The beautiful series of Christmas stories, with which during the last fifteen years the public have become so familiar, was commenced by Mr. Dickens in December, 1843, with _A Christmas Carol in Prose_, illustrated by John Leech. What Jeffrey, what Sydney Smith, what Jerrold, what Thackeray thought and wrote about this little story is well known. “Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens,” wrote Jeffrey, “and may it always be as full and as light as it is kind, and a fountain of goodness to all within reach of its beatings. We are all charmed with your Carol; chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like the dream of a beneficent angel, in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim in life and in death almost as sweet and touching as Nelly. You may be sure you have done more good, and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive acts of benevolence by this little publication than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas, 1842.” “It is the work,” writes Thackeray, {30} “of the master of all the English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens since those half-dozen years, the store of happy hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions whom he has introduced to us; the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the frank, manly, human love which he has taught us to feel! Every month of those years has brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? Since the days when the _Spectator_ was produced by a man of kindred mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of the English public as these? “Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said by way of criticism, ‘God bless him!’ * * * As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that young gentleman about which a man should hardly venture to speak in print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, ‘God bless him!’ What a feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap.”