acterization, and his dealings with the deeper passions, a distinguished French critic, M. Taine, has sneered at his respect for the proprieties, and contrasted his timidity with the boldness of Balzac and George Sand, especially in the analysis and representation of the passion of love. It is true that Dickens is excluded, like other English novelists, from the full exhibition of the allurements which lead to the aberrations of this passion; but what critic but a French one could have emphasized this deference for decorum, as if it shut him out altogether from the field of strong emotions? It does not exclude him from the minutest internal scrutiny and complete representation of the great body of the generous and the malignant passions. No Frenchman, even, could say that he was not sufficiently frank, exact, particular, and thorough in his exhibitions of pride, envy, fear, vanity, malice, hatred, duplicity, jealousy, avarice, revenge, wrath, and remorse. He has threaded the intricacies of these, with the penetration of a psychologist, while he has combined their action and varied their expression according to the modifications they receive from individual character. He has not won the reputation of being the most genial, pathetic, and humane of contemporary novelists by declining to describe some of the most tragic scenes that romancer ever imagined, and to represent some of the most hateful forms of humanity which romancer ever drew. Fagin, Noah Claypole, Ralph Nickleby, Arthur Gride, Quilp, Dombey, Carker, Pecksniff, Jonas Chuzzlewit, Uriah Heep, Grandfather Smallweed, Rigaud, Rogue Riderhood, Bradley Headstone, the ghastly and gushing Mrs. Skewton, the weird and relentless Miss Havisham, could never have been shaped by a man who had not closely studied the fiercest, harshest, meanest, and basest passions of human nature, or who hesitated to follow intrepidly out their full logical effects on character and conduct. Often grotesque in his tragedy, he is never wanting in intensity and vivid

ness.

The chapter in "Oliver Twist" entitled "The Jew's last Night alive," the description of Jonas Chuzzlewit's flight and arrest after his murder of Tigg, and the account of Bradley Headstone's feelings and reflections after his murderous assault on Eugene, are a few among many specimens of that minute and exact inspection of criminal spirits with which he so frequently both appalls and fascinates his reader. His antipathy to malignant natures contrasts strangely with the air of scientific indifference with which Balzac regards them; but it seems to give him even more power to penetrate intotheir souls. He is there as a biassed observer, detesting what he depicts; but his insight seems to be sharpened by his abhorrence. They are altogether out of the pale of his instinctive sympathies, but yet he is drawn to them by a kind of attraction like that which sustains the detective on the track of the felon. If he errs at all, he errs in making them sometimes too repulsive for the purposes of art.

In the representation of love, Dick; ens is masterly only in exhibiting its affectionate side, and in this no contemporary, English or French, approaches him. His favorite heroines, Agnes Wickfield, Lucie Manette, Florence Dombey, Esther Summerson, Little Dorrit, Lizzie Hexam, are models of self-devoted, all-enduring, all-sacrificing affection, in respect both to sentiment and principle. Illustrating as they do the heroism of tenderness, the most beautiful and pathetic scenes in his works draw from them their inspiration. It may be that they are too perfect to be altogether real; it may be that, as specimens of genuine characterization, they are inferior to Dora Spenlow, or little Miss Wren, or Bella Wilfer, in whom affection is connected with some kind of infirmity but still, so intensely are they concei ed, so unbounded is their wealth of love, that their reality, if questioned by the head, is accepted undoubtingly by the heart. Every home they enter is made the better for such ideal visitants, and the fact

