The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-16 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Newcomes. No. XXII. By W. M. Thackeray.
Jubilate ! There is really some prospect of
little Rosey going the way of all flesh, or, for that
matter, of all phantoms. We close the number
leaving her at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in a delicate
state of health. Let us hope that Mr. Thackeray
is not deceiving us ; but that the next, and as it
will unhappily prove the last, instalment of his
serial will recount the death of Mrs. Clive New-
come. Otherwise than through her death, we can
see no chance of any satisfactory denouement.
Ethel can only advance to happiness across the
little green hillock markiiag, the final resting-place
of the silly and heartless niece of old James Binney
—the toy of Clive, the pet of the Colonel,
the "scared and fawning" puppet of the Cam-
paigner. Wherefore, we do earnestly hope that
Rosey is going to die and that off-hand—so that the
miseries surrounding our dear friends the New-
comes may be as speedily as possible dissipated.
The crash has come, of course, and that with a.
vengeance. The great Bundlecund Banking Com-
pany has broken up as thoroughly as a frost under
a sudden thaw, or a school at the approach of the
holidays, or we might more aptly term it broken
down all at once like a spavin'd hack, or like any
other rickety " firm" (so called by the rule of contra-
ries), such for example as the wonderful house of
Strahan, Paul, and Bates. Our maelstrom of mis-
fortune has swallowed up in, gurgite 'vast° not only
the entire fortune of our beloved Colonel, but
with that the prospects of poor Clive and the
hard cash of Rosey and the Campaigner. Re-
fuge is taken by the disconsolate family in that
home of the destitute, and last covert of the
hunted stag when at bay, Boulogne. There
Arthur Pendennis follows them out of motives of
sincere affection—to find both Clive and the Colo-
nel nearly broken-hearted, quite broken-spirited,
bullied in season and out of season by the ever-
infamous and demoniac Campaigner. The sketch
given by Pen of the appearance of that buxom
widow, Mrs. Mackenzie—at a time when the dear
old Colonel is so completely penniless as to be un-
consoled even by a casual cheroot, and Clive so poor
that he stays his hunger with a pain de deux sous—
is amazingly characteristic, and pencilled, too,
with a minuteness of detail so marvellously spiteful,
with the handsome India shawl, and her rich silk
dress, and her smart gloves, and her neat parasol
of blue with pale yellow lining, and her multipli-
city of rings, and her jewel on her forehead (Brum-
magem), and her gold watch and chain (Rosey's),
and her gay bonnet, decorated with a profu-
sion of corn-ears, and poppies, and blue-bells !
Pho ! we can't wonder that poor Arthur is half
choked as he affects to take his dinner, sitting by
the side of the abominable wretch in the mean
room of the mean alley of the Haute Ville, where
the " low furious woman" is ever standing
over the bravest and gentlest of men, Colonel
Thomas Newcome, " stabbing the kind, defence-
less heart with killing insult and daily outrage."
For the anguish of the narrative compressed
within these pages descriptive of the sorrows and
sufferings of poor Clive and his beloved old father,
we can alone be consoled by Mr. Thackeray, tell-
ing us in the double number, which is to end the
work in two or three weeks from the present time,
that Rosey has expired under the effects of some
rapid disease, and that Mrs. Mackenzie has broken
her neck, or otherwise drawn her life to its de-
sirable close through the aid of some happy acci-
dent. When the Newcomes shall be finished with
the dawn of August—we shall be solaced during
the lapse of the ensuing autumn by the prospect of
the new work to be commenced by our glorious
Charles Dickens in November.