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diff --git a/old/53796-h/53796-h.htm b/old/53796-h/53796-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 8336c2c..0000000 --- a/old/53796-h/53796-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7697 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life of Frederick Marryat, by David Hannay. - </title> - - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - -<style type="text/css"> - -a { - text-decoration: none; -} - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -h1,h2,h3,h4 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -hr { - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb { - width: 45%; - margin-left: 27.5%; - margin-right: 27.5%; -} - -hr.chap { - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -ul { - list-style-type: none; -} - -li.book { - margin-top: .5em; - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -li.indx { - margin-top: .5em; - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -li.ifrst { - margin-top: 2em; - padding-left: 6em; -} - -li.isub1 { - padding-left: 4em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -p { - margin-top: 0.5em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -table { - margin: 1em auto 1em auto; - max-width: 40em; - border-collapse: collapse; -} - -td { - padding-left: 2.25em; - padding-right: 0.25em; - vertical-align: top; - text-indent: -2em; - text-align: justify; -} - -th { - font-weight: normal; -} - -.blockquote { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.bibliography .blockquote { - font-size: smaller; -} - -.bibliography p { - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.larger { - font-size: 150%; -} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - right: 4%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; -} - -.right { - text-align: right; -} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcap { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; -} - -.tdc { - text-align: center; - padding-top: 0.75em; -} - -.tdr { - text-align: right; - vertical-align: bottom; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 3em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -@media handheld { - -.blockquote { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; -} -} - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Frederick Marryat, by David Hannay - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Life of Frederick Marryat - -Author: David Hannay - -Editor: Eric S. Robertson - -Release Date: December 23, 2016 [EBook #53796] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FREDERICK MARRYAT *** - - - - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center larger">“Great Writers.”</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smaller">EDITED BY</span><br /> -PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A.</p> - -<p class="titlepage larger"><i>LIFE OF MARRYAT.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">LIFE<br /> -<span class="smaller">OF</span><br /> -FREDERICK MARRYAT</p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> -DAVID HANNAY</p> - -<p class="titlepage">LONDON<br /> -WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE<br /> -NEW YORK AND TORONTO: W. J. GAGE & CO.<br /> -1889</p> - -<p class="center">(<i>All rights reserved.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage">🖛 FOR FULL LIST of the Volumes in -this series, see <a href="#THE_SCOTT_LIBRARY">Catalogue</a> at end of -book.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h2>NOTE.</h2> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/deco-1.jpg" width="150" height="30" alt="(decorative)" /> -</div> - -<p>The materials for a life of Marryat are scanty, and -I have acknowledged my obligation to them in -the text. Mrs. Ross Church collected, in 1872, all the -surviving knowledge about her father’s life—all of it, -that is, which the family thought it right to publish to -the world. The present little book has no pretensions -to be founded on new materials. My object has only -been to make the best use I could of already published -matter—to tell what story there is to tell in the clearest -possible manner, and to add the best estimate of -Marryat’s work and position in letters that I could -supply.</p> - -<p class="right">D. H.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/deco-1.jpg" width="150" height="30" alt="(decorative)" /> -</div> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <th></th> - <th class="tdr smaller">PAGE</th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Frederick Marryat born 10th July, 1792; his parentage; his - ancestry; home training; schooling at Enfield; runs away - to sea; is sent into the navy and joins the <i>Impérieuse</i> - under Captain Lord Cochrane, in September, 1806</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The naval war in 1806: the frigates of the Great War; - Lord Cochrane, afterwards Lord Dundonald, Captain of - the <i>Impérieuse</i>; his character; his influence on Marryat; - the cruises of the frigate as described by Marryat in his - private log; a narrow escape; Cochrane in the House of - Commons; an affair in the boats; the Maltese privateer, - Pasquil Giliano; movements of <i>Impérieuse</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Impérieuse</i> on coast of Spain; cutting out privateer from - Almeria Bay; alliance with Spain; Rosas; the Basque - Roads; naval service of Marryat after parting with Cochrane - till the end of the Great War; saves several men from - drowning; various adventures; summary of his services - from 1806 to 1815</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Marryat’s position in 1815; goes abroad; marriage; appointed - to <i>Beaver</i>; at St. Helena changes to <i>Rosario</i>; in Channel; - pays off <i>Rosario</i>; the Channel smugglers; appointed to - <i>Larne</i>; Burmese War; promotion and made a C.B.; - transferred to <i>Tees</i> in July, 1824; short command of - <i>Ariadne</i>; the <i>Ariadne</i> his last ship; resigns command - November, 1830; begins writing; equerry to Duke of - Sussex; story of William IV.</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>From 1830 to 1848 a writer; his literary life; expensive habits; - early success in novel writing; editorial ventures; <cite>The - Metropolitan Magazine</cite>; hard work in 1833-34; in 1833 - he stands for Tower Hamlets, and fails; at Brighton in - 1834; quotation from letter on lawsuit; goes abroad; life - abroad; leaves for America</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Marryat’s literary work up to 1837; his early success, and determination - to make money; quarrels with publisher; - prices paid him; “Frank Mildmay”; quotation from - <cite>Metropolitan Magazine</cite> on “Frank Mildmay”; other - books from “King’s Own” to “Pirate” and “Three - Cutters”; quality of Marryat’s style; quotation from - “Peter Simple”; his plots; his fun; quotation from - “Midshipman Easy”</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Visit to America in 1837; his object in going there; in New - York; letter to his mother describing where he has been; - visit to Canada; affair of the <i>Caroline</i>; unpopularity in - United States; Marryat stands his ground; return to - England</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Movements in London; ruin of West Indian property; life - and friendships in London; Duke Street, Wimbledon, - Piccadilly, Spanish Place; first signs of breaking health; - goes to Langham; books of these years; “Phantom Ship”; - children’s stories; “Masterman Ready”; skirmish with - <cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite>; Marryat defends publication of his - stories in the <cite>Era</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Marryat goes to Langham for good in 1843; life there; Marryat - and his children; kindness to his men; his scientific farming, - and its financial results; his literary work; asked to - write life of Collingwood; declines; last stories: “The - Mission,” “The Settlers,” “The Children of the New - Forest,” “The Little Savage”</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>His fatal illness; his <i lang="fr">physique</i> and personal appearance; letter - to Lord Auckland on supposed slight; Hastings; loss of - H.M.S. <i>Avenger</i>, and death of Marryat’s son, Lieutenant - Frederick Marryat; returns to Langham; last months, - and death on 9th August, 1848; estimate of his character - and work</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX.</a></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> - -<h1>LIFE OF -CAPTAIN MARRYAT.</h1> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 238px;"> -<img src="images/deco-2.jpg" width="238" height="30" alt="(decorative)" /> -</div> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2> - -<p>Frederick Marryat, one of the most brilliant, -and the least fairly recognized, of English -novelists, was born in Westminster, on the 10th July, -1792, some seven months before the outbreak of the -Great War. He was the second son of Joseph Marryat, -M.P. for Sandwich, chairman of the committee of Lloyds, -and Colonial Agent for the island of Grenada. His -mother was a Bostonian, of a loyalist family. Her maiden -name was Geyer—or according to Mrs. Ross Church’s -life of her father, Von Geyer—and the family is said to -have been of Hessian origin. The Marryats themselves -were a Suffolk stock. In Marshall’s “Naval Biography,” -which appeared during Marryat’s own life, the novelist is -said to have descended from one of the numerous -Huguenot refugees who settled in the Eastern Counties -during the persecutions of the sixteenth century. The -family version of its history, as given by Mrs. Ross Church, -contains a longer and more splendid pedigree, going -back even to knights who came over with “Richard -Conqueror.” These things, though set forth with faith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -no doubt, are to be received with polite reserve by the -judicious reader. For the rest, whatever the remote -origin of the Marryats may have been, they were during -the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries very distinctly -middle-class people—dissenting ministers, doctors, or -business men—manifestly of good parts and industry. -Some of them wrote sermons and printed them. Thomas -Marryat, the novelist’s grandfather, was a doctor and the -author of a medical book. His father was, as the places -he held show, a prosperous man; and the future novelist -entered the world under fairly favourable circumstances. -There was, it is clear, no want of money, and the family -were active people with a marked tendency to use their -pens.</p> - -<p>As no detailed life of Marryat was written until long -after his death, when no witnesses were left who could -speak with knowledge, there is an almost absolute want -of evidence as to the character and probable influence of -his family life. If we are to argue from his stories, it -was hardly to be called happy. These guides may not -be entirely safe, and yet they afford evidence of a kind -not to be lightly dismissed. A writer whose pictures of -home and school life are habitually disagreeable, cannot -have had many pleasant memories of his own to look -back on. With Marryat this was the case. In all his -earlier stories, and until he became decidedly didactic, -and religious, in his later years, he described the relations -of parents and children, of schoolboy and schoolmaster, -as either indifferent or hostile, or as contemptuous even -when affection is not absent. Peter Simple, Mr. Midshipman -Easy, and Newton Foster are the sons of men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -whom they may like, but cannot respect, of whom two -are maniacs, and one is a harmless imbecile. Their -mothers are either utterly shadowy or repulsive. “Frank -Mildmay,” the first and the most autobiographical of his -stories, is also the most destitute of kindliness. Something -may be allowed for rawness in the author, and -something for direct imitation of the earlier Smollettian -model. Marryat, too, publicly protested that he was not -the “Naval Officer” of this first story. But, by his own -confession, he put many of the incidents of his own life into -it, and we may safely conclude that what is wholly wanting -in the story was not prominent in his own experience. -Now what is wanting is any trace that Frank Mildmay -had the smallest filial regard for his father, or was -conscious of any maternal influence, or thought of his -home life with affection, or of his school as other than a -place of torment. That is not how men write when they -look back kindly on their first years. If Thackeray and -Dickens drew such different pictures of boy and school -life, we know why. It is not necessary to rack the scanty -evidence about Marryat’s early years, to find reason for -believing that his father was probably a hard and dry -man of business, whose prosperity never melted the -provincial dissenter quite out of him. Of his mother -there is nothing to be supposed at all.</p> - -<p>It is to be noted that although Mr. Joseph Marryat -was a prosperous man, he did not send his sons to a -public school. Frederick and his elder brother (Joseph -also, and not unknown as a collector of, and writer on, -porcelain) were sent to some sort of academy kept by a -Mr. Freeman, at Ponders End. It is an almost universal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -experience that the boy who has been at a private school -may remember an individual master with kindness, but -never has any degree of respect or affection for the place -itself. He is not one of an ancient body like the public-school -man, and has nothing in his memory to set off against -the restraint—or in the old hard days the floggings and -hardships of school life. The Wykamite might laugh at -the wash pot of Moab, but what private-school boy would -forgive his master for turning him out to wash in a back -yard? What is inflicted by a public school is inflicted by -the school itself; in a private establishment it is inflicted -by the master, and is a personal wrong. Marryat was no -exception to the rule. His memories of Ponders End -were not of a kind to make him draw cheerful pictures -of school life. That he was far from a model pupil, and -had his share of the cane, has nothing to do with it. He -scamped his work, and forgot it, as many other boys -have done and will do. Not only that, but he was the -cause of scamping in others. Mr. Babbage, who was -for a time his schoolfellow, is the authority for a story -which shows that Marryat was indeed a model young -scamp. Babbage wished to work (it does not appear -whether they called it “sweating” or “greasing” at Ponders -End), and to get up for that purpose with another “swot” -at the absurd hour of three. With intentions which -were only too obvious, Marryat, who was his room fellow, -proposed to join the party. Babbage objected, and -thought to escape the intrusion by the easy method of -not waking Marryat. This answered until the creator of -Mr. Midshipman Easy first bethought himself of drawing -his bed across the door, and then when even the moving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -of his bed did not rouse him, of tying his hand to the -handle. For some nights Babbage got over the difficulty -by cutting the fastening, until Marryat found a chain -which could not be cut. Babbage had his revenge. He -invented an ingenious machine for jerking the chain, and -went on waking his chum repeatedly for no purpose. At -last a compromise was made. Marryat joined the good -boys for early study, and of course it was not long before -others joined too, and then the letting off of fireworks -and various noises betrayed the secret. How many of -the party were flogged does not appear. Before long -Marryat had to be up at six bells in the middle watch on -duty too often to leave him much inclination to turn out -voluntarily, even for mischief, when he could by any -chance get a night in.</p> - -<p>It is also recorded of Marryat that he ran away to sea -three times, that is, he ran away with the intention of -getting to sea, but the end of the adventure was always -capture, return to school, and more cane. His great -grievance is reported to have been the obligation to wear -the clothes which his elder brother had outgrown. The -detail seems to indicate a certain narrowness, not to say -sordidness, in so prosperous a household as the -Marryats’, and the aggravation was certainly gross -enough to justify the protest. On one of these occasions -Mr. J. Marryat showed a remarkable weakness. -He gave the truant money and sent him -in a carriage back to school. This error of judgment -had a very natural consequence. Marryat slipped -out of the carriage, found his way quietly home, and -took his younger brothers to the theatre. At last his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -father came to the very sensible conclusion that the sea -was the best place for such a boy. Being a man of -some influence and position, he was able to start his -son well, on board a crack frigate, and under a distinguished -captain. In September, 1806, Marryat -entered the <i>Impérieuse</i>, captain Lord Cochrane, and -sailed for the Mediterranean.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2> - -<p>Fortune could not have done Marryat a greater -kindness than to send him to sea on the quarter-deck -of the <i>Impérieuse</i>. She enabled him to share in -the most stirring work to be done at the date at which -he joined the service, and under the command of one -the most brilliant of naval officers. In 1806 the war of -fleets was over. Trafalgar had broken the heart of our -enemies, and from that time forward their squadrons -never even attempted to keep the sea. Napoleon built -line-of-battle ships in batches, but only to keep them -manned and armed, lying idle in port. The English -fleets had so completely established their supremacy, -that they used the French roadsteads as familiarly as -their own. The blockading squadron off Brest anchored -in Douarnenez Bay, in sight of the French lookout, and -there repaired their rigging or caulked their seams as -coolly as if no enemy’s fleet were in existence, and they -did it with perfect impunity. Admiral Smyth has told -how audaciously the Mediterranean fleet was wont to -anchor off Hyères in the absolute confidence that the -French would never come out of Toulon. Their only -chance of service was when the French would be decoyed -out by some particularly audacious frigate, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -was sent in to insult them at the very mouth of their -harbour. Then there was a chance that they might be -drawn further than they could go back before the in-shore -squadron was upon them. But such breaks in the monotony -of blockade were rare. For the most part our -line-of-battle ships were employed in cruising to and fro, -with intervals of harbour—their officers and crews spent -their lives in drilling aloft or at the guns, and in keeping -decks and metal-work in a condition of faultless cleanliness. -That passion for neatness and smartness which -has never left the British navy rose to its height in the -last years of the Great War, and did indeed sometimes -attain to actual mania in the minds of captains and first -lieutenants in want of something to employ themselves -and their men upon.</p> - -<p>There was, however, one class of ship which had a fair -chance of active service. The frigates were never, even -to the end, reduced to mere patrolling. It was to them -indeed that fell all the brilliant fighting in the last ten -years or so of the war. The French never altogether -ceased to send forth cruisers which had necessarily to be -pursued and captured. Moreover, there was work to be -done upon the enemy’s coasts, convoys to be taken, forts -to be destroyed, privateers to be cut out. After 1808 -we were in alliance with the Spaniards, and there was -then no want of chances for enterprising officers to distinguish -themselves against the French invaders on the -coasts, particularly in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean, -including the Adriatic, and the East Indies, -were the great theatres of the war until the Americans -struck in.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<p>It was a material addition to his good fortune in -being appointed to such a ship, and on such service, -that he should have begun under the captain who then -commanded the <i>Impérieuse</i>. The novelist who was to -give the most living of all pictures of the navy at its -greatest time could not possibly have met with a better -chief. Lord Cochrane, who is better known as the -Earl of Dundonald, was, next to Nelson (the master of -them all), that one of the naval officers of the Great War -who was most distinctly a man of genius. There were -others who were brave, able, honourable gentlemen. In -pure seamanship many may have been his equals. In a -service which included such men as Blackwood, Hallowell, -Willoughby, the Captain Hamilton who cut out the -<i>Hermione</i>, Broke of the <i>Shannon</i>, and a hundred other -valiant gentlemen, even Dundonald could not hope for a -pre-eminence in valour. It may even be allowed that -he never, while fighting for his own country, was able to -achieve anything so complete, so distinctly what Cortes -called a “muy hermosa cosa,” a very pretty piece of -fighting with a squadron, as Sir William Hoste’s little -gem of a victory over the French frigates off Lissa. -He was not allowed the chance to handle a detachment -of ships in independent command. But there -was in Dundonald the indefinable something—“those -deliveries of a man’s self which have no name,” that -combination of passion and faculty—which makes the -man of genius. Whatever he did was done with a burning -fire of energy. The fire was not always pure. There -was a self-assertion about the man—never base, but -always aggressive, a pragmatical Scotch fierceness, a love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -of hate and scorn, a total inability to keep measure, -which can be seen on every page of his Autobiography, -and explain why it was that he was always, in our service -or out of it, a free lance. He was of the race of Peterborough -not of Marlborough. To the highest rank he -did not belong, but he was divided in kind from the -brave, able, disciplined, but shadowy men, who do the -regular drilled work of the world. He was a magnificent, -rugged individuality. Even in books he is real as -only such men as Nelson and Wellington are real. On -those who knew him his influence, even if it only produced -repulsion, must have been profound. One so -open to impressions, and so able to retain them as -Marryat, must have been another man all his life for -having known and admired Dundonald. It must be -remembered, too, that Marryat saw Dundonald at his -best—on the deck of his frigate, and not at the Admiralty -or the House of Commons, where he was apt to -make himself intolerable by his wrong-headed violence -in right, and his inability to see that for the work of the -reformer, as for all work, there is a proper time, and a -fitting manner which must not be mistaken, under penalty -of failure.</p> - -<p>The influence which Cochrane had upon Marryat -might indeed be demonstrated from his works. The -captain of the <i>Impérieuse</i> remained his type of what a -British officer ought to be. All his frigates’ captains -who are mentioned for honour have something—and -several of them have much—of his first commander in -them. That this should be the case in “Frank Mildmay,” -the first of his books, and to some extent an autobiography,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -was almost a matter of course. In this book the -cruise of the frigate on the coast of Spain is the very -service of the <i>Impérieuse</i>. But it is equally true of -Captain Savage of the <i>Diomede</i> in “Peter Simple,” and -of Captain M—— of the “King’s Own.” Both are -Scotchmen, penniless gentlemen of good descent, officers -of boundless skill, daring, and withal judgment. It is -on this last quality that Marryat dwells by preference, -and it is this which he picks out for special praise in -Cochrane. “I must here remark,” he says in the private -log quoted in Mrs. Ross Church’s life, “that I never -knew any one so careful of the lives of his ship’s company -as Lord Cochrane, or any one who calculated so closely -the risks attending any expedition. Many of the (<i>sic</i>) -most brilliant achievements were performed without loss -of a single life, so well did he calculate the chances; and -one half the merit which he deserves for what he did accomplish -has never been awarded him, merely because in -the official despatches there has not been a long list of -killed and wounded to please the appetite of the English -public.” This fondness of the public for a long list of -killed and wounded was a favourite subject of half-serious -jest with Marryat, and he learnt from others, if -not from Cochrane, how a despatch ought to be written -in a “concatenation accordingly.” It would seem that -Marryat had little admiration for the brainless, headlong -courage which rushes madly at whatever happens to be -in front of its weapon. He would have condemned even -with contempt (and Hawke, Nelson, Cochrane, would have -condemned with him) such a piece of frantic swash-bucklery -as the last fight of the <i>Revenge</i>. The men who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -were daring with judgment, who risked for a reason, -who took care to cover themselves as they lunged, and -who then went all together, sword, hand, and foot, with -the speed of lightning, and with unerring accuracy of the -eye which has brains behind it, were his heroes. In any -case Marryat would have arrived at these conclusions, -but he assuredly did so the sooner, and the more heartily, -because for three years he fought under a fighter of this -stamp.</p> - -<p>Marryat was fortunate in his messmates as well as -in his captain. A crack frigate of those days had the -pick of the lieutenants’ list, and of the “young gentlemen” -who were to be the captains of the future. The -<i>Impérieuse</i> had a particularly good staff, some of them -old officers of Cochrane’s, and in the midshipman’s mess -Marryat met comrades who were good fellows, and gentlemen -too. He formed friendships which lasted through -life, particularly with Lord Napier, and with Houston -Stewart.</p> - -<p>I have thought it well to dwell at some length on -Marryat’s entry into the service, because its conditions -are of vital importance in his life. Whatever his training -had been he would have been a writer. His private log -shows that from the beginning he found pleasure in the -use of his pen; but had he not been a naval officer he -would have been a very different writer, and, more, had -he gone to sea in a less happy way, the misfortune -would not have failed to have its effects on him. The -tamer life of a line-of-battle ship, the tedium of a small -craft engaged on convoy, might have driven him back on -shore by mere boredom. On board the <i>Impérieuse</i> he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -was able to live his life to the full. There he had three -years of active and daring fighting. The impression they -made on him was never effaced, and has been recorded -by himself. In the private log, quoted by his daughter, -he sums up his memories in words which it would be a -dereliction of duty not to quote:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The cruises of the <i>Impérieuse</i> were periods of continued -excitement, from the hour in which she hove up -her anchor till she dropped it again in port: the day -that passed without a shot being fired in anger, was with -us a blank day: the boats were hardly secured on the -booms than they were cast loose and out again; the yard -and stay tackles were for ever hoisting up and lowering -down. The expedition with which parties were formed -for service; the rapidity of the frigate’s movements -night and day; the hasty sleep snatched at all hours; -the waking up at the report of the guns, which seemed the -very keynote to the hearts of those on board, the beautiful -precision of our fire, obtained by constant practice; -the coolness and courage of our captain, inoculating the -whole of the ship’s company; the suddenness of our -attacks, the gathering after the combat, the killed -lamented, the wounded almost envied; the powder so -burnt into our faces that years could not remove it; the -proved character of every man and officer on board, the -implicit trust and adoration we felt for our commander; -the ludicrous situations which would occur in the extremest -danger and create mirth when death was staring -you in the face, the hair-breadth escapes, and the indifference -to life shown by all—when memory sweeps along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -these years of excitement even now, my pulse beats more -quickly with the reminiscence.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The years of service which thus impressed themselves -on Marryat’s memory may be divided into three periods. -First, a cruise on the coast of France from Ushant to the -mouth of the Gironde; then a longer period of active -work in the Mediterranean; and finally, a return to the -ocean, and the action in the Basque Roads. The young -midshipman’s first actual experience of cruising was one -which was doubtless present in his mind when he wrote -the song whereof the chorus tells how “Poll put her -arms akimbo,” and said, “Port Admiral, you be——.” -When the corporal reported to Mr. Vanslyperken that -the crew of the revenue cutter were singing this ditty, -the outraged commander asked whether it was the Port -Admiral at Portsmouth or Plymouth. The officer who -was, we may be sure, spoken of by the crew of the -<i>Impérieuse</i> on the 17th and succeeding few days of -November, 1806, in an equally mutinous fashion, was the -Port Admiral at Plymouth. According to the custom of -Admirals who did not have to go to sea themselves, -this officer was exceeding zealous in enforcing the Admiralty’s -orders to despatch ships to sea smartly. The -orders came down for the <i>Impérieuse</i> to go to sea, and the -Admiral would have them obeyed. Go she must—“The -moment the rudder—which was being hung—would steer -the ship,” as Dundonald says in his Autobiography, and -while she had “a lighter full of provisions on one side, a -second with ordnance stores on the other, and a third -filled with gunpowder towing astern.” But the tale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -should be told in Marryat’s words, and not in his -captain’s:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The <i>Impérieuse</i> sailed; the Admiral of the port was -one who <em>would</em> be obeyed, but <em>would not</em> listen always to -reason or common sense. The signal for sailing was enforced -by gun after gun; the anchor was hove up, and, -with all her stores on deck, her guns not even mounted, -in a state of confusion unparalleled from her being -obliged to hoist in faster than it was possible she could -stow away, she was driven out of harbour to encounter a -heavy gale. A few hours more would have enabled her -to proceed to sea with security, but they were denied; -the consequences were appalling, they might have been -fatal. In the general confusion some iron too near the -binnacles had attracted the needle of the compasses; the -ship was steered out of her course. At midnight, in a -heavy gale at the close of November, so dark that you -could not distinguish any object, however close, the -<i>Impérieuse</i> dashed upon the rocks between Ushant and -the Main. The cry of terror which ran through the -lower decks; the grating of the keel as she was forced -in; the violence of the shocks which convulsed the frame -of the vessel; the hurrying up of the ship’s company without -their clothes; and then the enormous waves which -again bore her up, and carried her clean over the reef, -will never be effaced from my memory.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The frigate had been carried into a deep pool, and -rode the gale out at anchor. When daylight came she -was found to be inside instead of outside of Ushant—and -was got off with no greater damage than the loss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -of her false keel. But the escape was a narrow one—the -adventure must have shaken Marryat rudely into the -life of the sea—and have impressed him deeply with the -possible consequence of pig-headedness in pig-headed -Port Admirals.</p> - -<p>The cruise of the frigate on the French coast was not -very fruitful in incident, and early in 1807 she was back -in port. There she remained for the greater part of the -year, while her captain was fighting the battles of the -navy in the House of Commons. A general election -took place in the spring, and Cochrane, who had sat -already for Honiton, stood with Sir Francis Burdett for -Westminster. They were elected, and the captain of the -<i>Impérieuse</i> at once began, or rather returned to, those -attacks on abuses in the Admiralty and dockyards which -were so uniformly right in substance and wrong in form. -It is a pleasing instance of the inability of man to hold -the balance even when his own interest is in the scale, -that Cochrane never seems to have seen anything wrong -in the retention of a fine frigate in port during war -in order that her captain (who was drawing full pay all -the time) might attend to parliamentary duties in London. -Conscious of rectitude, he would have treated the suggestion -that he also was an abuse with scorn. According to -his own version of the story, told in profound good faith, -he did his higher duties as member of the House with -such efficiency that the Admiralty decided to confine him -to the exercise of his profession in future. At the close -of the session the <i>Impérieuse</i> was ordered to join Lord -Collingwood’s fleet in the Mediterranean, and sailed from -Portsmouth on the 12th of September, 1807.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> - -<p>In October, Marryat made his first acquaintance with -Malta, and the scenes associated with the immortal -memory of Mr. Midshipman Easy. He was not to stay -there long, for the <i>Impérieuse</i> left almost immediately to -join Lord Collingwood, who was cruising off Palermo. -Soon after, the future describer of so many dashing affairs -with boats had an opportunity of seeing one. On the -14th of November (Marryat himself says the 15th), the -<i>Impérieuse</i> sighted two vessels under the land of Corsica, -and, as it was calm, the boats were ordered out to examine -them, under the command of Napier and Fayrer.</p> - -<p>“As soon,” it is Marryat who speaks, “as they were -within half a mile, the ship hoisted English colours. -The sight of these colours, of course, checked the -attack; the boats pulled slowly up toward her, and, -when within hail, demanded what she was, for, if an -English vessel, she could have no objection to be -boarded by the boats of an English frigate. Now, as -it afterwards was proved, the ship was a Maltese privateer -of great celebrity, commanded by the well-known -Pasquil Giliano, who had been very successful in his -cruises, and, if report spoke truly, for the best of reasons, -as he paid very little respect to any colours; in fact, he -was a well-known pirate, and, when he returned to Malta, -his hold was full of goods taken out of vessels, which he -had burnt that he might not weaken his crew by sending -them away; and in an Admiralty Court so notoriously -corrupt as that of Malta, inquiries were easily hushed up. -Although such was the fact, still it had nothing to do with -the present affair.</p> - -<p>“When the boats pulled up astern, the captain of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -polacre answered that he was a Maltese privateer, but -that he would not allow them to come on board; for, -although Napier had hailed him in English, and he -could perceive the red jackets of the Marines in the boats, -Giliano had an idea from the boats being fitted out with -iron tholes and grummets, like the French, that they -belonged to a ship of that nation. A short parley ensued, -at the end of which the captain of the privateer pointed -to his boarding nettings triced up, and told them that he -was prepared, and if they attempted to board he should -defend himself to the last. Napier replied that he must -board, and Giliano leaped from the poop telling him that -he must take the consequences. The answer was a cheer -and a simultaneous dash of the boats to the vessel’s side.</p> - -<p>“A most desperate conflict ensued, perhaps the best -contested and the most equally matched on record. In -about ten minutes, the captain having fallen, a portion of -the crew of the privateer gave way, the remainder fought -until they were cut to pieces, and the vessel remained in -our possession. And then, when the decks were strewn -with the dying and the dead, was discovered the unfortunate -mistake which had been committed. The privateer -was a large vessel, pierced for fourteen guns and mounting -ten, and the equality of the combatants, as well -as the equality of the loss on both sides, was remarkable. -On board of the vessel there had been fifty-two men; -with [the] boats fifty-four. The privateer lost Giliano, -her captain, and fifteen men; on our side we had fifteen -men killed and wounded. Fayrer lost for ever the use -of his right arm by a musket bullet, and Napier received a -very painful wound, and had a very narrow escape—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -bullet of Giliano’s pistol grazing his left cheek and passing -through his ear, slightly splintering a portion of the -bone.”</p> - -<p>Marryat’s version of the story does not agree in every -detail with Cochrane’s, but in essentials they are at one. -Particularly there is no difference of opinion between -them as to the character of the Maltese Admiralty Court. -In this case it not only refused to allow that the <i>King -George</i> (Giliano’s vessel) was a lawful prize, but it fined -the <i>Impérieuse</i> five hundred double sequins. That -iniquitous court was one of the many abuses Cochrane -had to fight in his life.</p> - -<p>Here certainly was an experience likely to be useful to -the midshipman who was to record it. The fight was a -dashing one—a thing well worth seeing in itself, and -besides the <i>King George</i> privateer so-called, but in fact -pirate or little better, with her motley crew of Russians, -Italians, Sclavonians (“a set of desperate savages” -Cochrane styled them in his despatch), must have introduced -him to the lawless, and scoundrelly fringe of the -great naval war. From privateer to pirate was at all -times but a step, and amid the confusion of the great -wars, with the connivance of dishonest Colonial Admiralty -Courts, and the tacit consent of some neutrals of little -scruple, not a few ruffians were able to flourish,—the -plundering, murdering, cowardly camp followers, so to -speak, of the great regular naval armaments.