DICKENS' FISTSEA VOYAGE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 801, 15 December 1881, Page 2

DICKENS' FIST SEA VOYAGE.

-p Upon the mor- v " f r tl,e Prorogation of ■r Par iameut .lie F ne Minister, as it hap e pened, was pl-S ed t 0 attend a i ran «' banquet, which** 18 t 0 be « ,ven ,n hls honor at Thitht ' r Mr Tho 8« Bear 1, and his j jn S colleague, Charles Dickens, were r] J' so tlmt tli-y mi g htbein ;me to r ' P" rl th « P r "' r ceedings. They h, s,,dl ItJlsure '"'' *•>«" r journey northwards 10 f ' ct ' tll;,t ,hev e wen. rnun* by sea t . Le,tl ;- Thls was , Di.-kens's first taste of th 8;l '' w ,t; ' r '• n ~ wis the very fir,c voyage' 1 * 5 had ex "^ r had the opportunity of ei >vm "' " his exhilaration during (he ea 101 " rart of e it Mr Beard describes to ,„ *» bivin -' l ' been intense ; first of all whei^ he vessel * j dropp d do«n the river, and ; P er>varcis when it began to skirt the east« j l Co!lH t of Rutland. Conspicuous amor* * passengers on board one who, I. ms very manner and occupation at start;2> helped materially to enhance the blii e young humorist's enjoyment. This, h poiut of f net, was a well-tempered, fre.-h----complexioned, sandy-haired, commercial traveller, to whom, Dickens's attention was first of all attracted by the circumstance that, to the unspeakable delight of, young Boz, he was reading to himseii> with frequent root's of laughter, ' T >? Bloomsbury Christening,' in the ''* number for that year of the. " onth: y Magazine At every fresh Ji r °* v * m of mirth produced by the ">«"- hrious proceedings "<■ Mr Xieodemus Dumps, the beards *utlior warmed more and more » th f § ood ""'""red bagman. wi<» th- 3 unwittingly took to hitnse'f raflk a i,lo "S Dickens's enrliest appreciators. Later on in this little coast voyage when the vessel had f'v'rly got inD Yarmouth Roads, and begun v encounter rather boisterous weather, the young novelist of the hereafter, little dreaming then of his alter ego, David CopperfiVld, and of the old boat on the s mdß inhabited, among others, by Little Em'ly and Mr Peggotty, was suddenly prostrated by the mvl de mer, of which he never befor had experience. The life and soul of his oompanion until then, he, from that moment down to their arrival in Leith, completely collapsed. 'Charles Dickens as a Journalist,' by Charles Kent, in. Time.