Following up our history, we may note that, owing to certain circumstances, having their origin in a domestic estrangement, which Mr. Dickens himself made public in 1858, and to which, nor to his married life, we have here neither space nor inclination further to allude, our author seceded from Household Words, and established, in conjunction with Mr. Wills, All the Year Round- a similar journal, in which he has done excellent work, by which he has aided many young authors, and through which he every Christmas charms our hearts with tender and rare stories, and with such sweet and quaint creations as only he can give us; let us instance that touching, wholly good and human Dr. Marigold, who deserves to stand side by side with the best character its gifted author ever drew. In connection with this, we must not forget Dickens's "readings." He has always had an impulse to get nearer to his "public;" and some ten years ago he commenced, with immense success, public readings of his works. No man can excel him in this; voice, manner. conception of course, and execution are all admirable. The reader is a consummate actor; his laughter moves every one in the vast halls he fills; his pathos is so infectious that hardly a dry eye is seen there is no heart but what is touched with gentle sorrow. Content with his métier, therefore, refusing to mix in politics, having a noble ideal of his art, satisfied with the appreciation of his countrymen - "though not with that of his country" the author must be considered as a very fortunate man. No one has had more weight with his generation, no author in his own lifetime was ever so fully published. It is only just now that he has issued a tenth or twelfth edition of "Pickwick," which sells 45,000 at once in England, while in America his works are circulated in all shapes and by the van-load. He has inculcated a wide charity, great manliness, hope, truth, independence of character. He teaches everywhere respect and love for woman, the nobility of labour, and by a thousand little touches shows us how wise as well as beautiful true manliness is. He has a deep sense of religion; an immoral nuance never stains his page. His very faults have added, with an eccentric people, to his popularity. He has given us a gallery of eccentrics-he has gone into the highways and byways, and has picked up the halt, the lame, the blind, and the distorted in character; and by a trick of repetition for Dickens prides himself upon his art he fixes these upon our mind. Who remembers Mark Tapley without thinking of his word "Jolly" written on a slate when he was too weak to speak it? Who thinks of Toots without the ever-recurring phrase, "Oh, its of no consequence;" or of Mr. Swiveller, without his funny poetical relapses; or of Mr. Wegg, without that dropping into poetry, and the "decline and fall of the Roman Hempire so often repeated? Again we may remark that there is great singularity in Dickens's choice of names for his dramatis persona. Ugly and dissonant many of them are; but how singularly adapted to the characters they represent, and this in an inexplicable way. Poor Winkle, the shy young man who was so hard to draw out of his shell; and little Nell, how fit a name for such a sad pathetic life as hers- a child with the shadow of early death upon her from the first - a name calling to mind a tiny procession, and childish coffin, and a churchyard, and fallng clods of earth, and the mourning toll of a bell high up in the steeple suspended between the earth where the little body was laid, and the heaven where the worn, tired spirit was at rest. His favourite letters are those which produce the sounds of K and N. To name a few in stances at random, there are Pickwick, Panks, Nicholas Nickleby, Newman Noggs, Clennam, Linkinwater, Flintwinch, Carker, Kenwigs, Kit Nubbles; next in favour apparently come Z and double G, as shown in the typical names Fezziwig, Chuzzlewit, Figg, Maggy, Miggs, and Cheggs. But above and beyond these tricks, there is a creative genius almost unparalleled in its fertility and richness. The creatures begotten in his fertile brain have peopled ours, and have and do fill the thoughts of the sailor on his lonely watch, of the squatter as he sits solitary in his hut miles away from human help, of the miner below the earth, of the wrapped-up traveller as he hurries on at hurricane speed above its surface. Positive mental rest, happiness, soundness, pleasantness, and sunshine, this man has given to a larger number of his brothers and sisters than any other living soul. God gifted him at his birth with genius and activity, and he has been true to his trust. The talents have multiplied a thousand-fold. Of how many great ones can we say as much? Of no man can we say more. From Harper's Weekly. CHARLES DICKENS. 'I WAS a young man of two or three-and twenty, when Messrs. CHAPMAN & HALL, attracted by some pieces I was at that time writing in the Morning Chronicle newspaper, or had just written in the old Monthly Magazine (of which one series had been lately collected and published in two volumes, illustrated by Mr. