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dered entirely unexpressive by whisky; but certainly I never again wish to be placed at the tender mercies of a more incarnate vixen that this dame had proved herself to be. We had all in turn suffered from her villanous temper; and it was now suggested that it had turned sour on her stomach, and thus produced the disease under which she laboured. Such, in fact, proved to be the case. Having tormented her customers in various ways during the day, she now finished by pretending an attack of cholera in the kitchen; a fact which I no sooner discovered than I slipped into the only unoccupied bed in the house, the very one in which she was accustomed to repose her own weary limbs, as a judgment upon her for refusing me accommodation when I first demanded it. My friend shared the landing of the stairs with a puppy of a sleepless disposition, and which he was obliged periodically to kick to the bottom for taking unwarrantable liberties with his feet.

On the opposite shore from Orillia, and about five miles distant, is the Indian village of Rama, composed of neat wooden houses and a church, and containing a population of Chippeway Indians. The tribe here owns a considerable block of land, a comparatively small portion of which, however, is cultivated, as the private sources of revenue of which the tribe is possessed enable the members to indulge their indolent propensities; and, utterly devoid of enterprise, they are content to live upon their annuities, or to add to them only in cases where their more limited amount renders individual exertion for this purpose necessary. The Red Indians in Canada derive the principal portion of their revenue from the sale of those

lands which they own as reserves. These they are very reluctant to part with; and although they are valueless now for the purposes of the chase, they still love to wander through those forests which, in days of yore, formed the hunting-grounds of their forefathers, and to paddle in their bark canoes along the well-settled margin of lakes formerly visited by them in the exercise of their right of savage proprietorship. Now, however, as this part of the country becomes more thickly populated, the aborigines will be compelled to cede to the insatiable settler acre after acre, until, congregated in villages, and dependent for support upon their pecuniary means alone, they will gradually lose their savage tastes and roving propensities, and, in spite of their natural indolence, may, it is to be hoped, by being subjected to a proper educational system, and a judicious superintendence on the part of the Government, become qualified to assume the functions and responsibilities of civilised members of society. In the mean time, so long as they remain in a semi-civilised condition, a gradual decrease must continue; and as their entire number throughout the province does not exceed 15,000, they will form but a fraction of the great Anglo-Saxon community. We engaged two bark canoes and some Indians at Rama, for the purpose of going upon a fishing expedition down the river Severn, to Sturgeon Bay, a settlement upon the south shore of Lake Huron, where we hoped to pursue our voyage in a more civilised manner, amid the wooded islands of Georgian Bay, to Lake Superior. Our experiences, however, upon this journey are reserved for a future Number.

CHARLES DICKENS.

THERE are a great many matters of public complaint and animadversion in which the word "class" comes in as a very objectionable adjective. Class legislation, class favour and preferment, and exclusivism,-how universal and loud is the voice of the unbenefited world against these guilty things! But it is not always noble dukes and premiers-it is not only peeresses and lady patronesses, who entertain this natural yet offensive partiality for the members of their own circle; even in St Giles's there is an aristocracy, and the lowest deep of all burns with discontent at the class legislation of Seven Dials. Though it is true, and happens not unfrequently, that aspirants born in one region seek their way upward to another Mr Brown or Mr Jones, though he thrust his person successfully into the hallowed air of nobility, has much harder ado to wrench his thoughts out of their ancient range, or dissociate himself in idea from the class of which perhaps he is ashamed. The weakness is a universal weakness. Few and rare are the cosmopolitans of existence. We men and women of to-day are very limited people, with all our sciences and knowledges; and instead of standing on one broad common ground as human creatures, brothers and sisters to each other, we are all, more or less, inhabitants of such and such a street, keeping so many servants, and paying such a rent for our houses. That one of us who has five thousand a-year has perhaps a great respect for the other one who has five hundred; and he, in his tun, recognises, without hesitation, the excellent qualities of his poor clerk who has but fifty. What then? "We are in a different class of society," say respectively these respectable gentlemen. They are both potentates in their way-enviable, sufficient, well-appointed Englishmen, whose incomes, and honours, and appearances, are part of their identity, and who, neither of them, could well recognise the naked primitive creature who only wears these vestments of social position for him

