minded Betsy Trotwood, a wax-doll, whom Da-lions of assistance from Mrs. M's. family carry vid senior was a fool to marry. The waxen them to Plymouth; on their departure, David widow, a weak, amiable creature, marries again determines to seek his sole relative, the Betsy one Murdstone, black-whiskered and shallow-Trotwood, whom he unconsciously alienated at eyed, who, by the aid of a sister, likewise black- his birth. Robbed at the outset by an ingenious haired, bullies the poor lady to death. The child costermonger, he accomplishes the journey to in this case is, happily, not so fragile a creature Dover on foot, subsisting on the produce of his as was Paul Dombey, and we have less of mys- jacket and waistcoat, and arrives at the cottage tical precociousness revealed. Natural enough in rags. Miss Trotwood lives on an eminenee is the detail of that one particular cock, whose in the suburbs, overlooking the sea. With her voice and gesture had in them something terri- on the first floor is Mr. Richard Batley, a harmble; of that one particular closet, redolent of jam less, gentlemanly monomaniac, whom she has and ghosts; of the dial which was conjectured rescued from the less pleasant seclusion his friends to feel glad when the morning sun shone out designed for him. The boy is housed, and after again, and of the nurse with the forefinger like a an interview with Murdstone and sister, the nenutmeg-grater, whose buttons would fly off with phew becomes the exclusive property of his aunt, a bang under any casual excitement, starting re-who is eccentric and determined, but kind. She flections in the child's mind just as the buttons of sends David to school at Canterbury, to one Dr. Munchausen's dogskin jacket used to spring a Strong, pedagogue and lexicographer, an old, covey of birds. There are ladies, we do not abstracted, kindly sort of man, with a very young doubt, who would willingly bear testimony and pretty wife; but he is to lodge with Mr. to these occasional misunderstandings between Wickfield, Miss Trotwood's solicitor, in an old dresses and emotions. With the advent of Murd- house, low browed and wainscoated, fit shrine stone a cloud comes over the child's existence. for a daughter Agnes, "a quiet, good, calm His education commences under one Creakle, at spirit," the heroine of the tale. By way of conan establishment after the Dotheboys type, where trast there is Heep, articled clerk. articled out of be acquires an affection for James Steerforth, a charity, whom to describe description fails; he hero with curls and pocket-money, and Tommy is a sinister, crouching fawning imp of humility ; Traddles, a youth with rebellious hair, inexhaust-viperous in soul and body; long-fingered and ible good nature, and a passion for designing splay-footed and red-eyed, with damp exudations skeletou faces. Ere this, however, he has been of the cuticle, a frog-like hand; altogether "a introduced by Peggotty, the nurse, to her Yar-moist unwholesome body;" him, too, we are inmouth friends, and dwelt, while by the sea-shore, clined to put in the category of the hypernatuwith Mr. Peggotty, fisherman, Ham, his orphan rals. Schooldays over, Miss Trotwood will have nephew, Emily, his orphan niece, and lachry- David to see a little of the world before he demose Mrs. Gummidge, his housekeeper. The cides on a profession. In London he falls in with mother dead, Murdstone consigus the child to his the hero of the curly hair, and, after being intropartner, Quinion, and bottle-washing at a ware-duced at Highgate to that Oxonian's mother, and house by the river at Blackfriars. Here he has her familiar, Miss Dartle, and feeling inextina taste of life in the streets, and puts up under guishably young in the presence of Littimer, most the roof of Wilkins Micawber, Esq., a general respectable of servants, is accompanied by Steerwaiter upon Providence, with a weakness for forth to Yarmouth. Miss Dartle is powerfully drawing upon the future by means of " accep- drawn. "She had black hair and eager black tances," and more than a viceroy's zest for wri- eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. ting diplomatic and confidential letters. Mr. Mi- I concluded in my own mind that she was 30, cawber, with his wife and family, are a part of and wished to be married. She was a little diportion No. 2, as above described. They live lapidated-like a house with having been so better on nothing than most people do on a little; long to let her thinness seemed to be the effect they fluctuate between tears and smiles; they of some wasting fire within her, which found a pass from despair to hot punch, and from the im-vent in her gaunt eyes." The scar was the work mediate prospect of starvation to a sanguine of Steerforth when a child. It is the index of gaiety. Aluaschar is a joke to them; in a for- Miss Dartle's susceptibilities, and owns some allorn tenement, beyond the City-road, they cal- legiance to the hand that caused it. From this culate the expense of putting out a bow-window point commences the tragic portion of the tale. from their house in Piccadilly. As to exterior, Little Em'ly, Mr. Peggotty's niece, a beautiful Mr. Micawber is stout and bald, he wears shabby girl, with only too much refinement and intelliclothes, an enormous shirt-collar, and an eye-gence, is now the promised wife of her cousin, glass, dangling for ornament, not use." A Ham. Steerforth, who makes himself univerdaring design upon the Custom-house, and vis-sally agreeable, takes to the sea as his native

