ART. IV.-Omoo: a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. By HERMAN MELVILLE. London: Murray, 1847.

THIS

HIS is the age of puffing and humbug. Huge empty wooden carriages parade the streets of the metropolis, with placards and notices of various inestimable blessings and benefits which certain persons are minded to confer on the enlightened public, if the said public will but please to buy!" The manifest object of this new system of carrying on business, is to persuade the public that at such and such a locality, teas, and breeches, or hats, as the case may be, are better and cheaper than elsewhere; but the seat of the disease is to be found in the settled determination of the world to buy cheap wares, without any direct reference to the important question of their intrinsic worth-cheap railways carry off all the excursionists, and cheap steam-boats will do the same for your foot-sore clerk, who chuckles at the economy of the "halfpenny fares," in utter unconsciousness of the contingent blowing up which he purchases together with his ticket. Regardless of the cost of the material, the every-day working, pushing, go-ahead Englishman will now-a-days have a cheap article. The daily press is not exempt from this "low pressure" from without. The last year has witnessed the birth and hitherto successful career of a three-penny morning paper, and we believe that it is perused extensively. Though those who prefer the Daily News to the Times may consider the two-pence "saved" as if they were so many pounds gotten, we very much doubt whether such' dealings are calculated substantially to benefit either party, and we deprecate the recourse to prices, which must either leave the speculator in the lurch, or tend to the dissemination of rubbish in the place of sound substantial wares: our strong disinclination to such a state of things arises from the conviction founded on experience, that it leads to humbug and imposition. It is a system resembling a fair in olden times, where he who could bawl out the virtues of his exhibition the loudest, was sure to get all the custom of the country bumpkins and wenches. He who can now advertise his goods in the most outrè guise, or disguise, is now triumphant. The sensual Roman emperor offered a high reward for a new

dish in olden times: modern speculators are more prone to offer rewards for new methods of puffing, where the palate of the public must be tickled and surprised by ingeniously concealed clap-traps. Verily they have their reward too. All the money expended so lavishly by "Moses and Son" on their palace in the Minories, was "turned" by their revolving wax-work figures, which astonished the town not long ago. Aristides was voted a bore, and ostracised accordingly by one man who was tired of hearing him always called "The Just." The citizen of London depends on the contrary principle. The eternal repetition of the tradesman's name, coupled with the merits of his wares, now ensures him the patronage of the cockneys; for, like the farmer, they would believe that the mountebank presented every man with half-a-crown who purchased a seven-and-sixpenny box for 5s., whereas they in fact give 5s. for that which is really worth no more than 2s. 6d. For many months the readers of the advertising columns of every paper in London were astonished at the simple paragraph,

"No. 1., St. Paul's Church-Yard!!"

Some who deemed that those words intimated foregone conclusions, steadily watched the top of Ludgate Hill as they passed the sacred pile, in the hope of witnessing the re-union of the happy pair; others deemed that it was a matrimonial speculation, and that it was an answer to a by-gone and equally mysterious solicitation for an interview. But all were mistaken; and when "All the world and his wife" had noticed and re-noticed "No. 1." daily for nearly six months, it was discovered that an enterprising tea dealer was at the bottom of all the mystery, and "No. 1., St. Paul's Church-Yard," turned out to be Messrs. Daking and Co., who were ready and willing to sell "Rough Congos," "Rare Souchongs," and "Highflavoured Pekoes," at prices" absolutely stunning." So goes the world in many trades; of such given materials are the rounds of the ladder composed by the aid of which that respectability which "keeps a shay" is sought for, and in many cases attained in this 19th century. The means, however, are not to be justified by the mere ends; and we wonder much that so dignified a bibliopole as Mr. Murray could condescend to them. It seems, however, that he must do so as well as his neighbours, or else his

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cobwebs will not be adorned with flies. We remember to have seen an advertisement some months ago, which marvellously puzzled us, and certainly reminded us of "No. one, St. Paul's Church-yard"-being nothing more nor less than this, "Oмoo, by the author of TYPEE." Our curiosity was excited by this advertisement, which was from time to time repeated, till "Omoo" saw life in the 30th number of "Murray's Home and Colonial Library," "when it turned out to be a sequel to a former number, describing the author's experience of life in the Marquesas Islands.

The purpose of the mystic advertisement was accomplished in our case certainly; but we should have much more readily perused Omoo if it had been simply announced to the world of Letters as "Adventures in the South Seas," for by that title Mr. Murray now calls it, and we should have had far less repugnance to overcome if we had not been sensible, while we read on and devoured the contents of the volume now before us, page after page, that we, in our critical capacity, had been induced to read the book under a species of false pretence as it were. This sensation has given rise to our atrabilious remarks on the proceedings of the present age-but having given vent to them, we proceed to discuss Mr. Herman Melville "with what appetite we may.

