The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858

Think of it!–fit enough for St. Augustine and St. Francis, (to mention no greater names,) fit enough for Taylor and Barrow, for Bossuet and Fénelon, but not for Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Cushing!

In another place Mr. Choate says, "that even the laughter of fools, and children, and madmen, little ministers, little editors, and little politicians, can inflict the mosquito-bite, not deep, but stinging." As this is one of the best of his sarcasms, we give it the advantage of the circulation of the "Atlantic,"–generous and tidal circulation, as he himself might call it. We do not think the mosquito image new,–if we remember, the editor of the Bungtown Copperhead uses it weekly against "our pitiful contemporary,"–though the notion of a mosquito-bite inflicted by a laugh is original with Mr. Choate, unless Lord Castlereagh may have used it before. But we would seriously ask Mr. Choate who the big ministers of the country are, if the Beechers, if Wayland, Park, Bushnell, Cheever, Furness, Parker, Hedge, Bellows, and Huntington are the little ones?

There is an amusing passage in which Mr. Choate would seem to assume to himself and those who agree with him the honors of martyrdom. This shows a wonderful change in public opinion; though the martyrs in the "Legenda Aurea" and Fox seem to have had a harder time of it than we supposed to be the case with Mr. Choate.

We have not space to follow him farther, and only the reputation of the man, and the singularity of the occasion, which gave a kind of national significance to the affair, would have tempted us to intrude upon the select privacy of the Young Men's Democratic Association.

Finally, as Mr. Choate appears to have a very mean opinion of the understandings and the culture of those opposed to him in politics, we beg to remind him, since he has been led out, like Balaam, to prophesy against the tents and armies of the Republican Israel, and has ended by proving their invincibility, that it was an animal in all respects inferior to a prophet, and in some to a politician, who was first aware of the presence of the heavenly messenger; and it may be that persons incapable of a generalization–as that patient creature undoubtedly was–may see as far into the future as the greatest philosopher who turns his eyes always to the past.

LITERARY NOTICES

DR. ASA GRAY'S Botanical Series, New York, Ivison & Phinney, consisting of–

I. How Plants Grow, etc., with a Popular Flora, etc. 16mo. pp. 233.

II. First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 8vo. pp. 236.

III. Introduction to Structural and Systematic Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 8vo. pp. 555.

IV. Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, including Virginia, Kentucky, etc. 8vo. pp. 636.

V. Same as IV., with the Mosses and Liverworts added, illustrated by Engravings, pp. 739.

VI. Same as IV., with II. bound up with it. pp. 872.

The first-named of these books is a new candidate for public favor; the others are revised and improved editions of books which have already been favorably received. We have sometimes thought that the popularity of a school-book is in inverse proportion to its merits, and are glad to learn that five editions of Dr. Gray's "Structural and Systematic Botany" are witnesses against the truth of this assumption. No man can deny that Dr. Gray's books are all of the highest order of merit. The accuracy and extent of his scholarship are manifest on every page,–a scholarship consisting not merely in an extensive acquaintance with the works of other botanists, but in a careful confirmation of their results, and in additions to their knowledge, by an observation of Nature for himself. His clearness of style is an equally valuable characteristic, making the reader sure that he understands Dr. Gray, and that Dr. Gray understands the subject. In the "Manual" this clearness of style extends to the judicious selection of distinctive marks, whereby allied species may be distinguished from each other. Even the most difficult genera of golden-rods, asters, and grasses become intelligible in this manual; and many a less difficult genus which puzzled our boyhood, with Beck's, Eaton's, and Pursh's manuals, became so plain in Gray, that we cannot now imagine where was the difficulty. The extent of the field which Gray's Manual covers prevents him, of course, from giving such lifelike descriptions of plants as may be found in Dr. Bigelow's "Plants of Boston and its Vicinity," or such minute word-daguerreotypes as those in Mr. Emerson's "Trees of Massachusetts,"–books which no New England student of botany can afford to be without; but, on the other hand, the description of each species, aided by typographical devices of Italics, etc., is sufficient for any intelligent observer to identify a specimen. The exquisite engravings, illustrating the genera of Ferns, Hepaticæ, and Mosses, are also a great assistance.

