Review of Reviews, 1/11/ is. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



891 



DICKENS' CHARACTERS. 



Under 

 Dickens," 

 Windso r, 

 1 a wvers w 

 to the col 

 vas. The 

 artist, as 

 show : — 



the title " The Lawyers of 

 W. Waiter Crotch gives, in the 

 a series of pen pictures of the 

 hose peculiarities add so much 

 our of Dickens' extensive can- 

 great novelist was more than 

 the writer takes pains to 



The creator of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce was 



the greatest legal refoniier in our history, 

 his satires made the judges wince, and stirred 

 even, the dry bones of Parliament itself. 

 And yet, de.spite his vivid pictures of the 

 law's delays, his merciless caricatures of its 

 innumerable baffling absurdities, Dickens still 

 loved the law. Placed as a boy first with 

 Mr. Molloy, solicitor, of New Square, Lin- 

 col.'.'s Inn, and subsequently with Me.ssrs. 

 Ellis and Blackmore. solicitors, of G-ray's 

 Inn — whose partner, Mr. Ellis, by the way, 

 was said to be the original of Mr. Perker — 

 his youthful fancies used to hover about the 

 Georgian .squares and the trim gardens of the 

 Temple, with its sombre, quaint, old- 

 fashioned chambers, with their winding 

 staircases and deep, mysterious recesses. 



All these scenes and haunts of lawland, 

 familiar enough to its practitioners, Dickens 

 came, as a boy, so to know and love that he 

 was able later to verbally photograph them 

 for thousands upon thousands of people, scat- 

 tered over the globe, until in fancy they, 

 too, could hear the rooks cawing in Gray's 

 Inn. and could watch the Thames glisten 

 beyond the cool green lawns of Paper Build- 

 ings. 



The paper is freely illustrated by the 

 pictures which have added not a little 

 to the impression Dickens sought to 

 convey. 



Mr. Crotch gives the novelist's con- 

 ception of the function of the lawyer : — 



Dickens declared that the one great prin- 

 ciple of the English law is to make business 



for itself. There is no other principle, he 

 says, distinctly, certainly, and consistently 

 maintained throughout all its narrow turn- 

 ings. Viewed by this light, it becomes a 

 coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze 

 the laity are apt to think it. Ijct them but 

 once clearly perceive that its grand prin- 

 ciple is to make business for itself at their' 

 expense, and, ho adds, surely they w-ill cease- 

 to grumble. Not seeing it quite plainly, or 

 only by halves and confusedly, the laity 

 sometimes suffer in peace and pocket with 

 a bad grace, and do grumble very much. 



There is plenty of room for another 

 Dickens to-day to satirise the benevolent 

 efforts of our leading barristers to en- 

 able even the poorest litigant to get 

 justice at the cost of a few paltry thou- 

 sands ! 



THE BOYS OF DICKENS. 



Rowland Grey, in the Fortnightly, 

 tells of the juvenile characters of the 

 great novelist. The writer says: — 



It is not too much to assert that if only 

 the boys could be left to his hundreds of 

 characters Dickens would still be Dickens. 

 Every inch of his experience goes to their 

 creation, for his pla.stic brain retained every 

 impression of his early years until the psycho- 

 logical jnoment came for its use. He saw 

 everything; he forgot nothing. The curious 

 notebook he left behind him significantly gave 

 a list of " names for boys." . . . 



How much duller the world would be with- 

 out these countless boys of Dickens. Jolly, 

 impossible little Master Harry Walmers, of 

 the fairy elopement, might alone have made 

 a reputation for a meaner man. They are 

 of all sorts and conditions, yet we could not 

 spare one of them. 



Among his boys Dickens stands smiling 

 and impregnable. Well may we echo the 

 words of that unknown Irish lady, who met 

 him in the street with the petition, " Let me 

 touch the hand which has peopled my house 

 with friends." 



THE DIVINE WEED. 



Charles Singer, writing in the Quar- 

 terly Review on " The Early History of 

 Tobacco," gives some interesting details 

 as to its first introduction into Europe. 

 Columbus met it directly he arrived in 

 the West Indies, as he mentions it as 

 being amongst the presents that the In- 

 dian chiefs gave to him. The name 

 " tobacco " at first did not denote the 

 herb itself, but the article prepared for 

 smoking, either for use as cigars or for 

 use in pipes. 



Originally tobacco was supposed to 

 have great medicinal powers, and was 

 long used only as a drug. In the earli- 

 est account it is represented as being 

 capable of depriving the user of con- 

 sciousness after two or three inhalations. 



The first man to bring it to Europe 

 was the French writer, Andre Thevet, 

 whose works Mr. Singer considers never 

 to have received proper appreciation. 

 Returning from Brazil in 1556 he 

 brought with him the tobacco plant, 



