It is right to note here, that the kind people of Portsmouth were desirous of inserting a stained-glass window in their beautiful new church to the memory of one of their most famous sons (the eminent novelist, Mr. Walter Besant, was born at Portsmouth, as also were Isambard K. Brunel, the engineer, and Messrs. George and Vicat Cole, Royal Academicians), but they were debarred by the conditions of Dickens's will, which expressly interdicted anything of the kind. It states:—
"I conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest my claim to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto."
Before leaving Portsmouth, we just take a hasty glance at the Theatre Royal, which remains much as it was during the days of Mr. Vincent Crummles and his company, as graphically described in the twenty-second and following chapters of Nicholas Nickleby. Of that genial manager, Mr. T. Edgar Pemberton, in his Charles Dickens and the Stage, observes:—
"Every line that is written about Mr. Crummles and his followers is instinct with good-natured humour, and from the moment when, in the road-side inn 'yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth,' the reader comes into contact with the kindly old circuit manager, he finds himself in the best of good company."
Mr. Rimmer, in his About England with Dickens, referring to the "Common Hard" at Portsmouth, says that the "people there point out in a narrow lane leading to the wharf, the house where Nicholas is supposed to have sojourned."
CHAPTER X.
AYLESFORD, TOWN MALLING, AND MAIDSTONE.
"Its river winding down from the mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea."—Edwin Drood.