as that now, but it remained 
 there for many years, looking with a balked countenance 
 at the wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens and 
 pimpled with eruptive summer-houses. 
 
 Chancery Lane is in the very heart of legal London, 
 or as I happen to remember a London youth, who seemed 
 to be a very juvenile appendage to some legal firm, say to 
 a suitor from the country who was quite at sea in the 
 legal districts of the metropolis : " Go to Chancery Lane, 
 sir ; you must go there first before you can get anywhere;" 
 and indeed to those who do not know which gateways to 
 dive through, or which passages to disappear into, this is 
 very far from being an unjust rcsiinic of the merits of 
 Chancery Lane. 
 
 This lane continually figures in the pages of Dickens, 
 and the drawing of it that Mr. Vanderhoof has given fairly 
 represents the centre of legal London, and there is not 
 much probability that the vast new courts that now over- 
 .shadow it will for a long time alter its character. Mr. 
 Guppy can always be met with in Chancery Lane, carrying 
 a blue bag and cordially fraternising with brother law 
 clerks. He is quite an authority upon the restaurants of 
 the neighbourhood, and can tell you exactly where the 
 best value may be had for a shilling that is to be spent 
 in lunch or dinner, and even knows the varying merits of 
 each chop-house as it may happen to change in its
 
 270 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 management. If one of these establishments is well con- 
 ducted and has any specialty the proprietor is not far 
 from fame and fortune. A case involving some law pro- 
 ceedings was before the public some little time since, and 
 it appeared in evidence that a fortune of i^4 5,000 had 
 been accumulated in a building that can hardly have a 
 frontage of more than eighteen feet to the street. 
 
 Clients waiting for their suits to be heard are generally 
 hungry, and often, indeed, thirsty ; and law}'ers' clerks are 
 generally dexterous in the use of a knife and fork. 
 Messrs. Jobling and Smallweed were taken by Mr. Guppy 
 to a well-known grill, " one of the class known by its 
 frequenters by the denomination of Slap Bang ;" and, as 
 we may see in fifty houses in the neighbourhood, there 
 was a " seductive show of artificially whitened cauliflowers 
 in the windows, with poultry, and verdant baskets of 
 greens, coolly-blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the 
 spit ;" and in the interior the guest was greeted with a 
 " general flush and steam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and , 
 a considerably heated atmosphere, in which the soiled 
 knives and table-cloths seemed to break out spontaneously 
 into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer." 
 
 Thavie's Inn and Clifford's Inn also figure in this 
 vicinity, and at the former Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, 
 and Richard Carstone passed their first night in London 
 under the roof of Mrs. Jellaby. Mr. Gupp}-, who well 
 knew how to cut off corners, and find his road in London, 
 described Thavie's Inn as being " round the corner. We
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT 271 
 
 just twist up Chancery Lane and cut along Holborn, and 
 there we are, in four minutes' time, as near as a toucher." 
 
 Clififord's Inn, which stands in the opposite of Chancery 
 Lane, is so called from Robert Clifford, who lived in the 
 time of Edward II., and to whom the lands upon which it 
 stands were devised. The entrance to it is from Fetter 
 Lane, which contains yet some curious specimens of old 
 London architecture that were evidently before Dickens 
 when he wrote some of the descriptions of the antique 
 parts of the city. 
 
 Though it is somewhat in the background, Clifford's 
 Inn has not a few histories to relate. After the great fire 
 of London Sir Matthew Hale and seventeen other judges 
 sat to adjust the claims of the landlords and tenants of 
 the burned districts ; and, difficult as this task was, they 
 are said to have completed it to the entire satisfaction of 
 all parties concerned ! 
 
 But Bleak House is principally intended to draw 
 attention to the law's delays ; and the estate of Mr. 
 Carstone, when it was placed at his disposal beyond doubt, 
 was of no value to him. After many years of litigation 
 the document turned up that settled every point, and 
 would have done so in the first instance, but some 
 ;!{^8o,000, the value of the property, was sunk in expenses. 
 It is generally said that the Jarnd\ce case was suggested 
 to Dickens by the well-known one of JMartin v. Earl 
 Beaiichanip — a case that appeared, disappeared, and re- 
 appeared, for a period of about eighty years, and when
 
 272 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 young Dickens was engaged in doing some work con- 
 nected with it as a law writer. 
 
 Mr. Tangle, who was always concerned in the Jarndyce 
 case, was a well-known character, and he could be seen 
 any day at one o'clock enjoying a lunch of fried oysters ; 
 or, if it were summer, he would be discussing a lobster or 
 chicken salad and imbibing stout, though that in strictly 
 correct quantities. 
 
 This restaurant yet stands at the end of Chancery 
 Lane, and fully maintains its ancient fame. 
 
 But there are many other life-like characters in the 
 environs of Chancery Lane that appear in Dickens ; and 
 notably among others Mr. Snagsby, the law stationer, who 
 has dealt in every form of legal process, " skins and 
 rolls of parchment ; in paper — foolscap, brief, draft, 
 brown, whitey brown, and blotting ; in stamps, in office- 
 quills, pens, ink, indiarubber, etc. etc. ;" and when the 
 eminent lawyer, Mr. Tulkinghorn, called upon him to 
 worm out the name of a law writer whom he wished to 
 discover for very different reasons from those assigned, 
 Mr. Snagsby's respect and veneration for the great man 
 knew no bounds, though, even as he went out with him 
 on business, he was obliged to conciliate his wife, for, as 
 the narrative says, though Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby were of 
 one bone and one flesh, " to the neighbours' thinking there 
 was one voice too, which voice, of course, was that of Mrs. 
 Snagsby." Chancery Lane was also the scene of the 
 wanderings of Miss Flite, as she travelled from Court to
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT. 273 
 
 Court. She was an actual character, and had some real 
 or fancied grievance, possibly a real one, but her actual 
 story is not generally known. I remember on one occasion 
 to have been in the Vice -Chancellor's Court (Lord 
 Hatherley's), and when a case was closed this lady, who 
 had been sitting behind, suddenly jumped up to address 
 the bench ; she was thin and energetic looking, but she 
 had a dreamy eye. There was a slight hush in the court 
 as she rose and called out in a shrill mechanical voice, 
 " My Lord — may it please your Lordship to hear the 
 
 humble petition of " I cannot now remember the 
 
 name, but the Vice-Chancellor said, " Ah, this is not the 
 day for hearing petitions." He knew her, of course, 
 perfectly well, and called out to the clerk to read out the 
 next case on the paper. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn was the scene of Miss Elite's daily 
 peregrinations, and there were not many of the wigged 
 gentry who were unfamiliar with her appearance and 
 weaknesses. This Inn figures conspicuously through all 
 of Dickens' works, but especially in Bleak House. The 
 principal entrance is from Chancery Lane, and this was 
 built soon after the battle of Bosworth Field ; over it Oliver 
 Cromwell once lived, and it is said that Ben Jonson 
 worked at the wall as a bricklayer. Dickens brings, in a 
 few words, the surroundings of Lincoln's Inn before our 
 eyes : " Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord 
 Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall." It was 
 November weather, and there was so much mud in the 
 
 T
 
 274 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 streets that in the murky gloom, that a paleozoic lizard 
 "some fifty feet long or so" might be expected "waddling 
 up Holborn Hill." Dogs are simply undistinguishable ; 
 and on the London bridges it seemed as though the 
 passengers " peeping over the parapets into a nether sky 
 of fog" were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty 
 clouds ; and in the " very heart of the fog sits the Lord 
 High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery." 
 
