The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-01 00:00:00

EDDARD AND THE COSTERMONGER I

The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond's
without the clue. Mr. Wegg, having reached the quarter
indicated, inquired for the Bower half a dozen times with-
out the least success, until he remembered to ask fur Har-
mony Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits
of a hoarse gentleman and a donkey, whom be had much
perplexed.
"Why, yer mean Old Harman's, do yer ?" said the
hoarse gentleman, who was driving his donkey in a truck,
with a carrot for a whip. " Why did'nt yer niver say so ?
Eddard and me is a goin' by him I Jump in."
Mr. Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited
his attention to the third person in company, thus

"Now, you look at Lidard's ears. What was it as you
named, agin ? Whisper."
Mr. W4,gg whispered, "Boffin's Bower."
" Eddaro I (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to B an's
Bower I"

Edward, wii h his ears lying back, remained immoveable,
" Eddard I (keep yer hi on his care) cut away to Old
Harmon's."

Edward instantly pricked up his ears to their utmost,
and rattled off at such a paco that Mr. Wegg's conversation
was jolted out of him in a mast dislocated state.

" Was-it-Ev-verajail ?" asked Mr. Wegg, holdiog on,

"Not a proper jail, woc you and me would get committed
to," returned his escort ; they giv' it the name, on accounts
of Old Harmon living solitary there,"
"And-why-did-they-caliitharm-Ony ?" asked Wegg.
"Oa accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like
a speeches of chaff. Harmon's Jail; Harmony Jail. Work•
ing it round like."

"Doyouknow-Mist-Erboff-in ?" naked Wegg.

" I should think so 1 Everybody do about here.
Eddard knows him, (Keep yer hi on his ears.) Noddy
Boffin, Eddard 1"

The effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect
of causing a temporary disappearance of Edward's head,
casting his hind hoofs in the air, greatly accelerating the
pace and increasing the jol:ing, that Mr. Wegg was fain to
devote his attention exclusively to holding on, and to relin-
quish his desire of ascertaining 'fa hethee this homage to
Boffin was to b 3 considered complimentary or the reverse.
Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg dis-
creetly lost no time in slipping out at the back of the truck•
The moment he was landed, his late driver with a wave of
the carrot, said " Supper, Eddard I" and he, the hind hoofs,
the truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into the air toge-
ther, in a kind of apotheosis.

In the next chapter called " Cut Adrift," we
learn more about the Hexams, particularly about
Lizzie and Charley, the latter of whom it is that is
" Cut Adrift." There is an exquisite little scene
at page 55, where the boy is described as leaving hia
wretched home for ever—a scene that no one but
Charles Dickens could ever have dreamt of, or,
dreaming of, could so have written. We read it
through a mist that often makes the letterpress
hardly decipherable. Here, too, in this chapter we
get at the interior of the Fellowship-Porters' road-
side public house, kept by one Miss Potterson—an
old lady—(what though landlady of a public house)
—a worthy old lady that we are already prepared
to fail in love with. In the next chapter, where
"Mr. Wegg looks after himself," we are admitted to
yet another interior, one stranger than the cozy
bar of the Fellowship-Porters—stranger even than
the Bower of Nicodemus Boffin—meaning
the inside
of the shop and habitat of Mr. Venus, the melan-
choly love-lorn Articulator of Skeletons. Com.
mend us, for a hearty laugh, to his contention
with the small boy who comes in for the
stuffed canary—the squabble wound up by Mr.
Venus with "You've no idea how small you'd coneout if I had the araculaing
of you r Altogether
a capital instalment, as full of good things as a
Christmas plum-pudding. Mr.
Venus, surrounded
by the trophies of his art, and Miss Patterson in the
snug little bar of the Fellowship Porters, with that
squinting vagabond Riderhood (llixam'd late part-
ner) leaning, pot in hand, over the halt-door to talk
to the old landlady, are the subjects here selected
byMarcus Stone for illustration.

" Can You Forgive /ler ?"
By ANTHONY TROLLOP& NO. VI.
This story, as a story, is here, throughout number
six, almost, as one may say, at a standstill. The
people talk, and that is all. Nothing happens. Bu
they talk—though for the most pirt the smallest ot
small talk—delightfully. We skim over the page.
amused, often smiling, never laughing, that is, neve,
laughing right oat. Indeed, we hardly recollect
ever doing so whila reading even the best
and happiest of Mr. Trollope's thoroughly &mus-
ic g and widely-popular fictions. Though it would
be difficult, and probably unfair to pronounce any
opinion in that way as yet decisively—" Can You
Forgive Her" hardly seems to us to give promise
of taking rank with this rapid writer's cleverer
imaginings. " His Framley Parsonage," let us say,
or his "Small House at Allington." Nevertheless,
we take it that it would be almost impossible for
Anthony Trollope to write a whole dull page, cer-
tainly not a whole chapter. Hence the marvel of
his popularity. He is not the least bit in the world
of a bore. He always entertains us. We read him
with the greatest ease, and most frequently with
the greatest satisfaction. But while this is
so, we never yet to this day—and we have
read delightedly almost everything he has ever
written (with his name to i•)—w" once
to this day met, in any onu of his bidalts, with a.

single descriptive passage that we should be tempted
to quote as a specimen of brilliant writing. His
forte lies almost exclusively in the record of imagi-
nary conversations. Of this fact, the new number of
his current serial story affords in itself the amplest
kvidence.