IVE and twenty years ago it

may be safely said that the minds of ninety-nine out of every hundred British schoolboys were swayed by an imaginative antinomy, the two rival powers of which were Lever and Marryat. The life, the atmosphere, the movement abounding in the novels of the authors of 'Charles O'Malley' and 'Peter Simple,' constituted the opposing poles to which the enthusiasm and the aspirations of every youngster ætat. ten to seventeen were irresistibly led with all the attraction of magnetism. Now Marryat was in the ascendant, now Lever: it was simply a question which of the two authors our schoolboy had last read. Now he dreamt of desperate sorties, well-planned ambuscades, reconnaissances, forlorn hopes, night attacks, terrible in their preparation, and splendid in their catastrophe: now of privateers and privateering, victories achieved in the teeth of the combined antagonism of Neptune and Vulcan, wonderful feats performed by urchin admirals in war sloops and speronaros, the ennobling discipline of the cock-pit, and the fierce delights of the midshipmen's mess. The secret of the charm in either case it was not difficult to discover. The existence depicted both by Lever and by Marryat was the very embodiment of every idea of liberty, of fun, of rollicking dash, and of prosperous pluck which a youngster could conceive. No base desires, no ignoble appetites were ever excited or encouraged by a single line which either of these writers ever penned. The chord of sympathy which they struck, if now and then somewhat extravagant in its note, had, at least, a ring always

manly, always healthful, invigorating, English, and pure. And it may be regarded as matter for special congratulation by the parents of many an English boy that the writings of Charles Lever and Frederick Marryat synchronized as closely as they did in point of the enthusiastic popularity which was their immediate lot. As regards their influences and effects, the novels of Marryat were a corrective to those of Lever, just as a strong dose of Lever was an antidote to Marryat. The youngster whose head was turned by the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, whose eye was dazzled by the glitter of cuirasses and the gleam of naked swords under the rays of a Spanish sun, no sooner betook himself to the pages of

Midshipman Easy' or 'The King's Own,' than the hue of his vision was changed, and the field of his ambition altered. It was no longer the bray of trumpets and the clash of steel which thrilled his spirit: no longer the song of 'The Irish Dragoon' to which his heart beat tune, no longer the 'He would be a soldier" which was the refrain of his

juvenile existence. The ocean usurped the place of the tented field; instead of the well-mounted troop parading through the town, the wonder of maidens on balconies, and the glory of the multitude in the streets, the image of a line-of-battle-ship rose before his eyes, the decks cleared for action, the Union Jack waving from the mainmast, the ringing cheer of the British tar, the booming of a cross-fire, the boarding of the enemy's vessel, the final victory, due as much as anything to the splendid exertions and the superhuman powers of a small

naval officer, aged fourteen years, who was the centre of the schoolboy dreamer's vision, and who was, in point of fact, none other than himself. The result of these conflicting ambitions, following each other in succession so swift, was generally what might have been expected. The temporary exclusive possession of the boyish mind by Lever and Marryat in turns, terminated in a conviction that, on the whole, it might be as well not to attempt to realise the existence portrayed by either. Psychological authorities inform us that when contending motives exactly balance each other in the human mind, no action results, adducing, as illustrative of this proposition, the timehonoured instance of the homely quadruped standing betwixt two bundles of hay the same in size and in appearance. Something of the same kind was the consequence to the schoolboy world of a course of alternated perusal of Lever and Marryat. Reflection seemed to show that the attractions of a naval and a military career were as nearly as possible equal; and the youthful enthusiast, despairing of the power successfully to decide between these distracting claims, arrived at the conclusion that it might, on the whole, be as well if he devoted his energies for the present to Latin syntax or irregular Greek verbs. If Lever and Marryat have both inspired some proportion of young gentlemen in the fourth forms at Eton and Harrow with a passion that has found vent for itself in pestering their fond fathers to make application on their behalf at the Horse Guards and the Admiralty, the fond fathers in question may ascribe to the simultaneous enthusiasm which the fictions of the novelists of the land and of the sea inflamed that these passions passed off in the majority of instances so quietly.

