NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Medical Recollections Of The Army Of The Potomac. By Jonathan Letterman, M.D., late Surgeon U.S.A., and Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 194.
The preface to this volume announces the intention of its author: "It is written in the hope that the labors of the medical officers of the army may be known to an intelligent people, with whom to know is to appreciate; and as an affectionate tribute to many, long my zealous and efficient colleagues, who, in days of trial and danger which have passed, let us hope never to return, evinced their devotion to their country and the cause of humanity without hope of promotion or expectation of reward." It is a sketch of the Medical Department of the army of the Potomac under Dr. Letterman's administration, from July, 1862, to January, 1864, and affords a concurrent view of the military movements of that army during the period specified.
Without infringing upon military details properly so called, an excellent general idea is given of the battles fought, and the strategic value of the great changes of position which were executed with such remarkable promptitude and precision.
Dr. Letterman confines himself strictly to the period of his own administration, and the account of the alterations and improvements introduced under his direction, and chiefly through his means, in the working of the medical department.
The system which he adopted became the system substantially of all the armies of the United States, and with occasional modifications to suit particular occasions has proved to be the best and most efficient as well as manageable that could have been devised. To Dr. Letterman belongs the great praise of having studiously and laboriously perfected the principles and details of these changes, and succeeded in securing their recognition and enforcement.
The total inadequacy of the old system was painfully obvious to all competent and thoughtful observers at the breaking out of the war. It was especially so to those who were placed in responsible executive positions at the front, while the authority in the rear remained bound to its old ideas, and incapable of understanding the great issues involved, and the expenditure of independent intelligence and matérial necessary to accomplish any adequate result. The immediate consequence was an unnecessary waste of life, of national strength and resources, and an amount of misery inflicted and suffering endured which can never be computed and had best now be dismissed for ever. These causes led early in the war to the appointment of a young, vigorous, bold, and undeniably able man as Surgeon-General. He made a complete reformation in the department, and shared the fate of reformers. He was sacrificed as a victim to the genius of indifference, neglect, parsimony, and cruelty, which had hitherto held undisputed or but feebly disputed sway over the fallen on battlefields and the sick of armies. [{855}] This is not the time or place to discuss ex-Surgeon-General Hammond; but it is due to him at all hands, that he has probably been the means of mitigating the horrors of war as respects the sick and wounded, and promoting the sacred cause of humanity in these particulars to a greater degree than any man who ever lived. The magnitude of the reforms accomplished, the magnificent scale on which preparation was made, and the courage to order the necessary expenditures in the face of the time-honored but mean and timid traditions of the Surgeon-General's office, and the habits of thought and action engendered thereby in the bureaus of administration and supply, cannot be appreciated until some learned and philosophical physician shall write the medical history of the war from its humane and social points of view.
We are disposed to give Dr. Letterman all the merit which his book would seem to claim, and a much higher degree of praise than his well-known modesty would expect, but we cannot pass over in silence the gigantic and unrequited labors of his predecessor, Colonel Chas. S. Tripler, Surgeon U.S.A., the first Medical Director of the army of the Potomac, which paved the way for the improved methods Dr. Letterman had the honor of introducing. We are aware that many of the most important were in contemplation, and if we mistake not, the ambulance system originated with Dr. Tripler. The terrible experiences of the Seven Days and the Chickahominy opened the eyes of the military authorities to the tremendous necessities of the case, and made the work of medical reform comparatively easy. There is no teacher like suffering, for Generals as well as mortals.
The military mind is to a great degree governed by the traditions of the middle ages, when surgery was an ignoble because ignorant and consequently cruel craft. The rights and privileges of rank have been slowly and reluctantly conceded, and every effort has been made to deprive the surgeon of the dignity which belongs to the combatant and a participation in common toils and dangers. These prejudices have given way rapidly during the late war, where the courage, skill, and self-sacrificing charity of medical officers have been most conspicuous. Many surgeons have proved their manhood in most trying scenes, and have certainly stood fire as well as the line and staff. The record of killed and wounded places them on a level with any staff corps in these respects.
Military prejudice in the regular army, and the ignorance, stupidity, and arrogance of many volunteer officers, were an obstacle to the medical department in the beginning. They gradually gave way under the steady pressure of intelligence, courage, and determination, till in the end ambulances became as much respected as battery wagons, and every able and good officer the friend, supporter, and defender of the medical department.
Dr. Letterman has done an excellent service to his profession at large by his book, which is another vindication of the claims of legitimate medicine upon the respect, confidence, and gratitude of the public.
