Born, in Westminster, 10 July 1792. Educated at private schools. Entered Navy, Sept. 1806. At sea, 1806–15; Lieut., Dec. 1812; Commander, June 1815. Royal Humane Society’s Medal for saving life, 1818. Married Catherine Shairp, Jan. 1819. F.R.S., 1819. At sea, 1820–26. Post-Captain, 1826. C.B., 26 Dec. 1826. At sea, 1828–30. Resigned command, 1830. Equerry to Duke of Sussex, 1830. Edited “Metropolitan Mag.,” 1832–35. French Legion of Honour, 1833. On Continent, mainly at Brussels, 1836. In America, 1837–38. In London, 1839–43. At Langham, Norfolk, 1843–48. Died there, 9 Aug. 1848. Works: “Suggestions for the Abolition of … Impressment,” 1822; “The Naval Officer” (anon.), 1829; “The King’s Own” (anon.), 1830; “Newton Forster” (anon.; from “Met. Mag.”), 1832; “Peter Simple” (anon.; from “Met. Mag.”), 1834; “Jacob Faithful” (anon.; from “Met. Mag.”), 1834; “The Pacha of Many Tales” (anon.), 1835; “Mr. Midshipman Easy” (from “Met. Mag.”), 1836; “Japhet in Search of a Father” (anon.; from “Met. Mag.”), 1836; “The Pirate and the Three Cutters,” 1836; “Snarleyyow,” 1837; “The Phantom Ship,” 1839; “A Diary in America” (2 series), 1839; “Olla Podrida,” 1840; “Poor Jack,” 1840; “Joseph Rushbrook,” 1841; “Masterman Ready,” 1841; “Percival Keene,” 1842; “Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet,” 1843; “The Settlers in Canada,” 1844; “The Mission,” 1845; “The Privateer’s Man,” 1846; “The Children of the New Forest,” 1847. Posthumous: “The Little Savage” (2 pts.), 1848–49; “Valerie,” 1849; “The Floral Telegraph” [1850?]. He edited: “Rattlin the Reefer” [by Hon. E. G. C. Howard], 1836. Collected Novels: 1896, etc. Life: “Life and Letters” by Florence Marryat, 1872; life by D. Hannay, 1889.

Personal

  North.—“A captain in the navy, and an honour to it—an admirable sailor, and an admirable writer—and would that he too were with us on the leads, my lads, for a pleasanter fellow, to those who know him, never enlivened the social board.”

  Although not handsome, Captain Marryat’s personal appearance was very prepossessing. In figure he was upright and broad shouldered for his height, which measured 5 ft. 10 in. His hands, without being undersized, were remarkably perfect in form, and modelled by a sculptor at Rome on account of their symmetry. The character of his mind was borne out by his features, the most salient expression of which was the frankness of an open heart. The firm decisive mouth, and massive thoughtful forehead, were redeemed from heaviness by the humorous light that twinkled in his deep-set grey eyes, which, bright as diamonds, positively flashed out their fun, or their reciprocation of the fun of others. As a young man, dark crisp curls covered his head; but later in life, when, having exchanged the sword for the pen and the ploughshare, he affected a soberer and more patriarchal style of dress and manner, he wore his grey hair long, and almost down to his shoulders. His eyebrows were not alike, one being higher up and more arched than the other, which peculiarity gave his face a look of inquiry, even in repose. In the upper lip was a deep cleft and in his chin as deep a dimple—a pitfall for the razor, which, from the ready growth of his dark beard, he was often compelled to use twice a day. Like most warm-hearted people he was quick to take offence, and no one could have decided, after an absence of six months, with whom he was friends and with whom he was not.

General

  I have received a great deal of pleasure from some of the modern novels, especially Captain Marryat’s “Peter Simple.” That book is nearer Smollett than any I remember.

  If it were put upon me to define Captain Marryat as an author, and to mark him with an appropriate epithet, I should say that he is a pleasant writer. His leading excellence is the untiring verve of his light, easy, and flowing pen, together with a keen sense of the ridiculous, which, while it rarely leads him into broad and unmeaning farce, effectually preserves him from taking a dull, sententious, or matter-of-fact view either of men or things. His productions seem to cost him so little that one thinks he might write on for a life uninterruptedly, “eating, drinking, and sleeping hours excepted,” and so probably he will till the canvas is totally exhausted. That there is no trace of effort in anything he does is in itself a charm. But after all his great and peculiar excellence is his originality—that he is himself alone; and that as he borrows from nobody, so on the other hand nobody can safely borrow from him.

