Chapter VII (7)

Dr. Stevens is especially happy in his sketches of character; only, possibly, in indulging too much his inclination for this sort of writing, he repeats himself, and in the recurrence of pet phrases wearies the reader. Yet some of these are very good. The description of Francis Asburey, the "Pioneer Bishop," is one not often excelled. He was one of the early missionaries sent over by Wesley, and became the great leader in the work and the principal organizer of the ecclesiastical machinery. He was the first bishop ordained in the country,--and a very unique and remarkable bishop he was. There was for him no splendid palace, no magnificent cathedral, no princely income. His salary was sixty-four dollars a year, his diocese a whole continent, to visit which he must find his way without roads, through almost illimitable woods, over nearly inaccessible mountains, floundering through swamps, wading or swimming vast rivers, scorched by hot suns, bitten by winter frosts, drenched with pitiless rains, smothered by driving snows, and often in divers dangers of death. His travelling equipage was not a chariot and four, but saddlebags and one. Often sick and suffering, he seldom allowed himself to be detained from his appointments. He went wherever he sent his preachers, and shared with them all the toils and privations incident to the work. He annually made the tour of the States, travelling never less than five thousand, and often more than six thousand, miles a year. He usually preached once every day, and three times on Sunday. A man, of course, of little literary culture, yet he possessed great good sense, a genial spirit, and large ability as an organizer. To him more than other men the denomination owes its early efficiency and extraordinary success.

The two volumes before us embrace a period of scarcely twenty-five years,--the period, as the author terms it, of the "Planting and Training" of the church. Several other volumes will be required to complete the history. But the future volumes can hardly be of so much general interest as these already published.

_Arctic Researches and Life among the Esquimaux_; being the
Narrative of an Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin in
the Years 1860, 1861, and 1862. By CHARLES FRANCIS HALL.
With Maps and One Hundred Illustrations. New York: Harper
and Brothers.

This book, with the Preface written on board the bark Monticello, June 30, 1864, when the writer was again bound for the Arctic regions, is in some respects the most remarkable account yet rendered to us of life and experiences near the North Pole. The purpose of the undertaking was to find something yet more satisfactory with regard to the fate of the hundred and five men who accompanied Sir John Franklin. Mr. Hall was convinced that life among the Esquimaux was possible, and that in no other way could trustworthy information be obtained from them. His indomitable spirit in pursuing this object is beyond praise. He could not be daunted. The result of this three-years' sojourn was the discovery of relics of the Frobisher expedition, by which the possibility of discovering news, at least, of the men of Franklin's expedition was made clear. The unfortunate loss of his expedition-boat made the journey to Boothia and King William's Land impossible; but Mr. Hall's prolonged existence during nearly three years among the "Innuits" determined his immediate departure again for those regions as soon as he could return and be properly fitted out for a second trip from the "States."

In this naive history we learn to look at life from the Esquimaux point of view. Mr. Hall's sympathetic nature fitted him for this difficult task; and having accomplished it well, he is enabled, by his vivid descriptions, to invite the reader to see what he saw, and to sit by the "Innuit" fireside. We must confess, however, it is looking at the world from a very _blubber-y_ point of view; but since it is in the cause of science and humanity, we rise from the reading, which is extremely interesting, with a high respect for Mr. Hall and renewed faith in the result of his undertaking.

In so short a space there is no room for extracts, yet without them we can give little idea of the simple, picturesque character of the narrative. Mr. Hall took the Innuits by the hand as brothers, not as savages, and the result is large because of his wisdom.

1. _La Fiera._ Commedia in Cinque Atti. Di ALBERTO NOTA. Con
Note Inglesi. Boston: De Vries, Ibarra e Compagnia.

2. _La Rosa dell' Alpi._ Novella di FRANCESCO DALL' ONGARO.
Con Note Inglesi. Boston: De Vries, Ibarra e Compagnia.