self. This living centre of their greatness is certainly the foundation of all, and the first object of care and tenderness; but every man among us feels, notwithstanding, in his secret heart, that it does require all these wrappings and habiliments to make a Mr Jones or a Mr Brown out of the original nameless human creature, without a greatcoat and without an income, who stands upon the primary standing-ground where there are no classes, and where all man are alike.

It does not need this argument, or any other save his own great gifts and powers, to account for the great popularity of Mr Dickens; nevertheless, we cannot but express our conviction that it is to the fact that he represents a class that he owes his speedy elevation to the top of the wave of popular favour. He is a man of very liberal sentiments-an assailer of constituted wrongs and authorities-one of the advocates in the plea of Poor versus Rich, to the progress of which he has lent no small aid in his day. But he is, notwithstanding, perhaps more distinctly than any other author of the time, a class writer, the historian and representative of one circle in the many ranks of our social scale. Despite their descents into the lowest class, and their occasional flights into the less familiar ground of fashion, it is the air and the breath of middleclass respectability which fills the books of Mr Dickens. His heroes are not the young men of clubs and colleges-not the audacious youngsters of Eton, nor the "awful swells" in whose steps they follow. Home-bred and sensitive, much impressed by feminine influences, swayed by the motives, the regards, and the laws which were absolute to their childhood, Mr Dickens' heroes are all young for a necessity. Their courage is of the order of courage which belongs to women. They are spotless in their thoughts, their intentions, and wishes. Into those dens of vice, and unknown mysteries, whither the lordly Pelham may penetrate without harm, and which Messrs Pendennis and Warring

ton frequent, that they may see "life," David Copperfield could not enter without pollution. In the very neart and soul of him this young man is respectable. He is a great deal more; he is pure, a thoroughly refined and gentle-hearted boy; but his respectability is strong upon him. His comings and goings are within a lesser circle than are those of his contemporaries whose names we have mentioned. He cannot afford to defy the world's laugh, or to scorn it. That he has, moreover, no relish for these excitements and investigations-that his course is clear in the common beaten way-and that he has "a carnal inclination" to be good and virtuous, are other considerations; but in his sphere he would be instantly branded with the evil mark of dissipation and disreputableness, were he seen once in the company which the young man about town of a higher rank may go to see with impunity, as students of natural history go to see the new arrivals of reptiles or beasts of prey. In the society of Mr Dickens' admirable stories, there is no such thing as going to the Haunt of nights and coming from thence uninjured. There is no such thing possible or permissible in the class and society which Mr Dickens draws. When the young man there steps aside into such forbidden ways, he goes irretrievably astray-sinks out of character and respectability and becomes a very poor wreck indeed, a warning and beacon to all the David Copperfields. For society down below here, in the third or fourth circle of elevation, is more exacting than that grander and gayer society which calls itself "the world;" and while the multitude of novelwriters set themselves to illustrate, with or without a due knowledge of it, the life of lords and ladies, and the gay realms of fashion, Mr Dickens contents his genius with the sphere in which we suppose his lot to have been cast by nature, in the largest "order" of our community- the middle class of England. Having identified himself with this portion of society, and devoted his powers to its illustration, this grateful public carries its novelist in its heart; and without denying in any way his claims to that higher genius which can give life and

breath-the truth of nature, if not of conventional correctness-to every impersonation of its fellows, we cannot do justice to Mr Dickens without recognising this, his first and greatest claim to our regard, as the historian of a class-the literary interpreter of those intelligent, sensible, warm-hearted households, which are the strength of our country, and occupy the wide middle ground between the rich and the poor.

