But for rare pictures of real life he has never been
surpassed; and he has instructed an age, concerning itself, wisely,
originally, and usefully. He has the simplicity of Goldsmith, and the
truth to nature of Fielding and Smollett, without a spice of
sentimentalism or of impurity; he has brought the art of prose fiction to
its highest point, and he has left no worthy successor. He lived for years
separated from his wife on the ground of incompatibility, and, during his
later years at Gadshill, twenty miles from London, to avoid the
dissipations and draughts upon his time in that city.
SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.--In 1868 he again visited America, to read
portions of his own works. He was well received by the public; but society
had learned its lesson on his former visit, and he was not overwhelmed
with a hospitality he had so signally failed to appreciate. And if we had
learned better, he had vastly improved; the genius had become a gentleman.
His readings were a great pecuniary success, and at their close he made an
amend which was graceful and proper; so that when he departed from our
shores his former errors were fully condoned, and he left an admiring
hemisphere behind him.
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