From Blackwood's Magazine.
CHARLES DICKENS.

win Drood." We all said to each other that this was going to be a powerful story

But now

"CALL no man happy till he is dead."| one of his best, perhaps; we were on said the wise old heathens. It is still the outlook for the familiar delights, the more important that we should sum up no true Dickens vein, which we knew so well. man's greatness, and come to no definite The effect was flat, no doubt, and the efconclusion as to his fame, until that last fort severe; but perhaps we thought that great event has happened which separates was our own, the reader's, fault. Thus him softly yet suddenly from all the sec- faithfully does the British public, muchondary influences, from all the ephemeral maligned and sorely-tried audience, uppopularity of common life. It is not very hold the minstrel who has once got posseslong since most sensible people were sion of its ear. It stood by him with a moved with that curious mixture of sor- piteous fidelity to the last. row, shame, and unwilling amusement, Dickens, too, has come, like so many more which is called forth by any absurd exhi- to be a piece of history, and may be bition of self-importance or vanity by judged as the rest have been judged. For the record of the amazing reception given something between thirty and forty years to Mr. Dickens by the American people, or he has reigned and had his day. He has at least by those excitable classes who been adulated publicly and privately, as claim to represent that ill-used nation. (it is said) kings used to be adored. For If we remember rightly, the fact that a lifetime he was fed with praise, as well Dickens spoke our common language was as with that which is more substantial then proclaimed on both sides of the At- than praise. The fictitious people of his lantic as one of those often-referred-to making were received into the world as if bonds of union which ought to make New they had been a new tribe, and he their England and Old England one. The king. Honour, and riches, and a kind of sacred mother-tongue, which was spoken semi-royal power, were his. This great by Sarah Gamp and Betsy Prig, was to position he undoubtedly held in right of become an object of deeper sanctity to his genius alone, and retained it till he both of us from that hallowing connection; died. How he did this, how he managed and not Butler nor Bunkum, much less to get so high, and keep the height so Alabama claims or Fenians or Filibusters, long, and what he did for the world thus could break the charm which a Dickens breathed upon the great Anglo-Saxon world, which, if it was united in nothing else, was still united in its worship of his The world of fiction-or rather the genius. A hasty hearer might have sup- world of poetry and imagination — in posed it was Shakespeare of whom these which the dullest of us spend so many praises were spoken; but it was not. It hours, if not years, of our lives, has many was the author of "Pickwick," and "Cop- differing altitude and longitudes, and perfield," and (honour to Yankee impar- many variations of spiritual atmosphere. tiality!) "Chuzzlewit " - not by any It becomes narrow or large to us, low or means a Shakespeare, but yet a man exer- lofty, noble or mean, according as is the cising much real and a great deal of false guide we choose or find most congenial. influence on the world. People laughed There are some who lead us into a tragic in their sleeves at the big words of this Inferno, echoing with mortal groans and glorification; yet Dickens had his seat se- dark with misery; some into a stately cure in the national Walhalla, such as it Eden, all novel and splendid, with two fair is, and nobody dared to attempt to dis- primeval creatures in the midst; and some lodge him. When he appeared, crowds into the scenes we know the common thronged to hear and see him: when, after earth, which we recognize, and yet which a long interval of silence, he condescended is not the less enchanted ground. Of all to put forth the beginning of a story in the circles of imaginative creation, that of the old well-remembered green covers, Shakespeare is the widest, as it is the everybody rushed to read, to praise, and most largely impartial, the most divinely to admire, if they could. There is some- calm. It is a very world full of creatures thing half affecting, half ridiculous -- and good and evil, of everything the earth which shows in the very best light the contains the mean and miserable along grateful docility of the common mind-in with the noblest and highest. All are the eagerness with which the public tried there, great and small, because all are in to convince itself that it was charmed by nature. Butt here was but one Shakesthe opening of the fragment called "Ed-peare, and we do not compare the mere

subject to him during his reign, are interesting questions, to which we mean to try to give some satisfactory answer.

