The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-02 00:00:00

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

, The indefatigable Mrs. Gore—who fortunately
for us is as amusing as she is industrious, and
who almost rivals the renowned Princess Sclie-
hezerade in the number of her tales—contributes
another work of fiction to the pages of Tait,
under the title of " Blanks and Prizes, or the
Wheel of Fortune." As a chapter or two only
of this story are yet bet re us, we cannot under-
take to pronounce a decided opinion onit; but
we may state that it opens well; that the mealy-
mouthed country physician, Dr. Toddles, looks
very like a portrait from life; and that the dry,
stingy old maid, Miss Lavinia Meade, whose
quaint, obsolete furniture, "bequeathed by her
grandmother, was rubbed and scrubbed and bur-
nished till it acquired a sort of ironical freshness,
like the youthful airs of an old beau," is
sketched in that spirit of "merry malice " which
is so conspicuous a feature in the majority of
Mrs. Gore's fictions. In the slight and hasty
notice of "Lord Jeffrey's Contributions to the
Edinburgh Review" his Lordship is taken to task
for his well-known criticism on the Lake poets,
which, observes the writer, "augur something
like limited imagination or a narrow range of
poetical emotion." This is by no means a legiti-
mate inference from the circumstance of the
critic's inability to discover the profound genius
of Peter Bell, or the fancy and sensibility of the
Laureate Odes. On the contrary, we think it a
proof of his refined taste and discrimination.
Lord Jeffrey was unquestionably—we say was,
because we believe he has long ceased to write
—the most intelligent critic of his day, endowed
with less sensibility perhaps, than Hazlitt, but
far sounder in his judgments, because less liable
to be biassed by his prejudices, and possessed of
a far more extensive range of information. We
owe to his pen the subtlest analyses that have
ever been given of the poetical powers of Byron,
Crabbe, and Moore ; and his account of Swift
and h's writings, coloured as it may be here and
there by an evident dislike of the man, is full
informed with weighty truth. The "National
Anti-Corn-law League " is a poem very much in
the manner of Ebenezer Elliott, when in one of
his ultra-truculent moods. In the "Reminis-
cences of Dublin College Life," we find some de-
tails respecting the well-known Historical So-
ciety when in its decline, but we should have
preferred reading about it when it was in its full
meridian vigour, and Plunkett and Bushe were
among its orators. The " Recollections of Sir
Walter Scott," are—if the truth must be told—
a little too twaddling this month. Here, how-
ever, is an amusing anecdote or two respecting
the poet's favourite dog Maida, of whom honour-
able mention is made in Lockhart's Life of his
illustrious father-in-law :

"One morning, while at breakfast, a woman called,
complaining that Maida, Sir Walter's stag-hound, had
bit her child. And did not I give you some-
thing handsome to help to cover it ?' said Sir
Walter. You did so ; but lam told that if the
dog is not hanged, the bairn will go mad.' Ido
not think that the crime deserves death, as the child
is not yet dead ; but Maida shall be banished; and
if the child die, he shall suffer, which is the law of
the land ; and there is some more money.'
" Maida was an ill-natured tyke, and no favourite
with me. He once attacked me. I met him in a
narrow path ; and he stood in the middle, disputing
my passage. Having, by good luck, a measuring-
pole in my hand, about eight feet in length, I pre-
pared to make my passage good. If I had turned
my back, he would have been on me immediately.
I advanced, and with my good ash pole hit him a
whack along the ribs, on which he gave a fearful
howl, and fled. So much for the courage of this
Highland brute. On telling it to his master, he
would not believe it. will again defend myself in
your presence ; indeed, I will snake believe to attack
you, and you shall see whether this Highland bear of
yours will be bold and faithful in defending his very
kind and over-partial master. Ido not entertain
the smallest doubt of his courage and affection ; but it
may be as well not to put it to too severe a test.'
One morning I heard a dog howling in distress.
On going to the place, I found Maida, who had been
hunting hares ; and on leaping a paling, was en-