Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 33, July, 1860», sayfa 16
VANITY
VANITY (1)
(ON A PICTURE OF HERODIAS'S DAUGHTER BY LUINI.)
Alas, Salome! Could'st thou know
How great man is,–how great thou art,–
What destined worlds of weal or woe
Lurk in the shallowest human heart,–
From thee thy vanities would drop,
Like lusts in noble anger spurned
By one who finds, beyond all hope,
The passion of his youth returned.
Ah, sun-bright face, whose brittle smile
Is cold as sunbeams flashed on ice!
Ah, lips how sweet, yet hard the while!
Ah, soul too barren even for vice!
Mirror of Vanity! Those eyes
No beam the less around them shed,
Albeit in that red scarf there lies
The Dancer's meed,–the Prophet's head.
VANITY (2.)
I
False and Fair! Beware, beware!
There is a Tale that stabs at thee!
The Arab Seer! he stripped thee bare
Long since! He knew thee, Vanity!
By day a mincing foot is thine:
Thou runnest along the spider's line:–
Ay, but heavy sounds thy tread
By night, among the uncoffined dead!
II
Fair and Foul! Thy mate, the Ghoul,
Beats, bat-like, at thy golden gate!
Around the graves the night-winds howl:
"Arise!" they cry, "thy feast doth wait!"
Dainty fingers thine, and nice,
With thy bodkin picking rice!–
Ay, but when the night's o'erhead,
Limb from limb they rend the dead!
REVIEW AND LITERARY NOTICES
Popular Astronomy. A Concise Elementary Treatise on the Sun, Planets, Satellites, and Comets. By O.M. MITCHELL, Director of the Cincinnati and Dudley Observatories. New York. 1860.
In this volume Professor Mitchell gives a very clear, and, in the general plan pursued, a very good account of the methods and results of investigation in modern astronomy. He has explained with great fulness the laws of motion of the heavenly bodies, and has thus aimed at giving more than the collection of disconnected facts which frequently form the staple of elementary works on astronomy.
In doing this, however, he has fallen into errors so numerous, and occasionally so grave, that they are difficult to be accounted for, except on the supposition that some portions of the work were written in great haste. Passing over a few mere oversights, such as a statement from which it would follow that a transit of Venus occurred every eight years, mistakes of dates, etc., we cite the following.
On page 114, speaking of Kepler's third law, the author says, "And even those extraordinary objects, the revolving double stars, are subject to the same controlling law." Since Kepler's third law expresses a relationship between the motions of three bodies, two of which revolve around a third much larger than either, it is a logical impossibility that a system of only two bodies should conform to this law.
On page 182, it is stated, that Newton's proving, that, if a body revolved in an elliptical orbit with the sun as a focus, the force of gravitation toward the sun would always be in the inverse ratio of the square of its distance, "was equivalent to proving, that, if a body in space, free to move, received a single impulse, and at the same moment was attracted to a fixed centre by a force which diminished as the square of the distance at which it operated increased, such a body, thus deflected from its rectilinear path, would describe an ellipse," etc. Not only does this deduction, being made in the logical form,
If A is B, X is Y;
but X is Y;
therefore A is B,
not follow at all, but it is absolutely not true. The body under the circumstances might describe an hyperbola as welt as an ellipse, as Professor Mitchell himself subsequently remarks.
The author's explanation of the manner in which the attraction of the sun changes the position of the moon's orbit is entirely at fault. He supposes the line of nodes of the moon's orbit perpendicular to the line joining the centres of the earth and sun, and the moon to start from her ascending node toward the sun, and says that in this case the effect of the sun's attraction will be to diminish the inclination of the moon's orbit during the first half of the revolution, and thus cause the node to retrograde; and to increase it during the second half, and thus cause the nodes to retrograde. But the real effect of the sun's attraction, in the case supposed, would be to diminish the inclination during the first quarter of its revolution, to increase it during the second, to diminish it again during the third, and increase it again during the fourth, as shown by Newton a century and a half ago.
In Chapter XV. we find the greatest number of errors. Take, for example, the following computation of the diminution of gravity at the surface of the sun in consequence of the centrifugal force,–part of the data being, that a pound at the earth's surface will weigh twenty-eight pounds at the sun's surface, and that the centrifugal force at the earth's equator is 1/289 of gravity.