The work is well written and handsomely issued. It is a great subject, and capable of being developed to a much, higher degree in extent and scope, which we hope Dr. Letterman will have time and opportunity to do.
THE NEW-ENGLANDER, July, 1866.
This periodical emanates from the venerable and classic shades of Yale University, and is edited by some of the younger professors, two of whom are inheritors of the distinguished names of Dwight and Kingsley. It is marked by the refined literary taste, polished style, and amenity of spirit which are characteristic of the New Haven circle of scientific and clerical gentlemen. There is very much in the general tone of its principles and tendencies which gives us pleasure and awakens our hope for the future. We may indicate particularly, as illustrations of our meaning, the principle of the divine institution and authority of government; the sympathy manifested with an ideal and spiritual system of philosophy, and the decided opposition to the new English school of anti-biblical rationalism.
There are several notices of recent Catholic publications which are written in a courteous style, contrasting very favorably with that employed by most Protestant periodicals. Dr. Brownson's "American Republic" receives a respectful and moderately appreciative notice. The "Memoir and Sermons of F. Baker" is also honored with one which is very [{856}] kind and sympathetic, expressing the "intense and mournful interest" of the writer in the book, and still more in its author, for which no doubt he will be duly grateful, although we know of no reason why his friends should go into mourning for him during his lifetime. The writer, after remarking that the arguments contained in the book are chiefly addressed to Episcopalians, and therefore need not trouble any other Protestants, throws out a couple of rejoinders to what he supposes the author might say to these last, if he were disposed. One of these remarks is an assertion that the Paulists and their brethren of the Catholic clergy do not preach Christ. Does the writer really know nothing of the Catholic system of practical religion except what he has read in D'Aubigné and the "Schönberg-Cotta" romance? If not, we recommend him to acquire more correct information from our best writers. If he has it already, we cannot understand how he could make such a statement. His winding-up apostrophe to the Paulists, "O foolish Paulists, who hath bewitched you? you observe days and months and times and years," is more witty than wise. The Paulists observe, in common with other Catholics, sixty days in the year as obligatory, and of these fifty-two are observed with much greater rigor than we insist upon by the Congregationalists of New Haven. When the writer gives us a good explanation of his doctrine of the Christian Sabbath in harmony with St. Paul's teaching to the Galatians, we will cheerfully undertake the vindication of the other eight holidays, and will endeavor to convince him that it is just as reasonable to have handsome altars, statues, pictures, and flowers, in churches, as it is to have fine churches, marble pulpits, frescoed ceilings, well-dressed clergymen, and handsome houses with pretty flower-gardens for these clergymen.
In our view, there is better work for the learned scholars of New Haven to do than to indulge in light skirmishing with Catholics and Episcopalians. They have all the treasures of science and learning at command, with leisure and ability to use them. There are great questions respecting the agreement between science and revelation, the authenticity and credibility of the sacred books, the fundamental doctrines of philosophy and religion, pressing on the attention of every man who thinks and cares about God and his fellow-men. The people around us are drifting rapidly into infidelity and sin. There is no remedy for this but a reëstablishment of first principles; and we would like to see our learned friends apply themselves to this work. It may justly be expected from such an old and world-renowned university as Yale College, that it should produce the most solid works, not merely in classic lore and physical science, but in the higher branches of metaphysics and theology. Dr. Dwight was a great theologian, and is so styled by Döllinger. Drs. Taylor and Fitch were, both, able and acute metaphysicians. Since their day, we are afraid that our friends have fallen asleep in these departments. They set out to reform Calvinism, to reconcile orthodox Protestantism with reason, and to find a method of bringing the practical truths of Christianity to bear on men universally. In spite of their able and zealous efforts in this direction, religious belief and practice have been steadily on the wane around them. As for morality, the article on "Divorce," which we shall make the topic of a separate article hereafter, makes disclosures which are indeed startling. We would like to have them resume their work, therefore, once more, from the beginning, and go back to the most ultimate principles. In what state was man originally created? What is the relation of the race to Adam? What is original sin? Whence the need of a Divine Redeemer and a revelation? What are the means established by Jesus Christ for the regeneration and salvation of mankind? What is the remedy for the present deplorable condition of both Christendom and heathendom? Of course, the discussion of these fundamental questions will involve a thorough sifting of the Catholic doctrines. We are anxious to have it made, and when the discussion is carried on upon fundamental grounds, a result may be hoped for which cannot be gained by skirmishing around the outposts.
