66

admirable and instructive outline of the whole of certain important points of detail that are only rebiological science.* Whoever," says Professor ferred to in the text; and under the head of “ BibliHuxley, “ will follow its pages, crayfish in hand, and ography" are given “some references to the literawill try to verify for himself the statements which it ture of the subject which may be useful to those contains, will find himself brought face to face with who wish to follow it out more fully." all the great zoological questions which excite so This description or summary will convey a tolerlively an interest at the present day; he will under- ably definite idea, perhaps, of the scope and general stand the method by which alone we can hope to contents of the work ; and a few passages which we attain satisfactory answers of these questions; and, may be able to detach from the close-knit exposition finally, he will appreciate the justice of Diderot's will serve to indicate its special features of interest. remark, 'Il faut être profond dans l'art ou dans la We mean, of course, those features which are spescience pour en bien posséder les éléments.”” of cial to this particular book, and not due simply to course, within the dimensions of such a treatise, the author's lucid and luminous style. Everything many of the larger problems can be only touched that Professor Huxley writes has the charm of forupon, and the way to approach them pointed out ; cible argument and an incomparable clearness and but a right beginning is of the utmost importance vigor of expression ; but the present work is illuin such matters, and Professor Huxley not only puts minated more often than common with those quick the student in complete possession of “the ele- flashes of sly and caustic humor that are characterisments," but shows him how "the careful study of tic of him—as where he says : Crayfishes, in fact, one of the commonest and most insignificant of ani- are guilty of cannibalism in its worst form ; ... mals leads us, step by step, from every-day knowl. and, not content with mutilating and killing their edge to the widest generalizations of ... biological spouses, after the fashion of animals of higher moral science in general.”

pretensions, they descend to the lowest depths of The method of exposition followed by Professor utilitarian turpitude, and finish by eating them.” Huxley in the present case is the same as that adopt- Perhaps as useful to the beginner in science as ed with such happy results in his previous work on any other passage in the book is that in which Pro"Physiography": beginning with the simple and fessor Huxley explains the reason and use of that particular he proceeds to the more complex and technical nomenclature which is so difficult to masgeneral—dealing first with the most commonplace ter, and which, to many, seems so superfluous : facts of observation, then with the special law which governs the facts, then with the wider facts from Many people imagine that scientific terminology is a which the special law was deduced, ascending grad. needless burden imposed upon the novice, and ask us ually to those heights whence the fixed boundaries why we can not be content with plain English. In reof human knowledge are clearly visible. In the versation about his business with a carpenter, or an en

ply, I would suggest to such an objector to open a conopening chapter, the reader is confronted with what gineer, or, still better, with a sailor, and try how far plain is called the common knowledge of the crayfish- English will go. The interview will not have lasted long that knowledge which is acquired by ordinary ob- before he will find himself lost in a maze of unintelligiservers who may happen to see them in the streams ble technicalities. Every calling has its technical termiwhich they frequent; and this leads up to “that ac- nology ; and every artisan uses terms of art, which sound curate, but necessarily incomplete and unmethodized like gibberish to those who know nothing of art, but are knowledge, which is understood by natural histo- . exceedingly convenient to those who practice it. In fact, ry.” In the two following chapters the physiology self; and, as the use of language is to convey our con

every art is full of conceptions which are special to itof the crayfish is discussed under two general heads : ceptions to one another, language must supply signs for 1. “ The Mechanism by which the Parts of the Liv- those conceptions. There are two ways of doing this : ing Engine are supplied with the Materials neces- either existing signs may be combined in loose and cumsary for their Maintenance and Growth"; 2. "The brous periphrases ; or new signs, having a well-underMechanism by which the Living Organism adjusts stood and definite signification, may be invented. The itself to Surrounding Conditions and reproduces practice of sensible people shows the advantage of the Itself." The fourth chapter treats of “ The Mor- latter course ; and here, as elsewhere, science has simply phology of the Common Crayfish: the Structure and followed and improved upon common sense. the Development of the Individual"; and the fifth ian artisans are under no particular necessity to discuss

