solemnity of the hour, is not in a state of such lofty fortune. Some of the incidents in this work are resolution as those who, by joining hearts, are laying exaggerated, yet the lives of Gerald Griffin, Dr their joint hands on the whole wide realm of futurity Maginn, and other literary adventurers, contained for their own. The statesman who, in the moment of almost as strange and sad varieties, and the author's success, feels that an entire class of social sins and own experience doubtless prompted some of his de woes is annihilated by his hand, is not conscious of lineations. About the same time Mr Miller pubso holy and so intimate a thankfulness as they who lished a volume of poems—a collection of pieces are aware that their redemption is come in the pre- contributed to different periodicals, and, like his sence of a new and sovereign affection. And these prose works, simple and natural in feeling and deare many--they are in all corners of every land. The scription. One of these really beautiful effusions we statesman is the leader of a nation, the warrior is the subjoin :grace of an age, the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the lover, where is he not !

The Happy Valley. Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he has been-wherever children are at play It was a valley filled with sweetest sounds, together, there he will soon be—wherever there are A languid music haunted everywhere, roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an Like those with which a summer ere abounds, atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the From rustling corn and song-birds calling clear, lover, and there is his lofty worship going on, un- Down sloping-uplands, which some wood surrounds, speakable, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, With tinkling rills just heard, but not too near; the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of Or lowing cattle on the distant plain, the discourse.

And swing of far-off bells, now caught, then lost again.

It seemed like Eden's angel-peopled vale,
THOMAS MILLER,

So bright the sky, so soft the streams did flow;

Such tones came riding on the musk-winged gale, THOMAS Miller is one of the humble, happy, The very air seemed sleepily to blow, industrious self-taught sons of genius. He was And choicest flowers enameled every dale, brought up to the trade of a basketmaker, and Flushed with the richest sunlight's rosy glow; while thus obscurely labouring “to consort with the It was a valley drowsy with delight, muse and support a family,' he attracted attention, Such fragrance floated round, such beauty dimmed the first by his poetical effusions, and subsequently by a sight. series of prose narratives and fictions remarkable for the freshness of their descriptions of rural life. The golden-belted bees hummed in the air, and English scenery. Through the kindness of Mr

The tall silk grasses bent and waved along; Rogers, our author was placed in the more congenial The trees slept in the steeping sunbeam's glare, situation of a bookseller, and has had the gratifica and took its own free course without a care:

The dreamy river chimed its under-song, tion of publishing and selling his own works. Mr Miller's first prose composition was, we believe, A Until the valley throbbed beneath their lays,

Amid the boughs did lute-tongued songsters throng, Day in the Woods, which was followed (1839) by And echo echo chased through many a leafy maze. Rural Sketches, both being somewhat in the style of Bloomfield's poetry-simple, picturesque, and cheer- And shapes were there, like spirits of the flowers, ful in tone and spirit. His first novel was Royston Sent down to see the summer-beauties dress, Gower, 1838, which experienced such a reception And feed their fragrant mouths with silver showers; as to induce the author to continue novel-writing. Their eyes peeped out from many a green recess, His second attempt was hazardous, from the asso- And their fair forms made light the thick-set bowers; ciations it awakened, and the difficulty of painting The very flowers seemed eager to caress historical characters of a distant age; it was entitled Such living sisters, and the boughs, long-leaved, Fair Rosamond, or the Days of King Henry II. Clustered to catch the sighs their pearl-Xushed bosoms There was an evident improvement in the author's

heaved. style, but the work, as a whole, was unsatisfactory One through her long loose hair was backward peeping, and tedious. In 1840 he plunged again into a remote

Or throwing, with raised arm, the locks aside; era of English history, requiring minute knowledge Another high a pile of flowers was heaping, and practised skill to delineate with effect: his Lady

Or looking love askance, and when descried, Jane Grey, a Historical Romance, is defective in Her coy glance on the bedded-greensward keeping ; plot, but contains some interesting scenes and cha

