The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

CHARLES DICKENS'S NEW WORK.
Little Dorrit. No. I. By Charles Dickens. Brad-
bury and Evans.
Gratefully, affectionately, earnestly we here re.
peat what we have already so frequently expressed
in these columns—we honour what Charles Dickens
has written, we love his very name, we glory in
his genius. But not for this. Not for the first
number of Little Dorrit, Compare it—this intro-
ductory instalment of the new serial story from his
master-hand, but just published within the last few
hours—compare the initial pages of Little Dorrit
with the memorable opening chapters of Pickwick,
of.Oliscr Twist, of Martin Chuzzlewit, of glorious
Nicholas Nickleby, of our groat novelist's un-
doubted masterpiece, his exquisite and inimitable
history of David oppeifield ! Compared with
these, and judging it (as we have a right to do,
so far) by its prefatory number, we conceive
" Little Dorrit" to be capable alone of being aptly
described as shall we say it ? Bleak-House-
and-ditch- water It is as though Charles
Dickens—to our thinking incomparably the most
delightful humorist in the whole range of English
Literature—sat down to write his new serial story
with a painful and even overwhelming conscious-
ness of his immense powers, of all that is expected
from them, of the magnitude of the responsibilities
involved in his far-spread and unparalleled
popularity. The result being a constraint of the
most distressing character—a constraint almost
amounting to intellectual paralysis. Insomuch that
the greatest living master of fiction, In his own
peculiar and unapproachable department, seems
scarcely to know exactly what to be at while pen-
ning these introductory pages of his new story.
entitled " Little Dorrit." Had he been as shrewd
in taste and as sagacious in judgment as he has
often and often shown himself, by our tears and
our laughter, to be matchless in humour and inimi-
table in pathos, he would never have written
any single one of the works he has actually
produced since he penned those last thrilling
words of his exquisite story of "David Copper-
field." As Prospero broke his wand and buried
his book—so he, too, should have thrown his pen
aside for ever, rather than use it as he has
since then used it, after completing, as we all of us
remember he did complete so wondrously well, that
noblest of his works as a whole, a masterpiece
marking the loftiest point iu the progress of his
genius, a point which might be regarded not in-
correctly as that of its veritable culmination. In-
stead of which, however, in lieu of reposing thus
wisely upon his well-won laurels, Charles Dickens
has since then been more and more adventurous—
writing almost always, as we have said, under the
constraining influence of his great powers, of his
vast popularity, and of the immense responsibilities
resulting from their combination. Rather than write
them thus, he should never, we repeat, have penned
another of his extended serial stories after bringing
to so fine a close the twentieth instalment of
" David Copperfield"—as he should never, for the
same reason, have produced another Christmas
story after he had given to the world those five
staves of his immortal " Carol." We grieve to
remember that in neither instance has our glorious
Charles Dickens acted thus prudentially. Hine
ilhr lachrymce. Hence, too, Bleak Rouse, and
Hard Times, and now at last Little Dorrit.
" Bleak House" revealing to us his fine genius—as
when first tainted with the signs of its decay.
" Hard Times"—presenting to us barely anything
more of it than its dry bones. "Little Dorrit"—
bringing us, as by a lamentable climax, to the
contemplation of the cold dust or crumb-
ling loam into which even those have in
turn been resolved. And what is worst of all,
judging from these four first chapters of the new
serial, " even in his ashes" lives not, alas ! one
spark of the " wonted fires" of our great novelist.
Chapter one describes Marseilles in the glare of a
summer's day at noon—describes it, too, without
one touch of Mr. Dickens's hitherto magical
powers of description. Chapter two intro-
duces us to a group of travelling companions
just released from the "durance vile" of Quaran-
tine—men and women almost as vague as those
of Mr. Browning, personages sketched in without
a jot of Boz's heretofore marvellous skill in the de-

lineation of character. Chapter three brings us
under his wandarino, guidance to a corner of Lon-
don as squalid as Tom-all-Alone's, but altogether
more dim and indistinguishable. Chapter four
makes us acquainted with certain shadowy creatures
more mean, repulsive, and detestable than even the
mean, repulsive, and detestable family of the Small-
weeds. No—Charles Dickens will be rememberet
(let him rely upon that) for the sake of such crea-
tions as Tom Pinch, and Sam Weller, and John
Browdie, and Betsey Trotwood not for the sake of
such beings as Edith Dombey, or Mademoiselle Hor-
tense, or filmy Mrs. Grads,rind, much less for that
of spectral Miss Wade, of horrid old Jeremiah
Flintwinch, of his " ghostly, grim, and ancient
raven" of a wife, Mistress Affery, of serious Mr.
Clennam, and jolly Mr. Meagles, and detestable
John Baptist Rigaud, and unaccountable Signor
Cavalletto, and oddest of all, as regards both name
and nature, that preposterous wench Tattycoram !
Here is about the only passage in the whole of
these thirty-two pages making up the first number
of " Little Dorrit," about the only passage and
one brief enough, alas ! in all conscience, which we
feel in any way tempted to give by way of illus-
trative quotation. It is where mention is made
of Monsieur Rigaud'; ghastly aspect when ho
emerged from the dark prison into daylight to
march away, and be judged on a charge of mur-

