I love him, and I have determined to tell my father so, if he only me' "If what, Peppa, you have not, like "— cried Magallon, with passionate emotion in her look and manners. "What? Like you? What have you done, sister?" asked Peppa, anxiously, and trembling. "He wished my sash as a remembrance, but I laughed, and said, 'You would no longer be able to distinguish me from my sister if I gave it to you!' However, when I got here, and I felt how dear he was to me, I began to reflect how I could satisfy his wish. I had heard that my father was going to forward him some Sicilian wine, which is not to be had in the Lazaretto; I therefore took advantage of the opportunity to send him a sash, which was exactly like mine, and wrote him along with it: 'Wear it as a token of my love!" "Now let us pay all attention; he must come up the Strada Giovanni. Thus we shall soonest learn our fate." "And did I not do the same, unhap- "If he would only come," sighed Peppy one?" exclaimed Peppa. "He pa, and she gazed with the suspense of begged me for the rose which I wore; intense excitement and the utmost anxiI refused to give it him, but when I afety upon the rocky steps which led from terwards discovered that I could not live the sea to the town. without him, and heard that Matteo was sending him some things which the count wished from the town, I laid it in the parcel, and a little note with it, in which I wrote: Wear it, if you love me! But, alas! he does not love me, for he has not answered me!" "How could an answer possibly reach us from out of the house of quarantine? But we shall get the answer to-day, for this is the twentieth day of his stay in the Lazaretto, and to-day he is free." "I know that right well. But can he come so soon as to-day?" "Can love delay? And did he not promise our father that he would pay him a visit directly after the quarantine was over ?" "Love, did you say, sister? But how could be love us both at the same time? Since I have known him, I have taken an aversion to Matteo." "And I hate Colchontris. But he does not love us both, that is impossible. He is either a wicked man, who is making sport of us, or he hesitate in his choice. For we do resemble each other too much." Assuredly this was the last time that the twins were to stand thus united in thought and action, for as soon as Jules should appear, an abyss of pain and pleasure, accomplished wishes, and disappointment full of despair, must open between them, which never could be filled up again. At length Magallon's conjectures were realized. The young count appeared in the distance. Everything swam before Peppa's eyes from the violence of her feelings. Magallon gazed firmly and fixedly at the approaching Jules. Now they saw him distinctly, entirely; he wore-neither of the two love tokens. But did they not deceive themselves? He came towards the house. "He is coming to us!" cried she, as she impetuously seized the trembling Peppa by the hand. "Let us hasten to the reception-room; we must have certainty." They soon were down stairs. Old Paolo was gone out. They found the count alone." "I could not choose, at least not so quickly, beautiful signoras!" cried he. "Pardon me, I pray you!" "So-neither of us? Both deceived! Both sported with! But we shall be re venged!" cried the haughty and passionate Magallon, without listening to him further, convinced only of one thing, that he wore neither of the tokens, and she rushed wildly past him to Matteo. Peppa, on the contrary, had sank, deadly pale and fainting, upon a sofa, as she exclaimed: "No vengeance, sister! He kills me, but I forgive him!" With one glance the quick observer penetrated the souls of both the girls, and he felt deeply how much more Peppa's pale cheeks were to be preferred to Magallon's glowing ones; he perceived the whole strength and tenderness of the soul which, though so much wounded, could yet forgive; while the other only followed her wild passion, and only demanded satisfaction for her wounded vanity. Now his choice was made, his determination taken. He knelt beside the fainting Peppa, and recalled her to life with the sweetest words. And when she could hear and understand him again, he poured forth to her everything quieting and tender that his love could suggest, and much rejoiced he was that his experiment had ended so happily. Although it may appear odd, still it is easily explained how Magallon and Matteo forgot their mutual disappointment in love, under whose influence the cautious youth slowly suppressed the beautiful Maltese's plans of vengeance, and at length made her entirely forget them. This alliance pleased the good Paolo the more because it was the only means by which he could bestow upon his adopted son the portion due to a child. The count, therefore, received the father's consent to his marriage with Peppa, and not long after she accompanied him to France. It is true she did not shine in the first circles of Paris, but she was the means of surrounding her husband, at his beautiful country seat, with a happiness such as he had never dared to anticipate or to hope for. From the Westminster