stories. His Ten Thousand a Year, though in some parts ridiculously exaggerated, and liable to the suspicion of being a satire upon the middle classes, is also an amusing and able novel. The same remark applies to his third work of fiction, Now and Then. After the Great Exhibition of 1851, Mr Warren published a slight work, The Lily and the Bee, which was almost inconceivably puerile and absurd. He has contributed various articles to Blackwood's Magazine, and has written several professional works-Mr Warren is a Queen's Counsel-besides editing Blackstone's Commentaries. MRS BRAY. MRS ANNA ELIZA BRAY has written several novels, and other works descriptive and biographical. A native of Devonshire, this lady became the wife of Mr Charles Stothard, author of The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain; and on the premature death of Mr Stothard, his widow published memoirs of his life. She was afterwards married to the Rev. Mr Bray, vicar of Tavistock. The novels of Mrs Bray are De Foix, or Sketches of Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth Century, 1826; The White Hoods, 1828; The Protestant, 1829; Fitz of Fitzford; Henry de Pomeroy; Talba, or the Moor of Portugal; Trelawney of Trelawney; Trials of Domestic Life; &c. Mrs Bray has also published Traditions and Sketches of Devonshire (being a series of letters addressed to Southey the poet); Tours in Normandy and Switzerland; and a Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A., 1851. In 1844 a collected edition of Mrs Bray's works was published in ten volumes. THOMAS CROFTON CROKER. MR CROKER (1798-1854) was one of the most industrious and tasteful collectors of the legendary lore, the poetical traditions, and antiquities of Ireland. He was a native of Cork-a city famous also as the birthplace of Maginn, Maclise, and Mahony (Father Prout). In 1824 appeared Mr Croker's Researches in the South of Ireland; in 1825 the first portion of his Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, to which two additional volumes were added in 1827. His other works are-Legends of the Lakes, or Sayings and Doings at Killarney, two volumes, 1828; Daniel O'Rourke, or Rhymes of a Pantomime founded on that Story, 1829; Barney Mahoney, 1832; My Village versus Our Village, 1832; Popular Songs of Ireland, 1839; Historical Songs of Ireland, 1841; &c. Mr Croker edited various works illustrative of the history of his country. He held the office of clerk in the Admiralty, to which he had been appointed through the influence of his countryman and namesake John Wilson Croker. The tales of Barney Mahoney and My Village are Mr Crofton Croker's only strictly original works. Neither is of the first class. Miss Mitford, in Our Village, may have occasionally dressed or represented her village en vaudeville, like the back scene of a theatre, but Mr Croker in My Village errs on the opposite side. He gives us a series of Dutch paintings, too little relieved by imagination or passion to excite or gratify the curiosity of the reader. He is happiest among the fanciful legends of his native country, treasuring up their romantic features, quoting fragments of song, describing a lake or ruin, hitting off a dialogue or merry jest, and chronicling the peculiarities of his countrymen in their humours, their superstition, and rustic simplicity. The following is related by one of his characters: [The Last of the Irish Serpents.] Sure everybody has heard tell of the blessed St Patrick, and how he druve the sarpints and all manner of venomous things out of Ireland; how he 'bothered all the varmint' entirely. But for all that, there was one ould sarpint left, who was too cunning to be talked out of the country, or made to drown himself. St Patrick didn't well know how to manage this fellow, who was doing great havoc; till, at long last he bethought himself, and got a strong iron chest made with nine boults upon it. So one fine morning he takes a walk to where the sarpint used to keep; and the sarpint, who didn't like the saint in the least, and small blame to him for that, began to hiss and shew his teeth at him like anything. 'Oh,' says St Patrick, says he, 'where's the use of making such a piece of work about a gentleman like myself coming to see you? 'Tis a nice house I have got made for you agin the winter; for I'm going to civilise the whole country, man and beast,' says he, and you can come and look at it whenever you please, and 'tis myself will be glad to see you.' The sarpint, hearing such smooth words, thought that though St Patrick had druve all the rest of the sarpints into the sea, he meant no harm to himself; so the sarpint walks fair and easy up to see him and the house he was speaking about. But when the sarpint saw the nine boults upon the chest, he thought he was sould (betrayed), and was for making off with himself as fast as ever he could. 'tis a good friend I am to you.' 'I thank you kindly, "Tis a nice warm house, you see,' says St Patrick, 'and St Patrick, for your civility,' says the sarpint; but I think it's too small it is for me'-meaning it for an excuse, and away he was going. Too small!' says St Patrick, 'stop, if you please,' says he, 'you're out in that, my boy, anyhow-I am sure 'twill fit you completely; and I'll tell you what,' says he, 'I'll bet you a gallon of porter,' says he, 'that if you'll only try and get in, there'll be plenty of room for you.' The sarpint was as thirsty as could be with his walk; and 'twas great joy to him the thoughts of doing St Patrick out of the gallon of porter; so, swelling himself up as big as he could, in he got to the chest, all but a little bit of his tail. There, now,' says he, 'I've won the gallon, for you see the house is too small for me, for I can't get in my tail.' When what does St Patrick do, but he comes behind the great heavy lid of the chest, and, putting his two hands to it, down he slaps it with a bang like thunder. When the rogue of a sarpint saw the lid coming down, in went his tail like a shot, for fear of being whipped off him, and St Patrick began at once to boult the nine iron boults. 