In short I branded as a brilliant dauber
The man who gave us _Pecksniff_ and _Micawber_.

True, there are blots--like spots upon the sun--
And genius, lavish of imagination,
In sheer profusion always has outrun
The bounds of strict artistic concentration;
But when detraction's worst is said and done,
How much remains for fervent admiration,
How much that never palls or wounds or sickens
(Unlike some moderns) in great generous DICKENS!

And in _Bleak House_, the culminating story
That marks the zenith of his swift career,
All the great qualities that won him glory,
As writer and reformer too, appear:
Righteous resentment of abuses hoary,
Of pomp and cant, self-centred, insincere;
And burning sympathy that glows unchecked
For those who sit in darkness and neglect.

Who, if his heart be not of steel or stone,
Can read unmoved of _Charley_ or of _Jo_;
Of dear _Miss Flite_, who, though her wits be flown,
Has kept a soul as pure as driven snow;
Of the fierce "man from Shropshire" overthrown
By Law's delays; of _Caddy's_ inky woe;
Or of the alternating fits and fluster
That harass the unhappy slavey, _Guster_?