is a grotesque monster, an impossible incarnation | covert and convenient seeming," and to enjoy the of fiendish attributes. Yet the plots hatched by humor with which the adventures of this "false this strange wretch, with Sampson and Sally and simular man of virtue" are described, without Brass, have some attractions for the taste that has critically and nicely examining under what catelearned to be pleased with Sikes and Fagin. But gory he ought to be placed. We cannot help how shall we characterize Dick Swiveller? or observing, however, in passing, that the world, fathom the fan that lurks in his tipsy gravity, his already suspicious enough, has no great need to delicious mock heroics, his "prodigious talent in be put on its guard against deliberate hypocrisy, quotations?" How can we remember gravely his and that the conscious and crafty hypocrite is not despondency when eclipsed by the market-garden- very likely to profit by the exhibition of himself. er, which he soothes by playing "Away with It would be a more useful task for the novelist to Melancholy" on the flute all night; his adventures expose with kindness and candor that unconscious with the small servant, and his happy discovery hypocrisy, the right name of which is inconsisthat "there had been a young lady saving up for tency, and which is practised, perhaps, by all men him after all." But we fear that the inimitable in a greater or less degree, and certainly by multiDick is a dangerous character, for his vices are tudes who are perfectly sincere, but whose practice, forgotten or even loved in the excessive diversion for want of self-discipline and self-control, does not he affords us. keep pace with their principles-who are worse than they think themselves, but better than their captious enemies would make them out to be. What train of villanous shapes have we next crossing the stage like a dance of the seven deadly sins? The chief actors in " Barnaby Rudge." The polished, selfish, unprincipled Sir John Chester, the detestable hypocrite Gashford, the murderer Rudge, the savage Hugh, the vile hangman Dennis, the contemptible but wicked Sim Tappertit, and the loathsome Stagg-a goodly regiment. They are brought before us again and again with tedious repetition, and the horrors of the riot of 1780 are detailed with sickening minuteness and interminable length, under pretence of teaching a useful lesson against religious cry." Mr. Dickens is as little at home on the ground of history and philosophical politics, as on that of natural scenery and rustic manners. There is little in the other characters to relieve the monstrous tissue of horror and villany. Indeed, Barnaby's raven, Grip, is much the most sensible and spirited personage in the whole piece. The tale has certainly some redeeming points; but it dragged its slow length along from week to week, until the public, and we dare say, the author too, were heartily sick of it. 66 a In the "Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit," Mr. Dickens has a more definite and important moral aim, which is to expose the vice of selfishness in various forms, and, in some cases, exhibit its cure. In his hero, young Martin, he has been very successful, and has drawn a most instructive character. He is represented as a young man possessed of many good qualities, and capable of strong and permanent attachments; but so habitually selfish, that even in friendship and love he regards his own comforts, his own wishes, and his own sacrifices-for he can make sacrifices-exclusively. There is great merit in the development of this feature of Martin's character, and in the interest the reader is made to take in it, and in its discovery and cure, although the principles upon which his conversion takes place are not very intelligible or satisfactory. Mr. Pecksniff, the sentimental hypocrite, may be intended for a portrait, but is undoubtedly a caricature. The author may have meant to draw a probable and consistent person to represent a class, like Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Nickleby; but, if so, he has failed, chiefly because he has of late spoiled his hand for so delicate a task, by drawing Quilps and Dennises, and Sim Tappertits. But we are content to accept Mr. Pecksniff with his "moral crackers," as a grotesque exaggeration of a very amusing kind, tending to deepen our horror at the knavery which hides itself" under Tom Pinch is placed at the opposite pole of the moral world from Pecksniff, and is the most simple-hearted, unselfish, affectionate creature imaginable. He is devotedly attached to his master Pecksniff, whom he believes to be his benefactor, and to be all that he pretends to be. He "steeps the Pecksniff of his fancy in his tea, and spreads him out upon his toast, and takes him as a relish with his beer," and is supremely happy in his credulous dream. But the truth is flashed on him by one unequivocal circumstance, and then he suffers acutely. "His compass was broken, his chart was destroyed, his chronometer had stopped; his masts were gone by the board, his anchor was adrift (?) ten thousand leagues away."