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK), waited upon me to propose a something that should be published in shilling nnmbers - then only known to me, or, I believe, to anybody else, by a dim recollection of certain interminable novels in that form, which used to be carried about the country by peddlers, and over some of which I remember to have shed innumerable tears before I had served my apprenticeship to Life. "When I opened my door in Furnival's Inn to the partner who represented the firm, I recognized in him the person from whose hands I had bought two or three years previously, and whom I had never seen before or since, a paper in the Sketches' called Mr. Minns and His Cousin - dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street appeared in all the glory of print; on which occasion I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride that they could not bear the streets, and were not fit to be seen there. I told my visitor of the coincidence, which we both hailed as a good omen; and so fell to business." The author who writes this is CHARLES DICKENS. The event occurred in the year 1836, and Mr. DICKENS was then twentyfour years old. The business to which he and Mr. HALL fell resulted in the appearance of the first number of the "Pickwick Papers," and a new era in English literature. There is something very pleasant, something peculiarly agreeable to young persons who have just dropped into the post office their timid offering to some awful magazine, in this simple story of the exquisite delight of the youth who saw himself in print in a periodical which he revered, and was compelled to hide his glistening eyes in Westminster Hall. And can it be possible that this youth, who ran through the London streets in the twilight, clutching his precious prize, is the famous author, now fifty-five years old, of whom we read in the late papers that "At the farewell dinner given last Saturday evening at Freemason's Hall, in London, to Mr. CHARLES DICKENS, prior to his departure for America, Lord LYTTON occupied the chair, and the following gentlemen officiated as stewards: Earl RUSSELL, the Earl of SHAFTESBURY, Lord HOUGHTON, ALFRED TENNYSON, Mr. GLADSTONE, ROBERT BROWNING, Sir RODERICK MURCHISON, Sir EDWIN LANDSEER, the Dean of St. Paul's, Professor OWEN, A. H. LAYARD, THOMAS CARLYLE, WILKIE COLLINS, JOHN FORSTER, J. A. FROUDE, CHARLES KNIGHT, W. C. MACREADY, JOHN MURRAY, B. W. PROCTER (Barry Cornwall), ANTHONY TROLLope, and the Lord-Chief-Baron KELLY." What stewards! And what а guest! And what a dinner it must have been! Are the stewards waiters? Did the Dean of St. Paul's hand the soup, and THOMAS CARLYLE the fish, and JOHN MURRAY the roast, and Mr. GLADSTONE the boiled, and ALFRED TENNYSON the pâtisserie, Professor OWEN the pudding, and the Lord-ChiefBaron KELLY the old Stilton? And as the honored guest to whom this illustrious host of famous men offered the banquet looked down the tables, and thought of them and of himself, did his eyes fill as in Westminster Hall, and with a purer pleasure? It is in the very height of his renown that Mr. DICKENS makes his second visit to America. Those who look at our admirable and accurate portrait, and who recall the Boz of twenty-five years ago, will hardly recognize in this mature and thought-worn, even care-worn face, the blooming countenance of the young man with fresh cheeks, large, dark eyes, and flowing and abundant dark hair, in whose honour the ball at the old Park Theatre was given, and attended by everybody. What a simple folk we were! We could no more give such a ball to anybody now than we could annihilate the twenty-five intervening years. The old theatre was curiously changed for that great occasion. The pit-theatres had pits in those days was of course floored over, and the balustrades of the various tiers of boxes were covered with canvas, and the ornaments painted upon it were representations of little libraries, and shelves of books, and piles and groups of books, with all the titles very plainly lettered; and they were all "Pickwick," and "Oliver Twist," and Nicholas Nickleby." During the evening, from time to time, there were tableaux, and all the tableaux were scenes from the works of the immortal guest. And all the managers had ribbons suggestive of the great novelist. And when he came in there was such a tremendous rushing and squeezing, that those of us who wore costly lace and delicate dresses wished we had left them at home. Mr. DICKENS indulged in a red waistcoat upon the occasion, and we have been always of the opinion that it added greatly to the splendor and festivity of the evening. He was very quiet and modest, yet not without a sly twinkle sometimes in his eye, as if, like his Captain Cuttle, he were making a note of everything. And, indeed, what could a young man do in the focus of such public adulation? We complained bitterly that he made fun of us. But think of what he did not say! Think how comical it really was, and then imagine what it must have been to the greatest humorist living! We do not mean it was anything to be ashamed of in itself; but the manner was droll. Yet let the manner go. It was a good thing to show, that if elsewhere cities and countries arose to honor kings and princes, worthy or unworthy, it was the great author whom we saluted with childlike enthusiasm. One, at least, of the youngest of the guests at the famous Boz ball remembers it and its occasion with complacency when he recalls the visit of LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 256. GEORGE IV. to Edinburgh, and the banquet, and the request of Sir Walter Scott of all men in the world! that he might preserve the precious glass from which the sacred royal lips had drunk the toddy! Mr. DICKENS is not a Londoner born. He was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of February, 1812, and when he was a boy of three