The Sun.
London, England, 1847-09-06 00:00:00

" < Why, upon my life,' said Cousin Feenix, ' there's
nothing iu it; it really is not worth repeating: in point
of fact, it's merely an anecdote of Jack Adams. I dare
say my friend Dombey;' for the general attention was
concentrated on Cousin Feenix; may remember Jach
Adam's, Jack Adams, not Joe ; that was his brother.
Jack—little Jack—man with a cast in his eye, and a
slight impediment in his speech—man who sat for some-
body's borough. We used to call him in my Parlia-
mentary time W. P. Adams, in consequence of his being
Warming Pan for a young fellow who was in his mi-
nority. Perhaps my friend Dombey may have known
the man?'
" Mr. Dombey, who was as likely to have known Guy
Fawkes, replied in the negative. But one of the seven
mild men unexpectedly leaped into distinction, by saying
lie had known him, and adding—' always wore Hessian
boots!'
" Exactly,' said Cousin Feenix, bending forward to
sce the mild man, and smile encouragement at him down
the table. That was Jack. Joe wore—'
" ' Tops!' cried the mild man, rising in public estima-
tion every instant.
" Of course,' said Cousin Feenix,' you were intimate
with 'em ?'
"' I knew them both,' said the mild man. With
whom Mr. Dombey immediately took wine.
" Devilish good fellow, Jack?' said Cousin Feenix,
again bending forward, and smiling.
." Excellent,' returned the mild man, becoming bold
on his success. One of the best fellows I ever knew.'
" ' :No doubt you have heard the story ?' said Cousin

Feenix.
" I shall know,' replied the bold mild man, ' when I
have heard your Ludship tell it.' With that, he leaned
back in his chair and smiled at the ceiling, as knowing it
by heart, and being already tickled.
" In point of tact, it's nothing of a story in itself,'
said Cousin Feenix, addressing the table with a smile,
and a gay shake of his head,' and -not worth a word of
preface. But it's illustrative of the neatness of Jack a
humour. The fact is that Jackc.was invited down to a
marriage—which I think took place in Barkshire?'
" Shropshire,' said the bold mild man, finding him-
self appealed to.
" ' Was it? well! In point of Tact it might have been
in any shire,' said Cousin Feenix. So, my friend being
invited down to this marriage in Anyshire,' with a
-pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, goes. Just
as some of us, having had the honour of being invited to
the marriage of my lovely and accomplished relative with
my friend Dombey, did'nt require to be asked twice, and
were devilish glad to be present on so interesting an oc-
casion.—Goes—Jack goes. Now, this marriage was, in
point of fact, the marriage of an uncommonly fine girl
with a man for whom she did'nt care a button, but whom
she accepted on account of his property, which was im-
mense. When Jack returned to town, after the nuptials,
a man he knew, meeting him in the lobby of the House
of Commons says, Well Jack, how are the ill-matched
couple?' 111-matched,' says Jack. Not at all. It's a
perfectly fair and equal transaction. She is regularly
bought, and you may take your oath he is as regularly
sold!' "

Mrs. Chick leaves the party in dudgeon ; Mr.
Dombey qaarrels with his lady (before Carker) when
the guests have departed ; next morning Mr. Carker,
in an interview with Mrs. Dombey, has that lady
under his thumb ; and Mrs. Skewton is struck in her
diamonds, and short sleeves and rouge, and curls, and
teeth, and other juvenility—before her glass—by
paralysis. She lay there " like a horrible doll that
had tumbled down." " They took her to pieces in
very shame, and put the little of her that was real on
a bed." Mrs. Skewton, however, gradually recovers,
though—" it was a tremendous sight to see this old
woman in her finery leering and mincing at Death, and
playing off her youthful tricks upon him.as if he had
been the Major." Forlorn Lucretia Tox, denied all in-
tercourse with the Dombeys and the Chicks, resolves
to cultivate the acquaintance of Mrs. Richards, other-
wise the Toodles, that she may pick up a casual
scrap of news about the august family from which she
is an outcast. This inclination introduces us, as well
as Miss Tox, again to the domestic arrangements of the
Toodles. Mr. Toodle is there, cindery and swart, in
the bosom of his home, for he is described as having
three stages of existence. "He was either taking
refreshment in the bosom just mentioned, or he was
tearing through the country at from twenty five to
fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his fa-
tigues." Mr. Toodle is mentioned, also, as shovelling
in the bread and butter with a clasp-knife, " as if he
was stoking himself;" and, in regard to tea, swallow-
ing, in his own phrase, the indefinite quantity of " a
sight of mugs." To his children—and " Mr. Toodle
was never out of children, but always kept a good
supply on hand"—he distributes irregular morsels of
his own meal, as possessing a relish—after partaking
among themselves, and stood on one
of which these young Toodles performed private
dances of ecstacy
leg a-piece, and hopped, and indulged in other salta-
tory tokens of gladness. The number is rich in the
development of characters and the delineation of
scenes—besides which it abounds with passion and
drollery, and an interest that enlarges and deepens as
the story progresses.

