we occasionally catch through all Mr. Brown's splendid writing, we
should say that he was a man of a strong, hearty nature, full of
indomitable energy, and possessed with a truly Saxon predilection for
the use of his fists. The number of physical contests in which he was
chief actor renders his volume almost epical in character. Invulnerable
as Achilles and quarrelsome as Hector, he strides over the bodies of
innumerable foes. If some of his friends, the Seniors, at Cambridge,
would only put his adventures into Greek verse, he might descend to
posterity in sounding hexameters with the sons of Telamon and Thetis.

The plain narrative portions of Mr. Brown's volume possess much real
interest. His adventures with the strolling players, the insight he
gives us into the life of a journeyman shoemaker, and his reminiscences
of his friends, the Jew old-clothes-men, the pick-pockets, and the
prize-fighters, are so many steaks cut warm from the living world, and
are good, substantial food for thought. But he seldom forgets himself
long, and is natural only by fits and starts. After he has been striding
along for a short time with a free, manly gait, he suddenly bethinks
himself that he is writing a book. The malign influences of Cambridge
University begin to work upon him. The loose stride is contracted; the
swing of the vigorous shoulders is restrained, and, instead of an honest
fellow tramping sturdily after his own fashion through the paths of
literature, we are treated to an imitation of Dr. Johnson, done by an
illiterate butcher's son. We are afraid that the Cantabs have been at
the bottom of John Brown's fine writing. How valuable, for instance, are
the following philosophical reflections upon Napoleon, which John Brown
makes when he beholds the dethroned Emperor standing sadly upon the poop
of the Bellerophon!

"Here, then," remarks John, "had ended his dream of universal conquest;