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[page 67, column 1, continued:]
THE CHIMES, A Goblin Story. By Charles Dickens, Esq. New York, E. Winchester. Republished.
THE Chimes are in the Dickens vein, but not the true vein — there's neither a laugh nor a tear among them all. If the Christmas Carol had not come first, the Chimes would never have come at all. It is the first time that Boz has attempted to repeat himself; and he has failed as signally as though he had attempted to imitate somebody else. The Carol was a bright bubble, a perfect sphere with all the primitive colors playing upon its surface; the Chimes is nothing more than a painted shell. Scrooge and Tiny Tim will live for ever, but there is nobody in the Chimes whose life will last a twelvemonth. Toby Veck has no individuality, but such as his clothes give him — which is nothing. Richard and Meg, and Alderman Cute, the Member of Parliament, the Goblins of the Bells, and all, are misty, unsubstantial personages. It is Boz, but living Boz no more. The Chimes, too, give out a tone that is becoming wearisome: we do not like the key note — it has that dismal wail which is becoming fashionable among dandies and misers, the cant of philanthropy. Mr. Dickens has almost caricatured the tribe in the exaggerated portrait of Sir Joseph Bowerley, intended probably to personify the “new generation.” He gives Young England some terrible thwacks — hard enough, we should think, to demolish so young a gentleman.
In calling the Chimes a failure, we only compare it with the other productions of the same author; compared with the successful works of many others, it is prodigious. No one can read it without feeling that Dickens is a thorough good fellow: one who sympathises keenly with the lower orders of society, and who sees through the flimsy veil which respectable rogues throw over their own actions. Like all of his productions, it is bold, rapid, and sincere. You cannot perceive any marks of doubt or hesitancy: no erasures, no after-thoughts, no mending of passages; but you are conscious of having before you the first conception of the author, in its original integrity, without having been submitted to the emasculating corrections of a calculating prudence, or the refinements of a fastidious taste. It is this freshness which distinguishes all his writings, that gives them one of [column 2:] their chief attractions. his copy goes from his hand to the printer before the ink is dry. There are many slovenly passages in his writings in consequence, but no stiff ones. The Chimes contains many passages of unapproachable beauty, and some impersonations which are equal to any thing that he has done before in the same way. The wind is his favorite element: he writes of its pranks in a spirit of love. Iii Martin Chuzzlewit, and in the Christmas Carol, it seemed like a witch element to him. Of the same nature it appears in the Chimes:
“For the night wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes; and of trying with its unseen hand, the windows and the doors: and seeking out some crevices by. which to enter. And when it has got in; as one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be; it wails and howls to issue forth again: and not content with stalking through the aisles and gliding round and round the pillars, and tempting the deep organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the rafters; then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults. Anon, it comes up stealthily, and creeps along the walls; seeming to read, in whispers, the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At some of these it breaks out shrilly, as with laughter; and at others, moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a ghostly sound too, lingering within the altar; where it seems to chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder alone, and false Gods worshipped; in defiance of the Tables of the Law, which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and broken. Ugh! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in a church!
“But high up in the steeple! There the foul blast roars and whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to come and go through many an airy .arch and loop-hole, and to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, and make the very tower shake and shiver! High up in the steeple, where the belfry is; and iron rails are ragged with rust; and sheets of lead and copper shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and heave beneath the unaccustomed tread: the birds stuff shabby nests into corners of old oaken joists and beams; and dust grows old and grey; and speckled spiders indolent and fat with long security, swing idly to and fro, in the vibration of the bells, and never loose their hold upon their thread spun castles in the air, or climb up sailor-like in quick alarm, or drop upon the ground and ply a score of nimble legs to save a life! High up in the steeple of an old church, far above the light and murmur of the town, and far below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and dreary place at night; and high up in the steeple of an old church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of.”
We have heard a good many wonderful stories of miserly hearts being melted, and churls made amiable, by the mere reading of the Christmas Carol, but we fear that the good done by the Chimes will not be as great. There are parts of it that make riches appear hateful, but none that render poverty pleasant. Mr. Filer and Alderman Cute are very gross caricatures, so is Lady Bowerley; but there is something inexpressibly fine, a satire terribly scorching on the benevolence of the upper classes, in her ladyship's charitable designs.
“Let him be made an example of, by all means,” returned the lady. “Last winter, when I introduced pinking and eyelet-holeing among the men and boys in the village, as a nice evening employment, and had the lines,
Oh let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations,
set to music on the new system, for them to sing the while: this very Fern — I see him now — touched that hat of his, and said, ‘I humbly ask your pardon my lady, but an’t I something different from a great girl?’ I expected it, of course; who can expect anything but insolence and ingratitude from that class of people? That is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph! Make an example of him!”
In that kind of writing called grotesque, Dickens stands at an unapproachable height; his page teems with phantoms; the commonest objects assume a fantastic shape the moment he touches them; rusty hinges, battered doors, toppling chimneys, bits of lead, scraps of tin and old nails become instinct with life, and suddenly assume a new character as though the wand of an enchanter had touched them. But his grotesques have not that aimless merely grotesque existence which the wizard shapes of other authors have; they speak to us smoothly, and their words are imbued with a wisdom above that of ordinary men. [page 68:]
“ ‘The voice of Time,’ said a phantom, cries to man, Advance! Time is for his advancement and improvement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better lite; his progress onward to that goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the period when ‘rime and he began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and gone; millions unaccountable, have suffered, lived, and died; to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and he the fiercer and the wilder, for its momentary check
“I never did so, to my knowledge, Sir,’ said Trotty. ‘It was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn’t go to do it, I’m sure.’
“ ‘Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants,’ said the Goblin of the Bell, a cry of lamentation for days which have had their trial and their failure, and have left deep traces of it which the blind may see — a cry that only serves the Present Time, by showing men how much it needs their help when any ears can listen to regrets for such a past — who does this, does a wrong. And you have done that wrong to us, the Chimes.’ “
The English Reviewers have all spoken highly of the Chimes, and the Edinburgh gives it a notice longer than the book itself; but the same causes which help to render it popular there, have hardly an existence here. Our rich and poor occupy different positions. The poor here is the privileged class. We have no Aldermen Cutes, no Toby Vecks, God be praised for it. The Chimes is a politico-comic production, and will be more popular with politicians than idle readers. The illustrations which ornament the London edition are by famous artists, but have nothing but the names of the artists to recommend them.
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Notes:
This review was specifically rejected as being by Poe by W. D. Hull.
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[S:0 - BJ, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Literary (Briggs ?, 1845)