THE REV C, CLARK’S LECTURES.

Evening Star, Issue 3767, 20 March 1875, Page 2

THE REV C, CLARK’S LECTURES.

The Rev. Charles Clark’s second lecture on Dickens and his works was even more numerously attended than on any previous evening. We_ are not surprised at this, for in the Colonies it is seldom that opportunity offers for listening to comments so original and elegant, and illustrations so pertinent as those of Mr Clark. He is enthusiastic in his admiration of the personal character and genius of Dickens, and almost persuades one to accept that, author as the highest exponent of wit, humor, and morality that England has produced. Coinciding with much that Mr Clark says respecting his graphic portraits and the tendency of the works of Dickens, we are quite willing, like Mr Clark, to close our eyes to their drawbacks, as they appear to us to be the result of the very circumstances that trained him for the position he helds as a writer. The plan of Mr Clark’s lecture of last evening differed from those previously delivered on the same subject. The nov< list’s early history was not repeated. The purpose of the lecturer appeared to be more that of assigning to the genius of Dickens its proper position in the rank of writers of fiction. The illustrations were selected from the “Pickwick Papers,” “Hard Times,” “ Bleak House,” and the Christmas story of the “The Holly Tree Inn.” Seldom does it fall to the lot of any writer to have so admirable a commentator as Mr Clark. As treat,id by him, Sam "Weller and his father become realities ; Cobb’s manly sympathy with Uie baby fugitives—Master Harry and Miss Norali—would lose its relish were it not for the provincial patois in which the story is told ; the young man named Guppy is a well-drawn picture of an amusing snob; and in passages purely pathetic the deceased author has shown that Sterne might have selected better materials than a dead donkey to evoke human sympathy’. Mr Clark was listened to with wrapt attention, and frequently loudly applauded. The lecture was so well received that'it will be repeated this evening, when the series will be brought to a close.