an eminent cowkeeper from Tottenham, who has just arrived to drink the waters; and Toby shakes his cane at the door of Colonel Ringworm—the Creole gentleman's lodgings next his own-where the colonel's two negroes are practising on the French horn."The Four Georges.

CHARLES DICKENS (b. 1812, d. 1870) was born at Landport, Portsmouth. His father, at that time, held a situation in the Navy Pay Department, but afterwards became a parliamentary reporter. Dickens' early life was a very hard one. At one time he was employed in pasting labels on blacking bottles; and had often to attend upon his father, who was in prison for debt. In this way he met with the lowest classes of society even in his very childhood, and gained experiences which he afterwards turned to good account in his novels. He never had much schooling; and, for what education he got, he was mostly indebted to his own industry. At length he was placed by his father in a London attorney's office, but he disliked the work, and took to reporting instead. In this occupation he proved himself to be shrewd and clever; for reporting does not simply mean writing down the words of others. Some public men speak a great deal without saying much that is really worth writing down, and hence it is a reporter's duty to select just so much of a speech as people will care to read; and this Charles Dickens was able to do in an admirable manner. During his leisure hours he was accustomed to ramble about the streets of the great city, remarking whatever was odd or humorous about the people, or peculiar about the places he saw. Under the name of "Boz," first used by his little sister in attempting to say Moses, by which name Dickens called his younger brother, he wrote several Sketches, which were published in the Morning Chronicle. Shortly afterwards, he was engaged to write The Pickwick Papers—a work intended to illustrate the adventures of a Cockney sportsman. The engravings were to be the principal attraction, and Dickens was to write the explanatory chapters. Scarcely, however, had the first parts made their appearance, when N

it was discovered that the chapters were far more attractive than the illustrations. People were convulsed with laughter at the droll characters, the comical dialogues, and the ludicrous incidents introduced into the narrative. The soft-hearted Mr. Pickwick, old Mr. Weller the sapient coachman, and Sam his son, the wittiest of wags, became the intimate friends and acquaintances of every household. This first great work of Dickens, then, was "a hit," and the author's fame was established. Novel after novel now proceeded from his ready pen, everything he wrote being eagerly welcomed by an enthusiastic and admiring public. In 1843, Dickens paid a visit to America, where he received a very hearty welcome; and, by-and-bye, he wrote descriptions exaggerated descriptions, the Americans thought of what he had seen in that continent. He next established a morning paper called the Daily News, and attempted to conduct it himself; but, after contributing a series of Pictures from Italy, where he had for some time resided, he gave up the task as uncongenial, and continued his novel-writing. His novels were usually published in monthly parts, and, after 1843, he produced, periodically, those Christmas books which are still so much admired. For many years he conducted a weekly periodical, called at first Household Words, and afterwards All the Year Round, contributing novels and occasional papers to its pages. In his later years, Dickens gave public readings from his own works. Splendid readings they were, and people flocked in thousands to see and hear the generous and warm-hearted author who had so long and so cleverly entertained them through his books. Suddenly, in the summer of 1870, he died. He was busily engaged at the time on his last novel, Edwin Drood, which he left uncompleted. loss was lamented over the whole civilized world.

His

His principal works are The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual

Friend, and Edwin Drood. The subject of the first has been already indicated.

Nicholas Nickleby exhibits the horrors of Dotheboys Hall, and the brutal greed of Squeers, the cheap schoolmaster.

Oliver Twist tells the story of a poor orphan boy brought up in the workhouse of an English village. He is starved, beaten, ill-used by everybody. In London he falls among the vilest people-thieves and others—but, wonderful to relate, preserves his angelic disposition through all his temptations and trials.

The Old Curiosity Shop is the tale of a helpless gamester who, even in his old age, cannot resist the temptation to gamble; and of Little Nell, his grandchild, an innocent and pure-minded girl, the record of whose death is one of the most touching in the whole range of literature.

Barnaby Rudge is a story of 1780, and commemorates the Lord George Gordon riots, during the prevalence of which so much mischief was done in London.

Martin Chuzzlewit contains many pictures of life in America, and is notable as having amongst its characters the renowned Mrs. Sairey Gamp, and her friend Mrs. Harris ("which there never was no sich person"), who is made the authority for all the wonderful stories that Sairey has to tell.

Dombey and Son illustrates the life of a cold, proud, and haughty man, who has amassed great wealth as a merchant. A series of disasters overtakes him, and he is thus humbled, and made a better man in every way.

David Copperfield-the best of all these novels-is in the form of an autobiography, and contains many of Dickens' own personal experiences of the days when he was struggling through the many hardships of his childhood and the earlier years of his manhood.

Bleak House describes the miseries of a law-suit; Hard Times, the tale of a strike; Little Dorrit gives pictures of life in a debtor's prison; and The Tale of Two Cities is a story of the French Revolution. Dickens' other and later works are scarcely so important as to demand special

notice. His Christmas books are all excellent, but the best are the Christmas Carol, the Cricket on the Hearth, and Dr. Marigold. Of the first and last, Dickens was very fond, and almost always gave portions of them at his public readings.

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His novels deal with life as exhibited among the middle and lower classes of society. They are characterized by a constant flow of spirit and drollery, grotesqueness and pathos. His characters are so exquisitely described that their names and pet phrases have become common as household words." Dickens is frequently satirical, but his satire seeks to gain its end more by caricature-by making fun of its object, by holding it up to ridicule, than by such sarcasm and irony as Thackeray's; moreover, it is more frequently directed against institutions than individuals. One other peculiarity must yet be noticed. Trifles which are usually unheeded by ordinary observers are carefully noted and delightfully described by Dickens. The extract from the Cricket on the Hearth given below is an excellent illustration of this feature.

THE OBSTINATE KETTLE.

"The kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble-a very idiot of a kettle on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity worthy of a better cause, dived, sideways in, down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it out again. It looked sullen and pig-headed enough even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I wont boil. Nothing shall induce me!"-Cricket on the Hearth.

THE CRATCHITS' CHRISTMAS PUDDING.

"Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone-too nervous to bear witnesses-to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

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Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

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the wall of the back yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose-a supposition at which the two young Cratchits grew livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

"Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next to each other, with a laundress's next to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered-flushed, but smiling proudlywith the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

"Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would_confess_she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, and nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing." -Christmas Carol.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON* (b. 1805, d. 1873) was the youngest son of General Bulwer of Haydon Hall, Norfolk. He received most careful instruction from his talented mother, and is said to have given evidence of his poetical talents from his earliest childhood by writing verses when he was only six years old. His first book was published when he was fifteen. At Cambridge he won the Chancellor's medal for his poem on Sculpture. During his vacation, he travelled on foot over England and Scotland, and afterwards visited France, which he traversed on horseback. Then he settled down to a life of hard literary toil, and of the last thirty years few have passed without the production of a poem, drama, or novel from his versatile pen. In 1838, on the occasion of her Majesty's coronation, he was created a baronet, and in 1866 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton. He was a member of Parliament for many years, and was distinguished for his powers as an orator. He died in 1873, having just completed his last novel, Kenelm Chillingly.

*On the death of his mother, who belonged to the ancient Hertfordshire family of Lytton, Bulwer took her name and succeeded to the estates.