But his books will long be read for his wonderful successes, and his weaker pieces will entirely be laid aside as are the failures of so many great men, the rubbish of Fielding, of Goldsmith, of Defoe; which do nothing now to dim the glory of _Tom Jones_, _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and _Robinson Crusoe_. The glory of Charles Dickens will always be in his _Pickwick_, his first, his best, his inimitable triumph. It is true that it is a novel without a plot, without beginning, middle, or end, with much more of caricature than of character, with some extravagant tom-foolery, and plenty of vulgarity. But its originality, its irrepressible drolleries, its substantial human nature, and its intense vitality, place it quite in a class by itself. We can no more group it, or test it by any canon of criticism, than we could group or define _Pantagruel_ or _Faust_. There are some works of genius which seem to transcend all criticism, of which the very extravagances and incoherences increase the charm. And _Pickwick_ ought to live with _Gil Blas_ and _Tristram Shandy_. In a deeper vein, the tragic scenes in _Oliver Twist_ and in _Barnaby Rudge_ must long hold their ground, for they can be read and re-read in youth, in manhood, in old age. The story of Dotheboys Hall, the Yarmouth memories of Copperfield, Little Nell, Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Toots, Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, and many more will long continue to delight the youth of the English-speaking races. But few writers are remembered so keenly by certain characters, certain scenes, incidental whimsies, and so little for entire novels treated strictly as works of art. There is no reason whatever for pretending that all these scores of tales are at all to be compared with the best of them, or that the invention of some inimitable scenes and characters is enough to make a supreme and faultless artist. The young and the uncritical make too much of Charles Dickens, when they fail to distinguish between his best and his worst. Their fastidious seniors make too little of him, when they note his many shortcomings and fail to see that in certain elements of humour he has no equal and no rival. If we mean Charles Dickens to live we must fix our eye on these supreme gifts alone. VII CHARLOTTE BRONTE They who are still youthful in the nineties can hardly understand the thrill which went through us all in the forties upon the appearance of _Jane Eyre_, on the discovery of a new genius and a new style. The reputation of most later writers grew by degrees and by repeated impressions of good work. Trollope, George Eliot, Stevenson, George Meredith, did not conquer the interest of the larger public until after many books and by gradual widening of the judgment of experts. But little Charlotte Bronte, who published but three tales in six years and who died at the age of thirty-eight, bounded into immediate fame--a fame that after nearly fifty years we do not even now find to have been excessive.