The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-26 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Little Dorrit. No. XIY. By Charles Dickens.
Throughout the whole of the three chapters con-
stituting this fourteenth number of " Little Dor-
rit," there winds and twists with sinuous sluggish-
ness the turbid but auriferous stream of what may
be called the Merdle Interest ! Floating upon its
surface—Now the whole wonderful race of the Bar-
nacles and Stiltstalkings, including both Mr. Tito
and Lord Decimus, attended on one hand by Bar,
with his double eyeglass and his jury droop, and on
the other by Bishop, with his seven league dress
shoes, and his crisp and refreshing innocence
Floating—Now honest Pancks, stale from the
coals, and snorting, as only Tug can snort, sun.
rounded by the chief defaulting tenants of Bleed-
ing Heart-yard, led off by Mrs. Plornish, with
all her rare Italian accomplishments, and by Mr.
Plornish, her spouse, clad in his lime-splashed
flannel jacket, and by simple-heart6d old Mr.
J. E. Nandy, chirruping his favourite ditties
about Chloe and Strephon—his grey nondescript
Union Coat, to the contrary, nevertheless,
notwithstanding ! Floating—Now dear little
Amy Dorrit herself, shyly wondering still in the
midst of her Venetian splendours, and by her side
Fanny the frivolous, with Mr. Sparkler (next door
to an Idiot) dangling at her heels, secretly des-
pised, and yet, as it proves, a great deal more

than -openly- tolerated! Floating slowly past us
on the muddy golden current of the Merdlo

Interest—all the-se miscellaneous characters (and
with them a good many others incidentally intro-
duced) attract our attention either one by one, or
in picturesque clusters, in the new number of
" Little Dorrit" for the present month of January.
Chapter xii., "In which a great Patriotic Confer-
ence is Holden," recounts a dinner of more than
usual splendour, given at the Great House of
the Great Merdle to the Great Political
Swells of the Hour—the Barnacles. A Dinner
described with marvellous touches of Fun
Satire such as Mr. Dickens alone, with the mere
nib of a goosequill, could bring out thus vividly to
view in spite of their all but microscopic minuteness
Notwithstanding Mr. Merdle's solitary position in
London during the absence of the Bosom and of
Sparkler upon their continental wanderings—we
are told :

' The Chief Butler, the Avenging-Spirit of this great
man's life, relaxed nothing of his severity. He looked on
at these dinners when the bosom was not there, as he
looked on at other dinners when the bosom was there; and
his eye was e basilisk to Mr. Itterdle. He was a hard man,
and would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of
wine. He would not allow a dinner to be given, unless it
was up to his mark. He set forth the table for his own
dignity. If the guests chose to partake of what was
served, he saw no objection ; but it was served for the
maintenance of his rank. As he stood by the sideboard he
seemed to announce, have accepted office to look at this
which is now before me, and to look at nothing less than
this.' If he missed the presiding bosom, it was as a part
of his own st9.to of which he was, from unavoidable cir-
cumstances, temporarily deprived. Just as he might have
missed a centre-piece, or a choice wine-cooler, which had
been sent to the banker's."

An especial occasion for this wonderful creature

the Chief Butler (and, parenthetically be it said,
also for that dull and vulgar victim of dyspepsia,
his master, the millionnaire), is the Grand Dinner
of which this inimitable chapter is so very admi-
rably. descriptive. It is as Bar calls it (with his
jury droop to the engaging young Barnacle, Fer-
dinand by name)—a sort of a sitting in Banco for
a special argument ! To wit the securing the whole
of the grand and covetted Merdle Interest to the
Barnacles—(in regard to whom, saith our historian
drily, "if the adherence of the immortal Enemy
of Mankind could but have been secured by a job,
the Barnacles would have jobbed him—for the good
of the country, for the good of the country")_
upon the one condition of Mr. Sparkler, eyeglass
and all, being taken up and provided for by Go-
vernment ! All which is, of course, most satisfacto-
rily accomplished in the end, only, however, after
the most preposterously elaborated negotiations.
The general toad-eating to Lord Decimus Tite
Barnacle, in the midst of these auspicious convivi-
alities will be found—here, there, and everywhere
throughout the chapter—deliciously delineated.
From the almost awful collapse in his presence of
the Bashful Young Member in the Lower House

