on their faces prostrate before what they believe to be the terrible Simoom. Still onward, onward! We have outrun our very breath, and left it miles behind, and, no longer panting, we race onward, unearthly calm. Every now and then we come to an oasis. Ho! pull up, good steed, and drink. We stop. Soft steals the moist fountain-wind through the tall, still palm-trees; tenderly the rich green grass sinks and rises as we tread. Coolly, freshly, diamondly, the desertspring wells out and cools our parching lips. But waste not time. Again in saddle; again speeding along the desert we know not whither. A wide black gulf, deep and edgeless, bars our path. What! coward steed! Dost thou think to stop and tremble? No, not even if it were the gulf of Death, shored with dismal banks of night. On, on! Strike the stirrupspurs deep into the flanks! lift the heavy golden bridle! Smite, smite heavily with the elastic lance-shaft! The quivering, frightened steed paws, and rears, and bounds. Down, down we sink through yielding air. Clouds, shapeless, formless clouds, fly up as we fly down. And the ocean that sounds below lifts up its billowy arms to receive us. Moonbeams cover the sea with a silver shroud. Caves murmur. Spirits float midway between the waves and heaven. We, steed and all, sail grandly onwards like an ocean centaur. But it is not always calm. Hoarse syllables of storm mutter in the North, and waves rise angrily to answer them.

What shall we do, with weary desert steed against the legion of winds? Scatter them with our lance? Out-blow them with a breath, and burst their lungs?

All vain! They are too strong. They pour upon us from every side. The star Arcturus frowns red disaster from the sky. If we seek not harbor we are lost. A golden hope looms upon us from the distance! Let us fly. Now desert-steed, paw the waves as once thou didst the sand. O'erleap the fencing billows, and make for that white spot that looms distantly. The winds gallop fast behind, and will smite us unseen. The sea-gulls ride before, like stewards of the airy course, to clear the way. The desert-steed strains every nerve, wave after wave clears he, and paws onward to the white island that is to be our Salvator. We near it just as the tempest scents us, and bays upon our track.

But what is this we see?

No island, no sheltering harbor, no white fortress to defend the fugitive:

But a great, white, world-wide placard,

with these words traced upon its surface:

MARDI

AND

A VOYAGE THITHER.

BY HERMAN MELVILLE

A greater difference could hardly exist between two men than between Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Melville, albeit we have chosen to link them together in our chain. Mitchell writes essentially from the heart. He is continually gazing inward, picking up what he finds there, and displaying it with a childlike, innocent pleasure to the world. From forms, and forms alone does Melville take his text. He looks out of himself, and takes a rich outline view of what he sees. He is essentially exoterical in feeling. Matter is his god. His dreams are material. His philosophy is sensual. Beautiful women, shadowy lakes, nodding, plumy trees, and succulent banquets, make Melville's scenery, unless his theme utterly preclude all such. His language is rich and heavy, with a plating of imagery. He has a barbaric love of ornament, and does not mind much how it is put on. Swept away by this sensual longing, he frequently writes at random. One can see that he uses certain words only because they roll off the pen lusciously and roundly, just as a child, who is entirely the sport of sense, grasps at the largest apple. In Mardi is this peculiarly obvious. A long experience of the South sea islanders has no doubt induced this. The languages of these groups are singularly mellifluous and resonant, vowels enter largely into the composition of every word, and dissyllabled words are rare. Mr. Melville has been attracted by this. Whenever he can use a word of four syllables where a monosyllable would answer just as well, he chooses the former. A certain fulness of style is very attractive. Sir Thomas Browne, from whom Mr. Melville copies much that is good, is a great friend of magnificent dietion. And his tract on urn burial is as lofty and poetical as if Memnon's statue chanted it, when the setting sun fell aslant across the Pyramids. But we find no nonsense in Sir Thomas. In every thing he says there is a deep meaning, although sometimes an erroneous one. We cannot always say as much for Mr. Melville. In his latest work he transcended even the jargon of Paracelsus and his followers. The Rosetta stone gave up its secret, but we believe that to the end of time Pierre will remain an ambiguity.

