COOPER ' S LUCY HARDINGE.

Tins continuation or completion of Afloat and Ashore rather falls below the anticipations we had formed from the close of that work, than rises above them. Above half the three volumes is virtually devoted to winding-up ; an episodical sea-voyage occupy- ing the remainder. At the finis of Afloat and Ashore everything was ready for conclusion. A few strokes of the grey goose-quill could have rendered Miles Wallingford, the hero, a thriving wooer to Lucy Hardinge, or have settled him by a rejection in favour of Drewett ; the book breaking off with so fair an opportunity as the rivals drawn out of the Hudson half-dead, in the lady's presence. In like manner, Grace Wallingford might have died for the love of that shabby scamp Rupert Hardinge, or been recovered from the change of scene recommended by the doctor. Instead of a few chapters, Mr. COOPER has preferred three volumes, which " drag their slow length along," notwithstanding the truth of the de- lineation.

The first volume is occupied with an account of the death and funeral of Grace Wallingford, long-winded to tediousness ; and an idle tale of Marble the mate's discovery of his family. Despairing of gaining Lucy Hardinge, Miles turns merchant as well as ship- owner ; embarks his all in an adventure to Hamburg ; is stopped by an English frigate, under our strict or oppressive system of dealing with neutrals ; escapes from the prizemaster and crew, by the miraculous abilities that we formerly noted as distinguishing Miles Wallingford,—only to fall in with a French privateer, even less scrupulous than the English captain ; evades the French more wonderfully than the British ; but is finally wrecked and ruined. This occupies rather more than the second volume ; the remainder of the third being devoted to a final wind-up, (unless Mr. Cooexe, as he intimates, should inflict another three volumes upon the reviewing public); Miles recovering his property, marrying Lucy, burying his mate Marble ; and the reader is brought in a general way down to the present time. Besides the standing objection to continuations, the source of the tedium of Lucy Hardinge is easily perceived. The denoue- ment was reached at the end of Afloat and Ashore. No new cha- racters of any importance or mark are introduced ; the old ones are not exhibited in any new light ; no fresh start is made, neces- sarily delaying the termination; the reader sees that the writer is, in journeyman's phrase, "nursing his job," or, as senators have it, talking against time. Even the sea-voyage is open to this remark. A mere description of nautical business, without some direct connexion with the characters or influence upon the story, is getting to be stale in fiction. This direct interest is wanting in the voyage before us ; nor has it any unity in itself, or even a ne- cessary termination where it ends. It might have filled another volume, and another and another.

Apart from the desire of making two fictions out of one, the objects that Mr. COOPER appears to have had in view were, to ex- hibit the hardships that were inflicted by the manner in which France and England treated neutrals in the last war, and to delineate the growing public immorality of America. Neither of these points are elaborated so well as might have been expected from the know- ledge and ability of the author. The case to illustrate the treat- ment of neutrals is extreme in every view. It is made to be the first or one of the first that occurred, the orders having been issued between Mr. Wallingford's departure from America and arrival in the Channel ; the captain who detains hint doubts the decision ; the writer thinks he might have gained an action for damages ; and his ruin arises from the underwriters not being bound to the in- surance, after he had thought fit to retake his vessel—it was the master's course to have submitted to the detention and assumed that right would be done. In a fiction this would have all been jus- tifiable for purposes of novel interest ; but didactic objects must be tried by another test. The real morals of the voyage in Lucy Hardinge appear to be the evils of war, the folly of speculating beyond one's own available means, and the absurdity of skippers attempting miracles.

The attempt to portray the deep-rooted evils of the social sys- tem in America seems to us equally feeble. A couple of roguish mortgagees, one denying a payment that cannot be proved, and the other forcing a sale to his own advantage, represent the " smart " practice of America. But this is surely narrow and individual—a griper or a rogue are not peculiar to the United States; and, seeing the tainted character elected to represent the "first city of the world," we may doubt whether the " quocunque modo, rem," is more tolerated among the traders in America than traders anywhere else.

The strength of the first living novelist, all things considered, is only exhibited in particular sea-scenes ; but these are perhaps equal to anything COOPER has done, bating the effect of freshness. The escape from the Frenchmen exhibits considerable readiness of seamanship-resource, only the hero is too clever by half; the storm in the Irish Channel is done with great force, but storms are now getting commonplace. Two sea-fights are exhibited in rather a new phase ; being described by a looker-on. The first is between four frigates, two French and two English; the vessel of Miles Wallingford observing the action from a safe distance. In the second, he is on board the English frigate that has picked him up after the wreck with his mate Marble and his Negro slave Neb. The skipper and the mate have been discussing the propriety of bearing a part in the action, when the following extract begins.

