66 TO MY OWN DEAR CHILDREN,

WHOM I HOPE IT MAY HELP, BY-AND-BY, TO READ WITH
INTEREST LARGER AND BETTER BOOKS ON THE

SAME SUBJECT."

The Battle of Hastings is one of the finest and most marvellous pieces of descriptive writing in the "Child's History," which-as has been well remarked

-" might be read by many children of larger growth with much profit." This is an extract from his glowing description:-"The sun rose high and sank, and the battle still raged. Through all the wild October day, the clash and din resounded in the air. In the red sunset, in the white moonlight, heaps upon heaps of dead men lay strewn, a dreadful spectacle, all over the ground. King Harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. His brothers were already killed. Twenty Norman knights, whose battered armour had flashed fiery and golden all day long, and now looked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the royal banner from the English knights and soldiers, still faithfully collected round their blinded king. The king received a mortal wound and dropped."

If the remainder of the description is turned into blank verse (as Byron did when copying "Werner" from the "Canterbury Tales" of Miss Lee), by adding two words, and expunging some few others, we obtain this glowing and beautiful narration :-

"The English broke and fled.

The Normans rallied, and the day was lost!
Oh, what a sight beneath the moon and stars!
The lights were shining in the victor's tent
(Pitch'd near the spot where blinded Harold fell);
He and his knights carousing were within ;
Soldiers with torches, going to and fro,

Sought for the corpse of Harold 'mongst the dead.
The Warrior, work'd with stones and golden thread,
Lay low, all torn, and soil'd with English blood,
And the three Lions kept watch o'er the field!"

The work has never been reprinted at a lower price than the old three-volume form, and of course it forms no part of the recent "Cheap Editions" and the "Charles Dickens Edition;" but, now that extra attention will be directed to the writings of Mr. Dickens, it is to be hoped that it may be reprinted at a moderate price.

The second Christmas number (1851) of Household Words consisted of nine stories about Christmas, and how it was held, and what it was like in different companies and countries-in fact, very similar to the preceding number.

At the Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund (April 14, 1851), the conductors again begged Mr. Dickens to preside. His speech was short, but exceedingly happy. Speaking of the Theatrical Fund, he said :

"It is a society in which the word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It is a society which includes every

actor, whether he be Benedick or Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in the one person, the whole King's army. He may do the "light business," or the "heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. Or he may be the baron who gives the fête, and who sits uneasily on the sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the fête is going on. Or he may be the peasant at the fête who comes on the stage to swell the drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, always turns his glass upside down before he begins to drink out of it. Or he may be the clown who takes away the doorstep of the house where the evening party is going on. Or he may be the gentleman who issues out of the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy who resides for ever in a revolving star, with an occasional visit to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head of the witch's cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom I have observed, in country places, that he is much less like the notion formed. from the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm or

Donalbain of the previous scenes. This society, in short, says, "Be you what you may, be you actor or actress, be your path in your profession never so high, or never so low, never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you the means of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren."

In June, 1851, a project—which, it is said, Mr. Dickens had long had in contemplation—was brought forward by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, namely, the founding of a Guild of Literature and Art; in reality, a provident fund and benefit society for unfortunate literary men and artists. From it the proper persons would receive continual or occasional relief, as the case might be; but the leading feature was the "Provident Fund," to be composed of monies deposited by the authors themselves, when they were in a position to be able to lay by something. Dickens and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (since a peer) were the most active promoters. The precise plan of the "Guild" was discussed at Lord Lytton's seat, at Knebworth, the November previously. There had been three amateur performances, by Dickens and others, of "Every Man in his Humour," for the gratification of his lordship and his neighbouring friends, when it was arranged that his lordship should write a comedy, and Dickens and Mark Lemon a farce. The comedy was entitled "Not so Bad as we Seem," and the farce bore the name of "Mrs.

Nightingale's Diary." The first performance took place at Devonshire House, before the Queen, the Prince Consort, and the Court circles; and afterwards at the Hanover Square Rooms, and at many of the large provincial towns (Bath, Bristol, &c.). At Devonshire House, not the least incident occurred to shade what a late Drury-Lane manager might, in his own Titanic way, have called "the blaze of triumph." From the first moment that the scheme was made known to her Majesty and Prince Albert, both the Queen and the Prince manifested the liveliest interest in its success. The Duke of Devonshire, with a munificence that made the name of his Grace a proverb for liberality, dedicated his mansion to the cause of Literature and Art, and his house was for many days in possession of the ama

teurs.

The play began at half-past nine, Her Majesty, Prince Albert, and the Royal Family occupying a box erected for the occasion. The seats were filled by the most illustrious for rank and genius. There was the Duchess of Sutherland; there was the "Iron Duke," in his best temper; there was Macaulay, Chevalier Bunsen, Van der Weyer-themselves authors; in fact, all the highest representatives of the rank, beauty, and genius of England, and her foreign Ambassadors.

The list of the performers, and the parts taken by them, is a curiosity in its way :