The author of an agreeable article in the "North American Review," entitled "Recent Italian Comedy," says that the plays of Alberto Nota are no longer acted or reprinted. The American press straightway refutes him by a neat edition of the comedy of "The Fair," with notes for English readers. It is an entertaining little production, in spite of the above critic, having rather effective incidents and situations, and easy, if not brilliant, dialogue. The plot may be described as being French, and the moral as English; that is, the jealous wife outwits the faithless husband, instead of the opposite result.

The "Collection De Vries" also introduces to us the more familiar and contemporary name of Dall' Ongaro, to whom the critics attribute more dramatic genius than is conceded to any other living poet of Italy. The story of "La Rosa dell' Alpi" is simply and beautifully written, and paints the innocent career of a poor servant--maiden with something of the grace of George Sand.

It will be a good thing for students to read these specimens of easy colloquial Italian; so that they need not, when they visit the beloved-land, do their shopping exclusively in Dantean phrases, as Mrs. Siddons shopped in Shakspeare.

_A Treatise on Ordnance and Armor, with an Appendix relating
to Gun-Cotton, Hooped Guns, etc._ By ALEXANDER L. HOLLEY, B.
P. New York: Van Nostrand.

King James I. is reported to have said of iron armor, that it was an excellent thing: one could get no harm, in it, nor do any. Yet armor has had but a brief respite from service; banished temporarily from human backs, it is being restored for more wholesale service: it is extended over ships and fortifications, and so thickened as to resist shot and shell. The very title of this book marks the progress in the history of war. Hereafter ordnance and armor are two correlatives, never to be considered apart. The progress in offensive and defensive improvements keeps the balance of fighting humanity pretty nearly even thus far; as in the development of a young lobster the claws and cuirass grow simultaneously.

Will ships or guns prove the stronger at last? No one can foresee. A single fifteen-inch ball from the Monitor Weehawken disabled the iron-clad Atlanta at three hundred yards, where eleven-inch balls had fallen powerless from the armor. A similar missile shattered the sides of the Tennessee, penetrating five inches of iron and two feet of oak, against which all other shot had failed. What can resist such balls? A mere pile of sand can resist them, if there are spades enough to carve it into a fort; but as sand cannot be carved into a ship, we must resort to new devices there. The larger the ship, the greater the danger; so suppose we try making it smaller. Let us concentrate our ordnance and our armor: put thicker plating on our Monitor of eight hundred tons than the Warrior of six thousand can support, and place near the centre of motion of the little vessel two heavier guns than the weighty one can carry in broadside out upon her capacious ribs. This game of giants is growing formidable; and with such a concentration of skill and power, the fate of nations may be determined by a single blow.

Other novel questions come up, as we carry our researches farther. Try your strength by throwing a small cannon-ball at a thin board-partition; you will find that the missile will split or crush the board, but not penetrate it. Fire a bullet at the same target, and it will penetrate, but neither crush nor split. Balance a plank on its edge, so that a pistol-ball thrown from the hand will knock it down; you may yet riddle it through and through by the same balls from a revolver, and leave it standing. Bring this commonplace fact to bear upon the question, how to destroy an iron-clad; shall we destroy it by punching holes through it, or by splitting and crushing? It is a difficult problem, and many pages of Mr. Holley's book are devoted to the discussion of the light-shot and the heavy-shot systems.

For these problems, and such as these, we need a new military literature, embodying the vast results which a few years of foreign experiment and home experience have furnished. We need a scientific treatise on the whole subject of ordnance, regarding, for instance, the strains of different charges and projectiles in large and small bores, and the work done by projectiles and by cannon-metals having different properties, under statical and sudden strains. This want Mr. Holley's book does not undertake to fill, being in its structure somewhat diffuse, and, as it were, of unequal expansion: the object being rather to furnish the maximum of material for a systematic treatise, than to write the treatise itself.

