remembering that if it has undoubtedly done good to Birmingham,
Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it. From the shame of the
purchased dedication, from the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub
Street, from the dependent seat on sufferance at my Lord Duke’s
table to-day, and from the sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow –
from that venality which, by a fine moral retribution, has degraded
statesmen even to a greater extent than authors, because the
statesman entertained a low belief in the universality of
corruption, while the author yielded only to the dire necessity of
his calling – from all such evils the people have set literature
free. And my creed in the exercise of that profession is, that
literature cannot be too faithful to the people in return – cannot
too ardently advocate the cause of their advancement, happiness,
and prosperity. I have heard it sometimes said – and what is
worse, as expressing something more cold-blooded, I have sometimes
seen it written – that literature has suffered by this change, that
it has degenerated by being made cheaper. I have not found that to
be the case: nor do I believe that you have made the discovery
either. But let a good book in these “bad” times be made
accessible, – even upon an abstruse and difficult subject, so that
it be one of legitimate interest to mankind, – and my life on it,
it shall be extensively bought, read, and well considered.
Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at
this moment many working men infinitely better versed in
Shakespeare and in Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the
days of bought-and-sold dedications and dear books. I ask anyone
to consider for himself who, at this time, gives the greatest
relative encouragement to the dissemination of such useful
publications as “Macaulay’s History,” “Layard’s Researches,”
“Tennyson’s Poems,” “The Duke of Wellington’s published
Despatches,” or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called
minute) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is
with all these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a
lecture upon art – if we had the good fortune to listen to one tomorrow
– by my distinguished friend the President of the Royal
Academy. However small the audience, however contracted the circle
in the water, in the first instance, the people are nearer the
wider range outside, and the Sister Arts, while they instruct them,
derive a wholesome advantage and improvement from their ready
sympathy and cordial response. I may instance the case of my
friend Mr. Ward’s magnificent picture; and the reception of that
picture here is an example that it is not now the province of art
in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that it cannot
hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple, – on the
mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery – but that
it must be imbued with human passions and action, informed with
human right and wrong, and, being so informed, it may fearlessly
put itself upon its trial, like the criminal of old, to be judged
by God and its country.
Page 30
Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to
trouble you again. For this time I have only once again to repeat
what I have already said. As I begun with literature, I shall end
with it. I would simply say that I believe no true man, with
anything to tell, need have the least misgiving, either for himself
or his message, before a large number of hearers – always supposing
that he be not afflicted with the coxcombical idea of writing down
to the popular intelligence, instead of writing the popular
intelligence up to himself, if, perchance, he be above it; – and,
provided always that he deliver himself plainly of what is in him,
which seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it being supposed
that he has some dim design of making himself understood. On
behalf of that literature to which you have done so much honour, I
beg to thank you most cordially, and on my own behalf, for the most