It must have been soon after the completion of 'Omoo' that Melville began to study the writings of Sir Thomas Browne.

Heretofore our author's style was rough in places, but marvellously simple and direct.

'Mardi' is burdened with an over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew.

The scene of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South Seas, but everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and the thread of the story loses itself in a mystical allegory.
'Redburn,' already mentioned, succeeded 'Mardi' in the same year, and was a partial return to the author's earlier style.

In 'White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War' (1850), Melville almost regained it.