1862-64 LECTURES IN THE NORTH 129 



He sends a special note with a message for Mr. 

 Liddell, to say that he won a game of chess from 

 Lord Ravensworth, and read ' Guinevere' to the 

 ladies. His letters are full of the interest he found 

 in the Elswick Works and his astonishment at the 

 methods of manufacture of the guns. 



While in the North of England Owen notes 

 in his diary that he gave four lectures at New- 

 castle and one at Shields. Mrs. Owen writes 

 that her husband, on his return home, showed her 

 an interesting letter sent him, after one of his 

 Newcastle lectures, by a ' clever and evidently 

 deep-thinking, though uneducated, working man,' 

 in which he thanks Professor Owen for his lectures, 

 and expresses his admiration of his powers of 

 mind. ' It was an uncommon letter,' Owen re- 

 marks, ' and was very agreeable to receive.' 



The following record of one of Dickens's 

 readings at St. James's Hall, to which he invited 

 Professor and Mrs. Owen, occurs in the diary : — 



' April 10. — Yesterday evening there came 

 a note from Charles Dickens, asking us if we 

 would like to come to St. James's Hall to hear 

 one of his readings. I met R. at the Athenaeum, 

 and then we drove together to St. James's Hall, 

 where we were welcomed by Miss Dickens and 

 Miss Hogarth, who sat with us just in front of 

 Charles Dickens, whose reading, or rather acting, 

 was wonderful, and the immense audience seemed 

 to feel it to be so. They applauded at parts 



VOL. 11. K 