6.

element, wins the affection of the boatmen, and wife is only half redeemed by some touches of ends by purchasing "a clipper," which he leaves pathos, and in a year or two Dora does exactly Littimer behind him to superintend. Ham's that she had best do-retires upon a narrow peace of mind is evidently threatened. The property near the church and an annuity of reworld of London, Highgate and Yarmouth thus grets. Henceforth Agnes occupies the scene scrutinized, Doctors' Commons is suggested, and which Dora has quitted,-her firmness, faith and accepted as the immediate sphere of David's la-purity coming out in contrast to the debility, bours. The aunt finds a thousand pounds for mental and bodily, of Mr. Wickfield, now hopeMessrs. Spenlow and Jorkins, and places her lessly entangled in the meshes of Heep, and to boy in lodgings with Mrs. Crupp, Buckingham- the villanous subtlety and cunning of that humstreet, Adelphi. The portrait of Mr. Spenlow's ble young man. By the by, Mr. Micawber, accurate exterior, and of the monkish place with whose die has been cast, whose flower has been its heterogeneous monopolies, is only equalled by cankered, and whose longevity has been extremethe strange tenacity of the unseen Mr. Jorkins, a ly problematical a number of times, is now law figure who may be supposed to illustrate the silent writer to Heep. Versatile creature as he is, influences of a good many "sleeping partners," though, and charged full with shifts and contrimale and female. At this point Agnes appears vances, he has all the dignity of a more successas his good angel, and, warning him against ful man, and by a patient process of counterSteerforth as his bad angel, is but imperfectly machination exposes the rascality of his master. credited. Uriah Heep, whose humility has ex- Heep is compelled to compromise matters and alted him to a partnership with Wickfield, has a bolt. Mr. Wickfield resigns business, Agnes design upon the affections of Agnes, who moves, keeping school in the old house, and Miss Trothowever, too serenely above him, lavishing her wood is restored to comfort and the old cottage tenderness on her father alone. Meanwhile, at Dover. Mr. Peggotty's wanderings in search another angel appears to David in Dora Spen- of the lost one have been rewarded at last. He low; the accurate Spenlow's only child. She sails with Emily for the antipodes; but ere they has acquired in Paris some graces, but has nei- sail Copperfield goes down to Yarmouth to carry ther intellect nor education. There is a senti- the last messages for Ham. When he arrives a mental confidante, Julia Mills, a spaniel Jip, and hurricane rages; a Spanish vessel is wrecked a duenna, who by the law of recurring uniformi- close in shore, and her crew swept overboard, ties, which Mr. Dickens faithfully observes, turns until one alone remains. Ham, in a second desout to be no other than Miss Murdstone. The perate endeavour to reach the vessel, is buffeted innocent intrigue, abetted by the poetic Julia, is to death by the waves, and when the ship goes brought to light by that blackhaired inquisitress, to pieces it is the lifeless body of Steerforth that and Mr. Spenlow pooh poohs" the thing, but lies among the ruins of the home he had made behaves quite as a member of a genteel corpo- desolate. Doubly depressed, Copperfield goes ration should behave, Miss Trotwood's inexpli- abroad for some years, returning more famous, cable loss of property being, of course, an ele- for he has been writing among the mountains. ment in the consideration. Troubles are thick- He accomplishes the destiny long foreshadowed ening, for Steerforth has succeeded too well in by marrying Agnesdetaching little Em'ly from the ruder, but more faithful suitor, and carried her off to the contiMr. Pegotty makes it the business of his life to find, rescue, and forgive her. Ham, who is also a gentleman in feeling, though heartbroken, is calm and magnanimous. Than these two The story thus represents to us two lives subject Mr. Dickens has conceived nothing more exalted to vicissitudes, and moving parallel with one or more touching. David's love, less noble, but another in patient self-reliance until they unite more fortunate, prospers again after the sudden in one. The antecedent marriage of David and decease of Mr. Spenlow, who leaves the scene Dora is an episode thrown in to demonstrate the in a fit of apoplexy, the result. it would seem, of simplicity and truth which may coexist with weakcomfortable living and uncomfortable neckcloths. ness before they overcome it. Nor is there anyDora falls into the hands of two spinster aunts. thing unnatural in the idea of a foolish passion who enjoy the engagement very much, and make or a foolish match, though there is in the impera pet of it until the heroic David has attained a sonation of it. Dora Spenlow is a caricaturesufficiency by reporting and other various la- one of those caricatures into which Mr. Dickens bour; the melodrama then explodes in a matri- allows himself to be seduced by his habit of monial scene; there is some baby housekeeping, working up figures in detail, and his desire to during which the intense silliness of the child-make every stroke tell; a decent amount of

