6 MAY 1837, Page 18

GENTLEMAN JACK.

Tilts novel is the work of n clever, flashy man, whose own experi- ence is exhausted, and who is now endeavouring to turn such tech- nical knowledge as he possesses to account, by making it his in- strument for putting together a little .reading, a good deal of hearsay, and a still greater quantity of improbable fancies. So for as a not unskilful manufacture of time" stuff that dreams are made of "can resemble such works, Gentleman Judi is an imitation of Bailin the Reefer and Peter Simple. Like Ratlin, Jack is the noble offspring of a pretended marriage, which is afterwards proved a real one; but, unlike Ratlin, Jack mingles in the first society at his mother's house, though that mother is supposed to be a cast-off mistress living on an annuity ! As in Bailin, but on a smaller scale, an account is given of Mr. John Fitz-John's school-days; and after he has determined to go to sea, the imitation of Peter Simple begins, in an endeavour to exhibit the variety, the humour, the privations, the danger, and the odd characters of the sea service : but what an exhibition ! Of the humour and spirit, the all but poetry of MARRYAT, Mr. NEALE vas not a particle ; and his adventures are contrived without like- lihood or art. In Peter Simple, though the incidents are effective, they become so from the mingled combination of the action and the character of the persons ; the probability of such adventures occurring to a midshipman and lieutenant circumstanced and connected as Peter is, being rarely if ever lost sight of. In Gen- tleman Jack, no regard is paid to the chances of life, nor, as it appears to us, to the virtual regulations of the service : the hero performs feats, takes liberties, and gets promotion, in a manner to which the promises of a recruiting sergeant are probability itself.

The sentiment is such as might be expected from the Midship- man's birth ; the moral tone low throughout, even when the

writer is trying to pitch it the highest ; and the manners, of that mixture of ease and impudence which is popularly denominated half-bred. The rests with most appearance of reality are episo

dical, and contain either strictures on naval practices, or notices of actual occurrences at the mutiny at Spithead; but whoa authority they may possess, we are not sufficiently nautical so decide.