We have spoken of the number of his readers, and of his capacity to interest all classes of people; but we suppose, that, in our day, when everybody knows how to read without always knowing what to read, even Scott has failed to reach a multitude of persons abundantly capable of receiving pleasure from his writings, but who, in their ignorance of him, are content to devour such frightful trash in the shape of novels as they accidentally light upon in a leisure hour. One advantage of such an edition of his works as that which has occasioned these remarks is, that it tends to awaken attention anew to his merits, to spread his fame among the generation of readers now growing up, and to place him in the public view fairly abreast of unworthy but clamorous claimants for public regard, as inferior to him in the power to impart pleasure as they are inferior to him in literary excellence. That portion of the public who read bad novels cannot be reached by criticism; but if they could only be reached by Scott, they would quickly discover and resent the swindle of which they have so long been the victims.

A Dictionary of Medical Science, etc. By ROBLEY DUNGLISON, M.D., LL.D. Revised and very greatly enlarged.

It does not fall within our province to enter into a minute examination of a professional work like the one before us. As a Medical Dictionary is a book, however, which every general reader will find convenient at times, and as we have long employed this particular dictionary with great satisfaction, we do not hesitate to devote a few sentences to its notice.

We remember when it was first published in 1833, meagre, as compared with its present affluence of information. A few years later a second edition was honorably noticed in the "British and Foreign Medical Review." At that time it was only half the size of Hooper's well-known Medical Dictionary, but by its steady growth in successive editions it has reached that obesity which is tolerable in books we consult, but hardly in such as we read. The labor expended in preparing the work must have been immense, and, unlike most of our stereotyped medical literature, it has increased by true interstitial growth, instead of by mere accretion, or of remaining essentially stationary—with the exception of the title-page.

We can confidently recommend this work as a most ample and convenient book of reference upon Anatomy, Physiology, Climate, and other subjects likely to be occasionally interesting to the general reader, as well as upon all practical matters connected with the art of healing.

In the present state of education and intelligence, he must be a dull person who does not frequently find a question arising on some point connected with this range of studies. The student will find in this dictionary an enormous collection of synonymes in various languages, brief accounts of almost everything medical ever heard of, and full notices of many of the more important subjects treated,—such as Climate, Diet, Falsification of Drugs, Feigned Diseases, Muscles, Poisons, and many others.

Here and there we notice blemishes, as must be expected in so huge a collection of knowledge. Thus, Bronchlemmitis is not Polypus bronchialis, but Croup.—The accent of laryngeal and pharyngeal is incorrectly placed on the third syllable. In this wilderness of words we look in vain for the New York provincialism "Sprue." The work has a right to some scores, perhaps hundreds, of such errors, without forfeiting its character. If the Elzevirs could not print the "Corpus Juris Civilis" without a false heading to a chapter, we may excuse a dictionary-maker and his printer for an occasional slip. But it is a most useful book, and scholars will find it immensely convenient.

Scenes of Clerical Life. By GEORGE ELIOT. Originally published in "Blackwood's Magazine." New York: Harper & Brothers. 1858.

Fiction represents the character of the age to which it belongs, not merely by actual delineations of its times, like those of "Tom Jones" and "The Newcomer," but also in an indirect, though scarcely less positive manner, by its exhibition of the influence of the times upon its own form and general direction, whatever the scene or period it may have chosen for itself. The story of "Hypatia" is laid in Alexandria almost two thousand years ago, but the book reflects the crudities of modern English thought; and even Mr. Thackeray, the greatest living master of costume, succeeds in making his "Esmond" only a joint-production of the Addisonian age and our own. Thus the novels of the last few years exhibit very clearly the spirit that characterizes the period of regard for men and women as men and women, without reference to rank, beauty, fortune, or privilege. Novelists recognize that Nature is a better romance-maker than the fancy, and the public is learning that men and women are better than heroes and heroines, not only to live with, but also to read of. Now and then, therefore, we get a novel, like these "Scenes of Clerical Life," in which the fictitious element is securely based upon a broad groundwork of actual truth, truth as well in detail as in general.

It is not often, however, even yet, that we find a writer wholly unembarrassed by and in revolt against the old theory of the necessity of perfection in some one at least of the characters of his story. "Neither Luther nor John Bunyan," says the author of this book, "would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is excellent, and does nothing but what is graceful."