children of men with that son of the gods. I fort to cover the deficiency; but what he To come a long way farther down, there produces is sham, not real—it is maudlin, is much in the atmosphere of Scott which not pathetic. His highest ideal has a reflects that of Shakespeare. If there is quiver, as of semi-intoxication, in its voice; no great intellectual being towering over its virtue is smug, self-conscious, surroundcommon men, there is at least a full and ed by twittering choruses of praise. honest conception of the variations in that There is not even a woman among the gamut of humanity which strikes so high, many in his books that would bear putting and sinks into such depths profound. up by the side of the women who are to And in our own day we have still that live for ever; and how strangely wanting heritage of truth and nature. Thackeray, must be the man of genius who cannot so often miscalled cynic, though his pages frame one woman, at least, worth placing may be over-full of the easy victims of so- in the crowd where Una is! This is the cial satire, has not left us without more strange drawback, the one huge deficiency, than one noble testimony that mankind which must always limit the reputation can be as good, and simple, and honest, of the much-worshipped novelist. Mrs. and true, as it can be wicked, base, de- Gamp, no doubt, is great; but she will signing, and artful. This Shakespearian not serve our turn here. He has repretradition has come down to us through the sented with the most graphic and vivid changes of ages. In the eighteenth cen- clearness almost every grade of the species tury that time of universal crisis- Fool. He has painted ridiculous people, there was a fluttering and doubtfulness of silly people, selfish people, people occupied standards. Richardson, narrow in his hon- with one idea, oddities, eccentrics, a thouest inexperience, would have made a world sand varieties-but among all these has for us out of sublimities and fiends, lifting never once stumbled upon the simple, true, the ideal of humanity to the last taper- ideal woman, or any noble type of man. point of elevation; while, on the other Looking at his real power, his undeniable hand, manliness had like to become iden- genius, the wonderful fertility of his imtified with vice, had not Parson Adams agination, the spectator asks with a certain saved Fielding. But through all, the creed surprise, How is that he never fell upon of our best Makers has been that of our one such accidentally, as we do in the greatest Poet - which is, that the noble world? The wonder seems how he could are, at least, as possible as the mean; that miss it. But miss it he did, with the cuyou are as likely to find in your next rious persistency of those fate-directed neighbour a generous friendly Antonio as steps which are fain to enter into every a grasping Shylock; and that a man can- path but one. This is the first characternot truly picture the world of fact in the istic of Dickens among his compeers in world of art, without tracing at least as the world of literature. He has given us many beautiful images as he does base pictures as powerful, individualities as disones- nay, that the beauty, the goodness, tinct, as any have done. Perhaps he has the nobility, must imprint themselves on added to our common talk a larger number the record, amid all baser chronicles, or of side reflections from the thoughts and the record cannot be true. experiences of fictitious persons, than most writers even of equal power. But he has not created one character so close to us, yet so much above us, that we can feel him a positive gain to humanity.

Now, the curious thing in the works of Mr. Dickens is, that whereas he has added a flood of people to the population of the world, he has not added one to that lofty rank where dwell the best of humanity. Now, when we make this complaint and He has given us the most amusing fools | accusation against the novelist, we are by that this generation knows, the most no means setting up the ideal above the charmingly genial people in difficulties, real, or demanding of heaven and earth a the most intolerable and engaging of succession of Grandisons. Far be the bores. But he has scarcely left us one character which is above ridicule, or of which we think with a smile and a tear mingled, as it is the highest boast of your true humorist to mingle smiles and tears. Not to rise to any Shakespearian heights, there is not even such a light as Uncle Toby shining out of his pages; there is nothing like Thomas Newcome. He tries hard, and strains, and makes many an ef

thought from our mind: for one hero there must always be, no doubt, a hundred valets, with a variety and play of life among them such as many people can appreciate a great deal better than they could appreciate the bigger nature. Let us have the valets by all means; but the writer who can set only valets before us cannot be placed in the highest rank. It must be understood that the difference between

skimmed down, diluted, sweetened with the most anxious care. No cook nor chemist could be more solicitous about the due mixture of every element. The only thing that is deficient is the effect.

