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who was never in a market of any kind but to buy an apple or a flower, and who could not dabble in money business if I would, from sheer ignorance of their language!"

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Just at this time other characters in Mr. Dickens's novel were selected by gossips as representing this or that distinguished individual. Thus Boythorne was affirmed to be the energetic Mr. Walter Savage Landor. Miss Martineau came forward in her own. person to take the cap of Mrs. Jellaby, and to scold Mr. Dickens for his allusions to "blue-stockingism. and "Borioboola Gha." Whether there was any foundation for these parallels betwixt living individuals and the characters in "Bleak House," it is not now likely the world will ever know, but there can be no doubt about one of the characters in that book-the French lady's maid. Mr. Dickens made no secret about her representing Mrs. Manning the murderess. Indeed he attended at her examination. at the Police Court, and was present both at her trial and her execution. Her broken English, her impatient gestures, and her volubility are imitated in the novel with marvellous exactness.

The character of Turveydrop, we may mention, was always believed to portray "the first gentleman in Europe," His Sacred Majesty King George the Fourth,

CHAPTER XX.

AMERICAN PUBLISHERS.-THE FIRST READING.

A

S many statements have recently been made in this country and in the United States respecting Mr. Dickens's relations to the American publishers of his works, we may say that "Bleak House" was his first novel issued there in the profits arising from the sale of which he participated.

Up to the publication of "Dombey and Son" he had received nothing from America. It was understood that he was rather more angry with Messrs. Harper and Brothers-subsequently his recognized publishers -than with any other Transatlantic house. They had just begun publishing their New Monthly Magazine, and the publishers of the International Magazine were contesting with the Harpers the first place in American periodical literature. After a severe and indecisive struggle of a year, one of the conductors of the International conceived an idea which, if successfully carried out, would have given the victory to that Magazine: one of its publishers was going abroad, and was authorized to secure from Mr. Dickens "advanced sheets" of his next novel for publication in the International.

The steamer on which he sailed had hardly got out of sight before Dr. Griswold, of the International, had given to the Evening Post a sensational paragraph, stating that Mr. Dickens had been engaged to write for the International Magazine a new novel, for which he was to be paid 2,000 dollars-a sum considerably larger in 1850 than in 1867-and then considered enormous for the favour demanded. The watchful Harpers, sent out in the next steamer a messenger who went directly to Mr. Dickens, and found him. ready for any reasonable offer. The Post with Dr. Griswold's paragraph being shown him, he at once decided to hold the Yankees to the terms therein set forth, and agreed for the 2,000 dollars to furnish Harper and Brothers with "advance sheets" of the next novel, which was the present one of "Bleak House." The messenger of the International had made the very great blunder of going to Mr. Dickens's publisher instead of to Mr. Dickens himself. The publisher had told him that Mr. Dickens was busy about private theatricals, which would probably absorb his attention for an indefinite period, and that no new novel was in contemplation. In fact, it is not improbable that, on account of the bargain with the Harpers, "Bleak House" was written, or at least published, before it otherwise would have been. It is said that Mr. Dickens has received upwards of 100,000 dollars on the sale of his works in America.

Early in the new year Mr. Dickens paid a visit to the Midland counties. Birmingham has always been.

very partial to our great novelist, and he in turn has been equally partial to Birmingham. One of his earliest speeches was delivered here, and for services. rendered to the town a public presentation of a diamond ring and a silver salver was made to him, in the rooms of the Society of Artists there, on January 6, 1853. A banquet was subsequently given. to him, and Mr. Dickens made three speeches on the occasion.

In May of this year Dickens was the guest of the Lord Mayor. His lordship had invited a number of literary celebrities to dine with him, including Mrs. Beecher Stowe and her husband, and Dickens was called upon to respond to Mr. Justice Talfourd's toast, "Anglo-Saxon Literature.”

Mrs. Stowe, in her "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," alludes to the occasion, and to the author of "Bleak House," remarking :-" Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now beheld for the first time, and was surprised to see looking so young. Mr. Justice Talfourd made allusion to the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and Mr. Dickens, speaking of both as having employed fiction as a means of awakening the attention of the respective countries to the condition of the oppressed and suffering classes. We rose from table between eleven and twelve o'clock that is, we ladies-and went into the drawing-room, where I was presented to Mrs. Dickens and several other ladies. Mrs. Dickens is a good specimen of a truly English woman; tall, large, and well

developed, with fine, healthy colour, and an air of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability. A friend whispered to me that she was as observing and fond of humour as her husband. After a while, the gentlemen came back to the drawing-room, and I had a few moments of very pleasant friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens. They are both people that one could not know a little of without desiring to know more."

In her Adieus she said "I have omitted, however, that I went with Lady Hatherton to call on Mr. and Mrs. Dickens, and was sorry to find him too unwell to be able to see me. Mrs. Dickens, who was busy in attending him, also excused herself, and we saw her sister."

We now come to an important event in Mr. Dickens's career-his first public "reading." Various towns claim the honour of being the first to invite the great novelist to read to its inhabitants; but we believe Peterborough was the real scene of his first appearance in the capacity of a public reader. Reading aloud, however, to the circle of his household, and at those Hampstead dinners, had often been a source of gratification to his friends. The first allusion to reading his works in public was made at Birmingham, 6th January, 1853, when he returned thanks for a present that had been made to him. He then promised to come next December to give two or three readings, from his own books, on behalf of the Midland Institute; suggesting that the

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