JOHN BRANTON. * This tale , of the "early life and development

of a Liverpool en.- gineer " is a didactic novel on the condition and political feelings of the artisans, with the proper remedy to be applied to the alleged evils under which they labour. There is a little touch of the old patience-preaching tract about the book, and, as is usual in didactio novels, a machinery solves difficulties which the struggler in real life must overcome by himself or sink under. The author, how- ever, has given attention to the theory of his subject ; and he has clear views upon his remedies, if they are commonplace. What is more to his purpose as a novelist, he is well acquainted with the Lives and characters of artisans and rustics; he has some dramatic power, and his persons. and incidents are natural and. unexag- gerated. The literary defect of John Drayton is a style too arti- ficial in narrative and reflection. In dialogue and the description of scenes the author is terse ; his-still life is somewhat too minutely painted ; where he speaks in his own person, which is frequently the case, he falls into a rhetorico-sentimental manner.

John Drayton is the son of pious, respectable, oldfashioned Cheshire peasants; and when the book opens he is just apprenticed to a Liverpool engineer after the fashion of largo factories,—that is, he binds himself for a certain time to work at low wages to learn his business. John is a representative of the old rustic Saxon blood, generally humble-minded, submissive, and limited ; but sturdy in kg'. resolution, fiery when roused, and possessed. of the. sound com- mon sense of his race. Charlie Smith, his fellow apprentice, with whose family John Draytoa boards, is. the type of the modern Chartist or Socialist. Quick, ready, prejudiced, conceited, and infi- del, Charlie envies everybody above himself, and in spite of "equality" is disposed to trample on those below him. He is the follower and echo of two infidel agitators and speakers ; who, in regular tract fashion, are both bad men, and come to an indifferent end. At first, John Drayton is in great danger of being led away by Charlie and his leaders ; but he is saved by a variety of circumstances. His own nature—his early training in the quiet village, where, from the vicar downward, there is no great deal of inquiring intellect, but much of earnest humble faith—the conduct of the agitators, (Robison, who at last steals, and Wyld, the father of the heroine Rachel, who is a do- mestic tyrant,) and the piety of Rachel, do much to preserve him from persisting in scepticism. Incidents sometimes of the nature of lucky accidents open his eyes as to the false estimate he has formed, of the real character of those above him, and are means to save him from, those difficulties of abject poverty which sour and exasperate the mind, . The action of the novel consists of these elements thrown into the form of a story. The remedy • John Drayton; being a History of the Early Life and Development of a Liver- pool Engineer. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.

hill out to the artisan body is i;ot much more than the old Tory theorem—reform yourselves ; the moral, as exhibited in john Drayton's career, is perhaps a little marred by a machine in the shape of a friend- in need. It is not much that Mr. Shafton does for John ; indeed, his sturdy independence would not accept of favours ; but Shafton does it at the right time, and without it the end would have been different.

In the course of the narrative there are various social pictures, chiefly but not always among the poor. After John has been lodgea in prison through the cowardice of Charlie the real rioter, he leaves the Smiths to lodge with Mrs. Wyld, whose husband has gone to America. At the time when John's whole being is shaken by doubts and anxieties touching the unseen world,—when the shallow sneers of agitators and the frothy arguments of the oheap press do not satisfy his awakened mind, and the dry scholastic criticism of a Methodist minister, who has been educated at Man- chester College, does as little to assure or convince him,—Mrs. Wyld is called upon by benevolent people who visit the poor.

' One of them is a heavy old man, with a great expanse of face and wide marled eyes. He has a hazy look, and speaks condescendingly. His name is Mr. Maclean ; and he lives higher up the hill in Lancaster lerraoe, where there still linger a few boarding-schools and houses of gentility. Beggars all and sundry know his door ; and his- benevolent Lady Bountiful wife makes soup in hard winters, and is a sort of funded property for all impostors ; for Mrs. Maclean, good woman, has a knack of discouraging and suspecting the decent, struggling, sturdy poverty she sometimes sees, but will do anything to reclaim a clever impostor who has a good story to tell.