  Captain Marryat stands second in merit to no living novelist but Miss Edgeworth. His happy delineations and contrasts of character, and easy play of native fun, redeem a thousand faults of verbosity, clumsiness, and coarseness. His strong sense and utter superiority to affectation of all sorts command respect; and in his quiet effectiveness of circumstantial narrative he sometimes approaches old Defoe.

  He has always been a very popular writer in the most rigorous sense of the word. His books are essentially “mediocre.” His ideas are the common property of the mob, and have been their common property time out of mind. We look throughout his writings in vain for the slightest indication of originality, for the faintest incentive to thought. His plots, his language, his opinions, are neither adapted nor intended for scrutiny.

  Foremost amongst the novelists who really do “draw from life,” is Captain Marryat. Were it necessary to seek any excuse for occasional blemishes in his tales, the best that could be found is, that they are, more or less, indigenous of the soil he turns up. The life-like earnestness of his sketches may generally be urged with confidence in vindication of any faults which may be detected in them by prudish or captious readers. Captain Marryat is the antipodes of a fine writer. His English is always rough-cast, and his style frequently crude and slovenly. But this negligence of forms only heightens the substantial interest of the matter. He tells a story like one who has his heart in it, and who is indifferent to everything but his facts. The veracity of his fictions, if we may use the expression, constitutes their permanent charm. Few novelists have ever more distinctly shown, that the secret of success in works of this description is close adherence to nature. There are no dramatic perplexities in his books, no fluent descriptions, no turgid appeals to the imagination: his narratives are simple and progressive; he never uses a word more than he actually wants; and the class from which he generally selects his characters, cannot certainly be considered very attractive to the public at large. Yet his novels are read with breathless curiosity in the most refined circles, as well as in those to whose sympathies they are more directly addressed.

  At the head of our marine novelists stands Captain Marryat, one of the most easy, lively, and truly humorous story-tellers we possess. One of the chief elements of his talent is undoubtedly the tone of high, effervescent, irrepressible animal spirits which characterises everything he has written. He seems as if he sat down to compose without having formed the least idea of what he is going to say, and sentence after sentence seems to flow from his pen without thought, without labour, and without hesitation. He seems half tipsy with the very gaiety of his heart, and never scruples to introduce the most grotesque extravagances of character, language and event, provided they are likely to excite a laugh. This would produce absurdity and failure as often as laughter, were it not that he has a natural tact and judgment in the ludicrous, and this happy audacity—this hit-or-miss boldness—serves him admirably well…. Marryat’s narratives are exceedingly unartificial, and often grossly improbable; but we read on with gay delight, never thinking of the story, but only solicitous to follow the droll adventures, and laugh at the still droller characters…. He is generally faithful to reality, and shows an extensive if not very deep knowledge of what his old waterman calls “human natur.”

  His merits lie upon the surface, and are obvious to every man, woman, and child, who take up one of his works and find themselves unable to lay it down again. He tells plainly and straightforwardly a story, tolerably well constructed, of diversified incidents, alive with uncommon characters, and, as his experience was large and had been acquired over a wide expanse, he had always something to tell which would excite curiosity or rivet attention. He had one quality in common with great men, and in which men of finer genius than himself have been deficient,—a thorough manliness of heart and soul, which, by clearly shewing him what he was able to accomplish, preserved him against the perpetration of that sublime nonsense and drivelling cant which now-a-days often pass for fine writing and fine sentiment.

  Captain Marryat turned his leisure to very profitable literary account. He may be said to have created a new kind of novel literature, illustrative of naval life; and in that line, though followed and imitated by many, he has been equaled by none. The excellence of his productions, and the great success they met with, considering the large number of them, is remarkable.

