Ferdinand V. of Spain; the quarrel to which the division of the spoil between the royal plunderers gave rise, the consequent war, and the final seizure of the whole by the Spaniards under the conduct of the able though we grieve even to say it, not equally conscientious great captain, Gonsalvo di Cordova. The book opens with the first entrance of the French troops into the Neapolitan dominions; and perhaps we cannot select a fairer specimen of the author's talent than a scene at the very beginning, exhibiting the deadly spirit of faction and private feud, that has for so many centuries mainly contributed to lay Italy at the foot of every invader.

"It was a fair morning of the month of June when two warriors who had recently met, rode through a wood towards the camp. Both were in the flower of youth; the one, very tall, was too slender to be called well-proportioned; the other, scarcely surpassing the middle stature, impressed the beholder at first sight by his perfect symmetry of limb and grace of carriage. The first rode a powerful bay charger; the second a black jennet. The richly chiselled armour of the former showed a man of high rank; that of the latter, though of fair temper and well burnished, was far inferior in precious work. But whatever difference of rank might hence be inferred betwixt them, their manners betokened perfect equality.

"Kind indeed have been my stars,' said the seemingly more considerable of the two,' in bringing to meet me, ere I reach the camp, him I most wished to see.'

"And but too happy am I, my Pompeo,' rejoined the other, to return thither in thy company. Who could have thought that upon my foraging mission I should fall in with thee! And the enemy so near! Oh my heart wept to see our lances in rest without thee!'

"At Capua I was charged to use despatch! My uncle dwelt upon the importance of the orders of which I am the bearer. Did he suppose such injunctions could add to the speed of him who is hurrying to camp in the hope of a battle?'

"Thou'rt in good time, friend; thou'lt share in the very first banquet.'

"What delight! To mount so fine a charger; to brandish such splendid arms! The time is come, Gianni, to practise in earnest the sports of our childhood. This will be a rare tilting bout, with a real enemy confronting us!'

"Add too, a detested enemy.'

"Right, Gianni, right. Methinks this sword would cut less sharply were it wielded against other than the Orsini.'

"I am more desirous to wield mine against the pestilence from beyond the Alps. Happy 1, if this yet virgin blade, still pure from blood, be never stained by blood of Italy.'

"Oh thou hast not had a father slain by those villains! Thou didst not last year see the slaughter of Monticelli ! When Marcantonio and I reached the combatants, those we best loved were falling like leaves

under their blows. Signor Antonio, the bravest man of the house of Lavelli, dying between my feet! And I myself, had not Capoccio arrived in time with his squadron.' * * * *

*

"I understand; but when the fate of all is at stake, private hatreds and enmities should be forgotten. * * Such quarrels and mistrust amongst ourselves, with such indifference towards the foreigner! Why when King Charles came, we were all on his side, and the Ŏrsini of course on the Neapolitan. And now 'tis the very reverse!'

"What would'st thou have? An enmity of 206 years standing! Thou know'st too with whom originated the new rupture. After the peace concluded with Carlo Orsini, whilst he was still our prisoner, was it fair, was it seemly to engage themselves to the infamous Cæsar Borgia ?'

"I say not that the fault was your's; but I know that its punishment will light upon us all.'"

A few months later this prediction is fulfilled, the conquest of the kingdom is completed, and the whole Colonna party proceed to join the Spaniards under Gonsalvo di Cordova; but we must stop here.

If such conversation as we have extracted can ever be entertaining, it must be to the interlocutors alone; and we may hint to our readers that there are verifications everywhere of the proverb to go farther and fare worse. Let him therefore rest content, as we doubt not he will, with this specimen of the Viceroy, the author of which, whether Belmonte or Capoccio, does not possess either the dramatic or graphic power of Tommaseo. We must, however, bestow on him the praise of giving a fair picture of the condition of the country during the unhappy times in which he has laid his scene, and especially of the degree to which, at the end of the war, it was infested by banditti, who bid defiance to any minister of justice, less powerful than a troop of soldiers.

From the mediocrity of the extract given we are satisfied to refer any more curious reader to the work itself for further specimens, confessing that its merits cannot, in our judgment, warrant us in proceeding farther.

ART. IX.-1. Atar Gull (Atar Gul), par Eugène Sue.

2. La Coucaratcha, Roman maritime, (The Cockroach, a Naval Romance,) par Eugène Sue.

3. La Salamandre, Roman maritime, (The Salamander, a Naval Romance,) tom., par Eugène Sue.

It is singular that maritime novels should be of foreign origin, when the sea itself had been so long the favourite and boasted possession of Great Britain, and the members of the naval profession were so closely interwoven with our political existence and habits of thought as the great bulwark of national defence. To Englishmen, the service was a kind of embodied idealism, rough in its outline and peculiar failings perhaps, but exempted generally from the usual besetting sins of landsmen, that is, of the larger portion of the human race: to say nothing of the lustre cast upon it by the universal sentiment of respect and admiration entertained for those who brave unwonted dangers. All these, and many more considerations, had united to produce among us so high an appreciation of maritime life, that it is not a little singular, we must repeat, that English literature, when the failing voice of fiction was infused with fresh energy by Scott, should have entirely overlooked, even amidst the very eagerness of search for novel phases of life, the ample scope afforded by the boundless wastes of ocean. There, too, all the machinery of natural terrors, displayed constantly to the eye and physical apprehension, is heightened by the corresponding weight of superstition, and nourished by all that most forcibly appeals to imagination: and this little checked, or even modified, by that actuality which, however potent on land, but feebly opposes the hourly spells that seem to reign in supremacy over the world of waters.

