tion. So soon as they have
exhausted the honey, they condemn the comb; it will do to wax an old
wife's thread;--they forget that the cells whose sides break the usual
uniformity contain the royal embryos. Humdrum read these little novels
through and through, laughed and cried over them in secret, then pulled
a long face, stepped forth and denounced--the typography. Now we admit
that the page presents a fairer appearance with single punctuations,
unblurred by Italics, and its smooth surface unbroken by strings of
capitals;--but let us ask these criticasters for what purpose types were
cast at all. To assist the author in the expression of his ideas, and to
elucidate subtile shades of meaning? or to prove his let and hindrance,
and to wrap his expression in mystery? Whether or no, it is patent that
Charles Reade makes an exclamation--and an interrogation-point together
say as much as many novelists can dibble over a whole page.
Nevertheless, in his latest work these eccentricities are greatly
modified; yet who would forego in the sea-fight that almost inaudible,
breathless whisper of "Our ammunition is nearly done"? or again the
moment when Skinner pokes Mr. Hardie lightly in the side and says,
"But--I've--got--THE RECEIPT"? And could anything express the state of
young Reginald's mind so ineffably as the primer type of his letter to
Lucy?

A much less venial fault than any typographical trifle is a tendency
belonging to this author to repeat both incident and colloquy. This of
course is merely the result of negligence,--and negligence no one likes
to forgive; only Shakspeare can afford to be careless of his fame, and
the rags that his commentators make of him are a warning to all pettier
people. We have seen the manuscript of a man already immortal, so
interlined, erased, and corrected as to be undecipherable by any but
himself and the printer who has been for twenty years condemned to such
hard labor; surely others can condescend to the same pains;--yet we
doubt if Mr. Reade so much as looks his over a second time.

Many persons have a trick of writing their names, not on the fly-leaf of
the books they possess, but on the hundredth or the fiftieth page.
Perhaps it is according to some such brand of the warehouse that we find
in "Very Hard Cash," or in "White Lies," indifferently, such brief
dialogues as this:--

"'No.'

"'Are you sure?'

"'Positive.'"

Then, Reade's characters are perpetually doing t