-P. 371. But his sister Ruth is presently committed to his charge, and "now that he had somebody to rely upon him, he was stimulated to rely a little more upon himself," and his blundering honesty bears him through. There are some charming scenes between Ruth Pinch, her lover John Westlock, and her simple-hearted brother; and we fancy we see her sticking a sprig of geranium in Tom's button hole, which she is obliged to fasten there, because otherwise "the dear old fellow would be sure to lose it." Tom Pinch teaches us many a quiet and useful lesson of self-denial, cheerfulness, and kind considerateness; but certainly more by his example than by the stilted and scarcely intelligible jargon in which the author sometimes pauses to apostrophize him. Such efforts as the following to moralize his tale," remind us not a little of the "moral crackers" which he puts into the mouth of his Pecksniff, and teem with every possible fault of composition. "There are some falsehoods, Tom, on which men mount as on bright wings towards heaven. There are some truths, cold, bitter, taunting truths, wherein your worldly scholars are very apt and punetual, which bind men down to earth with leaden chains. Who would not rather have to fan him in his dying hour, the lightest feather of a falsehood such as thine, than all the quills that have been plucked from the sharp porcupine, reproachful truth, since the world began?"-P. 162. Tom, Tom, the man in all this world most confident in his sagacity and shrewdness; the man in all this world most proud of his distrust of other men, and having most to show in gold and silver as the gains belonging to his creed; the meekest favorer of that wise doctrine, 'every man for him- | alties which furnish him employment. Surely self, and God for us all,' (there being high wisdom Mr. Mould is as well entitled to feel satisfaction in the thought that the eternal Majesty of heaven in earning his bread honestly and usefully, as the ever was, or can be, on the side of selfish lust and lawyer is, who grows rich because men quarrel love!) shall never find-oh never find, be sure of and oppress; or the physician, who thrives bethat, the time come home to him when all his wis- cause they grow ill and die; or the novelist, who dom is an idiot's folly weighed against a simple amasses wealth and fame, because the rich have heart."-P. 462. their foibles, and the poor their distresses. Jonas Chuzzlewit is scarcely worthy even of the pencil that drew Sikes, and Quilp, and Sir Mulberry Hawk. He is a mean, cowardly villain, with no speck of goodness for the eye to rest on, without one redeeming quality-for even his craven fear cannot awaken the sympathy of the reader. He is too hideous and revolting an incarnation of evil. The account of his misdeeds and evil qualities composes one of the most monstrous dishes on which an undiscriminating public ever concentrated. They have no connexion with "supped full with horrors." Not but that there is often much power in the delineation. Mr. Dickens cannot write feebly: for instance, how much truth is there in the description of the murderer's conduct when he first meets his family after the crime "In his secret dread of meeting his household for the first time after what he had done, he lingered at the door on slight pretexts, that they might see him without looking in his face; and left it ajar while he dressed, and called out to have the windows opened, and the pavement watered, that they might become accustomed to his voice." -p. 489. Nothing can be more clumsy than the plot which leads to the death of this worthy. He thinks that he murdered his father, although he did not; he murders his associate in other villanies to prevent him revealing this fact, which, however, is known to others, and is not true after all. A great deal of machinery is employed to prove him guilty of his father's death, which is instantly disproved; the real murder, however, committed solely to conceal the imaginary one, is brought home to him, and in his vexation and despair he attempts to cut his throat, but has not courage to do it, and immediately after swallows poison. We must also find fault with the American scenes, clever and amusing as they are. These chapters are an unaccountable excrescence, and while they add to the bulk, mar the unity and effect of the book as a work of art. They are, in fact, a book of travels