10 MARCH 1849, Page 17

THE EMIGRANT FAMILY. * THE author of this book seems to

be well acquainted with the life and landscapes of New South Wales; but he wants judgment to select events and persons imagination to generalize and vivify them. The every-day life described is too common to interest in fiction; the parts in- tended for romance are too extreme for a true picture; the villany is alto. gether of a felonious cast, and the distress mainly of a sordid kind, origi- nating in scabbed sheep and a fraudulent branding of cattle. The matter of the book has too much the air of a treatise forced into the form of a novel, with some extraordinary characters superadded, who can only be found in a colony by accident, and two or three love-stories with little more sentiment than ninety-nine in a hundred of the " matches " that are daily made up. The novelty of the manners, the coarse raciness of the lower characters with the freshness and to some extent the informing nature of the sketches of a settler's life, might have redeemed the errors of judgment if the book had possessed more vitality. But it is hard, literal, and coarse-grained, with nothing attractive in the persons, and little spirit in the dialogue, except among the convicts and ticket-of-leave men, where there is a common kind of truth. The tale of The Emigrant Family is the history of Lieutenant * Braç-

The Emigrant Family; or the Story of an Australian Settler. By the Author of "Settlers and Convicts." In three volumes. Published by Smith and Elder. ton's settlement with his family in a district on the banks of the Mor- rumbidgee. There are love-stories connected with his two sons and his two daughters, but they need not detain us. The interest turns upon the character and doings of Martin Beck, his overseer,—a Black man, the offspring of two transported Africans; who is smarting under the con- tempt to which his colour exposes him, and aims at wealth as a means of triumphing over it, by stealing all the cattle he can. This cattle-thievery forms what critics call "the action" of the piece. In conjunction with a worthy stockman, whose initials, like those of his mistress and her daughter, are the same as his own, Beck brands his master's calves by wholesale. A ticket-of-leave bullock-driver—a well-drawn Welshman— is suspected by Beck of suspecting him, and a great object is to get rid of him ; which is accomplished by infecting his sheep with the scab. The removal of John Thomas does not render Beck more safe ; he is de- tected, and subsequently driven to a variety of schemes to secure himself and his ill-gotten gains. All this serves to introduce a variety of inci- dents representing the romance of bush-life,--such as an attack of Abo- rigines upon Mr. Bracton's settlement ; the life of a bushranger, with a pursuit and escape, till Beck is finally shot by Willoughby Bracton. The character of the overseer is said to be founded in fact ; but that by no means fits it for fiction. The physical and mental powers of Beck, his concentrated attention upon one object, and his recklessness in pur- suit of it, would have given interest had he, in a Tropical country, repre- sented a class instead of himself, and aimed at a higher object by higher means. His position is too peculiar, his aims are too vulgar : the convicts have more interest, from being more real, and better adapted to the place.

Intermixed with what may be called the story, are many sketches of the business of a settler's life, and of the almost romantic incidents that frequently occur on the outskirts of the colony. In fact, the story itself is contrived to exhibit such; (which may be one cause of its deficiency as a novel,) sketches of colonial life are the matter of the book ; but they would have been more in place in a descriptive account than a fiction.

The following extract may be taken as a specimen of the composition : it is the execution of a traitor detected in informing against the gang, after Beck has been driven to the bush.

"None of them speak to him. All his life is in his ears and eyes: it feels to him as if his ears were drums, and his eyes staring through iron-rings. Speak ! he knows not that he even has lips or a tongue: his jaws move, but the sound is inarticulate, like the distant clatter and hum of a little mill—a rattle with a low buzzing moan. " suppose we are all agreed,' says the Black, as they stand round looking up, at him. 'For a second or two no one speaks: some continue to look as they were look- ing,; some look away. Presently the soldier says, 'Justice must be done.' Yon hoar what's said,' announces Beck quietly ; and, cold as contempt it- self, he leans back against the rock at the side of the ganyah, folding his arms and slowly throwing one foot over the other; then, as the action shows him a little tuft of grass tangled in the rowel of his spur, quietly stooping and clearing it, and resuming his position. 'We want no revenge on you, my man: you're beneath that. But the man that betrays his comrades is a wretch too dangerous to live—a dog that sneaks in and Entails in the dark—a death-snake that steeps his fang in the life-blood, without warning and without pity:

"Again the Black paused and scanned the faces of his comrades.

"'For one man that the lordly lion kills, twice, thrice as many are killed by the devilish snake—a low miserable reptile thing without body or limbs—no- thing but a crawling head and tail.'

"Again he paused, and beau to move impatiently as if he were awaiting a reply.Speak, man!' he said at length, throwing himself up with energy, but still with folded arms. It's your business to find out if there's any chance left for you-' ours to see whether it's a fair one.' " And yet I must not speak,' thought the wretched being; it will but aggra- vate them.'

" ' Last night it this time,' pursued the Black, almost mournfully, if we had heard you were in the hands of the police, not a man here but would have risked his life freely, if there had been any chance to rescue you—crawler as you ever were. Twelve hours afterwards, we catch you eating and drinking and smoking—our blood. Speak, man !' "And again, and again and again: but how changed their tone from the night before! The echoes of the hills shouted back to him= Speak, man!' "He tried: he threw his head back in insupportable agony; half-way lifted his arm. Some rain came suddenly along on the wind: more; faster and faster. 'Now,' he thought, 'there'll be a change.'

"A change? There was. The Black moved his arm, and almost ere he did so, Brown came up and loosened the few remaining coils of the tether-rope that still hung about his waist ; carried up the end-noose; put one arm through—put the other through; got it as high up as his neck—tightened it!

"Could it be? Was he to die? to die? He forgot the wet grass: be felt no horror of abjectness: he would confess the truth—the whole—if they would only let him live. He would go with them to the end of the world. " ' Confess!' exclaimed the Black; 'why he's mad. After selling us to them, he'd go on now and sell them to us: and, by the powers! bethinks that's going to make a man of him. And he'd "go with no to the end of the world" too, and do the same again as often as he had a chance. No, Marcus; it's my belief, and it's everybody's belief here, that you have seen enough of this world, and this world enough of you.'

'Let me heel oh, let me live, let me live ! ' "No pity. He is dragged along on his knees, imploring, shrieking, threatening, to where a tree grows close up by the rock, spreading out on one side its boughs upon the grass of the top, and stretching forth on the other a long, massive, hori- zontal limb. But, though the end of the halter was even tossed over the beam, DO man seemed to like to pat his hand to it. "Enraged at their indecision, the Black sprang at the barrel of the tree, worked himself up it, and crawled along the boughs on to the grassy ground above. 'Up with the end of that rope,' he cried; and, turning round, was out of sight in an instant Soon afterwards, they heard something heavily dashed down n i.n the top. Half a minute to coil the rope's end round a huge log; a look whe- r all was clear below; a shove with the foot; and the log falls to the ground— and the spy is spinning round and plunging horribly about in the air."