Moreover, while English, French, German, and Italof the “ Comparative Morphology of the Crayfish: the processes and results of their business with one anthe Structure and Development of the Crayfish com- other, science is cosmopolitan, and the difficulties of the pared with those of other Living Beings." Then study of zoology would be prodigiously increased, if zocomes, in the sixth chapter, a discussion of the geo- ologists of different nationalities used different technical graphical distribution of the crayfish, followed by a terms for the same thing. They need a universal lansummary of what is known and may legitimately be guage; and it has been found convenient that the lanconjectured concerning the ætiology (or origin) of guage shall be Latin in form, and Latin or Greek in the crayfishes. A few notes at the end treat of French ; Flusskrebs in German ; Cammaro or Gambaro

origin. in English is Crayfish, is Ecrevisse in * The Crayfish. An Introduction to the Study of in Italian ; but the zoologist of each nationality knows Zoology. By T. H. Huxley, F. R. S. With Eighty-two that, in the scientific works of all the rest, he shall find Illustrations. Vol. xxviii. International Scientific Se- what he wants to read under the head of Astacus fluviaries. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo, pp. 371. tilis.

ha

But, granting the expediency of a technical name for crayfishes which are found in the fresh waters of the the crayfish, why should that name be double? The southern hemisphere, and which differ from the Engreply is still, practical convenience.

If there are ten lish crayfish still more widely than do the American children of one family, we do not call them all Smith, kinds; and then adds : because such a procedure would not help us to distinguish one from the other ; nor do we call them simply

The southern crayfishes, like those of the northern John, James, Peter, William, and so on, for that would hemisphere, are divisible into many species; and these not help us to identify them as one family. So we give species are susceptible of being grouped into six genera them all two names, one indicating their close relation,

.. on the same principle as that which has led to the and the other their separate individuality—as John Smith, grouping of the northern forms into two genera. But James Smith, Peter Smith, William Smith, etc. The the same convenience which has led to the association of same thing is done in zoölogy; only, in accordance with

groups of similar species into genera has given rise to the genius of the Latin language, we put the Christian the combination of allied genera into higher groups, name, so to speak, after the surname.

which are termed families. It is obvious that the defini

tion of a family, as a statement of the characters in which In the same line and equally useful is the expla

a certain number of genera agree, is another morphologination given in a later chapter of the proper mean

cal abstraction, which stands in the same relation to geing of those much-debated and seldom-understood neric as generic do to specific abstractions. Moreover, terms, “species," "genus," and "samily." After an the definition of the family is a statement of the plan of extremely minute description of the common Eng- all the genera comprised in that family. lish crayfish, the author says:

It will be seen by the attentive reader that this The importance of this long enumeration of minute involves much more than a mere definition of certain details will appear by and by. It is simply a statement scientific terms. If accepted as correct, it really set. of the more obvious external characters in which all the tles one of the crucial questions at issue between the English crayfishes which have come under my notice advocates of evolution and the upholders of the docagree. No one of these individual crayfishes was ex

trine of special creations. And it may be added that, actly like the other; and, to give an account of any single at many points, the book trenches upon this debatcrayfish as it existed in nature, its special peculiarities able land of science, some of whose problems are must be added to the list of characters given above; which, considered with the facts of structure discussed encountered at almost every stage in the study of in previous chapters, constitutes a definition, or diagno- zoology. Any close examination of the comparative sis, of the Englisn kind, or species, of crayfish. It fol- anatomy of the crayfish reveals the fact that one lows that the species, regarded as the sum of the mor- “plan of organization” is common to a multitude of phological characters in question and nothing else, does animals of extremely diverse outward forms and hab. not exist in nature ; but that it is an abstraction, obtained its. Remarking upon this, Professor Huxley says : by separating the structural characters in which the actual existences—the individual crayfishes-agree from those Nothing would be easier, were the occasion fitting, in which they differ, and neglecting the latter. A dia than to extend this method of comparison to the whole gram, embodying the totality of the structural characters of the several thousand species of crab-like, crayfish-like, thus determined by observation to be common to all our or prawn-like animals, which, from the fact that they all crayfishes, might be constructed ; and it would be a pic- have their eyes set upon movable stalks, are termed the ture of nothing which ever existed in nature; though it Podophthalmia, or stalk-eyed Crustacea; and by arguwould serve as a very complete plan of the structure of ments of similar force to prove that they are all modifiall the crayfishes which are to be found in this country. cations of the same common plan. Not only so, but the The morphological definition of a species is, in fact, no- sand-hoppers of the seashore, the wood-lice of the land, thing but a description of the plan of structure which and the water-fleas or the monoculi of the ponds, nay, characterizes all the individuals of that species.

