That little bit about his teaching his tiny grandson to say his prayers, before he put him into bed in his poor chamber in the Charter House, to which he was reduced, would make any one cry.

And Henry Esmond, and Warrington, and Laura--where would you find more nobly-drawn characters than those ?" and she stopped, out of breath with her defence of one of the greatest writers we have ever had, indignant, with such a pretty indignation, at his merits being questioned for a moment.
"Of course I must bow to your decision, Miss Clyde," said the curate, with one of those stock ceremonial bows that stood him in such good stead amongst the female community of the parish.

He was a cunning fellow, Mawley.

Knew which way his interest lay; and never went against the ladies if he could help it.

"But," he continued, "if we talk of pathos, there's `the great master of fiction,' Dickens; who can come up to him ?" "Ah, yes! Mr Mawley,"-- chorused the majority of the girls--"we quite agree with you: there's nobody like Dickens!" It is a strange thing how perverse the divine sex is, in preferring confectionery to solid food; and superficial writers, to those who dive beneath the surface of society and expose its rottenness--like as they esteem Tupper's weak-minded version of Solomon's Proverbs beyond the best poetry that ever was written! I wasn't going to be beaten by the curate, however, prattled he never so wisely with the cunning of the serpent-charmer.