that they are domesticated by so many thousands of firesides shows that they are not the mere airy nothings of sentimentalizing benevolence, but have in them the substance of humanity, and the attractive force of individual life. The love of such beings, if not the grand passion of the heroines of George Sand, is purifying as well as pure, and places their delineator among benefactors. Filial love, in its tenderest idealization, is what they primarily represent, but from this flow all gentle, kindly, generous, compassionate, and grateful emotions. Their pathetic beauty melts the insensibility of the most hardened cynic. Florence at the deathbed of little Paul Dombey, or flying from her father to the shelter of the Little Midshipman, or returning to him in his day of ruin and despair; - Esther Summerson, when for the first time she is enfolded in a mother's embrace, or when, at the end of her long pursuit in the track of Lady Dedlock's flight, she passes to the gate of the burial ground, stoops down, lifts the heavy head, "puts the long, dank hair aside," and sees her mother cold and dead; Lucie Manette in that wonderful scene in Dufarge's garret, where she recalls her father to conscious life; - Little Dorrit in all the touching incidents which bring out the delicacy and depth of her sheltering affection for the broken prisoner of the Marshalsea; these are but a few among many instances of that searching pathos of Dickens which irresistibly affects the great body of his readers, and even forces unwilling tears from hostile critics.

Why, then, it may be asked, is Dickens not to be ranked with the greatest masters of characterization? The objection as to his exaggerated manner in representing, we have found to be superficial, as his exaggeration rather increases than diminishes our sense of

the reality of his personages; the real objection is to his matter. Great characterization consists in the creation and representation of great natures; and the natures which Dickens creates may be original, strange, wild, criminal, humorous, lovable, pathetic, or good, but they are never great. The material of which they are composed is the common stuff of humanity, even when it is worked up into uncommon forms. His individualizing imagination can give personality to everything coming within the range of his thoughts, sentiments, and perceptions; but that range does not include the realm of ideas, or the conflict and complication of passions in persons of large intellects as well as strong sensibility. The element of thought is comparatively lacking in his creations. Captain Cuttle is as vividly depicted as Falstaff, but the Captain would be a bore as a constant companion, while we can conceive of Falstaff as everlastingly fertile in new mental combinations, and as never losing his power to stimulate and amuse. Esther Summerson is, like Imogen, an individualized ideal of womanhood; but Esther's mind never passes beyond a certain homely sense, while Imogen is the perfection of imagination and intelligence as well as of tenderness, and we feel that, though she should live a thousand years, she would never exhaust her capacity of thinking, any more than her capacity of loving. But if Dickens's genius never goes beyond a certain limit of observation, nor rises above a certain level of thought, it has still peopled the imagination, and touched and gladdened the hearts, of so many thousands of readers, that it seems ungenerous to subject him to tests he does not court, and ungrateful to note the shortcomings of a power which in itself is so joyous, humane, and beneficent.

A

MONG the features that impart

a character so cosmopolitan to New York, a very prominent one is the large German element pervading that city and its suburbs and neighboring towns. "Which is the German quarter of New York?" I have heard strangers ask, as they noticed the decidedly Teutonic aspect of many passers to and fro in the crowded thoroughfares. It would not be easy to say. Taking the suburbs first, it will be found that much of Brooklyn proper, more of Williamsburg, no inconsiderable portion of Jersey City, and about two thirds of Hoboken, are occupied either by naturalized citizens of German birth, or by native-born Americans of immediate German descent. In the city, there is not a business street in which the infusion of Germany is not manifested by the names upon the sign-boards and doorposts. Whether you dwell to the eastward of Broadway or to the westward, it is much the same thing, in six cases out of ten the nearest tobacconist, as well as the nearest tailor, is sure to be a German. Should you happen to inquire of a New-Yorker where such or such an article is to be procured, he will tell you, as likely as not, “O, anywhere, almost, -the Dutchman at the next corner grocery will be sure to have it." Don't call the grocer a "Dutchman" to his face, though, supposing you should enter his comprehensive mart to make your purchase. Few things excite a German's ire more than to call him a Dutchman. Pacific in his disposition as the Teuton usually is, I have witnessed more than one ugly row in the public places he frequents, because some person has applied this expression to him, either unguardedly or with wilful intent to exasperate. The objection is to be attributed, I fancy, rather to the fact that the term is frequently used in this country in a

disparaging sense, than to any aversion really entertained by the German mind to the industrious native of the land where dikes are as much a necessity as Dutch herrings.

