COLONEL SENIOR'S CHARLES VERNON.

A PREFACE informs us that " the greater part of this narrative was written thirty years ago, while the author was serving in Jamaica. The unfinished manuscript was then thrown aside, and forgotten till last win- ter, when he found amusement and occupation in reading it over and completing the story."

This delay has been unfortunate ; for the kind of life which Colonel Senior delineates exists no longer in fact, and is not yet remote enough to have become traditional or historical. Thirty years ago, the Abolition question would have given an extrinsic interest to the characters, doings, and domestic menage of the West India merchants, managers, agents,

overseers, and drivers on the estates, the tyranny frequently exercised over the Negroes, and the open libertinism induced by slavery and the distinctions of colour. But these are for the present dead and gone : the Negroes have now got the beat of it ; and the public have been too much bored with the subject in all its aspects to relish its revival. In like manner, the contest between Spain and South America was an object of great interest while it was going on, and visions of republics that should rival the United States, and of a commerce whose profits should throw the riches of El Dorado into the shade, were floating iii men's minds. Many books of travels, and the sad reality of experience, have removed the romance that once hung round the "patriots" of Columbia; perhaps rather unduly lowered the interest really attaching to the various fortunes of the war, and for which a feeling of contempt has been substi- tuted.

It is a much more unlucky feature in the delay, that thirty years ago Colonel Senior would have been first in the field. Marryat, Tom Cringle, and various imitators, had not familiarized the public with Tropical life and sea adventure, and Cooper had hardly begun his nautical novels. Senior would have come before the public as the originator of a new class of fiction; and, though he cannot vie with Marryat or Cooper in drama- tic spirit, or a certain breadth of mind, which though not imagination had some of its effects,—and if he is below Cringle in richness and a rapid movement which is as successful as " bustle " on the stage,—Colonel Senior has one great qualification for a novelist : he possesses a thorough knowledge of the life he undertakes to depict, and that not only in ex- ternals but essentials ; he comprehends the spirit as well as the forma of colonial society under the old regime.

The defect of the book is want of imagination. As long as Colonel Senior is describing scenery, manners, or incidents in, which matter of fact may rightfully predominate, he is very truthful, albeit attimes rather literal. The chase of his hero by an American privateer, the fight, the capture, and the treatment of the prisoners, read like a piece of common reality; his account of the peculiarities of jamaica, whether in scenery or society, has all the accuracy of a book of travels ; the adventures of Charles Vernon, and the Spanish friend whom he rescues from the hands of the South American Patriots, rise beyond this level, and read like a scene from some of the Spanish novels : but when the proper interest of fiction comes on, the Colonel rather goes of Strange to say, his truth- fulness injures him : his hero is too like a real live officer to be well fitted for a romance. The main difficulty of the love-story springs from a connexion which Charles Vernon has formed with a Creole girl before he knew the heroine. In many hands this would either give rise to -a vast amount of French sentiment, or the reader would be provoked by the degradation of the hero. Colonel Senior meets the difficulty as he would meet an enemy, by showing a bold front; and he succeeds. The con- nexion itself is so evidently a custom of the country, the superior attrac- tion of a cultivated Englishwoman is so great compared with poor Julia, and the whole is managed with such probability and naturalness, that the difficulty is looked at as at one in real life. Considered as a novel, how- ever, the love-story of Charles Vernon is very indifferent, from want of comprehension and elevation in the author's mind. He is without the largeness of conception and vital spirit essential to fiction, and in dialogue frequently fails in making what the actors would call his "points." Even the more matter-of-fact parts, where this defect is of less consequence, are sometimes rather bare, wanting in fulness.

The following narrative of the death of Julia will give an idea ofithe author's power in fiction proper. Vernon has left Jamaica on a trip, been captured, and carried to New Barcelona ; to defend the city, he joins the insurgents; and vanishing after the victory to carry off his Royalist friend, is reported missing. Emily is the heroine, estranged from Ver• non on hearing of his position with Julia.

"She sat down in the empty drawingroom, and was engaged in turning over the sketches in Margaret Otway's album, when her attention was diverted by the sound of a plaintive voice in the verandah; she looked up, and saw a young wo- man requesting to speak to Mr. Otway. ' " A servant answered that his master was soon expected home, and that she might wait his arrival; and he then left the stranger leaning for support against the jalousied partition between the verandah and the drawingroom, and sobbing bitterly.

" She was well dressed; her tall figure was wrapped in a shawl which could not conceal that she would soon be a mother; her face retained traces of great beauty, but she was emaciated, making her soft eyes seem preternaturally large; she trembled excessively, and might have fallen but for the support against which she leaned.

