10 10 136 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. The tale he had read, he explained, comprised all that part of his well-known novel Dombey and Son that related to the history of the short-lived junior partner of that house. He prayed the audience to be unreserved in their expressions, whether of mirth or sympathy, confessing that he too sometimes joined in the tears or laughter which the recital evoked. The little story he regarded as intimately associated with the city on account of a dear friend he had had there, now departed <span class="NormalTextRun SCXW83553113 BCX0" data-ccp-charstyle="normaltextrun" data-ccp-charstyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"460502c0-ef1b-42ec-a63b-2a7fddd9ab25|34","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",469777841,"Aptos",469777842,"",469777843,"Aptos",469777844,"Aptos",201341986,"1",469769226,"Aptos",268442635,"22",469775450,"normaltextrun",201340122,"1",134233614,"true",469778129,"normaltextrun",335572020,"1",469778324,"Default Paragraph Font"]}">– one who had often pondered and dwelt on those few chapters, and shown a tender interest in the tale, which he could never forget. Location The location Edinburgh Venue Where the speech was given Queen Street Hall Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18580928 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource At a Reading in Edinburgh September 1858 Description An account of the resource Speech at a Reading in Edinburgh (28 September 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1858-09-28 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1858-09-28_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Edinburgh Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at a Reading in Edinburgh' (28 September 1858). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-09-28_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Edinburgh">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-09-28_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Edinburgh</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. ‘Mr. Dickens, in commencing, expressed a hope that his audience would speedily forget the cold light of day and lose themselves with him amidst those childish footsteps, trusting that they would laugh if they thought proper, or cry if they thought proper, as nothing could give him greater pleasure than to see them do so unconstrainedly.’ Location The location Brighton Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Brighton Gazette Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18581113 Venue Where the speech was given Town Hall Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource At a Reading in Brighton Description An account of the resource Speech given before a matinée reading of 'Little Dombey' (13 November 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brighton Gazette (18 November 1858). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1858-11-13 Type The nature or genre of the resource Speech Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1858-11-13_Speech_Reading_in_Brighton Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Brighton' (13 November 1858). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-11-13_Speech_Reading_in_Brighton">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-11-13_Speech_Reading_in_Brighton</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given Free Trade Hall Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18581203 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the corn harvest and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations, each vieing with the other in the two qualities of having little or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it was delivered. The autumn being gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do, and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of our own to throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall. At the top of the public announcements of this meeting are the words ‘Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire’. Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results of my studies? To begin with, the title did not suggest to me anything in the least like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms, ‘Mechanics’ Institutions’, and ‘Literary Societies’, but they have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, and which is very seldom paid for, and which takes the name of mechanics most grievously in vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place together. I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, ‘Here is the old story’. But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; in short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to them all how they can best communicate with and profit by the fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before them; advising how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called ‘Free Itinerating Libraries’. I learned that these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These, and other like facts, lead me to consider the immense importance of the fact that no little cluster of working men’s cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts out for water-power, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for it, willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come into existence. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do for those working men what this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly understand them as this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly put them in that familiar and easy communication with one another, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a most important feature, of this society. On the other hand it is not to be supposed that these honest men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in itself a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of experience and reflection. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising of the local societies to submit themselves to voluntary examination in various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the list of these examinations are now among us, and these little marks of recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose. I have looked over a few of those examination papers. They comprise history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language – in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I felt most devoutly grateful, as to many of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been, I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself tonight. And yet it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence has been a constant wrestle with ‘Those twin gaolers of the daring heart – low birth and iron fortune’. I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of whose life is with writing and books, but by men, the business of whose life is with tools and machinery. Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who began life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you tonight, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third class certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry who, whilst he was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o’clock in the morning to learn drawing. ‘The thought of my lads’, he writes in his modest account of himself, ‘in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country, England, pre-eminent in the world’s history’. There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of tonight. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the American poet: Toiling – rejoicing – sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begun,  Each evening sees its close; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night’s repose. Ladies and gentlemen – to pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from amongst them. There is amongst their number a most remarkable man, whose history I have read with feelings I could not adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue; who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings a week; who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire valleys; who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds; who is now a conchologist, with a very curious and in some respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved and collected the mosses of fresh waters and the sea; who is worthily the president of his own local Literary Institution; and who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill. So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his occupation as ‘nursing a little child’. Nor are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories, milliners’ work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so honourably distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an admirable knowledge of the science of household management and household economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, or if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should positively get up at four o’clock in the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to Preston in search of a wife. Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the working of this Association than any number of speakers could possibly present to you? Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable people is the Association’s best and most effective triumph in the present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the future? As its temporary mouth-piece I would beg to say to that portion of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can never hold itself apart from them – can never set itself above them; that their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing will ever be further from this Association’s mind than the impertinence of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit in which they are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes, simply because the institution does not presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money serviceable, because it would be a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows that it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and above all perfect independence. Ladies and gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, nothing. In the City of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot which was once always saying, without knowing why, that knowledge was a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been – as my friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it – ‘blasted into space’; and there, as to this world, is an end of them. So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first place let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves in this manner with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very dear to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell off in figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope – do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as part of the great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes, always remember these fables tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may co-exist with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed when it informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe. I am deeply obliged to you for your cordial reception. The honour of this presidency, believe me, is all mine; the pleasure attaching to it, I am sure, we shall divide between us. No man can have seen this scene tonight without having his heart touched with the most delightful emotions, and without feeling himself, as to the great mass of the community, a wiser, a better, a more helpful, a more happy man. But it is nothing new to me to receive satisfaction here; for I never come to Manchester without expecting pleasure, and I never leave it without taking pleasure away. I heartily assure you that you have been most cordially welcome to my poor services, and I most affectionately wish you good night. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire Prize-Giving Description An account of the resource Speech at the Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire Prize-Giving (3 December 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1858-12-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1858-12-03_Speech_Institutional-Association-of-Lancashire-and-Cheshire Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire Prize-Giving' (3 December 1858). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-03_Speech_Institutional-Association-of-Lancashire-and-Cheshire">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-03_Speech_Institutional-Association-of-Lancashire-and-Cheshire</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the corn harvest and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations, each vieing with the other in the two qualities of having little or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it was delivered. The autumn being gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do, and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of our own to throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall. At the top of the public announcements of this meeting are the words ‘Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire’. Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results of my studies? To begin with, the title did not suggest to me anything in the least like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms, ‘Mechanics' Institutions’, and ‘Literary Societies’, but they have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, and which is very seldom paid for, and which takes the name of mechanics most grievously in vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place together. I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, ‘Here is the old story’. But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; in short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to them all how they can best communicate with and profit by the fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before them; advising how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called ‘Free Itinerating Libraries’. I learned that these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These, and other like facts, lead me to consider the immense importance of the fact that no little cluster of working men's cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts out for water-power, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for it, willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come into existence. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do for those working men what this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly understand them as this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly put them in that familiar and easy communication with one another, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a most important feature, of this society. On the other hand it is not to be supposed that these honest men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in itself a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of experience and reflection. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising of the local societies to submit themselves to voluntary examination in various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the list of these examinations are now among us, and these little marks of recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose. I have looked over a few of those examination papers. They comprise history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language – in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I felt most devoutly grateful, as to many of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been, I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself tonight. And yet it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence has been a constant wrestle with ‘Those twin gaolers of the daring heart – low birth and iron fortune’. I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of whose life is with writing and books, but by men, the business of whose life is with tools and machinery. Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who began life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you tonight, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third class certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry who, whilst he was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o'clock in the morning to learn drawing. ‘The thought of my lads’, he writes in his modest account of himself, ‘in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country, England, pre-eminent in the world's history’.  There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of tonight. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the American poet: Toiling – rejoicing –  sorrowing,   Onward through life he goes;   Each morning sees some task begun,   Each evening sees its close;   Something attempted, something done,   Has earned a night's repose. Ladies and gentlemen – to pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from amongst them. There is amongst their number a most remarkable man, whose history I have read with feelings I could not adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue; who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings a week; who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire valleys; who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds; who is now a conchologist, with a very curious and in some respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved and collected the mosses of fresh waters and the sea; who is worthily the president of his own local Literary Institution; and who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill. So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his occupation as ‘nursing a little child’. Nor are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories, milliners’ work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so honourably distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an admirable knowledge of the science of household management and household economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, or if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should positively get up at four o'clock in the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to Preston in search of a wife. Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the working of this Association than any number of speakers could possibly present to you? Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable people is the Association's best and most effective triumph in the present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the future? As its temporary mouth-piece I would beg to say to that portion of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can never hold itself apart from them –  can never set itself above them; that their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing will ever be further from this Association’s mind than the impertinence of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit in which they are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes, simply because the institution does not presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money serviceable, because it would be a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows that it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and above all perfect independence. Ladies and gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, nothing. In the City of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot which was once always saying, without knowing why, that knowledge was a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been – as my friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it – ‘blasted into space’; and there, as to this world, is an end of them. So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first place let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves in this manner with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very dear to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell off in figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope – do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as part of the great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes, always remember these fables tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may co-exist with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed when it informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe.  