urpassed, not only in vividness, but in swiftness. I have
intentionally avoided all needless comparisons of his works with those
of other writers of his time, some of whom have gone before him to their
rest, while others survive to gladden the darkness and relieve the
monotony of our daily life. But in the power of his imagination--of this
I am convinced--he surpassed them, one and all. That imagination could
call up at will those associations which, could we but summon them in
their full number, would bind together the human family, and make that
expression no longer a name, but a living reality. . . . Such associations
sympathy alone can warm into life, and imagination alone can at times
discern. The great humourist reveals them to every one of us; and his
genius is indeed an inspiration from no human source, in that it enables
him to render this service to the brotherhood of mankind. But more than
this. So marvellously has this earth become the inheritance of mankind,
that there is not a thing upon it, animate or inanimate, with which, or
with the likeness of which, man's mind has not come into contact; . . .
with which human feelings, aspirations, thoughts, have not acquired an
endless variety of single or subtle associations. . . . These also, which
we imperfectly divine or carelessly pass by, the imagination of genius
distinctly reveals to us, and powerfully impresses upon us. When they
appeal directly to the emotions of the heart, it is the power of Pathos
which has awakened them; and when the suddenness, the unexpectedness,
the apparent oddity of the one by the side of the other, strike the mind
with irresistible force, it is the equally divine gift of Humour which
has touched the spring of laughter by the side of the spring of
tears."--_Charles Dickens. A Lecture by Professor Ward. Delivered in
Manchester, 30th November, 1870._

[267] The opening of this letter (25th of August 1859), referring to a
conviction for murder, afterwards reversed by a Home Office pardon
against the continued and steadily expressed opinion of the judge who
tried the case, is much too characteristic of the writer to be lost. "I
cannot easily tell you how much interested I am by what you tell me of
our brave and excellent friend. . . . I have often had more than half a
mind to write and thank that upright judge. I declare to heaven that I
believe such a service one of the greatest that a man of intellect and
courage can render to society