"Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime- Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone."—Ibid. Canto 4 More imaginative and in a different vein, but not less magnificent and impressive, are the following: “O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave; Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead."-Corsair, Canto 1. "A sail!-a sail!'-a promised prize to Hope! Her nation-flag-how speaks the telescope? No prize, alas!-but yet a welcome sail: The blood-red signal glitters in the gale. Yes-she is ours-a home-returning bark Blow fair, thou breeze!-she anchors ere the dark. Already doubled is the cape--our bay Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray. How gloriously her gallant course she goes! Her white wings flying-never from her foes She walks the waters like a thing of life, And seems to dare the elements to strife, Who would not brave the battle-fire-the wreck To move the monarch of her peopled deck? "Hoarse o'er her side the rustling cable rings; The sails are furl'd; and anchoring round she swings: Her boat descending from the latticed stern. Tis man'd-the oars keep concert to the strand, "Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough the surge, They own the signal, answer to the hail, Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken sail. 'Tis Conrad! Conrad!' shouting from the deck, They view him mount once more his vessel's side; Their arms can scarce forbear a rough embrace. Returns their greeting as a chief may great, Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo's hand, And feels he yet can conquer and command."-Ibid. Canto 3. In spite, however, of these magnificent, lines from the Corsair, there is a limit which genius itself cannot pass, and where its utmost efforts must yield to the humbler powers of experience. However admirably we may describe from a previous description, there is an artifice or feebleness about such labours that, if it does not absolutely betray its own origin, yet always leaves upon the observant mind a sense of doubt, ineffectiveness, and insufficiency. It is not that the details furnished are incorrect or incomplete, but that the hand that borrowed, did not gather them itself: different objects strike different minds, according to their composition and nature, and the utmost art cannot use another's knowledge like its own. Thus the splendid shipwreck of Don Juan, though combined from both, yields to the simple narratives of the Meduse and the Disasters at Sea, recorded by witnesses of the events, and who have given their own real impressions, not imaginations, to the relation. It was not till after the public mind had been thus led to nautical scenes, and prepared to enter into and enjoy them, that the full development of their fascination met its eye. Bred in the American navy, and evidently no ordinary lover of his gallant profession, nor an ordinary observer of its details and vicissitudes, Mr. Cooper may be justly styled the creator of the maritime Perhaps none of those who have hitherto essayed their talents in this class of composition, were so fitted as Cooper to effectuate this diversion in public taste. With a thorough knowledge of the details, there is blended in him a power of acute observation and perception of external circumstanc es, and an unwearying fondness for displaying every variety of atmospheric change or marine difficulty, as met and obviated by a corresponding exertion of nautical science and firmness. As the wind shifts and chops, the reader learns in succession the power of The every sail, the use of every rope, the object judges with Mr. Cooper in their relative of every distinct manoeuvre; the knowledge value in the American service, we doubt and experience of the pilot, lavishly called whether an English commander would risk into action, bears the vessel in safety along and lose a vessel, like the Ariel, for the the imminent edge of a reef or quicksand, sake of a friend and lieutenant. over shallow or rocky bottoms, and through Long Tom Coffin is, perhaps, the only dangerous shoal-water, with every shift and exception to our remarks upon the naval risk of tides and currents into the safe sound- tales of Mr. Cooper; he is certainly a cha. ings of a deep channel; a chase displays racter, strictly speaking; and such, also, is the vessels going large, off the wind, hoist. Hawks eye in the Indian novels. ing, reefing, or shaking out, under press of merit and success of those two portraits rensail, or shifting; the engagement brings out der it obvious that the author's monotony all the nice points of wind, weathergage, and general failures on this head, arise, not and lee-shores, hauling in, raking, broad- from want of the power, but from neglect or sides, and boarding. The reader and