</p> - -<p>From Corsica the <i>Impérieuse</i> went on to Toulon, to -report to Lord Collingwood, who was back at his regular -blockading station. Thence Cochrane was sent to -Malta, and on to the Ionian Islands to command a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -squadron then engaged in blockading some French -frigates in Corfu. Here Cochrane, true to his character, -fell out with another abuse. When he arrived on the -station, he found that neutral vessels, or even vessels -belonging to our enemies, were allowed to trade with the -island under cover of passes supplied by the officer commanding -the English blockading force. Of course Cochrane -seized them, to the wrath of the officer in question, -who consistently enough intrigued against him at headquarters. -The captain of the <i>Impérieuse</i> was recalled -as being too indiscreet, by Lord Collingwood, apparently -on the mere complaint of the officer whose passes had -been treated with such scant respect, and so lost his one -chance of commanding a squadron on work which he -was eminently fitted to do well. The story of the passes -(which of course were not given for nothing) must have -been known to every man on board the <i>Impérieuse</i>, and, -doubtless, the officer who had such a remarkable idea of -his duties, went, in the course of time, to the making of -Captain Capperbar. Having made one more place too -hot to hold him, by hasty action, where a little tact and -patience would have enabled him to have his way and to -bring the trading naval officer to book, Cochrane was -employed cruising to and fro till January, 1808, when he -was despatched by Lord Collingwood to the coast of -Spain, where he was to have a longer period of active -brilliant work.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2> - -<p>When the <i>Impérieuse</i> reached the coast of Spain -early in 1808, we were still at war with that -country. Napoleon had not yet turned his submissive -ally into an enemy by that act of brigandage which was -the capital error of his life. The war was for us still a -“rich war,” as Nelson put it—there were still Spanish -prizes to be picked up. Cochrane was master of the -work to be done. His previous cruise in the <i>Speedy</i> -had made him perfectly familiar with the Spanish coast. -It had also given him an absolute confidence in his -power to beat the Spaniards at any odds. On this -occasion he had no opportunity to equal the most marvellous -of all his feats—the capture of the frigate <i>Gamo</i> -with his tiny gun-brig the <i>Speedy</i>, but he was incessantly -active and uniformly successful. The <i>Impérieuse</i> hugged -the Spanish coast, destroyed isolated forts, sailed into -the very ports and marked her prey down coolly, before -sending her boats in to cut out the more tempting -prizes. In all this stirring fighting Marryat had such -share as a midshipman might. The history of it is -recorded in “Frank Mildmay,” in “Mr. Midshipman -Easy,” in “Peter Simple.” One incident may be recorded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -as a type of the rest. Lord Cochrane learnt that -a certain vessel which he was resolute to take was lying -at anchor in Almeria. He himself, in his “Autobiography -of a Seaman,” calls her “a large French vessel, laden with -lead and other munitions of war.” Marryat, as quoted -by his daughter, calls her a polacre privateer, and says -nothing of her nationality, but in other respects the -stories agree. The story may now go on in Marryat’s -words:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“At daybreak we were well in with American colours -at the peak. [The place, as has been just said, was -Almeria Bay, and this trick of hoisting neutral colours -was a common stratagem of war.] The Spaniards had -their suspicions, but, as we boldly ran into harbour, -anchored among the other vessels, and furled our sails, -they did not fire. They were puzzled, for they could -not imagine that any vessel would act with such temerity, -as we were surrounded by batteries. We had, however, -anchored with springs upon our cables; close to us -within half musket shot, lay a large polacre privateer of -sixteen guns, the same vessel which had been attacked -by, and had beaten off the boats of the <i>Spartan</i> with a -loss of nearly sixty men killed and wounded. On our -other side were two large brigs heavily laden and a zebecque; -the small craft were in-shore of us, the town -and citadel about half a mile ahead of us at the bottom -of the bay, the batteries all around us, and evidently -well prepared. Our boats had long been hoisted out and -lay alongside, which circumstance added to the suspicions -of the Spaniards; still, as yet, not a gun was fired.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Lord Cochrane’s reasons for running in with the -frigate was, that he considered the loss of life would be -much less by this manœuvre than if he had despatched -the boats, and this privateer he had determined to -capture. He did not suppose, nor indeed did any one, -that, lying as she was under the guns of the frigate, she -would dare to fire a shot, but in this he was mistaken. -The boats were manned, and the remaining crew of the -<i>Impérieuse</i> at their quarters. The word was given and -the boats shoved off; one pinnace, commanded by Mr. -Caulfield, the first lieutenant, pulling for the polacre ship, -while the others went to take possession of the brigs and -zebecque.</p> - -<p>“To our astonishment, as soon as the pinnace was -alongside the ship, she was received with a murderous -fire, and half of our boat’s crew were laid beneath the -thwarts; the remainder boarded. Caulfield was the first -on the vessel’s decks—a volley of musquetoons received -him, and he fell dead with thirteen bullets in his body. -But he was amply avenged; out of the whole crew of -the privateer, but fifteen, who escaped below and hid -themselves, remained alive; no quarter was shown, they -were cut to atoms on the deck, and those who threw -themselves into the sea to save their lives were shot as -they struggled in the water. The fire of the privateer -had been the signal for the batteries to open, and now -was presented the animated scene of the boats boarding -in every direction, with more or less resistance; the whole -bay reverberating with the roar of cannon, the smooth -water ploughed up in every quarter by the shot directed -against the frigate and boats, while the <i>Impérieuse</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -returned the fire, warping round and round with her -springs to silence the most galling. This continued for -nearly an hour, by which time the captured vessels were -under all sail, and then the <i>Impérieuse</i> hove up her -anchor, and, with the English colours waving at her gaff, -and still keeping up an undiminished fire, sailed slowly -out the victor.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>It was on such an occasion as this, if not in this very -affair, that Marryat is said to have had the adventure -recorded by him in “Frank Mildmay.” Like the hero -of that story, he was knocked down by the body of his -leader, who was shot in front of him in a boarding affair, -and then almost trampled to death by the men who -pressed on to carry the prize. When the fight was over -he was dragged out insensible, and laid among the dead. -The unfriendly remark of a comrade—that he had -cheated the gallows—revived him to give a vigorous -denial. Mrs. Ross Church states that this happened in -Arcassan Bay during the first cruise of the <i>Impérieuse</i>, but -Cochrane himself mentions no such fight there, and no -loss of any of his officers. Frank Mildmay’s adventure -happened in Arcassan Bay, but Marryat would have -obvious reasons for not being strictly accurate as to place. -If the incident was taken from his own life, it can only have -happened at Almeria. It may be noted that both Mr. -Handstone in the novel, and Mr. Caulfield in history, -were first lieutenants, and that both died in the same way, -riddled with bullets, at the head of a boarding party. Was -Caulfield oppressed with a presentiment of his coming death -like the lieutenant in “Frank Mildmay”—or was he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -indeed the original of that officer who, be it observed, is -a very distinct character, and has much the air of being -a portrait? Perhaps a preliminary question ought to be -asked, namely, whether this incident did actually happen -to Marryat as recorded in the novel? It is possible. -The fact that he does not mention it in the passage -quoted above proves nothing. It is apparently taken -from his unfinished life of his friend Napier, in which -he would naturally not dwell on his own personal adventures. -On the other hand, it is very much the sort of -story which might be transferred from the hero of the -novel to its author.</p> - -<p>In the course of 1808 a great change came over the -war in the Western Mediterranean. Napoleon made -his famous (and infamous) grab at the Spanish monarchy, -and instantly, without hesitation, without concert -among themselves, in one great spontaneous burst of -patriotic enthusiasm, the Spanish people rose in arms. -Their efforts were often unsuccessful, and even disgraced -by mismanagement or treason; but, on the whole, -they set Europe a magnificent example, which was well -followed later on by Russia, and they gave England -what she had long wished for in vain—a field of battle -on land against Napoleon. The <i>Impérieuse</i> had her -share in the Peninsular War. It was her duty not only -to help the Spaniards in the coast towns, but to harass -the French troops which endeavoured to enter Spain by -the coast road. Cochrane was at his best in work of -this kind. For months he was engaged in incessant -boat attacks on the French transports, which endeavoured -to reach Barcelona (then and throughout the war in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -their possession), by hugging the shore. With this -service were mingled landing expeditions to blow up -French telegraph stations or batteries, or to help the -Spaniards to defend forts which commanded the road, -and which the French for that very reason were particularly -anxious to capture. It was Cochrane’s belief to -the end of his life that if he had been supplied with a -flotilla of light vessels and a regiment of troops, he -would have made it impossible for the French to enter -Spain by the Eastern Pyrenees at all. How far he was -justified in this opinion, he never was able to show. -Indeed, when he was offered just such a command on -condition that he would abstain from attacking Admiral -Gambier in the House of Commons, he refused it. -Even as it was, however, he did much. His untiring -vigilance made it impossible for the French to use the -sea for the transport of men or provisions, and difficult -for them to use the coast route which at many places -was liable to be swept by the cannon of the English -frigate. They were driven to use the inland route -through a poor and rugged country swarming with -guerrilleros. It is known that all this part of the war -proved enormously costly to the French, and much of the -credit due for imposing the loss upon them must go to -the <i>Impérieuse</i>. Marryat had his share of it all, and in -“Frank Mildmay” he has given a carefully finished -sketch of one of the sharpest pieces of service in it—the -defence of Rosas, where he himself received a bayonet -wound.</p> - -<p>The desire to be back in his place in Parliament, in -order that he might expose the malpractices of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -Maltese Admiralty Court (this is the motive assigned -by himself, and was doubtless that of which he was -most conscious), induced Cochrane to apply for leave -to bring the <i>Impérieuse</i> home to England. It was -granted with a facility which throws some doubt on -his theory that the Admiralty feared his presence; and -early in March, 1809, he dropped anchor in Plymouth -Sound. Unhappily for himself, Cochrane was selected -for a special piece of service before he could resume his -Parliamentary work. In February of this year a French -squadron had slipped out of Brest, with orders to drive -off the British seventy-fours which were then watching -L’Orient, to pick up three more ships at anchor there under -Commodore Troude, and then to proceed to the West Indies -to relieve Martinique. Admiral Willaumez, the French -commander, did not escape the vigilance of the Channel -squadron. His fleet was sighted at sea, followed till it -entered the Pertuis d’Antioche, between the islands of -Ré and Oléron, and very soon a blockading force collected -under Admiral Gambier. The outcries of the -London and Liverpool merchants roused the Admiralty -to make great exertions for the destruction of an armament -which was designed to operate in the West Indies, -and would, by its mere presence in those waters, have -greatly disturbed English trade. In an evil hour for -Cochrane, my Lords remembered that he was well -acquainted with this part of the French coast, and they -resolved to send him to execute an attack on the -enemy’s ships. Very reluctantly, for he knew how ill -he was likely to be received by officers whom he would -practically supersede, he undertook the work. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -prepared a flotilla of explosion vessels and fire-ships. -In April the <i>Impérieuse</i> had joined Gambier’s squadron. -A detailed account of the action which followed would -be out of place here. Its rather melancholy history is -to be read in Cochrane’s “Autobiography,” and the -Minutes of the court martial on Lord Gambier. The -squadron was in an indifferent moral condition, divided -by sour professional factions, and impatient of its -Admiral, a brave but weak officer, chiefly known as -what was called in the navy a “blue light,” that is a -pious man of a somewhat Methodistical turn. Very little -zeal was shown in supporting Cochrane. The attack -was made on the night of April 11th, and whatever -the <i>Impérieuse</i> could do was magnificently done. The -French fleet of eight line-of-battle ships, and some -smaller vessels, had withdrawn to the Basque Roads, at -the mouth of the Charente, and had fortified itself with -a heavy boom. Towards that boom the English explosion -and fire-ships were driven by wind and tide -after dark on the 11th. It is doubtful whether more -than one of them reached it—but that one was commanded -by Cochrane himself. She was brought up to -the boom at half a cable’s length off the French -frigate <i>Indienne</i>, and there exploded, scattering the -boom all over the mouth of the Charente. Through -the opening thus made a few English vessels passed. -They were a mere handful, and might have been sunk -by the fire of the French, but our enemies were panic -stricken. They cut their cables, and ran ashore. When -day broke the French ships were fast aground, and might -every one have been destroyed; but Lord Gambier was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -an officer of the stamp peculiarly hateful to Nelson. -He was prompt to conclude that enough had been -done, and was loth to risk ships and men in what he -thought an unnecessary way. In vain did Cochrane, -who had now returned to the <i>Impérieuse</i>, hoist signal -after signal urging the Admiral to attack. He told him -that the enemy were ashore, and could be destroyed; -that they would get off if they were not stopped; that -they were actually preparing to get off. It skilled not, -and Gambier remained stolidly at anchor miles off. -At last Cochrane, who by this time was nearly rabid -with rage, work, and want of sleep, flew into a Berserker -fury. He deliberately drifted the <i>Impérieuse</i> stern first -under the guns of the French liners, and then signalled -that he was overpowered and in need of assistance. -This desperate measure, worthy of Nelson in his most -splendid moments, did at last force Admiral Gambier’s -hand. Some vessels were sent—when it was well-nigh -too late to do any service at all—and distinctly too -late to do all that ought to have been done. Three of -the French liners were destroyed, but the others by -throwing their guns overboard and starting their water, -were able to grovel over the mud-bar of the Charente, -and escape into a pool out of reach up the river. They -never appeared in the West Indies certainly, but the -work was half done. Cochrane went back to England—with -all that was best and worst in him fermenting with -fury—to make his unhappy motion of opposition in the -House to the vote of thanks to Admiral Gambier. -From thence came his final quarrel with the Admiralty, -and the court martial on Lord Gambier, in which it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -is only too probable that English officers and officials -of rank winked at the suppression of evidence, and -something not unlike forgery. Cochrane’s service in -our navy was over for long years.</p> - -<p>With this scene of mingled heroism and stupidity, -the more brilliant part of Marryat’s naval life came to -an end. He was engaged in the Basque Roads on one -of the fire-ships, and when they proved of little use, -was probably recalled to the <i>Impérieuse</i>. It is to be -hoped at least that he was on her deck when her captain, -in an exaltation of fury, drifted her among the French -liners. In point of time, however, his service was merely -beginning, and he was to do good work yet, both as a -subordinate and as commander; but it wanted the heroic -touch of the first three years. When Cochrane was -superseded from the <i>Impérieuse</i>, Marryat remained with -the new captain, and under him took part in the -wholly wretched Walcheren business, out of which he -got—in common with some thousands of others—all -that it had to give—a distinct idea of how a combined -expedition ought <em>not</em> to be conducted,—and an attack of -marsh fever.</p> - -<p>From this time until the close of the Great War, he was -on such active service as the overpowering supremacy we -had attained at sea left to be performed. From the -Scheldt he returned invalided on board the <i>Victorious</i>, -74. As soon as he was fit for service, he was appointed -to the <i>Centaur</i>, 74, the flag-ship of Sir Samuel Hood, -with whom he went back to the Mediterranean, but not -to the stirring life of his old frigate. After a year of the -seventy-four he returned home, and was appointed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -<i>Æolus</i> frigate on the American station. He went out as -a passenger on the <i>Atlas</i>, 64, and joined his ship at -Halifax. In the <i>Æolus</i>, and then in another frigate, the -<i>Spartan</i>, he became familiar with the West Indies, which -are, with the Mediterranean, the scenes of so large a -part of his stories. In 1812 he had served his time as -midshipman, and returned home to pass. His influence -was good, as the fact that he served so much in frigates -proves, and he received his lieutenant’s commission -immediately after going through his examination -(December 26, 1812). Six months later he was -appointed to <i>L’Espiègle</i> sloop, and cruised in her on the -north coast of South America, till he was invalided by -the breaking of a blood-vessel, and sent home as a -passenger on board his old frigate, the <i>Spartan</i>, which -had now finished her commission. This accident, due -in part to a constitutional infirmity, which ultimately -proved fatal to him, occurred at Barbadoes, at a dance—perhaps -a dignity ball. In 1814 he was back on the -coast of America in the <i>Newcastle</i>, 58, and was again -invalided home, this time from Madeira. In June, -1815, just as the Great War was closing, Marryat was -promoted commander, and the first period of his life -came to an end.</p> - -<p>The years from 1809 to 1815 may be rapidly passed -over, for though they added to his experience, they were -colourless as compared with the cruises of the <i>Impérieuse</i>. -He saw some service in them, but it was either tame, or -a mere repetition of what he had seen before. The so-called -“war of 1812” was in progress during part of his -service in the <i>Spartan</i> and all his service in the <i>Newcastle</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -but he saw little of it. Some boat work—and -sharp work too—he went through in Boston Bay, but he -saw nothing of those unlucky frigate actions with the -Americans, which gave us such a disagreeable shock, -and it was not his good fortune to be one of the crew of -the famous <i>Shannon</i>. The capture of a small privateer -or two, by so powerful a vessel as the <i>Newcastle</i>, was no -important experience to a man who had seen the boarding -of the <i>King George</i>, the defence of the Trinidad fort -at Rosas, and the affair in the Basque Roads. An -acquaintance he made with an American prisoner of -war while on board the <i>Newcastle</i> was useful to him -afterwards, but at the time he probably thought little -about it.</p> - -<p>His captains in these years doubtless served him as -models when he began his work as a novelist, but they -were none of them men of the commanding kind. The -best remembered of them was Captain E. P. Brenton -of the <i>Spartan</i>, brother of the famous Sir Jahleel who -fought a brilliant frigate action off Naples, under -the very eyes of Murat. Captain Brenton had himself -done good work, but his chief reputation was made in -later days, as the author of a life of St. Vincent, and -a history of the Great War, which is itself mainly remembered -as the object of incessant corrections, often pettifogging, -commonly superfluous, and always intensely -wearisome, in James’s “Naval History.”</p> - -<p>Even in the most peaceful times, opportunities of -facing danger come in every seaman’s way. He may -have his chance to save life, and he must help to fight -the storm. In both of these ways Marryat distinguished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -himself. Few men have more frequently risked their -own lives to save others. As a midshipman in the -<i>Impérieuse</i> he went overboard to save a fellow midshipman. -He saved the life of a seaman while serving on -the <i>Æolus</i>, and narrowly escaped drowning on a similar -occasion when serving in <i>L’Espiègle</i>. On this occasion -he was a mile and a half off before the sloop could be -brought to, and when a boat picked him up he was nearly -senseless. This also was a part of experience to Marryat, -for it was while overboard from <i>L’Espiègle</i> that he discovered -that drowning is not an unpleasant death. It -is recorded in his Life by his daughter that, first and -last, “during the time he served in the navy, he was -presented with twenty-seven certificates, recommendations, -and votes of thanks, for saving the lives of others -at the risk of his own, beside receiving a gold medal -from the Humane Society.” This mark of distinction -given in 1818 was assuredly well deserved.</p> - -<p>Not less pleasing to Marryat than the memory of his -efforts to save others, must have been his recollection of -the honour he gained in volunteering during a gale to cut -away the main-yard of the <i>Æolus</i>. The story appears, -more or less coloured and adapted, with so many other -of his reminiscences in “Frank Mildmay.” In the sober -pages of Marshall, it is, however, a quite sufficiently -gallant story. “On the 30th of September, 1811, in lat. 40° -50’ N., long. 65° W. (off the coast of New England), a gale -of wind commenced at S.E., and soon blew with tremendous -fury; the <i>Æolus</i> was laid on her beam ends, -her top-masts and mizen-masts were literally blown away, -and she continued in this extremely perilous situation for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -at least half an hour. Directions were given to cut away -the main-yard, in order to save the main-mast and right -the ship, but so great was the danger attending such an -operation considered, that not a man could be induced -to attempt it until Mr. Marryat led the way. His -courageous conduct in this emergency excited general -admiration, and was highly approved by Lord James -Townshend, one of whose ship’s company he also saved -by jumping overboard at sea.”</p> - -<p>Up then to the age of three-and-twenty Marryat had -prepared himself to write sea stories by making his life a -sea story. He had, in fact, fulfiled the counsel of perfection -given to the epic poet. He had seen no great -battle; the last of them had been fought before he -entered the service; he had not even shared in a single -ship action. But what he did not witness himself he -saw through the eyes of messmates. The battles, to judge -from the little said of them in his stories, do not appear -to have greatly interested Marryat—perhaps he found a -difficulty in realizing what one would be like, perhaps he -found them unmanageable. With the single ship actions -he had no such difficulty. He could tell precisely what -must happen, and he had no doubt heard tales of many -such pieces of fighting. Indeed, in the actual sea-life of -the time, the great battles did not play a much more -considerable part than they do in the novels. Of the -2,437 lieutenants on the navy list when Marryat entered -the service, the very great majority had never seen a -general engagement. It was thought a rather exceptional -thing that Collingwood should have been present -in three battles. Nelson himself only took part in four,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -or five, if Admiral Hotham’s feeble action in the Gulf of -Lyons is to be allowed the name. But most officers had -seen service of some kind, and had tales to tell. Marryat, -too, had been fortunate in an eminent degree. He had -been wounded, but not severely—he had never been -taken prisoner or shipwrecked. His service had been -varied. Between 1806 and 1815 he had seen the North -Sea, the Channel, the Mediterranean, and the Eastern -Coast of America, from Nova Scotia to Surinam. His -promotion had been rapid. Altogether he had had -much to develop, and nothing to sour him, in this first -period of his life.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2> - -<p>When the great war came at last to an end in -1815, leaving Marryat a commander at the age -of three-and-twenty, his ambition was still to be the -successful naval officer, and not the portrait painter of -the sea life. Twelve years were to pass before he ceased -to be employed. During this period he held three -commands, and once more saw the face of war. It was -a small and poor war after the heroic conflicts of his -boyhood, but still it had its own difficulties and trials. -He began to use his pen in these years, but at first it -was for merely professional purposes. His code of -signals must have been prepared, and his pamphlet on -the best method of recruiting the navy, and his scheme -for stopping Channel smuggling, were certainly written, -in this second period, while he was still looking forward to -the chance of hoisting his flag.</p> - -<p>Marryat was one of the great swarm of Englishmen -who profited by the peace to visit the Continent, which -had been as nearly as might be shut to the peaceful -traveller for twenty-two years. He is credited with -having “occupied himself in acquiring a perfect knowledge -of such branches of science as might prove useful -should the Lords of the Admiralty think fit to employ<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -him in a voyage of discovery or survey.” Doubtless -Marryat loved his profession, and worked at it, but -when he was recalled from Italy, in 1818, on some vague -scheme of African exploration he was probably engaged -in amusing himself. The scheme came to nothing, and -in January, 1819, he married—a most convincing proof -that his intention of exploring Africa had not lasted -long. Mrs. Marryat was a Miss Shairp, daughter of a -Scotch gentleman who had been Consul-General in -Russia. Marryat never agreed with St. Vincent that -married men are ruined for the service, and some -eighteen months later he was at sea again in command -of the <i>Beaver</i> sloop.</p> - -<p>In this commission he saw the end of the man who -had kept Europe in turmoil for the major part of a -generation. The <i>Beaver</i> was ordered on an all-round -cruise in the South Atlantic to show the flag at Madeira -and the Azores, at the solitary rock of Tristan d’Acunha, -at our own possessions at the Cape, and finally to do -guard duty at St. Helena. When the <i>Beaver</i> arrived at -her station Napoleon was just reaching the end of his -final years of imprisonment. We still maintained a -naval guard against the enterprises of any Buonapartist -adventurer who might try to take the Emperor off the -rock where he sat, consumed with unavailing regrets, -and disgracing his fall by undignified squabbles with Sir -Hudson Lowe. An English man-of-war was always -kept cruising to windward of the island. The last -officer who performed this duty was Captain Marryat. -The <i>Beaver</i> was watching for the possible liberator, who -never came, when Napoleon died. Marryat, who was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -clever draughtsman, took a sketch of the Emperor on his -death-bed. He was already apparently suffering from -dysentery or he fell ill immediately (and somewhat conveniently) -afterwards. As his health did not permit him -to remain in the South Atlantic station any longer, he -was allowed to exchange into the <i>Rosario</i>. In her he -brought the despatches announcing the Emperor’s death -home to Spithead. From Spithead he was ordered -round to Harwich to form part of the squadron which -escorted the body of Queen Caroline to Cuxhaven. -This piece of ceremonial duty was followed by work of -a very different kind. The <i>Rosario</i> was told off for -revenue duty in the Channel, and continued cruising for -smugglers till she was put out of commission in February, -1822. This was service of a very sufficiently serious -kind. There was indeed no fighting to be done, but -the cruising was arduous and incessant. The smugglers -were among the smartest seamen in the Channel, and to -catch them required on the part of the revenue officers -constant vigilance, great activity, and an intimate knowledge -of the coast—that is to say, if the work was to be -properly done. As a matter of fact it seems to have -been scamped. Marryat, who had perhaps been infected -by Cochrane with an inability to let a comfortable old -abuse alone, forwarded to the Admiralty a long despatch -showing that the preventive service was inefficiently -performed, and pointing out how it could be improved. -The despatch was written after the <i>Rosario</i> had been -paid off, and was founded on his own experience. It -gives a curious glimpse into a phase of sea life which -has entirely disappeared since the establishment of free<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -trade ruined the smugglers by making it not worth any -man’s while to smuggle. The industry which went on -all round the coast, from the mouth of the Clyde to the -mouth of the Firth of Forth, was conducted on varying -principles in different districts. Marryat dealt only with -what he had seen himself:—the smuggling carried on -in that part of the English Channel which lies between -Portsmouth and the Start.</p> - -<p>When he came to write as a novelist, Marryat displayed -a certain sympathy with the adventurous scamps -who ran cargoes of brandy from Cherbourg to the coast -of Hampshire and Dorsetshire. But Captain Marryat -the revenue officer was a very different person. In this -severe and official capacity he did his best to suppress -what he afterwards described with a distinctly humorous -sympathy. The smugglers, he pointed out, profited by -the system adopted by the English revenue boats. -Cherbourg was the centre of the trade—the free trade, -as the smugglers called it, not knowing, poor fellows, who -their real enemy was. Their vessels were almost exclusively -manned by Portland or Weymouth men. When -they were going to run a cargo to a point of the coast -with which they were not familiar, they would take on a -local hand, but as a rule they kept the trade pretty -exclusively to themselves. When one of their luggers -was sighted by the revenue boats and could not show -a clean pair of heels, the cargo was jettisoned. If this -happened in mid-channel it was a clear loss to everybody. -The smuggler crews were only paid when they -landed a cargo. The revenue boats could get no prize -money unless they seized the tubs of spirits. If, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -the cargo was jettisoned in shallow water, the case was -different. The smugglers might return, or their confederates -on shore could fish up the sunken kegs, and then -of course they earned their money. On the other hand, -if the landing was stopped, or the kegs were dredged -up by the revenue officers <em>they</em> earned their prize money. -It is therefore perfectly obvious that it was the interest -of the revenue officers not to see the smuggling luggers -in mid-channel. The more brandy they picked up, the -more prize money they earned, and the more credit -also. But by allowing the smugglers to approach the -English coast they gave them many opportunities of -running cargoes. Partly because they wished to secure -the approval of their chiefs, who took no account of any -service which did not include the capture of kegs—partly -also out of a natural human desire for prize money, -the revenue boats nursed the illicit trade. They went -very little to sea, and confined their exertions to -scouring the coasts in cutters and gigs. Marryat’s idea -was that much more effect would be produced by -pursuing the luggers in mid-channel. If, he argued with -great force, the smugglers found that they were compelled -to make a dead loss, voyage after voyage, they -would soon become tired. As it was, the immense -profits earned on any cargo successfully run, paid them -for the loss of two, or even three. Of course if his -system were adopted there would be no captures to -show for the credit of the coastguard, and no prize -money to be earned. But the smuggling would be put -a stop to. The despatch in which he set forth his -opinions is a thoroughly able and business-like document,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -and shows that if Marryat was allowed to fall out -of the service it was not because he was wanting in zeal -or ability.</p> - -<p>Although Marryat, like every other naval officer who -ever held His Majesty’s commission, thought himself -“no favourite” with the Admiralty, he had no intelligible -reason to complain—at least as yet. The grumblings of -naval officers are generally, indeed, unintelligible to the -landsman, who is apt, after hearing much of them, to -arrive at the conclusion that if every gentleman in the -service were promoted to be Lord High Admiral and -made G.C.B. to morrow morning, they would all be as -discontented as ever by midday. Certainly Marryat, -who was a commander at twenty-three, and had received -a command, on service which brought him into notice, -in time of profound peace and reduction of armaments, -when the great majority of his fellow officers were -vegetating on half pay on shore, had little cause to -growl. He must, in truth, have had very good influence -at the Admiralty, for though he was only paid off the -<i>Rosario</i> in February, 1822, he was re-appointed to the -<i>Larne</i>, of twenty guns, in March, 1823, so that he had -barely a year on shore. The <i>Larne</i> was fitted out at -Portsmouth for service in the East Indies. In July -Marryat sailed from Spithead for his station, this time -taking out his wife and family. An entry in his log -briefly records an accident which might, if the amplified -form of the story given in his biography is to be taken -as literally true, have ended his career in a somewhat -absurd manner. His gig upset in Falmouth Harbour -while he was in it. To an athletic man and good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -swimmer a ducking in the month of July was no great -disaster, but the boat carried a bumboat woman and a -midshipman. The woman swam like a fish, and was -delighted at the prospect of distinction and profit -apparently thrown in her way. She fastened on Marryat, -intent on saving a captain, and refused peremptorily to -let him go when she was asked to transfer her help from -the superior officer, who did not need it, to the obscure -midshipman, who, not being able to swim, was in -imminent danger of drowning. In some way or another -Marryat did contrive to get rid of the incumbrance of -her assistance, and the mid was not sacrificed. Whether -he did not invent the bumboat woman’s devotion to rank, -is perhaps doubtful. A bumboat woman was capable of -acting in this way, no doubt, but then Marryat was -equally capable of seeing that she ought to behave in -this way, and of crediting her with fulfilling her duty.</p> - -<p>When the <i>Larne</i> reached India, Marryat found that -she was to form part of the combined force ordered to -invade Burmah. This war, which filled 1824 and 1825, -was of a kind common with us before we learnt that in -war, as in building, it is more economical to employ a -hundred men for one day, than one man for a hundred -days—before also the common use of steam had made -great rapidity of movement possible. Sir Archibald -Campbell’s force was not numerous enough, and was -unable to move quick. The operations dragged on for -months, till fevers, cholera, and scurvy, had almost -annihilated our army, and had almost unmanned the -squadron. The duties of the navy, in the war, were to -clear the Irrawaddy of Burmese war-boats, to transport<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -the troops, protect their landing, cover their flank, and -now and then to help storm a stockade, or beat down the -fire of native batteries mounted with guns which would -not fire, handled by gunners who could not shoot. The -enemy fought fiercely, according to his lights, but then he -had neither good weapons, nor discipline, nor experience. -Except when attacked in a particularly strong position, -by an insufficient force, the poor Burmese were sent into -action as cattle to the slaughter. We naturally make the -most of these wars, and politically they are often of the -utmost importance, but as far as fighting is concerned, a -wilderness of them is not equal to the action between -the <i>Shannon</i> and the <i>Chesapeake</i> or the <i>Blanche</i> and the -<i>Pique</i>. Yet Marryat was well entitled to say, as he did -in a letter to his brother Samuel, that the crew of the -<i>Larne</i> had in the course of five months “undergone a -severity of service almost unequalled.” The climate -was deadly to unseasoned men exposed to it in an -unhealthy season. Much toil had to be gone through -in moving the troops, in rowing guard against the -Burmese war-boats, and even in doing engineer work. -It is a complaint sometimes made by the navy that, -in combined operations with the army, a disproportionate -amount of the toil falls to them, while the -redcoats get all the fun and the glory of the fighting. -In this war the navy had plenty of work, and suffered -proportionately from the strain. It also complained, in -later days, that its exertions were hardly sufficiently -recognized by military historians. Yet their comparatively -subordinate position was a necessity of the case. -The war was a land, and not a naval war, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -sailors could hardly expect to be more than accessories -in it.