prouder bliss than if Trevanion had placed Fanny's hand in mine, and said, "She is yours."

And now the die was cast-the decision made. It was with no regret that I wrote to Trevanion to decline his offers. Nor was the sacrifice so great-even putting aside the natural pride which had before inclined to it -as it may seem to some; for, restless though I was, I had laboured to constrain myself to other views of life than those which close the vistas of ambition with images of the terrestrial deities-Power and Rank. Had I not been behind the scenes, noted all of joy and of peace that the pursuit of power had cost Trevanion, and seen how little of happiness rank gave even to one of the polished habits and graceful attributes of Lord Castleton? Yet each nature seemed fitted so well-the first for power, the last for rank! It is marvellous with what liberality Providence atones for the partial dispensations of Fortune. Independence, or the vigorous pursuit of it; affection, with its hopes and its rewards; a life only rendered by art

more susceptible to nature-in which the physical enjoyments are pure and healthful-in which the moral faculties expand harmoniously with the intellectual-and the heart is at peace with the mind is this a mean lot for ambition to desire-and is it so far out of human reach? "Know thyself," said the old philosophy. "Improve thyself," saith the new. The great object of the Sojourner in Time is not to waste all his passions and gifts on the things external that he must leave behind-that which he cultivates within is all that he can carry into the Eternal Progress. We are here but as schoolboys, whose life begins where school ends; and the battles we fought with our rivals, and the toys that we shared with our playmates, and the names that we carved, high or low, on the wall, above our desks-will they so much bestead us hereafter? As new facts crowd upon us, can they more than pass through the memory with a smile or a sigh? Look back to thy school days, and answer.

Two weeks, since the date of the preceding chapter, have passed; we have slept our last, for long years to come, on the English soil. It is night; and Vivian has been admitted to an interview with his father. They have been together alone an hour and more, and I and my father will not disturb them. But the clock strikes -the hour is late-the ship sails to-night-we should be on board. And as we two stand below, the door opens in the room above, and a heavy step descends the stairs; the father is leaning on the son's arm. You should see how timidly the son guides the halting step. And now, as the light gleams on their faces, there are tears on Vivian's cheek; but the face of Roland seems calm and happy. Happy! when about to be separated, perhaps for ever, from his son? Yes, happy! because he has found a son for the first time; and is not thinking of years and absence, and the chance of death-but thankful for the Divine mercy, and cherishing celestial hope. If ye wonder why Roland is happy in

such an hour, how vainly have I sought to make him breathe, and live, and move before you!

We are on board; our luggage all went first. I had had time, with the help of a carpenter, to knock up cabins for Vivian, Guy Bolding, and myself in the hold. For, thinking we could not too soon lay aside the pretensions of Europe-"de-fine-gentlemanise" ourselves, as Trevanion recommended-we had engaged steerage passage, to the great humouring of our finances. We had, too, the luxury to be by ourselves, and our own Cumberland folks were round us, as our friends and servants both.

We are on board, and have looked our last on those we are to leave, and we stand on deck leaning on each other. We are on board, and the lights, near and far, shine from the vast city; and the stars are on high, bright and clear, as for the first mariners of old. Strange noises, rough voices, and crackling cords, and here

and there the sobs of women, mingling with the oaths of men. Now the swing and heave of the vessel the dreary sense of exile that comes when the ship fairly moves over the waters. And still we stood, and looked, and listened; silent, and leaning on each other.

Night deepened, the city vanishednot a gleam from its myriad lights! The river widened and widened. How cold comes the wind!—is that a gale

from the sea? The stars grow faintthe moon has sunk. And now, how desolate look the waters in the comfortless gray of dawn! Then we shivered and looked at each other; and muttered something that was not the thought deepest at our hearts, and crept into our berths-feeling sure it was not for sleep. And sleep came on us soft and kind. The ocean lulled the exiles as on a mother's breast.

A NEW School of novelists is evidently springing up on the western shores of the Atlantic. The pioneers are already in the field-and the main body, we suppose, will shortly follow. The style of these innovators seems a compound imitation of Gulliver, Munchausen, The Arabian Nights, and Robinson Crusoe; the ingredients being mixed in capricious proportions, well stirred, seasoned with Yankee bulls and scraps of sea-slang, and served hot-sometimes plain, at others with a hors d'œuvre of puffs. We know not how such queer ragouts affect the public palate; but we are inclined to prefer dishes of an older fashion. Mr Herman Melville, of New York and the Pacific Ocean, common sailor, first introduced the new-fangled kickshaw. This young gentleman has most completely disappointed us. Two or three years ago, he published two small volumes of sea-faring adventure and island-rambles, of which we thought more highly than of any first appearance of the kind we for a long time had witnessed. In the pages of Maga, where praise is never lightly or lavishly bestowed, we said as much; and were glad to hope that Typee and Omoo were but an earnest of even better things. And, therefore, sadly were we disgusted on perusal of a rubbishing rhapsody, entitled Mardi, and a Voyage Thither. We sat down to it with glee and self-gratulation, and through about half a volume we got on plea

