The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Little Dorrit. No. V. By Charles Dickens.

There are two perfectly, new characters intro•
duced in this fifth number of "Little Dorrit"--•
Pet's Lover, one Harry Gowan, a sort of Steerforth
in his way, and Amy's Lover, one Young John,
which (as. Mrs. Gamp would say) his family name
is Chivery ! Such capital portraitures as they are
—each of them—both of them—Pet's Lover, and
Amy's Lover—Harry Gowan and John Chivery
It is such a relief, too, to get among theni!after
that horrid Mother Clennam, and those abominable
Flintwinchs.- About whom and whose doings the
introductory chapter of the present instalment is
exclusively occupied. "Mrs. Flintwinch has an-
other Dream" is its title—and the dream recounted
is as usual, ghost-like and goose-fleshy, as befits the
horrible old tumble-down city-house on the crum-
bling crutches 1 Mistress Affery sitting in the
kitchen the while—and " them two clever ones"
(Jeremiah, of the " cut-down aspect," and she of
the wheel-chair and the impious balance-sheet a ith
Providence), closetted upstairs in familiar consulta-
tion. Then it is that the ghostly visit comes to Mrs.
Affery dozing before the kitchen grate, getting the
kettle ready for tea—with " a sound of rustling"
somewhere behind in the dark room, and " three
or four quick beats like a rapid step," and the
sense as of an " awful band" upon her shoulder
The description of the old house is good—but that of
the interview and consultation upstairs tedious to
the last degree. All the glimmering intelligence to
be gathered from it as yet, appears to be some dim,
vague, indefinable intimation difficult to express
in any way, to the effect that the clue to all these
mysteries will be discoverable some fine day or
goblin night, by means of Mrs. Flintwinch afore-
said. Enough of them, however, and turn we
now to the new-comets, and their associates.
First of all comes--" Nobody's Weakness"—can't
you guess what that is ? Well, let us whisper—
Love ! love growing up in the heart of good Arthur
Clennam, for—No ! not for Little Dorrit as one
might have anticipated, but for—Pet, otherwise
Minnie Meagles. Love gradual:y shining out
upon us, brightly, freshly, beautifully—as only
a master-hand could describe it with such
an infinite delicacy and novel tenderness I
-"Nobody's weakness"—leading us as by the most
natural sequence in the world to our acquaintance
with " Nobody's Rival"—this Gowan already men-
tioned. The manner in which it all comes about
is this—Daniel Doyce and Arthur Cleunam go down
together on a visit to their common friend (in some
particulars, be it said, their uncommon friend),
bluff, hearty Mr. Meagles, in a pleasant little re
treat of his, a sweet suburban cottage-residence at
Twickenham. A pretty, queer sort of a dwelling,
so stored with articles of the most miscellaneous
kind, picked up by Mr. Meagles during the course
of his continental excursions, that it seems, for all
the world, like the abode, saith Boz, of " an ami-
able Corsair !" Fancy among these curiosities,
"morsels of tesselated pavement from Hercula-,
neum and Pompeii, like petrified mince veal !
And in the little picture-room " a few of the regu-
lar sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord,
hair like Neptune's, wrinkles like tatooing, and with
such coats of varnish that every holy personage served-
for a fly trap, and became what is now called in-
the vulgar tongue Catch-em-alive 0!" Imagine
ono of these rareties of the fine arts, catalogued,
"Sage, Reading"—" a specially oily old gentleman
in a blanket, with. a swan's down tippet for a beard
and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie ceust !"
Among the singular household gods, the incongru
ous la, es and penatcs of his little cottage-home at
Twickenham, Mr. Meagles flourishes, together
with Madame, and Pet, and Tattycoram, assisted
by two blooming parlour-maids, a couple of dingy
men (when there is a little raider company than
usual), and a delightful old lady known as Mrs.
Tickit the cook and housekeeper. Here comes,
on the Sunday, to join the banquetting of Doyce
and C:ennam—and spoil it— the objectionable
Gowan and his hardly less objectionable dog. And
after these, in full dinner time, comes the " little
grander company" already hinted at in parenthesis
—to wit, the "poor little dull young Barnacle,"
with whom we are already well -acquainted—
Clarence Barnacle, son of the great Tite Barnacle,
and, as such, nephew of Lord Decimus, and
having as his grand-aunt on the mother's
side no ono less important and magnificent
—than—Lady Stiltstalking I It is our friend of
the eye=glass in fact—" a great ass," as -Gowan
tells us, " but one of the dearest and best fellows
that ever lived." The "great ass" greets Clennam
on his first coming among them all with an involun-
, tary—"Look here !—Upon my soul, you know I"
being in effect for the moment quite disconcerted.
Then his eye-glass—during the dinner—what a la-
byrinth of dill cultiesbe tumblesinto with it—getting
it "into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs.
Meagles's plate," having it hanging down his back
like a bell rope, and thence " disgracefully restored
to his bosom by ono of the dingy men !" Growing,

