The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MARK LEMON,1 18 MAY 1849 

MS Shaun Springer.

Devonshire Terrace.

Friday Eighteenth May / 1849.

My Dear Lemon

As I have been out, and find your boy waiting, I will keep the orthographical curiosity,2 to read while you read this. I went to Forster3 this morning, who is willing.4 We three should be too much for a barouche5 – I mean, we four. But do you think there is any other kind of conveyance – and pair, say – that would be at once comfortable and spicey?6 I fear not – but think of it. And if your thinking should come to anything, let me know tomorrow.

Affectionately Ever

CD

• 1. Mark Lemon (1809-70; Dictionary of National Biography), playwright and editor of Punch, 1841-70. He and CD seem to have first met in 1843, probably introduced by Douglas Jerrold, and soon became close friends. Lemon dramatised The Chimes and acted with CD: see further Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 469n, and Arthur A. Adrian, Mark Lemon, First Editor of Punch, 1966.
• 2. Presumably a letter that Lemon thought comic in its spelling, sent to amuse CD.
• 3. John Forster (1812-76; Dictionary of National Biography), historian and man of letters, CD's closest friend and biographer.
• 4. Possibly echoing Barkis in David Copperfield, No. II, Ch. V; not yet published but the No. completed by 5 May. The proposal was a trip to the Derby, 23 May; the party consisted of CD, Lemon, Leech, and, replacing Forster, John Gordon (see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 414n); CD’s servant, John Thompson, probably also went.
• 5. “A four-wheeled carriage with a half-head behind which can be raised or let down at pleasure, having a seat in front for the driver, and seats inside for two couples to sit facing each other” (Oxford English Dictionary).
• 6. “Full of spirit, smartness, or ‘go’” (Oxford English Dictionary), with particular reference to horses or horse-drawn vehicles.