Perhaps, if the preference is to be given to any principal street of New York as channelling the German quarter, the Bowery may be so set down. That very heterogeneous and perplexing jumble of things foreign and domestic may be likened to an immense chain of German sausages, interlinked here and there with material properly American. All along the Bowery, the principal German theatres and lager

bier " gardens are interspersed at

short intervals, and it is in this quarter chiefly that the aspirant for legislative honors or for city office lays his traps to catch the wary German vote.

In sketching German life in New York, it would be outside the question to refer to that comparatively small class of Germans who, from wealth and family connections, hold a high position in society. The representative German is usually a manufacturer of some kind, greater or smaller, or a mechanic, very commonly a grocer, or a brewer of lager-bier. Sometimes he is a lithographer, a layer-out of maps, or an artist in one branch or another. Finishing photographs in oil or in water-colors is an occupation very common among New York Germans. Legions of them are dispersed as waiters through the hotels and restaurants of the city. A great many—and these chiefly of the Hebrew persuasionfind occupation as dealers in clothing, jewelry, and miscellaneous articles, while others drive a lucrative business as pawnbrokers or "mock - auctioneers."

New York is indebted for its vegetable markets to the Germans, who were the first to educate the suburban soil for the growth of kitchen stuff, and who have still almost a monopoly of the market-garden business in the neigh

borhood of the city. In the lower strata it will be found that many of the peripatetic glaziers who wander about the streets with the doleful chant, “Glass t' put een!" are Germans, as also are most of the wretched rag-pickers who trudge along the gutters with bag and hook, diving every now and then into the ash-barrels, with the hope of fishing up some pearl from the depths of those receptacles. Germans who are heavy bankers or stock-brokers, or engaged in commerce and manufacture generally, upon a large scale, soon become absorbed into the "6 upper-ten" element of New York society. Abandoning all the manners and customs of the fatherland to the smaller operators and the dealers in retail, they give little or no color to the native society with which they become incorporated. There is, indeed, a passion in the upper circles of New York for the dance called the "German," a term applied by extension to any ball or party at which it forms a leading feature in the exercises of the evening. In this sense the influence of the "German" upon the society of New York in its higher phases must be admitted; but I question if the introduction of the dance referred to is due to the absorbed Teutonic millionnaire.

Of the middling and poorer class of Germans, New York and its suburbs contain about one hundred and fifty thousand, and it is to the characteristic social and political traits of these that I shall chiefly refer in this paper.

The traditional love of the German for the land of his birth-taking this in a geographical sense, and as distinct from associations- must surely be little more than an idea. Germans who have been prosperous in this country very seldom return to the fatherland, let them sing lustily as they may about it over their Rheinwein or their lager-bier. They carry their country along with them when they emigrate, just as they carry their cherished household gods. A patch from the banks of the Rhine, the Oder, or the Main can be found anywhere in the heart of New York, or

in the country for ten miles around it. This burly and honest person who keeps a restaurant, or salon, in Broadway, on the German plan, flitted hither a dozen years ago from the borders of the Black Forest. He loved that romantic district and its traditions so well that he brought them away with him in his capacious heart, and set them up in his back yard, which thenceforward became a Garten Wirthschaft, - a sort of Occidental "Gulistan" of sausage and lager-bier. There the traits of his boyhood's home are represented by small pine-trees, arranged in tubs full of earth. But if the presence of these is not sufficient to keep fond memory wide awake, then he employs a scenic artist to decorate the walls of the yard with views representing sombre stretches of pine-land, lighted up fitfully with wild gushes of water manufactured out of indigo and flake-white. Sometimes a wild boar appears in the foreground, slaking its thirst at a cascade of these refreshing pigments; and this imparts truth and character to the scene, besides being suggestive of Westphalia ham and Weissbier, both of which are to be had in the establishment. A castle frowns over all, from a lofty pinnacle of rock. To bring the pleasant Garten Wirthschaft of his native land yet more vividly before him, the portly vintner sets along the walls numerous earthen pots with climbing plants in them; and should these imbecile exotics display any lack of energy in scaling the masonry, then a requisition is again made upon the scenic artist, who, beginning with his magic pencil where the trailer struck work, continues it ad libitum, carrying its leaves and tendrils in mellow distemper over any given area of wall-surface. Small tables are ranged about the yard, and hither crowds of Germans resort in the summer time, to feast upon rago.ts of occult material, washed down with gallons of the ruddy malt liquor. In places of this kind, as, indeed, in most of the upper-class eating-houses of New York, the waiters are almost exclusively Germans. It is a specialty with Ger

