SPECIMEN OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red, To think or say "There is the nightingale ;" It chanced the song that Enid sang was one Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang: "Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud, "Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown: "Smile, and we smile, the lords of many lands; "Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; "Hark! by the bird's song you may learn the nest 479 divide the honour Charles Dickens. THERE are two distinguished authors, who of being called, "First novelist of the day." and William Makepeace Thackeray stand side by side on that proud eminence, each with his multitude of admirers; each striving with the other in a fair and generous rivalry; each more than willing to acknowledge how justly the applause of the nation, and those less evanescent fruits of literary toil, which chink and shine and fill the banker's book with figures, have fallen to the lot of his brother-artist. "I think of these past writers," said William Makepeace Thackeray, when lecturing to a London audience upon the Reverend Laurence Sterne, "and of one who lives amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent laughter, and the sweet, unsullied page, which the author of 'David Copperfield' gives to my children." Though born at Landport, Portsmouth, where his father, A.D. John Dickens, who was connected with the Navy 1812 Pay Department, happened to be residing at the time, the celebrated novelist is essentially a London man; for thither the family removed upon the conclusion of the war. The pay-clerk having become a parliamentary reporter, young Charles grew up in an atmosphere likeliest of all velop any literary tastes he possessed; fo we are, perh who acquire a truer and more int acters and new books than those 66 THE PICKWICK PAPERS." 481 When the fitting time came, Charles Dickens was placed by his father in an attorney's office; but the occupation was very distasteful to the young man, who soon abandoned it for the more stirring life his father led. We cannot regret this little attempt upon a father's part to make his son take root in what he believed a safer soil, when we remember those fine pictures of middle-class lawyer-life, ranging from deepest tragedy to broad uproarious fun, which are scattered among the pages of "Pickwick." After a short engagement on The True Sun, Dickens joined the staff of The Morning Chronicle, where he soon took a first rank among the reporters. He began to sketch upon paper the varied life he saw. The letter-box of a magazine-The Old Monthly, we believe-received one day a little manuscript, dropped in by a modest passer-by. With quickly beating heart the author of that slender scroll got hold of the fresh uncut serial, some time afterwards, and with a joy the author feels only once in life, saw himself in print. It was the first of those delightful Sketches by Boz, * which were soon transferred to the columns of the Chronicle, and when the author's fame grew bright, were published in a separate form. But the beginning of his fame dates from the publication of the unrivalled Pickwick Papers. The adventures and misadventures of a party of Cockney sportsmen formed the original idea of the book, as proposed by the publisher, and begun by Dickens. Boz was to write the chapters, and Seymour 1837 to furnish the illustrations. Glimpses of this original A.D. plan appear in Mr. Winkle's disastrous rook-shooting,— the ride and drive towards Dingley Dell,-the hot September day among the partridges, when Mr. Pickwick found the cold punch so very pleasant, the skating scene at Manor Farm; but as the work went on, the scope of the Papers expanded, both the sporting and the club being forgotten, or rarely referred to, in the varied * Boz was a little sister's corruption of the name Moses, by which Dickens, whose young head was full of the "Vicar of Wakefield " and kindred works, used playfully to call his younger brother. It is pleasant to think that this novelist, who has depicted the quiet graces of an Erlish home so tenderly and truthfully, should have taken the nom de plume, with which his earliest papers, from the lispings of a little child. divide the honour Charles Dickens THERE are two distinguished authors, who of being called, "First novelist of the day." and William Makepeace Thackeray stand side by side on that proud eminence, each with his multitude of admirers; each striving with the other in a fair and generous rivalry; each more than willing to acknowledge how justly the applause of the nation, and those less evanescent fruits of literary toil, which chink and shine and fill the banker's book with figures, have fallen to the lot of his brother-artist. "I think of these past writers," said William Makepeace Thackeray, when lecturing to a London audience upon the Reverend Laurence Sterne, "and of one who lives amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent laughter, and the sweet, unsullied page, which the author of David Copperfield' gives to my children." A.D. Though born at Landport, Portsmouth, where his father, John Dickens, who was connected with the Navy 1812 Pay Department, happened to be residing at the time, the celebrated novelist is essentially a London man; for thither the family removed upon the conclusion of the war. The pay-clerk having become a parliamentary reporter, young Charles grew up in an atmosphere likeliest of all to develop any literary tastes he possessed; for there are, perhaps, no men who acquire a truer and more intimate knowledge of public characters and new books than those who report for the London press. "THE PICKWICK PAPERS." 481 When the fitting time came, Charles Dickens was placed by his father in an attorney's office; but the occupation was very distasteful to the young man, who soon abandoned it for the more stirring life his father led. We cannot regret this little attempt upon a father's part to make his son take root in what he believed a safer soil, when we remember those fine pictures of middle-class lawyer-life, ranging from deepest tragedy to broad uproarious fun, which are scattered among the pages of "Pickwick." After a short engagement on The True Sun, Dickens joined the staff of The Morning Chronicle, where he soon took a first rank among the reporters. He began to sketch upon paper the varied life he saw. The letter-box of a magazine-The Old Monthly, we believe—received one day a little manuscript, dropped in by a modest passer-by. With quickly beating heart the author of that slender scroll got hold of the fresh uncut serial, some time afterwards, and with a joy the author feels only once in life, saw himself in print. It was the first of those delightful Sketches by Boz, * which were soon transferred to the columns of the Chronicle, and when the author's fame grew bright, were published in a separate form. But the beginning of his fame dates from the publication of the unrivalled Pickwick Papers. The adventures and misadventures of a party of Cockney sportsmen formed the original idea of the book, as proposed by the publisher, and begun by Dickens. Boz was to write the chapters, and Seymour 1837 to furnish the illustrations. Glimpses of this original A.D. plan appear in Mr. Winkle's disastrous rook-shooting,the ride and drive towards Dingley Dell,-the hot September day among the partridges, when Mr. Pickwick found the cold punch so very pleasant, the skating scene at Manor Farm; but as the work went on, the scope of the Papers expanded, both the sporting and the club being forgotten, or rarely referred to, in the varied * Boz was a little sister's corruption of the name Moses, by which Dickens, whose young head was full of the "Vicar of Wakefield " and kindred works, used playfully to call his younger brother. It is pleasant to think that this novelist, who has depicted the quiet graces of an English home so tenderly and truthfully, should have taken the nom de plume, with which he signed his earliest papers, from the lispings of a little child. |