A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land Part 4

Among the important works of Charles d.i.c.kens which were wholly or partly written at Tavistock House are:--_Bleak House_, _A Child's History of England_, _Hard Times_, _Little Dorrit_, _A Tale of Two Cities_, _The Uncommercial Traveller_, and _Great Expectations_. _All the Year Round_ was also determined upon while he lived here, and the first number was dated 30th April, 1859.

Tavistock House is the nearest point to Camden Town, interesting as being the place where, in 1823, at No. 16 (now No. 141) Bayham Street, the d.i.c.kens family resided for a short time[2] on leaving Chatham. There is an exquisite sketch of the humble little house by Mr. Kitton in his _Charles d.i.c.kens by Pen and Pencil_, and it is spoken of as being "in one of the then poorest parts of the London suburbs." We therefore proceed along Gordon Square, and reach Gower Street. At No. 147, Gower Street, formerly No. 4, Gower Street North, on the west side, was once the elder Mr. d.i.c.kens's establishment. The house, now occupied by Mr.

Muller, an artificial human eye-maker ("human eyes warious," says Mr.

Venus), has six rooms, with kitchens in bas.e.m.e.nt. The rooms are rather small, each front room having two windows, which in the case of the first floor reach from floor to ceiling. It seems to be a comfortable house, but has no garden. There is an old-fashioned bra.s.s knocker on the front door, probably the original one, and there is a dancing academy next door. (Query, Mr. Turveydrop's?) The family of the novelist, which had removed from Bayham Street, were at this time (1823) in such indifferent circ.u.mstances that poor Mrs. d.i.c.kens had to exert herself in adding to the finances by trying to teach, and a school was opened for young children at this house, which was decorated with a bra.s.s-plate on the door, lettered MRS. d.i.c.kENS'S ESTABLISHMENT, a faint description of which occurs in the fourth chapter of _Our Mutual Friend_, and of its abrupt removal "for the interests of all parties." These facts, and also that of young Charles d.i.c.kens's own efforts to obtain pupils for his mother, are alluded to in a letter written by d.i.c.kens to Forster in later life:--

"I left, at a great many other doors, a great many circulars calling attention to the merits of the establishment. Yet n.o.body ever came to school, nor do I ever recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody. But I know that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner; and that at last my father was arrested."

This period, subsequently most graphically described in _David Copperfield_ as the "blacking bottle period," was the darkest in young Charles's existence; but happier times and brighter prospects soon came to drown the recollections of that bitter experience.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park.--_d.i.c.kens's Residence_ 1839-50.]

Walking up Euston Road from Gower Street, we see St. Pancras Church (not the old church of "Saint Pancridge" in the Fields, by the bye, situated in the St. Pancras Road, where Mr. Jerry Cruncher and two friends went "fishing" on a memorable night, as recorded in _A Tale of Two Cities_, when their proceedings, and especially those of his "honoured parent,"

were watched by young Jerry), and proceed westward along the Marylebone Road, called the New Road in d.i.c.kens's time, past Park Crescent, Regent's Park, and do not stop until we reach No. 1, Devonshire Terrace. This commodious double-fronted house, in which d.i.c.kens resided from 1839 to 1850, is entered at the side, and the front looks into the Marylebone Road. Maclise's beautiful sketch of the house (made in 1840), as given in Forster's _Life_, shows the windows of the lower and first floor rooms as largely bowed, while over the top flat of one of the former is a protective iron-work covering, thus allowing the children to come out of their nursery on the third floor freely to enjoy the air and watch the pa.s.sers-by. In the sketch Maclise has characteristically put in a shuttlec.o.c.k just over the wall, as though the little ones were playing in the garden. Forster calls it "a handsome house with a garden of considerable size, shut out from the New Road by a brick wall, facing the York Gate into Regent's Park;" and d.i.c.kens himself admitted it to be "a house of great promise (and great premium), undeniable situation, and excessive splendour." That he loved it well is shown by the pa.s.sage in a letter which he addressed to Forster, "in full view of Genoa's perfect bay," when about to commence _The Chimes_ (1844); he says:--"Never did I stagger so upon a threshold before. I seem as if I had plucked myself out of my proper soil when I left Devonshire Terrace, and could take root no more until I return to it. . . . Did I tell you how many fountains we have here? No matter. If they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the West Middles.e.x water-works at Devonshire Terrace."