dramatized, and not in the best or most candid spirit; they form a new and more pungent edition of the American Notes, but with only the harshest censures distilled over and the rest of the story, although at first we imagined it might be the intention of the author to trace the influence of selfishness in disfiguring a national character. In a series of figures with ugly names, Diver, Scadder, Chollop, Pogram, and several others, the well known faults of social life in the United States are powerfully, but somewhat too coarsely, and bitterly satirized; and then these personages vanish finally from the stage. There is much clever description throughout the book, but our limits do not admit of many quotations. We may instance the opening scene and the amusing personification of the wind and its gambols. One paragraph we may quote: "It was small tyranny for a respectable wind to go wreaking its vengeance on such poor creatures as the fallen leaves; but this wind, happening to come up with a great heap of them just after venting its humor on the insulted dragon, did so disperse and scatter them, that they fled away, pellmell, some here, some there, rolling over each other, whirling round and round upon their thin edges, taking frantic flights into the air, and playing all manner of extraordinary gambols in the extremity of their distress. Nor was this enough for its malicious fury; for, not content with driving them abroad, it charged small parties of them, and hunted them into the wheelwright's Revolting as Jonas is, he is not so offensive and saw-pit, and below the planks and timbers in the intolerable a personage as Sarah Gamp, a mid-yard, and, scattering the saw-dust in the air, it wife, or monthly nurse," in whom the selfish-looked for them underneath, and when it did ness and greediness of attendants on the sick are meet with any, whew! how it drove them on and coarsely satirized. Her dialect is doubtless copied followed at their heels!" very faithfully from nature, but her cue is to entertain the reader with a succession of jests, the point of which always lies in sly allusions to the events and secrets of her particular calling. She seems such a favorite of the author that we meet her at every turn, even in the preface, till we are almost provoked to laugh in spite of our disgust. 66 The author, as usual, luxuriates in the delineation of vulgar people, and in the imitation of the London dialects and idioms. We have not space to criticize minutely this part of the work; yet we cannot pass without observation, a very uncalled for, and, we will say, unfeeling attack on a respectable class of tradesmen, in the person of Mr. Mould the undertaker. He is satirized, not for any individual vices, but for the unavoidable peculiarities of his indispensable craft. His offences are, that when conducting funerals, he wears a grave, serious countenance, (ah, hypocrite!) although feeling no real sorrow, and that he is happy and comfortable in a thriving business, (ah, selfish wretch!) in spite of the mournful casu 66 Being by this time weary of such trifling performances, the boisterous rover hurried away rejoicing, roaming over moor and meadow, hill and flat, until it got out to sea, where it met with other winds similarly disposed, and made a night of it.”—Pp. 7, 8. The storm at page 488 is also finely imagined, and the following extract from the description is an exquisite piece of fancy: "The heavy rain beat down the tender branches of vine and jessamine, and trampled on them in its fury; and when the lightning gleamed, it showed the tearful leaves shivering and cowering together at the window, and tapping at it urgently, as if beseeching to be sheltered from the dismal night." P. 489. *The shrewd suggestion of Mr. Weller, senior, seems not to have been thrown away upon the author himselflet him come back and write a book about the 'Merri"Have a passage ready taken for 'Merriker; and then kins, as 'll pay all his expenses and more, if he blows 'em up enough."-Pickwick Papers, p. 485. The following is not a bad imitation of Sterne :- - work." "A Dragon man came stamping up the stairs cumstance." and made a roguish bow to Tom (to whom in common times he would have nodded with a grin) as though he were aware of what had happened, and wished him to perceive it made no difference in him. It was clumsily done; he was a mere waterer of horses; but Tom liked the man for it, and felt it more than going away."