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mans and Germany, which should be, if they are not, nearest to her heart."

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"And so they are, papa," said the young girl, drawing herself up with a mock pride. "Do you forget that we are on the banks of the Rhine, the very name of which wakes the love of Vaterland' in every German breast? That which I admire in your country, Mr. Sherwood," she blushed a little as she turned to me, "is your constitution, your liberty without license, your constant reform without revolution, and that feature in your character which fits you to receive the unbounded gift of liberty a gift which is abused in America and France, and would be so, I fear, in Germany, if there were any chance of our being offered it."

I was astonished at this burst of political enthusiasm in so young a girl; and even her father looked on as if he delighted to see how the mind which he had trained himself could use its newly-fledged wings.

"But, my child," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder, "you forget that we can educate the German mind to receive the liberty which will one day be offered it. You forget that nearly a third of the entire population is brought up at the gymnasiums and the universities supported by each government; that it is possible for the professors of these establishments to unite in mingling as much political training as they please with their everyday lectures; that where the object to be gained is so immense, the Jesuitism in this abuse of trust is quite excusable.”

"and

"Yes," she interrupted; what follows? Exile for life from the place of one's birth, and the loss of one's little all."

"Child, child !" replied her father, "this it but a small price to pay for such a prize. But," he added suddenly, this disquisition can scarcely amuse our guests. We must treat them better. Go, child, and prepare us a bowl of Maitrank, and let it be of your best. It is just the kind of evening for it."

Shall I weary you with the long conversations that ensued around that social bowl of Rhenish nectar, which was certainly of your very best, Beatrix. How well I remember the old china basin in which it was served, and which you told me was bought

from a collection in that fine old palace of the Electors of Mayence, the dark red front of which smiles peacefully at the very edge of the Rhine. How well I remember the quaint taste of the wood-roof, which you bathed in just the right proportions in that brisk old Lahnecker. And the subjects we discussed, I could almost tell you every word each of us said, and the tone in which we said them. We went glibly from one topic to another, as those do whose minds are full of rich thought, and like a kaleidoscope, need but a shake to form a new pattern of ideas. Von Ritter spoke little, but well, as if a spell was on his mind. My interest in him was growing deep, and I watched his expression as we talked freely on many subjects. It was the smile of an old man, listening to children's prattle of a master hearing his disciples dispute of one who sees all things from a higher watch-tower than the rest of the world-who looks down on the earth as on a globe, a planet, a star.

"And what," he cried, suddenly, "what good chance brought you to Niederlahnstein ?"

"Why," replied Konrad, "Fate seems to have set a great importance on our coming, for she took very strong measures to ensure it, and would have even sacrificed the life of Karl here, that I might have the pleasure of meeting you again."

"So you are the authors of all my misery," cried Beatrix, laughing. "How wrong of you, Monsieur Sherwood, to try and drown yourself in that way. I assure you it shocked me awfully. I was sitting on my favourite turret in the castle, reading and thinking-for the place is fitted for both when I saw a boat floating down the stream. I thought I recognised one of the figures in it, and I stared hard at them, till I saw they were staring at me in return. I was just going down, when I saw you thrown out, and the boat dashed frightfully over the rapid, whirling round and round in a most dangerous manner. I certainly expected you would be drowned, but I had some vague idea that by rushing down and sending assistance I might be in time. to save you. To say the truth, I did not reason much on the matter, for I could not stay and look on while any one was drowning; and I determined

to do what I could. I need not tell you that I arrived long after you had reached the inn, as I heard from old Babette, who had seen you pass, and who was congregated with one or two old gossips of the village, with varied accounts of the accident."

"Well," said I, with heartfelt sincerity," the affair, as it was, was most fortunate; and I would undergo the torments of drowning a hundred times more for the same number of evenings like this. But there is another thing for which I have to thank fate to-day. For the first time in my life, I have discovered that I am really attached to it. A little while back, I hated my existence, and had sundry suicidal feelings, which made me really miserable. Yet to-day, when there was a chance of getting rid of it, I clung to it with obstinacy."

"And why do you hate life?" she asked, quietly, but for the first time evincing an interest in what I said.

