COOPER'S MARK'S REEF.

LIKE most other novelists who have written much, Mr. Cooper is giving symptoms of exhaustion, in the repetition of himself or others. The novelty of American character, the freshness of the open sea, and the author's disposition to speculate upon systems of society and government, enable him to avoid the appearance of hacknied mannerism which some of his contemporaries exhibit : at present, too, the failing is rather critical than palpable, through being well disguised. But the mind can trace the imita- tion of Robinson Crusoe, (in which Marryat has been beforehand,) ha the wreck upon "Mark's Reef," and subsequent living upon an unin- habited island; the love story, though varied by the circumstances, is essentially the same in hero, heroine, and the accompanying manners, as in several of Mr. Cooper's other novels ; the idea of embodying religious and political speculations by tracing their elementary principles in the forma- tion of a new society, is not new in itself, and in its execution is only another aspect of the author's former diatribes against American editors, demagogues, and so forth : the attempt to enlist volcanic power in the formation and dissolution of a group of islands, scarcely produces an effect proportioned to its boldness, besides that it too much resembles Marryat's forced use of natural phenomena in Monsieur Violet.

Mark's Reef, or the Crater, derives its name from the mate of a vessel which is wrecked upon an extensive volcanic reef, and from an extinct crater, which alone enables the survivors, Mark Woolston and Bob Betts, to live, or at least cultivate and improve the soil. By an ac- cident, more necessary than probable, Bob is driven off the island in a boat, and makes his way to America. Mark's young bride determines to join her husband; her sister-in-law with her family resolve to accompany her ; and on their arrival in the vicinity it is found that an earthquake has occurred in the interval, raising the submerged Mark's Reef and forming a large mountainous island. Mrs. Woolston has property ; it is deter- mined to colonize the group; and some hundreds of people are brought from America. At a sufficient distance there are inhabited islands, to in- volve the colonists in Indian warfare: when the natives are well drubbed, some buccaneers come to their assistance; and these are in turn disposed of, after a naval fight. Under the influence of prosperity, the colonists wax fat and kick. Fresh emigrants, friends of the settlers, arrive ; and, "unhappily, among them were a printer, a lawyer, and no less than four persons who might be called divines. Of the last, one was a Presbyte- rian, one a Methodist, the third a Baptist, and the fourth a Quaker." Not long after the arrival of this importation, its consequences became visible. The mode is described at large in the work : the upshot is, that the sec- tarian ministers breed religious dissensions; the lawyer sets the primitive people at loggerheads, and introduces the tricks of usurers and specula- tors; but the editor works the greatest mischief, by his appeals to the people touching liberty, the majority, and the rights of man. At the time of the arrival of these social mischiefs, the constitution was an im- provement upon the ideas of the American Federalists : by the time the "Crater Truthteller " has done its work, society and government are brought to the condition of modern America, and, we are given to under- stand, by much the same sort of process.

These incidents, though forced enough, do not of themselves convey

an idea of exhaustion; which will rather be felt perhaps than seen by the general reader. The conduct of the story is too artificial : everything occurs just as it ought to do ; whenever anything in wanted, it is sure to be found ready, either in the hold of the vessel or by natural production. The details have not the lifelike character and clearness of Defoe ; and unless the reader has studied each description as he would a problem, he will scarcely understand some of the accounts—the specific minuteness rather puzzles than conveys an idea of reality. A still worse sign is a slowness of movement, and want of living interest : the reader does not care whether he goes on or stops. In all fictions perhaps, certainly in all fictions representing a p.articular kind of life, there is a speeies of technical if not mechanical variety,. the presence of which is less a merit than its absence a defect. In a military novel, campaigning and camp life are varied in a certain set way ; it is the same in a nautical fiction. The art of the novelist, beyond that "com- petent skill" which even the law requires from all professors, consists in giving a new face to the stock incidents of storms, wrecks and the like.

Some Of this art is shown by Mr. Cooper ; as in the gale which blows Betts off the rock, and the manner in which the pirate ships are baffled by the intricacies of the reef. The most novel "effect," however, is the

use of the earthquake and volcanic interruption, contained in the follow- ing passage. Mark, left by himself, has been out for a reconnoitering sail in the Bridget, a boat that he has contrived to build, and is returning to his domain.

"Just as the Bridget was passing the two buoys by which the ship-channel had been marked, her sail flapped. This was a bad omen; for it betokened a shift of wind, which rarely happened unless it might be from six months to six months,

without being the precursor of some sort of a storm. Mark was still two miles from the Reef, and the little wind there was soon came ahead. Luckily, it was

smooth water, and very little air sufficed to force that light craft ahead, while there was usually a current setting from that point towards the Crater. The birds, moreover, seemed uneasy; the air being filled with them, thousands flying over the boat, around which they wheeled screaming and apparently terrified. At first Mark ascribed this unusual behaviour of his feathered neighbours to the circum- stance of their now seeing a boat for the commencement of such an acquaintance;

but, recollecting how often he had passed their haunts in the dingai when they would hardly get out of the way, he soon felt certain there must be another reason or this singular conduct-

" The sun went down in a bank of lurid fire, and the Bridget was still a mile from the ship. A new apprehension now came over oar hermit. Should a tempest bring the wind violently from the Westward, as was very likely to be the case under actual circumstances, he might be driven out to sea, and, did the little craft resist the waves forced so far off as to make him lose the Reef altogether. Then it was that Mark deeply felt how much had been left him by casting his ot on that beautiful and luxuriant Crater, instead of reducing him to those dregs of misery which so many shipwrecked mariners are compelled to swallow I How much or how many of the blessings that he enjoyed on the Reef would he not have been willing to part with that evening, in order to secure a safe arrival at the Bide of the F.ancocus! By the utmost care to profit by every puff of air, and by handling the boat with the greatest skill, this happy result was obtained, however, without any sacrifice.

