402 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



yard. The consequence of keeping so extensive a ledger was this, that not 

 unfrequently after chalking up a particular account, and wishing to refer to it 

 half an hour after, he did not know where to find it, would fly into a great 

 passion with himself, and when, perhaps three months after it had become use- 

 less, he happened by chance to detect it placed in some conspicuous situation, 

 on purpose that it might not be overlooked, he would laugh heartily to think 

 he had not found it before. 



" Under this gentleman's care, Bilberry learned many of those useful oc- 

 cupations which belong especially to the farmer's boy. He became a gene- 

 rally useful character in the homestead, and eventually lived in this rustic 

 capacity several years. 



"His first employments were chiefly of the simplest kind. Morning and 

 night, in those seasons when the cows were milked in the farm- yard, it was 

 his office to fetch them from the fields and drive them back again ; when 

 milked in the fields, to assist the maids in carrying the pai's home : to feed 

 the poultry and the pigs : to rise by day-break in spring, and go to the dis- 

 tant fields driving away the rooks from the spring-sown corn ; and when in 

 green ear, to take a pole while the morning dew yet lay on the grass so heavy 

 that to walk through it was like wading through a streamlet, and, going round 

 the unsown borders of the fields, to beat out from the hedge-rows the innu- 

 merable flocks of sparrows which assembled to invade the yet soft and resist- 

 less grain. 



" By degrees he grew up from these buddings into more full-blown employ- 

 ments ; becoming in turn a waggoner, a ploughman, a reaper in short, con- 

 sidering his age, a pretty respectable master of most ordinary rural occupations. 



" During this period, circumstances would sometimes occur which caused 

 him to recollect his mother with regret, and to feel some anxiety about her 

 ultimate fate ; for it must be observed, that as Bilberry himself became more 

 accustomed to the pleasures and comforts of his new life, he could not but 

 contrast it the more strongly with what might be the unfortunate fate of her 

 to whom he owed his existence. At the end of the first six months, which he 

 recollected as the expiration of the period of Mrs. Thurland's confinement in 

 the neighbouring town prison, he even ventured to indulge a thought that she 

 might chance on her liberation to direct her steps the same way which he 

 himself had taken after his own discharge from the police- office, and so perhaps 

 again fall in his way while on her way through the village wherein he now resided 



" But this possibility, however pleasant for him to calculate on, never came 

 to pass. The time went by, accumulating month on month, until the total 

 improbability of her ever appearing in that quarter caused him gradually to 

 think less of the circumstance, until at length he regarded it no more." 



We hope that we have done justice to Bilberry Thurston. It is not a book 

 to be recommended indiscriminately nor introduced into families. 



Those who can read it with safety may perhaps be amused. The writer of 

 these remarks has been disgusted rather than amused. 



Mr. Midshipman Easy. By the author of PETER SIMPLE. 

 3 vols. post 8vd. Saunders & Otley. 



CAPTAIN^ MARRY AT is a deserved favourite of the public. The many works 

 which he has presented for the perusal of the novel-reading world have all 

 been decided hits, and have won for him the reputation of being our best sea- 

 novelist. The good qualities of his books up to the appearance of the present 

 volumes have been progressive, : and consequently from the author of Peter 

 Simple very much was expected ; nor indeed, whatever blemishes the candid 

 reviewer must point out, has the hope been disappointed. The tale is neither 

 so full of incident, nor are the characters drawn with that force nor indeed 

 is the whole so well finished as Peter Simple ; but with the exception of our 