"Now, if the sun rotated in the same time as the earth, and their diameters were equal, the centrifugal force on the equators of the two orbs would be equal. But the sun's radius is about 111 times that of the earth, and if the period of rotation were the same, the centrifugal force at the sun's equator would be greater than that at the earth's in the ratio of 1112 to 1, or, more exactly, in the ratio of 12,342.27 to 1. But the sun rotates on its axis much slower than the earth, requiring more than 25 days for one revolution. This will reduce the above in the ratio of 1 to 252, or 1 to 625; so that we shall have the earth's equatorial centrifugal force (1/289) × 12,342.27 ÷ 625 = 12,342.27/180,605 = 0.07 nearly for the sun's equatorial centrifugal force. Hence the weight before obtained, 28 pounds, must be reduced seven hundredths of its whole value, and we thus obtain 28 – 0.196 = 27.804 pounds as the true weight of one pound transported from the earth's equator to that of the sun."
In this calculation we have three errors, the effect of one of which would be to increase the true answer 111 times, of another 28 times, and of a third to diminish it 10 times; so that the final result is more than 300 times too great. If this result were correct, Leverrier would have no need of looking for intermercurial planets to account for the motion of the perihelion of Mercury; he would find a sufficient cause in the ellipticity of the sun.
Considered from a scientific point of view, some of the gravest errors into which the author has fallen are the suppositions, that the perihelia and nodes of the planetary orbits move uniformly, and that they can ever become exactly circular. At the end of about twenty-four thousand years the eccentricity of the earth's orbit will be smaller than at any other time during the next two hundred thousand, at least; but it will begin to increase again long before the orbit becomes circular. Astronomers have long known that the eccentricity of Mercury's orbit will never be much greater or much less than it is now; and moreover, instead of diminishing, as stated by Professor Mitchell, it is increasing, and has been increasing for the last hundred thousand years.
Finally, the chapter closes with an attempt to state the principle known to mathematicians as "the law of the conservation of areas," which statement is entirely unlike the correct one in nearly every particular.
It will be observed that we have criticized this work from a scientific rather than from a popular point of view. As questions of popular interest, it is perhaps of very little importance whether the earth's orbit will or will not become circular in the course of millions of years, or in what the principle of areas consists or does not consist. But if such facts or principles are to be stated at all, we have a right to see them stated correctly. However, in the first nine chapters, which part of the book will be most read, few mistakes of any importance occur, and the method pursued by Newton in deducing the law of gravitation is explained in the author's most felicitous style.
El Fureidîs. By the Author of "The Lamplighter" and "Mabel Vaughan." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
That large army of readers whose mere number gave celebrity at once to the authoress of "The Lamplighter" will at first be disappointed with what they may call the location of this new romance by Miss Cummins. The scene is laid in Syria, instead of New England, and the "village" known to New Yorkers as Boston gives way to "El Fureidîs," a village in the valley of Lebanon. But while so swift a transition from the West to the East may disappoint that "Expectation" which Fletcher tells us "sits i' the air," and which we all know is not to be balked with impunity, there can be no doubt, that, in shifting the scene, the authoress has enabled us to judge her essential talent with more accuracy. Possessing none of the elements which are thought essential to the production of a sensation, "The Lamplighter" forced itself into notice as a "sensation book." The writer was innocent of all the grave literary crimes implied in such a distinction. The first hundred and fifty pages were as simple, and as true to ordinary nature, as the daisies and buttercups of the common fields; the remaining two hundred pages repeated the stereotyped traditions and customary hearsays which make up the capital of every professional story-teller. The book began in the spirit of Jane Austen, and ended in that of Jane Porter.
In "El Fureidîs" everything really native to the sentiment and experience of Miss Cummins is exhibited in its last perfection, with the addition of a positive, though not creative, faculty of imagination. Feeling a strong attraction for all that related to the East, through an accidental connection with friends who in conversation discoursed of its peculiarities and wonders, she was led to an extensive and thorough study of the numerous eminent scholars and travellers who have recorded their experience and researches in Syria and Damascus. Gradually she obtained a vivid internal vision of the scenery, and a practical acquaintance with the details of life, of those far-off Eastern lands. On this imaginative reproduction of the external characteristics of the Orient she projected her own standards of excellence and ideals of character; and the result is the present romance, the most elaborate and the most pleasing expression of her genius.
