An important feature of “Rambles in Dickens’ Land” will be found in the exhaustive references to Dickens’ own haunts and homes, and the haunts and homes of many of his relatives and friends. Naturally, these are in numerous cases intimately bound up with the creations of his novels, for Dickens did not “write out of an inkwell,” but looked for inspiration to real life and real scenes. At Portsmouth our volume guides you to the house where he was born, and to the old church register wherein the christening is entered of—(how strangely the full name sounds!)—“Charles John Huffham Dickens.” But the same venerable seaport is thronged with memories of Nicholas Nickleby and his player-friends, Miss Snevellicci, the Crummles family, poor Smike and the rest. It is interesting to remember that an American writer once suggested the possibility that Dickens had obtained Nickleby’s experiences as an actor from personal adventures with a travelling “troupe” during his youth. This is not impossible, although Forster makes no mention of such an adventure; the early years of Dickens are by no means fully accounted for, and it is certain that the stage had always a great fascination for him.
Back of old Hungerford Stairs, behind what is now Charing Cross Station, you may visit the spot where the two boys—the real and the imaginary—Charles Dickens and David Copperfield spent so many hours while working for a scant pittance in that “crazy old house with a wharf of its own abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when it was out, and literally overrun with rats.” Gadshill, where Dickens lived and died, is on the very borders of historic Rochester, teeming with reminders of “Edwin Drood,” not to say of the genial Pickwick and his companions. Of Furnival’s Inn where “Pickwick” was written, and where its author spent the first months of his married life, only the site remains; but these “Rambles” will help you to find all, or nearly all, of his other homes, even to that last home of all—the grave in Westminster Abbey, in which he was laid on the 14th of June 1870. His friends’ houses too, and the scores of spots noteworthy by reason of association with him personally, you will be given an opportunity of visiting if you follow this careful cicerone. At No. 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields still stands Forster’s house, where, in 1844, Dickens read “The Chimes” to Carlyle, Douglas Jerrold, Maclise, and others, and which is also utilised in “Bleak House” to supply a model for the dwelling-place of Mr. Tulkinghorn. The office of Household Words, founded by Dickens, is now part of the Gaiety Theatre. The old taverns about Hampstead, whither he loved to resort for a friendly flagon “and a red-hot chop,” are much as they were in the novelist’s day, save in one regrettable instance where the proprietor has preferred, in order to cater to an unappreciative class, to disfigure his inn into a mere modern public-house of the conventional type, such that Dickens, who loved the place when it was old-fashioned and comfortable, would utterly disown now. The ancient “Spaniards,” however, is much the same as it was in the days of the Gordon riots, when the then host of the quaint little tavern saved Lord Mansfield’s country house at Caen Wood by allowing the rioters to devastate his cellars, while he privily sent for the Guards. The reckless waste of liquor on that occasion is said to have suggested to Dickens the scene in “Barnaby Rudge,” where John Willet watches the sack of his beloved “Maypole” and sees his cellars drained of their best, as he lies bound and helpless in the bar. That the novelist frequently visited the “Spaniards,” the old records of the house can show; and in “Pickwick” he makes it the scene of a memorable tea-party, attended by Mrs. Bardell, just before those “sharp practitioners,” Dodson and Fogg, caused the injured lady’s arrest. The “Bull and Bush,” another old Hampstead inn much frequented of Dickens, also exists unharmed by the “renovator.” And while we are upon the subject of inns known to our author, let us not forget the “Maypole” itself, here shown to be the “King’s Head” at Chigwell. Dickens was in ecstasies over the “King’s Head” and the surrounding neighbourhood, when a chance visit disclosed to him their attractions; and the letters which he wrote to his friends at this period are full of Chigwell and its picturesque hostelry. Little wonder, therefore, that he afterwards made them famous in “Barnaby Rudge.” The pilgrim will not be disappointed in the “King’s Head” of to-day, if he accepts the good advice offered by the compiler of these “Rambles,” i.e. to take his ideal of the place from Dickens’ own description rather than from the elaborate drawing of Cattermole. He may perhaps notice that in “Barnaby Rudge” no hint is conveyed of the close proximity of Chigwell church, which is simply across the road. Doubtless this is a sign of the novelist’s artistic sense. To have his “Maypole” windows looking directly into the graveyard would have detracted from that air of warmth and conviviality with which he wished to endow his rare old inn. In most other respects the description exactly fits the “King’s Head” as it must have been in “No Popery” times—as it is with little alteration to-day. The trim green sward at the rear—once evidently the bowling-green—is a famous resting-place in summer; and in one of the small arbours Dickens is said to have written during his stay here. The village, although showing signs of the approach of that fell barbarian the Essex builder, is still sufficiently picturesque and old-world to keep one’s illusions alive. There is a grammar school at Chigwell, the boys of which are learned in neighbouring Dickens’ lore. If you are credulous—as it becomes a pilgrim to be—these grammarians will show you John Willet’s tomb in the churchyard, and Dolly Varden’s path with the real Warren, on the skirts of Hainault Forest, at the farther end of it. Both in Chigwell and Chigwell Row some village worthies are still to be met with who have conversed with Charles Dickens and the kindred spirits that came hither in his company. At the “King’s Head,” if Mr. Willet’s successor be agreeable, one may lunch or sup in the Dickens’ Room, also held to have been the chamber in which Mr. Haredale and the elder Chester held their memorable interview.