even such remote forms as the barnacles which adhere to

floating wood, and the acorn-shells which crowd every This is followed by a description of the Califor- inch of rock on many of our coasts, reveal the same funnian and other species of crayfish, in so far as they damental organization. Further than this, the spiders differ from the English species; and then comes the and the scorpions, the millipeds and the centipeds, and following passage :

the multitudinous legions of the insect world, show us,

amid infinite diversity of detail, nothing which is new in All the individual crayfish referred to thus far have principle to any one who has mastered the morphology been sorted out, first into the groups termed species; of the crayfish. Given a body divided into somites, each and then these species have been further sorted into two with a pair of appendages; and given the power to divisions, termed genera. Each genus is an abstraction, modify those somites and their appendages in strict acformed by summing up the common characters of the cordance with the principles by which the common plan species which it includes, just as each species is an ab- of the Podophthalmia is modified in the actually existing straction, composed of the common characters of the in- members of the order; and the whole of the Arthropoda, dividuals which belong to it; and the one has no more which probably make up two thirds of the animal world, existence in nature than the other. The definition of might readily be educed from one primitive form. the genus is simply a statement of the plan of structure which is common to all the species included under that Nor does the apparent unity of animated nature genus; just as the definition of the species is a statement cease when the entire animal kingdom has been inof the common plan of structure which runs throughout cluded : the individuals which compose the species.

The most cursory examination of any of the higher Pursuing his exposition, the author mentions plants shows that the vegetable, like the animal body, is made up of various kinds of tissues, such as pith, woody view of the possible relations between men and wofiber, spiral vessels, ducts, and so on. But even the

men- to enable Mr. James to write the closing most modified forms of vegetable tissue depart so little chapters of his story with such serene unconsciousfrom the type of the simple cell (which Professor Huxley ness of there being anything unusual or unnatural elsewhere defines as a particle of simple living matter, or protoplasm, in the midst of which is a rounded body the situation is scarcely complicated enough to pique

about them. To the experienced Parisian, perhaps, termed a nucleus], that the reduction of them all to a common type is suggested still more strongly than in the the attention ; but, to the unsophisticated and some. case of the animal fabric. And thus the nucleated cell what prudish Saxon imagination there is something appears to be the morphological unit of the plant no less repellent and distasteful in the attitude of the sev. than of the animal. Moreover, recent inquiry has shown eral parties toward one another just before the event that, in the course of the multiplication of vegetable cells which makes every one happy ever after. by division, the nuclear spindles may appear and run Another comment which “ Confidence" seems to through all their remarkable changes by stages precisely suggest is, that Mr. James is losing his hold more similar to those which occur in animals.

The question of the universal presence of nuclei in cells and more upon the solid realities and permanent inmay be left open in the case of plants, as in that of ani

terests of life. “Roderick Hudson presented a mals; but, speaking generally, it may justly be affirmed group of clearly defined and persectly intelligible that the nucleated cell is the morphological foundation of characters in a situation which, if unusual, was at both divisions of the living world; and the great general- least easily conceived and ardently sympathized ization of Schleiden and Schwann, that there is a funda- with. In “ The American,” the characters deviated mental agreement in structure and development between

more widely from the ordinary types, and the situaplants and animals, has, in substance, been merely con

tion was almost grotesquely artificial; while in “ The firmed and illustrated by the labors of the half century Europeans" the incongruousness and lack of adwhich has elapsed since its promulgation.

justment between the leading characters and their We have exhausted our space without finding room surroundings constituted the main interest of the for all (or even nearly all) of the striking passages story. In “ Confidence” the characters are intelliwhich we had marked ; but those we have quoted gible enough and inspire a sympathetic interest ; but will suffice to show how important, and how varied they are curiously disconnected from all those inciin interest, are the subjects which the book dis. dents, attachments, and surroundings which serve to cusses. It only remains to add that the volume is give background and reality to a character. They copiously and admirably illustrated-quite a number seem to be moving in a sort of vacuum ; and no opof the eighty-two engravings being, as Professor portunity is afforded for that association of ideas, so Huxley says in his preface, “ excellent specimens of

to call it, by which we identify and localize a perthe xylographic art.”

son, whether in real life or in fiction.

