THE OLD COMMODORE.

As a work of art, or even as a mere novel, the Old Commodore is inferior to the author's former fiction of Rattlin the Reefer; pro. bably from MARRVAT having discontinued editing. There is less unity, variety, and directness in the story ; moral reflections are too frequently introduced ; the writer is constantly obtruding him. self and his remarks upon the reader, to the suspension of his narrative ; both in dialogue and description he allows himself b run to seed ; and the whole subject matter, as regards plot, eha racter, and incidents, is far less general and lifelike than Rattlin. On the other hand, the present production exhibits more raciness and freshness. Before, he was a tree pruned and trained by the hands of skill ; he is now running wild in native exu- berance ; and though the product is of less value, the growth is more characteristic.

Although tolerably well connected so far as form goes, the Old Commodore actually consists of two distinct parts, one real, the other imaginative. The reality is a picture of' life at sea in the King's service, under the savage practice of the old school. The Old Commodore—an able and powerfully-drawn character—is of course the hero of this part ; and notwithstanding its revolting nature, and the introduction of a peculiar and fancy-drawn person and incident, it is redeemed by its truth. The whole episode of the voyage is a curicus and singular picture ; showing how insert- rably good is mingled with evil, and how the human mind adapts itself to circumstances. The arbitrary severity of' the Commodore is set off by so much rough generosity and hard dry humour— his stern and fierce sway seems so well adapted to the wild, reckless, jovial spirits whom he has to govern—that the old discipline, in vogue till the beginning of this century, seems al- most fitted to the men who were subject to it. A dreadful instance indeed is given to show its effect upon a youth of high spirit and sensibility, who was never intended for the service, and who jumps overboard to avoid being flogged : but the whole of this is forced in its nature, and not over-well managed in the narra- tion.

Out of this suspected suicide the fiction of the novel arises ; for the youth is a midshipman, the Commodore's own nephew, half betrothed to his daughter, and whom he has forced to sea against his will and his mother's entreaties. Hence arises much distress and mystery, and a touch or two of romance, assisted by the love affair of another nephew with the ward of a bitter enemy of' the Commodore and his family. How the whole terminates we will not unfold ; but the conduct of the tale displays a good deal of powerful writing, and occasionally some true and beautiful scenes,—though generally speaking the story and its incidents are not probable, and depend for their effect solely upon the man- ner of telling.

Its characters, however, form the chief feature of the Old Com- modore; not general characters, which are found everywhere, and represent large classes of' men, but peculiar persons, whose natural qualities have been hardened and enlarged by some fa- vouring circumstances of position and training. And here, as CHURCHILL noted, criticism is at fault ;* for as the persons are exceptions, we know not whether they are the production of nature or the invention of art; and the pleasure they yield must altoge- ther depend upon the consistency of the conception and the strength of the execution. In the novel before us, each of these praises may be awarded ; but the comic characters have both the qualities alluded to by the poet, being strong-featured, and pushed to the very verge of probability. According to the author, the object of the Old Commodore. is to inculcate the moral of do as you would be done by : but, like most stories expressly written to point a maxim, it is not very suc- cessful. When he was flogging his crew, and even Isis midship- man, it is by no means clear that the Old Commodore, would not, in their positions, have submitted himself to the same discipline, if he conceived "the good of the service" required it. The moral, we conceive, to be drawn from the tale, is the advantage of squar- ing our own conduct by the rules of reason, and the benefit of kindliness even in a selfish view. Whilst the Commodore was the rough tyrant of his crew, his only feeling was pride and a kind of wild excitement : he bad never the calm satisfaction of self- respect, and the consciousness of being loved and respected by others, until his reform. Even in the case of Mr. Rubasore. we see wit, intellectual powers. wealth, and station, all working misery • "But when bold wits, not such as patch up plays, Cold and correct in these insipid days, Some comic character, strong-featured, urge To probability's extremest verge, Where modest judgment her decree suspends, And for a time nor censures nor commends, Where critics can't deterniine on the spot, Whether it is in nature found or not."—Rosctan.

to the individual, whose only pleasure consisted in annoying or tormenting others. Although the faults we have mentioned as characterizing the book will militate against the pleasure of the true novel glutton, yet it contains the result of more reflection, and more experience iI1 a certain walk of life, than a dozen of fashionable novels. From the remarks scattered up and down we will chiefly take our ex- tracts; for the most powerful scenes do not form a sufficient whole to be exhibited separately, at least in any moderate space. Here is a hint for economists when the Naval Estimates are next under discussion.