the inconsideration. A writer of such talent author go through all the manoeuvres to- can scarcely fail where he wishes to sucgether, and share the toils, anxieties, and ceed-yet his characters have no mental success of the crews; nor is it the author's elevation-he makes them trivial instead of fault if we are not speedily as skilful as himself, for he has brought us, not only a new pleasure, but a new science to heighten it. amiable, and extravagant, not energetic. Still it is but justice to confess, that Mr. Cooper's is the genius of inanimate nature: his strength is fear: his force is in anxious agony. The English imitators or successors of Cooper cannot rival him on this ground: their merits are essentially different. The Tom Cringle, &c. of Basil Hall, is full of talent, power, and variety: his descriptions are as beautiful as his narrative is replete with intense, but always living interest-and to these his admirable and eloquent delineations of nature and the elements are always subservient: his humour is bold, varied, and in perfect keeping. The very forte of Mr. Cooper is, however, too often his foible. He is too apt to forget that there must be an end to even excite. ment, that his readers are not familiar with his technicalities, and that we soon cease to feel an interest when we cease to under. stand. Farther, whilst that which is novel is unintelligible to the landsman, to the sailor, though intelligible, it is not novel. With winds, waves, and vessels, Mr. Cooper has the might and sympathies of poetry, but beyond these he has, unfortunately, little power. His genius is for the tangible, both in action and sensation; of abstract feeling The humour of Marryatt is distinct from he has scarcely an idea in his works. Un- this. It is more simple, eccentric, and rivalled in physical, he has little or no whimsical: the ridiculous is his forte, and moral development; his personages have carried often to excess, but always effective. no intellect, but what gets them into or out ly. A strong bias for truth and reality, a of danger. He has no wit, no probability plain manliness and simplicity of concep. of tale, no common sense of conduct, no pathos, and little humour. His romantic portions are generally bad in taste and tone, his land scenes ineffective; his heroines mawkish and monotonons, unreflecting and forward. His plots are impossible and thread-bare, the action never proceeds, but the characters are discussing to infinity matters of no consequence whatever. The If the difference between Cooper and author is unfortunate too, we think, in apply- Marryatt may be considered as characteris ing and shaping his narrative aad conversa- tic in some degree of the two countries; the tions to certain and peculiar objects not former displaying more of physical and absolutely within the scope of the story; practical energy than abstract intellect, and and his benevolent endeavours to improve the latter preserving, with some painful exhis countrymen at home are brought too ceptions, a calmer and more general display prominently forward, instead of being veiled of finished development, M. Eugène Sue may by his satire: nor are his sneering attacks be considered to hold the same place in reupon religious establishments and forms lation to the two, that his country maintains either in better taste or better managed. with respect to both theirs. This author's There is nothing like strength or condense- powers of composition are lighter, more ness of phrase in his works. Even on the various and brilliant, with a more delicate sea, though we cannot profess to be equal and feminine, though not in the least effem. tion, composition, and conduct of story, distinguish him as the painter of the British navy: nor is this lessened by his extreme propensity to fun. The defects of Captain Marryatt are few, but really serious-his romantic characters are demoniacal; and his grossness, fortunately rare, is as uncalled for as unpardonable. "The steersman sounded eight times the relieve the watch.' "The noise this manœuvre occasioned awakened doubtless the inhabitants of the poop; for the curtain moved, coughing, grumbling, and motion followed, and a man came forth, rubbing his eyes twenty times over, and yawning desperately. "It was M. Claude Borromnée Martial Benoît, captain and owner of the brig Catherine, of 300 tons, and copper-bottomed." inate fancy. His love of fun is whimsical, | with a touch of sarcasm; his sentiment is little bell close to him, and cried aloud, 'Now imaginative and tender, if not enthusiastic; his fancy is gay, but wandering and desul. tory, even to affectation; and his tendency towards the mystical of influential sympathy is extravagant though effective. His de. scriptive powers are considerable, but continually carried to