the Vatican; and, guessing beforehand, guessing before the “Pictures” were produced, one might, I repeat, have been afraid lest Dickens should go through Italy as a kind of educated Sam Weller.  Such prophecies would have been falsified by the event.  The book as a whole is very free from banter or persiflage.  Once and again the comic side of some situation strikes him, of course.  Thus, after the ceremony of the Pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory of our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, Dickens says:  “The whole thirteen sat down to dinner; grace said by the Pope; Peter in the chair.”  But these humorous touches are rare, and not in bad taste; while for the historic and artistic grandeurs of Italy he shows an enthusiasm which is individual and discriminating.  We feel, in what he says about painting, that we are getting the fresh impressions of a man not specially trained in the study of the old masters, but who yet succeeds, by sheer intuitive sympathy; in appreciating much of their greatness.  His criticism of the paintings at Venice, for instance, is very decidedly superior to that of Macaulay.  In brief the “Pictures,” to give to the book the name which Dickens gave it, are painted with a brush at once kindly and brilliant.

FOOTNOTES: 

[19] He read “The Chimes” at his first reading as a paid reader.

CHAPTER IX.

The publication of the “Pictures,” though I have dealt with it as a sort of complement to Dickens’ sojourn in Italy, carries us to the year 1846.  But before going on with the history of that year, there are one or two points to be taken up in the history of 1845.  The first is the performance, on the 21st of September, of Ben Jonson’s play of “Every Man in his Humour,” by a select company of amateur actors, among whom Dickens held chief place.  “He was the life and soul of the entire affair,” says Forster.  “I never seem till then to have known his business capabilities.  He took everything on himself, and did the whole of it without an effort.  He was stage director, very often stage carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master.  Without offending any one, he kept every one in order.  For all he had useful suggestions....  He adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters, invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced, as well as exhibited in his own proper person, everything of which he urged the necessity on others.”  Dickens had once thought of the stage as a profession, and was, according to all accounts, an amateur actor of very unusual power.  But of course he only acted for his amusement, and I don’t know that I should have dwelt upon this performance, which was followed by others of a similar kind, if it did not, in Forster’s description, afford such a signal instance of his efficiency as a practical man.  The second event to be mentioned as happening in 1845, is the publication of another very pretty Christmas story, “The Cricket on the Hearth.”