the mind which makes "the gentle lady wedded to the Moor" the central light in a picture, and the mind which places Mrs. Gamp in that position, is not a difference of degree, but one of kind. The latter may be amusing, versatile, brilliant, and It is a curious reflection, that perhaps full of genius, but it is clear that the best the most popular writer of the period he can do for his race is a best which is in- which is now closing the enchanter who finitely beneath the other. He knows of ruled over the youth of most of us, whose no hidden excellence, no new glory which supremacy at one time was scarcely conhe can bring out into the light of day; he tested, and who even now has lost but finds no stars in the half-discovered skies, little of his power- should be thus nor even the violet hidden by the mossy strangely incapable of entering into and stone. He can do a hundred other clever representing the higher phases of exand wonderful things, but this he cannot istence. His works, we all know, are works do; he has a bandage upon his eyes, a of the purest morality, inculcating only feebleness in his hands. He can identify benevolence, charity, and virtuous sentiand realize, and pour floods of laughing ments. Indeed, Mr. Dickens's genius is light upon all the lesser objects; but the not even superior to the popular prejudice central figure he cannot accomplish it is in favour of poetic justice: he likes to rebeyond his power. Iward his good people substantially, and to And we cannot but think that Dickens make the wicked ones very uncomfortable. himself must have been aware of his own But with all this, he does not bring us into limitation on this point. The struggle and good company. The society of the cleverstrain of which we are always aware in est of Cockney grooms- the most amusthe working out of his good characters, ing of monthly nurses- would not be shows something of that suppressed irrita- considered edifying in ordinary life. Were tion with which a workman struggles we condemned to it by any freak of foragainst his special imperfection. He is tune, we should feel ourselves deeply inangry that he cannot do it well, as some jured; and whether the large amount of others can; and he works himself up into it enforced upon us by our favourite novan excitement which he tries to believe is elist is much to the advantage of our taste creative passion, and heaps on accessories or manners as a nation, is a question and results with a hand which is almost worth considering. The genius which feverish in its eagerness. The curious ar- brought such an unlikely pair to the front tificial cadence of the speeches which are of the contemporary stage, and has kept meant to be impassioned-the explana- them there for something like a quarter tions which every one of his higher female of a century, is a very different matter. characters, for example, makes in meas- The difficulty of the task, and the extraured sentences, each exactly like the other, ordinary unsuitableness of the position, do at what is supposed the turning-point of but enhance the power of the creator: it is her existence, and in what are supposed infinitely clever in him, but is it quite as to be the accents of lofty and high-pitched good for us? If, as people say, society in feeling are the most curious instances many of its circles has taken a lower and of this strain and conscious effort. He coarser tone, may not the indifferent comworks himself up to it under the reader's pany we have all been keeping in books very eyes- he makes enormous prepara- have something to do with it? We think tions before he takes the leap: when he there is a great deal to be said on this sets himself in motion at length, it is with point; but we are timorous, and do not clenched hands and the veins swelling on feel equal to the task of charging upon his forehead and then he fails. This the worshipped Dickens any such social process is gone through almost in the same offence. He who has always preached the monotonous succession whenever he at- most amiable of sentiments-he who was tempts to strike any of the higher chords the first to find out the immense spiritual of life. The only thing real in it is the fail-power of the Christmas turkey-he who ure. In all the rest there is the strangest counterfeit air, and a consciousness of the sham which is as apparent to the writer as to the reader: the passion is stirred up and foamed and frothed, with always some new ingredient thrown in at the last moment in very desperation; the pathos is

has given us so many wonderful instances of sudden conversion from cruelty and unkindness to the most beaming, not to say maudlin, amiability, shall we venture to say of him that his influence has not been of an elevating order? We shrink from the undertaking. But still we venture to

repeat, it is a curious fact that this most | philosophy; and he is apt to endow it with influential writer has brought his readers a preternatural cleverness which makes all into a great deal of very indifferent com- training and instruction unnecessary; but pany, and has not left to us to neutralize it a single potential image of the elevated or the great-nay, has left us nothing but the weakest, sloppiest, maudlin exhibitions of goodness, big in complacency, but poor in every other point.

