Slowboy, Tilly. Mrs. Peerybingle's nursery-maid; a great, clumsy girl, who is very apt to hold the baby topsy-turvy, and who has a habit of mechanically reproducing, for its entertainment, scraps of current conversation, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural number, as when she asks, "Was it Gruffs and Tackletons the toy-makers, then?" and "Would it call at pastry-cooks for wedding-cakes?" and "Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them home?" and so on. (Chirp 1st-3d.)

Tackleton, called GRUFF AND TACKLETON. A toy-merchant, stern, ill-natured, and sarcastic, with one eye always wide open, and one eye nearly shut.

Cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was their impla cable enemy. He despised all toys; would n't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies, and other like samples of his stock in trade. In appalling masks, hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks in boxes, vampire kites, demoniacal tumblers who would n't lie down, and were perpetually flying forward to stare infants out of countenance, his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief and safety-valve.

After the marriage of his betrothed, May Fielding, to Edward Plummer (see above), he turns his disappointment to good account by resolving thenceforth to be, and by actually becoming, a pleasant, hearty, kind, and happy man. (Chirp 1st-3d.)

The Battle of Life.

A LOVE-STORY.

PUBLISHED in 1846, with a frontispiece and titlepage engraved on wood, from drawings by Maclise, and with woodcuts inserted in the text, from designs by Doyle, Leech, and Stanfield.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Britain, Benjamin, called LITTLE BRITAIN. A small man with an uncommonly sour and discontented face; servant to Doctor Jeddler, afterwards husband of Clemency Newcome, and landlord of the Nutmeg Grater Inn. He gives this summary of his general condition: "I don't know any thing; I don't care for any thing; I don't make out any thing; I don't believe any thing; and I don't want any thing." (Part 1-3.) Craggs, Mr. Thomas. Law-partner of Jonathan Snitchey. He seems to be represented by Snitchey, and to be conscious of little or no separate existence or personal individuality. (Part 1, 2.) Craggs, Mrs. His wife. (Part 2.)

Heathfield, Alfred. A young medical student; a ward of Doctor Jeddler's, and engaged to his younger daughter Marion. On coming of age, he starts on a three-years' tour among the foreign schools of medicine. In the very hour of his return, Marion flees from home, eloping, as it is supposed, with a young bankrupt named Michael Warden. After a time, her elder sister Grace becomes Alfred's wife; and it finally transpires that Marion, though deeply loving him, discovers that Grace also loves him, and, deeming herself to be less worthy of such a husband, sacrifices her own happiness to insure her sister's. But, instead of eloping with young Warden, she retires to an aunt's, who lives at a distance, where she remains secluded until after her sister's marriage has taken place. (Part 1-3.) Jeddler, Doctor Anthony. A great philosopher, the heart and

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 Heathfield. (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 hidecus 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 ar rangement.

Snitchey, Jonathan. Law-partner of Thomas Craggs. (Part 1-8.) 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 cf October, 1846, Messrs. Bradbury and Son issued the first num• ber 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 ser vant 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 ne grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey down hill with ardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephan⚫ ine 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, wheez ing 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,