It is certainly a little sad to find our
old friend the manager of the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, appearing as
'Mr. Vincent Crumules' (sic), but such misprints are not by any means
uncommon in Mr. Walter Scott's publications, and, on the whole, this is a
very pleasant book indeed. It is brightly and cleverly written,
admirably constructed, and gives a most vivid and graphic picture of that
strange modern drama, the drama of Dickens's life. The earlier chapters
are quite excellent, and, though the story of the famous novelist's
boyhood has been often told before, Mr. Marzials shows that it can be
told again without losing any of the charm of its interest, while the
account of Dickens in the plenitude of his glory is most appreciative and
genial. We are really brought close to the man with his indomitable
energy, his extraordinary capacity for work, his high spirits, his
fascinating, tyrannous personality. The description of his method of
reading is admirable, and the amazing stump-campaign in America attains,
in Mr. Marzials' hands, to the dignity of a mock-heroic poem. One side
of Dickens's character, however, is left almost entirely untouched, and
yet it is one in every way deserving of close study. That Dickens should
have felt bitterly towards his father and mother is quite explicable, but
that, while feeling so bitterly, he should have caricatured them for the
amusement of the public, with an evident delight in his own humour, has
always seemed to us a most curious psychological problem. We are far
from complaining that he did so. Good novelists are much rarer than good
sons, and none of us would part readily with Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby.
Still, the fact remains that a man who was affectionate and loving to his
children, generous and warm-hearted to his friends, and whose books are
the very bacchanalia of benevolence, pilloried his parents to make the
groundlings laugh, and this fact every biographer of Dickens should face
and, if possible, explain.

As for Mr. Marzials' critical estimate of Dickens as a writer, he tells
us quite frankly that he believes that Dickens at his best was 'one of
the greatest masters of pathos who ever lived,' a remark that seems to us
an excellent example of what novelists call 'the fine courage of
despair.' Of course, no biographer of Dickens could say anything else,
just at present. A popular series is bound to express popular views, and
cheap criticisms may be excused in cheap books. Besides, it is always
open to every one to accept G. H. Lewes's unfortunate maxim that any
author who makes one cry possesses the gift of pathos and, indeed, there
is something very flattering in being told that one's own emotions are
the ultimate test of literature. When Mr. Marzials discusses Dickens's
power of drawing human nature we are upon somewhat safer ground, and we
cannot but admire the cleverness with which he passes over his hero's
innumerable failures.