This middle class in itself is a realm of infinite gradations, and the term has perhaps a different meaning in the lips of every different individual who says the words; but we take it in its widest sense. From the squire whose acres are too few, or his family too recent, to rank among the aristocracy of his country-and from the merchant, who is not rich enough to be a millionaire, the scale fluctuates and descends to the poor curate, the poor clerk, the poor teacher, who have just enough to live honestly, to struggle through debts and incumbrances, and keep-if only by an arm's length-the wolf from the door. To this vast and struggling mass, the great majority of which-every man for himself-earns his own bread, and wins his own fortune, there are laws more limited, and decorums more strict, in form and use, than the easier and loftier circle above them has need of. There is less daring and more timidity. There is the weaker spirit, which finds in what it doubts and trembles at, an evil and contamination which does not exist to the gay and light heart; and there is neither time nor energy to expend in unnecessary adventures. Knowledge of life must be learned here, not in experimental studies, but in the actual combat; and the day's work and the night's rest limit the ways of every man who would keep his place in the constant march. As a consequence, this class does not abound in picturesque situations, and sometimes the meaner vices grow and flourish where respectability and the strong grasp of appearances keep grosser sins away. But nowhere does the household hearth burn brighter-nowhere is the family love so warm-the natural bonds so strong; and this is the ground which Mr Dickens occupies par excellence

the field of his triumphs, from which he may defy all his rivals without fear.

It is an old story now, which everybody knows, that tale of poor Seymour's drawings, and of the young man, the modest new star just risen upon the literary firmament, who was supposed a likely person to "do" the letterpress for the benevolent publisher. Poor Seymour and his sketches very soon came to an end; but not so the Pickwick Papers. The great reputation of the author was established at once, beyond doubt or question, by this first notable work of his; and few of his younger readers now know what were the Sketches, by Boz, which made the single stepping-stone between obscurity and fame for their young author. Since then the story of his fortune is one almost uninterrupted triumph. His real and great merits have given him a secure place with the worthier portion of his audience, and his very weaknesses and exaggerations have established him in the favour of others. It is to him we owe that form of serial publication which has added so largely to the number of readers, and the success of individual authors. He has his host of followers, his crowd of admirers, like any other great man; and he has assumed a leader's place not only in literature, but in the world, in morals, in philanthropy, in questions of social interest. Mr Dickens has unveiled himself from that personal obscurity which softens so gracefully the presence of a great writer. He has ceased to speak his strictures or to pronounce his approbation out of that mist of half-disclosed identity which becomes the literary censor. He is less the author of Pickwich, of Copperfield, of Bleak House, than he is Charles Dickens; and we confess that we cannot regard him with the same affection or the same indulgence in the latter character as in the former. The man who is not content with giving to the world many admirable pictures of its own living and breathing progress -who is not satisfied with his power of creating a real man, a real woman, and throwing upon these creations of his genius that ideal purity and generous grace which ought to be the very highest aim of the writer of fiction

this man must do something better than indifferent and doubtful pieces of philanthropy and social reformation, before he can hope to establish for himself—the man as separate from the writer-a second reputation. From the author who has conferred a great many pleasures upon us—who has added so largely to our acquaintance, and given us so many types of real and individual existence with which to enrich our mind and conversationwe are prepared to receive everything with the respect which he merits; but our relative position is very different when we come to be placed opposite, not the writer, but the man. Mr Dickens is the favourite and spoiled child of the popular heart. There is a long ring of applause echoing after him wherever it pleases him to go; but for the sake of his great and well-deserved reputation, we think it would be well for Mr Dickens to discover on which foundation it is that he stands most secure.

