DICKENS THINKS HE WOULD NOT WANT A 'MOONSHEE' DICKENS (Charles, 1812-1870, Novelist)

Fine Autograph Letter Signed in full to Mrs Procter (Ann Benson née Skepper, wife, 1824, of Bryan Waller Procter, 1787-1874, the poet and lawyer 'Barry Cornwall'), sending her a "thousand thanks for your kind and considerate note. I received at the same time, one from my boy in India..." (Walter Landor Dickens, 1841-1863), "wherein he said he had seen your Patriarch and was going to 'Tiffin' with him next day. I wonder whether the 'Moonshee' was of the party. I wonder whether I should like to have a Moonshee. As at present advised I think not..." he continues that he is "heartily glad our dear Miss Berwick has achieved so great a success. Pray congratulate her, most cordially, from me and with love to Procter and with love to yourself ... affectionately yours ...", 2 sides 8vo., Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, 9th July

'Miss Berwick' is the pseudonym of Adelaide Anne PROCTER (1825–1864, poet, the Procters' daughter). She published 'Legends and Lyrics' in 1858. After she died, Dickens told how her fine poems had arrived on the desk of 'Household Words' and how his office had built up an imaginary picture of 'Miss Berwick'. She had not wished to put them forward as by the daughter of her father's friend, and was only revealed after Dickens took some page-proofs with him when he went to dine with the family.
Walter Dickens had gone out, aged 16, just before the Mutiny, to join the Bengal Army.
The "Patriarch" may refer jokingly to the Procters' son Montagu who was in the same army. At the beginning of the Mutiny, Dickens wrote, Montagu Procter and brother officers helped a party of a child and four women (one of whom he later married) drop down a wall in Delhi and escape through the jungle to Meerut.
A 'Moonshee' is a Mohammedan professor or teacher of language. (Queen Victoria's taught her Hindustani).
In calling young Montagu Procter "your Patriarch", Dickens may be alluding to Mrs Procter's step-father, Basil Montagu, whose name the boy shared. Basil Montagu, (1770-1851), the friend of Wordsworth, had already children by his first two wives when he married Mrs Procter's mother in 1808. The Procters themselves married in 1824. From 1825 to 1832 they lived with him at 25 Bedford Square, where they raised their family of six and met many famous writers. By the time he died, he was indeed a 'Patriarch'.

Item Date:  1858

Stock No:  36340