BOOKS.

DICKENS'S COLLECTED PAPERS.*

THE value of the new Biographical Edition of Dickens issued by Messrs. Chapman and Hall has been considerably enhanced by this supplementary volume, which formed no part of the original scheme. The fact that Dickens did not include any of the papers now collected in any of the editions of his works published in his lifetime cannot be taken as a verdict from which there is no appeal, since it is notorious that authors are

not invariably the best judges of their own work. We are not prepared to assert that there is anything in the volume which would deserve to be included in a representative selection of Dickens's writings judged from the standpoint of style or invention. Many of the papers are best described in the words

of Mr. Arthur Waugh, who contributes the introduction, as merely " the parerga of a busy but prolific imagination "; they were mostly written in the " thirties," and often exhibit his mannerisms in their most angular form,—witness, for example, the nomenclature of the " Mudfog Papers." But apart from the interest attaching even to the back-work of a great writer, they have this to recommend them, that from first to last there is not a single page in which the writer is revealed in any other light than as a lover of his kind. Fastidious readers may resent the

exaggeration of the " Sketches of Young Gentlemen " or the "Sketches of Young Couples," but it is impossible to deny their insight into human nature, or the entire absence of cruelty in their satire. Again, in spite of the old-fashioned setting, one occasionally encounters a passage which is just as applicable to the fads and foibles of to-day as to those of seventy years ago. Take, for example, the sketch of the poetical young gentleman :—

" The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of things which plain, ordinary people unblessed with a poetical obliquity of vision would suppose to be rather dis- torted. For instance, when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched woman was affording delicious food wherewithal to gorge the insatiable curiosity of the public, our friend the poetical young gentleman was in ecstasies—not of disgust, but admiration. ' Heavens !' cried the poetical young gentleman,' how grand ; how great !' We ventured deferentially to inquire upon whom these epithets were bestowed : our humble thoughts oscillating between the public officer who found the criminal, and the lock-keeper who found the head. Upon whom !' exclaimed the poetical Young gentleman in a frenzy of poetry, upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer !'—and thereupon it came out, in a fine torrent of eloquence, that the murderer was a great spirit, a bold creature full of daring and nerve, a man of dauntless heart and determined courage, and withal a great casuist and able reasoner, as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies with the great and noble of the land."

• Collected 'Papers. By Charles Dickens. Vol. XIX. of the Biographical Edition. London : Chapman and Hall. [3a. 6d.]

Again, for all their tendency to caricature, these papers are , extremely interesting for the light which they throw on the social history of the time. The frequent references to bleed- ing will not escape the modern reader, or the protest of the British matron against Mr. Etty's pictures. The description of the costume of the " out-and-out young gentleman " of the " thirties " is worth quoting :—

"For some years past, the favourite costume of the out-and- out young gentleman has been a rough pilot coat, with two gilt hooks and eyes .to the velvet collar ; buttons somewhat larger than crown-pieces ;. a black or fancy neckerchief, loosely tied; a wide-brimmed hat, with a low crown ; tightish inexpressiblea and iron-shod boots."

Of Dickens's vigorous pamphleteering manner we get a good example in the brochure, " Sunday under Three Heads,"

prompted by the Bill for the promotion of a stricter Sabbatarianism introduced by Sir Andrew Agnew in May,

1838, and thrown out by the small majority of. 32 votes. Dickens's pamphlet resolves itself into an eloquent plea for games in the open air on Sunday for the working clasies, for the opening of museums and galleries, and in regard to

Sunday observance he is as severe on the intolerant zeal of Dissenting ministers as on the perfunctory ministrations of

fashionable clergymen of the Church of England. Dickens sums up in the following words :— " The wise and beneficent Creator who places men upon earth, requires that they shall perform the duties of that station of life to which they are called, and He can never intend that the more a man strives to discharge those duties, the more he shall be debarred from happiness and enjoyment. Let those who have six days in the week for all the world's pleasures, appropriate the seventh to fasting and gloom, either for their own sins or those of other people, if they like to bewail them ; but let those who employ their six days in a worthier manner, devote their seventh to a different purpose. Let divines set the example of true morality : preach it to their flocks in the morning, and dismiss them to enjoy true rest in the afternoon; and let them select for their text, and let Sunday legislators take for their motto, the words which fell from the lips of that Master, whose precepts they misconstrue, and whose lessons they pervert—' The Sabbath was made for man, and not man to serve the Sabbath."

Dickens's views on sensational journalism, again, as summed up in his sketch of " Mr. Robert Bolton, the gentleman con- nected with the Press," are, unfortunately, just as applicable

to the methods of to-day as when they appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in 1838. But perhaps the most attractive feature

of the collection is the complete series of prefaces and addresses written by Dickens for all editions of his works

published during his lifetime,—the reprinting of which, as we learn from the introduction, was due to the suggestion of Mr. Swinburne, who urged their inclusion on the ground that "every word that an author has ever prefixed to his work is of paramount interest and importance." No one is likely to quarrel with this dictum as exemplified in the volume before us. Dickens's prefaces are not only excellent reading, but they throw a deal of light on his individuality, his methods cf work, and his sense of literary responsibility. The preface to Oliver Twist, for instance, is a masterly vindication of his position in regard to the literary presentation of the life and manners of the criminal or submerged classes, and there is no more charming illustration of Aristotle's saying, asipyoussr 6errEp cixygt—of the affection of authors for the creations of their fancy—than is to be found in the prefaces to The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, and above all David Cop- perfteld. We have only to add that the volume is most appro- priately concluded with the generous, manly, and touching "In Memoriam" tribute to Thackeray which Dickens con- tributed to the Cornhill Magazine for February, 1864.