shaking hands with you, with an interest I cannot (and I would not if I could) describe. You can imagine, I dare say, something of the feelings with which I look forward to being in America. I can hardly believe I am coming.""

But to return to Professor Felton and his recollections of Irving and Dickens. He continues:

"Great and varied as was the genius of Mr. Irving, there was one thing he shrank with a comical terror from attempting, and that was a dinner speech. A great dinner, however, was to be given to Mr. Dickens in New York, as one had already been given in Boston, and it was evident to all that no man like Washington Irving could be thought of to preside. With all his dread of making a speech, he was obliged to obey the universal call, and to accept the painful pre-eminence. I saw him daily during the interval of preparation, either at the lodgings of Dickens, or at dinner, or at evening parties. I hoped I showed no want of sympathy with his forebodings, but I could not help being amused with his tragicomical distress which the thought of that approaching dinner had caused him. His pleasant humour mingled with the real dread, and played with the whimsical horrors of his own position with an irresistible drollery. Whenever it was alluded to, his invariable answer was, 'I shall certainly break down!'uttered in a half-melancholy tone, the ludicrous effect of which it is impossible to describe. He was haunted, as if by a nightmare; and I could only compare

his dismay to that of Mr. Pickwick, who was so alarmed at the prospect of leading about that 'dreadful horse' all day. At length the longexpected evening arrived. A company of the most eminent persons, from all the professions and every walk of life, were assembled, and Mr. Irving took the chair. I had gladly accepted an invitation, making it, however, a condition that I should not be called upon to speak—a thing I then dreaded quite as much as Mr. Irving himself. The direful compulsions of life have since helped me to overcome, in some measure, the post-prandial fright. Under the circumstances—an invited guest, with no impending speech-I sat calmly and watched with interest the imposing scene. I had the honour to be placed next but one to Mr. Irving, and the great pleasure of sharing in his conversation. He had brought the manuscript of his speech, and laid it under his plate. 'I shall certainly break down,' he repeated over and over again. At last the moment arrived. Mr. Irving rose, and was received with deafening and long-continued applause, which by no means lessened his apprehension. He began in his pleasant voice; got through two or three sentences pretty easily, but in the next hesitated; and, after one or two attempts to go on, gave it up, with a graceful allusion to the tournament, and the troop of knights all armed and eager for the fray; and ended with the toast, Charles Dickens, the guest of the nation. There!' said he, as he resumed his seat

under a repetition of the applause which had saluted his rising,—there! I told you I should break down, and I've done it.'

"There certainly never was a shorter after-dinner speech; and I doubt if there ever was a more successful one. The manuscript seemed to be a dozen or twenty pages long, but the printed speech was not as many lines.

"Mr. Irving often spoke with a good-humoured envy of the felicity with which Dickens always acquitted himself on such occasions."*

*This speech is given in "The Speeches of Charles Dickens," recently published. Thomas Moore, in his Diary, speaking of running up to London to act as steward of the Literary Fund Dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern, H.R.H. The Prince Consort acting as chairman, says: "May 11th, 1842. By the bye, Irving had yesterday come to Murray's with the determination, as I found, not to go to the dinner, and all begged of me to use my influence with him to change this resolution. But he told me his mind was made up on the point, that the drinking his health, and the speech he would have to make in return, were more than he durst encounter; that he had broken down at the Dickens Dinner (of which he was chairman) in America, and obliged to stop short in the middle of his oration, which made him resolve not to encounter another such accident. In vain did I represent to him that a few words would be quite sufficient in returning thanks. "That Dickens Dinner,' which he always pronounced with strong emphasis, hammering away all the time with his right arm, more suo,' that Dickens Dinner' still haunted his imagination, and I almost gave up all hope of persuading him." The arguments proved irresistible, and Irving went to it.

Immediately after the dinner, Irving and Dickens started off together to Washington, to spend a few days, and there took leave of one another. Irving at this time having just received his appointment as Minister to Spain, Dickens wrote to him:—“We passed through-literally passed through-this place 'again to-day. I did not come to see you, for I really had not the heart to say good-bye again, and I felt more than I can tell you when we shook hands last Wednesday. You will not be at Baltimore, I fear? I thought, at the time, that you only said you might be there, to make our parting the gayer.

"Wherever you go, God bless you! What pleasure I have had in seeing and talking with you, I will not attempt to say. I shall never forget it as long as I live. What would I give, if we could have a quiet walk together! Spain is a lazy place, and its climate an indolent one. But if you have ever leisure under its sunny skies to think of a man who loves you, and holds communion with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person alive-leisure from listlessness, I mean-and will write to me in London, you will give me an inexpressible amount of pleasure."

Dickens took the opportunity, in a number of All the Year Round, March, 1862 (when the song "A Young Man from the Country" was very popular, and which suggested the article), to remark that what he had originally written about the United States had been fully borne out in the recent events in that great republic.

N 1848 there appeared a new edition of an extensive and important work on "Prison

Discipline." The author was the Rev. John Field, Chaplain of the County Gaol at Reading, in Berkshire, and well known in literary circles as the author of a "Life of John Howard, the Philanthropist," and editor of the "Howard Correspondence." This work on prison discipline had attracted considerable attention, and as the author, in advocating the advantages of the separate system of imprisonment, took occasion to mention Mr. Dickens's remarks in his "American Notes" upon the Solitary Prison at Philadelphia, the latter felt it his duty to reply:

"As Mr. Field condescends to quote some vapourings about the account given by Mr. Charles Dickens in his American Notes' of the Solitary Prison at Philadelphia, he may perhaps really wish for some few words of information on the subject. For this purpose Mr. Charles Dickens has referred to the entry in his Diary, made at the close of that day.