"I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships that have for years upon years made Boston a memorable and beloved spot to me; for such private references have no business in this public place. I say it purely in remembrance of and in homage to the great public heart before me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and most affectionately, to bid you each and all farewell.'

"With heartiest rounds of applause, mingled with cheers, and waving of handkerchiefs, the great assembly bade adieu to Mr. Dickens, and gave expression to their thanks for the rich enjoyment he had afforded them. Thus ended a series of entertainments, of which it is enough to say that the expectations raised before they began have not been disappointed. The readings have proved to be all that was claimed for them; and for their peculiar characteristics,- elaborateness, truthfulness, and finish, as impersonations, they have stood the test of criticism, and been occasions of delight to thousands.

"Mr. Dickens came to this country as an artist, and in a professional capacity, to present himself to the public as the reciter of his own stories. He has labored assiduously in his vocation; and his visit has proved an entire success. His interpretations of his writings will increase their already wonderful and deserved popularity, win to them multitudes of readers to be delighted

with their wit, characterizations, and pictures of life among the lowly. Meanwhile, on account of the humanity in his works, their appeals to every home and every heart, the man as well as the author will continue to be the object of warm regard, as one whose genius has been consecrated to the service of generous, liberal, and unostentatious philanthropy. He will not only be cherished as an unequalled humorist and a popular novelist, but he will also be held in honor as a genial reformer, and the advocate of the largest and truest fraternal charity."

The Dickens excitement was as strong in Philadelphia as it was elsewhere. The speculators mustered in force at eleven o'clock, P.M., to secure the tickets which were offered at nine the next morning.

Before leaving America, Mr. Dickens was entertained at a handsome banquet at Delmonico's, New York, on the evening of April 18, 1868; and, in responding to an eloquent speech from Mr. Greeley, the distinguished guest bore strong and honest testimony to the change which twenty-five years had wrought in his estimate of America. He said, ·

"This is the confidence I seek to place in you, that on my return to England, in my own English journal, manfully, promptly, plainly, in my own person to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to

the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at to-night. Also to recall, that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here, and the state of my health.

"This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be republished as an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will do, and cause to be done, not in my loving-thankfulness, but because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honor."

Taking leave of his last American audience, in New York, April 20, 1868, Mr. Dickens closed his reading with this touching speech:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, - The shadow of one word has impended over me all the evening; and the time has come at last when that shadow must fall. It is but a very short one; but the weight of such things is not measured by their length: and two much shorter words express the whole realm of our human existence. When I was reading 'David Copperfield' here last Thursday night, I felt that there was more than usual significance for me in Mr. Peggotty's declamation, 'My future life

lies over the sea.' And, when I closed this book just now, I felt keenly that I was shortly to establish such an alibi as would even have satisfied the elder Mr. Weller himself. The relations that have been set up between us here- relations sustained on my side, at least, by the most earnest devotion of myself to my task; sustained by yourselves, on your side, by the readiest sympathy and kindliest acknowledgment must now be broken forever. But I entreat you to believe, that, in passing from my sight, you will not pass from my memory. I shall often, often recall you as I see you now, equally by my winter fire, and in the green English summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. And I pray God bless you, and God bless the land in which I have met you!"

And I

CHAPTER XVI.

DICKENS AT HOME.

His Domestic Relations. Gad's Hill. Shakspeare's Mention of it.

""Mid pleasures and palaces, where'er we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home:

A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!

There's no place like home, oh! there's no place like home."
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

"God setteth the solitary in families." -Ps. lxviii. 6.

IN this side the water, at such a distance from the home of Dickens, and with so little real knowledge of the circumstances relating to his domestic relations,

it becomes all to judge charitably of both

parties, where there is any disagreement, and, as a general rule, to let such matters alone. Quarrels are always to be deprecated; but there may be extenuating circumstances on both sides. "The New-York Evening Post" thus refers to the domestic relations of the great novelist: :