The joint-effort of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins, apart from its merits or demerits, must excite curiosity and interest. It is clear that in ‘ No Thoroughfare ‘ the latter gentleman has had the lion’s share of the labour, whatever of lion’s share may fall to him besides. Mr. Dickens’s portion is merely incidental, though some of his touches are surpassing fine and unmistakably marked. Mr. Collins’s superb inventive faculty shows itself throughout, though under a little restriction here — unfolding, doubling up, coiling, and uncoiling in its brilliant, baffling, serpentine fashion. And the result is exactly such as might be expected. Mr. Wilding is a little over-done, but full of humor ; and Joey Ladle, the cellar-man — who insists on being a good pecking-machine — is admirable. This is one of Joey’s happiest deliverances : — ‘ Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it ; but I says, ‘ I have been accustomed to take my wine in at the pores of the skin, and took that way, it acts different.’ ‘ But we mustn’t say more on the matter, at once for our own sake and that of both writers and readers.
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