mystery of whose philosophy is to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke, or as something too absurd to be considered seriously by any practical man. But the loss of his favorite daughter," the absence of one little unit in the great absurd account," strikes him to the ground, and shows him how serious the world is, "in which some love, deep-anchored, is the portion of all human creatures." (Part 1-3.)

Jeddler, Grace.

His elder daughter; married to Alfred Heath

field. (Part 1-3.) See HEATHfield, Alfred.

Jeddler, Marion. His younger daughter. (Part 1-3.) See HEATHFIELD (ALFRED), WARDEN (MICHAEL).

Martha, Aunt. Sister to Doctor Jeddler. (Part 3.)

Newcome, Clemency. Servant to Doctor Jeddler; afterwards married to Benjamin Britain. (Part 1-3.)

She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of tightness that made it comical; but the extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner would have superseded any face in the world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else's arms; and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion, is to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she was perfectly content and satisfied with these arrangements, and regarded them as being no business of hers; and that she took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of themselves just as it happened, -is to render faint justice to their equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes that never wanted to go where her feet went, blue stockings, a printed gown of many colors and the most hideous pattern procurable for money, and a white apron. She always wore short sleeves, and always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which she took so lively an interest, that she was continually trying to turn them round and get impossible views of them. In general, a little cap perched somewhere on her head, though it was rarely to be met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects by that article of dress; but from head to foot she was scrupulously clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed, her laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own conscience, as well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk). and wrestle, as it were, with her garments, until they fell into a symmetrical arrangement.

Snitchey, Jonathan. Law-partner of Thomas Craggs. (Part 1–3.) Snitchey, Mrs. His wife. (Part 2.)

Warden, Michael. A client of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs; a man of thirty who has sown a good many wild oats, and finds his affairs to be in a bad way in consequence. He repents, however, and reforms, and finally marries Marion Jeddler, whom he has long loved. (Part 2, 3.)

Dombey and Son.

ON the first of October, 1846, Messrs. Bradbury and Son issued the first number of a new serial novel, under the title of "Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation." Each part was illustrated with two engravings on steel by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz "). The publication of the work extended over twenty months; and on its completion, in 1848, it was brought out in a single octavo volume, and was "Dedicated with great esteem to the Marchioness of Normanby."

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Anne. A housemaid at Mr. Dombey's, beloved by Towlinson, the footman. (Ch. xviii, xxxi, xxxv, lix.)

Bagstock, Major Joseph. A retired army officer, woodenfeatured and blue-faced, with his eyes starting out of his head. He is a near neighbor of Miss Tox, between whom and himself an occasional interchange of newspapers and pamphlets, and the like Platonic dalliance, is effected through the medium of a dark servant of the major's, whom Miss Tox is content to designate as a native," ," without connecting him with any geographical idea what

ever.

Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite literature the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey down hill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and complexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled his vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman, who had her eye on him. This he had several times hinted at the club, in connection with little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, old Joey Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh. Bagstock, or so forth, was the perpetual theme; it being, as it were, the major's stronghold and donjon-keep of light humor to be on the most familiar terms with his own name.

"Joey B., sir," the major would say, with a flourish of his walking-stick, "is worth a dozen of you! If you had a few more of the Bagstock breed among you, sir, you'd be none the worse for it. Old Joe, sir, need n't look far for a wife, even now, if he was on the lookout: but he's hard-hearted, sir, is Joe; he's tough, sir, tough, and de-vilish sly!" After such a declaration, wheezing sounds would be heard; and the major's blue would deepen into purple, while his eyes strained and started convulsively.

And yet Miss Tox, as it appeared, forgot him,― gradually forgot him. She began to forget him soon after her discovery of the Toodle family; she continued to forget him up to the time of the christening; she went on forgetting him with compound interest after that. Something or somebody had superseded him as a source of interest.

"Good-morning, ma'am !" said the major, meeting Miss Tox in Princess's Place, some weeks after the changes chronicled in the last chapter.

"Good-morning, sir," said Miss Tox very coldly.

"Joe Bagstock, ma'am," observed the major with his usual gallantry, "has not had the happiness of bowing to you at your window for a considerable period. Joe has been hardly used, ma'am. His sun has been behind a cloud."

Miss Tox inclined her head, but very coldly indeed.

"Joe's luminary has been out of town, ma'am, perhaps," inquired the major.

"I out of town? Oh, no! I have not been out of town," said Miss Tox. "I have been much engaged lately. My time is nearly all devoted to some very intimate friends. I am afraid I have none to spare even now. Good-morning, sir!"

As Miss Tox, with her most fascinating step and carriage, disappeared from Princess's Place, the major stood looking after her with a bluer face than ever, muttering and growling some not at all complimentary remarks. Why, damme, sir!" said the major, rolling his lobster-eyes round and round Princess's Place, and apostrophizing its fragrant air, "six months ago, the woman loved the ground Josh Bagstock walked on. What's the meaning of it?"

