A new school of novelists is evidently springing up on the western shores of the Atlantic. The pioneers are already in the field--and the main body, we suppose, will shortly follow. The style of these innovators seems a compound imitation of _Gulliver_, _Munchausen_, _The Arabian Nights_, and _Robinson Crusoe_; the ingredients being mixed in capricious proportions, well stirred, seasoned with Yankee bulls and scraps of sea-slang, and served hot--sometimes plain, at others with a _hors d'oeuvre_ of puffs. We know not how such queer ragouts affect the public palate; but we are inclined to prefer dishes of an older fashion. Mr Herman Melville, of New York and the Pacific Ocean, common sailor, first introduced the new-fangled kickshaw. This young gentleman has most completely disappointed us. Two or three years ago, he published two small volumes of sea-faring adventure and island-rambles, of which we thought more highly than of any first appearance of the kind we for a long time had witnessed. In the pages of Maga, where praise is never lightly or lavishly bestowed, we said as much; and were glad to hope that Typee and Omoo were but an earnest of even better things. And, therefore, sadly were we disgusted on perusal of a rubbishing rhapsody, entitled _Mardi, and a Voyage Thither_. We sat down to it with glee and self-gratulation, and through about half a volume we got on pleasantly enough. The author was afloat; and although we found little that would bear comparison with the fine vein of nautical fun and characteristic delineation which we had enjoyed on board the Little Jule, and afterwards at Tahiti, yet there was interest--strong interest at times; and a scene on board a deserted vessel was particularly exciting,--replete with power of a peculiar and uncommon kind. But this proved a mere flash in the pan--the ascent of the rocket which was soon to fall as a stick. An outlandish young female, one Miss Yillah, makes her first appearance: Taji, the hero and narrator of the yarn, reaches a cluster of fabulous islands, where the jealous queen Hautia opens a floral correspondence with him: where the plumed and turbaned Yoomy sings indifferent doggerel; and Philosopher Babbalanja unceasingly doth prose; and the Begum of Pimminee holds drawing-rooms, which are attended by the Fanfums, and the Diddledees, and the Fiddlefies, and a host of other insular magnates, with names equally elegant, euphonious, and significant. Why, what trash is all this!--mingled, too, with attempts at a Rabelaisian vein, and with strainings at smartness--the style of the whole being affected, pedantic, and wearisome exceedingly. We are reminded, by certain parts of _Mardi_, of Foote's nonsense about the nameless lady who "went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie;" and at whose wedding the Joblilies, and the Picninnies, and the Great Panjandrum, danced till the gunpowder ran out at their boot-heels. Foote wrote his