"Because," I replied, "life without love, is like night without stars. Love is the only thing that makes life beautiful, or even pleasing. One must have some interest. From God to gold, from the highest to the vilest love, men's hearts range, and each has its interest. But I am so fashioned, that I can but love the Beautiful and the Good, and these exist not upon earth. There are semblances of them, and one is tricked into loving them, only to find that one has been duped, and that one ought to despise what one has had the folly to admire. I, too, have had friends. I knew one man whom I looked upon as the great prophet of the age. His genius knew no limits his ambitions touched the stars-his goodness oozed out at every moment. And this paragon, who spoke in poetry, and who thought with the golden brain of angels-this second Baptist-what was he, after all? practised gambler, an habitual blackleg, one whose soul, with all its aspirations, could descend to secreting the ace of diamonds or the knave of spades. What could I do, but laugh at my own dullness, and swear never to have another friend on earth?"

A

She mused still, when I had done speaking. At last she said" Do you

remember those verses of your English poetess, Mrs. Butler?—

"Better trust all and be deceived,

And weep that trust and that deceiving-
Than doubt one word, which if believed,

Had blessed thy life with true believing."."

When that night I lay between the well-aired sheets at "The Crown," a cloud of struggling thoughts jostled through my brain.

Somehow, Beatrix was ever the foremost of these fancies. I asked myself, why she had persisted in talking to me, when I purposely engaged the Professor, in order to leave her alone with Konrad. I asked myself, how it was that Konrad took so little notice of her, except at their first greeting, and I strove to explain the affectionate relations of Konrad and Von Ritter.

At length an idea seized me. "Konrad," I cried across the room -for it was double-bedded-"are you asleep, old boy?"

A grunt responsive assured me that he was still open to a communication.

"What do you say to returning here from Coblentz, and pitching our tents here for a short time. I have long wished to read Philosophy with some one, and Von Ritter is just the man. Then you would have the charms of Fräulein Beatrix, and the time would spin merrily away."

"You are quite on the wrong tack there," returned Konrad, rousing himself, and sitting up. "The cloud, Karl, is for you, not for me. But the idea is capital. I know Von Ritter will be delighted. This is a charming little spot to stay at. Let it be so."

And then the delight of the idea improving on acquaintance, we both jumped out of bed in our nocturnal togas, and danced a North American war-whoop, frightening mine host into fits with our jubilates. What boys we were then!

However, the next night we danced a yet more jovial hornpipe on the same floor, in the same attire. The Professor had assented with alacrity. Beatrix had clapped her white hands in delight at the idea. The steamer had brought ourselves and luggage from Coblentz, and we were finally located in the house of the lugubrious innkeeper.

A TRIO OF AMERICAN SAILOR-AUTHORS.

AMERICA has produced three authors, who, having acquired their knowledge of sea-life in a practical manner,* have written either nautical novels or narratives of the highest degree of excellence. We allude to Fenimore Cooper, R. H. Dana, jun., and Herman Melville, each of whom has written at least one book, which is, in our estimation, decidedly A 1. Our task here happily is not to institute a critical comparison of the respective merits of American and English sea-novelists and writers; but we do not hesitate incidentally to admit that, to say the very least, America worthily rivals us in this department of literature. Taking Cooper, for instance, all in all, we question greatly whether any English author excels him as a sea-novelist. Our

two best are Marryat and Michael Scott ("Tom Cringle "), but they are in some respects essentially inferior to Cooper; and although they both have very great distinctive merits of their own, in what shall we deliberately pronounce them superior to the great American? Turn to Dana, and where is the English author, living or dead, who has written a book descriptive of real foremast life worthy to be compared with "Two Years before the Mast?" Again, to select only a single work by Herman Melville, where shall we find an English picture of man-ofwar life to rival his marvellous "WhiteJacket?" Tastes and opinions of course vary, and there may be, and doubtless are, able and intelligent critics who will dissent from our verdict; but we may be permitted to say that we believe very few works of nautical fiction and narrative (by either English or American authors) exist, with which we are not familiar.

Ere proceeding to consider the ресиliar and distinguishing excellencies of our three American sailor-authors, we

would observe that, as regards seanovels, not one realises our idea of what this species of literature ought to be. A sea-novel, to which we can appeal as a standard by which to judge the general artistic merits of similar compositions, is yet, and will, we fear, long continue to be, a desideratum. In many so-called naval fictions, twothirds or more of the scenes are described as occurring on shore, and the actors are more frequently landsmen than sailors; and even in the very best works of the class we find not a few chapters occupied by scenes and characters which have no connexion whatever with the sea. A genuine sea story should be evolved afloat from first to last; its descriptions should be confined to the ocean and its coasts-to ships and their management; its characters should exclusively be seamen (unless a fair heroine be introduced on shipboard); its episodes and all its incidental materials should smack of sealife and adventure-the land, and all that exclusively pertains thereto, should as much as possible be sunk and forgotten! But, it will be asked, has a book of this kind yet been written? No, it has not. And if the most eminent naval novelists have not attempted such a performance, does not that prove that they considered the idea one that could not be practically carried out? So at least it would appear, and very successful nautical writers explicitly give their testimony against our theory. For example, Captain Chamier whose "Ben Brace," and other nautical novels and narratives are, by the way, very little inferior to Marryat's-in his "Life of a Sailor," makes the following remark:-