I am deeply obliged to you for your cordial reception. The honour of this presidency, believe me, is all mine; the pleasure attaching to it, I am sure, we shall divide between us. No man can have seen this scene tonight without having his heart touched with the most delightful emotions, and without feeling himself, as to the great mass of the community, a wiser, a better, a more helpful, a more happy man. But it is nothing new to me to receive satisfaction here; for I never come to Manchester without expecting pleasure, and I never leave it without taking pleasure away. I heartily assure you that you have been most cordially welcome to my poor services, and I most affectionately wish you good night. manchester Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Coventry Venue Where the speech was given Castle Hotel Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18581204 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman, and Gentlemen, I hope your minds will be greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgement of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence. Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch with which you have presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in my restless wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that after this night the object of these labours will not less than before be to uphold the right and do good. And when I have done with time and its measurement this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways, and to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only possible, but very probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of years hence, – who knows? – in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan. Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts I can assure you that the memory of tonight, and of your picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never more hear the slightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment. Gentlemen, the chairman had wisely observed that it was a curious characteristic of the human mind, that it is almost always disposed to laugh when a thing is mentioned for the first time. That being the case, I am not in the least apprehensive of your laughter when I talk to you of the chairman himself, because his merits are so familiar to you that I should almost incline to suppose, according to the converse of the proposition, that you would cry. We all know that there are various systems for doing most things, each system claiming for itself the support of many friends, and encountering the opposition of various opponents. There may be a great variety of conflicting opinions in regard to farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay farm; but however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, there can be but one opinion as to the merits of the clay farmer, and it is the health of that distinguished agriculturalist which I have to propose. In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it is exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that this very rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughed up, and that we shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up wherever he is sown, I take leave to propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget. It has been suggested to me that there is one concluding toast which we ought to drink; but I feel under some little difficulty, because I know the moment I touch the subject you will not unnaturally connect me with the great hero of this city; but many of you when you leave this place will have the privilege of going home to the softer and better sex. Heaven forbid that I should follow you, but I think you ought to be able to tell your wives that in our flowing cups they were freshly remembered. It would be ridiculous to say anything in praise of women – especially here. We know that she was a woman. We know that the Graces were all women; we know that the Muses were women, and we know every day of our lives that the Fates are women. I think that as we receive so much from them, both in happiness and pain, we ought at least to drink their healths. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Presentation and Banquet in His Honour, Coventry Description An account of the resource Speech at a Presentation and Banquet in His Honour, Coventry (4 December 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1858-12-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1858-12-04_Speech_Presentation-and-Banquet-in-His-Honour-Coventry Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Presentation and Banquet in His Honour, Coventry' (4 December 1858). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-04_Speech_Presentation-and-Banquet-in-His-Honour-Coventry">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-04_Speech_Presentation-and-Banquet-in-His-Honour-Coventry</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman, and Gentlemen, I hope your minds will be greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgement of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence.  Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch with which you have presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in my restless wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that after this night the object of these labours will not less than before be to uphold the right and do good. And when I have done with time and its measurement this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways, and to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only possible, but very probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of years hence, – who knows? – in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan. Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts I can assure you that the memory of tonight, and of your picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never more hear the slightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment. Gentlemen, the chairman had wisely observed that it was a curious characteristic of the human mind, that it is almost always disposed to laugh when a thing is mentioned for the first time. That being the case, I am not in the least apprehensive of your laughter when I talk to you of the chairman himself, because his merits are so familiar to you that I should almost incline to suppose, according to the converse of the proposition, that you would cry. We all know that there are various systems for doing most things, each system claiming for itself the support of many friends, and encountering the opposition of various opponents. There may be a great variety of conflicting opinions in regard to farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay farm; but however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, there can be but one opinion as to the merits of the clay farmer, and it is the health of that distinguished agriculturalist which I have to propose. In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it is exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that this very rich and teeming individual  may speedily be ploughed up, and that we shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up wherever he is sown, I take leave to propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget. It has been suggested to me that there is one concluding toast which we ought to drink; but I feel under some little difficulty, because I know the moment I touch the subject you will not unnaturally connect me with the great hero of this city; but many of you when you leave this place will have the privilege of going home to the softer and better sex. Heaven forbid that I should follow you, but I think you ought to be able to tell your wives that in our flowing cups they were freshly remembered. It would be ridiculous to say anything in praise of women – especially here. We know that she was a woman. We know that the Graces were all women; we know that the Muses were women, and we know every day of our lives that the Fates are women. I think that as we receive so much from them, both in happiness and pain, we ought at least to drink their healths. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. ‘Mr. Dickens was warmly received, and before commencing the reading said, that some years ago he had given a reading in this place – rendered dear to him by a personal friend – for the benefit of a local institution, and it occurred to him that, as on that occasion he read the Christmas Carol, it might be the pleasure of the audience to hear The Story of Little Dombey instead of the Carol. The audience signified their approval of the proposition, and Mr. Dickens proceeded to read the work mentioned.’ Location The location Peterborough Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Peterborough Advertiser Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18591019 Venue Where the speech was given Corn Exchange Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource At a Reading in Peterborough Description An account of the resource Speech given before a reading of 'Little Dombey' and 'The Pickwick Trial' (19 October 1859). