rately measured out upon the firm-set lower jaw of the griffin, whose head adorns the door. Little was it by us supposed-such was our pure unmingled metropolitan simplicity of mind-that the up-and-down movement of the knocker could ever by possibility be governed by the up-or-down condition of the visitor.

To our tale: reminding the candid reader, by way of moral at the beginning instead of the end, that small matters are not necessarily insignificant, and that a single word may possess the eloquence of an oration. A mere monosyllable may turn out to be a corpulent volume in a state of extreme condensation. It should be the essence of English-potted prose! So with the triviality to be here recorded.

At a stone's throw across the high road from our little study window, stands, as one of a row, a genteel residence or asylum, sometimes for a single gentleman, sometimes for a small quiet family, sometimes for a widow with a scant pension, and sometimes for a newly-married couple, of course without incumbrances. The house has been, within a twelvemonth's space-as a roving eye glancing from window to window, and carelessly noting exits and entrances, might easily discover-a receptacle for all these. It is a genteel residence, all let out. It is certainly not "commodious," nor yet "eligible"-it is genteel. All auctiondom could make no more of it.

One class of the tenantry specified above-the small quiet familypossessed, about a twelvemonth ago, the upper floor, or, rather, only the front room; for the two children slept in it, as we knew by the windows being always closed directly they disappeared in the evening, and were put to bed. They were exquisitely neat ; and the mother, though she had a servant's work to do in addition to the maternal duties, was a pattern of cleanliness and quiet. The father of the little family was young, and evidently engaged in some superior mechanical employ. Marks of toil were on his dress, yet his attire was always decent, and his habits marvellously regular. His arrivals to his daily meals were as exact as clockwork. When we heard his firm full single knock, like the half of a postman's, we knew perfectly well that it was then a certain hour of the morning, noon, or eve. Neither death, nor quarter-day, though proverbial for punctuality, could be more true to their time.

Attention once drawn to this regularity, we were naturally prepared to notice any omission, and at last observed that this full single regular knock of our neighbour's was only to be heard on six days of the week. On the Sunday, the children wore brighter ribands, their gentle mother's neatness bloomed into elegance; and for the youthful father, no sign of daily labour was visible on his pleasing waistcoat, or the lightcoloured essentials below. He was in his best, to be sure; but the best was good. Stultz would have stared a little perhaps; but no matter-the mechanic might have walked unsneakingly down Saint James's-street. He was an honour to his manufacturing country.

But although he went out and came home on the Sunday, we never noticed his knock. How did he get in? Perhaps his fond kind wife, proud of him, and of the waistcoat her hands had ironed for him, watched admiringly at the window as he came down the road, and had the door open ready for him! No. One Sabbath, as we happened to glance-and not without some feeling of respect-at what must be called the "gentility" of his appearance, he walked with an air of gentlemanly independence up to his own lodging-house door,

and gave a peculiarly smart off-hand "rat-tat-tat," as a thing that he was quite used to!

And we found that he was used to it, on that day of the week only! His single week-day knocks continued, but with equal regularity he delivered a rattler on the Sunday. On that one blessed day of the seven -blessings are indeed in the poor man's Sabbath!-he did no manner of work; he was his own master; his feelings underwent a change; he could take a liberty which he shrank from on Saturday; he was a gentleman, and he knocked accordingly.

This practice, while it amused us, also increased our interest for the quiet little family; and so we were glad to perceive sometime afterwards a mighty stir in the genteel edifice, with its floors separately let out. The family so attached to the gentilities were getting prosperousgetting on, as it is called; and we quite clapped our hands joyfully, as one morning, we saw the little ones at the first-floor window, trying to look down, and evidently thinking what a little way it was to the ground. Yes, and there too was their mother-their mamma now!— gazing out at the prospect as at a novelty, and fancying that the five trees opposite looked very different seen from the third-floor window.

So it was. The brightest ribands were now worn daily, and the elegance became as habitual as the neatness. But there was another change a change in the habits of the head of the family. His appearance shared in the general improvement, his goings-out and returnings were all as exact as before; but we missed the accustomed knock. He came home to dinner as usual; but instead of crying, as was our wont, "It's just one o'clock; there's the knock," we were sadly out in the time, believing that, as no such knock was heard, it was not so late.