NAVAL CHAPLAINS IN THE OLDEN TIME.

In the first place, they were not the men of learning and piety that now are grace and a blessing to his Majesty's navy. No man in orders, whilst he could procure a curacy on shore, would accept a chaplaincy afloat. We forget the exact amount of the remuneration then offered them ; but it was so low that 4 was an ineult. When the persecuted divine got on board his ship, he was repelled by all classes, and reverenced by a few individuals only, who dared not betray their feelings. Ile was shifted about frotu ship to ship continually, ail being anxious to pass him away as an incutnbrance. If Captatu A. wanted a couple of good sail makers, and Captain B. could spare them in exchange for two able seamen, the latter would not let the former have them unless he re- lieved him Of his chaplain into the bargain. Against the general contempt no rnan can bear up ; and generally, not being the aite of the profession, they soon gave way to circumstances, and always settled down into the captain's syco- phant, and generally into the captain's spy. To the ship's company they were neither of spiritual nor any other service ; and as to their reading the funeral service over the dead, we have seen that im- posing rite performed by officers, in a manner as pious, as effective, and as solemn, as ever stoled clergyman or even mitred bishop could have achieved. The chaplains of that time were never to be found enuouragiug the departing soul, strengthening the wavering faith, or endeavouring to penetrate the hardness or shame the depravity of the human heart. If they were of any utility at all, they were useful after a strange fashion. The instructors of the midshipmen in ;44 ? in the articles of their faith ? in making them humble, self-denying, and truly Christian ?—None of tutu-e ; but in geometry and trigonometry, plane and middle latitude sailing ; not how to perform a work of gt ace, but to work a day's writ k. For doing all this, they were usually paid at the rate of half-a- crown per month by each pupil.

THEIR USES Now-A-DAYS.

Again, as one chaplain is generally found to be one too many in every ship, we do not think that the most pious and the most eager for the diffusion of re- ligious instruction would desire many ; and yet liberty of conscience is a birth- right of Englishmen. Very often there are more Catholics and more Presby- tedatts in particular ships than of any other persuasion ; and yet I have seen professors of all manners of religion started with the rope's end, by the boat- swain's mates, into the chutch rigged out on the nsain-deck,—an intolerance and a profanation that ought to prevent those who practise them front affecting in- dignation at the Inquisition.

I myself served on board a three-decker with a young clergyman regularly educated at Oxford, a person of good moral character, and that serious yet gen. tlemanly behaviour that extorted respect. But in the course of a few months, his position began to act vigorously and materially upon his character. With the best intentions in the world, instead of being an organ set apart for the ministry of divine instruction, he rapidly became one of us. I solemnly assert, that, to the best of my belief, he never made a man on board abetter Christian ; but we made him an excellent sailor. Here was a man, under the most favour. aldeauspices—for our captain was decidedly of a religious turn—who, in spite of himself, became a worse divine, without making any one on board a better

For these reasons, and for many others that I could adduce, I do not think that an ordained priest should be one of the requisite persons on board of a ship Of war.

RATIONALE OF WORTH IN WARFARE.

In the military service, whether ashore or afloat, the best moral man is not always the best man. The moral man, quiet, obedient, and conscientious, doing his general duty without reproach, may not be, and most often is not, the best man to schintly up a ship's sides, cut half.a.dozen throats with a velocity start- ling to the sufferers, leap down amidst a plump of opposing boarding.spikes, laugh at a wound, and either clear the decks with a hurrah, or die on the spot with a jest in his mouth. The men who will do all this, are your harm- scantm chaps; fellows that love their grog-0 how they love it l—always in some little scrape, that your quiet, good moan has ever the good sense to avoid : awl yet the tune in actual warfare conies but too often, when a half-dc am of these wild, neetalo-theniselves.geod, are worth two score of your simply god men. For my part, I say it, perhaps, in the silliness of my age, I hope that neither our army nor navy may ever want lots of these dare-devils, whom I would not reform if I could ; and I suppose that is the reason why my friend Sir Octavius would not punish them. There, however, he had them all in a line, looking as merry as men going to a wedding, when they themselves are not to be wed.