Mardi, we believe, is intended to embody all the philosophy of which Mr. Melville is capable, and we have no hesitation in

saying that the philosophical parts are the worst. We do not for a moment pretend to say that we understand the system laid down by the author. Whether there be a system in it at all, is at least somewhat problematical, but when Mr. Melville does condescend to be intelligible, what he has to say for himself in the way of philosophy, is so exceedingly stale and trite, that it would be more in place in a school-boy's copy-book, than in a romance otherwise distinguished for splendor of imagery, and richness of diction. The descriptive painting in this wild book is gorgeous and fantastic in the extreme. It is a tapestry of dreams, worked with silken threads, dyed in the ocean of an Eastern sunset. Nothing however strange startles us as we float onwards through this misty panorama. King Media looms out from the canvas, an antique gentleman full of drowsy courtesy. Babbalanja philosophizes over his calabash, or relates the shadowy adventures of shadows in the land of shades. From out the woods, canopied with flowers, that let the daylight in only through courtesy, comes Donjalolo, the Southern Sardanapalus. Women droop over his pale enervate figure, and strive to light its exhausted fires with their burning eyes. He looks up lazily, and opens his small, red mouth to catch a drop of honey that is trembling in the core of some over-hanging flower. Fatigued with this exertion, he sinks back with a sigh into the soft arms interlaced behind. Then comes Hautia, Queen of spells that lie in lilies, and mistress of the music of feet. Around her float flushing nymphs, who love through endless dances, and die in the ecstasy of mingled motion. While far behind, throned in mist, and with one foot dabbling in the great ocean of the Future, stands the lost Yillah; problem of beauty to which there is no solution save through death.

As

All these characters flit before us in Mardi, and bring with them no consciousness of their unreality and deception. shadows they come to us, but they are sensual shades. Their joys thrill through us. When they banquet in drowsy splendor-when they wander upon beaches of pearls and rubies-when they wreath their brows with blossoms more fragrant and luscious than the buds that grow in Paradise, our senses twine with theirs, and we forget every thing, save the vision of their gorgeous pleasures. It is this sensual power that holds the secret of Mr. Melville's first successes. No matter how unreal the scenery, if the pleasure be but truly painted, the world will cry "bravo! We draw pictures of Gods and Goddesses, and hang them on our

walls, but we take good care to let their divinity be but nominal. Diana, Juno, Venus, are they known, but they loom out from the canvas, substantial, unadulterated women. Seldom does there live an Ixion who loves to embrace clouds. Call it a cloud if you will, and if it have the appearance of flesh and blood, the adorer will be satisfied. But we doubt if there is to be found any man enthusiast enough to clasp a vapor to his heart, be it schirri-shaped or cumulous, and baptized with the sweetest name ever breathed from the Attic tongue. Mr. Melville therefore deals in vapors, but he twines around them so cunningly all human attributes, and pranks them out so lusciously with all the witcheries of sense, that we forget their shadowy nomenclatures, and worship the substantial incarnation.

It must not be imagined from this, that Mr. Melville is incapable of dealing with the events of more matter-of-fact life. He is averse to it, no doubt, and if we may judge by Pierre, is becoming more averse to it as he grows older. But he sometimes takes the vulgar monster by the shoulders and wields it finely. In Omoo, which by the way contains some exceedingly fine passages, occurs the following account of the attempt of a South sea savage named Bembo to run the ship ashore on a coral reef, because he had been insulted by one of the ship's crew is very graphic.

"Having remained upon deck with the doctor some time after the rest had gone below, I was just on the point of following him down, when I saw the Mowree (Bembo) rise, draw a bucket of water, and holding it high above his head pour it right over him. This he repeated several times. There was nothing very peculiar in the act, but something else about him struck me. However I thought no more of it, but descended the scuttle. After a restless nap, I found the atmosphere of the forecastle so close, from nearly all the men being down at the same time, that I hunted up an old pea-jacket and went on deck, intending to sleep it out there. till morning. Here I found the cook and steward, Wymontoo, Rope Yarn, and the Dane; who, being all quiet, manageable fellows, and holding aloof from the rest since the captain's departure, had been ordered by the mate not to go below until sunrise. They were lying under the lee of the bulwarks; two or three fast asleep, and the others smoking their pipes, and conversing.

"To my surprise, Bembo was at the helm; but there being so few to stand there now, they told me, he had offered to take his turn with the rest, at the same time heading the watch; and to this, of course, they ma le no objection.

"It was a fine, bright night; all moon, and stars, and white crests of waves. The breeze was light, but freshening; and close-hauled, poor little Jule, as if nothing had happened, was heading in for the land, which rose high and hazy in the distance.

"After the day's uproar, the tranquillity of the scene was soothing, and I leaned over the side to enjoy it.

