MARRYAT'S JOSEPH RIISHBROOK.

IT was a rule laid down by the older critics, both for art and literature, that you should always ask yourself how your cha- racters may be supposed to have looked or thought upon the supposed occasion, and then endeavour to realize the answer. The rule, though a good one, has often been adopted only to ex- hibit the difference between theory and practice. It is useless for a tyro, who has no knowledge of life or acquaintance with nature, to ask how something looks which he has never seen. But to a person experienced in that which he is about to describe, the ques- tion has its use : the recurrence to the actual, even in thought, will prevent much folly and much inflation, and will introduce many truths of detail, even should the questioner be unable to realize a whole.

Of this critical canon MAitexAT is a follower, either openl,, or latently. Perhaps from a habit acquired iu the service, ha always seems to keep his eyes wide open as be walks through the world—to observe the professional habits of classes of men ,

as weH as to note the peculiarities of individuals ; - and when en- gaged in fiction, his constant thought seems to be, what would these characters do or say upon this occasion ? In scenes of sentiment always, of pathos mostly, and of passion very often, his question- ing is of no use ; for he has no experience to fall back upon, or his mind will not enable him to profit by experience : but in the wide circles of coarse or common life, of which the greater portion of MAREFAT'S novels consist, this practice may doubtless contri- bute to give them that semblance of reality which makes his better works appear like a series of actual occurrences rather than a fiction, while even in the worst there is a matter-of-fact character which redeems them from inflation or absurdity.

Except in a few scenes of poaching, and of life with a bumboat-

woman and her connexions at Gravesend, Joseph Rushbrook ranks with the worst class of his productions. Both the entire story and many of the single scenes are very improbable—about as true a picture of the general events of life as the extreme cases of a police- report or a Newgate calendar. Nor is the tale itself, or the set of incidents which it serves to introduce, of a kind to create interest. A poacher having in a moment of passion murdered a confederate who had betrayed him, the murderer's young son absconds, in order that he may save his father by being supposed to have committed the crime. The adventures of young Joseph Rushbrook, or of the persons he gets connected with when thrown upon the world, form the principal portion of the book; wound up at last by a criminal trial, with an attempt at that melodramatic interest for accused innocence which is now stale and readily seen through. In sub- stance though not in form, Joseph Rushbrook is a repetition of Jacob Faithful; with this further disadvantage, that the staple material of the work and of the characters is crime, vice, or treachery, neither coarse, revolting, nor unmingled with human feeling, but of the low and unimaginative sort which excites little of care or of in- terest in the mind. The book is readable ; the composition is plain and pointed throughout, but with less of ludicrous effect in it than in some of MARRYAT'S other works : the narrative is continually going on without halt or incumbrance ' • and the story, even in its most improbable parts, has a degree of truthfulness in the telling.

But the work wants attraction : the reader could break off at the end of any section ; nor is there any passage to which be would care to return again and again. Joseph Rushbrook will amuse a leisure hour very agreeably, but it will not form an epoch in any one's career of novel-reading, or linger in the memory. We have already spoken of the reality which MARETAT imparts to his fiction, apparently by ascertaining what is done upon the occasion in real life. The following is an example of this quality : we might fancy he had gone out himself with POACHERS AT NIGHT.

No band of North American Indians could have observed a better trail than

that kept by our little party. Rushbrook walked first, followed by our hero and the dog Mum. Not a word was spoken; they continued their route over grass-lands and ploughed fields, keeping in the shade of the hedgerows: if Rushbrook stopped for awhile to reconnoitre, so did Joey, and so did Mum, at their relative distances, until the march was resumed. For three miles and a half did they thus continue, until they arrived at a thick cover. The wind whistled through the branches of the bare trees, chiefly oak and ash ; the cold damp fog was now stationary, and shrouded them as they proceeded cautiously by the beaten track in the cover, until they had passed through it and arrived on the other side, where the cottage of a gamekeeper was situated. A feeble light was burning. and shone through the diamond-paned windows. Rush- brook walked out clear of the cover, and held up his hand to ascertain precisely the direction of the wind. Having satisfied himself, be retreated into the cover in a direction so as to be exactly to leeward of the keeper's house, that the noise of the report of his gun might net be heard. Having cleared the hedge, he lowered hisgun so as to bring the barrel within two or three inches of the ground, and walked slowly and cautiously through the brushwood, followed as before by Joey and Mum. After about a quarter of a mile's walk, a rattling of metal was heard, and they stopped short : it was the barrel of the fowling- piece which had brushed one of the wires attached to a spring-gun, set for the benefit of poachers. Rushbrook lifted up his left hand as a sign to Joey not to move, and following the wire by continually rattling his barrel against it, he eventually arrived at the gun itself, opened the pan, threw out all the priming, leaving it with the pan open, so that it could not go off in case they fell in with another of the wires. Rushbrook then proceeded to business; for he well knew that the gun would be set where the pheasants were most accustomed to roost : he put a small charge of powder in his fowling-piece, that, being so near, he might not shatter the birds, and because the noise of the report would be much less. Walking under an oak-tree, he soon discovered the round black masses which the bodies of the roosting pheasants presented between him and the sky, and raising his piece, he fired; a heavy bound on the earth near his feet followed the discharge; Joey then slipped forward and put the pheasant into his bag ; another and another shot, sad every shot brought an increase to Joey's load. Seventeen were already in it when Mum gave a low growl. This was the signal for people being near. Rushbrook snapped his finger; the dog came forward to his side and stood motionless with ears and tail erect. Is a minute's time was heard the rustling of branches as the party forced their way through the nnderwood. Rushbrook stood still, waiting the signal from Mum ; for the dog had been taught, if the parties advancing had another dog with them, always to raise his fore-feet up to Rushbrook's knees, but not other- wise. Mum made no such sign ; and then Rushbrook laid down in the brush- wood, his motions being closely followed by his son and his dog.

