ABSTRACT
Time was, and that not very long ago, when to write with enthusiasm ofCharles Dickens was to incur the scorn of the Superior Person. That gifted creature, it is true, knew nothing, or next to it, of his author, and at most had only read him here and there-mostly to pick up a laugh; sometimes ('tis feared) to reflect that it was not thus that Thackeray wrote, and Scott, and the 'inimitable Jane.' Yet Dickens was none the less a master feature in the great aspect ofEnglish letterswas none the less, I like to think (as I have always thought), one ofthe three or four who may at their best be held to vie with the Shakespeare who expressed himself in prose: the Shakespeare ofFalstaffand Lucio, of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew and the Nurse, ofMalvolio and Shallow, and the group that clatters and drinks and swaggers round the wild Prince and Poins. 'Tis sixty years or so since he stepped forward-so said Thackeray: Thackeray, who knew what writing is, and could value a writer as he deserves-and took his place at the head of English literature; and, for all the works of all the Superior Persons that ever lived or will ever live, from that place he has never for a moment been, nor will ever for a moment be, in danger ofdeposition. There is no denying that certain people tired of him, or said they tired ofhim, or pretended to tire of him. But certain people went the same idiot way with Scott; and, as in Scott's case so in Dickens's, there was a kind of rush in the quest of strange gods. But, all the while, edition after edition was pouring from the press; and all the while Scott and
Dickens were enlarging the borders of their several empires abroadwere annexing new provinces, and exploring new territories, and subjugating new dominions-and at home were establishing their foundations deep and ever deeper in the regard of their countrymen. All the while, in fact, the whirligig of Time was bringing on his revenges.