The truth is, that Mr. James has confined himself

of late to the study and portraiture of dilettanti It is not only in the incisiveness and subtilty of lives of dilettanti. To such, of course, it is not

leading more or less consciously the vacant, detached his criticism that Mr. Henry James, Jr., shows the given to scale the heights or to penetrate the depths effects of his French studies and Parisian experi- of life, or even to march sanely along those broad ences. These effects are hardly more traceable in levels which are interesting because of the countless his essays on the French poets and novelists than in numbers of human creatures who must tread them. his more distinctly creative and original work, and for this reason, the artist who deals with them must it must be admitted that they are more conspicuous avoid all definite and pronounced colors, all conthan ever in his latest, and in some respects best, trasts of light and shade, all depth of tone or energy novel, “ Confidence."* We are not going to impair of expression. And this is the reason why Mr. the reader's enjoyment of this piquant and graceful James's love-and he is always dealing more or less story by revealing its plot or dénouement ; but we shall make no unfair disclosures if we say that the directly with love and love-making — is a pallid, situation at the close is decidedly“ French” in char. bloodless, conversational sort of an emotion, which

never really agitates or dominates the man or woman acter and manner. There is nothing specifically into whose consciousness it is supposed to insinuate objectionable about it, certainly nothing “immoral,” itself. No doubt much refinement of art may be as the phrase goes ; yet the unassisted Teutonic im- displayed in portraying such persons and their miagination would hardly have conceived quite such a complication or exactly such a method of disentan. licu; but, after a prolonged diet of them, one feels as

a

if he would gladly exchange them all for one single glement. It is said that in the most elevated stratum of French society, a certain surprise, not unmin. broadly human Jeems Yellowplush or Matilda Ann. gled with amusement, is felt at finding that a man is In thinking of this, a passage from one of Charles in love with his own wife instead of with somebody Dickens's recently published " Letters” rises unbidelse's. This sentiment by no means finds expression its brevity," he says, “and the world and its vari

den in the memory: “The more we see of life and in “ Confidence"; and yet it required a certain easy eties, the more we know that no exercise of our fumiliarity with this sentiment - with the French

abilities in any art, but the addressing of it to the * Confidence. A Novel. By Henry James, Jr. Bos- great ocean of humanity in which we are drops, and ton: Houghton, Osgood & Co. 12mo, pp. 347. not to by-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever will lay the foundations of an endurable own testimony, but to distrust in a measure the perretrospect.” Not only so, but there is no other solid sonality that inspired it. We feel that, if the influfoundation for a genuine and enduring fame. ence of Lamartine had been thoroughly wholesome,

If the foregoing appears to the reader to have it should have tempered and restrained the enthusitaken a too fault-finding tone, it is all the more in- astic vagaries of the devotee. cumbent upon us to say that no defects that may be And this leads us to the remark (which M. de pointed out in Mr. James's work can or should pre- Lacretelle would probably attribute to our Saxon vent cultivated readers from deriving from it a very obtuseness and lack of sympathy) that, in our opinrefined and exquisite enjoyment. Regarded as what ion—an opinion that is confirmed rather than refuted Matthew Arnold calls “an artist in words,” Mr. by the disclosures of the present work—there was James seems to us entitled to perhaps the highest something hopelessly shallow, and vain, and theatrirank among contemporary novelists who use the cal about Lamartine's character. Standing in his English language as a vehicle of expression; and in own eyes, at least, and in those of his friends) on the this respect “Confidence " is a distinct advance upon topmost pinnacle of Parnassus, he permitted himself its predecessors. There are passages, sentences, and to envy the laurels of the statesman, and was never phrases in it which are literally too good to be im- content until he had descended into the miasmatic bedded in a narrative the interest of which is likely marshes of politics ; having undermined and shaken to distract the attention from everything else ; and down the throne, he lost faith in and denounced the the entire work bears testimony to the conscientious republic as soon as he discovered that he himself painstaking of a writer who respects himself and his was not to be its leader; and, while squandering an readers too much not to take the trouble to present ample fortune, and bringing those dependent upon them with the finished fabric instead of the raw ma- him to penury, he never ceased avowing his convicterial of the novelist's art.

tion that Providence had designed him for a financier. He resembled Goldsmith in the heedless profusion

of his expenditure and giving, but he lacked that One of the most curious and characteristic phe- charming simplicity of character which endears nomena of French social life is the extravagance of Goldsmith to us through his very faults. Goldsmith homage that is offered at the shrine of a successful squandered by reason of weaknesses which are almost littérateur or man of letters, not only by his followers amiable in their unselfishness: Lamartine squandered and disciples, but by that portion of the public because he considered profusion becoming in a Lawhich in other countries reserves its admiration for martine, and because he felt a proud consciousness more showy if not more vulgar forms of success.