The clergy and people of New Haven, and of Connecticut generally, have always been remarkable for their friendly behavior toward Catholics. There has never been any disposition to persecute them, and, at present, the relations between the Catholic and non-Catholic sections of the population are just what they should be in a land of religious freedom. A judge in New Haven has recently pronounced, in open court, his decision that the Catholic religion is just [{857}] as much the religion of the state as the Protestant; and the last Legislature has passed the most just and favorable law regulating the tenure of church property that exists in the United States. The conductors of the "New-Englander" will surely join us in the wish that all the people of the state may ere long become one in the belief and practice of the pure and complete Christian faith as Christ revealed it.
A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.
Stray Notes on Speaking and Spelling, by Henry Alvord, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Tenth thousand. Alexander Strahan.--THE DEAN'S ENGLISH. A Criticism on the Dean of Canterbury's Essays on the Queen's English. By G. Washington Moon, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Fourth edition. Alexander Strahan.
Among the critics of the English press there seems to be but one opinion concerning the merits of the two combatants in this literary joust; that the Dean is deservedly castigated, and that Mr. Moon is an unapproachable paragon of literary effulgence. However, this is not to be wondered at. These same critics, and the English press to which they contribute, sadly need a champion, if we may believe his reverence of Canterbury. Gross inaccuracies in syntax, unpardonable faults in style, and frequently occurring examples of slip-shod sentences would appear, from the "Plea for the Queen's English," to be, on the whole, characteristic of the modern English press.
We, transatlantic barbarians that we are, of course know nothing of the English language, and have not the presumption, we hope, to think that we can either speak or write one faultless sentence of the language which we inherit as a means of intercommunion with our fellows. It is our duty to feel "umble," and we do feel "umble." But, while perusing these two books, we have had an 'umble and an 'arty laugh in the depths of our 'umiliation. It may have been very sinful in us, we know, but we could not help it. As the youthful culprit replied, when caught laughing in church, we say, 'umbly of course, "We didn't laugh, it laughed itself!" At the risk of not being believed by those who have not yet read these, two books, we give the astounding information that even an Englishman, an educated Englishman, a dignitary of the English church, a poet, whose verses we republished in America, (and, confound us, left out the u's,) not only speaks and writes bad English, but also on his own showing, by the light of Mr. Moon's volume, presumes to teach others to do the same. Yes, these published lessons of the Very Rev. Dean, in speaking and spelling, are so outrageously ungrammatical, and so faulty in style, that we should not be surprised if the prediction of his antagonist would come true, that henceforth people will speak of bad English as Dean's English. Yet with all its faults it is a useful book; and we think that neither Mr. Moon nor the newspaper critics have done the author justice. We do not like "Dean's English," and it is humiliating, even to an American, to discover that he has carelessly spoken or written it; but we like the Dean's book better than we do Mr. Moon's. We like the schoolboy's walk better than the schoolmarm's. Mr. Moon's style is faultlessly prim and precise, and defies literary criticism; but we have felt, more than once, a wish to take up some of his exact sentences and give them a good shaking, so as to get a little of the stiffness out of them. The Dean has written as most people speak; Mr. Moon writes as nobody ever did or ever will speak. We should write correctly, it is true, but there is a comparison (however paradoxical it may appear) even in correctness. Mr. Moon aims to write "most correctly," and we think that his style is far less pleasing than it would have been if he had simply written correctly. There is such a thing as "punctiliousness in all its stolidity, without any application of the sound or effect of one's sentences." As is his style, so is his criticism. Nothing escapes his eye; the want of a comma, a sentence a trifle too elliptical, a careless tautology, (Mr. Moon would have us say--a carelessly written tautological expression,) are blemishes at which he turns away his face in rhetorical disgust. Nevertheless, we say again, we like the Dean's book. It deserves to be studied by all our young writers, who need to be warned against the use of many popular phrases, and have their attention directed to common faults in construction. It is a lively, chatty book, and keeps us in a good humor from the first to the last page.
The sharp criticism of Mr. Mood is well worth reading. It furnishes us with an index to the blunders of the Very Rev. Dean. So closely has he examined these faults and calculated their guilt, that he actually sums up for us, in one instance, the number of possible readings of one unfortunate sentence. It contains only ten lines, and may be read ten thousand two hundred and forty different ways, as Mr. Moon shows us. Severely as he was attacked, and despite certain personal innuendos, not by any means creditable to his adversary, the good-natured Dean (we are sure of his good nature, from his book) comes off victor, in our opinion, by inviting his enemy to dinner. When a little time shall have healed the bruises of the literary castigation he has received, he will doubtless re-write his book, and give us under another form the profitable hints and helps which at present need a more exact classification.
COSAS DE ESPAÑA.
