The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-04 00:00:00

LITER Ai UTIE
BLEAK ROL/6'E. .No VI. By Charles

Dicier

Accorrlieg to our epitee, .ee h ,peiest ins'atrient
of Bleak House ~er. eul)!Is!ael ii tne current., on, for
August—A hough it celestes no irelesi(lual incident
comparable in pathos to the ex(rit.itH simpli,,,ity of the
scene with iittie Che.rle. B.e. debarred from 'further
"nitnueion with Cha!ley, we are sit!l privilrged to
encounter Mrs. B3dger, who acelts of her first and
second "as if they were parts of a charade "—and
!•kitr. Skirnpole ohj,ctine in the quietest strains
a_
leaginahle to the pi-rson in posse.sien sweeping his
furniture off in
such a highly " indelicate manner"—
I3uythorne inveighing wi•li the lungs of a
nto
and
against the met arc.ll,gete coachman, who
was twenty-six minutes behind time, anl ought
theref
Bo °re to be incontinently put ro death. lewrence
defYt,horne's country residere.e, near Chesney \Void, is
le""IY ainted le,,f and m3rrow, and
goo
eb P.
• --"Y
erry in the garden being visible almost
cher
as clearly es reality to " the very shadows of the
ry The
trees and apile trees heavy with fruit!"
Loy
BterY about Ester Situnnersen is rendered in a
'"aing degree less enigmatical than before. From in-
cidents occurring between the heroine and Mr.
abirralyce in his ten:porn-yr " growlery," and
rvllt'A subse-
lY with Lady Dedlock in ttee little church in the
I'', and afterwards in one of the lodges at Chesney
Weld during a thunderstorm, beautifully described, it
would seem more plainly than ever that the. proud
lady of fashion knows more of Esther's originthan
might by the generality be conjectured. Thinking
of this, the mind Of the more ebservant read-r reverts
With a sort of shudder to the le,dy of the poor squalid
OPium eating law writer " N2mo," buried away
a,,tc°ng the rats in the " consecrated grcund " of one
of the London graveyards. The last chapter in the
number (ch. xis.) entitled " Moving on," is perhaps
the most cleverly written of any yet comprised
ill the narrative—a chapter that Dickens
alone could have indited. It opens with the descrip-
tion of our inns of law during the broiling weather
of the long vacation. Here is a little sketch as true
to the life as a calotype :
" There is only one Judge in town. Even he only
comes twice a we. .k to sit in eh-elite-I.s. If the country
folks of those assize towns on his circuit could only ace
biro nowt No lull-bottomed wig, no red petticoats, no
fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-
shaved gentleman in white trousers and a white hat,
With sea-bronze on the judicial countenance, and a strip
of bark peeled by the solar rays from the judicial nose,
Who caqs in a the sh(lt-fish shop as ho comes along, and
drinks iced ginger-beer!"
Then what can be more accurate than the following
account of the dog-days in the vicinity of Chancery.
lane ?._—
" It is the hottest long vacation known for many
years. All the young clerks are madly in love, and,
according to their various &peps, pine for bliss with
the belov-d object, at Margate, Rsmsgite, or Gravesend.
411 the middle-aged clerks think their families too large.
All the unowned dogs why stray into the hies of u ort,
and pant about staircases and other dry places, seeking
stater, give short howls of aggravation. All the blind
a3ea's ,lugs in the streets draw their masters against,
etunPs) or trip them over buckets. A shop with a sun-
blind, and a wateted pavement, and a hoed of gold and
silver fish in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple-bar
Bets so hot, that it is, to the adjacent Strand and Fleet-
street, what a heater is in au urn, and keeps them sim-
nuling ell night."
kr. Claadband, the gentleman in the " Ministry"
Who from calling himself a " vessel" (figuratively
BPeaking), is erroneously supposed by some to be en-
gaged in navigation—" a, large yellow man with a fat
smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal
of train oil in his system"—the Rev. Mr. Chadband,
Who regards Providence as a creditor who sometimes
consents to a composition—is a companion picture to
the Rev. Mr. Stiggins, famous in the days of Pick-
Wick. His " retiring into private life until be invests a
little capital of supper in the oil trade"—is (in more
senses than one) a rich idea. Poor Jo re-appears,
Bing the unfortuna,e Wight who is ordered to " move
(according to the intimation conveyed in the
mere heading of the chapter) by one of the more assi-
duous policemen. His account of the fate of the so-
vereign given to him by Lady Dedlock is sufficiently
characteristic. A couple of half-crowns havo been
shaken out of his rags by the policeman, whereupon,
• says
B.oi
ihnegrar
s W
e wooet's left, Mr. Ssngsby,' says Jo, `out of
isbs a servant endgaisvecommeebtyo m
♦alyady in a wale as sad she
crosain one night and
_ ked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the ouse wot him
_asvoe giv the ritin to (lied at, and the berrin ground
oi he's berrid in. She sea to me she ses " are you the
"" at the Inkwhich?" she sas. I sea" yes" I ses. She
teteime she sea " can you show me all them places?"
titidaictai
it
Ii can" I sea. And she ses to me '• do it,
And ,
a° and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it.
with dirty t hens tench of the sov'ring neither,' says Jo,
chaog,3
Toninall aeando„eTt;l 8.
afore fur
they'd square I had to paye
i fivet
fur to giv me
bob, down in
*ha'? I
, s
was Lisle"
and 'he laa Young man he thieved another five
eP arid another boy he thieved ninepence
on ndlord he stood drains round with a lot more
canthat :din:
Poor fellow! There
I MUG to ?" in
nre melancholyjisoaexlaim,,, truth in all this
" 0 my eye ! where'
police answer to the mandate of the
Justice
we are almost tempted to agree with the
j:tablQt Mr.
Salg,by's objection, " Well! really
e) you know,—really that does seem a ques-
" Where know What falls from the lips
eel J" of Poor , you .
reabout, the lady that gave him the
Kn is Ikt ly to develope the plot of the story, falling
as it does in the hearing not only of Mr. and Mrs.
Suag•b.v, but also of the disconsolate—and inquisitive
a
--"PPv. The drollest passages in the number
are G'aiter's mistakes in the announcement, and sub-
elletently her intimation of the cabman's message_
spectrally—as that of "one thouling seven hunderd
and eighty-two." The most unaccountable circulate
"'lnce in the narrative is that of Hortense walking
shoeless through the wet gras.

