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pieces without end. Not to speak with statistical exactness, we may say that in England these works have been read by everybody without distinction of age or rank. In America he is fully as popular as he is here; his career has been followed in Germany with the patient insight which distinguishes the Teutonic mind; and he is read (whether understood or not) in France. If, like Mr. Putnam Sinif, he "aspirates for fame," his aspirations must have been realized to their

utmost extent.

Nor is Mr. Dickens unworthy of this great popularity. His genius is entirely original. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the light literature of the present generation has been created and moulded under the influence of his style. Pickwick has been to us very much what the Rape of the Lock was to the poets of the last century. It has revolutionized comic writing, and introduced a new standard of humor.

Nor is it only or chiefly in the field of letters that the power of Mr. Dickens is felt. He has entered into our every-day life in a manner which no other living author has done. Much of his phraseology has become common property. Allusions to his works and quotations from them are made by everybody, and in all places. If Sir Edward Bulwer had never written a line there would be a blank on our shelves, and perhaps in some of our thoughts; but assuredly there would be no perceptible difference in our conversation. But take away Pickwick or Martin Chuzzlewit, and the change would be noticed any day in Cheapside.

A writer of whom this can be said is worth reading critically. We according ly propose-not indeed, to review Mr. Dickens's novels in detail-but to examine some of the leading qualities of his mind and style, so far as these qualities find their expression in the twenty two volumes before us. And we shall do this with the object of leading our readers to infer whether, on the whole, the vast power he has wielded has been exercised for good or not.

It may seem not quite fair to apply so grave a standard to works which profess to be written for our amusement. But authors must be perfectly well aware that novels are now something more than the means of passing away an idle hour.

They supply thousands of readers with a philosophy of life, and are at this moment almost the only form of poetry which is really popular. Time was, when seriously disposed people would have nothing to do with them. The model governess of that period always locked them up: the wicked pupil always read them. The current of opinion now sets in an exactly opposite direction. The novelist has taken rank as a recognized public instructor. Important questions of social policy, law reform, the latest invention, the most recent heresy, are formally discussed in his pages, in the most attractive manner too, with a maximum of argument and a minimum of facts.

This change is in a great measure owing to Mr. Dickens himself. In order to understand how it was brought about it is necessary to glance slightly at the literary history of the generation preceding his first appearance as an author.. The century opened with but poor prospects for novel readers. It was a night between two days. Fielding and Smollett had ceased to write; Sir Walter Scott had not yet written. The interval was feebly bridged over by writers of little note, and the public (who were determined to read novels) read novels of a degree of badness, more pretentious and more absurd than any that we shall find now-unless we expressly look for them. The Minerva Press was in full activity. We know what it means to say of a book that it reminds one of the productions of the Minerva Press. It is a short way of saying that the imagination runs riot; that scenes and characters are described without the faintest reference to probability: that it is steeped in a sickly sentimentalism and defaced by a miserable execution. But in 1814 Waverley appeared, and with it a completely new era. During the succeeding ten years, national and historical peculiarities took the place of gloomy over-wrought passion. To Miss Edgeworth belongs the credit of having inaugurated this wholesome change. It was the fame of her Irish characters-we have it on the authority of Sir Walter Scott himself-which rescued the manuscript of Waverley from the drawer in which it had laid so long forgotten among salmon-flies and night-lines, and

enriched the English language with a series of fictions unequalled for humor, plot, and dramatic skill. It is not surprising that descriptions of Scotch and Irish character should have proved attractive at a time when comparatively little was known either of Scotland or Ireland. Presently, however, the mania passed away, and a taste for Highland interiors yielded to a preference for the pictures of English homes. Miss Austen undertook to construct a novel out of the ordinary occurrences of every-day life. To write a book on the peculiarities of one's friends was not a bad idea, and, in her hands, it was certainly very pleasant reading. But even dinner-parties and country rectories become tedious after a while. It so happened, however, that an increasing number of rather idle people began, about this time, to feel an interest in social and political questions. The dreams of romance had been exchanged for the realities of the drawingroom; the realities of the drawing-room were about to give way to some of the sterner facts of out-door life. The stir of the Reform movement was at its height. Every where questions were being asked, changes advocated, abuses swept away. Even the novel-reading public caught the enthusiasm, for they saw an opening to a new kind of excitement. The diffusion of common knowledge had brought social questions within the ken of a large class who, fifteen years before, were, and were contented to be, perfectly ignorant of them. Clearly, all the conditions requisite for a highly popular treatment of politics were there-an interested public and unlimited means of communicating with them. Still, we doubt whether any one less gifted than Mr. Dickens, or with qualifications different to his, would have succeeded in inducing half England to read books which had anything to do with the Poor Laws or Chancery reform. He has certainly effected thus much, and we believe him to have been the main instrument in the change which has perverted the novel from a work of art to a platform for discussion and argument.