with what certainty, swiftness, and freedom does he play its quaint original light over the surface of men and things! what a command he has of its odd reflective power, its curious scraps of knowledge, its easy good-nature and tolerance-a tolerance which means close acquaintance with many kinds of evil! The fulness and clearness of this knowledge nobody can doubt; though, on the other hand, it is less apparent how conventional and superficial it is: even here Dickens does not go deep. His instinct leads him to keep on the surface.

There is more true insight

in half-a-dozen lines which we could select here and there from other writers as to the effects of street education than in all Sam Weller.

This, however, which is the worst we can say of Dickens in one particular, is the very highest in another. Those beings whom he has invented or brought out of obscurity have no natural claim to our interest, no attraction to bring them to us, not even any force of natural sympathy to give them power. By what strange gift is it that he captivates us to Sam Weller, and calls up a gleam upon the gravest countenance at the very name of Mrs. Gamp? Their truth to nature, some critics will answer: but this nature has Nevertheless, Sam Weller is not only nothing that is delightful in it; it is repul- true, but original. There is no tragic side sive, not attractive. Mrs. Gamp in real to him. There is no real tragic side, inlife would be hateful, tedious, and disgust-deed, to any of the Dickens characters. ing yet there is not a beautiful lady in And Dickens, perhaps, is the only great creation whose company we like better in artist of whom this can be said; for to print. How is it? Even when, as a ques- most creative minds there is a charm indetion of art, we disapprove, the furtive scribable in the contact of human characsmile steals to the corner of our mouth. ter with the profounder difficulties of life. This can be nothing but genius, that vivi- As instinctive sense of his own weakness, fying and creative principle which not however, keeps him as far as possible only makes something out of nothing, but from these problems. And his Sam is the which communicates qualities to a bit of most light-hearted hero, perhaps, that has dull clay of which in itself it is utterly un- ever been put npon canvas. He is the conscious genius which we are labouring very impersonation of easy conscious skill to define without growing much the wiser, and cleverness. He has never met with but which we can no more refuse to be in- anything in his career that he could not fluenced by, than we can deny the evi- give a good account of. Life is all abovedence of our senses. In this power of in- board with him, straightforward, jovial, on teresting his readers, Dickens does not the surface. He stands in the midst of even take such help of nature as other the confusion of the picture in very much great artists have been glad to use. There the same position which the author himis no story, no touch of natural emotion, self assumes. He is the Deus ex machina, to dispel our prejudices and bring near to the spectator of everybody's mistakes and us the strangely-chosen creature of our failures a kind of laughing providence author's predilections. What he does, he to set everything right. Sam's position in does by sheer force of genius, scorning all the "Pickwick Papers " is one of the great auxiliaries, and his success is complete. marvels in English art. It is the first act His conception of the keen illiterate of the revolution which Mr. Dickens acCockney mind, sharpened by contact with complished in his literary sphere - the that life which abounds in the London new system which has brought those upperstreets, is as clear and sure as are those most who were subordinate according to streets themselves which he can see; his the old canons. This ostler from the City, glance goes through and through it with a this groom picked up from the pavement, divination more full than knowledge. Per- is, without doubt or controversy, everyhaps his consciousness of the influences which widen and light it up, is more vivid than that of those which cramp and limit such an intelligence; he never ventures to go deep enough to bring it face to face with any problem beyond the reach of its

body's master in the story of which he is the centre. When the whole little community in the book is puzzled, Sam's cleverness cuts the knot. It is he who always sees what to do, who keeps everybody else in order. He even combines with his rôle

of all-accomplished serving-man the other it is true, but he has a great mind to weep: role of jeune premier, and retains his supe- he sneers sometimes, but it is because his riority all through the book, at once in heart grows hot as he watches the pranks philosophy and practical insight, in love that men play before high heaven. But and war. the author of "Pickwick" cares not a straw what fools his puppets make of themselves; the more foolish they are, the more he laughs at their absurdity. He is too goodhumoured, too full of cheerful levity and the sense of mischief, to think of their lies and brags and vanity as anything vile and blamable; they are so funny, that he forgets everything else. His characters go tumbling about the world as the clown and pantaloon do in the midst of those immemorial immoralities of the pantomime

