MR. ROWCROFT'S MAN WITHOUT A PROFESSION.

Iris a truism that things are valuable in proportion to their rarity. The most incurious person would examine with interest the com- monest Australian animals he had never seen before, though he would look with indifference on an exhibition of cats and dogs ; and he would care less for them if some of the domestic animals were only caricatures.

Mr. Rowertoris Tales of the Colonies were the Australian ani- mals, his Man without a Profession is the cat-and-dog exhibition. The moral he would point by the career of his hero, and by frequent direct remark, has been inculcated in English literature perhape more frequently than any other rule of life. Wits, satirists, essayists, moralists, and writers of fiction, have touched, in various forms, upon the misfortune and misery of the position ; for it was often the moral of their own fate, many having been driven to author- ship by the pressure which JOHNSON describes as actuating SAVAGE—" He was obliged to seek some means of support ; and having no profession, became by necessity an author."

Excepting the general disadvantage of all expressly didactic novels, and the doubt whether the subject is large enough for three volumes, the want of inherent novelty would be rather a critical than a practical objection. Every principle is modified by the times : the form of warning which is true in one age is not appli- cable in another; and though we think society at present needs less to be guarded against training up the young without a calling than taught by what calling to get a living, still, had the subject been truly illustrated, it would have pointed a moral as extensive as itself, and possessed the interest which nature, artistically handled, always retains. But The Man without a Profession should rather be called "The Man with a Weak and Foolish Father, and a Fate that Persecutes him to Death." Frank Coverley, the hero, is the son of a country gentleman with some thousands a year, but who has embarrassed his affairs by foolish speculations, standing a contested election, and other means of ruin, including the ine- vitable "roguish lawyer" of CANNING'S parody. However, he dies suddenly, over head and ears in debt ; and Frank, like some three or four other heroes of fiction within the last twelvemonth, is thrown upon the world to go through adven- tures. But, unlike some of the other heroes of romance, who really did not procure any settled occupation, Frank Coverley obtains several. He is a lawyer's clerk; private secretary to a diplomatist ; agent to India for an old friend who cannot go himself; where Frank embarks in mercantile pursuits, and even makes money, though he loses it on his return by pirates; and goes through several foreign adventures. Arrived at home, he is manager of an estate for six years ; then he becomes an amanuensis or literary assistant to a nobleman ; and afterwards editor of a newspaper. By this time the end of the third volume is nearly reached; and in order to wind up, the newspaper changes hands, Frank loses his situation, and can obtain no other ; he is arrested on a bill of exchange, granted some dozen years before ; his young wife dies of a brain-fever, brought on by the shock ; and Frank dies also. Surely any reader must see that all this can illustrate nothing useful. Mr. Rowcaorr seems to limit his idea of a profession to " the three black crows, law, physic, and divinity," and to the pro- fession of arms. But professions vary with the state of society. In very savage communities, there may be castes, but there are no professions ; force and fraud predominate; the man of war pays himself; and the impostor unites in an irregular way the lawyer, the priest, and the quack-doctor. In highly-civilized communi- ties, with many wants and many social complications, pro- fessions embrace a very wide range; all the fine and some of the useful arts—engineering, for instance, which has taken such a stride within these twenty years—agencies of many kinds, and now literature itself. No doubt, the more necessary the pro- fession to mankind, the more secure the professor ; and he who has a wide cunuexion is in a preferable position to him who depends upon the fiat of one or a few. The moral that some parts of this book would establish is, that the master is better off than the man ; which is an obvious truth, and, according to Scripture, likely to endure. But when Frank Coverley successfully managed the affairs of others in India, and successfully speculated at Calcutta, Australia, and the Cape, he had as much a calling as half the traders in London. The Man without a Profession can hardly illustrate any thing except want of perseverance ; and not even that, for though the hero is carried from one pursuit to another, we see that he is carried by the author rather than by his own fickleness.

As a story, the novel is not of high merit. The matter-of-fact style, and want of imagination, visible in The Tales of the Colonies, were unfelt there, from the novelty of the subject, and because the work was really conveying information. In the book before us, the operation of these faults is more directly felt ; and they are un- pleasantly increased by the endeavour of the writer to give interest or humour to commonplace. Neither are the materials artistically treated. Nearly the whole of the first volume is occupied with mere preliminary matter of birth, education, and family affairs. The story would have gained in interest and probability by plunging the reader in medias res. A better acquaintance with the common arts of novel-writing would have induced a "happy ending." Had the elements of the tale been really tragic, Mr. Rowcztoisr would have been quite right in disregarding the vulgar wish : but as The Man without a Profession rather resembles those old plays Dr. Jon resort speaks of, that were tragedies today and comedies tomorrow by changing the final event, Constanza, the Brazilian love of Frank, might have arrived in time to save the parents, as well as to take charge of the children.