"More than ever did I now lament my situation-but it was useless to repine, and I could not upbraid myself. So at last, becoming drowsy, I made a bed with my jacket under the windlass, and tried to forget myself.

"How long I laid there, I cannot tell; but as I rose, the first object that met my eye, was Bembo at the helm, his dark figure slowly rising and falling with the ship's motion against the spangled heavens behind. He seemed all impatience and expectation; standing at arm's length from the spokes, with one foot advanced, and his bare head thrust forward. Where I was, the watch were out of sight; and no one else was stirring; the deserted decks and broad white Bails were gleaming in the moonlight.

"Presently, a swelling, dashing sound came upon my ear, and I had a sort of vague consciousness that I had been hearing it before. The next instant I was broad awake and ou my feet. Right ahead, and so near that my heart stood still, was a long line of breakers, heaving and frothing. It was the coral reef, girdling the island. Behind it, and almost casting their shadows upon the deck, were the sleeping mountains, about whose hazy peaks the gray dawn was just breaking. The breeze had freshened, and with a steady, gliding motion, we were running straight for the reef.

"All was taken in at a glance; the fell purpose of Bembo was obvious, and with a frenzied shout to wake the watch, I rushed aft. They sprang to their feet bewildered; and after a short, but desperate scuffle, we tore him from the helm. În wrestling with him, the wheel-left for a moment unguarded -flew to leeward, thus, fortunately, bringing the ship's head to the wind, and so retarding her progress. Previous to this, she had been kept three or four points free, so as to close with the breakers. Her headway now shortened, I steadied the helm, keeping the sails just lifting, while we glided obliquely toward the land. To have run off before the wind -an easy thing-would have been almost certain destruction, owing to a curve of the reef in that direction. At this time, the Dane and the steward were still struggling with the furious Mowree, and the others were running about irresolute and shouting.

"But darting forward the instant I had the helm, the old cook thundered on the

forecastle with a handspike, Breakers! breakers close aboard!-'bout ship! 'bout ship!'

"Up came the sailors, staring about them in stupid horror. 'Haul back the headyards! Let go the lee fore-brace?' 'Ready

about! about!' were now shouted on all sides; while distracted by a thousand orders, they ran hither and thither, fairly panic-stricken.

"It seemed all over with us; and I was just upon the point of throwing the ship full into the wind (a step, which saving us for the instant, would have sealed our fate in the end), when a sharp cry shot by my ear like the flight of an arrow.

"It was Salem: 'All ready for'ard; hard down!'

Round and round went the spokes-the Julia, with her short keel, spinning to windward like a top. Soon the jib-sheets lashed the stays, and the men, more self-possessed, flew to the braces.

"Main-sail haul!' was now heard, as the fresh breeze streamed fore and aft the deck; and directly the after-yards were whirled round.

"In half a minute more, we were sailing away from the land on the other tack, with every sail distended.

"Turning on our heel within little more than a biscuit's toss of the reef, no earthly power could have saved us, were it not that, up to the very brink of the coral rampart, there are no soundings.

"The purpose of Bembo had been made known to the men generally by the watch; and now that our salvation was certain, by an instinctive impulse they raised a cry, and rushed toward him.

"Just before liberated by Dunk and the steward, he was standing doggedly by the mizen-mast; and, as the infuriated sailors came on, his bloodshot eye rolled and his sheath-knife glittered over his head. 'Down with him!' Strike him down!' 'Hang him at the mainyard!' such were the shouts now raised. But he stood unmoved, and, for a single instant, they absolutely faltered.

"Cowards!' cried Salem, and he flung himself upon him. The steel descended like a ray of light; but did no harm; for the sailor's heart was beating against the Mowree's before he was aware.

"They both fell to the deck, when the knife was instantly seized, and Bembo secured. For'ard! for'ard with him!' was again the cry; 'give him a sea-toss!' 'overboard with him!" and he was dragged along the deck, struggling and fighting with tooth and nail.

"All this uproar immediately over the mate's head at last roused him from his drunken nap, and he came staggering on deck.

"What's this?' he shouted, running right in among them.

"It's the Mowree, zur; they are going to murder him, zur;' here sobbed poor Rope Yarn, crawling close up to him.

"Avast! avast!' roared Jermin, making a spring toward Bembo, and dashing two or three of the sailors aside. At this moment the wretch was partly flung over the bul warks, which shook with his frantic strug

gles. In vain the doctor and others tried to save him; the men listened to nothing.

