The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To THE HON. EDMUND PHIPPS,1 12 JUNE 1848

MS Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg.

1 Devonshire Terrace | York Gate Regents Park

Monday June Twelfth 1848.

My Dear Sir.

I will tell you in as few words as possible why I should have asked you for the favor of an introduction to your brother2 if he had been in town.

Mr. Macready3 is going, early in the autumn, to fulfil an engagement in America – his last.4 For, on his return home, he will play the round of his best characters in England, and then leave the Stage.5 His friends have felt very strongly, that he ought to have a benefit at one of the large London theatres before he departs on his voyage across the Atlantic; deeming it important to his due recognition in the United States, that his services to the English Drama should be publicly and specially recognized here, before his departure. With this view, a requisition6 to him to appear in one of the characters associated with that great Literature to which he has done so much to call attention, has been very numerously signed; not only by all the most eminent of living men in literature and art, but by many very conspicuous members of both houses of Parliament,7 as Lords Lansdowne,8 Campbell,9 Morpeth,10 and a host of others. Before making this requisition public, his friends have it very much at heart to discover whether there is any probability of her11 Majesty being pleased to make this performance a Royal Command.12 And as we are exceedingly unwilling to trouble Her Majesty by making a semi-public application in the first instance, to ascertain this, it has occurred to me that I possibly might, without any impropriety, solicit13 Her Majesty’s attention to the subject, by means of your brother’s kind intervention, which I am emboldened to ask, as the friend of Lord and Lady Normanby.14 

It is proposed that the performance shall take place between this time and the middle of July. The grounds on which Her Majesty’s generous patronage of it is sought, are, in few words these. – That Mr. Macready has made great efforts and sacrifices to restore our National Drama and to purify the Theatre as a great means of instruction and amusement. That Her Majesty’s public recognition of this fact would, in the opinion of all his friends, be of infinite service to him in this particular stage of the close of his career. That as he has never been in the habit of taking benefits or soliciting support, he is, by this circumstance as well as by his public exertions and position, removed out of the usual ground of an actor. That15 the requisition I have mentioned, is, in itself, a proof of this. And that it could not but be very gratifying to him and to all his friends, if Her Majesty should see fit to add the last and highest grace to this list of names distinguished among her subjects, by commanding the performance.

If you can help me in this matter, I shall be very sincerely and heartily obliged to you. I am half ashamed to have troubled you at this length, but I could not state the case in fewer words; and I am so conscious, after all, of having stated it imperfectly, – and am consequently in such danger of beginning again, – that I feel my only safety is in leaving off here.

The Honourable Edmund Phipps

Believe me | My Dear Sir | Very faithfully Yours 

CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. The Hon. Edmund Phipps (1808-57; Dictionary of National Biography); barrister, and Recorder successively of Scarborough and Doncaster: see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 547n.
• 2. Lt.-Col. Charles Beaumont Phipps (1801-66; Dictionary of National Biography), brother of Edmund Phipps and Constantine Henry Phipps, Lord Normanby. Equerry to the Queen since Aug 46 and private secretary to Prince Albert since Jan 47. See also To Charles Beaumont Phipps, 16 June 1848.
• 3. William Charles Macready (1793-1873; Dictionary of National Biography), the leading English actor of his generation: see Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 279n & Pilgrim Letters 2, p. 2n.
• 4. Macready had visited the States in 1826-7 and 1843. He sailed to America, 9 Sep, and returned 23 May 49. Macready had thought of settling in the States, but the Astor Place riot rendered this impossible: To Macready, 10 May 48, and To Mrs Macready, [?30 May 49], Pilgrim Letters 5, pp. 304 & n, 547-8 & nn.
• 5. For various reasons, Macready’s final performance only took place on 26 Feb 51.
• 6. Organised by CD. For a draft in CD’s hand, see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 320n. The requisition was reported in The Times, 26 June: of the original signatories, 35 are named.
• 7. The Times, 26 June, lists among others CD, Bulwer Lytton, Maclise, Forster, Carlyle, Charles Kemble, Tennyson, Count D’Orsay, Henry Hallam, Cobden, eight MPs, including Monckton Milnes, and eight lords apart from those named by CD.
• 8. Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863; Dictionary of National Biography). CD had first met him at Holland House, 1838 (Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 263n).
• 9. John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell (1779-1861; Dictionary of National Biography), lawyer and politician. Lord Chancellor of Ireland and created Lord Campbell, 1841. Lord Chancellor, 1859.
• 10. George William Frederick Howard, Viscount Morpeth, later 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802-64; Dictionary of National Biography).
• 11. No lower case “H” in “her” in MS; elsewhere in letter, upper case in “Her Majesty”.
• 12. Eventually agreed for 10 July.
• 13. Written above caret and “call” deleted.
• 14. Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby (1797-1863; Dictionary of National Biography), politician and diplomat. Brother of Edmund and Charles Phipps. Ambassador in Paris, Aug 46-Feb 52, where CD met him frequently Nov 48-Feb 49, though Normanby was distracted by diplomatic business (see Pilgrim Letters 4 & 5). Lady Normanby, née Maria Liddell (1798-1882); CD dedicated Dombey to her (Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 109 & n). Their son, the Earl of Mulgrave, travelled on the Britannia to North America, Jan 42, with CD and invited him to organise the Montreal garrison's theatricals, May 42 (Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 13 & n).
• 15. “And” deleted before “That”.