"The mere evolutions of a ship, the interior arrangements, the nautical expressions, would soon pall on a landsman. Even

* All three, be it observed, have sailed before the mast; for although Cooper was six years a midshipman in the United States' navy, he previously made one or more voyages as an ordinary ship-boy in a merchantman. See the autobiography of "Ned Myers," written by his old messmate, Cooper himself. We speak from memory on this point, not having a copy of "Ned Myers" to refer to; and, singularly enough, we read it in the garb of a French translation when on board a foreign vessel years ago, and have never seen it in the original. A cheap English edition has been subsequently issued.

VOL. XLVII.-NO. CCLXXVII,

E

Marryat, who wrote, in my opinion, the very best naval novel ever penned, The King's Own,' has found it impossible to keep to nautical scenes; and the author of the 'Post Captain,' a most excellent specimen of nautical life, has wisely painted the beauty of Cassandra, and made most of the interesting scenes occur on shore."

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We dissent decidedly from much which our gallant friend here maintains. The evolutions of Cooper's ships, and the "nautical expressions which he puts in the mouths of his characters, do not pall; the "King's Own" is not the best naval novel that even Marryat himself penned; and as to the "Post Captain," we admit that two or three opening chapters of that very coarsely-written anonymous work are pretty good, but all the rest are unmitigated balderdash; and how it happened that many editions of such a miserable performance found pur. chasers, is a greater mystery to us than a reel in a bottle was to our venerable great-grandmother. We must not digress further; but we reiterate our firm belief that a nautical fiction strictly written on the plan we have proposed, if by a man of genius, would not merely be the facile princeps of its class of literature, but would delight landsmen as much as seamen, and interest all hands to a greater degree than any work written on the mongrel system of alternately describing life at at sea and life on shore, which has hitherto prevailed.

According to an American authority, Fenimore Cooper became a naval novelist through the following circumstance. Some literary friends were praising Scott's "Pirate," but Cooper laughed at its pretensions to be regarded as a sea-story, and said that he would undertake to produce a work which landsmen would read and appreciate, and which seamen would admire, for its truthful descriptions of nautical manœuvres. &c. He redeemed his pledge by writing "The Pilot," the best and most popular of all his nautical fictions. The genius of Cooper, both as a sea-novelist and as an unrivalled writer of romances, descriptive of life in the woods and prairies of America, did not, like rich old wine, improve and ripen with age. After he had written less than a dozen works, there was a manifest falling off both in the conception and execution of his stories; and although he inde

fatigably continued to labour to the last for the entertainment of that public which had once hailed the announcement of a new work by him with eager interest, his most ardent admirers cared less and less for each succeeding effort that he put forth. In justice to his memory,let us observe, that the very high standard which Cooper's own earlier achievments in nautical and other species of fiction had taught us to apply to works of their class, itself operated to his serious disadvantage as regarded the later productions of his pen; for we naturally compared the latter with the former, and the result was decidedly unfavourable. Yet we are bold to say that even the poorest of Cooper's works possesses considerable merit in itself; and had it appeared as the production of a new or of an anonymous writer, might have been better received than as the acknowledged work of an author of illustrious reputation.

Cooper's nautical fictions may be divided into three classes as regards their merit. In the first class we should place the "Pilot" and the "Red Rover;" in the second, the "Two Admirals," the "Waterwitch," and "Jack-o' Lantern;" in the third, 66 Homeward Bound," "Captain Spike," "Sea Lions," &c. Our task is not to criticise these works in detail, but to consider what are the distinguishing merits of the author, as manifested in a greater or less degree, in his various sea fictions.

The first striking quality of Cooper, is the admirable clearness and accuracy of his descriptions of the manœuvres, &c., of ships. Even a landsman who is ignorant, practically, of such things, must appreciate this, and be enabled to comprehend, at least in a general manner, the object and results of the efforts of seamanship so vividly delineated. We never noted any technical or professional error on Cooper's part, and whatever he himself might be practically, he certainly was a good seaman theoretically.

