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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9< s. m. FEB. 25,

Clock' appears in the Teetotaler of 4 July, 1840. " So long as Charles Dickens devoted himself to the description of characters solely humorous and laughable," observes the critic,

"he was unequalled; but the moment he took up his pen to compose pathos or sentimentality, he experienced a most signal failure. His ' Sketches ' are masterpieces of graphic delineation in the humorous strain ; they evince a depth of observa- tion which few of the many thousands who daily circulate through the myriads of veins of this mighty Babylon dare even pretend to possess, and his ' Pickwick Papers,' although replete with con- tradictions and errors of all kinds, would alone confer the honours of immortality upon him. badly strung together kind of a book ; but ' Oliver Twist,' again, is a most decided failure at least in a literary point of view, for, as far as it regards a commercial one, it is sufficient to observe, that the great popularity of the name of ' Boz ' would procure a sale for a new edition of ' Jack the Giant Killer.' The plan upon which ' Master Humphrey's Clock ' is built is bad, and the mere fact of introducing Mr. Pickwick and the Wellers once more into a tale manifests a barrenness of imagination, or else a claptrap view, which really surprises us. ' Boz ' is decidedly capable of better things than the samples we have now before us ; for it is impossible that a mind which seemed but a year or two ago to be literally overflowing with imaginative powers and humorous conceptions, should have suddenly become impoverished to the extent which is indicated by the hebdomadal contents of ' Master Humphrey's Clock.'"
 * Nicholas Nickleby ' was a sad, disjointed, uneven,

The humour of this adverse criticism does not become fully evident until we remember that it was written by a man who traded on the popularity of Dickens in order to sell his own inferior wares by the author not only of 'Pickwick Abroad,' but of 'Master Timothy's Bookcase,' an imitation of the work here so severely handled by "Boz's" servile follower. But " truth must come out some day or another, vich wos the remark made by the pieman when he wos detected in having cut up his domestic cat to make pork sassages of," as (Reynolds's) Sam Weller observes, and Dickens himself recognized that the machinery of ' Master Humphrey's Clock ' did not work well, and it soon stopped.

Thackeray, in his speech at the opening of the Manchester Free Library, poked good- natured fun at Reynolds's 'Mysteries.' Some of his writings certainly lend them- selves to ridicule ; but it is a mistake to underrate his ability. His plots, which are often elaborate, are very cleverly constructed, and if there is no great distinction in the style, the reader's interest is maintained by a constant succession of striking incidents. Reynolds was far from being a genius, but he was certainly a man of ready and inexhaus-

tible talent. But even genius, to which much can be forgiven, would not excuse the manner in which Reynolds traded on the reputation of Charles Dickens.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Moss Side, Manchester.

LITERARY PARALLELS.

1. "Now, my dear, if I may not have the blessing of kissing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kissing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear self, presented by whom you please or think fit." From James Hirst's letter to his sweetheart Betty, in the Spectator, No. 71 (Steele's).

w/zoi, 6V OVK Ire/eel/ jji d /xciTr;p /Jpay^c' e'^oi/ra, tos KareSvv irori TIV, KOI TO.V ^epa revs

<tAacra, a.1 firj TO (TTOfJia \f)<s.

Polyphemus to Galatea : Theocritus,

Idyll xi. 54-6.

If the above-quoted letter bad been writteL by Steele himself there would be nothing extraordinary in this parallel ; but the letter, I understand, was bond fide written by James Hirst, who was servant to the Hon. Edward Wortley. That a footman in the reign of Queen Anne (or indeed in the reign of Queen Victoria) should unconsciously have quoted Theocritus almost word for word, is both very remarkable and very interesting.

2. Another interesting parallel is found in the same Idyll : compare lines 34-42 with Durnbiedikes's earnest but vain endeavours to "come over" Jeanie Deans by showing her his gold, jewels, &c. : " O Jeanie woman, ye haena lookit ye haena seen the half o' the gear," &c. ('The Heart of Midlothian,' chap. xxvi.).

Before leaving this beautiful Idyll I may

eighth Eclogue, the ' Pharmaceutria,' which are adapted from lines 25 et seqq. of Theocritus's eleventh Idyll, are " the finest in the Latin language." Truly the imitations of a poet like Virgil are better than the originalities of many poets !

3. And then had taken me some mountain girl, Beaten with winds, chaste as the hardened rocks Whereon she dwells ; that might have strewed my

bed With leaves, and reeds, and with the skins of

beasts,

Our neighbours ; and have borne at her big breasts My large coarse issue !

Beaumont and Fletcher, ' Philaster,' IV. ii. There the passions cramped no longer shall have

scope and breathing-space ; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my

dusky race. Tennyson, 'Locksley Hall.'