She pulled the flowers to pieces as she sighed, racters. * There is,' says one of Miller's critics, a Then blushed like timid daybreak when the dawn picturesqueness in the arrangement and colouring Looks crimson on the night, and then again's withof his scenes-an occasional glimpse, now of pathos, drawn. now of humour, quaint and popular, but never vulgar-an ease in the use and combination of such few One, with her warm and milk-white arms outspread, historical materials as suffice for his purpose, which

On tip-toe tripped along a sunlit glade; put to shame the efforts of many who have been Half turned the matchless sculpture of her head, crammed in schools and lectured in colleges—and af

And half shook down her silken circling braid; ford another evidence that creative power is like the Her back-blown scarf an arched rainbow made; air and the sunshine-visiting alike the cottage and

She seemed to float on air, so light she sped; the mansion, the basketmaker's shop and the literary With fair and printless feet, like cleuds along the sky.

Skimming the wavy flowers, as she passed by, gentleman's sanctum.' Miller's next appearance, in 1841, evinced still more decided improvement: One sat alone within a shady nook, Gideon Giles, the Roper, is a tale of English life, With wild-wood songs the lazy hours beguiling; generally of humble characters, but rendered inte-Or looking at her shadow in the brook, resting by truthful and vigorous delineation. In Trying to frown, then at the effort smiling. 1842 Mr Miller came forward with another novel- | Her laughing eyes mocked every serious look ; Godfrey Malverin, or the Life of an Author, detailing 'Twas as if Love stood at himself reviling: the adventures and vicissitudes of a country youth She threw in flowers, and watched them float away, who repairs to London in quest of literary fame and | Then at her beauty looked, then sang a sweeter lay.

screen.

Others on beds of roses lay reclined,

they should find a voice to complain that we are The regal flowers athwart their full lips thrown, “ tyrants and usurpers, to kill and cook them up in And in one fragrance both their sweets combined, their assigned and native dwelling-place,” we should

As if they on the self-same stem had grown, most convincingly admonish them, with point of So close were rose and lip together twined

arrow, that they have nothing to do with our laws but A double flower that from one bud had blown, to obey them. Is it not written that the fat ribs of Till none could tell, so closely were they blended, the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land ? Where swelled the curving lip, or where the rose-bloom And have not they, withal, my blessing !my orthoended.

dox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing? Do I not

give thanks for them when they are well roasted and One, half asleep, crushing the twined flowers, Upon a velvet slope like Dian lay;

smoking under my nose? What title had William Still as a lark that mid the daisies cowers :

of Normandy to England that Robin of Locksley has Her looped-up tunic tossed in disarray,

not to merry Sherwood ? William fought for his

claim. So does Robin. With whom both! With Showed rounded limbs, too fair for earthly bowers ; They looked like roses on a cloudy day;

any that would or will dispute it. William raised

contributions. So does Robin. From whom both ? The warm white dulled amid the colder green The flowers too rough a couch that lovely shape to From all that they could or can make pay them.

Why did any pay them to William? Why do any

pay them to Robin! For the same reason to both — Some lay like Thetis' nymphs along the shore, because they could not or cannot help it. They differ,

With ocean-pearl combing their golden locks, indeed, in this, that William took from the poor and And singing to the waves for everinore;

gave to the rich, and Robin takes from the rich and Sinking like flowers at eve beside the rocks, gives to the poor; and therein is Robin illegitimate, If but a sound above the muffled roar

though in all else he is true prince. Scarlet and Of the low waves was heard. In little flocks John, are they not peers of the forest !-lords tempoOthers went trooping through the wooded alleys, ral of Sherwood ? And am not I lord spiritual? Am Their kirtles glancing white, like streams in sunny I not archbishop ? Am I not Pope? Do I not convalleys.

secrate their banner and absolve their sins? Are not

they State, and am not I Church? Are not they They were such forms as, imaged in the night,