 Another picture is given of Lincoln's Inn Fields in 
 Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers ; and this eminent lawyer 
 sits in his rooms, where, indeed, he resides, and on a 
 sultry summer's evening " a breeze from the country that 
 has lost its way takes fright and makes a blind hurry to 
 rush out again," leaving, however, its contribution of dust. 
 Still, even Mr. Tulkinghorn can enjoy a bottle of very old 
 port which he brings up from some priceless bin in some 
 artful cellar under the Fields, and enjoys it after a dinner 
 served from some neighbouring chop-house to his cham- 
 bers. These chamber lodgers are not quite so common 
 as formerly, but a few of the old-fashioned sort yet exist. 
 Lincoln's Inn at night, however, is the same as ever, the 
 " perplexed and troublous valley of the shadow of the 
 law." The bell that rings at nine o'clock " has ceased its 
 dolorous clangour about nothing." It is only in "dirty 
 upper casements here and there are little hazy patches of 
 candle-light," where the denizens are toiling on at parch- 
 ments — who work, " though office hours be past, that the}- 
 may give for every day some good account at last."
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT. 
 
 275 
 
 Mr. Tulkinghorn's house has been identified as No. 58 
 
 LINCOLN S INN FIELDS. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields in the following words : " Our 
 immediate visit showed that number on the door of one
 
 276 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 of these two houses. As we had already suspected, he 
 had taken the house in which Forster had lived, and with 
 which he was so familiar as the residence of Tulkinghorn, 
 and if any further corroborative proof was needed it was 
 unexpectedly stumbled on by one of these identifiers. 
 Let the reader turn to Maclise's sketch, in the Life, of the 
 gathering in Forster's chambers to hear Dickens read his 
 new Christmas story, TJic Chimes. He had come on from' 
 Italy for this reading prior to publication, having written 
 Forster to invite Carlyle, Jerrold, Maclise, Stanfield, and 
 others, to hear him, in that delightful letter, beginning 
 * Now, if you was a real gent.' Maclise made a sketch of 
 the room and its inmates, and there, in the left-hand 
 corner, you shall still see the very frescoes — weird figures 
 with waving arms and pointing fingers — which Dickens 
 placed with such ghastly effect on Tulkinghorn's ceiling." 
 The gateway to Lincoln's Inn which faces Chancery 
 Lane is a very fine piece of brick architecture, and some 
 of the older parts of the square are perfect models of 
 artistic brickwork, and show what can be made out of a 
 material that hardly any one can use now with anything 
 like good effect. Hampton Court, St. James's Palace, and 
 the older parts of Lincoln's Inn, afford examples of the 
 way artists can handle bricks, a building material that even 
 the Romans were enamoured with, and cmplo\'ed when 
 the best building stone was at hand, but which in the 
 present day we use no better than in the flat front of a 
 terrace with square ^\•indows. Lincoln's Inn received its
 
 LINCOLN S INN GATEWAY. ,
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT. 277 
 
 name from Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who died in 
 the year i 3 i 2. It is built on the site of his old town 
 house. The chapel on the right of the entrance was de- 
 signed by Inigo Jones at about the same time that he built 
 the towers of Westminster, and they have every indication 
 of being the work of the same hand. He had the good 
 taste to admire the architecture of the Tudors, but it had 
 ceased to be employed in buildings, except, perhaps, in 
 some remote country church ; and we see that he only 
 was acquainted with the principles of Italian architecture. 
 The stained glass windows are very good, and honest Mr. 
 Pepys used to find great consolation under the sort of 
 open crypt above which the chapel stands. These 
 windows represented different saints, and Mr. Hare 
 notices that Archbishop Laud thought it curious that his 
 own stained glass windows at Lambeth should be so much 
 abused when those at Lincoln's Inn were allowed to pass 
 unnoticed, and yet he thinks it best, on very general 
 principles, not to say anything about it, " lest he should 
 thereby set some furious spirit at work to destroy those 
 harmless goodly windows to the just dislike of that worthy 
 society." 
 
 The Hall of Lincoln's Inn was built when Dickens 
 was in the height of his prosperity, and when he was 
 producing his very best works. Next to Westminster, 
 it is probably the finest hall in London. It is 120 
 feet in length, 45 in breadth, and 64 feet high. The 
 screen is a very elaborate piece of work, and the roof is
 
 278 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 rich and costly. At the northern end of the hall is a 
 painting in fresco by Watts, R.A. — "The Lawgivers." 
 But all the classical associations of Lincoln's Inn will 
 receive a shock when the law courts are removed to the 
 vast building that now occupies so large a porion of the 
 Strand. It is, indeed, in a sanitary point of view, a great 
 improvement to this part of the city ; alleys and lanes, 
 that it seems almost incredible were ever in the midst 
 of the Metropolis, have been swept away, and a space of 
 some seven acres secured for a great court-house, where 
 law will be almost remodelled, and where some new 
 Dickens must arise to invest its routine with the romance 
 that hangs about the old courts of Lincoln's Inn. How 
 far the new buildings will commend themselves to the 
 public taste time must show. The designer is no more ; 
 he has done excellent work in his time, and he may have 
 calculated upon the chemistry of a London atmosphere, 
 for all I know correctly, to give his last work repose and 
 harmony. 
 
 In Chancery Lane is an old quadrangle containing the 
 Rolls court and chapel ; the latter is a building that 
 abounds with classic associations. Donne, Attcrbury, and 
 the learned Butler were all preachers, and Burnet was 
 dismissed by the restored king for preaching a sermon 
 upon the text, " Save me from the lion's mouth, thou hast 
 heard me from the horns of the unicorn." The little 
 chapel contains one of the noblest pieces of sculpture in 
 England, this is the recumbent figure of Dr. John Young,
 
 HALL OF LINCOLN S INN.
 
