The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-20 00:00:00

A DASHING YOUNG BARONET'.

Sir Philip Jocelyn was not what is usually called an
intellectual man. lie was more warmly interested in
steeplechase on Shorncliffa-common than in a pamphlet on
political economy, even though Mr. Smart Mill should
himself t 3 the n'Atii.or of the brochure. He thcught, John
Scott a greater man than Ma-2,311c.,ch ; and Manton the gun-
trial er only second to Doctor Jenne: sea benefactor of his
race. He found the works of the late Mr. Apperly more
entertaining than the last new Idyll from the pen of the
Laureate; and was rather at a loss for small-talk when he
found his feminine neighbour at a dinner-table was "deeply',
darkly, beautifully blue." But the young baronet was by
no means a fool, notwithstanding these sportsmanlike pro-
clivities. The Tocelyns had been hard riders for half-a-
dozen centuries or so, and crack shots ever since the inven-
tion of fire-arms, Sir Philip was a sportsman, but he did
not "hunt in dreams," and be was prepared to hold his
wife a great deal "higher than his horse," whenever he
should win that pleasant addition to his household.

He was heart-whole; and looking out at life from the
oriel window of his dressing-room, whence he saw nothing
but his own land, neatly enclosed in a ring fence, he thought
the world, about which some people made such dismal howl-
ing, was, upon: the whole, an extremely pleasant place, con-
taining very little that " a fellow" need complain of. He
built himself a painting room at Jocelyn's Rock; and
whistled to himself for the hour together, as he stood be"-
fore the easel, painting scenes in the hunting-field, or Arab
horsemen whom he had met on the great flat sandy plains
beyond Cairo, or brown-faced boys, or bright Italian
peasant girls; all sorts of pleasant objects, under cloudless
skies of ultramarine, with streaks of orange and vermilion
to represent the sunset. Ho was not a great painter, nor
indeed was there any element of greatness in his nature;
but he painted as recklessly as he rode; his subjects were
bright and cheerful ; and his pictures were altogether of the
order which unsophisticated people admire and call
" pretty."

He was a very cheerful young man, and perhaps that
cheerfulness was the greatest charm he possessed. He
was a man in whom no force of fashion or companionship
would ever engender the peevish Mag.• ness so much affected
by modern youth. Did he dance ? Of course be did, and
he adored dancing. bid he sing ? Well, he did his best,
and had a fine volume of rich bass voice, that sounded re •
markably well on the water, after a dinner at the Star and
Garter, in that dim dewy hour, when the willow-shaded
Thames is like a southern lake, and the slow dip of the
oars is in itself a kind of melody. Had he been much
abroad ? Yes, and he gloried in the Continent; the dear
old incmvenient inns, and the extortionate landlords, and
the insatiable commissionaires—he revelled in the commis-
sionaires; and the dear drowsy slow trains, with an absurd
guard, who talks an unintelligible patois, and the other
man, who always loses one's luggage I Delicious I And
the dear little peasant girls with white caps, who are so
divinely pretty when you see them in the distance under a
sunny meridian sky, and are so charming in coloured chalk
upon tinted paper ; but such miracles of ugliness, corn
paratively speaking, when you behold them at close
quarters. And the dear jingling diligences, with very
little harness to speak of, but any quantity of old rope ;
and the bad wines, and the dust, and the cathedrals, and
the beggars, and the trente•et•quarante tables, and in short
every thing. Sir Philip Jocelyn spoke of the universe as
a young husband teats of his Wife, and was never tired of
her beauty or impatient of her faults.
The poor about Jocelyn's Rock idolised the young lord
of the soil. The poor like happy people, if there is nothing
insolent in their happiness. Philip was rich, and he distri-
buted his wealth right royally; he was happy, and he shared
his happiness as freely as he shared his wealth. He would
divide a case of chcice Manillas with a bed-ridden pensioner
in the Union, or carry a bottle of the Jocelyn Madeira—
the celebrated Madeira with the brown seal—in the pocket
of his shooting• coat, to deliver it into the horny hands of
some hard-working mother who was burdened with a sick
child. He would sit for an hour together telling an agri-
cultural labourer of the queer farming he had seen abroad ;
and he had stood godfather—by proxy—to half the yellow-
headed urchins within ten miles radius of Jocelyn's Ruck.
No taint of vice or dissipation had ever sullied the bright-
ness of his pleasant life. No wretched country girl had
ever cursed his name before she cast herself into the sullen
waters of a lonely mill stream. People loved him ; and he
deserved their love, and was worthy of their respect. He
had taken no high honours at
,Oxford ; but the sternest
officials smiled when they spoke of him, and recalled the
boyish follies that were associated with his name. A
sickly bedmaker had been pensioned for life by him; and
the tradesmen who lied served him testified to his merits
as a prompt and liberal paymaster. Ido not think that in
all his life Philip Jocelyn had ever directly or indirectly
caused a pang of pain or sorrow to any human being, un-
less it was, indeed, to a churlish heir-at-law, who may have
looked with a somewhat evil eye upon the young man's
vigorous and healthful aspect, which gave little hope to
his possib:e successor.
Every word of all this description being to our
mind in simplest truth—delightful ! Miss Brad-
don's powers, again, as a humorist, are frequently
in a quiet, subtle manner, very exhillarating. In-
stence this, her casual remarks upon the discomforts
of a Wet Wedding—when the day itself, as Sam
Slick would have it, is " juicy"—when the " marble
floor," as Dick Swiveller expresses it is his con-
verse with the Marchioness, is, as one may say (with
Dick), decidedly " sloppy"—