Illustrative of Spain and the Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt Byrne, author of "Flemish Interiors," etc. 2 vols. 12mo. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. 1866.
The publications of Mr. Strahan are well known for the taste and elegance displayed in their exterior dress. The book before us merits a full meed of praise in this respect; but it is one of the most wretched pieces of English composition that has come under our notice. It has a preface of forty pages, which prefaces nothing, being in fact nothing more than a few statistics of railways, the army, the mineral and other products of Spain, jumbled together, with no attempt at order or classification. The first chapter, styled "introductory," is jumble number two, on national character, entertainments, manufactures, railways again, infanticide, education, authors and authoresses, sobriety and smoking.
In the second chapter we are surprised to find the authoress has not yet left Dover. We thought we were in Spain long ago. It is not until the middle of the third chapter that we are permitted to get to the frontier, and by this time we confess we are tired of our gentle guide, and decline going any further. When we are conversing with an Englishman or an Englishwoman, we prefer the English language to that affected jargon which consists in italicizing and translating into a foreign language every emphatic word. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there are three or four such italicized foreign words, French, Spanish, Latin, or Greek, on each and every page of these two volumes. Our readers may wish to see a specimen. "The first obstacle that met us on this same bridge was a crowd of ouvriers in blouses," p. 26. "The cathedral rather disappointed us, quoad its outward aspect, and offers nothing very remarkable within," p. 27. "There are, it is true, some districts which present a very curious and interesting picture en bird's eye," p. 28. "One day it was a fiesta, on which we made sure of admission, because the entrée is libre on Sundays, and in all else, a fiesta is synonymous with a Sunday; and finally, at the last attempt we made, on the right day, hour, etc.," p. 41, vol. ii. "Boleros and Fandangos are national dances, but they are among the délassements of the plebs," p. 145, vol. ii. Scattered here and there through these intolerable pages we find numerous examples of wit unequalled in dreariness. Speaking of Spanish authoresses the writer facetiously remarks, "One or two have so far exceeded the ordinary limits of female capacity in Spain, as even to dip the tip of their hose into the cerulean ink-bottle." Of the domestic pottery she says: "There is what we may call a jar-ring incongruity between the roughness of the material and the striking elegance of the form." Aquatic gambolling at Biarritz, we are told, "is not the only gambling to be seen there." A visit to the tomb of an archbishop elicits the following: "It is an object of great attraction, and renders the spot chosen by the archbishop an excellent site for a tomb, as it cannot fail to keep the memory of him whose bones it covers before all who frequent the church, and there can be now little left besides his bones. This is as it should be. 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum. '"
Had the book been expurgated of the hundreds of foreign words, and of all these dead-and-alive puns, which deface its pages, and the subject matter been arranged with the slightest view to order, it would have been quite readable, for the authoress is good-natured and communicative, and has an eye for the beautiful and the picturesque, as well as [{859}] intelligence to appreciate the moral and the useful; but, as it is, we think the quotations we have made from it are quite sufficient to prove the justice of our opinion concerning it.
LETTERS OF EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN.
Edited by G. S. Trebutien. 12mo, pp. 453. London: Alexander Strahan; New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.
Our readers have already been presented in our pages with several articles and notices of Eugénie de Guérin's character and writings, and they are doubtless sufficiently familiar with both to waive any further reflections upon either in this place. The volume of letters before us is, like her journal, a delicious literary repast, from which we rise with mind and heart equally gladdened and refreshed. Our space will not permit us to give but one or two short extracts. "23d December, 1863. I write to you, dear Louise, to the sound of the Nadalet, to the merry peal of bells, announcing the sweetest festival of the year. It is, indeed, very beautiful this midnight celebration, this memorial of the manger, the angels, the shepherds, of Mary and the infant Jesus, of so many mysteries of love accomplished in this marvellous night. I shall go to the midnight mass, not in hope of a pie, coffee, and such a pleasant dish as your nocturnal cavalier; nothing of the kind is to be found at Cahuzac, where I only enjoy celestial pleasures, such as one experiences in praying to the good God, hearing beautiful sermons, gentle lessons, and, in a quiet corner of the church, giving oneself up to rapturous emotion. Happy moments, when one no longer belongs to earth, when one lets heart, soul, mind, wing their way to heaven!"
The following to M. de la Morvonnais he must have received and read with intense emotion:
Cayla, 28th July, 1835.