</p> - -<p>Marryat’s share, both of the work and the credit, was -as large as that of any naval officer engaged. From the -beginning of the campaign, in May, 1824, he was -employed until September; at first as subordinate, and -then, when Commodore Grant was invalided, as senior -naval officer at Rangoon. The five months almost -destroyed the crew of the <i>Larne</i>, and greatly damaged -his own health. His men had been on salt provisions -since February, and when fatigue and exposure were -added to unwholesome diet, they naturally suffered -grievously from scurvy. After a rest at Pulo Penang, he -was back at Rangoon in December, and then, after -being despatched on service to India, he was recalled to -Burmah to take part in an attack on Bassein. There -were more river work, more attacks on stockades, more -exposure to fever. In July, 1824, on the death of -Commodore Grant, he was transferred into the <i>Tees</i>, 26, -a post-ship, which—as it was a death vacancy—should -have given him post rank. The nomination was not, -however, confirmed by the Admiralty, and Marryat was -not actually posted till 1825, a loss of a year, which -affected his seniority. It was in the <i>Larne</i> that he took -part in the occupation of Bassein, and the attack on the -Burmese stockades at Negrais and Naputah, but he -brought the <i>Tees</i> home and paid her off early in 1826. -The thanks of the general and the Indian Government, -the Companionship of the Bath, and the command of -the <i>Ariadne</i>, 28, were his rewards for good service in -Burmah. This command he held for exactly two years,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -from November, 1828, to November, 1830, when “private -affairs” induced him to resign. The <i>Ariadne</i> was his -last ship. He was never employed again, nor does he ever -seem to have applied for a command. When there was a -prospect of war with the United States some years later, -he spoke of going on active service again, but he was in -ordinary times quite reconciled apparently to the termination -of his career as a naval officer. The end was -rather sudden. Up to 1830 he had been in constant -employment and very successful. He could hardly -have hoped for more than to be a post-captain and a -C.B. at thirty-four. The truth doubtless is that he had -begun to have other ambitions.</p> - -<p>As is not uncommonly the case, the end of the old -life overlapped the beginning of the new. Indeed, the -old cannot have consciously come to an end with Marryat -for some years. The evidence as to his wishes and -hopes is scanty—extraordinarily scanty considering his -prominence and that he lived almost into this generation; -but what has been made known about him shows -that he did not cease to think and work for “the -service,” or quite gave up for a long time expecting that -he might again hold a command. As an active naval -officer, however, his career ended when he resigned the -command of the <i>Ariadne</i>. Before that date he had written -and published “Frank Mildmay,” and had written the -“King’s Own.” What the private affairs may have been -which induced him to resign his ship does not appear -very clearly. Mrs. Ross Church supposes that he wished -to devote himself to his duties as equerry to the Duke -of Sussex, which hardly appears a sufficient explanation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -Perhaps, like many other sailors, he may have had a -period of revolt against the routine work, and long -absence from friends and family imposed by naval life, -and for which there is little compensation in peace time. -With a growing family to look after he had a strong attraction -to the shore. Then service in peace time cannot -have had many temptations to a man who enjoyed excitement -as Marryat did. To be sent on “diplomatic duties,” -which in practice would mean visits, in the company of His -Majesty’s Consuls, to foreign governors, or to be ordered -off in winter to look for reefs in the Atlantic, which never -existed except in the bemused brains of some merchant -skipper, must have been very trying. An experience or -two of this kind, coinciding with the success of his first -book and the equerryship, would be enough to decide -him to try his fortune on shore—all the more as he had -private means. Whatever the exact motives may have -been, in 1830 he was on shore for good, and established -in Sussex House, Hammersmith.</p> - -<p>His equerryship seems to have led him to no particular -good. “The smiles of princes,” says Mrs. Church, -“are by nature evanescent.” The favour of princes at -least, like that of other men, requires to be cultivated -with due skill and attention. Possibly Marryat may -have been wanting in the will or the capacity to practise -the art. Certain it is that neither from the Duke of -Sussex, nor from the duke’s royal brother, William IV., -did he ever obtain any visible good beyond invitations -to festivities which appear to have been of a somewhat -dreary character. According to a story given in the -preface to Bone’s edition of the “Pirate and Three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -Cutters,” and quoted on that authority by Mrs. Ross -Church, the King, who all through his life seems to have -been moved to do something silly whenever he remembered -that he was a naval officer, was offended by -Marryat’s condemnation of the press-gang. He not only -refused to consent to the conferring of some mark of distinction -on Marryat in addition to the C.B. given for the -Burmah campaign, but would not even allow him to wear -the Legion of Honour sent him by Louis Philippe as a -reward for the code of signals. The story is credible -enough of William IV., who, saving the reverence of -the Crown, was very little better than a fool, and a -spiteful fool, too, at times. The Admiralty of its own -motion, or the Admiralty and the King together, seem -to have decided that Marryat need not be employed -again. In the enjoyment of literary success and liberty, -he probably reconciled himself to the want of employment -readily enough. He must have been prepared to -do without it when he threw up his command. The -Admiralty does not love captains who resign their ships.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2> - -<p>From 1830 to his death in 1848 Marryat was a -working man of letters, and a busy one. His -books were many, and they do not represent all his -labours. There was a life of his old messmate, Lord -Napier, begun—and stopped—at the request of the -widow, and much miscellaneous journalism—if that is -the correct description of contributions to magazines. -His pen was rapid, and he had no fear of tackling new -subjects, so that the length of the shelf which would -hold his complete works would be considerable, and -the variety of the contents of the edition not small. -Sea stories and land stories, plays which never reached -the stage, diaries on the Continent and in America, letters -of Norfolk farmers, and didactic tales for children all -went in.</p> - -<p>There is a difficulty in the way of the telling of -Marryat’s own life during these busy eighteen years—the -not uncommon difficulty, want of information. The -biography published by his family leaves much unexplained, -for reasons into which it would be useless, even -if one had the right, to inquire. The causes of Marryat’s -sudden changes of residence, and of his hasty journey to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -the Continent in 1835, are only to be guessed at. He -did not live much in the literary world of his time. Of -the eighteen years of his writing activity, several in the -middle were spent on the Continent, and several at the -end in Norfolk. In a general way one gathers that the -question of money was a very important, sometimes a -very pressing one, with Marryat. Money earned, inherited, -spent—money to be recovered from debtors, -and, doubtless, paid to creditors, had much of his attention. -It is manifest that he was what Carlyle would -have called “a very expensive Herr.” He liked to lead -a large life, and to show a gentlemanly indifference to -money. By preference he lived in good houses, in good -neighbourhoods, and it is not overrash or uncharitable -to guess that his income was not always adequate to his -expenses. Finally, he was addicted to some of the most -effectual of all methods of evacuation. If he did not -promote, or have to face, a petition, at least he went -through a contested election; and he had Balzac’s -mania for ingenious speculations, which ought to have -realized wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and did -achieve a dead loss with the most unfailing regularity. -Like many another sailor before and since, he was sure -that he could show the trained farmer how to extract -more than he had yet done from the land. He undertook -to do so on his small estate at Langham, in Norfolk—with -disastrous financial results. That farming speculation -was undoubtedly the type of much in his life.</p> - -<p>His movements, if not the causes of them, can be -followed easily enough. Between 1830 and his departure -for America in 1837, he was successively at Sussex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -House, Hammersmith; at Langham, in Norfolk; then -back in London; then in Brighton; then in sudden haste -off to Brussels; and from thence to Lausanne. “Frank -Mildmay; or, The Naval Officer,” appeared in 1829. -Nine months later, when he was fixed on shore, came out -the “King’s Own.” In 1830 he acquired a thousand -acres of land in Norfolk, which remained in his possession -till his death. He exchanged Sussex House for it, -but how Sussex House was got we are not told. It -cannot have been bought either out of prize money, or -the proceeds of the two books he had published already, -although his prices were remarkably good for a beginner. -Four hundred pounds is the sum said to have been -given by Colburn for “Frank Mildmay”—a good deal -more than the most sanguine of novices would expect -to receive from the most generous of publishers for a first -book in these days. Certainly, in 1830, Marryat was -working as a man works who has reasons for making all -the money he can. He was contributing to the <cite>Metropolitan -Magazine</cite>, and receiving his sixteen pounds a -sheet—which, again, is good magazine pay. It did not -take him long to acquire a shrewd idea how to deal with -publishers, and a distinct understanding of the due -privileges of an editor. His knowledge of these important -matters is shown conclusively in a letter to -Bentley, setting forth the terms on which he would be -prepared to edit a new nautical magazine, a proposed -imitation of, or rather rival to, the <cite>United Service Journal</cite>.</p> - -<p>“My terms,” he says, with the confidence of a man -who knew the market, and his own value in it, “would -be as follows: The sole control of the work, for when I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -do my best I must be despotic or I shall not succeed; -to be paid for all my writings at the price I received in -the <cite>Metropolitan</cite>, sixteen guineas per sheet. The editorship -I would then take at £400 per annum until the -end of the first year, when, if the work succeeded, I -should expect an addition of £100, and if it continued -profitable, another £100, so as to raise the <em>final</em> pay of -the editor to £600 per annum. The stipulations may -be talked over afterwards. To choose my sub-editor is -indispensable. He must be a nautical man.” Marryat -had learnt plainly how necessary it is to be captain of -your own ship—and withal he quite understood how to -launch the new kind of craft he was about to sail. -“The first number must be most carefully got up, to -insure success, and the papers ought now to be in preparation. -You must, therefore, take but few days to decide, -as I tell you honestly I have reason to expect the offer -from another quarter, who are now talking the matter -over, and I must be allowed to consider myself as -unpledged to you after a short time.”</p> - -<p>As it is not recorded that Marryat had, like Arthur -Pendennis, any George Warrington to guide his literary -beginnings, he deserves all the more credit for his spontaneous -appreciation of the advantage to be obtained by -playing Bacon off against Bungay.</p> - -<p>“The offer from another quarter,” which was thus -quoted to hasten the decision of Mr. Bentley, was the -editorship of the <cite>Metropolitan</cite>, which he took in 1832, -and held until he left England for Brussels. He either -received as part payment, or purchased a proprietary right -in the magazine, which he afterwards sold to Saunders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -and Otley for £1,050. For the next four or five years -the <cite>Metropolitan</cite> had the major part of Marryat’s time -and work. He had, according to his wish, a nautical -sub editor, the E. Howard, who wrote that strange book, -“Rattlin the Reefer,” which still continues to be catalogued -with Marryat’s own stories. There were contributors to be -hunted up—kept up to the mark, more or less successfully—and -occasionally soothed down—Thomas Moore for -one, who wrote in agony to insist on the necessity there was -that he should see his proofs, and also to make monetary -arrangements. Of course there were quarrels to be -fought out, for in those days no periodical was able to -exist without its regular battle. But in the midst of -these forgetable and forgotten things—Marryat contributed -to the <cite>Metropolitan</cite> five of the best of his -books. “Newton Forster” appeared in 1832, “Peter -Simple” in 1833; and in 1834 no less than three—“Jacob -Faithful,” “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” and “Japhet in -Search of a Father.” Not a little of what, to apply nautical -language, may be called dunnage appeared with and -after these—a comedy, a tragedy (of neither of which -does Marryat seem to have thought highly), and a host -of miscellaneous papers collected under the title of -“Olla Podrida”—these last being only what Marryat -frankly called his “Diary on the Continent”—namely, -“very good magazine stuff.”</p> - -<p>His extraordinary industry in 1834 can be confidently -accounted for by the need of money. In 1833 he had -taken effectual means to lighten his purse by standing for -Parliament. The constituency chosen for the venture -was the Tower Hamlets, and Marryat stood as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -Reformer. Although the year immediately following the -passing of the Reform Bill was as good a one as he -could well have found in which to try in that character, -he was not successful. His reforming zeal was possibly -too purely naval for the constituency, and he was wanting -in the very necessary readiness to say ditto to a popular -fad. Marryat seems to have considered that his dislike -of the press-gang was claim enough to the character of -Liberal Reformer. But in the midst of profound peace -the press-gang was not a burning grievance, and on some -other points he took a line not likely to prove pleasing -to the sentimental among the Liberals, for whose votes -he was asking. He could not be got to show a burning -interest in the sorrows of the slave. He took up the -logically strong, but practically ineffective, position of the -man who declined to be troubled for the slave while -there was so much suffering unremedied at home. This -might be a very sensible decision, but unfortunately it was -discredited by the fact that it had been a favourite one -with the slave-holders, whose tenderness for sufferers -at home was never heard of till their own property in -the West Indies seemed to be in danger. On another -question, which proved a trying one to candidates till -very recently, Marryat took a disastrously sensible -course. He was called upon to give his opinion of the -practice of flogging in the navy—and committed himself -to the side of discipline most fatally. “Sir,” he said to -a heckler, who wanted to know whether the “gallant -captain” would be capable of flogging him or his sons; -“Sir, you say the answer I gave you is not direct; I will -answer you again. If ever you, or one of your sons,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -should come under my command, and deserve punishment, -if there be no other effectual mode of conferring -it, I shall flog you.” After that it is not surprising to -hear that “Captain Marryat and the Chairman left the -room together, amidst a tumult of united applause and -disapprobation”—in the midst, in fact, of an uproar, in -which the part of the meeting which admired his pluck -was engaged in shouting against the other part which -detested his good sense. There was something of -Colonel Newcome in the politics of Captain Marryat, -and he had not the good fortune to contend against a -Barnes Newcome. His parliamentary ambition had to -take its place with the other schemes of his life which -came to nothing. A plan for the establishment of brevet -rank in the navy, which he sent in about this time to -Sir James Graham, was part of his activity as a political -naval officer. It also came to nothing, and nobody can -well regret that it was still-born.</p> - -<p>After the misspent energy of 1833, Marryat had to -make up by hard pen-work. He settled in Montpelier -Villas, Western Road, Brighton, and there, in 1834, wrote -his three books. The effort was a severe one, and he felt -the effects later on, when fatigue, and possibly questions of -money, had induced him to go abroad. He had not yet -altogether given up thinking of Parliament—or, at least, -if he had ceased hoping to sit as member, he kept up -his correspondence with ministers on those naval affairs -which he understood. He forwarded observations on -the Merchant Shipping Bill of that year—one of our -portentous list of shipping measures—to Sir James -Graham. His volunteer help was well received, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -First Lord, one of the ablest men who ever was at the -head of the department, invited him to come to Whitehall -and talk the Bill over. This invitation may be -taken as a proof, among others, that if Marryat remained -unemployed, it was mainly by his own wish. He had -already, by his writing on the manning of the navy, and, -in less public ways, shown that in professional matters, at -least, he was an excellent man of business. Sir James -Graham was not the man to have refused employment to -an officer of proved ability if he had wished for it, but -it is tolerably plain that Marryat had other irons of a -more attractive kind, for the moment, in the fire.</p> - -<p>The particular iron which he had heating in Norfolk—the -estate at Langham—was not likely to relieve him -from the necessity of making every penny he could by -his pen. “No rent,” was his return in 1834, and as a -rule ever after—till he took it in hand himself, and then it -still realized him a steady yearly deficit. This year of “no -rent” was also a year of legal unpleasantness in connection -with his father’s memory—which he bore in a fashion to -be recommended to the imitation of all who suffer from -similar misfortunes. “As for the Chancellor’s judgment,” -he wrote to his mother, who had plainly been -hurt, “I cannot say I thought anything about it; on the -contrary, it appears to me that he might have been much -more severe if he had thought proper. It is easy to -impute motives, and difficult to disprove them. I -thought, considering his enmity, that he let us off cheap, -as there is no <em>punishing a Chancellor</em>, and he might say -what he pleased with impunity. I did not, therefore, -<em>roar</em>, I only <em>smiled</em>. The effect will be nugatory. Not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -one in a thousand will read it; those who do, know it -refers to a person not in this world, and of those, those -who knew my father will not believe it; those who did -not will care little about it, and forget the name in a -week. Had he given the decision in our favour, I should -have been better pleased, but <cite>it’s no use crying; what’s -done can’t be helped</cite>.” With that piece of the philosophy -of the elder Faithful, Marryat ends as neat a statement -of reasons for not making a fuss, and as admirable an -estimate of the relative unimportance of any man’s -private affairs in a busy world, as will be found by much -searching.</p> - -<p>Next year Marryat was off in haste to the Continent. -“Not one day was our departure postponed; with post -horses and postillions, we posted, post haste, to Brussels.” -As is too commonly the case, Mrs. Ross Church has -nothing to say as to the cause of this flight—and we are -left to conclude that it was due to that desire to -economize with dignity which has driven so many -Englishmen to the same voluntary exile. At Brussels -or at Spa he went on working for the <cite>Metropolitan</cite>. -He cannot have edited it, but he sent in his “Diary on -the Continent,” and he wrote, in this year, “The Pirate” -and “The Three Cutters,” in which, for the first time, -he had the advantage of being illustrated by Clarkson -Stanfield. With the <cite>Metropolitan</cite> his connection was -coming to an end. In 1836 he returned to England, to -get rid of his proprietary interest in it to Saunders and -Otley, and to part with those publishers in a friendly -manner—but to part decisively, on the ground that they -would hear nothing of an advance for fresh work. <i>The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -New Monthly</i> was now his resource—at the increased -rate of twenty guineas a sheet. To 1836 belong -“Snarley Yow” and “The Pasha of Many Tales,”—and -also the beginning of that “Life of Lord Napier” which -was never to be finished. In 1837 he had begun to feel -the need of a change, the desire to break fresh ground, -and in April, leaving his family at Lausanne, he started -for the United States.</p> - -<p>His life during these two years of foreign residence -may probably be fairly well realized by the reader who -will give himself the pleasure to remember some parts of -Thackeray and many parts of Lever. The Marryats -must have formed part of that English colony on the -Continent at the head of which marched the Marquess -of Steyne, while Captain Rook and the Honourable Mr. -Deuceace brought up the rear. It was a society much -more merry than wise, and it is to be feared more easy -than honest. Its members lived abroad to escape something—perhaps -it was only restraint, perhaps it was the -heavy bills of English tradesmen not yet reclaimed from -the evil ways of long credit and high prices, sometimes -it was the sheriff’s-officer. Now and then it was only the -English winter. That was the most wholesome reason; -but it was the least commonly genuine, and the most -frequently assumed. In all that curious expatriated -world there was something of the Cave of Adullam. It -was often only the more pleasant on that account. -Acquaintances matured quickly; among people who -were all more or less fugitives, few questions were -asked; even Captain Rook and Mr. Deuceace were -received without too much inquiry by people who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -neither imitated nor liked all their ways. Now we are -less strict at home, and by a natural reaction more -circumspect abroad. Besides railways keep people -rolling, and have greatly broken up the old English -colonies. Still even now there is a continental English -society, less Bohemian than the old, but still somewhat -free and easy, addicted as it were to living in its shirt -sleeves, very pleasant to see, and to go through, but not -at all good to be lived in for the moral man. During -the thirties this Cave of Adullam was in full swing, -crowded with refugees—not for political causes—with -veterans of the old war intent on making pension and -half-pay go as far as possible, and with pleasure-seeking -people ready for any amusement (the cheaper the better), -and not too exacting as to the moral qualities or social -position of those with whom they were prepared to -amuse themselves.</p> - -<p>Marryat with his abundant spirits, his faculty for story-telling, -and his sufficient command of money, would -naturally fall on his feet in this rather gypsy world. He -spoke French fluently, and his wife, as the daughter of -an English consul in Russia, would be at home in -continental society. Once more it must be confessed -that the details are wanting. Mrs. Ross Church says, -that “to this hour” (she wrote in 1872) “many anecdotes -are related of him by the older residents at -Brussels.” Sadly few of them seem to have been -collected, for Mrs. Ross Church can only muster two—neither, -it must be confessed, very brilliant nor very -honourable. According to the first, Marryat was asked -to dinner to meet a company of celebrities and friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -of his own, in hopes that he would talk. He held his -tongue, and when asked whether he had been silent -because he was bored, answered, “Why did you imagine -I was going to let out any of my jokes for those fellows -to put in their next books? No, that is not <em>my</em> plan. -When I find myself in such company as <em>that</em>, I open my -ears and hold my tongue, glean all I can, and give -them nothing in return.” The story needs a good deal -of explaining before the point of it becomes obvious; -and unluckily the circumstances, which could alone -explain it, are wanting. The fun, if there was any, was -supplied (we must suppose) by the character of the -person it was said to—and who was he? The other -story contains a repartee—an awful repartee—a thing to -be put in a collection of witticisms with the comment -that “so and so smiled, but never forgave the jest.” It -is about the bridge of somebody’s nose, and is not greatly -inferior to the recorded jokes of Douglas Jerrold.</p> - -<p>There is little to be gleaned out of such reminiscences -as these, which hardly reach the dignity of “dead nettles”: -neither do we gather much from a surviving letter to Mr. -Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx about a debt of frs. 1250, -owed to Marryat by R——, a hopeless debt. “I consider -that if I have no better chance of heaven than of -R——’s 1250 francs, I am in a bad way. Both he and -Z—— are evidently a couple of rogues. The only -chance of obtaining the money from R—— is by telling -him that I am coming to Paris as soon as I can, and -that I shall expose him by publishing the whole affair, -his letters, &c.; and, moreover that you <em>strongly suspect</em> -that it is my intention, independent of exposure, to <i>break<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -every bone in his body</i> on my arrival. He holds himself -as a gentleman, being the son of some post-captain, and -will not like that message, and may perhaps pay the -money rather than incur the risk.” Here obviously was -a very pretty quarrel; but who was R——, and had he a -case, and who was Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx, -and did any assault follow? Who knows? and indeed -who cares? The rest of the letter is full of scandal -about capital letters and dashes. The sight of it only -make one remember how much entirely unimportant -trash contrives to survive in this world.</p> - -<p>All the scraps of knowledge about Marryat which have -escaped destruction are not so unpleasant, though they -are nearly as obscure, as that letter to Mr. Osmond de -Beauvoir Priaulx. It is recorded that he gave parties and -Christmas trees, that he looked after children well, and -was a neat hand at packing a portmanteau,—qualities -which must have made him the most tolerable of -husbands and fathers on his travels. He was at all -times tender-hearted with children, as befitted an author -who ended by writing almost wholly for them; and -would quiet his own by telling them stories, when the -rattling of carriages and diligences had made them -fractious. A letter to his mother survives from these -years which is worth quoting—not because it gives much -information about his own life, but because it is kindly, and -gives a very different picture of Marryat to that afforded -by the threats against R——, and the vapid scandal -written to the gentleman with the handsome French -name.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Spa</span>, <i>June 9, 1835</i>.</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dearest Mother</span>,—It is dreadfully hot, and -we are all gasping for breath. Kate is very unwell. -She cannot walk now, and is obliged to go out in the -carriage. Children thrive. As for me, I am teaching -myself German, and writing a little now and then ‘The -Diary of a Blasé:’ one part has appeared in the -<cite>Metropolitan</cite>—very good magazine stuff. I have a -fractional part of the gout in my middle right finger. Is -it possible to make V—— a member of the Horticultural? -He is very anxious, and he deserves it; the -personal knowledge is the only difficulty; but I know -him, and I am part of you, and therefore you know him. -Will that syllogism do? We are as quiet here as if we -were out of the world, and I like it. I wanted quiet to -recover me. Since I have been here I have discovered -what I fancy will be new in England—a variety of carnation, -with short stalks—the stalks are so short that the -flowers do not rise above the leaves of the plant, and you -have no idea how pretty they are; they are all in a bush -(? blush). There are two varieties here, belonging to -a man, but he will not part with them. He says they -are very scarce, and only to be had at Vervier, a town -eight miles off. They are celebrated for flowers at -Liége, but a flower-woman from Liége, to whom I -showed them, said she had never seen them there; so I -presume the man was correct. Have you heard of them? -By-the-by, you should ask V—— to send for some -Ghent roses—they are extremely beautiful. I did give -most positive orders that Fred should not go out unless -with Mr. B—— or one of the masters. He remained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -three days in Paris, having escaped from the gentleman -who had charge of him, and cannot, or will not, account -for where he was, or what he did. He did not go to his -school until his money was gone. He is at a dangerous -age now, and must be kept close. Write me or Kate a -long letter, telling us all the news. I intend to come -home in October, or thereabouts; but I must arrange -according to Kate’s manœuvres. If she goes her time of -course I must be with her, and then she will winter here, -I have no doubt, as we cannot travel in winter with -babies, nor indeed do I wish to; as travelling costs a -great deal of money—and I have none to spare.</p> - -<p>“God bless you, mamma. This is a famous place for -your complaint, if it comes on again. The cures are -miraculous. Love to Ellen. She sha’n’t come German -over me when we meet. I don’t think I ever should -have learnt it, only G—— gave himself such airs about -it.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The letter is not a masterpiece, but it is good-natured -and wholesome. The “Fred,” who had been playing -truant so enviably in Paris, was afterwards the Lieutenant -Frederick Marryat who perished in the wreck of the -<i>Avenger</i>.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2> - -<p>His departure for America is a convenient date -at which to stop and survey Marryat’s literary -work. After 1837, he did some things as good as anything -he had done before, and some at once unlike what -he had already written, and yet excellent of their kind. -“Poor Jack” and “Percival Keene” have touches of the -old sea life, and flashes of fun, not inferior to his earlier -writing. The “Phantom Ship” has a character of its -own; the children’s stories of his last years are excellent. -All these are later than 1837. Still, if he -had ceased to write entirely in that year, his place in -literature would be as high as it is. We should have -“The King’s Own,” “Peter Simple,” “Mr. Midshipman -Easy,” “Japhet,” “Jacob Faithful,” and “Snarley Yow,” -and with these we should possess the best of him. In -those eight busy years Marryat had poured out the -harvest of his experience profusely. His beginning in -literature had been singularly fortunate. The time was -favourable to writers of any originality certainly. A -brilliant magazine article made a reputation. There was -a marked readiness to recognize ability and reward it. -What amount of praise and pudding would be given in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -these days for another essay on Milton it would be useless -to guess, but undoubtedly it could hardly be greater -than the share which fell to Macaulay for his early effort. -Carlyle made a place for himself by a few articles. The -wind which blew for them blew for others also. As has -almost always been the case in great literary periods, the -readiness of the reader to recognize and admire was as -strong as the productive power of the writer. The -audience met the playwright half way. Sir Walter Scott -had prepared the market for the novelist. He had -enormously increased the taste for novels, and whoever -could write at all was the surer of a hearing, because -“Waverley” had made stories a necessity to readers. -There is among the more atrabilious kind of men of -letters a secret belief that the sum of popularity is a fixed -quantity, of which whatever is earned by one man is necessarily -lost by another. That one nation’s gain is another’s -loss in commerce, was an accepted axiom with economists -of the days of darkness before Adam Smith. It has been -given up on maturer consideration, and is assuredly no -more true in literature than international trade. A great -writer who gains a great popularity increases the chance -of the smaller men. Sir Walter and Jane Austen helped -the Mrs. Meeke in whom Macaulay delighted.</p> - -<p>Marryat had profited amply by the opening. With -great adaptability he had thrown himself into the literary -fight of his time. As has been already said, he soon -showed himself at home in the regular business of literature—in -writing for the press and in editing. To take -the satisfactory though vulgar test of money, he was -able to make his market, and put his price up. Nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -was he at all reluctant to insist on the value of his goods. -“I do not,” he said in 1837, “write for sixteen guineas -a sheet now. I let them off for twenty guineas, as I do -not wish to run them hard; and I now have commenced -with the <cite>New Monthly</cite> at that rate for one year certain, -and the copyright secured to me. Times are hard, and -I do not wish to break the backs of the publishers, -although I ride over them roughshod. I have also made -very much better terms for my books. ‘Snarley Yow,’ -comes out on the 1st of June. I have parted very amicably -with Saunders and Otley, who would not stand an advance. -I <em>will</em> make hay when the sun shines; for every -dog has his day, and I presume my time will come as -that of others.” Twenty guineas a sheet was the -exceptional price which Fraser was paying Carlyle in -those very years, and was five guineas above the usual -rate. Obviously here was a gentleman who knew that -business was business. With this determination to make -the last penny there was to make, he naturally contributed -his chapter to the history of the quarrels of authors with -their publishers.</p> - -<p>“Although Captain Marryat,” says his daughter, “and -his publishers mutually benefited by their transactions -with each other, one would have imagined from the -letters exchanged between them that they had been -natural enemies.” It is a mistake which is not uncommon -in these transactions, and particularly likely to arise -when, as in this case, a publisher frankly tells the author -that he thinks him “eccentric,” and an “odd creature,” -and adds that he is himself “somewhat warm-tempered.” -Who the particular publisher was who sent these pieces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -of criticism and self-criticism to Marryat we are not told. -The answer he received might supply a clue to the Marryatist -who was prepared to follow it up with the proper -devotion.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“There was no occasion for you to make the admission -that you were somewhat warm-tempered. Your -letter establishes the fact. Considering your age, you -are a little volcano, and if the insurance were aware of -your frequent visits to the Royal Exchange, they would -demand double premium for the building. Indeed, I -have my surmises <em>now</em> as to the last conflagration.</p> - -<p class="center">…</p> - -<p>“Your remark as to the money I have received may -sound very well, mentioned as an isolated fact; but how -does it sound when it is put into juxtaposition with the -sums you have received? I, who have found everything, -receiving a pittance; while you, who have found nothing -but the shop to sell in, receiving such a lion’s share. I -assert again, it is slavery. I am Sinbad the Sailor, and -you are the Old Man of the Mountain (<i>sic</i>) clinging on -my back, and you must not be surprised at my wishing -to throw you off the first convenient opportunity.</p> - -<p>“The fact is, you have the vice of old age very strong -upon you, and you are blinded by it; but put the question -to your sons, and ask them if they consider the -present agreement fair. Let them arrange with me, -and do you go and read your Bible. We all have our -own ideas of Paradise, and if other authors think like me, -the more pleasurable portion of anticipated bliss is that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -there will be no publishers there. That idea often supports -me after an interview with one of your fraternity.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Author and publisher told one another “their fact” -plainly enough in this case, and one rather wonders what -lies hid under the asterisks. In the absence of information -as to the proportion in which they respectively -shared the profits of the stories written before 1837, one -cannot undertake to say whether the unnamed publisher -of fiery temper, advanced age, and small stature, received -a lion’s share or not. If so, it must have represented a -handsome sum, for Marryat was by no means one of the -worst treated of authors. Colburn gave him £400 for -“Frank Mildmay.” For “Mr. Midshipman Easy” he -received £1,400, apparently in a lump sum. “The -Pirate” and “The Three Cutters,” published together, -brought him in £750. His other books were paid on -the same scale, and he certainly did not edit the <cite>Metropolitan</cite> -for nothing. His code of signals, which was not -literature (and perhaps on that account only the more -lucrative), was an appreciable income to him throughout -his life. On the whole, Marryat seems to have found -the profession of author sufficiently remunerative. His -indignation with his publishers may be safely taken to be -mainly a proof that, in common with most writing-men -of his generation, he was a firm believer in the creed that -authors are an ill-used body. This is no longer quite so -orthodox as it was. The wind is rather blowing the -other way, and it is becoming the right thing to say that -authors have themselves to thank for their ill-luck if -they do not earn as much as they ought, and must bear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -the burden like their fellow-men if they spend more than -they earn. This good sense may corrupt into a cant as -others have done, but it is good sense. Marryat—who -would appear to have made three thousand pounds or so -in 1835, for taking “Mr. Midshipman Easy” and the -other two stories, with his copyrights and editorship, he -can hardly have made less—was in any case not an -example of an ill-paid author. If he had to complain of -want of money it must have been because he was a -gentleman of extravagant habits, with a fatal weakness -for bad investments. To be sure, if an author were to -be paid according to the pleasure he has given others, -and if “the shop” which makes a profit on selling his -work had to render some royalty on it for ever and ever, -then indeed was Marryat, together with all those whose -work is of the widely-read and lasting order, ill rewarded. -But insuperable difficulties bar the road to that ideal. -Since paper, printing, and advertisements must be provided, -the provider of these necessary things must share; -since the novelist cannot hawk his own goods in a barrow, -he must pay somebody to do it for him; since the -world’s copyright laws put a limit on the duration of proprietary -right in books, there must come a time when -they are at any man’s disposal to reprint. In the long -run the balance of profit must needs be in favour of the -shop. To be sure, the nation of authors may console -itself by reflecting that it has its revenge. There is much -on which the shop makes no gain, first or last.