occasional Reading, moreover, was given at Chatham, to assist in
defraying the expenses of the Chatham, Rochester, Strood, and Brompton
Mechanics' Institution, of which the master of Gadshill was for thirteen
years the President. His titular or official connection with this
institute, in effect, was that of Perpetual President. His interest in
it in that character ceased only with his life. Throughout the whole of
the thirteen years during which he presided over its fortunes, he was
in every imaginable way its most effective and energetic supporter. Six
Readings in all were given by him at the Chatham Mechanics' Institution,
in aid of its funds. The first, which was the "Christmas Carol," took
place on the 27th December, 1857, the new Lecture Hall, which was
appropriately decorated with evergreens and brilliantly illuminated,
being crowded with auditors, conspicuous among whom were the officers of
the neighbouring garrison and dockyard. The second, which consisted of
"Little Dombey" and "The Trial Scene from Pickwick," came off on the
29th December, 1858. Long before any arrangement had been definitively
made in regard to this second Reading, the local newspaper, in an
apparently authoritative paragraph, announced, "on the best authority,"
that another Reading-was immediately to be given, by Mr. Dickens, in
behalf of the Mechanics' Institution. It is characteristic of him that
he, thereupon, wrote to the Chatham newspaper, "I know nothing of your
'best authority,' except that he is (as he always is) preposterously
and monstrously wrong." Eventually this Reading was arranged for,
nevertheless, and came off at the date already mentioned. A third
Reading at Chatham, comprising within it "The Poor Traveller" (the
opening of which had a peculiar local interest),"Boots" at
the "Holly Tree Inn," and "Mrs. Gamp," took place in 1860, on the 18th
December. A fourth was given there on the 16th January, 1862, when the
Novelist read his six selected chapters from "David Copperfield." A
fifth, consisting of "Nicholas Nickleby at Dotheboys Hall," and "Mr.
Bob Sawyer's-Party," took place in 1863, on the 15th December. Finally,
there came off the sixth of these Chatham readings, on the 19th
December, 1865, when the "Carol" was repeated, with the addition of the
great case of "Bardell versus Pickwick." Upwards of L400 were thus, as
the fruit of these exhilarating entertainments, poured into the coffers
of the Chatham Institute. It can har