 BLEAK HOUSE AND LITTLE DORRIT. 279 
 
 Master of the Rolls in Henry VIII.'s time. Every line 
 in this grand piece of sculpture speaks of repose, and there, 
 is a quiet lofty dignity that, as it were, seems to linger to 
 the last over the handsome features. The effigy and the 
 sarcophagus on which it rests are the works of Torregiani, 
 and the master who so literally sleeps in cold dull marble 
 is worthy even of his chisel. Amongst other masters that 
 lie buried here is Sir John Strange, on whom the epitaph 
 was written, — 
 
 " Here lies an honest lawyer, that is Strange."
 
 28o ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MYSTERY OF ED^VIN DROOD. 
 
 Edzvin Drood opens with the interior of an opium den 
 where John Jaspar was lying on a bed in company with 
 a besotted Chinaman and a Lascar, all of them under the 
 influence of opium \-apour. The visions of Jaspar are 
 quite characteristic of a man recovering from his dream, 
 and he saw the tower of Rochester Cathedral mingling 
 with fantastic Eastern scenes, and a hook or spike where the 
 sultan used to impale Turkish robbers. All this was mixed 
 with revelry, and dancing girls, and banqueting, while the 
 iron spike still remained before him supported in mid-air. 
 White elephants in endless procession, richly caparisoned, 
 with cymbals clashing all round them, fill in the lurid 
 picture. Still through all this the tower of Rochester, 
 which he knows has no right to be there, rises clearly up 
 in the distance over and above all the heterogeneous scenes. 
 The opium " den," as such places are called, we learn from 
 Charles Dickens's admirable Guide to London, is situated 
 near Ratcliffe Highway, in a garret kept by a man called 
 Johnstone, though his real name, or at least one that more
 
 Clifford's inn.
 
 MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 
 
 accurately described him, was "John Chinaman." Here,, 
 for the consideration of a shilHng, a sailor or any customer 
 may smoke his pipe, and dream the hours away. 
 
 The site is so clearly known that a visitor to London 
 purchased the bed upon which John Jaspar lay with his 
 smoke-dried companions, and this enthusiastic relic-hunter 
 had it safely transported to his home in America. The 
 proprietor of this den is himself so imbued with the smoke 
 of opium that, after a lapse of years, he has become, as we 
 may say, thoroughly acclimatised to it, and a breeze of 
 country air would be intolerable to him even on a day in 
 June. Indeed, in the Guide to London Dickens mentions 
 that he suddenly closed the grimy window with as honest a 
 shudder as he himself felt the fumes and opened it. The 
 first chapter of the last work of Dickens deals with the 
 temporary delights of opium, which have such appalling 
 penalties, and result in a delirium worse even than that 
 which alcohol can inflict. When the "opium demon" has 
 fairly taken hold of a man, human aid is at an end, and, 
 utterly prostrate, he must linger on till death releases him. 
 Supported by the drug that has undone him, and with 
 eyes that glare like those of a wnld animal, he is of no 
 further use, and he must bide his time. Those who have 
 read De Ouincey's Confessions of an Opinm-catcr wall re- 
 member how terribly the effects are described, and I am 
 almost reminded of an incident that occurred within sight 
 of the window where these lines were written. All visitors 
 to the ancient city of Chester will remember the grand
 
 282 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 old abbey church of St. John's, which has seen seven 
 hundred summers, and was once the cathedral of Chester ; 
 near it are magnificent remains of carved work that once 
 formed the bosses, and capitals, and enrichments of the 
 wealthy abbey. 
 
 A house was built out of some of these remains, and, 
 but that all is on too large a scale, the place might well 
 stand for that where little Nell found a resting-place after 
 life's brief but fitful struggle. In this house at one time 
 De Ouincey the opium-eater lived and wrote ; and in the 
 year 1880, on the eve of Good Friday, it may be remem- 
 bered that the great tower fell without a moment's warn- 
 ing, and its many tons of debris covered the site of the 
 house where De Ouincey lived. 
 
 There is a fine description of Rochester Cathedral 
 after the bell had ceased ringing for afternoon service. 
 Jaspar had heard the "unintelligible" mutterings of the 
 crazy inmates he left behind him, and had presence of 
 mind enough left to grope his way down the stairs, and 
 " give a good morning to some rat-ridden doorkeeper in 
 a bed in a black hutch beneath the stairs, and pass out." 
 He went on to Rochester, and in the same afternoon 
 " the bells are going for daily vesper service, and he 
 needs attend it, one would say, from his haste to reach 
 the open cathedral door. The choir are getting on their 
 sullied white robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among 
 them, gets on his own robe and falls into the procession 
 filintr into service. Then the sacristan locks the iron-
 
 J/ VS TER V OF EI) I VIN DROOD. 283 
 
 barred gates that divide the sanctuary from the chancel, 
 and all of the procession having scuttled into their places, 
 hide their faces ; and then the intoned words, Wlien the 
 wicked mail, rise among the groins of arches, and beams 
 of roof, awakening muttered thunder." There are many 
 beautiful descriptions of the pleasant nooks in a cathedral 
 city, or such as may often be seen in an ancient market 
 town where the parish church has been some part of one 
 of the smaller abbeys or priories. One only must suffice 
 out of many — it was in the cathedral close in the minor 
 canon's quarter : " Red-brick walls harmoniously toned 
 down in colour by time, strong-rooted ivy, latticed 
 windows, panelled rooms, big oak beams in little places, 
 and stone-walled gardens, where annual fruit yet ripened 
 upon monkish trees, were the principal surroundings of 
 pretty old Mrs. Crisparkle and the Rev. Septimus as they 
 sat at breakfast." 
 
 There is no passage in all Dickens that more clearly 
 shows his keen observation and delight in mute things, 
 and a sympathy that did not stop with the phases of 
 human life, deep as that was. Red-brick walls not only 
 mellow with time, but artists say that even an old London 
 brick wall is a study of colour, and that anywhere 
 within a stone's-throw of St. Paul's or the Tower " strong- 
 rooted ivy " is peculiarly applicable to the gnarled and 
 knotted roots we see curling round and under ancient 
 masonry; and yet, as he says, " annual fruit ripen on monk- 
 ish trees," and this long after the supports to which they
 
 284 
 
 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 have clung have disappeared. I know one garden in 
 Cheshire, and one in Shropshire, attached to old farm 
 buildings that once were parts of a priory, where espaliers 
 in perfect growth that followed some cloister wall, and 
 now stand alone, after their support has left 
 them, are yet full of life and vigour. The 
 "bie oak beams in little 
 
 places" aie \ery 
 chaiacteiistic of 
 
 w hatwe see mc\ei\ 
 count) sometimes 
 o\er the smallest 
 of recesses we shall find a 
 huge oak beam that would al- 
 most carry a cathedral tower, 
 and is fifty times as strong al- 
 most as its little duties require ; but the fact is, that the 
 
 THIi NOOK OK STAl'LK INN.
 
