"Ho! Satan! Popes—more Popes—head Satan here!"
These and other blemishes arrest the most casual glance. The merits of any work are harder to prove than its faults, though they are quite as deeply felt; and, as we have already intimated, it is the misfortune of Dr. Parsons that some of his greatest defects are in passages otherwise the most generally successful. There are probably few pages of the translation which do not offend by some lapse; but at the same time there is no page which will not command admiration by sublime and striking lines. We think the whole of the following passage from the thirteenth canto (it is the well-known description of the sentient wood into which the self-violent are turned) has a peculiar strength and dignity:—
"Amid the branches of this dismal grove,
Their loathsome nests the brutal Harpies build,
Who from the Strophades the Trojans drove
With woful auguries erelong fulfilled.
Huge wings they have, men's faces, human throats,
Feet armed with claws, vast bellies clothed with plumes:
From those strange trees they pour their doleful notes.
'Now, ere thou further penetrate these glooms,'
Said my good master, 'thou shouldst understand
Thou'rt in the second circlet, and shall be,
Until thou come upon the horrid sand.
Give good heed then: more wonders thou shall see,
Yea, to confirm all stories I have told.'
On every side I heard heart-rending cries,
But not a person could I there behold:
Wherefore I stopped, bewildered with surprise.
Methinks he thought I thought the voices came
From some that, hiding, in the thicket lay:
Because the Master said, 'If thou but maim
One of these plants, yen, pluck a branch away,
Then shall thy judgment be more just than now.'
Therefore my hand I slightly forward reached;
And while I wrenched away a little bough
From a huge bush, 'Why mangle me?' it screeched.
Then, as the dingy drops began to start,
'Why dost thou tear me?' shrieked the trunk again,
'Hast thou no touch of pity in thy heart?
We that now here are planted, once were men;
But, were we serpents' souls, thy hand might shame
To have no more compassion on our woes';
Like a green log, that hisses in the flame,
Groaning at one end, as the other glows,—
Even as the wind comes sputtering forth, I say,
Thus oozed together from the splintered wood
Both words and blood. I dropped the broken spray,
And, like a coward, faint and trembling stood."
This picture, also, of the apparition of the angel who opens the gates of Dis is done with a hand as firm as it is free:—
"As frogs before their enemy, the snake,
Quick scattering through the pool in timid shoals,
On the dankooze a huddling cluster makes'
I saw above a thousand mined souls
Flying from one who passed the Stygian bog,
With feet unmoistened by the sludgy wave;
Oft from his face his left hand brushed the fog
Whose weight alone, it seemed, annoyance gave.
At once the messenger of Heaven I kenned,
And toward my master turned, who made a sign
That hushed I should remain, and lowly bend.
Ah me, how full he looked of scorn divine!"
Ornithology and Oölogy of New England: containing full Descriptions of the Birds of New England, and adjoining States and Provinces, arranged by a long-approved Classification and Nomenclature; together with a complete History of their Habits, Times of Arrival and Departure, their Distribution, Food, Song, Time of Breeding, and a careful and accurate Description of their Nests and Eggs; with Illustrations of many Species of the Birds, and accurate Figures of their Eggs. By Edward A. Samuels, Curator of Zoölogy in the Massachusetts State Cabinet. Boston: Nichols and Noyes.
The strong point of this book is, that it monopolizes the ground, and has no rivals. While no branch of natural history has called forth in America such arduous research as ornithology, or such eloquent writing, there has yet been for many years no popular manual in print. Audubon, Wilson, Nuttall, are all practically inaccessible to the ordinary purchaser. Moreover, there have been great advances in scientific classification, and also in field knowledge, since those earlier works appeared. There is therefore an admirable field for any new writer.
Mr. Samuels frankly acknowledges on his first page that he is mainly indebted to Professor Baird of the Smithsonian Institute for what is by far the most valuable portion of his book,—the classification, the nomenclature, and the generic and specific descriptions. He is only responsible for the popular descriptions; but even these consist so very largely of quotations that the whole book must evidently be judged rather as a compilation than as an original work.
Considered as a compilation, it is valuable, though its title-page unfortunately promises more than any work on natural history ever yet performed, and so prepares the way for disappointment. Mr. Samuels appears to be a zealous and accurate ornithologist, with plenty of field-knowledge, but very little descriptive power. Being apparently conscious of this, he is shy of delineating the rarer birds, because he does not personally know them, while he passes hastily over the more familiar, because "their habits are known to all." This last piece of abstinence is greatly to be regretted. For a local manual has two main objects, to furnish to young students the means of identifying species, and to give remote students the means of comparing species. For both purposes the commonest birds are most important, since everybody begins with these. A boy wishes, for instance, to identify the wood-thrush; or a Southern naturalist wishes to compare its traits with those of the mocking-bird. He finds that in this book the wood-thrush is dismissed with two pages, while there is a quotation from Wilson seven pages long upon the habits of the mocking-bird. When will naturalists learn that the first duty of each observer is to make a thorough study of his own locality, and meanwhile to let the rest of the world alone?
One looks in vain in these pages for any good description of the song-sparrow, the blue-bird, the blue-jay, the kingfisher, or the oriole. These birds are allowed but a page or two each, although, for some reason, more liberal space is given to the robin and the crow. But there is no bird so familiar that it does not offer subjects for interesting speculation and study. The pretty nocturnal trill of the hairbird; the remarkable change which civilization has wrought in the habits of the cliff-swallow; the disputed question whether the cat-bird is or is not a mocker;—these and a hundred similar points relate to very common birds, and are accordingly unnoticed by Mr. Samuels. Eggs really interest him, and his descriptions and measurements of these constitute the most original part of the book, and are highly valuable. On the other hand, the notes of birds are very inadequately described, and sometimes not at all; he does not mention that the loon has a voice.