The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To HENRY PORTER SMITH,1 15 FEBRUARY 1848

Text from facsimile in R&R Auctions online catalogue, Mar 2023.

Devonshire Terrace. Fifteenth February 1848.

My Dear Smith.

    I will incontinently proceed to the scratch, and underwrite Sir Archer Denman Croft.2 I should say he was a highly sensible man, though that instance of his judiciousness which you send me, is not a special one — the case being so clear.

    And I will not forget the Italian letters.3

    Love from all in Marylebone to all the Eagle brood.4

    Ever cordially Yours

        CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Henry Porter Smith (1797-1880), actuary. Had started life as an Ensign in the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Foot Regiment 1814; Lieutenant 1819–21; then retired on half pay. Married Penelope Lloyd (1798–1861; daughter of John Lloyd, wine merchant, of 163 Fleet Street) 1823; through Lloyd became secretary and actuary to the Eagle Life Assurance Co. 1828–48. In providing CD with life insurance, Smith became a close friend, and was godfather to his son Sydney.
• 2. Sir Archer Denman Croft (1801-65), 8th Bart; Master of the Court of Queen's Bench from 1838. Director of the General Reversionary and Investment Company, at 5 Whitehall. CD had acquired theatre tickets for Croft and his wife from Fanny Kelly, to attend a performance of The Elder Brother on 31 Jan 1846 (Pilgrim Letters 4, p. 482). He underwrote Croft’s application for membership of the Athenaeum, of which CD had been a member since 1838; the application was successful (Athenaeum: Rules and Regulations, List of Members, and Donations to the Library, 1847 [London, 1848], p. 40).
• 3. Smith was intending to travel to Italy, and CD promised to provide him with letters of introduction. CD wrote to him on 31 July 1850: “I have been ransacking my memory for some such person as you describe, in any Italian city you are going to, — but all in vain. Most of the people I knew, have left that country, or are now staying in London — in the latter category are even included our consul at Genoa and his family. So, being resolved not to introduce you to bores, I send you no letters at all” (Pilgrim Letters 6, pp. 140–1).
• 4. Smith’s children included Penelope (1824–72), Henrietta (1832–79), Henry (1838–64), and Arthur (b. 1843). CD had taken to calling Smith’s home, at 4 Gloucester Gardens, Bayswater, “the Eagle”, after the life assurance company; see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 122.