 M \ 'STER Y OF EDll 7N DROOD. 285 
 
 country was so full of heavy wood, in forests and 
 parks, that men could afford to be lavish, and it cost 
 almost less to place the great beam where it stands than 
 to reduce it. 
 
 Staple Inn in Holborn is just such a place as Dickens 
 in his happiest moments delighted in, and it appears by 
 name or by implication again and again in his pages. 
 " Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, 
 where certain gabled houses, some centuries of age, still 
 stand looking on the public way, as if disconsolatory, 
 looking for the old bourne that has long since run dry, 
 is a little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles 
 called Staple Inn. It is one of those nooks the turning 
 into which out of the clashing streets imparts to the re- 
 lieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton in 
 his ears and velvet soles to his boots. It is one of those 
 nooks where a few smoky sparrows twitter in smok}' 
 trees, as though they called to each other, ' Let us play 
 at country,' and where a few feet of garden mould, and 
 a few yards of gravel, enable them to do that refreshing 
 violence to their tiny understandings. IMoreover, it is one 
 of those nooks which are legal nooks, and it contains a 
 little hall with a little lantern in its roof, to what ob- 
 structive purposes devoted and at whose expense this 
 history knoweth not. I\Ir. Grcwgious himself occupied 
 a set of chambers in a corner house, in the little inner 
 quadrangle presenting in black and white over its ugly 
 portal the mysterious inscription :—
 
 286 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 P 
 J T 
 
 1747 
 
 In which set of chambers never having troubled his 
 head about the inscription, unless to bethink himself at 
 odd times on glancing up at it that haply it might mean, 
 ' perhaps John Thomas,' or ' perhaps Joe Tyler,' sat Mr. 
 Grewgious writing by the fire." This place is indeed a 
 perfect preserve of sparrows, and swallows seem to linger 
 here when they have left even the London parks. There 
 is another description of chambers in Staple Inn, where 
 Mr. Neville Landless lived and studied, and it is a picture 
 of exceeding comfort and cosiness. He took himself 
 to Staple Inn, but not the P. J. T. of Mr. Grewgious. 
 Full many a creaking stair he climbed before he reached 
 some attic rooms in a corner, turned the latch of their 
 unbolted door, and stood beside the table of Neville 
 Landless. 
 
 " An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms 
 and about their inhabitant. He was much worn, and so 
 were they. Their sloping ceilings, cumbrous rusty locks 
 and grates, with heavy wooden bins and beams slowly 
 mouldering withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the 
 haggard face of a prisoner. Yet the sunlight shone in at 
 the ugly garret window, which had a penthouse to itself 
 thrust out among the tiles, and on the cracked and smoke- 
 blackened parapet beyond, some of the deluded sparrows 
 of the place rheumatically hopped, like little feathered
 
 MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 287 
 
 cripples who had left their crutches in their nests, and 
 there was a play of living leaves at hand that changed 
 the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it that 
 would have been melody in the country. Hawthorne 
 describes the singular feeling of stillness and repose in this 
 court}'ard, which contrasts so thoroughly with all its 
 surroundings and is immediately lost when Holborn is 
 regained. The small hall at Staple Inn is exceedingly 
 picturesque, with its open roof, and stained windows, and 
 ancient portraits. When Dr, Johnson left Gough Square 
 he took up his abode at Staple Inn, and here he wrote 
 Rassclas. The front to Holborn, which is here shown, is 
 one of the most picturesque fagades in London. It seems 
 to date back to the early part of James I.'s reign, and its 
 quaint overhanging gables are full of light and shade. An 
 hotel near Aldersgate is spoken of here. " It is a hotel, 
 boarding-house, or lodging-house at its visitor's option." 
 This is the place that was frequented by John Jaspar on 
 the occasions of his visits to London, and about this 
 locality and St. Paul's Churchyard are many similar ones. 
 " This accommodating place " announces itself in the new 
 railway advertisers as a novel enterprise, timidly be- 
 ginning to spring up. It bashfully, almost apologetically, 
 gives the traveller to understand that it does not expect 
 him, on the good old constitutional hotel plan, to order a 
 pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and throw it 
 away ; but insinuates that he may have his boots blacked 
 instead of his stomach, and may also have bed, breakfast.
 
 288 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 attendance, and a porter up all night, for a certain fixed 
 charge. From these and similar premises, many true 
 Britons in the lowest spirits deduce that the times are 
 levelling times, except in the article of highroads, of 
 which there will shortly be not one in England." In- 
 stitutions similar to this may be found in the pages of 
 Bradshazu, and many of them are very comfortable indeed, 
 and if one of them only gets a name for anything that 
 is a little better than its neighbour can boast of, whether 
 it is chops, or Yarmouth bloaters, or bottled stout, the 
 owner's fortune is not far off 
 
 The Mystery of Edzvin Drood must close with one 
 more quotation, which is a description of Cloisterham on 
 a warm summer's day. The " transparency of the walls " 
 that is alluded to is a very accurate picture of the solid 
 walls of an old building when, as it were, it is bathed in 
 sunlight, and is an effect that we do not see in a new 
 building. " Cloisterham is so bright and sunny in these 
 summer days that the cathedral and the monastery ruin 
 show as if their strong walls were transparent. A soft 
 glow seems to shine from within them rather than upon 
 them from without, such is their mellowness as they look 
 forth on the hot cornfields and the smoking roads that 
 distantly wind among them. The Cloisterham gardens 
 blush with ripening fruit. Time was when travel-stained 
 pilgrims rode in clattering parties through the city's 
 welcome shades ; time is when wayfarers, leading a gipsy 
 life between hay-making time and harvest, and looking as
 
 MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 289 
 
 if they were just made of the dust of the earth, so very 
 dusty are they, lounge about on cool door-steps, trying to 
 mend their unmendable shoes, or giving them to the city 
 kennels as a hopeless job, and seeking others in the 
 bundles they carry, along with their yet unused sickles 
 swathed in bands of straw. At all the more public 
 pumps there is much cooling of bare feet, together with 
 much bubbling and gurgling of drinking with hand to 
 spout on the part of these Bedouins ; the Cloisterham 
 police meanwhile looking askant from their beats with 
 suspicion, and manifest impatience that the intruders 
 should depart from within the civic bound, and once 
 more fry themselves on the simmering roads." 
 