State monarchical, and am not I Church militant? Sail in our dreams across the heaven's steep blue;

Do I not excommunicate our enemies from venison When the closed lid sees visions streaming bright, and brawn, and, by'r Lady! when need calls, beat Too beautiful to meet the naked view;

them down under my feet? The State levies tax, Like faces formed in clouds of silver light.

and the Church levies tithe. Even so do we. Mass! Women they were ! such as the angels knew- -We take all at once. What then? It is tax by Such as the mammoth looked on, ere he fled,

redemption, and tithe by commutation. Your WilScared by the lovers' wings, that streamed in sunset liam and Richard can cut and come again, but our red.

Robin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to his exchequer. What need we, then, to con

stitute a court, except a fool and a laureate? For This gentleman has written some lively, natural, the fool, his only use is to make false knaves merry and humorous novels-Headlong Hall, 1816; Night by art, and we are true men, and are merry by nature. mare Abbey, 1818 ; Maid Marian, 1822 ; and 'Crotchet For the laureate, his only office is to find virtues in Castle, 1831. These were republished in 1837 in one

those who have none, and to drink sack for his pains. volume of Bentley's Standard Library, and no single We have quite virtue enough to need him not, and volume of fiction of modern production contains can drink our sack for ourselves.' more witty or sarcastic dialogue, or more admirable

HORACE SMITH. sketches of eccentric and ludicrous characters. His dramatis persona are finely arranged and diversified, Mr HORACE SMITH, one of the accomplished authors and are full of life, argument, and observation. From of the Rejected Addresses, was one of the first imitathe “higher mood' of the author we extract one short tors of Sir Walter Scott in his historical romances. sketch - a graphic account, in the tale of Maid His Brambletye House, a tale of the civil wars, pubMarian,' of freebooter life in the forest.

lished in 1826, was received with distinguished fa'I am in fine company,' said the baron.

vour by the public, though some of its descriptions • In the very best of company,' said the friar; 'in of the plague in London were copied too literally the high court of Nature, and in the midst of her own from Defoe, and there was a want of spirit and truth nobility. Is it not so ? This goodly grove is our in the embodiment of some of the historical characpalace; the oak and the beech are its colonnade and ters. The success of this effort inspired the author its canopy; the sun, and the moon, and the stars, are to venture into various fields of fiction. He has subits everlasting lamps ; the grass, and the daisy, and sequently written Tor Hill; Zillah, a Tale of the Holy the primrose, and the violet, are its many-coloured City; The Midsummer Medley; Walter Colyton; The floor of green, white, yellow, and blue; the Mayflower, Involuntary Prophet; Jane Lomar; The Moneyed Man; and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy, are Adam Brown; The Merchant, &c. "The Moneyed its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry; the lark, Man’ is the most natural and able of Mr Smith's and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale, novels, and contains some fine pictures of London are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin city life. The author himself is fortunately a Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and moneyed man. 'Mr Shelley said once, “I know by virtue of his standing army, to say nothing of the not what Horace Smith must take me for somefree choice of his people, which he has indeed; but I times: I am afraid he must think me a strange pass it by as an illegitimate basis of power. He holds fellow; but is it not odd, that the only truly genehis dominion over the forest, and its horned multitude rous person I ever knew, who had money to be of citizen-deer, and its swinish multitude or peasantry generous with, should be a stockbroker! And he of wild boars, by right of conquest and force of arms. writes poetry too,” continued Mr Shelley, his voice He levies contributions among them by the free con- rising in a fervour of astonishment_“ he writes sent of his archers, their virtual representatives. If poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to

MR J. L. PEACOCK.

