The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-02 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Owen: a Waif. By the author of "No Church"
and " High Church." Hurst and Blackett.
In choosing a vagabond London boy, ragged and
homeless, for his hero, and showing his gradual
rise, social and moral, the author has displayed a
I wholesome disregard of convention, and he has
worked out his theme earnestly and thoughtfully.
It is certainly a strange thing to reflect that in this,
the largest and wealthiest city in the world,
eighteen hundred years after the establishment of
Christianity, human beings should roam the streets
as utterly dead to the healthiest and most beautiful
aspects of life as the most ignorant and degraded
among those far-off heathen tribes, whom well-
meaning but misguided people, blind to the evil at
their doors, yearly spend such large sums to convert.
It is to direct attention to this class that the novel
before us has been written. There is a vividness
about the descriptions of the lower strata of society
which shows that the author has not trusted to
imagination merely, but has studied from life.
And if the close is somewhat melodramatic, the
feeling the work displays pleads forcibly in extenu-
ation. Owen, " the waif," deserted by his drunken
and depraved mother at the age of nine, an age by
the way at which he had pretty well learnt (after a
fashion) to take care of himself, falls in at a county
cattle fair with a costermonger named Tarby Chick-
ney, whose wife, pitying his destitute condition, and
wishing to rescue him from the seemingly inevitable
hulks, persuades her husband to let him help in their
business; and ere he had long been thus engaged,
another good Samaritan named Dell teaches him to
read. He thus acquires a taste for knowledge, de-
termines to rise, and pursues his education at a flee
evening school. Now, it happens that Mr. Tarby,
in his " hours of ease," is given to imbibing beer and
assaulting the police, and having, one unlucky
evening, hit the head of one of these functionaries
somewhat too hard, its owner dies, and Tarby is
transported. Behold Owen now, at the age cf 12,
left in threefold charge—of the business, of Mrs.
Chickney, and of the Chickney offspring, an intent
called Mary. But Mrs. Chickney dies too, of grief
and consumption ; Owen sells the business, puts
Mary to nurse in the country, and enters the iron
foundry of a Mr. Cherbury, in which his friend Dell
is foreman. Here, thanks to his learning, he is
promoted to be clerk, but a mistake occurs in the
books, fifty pounds are supposed to be missing, he is
suspected of dishonesty, and is bluntly asked by his
master if he had not formerly been a thief. Now,
Owen, unfortunately, in his early days, being hun-
gry and ignorant, had set at naught the distinction
between meum and tuum, but having reformed, he
was by no means pleased at being thus reminded at
his past indiscretions ; so, having rectified the mis-
take, for which the master was himself responsible,
he abt•uptly leaves the foundry and goes to Austra•
lia. There, after a few years, he makes money
enough to enable him on his retarn to join
John Dell, who had started a foundry of his
own; and Mary Chickney, who has grown
up a handsome and accomplished young
lady, and has been adopted by Mrs. Cherbury, the
mother of the ironfounder, cherishing a tender feel-
ing for him, he reciprocates it, and the tale ends
with their marriage. It contains some interesting
episodes, such as the reappearance of Owen's mother,
the unsuccessful attempt on the part of her son to
reclaim her, and her subsequent repentant death;
and it shows very considerable power of charac-
terisation. The author has striven to give a real
rather than a fanciful picture of life, and he has
succeeded in producing one of the most vigorous
novels it has of late been our fortune to meet.

Captain Clutterbuck's Champagne. Blackwood

and SODS.
The tale thus whimsically named lately appeared
in Blackwood'B Magazine, and is styled in the title
page "A West Indian Reminiscence." In fact, the
scene is laid in Jamaica ; and although the " Cham-
pagne" is the pivot round which the story revolves,
the owner of that beverage is of infinitessimal im-
portance. The hero is a certain Lieutenant Brune,
brave, accomplished, and generous ; the heroine is
Miss Violet Arabin, beautiful, amiable, and rich ;
and as they return from England in the same ship,
they very naturally fall in love. But a wealthy
planter and storekeeper named Melhado, vulgar,
cowardly, and mean, stops the way—Violet's han
is promised him by her mercenary parents, and
Brune is treated to cold shoulder. In this dilemma
(we think we have met with something like it in
novels before), the lovers put their trust in strata-
gem, and it is agreed that while Melhado and
Arabin pere are imbibing Captain Clutterbuck's
champagne Brune shall steal away Miss Violet and
the fateful ceremony shall be performed. The pro-
gramme is successfully carried out. 'I he lovers are
united, the parents are reconciled, Melhado turns
out meaner than vvas expected, and Violet and Brune
live happy and prosper marvellously ever after. The
tale is spirited and amusing, and the author is evi-
dently familiar with the scene and manners he I
describes.