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IN our June “Messenger,” we spoke at some length of the “Watkins Tottle and other Papers,” by “Boz.” We then expressed a high opinion of the comic power, and of the rich imaginative conception of Mr. Dickens — an opinion which “The Pickwick Club” has fully sustained. The author possesses nearly every desirable quality in a writer of fiction, and has withal a thousand negative virtues. In his delineation of Cockney life he is rivalled only by the author of “Peter Snook,” — while in efforts of a far loftier and more difficult nature, he has greatly surpassed the best of the brief tragic pieces of Bulwer, or of Warren. Just now, however, we can only express our opinion that his general powers as a prose writer are equalled by few. The work is to be continued, and hereafter we may give at some length the considerations which have led us to this belief. From the volume before us we quote the concluding portion of a vigorous sketch, entitled “A Madman's MS.” The writer is supposed to be an hereditary madman, and to have labored under the disease for many years, but to have been conscious of his condition, and thus, by a strong effort of the will, to have preserved his secret from the eye of even his most intimate friends.

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