hospitality of Lord Lytton. Mr. Dickens, who was one of the
guests, proposed the health of the host in the following words:]

Ladies and gentlemen,--It was said by a very sagacious person,
whose authority I am sure my friend of many years will not impugn,
seeing that he was named Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and
philosopher of Paul Clifford--it was said by that remarkable man,
"Life is short, and why should speeches be long?" An aphorism so
sensible under all circumstances, and particularly in the
circumstances in which we are placed, with this delicious weather
and such charming gardens near us, I shall practically adopt on the
present occasion; and the rather so because the speech of my friend
was exhaustive of the subject, as his speeches always are, though
not in the least exhaustive of his audience. In thanking him for
the toast which he has done us the honour to propose, allow me to
correct an error into which he has fallen. Allow me to state that
these houses never could have been built but for his zealous and
valuable co-operation, and also that the pleasant labour out of
which they have arisen would have lost one of its greatest charms
and strongest impulses, if it had lost his ever ready sympathy with
that class in which he has risen to the foremost rank, and of which
he is the brightest ornament.

Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only say,
on behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen whom we
shall invite to occupy the houses we have built will never be
placed under any social disadvantage. They will be invited to
occupy them as artists, receiving them as a mark of the high
respect in which they are held by their fellow-workers. As artists
I hope they will often exercise their calling within those walls