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'series of readings,' at which my assistance will be indispensable; but from this garish light I vanish now forevermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate farewell."

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Carlyle is "reported as saying, that he never saw nor heard of any thing so extraordinary in its way as the picturesque-dramatic power of Mr. Dickens in his readings. Mr. Dickens, in some characters,' said his philosophic observer, costumes his mind with a completeness that is so absolutely perfect.' This puts it into my head to tell a little story which I long since heard,-how, one evening, the great novelist was reading, I think the trialscene in Pickwick,' to an audience of rank and fashion, and all that, in London. Presently, rank and fashion began to have their attention drawn to an explosive merriment in one part of the hall. On the front bench sat a tall man, blue-eyed and gray-haired, who ever and anon swung his steeple-crowned felt hat forcibly down on his knees, bursting into peals of such inextinguishable laughter as the gods on Homer's Olympus when they beheld limp-footed Vulcan halting round the circle as cup-bearer. Rank and fashion were inclined to be shocked at this unconventional mirth: but by and by the whisper went round that he of the steeple-hat was no other than Thomas Carlyle of Chelsea; and for the rest of the evening Mr. Dickens had but a divided attention from his reverently wondering audience."

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Messrs. Chapman & Hall write, in correction of sundry erroneous reports, to say that three numbers of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," the novel on which Mr. Dickens was at work when he died, were left complete, in addition to those already published; this being one-half of the story as it was intended to be written. These numbers will be published, and the fragment will remain a fragment. Messrs. Chapman & Hall add, “No other writer could be permitted by us to complete the work which Mr. Dickens has left."

Says "The New-York Tribune" very truly, very truly," Ten or twenty millions of people keep a corner in their hearts. for Dickens, because he has seen so perfectly the poetry, the beauty, the hundred lessons, which the life of the masses contains; and in all that he has done he has striven for their good. I have always had, and always shall have,' said he on his first visit to this country, 'an earnest and true desire to contribute, as far as in me lies, to the common stock of healthful cheerfulness and enjoyment. I believe that Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen. I believe that she, and every beautiful object in external nature, claims some sympathy in the poorest man who breaks his scanty loaf of daily bread.' So, in the faith that literature was not for the rich alone, and the noblest work was the work done for the poor, he bent himself bravely to his splendid task."

Mr. Dickens died on the 9th of June, 1870. London News" thus gives particulars :

"The

"He was at Rochester the 7th instant: on Wednesday, he was employed at his literary labors until dinner. When at dinner, he was seized with a violent pain in the head, and fell down, becoming totally unconscious. He was placed on a sofa in the dining-room, as it was not considered advisable to remove him up stairs. Mr. S. Steele of Strood, his local medical adviser, was sent for, and found him laboring under a severe form of apoplexy. Stertopous breathing had taken place; and the extremities very soon became cold. Mr. Steele remained with him until near midnight, when Mr. F. Carr Beard, surgeon, of Welbeck Street, London, an old personal friend of Mr. Dickens, arrived, with Mrs. Collins and Miss Dickens, daughters of the great novelist. Mr. Beard immediately consulted with Mr. Steele; but they had little hope. Mr. Dickens was still unconscious, and remained in that state up to the time of his death. Mr. Beard remained with him all night. Dr. J. Russell Reynolds, the eminent physician of Grosvenor Street, was telegraphed for, and arrived on Thursday afterHe agreed with Messrs. Beard and Steele in considering the case a hopeless one from the first. His death took place at half-past six o'clock. Mr. Dickens was well on Wednesday, and wrote a great deal during the day. He had lately had no premonitory symptoms

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of an affection of the brain. A post-mortem examination is to be made. A contemporary states, that, when Mr. Dickens sat down to dinner on Wednesday, his sisterin-law, Miss Hogarth, observed an unusual appearance in his face, and became alarmed, and said she feared he was ill, proposing in the same breath to telegraph for medical assistance. Mr. Dickens replied, 'No, no, no: I have got the toothache, and shall be better presently.' He then asked that the window might be shut; and almost immediately he lapsed into unconsciousness, from which state he never recovered till the moment of his death. Mr. Charles Dickens, the younger, was telegraphed for on Wednesday evening; but the message did not reach London till Thursday morning. He started instantly for his father's residence, and was present at the death-bed, with two of his sisters, Miss Hogarth, and the medical attendants. The day of his death was, strange to say, the anniversary of the Staplehurst accident, in which, it will be remembered, he was in great peril, and from which some of those nearest to him consider he received a physical shock from which he never really recovered. The friends in the habit of meeting Mr. Dickens privately, recall now the energy with which he depicted that dreadful scene, and how, as the climax of his story came, and its dread interest grew, he would rise from the table, and literally act the parts of the several sufferers to whom he had lent a helping hand. Now that he is gone, it is remembered with absolute pain,

that one of the first surgeons of the day, who was pres ent when this Staplehurst story was told, soon after its occurrence, remarked, that 'the worst of these railway accidents was the difficulty of determining the period at which the system could be said to have survived the shock; and that instances were on record of two or three years having gone by before the life-sufferer knew that. he was seriously hurt.' But the medical testimony as to the immediate cause of Mr. Dickens's death is definite and precise. Apoplexy, an effusion of blood on the brain,

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- the cause an overstrained system, and the result one which was only staved off twelve months ago, when he was induced to obey his doctor's injunctions, and suspend his readings in public, — has carried him away at a comparatively early age; and all that remains to his sorrowing friends is to recall with affection the many traits which made this great man so lovable."

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The cause of the death of Dickens is attributed by a London correspondent of "The Scotsman to the mental labor of writing "Edwin Drood." The writer says,

"Since his sudden seizure in the midst of his readings last year, Mr. Dickens has never been the same man. After a little while, he began to go about as before; flitted to and fro in his ardent, restless way; took long walks, after his favorite fashion, starting on the

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