The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-29 00:00:00

CHARLES DICKENS'S NEW STORY,

Part I. of Our Mutual Friend."

The " two green leaves" cleat to us all by reason
of so many delightful recollections are putting forth
anew, this once, appropriately enough in the spring-
time. Upon the average, hithertol if *b relamber
rightly, they have ten to burgeon in the
autumn, generally speaking, somewhere about
October. Anyhow, they came forth upon this occa-
sion in every imaginable way most seasonably.
Where the last story of our treat ttumourist
ended, his new story WOW begins. As we
open the first chapter we are, with him—afloat
again upon the Thames. Not participating
in the flight of another convict, such as that
wonderful Magwitch in " Great Expectations,"
but sculling, in the autumn twilight, over the great
river in a boat propelled by the daughter of a "
shoreman," one Gaffer llexam, a creature not unlike
Shakspere's Samphire-Picker, for inasmuch as he
has to do with the borders of the great deep, and
that his, also, is indeed a "fearful trade I" The
Bird of Prey, as nexam is dubbed by our novelist,
sits in the stern of the beet when we first see him
—On the Look Out ! As an opening chapter, this
first one of " Our Mutual Friend" is wonder-
fully striking. It influences the reader, like
a glance from the Ancient Mariner's eye :
we needs must listen. In its way, as an introduc-
tion to a serial story, it is equal—more than this we
could not possibly say of it—it is equal to that
opening chapter in. the graveyard by the marshy
fiats, giving at once a landscape and a haunting in-
terest to "Great Expectations." And as the little boy
Pip and that shuddering,hunted Magwitch stood out
vividly there from that congenial background of the
wild fiat and the weedy graveyard—so here upon the
instant we have indelibly imprinted upon our recol-
lection--afloat upon the river Thames—at their un-
holy work towards nightfall...the 'longshoreman
Hexam, and that foul creature's fair young daughter!
Already, in truth, there is abundant promise in this
Part I. of an enthralling story. The ravelling of
the thread of it into a most intricate plot is, to our
mind, in these thirty-two pages, even now pretty
well accomplished. Insomuch that we can readily
understand at once the initial hieroglyphic on
the green cover. Four chapters make up this
first instalment. The preliminary chapter we
have already characterised. The one imme-
diately following it introduces us to a throng
of genuine Boz characters. The Veneerings—
to begin with—occupy the foreground. A wonderful
couple ! Everything new about them : they them-
selves being—as newly married, when the tale begins,
we are gravely told, "as was lawfully compatible
with their having a bran new baby." 11 e new.
ness of their friends, moreover, is suggestive
to our author of the drollest incidents
imaginable: among others, take the following,
" fearful circumstance," as he calls it—occurring
when the guests are assembling at a dinner-party
given by these same Veneerings—
" Mis-ter and Mia-sis Podsnap I"
"My dear," says Mr. Veneering to Mrs. Veneering,
with an air of much friendly interest, while the door stands
open, "the Podsnaps."
A too, too smiling large man, u ith a fatal freshness on
him, appearing with his wife, instantly deserts his wife and
darts at Twemlow with :
"How do you do ? So glad to know you. Charming
house you have hero. I hopo we are not late, So glad of
this opportunity, I aria sure I"
When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice
skipped back in his neat little shoes and his neat little silk
stockings of a bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a
sofa behind him; but the large man closed with him and
proved too strong.
"Let me," says the large man, trying to attract the at-
tention of his wife in the distance, "have the pleasure of
presenting Mrs. Podsnap to her host. She will be," in his
fatal freshness he seems to find perpetual verdure and eter-
nal youth in the phrase, " she will be so glad of the oppor-
tunity, I am sure 1"
In the meantime, Mrs. Podsnap, unable to originate a
mistake on her ern account, because Mrs. Veneering is the
only other lady there, does her best in the way of hand-
somely supporting her husband's, by looking towards Mr.
Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to
Mrs. Veneering iu a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears
he has been rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the
baby is already very like hint,
It is questionable whei,her any man rialto relishes being
mistaken for any other man ; but, Mr. Veneering having
this very evening set up the shirt-front of the young An-
tinous (in new worked cambric just come home), is not at
all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who
is dry and wcaz:n thd some 30
years older. Mrs. Veneering
equally resen's the amputation of being the wife of Twem-
low. As to ;:womiow, he is so scasible of being a much
bettit. bred man than Veneering, tlat he considers the large

