h and Surtees,
and the creator of Tittlebat Titmouse; we had the Shepherd of the
'Noctes,' and, above all, we had _you_.

From the old giants of English fun--burly persons delighting in broad
caricature, in decided colours, in cockney jokes, in swashing blows at
the more prominent and obvious human follies--from these you derived the
splendid high spirits and unhesitating mirth of your earlier works. Mr.
Squeers, and Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and all the Pickwickians, and
Mr. Dowler, and John Browdie--these and their immortal companions were
reared, so to speak, on the beef and beer of that naughty, fox-hunting,
badger-baiting old England, which we have improved out of existence.
And these characters, assuredly, are your best; by them, though stupid
people cannot read about them, you will live while there is a laugh left
among us. Perhaps that does not assure you a very prolonged existence,
but only the future can show.

The dismal seriousness of the time cannot, let us hope, last for ever
and a day. Honest old Laughter, the true _lutin_ of your inspiration,
must have life left in him yet, and cannot die; though it is true that
the taste for your pathos, and your melodrama, and plots constructed
after your favourite fashion ('Great Expectations' and the 'Tale of Two
Cities' are exceptions) may go by and never be regretted. Were people
simpler, or only less clear-sighted, as far as your pathos is concerned,
a generation ago? Jeffrey, the hard-headed shallow critic, who declared
that Wordsworth 'would never do,' cried, 'wept like anything,' over your
Little Nell. One still laughs as heartily as ever with Dick Swiveller;
but who can cry over Little Nell?

Ah, Sir, how could you--who knew so intimately, who remembered so
strangely well the fancies, the dreams, the sufferings of childhood--how
could you 'wallow naked in the pathetic,' and massacre holocausts of the
Innocents? To draw tears by gloating over a child's death-bed, was it
worthy of you? Was it the kind of work over which our hearts should
melt? I confess that Little Nell might die a dozen times, and be
welcomed by whole legions of Angels, and I (like the bereaved fowl
mentioned by Pet Marjory) would remain unmoved.

She was more than usual calm,
She did not give a single dam,

wrote the astonishing child who diverted the leisure of Scott. Over your
Little Nell and your Little Dombey I remain more than usual calm; and
probably so do thousands of your mo