of engravings, that class of pompous dullnesses which strut about society in the peacock feathers of a few facts learned by rote, and which they consider and call learning; we are sometimes inclined to agree with Lamb, who, when asked by a member of the Royal Society to define learning, boldly answered, and maintained for a considerable time, that it was the systematic arrangement of ignorance-a grammar which all solemn fools quoted. Seymour thought that a club of Cockneys, travelling about geologizing, botanizing, gormandizing, and employed on other equally scientific pursuits, would be the most popular vehicle for satirizing that class of "emphatic nothings" which delight in the appendage to their name of F. R. S., A. S. S. or any other mysterious signs which they think have the magic power of bestowing learning or distinction. The melancholy termination of the caricaturist's career, soon, however, gave to Mr. Dickens the paramount voice in this joint work. The suicide of Mr. Seymour was rendered doubly distressing to him, by the fact of his having dined with the novelist the very day in which he perpetrated this terrible deed of despair. He had left Mr. Dickens' house after a merry evening, when he had pointed out to Mr. Seymour two passages in the new number which he wished illustrated. Next morning Mr. Dickens was surprised at receiving a very early visit from one of his publishers, Mr. Chapman. His manner was so agitated that the author's first impression was that he had come to announce a suspension of payment. "Good heavens," cried Mr. Dickens, "what is the matter?" Mr. Chapman's reply horrified him "Poor Seymour has destroyed himself!" They both started for the ill fated artist's house, where they found the melancholy report was too true: there lay the hapless son of genius dead, and the cause of the rash act was perfectly apparent to them, for looking round his studio they saw many lithographic stones with the designs scarcely commenced, but which the sanguine sketcher had represented to his publishers as being nearly completed. Mr. Dickens' solution of the mystery is, that on his return home from dining with him, the contemplation of the heavy arrears of works he had to do, operating on a quick nervous temperament, somewhat excited by wine, produced a temporary delirium, under which influence he destroyed himself. Every reader of Pickwick knows that Mr. Browne was engaged to complete the illustrations, and he has done it with such spirit and felicity that we venture to assert very much of Mr. Dickens' popularity is owing to the tangible shape in which the artist places the author: in a certain sense his rapid and graphic pencil lends to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. Mr. Dickens' next work was Nicholas Nickelby, and during this he edited "Bentley's Magazine." Here he had a disagreement with the proprietor and retired from its management. He, however, finished, according to his agreement, the tale of Oliver Twist, which first appeared in this periodical. The dispute originated in the remuneration he received as editor. Mr. Bentley complains that he nearly doubled in less than a year the annual sum he had engaged to pay Dickens, and upon his hesitating to comply with another increased demand, he threw up the contract altogether. The novel of Oliver Twist is certainly the finest piece of construction Mr. Dickens has ever given to the world, and notwithstanding the revolting picture it presents of part of human nature, there is little doubt but that its total effect has been beneficial. We have been told by English magistrates that they had no idea of the infamous system then flourishing, till Dickens attacked it, pen in hand : -and several have declared that the recollection of Oliver Twist has compelled them to give a more patient and indulgent hearing to the unfortunate orphan, who, tossed upon the world, falls into the hands of evil men, and becomes their dupe and their victim. In this work he also exposed the ignorance, brutality, and conceit, of some of the paid officials of London, who are little better than an inferior kind of Jeffries, men who bow to the titled or wealthy criminal, and who exhaust their indignation and legal vengeance on the weak and the destitute offender. The character of Mr. Fang in this novel was well known to be intended for Mr. L, the notorious Bow-street magistrate; and so conscious was he of the resemblance that it was currently rumoured at the time that he wrote to "Boz," inquiring if he intended to personify him in this picture. who, in Report adds, that Mr. Dickens' reply stated, that Mr. L- must be the best judge how far he felt the cap fitted him. On a later occasion Mr. Dickens told us that he intended to hold up to the scorn and detestation of his fellow citizens the conduct of Alderman Sir P—— Lthe arrogance and stupidity of undeserved power, declared he would "put suicide down"-as though the terrors of the law would have any effect on the phrensied spirit, who fearing not his God, rushed unannounced into his presence. When the "Chimes" appeared, the Alderman Cute, in the book so admirably done, every one acknowledged, by acclamation, the likeness to L. The astonished alderman roared out in the indignation and vexation of the moment, "I wonder Mr. Dickens is so ungrateful to attack me: I have always been civil to him, and didn't I, at the last Lord Mayor's ball, lead Mrs. Dickens down to dinner?"-Unhappy Cute! did not the gormandizing noodle see that when the wife of a man of genius condescends to honour such a man by accepting a personal attention, it is she who confers the favour, and renders him the obliged party! The passage in the Chimes, in which the indignant author ridicules and denounces the blasphemous folly of putting human madness down, is powerfully written, and a good specimen of Mr. Dickens' best style. No man can write simpler and stronger English than the celebrated Boz, and this renders us the more annoyed at those manifold vulgarities and slipshod errors of style, which unhappily have of late years so disfigured his productions. While we are on this point we may as well allude to the character of Dombey, the hero of Mr. Dickens' last completed monthly novel; this is well known as intended to represent a shipowner and merchant "not a hundred miles" from Leadenhall-street, in whose office a relative of the novelist is clerk. The "little wooden midshipman" of Solomon Gills with his sextant in his untiring hand, with his one foot advanced, and his coat tails flying back, may be seen any day two or three doors down Leadenhall-street, and immediately facing the office of the self-satisfied and arrogant merchant who sat for the portrait of Dombey. When the first number appeared the likeness was readily recognized by this wealthy merchant's relatives, and he was christened Dombey on the spot; he himself was not averse to the "high distinction of being the hero of a work by so popular a writer as Mr. Dickens:" we ourselves have seen him blandly smile as the allusion has been made in his hearing; but as the work proceeded, and the heartless mercenary character of a London merchant was unfolded, his face grew tragically dismal at the slightest reference to what had formerly fed his pride! Alas! poor little human nature, how dreadful to thy ear is the truth when presented by another!-well did the Scotch exciseman show his far-sighted knowledge of the heart of man when he wrote "Oh, would some gentle power gie us But perhaps in both cases it would only wound self-love, and not kill the slumbering devil! We cannot help in this place remarking, that when Mr. Dickens commenced "Dombey" he stated to several that, in his new work, it was his intention to expose the arrogance and pride of every English merchant, with an eye to the correction of those notorious vices. It is evident to all that he either lacked the courage or the power to achieve so great and praiseworthy an object. It has resulted in the miserable failure of grossly libelling and caricaturing one person, and thus narrowing a great public object to a private end. Had the castigator of the Yorkshire schoolmasters, the paid magistrates, the impostor architects, the dandy milliners, and the grinding usurers, possessed the nerve to teach the arrogant merchants of London that their clerks and dependents were worthy better treatment than they receive at the hands of their Egyptian taskmasters, Mr. Dickens might have secured a fame which is fast fading away under his new dispensation of |