yself
thought the purpose of this fine piece to be not adequately stated even
by CHARLES LAMB. 'The very houses seem absolutely reeling' it is true;
but beside that wonderful picture of what follows intoxication, we have
indication quite as powerful of what leads to it among the neglected
classes. There is no evidence that any of the actors in the dreary scene
have ever been much better than we see them there. The best are pawning
the commonest necessaries, and tools of their trades; and the worst are
homeless vagrants who give us no clue to their having been otherwise in
bygone days. All are living and dying miserably. Nobody is interfering
for prevention or for cure, in the generation going out before us, or
the generation coming in. The beadle is the only sober man in the
composition except the pawnbroker, and he is mightily indifferent to the
orphan-child crying beside its parent's coffin. The little charity-girls
are not so well taught or looked after, but that they can take to
dram-drinking already. The church indeed is very prominent and handsome;
but as, quite passive in the picture, it coldly surveys these things in
progress under shadow of its tower, I cannot but bethink me that it was
not until this year of grace 1848 that a Bishop of London first came out
respecting something wrong in poor men's social accommodations, and I
am confirmed in my suspicion that Hogarth had many meanings which have
not grown obsolete in a century."

Another art-criticism by Dickens should be added. Upon a separate
publication by Leech of some drawings on stone called the Rising
Generation, from designs done for Mr. Punch's gallery, he wrote at my
request a little essay of which a few sentences will find appropriate
place with his letter on the other great caricaturist of his time. I use
that word, as he did, only for want of a better. Dickens was of opinion
that, in this particular line of illustration, while he conceded all his
fame to the elder and stronger contemporary, Mr. Leech was the very
first Englishman who had made Beauty a part of his art; and he held,
that, by striking out this course, and setting the successful example of
introducing always into his most whimsical pieces some beautiful faces
or agreeable forms, he had done more than any other man of his
generation to refine a branch of art to which the facilities of
steam-printing and wood-engraving were giving almost unrivalled
diffusion and popularity. His opinion