nent.

"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, and comfort, and command,
And yet a spirit still and bright,

With something of angelic light."

folly and childishness might have been united to next gets to town, enters at the bar, is pushed in a great deal of tenderness, without so far viola- society by the Major, and takes to the literary ting probability as to make the reader impatient line by aid of Warrington, a sort of Hercules in for the drop scene. Skill enough, however, is mind and body, and uncommonly well drawn. shown in the half-unconscious reference to Ag- Fanny Bolton, daughter of the porter at Shepnes of all higher feelings and interests, and in herd's-inn, diverts his attention, but he conquers the gradual awakening to a sense of error-"the himself, and has a bad fever; after which there first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart," is a tour on the continent. During this tour unaccompanied as it is by any cessation of affec- Helen, who has misunderstood the Bolton affair, tion for Dora; and so also in the obtuseness so long displayed as to Agues' real feeling, a trait obviously masculine.

dies of heart disease in the transport of renewed confidence. Laura goes to live with Lady Rockminster, a rigorous old woman of the world, We have something of a similar outline in the with as much kindness as character, and Arthur, second tale, the course of which, however, is by the machinations of the Major, becomes ensooner told, for Mr. Thackeray does not fill his gaged to Miss Amory, who is to bring him a forcanvass with such a variety of portraits and in- tune and a seat in Parliament. Neither cares cidents. Near a small country town in the west much for the other, and the lady, attracted by of England there are two detached houses, one the superior wealth of Foker, breaks with Penlarge, the other small. Clavering Park is vacant, dennis. The conclusion is a marriage with Laura for Sir Francis, of that ilk, is abroad. In the and the attainment of the borough by the legitiother, Fairoaks, lives a retired medical practi-mate course of things.

