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

THE SUN, LOT‘.IION, FRIDAY _EVENING, APRIL 29, 1864.

CHARLES DICKENS'S NEW STORY.

Part I. of" Our Mutual Friend."

The "two green leaves" dear to ns all by reason
of so many delightful recollections are putting forth
anew, this once, appropriately enough in the spring-
time. Upon the average, hitherto, if we remember
rightly, they have begun 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 Great Humourist
ended, his new story now 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 to it propelled by the daughter of a " 'long-
shoreman," one Gaffer Hexam, a creature not unlike
Shakapere'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 !" The
Bird of Prey, as Hexam is dubbed by our novelist,
sits in the stern of the boat when we first see him
—On the Look Oat ! 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 %tanner'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 way of it—it is equal to that
opening chapter in the graveyard by the marshy
flats, giving at once a landscape and a haunting in-
terest to " Great E xpectations," And as the little boy
Pip and that shuddering,hunted Magwitch stood out
vividly there from that congenital background of the
wild flat 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 nightfalle—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 Box characters. The Veneerings—
to begin with—occupy the foreground. A wonderful
couple ! Everything new about them : they them-
selvesbein g—asnewly married, when the tale begins,
we are gravely told, "as was lawfully compatible
with their having a bran new baby." Tie 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 Mis-sis Podanap I"

"My dear," says Mr. Veneering to Mrs. Veneering,
with an air of much friendly interest, while the door stands
open, " the Podanaps."
A too, too smiling large man, a 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 hope we are not late, So glad of
this opportunity, I am sure I"
_ _ _

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice
skipped back in his neat littlo shoes and his neat little silk
stockings of a bygone fashion, as if imgelled 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 I"
In the .meantime, Mrs. Podsnap, unable to originate a
mistake on her own 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 him,

It is questionable whether any man quite 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 weaz in and some 30 years older. Mrs. Veneering
equally resents the imputation of being the wife of Twem-
low. As to Twemlow, he is so sensible of being a much
better bred man than Veneering, that he considers the large
man an offensive ass. i

In this complicated dilemma, Mr. Veneering approaches
the large man with extended hand and, smilingly assures
that incorrigible personage that he is delighted to see him :
who in his fatal freshness instantly replies :
. . .

" Thank you. lam ashamed to say that I cannot at this
moment recall where we met, but I am so glad of this op-
portunity, I am sure 1"
Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all
his feeble might, he is haling him off to present him, as
Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the arrivals of more
guests unravels tse mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken
hands with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands
with Twemlow as Twemlow, and winds it all up to his own
perfect satisfaction by saying to the last-named, " Ridicu-
lous opportunity—but so glad of it, lam sure I"
Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience,
having likewise notei the fusion of Boots in Brewer and
Brewer in Boots, and having further observed that of the
remaining seven guests four discreet characters enter with
wandering eyes and wholly decline to commit themselves as
to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his
grasp ; Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds
his brain wholesomely hardening as he approaches
the conclusion that ho really is Veneering's oldest
friend, when his brain softens again and all is
lost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and the
large man linked together as twin brothers in the back
drawing-room near the conservatory door, and through his
ears informing him in the tones of Mrs. Veneering that the
same large man is to be baby's godfather.
Among the retainers in at tendance at this dinner party
there is one, by the way, who is so depreciatory in
his manner of everything and everybody that, when
he precedes a guest up the staircase, with a mourn-
ful air, he does so "as who should say, Here is
another wretched victim come to dinner : such is
life.'" Bottle in hand, he goes the round of the
table " like a gloomy Analytical Chemist : always
seeming t o say after Chablis, sir You
wouldn't if you knew what it's made of." Hence-
forth, naturally, he is never mentioned, this same
melancholy retainer, but as the " Analytical Cnemist"
—every time more and more ludicrously. Commend
us—among the guests waited upon by the Analyti-
cal Chemist to the Podsnaps already introduced—
he " with two little light-coloured wiry wings on
either side of his else bald head,
looking as like his
hairbrush as his hair" she " fine woman for
Professor Owen, quantity
of bone, neck and
nostrils like a reeking 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 whiskers, too much torso in his
waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, his eyes,
his buttons, his talk, and his teeth." Or best of all
—Lady Tippins " with an immense obtuse drab
oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon." An old
lady, who, in her gaiety of manner, enhances the
humour of her remarks " by a certain yellow play
in her throat like the legs of scratching poultry."
Tho 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 set 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 eirectly
bearing upon the whole plot of the serial here com-
menced—the way in which Mortimer relates it,
with all the byeplay and all the interruptions
well, to cur mind Mr. Dickens has never written
anything more _elightful in the way of quiet, play.
ful humour, has never written anything more plen-
tifully marked with touches of that life-like reality,
in respect to which his writings are—simply, in
one word, inimitable. The chapter coming next,
chapter three, that is, entitled " Another Man"
—as the ono before it has been typically called
(in reference to the plot) " The Alen from Some
where"—carries us onward into the intricacies of
that labyrinth the readers of " Our Mutual Friend"
are happily destin.id now to track out through
all its manifold windings during the next nineteen
months consecutively. The Police Station—the
Police Inspector, cool and deliberate, like an abbot