Sketches of Young Couples. [PUBLISHED IN 1840.] THE YOUNG COUPLE. Adams, Jane. A housemaid. Anne. A housemaid at "No. 6;" friend to Jane Adams. Harvey, Mr. A young gentleman engaged to Miss Fielding. THE LOVING COUPLE. Leaver, Augustus. Į Two married persons, so tender, so affecLeaver, Augusta. tionate, so given to the interchange of soft endearments, as to be well-nigh intolerable to everybody else. Starling, Mrs. A widow-lady enraptured with the affectionate behavior of Mr. and Mrs. Leaver, whom she considers a perfect · model of wedded felicity. THE CONTRADICTORY COUPLE. Charlotte. A married pair who seem to find a positive pleasure Edward. in contradiction, and agree in nothing else. Charlotte, Miss. Their daughter James, Master. Their son. THE COUPLE WHO DOTE UPON THEIR CHILDREN. Saunders, Mr. A bachelor-friend of the Whifflers. Whiffler, Mr. and Mrs. A married pair, whose thoughts at all times and in all places are bound up in their children, and have no sphere beyond. They relate clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity. Charles. A husband and wife, well-bred, easy, and careless, who rarely quarrel, but are unsympathizing, and indifferent Louisa. to each other's comfort and happiness. THE PLAUSIBLE COUPLE. Widger, Mr. Bobtail. People of the world, who adapt themWidger, Mrs. Lavinia. S selves to all its ways, all its twistings and turnings; who know when to close their eyes, and when their ears; when to crawl upon their hands and knees; when to stoop; and when to stand upright. THE NICE LITTLE COUPLE. Chirrup, Mr. A warm-hearted little fellow, with the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick manner, of a small bird. Chirrup, Mrs. His wife; a sprightly little woman, with an amazing quantity of goodness and usefulness, a condensation, indeed, of all the domestic virtues. THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE. Sliverstone, Mr. A clerical gentleman, who magnifies his wife on every possible occasion by launching out into glowing praises of her conduct in the production of eight young children, and the subsequent rearing and fostering of the same. Sliverstone, Mrs. His wife; always engaged in praising her husband's worth and excellence. THE COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES. Merrywinkle, Mr. and Mrs. A married pair, who have fallen into exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and forget their natural sympathy and close connection with everybody and every thing in the world around them; thus depriving themselves of the best and truest enjoyment. Chopper, Mrs. Mother to Mrs. Merrywinkle. THE OLD COUPLE. Adams, Jane. An aged servant, who has been nurse and storyteller to two generations. Master Humphrey's Clock. UNDER this title, on the 4th of April, 1840, Mr. Dickens started a miscellany, which was to be issued in weekly numbers (at threepence each), as well as in monthly parts, and which was to consist of short, detached papers, with occasional continuous stories. These were introduced and connected together by means of a fiction, describing an old gentleman named Master Humphrey, and a kind of club, which meets once a week at his house, in a quaint old room in which there is a tall, old-fashioned clock, from the case of which they draw forth piles of dusty papers that they themselves have written, and placed there to be read at their meetings. The work extended to eighty-eight parts, covering a period of nearly two years. It was brought out in the form of an imperial octavo, was excellently printed on good paper, and was illustrated with wood-engravings (instead of etchings on steel) by George Cattermole, "Phiz" (H. K. Browne), George Cruikshank, and Daniel Maclise, the two latter artists, however, furnishing but one sketch each. The public did not take kindly to the machinery of Master Humphrey and his friends; and, to revive their flagging interest, Mr. Pickwick and the two Wellers were again brought upon the scene, as was also a third Weller, -a young Tony,who is Sam's son, and a counterpart in miniature of his grandfather. This device was successful; and the work won its way steadily to general favor; the two longer tales contained in it- -"The Old Curiosity Shop" and " Barnaby Rudge " being reckoned among the best of the author's novels. But Mr. Dickens considered that the connecting fiction of Master Humphrey interfered too much with the continuity of the principal stories, and gave the whole work a too desultory character. He therefore eventually cancelled the introductory, intercalary, and concluding chapters in which this fiction was contained, though on the completion of the eighty-eight parts of which the work consisted, it was issued in three volumes, - of which the first appeared in 1840, and the last two in 1841. In a letter to "The Daily News," Doctor Charles Rogers