espect which his
life-work created, when the merits of this enthusiastic naturalist came
to be appreciated.

See _Robert Dick, Baker of Thurso, Geologist and Botanist_, by Samuel
Smiles (1878).

DICK, THOMAS (1774-1857), Scottish writer on astronomy, was born at
Dundee on the 24th of November 1774. The appearance of a brilliant
meteor inspired him, when in his ninth year, with a passion for
astronomy; and at the age of sixteen he forsook the loom, and supported
himself by teaching. In 1794 he entered the university of Edinburgh, and
set up a school on the termination of his course; then, in 1801, took
out a licence to preach, and officiated for some years as probationer in
the United Presbyterian church. From about 1807 to 1817 he taught in the
secession school at Methven in Perthshire, and during the ensuing decade
in that of Perth, where he composed his first substantive book, _The
Christian Philosopher_ (1823, 8th ed. 1842). Its success determined his
vocation as an author; he built himself, in 1827, a cottage at Broughty
Ferry, near Dundee, and devoted himself wholly to literary and
scientific pursuits. They proved, however, owing to his unpractical turn
of mind, but slightly remunerative, and he was in 1847 relieved from
actual poverty by a crown pension of L50 a year, eked out by a local
subscription. He died on the 29th of July 1857. His best-known works
are: _Celestial Scenery_ (1837), _The Sidereal Heavens_ (1840), and _The
Practical Astronomer_ (1845), in which is contained (p. 204) a
remarkable forecast of the powers and uses of celestial photography.
Written with competent knowledge, and in an agreeable style, they
obtained deserved and widespread popularity.

See R. Chambers's _Eminent Scotsmen_ (ed. 1868); _Monthly Notices Roy.
Astr. Society_, xviii. 98; _Athenaeum_ (1857), p. 1008. (A. M. C.)

DICKENS, CHARLES JOHN HUFFAM (1812-1870), English novelist, was born on
the 7th of February 1812 at a house in the Mile End Terrace, Commercial
Road, Landport (Portsea)--a house which was opened as a Dickens Museum
on 22nd July 1904. His father John Dickens (d. 1851), a clerk in the
navy-pay office on a salary of L80 a year, and stationed for the time
being at Portsmouth, had married in 1809 Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas
Barrow, and she bore him a family of eight children, Charles being the
second. In the winter of 1814 the family moved from Portsea in the snow,
as he remembered, to London, a