Jerrold's funeral, after dining with two or three friends, of whom the informant was one, at the Garrick Club, drew up the programme of a series of entertainments, which was that same night taken round to the editors of the various newspapers for insertion." Arthur Smith was the honorary secretary, and an entertainment, including the performance of "The Frozen Deep," was given at the Egyptian Hall, on 4th July, at which the Queen, Prince Albert, and the Royal family were present. Other performances took place elsewhere, and readings were given by Thackeray and Dickens at St. Martin's Hall, and a large sum of money was the result.

The occasion for these charitable performances excited considerable outcry and disapprobation in literary circles, Jerrold being esteemed to be a prosperous man, as he received a very large salary as editor of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper. Dickens and Arthur Smith at once communicated to the papers the result of their labours, viz., the purchase of an annuity for the widow and her unmarried daughter, and added that they had considered their personal responsibility a sufficient refutation to any untrue or preposterous statements that had obtained circulation as to property asserted to have been left by Mr. Jerrold, and that unless they had thoroughly known, and beyond all doubt assured themselves, that their exertions were needed by the dearest objects of Mr. Jerrold's love, those exertions would never have

been heard of. Lord Palmerston, it may be added, granted to the widow an annual pension of £100 out of the Civil List.

It was at the anniversary dinner of the Warehousemen and Clerks' Schools, held in November of this year, that Dickens made his well-known speech upon "Schools," when he told his hearers of all the schools he did not like, and, after a long enumeration of these, he described to them the one he did like.

The Christmas number of Household Words was entitled "Perils of certain English Prisoners," and was founded on the Indian Mutiny. It was in three chapters, "The Island of Silver Store," "The Prison in the Woods," and "The Rafts on the River," supposed to be narrated by Gilbert Davis, private in the Royal Marines. It is, as may be remembered, full of the most exciting adventures.

CHAPTER XXIII.

WORKS TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH.-DICKENS AND THACKERAY.

URING this year a complete and authorized edition of Dickens's novels was published in France, beginning with "Vie et Aventures de Nicholas Nickleby." To this the author added this introductory address to the French public:

"For a long time I have wished to see a uniform and complete translation of my works into French. Hitherto, less fortunate in France than in Germany, I have not been made known to French readers, who are not familiar with the English language, except by isolated and partial translations, published without my authority and control, and from which I have derived no personal advantage. The present publication has been proposed to me by MM. Hachette and Co., and by M. Charles Lahure, in terms which do honour to their elevated, liberal, and generous character. It has been executed with great care; and the numerous difficulties it presents have been vanquished with uncommon ability, intelligence and perseverance. I am proud of being thus presented to the French people, whom I sincerely love and honour."

It must have been a great source of satisfaction to him, to have known that not only in Western Europe and America were his books, with their kindly teachings and influences for good, widely read by the com

mon people, but that as far away as Russia there existed a translation of Dickens's works, all of which are very popular.

"Who among us"-exclaims a writer in Vedomoste, one of the leading journals of St. Petersburgh, -"does not know the genius-who has not read the novels of Dickens? There was a time when the Russian translators of foreign novels did almost nothing else than translate the charming productions of Boz! The journals and newspapers rivalled each other in being the first to communicate his last work. Every word he wrote was offered to the Russian reading community in five or six different periodicals, and as soon as the concluding part of each of his novels appeared in England, a variety of St. Petersburgh and Moscow editions bore the fame of Dickens over all the East of Europe. Every scrap. of Dickens "-exclaims the Northern critic with the keen appetite of his climate-" has been devoured. With the sole exception of Walter Scott, none among the English novelists has enjoyed such an enormous and prolonged success as Dickens."

And since his death long obituary notices of him. have been given in the Italian papers. The Diritto thinks that Sam Weller and the "modern Tartuffe," in "Martin Chuzzlewit," will be immortal, like Perpetua and Don Abbondio in Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi," which have become popular types of character. The Nazione speaks of the deceased as the greatest of modern English novelists. He was," it adds, "for

Q

five-and-thirty years, at once the most esteemed novelist and the greatest social reformer of his fellow-countrymen. There will be monuments to him in marble and bronze, but his finest monument will be the good he did for the poorer classes."

In March of this year Dickens visited Edinburgh to read his "Christmas Carol" to upwards of 2,000 members of the Philosophical Institute there. After the reading was over, the Lord Provost presented him with a splendid silver wassail bowl. Dickens, in replying, said, "the first great public recognition and encouragement I ever received was bestowed on me by your generous and magnificent city. To come to Edinburgh is to me like coming home."

And in a recent letter to the writer of an article in All the Year Round-entitled "Dr. Johnson from a Scottish Point of View"-Dickens said: "By all means let me have the paper proposed; but, in handling Fohnson, be pleasant with the Scottish people, because I love them."

A few days after, on the 29th of March, Thackeray, supported by Dickens and other literary men, presided at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern, and in proposing the health of the chairman, Dickens took occasion to bear his testimony to the goodness, the self-denial, and the self-respect of the actors of England, and passed a very flattering encomium upon the chairman's works: "It is not for me at this time, and in this place," he said, "to take on myself to flutter