tioner, John Pendennis, Esq., late of the city of It will be seen from this outline that the inciBath. He has a wife-Helen, gentle, sweet, but dents of Mr. Thackeray's story are not of an exa little uninteresting, and a son, Arthur. The citing kind. It is intended to represent simply wife cherishes also a little girl, Laura, daughter the way of the world, and it does so. Its merits of her cousin, the Rev. T. Bell, deceased. John consist in the truth of that representation. The Pendennis has a brother, a Major, who has re- interest given to Mr. Dickens's work by its biotired from the service on half-pay, and a large graphical form was here impossible, for the censtock of fashionable friends, who becomes guar- tre figure is not meant to be a hero at all, and dian to Arthur on his father's decease. The boy, Laura only a heroine in the sense in which though only 16 at the time of that event, is al- all good young women are such. Carrying out lowed to leave school, for the mother is fond and the proposition which he announced in Vanity weak-Smirke, the curate, making him an apol- Fair, Mr. Thackeray has once more depicted ogy for a tutor. Being a youth of parts and al- the average features of the people one meets, ready a poet, his heart is set on fire by the star neither ascending to any great heights nor deof a dramatic company,-the Fotheringay, a scending to any extraordinary depths. The whole large dark-eyed ignorant woman, with a genial story is consistent with this intention. We have but drunken sire, Captain Costigan, once of Cos-drawing-rooms before us, never cottages; fashtiganstown. The intercourse has commenced ion rather than nature; in other words, that secunder the auspices of Harry Foker, son of Fo- ond nature which custom creates. We have a ker's Entire, an old schoolfellow, a short, stout, style which harmonizes with the topics, and a empty, good-natured, and over-dressed-in other philosophy which, whether intended to do so or words a "fastish" young man. The Major is not, never rises above the obvious and the comstartled by a letter from Helen announcing the monplace. Perhaps no greater distinction can not improbable marriage of her son: his promp- be drawn between the two works than this, that titude and tact avert this calamity, and the youth the one confines itself to the artificial phase of goes to an university which Mr. Thackeray has society, the other to the real. Allowing this, the denominated Oxbridge. Here he becomes pop- wider scope of Mr. Dickens's novel is at once exular, runs in debt, and is plucked; but finally ac- plained. There is room for more range of charcomplishes a degree, and, subsiding into the acter-for more diversity of adventure-for a country, finds a remedy for ennui in a new flirta- more thoughtful and suggestive tone. Mr. tion. Clavering Park is occupied at last, for the Thackeray tells us in his preface that he could present baronet has married a Begum. The Be- willingly have treated us to squalor and crimegum has a daughter by her first husband, Blanche St. Giles's and a gallows scene, but that he mis(or by baptism Betsy) Amory, a blonde, who had trusted his powers. The resolve was judicious, begun to gush into sentiment at a very early for what he has done he has done well, catching age. After wearing out this passion, in order to not a little of the force and spirit with which his please the widow, he proposes to Laura, who favorite models, Smollett, Fielding, and Sterne, has strength of mind enough to refuse him. He illustrated the realities of a century ago. Pen

"It grows out of the night when Dora died ?"