or four years old his father, who had held an office in the Navy Pay Department, became a reporter for the London newspapers. He intended CHARLES for an attorney, and he passed some time in an office, where he evidently kept his eyes and ears open. But he read literature rather than law, and following the leading of his taste and preference he, too, became a newspaper critic and reporter. He wrote for the True Sun and the Morning Chronicle, and it was in the latter paper that he published the series of "Sketches" of low London life, by Boz. This whimsical signature he had adopted from the nickname of a petted younger brother, whom CHARLES called Moses in honor of the Vicar of Wakefield, "which," he says, "being facetiously pronounced through the nose became Boses, and being shortened, became Boz." It was this series of sketches which led to the interview with Mr. HALL, which he has recorded. Since then the events of his life have been the publication of his stories. With the beginning of the year 1846 he became editor of the Daily News, the liberal journal which was then started, and in this his "Pictures from Italy were. published. But he did not remain long in the daily editorial harness, although since 1850 he has been the conductor of a weekly periodical. first Household Words, and now All the Year Round. The editorship of these magazines, with the writing of his novels and all the other work which must inevitably fall upon a man so conspicuous, shows that he is a most faithful laborer.. But a recently published letter speaks of his health as perfectly robust. Mr. DICKENS lives at Gadshill, some twenty miles or more from London, and he frequently walks into the city, which he and MACAULAY and DICKENS's old and warm friend, JOHN FORSTER, the historian, are said tohave known more thoroughly than any men of their time. Like all English authors, he often slips over to the Continent (oh,. brother-penmen, think of Paris as near as Boston !), with the utmost refreshment both for himself and for his readers. To his thoughtful observation in France and of French history we owe his "Tale of Two Cities," which in this country was first pub lished in this paper, and which is one of the most powerful of his works, and a terribly vivid chapter of real history. The hidden springs, the essential character, the social aspect and condition of France just before and during the Revolution, are nowhere more wonderfully exposed than in this story; and its conclusion is one of the most profoundly pathetic passages in English literature. enormous sugar-plum out of his pocket and shoot them in the mouth. by his early Christmas books DICKENS had THACKERAY, who was the only contemporary of DICKENS's who ever seriously disputed his laurels, pays the most generous tribute to him in his lecture upon Charity and Humor. Nor does he forget this fondness for children: "As for this man's love of children," says Mr. THACKERAY," that amiable organ at the back of his honest Mr. DICKENS now comes among us to de- head must be perfectly monstrous. All vote some three months to the readings children ought to love him. I know two which have become very celebrated. They that do, and read his books ten times for are a kind of dramatic monologue, wholly once that they peruse the dismal preachoriginal and unique, and of prodigious effect. ments of their father." And to DICKENS'S They are another illustration of his extraor- immense and genial sympathy Mr. THACKEdinary and exuberant genius. For DICK-RAY does full justice. It really seems as if ENS is not a writer of books merely. The force which is displayed in them is hardly less striking in other forms. His acting is so good that the spectator is ready to wish he had never done anything else; while the sparkling geniality of his nature is a wellspring of delight to his social companions. How well we remember a dinner at the artist CATTERMOLE'S, in London, some years since. He lived in a suburb, and at considerable distance from a garden or park in which the manager of the Italian Opera that day gave a feast, at which Mr. DICKENS had promised to be present. But he had also promised CATTERMOLE to be at his dinner. The guests assembled and the dinner-hour came, but still the host waited for Mr. DICKENS. When, however, it was pretty evident that it was impossible to wait longer, the company descended to the dining-room. There was an obvious shadow upon the feast, a palpable depression of disappointment. Everybody had counted upon something which had not appeared, and the dinner proceeded as it were under a cloud. But after an hour a ring was heard, and a bright look of expectation lightened along the table. The next moment there was a noise overhead in the hall, as if a party of boys had arrived at home for the holidays. It came nearer, and there was a jolly clattering down stairs. The door opened, and a universal smile of the reviving table saluted the long-delayed guest, who came in with his friend JOHN FORSTER. From that moment the feast was gay; and when the ladies rose and left the table and the children came in, they ran to DICKENS as a familiar friend. He seated them upon his knees, told them stories, and drew grotesque figures upon their slates, until they shouted and roared, and the good magician vowed that if they did not stop he would pull an And now he comes to wish us a merry. Christmas, and to help us to have it. He comes to set the chimes ringing and murmuring; the bells of a thousand happy associations, tender memories, sweet hopes, and bright faith. He comes as the chief of living lay-preachers, who from books as from high pulpits, and to Christendom as a confiregation, preach the great, true, original, and eternal Gospel of love to God and love to man. GAS FROM COFFE.