Mr. Jonathan Clark, who resides here, kindly shows us over the house, which contains thirteen rooms. The polished mahogany doors in the hall, and the chaste Italian marble mantel-pieces in the princ.i.p.al rooms, are said to have been put up by the novelist. On the ground floor, the smaller room to the eastward of the house, with window facing north and looking into the pleasant garden where the plane trees and turf are beautifully green, is pointed out as having been his study.

Mr. Benjamin Lillie, of 70, High Street, Marylebone, plumber and painter, remembers Mr. d.i.c.kens coming to Devonshire Terrace. He did a good deal of work for him while he lived there, and afterwards, when he removed to Tavistock House, including the fitting up of the library shelves and the curious counterfeit book-backs, made to conceal the backs of the doors. He also removed the furniture to Tavistock House, and subsequently to Gad's Hill Place. He spoke of the interest which Mr.

d.i.c.kens used to take in the work generally, and said he would stand for hours with his back to the fire looking at the workmen. In the summer time he used to lie on the lawn with his pocket-handkerchief over his face, and when thoughts occurred to him, he would go into his study, and after making notes, would resume his position on the lawn. On the next page we give an ill.u.s.tration of the courteous and precise manner--not without a touch of humour--in which he issued his orders.

Here it was that d.i.c.kens's favourite ravens were kept, in a stable on the south side of the garden, one of which died in 1841, it was supposed from the effects of paint, or owing to "a malicious butcher," who had been heard to say that he "would do for him." His death is described by d.i.c.kens in a long pa.s.sage which thus concludes:--

"On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed, '_Holloa, old girl!_' (his favourite expression), and died."

[Ill.u.s.tration:

3 Hanover Terrace Friday Tenth May, 1861.

Mr. Lillie

Please make the alteration in the two windows in Wellington Street, agreeably to the estimate you have sent me, and to have the work completed with all convenient speed. Be so good as to be careful that the bottom sashes are capable of being easily raised and the top sashes of being easily let down----

Faithfully yours Charles d.i.c.kens]

In an interesting letter addressed to Mr. Angus Fletcher, recently in the possession of Mr. Arthur Hailstone of Manchester, d.i.c.kens further describes the event:--"Suspectful of a butcher who had been heard to threaten, I had the body opened. There were no traces of poison, and it appeared he died of influenza. He has left considerable property, chiefly in cheese and halfpence, buried in different parts of the garden. The new raven (I have a new one, but he is comparatively of weak intellect) administered to his effects, and turns up something every day. The last piece of _bijouterie_ was a hammer of considerable size, supposed to have been stolen from a vindictive carpenter, who had been heard to speak darkly of vengeance down the mews."

Maclise on hearing the news sent to Forster a letter, and a pen-and-ink sketch, being the famous "Apotheosis." The second raven died in 1845, probably from "having indulged the same illicit taste for putty and paint, which had been fatal to his predecessor." d.i.c.kens says:--

"Voracity killed him, as it did Scott's; he died unexpectedly by the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of '_Cuckoo!_'"

These ravens were of course the two "great originals" of which Grip in _Barnaby Rudge_ was the "compound." There was a third raven at Gad's Hill, but he "gave no evidence of ever cultivating his mind." The novelist's remarkable partiality for ravens called forth at the time the preposterous rumour that "d.i.c.kens had gone raving (raven) mad."

Here Longfellow visited d.i.c.kens in 1841, and thus referred to his visit:--"I write this from d.i.c.kens's study, the focus from which so many luminous things have radiated. The raven croaks in the garden, and the ceaseless roar of London fills my ears."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Apotheosis of "Grip" the Raven. Drawn by D. Maclise, R.A.]

d.i.c.kens lived longer at Devonshire Terrace than he did at any other of his London homes, and a great deal of his best work was done here, including _Master Humphrey's Clock_ (I. _The Old Curiosity Shop_, II.

_Barnaby Rudge_), _American Notes_, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, _A Christmas Carol_, _The Cricket on the Hearth_, _Dombey and Son_, _The Haunted Man_, and _David Copperfield_. _The Battle of Life_ was written at Geneva in 1846. All these were published from his twenty-eighth to his thirty-eighth year; and _Household Words_, his famous weekly popular serial of varied high-cla.s.s literature, was determined upon here, the first number being issued on 30th March, 1850.

From Devonshire Terrace we pa.s.s along High Street, and turn into Devonshire Street, which leads into Harley Street, minutely described in _Little Dorrit_ as the street wherein resided the great financier and "master-spirit" Mr. Merdle, who entertained "Bar, Bishop, and the Barnacle family" at the "Patriotic conference" recorded in the same work, in his n.o.ble mansion there, and he subsequently perishes "in the warm baths, in the neighbouring street"--as one may say--in the luxuriant style in which he had always lived.

