Here again, in this new English school, has the genius of Kingsley alighted.

Most of his novels belong to it.
And, besides himself and Dickens, there stand forth as its most brilliant members the distinguished authoress of _Mary Barton_, and the sorely-tried Charlotte Bronte, the gifted writer of _Jane Eyre_--too soon, alas! removed from us.

This school has portrayed, in colors doubtless somewhat strong, the sufferings and the virtues, the dangers and the hopes of the working-classes, especially in towns and factories.
But, instead of enjoining hatred of the higher classes, and despair of all improvement in the future for humanity, a healthy tone pervades their writings throughout, and an unwavering and cheering hope of better things to come shines through the gloomy clouds that surround the dreary present.

There are throes of anguish--but they tell of coming deliverance; there are discords--but they resolve into harmony.

The spirit finds, pervading the entire composition, that satisfaction of the desires of our higher nature which constitutes true artistic success.
Dickens, too, has at length chosen the real life of the working-classes in their relations to those above them as a subject for his masterly pen.