Review. MODERN NOVELISTS: CHARLES WHEN We have read a novel and laid it aside, it by no means follows that we have done with it. The most careless or critical reader cannot take leave of works of fiction in that summary manner. He has become identified, at least for a time, with interests not his own, and he must have abandoned himself with some degree of sympathy and unreserve to the feelings and thoughts which the progress of the story naturally excites. Consciously or not, the opinions of every one are modified by additional experience, even by that which comes to them third-hand -the experience of an author reflected in the characters he creates. But it would be very unjust to the great brotherhood of novel readers to suppose them capable either of carelessness or criticism. Under the spell of a favorite author they are rapt and passive; no difficulty staggers, no improbability repels them; they are swept onward by the current of their imagination, absorbed while they read, * The Works of Charles Dickens. Library Edi tion. 22 vols. London. 1858-62. DICKENS.** in a continuous act of faith. Of course there are many to whom this self-immolation is a perfectly harmless exercise. But those who habitually fall under the influence of the novelist are generally least able to correct him when he is wrong, or to supply from their own experience what may be wanting in the lessons he teaches. Men immersed in active life have neither leisure nor inclination for fiction. But to the young of both sexes, and to the very many grown-up women, novels are the staple article of intellectual food; "they take Defoe to their bosoms instead of Euclid, and seem on the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than by Cocker." Among those who have thus exercised a very considerable influence upon society at large, Mr. Charles Dickens may claim the foremost place. As regards mere popularity he has certainly no rival. It is nearly thirty years since he made his first appearance as an author. In the interval we have had from his pen no less than thirteen novels; and Christmas books, sketches, occasional stories, and fugitive pieces without end. Not to speak with statistical exactness, we may say that in England these works have been read by everybody without distinction of age or rank. In America he is fully as popular as he is here; his career has been followed in Germany with the patient insight which distinguishes the Teutonic mind; and he is read (whether understood or not) in France. If, like Mr. Putnam Smif, he "aspirates for fame," his aspirations must have been realized to their They supply thousands of readers with a philosophy of life, and are at this moment almost the only form of poetry which is really popular. Time was, when seriously disposed people would have nothing to do with them. The model governess of that period always locked them up: the wicked pupil always read them. The current of opinion now sets in an exactly opposite direction. The novelist has taken rank as a recognized public instructor. Important questions of social policy, law reform, the latest Nor is Mr. Dickens unworthy of this invention, the most recent heresy, are great popularity. His genius is entirely formally discussed in his pages, in the original. It is scarcely an exaggeration most attractive manner too, with a maxto say that the light literature of the pres-imum of argument and a minimum of ent generation has been created and moulded under the influence of his style. Pickwick has been to us very much what the Rape of the Lock was to the poets of the last century. It has revolutionized comic writing, and introduced a new standard of humor. utmost extent. Nor is it only or chiefly in the field of letters that the power of Mr. Dickens is felt. He has entered into our every-day life in a manner which no other living author has done. Much of his phraseology has become common property. Allusions to his works and quotations from them are made by everybody, and in all places. If Sir Edward Bulwer had never written a line there would be a blank on our shelves, and perhaps in some of our thoughts; but assuredly there would be no perceptible difference in our conversation. But take away Pickwick or Martin Chuzzlewit, and the change would be noticed any day in Cheapside. A writer of whom this can be said is worth reading critically. We according ly propose not indeed, to review Mr. Dickens's novels in detail-but to examine some of the leading qualities of his mind and style, so far as these qualities find their expression in the twenty-two volumes before us. And we shall do this with the object of leading our readers to infer whether, on the whole, the vast power he has wielded has been exercised for good or not. It may seem not quite fair to apply so grave a standard to works which profess to be written for our amusement. But authors must be perfectly well aware that novels are now something more than the means of passing away an idle hour. facts. This change is in a great measure owing to Mr. Dickens himself. In order to understand how it was brought about it is necessary