"Murder and mutiny, by the salt sea!' shouted the mate; and dashing his arms right and left, he planted his iron hand upon the Mowree's shoulder.

"There are two of us now; and as you serve him, you serve me,' he cried, turning fiercely round.

"Over with them together, then," exclaimed the carpenter, springing forward; but the rest fell back before the courageous front of Jermin, and, with the speed of thought, Bembo, unharmed, stood upon deck.

Aft with ye!' cried his deliverer; and he pushed him right among the men,taking care to follow him up close. Giving the sailors no time to recover, he pushed the Mowree before him, they came to the cabin scuttle, when he drew the slide over him and stood still. Throughout, Bembo never spoke one word.

"Now for'ard where ye belong!' cried the mate, addressing the seamen, who by this time rallying again, had no idea of losing their victim.

"The Mowree! the Mowree!' they shouted. Here the doctor, in answer to the mate's repeated questions, stepped forward, and related what Bembo had been doing; a matter which the mate but dimly understood from the violent threatenings he had been hearing.

"For a moment he seemed to waver; but, at last, turning the key in the padlock of the slide, he breathed through his set teeth-'Ye can't have him; I'll hand him over to the consul; so for'ard with ye, I say; when there's any drowning to be done, I'll pass the word; so away with ye, ye bloodthirsty pirates !'

"It was to no purpose that they begged or threatened; Jermin, although by no means sober, stood his ground manfully, and before long they dispersed, soon to forget every thing that had happened.

46

Though we had no opportunity to hear him confess it, Bembo's intention to destroy us was beyond all question. His only motive could have been a desire to revenge the contumely heaped upon him the night previous, operating upon a heart irreclaimably savage, and at no time fraternally disposed toward the crew.

"During the whole of this scene the doctor did his best to save him. But well knowing that all I could do, would have been equally useless, I maintained my place at the wheel. Indeed, no one but Jermin could have prevented this murder."

Typee, the first and most successful of Mr. Melville's books, commands attention for the clearness of its narrative, the novelty of its scenery, and the simplicity of its style, in which latter feature it is a wondrous contrast to Mardi, Moby Dick, and Pierre. The story of Typee is plain enough. The hero becomes discontented

with his ship, while among the Marquesas islands, and comes to the determination of effecting his escape. This he does in company with Toby, a fellow-sailor, a rough, jolly mortal, who grumbles and enjoys himself all the time, as most grumblers do. The island on which they effect their escape is divided into two great clans, who each occupy a valley, and between whom a deadly enmity exists. These are the Typees and the Happars. Like our own Christian sects they are not given to speaking well of each other. The Happars call the Typees cannibals, and the Typees vow that the amount of babies consumed annually in Happar is quite incredible. Tom and Toby fall into the hands of the Typees, where their position is very precarious, until Tom discovers that the way to their affections is to abuse the Happars. He accordingly launches out against this unfortunate race, of whom he knows nothing, and is in consequence treated with the utmost courtesy and affection by their foes. In this valley of savages, where the flowers and the women are beautiful beyond conception, Tom and Toby pass their days pleasantly. Swimming in the clear lakes with Typee girls, who cleave the water like dolphins; feasting in sacred temples off of sucking pig, lolling beneath the bread-fruit trees with Fayaway, or making "Tappa" with the housekeepers and matrons, they spend as agreeable a life as ever town-imprisoned merchant's clerk sighed for. In Typee there were no debts, consequently no duns. The charming inhabitants dispensed with all clothing, and tailors were unknown. No detestable bills to mar one's new year's pleasures with items of "seven fancy vests, $85; three coats, $120; gloves, ties, &c., &c., &c., &c., &c., $200." had no hotel bill to pay. A piece of Tappa, or a quid of tobacco was current coin, and if the girls of the valley got up a ball, there was no subscription list, no lady patronesses, and no enmities gathering out of rejected applications for tickets.

Tom

It does not appear either that there were any "sets," or cliques in Typee. Mr. Melville does not mention that they had their Fifth Avenue, or their Bleecker Rubicon. Society was not divided into petty circles, each revolving round some insignificant centre, and fancying themselves the central sun of the universe of fashion. Typee ladies did not receive their visitors in drawing-rooms resplendent with gilt vulgarity, and if they had ever been so fortunate as to travel, we doubt if they would have talked one down with the Grand Duke of Fiddeldedeestein "whom they met at Baden-Baden," and who-let it be whispered sub-rosa-cheated the

pater-familias at écarte.

