UK KI:NS 



some time ; next kept school for ten yean at 

 Met liven, and for ten years more at IVrth. Mean 

 time hi' liilHiuriMl liiinlal>ly to promote jiopular 

 education liy ' Literals and Philosophical Societie* ' 

 corresponding closely to tin 1 Mechanics Institute* 

 of later da\-. Mis lirst look was Tin- I'ln-mttnii 

 Philosopher (1823), which ijuickly became popular. 

 It- siicee.-s led Kick to devote himself to astronomy 

 ami literary work in a cottage near droughty- Kerry, 

 win -iv lie set up an ohserv.itory. Mi- many hooks 

 brought liim -real popularity hoth in Kngland ami 

 America, but very little pecuniary return. In 1847 

 he received a crown pension of i'.'M), supplemented 

 by a local subscription. He died at droughty- 

 Ferry, '2!>tli July I8f>7. His decree of LL.D. was 

 given liim l>y Union College, New York. Other 

 works were Ci-h'stinl >'<//</// (1H37), The Sidereal 

 Heavens (1840), and The Practical Astronomer 

 (1845). 



Dickens* CHARLES, was born at Landport, 

 now a great town, but then a little suburb of 

 Portsmouth or Fort sea, lyin" half a mile outside of 

 the town walls. The date of his birth was Friday, 

 February 7, 1812. His father was John Dickens, 

 a clerk in the navy pay-office, and at that time 

 attached to Portsmouth dockyard. The familiarity 

 which the novelist shows with seaports and sailors 

 is not, however, due to his birthplace, l>ecause his 

 father, in the year 1814, was recalled to London, 

 and in 1816 went to Chatham. They still show the 

 room in the dockyard where the elder Dickens 

 worked, and where his son often came to visit him. 

 The family lived in Ordnance Flace, Chatham, and 

 the boy was sent to a school kept in Gibraltar 

 Place, New Road, by one William (Jiles. As a 

 child lie is said to have been a great reader, and very 

 early began to attempt original writing. In 1821, 

 Charles Ming then nine years of age, the family 

 fell into trouble; reforms in the Admiralty deprived 

 the father of his post and the greater part of his 

 income. They hod to leave Chatham and removed 

 to London, where a mean house in a shabby street 

 of Camden Town received them. But not for long. 

 The unfortunate father was presently arrested for 

 debt and consigned to the Marshalsea, and Charles, 

 then only ten years of age, and small for his age, 

 was placed in a blacking-factory at Hungerford 

 Market, where all he could do was to put the 

 labels on the blocking-bottles, with half a dozen 

 rough and rude boys. The degradation and 

 misery of this occupation sunk deep into the 

 boy's soul. He could never bear to speak of this 

 time ; it was never mentioned in his presence. 

 Not only were his days passed in this wretched 

 work, but the child was left entirely to him-elf 

 at night, when he made his way home from 

 Hungerford Market to Camden Town, a distance of 

 four miles, to hi- lonely ledrooni. On Sunday- lie 

 visited his father in the prison. Of course such a 

 neglected way of living could not continue. They 

 pre.-cntly found a lodging for him in Lant Street, 

 elo-e to the Marshalsea, where at least he wa- near 

 his parents, and his lather shortly afterwaid- re- 

 covering his liberty, they all went back to Cainden 

 Town, and the ho\ was sent to tchool again. It 

 was to a private school in the Hampstead Koad, 

 where he remained for three or four \ear-of quiet 

 work. It must have In-en then, one suspects, rather 

 than at Chatham, that he became so great a devourer 

 of books. But he was never a scholar in any sense, 

 and the books that he read wen- novels and pla\-. 

