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eative artist, this aspect of his work runs no danger of being forgotten. Moreover, when we are considering Dickens as a Victorian worthy and as a representative man of his age, it is desirable to bring out those qualities which he shared with so many of his great contemporaries. Above all, we must remember that Dickens himself would be the last man to be ashamed of having written 'with a purpose', or to think that the fact should be concealed as a blemish in his art. There was nothing in which he felt more genuine pride than in the thought that hi

er lived in Hampshire after his fourth year. The earliest years which left a distinct impress on his mind were those passed at Chatham, to which his father moved in 1816. This town and its neighbouring cathedral city of Rochester, with their narrow old streets, their riverside and

ung temperament he was capable of suffering acutely; and this capacity was now to be sorely tried. For a year or more of his life this proud sensitive child had to spend long hours in the cellars of a warehouse, with rough uneducated companions, occupied in pasting labels on pots of boot-blacking. This situation was all that the influence of his family could procure for him; and into this he was thrust at the age of ten with no ray of hope, no expectation of release. His shiftless parents seemed to acquiesce in this drudgery as an opening for their cleverest son; and instead of their helping and comforting him in his sorrow, it was he who gave his Sundays to visiting them in prison a

oling was desultory and ineffective. Well might the elder Dickens, in a burst of candour, say to a stranger

er the well-known Morning Chronicle; and at intervals he enlarged his experiences by journeys into the provinces to report political meetings. Thus it was that he familiarized himself with the mail coaches, the wayside hostelries, and the rich variety of types that were to be found there; with London in most of its phases he was already at home. So, when in 1834 he made his first attempts at writing in periodical literature

fresh morning, they must have won the favour of his fellow travellers more easily than Alfred Jingle won the hearts of the Pickwickians. And beneath the radiant cheerfulness of his manner, the quick flash of observation and of speech, there was in him an element of hard persistence and determination which would carry him far. If the years of poverty and neglect had failed to chill his hopes and break his spirit, there was no fear

of Sam Weller, to the humours of Dingley Dell and Eatanswill, to the adventures of the hero in back gardens or in prison, on coaches or in wheelbarrows. Every one must read them in the original for himself. In this book Dickens reached at once the height of his success in making his fellow countrymen laugh with him at their own foib

the pleasures and the society which he needed, and he became the centre of a circle of friends who appreciated his talents and encouraged him in his career. His relations with his publishers, though not without incident, were generally of the most cordial kind. If Dickens h

me the variety of his creations. Here we have the luxuriant humour of Mrs. Nickleby and the Crummles family side by side with the tragedy of Bill Sikes and the pathos of Little Nell. Here also we can see the gradual development of constructive power in the handling of the story. But for our purpose it is more significant to notice that we here find Dickens's pen enlisted in the service of the noblest cause for which he fought, the redemption from misery and slavery of the children of his native land. Lord Shaftesbury's life has told us what their sufferings were and how the machinery of Government was slowly forced to do its part; and Dickens would be the last to detract from the fame of that great philant

erwards he continued to correspond with active workers on the subject of Ragged Schools and on the means of uplifting children out of the conditions which were so fruitful a source of crime. He discovered for himself how easily miscreants like Fagin could find recruits in the slums of London, and how impossible it was to bring up aright boys who were bred in these neglected homes. Even where efforts had been begun, the machinery was quite inadequate, the te

mite resounding blows which jar upon critical ears, at least he opened a rich vein of literature where many have followed him. He wrote not for the critics but for the great popular audience whom he had created, comprising all ages and classes, and world-wide in extent. The best answer to such criticism is to be found in the poem

for the bitterness caused. He portrayed the conceit, the self-interest, the disregard for the feelings of others which the less-educated American showed to foreigners in a visible and often offensive guise; and the portraits were so life-like that no arrow fails to hit the mark. The American people were young; they had made great strides in material prosperity, they had not been taught to submit to the lash by satirists like Swift or more kindly mentors like Addison. Their own Oliver Wendell Holmes had not yet begun to chastise them with gentle irony. So they were aghast at Dickens's audacity, and indignant at wha

d 1856, he spent a large part of three summers in a villa near Boulogne. Though he desired the change for reasons connected with his work, and though in each case he formed friendly connexions with his neighbours, it cannot be said that his books show the influence of either country. His genius was British to the core and he remained a

ut an enormous amount of energy into organizing public theatrical performances with his friends in London. He always loved the theatre. Macready was one of his innermost circle, and he had other friends on the stage. Indeed there were moments in his life when it seemed that the genius of the novelist might be lost to the world,

ens's insight into human nature had ripened, and he had learnt to group his lesser figures and episodes more skilfully round the central plot. And David Copperfield has the peculiar interest which attaches to those works where we seem to read the story of the author's own life. Evidently we have memories here of his childhood, of his school-days and his apprenticeship to work

