The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-20 00:00:00

PENDENNIS. Part xn By W. Al.

Thacheray.
Little Fanny Bolton, the daughter of the porter at
Shepherd's Inn, is evidently destined to exercise an
important influence over the fate of Pendennis. Our
readers no doubt remember the Vauxhall party, at
which Pendennis first became acquainted with Fanny,
who was chaperoned to the gardens by Captain Cos-
tigan. They each become in love with each other,
and Pendennis, in order to save the girl from ruin or
himself from a mesallianee, which would to him be
ruin, determines not to see her. This first attempt at

self 'control is, however, too much for him, and throws
him into a raging fever, during the course of which
he is delirious, and his mother, accompanied by Laura,
and the Major, having heard of his danger, come up
to town and knock gently at the door of his chambers,
which is opened to them by Fanny Bolton, concern-
ing whom it should be observed that poor Helen had
heard all sorts of evil reports. The following account
of the miseries of life in chambers is admirable. It

is the introductory paragraph to the description of the
illness of Pendennis

" A committee of marriageable ladies, or of any Chris.
tian persons interested in the propagation of the domestic
virtues, should employ a Cruikshank or a Leech, or some
other kindly expositor of the follies of the day, to make
a series of designs representing the horrors of a bachelor's
life in chambers, and leading the beholder to think of
better things, and a more wholesome condition. What
can be more uncomfortable than the bachelor's lonely
breakfast?—with the black kettle in the dreary fire in
Midsummer; or, worse still, with the fire gong out at
Christmas, half an hour after the laundress has quitted
the sitting-room? Into this solitude the owner enters
shivering, and has to commence his day by hunting for
coals and wood; and before he begins the work of a stu-
dent, has to discharge the duties of a housemaid, vice
Mrs. Flanagan, who is absent without leave. Or, again,
what can form a finer subject for the classical designer
than
smooththe t bachelor'sho h o tpillow sh i shirt—that
to assume just at dinner-time, and which he finds without
any buttons to fasten it? Then there is the bachelor's
return to chambers, after a smerry Christmas holiday,
spent in a cozy country-house, full of pretty faces, and
kind welcomes and regrets. He leaves his portmanteau
at the Barber's in the court: he lights his dismal old
candle at the sputtering little lamp on the stair: he
enters the blank familiar room, where the only tokens to
greet him, that show any interest in his personal; elfare,
are the Christmas bills, which are lying in wait for him,
amiably spread out on his reading table. Add to those
scenes an appalling picture of bachelor's illness, and the
rents in the Temple will begin to fall from the day of the
publication of the dismal diorama. To be well iu
chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough;
but to be ill in chambers—to pass nights of pain and
watchfulness—to long for the morning and the laundress
—to serve yorrself your own medicine by your own
watch—to have no other companion for long honrs but
your own sickening fancies and fevered thoughts: no
kind hand to give you drink if you are thirsty, or to
that t a t crumplesgarment which
under you,—antthsis,
indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not
enlarge upon its horrors; and shall only heartily pity
thorn birheico j 9 the Temple who *TO 1t eTery cloy.",
.