-P. 377. It is however in incident and character that Mr. Dickens excels; we have just room to insert his portrait of Mr. Pecksniff, which is no bad speci-ously against the rules of grammar; catching the men of some of the faults as well as merits of his present style: "It was a monstrous comfortable cir"Martin was monstrous well-disposed to regard his position in that light," and so on. It is surely improper for an author of established reputation to give his sanction to this vicious habit of speaking, which naturally leads to an exaggerated way of viewing trivial things; and he ought not to degrade these important words from their appropriate functions to the performance of the meanest services in a light and laughing page. But he goes further, and offends grievinfection from his own actors, he adopts their forms of expression, and offends the shade of "It has been remarked that Mr. Pecksniff was Lindley Murray with such barbarisms as It had a moral man. So he was. Perhaps there never not been painted or papered, had n't Todgers', was a more moral man than Mr. Pecksuiff; es- past the memory of man." "She was the most pecially in his conversation and correspondence. artless creature, was the youngest Miss Pecksniff." It was once said of him by a homely admirer, that" Nature played them off against each other; they he had a Fortunatus' purse of good sentiments in had no hand in it, the two Miss Pecksniffs." Inhis inside. In this particular he was like the girl in deed, Mr. Dickens seems often purposely to cast the fairy tale, except that, if they were not actual his language into the mould of the vulgar characdiamonds which fell from his lips, they were the ters he represents, and as it were, to fondle their very brightest paste, and shone prodigiously. He phrases, idioms, and ideas. He makes occasional was a most exemplary man; fuller of virtuous use of the interjections "bless you!" "heaven precepts than a copy-book. Some people likened knows!" &c. He speaks of a place where "black him to a direction post which is always telling the beetles got mouldy and had the shine taken out of way to a place and never goes there; but these their backs by envious mildew;" of a grimace of were his enemies-the shadows cast by his bright- Master Bailey as an easy, horse-fleshy, turfy, ness; that was all. His very throat was moral. sort of thing to do;" of a boorish action at a You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a Yankee table as having "a juiciness about it that very low fence of white cravat, (whereof no man might have sickened a scavenger," and thus dehad ever beheld the tie, for he fastened it behind,) scribes the Miss Pecksniffs' contrast of character:and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say on the part of Mr. Pecksniff, There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen; all is peace: a holy calm pervades me.' So did his hair, just grizzled with an iron-gray, which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower, and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, Behold the moral Pecksniff.""—P. 10. เ 66 "To behold each damsel in the very admiration of her sister, setting up in business for herself on an entirely different principle, and announcing no connexion with over the way, and if the quality of goods at that establishment don't please you, you are respectfully invited to favor ME with a call."-P. 10. · 66 It is impossible not to contrast this style with that of Sir Walter Scott, who, in the homeliest scenes, and amidst the lowest company, never allows us to forget the difference between the gentleman who is narrating and the persons of whom he tells, and whose own allusions, similes, and even jokes, are refreshing and instructive, because deeply imbued with his rich store of historical and literary knowledge. Slang, also, seems to come naturally to his lips, for he founds a cumbrous joke in the first chapter on the words my uncle, and gives his readers credit for knowing them to be slang for the pawnbroker; he describes some young ladies as having, "in the figurative language of the day, a great amount of steam to dispose of;" and Mr. Pecksniff as getting a bruise" on what is called by fancy We said the faults of the present style of Mr. gentlemen the bark' on his shin;" and the head Dickens; and certainly no one can read even a of one of his American heroes as shaking involsingle chapter of Martin Chuzzlewit without per-untarily, as if it would have said, in the vulgar ceiving a very striking declension from the purity tongue, on its own account, no go." and unassuming excellence which marked his earlier compositions. This is apparent, first, in various impurities of expression, and even some gross offences against the English language. For instance, many words, in themselves good and classical, are used in such a collocation, that to make any sense of them at all, we must suppose that the author has imported some new meaning of them from America during his transatlantic trip. Thus, we have impracticable nightcaps, impossible