The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-08 00:00:00

MAGAZINES-(CONTINUED.)
TAIT.

Before Mr. Tait resigned the proprietorship of this
magazine it arrived with all possible punctuality, and
enabled us to give an early criticism upon its contents
among the leading monthly periodicals. Since the
retirement of its original publisher Tait has so loitered
upon the road that we are compelled to afford each
number a less careful perusal and a more hurried con-
sideration. We hint thus much that the transmission
may be speedier henceforth. From his first appear-
ance we have welcomed the compositions of Mr. Gil-
fillan; we have always read them with a gusto, and
have generally found them on a parity vtith their
themes. Besides his volume of " Literary Portraits,"
he has occasionally sketched the ideal likeness of con-
temporary bookmen in the pages of Tait. The
idiosyncrasies and writings of Sir E. L. B. Lyti.on,
of Thomas Hood, and of James Montgomery have
been commented upon with much that is subtle and
more that is earnest and passionate in his style of
criticism. Here he seizes a most fruitful subject—
Alfred Tennyson—the master of the young poets
now living—and we confess ourselves utterly and un-
utterably disappointed. Mr. Gilfillan shows no ca-
pacity whatever for appreciating the genius of Ten-
nyson. We doubt very much whether he have ever
read one quarter of what Tennyson has written—
little as that unfortunately is. That Alfred Tenny-
son is a more remarkable poet than Mr. Gilfillan takes
him to be is proved by one significant fact, namely, that
his poems have risen in little more that a dozen years
to a distinguished celebrity, unaided and unpuffed. A
young man, the son of a Lincolnshire clergyman,
scarcely emancipated from the scholastic bonds of
Cambridge, publishes, in 1831, a little book of poems.
The book is unparaded; it creeps quietly enough
into existence; but it has the true spirit, the true
verve—the divine ajiatus. It seizes upon the ima-
ginations and hearts of Englishmen ; its verses have
the golden ring about them ; their numbers are in
every mouth ; they become a part of our household