man an offensive ass.
In this complicated dilemma, Mt Veneering approaches
the large man with extended hand and, smilingly assures
that incorrigible personage that ht is delighted to see him :
who in his fatal freshness instantly replies
" Thank you. lam ashamed tt say that I cannot at this
moment recall where we met, bu. I era so glad of this op-
portunity, I am sure I"
Then pouncing upon Twemluv, who holds bank with all
his feeble might, he is haling hin off to present him, as
Veneering, to Mrs. Podsnap, when the arrivals of mere
guests unravels the mistake. Wiereupon, having re-shaken
hands with Veneering as Veneling, he re-shakes hands
with Twemlow as Twemlow, ard winds it all up to his own
perfect satisfaction by saying to the last-named, " Ridicu-
lous opportunity—but so glad o it, I am sure 1"
Now, Twemlow having undtTorie this terrific experience,
having likewise noted the tusk], of Boots in Brewer and
Brewer in Boots, and having arther observed that of the
remaining seven guests four dscreet characters enter with
wandering eyes and wholly detine to commit themselves as
to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his
grasp ; Twemlow having prolted by these studies, finds
his brain wholesomely harlening as he approaches
the conclusion that he rally is Veneering's oldest
friend, when his brain oftens again and all is
lost, through his eyes encelntering Veneering and the
large man linked together twin brothers in the back
drawing-room near the coi3sevatory door, and through his
ears informing him in the torts of Mrs. Veneering that the
same large man is to be babya
godfather.
Among the retainers in att,
ndance at this dinner party
there is one, by the way, who is so depreciatory in
his manner of everythingand everybody that, when
" 4s
he precedes a guest up tie staircase, with a mourn-
ful air, he does so who should say, Here is
another wretched victim
come to dinner : such is
life." Bottle in hand, I, goes the round of the
table " like a gloomy Aralytical Chemist : always
seeming t o say after Chablis, sir P You
wouldn't if you knew Shat it's made of." Hence-
forth, naturally, he is btver mentioned, this same

melancholy retainer, but ts the "Analytical Chemist"
—every time more and riore ludicrously. Commend
us—among the guests vaited upon by the Analyti-
cal Chemist to the Po,lo-naps already introduced—
he " with two little light-coloured wiry wings on
either side of his else
Pod
snaps
head, looking as like his
hairbrush as his hair" shy
" fine woman for
Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and
nostrils like a rocking horse, et cetera. Or,
better still, commend us to the Mature Young

gentleman " with too much nose in his face, too
much ginger in his
waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, his eyes,
his buttons, his talk, and his teeth." Or best of all
—Lady whiskers, too much torso in his
'Pippins " with an immense obtuse drab

oblong &ce, like a face in a tablespoon." An old
lady, who, in her gaiety of manner, enhances the
humour of her remarks e; by
a certain yellow play
in her throat like the legs of scratching poultry."
The Four Buffers of the party, moreover, including
among them Boots and Brewer, help the fun of this
portion of the story amazingly. The only rational
people, by the way, among the whole sot being
Mortimer Lightwood, the Solicitor, and his friend,
formerly his schoolfellow,
the gloomy Eugene,
Barrister-at-Law. The way in which Mortimer
tells a story at the dinner table---a story directly
bearing upon the whole plot of the serial here com-
menced—the way in which Alortimer relates it,
with all the byeplay and all the interruptions I

well, to our mind Mr. Dickens has never written

anything more delightful in the way of quiet, plays
fel humour, has never written anything more plen-
tifully marked with touches of that life-like reality,

in respect to which Us writings are—simply, in
one word, inimitable. The chapter coming next,
chapter three, that is, entitled " Another Man"
—as the one before it has been typically called

(in reference to tho plot) " The Man from Some
where"—carries us onward into the intricacies of
that labyrinth the readers of " Our Mutual Friend"

are happily deslined now to track out through

all its manifold windings during the ue:ct nineteen
months consecutively. The Police Station—the
Police Inspector, cool and 4eliber4te► lid`, an abbot