THERE was a time (ah, that it would return!) when authors of all sizes, down to him who holds precarious footing in literature on the sloping slippery ledge of a provincial newspaper, or a volume published by subscription, "to us did seem apparrelled in celestial light." To have written words which compositors had deliberately put in type, carefully picking their letters, which sage and learned correctors had afterwards diligently compared with the manuscript, and which had then, in the form of that sacred half-divine thing a Book, gone forth, however feebly, to an audience, however scanty and inattentive, was a feat which invested the doer with something of an angel light. Then glowed the literary firmament with living sapphires, of whom Hesperus, in the form of Walter Scott, rode brightest, till the moon Shakespeare (who arose on us somewhat later) unveiled his peerless light, and o'er the dark of our unformed mind his silver mantle threw.

Wordsworth never had in his early childhood more importunate intimations of immortality than we, nor more vivid glimpses of "that imperial palace whence he came." The common earth and its commonest products were for us ambrosial. Green pease had then a taste which our sophisticated palate now tries vainly every June to recall-a taste as of vegetables grown in Paradise. Strawberries might have been among the fruits which Eve heaped on the table for her archangel visitant-sights and scents and sounds, long since become mere commonplace appeals to our debauched and vitiated senses, made the world a wide fairyland. Not only round our senses did these enchantments flutter, but round our soul came blasts of incense, the breath of immortal flowers, harmonies from neighbouring unseen worlds, and glimpses, nay gazings, into depths divine. It could not be expected that such a state of things should last; and accordingly, after cramming the lives of several ordi

nary octogenarians into the first twelve years of our abode on earth, we had exhausted existence at fifteen. The latest warmth that still glowed in the crater of the extinct volcano (always excepting the unexpected outburst of latent heat into scorching flame caused by the potent influence of her who shall be nameless) was our reverence for authorship-till that, too, faded in the disenchanting presence of the authors themselvesmere word-mongers, idea-mongers, moral-mongers as they sometimes are. Good, faithful, undoubting worshipper of Mumbo Jumbo, could we but dissect for thee that respected deity, show thee the sawdust beneath the tinsel-but why should we? Ah, that we had never eaten of the tree of knowledge-that we could still believe, after seeing and hearing them, in those cloud-capt oracles. We wonder now, like Caliban, that we could ever have taken for a god that extremely absurd individual who, nevertheless, gave us to drink, from his bottle, of a liquor that was not earthly; and when we see those who have partaken of the cup of his intoxications dancing round him like frenzied bacchanals, taking the sound he makes in blowing his nose for a divine message, the flutter of his snuffy pocket-handkerchief as he returns it to his coat-tail for the waving of a celestial standard, and insisting on interpreting all his maunderings as the utterances of inspiration, we smile sadly, but with no wish to undeceive them. We feel like some worn-out magician who views the demons with whom he is familiar (so terrible and grand to the uninitiated) with a mixture of distrust and disgust, as the unpleasant possessors of an immortality which only renders them more conspicuously horrible.

Be that as it may, there was a time, we repeat, when our reverence for those authors who charmed us was entirely unbounded-when we believed them exempt from the ordinary errors and failings of humanity, and when no critic or biographer who affected to register for the world

their true altitude, could take one inch from their stature, or make us think of them otherwise than as giants. Tall, even among those "whose stature reached the sky,” towered, from the very first, Charles Dickens. Who is there of soul so dull or so rusted, so hardened in matter-of-fact, so callous from care, or "at such a distance from his youth in grief," as not to remember when Pickwick dawned upon him like a revelation? Before Pickwick there seems to us to have been but a serious world of it, with plenty of pathos, poetry, romance, and character, but (except here and there occasional glimpses of humour exciting a smile or a chuckle, seldom a laugh) a decided drought of this last-mentioned element, till it then burst forth in a genial irresistible flood, sweeping down all restraints of primness and puritanism, drowning whole herds of jokers, facetious diners-out and provincial wags, and causing dullards and drivellers, hitherto priding themselves on the thickness of the hide which rendered them impervious to fun, to laugh till their faces, like Prince Hal's, resembled "a wet cloak ill laid-up❞—no matter whether they had or had not the ache in their shoulders. One of the most shameful recollections of our almost irreproachable life lies at the door of the mad wag Dickens. We were attending service in a cathedral in a city where we were a stranger, and had been shown into a pew already occupied by two respectable old ladies. For a time we behaved with our wonted decorum, till some absurdity committed by the elder Weller, of which we had been reading the night before, rose up to haunt us. Had we been in the open air a good laugh would have at once relieved us, but cabined, cribbed, confined, as it was, the risibility expanded till our form swelled visibly, our face grew purple, and we saw a medical man in the next pew feel in his waistcoat-pocket as he anxiously watched the veins of our forehead. The choral symphonies of the anthem invested Mr Weller's image with fifty-fold absurdity, blending him, as they did, in his topboots and shawls with angels ever bright and fair. Despairing of our

