The Express.
London, England, 1848-12-25 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. By CHARLES
DtcesNa.—Dr. Birch. By Al. A. TITHARSH
- -

No writer has been gifted with tee nip,. erious
power of arresting the attention of the public, and
.c,ng it to do what it is in most cases, and to most
persons, least inclined to do—to listen, in so great
a degree as Charles Dickens. The huge ear of the
public, we do not say the lung ear, is by his side, and
he can pour into that receptacle what he pleases :
merry aar or dirge, sonnet or sermon, a lesson or a
satire. Others have enjoyed this privilege before him,
and have made use of it to awaken stormier passions.
But none have filled the office of people's laureate
with higher nor yet with kindlier aims than he. Some,
for instance, get the ear of the public m, rele to pour
into it the tale of slander, or awaken the eachinnations
of malice. Some have appealed to the envy of the
ignorant, the arroganoe of the fop caste, or the
servility of helotrv. Some have deified the
brute passions, and others have erected temples to
trivial fancy. The good public swallowed all.
But the public was then a narrow circle, and the
public is now • big world. Scott fascinated
and amused it, taking advan age meantime of his
powersto preach the doctrines and instil the philosophy
of gentility. Dickens has got the same audience be-
fore him, extending over them the same magic wand
of imagination; but the use he makes of his power is
to preach the philosophy of humanity.
This he always does with power, with beau.y, and
with poetry, pleading the cause of the humble without
offending the high, and acting the popular champion
with all the energy and all the sympathies of the de-
magogue, but without his turbulence, his intrusive-
ness, or his ambition.
It is remarkable indeed how opinion has set in this
direction, and how the great didactic professors of the
day—for our great didactic professors arc after all
our light and imaginative writers—all obey the same
impulse, and work through different ways to a coin•
mon end. There is Thackeray evidently influenced
by a very strong dose of that education, which teaches
the worship of the " porcelain clay" of birth and breed-
ing, and who thinks that ladies and gentlemen are quite
another genus from women and men—even he, he
who might have been • Theodore Hook in wit and
philosophy twenty years ago, is something ieflnitely
better now than the mere wit or the sheer satirist.
Even he can mock the great and patronise the humble.
He, the born snob-killer, does not look for snobs
merely in that class to which they were originally
confined, when he first studied the species at the
university—he finds them above as well as below him,
and is mercilessly impartial.
We have not seat his " Dr. Birch," although w e put
it at the head of this article, but such glimpses as we
hays had of it in shopwindows and such s;.'ecimens as
we have had of it in the columns of contemporaries
sufficiently attest its vigorous sketches of juvenility,
whilst • few stanzas at its close, evidently to the
memory of poor Charles Buller, evince what indeed
wanted not proof, that a deep vein of feeling lies
beneath not merely the satire, but even under the
caricatures of Master Titmarsh.
To return to Dickens's " Haunted Man," which we
have read, may we venture to ask whether our kind-
lier feelings depend upon the faculty of memory, and
especially whether they depend on the recollections
of " sorrow, wrong, and trouble ?" This is a psycho-
logical question, that Mr. Dickens answers in the
affirmative, and upon which he forthwith indite@
a very pretty and pithy tale, somewhat
misty, somewhat German, but containing many noble
pages, many striking and original scenes. The Tet-
terbys alone are • magnificent Rembrandt ; and the
boy with the baby, no less than the boy of the ragged
school, two true pictures of two very low grades of
English life. But of the latter Mr. Dickens has not
made enough. He still owes us one of hie own
minute and finished pictures, after the manner of
Wilkie, of • ragged school.
We bow to Mr. Dickens as master of pathos and of
the picturesque, but in morals and metaphysics we
should venture to question his omniscience. Accord-
ing to the moral of Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby, oar pre-
sent affections are but the result of memory. Is not
this akin to the doctrine that makes love a habit P
And then the honest couple are made to grow indiffer-
ent to each other, merely from the recollection of their
sorrows and troubles being erased from the me-
mory. Amongst their sorrows and troubles the no-
velist includes the comely forms of both when in youth,
—for these too are forgotten—whilst all the joys,
surprises, acts of kindness, the bright side of life in fact
are accounted nothing. The philosophy of all this
art does not hang together, and would not bear
the scalpel of the anatomist. The obliteration
of the recollection of sorrow, wrong, and trouble,
would not have the effect depicted. If, indeed, you
blot from age all the associatiais and reflected
feelings of youth, you hebetate it. But youth, or

reel it.ts 4 ges al I,prlng of alieutts.t, hch
woul t gush from the heart afresh, if yon cat off its
past, and made it begin life again in Robinson Cross's
Iffilawl. In order to kindly temper there ate
faculties about ea to be kept green besides the

*Ueda Ile art bfe. By scam DOSSITICk.
Our 01 for ruttiest and most instructive of Christ-
Inas volume • setting forth, in easy style and striking
illustratioi,, the' reawdits history of those every-day
oompani .... • ni our , of which we take the troublisr
e we
little to study. Singulw enough, the mare famll
the 'Tarim 1,, ut insect life, the more woodertal sod
startling ,u as I. the story. The mosttwin-
tone ins chew. • in this volume W Two
O the o
devoted the owe to the sy, the other to the bra. m
latter, MM..), we might fairly quote as •
es in
Ohms'
essay ; but it contains so very many bad esampl
polittwitst•hrewd torn • might vivifies oars upee,
at perhaps indite • wild denasciation 'pimadium
orology We, therefore, are What, and content o'
ur-
selves with recommending these sways an the wittier
imosowy and uncial habits ofthe most setoriouss,,d tn-
tweeting hired*.

