THE REV. C. CLARKE'S LECTURE ON DICKEN'S. (FROM "THE ECHO.")

Waikato Times, Volume V, Issue 265, 22 January 1874, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE REV. C. CLARKES LECTURE ON DICKENS. (FROM "THE ECHO.")

The lecture announced for last night was largely attended. This was what might have been expected, as the advent of a popular lecturer is a great event in Auckland. Mr. Clarkes reputation had preceded him, and the audience which he collected last night was probably as well able to appreciate and to criticise as any that could have been chosen in Auckland. The selection of his subject was a happy one. No other author who could have been selected would have given so wide, or, we should imagine, so congenial a scope to the genius of the lecturer, and none that we could name would have appealed so universally to the kindly remembrances and sympathies of the audience. The place occupied by Dickens in the Walhalla of England's great'literary celebrities is not indeed the very highest, but it may be doubted whether many other writers have so sympathetic a hold on the mind of people. With a thousand faults and imperfections as an artistic writer he possessed that genial and abounding humour which made even his faults seize upon the i popular sympathy and find a place in" the popular heart. AH this was fully appreciated by Mr. Clarke in his last night's lecture. His sketch of the life of the novelist was full of interest, chiefly because he succeeded in interweaving what he ■* had to tell of the writer's history with what his audience remembered so vividly of the novelist's characters. This task — no easy one in any case, and wholly impossible to any but a thorough going admirer and enthusiast — was admirably accomplished. Excellent as were the recitations from the works themselves, u c are not sure that these were not surpassed by the skill with which at every turn inthehistoiy of Dickens's life we were brought face to face by some happy'allusion or casual reference with one or more of the characteis which live through the pages of Dickens to the mind of this generation. The recitations, howevei, were nearly all that could be desiied. We think, indeed, that Mr. Clarke excels moie strikingly in 'the delineation of the humoious than the pathetic. His rendering of " Little Nell," excellent as it was, did not move to tears, while no one could resist the irresistable impulse to laughter aroused by the inimitable coolness of the Yarmouth waiter, or the dramatic completeness of the delineation of " Sairy Gamp." To these latter recitations it is difficult to award 100 high a woul of praise, and we do not think the immortal monthly nurse ever had a. more thoiough delineator than she found last night in the lecturer. Of the concluding portion of the lecture we can also speak with satisfaction. It may not be so needful in this city as in some places to put forth a plea for Charles Dickens's writing, and yet we cannot suppose that there is not to be found here some of that spurious religionism which is offended at anything like satire which touches- what falsely piofess-es to be religion. The lecturer was forcible on this point and as just as he was forcible. It came well also from a lectuiei who was also a clergyman that he should discern between the false and the live, between the :ssentials of religion and the tinsel trappings

with which it is too often o\ei loaded b) socalled lehgious people. On the whole we can most toulmlly lecommend om leadeis to take advantage of the oppoitunity of hcai ing these lectuies." Fiom Mi. Claike we aie convinced they will gain lnstiuction on each subied with which he deals, and we aie ceilain they will obtain amusement of a \ciy hii>h class.