_Servant._--Brown has called with some lobsters, sir--(shows them)--two very nice ones, and a small crab--only fifteenpence the lot. _Self._--Very well--buy 'em. _Wife._--(Entering)--Lobsters and crabs again! Really one would think that you had had a surfeit of them long ago. _Servant._--Brown says, sir, he mayn't be able to get any more for some time, the wind's so high. _Wife._--Oh, buy them, of course! Every thing is bought that comes here! That's eleven crabs this week! _Self._--What have you got there, my Xantippe? _Wife._--I wish you would drop that odious name. _Self._--What have you there, my Angel? _Wife._--No, _that_ won't do either. _Self._--Well, Fanny, then--what have you got there? _Wife._--Why, 'tis the new work of Mr Dickens--_Dombey & Son._ What an odd name for a tale! _Self._--Why, how did you get it? _Wife._--Mrs ---- (at the parsonage) has just got a packet of books from town, and has lent us this, as it is a wet day, till the evening, and they have got lots to read at present. _Self._--I am very much obliged to them. _Wife._--So am I, for I want to read it first; manners, if you please. _Self._--Come, come, Fanny, I really want it; I've a good deal of curiosity. _Wife._--So have I, too! _Self._--Well, at any rate, let me look at the plates. _Wife._--Certainly; and suppose, by the way, as I've no letter to write--suppose I sit down with you, and read it to you! 'Twill save your eyes, and I'm all alone in the other room. _Self._--Very well. [Madame shuts the door; seats herself on the miniature sofa; I poke the fire; and she begins.] Being called away soon afterwards on some domestic exigency, she leaves me--and I read for myself. You said that you should like to know my opinion of Mr Dickens' new story, and I read it with interest, and some care. 'Tis exactly what I had expected; containing clear evidence of original genius, disfigured by many most serious, and now plainly incurable, blemishes. The first thing striking me, on perusing this new performance, is, that its author writes, as it were, from amidst a thick theatrical mist. Cursed be the hour--should say a sincere admirer of Mr Dickens' genius--that he ever set foot within a theatre, or became intimate with theatrical people. You fancy that every scene, incident, and character, is conceived with a view to its _telling_--from the stage. This suggestion seems to me to afford a key to most of the prominent faults and deficiencies of Mr Dickens as an imaginative writer; the lamentable absence of that simplicity and sobriety which invest the writings, for instance, of Goldsmith with immortal freshness and beauty. With what truthful tenderness does _such_ a writer depict nature!--how different is his treatment from the spasmodic, straining, extravagant, vulgarizing efforts of the play-wright! The one is delicate and exquisite limning; the other, gross daubing:--the one faithfully represents; the other monstrously caricatures.