We have seen Mr. Waterton fling himself upon a snake; we shall now mount him upon a crocodile, undertaking that this shall be the last of his feats exhibited to the reader. He had baited for a cayman or crocodile, the hook was swallowed, and the object was to pull the animal up, and to secure him. "If you pull him up," say the Indians, "as soon as he sees you on the brink of the river, he will run at you and destroy you." "Never mind," says our traveller, "pull away, and leave the rest to me." And accordingly he places himself upon the shore, with the mast of the canoe in his hand, ready to force it down the throat of the crocodile as soon as he makes his appearance.

"By the time the cayman was within two yards of me, I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation; I instantly dropped the mast, sprung up, and jumped on his back, turning half round as I vaulted, so that I gained my seat with my face in a right position. I immediately seized his fore legs, and, by main force, twisted them on his back; thus they served me for a bridle.

"He now seemed to have recovered from his surprise, and probably fancying himself in hostile company, he began to plunge furiously, and lashed the sand with his long and powerful tail. I was out of reach of the strokes of it, by being near his head. He continued to plunge and strike, and made my seat very uncomfortable. It must have been a fine sight for an unoccupied spectator.

"The people roared out in triumph, and were so vociferous, that it was some time before they heard me tell them to pull me and my beast of burden farther in land. I was apprehensive the rope might break, and then there would have been every chance of going down to the regions under water with the cayman. That would have been more perilous than Arion's marine morning ride :

'Delphini insidens, vada cærula sulcat Arion.'

"The people now dragged us above forty yards on the sand: it was the first and last time I was ever on a cayman's back. Should it be asked, how I managed to keep my seat, I would answer-I hunted some years with Lord Darlington's foxhounds."-(pp. 231, 232.)

The Yorkshire gentlemen have long been famous for their equestrian skill, but Mr. Waterton is the first among them of whom it could be said that he has a fine hand upon a crocodile. This accursed animal, so ridden by Mr. Waterton, is the scourge and terror of all the large rivers in South America near the Line. Their boldness is such, that a cayman has sometimes come out of the Oroonoque, at Angustura, near the public walks where the people were assembled, seized a full-grown man, as big as Sir William Curtis after dinner, and hurried him into the bed of the river for his food. The governor of Angustura witnessed this circumstance himself.

Our Eboracic traveller had now been nearly eleven months in the desert, and not in vain. Shall we express our doubts, or shall we confidently state at once the immense wealth he had acquired ?—a

prodigious variety of insects, two hundred and thirty birds, ten land tortoises, five armadillas, two large serpents, a sloth, an ant-bear, and a cayman. At Liverpool, the Custom-house officers, men ignorant of Linnæus, got hold of his collection, detained it six weeks, and, in spite of remonstrances to the Treasury, he was forced to pay very high duties. This is really perfectly absurd-that a man of science cannot bring a pickled armadilla, for a collection of natural history, without paying a tax for it. This surely must have happened in the dark days of Nicolas. We cannot doubt but that such paltry exactions have been swept away by the manly and liberal policy of Robinson and Huskisson. That a great people should compel an individual to make them a payment before he can be permitted to land a stuffed snake upon their shores, is, of all the paltry Custom-house robberies we ever heard of, the most mean and contemptible-but Major rerum ordo nacitur.

The fourth journey of Mr. Waterton is to the United States. It is pleasantly written; but our author does not appear as much at home among men as among beasts.

Shooting, stuffing, and pursuing are his occupations. He is lost in places where there are no bushes, snakes, nor Indians—but he is full of good and amiable feeling wherever he goes. We cannot avoid introducing the following passage :—

"The steam-boat from Quebec to Montreal had above five hundred Irish emigrants on board. They were going 'they hardly knew whither,' far away from dear Ireland. It made one's heart ache to see them all huddled together, without any expectation of ever revisiting their native soil. We feared that the sorrow of leaving home for ever, the miserable accommodations on board the ship which had brought them away, and the tossing of the angry ocean, in a long and dreary voyage, would have rendered them callous to good behaviour. But it was quite otherwise. They conducted themselves with great propriety. Every American on board seemed to feel for them. And then, they were so full of wretchedness. Need and oppression stared within their eyes. Upon their backs hung ragged misery. The world was not their friend.' 'Poor dear Ireland,' exclaimed an aged female, as I was talking to her, ' I shall never see it any more!'"-(pp. 259, 260).

