The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 27

It would seem, or rather it would have seemed, almost impossible to present Shakespeare in any new light, so much has been written by the wise and the foolish, the learned and the ignorant, the bright and the dull, the competent and the incompetent, upon that marvellous man. But Mr. George Wilkes has managed to write a goodly octavo which, while it contains nothing absolutely new upon this subject, presents it as a whole in a fresh aspect.[8] Mr. Wilkes says, in his brief preface, a few words which seem to be candid and truly modest. Rigorous criticism, he tells us, will not be unwelcome, not because he has any vain confidence in his own views, but "because they are put forward in good faith in order to elicit truth concerning a genius who is the richest inheritance of the intellectual world." He adds that he presents his book rather as a series of inquiries than as dogmatic doctrine, and that even if his views are controverted, he must be a gainer, "for it can never be a true source of mortification to relinquish opinions in favor of those which are shown to be better." This is indeed the fairest, best spirit of literary candor, and it is expressed with manly ingenuousness. If the author really feels what he utters so well, and we are both bound and willing to believe that he does so, he has set an example of a virtue which should be very much commoner than it is.

[8] "_Shakespeare, from an American Point of View_: Including an Inquiry as to his Religious Faith and his Knowledge of Law. With the Baconian Theory Considered." By GEORGE WILKES. 8vo, pp. 471.

New York: D. Appleton & Co.

In giving to Mr. Wilkes's book the consideration which is due to its careful and intelligent preparation, we are, however, somewhat puzzled at the outset. What is an American point of view in regard to a literary subject, and above all a subject the historical position of which is previous, not only to the Declaration of Independence, but to the settlement of New England? We can apprehend what an "American"

point of view might be as to a question of politics, or of society, or even of morals, in the present day; but what such a _distinctive_ view could be even on those subjects, considered as they present themselves at a time when our forefathers, just like the forefathers of the present British people, were in England or in Scotland, we can hardly divine. And as to literature, the difficulty seems still greater. For, in the first place, literature and art are of no country and no time, except historically, and moreover the literature of a language and a race belong to that race and the speakers of that language wherever they may be. A man of English blood and speech loses no right in Shakespeare, he loses no right in any English author, because he happens to be born in New England instead of Old England, or in Australia instead of the Isle of Wight or of Man. Political divisions have nothing to do with literature. We hear nothing of Prussian literature or of Austrian literature; it is all German--"Deutsch." And the eminent German philologist Mentzner, in his great English grammar, that awful book in three octavo volumes, draws for his countless ill.u.s.trations quite as freely upon Bryant, Irving, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Prescott, and their countrymen, as upon Tennyson, Browning, Macaulay, and theirs. English literature is the literature of the English race wherever it may be. It has nothing to do with the distinctions British and American. They are political only.

This is true of all literature, even that of the day; but especially and absolutely is it true of all English literature that was produced before there was any New England. Shakespeare belongs to the people now in England because when he wrote he and their forefathers lived together in England and spoke the same tongue; and exactly for that reason he belongs to all of us here who are of his race and tongue.

There is not the slightest difference between the relations of the two people to the one man. This consideration applies, without qualification, to all English literature before 1620; with slight external, unessential modification, to that between 1620 and 1776; and with somewhat greater external, but still unessential modification, to all that has been produced since.

Mr. Wilkes, however, may reasonably reply that while he may or may not agree with this view of English literature, there is in either case an American point of view as to every subject--a view taken from the position in which Americans stand politically and socially; a position which affects their vision and their judgment of all subjects, including literature, even in the form of dramatic poetry, the most absolute form in which it can exist. He is to a certain extent right; and waiving the question as to whether such a view is likely to have any peculiar value, particularly in regard to dramatic poems produced in the other hemisphere nearly three hundred years ago, let us see what in this guise Mr. Wilkes has to present to us.

He opens his book with a reference to the "Baconian theory," as it is called; that is, the notion that the plays published in 1623 as "Mr.

William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies," were actually written by the great Bacon, incorrectly called Lord Bacon.

