in breeches-makers’ advertisements; Boz cabs might be seen rattling through the streets; and the portrait of the author of ‘Pelham’ or ‘Crichton’ was scraped down or pasted over to make room for that of the new popular favourite in the omnibuses.”  For forty years the writings of this great novelist have held their place in the public esteem without any sensible diminution.  Hundreds of thousands, old and young, in Great Britain, in America, in every country of Europe, have followed the fortunes of Nicholas Nickleby, of David Copperfield, of Oliver Twist, and of numberless other celebrated characters with unflagging interest.  Perhaps Dickens’ most remarkable achievement lay in the number of his creations, and in the distinctness with which he could impress them on the memory of his readers.  Of the great host of figures who throng his scenes, how many we remember!  Their names remain stamped on our minds, and some of their characteristic phrases, like Micawber’s “Something will turn up,” or Tapley’s “There’s some credit in being jolly here,” have passed into current phrases.  Dickens’ great object was to celebrate the virtues of the humbler ranks of life, and to expose the acts of injustice or tyranny to which they are subjected.  This he did in a spirit of the truest philanthropy and most universal benevolence.  The helpless victims of oppression, like little Oliver Twist, or the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, found in him an effective champion.  Never has hypocrisy, the besetting vice of this age, been so mercilessly exposed as in the works of Dickens.  It is not only in such a character as Pecksniff that its ugliness is revealed, but wherever pretence hides guilt behind a sanctimonious countenance, the mask is surely torn off.  Dickens hated hypocrisy as Thackeray hated snobbism.  And both, in their zeal, occasionally saw the hypocrite or the snob where he did not exist.  Dealing, as Dickens did, so exclusively with common and low-born characters, it is remarkable that his books so rarely leave any impression of vulgarity behind them.  And this result is due to the author’s love of truth and detestation of all pretence.  There can be no vulgarity without pretension.  A great many novels of the day are extremely vulgar, because they describe ill-bred people and represent them to the reader as ladies and gentlemen.  But Dickens’ shopkeeper or street-sweeper makes no pretence to gentility, and therefore is as far from being vulgar as the man who has never known what it was to be any thing but a gentleman.  The faults, like the merits, of Dickens’ work resulted from the exuberance and power of his imagination.  The same vividness of conception which gives such life to his description of a thunderstorm or of a quiet family scene, sometimes betrayed him into exaggeration and caricature.  And yet when we consider the number and variety of the figures conjured up by his creative mind, from Paul Dombey to the Jew, Fagin, it is extraordinary that to so few this criticism will apply.