experiences in a manner which may or may not have been fair,
but which was exquisitely funny. It also added the immortal figure of
Mrs. Gamp (not unattended by any means) to the glorious list of his
comic creations. It was in _Dombey and Son_ (1846-48) that the Dickens
of the decadence first appeared; the maudlin strain of _The Old
Curiosity Shop_ being repeated in Paul Dombey, while a new and very
inauspicious element appeared in certain mechanical tricks of phrase,
and in a totally unreal style of character exemplified in the Bagstocks,
the Carkers, and so forth. Yet Captain Cuttle, his friend Bunsby, Miss
Nipper, and the inestimable Toots put in ample bail for this also. And
it was followed (1849-50) by _David Copperfield_, one of the capital
books of English fiction. This was to some extent obviously
autobiographic; but, setting some questions of taste aside, not unduly
so. Even the hero is too real to be frigid; and of the two heroines,
Dora, if an idiot, is saved by pathos different from that of Paul and
Nell, while the insipidity of Agnes does not greatly spoil the story,
and the commonplace theatricality of the Steerforth and Little Em'ly
episode can be neglected. On the other hand, Miss Trotwood, David
Copperfield's schools and schoolfellows, Uriah Heap (not wholly good as
he is), and above all the priceless Mr. Micawber, would suffice to keep
twenty books alive.

But this book, though by no means Dickens' Corunna or even his
Malplaquet, was certainly the climax of his career, and no impartial and
competent critic could ever give him the same praise again. In two long
stories, _Bleak House_ and _Little Dorrit_, and in a shorter one, _Hard
Times_, which appeared between 1852 and 1857, the mania of "purpose" and
the blemish of mechanical mannerism appeared to a far worse degree than
previously, though in the first named at any rate there were numerous
consolations of the old kind. The _Tale of Two Cities_ (1859) has been
more differently judged than any other of his works; some extolling it
as a great romance, if not quite a great historical novel, while others
see in it little more than mixed mannerism and melodrama. Something of
the same difference prevails about _Great Expectations_ (1860-61), the
parties as a rule changing sides, and those who dislike the _Tale of Two
Cities_ rejoicing in _Great Expectations_, Dickens' closest attempt at
real modern life (with a fantastic admixture of course), and in its
hero