SCOTCH REVELS.
Yonan ENGLAND talks of encouraging popular games and sports ; but Scotland—whether young, old, or middle-aged—does it. For some score of years Scotland has had the St. Fillan's Games in the North and the St. Ronan's Games in the South. The Highlanders fling the hammer and dance strathspeys ; the Borderers shoot with the rifle and run races; and many athletic contests the two gather- ings have in common. Nor have the good folks of Scotland stopped Isere, The Eglinton Tournament, if not exactly a revival of the iames of chivalry, was a revival of something quite as stately and possibly more imaginative—the masques and pageants of the time of CHARLES the First : it was a masque, too, in conformity with the altered spirit of the age—a masque for the people, not for the court—a masque in which the people played a part, instead of being kept a mere spectator. The shopkeeper admitted to the grounds assumed a character, as well as the Baron to whom the grounds belonged : it was as if a Drury Lane audience should in- sist upon representing the Court of Denmark, leaving the task of enacting the Player King and Queen to Mr. CHARLES KEAN and Miss FAUC1T. The taste for this kind of amusement appears to be gaining ground among our brethreo beyond the Tweed. A great festival in honour of BURNS'S sons, is about to be held near the poet's monument (no funereal but a purely honorary monu- ment) on the banks of the Doon, near the humble cottage that witnessed his birth. A poet of no mean note is to take the .chair ; and the mummers who repaired in character to the Eglin- ton Tournament are bent upon having another day's " guisarding" on this new occasion. This latest pageant will stand somewhat in the same relation to the Troubadour fetes of Provence as the former did to the more warlike sports of the olden time. Railroads and steam-boats are in readiness to carry the half of broad Albin to the gay scene. Verily, the times are changed in Scotland, since, WALTER SCOTT teste, if a young gallant but appeared at a " Wapinschaw," grave seniors would knit their brows and groan, " Ewhow ! to see the like o' his father's son at sic fearless fooleries !" And, to tell the truth, Scotland will be not -a little improved by this increasing propensity to indulge in " weel- timed daffin." It would be blithe news were we told of' our English ;turning their railroads to as good account—making them the means of whirling half the population to great national holydays, in which if there mingled some love of personal display, there was shown :along with it a seemly pride in what is most honourable to the country.
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