There is an old topic of discussion whether Dickens could invent an organic and powerful plot, and carry out an elaborate scheme with perfect skill. It is certain that he has never done so, and it can hardly be said that he has ever essayed it. The serial form in parts, wherein almost all his stories were cast, requiring each number of three chapters to be "assorted," like sugar-plums, with grave and gay, so as to tell just enough but not too much, made a highly-wrought scheme almost impossible. It is plain that Charles Dickens had nothing of that epical gift which gave us _Tom Jones_ and _Ivanhoe_. Perhaps the persistent use of the serial form shows that he felt no interest in that supreme art of an immense drama duly unfolded to a prepared end. In _Pickwick_ there neither was, nor could there be, any organic plot. In _Oliver Twist_, in _Barnaby Rudge_, in _Dombey_, in _Bleak House_, in the _Tale of Two Cities_, there are indications of his possessing this power, and in certain parts of these tales we seem to be in the presence of a great master of epical narration. But the power is not sustained; and it must be confessed that in none of these tales is there a complete and equal scheme. In most of the other books, especially in those after _Bleak House_, the plot is so artless, so _decousu_, so confused, that even practised readers of Dickens fail to keep it clear in their mind. The serial form, where a leading character wanders about to various places, and meets a succession of quaint parties, seems to be that which suited his genius and which he himself most entirely enjoyed.