The incident whence the following passage is taken is little more than episodical. Mr. Rubasore, in pursuit of his own interest and revenge, bias entered the humble shop of a French emigrant ; and, to follow up an accidental clue, professes to be a physician, who has called to see the daughter.

STARVATION—AN EVERV•DAY PICITRE.

He next questioned her as to her regimen. The answers on this head ap- palled hint. Notwithstanding, all her cautiousness, he plainly perceived that both father and daughter were striving wino best could endure latniue, and vvha best could cheat the other into the belief that they ate every day as much as they desited. And yet they owed no money, and no shop in the neighbourhuod could compete with that of M. Florentin for neatness, and an appearance of comfort. Rosalie was in her dress, not only clean but Lien gentile. Mitch has; been truly aud justly said in praise of dignified fall of the assas- sinated Casar before Pumpey's statue, and of the quiet heroin,' of the acts of Lit dying moments—of his "in his mantle wrapping up himself," no that lie might expite with majesty and decorum, and be, even in death, calm, and sus- tained, and great. But what is all this compared to the exalted endurance of thDO two unfriended foreigners? The dagger of starvation was making its savage way through their bosoms, yet they cried not out to the passets-by, and Showed not their wounds to those near them ; but, enfolding themselves in their mantles of respectability, each had prepared to die uncomplaining before that

altar whose sauctity man nor woman should never violate—the altar of self- respect.

This was too much even for the selfish Rubasore. The better part of his nature triumphed. When he fully understood the nature of the case, he rose and sad, " that he should take time to consider of the symptoms, and prescribe the necessary remedies early the next day."

He proceeds to relieve them; and the author has these harsh but just reflections on the action— It is certain that if Miss Belmont had known of this act, which looks so like a generous one, it would have served Mr. Rubasore much more than he served himself in his laboured letter ; it is certain that, when Mr. Rubasore had resolved upon doing it, be felt all over him a glow of satisfaction, as delicious as it was new to him; yet it is also certain that Mr. Rubasore deserves no credit for it whatever. I say not this in an invidious spirit; still less because he always spoke of me in my absence as, and called me to my face, an unservice- able pensioner ; but because it was, at its best, little better than a mere sensual gratification, very little higher in desert than that pleasure which we feel in feeding caged and hungry animals. It cost Mtn no sacrifice, for the mere ex- pense was to him absolutely not perceptible. Now had this father and daughter, notwithstanding the heroic and filial devotion of the one and the gentle probity and polished urbanity of the other, been placed in any way so in contact with him that be must acknowledge in them some rights and respect in them some privileges, he, this man of dinner-donations, would have mocked those privi- leges, invaded those rights, and have endeavoured to place them, with all the power of his malice, in some unpleasant and inferior light. It is upon this very principle that ladies, and gentlemen too, keep and love pet animals, and, wonderful to relate, take to themselves ciedit for such mon- strous affections. Lady Villainatne shall be alieuated from her own mother, mortally hate her twin-sister, and shall have driven her only child from her doors, yet be overflowing with tenderness for an ugly and brutish lap-dog. Sir Hickery Rasp shall have dtiven a whole village out of their homes, to starve in the most inclement weather ; he shall boast that he hates the poor, and yet be indulgently kind to his spaniel—so kind indeed, that he will risk his life in a duel with the man whom he calls his hued to avenge a wrong put upon this dog.

But these affialions prove not the love, but the tyranny of the human heart. These auimals have no rights—nothing which demands respect ; they ask fur nothing, thus they gain all. They are things over which to exercise empire : we can play the despot on them, amid therefore we love them.