'Oh, murder! wont you let me out, St Patrick?' says the sarpint; 'I've lost the bet fairly, and I'll pay you the gallon like a man.' 'Let you out, my darling,' says St Patrick, 'to be sure I will, by all manner of means; but you see I haven't time now, so you must wait till to-morrow." And so he took the iron chest, with the sarpint in it, and pitches it into the lake here, where it is to this hour for certain; and 'tis the sarpint struggling down at the bottom that makes the waves upon it. Many is the living man (continued Picket) besides myself has heard the sarpint crying out from within the chest under the water: Is it to-morrow yet?-is it to-morrow yet?' which, to be sure, it never can be: and that's the way St Patrick settled the last of the sarpints, sir. CHARLES DICKENS. Few authors have succeeded in achieving so brilliant a reputation as that secured by MR CHARLES DICKENS in a few years. The sale of his works has been almost unexampled, and several of them have been translated into various languages, including even the Dutch and Russian. Writings so universally popular must appeal to passions and tastes common to mankind in every country, and at the same time must possess originality, novelty of style or subject, and force of delineation. Mr Dickens was born in 1812 at Landport, Portsmouth, in that middle rank of English life, within and below which his sympathies and powers as a novelist seem to be bounded. His father held a situation in the Charles Dickens. by Combe and Rowlandson. Seymour unfortunately sunk into despondency, and committed suicide; but another artist, Mr Hablot Browne, was procured, and continued the illustrations under the name of 'Phiz.' Boz and Phiz-author and artist-now became the rage of the town. Thirty thousand copies of the work are said to have been sold. Though defective in plan and arrangement, as Mr Dickens himself admits-in fact, originally intended as only a representation of a club of oddities-the characters, incidents, and dialogues in this new series of sketches were irresistibly ludicrous and attractive. Criticism was lost in laughter. The hero, Pickwick, is almost as genial, unsophisticated, and original as My Uncle Toby; while his man, Sam Weller, and Sam's father, Mr Weller, senior, were types of low life new to fiction. They were caricatures, as every one saw; but so many curious traits of character were depicted, with such overflowing, broad, kindly humour, felicities of phrase and slang expression, and such a mass of comic incidents and details, vivified by genius, that the effect of the whole was to place Mr Dickens at one bound at the head of all his contemporary novelists. The pictorial accompaniments aided greatly in the success of the work. What Boz conceived and described, Phiz represented with so much truth, spirit, and individuality-seizing upon every trait and feature, and preserving the same distinguishing characteristics throughout-that the characters appeared to stand bodily forth to the world as veritable personages of the day, destined to live for all time coming. The intimate acquaintance evinced in Pickwick with the middle and low life of London, and of the tricks and knavery of legal and medical Navy Pay Department, but after the peace, con- pretenders, the arts of bookmakers and generally nected himself with the daily press, and became of particular classes and usages common to large a reporter of the parliamentary debates. He was cities, was a novelty in our literature. It was a desirous that his son should follow the profession of restoration of the spirit of Hogarth adapted to the the law, but the youth found the confinement and times in which the story appeared. So much duties of an attorney's office dreary and irksome, cant,' as one of Mr Dickens's critics remarks, 'had and he adopted his father's profession-that of a been in fashion about the wisdom of our ancestors, parliamentary reporter. In this he was soon distin- the glorious constitution, the wise balance of King, guished for expertness and ability. The situation | Lords, and Commons, and other such topics, which was one calculated to sharpen his faculties, and are embalmed in the Noodle's Oration, that a large store his mind with miscellaneous information. class of people were ready to hail with intense Parliamentary reporting is more of a mental than satisfaction the advent of a writer who naturally, mechanical labour. To the power of writing rapidly, and without an effort, bantered everything in the there must be joined quickness of apprehension, world, from elections and law courts, down to judgment to select and condense, and a degree of Cockney sportsmen, the boots at an inn, cooks imagination, ready sympathy, or dramatic talent and chambermaids. Mr Dickens had the additional which identifies the reporter with the speaker, and advantage of doing this not only with exquisite enables him to render his meaning faithfully and skill, and with a sustained flow of spirit and drollery vividly. The difficulty is, to find the