The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-15 00:00:00

REVIEWS OF THE WORK.

"Curtis on Manhood.—This is a truly valuable work, and
should be in the hands of young and old."—" Sunday Timm),
`i3d March, 1856.
little "The author has conferred a great boon by publishing this
work, in which is described the source of those diseases
Whichproduce decline in youth or more frequently premature
old age."—.. Daily Telegraph," March 27,1856.
"This work, which for twenty years has stood the test of
Liroclessional criticism and empirical hostility, treats in aplain
sympathising manner on the various disqualifications
cbxen‘ity;
ant
impediments arising from nervous excitement and de-
es„s viii invalids suffering from youthful errors and
Loudonbe found valuable and useful. Record.
: Published by J. Allen, 20, Warwick Lane, Pater-
-1.191111 of C 9",
212ster -row Mann, 39, Cornhill. v
",14+tittion-_-_l9 to 3 and 6 to 5. §tattyvp, 10 till

TRULY EFFICACIOUS AND MILD.-
Dr. SCOTT'S BILIOUS and LIVER PILLS, 'pre-
pared without'any mercurial ingredient, from the recipe of Dr.
Scott, of Bromley, Kent, will be found invaluable to all who
suffer from bilious and liver complaints, indigestion, wind,
spasms, giddiness, dizziness of the eyes, &o. For habitual
costiveness, as a family aperient medicine, and as a purifier
of the blood, thoy aso troly,xeollont mint m melt' opera-
tion and grateful to the stomach, they create appe-ite, pro-
mote digestion, and strengthen the whole nervous system.
Sold by W. Lambert, 20, Jermvn-street, Haymarket, London,
and by most druggists, in boxes, ls. lid., and three times
the quantity in one, 2s. lid. Be sure to ask for Dr. Scott's
Bilious and Liver Pills. The genuine are a square green
package, with " William Lambert," engraved on the stamp.

8, GROSVENO R-STREET, G ROSVENOR-SQUARE.-

ALL CONSULTATIONS FREE.

RTIFICIAL TEETH on a NEW and IM-
' PROVED PRINCIPLE, at TEN SHILLINGS EACH
TOOTH (including all charges.)

Mr. ESKELL'S PATE NTED INVENTION (protected by
her Majesty's Royal Seal, July, 1860), for adapting. Arti-
ficial Teeth, from one to a complete set, by Self-Adhesion,
are fixed without springs or fastening, without pain or ex-
traction, restore perfect- articulation and mastication, ren-
dering detection impossible, and last a lifetime.
"Unrivalled for its utilityand economy."—Morning Post.
"An admirable contrivance for remedying the defects of
nature, without requiring new sets of teeth."—Sun.

Decayed Teeth Stopped, Loose Teeth Fastened, Discoloured.
Teeth Restored, &c. Constant Daily Attance at 8, Grosvenor-
street, Grosvernor-square, London; Old Steine, Brighton;
Bennett's-hill, Birmingham

RUPTURES.-BY ROYAL LETTERS PATENT.

WHITE'S MOC-M AIN LEVER TRUSS
(PERFECTED AND EXHIBITED IN THE GREAT
EXHIBITION or 1851), is allowed by upwards of Two
Hundred Medical Gentlemen to be the most effective
invention in the curative treatment of El ERN I A.
The use of a steel spring, so often hurtful in its effects,
is here avoided—a soft bandage being worn round the
body, while the requisite resisting power is supplied by the
Hoc-Main Pad and Patent Lever, fitting* with so much ease
and closeness that it cannot be detected, and may be worn
during sleep. A descriptive circular may be had,' and the
truss, which cannot fail to fit, forwarded by post, on the cir-
cumference of the body, two inches below the hips, being
sent to the manufacturer,

Mr. WHITE, 228, Piccadilly.
A Single Truss, 165., 215., 265. 6d., and 31s. 6d. Postage, Is,
A Doublo Truss, 31s. 6d., 425., and 525. 6d. Postage, is Bd,
An Umbilical Truss, 425. and 525. 6si. Postage, ls. 10d.
Post-office Orders to be made payable to Jolm White, Post-
office, Piccadilly.

P LASTIC STOCKINGS, KNEE-CAPS, &c., for
ALA Varicose Veins and all cases of Weakness and Swelling 01
the Legs, Sprains, &c. They are porous, light in texture,
and inexpensive, and are drawn on like an'ordinary stocking.
Price 4s. 6d., 78. 6d., 10s., and 16s. each. Postage 6d.
JOHN WHITE, Manufacturer, 228;Piceadilly.

