Year: 1870




marriage. Great scandal, of course, was attached
to this event, but Mr.. Dickens has himself ex-
planned that the cause which led to it was an
uncongeniality of temper, which implied no
dishonor to either party.
For some years before his death he resided at
Gad's Hill, Kent, about an hours ride by rail-
way from London on the road to the beautiful
old cathedral town of Canterbury, celebrated
for its historical associations and for being the
metropolitan see of all England. The house is
described as being one of those comfortable old
fashioned mansions which seem to have taken
root nowhere but in the most picturesque parts
of rural England, and are the brick and mortar
embodiment of the idea of home.


A Review of Mr. Dickens Literary Career.


1t is scarcely possible now to make per-
fectly just and critical estimate of the genius of
Mr.. Dickens, or to PREJUDICE the verdict of pos
terity. The crucial test of time, and the calm
judgment of another generation that will know
the man merely as one among the illustrious
concourse that have made the fame of English
literature, will determine the artistic value of
his labors and his proper place In the role of
honor that is headed by the names of Shake
speare and Milton. Whatever posterity may
think of Mr.. Dickens, however, it is undeniable
that he was power in his own day, and no fic-
tion-writer that has ever lived has eveHexerted
the same influence or produced the
same decisive results in promoting
the reform of abuses, or in exciting sympa-
thy for the poor and oppressed. 1t is question
whether the principal end and aim of true art
should be the reform of social and political
abuses, and upon this to great extent depends
the probability of the works of Mr.. Dickens
maintaining the same hold upon the public of
a hundred years hence that they do upon that of
the present day. 1t is certain that many abuses
can be attacked successfully IN work of fiction
that it would be impossible to reach in any other
way, and the endeavors of Mr.. Dickens to carry
out important measures of reform by means of
his novels are entitled to receive, as they have
received, a most cordial recognition. 1t is the
fate of such works, however, to be more or less
ephemeral and looking at the matter
from artistic standpoint and
it is only from such standpoint that the real
value of work of art can be determined-we
cannot but think that Mr.. Dickens writings are
too much of the time and for the time to secure
for them that lasting favor that is accorded to
the works of men who were distinctively artists.
Thackeray has been frequently alluded to as
disciple of Fielding, but in reality Dickens,
much more than his distinguished contemporary,
was the legitimate successor of Fielding and
Smolett, and his writings, like theirs, will pro-
badly in future years rather engage the atten-
tion of the students of literature than that of
general readers. The life described by Fielding
and Smollett was something remote from that
| of our days. and it had but little in it that we
especially we of the New World, can heartily
sympathize with. AS clearly drawn pictures
! of a certain development of civilization and
certain conditions of society, the works of the
novelists named will always have a certain value
! that will give them place in literature; and so
will those of Mr. Dickens, for the same reason.


Mr.. Dickens has just died, having scarcely
passed middle age, and yet the people and the
society that he sketched with such humor and
power in his earlier efforts is almost as remote
and strange as that which engaged the attention
of Fielding and Smollett. 1t is this impression
of remoteness that the early writings of Dick
ems leave upon the readers of this day that
| gives force to the thought that succeeding
years will scarcely add to his fame, and that
another generation will be unable to understand
the enormous popularity he enjoyed with the
people of to- day.


In referring to Mr.. Dickens as a novelist OF
the school of Fielding and Smollett, we ofcourse
| do not mean to intimate that he was in any re-
spect copyist of those writer's Indeed, it was
the marked originality of his genius that made
his first literary efforts SO enormously popular,
and that gave him the leading position among
the English ction-writers of the age that he held
without dispute to the day of his death. His first
sketches of life and character published under
the nom de plume of "Boz" and afterwards his
"Pickwick," made their mark instantly, be-
cause they were fresh and original, and because
they revealed new vein of rich and racy hui
NOR. The public were beginning to tire of the
fashionable novels of high life, and the humor-
ously exaggerated descriptions of low life and
the respectable middle class society hi
their fancy exactly. 1t has repeatedly beer
| remarked that no writer since Shakespeare has
created so many characters that appear like
living men and women, as Dickens. There il
this important difference, however, between the
two writer's Shakespeare was above all things
an artist. He had no other end in view than K
produce perfect works of art; and while hi
characters are all intellectual analyses, those o
Mr.. Dickens are merely described by the gro
tesque exaggeraton of their outward appear
ance, their physical defects their clothing, ant
their bodily habits. 1t is scarcely necessary Il
point out that this distinction makes all the dit
ference in the world with regard to the art valu
of the work performed by the two writer's an


no one capable of expressing an opinion on tn
subject would ever think of placing Dickens b.


the side of Shakespeare as a creative artist.


When 'Pickwicll" made a hit Mr.. Dicken
found the way to fame and fortune open to him
and he marked out line of work that he ad
hered to resolutely during the rest of his career


''Pickwick" was quickly followed by solve
Twist" Nicholas Nickelby," "The Old Cur


osity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge," all of whic


brought him both wealth and honor and eX


tended his fame on both sides of the Atlantic