lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to heaven.' The horrors of the almost hopeless want which too often prevails in the great manufacturing towns, and the wild and reckless despair which it engenders, are described with equal mastery of colouring and effect. The account of the wretch whose whole life had been spent in watching day and night a furnace, until he imagined it to be a living being, and its roaring the voice of the only friend he had ever known, although grotesque, has something in it very terrible: we may smile at the wildness, yet shudder at the horror of the fancy. A second story, Barnaby Rudge,' is included in Master Humphrey's Clock, and this also contains some excellent minute painting, a variety of broad humour and laughable caricature, with some masterly scenes of passion and description. The account of the excesses committed during Lord George Gordon's riots in 1780 may vie with Scott's narrative of the Porteous Mob; and poor Barnaby Rudge with his raven may be considered as no unworthy companion to Davie Gellatley. There is also a picture of an old English inn, the Maypole, near Epping Forest, and an old innkeeper, John Willet, which is perfect in its kind-such, perhaps, as only Dickens could have painted, though Washington Irving might have made the first etching. Of the success of this work and of its author, we have a passing glimpse in one of Lord Jeffrey's letters, dated May 4, 1841: I have seen a good deal of Charles Dickens, with whom I have struck up what I mean to be an eternal and intimate friendship. I often sit an hour tete-a-tete or take a long walk in the park with him-the only way really to know or be known by either man or woman. Taken in this way, I think him very amiable and agreeable. In mixed company, where he is now much sought after as a lion, he is rather reserved, &c. He has dined here, and me with him, at rather too sumptuous a dinner for a man with a family, and only beginning to be rich, though selling 44,000 copies of his weekly [monthly] issues.'*

In 1841 Dickens was entertained to a great public dinner in Edinburgh, Professor Wilson in the chair; after which he made a tour in the Highlands, visiting Glencoe and neighbouring scenery-tremendous wilds, really fearful in their grandeur and amazing solitude.' Next year he made a trip to America, of which he published an account in 1842, under the somewhat quaint title of American Notes for General Circulation.' This work disappointed the author's ad

Life of Lord Jeffrey, vol. ii. p 338. In fact 60.000 copies of Master Humphrey were printed at first, and many thousands afterwards. Jeffrey's letters show the affectionate interest which the then aged critic took in the fame and prosperity of the young novelist.

mirers, who may be considered as forming nearly the whole of the reading public. The field had already been well gleaned, the American character and institutions frequently described and generally understood, and Dickens could not hope to add to our knowledge on any of the great topics connected with the condition or future destinies of the New World. His descriptive passages (as that on the Falls of Niagara) are often overdone. The newspaper press he describes as corrupt and debased beyond any experience or conception in this country. He also joins with Captain Basil Hall, Mrs. Trollope, and Captain Marryat, in representing the soc al state and morality of the people as low and dangerous, destitute of high principle or generosity. So acute and practised an observer as Dickens could not travel without noting many oddities of character and viewing familiar objects in a new light. The following is a sketch of an ori ginal met with by our author on board a Pittsburg canal-boat:

A Man from the Brown Forests of the Mississippi.

A thin-faced, spare-firured man of middle age and stature, dressed in a dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such as I never saw betore He was perfectly quiet during the first part of the journey; indeed I dont remember having so much as seen hin until he was brought out by circumstances, as great men often are. The canal exteads to the foot of the mountain, and there of course it stops, the passengers being Conveyed across it by land-carriage, and taken on afterwards by another cana boat, the counterpart of the first, which awaits them on the oder side. There are two canal lines of passage-boat; one s called the Express, and one-a cheaper onethe Pioneer. The Pioneer gets first to the mountain, and waits for the Express people to come up, both sets of passengers being conveyed across it at the same time. We were the Express company, but when we had crossed the mountaiu, and had come to the second boat, the proprietors took it into their heads to draft all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were five and forty at least, and the accession of passengers was not all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping at night. Our pop'e grumbled at this, as people do in such cases, but suffered the boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboar nevertheless; and away we went down the canal. At home I should have protested lustily, but, being a foreigner here, I held my prace. Not so this passenger. H cleft a path amo g the people on deck-we were arly all on deck-and wit ont addressing anybody whomsoever, soliloquised as follows: This may suit you, this mav. but it don't snit me. This may be all very well with down-easters and men of Boston raising, but it won't suit my figure nohow; and no two ways about that; and so I tell yon. Now, I'm from the brown forests of th: Mississippi, I am. and when the sun shines on me, it does shine-a little. It don't glimmer where I live, the sun don't. No. I am a brown forester, I am. I ain't a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth skins where I live. We're rough men there. Rather, If down-easters and men of Boston raising like this, I am glad of it, but I'm none of that raising, nor of that breed. No. This company wants a little fixing, it does. I am the wrong sort of a man for 'em, I am. They won't like me, they won't. This is piling of it up, a little too mountainous, this is. At the end of every one of these short sentences, he turned upon his heel and walked the other way; checking himself abruptly when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back again. It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in the words of this brown forester, but I know that the other passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away were got rid of. When we started again some of the boldest spirits on board made bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our prospects. Much obliged to you, sir:' whereunto the brown forester-waving his hand, and still walking up and down as before-replied: No, you an't.' You're none