ability to prevent an explosion, and feeling the danger becoming each moment more imminent, for india-rubber itself must have given way under the accumulating pressure, we suddenly dived with our head below the shelf on which the prayer-books rested, and laughed silently, while our tears dropt like rain upon the footstool. We were beginning to grow calm when, looking round, we saw the two old ladies regarding us with pious horror through their spectacles, and sidling off to their own end of the pew. This set us off again, and down went our head in a vain ostrich-like attempt at concealment, for our shoulders and back, convulsively agitated from nape to waistband, told of the internal struggle, to say nothing of sounds that occasionally broke forth, noways resembling the responses. Conscious that prebendary and precentor were regarding us from their eminence, we again raised our head with desperate gravity, and shall never forget the agony of shame with which we beheld an aged verger sternly approaching, while two churchwardens were quitting their pews with the faces of men determined to discharge a painful duty. Nevertheless, at the instigation of Old Weller, off we went again in a fit now quite audible, and were eventually marched down the centre aisle, between rows of faces fixed in devout horror, with our handkerchief crammed nearly down our throat, and our watery eyes starting out of our head like a land-crab's, and so, turning a corner, out under the old Saxon archway into the churchyard, where we exasperated the verger and churchwardens to frenzy by sitting down upon a tombstone and giving full vent to our mirth. Next day, all-repentant, we waited upon the dean, who, being himself a Pickwickian, gave us absolution in the most kindly way, and we caused a copy of Pickwick to be bound in Morocco and gold, with the inscription, "from a penitent Sabbath-breaker," which is to this day conspicuous on a shelf of the episcopal library, for he is now a bishop. We are glad to say that, regular church-goer as we have ever since continued, we have never again remembered Old Weller in our orisons except with shame and contrition.

A much pleasanter recollection of Pickwick is the memory of the day when we took our first draught from that perennial fount of humour. Some body had lent us the twelfth number, into which we plunged at once, ignorant of the adventures and characters described in the antecedent eleven. We sat reading it on the grass-crowned summit of some sloping strawberry beds, in a June morning, when Junes were warmer, balmier, and more musical than ever they are now, with the red fruit clustering all unregarded about our feet, while bees and butterflies hovered above the later blossoms, and then first we knew how Sam Weller, assisted by his parent, wrote his valentine;-how they both went to the Brick Lane temperance meeting, where Old Weller fought Mr Stiggins, who had previously, "in his desire to exclude all improper characters," knocked brother Tadger head-first down the ladder, "his drab shorts disappearing like a flash of lightning," -how the case of Bardell versus Pickwick was conducted (than which there is no more humorous satire in the world), from the opening of the case ("which appeared to have very little inside it when it was opened") by Mr Skimpin, a promising young man of two or three and forty," to the ultimate triumph of Dodson and Fogg; -how Serjeant Buzfuz delivered the best parody on the balderdash of the bar, ever written, or likely to be written ;-how Mr Justice Stareleigh wallowed in absurdities, waking up and writing down something with a pen, without any ink in it; alarming Mr Winkle by his testiness when, by the Justice's own mistake, that witness's name has been written down Daniel instead of Nathaniel, which all the world now knows to be Mr Winkle's Christian appellation; shrewdly objecting to Serjeant Snubbins' explanation, that a door being

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on the jar" means "partly open,' and saying he would make a note of it; and cautioning Sam Weller, who has brought his proverbial philosophy into the witness-box, that he mustn't tell the court what" the soldier" or any other man said, because "it's not evidence"-how the witnesses were legally baited, especially Mr Winkle, who, after the jury are given to un

-as to

derstand that he "has a natural taste for perjury," is questioned by Mr Skimpin, who, "with a steady frown, places his hands on his hips and smiles suspiciously at the jury' how many times he has seen Mrs Bardell-whether he hasn't seen her twenty times-whether he hasn't seen her a hundred times-whether he will swear that he hasn't seen her at least seventy-five times-" the satisfactory conclusion that was arrived at at last being, that he had better take care of himself, and mind what he was about." All these things, and many more, are they not written in the twelfth number of the book of the chronicles of Pickwick? And these we sat reading, and occasionally throwing ourself on our back in irrepressible delight, shifting our seat once a yard or so, because we had injured ourself at the first jest by falling back into a gooseberry bush, from which we emerged with our back as full of prickles as a porcupine's.