 U
 
 290 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 
 
 Furnival's Inn was always a favourite place with 
 Dickens. Here simple honest John Westlock had his 
 chambers which so astonished Tom Pinch with their 
 completeness ; and Rosebud took up her quarters here 
 instead of Staple Inn. But it deserves especial notice 
 from the circumstance that it was here that Dickens had 
 his early home. He lived here as a reporter for some 
 time before he was connected with the press. It was here 
 that he wrote his Sketches by Boz, and, beyond all, it was 
 here that he commenced his great career as an author, by 
 writing the Pickivick Paper's. 
 
 The central figure of the group facing this is ]\Ir. 
 Pickwick, and though Dickens himself was not always 
 satisfied with his production of the philosopher, he it was 
 that gave him his first start in life. When he heard that 
 a brother of St. Bernard was going to read it he said, 
 " What a humbug he will think me." Mr. Pickwick had 
 been in business in London, and retired upon an ample 
 competence. At the Bardell trial Mr. Snubbin says, " I
 
 DICKENS CHARACTERS.
 
 A I/O USE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 
 
 291 
 
 have no objection to admit, my lord, if it will save the 
 examination of another witness, that my client has retired 
 
 HOUSE IN FURNIVAL S INN. 
 
 from business, and is a gentleman of considerable inde- 
 pendent property." One almost fears that the discoverer
 
 292 ABO UT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 of Bil Stniu/)s His Mark would hardly be a suitable man 
 to trust among- the buyers and sellers of this world, yet it 
 by no means follows that he was not a steady sound man 
 of business. " His money always was as good as the 
 bank — always," is the willing testimony of Mrs. Bardell ; 
 and it is probable that he would at any rate have looked 
 well after the internal economy of an office, even if he did 
 not undertake some of the departments that belong to 
 buying and selling, — not that there is any necessary reason 
 why he should not have been able to hold his own even 
 there. Weller, of course, is always spoken of in connec- 
 tion with him, and their relations were rather peculiar for 
 master and man. Still Weller was exceedingly faithful, 
 and had precisely the ready wit that made him of use to 
 Mr, Pickwick. Indeed, the two Wellers and Pickwick are 
 the real characters in the book ; Mr. Snodgrass, the poet ; 
 ]\Ir. Winkle, the sportsman; and Mr. Tupman, the impres- 
 sionable, are very minor characters, and hardly rise to 
 being even amusing. Weller is a slightly exaggerated 
 specimen of the sharp Londoner who is yet to be met 
 with. Omnibuses have kept them alive, though they have 
 not preserved the class of which his parent was a type. 
 Old Tony Weller is a fine example of the English stage- 
 coachman now no more. He fairly loved his calling, and, 
 indeed, to a man who was fond of horses, and the pleasur- 
 able excitement of a ride, which had its merits in any 
 weather, for he was provided accordingly, such a life had 
 many attractions. There is a tale of an old coachman
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 293 
 
 who drove out of London, and who had for more than 
 quarter of a century never missed a trip or had been bc- 
 "hind time, and when he asked for a holiday to celebrate 
 his twenty-fifth wedding-day it was freely granted by his 
 employers, and a substitute found to fill his place ; but at 
 starting time, when the deputy came, he found the old 
 coachman on the box. He had puzzled what he should 
 do, and how he could best spend his holiday, and found 
 that his old way of life had the greatest of all attractions 
 for him. 
 
 Mr. Sergeant Buzfuz and Mr, Snubbin are well 
 enough drawn, but they only appear in the scene for a 
 moment. Mr. Perkcr is a very good example of a safe 
 methodical London lawyer, such as we might find any 
 day in the neighbourhood of any of the Inns of court ; 
 and if we read the police reports it is to be feared that 
 Dodson and Fogg are not quite an unknown type of 
 practitioner ; indeed, there may be even some almost of a 
 more exceptionable character, for they seem to have been 
 prosperous, and were far too wide-awake to use a client's 
 money in speculation, or to put themselves within the pale 
 of the law. We must remark that everything has changed 
 so much since Pickwick was written that many things 
 which passed without comment in those days would cause 
 us some little astonishment at present. Perhaps a gentle- 
 man would consider at least twice before he went into a 
 tavern with his servant, if something had gone wrong, and 
 beguiled dull care with a tumbler of hot brandy and
 
 294 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 water, while the servant refreshed himself with stout. 
 Again, the too hilarious state of Mr. Pickwick and all his 
 followers at Dinglcy Dell is told with more gusto than" 
 any one would use in describing it now. But we must 
 remember that Dickens painted things very much as he 
 saw them ; and as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress has pre- 
 served pictures of the magistracy and the hierarchy of his 
 day (which were not contemplated, indeed, by the author), 
 and Smollett and Fielding have left records of their time, 
 Dickens has portrayed the daily life that he saw around 
 him. It has been objected that he was too needlessly 
 sarcastic upon the temperance lecturers of the day, and 
 the class of local preachers of which Stiggins was a type, 
 or perhaps a burlesque. Uphill work they had, and much 
 good they often did. To deny that there were self- 
 seekers among them, and to assert that they were all 
 actuated by no desire to provide scrip for their journey, 
 would be as rash, as to say that the nolo episcopari of an 
 English bishop was always a genuine outpouring of one 
 who had resolved to be shod with sandals, and to put no 
 money in his purse. Still one thinks that Stiggins has' 
 had scanty justice, and as that appeared to be the case 
 soon after he came before the public, it is but fair to let 
 Dickens speak for himself He writes to a Mr. David 
 Dickson, who has found fault with the way in which he 
 treats the subject : " Sir — Permit me to say, in reply to 
 your letter, that you do not understand the intention (I 
 daresay the fault is mine) of that passage in the Pickiuick
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 295 
 
 Papers which has given you offence. The design of * The 
 Shepherd,' and of this, and of every other allusion to him, 
 is to show how sacred things are degraded, vulgarised, and 
 rendered absurd, when persons who are utterly incompetent 
 to teach the commonest things take upon themselves to 
 expound such mysteries, and how, in making cant phrases 
 of Divine words, these persons miss the spirit in which 
 they had their origin. I have seen a great deal of this 
 sort of thing in many parts of England, and I never knew 
 it lead to charity or good deeds. . . . That every man who 
 seeks heaven must be born again, in good thoughts of his 
 Maker, I sincerely believe. That it is expedient for every 
 hound to say so in a certain snuffling form of words, to 
 which he attaches no good meaning, I do not believe," 
 
 In Nicholas Nicklcby the best characters are Mrs. 
 Nickleby and Mantalini. They are the most artistically 
 drawn by far. Squeers is simply a cruel brute who over- 
 does himself by his wickedness, and the usurers, Gridle 
 and Ralph Nickleby, are not very difficult to draw ; 
 Nicholas and Kate are most estimable and very sensible, 
 and we must go to the subtleties of the Darwinian theory 
 to know how it happens that such parents — as we learn 
 from Ralph Nickleby what his brother was, and we know 
 what Mrs. Nickleby w-as — could have had such a clever 
 family ; but, on the other hand, we continually see the 
 cleverest of parents the progenitors of youths who do not 
 rank high even among the mediocrities of life. Mrs. 
 Squeers is also a character that will live ; she is very
 
 296 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 much like Sally Brass in her way of life and her estimate 
 of right and wrong, but she is rather more natural. 
 