It was with a wonder, therefore, scarcely inferior to that which attended the mortifying intelligence of our first defeats on our favourite element, that the British public found our transatlantic brethren equally prompt and successful in their rivalry of our favourite branch of literature also: the Hornet, the Constitution, &c. were not, in their way, more productive of astounding disclosures of rival strength, than were, in another form, the Spy, the Pilot, and the Last of the Mohicans: and in both cases the national vanity, like that of Mrs. Primrose in the Vicar of Wakefield, at her daughter's dancing, comforted itself by whispering, with at least as much of jealousy as approbation, "that though the little chit did it so cleverly, all the steps were stolen from herself."

The allegation, probably true in either case, did not, however, lessen the merit of the thief; but the emulation awakened by

these successes over ourselves, roused the national energy in every point of view; and to the portion of this development that regards our literary pursuits, we shall refer in its place, after a few preliminary observations.

In this question the name of Smollett has been naturally brought forward as the real originator of the seafaring novel; and Mr. Cooper has been considered as only treading, to a certain degree, in his footsteps. We cannot hold with this opinion in the least.

The subject of Smollett was, strictly speaking, less the seafaring life than sea-faring individuals. It was the manners of the man rather than the occupations of the class; it spoke of the sailor, not of the sea. The whims and eccentricities of nautical thought and language, as called forth incidentally and by collision; the steering of a chaise, the lee-shore of a road-post, the menage of a cock-pit, or the brutality and ignorance of a commander; all that could bring us close into intimacy with this amphibious variety of the genus homo, was traced by the pen of genius before our eyes, and mingled with our subsequent recollections by inimitable powers of comic extravagance and frolicsome humour. Humour too that at times led of necessity to pathos, for humour itself is but the irony of affection. That this result, of pathos, occurs more seldom in Smollett than might have been imagined from the depth and richness of his humorous vein, is no argument against the consequence we have drawn; and may be easily accounted for by the circumstances of his life and habits, and the thence induced cynicism of his character. But his power in such scenes is unquestionable: and, as an instance of this, we refer to the passage immediately following that where the whimsical propensities and prejudices of the old commodore have closed with his life and the especial direction for his epitaph: namely, that it must be, not in your outlandish Latin lingo, but in good plain English, in order that the angel who is to pipe all hands from under hatches may be able to read it. The scene begins thus: "Every thing being duly arranged, all the rest had left the room: Pipes stood over the body of his old commander.Well fare thy soul,' (he said,) 'old Hawser Trunnion! Fifty years have I sailed with ye, man and boy, and a better seaman never broke a biscuit,'" &c. &c.

But if individual incident and portrait were thus sketched or worked out with singular power, the phenomena of nature, the dangers of the deep, and the triumphs of human skill and resolution, all that form the real staple of the seaman's existence, were totally beyond the province of Smollett. Still less was he calculated for attempting to depict those yearnings of the heart that arise in the loneliness of dignity that invests the state-cabin and

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the quarter-deck; in the solitude and isolation of the night-watch, and in that stronger solitude of the heart itself, which feels in the long intervals of forced repose that those around, though united for a time in the same vessel, have no one point or capacity of sympathy with its private ties; and that it cannot, like the landsman's, seek out these when most desirable.

The very bustle and motion of the crowd that constantly surrounds the seaman, while it keeps up an incessant but moderate degree of excitement in his mental system, prevents him from the general leisure of a landsman's spirit, that can indulge the mood and give it vent. Checked and chilled on the contrary with the sailor, it sinks into the mind successively, if we may venture on a similitude, like the reiterated trace of frosts into the bosom of earth-unseen but ineffaceable; and keeps like that, its deep, indelible register to mark, more strongly than externals can be expected to retain it, the impressions and effects of past states and feelings. But there are times when these feelings rise in concentrated strength; such as when called from society or the messroom in all the flush of mirth and enjoyment to keep the midnight or morning watch, to see the gallant vessel hold her own and in due trim; to mark the changes of the wind and the strength or slumber of the waters; to see the sun sink or rise, to gaze on the moveless track of the moon, and commune in loneliness with the stars that so often have lighted far other hours;-while the necessity of a vigilant but restrained attention, and the dignity of command, give a slight though certain elevation to the spirit. It is then that the light voice of the breeze, the murmuring sound of the waves, the motion, the serenity, the dreamy softness of night, all combine to fill the breast with unuttered emotion: all this the sailor feels, but the voice of his feeling is dumb.

Such a state might, and must necessarily have given a power of positive poetry to the seaman, but for the counteracting influence of those ruder and more stirring energies that every moment of change and vicissitude calls into play: these hourly calls of action fling emotion into the shade; and on glancing back he finds that he has outsailed them, like the ocean weed that a moment before was floating over the bow, drifting now with the current far behind the stern. The sailor thus, if he is prevented by the circumstances of his life from becoming actively imaginative, is always in proportion more susceptible of that power: sensitive beyond other men to the influence of the finer pulses, though less able, or less willing, at least, to attempt to sway them.

Who can wonder then that, imbued with the living energies of nature and the ocean; constantly in contact with powers whose recollection is the very poetry of existence, the navy were among