-M. Babinet, according to the New York Tribune, has reported to the French Academy the following information with regard to the evolution of gas during the process of making coffee. If finely ground roasted coffee be steeped in cold water, gas will be evolved to an extent about equal in volume to the quantity of water used; and this action will take place very rapidly, insomuch that if a bottle be half filled with coffee duly ground, and the remaining space then filled with water until the cork is reached, an explosion will ensue, sufficient in force to expel the cork, or even break the bottle. From Warne's Christmas Annual. | and I shall always look upon him as the CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT. BY MATILDA BETHAM EDWARDS. PART I. It seemed all too good to be true: the rest from labour, the swift flight across southern seas, the landing amid strange, dark faces on a burnished shore, the slow, delicious journey through tamarisk groves and palm forests, and the halt in the Desert that came at last. I had been doing for the last twelve months what young artists and authors are constantly doing to their own ruin, and the justifiable ill-humour of critics, namely, working against the grain. A sweet, generous, and beautiful patroness seeing me on the high road to brain fever or hopeless mediocrity, stepped forward in time and sent me to the Desert. If ever I achieve anything excellent, it will be owing to that lady, the Vittoria Colonna of her humble Michael Angelo. My little sister Mary came with me, and when I tell you that she was a teacher in a school, you will easily understand what an intoxicating thing it was for her to see a new world every day and have nothing to do from morning till night. The poor child could hardly believe in an existence without Czerny's scales being played on three or four pianos at once, and a barrel organ and brass band in the street. "Oh! Tom," she would say to me a dozen times a day, "I've got C scale, and Wait for the wagon' on my brain, and can't get rid of them," so that I verily believe to my beautiful Vittoria Colonna Mary's present well-being is due as much as my own. We halted at a little military station on the borders of the Great Sahara, about a week before Christmas-day. The weather was perfect, and not too warm. A delicious mellow atmosphere enveloped palm, and plain, and mosque; the air, blown across thousands and thousands of acres of wild thyme and rosemary, refreshed us like wine: we seemed to have new souls and new bodies given us, and were as free from care as the swallows flying overhead. Travellers never came to Teschoun, as this little oasis is called: but we had placed ourselves under the guidance of an enterprising Frenchman, who transacted all sorts of business on the road between Mascara and Fig gig, the last French post in the Desert. His name was Dominique, most remarkable man I ever knew. He was as witty as Sydney Smith, as clever at expediences as Robinson Crusoe, as shrewd a politician as Machiavelli, as apt at languages as Mezzofanti, and as brave as Garibaldi. Being a bachelor, Dominique was none the less ready to receive us, and with the help of an old Corsican named Napoleon, made us very comfortable. When Dominique was carrying His Imperial Majesty's mails to some remote stations southward, or gone to an Arab fair to buy cattle, Napoleon catered for us, and cooked for us, and did both admirably. Both master and servant spiced their dishes plentifully with that mother-wit, never seen in such perfection as in crude colonies where people without it would fare so ill. What are we to do for society for poor Mademoiselle?" asked Dominique, as he served our first dinner. "Monsieur can amuse himself with the officers of the garrison, but there are no ladies here." "When my brother is out, I shall stay at home and talk to Napoleon," Mary said with a mock assumption of dignity. "I don't want to be amused, Monsieur Dominique." Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle! the officers of the garrison will all fall in love with you, and that ought to amuse you better than talking to Napoleon," Dominique answered. "It's a very dull life they lead here, these poor officers, and if it weren't for hunting gazelles and hyenas, and playing the deuce with the Arabs, they'd die of ennui; but a pretty young lady like you will turn their heads soon enough." Mary blushed and tried to change the conversation. "What do they do with themselves all day long?" she asked. "I'll tell you that quickly enough, Mademoiselle. M. le Commandant has to see that the Cadi gets what he can out of the Cheiks, and the Cheiks get what they can out of the tribes, and that the tribes hold their tongue. That is what the Commandant has to do, young lady, and he does it pretty well. M. le Capitaine has an easier time of it, except when there is an insurrection, and then he makes a raid against the Arabs, and after keeping his men out of their way very cleverly, sticks up the French flag somewhere in the Desert and comes home. M. le Lieutenant does odd jobs for the Commandant and the Capitaine, and plays the flute, but we have got M. le Général down here for a few days, and he is setting everybody to work, I |