 " ' He'll take a meal with us to-night,' said Squeers, 
 ' and go among the boys to-morrow morning. You can 
 give him a shake-down here to-night, can't you?' 
 
 " * We must manage it somehow,' replied the lady. 
 'You don't much mind how you sleep, I suppose, sir?' 
 
 " ' No, indeed,' replied Nicholas ; ' I am not particular. 
 
 " ' That's lucky,' said Mrs. Squeers ; and, as the lady's 
 humour was considered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr. Squeers 
 laughed heartily, and seemed to expect that Nicholas 
 should do the same." 
 
 And again, when Mrs. Squeers was asked for her 
 opinion about Nicholas, she said to her husband : " ' Oh, 
 that Knuckleboy, I hate him ;'" and at once she shut up 
 Mr. Squeers, who rather gently said, "'But why?'" with 
 "'What's that to you? if I hate him that's enough, ain't 
 it?'" and the estimable lady said further that he was "a 
 proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-noscd peacock." 
 
 Her spouse seemed rather to deprecate the vehemence 
 of the outbreak, and said — 
 
 " ' He's cheap, my dear, the young man is very 
 cheap.' 
 
 " ' Not a bit of it,' retorted Mrs. Squeers ; ' he's dear if 
 you don't want him ; I don't see that you want him any 
 more than the dead — don't tell me. You can put in the 
 cards and in the advertisements : " Education by Mr. 
 Wackford Squeers and able assistants " without having
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 297 
 
 any assistants, can't you ? Isn't it done every day by all 
 the masters about ? I've no patience with you.' " 
 
 The rest of this conversation in the ninth chapter is 
 very full both of humour and character ; indeed she is the 
 presiding spirit of Dotheboys Hall. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby is essentially an opposite character. 
 Her dreams of Kate's great match with Sir Mulberry 
 Hawk of Mulberry Castle, North Wales — " only daughter 
 of Nicholas Nickleby, Esquire, of Devonshire " — and the 
 poetic lines that she conjured up as appearing in some 
 annual in honour of her daughter, with a possible allusion 
 to herself that might bring an admirer, are true to the life. 
 Then her gliding off from one subject to another without 
 the slightest connection, and her constant references to the 
 silver spoons and ancient grandeur of her family, are all in 
 keeping with the luckless lady — for a lady she always was 
 through all her vicissitudes. 
 
 The original of Nicholas Nickleby himself, as we learn 
 from an article in the Literary World, was a teacher of 
 music on the Hullah system, and was well known in 
 Manchester. 
 
 At the top of the sheet, on the left-hand side, is the 
 immortal Bumble and his forlorn charge, Oliver ; and it is 
 only fair .to add that the fame of Dickens will go down to 
 posterity on the strength of the portraits that this sheet 
 contains ; for there are those who would wish that he had 
 never written another work after Copperfield. In the 
 Literary World a writer who reviews Professor Ward's
 
 298 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 work on Dickens, and speaks of the reaction that followed 
 his popularity, has said, when alluding to an excess of his 
 fame : " Twenty years ago, to take one illustration, every 
 one in the universities who read novels at all read 
 Dickens from end to end, and quoted him and imitated 
 him without measure or restraint. The state of things is 
 altered now. Few undergraduates are conversant even 
 with the superficial elements of Pickwickian lore, and not 
 many months since it was our lot to meet one evening six 
 scholars of a college not altogether given over to mathe- 
 matics, and itself not without honour in fiction, of whom 
 not one was familiar with more than the mere name of 
 Samuel Weller and the Deputy Shepherd. Though this 
 is an extreme case of ignorance, yet it illustrates the 
 tendency of the day. Such an ebb of popularity cannot 
 be lasting, and when the dross is cleared away Dickens 
 must secure a permanent place among the great masters 
 of English fiction." 
 
 Now it is hardly excusable that even assiduous students 
 at a university should be ignorant of the characters here 
 alluded to any more than they might be of Dominie 
 Sampson or Major Pendennis. It must always be borne 
 in mind that in his later works Dickens has introduced 
 characters that perhaps may not be so generally known. 
 " To be ignorant of the poets of one's country denotes 
 indolence," a Roman moralist once said ; but though we 
 may all admit this, we can hardly attach much blame to 
 any one who is not familiar with Mr. Veneering or Mr.
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 
 
 299 
 
 Podsnap or Mr. Boffin. These characters were delineated 
 at his last residence at Gadshill, and it may be that he 
 was away from the old sources of his inspiration, or it may 
 be that perhaps a little of the old cunning had left his 
 pen ; at any rate in his days of wealth and well-earned 
 
 GAUSHIl.I., 
 
 prosperity the characters he has portrayed do not leave 
 the same impressions as those that he created in his earlier 
 days. Even Mr. Grewgious or John Jaspar or Mr. Neville 
 Landless are not exactly familiar characters with many to 
 whom Weller and Codlins are quite household words. 
 
 Among some reviewers it has been said that Peck-
 
 300 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 sniff is an overdrawn, unnatural character, and that any 
 one so transparent could not be supposed to gain any 
 confidence. Nothing, however, is more astonishing than 
 the facility with which pretension and cunning will be 
 accepted by the public, especially in a professional man. 
 Let us only consider how often a foreigner becomes a 
 lion if he can only look wise and adhere to broken English. 
 When Pecksniff undertook to transform Martin Chuzzle- 
 wit's drawing of the school into a fine design by a few 
 touches — " the hand of a master " — which touches were 
 adding a window and sub-cornice or some such device, 
 there are many more clients that would than would not have 
 believed him ; and then this eternal self-puffing has a very 
 imposing effect upon more than the half of mankind. It is 
 recorded on very good authority that a Russian who was 
 in needy circumstances, but who possessed a good suit of 
 clothes, made quite a comfortable income in the vicintty of 
 London b}- teaching music and singing, though he could 
 neither play a tune nor sing a song. 
 