</p> - -<p>The first of Marryat’s books is one which, for reasons -very neatly stated by himself, may stand apart from the -others. When he had given it three successors, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -thought fit to publish a proclamation on the subject of -his work in the <cite>Metropolitan</cite>, and in that document -he described “Frank Mildmay” as fairly as any honest -critic could do for him.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“‘The Naval Officer’ was our first attempt, and it having -been our first attempt must be offered in extenuation of -its many imperfections; it was written hastily, and before -it was complete we were appointed to a ship. We cared -much about our ship and little about our book. The -first was diligently taken charge of by ourselves; the -second was left in the hands of others, to get on how it -could. Like most bantlings put out to nurse, it did not -get on very well. As we happen to be in the communicative -vein, it may be as well to remark that being -written in the autobiographical style, it was asserted by -good-natured friends, and believed in general, that it was -a history of the author’s own life. Now, without pretending -to have been better than we should have been in -our earlier days, we do most solemnly assure the public -that, had we run the career of vice of the hero of ‘The -Naval Officer,’ at all events, we should have had sufficient -sense of shame not to have avowed it. Except the -hero and the heroine, and those parts of the work which -supply the slight plot of it as a novel, the work in itself -is materially true, especially in the narrative of sea -adventure, most of which did (to the best of our recollection) -occur to the author.… The ‘confounded -licking’ we received for our first attempt in the critical -notices is probably well known to the reader—at all -events we have not forgotten it. Now, with some, this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -severe castigation of their first offence would have had -the effect of their never offending again; but we felt -that our punishment was rather too severe; it produced -indignation instead of contrition, and we determined to -write again in spite of all the critics in the universe: and -in the due course of nine months we produced ‘The -King’s Own.’ In ‘The Naval Officer’ we had sowed all -our wild oats, we had <em>paid off</em> those who had ill-treated -us, and we had no further personality to indulge in.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>From which, even if internal evidence were not -enough to prove it, we learn that, between the paying off -of the <i>Tees</i> and the commissioning of the <i>Ariadne</i>, -Marryat decided to have a general jail delivery of his -old naval enemies, and that the result was “Frank Mildmay; -or, The Naval Officer.” It cannot be said that -the book is better than its origin. If Marryat had kept -the promise he made in this proclamation of his to the -readers of the <cite>Metropolitan</cite>—if he had re-written this so-called -novel, he might, had he taken the right course, -have made it one of the best of his works. He had -only to make it an autobiography without disguise, to put -in the good as well as the evil of his experience, to take -care to explain everything to his readers, as he could -well have done, and he would have given English -literature a thing altogether unique—a naval memoir. -We are not rich in memoirs, at least, not in good ones. -The English hand is unhappy at that work. A man has -only to turn to Ludlow, or Sir Philip Warwick, to see -how lamentably little Englishmen of parts who lived -through the most wonderful things could contrive to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -bring away with them—how little at least of the life, the -colour, the dramatic swing of it all. Of the few we can -show, which are not unfit to stand with the Frenchmen, -Clarendon, Pepys, Colley Cibber, Evelyn (and four or five -others), none were of the sea. “Cochrane’s Autobiography” -maybe quoted against me, but even this, good as -it is in places, is drowned in angry denunciations of human -wickedness, and demonstrations that this or the other -thing ought to have been done by official backsliders, so -that what Cochrane did himself is almost crowded out. -Besides, it is only a fragment, and then <i lang="fr">reste à savoir s’il -n’est pas mort</i>. It has not lived. One may, and must, -use it for the history of the man and the time, but who -reads it for its intrinsic literary merit? The French -seamen have the better of us there. The memoirs of -Forbin, of Duguay-Trouin, and even the recently published -journal of a much less famous man, Jean Doublet, -are capital reading. Marryat might, if he had so pleased, -have done a book which would have been to the -memoirs of Forbin what the memoirs of Clarendon are -to the memoirs of Sully, to adopt the formula dear to -Lord Macaulay. He might have done what Sir Walter -Scott praised Basil Hall for attempting—have given in -autobiographical form a picture of sea life, which would -have been interesting, not only to those who already love -the subject, but to all who love good reading. He did not -so choose. He carried out his mission in another form, -and “Frank Mildmay” remained as it first appeared.</p> - -<p>That the book was so much of an autobiography was -a misfortune for Marryat. He might protest as much as -he pleased that he was not Frank Mildmay, and had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -run a career of vice, but the impression left by the book -was and is disagreeable. Why should a man attribute -his own adventures to a tiger? Now, Frank Mildmay -is a tiger—a very insolent, callous, young cub. It shows -Marryat to have been very inexperienced indeed that -he should have made such a mistake. He must have -known that the adventures would be recognized. The -naval world is a small one, and an exclusive. Naval -officers live together by choice on shore as they do by -necessity at sea. Everything written about the profession -is talked over, and interpreted, when interpretation -is needed. Every incident in “Frank Mildmay” was no -doubt recognized at once; and when it was found that -the things that had happened to the hero of the story were -the adventures of the author, it is not to be wondered -at that the two were thought to be also identical in -character. Marryat, in fact, committed with himself the -very error of judgment into which Dickens was led with -Leigh Hunt, when he made Harold Skimpole a rascal, -in order to prove that he was not a caricature of his -friend. But there is something more than inexperience -and error of judgment about “The Naval Officer.” -Marryat can hardly have seen what a bad fellow he had -drawn. Frank Mildmay has not only those “sins of the -devil,” which may be worse, but are more dignified, than -the sins of men—he errs not only by “pride and -rebellion,” but he is a mean scamp; and I am afraid that -Marryat did not see it. He was as blind to the faults of -his bantling as Smollett was to the ruffianism of Roderick -Random, or Fielding to the very vulgar inferiority of -Tom Jones. Criticism seems to have opened his eyes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -and little as he liked the lesson, he took the warning; but -it was only for a time. Unfortunately he fell back on -it. Percival Keene is just such another—a very low -fellow, with a kind of wild boar courage. It would -appear that Marryat did not see some things as plainly -as one could wish he had done. It is unnecessary to -insist on the faults of construction in a book which -belonged to an altogether bastard genre. What merits -it had—and they were sufficient to give promise of a -brilliant novelist—were to be repeated in other books -much more pleasant, and much more capable of repaying -examination.</p> - -<p>The other nine books which Marryat published in -these seven years were “wholly fictitious in characters, -in plot, and in events,” to quote his own words. In fact, -they were stories, and what truth there is in them was -not crudely taken from memory, but adapted and fitted -into its place. The essential accuracy of the picture -they give of sea life has never been questioned, at -least it has never been challenged on serious grounds. -It is undoubtedly the case that critics of a certain well-known -stamp have been known to complain that no such -series of adventures as these stories contain were ever -known to occur, and that the daily life of a midshipman -is not so amusing as Mr. Easy’s, nor so varied as Peter -Simple’s. A criticism which only amounts to this—that -the stories are stories, and not log-books, need hardly -be seriously answered. Sailors read them, and always -have read them. They are as popular in the American -Naval School as they have been among English boys. -To the skill with which the stories were built, less justice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -has been done. It has always, as it were, been taken -for granted that Marryat owed everything to his experience -as a seaman, and that, except in so far as he had -seen things which other men had not seen, he was not -of the race of novelists whose work lives. Now this is -heresy. In truth, the sea life owes more to Marryat than -he to the sea. No one meets Mr. Easy, or Terence -O’Brien, or Mr. Chucks, or Mr. Vanslyperken in this -commonplace world. He meets something out of which -they may be made. Unquestionably his experience was -of inestimable value to Marryat—as all exceptional experience -is to all novelists. At the very beginning of his -career he was complimented by Washington Irving on -his good luck. “You have a glorious field before you, -and one in which you cannot have many competitors, as -so very few unite the author to the sailor.” No doubt -it was Marryat’s happiness that he had so good a Sparta -to cultivate—but, after all, the result was primarily due to -the skill of the cultivator. Speaking as one who has a -full share of the good English taste for reading about the -things of the sea, I am inclined to maintain that few kinds -of books are more tedious than sea stories which ask to -be read and enjoyed simply because they are sea stories. -Battle, and storm, and shipwreck may be poured out on -you, and yet leave you cold. These things by themselves -in fiction are capable of being as tiresome as the once -prevalent detective, or now popular religious disputations. -To compare the stock sea story with the great books of -travel—with Dampier, or with Anson’s Voyage, or with -Basil Ringrose—would be unfair. We do not need to -compare the best of one kind with the worst of another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -But they will not stand reading even with Captain Hacke’s -dingy little compilation, or with the long winded journal -of Woodes Rogers. The reality of the latter is some -compensation for their undoubted dulness. At least in -reading them one knows that one is looking at a strange -old life told by the men who lived it. When taken by -a workman and badly used, the adventures these actual -adventurers passed through and recorded become merely -badly used material. A painter was once shown the -scrawlings of a youthful prodigy who had been covering -paper with pictures of ships and sailors. He was asked -whether these works did not show a genius for art. -“No,” said the judicious artist, “the boy has been -reading sea stories, and his head is full of them. He -draws because he likes the things, not because he loves -drawing.” The verdict stated a great critical truth—and, -however unpleasant it may be to prodigies to learn that -taste and faculty are not identical, and that they must -rely on their power of interpreting their subject, and not -on the subject itself, it is the case, nevertheless.</p> - -<p>Now with Marryat the faculty was always equal to the -fusing and managing of the materials. In “Japhet,” -where he does not touch the sea at all, he has yet contrived -to impart life and interest to his puppets and their -doings. It may stand by “Con Cregan” in the long -list of stories which began with “Guzman de Alfarache,” -and includes “Moll Flanders” and “Peregrine Pickle.” -In this case Marryat’s best knowledge was not available -and he had to rely on his power of re-using well-worn materials. -Where his experience and his ability combined, he -attained to a very considerable degree of narrative skill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -Whether he had trained himself by early reading or not -(and indeed there is nothing to show that he was a -reader), he had early command of a very admirable -narrative style. It might be plausibly maintained that -this was a heritage among seamen. There is nothing in -English literature at once more simple, more manly, -more perfectly adequate to its purpose than the language -of Dampier. In Marryat’s own time this power had -not been lost by English seamen. The navy may have -been a rough school, but there was nothing in its training -which made men unable to use the pen, and use it well. -As an example of flowing, and also perfectly unaffected, -description, the account of the battle of the Nile, given -by Captain Miller, of the <i>Theseus</i>, is without fault. It -deserves a place of honour in every collection of English -letters. The beauty of Collingwood’s letters is -acknowledged even by those who have thought fit to -carp at his character. Marryat brought this style to his -literary work, and kept it unchanged to the end. It is -a style in which there is no straining. Marryat never -had recourse, as his contemporary, Michael Scott, was -wont, to capital letters, italics, and broken lines when he -wished to impress his readers. He never appears even -to have been particularly anxious to impress. When a -wreck or a battle comes in his way, it is told as Captain -Miller might have told it. Therefore it has its effect, -and convinces you, as the narrative of the battle of the -Nile does, that the thing described had been seen, had -been lived through. The most famous of his passages—the -club-hauling of the <i>Diomede</i>, the fight with the -Russian frigate in “Mr. Midshipman Easy”—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -destruction of the French liner at the end of “The King’s -Own”—are too long for quotation; but in “Peter Simple” -there is one which is of not unmanageable length, and -which shows the qualities of his writing at their best. -It is the account of the hurricane which threw Peter on -the coast of St. Pierre:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In half an hour I shoved off with the boats. It was -now quite dark, and I pulled towards the harbour of St. -Pierre. The heat was excessive and unaccountable; not -the slightest breath of wind moved in the heavens, or -below; no clouds to be seen, and the stars were obscured -by a sort of mist: there appeared a total stagnation in -the elements. The men in the boats pulled off their -jackets, for after a few moments’ pulling, they could bear -them no longer. As we pulled in, the atmosphere became -more opaque, and the darkness more intense. We -supposed ourselves to be at the mouth of the harbour, -but could see nothing, not three yards ahead of the -boat. Swinburne, who always went with me, was steering -the boat, and I observed to him the unusual appearance -of the night.</p> - -<p>“‘I’ve been watching it, sir,’ replied Swinburne, ‘and -I tell you, Mr. Simple, that if we only knew how to find -the brig, I would advise you to get on board of her -immediately. She’ll want all her hands this night, or I’m -much mistaken.’</p> - -<p>“‘Why do you say so?’ replied I.</p> - -<p>“‘Because I think, nay, I may say that I’m sartain, -we’ll have a hurricane afore morning. It’s not the first -time I’ve cruised in these latitudes. I recollect in ’94——’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But I interrupted him. ‘Swinburne, I believe that -you are right. At all events I’ll turn back; perhaps we -may reach the brig before it comes on. She carries a -light, and we can find her out.’ I then turned the boat -round, and steered, as near as I could guess, for where -the brig was lying. But we had not pulled out more -than two minutes, before a low moaning was heard in the -atmosphere—now here, now there—and we appeared to be -pulling through solid darkness, if I may use the expression. -Swinburne looked around him, and pointed out on the -starboard bow.</p> - -<p>“‘It’s a coming, Mr. Simple, sure enough; many’s the -living being that will not rise on its legs to-morrow. See, -sir.’</p> - -<p>“I looked, and dark as it was, it appeared as if a sort -of black wall was sweeping along the water right towards -us. The moaning gradually increased to a stunning roar, -and then at once it broke upon us with a noise to which -no thunder can bear a comparison. The sea was perfectly -level, but boiling, and covered with a white foam, -so that we appeared in the night to be floating on milk. -The oars were caught by the wind with such force, that -the men were dashed forward under the thwarts, many -of them severely hurt. Fortunately, we pulled with -tholes and pins; or the gunwales and planks of the boat -would have been wrenched off, and we should have -foundered. The wind soon caught the boat on her -broadside, and, had there been the least sea, would have -inevitably thrown her over; but Swinburne put the helm -down, and she fell off before the hurricane, darting -through the boiling water at the rate of ten miles an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -hour. All hands were aghast; they had recovered their -seats, but were obliged to relinquish them, and sit down -at the bottom, holding on by the thwarts. The terrific -roaring of the hurricane prevented any communication -except by gesture. The other boats had disappeared; -lighter than ours, they had flown away faster before the -sweeping element; but we had not been a minute before -the wind, before the sea rose in a most unaccountable -manner—it appeared to be by magic.</p> - -<p>“Of all the horrors that ever I witnessed, nothing could -be compared to the scene of this night. We could see -nothing, and heard only the wind, before which we were -darting like an arrow, to where we knew not, unless it -were to certain death. Swinburne steered the boat, every -now and then looking back as the waves increased. In -a few minutes we were in a heavy swell, that at one -minute bore us all aloft, and at the next almost sheltered -us from the hurricane; and now the atmosphere was -charged with showers of spray, the wind cutting off the -summits of the waves, as if with a knife, and carrying it -along with it, as it were, in its arms.</p> - -<p>“The boat was filling with water, and appeared to -settle down fast. The men baled with their hats in -silence, when a large wave culminated over the stern, -filling us up to our thwarts. The next moment we all -received a shock so violent, that we were jerked from our -seats. Swinburne was thrown over my head. Every -timber of the boat separated at once, and she appeared -to crumble from under us, leaving us floating on the -raging waters. We all struck out for our lives, but with -little hope of preserving them; but the next wave washed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -us on the rocks, against which the boat had already been -hurled. That wave gave life to some, and death to -others. Me, in Heaven’s mercy, it preserved: I was -thrown so high up, that I merely scraped against the top -of the rock, breaking two of my ribs. Swinburne, and -eight more, escaped with me, but not unhurt; two had -their legs broken, three had broken arms, and the others -were more or less contused. Swinburne miraculously -received no injury. We had been eighteen in the boat, -of which ten escaped: the others were hurled up at our -feet; and the next morning we found them dreadfully -mangled. One or two had their heads literally -shattered to pieces against the rocks. I felt that I was -saved, and was grateful; but still the hurricane howled—still -the waves were washing over us. I crawled further -up upon the beach, and found Swinburne sitting down -with his eyes directed seaward. He knew me, took my -hand, squeezed it, and then held it in his. For some -moments we remained in this position, when the waves, -which every moment increased in volume, washed up to -us, and obliged us to crawl further up. I then looked -around me: the hurricane continued in its fury, but the -atmosphere was not so dark. I could trace for some -distance the line of the harbour, from the ridge of foam -upon the shore: and for the first time I thought of -O’Brien and the brig. I put my mouth close to Swinburne’s -ear, and cried out, ‘O’Brien!’ Swinburne -shook his head, and looked up again at the offing. I -thought whether there was any chance of the brig’s -escape. She was certainly six, if not seven miles off, -and the hurricane was not direct on the shore. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -might have a drift of ten miles, perhaps; but what was -that against such tremendous power?”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Now this might have come straight from another -Dampier. There is no attempt to convince you of the -force of the hurricane by laborious descriptions of what -it looked like. It is shown to be awful by the effect it -produces. The sentences go rapidly on. Their very -simplicity helps to convey the impression of the suddenness -and overwhelming fury of the storm. The effect -would have been lost if the writer had stopped to talk. -The style seems to me to be the perfection of prose, for -a tale of adventure—the straightforward, almost colloquial -report of one who has gone through it all, carried to its -very best—made into literature without being obtrusively -literary.</p> - -<p>As the style is, so are the stories. A natural tact -seems to have told Marryat when he had gone far enough -in search of the strange. His heroes lead lives that are -possible. He might, if he had chosen, have rivalled -Michael Scott’s wondrous pirates. Once, indeed, in -“Percival Keene,” he actually did it, but, as a rule, his -pirate is a conceivable good-for-nothing rather cowardly -blackguard, such as came in the natural course of things -to swing at Kingston or at Execution Dock. Even Cain -himself, “The Pirate,” is within the bounds of probability -as compared with the wondrous Spanish Americans, or -astounding Scotch gentlemen of superhuman wickedness, -who flourish in “Tom Cringle’s Log,” and the “Cruise -of the <i>Midge</i>.” Neither do incidents of the wilder and -more horrific kind appear in Marryat’s books. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -is nothing in him, for instance, like that scene of the -“<i>Midge</i> in the Hornets’ nest,” which may, by the way, be -commended to the attention of critics who think that -blood and horror have been recently imported into -romance by a generation which is supposed to have been -corrupted by the French taste of the decadence. The -adventures of Marryat’s heroes might possibly and even -probably have befallen an officer of his time.</p> - -<p>Of construction, except such as was imposed by an -instinctive desire to make the incidents follow one -another in some sort of natural sequence, there is little -or no sign. When, as in “Peter Simple,” he tries to fit -one on to his story, it is no addition to the merits of the -book. Who cares a straw for Peter’s wicked uncle, for -the changing of the children, or for the unravelling of -the very transparent mystery? It is too obvious that -Marryat took these things at random from the common -fund of the Minerva Press. What he took from -nobody was his fun.</p> - -<p>After all, it is this fun which is the living element in -Marryat’s work. Wit, or humour of the highest class, -he cannot be said to have possessed, though he was by -no means destitute of the sympathy which is inseparable -from all true humour. The sketch of the mate, -Martin, in “Midshipman Easy,” is a sufficient defence -against the charge of want of feeling, if, indeed, it had -ever been made. Many who have had a more visible -anxiety to be pathetic than Marryat have failed to draw -so touching a figure as this slight outline of the melancholy -officer, in whom the disappointments of years have -crushed all hope, without hardening or souring him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -“No, no,” said the mate, when his acting order as -lieutenant was brought him as he lay wounded in his -hammock, “I knew very well that I never should be -made. If it is not confirmed, I may live; but if it is, -I am sure to die.” And die he does, because hope -deferred has dried up the spring of life within him. -In the character of Mr. Chucks kindness and fun are -mingled. He is respectable in spite of his absurdities, and -lovable because of them. In the Dominie in “Jacob -Faithful” there is an effort to produce a second Mr. -Chucks, but it is not successful. He is too plainly a -reminiscence of another Dominie—a fairly well-done -copy, but only a copy. For the most part the fun of -Marryat belongs to the grotesque order. This, unquestionably, -is not the highest. But what is not the highest -may yet be genuine, and <em>that</em> Marryat’s fun, as the -world has now recognized for half a century, undoubtedly -is. His gallery of “figures of fun” is a long one. -Peter Simple in the days before Terence O’Brien made -a man of him; Jack Easy before he had been converted -from a belief in the equality of all men; in a rougher -way his father; Mr. Muddle; and, above all, Mr. Chucks, -have an intrinsic comic <i lang="fr">vis</i>. The fun which they make, -or which goes on about them, is never mere horse-play. -They are not mannikins of the stamp of Smollett’s -Pallet, created only to be knocked about, and to make -grimaces, but possible, and even probable, human beings—a -little distorted, a little exaggerated, put frequently into -such positions as are more fit for farce than comedy, but -not on that account ceasing to be real.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Mr. Smallsole’s violence made Mr. Biggs violent, -which made the boatswain’s mate violent—and the -captain of the forecastle violent also; all which is practically -exemplified by philosophy in the laws of motion, -communicated from one body to another; and as Mr. -Smallsole swore, so did the boatswain swear. Also the -boatswain’s mate, the captain of the forecastle, and all -the men—showing the force of example.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Smallsole came forward.</p> - -<p>“‘Damnation, Mr. Biggs, what the devil are you -about? Can’t you move here?’</p> - -<p>“‘As much as we can, sir,’ replied the boatswain, -‘lumbered as the forecastle is with idlers.’ And here -Mr. Biggs looked at our hero and Mesty, who were -standing against the bulwark.</p> - -<p>“‘What are you doing here, sir?’ cried Mr. Smallsole -to our hero.</p> - -<p>“‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied Jack.</p> - -<p>“‘Then I’ll give you something to do, sir. Go up -to the mast-head, and wait there till I call you down. -Come, sir, I’ll show you the way,’ continued the master, -walking aft. Jack followed till they were on the quarter-deck.</p> - -<p>“‘Now, sir, up to the maintop gallant mast-head; -perch yourself upon the cross-trees—up with you.’</p> - -<p>“‘What am I to go up there for, sir?’ inquired Jack.</p> - -<p>“‘For punishment, sir,’ replied the master.</p> - -<p>“‘What have I done, sir?’</p> - -<p>“‘No reply, sir—up with you.’</p> - -<p>“‘If you please, sir,’ replied Jack, ‘I should wish to -argue this point a little.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘Argue the point!’ roared Mr. Smallsole—‘by Jove, -I’ll teach you to argue the point—away with you, sir.’</p> - -<p>“‘If you please, sir,’ continued Jack, ‘the captain -told me that the articles of war were the rules and -regulations by which every one in the service was to be -guided. Now, sir,’ said Jack, ‘I have read them over -till I know them by heart, and there is not one word of -mast-heading in the whole of them.’ Here Jack took -the articles out of his pocket and unfolded them.</p> - -<p>“‘Will you go to the mast-head, sir, or will you not?’ -said Mr. Smallsole.</p> - -<p>“‘Will you show me the mast-head in the articles of -war, sir?’ replied Jack; ‘here they are.’</p> - -<p>“‘I tell you, sir, to go to the mast-head: if not, I’ll -be d——d if I don’t hoist you up in a bread-bag.’</p> - -<p>“‘There’s nothing about bread-bags in the articles of -war, sir,’ replied Jack; ‘but I’ll tell you what there is, -sir;’ and Jack commenced reading,—</p> - -<p>“‘All flag-officers, and all persons in or belonging to -his majesty’s ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane -oaths, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness, or -other scandalous actions, in derogation of God’s honour, -and corruption of good manners, shall incur such punishment -as——’</p> - -<p>“‘Damnation!’ cried the master, who was mad with -rage, hearing that the whole ship’s company were -laughing.</p> - -<p>“‘No, sir, not damnation,’ replied Jack; that’s when -he’s tried above; but according to the nature and degree -of the offence.’</p> - -<p>“‘Will you go to the mast-head, sir, or will you not?’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘If you please,’ replied Jack, ‘I’d rather not.’</p> - -<p>“‘Then, sir, consider yourself under an arrest. I’ll -try you by a court-martial, by God. Go down below, sir.’</p> - -<p>“‘With the greatest pleasure, sir,’ replied Jack; -‘that’s all right and according to the articles of war, -which are to guide us all.’ Jack folded up his articles of -war, put them into his pocket, and went down into the -berth.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Here is farce, but farce which almost borders on -comedy. Given Jack Easy with his natural pluck and -his absurd training, suddenly put into a man-of-war, and -set to reconcile the practice of the service with the ideal -picture of it presented by the articles of war, and this is -precisely what might be expected to happen. The absurdity -always arises from the clash of the characters; -and though it be farce, it is farce of the highest order. -Rarely does the grotesque lean to the horrible. The death -of Mr. Vanslyperken is a case in which it does; but -Marryat was, for the most part, content to amuse, and to -amuse only.</p> - -<p>How well he succeeded we all know. Which of us has -not laughed with him ever since we were boys? Mr. -Chucks stands between Commodore Trunnion and Mr. -Micawber. The scene I have quoted above, and a -dozen others, live by the side of Pipe’s journey to the -garrison with the nymph of the road. The adventures -in battle and wreck are very good, but they are not the -best. Romance of the brilliant order Marryat did not -often try, and when he did, he was at best but moderately -successful. He was more of the race of Defoe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -than of Dumas. But from Defoe, over whom no -man ever laughed, he was divided by his love of -laughter, and power of drawing it forth. His fun may -be often mere animal spirits, but at least it was spontaneous, -and was by natural instinct literary. He did -not toil and labour to be funny. Even in his most hasty -work he would hit off a scene with neat pen-strokes, -marking just enough and no more. Take, for instance, -the revenue officers in “The Three Cutters.” Lieutenant -Appleboy and his companions are introduced simply -because he had seen them, and as much for his own -amusement as his readers. Marryat had seen the types -when he was doing preventive work himself in the -<i>Rosario</i>, and drew them out of his memory when he -needed them. Some of his figures were doubtless portraits—all -of them had possibly some touch of portraiture. -But on his paper they have an interest altogether -independent of their originals. There are, as -Mr. Saintsbury, speaking of the personalities of Daudet, -has said, two ways of drawing portraits in literature. -The first is to adapt your sitter into somebody else whom -we love for his own sake. The second is to give us an -image for which we should care but little if it was not -meant for A or B. Of these two methods Marryat took -the first. If there was an original to Terence O’Brien -we should like to have known him; but, whether or -not, we like Terence for his own sake. Was there a -boatswain in His Majesty’s Service who stood for Mr. -Chucks? Possibly; but what then? In Marryat’s stories -are types as well as individuals. They and their doings -have an independent universal truth.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2> - -<p>When Marryat was about to start for the United -States he gave a reason of some gravity for his -proposed trip. The last words of the “Diary on the Continent” -propound a serious question: “Do the faults of -this people (to wit, the Swiss) arise from the peculiarity -of their constitutions, or from the nature of their government? -To ascertain this, one must compare them with -those who live under similar institutions. I must go to -America—that’s decided.” A biographer of any virtue -will desire to be inspired with the Boswellian spirit—to -write as loyally as Macaulay did of Addison—but I cannot -quite believe that Marryat’s visit to America was -caused by a sudden passion for the study of comparative -politics, and the influence of institutions on national -character. A more plausible explanation could be -found. It was excellently given by the elder Mr. Weller -in the course of some remarks made for the benefit of -Mr. Pickwick. To write a book about America was a -favourite enterprise with literary persons in those years. -Miss Martineau and Mrs. Trollope had just done it, and -there was no reason why Marryat should not do it also. -A taste for seeing the world may have helped to turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -his activity in that direction, and, besides he was, as will -be seen, on the lookout for promising speculations, and -may have had some thoughts on copyright. Possibly -none of these motives were very clear to himself, and -he may really have thought he was going to study -American institutions.</p> - -<p>Moved by sufficient motives, whether the alleged or -the unconsciously felt, he did go to America by the -packet <i>Quebec</i> in 1837, did stay there for two years, and -write a book about the States in six volumes, and two -series. Of this book it may be said, in a favourite -phrase of the writer whom Marryat described as “Mr. -Carlisle, the author of ‘Sartor Resartus’” (a slip which was -dreadfully avenged), that “it is forgetable.” Marryat’s diary -and remarks show that he would have made an excellent -newspaper correspondent. He had a faculty for getting -up information, a quick eye, and a ready pen. With -these qualities a man can easily make “copy” out of a visit -to a new country. Indeed, Marryat was no novice at the -work, for which his “Diary on the Continent” had prepared -him. When his six volumes on America are -judged as what they were, they are on the whole creditable. -He made the Americans very angry, but that it -was never difficult to do. He had provocation to write -more bitterly than he did. But whatever may be the -merits of, or the excuses for, the thing, it is hardly worth -while to return to “newspaper correspondence” at the end -of half a century. Unless the correspondent has seen -history in the making, and has noted it well so as to -become an original authority, he can hardly hope to be -read two generations or so later on. The worst of it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -too, is that Marryat saw something which was well worth -recording, and did not record it properly. A large part of -his book is taken up with contradicting Miss Martineau; -and who can rejoice in the refutation of an almost forgotten -book by a still more forgotten book?</p> - -<p>The incidents of the visit form an interesting passage -in Marryat’s life. He reached New York in the midst of -the great financial smash of 1837, and saw the “Empire -City” in all the excitement of panic. He stayed in -America till after the suppression of the Canadian rising, -and himself took part in the fighting. Of course he had -a newspaper controversy—and it was of a kind sufficiently -honourable to himself. When he first landed -Marryat seems to have been well received, though with a -certain reserve. By reserve is not to be understood anything -so absurd as that he was left alone. On the contrary, -he was abundantly overwhelmed with inquiry and -comment. But the Americans were then in the midst of -one of the sorest of their sore fits with foreign comment, -and were (not quite unjustifiably) on their guard against -travellers who came to spy out the land, and make a book -about it. They were not averse to comment, but they -were anxious that it should not only be favourable, but -of exactly that kind of favourableness of which they -approved. Therefore they were intent to know whether -Marryat meant to write about them, and, if so, what he -meant to say. He extricated himself from the difficulty -dexterously enough, and, on the whole, succeeded in keeping -on friendly terms with his hosts. As a matter of -course, American copyright institutions, and their effect on -the national character of the publisher, had their share<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -of his attentions. In this respect, also, his experiences -were pleasing enough in America. He was working in -the intervals of observation. For American consumption -he wrote a play, “The Ocean Waif; or, The Channel -Outlaw,” which appeared at a New York theatre; and -he was moreover engaged on “The Phantom Ship.” In -1838 he made an arrangement with Messrs. Carey and -Hart to sell them “proof sheets of his ‘Diary in -America’ and ‘Phantom Ship,’ a month prior to their -publication in London, for the sum of two thousand two -hundred and fifty dollars; and provided no one else -published the works in America within thirty days from -the date they issued from their press, a further sum of -two hundred and fifty dollars.” Whether pirate enterprise -deprived him of the extra sum needed to make up -the round two thousand five hundred, does not appear, -but at least Marryat, with his usual turn for business, -contrived to get something out of America for the -amusement he had given it.