straight-laced notions about the duties of sailor boys, which he tries hard to inculcate upon Redburn. Upon the whole, however, Red Max, as he is sometimes called--his shirt, cheeks, hair, and whiskers being all of that colour--is tolerably kind to the youngster, in whose welfare he occasionally shows some little interest. Jack Blunt, to whose description the author devotes the greater part of a chapter, is not quite so happy a hit--rather overdone--overloaded with peculiarities. Although quite a young fellow, his hair is turning gray, and, to check this premature sign of age, he thrice in the day anoints his bushy locks with _Trafalgar Oil_ and _Copenhagen Elixir_, invaluable preparations retailed to him by a knavish Yankee apothecary. He is also greatly addicted to drugging himself: takes three pills every morning with his coffee, and every now and then pours down "a flowing bumper of _horse salts_." Then he has a turn for romance, and sings sentimental songs, which must have had an odd enough sound from the lips of one whose general appearance is that of "a fat porpoise standing on end;" and he believes in witchcraft, and studies a dream-book, and mutters Irish invocations for a breeze when the ship is becalmed, &c., &c. Rather much of all this, Mr Melville, and not equal, by a long chalk, to what you once before did in the same line. As we read, we cannot help a comparison with some former pencillings of yours, which, although earlier made, referred to a later voyage. Involuntarily we are carried back to the rat-and-cockroach-haunted hull of the crazy little Jule, and to the strange collection of originals that therein did dwell. We think of bold Jermin and timid Captain Guy, and, above all, of that glorious fellow Doctor Long-Ghost. We remember the easy natural tone, and well-sustained interest of the book in which they figured; and, desirous though we are to praise, we are compelled to admit that, in _Redburn_, Mr Melville comes not up to the mark he himself has made. It is evident that, on his debut, he threw off the rich cream of his experiences, and he must not marvel if readers have thereby been rendered dainty, and grumble a little when served with the skim-milk. _Redburn_ is a clever book, as books now go, and we are far from visiting it with wholesale condemnation; but it certainly lacks the spontaneous flow and racy originality of the author's South Sea narration.