A portrait, reproduced from an engraving by C. H. Jeens after the original sketch by Daniel Maclise, R. A., which is now in the South Kensington Museum. Forster called it “An occasion rather memorable in which was the germ of those readings to larger audiences, by which, as much as by his books, the world knew him in his later life.” With reference to Maclise’s pencil-drawing he continued, “It will tell the reader all he can wish to know. He will see of whom the party consisted; and may be assured (with allowance for a touch of caricature to which I may claim to be considered myself as the chief and very marked victim) that in the grave attention of Carlyle, the eager interest of Stanfield and Maclise, the keen look of poor Laman Blanchard, Fox’s rapt solemnity, Jerrold’s skyward gaze, and the tears of Harness and Dyce, the characteristic points of the scene are sufficiently rendered.”
Charles Dickens, his wife, and her sister
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The original of this pencil drawing by Daniel Maclise, R.A., which was executed in 1843, a few years after the marriage of Dickens, is now in the South Kensington Museum. It was engraved by C. H. Jeens and dated by error 1842. “Never did a touch so light carry with it more truth of observation,” wrote Forster. “The likenesses of all are excellent.... Nothing ever done of Dickens himself has conveyed more vividly his look and hearing at this yet youthful time. He is in his most pleasing aspect; flattered if you will; but nothing that is known to me gives a general impression so lifelike and true of the then frank, eager, handsome face.”
Charles Dickens as Captain Bobadil, in “Every Man in his Humour.” From a painting by C. R. Leslie, R.A.
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Dickens had the title to be called a born comedian, declared Forster, but his strength was rather in the vividness and variety of his assumptions, than in the completeness, finish, or ideality he could give to any part of them. The rendering of the novelist as Bobadil by C. R. Leslie, R.A., was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1846. The artist has represented Dickens seated upon a sofa, dressed as a bearded swashbuckler and braggadocio, just at the moment when Tib enters to announce the arrival of a visitor and Captain Bobadil declares: “A gentleman! Odds so, I am not within.”
Charles Dickens in 1842. From a drawing by Alfred Count D’Orsay
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Of this drawing, which is reproduced from a lithograph after a sketch by Alfred Count D’Orsay, Mr. F. G. Kitton writes in “Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil”: “As compared with other portraits belonging to this period, the features look pinched and small, although due justice has been done to the luxuriant hair and the fashionable style of coat and stock peculiar to that day.”