Harley Street leads us into Oxford Street, and a pleasant ride outside an omnibus--which, as everybody knows, is the best way of seeing London--takes us to Hyde Park Place, a row of tall stately houses facing Hyde Park. Here at No. 5, (formerly Mr. Milner Gibson's town residence) Charles d.i.c.kens temporarily resided during the winter months of 1869, and occasionally until May 1870, during his readings at St. James's Hall, and while he was engaged on _Edwin Drood_, part of which was written here; this being ill.u.s.trative of d.i.c.kens's power of concentrating his thoughts even near the rattle of a public thoroughfare. In a letter addressed to Mr. James T. Fields from this house, under date of 14th January, 1870, he says:--"We live here (opposite the Marble Arch) in a charming house until the 1st of June, and then return to Gad's. . . . I have a large room here with three fine windows over-looking the park--unsurpa.s.sable for airiness and cheerfulness."

A similar public conveyance takes us back to Morley's by way of Regent Street, about the middle of which, on the west side, is New Burlington Street, containing, at No. 8, the well-known publishing office of Messrs. Richard Bentley and Son, whose once celebrated magazine, _Bentley's Miscellany_, d.i.c.kens edited for a period of two years and two months, terminating, 1838, on his resignation of the editorship to Mr.

W. Harrison Ainsworth; and we also pa.s.s lower down, at the bottom of Waterloo Place, that most select of clubs, "The Athenaeum," at the corner of Pall Mall, of which d.i.c.kens was elected a member in 1838, and from which, on the 20th May, 1870, he wrote his last letter to his son, Mr.

Alfred Tennyson d.i.c.kens, in Australia; and a tenderly loving letter it is, indicating the harmonious relations between father and son. It expresses the hope that the two (Alfred and "Plorn") "may become proprietors," and "aspire to the first positions in the colony without casting off the old connection," and thus concludes:--"From Mr. Bear I had the best accounts of you. I told him that they did not surprise me, for I had unbounded faith in you. For which take my love and blessing."

Sad to say, a note to this (the last in the series of published letters) states:--"This letter did not reach Australia until after these two sons of Charles d.i.c.kens had heard, by telegraph, the news of their father's death."[3]

At Morley's we refresh ourselves with Mr. Sam Weller's idea of a nice little dinner, consisting of "pair of fowls and a weal cutlet; French beans, taturs, tart and tidiness;" and then depart for Victoria Station, to take train by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway to Rochester.

The weather forecast issued by that most valuable inst.i.tution, the Meteorological Office (established since Mr. Pickwick's days, in which doubtless as a scientist and traveller he would have taken great interest), was verified to the letter, and we had "thunder locally." On our way down Parliament Street, we pa.s.s Inigo Jones's once splendid Whitehall--now looking very insignificant as compared with its grand neighbours the Government Offices opposite--remembering Mr. Jingle's joke about Whitehall, which seems to have been d.i.c.kens's first thought of "King Charles's head":--"Looking at Whitehall, Sir--fine place--little window--somebody else's head off there, eh, Sir?--he didn't keep a sharp look out enough either--eh, Sir, eh?"

We also pa.s.s "The Red Lion," No. 48, Parliament Street, "at the corner of the very short street leading into Cannon Row," where David Copperfield ordered a gla.s.s of the very best ale--"The Genuine Stunning with a good head to it"--at twopence half-penny the gla.s.s, but the landlord hesitated to draw it, and gave him a gla.s.s of some which he suspected was _not_ the "genuine stunning"; and the landlady coming into the bar returned his money, and gave him a "kiss that was half-admiring and half-compa.s.sionate, but all womanly and good [he says], I'm sure."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "My magnificent order at the Public House" (_vide_ "_David Copperfield_").]

The Horse-Guards' clock is the last noteworthy object, and reminds us that Mark Tapley noticed the time there, on the occasion of his last meeting with Mary Graham in St. James's Park, before starting for America. It also reminds us of Mr. Micawber's maxim, "Procrastination is the thief of time--collar him;"--a few minutes afterwards we are comfortably seated in the train, and can defy the storm, which overtakes us precisely in the manner described in _The Old Curiosity Shop_:--

"It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up ma.s.ses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down, carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind, and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant."