"Marble and I conversed a little longer on this subject, when a gun fired from the upper-deck gave us notice that the game was about to begin. Each hastened to his intended post without more words. When I reached the quar- ter-deck, everything denoted the eve of a combat. The ship was under short canvass, the men were at quarters, the guns were cast loose and were levelled ; the tompions were all out, shot was distributed about the deck ; and here and there some old salt of a captain might be seen squinting along his gun, as if impatient to begin. A silence like that of a deserted church reigned through- out the ship. Had one been on board her intended adversary at that same in- stant, he would have been deafened by the clamour, and confused with the hur- ried and disorderly manner in which preparations that were long before com- pleted on board the British were still in progress on board the Frenchman. Four years earlier, the same want of preparation had given Nelson his great victory at the Nile. The French, in order to clear their outer batteries, had lumbered those in-shore; and when half their enemies unexpectedly passed inside, they found their ships were not prepared to fire—ships that were vir- tually beaten before they had discharged an effective abut.

"' Wallingford,' said my old friend the Captain, as soon as I approached ' you have nothing to do here. It would not be proper for you to take a part in this action, and it would be folly to expose yourself without an object.' " ' I am quite aware of all this, Captain Rowley ; but I have thought your kindness to mg was so great as to permit me to be a looker-on. I may be of some service to the wounded, if to nothing else ; and I hope you think me too much of an officer to get in the way.' •• '1 am not certain, Sir, I ought to permit any thing of the sort,' returned the old man gravely. This fighting is serious business, and no one should meddle with it whose duty does not command it of him. See here, Sir,' point- ing at the French frigate, which was about two cables-lengths distant, with her top-gallant-sails clewed up and the courses in the hrails—' in ten minutes we shall be bard at it; and I leave it to yourself to say whether prudence does not require that you should go below.' " I had expected this ; and, instead of contesting the matter, I bowed, and walked off the quarter-deck, as if about to comply. • Oat of sight, out of mind,' I thought ; it would be time enough to go below when I had seen the beginning of the affair! In the waist I passed the Marines, drawn up in military array, with their officer as attentive to dressing them in line as if the victory depended on its accuracy. On the forecastle I found Neb, with his hands in his pockets, watching the manceuvres of the French as the cat watches those of the mouse. The fellow's eye was alive with interest ; and I saw it was useless to think of sepaog him below. As for the officers, they had taken their cue from the Captain, and only smiled goodnaturedly as I passed them. The First Lieutenant,

however, was an exception. He never had appeared well-disposed towards us ; and I make no doubt, had I not been so hospitably taken into the cabin, we should all have got an earlier taste of his humour.

" • There is too much good stuff in that fellow,' be drily remarked in pass- ing, pointing towards Neb at the same time, ' for him to be doing nothing at a moment like this.'

"‘ We are neutrals as respects France, Mr. Clements,' I answered ; 'and it would not be right for us to take part in your quarrels. I will not hesitate to say, however, that I have received so much kindness on board the Briton, that I should feel miserable in not being permitted to share your danger. Some- thing may turn up that will enable me to be of assistance—ay, and Neb too.' " The man gave me a keen look, muttered something between his teeth, and walked aft, whither he was proceeding when we met. I looked in the direction in which he went, and could see he was speaking in a surly way to Captain Rowley. The old gentleman cast a look forward, shook a finger at me, then smiled in his benevolent way, and turned, as I thought, to look for one of the Midshipmen who acted as his Aids. At that moment the Frenchman went in stays, delivering his whole broadside, from aft forward, as the guns bore. The shot told on the British spars smartly, though only two hulled her. As a matter of course, this turned the thoughts of Captain Rowley to the main business in hand, and I was forgotten. As for Neb, he immediately made him- self useful. A shot cut the main-spring-stay, just above his head; and before I had time to speak, the fellow seized a stopper, and caught one of the ends of the stay, applied the stopper, and was hard at work in bringing the rope into its proper place, and in preparing it again to bear a strain. The boatswain applauded his activity, sending two or three forecastle-men to help him. From that moment Neb was as busy as a bee aloft ; now appearing, through openings in the smoke, on this yard-arm, now on that ; his face on a broad grin when- ever business of more importance than common was to he done. The Briton might have had older and more experienced seamen at work in her rigging that day, hot not one that was more active, more ready when told what to do, or more athletic. The gaiete de cceur with which this Black exerted himself in the midst of that scene of strife, clamour, and bloodshed, has always presented it- self to my mind as truly wonderful.