6

make money, and does make it, and is still gene- in 1843 Forest Days, Eva St Clair, The False Heir, rous."'* The poet also publicly expressed his re- and Arabella Stuart. We have in this catalogue gard for Mr Smith.

some seventy or eighty volumes. There seems,' Wit and sense,

says a lively writer, 'to be no limit to his ingenuity, Virtue and human knowledge, all that might

his faculty of getting up scenes and incidents, dilemMake this dull world a business of delight,

mas, artifices, contretemps, battles, skirmishes, disAre all combined in H. S.

guises, escapes, trials, combats, adventures. He accumulates names, dresses, implements of war and

peace, official retinues, and the whole paraphernalia GEORGE P. R. JAMES.

of customs and costumes, with astounding alacrity. Mr GEORGE P. R. JAMES is another of Scott's He appears to have exhausted every imaginable historical imitators, and perhaps the best of the situation, and to have described every available numerous band. If he had not written so much article of attire on record. What he must have

passed through—what triumphs he must have enjoyed-what exigencies he must have experiencedwhat love he must have suffered-what a grand wardrobe his brain must be! He has made some poetical and dramatic efforts, but this irresistible tendency to pile up circumstantial particulars is fatal to those forms of art which demand intensity of passion. In stately narratives of chivalry and feudal grandeur, precision and reiteration are desirable rather than injurious—as we would have the most perfect accuracy and finish in a picture of ceremonials; and here Mr James is supreme. One of his court romances is a book of brave sights and heraldic magnificence—it is the next thing to moring at our leisure through some superb and august procession.'

REV. G. R. GLEIG. The Rev. G. R. GLEIG, chaplain of Chelsea Hos. pital, in the early part of his life served in the army, and in 1825 he published his military reminiscences in an interesting narrative entitled The Subalters In 1829 he issued a work also partly fictitious, The Chelsea Pensioners, which was followed next year by

The Country Curate; in 1837 by The Hussar, and George P. R. James.

Traditions of Chelsea Hospital; and in 1843 by The

Light Dragoon. Besides many anonymous and other if, instead of employing an amanuensis, to whom productions, Mr Gleig is author of Memoirs of War. he dictates his thick-coming fancies,' he had con: ren Hastings, a work which certainly has not added centrated his whole powers on a few congenial to his reputation. subjects or periods of history, and resorted to the manual labour of penmanship as a drag-chain on

W. H. MAXWELL-C. LEVER-S. LOVER. the machine, he might have attained to the highest honours of this department of composition. As it

Various military narratives, in which imaginary is, he has furnished many light, agreeable, and scenes and characters are mixed up with real events picturesque books—none of questionable tendency and graphic descriptions of continental scenery, --and all superior to the general run of novels have been published in consequence of the suc of the season. Mr James's first appearance as

cess of the Subaltern. Amongst the writers of this an author was made, we believe, in 1822, when class is Mr W. H. MAXWELL, author of Stories of he published a History of the Life of Edward the Waterloo, 1829; Wild Sports of the West ; Adver Black Prince. In 1829 he struck into that path in tures of Captain Blake; The Bivouac, or Stories of the which he has been so indefatigable, and produced Peninsular War; The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, his historical romance of Richelieu, a very attrac- &c. Mr C. LEVER is still more popular; for, in tive fiction. In 1830 he issued two romances, addition to his battle scenes and romantic exploits, Darnley, or the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and De he has a rich racy national humour, and a truly L'Orme. Next year he produced Philip Augustus; Irish love of frolic. His first work was The Confesin 1832 a History of Charlemagne, and a tale, Henry sions of Ilarry, Lorrequer, which was followed by Masterton;

in 1833 Mary of Burgundy, or the Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon; Jack Hinton, Revolt of Ghent; in 1834 The Life and Adventures the Guardsman; Tom Burke of Ours; and Arthur of John Marston Hall ; in 1835 One in a Thousand, O'Leary, his Wanderings and Ponderings in many or the Days of Henri Quatre, and The Gipsy, a Tale; Lands. Mr Lever's heroes have all a strong love of in 1837 Attila, a romance, and The Life and Times adventure, a national proneness to blundering, and of Louis XIV.; in 1838 The Huguenot, a Tale of the a tendency to get into, scrapes and questionable French Protestants, and The Robber; in 1839 Henry situations. The author's chief fault is his often of Guise, and A Gentleman of the Old School ; in mistaking farce for comedy-mere animal spirits for 1840 The King's Highway, and The Man at Arms ; wit or humour. MR SAMUEL LOVER, author of in 1841

