ut what may thus be gained in
variety is lost in raciness, breadth, and effect. The peculiar
classes forced into existence by the hotbed of a great city,
and owing a part of their gusto to town usage, may be narrow
enough if compared with general nature, but they are broader
than the singularities whom Mr. Dickens copies or invents as
representatives of genteel country life, or human nature in
general. In the mere style there is frequently an
improvement--less effort and greater ease, with occasional
touches of the felicity of Goldsmith; but we should have
thought the work was likely to be less popular than many of the
previous tales of Mr. Dickens, as well as rather more open to
unfavorable criticism. Any prose fiction that is to take rank
in the first class, must have what in epic poetry is called a
fable,--some lesson of life embodied in a story that combines
the utile and the dulce. This fable should not only please the
reader by its succession of coherent events, and by the variety
of its persons and fortunes, but should touch by appeals to the
common kinship of humanity, and teach worldly conduct of
ethical lessons by particular incidents, as well as by the
general development. And when this end is attained, whether by
design or instinct, technical rules are readily forgotten; even
the great rule of unity of action can be dispensed with. It
does not appear that Mr. Dickens has the critical training
necessary to feel the importance of this principle, or a
knowledge of life sufficiently deep and extensive to enable him
to embody it unconsciously, as a well-chosen story will always
compel an author to do. So far as _David Copperfield_ appears
designed with any other object than as a vehicle for writing a
number of sketches, it would seem intended to trace the London
career of an inexperienced young man, with infirmity of
purpose, a dangerous friend, and no very experienced advisers.
Any purpose of this kind is only prosecuted by snatches; "the
theme" is constantly deserted, and matters are introduced that
have no connection with the hero further than his being present
at them, or their occurring to his acquaintance. In fact, from
the time that David Copperfield emerges from boyhood, the
interest in _his_ adventures ceases, beyond that