" Captain Rowley did not alter his course, or fire a gun in answer to the sa- lute he received, though the two ships were scarcely a cable-length asunder when the Frenchman began. The Briton stood steadily on ; and the two ships passed each other within pistol-shot a minute or two later, when we let fly all our larboard guns. This was the beginning of the real war, and warm enough it was for half an hour or more,—our ship coming round as soon as she had fired, when the two frigates closed broadside and broadside, both running off nearly dead before the wind. I do not know how it happened, but when the bead- yards were swung 1 found myself pulling at the fore-brace like a dray-horse. The master's mate, who commanded these braces, thanked me for my assist- ance, in a cheerful voice, saying, ' We'll thrash 'em in an hour, Captain Wal- lingford.' This was the first consciousness I had that my hands had entered into the affair at all !

" I had now an opportunity of ascertaining what a very different thing it is to be a spectator in such a scene from being an actor. Ashamed of the forget- fulness that bad sent me to the brace, I walked on the quarter-deck, where blood was already flowing freely. Everybody but myself was at work for life or death. In 1803, that mongrel gun the carronade had come into general use; and those on the quarter-deck of the Briton were beginning to fly round and i look their owners in the face, when they vomited their contents, as they grew warm with the explosion. Captain Rowley, Clements, and the Master, were all here; the first and last attending to the trimming of the sails, while the First Lieutenant looked a little after the battery, and a little at everything else. Scarce a minute passed that shot did not strike somewhere, though it was prin- pally aloft ; and the wails of the hurt, the revolting part of every serious com- bat, began to mingle in the roar of the contest. The English, I observed, fought sullenly, though they fought with all their hearts. Occasionally a cheer would arise in some part of the ship ; but these, and the cries of the hurt, were almost all the sounds that were heard, except those of the conflict, with an occasional call or a word of encouragement from some officer.

"‘ Warm work, Wallingford,' Captain Rowley said, as I came close upon him in the smoke. You have no business here, but I like to see the face of a friend notwithstanding. You have been looking about you; how do you think it is going?'

" This ship will—must beat, Captain Rowley. Her order and regularity are most beautiful.'

"‘ Ay—l'm glad to hear you say as much, Wallingford, for I know you are a seaman. Just go down on the gun-deck and cast an eye around you ; then come up, and tell me how things look there.'

"Here I was, fairly inlisted as an Aid. Down I went, however: and such a scene 1 never had witnessed before, certainly. Although the season had well advanced into the autumn, the weather was so warm that half the men had stripped for the toil—and toil it is to work heavy guns for hours at a time, under the excitement of battle : a toil that may not be felt at the time, perhaps, but which leaves a weariness like that of disease behind it. Many of the sea- men fought in their trousers alone; their long hard cues lying on their naked backs, which resembled those of so many athlete prepared for the arena. The gun-deck was full of smoke, the priming burned in-board producing that effect; though the powder which exploded in the guns was sent, with its flames and sulphurous wreaths, in long lines from the ports towards the enemy. The place appeared a sort of Pandemonium to me. I could perceive men moving about in the smoke, rammers and sponges whirling in their hands, guns reeling inward, ay, even leaping from the deck, under the violence of the recoils; officers signing with their swords to add emphasis to their orders, boys running to and fro on their way to and from the magazines, shot tossed from hand to hand ; and, to give its fiercest character to all, the dead and dying weltering in their blood amid-ships.

" Of the manoeuvres of this combat I know scarcely anything. My atten- tion was drawn in-board ; for, having nothing to do, I could not but watch the effect of the enemy's fire on the Briton, as well as the manner in which the English repaid all they received. While standing near the main-mast in the battery that was not engaged, Marble made me out in the smoke, and came up to speak to me. " Them Frenchmen are playing their parts like men,' he said. • There's a shot just gone through the cook's coppers, and another through the boats. By the Lord Harry, if the boys on this deck do not bestir themselves, we shall get licked ! I wouldn't be licked by a Frenchman on any account, Miles. Even little Kitty would point her finger at me.'

"‘ We are only passengers, you know, Moses : and can have little concern with victory or defeat, so long as the striped and starred bunting has nothing to do with the credit of the thing.'

"' I am not so sure of that, Miles. I do not like being flogged, even as a passenger. There! just look at that, now I Two or three more such raps, and half our guns will be silenced.'