_
memories. A few years float over and a second vo-
lume is added to the first : coupled together they are
on bookshelves in odd corners all about England, side
byside with Keats and Coleridge. The name of Alfred
Tennyson becomes as familiar as the most eminent of
modern classics to every lover of real poetry, and
Government ultimately confirms the plaudits of the
people by a pension of two hundred pounds per an-
num. Mr. Gilfillan, to our thinking, therefore, shows
but little discrimination in the manner of this strag-
gling and indifferent article. Many of the figurative
sentences are, of course, inimitable—it would be diffi-
cult for Mr. Gilfillan to write anything, however
carelessly, without casual gleams of beauty, both in
thought and expression. There is truth, no doubt, in
these brilliant sentences :—Speaking of the verses of
Tennyson, "It is the voice and lute of Ariel ; but
heard not in a solitary and enchanted island, but in a
modern drawing-room, with beautiful women
bending round, and moss-roses breathing, in their
faint fragrance, through the half- opened windows."
. . " From the sublime to the snug, and vice
versa, is with him but a single step. We may liken
him to the sea-shell, which, sitting complacently and
undistinguished among the commonplace ornaments
of the mantelpiece, has only to be lifted to give forth
from its smooth ear the far-rugged boom of the ocean
breakers." . • • . "By sobs of sound, by half-
hints of meaning, by light, hurrying strokes on the
ruddy chords of the heart, by a ringing of changes
on certain words and phrases, he sways us as if with
the united powers of music and poetry." . . . .
"He paints vivid and complete pictures in a few
lively touches, and by a few airy words, as if caught
in dropping from the sky." So far there is accuracy
in these delineations of the peculiarites of the intel-
lect of Tennyson—but no farther. Mr. Gilfillan
views that intellect only from one point. He cannot
turn it on a pivot, like those whirligig poetasters who
show you all the phases and sides of their mental
character at once ; and he won't take the trouble to
make a circuit round it himself. Hence the paper is
crammed full of inconsistencies. He likens Tenny-
son's verse, for example, to Ariel ; but Ariel, be it
observed, in a drawing-room among moss-roses and
beautiful women. The " Two Voices" are marvel-
lously like the voice of Ariel ! The " Vision of Sin"
is wonderfully suggestive of a modern drawing-room !
The lamentations of " St. Simeon Stylites" are exces-
sively like the breathings of moss-roses I Absurd,
literally absurd, as these metaphors are when
employed not as illustrative of a single cha-
racteristic, but as indicating the entire grasp
and disposition of the poet; they are endur-
able when compared with the self-sufficiency of
the notices of the separate poems. " Mariana at the
Moated Grange," the "Talking Oak," the "May
Queen," and "Orient' " are dismissed with their
mere enumeration. The " Lotos Eaters," a piece
brimming with the very dew of the "land of drowsy-
head" is slurred over with an impertinent kind
of half compliment. " Dora" is slmmarily dismissed,
after being likened to a "deep quiet pool." And
" Godiva" is considered in just fifteen lines. While
the whole of the latter part of the article is de-
voted to an extravagant panegyric upon the author of
" Festus," as if the talent of the author of " Festus"
had anything to do with Alfred Tennyson 1 Why,
the little poems we have named are worth fifty " Fes-
tuses," with their "buttered thunders 1" The paper
is apparently intended as a dispassionate and complete
survey of the capacity of Tennyson, and yet nothing
is said about the exquisite poem of "The Sleeping
Beauty;' nothing is said of the impassioned wailings
of " St. Simeon Stylites ;" nothing is said of the chaste
and perfect ballad of "The Miller's Daughter ;" no-
thing is said of the "Lord of Burghley," of the
" Walk to the Mail," of the "Gardener's
Child," of " Lady Clara Veve de Vere " of the "Lady
of Chalott," of the fragment "Norte d'Arthur,"
or of " Elianore." As we enumerate these solely
from recollection, it will be manifest that the over-
sights of Mr. Gilfillan are extraordinary, when he
professes in one part to mention the more remarkable
of Tennyson's writings. Several of those we have
have just mentioned as altogether unnoticed by him
are among the most remarkable of Tennyson's poems.
It is some compensation, however, to find that the
writer can appreciate the sentiment of " Locksley
Hall," and that he is so far incited to enthusiasm by
the refrain about " the golden prime of good Eia-
roun Alraschid," as to speak of the "Arabian Nights
Entertainments " in this wise :—" The Thousand-,
and- one Nights' is one enchantment—more powerful
than the lamp of Alladin, or the open sesame of All
Baba. The author, were he one—not many—is a
magician—a genii—greater than Scott, than Cer-
vantes, equal to Shakspere himself. What poetry,
passion, pathos, beauty of sentiment, elegance of
costume, ingenuity of contrivance, wit, humour, farce,
interest, variety, tact in transition, sunniness of spirit,
dream-like wealth of imagination, incidental but pre-
cious light cast upon customs, manners, history, re-
ligion—everything, in short, that can amuse or
amaze, instruct or delight, the human spirit !" If we
could sympathise in no other particular with Mr.
Gilfillan we could to the uttermost in his admiration
for those glorious hoards of poetry and treasuries of
fiction. After a pithy but dry essay upon " Success
in Life," the readers of Tait are presented with a
condensed continuation and completion of " Mrs.
Thornton's Truth and Falsehood," a tale that was
suddenly interrupted by the publication in the ma-
gazine of Mrs. Gore's very feeble and very unworthy
novel of " Temptation and Atonement. Thomas
de Quincey is nearly bereft of what Bardolph
would call his " seven sentences," when speaking of
Wordsworth. It is well paganism is exploded, other-
wise we should be in danger of seeing the Opium
Eater one of these fine days offering a kid and let-
tuces before the shrine of the Poet Laureate, or pour-
ing a libation of the decoction of poppies upon Rydal
Mount. The paper by De Quincey, headed "Milton
versus Southey and Landor," is a clever but bewil-
dering rhapsody. Mr. Burton's "Lives of Lord
Lovat and Forbes, of Culloden," forming an excellent
supplement to Mrs. Thomson's "History of the
Jacobites," are reviewed, and a biography of the late
James Calder, one of the old school of reformers, is
contained among the miscellaneous contributions.
Besides a temperate article upon " Government
Education" there are minor criticisms, and the usual
Political Register. Alluding to the aid received by
Lord George Bentinck from the Hon. Gentleman the
Member for Shrewsbury, Tait caustically observes—
" His Lordship's sting is in his tail, and it is pitiful
that the tail of a very medium person should be of
such rare and sterling genius 1" It is the genius, the
slave of the Lamp.