tables and exploded chests of drawers, mad closets, inscrutable harpsichords, undeniable chins, highly geological home-made cakes, remote suggestions of tobacco lingering within a spittoon, and the recesses and vacations of a toothpick. Then again we have the pages bristling over with various strong words employed in their improper colloquial usage-such as tremendous, terrible, monstrous, desperate, frightful, awful, horrid, horrible, unearthly, appalling, dreadful, enormous. "No doubt a tremendous fellow to get through his The deterioration of style is further observable in the descriptions. Mr. Dickens was always famed for giving life to inanimate scenes, and caching the little characteristic traits of conduct and character; but he now carries minute description to an excess that sometimes, indeed, degenerates into mere extravagance-his interiors are often inventories rather than pictures. Here is one "The drawing-room at Todgers' was out of the common style; so much so indeed, that you would hardly have taken it to be a drawing-room, unless. you were told so by some one who was in the se cret. It was floor-clothed all over, and the ceiling, including a great beam in the centre, was papered. Besides the three little windows, with seats in them, commanding the opposite archway," there was another window looking point blank, without any compromise at all about it, into Jinkins' bed-room; and high up, all along one side of the wall, was a strip of panes of glass, two deep, giving light to the staircase. There were the oddest closets possible, with little casements in them like eight day clocks, lurking in the wainscot, and tak-leaves-as if these senseless things rejected and ing the shape of the stairs, and the very door itself (which was painted black) had two great glass eyes in its forehead with an inquisitive green pupil in the middle of each."-P. 109. Mr. Fip's office is portrayed with similar minuteness, and the author especially chronicles "A great black sprawling splash upon the floor, in one corner, as if some old clerk had cut his throat there years ago, and had let out ink instead of blood."-P. 457. In another place are pointed out— "Very mountebanks of two-pronged forks, which seemed to be trying how far asunder they could possibly stretch their legs, without converting themselves into double the number of iron toothpicks."-P. 461. ling the very flies that were thickly sprinkled al Mr. Dickens never trusts to a vigorous sketch, or a few characteristic touches; he accomplishes his purpose by minute description and copious dialogue, and leaves no work for the imagination of the reader. This leads us to observe, that the vast popularity of these works may, perhaps, in some degree be owing to the indolence of the reading public, and that the very clever "illustrations" which accompany them all, may have contributed greatly to their success. No reader need ever task his mind's eye to form a picture corresponding to the full description; he has but to turn the After the interior of a tavern has been elabor-page, and there stands the Pickwick, Pecksniff, ately described, the window is thus disposed of:-or Tom Pinch, embodied to his hand, and kindly "It was a little below the pavement, and abut-saving him the labor of thought. ted close upon it, so that passengers grated on the It is not much to be wondered at that, in such window-panes with their buttons, and scraped it with their baskets; and fearful boys suddenly coming between a thoughtful guest and the light, derided him, or put out their tongues as if he were a physician, or made white knobs on the end of their noses by flattening the same against the glass, and vanished awfully like spectres.”—P. 412. long works, with his fondness for minute delineation, and with his limited range of scenery and class of actors, Mr. Dickens should be apt, in describing places and the every-day incidents of life, to repeat himself. We have much sameness in many of the street scenes in London, and in the interiors of taverns and solicitors' offices; and the wretched effects of intoxication form a very frequent subject for the pencil. In this work we have the drunken humors of Jonas, and Chevy Slime, and Mr. Pecksniff, and Mrs. Gamp, and more if we could recall them. There is a more amusing instance of repetition-for the pleasant diversion of kissing is very circumstantially depicted no less than nine times, perhaps oftener: we have Martin kissing Mary in the park; Mark kissing Mrs. Lupin; Pecksniff kissing Mary; Martin kissing Mary in Pecksniff's parlor; John Westlock kissing Ruth; Martin kissing Mary the third time; and so on. The frequent recurrence of such ludicrous minuteness in the trivial descriptive details induces us to compare