DR. BRIGHT'S APHRODISION.-
The GREAT CHEMICAL COMBINATION of Phos-
phorus, Quinine, Iron, and other invigorating ingredients, is
the never-failingßemedy for Spermatorrlmea, and all Diseases
of the Reproductive System. A single course of this invalu-
able preparation insures health, strength, and manly vigour
in every stage of life. Price, lls. per bottle, or four lls. bottles
in one, 335. ; and in cases containing three 335. bottles, for
£5, at a saving of £1 12s.
DR. BRIGHT'S TII REE DAYS' CURE ; the most speedy
remedy known. The BUCHU GLOBULES, containing the
Quintessence of Copaiba, Cubebs, Buchu, &c., at once cure,
without the posgibility of failure, Gonorrhoea, obstinate Gleet,
Stricture, Sc., immediately subduing all inflammatory action;
encased in sugar, free from taste or smell. Price lis. ; by
post 12s. 6d.
Prepared and sold at the Laboratoyy, 44A, Maddox-street,
Regent-street, W. (opposite the side of St. George's Church),
London, where also may be had the new medical work, en-
titled "Nervous Exhaustion," on Physical Disqualification
and Impediments to Marriage, 275 pages. Price 2s. ed. ; by
post, "s. 10(1. ; abridged edition ls., by post 14 stamps, All
communications and Post-Office Orders fo be addressed to
Ralph Bright.
The above medicines have been confided to a Registered
Physician, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Eng-
land, who may be daily consulted from 11 to 4.

I, GREAT MARLBOERPANTHEON. OUGH-STREET, W., NEAR
TH

nR. CULVERWELL, Member of the Roya.l
College of Surgeons, Licentiate of Midwifery, and Apo-
thecaries' Hall, London, can he consulted daily (only) as
Above, on all oases of Nervous Debility, Languor, Incapacity,
Loss of Memory, Sterility, and all Functional Derangements
,f both Sexes,-emanating from early and excessive :indul-
g Aloes!

Has Just published, price ls. ;- by post, 1$ stamps,
18 sealed,
No. 4,
An entire new and oridnal Work, entitled
OURSELVES.

.
Synopsis; The Ph ye iol ogy and Anatomy of our eneration
—The Origin of Disease—Symptoms, Treatment, and Cure.
A IF o, an Exposition of. and 'Remedy ior, all Urinary Derange-
ments and Marital Disqualifications,

MALE.
The modern treatment of Syphilis, Stricture, Blannorrhagia
clonorrhma), Spermatorrhcea, Impotency, and all Diseases of
he Urinary Organs, with Prescriptions, &O.!

The Physiology and Anatomy FEMALE
of Women—Functional Ir-
Tf2itlaritles in Health and Sickness—Choice in Marriage—
heir Expectancies and Disappointments—The Cause and
It.:lnoval of Sterility—The Theory and Symptoms of Gesta-
tim—Usp of the Speculum, Also,
HEALTH No. 1.
HAPPINESS, and LONGEVITY;
On Debility , , Nervousness, Dyspepsia, and Indigestion,

No. 2.
LOE AD :
heir Obligations, H VappiNness, audMARRIAGE Disappointments; Love
ald other Matches. Sterility Removed, and Healthy Off-
s _Ting secured.;

No. S.
THE CASE BOOKS:
100 Cases of SPERMATORRMEA,
Their Canna, Symptoms, and Treatment, Confessions and
(,ure oy tiauterisations, Galvanism, &e. &c.
To be haa of Mann, 39, Cornhili ; and the Authors.
AAVIce to the Working Classes fee Half-a-Gaines:
(SPECIAL NOTICE.)
Dr. Culverwell is the only legally qualified medical practi-
tioner living of that name, and can be consulted (only as