Corse de Leon, Jacquerie, or the Lady and Legends and Stories of Ireland, Rory OʻMore, Handy Page; The Ancient Régime, and A History of the Life Andy, L. S. D. &c. is also a genuine Irish writer, a of Richard Caur de Lion ; in 1842 Morley Ernstein; strong lover of his country, and, like Moore, a poet

and musician, as well as novelist. The scenes of * Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, by Leigh war, rebellion, and adventure in Mr Lover's takes IIunt.

are related with much spirit.

a

JOHN FENIMORE COOPER.

HALIBURTON. JOHN FENIMORE COOPER, the American novelist, MR HALIBURTON, a judge in Nova Scotia, is the has obtained great celebrity in England, and over reputed author of a series of highly amusing works all Europe, for his pictures of the sea, sea-life, and illustrative of American and Canadian manners, wild Indian scenery and manners. His imagination abounding in shrewd sarcastic remarks on political

questions, the colonies, slavery, domestic institutions and customs, and almost every familiar topic of the day. The first of these appeared in 1837, under the title of The Clockmaker, or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville. A second series was published in the following year, and a third in 1840. Sam Slick' was a universal favourite; and in 1843 the author conceived the idea of bringing him to Eng. land. The Attaché, or Sam Slick in England, gives an account of the sayings and doings of the clockmaker when elevated to the dignity of the Honourable Mr Slick, Attaché of the American Legation to the court of St James's.' There is the same quaint humour, acute observation, and laughable exaggeration in these volumes as in the former, but, on the whole, Sam is most amusing on the other side of the Atlantic.

W. HARRISON AINSWORTH. Mr W. HARRISON AINSWORTH has written several picturesque romances, partly founded on English history and manners. His Rookwood, 1834, is a very animated narrative, in which the adventures of Turpin the highwayman are graphically related, and some of the vulgar superstitions of the last century coloured with the lights of genius. In the interest

and rapidity of his scenes and adventures, Mr AinsJohn Fenimore Cooper.

worth evinced a dramatic power and art, but no oriis essentially poetical. He invests the ship with all ginality or felicity of humour or character. His

second romance, Crichton, 1836, is founded on the the interest of a living being, and makes his readers marvellous history of the Scottish cavalier, but is follow its progress, and trace the operations of those scarcely equal to the first. He has since written on board, with intense and never-flagging anxiety. Jack Sheppard, a sort of Newgate romance, The Of humour he has scarcely any perception, and in Tower of London, Guy Fawkes, Old St Pauls, and delineating character and familiar incidents, he often Windsor Castle. There are rich, copious, and brilbetrays a great want of taste and knowledge of the liant descriptions in some of these works, but their world. When he attempts to catch the ease of tendency is at least doubtful. To portray scenes of fashion,' it has been truly said, ' he is singularly un- low successful villany, and to paint ghastly and successful.' He belongs, like Mrs Radcliffe, to the hideous details of human suffering, can be no elevatromantic school of novelists—especially to the sea, ing task for a man of genius, nor one likely to prothe heath, and the primeval forest. Mr Cooper, according to a notice of him some years since in the mote among novel readers a healthy tone of moral

feeling or sentiment. New Monthly Magazine, was born at Burlington on the Delaware, in 1798, and was removed at an early

