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Charles Dickens > Speeches: Literary and Social > LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853

Speeches: Literary and Social

LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853



[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir
Charles Eastlake, proposed as a toast, "The Interests of
Literature," and selected for the representatives of the world of
letters, the Dean of St. Paul's and Mr. Charles Dickens. Dean
Milman having returned thanks.]

Mr Dickens then addressed the President, who, it should be
mentioned, occupied a large and handsome chair, the back covered
with crimson velvet, placed just before Stanfield's picture of The
Victory.

Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, and
the honour done him in associating his name with it, said that
those acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was
unable to recognize in this toast the President's usual
disinterestedness; since English literature could scarcely be
remembered in any place, and, certainly, not in a school of art,
without a very distinct remembrance of his own tasteful writings,
to say nothing of that other and better part of himself, which,
unfortunately, was not visible upon these occasions.

If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount
Hardinge), he (Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief
thanks with one word of reference to the noble picture painted by a
very dear friend of his, which was a little eclipsed that evening
by the radiant and rubicund chair which the President now so
happily toned down, he would beg leave to say that, as literature
could nowhere be more appropriately honoured than in that place, so
he thought she could nowhere feel a higher gratification in the
ties that bound her to the sister arts. He ever felt in that place
that literature found, through their instrumentality, always a new
expression, and in a universal language.

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EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841
JANUARY, 1842
FEBRUARY 1842
FEBRUARY 7, 1842
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842
MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843
LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844
BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844
GARDENERS AND GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852
BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853
LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853
LONDON, MAY 1, 1853
BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1855
SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855
LONDON, FEBRUARY 9, 1858
EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858
LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858
LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858
LONDON, MAY 1, 1858
LONDON, JULY 21, 1858
MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858
COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858
LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862
LONDON, MAY 20, 1862
LONDON, MAY 11, 1864
LONDON, MAY 9, 1865
NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND.--LONDON, MAY 20, 1865
KNEBWORTH, JULY 29, 1865
LONDON, FEBRUARY 14, 1866
LONDON, MARCH 28, 1866
LONDON, MAY 7, 1866
LONDON, JUNE 5, 1867
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1867
LONDON, NOVEMBER 2, 1867
BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1868
NEW YORK, APRIL 18, 1863
NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868
LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869
THE OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE. SYDENHAM, AUGUST 30, 1869
BIRMINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 27, 1869
BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1870
LONDON, APRIL 6, 1846
LEEDS, DECEMBER 1, 1847
GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847
LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851
THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. LONDON, MARCH 12, 1856
LONDON, NOVEMBER 5, 1857
LONDON, MAY 8, 1858
THE FAREWELL READING. ST. JAMES'S HALL, MARCH 15, 1870
THE NEWSVENDORS' INSTITUTION, LONDON, APRIL 5, 1870
MACREADY. LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851
SANITARY REFORM. LONDON, MAY 10, 1851
GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 9, 1851
THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER. LONDON, MAY 2, 1870

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