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Peterborough Advertiser (22 October 1859). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1859-10-19 Type The nature or genre of the resource Speech Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Peterborough' (19 October 1859). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough">1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. They were sometimes told, he said, as if it were a new discovery, that war was the greatest of all evils. Now, he thought he preferred no high claim on the intelligence of this company when he said they all knew it to be so. Common humanity taught them to regard war as an unparalleled calamity. So strongly rooted was this feeling in the English mind, that it might truly be said that the popular voice was almost always for peace, and always attached enormous responsibility to any men in power who, for selfish ends, should be the first to ‘cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war’. But the next greatest sin to such an act was that of any men who accepted the responsibility of government and left the people ill prepared to resist aggressive war. It was because they who sat there were devoted to the arts and ways of peace, and because they exhibited all the signs of outward prosperity, that he congratulated them upon the manly and national spirit which was then stirring amongst them as well as amongst our professed defenders by sea and land. We Englishmen uttered no defiance, no braggart boast, against any nation on the face of the earth, but wished quietly to keep our own; and, with the blessing of heaven, which helped those who helped themselves, they would most assuredly do it. The plain meaning of the Rifle movement was but the revival of the old brave spirit of our forefathers, and a proof that all who had a stake in the country – and who that had life in it had not? – were ready if occasion required to fight and die in its defence. On that account, he would, with their permission, slightly alter the toast about the be proposed, and give ‘The Army and Navy, and the Volunteers’. He was told, he said, that it was once observed by a lady who kept a commercial boarding-house in the neighbourhood of the Monument, named Mrs. Todgers, that no such strong passion existed in the human breast as that of commercial gentlemen for gravy. She said, as he had been informed, and had reason to believe true, that it was her opinion that no animal known to butchers or experienced housekeepers would yield from any of its joints the amount of gravy that was called for by the peculiarity of the commercial palate. The anxiety, and mental agony that this most estimable lady had undergone from this single cause was sufficient to undermine the strongest constitution. With this lady’s experience and responsibilities heavy on his soul, he was thrown into a gloomy state of feeling when the duties and responsibilities of this eventful day loomed and darkened upon him. He was disturbed by the amount of oratorical gravy which he knew would be expected from the head of the table, and his sorrows were aggravated by his own personal knowledge of the inadequacy of the supply. It was very small comfort for him to remember that the last time he had the honour to fill that place the guests were most kind and considerate. He could not banish the shadow of ‘Todgers’s’, nor get rid of the horrors of that lady’s experience of what gravy was to a commercial man. In short he was dreadfully perplexed to know how he should act upon the present occasion. In this disturbed state of mind he had made several forlorn attempts to get material for a speech. He had looked through the advertisement pages of Bradshaw, and asked himself whether anything could be done with those inviting advertisements of hotels in which were offered, at fixed charges, bed, breakfast, and attendance, with the additional advantages of perfect solitude and an Italian atmosphere. He had asked himself, despondingly, the question whether anything apropos might be got out of the unfortunate porter who sat up all night, and who never went to bed in the day time. He had then started off by express train of remembrances to another and much larger hotel at Leeds, where he had happened to be staying about seven weeks before, where the chamber appurtenances belonged to a period far anterior to the present, and where the night candles were nothing less than mutton truncheons of most exaggerated proportions, and could not by any possibility be blown out. He went on to ask permission to propose the health of a gentleman to whom the institution, the progress of which they were met to celebrate, was more indebted than to any other creature, and to whose zeal and liberality much of its success was owing. He proposed ‘The health of Mr. George Moore, the Treasurer’. He must say, in passing, that he was the commercial giant, who would accompanied him on the occasion to which he had referred, but he himself could never be Jack, for he could neither deceive or kill such a giant on any account. Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given London Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18591222 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. In that hotel I had seen many members of the present company, next morning, brushing their coats in the hall, and I then considered whether anything could be done with the word Travellers; and I thought whether any fanciful analogy could be drawn between those travellers who diffuse the luxuries and necessities of existence, and those who carry into desert places the waters of life, such as Dr. Livingstone, or Captain McClintock and his bold companions, who have graved the record of English modesty, gallantry and perseverance in the everlasting ice surrounding the North Pole. This put into my mind the fact that the best and greatest of these travellers have usually been amongst the gentle and mildest of men. I then asked myself whether I could make any fanciful parallel between my friend Mr. Layard, who brought to light the hidden memorials of a long extinct people, and my friend Mr. George Moore, who sits beside me, who has brought to light the hidden capabilities of a great trade. Not deriving any comfort from these ingenious speculations, I resolved, like the heroes in the fairy tales, to go out to seek my fortune; and I resorted to a friendly giant – a commercial giant – and we sallied out together only yesterday. We travelled on and on, very like the people in the fairy tales, until we came to a great castle of a bright red colour, looking perfectly glorious in the cold sunlight of a winter afternoon. We were received, not by one of those conventional monsters with a great eye in his forehead as large as six, but by a man with an extremely humorous expression of countenance and two bright eyes, under whose guidance we inspected the livestock and eatables of the establishment, which suggested to us nothing but an abundance of milk and pork. We then entered the castle, and found it within, a noble structure, with a cheerful lofty hall, large airy corridors, dormitories, and bathrooms, and an admirable banqueting-hall – not at all a mere matter of form, as I found on perusing the dietary table hanging on the wall; for I perceived that the most agreeable weekly exercises were practised, varying from roast beef and plum pudding to boiled mutton and hashes, with cold meat as an exceptional mortification, until the weekly circle was completed, and the roast beef of old England with its pleasing concomitant of plum pudding – by the by, suggestive of the season – made the pleasing appearance on the table before the happy and cheerful faces of the recipients of your bounty. My attention was called to the circumstance that one hundred young male giants, and fifty young female giants, with a partakers of this magnificent diurnal hospitality, and that they were at the same time receiving an excellent education in this spacious edifice. I looked over some of the examination papers, and I found them remarkable for a prevailing good sense and adaptation to the solid business and solid virtues of life, which I had not seen – no verily - in some colleges and ancient foundations. I looked at these young people – the male creatures – and I saw that they were healthy, cheerful, easy, and rational, under system of moral restraint far better than all the physical force that ever crushed a timid nature and never bent a stubborn one. I found other of these young people walking under their own control in the lanes outside the establishment, and coming home in the frosty air with cheery faces that were worthy of the season and of the weather. I spoke to many of them, and I found that they answered truly and fearlessly. I observed that they had an excellent way of looking those in authority full in the face. I did not see the sisterhood, and was very glad not to see them, because they were out for a long walk and had not yet come home. Gentlemen, I am told that these young people of both sexes are instructed, lodged, clothed, and boarded until they are fifteen years of age, when they are sent into the world, to the region of gold and silver which is the dream of aspiring youth. Some of the children were preparing themselves for this great world, which many of them will no doubt hereafter distinguish themselves. by studying a number of cardboard locomotive engines and trains, admirably made, and closely resembling those which by day and night pass before the windows of their school at Pinner. Finally, I made two discoveries of considerable importance to me; firstly that this was indeed, a most rare magical castle, by reason that it costs some £20,000, and belongs to a public body, and is paid for; secondly, and lastly, I found that I had gone out to seek my fortune not in vain, for in this castle I discovered my speech. Gentlemen, this castle is your own, and I assure you that its solid timbers, bricks and stones are not more solid than the effects which I have fancifully set before you. This castle