SAMUEL WARREN age to Cooper's Town, a place of which he has given an interesting account in The Pioneers. 'At thirteen he was admitted to Yale college, New Haven, and In vivid painting of the passions, and depicting three years afterwards he went to sea—an event that scenes of modern life, the tales of Mr SAMUEL WARgave a character and colour to his after-life, and pro- REN, F.R.S. have enjoyed a high and deserved deduced impressions of which the world has reaped the gree of popularity. His Passages from the Diary of rich result

. On his marriage to a lady in the state à Late Physician, two volumes, 1837, contain many of New York, he quitted the navy, and devoted him- touching and beautiful stories; and his Ten Thouself to composition. His first work was published sand a Year, though in some parts ridiculously exin 1821, and since that period he must have written aggerated, and too liable to the suspicion of being above seventy volumes. Among them are The Pilot; a satire upon the middle classes, is also an amusThe Pioneers; The Spy; The Prairie; The Last of the ing and able novel. MRS BRAY, a Devonshire Mohicans; The Red Rover ; The Borderers; The Bravo; lady, and authoress of an excellent tour among the The Deer Slayer ; Eve Effingham; The Headsman ; mountains and lakes of Switzerland, has written Heidenmauer ; Homeward Bound; Jack o' Lantern; a number of historical and other novels—De Foix, Mercedes of Castile; The Pathfinder; The Two Admi- or Sketches of Manners and Customs of the Fourrals; The Water Witch; Wyandotte ; Ned Myers, or teenth Century, 1826; Henry de Pomercy; The ProLife before the Mast, &c. Besides his numerous works testant, a Tale of the Reign of Queen Mary; Talba, of fiction, Mr Cooper has written Excursions in Italy, or the Moor of Portugal; Trelawney of Trelawney, 1838; a History of the American Navy, 1839, &c. &c. An English novel, Caleb Stukeley, published In these he does not appear to advantage. He seems anonymously in 1842, is a vigorous and interest. to cherish some of the worst prejudices of the Ame- | ing work, though in some parts coarse and vehericans, and, in his zeal for republican institutions, to ment in style. The Adventures of Mr Ledbury, forget the candour and temper becoming an enlight- by ALBERT SMITH, and The Prairie Bird, by the eped citizen of the world.

HONOURABLE C. A. MURRAY, may be mentioned as

- MRS BRAY-ALBERT SMITHHON, C. A. MURRAY.

among the superior class of recent novels. The through scenes of poverty and crime, and all the il whole of these it would be impossible to enumerate; characters are made to discourse in the appropriate for not only does 'every year and month send out a language of their respective classes; and yet we new one, but every magazine contains tales and recollect no passage which ought to cause pain to parts of romances well written, and possessing many the most sensitive delicacy, if read aloud in female of the requisites for successful works of this descrip- society.' tion. The high and crowning glory of originality, The next work of our author was Nicholas Nickleby, wit, or inventive genius, must always be rare; but a tale which was also issued in monthly numbers, in no previous period of our literature was there so and soon attained to extensive popularity. The much respectable talent, knowledge, and imagination plan of this work is more regular and connected embarked in fictitious composition. One great name, than that of Pickwick,' the characters generally however, yet remains to be mentioned.

not overdrawn, and the progressive interest of the narrative well sustained. The character of Mrs

Nickleby is a fine portraiture of the ordinary Eng. CHARLES DICKENS.

