Dickens had long been furiously indignant about the law's apparent inability to put an end to the persecution of the millionaire philanthropist Angela Burdett Coutts by an Irish barrister called Richard Dunn.

Since 1838 Dunn had been sending her letters, amatory or abusive, and attempting to see her with the fairly obvious intention of being bought off. Spells of imprisonment had failed to deter him and he had more than once obtained his release by the skilful exploitation of some legal loophole. In 1847 he was tried for perjury, having worn that Miss Burdett Coutts was his debtor in the Bankruptcy Court the previous year. She was forced to appear for cross-examination by him and was reduced to tears; she had also to listen to the recitation of absurd doggerel verses that he claimed she had sent him in prison, urging him to go to Coutts' Bank and draw money out on her authority ('Fill a good sum in / (As I've plenty of tin)'). Dunn was again imprisoned, but released in 1851 and began another action for debt against Miss Burdett Coutts. He eventually abandoned this, but her lawyers then proceeded against him for recovery of the costs she had incurred in preparing her defence. In April 1853 he was again arrested, but, to Dickens's despairing rage, managed to obtain his release through the Insolvent Debtors' Court in August. For a detailed account of this affair, see D. Orton, Made of Gold: A Biography of Angela Burdett Coutts (1980), Ch. 4.

The whole history of Dunn's persecution of Miss Burdett Coutts and especially these later stages inevitably appeared to Dickens as a striking example of the monstrous injustices perpetrated by English law, which were the leading theme in the novel he was then writing, Bleak House. Indeed, writing to Miss Burdett Coutts on 7 February 1853 about the 'flagrant and shameful' nature of Dunn's case, he actually quotes from Ch. 39 of the novel: 'The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself' (see Pilgrim, Vol. VII, p. 21). After finishing the novel he wrote to Hannah Brown, Miss Burdett Coutts's much-loved companion:

I should very much like ... to state this Dunn's case, as from a public knowledge of it, in Household Words. I think I could cast a little more reproach and disgrace about the gentleman than the judges do. I wish you would ask Miss Coutts ... whether she sees any objection to it. [Pilgrim, Vol. VII, p. 127].

Evidently, the persecuted lady did not object and Dickens steamed into the following exercise in scorching irony, drawing its publication to her attention in a letter of 18 September (Pilgrim, Vol. VII, p. 148ff.).

Dunn later turned his attention to the Queen's cousin, Princess Mary, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge, and this swiftly led to his being confined to a lunatic asylum. Dickens commented to Miss Burdett Coutts, 'it is remarkable how brisk people are to perceive his madness, the moment he begins to trouble the blood royal', adding that he believed him to be only as mad as 'any other obstinate and persistent scoundrel' (Pilgrim, Vol. VIII, p. 165; 15 July 1856).

The 'law of six months' standing' referred to in paragraph three is the Criminal Procedure Act of 14 June 1853 (16 and 17 Vic.c.30) 'for the better prevention and punishment of aggravated assaults upon women and children'. It allowed for summary punishments for such assaults to be increased.

Literary allusions

• 'shepherds both': a version of Virgil's 'Arcades ambo', 'both Arcadians' (Eclogue No. 7, I. 4);
•  'the thing of shreds and patches': Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Sc. 4;
• Artful Dodger: the young pickpocket in Oliver Twist, celebrated for his skills in evading capture.

Author: Michael Slater; © J. M. Dent/Orion Publishing Group, Dickens' Journalism Volume III: 'Gone Astray' and Other Papers from Household Words, 1851-1859, 1998.

DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

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