The Sun.
London, England, 1828-06-23 00:00:00

PRICE 7D.

LITERATURE.

it
THE LAIRDS OF FlFE..—Euttouttca!, 1828.
We have been much pleased with this lively, de-
sultory, unconnected tale; which presents a series of
sketches from life abounding in point and novelty.
The scene is laid for the most part in the upper por-
tions of the middle class .of society, in the sober
mean between the aristocratic and plebeian ranks,
just as that unfortunate piece of locality, Russell-
square, is situated, in the neutral ground of fashion,
between gentility and positive vulgarity. The ac-
tion of the novel is principally confined to Edin-
burgh and Fifeshire, and ends, as usual, with a mar-
riage between the hero and heroine, the Earl of
Montgomery and Miss Leslie, a very pretty do-
mestic little girl enough. The plot is common-
place, and so confused as to defy all reasonable powers
of analysis. Indeed, it is nothing but the sarcastic
knowledge of the more frivolous points of fashion-
able life—its eagerness—its absorption (for the time
being, while the whim lasts) in trifles : its polished
insipidities ;—it is nothing, we repeat, but this know-
ledge put forth withisittergy and breadth of satire,
that renders the liderit'vven readable. Its style
is loose and faulty to a degree ; and its scenes shift
with all the incongruity of a pantomime, now from
Edinburgh to Fifeshire, and now • from Fifeshire
back again, till the reader is literally bewildered.—
But the knowledge of life is unquestionable, and the
author's powers of severe caricature equally so.
His tale, in fact, abounds in well-sustained per-
sonages, the chief of whom is decidedly little Mrs.
Fife, of Fife Hall, whose sole fault is a restless in-
satiable curiosity, and who, in the reckless thought-
lessness of the moment, is much given to remind
folks of the very circumstances they would most
wish to keep concealed : who inquires, for instance,
of a Colonel Brown, after the health of his elder
brother, who was hanged for mutiny in Jamaica;
and is perpetually asking a wealthy purse-proud
Nabob, who sprang from a grocer, if figs come to
perfection in India. Next in importance to this
happily imagined, and, indeed, as it is executed, we
'may almost say original character, is the here,
Madrake, a nervous susceptible sort of non-
descript, with the polite indifference of the man
of fashion, grafted, by some strange anomaly, on the
infirmities of an irritable temperament. This per-
sonage is placed in excellent contract with Mr. Mo-
notony, who, as his name imports, is an elaborate
compound of still-life and absurdity ; the very per-
sonification of lethargy, the negation of existence.
The remaining characters, Colonel Brown and his
daughter, a highly amusing couple (and both,
like Mrs. Fife, portraits, from the striking
individual peculiarities that pervade them) ; the
two fiery West India merchants, Messrs. Von.
pepper and Macginger, who are perpetually
quarrelling, without ever coming nearer to
a duel than the preliminaries; the richly comic Miss
Kicklecackle (a she Democritus); these, and a
hundred other characters—for the tale abounds in
such sketches from life, and, whatever be its defects
of method and arrangement, is surely not deficient
in fertility of invention-- .we must dismiss with the
remark that they aro drawn all with spirit, and
most of them with truth. The chief defect
of the novel are,wanton4eirig b
cities, its strange jumbles of places and per-
reail:d7hulaof
sonage, and secondly
caricature, to which, while tLtt fit is on him, the
first,it uiztiss
author sacrifices taste, L.''.!•,Z.retiolii, and probability.—
This last, hower..4, let it be remembered, is the
failing not of mediocrity, but of talent ; no fool ever
caricatures,--it is a gift exclusively:restricted to men
of ability, and one which we pardon in Smollet, and
absolutely deify in Hogarth. The following is an
amusing detail of a squabble between two hot-headed
West Indians, the before-mentioned Vonpepper and
Macginger. It is eminently characteristic of the
author :
" Now, M'Ginger, I say it is not all composed of