dennis is not exactly a Tom Jones, but he is con- | Miss Dartle would hate Steerforth's victim with ceived from the same point of view. The only all the rancour of jealousy; but it is very unquestion is whether Mr. Thackeray has done likely that she should seek her out in order to wisely in applying the doctrine of limits to char-reproach her with her shame, and gloat over her acter so unvaryingly, and we are inclined to be- misery with the fiendish violence ascribed to her. lieve that, while he has observed keenly enough The thing is altogether overstrained. We have the peculiarities of the world which he depicts, already said that Dora is not a fact, and we must he has not guaged universal humanity so skilfully extend the censure to a frequent want of truth as Mr. Dickens. In David Copperfield there are in language, not that the dialect of Mr. Pegotty more contrasts of character, more varieties of is less racy than the brogue of Captain Costigan, intellect, a more diverse scenery, and more pic-but that in any passage of sentiment Mr. Dickturesqueness of detail. It is the whole world ens lets the sentiment run away with him. Who rather than a bit of it which you see before you. ever heard of one young man saying gravely to There is first the childhood, vividly painted, another, "You are always equally loved and happy and unsuspicious, with its ideas and feel- cherished in my heart," or of a bride who has ings not at all overdone; in Pendennis, on the just entered the travelling carriage coming out contrary, you have rather the fact that he was with so Tennysonian decasyllabic asonce a child than childhood described. There are, secondly, and it is an artifice of which Mr. Dickens is somewhat too fond,-some people -a fault this, which grows out of the over powithout wit in his tale. With Mr. Batley we etical tendencies of the author, tendencies disfind no fault, for he is a pendant to Miss Trot-coverable enough in all his works, and evidenced wood, who could ill be spared; but Dora is an as much, perhaps, in the characters of Barnaby infliction. The effect, however, of these por- Rudge and Paul Dombey as in any discursivetraits is to throw the intellect of others into relief, ness of mere expression. It is Mr. Thackeray's and also to give a colouring such as the harmless merit that his prose is downright prose; he does enjoyments and simple affection of crazed peo- not seem, indeed, to have the faculty of comple alone can give. There is no satire in the de-mitting such mistakes as these; but compare the scription of their extravagances; on the contrary, fidelity of the greeting between Pendennis and there is something at once joyous and tender, Warrington, and the remarks thereon, with the something mysterious and impressive, in the his-conversation of David and Steerforth; or comtory of a lunatic, which makes the Swiss and the pare the rage of Miss Dartle with anything said Oriental revere him, and which made Words- or accomplished by Becky, in Vanity Fair, and worth put him into verse. As he goes lower in the you will not hesitate to say which way the balscale of intellect and manners, so also Mr. Dickens ance inclines. It may be said, however, that Mr. rises higher than Mr. Thackeray-his hero is Thackeray was preserved in some degree from greater than Pendennis, and his heroine than such faults by casting all his characters within a Laura, while "my Aunt" might alike, on the score narrow sphere, and that sphere one in which lanof eccentricities and kindliness, take the shine guage is easily caught, and all of one pattern. out of Lady Rockminster. The Yarmouth group, Yet we are inclined to take exception against again, is no exaggeration, and, while introducing the profusion of "egads" and "begads" with another of Mr. Dickens's merits, the power of which that most gentlemanly old man the Major description gives at once the effect of a general interlards his discourse, even if not against their contrast running through the tale, and absorbs Irish first cousin "bedad," which emphasizes as much interest as the central figures by the force the rich brogue of "the pore old man who was and dignity of the delineation; the depth of feel- dthriven to dthrinking by ingratitude." As in ing revealed in Mr. Peggotty and in Ham, the language so in exterior and manners, Mr. Thackenergetic patience of one, the passive endurance eray's people are less marked. He does not wish of the other, not less than Mrs. Gummidge's to individualize. Mr. Dickens has a perfect passudden conversion from querulousness to activity sion for being particular, as if the portrait might and self-forgetfulness, are the evidence at once be wanted in the Hue and Cry. We must supof knowledge and of imagination. Nor is the pose either that people in the best society have mute Mr. Barkis's expressive gesture, or the leg- not their tricks-little tricks of the body, that rubbing and strong vernacular of the boatman, is-or else that Mr. Dickens has an unnatural less true to the life. What we cannot allow to faculty of detecting them. All the accessory Mr. Dickens is the invariable fidelity which ac- characters in his books gesticulate. They have companies Mr. Thackeray's characters. There a hundred little ways of identifying themselves. are cases where his facts are not so true as his Like the gentleman in Lavengro who must for ideas. It might be quite true, for instance, that the life of him touch something, they are always