excess in his living characters, while they seem curtailed in the severer scenes of nature, and elaborated in the softer and more gentle. Like the votaries of one school in France, he seems to delight in the savage and revolting, and reminds us of Voltaire, not certainly in his religious feelings, which are less devout than impassioned, but in the tendency to sneer at the usual objects of human interest and ambition, and also in his propensity to to humiliate our nature by degrading the very persons he had at first seemed most inclined to honour. We need not give at any length the personal appearance of the worthy slave trading captain beyond the vest and trowsers, the check cravat, and the straw-hat that covered his grey hairs. "Well, my lad,' said he to the helmsman, gaily pinching his ear; the Catherine goes before the wind like a good girl ahead of her mother.' "Yes, captain, but she rolls like a porpoise, the gipsy. There-there's a heave; -and there again.””—* * "All at once the sky is shrouded, the sea is troubled, the wind moans. Leave your songs and half-empty glasses below there, clear your looks and brave death, for he threatens. With M. Sue and the personages of his At this momeut their conversation is intales, we are continually reminded of the restless and versatile susceptibility of the terrupted by a man from the look out, who French character in general. Its passions had failed to catch a second view of a disand emotions lie on the surface, and are tant schooner, through the fog. The capeasily moved therefore by the lightest breath, tain comforts himself that he shall not be and are more easy also, in the end, to divert detected shipping his cargo of ebony; i. e. than allay. Its impetuosity and vehemence negroes. He retires to indulge his golden are no less strongly distinguished from the dreams with songs and gin, with his comrough phlegmatism of England or the froz- panion, the mate. en enthusiasm of the German, than from the southern nations, whose characteristics it appears at first sight more closely to resemble. The passions of these last, though at least as fierce, are of a more settled and se. date complexion. Their very might and force keep each the other in check, so far as regards externals: their depths are more slowly roused also; and the motion of these is more furious perhaps, assuredly more lasting, and more uniform in development; less easily excited, they are also diverted less easily. But we have dwelt too long on preliminary points that will require consid. so calm and blue. erable extracts for their illustration, and these consequently we mean to give with no more of remark than shall make them conducive to our observations, and bringing out national differences and peculiarities of French maritime habits and character. The merits of the writer require this introduction of his works at some length our countrymen. to We take our first extract from Atar-Gul: "The crew of the brig, overwhelmed by the heat, had doubtless retired below. All slept in the vessel except the helmsman, and three other sailors, who were lying at the foot of the mainmast. "The crew ran on deck, sad and silent, for the worst was yet to come. "The brig had righted from the previous shock, though with the loss of her topmast. But the waves were becoming heavier, the sky was covered with vapours, murky and red, like the smoke of a conflagration, and which, reflected on the waters, cast a grey and melancholy tint over the ocean, lately "That's a hint of what the storm promises, and it means to keep its promise,' said Benoît, who knew the symptoms; and scarcely were the topmasts lowered when a dull moaning was heard and a large zone of clouds, thick and black, that seemed to unite the sky and the sea, moved rapidly from the north-west, driving before it a mass of boilthe waves that came on with the tempest. ing foam; a fearful proof of the fury of "Those faces, till now unmeaning as the light breeze that plays with the ship's cordage, seemed roused as from a lethargy: these vulgar men, these dwarfs during a calm, enlarged; enlarged with the hurricane; became dauntless giants on the first shock of the storm. "The dull and stupid air of the captain disappeared; his face, heretofore heavy, conds; it bowed, creaked, and broke with an assumed a brilliant daring, as in defiance of alarming noise, and bearing with it the rigthe skies. ging of the windward side, fell on the larboard rails and thence into the sea; the shrouds and cordage still held it to the vessel. ، "Never mind,' roared the captain, for already the storm out-raged the thunder, never mind, boys, its only wind and water. Haul down that standing-top. Simon, go ahead; we'll try to hold the cape with reefed main-sail; and try on a tack. Ho, steersman, down with your helm-go