have had, the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream-
children should hold in its powerful hand one of the little
children now lying in the Child's Hospital, or now shut out of it
to perish. Each of these dream-children should say to you, "O,
help this little suppliant in my name; O, help it for my sake!"
Well!--And immediately awaking, you should find yourselves in the
Freemasons' Hall, happily arrived at the end of a rather long
speech, drinking "Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children,"
and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish.



SPEECH: EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858.



[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas
Carol in the Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the
Philosophical Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the
Lord Provost of Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver
wassail cup. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the tribute as follows:]

My Lord Provost, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am
deeply sensible of your kind welcome, and of this beautiful and
great surprise; and that I thank you cordially with all my heart.
I never have forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the
honour to be a burgess and guild-brother of the Corporation of
Edinburgh. As long as sixteen or seventeen years ago, the first
great public recognition and encouragement I ever received was
bestowed on me in this generous and magnificent city--in this city