lish wife, scarcely inferior in its kind to Fielding's Few authors have succeeded in achieving so bril. Amelia ; and Ralph Nickleby is also ably portrayed. liant a reputation as that secured by MR CHARLES The pedagogue Squeers, and his seminary of DoDICKENS in the course of a few years. The sale of theboys Hall, is one of the most amusing and grahis works has been unexampled, and they have been phic of English satirical delineations; and the picture translated into various languages, including even it presents of imposture, ignorance, and brutal cuthe Dutch and Russian. Writings so universally pidity, is known to have been little, if at all, caripopular must be founded on truth and nature—must catured. The exposure was a public benefit The appeal to those passions and tastes common to man- ludicrous account of Mr Crummles and his theakind in every country; and at the same time must trical company will occur to the reader as another of possess originality and force of delineation. The Dickens's happiest conceptions, though it is pushed first publication of Dickens was a series of sketches into the region of farce. In several of our author's and illustrations, chiefly of ordinary English and works there appears a minute knowledge of drametropolitan life, known as Sketches by Boz. The matic rules and stage affairs. He has himself, it is earlier numbers of these were written for a news- said, written an opera and a farce, and evidently paper, the Evening Chronicle, and the remainder for takes pleasure in the business of the drama. May à magazine. They were afterwards collected and not some of his more startling contrasts in situapublished in two volumes, bearing respectively the tion and description be traced to this predilection? dates of 1836 and 1837. The author was then a Oliver Twist, the next work of Mr Dickens, is also young man of about twenty-six. In 1837 he began a tale of English low life, of vice, wretchedness, and another series of a similar character, The Pickwick misery, drawn with the truth and vigour of Crabbe. Papers, of which 30,000 copies are said to have The hero is an orphan brought up by the parish, been sold. Though defective in plan and arrange- and thrown among various scenes and characters ment, as Mr Dickens himself admits, the characters of the lowest and worst description. The plot of in this new series of sketches, and the spirit with this novel is well managed, and wrought up with which the incidents are described, amply atone for consummate art and power. The interest of the the want of any interesting or well-constructed plot. dark and tragical portions of the story is overThe hero, Pickwick, is almost as genial, unsophisti- whelming, though there is no unnatural exaggeracated, and original as My Uncle Toby, and his man, tion to produce effect, and no unnecessary gloom. Sam Weller, is an epitome of London low life in its Take, for example, the following account of a scene most agreeable and entertaining form. The dia- of death witnessed by Oliver while acting in the logue overflowed with kindly humour, and felicities capacity of attendant to an undertaker. of phrase and expression; the description was so graphic and copious, and the comic scenes so finely

[Death and Funeral of a Pauper.] blended with tenderness and benevolence, that the

There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the effect of the whole was irresistible. The satire and open door where Oliver and his master stopped ; so, ridicule of the author were always well directed, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and though coloured a little too highly, bore the and bidding Oliver keep close to him, and not be clear impress of actual life and observation. To aid afraid, the undertaker mounted to the top of the first in these effects, Mr Dickens called in the artist and flight of stairs, and, stumbling against a door on the engraver. What Boz conceived and described, Phiz landing, rapped at it with his knuckles. represented with so much truth, and spirit, and indi

It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourviduality-seizing upon every trait and feature, and teen. The undertaker at once saw enough of what preserving the same distinguishing characteristics the room contained, to know it was the apartment to throughout—that the characters appeared to stand which he had been directed. He stepped in, and bodily forth to the world as veritable personages of Oliver followed him. the day, destined to live for all time coming. The There was no fire in the room; but a man was intimate acquaintance evinced in ‘Pickwick’ with crouching mechanically over the empty store. An the middle and low life of London, and of the tricks old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold and knavery of legal and medical pretenders, the hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some arts of bookmakers, and generally of particular ragged children in another corner; and in a small classes and usages common to large cities, was a recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground novelty in our literature. It was a restoration of something covered with an old blanket. Oliver shud. the spirit of Hogarth, with equal humour and prac- dered as he cast his eyes towards the place, and crept tical wit and knowledge, but informed with a better involuntarily closer to his master; for, though it was tone of humanity, and a more select and refined covered up, the boy felt that it was a corpse. taste. There is no misanthropy in bis satire,' said The man's face was thin and very pale ; his hair one of his critics, and no coarseness in his descrip- and beard were grizzly, and his eyes were bloodshot. tions—a merit enhanced by the nature of his sub- The old woman's face was wrinkled, her two remainjects. His works are chiefly pictures of humble life ing teeth protruded over her under lip, and her eyes -frequently of the humblest. The reader is led | were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look