The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-01 00:00:00

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

We have read many descriptions—serious and
comic, some ill prose, and some in verse—of the

.
Eglinton Tournament, but none by many degrees
so interesting, as the sprightly, off-hand prose
sketch with which Tait gaily leads off this month.
It is unusually long for a Magraine article, but it
is so cleverly handled, in so cordial and exciting
a spirit, and with such a thorough knowledge of
effect, though good taste is nowhere sacrificed to
effect, that we feel not its length, but are sorry
when we come to an end. Had the writer regarded
this splendid " Passage-at- Arms" with the cold
and scornful eye of a Utilitarian, we should have
perused his description—if by any herculean effort
of patience we could possibly have got half through
it—with the most perfect indifference, nodding our
head lower and lower at every succeeding page ;
but he is neither a Utilitarian nor a Political Eco-
nomist, but a gentleman of accomplished mind and
cheerful temperament, ready and willing to be
amused, endowed with a salient fancy, and a power
of giving adequate expression to its lively prompt-
ings. We subjoin a specimen of his style of nar-
ration. He is describing his journey outside a
heavily-laden stage-coach, from Edinburgh to Eg-
linton

" At length we found ourselves in motion, and we
began.to beguile the way with chat and cigars. Our
facetious friend, who had lately lost two valuable silk
umbrellas, by their having been stolen from him one
after the other, had been just boasting to us of a bran
new cotton one which he had bought, on the principle
that no one would think anything so common worth the
purloining. This umbrella he had laid down on the up-
permost box of a string of those that hung behind the
back seat, and were thus most marvellously built down-
wards till they nearly touched the road. As we were
journeying on, one of the officers began to snuff up his
nose, and to wonder where the smell of burning and of
smoke was proceeding from. We all became imme-
diately sensible of it. The alarm spread amongs us,
when, suddenly, the other officer, who sat with his face
to the rear, roared out to our friend—' Good heavens,
Sir, your umbrella is on fire !'—and there, to be sure, it
was, blazing up like a volcano, not only to the manifest
peril of the box on which it lay, and on which the fire had
already caught hold, bnt of all the boxes of the string,
yea, even to the risk of the coach itself. The confusion
and the bustle amongst us of the rearward of the coach,
to get the fire extinguished, was indescribable. One
gentleman, who we believe to have been a bailie of a
town, or in some way connected with the police, began
to vociferate loudly for the fire-engines ; whilst another,
whom, we have reason to think, was a reporter, took out
his pen, paper, and ink-horn, and began, with the phi-
losophy of a stoic, to note down the circumstances at-
tending the progress of the conflagration, altogether
forgetful that, if it went on, he and his record must
perish together. The fowls, who looked down upon
us, fluttered and screamed, and more than one of
us shouted ; but the intervening pile of luggage on
the roof, which left us as Britannos toto orbe
divisos,' together with the noise of the coach, shut
out both the scene and the cries from those who
were sitting in front, unconscious of our danger. At
last, after various ineffectual attempts to extinguish the
flames, our friend be-thought himself of rubbing the
blazing umbrella against the wet wheel ; and he thus
most fortunately succeeded in subduing the conflagra-
tion, but not until the deal box on which the umbrella
had lain had been nearly burned through, nor until each
section of the parapluie itself displayed a huge square
window between the whalebone spars, that gave it the
most ludicrous effect. After thanking our stars that we
had not been consumed, and thinking how much sur-
prise the coachman, and those with him, would have
manifested on arriving at the next stage, if they had
found that the tail of the coach, and all upon it, had been
burned off, we began to inquire into the cause, and
found that the accident must have been owing to a stray
piece of ignited German tinder having found its way into
the folds of the umbrella. The adventure, then, fur-
nshed us with much merriment at the expense of our
friend's parapluie ; and when an occasional shower com-
pelled him to hoist the strange uncouth-looking insttu.
went, it furnished no less entertainment to the popula-
tion of the different villages we passed through, where
every one had turned out to look at the various coaches
and carriages that were, even thus long before the day
fixed, passing through, laden with guests bound to the
Tournament."

The account of the Knights' procession to the
Lists, and their Tilting at the barrier ; of the Ladies'
Gallery, and the thousands of eager spectators who
thronged the grassy slopes that swelled up from the
scene of encounter ; of the crash and jostling of
vehicles when the sports were over ; and the hurry
ing back under umbrellas, and without them, of the
myriad pedestrians to the neighbouring town of
Irvine ; these several details, though hurriedly and
boldly dashed off, are in strict accordance with the
soberest judgment. From one or two cursory hints
let drop towards the close, we gather that this article
is the production of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, well-
known by his agreeable little volume, entitled the
" Great Morayshire Floods." The " Organist" is
a posthumous anecdote, by the late John Galt. It
is short, and that is the utmost we can say in its
praise. We cordially approve the spirit that has
dictated the notice:of " Reynold's Modern Litera-
ture of France." It is sound and judicious, stand-
ing on the high vantage ground of morality,
without degenerating into cant. In common, we
should hope, with the majority of our readers, we
have a sovereign contempt for the imaginative litera-
ture of " Young France." That it frequently ex-
hibits capabilites of a high order, we admit, but its
moral tone is unhealthy to a degree. The system
of ethics it inculcates, is tainted, fly-blown. There
is no drawing wholesome nutriment from it. As
for its energy, which has been so much in-
sisted on, it is the energy of spasm—of convul-
sion—not of sound health. Victor Hugo's popular
" Notre Dame" is a case in point. It is one hys-
terical outburst from the first to the last chapter.
Pall de Kock, it seems, is now the great oracle of
the Parisian coteries. He is a smart, showy no-;
velist, quick to conceive, and as ready to execute
but, after all, he is little more than an imitator of
Pigault Le Brun, who again was an imitator of our
Stnollett. " Pedestrian Tour of a Scottish Emi-
grant" gives several truthful sketches of the scenery
in the middle States of North America. The
writer observes minutely, and describes fearlessly.
" O'Donnell's Daughter" is a tale from the pen of
the veteran Mrs. Opie, and exhibits more dramatic
skill of dialogue, and in the arrangement of inci-
dent, than this lady has usually evinced in her
fictions. It has also the recommendation of being
less elaborately lachrymose than the Inajority of her
writings, which seem to have been penned with no
other view than to set our tears flowing like a
parish pump.