"With Mr. Maclean in a very humble patronized person, who takea notes in a little book, and is very greatly gratified, es-it seems, by the august com- pany in which he itinerate& "'And what church do you go to, Mrs. Wyld ? ' said Mr. Maclean, be- "''o St. Paul's, at the foot of the street, please, sir,' said Mrs. Wyld; and, the humble man took her answer down.

"'Oh! Mr. Winter's an excellent man,' said Mr. Maclean: I should ex- pect him to be the means of doing something in this district. It's a great district, Mrs. Wyld : a great deal might be done here. No doubt, the people are poor ; but I have known poor men eminent Christians. Not many wise, not many noble are called. I often think of that when I go through these streets.'

"John Drayton pushed back his chair, in audible indignation.

"'Not many wise, not many noble' ; and how was this good stolid man, who was neither the one nor the other, to distinguish whether there were noble and wise in those streets?

" ' And do you go pretty regularly to church ? ' continued the bland Mr. Maclean.

"'As regular as I can, sir ; mostly every Sunday,' said Mrs. Wyld. "'That's right,' said the good man. 'And this is your daughter, andlles —is this your son, Mrs. Wyld ? ' "'No,' said John, bluntly, I only lodge here.' "'And do you go to Mr. Winter's, my young friend P " ' I don't go anywhere,' said John : for John was angry, and in his young strength and Impatient intelligence could not tolerate the condescen- sion of the great, hazy, unintellectual face.

" ' I am very sorry to hear that,' said Mr. Maclean,; 'you couldn't be any- where on the Sabbath-day so well as at church, Pm sure. Won't you try ? To have the Bible explained and opened up is a great privilege' you know ; and I have no doubt Mr. Winter will break the bread small for babes. There are many things youcan't understand, perhaps; and don't yon think it would be pleasant to have them explained to you ? There is myself, now, I have had a great many advantages that nobody would expect you to have in your position ; but I have been troubled with a hard text even myself, and got it explained in a sermon. Now you know Mr. Winter knows that his cone gregation are mostly poor, and I have no doubt—he's a sensible young man —that he brings his sermons down to their capacity.' "There was something in all this unspeakably galling to the young in- tellectualist; this benign condescension to his working-man capacity ; this promised dilution of the things hard to be understood, which the obtuse man, by right of his position,' fancied himself so mach better qualified to com- prehend than John. It was very well meant, and the man_ was a good man ; but in this case he was perpetrating a great blunder—a blunder unhappily too common with religious men. "'I can understand as much as I want to understand,' said John, with an air of defiance. 'Iran- understand where one place contradicts another well enough : it's not difficult to find that out, and I would like to hear any one explain it.'

"'Do you not believe the Bible ?' asked the good man. "And John, who in his inmost heart longed to believe it, denied his own yearning in a burst of irritation—

"'No, I don't.'

" It is because it condemns your depraved life, young man you tremble

when you think of God the judge, and so you attempt to deny man; said Mr. Maclean, severely.

"But it had not dawned upon John's soul, that awful presence, the judg- ing, condemning God. This, he fancied, he would be almost solemnly glad to recognize, so long as it brought before him the grand sovereign living power in this lawless world. And John's life was not depraved : so again the good man's arrow glanced aside, and instead of strilang through these mists to the heart within the sceptic's agitated breast, only grazed and galled him as it passed."

This is a picture of humble patience and homely domestic af- fections, very quiet but very truthful. His mental difficulties the Wylds' emigration to America after the father, and his own affairs, have made John somewhat slight his parents.

" John has not been at home for many weeks, and his heart has upbraided him often; so now, on this November Saturday, he takes his lonely way to the river. In a little bundle in his hand he carries his Sunday dress, to wear at church tomorrow, and his greatcoat is on to proteot him against the cold wind tonight. Mow it blows !—whistling keen up among the bare cordage of the little river-steamer. Ile shudders as he thinks how it will roar through the full sails out at sea. "It is a long road, that road to Upton—long, and dark, and solitary : and his-mother is not standing at the door as she used to be to look for him; • for they have been disappointed so often, those poor old solitary people, that they, cease to watch now on the Saturday nights.