This notion, which may in a certain sense be called "American," because of its setting forth by Miss Delia Bacon, a New England woman, some twenty years ago, is not and never was worth five minutes' serious consideration by any sane human being. It is too foolish to be talked about. No man who really knows anything about the subject has ever given this fancy a moment's entertainment; and we regret to see that Mr. Wilkes is at the pains of examining it carefully all through his book. It is not worthy of refutation. We therefore set small store by the probabilities which he acc.u.mulates against it. There is no more ground for reasonable doubt that William Shakespeare did and Francis Bacon did not write the plays attributed to the former than there is for doubt that Horace Greeley did and William Henry Seward did not edit the "Tribune" between the years 1845 and 1865. That Bacon was their author is indeed an American point of view, it having been taken not only by Miss Bacon, but by Judge Holmes of Missouri, and by an unknown American writer in "Frazer's Magazine" for August, 1874. But we are inclined to think that Miss Bacon's book is unknown to Mr. Wilkes except at second hand, else he would not speak of that tremendous octavo tome as a "pamphlet," which he does twice. It was as heavy metaphorically as it was in avoirdupois. It fell dead from the press.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote the introduction to it, says in his "Old Home" that he believes that it never had but one reader, a young man of his acquaintance. He probably had not seen Mr. Grant White's statement, made in some of his Shakespearian books or writings, that "for his sins" he had read every word of it. And we must say from our knowledge of it, that the reading ought to go largely to his credit in his account with purgatory. Judge Holmes's book is very able and ingenious; so much so that it is to be regretted that he did not give his learning and his reasoning powers to better business. In Mr. Wilkes's book we probably have heard the last of this American view of Shakespeare.

Our author also gives much attention to the questions of Shakespeare's religious faith and his knowledge of the law. He is of the opinion that Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic, and that he had not studied law. In both cases we think Mr. Wilkes wrong. Such evidence as Shakespeare's works afford goes, we think, decidedly in favor of their writer's having been a Protestant of unusually "broad church" views for his time, and of his having made some study at least of the attorney's part of law. After considering all that Mr. Wilkes urges, we find nothing in his ingeniously extracted evidence to shake our faith in these probabilities. But in any case all this is of small importance. Suppose Shakespeare to have been a Romanist, and never to have entered an attorney's office: of what moment are these conclusions to the reader of his plays? The facts were important to Shakespeare himself, but are of only the slightest interest to any one else.

Mr. Wilkes's American point of view is finally and chiefly that which he takes of Shakespeare's social feeling, according to his--Mr.

Wilkes's--conception of it. He says of him that it seems strange that "unlike all the great geniuses of the world who had come before or [have] come after him, he should be the only one so deficient in that beneficent tenderness toward his race, so vacant of those sympathies which usually accompany intellectual power, as never to have been betrayed into one generous aspiration in favor of popular liberty. Nay, worse than this, worse than his servility to royalty and rank, we never find him speaking of the poor with respect, or alluding to the working cla.s.ses without detestation or contempt." This view of the great poet-dramatist is repeated over and over again, all through Mr.

Wilkes's book. The point is not a new one. It has been considered by one or two of Mr. Wilkes's predecessors, and has been set aside as of no significance by those who have brought it up for consideration. We cannot congratulate Mr. Wilkes upon his success in establis.h.i.+ng his position. The subject is of some interest, and for example we take Mr.

