writer's
genius, his modification of the forms, hues, and sounds of Nature by
viewing them through the medium of an imagined mind, is especially
prominent throughout the descriptions with which the work abounds.
Nature is not only described, but individualized and humanized.

Altogether we take great joy in recording our conviction that "Great
Expectations" is a masterpiece. We have never sympathized in the mean
delight which some critics seem to experience in detecting the signs
which subtly indicate the decay of power in creative intellects. We
sympathize still less in the stupid and ungenerous judgments of those
who find a still meaner delight in wilfully asserting that the last book
of a popular writer is unworthy of the genius which produced his first.
In our opinion, "Great Expectations" is a work which proves that we may
expect from Dickens a series of romances far exceeding in power and
artistic skill the productions which have already given him such a
preeminence among the novelists of the age.

_Tom Brown at Oxford: A Sequel to School-Days at Rugby_. By the Author
of "School-Days at Rugby," "Scouring of the White Horse," etc. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields. 2 vols. 16mo.

Thomas Hughes, the author of these volumes, does not, on a superficial
examination, seem to deserve the wide reputation he has obtained. We
hunt his books in vain for any of those obvious peculiarities of style,
thought, and character which commonly distinguish a man from his
fellows. He does not possess striking wit, or humor, or imagination, or
power of expression. In every quality, good or bad, calculated to create
"a sensation," he is remarkably deficient. Yet everybody reads him with
interest, and experiences for him a feeling of personal affection and
esteem. An unobtrusive, yet evident nobility of character, a sound,
large, "round-about" common-sense, a warm sympathy with English and
human kind, a practical grasp of human life as it is lived by ordinary
people, and an unmistakable sincerity and earnestness of purpose animate
everything he writes. His "School-Days at Rugby" delighted men as well
as boys by the freshness, geniality, and truthfulness with which it
represented boyish experiences; and the Tom Brown who, in that book,
gained so many friends wherever the English tongue is spoken, parts with
none of his power to interest and charm in this record of his collegiate
life. Mr. Hughes has the true, wholesome English love of home, th