The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-05 00:00:00

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CON TIN UED.)

DAVID COPPERFIELD. No. Xrl.ll. By

Charles Dickens.

Almost all the mysteries and difficulties of the nar-
rative are cleared up or abruptly terminated in the
present number of Co/pertietd. Scarcely anything,
indeed, remains to be explained by the autobiographer
in the double number which, on ttie Ist of November,
will unfortunately bring this exquisite work to a _con-
clusion. Nothing, in fact, appears to require
elucidation in the story, if we except the inevitable
union of Agnes and Trotwood, some incidental refe-
rence to the Murdstones and the annihilation of two
horrible monsters, Rosa Dartle and Uriah lleep, by,
we trust, some excruciating and terrible retribution.
\V are hopeful, moreover, that before the story
is closed " the dearest girl in the world"
may become the partner for life of Mr.
Thomas Traddler, of the Inner Temple. As to
the progress made in the true history of the adven-
tures, experience, and olcaervations of David Copper-
field, it is surprhing to find how much is condensed
within the compass of a single monthly instalment.
Beyond all, the prominent feature: iii the present
number is the account of the great tempest at
Yarmouth—than which Charles Dickens has
never penned anything more eloquent or more
stirring in its vividness. Some passages in this
very powerful description may be extracted
without injury to the context, and cannot fail to jus-
tify what we have said upon its excellence. David is
travelling down to Yarmouth, on the box-seat of the
mail-coach :

" Don't you think that,' I asked, the coachman, in
he first stage out of London, a very remarkable sky ?
[ don't remember to have sPen one like it.' . .

" ' Nor I—not a qusl to it,' he-replied. That's wind,
sir. There'll be mirchief done at sea, I expect, before
long.'
It was a murky confusion—here and there blotted with
a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel—
of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps,
suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were
depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows
in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to
plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws
of nature, she had lost her way, and were frightened.
There had been a wind all day ; and it was rising than,
with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it
had much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and
it blew bard. _

" But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and
then very dark, it
dc
came
mn see loynotvoe rbslporwe a ding
harderth e
and whole
h a sky,
rder
It still increased,
until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many
times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in
September, when the nights were not short), the leaders
turned about, or came to a dead stop, and we were often
in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown
over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm,
like showers of steel ; and, at those times, when there
was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were
fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the
struggle.
" When the day broke it blew harder and harder. I
had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew
great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or
anything approaching to it. We come to Norwich
very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since
we were ten miles out of London ; and found a cluster
of people in the market•place, who had risen from their
beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of
these, congregating about the inn yard while we changed
horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped
off a high church-tower, and flung into a bye street,
which they then blocked up. Others had to tell of
country people, coming in from neighbouring villages,
who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and
whole ricks scattered about the roads and fields. Still,
there was no abatement in the storm, but it blew
harder.

" I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at
the sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn
with sand and seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-
foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by
people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach,
I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the
town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then
braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and
blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag
back.
whose " ' Joining
h u sba
ntdhse swe e gr
were
o awayu ,
nfound
nbewailing
t mighter w
boats,ohmaee
fwohuincdhe
rt he
de r
be
e‘fvoar se ttohoe
ymcuocuhl
could
erausno ni n
aon
ythink
ere for safety.
Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking
their heads, as they looked from water to sky, and mut-
tering to one another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy;
children, huddling together, and peering into older faces;
even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling
their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as
if they were surveying an enemy,
" The tremendous sea itself, when I could find suffi-
cient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding
wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise,
c infounded Die. As the high watery walls came rolling
in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked
as if the least would engulf the town. As the receding
wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop
out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to
undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows
thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before
they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole
seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing
to be ga.hered• to the composition of another monster.
Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating
valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming
through them) were lifted up to hills; masses ,of water
shivered and shook
deminegdst,thore beach with a booming sound;
ever
itsysha shpetTe and place,
rolled on, as soon as wade, to
change
place, and beat another shape and
aptonlawdeeetrhsaway;
Ib buildings,
ideal
oas
rote
shoreeaan
dor
rending
fell;dtihneg theha onrdi
cloudsznp ,h
e flewwa
vii fast
os its
tf
all nature."

