Silverman, George. The narrator of the story; born in a cellar in Preston. He thus describes his parents :

Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and, not least of all, upon her voice. Her sharp and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps; and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from mother's pursuing grasp at my hair.

"A worldly little devil," was mother's usual name for me. Whether I cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for that I was hungry; or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner when there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she would still say, "O, you worldly little devil!” And the sting of it was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil; worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed; worldly as to wanting to be fed; worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly compared how much I got of those good things with how much father and mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going.

While still a small child, George loses his father and mother, who die miserably of a fever; is taken from the cellar in a half-starved state; and is handed over by the authorities to Brother Hawkyard, who, as it seems, has accepted a trust in behalf of the boy from a rich grandfather who has just died at Birmingham. After being disinfected, comfortably fed, and furnished with new clothes, he is sent to an old farm-house at Hoghton Towers, where he remains for a considerable time, and where he begins to form a shy disposition, to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction, to have an inexpressible and even a morbid dread of becoming sordid or worldly. He is afterwards put to school, told to work his way, and, as time goes on, becomes a Foundation Boy on a good foundation, and is preached at on Sundays by Brother Hawkyard and other expounders of the same kidney. Working still harder, he at last obtains a scholarship at Cambridge, where he lives a secluded life, and studies diligently. Knowing himself to be "unfit for the noisier stir of social existence," he applies his mind to the clerical profession, and at last is presented by Lady Fareway to a living worth two hundred a year. Adelina, the only daughter of Lady Fareway, pur

sues her studies under his direction; and a strong but undeclared affection springs up between them. But the young clergyman, conscious that her family and fortune place him far beneath her, and feeling that her merits are far greater than his, resolves upon self-sacrifice, and quietly sets to work to turn the current of her love into another channel. For this purpose, he introduces to her Mr. Granville Wharton, another pupil of his, and contrives, in various ways, to interest them in each other. The object is accomplished, and, in little more than a year, they come before him, hand in hand, and ask to be united in marriage. As they are both of age, and as the young lady has come into possession of a fortune in her own right, he does not hesitate to do so; but the consequences to himself are disastrous. Lady Fareway has had ambitious projects for her daughter, and indignantly charges George Silverman with taking a percentage upon Adelina's fortune as a bribe for putting Mr. Wharton in possession of it. With the old cry of, "You worldly wretch!" she demands that he should resign his living, contumeliously dismisses him from her presence, and pursues him for many years with bitter animosity. But Adelina and her husband stand by him, and at length he obtains a college-living in a sequestered place, lives down the suspicions and calumnies that have dogged his steps, and pens his "Explanation."

Sylvia. A girl at the farm-house of Hoghton Towers, where George Silverman is placed by Mr. Hawkyard, after the death of his father and mother.

Wharton, Mr. Granville. Pupil of George Silverman, and married by him to Adelina Fareway.

UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER

INDEX TO CHARACTERS

Anderson, John. A tramp, whose only improvidence appears to have been that he has spent the last of his little "all" upon soap. XI. Tramps.

Anderson, Mrs. His wife; a woman spotless to behold. XI. Tramps.

Antonio. A swarthy young Spanish guitar-player. V. Poor Mercantile Jack.

Barlow, Mr. An irrepressible instructive monomaniac, who knows everything, didactically improves all sorts of occasions, and presents himself in all sorts of aspects and under all kinds of disguises; so named from an all-knowing tutor in Thomas Day's juvenile story of "Sandford and Merton." XXXII. Mr. Barlow. Battens, Mr. A virulent old pensioner at Titbull's. XXVII. Titbull's Almshouses.

Bones, Mr. Banjo. A comic Ethiopian minstrel, with a blackened face and a limp sugar-loaf hat. V. Poor Mercantile Jack. Bones, Mrs. Banjo. His wife; a "professional" singer. V. Poor Mercantile Jack.

Bullfinch. A gentleman, who, having occasion to go to the seaside resort of Namelesston with a friend for the transaction of some business, proposes that they should dine at the Temeraire. They accordingly drive to that house, and order a little dinner, which is to be ready punctually in one hour. They return promptly, but try in vain to eat and drink what is set before them, and come to the conclusion that no such ill-served, ill-appointed, illcooked, nasty little dinner could be got for the money anywhere else under the sun. XXXI. A Little Dinner in an Hour. Carlavero, Giovanni. Keeper of a small wine-shop, in a certain small Italian town on the Mediterranean. He had been a political offender, sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was afterwards released through the zealous intervention of a generous English nobleman (Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart). Desirous of testifying his gratitude to his benefactor, whom he has not seen since his liberation, he sends him by Mr. Dickens an immense

demijohn of wine, the first produce of his little vineyard. With infinite difficulty this frail and enormous bottle, holding some half-dozen gallons, is safely carried to England; but the wine turns to vinegar before it reaches its destination. Yet "the Englishman," says Mr. Dickens, " told me, with much emotion in his face and voice, that he had never tasted wine that seemed to him so sweet and sound; and long afterwards the bottle graced his table." XXVIII. The Italian Prisoner.