The volume which we have marked III. is the fifth revised edition of the "Botanical Text-Book." It contains a complete, although concise, sketch of Structural Botany and Vegetable Physiology, and a birds'-eye view of the whole vegetable kingdom in its subdivision into families, illustrated by over thirteen hundred engravings on wood. It has become a standard of botany, wherever our language is read.

For those who do not wish to pursue the study so far, the "First Lessons" is one of the most happily arranged and happily written scientific text-books ever published, and is illustrated by three hundred and sixty well-executed wood-cuts. This takes scholars of thirteen or fourteen years of age far enough into the recesses of the science for them to see its beauties, and to learn the passwords which shall admit them to all its hidden and inexhaustible treasures. It goes over substantially the same ground that is covered by the volume we have marked III., but in simpler language and with much less detail; and closes with clear practical directions how to collect specimens and make an herbarium.

The first book is intended for children of ten or twelve years old, at home or in school. We hail it as a remarkably successful effort of a truly learned man to write a book actually adapted to young children. While all teachers, and writers upon education, insist on the importance of having a child's first impressions such as shall not need to be afterwards corrected, and such as shall attract the child towards the study to which it is introduced, our elementary books have usually sinned in one or both these points. They are either dry and repulsive, or else vague and incorrect;–frequently have both faults. But the child is here told "how plants grow" in a very pleasant manner, with neat and pretty pictures to illustrate the words, by one whose thorough knowledge and perspicuity of style prevent him from ever giving a wrong impression. The "Popular Flora" which is appended, contains a description of about one hundred families of the most common cultivated and wild plants, and of the most familiar genera and species in each family. The English names are in all cases put in the foreground in bold type,–while the Latin names stand modestly back, half hidden in parentheses and Italics; and these English names are in general very well selected,–although we think that when two or three English names are given to one plant, or one name to several plants, Dr. Gray ought to indicate which name he prefers. He allows "Dogwood" to stand without rebuke for the poison sumac, as well as for the flowering cornel; and gives "Winterberry" and "Black Alder" without comment to Prinos verticellata. A word of preference on his part might do something towards reforming and simplifying the popular nomenclature, and this child's manual is the place to utter that word. We think also that in a second edition of this Popular Flora it would be well to give a popular description of a few of the most beautiful flowers belonging to those families which are too difficult for the child properly to analyze. Thus, Arethusa, Cypripedium, Pogonia, Calopogon, Spiranthes, Festuca, Osmunda, Onoclea, Lycopodium, Polytrichum, Bryum, Marchantia, Usnea, Parmelia, Cladonia, Agaricus, Chondrus, and perhaps a few other genera, furnish plants so familiar and so striking that a child will be sure to inquire concerning them, and a general description could easily be framed in a few words which could not mislead him concerning them.

In writing for children, Dr. Gray seems to have put on a new nature, in which we have a much fuller sympathy with him than we have ever had in reading his larger books. We do not like that cold English common sense which seems reluctant to admit any truth in the higher regions of thought; and we confess, that, until we had read this little child's book, "How Plants Grow," we had always suspected Dr. Gray of leaning towards that old error, so finely exposed by Agassiz in zoölogy, of considering genera, families, etc., as divisions made by human skill, for human convenience,–instead of as divisions belonging to the Creator's plan, as yet but partially understood by human students.

We hope that the appearance of this masterly little book, so finely adapted to the child's understanding, may have the effect of introducing botany into the common schools. The natural taste of children for flowers indicates clearly the propriety and utility of giving them lessons upon botany in their earliest years. Go into any of our New England country-schools at this season of the year, and you will find a bouquet of wild flowers on the teacher's desk. Take it up and separate it,–show each flower to the school, tell its name, and its relationship to other and more familiar cultivated flowers, the characteristic sensible properties of its family, etc.,–and you will find the younger scholars your most attentive listeners. And if any practical man ask, What is the use of the younger scholars learning anything about wild flowers, which the cultivation of the country may soon render extinct, and which are but weeds at best?–there are two sufficient answers ready: first, that all truth is divine, and that the workmanship of infinite skill is beautiful and worthy of the eyes which may behold it; secondly, that no mental discipline is better adapted for the young mind than this learning how to distinguish plants. No more striking deficiency is observable, in most men, than the lack of a power to observe closely and with accuracy. The general inaccuracy of testimony, usually ascribed to inaccuracy of memory, is in fact to be attributed to inaccuracy of observation. In like manner, a large proportion of popular errors of judgment spring from an imperfect perception of the data on which the true conclusions should be founded. The best remedy for this lack of clear perceptions would evidently be the cultivation of those habits of close observation and nice discrimination necessary in a successful naturalist.

