Year: 1870

THE DICKENS ToRso.-The admirers of Mr.. Die
kens everywhere will rejoice to learn that autho-
rized attempt will be made to finish. The Mys-
tery of Edwin brood "-even though the master is
said to have left abundant memoranda from which
clever writer might construct the unexecuted
instalments of that fascinating story. No writer
lives who could, with any degree of success initiate
the Dickens style. The best that any one could do
with it would be to caricature 1t badly, and griev-
ously insult the memory of the departed novelist.
The subtle and delicate felicites OF thought and
expression which mark his more finished compost
tions, and are peculiarly conspicuous, in "The
Mystery of Edwin Drood," are beyond the reach
Of counterleiting. An ingenious framer of plots,
like Mr.. Wike Collins, might, it is true, follow
the clue of the mystery through most of its wind
ings, with the aid of the authors notes. and give
a nicely articulated skeleton Of that which the
genius OF Dickens would have made to live and
bloom in perennial freshness. The story he might
continue after fashion, to its close, and leave the
characters disposed of in the last chapter as Mr..
Dickens would have wished them to be; but the
characters themselves would surely be mutilated
in the process, and the tale, work of art would
be monster of deformity, instead of beautiful tor
so, as it will stand at the end of the fifth monthly
part. Let it remain say we, like the Venus of Milo,
which no man attempts to complete, the confessed
despair of all lessor artists than him who wrought
it, and the rounded beauty of whose missing arms
it is much pleasure for the Imagination to essay
to body forth. So we would have "The Mys-
tery of Edwin brood" confront the guessers
of all time with the problem of its solu-
tion, to be aided, however, let us hope, by
the notes that Mr.. Dickens left behind him.
With the executors of the novelist who owned his
own copyrights Chapman and Hall merely acting
his publishers) rests the decision whether his
outlines and plans shall be given to the public or
withheld We would suggest nothing that would
do injustice to the reputation of the illustrious
thor; but do think that no shadow of harm could
come to that from the printing Of those previous
relics precisely he left them. From them we
could get pretty fair idea though not full one
since he is said to have been in the habit of chang
ing the details of his plots his stories went on,
of the disposition which he meant to make of Ed
win brood, Jasper Drood Rosa Bud, Neville and
Helena Landless, that most charming of minor Ca
mons, the Reverend Septmus Crisparkle, the eccen-
trio Durdles, the pompous Sapsea and the rest The
world of authors, than the world of rea-
ders, would esteem It delightful privilege to be
let into the workshop of the master and see the
rough first thoughts which were the germs of his
matchless creations. No curiosity of literature
could approach this one in interest and permanent
value and we reiterate our wish that the executors
of Mr. Dickens may deem 1t consistent with that sa-
cred duty which they to the dead to render this
excellent service to the living, and to the genera
tions to come.