y our
author, there was given on Friday the 26th of March, 1858, a reading
of the "Christmas Carol," in the Music Hall at Edinburgh. His audience
consisted of the members of, or subscribers to, the Philosophical
Institution. At the close of the evening the Lord Provost, who had been
presiding, presented to the Beader a massive and ornate silver wassail
bowl. Seventeen years prior to that, Charles Dickens had been publicly
entertained in Edinburgh,--Professor Wilson having been the chairman of
the banquet given then in his honour. He had been at that time enrolled
a burgess and guildbrother of the ancient corporation of the metropolis
of Scotland. He had, among other incidents of a striking character
marking his reception there at the same period, seen, on his chance
entrance into the theatre, the whole audience rise spontaneously in
recognition of him, the musicians in the orchestra, with a courtly
felicity, striking up the cavalier air of "Charley is my Darling."
If only out of a gracious remembrance of all this, it seemed not
inappropriate that the very last of the complimentary readings should
have been given by the novelist at Edinburgh, and that the Lord Provost
of Edinburgh should, as if by way of stirrup-cup, have handed to the
Writer and Reader of the "Carol," that souvenir from its citizens, in
honour of the author himself and of his favourite theme, Christmas.

It was in connection with the organisation of the series of
entertainments, arranged during the summer of 1857, in memory of
Jerrold, and in the interests of Jerrold's family, that the attention
of Charles Dickens was first of all awakened to a recognition of the
possibility that he might, with good reason, do something better than
carry out his original intention, that, namely, of dropping these
Readings altogether, as simply exhausting and unremunerative. He had
long since come to realise that it could in no conceivable way whatever
derogate from the dignity of his position as an author, to appear thus
in various parts of the United Kingdom, before large masses of his
fellow-countrymen, in the capacity of a Public Reader. His so appearing
was a gratification to himself as an artist, and was clearly enough also
a gratification to his hearers, as appreciators of his twofold art, both
as Author and as Reader. He perceived clearly enough, therefore, that
his labours in those associated capacities were perfectly compatible;
that, in other words, he might,