The good parts of the book are the introduced descriptions and discourses. There is a Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle—not a new subject, but well enough done; several of the passing official personages are truly sketched; and the remarks on political affairs, which the author puts into their mouths, are frequently judicious. There is a good deal of the press, from Frank's connexion with it ; the particular facts and persons seeming gross caricatures, but the general opinions often characterized by soundness, though taking a deprecatory view. They seem as if written by a person who has thought and reasoned upon the subject, but who possessed little practical knowledge of it, or chose to caricature it. In short, The Man without a Profession is the production of a person of ability and experience, with some knowledge of life and reflection upon its affairs, but too devoid of imagination to produce a novel, unless in such a peculiar case as The Tales of the Colonies.

The following remarks by Frank's first patron, the diplomatist, show the author's ability in the didactic mode.

POLITICS AS A TRADE.

'I confess I bad a notion at one time of doing the state some service by directing your thoughts to a diplomatic career. But the anxieties and uncer- tainties of a political life are so great, that I cannot in my conscience recom- mend any one for whom I have a regard to engage in that hazardous course. Besides, unless a man can bottom his exertions on some certain property— which you give me to understand you have not—unless he can take his stand on a footing of independence, he is apt to he viewed in the light merely of a political adventurer, and to suffer all the slights and reverses to which such a career is exposed. And I must say, that, in my opinion, the adoption of a political life as a mere profession, and for the object of obtaining an income, is by no means indicative of a high and independent mind ; and even if those qualities exist at the outset, I have observed they have almost in every instance given way in the operation."

Are you not too severe?" said Frank.

" I think not. The career of politics, in my opinion, is not the legitimate occupation of • poor man. I mean that career which consists in making money by his interference with public affairs. If there were no men of esta- blished and secure fortunes of sufficient ability to conduct the affairs of the nation, that would be another matter ; and competent administrators would have to be sought from the places where they could be found. Bat that is not the case. There are plenty of men of property amply competent to take on themselves the administration of public affairs ; and as a great social principle, I would rather see such men in power, ceeteris poribus, than others without the qualification of property to recommend them. But the discussion of that part of the subject would lead us away from the consideration of the question as ap- plicable to yourself. In the choice of a career of life which you have to make, I would certainly advise you rather to attach yourself to the comparatively certain results of an honourable profession, than to the uncertain chances of political place and power."

"I thank you sincerely and gratefully for your advice," replied Frank; "and I confess it accords with my own feelings."

"1 may strengthen my advice," added Mr. —, "by giving you the result of my own observation, which has been pretty extensive. So far as the hap- piness of life is concerned, I may say, that of all classes of men, none are more uneasy in their condition than those whom, for the sake of a short term, I must call political adventurer,. With very few exceptions indeed, they are always the slaves of other men, and obliged to bend to all sorts of prejudices and caprices. They are always in the poaition of beggars—not of money ex- actly, but of places and employments—for the sake, and indeed the necessity, of income. And when they arrive at the miserable reward—those few who do attain it—of their long course of servility, what does it amount to? In nine- teen cases out of twenty, not to the value of the position, even in a pecuniary sense, which they might have attained by some independent profession or commercial occupation. It is indeed a wretched life, and almost always a wretched end ; and nothing but the most extraordinary misapprehension of the real nature of the process could beguile men into the pursuit of such delusive advantages."

NEwSPAPER-WRITING.

"It is not so easy to write for a newspaper as people suppose. A man may be a good scholar, a profound thinker, and a vigilant observer of passing events, without being able to write for a newspaper. The power of writing a leading article for a newspaper is a tact which few possess, and which I have known many, with all their learning and diligence, unable to acquire. It requires a large amount of information on a variety of subjects, and a readiness of appli- cation that must never be at fault, or the writer will fail. For remember, the editor is always writing against time, and the inexorable printer must have his copy, so that there is no time to revise and amend; but as slip after slip is written, the devil snatches it away, and one half is usually set up in print before the other half is written. This exacts a decision of thought, and a facility of writing, which, like poetry, seems rather a gift of nature than an acquired faculty."

"That is the mason, I suppose, why there are so many bad leading articles? And as for the good ones, it is not much to write, so far as the quantity is concerned."

"I don't speak of the bad, but of the good. And as to the brevity which you speak of, that is the most difficult task of all; as you would soon find, if you had to write them day after day without intermission. Diffuseness in a leading article is like water added to brandy—what it gains in quantity, it loses in quality. It is comparatively easy to write a long article; but to be able on the instant—without previous consideration—without having time to consult books, or dates, or authorities—to concentrate the pith and marrow of an argument in a few sentences ; to grasp, as it were intuitively, the real question at issue, and to present in a striking point of view that particular truth or illustration which the public mind is prepared to receive and would be disappointed to miss, is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult operations of the human mind."