The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To LORD ROBERTSON,1 [?1847]

Envelope only.

Text from facsimile in Bloomsbury Auctions online catalogue, June 2017.
Address: The Hon: | Lord Robertson | Finchley Road
Date: Signature suggests 1847.

• 1. Patrick Robertson (1794-1855; Dictionary of National Biography), advocate; often known by the diminutive "Peter". Became a Lord of Session 1843, and took his seat on the bench as Lord Robertson. Known for his warm-heartedness and wit. At the Edinburgh dinner for CD he proposed the health of Walter Scott. "With what enthusiasm", he said, "– with what delight and cordiality would the author of Waverley have hailed the advent of the author of the Pickwick Papers." He envisaged various meetings between characters in Scott's and CD's novels: how, for example, Davie Gellatley (the half-witted servant in Waverley) would "jump with delight to hail his brother Barnaby Rudge" (a parallel Bulwer clearly recognized too, though with disapproval); and how at Dotheboys Hall "Dominie Sampson would have exclaimed at the arrangements of Squeers – Pro-digious!" (Caledonian Mercury, 26 June 1841). Robertson and CD met again in 1844.