Mr. Dickens' style of delineation to a photographic landscape. There, everything within the field of view is copied with unfailing but mechanical fidelity. Not a leaf, or stone, or nail is wanting, or out of place; the very bird is arrested as it flits across the sky. But, then, the imitating agent takes exactly the same pains with the dunghill and the gutter, as with the palace and the forest tree; and it is as busy with the latchet of the shoe, and the pattern of the waistcoat, as with the noble features of the human face. Mr. Dickens' pencil is often as faithful, and not more The deterioration of style extends even to what discriminating. He lavishes as much attention on are intended as the lighter graces of the composiwhat is trivial or useless as on the more important tion. We could not have supposed it possible parts of the picture, as if he could not help paint-that Mr. Dickens could have ornamented any work ing everything with equal exactness. Neglecting of his with such pieces of wit, such miserable puns, the effective outline, the charm of harmonious as he has thickly scattered through Martin Chuzgrouping, and of contrasted light and shade, he zlewit. As when he tells us that " Mr. Pecksniff crowds his canvass with figures, and notes the very was a land-surveyor on a pretty extensive scale, as hat, and neckcloth, and coat buttons of each; an extensive prospect was stretched out before the dwelling upon his city scenes, whether connected windows of his house;" and facetiously observes, or not with the business in hand, till he has enu- in sketching Mr. Montague Tigg, "in respect of merated the tables and chairs, and even counted his dress, he could hardly be said to be in any exthe panes of glass. There is no judicious perspec-tremities, as his fingers were a long way out of his tive, and withdrawing from view of disagreeable gloves, and the soles of his feet were at an inconparticulars. We stand as close to the most offensive object, and see its details as nakedly, as if it was the most agreeable. Thus, when Tigg is murdered by Jonas, the author affects not to de:scribe the actual deed of blood, but, in the reflections of the murderer afterwards, he thrusts on us the most revolting details. He paints the criminal "in fancy approaching the dead body, and start . venient distance from the upper leather of his shoes ;" and talks of a lady with "what might be termed an exciseable face, or one in which starch and vinegar were decidedly employed." These examples, however, are quite eclipsed by this extravagant piece of silliness in describing Mr. Moddle : "He is very frail and tearful, for being aware that a shepherd's mission was to pipe to his flocks, and that a boatswain's mission was to pipe all hands, and that one man's mission was to be a paid piper, and another man's mission was to pay the piper; so he had got it into his head that his own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye."-P. 382. There is, in fact, a continual straining after merriment and facetious remark, as if the natural buoyancy and fun of the writer had been unable to keep pace with the frequently recurring demands on his pen. He has recourse sometimes to irony; but that he fails in that figure of speech will be evident from the following not unfair specimens:"The great American eagle, which is always airing itself sky-high in purest ether, and neverno, never, never, never tumbles down with draggled wings into the mud."-P. 385. "The great discovery made by the ancient philosopher for securing health, riches, and wisdom; the infallibility of which has been for generations verified by the enormous fortunes constantly amassed by chimney-sweepers and other persons who get up early and go to bed betimes." Our quotations have shown, what might be verified by fifty more, that many parts of this work are composed in the most careless and even slovenly manner; bearing evident marks of having been written, as it were, at a canter, by a man of consummate ability, with great exuberance of spirits, but sometimes affecting an unnatural vivacity that he may hide an occasional flagging, perfectly familiar with all the habits and modes of speech of certain classes of society, well able to catch with fidelity the tone of dialogue appropriate to various situations, with good intentions in the main, but rendered confident, careless, and somewhat presumptuous, by the unexampled brilliancy of his success. derers: and where is his scene most frequently laid, but in their haunts of vulgar revelry or dens of profligacy and crime? Such scenes and characters he dwells upon, until we are intimate with all the details. It has been attempted as an apology by his admirers, that, besides the ability with which he writes, and the witty humor