gives the following account of the origin of the name "Master Humphrey's Clock." "In 1864, in the course of a tour, I arrived at the town of Barnard Castle, in the county of Dur ham, late on a winter evening, and put up at the principal hotel. ... At breakfast the following morning, I chanced to notice on the opposite side of the street a large clock-face with the name Humphrey' surrounding it, most conspicuously exhibited in front of a watch and clock maker's shop. How odd!' I exclaimed to a gentleman seated beside me: here is Master Humphrey's clock''-'Of course,' said the gentleman; ' and don't you know that Dickens resided here for some weeks when he was collecting materials for his Nicholas Nickleby, and that he chose his title for his next work by observing that big clock-face from this window?' After breakfast, I stepped across to the watchmaker, and asked him whether I had been correctly informed respecting Mr. Dickens and the clock. The worthy horologist entered into particulars. My clock,' said he, 'suggested to Mr. Dickens the title of his book of that name. I have a letter from him stat ing this, and a copy of the work, inscribed with his own hand. . . . I got acquainted with him by his coming across from the hotel, as you have done this morning, and asking me to inform him about the state of the neighboring boarding-schools."" CHARACTERS INTRODUCED. Alice, Mistress. Heroine of the tale told by Magog, the Guildhall giant, to his companion, Gog; the beautiful and only daughter of a wealthy London bowyer of the sixteenth century. She elopes with a gay young cavalier, by whom she is conveyed abroad, where shame and remorse overtake her, and wring her heart. Her father, dying, leaves all his property and trade to a trusted 'prentice, named Hugh Graham, charging him with his latest breath to revenge his child upon the author of her misery, if ever he has the opportunity. Twenty years afterwards, Alice suddenly returns; and Master Graham (who was formerly an aspirant for her hand, and who still loves her) gives her lodging in his house,hers, taking up his own abode in a dwelling near by. Soon after, he encounters the man who wrought her ruin. The two exchange a few high, hot words, and then close in deadly contest. After a brief struggle, the noble falls, pierced through the heart with his own sword by the citizen. A riot ensues; and at last Graham is shot dead on his own doorstep. On carrying him up stairs, an unknown woman is discovered lying lifeless beneath the window. once Belinda. A distracted damsel, who writes a letter to Master Humphrey about her faithless lover. Benton, Miss. Master Humphrey's housekeeper. Mr. Weller, senior, in a moment of weakness, falls in love with her but she prefers Mr. Slithers the barber; and the old gentleman, recovering his "native hue of resolution," conjures his son Samivel to put him in a strait waistcoat until the fit is passed, in the event of his ever becoming amorous again. Deaf Gentleman, The. An intimate friend of Master Humphrey's, and a cheerful, placid, happy old man. It is his humor to conceal his name, or he has a reason and purpose for doing so. Master Humphrey and the other members of the club respect his secret, therefore; and he is known among them only as the Deaf Gentleman. Gog. One of the Guildhall giants. See TODDyhigh, Joe. Graham, Hugh. A bowyer's 'prentice, in love with his master's daughter. See ALICE, MISTRESS. Jinkinson. The subject of an anecdote related by Sam Weller. Magog. One of the Guildhall giants. See TODDyhigh, Joe. Marks, Will. The hero of a tale which Mr. Pickwick submits to Master Humphrey and his friends as a "qualification" for admission to their club. Will is a wild, roving young fellow, living at Windsor in the time of James I. He volunteers to keep watch by night at a gibbet near Kingston, for the purpose of identifying some witches who have been holding hideous nocturnal revels there; but he finds, instead of witches, two gentlewomen, weeping and wailing for an executed husband and brother. He suffers himself to be conducted to Putney, where he is introduced to a masked cavalier, who induces him to take the body of the dead man by night for burial to St. Dunstan's Church in London. This task, though a difficult and dangerous one, he performs; and on his return home, finding the whole neighborhood worked up to a high pitch of mystery and horror over his disappearance, he adds to the excitement by telling them a most extraordinary story of his adventures, describing the witches' dance to the minutest motion of their legs, and performing it in character on the table, with the assistance of a broomstick. Master Humphrey. A kind-hearted, deformed old gentleman, living in an ancient house in a venerable suburb of London. He is the founder of a sort of club, which meets in his room one night |