Already, four of the most celebrated and popular
fictions of our great novelist have made their ap-
pearance in this magnificent edition of his writings.
Among all the various editions yet publisled this
is incomparably the very best. The original edi-
tions must always, of course, if but for old asso-
ciation's sake, remain to the last especial favou-
rites with us ! Those ever-memorable guinea
editions, issued in monthly shilling numbers, and
only bound into substantial volumes upon their
completion. Who has not a kindness for them ?
a genuine affection even for the mere remembrance
of those two green leaves put forth month after
month—each serial in its turn weaving a garland
for the Great Humorist, more delightful, and ver-
dant, and perennial than all the bay-wreaths that
were ever babbled about or hankered after by the
old poets ? If it were possible to have these works
printed in gold upon vellum by Delarue, and illu-
minated by the gorgeous brush of Owen Jones,
and bound by Heyday in pink morocco, glorified
by a web-work of gilt tooling in arabesques—we
can't help thinking we should still have a side-
long preference somehow for the old type and the
old illustrations ! However—better than all the
morocco, and vellum and gilding in the world (of
letters), here, in this noble Library Edition of
Charles Dickens (Illustrated) is really and truly
one of those ne plus ultra editions of a great author
that leave one absolutely nothing in reason to de-
sire for it in the way of improvement. Excellent
paper, admirable type, and—as a pleasant reminis-
cence of the old green-leaved numbers the
original illustrations.
As we have said, Four of the most remarkable of
these world-famous fictions have already been com-
pleted since this last and best re-issue of Mr. Dickens'
writings began some nine months ago—volume by
volume appearing since then punctually with the
magazines. Pickwick is here—leading off, as it has
in every way a right to do, all the various and ini-
mitable works of our incomparable Boz. Nicholas
Wickleby comes immediately afterwards. Martin
Chuzzlewit is then, like the rest of them, laid before
us, complete in two volumes. Here also, ranged
side by side with its companions, may be recog-
nised The Old Curiosity Shop. Eight handsome
volumes altogether comprize within them these
four masterpieces—the second volume of the " Old
Curiosity Shop," a work not of course, it will be
remembered, of the same length with its predeces-
sors, being very agreeably eked out by what are
simply entitled, in the table of contents, " Re-
printed Pieces," namely, some one-and-thirty papers
of a miscellaneous character, selected from Mr.
Dickens' anonymous but unmistakeable contribu-
tions to his own two weekly periodicals.
It has often occurred to us that, far more vividly
than anyanalysis could possibly do, a simple enume-
ration of the dramatis persona peopling the fictions
of a great master in Imaginative Literature, would
account for the potency of his fame and for the diffu-
sion of his popularity. The reasonableness of this
impression might readily enough be evidenced by
the selection of any work of this character of esta-
blished reputation, from the first novel that was
ever written, or at any rate that has been preserved
for us from the old classic times, meaning
The Golden Ass of Apuleius, down, let us
say, to the last and not by any means the
least admirable Great Expectations. We
might illustrate our meaning again very readily
from the picturesque narratives of Le Sage or of
Boccaccio. We might give as an excellent "case
in point" the epitome of the imaginary creatures
whose lives and deaths constitute the interest of any
ono of the famous stories related, let us say, by
Walter Scott or by Henry Fielding. But the
notion here put forth could not, by any possibility
whatever, secure to itself a more admirable oppor-
tunity for its realisation, than by our availing our-
selves of the very instance now immeditktely under
oar notice.
Of all the World's Novelists, Charles Dickens
is one of the very first and foremost. Here is an
imaginative writer gifted with the very rarest
original genius. A genius that for years and years
past has demonstrated its perfect mastery over our
tears and our laughter. No author has ever during
his own life enjoyed so wide a popularity. No
writer has ever had so many readers among his
contemporaries. His Romance, more than any other
romancist's that we wot of, has taken to itself the
substance of Reality. He is the great Realistic
Writer of his age. In the minuteness of his touch
he is thePre-Raphaelite of the Pen—only thatunlike
the Pre-Raphaelites of the Pencil he has that exqui-
site tact, and taste, and instinctive sense of the to
kalon that (with all his wonderful appreciation of
the grotesque) his preference ever (whenever the
choice hangs trembling in the balance) decides in
favour of the True and the Beautiful. Here in
Charles Dickens in fact is an imaginative writer
whose books have won for themselves and their
author a popularity unsurpassed either in depth or
in diffusion, in the hold it has gained upon each
individual reader's heart, and in its wide
and ample distribution among all ranks and classes
of the general multitude. The characters, the
thoughts, the merest qu;ps and cranks, the casual
whims and oddities of this famous writer have now
—increasingly during this last quarter of a century
—though he himself is as yet but in the prime of
his manhood—been, so to speak, permeating his
age, until many of them, it is not extravagant to say
it, have long since come to be part and parcel of the
language. It cannot, therefore, but be matter of
interest, to any thoughtful observer, to obtain, by any
reasonable means that may be suggested, a vivid
notion (through one or two rapid retrospective
glances) of one of the sources of this amazing in-
fluence, of one of the secrets of this immense popu-
larity. And no readier means occurs to us—to-
wards this end—than the very simple and easily
appreciable one we have but just now indicated.
Namely, by rapidly enumerating the extraordinary
diversity of original creations peopling one or other
of his delightful masterpieces. Giving, that is, the
dramatis personae of one fiction after another. For
example there is—PicKwicic—where, among a
crowd of other whimsical personages, we meet with
the following exquisitely humorous characters :
Mr. Pickwick himself—that " angel in tights !"
Mr. Tupman—the "too suceptible Tupman."
Mr. Snodgrass—the poetic Snodgrass.
Mr. Winkle—the type of all Cockney Sportsmen.
Old Weller—the model Stage Coachman.
Sam Weller—the paragon of Footmen.
Old Wardle—the Jovial Country Gentleman.
Alfred Jingle—the eccentric scamp.
Job Trotter— his humble canting accomplice.
r. Bene o
Allen—hisHunterwhat
Mr. Perker—the dapper little attorney.
Mrs. Bardell—the buxom lodginghouse-keeper.
Mrs. L
congenial
name
a indicates.
Mr. Bob Sawyer—the medical student.
Mr. intimate. Mr. Stiggins—the rednosed man.
Sergeants Buzfuz and Snubbin
Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders..
Master Bardell and the Fat BoY.
Messrs. Mivins and Smangle.
Together with a swarm of other motl and ever
laughter-moving personages. ey
Then, again, bear in recollection
the wonderful
throng of humorous creatures peopling the record
of the life and adventures of NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.
Nicholas himself—the best of all our Novelist's
heroes—saving and excepting always David
Copperfield.
Ralph Nickleby—the usurer.
Squeers—the Yorkshire schoolmaster.
Wackford—his son, that enfant terrible!
John Brodie—the good-humoured Yorkshireman.
'Tilde Price—afterwards buxom Mistress Brodie.
Miss Squeers and her incomparable mother.
Newman Noggs—the decayed gentleman.
Smike—the gentle half-witted drudge.
Charles and Ned—those glorious Brothers Cheery-
ble.
Tim Linkinwater—that archtype of a good old-
fashioned London clerk.
Miss Lecreevy—the kind-hearted little miniature-
Painter.
Mr. Mantalini and Madame Mantalini.
Lord Frederick Verisopht—the patrician pidgeon.
Sir Mulberry Hawk—his own surname, to a T.
Messrs. Pike and Pluck—tuft-hunters and toad-
eaters extraordinary.
Mrs. Nickleby—who as a humorous character is
only to be paralleled in excellence, among Cour

