The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-06 00:00:00

LlT?2,ATtrg,ri.

• Little Dorrit. No. XVII. By Charles Dickens.
An enthralling and, in some respects, a really
wonderful number of " Little Dorrit. V'onderful
for the effect produced by two or three most start-
ling incident-4. How "Mistress Affery makes a
conditional promise respecting her Dreams "—re-
lated in the twenty-thfrd chapter—we care not to
speak about : seeing that the same leaden dullness
as of old, the same impenetrable haze of obscurity,
the same grim, weird, ghostly, ghastly, eltrich mys-
tery hangs stilt doggedly, perseveringly, and pro-
vokingly over everything in any way relating to
the House upon Crutches ! All we can hope, is that
sooner or later, some fine day, or (more appropri-
ately, perhaps) some dreadful night, the House
upon Crutches may tumble clown,hbruptly—s wal-
lowing up under a cloud of dust that abominable
life-in-death oldhag Mrs. Clennam, together with the
other " clever one," Mr. Flint winch to wit—scraping;
his horny chin—with the bow of his cravat halter-
W:S3 under his ear—screwing himself against the
whole world like a villainous piece of relay ma-
chinery ! That is really all our hope in regard to
that household—if we add, that is to say, our good
wish for weak-minded MiStress Affery: namely,
that just precisely the very moment before the
downfall she may rush out of the building, with her
apron over her eyes—thereby snatching herself " in
the very nick" from destruction. Nothing further
is learnt through the twenty-third chapter about
the disappearance of Rigaud, otherwiseThandois the
Murderer—although, with a view to the possible
making of some discovery, Arthur (preceded by
Mrs., and followed by Mr. Flintwinch) acccompanies
Flora through his mother's dilapidated dwelling,
in a tour of inspection. Something, however, very
much to the purpose is heard in the two subse-
quent chapters, the 24th and 25th, about the Great
Merdle, the millionnaire. So that we know at last all
about " hie complaint." And so does Bar—and so
does Physician ! Mr. Merdle commits suicide, and
proves to be not the greatest capitalist of his age,
but the greatest scoundrel, the greatest swindler,
"the greatest forger, and the greatest thief that
ever cheated the gallows 1" He borrows a little
tortoiseshell penknife from Fanny and Sparkler—
and going incontinently thereupon to some neigh-
bouring warm-baths, dies the death of a self-assas-
sin ! The way in which all this is told, we repeat,
is something wonderful. It is supremely impres-
sive. It is worthy of Boz--worthy of the author
of "Oliver Twist" and "Martin Chuzzlewit."
With that amazing admixture of the terrible and
the humorous, which is among Mr. Dickens' most
striking characteristics, we have in these two con-
trasting chapters the most laughable deicription
preceding the most terrible ! The colloquy be-
tween Fanny and Sparkler one Sunday evening
in their stuffy little abobe in " the cen-
tre of the habitable globe," as our author
fascetiously designates what is called " The
World"—could hardly be funnier if it had been
written by Mr. Dickens in the days of " Pickwick."
Mrs. Sparkler's indignation at Edmund's " looking
so aggravatingly large" has the drollest effect
imaginable. In token of which take the following
'fragmentary scrap of their conversation :
"Now, Edmund, come here ! Come a little nearer,
I want to be able to touch you with my fan, that I may
impress you very much with what I am going to say.
T:3at will do. Quite close enough. Oh, you do look so
big I
" Mr. Sparkler apologised for the circumstance,
pleaded that he couldn% help it, and said that ' our fel-
lows,' without more particularly indicating whose fel-
-1
lows, used to call him by the name of Quinbus Flestrin,
Junior, or the Young Man Mountain.
" ' You ought to have, told me so, before,' Fanny
compl tined.
" ' My dear,' returned Mr. Sparkler, rather gratified,
' I didn't know it would interest you, or I would have
made a point of telling you.'
" ' There ! For goodness sake, don't talk, said
Fanny; '.I want to talk, myself.'"
A little later on in the interview she is actually
compelled to request Sparkler "to go round to the
other side of tne sofa and sit in the window cur-
tain, to tone himself down !" Here, however, is
something still better in its way, the mention of
the first rumours in regard to Mr. Merdle's Sui-
cide :
" The report that the great man was dead. got about
with fearful rapidity. At first, he was dead of all the
diseases that ever were known, and of several bran-new
maladiAs invented with the speed of Light to meet
the demand of the occasion. He had concealed a dropsy
from infancy, he lead inherited a large estate of water on
the chest from, his grandfather, he had had an operation
performed upon him every morning of his life for eighteen
years, he had been subject to the explosion of important
veins in his body after the manner of fireworks, he had
had something the matter with his lungs, he Lai had
something the matter with his heart, he had had some-
thing the matter with his brain. Five hundred people
who sat down to breakfast, entirely uninformed on the