santly enough. The author was afloat; and although we found little that would bear comparison with the fine vein of nautical fun and characteristic delineation which we had enjoyed on board the Little Jule, and afterwards at Tahiti, yet there was interest-strong interest at times; and a scene on board a deserted vessel was particularly exciting,-replete with power of a peculiar and uncommon kind. But this proved a mere flash in the pan-the ascent of the rocket which was soon to fall as a stick. An outlandish young female, one Miss Yillah, makes her first appearance: Taji, the hero and narrator of the yarn, reaches a cluster of fabulous islands, where the jealous queen Hautia opens a floral correspondence with him where the plumed and turbaned Yoomy sings indifferent doggerel; and Philosopher Babbalanja unceasingly doth prose; and the Begum of Pimminee holds drawing-rooms, which are attended by the Fanfums, and the Diddledees, and the Fiddlefies, and a host of other insular magnates, with names equally elegant, euphonious, and significant. Why, what trash is all this!-mingled, too, with attempts at a Rabelaisian vein, and with strainings at smartness-the style of the whole being affected, pedantic, and wearisome exceedingly. We are reminded, by certain parts of Mardi, of Foote's nonsense about the nameless lady who "went into the garden to

Kumri: an Autobiography of Jonathan.

cut a cabbage-leaf to make an applepie;" and at whose wedding the Joblilies, and the Picninnies, and the Great Panjandrum, danced till the gunpowder ran out at their boot-heels. Foote wrote his absurd paragraph, we believe, to try a friend's memory; Mr Melville has evidently written his unintelligible novel to try the public's patience. Of three things we are certain, namely, that the Panjandrum story is quite as easy to understand as Mardi; that it is much more diverting; and, the chief advantage of all, an infinite deal shorter.

Mardi, which we dismissed from our mind when we closed it with a yawn a day or two after its publication, has been recalled to our memory by another book, also proceeding from America, although published in London; and which, like Mr Melville's romance, blends the real and the possible with the ideal and the fantastic. Kaloolah (Heaven help these Yankee nomenclators) professes to be the autobiography of Jonathan Romer, a young Nantucket sailor, to whose narrative, during his absence in the interior of Africa, one of his countrymen, Dr W. S. Mayo, obligingly acts as editor. Most readers will probably be of opinion that the American M.D. might claim a nearer interest in the literary bantling-the first-born, we apprehend, of his own pen and imagination. But our business is with the book, and not with the author, whose name, whether Romer or Mayo, is as yet unknown to fame, but who need not despair of achieving reputation. Kaloolah combines with certain faults, which may presently be indicated, some very excellent qualities, and has several chapters, whereof any one contains more real good stuff, and ingenuity, and amusement, than the whole of the second and third volumes of Mardi, reduced to a concentrated essence. Besides, it is manifest that the two books must be viewed and judged differently-one as a first, and by no means unpromising attempt; the other, as the backsliding performance of a man who has proved himself capable of far better things.

Before commencing his own story, young Jonathan Romer introduces us to his ancestors, and asserts his right to a life of adventure. "Descended

After re

on both sides of the house from some of the earliest settlers of Nantucket, and more or less intimately related to the Coffins, the Folgers, the Macys, and the Starbucks of that adventurous population, it would seem that I had a natural right to a roving disposition, and to a life of peril, privation, and vicissitude. Nearly all the male members of my family, for several generations, have been followers of the sea: some of them in the calm and peaceful employment of the merchantservice; others, and by far the greater number, in the more dangerous pursuit of the ocean monster." lating some of the feats of his family, and glancing at his own childhood, which gave early indications of the bold and restless spirit that animated him at a mature period, Jonathan presents himself to his readers at the age of eighteen--a stalwart stripling and idle student; the best rider, shot, swimmer, and leaper for many miles around, with little taste for books, and a very decided one for rambling in the woods with rifle and rod. At this time the academy, of which he had for four years been an inmate, is nearly broken up by what is called "a_revival of religion;" in other words, a violent fit of fanatical enthusiasm, provoked and fed by Baptist and Methodist preachers. Pupils and teachers alike go mad with fervent zeal, classes are at an end, unceasing prayer is substituted for study, and Jonathan, who is one of the few unregenerated, walks into the forest, and knocks the head off a partridge with a rifle-ball. The bird is picked up, and the excellence of the aim applauded by an old trapper and hunter, Joe Downs by name, well known along the shores of the Rackett and Grass rivers, in the northern and uninhabited part of the state of New York. Joe is not the wild, semi-Indian trapper of the south and west, whom Sealsfield and Ruxton have so graphically sketched; there is as much difference between the two characters as between a sailor in the coasting trade and a Pacific Ocean beachcomber. There is nothing of the halfhorse, half-alligator style about Joe, whose manner is so mild, and his coat so decent, that he has been taken for a country parson. He despises theRedskins, sets no value on their scalps,