mechanical almost unequalled by any other writer, but in a art combined with the intellectual qualifications; style which seemed expressly intended to bring but these Mr Dickens possessed in perfection. The into contempt all those canons of criticism which a reporters' gallery was a good field of discipline and large proportion of people were learning to look observation for the future novelist, and out of it, in upon as mere pedantry. The next work of our his long unemployed forenoons, he had the range author was Nicholas Nickleby, a tale which was also of the world of London-its oddities, humours, published in monthly numbers, and was no less streets, and houses-which he made his favourite extensively read. The plan of this work is more study. His first appearance as an author was as a regular and connected than that of Pickwick, and contributor of sketches of character and city life the interest of the narrative is well sustained. It to the evening edition of the Morning Chronicle, the is perhaps the best of Mr Dickens's novels. The journal with which he was connected. Additions pedagogue Squeers, and his seminary of Dotheboys were made to these in the Monthly Magazine, and Hall, is one of the most amusing and graphic of the whole were republished in two volumes, entitled English satirical delineations; and the picture it Sketches by Boz, and bearing respectively the dates of presents of imposture, ignorance, and brutal cupidity, 1836 and 1837. In the latter year he began another is known to have been little, if at all, caricatured. series of a similar character, The Pickwick Papers. The exposure was a public benefit. The ludicrous A publisher arranged with Mr Dickens and a comic account of Mr Crummles and his theatrical company draughtsman, Mr Seymour, to produce a work which will occur to the reader as another of Dickens's should exhibit the adventures of a Cockney sports- happiest conceptions, though it is pushed into the man-a design resembling that of Dr Syntax's Tour | region of farce. In several of our author's works 'I tell you,' said the man, clenching his hands and stamping furiously on the floor-'I tell you I wont She couldn't rest have her put into the ground. there. The worms would worry-not eat her-she is so worn away.' The undertaker offered no reply to this raving, but producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body. there appears a minute knowledge of dramatic rules and stage affairs. He has himself written an opera, and evidently takes pleasure in the business of the drama. As an amateur comedian-in which he has occasionally appeared for benevolent objects-he is described as equal to the old masters of the stage, such as Charles Lamb loved to see and write about; and doubtless some of his defects as well as excellences as a novelist may be traced to this predilec'Ah!' said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking tion. To paint strongly to the eye, and produce on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; 'kneel striking contrasts of a pathetic or grotesque descrip-down, kneel down; kneel round her every one of you, tion-to exaggerate individual oddities and traits of and mark my words. I say she starved to death. I character, as marking individuals or classes-are never knew how bad she was till the fever came upon almost inseparable from dramatic representation. her, and then her bones were starting through the skin. Oliver Twist, the next work of Mr Dickens, appeared There was neither fire nor candle; she died in the dark in Bentley's Miscellany, a monthly magazine of which in the dark! She couldn't even see her children's the novelist was for some time the editor. This faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. is a story of outlaw English life-of vice, wretched-I begged for her in the streets, and they sent me to ness, and misery. The hero is an orphan brought the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved prison. When I came back she was dying; and all up by the parish, and thrown among scenes and her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it characters of the lowest and worst description. they starved her!" He twined his hands in his That he should not, under such training, have hair, and with a loud scream rolled grovelling upon the become utterly callous and debased is an improb-floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam gushing from his lips. ability which the author does not well get over; but the interest of the story is admirably sustained. The character of the ruffian Sykes, and the detail of his atrocities, particularly his murder of the girl Nancy, are brought out with extraordinary effect. The descriptive passages evince that close observation and skilful management of detail in which Mr Dickens never fails, except when he attempts scenes in high life, or is led to carry his humour or pathos into the region of caricature. Take, for example, the following account of a scene of death witnessed by Oliver while acting in the capacity of attendant to an undertaker: [Death and Funeral of a Pauper.] There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him, and not be afraid, the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs, and, stumbling against a door on the landing, rapped at it with his knuckles. The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence; and having unloosened the man's cravat, who still remained extended on the ground, tottered towards the undertaker. 'She was my daughter,' said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer more ghastly than even the presence of death itself. 