American essays -- 20th century; Literature -- History and criticism
Dickens had no such pretty courtliness, but spoke brusquely of Lady
Coldveal and Lady Jemima Bilberry and Lady Scadgers, Lord Snigsworth,
Sir Mulberry Hawk, Sir Morbury Dedlock, Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle. But
so he spoke of all the world, making names for every creature like a
new comic Adam in a new topsy-turvy paradise. All the power of Smollett
passed into him to be enlarged to quite new proportions. Smollett
could call a bumpkin Hodge Dolt, but only Dickens could invent the
gigantic titles of Nicodemus Boffin, Luke Honeythunder the unlaughing
philanthropist, the Pardiggles, rapaciously benevolent, or Chevy Slyme.
Smollett, indeed, might have called an undertaker Mould, as Dickens
did, a visiting nobleman Count Smorltork, a schoolmaster Bradley
Headstone, a canting preacher Melchisedech Howler; might even have
named Nicholas Nickleby, Betsy Prig, Sally Brass, Miss Mowcher, Mr.
Pugstyles, or Zephaniah Scadder; but Smollett could never have attained
to Gradgrind, the Cheerybles, Mrs. Kidgerbury the oldest charwoman in
Kentish town, Uriah Heep, Septimus Crisparkle, Daniel Quilp, Pecksniff,
Podsnap, or the firm of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles. It is a
quality and glory of Dickens that he could caricature words as he did
people. Micawber and Skimpole and Pickwick are caricatures no more
than the syllables which name them. Humorous hybrids of language, they
sometimes seem to suggest parent words, as if Scrooge were the child
of _screw_ and _gouge_, and Wardle of _warden_ and _waddle_, but they
commonly elude analysis and seem new words for new persons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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