E. L. v. 7-9

my raising. You may act for yourselves, you may. I have p'inted out the way. Down-easters and Johnny Cakes can follow if they please. I an't a Johnny Cake, 1 an't. I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am; and so on as before. He was unanimously voted one of the tables for his bed at night-there is a great contest for the tables-in consideration of his public services, and he had the warmest corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey. But I never could find out that he did anything except sit there; por did hear him speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and turmoil of getting the luggage ashore i the dark at Pittsburg, I stumbled over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and heard him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance: I an't a Johnny Cake. I an't. I'm from the brown forests of the Mississippi. I am!' I am inclined to argue from this that he had never left off saying so.

Another American sketch is full of heart:

The Bustling, Affectionate, little American Woman,

There was a little woman on board with a little baby; and both little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-eyed, and fair to see. woman had been passing a long time with her sick mother in New York, and had The little left her home in St. Louis in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords desire to be. The baby was born in her mother's house, and she had not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning) for twelve months, having left him a month or two after their marriage. Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was; and all day long she wondered whether he would be at the wharf; and whether 'he' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the baby ashore by somebody else, 'he' would know it, meeting it in the street; which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough to the young mother. She was such an artless little creature, and was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state, and let out all this matter clinging close about her heart so freely, that all the ether lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she; and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous sly. I promise you, inquiring every time we met at table, as in forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St. Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes of that nature. There was one little weazen-dried, apple-faced old woman, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such circumstances of be reavement; and there was another lady (with a lapdog), old enough to moralise on the lightness of human affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the baby now and then, or laughing with the rest when the little woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of fantastic questions concerning him, in the joy of her heart. It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary to put this baby to bed. But she got over it with the same good-humour, tied a handkerchief round her head, and came out into the little gallery with the rest. Then, such an oracle as she became in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married ladies, and such sympathy as was shewn by the single ones, and such peals of laughter as the little woman herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest with! At last there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the wharf, and those were the steps; and the little woman, covering her face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than ever, ran into her own cabin and shut herself up. I have no doubt that in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped her ears, lest she should hear him asking for herbut I did not see her do it. Then a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was not yet made fast, but was wandering about among the other boats to find a landing-place; and everybody looked for the husband, and nobody saw him, when, in the midst of us all-Heaven knows how she ever got there!-there was the Jittle woman clinging with both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy young fellow; and in a moment afterwards there she was again, actually clap ping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him through the small door of her small cabin to look at the baby as he lay asleep!

In the course of the year 1842, Dickens entered upon a new tale, Martin Chuzzlewit,' in which many of his American reminiscences are embodied. The quackeries of architects are admirably ridiculed in the character c. Pecksniff; and the nurse, Mrs. Gamp, with her eidolon, Mrs. Harris, is one of the most finished and or ginal of the author's portraits. About Christmas of the same year the fertile author threw off a light production in his happiest manner, ‘A Christmas Carol, in Prose,' which enjoyed vast popularity, and was dramatised at the London theatres. A goblin story, The Chimes,' greeted the Christmas of 1844; and a fairy tale, The Cricket on the Hearth, was ready for the same genial season in 1845. These little annual stories are imbued with excellent feeling, and are rodolent of both tenderness and humour. A residence in Italy furnished Dickens with materials for a series of sketches, originally published in a new morning paper, The Daily News,' which was for a short time under the charge of our author; they were afterwards collected and republished in a volume, bearing the title of Pictures from Italy,' 1846. It is perhaps characteristic of Dickens that Rome reminded him of London!