Wilkes's remarks in his twenty-third chapter, which is entirely devoted to the support he finds for it in the first part of "Henry VI." He quotes pa.s.sages in which La Pucelle (Joan of Arc) calls herself "a shepherd's daughter," speaks of her "contemptible estate," and her "base vocation"; in which Talbot expresses his insulted feeling at a proposal that he, when a prisoner, should have been proposed in exchange for a "baser man of arms," and in which he and other n.o.blemen speak with contempt of peasants. And then he exclaims, "Lords, lords, lords; nothing but princes and lords, and The People never alluded to except as _worthless peasants_, or to be scorned as _scabs_, and _hedge-born_ swains." The reply to all this is much like the famous one as to the stealing of the kettle; which was first, that the defendant did not take the kettle; next that he returned it; and finally that the plaintiff never had any kettle. First these sentiments are not put forth as those of the writer of the play, but as those of the personages who figured in the historical incidents therein dramatized; next it is undeniable that such were the feelings which n.o.blemen and gentlemen of Henry VI.'s time, and of the time when this play was written, had and expressed toward peasants; and finally, whether or no it makes no difference as to Shakespeare's sentiments in regard to his humbler fellow men; for _Shakespeare did not write this play_. No editor or competent critic of Shakespeare believes that Shakespeare wrote one single scene of the first part of "King Henry VI." True the same feeling is expressed by n.o.blemen and gentlemen in plays which Shakespeare did write; and we notice this particular pa.s.sage chiefly because of its evidence that Mr. Wilkes, although an intelligent and careful reader of Shakespeare, is not sufficiently acquainted with the history and the literature of his time, or with dramatic literature generally, to undertake to pa.s.s judgment upon Shakespeare from the higher points of view, however he may be so to judge him from "an American point of view." For the a.s.sertion that Shakespeare was in this respect "unlike all the great geniuses of the world" is absolutely untrue. If Mr. Wilkes will carefully examine the works of the playwrights contemporary with Shakespeare, he will find their _dramatis personae_ equally made up of "lords, lords, lords," and he will find the lords speaking in just such a way of the common people. If they did not do so, the portraiture would be unfaithful; it would not "hold the mirror up to nature." And if he will look through the plays of Moliere, who stands next to Shakespeare as a dramatist, and who was like him a player and a man of the people, he will find all the lords and gentlemen who ruffle through his delightful pages speaking with contempt and ridicule of the lower cla.s.ses. Moreover, it is absolutely untrue that Shakespeare was even thus indirectly a sycophant to kings and n.o.bles, and a maintainer of their essential superiority. On fitting occasions he puts into their own mouths satires against themselves, their rank, and their pretensions; and he shows, when opportunity offers, a warm sympathy with and tenderness for the lowly and the oppressed. Whoever chooses to do so may find this shown in a few pages of Mr. Grant White's essay on Shakespeare's genius. ("Life and Genius of Shakespeare," pp. 298-302.) If we are to have a peculiarly American view of Shakespeare, pray let us have one founded upon thorough knowledge and taken in a fair spirit. Not that we mean that Mr. Wilkes is intentionally unfair, but that his judgment has been perverted by his strong democratic feeling, and that he seems not to have been able to investigate his subject with the research which it properly demands.

We are sorry to observe also a reckless tone of disparagement running through Mr. Wilkes's book. True, Shakespeare's reputation may be able to bear it; but for the very reason of Shakespeare's preeminence the world--the thoughtful part of it at least--would welcome a close, careful, and competent examination of his claims, even in an adverse spirit. Such an examination Mr. Wilkes, notwithstanding the voluminousness and the method of his book, has not been able to give them. It is not--for example, in his chapter on the "Merchant of Venice"--by calling Antonio a "blackguard" and a "ruffian," and Ba.s.sanio "an unprincipled, penniless adventurer, a mere tavern spendthrift and carouser, who borrows money that he may cheat a wealthy maiden of her dower," by calling Gratiano and Lorenzo "poodles and parasites," the first of whom "is willing to put up with Portia's waiting maid Nerissa," that Mr. Wilkes can hope to win respect for an American view of Shakespeare. If Mr. Wilkes had informed himself more thoroughly in regard to the manners of Antonio's time, he would have found that in those days men, otherwise kind-hearted and generous, treated Jews as he treated Shylock; that Nerissa was probably, if not surely, as well born and as well bred as her mistress was; and that Ba.s.sanio's desire to marry an heiress, beautiful, loving, and by him beloved, was not peculiar to the hero of the "Merchant of Venice."

Indeed, very estimable men have not been found averse to such a proceeding in these days, and even in America. And what is strange the beautiful heiresses have forgiven them, and if they behaved kindly and lovingly as husbands, have been very happy, strange as it may seem. Why should Mr. Wilkes speak of Ba.s.sanio's going to Belmont "to swindle Portia"? He does no such thing. Such criticism of Shakespeare, if it were truly and representatively American, would justly hold America up to the world's ridicule.

Scattered through Mr. Wilkes's book, making us regret the more such pa.s.sages as we have noticed, are others which show fine insight and robust common sense. In this very chapter on the "Merchant of Venice"

there are two or three pages of sound criticism of the dull and pompous plat.i.tudes of the sham-profound German critics, for which we thank the author. They are well and heartily written, and they do not overstep the bounds of literary decorum. In many parts, Mr. Wilkes's book, although it is a very unsafe guide, contains stimulating suggestions to reflection.

Lord Amberly, the recently deceased son and heir of Earl Russel, left an elaborate work behind him upon the religions of the world, which has just been republished here.[9] Apart from its teachings, or rather its tendencies, which would be stamped as "infidel" by all orthodox Christians, the book is valuable. For it is the result of very profound, painstaking research. It contains nothing particularly new, but it presents, in a tolerably compact form, a critical view of the whole subject of religious beliefs and ceremonies, in all time and in all countries. Its author evidently means to be fair; and from his point of view he is so. The book is full of information upon a subject which is now attracting unusual attention from a cla.s.s of minds which, twenty-five or thirty years ago, would have shrunk in horror from any such examination; and its value in this respect is enhanced by an index, which makes it a useful book of reference.

