The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Sir Guy de Guy. A Stirring Romaunt. By
Rattlebrain. Illustrated by Phiz. One vol.,
pp. 167. Routledge and Co.
Any one who may remember Mr. Alphabet
Baillie's new Tale of a Tub, will understand at once
our meaning, when we say that Sir Guy de Guy is
akin to it. The adventures related in that won-
derfully absurd narrative, also in rhyme, also
grotesquely illustrated, were those of a certain
couple who had gone out to enjoy themselves in
a sort of pic-nic together in (of all places in the
wide world for a picnic !)—the desert—the level,
trackless, sandy wilderness! Who that ever saw
that preposterous book has lost a recollection of it
Who has not an almost painfully ludicrous remem-
brance of the unlucky pair who were the heroes
of those memorable adventures ? The long thin
friend and the short stout friend—we forget
their names now, or even, for that matter, it
they had any ! The empty barrel they took
out into the desert with them—to employ at
p;easure as—a store place for their provisions,
a table to dine from, a chair or stool to sit on, a
wooden sort of tent or screen from the sun if propped
edgeways, or—don't we recall to mind what else be-
sides? A shelter frotn—more than the noonday sun !
A. trap—far more than merely to catch a sunbeam!
How the loug and the short of it was this—that the
lean and the fat friend were startled from their en-
joyment of the good things brought by them into the
desert in the empty barrel, were startled from their
enjoyment of those good things by the apparition
of a raging, ravaging, wild Tiger ! How they
dodged the tiger to and fro and all round and round
the barrier of that empty barrel ! How, in the
tussle with the tiger, they got into all sorts of rela-
tive position with him and the barrel—now the long
one, now the short one, now the lean one, now the
fat one, getting into the most fearful jeopardy, and
then in the very nick of time getting out of it again
—who could possibly say or sing but Mr. Baillie, who
imagined it, or the illustrator whose comical pencil
so marvellously realised his imaginings ?
Until—
somehow or another—between the two friends (we
don't mean the poet and the artist, but the two heroes,
the stout one and the thin one) they managed to
get their enemy, the tiger, caged under the empty
barrel which they then sac down upon for safety's
sake. Despair being even then, however, before them
in the desert—seeing that they could not possibly
contrive to leave off sitting on the barrel in order to
run away, without, by so doing, of course, enabling
the caged tiger to scramble out and run after them.
Everyone who ever saw the work remembers, to be
sure, how they did contrive to get off at last, and
with safety. Namely, through the happy circum-
stance of the tiger, while wriggling about inside
and lashing his tail about in wrath at being
kept thus in ignoble durance, getting the tip or
that tail of his (by an unlieeky chance for him)
through the bunghole. Whereupon the fat friend
and the lean friend, holding on to the tip of that
same protruding tail like grim death, haul it out by
superhuman efforts, hand over hand, as if it were a
coil of rope—haul it out gradually down to
the very root—then tying it securely into
a very tight knot and so off—the long
and the short of them, grinning, and quite
at their leisure out of the wilderness.
Well, precisely such another book as that was, is
this Romaunt of Sir Guy de Guy—the very
height of absurdity—the most ludicrous extra-
vagance, well imaginable—full of the most impos-
sible adventures—dashed off currente calamo, iu
rhyme by Rattlebrain—embellished with fifty won-
derfully ridiculous illustrations by our old friend
Phiz. Seriously to criticise such a book as
this would be worse than breaking a but-
terfly on a wheel, it would be more like
roasting it cruelly before an exceedingly slow fire !
All that the reader or
,the critic has to do with
such a production, is to turn over the leaves, and
laugh at it, and then throw it aside. The getting
up of the work appears to us to be far better than
the contents of it can be said in any way to merit.
As a new book, it reflects the highest credit upon
—the publiabersl L aughing at it, we must confess,
has been for us rather wearisome—the thing is just
simply too absurd. It is the very exaggeration of ex-
travagance in the way—we cannot say of humour, for
that is always delightful, and we can never have
too much of it ! But we will say of broad farce and
ontrageous comicality. Guy Straggles, afterwards
Sir Guy De Guy is the hero. The Lady Arabella.
daughter of Sir Hildebrand, is the heroine. Their
adventures all over the world are the incidents re-
lated. How outré ttiose adventures are, we don't
care
-to particularize. They are beyond us altogether.
As a piece of fun, we suppose it is capital. And
to those who can read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest anything so very rich as this same piece of
fun before us, we may venture to commend it.
Certainly to none more seriously inclined than the
unaffected, lovers of—what we ourselves (we confess
it). most unaffectedly detest and abominate—bur
lesques, parodies, travesties, extravaganzas, tom
fooleries lie fact of all.seertV and descriptions.

