The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To UNKNOWN CORRESPONDENT, 18 FEBRUARY 1851 

Text from facsimile of first page only, from unknown source.

Devonshire Terrace

Tuesday Eighteenth February

1851. 

My Dear Sir

            I have written to your friend, and put him down for a dinner ticket.1

            I am sorry to say, as regards the benefit,2 that your note is too late. Last Saturday I could have done it, but the places are all gone out of our hands.

            It will give me great

• 1. To the farewell banquet for CD's friend, the actor William Charles Macready (1793-1873), held on 1 March 1851. CD played a major role in organising the event; he reported: “I have written 60 letters (about the dinner) since 8 last night” (To Frank Stone, 18 February 1851, in Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 293). On CD's friendship with Macready see Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 279 n1. For CD's speech at the banquet see The Speeches of CD, ed. K.J. Fielding (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1988), pp. 113-18.
• 2. Macready’s farewell performance on 26 Feb 1851. For CD’s wholehearted and affectionate tribute to him see To Macready, 27 February 1851, in Pilgrim Letters 6, pp. 301-2. Macready recorded in his diary: “Acted Macbeth as I never, never before acted it” (The Diaries of William Charles Macready, 1833-1851, ed. William Toynbee [London: Chapman & Hall, 1912], vol. 2, 496). The Theatrical Journal, 6 Mar, commented: "he never acted with more freshness, or with greater command of his faculties". Macready gives the text of his farewell speech from the stage in Diaries, vol. 2, pp. 496-7; it was printed in full in The Times and Morning Chronicle of 3 Mar, and in other papers, besides the Theatrical Journal, 6 Mar. The Morning Chronicle gave a full assessment of his career, generally applauding it, but critical of his self-centredness: he had shown an "unswerving love for his art", but "loved to see the light of the Shakespearian drama enhaloing himself" (3 Mar). The Literary Gazette (26 Feb) reported the general enthusiasm, but found Macready's own speech disappointing, "cold and formal". It felt his departure would leave a great void, but denied him the highest genius. In Shakespeare "his heroes never rose to grandeur and his love seemed rather that of a man . . . conferring a favour . . . than reverent devotion." The audience's response was, Macready recorded, "in my experience, unprecedented. No actor has ever received such testimony of respect and regard in this country" (Diaries, vol. 2, p. 497). The Theatrical Journal, 6 Mar, commented: "London seemed to declare with one voice its respect for a great artist and accomplished man".