the
"Glorious Apollers,"--all these, making allowance perhaps for some
idealization, were personages of Dickens' own time. But in "Barnaby
Rudge," Dickens threw himself back into the last century. The book is
a historical novel, one of the two which he wrote, the other being the
"Tale of Two Cities," and its scenes are many of them laid among the
No Popery Riots of 1780.

A ghastly time, a time of aimless, brutal incendiarism and mad
turbulence on the part of the mob; a time of weakness and ineptitude
on the part of the Government; a time of wickedness, folly, and
misrule. Dickens describes it admirably. His picture of the riots
themselves seems painted in pigments of blood and fire; and yet,
through all the hurry and confusion, he retains the clearness of
arrangement and lucidity which characterize the pictures of such
subjects when executed by the great masters of the art--as Carlyle,
for example. His portrait of the poor, crazy-brained creature, Lord
George Gordon, who sowed the wind which the country was to reap in
whirlwind, is excellent. Nor is what may be called the private part of
the story unskilfully woven with the historical part. The plot, though
not good, rises perhaps above the average of Dickens' plots; for even
we, his admirers, are scarcely bound to maintain that plot was his
strong point. Beyond this, I think I may say that the book is, on the
whole, the least characteristic of his books. It is the one which
those who are most out of sympathy with his peculiar vein of humour
and pathos will probably think the best, and the one which the true
Dickens lovers will generally regard as bearing the greatest
resemblance to an ordinary novel.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] "Dickens in Camp."

[15] Dickens himself knew that he had a tendency to fall into blank
verse in moments of excitement, and tried to guard against it.

[16] M. Daudet, in many respects a follower of Dickens, is a fine and
notable exception.

CHAPTER VI.

The last number of "Barnaby Rudge" appeared in November, 1841, and, on
the 4th of the following January Dickens sailed with his wife for a
six months' tour in the United States. What induced him to undertake
this journey, more formidable then, of course, than now?

Mainly, I think, that restless desire to see the world which is strong
in a great many men, and was specially strong in Dickens. Ride as he
might, and walk as he might, his abounding energies remained
unsatisfied. In 1837