It has therefore the inestimable merits, and also some of the defects, of a pioneer compilation. On many subordinate points, the details are multiplied almost to weariness, while on some points more important there are hardly any details at all. But this is simply because the author could obtain the one class of facts and not the other. It is a faithful registration, and the only one, of a vast multitude of experiments and observations, which were absolutely inaccessible in any other form. It is said to cause much wonder in England how its English facts and statistics were obtained at all; and it is certain that Mr. Holley must have used his opportunities of personal observation in a manner worthy of the curiosity attributed to his race. We have in this book the substantial results of the vast and costly English experiments; while the more momentous results of our own practice, so familiar to us, seem still unfamiliar across the water. This gives our nation a great advantage, and renders it impossible to produce, at present, in Europe, a work so encyclopaedic as this. It is not merely the best book, but the only book, on the theme it treats: there is no other account of the structure and results of modern standard ordnance. That it is the work of a civil engineer, and not of a military or naval man, gives it an additional interest; and the author may have owed to his position some foreign opportunities which would have been refused to an officer. The book is printed in the usual superb style of Van Nostrand, and is in all respects an honor to the literature of the country.

_Historical View of the American Revolution._ By GEORGE
WASHINGTON GREENE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

Either of the two objects which Mr. Greene aimed to accomplish in preparing the materials of this volume demanded on his part the possession of large historical knowledge, and the best abilities for its judicious use. The contents of the volume were made to do service, first, as a series of twelve lectures before the Lowell Institute, addressed to a large and mixed audience, possessing generally a high average of intelligence, and exhibiting, by their voluntary presence, an interest on which a lecturer may largely rely. The second object of the author, in the present publication of his Lectures, was to contribute to the best form of our popular literature a volume which may be regarded either as introductory to, or as a substitute for, an extended course of reading on its subject-matter, according to the leisure and capacity of those who may possess themselves of it. We must congratulate alike the lecturer and the author for very marked success in the adaptation of his materials and in the treatment of his subject so as to answer equally well the wants of good listeners and of sympathetic readers.

The great perplexity of a lecturer, who has given him an hour on twelve evenings, two in a week, for dealing before a mixed audience with such a subject as the American War of Independence, must be in deciding for himself, without consultation with his hearers, how much previous knowledge he may take for granted in them. He cannot name his authorities, much less quote them to any great extent. On some vexed points the simple fact that sharp and dividing issues of controverted opinions have been agitated about them must virtually compel him almost to pass them wholly by, seeing that he cannot adequately discuss them, and that any brief and positive utterance upon them would seem to be lacking in judicial fairness. The exigencies and temptations of a lecture-room are also sadly provocative of that rhetorical bombast and exaggeration which, having been so lavishly and offensively indulged on our Fourth of July and other commemorative occasions in the supposed interests of popular patriotism, have brought our whole national literature under a reproach hardly deserved. Mr. Greene, from his long residence abroad, has heard and known too much of this reproach to have risked getting even under the shadow of it.

We believe it is a well-established fact, that both in oral and in literary dealings with historical subjects, the more thorough and comprehensive the knowledge possessed by any one who proposes to instruct others, the more concisely as well as the more correctly will he present his matter. He knows how to adjust the proportions of interest in his main and incidental themes. By this test we should judge Mr. Greene to be most faithfully conversant with his subject, and to have had his knowledge stored up in his mind, uncommunicated, long enough to have well digested and assimilated it. The admirable division of his theme for treatment under twelve distinct, though closely related topics, shows something better than ingenuity, or a skilful arrangement of a bill of fare for twelve entertainments. These topics are,--The Causes of the Revolution; Its Phases; The Congress; Congress and the State Governments; Finances of the Revolution; Its Diplomacy; Its Army; Its Campaigns; The Foreign Element of the Revolution; Its Martyrs; Its Literature, in Prose; and in Poetry. An Appendix gives us a Chronological Outline of Historical Events; Statistical Tables; and an Address of Officers of the Southern Army to General Greene.