cloves," screeched Mr. Vonpepper, as Madrake vainly at-
tempted to settle the dispute.
" A composition of cloves," asserted the Ginger.
" I say again, Sir, it is not a composition of cloves,"
erica the Pepper.
" You contradict me, then ?" screamed the other spice,
his eyes boiling fire.
" Yes, Sir, I do ; and what is more, M'Ginger, I shall •
do so till 1 get you to resume the use of your seven senses."
" Now, Madrake," returned M'Ginger, in a voice
softened like the suddenly becalmed noise of a tea-
kettle arrived at boiling heat—did you over—
did you ever in your life hear such a speech
that?as I tell you, man,"—again addressing him-
self to his red-hot competitor, " you are the greatest ass I
ever beheld !"
" Mr. M‘Ginger, my dear Mr. M'Ginger !" exclaimed
Madrake, merely succeeding in smotheriug a laugh.
" Yes, Mr. Aladrake, the greatest ass I ever beheld !
Su help me"
—" Then, Sir," interrupted his not less fiery antago-
nist, " I shall just take the liberty, before Mr. Madrake
there, of once more flatly and positively contradicting you."
" Then, Sir," here us furiously retorted the ether, " I
shall do you the honour to make you eat up your own
words again. You shall make, Sir, raising his crimp voice
to a perfect shout, " the most ample—the most wryly
sconces !"
" Apology ! ! !" screamed Mr. Vonpepper; " Ha! ha !
ha! Pray hear him, Mr. Madrake. Apology !! !
Why, Sir," taking breath, " you shall make me ono upon
your knees, before I have dime with yott yet."
" Oh, very well."
" Oh, very well," echoed both, in that soft civility of
language, which, like the titiobtrudin,g worry of two ter-
riers fairly yoked, gives us at length to understand that the
tongues of the parties have now no longer any thing to do
with the feud.
This sudden subsiduation—Gentle Reader, a word to the
wise—This sudden suhaiduation, then, of the bickering
storm, for the intervals of pause had been but rare, gave
room, however, for a bye-brae-re to deploy behind the
door ; anti which having continued, it seems, for some time
to play in stifled zephyrs, now exploded at this particular
juncture iu a burst of laughter—too desperate, it would
appear, to be any longer resisted or controulled.
" That is the girl Kicklecackle, Tom," said M'Ginger,
nodding mysteriously, as the sound, whirled along in tem-
pest-eddies, still ceintinued to rush.
" 0 yes, I knew it was her. What de you think of a
laughing machine, Madrake ?" (This from Mr. Vonpepper.)
" Why, such a thing's quite possible, Torn. 'Witness
the praying Jennies of the Calmucks. What say you, Ma-
drake ?"
" I deny it, however," politely resumed Vonpepper.
" Well, well, man ; I tell you it's of no use whether
iott deny it or not. I affirm it to be quite possible."
" And I, Sir, say again, it is not possible."
" You hear hint, Madrake?" now gasped M`Ginger.
" Squibs and lightning ! what would you advise ?"
" At him 'gain, Ginger," replied Madrake, delighted
with the opportunity of once more exciting the risible
an-
nounced her to be tin: same extraordinary individual who
sympathies of Miss Kicklecackle, whose very name
had once so thoroughly astonished his old acquaintance, Mrs.
Fife.
" Madrake can't defend you, Ginger," resumed the ad-
versary in a bantering tone "No use taking the thing
up." Here a few ha! ha's! in honour of Mr. Madrake's
calculation, we presume, were heard distinctly to rustle
within the locale of the adjoining passage.
" 'Madrake can at least answer for himself," briskly re-
turned the Ginger: " what do you say, Madrake?"
" At hint again, Ginger !" cried Madrake, snore than
everintent upon the invisible Miss Kicklecackle's amuse-
ment ; and assuredly the ha ! ha! has ! were now re-
doubled ; and in such a manner as restored to both spices
their full complement of natural ire, as well as of artificial
heat.
4, You say it's impossible," observed M'Ginger,
eupting Madrake's thrice repeated "at him again," any
speaking in a voice of repressed passion. " You say it'
impossible? 0 yes, I know--I know. 0 yes, certain!,
you're in the right ; it's quite impossible :--Flut, 1