"Truth" has been openly proclaimed to be "stranger than Fiction." Omoo is on that score a truthful book. We would not term it "wonderful," because the qualification of true is generally appended to that adjective by those who intend to signify their want of belief in the fact spoken of. There is, however, one sense in which the term wonderful may be applied to Mr. Melville's production; for we wonder how such a book came to be written by one "before the mast," as he describes himself to be; or how one capable of so thinking, reflecting, recollecting, and inditing, could have gone before the mast! And in a "whaler" too, of all ships in the world! Verily the solution of these "wonders" puzzles us much. Then again, the fact that Mr. Melville "hails from" Yankee Land, (for he dedicates his work "To Herman Gansevoort, of Gansevoort, Saratoga County, New York," with whom he claims consanguinity,) is a circumstance which excites suspicion. Not that we would be supposed to hold the bigoted theory, that every Yankee tale is like

"that 'tarnal sea-sarpint" of which there is neither end nor beginning--as we opine. Far otherwise, but we do mean to say that the "States" are a very large country, and it is very difficult to identify our author by his tone, habits, or thoughts, with any of the peculiar classes into which the land is divided. In the first place, he is to all appearances free from that anti-Anglican prejudice, and those egotistical Americanisms which generally distinguish our good "brother Jonathan," who, though he has somehow or other possessed himself of a tolerable provision for a younger scion of an ancient family, is yet preposterous enough at times to sigh for the family seat which has time out of mind appertained to his elder brother, "John Bull." We next find Mr. Melville indulging in both his works in no very measured comments on the proceedings of the French, both at Nukuheva and Tahiti, so that on the whole we are at fault as to the correctness of his ship's papers, and hardly know whether to trust implicitly to the simple yet insufficient account of himself, which may be gleaned from the prefaces to these works, and from their contents.

Plunging in medias res, we are told that our author, having entered the "Dolly," an American sperm whaler, for her voyage to the South Seas, six months had not elapsed before he got heartily sick of the service, and on his arrival at the Marquesas determined to run away. In this he is imitated by one Toby, in the description of whom we may perhaps find the type of our imaginary sailorauthor, or perhaps the real actual man himself.

"He was a young fellow about my own age, for whom I had all along entertained a great regard, and Toby, such was the name by which he went among us, for his real name he would never tell us, was every way worthy of it.....Toby, like myself, had evidently moved in a different sphere of life, and his conversation at times. betrayed this, although he was anxious to conceal it. He was one of that class of rovers you sometimes meet at sea, who never reveal their origin, never allude to home, and go rambling over the world as if pursued by some mysterious fate they cannot possibly elude." -The Marquesas Islands, p. 33.

This precious pair soon put their plan into execution, and taking flight from the Dolly, betake themselves to the mountains of Nukuheva, in a valley among which reside the "Typees," a savage set of cannibals. The fugitives

soon discovered that in quitting the Dolly they had jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, and it is very uncertain even now whether Toby was not served up "hot and hot" at some high festival. At all events he disappears most mysteriously from the narrative of the author's adventures in this valley, where, for four months, he was "detained in an indulgent captivity;" at the end of that period he was rescued by the "Julia," an English whaler, the captain of which had put in at the island to obtain hands, and hearing of the captive of Typee, had sent a boat round to his rescue. As soon as our author set his foot on board the Julia, he "signs" for "one voyage," that is, till the arrival of the ship at the next port, when he might leave her if he so pleased. With a captain described as a "young cockney, who a few years ago had emigrated to Australia, and by some favouritism or other had procured the command of the vessel, though he was in no wise competent," and "essentially a landsman, and though a man of education, no more meant for the sea than a hairdresser," it may not be matter of wonder that we should soon be told that the crew of the Julia was in a completely disorganised condition. Sailing out of "Sydney Head," with a ship's company numbering some thirty-two souls, twelve of that complement had deserted in a very short period, while all the remainder were "more or less unwell from a long sojourn in a dissipated port," and under the able superintendence of Jermin, the "bluff mate," had imbibed a strong predilection for an excessive allowance of "Pisco," a cheap substitute for rum. The following description of the mate and the Doctor of the vessel, who figures largely in the whole volume, is good in itself, while it gives an insight into the discipline of a South-Seaman.

"So far as courage, seamanship, and a natural aptitude for keeping riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very beau-ideal of the efficient race of short thick-set men. His hair curled in little rings of iron grey all over his round bullet head. As for his countenance, it was strongly marked, deeply pitted with the small-pox. For the rest, there was a fierce little squint out of one eye; the nose had a rakish twist to one side; while his large mouth, and great white teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. In a word, no one, after getting a fair look at him, would ever think of improving the shape of his nose, wanting in symmetry if it was. Notwithstanding his pugnacious.