The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To ANTHONY RUBENS MONTALBA,1 19 FEBRUARY 1844

MS eBay online catalogue, January 2010.

Devonshire Terrace

Nineteenth February 1844.

Sir.

I assure you that if I could find you suitable employment, or could render you permanent assistance, I would—as Heaven knows! But I am wholly powerless in such a case. Scores and scores of appeals as strong as yours are constantly made to me; and I have nothing left for it, but to make a plain confession of my inability to render help, as the kindest and most merciful course I can adopt. I believe that if I were the Lord chancellor,2 I should still have to do the like, day after day. My brother3 will have told you what I think you will do well to try, in reference to your Pictures. If you will condescend to accept the enclosed trifle at my hands, you need not blush to take it; for as a scholar and a reduced gentleman you have no reason, in any case, and least of all when it is tendered in the spirit in which I offer it to you.

M. S. Rubens Montalbe.

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Anthony Rubens Montalba (c. 1813-1884), artist; exhibited two paintings at the Royal Academy, 1848, when he was living at 9 Camden Terrace West. A number of Montalbas, his children, notably Clara, exhibited paintings and sculptures from the 1860s. CD clearly had difficulty with the name as written in the subscription.
• 2. CD wrote a small “c”. The Lord Chancellor had various posts in his gift.
• 3. Presumably Frederick, employed as clerk in the Treasury.