SPEECH: FEBRUARY 1842.



[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. The
company consisted of about two hundred, among whom were George
Bancroft, Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast
of "Health, happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens,"
having been proposed by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with
great applause, Mr. Dickens responded with the following address:]

Gentlemen,--If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone
else in the whole wide world--if I were to-night to exult in the
triumph of my dearest friend--if I stood here upon my defence, to
repel any unjust attack--to appeal as a stranger to your generosity
and kindness as the freest people on the earth--I could, putting
some restraint upon myself, stand among you as self-possessed and
unmoved as I should be alone in my own room in England. But when I
have the echoes of your cordial greeting ringing in my ears; when I
see your kind faces beaming a welcome so warm and earnest as never
man had--I feel, it is my nature, so vanquished and subdued, that I
have hardly fortitude enough to thank you. If your President,
instead of pouring forth that delightful mixture of humour and
pathos which you have just heard, had been but a caustic, ill-
natured man--if he had only been a dull one--if I could only have
doubted or distrusted him or you, I should have had my wits at my
fingers' ends, and, using them, could have held you at arm's-
length. But you have given me no such opportunity; you take