during the last ten years.

_The Two Admirals_ is of unequal interest--the twin heroes, Sir Gervaise
Oakes and Bluewater, engrossing whatever charm it possesses, and
reacting disastrously on the tedious scenes wherein they bear no part;
but they certainly _do_ walk and talk like sound-hearted sons of
Neptune, and there is no resisting the spell of the battle and the
breeze which they encounter together, in the _Plantagenet_ and the
_Cæsar_. _The Jack o' Lantern, or the Privateer_, was put forth with an
expression of the author's conviction that his faculty in this class of
fictions was inexhaustible; to which, however, the critics demurred. One
of them observed that, following out the fantastical supposition which
ascribes especial virtues to certain numbers, or even working out the
analogy of the seventh wave, which sea-shore gossips tell us is ampler
and stronger than its predecessors, the seventh sea-novel of Mr Cooper's
ought to be the most remarkable of the series for force, brilliancy, and
movement. But such symbolism was here found defective: the seventh wave
broke abruptly on the shore; the Jack o' Lantern's existence has been
brief and uncertain as that of the _ignis fatuus_ on the marsh. The
story introduces Caraccioli and the Neapolitan court, Nelson and Lady
Hamilton; but without striking points. There are some cleverly-drawn
characters, however: Clinch, the drunken but winning British tar; Raoul
Yvard, brilliant, handsome, and Parisian all over, philosophism
included; and Ithuel Bolt, a new (not improved) edition of Long Tom. The
plot is ingenious, though perhaps, constrained and far-fetched; and its
_dénouement_ makes the reader put down the third volume with increased
respect for the novelist's tact. _Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll_
(1843), is a quiet yet animated narrative, descriptive of a family of
British settlers and their fortunes in their wild Susquehanna home.
There is a pleasure, the author observes, in diving into a virgin