[9] "_An a.n.a.lysis of Religious Belief._" By Viscount AMBERLY.

8vo, pp. 745. New York: D. M. Bennett.

--Mr. Frothingham, who has rapidly taken the place of leader in a new school of morals and religion, but whose followers are yet few, has added another book to those which have been recently noticed in our pages.[10] It is composed of some of those discourses--for they cannot be called sermons, in the ordinary sense of the word--which he delivers to his disciples on Sunday; delivering them on that day because it is convenient for the purpose. It must be admitted that they teach a very high and pure morality. But we confess that the t.i.tle of the book, "The Spirit of the New Faith," seems to us a misnomer; for we seek in it in vain for the evidences of any faith. Indeed, its princ.i.p.al object seems to be the inculcation of morality without faith; the teaching that, to an upright life--truly Christian, that is, in spirit--(for Mr.

Frothingham would probably spurn the name) no faith of any sort is necessary. In the sermon--not the first in order--which gives the volume its name, we remark a strange perversion or misconception of the chiefest Christian virtue. Mr. Frothingham writes in a kindly, generous spirit which excludes scorn; but he approaches scorn in his remarks upon charity, at which he almost scoffs. He says of it: "Charity is not equivalent to brotherhood; it is not synonymous with brotherhood, or even with appreciation. Charity can be unjust: it is unjust in its pity. Pity, indeed, is its essence." Were this a true definition of charity, Mr. Frothingham might be justified in the tone he takes toward it. But the very spirit of charity is at war not only with injustice, but with arrogance, and with phariseeism of all kinds. Its very essence is the a.s.sumption of good motives, even on the part of those who differ radically from us in conduct and belief. It is the great moral equalizer of the world. We are surprised that a thinker of Mr.

Frothingham's clearness and subtlety of mind should have so failed in appreciating a quality which does not inculcate, but which _is_ love and respect for others.

[10] "_The Spirit of the New Faith._ A Series of Sermons." By OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 16mo, pp. 272. New York: G. P.

Putnam's Sons.

Few persons are aware of the vast and varied range of duties which are connected with what is called, "for short," a geological and geographical survey of the Territories.[11] The second edition of the catalogue of publications made in connection with the survey, of which Dr. F. V. Hayden is director, enumerates forty-one publications issued within ten years, among which are annual reports of the work done since 1867, bulletins, the issue of which began in 1874, and important monographs on ancient and modern fauna and flora of the region examined. Dr. Hayden's own geological work is necessarily limited by his heavy duties as director of the whole survey, but his long study of the West gives him unusual qualifications for a.s.sembling and discussing the work of others. He has a minute description with map of the Upper Arkansas valley and its glaciation, and of the old lake system of the West. During the early portion of the Tertiary the whole country, "from the Arctic circle to the Isthmus of Darien," was occupied with lakes, some of which were immense in size. In after times thousands of small lakes took their place, and these have finally disappeared. Many of these were expansions of the rivers, like most modern lakes. The old valleys are now occupied by a diluvial deposit, the counterpart of the Loess of the Rhine, and almost the same in composition. The agricultural future of all that valley region is very promising, for from some mysterious cause, the rainfall seems to be increasing over the whole area. Buried trees of great size prove that Nebraska has not always been the gra.s.sy waste it now is, and the revolutions of nature may restore its forests. Mr. Aughey figures some arrow-heads which he found in this deposit fifteen and twenty feet from the top, and in such a position as to a.s.sure him of their true age. Leaving the admirable geological study of Dr. Peale, we come to Mr. Eudlich's examination of the San Juan mines. This is a kind of work which government explorers should do more of, though until the mines are worked deeper, the information obtained is not very full. The veins are reported to be probably of Cretaceous age, or they may date from the beginning of the Tertiary. Dr. Hayden reports that when the coming season's work is finished "the most rugged and mountainous portion of our continent"

will have been surveyed. It is his intention to map it in an atlas of six sheets, each covering about 11,500 square miles. The cartographical work of the survey is excellent. This volume contains eighty-eight maps and views, executed in a most creditable manner.

[11] "_United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories._" F. V. HAYDEN, United States Geologist in charge.

Annual Report, 1877. Colorado and adjacent Territories.

Government Printing Office.