popping out with some peculiarity, which might can's creed, "There's nothing new, there's nothmake us think that Mr. Dickens, with the doc-ing true, and it don't signify." One might altor quoted the other day by Lord Campbell, be- most fancy that Mr. Thackeray had reduced his lieved in universal monomania. Uriah Heep, own theory of life to that average which he for instance, is first introduced to us as trying to strikes from the practice of all around him. We put a spell upon the pony-his sinuous contor- are brought into a mess and left there, woman's tions and shadowless eyes are forever before us love and purity being the only light upon our as illustrative of his wily wickedness. Mrs. path. Mr. Dickens touches a higher key; his Steerforth is to be the quintessence of pride, Miss villains, Heep and Littimer, stand out as villains ; Trotwood of firmness and eccentric good nature, his women-and we may take My Aunt and the Murdstones of firmness and ill nature. Mrs. Agnes as equally faithful pictures,-hold an emiSteerforth, therefore, is tall and rigid, Miss Trot-nence which women may and do reach in this wood rigid and tall. So is Mr. Murdstone, so world, and which mere purity and love do not is Miss Murdstone, so was Mr. Dombey. Mr. suffice to attain. Spenlow's sisters are to be like a pair of cana- We do not wish, however, to be hard on Mr. ries, neat, dapper, twittering sort of females; Thackeray's selection of his scene. As forms of accordingly they have a curious appetite for sensual existence, varied only by circumstance lumps of sugar and seedcake. Again, Mr. Dick- and taste, his characters are as true as the velens is as deep in nasology as the learned Slaw-vet of Mr. Hunt's Mariana, so lately a topic of kenbergius; his people are perpetually wagging discussion, or the topers of Teniers-only do not their noses, or flattening them against windows, let the picture be taken as expressing the whole or rubbing them, or evincing some restlessness or truth of the matter; there is a large suppression. other in connexion with them. He is not much We must grant, by way of counterpoise, that less scientific in eyes, and ought by this time to Mr. Dickens frequently sins in excess. He conhave a regular classification of them. The effect templates human nature in its strength, and on of all this is that you trace something genuine in its unsophisticated side;-Mr. Thackeray in its Mr. Thackeray's figures more easily than you do weakness and on its most artificial basis. The in Mr. Dickens's. You have not such a series consequence is, that the former verges on the of peculiarities to separate before you can regard sentimental, the latter on the cynical, one being the nature by itself. Fokers, Pendennises, He- the reaction of the other; only while the first is lens, and Lauras abound everywhere. You can't no unmanly weapon in Mr. Dickens's hand, the go out without meeting them, nor do they, the last is a sufficiently temperate one in the hand first especially, deny the portraiture; if there is of Mr. Thackeray. As to actual influence, we any desire to deny it, that arises, not from Mr. should, for the reasons aforesaid, assign the higher Thakeray's allowing them too little goodness, place to Mr. Dickens, partly because the exbut from his not allowing them enough wits. pressed morality comes forth as something defiThe ladies, however, ought to be propitiated by nite, the fruit of personal experience, yet consomething of additional beauty and force as- veyed through a personage of the tale, partly besigned to them in Pendennis. Compare the tone cause the highest lessons inculcated, such as of the two books, and one will be found, as a those of faith in Mr. Peggotty and resignation whole, light-hearted and hopeful, the other dolo- in Ham, are some of the highest that can be inrous and depressing. Both books are comic in culcated, and partly, also, because the world much of their expression, for both writers are which Mr. Thackeray experiments on is a world humourists, but the humour of one is more gloomy of salamanders, fireproof, inclined to disbelieve than that of the other, as if from a shadow fallen that the lesson they can criticise may possibly upon a life. While in David Copperfield the increase their condemnation. Each rejoices to tragedy is consummated in a single chapter, in be what he is. Foker and Major Pendennis rePendennis it is spread over the whole surface of joice in their portraits, save that the latter don't the story. In the former case a man is slain; in think he is so "doosedly" made up, after all. the latter case human aspirations and compla- You may as well write at them as preach at cencies are demolished. Rising from the peru- them; and did not the Major go to church? sal of Mr. Dickens's work, you forget that there Perfect as Pendennis is, then, in execution, we is evil in the world, and remember only the good. are bound, when weighing it with Copperfield, to The distinction drawn between the bad and good adjudge the chief merit where the most univeris a broad one. Rising from Mr. Thackeray's, sal interest is conciliated and the most exalted you are doubtful of yourself and of humanity at teaching hidden beneath the tale. The epic is large, for nobody is very bad or very good, and greater than the satire. everybody seems pretty well contented. The morale might almost be summed up into the Ameri