'Lord, Lord! well it is strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord!-to think of it; it's as good as a play, as good as a play!' As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away. 'Stop, stop!' said the old woman in a loud whisper. 'Will she be buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night? I laid her out, and I must walk, you know. Send me a large cloak; a good warm one, for it is bitter cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind: send some bread; only a loaf of bread and a said eagerly, catching at the undertaker's coat as he once more moved towards the door. It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or four-cup of water. Shall we have some bread, dear?' she teen. The undertaker at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in, and Oliver followed him. There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching mechanically over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground something covered with an old blanket. Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes towards the place, and crept involuntarily closer to his master; for, though it was covered up, the boy felt that it was a corpse. The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly, and his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was wrinkled, her two remaining teeth protruded over her under lip, and her eyes were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man; they seemed so like the rats he had seen outside. 'Nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up as the undertaker approached the recess. 'Keep back! d-n you-keep back, if you've a life to lose !' 'Nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes 'nonsense l' 'Yes, yes,' said the undertaker; 'of course; anything, everything.' He disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp, and, dragging Oliver after him, hurried away. The next day-the family having been meanwhile relieved with a half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr Bumble himself-Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode, where Mr Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the workhouse who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; the bare coffin having been screwed down, was then hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried down stairs into the street. 'Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady,' whispered Sowerberry in the old woman's ear; 'we are rather late, and it wont do to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men-as quick as you like.' Thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden, and the two mourners kept as near them as they could. Mr Bumble and Sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs were not so long as his master's, ran by the side. There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr Sowerberry had anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the churchyard, in which the nettles grew, and the parish graves were made, the clergyman had not arrived, and the clerk, who was sitting by the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it might be an hour or so before he came. So they set the bier down on the brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp clay, with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys, whom the spectacle had attracted into the churchyard, played a noisy game at hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements by jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr Sowerberry and Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, and read the paper. At length, after the lapse of something more than an hour, Mr Bumble, and Sowerberry, and the clerk were seen running towards the grave; and immediately afterwards the clergyman appeared, putting on his surplice as he came along. Mr Bumble then thrashed a boy or two, to keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the burial-service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his surplice to the clerk, and ran away again. up.' "Now, Bill,' said Sowerberry to the grave-digger, 'fill It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full that the uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The grave-digger shovelled in the earth, stamped it loosely down with his feet, shouldered his spade, and walked off, followed by the boys, who murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon. 'Come, my good fellow,' said Bumble, tapping the man on the back, 'they want to shut up the yard.' The man, who had never once moved since he had taken his station by the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had addressed him, walked forward for a few paces, and then fell down in a fit. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss of her cloak-which the undertaker had taken off-to pay him any attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him, and when he came to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed on their different ways. 'Well, Oliver,' said Sowerberry, as they walked home, 'how do you like it?' 'Pretty well, thank you, sir,' replied Oliver, with considerable hesitation. Not very much, sir.' 