" Two shot had come in together as Marble thus interrupted himself; one of them knocking away the side of a port, while the other laid four men of its gun on the deck. This gun was on the point of being discharged as the injury was inflicted; but the loss of its captain prevented it from being fired. The Lieutenant of the division caught the match from the fallen seaman, gave it a puff with his breath, and applied it to the priming. As the gun came leaping in, the Lieutenant turned his head to see where he could best find men to sup- ply the place of those who had been killed or wounded. His eyes fell on us. He asked no questions, but merely looked in our direction.

" 'Ay, ay, Sir,' said Marble, stripping off hia jacket, and taking the tobacco from his mouth. In one moment—just hold on till I'm ready.'

" I scarce knew whether to remonstrate or not ; but bard at it he went : and, delighted by his zeal, the officer clapped him on the back, leaving him to act as captain of the gun. Afraid the contagion might extend to myself, I turned, ascended the ladder, and was immediately on the quarter-deck. again. Here I found old Captain Rowley, with his hat off, cheering his men ; the Frenchman's main-top-mast having just gone over his side. It was not a time to make my report, nor was any needed just then; so 1 walked aft as far as the taffrail, in order to get out of the way, and to make my observations as much removed from the smoke as possible. This was the only opportunity I enjoyed of noting the relative positions as well as conditions of the two vessels.

" The Briton had suffered heavily aloft ; but all her principal spars still stood. On the other hand, her antagonist had lost both main and mizen-top- masts, and her fire had materially slackened within the last fifteen minutes. She was falling more under a quarter-raking fire, too, from her people's losing command of their ship ; the two frigates having, some time before, come by the wind—the Englishman a little on the Frenchman's weather-quarter. As is usual in a heavy cannonade and a moderate breeze, the wind had died away, or become neutralized by the concussions of the guns, and neither combatant moved much from the position he occupied. Still, the Briton had her yards knowingly braced, while those of her enemy were pretty much at sixes and sevens. Under such circumstances, it was not difficult to predict the result of the engagement ; more especially as the spirits of the Britons seemed to be rising with the duration of the combat.

" I was still making my observations when I beard the crack of a shot and the ripping of plank on the forward part of the quarter-deck. A little group collected around a falling man ; and 1 thought I caught a glimpse of Captain Rowley's uniform and epaulettes in the sufferer. In an instant I was on the spot. Sure enough, there was my old friend grievously wounded. Clements was also there. Catching my eye, he observed, ' As you are doing nothing, Sir, will you assist in carrying Captain Rowley below ? ' " I did not like the manner in which this was said, nor the expression of the First Lieutenant's eye while saying it. They seemed to me to add, 1 shall now command this ship, and we shall see if new lords don't produce new laws.' I complied, however, of course ; and, aided by two of his own servants, I gat the poor old man into the gun-room. The instant the surgeon cast his eyes on the injuries, I saw by his countenance there was no hope. His words soon confirmed the had news.

" ' The Captain cannot live half-an-hour,' this gentleman said to me aside ; 'and all we can do will be to give him what he asks for. At present he is atupified by the shock of the blow, but in a few minutes he will probably ask for water, or wine and water : I wish, Sir, you would indulge him in his wishes, for you can have no duty to call you on deck. This will be a lucky bit for Clements, who will run off with more than half the credit of the battle, though I fancy the Frenchman has as much as be wants already.'

" And so it turned out literally in the end. About twenty minutes after I went below, during which time the Briton did most of the fighting, we heard the cheer of victory on deck. The sounds appeared to cause the wounded man to revive.

"'What means that, Wallingford ? ' he asked, in a stronger voice than I Could have thought it possible for him to use. • 'What do these cheers mean, any young friend?' "'They mean, Captain Rowley, that you have conquered—that you are master of the French frigate.'

" ' Master I am I master of my own life ? Of what use is victory to me now ? I shall die—die soon, Wallingford, and there will be an end of it all! My poor wife will call this a melancholy victory.'

" Alas ! what could I say ? These words were only too true as respected himself, and, I dare say, as respected his wife also. Die he did, and in my presence, and that calmly, with all his senses about him: but I could see he had his doubts whether a little lustre like that which attended his end was fulfilling all the objects of his being. The near view of death places a man on a moral eminence, whence he commands prospects before and behind, on each side and on every side, enabling him to overlook the whole scene of life from its commencement to its close, and to form an opinion of his own place in a drama that is about to close. Like many of those who exhibit themselves fi r our amusement and to purchase our applause, he is only too apt to quit the stage leas satisfied with his own performances than the thoughtless multitude, who, regarding merely the surfaces of things, are too often loudest in their approba- tion when there is the least to praise."