thing in that kind known to English Literature since the golden age. All Dickens might be summed in the title of Jonson's play; no figure but is representative of a "humour," running at times into excesses hardly surpassed by Ben himself. On several occasions (1845-50) he acted in this comedy, and one can hardly doubt that it helped to confirm his tendency to exuberance of grotesque characterization.
So much, then, for that part of his selfeducation which came from books. Meanwhile life had been supplying him with abundant experience, which no one knew better than Dickens how to store and utilize. Théophile Gautier, an observer of a very different type, says somewhere of himself: "Toute ma valeur, c'est que je suis un homme pour qui le monde visible existe;" in Dickens this was far from the sole, or the supreme, quality; but assuredly few men have known so well how to use their eyes. A student is commonly inobservant of outward things; Dickens, far from a bookish youth, looked about him in those years of struggle for a livelihood with a glance which missed no minutest feature of what he saw. We are told that his eyes were very bright, impressing all who met him with a sense of their keenness. Keen they were in no ordinary sense; for they pierced beneath