Voices in whispers were now heard, and the forms of two men with guns

were to be seen not four yards from where they were lying. " Somewhere about here, I'll swear," said one. " Yes, I think so ; but it may be further on : the wind has brought down the sound." " Very true ; let's follcw them, and they may fall back upon the spring-gun." The parties then advanced into the cover, and were soon out of sight : after a time, Rushbrook held his ear to the wind, and, satisfied that all was safe, moved homewards, and arrived with- out further adventure, having relieved Joey of the heavy sack as soon as they were in the open fields. At three o'clock in the morning he tapped at the back-door of the cottage. Jane opened it ; and the spoils of the night having been put away in a secret place, they were all soon in bed and fast asleep.

Here is a shrewd remark on the EFFECTS OF TRAINING.

It is astonishing how much the nature and disposition of a child may be altered by early tuition. Let a child be always with its nurse, even under the guidance of a mother, regularly brought up as children usually are, and it will continue to be a child, and even childish after childhood is gone. But take the same child, put it by degrees into situations of peril, requiring thought and ob- servation beyond its years—accustom it to nightly vigils, and to watching, and to hold its tongue—and it is astonishing how the mind of that child, however much its body may suffer, will develop itself so as to meet the demand upon it. Thus it is with lads who are sent earl to sea, and thus it was with little Joey. He was a man in some points althou a child in others. He would play with his companions, laugh as loudly as the others, but still he would never breathe a hint of what was his father's employment. Re went to church every Sunday, as did his father and mother ; for they considered that poaching was no crime, although punished as such by the laws ; and he, of course, considered it no crime, as he only did what his father and mother wished. Let it not be thought, therefore, that the morals of our little hero wens affected by his father's pro- fesaion, for such was not the case.

A BUMBOAT-WOMAN ON CHURCH.

" 0, I know nothing about other people's husbands," replied Mrs- Chopper, hastily. " Now, then, let us go and order the clothes; and then you'll be able to go to church on Sunday. 1 will do without you."

" What/ won't you go to church ?"

" Bless you, child! who is to give the poor men their breakfast and their beer ? A bumboat-woman can't go to church any more than a baker's man, for people must eat on a Sunday. Church, like every thing else in this world., appears to me only to be made for the rich. I always take my Bible in the boat with me on Sunday ; but then I can't read it, so it's of no great use. No, dear, I can't go to church; but I can contrive, if it don't rain m the evening, to go to meeting to hear a little of the word : but you can go to church, dear.

Ale USHER'S EMPLOYMENTS.

I handed the toast to the master and mistress, the head-ushers, and parlour- boarders, but was not allowed any myself. I taught Latin and Greek and English grammar to the little boys, who made faces at me and put crooked pins on the bottom of my chair. I walked at the head of the string when they went out for an airing, and walked up stairs the last when it was time to go to bed. I had all the drudgery and none of the comforts: I was up first, and held answerable for all deficiencies : I had to examine all their nasty little trousers, and hold weekly conversation with the botcher as to the possibility of repairs ; to ran out if a hen cackled, that the boys should not get the egg; to wipe the noses of my mistress's children, and carry them if they roared ; to pay for all broken glass, if I could not discover the culprit ; to account for all bad smells, for all noise, and for all ink spilled ; to make all the pens, and to keep one hundred boys silent and attentive at church : for all which, with deductions, I received 401. a year, and found my own washing.