"A Strictly private Amateur Performance.

At the St. James's Theatre (By favour of Mr. Mitchell) Will be performed Ben Jonson's Comedy of EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR.

To Conclude with a Farce, in One Act, called

"Two O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING."

...

Miss Fortescue.

Miss Hinton.

...

Miss Bew.

...

Previous to the play, the overture to William Tell. Previous to the farce, the overture to La Gazza Ladra. His Royal Highness Prince Albert has been pleased to express his intention to honour the performance with his presence."

Dickens' rendering of his part was characteristic and Leslie of the Royal Academy took a portrait of him just when Captain Bobadil shouts out

"A gentleman! Odds so, I am not within."

Act I. 3.

Such was Dickens the actor and it is odd to contemplate that had it not been for a lucky accident the curious. reader of the Encyclopædia Britannica-one of those prodigies of Smiles--would have found an unpretentious entry therein, something to this effect: "Charles Dickens born 1812 of poor parents, an actor of great note in his day. His famous representations were etc., etc., d. 1870."

AS A NOVEList.

The fame of Dickens rests upon his novels, it is superfluous to say at this date. And to-day, looking back into the past, can we say that this fame has increased or the contrary? Much has been said upon this subject, but there is one factor common to all these various sentiments. Nobody, whose opinion is of any worth, has ever asserted that during these years his fame has decreased or is likely to do so for any considerable length of time, for the simple reason that Dickens appeals to the human heart, that heart as it was created by its Maker, stripped of exterior encrustations and man-made barriers. That human heart is ever the same and if one generation of men could be enlivened by his productions and if they could shed bitter tears over them, why should the next be unable to do so? On the contrary there are reasons for the increase of his popularity. To-day we find Dickens more popular than ever. fact of the matter briefly stated, is that, on the first burst of glory of a writer of the character of Dickens, the degree of his fame is directly dependent upon the way he arouses our emotions. If this excitation, so to say, has reached its maximum limit, the claims of the author to our further regard will be questions of intellect. But we must remember the order. The emotional appeals,

The

by reason of their directness, are immediate; the intellectual appeals, being subject to a slower process of working, come later. So with Dickens, in his own day, with the publication of his works, the readers or at least the vast majority of them, were impressed largely from the standpoint of the emotions; later on, however, the element of reason, in criticism, gained the ascendancy, people began, to use Matthew Arnold's term, to consult their literary conscience. And the result we all know. Dickens, the writer, has become greater than ever, the psychological force of his word-paintings being recognised and the essential justness of all that he says being clearly perceived. All these have gone a great way towards making him a world-read author. Thus, we see that the tightening of the hold of Dickens upon our minds is largely an explicable fact, in spite of his unparalleled popularity during his life-time, which then gave rise to gloomy forebodings as to his future. Yet it must be remembered that in the process we have indicated, no such clear separation of function is possible; the exercises going always hand in hand. The only distinction is that at times one predominates over the other, thus making possible a comprehensible separation. As school-boys, on reading him, we were carried away by our feelings mostly; growing older we began to take a saner view of his works. This is a fact, which every reader of Dickens, perfectly knows. Further, what happens with an individual happens also with nations. And thus to-day the name of Dickens is mightier than ever.

Now, coming down to particulars, we must discover the key to the greatness of Dickens. We think that it is the possession of four characteristics, above others, which make him what he is,-these being the fertility of

his invention, his command over the pathetic, his humour and his pre-eminent power of sympathetic thought. As to the first, if mere numbers were the test of genius, the 1,425 * characters of Dickens, would carry the day against almost all modern authors. But it is by the variety and vitality of his productions that he must be judged. The horrible Mr. Quilp; the mighty Sam Weller, whose name was spelt according to the tastes and fancies. of the speller; the inimitable Mr. Micawber, who was always looking out for something to turn up; Mr. Gowan, whose genius was of that agricultural kind which applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats; the classic Cornelia and Feeder B.A.;—all these eloquently testify to his freshness and originality. His thought never moves in one groove, he never repeats himself.

As for his humour and pathos, one at times finds a keen resemblance between him and the great Elizabethan Masters. The famous lines of Gray to Shakespeare are, clearly, applicable to him when he rises to his heights :"Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy

This can unlock the gates of joy,

Of horror that and thrilling fears

Or the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

The death of little Paul Dombey is one of the most moving things in literature. There is no slabbering, no going into hysterics; it is pure and simple passion, straight from the heart, without the slightest tinge of the melodrama.

"The last perfection of our faculties," says Schiller, "is that their activity, without ceasing to be sure and earnest, become sport." With Dickens this "sport" was always gentle and genial, never caustic or personal. He was humorous because he was full of life and saw

* Such is the estimate made out by a writer in Cassell's Penny Magazine.

things from many fantastic angles. The ancient charge of malice, based upon the character of Harold Skimpole as a copy of Leigh Hunt is an evident misrepresentation. Dickens, as we know, protested against and exonerated himself from, this imputation, to the satisfaction of all. He had what may be called, a “large mass of soul;" and this brings us to our next point, namely, that of his width of sympathy. Such broad heart-felt sympathy for his fellow-men has seldom been witnessed. And this it is, above every other quality, that is the immediate parent of his success. He could, with sincerity, feel for others, he had a tear for every tale of woe and a fund of mirth for joyful occasions.

The charges of want of scholarship, of gentility and of artistic skill are antiquated and need no answer, save that, over and above the fact of being irrelevant they are incorrect, to say the least. If the lack of a strictly classical education were were to lower the worth of the great men of the world, the world to-day would indeed be poor. As to the lack of gentility, all that we can say is that the accusation almost deserves a libel action. The last item on the charge-sheet is as well unfounded but has this much truth, that at times, he does fall below his usual level of art. But this is attributable to the quantity of his productions. What strike us as being real defects are his repetitions, his diffuseness and his tendency to "lecture" his readers; even in these, all that we can say is that he is not quite modern.

Boz AND THE MUSE.

Strangely enough the name of Dickens is seldom if ever, associated with Poetry. Yet it is but natural that a prose-writer of almost unrivalled eloquence, of