</p> - -<p>A letter to his mother, pleasant and manly as all his -letters to her were, gives a sufficient picture of the first -part of his stay in America.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">“<i>October, 1837.</i></p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My dearest Mother</span>,—I have been so occupied -and I have been moving about so fast that I really have -had time to write to hardly anybody, and I put off a -letter to you till I had a more quiet moment; but as it -appears that moment was never to come, I now write to -you on board of a steamer on Lake Erie. You have, -of course, heard from the Tuckers [these were his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -cousins on his mother’s side] that I went up to Boston -for a few days to see some of them; indeed all except -Mrs. C—— and Mr. Tucker himself, who was mending -his bridge, and could not leave his work; they were all -very kind, but I like poor Mrs. G—— better than any -of them.</p> - -<p>“I have since been a tour of the lakes, and have -travelled some thousand miles. I went up the Hudson, -crossed to Saratoga, Trenton Falls, Falls of the Mohawk, -Oswego River to Lake Ontario; then to Niagara, Buffalo, -and to Lake Erie—to Detroit; from Detroit to Lake St. -Clair, and Lake Huron to Mackinan, from Mackinan took -a bark canoe, and crossed the Huron, went up the River -St. Clair to the Sault Sᵗᵉ Marie, and from thence to -Lake Superior. The latter part of the journey, five days -in a bark canoe, was very fatiguing, and I was devoured -by the mosquitoes; but it has been very interesting, and -I have been much gratified. I am now on my return -and am bound for Canada, passing by Buffalo and -Niagara to Toronto. Since I have been here I have -been looking out for a good piece of land, for it more -than doubles its value in five or six years, and I have -been fortunate in purchasing some very fine land from -the Government opposite to Detroit on the Canada side—about -600 acres. I have written to B—— B——, -offering to settle him on it, as it is not out of the world, -but in very good society. I think it will be worth his -while, as in a few years he will be independent. He -will however require £300 or so to fit himself out, but -that he only need borrow as he will soon be able to -pay off. I trust that if he accepts my offer his brother -will assist him, and if so, he will do well.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I am going to Toronto to pay the first instalment, -and from there to Montreal, and then I return by Lake -Champlain so as to call upon Mrs. C—— at Burlington; -and from thence proceed to Bellows Falls to see my -Uncle Tucker, who is rather angry with me for not going -there before, which I could not. From Bellows Falls I -shall return to New York—I do not think by the way of -Boston, for they want to give me a public dinner there, -and I want to avoid it. At Philadelphia I must be in -September for the same purpose, as I accepted the -invitation; but I wish they had not paid me the -compliment. From Philadelphia I go to Washington to -canvass for the international copyright, and then I shall -probably go south for the winter.</p> - -<p>“The more I see of America the more I feel the -necessity of either saying nothing about it, or seeing -the whole of it properly. Indeed I am in that situation -that I cannot well do otherwise now. It is expected by -the Americans, and will also be by the English; and if -I do not, they will think I shrink from the task because -it is too difficult, which it really is. All I have yet read -about America, written by English travellers, is absurd, -especially Miss M——’s work: that old woman was -blind as well as deaf. I only mean to publish in the -form of a diary (but that is the best way); but I will -not publish till I have seen all, and can be sure I have -not been led into error like others. It is a wonderful -country, and not understood by the English now, and -only the major part of the Americans.(?) They are very -much afraid of me here, although they are very civil; -but I do not wonder at it—they have been treated with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -great ingratitude. I at least shall do them justice, -without praising them more than they deserve. No -traveller has yet examined them with the eye of a -philosopher, but with all the prejudices of little minds.</p> - -<p>“Except a letter from you, I have not received a line -from England, which is rather strange. From Kate I -have had many letters. I have so many correspondents -now—not only at home, but I have a large American -correspondence which is too valuable to break off—that -I really find I cannot write letter for letter. I have so -much to read, so much to write, and so much to think -about, that I must be excused. My time is not idly -employed, I assure you, although I do not grow thin -upon it; but, on the contrary, I think I am fuller than -when I left England. I have been so far away these last -six weeks that I have heard little English news, except -the death of the King and the accession of Princess -Victoria. I met Captain V——’s brother the other day -who told me that the <i>Etna</i> was going home to England -in consequence of Captain V——’s health. If so, I -may hear something about Frederick, which I have not -for a long while. I hope my dear Ellen [a sister] is -quite well and happy. My kindest love to her. I will -write to her as soon as I can; but it appears to me that -I have more to do every day, and I really shall be glad -to arrive at Bellows Falls and stay there for a week, if it -is only <em>to take breath</em>. My journal is already swelled out -nearly a volume, and the notes I have taken to work up -afterwards will almost double it, and yet I have seen but -a small portion of the country. I have picked up two -or three good specimens for Joe’s mineral collection on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -Lake Superior, and some day or another he may get hold -of them. Write and tell me all the news. I have not -had a line from Mr. Howard or anybody else, which is -very strange. The steamboat jogs so that I can hardly -write, and I suspect you will hardly be able to read; but -if so, it will take you time to decipher, and therefore will -last the longer.</p> - -<p>“God bless you, dear mother. A hundred kisses to -Ellen, and kind regards to all who care for me.</p> - -<p class="center">“Yours ever truly and affectionately,</p> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">F. Marryat</span>.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>From this letter it may be gathered that in October, -1837, Marryat was, in good humour with America, and -was seriously thinking of a study of it which should be -a possession for ever. America was, on the whole, well -pleased with him. He had been civilly received, with a -certain reserve as might have been expected, seeing that -he was a writing man, who had come with the hardly -disguised intention of writing, and after many who had -written by no means acceptably; but still, in spite of this -natural wariness, with kindness. He was a good talker -and showed it. He had kinsmen in the States who -helped him on. Altogether things had gone smoothly -with him. The Americans had even been glad to -acknowledge his connection with Boston, and some of -them had given him a helping hand in that great copyright -fight in which the sympathy of the more right-minded -has never been denied to the English author, -but has also never been of any effect Unfortunately this -very trip to Canada led to a storm which put Marryat for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -a time into the position of best-abused man on the continent.</p> - -<p>At Toronto he was naturally asked to a public dinner, -and also naturally requested to speak. In the course of -his speech he, again very naturally, took occasion to -mention, in a laudatory manner, the cutting out of the -<i>Caroline</i>, by Lieutenant Drew. This feat had then made -some noise in the world. Canada was in a disturbed -condition, and the confusion had been fomented by -filibustering from the United States territory. The -<i>Caroline</i> had been fitted out to help the rebels, and had -been “cut out” in gallant style from under the guns -of Fort Schlosser on the American side of the river, -after sharp fighting by a Lieutenant Drew and a body -of Canadian volunteers. After capturing the vessel -and removing her crew, the Canadians had sent her -down over the falls of Niagara. The incident was one -of which the loyalists were with good reason proud. As -an Englishman, as a naval officer, and as a speaker -at a public dinner, Marryat was triply justified in praising -“Captain Drew (as he styled him), and his brave -comrades who cut out the <i>Caroline</i>.” Nothing ought to -have been a more complete matter of course than that he -should propose their health. But Americans were then -in a particularly thin-skinned state, even for them. They -chose to be very angry with him for doing what any -American officer would have done under similar circumstances, -at least as loudly. What may be called the -spirit of Hannibal Chollop awoke within them, and a -chorus of denunciation was begun at once, in the most -loud-mouthed and abusive style of American journalism.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -Paragraphs headed “More Insolence,” and so forth, -appeared in abundance. Marryat’s books and his effigy -were publicly burnt. When he returned from Canada -to the States, deputations waited on him, much in the -frame of mind of the enlightened citizens who were so -indignant when Martin Chuzzlewit offended a free people -by coming back from Eden. As a matter of course, -any stick was good enough to serve the turn of American -journalism. He was accused, among other things, of -having “insulted and contradicted, and refused to drink -wine” with Henry Clay. The story was, it is needless to -say, only a piece of Yankee smartness, but Marryat -drought it necessary to appeal to that distinguished politician -for a certificate of character, and obtained from -him an assurance that their meeting had afforded mutual -satisfaction. In short, the whole business was one of -those displays of noisy gregarious folly of which our -American cousins are occasionally guilty. It was rather -more absurd than a recent incident of the same sort, because -Marryat was merely a traveller, and was speaking -on British territory when he gave the toast which Yankee -journalism chose to think offensive. But the old -colonial hatred of England (not yet perhaps so entirely -dead as after-dinner orators are accustomed to assert) -was then full of vigorous life. Americans were wavering -between reluctance to plunge into war, and desire to do -the old country a damage by helping the rebellious -French Canadians. In this divided state of mind they -relieved their feelings by howling at Marryat, because he -had not “cracked them up accordingly.”</p> - -<p>Marryat extricated himself from this pass with commendable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -nerve and dexterity. He faced and soft-sawdered -the deputations. He took the burning of his -books very coolly, went about as before, and finally had -it out with his hosts at a dinner given him at Cincinnati. -The speech, which is far too long to quote, is full of the -manly good sense which the American, when not acting -in the characters of raving journalist or anxious candidate, -will commonly listen to. Marryat reminded his -hearers that he had spoken in British territory to his -countrymen, and that their own patriotic orators were -not averse to waving the banner habitually, or restrained -from doing so by the knowledge that an Englishman was -present. His hosts being simply American gentlemen, -sitting in their right senses, agreed with him. A somewhat -dramatic finish was given to this stage of the incident -by Captain J. Pierce, who had been captain of the -American privateer <i>Ida</i> when she was taken by the -<i>Newcastle</i>, of which Marryat was then second lieutenant. -Captain Pierce got on his legs to thank Marryat for the -courtesy and good nature he had shown to himself and -other prisoners. “The Wizard of the Sea,” as the -American newspapers loved to call him when they were -not in a flaming rage, might consider that, as far as his -hosts at Cincinnati could answer for it, he was cleared -of the charge of insulting the great American people. -Their opinion, like that of the “respectable American,” -in so many other matters, did not avail to stop all -annoyance. Marryat continued to be pestered by abuse, -frequently conveyed in unpaid letters. At last, and -somewhat weakly, in October of 1838, he published a -general protest in the form of a letter to the editors of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -the <cite>Louisville Journal</cite>, wherein he denied with much -detail that he intended to spy out the barrenness of the -land. He was, of course, answered as offensively as -might be.</p> - -<p>Marryat had perhaps begun by this time to discover -that it was not so easy to write of America in a philosophic -spirit as he had once thought. To be sure he -had laid himself open to annoyance by going to the -States at all, and still more by going there with the intention -of writing a book.</p> - -<p>The Canadian troubles were destined to break into -his tour again. In the autumn of 1838 the French -population rose in open rebellion, and, as is commonly -the fate of insurgents, gained some preliminary successes, -which made their final punishment all the more severe. -Marryat remembering that he was an English naval -officer still on the active list, gave up philosophic inquiry, -hurried back to Canada, and volunteered for service -under Sir John Colborne. This officer, a veteran of the -Great War, and one who had had a distinguished share -in winning the battle of Waterloo, made short work of the -rising. Marryat saw some fighting once more in his life, -and described it briefly in another of his capital letters to -his mother.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Montreal</span>, <i>Dec. 18, 1838</i>.</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dearest Mother</span>,—Except one letter from -B—— B——, it is now nearly four months since I have -heard either from England or the Continent; the latter I -can in some way account for, at least in my own opinion—still -I wish to hear how my little girls are.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I was going South when I heard of the defeat of St. -Denis, and the dangerous position of the provinces of -Upper and Lower Canada; and I considered it my -duty as an officer to come up and offer my services as -a volunteer. I have been with Sir John Colborne, the -Commander-in-Chief, ever since, and have just now -returned from an expedition of five days against St. -Eustache and Grand Brulé, which has ended in the -total discomfiture of the rebels, and, I may add, the -putting down of the insurrection in both provinces. I -little thought when I wrote last that I should have had -the bullets whizzing about my ears again so soon. It -has been a sad scene of sacrilege, murder, burning, and -destroying. All the fights have been in the churches, -and they are now burnt to the ground, and strewed with -the wasted bodies of the insurgents. War is bad enough, -but civil war is dreadful. Thank God, it is all over.</p> - -<p>“The winter has just set in; we have been fighting in -the deep snow, and crossing rivers with ice thick enough -to bear the artillery; we have been always in extremes—at -one time our ears and noses frost-bitten by the extreme -cold, at others roasting amidst the flames of hundreds of -houses. I came out of Grand Brulé after it was all over. -I had the greatest difficulty in getting through the fire. -I had a sleigh with two grey horses driven <i lang="la">tandem</i> (as it -was too cold to ride the horse the general had offered -me), and before I escaped, one side of each of the horses -was burnt <em>brown</em> and <em>yellow</em> before we could force them -through; however, the poor animals were more frightened -than hurt.</p> - -<p>“As I can be of no further use now, I shall return to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -America in a few days. I really wish I could receive a -letter from England. I feel very much about having no -intelligence. It will be too late to go South now, and I -think I shall winter quietly at New York, and proceed to -Washington early in the year.</p> - -<p>“I really have nothing more to say. It is hard to fill -a sheet when correspondence is all on one side. So -give my love to Ellen, and God bless you both.</p> - -<p class="center">“Ever your affectionate son,</p> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">F. Marryat</span>.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>A postscript gives directions to B—— B——, who -appears to have decided to come out and settle on the -desirable piece of land which Marryat had purchased in -Canada.</p> - -<p>The American tour was near its end. Marryat never -made that examination of the South which he had very -justly thought necessary, if he was to obtain a thorough -knowledge of the States. When he returned to New -York in January, 1839, the country was in no condition -to attract English travellers. The already existing -hostility to England had been excited to a storm, and -there was copious talk of the tallest kind about war going -on from end to end of the Union. Everybody was waiting -for the President’s message and professing to expect -the outbreak of hostilities. Marryat waited to see what -would come of it all. The prospect of serious war had -for a moment swept all thought of books out of his mind. -He waited for a summons to join Sir F. Head if his services -were further needed in Canada; but while there was -a prospect that he might again have “a man-of-war on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -the ocean,” he was in no hurry to run the risk of being -shut up in Canada, where the best he could hope for -would be a lake command. In a letter from New York -to his mother he expresses very explicitly his wishes to -serve again, and his hopes of further employment on blue -water, and even ends up with one of those growls at the -business of book-writing not uncommon among writing -men when they happen to be languid, or to have heard -bad news. “Mr. Howard” (his former sub-editor no doubt, -and the author of “Rattlin the Reefer”) “writes me in very -bad spirits. He says that I am injured by remaining -away from England, and my popularity is on the wane. -I laugh at that; it is very possible people will be ill-natured -while I am not able to defend myself; but what -I have done they cannot take from me, and if I wrote no -more, I have written quite enough. If I were not rather -in want of money I certainly would not write any more, -for I am rather tired of it. I should like to disengage -myself from the fraternity of authors, and be known in -future only in my profession as a good officer and seaman.”</p> - -<p>There is about this a ring of manly good sense. -Marryat could well afford to laugh at Mr. Howard’s -croaking, knowing as he did, with his robust self-confidence, -that his popularity was in no danger; that he had -it in him to make another popularity if the old was -indeed waning. It may well be that his wish to be back -in active service was wise. His life might have been -longer, and happier, if he had again walked his own quarter-deck. -The wish was certainly no vague one, floating -idly in his mind. He made plans in Canada, drew maps,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -and sent home information to the Admiralty in the manifest -hope that his exertions would serve him at headquarters. -If war had broken out with the United States -it is certain that Marryat, recommended as he was not -only by his past services, but by his knowledge of the -American coast, would have stood well for employment. -But the storm blew over; the British Empire settled -down into peace again, and Marryat remained on -shore, driving away with his pen under the pressure -of that tyranny which he describes as the state of being -“rather in want of money.” He left the States early in -1839, and by June of that year was settled in quarters of -his own in 8, Duke Street, St. James’s.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> - -<p>The state of being “rather in want of money” was -to be chronic with Marryat, if we are to judge by -the amount of writing he did during the remaining nine -years of his life. Before very long, indeed, he began to -have very serious reason indeed for complaining of -straitened means. His father’s fortune, which must -have been considerable, had been invested in the West -Indies in those golden days at the end of the Great -War, when the languor of Spain, and the ruin of San -Domingo by the negro revolt, had given the English -sugar islands a monopoly of the market for colonial produce. -In the forties, however, these happy times had disappeared -for ever. Competition and free trade brought -down prices, the abolition of slavery stopped production, -and the value of West Indian property went down with -a run. The Marryat family suffered with the rest of -the world. The novelist had resources which were wanting -to his brothers; but then this advantage was compensated, -as has been said before, by extravagant and -speculative habits. In 1839 the pinch was not as yet -felt so severely as it was later on. Marryat, immediately -upon his return, went over to Paris for his family, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -had moved thither from Lausanne during his stay in -the States; and, bringing them to England, settled at -8, Duke Street, St. James’s. For some four years he led, -as he had hitherto done, a somewhat wandering life. -After a brief year in Duke Street, he moved to Wimbledon -House; which had belonged to his father, and was -still occupied by his mother. A short stay there was -succeeded by a brief residence in chambers at 120, -Piccadilly, and then by another year or so of occupation -of a house in Spanish Place, Manchester Square. In -1843 be broke away from London for good, and established -himself at his own house at Langham, in Norfolk.</p> - -<p>All this restlessness speaks for itself. Men who -possess the faculty of managing their affairs with judgment, -or who wish to apply themselves to steady work, -do not run in this way from pillar to post. Once again -I have to remark that much in Marryat’s life is left to be -guessed at. It is as well that it should be so. The -indications we possess tell the world all that it is entitled -to learn. There is—though the contrary proposition is -frequently maintained in these days—no inherent right -in the public to be made acquainted with the private -affairs of a gentleman simply because he has done it -the inestimable service of supplying it with readable -books. That Marryat, who has just been found expressing -a wish to retire from the “fraternity of authors,” was -writing himself blind in these years, is a fact which tells -its own tale. Add to this a few indications which Mrs. -Ross Church has thought it right to supply—a brief reference -to some family misfortune of which the details are -not given; a complaint in one of Marryat’s letters that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -somebody, apparently a relation, had suspected him of a -wish to borrow money; and an increasing tone of grief -and trouble in all his letters—and we have enough to -form a general estimate of his position with. More we -probably could not learn, and would have no right to -hunt up if we could. That Marryat had a difficulty in -making both ends meet; that his expedients did not -always succeed; that some of them were, too probably, -undignified; that the need for them was, at least partly, -due to his own mismanagement, are acknowledged facts. -We may, and must, be satisfied with them.</p> - -<p>It is also easily to be believed that Marryat would -enjoy the hard living, and even hard drinking—artistic, -literary, and semi-literary—life of his time. Clarkson -Stanfield was an intimate friend. Rogers, who was -acquainted with everybody, was an acquaintance. With -Dickens and Forster his friendship was of long standing, -and seems to have remained unbroken. One of the -few, and too generally insignificant, letters to her father -printed by Mrs. Ross Church, is an invitation to dinner -from Dickens, ending with a pleasing promise to give -him some hock which would do him good. He was a -guest at those merry children’s parties which Mr. Forster -has described. In his quarters in his various London -lodgings we are given to understand that there was much -and gay hospitality. Friends were profusely entertained -in rooms adorned with furs, trophies, Burmese idols, and -weapons—all the miscellaneous curios collected by a -sailor and traveller during many wandering hours. In -Burmah, Marryat had even made a collection of jewels -cut from out of the bodies of slain enemies. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -Burman who has a gem makes an incision in his leg and -hides it there, as our sailors discovered more or less to -their profit. Unfortunately the curios and the talk are -all scattered and irrecoverable. “It has all vanished like -‘air, thin air’”—as Marryat wrote himself of certain -common reminiscences to “a lady for whom, to the time -of his death, he retained the highest sentiments of friendship -and esteem.” Marryat’s friendships were not all of -this enduring kind. “Like most warm-hearted people,” -as his daughter puts it, “he was quick to take offence, -and no one could have decided, after an absence of six -months, with whom he was friends and with whom he -was not.” Eager restlessness is the quality which seems -to have been most noticed in him by all his friends. It -kept him on the move, not only from house to house, but -on excursions to Langham or other parts of England.</p> - -<p>The toil which circumstances forced upon Marryat -must have greatly aided his natural restlessness in wearing -out his life. Steady work and hard work are not -necessarily synonymous, and Marryat worked very hard -by fits and starts. While in America, and amid all the -racket of his tour, he had written “The Phantom Ship” -which appeared in 1839. The six volumes of his “Diary -in America” followed in the same year. That was not -off his hands before he was at work on “Poor Jack,” -“Masterman Ready,” “The Poacher,” and “Percival -Keene,” followed before the end of 1842. Here was an -amount of work (six books within five years) which -might not be found excessive by the orderly business-like -novelist of to-day, but which must have put a severe -strain on a man who wrote at irregular times, but when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -actually at it, wrote furiously. It was a distinct aggravation -of the burden that his handwriting was very minute. -A man who, having to write a great deal, writes very -small, must either be very sure of his eyesight and his -nerves, or prepared through ignorance or recklessness to -ruin them both. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at -that Marryat’s letters between 1839 and 1840 contain -references to the state of his health of a constantly more -melancholy nature. “I shall,” he wrote to the same -lady friend in the first of these years, “be at leisure, I -really believe, about the first week in December; but the -second portion of ‘America’ has been a very tough job. -I am now correcting press (<i>sic</i>) of the third volume, and -half of it is done. I hope to be quite finished by the end -of the month, and also to have the other work ready for -publication on the 1st of January; but what with printers, -engravers, stationers, and publishers, I have been much -overworked. I have written and read till my eyes have -been no bigger than a mole’s, and my sight about as perfect. -I have remained sedentary till I have had <i lang="fr">un accés -de bile</i>, and have been under the hands of the doctor, and -for some days obliged to keep my bed; all owing to want -of air and exercise. Now I am quite well again.” Some -two years later the news is much worse, and there is no -mention of complete recovery. “That you may not think -me unkind,” he writes again to the same correspondent, -“in refusing your invitation, I must tell you that I am -much worse than I have made myself out in my former -letters. I fell down as if I had been shot a few days ago, -and have been ever since obliged to be very quiet, and am -not permitted to drink anything but water, or undergo the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -least excitement, and you would offer me every description -in the shape of beauty, mirth, revelry, and feasting, putting -yourself out of the question! No; for my sins—sins -in the shape of three volumes chiefly—and heavy -sins, too, I must now submit to mortification and penance. -I am positively forbidden to write a line, but you -may tell William and Dunny that the little book is -finished, and will be out at Easter, when they will be -able to read it.” Obviously work, and forms of relaxation -as wearing as any work, had begun already to ruin a -constitution not really robust. Marryat’s tendency to -break blood vessels had already crippled him when a -lieutenant in the navy, and should have warned him that -though he might be muscularly powerful, he had no great -reserve of constitutional strength to draw on.</p> - -<p>The visit to America makes a break in the character -as well as in the continuity of Marryat’s work. He had -said all he had to say about the sea life of his own time, -and had to turn elsewhere. The “Diary in America” is -perhaps a sign that he thought for a moment of rivalling -Captain Basil Hall. If he was indeed tempted to do so, -the temptation ceased to be difficult to resist after his -return to Europe. The toil of travel, and then of -writing out his impressions of travel, had been greater -than he had expected, and had produced no equivalent -result—either in money or reputation. Mrs. Ross -Church states that he received for the “Diary,” “on first -publishing the manuscript,” £1,600. But, according to -the same authority, he had received nearly as much for -several of his other books in a lump sum, and they continued -to bring him in a yearly harvest, whereas the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -“Diary” sank at once into the position of a mere book -about America. In truth, this kind of writing had been -overdone. There was no longer a market for books of -the Trollope or even the Martineau order. Everything -had been said about the United States which the public -wanted to hear for the time. The publishers of the -“Diary” must have discovered that, in taking the -“Diary,” they had made the mistake not uncommonly -committed by the trade, and by theatrical managers, -the mistake of overestimating the length of time during -which the public will continue to care for the same thing. -They, doubtless, told Marryat that the taste for stories -was more enduring than the liking for descriptions, -abusive, laudatory, or philosophical, of our American -cousins. With or without advice of this kind, he -returned to stories, and remained steadily faithful to -them.</p> - -<p>“The Phantom Ship,” written during the American -tour, differs materially from all the tales which had preceded -it, except “Snarley Yow.” It is a romance with a -strong element of <i lang="fr">diablerie</i>. Possibly because it was not -written in a hurry for the press, it shows more signs of -care in construction than most of the earlier books. -Also, it is an historical romance, and proves that Marryat -had worked at the history of the sea-life—not, doubtless, -very hard, but still to some purpose. The result makes -one regret that he did not find, or seek for, the leisure -to dig further, and to avail himself of his discoveries. -No great amount of research can have been required to -collect the materials for “The Phantom Ship.” Admiral -Burney’s “Discoveries in the South Seas” would alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -have given Marryat all he wanted for this picture of the -old Dutch seamanship. Still he brought with him so -much knowledge acquired by actual experience that a -little was enough. Had he so pleased he might, with -the help of Hakluyt, of Monson, and of Sir Richard -Hawkins’ “Voyage,” have given us a picture of -the Elizabethan seamen. He might have drawn the -“chivalry of the sea,” as Washington Irving asked him -to do. A “Westward Ho” he would not have written. -We should not have had from him (nor have expected) -anything equivalent to the dream of Amyas Leigh, or -the exquisite speech at the grave of Salvation Yeo. But -what he could have done was what Kingsley could not do, -and, with the tact of an artist, did not try to do too much. -He might have realized the actual sea life of the time—the -ships, the seamen, and the seamanship of the past. -It was a work in which only a sailor could have succeeded. -The pictorial imagination of Kingsley and the -conscientious workmanship of Charles Reade alike fail to -give reality to their sea scenes. The first was a great -artist, and the second an exceedingly clever man with -no contemptible share of the imagination of the historian -and biographer—the power of seeing the value of -materials, of deducing from the report of a thing done -the manner of the doing and the nature of the doer. -They both worked hard to realize the sea, and yet, if we -compare the cruises of the <i>Rose</i> and the <i>Vengeance</i>, or -the fight with the pirates in “Hard Cash,” with the “club-hauling” -of the <i>Diomede</i>, there is a perceptible difference. -I am not unaware that one may be unconsciously influenced -by the knowledge that Marryat was a seaman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -to expect, and see more truth in his pictures than in -theirs. Remembering that, however, I still think that his -sea scenes differ from Kingsley’s, or Reade’s, as the thing -seen differs from the thing “got up”—with imagination, -with insight, with conscientious industry, no doubt,—but -still “got up.”</p> - -<p>In this, and in other ways, Marryat did not do all he -might have done. “The Phantom Ship,” with “Snarley -Yow” which preceded, and the “Privateersman” which -followed it, must be taken for what they are worth in -place of the possible better. Even so, however, the -value of the first of them is considerable. Marryat -made a good use of what Leigh Hunt has somewhat -hastily decided is the only sea legend. There is no great -originality in the incidents. Vanderdecken was made -to his hand, and he had German enough—or failing that -had translations enough—to supply him with the <i lang="fr">diablerie</i>. -But the materials are well used. The story swings along. -Philip Vanderdecken, the Pilot Schriften, the greedy -Portuguese governor, and the priests have a distinct -vitality. Amine is by far his nearest approach to an -acceptable heroine; for indeed it must be confessed that -this sailor had an altogether maritime ignorance of -women, except bumboat women and the ladies of the -Hard. The scenes in which his heroines are on the stage -are skip. Amine’s appearances, however, are not skip. -She is a very acceptable heroine of melodrama, good of -her kind, with a decided character of her own. The -Inquisition scenes in which she is the central figure are -the highest point Marryat reached in romance. Very -good too are the successive appearances of the Phantom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -Ship, done as was commonly the case with Marryat, -simply, without straining, without obvious desire to make -you shiver. If the last scene of all trenches on the -namby pamby, as I am afraid it does, it is preceded by a -very good one indeed. Marryat has indicated the loneliness, -the weary waiting, the heart-broken striving of -Vanderdecken’s doomed crew, very sufficiently by the -futile effort of the poor mate, who would fain persuade -the Portuguese to carry the <i>Flying Dutchman’s</i> fatal letters -home. That Marryat was content to indicate is not the -least of his claims to be considered an artist. He knew -by instinct, or deduction, the advantage of coming suddenly -on his reader. Too many other story-tellers -prepare, and accumulate, and pour forth, the materials of -the shower (too commonly of adjectives) which is to -cause us the <i lang="fr">frisson</i>. We see them doing it, and know -what is meant, and, human nature being perverse, hold -ourselves steady and refuse to shiver. The princess -whose husband could not shiver gave him the emotion -by turning the cold water and tittlebats down his back -when he was expecting no such shock. If he had seen -her filling the tub, putting in the little fishes, and coming -to tilt it all over him, there would have been no surprise, -and, too probably, he would never have known that -delightful sensation.</p> - -<p>“Poor Jack,” the immediate successor of “The Phantom -Ship,” is somewhat closer to “Mr. Midshipman -Easy,” but it, too, is something of an historical study, -whether it was deliberately designed to be so or not. -Greenwich Hospital has become something very different -from the retreat for wounded seamen which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -Marryat knew, and his picture of it, somewhat sketchy as -it is, will always have the value of a document. The -story one need not stop to analyse at any length. Incidents -and characters are of the kind familiar with -Marryat—not inferior to the average of the others, but -not distinguished from them by any very marked characteristics. -One piece of fun it does contain not inferior -to his best, the immortal apology of the midshipman who -had told the master that he was not fit to carry guts to a -bear. The palpable absurdity of the incident is on a -par with Mr. Easy’s amazing use of the Articles of War. -“The Poacher” and “Percival Keene,” which also -belong to these years, both have a flavour of work done -only because the author was “rather in want of money.” -The first is another venture in the same line as “Japhet.” -The second is the least pleasant, take it for all in all, of -the books which bear Marryat’s name. It is the only -one which had better not be re-read in maturer years -by him who has read it as a boy. The fun is forced—of -the horse-play practical joking kind—and the serious -parts are somewhat spoilt by fustian. The negro pirate -captain and his crew are good enough for boyish tragedy, -but that is not what we expect from Marryat. Finally, -too, there is a disagreeable flavour in the book. The -hero is a low fellow—not in a healthy human way even, -but in a very mean intriguing fashion, and he plays his -part in the meanest possible manner.</p> - -<p>The one story of these days which could least be -spared from Marryat’s work is “Masterman Ready.” -This, the first of his children’s books, is also one of the -best, perhaps the very best, thing of its kind in English.