The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August,
1864, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864
A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics

Author: Various

Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16057]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of text]

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XIV.--AUGUST, 1864.--NO. LXXXII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

* * * * *

CHARLES READE.

Some one lately took occasion, in passing, to class Charles Reade with
the clever writers of the day, sandwiching him between Anthony Trollope
and Wilkie Collins,--for no other reason, apparently, than that he
never, with Chinese accuracy, gives us gossiping drivel that reduces
life to the dregs of the commonplace, or snarls us in any inextricable
tangle of plots.

Charles Reade is not a clever writer merely, but a great one,--how
great, only a careful _resume_ of his productions can tell us. We know
too well that no one can take the place of him who has just left us, and
who touched so truly the chords of every passion; but out of the ranks
some one must step now to the leadership so deserted,--for Dickens
reigns in another region,--and whether or not it shall be Charles Reade
depends solely upon his own election: no one else is so competent, and
nothing but wilfulness or vanity need prevent him,--the wilfulness of
persisting in certain errors, or the vanity of assuming that he has no
farther to go. He needs to learn the calmness of a less variable
temperature and a truer equilibrium, less positive sharpness and more
philosophy; he will be a thorough master, when the subject glows in his
forge and he himself remains unheated.

He is about