Would that the world could be Typee-ized. Would that we could strip every vain pretender of the plumage that chance has given him, and turn him out upon the world with nothing to clothe him save his own merits. How your vulgar Argus, with a million of dollars on his tail, would find his level in Typee. The friends of the Grand Duke of Fiddeldedeestein, would not rise an inch higher in Mehevi's estimation for having known the ducal swindler, and then— then what do you say to the inexpressible, almost unimaginable, never-to-be-realized delight of paying off your tailor's bill for the last time, in cowrie-shells and Tappa!

In this primitive valley of Typee we meet with Fayaway. Charming, smoothskinned siren, around whose sun-browned form the waves lap and dimple, like the longing touches of a lover's fingers. What luxury untold it must have been to live with thee beneath the shady places of Typee. To dance with thee in the moonlight in front of the deep-eaved hut; to hunt with thee for strange flowers in the deep, silent woods, or sail with thee on the lake when the sunset painted our tappa sail with finer hues than the work of Gobelins. How Tom could ever have left thee, surpasseth human understanding. Left thee, graceful, artless child of the forest and the stream, to dwell among civilized women-dancing machines; flirting machines, built of whalebone and painted red.

And sadly we leave Fayaway lamenting her white lover.

White Jacket is a pure sea-book, but very clever. It is a clear, quiet picture of life on board of a man-of-war. It has

less of Mr. Melville's faults than almost any of his works, and is distinguished for clear, wholesome satire, and a manly style. There is a scene describing the amputation of a sailor's leg by a brutal, coldblooded surgeon, Patella, that Smollett might have painted. We would gladly quote it, but that it rather exceeds the limits usually afforded in an article so short as ours.

There is one chapter in which the hero details the loss of the White Jacket, from wearing which, he and the book take their name, that strikes us as a very fine piece of descriptive writing. We give it entire.

"Already has White Jacket chronicled the mishaps and inconveniences, troubles and tribulations of all sorts brought upon him by that unfortunate but indispensable garment of his. But now it befalls him to record how his jacket, for the second and last time, came near proving his shroud.

"Of a pleasant midnight, our good frigate, now somewhere off the Capes of Virginia, was running on bravely, when the breeze, gradually dying, left us slowly gliding towards our still invisible port.

"Headed by Jack Chase, the quarterwatch was reclining in the tops, talking about the shore delights into which they intended to plunge, while our captain often broke in with allusions to similar conversations when he was on board the English line-of-battle-ship, the 'Asia,' drawing nigh to Portsmouth, in England, after the battle of Navarino.

"Suddenly an order was given to set the main-topgallant-stun'-sail, and the halyards not being rove, Jack Chase assigned to me that duty. Now this reeving of the halyards of a main-topgallant-stun'-sail is a business that eminently demands sharp-sightedness, skill and celerity.

"Consider that the end of a line, some two hundred feet long, is to be carried aloft, in your teeth if you please, and dropped far out on the giddiest of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about through all sorts of intricacies-turning abrupt corners at the abruptest of angles-is to be dropped, clear of all obstructions, in a straight plumb line, right down to the deck. In the course of this business, there is a multitude of sheeveholes and kocks through which you must pass it; often the rope is a very tight fit, so as to make it like threading a fine cambric needle with rather coarse thread. Indeed, it is a thing only to be deftly done even by day. Judge then what it must be to be threading cambric needles upward of a hundred feet aloft in air.

"With the end of the line in one hand, I was mounting the top-mast shrouds, when our Captain of the Top told me that I had better off jacket; but though it was not a very cold night, I had been reclining so long in the tops that I had become somewhat chilly, so I thought it best not to comply with the hint.

"Having reeved the line through all the inferior blocks, I went out with it to the end of the weather-topgallant-yard-arm, and was in the act of leaning over and passing it through the suspended jewel-block there, when the ship gave a plunge in the sudden swells of the calm sea, and, pitching me still further over the yard, threw the heavy skirts of my jacket right over my head, completely muffling me. Somehow I thought it was the sail that had flapped, and, under that impression, threw up my hands to drag it from my head, relying upon the sail itself to support me meanwhile. Just then the ship gave another sudden jerk, and, headforemost, I pitched from the yard. I knew where I was from the rush of the air by my ears, but all else was a nightmare.

"A bloody film was before my eye, through which, ghost-like, passed and repassed my father, mother, sisters. An unutterable nau sea oppressed me; I was conscious of gasping; there seemed no breath in my body.