and that it is far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you
may infer from one fact, not to mention that we live in railway
times. It is stated in Mitchell’s “Newspaper Press Directory,”
that during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers
which appeared in London had more than doubled, while the increase
in the number of people among whom they were disseminated was
probably beyond calculation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman’s simple case. I
leave it in your hands. Within the last year the institution has
had the good fortune to attract the sympathy and gain the support
of the eminent man of letters I am proud to call my friend, who now
represents the great Republic of America at the British Court.
Also it has the honour of enrolling upon its list of donors and
vice-presidents the great name of Longfellow. I beg to propose to
you to drink “Prosperity to the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and
Provident Institution.”
SPEECH: MACREADY. LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851.
[On the evening of the above day the friends and admirers of Mr.
Macready entertained him at a public dinner. Upwards of six
hundred gentlemen assembled to do honour to the great actor on his
retirement from the stage. Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among
the other speakers were Baron Bunsen, Sir Charles Eastlake, Mr.
Thackeray, Mr. John Forster, Mr. W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles
Dickens, who proposed “The Health of the Chairman” in the following
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Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
words:-]
GENTLEMEN, – After all you have already heard, and so rapturously
received, I assure you that not even the warmth of your kind
welcome would embolden me to hope to interest you if I had not full
confidence in the subject I have to offer to your notice. But my
reliance on the strength of this appeal to you is so strong that I
am rather encouraged than daunted by the brightness of the track on
which I have to throw my little shadow.
Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites
essential to the perfect realisation of a scene so unusual and so
splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I
must say very difficult requisite, is a man possessing the
stronghold in the general remembrance, the indisputable claim on
the general regard and esteem, which is possessed by my dear and
much valued friend our guest. The second requisite is the presence
of a body of entertainers, – a great multitude of hosts so cheerful
and good-humoured (under, I am sorry to say, some personal
inconvenience), – so warm-hearted and so nobly in earnest, as those
whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly
not the least of these requisites, is a president who, less by his
social position, which he may claim by inheritance, or by fortune,
which may have been adventitiously won, and may be again
accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly
represent the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best
part of those who unite in the doing of it. Such a president I
think we have found in our chairman of to-night, and I need
scarcely add that our chairman’s health is the toast I have to
propose to you.
Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay, at that
memorable scene on Wednesday night last, when the great vision
which had been a delight and a lesson, – very often, I daresay, a
support and a comfort to you, which had for many years improved and
charmed us, and to which we had looked for an elevated relief from
the labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. I will
not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked
backward, through rather too long a period for us, to some remote
and distant time when he might possibly bear some far-off likeness
to a certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas once served. Nor
will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in