and would not shed their blood, except in self-defence. How he had once been thus compelled to do so, he relates to Jonathan in the course of their first conversation.

"It was the way towards Tupper's lake. There had been a light fall of snow, and I was scouting round, when I happened to make a circumbendibus, and came across my own track, and there I saw the marks of an Indian's foot right on my trail. Thinks I, that is kind of queer; the fellow must have been following me; howsomever I'll try him, and make sure; so I made another large circle, and again struck my own track, and there was the tarnal Indian's foot again. Says I, this won't do; I must find out what this customer wants, and how

he'll have it. So I stopped short, and soon got sight of him; he knew that I saw him, so he came along up, in the most friendly manner you can think. But I didn't like his looks; he was altogether too darned glad to see me. He had no gun, but he had an almighty long-handled tomahawk, and a lot of skins and real traps. Thinks I, may be, old fellow, your gun has burst, or you've pawned it for rum, and you can't raise skins enough to redeem it, and you want mine, and perhaps you'll get it.

"At last I grew kind of nervous; I knew the fellow would hatchet me if I gave him a chance, and yet I didn't want to shoot him right down just on suspicion. But I thought, if I let him cut my throat first, it would be too late to shoot him afterwards. So I concluded that the best way would be to give him a chance to play his hand; and if so be he'd lead the wrong card, why I should have a right to take the trick. Just then, at the right time, a partridge flew into a clump that stood five or six rods off. So I kind of 'noeuvred round a little. I drew out my ramrod, as if to feel whether the ball in my rifle was well down; but instead of returning it again, I kept it in my hand, and, without letting the vagabond see me, I got out a handful of powder. I then sauntered off to the bush, shot the partridge, and in an instant passed my hand over the muzzle of my rifle, and dropped the powder in. I picked up the bird, and then just took and run my ramrod right down upon the powder. Now, he thought, was his chance before I loaded my gun again. He came towards me with his hatchet in his hand. I saw that he was determined to act wicked, and began to back off; he still came on. I lowered my riffe, and told him to keep away. He raised his tomahawk, gave one yell, and

bounded right at me. When he was just about three or four feet from the muzzle, I fired. You never see a fellow jump so. He kicked his heels up in the air, and came down plump on his head, dead as Julius Cæsar. He never winked; the ramrod a good, hard, tough piece of hickory-had gone clean through him, and stuck out about two feet from his back. Sarved him right; did'nt it?"

The old trapper urges Jonathan to accompany him on an expedition into the woods, promising, as an inducement, to put him "right alongside the biggest catamount he has ever seen," and to let him fight it out, with rifle, hatchet, and knife, without making or meddling in the contest. He also pledges himself to show him a fishpond, "where the youngest infants, of a genteel pickerelto family, weigh at least three pounds." Such inducements are irresistible. Jonathan packs up a brace of blankets and his shooting and fishing fixings, and goes off in the canoe with Joe Downs on a pleasant up-stream cruise, enlivened by a succession of beautiful scenery, and by the varied and original conversation of his companion. On their way they fell in with a party of Indians, amongst them one Blacksnake, a brother of the gentleman whom Joe had spitted on his ramrod. He suspects Joe of having shot his kinsman, and Joe strongly suspects him of having already attempted to revenge his death.

"I was leaning out of the second story doorway of Jones's shop one day,' said Joe, looking across the river, when, whizz, a rifle bullet came and buried itself in the doorpost. I hain't the least doubt that that very identical Blacksnake sent it. Thank God, his aim was not as his will! He's a bad chap. Why, I really believe it was he who murdered my old friend Dan White the trapper. If I only knew it was the fact, I wish I may be stuck, forked end uppermost, in a coon hole, if I wouldn't send a ball through his painted old braincase, this 'ere very identical minute. Darn your skin!' energetically growled Joe, shaking his fist at the distant canoe."

It would have saved Mr Downs some trouble and suffering if he had yielded to the impulse, and expended half-an-ounce of lead upon Blacksnake, who, about a week later, sneaks up, with two companions, to