"Emily rose and called for a servant, intending to desire him to offer a chair to the sick visiter; but Ssmbo had disappeared and there was no bell. She then went out herself, and invited the poor girl to come in and rest herself until Mr. Otway came in. " ' Let me support you,' she said; for the stranger's agitation seemed to increase at her presence; she tottered, and seemed falling: 'Lean on me, I will help you m the sofa, for you look very ill.'

"But the object of her kindness shrank from the gentle arm, as if it would have enveloped her in the folds of a serpent. " No • not this from you!' she exclaimed, shuddering, as she extricated herself, and sunk on the floor.

"Emily gazed for an instant at the unhappy creature. The truth then flashed on her: it must be the writer of Vulcan's letter; she whom he had called his master's wife; who now, broken-hearted and fainting, lay on the floor at her feet. "Under other circumstances she might, perhaps, have recoiled from further

contact; now sbe felt only compassion: she pl a pillow from the sofa under head, then filled a glass from the water4 a:Sanding in the windowrand sprinkled it on her face, and, as she revived, betel-, water to her lips. " 'Drink, and you will be better,' she said. 'Now, let me raise you up '; and, disregarding her faint resistance, supported her to the sofa, loosened the strings which impeded her breathing, and spoke to her in a soft voice, which pierced Julia's heart like a sword.

"Julia Mt the superiority of the being who bent over her; the mind which ahone through Emily Vivian's countenance awed her weaker spirit; she felt that she was known, yet not despised or hated; and this made her rival appear to her something more than human. "'-Yon are better now?' asked Emily. .

" ' Thank yon, yes; now leave me, dear hilly; you are too good to wait on poor me. I came to_ask if he had been heard of: bat, oh! I shames see him more;

and now that I have seen you, I know that it would be of no use. If my child survives are, be kind to it' "'Indeed, you are mistaken. Mr. Vernon is nothing to me but an old family friend.' " Yon say so, therefore you believe so: I know better. If you had heard him talk about you in his ravings, as I did when I watched by his bed in the fever, Jon would not doubt his love. If I hoped to live, I could not tell you this; but I feel that my days will be few. God bless you may you be happier than poor

" She rose, took Miss Vivian's hand, kissed it, and suffered herself to be assisted to the kittereent which was waiting for her. "'You will pity me, and let me know,' she said to Miss Vivian, who had accom- panied her to the carriage, 'if you hear anything of him: your servant Phcebe will know where to find me.'

"Emily felt too much agitated to encounter the Otways; and she hastened home, filled with compassion for a creature so yopug, so beautiful, so gentle and in-

experienced; ; a fair vessel wrecked on the quicksands of a vicious society. Vernon she could not excuse. He had not erred through want of knowledge of good.and evil. He had disregarded the light which he possessed. He had sown poison, and it was flourishing. But she could pity him: she knew that he must be endaring remorse, a suffering which her own happy inexperience of it ren- dered perhaps more terrible to her imagination.

" Further tidings of Vernon soon arrived in the form of the first set of bills drawn by him at Barcelona: it was clear that at the date of the bills he was living. This news was sent by M'Kenzie to General Vivian, and by Emily toJa- lia. The news came opportunely: Julia's spirits were soothed at a critical mo- ment, for the day afterwards she gave birth to a daughter. "Bat, worn down by months of anxiety and ill health, her recovery was slow: her mother was with her, but she had always been harsh; there never indeed was much sympathy or confidence between them; the tie was that of mere in- stinct.

" Her own infant, a beautifully fair child, reminded her only of its absent fa- ther. She grew more and, more nervous and weak, and her life seemed to hang on a thread.

.." Hope was gone; all that she valued or cared for bad vanished like a dream. Religion was toter a mere form; she never had been taught to trust to its sup- ,'" Day followerbday, without change or comfort, when one morning she was ly- ing on the sofa where Vernon parted from her; her memory was recalling his last words and-looks as she pressed his child to her heart. Clara sat on a stool at her feet.

Suddshli *3 door opened, and Pompey entered the room, which was par- tially derkehedto keep out the sun, so that he could not at first distinguish its inmates.- t'

" Clanistarted up, and asked him if his master was with him. " ' No, Clara,' he replied, recognizing the voice; 'you neber see good Massa Vernon any more. Him dead! me see him go out for light, and him killed; him rather come back

," A faint groan from the,sofid not reach his dull ear; but Clara shrieked out =Oh, FornpFy, you kill poor. misais as she raised Julia's head from the pil- low on which it had fallen back. But it was all over! the loving, gentle spirit had departed.

"There There is a tide in the-affairs of men, which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune" : Colonel Senior's literary " flood " was thirty years ago. Had Charles Vernon hien published then, its author would have led the wayto a new class of fiction ; success might have stimulated to greater efforts, and practice have produced improvement, if not perfection. Neither effort nor practice would probably ever have given the breadth and largeness "and dramatic character of Cooper and Marryat ; but Senior might hay.eAeen " bail'd the father of a line of kings," although not a 7 . klPg