But this is only part of his originality. When he began to write, the life of the middle and lower classes had found no chronicler. The vagabonds of our London streets, the cabmen, the thieves, the

lodging house keepers, the hospitalnurses and waiters, with whom we are now so familiar, passed away unhonored and unmourned for want of a poet. Here was a mine of life and character which might have been profitably worked by a less skilful hand than Mr. Dickens. He entered into undisputed possession of it, and made it his own. This happy choice of subject has had much to do with his success. In his later works he has always mixed up with his unrivalled descriptions a serious element, or, to speak more strictly, he has made the descrip. tions themselves subservient to a moral or political purpose. It is but fair to say that this habit seems to have been gradually forced upon him by the character of his genius. There is no trace of it in his earliest work, the Sketches by Boz. There is only a faint trace of it in Pickwick. It appears more decidedly in Oliver Twist and Martin Chuzzlewit, and it arrives at maturity in Bleak House and Little Dorrit. In attempting to write with an object, Mr. Dickens has committed the very common error of mistaking the nature of his own powers. He possesses in high perfection many rare and valuable gifts. But he is in no sense, either as a writer or a thinker, qualified to cope with complicated interests.

What, then, are the qualities in which the secret of his influence truly lies? The first, the most important, and most distinctive is, without doubt, his humor.

It is often said that Mr. Dickens is a great humorist, but no wit. From this opinion we altogether dissent. His wit is not like that of Shakspeare or of Cowley or of Pope; it is not even that of Sydney Smith or of Hood; but it is wit nevertheless. It would be pedantic to attempt to define so volatile and changing a quality. By far the best description of it with which we are acquainted is contained in Barrow's Sermons.* "Its ways," says the learned Doctor, "are unaccountable and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and showeth things by) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness or conceit of expres

*Sermon xiv.

sion doth affect and amuse the fancy, | But Mrs. Gamp's picture of the imagistirring in it some wonder and breeding nary Tommy Harris, "with his small red some delight thereto." Barrow must be worsted shoe a-gurglin' in his throat, allowed to be an excellent judge of wit; where he had put it in his play, a chick, if there is any one on whose opinion we while they was leavin' of him on the should rely with greater confidence, it is floor a lookin' for it through the 'ouse, Addison. Addison quotes somewhere and him a choakin' sweetly in the parthe poet's saying, that his mistress' bosom lor "--is essentially witty. At least we is as white as snow: he maintains that can detect no difference in kind between there is no wit in this; but when, he re- the quality that delights ns in Mrs. Gamp marks, the poet adds, with a sigh, it is and the quality that delights us in Falas cold too, then the comparison grows staff. We believe it to be a great error into wit. The reason of the distinction to press the distinction between wit and is perfectly plain. The first simile is so humor to the extent that is usually done. obvious that any one can make it for They belong to the same family and are himself; it lies in the connection of two related, having some characteristic dif ideas related by so superficial an analogy férences. Such differences may be exthat it cannot possibly either affect or pressed in various ways. We may say amuse the fancy; but the second is more that wit resides chiefly in the expresremote, and coming upon us unexpect- sion: humor in the thought; that we edly, "stirs some wonder and breeds admire the former, and are amused by some delight." It would appear from the latter; that one depends on the asthe definition of Barrow, as well as from semblage of ideas which are congruous, the example of Addison, that whenever the other on the connection of ideas ideas are so put together that a feeling which are incongruous. But they agree of pleasurable surprise is aroused, we in flowing from a particular turn of have all that is necessary to constitute thought which enables a writer at once wit. It would be difficult to give many to surprise his hearers and to affect their examples of humor which did not include fancy; and if Mr. Dickens does not possuch a connection. It is true that in hu- sess that quality of mind, we do not mor there is something more: we are know who does. amused as well as surprised and delighted; but humor does not cease to be witty because it makes us laugh. When Mr. Pecksniff cannot remember the name of the fabulous animals who used to sing in the water, and one person suggests "swans," and another "oysters,' ," this is humor with as little admixture of wit as may be; there is nothing in the expression, the whole point lies in the juxtaposition of things so incongruous as a mermaid and an oyster. So with Mr. Weller's observation, that there is no use in calling a young woman a Venus or an angel-that you might as well call her a griffin, or a unicorn, or a king's arms at once: in this there is certainly what Barrow would describe as a pretty surprising uncouthness of expression; there is also a propriety in the thought as occurring to that particular speaker; but what strikes one most is the oddness in the relation of the ideas of a young lady and a king's arms. To borrow Addison's well-chosen expression, this grows into wit," but the passage is of course chiefly remarkable for its humor.