to glance slightly at the literary history of the generation preceding his first appearance as an author. The century opened with but poor prospects for novel readers. It was a night between two days. Fielding and Smollett had ceased to write; Sir Walter Scott had not yet written. The interval was feebly bridged over by writers of little note, and the public (who were determined to read novels) read novels of a degree of badness, more pretentious and more absurd than any that we shall find now-unless we expressly look for them. The Minerva Press was in full activity. We know what it means to say of a book that it reminds one of the productions of the Minerva Press. It is a short way of saying that the imagination runs riot; that scenes and characters are described without the faintest reference to probability: that it is steeped in a sickly sentimentalism and defaced by a miserable execution. But in 1814 Waverley appeared, and with it a completely new era. During the succeeding ten years, national and historical peculiarities took the place of gloomy over-wrought passion. To Miss Edgeworth belongs the credit of having inaugurated this wholesome change. It was the fame of her Irish characters-we have it on the authority of Sir Walter Scott himself-which rescued the manuscript of Waverley from the drawer in which it had laid so long forgotten among salmon-flies and night-lines, and enriched the English language with a series of fictions unequalled for humor, plot, and dramatic skill. It is not surprising that descriptions of Scotch and Irish character should have proved attractive at a time when comparatively little was known either of Scotland or Ireland. Presently, however, the mania passed away, and a taste for Highland interiors yielded to a preference for the pictures of English homes. Miss Austen undertook to construct a novel out of the ordinary occurrences of every-day life. To write a book on the peculiarities of one's friends was not a bad idea, and, in her hands, it was certainly very pleasant reading. But even dinner-parties and country rectories become tedious after a while. It so happened, however, that an increasing number of rather idle people began, about this time, to feel an interest in social and political questions. The dreams of romance had been exchanged for the realities of the drawingroom; the realities of the drawing-room were about to give way to some of the sterner facts of out-door life. The stir of the Reform movement was at its height. Everywhere questions were being asked, changes advocated, abuses swept away. Even the novel-reading public caught the enthusiasm, for they saw, an opening to a new kind of excitement. The diffusion of common knowledge had brought social questions within the ken of a large class who, fifteen years before, were, and were contented to be, perfectly ignorant of them. Clearly, all the conditions requisite for a highly popular treatment of politics were there an interested public and unlimited means of communicating with them. Still, we doubt whether any one less gifted than Mr. Dickens, or with qualifications different to his, would have succeeded in inducing half England to read books which had anything to do with the Poor Laws or Chancery reform. He has certainly effected thus much, and we believe him to have been the main instrument in the change which has perverted the novel from a work of art to a platform for discussion and argument. But this is only part of his originality. When he began to write, the life of the middle and lower classes had found no chronicler. The vagabonds of our London streets, the cabmen, the thieves, the lodging-house keepers, the hospitalnurses and waiters, with whom we are now so familiar, passed away unhonored and unmourned for want of a poet. Here was a mine of life and character which might have been profitably worked by a less skilful hand than Mr. Dickens. He entered into undisputed possession of it, and made it his own. This happy choice of subject has had much to do with his success. In his later works he has always mixed up with his unrivalled descriptions a serious element, or, to speak more strictly, he has made the descrip tions themselves subservient to a moral or political purpose. It is but fair to say that this habit seems to have been gradually forced upon him by the character of his genius. There is no trace of it in his earliest work, the Sketches by Boz. There is only a faint trace of it in Pickwick. It appears more decidedly in Oliver Twist and Martin Chuzzlewit, and it arrives at maturity in Bleak House and Little Dorrit. In attempting to write with an object, Mr. Dickens has committed the very common error of mistaking the nature of his own powers. He possesses in high perfection many rare and valuable gifts. But he is in no sense, either as a writer or a thinker, qualified to cope with complicated interests. What, then, are the qualities in which the secret of his influence truly lies? The first, the most important, and most distinctive is, without doubt, his humor. It is often said that Mr. Dickens is a great humorist, but no