 That the family fortunes were still low is proved by 

 the fact that when he was taken from school no 

 better place could l>e found for him than a stool at 

 the desk of a solicitor. Meantime his father had 

 obtained a post as reporter for the JfonMNf Htrmlm, 

 and Charles, feeling small love for the hopeless 

 drudgery of a lawyers office, resolved also to attempt 



ii _ 



nhorthand with tin? resolution -even tb 

 which he al way M threw into i-\i*r\ ibing lie under- 

 took. ; and In- frequent**! the lirili*h Muneuiu daily 

 in order to supplement -nun- of tin- Kliort<*oininsj| of 

 lii reading. In hi* Neveiiteenth year he became a 

 rc|H>rtcr at Kocton*' Common*. At thin period all 

 In-- ambition- were for the Htage. He would bean 

 actor. All hi- lite, indeed, he loved art ing and the 

 tin-. in.- al>o\e all tilings. AH an actor one feU 

 certain that he would have Mucceeded. lie would 

 have made an excellent comedian. Fortunately, be 

 was saved for U-tter work. 



It was not until lie watt two-and-twenty that be 

 succeeded in getting ]>erma;ient employment on 

 the -tall of a London paper a* a reporter. In this 

 capacity he was sent about the country to do work 

 which is now mainly supplied by local reporter*. 

 It must be rememliered that there were ait yet no 

 railways. He had to travel by stagecoach, by pout, 

 by any means that ollered. '1 have been upnet,' be 

 said years afterwards, s|iaking of this tune, ' in 

 almost every description of vehicle used in tbU 

 count r\ . 



.MM, ut this time he lx>gan the real work of lib 

 life. In December 1833 the Monthly Mnyazine 

 published his first original paper, called 'A Dinner 

 at Poplar Walk.' Other papers followed, but pro- 

 duced nothing for the contributor except the 

 gratification ot seeing them in print, because the 

 magaxine could not afford to pay for anything. 

 However, they did the writer the liest wnice 

 possible, in enabling him to prove hi- power, and 

 lie presently made an arrangement with the editor 

 of the Ei-enina L'hroni<-lr to contribute pai*r and 

 sketches regularly, continuing U> act a reporter 

 for the Morin'iiy Chronicle, and getting bin salary 

 increased from live guineas to seven guinea* a 

 week. To be making an income of nearly four 

 hundred |K>unds a year at the age of two or three 

 and twenty, would le considered fortunate in 

 any line of life. Sixty years ago such an income 

 represented a much more solid success than would 

 now IH the case. The sketches were collected and 

 published in the Iteginning of the year Is3t>, the 

 author receiving a hundred and fifty pounds for the 

 copyright. He afterwards iMiught it back for eleven 

 times that amount. In the hu*t week of March in 

 the same year ap|*ared the first nuiiiU-r of the 

 I'u-Ltrul; I'uim-x; three days afterwards Dickens 

 married the (laughter of his friend Ueorge Hogarth, 

 editor of the Svemna L'hrvmcle ; and hi early 

 struggles were finished*. 



No article, however short, treating of Charle* 

 Dicken.-, can avoid entering into the details of his 

 early history with a fullness which would U- out of 

 all pro|Krtion to what follows, but for the remark- 

 alile fact that the events of hi- childhood and bin 

 youth impressed bin imagination and influenced 

 the whole of his literary career io profoundly, 

 to the \civ end of his life there i not a single 

 in which s'ome of the eharacleis. >oinr of tin- pi 

 an- not derived from his early recollection*. Many 

 other writers there are who have pamed their 

 childish days among the jttttttt yen*, but none who 

 have so reinemliered their way-, tin ii -|ee*h. and 

 their m.xles of thought. The Marwhalae* prison of 

 Little Ihirnt is the place whet, for two years be 

 went in and out. The ^uwnV llem-h and it* 

 Kule- wrre do-e to the Man>halen ; lt.-i - 

 lodgings in Ijmt Street weie hi- own; Dn\id 

 Co|.|HMliel>l, the iriendlew lad in the dingy wan- 

 hou-e. wji> himself; the catbedial of Kdwin 

 Drood wan that in whotte nbadow he had live*! ; 

 Mn Pi|K-hin is his old landlady ol Cmiulen Town ; 

 the nn-t delightful feature- in Mr Mi.-awU-r are 

 Uirrowtil from his own father; the e\|--riencw 

 of Doctors' Commons, the solicitors' clerks, the 