The "Pickwick Papers" stands by itself among its author's works; and as the first work of a young man, it is, we think, unique in literature, Other writers have professed to write novels without a hero: Dickens, so far as we are aware, is the only one who, without making any profession, has accomplished that same. To be sure, "Pickwick" is not, in the ordinary sense of the word, a novel, and yet it would be hard to classify it in any other list. Strangest of books! which introduces us to a the ever-successful tricks and cheats in set of people, young men and old, women which we all find once a-year an unsophisand girls, figures intended to represent the ticated pleasure. In short, the atmosphere usual strain of flesh and blood-in order of " Pickwick" is more like that of a panthat we may laugh at them all! There is tomime than of any other region we know. a horrible impartiality, a good-humoured Mr. Jingle, who is the villain, and has to universal malice, running through the be punished and reformed after a fashion whole. The author stands in the midst, in Mr. Dickens's favourite harlequin-wand half himself, half revealed in the person manner of reformatior, is a respectable of his favourite Sam, and looks at the character, with a purpose, beside Mr. world he has created, and holds his sides. Winkle, who is the veriest braggart, cheat, He does not even feel contempt, to speak and sneak that ever was introduced into of he feels nothing but what fun it is to fiction. Yet the very funniest scenes in see so many fools disporting themselves the book, those which the chance reader according to their folly. There is, as we turns to by instinct, are the narratives of have said, a horrible impartiality in it. Mr. Winkle's exploits, though he is one of Other writers have preserved a little re- the foremost walking gentlemen, lover, and spect, a little sympathy, for the lovers, at in a manner hero of the piece. Sam Welleast -a little feeling that youth must ler, who picks him up with his unlucky have something fine in it, and that the gal- skates on, and takes care of his equally lant and the maiden have a right to their unlucky gun, is, like the author, too merry pedestal. But not so Dickens: the delight over it, to feel any sort of indignation with which in this book he displays all the against Mr. Winkle. The two burst with ridiculousness and inherent absurdity private laughter aside, and find it the best which he finds in life, is like the indiscrim- fun! inate fun of a schoolboy who shouts with The extreme youthfulness of this treatmirth at everything which can by any ment is visible even in the more serious means be made an occasion of laughter, parts of the book, if anything in it can be without acknowledging any restraint of called serious. Mr. Pickwick himself is natural reverence or decorum. In "Pick- just the kind of bland old gentleman, with wick," the work is that of a man of genius, money always ready in his 'old-fashioned but the spirit is almost always that of a breeches-pocket to make up for all defimischievous innocent schoolboy. When ciencies, and an everlasting disposition to the great contemporary and rival of Dick- meddle and set everything right, who is too ens produced his first great work, all the apt to be a schoolboy's ideal: an old fellow virtuous world rose up and condemned the who may be freely laughed at, but whose cynicism of "Vanity Fair;" but nobody credulity is as unbounded as the funds at has ever said a word about the cynicism of his disposal, and who is delightfully ready "Pickwick;" and yet, to our thinking, the to be hoaxed, and falls by himself, almost one is a hundred times more apparent than too naturally, into the pitfalls of practical the other. "Vanity Fair" is a book full joking. It is, perhaps, the perfect goodof deep and tragic meaning, of profound humour of this view of life which keeps it feeling and sentiment, which crop up from being assailed as cynical. For it is through the fun, and are ever present, thoroughly good-humoured, by dint of bethough so seldom expressed. The histo- ing absolutely indifferent. There is the rian, story-teller, social philosopher, laughs,' same large toleration in it which we have

LIVING AGE.

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