whole subject, believed before they had done breakfast,
that they privately and personally knew Physician to have
said to Mr. Merdle, 'You must expect to go out, some
day, like the snuff of a candle,' and that they knew Mr.
Merdle to have said to Physician, ' A man can die but
once.' By about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, some-
thing the matter with the brain became the favourite
theory against the field ; and by twelve the something
had been distinctly ascertained to be 'Pressure.' "
At half-past nine, however, Bar taking into Court
the real s.ate of the case which ho has learnt
from Physician—Lo ad on soon becomes aware
that Mr. Merdle's death has been the death of a
Suicide.
" Pressure, however, so far from being overthrown by
the discovery, became a greater favourite than ever.
There was a general moralising upon Pressure, in every
street. All the people who had tried to make money and
had not been able to do it, said, There you were ! You
no sooner began to devote yourself to the pursuit of
wealth, than you got Pressure,"
The subsequent chapter (the 26th) expressively en-
titled " Reaping the Whirlwind," opens thus elo-
quently :
" With a precursory sound of hurried breath and hur-
ried feet, Mr. Pancks rushed into Arthur Clennam's
Counting-house. The Inquest was over, the letter was
public, the Bank was broken, the other model structures
of straw had taken fire and were turned to smoke. The
admired piratical ship had blown up, in the, midst of a
vast fleet of ships of all rates, and boats of all sizss ; and
on the deep was nothing but ruin : nothing but burning
hulls, bursting magazines, great guns self-2xoloded tear-
ing friends and neighbours to pieces, drowning men
clinging to unseaworthy spars and going down every
minute, spent swimmers, floating dead, and sharks."
There is an astonishing blending of the ludicrous
and the pathetic in the interview which ensues in
Doyce's counting-house between Pancks and Clen-
nam. We read it, we can't help reading it, at
once through tears and through laughter. Pancks
has been the unwitting cause of bringing Doyce
and Clennam to ruin. Arthur is full of anguish,
and poor Pancks of a scarcely-expressible remorse.
Arthur has just exclaimed, less in reproach than in
sheer agony of mind—"Pancks, Pancks, I have
ruined' Doyce I . . . I have ruined him—
brought him to shame and disgrace—ruined him,
, ruined him !" And we thereupon read :
" The agony into which the reflection wrought his
mind was so distressing to see, that Mr. Pancks took
hold of himself by the hair of his head, and tore it in
desperation at the spectacle.
" Reproach me!' cried Pancks. ' Reproach me, sir,
or I'll do myself an injury. Say, You fool, you villain.
Say, Ass, how could you do it, Beast, what did you
mean by it ! Catch hold of me somewhere. Say some-
thing abusive to me !' All the time, Mr. Pancks was
tearing at his tough hair in a most pitiless and cruel
manner.
" 'lf you bad never yielded to this fatal mania,
Pancks,' said Clennam, more in commiseration than in
retaliation, 'it would have been how much better for
you, and how much better for me ! '
" 'At me again, sir ! ' cried Pancks, grinding his
teeth in remorse. 'At me again ! '
" 'lf yol had never gone into these accursed calcula-
tions, and brought out your results with such abominable
clearness,' groaned Clennam, 'it would have been bow
much better for you, Pancks, and how much better for
me I '
" 'At me again, sir I' exclaimed Pancks; loosening
his hold of his hair ; ' at me again, and again !' "
Arthur wrings his hand in reply—the hand of his
fellow-sufferer—only adding, "Blind leaders of
the blind, Pancks ! Blind leaders of the blind !
But Doyce, Doyce, Dayce, my injured partner l''.
Quoth poor Pamirs, a little while afterwards--
"' Mr. Clennam, had you laid out-- everything?'
He got over the break before the last word. and also
brought out the last word itself with great difficulty.
" ' Everything.'
" Mr. Pancks took hold of his tough hair again, and
gave it such a wrench that he pulled out several prongs
of it. After looking at these with an eye of wild hatred,
he put them in his pocket."
Ultimately—Arthur having placed 11;s affairs in
the hands of Mr. Rugg as his legal adviser, and
having publicly exonerated his 'absent partner
Doyce from any share in the blame attaching to
hiS own ruinous speculations—the Arrest comes to
complete the downward career of the Bankrupt.
A writ being served upon Arthur Clennam, in
Bleeding-Heart-Yard, by a sheriff's officer, humor-
ously described by Mr. Dickens as "an elderly
member of the Jewish persuasion preserved in rum.
We close th© number, leaving Arthur Clennam
sobbing out " 0 my Little Doirit !" as he turns
his face against the wall to weep—the wall of the
old familiar room in which he himself is now a I
pri-
soner for debt in the Marshglsea !
nd

The Edinburgh Essays. By Members of the
University. 1856. Edinburgh : A. and C.
Black.
A perfectly worthy companion to the Oxford Essays
and the Cambridge Essays. A fitting competitor
with them in regard to scholarship, in regard to
eloquence, and in regard to orig;nality.•-for a pro-