The Schooner ' Merry Chanter.' By Frank S. Stockton. (Sampson
Low, Marston, and Co.)—Though this story is not as mirth- compelling, we might say, as convulsing a book as "Rudder Grange," it is very entertaining. The teller of the story abandons the profession of hunting for gold in lava to marry a young lady whose fortune consists in the ownership of the Merry Chanter,' the said ownership being burdened with wharfage dues for three years. They determine to do a little coasting trade, in which Boston will be one of the termini, hire a crew—the hiring scene is most amusing—but do not get beyond the harbour, where the crew, consisting, by-the-way, entirely of captains, contrive to run the schooner aground. We cannot attempt to enter into the incidents that follow. The arrival of two passengers, one of them an English Lord, whose peerage brings him nothing better than the right of being perpetually imprisoned for debt, the butcher who has retired from business, the baker who plays the part of a ghost, all the persona' of the little drama, which is on the border between comedy and farce, are very good to read about.
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