'Ah! you'll get used to it in time, Oliver,' said Sowerberry. Nothing when you are used to it, my boy.' Oliver wondered in his own mind whether it had taken a very long time to get Mr Sowerberry used to it; but he thought it better not to ask the question, and walked back to the shop, thinking over all he had seen and heard. Mr Dickens was now a recognised master of English fiction, and critics and readers looked with interest to his future career. Perhaps no author since Pope and Congreve ever stood so high at the same age. The difficulties to which he is exposed in his present periodical mode of writing,' said the Edinburgh Review, are, in some respects, greater than if he allowed himself a wider field, and gave his whole work to the public at once. But he would be subjected to a severer criticism if his fiction could be read continuously-if his power of maintaining a sustained interest could be tested-if his work could be viewed as a connected whole, and its object, plan, consistency, and arrangement, brought to the notice of the reader at once. This ordeal cannot be passed triumphantly without the aid of other qualities than necessarily belong to the most brilliant sketcher of detached scenes. We do not, however, mean to express a doubt that Mr Dickens can write with judgment as well as with spirit. His powers of observation and description are qualities rarer, and less capable of being acquired, than those which would enable him to combine the scattered portions of a tale into one consistent and harmonious whole. If he will endeavour to supply whatever may be effected by care and study-avoid imitation of other writers-keep nature steadily before his eyes-and check all disposition to exaggerate-we know no writer who seems likely to attain higher success in that rich and useful department of fiction which is founded on faithful representations of human character, as exemplified in the aspects of English life.' Unfortunately this tendency to exaggerate both in humorous and sentimental description has increased, instead of diminishing, in the author's latest works. At the same time he has honourably laboured to expose and redress social evils. The effects of In 1840, Mr Dickens commenced a new species of fiction, entitled Master Humphrey's Clock, designed, tales under one general title, and joined by one like the Tales of My Landlord, to comprise different connecting narrative. The outline was by no means prepossessing or natural; but as soon as the reader had got through this exterior scaffolding, and entered on the first story, the genius of the author was found to be undiminished. gambling are depicted with great force. There is something very striking in the conception of the helpless old gamester, tottering upon the verge of the grave, and at that period when most of our other passions are as much worn out as the frame which sustains them, still maddened with that terrible infatuation which seems to shoot up stronger and stronger as every other desire and energy dies away. Little Nell, the grandchild, is a beautiful creation of pure-mindedness and innocence, yet with those habits of pensive reflection, and that firmness and energy of mind which misfortune will often engraft on the otherwise buoyant and unthinking spirit of childhood; and the contrast between her and her grandfather, now dwindled in every respect but the one into a second childhood, and comforted, directed, and sustained by her unshrinking firmness and love, is very finely managed. The death of Nell is the most pathetic and touching of the author's serious passages-it is also instructive in its pathos, for we feel with the author, that 'when death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to heaven.' In the course of this tale there are many interesting and whimsical incidents and adventures, with fine glimpses of rural scenes, old churches, and churchyards. The horrors of the almost hopeless want which too often prevails in the great manufacturing towns, and the wild and reckless despair which it engenders, are described with equal mastery of colouring and effect. The account of the wretch whose whole life had been spent in watching, day and night, a furnace, until he imagined it to be a living being, and its roaring the voice of the only friend he had ever known, although grotesque, has something in it very terrible: we may smile at the wildness, yet shudder at the horror of the fancy. A second story, Barnaby Rudge, is included in Master Humphrey's Clock, and this also contains 647 some excellent minute painting, a variety of broad the other side. There are two canal lines of passagehumour and laughable caricature, with some boat; one is called the Express, and one-a cheaper masterly scenes of passion and description. The one-the Pioneer. The Pioneer gets first to the mounaccount of the excesses committed during Lord tain, and waits for the Express people to come up, both George Gordon's riots in 1780 may vie with Scott's sets of passengers being conveyed across it at the same narrative of the Porteous mob; and poor Barnaby time. We were the Express company, but when we Rudge with his raven may be considered as no had crossed the mountain, and had come to the second unworthy companion to Davie Gellatley. There is boat, the proprietors took it into their heads to draft all also a picture of an old English inn, the Maypole, the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were five-andnear Epping Forest, and an old innkeeper, John forty at least, and the accession of passengers was not Willet, which is perfect in its kind-such, perhaps, all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping as only Dickens could have painted, though Wash- at night. Our people grumbled at this, as people do in ington Irving might have made the first etching. such cases, but