For completeness' sake, we could have wished that the author, if not the lecturer, might have indulged himself, and pleased and instructed his readers, by presenting under one more topic, or under a miscellaneous category, the resources of the American Colonies at the date of the Revolution, what they had besides land and water; the characteristics of the diverse elements of the population; the manufacturing interests, which had begun to be ingeniously and effectively pursued here, notwithstanding the repressive hostility of England to their introduction; and the distinctive qualities of our farmers, sea-men, professional men, and village politicians. But it is ungracious to ask for more than there is in this compact and most admirable volume. It is written with a severely good taste, in a spirit of candor and generosity, with stern fidelity to truth in relating things honorable and humiliating; and it will surely excite to wide and diligent reading those who through its pages make their first acquaintance with its subject. There are in it many finely drawn and artistic portraits of men of mark, especially of Franklin, Lafayette, Steuben, James Otis, and Josiah Quincy. In no single volume can foreign readers find what is here told so fully, so simply, and so well.

_Lectures on the Science of Language._ By MAX MUeLLER, M. A.
Second Series. New York: Charles Scribner.

Voltaire defined Etymology as a science where vowels signify nothing and consonants very little. This is so far true that even the wisest books on Language affect one, after all, like a series of brilliant puns. More important merits than this must, no doubt, be attributed to Max Mueller; but, after all, so wayward is he and so whimsical, such a lover of paradox and of digression, that he must perpetually exasperate that sedate race of men whom Philology is supposed to have peculiarly chosen for its own. In this second series of Lectures, especially, "we have been at a great feast of languages, and have stolen the scraps."

Beginning the volume mildly with a demure introduction, we suddenly are over head and ears in "dialectic regeneration," which seems like theology, only that it introduces us to a mild baby-talk in that wonderful language, the Annamitic, where the sentence "ba ba ba ba" means, "Three ladies gave a box on the ear to the favorite of the prince." Then comes Bishop Wilkins's "universal language," then a discussion of Locke, then the theory of harmonics, and then many pages of anatomical plates. Then phonetic changes; followed by a chapter on "Grimm's Law," which would give work enough for a lifetime. We next plunge into botany, and have a whole chapter on the "words for fir, oak, and beech," which shows that the author, like our own Mr. Marsh, has studied the literal roots as well as the symbolic. Later, we come to astronomy, whence one of our author's favorite theories conducts us into the Greek mythology, to which two whole lectures are given. Then comes another chapter, tracing the "myths of the dawn" still farther back toward the dim origin of the Aryan race; and the book closes with a chapter on Modern Mythology, of which some twenty pages are given to an exhaustive treatise, anatomical and historical, on the Barnacle Goose. This brings us round handsomely to Locke and Sir William Hamilton once more, and there leaves us.

What change has come over the accomplished and eloquent man who was wisely transplanted to England to teach us Anglo-Saxons what scholarship meant, and who made his first series of Lectures a model of clever and effective statement? He congratulates himself, in the introduction to this volume, on having left out all that was merely elementary. This is true in respect to philology, perhaps, but he has certainly contrived to introduce the elements of a great many other sciences. No matter; he stated in the first volume all the principal points with which his reputation is identified; and it is very entertaining, though somewhat unexpected, to find the new one filled with all manner of spicy prolusions--mingled with a few delusions--from his commonplace book. Certainly the learning of these Lectures is unequalled, even by his former exhibitions in that line; and our Cisatlantic standard of attainment seems rather scanty beside this vast affluence.

There is also a certain wayward, heroic, Ruskin-like self-contradiction about Mueller, which one learns rather to enjoy. He claims that "all phonetic corruption proceeds from degeneracy," and yet has presently to shield himself behind the paradoxical proverb, that "lazy people take the most trouble," and so the corrupted vocables are often harder to speak. He says repeatedly that "sound etymology has nothing to do with sound"; yet he approves phonography, holding that spelling signifies even less than sound,--which is contrary to the usual opinion of philologists. Nevertheless his book is "full of the seeds of things"; no one else could have written it, and no one can afford not to read it.