But this is an important point upon which we desire to be distinctly understood. We wish here to record our positive dissent (be that dissent worth what it may) from a very usual opinion—the opinion that Mr. Dickens has done justice to his own genius—that any man ever failed to do grievous wrong to his own genius—in appealing to the popular judgment _at all_. As a matter of pecuniary policy alone, is any such appeal defensible. But we speak, of course, in relation to fame—in regard to that ——spur which the true spirit doth raise To scorn delight and live laborious days. That a perfume should be found by any “true spirit” in the incense of mere popular applause, is, to our own apprehension at least, a thing inconceivable, inappreciable,—a paradox which gives the lie unto itself—a mystery more profound than the well of Democritus. Mr. Dickens has no more business with the rabble than a seraph with a _chapeau de bras_. What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba? What is he to Jacques Bonhomme[3] or Jacques Bonhomme to him? The higher genius is a rare gift and divine. Ὡπόλλων ου παντι φαεινεται, ος μιν ιδη, μεγας ουτος—not to all men Apollo shows himself; _he_ is _alone great_ who beholds him.[4] And his greatness has its office God-assigned. But that office is not a low communion with low, or even with ordinary intellect. The holy—the electric spark of genius is the medium of intercourse between the noble and more noble mind. For lesser purposes there are humbler agents. There are puppets enough, able enough, willing enough, to perform in literature the little things to which we have had reference. For one Fouqué there are fifty Molières. For one Angelo there are five hundred Jan Steens. For one Dickens there are five million Smolletts, Fieldings, Marryatts, Arthurs, Cocktons, Bogtons and Frogtons. It is, in brief, the duty of all whom circumstances have led into criticism—it is, at least, a duty from which _we_ individually shall never shrink—to uphold the true dignity of genius, to combat its degradation, to plead for the exercise of its powers in those bright fields which are its legitimate and peculiar province, and which for it alone lie gloriously outspread.