LITERATURE.
MURRAY'S HOME AND COLONIAL LI-
BRARY. Nos. XLVL and XLVIL Story of the
Battle of Waterloo. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig.
The author of the " Subaltern" being no tyro as a
military historian, but being, on the contrary, as
practised a writer on matters appertaining to the life
of a soldier as Charles Lever or \V. H. Maxwell, we
naturally look with some curiosity to a work bearing
the above name and the above authorship upon the
title-page. But that we are tolerably well
accustomed to find the incongruous Reverend
prefixed to pages on war and battle-fields, we
should have been startled by that circumstance ;
the Rev. G. R. Gleig's name is, however,
familiar to us, and therefore the novelty has worn
away. Every person who has emerged from boyhood
or girlhood, and has received any sort of education,
has read some narrative or other of the battle of
Waterloo : the majority of them have read scores of
accounts. Nor is this surprising, when we remember
that that battle was the prelude to the peace we have
now been enjoying for upwards of thirty years. The
mind of this generation naturally reverts, and the
minds of all future generations will naturally revert,
to that most momentous crisis in the history of
modern times. The lovers of legitimacy will exult
when they recal its slaughter to their recollection,
while others will lament in the famous couplet of
Lord Byron :

" We do not curse thee, Waterloo,
Though freedom's blood thy plains bedew."
Mr. Gleig is of the former class, and he not only
exults over the battle-field, butwith the true gusto
of a military writer, he appears to see in the butchery
merely a beautiful result of adroit manoeuvring, or a
capital proof of the toughness of his fellow-country-
men. The coolness with which a military historian
enumerates the killed or wounded, and the self pos-
session with which he recounts
generala cannonading
little incident of
murder in the midst of the more
is so extraordinary, that we conceive it to be the very
worst class—the most inappropriate class of author-
ship for a clergyman. There is something mar-
vellously indelicate to our thinking in the calm nar-
rative of the destruction of human bodies penned by
a person ordained for the more charitable office of
saving human souls, Hence the account of the
Battle of Waterloo—detestable to us at all times
the —is absolutely repulsive as written by Rev.
G. IL Gleig. And Mr. Gleig seems to have
inspired an atmosphere kindred to that inhaled
by Colonel Mitchell. The whole book is a piece
of consummate braggadacio ; and if the French
Emperor was really such a blundering, obtuse,
thick-headed general, as he is described to be
by Mr. Gleig, there is very little credit indeed to the
Duke of Wellington, or, rather, to Prince Blucher, in
routing his forces. As a proof that the work is
cleverly written, we give the following picturesque
account of the Highland regiments at the Duchess
of Richmond's ball :
" The Duchess of Richmond, of whose ball so much
notice has been taken, was the sister of the late and last
Duke of Gordon. The Duke was Colonel of the 92d
Regiment, which, because it had been raised upon his
estates, was called the Gordon Highlanders; and the
Duchess of Richmond, being proud of her brother and
of her country, made arrangements for exhibiting to her
guests that night a perfect specimen of the Highland
fling. With this view she caused a selection to be made
from among the non-commissioned officers of the above-
mentioned corps, not only desiring such to be chosen as
were most skilled in the mysteries of that national
dance, but making a particular request that all should be,
in point of personal appearance, excellent specimens of
their race. The wishes of the high-born dame were
by reel,
the
fast strathspey,
diminishingan d
body of Highlanders marched that night into her Grace's
carefully attended to. Preceded by their pipers, a little
hall, of whom it is not too much to assert, that Scotland
, were little aware
could furnish nothing superior to. them; and the admirable
sword-dance,
w natureerd.
few who survive to speak admired They also, like the
of the brief interval which should. elapse ere the
instruments which then stirred them in the game would
don of
c their
ei
isr still performance
remem b r d.n
cheer them to the battle. Indeed there were but few in
ladies who beheld them and
.
that bright assembly who guessed '
that danger was near;
and they who knew it best, including the Duke and the
officers of his personal staff, were in their manner the
most entirely unembarrassed.
" It bad been hinted to the generals of division and
brigade, that, one by one, as the night drew on, they
should take their leave. Orders likewise had been issued
to the troops in and around Brussels to hold themselves
in readiness to march at a moment's notice; and the
consequence was, that without exactly anticipating the
actual course of events, men packed their knapsacks,
and officers arranged their baggage, ere they lay down.
By and bye general after general withdrew from the
Duchess's party—some on the plea that their commands
were far away—others, because duty or private business
called them. The Duke remained till a late hour, and
returned thanks after supper for the health of the Prince
Regent, which was proposed by the Prince of Orange.
Ile soon afterwards retired, and the company broke up.
" There might have been one hour's quiet in the
streets of Brussels. The rattle of carriages was over.
Light after light had been extinguished in chamber and
in hall, and sleep seemed to have established his
dominion over the city, when a bugle-call, heard first in
, the Place d'Armes, on the summit of the Montagne du