Ir may often be noticed that when an inferior production of "riy well-known literary mau is published after his death by some admiring friend, the admiring friend comes in for a severe scolding from the critics. A 'Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd is now undergoing an all-round castigation for having 'Unearthed and given to the public a collec tion of weak, bad, and vulgar plays by the late Charles' Dickens—¢ who very few of the present generation were even aware had ever strayed into the by-paths of dramatic literature. Yet here are his "Poems and Plays," brought together in what the Spectator calls two largely padded-out volumes, and the offence of Mr. Shepherd is consequently rank and smells to heat Why could he not have allowed Diokous to rest in his glory, untarnished by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.