Dickens' Oldest Friend

AMONG the friends who flock around a popular favourite during his lifetime there arc always one or two who, after his death, escape the attention of his biographer, fade from the pictured group, and are soon forgotten altogether. Very often they have been among the earliest and most faithful of the great man's confidants. But when the days of his success MUM, their own fortunes failed to keep pace with his. Perhaps they even lagged behind, and became a burden to the swift progress of wealth and fame. They were still to be met at family gatherings, anniversaries, and feast days ; but they hovered in a shadowy background, while newer and more brilliant friends sported in the light. With the great man's death their light went out irremediably ; and if by their own fireside they revived their memories tin a younger generation, the stories they told were apt to be greeted with polite incredulity. " The old man eloquent the young men would say. " He remembers inure than ever happened."

In some such relation as this stood Thomas Beard to Charles Dickens. His friendship with " the Inimitable Buz" started before the days of Pickwick, when the two young men were fellow-reporters on the Morning Chronicle and Beard was Dickens' " associate-chief " ; it kept in touch with every change of his friend's triumphant career ; and it survived his death for twenty years. Beard was Dickens' best man at his quiet wedding, godfather to his first child, and a " privileged face " (to use Boz's own phrase) at every homely domestic celebration. " I hope I shall never miss my old friend's face," wrote Dickens ; and he never did, or at least never with Beard's own consent. But the old friend was shy and retiring, and the new friends were clamorous and alert. They. had never taken much notice of Beard while Dickens was alive, and when Dickens was dead, he scarcely-crossed their thoughts. He was not invited to the secret morning funeral in Westminster Abbey ; Forster passed him over With a kindly phrase or two of condescension in the official biography ; and there is not a single" one of Dickens' letters to him to be found in the voluminous correspondence carefully edited by filial and sisterly piety. More than forty. years have- elapsed Since Thomas Beard's

death before these letters have found their -way to the public. Now, through the kindness of the Count (le Suraumet, who

owns. them. and tinder the devoted and most competent

editorship of Mr. Walter Dexter, they form a very pleasant and characteristic addition to the vast and still increasing library of Diekensiana. Mr. Dexter's work is admirably done. His notes are full and informative ; they have the true biographer's " tang." Every collector of Dickens literature will want to add this volume to his shelves.

Of course, it is not to be expected that the letters should "east a new light " upon the glittering figure of Dickens.

already sufficiently lit up from every angle ; there is no new Dickens now for anyone to display. But of the old Dickens,.

the incorrigible, " and irresistible, these hearty, often breathless letters reveal once more the eager, "trans- parent, mercurial character, " every inch of him an honest man." We see him posting across country, to report the speeches in Lind John Russell's election campaign, and bubbling over with excitement when his paper was first out

with the report. "We had a much, much longer account than any other paper, and the whole affair is considered- one of complete and signal success, and liaS been noted as a- feat

by the Spectator." There is a poignant description of Mary

Hogarth's death, and of Mrs. Dickens' subsequent' break- dowu. " Thank God, [Mary] died in my arms, and the very

last words she whispered were of ine." In all these early joys and griefs Beard was evidently one of the first friends to whom Dickens turned for sympathy and consolation, and he was often of genuine practical assistance. Just as he

used to lend the young Hot a Li note, to tide hint' tiVer nu awkward corner, so he supplied him later on with adminis-

trative and economic advice, when the Daily News was in process of being founded, and acted as discreet intermediary when there was question of delicate negotiations with the artist Maclise. And all through the corms' hence, even in its most trivial mood, there was the rollicking hospitality or the Hoc, table, with its constant invitations to a " haunch scientifically carved," " a breast of venison," " a pint or so of the rosy," or a goblet of the rare claret, which " leaves the mental faculties in a state of indescribable freshness next morning."

What an age it was, an age of gigantic energy and apparently inexhaustible spirits ! But it paid the penalty of its vigour.

Thomas Beard had a younger brother named Frank, who became Dickens' doctor, and Mr. Dexter is able to print u sheaf of letters, and a page of medical reports, which MI( once more the rather pathetic story of the " garish lights " under which the lambent spirit of Charles Dickens burnt itself out to its inevitable end. The old friend, Thomas Beard, was a silent witness to the scene. " Talking of emptiness," wrote Dickens, " why don't you come into my room at St. James's Hall, where there is always a lump of

Me and a little old brandy ? Why do. I see you sitting on

the end of rows, whence you could glide out like the old Serpent, and sticking there like a fixture ? ?" Well, perhaps the old friend wad wisest after all. He /et the crowd have its hour, hustle, bustle, and pass on ; his conception of friendship was something quieter, more intimate, more secure. After all, he was Dickens' " oldest friend," and perhap knew what Dickens needed most. ARTHUR WAUOII.