Not till the series was complete did we read the rest. We then got all the numbers and carried them home, some miles, under our arm— stopping every two minutes to assure ourself, by counting them, that we had dropt none on the road-and then set ourself to serious reading. The perusal was not altogether unclouded; for, finding as we read on ahead of the other members of the family, that it was impossible to keep some of the best bits to ourself, we persisted in reading them out to the rest, who naturally objected to receive the instalments, and hence ensued serious misunderstandings. As to what the best bits are, only he who brings to the book a virgin palate is perhaps qualified to discriminate, of so rich materials is the whole compounded; and to this day we are lost in admiration of the wealth of humour which could go on, page after page, chapter after chapter, month after month, to the close of a long work, pouring forth, from a source seemingly inexhaustible, fun, and incident, and description, and character, ever fresh, vivid, and new, which, if distributed with a thrifty hand, would have served to relieve and enliven, perhaps immortalise, twenty sober romances. The

very plan of the work (if plan it can be called where plan seems none) evinces the writer's extraordinary confidence in his resources, where a knot of individuals, connected by the loosest tie, and interesting only from their unconscious drollery, are cast loose upon the world to wander through scenes of everyday life, in which, though constantly getting more absurd and weak, they yet gain a firm hold on the reader's affection; so that at length we take leave of Mr.Pickwick, in his rural retirement at Dulwich, with a lingering fondness, such as we never felt for any of those young and handsome miracles of sense and spirit upon whose heroic career the vicissitudes of three thrilling volumes are suspended. To the review at Chatham, and to the cricket match and the election to the courts of law and the Fleet prison to the skating-party and the shooting on Captain Boldwig's ground, and the pound in which he is incarcerated for the trespass-and to Bath and Ipswich, we follow Mr Pickwick and his friends with evergrowing interest. Our own favourite characters in the book, which we think exhibit the author's humorous faculty most forcibly of all, are Old Weller and Mr Benjamin Allen-for this reason, that they are comic unconsciously. Sam Weller, who has probably more admirers than his parent, excellent as he is, is always funny with intent; whereas Old Weller's characteristics his terror of widows, and unfatherly fondness for the sex in general his hostility against the red-nosed man Stiggins his zeal to prove an alibi for Mr Pickwick in the breach-of-promise case, resulting from his "firm and unalterable conviction that the Old Bailey was the supreme court of judicature in this country, and regulated and controlled the proceedings of all other courts whatsoever"-his confidence in his legal adviser, Solomon Pell, whose attempt to correct him, when speaking of "probing " Mrs Weller's will, he nevertheless repels with great dignity, are all exhibited with perfect good faith. Again, of the two sawbones," Mr Bob Sawyer is facetious and extremely amusing, but not so amusing

as Mr Benjamin Allen, who has not the least tinge of facetiousness in his composition. The former might have exerted his powers of drollery for a long time without giving us an idea so comic as his less gifted friend, who, on his way home from the student's grog-party, "rapped at the door of the Borough Market and took short naps on the steps alternately, under the impression that he lived there and had forgotten the key;" and who told Mr Winkle (Arabella's lover), " as an especially eligible person to impart the secret to," that he was determined to inflict the most sanguinary vengeance on any man except Bob Sawyer who should aspire to the hand of his sister Arabella. Again, when Mr Pickwick, going to see the old wharfinger, Mr Winkle senior, late in the evening, to get him to consent to his son's marriage, is accompanied by Mr Sawyer and Mr Allen, the former is exquisitely facetious in the old gentleman's house before the owner makes his appearance; yet what avail his diverting powers compared with the following trait of Mr Allen, who, in the midst of the interview, had "fallen asleep in an attitude which left nothing of him visible except his spine and his coat collar!" Mr Sawyer, wishing to awaken Mr Allen that he may say something on the right side, pinches him on the fleshy part of the arm, "whereupon Mr Allen, starting up with a loud shriek, advanced hastily to Mr Winkle, and shook him by the hand for about five minutes, with an hospitable inquiry" (it was in Mr Winkle's own house, mind, and he was a perfect stranger to Mr Allen), "with an hospitable inquiry as to whether he would take anything now or prefer waiting till dinner; after which he sat down and stared about him as if he had no very distinct idea of where he was, which indeed he had not."