The fact immediately transpired. The first-floor had brought firstfloor customs, and the Sunday practice became the practice of the week. No more single knocks! We had the smart rat-tat" every day, three times. There was, no doubt, a music in the repetitions of the rap. They were so many audible proclamations of his advancement, of his ranking with the élite of the house. It seemed, however, to be the result of a rule laid down by the landlady. Parlour and drawing-room lodgers were to knock as they pleased; but the occupants of the upper floor were not allowed to put themselves on such a familiar footing with the knocker. People who are not worth a rap, are not expected to give half-a-dozen at the door. It was pretty to discover these secret laws of gentility, and to see how the principle worked.

A twelvemonth passed away, and we lost all interest in the progress of the little family, whose rat-tats could have no charm. When suddenly another change came. The little children were chirruping up at the top-window again, looking at the five trees from a higher point once more. The mother was there also, glancing about with a rather disconcerted and pensive air. The prosperity had been but a flashthe little agency, or the advance of income, was too good to last-and the old upper quarters were quietly, and to all appearance contentedly, resumed. They all seem quite cheerful, and amazingly regular as before. Out goes the father after breakfast, and back he comes to dinner. We now again know when it is one o'clock, by the knocker -save on Sundays, when happily the spirit of independence and gentility still prevails in the "rat-tat."

374

THE SETTLERS IN CANADA.*

THE skill of the novelist is probably never seen to greater advantage, than when his materials are simple, and his style clear and perspicuous. There is a lightsome and airy ease in the present little work of Capt. Marryat's, written for the amusement of young people, that is quite charming; and, while the well-known ability of the author is manifest throughout, it is so subdued by his wish to be plain, that portraits and events appear rather to flow out of the narrative, than to be the creations of a successful talent.

Mr. Campbell, a surgeon with a large family, increased by the adoption of two orphan nieces, Mary and Emma Percival, is unexpectedly removed from ill-requited and arduous professional labours, to the proprietorship of the valuable estate of Mexton Hall. But as this was in default of nearer of kin, he is, after a few years' enjoyment of the property, as suddenly ejected by the arrival of more direct issue. Reduced by such untoward incidents to emigrate, the eldest son, Henry, is taken from college, and the second, Alfred, from a promising career in the navy, and with Percival and John, as yet mere boys, and the two nieces, the whole party start under convoy for the new world. Luckily, Alfred is taken on board a fifty-gun ship appointed to this convoy, distinguishes himself in an engagement with a French liner on the voyage, and gains his lieutenancy, with the additional means of remaining for a few years with his relatives, on their first settling in a foreign land.

A grant, under highly favourable circumstances, is, through the instrumentality of Alfred's captain, and of the governor of Quebec, made to Mr. Campbell, close by Fort Frontignac, on Lake Ontario. This was in 1794, when Canada had not been long ceded by the French; when there were no steamboats to stem the currents of the rivers, as yet a scarcity of colonists, many wild beasts, and Indians still in the very heart of what is now cultivated land, and in hostility with the new possessors of the soil.

The difficulties to be overcome by the emigrants are all more or less connected with these points. They are assisted in the first labours of squatting by a party of soldiers from the fort, from whence they also derive the acquaintance of Captain Sinclair, who becomes an important person in the novel department of the narrative; and they have also the services of Martin Supper, a trapper, while, through the means of John, who is made to take to the woods as a young duck does to the water, they also gain over the friendship of Malachi Bone, a thoroughgoing, morose backwoodsman. These two worthies, for such they are made to be, are two distinct steps from civilization to savage life. Martin being the first degree, Malachi, the second, and Strawberry Plant, an adopted Indian child of Malachi's, is a pleasing and agreeable relief to such a forbidding back-ground. Savage life itself is represented by the Angry Snake, a warrior with but a small party of ad

* The Settlers in Canada; written for Young People. By Captain Marryat. 2 vols. Small 8vo.

herents, but who carries on a systematic hostility against the new colonists.

Beginning with the clouds of musquitoes, and the whistling and hissing of frogs, the party are soon introduced to the minor inconveniences of being thrown into almost immediate contact with nature untainted by art, and lands unreclaimed by man. Even the ladies are constituted into " a female rifle brigade." The arrival of winter was, however, a more serious trial. Mary and Emma are startled on their daily visit to the cow-house by a hungry wolf, whom little John comes up in time to despatch. The well-drawn character of this precocious backwoodsboy, comes out in all its force upon this occasion. Having killed the wolf, he shoulders his rifle, and saying, "He's dead," turned round and walked back to the house.

"On his return, he found that the party had just come back from hauling up the punt, and were waiting the return of the Miss Percivals to go to breakfast.

"Was that you who fired just now, John?' said Martin.

"Yes,' replied John.

666 What did you fire at?' said Alfred.

"A wolf,' replied John.

