The Sun. — 1857-05-11 (London, England)

XVII. By Charles Dickens. Arthur Clennam still a prisoner for debt in the old room in the old Marshalsea ! And this the last monthly issue, but one, of Little Dorrit! For the next number will, of course, be the double number bringing the story to its conclusion ! A Prisoner in the Marshalsea, Arthur Clennam throughout this seventeenth number, maybe described as holding a kind of levee, in the course of which there appear before him, either one by one, or occasionally in motley groups, very many of the now familiar characters associated with that noble hearted hero of Mr. Dickens's last great composite fiction. Ms' Chivery tie Turnkey pokes his head in at the door a very lietle way with one ear" upon Arthur " instead of both eyes !" The historian of the Dorrits adding to this, by way of explanation : " This was native delicacy in Mr. Chivery—true politeness ; though his exterior had very much of the Turnkey about it, and not the least of a gentleman." Young John, in regard to whom quoth that Paterfamilias Onthe-lock, " My son has a art, and my son's art is in the right place ; me and his mother knows where to find it, and we find it sitiwated correct"—he looks in several times, off and on, afterwards. Then come excellent Mr. and Mrs. Plornish; arm in arm, upon a visit of condolence, eminently characteristic of them both throughout. Witness this, the following record : " Mr. Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but not lucid manner, that there was ups, you see, and there was downs. It was in wain to ask why ups, why downs ; there they was, you, know. He had heard it given for a truth that accordin' as the world went round, which round it did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his turn of standing with his ed side down and alt his ar a eying the wrong way into what you might call Space. Wery ..veil then. What Mr. Plornish said wae, wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come up'ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a pleasure to look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then !" Mrs. Plornish not a jot less delightful in her way, chatters on quite as garrulously as ever about "Father" (little old Mr. Nandy), and in talking of Mr. Baptist's exertions in Arthur's behest, winds up her account of there. " in the Italian manner" by declaring "it really do, as I say to him Mooshattonisha Padrona !" Then, again, Ferdinand Barnacle, the easy, gay, vivacious, light-in-hand, touch-and-go—pays Arthur a no leas characteristic visit in his way I And afterwards Mr. Rugg, another in his Later on, stream in upon the saddened prisoner, all together—Bigaud, otherwise Blandois, with the diabolical nose and moustache, accompanied by Paucks, fresher than ever from the coals, and his hair more " prongy" even than of yore, and close upon their heels little chirrupping Jean Baptiste Cavaletto, wasting upon them, as he himself expresses it, " patientissamentally." Old Flintwinch (still screwing at everybody with his neckcloth awry), having been sent for to the House upon Crutches, drops in upon this agreeable little parti carree not long afteiiwards. When they have all at length taken their departure, Somebody Else comes too ! Who ? Who but—Little Dorrit ! Arthur has previously had his eyes opened to the fact of her loving him, to his wonder and bewilderment, by honest-hearted John Chivery. Yet in spite of this—in spite of Little Dorrit herself being just for all the world the same as she has been all through the book (even to her old dress, which she has donned for her visit of gratitude mid affection to Arthur in his new abode in the old familiar Marshalsea)—in spite of himself, of herself, of their mutual tenderness, their fortunes are still, at the close of the number, .divided, though their hearts are not by any means estranged. We are left to the very last quite dubious as to what may be the result of the plot with all its marvellous complications. Will Little Dorrit and her brother find themselves ruined by the treacherous Merdle Quicksand ? Fanny and and Sparkler, we already knovv, must have been beggared by the suicide of the wholesale Speculator. Will Doyce return, having made his fortune to release Arthur from the Marshalsea—and to prove, to the astonishment of the very scales and scoop belonging to Mr. Merdle, that the mere child, in matters of business, is no such child after all ? How will it all end ? We close the seventeeth nums ber on the tiptoe of expectation. •