The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-01 00:00:00

LITEBATUI:E.

Bleak House. Nos. XIX. and XX. By Charles

Dickens.
Unfeignedly—we both regret and rejoice at the
completion of "Bleak House." We regret its com-
pletion, because, for the time being at least, it
closes between its author and ourselves a long-sus-
tained series of alluring, and some of them delight-
ful, associations. We rejoice at it, because it affords
us the opportunity of anticipating the speedy re-
newal of a communion with which we have become
agreeably familiarised, and because we would fain
hope that that revival of intercourse between the
reader and the novelist may be effected under far
more propitious, and, all things considered, more
entirely satisfactory circumstances. Our meaning
in all this may be explained, perhaps, yet more
clearly when we remark that we still consider
" Bleak House "
as greatly inferior to some
other of Mr. Dickens's productions, and yet
that, in spite of these convictions, we have
not failed (as who could fail, indeed, with
any accurate appreciation of his genius ?) to im-
bibe from the narrative, gradually, and al-
most imperceptibly as it has advanced from
its opening chapter to its denouement, a sense of
affectionate interest in several of the imaginary
characters introduced. In yielding the palm to
some among its predecessors, we are not necessarily,
however (it may be as well to remark), treating
" Bleak House" with any very grievous disparage-
ment. It does not follow, for example, that be-
cause we prefer even the brief story of the " Christ-
mas Carol " to a work like this, of extended di-
mensions, and of infinite elaboration, that there-
fore we imply, in regard to " Bleak House," a sen-
tence of excessive depreciation. By no means.
The preference would only indicate the more de-
cisively and unmistakeably the estimation in which
we hold that miniature but exquisite masterpiece.
Still less would it be invidious on our part were
we to acknowledge, as we might, that in reference
to the fiction here concluded, we recognise a sin-
gular " falling off" from the power, pathos,
humour, fancy, and wit lavished upon the masterly
volume by which it was immediately preceded.
For that confession might signify little more than
that we have come to look upon. " David Copper-
field" as a tale in all essential respects incomparable.
Candidly, then, we must be permitted to avow
that, to our mind, Mr. Dickens has often before
surpassed this the latest, but not the most ripened,
fruit of his imagination. Comparisons, we admit,
are here, as in most other instances, odious—yet
here too they may have a certain amount of utility,
however unwelcome or unpalatable. Availing
ourselves of them, with a view to indicate what
appears to us to be the relative value of the writ-
ings of our distinguished novelist, we would here
venture to place the effusion now before us in a
great measure below almost every one among the
chief of his compositions. " Pickwick," of course,
remains up to this hour quite a work sui generis,
alone and unapproachable. The quintessence of
fun. The acme of the humorous. The delight-
fullest of all literary evidences of an irresistible
rush of animal spirits. "Nicholas Nickleby" still
preserves the charm of its earlyfascination. We still
continue to trace the links of its alluring incidents
through all that wonderful realm of the fictitious,
where, in the thick of sordid things, we recognise
the beautiful tokens of human tenderness. Smike,
in the horrible brutality and squalor of Do-the-
Boys Hall, Kate, in the frivolous and vulgar
luxury of the Mantalines. Madeline, in the garru-
lous and dastardly egotism of the threadbare
gambler and the heartless valetudinarian. " Oliver
Twist" again—who that has ever rightly under-
stood the power of that epic of every-day life, that
tragedy of the by-lane and the workhouse, can have
lost a sense of the high genius apparent in every
womanly feeling of poor degraded Nancy, in
every prattled syllable of pale-faced little Dick,
nay, in every growl of that marvellous dog of
Sykes the murderer ? As for the " Old Curiosity
Shop," we have not forgotten the tears shed
for " kind, gentle, patient, noble Nell," or
the laughter won by that matchless droll Dick
Swiveller, with his gazelles and his market garden-
ers I "'Barnaby Rudge" conjures up by its very
name as vividly as ever the bewitching coquettry
of dear little Dolly Varden, the mincing gait and
dainty tread of the refined Sir John Chester—Grip
stropping his beak upon a tombstone, and old John
Willett gazing with his fishy eye of stupidity upon
the oracular kettle in the goodly kitchen of the
Maypole. " Chuzzlewit" recurs to us glorified
with the memory of Mrs. Gamp, or still more by
that of the mythic but immortal Mrs. Harris, her
familiar—coloured by the comely villanies and
smug rascality of Pecksniff, endeared by the
goodness of Tom Pinch, and lit up by the
love of Ruth, wooed and won by the Tem-
ple Fountain. " Dombey and Son" again
—despite all the absurdities (as we conceive them
