The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-07 00:00:00

PERIODICALS.

Little Dortit. No. 111.

By Charles Dickens.

Better and better. Charles Dickens is surpass-
ing himself in "Little Dorrit." The new number
for February is a masterpiece. Among its profu-
sion of merits it is difficult to particularise even
the most remarkable. From the exquisite delinea-
tion of the heroine in chapter nine, to the demo-
niacal portraiture of Rigaud in the eleventh, it is
all wonderful. The. intermediate chapter—the
tenth—being, of all three, the most wonderful.
Wonderful as a humorous satire upon the whole
system of our muddled Constitution and muddling
Government. The Circumlocution Office isa thing
to be remembered. The Barnacles, especially the
Tito Barnacles, are personages we believe not very
easily to be forgotten. They are types of a class—
the limpits of the body politic—creatures dimly
hinted by the Greys, the Elliotts, and the Rus-
sells. Old men-of-the-sea sticking to the shoul-
ders of the Siubad of the nations—like Tito (very
tight) Barnacles. Hero is Boz's sketch of Tite
Barnacle, senior :

" Mr. Barnacle dated from a better time, when the
country was not so parsimonious, and the Circumlocution
Office was not so badgered. He wound and wound folds
of white cravat round his neck as he wound folds of
tape and paper round the neck of the country. His
wristbands and collar were oppressive, his voice and
manner were oppressive. Ho had a largo watch-chain and
bunch of seals, a coat buttoned up to inconvenience, a
waistcoat buttoned no to inconvenience, au unwrinkled
pair of trousers, a stiff pair of boots. lie was altogether
splendid, massive, overpowering, and impracticable. He
seemed to have been sitting for his portrait to Sir Thomas
Lawrence all the days of lie life."

How possibly, however, are we to give his inimi-
tably delightful pencilling of Tite Barnacle, junior,
without transferring bodily page after page into our
columns from this glorious third number ? Here
is the first forshadowing of his entity in the few
first preliminary touches :
"The present Barnacle, holding Mr. Clennam's card in
his hand, had a youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little
whisker, perhaps, that ever was seen. Such a downy tip
on his callow chin, that he seemed half fledged like a young
bird; and a compassionate observer might have urged, that if
he had not singed the calves of his legs, he would have died
of cold. He had a superior eye-glass dangling round his
neck, but unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes,
and such limp little eyelids, that it wouldn't stick in when
he put it up, but kept tumbling out against his waistcoat
buttons with a click that discomposed him very much."
Besides these, there is yet another sketch of
a perfectly different specimen of these same
übiquitous Barnacles—in the person of the
airy young Barnacle, the engaging young
Barnacle, the bright young Barnacle, the light-
in-hand young Barnacle, the touch-and-go
young Barnacle, ready for any little bit of
fat that came to hand"—a " dashing young Bar-
nacle ; in a word; likely to become a statesman and
make a figure." Then there - are the celebrated
Stiltstalkings—" better endowed in a sanguineous
point of view than with real or personal property"
—intermarried with the Barnacles. Jumbled. up
with whom, in our recollections of the Circumlo-
eution-office, are—Mr. Wobbler, paper-knife in
hand, and his mouth full of bread and marmalade ;
Jenkinson, the outraged messencrer,, roused from
his consumption of mashed potatoes and gravy be-
hind the partition ; the gentleman polishing his
gun-barrel on his handkerchief, and a number of
other worthies, including number one, number
two, and number three, each of them astonishingly
characteristic. Mr. Lindsay, the shipowner, not
having forgotten his own " Peter Dick," we pre-
sume, will be the first to appreciate their marvel-
lous truthfulness to the originals. So let us com-
mend every master-touch in this extraordinary
" Chapter X., Containing the whole Science of
Government," to the attention of everybody, right
and left, here, there, and everywhere. It is sug-
gestive, we take it, almost of a Revolution, so
painfully does it reveal the whole bungling idiotcy
of our present system of administration. A system
conducted, as Mr. Dickens reminds us, upon the
great principle of How Not To Do It ! Hear him !
Every word has the seed of an inestimable truth
in it. Every sentence has its golden value. The
story told in this one remarkable chapter
of "Little Dorrit" has its universal applica-
tion—its manifold significance, beyond the
reach of anything like exaggeration ! Beginning
with its general outline of the Circumlocution Office
with its finger at once "in the largest public pie
and the smallest public tart"—and ending with the
particular commemoration of the infamy of Daniel
Doyce the Inventor, the innocent rascal in whose
uncomplainingpatience, good, honest, warm-hearted
Mr. Meagles discovers such extraordinary aggrava-
tion ! Apari from what is actually presented to us
in this new number of "Little Dorrit " for Feb-
ruary, we cannot but discern through it, by a sort
of presentiment, one or two wonderful creations to
be summoned into existence a little later on by the
genius of our great novelist—foremost among which
wo have a foretaste of something (in two senses of
the term) "out of the common" in one Plornish the
Plasterer of Bleeding Heart Yard, already seen in
a sort of glimpse, but as yet to be.. formally intro-
duced. It were idle, however, merely to anticipate
the good things in store for us in " Little Dorrit "
when we have actually so much in hand that is
literally, we do believe, in many respects quite
matchless and unapproachable. For instance—
Maggy ! A wonderful creation ! Granddaughter
to old Mrs. Bangham deceased. Tutored by the
application of " broom handles and pokers." A
great awkward clumsy being of eight-and-twenty—
imagining herself to be no more than ten—and,
tenderly, reverently, loving poor, tiny, Dorrit as
" Little Mother." Here is her portrait as touched'
in with a few magic pen-and-ink strokes by the
hand of the greatest of all living delineators of
character :
" She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones,
large features, large feet and hands, large eyes, and no
hair. Her large eyes were limpid and almost colourless ;
they seemed to be very little affected by light, and to stand
unnaturally still. There was also that attentive lis-
tening expression in her face, which is seen in the faces
of the blind ; but she was not blind, having one toler-
ably serviceable eye. Her face was not exceedingly ugly,
though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile;
a good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but ren-
dered pitiable by being constantly there. A great white
cap, with a quantity of opaque frilling that was always
flapping about, apologised for Maggy's baldness ; and made
it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to retain its
place upon her head, that it held en round her neck like a
gipsey's baby. A commission of haberdashers could alone
have repotted what the rest of her poor dress was made of;
but it had a strong general resemblance to sea-weed, with
here and there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her shawl looked par-
ticularly like a tea-leaf, after long infusion."