author's whimsical creations, by Aunt Betsy in
David Copperfeld.
The Kenwigses and the Crumlleses.
Miss Petowker and Miss Snevellicci.
Mr. Litlyvick—the Water-rate Collector.
Besides many others unnecessary hero to be enu-
merated.
It will be sufficient for our purpose, however,
if we take the merest " pick" of the world-famous
personages introduced in the two other remarkable
fictions already particularised. Remembering, in
MARTIN CHUZZZLEWIT,—
Scth Pccksniff—the architect and arch-hypocrite.
Tom Pinch—" dear Tom ! old friend!"
Ruth—his pretty little sister.
Mark Tapley and Mrs. Lupin.
M. Todgers— wonder among boarding-house
keepers.
Bailey Junior—her boy in green baize, afterwards
in boots and buckskins.
Old Chuffey and BOtsy Prigg.
Montague Tigg— otherwise Tigg Montague.
Jonas—the murderar.
Mrs. Gamp—the mothly nurse. And, most wonder-
ful of all these rcreations—a dream within a
dream—
Mrs. Harris—the nvthical Mrs. Harris—product
of Mrs. Gamp's obvn lively imagination.
Finally—let there be remembered as among the
choicest cusiosities trooping out of the OLD CURIO-
SITY SHOP—
Little Nell—dear, angel Nell.
Dick Swiveller—that matchless droll even in the
Bez Gallery.
Sampson Brass—the attorney of Bevis Marks.
Sally—his sister—a sort of female hippogriff or
legal hermaphrodite.
Daniel Quilp—the little demon dwarf.
The Nubbleses and the Wackleses.
Kit (especially) and Barbara, sly little Barbara.
The Poney Whisker, and the Marchioness.
Short and Codlin, with their Punch's Show.
Mrs. Jarley, and her Travelling Wax-works.
Nelly'a Grandfather and the Poor Schoolmaster.
No wonder that a wizard pen that can conjure into
the semblance of reality individualities so distinct
and life-like—no wonder, we say, that a pen that
can accomplish such marvels with so much ease
should have won for its wielder an innocent and
delightful fame, as wide-spread and as secure as
that of which Charles Dickens has been now for a
quarter of a century in the happy and deserved en-
joyment.
Yet, fatigued, as it were, with the very itera-
tion .of the applause thus cordially lavished upon
Charles Dickens during this same quarter of a cen-
tury last past by his more grateful admirers,
the chiefs of that venerable smellfungus race
whose ancestors ostracised Aristides—whose
favourite robe, must, without doubt, be a wet
blanket, their aptest crest an extinguisher, and
their chosen motto Nil admirari—the leaders and
champions of that ancient race have delighted of
over,
total extinction of all
I what they have insisted
Mr. Dickens' powers as a humorist. Triumph-
antly pointing in proof of this to one after another of
is ginna teixnugl,t itnhge
his latest fictions—more particularly to Dombey and
Son, to Bleak House, and to Little Dorrit. Yet
even here, the answer that can be at once given to
them is, in its way, we maintain, perfectly conclu-
sive. ot that the three last-mentioned novels by
Boz are without flaws—for flaws they have beyond
one moment's question, and some of these, too, flaws
of very considerable magnitude. But that it were,
in spite of those blemishes, at once ungracious and
ungrateful to the very last degree not to bear in
remembrance, for example, that to DomBEY AND
SON we are indebted for
Captain Cutte—" the gentleman with the instru
meat."