Bering his wife, once'the-widow of Monsieur Bar-
ronneau ! Thus, in the spirit of Henri de Balzac,
writes Dickens :

"There is no sort of whiteness in all fle hues under
the sun, at all like the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's
face as it was then. Neither is there any expression of
the human countenance at all like that expression, in
every little ;ine of which the frightened heart is seen to
beat. Bath are conventionally compared with death ;
but the difference is the whole thep gulf between the
. .

struggle lone, and the fight at its most desperate ex-
tremity."

And so, with this brief extract, close we this first
number of " Little Darrit"—(having obtained
through it merely a momentary glimpse of its girl-
heroine)—as we lay its green leaves aside, thinking
of both novel awl novelist, with a sense of very
poignant sorrow, and of a most bitter and even
painful disappointment.

The Duchess of Atholl has left the St. George's Hotel
for Dunkeld nous .

The Marquis ofa A.nglesey has left the St. George's
Hotel for Beaude4-. it.

The lion. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon have arrived at. the
St. George's

The Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Granville, the Duke
of Argyll, Sir George Grey, the Earl of Clarenilon, Mr.
Secretary Labouchere, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Sir C. Wood, the Right Hon. R. Vernon Smith, the
Earl of Hai:owliy, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and the
Right Hon. M. T. Baint3 were pre ent at the Cabinet
dinner given by Viscount Palmerston cn Wednesday

evening.
Colonial Offi e•
received yesterday at the
Despatches from the Governor
committee of the Dissenting
of Newr Zealand were
A deputation from
interview with Sir George
their civil rights bad an
deputies of the three
Home-office. The deputation
detnhoeminations for the protection of
siey Pellatt, M.P. (chairman), Mr.
otliatpi:vt.istGueon.ioSnm.ith, the
consisted of Mr•xt.ArP
Grey yesterday, at
James Carter, Mr. Charles Reed,
, and the Rev. J.
William Gover,
and
of the
Congregational Union
by
the:En thee-
secretary
H. Hinton, the secretary
the scretary,
NATIONAL GALLERY. ---A. large picture by Paolo
attendedthe iro
Veronese, formerly in the church of St. Sitvestro,fin
Venice, has been purchased for the National Gallery.
The subject ii "The Adoration of the Magi ;" a reduced
copy of part of it, attributed to Carlo Cagliari, is at
Hampton Court. The date on the St. Silvestro picture
is 1573, when the artist was about 45. The picture is
noticed by Sansovino is his Venetia Descritta, published
eight years later, and is described by sub ,equent writers,
such as Ridolfi, Boschini, and Zanetti, as well as by
more modern authors, in terms of the highest praise ; it
is said to be in excellent preservation. Some alterations
in one of the walls of the principal room in the National
Gallery have been recently made under the direction of
the Office of Works. The masons' work being com-
pleted, some changes have taken place in the arrange-
ment of the pictures, and the large Sebastiano del
Piombo has been transferred to the east side of the
furtherroam • The arrangement is, however, temporary, as a
change will be required when the Paolo Veronese make
its appearance, probably early in the new yeal.l ;$ with
DEATH OF MRS. WILLOUGHBY MeonLoss-" •
1 of another
deep regret that we have to announce the
.uty,—tbat of
valuable life, sacrificed at the shrine
.of a
dent of the
pi? rinten
Mrs. Willoughby Moore,
lady
superintendent
was the widow
officers' hospital at Scutari. Mrs,iiiou
Willoughby Moore, who
of that gallant soldier, Celonerl W
than forsake the burning
perished in the Europa, ratehne
were in it. She went out
ship so long as any of hishmti _
d of nurses to organise and
this last summer with
aat for sick and wounded
superintend an hospital a for the men under Miss
Nightin-
gale
officers similar to
thoseunequivocal testimony of those who were
, and
• the
the zeal, the diligence, and the
judgment eviunder her caren
proves c
e
d by this devoted lady in her sacred
mission.
1
A dysentery which lasted three weeks proved
fatal, and she died on Thursday last, to the deep regret
of all around her. The loss of such a woman is not
easily replaced. y
Not onl
from the high qualities and
de
voted spirit which she brought m
to her work, but frobeing the wife of one so universally honoured among his
brother officers, her services were received with less jolt-
lousy by those in command than otherwise, perhaps,
would have been the case. Her memory will long be
cherished by those relatives and friends whose society
she resigned in order to devote herself to that sacred
mission for which she felt herself called ; but she has
left an example to England's daughters, as her gallant
fgin_
husband did to England's sons, how noble it isfal ! u
to live and nuainchingly to die in the discharge y