This tremendous hurricane, which the novelist. calls
most " memorable," " for," says he, " it is still re-
membered down there as the greatest ever known to
blow upon that coast," results in the *rack of ;a
schooner laden with wine and fruit from Spain or
Portugal, and in the drowning of poor Ham while
ineffectually endeavouring to save the life
of Emily's 'betrayer, the wild and unfortu-
nate James Steerforth. Going down to the
beach after the climax of the storm, David
discovers the fragments of the old boat scattered over
the shingle, and there, he exclaims, " among the
ruins of the home he had wronged, I saw him lying
with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him
lie at school. The scene in which David imparts to
Mrs. Steerforth the intelligence of her son's
death is most touchingly depicted—only the
fiendish ferocity of Rosa Hartle renders
a considerable portion of it most repulsive. Turning
to the other portions of the narrative, we find Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber in the very zenith or apogee of their
ambitious day-dreaming. The way in which Mrs.
Micawber, speaking in behalf of her husband,
addresses the imaginary inhabitants of Aus-
tralia, by exclaiming, " This country
Have you
to conquer ! Have you honours ?
riches ? llave you posts of profitable pecuniary
emolument? Let them be brought forward. They..
disap
I am come
are mine ! Enough of delay ; enough of
That
was
pointaient ; enough of limited 1 means..
is the
was in the old country.
new. Produce your reparation. BringT
way in which Mr. AlicaW
I"—the way'
the
accumulated for-
tunesobserves of the possibility of his
gaccuof Britannia
ber himself
i cattle-
driving, Ito rwl
As: tdh"
flowing ultimately into the coffers
chance
hirelings
she—" Britannia—must take her ch
in which Master Micawber issues
aelois.ng
walking-stick, for the purpose of pr
driving, " when permitted by the
renderragany voluntary
says(t;:svinhiriert'umstance, "rI.
who had the beasts in charge to h M-
assistance in that direction" •
Micawber, .when alluding to
ourd int h i
mr nature,
imprecation~,
i onnost,
regret to say, for the credit of
to desist"),—the way in which all family
`often—be being generally warned,
iilsthis is told is in
of the
all respects delightful.
twine, are already on
emigration, together
their Ali c a ww ba
ye rst ,0 etvheen
riengcilnund including
ihn.etru
llrs' very beautifully with
G mmidge, Emily, and
with Mr. Peggotty,
Martha. The number closese „ .
vcber circumstances,
the record of their departur;
entioned in the October
not yet particularised, are a'
of dear Aunt Betsey's
instalment, such as the rerer
husband in a hospital,
f Uriah Heep among the
metropolis. In the double
weeks, will bring David
panrodpetrhtye,
dtihsaeppdeeaarthaneoef
variegated and exquisite
completed, and, if only
parable to the eighteen
cncrnoompwphdeeer.
fird,
ewi populationdhitnoh ,a
icn.loas ofe , the
,n fewh
the variegated
11
r his latest work the
web of the narrative
IN,. comparable
finished in any manner
' masterpiece of our gee11:..„...—_ ....—.......
preceding instalments,
will
novelist.ren de

ese Abassador
cloth of
sent to
agulnificenmt robe of
-_-=-- __--
THE NEFAULESE AsiOASSADOR AND LOLA MON-
Ths.—The Evencnient treats its readers with the following :
`t•hßeefeoerleebqruaittetdinig,ollaisisontthese NenPiaa
gold. Lola Montes is the only woman in France or in
and, Jung
Eng-
gland with whom the Prince Jung Bahadour could converse
in the language of his country, the charm which he found
pßaauhl a ; d
o but,
ur
signed, after i.
in the conversation was very great. There was for a time a
p
question of the departure of the
of three years Countess
with Engl de Lansfeldt for
the name name of the Sultan, his cousin, a
treaty with Greet 13ritain, by which it is prohibited to any
European to enter the empire of Nepaul under any pretext.
I Even English subjects are not exempt from this
clause, which the Indian Prince deeply regrets ;
for, but for that, he would have taken w;th
him
two hundred persons to spread in his country the
iiNivar
intelligence arid civilisation of Europe. The English Go-
vernment is said to have dreaded that Lola Montes would
have in Nepaul the success which she had in Bavaria, and
the two English Captains must have made some observations
which prove that the Nepaul treaty was made alike for men
and women, for LOl4 Montes remains in Paris to plead at
says Galignani, is what the French call
law against a fickle, if he is not art unfaithful, husband."
This paragraph,
familiarly a canard. The .N epaulese ambassador, if it should
be translated to him before he quits France, will be equally
amused and astonished to learn that he made a present to the
Countess of Lansfeldt, in Paris, and conversed with her in
his own language. We believe that the Countess has not been
seen in Paris for more than a month.
SIIEBIFFiIOP OF Ross AND CRONIARTY. This
office, vacant by the death of John Jardine, Esq., has, we
understand, been conferred on George. Deas, Es(l,.the senior
depute-Ativestet-4nverness Courier.