There is hardly anything in the work which can rightfully be called plot. The incidents are not combined, but happen. A shy, sensitive, fastidious, high- minded, and somewhat melancholy and dissatisfied Englishman, by the name of Meredith, travelling from Beyrout to Lebanon, falls in love with a Christian maiden by the name of Havilah. She rejects him, on the ground, that, however blessed with all human virtues, he is deficient in Christian graces. One of those rare women who combine the most exquisite sensuous beauty with the beauty of holiness, she cannot consent to marry, unless souls are joined, as well as hands. Meredith, in the course of the somewhat rambling narrative, "experiences religion," and the heroine then feels for him that affection which she did not feel even in those moments when he recklessly risked his life to save hers. In regard to characterization, Meredith, the hero, is throughout a mere name, without personality; but the authoress has succeeded in transforming Havilah from an abstract proposition into an individual existence. Her Bedouin lover, the wild, fierce, passionate Arab boy, Abdoul, with his vehement wrath and no less vehement love, passing from a frustrated design to assassinate Meredith, whom he considered the accepted lover of Havilah, to an abject prostration of his whole being, corporeal and mental, at the feet of his mistress, saluting them with "a devouring storm of kisses," is by far the most intense and successful effort at characterization in the whole volume. The conclusion of the story, which results in the acceptance by Meredith of the conditions enforced by the celestial purity of the heroine, will be far less satisfactory to the majority of readers than if Havilah had been represented as possessed of sufficient spiritual power to convert her passionate Arab lover into a being fit to be a Christian husband. By all the accredited rules of the logic of passion, Abdoul deserved her, rather than Meredith. Leaving, however, all those considerations which relate to the management of the story as connected with the impulses of the characters, great praise cannot be denied to the authoress for her conception and development of the character of Havilah. Virgin innocence has rarely been more happily combined with intellectual culture, and the reader follows the course of her thoughts–and so vital are her thoughts that they cause all the real events of the story–with a tranquil delight in her beautiful simplicity and intelligent affectionateness, compared with which the pleasure derived from the ordinary stimulants of romance is poor and tame. At least two- thirds of the volume are devoted to descriptions of Eastern scenery, habits, customs, manners, and men, and these are generally excellent. Altogether, the book will add to the reputation of the authoress.
Life and Times of General Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. By J.F.H. CLAIBORNE. Illustrated by John M'Lenan. New York: Harper & Brothers.
The adventures of General Dale, Mr. Claiborne tells us, were taken from his own lips by the author and two friends, and from the notes of all three a memoir was compiled, but the MSS. were lost in the Mississippi. We regret that Dale's own words were thus lost; for the stories of the hardy partisan are not improved by his biographer's well-meant efforts to tell them in more graceful language. Mr. Claiborne's cheap eloquence is perhaps suited to the unfastidious taste of a lower latitude; but we prefer those stories, too few in number, in which the homely words of Dale are preserved.
Dale does not appear to have done anything to warrant this "attempt on his life," being no more remarkable than hundreds of others. He saw several distinguished men; but of his anecdotes about them we can only quote the old opinion, that the good stories are not new, and the new are not good. As there is nothing particularly interesting in the subject, so there is no peculiar charm thrown around it by the manner in which Mr. Claiborne has executed his task. A noticeable and very comic feature is presented in the praises which he has interpolated, when ever any acquaintance of his is referred to. We readily acquiesce, when we are told that Mr. A is a model citizen, and that Mr. B is alike unsurpassed in public and private life; but the latter statement becomes less intensely gratifying when we learn the fact that Mr. C also has no superior, and that there are no better or abler men than D, E, F, or G. We were aware that Mississippi was uncommonly fortunate in having meritorious sons, but not that so singularly exact an equality existed among them. Are they all best? It is like the case of the volunteer regiment in which they were all Major- Generals. Occasional eminence we can easily believe, but a table-land of merit is more than we are prepared for; and we are strongly led to suspect that praise so lavishly given may be cheaply won.
