The Express. — 1850-12-28 (London, England)

WILLIAM H. O. KINGSTON, BEI., Author of " How to Emigrate," " TM Albatross," Ike. , Great and Griffiths. Here we have two contributions to " whaling literature." There being now-a•days a literature of everything, the whale himself has his own. He has long been chronicled in corthern song ; and now his history is edited by a doctor of divinity, and a halo of romance thrown round him by a nautical novelist. The first of the above works contains the narrative of an American missionary who embarked,. for the sake of his health, in a whaling voyage in the South Seas and Pacific Ocean. The Heir. Mr. Cheever, in a voyage of 236 % from the Sandwich Islands to  days, Bata, had various opportunities of seeing whaling pea ice, and has recorded them in a bock which oon, tains a great deal of information on the subject geneAlly. Our readers know that the whale fishers have boss geadually driving the whales to the poles. Oar esbeol friend, the bakena Britannia; has long since disappeared. Shoal after shoal has been consumed. But the trade goes on merrily. We learn from Mr. Cheever's first chapter that " the average yearly quantity of sperm oil taken for the last nine years has been 142,242 barrels; of right-whale oil, 255,4361 barrels; of whalebone, 2,324,0001b*. ;"and also that the " imports of oil to foreign parts in 1848 from New Bedford, were 17,093 barrels." It is a most airlifteant fact, which will sufficiently show how much the Americans cultivate this trade, that nearly one-tenth sf their whole navigation is employed is it. Some interesting extracts from the volume will IlikeW the bard and perilous hfe which many mast had before we at home can light our domestic lamp for household purposes. One of a ship's company or officers in the North Pacific., ' near the close of a day that had been rather Moray, says that • school of young bell whales made 11:::tosipesranos close  1. 0, rhea the ham of a beaker ma roared over him, sad esseal him to Abappear be ever I The boat wee rowed rowed eel mead the lira spot spats sad span, until sight fell, sad them the was slowly and reluctantly pulled to the ship by her wriemeholy drew. At they returned, the turbulent waves limed them about es if la maize the boat ',broth front the Warn and dashing warts whisk flew weird her bow. The moment the aanttunate tram= disappeared, a Lugo bird of the abattoir hied caste careerist along, mad alighted ore the era* at the very spot whets the poor know was lest set a. It was a MOONS einamstaam, and slily served to heighten war honer, whin we Am the earesporotes bird art *fedi Penal, twat the hood of our 000spolios ; sad whirl also wired to ranted are of the number of sharks that we hod so throned, seem of late, and of the horrible propeasidee of which we read not dare to think. In 'rodent 'Whistle betanco, whoa a boat was shrine • whale, he stadasely tamed to windward, and made direedy tor his pumas, who were so excited by the ahem as to be algid to Amager. Oa, therefore they madly rushed, without h7ing to avoid the infatiated imam, so seem were they to please into kin their item, till the boat streak with *ash term upon the whale's head, a. to throw the earsmen hem their thwarts. At the same moment the boat:Metes let Ay his two harpoons into the airmail, whisk thee rolled over at its beak, sad before the boat could get clear of the danger, being to windward, a heavy sea struck it, end threw boat and nen into the whale's mouth' All, of mane, =for their UM an , d they had bar to rly time throw Ives clear of the boat, before it woe crushed to piton by Mom imosedoroods jews, and its ejected mew were providentially all picked up by another boat. ----- - - -  A terrible little particular that last about the albatross ! We ones heard a similar story from a naval friend, which has ever sines diminished the horror which we used to feel at Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner" for killing his famous bird. Mr. Cneever's book, u we hays said above, will be found interesting and instructive, but it is decidedly liable to some literary objections. When he urge, the necessity of preserving the Sabbath, afloat we agree with him. When he indulges in pious reflection, we honour him. tWhen be quota; Coleridge and Cowper, we sympathise with him. But we are bound to say that there is too much in his work of that kind of morbid methodisin which Sydney Smith used to lash in the Edinburgh Review. Once he takes an opportunity, apropos of the grave of a Tahitian, to have a fling at the memory of Byron ; and once he suddenly diverges from the subject of whales tothstof " suicide r—wben he recommends, to prevent that melancholy crime "the enacting • law, as they once did in ancient Rome, to expose the body of every suicide naked in the marketplace after death," (p. 81). The editor, Dr. Scoresby, would have done well to strike out this recommendation of a heathen custom by • Christian minister: the sentiment is thoroughly contrary to the humanity of the present age, and to the good feeling of all ages. Mr. Cheever must have written it under the influence of some maudlin feeling akin to seasicknei.s.  " Feter the Whaler" is rather long. but we find it full of true and animated painting. We have the less hesitation in not quoting it, es moat readers of fiction will be likely to peruse it. Bu: we have, besides, exhausted our space, and our readers would find toojuurs whale worse than even the proverbial Couleur' perdrix.  .etcher of the English Landscape Piiiritees. By L. liaavy. With Short Notice', by W. M.