CHRISTOPHER TADPOLE. By Albert Smith.

Pare VIII.

The 25th chapter, which commences the present
number, jumps over a space of six years :
" And you must allow your author to carry you to
another land. You must imagine a strange and noise-
less city, with silent highways of water for countless
boats, instead of rattling thoroughfares for cabs and
carts, looking for all the world like rows of ruined Re-
form Club-houses built on the banks of the Serpentine.
Strange black looking craft, like floating hearses, glide
about the streets, giving you the idea that one half of
the population is burying the other half ; and every now
and then you come upon a view, which you appear to be
already well acquainted with, from a perforated card,
water-coloured drawing in an album, or a print in an
annual, or some dining-room picture, associated with an
agreeable party, heat-frosted claret jugs and early
asparagus.

"You will see no trees—a Bloomsbury-square lilac
would be a grove by comparison. And you will meet
no horses—the most wretched cab-hack in London
might be kept for a show, and create a great sensation.
The thoroughfares are all alleys, and the alleys aro
nothing but back-doors leading to narrow bridges
crossing small stagnant canals making you think
every instant that you are coming to some docks.
But you are not, nevertheless. And you may soon
miss your way if you lo:e sight of any of
the landmarks, resembling square parish churches,
with cheap obelisks on their summits, which
rilbe in go many directions, The boats are called ph-

dolas ; the square towers are called campaniles ; and
cthe name of the place itself is Venice.
" You cannot get there by land. The city lies out
away from the shore, high and dry, like the Goodwin-
sands at low water. So you go in boats—first along
rows of extensive Puddle-docks, and then over what
might be taken for a huge flooded race course, the post
and rails of which just appear above the water, so that
there is no great fear of drowning ; the whole tract re-
minding intelligent travellers of the Essex marshes out
at sea. And before getting there you must not be quite
led away by the poets, who are from time to time taken
so poorly respecting its beauties ; because the approach
thereto from Mestre—which is to Venice what Twicken-
ham is to Eel Pie Island—is not exactly like the dio-
ramas and descriptions you have formed your notions
from. In fact, in common-place minds, it may suggest
unfavourable comparisons with Wapping, until the pas-
sage boat emerges into the great water-street of this
amphibious city of human beavers."
This description of Venice, though less poetical, is
infinitely more correct than the descriptions to be
found in the note-books of sentimental travellers.
Gudge, his wife, and Mrs. Hamper, whom they
have picked up at Boulogne, arrive at an hotel at
Venice, and there they find Christopher officiating as
the English waiter. Gudge attempts to bully
him, but it will not do ; Christopher is a
man now, and knows that there is a mystery
attached to his birth. He has been shipped oft* from
Southampton to Leghorn, and from thence has been
transferred to Vienna. He sets Gudge at defiance,
and appeals to Sir Frederick Arden, and when in-
formed that Sir Frederick Arden is dead, he bates
nothing of his courage, but avows his intention to
proceed to England and discover the mystery of his
his birth. Mrs. Hamper, who has palmed herself upon
the Gudges meets with some high friends who are
going to Florence, and determines to palm herself
upon them. She therefore leaves Venice for Florence,
via Bologna, but on her journey is attacked by bri-
gands, and taken up into the stronghold, where she is
detained as a prisoner for the sake of the ransom
which they expect to receive for her. Sprouts has
succeeded to the library, and is on the eve of mar-
riage with Bessy Payne. The jolly man has been
long married to Miss Twits, and Sprouts and the
party go down to Greenwich Fair, where they meet
with Skittle and the Taglioni Ginger Beer Cart, who
introduces them to Hickory and to Luddy's daughtei;
an interesting girl of fifteen (poor Luddy is dead),
and in the course of conversation Hickory relates the
early history of Christopher, and Sprouts announces
his intention of following up the clue which
Hickory has furnished in order to be revenged on
Gudge. It will be seen that this part 8 leaves all
the parties concerned in an interesting imbroglio,
and we await with curiosity the appearance of part 9.