CLAIRVOYANCE AND PRACTICAL ALES-
111ERISM. By James Esdaile, M.D. Ilippolyte
Bailliere.

Asa renlatkable illustration of that " feline tens-
elty to life" facetiously attributed to mesmerism and
tnettnerist?, by the author, Iri the very opening sen-
tence of his preface, his own volume way be accepted
111 testimony. It is, without question, one of the most
curious and, in some respects, one of the most extra-
ordinary works ever written upon clairvoyance. Every
Page is crowded with startling reflections, and every
chapter with astounding incidents, facts (so called)
being therein as " plentiful as blackberries." Dr.
sdaile, formerly Presidency surgeon at Cdlcutte,bas
already appeared as a writer upon this enthralling sub-
JP'ct—his " Mesmerism in India" having first directed
to his ability the attention of the rest of his profession.
Ilia present work is for several reasons much more
Worthy of consideration than its
.predecessor. The
Motto upon the title-page is capital—the words of
Cardinal de Itetz—" On se trompe plus souvent par
yes ti:6tiances, quo par se confidnces." And certainly
the writer acts throughout boldly enough upon the
deducions from that thought—he is credulous upon
all
ramllay,ters tending to back up his argument, and na-
enough we will allow in several instances,
from the astonishing nature of some among the
othriber of his revelations. His volume is somewhat
gracefully dedicatrd to the present Governor-General
of India, the Most Noble the Marquis of Dalhousie.
Altogether the book is of such a nature that we can
have but little doubt as to its favourable reception,
not only in the mother country, but in her depen-
dency of Hindostan.

.MEMOIRS _OF THOMAS .HOLCROFT

Longmans and Company.
A timely reprint of these very singular memoirs of
a man of strong natural powers, written by himself,
enntributes a recent addition to the cheap arid in-
teresting serial of the Traveller's Library. Already
that extraordinary series of publications has evi-
denced its claim upon the gratitude of the reading
I)„.tiblie by a succession of brilliant, and many of them
"45alerly compositions. Atn•lng these are comprised
82P, of the finest of those superb essays of Macaulay,
which first achieved for him tame in literature. Then,
4111°reover, there are " Laing's Travels in Norway,
alinfici
l'• ilis'a collation of " Sir Roger de Coverley,"
Inglake's splendid " Ei3 hen," and " Hue's
Tii"els in Tartary," and ." flolcrof,.'s Memoirs."
tulleslast-mentioned reprint now lying before us for
it „"ieration cannot fail now-a days, any more than
B"tci en its original app-arlnce, to fast:in-0e the C 11...
ader of even the most careless KA indifferent
1)1,
._, by recounting the vicissitudes pissed through
ptit"atro'intr of levers rising from obscurity to a re-

_,..
21
~E 0 ENE h ii.., :J. (.., ;; 4,' es ACT-5 and
"7 W. IV. c. 50, and the Statute., and eases re
jrz„ling thereto, brought down to the Present Time,
,52 with Introduction, Notes. and Index. By
•"fred A. Fry. E,q., arrister ~t. Liw Cloths
tight, publisher (by authority) to the Poor.law
411'd 1852.
This • •
this, is a very useful manual for all surveyors,
o 8"r f -
.3, and other- concerned in the admin strition
th •
di, elinotont departalf.nt, to which the work is
Th:,, viz., the G 4,eral Highways 'AO)" Kingdom.
t° )h.i'et of the i arne i su'hor has been to bring up
2 i, --e Pre,ent time (he r fete to an Ant pist,..?d the
Ve ti" May lair, ar.d a Mit thrown out only at few
fc.: ago), the etatut,--‘ and i wijoial orhorittes rc,..
x, t:',"X to the governin, Act, the 5 aiir, 6 Vi. IV., c•5O.
th tilastr.itog this one Act, the. inc.!, x ,bows in that,
etiat in addition to a considerdnie number of thcided
th%") Mr. Fry bra been oompellfd to refer to more
1:4 twenty five additional statutes, which directiv or
threctly bear on the iinoortant Act. Tris
~it;11)1; is one of a rooKt woo „Tilf;
Z' atles Inc in this n-,spect as
pu bl i,,h(- d by Mr.
:ding
puhli.her
70 utrhority to the Poor-taw
'4 4rit of liealth--:h i ' -
belt to
v
tn‘i, 0 o ket of the sforlEs ef-ite the several itnpurtAth t t subjects
guard. and thc General
811 stores ou these su • -
.Pritetical.and_ ni, 1
r-Puiar cb,aracter thoroughlY in.;
'ugiblii and accesoible tot he huge 141;see, in'tereste,.
.