The major decided, after some consideration, that it meant man-traps; that it meant plotting and snaring; that Miss Tox was digging pitfalls. "But you won't catch Joe, ma'am," said the major. "He's tough, ma'am; tough is J. B., - tough and de-vilish sly!" Over which reflection he chuckled for the rest of the day.

The major becomes a friend and companion of Mr. Dombey, introduces him to Edith Granger and Mrs. Skewton, and plays the agreeable to the mother, while Mr. Dombey makes love to the daughter. (Ch. vii, x, xx, xxi, xxvi, xxvii, xxxi, xxxvi, xl, li, lix, lx.) Baps, Mr.

Dancing-master at Doctor Blimber's; a very grave gentleman with a slow and measured manner of speaking. (Ch. xiv.)

Baps, Mrs. His wife. (Ch. xiv.)

Berinthia, called BERRY.

Niece and drudge to Mrs. Pipchin,

whom she regards as one of the most meritorious persons in the world. She is a good-natured spinster of middle age, but possessing a gaunt and iron-bound aspect, and much afflicted with boils on her nose. (Ch. viii, xi.)

Bitherston, Master. A child boarding at Mrs. Pipchin's; a boy of mysterious and terrible experiences. (Ch. viii, x, xli, lx.) Blimber, Doctor. Proprietor of an expensive private boardingschool for boys, at Brighton, to which Paul Dombey is sent to be educated.

The doctor was a portly gentleman, in a suit of black, with strings at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head highly polished, a deep voice, and a chin so very double that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up, and a mouth that was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had that moment posed a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. The doctor's walk was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind with solemn feelings. It was a sort of march; but, when the doctor put out his right foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a semicircular sweep towards the left; and, when he put out his left foot, he turned in the same manner towards the right: so that he seemed, at every stride he took, to look about him, as though he were saying, “Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any subject, in any direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think

not."

Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen; but he had always ready a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.

In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the dryest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.

(Ch. xi, xii, xix, xxiv, xli, lx.)

Blimber, Mrs. His wife.

...

Mrs. Blimber, was not learned herself; but she pretended to be: and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that, if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It was the steady joy of her life to see the doctor's young gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the largest possible shirt-collars and the stiffest possible cravats. It was so classical, she said.

(Ch. xi, xii, xix, xxiv, xli, lx.)

H

Blimber, Miss Cornelia. The daughter; a slim and graceful maid. (Ch. xi, xii, xiv, xli, lx.)

There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead, -stone dead; and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a ghoul.

Blockitt, Mrs. Mrs. Dombey's nurse; a simpering piece of faded gentility. (Ch. i.)

Bokum, Mrs. A friend of Mrs. MacStinger's, and her bridesmaid on the occasion of her marriage to Jack Bunsby. (Ch. lx.) Briggs. A pupil of Doctor Blimber's, and the room-mate of Paul Dombey. (Ch. xii, xiv, xli, lx.)

Brogley, Mr. A sworn broker and appraiser, and second-hand furniture-dealer; a friend of Sol. Gills. (Ch. ix.)

Brown, Alice, alias ALICE MARWOOD. A handsome woman of about thirty years of age; a former mistress of James Carker. After suffering transportation for crime, she comes back to England filled with scorn, hate, defiance, and recklessness. (Ch. xxxiii, xxxiv, xl, xlvi, lii, liii, lviii.)

Brown, Mrs., called (by herself) GOOD MRS. BROWN. Her mother; a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. (Ch. vi, xxvii, xxxiv, xl, xlvi, lii, lviii.)

Bunsby, Captain Jack. Master of a vessel called "The Cautious Clara," and a warm friend of Captain Cuttle, who looks up to him as an oracle. Fearing that the vessel on which her friend Walter Gay has taken passage is lost, Florence Dombey, accompanied by her maid, Susan Nipper, goes to Captain Cuttle for advice. Walter's uncle, Sol Gills, is also very much distressed about his nephew; and the captain, being a friend of all parties, tries to re-assure them. Not being quite equal to the occasion, however, he fortunately bethinks himself of Jack Bunsby.

"With regard to old Sol Gils," here the captain became solemn, "who I 'll stand by, and not desert until death doe us part, and when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow, -overhaul the catechism," said the captain, parenthetically," and there you'll find them expressions, if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion of a seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he puts it alongside of, and as was all but smashed in his 'prenticeship, and of which the name is Bunsby, that 'ere man shall give him such an opinion in his own parlor as 'll stun him. Ah!" said Captain Cuttle vaunting y," as much as if he'd gone and knocked his head again a door!"