is the Commercial Travellers’ Schools; and, in the endowing and maintaining of such an institution, the Commercial Travellers must raise themselves both in their own esteem and in the public regard. In this place any individual here can establish an individual right and title by the humble contribution of one guinea, and it could be handsomely maintained if every commercial traveller in the world would give it one half crown on a given day in every year. Gentlemen, I wish I could say of my order, or of others of greater pretensions, that its members were united in following such an example. I can say that there is no other order of men in this kingdom who, in their selection of men in whom to propose educational trust, do greater honour to themselves or to the cause of education than the board of management of this institution. I hope then, sincerely, that the time is not far distant when the Commercial Traveller who does not belong to this institution will be a rare and isolated case. I do hope this with some confidence, because I cannot believe that it is possible that many Commercial Travellers can look upon their own dear children and not feel they would be better and lighter hearted for being sharers in this institution. Gentlemen, we should remember tonight that we are all Travellers, and every round we take converges nearer and nearer to our home; that all our little journeyings bring us together to one certain end; and that the good that we do, and the virtues that we show, and particularly the children that we rear, survive us through the long and unknown perspective of time. When those children who now contemplate our proceedings pass around as presently, it can scarcely be but that some of this company will recognize in some little face the likeness of some friend or companion. An yone of us may read the affecting words of tenderness which were spoken by Him, who was once a child, and who loved little children. Let those words, not mine, speak eloquently for those Schools. And now I will not detain you longer; I feel that I have put the case of this invaluable institution on its own merits, and having done so feel cold upon to propose the toast of the evening, namely ‘Prosperity to the Commercial Travellers’ Schools’. In half a century to come, the boys of today will remember what has occurred this evening and, at a meeting like the present, evince by their conduct how they appreciate the good performed by those who had gone before them. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Commercial Travellers' Schools Anniversary Festival Description An account of the resource Chairman's speeches at the Commercial Travellers' Schools Anniversary Festival (22 December 1859). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1859-12-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1859-12-22_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Commercial Travellers' Schools Anniversary Festival' (22 December 1859). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-12-22_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-12-22_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. In that hotel I had seen many members of the present company, next morning, brushing their coats in the hall, and I then considered whether anything could be done with the word Travellers; and I thought whether any fanciful analogy could be drawn between those travellers who diffuse the luxuries and necessities of existence, and those who carry into desert places the waters of life, such as Dr. Livingstone, or Captain McClintock and his bold companions, who have graved the record of English modesty, gallantry and perseverance in the everlasting ice surrounding the North Pole. This put into my mind the fact that the best and greatest of these travellers have usually been amongst the gentle and mildest of men. I then asked myself whether I could make any fanciful parallel between my friend Mr. Layard, who brought to light the hidden memorials of a long extinct people, and my friend Mr. George Moore, who sits beside me, who has brought to light the hidden capabilities of a great trade. Not deriving any comfort from these ingenious speculations, I resolved, like the heroes in the fairy tales, to go out to seek my fortune; and I resorted to a friendly giant – a commercial giant – and we sallied out together only yesterday. We travelled on and on, very like the people in the fairy tales, until we came to a great castle of a bright red colour, looking perfectly glorious in the cold sunlight of a winter afternoon. We were received, not by one of those conventional monsters with a great eye in his forehead as large as six, but by a man with an extremely humorous expression of countenance and two bright eyes, under whose guidance we inspected the livestock and eatables of the establishment, which suggested to us nothing but an abundance of milk and pork. We then entered the castle, and found it within, a noble structure, with a cheerful lofty hall, large airy corridors, dormitories, and bathrooms, and an admirable banqueting-hall – not at all a mere matter of form, as I found on perusing the dietary table hanging on the wall; for I perceived that the most agreeable weekly exercises were practised, varying from roast beef and plum pudding to boiled mutton and hashes, with cold meat as an exceptional mortification, until the weekly circle was completed, and the roast beef of old England with its pleasing concomitant of plum pudding – by the by, suggestive of the season – made the pleasing appearance on the table before the happy and cheerful faces of the recipients of your bounty. My attention was called to the circumstance that one hundred young male giants, and fifty young female giants, with a partakers of this magnificent diurnal hospitality, and that they were at the same time receiving an excellent education in this spacious edifice. I looked over some of the examination papers, and I found them remarkable for a prevailing good sense and adaptation to the solid business and solid virtues of life, which I had not seen – no verily -  in some colleges and ancient foundations. I looked at these young people – the male creatures – and I saw that they were healthy, cheerful, easy, and rational, under system of moral restraint far better than all the physical force that ever crushed a timid nature and never bent a stubborn one. I found other of these young people walking under their own control in the lanes outside the establishment, and coming home in the frosty air with cheery faces that were worthy of the season and of the weather. I spoke to many of them, and I found that they answered truly and fearlessly. I observed that they had an excellent way of looking those in authority full in the face. I did not see the sisterhood, and was very glad not to see them, because they were out for a long walk and had not yet come home. Gentlemen, I am told that these young people of both sexes are instructed, lodged, clothed, and boarded until they are fifteen years of age, when they are sent into the world, to the region of gold and silver which is the dream of aspiring youth. Some of the children were preparing themselves for this great world, which many of them will no doubt hereafter distinguish themselves. by studying a number of cardboard locomotive engines and trains, admirably made, and closely resembling those which by day and night pass before the windows of their school at Pinner. Finally, I made two discoveries of considerable importance to me; firstly that this was indeed, a most rare magical castle, by reason that it costs some £20,000, and belongs to a public body, and is paid for; secondly, and lastly, I found that I had gone out to seek my fortune not in vain, for in this castle I discovered my speech. Gentlemen, this castle is your own, and I assure you that its solid timbers, bricks and stones are not more solid than the effects which I have fancifully set before you. This castle is the Commercial Travellers’ Schools; and, in the endowing and maintaining of such an institution, the Commercial Travellers must raise themselves both in their own esteem and in the public regard. In this place any individual here can establish an individual right and title by the humble contribution of one guinea, and it could be handsomely maintained if every commercial traveller in the world would give it one half crown on a given day in every year. Gentlemen, I wish I could say of my order, or of others of greater pretensions, that its members were united in following such an example. I can say that there is no other order of men in this kingdom who, in their selection of men in whom to propose educational trust, do greater honour to themselves or to the cause of education than the board of management of this institution. I hope then, sincerely, that the time is not far distant when the Commercial Traveller who does not belong to this institution will be a rare and isolated case. I do hope this with some confidence, because I cannot believe that it is possible that many Commercial Travellers can look upon their own dear children and not feel they would be better and lighter hearted for being sharers in this institution. Gentlemen, we should remember tonight that we are all Travellers, and every round we take converges nearer and nearer to our home; that all our little journeyings bring us together to one certain end; and that the good that we do, and the virtues that we show, and particularly the children that we rear, survive us through the long and unknown perspective of time. When those children who now contemplate our proceedings pass around as presently, it can scarcely be but that some of this company will recognize in some little face the likeness of some friend or companion. An yone of us may read the affecting words of tenderness which were spoken by Him, who was once a child, and who loved little children. Let those words, not mine, speak eloquently for those Schools. And now I will not detain you longer; I feel that I have put the case of this invaluable institution on its own merits, and having done so feel cold upon to propose the toast of the evening, namely ‘Prosperity to the Commercial Travellers’ Schools’. In half a century to come, the boys of today will remember what has occurred this evening and, at a meeting like the present, evince by their conduct how they appreciate the good performed by those who had gone before them. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. Why, he asked, should the gentlemen be ensconced before their smoking edibles and glittering decanters, and the ladies be compelled to sit above, behind that ‘blistering screen’, and look on contentedly all the while? Even in the Sandwich Isles or Otaheite the savages would not expel the fair sex from their banquets. Why should not these things be altered? For his part, if the committee would promise to introduce ladies next year, or the year after, to the dinner-table at the annual festival, and place one on each side of the Chair, he would not have the least objection to act as president. Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Hall Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18600308 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, I suppose I may venture to say that it is pretty well known to everybody that all people, whenever they are brought together at dinner in private society for the declared purpose of discussing any particular matter or business, it invariably happens that they never can by any ingenuity be brought to approach that business, and that they invariably make it the one sole object and ground on which they cannot be trapped into the utterance of a syllable. This being the curious concurrent experience of all mankind, it is the cautious custom of this particular dinner to place its business in the very front of the evening’s engagements. It commits it to paper, and places it in black and white before the unhappy chairman whilst he speaks. It guards him with a long row of distinguished gentlemen on either hand to keep him up to the mark and force him to approach the thing from which everybody knows he has a secret tendency to retreat; and there is a voice at his ear – a sonorous voice – which, like the warning voice of the slave of old, reminds him in all stages of the pageant that he is but a mortal chairman, and that it is the common lot of all his race to ‘speak and to die’. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the one hundred and twenty-second anniversary festival of the Royal Society of Musicians. One hundred and twenty years have passed since the casual contemplation by two gentlemen standing at a coffee-house door of two poor boys driving a pair of milch asses through the London streets within half a mile of the place where we are now assembled, led to its establishment. These two boys were the sons of a deceased musician; and the two rich hearts that took pity on them were the hearts of two deceased musicians; and the noble soul that came spontaneously to their aid was the soul of a deceased musician, known among the natural nobility of the art by but one ‘Handel’ to his name, and that a very glorious one, and derived – as I take it – directly from God. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ hammered so soundly upon the iron of his order while it was hot, that he struck out of it the sound of self-respect, independence, and prosperity, which are present in this society at the moment while I speak. During the remaining nineteen years of his life he wrought for it at the forge of his art with a true faith and vigour; and, when he died, he left it the princely bequest of £1,000. We see now what good seed is, and what good music is. One hundred and twenty-two years have gone; the ruffles and powder have gone; the white capes, great coats, and huge cravats and top boots have gone; but the good seed is here in the shady and flourishing tree under which we sit tonight; and the good music is here, ever young in the young ears, and on the young lips and fingers, of every new generation. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my custom when I have the honour to hold such a position as this, to offer to those amongst the company who may not be personally acquainted with the society under consideration, those recommendations in its behalf which have been most powerful with myself. Will you allow me to sum up under a few heads the reasons that I have for regarding with particular sympathy and respect this Royal Society of Musicians? First, because it is a real thing – it is in fact as well as in name a society of musicians: not a heterogeneous concourse of nondescripts with here and there a musician smuggled in to justify the misuse of an art, but a society of professional men bound together in the love of their common art, and with the objects important to their art. Because these gentlemen come together, as they only usefully and independently could come together as a benefit society, making timely provision if not for their own old age, distress or infirmity, certainly for those casualties in the lives of their brethren, and for their widows, and their orphan children. Because it not only grants money for the education and apprenticeship of those poor children, but afterwards preserves a parental care over them in this way – that when they have done well in their apprenticeship, it encourages them to come back and to be rewarded for having done well, and to stimulate them to continue to tread the paths of truth and duty. Because it is not an exclusive society, but concedes to its newest members the privileges of its oldest, and freely admits foreigners as members who are really domiciled in England as practitioners of music. Because it manages its own affairs, and manages them in a manner so excessively irrational and unpopular that it pays only two small salaries for real services, while the governors actually pay the expenses of their meetings out of their own pockets. Ladies and gentlemen, you have no notion of what confusion would be carried into a certain literary society if the ferocious person who addresses you in his own plain way, were to get up there and to propose the Musicians in these respects as an example for imitation. Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I recommend the society to such of this assembly as do not know it, because it is a society of artists who begin by putting their own shoulders to their own wheel. Every member of this body stands pledged to every other to exercise his talents gratuitously at any performance whatsoever given in aid of the society’s objects. Every member is formally and distinctly reminded on his enrolment that he accepts the responsibility of a great work connected with the labour of his art, and to that he is understood to pledge himself thenceforth. Now these, ladies and gentlemen, are the main features of the body of professional men that pass tonight the one hundred and twenty-second milestone on the road of its life – the main features except one, and that is that the annual income derived from one source, the annual subscription of its members, is not much more than a tithe of the money annually expended in the execution of its excellent objects. Turning over the book just now, with the words ‘One hundred and twenty-second night’ printed on its outside, I feel in a half kind of fancy, remembering the wonderful things which music has of course suggested to me from my earliest childhood. I feel a kind of fancy that I might have gone back to the one hundred and twenty-second night of the great Arabian Nights, and have heard Dinarzade saying, about half an hour before daybreak, ‘Sister Scheherazade, if you are still awake, and my lord the Sultan will permit, I beg you to finish the story of– the British musicians.’ To which Scheherazade replies that she would willingly proceed, but that to the best of her belief it was a story without an end, because she considered that as long as mankind lived, and loved, and hoped, so long music, which draws them upward in all their varying and erring moods, could never cease out of the world. So the Sultan, who changed his name for the purpose for the time, girded on, not his scimitar, but a scythe, and went out graciously resolving that the story should have its one hundred and twenty-second night, and that the brotherhood should live for ever. Ladies and gentlemen, these may appear to you vagrant ideas, but music is suggestive of all fancies. You know it can give back the dead; it can place at your side the congenial creature dear to you who never lived. You know that the blind see in it; the bedridden have hope in it; the dead hear it. We all hear it from the sound of the varying seasons, to the beating of the waters upon which our Saviour walked. Let me, in conclusion, entreat you to listen also to one strain which will certainly be heard through all the sweet sounds of tonight, and which will be simply this – no less, no more. The hand cannot always keep its hold upon the bow, the string, the keys; the breath will sometimes fail. It is the inevitable result of the skilful combination of many instruments that there must be some players who can never hope to attain a great success or great reward, but who are nevertheless quite inseparable from, and necessary to your delight. And so, if you listen to it, the strain will say: ‘I am one of those; I have been young and now am old; my hand has lost its mastery; my breath has failed. Now for the love of the much that music has done for you, do that little for me.’ I beg propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Royal Society of Musicians’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal Society of Musicians Anniversary Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal Society of Musicians Anniversary (8 March 1860). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860-03-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1860-03-08_Speech_Royal-Society-of-Musicians-Anniversary Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal Society of Musicians Anniversary' (8 March 1860). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-03-08_Speech_Royal-Society-of-Musicians-Anniversary">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-03-08_Speech_Royal-Society-of-Musicians-Anniversary</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, I suppose I may venture to say that it is pretty well known to everybody that all people, whenever they are brought together at dinner in private society for the declared purpose of discussing any particular matter or business, it invariably happens that they never can by any ingenuity be brought to approach that business, and that they invariably make it the one sole object and ground on which they cannot be trapped into the utterance of a syllable. This being the curious concurrent experience of all mankind, it is the cautious custom of this particular dinner to place its business in the very front of the evening's engagements. It commits it to paper, and places it in black and white before the unhappy chairman whilst he speaks. It guards him with a long row of distinguished gentlemen on either hand to keep him up to the mark and force him to approach the thing from which everybody knows he has a secret tendency to retreat; and there is a voice at his ear – a sonorous voice – which, like the warning voice of the slave of old, reminds him in all stages of the pageant that he is but a mortal chairman, and that it is the common lot of all his race to ‘speak and to die’. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the one hundred and twenty-second anniversary festival of the Royal Society of Musicians. One hundred and twenty years have passed since the casual contemplation by two gentlemen standing at a coffee-house door of two poor boys driving a pair of milch asses through the London streets within half a mile of the place where we are now assembled, led to its establishment. These two boys were the sons of a deceased musician; and the two rich hearts that took pity on them were the hearts of two deceased musicians; and the noble soul that came spontaneously to their aid was the soul of a deceased musician, known among the natural nobility of the art by but one ‘Handel’ to his name, and that a very glorious one, and derived – as I take it – directly from God. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ hammered so soundly upon the iron of his order while it was hot, that he struck out of it the sound of self-respect, independence, and prosperity, which are present in this society at the moment while I speak. During the remaining nineteen years of his life he wrought for it at the forge of his art with a true faith and vigour; and, when he died, he left it the princely bequest of £1,000. We see now what good seed is, and what good music is. One hundred and twenty-two years have gone; the ruffles and powder have gone; the white capes, great coats, and huge cravats and top boots have gone; but the good seed is here in the shady and flourishing tree under which we sit tonight; and the good music is here, ever young in the young ears, and on the young lips and fingers, of every new generation. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my custom when I have the honour to hold such a position as this, to offer to those amongst the company who may not be personally acquainted with the society under consideration, those recommendations in its behalf which have been most powerful with myself. Will you allow me to sum up under a few heads the reasons that I have for regarding with particular sympathy and respect this Royal Society of Musicians? First, because it is a real thing – it is in fact as well as in name a society of musicians: not a heterogeneous concourse of nondescripts with here and there a musician smuggled in to justify the misuse of an art, but a society of professional men bound together in the love of their common art, and with the objects important to their art. Because these gentlemen come together, as they only usefully and independently could come together as a benefit society, making timely provision if not for their own old age, distress or infirmity, certainly for those casualties in the lives of their brethren, and for their widows, and their orphan children. Because it not only grants money for the education and apprenticeship of those poor children, but afterwards preserves a parental care over them in this way – that when they have done well in their apprenticeship, it encourages them to come back and to be rewarded for having done well, and to stimulate them to continue to tread the paths of truth and duty. Because it is not an exclusive society, but concedes to its newest members the privileges of its oldest, and freely admits foreigners as members who are really domiciled in England as practitioners of music. Because it manages its own affairs, and manages them in a manner so excessively irrational and unpopular that it pays only two small salaries for real services, while the governors actually pay the expenses of their meetings out of their own pockets. Ladies and gentlemen, you have no notion of what confusion would be carried into a certain literary society if the ferocious person who addresses you in his own plain way, were to get up there and to propose the Musicians in these respects as an example for imitation. Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I recommend the society to such of this assembly as do not know it, because it is a society of artists who begin by putting their own shoulders to their own wheel. Every member of this body stands pledged to every other to exercise his talents gratuitously at any performance whatsoever given in aid of the society's objects. Every member is formally and distinctly reminded on his enrolment that he accepts the responsibility of a great work connected with the labour of his art, and to that he is understood to pledge himself thenceforth. Now these, ladies and gentlemen, are the main features of the body of professional men that pass tonight the one hundred and twenty-second milestone on the road of its life – the main features except one, and that is that the annual income derived from one source, the annual subscription of its members, is not much more than a tithe of the money annually expended in the execution of its excellent objects. Turning over the book just now, with the words ‘One hundred and twenty-second night’ printed on its outside, I feel in a half kind of fancy, remembering the wonderful things which music has of course suggested to me from my earliest childhood. I feel a kind of fancy that I might have gone back to the one hundred and twenty-second night of the great Arabian Nights, and have heard Dinarzade saying, about half an hour before daybreak, ‘Sister Scheherazade, if you are still awake, and my lord the Sultan will permit, I beg you to finish the story of– the British musicians.’ To which Scheherazade replies that she would willingly proceed, but that to the best of her belief it was a story without an end, because she considered that as long as mankind lived, and loved, and hoped, so long music, which draws them upward in all their varying and erring moods, could never cease out of the world. So the Sultan, who changed his name for the purpose for the time, girded on, not his scimitar, but a scythe, and went out graciously resolving that the story should have its one hundred and twenty-second night, and that the brotherhood should live for ever. Ladies and gentlemen, these may appear to you vagrant ideas, but music is suggestive of all fancies. You know it can give back the dead; it can place at your side the congenial creature dear to you who never lived. You know that the blind see in it; the bedridden have hope in it; the dead hear it. We all hear it from the sound of the varying seasons, to the beating of the waters upon which our Saviour walked. Let me, in conclusion, entreat you to listen also to one strain which will certainly be heard through all the sweet sounds of tonight, and which will be simply this – no less, no more. The hand cannot always keep its hold upon the bow, the string, the keys; the breath will sometimes fail. It is the inevitable result of the skilful combination of many instruments that there must be some players who can never hope to attain a great success or great reward, but who are nevertheless quite inseparable from, and necessary to your delight. And so, if you listen to it, the strain will say: ‘I am one of those; I have been young and now am old; my hand has lost its mastery; my breath has failed. Now for the love of the much that music has done for you, do that little for me.’ I beg propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Royal Society of Musicians’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. But for his position that evening, he said, it would be impertinent for him to interpose between them and the lecturer, for wherever an enterprising and bold spirit was held in esteem, there the name of Mr. Layard needed no introduction. But, very much as the Sovereign cannot enter the City of London without a flourish of trumpets, so it appeared that a most remarkable traveller could not proceed to his lecture without a little blast from the trumpet of the appointed officer. In obedience to this custom, and with a lively sense of its absurdity, would they allow him to introduce his distinguished friend, the lecturer of that evening? If those placards of ‘neutral tint’, he said, to which Mr. Otway had alluded, could have sympathized with him, they would have turned to burning red for the prominence given to his name in connexion with an event in which he had so small a part. The institution was always cordially welcome to his small services.  Location The location Chatham Venue Where the speech was given Chatham Mechanics' Institute Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18600417 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Introduction of A. H. Layard's Lecture for the Chatham Mechanics' Institute Description An account of the resource Introduction of A. H. Layard's Lecture for the Chatham Mechanics' Institute (17 April 1860). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860-04-17 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1860-04-17_Speech_Introduction-of-AH-Layard-Lecture-for-the-Chatham-Mechanics-Institute Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Introduction of A. H. Layard's Lecture for the Chatham Mechanics' Institute' (17 April 1860). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-04-17_Speech_Introduction-of-AH-Layard-Lecture-for-the-Chatham-Mechanics-Institute">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-04-17_Speech_Introduction-of-AH-Layard-Lecture-for-the-Chatham-Mechanics-Institute</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. He hoped, he said, that a time would come when a few mechanics would be found in a Mechanics’ Institute. He was happy to aid the institution. He wished them all the good wishes of the coming season: he might be rather premature as to the time of uttering these, but they were surely not out of season, for good wishes were never out of season. Location The location Chatham Venue Where the speech was given Chatham Mechanics' Institute Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18601218 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource At a Reading in Chatham 1860 Description An account of the resource Speech at a Reading in Chatham (18 December 1860). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860-12-18 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1860-12-18_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Chatham Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at a Reading in Chatham' (18 December 1860). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-12-18_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Chatham">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-12-18_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Chatham</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Mansion House Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18610401 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, being honoured with your permission to propose a toast, I would venture to remark that since I have been seated at this table I have found it pleasant to consider (reverting, as men naturally do, to their own pursuits) how ill English literature could afford to part with its Lord Mayors of London. The literature of English history, losing its Lord Mayors, would lose, I find on consideration, some of its most notable instances of the public spirit, the munificence, the personal bravery, and the prowess of the good old citizens on this side Temple Bar. The literature of English romance, losing its Lord Mayors, would lose at one blow its wealthiest of London merchants, and its most beautiful merchant’s daughter, its crossest cook, its best known foreign adventurer, its most profitable investment on record, and its most wonderful cat. Similarly English biography, losing its Lord Mayors, would lose some of its most notable examples of rewarded perseverance and integrity, and some of its highest illustrations of the nobility of self-made men. I find that even the greatest of English satirists, of whom it is well said that his pictures require to be read like books – I find that even he could no more dispense with his Lord Mayors than any of the rest; for without them he could neither have committed his ‘idle apprentice’ for trial, nor, under circumstances of very touching and powerful contrast, have rewarded his ‘industrious apprentice’ by presenting him at the height of his fame and fortune. Now these considerations suggest to me and to all here that a Lord Mayor never is, never was, and never can be, considered complete without a Lady Mayoress; and the Lady Mayoress is the theme of a very few words I have to add. My lord, among the respects in which the City of London has set a highly civilized and most admirable example, is the one that it steadily disassociates itself on occasions like the present, from the absurd English custom of separating the lords of creation from the ladies. As to which custom, I think that if the male sex were fairly polled, they would arrive at an almost unanimous conclusion that we men were never so wearisome to ourselves, never so exceedingly uninteresting to each other, as when conventionally we were supposed to be left entirely at our ease. Yet this abrogation of a bad usage on the part of the City, although no doubt it has its roots in social gallantry and good sense, is attended with the one inconvenience that it necessitates the proposing the Lady Mayoress’s health in the Lady Mayoress’s presence. And this renders exceedingly difficult a task which, from its very acceptable and its obvious nature, would otherwise have been almost easy. On the other hand, according to the great law of compensation which pervades the universe, it is to be observed that that silent presence is in itself the most eloquent speech that could be made in offering the toast, and the best illustration of the virtues and graces of its subjects. And if I may venture to depart from a mere state and ceremony, it is to tell you that I have had the honour of an intimate personal friendship with the Lady Mayoress, and that it has been my personal privilege to see her widely diffusing her excellent influence in other capital than this. And let me add that, as the liberality and princely hospitality of the chief magistrate of London could find no fitter female representative than her, so the wholesome influence of an English lady could certainly find no better representative there. With the permission of his lordship, I beg to propose ‘The health of the Lady Mayoress’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Banquet at the Mansion House 1861 Description An account of the resource Banquet at the Mansion House (1 April 1861). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1861-04-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1861-04-1_Speech_Banquet-at-the-Mansion-House Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Banquet at the Mansion House' (1 April 1861). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1861-04-1_Speech_Banquet-at-the-Mansion-House">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1861-04-1_Speech_Banquet-at-the-Mansion-House</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, being honoured with your permission to propose a toast, I would venture to remark that since I have been seated at this table I have found it pleasant to consider (reverting, as men naturally do, to their own pursuits) how ill English literature could afford to part with its Lord Mayors of London. The literature of English history, losing its Lord Mayors, would lose, I find on consideration, some of its most notable instances of the public spirit, the munificence, the personal bravery, and the prowess of the good old citizens on this side Temple Bar. The literature of English romance, losing its Lord Mayors, would lose at one blow its wealthiest of London merchants, and its most beautiful merchant’s daughter, its crossest cook, its best known foreign adventurer, its most profitable investment on record, and its most wonderful cat. Similarly English biography, losing its Lord Mayors, would lose some of its most notable examples of rewarded perseverance and integrity, and some of its highest illustrations of the nobility of self-made men. I find that even the greatest of English satirists, of whom it is well said that his pictures require to be read like books – I find that even he could no more dispense with his Lord Mayors than any of the rest; for without them he could neither have committed his ‘idle apprentice’ for trial, nor, under circumstances of very touching and powerful contrast, have rewarded his ‘industrious apprentice’ by presenting him at the height of his fame and fortune. Now these considerations suggest to me and to all here that a Lord Mayor never is, never was, and never can be, considered complete without a Lady Mayoress; and the Lady Mayoress is the theme of a very few words I have to add. My lord, among the respects in which the City of London has set a highly civilized and most admirable example, is the one that it steadily disassociates itself on occasions like the present, from the absurd English custom of separating the lords of creation from the ladies. As to which custom, I think that if the male sex were fairly polled, they would arrive at an almost unanimous conclusion that we men were never so wearisome to ourselves, never so exceedingly uninteresting to each other, as when conventionally we were supposed to be left entirely at our ease. Yet this abrogation of a bad usage on the part of the City, although no doubt it has its roots in social gallantry and good sense, is attended with the one inconvenience that it necessitates the proposing the Lady Mayoress’s health in the Lady Mayoress’s presence. And this renders exceedingly difficult a task which, from its very acceptable and its obvious nature, would otherwise have been almost easy. On the other hand, according to the great law of compensation which pervades the universe, it is to be observed that that silent presence is in itself the most eloquent speech that could be made in offering the toast, and the best illustration of the virtues and graces of its subjects. And if I may venture to depart from a mere state and ceremony, it is to tell you that I have had the honour of an intimate personal friendship with the Lady Mayoress, and that it has been my personal privilege to see her widely diffusing her excellent influence in other capital than this. And let me add that, as the liberality and princely hospitality of the chief magistrate of London could find no fitter female representative than her, so the wholesome influence of an English lady could certainly find no better representative there. With the permission of his lordship, I beg to propose ‘The health of the Lady Mayoress’.