Did you imagine, Monsieur, that I should not write to you any more? Oh! how mistaken you would have been! It was your journey to Paris, and, after that, other obstacles, which prevented my speaking to you earlier of Marie. But we will speak of her to-day; yes, let us speak of her, always of her; let her be always betwixt us. It is for her sake I write to you: first of all, because I love her and find it sweet to recall her memory; and then, because it seems to me that she is glad you should sometimes hear terms of expression that vividly recall her. I come, then, to remind you of that sacred resemblance so sweet to myself when it strikes you. How I bless God for having bestowed it upon me, and thus enabled me to do you some good! This shall be my mission with regard to you, and with what delight shall I fulfil it!
Do not say that there is any merit or act of profound charity in this acceptation. My heart goes out quite naturally toward those who weep, and I am happy as an angel when I can console. You tell me that your life will no longer have any bright side, that I can elicit nothing from you but sadness. I know this; but can that estrange me--I, who loved the Marie you weep? Ah! yes; let us weep over her; lean on me the while, if you will. To me it is not painful to receive tears: not that my heart is strong, as you believe, only it is Christian, and finds at the foot of the cross enough to enable it to support its own sorrows and those of others. Marie did the same . . . . let us seek to imitate the saints. You will teach this to your daughter beside the cross on that grave whither you often lead her. Poor little one! how I should like to see her, to accompany her in that pilgrimage to that tomb beside the sea, and under the pines, to pray, to weep there, to take her on my knees and speak to her of heaven and of her mother. This would be a joy to me: you know that there are melancholy ones.
We give only these little tastes of the charming volume, which will find its way, after the "journal," into many a circle, to afford in its perusal the most unqualified delight to all its readers.
THE VALLEY OF WYOMING; the Romance of its History and its Poetry; also Specimens of Indian Eloquence. Compiled by a Native of the Valley. 12mo, pp. 153. New York: R. H. Johnston & Co. 1866.
"This little volume," says the author in his prefatory note, "has not the slightest claim to be either a history or a study of romance." We are sorry that it has not, for we cannot see that (apart from the republication of Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming") it has the slightest claim to be anything else. We thank the author, however, for giving us the following amongst the specimens of Indian eloquence. It is part of the reply of the celebrated chief Red Jacket to a Protestant missionary,
"Brother, continue to listen. You say you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind, and that if we do not take hold of the religion which you teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us: and not only to us, but why did he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of rightly understanding it? . . . . Brother, you say that there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?"
We should like to know what answer the missionary made, or could make, to that argument.
SHAKESPEARE'S DELINEATION OF INSANITY AND SUICIDE. By A. O. Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y. 12mo, pp. 204. New-York: Hurd and Houghton. 1866.
Dr. Kellogg's essays upon some of the characters in Shakespeare are the evidence of an expert in support and illustration of the intuitive apprehension and scientific fidelity of genius to truth. The difference between the creations of genius and those of industry is, to a certain degree, the difference between the limning of the sea and the laborious skill of the engraver. The mind gives its unquestioning and conscious assent to the psychological delineations of Shakespeare, but it is doubtful if Shakespeare ever made it a special subject of study. He was undoubtedly a thorough reader of the ancient classics, and a close and critical observer of the persons and events of his own time, and that we believe to have been the substance of his education, properly so called.
The essay on Hamlet is the best, and we quite agree with Dr. Kellogg's conclusion on this much disputed subject, that the dramatist meant to describe a mind unsettled by distress, and gradually culminating in complete madness. If we were allowed to draw a personal conclusion from reading this book, we should say that Dr. Kellogg is admirably adapted for that department of his noble profession which he has chosen.
The volume is well printed and beautifully bound.
HOMES WITHOUT HANDS.
Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals, classed according to their Principles of Construction. By Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S., etc. With new designs by W. F. Keyle and E. Smith. 8vo, pp. 651. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1866.
This is a delightful book, full of scientific knowledge communicated in the most pleasing and attractive style. It is admirably calculated to awaken a love for natural science and original collection and exploration. We consider this class of studies of the highest value, especially on account of their reflex action on the mind and character, and their powerful influence in the direction of morality and religion. We would suggest this book as an admirable one for prizes in our Catholic boarding-schools, and we wish natural science were more prized and cultivated in them than it at present seems to be.
It is printed and bound in a very handsome manner.
A PRACTICAL GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
By T.E. Howard, A.M. Metropolitan Series. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1866.
This is an excellent little manual for our schools, and we doubt not that it will come into extensive use.
It bears throughout the unmistakable signs of having come from the hand of an experienced teacher, from whose pen books of this character must come to possess any practical worth. The style in which it is published is, to our thinking, and according to our experience, unfit for a school-book. The copy sent us would be in tatters in the hand of a school boy before he had studied one tenth of it.