Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/153

 ii s. v. F.B. IT, Mia.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

LOS DOS, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY .17,

CONTENTS. -No. 112.

NOTES : Charles Dickens, 121 Casanova in England, 123 Gotham in Derbyshire Book with Robert Burton's Autograph, 125 Farringdon Ward Intercommunica- tion : Die Briicke Casanoviana, 126 Yorkshiremen in America " Honours " to whom Honour is Due Roger Lancaster, Priest, 127.

QUERIES : Montaigne on Tacitus Frith's 'Road to Ruin' and 'Race for Wealth,' 127 Saints' Garden ' Zoriada ; or. Village Annals ' Archibald Erskine Gardiner Family Haydon's Journals Gover Surname Cromwell and Vane, 128 Geronomo Nonsense Club Lord Barry Canon T. Jackson Londres : London Casanova Authors of Quotations Wanted, 129 Stewart Family Jane and Robert Porter Tobacconists' High- landers Jane Austen and the Word "Manor" " Bartholomew ware" T. Wymondesold, 1693 'London Chronicle ' : ' Monthly Review ' Lumber Troopers Register Transcribers of 1602, 130.

REPLIES: 'The Married Men's Feast,' 131 Spanish Titles granted to Irishmen Samuel Greatbeed Duration of Families. 132 Henry Downes Miles The Sun as the Manger Oxford Degrees and Ordination, 133 Sir Francis Drake and the Temple New Zealand Governors Burial in Woollen: " Colberteen," 134 " With Allowance "Edgar Allan Poe's Mother Tattershall : Klsham : Granthtn), 135 Murderers reprieved for Marriage Biographical Information Wanted Hurley Manor Crypt 'Gil Bias' Britannia Regiment, 136 Foreign Journals in the U.S. Foreigners accompanying William III. " Vicugfia " Trussel Family Lamb or Lambe Authors Wanted, 137 Lucius Curious Staff Dr. Brettargh Ancient Terms, 138 Crowned by a Pope- Fines as Christian Name Beaupr Bell Giggleswick School Seal* Young Man's Companion,' 139.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Greek Tragedy' ' Comedies of Shakespeare ' ' Analecta Bollandiana ' ' Wonders of Ireland ' ' Vision of Faith.'

OBITUARY :-The Rev. Walter Consitt Boulter.

CHARLES DICKENS.

BORN AT LANDPORT* IN PORTSEA,

FEBKTJARY TTH, 1812.

DIED AT GAD'S HIIX, JUNE OTH, 1870.

(See ante, pp. 81, 101.)

BEFORE I continue them some record should be set down in these notes of the hearty manner in which the Dickens Centenary has been celebrated in France, a land and

Portsmouth, the house is known as 393, Com- mercial Road, Portsmouth, having been' recently changed from 387. I have given the birthplace of Dickens at the heading of this, my third note, as by those who have not studied the biographies of Dickens, Chatham is often put down as his birth- place. The family resided there for so long a period, that, as Mr. Chesterton states, it "became the real home, and for all serious purposes the native place, of Dickens. The whole story of his life," continues Mr. Chesterton, " moves like A Canterbury pilgrimage along the great roads of Kent."
 * The district now being incorporated wit'i

people dearly loved by Dickens. In fact, it was only in France that he was completely happy while away from home. Among the tributes rendered by the French press should be noted that of Les Annales of the 4th inst. There are articles by Jules Claretie, Anatole France, and others ; and among the many illustrations one of the bust inaugurated at the Centenary fetes, the work of the sculptor Toft.

On the 14th of July, 1844, Dickens, with his wife and children, arrived at Marseilles on the way to Italy. Before he left England a farewell dinner was given to him at Green- wich, Lord Xormanby in the chair. Forster sat next to Turner, who had his throat " en- veloped, that sultry summer day, in a huge red belcher handkerchief, which nothing would induce him to remove."' Carlyle did not go, but wrote :

" I truly love Dickens, having discerned in the inner man of him a real music of the genuine kind, but I would rather testify to this in some other form than dining out in -the dog days." ;

There is an unreality about this visit to Italy : Dickens never seems to be actually there ; his soul appears to be all the time in London. Mr. Chesterton well says : " His travels are not travels in Italy, but travels in Dickensland. " This is accounted for in a general way by the fact that at first most of his time was spent at work on ' The Chimes,' so that his thoughts were far away, while his surroundings caused him to work with difficulty. For, again quoting Mr. Chesterton, it was

" among the olives and the orange-trees he wrote his second great Christmas tale ' The Chimes ' at Genoa, a Christmas tale only differing from the ' Christmas Carol ' in being fuller of the grey rains of winter and the skies of the north. ' The Chimes ' is, like the ' Carol,' an appeal for charity and mirth, but it is a stern and fighting appeal : if the other is a Christinas Carol, this is a Christmas war song."

No sooner was ' The Chimes ' completed than a spirit of " unspeakable restless some- thing " seized him, and he resolved to return to London in order that he might read the story to a few friends to try its effect. He therefore wrote to Forster to arrange for this, and the reading took place at his house, 58, Lincoln's Inn Fields, on the 2nd of December. The well-known " pencil note " by Maclise shows of whom the party consisted. By the 22nd of December Dickens had rejoined his family at Genoa for Christmas, and writes to Forster :

" Miss Coutts has sent Charley [her godson, born on the 6th of January, 1837] a Twelfth Cake weighing ninety pounds, magnificently decorated ; and only think of the characters, Fairburn's