NIM
iasjso rT Bo
xa gasntr
tkh—e YriooßdleSseirs.; Josh; Old Joe.
Susan Nipper and Mrs. Pipchin.
Mr. Dombey—the stiff-necked merchant.
Dear Little Paul Dombey.
Mr. Toots with his friends Diogenes and the Game
Chicken.
The Blimbers and the Macstiugers.
That to BLEAK HOUSE we owe the existence of
Mr. Bucket—the Detective.
Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.
Mr. Tulkinghorn—the fashionable Attorney.
Mr. Guppy—the unfashionable attorney's clerk.
Mr. Snagsby—the law stationer.
Poor Jo—the Crossing-sweeper.
Mr. Chadband—the oily Dissenting preacher.
Mr. George of the Shooting Gallery.
Phil Squod—his crab-like attendant.
The Family of Xhe,,,Bagnets, beaded by the Old
Giel.
Harold Skimpole and Mr. Boythorn.
That to LITTLE DoRRIT, again, we have reason to
be thankful for—
The Patriarch and the Tug.
Flora and Mr. F's Aunt.
The Plornishes and Little Mr. Nandy.
Daniel Doyce, the Engineer.
Sparkler—the Man Mountain.
Mr. Murdle—the Millionaire.
And the whole Family of the Dorrits, together with
all the various inhabitants of the old vanished
Marshalsea.
Reverting to this noble edition, however—this last
and best of all the different editions now pro-
curable. of the Collected Writings of Charles
Dickens—The Library Edition, adorned with the
" original illustrations," we have only to describe
it thus simply for what it is—to pronounce its fullest
commendation. It is a more resplendent decora-
tion than any order of merit, than any badge of
a Legion of Honour that could be accorded to a
Great Author—his witnessing the issue from the
press of precisely such an edition as this ! It seems
for all the world, like the visible imprinting of the
timbre of his popularity, during his own life-time,
upon his reputation. It is like a foretaste of the
applause of posterity. And it is precisely because
we regard it as such, in this instance of Mr.
Dickens, that we cannot but rejoice on his
account at the reprint and republication of so
really admirable an edition of his collected works.
Since the four novels already specified, viz.,
"Pickwick," "Nicholas Nickleby,' "'1 he Old
Curiosity Shop," and " Martin Chuzzlewit" have
been completed by the issue from the press of the
eight leading volumes of this Library Edition,
Illustrated—two other volumes, it may be men-
tioned, have also made their appearance. Simul-
taneously with the magazines for November, for
example, there came into the hands of the sub-
scribers, in one goodly tome of 475 pages octavo,
those carelessly dashed-off marvels of comicality,
written by our novelist "when he was a very young
man," and originally published when he was still
" a very young man." " The Sketches by Boz"
with all the old familiar illustrations from the
pencil of George Cruikshank, Prior to this latest
reissue of " The Sketches," the introductory volume
of " Barnaby Rudge," had come into the possession
of the subscribers : to be followed probably at the
dawn of December with a second and concluding
volume like that completing "The Old Curiosity
Shop —a volume, that is, eked out, as we have said,
by a selection of further " Reprinted Pieces," the
choicest specimens of Mr. Dickens' miscellaneous
contributions to his own periodicals. Among the
collection of these papers already presented to
us, the collection, comprising some two-thirds
of the eighth volume of this Illustrated
Library Edition of Dickens—extending, as it
does, from page 153 topage 435 inclusively—what
charming specimens of Mr. Dickens, in his very hap-
piest manner, are to be found ! For example—did
we want to demonstrate at once Mr. Dickens'
powers in the truest sense of the words, as a Poet,
how could we possible do this more conclusively
than by directing attention to his exquisite allegory
of Human Life (pp. 234-238), entitled "A Child's
Story ?" Did we wish to present to view in a com-
pact form his marvellous gifts as a humorist, we
should illustrate their possession upon the instant
by an extract or two from his account of" The Beg-
ging Letter Writer." " Our French Watering
Place" again would afford the opportunity for more
than one delightful example of Mr. Dickens' genius
as a humorist—especially in the genial delineation of
M. Loyal's character. A delineation,in the course of
which, by the way, there is a casual misapprehen-
sion (it is in the middle of p. 193) of an expression
employed by M. Loyal—meaning, in reality, a re-
ligious rite or ceremonial, here mistaken inciden-
tally for a mere phrase of idiomatic facetiousness.
As a sort of counter-blast to Mr. Catlin's enthusiasm,
the essay entitled "The Noble Savage," an argu-
ment, flashing throughout with irony, will be found
by those who know it not already, something admi-
rable in its way. "Has he ever improved
a dog," asks our essayist, speaking of the
noble savage, "or attached a dog since his nobility
first ran wild in woods and was brought down (at
a very long shot) by Pope ?"—meaning by the way,
Dryden : the famous line hinted at, occurring in
the firstEyy rosmencrteoehnneyedbeeotarfs
fweut
laws
a want
tfios
power
s,nfet
servituder
instantapc possessed
sos fe ssbeedbegan
abny "Glorious John 's "
Conquest of Granada—
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
illustrationthe goefntihu the
pDeorefse
ca:nl
of this incomparable writer of ours, the perfectly

