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did not like and amongst these stood foremost the type he himself had attended, "the respected proprietor of which was by far the most ignorant man he had ever had the pleasure to know; and one of the most worse-tempered men, perhaps, that ever lived, whose business it was to make as much out of the boys and put as little into them as possible." It will be seen that this exposure was three years before the great Newcastle Commission of Enquiry, which did so much for popular education in England and it will not be forgotten that Mr. Squeers and the Dotheboys Hall were brought back to life in the course of the years 1838-1839. Institutions, such as he had attended, were pernicious humbugs and he never lost his ancient suspicion concerning the curious coincidence that the boy with the four brothers to come obtained all the prizes. Before entering the Wellington House Academy of Mr. Jones, he was sent to get a card of terms. Arriving there he found the Principal engaged upon the work of carving for a pack of hungrylooking boys; that potentate looking like a German butcher wearing a pair of linen covers over his sleeves. There were two other masters of any note. The Latin master was somewhat deaf and stuffed his ears with onions and the dancing master suffered from obesity and various other complaints of a like character.

In this mighty establishment almost every boy was a fancier and "trained his pet better than his masters trained their boys." These youthful fanciers were of a really fanciful nature, their pets ranging from the canary to the white mouse and the habitations of these from desks to hat boxes. One white mouse was of a peculiarly classic temperament, staying, as it did, in a refuge made from the cover of a Latin of a Latin dictionary, and

performing various feats of skill and strength. This prodigy "ran up ladders, drew Roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage as the Dog of Montajes He might have achieved greater things, but for having had the misfortune to mistake his way in a triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he fell into a deep inkstand, was dyed black and drowned."

After about two years these halcyon days came to an end and this was a time fraught with much meaning or his future career. Though he was taught little, yet he learnt to live with zest; he observed the freaks and humours of school life, as well as its more serious points. His mind became receptive and observant. It was a period dear to him- dear as his very life. "Ah me, ah me," he says, "no other ghosts has haunted the boys' room, my friends, than the ghost of my own childhood, the ghost of my own innocence!"

HIS BEGINNINGS.

After leaving school Dickens became a reporter. He has left us many interesting and humorous sketches about this phase of his life. His career as a teller of tales stretches back to almost his prehistoric days certain tragedies, one of them entitled "Misnar, the Indian Sultan," being achieved at the mature age of eight or ten. Moreover, during his school days, to his other exploits, he had added that of a story-teller. But his true beginnings as a man of letters or what we may call his debût in the world of literature did not take place till 1835, the first publication being a sketch, "Mr. Minus and his Cousin," in the Old Monthly Magazine. Others followed and subsequently some

appeared in the evening edition of the Morning Chronicle. One cannot claim very much for these first attempts, yet on the whole their success was great as we learn from contemporary evidence. But with growing confidence his abilities were not slow in their development. "He was the first," it has been truly said, "to unite the delicately playful thread of Charles Lamb's street musings-half experiences, half bookish phantasies -with the vigorous wit and humour and observation of Goldsmith's Citizen of the World' and twine them together in that golden cord of essay, which combines literature with philosophy, humour with morality, amusement with instruction."

These sketches appeared under the pseudonym of "Boz." The adoption of this quaint name gave rise to much speculation, giving rise later on to the famous epigram :

"Who the dickens' Boz' could be

Puzzled many a curious elf;

Till unveiled the mystery

And Boz' appeared Dickens' self."

Tom Hood's appreciation of Boz in the character of an uneducated poet is refreshingly ingeniousArn't that 'ere Boz a tip-top feller! Lots write well, but he writes Weller!

DICKENS AND THE STAGE.

"The fever of the footlights," wrote Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens in 1906, "was always with him." That he was born with the true dramatic instinct in him there is no reason to doubt. From his very childhood this tendency was fostered in one way or another,

• Boz was the domestic pet name of a younger brother derived from Moses, Boses, Boz.

incidentally or with a purpose; and were it not for a curious accident the civilized world would have lost, if not its greatest, yet its most beloved novelist. The incident is given in full in Forster, but the main facts of the case are that at about the self-conscious age of twenty, when he could scarcely be said to have found his real vocation, he applied to the manager of the Covent Garden "in the hope of getting a show." The aspirant was offered a chance and a trial day was fixed, when fortunately he was laid up with a severe cold and face ache. Although he was promised another opportunity in the coming season, yet he made no further Overtures. In the interval Charles Dickens had found his true self.

We have said that his love for the stage could be traced back to very early times and have also referred to "Misnar, the Indian Sultan." Young as he was at this time, his reading was considerable, and as a result of this, imbued with the spirit of the books he read, his vivid imagination would make him impersonate the heroes for days and days. At other times, in conjunction with his companions, he would act some particularly striking thing he had come across. Mrs. Gibson relates

a typical fact in this connection. After describing the young peoples' coming downstairs with the rush of a whirlwind and asking her to clear the kitchen, she goes on to say: "Then George Stronghill would would come in with his magic lantern and they would sing and recite and perform parts of plays. Fanny and Charles sang together at this time, Fanny accompanying on the pianoforte." The favourite piece for elocution at this period was Dr. Watts' "Voice of the Sluggard."

During these years his parents, being in tolerably

good circumstances, would take the children out to the Theatre Royal. "Once," said the novelist," I was brought from some remote country parts in the dark ages of 1819 and 1820 to behold the splendours of a Christmas pantomime and the humours of Joe Grimaldi, in whose honour I am informed I clapped my hands with great precocity." During his life at school in Wellington House Academy, we come across various facts which exhibit the dramatic side of his nature. Amongst others, two stand prominent. The first is about a lingo which he invented by the addition of a few letters of the same sound to every word and "it was our ambition," wrote a friend of his, "walking and talking thus along the streets to be considered as foreigners." The second is about his wonderful capacity of getting up school actings. On occasions he would go to the undramatic extent of acting in the streets. He and his playmates would masquerade as beggar boys asking people, especially old ladies, for charity, and when the old ladies would be thoroughly taken aback by their impudent demands, the young actors led by their hero would burst out laughing and disappear, leaving the aged victims to collect their wits and speculate upon the nature of the

event.

Then, in his manhood. to atone for his thwarted ambition, he devoted himself to private theatricals. Many were the occasions that he appeared before the footlights as an amateur. It was in 1836, and not in 1842, at Montreal, that he first took a part in a public performance at "St. James's." But his first real success did not come till 1845, in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour." The play-bill itself, the only relic of this performance, save a few voices from the past, is very interesting.

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