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    No. 459, Januaby 8, 1859,] THE LEAP E E,...

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    service occasionally develops, and who a...

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    What Will He Do With It? Wliatw' Dl He D...

    sharp pangs of indignant jealousy . Two children are tW fruit of the ill-assorted union : the boy is drowned—for tunately for his future career—as he had already proved himself while at school-to be worthless and -cruel ; indeed , his death was theresuit of an act of barbarity towards a younger schoolfellow , thus indicating that , the calamity lie experienced was a just retribution . The daughter elopes with a stranger , one Jasper Losely , a largelimbed , handsome-visaged , needy adventurer , who eventually is found associating as captain with , a kind of Jonathan Wild , and with a band of untransDorted felons , and winding up with a burglary

    at Guy Barrel ' s mansion . A young girl , Caroline Lyndsav , "beautiful exceedingly , " who was educated with his daughter , attracts Guy parrel ' s attention . He falls desperately in love , he inspires reciprocal sentiments , not then developed in their , ultimate fixity and intensity , because Caroline is much too youthful at the ' time . This love and prospective union are nipped in the bud by Caroline ' s mother , aided by Jasper Losely and a clique of abandoned personages , with whom Jasper Losely had intimately connected himself . Jasper Losely ' s eo-operation is secured , because he believes

    if Guy Parrel ; married Caroline Lynd . say , the prospect of his -wife , Darrel ' s daughter , inheriting her father ' s prodigious wealth would be impaired . Caroline , beset on all sides , misled by faLsc reports , finding no one at hand to aid her with counsel or solace , suecumks to the pressure , brought to bear upon her resolution , consents to wed the . young Marquis of Montford , her distant relative , and to exchange the love of a noble heart for tlie princely spleudour of station , coupled with the drawback of a narrow-minded , cold-blooded husband , who early takes a rooted aversion to her on finding that she

    had been affianced to another , and that , an alliance Avil . li his noblo self had not wiped out the recollection of her first love . Guy Darr / el , wliose besetting sin is pride—personal ami ancestral—who wished to comply with a father ' s dying request to perpetuate the name of Darrel , wort liily finding all his prosperity summarily blighted , liis family hopes utterly defeated , his heart aspirations ruthlessly , mocked and laid hopelessly waste , withdraws from the world at the very moment when his name , fame , and wealth stand highest . He withdraws from society , lie becomes misanthropic ; but his noble qualities are only lying dormant , they arc not extinguished . While in this mood , " Lionel Haughton , his protege , is introduced to him at his own desire . The

    amiable qualities of Lionel win upon Guy Darrcl , and partly succeed in drawing him from his recluse life and habits . While these matters arc progressing , " Gentleman Waife , " who is Jasper Losely ' s father , and also a convict—he having taken upon himself the . consequences and punishment of a robbery perpetrated by his spn Jasper , because anxious to screen that son from justice' —after slinking himself loose from an engagement for himself ami grandchild with one liuggc , the manager of a company of strolling players , first cousin , at least , to Dieke . ns ' s " Crummies , " is suddenly deprived of his grandchild by the aid of one Arabella . Crane , a kind of benig * nant female Monhistophelcs to Jasper Losely , who in early youth alunnccd himself to her , but who in mature manhood falsified his vows and married her

    Darrel ' s daughter , but that Guy Dan-el , in consequence of his indomitable pride of name and ancestry , has refused to see or assist her—she being , as he then believes , the daughter of a swindler , and the granddaughter of a convicted felon . Lionel and Sophy , with Lady Montford ' s sanction , renew their acquaintance when they have arrived at man ' s and woman ' s estate , and become irrevocably attached to each other . Guy Darrel ' is appealed to , and he peremptorily refuses Ida assent to the union . After some further adventures , in which Jasper Losely and Arabella Crane play the most conspicuous part , Guy Darrel , through the assistance of his old friend Colonel Morley , finds out that Lady Montford , now a widow , has never forgotten

    her first and only love , and that Sophy is not his daughter ' s child , ' but the child of an artist , a , brother of Frederick Vance , of whom we had a glimpse in the opening chapters . Explanations are given ; mysteries and misapprehensions , cleared up on all sides . Lionel and Sophy are eventually made one flesh . So are Guy Darrel and Lady Montford . There are many other minor personages introduced : —Fairthome , a humble and devoted follower of Guy Darrel ; Mr . Hartopp , a worthy mayor of a county town ; Mrs . Haughton , Lionel ' s mother ; Cutts , a compound of thief and thief-taker—and though they agreeably relieve the reader ' s attention , they have no . very forcible or necessary action oh the main incidents . .

