"This sea novel is a singular medley of naval observation, magazine article writing, satiric reflection upon the conventionalisms of civilized life, and rhapsody run mad. So far as the nautical parts are appropriate and unmixed, the portraiture is truthful and interesting. Some of the satire, especially in the early parts, is biting and reckless. The chapter-spinning is various in character; now powerful from the vigorous and fertile fancy of the author, now little more than empty though sounding phrases. The rhapsody belongs to wordmongering where ideas are the staple; where it takes the shape of narrative or dramatic fiction, it is phantasmal--an attempted description of what is impossible in nature and without probability in art; it repels the reader instead of attracting him. [4] The Whale. By Herman Melville, Author of "Typee," "Omoo," "Redburn," "Mardi," "White Jacket." In three volumes. Published by Bentley. [Moby Dick, or the Whale: By Herman Melville: 1 vol. 12mo. New-York, Harper & Brothers.] "The elements of the story are a South Sea whaling voyage, narrated by Ishmael, one of the crew of the ship Pequod, from Nantucket. Its 'probable' portions consist of the usual sea matter in that branch of the industrial marine; embracing the preparations for departure, the voyage, the chase and capture of whale, with the economy of cutting up, &c., and the peculiar discipline of the service. This matter is expanded by a variety of digressions on the nature and characteristics of the sperm whale, the history of the fishery, and similar things, in which a little knowledge is made the excuse for a vast many words. The voyage is introduced by several chapters in which life in American seaports is rather broadly depicted. "The 'marvellous' injures the book by disjointing the narrative, as well as by its inherent want of interest, at least as managed by Mr. Melville. In the superstition of some whalers, (grounded upon the malicious foresight which occasionally characterizes the attacks of the sperm fish upon the boats sent to capture it,) there is a _white_ whale which possesses supernatural power. To capture or even to hurt it is beyond the art of man; the skill of the whaler is useless; the harpoon does not wound it; it exhibits a contemptuous strategy in its attacks upon the boats of its pursuers; and happy is the vessel were only loss of limb, or of a single life, attends its chase. Ahab, the master of the Pequod--a mariner of long experience, stern resolve, and indomitable courage, the high hero of romance, in short, transferred to a whale-ship--has lost his leg in a contest with the white whale. Instead of daunting Ahab, the loss exasperates him; and by long brooding over it his reason becomes shaken. In this condition, he undertakes the voyage; making the chase of his fishy antagonist the sole abject of his thoughts, and, so far as he can without exciting overt insubordination among his officers, the object of his proceedings.