-I erb.
L'Atiers" and " IS Mammon" of Milton illultrotti
for Ms Art-Union.
The Rifilbr Ileoberuitoos. By J. Liao!.
The power of attiba • metedform to est r)
*mitt esuressed is poetry is s to ese eeti..t
t.
press.
Ibe coatis win be best deal by.
.ose, the son
swami by another, aid the tragic by • third. Divisew 01
subject is as rats ursun to dent permit of art as does
kbose isto thti W 111,110 tettlft. When • gement t pee-
wit., ea* iortiet sr II sue • Thus Granville illustrated he
Sees of I.l..utsita but Gray's Story required tit e. a
bind Islet.' of the ete.,int club to do junks tu it. The swa
tut
ire Ittssot Ass h. es I•ltow. is illestratisa Vikikstut " u
" Peesein •," .•Is. The taints of all h... Is
r.
b 1,
blond d nee h.ra... tow, whole; sash is his peeunse let
aptly . its elf to du his best. The onions e
aptly wird. dby .eth, awl omit(' oat, ad nurse. by sou..
bath r th..s Adhere. Mr. Frost gives se • topmast:twit esi
kis picture, wane
.lest sad pater& Whey.
%do. sod c mid soaks wan,
Nod-.td berie, sod wreathed rolke.
• •
spat that wrinteed Care derides
.uto taunter India( both hie sides.
COW, and trii. it an yds go
oa the light austastie Ice.
nes maws and this Abodes, tee esesesidat
than hi. ones in " the Plow/boas and ti Milknosi ; "
.
L eh, print A. his airy landaesas; DIMOND, ** stop-
sleo. ***lt qt. p clog V. the. edealleot tomb ovary •1.
prelei-a pet. are most wiecienfol, awl own lanai
WI A thy stet. nal . s which they work. Cloodall brings IT
Irasod our .1 his wenn id Ti0:0111 Jollity, viols
TOMS sad old some funk to pin
Una siniedrie hoLdey.
fielout net eui.tel, is the se eeriest swats, beepf up
the rep.? ition lbw^ have weds by their 'totems Tilt ...
seer is. re, hap.. toe Gond. the lotted sin es the nth., •i-•e
.4..5s limas us s weilley, when Felotof
snit
Deriseir sees hood Ifrws.elosadwalliniy: sad Ha
rests tree to Mt MSG 101116111011 eyes, Ai.
lasehisie mouths andqadatoweel &swiss. Mr gess,.
Is as instep. In kus einsessis et "knee. loathed U.
away." a yr. kiiniteg,. is his MON kteelegild euan.e.p.rn
t.
" 11•11. divient Meta, eholy;" Ist then is e.en.
both. Then are wane esquisite is Mr Wrh•ete.
des.isa et " Pease, Q der, and Kohomeirely." Mr. Lauder%
Trhihedy " fa in ',ionisers nod. bat &iciest in drawing ;
Uri of
Kr PAII“gill Flu...a Is Ws repe.entatiort
" Orph as " we way ay that tbe etipet of do
week bag been teed tainted oat, the estkets well dunes, sod
ssisestisl by Ike MOMS laud sespeteat Ile each. Perh.p.
is that we are ant is .smisseefLatelst that we peeler gene.
silo the illustrations of the "
This lead* as at 01101 11l epeak--.7--er. L•esb's " &Ong
Chourateou," which effeentally preosheis the merry teaoleu-
airs a this sea.... Mr -a Ito here tetwedweed tor, st..ne
the wearers a resit', usiven.ily made tosses in l'lroclio
pl.ery. Tu &seen- them. tliennwit, would be undies..