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -It is a child’s story in which there is not one word above -the intelligence of the readers it was designed for, one -situation or one character they could not grasp, and yet -it is distinctly literature. It is didactic, and yet there is -no preachment. It is pathetic, and yet it is not mawkish. -It ends with a death bed scene which is not an offence. -In point of mere cleverness of workmanship it ranks, in -my opinion, first among Marryat’s works, and yet it is perfectly -simple and unstrained. Marryat was indeed well -qualified to write for children. He had loved their company -at all times, and had served a long apprenticeship -in telling stories to his own. The practice had taught -him to avoid the fatal mistake of condescension. An -intelligent child, as even so weighty a writer as Guizot -has remarked, can understand a great deal more than -the duller kind of adult is disposed to allow. It does not -like to be effusively addressed as “my little friend,” and -made to see that the kind gentleman or lady who speaks -is intent on improving its mind. “I can’t be always -good,” said Tommy; “I’m very hungry; I want my -dinner.” The unsophisticated youthful mind is apt to be -equally direct about its literature. It can’t be always -imbibing preachment; it becomes languid, and wants to -be amused: but it also likes precision of detail, and is -eager to learn the why and how of everything. With -these two rules to guide him—not to be too obtrusively -instructive, and yet to explain every incident as it came, -Marryat wrote a model child’s story. Forster was certainly -in the right in declaring it to be the most read, -and the most willingly re-read, of its class. For its mere -cleverness the book can be enjoyed by the oldest of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -readers who is not too dreadfully in earnest. It was no -small feat to have taken so well worn a situation as the -shipwreck and the desert island, and to have made out of -it a book which may stand next to Defoe’s. The desertion -of the <i>Pacific</i> and her passengers by the crew, her wreck, -the life on the island, the fight with the savages, and the -rescue, are as probable, they follow one another as naturally, -as the events in the life of Robinson Crusoe. -Marryat had too much tact and knowledge to fall into -the extravagances of the “Swiss Family Robinson.” -The beasts and plants of the island are not an impossible -collection of the flora and fauna of three continents. -Then, too, the book contains two of Marryat’s very best -characters. Masterman Ready is an ideal old sailor, -brave, modest, kind, helpful, able to turn his hand to -anything, and to do it well, yet, withal, no mere bundle -of abstract virtues, but a most credible human being—such -a man as might have been formed by such a life. -Very different, but equally good, is Master Tommy -Seagrave, the ideal of greedy, naughty boys. Tommy’s -ever vigorous appetite and irrepressible passion for making -a noise, for meddling with everything, for trying everything, -for spoiling everything, are as perfect in their way -as the meek heroism of Masterman Ready. At the end, -the collision of the two produces very genuine tragedy. -Master Tommy was just the boy who would have emptied -the water-butt, under pretext of bringing water from the -well, and would have accepted the very undeserved praise -bestowed on his zeal without the faintest scruple. The -consequences of his bad behaviour are absolutely natural -and inevitable. That Masterman Ready should have met<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -his death through Master Tommy was an artistic stroke -of the highest merit. And Marryat tells it all with a calm -detachment which might reduce the average Russian -novelist to despair. He is not wroth with Tommy. He -accepts him as inevitable, and only describes him with a -calm artistic precision, simply as the type of “The Boy.” -Then, too, consider the final no-repentance and escape -of Tommy. He howled for water and got it, and -Masterman Ready died that he might have it. The -little wretch never knew what mischief he had done. -He sailed away to Sydney with an excellent appetite, -and as long as he had enough to eat, and things to break, -was no doubt perfectly happy. There is a something -colossal in the truth, and the artistic calmness of the -whole story.</p> - -<p>While Marryat was at work on “The Poacher,” he -had a slight literary skirmish—not unworthy of notice as -a proof that certain things are unchanging in the literary -world. The story appeared in <cite>The Era</cite> in weekly numbers. -One of those remarkable persons, who, in every successive -generation, find it necessary to make a protest in -favour of the dignity of literature, and whose idea of -dignity commonly is that literature can only be good -when it appears in a certain way and at a certain price, -fell foul of Marryat for choosing this low method of -publication. This egregious person wrote in <cite>Fraser</cite>, and -very gratuitously attacked Marryat, in the course of some -remarks on Harrison Ainsworth, in the following “slashing” -style: “If writing monthly fragments threatened to -deteriorate Mr. Ainsworth’s productions, what must be -the result of this <em>hebdomadal</em> habit? Captain Marryat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -we are sorry to see, has taken to the same line. Both -these popular authors may rely on our warning, that they -will live to see their laurels fade unless they more carefully -cultivate a spirit of <em>self-respect</em>. That which was -venial in a miserable starveling of Grub Street is <em>perfectly -disgusting</em> in the extravagantly paid novelists of these -days—the <em>caressed</em> of generous booksellers. Mr. Ainsworth -and Captain Marryat ought to disdain such <em>pitiful -peddling</em>. Let them eschew it without delay.”</p> - -<p>These were very bitter words, but the only influence -they had on Marryat was to provoke him to show that he -could do the single-stick style as well as the <cite>Fraser</cite> men -themselves. With less wit, but more good humour -than Thackeray, he, too, wrote his Essay on Thunder -and Small Beer. He pointed out that there is no necessary -connection between the manner of publication and -the method of composition of a book, and even made -quite respectable fun of <cite>Fraser’s</cite> pedantry. “In the -paragraph,” he says, “which I have quoted there is an implication -on your part which I cannot pass over without -comment. You appear to set up a standard of <em>precedency</em> -and <em>rank</em> in literature, founded upon the rarity or frequency -of an author’s appearing before the public, the scale descending -from the ‘caressed of generous publishers’ to -the ‘starveling of Grub Street’—the former, by your implication, -constituting the <em>aristocracy</em> and the latter the -<i lang="la">profanum vulgus</i> of the quill. Now although it is a fact -that the larger and nobler animals of creation produce -but slowly, while the lesser, such as rabbits, rats, and -mice, are remarkable for their fecundity; I do not think -that the comparison will hold good as to the breeding of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -brains; and to prove it, let us examine—if this argument -by implication of yours is good—at what grades upon -the scale it would place the writers of the present day.” -By applying “this argument by implication” in a rigid -fashion, Marryat has no difficulty in showing that “my -Lady —— anybody,” who produces one novel a year, is -necessarily twice as great a writer as Hook or James who -produces two, and twelve times as great as the <cite>Fraser</cite> man -himself, whose production is monthly. The reasoning is -burlesquely fallacious, but it was meant to be so. Marryat -spoke with more gravity, and more point too, when he -urged that he was doing a good work by spreading his -story “among the lower classes, who, until lately (and -the chief credit of the alteration is due to Mr. Dickens), -had hardly an idea of such recreation.”</p> - -<p>“In a moral point of view I hold that I am right. -We are educating the lower classes; generations have -sprung up who can read and write; and may I inquire -what it is they have to read, in the way of amusement?—for -I speak not of the Bible, which is for private examination. -They have scarcely anything but the weekly -newspapers, and as they cannot command amusement, -they prefer those which create the most excitement; and -this I believe to be the cause of the great circulation of -<cite>The Weekly Despatch</cite>, which has but too well succeeded -in demoralizing the public, in creating disaffection and -ill-will towards the Government, and assisting the nefarious -views of demagogues, and chartists. It is certain -that men would rather laugh than cry—would rather be -amused than rendered gloomy and discontented—would -sooner dwell upon the joys and sorrows of others, in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -tale of fiction, than brood over their supposed wrongs. -If I put good and wholesome food (and, as I trust, sound -moral) before the lower classes, they will eventually -eschew that which is coarse and disgusting, which is only -resorted to because no better is supplied. Our weekly -newspapers are at present little better than records of -immorality and crime, and the effect which arises from -having no other matter to read and comment on, is of -serious injury to the morality of the country.… I -consider, therefore, that in writing for the amusement -and instruction of the poor man, I am doing that which -has been but too much neglected—that I am serving my -country, and you surely will agree with me that to do so -is not <i lang="la">infra dig.</i> in the proudest Englishman: and, as a -Conservative, you should commend, rather than stigmatise -my endeavours in the manner which you have so -hastily done.”</p> - -<p>The intention and the argument here are better than -the style. Marryat was better at narrative than exposition, -and could at times be as free with the relative -pronouns as that distinguished officer, Captain Rawdon -Crawley. The confidence Marryat, in common with -most of his contemporaries, reposed in the influence of -wholesome amusement was doubtless excessive. It has -not been found that when the “poor man” [or other -reader for that matter], has a choice of Hercules given -him between good literature and bad, he will cleave to -the first and reject the last. Also, there is a candid -confession of the faith “that there is nothing like -leather” in Marryat’s confidence that good weekly stories -would soothe the discontent which was seething in England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -before 1848. But in spite of slips of grammar, -optimism, and over-confidence, Marryat’s answer to the -priggery in <cite>Fraser</cite> is a creditable manifesto. To desire -to kill the trash of <cite>The Weekly Despatch</cite> was at least a -respectable ambition, and a man has a good right to -believe in his causes, and his weapons.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2> - -<p>Langham, to which Marryat betook himself for -good in 1843, had been in his possession for -some thirteen years. Its history, as far as he was concerned, -may be taken to have been characteristic of the -man. He acquired it, according to Mrs. Ross Church, -by exchange—having “swapped” it, after dinner and -copious champagne, against Sussex House, Hammersmith. -From that period it had been an interesting but unprofitable -possession to him. Before he left for America -he had already had occasion to complain of the difficulty -of getting rent. A tenant had been expelled, and replaced -by another of the fairest character. But appearances -had proved delusive. Langham had been all along more -of a burden than a profit to its owner. In 1843 he -seems to have decided to see what he could do with it -himself. A passage in his fragmentary life of Lord -Napier, quoted by his daughter, shows that he shared to -the full the common delusion of men, and the especial -delusion of sailors, that it is easy to manage a small -property. In this pleasing but fatal belief he set out to -see what he could do with the 700 acres of the estate -himself. Again I have to acknowledge my inability to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -give any account of the motives for this sudden (for it -appears to have been sudden) decision. Considerations -of economy were doubtless of weight with him. The -fall in the value of West Indian property had, as has -been said, hit him hard. The demands on his purse -were as heavy as ever—indeed, to judge from a somewhat -plaintive reference in one of his letters—even heavier. -He speaks in this place of actions brought by tradesmen -to recover money for goods supplied to his sons Frederick -and Frank—from which we may conclude that the young -men had inherited their share of the paternal faculty for -spending money. Their father was driven to express the -wish that the value of this necessary was taught in schools. -Neither at school nor at home do the young Marryats -appear to have gained this knowledge, and in those years -the navy, which they had both entered, was no school of -thrift. Doubtless they were among the causes which first -induced Captain Marryat to betake himself to the -country, and then kept him hard at work when he was -there.</p> - -<p>Langham is in the northern division of Norfolk, halfway -between Wells-next-the-Sea and Holt. The Manor -House, says Mrs. Ross Church, “without having any -great architectural pretensions, had a certain unconventional -prettiness of its own. It was a cottage in the -Elizabethan style, built after the model of one at Virginia -Water belonging to his late Majesty, George IV., with -latticed windows opening on to flights of stone steps -ornamented with vases of flowers, and leading down -from the long narrow dining-room, where (surrounded -by Clarkson Stanfield’s illustrations of ‘Poor Jack,’ with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -which the walls were clothed) Captain Marryat composed -his later works, to the lawn behind. The house was -thatched and gabled, and its pinkish white walls and -round porch were covered with roses and ivy, which in -some parts climbed as high as the roof itself.” When -Marryat came down to examine his property with an -intention of living on it, he found it suffering from all -the evils which commonly fall upon the property of -absentee landlords. The tenant of the larger of the two -farms into which the estate was divided had not only -mismanaged his land. Having the house itself at his -mercy, he had turned the drawing-room into a common -lodging-house, in which tramps and other necessitous -persons could have a bed for the modest sum of twopence -a night. The windows were smashed or unclosed, -and the birds of the air had built their nests in the -rooms. This state of neglect was soon changed for the -better, and Langham Manor became habitable.</p> - -<p>In it Marryat sat down during the last five years of his -life, to show in practice the soundness of his theory -touching the fitness of sailors for the management of -small properties. It will surprise few to learn that the -result only proved once more that small properties are -not so easily forced to yield a profit. Even before -actually coming to live on the estate, Marryat had tried -various speculations with his land. The results of his -efforts, personal and vicarious, are illustrated in his -daughter’s “Life” by the following extracts, taken at -random from his farm accounts.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> - -<table summary="How Marryat did at property management"> - <tr> - <th></th> - <th></th> - <th>£</th> - <th>s.</th> - <th>d.</th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>1842.</td> - <td>Total receipts</td> - <td class="tdr">154</td> - <td class="tdr">2</td> - <td class="tdr">9</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td>Expenditure</td> - <td class="tdr">1637</td> - <td class="tdr">0</td> - <td class="tdr">6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>1846.</td> - <td>Total receipts</td> - <td class="tdr">898</td> - <td class="tdr">12</td> - <td class="tdr">6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td>Expenditure</td> - <td class="tdr">2023</td> - <td class="tdr">10</td> - <td class="tdr">8</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>It will be seen that the balance was less heavily against -Marryat in ’46 when he was present, than in ’42 when -he could only look on from afar. Even in these cases -the master’s eye is of value. It is better to lose on your -own ventures than to be robbed all round, and in so far -Marryat no doubt gained by living on his land. In 1845 -he even secured some compensation for the damage done -to his house and property by the dishonest tenant—at -least the courts decided that compensation should be -paid him. After a lawsuit, an unsuccessful effort at -compromise, and (Marryat declares) much hard swearing -by his opponent, he was awarded £150. Whether he -ever got it is a question, for the tenant seems to have -been meditating bankruptcy immediately afterwards. -The end of the business is wrapt up in mystery. On the -whole, one can quite believe that the Captain’s “agricultural -vagaries appeared almost like insanity to those -steady plodding minds that could not understand that a -man may have genius, and no common sense.” Quite -credible, too, is it that Marryat was very particularly -proud of his common sense, and “would have been very -much hurt” if any man had doubted his claim to possess -it in an eminent degree. If there is anything of which -the more flighty kind of speculator is firmly persuaded,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -it is of his practical faculty and sober good sense. It is -very characteristic that in all Marryat’s stories for -children, and in touches scattered over his earlier works, -there are proofs of a taste for thinking about matters of -business, and for constructing plausible narratives of -profitable investments of money and labour. It would -seem that, among writing men (and not among them -only) this taste is an infallible sign of a natural incapacity -to acquire three pennyworth of anything for less than -eighteen pence. Balzac had it, and he never could keep -his fingers off a losing speculation. Marryat is so exact -about sums of money, and has such a turn for showing -how profits are to be made, that we are quite prepared -to hear of him bursting into his brother’s room at 3 -o’clock a.m., with splendid schemes for draining the -marshes of Clay-by-the-Sea, and thereby realizing wealth -beyond the dreams of avarice. It follows as a matter of -course that his only surviving son, Frank, found Langham -a worthless inheritance.</p> - -<p>It is at this period of his life that we can obtain the -best, and, indeed, almost the only personal view of -Marryat. Of the last years of his life at Langham, Mrs. -Ross Church speaks from memory, and her evidence has -independent support. The picture we obtain is in the -main pleasant, though it is sufficiently clear that Marryat -was not exactly an angel. “Many people,” says his -daughter, “have asked whether Captain Marryat, when -at home, was not ‘very funny.’ No, decidedly not. In -society, with new topics to discuss, and other wits about -him on which to sharpen his own—or, like flint and steel, -to emit sparks by friction—he was as gay and humorous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -as the best of them; but at home he was always a -thoughtful, and, at times, a very grave man; for he was -not exempt from those ills that all flesh is heir to, and -had his sorrows and his difficulties and moments of -depression like the rest of us. At such times it was -dangerous to thwart or disturb him, for he was a man -of strong passions and indomitable determination; but, -whoever felt the effects of his moods of perplexity or -disappointment, his children never did.” Mrs. Ross -Church must forgive it if this description reminds me -more than a little of a certificate to character I once -heard given to a British skipper, a mahogany-faced man -of immense strength and violence, in the office of one -of Her Majesty’s consuls, in a Mediterranean port. -This gallant seaman had been summoned by one of his -men for assault and battery. He confessed the beating, -but denied that it had been so aggravated as the plaintiff -alleged. Moreover he pleaded provocation, and called -up his boatswain as a witness to character. The boatswain, -an honest-looking rather chuckle-headed fellow, -was obviously torn by conflicting desires. He did not -wish to displease his captain, and yet he did not wish to -tell lies which would go against his comrade. Nothing -definite could be got out of him while in the presence -of the parties. When asked in confidence (and in an -outer office) what the truth of the matter was, he -answered, “Why, you see, sir, it’s just this—the captain -he’s a very good sort of man as long as he has everything -his own way—but when he’s crossed he clears the place.”</p> - -<p>It may be taken as proved, then, that Marryat had in -abundance that kind of good nature which is displayed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -when the owner is pleased and happy—of which this -may at least be said, that it is vastly superior to no good -nature at all. Moreover, we have to consider what things -it was that made him displeased and unhappy. Mrs. -Ross Church’s qualification to the character just quoted -shows that he did not entirely hang his fiddle up when -he came home. To his children “he was a most indulgent -father and friend, caring little what escapades -they indulged in so long as they were not afraid to tell -the truth. ‘Tell truth and shame the devil’ was a -quotation constantly on his lips; and he always upheld -falsehood and cowardice as the two worst vices of mankind. -He never permitted anything to be locked or -hidden away from his children, who were allowed to -indulge their appetites at their own discretion; nor were -they ever banished from the apartments which he occupied. -Even whilst he was writing, they would pass freely -in and out of the room, putting any questions to him -that occurred to them, and the worst rebuke they ever -encountered was the short determined order, ‘Cease -your prattle, child, and leave the room,’ an order that -was immediately obeyed. For with all his indulgence of -them, Captain Marryat took care to impress one fact -upon his children—that his word was law.”</p> - -<p>The children were aware that they were dealing with -a parent not incapable of getting in a rage, and therefore -stopped in time—which is one of the many advantages -of not possessing a too equable temper. These collisions -of theirs with the sovereign authority at Langham cannot, -however, have been frequent, as this further quotation -from Mrs. Ross Church will show: “The long-expected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -governess [there were great negotiations over the engagement -of this official], when eventually secured and -transplanted to Langham, was not received by the -children, who had been accustomed to have their own -way in everything, with much enthusiasm; and their -father was the friend to whom they invariably appealed -for protection against her authority. Captain Marryat -had rather an original plan with respect to punishment -and reward. He kept a quantity of small articles for -presents in his secretary, and at the termination of each -week the children, and governess armed with a report of -their general behaviour, were ushered with much solemnity -into the library to render up an account. Those -who had behaved well during the preceding seven days -received a prize, because they had been so good; and -those who had behaved ill also received one, in hopes -that they would never be naughty again. The governess -was also presented with a gift, that her criticism on the -justice of the transaction might be disarmed. Thus all -parties left the room perfectly satisfied; an end which, -Captain Marryat used to observe, it required some diplomacy -to attain. The governess was in the habit of -restraining the children’s thoughtlessness by imposition -of fines or lessons when they tore their clothes; but, as -tearing their clothes was an event of daily occurrence, -the punishment became rather heavy; and one of the -younger ones, having made a large rent in a new frock, -ran in dismay to her father in order to consult him how -best to escape the impending doom. Captain Marryat, -without any regard to the future of the garment in question, -took hold of the rent and tore off the whole lower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -part of the skirt. ‘Tell her <em>I</em> did it,’ he said in explanation -as he walked away.” This story, which had previously -made its appearance in an article in the <cite>Cornhill -Magazine</cite>, is supported there by the general assertion -that whenever any of the young Marryats required punishment -they were doubly petted for the rest of the day. -“It seemed as if no amount of indulgence was thought -too much for compensation; like the jam to take the -taste of the physic out of the mouth.”</p> - -<p>Persons who make a serious study of the art of training -children may not all agree that a system which recommended -courage by giving them nothing to fear, inculcated -the love of truth by making it safe and pleasant to -tell it, and developed the moral virtues by unlimited -indulgence, was one to be held up as a model to fathers. -No doubt, however, it was abundantly pleasant for the -children, and it may readily be believed that Captain -Marryat was loved by his own house. With his children -he lived on terms of affectionate freedom, making them -his companions, and even training them to play piquet, -for which scientific game he had a great affection, in -order that they might share with him in all things.</p> - -<p>For animals, too, he had a genuine but not a maudlin -affection. His dogs and his pony Dumpling figure much -in the accounts given of his last years. His favourite -bull, Ben Brace, was kept tethered opposite the window -of the room in which he wrote. It is a good sign -of his genuine kindness for animals that he seems to -have been made rather impatient by the gushing talk -about them, and the wondrous tales of their intelligence, -which are (in the opinion of some) nearly the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -nauseous of all forms of twaddle. We have it on his -own authority that he joined Theodore Hook in inventing -outrageous stories about the intelligence of animals, -and palming them off on the too credulous popular -naturalist. To his men Marryat seems to have been a -kind master. He at least gave them copious feasts on -proper occasions. “All the men who were on the farm,” -he tells his god-daughter, “were invited to a Christmas -dinner in the kitchen, and they sat down two-and-twenty -at the table in the servants’ hall, and were waited upon -by our own servants. They had two large pieces of -roast beef, and a boiled leg of pork; four dishes of -Norfolk dumplings; two large meat pies; two geese, -eight ducks, and eight widgeon; and after that they -had four large plum puddings.” This, with “plenty of -strong beer,” which was also duly supplied, made, as -Marryat seems to have felt with pardonable satisfaction, -a feed likely to be remembered by the two-and-twenty -farm hands. He was not so original as he perhaps thought -himself, or as some have supposed him to have been, in -employing an ex-poacher, one Barnes, as gamekeeper. -That particular kind of thief had often been set to catch -the other thieves before Captain Marryat went to live at -Langham. The poacher who is not merely the paid -hand of a London poulterer is commonly enough not -such a bad fellow, and when he is allowed to combine -his sporting tastes with a regular salary, and a position -of some authority, is capable of doing fairly well. In -this case whatever risk Marryat ran was justified by the -result. Barnes proved not only a good servant to him, -but is said to have been a loyal follower to his son Frank -when he emigrated to California.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> - -<p>Here, on his own land, surrounded by his family, -Marryat spent what were, doubtless, not the least happy -years of his life. An occasional friend from London -found the ex-<i lang="fr">viveur</i> and dandy in velveteen shooting -jacket and coloured trousers, turning out at five in the -morning, trotting about his farm on Dumpling, attentive -to scientific farming, and invincible in hope of profit -from that deceptive venture. For company, he had his -romps with his children, his game of piquet, and an -occasional, or even frequent, visit from Lieutenant -Thomas, of the coastguard station at Morston. The -two old seamen met, and talked of the rapid progress of -the service to the d——, as old seamen have done from -the beginning, and will do to the end of time. From -the outer world came requests for work from editors, -suggestions that he should take up this subject or the -other, and at times invitations to come up and -take part in farewell dinners to Macready or to -Dickens. These last he steadily declined. Except -during a few brief visits to London on matters of business, -he remained fixed at Langham till the disease -which proved fatal drove him up to town in search of -better medical help than he could obtain in Norfolk.</p> - -<p>He has himself described the work of these last years -in a letter to Forster, who had written in 1845 to Marryat, -suggesting that he should give “a month or two to a short -biography, of about a volume; something of the size and -manner of Southey’s ‘Nelson,’ and the subject ‘Collingwood.’” -Marryat thought it over, but declined, giving, -among other reasons, this: “That I have lately taken to -a different style of writing, that is, for young people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -My former productions, like all novels, have had their -day, and for the present, at least, will sell no more; but -it is not so with the <em>juveniles</em>; they have an annual -demand, and become <em>a little income</em> to me; which I -infinitely prefer to receiving any sum in a mass, which -very soon disappears somehow or other.” Marryat justified -his unwillingness to write the life of Collingwood by -other than business reasons. “I should like,” he told -Forster, “to write about Collingwood, but if I were to -write it in anything like a stipulated time I should not do -it well. Biography is most difficult writing, and requires -more time and thought than any original composition, -and if I take it up I must be free as air.” In addition to -this (justly high) estimate of the difficulty and dignity of -biography, Marryat, with sound critical judgment, decided -that Collingwood was not a proper subject. There is not -enough known or to be known about him. So much of -his work was done as a subordinate under St. Vincent or -Nelson. With them he was always in the second place -at best, and when he reached great independent command, -the heroic days of the naval war were over, and -there was little for him to do beyond duties of a mainly -routine character, performed in the midst of chronic -illness. It is a pity perhaps that Marryat did not devote -some part of his work to naval biography, but he would -hardly have made a real success with Collingwood. For -Forster himself, Marryat wrote a series of letters to the -<cite>Examiner</cite> on the “Condition of England Question,” or -that part of England which he saw about him in Norfolk. -“I have,” he wrote to Forster, “been amusing myself with -putting together my thoughts and knowledge of the condition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -of the agricultural class—I mean the common -labourer principally—and I believe I know more of the -subject than anything I have seen in print. What I can -say is from personal knowledge. I was thinking of -writing some letters to Peel as a Norfolk farmer, ‘The -Poor Man <i lang="la">versus</i> Sir Robert Peel.’ It would not do to -put my name to them as they would be anything but -Conservative, but they would be the <em>truth</em>.” It was not -Marryat’s destiny to be a politician, and his opinion of -Sir Robert Peel is perhaps not very valuable. His own -political activity was not particularly consistent, for he -appears to have swayed from Reformer to Conservative, -and back again, but it may be noted that he ended by -sharing that dislike of the leader who always led his followers -to surrender which was so widely felt in Peel’s -last days.</p> - -<p>His main work was always his stories for children. -Five of these belong to the Langham period—“The -Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur -Violet,” “The Settlers in Canada,” “The Mission,” -“The Children of the New Forest,” and “The Little -Savage.” There may be some doubt whether the first -ought to come under this heading. Marryat did not -consider it a child’s story himself; but if it is not <em>that</em> -one has some difficulty in deciding what it was. The -materials were, Mrs. Ross Church says, supplied by a -young Frenchman, named Lasalles, who turned up at -Langham, and astonished the neighbourhood by lassoing -cattle and doing other barbarous feats. The matter -supplied by this amusing adventurer was “licked into -shape” by Marryat. This account of the origin of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -book is certainly borne out by its contents. It is a -somewhat rambling story of adventure among the Red -Men, starting from an improbability, and ending somewhat -abruptly. No small part of it consists of an account -of the early Mormons, and has sadly the air of padding. -On the whole, it has much more the look of a collection -of notes for a tale of adventure than anything else, and -has always been one of the least read, if not entirely the -least read, of the books which bear Marryat’s name. Of -“The Mission” its author gave an exact account in a -letter to his friend Mrs. S——: “It is composed of -scenes and descriptions of Africa in a journey to the -Northward from the Cape of Good Hope—full of lions, -rhinoceroses, and all manner of adventures, interspersed -with a little common sense here and there, and interwoven -with the history of the settlement of the Cape up -to 1828—written for young people of course, and, therefore -trifling, but amusing.” “The Mission,” although -this promising sketch of it is strictly correct, has not -been much more popular than “Monsieur Violet,” and -the reason is obvious enough. It is not so much -a story as a series of unconnected, or very loosely -connected, incidents; and moreover, it contains what -any right-minded boy could only regard as a cruel -“sell.” The hero starts forth to clear up the fate of -a relative—a lady who has been wrecked on the Caffre -coast many years before. It is not known for certain -whether she was drowned or died on shore, and a fear has -always existed that she survived as a prisoner among the -natives, and had grown up to be the wife of some Caffre -chief, and bear him young barbarians in his kraal—a fate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -which it is believed did actually befall the daughters of -an English officer, who were wrecked on that coast on -their way back from India. He goes on, hears of a -renowned chief, whose mother was an Englishwoman, -finds him, and then discovers that it was another shipwrecked -lady, who had the happiness to produce a half-bred -hero in that distant region. His own relative has -certainly perished. Now this is cruel. It was not worth -while to go so far to learn so little, and the feeling of disappointment -caused is too acute. Marryat made a fatal -mistake when he overlooked the possibilities of the situation. -For the rest, it is a pity he did, because the -background of the story is particularly good. Marryat -seems to have obtained a very clear idea of the Cape, -which he must have visited during his service in the -South Atlantic. His hunting adventures, his Zulu warriors, -his Dutch Boers, and Hottentot boys are distinctly -good. There is even a touch of something grandiose in -the references to the invaders from the North, who were -then pressing down on Caffraria. They weigh in an imposing -fashion on the fortunes of the adventurers in -“The Mission.” It is somewhat unfair to look at it -all now, when these materials have again been made -popular. But good as it is of its kind, the book has a -feeble, aimless look, simply from want of satisfactory -ending.</p> - -<p>Of the three children’s stories which remain—“The -Settlers,” “The Children of the New Forest,” and “The -Little Savage”—the second is most likely to be interesting -to children, and the last is, in part at least, the most -original. There is something rather gruesome in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -picture of the child born on a desert island, and growing -up by the side of a ruffian who bullies him. The -natural savagery of the human animal is developed in -him unchecked, and Marryat has shown some power -in the scenes in which the boy discovers the helplessness -of his companion, who has been blinded by a flash -of lightning, and then turns on him with cool ferocity. -But the promise of the beginning is not kept. “The -Little Savage” becomes didactic—full of repetitions—and -ends by being more than a little tiresome. On the -whole, after all, “The Children” is better. Our old -friends, the Cavaliers and Roundheads, are less new -than “The Little Savage,” but they last out more briskly. -It is a child’s story of merit—nothing more—and the -historical erudition of it, if somewhat shallow, is on a -level with that of more pretentious books. “The -Privateersman” has a certain interest as being the last -of Marryat’s sea stories, and as a picture, or at least a -rough sketch, of the strange old privateer life of which -“The Voyages and Cruises of Commodore Walker” is -almost our only record from the inside. It is not a -pleasant book, or a strong. Moreover, Marryat puts his -hero in the very most ignoble position any hero was ever -in. It may be safely laid down as a rule that under no -conditions ought a gentleman to desert a woman in a -forest full of Red American Indians. It is one of those -things which a gentleman cannot do. Now the hero of -“The Privateersman” does it—and the deduction is -obvious. The story has touches which remind one of -“Colonel Jack,” but it is too clearly a book written -simply to fill space in a magazine. Marryat’s fun had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -gone when he wrote it for Harrison Ainsworth and <cite>The -New Monthly Magazine</cite>. “Valerie,” a species of Japhet -in petticoats, is not even all Marryat’s, and was, in any -case, written when he was slowly dying.