But this aggravating rain baulked everybody. What was
the use of throwing wet dahlias and flabby chrysanthemums
into the puddles through which the bride must tread, heiress
though she was ? How miserable would be the aspect of
two rows of damp charity-children, with red noses and no
pocket-handkerchiefs I The rector himself had a cold in
his head, and would be obliged to omit all the n's and nee
in the marriage service.

Or, as a crowning example of Miss Braddon's sense
of the humorous, take her version of the under-
waiter's opinion of the Head-Waiter, at the hotel in
Winchester :

" And then Brigmawl, the head-waiter, he gives his
evidence ; but, tor', sir, without unfriendliness to William
Brigmawl, which me and Brigmawl have been fellow-
servants these eleven year, our head-waiter is that wrapped
up in hisself, and his own cravats, and shirt-fronts, and
gold studs, and Albert chain, that he'd scarcely tako notice
of an earthquake swallering up half the world before his
eyes, unless the muck and dirt of that earthquake
was to spoil his clothes. William Bi igmawl has been
head-waiter in this house upon thirty year; and
beyond a stately way of banging-to a carriage door, or
showing visitors to their room, or poking a fire, and a kind
of knack of leading on timid people to order expensive
wines, I really don't see Brigmawl's great merit. But as
to Brigmawl at an inquest, he's about as much good as the
Pope of Rome."

Precluded not only from describing any portion
whatever of this profoundly interesting plot of
"Henry Dunbar," but even from commenting upon
it with anything like particularity, we content
ourselves with simply remarking that the
interest of the tale never once flags throughout.
Margaret Wilmot and Laura Dunbar are the two
lovely heroines of the story—the former the lowlier
of the two—it is difficult to say which the lovelier !
Clement Austin, the bank cashier, and Sir Philip.
Jocelyn, the handsome young baronet above de-
scribed, are the claimants of their hands re3pectively
—Philip of Laura's, Clement of Margaret's. The
Mr. Bucket of the tale is one Carter. The Robert.
Audley, in regard to the murderer here,
is Clement Austin aforesaid. As for the
murderer himself and the murdered—" there-
by hangs a tale"—this enthralling tale of " Henry
Dunbar." Knowing the fascination hitherto
exercised over her reader's mind by Miss Braddon
—as a Novelist endowed with a sort of Witchery_
we cannot wonder in the least at the publisher's
announcement of trio exhaustion of the first edition
of her new book upon the very day of its publication.
The singular glamour exercised by the book itself,
however, will fully justify this its instant end eager
acceptance. It is gracefully inscribed by the
authoress to Mr. l3uckstone, the popular comedian
and play wright. It is but another precursor, let us
still hope, of yet more of these enthralling fictions
from the same pen of fascination, a pen by which
vice and.critne are never glossed over, and one by
which, if PrOmbil;ty is occasionally defied, possi
hility is never outraged.

A BROKEN BEART.—A case of death from broken
heart actually took place in this city. A man named
Thomas Meehan, a native of the county of Kilkenny, Ire-
land, residing in Lafayatte-street, San Francisco, received
a letter from his native place, informing him that his father's
house had been destroyed by fire, and that his father,
mother, two sisters, and a brother had perished in the
flames. He read the letter, turned. pale, clutched con-
vulsively at his breast, and fell dead. The ccroner was
called, and an autopsy revealed that death was caused I,y a
rupture of the heart.—California Paper.