THE LATE MR. FRANK T. MILLEN.
rro TEE EDITOR or cos nSrocnoroo."] Si,—Readera of the Spectator will, I am sure, have observed with regret the death of Mr. Frank T. Hellen at Madeira on the 26th ult., for some of his finest descriptive work—after- wards embodied in his Idylls of the Sea—appeared in your columns. His literary achievement was all the more remark- able in that he was practically eelMaught. He had no schooling after he was nine years old, and went to sea at twelve, rising to be chief mate before he retired in 1993 at the age of twentysix. Then he served for sixteen years as a junior clerk in the Meteorological Office. It was not, how- ever, until about the Mid nineties that he took to writing. His first venture was, if I remember aright, in Chambers's Journal, and a paper on whales and whale-fishing in the Cornhill led to the acceptance by Messrs. Smith, Elder of his first and beat book, The Cruise of the Caehaloe which won the generous praise of Mr. Kipling and, as a story of sea adventure founded on actual experience, established him in the true lineal descent from Melville, the author of Typee and 01)200, whose works, by the way, he had then never read. Some twenty volumes have since come from his industrious pen—romantic, autobiographical, and evangelical in ,tone—for he bad been a street preacher as well as mate in a whaler, and though he never quite repeated his initial success, his varied experiences furnished him with abundant material which be turned to good account. He also wrote descriptive articles for newspapers; he was in great request as a lecturer. But these years of prosperity were soon clouded by bereavement, financial losses, and ill-health. Of delicate build and appear- ance, lie had been for years a martyr to bronchial asthma, and the chronic emphysema from which he suffered had of late become so acute that his death was a merciful release. I must not close this imperfect tribute to the talents of a remarkable man without mentioning his gentleness of manner and disposition—unexpected in one who had lived so long in the fo'e's'le of a whaler—and a curious trait, of which he once told me. He positively enjoyed the manual exertion of writing —he wrote a very neat copperplate script—a peculiarity shared by very few writers—I au:, Sir, &c., G.
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