him money for his journey back to Liverpool, and a letter which he is to leave at Bury, should he (the aforesaid Bolton) not return before morning. And thereupon he departs with the almond-tree, and Redburn is left to his meditations, and hears dice rattle, has visions of frantic men rushing along corridors, and fancies he sees reptiles crawling over the mirrors, and at last, what with wine, excitement, and fatigue, he falls asleep. He is roused by Harry Bolton, very pale and desperate, who draws a dirk, and nails his empty purse to the table, and whistles fiercely, and finally screams for brandy. Now all this sort of thing, we can assure its author, is in the very stalest style of minor-theatre melodrama. We perfectly remember our intense gratification when witnessing, at country fairs in our boyish days, a thrilling domestic tragedy, in which the murderer rushes on the stage with a chalked face and a gory carving-knife, howling for "Brandy! Brandy!!" swallows a goblet of strong toast and water, and is tranquillised. But surely Mr Melville had no need to recur to such antiquated traditions. Nor had he any need to introduce this fantastical gambling episode, unless it were upon the principle of the old cakes of roses in the apothecary's shop--to make up a show. We unhesitatingly qualify the whole of this London expedition as utter rubbish, intended evidently to be very fine and effective, but which totally misses the mark. Why will not Mr Melville stick to the ship? There he is at home. The worst passages of his sea-going narrative are better than the best of his metropolitan experiences. In fact, the introduction at all of the male brunette is quite impertinent. Having got him, Mr Melville finds it necessary to do something with him, and he is greatly puzzled what that is to be. Bolton's character is full of inconsistencies. Notwithstanding his two voyages to the East Indies, and his great notion of "the romance" of working his passage as a common sailor, when he comes to do duty on board the Highlander he proves himself totally ignorant of nautical matters, and is so nerveless a mariner that, on ascending a mast, he nearly falls into the sea, and nothing can induce him again to go aloft. This entails upon him the contempt and ill-treatment of his officers and shipmates, and he leads a dog's life between Liverpool and New York. "Few landsmen can imagine the depressing and self-humiliating effect of finding one's self, for the first time, at the beck of illiterate sea-tyrants, with no opportunity of exhibiting any trait about you but your ignorance of everything connected with the sea-life that you lead, and the duties you are constantly called on to perform. In such a sphere, and under such circumstances, Isaac Newton and Lord Bacon would be sea-clowns and bumpkins, and Napoleon Buonaparte be cuffed and kicked without remorse. In more than one instance I have seen the truth of this; and Harry, poor Harry, proved no exception."