of his characters, he paints very delicately, and withdraws what is offensive, so that the most sensitive cheek need not blush over his writings. We do not accept this apology. Are not the gross language and revolting manners of the vicious, one of the most useful safeguards to virtue? Shall we say that "vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness?" Is it not rather our daily experience that we more easily catch the tone and tolerate the vices of those with whom we associate, if they are refined and polite as well as witty and entertaining? Shall we then applaud him who takes away our safeguard, and leads us habitually to think of vice without the repulsiveness that should ever belong to it? We do not say that the chief evil to be apprehended from Mr. Dickens' works is, that they will teach people, at least of the higher ranks, to commit crimes. Yet it is not impossible that they may give suggestions to vice. There is a story of a Roman Catholic hostler, who, on going one day to confession, was asked by the priest if he ever greased his horses' teeth to prevent them eating their corn. He answered that he never did; but the next time he confessed himself this was among the number of his sins. On the priest expressing his astonishment, the poor fellow replied, "I never thought of it till your worship put it in my head." Now, in the same way, we will not undertake to say that some may not have imbibed a lesson of callous dissimulation from Sir John Chester, or learned to " pass the rosy" with Dick Swiveller, or to go a "fogle-hunting" with the Artful Dodger. The chief evil, however, undoubtedly is, that the perceptions of moral purity are blunted, exactly as when we mix in company with profligate persons of wit and agreeable manners; the delicate sense of right and wrong, and the instinctive feeling of honor and propriety are lost; the blush ceases to rise spontaneous on the female cheek at a coarse jest or depraved allusion; and vice can be made a subject of merriment in place of causing sorrow and indignation. The voice of true wisdom will tell us to be averse to all such objects of contemplation as abound in these volumes, to forbid our imaginations to dwell on what is degraded and impure, however conveyed, and rather to occupy our thoughts with habitual study of the qualities and actions of the noble and pious, which will enable us to imbibe their spirit and follow their example. We must now glance at the moral tendency of these works. For it ought never to be forgotten that the able novelist exercises great power in moulding the feelings and judgment of his readers. He is like the physician in the Eastern tale, whose royal master disliked the disagreeable process of swallowing drugs, and who accordingly fell upon the expedient of administering medicine to him in the handle of a racket. As the medicine, unknown to the patient, entered the pores of his body while his hand was heated by exercise, so instruction and health may flow into the mind when it seeks only to relax itself by congenial amusement. But, in the hands of a careless or unskilful physician, the same hours of relaxation may become the occasion of impairing its vigor and planting disease in its constitution. A good moralist would surely tell us, that an intimate acquaintance with the haunts of profligacy and crime, and a minute knowledge of the habits of life, modes of speech, and turns of thought of the degraded, the vicious, In estimating the probable effects of these and the brutal, must be injurious to a high tone writings of Mr. Dickens, we must remember that, of virtuous feeling. The judicious parent will not in the shape of plays, they have been represented allow his children to mix with persons of vicious at most of the theatres in the country. In this habits, or of mean and dishonest propensities. process of transmutation the better and more sober The youth deems it a high privilege to be admit- parts necessarily disappear, and the striking figted to the society of the well-bred, the pure, theures, amusing low life, smart vulgar conversation, high-minded. Our moral health is dependent on and broad farce, are naturally preserved with the moral atmosphere we breathe. The novels care. It is not therefore surprising to find, in the are just an artificial experience, and the well-drawn drama of Martin Chuzzlewit, that Master Bailey, character becomes a kind of companion. With with his cockneyisms, draws the chief attention; whom, then, does Mr. Dickens bring us into close and that the tipsy quarrel between Mrs. Gamp and familiar contact? Lackeys, stable-boys, and Betsy Prig is the most effective scene in the thieves, swindlers, drunkards, gamblers, and mur- piece. The higher ranks thus laugh publicly at |
