THE LEATHER BOTTLE, COBHAM. ([Page 210].)
Dickens, in his early days, stayed at the Leather Bottle on more than one occasion, and in 1841 spent a day and a night here with Forster.
Quitting Stratford the next day, Dickens and his companion intended to proceed to Bridgnorth; but were dismayed to find there were no coaches, which fact compelled them to continue their journey to Shrewsbury and Chester by way of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, “starting by eight o’clock through a cold, wet fog, and travelling, when the day had cleared up, through miles of cinder-paths, and blazing furnaces, and roaring steam-engines, and such a mass of dirt, gloom, and misery, as I never before witnessed.”[93] His impressions of the Black Country are vividly portrayed in the forty-third and succeeding chapters of “The Old Curiosity Shop,” and there is good reason to suppose that a portion at least of the itinerary of the pilgrimage of little Nell and her grandfather, after their flight from London to escape from the evil influence of Quilp, was based upon his own tour, undertaken two years previously. Indeed, so far as the above-mentioned chapter is concerned, there is evidence of this in a letter to Forster, apropos of the story, where the novelist says: “You will recognise a description of the road we travelled between Birmingham and Wolverhampton; but I had conceived it so well in my mind that the execution does not please me so well as I expected.”
With regard to the depressing effect wrought upon the mind of the traveller through the Black Country, it is gratifying to know that a project is seriously contemplated by which this scene of waste and desolation may be restored to its original condition by reafforestation. Sir Oliver Lodge recently presided at an important meeting held in Birmingham to consider the question, and it was agreed that, now that the mineral wealth of the locality had been exhausted, it was only right that the surface of the land should be altered for good by a system of tree-planting, the land itself being rendered useless for mining, agriculture, and habitation.
Birmingham is mentioned frequently throughout the works of Dickens, who visited the city on several occasions, staying at one time at the old Hen and Chickens Inn. He must have known this important manufacturing centre in his journalistic days, for he made it the scene of that well-remembered incident recorded in the fiftieth chapter of “The Pickwick Papers,” where Mr. Pickwick calls upon Mr. Winkle, senior, with a difficult and delicate commission. When the post-coach conveying Mr. Pickwick and his friends drew near it was quite dark, “the straggling cottages by the roadside; the dingy hue of every object visible; the murky atmosphere; the paths of cinders and brick-dust; the deep red glow of furnace fires in the distance; the volumes of dense smoke issuing heavily forth from high, toppling chimneys, blackening and obscuring everything around; the glare of distant lights; the ponderous waggons which toiled along the road laden with clashing rods of iron, or piled with heavy goods—all betokened their rapid approach to the great working town of Birmingham. As they rattled through the narrow thoroughfares leading to the heart of the turmoil, the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck more forcibly on the senses. The streets were thronged with working people. The hum of labour resounded from every house, lights gleamed from the long casement windows in the attic stories, and the whirl of wheels and noise of machinery shook the trembling walls. The fires, whose lurid, sullen light had been visible for miles, blazed fiercely up in the great works and factories of the town. The din of hammers, the rushing of steam, and the dead, heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music which arose from every quarter.” The postboy, driving briskly through the open streets and past the “handsome and well-lighted shops” on the outskirts of the town, drew up at the Old Royal Hotel, where they were shown to a comfortable apartment. The Old Royal survives in name only, the present building having been so altered and modernized as to bear no resemblance to the three-storied structure, with its plain, square front and Georgian porch, which temporarily sheltered Mr. Pickwick. The residence of the elder Mr. Winkle (“a wharfinger, Sir, near the canal”), whose name is a familiar one in Birmingham, is believed to be a certain red-brick building in Easy Row, in close proximity to the Old Wharf, a house which, with its white steps leading to the doorway, answers fairly well to the description given in the book.
In 1844 Dickens presided at a meeting of the Polytechnic Institution at Birmingham, and delivered a powerful oration upon the subject of education, comprehensive and unsectarian.
“A better and quicker audience,” he afterwards remarked, “never listened to man”; and, in honour of the event, the large hall was profusely decorated with artificial flowers, these also forming the words “Welcome, Boz,” in letters about 6 feet high, while about the great organ were immense transparencies bearing designs of an allegorical character. In 1857 he was elected one of the first honorary members of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, in which institution he had always taken an active interest. In January, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of Artists, Temple Row, a large company assembled to witness the presentation to Dickens of a silver-gilt salver and diamond ring, in recognition of valuable services rendered in aid of the fund then being raised for the establishment of the Institute, and as a token of appreciation of his “varied literary acquirements, genial philosophy, and high moral teaching.” At the great banquet which followed this interesting function, he offered to give Readings from his books in further aid, and the promise was fulfilled in December, 1853, with the result that nearly £500 were added to the fund; to commemorate these first public Readings, Mrs. Dickens became the recipient of a silver flower-basket.
Other Readings were given in Birmingham in the sixties. In September, 1869, he opened the session of the Midland Institute, the ceremony being rendered memorable by a powerful speech, in which he thus briefly declared his political creed:
“My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable.” In 1870, as President of the Institute, he distributed at the Town Hall the prizes and certificates awarded to the most successful students; one of the prize-winners was a Miss Winkle, whose name (so reminiscent of “Pickwick”) was received with good-humoured laughter, and it is recorded that the novelist, after making some remarks to the lady in an undertone, observed to the audience that he had “recommended Miss Winkle to change her name!”
THE HOUSE AT CHALK IN WHICH DICKENS SPENT HIS HONEYMOON, APRIL, 1836. ([Page 211].)
Some of the earlier chapters, of “Pickwick” were written here.