    It will be seen from this brief sketch of the incidents ami leading actors in the four volumes that the plan and personages will not present any very startling novelty to the ordinary novel reader ; that much of the action is extravagant and improbable , and many of the incidents and situations are rather too melodramatic for real life ,. Even the principal character , Guy Darrel , which is finished with the most care by the author , contains much that is ¦ ¦

    improbable ; his high-inimledncss is , to some extent ; but _ arrant seIfishness in disguise , and his wrongs , when we come impartially to analyse them , are too feeble and petty . to warrant the heavy- sacrifices which- he voluntarily imposes on himself . So with Lionel Haughton and Sophy Vance , 'the amiabilities of the work ;' they are somewhat common-place ; arid moulded after the stereotyped pattern of heroes and heroines of modern romance writers . Arabella Crane is also a character rather oat of nature , and

    Jasper Losely has nothing , that we can see , to redeem his character from thorough-paced scoundreUsin , certainly nothing to justify an educated lady like Arabella Crane in following him so perseveringly , and shielding him with such undying affection " from the consequences of his own vices and villauics . The materials , then , of which this long story is composed , are of a common order ; but it must not be inferred that the work is of a common

    kind . No greater mistake could possibly be made . It is the masterly manner in which these materials have been worked up by 1 he author which stamps the novel with an impress of genius that will always place it in the first rank of English novels , and will secure it , if not the first place among the productions of the writer , certainly one of the first places in public estimation . There is so much profound philosophy in the garb of playful episode , so much flue and manly feeling quietly developed in the dialogue , so much that ' is true m life , domestic and political , scattered throughout the pages , so-much that is tender , inic , and beautiful i-ix character , that , in spite of limits—and they arc many—the reader will become fascinated at the very outset , nncl will rend on / spell-bound , to the very end .

    pupil , Matilda , Guy Darrcl * s daughter . We have next some good political scenes in reference to tho " House of VipontV political manoeuvres . We are brought acquainted with Mr . Carr Viponr , who adroitly manages the family politionl influences , and Lndy Soli ' un , his equally adroit wifo . There is a ciusis in the affairs of the " House of Viponl , " a new Ministry having been formed without considering it necessary to its constitution to have a " Viponl" in it . Plnus arc laid to avert tho < : iusis , and as Dnrrel is also a distant branohof tho " House , " lures arc held out to ontioo him back into the arona of political life and party warfare . Guy Darrcl resists these overtures , nncl contimios in his resolution to abstain from senatorial lifo , but ho changes his original plan of living unmarried and secluded , and in defcreuco to tho

    Jas ( JcpnrtoU pnront , ho determines to marry again . Ho looks out for a wifo , but after mspeoting nnd rejecting many nn eligible jtaHt , ho finally gives up his idea , ou finding thai , his lovoTor Caroline Lyndsay , now Marchioness of Montford , was , as stroiig as over . After a lapso of several yoai's , and various adventures and changes of situatipn , Sophy , somctimos entrapped by her unsorupulous fathor Jasper Losoly , again rooovorod by her grandfather Wuife , is at last taken into tho family of Lndy Montford , who is informed that she is

    No. 459, Januaby 8, 1859,] The Leap E E,...

    No . 459 , Januaby 8 , 1859 , ] THE LEAP E E ,. 43

    Service Occasionally Develops, And Who A...

    service occasionally develops , and who are seized upon by the native intelligence as the impersonation of . British character and British power . His adventurous and chequered progress seems in truth " to transport one back from the prosaic nineteenth century to the ages of romance and chivalry , and to show a glimpse , now of a paladin of old ; now . of a knightly hero sans peur et sans reproche ; now of a Northern chieftain , ' riding on border foray ; ' of a captain of free lances , —yet all dissolving into a Christian soldier of our own day /'

    There is , perhaps , something contagious in the loving enthusiasm of him whose words we have just quoted ; but , truly , the letters of and about Hodson . go far to justify the language used . On this head none may decide but those who peruse them ^ extenso ; . " no extracts we could make would be sufficient material for judgment . But we , who have devoured them , are prepared to say that Twelve Tears of a Soldier * s Life contains matter so engaging , so spirit-stirring , and withal so instructive , that m some form or other it should take a place among our classics . If it be still desirable to spread among our youth the renown of true British worthies , ana to foster admiration of their gallant deeds , Hodson ' s Life—somewhat abridged , perhaps—should , ti > our thinking ,, rank upon the shelf with Southey ' s Nelson in every school-house in the land .

