ople."
The words, applied thus emphatically to the humorous and often grotesque
comedian, are exactly applicable to Dickens as a Reader. And, as Elia
remarks of Munden at another moment, "he is not one, but legion; not so
much a comedian as a company"--any one might say identically the same
of Dickens, who bears in remembrance the wonderful variety of his
impersonations.

Attending his Readings, character after character appeared before
us, living and breathing, in the flesh, as we looked and listened. It
mattered nothing, just simply nothing, that the great author was there
all the while before his audience in his own identity. His evening
costume was a matter of no consideration--the flower in his button-hole,
the paper-knife in his hand, the book before him, that earnest,
animated, mobile, delightful face, that we all knew by heart through his
ubiquitous photographs--all were equally of no account whatever. We knew
that he alone was there all the time before us, reading, or, to speak
more accurately, re-creating for us, one and all--while his lips were
articulating the familiar words his hand had written so many years
previously--the most renowned of the imaginary creatures peopling
his books. Watching him, hearkening to him, while he stood there
unmistakably before his audience, on the raised platform, in the glare
of the gas-burners shining down upon him from behind the pendant
screen immediately above his head, his individuality, so to express it,
altogether disappeared, and we saw before us instead, just as the case
might happen to be, Mr. Pickwick, or Mrs. Gamp, or Dr. Marigold, or
little Paul Dombey, or Mr. Squeers, or Sam Weller, or Mr. Peggotty, or
some other of those immortal personages. We were as conscious, as though
we saw them, of the bald head, the spectacles, and the little gaiters
of Mr. Pickwick--of the snuffy tones, the immense umbrella, and the
voluminous bonnet and gown of Mrs. Gamp--of the belcher necktie, the
mother-of-pearl buttons and the coloured waistcoat of the voluble Cheap
Jack--of little Paul's sweet face and gentle accents--of the one eye and
the well-known pair of Wellingtons, adorning the head and legs of
Mr. Wackford Squeers--of Sam's imperturbable nonchalance--and of Mr.
Peggotty's hearty, briny, sou'-wester of a voice and general demeanour!

Even the lesser characters--those which are introduced into the original
works quite incidentally, occupying there a wholly subordinate
posi