to be) relating to Edith and to Carker—comes to
us always with the charm of a pathos due to little
Paul, and with the delight of a merriment for
which we are indebted to the great and memorable
Captain Cuttle. " David Copperfield"—to closethe
catalogue appropriately -enough with our author's
masterpiece—requires no word of commendation
at our hands, securing, as it does, the love and ad-
miration of every intelligent reader by the wisdom,
and the sweetness, and the beauty, and the elo-
quence of every sentence of that most rare of all ficti-
tious autobiographies. Introduced to ournotice after
these productions, " Bleak House" has proved to
us, in spite of all its various merits, fraught with real
and peculiar disappointment—and no marvel, be it
said, under the circumstances. Encouraged by his
previous writings to the indulgence of the highest
anticipations in regard to any new work from the
hand of Charles Dickens—no wonder we find rea-
son in some instances to regret the fact of the anti-
cipations not being realised quite satisfactorily. It
has already been observed in these columns more
than once that, to our thinking, " Bleak House,"
as a work of art, is defective. So far consequently
we have regarded it for some time past as scarcely
worthy in several particulars of its author's distin-
guished reputation. Such indeed was our impres-
sion in regard to the story almost immediately
upon its commencement. Such is still our opinion
now that we have followed the thread of the narra-
tive to its conclusion. Granted that the volume
comprises (as it could not fail to comprise—coming
from such a hand) various original and some most
masterly descriptions. Granted that many of the
imaginary characters of the plot are such as Boz alone
could have summonedinto existence. Granted that
the taleabounds, in different parts, in passages here
exquisitely pathetic and there delightfully humor-
ous, yet, notwithstanding all these excellences,
excellences both numerous and diversified,
" Bleak House," as a work of art, still appears to
us on the whole, as we have said, in several par-
ticulars strikingly defective. Written alternately
in the first and the third person, the book even in
manner is confused. Its materials moreover are,
it must be confessed, jumbled together somewhat
incoherently. Inasmuch as we are never informed,
for example, from what points of the compass the
heroine Ada, and the hero Richard, are suddenly
brought together—it lacks a beginning. It lacks
an end likewise in more than one instance—as where
we are never told how Krook obtained the will in
Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or how the news of
Lady Dedlock's death • was related to Sir Lei-
cester, or how it came to pass that Mademoi-
selle Hortense walked through the wet grass
in her stockings, or whether that amiable young
lady ever expiated on the scaffold the mur-
der of Mr. Tulkinghorn. Nevertheless, faulty
though the fiction appears to our judgment in
these particulars—we gladly and eagerly avow
that, in other respects, it commands our most cor-
dial admiration.
It illustrates, as Mr. Dickens reminds us in his
Preface, " the romantic side of familiar things,"
and it does this with a power and consummate
skill of which we have no comparable example in
the whole range of oar irawagianhawtihvaetlsiuterrpantusirneg.
Something like this has before now been successfully
accomplished amongst our neighbours by M. de
Balzac—but nothing similar, we believe, has ever
before been even attempted amongst ourselves, at
any rate so systematically.
adroitness this purpose has been developed in the
example before us, the readers of" Bleak House" (and
their name is legion"—Mr. Dickens himself, tell-
ingy
pages, fraught with a peculiar and
It has been recognised—that
"
the novelist, the prominent cha-
us in so many words? I believe I have never
had so many readers as in this book") have learnt
lalwayer's chamber at Lincoln's-
te throeldritchughr m a
mn o f
fascination.
luxury of the town-house of the
racteristic of " Bleak sseiohued,r"awthieng‘..crooommanatticaslieds-e
oinnfenyf
Fiwni t hiinni nttgiihsee"
lds,
Dedlocks, in the squalor, and disease, and dilapida-
tion of Tom-all-alone's, at the rag and bottle shop,
and at the dwelling of the law-stationer. It has
been associated with the fortunes of Jo, the crossing
-for-fact e
slwt ebeapse rn, atn
bdo withon
n atrhr oe
ds of
ey
oßucketwhen thb e detective.
r oogh tnt
0
Guppy
yquities and abuses,
of the tale has
Aimmediate connection, wit
ht
eh am no iraatl t e
or
previously carried off in
the rottenness and corruption of that monster-evil
the High Court of Chancery.
Although death had
gragoewnlikluexugrira.ntlW
succession, Nemo, and Gridley, and Jo, and Lady
yiloluiatmof tGheu
Dedlock, and Mr. Tulkinghorn, much still remained
to be told in the double number just published be-
fore the fiction could be completed to anything like
the author's or the reader's satisfaction. How much
may be perceived at a glance through the mere
items of information here enumerated. First of all
marriage is celebratect„between. Allan Woodcourt