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2> - -<p>The weakness which proved fatal to Marryat had -shown itself while he was still a young lieutenant -in the West Indies. He had then been invalided home -for rupture of a blood vessel in the lungs, and a military -doctor “also certified to his tendency to ‘hæmoptysis,’ -and prophesied that, without great care, ‘the most dangerous -and perhaps fatal results’ would be the consequence” -of rashness. The danger had passed at that -time—had probably been avoided by the use of care—and -for many years Marryat had to all appearance been -a very robust man. He was of the best possible height -and build for strength. He was some five feet ten inches -high, with broad deep chest, and his muscular force was -exceptionally great. His portrait, as far as it can be judged -of from the engraving prefixed to “Frank Mildmay,” -gives the impression of a man of boundless energy, -open-faced, alert, and keen-eyed. He was black-haired -with blue eyes, and his beard grew so thick and so fast -that he was compelled to shave twice a day. When he -came to Langham, in 1843, his strength was apparently -still unbroken, and he might appear sure of long years of -health and capacity for work. But it is clear that there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -was more appearance than reality in his strength. When -a man has turned fifty he begins to suffer for the unwisdom -of former years. Marryat, unfortunately, had never -given himself any quarter. He had spared himself no -burden a man can lay upon his strength. He had played -and worked to excess, had lived in a whirl of nervous -excitement, had spent beyond his means in constitution -as well as in purse. If he had not spent his summer -while it was May—at least he had run through it far too -soon. Langham, which might have given him rest, was -only the scene of more nervous excitement, more -strenuous work. In 1847 the end began. In August of -that year he speaks, in a letter to his sister, of having -recently ruptured two blood vessels. The following -letter shows that the accident occurred in London, but -Marryat returned to Langham, and remained there till -the want of medical advice likely to inspire more confidence -than a country doctor’s drove him to London -again. He remained at his mother’s house at Wimbledon -for two months, and from it wrote to Lord Auckland, -then at the Admiralty, on December 14th.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,—When I had the honour of an audience -with you, in July last, your lordship’s reception was so -mortifying to me that, from excitement and annoyance, -after I left you I ruptured a blood vessel, which has now -for nearly five months laid me on a bed of sickness.</p> - -<p>“I will pass over much that irritated and vexed me, -and refer to one point only. When I pointed out to -your lordship the repeated marks of approbation -awarded to Captain Chads—and the neglect with which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -my applications had been received by the Admiralty -during so long a period of application—your reply was -‘That you could not admit such parallels to be drawn, -as Captain Chads was a highly distinguished officer,’ -thereby implying that my claims were not to be considered -in the same light.</p> - -<p>“I trust to be able to prove to your lordship that I -was justified in pointing out the difference in the treatment -of Captain Chads and myself. The fact is that -there are no two officers who have so completely run -neck and neck in the service, if I may use the expression. -If your lordship will be pleased to examine our -respective services, previous to the Burmah War, I trust -that you will admit that mine have been as creditable as -those of that officer; and I may here take the liberty of -pointing out to your lordship that Sir G. Cockburn -thought proper to make a special mention relative to -both our services, and of which your lordship may not -be aware.</p> - -<p>“During the Burmah War Captain Chads and I both -held the command of a very large force for several -months—both were promoted on the same day, and both -received the honour of the Order of the Bath—and, on -the thanks of Government being voted in the House of -Commons to the officers, and on Sir Joseph York, who -was a great friend of Captain Chads, proposing that he -should be particularly mentioned by name, Sir G. Cockburn -rose and said that it would be the height of -injustice to mention that officer without mentioning me.</p> - -<p>“I trust the above statement will satisfy your lordship -that I was not so much to blame when I drew the comparison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -between our respective treatment—Captain Chads -having hoisted his commodore’s pennant in India, having -been since appointed to the <i>Excellent</i>, and lately received -the good service pension; while I have applied in vain -for employment, and have met with a reception which I -have not deserved.</p> - -<p>“And now, my lord, apologizing for the length of this -letter, allow me to state the chief cause of my addressing -you. It is not to renew my applications for employment—for -which my present state of health has totally unfitted -me—it is, that my recovery has been much retarded -by a feeling that your lordship could not have departed -from your usual courtesy in your reception of me as you -did, if it was not that some misrepresentations of my -character had been made to you. This has weighed -heavily upon me; and I entreat your lordship will let me -know if such has been the case, and that you will give me -an opportunity of justifying myself—which I feel assured -that I can do—as I never yet have departed from the -conduct of an officer and a gentleman. I am the more -anxious upon this point, as, since the total wreck of West -India property, I shall have little to leave my children -but a good name, which, on their account, becomes -doubly precious. I have the honour, &c.,</p> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">F. Marryat</span>.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>I have quoted this melancholy but not altogether -unmanly letter at full for the light it throws on Marryat’s -last years. It is clear that when the ruin of West Indian -property had begun to embarrass him, he had striven to -return to active service. The beginning of the letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -proves that in the middle of 1847 his nerve was already -gone. At last he was no longer able to bear the strain -of that passion and determination of which his daughter -speaks. When crossed by a First Lord of the Admiralty, -with whom he could not give way to an explosion of rage, -the effort required to control himself was too much for a -man worn in health, and accustomed for many years past -to give his feelings unchecked course. The letter may -also stand as proof that Marryat’s reputation as a -naval officer was dear to him. As to the merits of the -dispute there is no evidence to form an opinion. Lord -Auckland, in a temperate letter, replied that he had no -recollection of what had passed at the time, but that he -certainly could have had no intention of wounding so -distinguished an officer as Captain Marryat. The letter -ended with the agreeable information that a good service -pension had been conferred on him. Heat and disappointment -on the one side, and perhaps a little dry -official formality on the other—a thing which those -who deal with Government officials should learn to take -for granted—will doubtless account for the trouble.</p> - -<p>From this time forward Marryat’s remnant of life was -filled with flights in search of health, and with every -sorrow. From Wimbledon he went to Hastings, in the -vain hope that a milder climate would give him a chance -of recovery. For a time he seemed to improve, but it -was a mere flicker. Whatever chance of recovery he had -was utterly destroyed by the terrible blow which fell on him -at the end of the year. His son, Lieutenant Frederick -Marryat, was lost in the wreck of the <i>Avenger</i> in the Mediterranean. -The <i>Avenger</i>, one of the first steamers in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -navy, was steered on a reef between Galita and the mainland, -during the night. She was under steam and sail at the -time, and struck so heavily that in a very few minutes -she was a complete wreck, with the sea breaking over her. -Frederick Marryat was below when the vessel struck. In -the confusion which followed, he was seen, by one of the -few survivors, in the waist of the ship, endeavouring to -keep the men steady, and clear away the boats. But the -<i>Avenger</i> broke up fast; the funnel and main-mast fell on -the group in which Marryat stood, crushing some and -hurling others overboard, where they were swept away -in the sea that was then running. By one death or the -other he perished, and the tragedy broke his father’s -heart. The young man had been wild and extravagant—a -source of expense and anxiety to his father. He had -been a midshipman of the wild type, and as a young -lieutenant had been unsettled, eager to get on shore and -find some work more agreeable and more lucrative than -a naval officer’s. But if he had the faults—or rather let -us say the weaknesses—of the seaman, he also had his -finer qualities. He was a gallant and good-hearted -young fellow. A letter of his father’s, written two years -or so before the wreck, speaks of him as turning up from -the China station full of life and spirit, lighting up the -house at Langham. In his then state of weakness it -must have been a killing blow to the father to hear of the -son’s death, under circumstances of which no man was -better able to appreciate the horror than himself. -Marryat bore the blow stoutly, for he too had the “qualities -of his defects,” and as he was passionate so was he -courageous.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> - -<p>From Hastings, which he naturally felt had done him -no good, he moved to Brighton for a month. It seemed -for a moment as if the danger was past, and Dickens, -among others, wrote to congratulate him on his recovery. -But, in truth, the case was a hopeless one. From -Brighton he returned to London for the last time to -consult with the doctors. When he re-entered the outer -room in which several of his family were waiting to hear -the result, he had to tell them that he had been condemned. -“They say,” he reported, “that in six months -I shall be numbered with my forefathers.” He announced -the decision, Mrs. Ross Church tells us, with -an “undisturbed and half-smiling countenance,” and we -can easily believe it, for, leaving his natural bravery out of -the question, life can have had no temptation for him if -it was to be lived under the constant threat of such a -disease as menaced him.</p> - -<p>From London Marryat moved to Langham, and -there waited for death all through the summer of 1848. -It came at last through sheer weakness, and apparently -with little or no pain. Ruptures of blood vessels could -only be prevented by rigid abstinence from food. He -speaks in the last letter he wrote—in at least the last that -is printed—of living for days on lemonade till he “was -reduced to a little above nothing.” The illness and the -remedy were alike fatal, and between the two he was -gradually reduced to extinction. During the summer -days he lay in the drawing-room of the house at Langham, -hearing his daughters read aloud to him, till his growing -weakness brought on delirium. To the last he continued -to dictate pages of incoherent talk, much as Sir Walter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -Scott had written mechanically long after his intellect was -gone. He loved to have flowers brought him to the end. -Finally, after he had long been unconscious between -weakness and doses of morphia, he expired in perfect -quiet just about dawn on August 9, 1848.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It ought to be unnecessary for me to add much on -the character of Captain Marryat. Although our knowledge -of him is fragmentary, it is my fault if enough has -not been said in these pages to show what sort of man he -must have been. It is tolerably clear that he was -passionate, ready to think that he did well to be angry, -and that anger was its own justification. Passionately -eager to enjoy he must have been, and not wise in seeking -enjoyment. It must be remembered, however, that -he was trained in the navy in a wild time, when men -repaid themselves for such hardships as the naval officer -of to-day never undergoes, by excesses of which he -would be incapable. Then Marryat fell into the literary -and semi-literary life of London at a time when it was -partly honestly, partly out of mere silly pose, dissipated -and Bohemian. His wealth was the means of throwing -him among a hard living set. Among them, his friends, -doubtless, helped him to get rid of his money inherited -and earned. He was the fast and hard living stamp of -man whom the Bohemian literary gentlemen professed to -admire, and he paid for his genuineness. In such a -world the ardent natures wore themselves out, while the -<i lang="fr">poseur</i> and the humbug escaped. But if Marryat wasted -his substance and hastened his death by excesses, he -seems to have been generous and good to those around<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -him. To his younger children he was kind, and if his -wife fell out of his life (she is not mentioned as having -been present at Langham), there is nothing to show that -it was for reasons discreditable to him, or indeed to -either of them. If he was one of those who are mainly -their own enemies, at least he did not belong to the -worst rank of a very noxious class of persons. That he -was a brave man and a good officer beyond question.</p> - -<p>As a writer Captain Marryat has never—as I began -this little book by saying—been quite fairly treated. -There has always been more or less a suspicion that an -<cite>Athenæum</cite> writer, who described him as a quarter-deck -captain who defied critics, and trifled with the public, writing -carelessly, and not even good English, taking it for -granted that the public was to read just what he chose to -write, was stating the facts. He has never been recognized -as one of the front rank of English novelists. -Macaulay only mentions him as one among several -writers on America. Carlyle’s savage “slate” of him is -unjust to a degree which can only be palliated by the fact -that it was founded on a hasty reading of his books in the -evil days after the loss of the manuscript of the French -Revolution. At that time everything was looking more -spectral to Carlyle than usual. Thackeray was just to -him indeed, but Thackeray was exceptionally large-minded -and fair. Yet I do not know what reason -there is to exclude Marryat from the front rank which -would not also exclude some whom we habitually put -there. To rank him with Fielding, with Jane Austen, -Thackeray or Richardson, would be absurd, but I see -no reason why he should not stand with Smollett. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -might stand a little below him for “Humphrey Clinker’s” -sake, but not very far. Except Sir Walter Scott, no man -can be read over a longer period of life. He may be -enjoyed at school and for ever afterwards. I doubt -whether many boys have delighted in “Tom Jones.” -Did anybody, to take the other end of life, ever -experience, on coming back to “Peter Simple” or “Mr. -Midshipman Easy,” that shock which is produced by a -mature re-reading of, say, “Zanoni”? I imagine not. -There must be a great vitality, a genuine truth, in the -writer who can stand this test, and stand it so long. That -Marryat was to some extent a boyish writer is undeniable, -and it seems to me to be the secret of his enduring -popularity. His books revive in one the exact kind of -pleasure one felt in reading them in one’s teens. We -may re-read some writers who pleased then, and remember -the pleasure, and regret it can be felt no longer. -Others one re-reads with ever new pleasure, but they -satisfy for reasons not felt in early days. We see more -in them and ever more. But with Marryat it is different. -He pleases for the same causes always, which is surely -as much as to say that he is unique of his kind. More -than any other man he made what was written for boys -and children literature. He was the best of his class, -and that alone entitles him to a high place. After all, a -man can do no more than be the best of his order. -Whoever is that is surely fairly entitled to be called a -Great Writer. Whether that title is to be grudged him -or not, he is assuredly the friend of all who read with a -simple and healthy taste. No man has given more honest -pleasure, more wholesome stimulus to youth; few have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -given more hearty fun to older readers. If we do not -think of him as “great,” a word of which we might indeed -be more chary than we are, at least we can think of him -as kindly, as sound, as manly—and it is possible to make -a stir with one’s pen and be none of those three things.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The End.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="INDEX">INDEX.</h2> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 238px;"> -<img src="images/deco-2.jpg" width="238" height="30" alt="(decorative)" /> -</div> - -<ul> - -<li class="ifrst">A.</li> - -<li class="indx">Almeria Bay, Action in, <a href="#Page_32">32-34</a></li> - -<li class="indx">America, Books about, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">America, Marryat’s visit to, <a href="#Page_98">98-113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Auckland, Lord, Letter to, <a href="#Page_150">150-152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his answer, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Avenger</i>, Loss of, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">B.</li> - -<li class="indx">Babbage, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Basque roads, Action in, <a href="#Page_37">37-40</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Burmah, War in, <a href="#Page_51">51-55</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">C.</li> - -<li class="indx">Canada, Revolt in, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Caroline"><i>Caroline</i>, Affair of the, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Children of New Forest, The,” <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chucks, Mr., <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Cochrane">Cochrane, Lord, Captain of <i>Impérieuse</i>, his character, <a href="#Page_19">19-21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Basque roads, <a href="#Page_37">37-40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">end of service, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Collingwood, Admiral, Marryat asked to write life of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Continent, English on the, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">D.</li> - -<li class="indx">Drew, Captain, <i>see</i> <a href="#Caroline"><i>Caroline</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dundonald, Earl of, <i>see</i> <a href="#Cochrane">Cochrane</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">F.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite>, Marryat and, <a href="#Page_127">127-131</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">G.</li> - -<li class="indx">Giliano, Pasquil, fight with, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">I.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Impérieuse</i>, frigate, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Marryat’s account of her service, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sent hurriedly to sea, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her cruises, <a href="#Page_27">27-40</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Irving, Washington, quoted, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">L.</li> - -<li class="indx">Langham, Marryat’s life at, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132-134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-142</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Little Savage, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">M.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marryat, Frederick, born, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his family, <a href="#Page_11">11-12</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">school-life, <a href="#Page_12">12-15</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to sea, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appointed to <i>Impérieuse</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">serves in her, <a href="#Page_17">17-40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Walcheren, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in <i>Victorious</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>Centaur</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>Atlas</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span><i>Æolus</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>L’Espiègle</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>Newcastle</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a Lieutenant and Commander, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">breaks blood-vessel, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">saves life, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">cuts away main-yard of <i>Æolus</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his wound, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes on Continent, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marriage, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">command of <i>Beaver</i>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">St. Helena, and death of Napoleon, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">exchange to the <i>Rosario</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">service in Channel, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Smugglers, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appointed to <i>Larne</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">service in Burmah, <a href="#Page_51">51-54</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Post-captain, and C.B., <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>Ariadne</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">begins writing, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">equerry to Duke of Sussex, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resigns command, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">begins literary life, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">expensive habits, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><cite>Metropolitan Magazine</cite>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to Bentley, <a href="#Page_60">60-61</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">editor of <cite>Metropolitan Magazine</cite>, <a href="#Page_61">61-62</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">first books, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">stands for Parliament, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Brighton, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hard work in 1834, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Langham, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter about lawsuit, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Continent, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his work on, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resigns editorship, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">writes for <cite>New Monthly Magazine</cite>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">stories of Marryat, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to his mother, <a href="#Page_71">71-72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">starts for America, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his literary work between 1832 and 1837, <a href="#Page_73">73-97</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his speedy success, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his earnings, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quarrels with publisher, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to publisher, <a href="#Page_76">76-77</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">“Frank Mildmay,” his account of, <a href="#Page_79">79-80</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">account and criticism of book, <a href="#Page_81">81-82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Marryat as a story-writer, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">truth of his pictures of sea-life, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his story-telling faculty, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his style, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quotation from “Peter Simple,” <a href="#Page_87">87-91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his faculty of construction, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his fun, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quotation from “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” <a href="#Page_94">94-96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Marryat’s portraits, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his visit to America, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at New York, <a href="#Page_100">100-101</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to his mother from America, <a href="#Page_101">101-105</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visit to Canada, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">affair of <i>Caroline</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">disturbance about, <a href="#Page_106">106-109</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to mother, <a href="#Page_109">109-111</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">serves during Canadian rising, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to England, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Marryat’s money matters, <a href="#Page_114">114-115</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">life in London, <a href="#Page_116">116-117</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ill health, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his work from 1837 to 1843, <a href="#Page_120">120-127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quarrel with Fraser, <a href="#Page_128">128-131</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Langham, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Marryat as a farmer, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his life at Langham, <a href="#Page_136">136-142</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his children, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fondness for animals, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his labourers, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his work at Langham, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beginning of fatal illness, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his personal appearance, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letter to Lord Auckland, <a href="#Page_150">150-152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his good-service pension, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Hastings, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Brighton, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to Langham, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of Captain Marryat, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his personal character, <a href="#Page_156">156-157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his place in literature, <a href="#Page_157">157-159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marryat, Joseph, M.P., Marryat’s father, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marryat, Lieutenant F., Marryat’s son, his death, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>“Masterman Ready,” <a href="#Page_124">124-127</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Metropolitan Magazine</cite>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Mildmay, Frank,” <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79-82</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Mission, The,” <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">N.</li> - -<li class="indx">Naval war in 1806, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">P.</li> - -<li class="indx">“Percival Keene,” <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Phantom Ship, The,” <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pierce, Captain J., <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Poor Jack,” <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Poacher, The,” <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Privateersman, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">R.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ross Church, Mrs., Marryat’s daughter, quoted, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-140</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">S.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seagrave, Tommy, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">V.</li> - -<li class="indx">“Violet, Monsieur,” <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">W.</li> - -<li class="indx">William IV., story of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> - -</ul> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="bibliography"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY.</h2> - -<p class="center">BY<br /> -JOHN P. ANDERSON</p> - -<p class="center">(<i>British Museum</i>).</p> - -<h3>I. WORKS.</h3> - -<p>The Novels of Captain Marryat.—Percival -Keene. Monsieur -Violet. Rattlin the Reefer. -Valerie. The author’s copyright -edition. 4 pts. London, -Guildford [printed 1875], 8vo.</p> - -<p>The Novels of Captain Marryat.—The -Phantom Ship. The -Dog Fiend. Olla Podrida. The -Poacher. The author’s copyright -edition. London, Guildford -[printed 1875], 8vo.</p> - -<p>The Children of the New Forest. -2 vols. London [1847], 12mo. -Part of a series entitled “The -Juvenile Library.”</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. 2 vols. -London, 1849, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. 2 vols. -London, 1850, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1853, 16mo.</p> - -<p>A Code of Signals for the use of -vessels employed in the Merchant -Service. London, 1837, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Eighth edition. London, -1841, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>The last edition edited by Captain -Marryat.</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. The Universal -Code of Signals, for the -Mercantile Marine of all Nations, -etc. London, 1854, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1861, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1864, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1866, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1869, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1879, 8vo.</p> - -<p>A Diary in America, with remarks -on its Institutions. 3 vols. -London, 1839, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— A Diary in America, with -remarks on its Institutions. -Part Second. 3 vols. London, -1839, 12mo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Floral Telegraph; or, Affection’s -Signals. London [1850], -12mo.</p> - -<p>Jacob Faithful. 3 vols. London, -1834, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxiii. of the “Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -New York, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Author’s edition, complete. -London [1874], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -Guildford [printed 1877], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series entitled “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -Halifax [printed 1878], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1881], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of “Ward and Lock’s -Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1883], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Japhet in Search of a Father. 3 -vols. London, 1836, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxiv. of the “Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1857, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Railway Library” -series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1881], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1883], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Joseph Rushbrook; or, The -Poacher. 3 vols. London, -1841, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. 3 vols. -London, 1842, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Joseph Rushbrook; or, The -Poacher. London, 1846, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. civ. of the “Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— New edition. London, 1856, -12mo.</p> - -<p>—— New edition. London, 1857, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London [1873], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Reprinted from the original -edition. (A Rencontre.) London -[1883], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series entitled “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The King’s Own. 3 vols. London, -1830, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxv. of the “Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1874], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series entitled “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. With a -Memoir by Florence Marryat. -Author’s edition. London [1874], -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— [“Handy-Volume Marryat” -edition.] London [1880], 16mo.</p> - -<p>The Little Savage. [Edited by -Frank S. Marryat.] 2 pts. -London, 1848-49, 12mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Part of the “Juvenile Library.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. 2 vols. -London, 1850, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1853, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck -of the Pacific. 3 vols. London, -1841, 8vo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<p>Masterman Ready. New edition. -(<i>Bohn’s Illustrated Library.</i>) -London, 1851, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. 2 vols. -London, 1853, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. (<i>Bell’s -Reading Books.</i>) London, 1875, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1878, 16mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1885, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London [1886], 8vo.</p> - -<p>The Metropolitan: a monthly -journal of literature, science, -and the fine arts.</p> - -<p class="center">[Continued as]</p> - -<p>The Metropolitan Magazine. Successively -edited by T. Campbell, -F. Marryat, etc. 57 vols. -London, 1831-50, 8vo.</p> - -<p>The Mission, or Scenes in Africa. -London, 1845, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1853, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— New edition. (<i>Bohn’s Illustrated -Library.</i>) London, 1854, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1887, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Mr. Midshipman Easy. 3 vols. -London, 1836, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London. -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxvi. of the “Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Mr. Midshipman Easy. Another -edition. London [1879], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series entitled “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— [“Handy-Volume Marryat” -edition.] London [1880], 16mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -[1881], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of “Ward and Lock’s Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1883], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Narrative of the Travels and Adventures -of Monsieur Violet in -California, Sonora, and Western -Texas, 3 vols. London, 1843, -12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1849, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— The Travels and Adventures -of Monsieur Violet among the -Snake Indians and Wild Tribes -of the Great Western Prairies. -London, 1849, 12mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Vol. 33 of the “Parlour Library.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— The Travels and Adventures -of Monsieur Violet in California, -Sonora, and Western Texas. -With illustrations. London, -1874, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1875], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The Naval Officer; or, Scenes and -Adventures in the life of Frank -Mildmay. 3 vols. London, -1829, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Revised edition. (<i>Colburn’s -Modern Standard Novelists</i>, vol. -x.) London, 1839, 8vo.</p> - -<p>——Frank Mildmay; or, the Naval -Officer, with a Memoir by -Florence Marryat. London -[1873], 8vo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Naval Officer. Another edition. -London [1874], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series, entitled “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Author’s edition. London -[1874], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Newton Forster; or, the Merchant -Service. 3 vols. London, 1832, -12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxvii. of the “Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series entitled the -“Railway Library.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1874], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of a series entitled “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Author’s edition. London -[1874], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Olla Podrida. 3 vols. London, -1840, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1849, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1874, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Author’s copyright edition. -London [1875], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The Pacha of Many Tales. 3 vols. -London, 1835, 12mo.</p> - -<p>The Pacha of Many Tales. Another -edition. Paris, 1835, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxviii. of the “Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— New edition. London, 1856, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Author’s edition. London -[1874], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Percival Keene. 3 vols. London, -1842, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1848, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. cxiii. of the “Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— New edition, with a Memoir -of the Author. London, 1857, -8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the series entitled -“Railway Library.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. With -illustrations. London [1873], -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— New edition. London [1875], -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With a -Memoir of the Author. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Peter Simple. 3 vols. London, -1834, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxii. of the “Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1870, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<p>Peter Simple. Author’s edition, -complete. London [1874], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -Guildford [printed 1876], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -Halifax [printed 1878], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1881], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of “Ward and Lock’s -Standard Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The Phantom Ship. 3 vols. -London, 1839, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1847, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1849, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1874, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The Pirate and the Three Cutters. -Illustrated with engravings from -drawings by C. Stanfield. London, -1836, 4to.