to it, two or three of you, for the wind is coming down on the brig like a mutinous child against his father. So, my boys; we wont give way— its a bad example. "The Catherine staggered long under the force of the formidable waves that broke against each other, and even disappeared at times in the showers of foam brought by the tempest; while the incessant cracking of the wood-work in various parts sounded loud and sharp as the blows of a hammer on the anvil. Overwhelmed by immense masses of water which broke upon deck with horrible fury, sweeping its whole length; borne on the crest of enormous waves, or plunging into unfathomable abyss, the unfortunate brig seemed every moment on the point of being swallowed up. "Hold fast by the shrouds and yards," cried Benoît, its nothing; its only cooling us this hot weather; and then the Catherine will be all right to-morrow. Ho there; down with the helm :-luff, luff; or else' "This state of things was dangerous, for the mast, at the mercy of the furious waves, beat backwarks and forwards against the vessel, and acting like a battering-ram upon its sides, threatened to make a breach that would have sent all to the bottom. 66 Only one thing remained; namely, to cut the cordage which retained it to the brig. "No time for considering; it is dangerous, but it is for our lives;' and Benoît, seizing a hatchet, mounted across the railing." Simon the mate, precipitates himself on the mast to save his superior from risk. He succeeds in disengaging the vessel, but is downed in the gallant task. The vessel reaches the Fish-river in a state of distress. Our next extract must be of a different cast from the preceding. Benoît meets with the slave-dealer, Van-Hop, commissioned on the part of King Taroo; and he, after previous discussion, introduces the captain of the brig to his sable majesty. "King Taroo, seated majestically upon a table, with his legs crossed like a tailor, was smoking a huge pipe. "He was an ill-looking negro of about forty, arrayed in full state: proudly surmounted by an old three-cornered cockedhat with narrow copper lacing, and bearing by way of all garment a large cane with a silver head and a rag of red cloth which scarcely sufficed for propriety." "Before he had ceased speaking a mountain of water, heaving as high as the tops, came upon the poop, swept along the deck covering it with wrecks, and passed over the bows, bearing with it two of the crew, who disappeared in the waters. These men had married two fresh and pretty sisters of Nantes; they were attached to each other with all the strength of sailors' friendships-they After an hour of vigorous discussion kept watch together, got drunk together, fought together; one married because the through the interpreter, Van Hop, a treaty other did; and thus flung himself into the of sale is signed; some of the articles howwater to save the other, or be like him- ever being objected to, and discussed by drowned. They ended as they began-to Benoît with the interpreter, the objections gether-* are explained to the king at his especial "Caiot, my good fellow,' cried the cap-command; but as his majesty did not in the tain, port your helm,-look out. Oh, cap- least comprehend their drift when refertain,' he replied, raising his head, there is no fear while she answers her helm-steady.'* ring to European customs, he declared his Take care, take care, captain,' cried comprehension by various glasses of rum. Simon, for he saw an enormous sea rising; When the sale was fairly concluded, he got which threatening the ship, remained motion- dead drunk and tumbled down. The unless for the short time that its summit poised happy negroes were led or hauled on board on the base; the force of the wind drove it according as they went quietly or resisted. on; it curled over, rolled heavily, carrying before it a sheet of white water, broke furiously upon the vessel's stern, and then was lost awhile under the mass, which roared like thunder. 666 ** "So violent was the blow, that the rudder, struck by its force, gave the tiller a tremenduous shock; the three men stationed at the wheel were thrown down on the deck; and, owing to this unfortunate event, the brig coming to the wind, the mainsail failed and backed. "The mainmast hardly resisted for two se "It is necessary to say, that the negroes allowed themselves to be led, hoisted, chained on board, in stupid insensibility. Not imagin ing any other object for their purchase than that they were to be eaten, they exerted their utmost conrage to remain passive. "Before weighing anchor, M. Benoît had a fair distribution made of salt-fish, biscuit, and water with a little rum in it. "But they would scarcely touch it; ** for the blacks, it is well known, remain generally the first five or six days of the voyage al. |