It must be admitted that he sometimes spoils both his wit and humor by putting them in the mouth of the wrong person. This arises from the fact that he often begins a book without having formed a clear notion of it as a whole. He introduces a character with no defined intention as to the use that is to be made of him. Hence in the progress of the story a man acts and talks in a manner for which our former experience of him has not prepared us. Dick Swiveller is an instance in point. We must assume that the history and conversational peculiarities of this young gentleman are known to our readers. His reflections on Miss Sally Brass are in themselves very good, but they are curiously out of place coming from the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollos. "It is no use asking the dragon," thought Dick one day, as he sat contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass. "I suspect if I asked any questions on that head our alliance would be at an end. I wonder whether she is a dragon, by the-by, or something in the mermaid line. She has

rather a scaly appearance. But mermaids are fond of looking at themselves in the glass, which she can't be. And they have a habit of combing their hair,

which she hasn't." *

Next to his wit and humor, the leading quality of Mr. Dickens's mind is undoubtedly his imagination. We should expect it to be so in a successful writer of fiction. But it is one thing to possess this power, and it is quite another thing to be possessed by it. And, with much submission to Mr. Ruskin, imagination is not exactly the most truth-telling faculty of the human mind even for the purposes of art. It sometimes misleads. It sometimes overpowers by its own brilliancy. Oftenest it destroys the effect of a whole by the prominence which it gives to subsidiary parts. Those in whose hands it produces the most striking ef fects use it as Prospero used Ariel. This is not at all the practice of Mr. Dickens. He abandons himself unreservedly to the guidance of fancy, and makes a point of giving complete liberty to his Spirit at the very commencement of its task. That this is owing in part to the great relative strength of his imagination we do not at all doubt; but it is chiefly due to the absence of controlling power. Throughout his writings there is no sense of government or of restraint. We miss altogether that nice sense of relation and fitness, artistic judgment, tact, taste, the faculty, by whatever name it may be called, which should sit, like olus, to temper and calm the spirits who are wildly struggling for expression in him, and by the aid of which

"Et premere, et laxas sciret dare jussus

habenas."

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aware of the circumstance; nor did he seem
to know that there was muffin on his knee.
"And how have they used you down.
stairs, sir?' asked the hostess.

"Their conduct has been such, my dear madam,' said Mr. Pecksniff, as I can never think of without emotion, or remember without a tear. Oh! Mrs. Todgers!'

"My goodness!' exclaimed that lady. 'How low you are in your spirits, sir.'

"I am a man, my dear madam,' said Mr. Pecksniff, shedding tears, and speaking with an imperfect articulation, but I am also a father. My feelings will not consent to be smothered like the young children in the Tower. They are grown up, and the more I press the bolster on them, the more they look round the corner of it.'

"He suddenly became conscious of the bit of muffin, and stared at it intently, shaking his head the while in a forlorn and imbecile manner, as if he regarded it as his evil genius, and mildly reproached it." *

The humor of this illustration is not marred by any feeling of incongruity, for Mr. Pecksniff has been sitting over his wine, and it is natural that his ideas should not flow with severely logical precision. So, in the case of the gentleman who remarks that "there is a poetry in wildness, and every alligator bask ing in the slime is himself an epic selfcontained" we are not offended by that, because it is said by an American. But when the thing illustrated is not separated or separable from other things, but stands to them in the relation of part to whole, its description must be kept strictly within the limits of likelihood, or the exaggeration will become evident by comparison with that which lies around and about it. In a series of disconnected sketches we can bear with

much improbability. Perhaps it was some feeling of this which led Mr. Dickens to start the idea of publishing his novels in monthly parts. It certainly suits his style. Pickwick is not even in structure a story, and many of its most admired scenes would scarcely be supported were they not seen to be fragments. But when he writes for the purpose of carrying out an idea, we have a right to expect some harmony and proportion. There are two parallel passages in Mr. Dickens's works which are very much in point, and which we shall quote, quite as much for the sake

* Martin Chuzzlewit, vol. i. pp. 15, 78.

of the passages themselves, which are admirable, as of the example. The first occurs in the Old Curiosity Shop. Nell, in the course of her wandering, has taken office under Mrs. Jarley, the owner of a travelling show of waxwork, and she is sent by that lady to. solicit the patronage of Miss Monflathers, who keeps a school for young ladies:

"You're the wax-work child, are you not?' said Miss Monflathers.

“'Yes, ma'am,' replied Nell, coloring deeply, for the young ladies had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed.

And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child,' said Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the young ladies, to be a wax-work child at all?'

"Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.

"Don't you know,' said Miss Monflathers, that it's very naughty and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation ?'

"The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this home thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard.

Don't you feel how naughty it is of you,' resumed Miss Monflathers, 'to be a waxwork child, when you might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of the steam-engine, and of earning a comfortable and independent subsistence of from two- and - ninepence to three shillings a week? Don't you know that the harder you work the happier you are?'"*

The second is from the first two chapters of Hard Times:

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Sissy is not a name,' said Mr. Gradgrind. Don't call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.'

66 6

"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir,' returned the young girl in a trembling voice. Then he has no business to do it,' said, Mr. Gradgrind. Tell him he mustn't, Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?"

"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.' Mr. Gradgrind frowned and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

"We don't want to know anything about that here. You mustn't tell us about that here. Your father breaks horses, don't

he?'

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"Very well then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.'

"(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)

"Girl No. 20 unable to define a horse!' said Mr. Gradgrind for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. Girl No. 20 possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals. Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.'

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Quadruped.

Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in spring; in marshy countries sheds hoofs also. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer. "Now girl No. 20,' said Mr. Gradgrind, you know what a horse is.'

"The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other people's too) a professed pugilist; always in training; always with a system to force down the general throat, like a bolus; always to be heard of at the bar of his little public office, ready to fight all England. He

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