suffered the boat to be towed off with Of the success of this work and of its author, we the whole freight aboard nevertheless; and away we have a passing glimpse in one of Lord Jeffrey's went down the canal. At home I should have protested letters, dated May 4, 1841. I have seen a good lustily, but, being a foreigner here, I held my peace. deal of Charles Dickens, with whom I have Not so this passenger. He cleft a path among the struck up what I mean to be an eternal and inti- people on deck-we were nearly all on deck-and, mate friendship. I often sit an hour tête-à-tête, without addressing anybody whomsoever, soliloquised as or take a long walk in the park with him-the follows: "This may suit you, this may, but it don't suit me. This may be all very well with down-easters and only way really to know or be known by either man or woman. Taken in this way, I think men of Boston raising, but it wont suit my figure him very amiable and agreeable. In mixed comnohow; and no two ways about that; and so I tell you. Now, I'm from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I pany, where he is now much sought after as a lion, he is rather reserved, &c. He has dined am, and when the sun shines on me, it does shine-a here, and me with him, at rather too sumptuous No. I'm a brown forester, I am. I an't a Johnny little. It don't glimmer where I live, the sun don't. a dinner for a man with a family, and only beginning Cake. There are no smooth skins where I live. We're to be rich, though selling 44,000 copies of his rough men there. Rather. If down-easters and men weekly [monthly] issues.'* of Boston raising like this, I am glad of it, but I'm After completing these tales, Mr Dickens made a none of that raising, nor of that breed. No. This trip to America, of which he published an account company wants a little fixing, it does. I'm the wrong in 1842, under the somewhat quaint title of Ame- sort of man for 'em, I am. They wont like me, they rican Notes for General Circulation. This work wont. This is piling of it up, a little too mountainous, disappointed the author's admirers, which may be this is.' At the end of every one of these short sentences considered as including nearly the whole of the he turned upon his heel, and walked the other way; reading public. The field had already been well checking himself abruptly when he had finished another gleaned, the American character and institutions short sentence, and turning back again. It is impossible frequently described and generally understood, and for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in the Mr Dickens could not hope to add to our knowledge words of this brown forester, but I know that the on any of the great topics connected with the con- other passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, dition or future destinies of the New World. On and that presently the boat was put back to the wharf, one national point only did the novelist dissertate and as many of the Pioneers as could be coaxed or at length-the state of the newspaper press, which bullied into going away, were got rid of. When we he describes as corrupt and debased beyond any started again, some of the boldest spirits on board made experience or conception in this country. He also bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement joins with Captain Basil Hall, Mrs Trollope, and in our prospects, 'Much obliged to you, sir:' whereCaptain Marryat, in representing the social state unto the brown forester-waving his hand, and still and morality of the people as low and dangerous, walking up and down as before-replied: 'No you an't. destitute of high principle or generosity. So acute You're none o' my raising. You may act for yourselves, and practised an observer as Dickens could not you may. I have pinted out the way. Down-easters travel without noting many oddities of character, and Johnny Cakes can follow if they please. I an't a and viewing familiar objects in a new light; and we Johnny Cake, I an't. I am from the brown forests of are tempted to extract two short passages from his the Mississippi, I am;' and so on, as before. He was American Notes, which shew the practised hand of unanimously voted one of the tables for his bed at the novelist. The first is a sketch of an original night-there is a great contest for the tables-in conmet with by our author on board a Pittsburg canal-sideration of his public services, and he had the warmest boat. [A Man from the Brown Forests of the Mississippi.] A thin-faced, spare-figured man of middle age and stature, dressed in a dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such as I never saw before. He was perfectly quiet during the first part of the journey; indeed I don't remember having so much as seen him until he was brought out by circumstances, as great men often are. The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there of course it stops, the passengers being conveyed across it by landcarriage, and taken on afterwards by another canalboat, the counterpart of the first, which awaits them on Life of Lord Jeffrey. vol. ii. p. 338. Several letters from Jeffrey to Dickens are published in this work, and shew the affectionate interest which the then aged critic took in the fame and prosperity of the young novelist. corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey. The following is completely in the style of Dickens [The Bustling, Affectionate, little American Woman.] There was a little woman on board with a little baby; and both little woman and little child were cheerful, |