ABSTRACT
We are glad—right glad—to see the footsteps of Dickens again in that pleasant walk of literature in which he is unrivalled, and which he ought never to have left for the thorny paths and uneasy turmoil of newspapers. Never was there a man so little suited to the wear and tear and vulgar huck-a-buck work of the daily press1, or more formed to shine in the road in which he strode with such gigantic paces to fame and fortune. This great painter of English manners, distinguished alike by pathos and tenderness—a hearty and healthy naturalness—great shrewdness, and minute and accurate observation, should bid adieu to politics and controversy—should cease to paint pictures of Italy—a land which he does not understand—and confine himself to London and Middlesex, or at least to the fair realm of England.
His first best country ever is at home.