Chips. A shipwright, who sells himself to the Devil for half a ton of copper, a bushel of tenpenny nails, an iron pot, and a rat that can speak. He gets disgusted with the rat, and tries to kill it, but does not succeed, and is punished by being subjected to a swarm and plague of rats, who finally compass his destruction by eating through the planks of a ship in which he has been XV. Nurse's Stories.

66

pressed" for a sailor.

Cleverly, Susannah. A Mormon emigrant; a young woman of business. XX. Bound for the Great Salt Lake.

Cleverly, William. Her brother, also a Mormon emigrant. XX. Bound for the Great Salt Lake.

Cocker, Mr. Indignation. A dissatisfied diner at the same house, who disputes the charges in his bill. XXXI. A Little Dinner in an Hour.

Dibble, Mr. Sampson. A Mormon emigrant; a very old man, who is stone-blind. XX. Bound for the Great Salt Lake.

Dibble, Mrs. Dorothy. His wife, who accompanies him. XX. Bound for the Great Salt Lake.

Face-Maker, Monsieur the. A corpulent little man with a comical face. He is heralded as “the great changer of countenances, who transforms the features that Heaven has bestowed upon him into an endless succession of surprising and extraordinary visages, comprehending all the contortions, energetic and expressive, of which the human face is capable, and all the passions of the human heart, as love, jealousy, revenge, hatred, avarice, despair." XXV. In the French-Flemish Country.

Flanders, Sally. A former nurse of the Uncommercial Traveller, and widow of Flanders, a small master-builder. XXVI. MedicineMen of Civilization.

Flipfield, Mr. A friend of the Uncommercial Traveller's. XIX. Birthday Celebrations.

Flipfield, Mrs. His mother. XIX. Birthday Celebrations.

Flipfield, Miss. His elder sister. She is in the habit of speaking

to new acquaintances, in pious and condoning tones, of all the quarrels that have taken place in the family from her infancy. XIX. Birthday Celebrations.

Flipfield, Mr. Tom, called THE LONG-LOST. A brother of Mr. Flipfield's. After an absence of many years in foreign parts, he returns home, and is warmly welcomed by his family and friends; but he proves to be "an antipathetical being, with a peculiar power and gift of treading on everybody's tenderest place;" and everybody wishes that he could instantly be transported back to the foreign parts which have tolerated him so long. XIX. Birthday Celebrations.

Globson, Bully. A schoolmate of the Uncommercial Traveller's; a big fat boy, with a big fat head, and a big fat fist. XIX. Birthday Celebrations. Grazinglands, Mr. Alexander. A midland county gentleman, of a comfortable property, on a visit to London. VI. Refreshments for Travellers.

Grazinglands, Mrs. Arabella. His wife; the pride of her division of the county. VI. Refreshments for Travellers.

Head, Oakum. A refractory female pauper, who "would be very thankful to be got into a place, or got abroad." III. Wapping Workhouse.

Jack, Dark. A simple and gentle negro sailor. V. Poor Mercantile Jack.

Jack, Mercantile.

A representative of the sailors employed in

the merchant marine. V. Poor Mercantile Jack. Jobson, Jesse, Number Two. A Mormon emigrant; the head of a family of eight persons. XX. Bound for the Great Salt Lake. John. A boiler-maker, living in the neighborhood of Ratcliffe and Stepney, who obtains employment but fitfully and rarely, and is forced to live on the work of his wife. XXIX. A Small Star in the East.

Kinch, Horace. An inmate of the King's Bench Prison, where he dies.

He was a likely man to look at, in the prime of life, well to do, as clever as he needed to be, and popular among many friends. He was suitably married, and had healthy and pretty children; but, like some fair-looking houses or fair-looking ships, he took the dry rot. . . . Those who knew him had not nigh done saying, "So well off! so comfortably established! with such hope before him!”—... when, lo! the man was all dry rot and dust. XIII. Night Walks.

Kindheart, Mr. An Englishman of an amiable nature, great enthusiasm, and no discretion. XXVI. Medicine-Men of Civili

zation.

Klem, Mr. A weak old man, meagre and mouldy, who is never to be seen detached from a flat pint of beer in a pewter pot. XVI. Arcadian London.