"A wolf! Where?' said Mr. Campbell.

"At the cow-lodge,' replied John.

"The cow-lodge!' said his father.

"Yes; killed Sancho!"

666

666

Killed Sancho! Why, Sancho was with your cousins.' 'Yes,' replied John.

"Then where did you leave them?'

"With the wolf,' replied John, wiping his rifle very coolly

"Merciful Heaven!' cried Mr. Campbell, as Mrs. Campbell turned pale, and Alfred, Captain Sinclair, Martin, and Henry, seizing their rifles, darted out from the house, and ran with all speed in the direction of the cow-house.

666

"My poor girls!' exclaimed Mr. Campbell.

"Wolf's dead, father,' said John.

"Dead! why didn't you say so, you naughty boy?' cried Mrs. Campbell. "I wasn't asked,' replied John."

The same winter an Indian woman, abandoned by her tribe from having dislocated her ankle, was found in the woods, brought in, nursed, and having recovered and received a supply of provisions, left them three weeks afterwards to rejoin her friends.

Great was the delight of the whole party when the return of spring brought with it a pleasant greensward, open waters, and chirping, twittering birds. Greater extent was now given to the farming operations; the skins obtained in winter were sent to market, and stock was purchased with the produce of their sale; palisade fences were erected, and more winter-houses; while a field of maize that was sown did not fail to bring down the bears. A fearful fire, which involved miles of forest, threatened the total destruction of the new settlement, which only a sudden rain averted; and this summer the Angry Snake makes his first appearance, according to received custom, as if accidentally dropt from a cloud, and that, when the party were inopportunely engaged in examining the stores.

The consequence is, that on the ensuing winter, an intended surprise by the Indians is thwarted by Master John, who shoots one of the savages disguised as a wolf; but in revenge for the injury thus unintentionally committed, the Angry Snake carries off the second son, Percival, on a hunting day, when Alfred has a dangerous encounter with, and is severely bit by, a puma.

As the family think that the youth perished in the snow, after the bitterness of the loss was over, Percival is little thought of till Malachi finds a letter, written by the Indian woman, who had been succoured and protected by the settlers, informing him, by a series of amusing hieroglyphics, that Percival is prisoner with the Angry Snake, at a distance of twelve days' journey to the westward.

The fourth summer, the Young Otter, an emissary of the Angry Snake's, arrives to negotiate the surrender of Percival, but he is made a prisoner, and, in return for this, the Angry Snake makes further capture of Mary Percival, of whom Captain Sinclair had become the acknowledged suitor. Incidents now crowd one upon another, the pursuit of the Indians is the great achievement, crowning other minor events. The following of the trail, at one moment lost by the wily Indians, keeping along the course of a river bed, at another by taking a canoe, and coasting along, instead of crossing direct over, a lake, is full of breathless excitement. The Strawberry Plant is in all her glory, and Martin and Malachi are now heroes. Little John had been left behind, but the second day of the pursuit, "they had finished their meal, and were sitting round the embers of the fire, conversing, and calculating the probabilities as to their overtaking the Indians, when Martin sprang up, with his rifle ready to bring to his shoulder.

"What is it?" said Alfred, in a low tone, as Martin held up his finger as a sign for silence.

"There's somebody coming this way; he is behind that large tree,” said Martin. "I see his head now, but it is too dark to make out who it may be."

As Martin said this, a low and singular sort of whistle between the teeth was heard, upon which Strawberry gently put down Martin's rifle with her hand, saying

"It is John."

It was John, and when asked how he got there: "Followed trail,” replied John.

On the route, Strawberry finds, by a broken twig, that the woman friendly to the settlers, was of the party, and had left, where possible, signals of the trail; but, after crossing the lake, they find the same female struck down by a blow of a tomahawk, from suspicion being excited by her movements. She is relieved, and, recovering rapidly, acts as guide, by a nearer road, to the Indian encampment, where Percival is found dressed in leggings, and Indian shirt of deer-skin, carrying in his hand his bow and arrows, and with an eagle's feather stuck in his hair, above the left ear. What is more singular, after his recapture, (as, according to our author, invariably takes place in every instance where the parties are very young,) he had forgotten his language and his friends. Shortly after the recapture of Percival, the Angry Snake and his followers arrive, bearing Mary Percival on a litter. But we must not anticipate details; they are carried to a happy, eventful, and unforeseen conclusion, and what we have said, we feel convinced, is only just sufficient to give an interest and insight into the adventures of the Canadian settlers, and the very simple and yet effective and dramatic manner in which they are presented to the reader.