CHARLES DICKENS: THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. CHAPTER I. EARLY CAREER. HE "Story of the Life" of England's greatest novelist requires but little introduction. Of his ancestors but few particulars are recorded, and these are entirely without interest as having any connection with the late illustrious bearer of the name. CHARLES DICKENS was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on the 7th February, 1812, his father, Mr. John Dickens, being a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at that seaport. His duties required that he should reside from time to time in different naval stations He was christened Charles John Hougham Dickens, but the full name (taken partly from the father and partly from his mother's side) was too high-sounding for his simple tastes, and so he never used it, preferring the plainer form. He once remarked, that had he been a fashionable doctor, he might have thought differently about the matter. B now at Plymouth, now at Portsmouth, and then at Sheerness and Chatham. "In the glorious days" of war with France those towns were full of life, bustle, and character, and the father of the author of "Pickwick" was at times fond of dilating upon the strange scenes he had witnessed. One of the stories described a sitting-room he once enjoyed at Blue Town, Sheerness, abutting on the Theatre. Of an evening he used to sit in his room and could hear what was passing on the stage, and join in the chorus of "God save the King" and "Britannia Rules the Waves"-then the favourite song of Englishmen. On the termination of the war in 1815, a large reduction was made in the number of clerks in this office, and Mr. Dickens receiving his pension, rẹmoved to London with his wife and seven children. Possessing considerable abilities, and unwilling to remain idle, he became parliamentary reporter on the Morning Chronicle.* Charles remained at home until he was seven years of age, and was then sent to a private school at Chatham, the late Rev. Wm. Giles, F.R.A.S., being his instructor. As an evidence of young Dickens's kindly disposition, it may be mentioned that, some years ago, when such fame as he had acquired would cause most men to have forgotten their former old associations, Dickens joined some other old scholars *The old gentleman died in Keppel Street, Russell Square, on 31st March, 1851, aged 65. in the presentation of a service of plate to Mr. Giles, accompanied by a most gratifying testimonial of regard, to which he attached his well-known bold autograph. A fellow-scholar, who was at school at the same time with Dickens (there being only two years difference in their ages), used often to speak of the marked geniality of Dickens's character as a boy, and of his proficiency in all boyish sports, such as cricket, &c. Ultimately he completed his education at a good school, in or near London. At an early age he commenced to read the standard works of the best authors. In the preface to "Nicholas Nickleby," speaking of how he first heard of the cruelties of the Yorkshire schools, he describes himself as being "a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places, near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza." In "David Copperfield" (a book one can hardly help fancying is in some respects autobiographical), he says (omitting a few words),— "From that blessed little room Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy-they, and the Arabian Nights,' and the Tales of the Genii,' -and did me no harm; for whatever harm there was in some of them, was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. I have seen Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week * * * together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and travels, and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with a centre-piece out of an old set of boot-treesthe perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or alive." His career at school having concluded, his father was desirous that he should be articled to the law, and he entered a solicitor's office for that purpose. Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton) once said: "The study of the law is generally ridiculed as dry and uninteresting; but a mind anxious for the discovery of truth and information will be amply gratified for the toil of investigating the origin and progress of jurisprudence which has the good of the people for its basis, and the accumulated wisdom of ages for its improvement." But, to young Dickens, it was ill calculated to accord with the literary tastes he had formed, and thus imbued with the kindred feelings of some of his distinguished contemporaries -Disraeli, Layard, Harrison Ainsworth, and Westland Marston, all of whom passed a portion of their early days at an attorney's desk-he became disgusted with the tedious routine of the profession, and resigning all ideas of propitiating Thetis (the goddess of lawyers), determined to become a reporter like his father, who, finding how strong his son's ideas were on the subject, wisely placed no obstacle in his path, but removed him from his uncongenial employment, and placed him with the Messrs. Gurney, the parliamentary shorthand writers of Abingdon Street, Westminster. It is said, that during his probation, and whilst practising shorthand writing, Dickens passed the leisure hours of some two years in the Library of the British Museum. The manner in which the difficulties of stenography were overcome had best be told in his own words :"I did not allow my resolution with respect to the parliamentary debates to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot and hammered at with a perseverance I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten-and-sixpence),* and plunged into a sea of perplexity, that brought me in a few weeks to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in one position meant such a thing, and in another position something else entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that *This was "Gurney's System of Shorthand," the 16th edition of which is now selling at the old price, 10s. 6d. |