We pa.s.s Dulwich,--where Mr. Snodgra.s.s and Emily Wardle were married,--a fact that recalls kindly recollections of Mr. Pickwick and his retirement there, as recorded in the closing pages of the _Pickwick Papers_, where he is described as "employing his leisure hours in arranging the memoranda which he afterwards presented to the secretary of the once famous club, or in hearing Sam Weller read aloud, with such remarks as suggested themselves to his mind, which never failed to afford Mr. Pickwick great amus.e.m.e.nt." He is subsequently described as "somewhat infirm now, but he retains all his former juvenility of spirit, and may still be frequently seen contemplating the pictures in the Dulwich Gallery, or enjoying a walk about the pleasant neighbourhood on a fine day."

Although it is but a short distance--under thirty miles--to Rochester, the journey seems tedious, as the "iron-horse" does not keep pace with the pleasurable feelings of eager expectation afloat in our minds on this our first visit to "d.i.c.kens-Land"; it is therefore with joyful steps that we leave the train, and, the storm having pa.s.sed away, find ourselves in the cool of the summer evening on the platform of Strood and Rochester Bridge Station.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In _The History of Pickwick_, a handsome octavo volume of nearly 400 pages, just published (1891), Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, the author, who is one of the few surviving friends of Charles d.i.c.kens, mentions the interesting fact that there are 360 characters, 70 episodes, and 22 inns, described in this wonderful book, written when the author was only twenty-four.

[2] Forster (I. 14) infers that the family removed to London in 1821, but Mr. Langton considers (_Childhood and Youth of Charles d.i.c.kens_, 1883, pp. 62-3), from the fact of the birth of d.i.c.kens's brother Alfred having been registered at Chatham on 3rd April, 1822, and from the further fact of there being no record of Mr. John d.i.c.kens's recall throughout this year to Somerset House, that the family did not remove to London until the winter of 1822-3, and I agree with Mr. Langton. Mr.

Kitton in _Charles d.i.c.kens by Pen and Pencil_, 1890, also recognizes this period as the date of the removal of the d.i.c.kens family to London.

[3] Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton d.i.c.kens, a son of the great Novelist, is a member of the New South Wales Parliament, having been elected in March 1889. "He stood as a Protectionist for the representation of Wilcannia, an extensive pastoral district in the western portion of the colony. His father, it will be remembered, was an ardent Free Trader, and could not be prevailed upon to enter the British Parliament on any terms, and occasionally said some severe things of our Legislative a.s.sembly. His two sons, Alfred Tennyson and Edward Bulwer Lytton, emigrated to Australia some years ago, and became successful pastoralists."--_Yorkshire Daily Post_, March 1889. A subsequent account states that Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton d.i.c.kens is about to retire, having been, he remarks, "out of pocket, out of brains, out of health, and out of temper, by the pursuit of political glory."--_Pall Mall Gazette_, March 1891. I am since informed that Alfred is not a pastoralist, but in business, and that Edward has not retired up to date.

CHAPTER III.

ROCHESTER CITY.

"The silent High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red brick building, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign."--_The Seven Poor Travellers._

"The town was glad with morning light."--_The Old Curiosity Shop._

MUDFOG, Our Town, Dullborough, the Market Town, and Cloisterham were the varied names that Charles d.i.c.kens bestowed upon the "ancient city" of Rochester. Every reader of his works knows how well he loved it in early youth, and how he returned to it with increased affection during the years of his ripened wisdom. Among the first pages of the first chapter of Forster's _Life_ we find references to it:--"That childhood exaggerates what it sees, too, has he not tenderly told? How he thought that the Rochester High-street must be at least as wide as Regent Street which he afterwards discovered to be little better than a lane; how the public clock in it, supposed to be the finest clock in the world, turned out to be as moon-faced and weak a clock as a man's eyes ever saw; and how in its Town Hall, which had appeared to him once so glorious a structure that he had set it up in his mind as the model from which the genie of the Lamp built the palace for Aladdin, he had painfully to recognize a mere mean little heap of bricks, like a chapel gone demented. Yet, not so painfully either when second thoughts wisely came.

'Ah! who was I, [he says] that I should quarrel with the town for being changed to me, when I myself had come back, so changed, to it? All my early readings and early imaginations dated from this place, and I took them away so full of innocent construction and guileless belief, and I brought them back so worn and torn, so much the wiser and so much the worse!'"

It would occupy too much s.p.a.ce in this narrative to adequately give even a brief historical sketch of the City of Rochester, which is twenty-nine miles from London, situated on the river Medway, and stands on the chalk on the margin of the London basin; but we think lovers of d.i.c.kens will not object to a recapitulation of a few of the most noteworthy circ.u.mstances which have happened here, and which are not touched upon in the chapters relating to the Castle and Cathedral.