The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-11 00:00:00

Ihardly less attractive in their general interest—a
trial, for example, of Monsieur, one of the young
leroes, at the Old Bailey, ending in his acquittal—
' a supercilious piece of brutality, on the part of Mon-
seigneur, ending in his assassination—and several
Proposal for Mademoiselle, the heroine, ending, at
any rate, in two casual refusals: one of the rejected
4ttitors being " A Fellow of Delicacy," the other
A Fellow of no Delicacy.". The two gentlemen
amonglast mentioned are the most striking deline-
ations in the numbers of the work yet published—
_ ,ydney Carton, a young barrister of brilliant parts,
but no address, and of a baulked ambition, who acts
as jackal to that self-asserting lion at the bar, Mr.
tryver—lolling on the sofa, with his hands in
h. is waistbands, being crammed by Memory (mean-
ing Carton) or shouldering his way "on towards
Chief-Justiceship, if not to the woolsack of my
Lord High Chancellor. Our preference unques-
tionably trends in the direction of poor Sydney—
and we long for the reclamation of that waste land
of promise ! Mr. Lorry, by the way, has raised
himself wonderfully in our estimation by his gallant
contest with the Lion, when visited,by the latter in
Ins own little den at Tellson's. Yet in the end Mr.
Lorry too, like Sylney Carton, seems to have given
Way at last to the " shouldering."-": Charles Darnay
!,.1;3 yet, we confess—we don't much care for—Charles
4-14rnay being, nevertheless, the hero of the story,
and the all but accepted- lover of that charming,
golden-haired heroine, Lucie Manette. Out of an
affection for whom, by the by, have we not a weak-
' Hess even for that preposteroui red woman, Miss
Pross--a lady every now and then subject to what
811 e herself happily describes as" a fit of the jerks."
The dominant dread of Miss Pross—the dread of
" hundreds of People" dangling after her darling—
gives the title to. one of the most suggestive and
impressive among all the chapters of the tale yet
published ! A chapter that leads us away into that
cool little echoing corner of Soho, not very much
less than a whole century gone by, when, " upon
many a good south wall, not far off, peaches ripened
in their season"—a very Ear of a place, where,
With the plane tree hard by in the courtyard,
rustling its green leaves in the sunshine, f‘ the corner
echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet ; some
as it seemed under the windows; some as it seemed
in the room ; some coming, some going, some break-
ing off, some stopping altogether ; all in the distant
iStreets, not one within sight." What is that
'thought uttered by Lucie Manette while several
Persons of this chronicle are seated there one quiet
Sunday evening listening to the echoes—=listening
and speaking low, as people in a dark room do,
quoth the writer, when watching and waiting for
lightning ? " I have sometimes," she says, " sat
alone here of an evening, listening, until I have
made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the
footsteps that are ooming by and bye into our
lives.' Whereupon Sydney Carton (like the
rest still listening—still; like the rest, wait-
ing and watching for the Lightning) in his
moody way observes, "If that be so, there is a
great crowd coming one day into our lives." "Are
ell of these footsteps," asks Darnay, "destined to
tome to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide
them among us ?" " I don't know," she says . . .
4° I have imagined them the footsteps of the people
who are •to come into my life and my father's."
" I take them into mine," cries Carton, "I ask no
questions and make no stipulations. There is a
great crowd-bearing down upon us, Miss Manette,
and I see them !—by the Lightning"—he adds at
the first flash.of the great storm breaking suddenly
npon them. "And hear them," he adds again
after the first peal of thunder, " Here they come,
fast, fierce, and furious !" "It was the rush and
roar of the rain that he typified, and it stopped
him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memor-
able 'storm of thunder and lightning broke with
that sweep of water, and there was not a moment's
interval, in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the
moon rose at Midnight." As One is striking from
the great bell of St. Paul's Cathedral, the guests
are parting for the night upon the road be-
tween Soho and Clerkenwell. " Good night, Mr.
Carton," says Mr. Lorry, the man of business.
" Good niiht, Mr. Darn ay. Shall we ever see such
a night again together ! ' - After a pause—the
'Writer adds, " Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great
crowd of people with its rush and roar bear-
ing down upon them, to)." It is the key note of
the story. It is new evidence that the Novelist is—
true Poet also in the depth of his human sympa-
thies and in the picturesque vividness of his imagi-
nation_ It renders obvious at a glance the signifi-
cance of this Tale of Two Cities—the loves and the
lives of the Manettes seen by the glare of that
tremendous Revolution !