merit, and of his works have been sold considerably more than eight hundred copies. Le solennel Pope" was a writer not undeserving of praise. There must have been something worthy in Shakspeare,- for his name has penetrated even to France, where he is not unfrequently called "le Sublime Williams.' Walter Scott, though a prude, as you say, and not having the agreeable laisser aller of the author of "The Dead Donkey," &c., could still turn off a romance pretty creditably. He and "Le Sublime Williams" between them have turned your French literature topsyturvy; and many a live donkey of your crew is trying to imitate their paces and their roars, and to lord it like those dead lions. These men made chefs-d'œuvre de notre façon, and we are by no means ashamed to acknowledge them.

But what right have you, O blundering ignorances! to pretend to judge them and their works, you, who might as well attempt to give a series of lectures upon the literature of the Hottentots, and are as ignorant of English as the author of "The Random Recollections"? Learn modesty Jules; Listen to good advice; and when you say to other persons, lisez moi ce livre consciencieusement, at least do the same thing, O critic! before you attempt to judge and arbitrate.

And I am ready to take an affidavit in the matter of this criticism of "Nicholas Nickleby," that the translator of Sterne, who does not know English, has not read Boz in the original, - has not even read him in the translation, and slanders him out of pure invention. Take these concluding opinions of J. J. as a proof of the fact: :

"De ce roman de Nicholas Nickleby a été tiré le mélodrame qui va suivre. Commencez d'abord par entasser les souterrains sur les ténèbres, le vice sur le sang, le mensonge sur l'injure, l'adultere sur l'inceste, battez-moi tout ce mélange, et vous verrez ce que vous allez voir.

"Dans un comté Anglais, dans une école, ou plutôt dans une horrible prison habitée par le froid et la faim, un nommé

Ce misérable

Squeers entraîne, sous prétexte de les
élever dans la belle discipline, tous les
enfans qu'on lui confie.
Squeers spécule tout simplement sur la
faim, sur la soif, sur les habits de ces
pauvres petits. On n'entend que le bruit
des verges, les soupirs des battus, les cris
des battans, les blasphèmes du maître.
C'est affreux à lire et à voir. Surtout ce
qui fait peur (je parle du livre en ques-
tion), c'est la misère d'un pauvre petit
nommé Smilke, dont cet affreux Squeers
est le bourreau. Quand parut le livre de
Charles Dickens, on raconte que plus d'un
maître de pension de l'Angleterre se ré-
cria contre la calomnie. Mais, juste ciel!
si la cent millième partie d'une pareille
honte était possible; s'il était vrai qu'un
seul marchand de chair humain ainsi
bâti pût exister de l'autre côté du détroit,
ce serait le déshonneur d'une nation tout
entière. Et si en effet la chose est impos-
sible, que venez-vous done nous conter,
que le roman, tout comme la comédie, est
la peinture des mœurs?

"Or ce petit malheureux couvert de haillons et de plaies, le jouet de M. Squeers, c'est tout simplement le fils unique de Lord Clarendon, un des plus grands seigneurs de l'Angleterre. Voilà justement ce que je disais tout à l'heure. Dans ces romans qui sont le rebut d'une imagination en délire, il n'y a pas de milieu. Ou bien vous êtes le dernier des mendians chargés d'une besace vide, ou bien, salut à vous! vous êtes duc et pair du royaume et chevalier de la Jarretière! Ou le manteau royal ou le haillon. Quelquefois, pour varier la thèse, on vous met par dessus vos haillons le manteau de pourpre. Votre tête est pleine de vermine, à la bonne heure! mais laissez faire le romancier, il posera tout à l'heure sur vos immondes cheveux la couronne ducale. Ainsi procèdent M. Dickens et le Capitaine Marryat et tous les autres."

Here we have a third receipt for the confection of Nicholas Nickleby, darkness and caverns, vice and blood, incest and adultery, "battez mois tout ça," and the thing is done. Considering that Mr. Dickens has not said a word about darkness, about caverns, about blood (further than a little harmless claret drawn from Squeers's nose), about the two other crimes mentioned by J. J., is it not de luxe to put them into the Nickleby-receipt? Having read the romances of his own country, and no others, J. J. thought he was safe, no doubt, in introducing the last-named ingredients; but in England the people is still tant soit peu

DICKENS IN FRANCE.

ble.

prudes, and will have none such fare. | manners as little offensive as possiIn what a luxury of filth, too, does And with regard to the character of this delicate critic indulge! votre tête est pleine de vermine (a flattering sup- Squeers, the impossibility of it, and position for the French reader, by the the consequent folly of placing such a Such a disway, and remarkable for its polite pro- portrait in a work that pretends to be priety). Your head is in this condi- a painting of manners, that, too, is a tion; but never mind; let the ro- falsehood like the rest. mancer do his work, and he will pres- grace to human nature not only exently place upon your filthy hair (kind isted, but existed in J. J.'s country of This is the France. Who does not remember the again) the ducal coronet. and way with Monsieur Dickens, Captain history of the Boulogne schoolmaster, a year since, whom the newspapers French Squeers; Marryat, and the others. called the " about the same time, in the neighborhood of Paris, there was a case still more atrocious, of a man and his wife who farmed some score of children, subjected them to ill treatment so horrible, that only J. J. himself, in his nastiest fit of indignation, could describe it; and ended by murdering one or two, and starving all. The whole story was in the "Débats," J. J.'s own newspaper, where the accomplished critic may read it.

With whom, in Heaven's name? What has poor Dickens ever had to do with ducal crowns, or with the other ornaments of the kind which to his Monsieur Jules distributes friends? Tell lies about men, friend Jules, if you will, but not such lies. See, for the future, that they have a greater likelihood about them; and try if, at least when you are talk ing of propriety and decency of behavior, to have your words somewhat more cleanly, and your own

17

THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS

OF

MR. M. A. TITMARSH.

NOTE.-The Christmas Books were originally accompanied with illustrations, and frequent allusions to the drawings are incorporated in the text. These picturereferences are included in this unillustrated edition without alteration.