--We have also received two of the "Miscellaneous Publications"[12] of the survey, one being the last and crowning work of America's great invertebrate palaeontologist, Dr. F. B. Meek.[13] The names "Meek and Hayden" have an a.s.sociation in American scientific work that is historic, and in the "Report on Invertebrate, Cretaceous, and Tertiary Fossils of the Upper Missouri Country" are a.s.sembled the results of painstaking labors extending through many years. The volume is worthy to stand as a monument to such an author. The introduction contains a description, in the author's characteristically concise style, of the formations in which the fossils were found. The fossils described include all the invertebrates from the prescribed region, and it is indicative of the author's position in regard to palaeontological work in America, that nearly all the species were originally described by him. This profound knowledge of the subject and the painstaking attention to the discussion of types, and of their synonomy, make the work, as Dr. Hayden truly says, "one of the most important contributions ever made to the science of palaeontology in any portion of the world." Forty-five lithographic plates, by Meek and Swinton, and numerous woodcuts, ill.u.s.trate the book.

[12] _The Same._ Catalogue of Publications. Second edition, Revised to December 31, 1876.

[13] _The Same._ Report on Invertebrate Palaeontology. F. B. MEEK.

--Dr. Packard's "Monograph of the Geometrid Moths"[14] is the next important publication of this survey. It is the first complete treatise on the American species of these moths. The author describes between three and four hundred species, and thinks it not unlikely that nearly a thousand will be ultimately found on the continent. The collections have been made by many travellers, and at points extending from Polaris bay to Texas. Great attention is paid to generic and specific description, and to synonomy, besides which a complete bibliography of the subject is added. Dr. Packard's work is therefore well suited to serve for immediate instruction, as well as a standard for reference.

The admirably executed plates increase its value for both uses.

[14] _The Same._ Monograph of the Geometrid Moths or Phalaenidae.

By A. S. PACKARD, Jr., M.D.

--Captain Ludlow's report of his visit to the Yellowstone Park in 1875 is one of the most interesting books the Government has published.[15]

He found that the army of American vandals has turned its footsteps toward this national museum of wonders, and every year they go to it in hundreds and thousands to admire and destroy the delicate lace work which nature has spent centuries in weaving. The Park contains the most remarkable glaciers on this continent, and the constantly flowing and splas.h.i.+ng water has built up a basin of opal around each fountain.

These basins are curiously convoluted and fretted, and are composed almost entirely of quartz deposited from the water, their light gray color contrasting beautifully with the deeply tinted water. Wherever they are solid the idiotic visitor writes his name, and thousands of these unimprisoned lunatics have been there. Wherever the basins are most delicate and wonderful, the savage white man strikes them with an axe and carries home "a specimen." Captain Ludlow found two women climbing around one geyser called the Castle, from the numerous little pinnacles and towers it has built up, "with tucked up skirts and rubber shoes, armed one with an axe, the other with a spade." When he first saw the Beehive, the most remarkable of the geysers in point of height, throwing its stream two hundred feet high from a small aperture, he had a pang in antic.i.p.ation of the destruction that he felt sure would come upon it. And with good reason. The next day he returned to camp just in time to run in and save the Beehive, the pride of the Park, from the uplifted axe of _a woman_! He urges the Government to spend $10,000 or thereabouts in protecting this beautiful place from the a.s.saults of these iconoclasts, who break down ten times as much as they carry off.

We regret to see that his recommendation is unheeded. A governor is appointed for the Park, but he has no salary, and probably does not remain on the ground. Captain Ludlow very truly says that the presence of a small party there to open roads, preserve the Park, and keep a careful record of the geysers would well repay its cost in the increase of knowledge and pleasurable travel it would bring to our people.

[15] "_Report of a Reconnaissance to the Yellowstone National Park in the Summer of 1875._" By WILLIAM LUDLOW, Captain of Engineers. War Department, Was.h.i.+ngton.

Mr. David A. Wells has made a good choice in presenting Bastiat's writings on political economy,[16] for his essays are as sound in principle as they are homely in method. He tried to make people see the true meaning of the phrases and theories which are the common staple of conversation among the industrial cla.s.ses. For instance, he meets the a.s.sertion that a country gains wealth when the government employs a great number of people by pointing out that the personal expenditures of the people are reduced by just the amount of the taxes. When the government takes a dollar from a citizen to pay a laborer, the citizen has just one dollar less to hire the laborer for his own use. The country gains no wealth by such a transaction, but merely makes an exchange of employers. This proposition, which M. Bastiat insists upon through many arguments, is of more vital interest to France than to us.

