1837.

first week of its publication. 'Seventeen hundred Gri- LONDON: 'maldis have been already sold, and the demand increases 'daily !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

tion to his

about

I under- Answered

by himself.

It was not to have all its own way however. A great An objecmany critical faults were found; and one point in parti- writing cular was urged against his handling such a subject, that Grimaldi. he could never himself even have seen Grimaldi. To this last objection he was moved to reply, and had prepared a letter for the Miscellany, from editor to sub-editor,' which it was thought best to suppress, but of which the opening remark may now be not unamusing. 'stand that a gentleman unknown is going about this town 'privately informing all ladies and gentlemen of discon'tented natures, that, on a comparison of dates and putting 'together of many little circumstances which occur to his 'great sagacity, he has made the profound discovery that 'I can never have seen Grimaldi whose life I have edited, and that the book must therefore of necessity be bad. 'Now, sir, although I was brought up from remote country 'parts in the dark ages of 1819 and 1820 to behold the splendour of Christmas pantomimes and the humour of 'Joe, in whose honour I am informed I clapped my hands with great precocity, and although I even saw him act C. D. loq in the remote times of 1823; yet as I had not then 'aspired to the dignity of a tail-coat, though forced by a 'relentless parent into my first pair of boots, I am will'ing, with the view of saving this honest gentleman 'further time and trouble, to concede that I had not 'arrived at man's estate when Grimaldi left the stage, and 'that my recollections of his acting are, to my loss, but

LONDON: 1837.

C. D. log.

Completion of Pick

wick.

C. D.

to

J. F.

shadowy and imperfect. Which confession I now make 'publickly, and without mental qualification or reserve, 'to all whom it may concern. But the deduction of this 'pleasant gentleman that therefore the Grimaldi book 'must be bad, I must take leave to doubt. I don't think 'that to edit a man's biography from his own notes it is 'essential you should have known him, and I don't 'believe that Lord Braybrooke had more than the very slightest acquaintance with Mr. Pepys whose memoirs he 'edited two centuries after he died.'

Enormous meanwhile, and without objection audible on any side, had been the success of the completed Pickwick, which we celebrated by a dinner, with himself in the chair and Talfourd in the vice-chair, everybody in hearty good humour with every other body; and a copy of which I received from him on the 11th of December in the most luxurious of Hayday's bindings, with a note worth preserving for its closing allusion. The passage referred to in it was a comment, in delicately chosen words, that Leigh Hunt had made on the inscription at the grave in Kensalgreen.* 'Chapman and Hall have just sent me, with a 'copy of our deed, three "extra-super" bound copies of 'Pickwick, as per specimen inclosed. The first I forward 'to you, the second I have presented to our good friend 'Ainsworth, and the third Kate has retained for herself. 'Accept your copy with one sincere and most comprehen'sive expression of my warmest friendship and esteem; and 'a hearty renewal, if there need be any renewal when there 'has been no interruption, of all those assurances of affec*See ante, p. 98.

....

1837.

C. D. to J. F.

'tionate regard which our close friendship and communion LONDON: 'for a long time back has every day implied. . . . That beautiful passage you were so kind and considerate as to 'send me, has given me the only feeling akin to pleasure '(sorrowful pleasure it is) that I have yet had, connected 'with the loss of my dear young friend and companion; for 'whom my love and attachment will never diminish, and 'by whose side, if it please God to leave me in possession A purpose of sense to signify my wishes, my bones, whenever or tained. 'wherever I die, will one day be laid. Tell Leigh Hunt

'when you have an opportunity how much he has affected

me, and how deeply I thank him for what he has done. You cannot say it too strongly.'

long enter.

with Chap

Hall.

The 'deed' mentioned was one executed in the previous Relations month to restore to him a third ownership in the book man and which had thus far enriched all concerned but himself. The original understanding respecting it Mr. Edward Chapman thus describes for me. "There was no agree'ment about Pickwick except a verbal one. Each number I was to consist of a sheet and a half, for which we were 'to pay fifteen guineas; and we paid him for the first two 'numbers at once, as he required the money to to go and get 'married with. We were also to pay more according to 'the sale, and I think Pickwick altogether cost us three 'thousand pounds.' Adjustment to the sale would have cost four times as much, and of the actual payments I have myself no note; but, as far as my memory serves, they are overstated by Mr. Chapman. My impression is, that, above and beyond the first sum due for each of the twenty numbers (making no allowance for their

1837.

Payments

for Pickwick.

Agree

LONDON: extension after the first to thirty-two pages), successive cheques were given, as the work went steadily on to the enormous sale it reached, which brought up the entire sum received to two thousand five hundred pounds. I had however always pressed so strongly the importance to him of some share in the copyright, that this at last was conceded in the deed above-mentioned, though five years were to elapse before the right should accrue; and it was only yielded as part consideration for a further agreement entered into at the same date (the 19th of November, 1837) whereby Dickens engaged to write a new work the title whereof 'shall be determined by him, of a similar character and 'of the same extent as the Posthumous Papers of the 'Pickwick Club,' the first number of which was to be delivered on the fifteenth of the following March, and each of the numbers on the same day of each of the successive nineteen months; which was also to be the date of the payment to him, by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, of twenty several sums of one hundred and fifty pounds each for five years' use of the copyright, the entire ownership in which was then to revert to Dickens. The name of this new book, as all the world knows, was The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby; and between April 1838 and October 1839 it was begun and finished accordingly.

ment for Nicholas Nickleby.

Going on

with Oliver Twist.

All through the interval of these arrangements Olive Twist had been steadily continued. Month by month, for many months, it had run its opening course with the close of Pickwick, as we shall see it close with the opening of Nickleby; and the expectations of those who had built most confidently on the young novelist were more than

1837.

character

with every

class.

confirmed. Here was the interest of a story simply but LONDON: well constructed; and characters with the same impress of reality upon them, but more carefully and skilfully drawn. Nothing could be meaner than the subject, the progress of a parish or workhouse boy, nothing less so than its treatment. As each number appeared, his readers The story generally became more and more conscious of what already, ized. as we have seen, had revealed itself amid even the riotous fun of Pickwick, that the purpose was not solely to amuse; and, far more decisively than its predecessor, the new story further showed what were the not least potent elements in the still increasing popularity that was gathering around the writer. His qualities could be appreciated as well Reasons for as felt in an almost equal degree by all classes of his popularity various readers. Thousands were attracted to him because he placed them in the midst of scenes and characters with which they were already themselves acquainted; and thousands were reading him with no less avidity because he introduced them to passages of nature and life of which they before knew nothing, but of the truth of which their own habits and senses sufficed to assure them. Only to genius are so revealed the affinities and sympathies of Affinities of High and high and low, in regard to the customs and usages of life; Low. and only a writer of the first rank can bear the application of such a test. For it is by the alliance of common habits, quite as much as by the bonds of a common humanity, that we are all of us linked together; and the result of being above the necessity of depending on other people's opinions, and that of being below it, are pretty much the same. It would equally startle both high and