A REVIEW OF THE MUDFOG PAPERS

Appearing in the New York Times (1880) George Bentley tells us that these papers were originally written by Dickens for the early numbers of Bentleys Miscellany. The Mudfog Iapers" are well known to our public, having certainly appeared a good many years ago in more than one American edition of Dickenss works. As to the other two papers, The Public Life of Tulrumble" and "Mr. Robert Bolton," they may, perhaps, be novel to some. In these, which are among the first works of Charles Dickens, may be found the germ of his later productions. In that wonderful mental development which Dickens showed, these minor works show how observant was the younger man, and even in the first dashings-off of his pen there is really a great deal of that art, perhaps innate, which is all the truer because it is concealed. We are somewhat inclined to-day to diminish that lustre with which Dickens once shone. Very certainly that young generation (now men and women of 50) who read Dickens for the first time had a keener appreciation of him than their children. It is true that this author depicted the eccentricities of individuals rather than painted the broader canvas of a people, and so to those of maturer minds Thackeray is greater than his rival Dickens and "Henry Esmond" must outlive David Copperfield. There is a good laugh in many a page of this book, however: more than that, the power of observance is so great, the mans eyes are so much around him, that he sees sometimes into the future. He is both comic and prophetic. Here is a passage from the first meeting of the Mudfog Association: Profcssors Muff and Nogo, immediately on their arrival, sent for the head waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog--as cheap a one as he could meet with--and to send him up after dinner, with a pieboard. a knife and fork, and a clean plate." Here is a bit of amusing comparison which hits off to the life what one occasionally sees in newspaper reports of to-day. A meeting is described: In front of these gentlemen were papers and ink-stands, and round the room on elevated benches, extending as far as the forms could reach, were assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely and elegant women for which Mudfog is justly; acknowledged to be without rival in the whole world. The contrast between the fair faces and the dark coats and trousers of the scientific gentlemen, I shall never cease to remember while Memory holds her seat" How funny is the muddle, too, about the pig-faced lady, who turns out to be a member's mother-in-law, and the member refuses to answer further questions, because "it might involve a suspicion that the learned pig might be his half-brother."

Here is an amusing method of dealing with homeopathy: "If the fortieth part of a grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to a five grain calomel pill, why, when Professor Muff had dispersed three drops of rum through a bucket of water, and requested the man to drink the whole, what was the result? Before he had drunk a quart he was in a state of beastlv intoxication and five other men were made drunk with the remainder." Of course, with such a stimulant the remedy is found which, consists in an infinitesimal dose of soda-water. Dickens must have lived long enough to have traveled through underground London, and it is amusing to recall how Professor Queerspeck expained before the Mudfog Association how "trains were to start every morning at 8, 9, and 10 oclock from Camden Town, Islington, Camberwell, Hackney, and various other places in which city gentlemen are accustomed to reside. It would be necessary to trace a level, but he had provided for this difficulty by proposing that the best line that circumstances would admit of should be taken through the sewers which undermine the metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from gas pipes, would run immediately above them, and form a pleasant and commodious arcade, especially in Winter-time, when the inconvenient custom of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly dispensed with." Take this book and give it to a lad of 15, and try him with it, and he is a dullard if it does not tickle his fancy, and he were morose, indeed, if the room not ring with his honest, hearty laughter.