wonderful power possessed by Charles Dickens of
extracting the exquisitely pathetic and the exqui-
sitely beautiful from haunts the foulest, the mean-
est, the most squalid that can be anywhererecognised ?
We satisfy this wish at once, very simply and very
conclusively. How ? By extracting this one brief
but marvellously touching and lovely passage from
the paper headed "A Walk in a Workhouse."
THE NURSE OF TUE ITCH WARD !
"In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a
number of listless women were lounging to and fro,
trying to get warm in the ineffectual sunshine of
the tardy May morning—in the 'ltch Ward,' not
to compromise the truth—a woman such as Hogarth
has often drawn, was hurriedly getting on her
gown before a dusty fire. She was the nurse, or
wardswoman of that insalubrious department—
het self a pauper—flabby, rawboned, untidy—un-
promising and worn of aspect as need be. But on
being spoken to about the patients whom she had
in charge, she turned round, with her shabby gown
half on, half off, and fell a•crying with all her
might. Not for show, not queruloinly, not in
any mawkish sentiment, but in the deep
grief and affliction of her heart; turning
away her dishevelled head, sobbing most bitterly,
wringing her hands and letting fall abundance of
great tears, that choked her utterance. What was
the matter with the nurse of the Itch Ward? Oh,
the dropped child was dead! Oh, the child that
was found in the street, and she had brought up
ever since, had died an hour ago, and see where the
little creature lay, beneath this cloth ! The dear,
the pretty dear!
" The dropped child seemed too small, and poor a
thing for Death to be in earnest with, but Death
had taken it; and already its diminutive form was
neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if in
sleep upon a box. I thought I heard a voice from
Heaven saying, It shall be well for thee, 0 nurse of
the itch ward, when some less gentle pauper does
those offices to thy cold form, that such as the
dropped child are the angels who behold my
Father's face !"
Enough, It is a perfect Master of our
Tears no less than of our Laughter that we
hail in Charles Dickens—the creator of Old Weller
and Little Nell, of Paul Dombey and Dick
Swiveller! It is as the very best of all the col-
lective editions of the works of a Humoris
whose genius is of this ample range, that we ac.
cord a welcome thus earnest to this latest reprint
of the writings of Boz.