in fact, so enfeebled in intellect that he applies'
" spoons to his eye, forks, and other foreign matters
connected with the furniture of the dinner table, g
and all this through a nameless dread that Arthur
Ciennam is by some artful device coming round to
that point of wanting to know, you know ! How
delicious, too, is the satire conveyed througla
the, acct;unt of tke ui.conscious toadea i g of honest
Mr. Meagles in the p:eeuce of the nephew of Lord
Decimus, the grand nephew of Ltuly Stiltstalking,
the sou of the important Tite B. of the Circundo-
cution-office, the great ass, that poor dull little
Barnacle ! In his perfectly uninteresting company
Mr. Mangles becomes in effect what Mr. Albert
Smith rather indefinitely, and yet somehow quite
comprehensibly, des.gnates by the sesquipedalian
word of circumslogdologised ! Until Young Bar-
nacle goes away at last in a cab " feebly
smoking"—followed on foot by the objectionable
Gowan, Nobody's (of course Nobody's) Rival, ac-
companied in his turn by the objectionable dog—
there is no end to the wretched tuft-hunting. . .
The next chapter (the xviiith.) decidedly the best
chapter in the number, closing it indeed very ex-
quisitely—is all about " Little Dorrit's Lover"—
Young John, family name Chivery. Whose
father, the non-resident turnkey, hopes in the
fulness of time " to leave him the inheritance of
an, unstained key ! ' Who (the aforesaid Young
John)—even in his boyhood, " when, youth is prone
to wear its boots unlaced, and is, happily, uncon-
scious of digestive organs"—was wont to take cold
in one eye at the key-hole of the great lock of the
main door by dint of peeping at the queen of his
soul " through that airy perspective I' Who now
in his diminutive manhood still worships Little
Dorrit at a distance behind the counter of the little
tobacco-shop in Horsemonger-lane—the business of
which establishment, we are told by the way, was
altogether of too modest a character to support a
life-size Highlander, maintaining in lieu of it " a
little one on a bracket on the doorpost, who looked
like a fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to
take to a kilt !"

" From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after
an early dinner of baked viands, Young John issued
forth on his usual Sunday errand ;_ not empty-handed,
but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired
in a plum-coloured coat, with as largo a collar of black
Velvet as his figure couM carry ; a silken waistcoat, be-
decked with golden F_Trigi ; a chaste neck-kerchief much
in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of Liao
phen, ants on a buff ground ; pantaloons so highly deco-
rated with side-stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed
lute ; and a hat of state, very high and hard. Wheia the
prudent Mrs. Chivery perceived that in addition to these
adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves,
and a cane like a little finger-post, surmonnted by an
ivory hand marshalling him the way that he should go ;
and when she saw him in this heavy marching order,
turn the corner to the right ; she remarked to Mr. Chi-
very who was at home at the time, that she thought she
knew which way the wind blew."

Visiting the Father of the Marshalsea, with his'ac-
customed offering of cigars, Young John learns
that Amy has gone for a solitary walk on South-
wark Bridge, whither ho follows her, and where
they both come at last to a pathetic explanation.
In the midst of the anguish of which, consequent
upon the direct evasion of his suit by Little Dorrit,
Little Dorrit's lover is thus spoken of by our
novelist—" The mournfulness of his spirits and the
gorgeousness of his appearance might have made
him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him re-
spectable ! " His delicacy prompts him to ask Little
Dorrit if ho may put a question to her ?—the mo-
mentous question of course. To which Little Dor-
rit—" If you please, John Chivery—if you please,
no." " Never, Miss Amy?" "No, if you please.
Never." " Oh, Lord !" gasped Young John. The
pathos of this simple ejaculation is something inde-
scribable. As also the result of Little Dorrit
bidding him goodbye, hoping he will have a good
wife one day and be a happy " I am
sure you will deserve to be happy, and you will
be, John." "As she held out her hand to him
with these words, the heart that was under the
waistcoat of sprigs—mere slopwork if the truth
must be known—swelled to the size of the heart of
a :gentleman ; and the poor common little fellow
having no room to hold 2t, burst into tears." With
that we close our notice of the fifth number of
Little Dorrit—still let us hope destined to grow
into a companion picture to that of our glorious
, David Copperjield.

During the war nearly all the gunpowder and as many
of the troops as could be spared were withdrawn from
Canada. The movements of men and ammunition towards
that province, which are now in progress, are simply the
consequence of the necessity of replacing them, and in•
dicate no hostile feeling towards the United States
expectation of war in that quarter. .