THE SETTLERS IN CANADA.*

THE ablest of our imaginative writers have thought proper to employ their pens for the entertainment of the rising generation. Sir Walter Scott in his inimitable "Tales of a Grandfather," was a delightful instance of what might be done in this direction. Captain Basil Hall's success was not less decided, and these examples encouraged a whole host of competitors, who, with infinitely less talent, sought to distinguish themselves by the same honourable labours. A few managed to make a favourable impression on their little public, but even amongst these recourse was had to arts and devices, which the great minds who were first in the field disdained.

It required the appearance of a writer of such capacity as Captain Marryat, to show that there existed a mind capable of following in the track of Walter Scott and Basil Hall, and by the publication of "Masterman Ready" he brought forward the most convincing evidence that he need draw upon his own resources only, and that he could do so in a manner that would secure him the suffrages of the very extensive constituency, whose interests-if not their votes-he had so much at heart. Indeed, the "young people," we have good reason for believing, feel very strongly how much they have derived from the gallant captain's exertions, and it is not at all improbable that, now such things have become so much the fashion with their elders, their sense of obligation may take the shape of a public meeting, and "a fitting testimonial."

Captain Marryat's last effort in their behalf, appears in the form of two very pleasant volumes bearing the title of "The Settlers in Canada." This is a narrative of the adventures of an interesting family, reduced by a curious combination of mischances from affluence to become emigrants. They make a voyage to Canada, where they settle in the neighbourhood of Fort Frontignac, near Lake Ontario; and then commences a drama of considerable interest in which the members of the family are the principal dramatis persona, assisted by officers of the fort, squatters, trappers, Indian chiefs, and squaws, with an extensive list of supernumeraries in soldiers, savages, wolves, bears, and numerous other animals, wild and tame.

The story is remarkably picturesque and animated, and ought to become an immense favourite with "young people;" as well as among children of a larger growth.

THE VOYAGES OF THE NEMESIS.+

A NEW and greatly improved edition of this now standard work is before us-improved in every particular on which the value of a work like

* The Settlers in Canada. 2 vols.

Written for Young People. By Captain Marryat.

Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843, and of the Combined Naval and Military Operations in China. From Notes of Commander W. H. Hall, R.N. By W. D. Bernard, Esq., A.M. 1 vol.

this depends-improved in form, by being condensed (not curtailed) into one volume-improved in price, by a large reduction from its original cost and especially improved in its literary character, by a careful and judicious excision of certain passages of mere reflection and personal opinion, which, while they clogged and retarded the narrative interest, were manifestly out of place in a work of this nature. The present edition is accompanied by the illustrative plates, &c., together with a new map of the Chinese seas; and the volume, while it stands alone as a complete and ample record of perhaps the most important series of events that have occurred in modern times, may at the same time be cited as more pregnant with matter of general interest and curiosity, and consequently more rich in entertainment, than any work of the like extent which has appeared during the last twenty years. For the benefit of those readers whom our ample notices of the first edition of this work did not reach, it may be well to state generally, that the narrative comprises three several departments: the first being devoted to the eight months' "adventures" of the first iron steamer that ever crossed the line; the second department, comprising the most lucid and complete retrospective view extant of the history and causes of the Chinese war up to the date of the Nemesis' arrival on the scene of action and lastly, the third department presents us with incomparably the most distinct, detailed, and intelligible account of the proceedings following the arrival of the Nemesis till the conclusion of the war, that can anywhere be found in print. The consequence is, that Mr. Bernard's work has already-in its first edition-taken a high and permanent place among contemporary narratives of important public events; and this new and more accessible edition will doubtless confirm and spread its already wide popularity.

In our notice of the first edition of this work we did not sufficiently mark our sense of the important share which Captain Hall, commander of the Nemesis during her whole career in China, has had in this record of her adventures and services. It may be safely stated of the book as a joint production, that the materials furnished by Captain Hall are of at least equal importance and interest with those contributed by the ostensible author himself, Mr. Bernard, who, we are satisfied, will be the last person to impugn this estimate of his coadjutor's claims and merits.

THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

SCENES OF SOCIETY.

No. I.

СНАР. І.

JACK GRANDISON'S MARRIAGE.

It was a fine summer night in the height of the season, when two young dandies might have been seen on the steps of Crockford's. They were early for that matutinal resort of fashion, the clock having only just struck half-past eleven, and they had the steps all to themselves. They knew each other perfectly by name and character; they each admirably comprehended their respective grades in the great social ladder; they each understood to a fraction the exact amount of the other's rental in esse and in posse; but as they had never been introduced- as the cabalistic words were as yet unpronounced-as the banns of their acquaintance had not been published, they were each entrenched in a silence the most legitimate and orthodox. Not for worlds would they have indulged in the illicit intercourse of conversation. They stood face to face, each leaning against a pillar, each smoking a cigar, as rigid, as stiff, and apparently almost as lifeless as the Cariatides close by. They had thus full time and opportunity to scrutinise and compare their dress and appearance, and, by the slightest possible smile, they reciprocally showed their mutual disdain for one another, and complete satisfaction with themselves.

The one leaning the nearest to the Guards' Club was, notwithstanding the summer air, enveloped in an enormous thick and cumbrous peajacket; what sailors call a dreadnought; but above the huge folds of its collar there rose the invitable white neckcloth, and out of its colossal sleeves there shone gloves, which were pale and delicately yellow as the moonbeams at his feet. His trousers were very tight, and of a cut to display a pair of legs which were Irish in their herculean symmetry. Nature denied them common sense, But gave them legs and impudence.