The Money-King and Other Poems. By JOHN G. SAXE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
We regret having overlooked this pleasant volume so long. In a previous collection of poems, which has run through fifteen editions, Mr. Saxe fully established his popularity; and the present volume, which is better than its predecessor, has in it all the elements of a similar success. The two longest poems, "The Money-King" and "The Press," have been put to the severe test of repeated delivery before lyceum audiences in different parts of the country; and a poet is sure to learn by such a method of publication, what he may not learn by an appearance in print, the real judgment of the miscellaneous public on his performance. He may doubt the justice of the praise or the censure of the professional critic; but it is hard for him to resist the fact of failure, when it comes to him palpably in the satire that scowls in an ominous stare and the irony that lurks in an audible yawn,–hard for him to question the reality of triumph, when teeth flash at every gleam of his wit and eyes moisten at every touch of his sentiment. Having tried each of these poems before more than a hundred audiences, Mr. Saxe has fairly earned the right to face critics fearlessly; and, indeed, the poems themselves so abound in sense, shrewdness, sagacity, and fancy, in sayings so pithy and wit so sparkling, are so lull of humor and good-humor, and flow on their rhythmic and rhyming way with so much of the easy abandonment of vivacious conversation, that few critics will desire to reverse the favorable decisions of the audiences they have enlivened.
Among the miscellaneous poems, there are many which, in brilliancy, in keen, good-natured satire, in facility and variety of versification, in ingenious fancy, in joyousness of spirit and pure love of fun, excel the longer poems to which we have just referred. We have found the great majority of them exceedingly exhilarating reading, and, if our limits admitted an extended examination, we feel sure that the result of the analysis would be the eliciting of unexpected merits rather than the detection of hidden defects.
Say and Seal. By the Author of "Wide, Wide World," and the Author of "Dollars and Cents." In Two Volumes. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Another story from "Elizabeth Wetherell" is a welcome addition to our scanty stock of American, novels. Our real American novels may be counted on our fingers, while the tales that claim the name may be weighed by the ton. At the present time, we count Hawthorne among our novelists, and Mrs. Stowe, and perhaps Curtis, since his "Trumps"; but as for our thousand and one unrivalled authors, "whose matchless knowledge of the human heart and wonderful powers of delineation place them far above Dickens or Thackeray," they are all, from Sylvanus Cobb, Junior, down to Ned Buntline and Gilmore Simms, beneath serious notice, and may be left to the easy verdict of the readers of the cheap magazines and illustrated newspapers, in whose columns they have gained a world- wide obscurity. Miss Warner's books have always a genuine flavor of originality, and an acute, living appreciation of Yankee character, that give them a right to rank, unchallenged, as real and valuable novels. In their simplicity, their freshness, their quiet humor and not less quiet fun, their frequent narrowness and stiffness, and their deep and true religious sentiment, they have the real essence of the New England character.
In every novel there are three principal elements,–the Hero, the Heroine, the Villain,–all three gracefully blending, in the Plot. We cannot especially congratulate our authors upon their Hero. In a favorite farce, the slightly bewildered Mr. Lullaby observes musingly, "Brown? Brown? That name sounds familiar! I must have heard that name before! I'll swear I've heard that name before!" We have a dim consciousness of having met "Mr. Linden" before, albeit under a different name. A certain Mr. Humphreys, whom we remember of old, strongly resembles him: so does one Mr. Guy Carleton. We were very well pleased with our old friend Humphreys, (or Carleton,) and would by no means hint at any reluctance to meet him again; but a new novel, by its very announcement, implies a new hero,–and if we come upon a plain family-party, when fondly hoping for an introduction to some distinguished stranger, we may be excused for thinking ourselves hardly treated. Is it so infallible a sign of superiority, moreover, to speak constantly in riddles? This Sphinx-like style is eminently characteristic of Mr. Linden. Then again, our authors have been too ambitious. They laboriously assert Mr. Linden to be a marvel of learning,–a man of vast and curious literary attainments: but all that their hero does to maintain this reputation and vindicate their opinion is to quote trite passages of poetry, which are all very well, but which every gentleman of ordinary cultivation is expected to know, and which no gentleman of ordinary cultivation is expected to quote,–things that are remembered only to be avoided as utterly threadbare. One unfortunate instance may be found at the beginning of the second volume. Mr. Linden's acquirements are to receive peculiar lustre from a triumph over no ordinary competitor,–over the intelligent and well-read Doctor Harrison. Naturally, we expect something recondite, and are by no means satisfied with the trite
"Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses," etc.
