New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-12
TOPD DICKENS.


cold Curiosity Shop made in birmingham
not long since, the most proper observation
we can make Is that we hope the British min
istry will at once make baron of him. lie
has earned it not less than MoncktOn Mines or
Macaulay, and that too by holder bid TO
aristocractic favor than either OF these gen
tlemen can make in set terms 80 good
reader of Mr.. Dickens as Mr.. John Bright
might object to the dishonor of his author III
this way; so, too, might Mr.. John Forster, an
other democratic appreciation OF the spirit
of Mr. Dckenss works, some OF which
in these better days has entered politics, and Is
pleading for the rights of the poor How Mr..
Gladstone would stand affected toward the new
candidate for aristocratic laurels, is doubtful.
He has written books and bills, and made great
speeches; he has discoursed on literature, his
tory, finance, as few men can; but no title has
come to crown his liberal and manly labOTs.
Curously enough, his expressed sentiments to
the people of England are rather the reverse
of those confessed in his Manchester address,
by the author of David Copperfeld; but Mr..
BENJAMIN Disrael or Mr. Claiborne Hardy, or
Lord Cairns, or any of those wen-educated
Philstines who belong to a party which has
much of Dombey at top and Pumblechook al
bottom. and Lord VerisOpht in the middle.
might rejoice to make Mr. Dickens lord out
of hand. His intimate and particular TREND
Sir Edward Buwer Lytton, is enough OF
conservative and enough of an aristocrat to
wish that his fellow genius might be so DIS
crowned and as for Thomas Carlyle, there Is
that in the speech of Mr.. Dickens which should
delight his grim and noble nature, and warm
his iron heart.
The truth is that Mr.. Dickens did say, in his
Birmingham speech, that his belief in the peo-
ple governing was infinitesimal, and his faith
in the people governed illimitable. If the words
of n great man are to be taken literally, then
Mr.. Dickens's admiration of the Russian En-
pire can hardly be equaled by his contempt
of the American Republic. But we cannot be-
lieve that he wishes to go so far as this, or we
should recommend at once n translation OF
his speech for the Emperor of China and the
Dictator of Paraguay. The man who
says virtually that the people cannot
and ought not to govern themselves, has
millions of readers who delight in his books,
and to whom his speech is simply an insult;
for if they can read Dickens why should they
not vote Dickens l-if their souls are filed with
why are they not fitted to vote down any
policy of How mot TODD itl In fact, Mr..
Dickens's vast constituency of honest men
borne down by social oppression, OF angelic
natures concealed under wrong and beggary, of
masked faces hiding under habit and ccccn-
tricity lineaments of manhood only to be dis
eerned by a humanitarian genlus-all these
democratic witnesses of his own raising are
against him. Has he summoned all these
spirits from the vastly deep of imagination
only to tell them that at last poor Smike
can never vote against Squeers, and
that Pip can never sit in judgment on Pun
blechook? We should think Mr.. Dickens
poor CONSIDER of our humanity indeed if he
had taught us nothing better than the shallow
sophsm that things should be as they are, and
that the people are always to be governed,
and never to rule, Mr.. Dickens's own benct-
cent spirit in literature must condemn him.
We fear that we may have to say OF him as
Macaulay said of Southey, that his political
opinions are only his tastes and fancies, and
not his convictions. He evidently has not real
lied that the people can never be truly gov
erned till they govern themselves-a truth
which England more and more attests, and
which Mr.. Dickens in spite of himself wit
ueSSeS.