Some other inns to which Dickens is known to have resorted are: the “Bull” at Rochester, the “Leather Bottle” at Cobham, and the “Great White Horse” at Ipswich—all with Pickwickian associations; the “Old Cheshire Cheese” in Fleet Street, and the “George and Dragon” at Canterbury. To many minor taverns in London he was also a frequent visitor, for he sought his characters in the market-place rather than in the study. His signature, with the familiar flourish underneath, is treasured in hotel registers not a few, and it is esteemed a high honour to be permitted to slumber in the “Dickens’ Room.”
To all and each of these places “Rambles in Dickens’ Land” leads the way, if the reader chooses to follow. A notable advantage of these rambles is the ease with which they may be undertaken. An ordinary healthy man or woman may set forth without apprehension in the author’s footsteps from the beginning to the end of any particular journey which he describes, and even the invalid may saunter through a “Ramble” without fatigue. Conveyances are only needed to bring the pilgrim to the starting-point of the voyage, and in several instances even these aids to locomotion may be dispensed with altogether when the sightseer is one after Dickens’ own heart—a sturdy pedestrian. By pursuing the routes indicated, there is no reason why a Grand Tour of Dickens’ Land should not be made by easy stages and at slight cost. Or the pilgrim may pick out some particular trip, when leisure and chance carry him in that direction. The volume is in truth a serviceable guide-book, leading its clients by the best ways, and even informing them where, when sight-seeing is over, a place may be found for rest, refreshment, and reflection. And it is happier than most guide-books in that it is never called upon to describe the stupid and uninteresting, which have no existence in Dickens’ Land.
Into Dickens’ Land, therefore, my masters, an you will and when you will! The high-roads thither are always open, the lanes and by-paths are free for us to tread. He that found out this rare world has made it fully ours. Let us visit our inheritance, or revisit it, if that be the better word. Let us make real the scenes we have read of and dreamt of—peopling them with the folk of Dickens, so that familiar faces shall look upon us from familiar windows, familiar voices greet us as we pass. Shall we travel abroad in the fashion of the corresponding committee of the Pickwick Club? Then here is this book, with a wealth of shrewd information between its covers, ready to be our own particular Samuel Weller—to wear our livery, whether of sadness or of joy—to point out to us the sights and the notabilities, to be garrulous when we look for gossip, and silent when our mood is for silence—to act, in short, as that useful individual whom we all “rayther want,” “somebody to look arter us when we goes out a-wisitin’.”
Where, if you please, shall we “wisit” first? It is hard to choose, since there is so much to choose from. We may ramble about London town, where, like Mr. Weller, our guide is “werry much at home.” If so, we are sure to encounter a host of old cronies. Perhaps we shall see the great Buzfuz entering court, all in his wig and silk, nodding with lofty condescension to his struggling brother, Mr. T. Traddles, which latter is bringing “Sophy and the girls” to set Gray’s Inn a-blooming. Or Tom Pinch going towards Fountain Court to meet the waiting Ruth. Or David Copperfield joyously ushering J. Steerforth into his rooms in the Adelphi. Or Captain Cuttle steering for the sign of the “Wooden Midshipman,” which he may eventually find (and make a note of) at its new moorings in the Minories. Or Dick Swiveller, poor soul, loafing to his dingy lodgings. Or that precious pair, Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen, startling the sullen repose of Lant Street with bacchanalian revelry.
And, if the London Dickens’ Land palls, doth not this most inviting country stretch to all points of the compass? Northward goes yonder well-appointed coach, whereof the driver has just been escorted from a certain public-house in Portugal Street by a mottle-faced man, in company with two or three other persons of stout and weather-beaten aspect—the driver himself being stouter and more weather-beaten than all. Let us take the box-seat by his side, and lead him on to talk of “shepherds in wolves’ clothing,” until presently he tools us into Ipswich, pulling up under the sign of that “rapacious animal” the Great White Horse. In Ipswich we may catch a glimpse of a mulberry-coloured livery slinking by St. Clement’s Church, and guess therefrom that one Alfred Jingle is here at his old game of laying siege to the hearts of susceptible females with money. Here, too, behind that green gate in Angel Lane, resides the pretty housemaid soon to become Mrs. Sam Weller. But we must not linger in Ipswich. Yarmouth lies before us, with its phantom boat-house still upturned on the waste places towards the sea, with Little Em’ly, and the Peggottys, and with Mr. Barkis waiting in the Market Place to jog us out to sleepy “Blunderstone.”
Back again in London, there is another coach-of-fancy prepared to take us into Kent, from the yard of the Golden Cross. Four gentlemen—one a beaming, spectacled person in drab shorts—are outside passengers for Rochester. And see, here is the ubiquitous Jingle again, clambering to the roof with all his worldly goods wrapped up in a brown paper parcel. “Heads—heads—take care of your heads,” he cries, as we rumble under the old archway; and then, hey! for hopfields and cherry orchards, for “mouldy old cathedrals” in “Cloisterham” or Canterbury, for jolly Kentish yeomen and bright-eyed maids of Kent. . . . Who was that wan-faced, coatless urchin we passed just now in a whirl of chalky dust? His name is Copperfield, and he is on his way to Dover. And is not that Mr. Wardle driving his laughing women-folk to the review? And again, yonder on the brown common, by the Punch and Judy show, there is a grey old man, pillowing in his loving arms a little blue-eyed girl. These, too, we know; and our hearts go out to them, for who of us is there that has not—
“. . . with Nell, in Kentish meadows,
Wandered, and lost his way”?
Of introduction there is no more to be said. The book itself lies open before you; and at your own sweet will you may ramble with it, high and low, through all the land of Dickens.