Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/370

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. v. APRIL 20, 1912.

rather troubled him ; but the die was cast, and on Lord Mayor's Day he sailed on board the Cuba for Boston. Mamie and a large party went to Liverpool " with heavy hearts to bid him farewell." Before leaving, he had contributed his part to the last of his Christmas numbers, ' No Thoroughfare,' and with that all the writings he lived to complete were done.

Meanwhile Dolby had been busy, and when he announced at Boston that tickets for the first four readings, to take place there, would be on sale at the publishing house of Ticknor & Fields at nine o'clock on Monday morning, the 18th of November, a crowd of purchasers assembled in the street at ten o'clock on Sunday night, and there waited until the doors were open. The sale occu- pied eleven hours. In the midst of it tre- mendous excitement was caused when a telegram was read announcing that Dickens had reached Halifax ; and on his arrival the following day, he was greeted with the news that the tickets for the first four readings (all to that time issued) had been sold.

Dickens had up to the last moment had a shade of misgiving that some of the old grudges might make themselves felt, but from the instant he set his foot in Boston " not a vestige of such fear remained." There was no abatement of the old warmth of kindness shown him when he visited the city twenty-five years earlier, but how many changes ! " On ground which he had left a swamp he found the most princely streets." On his first visit he had been welcomed by

" the sturdy Cooper, the gentle Irving, his friend and kinsman Paulding, Prescott the historian and Percival the poet, the eloquent Everett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Poe, N. P. Willis."

All these and others had passed away, leaving a new generation of writers to extend to him the hand of friendship. He found himself to be the most popular writer in the country, his novels were crowding the shelves of all the dealers in books in every city of the Union.

" In every house, in every car, on every steam- boat, in every theatre of America, the characters, the fancies, the phraseology of Dickens were become familiar beyond those of any other writer of books " ;

and one of the New York journals went so far as to say that " even in England, Dickens is less known than here."

On Saturday, the 7th of December, he left for New York, where the rush for tickets exceeded even that at Boston. All night, for eleven hours, the people

waited in the frozen streets. By two o'clock in the afternoon every ticket was sold for the- first four readings, and, notwithstanding all Dolby's efforts, the speculators contrived to get into their possession the greater portion of the first seven or eight rows of seats in the hall. One man sold a ticket for the first night for 11. IQs. in English money and a " brandy cocktail." Dolby relates that, "despite my precautions, the sale of tickets in New York had given universal dissatisfaction, the public connecting me with the speculators' trade, and without in the least taking the trouble to ' look at home,' for the Wall Street brokers, merchants, lawyers, and private individuals became even greater speculators (with their surplus tickets) than> the ordinary practitioners. Leading articles of the most abusive kind were written about me, notably in The New York Herald and the World, the latter paper remarking : ' Surely it is time that the pudding - headed Dolby retired into the native gloom from which he has emerged' a suggestion which caused the greatest amusement to myself and Mr. Dickens, and gained for me afterwards (amongst our friends) the initials 'P. H.'"

When Dickens was half through the first New York readings, the weather became intensely cold, the thermometer being below zero ; added to this, a heavy storm of snow set in, railways were stopped for days, the streets of New York were covered with a mantle eight inches deep, and it was only late in the afternoon of the third reading that the streets were cleared suffi- ciently (by means of steam ploughs) to enable traffic to be resumed. Dickens, very unwell from influenza, very despondent watching the falling snow from the windows = of his hotel, felt it would be impossible for him to attempt to read, and he also thought that no one would venture out to listen to him in the immense hall which had been taken ; but his indomitable spirit conquered, and on going to the platform he was amazed to find the building quite full, and the audience as brilliant in every respect as on. the two previous occasions.

JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

(To be continued.)

BRITISH MEMORIALS OF THE. PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.

(Concluded from p. 205.)

TROOPS " went into winter quarters " in- Peninsular days ; the roads were, in fact practically impassable at such seasons ; so the next battles (still working backwards) 1 were those inscribed on many British colours, yet so unfamiliar to the average-