The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-07 00:00:00

Sir Brook Fossbrooke. By Charles Lever. Three
Vols. Blackwood and Sons.
To say that " Sir Brook Fossbrooke" is one
of the cleverest and one of the pleasantest
of the many very clever and very pleasant
tales, for which we are indebted to Charles
Lever, is to award it high praise in-
deed, as the readers and admirers of " Harry
Lorrequer" and " Charles O'Malley" will testify,
but those who may have glanced over the pages of
this very chanting story, as it appeared some little
time back in Blackwood's Magazine, will very readily
admit the truth of our apparently extravagant
assertion. The style is delightfully easy,
and sparkling with all Lever's customary vivacity
and humour, but is at the same time more courtly
and refined than we remember it in his earlier pro-
ductions. Sir Brook Fossbrooke himself is a
complete original, and very skilfully is his peculiar
character depicted. Here is our first glimpse of
him as the Colonel's guest at the mess dinner.
SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE.
The man who now joined the group was a tall, gaunt
figure, with e. high narrow head, from which the hair was
brushed rigidly back to fall behind in something like an
old-fashioned queue. His eyes were black, and sur-
mounted with massive and much-arched eyebrows ; a
strongly-marked mouth, stern, determined, and, except in
speaking, almost cruel in expression, and a thin-pointed
projecting chin, gave an air of severity and strong will to
features which, when he conversed, displayed a look of
courteous deference, and that peculiar desire to please that
we associate with a bygone school of breeding. He was
one of those men, and very distinctive are they, with
whom even the least cautious take no liberties, nor ven-
ture upon any familiarity. The eccentricities of deter-
mined men are very often indications of some deep spirit
beneath, and not, as in weaker natures, more emanations
cf vanity or off-springs of self-indulgence.
If he was, beyond question, a gentleman, there were also
s!gus about him of narrow fortune ; his scrupulously white
shirt was not fine, and the seams of his well-brushed coat
showed both care and wear.
" There goes one of the strangest fellows in Christen-
dom," said the Colonel, as the other left the room. "
He
has already gone through three fortunes; he dissipated the
first—speculated and lost the second—and the third he, I
might say, gave away in acts of benevolence and kindness
—leaving himself so ill-off, that I actually heard the other
day that some friend had asked for the place of barrack-
master at Athlone for him ; but on coming over to see the
place, he found a poor fellow with a wife and five children
a candidate for it ; so he retired in his favour, and is con-
tent, as you see, to go out on the world, and take his chance
with it.

innumerable questions pressed on the Colonel to tell
more of his strange friend ; he had, however, little beyond
hearsay to give them. Of his own experiences, he could
only say that when first he met him it was at Ceylon,
where he had come in a yacht like a sloop of war to hunt
elephants—the splendour of his retinue and magnificence
of his suite giving him the air of a royal personage—and
indeed the gorgeous profusion of his presents to the King
and the chief personages of the court went far to impress
this notion. "I never met him since," said the Colonel,
" till this morning, when he walked into my room, dusty
and travel-stained, to say, I just heard your name, and
thought I'd ask you to give me my dinner to-day.' I owe
him a great many—not to say innumerable other atten-
tions ; and his last act on leaving Trincomalee was to pre-
sent me with an Arab charger, the most perfect animal I
ever mounted. It is therefore a real pleasure to me to re-
ceive him. He is a thoroughly fine-hearted fellow, and,
with all his eccentricities, one of the noblest natures I ever
met. The only flaw in his frankness is as to his age; no-
body has been able to get it from him. You hear him talk
of your fathers—he might talk of your grandfathers; and
he would too, if wo had only the opportunity to lead him
on to it. I know of my own knowledge that he lived in
the Carlton House coterie, not a man of which except him-
self survives; and I have heard him give imitations of
Burke, Sheridan, Gavin Hamilton, and Pitt, that none but
ono who had seen them could have accomplished."
But even more delightful than Sir Brook Fossbrooke
is Sir William Leudrick, the Chief Baron, high in the
opinions of other meu, but highest of all in his own
sublime self-esteem, who when we first encounter
him has been struck with paralysis, and who proves
to be perhaps the most untractable patient that
it ever fell to the lot of Physician to administer to.
As good Dr. Beattie calls for his morning Tisit, he
meets at the door the Solicitor-General, and while
• he exchanges greetings with him the Chief Baron
observes him from the window. The ensuing scene
will best describe the man :