tolerable what he had no power to prevent,
and, with a few rare exceptions, they were never very successful.
Another and graver wrong was the piracy of his writings, every one of
which had been reproduced with merely such colourable changes of title,
incidents, and names of characters, as were believed to be sufficient to
evade the law and adapt them to "penny" purchasers. So shamelessly had
this been going on ever since the days of _Pickwick_, in so many
outrageous ways[74] and with all but impunity, that a course repeatedly
urged by Talfourd and myself was at last taken in the present year with
the _Christmas Carol_ and the _Chuzzlewit_ pirates. Upon a case of such
peculiar flagrancy, however, that the vice-chancellor would not even
hear Dickens's counsel; and what it cost our dear friend Talfourd to
suppress his speech exceeded by very much the labour and pains with
which he had prepared it. "The pirates," wrote Dickens to me, after
leaving the court on the 18th of January, "are beaten flat. They are
bruised, bloody, battered, smashed, squelched, and utterly undone.
Knight Bruce would not hear Talfourd, but instantly gave judgment. He
had interrupted Anderdon constantly by asking him to produce a passage
which was not an expanded or contracted idea from my book. And at every
successive passage he cried out, 'That is Mr. Dickens's case. Find
another!' He said that there was not a shadow of doubt upon the matter.
That there was no authority which would bear a construction in their
favour; the piracy going beyond all previous instances. They might
mention it again in a week, he said, if they liked, and might have an
issue if they pleased; but they would probably consider it unnecessary
after that strong expression of his opinion. Of course I will stand by
what we have agreed as to the only terms of compromise with the
printers. I am determined that I will have an apology for their
affidavits. The other men may pay their costs and get out of it, but I
will stick to my friend the author." Two days later he wrote: "The
farther affidavits put in by way of extenuation by the printing rascals
_are_ rather strong, and give one a pretty correct idea of what the men
must be who hold on by the heels of literature. Oh! the agony of
Talfourd at Knight Bruce's not hearing him! He had sat up till three in
the morning, he says, preparing his speech; and would have done all
kinds of things with the affidavits. It certainly was a splendid