was only
second to his genius as a creator of humorous and pathetic character.
His success in each capacity sprang from his intense sympathy and his
equally intense earnestness. Whatever with him was worth doing at all,
was worth doing thoroughly. Anything he undertook, no matter what, he
went in at, according to the good old sea phrase, with a will. He always
endeavoured to accomplish whatever had to be accomplished as well as it
could possibly be effected within the reach of his capabilities. Whether
it were pastime or whether it were serious business, having once taken
anything in hand, he applied to it the whole of his energies. Hence,
as an amateur actor, he was simply unapproachable. He passed, in fact,
beyond the range of mere amateurs, and was brought into contrast by
right, with the most gifted professionals among his contemporaries.
Hence, again, as an after-dinner speaker, he was nothing less than
incomparable. "He spoke so well," Anthony Trollope has remarked, "that
a public dinner became a blessing instead of a curse if he were in the
chair--had its compensating twenty minutes of pleasure, even if he were
called upon to propose a toast or thank the company for drinking his
health." He did nothing by halves, but everything completely. How
completely he gave himself up to the delivery of a speech or of a
reading, Mr. Arthur Helps has summed up in less than a dozen words of
singular emphasis. That keen observer has said, indeed quite truly, of
Dickens,--"When he read or spoke, the whole man read or spoke." It
was thus with him repeatedly, and always delightfully, in mere chance
conversation. An incident related by him often became upon the instant a
little acted drama. His mimetic powers were in many respects marvellous.
In voice, in countenance, in carriage, almost, it might be said, at
moments, in stature, he seemed to be a Proteus.

According to a curious account which has been happily preserved for us
in the memoirs of the greatest reader of the last century, Henderson
first of all exhibited his elocutionary skill by reciting (it was
at Islington) an Ode on Shakspere. So exactly did he deliver this in
Garrick's manner, that the acutest ear failed to distinguish the one
from the other. One of those present declared, years afterwards, that he
was certain the speaker _must be_ either Garrick or Antichrist.

Imitative powers not one iota less extraordinary in their way were, at
any moment, seemingly, at the