_The Magazine of Art_';
_the_ '_Homer and Theocritus_' _from_ '_Vanity Fair_' _and the defunct_
'_Teacher_'; _the_ '_Hugo_' _from_ '_The Athenaeum_,' '_The Magazine of
Art_,' _and an unpublished fragment written for_ '_The Scottish Church_.'
_In all cases permission to reprint is hereby gratefully acknowledged_;
_but the reprinted matter has been subjected to such a process of
revision and reconstitution that much of it is practically new_, _while
little or none remains as it was_. _I venture_, _then_, _to hope that
the result_, _for all its scrappiness_, _will be found to have that unity
which comes of method and an honest regard for letters_.

W. E. H.

_Edinr._ 8_th_ _May_ 1890

DICKENS

A 'Frightful Minus'

Mr. Andrew Lang is delightfully severe on those who 'cannot read
Dickens,' but in truth it is only by accident that he is not himself of
that unhappy persuasion. For Dickens the humourist he has a most
uncompromising enthusiasm; for Dickens the artist in drama and romance he
has as little sympathy as the most practical. Of the prose of _David
Copperfield_ and _Our Mutual Friend_, the _Tale of Two Cities_ and _The
Mystery of Edwin Drood_, he disdains to speak. He is almost fierce (for
him) in his denunciation of Little Nell and Paul Dombey; he protests that
Monks and Ralph Nickleby are 'too steep,' as indeed they are. But of
Bradley Headstone and Sydney Carton he says not a word; while of _Martin
Chuzzlewit_--but here he shall speak for himself, the italics being a
present to him. 'I have read in that book a score of times,' says he; 'I
never see it but I revel in it--in Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp and the
Americans. _But what the plot is all about_, _what Jonas did_, _what
Montague Tigg had to make in the matter_, _what all the pictures with
plenty of shading illustrate_, _I have never been able to comprehend_.'
This is almost as bad as the reflection (in a magazine) that Jonas
Chuzzlewit is 'the most shadowy murderer in fiction.' Yet it is
impossible to be angry. In his own way and within his own limits Mr.
Lang is such a thoroughgoing admirer of Dickens that you are moved to
compassion when you think of the much he loses by 'being constitutionally
incapable' of perfect apprehension. 'How poor,' he cries, with generous
enthusiasm, 'the world of fancy would be, "how dispeopled of her dreams,"
if, in some ruin of the social system, the books of Dickens were lost;
and if The Dodger, and Charle