The feet in which those legs, finished were proportionately large, but the boots in which they were encased were scrupulously polished, and gleamed Nov.-VOL. LXXII. NO. CCLXXXVII.

U

like a dark lantern. There was something in them evidently which provoked the malicious attention of their owner's vis-à-vis, for his eyes were riveted upon them with an air it was impossible to mistake. It seemed to say, "The idea of those square toes! he must positively have had his evening boots made by Burn!" But the young Marquis of Crossbuttock showed, ever and anon, through the wreaths of smoke, which by an art he peculiarly prided himself on, he sent curling up his whiskers, and perfuming them, that he paid back the disdain of his companion with considerable interest. Indeed nothing could be more unlike each other than they were. The Lord St. Hyacinth, whose back was now turned towards Arlington-street, was as thin and elegant as the marquis was massive and robust. His form, somewhat too angular and spare, received a roundness of relief from a cloak, which fell in a studied carelessness over one shoulder and below the other. This cloak was plainly the object of as much derision to the marquis as the boots had been to the earl. It was embroidered at the edges with a fantastic pattern in black chamarrure-there was a profusion of velvet-it was impossible to mistake it as from Paris or Madrid. There was something foreign in the earl's whole costume: his clothes were so loose and large. Notwithstanding his cloak, you could see the large pans of his coat in front, cut almost like a frock; then his trousers had two plaits in them at the waist, and spread outwards like a showerbath, and his little feet of which the tips might just be seen, were in bottines which an actress at the Palais Royal might have envied. Then there was a heresy which a genuine Englishman never could forgive: in the middle of his shirt front of Valenciennes lace there glittered a diamond pin of enormous value. It is curious that even the best bred Englishman when he takes to imitating foreigners always exaggerates their defects in taste.

The costume of these two young men will give an idea of their characters. It would be difficult to find any thing else in them or about them which would have done so. They were perfect blanks, cyphers, zeros, as far as the mind was concerned, and the sole difference between them consisted in the fact that the one zero had been put by his father into the Guards, and the other zero had been sent abroad with a travelling

tutor.

A quarter of an hour had perhaps passed when "the travelled Thane" having finished his cigar, and pulled out a gold cigar-case (some gage d'amour of the Rue St. Georges or Filles St. Thomas) which he purposely dallied with, to give his companion an idea of his success in love affairs, and having replaced it, begged the favour of a light.

"Damnation !" exclaimed Crossbuttock.

By an awkwardness which no one but a cornet in the Life Guards can possibly understand, he had managed to burn his own fingers in giving a light to St. Hyacinth. The earl was instantaneously lost-buried in apologies in every language except his own.

"None of your d-d foreign lingo !" was Crossbuttock's gracious re

sponse.

Guardsmen are apt to imitate their commander-in-chief in their expressions. Their style is decidedly terse, pithy, and tranchant. St. Hyacinth, somewhat taken aback, but perceiving by the stolid manner of the cub before him that it was not his wish to quarrel, that it was

only his way, and partly reproaching himself for the damage done to Crossbuttock's fingers, determined to hazard a remark.

"Didn't I see you to-day at Jack Grandison's marriage ?"

It was the correct thing to have been at Jack Grandison's marriage, so Crossbuttock to whom engaging in conversation was a Sisyphæan task, "rolled the huge round stone" of silence off his breast and said,

"Yes;" and then, after a pause, he added with a laborious effort of intelligence, "what fun!"

66

Why?" said St. Hyacinth, not to torture the well-dressed brute before him by making him think, but because he in his turn could not comprehend him.

"Why," and Crossbuttock chuckled with a sound like Gog or Magog's hiccup, "who'd ever have thought of Jack's being spliced ?"

Thus the Marquis of Crossbuttock and the Guards in general were very much astounded at "Jack's being spliced." He himself however was only astounded at its never having occurred before. He was sevenand-thirty, and for seventeen years he had been looking out for an heiress -but in that sort of way that no one could reproach him with being a fortune-hunter. Out of the ten dances he danced every night, he made a rule to allot only one to a girl with money, and the other nine to girls without a penny. He understood the invaluable secret of making

friends of those young ladies whose position is somewhat equivocal, who hang on the outskirts of society, and who are as grateful for little attentions as women of fifty are for a little love..

Jack Grandison-have we not described him by this trait-was a very clever fellow. He was a brilliant scamp. He was one of those magnificent adventurers who serve as the connecting link between May Fair and Botany Bay, between Almack's and Norfolk Island-who without any ostensible means manage to spend a couple of thousands a-year, and who end sometimes by tumbling on their legs and picking up an heiress; sometimes by cutting their throats, getting a consulate, or getting transported.

Jack had already begun to meditate on this last alternative, when chance threw him in the way of a quiet, demure, very ugly little Miss Jackson, who was very well received in society, because she had three hundred thousand pounds, and was much patronised by the Countess of St. James, who wanted her for one of her sons. But Jack was on his last legs; he was a desperate man, and he made desperate play with the little heiress. His debts amounted to thirty thousand pounds; his only capital, his good looks, were already sadly impaired. There had just begun the first tint of that peculiar colour which a long course of self-indulgence gives-that sort of Egalité purple, which made the Duke of Orleans hideous in spite of all his previous youthful beauty; besides, Jack's tailors had given him more than one hint that fewer dandies asked for "the Grandison" pattern, and that young" Tom Boothby's" were all the rage.

Under these circumstances Jack smiled, whispered, flattered, danced with convulsive energy. Like the dying notes of a swan, there was a perfection about these, his gasps and throes of lady-killing, which had been wanting to his previous efforts. He made a decided impression upon his partner at a great ball at D House, by telling her that her very square little foot was patrician in its smallness, and then he spoke a