1

SPENSER: Faery Queen. See also the Two Cantos of Mutability, Cant. VII.:–

"That old Dan Geffrey, in whose gentle sprightThe pure well-head of poesie did dwell."

2

MILTON: Il Penseroso.

3

WORDSWORTH: Poems of Later Years.

4

CHAUCER: Clerke's Tale, Prologue.

5

WARTON: Ode on his Majesty's Birthday, 1787

6

Tyrwhitt's Chaucer: Historical Notes on his Life.

7

Masque of the Fortunate Islands

8

History of English Poetry, Vol. II. pp. 335-336, ed. 1840.

9

WARTON: Birthday Ode, 1787.

10

See his British Poets, from Chaucer to Jonson, Art. Daniel. Southey contemplated a continuation of Warton's History, and, in preparing for that labor, learned many things he had never known of the earlier writers.

11

Jonson's classification. See his Poetaster.

12

Lamb's Works, and Life, by Talfourd, Vol. IV. p. 89.

13

Hesperides, Encomiastic Verses.

14

Herrick, ubi supra.--To the haunts here named must be added the celebrated Mermaid, of which Shakspeare was the Magnus Apollo, and The Devil, where Pope imagines Ben to have gathered peculiar inspiration:– "And each true Briton is to Ben so civil, He swears the Muses met him at The Devil." Imitation of Horace, Bk. ii. Epist. i.

15

Election of a Poet-Laureate, 1719, Works, Vol. II.

16

Feast of the Poets, 1814.

17

Fable for Critics, 1850.

18

This story rests on the authority of Thomas Betterton, the actor, who received it from Davenant.

19

Dedication of the Pastorals of Virgil, to Hugh, Lord Clifford, the son of Sir Thomas.

20

There were some indications that portions of the farce had been written while Davenant was living and had been intended for him. Mr. Bayes appears in one place with a plaster on his nose, an evident allusion to Davenant's loss of that feature. In a lively satire of the time, by Richard Duke, it is asserted that Villiers was occupied with the composition of The Rehearsal from the Restoration down to the day of its production on the stage:–

"But with playhouses, wars, immortal wars,He waged, and ten years' rage produced a farce.As many rolling years he did employ,And hands almost as many, to destroyHeroic rhyme, as Greece to ruin Troy.Once more, says Fame, for battle he prepares,And threatens rhymers with a second farce:But, if as long for this as that we stay,He'll finish Clevedon sooner than his play."               The Review

21

It is little to the credit of Dryden, that, having saved up his wrath against Flecknoe so long, he had not reserved it altogether. Flecknoe had been dead at least four years when the satire appeared.

22

Macaulay quotes Blackmore's Prince Arthur, to illustrate Dryden's dependence upon Dorset:–

"The poets' nation did obsequious waitFor the kind dole divided at his gate.Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared,An old, revolted, unbelieving bard,Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard."Sakil's high roof, the Muse's palace, rungWith endless cries, and endless songs he sung.To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first;But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst.Sakil without distinction threw his bread,Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed."

Laurus, of course, stands for Dryden, and Sakil for Dorset.

23

The Squire of Alsatia is said to have realized him £130.

24

An Allusion to the Tenth Satire of the First Book of Horace.–The word "censure" will, of course, be understood to mean judgment, not condemnation.

25

Imitation of Horace, Bk. ii. Epist. i.

26

See the History of England, Vol. IV., Chapter 17, for reference to Shadwell's Volunteers.

27

History of England, Chapter 19.

28

Les Salons de Paris.–Foyers Eteints. Par Mme. Ancelot. 12mo. Paris.

29

It will be remembered that on field-days Murat had adopted a hat and feathers of a most ridiculous kind, and that have become proverbial.

30

We may be allowed to wonder, however, at his speaking of "memories that burn and revel in the pages of Herodotus,"–a phrase which does injustice to the simple and quiet style of the delightful Pepys of Antiquity.