Dodson  and  Fogg,  and  that  of  the  trial  of  Bard  ell  v.  Pick-
wick. ..."

** .  .  .  It  does  not  appear  to  us  certain  that  his  books  will
live,  nor  do  we  think  that  his  place  in  literary  history  will  be  by
the  side  of  such  men  as  Defoe  and  Fiel  ling,  the  founders  of  the
school  to  which  he  belongs.  .   .   ."

'*  .  .  He  can  only  conceive  of  virtues  and  vices  in  their
very  simplest  forms.  The  goodness  of  his  good  men  is  always
running  over  their  beards,  like  Aaron's  ointment ;  the  wicked-
ness of  his  villains  is  always  flaming  and  blazing  like  a  house
on  fire.  The  mixed  characters,  the  confusion,  the  incomplete-
ness, wliich  meet  us  at  every  step  in  real  life,  never  occur  in
his  pages.  You  understand  what  he  means  on  the  first  reading
far  better  than  on  any  other.  The  only  characters  drawn  from
real  observation  belong  to  one  or  two  classes  of  life.  All  the
oddities  of  London  he  has  sketched  with  inimitable  vigour ;
but  class  characteristics  and  local  peculiarities  are  of  a  very
transient  nature.  Forty  years  hence  most  of  his  wit  will  be
harder  to  understand  than  the  allusions  in  the  Bunciad ;  and
our  grandchildren  will  wonder  what  their  ancestors  could  have
meant  by  putting  Mr.  Dickens  at  the  head  of  the  novelists  of
the  day.  .    .  ."

"...  Mr.  Dickens's  writings  are  the  apotheosis  of  what  has
been  called  newspaper  English.  He  makes  points  everywhere,
gives  unfamiliar  names  to  the  commonest  objects,  and  lavishes
a  marvellous  quantity  of  language  on  the  most  ordinary  inci-
(lents,   ,   .   ."


CRITICAL.  117

157
Charles  Dickens.  (By  ^Y.  Bagehot.)
London :  The  National  Review,  October,  1858.