 Pecksniff is no more overdrawn than the mistress of a 
 London boarding-school who never teaches, and who never 
 could, but who makes an abundant income out of a straight 
 figure, a clear complexion, hair slightly inclining to gray, 
 and a double gold pebble glass. This picture is at least 
 drawn from life. The young ladies, \\\\o paid what many 
 clergymen would consider an ample income, were obliged 
 to speak French, a language the governesses understood pcr- 
 fectl}', and when the pupils were ushered at some indefinite
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 301 
 
 period into the august presence of the mistress — if, indeed, 
 that is the correct word — they in their simplicity addressed 
 her in that language. But she, with great impatience, 
 stopped them and said that their accent simply shocked her, 
 and if they wished to be understood they must address her 
 in English. And this was quite true, for it was exceedingly 
 doubtful if she could have asked her way from the 
 Tuileries to the Louvre. Now here is a simple statement 
 of fact, and yet this woman had applications from all parts 
 of England for the privilege of placing some young lady 
 under her charge. Is Pecksniff any more incredible ? 
 But Dickens says that he is drawn from an actual charac- 
 ter, which, indeed, there is no difficulty in crediting. He 
 says that what is called long sight perceives on a prospect 
 innumerable features that do not appear to short-sighted 
 people, and he had in his eye a model when he drew 
 Pecksniff, and this model would be shocked if he were 
 shown his portrait. 
 
 Mr. Skimpole, of course, is Leigh Hunt. Hunt did 
 not see the likeness, but some considerate friends pointed 
 it out for him, and he was deeply hurt, saying that 
 Dickens had no right so to treat an old acquaintance ; 
 and though Dickens said all he could to make amends — 
 " I take it at its worst, and say I am deeply sorry, and that 
 I feel I did wrong in doing it " — the injury was done, and 
 Hunt could never forget it. Dickens even went so far as 
 to admit to Hunt that his own father and mother figured 
 in his works.
 
 302 ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. 
 
 Mr. Micawber will be recognised at once on the right 
 of Mr. Pecksniff, as the humorous Mrs. Gamp is on the 
 architect's left hand. Pinch is behind him, and the ex- 
 pression is well preserved. He is by no means an 
 impossible though perhaps not a common character. We 
 might find a dozen Pecksniffs for one character even 
 approaching Tom Pinch. The dwarf Quilp, who is behind 
 Mr. Pickwick, is quite exceptional, and for myself I do not 
 remember to have met with any character that he re- 
 sembles ; there may be such persons, and perhaps there 
 are, but certainly they are not common. Swiveller, how- 
 ever, who has struck up a kind of grotesque friendship 
 with him, is among the very best drawn of all Dickens's 
 characters. Under the dwarf are Nell and her grandfather. 
 He at least is eminently natural, and believes that he 
 must at last make a great fortune by gaming. He robs 
 poor Nell of the trifle she has put by, and of course it 
 goes at once when he sits down with gamblers. The 
 same infatuation may be seen an\' time at races. In 
 Chester, where the iniquity is focused, it is quite common 
 for some one with fair prospects to turn their backs on all 
 sense and experience and go to certain destruction on 
 race week. An old proverb says that " experience makes 
 fools wise," but what a change in the world, and what a 
 change for the better, there would be if it did. 
 
 Cuttle with his hook occupies the lowest part of the 
 sheet. Steamboats and a higher education have done 
 much to alter the class of ship captains now, and we must
 
 A HOUSE AND SOME CHARACTERS. 
 
 303 
 
 look for him among coasters or Glasgow schooners. Still 
 we find, in any service, from the royal navy to the 
 mackerel boat, true, honest, kindly tars, that are the 
 happiest when they are doing a generous, kindly action. 
 
 The residence of the Right Hon. Milner Gibson, rented by Dickens when he wrote some 
 parts of Edwin Drood. He took it for six months, from November to May 1870, 
 and died at Gadshill the month after his tenancy expired.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abbey Gate, Bury, 66. 
 Abbot's Bridge, Bury, 69. 
 Abel Cottage, Finchley, 217. 
 Amesbury, 166, 167. 
 Angel Inn, 66. 
 
 Bailey Prison, Old, 154. 
 Barnard Castle, 106. 
 Beechy Head, 116. 
 Bey mouth, 189. 
 Bleak House, 260. 
 Blunderstone, 3, 8, 9. 
 Brentford, 145, 147, 
 Breyden Water, 13. 
 Briggs Place, 244. 
 Brighton, 20. 
 Bryanstone Square, 221. 
 Bull and Mouth Inn, 61. 
 Bull Inn, Rochester, 44. 
 
 Camberwell, 177. 
 
 Canterbury, 30, 32. 
 
 Categern, 47. 
 
 Cathedral Close, Canterbury, 33. 
 
 Cavendish Square, 222. 
 
 '"hancery Lane, 269, 271. 
 
 Cheapside, 263. 
 
 Chelmsford, 71. 
 
 Chertsea, 144. 
 
 Chester, 200. 
 
 Chipping Onger, 204. 
 
 Chiswick, 146. 
 
 Church Street, 252. 
 
 City Square, London, 128. 
 
 Clerkenwell, 68, 79, 143. 
 
 Clifford's Inn, 271. 
 
 Cloisterham, 50, 289. 
 
 Common Hard, Portsmouth, 124 
 
 Cooling Church, 258. 
 
 Covent Garden, 146, 196, 198, 199. 
 
 Crutched Friars, 176. 
 
 Dalston Junction, 42. 
 
 Deans Court, 86. 
 
 Devil's Punch Bowl, 117, 118. 
 
 Dingley Dell, 51, 52. 
 
 Dotheboys Hall, 99, loo, 102, 104. 
 
 Doughty Street, 159. 
 
 Dover, 30. 
 
 Downs, North and South, 116. 
 
 Eaton Socon, 94. 
 Eatonswill, 63, 64, 67, 
 Esher, 118. 
 
 Falstaff Inn, 31. 
 Finchley, 217. 
 
 Freeman's Court, Cornhill, 77. 
 Fritton, Decoy, 15. 
 Fountain Court, Temple, 193. 
 Furnival's Inn, 291, 292. 
 
 Gadshill, 49, 300. 
 
 George and Vulture, 7^. 
 
 George Inn, Borough, 62. 
 
 Godalming, II4, 118. 
 
 Golden Cross, 42. 
 
 Golden Square (Crown Inn), 127. 
 
 Goswell Street, 41. 
 