And in this volume before us, the latest work he has given to the world -Hard Times-we discover, not the author's full and many-toned conception of human life, its motives and its practices,-not the sweet and graceful fancy rejoicing in her own creations, nor the stronger and graver imagination following the fate of her complete idea, rather as a chronicler than a producer of the events which its natural character and qualities call forth,-but the petulant theory of a man in a world of his own making, where he has no fear of being contradicted, and is absolutely certain of having everything his own way. We have seldom seen a more lamentable non sequitur than Hard Times. story written in direct illustration of some preconceived idea is seldom successful as a story. Beyond an Eastern apologue, a distinct and professed allegory or parable, fiction breaks down when it is bound within these certain limits, and compelled to prove and to substantiate a theory. This, which is the proper work of reason, is by no means the business of the poetic faculty, and Pegasus is too restive a steed to be bound to the plough; but in this case the theory is so overstrained and unnatural, the cause is so perfectly inadequate to the results

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attributed to it, that the original objection increases tenfold. The name of the book and the period of its publication alike deluded the public. We anticipated a story, certainly sad -perhaps tragical-but true, of the unfortunate relationship between masters and men which produced the strike of Preston; and this most legitimate subject, at once for public inquiry and for the conciliating and healing hand of genius, to whom both belligerents were brothers, might have well employed the highest powers. The sketch of Stephen Blackpool, too, and of Rachel, his ministering angel, seemed to indicate this larger purpose early in the tale. But no: Stephen Blackpool is only introduced to bring out the greater villany of the wretched little rogue of the story, and to be made a forced example, in his domes tic circumstances, of the unequal pressure of the law upon the rich and poor-and, in his death, of the carelessness and neglect to which so many lives are sacrificed; while the real object of the book is, to prove that the teaching of universal knowledge, the instruction in all the "ologies," the education which arbitrarily imposes fact and puts down fancy, is a system which makes very poor villains of our sons, and very wretched wives of our daughters, and that the perfectly opposite system of no education at all, save the natural growth of the sentiments and affections, produces angels, not only of goodness, but of wisdom and judicious courage almost unparalleled. In short, the conclusion of the story is this: shut out all Arabian Nights, all imagination, fancy, poetry, from your schoolroom-rear your boy on the dry pabulum of facts and sciences (yet there once was wonderful poetry in these same sciences), and your boy will rob the bank and become a dissipated little provincial scoundrel, as mean as he is guilty; whereas you have only to bind him apprentice to the horse-riding instead, and have him trained among the delightful idealities of the circle, to make everything that is kind-hearted, noble, and unselfish of this very boy.

This lame and impotent conclusion, and not the great question between the "hands" and their employers, is

the end and aim of Mr Dickens in writing Hard Times. The book is more palpably a made book than any of the many manufactured articles we have lately seen. It is neither born out of the natural fruition of a mind and fancy always astir-nor, after it has begun to be, do its characters and events proceed with the natural compulsion and impulse of life. If Mr Dickens forgets himself now and then, and remembers the craft of which he is a master, by running into a natural exhibition of nature and life, he draws up immediately under the hard necessity of holding by his text and proving his theory. To say that the story was without character or without interest would not be true; but we are sure that every reader really admiring the fine genius of Mr Dickens must, in the annoyance and regret with which he read, have almost overlooked the inalienable gifts of the writer. Stephen Blackpool and his womanly pure - hearted Rachel are beautifully sketched; there is distinctness and identity in Louisa, perfect reality and truth in Tom, who represents a large class of whelps, and a very clever outline in Mr James Harthouse. We can make nothing of the impossible Sissy, but we have no doubt that Mr Sleery's company of horse-riders are drawn to the life. When we have said all this, we still leave undiminished our condemnation of the book,-a story made on the didactic principle, with all its events forced into proofs of an untenable theory, and with almost the only life among its personages, which thoroughly interests us, thrown away, forsooth, to show the evils of that carelessness, which, in great matters and little matters, from Balaklava to the Lancashire coal-pits, is undoubtedly becoming a rather remarkable feature in our national character.

But we are very glad to leave Hard Times and Mr Dickens' individual theories for Mr Dickens' real works, the broad foundation on which his fame stands sure. The Pickwick Papers gave a new development to literature. It is true that stories "to be continued" had been possible in Magazines before that era (as who does not know how many welcome visitors from the world of fancy Maga

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