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which he had called having declared against him, he declines the jurisdiction which he had asked for, and says he will have recourse to lawyers.

"You say that Mr. Edwin James is strongly of opinion that the conduct of the club is illegal. On this point I can give no sort of judgment; nor can I conceive that the club will be frightened, by the opinion of any lawyer, out of their own sense of the justice and honour which ought to obtain among gentlemen.

"Ever since I submitted my case to the club, I have had, and can have, no part in the dispute. It is for them to judge if any reconcilement is possible with your friend. I subjoin the copy of a letter* which I wrote to the committee, and refer you to them for the issue.

"C. Dickens, Esq."

"Yours, &c.,

"W. M. THACKERAY.

*The enclosure referred to was as follows:

"Gentlemen,

"Onslow Square, Nov. 28, 1858.

I have this day received a communication from Mr. Charles Dickens, relative to the dispute which has been so long pending, in which he says:

"Can any conference be held between me, as representing Mr. Yates, and any appointed friend of yours, as representing you, in the hope and purpose of some quiet accommodation of this deplorable matter, which will satisfy the feelings of all parties?'

"I have written to Mr. Dickens to say, that since the commencement of this business, I have placed myself entirely in

the hands of the committee of the Garrick, and am still, as ever, prepared to abide by any decision at which they may arrive on the subject. I conceive I cannot, if I would, make the dispute once more personal, or remove it out of the court to which I submitted it for arbitration.

"If you can devise any peaceful means for ending it, no one will be better pleased than

"Your obliged faithful servant,

"W. M. THACKERAY.

"The Committee of the Garrick Club."

It would be in vain to attempt to conceal that this painful affair left a coolness between Mr. Thackeray and his brother novelist. Mr. Thackeray, smarting under the elaborate and unjust attack, portions of which were copied and widely circulated in other journals, could not but regard the friend and adviser of his critic as in some degree associated with it; and Mr. Dickens, on the other hand, naturally hurt at finding his offer of arbitration rejected, gave the letters to the original author of the trouble for publication, with the remark-" As the receiver of my letter did not respect the confidence in which it addressed him, there can be none left for you to violate. I send you what I wrote to Mr. Thackeray, and what he wrote to me, and you are at perfect liberty to print the two." Thus, for awhile, ended this painful affair. Readers of Disraeli's "Quarrels of Authors" will miss in it those sterner features of the dissensions between literary men as they were conducted in the old times; but none can contemplate this difference between the two great masters

of fiction of our day with other than feelings of regret for the causes which led to it.

It is pleasing, however, to learn that the differences between them were ended before Mr. Thackeray's death. Singularly enough, this happy circumstance occurred only a few days before the time when it would have been too late. The two great authors met by accident in the lobby of a club. They suddenly turned and saw each other, and the unrestrained impulse of both was to hold out the hand of forgiveness and fellowship. With that hearty grasp the difference which estranged them ceased for ever. This must have been a great consolation to Mr. Dickens, when he saw his great brother laid in the earth at Kensal Green; and no one who read the beautiful and affecting article on Thackeray, from the hand of Mr. Dickens, which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, can doubt that all trace of this painful affair had then vanished.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ROYAL DRAMATIC COLLEGE.-"ALL THE YEAR

ROUND."

E turn now to a more pleasant theme. On the 21st July, 1858, a public meeting was held at

the Princess's Theatre, for the purpose of establishing the now famous Royal Dramatic College. Mr. Charles Kean was the chairman, and Dickens delivered one of his excellent speeches on a topic ever dear to him—the theatrical profession. Charles Kean was then conducting his Shakspearian revivals-those splendid pageantries and archæological displays which we all remember at this theatre twelve years ago— and Dickens, with his usual tact, turned the circumstance to account in his speech. The play then being performed was the "Merchant of Venice," and, in concluding, the speaker remarked, "I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was speaking, that in an hour or two from this time the spot upon which we are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a crafty and a cruel bond. I knew that, a few hours hence, the Grand Canal of Venice will flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very spot where I now stand dryshod, and that the quality of mercy'

will be beautifully stated to the Venetian Council by a learned young doctor from Padua;-on these very boards on which we now enlarge upon the quality of charity and sympathy. Knowing this, it came into my mind to consider how different the real bond of to-day from the ideal bond of to-night. Now, all generosity, all forbearance, all forgetfulness of little jealousies and unworthy divisions, all united action for the general good. Then, all selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, and all evil,-now all good. Then, a bond to be broken within the compass of a few-three or four-swiftly passing hours,—now, a bond to be valid and of good effect generations hence."

The committee's labours were successful, and an elegant building, in the Elizabethan style, at Maybury, was the result. On June 1st, 1860, the late Prince Consort, in laying the foundation stone, spoke of the Dramatic College as conferring "a benefit upon the public as well as upon the stage, by aiding a profession from which the community at large derived national entertainment." Five years after, on 5th June, the Prince of Wales inaugurated the Central Hall of the College. The annual Fancy Fair at the Crystal Palace, and the junketings thereat, it is needless to say, are the means of adding a large accession to the funds.

During the autumn months of this year, the readings were continued in London, and at various large towns in England and Ireland; the novelist

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