improbably capable. The hand of destiny lends him a dignity of which
he is by no means unworthy. Krantz, the faithful friend, belongs to a
familiar type, but the one-eyed pilot is quite sufficiently weird
for the part he has to play. For the rest we have the usual exciting
adventures by sea and land; the usual "humours," in this case
certainly not overdone. The miser Dr Poots; the bulky Kloots, his
bear, and his supercargo; Barentz and his crazy lady-love the _Vrow
Katerina_; and the little Portuguese Commandant provide the reader
with a variety of good-natured entertainment. It was an act of
doubtful wisdom, perhaps, to introduce a second group of spirits from
the Hartz mountains, but the story of the weir-wolves is told simply,
without any straining after effect.

The general success, however, is marred by certain obvious failures
in detail. The attempt to produce an historic flavour by making the
characters, during their calmer moments, talk in would-be old English
is more amusing than culpable; but the author's philosophy of the
unseen, as expounded by Amine or Krantz, is both weak and tiresome,
and his religious discourses, coloured by prejudice against the
Romanists, are conventional and unconvincing. The closing scene
savours of the Sunday-school.

But these faults are not obtrusive, and the novel as a whole must take
a high place among its author's second-best.

_The Phantom Ship_ appeared in _The New Monthly Magazine_, 1838, 1839.
It is here reprinted from the first edition, in three volumes. Henry
Colburn, 1839.

R.B.J.