The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-31 00:00:00

SECOND TO NONE.

In those days—this was in the year before we fought at
Minden—the Greys wore double-breasted scarlet coats,
lined with blue, having slit sleeves; long slashed pockets
were in each skirt; and a white worsted afruiletto dangled
from the right shoulder. "We wore long jack-boots, and
tail grenadier caps, with the Scottish Thistle and circle of
St. Andrew in front.

Our cloaks were scarlet lined with blue shalloon, and in
front they had rows of large fiat buttons sat two and two,
on white frogs, or loops of braid. On our collars we wore
a grenade in memory that at its formation, a portion of the
regiment had been armed with that formidable weapon, the
same as the Scots Horse Grenadier Guards.
Everywhere the proud motto of the corps met my eye;
on the standards and kettledrums, on our caps, carbines
and pistol-barrels, and on the blades of oar long straight
broadswords, I read the words--
SECOND TO NONE
That short sentence seemed lull of haughty spirit ; it gave
me a new life, and fired my heart with lofty inspirations
I repeated it, dreamed ani pondered over it, and as our
departure for the seat of war was daily looked for, I longed
for active service, and for the peril and adventure ever con
sequent thereto.

Basil Gauntlett is the disinherited heir to a
baronetcy. His father by his marriage having
offended the imperious Sir Basil the grandfather
of our hero, dies and leaves his orphan son to the
cold charity of the world. Ono kind friend inter-
cedes with the old baronet, and urges him to re-
member that he has been
young himself. "Yes,"
growled the gruff baronet, " but it is so very long
ago that I have forgotten all about it !" So Basil,
friendless and peunilees, meets with two jovial
dragoons of the Scots Greys, and enlists as a private
in their regiment. In following the fortunes of the
soldier, whether in the battle-field or the bivouac,
iv the warlike onslaught or the peaceful carouse,
Mr. James Grant is always felicitous; he is, par
excellence, the historian of the romance of war.
The principal portion of Basil Gauntlett's adven-
tures takes place in France. One incident we are
inclined to quarrel with, a strategem which not
even the example of Achilles can render
heroic, namely, the disguise of the young
soldier as a soubrette, or lady's maid.
The sprightly Angetique, the attendant of the fair
Jacqueline de Broglie, can find no other means of
saving the young soldier than by introducing him
as another attendant in the house of her mistress—
the lady-love of Basil. The scene is ludicrously
unheroic. Imagine the fair lady listening to a
loving, compliment from her soldier lover—in the
dress of a femme de-chambre ! The conclusion of
this episode threatens to be most tragical, and the
fearful retribution in the hut in the forest is " sen-
sational" in the extreme. Here, taken almost at
hazard, is a specimen of Mr. Grant's spirited
style
THE POST 07 DINGIER.

" Ride fast I" said the captain, brit-fiy.
Charters shortened his reins, gave his grey the spurs,
and departed at once. As he proceeded towards Querque-
villa Point, the French cannoniers redoubled their efforts to
bring him down. lie frequently waved his sword as it' in
defiance, and escaped as it by a miracle. Then on his de-
scendiEg to the beach, where some rocks protected him, the
battery turned its round shot and grape on the advancing
boat.

Suddenly there rose from the sea and pierced the sky,
the mingled yell of many voices. A 24-pound shct had
dashed the bust to pieces, and 12 seamen and a little mid-
shipman were seen struggling and sinking amid the debris
of oars, thwarts and planks, while the French sent dose
after dose of grape to kill the drowning men.
The middy struggled bravely—being light, the waves
bore him towards the rocks, but Charters saw that unless
succoured, the poor lad would certainly perish amid the surf
that boiled over the ridge.
He sheathed his sword, shook his gloved hand fiercely at
the battery, and urging his horse into the sea, even while
the hissing grape sowed it thick with tiny waterspouts
around him, succeeded in grasping the sinking lad by the
collar, and turning the head of his gallant grey toward the
shore, he bravely battled with the surf, the long waves of
which, reddened by the sunshine, seemed to boil in fiery
foam upon the beach, and rolled over his shoulders, so that
at times the nostrils of his charger were on►y visible, yet he
succeeded in landing the half-drowned midshipman, and
rode twice afterwards into the sea to succour the sea:nen,
but succeeded in saving only one.
This was done in the presence of the whole left wing of
the army, which gave him three tremendous cheers, and a
few minutes afterwards the grenadiers of Richmond's corps
with the light troop of the Greys made a dash at the fort,
which immediately surrendered.

With such scenes and incidents the narrative is, as
may be imagined, singularly animated. Of' the
love stories we shall only say that the hero has no
less than three lady loves, the gentle little Ruth,
the fascinating Jacqueline, and the amiable Aurora,
but which of the three wins the first place in his
affections we shall not reveal. Suffice it to say that
ultimately the heroine like the hero becomes—
" Second to Noce."

Raised to the Wvoolosl. Newby.
By
. vrby.
Langton Lockhart.
It is satisfactory to the readers of the history of
Mr. Henry Gilmore, barrister-at-law, to know at the
very outset of his career, that he ultimately obtains
the legitimate object of every barrister's ambition—
a seat on the woolsack ! As the baton of a marshal
of France is said to be contained in every French
soldier's knapsack, so the great seal of England is
supposed to be hioden away in every English barris-
ter's brief bag. This novel idea of revealing on the
title page the ultimate destiny of his hero is the only
noticeable feature of Mr. Langton Lockhart's ro-
mance. As a story it possesses no particular attrac-
tions, and its heroes and heroines are in no way
interesting or remarkable.

Idamous Treatment of Polish Women
by Russia,

gtheby the Russians, which
'daughters of those
says it has received a
The Siecle of yesterday—":,iy
The
polishtrweaotmmeenntretroerrwedhietho
privatecn Polishta i n women
lettercehh treeetrserpi subjectedebclet respecting
detailsn that it does not dare
ttohenaSibtoericao,:trslacyts
. who have taken
tion. " They are torn from their
atporaerpt theu i
families
nb lwti
the
evnei
anddnts hlenrmdr
e transportedc
Steele. "They are given, like the slaves of old, to
fresh
spenros.tone and names.
pitiless
mle'shteeirre,:ahrori afgerecet ties are broken. The
ancient barbarism which Christianity destroyed is
confine itself to
revived by this abominable transportation of women,
and the language of indignation has no terms suffi-
ciently strong for such means of repression. The
When will some in power
.ta!te,
_pity, n-on
v letterag ue we
l e ghaatvieo übs
P
a nation
subjected to such igoominies ? ,
the person who
brought us this docum.ent. Wrung his hands in
despair and invoked the justice of God. It is only,
e;torite ucsitdeose.
in fact, that justice which can punish such crimes.
If Russia continues her system of transporting the
Polish women, let her remember that Roman Em-
pire which, after having also covered the world
with its violence, was in turn overthrown amid vio-
lence and barbarism,"