wit. From this opinion we altogether dissent. His wit is not like that of Shakspeare or of Cowley or of Pope; it is not even that of Sydney Smith or of Hood; but it is wit nevertheless. It would be pedantic to attempt to define so volatile and changing a quality. By far the best description of it with which we are acquainted is contained in Barrow's Sermons. "Its ways," says the learned Doctor, "are unaccountable and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and showeth things by) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness or conceit of expres * *Sermon xiv. sion doth affect and amuse the fancy, | But Mrs. Gamp's picture of the imagistirring in it some wonder and breeding nary Tommy Harris, " with his small red some delight thereto." Barrow must be worsted shoe a-gurglin' in his throat, allowed to be an excellent judge of wit; where he had put it in his play, a chick, if there is any one on whose opinion we while they was leavin' of him on the should rely with greater confidence, it is floor a lookin' for it through the 'ouse, Addison. Addison quotes somewhere and him a choakin' sweetly in the parthe poet's saying, that his mistress' bosom lor "--is essentially witty. At least we is as white as snow: he maintains that can detect no difference in kind between there is no wit in this; but when, he re- the quality that delights us in Mrs. Gamp marks, the poet adds, with a sigh, it is and the quality that delights us in Falas cold too, then the comparison grows staff. We believe it to be a great error into wit. The reason of the distinction to press the distinction between wit and is perfectly plain. The first simile is so humor to the extent that is usually done. obvious that any one can make it for They belong to the same family and are himself; it lies in the connection of two related, having some characteristic difideas related by so superficial an analogy férences. Such differences may be exthat it cannot possibly either affect or pressed in various ways. We may say amuse the fancy; but the second is more that wit resides chiefly in the expres remote, and coming upon us unexpect- sion: humor in the thought; that we edly, "stirs some wonder and breeds admire the former, and are amused by some delight." It would appear from the latter; that one depends on the asthe definition of Barrow, as well as from semblage of ideas which are congruous, the example of Addison, that whenever the other on the connection of ideas ideas are so put together that a feeling which are incongruous. But they agree of pleasurable surprise is aroused, we in flowing from a particular turn of have all that is necessary to constitute thought which enables a writer at once wit. It would be difficult to give many to surprise his hearers and to affect their examples of humor which did not include fancy; and if Mr. Dickens does not possuch a connection. It is true that in hu- sess that quality of mind, we do not mor there is something more: we are know who does. amused as well as surprised and delighted; but humor does not cease to be witty because it makes us laugh. When Mr. Pecksniff cannot remember the name of the fabulous animals who used to sing in the water, and one person suggests"swans," and another" oysters,' this is humor with as little admixture of wit as may be; there is nothing in the expression, the whole point lies in the juxtaposition of things so incongruous as a mermaid and an oyster. So with Mr. Weller's observation, that there is no use in calling a young woman a Venus or an angel-that you might as well call her a griffin, or a unicorn, or a king's arms at once: in this there is certainly what Barrow would describe as a pretty surprising uncouthness of expression; there is also a propriety in the thought as occurring to that particular speaker; but what strikes one most is the oddness in the relation of the ideas of a young lady and a king's arms. To borrow Addison's well-chosen expression, this "grows into wit," but the passage is of course chiefly remarkable for its humor. It must be admitted that he sometimes spoils both his wit and humor by putting them in the mouth of the wrong person. This arises from the fact that he often begins a book without having formed a clear notion of it as a whole. He "introduces a character with no defined intention as to the use that is to be made of him. Hence in the progress of the story a man acts and talks in a manner for which our former experience of him has not prepared us. in point. Dick Swiveller is an instance We must assume that the history and conversational peculiarities of this young gentleman are known to our readers. His reflections on Miss Sally Brass are in themselves very good, but they are curiously out of place coming from the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollos. "It is no use asking the dragon," thought Dick one day, as he sat contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass. "I suspect if I asked any questions on that head our alliance would be at an end. I wonder whether she is a dragon, by the-by, or something in the mermaid line. She has |