"About nine o'clock, and not sooner, the boat was well secured, and Mark went into his cabin. Here be knelt and returned thanks to God for his safe return to

a place that was getting to bees precious to him as the love of life could render it. After this, tired with his day's work, the young man got into his berth and en- deavoured to sleep.

"The fatigue of the day, notwithstanding the invigorating freshness of the breeze, acted as an anodyne, and our young man soon forgot his adventures and his boat in profound slumbers. It was many hours ere Mark awoke, and when he

did it was with a sense of suffocation. At first he thought the ship had taken fire, a lurid light gleaming in at the open door of the cabin; and he sprang to his

feet in recollection of the danger he ran from the magazine as well as from being burned. But no cracking of flames reaching his ears, be dressed hastily and went out on the poop. He had just reached this deck, when he felt the whole ship tremble from her truck to her keel, and a rushing of water was heard on all sides of him as if a flood were coming. Hissing sounds were heard, and streams of fire, and gleams of lurid light were seen in the air. It was a terrible moment., and one that might well induce any man to imagine that time was drawing to its close.

"Mark Woolston now comprehended -his situation, notwithstanding the intense darknees which prevailed except in those brief intervals of lurid light. He had

felt the shock of an earthquake, and the volcano had suddenly become active. Smoke and ashes certainly filled the air; and our poor hermit instinctively looked towards his crater, already so verdant and lively, in the expectation of seeing it vomit flames. Everything there was tranquil; the danger, if danger there was, was assuredly more remote. But the murky vapour, which rendered breathing exceedingly difficult, also obstructed the view, and prevented his seeing where the explosion really was. For a brief space our young man fancied he must certainly be suffocated; but a shift of wind came and blew away the oppressive vapour, clear- ing the atmosphere of its sulphurous and most offensive gases and odours. Never did feverish tongue enjoy the cooling and healthful draught more than Mark re- joiced in this change. The wind had got back to its old quarter, and the air he respired soon became pure and refreshing. Had the impure atmosphere lasted ten minutes longer, Mark felt persuaded he could not have breathed it with any safety. "

The light was now most impatiently expected by our young man. The minutes seemed to drag; but at length the usual signs of returning day became apparent to him; and he got on the bowsprit of the ship, as if to meet it in its approach. There he stood looking to the Eastward, eager to have ray after ray shoot into the firmament; when he was suddenly struck with a change in that quarter of the ocean, which at once proclaimed the power of the effort which the earth had made in its subterranean throes. Naked rocks appeared in places where Mark was certain water in abundance had existed a few hours before. The sea- wall, directly ahead of the ship, and which never showed itself above the surface more than two or three inches in any part of it, and that only at exceedingly neap tides, was now not only bare for a long distance, but parts rose ten and fifteen feet above the surrounding sea. This proved at once that the earthquake had thrust upward a vast surface of the reef, completely altering the whole appear- ance of the shoal: in a word, Nature bad made another effort, and islands had been created, as it might be in the twinkling of an eye.

"Mark was no sooner assured of this stupendous fact than he hurried on to the poop, in order to ascertain what changes had occurred in and about the Crater. It had been pushed upward in common with all the rocks for miles on every side of it, though without disturbing its surface. By the computation of our young man, the Reef, which previously lay about six feet above the level of the ocean, was now fully twenty, so many cubits having been by one single but mighty effort of Nature added to its stature. The planks which led from the stern of the vessel to the shore, and which had formed a descent, were now nearly level, so much water having left the basin as to produce this change. Still the ship floated; enough remaining to keep her keel clear of the bottom.

"Impatient to learn all, Mark ran ashore, (for by this time it was broad day- light,) and hastened into the Crater, with an Intention to ascend at once to the summit, As he passed along, he could detect no change whatever on the surface of the Reef; everything lying just as it had been left, and the pigs and poultry were at their usual business of providing for their own wants. Ashes, however, were strewn over the rocks to a depth that left his foot-prints as distinct as they could have been made in a light snow. Within the Crater the same appearances were observed; fully an inch of ashes covering its verdant pastures and the whole garden. This gave Mark very little concern; for he knew that the first rain would wash this drab-looking mantle into the earth, where it would answer all the purposes of a rich dressing of manure. "On reaching the summit, our young man was enabled to form a better opinion of the vast changes which had been wrought around him by this sudden eleva- tion of the earth's crust. Everywhere sea seemed to be converted into land, or at least into rock. All the white water had disappeared; and in its place arose islands of rock, or mod, or sand. A good deal of the last was to be seen, and some quite near the Reef, as we shall still continue to call the island of the Crater. Island, however, it could now hardly be termed. It is true that ribands of water approached it on all sides, resembling creeks, and rivers, and small sounds; bat as Mark stood there on the summit, it seemed to him that it was now possible to walk for leagues in every direction, commencing at the Crater, and following the lines of reefs, and rocks, and sands, that had been laid bare by the late upheaving. The extent of this change gave him confidence in its permanency; and the young man had hopes that what had thus been produced by the providence of God would be permitted to remain, to answer his own benevolent purposes. It cer- tainly made an immense difference in his own situation. The boat could still be used; but it was now possible for him to ramble for hours, if not for days, along the necks, and banks, and hummocks, and swales that had been formed, and that with a dry foot. His limits were so much enlarged as to offer something like a new world to his enterprise and curiosity."