It refers to a form of folly that is chronic there, but sporadic here, and its most threatening outbreak (during the "ring rule" in New York) was violently cured by the panic of 1873. But the importance of inculcating sound views on this subject is just as necessary here as there. Probably the larger part of Tweed's stealings ultimately found their way to laboring men, but who shall say that New York has gained wealth by his career? M. Bastiat's views on interest, capital, taxes, encouragement of fine arts by the State, public works, the spendthrift, government, etc., are excellent, and expressed in an ingenious and taking way. It is hard to give to dissertations on such subjects that "blood-curdling interest" which Mark Twain promised in his agricultural memoranda; but M. Bastiat certainly unites an unusual interest of style to sensible and simple views. Mr. Wells may count the reproduction of these essays as one of the many valuable public services he has done his countrymen.

[16] "_Essays on Political Economy._" By FREDERICK BASTIAT.

Translation revised by David A. Wells. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

A hundred and four years have pa.s.sed since John Howard paid that visit to Bedford jail which first directed his attention to the improvement of the prisoners' condition. The work began with the study of prisons; a hundred years has turned it into the study of the prisoner. Mr.

Dugdale[17] discovered in 1874 the criminal family which has become notorious as containing Margaret, "the mother of criminals." She was one of six sisters, of whom one is not traceable; four gave rise to mixed criminal and pauper lines, and Margaret to a distinctively criminal line. To these sisters Mr. Dugdale gives the name _Jukes_, and he has followed up seven generations, containing 540 known persons of Juke blood, and 169 known persons of other blood who became allied to the Jukes in one way or another. All told, this criminal family contains 709 known persons, and probably 500 undiscovered members, forming the most numerous criminal lineage ever studied. Mr. Dugdale's pamphlet is a profoundly interesting a.n.a.lysis of the history of this family, and the tendencies that have governed it. The remarkable fact is developed that the strongest criminal tendencies are on the female side, and pauper tendencies on the male side. Crime and pauperism are psychologically one and the same, one or the other being manifested as the individual's character is strong or weak. A life may exhibit an innocent childhood, a criminal maturity, and a pauper old age. The same phases may be developed more slowly, and appear in successive generations, or even in alternate generations. Intemperance is no doubt frequently the immediate cause of crime, as seen in so many murders.

But Mr. Dugdale shows that the common belief that criminal tendencies are the result of intemperance is not true, while the reverse is true, that these tendencies produce physical degeneration, which craves the stimulus of drink. These investigations show that the pauper is almost irreclaimable. His mental weakness neutralizes every effort made for his welfare, but the active criminal has strength enough to do better if he will. As to women, it is shown that their immorality is the precise counterpart of crime in the man, and it is to this fact that we owe the steady development of our criminal population. Illegitimacy is not in itself a cause of crime, but the environment of neglect in which the illegitimate live is a fruitful cause. We cannot detail all the conclusions of this close and exhaustive study of criminal character.

They are as numerous as they are disagreeable to read and contemplate.

[17] "_The Jukes._ A Study In Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity." By R. L. DUGDALE. With an Introduction by Elisha Harris, M.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

--Dr. Bowen's pamphlet on "Dyspepsia," published by Loring, is so good, so comforting, and so plain to persons who do not know any more of medicine than is necessary to have the various diseases, that we are glad to point it out to our readers. He says there is no case of dyspepsia that cannot be cured, except such as are complicated with other troubles that are necessarily fatal. He opposes the starvation treatment, but does not give general directions for cure, saying that each case must be studied and treated for itself.

Dr. Stillman's "Seeking the Golden Fleece"[18] is worth reading for its faithful picture of a long sea voyage in the olden time. Nearly a hundred pa.s.sengers left New York in the Pacific, the captain and owner being obliged to slink on board, to avoid attachments sued out against them by other pa.s.sengers who were dissatisfied and left behind. The voyage consumed 194 days, and the narrative of its incidents is much the most interesting part of the book. As to the author's experience in California, we can sum it up in the common phrase, "The old story." He was one of the first argonauts. He saw Sacramento when it had half-a-dozen shanties, San Francisco when millions of dollars worth of goods lay on the hillsides, for lack of sufficient warehouses, when the mines were yielding well, and cooks were cheap at $300 a month. Dr.

Stillman's narrative is one of the best that has appeared of California in the days of the pioneers.

[18] "_Seeking the Golden Fleece._ A Record of Pioneer Life in California." By J. D. B. STILLMAN. A. Roman & Co.