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When, therefore, we assert that these practical-joke publications are not “literature,” because not “thoughtful” in any degree, we must not be understood as objecting to the thing in itself, but to its claim upon our attention as critic. Dr. what is his name? — strings together a number of facts or fancies which, when printed, answer the laudable purpose of amusing a very large, if not a very respectable number of people. To this proceeding upon the part of the Doctor — or on the part of his imitator, Mr. Jeremy Stockton, the author of “Valentine Vox,” we can have no objection whatever. His books do not please us. We will not read them. Still less shall we speak of them seriously as books. Being in no respect works of art, they neither deserve, nor are amenable to criticism.

“Stanley Thorn” may be described, in brief, as a collection, rather than as a series, of practical haps and mishaps, befalling a young man very badly brought up by his mother. He flogs his father with a codfish, and does other similar things. We have no fault to find with him whatever except that, in the end, he does not come to the gallows.

We have no great fault to find with him, but with Mr. Bockton, his father, much. He is a consummate plagiarist; and, in our ­opinion, nothing more despicable exists. There is not a good incident in his book (?) of which we cannot point out the paternity with at least a sufficient precision. The opening adventures are all in the style of “Cyril Thornton.” Bob, following Amelia in disguise, is borrowed from one of the Smollet or Fielding novels — there are many of our readers who will be able to say which. The cab driven over the Crescent trottoir, is from Pierce Egan. The swindling tricks of Colonel Somebody, at the commencement of the novel, and of Captain Filcher afterwards, are from “Pickwick Abroad.” The doings at Madame Pompour’s (or some such name) with the description of Isabelle, are from “Ecarté, or the Salons of Paris” — a rich book. The Sons-of-Glory scene (or its wraith) we have seen — somewhere; while (not to be tedious) the whole account of Stanley’s election, from his first conception of the design, through the entire canvass, the purchasing of the “Independents,” the row at the hustings, the chairing, the feast, and the petition, is so obviously stolen from “Ten Thousand a Year” as to be disgusting. Bob and the “old venerable” — what are they but feeble reflections of young and old Weller? The tone of the narration throughout is an absurd echo of Boz. For example — “ ‘We’ve come agin about them there little accounts of ourn — question is do you mean to settle ‘em or don’t you?’ His colleagues, by whom he was backed, highly approved of this question, and winked and nodded with the view of intimating to each other that in their judgment that was the point.” Who so dull as to give Mr. Bogton any more credit for these things than we give the buffoon for the rôle which he has committed to memory?

CHARLES DICKENS.

WE often hear it said, of this or of that proposition, that it may be good in theory, but will not answer in practice; and in such assertions we find the substance of all the sneers at Critical Art which so gracefully curl the upper lips of a tribe which is beneath it. We mean the small geniuses — the literary Titmice — animalculae which judge of merit solely by result, and boast of the solidity, tangibility and infallibility of the test which they employ. The worth of a work is most accurately estimated, they assure us, by the number of those who peruse it; and “does a book sell?” is a query embodying, in their opinion, all that need be said or sung on the topic of its fitness for sale. We should as soon think of maintaining, in the presence of these creatures, thedictum of Anaxagoras, that snow is black, as of disputing, for example, the profundity of that genius which, in a run of five hundred nights, has rendered itself evident in “London Assurance.” “What,” cry they, “are critical precepts to us, or to anybody? Were we to observe all the critical rules in creation