The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-04 00:00:00

THE SUN

ligion an universal toleration—who, in rare instances, as
Lord Elversfoot said, are willing to admit a select few
of the middle class into their society, but would at the
same time keep back the crowd which is treading on
their heels—who !Teak of commerce and manufactures
with all reverence, and honour those who have attained
pre-eminence in life through their own industry, but
who would be greatly astonished if any of those persons
approached them with familiarity, and did not aprly to
their .manners ouch terms as condescending ' and
'affable.'"
One of the most charming passages in the whole of
" Ernest Vane" is that descriptive of the hero's
sojourn for a few days at the Cistercian Monastery,
near Loughborough. If the present c {fusion has not
materially enhanced, it has in no degree deteriorated
from Mr. Baillie Cochrane's reputation as a novelist.
On the contrary, it gives yet larger promise that, with
less precipitation in the printing from his manuscripts,
he may ultimately obtain a secure footing in the light
literature of his country.

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED.)

DAVID COPPEII_FIELD. No. VI. By
Charles Dickens.
Several new characters are introduced in this, the
sixth, number of " Copperfield," best and most beau-
tiful of which is thet of dear old Doctor Strong,
David's new schoolmaster—the gentlest, wisest,
oddest cf schoolmasters —the worthy antithesis of
Squeers, and Blimber, and Creakle. Foremost among
the peculiarities of old Dr. Strong is his habit of
looking out for Greek roots (a sort of " botanical
furor," according to the apprehension of poor Trot),
towards the compilation of a new Dictionary. And,
certainly, in what Stern calls his hobbyhorsical notion;
most wonderful of all most wonderful Lexicons would
this same Dictionary prove on its termination—
eclipsing the efforts of all preceding lexicographers,
and threatening even to surpass dear old Austin Cax-
ton's Great Work on Human Errors.
" Adams (says little David with the delightrullest
symplicity) Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for
mathematics, had mada a calculation, I was informed,
of the time this Dictionary would take in completing,
on the Doctor's plan, and at the Doctor's rate of going.
He considered that it might be done in one thousand six
hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the Doctor's
last, or sixty-second birth-day."
Dr. Strong's school establishment must assuredly
be the most charmingly monastic place in all Canter-
bury—with the stray rooks and jackdaws sailing down
from the Cathedral towers "to walk with a clerkly-
bearing on the grass plot," and with great stone urns
" set up on the top of the red brick wall, at regular
distances all round the court, like sublimated
skittles, for Time to play at." Dr. Strong's young
wife, moreover, must be the most bewitching little
body who ever gave cherry-coloured ribbons to strip-
ing cousins on their way to India, and went into
fainting fits in the passage. Phiz has sketched her
very cleverly and gracefully; and, in the other illus-
tration, has bit off to the very life the immortal Mr.
Wilkins Micawber—his bald head with no more hair
on it than an egg, his shirt-collar, his eyeglass, his
jaunty carriage, and all complete. For Mr. Mi-
cawber" turns up" again in the most charmingly un-
expected manner imaginable, walking in suddenly
from the street while David is taking tea with the
umble Uriah Heap, and the umble Mrs. Veep, his
mother, and that umble dwelling which is in every
respect a kind of visible acknowledgment of their
umbleness. The character of Uriah is refreshingly
original, with his ejaculatory remarks—" Oh, thank
you, Master Copperfield, oh thank you !
Oh yes, indeed, Master Copperfield, oh, cer-
tainly !" and the like. The Micawbers too "come
out" with remarkable effect on the occasion of their
re-appearance, especially where Mr. Micawber ob-
serves of the beloved partner of his existence, " She
is tolerably convalescent; the twins no longer derive
their sustenance from Nature's founts—in short" (in
one of his bursts of confidence) " they are weaned."
Great, super-eminently great too are the Micawbers
on the conclusion of their banquet in honour of their
friend Copperfield, when (during the digestion of the
elegant dish of fish, the kidney end of a loin of veal
roasted, fried sausage meat, the partridge, and the
pudding, under the generous influence of wine, strong
ale, nod hot punch), they sing " Auld lang syne."
" When we came," says little David, "to Here's a
hand my trusty frere,' we all joined hands round the
table ; and when we declared we would take a right
gude Willie Naught,' and hadn't the least idea what
it meant, we were really affected." Little David, how-
ever, we must call him no longer, for by the end of
the present number he has become the head boy in
Dr. Strong's school, his age being seventeen. Of all
his retrospects up to the attainment of those years of
discretion, commend us to his love passages in regard
to: Miss Shepherd, a little chit of a boarding-school
Miss, and subsequently to Miss Larkins, a young
lady, average about thirty. The Brazil nuts—the
thrill going up the right arm of his jacket and coming
out at his hair—the sentimentality which makes
him lose his appetite and wear his best
silk neckerchief continually the waltz, the
bear's-grease, and the boots—are all expressive
of the metamorphosis from the child into the hobble-
dehoy. Worthiest of all of remembrance, neverthe-
less, is his warlike rencontre with the young butcher,
of whom it is said—" There is a vague belief abroad,
that the beef-suet with which he anoints his head gives
him unnatural strength."
" It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow,
at the corner of a well. I meet the butcher by ap-
pointment. I am attended by a select body of our
boys ; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young pub-
lican, and a sweep. The preliminaries aro adjusted, and
the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment
the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left
eyebrow. In another moment I don't know where the
wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is. I hardly
know which is myself and which the butcher, we are
always in such a tangle and tustle, knocking about upon
the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody
but confident ; sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping
on my second's knee ; sometimes I go in at the butcher
madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, with-
out appearing to discompose him at all. At last I
awake, very queor about the head, as from a giddy
sleep, and see the butcher walking off; congratulated
by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican,
and putting on his coat as ho goes; from which I augur,
justly, that the victory is his."
It is with a sort of revengeful satisfaction that we
learn, at the end of the eighteenth chapter, that
David Copperfield, smarting under some new provo-
cation from the butcher, goes out with him once
more and gloriously defeats him. Our anxieties are
at rest after the avowal. We have a confidence in
his destinies.