expect that we-who, like themselves, admit that the test of a good form of government is the degree of civilization, intelligence, comfort, and general happiness which it may confer on the great mass of the people-should refrain from inquiring pretty closely into the practical effect of their political institutions on national morals and manners. It is only by an appeal to such facts that the relative merits of the adverse theories can ever be decided. American writers have no scruple in observing pretty freely on the aristocratical manners of Europe-how can they wonder that Europeans use the same freedom with the democratic habits of America? All that either party has a right to require is that the facts should be told with truth, and the argument conducted with temper. It is in this spirit that we are always disposed to deal with American topics, and while we gladly receive every successive addition to the facts-however minute-which may give us a fuller insight into their social life, we have no desire to see such subjects satirically or even lightly treated. What may be wrong we cannot affect to think right, nor can we always repress a smile at what may appear ridiculous; but we are sincerely anxious to avoid on our own parts, and, as far as our influence might go, to discountenance in other writers, any idle or wanton offence to their private feelings, or even their national prejudices. Both Englishmen and Americans should consider that our common origin and language, which theoretically ought to be a bond of moral connexion, are in practice very liable to produce a hostile and jealous spirit between the two nations. When a French traveller, however cynical, visits America, he is aware that he is visiting a foreign land-and feels no surprise that the idiom and manners of New York differ from those of Paris; and if he should happen to make any unfavourable observations, they are buried, as it were, in his own foreign tongue : the busy men of Broadway neither know nor care what the idlers of the Palais Royal may be scribbling or jabbering about them. But with an Englishman the case is altogether different. The identity of language, which promotes commercial intercourse and creates a community-to a certain extent of literary taste and of moral feeling, has a proportionably bad effect where anything like a personal difference happens to arise. The mutual language then becomes a double weapon-the common fountain overflows on each side with the waters of bitterness. We think that, in discussing this subject on some former occasion, we said that when people write or talk against one another in different languages they are like boxers sparring in stuffed gloves; but when the English and Americans squabble in their common tongue it is like hitting home with the naked fist-every blow gives a black eye or a bloody nose. It was therefore, we confess, with no particular pleasure that we heard we were to have a picture of America from the pen of Mr. Dickens. Mr. Dickens is, as everybody knows, the author of some popular stories published originally in periodical parts— remarkable as clever exhibitions of very low life-treated however, generally speaking, with better taste and less vulgarity* than the subjects seem to promise. We must say, en passant, that we have very little taste for the class of novels that take their heroes from Newgate and St. Giles's. Even in the powerful hands of Fielding, Jonathan Wild has always both disgusted and wearied us; but Fielding professed to have a moral object, and practically his revelations may have done good-at least, they never could have operated as an incentive to the same class of crimes, which is more, we fear, than can be said for some of the novels and dramas of the new school, whose Parnassus is a police-office, and whose Helicon the neighbouring tap. Of Mr. Dickens, however, it is but justice to say that little or nothing of this offensive character can be charged against him-he manages his most ticklish situations with dexterous decency-his scenes, though low, are not immoral-his characters are original without being unnatural-the pleasantry is broad, but never indelicate, and seldom forced-the pathos is frequent and touching, but not maudlin—and in the peculiar walk which it has been his taste or his chance to adopt, he has, we think, fewer faults and more merits than any of his imitators or competitors. But we must confess that we doubt whether the powers-or perhaps we should say the habits of his mind. are equal to any sustained exertion. His best things, to our taste, are some short tales published under the absurd pseudonyme of Boz-in which a single anecdote, lively or serious, is told with humour or tenderness as the subject may require, but always with ease and felicity. His longer works owe, we are afraid, much of their popularity to their having been published in numbers. There is in them, as in the others, considerable truth, but in the long run somewhat of sameness; and the continuous repetition of scenes of low lifethough, as we have said, seldom vulgarly treated becomes at last exceedingly tedious. We at least can say for ourselves that we followed the earlier portions of Nickleby,' as they were * This, however, must be taken cum grano salis-for Mr. Dickens's works afford a double exemplification of the difference between describing vulgar objects and describing vulgarly. His low-life-his Weller, Noggs, or Mantellini-is never vulgar— it is real; but the vulgarity of his attempts at the aristocracy-his lords and baronetsis woeful. published published, with that degree of interest and amusement which serves to while away what the French so appropriately call les momens perdus but it happened that we did not see the latter half till the whole had been collected in a volume-and then, we must confess that we found some difficulty in getting through, in this concentrated shape, a series of chapters, which we have no doubt we should have read, at the usual intervals, with as much zest as we had done their predecessors. In short, we are inclined to predict of works of this style both in England and France (where the manufacture is flourishing on a very extensive and somewhat profligate scale) that an ephemeral popularity will be followed by early oblivion. But, however this may be, there is, we think, little doubt that it was Mr. Dickens's reputation as a kind of moral caricaturist― a shrewd observer and powerful delineator of ridiculous peculiarities in diction and in manners, that