O the exquisite beauty and gentleness shadowed
out of the relationship in which Little Mother and
poor, bald, goggle-eyed, demented, draggled Maggy
stand in regard to each other I No wonder there
are glimmerings of a strange love growing up in
the heart of middle-aged Arthur Clennam for Little
Dorrit, humble needlewoman though she is, child
though she seems, niece though she be of Dirty
Dick, sister of vagabond Tip, daughter of the de-
graded, white-haired, Father of the Marshalsea.
Another extract we must give from this same mar-
vellous number of " Little Dorrit." It is the de-
scription given by Mr. Dickens of the messengers,
go-betweens, and errand-bearers of the Marshal-
soa.

" The shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness,
the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency,
was a sight to see. Such threadbare coats and trousers,
such fusty gowns and shawl; such squashed hats and bon-
nets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and walking-
sticks, never wore seen in Rag Fair. All of them wore the
cast-off clothes of other mon and women ; were made up
of patches and pieces of ether people's individuality,
and had no sartorial existence of their own proper.
Their walk was the walk of a race apart. They had
a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the cor-
ner, as if they were eternally going to the pawnbrokers.
When they coughed, they coughed like people accus-
tomed to be forgotten on door-steps and in draughty
passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which
gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental dis-
turbauco, and no satisfaction. As they eyed the stranger
in passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes—hungry,
sharp, speculative as to his softness if they were accredited
to him, and the likelihood of his standing semething hand-
some. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high
shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and
pinned, and darned and dragged their clothes, frayed their
button-holes, leaked out of their figures in dirty little ends
of tape, and issued frem their mouths in alcoholic breath-
ings."

Scattered all through the number, too, there are

little casual " touches" tlt the pen of Charles
Dickens alone could have produced. As where
Mr. Cripples's pupils, having allowed Arthur
Clenuam and Little Dorrit to pass by while they are
gazing at them in open-mouthed silence, celebrate
their getting away to a safe distance by " bursting
into pebbles and yells, and likewise into reviling,
dances," Sc.l- As where Arthur!Clennain having
arrived at the house in which Frederick Dorrit
lodges, finds the door-post "as full of bell-
handles as a cathedral organ is of stops," and
thereupon stands dubious as to which might be
" the clarionet stop." As where the old orchestral
player lingers over his pinches of snuff, as over
everything else, " feebly, sparely, and slowly,"
and yet " with a certain little trickling enjoyment
of them playing in the poor worn nerves about the
corners of his eyes and mouth." The great Ob-
server of the Age shines out, moreover, in little
casual allusions, not by any means to be passed by
as insignificant—as in reference to the " suppleness
of thumb" noticeable in Daniel Doyce, in his trick
of " tilting up his hat at the back every now and
then, as if he were contemplating some half-finished
work of his hand, and thinking about it," or again
iu " that under tone" in his way of speaking, indi-
cative of the mechanic accustomed to " consider
and adjust with great nicety." Then Barnacle
Junior's " Oh, I say. Look here 1" and his anxiety
(seeing Clennam's brown face) to know whether
"it's anything about Tonnage ," and his sticking
his glass in his right eye " in that inflam-
matory way that the eye began watering dread-