CHAPTER XV.

APPEARANCE OF "DOMBEY AND SON."

the 1st October, the first number of "Dombey and Son" was issued by Messrs.

Bradbury and Evans, illustrated by Phiz. It ran the usual twenty numbers, and on its completion was dedicated to the Marchioness of Normanby.

This is, perhaps, one of his least popular novels. The descriptions of high life are somewhat forced and overdrawn. Dombey is a man thoroughly to be detested-cruel, stern, and unbending. Little Paul and Captain Cuttle are the two best characters in the book, which contains many others excessively diverting. Mr. Toots, with his mania for writing confidential letters to himself from great and eminent men, and his penchant for Messrs. Burgess and Co., the celebrated tailors; Perch, the messenger, and father of a large family; the awful Mrs. MacStinger, Susan Nipper, Major Joe Bagstock, Miss Floy, &c.

In "Dombey" Dickens has evidently endeavoured to describe a certain phase of "high life," and he has done so with much success. The character of the aristocratic Cousin Feenix is finished and natural.

It may just be mentioned that Hablot K. Browne (Phiz), with Mr. Dickens's sanction, published some

additional designs-full-length portraits of the characters contained in the novel.

While the story was progressing, an enterprising publisher, in January, 1847, started in weekly penny numbers "Dombey and Daughter," coolly announcing its appearance thus:

"This work is from the pen of one of the first Periodical Writers of the day; and is, in literary merit (although so low in price), no way inferior to Mr. Dickens's admirable work, 'Dombey and Son.' Those who are reading 'Dombey and Son' should most assuredly order Dombey and Daughter;' it is a production of exalted intellect, written to sustain moral example and virtuous precept-deeply to interest, and sagely to instruct.

"Order of any Bookseller or Newsvendor.--ONE PENNY will test the truth of this announcement."

The public thought differently, and nothing further was heard of the work.

Early in 1847, in a letter to Lady Blessington, Dickens wrote:-"I begin to doubt whether I had anything to do with a book called 'Dombey,' or ever sat over number five (not finished a fortnight yet), day after day, until I half began, like the monk in poor Wilkie's story, to think it the only reality in life, and to mistake all the realities for short-lived shadows."*

In the preface to the new edition in 1858, is this note :-"I began this book by the Lake of Geneva, and went on with it for some months in France.

* It may be remembered how this same beautiful story of Wilkie's, was differently applied by Mr. Dickens, in the last speech he ever made at the Royal Academy dinner.

The association between the writing and the place of writing is so curiously strong in my mind, that at this day, although I know every stair in the little midshipman's house, and could swear to every pew in the church in which Florence was married, or to every young gentleman's bedstead in Doctor 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 was that the waves were always saying, I wander in my fancy for a whole winter night about the streets of Paris-as I really did, with a heavy heart, on the night when my little friend and I parted company for ever.

*The Philadelphia Morning Post says:-Dickens, while in this city, was very anxious to purchase Mr. James Hamilton's painting, entitled "What are the Wild Waves Saying?" But as this beautiful work, one of the artist's best, was already sold, Mr. Dickens requested that he might see the original sketch, with which he was so greatly pleased that he insisted upon buying it. Mr. Hamilton refused to sell the picture, but presented it to Mr. Dickens. The other day the artist received from Mr. Dickens an exquisite edition of his novels, accompanied by the following autograph :-" Gad's-hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, Monday, Twenty-fifth May, 1868, to Mr. James Hami!ton, this set of my books with thanks and regard.-Charles Dickens." It is certain that Charles Dickens's genius never suggested a more imaginative picture than this masterpiece, and his appreciation of Hamilton could not have been more deliately shown,

Lord Cockburn, in a letter under date 31st of January, 1847, wrote to the author:

"Oh, my dear, dear Dickens! What a No. 5 you have given us! I have so cried and sobbed over it last night, and again this morning; and felt my heart purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since that divine Nelly was found in her humble couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul, in the summershine of that lofty room."

A high medical authority assures us, that in the author's description of the last illness of Mrs. Skewton, he actually anticipated the clinical researches of M. Dax, Broca, and Hughlings Jackson, on the connection of right hemiplegia with asphasia.

The story was cleverly dramatized and well represented at the Marylebone Theatre, in June, 1849, and its success was in proportion to its merits.

In the spring of 1846, on April 6th, the first Anniversary Festival of the General Theatrical Fund Association was held at the London Tavern, Dickens was in the chair, and made some admirable hits in his most effective speech, as when he said, in speaking of the "base uses to which the two great theatres were then being applied :-" Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past. You might play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic company,

and put them all into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard within its walls, save in connection with corn, or the ambidextrous prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North. In like manner, Drury Lane is conducted now with almost a sole view to the opera and ballet, insomuch that the statue of Shakspeare over the door serves as emphatically to point out his grave as his bust did in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon."

What, too, can be happier than his pleadings for the poor actor:-"Hazlitt has well said that 'There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors. We greet them on the stage, we like to meet them in the streets; they almost always recall to us pleasant associations.' When they have strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not be heard no more-but let them be heard sometimes to say that they are happy in their old age. When they have passed for the last time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, let them not pass away into gloom and darkness,—but let them pass into cheerfulness and light-into a contented and happy home." *

Writing to Jerrold from Geneva, in November, 1846, he says: "This day week I finished my little Christmas book (writing towards the close the exact words of a passage in your affectionate letter,†

* Given entire in "The Speeches of Charles Dickens."

Jerrold, in the letter referred to by Dickens, had said (in