mans to attend in restaurants, and excellent waiters they for the most part make. Many of them have received fair educations, and not a few are excellent linguists, speaking two or three languages besides their own. They pick up English very soon after their arrival in this country. The first phrase in our language which every German waiter learns is, "All right!" This he uses with great complacency, though not always in the right place. "Waiter, these eggs are boiled quite hard." "All right!" "Waiter, I ordered veal cutlet, and you 've brought me Wienersnitschel." "All right!" This phrase he never drops, though he learns in time to make proper application of it. He seldom has that indescribable air of politeness peculiar to French waiters. Sometimes, indeed, the German waiter is open to the charge of surliness; but this, in most cases, applies only to newcomers, who have not yet mastered the first rudiments of the English language, and, diffident about committing themselves to its intricacies, are driven to taciturnity and apparent moroseness.

More characteristic yet than the Broadway restaurants conducted on German principles are the smaller ones scattered everywhere throughout the city, queer, dingy, rattle-trap dining-houses in which families of Teuton race- men, women, and children -appear to pass a great deal of their time. Take one as a specimen of the class. It is a small wooden house, standing in a row of similar cheap structures, close by one of the main horse-car avenues of the city. The street door opens right into the principal apartment, which is a room sadly out of perspective, owing to the settling of the timbers. The floor is covered with fresh sawdust. Rings of stale beer are observable on the small walnut tables, and the place reeks with the fumes of strong tobacco. The bar, which is also a counter for the exposition as the term now goes-of a wonderful amount and variety of pungent viands, looks like a breast work thrown up by a regiment of gourmands to oppose the march of famine. It is

piled with joints and manufactured meats adapted to the strong German stomach; - enormous fat hams, not thoroughly boiled, for the German prefers his pig underdone; rounds of cold corned beef, jostled by cold roast legs and loins of veal; pyramids of sausages of every known size and shape, and several cognate articles of manufactured swine-meat, of which it would be too much for the present writer to remember the names; baskets full of those queer, twisted, briny cakes which go variously, I believe, by the names of Pretzel and Wunder; sardine - boxes piled upon each other quite in the Pelion-upon-Ossa way; huge glass jars of pickled oysters, flanked by huge earthen jars of caviare. Raw onions in heaps give a tone to the combined odors of all these; and through this confusion of smells come powerful whiffs of the Limburger and Sweitzer cheeses, without which the menu of no German restaurant would be considered complete. Conspicuously posted upon the walls are the Weinlisten, from which documents you gather that white wine is to be had at from one dollar and a quarter to three dollars per bottle, and red wine at from one dollar to four. The inevitable keg of lager-bier lies upon its slanting trestles, behind one end of the counter. Opening from this room there is a smaller one, lower by a step, and beyond that, up a step, is the real snuggery of the concern, which, in winter, suggests the joys of summer to the habitués of the retreat. This is a room of irregular shape, running almost to an acute angle at its farther end, and in this angle, by fencing off a few cubic yards of space with an ornamental iron railing, is formed a little delta of perennial verdure, roofed with glass. A fountain, presided over by an aquarian boy of cast-iron, painted white, plays in the centre of the little oasis. Numbers of gold-fishes are swimming in the basin of the fountain, which is tastefully bordered with rosy sea-shells. The water-plants in this plot are very pulpy and vigorous, and the ivy pursues its