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With engravings -by Stanfield. London, -1848, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— New edition. (<i>Bohn’s Illustrated -Library.</i>) London, 1849, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With a -Memoir of the Author, etc. -London, Beccles [printed 1877], -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” series.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The Pirate and the Three Cutters. -Another edition. With illustrations. -London [1886], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Poor Jack. With illustrations by -C. Stanfield. London, 1840, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1880, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1883], 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the series of “Notable -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations -by C. Stanfield. London, -1883, 8vo.</p> - -<p>The Privateer’s Man, one hundred -years ago. 2 vols. London, -1846, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1853, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. 2 vols. -London, 1854, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— The Privateersman. Adventures -by sea and land, in -civil and savage life, one -hundred years ago. (<i>Bohn’s -Illustrated Library.</i>) London, -1860, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Rattlin the Reefer. London, -1838, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. lxix. of the “Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 16mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, 1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1875], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. Edited [or -rather written] by Captain -Marryat. [“Handy-Volume -Marryat” edition.] London -[1880], 16mo.</p> - -<p>The Settlers in Canada. 2 vols. -London, 1844, 8vo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Settlers in Canada. Another -edition. London, 1854, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1855, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— New edition. With illustrations -by Gilbert and Dalziel. -London, 1860, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Part of “Bohn’s Illustrated -Library.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1886], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London -[1887], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Snarleyyow; or, the Dog Fiend. -3 vols. London, 1837, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. Paris, 1837, -8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1847, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>No. cvii. of the “Standard -Novels.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1856, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— The Dog Fiend; or, Snarleyyow. -London, 1857, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the series entitled “Railway -Library.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London, New York, -1873, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. [Handy-Volume -Marryat.] London -[1880], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Suggestions for the Abolition of -the present System of Impressment -in the Naval Service. -London, 1822, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Valerie, an Autobiography. 2 -vols. London, 1849, 12mo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. With illustrations. -London [1873], 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Another edition. London, -1852, 16mo.</p> - -<p>—— Author’s Copyright edition. -London [1875], 8vo.</p> - -<p>Valerie, an Autobiography. Another -edition. London [1880], -16mo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>One of the “Handy-Volume -Marryat” Series.</p> - -</div> - -<h3>II. APPENDIX.</h3> - -<h4>BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC.</h4> - -<p>Cary, T. G.—Letter to a lady in -France on the supposed failure -of a National Bank … with -answers to enquiries concerning -the books of Captain Marryat -and Mr. Dickens. Boston -[U.S.], 1843, 8vo.</p> - -<p>—— Second edition. Boston -[U.S.], 1844, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Marryat, Florence.—Life and -Letters of Captain Marryat. 2 -vols. London, 1872, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Marryat, Frederick.—A Reply to -Captain Marryat’s statements -relative to the coloured West -Indians, in his work entitled, -“A Diary in America.” [Consisting -of letters which appeared -in the “St. George’s Chronicle.”] -London, 1840, 8vo.</p> - -<p>Marshall, John.—Royal Naval -Biography. 4 vols. London, -1823-35, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Frederick Marryat, vol. iii., pp. -261-270.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Poe, Edgar A.—The Literati, etc. -New York, 1850, 8vo.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Frederick Marryat, pp. 456-460.</p> - -</div> - -<h4>MAGAZINE ARTICLES.</h4> - -<p>Marryat, Frederick.—New -Monthly Magazine, vol. 48, -1836, pp. 228-232.—Bentley’s -Miscellany (with portrait), by -C. Whitehead, vol. 24, 1848,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span> -pp. 524-530; same article, -Eclectic Magazine, vol. 16, -1849, pp. 135-139, and Littell’s -Living Age, vol. 19, -pp. 540-543.—Temple Bar, -vol. 37, 1873, pp. 100-106.—London -Society, by T. H. S. -Escott, vol. 23, 1873, pp. 34-44.</p> - -<p>—— <i>and his Diary</i>. Southern -Literary Messenger, vol. 7, -1841, pp. 253-276.</p> - -<p>—— <i>at Langham</i>. Cornhill -Magazine, vol. 16, 1867, pp. -149-161.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Life and Letters of</i>. -Chambers’s Journal, 1872, pp. -691-695.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Midshipman Easy</i>. Monthly -Review, vol. 3 N.S., 1836, pp. -211-223.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Newton Forster</i>. Westminster -Review, vol. 16, 1832, pp. 390-394.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Novels</i>. Fraser’s Magazine, -vol. 17, 1838, pp. 571-577.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Percival Keene</i>. Tait’s Edinburgh -Magazine, vol. 9 N.S., -1842, pp. 670-680,—Monthly -Review, vol. 3 N.S., 1842, pp. -213-223.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Sea Novels</i>. Dublin University -Magazine, vol. 47, 1856, -pp. 294-308; same article, -Eclectic Magazine, vol. 38, pp. -46-60.—Cornhill Magazine, by -J. Hannay, vol. 27, 1873, pp. -170-190; same article, Littell’s -Living Age, vol. 116, pp. 676-689, -and Eclectic Magazine, -vol. 17 N.S., pp. 464-478.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Settlers in Canada</i>. Tait’s -Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 11, -1844, pp. 807, 808.</p> - -<p>—— <i>Snarleyyow</i>. Dublin University -Magazine, vol. 10, 1837, -pp. 325-338.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> - -<h4>III. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.</h4> - -<table summary="Works, with publication dates"> - <tr> - <td>Suggestions for the abolition of the present system of Impressment in the Naval Service</td> - <td class="tdr">1822</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Adventures of a Naval Officer; or, Frank Mildmay</td> - <td class="tdr">1829</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The King’s Own</td> - <td class="tdr">1830</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Newton Forster</td> - <td class="tdr">1832</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Peter Simple</td> - <td class="tdr">1834</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Jacob Faithful</td> - <td class="tdr">1834</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Pacha of Many Tales</td> - <td class="tdr">1835</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Mr. Midshipman Easy</td> - <td class="tdr">1836</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Japhet in Search of a Father</td> - <td class="tdr">1836</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Pirate and the Three Cutters</td> - <td class="tdr">1836</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Code of Signals</td> - <td class="tdr">1837</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Snarleyyow; or, the Dog Fiend</td> - <td class="tdr">1837</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Rattlin the Reefer</td> - <td class="tdr">1838</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Phantom Ship</td> - <td class="tdr">1839</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Diary in America</td> - <td class="tdr">1839</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Olla Podrida</td> - <td class="tdr">1840</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Poor Jack</td> - <td class="tdr">1840</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Masterman Ready</td> - <td class="tdr">1841</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Joseph Rushbrook; or, The Poacher</td> - <td class="tdr">1841</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Percival Keene</td> - <td class="tdr">1842</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet</td> - <td class="tdr">1843</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Settlers in Canada</td> - <td class="tdr">1844</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Mission; or, Scenes in Africa</td> - <td class="tdr">1845</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Privateer’s Man</td> - <td class="tdr">1846</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Children of the New Forest</td> - <td class="tdr">1847</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Little Savage</td> - <td class="tdr">1848-49</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Valerie</td> - <td class="tdr">1849</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Printed by <span class="smcap">Walter Scott</span>, Felling, -Newcastle-on-Tyne</i></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 id="THE_SCOTT_LIBRARY">THE SCOTT LIBRARY.</h2> - -<p class="center">Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1s. 6d. per Volume.</p> - -<p class="center">VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED—</p> - -<ul> - -<li class="book">1 MALORY’S ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR AND THE -Quest of the Holy Grail. Edited by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">2 THOREAU’S WALDEN. WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE -by Will H. Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">3 THOREAU’S “WEEK.” WITH PREFATORY NOTE BY -Will H. Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">4 THOREAU’S ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, -by Will H. Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">5 CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, ETC. -By Thomas De Quincey. With Introductory Note by William Sharp.</li> - -<li class="book">6 LANDOR’S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. SELECTED, -with Introduction, by Havelock Ellis.</li> - -<li class="book">7 PLUTARCH’S LIVES (LANGHORNE). WITH INTRODUCTORY -Note by B. J. Snell, M.A.</li> - -<li class="book">8 BROWNE’S RELIGIO MEDICI, ETC. WITH INTRODUCTION -by J. Addington Symonds.</li> - -<li class="book">9 SHELLEY’S ESSAYS AND LETTERS. EDITED, WITH -Introductory Note, by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">10 SWIFT’S PROSE WRITINGS. CHOSEN AND ARRANGED, -with Introduction, by Walter Lewin.</li> - -<li class="book">11 MY STUDY WINDOWS. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. -With Introduction by R. Garnett, LL.D.</li> - -<li class="book">12 LOWELL’S ESSAYS ON THE ENGLISH POETS. WITH -a new Introduction by Mr. Lowell.</li> - -<li class="book">13 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. -With a Prefatory Note by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">14 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. SELECTED FROM -Cunningham’s <i>Lives</i>. Edited by William Sharp.</li> - -<li class="book">15 BYRON’S LETTERS AND JOURNALS. SELECTED, -with Introduction, by Mathilde Blind.</li> - -<li class="book">16 LEIGH HUNT’S ESSAYS. WITH INTRODUCTION AND -Notes by Arthur Symons.</li> - -<li class="book">17 LONGFELLOW’S “HYPERION,” “KAVANAH,” AND -“The Trouveres.” With Introduction by W. Tirebuck.</li> - -<li class="book">18 GREAT MUSICAL COMPOSERS. BY G. F. FERRIS. -Edited, with Introduction, by Mrs. William Sharp.</li> - -<li class="book">19 THE MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. EDITED -by Alice Zimmern.</li> - -<li class="book">20 THE TEACHING OF EPICTETUS. TRANSLATED FROM -the Greek, with Introduction and Notes, by T. W. Rolleston.</li> - -<li class="book">21 SELECTIONS FROM SENECA. WITH INTRODUCTION -by Walter Clode.</li> - -<li class="book">22 SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA. BY WALT WHITMAN. -Revised by the Author, with fresh Preface.</li> - -<li class="book">23 DEMOCRATIC VISTAS, AND OTHER PAPERS. BY -Walt Whitman. (Published by arrangement with the Author.)</li> - -<li class="book">24 WHITE’S NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. WITH -a Preface by Richard Jefferies.</li> - -<li class="book">25 DEFOE’S CAPTAIN SINGLETON. EDITED, WITH -Introduction, by H. Halliday Sparling.</li> - -<li class="book">26 MAZZINI’S ESSAYS: LITERARY, POLITICAL, AND -Religious. With Introduction by William Clarke.</li> - -<li class="book">27 PROSE WRITINGS OF HEINE. WITH INTRODUCTION -by Havelock Ellis.</li> - -<li class="book">28 REYNOLDS’S DISCOURSES. WITH INTRODUCTION -by Helen Zimmern.</li> - -<li class="book">29 PAPERS OF STEELE AND ADDISON. EDITED BY -Walter Lewin.</li> - -<li class="book">30 BURNS’S LETTERS. SELECTED AND ARRANGED, -with Introduction, by J. Logie Robertson, M.A.</li> - -<li class="book">31 VOLSUNGA SAGA. <span class="smcap">William Morris.</span> WITH INTRODUCTION -by H. H. Sparling.</li> - -<li class="book">32 SARTOR RESARTUS. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. WITH -Introduction by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">33 SELECT WRITINGS OF EMERSON. WITH INTRODUCTION -by Percival Chubb.</li> - -<li class="book">34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LORD HERBERT. EDITED, -with an Introduction, by Will H. Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">35 ENGLISH PROSE, FROM MAUNDEVILLE TO -Thackeray. Chosen and Edited by Arthur Galton.</li> - -<li class="book">36 THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY, AND OTHER PLAYS. BY -Henrik Ibsen. Edited, with an Introduction, by Havelock Ellis.</li> - -<li class="book">37 IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. EDITED AND -Selected by W. B. Yeats.</li> - -<li class="book">38 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL -Introduction and Notes by Stuart J. Reid.</li> - -<li class="book">39 ESSAYS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. SELECTED AND -Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Frank Carr.</li> - -<li class="book">40 LANDOR’S PENTAMERON, AND OTHER IMAGINARY -Conversations. Edited, with a Preface, by H. Ellis.</li> - -<li class="book">41 POE’S TALES AND ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, -by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">42 VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH. -Edited, with Preface, by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">43 POLITICAL ORATIONS, FROM WENTWORTH TO -Macaulay. Edited, with Introduction, by William Clarke.</li> - -<li class="book">44 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY -Oliver Wendell Holmes.</li> - -<li class="book">45 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY OLIVER -Wendell Holmes.</li> - -<li class="book">46 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY -Oliver Wendell Holmes.</li> - -<li class="book">47 LORD CHESTERFIELD’S LETTERS TO HIS SON. -Selected, with Introduction, by Charles Sayle.</li> - -<li class="book">48 STORIES FROM CARLETON. SELECTED, WITH INTRODUCTION, -by W. Yeats</li> - -<li class="book">49 JANE EYRE. BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË. EDITED BY -Clement K. Shorter.</li> - -<li class="book">50 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. EDITED BY LOTHROP -Withington, with a Preface by Dr. Furnivall.</li> - -<li class="book">51 THE PROSE WRITINGS OF THOMAS DAVIS. EDITED -by T. W. Rolleston.</li> - -<li class="book">52 SPENCE’S ANECDOTES. A SELECTION. EDITED, -with an Introduction and Notes, by John Underhill.</li> - -<li class="book">53 MORE’S UTOPIA, AND LIFE OF EDWARD V. EDITED, -with an Introduction, by Maurice Adams.</li> - -<li class="book">54 SADI’S GULISTAN, OR FLOWER GARDEN. TRANSLATED, -with an Essay, by James Ross.</li> - -<li class="book">55 ENGLISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. EDITED BY -E. Sidney Hartland.</li> - -<li class="book">56 NORTHERN STUDIES. BY EDMUND GOSSE. WITH -a Note by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">57 EARLY REVIEWS OF GREAT WRITERS. EDITED BY -E. Stevenson.</li> - -<li class="book">58 ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS. WITH GEORGE HENRY -Lewes’s Essay on Aristotle prefixed.</li> - -<li class="book">59 LANDOR’S PERICLES AND ASPASIA. EDITED, WITH -an Introduction, by Havelock Ellis.</li> - -<li class="book">60 ANNALS OF TACITUS. THOMAS GORDON’S TRANSLATION. -Edited, with an Introduction, by Arthur Galton.</li> - -<li class="book">61 ESSAYS OF ELIA. BY CHARLES LAMB. EDITED, -with an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">62 BALZAC’S SHORTER STORIES. TRANSLATED BY -William Wilson and the Count Stenbock.</li> - -<li class="book">63 COMEDIES OF DE MUSSET. EDITED, WITH AN -Introductory Note, by S. L. Gwynn.</li> - -<li class="book">64 CORAL REEFS. BY CHARLES DARWIN. EDITED, -with an Introduction, by Dr. J. W. Williams.</li> - -<li class="book">65 SHERIDAN’S PLAYS. EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, -by Rudolf Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">66 OUR VILLAGE. BY MISS MITFORD. EDITED, WITH -an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">67 MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK, AND OTHER STORIES. -By Charles Dickens. With Introduction by Frank T. Marzials.</li> - -<li class="book">68 TALES FROM WONDERLAND. BY RUDOLPH -Baumbach. Translated by Helen B. Dole.</li> - -<li class="book">69 ESSAYS AND PAPERS BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. EDITED -by Walter Jerrold.</li> - -<li class="book">70 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. BY -Mary Wollstonecraft. Introduction by Mrs. E. Robins Pennell.</li> - -<li class="book">71 “THE ATHENIAN ORACLE.” A SELECTION. EDITED -by John Underhill, with Prefatory Note by Walter Besant.</li> - -<li class="book">72 ESSAYS OF SAINT-BEUVE. TRANSLATED AND -Edited, with an Introduction, by Elizabeth Lee.</li> - -<li class="book">73 SELECTIONS FROM PLATO. FROM THE TRANSLATION -of Sydenham and Taylor. Edited by T. W. Rolleston.</li> - -<li class="book">74 HEINE’S ITALIAN TRAVEL SKETCHES, ETC. TRANSLATED -by Elizabeth A. Sharp. With an Introduction from the French of -Theophile Gautier.</li> - -<li class="book">75 SCHILLER’S MAID OF ORLEANS. TRANSLATED, -with an Introduction, by Major-General Patrick Maxwell.</li> - -<li class="book">76 SELECTIONS FROM SYDNEY SMITH. EDITED, WITH -an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">77 THE NEW SPIRIT. BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.</li> - -<li class="book">78 THE BOOK OF MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES. FROM -the “Morte d’Arthur.” Edited by Ernest Rhys. [This, together with -No. 1, forms the complete “Morte d’Arthur.”]</li> - -<li class="book">79 ESSAYS AND APHORISMS. BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS. -With an Introduction by E. A. Helps.</li> - -<li class="book">80 ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE. SELECTED, WITH A -Prefatory Note, by Percival Chubb.</li> - -<li class="book">81 THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON. BY W. M. -Thackeray. Edited by F. T. Marzials.</li> - -<li class="book">82 SCHILLER’S WILLIAM TELL. TRANSLATED, WITH -an Introduction, by Major-General Patrick Maxwell.</li> - -<li class="book">83 CARLYLE’S ESSAYS ON GERMAN LITERATURE. -With an Introduction by Ernest Rhys.</li> - -<li class="book">84 PLAYS AND DRAMATIC ESSAYS OF CHARLES LAMB. -Edited, with an Introduction, by Rudolf Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">85 THE PROSE OF WORDSWORTH. SELECTED AND -Edited, with an Introduction, by Professor William Knight.</li> - -<li class="book">86 ESSAYS, DIALOGUES, AND THOUGHTS OF COUNT -Giacomo Leopardi. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by -Major-General Patrick Maxwell.</li> - -<li class="book">87 THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL: A RUSSIAN COMEDY. -By Nikolai V. Gogol. Translated from the original, with an Introduction -and Notes, by Arthur A. Sykes.</li> - -<li class="book">88 ESSAYS AND APOTHEGMS OF FRANCIS, LORD BACON: -Edited, with an Introduction, by John Buchan.</li> - -<li class="book">89 PROSE OF MILTON: SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH -an Introduction, by Richard Garnett, LL.D.</li> - -<li class="book">90 THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. TRANSLATED BY -Thomas Taylor, with an Introduction by Theodore Wratislaw.</li> - -<li class="book">91 PASSAGES FROM FROISSART. WITH AN INTRODUCTION -by Frank T. Marzials.</li> - -<li class="book">92 THE PROSE AND TABLE TALK OF COLERIDGE. -Edited by W. H. Dircks.</li> - -<li class="book">93 HEINE IN ART AND LETTERS. TRANSLATED BY -Elizabeth A. Sharp.</li> - -<li class="book">94 SELECTED ESSAYS OF DE QUINCEY. WITH AN -Introduction by Sir George Douglas, Bart.</li> - -</ul> - -<p class="center smaller">London: <span class="smcap">Walter Scott, Limited</span>, Paternoster Square.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>Great Writers.</h2> - -<p class="center">A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES.</p> - -<p class="center">Edited by <span class="smcap">E. Robertson</span> and <span class="smcap">F. T. Marzials</span>.</p> - -<p class="center">Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1/6.</p> - -<table summary="Books and their authors"> - <tr> - <td>Longfellow</td> - <td class="right">By Professor Eric S. Robertson</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Coleridge</td> - <td class="right">By Hall Caine</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Dickens</td> - <td class="right">By Frank T. Marzials</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Dante Gabriel Rossetti</td> - <td class="right">By J. Knight</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Samuel Johnson</td> - <td class="right">By Colonel F. Grant</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Darwin</td> - <td class="right">By G. T. Bettany</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Charlotte Brontë</td> - <td class="right">By A. Birrell</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Carlyle</td> - <td class="right">By R. Garnett, LL.D.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Adam Smith</td> - <td class="right">By R. B. Haldane, M.P.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Keats</td> - <td class="right">By W. M. Rossetti</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Shelley</td> - <td class="right">By William Sharp</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Smollett</td> - <td class="right">By David Hannay</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Goldsmith</td> - <td class="right">By Austin Dobson</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Scott</td> - <td class="right">By Professor Yonge</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Burns</td> - <td class="right">By Professor Blackie</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Victor Hugo</td> - <td class="right">By Frank T. Marzials</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Emerson</td> - <td class="right">By R. Garnett, LL. D.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Goethe</td> - <td class="right">By James Sime</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Congreve</td> - <td class="right">By Edmund Gosse</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Bunyan</td> - <td class="right">By Canon Venables</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Crabbe</td> - <td class="right">By T. E. Kebbel</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Heine</td> - <td class="right">By William Sharp</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Mill</td> - <td class="right">By W. L. Courtney</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Schiller</td> - <td class="right">By Henry W. Nevinson</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Marryat</td> - <td class="right">By David Hannay</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Lessing</td> - <td class="right">By T. W. Rolleston</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Milton</td> - <td class="right">By R Garnett, LL.D.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Balzac</td> - <td class="right">By Frederick Wedmore</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>George Eliot</td> - <td class="right">By Oscar Browning</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Jane Austen</td> - <td class="right">By Goldwin Smith</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Browning</td> - <td class="right">By William Sharp</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Byron</td> - <td class="right">By Hon. Roden Noel</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Hawthorne</td> - <td class="right">By Moncure D. Conway</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Schopenhauer</td> - <td class="right">By Professor Wallace</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Sheridan</td> - <td class="right">By Lloyd Sanders</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Thackeray</td> - <td class="right">By H. Merivale and F. T. Marzials</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Cervantes</td> - <td class="right">By H. E. Watts</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Voltaire</td> - <td class="right">By Francis Espinasse</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Leigh Hunt</td> - <td class="right">By Cosmo Monkhouse</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Whittier</td> - <td class="right">By W. J. Linton</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Renan</td> - <td class="right">By Francis Espinasse</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class="center">A Complete Bibliography to each Volume, by -<span class="smcap">J. P. Anderson</span>, British Museum, London.</p> - -<p class="center">Library Edition of “Great Writers,” Demy 8vo, 2/6.</p> - -<p class="center smaller">London: <span class="smcap">Walter Scott, Limited</span>.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>LIBRARY OF HUMOUR</h2> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth Elegant, Large Crown 8vo, Price 3/6 per vol.</i></p> - -<p class="center"><i>VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED.</i></p> - -<ul> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF FRANCE. Translated, with an -Introduction and Notes, by Elizabeth Lee. With -numerous Illustrations by Paul Frénzeny.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF GERMANY. Translated, with an -Introduction and Notes, by Hans Müller-Casenov. -With numerous Illustrations by C. E. Brock.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF ITALY. Translated, with an Introduction -and Notes, by A. Werner. With 50 Illustrations -and a Frontispiece by Arturo Faldi.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF AMERICA. Selected with a -copious Biographical Index of American Humorists, by -James Barr.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF HOLLAND. Translated, with -an Introduction and Notes, by A. Werner. With -numerous Illustrations by Dudley Hardy.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF IRELAND. Selected by D. J. -O’Donoghue. With numerous Illustrations by Oliver -Paque.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF SPAIN. Translated, with an Introduction -and Notes, by S. Taylor. With numerous -Illustrations by H. R. Millar.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF RUSSIA. Translated, with Notes, -by E. L. Boole, and an Introduction by Stepniak. -With 50 Illustrations by Paul Frénzeny.</li> - -<li class="book">THE HUMOUR OF JAPAN. Translated, with an -Introduction, by A. M. With Illustrations by George -Bigot (from Drawings made in Japan). [<i>In preparation.</i>]</li> - -</ul> - -<p class="center smaller">London: <span class="smcap">Walter Scott, Limited</span>, Paternoster Square.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>IBSEN’S PROSE DRAMAS.</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Edited by WILLIAM ARCHER.</span></p> - -<p class="center">Complete in Five Vols. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Price 3/6 each.</p> - -<p class="center">Set of Five Vols., in Case, 17/6; in Half Morocco, in Case, 32/6.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“<i>We seem at last to be shown men and women as they are; and at first it -is more than we can endure.… All Ibsen’s characters speak and act as if -they were hypnotised, and under their creator’s imperious demand to reveal -themselves. There never was such a mirror held up to nature before: it is -too terrible.… Yet we must return to Ibsen, with his remorseless surgery, -his remorseless electric-light, until we, too, have grown strong and learned to -face the naked—if necessary, the flayed and bleeding—reality.</i>”—<span class="smcap">Speaker</span> -(London).</p> - -</div> - -<ul> - -<li class="book">VOL. I. “A DOLL’S HOUSE,” “THE LEAGUE OF -YOUTH,” and “THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY.” With -Portrait of the Author, and Biographical Introduction by -<span class="smcap">William Archer</span>.</li> - -<li class="book">Vol. II. “GHOSTS,” “AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,” -and “THE WILD DUCK.” With an Introductory Note.</li> - -<li class="book">Vol. III. “LADY INGER OF ÖSTRÅT,” “THE VIKINGS -AT HELGELAND,” “THE PRETENDERS.” With an -Introductory Note and Portrait of Ibsen.</li> - -<li class="book">Vol. IV. “EMPEROR AND GALILEAN.” With an -Introductory Note by <span class="smcap">William Archer</span>.</li> - -<li class="book">Vol. V. “ROSMERSHOLM,” “THE LADY FROM THE -SEA,” “HEDDA GABLER.” Translated by <span class="smcap">William -Archer</span>. With an Introductory Note.</li> - -</ul> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>The sequence of the plays <em>in each volume</em> is chronological; the complete -set of volumes comprising the dramas thus presents them in chronological -order.</p> - -<p>“The art of prose translation does not perhaps enjoy a very high literary -status in England, but we have no hesitation in numbering the present -version of Ibsen, so far as it has gone (Vols. I. and II.), among the very -best achievements, in that kind, of our generation.”—<i>Academy.</i></p> - -<p>“We have seldom, if ever, met with a translation so absolutely -idiomatic.”—<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center smaller">London: <span class="smcap">Walter Scott, Limited</span>, Paternoster Square.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>NEW ENGLAND LIBRARY.</h2> - -<p class="center">GRAVURE EDITION.</p> - -<p class="center">PRINTED ON ANTIQUE PAPER. 2s. 6d. 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With an Engraving of “The Orphans,” by Gainsborough.</li> -<li class="book">16 SONNETS OF EUROPE. With Portrait of J. A. Symonds.</li> -<li class="book">17 SYDNEY DOBELL. With Portrait of Sydney Dobell.</li> -<li class="book">18 HERRICK. With Portrait of Herrick.</li> -<li class="book">19 BALLADS AND RONDEAUS. Portrait of W. E. Henley.</li> -<li class="book">20 IRISH MINSTRELSY. With Portrait of Thomas Davis.</li> -<li class="book">21 PARADISE LOST. With Portrait of Milton.</li> -<li class="book">22 FAIRY MUSIC. Engraving from Drawing by C. E. Brock.</li> -<li class="book">23 GOLDEN TREASURY. With Engraving of Virgin Mother.</li> -<li class="book">24 AMERICAN SONNETS. With Portrait of J. R. Lowell.</li> -<li class="book">25 IMITATION OF CHRIST. With Engraving, “Ecce Homo.”</li> -<li class="book">26 PAINTER POETS. With Portrait of Walter Crane.</li> -<li class="book">27 WOMEN POETS. With Portrait of Mrs. Browning.</li> -<li class="book">28 POEMS OF HON. RODEN NOEL. Portrait of Hon. R. Noel.</li> -<li class="book">29 AMERICAN HUMOROUS VERSE. Portrait of Mark Twain.</li> -<li class="book">30 SONGS OF FREEDOM. With Portrait of William Morris.</li> -<li class="book">31 SCOTTISH MINOR POETS. With Portrait of R. Tannahill.</li> -<li class="book">32 CONTEMPORARY SCOTTISH VERSE. With Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson.</li> -<li class="book">33 PARADISE REGAINED. With Portrait of Milton.</li> -<li class="book">34 CAVALIER POETS. With Portrait of Suckling.</li> -<li class="book">35 HUMOROUS POEMS. With Portrait of Hood.</li> -<li class="book">36 HERBERT. With Portrait of Herbert.</li> -<li class="book">37 POE. With Portrait of Poe.</li> -<li class="book">38 OWEN MEREDITH. With Portrait of late Lord Lytton.</li> -<li class="book">39 LOVE LYRICS. With Portrait of Raleigh.</li> -<li class="book">40 GERMAN BALLADS. With Portrait of Schiller.</li> -<li class="book">41 CAMPBELL. With Portrait of Campbell.</li> -<li class="book">42 CANADIAN POEMS. With View of Mount Stephen.</li> -<li class="book">43 EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. With Portrait of Earl of Surrey.</li> -<li class="book">44 ALLAN RAMSAY. With Portrait of Ramsay.</li> -<li class="book">45 SPENSER. With Portrait of Spenser.</li> -<li class="book">46 CHATTERTON. With Engraving, “The Death of Chatterton.”</li> -<li class="book">47 COWPER. With Portrait of Cowper.</li> -<li class="book">48 CHAUCER. With Portrait of Chaucer.</li> -<li class="book">49 COLERIDGE. With Portrait of Coleridge.</li> -<li class="book">50 POPE. With Portrait of Pope.</li> -<li class="book">51 BYRON. Miscellaneous. } With Portraits of Byron.</li> -<li class="book">52 BYRON. Don Juan. }</li> -<li class="book">53 JACOBITE SONGS. With Portrait of Prince Charlie.</li> -<li class="book">54 BORDER BALLADS. With View of Neidpath Castle.</li> -<li class="book">55 AUSTRALIAN BALLADS. With Portrait of A. L. Gordon.</li> -<li class="book">56 HOGG. With Portrait of Hogg.</li> -<li class="book">57 GOLDSMITH. With Portrait of Goldsmith.</li> -<li class="book">58 MOORE. With Portrait of Moore.</li> -<li class="book">59 DORA GREENWELL. With Portrait of Dora Greenwell.</li> -<li class="book">60 BLAKE. With Portrait of Blake.</li> -<li class="book">61 POEMS OF NATURE. With Portrait of Andrew Lang.</li> -<li class="book">62 PRAED. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">63 SOUTHEY. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">64 HUGO. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">65 GOETHE. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">66 BERANGER. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">67 HEINE. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">68 SEA MUSIC. With View of Corbière Rocks, Jersey.</li> -<li class="book">69 SONG-TIDE. With Portrait of Philip Bourke Marston.</li> -<li class="book">70 LADY OF LYONS. With Portrait of Bulwer Lytton.</li> -<li class="book">71 SHAKESPEARE: Songs and Sonnets. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">72 CRABBE. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">73 BEN JONSON. With Portrait.</li> -<li class="book">74 CRADLE SONGS. With Drawing by T. Eyre Macklin.</li> -</ul> - -<p class="center smaller">London: <span class="smcap">Walter Scott, Limited</span>, Paternoster Square.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>MR. GEORGE MOORE’S NEW NOVEL.</h2> - -<p class="center">Cloth, Crown 8vo, Price 6s.</p> - -<h3>ESTHER WATERS: A Novel.</h3> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By GEORGE MOORE.</span></p> - -<p>“Strong, vivid, sober, yet undaunted in its realism, full to the brim of observation -of life and character, <i>Esther Waters</i> is not only immeasurably superior -to anything the author has ever written before, but it is one of the most -remarkable works that has appeared in print this year, and one which does -credit not only to the author, but the country in which it has been written.”—<i>The -World.</i></p> - -<p>“As we live the book through again in memory, we feel more and more confident -that Mr. Moore has once for all vindicated his position among the half-dozen -living novelists of whom the historian of English literature will have to -take account.”—<i>Daily Chronicle.</i></p> - -<p>“It may be as well to set down, beyond possibility of misapprehension, my -belief that in <i>Esther Waters</i> we have the most artistic, the most complete, and -the most inevitable work of fiction that has been written in England for at -least two years.”—A.T.Q.C. in <i>The Speaker</i>.</p> - -<p>“Hardly since the time of Defoe have the habits and manners of the -‘masses’ been delineated as they are delineated here.… <i>Esther Waters</i> is -the best story that he (Mr. Moore) has written, and one on which he may be -heartily congratulated.”—<i>Globe.</i></p> - -<p>“Matthew Arnold, reviewing one of Tolstoï’s novels, remarked that the -Russian novelist seemed to write because the thing happened so, and for no -other reason. That is precisely the merit of Mr. Moore’s book.… It seems -inevitable.”—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> - -<h3>OTHER NOVELS BY GEORGE MOORE.</h3> - -<p class="center">Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d. each.</p> - -<ul> - -<li class="book">A DRAMA IN MUSLIN. Seventh Edition.</li> - -<li class="book">A MODERN LOVER. New Edition.</li> - -<li class="book">A MUMMER’S WIFE. Twentieth Edition.</li> - -<li class="book">VAIN FORTUNE. New Edition. With Five Illustrations by Maurice Greiffenhagen. -Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.</li> - -<li class="book">IMPRESSIONS AND OPINIONS. By Geo. Moore. -Second Edition, Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.</li> - -<li class="book">MODERN PAINTING. By George Moore.</li> - -</ul> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Of the very few books on art that painters and critics should on no account -leave unread this is surely one.”—<i>Studio.</i></p> - -<p>“His book is one of the best books about pictures that have come into our -hands for some years.”—<i>St. James’s Gazette.</i></p> - -<p>“A more original, a better informed, a more suggestive, and, let us add, a -more amusing work on the art of to-day, we have never read than this volume.”—<i>Glasgow -Herald.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center smaller">London: <span class="smcap">Walter Scott, Limited</span>, Paternoster Square.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Life of Frederick Marryat, by David Hannay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FREDERICK MARRYAT *** - -***** This file should be named 53796-h.htm or 53796-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/7/9/53796/ - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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