 Grantham, 97, 98. 
 
 Great Durnford, 167.
 
 3o6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Great White Horse, 71, 72. 
 Greenwich Hospital, 59. 
 Greta Bridge, 1 00. 
 Grosvenor Square, 129. 
 Guildford, 112. 
 Guildhall, 80, 84. 
 
 Hammersjiith, 145. 
 Hampstead Heath, 157. 
 Hanover Square, 129. 
 Hendon, 157. 
 Hexham's House, 248. 
 High Barnet, 136. 
 Higham, 258. 
 Hind Head Common, 119. 
 Hockley in tlie Hole, 139. 
 
 Ipswich, 75. 
 Isle worth, 146. 
 
 Kenilworth, 242. 
 Kensington, 145. 
 Kew Bridge, 146, 147 
 King's Arms, 107. 
 King's Bench Prison, 29. 
 King's Head, 127. 
 Kingsgate Street, 187, 188, 190. 
 Kingston-on-Thames, 1 12. 
 Kit's Coty House, 47. 
 
 Leadenhall Street, 228. 
 Leamington, 233, 240. 
 Leamington Priors, 234. 
 Leathbridge Road, 42. 
 Leicester Hospital, 241. 
 Limehousc, 202, 203, 246, 247. 
 Lincoln's Inn, 273, 276. 
 Lincoln's Inn Hall, 273. 
 Little Saffron Hill, 139. 
 Little Wooden INIidshipman 227. 
 Lombard Street, 78. 
 London Bridge, 151, 192. 
 Ludgate Hill, 262. 
 
 Manchester Square, 222. 
 Marshalsea, 264, 265. 
 Medway, 47. 
 Millbank Church, 252. 
 
 Minories, 228. 
 JNIuggleton, 51, 56. 
 
 Newgate, 155. 
 Newmarket, 206, 211. 
 North and South Downs, 116. 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop, 195. 
 Old London Bridge, 61. 
 
 Peterborough, 137. 
 Petersfield, II 9. 
 Portman Square, 129. 
 Portsmouth, 121, 124. 
 Portsmouth Theatre, 121. 
 Primrose Hill, 229. 
 
 QuiLP's Wharf, 213. 
 
 Regent Street, 225. 
 Rochester, 45, 48, 54, 281, 283. 
 Roding River, 203. 
 Roils Court, 279. 
 Rotherhithe, 246, 
 Royal Hotel, 234. 
 
 Sadler's Wells Theatre, 139, 140. 
 
 Saffron Walden, 205. 
 
 Salisbury, 160, 170, 175, 182. 
 
 Salisbury Cathedral, 161, 169, 172. 
 
 Salisbury Market-place, 169. 
 
 Saracen's Head, 88, 90. 
 
 Seven Oaks, 51 
 
 Shadwell, 203, 246. 
 
 Shcpperton, 147. 
 
 Six J oily Fellowship Porters, 249, 250. 
 
 Snow Hill, 89, 90. 
 
 vSouth Square, 79. 
 
 Southtown Bridge, 13. 
 
 Soulhwark Bridge, 267. 
 
 Staggs (jardens, 232. 
 
 Stamford, 96, 97. 
 
 Staple Inn, 285, 286, 291. 
 
 St. Andrew's, Smithfield, 144. 
 
 St. Catherine's Dock, 176. 
 
 St. Clement's, Ipswich, 75, 76. 
 
 St. John's Abbey, Chester, 283. 
 
 St. John's Road, 139.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 307 
 
 St. Mary Axe, 256. 
 
 St. Paul's, 263 
 
 St. Sepulchre's Church, 156. 
 
 St. Saviour's Church, 63, 151. 
 
 Sudbury, 64. 
 
 Sunbury, 148. 
 
 Tavistock House, 261. 
 Thames Embankment, 28. 
 Thames Street, 131. 
 Thaxted, 205. 
 Thursley Churchyard, 120. 
 Todgers, 176, 177. 
 Tottenham Court Road, 202. 
 Tulkinghorn's House, 275. ' 
 
 Walton, 147. 
 
 Wapping, 246. 
 
 Warwick Castle, 237, 239, 240. 
 
 Waterloo Bridge, 60. 
 
 Welbeck Street, 129. 
 
 White Chapel, 176. 
 
 White Hart Inn, 53, 54. 
 
 White Horse, 59, 72. 
 
 Wigmore Street, 131. 
 
 Windsor Terrace, 29. 
 
 Yare, 12. 
 
 Yarmouth, 2, 3, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15. 
 Yarmouth Fishing Grounds, 18. 
 York Road, 51. 
 
 THE END.
 
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 Ivan de Biron. 
 
 BY MRS. CASHEL HOEY. 
 The Lover's Creed. 
 
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 : Fated to be Free. 
 
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 Oakshott Castle 
 
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 BY E. LYNN LINTON. 
 Patricia Kemball. 
 The Atonement of Learn Dundas.
 
 CHATTO &- W INDUS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 31 
 
 Cheap Popular Novels, continued — 
 
 E. Lynn Linton, continued — 
 The World Well Lost. 
 Undep which Lord? | Pastor) Carew. 
 With a Silken Thread. 
 The Rebel of the Family. 
 "My Love." | lone. 
 
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 Gideon Fleyce. 
 
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 Neighbours. , The Comet of a 
 
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 Daughter. Maid of Athens. 
 
 A Fair Saxon. , Camiola, 
 
 Linley Rochford. ! 
 
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 Quaker Cousins.' 
 
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 The Evil Eye. | Lost Rose. 
 
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 The New Republic. 
 
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 Open! Sesame. I Fighting the Air, 
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 A Secret of the Sea. 
 
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 Touch and Go. | Mr. Dorillion. 
 
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 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
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 ALife'sAtonement Hearts. 
 A Model Father. 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 Coals of Fire. 
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 Val Strange 
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 The Unforeseen. 
 
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 Way of the World. 
 
 A Bit of Human 
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 First Person Sin- 
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 Strathmore. 
 
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 Cecil Castle- 
 
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 Othmar. 
 
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 Women are Strange. 
 The Hands of Justice.
 
 -.2 BOOKS^ PUBLISHED BY CIIATTO &■ W INDUS. 
 
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 BY JAMES RUXCIMAN. 
 Skippers and Shellbacks. 
 Grace Balniaign's Sweetheart. 
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 Joan Merryweather. 
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 Heart Salvage. 1 Sebastian. 
 
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 ANONYMOUS. 
 Paul Ferroll. 
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 POPULAR SHILLING BOOKS. 
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 Doom : An Atlantic Episode. By 
 
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 Louis Stevenson. 
 
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