glected, the poor, and the fallen, a world of
compassion and tenderness. Yet I think it was not until the third book,
_Nickleby_, that he began to have his place as a writer conceded to
him; and that he ceased to be regarded as a mere phenomenon or marvel
of fortune, who had achieved success by any other means than that of
deserving it, and who challenged no criticism better worth the name than
such as he has received from the Fortnightly reviewer. It is to be added
to what before was said of _Nickleby_, that it established beyond
dispute his mastery of dialogue, or that power of making characters real
existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe
themselves, which belongs only to story-tellers of the first rank.
Dickens never excelled the easy handling of the subordinate groups in
this novel, and he never repeated its mistakes in the direction of
aristocratic or merely polite and dissipated life. It displayed more
than before of his humour on the tragic side; and, in close connection
with its affecting scenes of starved and deserted childhood, were placed
those contrasts of miser and spendthrift, of greed and generosity, of
hypocrisy and simple-heartedness, which he handled in later books with
greater power and fullness, but of which the first formal expression was
here. It was his first general picture, so to speak, of the character
and manners of his time, which it was the design more or less of all his
books to exhibit; and it suffers by comparison with his later
productions, because the humour is not to the same degree enriched by
imagination; but it is free from the not infrequent excess into which
that supreme gift also tempted its possessor. None of the tales is more
attractive throughout, and on the whole it was a step in advance even of
the stride previously taken. Nor was the gain lost in the succeeding
story of the _Old Curiosity Shop_. The humorous traits of Mrs. Nickleby
could hardly be surpassed: but, in Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness,
there was a subtlety and lightness of touch that led to finer issues;
and around Little Nell[263] and her fortunes, surpassingly touching and
beautiful, let criticism object what it will, were gathered some small
characters that had a deeper intention and more imaginative insight,
than anything yet done. Strokes of this kind were also observable in the
hunted life of the murderer in _Barnaby Rudge_; and his next book,
_Chuzzlewit_, was, as it still remai