A humotuist who lives at Rochester writes to the Athenieum
:— "Permit me to suggest that an edition of Dickens's Works should be brought out in classical English. The words used in the author's works are extremely disagreeable to read. I think that the language of the lower orders ought never to appear in print." That is one of the happiest modes of suggesting that Dickens's works should be annihilated that has ever occurred to the human imagination. An adequate scholar might possibly translate the Dodger, or Mrs. Gamp, or Charley Bates, into classical, i.e., Aristophanic Greek ; but into Johnsonese, which is what, we suppose, must have been meant by classical English, as Dickens is not by the hypothesis, already in classical English, never. If ever we could hope to see "Whether I sicks or whether I monthlies, I 'opes I does my dooty " expressed in the style of the Rambler, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Behind the Looking-Glass" would become common-place.
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