The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS ON CHARLES DICKENS.

One whom young and old, wherever the English
language is spoken, have been accustomed to regard as a
personal friend, says the Times, 'is suddenly taken
away from among us. Charles Dickens is no
more. The loss of such a man will be felt by
millions as nothing less than a personal bereavement.
Extraordinary and very original genius must be united
with good sense, consummate skill, a well-balanced mind,
and the proofs of a noble and affectionate disposition be-
fore the world will consent to enthrone a man as their
unassailable and enduring favourite. This is the position
which Mr. Dickens has occupied with the English and
al4o with the American public for the third of a century.
Mr. Dickens was a man of an eminently kindly nature,
and full of sympathy for all around him. We feel that
we have lost one of the foremost Englishmen of the age.
There are clever writers enough, but no one will take the
place, literary and social, that belonged to him. It was
but the other day that at the Royal Academy banquet he
made the best speech of the evening, in matter, language,
and manner. His powers as an actor are well known,
though, of late years, they have been only exhibited in
the narrower field of public readings. He was made to be
popular, and, even irrespective of his literary genius, was
an able and strong-minded man, who would have suc-
ceeded in almost any profession to which he devoted him-
self. We can but condole with the public on his sudden
and premature loss.

The Standard does not yet attempt any elaborate criti-
cism on Mr. Dickens's writing, or to estimate the perma-
nent position he will occupy in the gallery of British
worthies. It is said that his pathos was often unreal,
that his sentiment often became maudlin, his humour was
sometimes forced and always grotesque. All this may
have been. But, on the other hand, he has erected a
gallery of portraits, made us acquainted with a greater
number of living flesh and blood characters than any
author of our own or other times, with the exception
of Shakspeare and Scott. Pickwick, and Weller, and
Pecksniff, and Mark Tapley, and Dick Swiveller,
and Little Nell, and the Marchioness, and a host of
others, have become to us household words, and have
enterd as it were into the very marrow of our language.
It is his praise—the niceness of modern society perhaps
restrained him, but yet he deserves it—that with all his
wild humour, he never allowed it to be employed against
virtue or religion. He had often to deal with hypocrites
and pretenders to religion, but even in delineating the
Chadbands of the pulpit hs chose to let them talk drivel
rather than bring sacred names into association with
ridicule. He has-died in harness. He was engaged on a
new novel, Edwin Drood," of which, as only three
numbers have appeared, it would be unfair to form an
estimate. It is a somewhat remarkable coincidence that
his great contemporary, 'l'hackeray, was cut down with
almost equal suddenness, and just as he too had published
the first few numbers of a new novel.

Is there a breakfast•table in the land (asks the Tele-
graph) around which the brief, abrupt message, Charles
Dickens is dead !—abrupt as the event it records was
sudden will not cast the mournful shadow of a
personal loss ? Is there an English home—is there
an American household—for which this day will not
be a day of hushed and solemn stillness, as though
a dear friend lay dead within the walls ? Not
merely had the fame and the genius of the departed won
him love and honour among what we may term the read-
ing classes of the nation ; his rarely rivalled .power to
touch the deep springs of human feeling had made him a
familiar friend in every English family. It is the man
who has won such a matchless place in all our homes and
all our breasts that now lies beaten in the battle of life—
out of the fight for ever. He is not the first to wear him-
self out, all too soon for himself, though not for fame, in
the deadly race of these too rapid times ; nor will he be
the last. The workman has fallen at his task ; the war-
rior has died in his harness. Every Englishman knows
how to honour such a life, and such a death.
We record this morning (says the Post) the death of one
for whom (if greatness is to be measured by the popula-
rity and influence of his works), it may be claimed that he
was the greatest novelist of the present century.
Wherever the English tongue is spoken, the name of
Charles Dickens is a household word, and throughout
the world it is accepted as that of a writer whose
works most thoroughly and completely repre-
sent English fiction. Happier too than many others
he had it given to him to reap during his lifetime the
fame which he had so well won; and, while still in his
prime, to know that his works had gone throughout the
world, that they had become almost a part of the daily
life of his countrymen' and that his very phrases had
turned into proverbs in their mouths. Nor will his fame
die. It rests, in its essential parts, upon works that ap-
peal to the sympathies and feelings of all mankind, and
that strike notes which will never cease to vibrate as long
as the world exists. And now that he has gone from
among us, we cannot but feel that a void is left where ho
stood, and that we have lost a man who, in spit() of his
shortcomings, has done more than any other that lived in
his time to make English literature loved and admired.
Our readers will learn with a shock of pain and a sense
of personal bereavement (says the Drily New,) that
a writer who for four and thirty years has been the
delightful friend and companion of all readers of the
English language is no more. Charles Dickens is
dead. With the exception of Shakespeare and of
Scott, he was• the best read author in the
English language. In his pages, the purity of
a child and the tenderness of a woman were blended
with a genius rare and absolutely unique. Mr. Di(zkens
was himself alone. He had no intellectual pedigree.
His writings mark an era in English literature. The
generous and loving character of the man made him friends
wherever he was known. Like his great rival, Thackeray,
he leaves an unfinished story behind him. The thread of
his life and of the tale are snapped together. " The Mys-
tery of Edwin Drood " is swallowed up ina mystery more
awful.

Rarely has any one passed away from this earthly scene
(says the Morning Advertiser) amidst more sincere and
general regret than will be everywhere felt when the
intelligence of the death of Charles Dickens is received.
There was no man in England, says the Echo, who had
so many friends as Charles Dickens. It may be questioned
whether any author who ever lived achieved the same
amount of fame in his own lifetime ; and it was a fame
won by no meretricious trickery or pandering to
ignoble passions. From the first day of his career
as a writer to the last, Charles Dickens wrote what
no father need have scrupled to read to his daughter.
At present, we are sure, the public will be too much
stunned by the intelligence of his death to think of Charles
Dickens otherwise than as an author who was respected
and loved by thousands who had never seen his face nor
heard his voice.

The American papers record the death of the
Venerable Nathaniel Willis, aged 90. He was the father
of several persons. who have gained literary eminence—
Nathaniel Parker Willis, the poet, Richard Storrs Willis,
and Mrs. Parton.

The diamond known as the " Star of South Africa,'
having been cut, has proved a matchless stone of most re-
splendent quality, of about 186 grains weight. It is
understood to have been sold on behalf of the consignees
by the brokers, Messrs. Ochs Brothers, of London and
Paris, to Messrs. Hunt and Roskell.
The recent transmission of false telegrams from Aus-
tralia, Central America, &c., regarding mining com-
panies, had already been sufficiently exposed to prevent
the success of any future experiments of that kind ; but
.the fabrication of a despatch such as that regarding
the loss of ' the Dacia was wholly unexpected.
It is said that a reward will be offered at Lloyd's for the
detection of the delinquent, and as the message was one
to have attracted attention, there may be some hope of
its success.

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