His Christmas books depend mostly on the broad caricatures
with which they are embellished, and upon a large supply of rough
joking.
Thackeray wrote a work named the "English Humorists," but he omits in it
all mention of the humour by which his authors were immortalized.
Certainly the ordinary habits and little foibles of great men are more
entertaining to the general public than inquiries into the nature of
their talent, which would only interest those fond of study and
investigation.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dickens--Sympathy with the Poor--Vulgarity--Geniality--Mrs.
Gamp--Mixture of Pathos and Humour--Lever and Dickens
compared--Dickens' power of Description--General Remarks.
We shall be paying Hood no undue compliment if we couple his name with
that of Dickens as betokening the approach of milder and gentler
sentiments. They were themselves the chief pioneers of the better way.
Hitherto the poor and uneducated had been regarded with a certain amount
of contempt; their language and stupidity had formed fertile subjects
for the coarse ridicule of the humorist. But now a change was in
progress; broader views were gaining ground, and a time was coming when
men, notwithstanding the accidents of birth and fortune, should feel
mutual sympathy, and
"brothers be for a' that."
With Dickens the poor man was not a mere clown or blockhead; but beneath
his "hodden gray" often carried good feeling, intelligence, and wit.
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