VANITY FAIR. Part IV. By W. M. Thackeray.
In the opening chapter of the present number we
find ourselves again with the Sedleys and Osbornes
in Russell-square. Poor Amelia loves George
Osborne with her whole heart, but we are afraid that
George Osborne will turn out a worldling after all,
and not worthy the affection of poor Amelia. We
are also introduced to old Osborne, the very beau
ideal of a vulgar purse-proud parvenu, who would
fain cut old Sedley, the founder of his fortunes, because
the world has not gone well with him of late and who,
more than insinuates to George that it would be well
that he should violate his engagement with Amelia.
Miss Rebecca Sharpe is domiciled in the house of
Miss Crawley, in Park-lane, having ejected all Miss
Crawley's toadys, and Rebecca is visited there daily
by Rawdon Crawley, who has become acquainted
with George Osborne, and plucked him gloriously at
billiards. Rebecca calls on Amelia, and invites her to
dine at Miss Crawley's in Park-lane. George Os-
borne and Rawdon Crawley are also invited, when the
following admirable scene takes place:—

" How's little Miss Sharp, by-the-bye," Osborne in-
quired of his friend over their wine, with a dandified
air. " Good-natured little girl that. Does she suit you
well at Queen's Crawley? Miss Sedley liked her a good
deal last year."
Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant
out of his little blue eyes, and watched him when he
went up to resume his acquaintance with the fair gover-
ness. Her conduct must have relieved Crawley if there.
was any jealousy in the bosom of that life-guardsman.
When the young men went up stairs, and after Os-
borne's introduction to Miss Crawley, he walked up to
Rebecca with a patronising, easy swagger. He was
going to be kind to her and protect her. He would
even shake hands with her, as a friend of Amelia's ;
and saying, " Ah, Miss Sharp ! how-dy-doo ?" held
out his left hand towards her, expecting that she would
be quite confounded at the honour.

Miss Sharp put out her right fore-finger—And gave
him a little nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Craw-
ley, watching the operations from the other room, could
hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's
entire discomfiture ; the start ho gave, the pause, and
the perfect clumsiness with which he at length conde-
scended to take the finger which was offered for his
embrace.