suggested the idea of his undertaking a voyage to America and this consequent publication. Certain it is that the American public was considerably excited, not to say alarmed, at the supposition that he was coming amongst them with the design of making and preserving in a more lasting form the same kind of satirical sketches of Transatlantic manners which Mr. Mathews had so ludicrously dramatized. Extravagant as it may seem, we can assure our readers that before the publication of this work we ourselves heard from a most respectable person, well acquainted with America, a grave and really heartfelt apprehension, whether Mr. Dickens's book might not counterbalance all the good that had been done by Lord Ashburton's mission!' But with whatever intentions-whether serious or comic-Mr. Dickens may have undertaken his tour, the result, we think, will equally disappoint those who feared and those who hoped that he would exhibit the interior of American life with the same shrewd perception of the ridiculous, and the same caustic power of describing it, for which he had become so celebrated at home. In fact the work has very little of Mr. Dickens's peculiar merit, and still less, we are sorry to say, of any other. It seems to us an entire failure; and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, the failure is probably more creditable to his personal character than a high degree of literary success might have been. We have no personal acquaintance with Mr. Dickens, and know nothing of the secret history of his publication, but we think we can trace the general insipidity of his work to very honourable sources. He seems to have been hospitably received into American society, and could hardly fail to see the painful anxiety which was, as we are informed, very generally felt and very clearly clearly exhibited, as to the colour which his picture of America was likely to take. We can easily imagine that he may have been much embarrassed between his original literary object and the delicacy of his personal position-between sincerity and gratitude-and he seems to have made, at least during the greater part of his book, the prudent compromise of avoiding as far as possible anything that was likely to give offence. He seems also to have had a delicacy-not very usual amongst modern travellers—as to mentioning anything whatsoever about private persons, or even private life. No one can complain in his case of civilities ill requited-of privacy violated-of confidence betrayed. He does not, we think, mention one individual name.* He does not afford us the slightest glimpse into private society; nor does he, that we recollect, repeat anything that he saw or heard under any roof save those of taverns, hospitals, or gaols; nor make mention— good or bad--of any more interesting persons than the governors of prisons, the captains of steam-boats, the drivers of omnibuses, and the motley inmates of such receptacles and vehicles. Now this, with all our approbation of Mr. Dickens's principle, we cannot but think, is carrying it rather too far. We cannot doubt that he might have given us, without any breach of the laws of hospitality-without revealing individual names, or any circumstances that could tend to identify the parties of whom anything disagreeable might be said—some general idea of the interior of American society as he saw it-something of the manners and feelings of the no doubt respectable class with which it was his good fortune to associate-and of whom we hope and believe he might have told much that would have amused and informed us, without offending them-at least individually. His not doing so tends in a double way to defeat his kind intentions; for such extraordinary reserve might lead to an injurious suspicion that he is silent because he has nothing agreeable to tell :-and, then, what he has to tell-of such low persons as he does mentionis necessarily of a coarser yarn, and gives to the whole work an aspect decidedly unfavourable to the American character-which a little insight into better society would have softened and relieved. But this strange and, as we think, ultra-delicate determination that it should not be discoverable from his book that he had ever partaken of one private meal, or even entered one private house (or not more than one), has forced Mr. Dickens to eke out his volumes with such common and general topics as we have had ་ It is hardly an exception that he once mentions Dr. Channing as having preached one day when Mr. Dickens could not attend to hear him, and his dear friend Mr. Washington Irving,' whom he accidentally saw at the President's levee, when he was presented on receiving a diplomatic appointment. over and over again from other travellers, and by most of them, we think, better handled. It would be impossible to exhibit, by extracts, the extent to which Mr. Dickens pushes the practice of dwelling on certain classes of subjects which, we think, might have been much more succinctly treated, and of slurring over other matters on which we should have been desirous to hear his opinion; but the following synopsis of the topics treated in the first half of his first volume, including his sojourn at Boston, and of the space allotted by him to each subject, will explain the manner in which the book has been concocted. His visit to Boston-the city of all America in which he gives us to understand-and we believe justly that society (including, of course, literature, manners, arts, &c.) is on the best and most satisfactory footing, concludes with the 142nd page-and these 142 pages are thus occupied : 30 General observations on prisons, hospitals, and houses of correction Religion, its various sects and influence-including two pages of a sermon by a sailor turned preacher General description of the city of Boston Courts of law and administration of justice 'Social customs' and general modes of life The ladies, their beauty, education, moral qualities, and amusements The theatres Appearance and proceedings of the Senate and House of Tone of Society in Boston' State of literature Fine arts (not quite) 32 Material, moral, and political condition, occupations, 0 0 !!!! Of New York, the beautiful metropolis of America,' as he designates it, his account is still more meagre. In the thirty-nine pages dedicated to that city, there is no intimation that he ever entered a private house, saw a private gentleman, or that there even exists any kind of civilised society-except what may be inferred from a couple of sentences—to wit : : |