SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of tho week as have not Lee, reserved for review in other forms.] Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Abridged and revised by George Gissing. (Chapman and Hall. 6s.)—This abridgment is a good idea well carried out. Mr. Gissing well says of Forster that "he brought to the performance of this biography a sympathy which animates every page, and a judgment which never allowed his admiration of the man or of the writer to become excessive or uncritical." It is impossible, indeed, to accept all Forster's critical judgments. Dickens's characters interest us, sometimes very greatly indeed ; but it cannot be said that they are real people. "Perfectly natural and intensely original" is the description of Sam Weller. That he is a great creation no one can doubt. The literature of humour has nothing finer ; Sancho Panza himself, though more subtle, is not greater. But who can say that he is a real human type? However, this is not the place to criticise Dickens or Dickens's critics. It is enough to say that we are greatly obliged for this book. It is as readable a volume of its kind as we have seen for a long time. One thing would have added no little to its interest ; that is an account, so far as it might have been possible to give it, of the total circulation of Dickens's works, and of his literary profits. He fared as have done other great writers, not receiving his due for his best work ; but the balance must have been redressed. For "Edwin Drood" he received £7,500. The story of the circumstances under which he went through his last readings is very painful. No man ever disregarded plainer warn- ings of danger.
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