DEATH OF MR CHARLES DICKENS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 695, 15 August 1870, Page 3

DEATH OF MR CHARLES DICKENS.

In our home annals, the first page belongs to an erent which has stirred the deepest national sorrow. We hare sustained a loss which will be felt wherever the English tongue is spoken in the sudden death of Mr Charles Dickens on the 9th inst., struck down in the midst of his literary labours. He had been occupied with his pen during the morning, and came from his room to dinner as usual (on Wednesday, June 8), but scarcely had he taken his seat when bis sister-in-law, Mist Hogarth, observed a peculiar appearance in bis face. His eyes were full of tears, and becoming alarmed she proposed to send for medical ad rice. He replied, " JNo, no, no; I hare got the toothache, and shall he better presently." .He then asked that the window might be shut, but almost immediately lapsed into unconsciousness, from which he never recovered. It proved to be a severe form of apoplexy, and in little more than 24 hours he was dead. Mr Dickens some time ago had: premonitory symptoms of an overwrought brain, which compelled him to desist from his -public readings, but he appeared to have perfectly regained hia health, and this year bad completed the broken series with all his old vitacioasness. " The Mystery of Edwin Drood " showed his mind in full rigour, but it must now remain for ever unfinished ; three parts only have been published, and but three more are left in manuscript ; as with the last work of Thackeray, the band of the great master was stayed in the midst. His last - thoughts carried him into shadowy regions, close by which lay the darker land of death, . It is but a short time since Mr Dickens visited at Windsor Castle, and it now transpires that the Queen then desired to confer upon him some mark of distinction, and that after more than one title of honour had been declined, she expressed a wish that he would at least accept a place in the Frivy Council. Her Majesty, on receiving at Balmoral the intelligence of his death, immediately telegraphed back her " deepest regret at the sad loss ; " but royal sympathy is not the measure of national feeling over the grave of such a man. No living writer could pretend to rival Charles Dickens as a popular favourite, or had such power over the hearts of all classes to unite them in a common admiration. Nor was it mere delight which they felt in the creations of his genius, it was the large humanity of his works which bound them to him. But this is not the place for a criticism ; every reader will pronounce his own eulogium. Mr Dickens left the most positive instructions that his own interment should be private, and without any of the accustomed pomp of generals. They were literally carried out, though he lies buried in Poet's Corner. The Dean of Westminster urged upon the family that he should be laid in the Abbey, and so arranged that the funeral took place at an early hour in the simplest and most private manner. The grave, however, was left open all day, and many hundreds of persons threw flowers into it. Thus all that is mortal of Charles Dickens lies at the feet of Handel and at the head of Sheridan, with Richard Cumberland resting on his right hand, and Cary, the translator of Dante, on bis left. A letter, which was certainly one of the last written by Mr Dickens— for it is dated the day of the fatal seizure—will be read with much interest. Somebody, with questionable taste, had called Mr Dickens' attention to a passage in the tenth chapter of "Edwin Drood" as likely to wound the feelings of religious people by the fact of its'

containing what the writer was pleased to consider as a hot quite reverent adhesion to a passage in the Bible supposed by many to j refer to Our Lord. Mr Dickens sent the following reply : — " Gads-hill-place, Higham-by-Rochester, "Kent, Wednesday, June 8, 1870. " Dear Sir, — It would be quite inconceivable to me, but for your letter, that any reasonable reader could possibly attach a Scriptural reference to a passage in a book of mine, reproducing a much-abused social figure of speech, impressed into all sorts of service, on all sorts of inappropriate occasions, without the faintest connexion of it with its original source. I am truly shocked to find that any reader can make the mistake. I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our Saviour ; because I feel it, and because I re-wrote that history for my, children — every one of whom knew it from haviag it repeated to them long before they could read, and almost as soon aa they could speak. But I have never made proclamation of this from the housetops. — Faithfully yours. " Chaklbs Dickens." j