  Captain Marryat did make large sums by his writings—by the most popular of which, alone, he realized a fortune of £20,000. The following figures show what he received on first publishing the manuscripts:

  Captain Marryat,… regarded his art with the eyes of a sea officer. The broad arrow is visible—like a water-mark—on every page of his papers…. One of the somewhat melancholy pleasures of middle age is to go deliberately through the novels which turned your head when you were a boy, and to see how you like them. Often the result of the experiment is to make you sorry you undertook it. But Marryat bears the test. To be sure, he no longer gives you a wild longing to breathe the free air of the ocean. You have long since reconciled yourself to the fact that your flag will never be seen flying from any mast-head, nor saluted with fifteen guns from any saluting battery. Perhaps, too, the physical changes of life indispose you to attempt ascending to a top, even by Lubber’s Hole, much less by the futtock-shrouds. But you can thoroughly enjoy your Marryat without wondering at your old enthusiasm, and above all, without being ashamed of it. This man did you no harm with sensuality disguised as sentimentalism, or philosophy empty and gaudy as toy-bladders. He stirred your blood not by putting drugs into it, but as exercise stirs it, as fresh air stirs it. Patriotism, manliness, firm friendship, good faith, kindliness—these are Marryat’s “ideals;” and the scenes on which they appear are bathed in the jolliest humour—the humour of common life, and everyday sympathy, exhilarating as sunshine itself.

  In the hasty production of so many volumes, the quality could not always be equal. The nautical humour and racy dialogue could not always be produced at will of a new and different stamp at each successive effort. Such, however, was the fertile fancy and active observation of the author, and his lively powers of amusing and describing, that he has fewer repetitions and less tediousness than almost any other writer equally voluminous.

  Is the chronicler par excellence of naval exploits.

  As a writer Marryat has been variously judged, but his position as a story-teller is assured. He drew the material of his stories from his professional experience and knowledge; the terrible shipwreck, for instance, in “The King’s Own,” is a coloured version of the loss of the Droits de l’homme and Mr. Chucks was still known in the flesh to the generation that succeeded Marryat. As a tale of naval adventure, “Frank Mildmay” was avowedly autobiographical, and there can be little doubt that Marryat’s contemporaries could have fitted other names to Captain Kearney, or to Captain To, or to Lieutenant Oxbelly. Marryat has made his sailors live, and has given his incidents a real and absolute existence. It is in this, and in the rollicking sense of fun and humour which pervades the whole, that the secret of his success lay; for, with the exception perhaps of “The King’s Own,” his plots are poor.

  The works of Captain Marryatt and Samuel Lover require at least a reference, for the boys who read with delight the stories of Leatherstocking and Long Tom Coffin contrived somehow to make acquaintance with Peter Simple and Handy Andy and Mr. Midshipman Easy. To the generation of yesterday at least, these personages are almost as classic, if not quite so classical, as their predecessors. Though more careless in language and less discreet of demeanor, they linger nevertheless in affectionate memory along with the heroes of Cooper and Scott.

  A rather careless and incorrect writer, and liable to fits both of extravagance and dulness. But the spirit and humour of the best of his books throughout, and the best parts of the others, are unmistakable and unsurpassed. Nor should it be forgotten that he had a rough but racy gift of verse, the best, though by no means the only good example of which is the piece beginning, “The Captain stood on the carronade.”

  Upon the whole, one finds no large or fine literary quality in his books; but the fun in them is positive, and catching—as our aunts and uncles used to find it; but it is the fun of the tap-room, and of the fo’castle, rather than of the salon, or the library. For all this, scores and scores of excellent old people were shaking their sides—in the early part of this century—over the pages of Captain Marryat.

  There is no affectation, no pretentiousness, in Marryat. Through his breezy style there blows the freshness of an Atlantic gale, rude and boisterous, but invigorating. He is moreover the best painter of the naval life of that day, and the fact that it has passed away for ever, by closing the subject to future writers, or condemning them to write at second-hand, gives to his works a special promise of permanence…. His plots are rough but sufficient; his characters show little penetration; but the habit of drawing from the life prevented him from going far wrong.

  Not only is Marryat the most delightful of writers for boys, but it is interesting to note that both Carlyle and Ruskin during long terms of illness solaced themselves with his wonderful sea-stories.