Secondly-Cooper possessed an absolutely unparalleled faculty of imparting to his ships a species of living interest. He, indeed, makes a vessel "walk the waters like a thing of life;" and the reader gradually feels an absorbing interest in her motions and her fate as an individual craft. We refer to the Ariel in the "Pilot," or to the

rover's ship and the Royal Caroline (in the "Red Rover") as wonderful instances of this peculiar talent.

Thirdly - He is unsurpassed in the power he possesses to invest the ocean itself with attributes of awe-striking sublimity and mystery. His mind, in a word, was intensely poetical, and in his earlier works especially, he revels in fine poetical imagery in connexion with the sea and ships. This is one reason why (as we happen to know) his works are not so popular with practical seamen as Captain Marryat's, for seamen themselves are generally very prosaic, matter-of-fact mortals, and do not regard their profession, nor the ocean, nor ships, in a poetical light. To illus trate some of our preceding observations, we shall here quote a small portion of the magnificently-written description of the chase of the Royal Caroline by the Dolphin, in the "Red Rover." The time is just previous to daybreak:

"The lucid and fearful-looking mist which for the last quarter of an hour had been gathering in the north-west, was now driving down upon them with the speed of a racehorse. The air had already lost the damp and peculiar feeling of an easterly breeze, and little eddies were beginning to flutter among the masts- precursors of a coming squall. Then a rushing, roaring sound was heard moaning along the ocean, whose surface was first dimpled, next ruffled, and finally covered with one sheet of clear, white, and spotless foam. At the next instant the power of the wind fell full on the inert and labouring Bristol trader. . Happy was it for all who had life at risk in that defenceless vessel, that she was not fated to receive the whole weight of the tempest at a blow. The sails fluttered and trembled on their massive yards, bellying and collapsing alternately for a minute, and then the rushing wind swept over them in a hurricane. The Caroline received the blast like a stout and buoyant vessel, yielding readily to its impulse, until her side lay nearly incumbent on the element in which she floated; and then, as if the fearful fabric were conscious of its jeopardy, it seemed to lift its reclining masts again, struggling to work its way heavily through the water."

A yet more powerful picture of the ocean during one of its frequent changes, is given in an earlier part of the same narrative. Cooper himself never penned anything more striking, more poetical, and yet true to nature, than the following grand passage:

"The dim tracery of the stranger's form had been swallowed by the flood of misty light, which, by this time, rolled along the sea like drifting vapour, semi-pellucid, preternatural, and seemingly tangible. The ocean itself seemed admonished that a quick and violent change was nigh. The waves had ceased to break in their former foaming and brilliant crests, but black masses of the water were seen lifting their surly summits against the eastern horizon, no longer relieved by their scintillating brightness, or shedding their own peculiar and lucid atmosphere around them. The breeze, which had been so fresh, and which had even blown, at times, with a force that nearly amounted to a little gale, was lulling and becoming uncertain, as though awed by the more violent power that was gathering along the borders of the sea in the direction of the neighbouring continent. Each moment the eastern puffs of air lost their strength, and became more and more feeble, until, in an incredibly short period, the heavy sails were heard flapping against the masts—a frightful and ominous calm succeeding."

Now, is not the above a piece of splendid descriptive writing? And we can assure our landsmen friends that seamen (and any person of an observant turn, who has had opportunities of beholding and noting the mysterious phenomena of ocean), will bear witness to its perfect truth and fidelity. But of ten thousand spectators of such a scene, would there be one who could describe it in a few lines in such a vivid and masterly manner as our author has done?

Fourthly-Cooper's leading characters among the seamen are, in many instances, highly- finished portraits, drawn by the hand of a great master; and the reader instinctively feels that they are not mere conventional mariners of the melodramatic school, but genuine blue-water salts, who exhibit special individual idiosyncracies in addition to the general characteristics of their class. The two finest and most elaborate portraits in the entire Cooper sea-gallery are Long Tom Coffin in the "Pilot," and Dick Fid in the "Red Rover." In their way, they both are perfect, and quite Shaksperian. They never yet have been equalled in naval fiction, nor do we think they ever will be surpassed.

Cooper's sea-novels have several distinguishing peculiarities besides those we have already pointed out. It is worth observing, that they rarely exhibit anything like an artistic plot

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