Mr. Linden might as well have astonished the company by such a transcendent proof of erudition as
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women," etc.
Or, passing "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," (for novelty in quotations we find to be contagious,) have recounted the wildly erratic history "of that false matron known in nursery rhyme, Insidious Morey," or quoted
"How doth the little busy bee."
After which he might have soared into unapproachable heights of surpassing literary erudition, by informing his awe-struck hearers that the latter poem was written by Doctor Watts! The fact is, any attempt to give the novelist's characters a learning which the novelist does not possess is always hazardous.
The Heroine, Miss Faith Derrick, is a pretty, but not remarkably original creation, who taxes our magnanimity sorely at times by her blind admiration of her lover when he is peculiarly absurd, but whose dumb rejection of Doctor Harrison, though a trifle theatrical, is really charming. Faith is better than Linden: Linden is "superbe, magnifique"; but Faith is "pretty good."
But the conception of the Villain is very fine. In Doctor Harrison we hail a new development of that indispensable character. Of course, the gentlemanly, good-humored Doctor is not to be considered a villain in the ordinary acceptation of the word; he is only a technical villain,–a villain of eminent respectability. It is almost unnecessary to add, that he is immeasurably more attractive than the real hero, Mr. Linden.
We regret to say that the conception is not carried out so well as it deserves to be. Doctor Harrison descends to some low business, quite unworthy of him, such as tampering with the mails. This is not only mortifying, but entirely unnecessary; inasmuch as Doctor Harrison has a subordinate villain to do all the low villany, in the person of Squire Deacon, who shoots at Mr. Linden from behind a hedge (!), and is never called to account therefor,–a strange remissness on the part of everybody, which seems to have no recommendation except that it leaves him free to do this very work of robbing the mails, and which, by his failure to do it, is left utterly unexplained and profoundly mysterious. All this is very bad. The Doctor's meanness is utterly inconsistent; and the bare thought of a sober and uncommonly awkward Yankee, like Squire Deacon, deliberately making two separate attempts at assassination, is unspeakably ludicrous. Moreover, we are hopelessly unable to see the need of having the unfortunate Mr. Linden shot at all. Everything was going on very well before, as nearly as we could see, and nothing appears to come of it, after all,–not even the condign punishment of the incongruous and never-to-be- sufficiently-marvelled-at assassin, who is suspected by several people, and yet remains as unharmed as if murder on the highway were altogether too common an occurrence in New England to excite more than a moment's thought.
This leads us to speak of the Plot; and we are constrained to say that a more inartistic, unfinished piece of work we cannot remember. There is a lamentable waste of capital on Squire Deacon's sportsmanlike propensities. Why not have something come of them? We are not anxious to have the man hanged, or even indicted; but we did expect a magnanimous pardon to be extended to him by Mr. Linden; and although that gentleman was altogether too magnanimous before, we should have acquiesced mildly. And what becomes of Mrs. Derrick? There we are in earnest; for Mrs. Derrick is an especial favorite with us. It seems as if our authors had become bewildered, and, finding themselves fairly at a loss what to do with their characters, who drift helplessly along through a great part of the second volume, had seized desperately on the hero and heroine, determined to save them at least, and, having borne them to a place of refuge, had concluded to let the others look after themselves.
What redeems the novel, and gives it its peculiar and exquisite charm, is the execution of certain detached passages. We have never seen the drollery of a genuine Yankee to more advantage than in "Say and Seal." An occasional specimen we venture to quote.
On Mr. Linden's first appearance at Mrs. Derrick's house, where he is known only as the new teacher, nobody knows and nobody dares ask his name; and recourse is accordingly had to the diplomacy of the "help."
"'Child,' said Mrs. Derrick, 'what on earth is his name?'
"'Mother, how should I know? I didn't ask him.'
"'But the thing is,' said Mrs. Derrick, 'I did know; the Committee told me all about him. And of course he thinks I know,–and I don't,–no more than I do my great-grandmother's name, which I never did remember yet.'
"'Mother, shall I go and ask him, or wait till after supper?'
"'Oh, you sha'n't go,' said her mother. 'Wait till after supper, and we'll send Cindy. He won't care about his name till he gets his tea, I'll warrant… Faith, don't you think he liked his supper?'
"'I should think he would, after having no dinner,' said Faith.