The Semi Coteeirre Illustrate&
The users. sud orseieseud ere combined in Ibis
elabnn•e estsharee with grace and fell effect. Ornament is
lavi.hel as so hartori.el soils of Stowe, by mesas of well
soirseed plates sod woodcuts; the useful is eortisiood is
the 11/1110t1Mialii end grime *Ailed to each article, •e. e•t.. r
w.th the SA MO ef the purchaser, which will reader the NIA,
valuable as ow el ref. re nee hereafter. It is eempuod by Mr.
11. S. Tomer. eviMeitly with ow, sod in some insumins
web se 11$!. maw* Weds NA imikeieeL

Tag 'LOYAL CYCLORAMA u II ROW adaptation of the
Monism styli, a oven painting, which tome Green years
ago wee se admirably illustrated 6hyy Mr. Stengel°, is the
nasal posatoonnes a Drury Imo Moans Mr Braderell,
the Immo of the Colosseum, Mime the merit of having,
under the shin title, cre,ted sa entirely novel exhibition.
li. has ametrseted a balding which he ham demisted »tar
sally is the mom pylons end "Übaldo mentor. T• e
spectator is so placed that he "priers to be within the testi.
bale of • palace baying is frost of him • mysive potion
Stoked by pellsrs of is while, bad ea the side s and tunny
of 'hick are per repel MI three celebrated CAVOOPIa of
Ne,kael 'a the Yates,• " Mout Peraysos with
Apollo sad the Masse," "Ticeabaci of Adieu"
aid " Coadastiee sad the Pops.' The audieare part
of the ball u bests ray viably arsamented, the
wiling Wog essay posted, and olferiNg to vs» Olympus
ad ita INI)%11..10114611 IC upsets. Then is she • milieu ea-
melisshe hall. *be frost or wLich is divided into comport-
ws, sub lair, occupied with en alto-relievo &MOM' SO
fifthly gilded as t.. pewit the appearance of Wag »Yelled
out of the slid metal. Times relieve represent a' Beethis
proseirlos, and, aotwithsteadim a certain degree of camas-
lime sciffsese, they product • highly pleating effect.
Thu pertimelar .Itjeet et illustratioa chose& for the bet
win of these sr:bromic tableau is the great carthasehe
et Lisboa in the year 1755 Boon after the company wore
mated, and beton the eerie' us beauties of the WI and its
memories maid have bees fairly eatimated, the lights were
suddenly wi.kdrawa, sad on their TOW Tati,n the
scene represestsd that most lovely of all European
rivers. We Terms, with the sun rising out of the distant Wes
tern Oceas. Ti. glary». of his beams on the mimic 'fipple
of the water, and the gradual »creme of light (lor oddly
enough, to suit the t zinnia of the painter, the sett f. per-
force geode e-at the picture), are very besutifuliy
monsited awl at Werth Belem Castle is taught tato Maas
relief, end stenos in outline finely developed between the
epeeists" mid the rising luminary. The scene moo• on,
sad the Cemverit of St Jemmy"» neat comes into view,
Moult sn •oras In permit of its curious sad admirably-
desigued poetics sad a indows to be discerned. The pun,'
arm, however, is very good, and it is Ins 'es
the actual aspect of this very_ massikable es
as sea at the prestat day. TM emu stM moves
glowly an. sad the nest striklag 'bloat shah
appears is the Pnamre's Palace, • sow nare of mind style in
which the Moorish, o..thie, sad old Norma saustriame se,
flee
alternately ohaanable. The force mad dignity
of thlo
as it gradually moves on the Um of sight, sad almost ob-
trudes itself +info the imaginary pieta* of tics theatre. are
very reaserkelde, sad it mot In eves before the reality of
the 'Mot produced by it can be appreeimed. The diorama
proceeds along the tusk of the river, mail the speetetor is
supposed to be placed exactly wpm», the spot on which at
halCpast Uwe o'clock on the morning of the let or Nee
umber 170, stood the royal palace of Don Joseph and the
patriankal reeidene.., two of the most beautiful piles of
arthitestaro in the whole capital. Suddenly the sane is
deckseed, sad • lurid aspect »vests this sky, whilst tie
Taess becomes agitated, and violently Moss to and
fro the needs titling on id earface. The spit..
is.. of the Widen and of tho skies ociaticus sad
Menses, ; mauls are swallowed op; the waves ties
cad higher, and at length the embalm is soak as to
17:. cad
"sly a chaotic mom, is which all the elements
seem to be es.aeled wither. At lest the eye is gradually
relieved, sad the spectator becomes aware of the app reo
t
senate of the Millie turmoil wale* he has witscsed. The
INICOMOIVO martins of the city, whisk Daly a few sautes
previously were so securely seated epos a reek, are now over-
throws. sad retire es every side most the view. whilst the
eurtais slowly tails ta MU* which, byname:dation, Wags*
the neelleetya mosrafal sad Welled tucks of hams.
history. Such is the royal makeema "(the Barthinelte of
Lishoa—sad without say sedges maim or mopyterotton of its
merits, it may claimto take weak mamma the most attractive
of
this mules of pictures.
The vim es Saturda us priests, sad intended solely to
MA the merits of the mistier by the minims of the iases-
lees artistic friends. r.Bradwellsathieaboedir.ateehag
e
reuses to cosgratelato themselves, and to give MI
= to the siaerrity ol the auspilmeate which IMO sham
and upea him on all sides for the beauty, the artaisality
add the fidelity of his emus. Tbe moving scene was meow
puled by the mask produce' by a skilfully-played Aril-