The Cause of Lor& ttainford's Retiremen

from the Turf.

" Harkaway," in a letter to the illorning Herald,
writes:—

" With respect to Lord Stamford's retirement from the
turf, no one can be in the least surprised at the resolution
arrived at immediately he witnessed the performance of
Litnosina for the Cambridgeshire. My only surprise is that
his lordship had not retired from the turf in disgust long
ere this. His career has been one marked with honourable
intentions and the pure love of sport, but no owner of horses
has had to contend with so many or such a continued series
of expensiveblunders or mortifvingmishaps during the three
years the turf has been honoured by his presence. It will be
remembered that at Goodwood, the year before last, his
lordship ran a mare called Provision against Contadina and
Mr. Hall's mare. Ho then laid £3,000 to £2,000 on the two
opposed to his own animal. The result was his own mare
won, and he lost the £3,000. Walloon won the Cham-
pagne at Doncaster and he never backed it for sixpence,
although it lost when he backed it at Newmarket for £2,000.
When Diophantus cantered in for the Two Thousand
Guineas at Newarket he scarcely won anything on the
race, as he backed Imaus to win £30,000, because, in a
trial the last named, by some cause or other, was made
to beat Diophantus with a stone in hand. At Ascot his
lordship laid 6 to 1 on Diophantus, and Lusk positively
beat him. Shortly after that Diophantus met with an
accident, and was never able to race again. Ensign was
also heavily backed for the Derby, but he cut up very
badly. This year Brick was broken down from the effects
of a severe but satisfactory trial, and will never be able to
race again. His lordship also backed Automaton to win a
large stake for the Derby, but on receiving a telegram to
the effect that the horse was dead lame ho scratched him at
once. The next day ho found the horse was quite sound.
Since then he has died. For the St. Leger his lord-
ship backed Avenger to win a large stake, although a
veterinary surgeon had examined him before he was
backed, and had pronounced his opinion that the horse
was sure to break down. Whether that opinion ever
reached Lord Stamford's ears I am not in a position to
state. The last act, however, was the Limosina
lfuei-
ness and the Cambridgeshire. It is soon told. His
lordship backed her to win an immense stake. The
mare was as well as any animal could be on the
morning of the race, but from her appearance when at
the post, and the fact that the poor thing could not get half
a mile, it was the opinion of good judges that she had
been poisoned, and her wretched appearance to-day
leads to the inference that it is still in her system.
Again, if Lord Stamford ever wanted to back his horses
for any of the handicaps he found that others who
had obtained his stable information surreptitiously
had forestalled him to such an extent that book-makers
coolly offered him 6 to 4 against his representative in
a field of a ,dozen or fitteen runners. The result was
he very property scratched his horses ou two or_
toretlle
occasions, for the doing of which these unprincipled
stallers have thought proper to throw out dirat
ysn:nd stement,
tions, which neither amount to a char g
:capable of one who
to the effect that hie horses were pulled.° nor
Every
really knows Lord Stamford knowshimub, who have no
to
be
lie
such a proceeding; but the general
means of knowing, may have believed
public,
thheasde sillyonly
tbuurtnd mis-
chievousea reports. If Lord Stamford
who have hove
deaf ear to the Sir Lucius o"frl{"u.sr"l
about him—parras without brains, and wh„ e• t could
win a shilling for themselves—Le would have had a mon,
satisfactory career. He is a good horseman—in fact, a
man —and if he cannot manage his own horses
n
Let the result be what it may, the poor
good
oneioddowsps elsecr s
can.ntd
orphans at Newmarket will miss his bounty.'

We learn with much pleasure that Sir John
Laurence has recognised the services of Sir Charles Hatha-
way, who, as Inspector. General of Prisons in the Punjaub,
has laboured with so much success in meliorating the state
of the gaols in that province, by appointing that gentleman
to ):e his private secretary.