(" the last fish but one caught by the Barnacles,
and invited on this occasion to commemorate his
capture")—to the more self-possessed wielder of the
double eyeglass and drooper of the jury droop
(" who has a bit of one eye and a bit of his double
eyeglass for every one who comes in at the door,
and who gets at them all by some skilful means
without being seen to get at them, and touches each
individual gentleman of the jury on his own indi-
vidual favourite spot') and of whom we read—
" Bar, who felt that he had got all the rest of the jury
and must now lay hold of the Foreman, soon came sliding
up, eye-glass in hand. Bar tendered the weather, as a
subject neatly aloof from official reserve, for the Foreman's
consideration. Bar said that he was told (as everybody
always is told, though who tells them, and why, will for
ever remain is mystery), that there was to be no wall-fruit
this year. Lord Decimus had not heard anything amiss of
his peaches, but rather believed, if his people were cor-
rect, he was to have no apples. No apples ? Bar was lost
in astonishment and concern. It would have been all one
to him, in reality, if there had not been a pippin on the
surface of the earth, but his show of interest in this apple
question was positively painful. Now, to what, Lord De-
cimus—for we troublesome lawyers loved to gather infor-
mation, and could never tell how useful it might prove to
us—to what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed ?
Lord Decimus could not undertake to propound any theory
about it. This might have stopped another man ; but
Bar, sticking to him fresh as ever, said, " As to pears ,
now ?"

We don't wonder, when we find it added to this,
" Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this
was told of him as a master-stroke"—particularly
when we have listened, in company with Bar, to
every tedious detail in the one inevitable, inexor-
able, unavoidable, everlasting "reminiscence about
a pear-tree," which is the single joke of Lord De-
cimus's life, and the single glory of Decimus's con-
versation. Chapter xiii. is principally remark-
able for revealing to us—at last !-111r. Baptist,
otherwise Signor Cavaletto, affrighted by the pass-
ing apparition of the dreaded and abhorred Rigaud,
otherwise Monsieur Blaudois, of the desoendincr
nose and the ascending moustache ! Principally
remarkable for this, but remarkable also in another
way, for its revealing Pancks to us and to Arthur
Clennam—as having embarked his "little all" in

the vast, infectious, absorbing, alluring, irresistible
maelstrom of the Merdle Speculations ! Nothing,
by the way, can be more thoroughly delightful
than the preposterous manner in which Mrs. Plor-
nish, in the midst of Mr. Baptist's fright goes to
the rescue of him (in the explanations arising there-
from) with her famous lingual accomplishments. Mr.
Baptist by this time understanding English
eper-
fectly, and talking it almost as well as his
whogift is
cst
standing by at the time, E,a, sk,k,Cool'e there, Pa-
interpreter ! Alluding to 11.t_ r..
oPanc,
Plornish, " what go wrong
.It Lys Mrs.
you no
and when they
interpreting Mr.
'opeirßlyaphotiliss,odp,.o,i,nEting indoors
dross,"fright?, returns
says aiNriAerlsrf.a.
Plornish,.
with her usual felicity of re-
,w, NaVyhat appen Padroma!"
is altogether delicious—we can barely
read it for our laughter. Hardly less
rsliau rec e
thing
h_s in ad i newng:,
ludicrous is
the subsequent naterchauge of complimentary
remarks between " Thomas," Mr. Plornish, and
,g John Edward Nandy, Sir," his father-in-law.
Chapter xiv.—closing the number—astonishes the
reader by its announcement that Mr. Sparkler is
at length actually betrothed to Fanny Dorrit, after
having been formally proclaimed in the Gazette to
have been recently nominated one of the Lords of
the Circumlocution Office, under the great Barnacle
Administration.

RE-CONSTRUCTION OF THE GOVERN-

MENT.

The hitch as to the re-construction of the Cabi-
net continues ; but the hinge to the hitch is, we-
regret to say, still available.
The " Peelites" are, of course, available at any
time—as we have already mentioned—" Coalition"
being the meaning of the phrase "connection with
any Government."
The leader of the Peelite party, the late Premier
Lord Aberdeen, will (D.V.) dine at the officia
party of the President of the Council on the day
before the opening of Parliament, and will thus
accord with the doctrines to be propounded in the
ministerial Speech.
What matters in relation to this convivial ar-
rangement may occur to-day, or in the meantime,
we have already placed before our readers ; but
still there is the hitch I
A few hours may enable us to pronounce all the
facts connected with the attempted or possibly-
cemented Coalition.—Morning Herald.

The 20th, 22d, and 07th Regiments, quartered in Ports•
mouth garrison, on Saturday received orders to prepare
for proceeding to Aldershott. Their places will be taken
by the 23d, 82d, and 90th from Aldershott. These three
latter being next on the roster for India will embark a
Portsmouth in the autumn for their seyeral deatinationi