" He made allusion to the author of
Uncle Tom's Cabin and Mr. Dickens, speaking of both as having employed
fiction as a means of awakening the attention of the respective
countries to the condition of the oppressed and suffering classes. Mr.
Talfourd appears to be in the prime of life, of a robust and somewhat
florid habit. He is universally beloved for his nobleness of soul and
generous interest in all that tends to promote the welfare of humanity,
no less than for his classical and scholarly attainments.

Mr. Dickens replied to this toast in a graceful and playful strain. In
the former part of the evening, in reply to a toast on the chancery
department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence of the lord
chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, not
distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently not without reference
to it. The amount of what he said was, that the court had received a
great many more hard opinions than it merited; that they had been
parsimoniously obliged to perform a great amount of business by a very
inadequate number of judges; but that more recently the number of judges
had been increased to seven, and there was reason to hope that all
business brought before it would now be performed without unnecessary
delay.

In the conclusion of Mr. Dickens's speech he alluded playfully to this
item of intelligence; said he was exceedingly happy to hear it, as he
trusted now that a suit, in which he was greatly interested, would
speedily come to an end. I heard a little by conversation between Mr.
Dickens and a gentleman of the bar, who sat opposite me, in which the
latter seemed to be reiterating the same assertions, and I understood
him to say, that a case not extraordinarily complicated might be got
through with in three months. Mr. Dickens said he was very happy to hear
it; but I fancied there was a little shade of incredulity in his manner;
however, the incident showed one thing, that is, that the chancery were
not insensible to the representations of Dickens; but the whole tone of
the thing was quite good-natured and agreeable. In this respect, I must
say I think the English are quite remarkable. Every thing here meets the
very freest handling; nothing is too sacred to be publicly shown up; but
those who are exhibited appear to have too much good sense to recognize
the force of the picture by getting angry. Mr. Dickens has gone on
unmercifully exposing all sorts of weak plac