And thus it is in every region of the earth! There is no country where an Englishman can set his foot that he does not meet these miserable victims of English cruelty and oppression-banished from their country by the stupidity, bigotry, and meanness of the English people, who trample on their liberty and conscience, because each man is afraid, in another reign, of being out of favour, and losing his share in the spoil.

We are always glad to see America praised (slavery excepted). And yet there is still, we fear, a party in this country, who are glad to pay their court to the timid and the feeble, by sneering at this great spectacle of human happiness. We never think of it without considering it as a great lesson to the people of England, to look into

their own affairs, to watch and suspect their rulers, and not to be defrauded of happiness and money by pompous names, and false pretences.

"Our western brother is in possession of a country replete with everything that can contribute to the happiness and comfort of mankind. His code of laws, purified by experience and common sense, has fully answered the expectations of the public. By acting up to the true spirit of this code, he has reaped immense advantages from it. His advancement, as a nation, has been rapid beyond all calculation; and, young as he is, it may be remarked, without any impropriety, that he is now actually reading a salutary lesson to the rest of the civilized world."-(p. 273.)

Now, what shall we say, after all, of Mr. Waterton? That he has spent a great part of his life in wandering in the wild scenes he describes, and that he describes them with entertaining zeal and real feeling. His stories draw largely sometimes on our faith; but a man who lives in the woods of Cayenne must do many odd things, and see many odd things-things utterly unknown to the dwellers in Hackney and Highgate. We do not want to rein up Mr. Waterton too tightly -because we are convinced he goes best with his head free. But a little less of apostrophe, and some faint suspicion of his own powers of humour, would improve this gentleman's style. As it is, he has a considerable talent at describing. He abounds with good feeling; and has written a very entertaining book, which hurries the reader out of his European parlour, into the heart of tropical forests, and gives, over the rules and the cultivation of the civilized parts of the earth, a momentary superiority to the freedom of the savage, and the wild beauties of Nature. We honestly recommend the book to our readers it is well worth the perusal.

GRANBY:

Granby. A Novel in Three Volumes. London: Colburn. 1826.

THER

HERE is nothing more amusing in the spectacles of the present day, than to see the Sir John's and Sir Thomas's of the House of Commons struck aghast by the useful science and wise novelties of Mr. Huskisson and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Treason, Disaffection, Atheism, Republicanism, and Socinianism-the great guns in the Noodle's park of artillery—they cannot bring to bear upon these gentlemen. Even to charge with a regiment of ancestors is not quite so efficacious as it used to be; and all that remains, therefore, is to rail against Peter M'Culloch and Political Economy! In the meantime, day after day, down goes one piece of nonsense or another. The

most approved trash, and the most trusty clamours, are found to be utterly powerless. Twopenny taunts and trumpery truisms have lost their destructive omnipotence; and the exhausted commonplacemen, and the afflicted fool, moan over the ashes of Imbecility, and strew flowers on the urn of Ignorance! General Elliot found the London tailors in a state of mutiny, and he raised from them a regiment of light cavalry, which distinguished itself in a very striking manner at the battle of Minden. In humble imitation of this example, we shall avail ourselves of the present political disaffection and unsatisfactory idleness of many men of rank and consequence, to request their attention to the Novel of Granby-written, as we have heard, by a young gentleman of the name of Lister, and from which we have derived a considerable deal of pleasure and entertainment.