"But a faint light is gleaming' e from the window, through the plants and the little muslin- curtain ; and there is his father, sadly failed, and with wrapt-up rheumatic arms, and a long wheezing cough, sitting in the easy chair by the fire. John sees that there is a pillow in the chair at the old man's back, and that his hand shakes sadly as he lays down the exhausted

pipe. "And-his mother stands before the fire, stirring the gruel that simmers mit, and speaking as nurses speak to invalids, soothing down the little ir- ritations of the old.naan, almost as she would soothe a child. The room looks just as it used to do, except that a certain air of poverty has crept, some way, into its neatness. The sides of the grate have been filled up with bricks to diminish its size, and it is but a very little fire on which Mrs. Drayton boils her gruel. Careworn and pinched her features look, too, John fancies; and on the little table, between the old couple, two basins are set out, with spoons and salt, to receive the gruel: this is to be their supper, and it is not very generous fare.

"i3nt.Mrs..1)rayton has heard the step on the gravel without, and anx- iously hastens to the door, 'Oh, John, John, have you come at last ? ' and John feels very humble as the door is closed on him, and his father rises feebly and holds out his hand. " 'Thou's been long of coming, lad ; but any way, thon's welcome now.' "'And you'll-be cold : sit by the fire, Johnnie,' said the cottage mother. put on a hit more coal, for it's burned low ; and there, that's the pan with the gruel, never mind it : but I wish you had sent me word, John, and I'd have had a better dinner for tomorrow.'

Never mind the dinner, mother,' said John, humbly ; I don't deserve you should give me any.' Might, lad ! we're old folks, and don't heed much about eating; but you're young—any way, I'll run up now to the village and get you a glass of ale.'

"'No, indeed;. I'll take whatyou're going to take mother,' said John. 'Never mind- me; but you should have something better for yourselves.' " 'Well ; it's little matter for old folks like us: we've lost the taste of our mouths now, John,' said Mrs. Drayton ; and if we've just enough to do with, what does it matter? It's diftbrent with you that's young. And then there's your father—he hasn't been working much, you know, Johnnie, for a while, and we'll have to spare betimes : and he likes a drop of gruel, poor old man ; for he's weakly now, John, is your father.' "And the.father went off suddenly into a prolonged asthmatic cough, de- monstrating that he was 'weakly' beyond doubt. " get you a cup of tea, if you'd like it, John,' said Mrs. Drayton. 'I've got some, real good, that Rachel brought me, in a present, when she came on Monday to say good-by—oh, John, wasn't it foolish of them to go away ?—or I've got some butter-milk in the house—or I'll run up in a minute, Johnnie, and get you a glass of ale.' "She had opened the door of the little triangular cupboard, of dark stained wood, which clung to the wall in the corner, and was bringing out the loaf and cheese and butter—a very little square bit of cheese, and a morsel of butter on a small plate. Not so was her homely table wont to be supplied ; and John saw that very little household store remained on those clean shelves, which were once garnished so well.

"'Give me my gruel, Jane,' said the old man, feebly ; 'and tell us the news, John. I think I'd like to see a paper sometimes ; but your mother can't abide parting with the money.' " Husht,' said the house mother again, 'it's easier to make it than it is to spend it ; and we'll have to spare. Your father's an old man, John, and can't work for very long now ; and I haven't been at the market for two Saturdays : we need to be careful.' "Mrs. Drayton poured the gruel into the basins, and added salt ; and, seat- ing herself at the table, their homely meal began. Very disconsolately John took a crust of the loaf and a morsel from the little bit of cheese. He had seen poverty before often enough, but had never associated the idea of want with his humble plentiful home. "'And now, mother, I'll read the chapter as I used to do,' saiaJohn, with a faltering voice."