At the 15th line of the [41]st page, "his bachelor-uncle, fellow-clerk," &c. should be "the uncle who was at this time fellow-clerk," &c. At the 11th line of page [54], "Charles-court" should be "Clare-court." The allusion to one of his favourite localities at the 23d line of page [62] should stand thus: "a little public-house by the water-side called the Fox-under-the-hill, approached by an underground passage which we once missed in looking for it together."
The passage at p. [87], having reference to an early friend who had been with him, as I supposed, at his first school, should run thus: "In this however I have since discovered my own mistake: the truth being that it was this gentleman's connection, not with the Wellington-academy, but with a school kept by Mr. Dawson in Hunter-street, Brunswick-square, where the brothers of Dickens were subsequently placed, which led to their early knowledge of each other. I fancy that they were together also, for a short time, at Mr. Molloy's in New-square, Lincoln's-inn; but, whether or not this was so, Dickens certainly had not quitted school many months before his father had made sufficient interest with an attorney of Gray's-inn, Mr. Edward Blackmore, to obtain him regular employment in his office." There is subsequent allusion to the same gentleman (at p. [182]) as his "school-companion at Mr. Dawson's in Henrietta-street," which ought to stand as "having known him when himself a law-clerk in Lincoln's-inn."
At p. [96] I had stated that Mr. John Dickens reported for the Morning Chronicle; and at p. [101] that Mr. Thomas Beard reported for the Morning Herald; whereas Mr. Dickens, though in the gallery for other papers, did not report for the Chronicle, and Mr. Beard did report for that journal; and where (at p. [102]) Dickens was spoken of as associated with Mr. Beard in a reporting party which represented respectively the Chronicle and Herald, the passage ought simply to have described him as "connected with a reporting party, being Lord John Russell's Devonshire contest above-named, and his associate chief being Mr. Beard, entrusted with command for the Chronicle in this particular express."
At p. [97] I had made a mistake about his "first published piece of writing," in too hastily assuming that he had himself forgotten what the particular piece was. It struck an intelligent and kind correspondent as very unlikely that Dickens should have fallen into error on such a point; and, making personal search for himself (as I ought to have done), discovered that what I supposed to be another piece was merely the same under another title. The description of his first printed sketch should therefore be "(Mr. Minns and his Cousin, as he afterwards entitled it, but which appeared in the magazine as A Dinner at Poplar Walk)." There is another mistake at p. [159], of "bandy-legged" instead of "bulky-legged" and, at p. [177], of "fresh fields" for "fresh woods."
Those several corrections were made in the Tenth Edition. To the Eleventh these words were prefixed (under date of the 23rd of January, 1872): "Since the above mentioned edition went to press, a published letter has rendered necessary a brief additional note to the remarks made at pp. [155]-[6]." The remark occurs in my notice of the silly story of Mr. Cruikshank having originated Oliver Twist, and, with the note referred to, now stands in the form subjoined. "Whether all Sir Benjamin's laurels however should fall to the person by whom the tale is told,* or whether any part belongs to the authority alleged for it, is unfortunately not quite clear. There would hardly have been a doubt, if the fable had been confined to the other side of the Atlantic; but it has been reproduced and widely circulated on this side also; and the distinguished artist whom it calumniates by attributing the invention to him has been left undefended from its slander. Dickens's letter spares me the necessity of characterizing, by the only word which would have been applicable to it, a tale of such incredible and monstrous absurdity as that one of the masterpieces of its author's genius had been merely an illustration of etchings by Mr. Cruikshank!" Note to the words "person by whom the tale is told:" "*This question has been partly solved, since my last edition, by Mr. Cruikshank's announcement in the Times, that, though Dr. Mackenzie had 'confused some circumstances with respect to Mr. Dickens looking over some drawings and sketches,' the substance of his information as to who it was that originated Oliver Twist, and all its characters, had been derived from Mr. Cruikshank himself. The worst part of the foregoing fable, therefore, has not Dr. Mackenzie for its author; and Mr. Cruikshank is to be congratulated on the prudence of his rigid silence respecting it as long as Mr. Dickens lived."
In the Twelfth Edition I mentioned, in the note at p. [149], a little work of which all notice had been previously omitted; and the close of that note now runs: "He had before written for them, without his name, Sunday under Three Heads; and he added subsequently a volume of Young Couples." At p. [157], "parish abuses" is corrected in the same edition to "parish practices;" and at p. [173], "in his later works" to "in his latest works."
I have received letters from several obliging correspondents, among them three or four who were scholars at the Wellington-house Academy before or after Dickens's time, and one who attended the school with him; but such remark as they suggest will more properly accompany my third and closing volume.
Palace Gate House, Kensington,
29th of October, 1872.