It

The main question as to a novel is-did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten, and twelve for eleven? were you too late to dress: and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not—story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. is only meant to please; and it must do that, or it does nothing. Now Granby seems to us to answer this test extremely well; it produces unpunctuality, makes the reader too late for dinner, impatient of contradiction, and inattentive, even if a bishop is making an observation, or a gentleman, lately from the Pyramids, or the Upper Cataracts, is let loose upon the drawing-room. The objection, indeed, to these compositions, when they are well done, is, that it is impossible to do anything, or perform any human duty, while we are engaged in them. Who can read Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, or extract the root of an impossible quantity, or draw up a bond, when he is in the middle of Mr. Trebeck and Lady Charlotte Duncan ? How can the boy's lesson be heard, about the Jove-nourished Achilles, or his six miserable verses upon Dido be corrected, when Henry Granby and Mr. Courtenay are both making love to Miss Jermyn? Common life palls in the middle of these artificial scenes. All is emotion when the book is open-all dull, flat, and feeble when it is shut.

Granby, a young man of no profession, living with an old uncle in the country, falls in love with Miss Jermyn, and Miss Jermyn with him; but Sir Thomas and Lady Jermyn, as the young gentleman is not rich, having discovered, by long living in the world and patient observation of its ways, that young people are commonly Malthusproof and have children, and that young and old must eat, very naturally do what they can to discourage the union. The young people, however, both go to town-meet at balls-flutter, blush, look and cannot speak-speak and cannot look-suspect, misinterpret, are sad and mad, peevish and jealous, fond and foolish; but the passion, after all, seems less near to its accomplishment at the end of the season than the beginning. The uncle of Granby, however, dies, and leaves to his nephew a statement accompanied with the requisite proofs-that Mr. Tyrrel, the supposed son of Lord Malton, is illegitimate, and that he, Granby, is the heir to Lord Malton's fortune. The

second volume is now far advanced, and it is time for Lord Malton to die. Accordingly Mr. Lister very judiciously despatches him: Granby inherits the estate-his virtues (for what shows off virtue like land ?) are discovered by the Jermyns-and they marry in the last act.

Upon this slender story, the author has succeeded in making a very agreeable and interesting novel; and he has succeeded, we think, chiefly by the very easy and natural picture of manners, as they really exist among the upper classes: by the description of new characters judiciously drawn and faithfully preserved; and by the introduction of many striking and well-managed incidents; and we are particularly struck throughout the whole with the discretion and good sense of the author. He is never nimious; there is nothing in excess ; there is a good deal of fancy and a great deal of spirit at work, but a directing and superintending judgment rarely quits him.

We would instance, as a proof of his tact and talent, the visit at Lord Daventry's, and the description of characters of which the party is composed. There are absolutely no events; nobody runs away, goes mad, or dies. There is little of love, or of hatred; no great passion comes into play; but nothing can be further removed from dulness and insipidity. Who has ever lived in the world without often meeting the Miss Cliftons?

"The Miss Cliftons were good-humoured girls: not handsome, but of pleasing manners, and sufficiently clever to keep up the ball of conversation very agreeably for an occasional half-hour. They were always au courant du jour, and knew and saw the first of everything— were in the earliest confidence of many a bride elect, and could frequently tell that a marriage was 'off' long after it had been announced as 'on the tapis' in the morning papers-always knew something of the new opera, or the new Scotch novel, before any body else didwere the first who made fizgigs, or acted charades-contrived to have private views of most exhibitions, and were supposed to have led the fashionable throng to the Caledonian Chapel, Cross Street, Hatton Garden. Their employments were like those of most other girls : they sang, played, drew, rode, read occasionally, spoiled much muslin, manufactured purses, handscreens, and reticules for a repository, and transcribed a considerable quantity of music out of large fair print into diminutive manuscript.

"Miss Clifton was clever and accomplished; rather cold, but very conversible; collected seals, franks, and anecdotes of the day; and was a great retailer of the latter. Anne was odd and entertaining; was a formidable quizzer, and no mean caricaturist; liked fun in most shapes; and next to making people laugh, had rather they stared at what she said. Maria was the echo of the other two : vouched for all Miss Clifton's anecdotes, and led the laugh at Anne's repartees. They were plain, and they knew it; and cared less about it than young ladies usually do. Their plainness, however, would have been less striking, but for that hard, pale, parboiled town look,-that stamp of fashion, with which late hours and hot rooms generally endow the female face."-(pp. 103—105.)