Sometimes, indeed, a daring romance-writer ventures, during the earlier chapters of his story, to represent a heroine without beauty and without wealth, or a hero with some mortal blemish. But after a time his resolution fails;—each new chapter gives a new charm to the ordinary face; the eyes grow "liquid" and "lustrous," always having been "large"; the nose, "naturally delicate," exhibits its "fine-cut lines"; the mouth acquires an indescribable expression of loveliness; and the reader's hoped-for Fright is transformed by Folly or Miss Pickering into a commonplace, tiresome, novelesque Beauty. Even Miss Bronte relented toward Jane Eyre; and weaker novelists are continually repeating, but with the omission of the moral, the story of the "Ugly Duck." Unquestionably, there is the excuse to be made for this great error, that it betrays the seeking after an Ideal. Dangerous word! The ideal standard of excellence is, to be sure, fortunately changing, and the unreal ideal will soon be confined to the second-rate writers for second-rate readers. But all the great novelists of the two last generations indulged themselves and their readers in these unrealities. It is vastly easier to invent a consistent character than to represent an inconsistent one;—a hero is easier to make (so all historians have found) than a man.

Suppose, however, novelists could be placed in a society made up of their favorite characters,—forced into real, lifelike intercourse with them;—Richardson, for instance, with his Harriet Byron or Clarissa, attended by Sir Charles; Miss Burney with Lord Orville and Evelina; Miss Edgeworth with Caroline Percy, and that marvellous hero, Count Altenburg; Scott with the automatons that he called Waverley and Flora McIvor. Suppose they were brought together to share the comforts (cold comforts they would be) of life, to pass days together, to meet every morning at breakfast; with what a ludicrous sense of relief, at the close of this purgatorial period, would not the unhappy novelists have fled from these deserted heroes and heroines, and the precious proprieties of their romance, to the very driest and mustiest of human bores,—gratefully rejoicing that the world was not filled with such creatures as they themselves had set before it as ideals!

To copy Nature faithfully and heartily is certainly not less needful when stories are presented in words than when they are told on canvas or in marble. In the "Scenes from Clerical Life" we have a happy example of such copying. The three stories embraced under this title are written vigorously, with a just appreciation of the romance of reality, and with honest adherence to truth of representation in the sombre as well as the brighter portions of life. It demands not only a large intellect, but a large heart, to gain such a candid and inclusive appreciation of life and character as they display. The greater part of each story reads like a reminiscence of real life, and the personages introduced show little sign of being "rubbed down" or "touched up and varnished" for effect. The narrative is easy and direct, full of humor and pathos; and the descriptions of simple life in a country village are often charming from their freshness, vivacity, and sweetness. More than this, these stories give proof of that wide range of experience which does not so much depend on an extended or varied acquaintance with the world, as upon an intelligent and comprehensive sympathy, which makes each new person with whom one is connected a new illustration of the unsolved problems of life and a new link in the unending chain of human development.

The book is one that deserves a more elegant form than that which the Messrs. Harper have given it in their reprint.

Twin Roses: A Narrative. By ANNA CORA RITCHIE, Author of "Autobiography of an Actress," "Mimic Life," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.

This volume belongs to a series of narratives intended to illustrate Mrs. Ritchie's experiences of theatrical life, and especially to do justice to the many admirable people who have adopted the stage as a profession. Though it has many defects, in respect to plot and characterization, it seems to us the most charming in style and beautiful in sentiment of Mrs. Ritchie's works. The two sisters, the "twin roses," are, we believe, drawn from life; but the author's own imagination has enveloped them in an atmosphere of romantic sweetness, and their qualities are fondly exaggerated into something like unreality. They seem to have been first idolized and then idealized, but never realized. Still, the most beautiful and tender passages of the whole book are those in which they are lovingly portrayed. The scenes in the theatre are generally excellent. The perils, pains, pleasures, failures, and triumphs of the actor's life are well described. The defect, which especially mars the latter portion of the volume, is the absence of any artistic reason for the numerous descriptions of scenery which are introduced. The tourist and the novelist do not happily combine. Still, the sentiment of the book is so pure, fresh, and artless, its moral tone so high, its style so rich and melodious, and its purpose so charitable and good, that the reader is kept in pleased attention to the end, and lays it down with regret.

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EDITORIAL NOTE.

In our review of Parton's Life of Burr, published in the March number, the following passage occurs, as a quotation from that work:—"Hamilton probably implanted a dislike for Burr in Washington's breast."

Upon this the author of the biography has had the effrontery to bring against us a charge of forgery. He affirms that neither the sentence above quoted nor any resembling it can be found in his book.

Mr. Parton, speaking of Washington's refusal to nominate Burr to the French mission, (p. 197,) speaks of the President's dislike for him; and, endeavoring to account for it, says: "Reflecting upon this circumstance, the idea will occur to the individual long immersed in the reading of that period, that this invincible dislike of Colonel Burr was perhaps implanted, certainly nourished, in the mind of General Washington by his useful friend and adherent, Alexander Hamilton."

We do not wonder that Mr. Parton should have been annoyed by so damaging a criticism of his book, but we can account for his forgetfulness only by supposing that he has been so long "immersed in the reading of that period" as to have arrived nearly at the drowning-point of insensibility.

THE END