In the midst of all the genial fun of Pickwick there is a little bit of pathosa sad-coloured spot amid the mass of gay colours-which we have always thought truer and more moving than many of his more elaborate efforts the death of the poor Chancery prisoner. Still, this is but a touch, an indication. But so

much geniality of all kinds is displayed in the book, that probably no appreciative reader ever rose from its perusal without a strong feeling of personal regard for the authoran element generally omitted in the estimate of a writer's genius, but to which we always attach great importance. For our own part, when we had read Pickwick over again for the third time (all three readings being consecutive and unintermittent), we were ready to start on a pilgrimage to Mecca with pease, unboiled, in our shoes, if we could at the end of our journey, an incurable but still enthusiastic cripple, have hoped to catch one glimpse, one word of him who had so delighted us. Yet such is the evanescent character of human enthusiasm, that we don't think we would walk to Mecca to see him now-even if the pease were boiled.

The guarantee, so brilliantly given, of his comic power, was ratified in all his earlier works, though not, as in Pickwick, to the exclusion of soberer elements. There was not, perhaps, much of it in Oliver Twist-and in Nickleby it took a subdued cast, exciting not so much laughter as frequent smiles. Miggs and Tappertit, in Barnaby Rudge, were highly comic in the old vein. Swiveller, of the Old Curiosity Shop, was worthy of a place in Pickwick. And here again we think Dick Swiveller, the half-conscious comedian, yields to Mr Codlin, the misanthropic proprietor of Punch's Show-who, far from wishing to be diverting, regards his species with too cynical an eye to wish to contribute to its amusement except for his own profit; yet his atrocious selfishness is made to appear in so comic a light, that we rather like him than otherwise when "he lets down the drapery, and seats himself in deep misanthropy at the bottom of the show;" when he tries to supplant his coadjutor Short, on finding that those who have been kind to Nell are likely to be rewarded; and when he faintly inquires of the landlord of the Jolly Sandboys what time the stew, whose perfume so charms him, will be ready; and having ascertained the fact-"Then bring me a pint of warm ale," said Mr Codlin, "and don't let nobody

bring so much as a biscuit into the room till dinner is ready."

In Chuzzlewit the old humour came out in great force. Todgers's and the boy Bailey were famous-infinitely better than the noodle Tom Pinch, or the oft-quoted Pecksniff, who owed most of his celebrity, we believe, to his remarkable likeness to the late Sir R. Peel. But Pecksniff, and (worse still) all the abominable Chuzzlewits, are more than amply atoned for by that incomparable old woman Mrs Gamp, the most admirable piece of broadly humorous female character since the time of Hostess Quickly, who is, centuries ago, in Arthur's bosom, if ever woman went to Arthur's bosom. Charming, irresistible Mrs Gamp!-our passion for her began at the very first moment of her appearance at her window, in reply to Mr Pecksniff's summons, when she asks, "Is it Mr Whilks? Don't say it's Mr Whilks, and that dear creature Mrs Whilks with not so much as a pincushion ready;" after which she quite secures her hold on our affections by the innumerable games of quoits she plays, in the hackney coach, with her pattens, on Mr Pecksniff's shins. Think of her chest of drawers, the contents of which, in the absence of handles, could be got out only in two ways "either by tilting them forward, when they all fell out together; or by opening them singly with knives like oysters.' Think of her dresses which, hung up on pegs in her room, retained so completely the impress of the wearer's form, that many an impatient husband, rushing into her chamber in the deceitful twilight, had started back "under the impression that Mrs Gamp had hanged herself." Think of the biscuit which she carried constantly in her pocket "as a provision against contingent drams.' Think of her watch by the bed of the sick man, when, after making her evening meal of salmon soused in vinegar, and "supping up the refreshing fluid with the point of her knife," she tied a watchman's coat round her neck by the sleeves, on composing herself for the night, so that she appeared to be "in the act of being embraced by one of the old patrol"-and presented on the wall, when she sat up in her chair,