1830.] The Devonshire Ball 561 



But dukes are but dukes at the best, 



And since he bade Ireland adieu, 

 Let him hunt through the world east and west, 



And he'll find no such charmers as you. 

 Sing Cupid, &c. 



THE KING'S OWN : BY THE AUTHOR OF 



UNTIL the last few years " tales of the sea" have, strange to say, been 

 furnished by landsmen. Smollett, one of the most conspicuous in the em- 

 ployment of naval incidents in fiction, was a physician : it is true, he had 

 been a naval surgeon ; but still he was a civilian, and therefore must have 

 been unacquainted with the subtler points of nautical minutiae. Dibdin, , 

 the soi-disant bard of the ocean, was scarcely ever out of the smoke of 

 London; Moore, the author of a whimsical and humorous romance called 

 the " Post- Captain," was a doctor, we do not recollect whether of physic 

 or of law ; and Cooper, the American writer of " Tales of the Sea," is, or 

 was a purser. Now, pursers are very respectable men, and Cooper is a 

 fine'writer; but as to intimate and scientific knowledge of seamanship, 

 we hold Cooper to be often at fault; and we ascribe this, not to his 

 want of faculty, but to the amphibious nature of his office: he is neither 

 fish nor flesh. In this appreciation of his calling, we shall be joined by 

 every one who has had, we were going to say, the good luck of passing a 

 month onboard a man-of-war ; during which time the visitor must have 

 observed that pursers were, perhaps unfairly, often made the joke and 

 by-word of the service. In the censure implied in what we have just 

 said, we would unequivocally except the masterly tale of the " Pilot," 

 in the construction of which we cannot help suspecting that Cooper must 

 have had at his elbow some one of those naval adepts whose knowledge 

 of his profession has contributed to give a tone to the maritime character 

 of America. One of Mr. Cooper's tales is dedicated to a friend and 

 former messmate a Master. We repeat, that we do not by this mean to 

 undervalue the works of Cooper, who possesses merit enough for the 

 foundation of his claims independently of his naval romances, which in 

 nautical details are, according to the old- lady style of expression, " no 

 better than they should be." 



The apathy with regard to writing about their own affairs, or turning 

 them to account in the more attractive shape of fiction, which has hi- 

 therto been manifested by naval men, may be ascribed to several causes. 

 In the first place, the scenes and events which to landsmen appear to 

 furnish the most striking materials for the purposes of romance fail, 

 from constant familiarity, to make the least impression on the sailor : 

 then his attention is too constantly occupied by practical matters of the 

 most anxious nature to attend to any thing which has only for its object 

 the administering to amusement or curiosity. Besides these consider- 

 ations, there is another of far greater weight, namely, the heavy, and we 

 may add painful responsibility incurred by any gentleman in the naval 

 service who may be tempted to give free scope to his pen and, without 

 this freedom, nothing good, either in invention or delineation of character 

 or of circumstance, can subsist. In this respect there is, we imagine, a 

 difference between the military and the naval services. For example, for- 

 merly a junior officer in the army might, upon any real or supposed affront 

 from his superior, demand what is absurdly called "satisfaction;" whereas, 



M.M. New Series. VOL. IX. No. 53. 4 C 



