, and
miscellanies, which appeared in 1826. It is not very well written, and
in parts very dull, but provides some genuine things. Chamier, who was
born in 1796 and did not die till 1870, was a post captain and a direct
imitator of Marryat, as also was Captain Howard, Marryat's sub-editor
for a time on the _Metropolitan_, and the part author with him of some
books which have caused trouble to bibliographers. Chamier's books--_Ben
Brace_, _The Arethusa_, _Tom Bowling_, etc.--are better than Howard's
_Rattlin the Reefer_ (commonly ascribed to Marryat), _Jack Ashton_, and
others, but neither can be called a master.

Captain Basil Hall, who was born of a good Scotch family at Edinburgh in
1788 and died at Haslar Hospital in 1844, was a better writer than
either of these three; but he dealt in travels, not novels, and appears
here as a sort of honorary member of the class. His _Travels in America_
was one of the books which, in the second quarter of the century,
rightly or wrongly, excited American wrath against Englishmen; but his
last book, _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_, was his most popular and
perhaps his best. Captain Basil Hall was a very amiable person, and
though perhaps a little flimsy as a writer, is yet certainly not to be
spoken of with harshness.

A very much stronger talent than any of these was Michael Scott, who was
born in Glasgow in 1789 and died in 1835, having passed the end of his
boyhood and the beginning of his manhood in Jamaica. He employed his
experiences in composing for _Blackwood's Magazine_, and afterwards
reducing to book shape, the admirable miscellanies in fiction entitled
_Tom Cringle's Log_ and _The Cruise of the Midge_, which contain some of
the best fighting, fun, tropical scenery, and description generally, to
be found outside the greatest masters. Very little is known of Scott,
and he wrote nothing else.

One unique figure remains to be noticed among novelists of the first
half of the century, though as a matter of fact his last novel was not
published till within twenty years of its close. Benjamin Disraeli, Earl
of Beaconsfield, belongs, as a special person, to another story than
this. But this would be very incomplete without him and his novels. They
were naturally written for the most part before, in 1852, he was called
to the leadership of the House of Commons, but in two vacations of
office later he added to them _Lothair_ (1870) and _Endymion_ (1881). It
is, however, in h