Hard Times, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend all show evidence of greater effort and are less happy in their effect. No man could live the life that Dickens had lived for fifteen years and not show some signs of exhaustion; the wonder is that his creative power continued at all. He was capable of brilliant su

on Stanfield, the actor Macready, Talfourd, lawyer and poet, Douglas Jerrold and Mark Lemon, the two famous contributors to Punch, and some fellow novelists, of whom Harrison Ainsworth was conspicuous in the earlier group and Wilkie Collins in later years. Less frequent visitors were Carlyle, Thackeray, and Bulwer Lytton, but they too were proud to welcome Dickens among their friends. With some of these he would walk, ride, or dine, go to the theatre or travel in the provinces and in foreign countries. His biographer loves to re

s and come. Till near the end of his life Dickens clung to these habits, thinking nothing of a walk of from twenty to thirty miles; and there seems reason to believe that by constant over-exertion he sapped his strength and shortened his life. But lameness in one foot, the result of an illness early in 1865, handicapped him severely at times; and in the same year he sustai

rica to 'the exact site where Professor Webster did that amazing murder', may seem legitimate for one who had to study crime among the other departments of life; but at times he revels in gruesome details in a way which jars

ng often in trouble with his voice, suffering from fits of sleeplessness, aggravating the pain in his foot, and affecting his heart. In spite, then, of the success of the readings, his faithful friends like Forster would gladly have seen him abandon a practice which could add little to his future fame, while it threatened to shorten his life. But, however arduous the task which he set himself, when the moment came Dickens could brace himself to meet the demands and satisfy the high expectations of his audience. His nerves seemed to harden, his voice to gain strength; his spirit flashed out undimmed, and he won triumph after triumph, in quiet cathedral cities, in great industrial towns, in the more fatiguing climate of America and before the huge audiences of Philadelphia and New York. He began his programme with a few chosen pieces from Pickwick and the Christmas Books, and with selected characters like Paul Dombey and Mrs. Gamp; he added Dotheboys Hall and the story of David

to tenants, but from 1860 he made it his permanent abode. It has no architectural features to charm the eye; with its many changes and additions made for comfort, its bow-windows and the plantations in the garden, it is a typical Victorian home. Here Dickens could live at ease, surrounded by his children, his dogs, his books, his souvenirs of his friends, and the Kentish scenery which he loved. To the north lay the flat marshlands of the lower Thames, to the south and west lay rolling hills crowned with woodlands, with hop gardens on the lower slopes; to the east lay the valley of the Medway with the quaint old streets of Rochester and the bustling dock

to realize the need for reform. As he grew older he went deeper into the evil, and he also blended his reforming purpose better with his story. The characters of Mr. Dombey and the Chuzzlewits are not mere incidents in the tale, nor are they monstrosities which call forth immediate astonishment and horror. But in each case the ingrained selfishness which spreads misery through a family is the very mainspring of the story; an

ss on commercial undertakings. Hard facts then are to be the staple of education; memory and accurate calculation are to be cultivated; the imagination is to be driven out. In depicting the manner of this education Dickens rather overshoots the mark. The visit of Mr. Gradgrind to Mr. M'Choakumchild's school (when the sharp-witted Bitzer defines the horse according to the scientific handbook, while poor Cissy, who has only an affection for horses, indulge

o fight to-day, against those Pharisees who prescribe for the working classes how they should spend their weekly day of freedom; he supported the opening on Sunday of parks, museums, and galleries; whole-heartedly he loved the theatre and the circus, and he wished as many as possible to share those delights. In defiance of 'Mrs. Grundy' he ventured to maintain that the words 'music-hall' and 'public-house', rightly understood, should be held

system. Mr. Crotch describes visits which he paid to the workhouses in Wapping and Whitechapel, quoting his comments on the 'Foul Ward' in one, on the old men's ward in the other, and on the torpor of despair which settled down on these poor wrecks of humanity. Could such a system, he asked himself, be wise which robbed men not of liberty alone but of all hope for the future, which left them no single point of interest except the statistics of their fellows who had gone before them and who had been finally liberated by deat

the temper in which they looked at the problem of the poor. In this nothing that he wrote was more powerful than the series of Christmas Books, in which his imagination, with the power of a Rembrandt, threw on to a smaller canvas the lights and shades of London life, the grim background of mean streets, and the cheerful virtues which throw a glamour over their humble homes. His advocacy of these social causes came to be known far and wide and contributed a second element to the popularity won by his novels; long before his death Dickens stood on a pinnacle alone, loved by the vast reading public among those who toil in our towns and villages, and wherever English is read and understood. He was not only their entertainer, but their friend and brother; he had been through his days of sorrow and suffering and he had kept that vast fund of cheerfulness which overflowed into his books and gladdened the lives of so many thousands. When he died in 1870 after a year of intermit

Vast progress has been made; a humane spirit is to be found in the working of our Government, and a truer knowledge of social problems is spreading among all classes. But the world cannot afford to relegate Charles