    After an education at Rugby and Cambridge , and two years of nominal soldiering in the Guernsey Militia , our hero proceded as a Company ' s cadet to Agra , where he found a . family friend in Mr : Thomason , Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces . He joined the 2 nd Grenadiers without delay , and within six weeks was engaged in four of the great Sciu . de actions . '¦ lie threw himself with such ardour into his profession , that we find him within a week or two writing seriously about the want of discipline among the Sepoys . After Sobraon , he recrossed the Sutlej ,

    having made acquaintance with Major ( since Sir H . ) Lawrence , then the new Resident at Lahore . This connexion proved invaluable , and within a few months lie was adopted by Lawrence into his service as friend and resident protege , an adoption which stood him . in good stead while the patron lived . That admirable man taught his pupil the " political" business , languages , and surveying , made him Sccretarv of the Lawrence Asylum , and at lasttowards " the end of 1 S 47 , started him

    , before , by strict rule of service , he was entitled , to take charge of a company of Sepoys , as second in command to Lieutenant Lumsden in the " Corps of Guides , " then recently organised for service iii the Punjab . In May , ISIS , he joined Lumsden and the dust-coloured swarthy levy , and for months earned the . thauks he received ' from the Governor-General for his activity , energy , and intelligence iu the peculiar military warfare and civil functions with which he was invested upon the frontier .

    In lS'l-Othc Punjab became a British province , and Hodson ' s connexion with the oivil department naturally terminated . lie had been two ' years , in political " charge of an immense tract of country ; held a detnclicd command , and cleared it of the enemy with but 120 men at his back ; collected the revenues of tho disturbed districts ; and paid 15 , 000 / . into the treasury , the proceeds of property taken from the rebels . He , as naturally , therefore , disliked what ho termed the notion of dropping from Minister to Serjeant-Major , and we accordingly find that his untiring backer , Lawrence , procured him full soon an assistant-commisskmership , and took him ou a long tour of inspection into Cashmero and Thibet . After some interesting travel , he returned to Simla , whero he was warmly received and much honoured by Lord Dalhousio and Sir Charles Napier , and ho was shortly attached to Mr . Edinonstone ' s Cis-Sutlej district . He was very rapidly growing into favour , advancement , and income * as a political assent , when two remarkable incidents occurred to him : hi * marriage , iu January , 1852 , and his appointment in the autumn to the command of the " Guides , " vacant by tho departure of Liiiiisdcu for England . This ho accounted good fortune—" a moat honourable and arduous command — mi almost unprecedented position after only sewn years' service " , l ' lia corps numbered S 50 , and at its head he spent two years in frontier warfare . Ho became esteemed J > y tho most competent of his superiors , as a bold . and able soldier and as n , worthy gentleman . By many a deed of daring iu tho Punjab , by many a successful stratagom ana mulnighi surprise , by many a dosperato oontost , Ijo taught tho Sikhs flrat to ilroad him as an onomy ,

    A SOLDIER'S LIFE IN INDIA . Twice Years of a Soldier ' s Lift : in fndia ; being Extracts from the Letter * of tho late Afajur ^\ . S . Jt . Hoiloon , ' li . A ., Commandant of Ilatlwn'ei lform \ Kditocl by his IJrotUor , tho Kov . floored II . lioilson , M . A ., Fellow of Trinity Oollojijo , Cambridge . J . > V . Parker and Son . Tuk career of William Hodson , who perished in the llower of his nge beforo Lucknow , is so pregnant with instruct ion ns well ns in ! crest , that tho excellent record of it before us , oompiU-d from his own papors , dosorvos immediate and somewhat serious notice . An athloto at school and oollego '; gifted as a man wifh heart of lion , eye of eagle , will of iron ; an cdUcutod gontloman , and a sngaoious man of busU noss ; Hodson bid fair—nay , was cortain-r-hnd his lifo been snared him , to have achieved , sooner or later , tho liiqhost of earthly honours a grateful country ooulcl bestow . Ho was quo of thoso rnro and uurivallod squadron loaders that our Indian

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 8, 1859, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08011859/page/11/