" She'd beat the devil, by Jove I" the Captain said,
in a rapture ; and the Lieutenant, by way of beginning
the conversation, agreeably asked Rebecca how she
liked her new place.
" My place?" said Miss Sharp, coolly, " how kind of
you to remind me of it ! It's a tolerably good place :
the wages are pretty good—not so good as Miss Wirt's,
I believe, with your sisters in Russell Spare. How
are those young ladies?—not that I ought to ask."
" Why not?" Mr. Osborne said, amazed.
W hy, they never condescended to speak to me, or
to ask me into their house, whilst I was staying with
Amelia ; but we poor governesses, you know, are used
to slights of this sort."
" My dear Miss Sharp !" Osborne ejaculated.
"At least in some families," Rebecca continued.
" You can't think what a difference there is though. We
are not so wealthy in Hampshire as you lucky folks of
the city. But then lamin a gentleman's family—good
,
old English stock. I suppose
you know Sir Pitt's father
refused a peerage. And
you see bow lam treated. I
am pretty comfortable. Indeed it is rather a good
place. But how very good of you to inquire l"
Osborne was quite savage. The little governess pa-
tronised him and persifiled him until this young British
Lion felt quite uneasy ,• nor could he muster sufficient
presence of mind to find a pretext for backing out of
this most delectable conversation.
" I thought you liked the City families pretty well,"
he said haughtily.
" Last year you mean, when I was fresh from that
horrid vulgar school ? Of course I did. Doesn't every
girl like to come home for the holidays? And how was
Ito know any better? But Mr. Osborne, what a
difference eighteen months' experience makes!—eighteen
months spent,
pardon me for saying so, with gentlemen.
As fur dear Amelia, she, I grant you,
is a pearl, and
would be charming anywhere. There now, I see you
are beginning to be in a good humour ; but oh, these
queer odd City people I And Mr. Jos.—how is that
wonderful Mr. Joseph?"
" It seems to me you didn't dislike that wonderful Mr.
Joseph last year," Osborne said kindly.
" How severe of you! Well, entre 710715, I didn't break
my heart about him ; yet if he had asked me to do what
you mean by your looks (and very
expressive and kind
they are, too), I wouldn't have said no.
Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say," Indeed,
how very obliging!"
What an honour to have bad you for a brother-in-•
law, you are thinking? To be sister-in-law to George Os-
borne, Esquire, son 3f John Osborne, Esquire, son of--
what was your grandpapa, Mr. Osborne? Well, don't
be angry. You can't help your pedigree, and I quite
agree with you that I would have married Mr. Joe
Sedley ; for could a poor penniless girl do better? Now
you know the whole secret. I'm frank and open ; and,
considering all things, it was very kind of you to
allude to the circumstance—very kind and polite.
Amelia, dear, Mr. Osborne and I were talking about
your poor brother Joseph. How is he?"
Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca
was in the right; but she bad managed most successfully
to put him in the wrong. And he now shamefully fled,
feeling if he stayed another minute, ,that he would have
been made to look foolish in the presence of Amelia.
Poor Rebecca, however, is caught in her own trap.
Lady Crawley dies, and the Baronet himself comes
to London to induce Rebecca to return to Queen's
Crawley :

" I wawnt you back at Queen's Crawley, Miss," the
baronet said, fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off
his black gloves and his hat with its great crape hat-
band. His eyes had such a strange look, and fixed
upon her so steadfastly, that Rebecca Sharp began
almost to tremble.
" I hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, " as
ie d
soon as Miss Crawley is better—and return to—to
the
dear children."
" You've said so these three months, Becky," replied
you out. I tell you I want you. I'm going back to the
Vuneral. Will you come back? Yes or no?"
ill you go Banging
" I daren't-1 don't think—it would be right—to be
who'll Pitt,"and
fling you oilst on to my sister,
when she's wore
alone—with you, Sir," Becky said, seemingly in great
agitation.
Pitt said, " I say agin, I want y
you, Sir thumping the
table. " I can't git on without you. I didn't see what
it was till you went away. The house all goes wrong.
It's not the same place. All my accounts has got mud-
dled agin. You mist come back. Do come back, Dear
Becky, do come."
" Come—as what, Sir? Rebecca gasped out.
" Come as Lady Crawley, if. you like," the baronet
said, grasping his crape hat I'llere! will that aatusfy
you? Come back and be my wife. Your vit vort. Birth
be hanged. You're as good a lady as ever I see. You've
got more brains in your little vinger than any baronet's
wife in the county. Will you come? Yes or no?"
" Oh, Sir Pitt," Rebecca said, very much moved.
" Say yes, Becky," Sir Pitt continued. .` Pm an old
man, but a good'n. I'm goo for twenty years. I'll
make you happy, zee if I don't. You shall do what
you like ; spend what you like ; and 'av it all your own
way. I'll make you a zettlement. I'll do everything
reglar. Look y'ear !" and the old man fell duwn on his
knees and leered at her like a satyr.
Rebecca started back a picture of consternation. In
the course of this history we have never seen her lose
ber presence of mind ; but she did now, and wept
some of the most genuine tears that ever fell from her

eyes.
said. " Oh, Sir—I--I'm
already."mar-
riZOi
Sir Pitt!" she

CHEAP STEAM TRAVELLlNG.—yesterday steam-
vessels were conveying passengers from the river Thames
to Ipswich for 2,5, each,