"'There's Cindy, this minute! Run and tell her to go right away, and find out what his name is,–tell her I want to know,–you can put it in good words.'
"Cindy presently came back, and handed a card to Faith.
"'It's easy done,' said Cindy. 'I jest asked him if he'd any objections towards tellin' his name,–and he kinder opened his eyes at me, and said, "No." Then I said, says I, "Mis' Derrick do' know, and she'd like ter." "Miss Derrick!" says he, and he took out his pencil and writ that. But I'd like ter know what he cleans his pencil with,' said Cindy, in conclusion, for I'm free to confess I never see brass shine so in my born days.'"
Cindy's "free confessions" are an important feature of the book.
In Chapter VI, Squire Deacon and his sister hold a brief Yankee dialogue, of which this is a sample:–
"'Sam! what are you bothering yourself about Mr. Linden for?'
"'How long since you was made a trustee?' said the Squire, beginning his sentence with an untranslatable sort of grunt, and ending it in his teacup.
"'I've been your trustee ever since you was up to anything,' said his sister. 'Come, Sam,–don't you begin now! What's made you so crusty?'
"'It a'n't the worst thing to be crusty,' said the Squire. 'Shows a man's more'n half baked, anyhow.'
"'Well, what has he done?'
"'Sure enough!' said the Squire, 'what has he done? That's just what I can't find out.'
"'What do you want to find out for? What ails him?'
"'Suppose he hasn't done nothin'. Is that the sort o' man to teach litteratur in Pattaquasset?'
"'Now, Sam Deacon, what do you expect to do by all this fuss you're making?' said his sister, judicially.
"'What's the use of cross-examining a man at that rate? When I do anything, you'll know it.'"
The characters are all invested with reality by skilfully introduced anecdotes, or by personal traits carelessly and happily sketched. But it is a costly expedient to give this reality, when our authors bring in pet names, and other "love-lispings," which are sacred in privacy and painfully ridiculous when exposed to the curious light. Many of us readers find all this mawkish and silly, and others of us are pained that to such scrutiny should be exposed the dearest secrets of affection, and are not anxious to have them exposed to our own gaze. It is too trying a confidence, too high an honor, to be otherwise than unwelcome. With this criticism we close our notice of "Say and Seal," in which we have been sparing neither of praise nor blame, earnestly thanking the authors for a book that is worth finding fault with.
How Could He Help It? or, The Heart Triumphant. By A.S. ROE. New York: Derby & Jackson.
A fair representative of a class of books that are always pleasant reading, although written without taste, cultivation, or originality,–because they are obviously dictated by a kind heart and genuine earnestness. In this volume the numerous heroes (so similar in every respect that one might fancy them to be only one hero mysteriously multiplied, like Kehama) and the fair heroines (exactly equalling the heroes in number, we are happy to assure the tenderhearted reader) are not in the least interesting, except for sheer goodness of heart. This unaided moral excellence, however, fairly redeems the book, and so far softens even our critical asperity that we venture only to suggest,–first, that the utterly unprecedented patois of Mrs. Kelly is not Irish, for which a careful examination of the context leads us to think it was intended,–secondly, that "if he had have done it" is equally guiltless of being English,–thirdly, that, if our author, desiring to describe the feelings of a lover holding his mistress's hand, was inspired by Tennyson's phrase of "dear wonder," he failed, in our opinion, to improve on his original, when he substituted "the fleshy treasure in his grasp."
The New Tariff-Bill. Washington. 1860.
We do not propose to submit the English of this new literary effort of the House of Representatives at Washington to a critical examination, (though it strikingly reminds us of some of the poems of Mr. Whitman, and is a very fair piece of descriptive verse in the b'hoy-anergic style,) or to attempt any argument on the vexed question of Protection. But there is a section of the proposed act which has a direct interest not only for all scholars, but for that large and constantly increasing class whose thirst for what may be called voluminous knowledge prompts them to buy all those shelf-ornamenting works without which no gentleman's library can be considered complete. Though in the matter of book-buying the characters of gentleman and scholar, so seldom united, are distinguished from each other with remarkable precision,–the desire of the former being to cover the walls of what he superstitiously calls his "study," and that of the latter to line his head, while the resultant wisdom is measured respectively by volume and by mass,–yet it is equally important to both that the literary furniture of the one and the intellectual tools of the other should be cheap.
