On the whole, then, Mr. Walter Scott cannot be congratulated on the success of his venture so far, The one really admirable feature of the series is the bibliography that is appended to each volume.  These bibliographies are compiled by Mr. Anderson, of the British Museum, and are so valuable to the student, as well as interesting in themselves, that it is much to be regretted that they should be accompanied by such tedious letterpress.

(1) Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  By Eric S. Robertson.

(2) Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  By Hall Caine.  ‘Great Writers’ Series. (Walter Scott.)

A NEW BOOK ON DICKENS

(Pall Mall Gazette, March 31, 1887.)

Mr. Marzials’ Dickens is a great improvement on the Longfellow and Coleridge of his predecessors.  It is certainly a little sad to find our old friend the manager of the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, appearing as ‘Mr. Vincent Crumules’ (sic), but such misprints are not by any means uncommon in Mr. Walter Scott’s publications, and, on the whole, this is a very pleasant book indeed.  It is brightly and cleverly written, admirably constructed, and gives a most vivid and graphic picture of that strange modern drama, the drama of Dickens’s life.  The earlier chapters are quite excellent, and, though the story of the famous novelist’s boyhood has been often told before, Mr. Marzials shows that it can be told again without losing any of the charm of its interest, while the account of Dickens in the plenitude of his glory is most appreciative and genial.  We are really brought close to the man with his indomitable energy, his extraordinary capacity for work, his high spirits, his fascinating, tyrannous personality.  The description of his method of reading is admirable, and the amazing stump-campaign in America attains, in Mr. Marzials’ hands, to the dignity of a mock-heroic poem.  One side of Dickens’s character, however, is left almost entirely untouched, and yet it is one in every way deserving of close study.  That Dickens should have felt bitterly towards his father and mother is quite explicable, but that, while feeling so bitterly, he should have caricatured them for the amusement of the public, with an evident delight in his own humour, has always seemed to us a most curious psychological problem.  We are far from complaining that he did so.  Good novelists are much rarer than good sons, and none of us would part readily with Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby.  Still, the fact remains that a man who was affectionate and loving to his children, generous and warm-hearted to his friends, and whose books are the very bacchanalia of benevolence, pilloried his parents to make the groundlings laugh, and this fact every biographer of Dickens should face and, if possible, explain.