The recent lamentable death of Charles Lever, and the appearance of such a memoir of Marryat as the existing materials could supply, offer a good opportunity for attempting a parallel between the two men, with respect to their lives and labours, in these pages. And it will be seen that the parallel which we now propose to trace is far from being purely fanciful or imaginary, but is at each point surprisingly close and exact. Each in his own literary sphere reigns supreme: each reflects in his writings, with curious fidelity, the spirit and the tendency of the life he describes. Points of contrast there are between the two men not a few; but it is the contrast, after all, which intensifies and substantiates the analogy. Both Lever and Marryat were not, so to speak, brought up to literature. In their infancy they were not fed upon printer's ink instead of pap; nor were they tucked up, as many writers undoubtedly have been, in proof-sheets. Both had passed through the very best of all public apprenticeships to the novelist's

art

the apprenticeship of an active, a varied, a laborious career. Both, like Mr. Anthony Trollope in the present day, had outgrown the heyday of youth when they turned their hands to authorship. Marryat was thirty-seven when, in 1829, he published 'The Naval Officer.' Lever was thirty-three when, ten years later, he delighted the world with The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer.' In the course of a literary life of three decades Lever wrote at the rate of a novel a year. In the course of a literary life of less than two decades Marryat contrived to produce not fewer than thirty distinct works. The superabundant activity even of the two men is equally remarkable. As Lever always had other occupations besides those of the

In

pen to claim his attention and time, so too had Marryat. the ordinary course of things, they existed for Lever: Marryat created them for himself. Lever was consul at Florence, at Spezzia, at Trieste-not very arduous posts, it is true, but still posts to which official duties and responsibilities attached: Marryat betook himself at Langham to scientific farming, and rising every morning at five to look after his stock with a zeal that would have done credit to one who had no thought in life but the improvement of land and the breeding of cattle. Neither Marryat nor Lever could have succeeded in getting through a tithe of the literary labours which they actually accomplished, unless they had been methodic workers. The method which with Lever was in great degree the outcome of his official experience, may in the case of Marryat be attributed to his naval training. The two men were thus both of them strengthened and prepared for literature by the regular routine of professional existence. At this point we are reminded of an important distinction between the novelist of the land and the novelist

of the sea. Marryat reflected his own personal experience; Lever, save in his later novels, did not. Thus every fiction which flowed from the pen of the author of 'The King's Own' is distinctly in a greater or less degree autobiographical. We will not say that out of Marryat's novels could have been concocted a life of the writer almost as complete as that which his daughter has given us, but there is no incident or episode in Marryat's career of a naval officer narrated in these memoirs which will come with much of novelty to the student of his novels. It is as if the reader of some history had been referred to the original

Midshipman Easy' was the deck of the Impérieuse.' Again, we now hear that Marryat first visited the Barbadoes in the sloop 'L'Espiègle,' and that he burst a blood-vessel in dancing at a ball in that island. Here we immediately recognize the dignity ball, and the side-splitting fun which attended it, of 'Peter Simple.' Once more: before the 'Rosario' was paid off, Marryat made several cruises with her against smugglers in the Channel; what else has he done than give permanent colour and shape to these experiences in the smuggling passages of The King's Own?' Such instances as these might be multiplied indefinitely in the case of Marryat: there are scarcely any of the kind forthcoming in the case of Lever, with the exception of a few touches of realism which approach to personality; in the earliest and best known of his novels there are none whatever. It may be said that the imagination of the author of 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Harry Lorrequer,' and 'Jack Hinton' is better than the experience of a score of other writers; and so, no doubt, it is. Only, the fact remains that there cannot attach to the romances of Lever that twofold value-first, as genuine works of novelistic art; secondly, as contributions to the social history of the times and classes with which he was concerned-that there does to the romances of Marryat. For