We began in a perfect fever to strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two, the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance, it looked like-I am half afraid to write the word-London. There it lay under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples, and roofs of houses rising up into the sky, and high above them all, one dome. I swear that, keenly as I felt the seeming absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at that distance, that if you could have shewn it me in a glass, I should have taken it for nothing else.

Though of the slightest texture, and generally short, these Italian pictures of Dickens are not unworthy of his graphic pencil. We extract his concluding sentences:

Farewell to Italy.

Beyond the walls [of Florence] the whole sweet valley of the Arno, the convent at Fiesole, the tower of Galileo, Boccaccio's house, old villas, and retreats; innumerable spots of interest all glowing in a landscape of surpassing beauty steeped in the richest light, are spread before us. Returning from so much brightness how solemn and grand the streets again, with their great, dark, mournful palaces, and many legends-not of siege, and war, and might, and Iron Hand alone, but of the triumphant growth of peaceful arts and sciences.

What light is shed upon the world at this day, from amidst these rugged palaces of Florence! Here, open to all comers, in their beautiful and calm retreats, the ancient sculptors are immortal, side by side with Michael Angelo, Canova, Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, poets, historians, philosophers-those illustrious men of history, beside whom its crowned heads and harnessed warriors shew so poor and small, and are so soon forgotten. Here, the imperishable part of noble minds survives, placid and equal, when strongholds of assault and defence are overthrown; when the tyranny of the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale; when pride and power are so much cloistered dust. The fire within the stern streets, and among the massive palaces and towers, kindled by rays from heaven, is still burning brightly, when the flickering of war is extinguished, and the household fires of generations have decayed; as thousands upon thousands of faces, rigid with the strife and passion of the hour, have faded out of the old squares and public haunts, while the nameless Florentine lady, preserved from oblivion by a painter's hand, yet Hives on in enduring grace and truth

Let us look back on Florence while we may, and when its shining dome is seen no more, go travelling through cheerful Tuscany, with a bright remembrance of it; The summer time being come; and for Italy will be the fairer for the recolection. Genoa, and Milan, and the Lake of Como lying far behind us; and we resting at Faido, a Swiss village, near the awful rocks and mountains, the everlasting snows and roaring cataracts, of he Great St. Gothard, hearing the Italian tongue for the last time on this journey; let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our tenderness towards a people naturally well disposed, and patient, and sweet-tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, hava been at work, to change their nature and reduce their pirit; miserable jealousies fomented by petty princes to whom union was destruction, and division strength, have been a cauker at the root of their nationality, and have barbarised their language; but the good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may And let us not be one day raised up from these ashes. Let us entertain that hope! remember Italy the less regardfully, because in every fragment of her fallen temples, and every stone of her deserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the lesson that the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the world is, in all great essentials, better, gentler, and more forbearing, more hopeful as it rolls!

The novelist after wards visited Switzerland, and resided several summers in France; and his letters written during these residences abroad, have all the liveliness, humor and interest of his published works. In 1818 appeared his novel of Dombey and Son,' and in 1850, David Copperfield, perhaps the most perfect, natural, and agreeable of his novels. In this story, Dickens introduced much of his own life and experience, his father sitting for the character of Micawber, one of the most humorous and finished of his portraitures. In his next work, Bleak House,' he also drew from living originals-Savage Landor and Leigh Hunt. The latter, though a faithful, was a deprecatory sketch, and led to much remark, which its author regretted. In 1850, Dickens commenced a literary periodical, Household Words,' which he carried on with marked success until 1859, when, in consequence of a disagreement with his publishers (in which Dickens was clearly and decidedly in the wrong), he discontinued it, and established another journal of the same kind under the title of All the Year Round.' His novels subsequent to 'Bleak House' were-' Hard Times,' 1854; Little Dorrit,' 1855; ‘A Tale of Two Cities,' 1859; Great Expectations,' 1861; Our Mutual Friend,' 1865. During part of this time he was engaged in giv. ing public readings from his works by which he realized large sums of money, and gratified thousands of his admirers in England, Ireland, and Scotland. He also extended his readings to America, having revisited that country in 1867, and met with a brilliant reception. His health, however, suffered from the excitement and fatigue of these readings, into which he threw a great amount of dramatic power and physical energy.

*

The combined effects of a love of money and a love of applause

It may be worthy of note, as illustrating the popularity of Dickens's works and public readings, that, on his death, his real and personal estate amounted to £93,000. Of this, upwards of £40,000 was made by the readings in Great Britain and America