that the world owed Lamartine whatever portion of The victorious general or the “eminent statesman

its lucre he might choose to demand. secures nothing in the way of public recognition

It follows, of course, that the more intimate the that can be compared with the sort of idolatrous wor

disclosures concerning such a character and life, the ship inspired by a Chateaubriand, a Lamartine, or a

less likely they are to please; and, certainly, M. de LaHugo ; and the two latter may be said to have made cretelle's reminiscences of Lamartine will have a very the nearest approach that our modern modes of different effect, outside of France at least, from what thinking will permit to that deification during life he seems to anticipate. It should be said, however, which the Roman world reserved for its Cæsars.

that part of the unsatisfactoriness of the work is due to There is an admirable side to this, of course, and a

the author's own point of view and faults of method. Frenchman is entirely justified in regarding it as a

It seems impossible for a French biographer to set testimony to his higher civilization that his profound down, with the necessary candor and impartiality, est homage is reserved for achievements of the those minute personal details and items of talk and mind; but there is a side of it which is not admi- correspondence which give their chief charm to the rable, and this side seems to be reached when the best English works in this field : he idealizes the attitudes and the phrases that are graceful enough, thing is made to vindicate or illustrate the ideal so

character which he undertakes to portray, and everyperhaps, in the salon or the sanctum of the poet, are

formed. carried into the cooler atmosphere and calmer moods

This fault is very conspicuous in M. de which should “assist” at the making of a book. Lacretelle's reminiscences of Lamartine and his M. Henri de Lacretelle was the life-long friend and friends, and is sufficient to render the book a disapdisciple of Lamartine, and one turns with the zest of pointing one, even when we acquit the author of anticipated enjoyment to the confidences he has those awkwardnesses and infelicities of language chosen to impart concerning “ Lamartine and his

which are probably due to lack of skill on the part

of his translator. Friends";* but when we find him speaking of Lamartine as "an Olympian god ” and “a second Plato," and declaring that “there ought to be a Bible written on the Acts of Lamartine," we are led MR. FROUDE's early training and experience as not merely to question the validity of the author's a theologian would necessarily prove very useful to

him in such a task as writing the life of John Bun* Lamartine and his friends. By Henri de Lacre- yan; and the book in which he has written it might telle. Translated from the French by Maria E. Odell. fairly puzzle a cataloguer who guided himself by the New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 16mo, pp. 329. contents of a volume rather than by its title in decid.

a

ing whether to place it under theology or biography.* ter on “ The Holy War" criticism rises almost to Indeed, worthy of consideration as is anything that the dignity of creative work; and, even with Southey Mr. Froude might have to say upon such a subject, and Macaulay in mind, one can confidently say that there is a trifle more of theological exposition and the chapter on “ The Pilgrim's Progress" is as fine disquisition in the book than most readers will think as anything that has been written on that prolific and quite fair. No doubt, in order to understand Bun- inspiring theme. yan's character and career, it is absolutely necessary to know something of the religious conditions under

The opportunity which the South affords to the which he lived ; and, in order to grasp these, it is

genuine artist, in its picturesque scenery, its quaint indispensable that something should be learned regarding the beliefs and hopes and fears that shaped and individual types of character

, is strikingly illus

customs and traditions, and its curiously definite and colored these conditions. Still, granting all this, and conceding further, that a mere narrative of the trated by Miss Constance Fenimore Woolson, in her

“ Southern Sketches." * Most of the stories which events and description of the outward circumstances the volume contains are already known, probably, to of Bunyan's life would go but a little way toward the readers of magazines—four of them having apexplaining what Bunyan really was, and how he

peared in this Journal, and the rest in “Harper's," came to be what he was, such a chapter as that on

“Scribner's,” “ Lippincott's,” and the “Atlantic"; “Conviction of Sin" seems a little out of place in a

but the author has judged wisely in bringing them brief biography intended for popular use, and gives the impression that Mr. Froude has used his theme together in such shape that they not only stand a

better chance of being permanently preserved, but as a pretext for ventilating his thoughts on a range get the benefit of the cumulative impression which of topics much wider than the theme itself quite jus- they make upon the reader when read consecutively tified.

one after the other, with no breaking in of irrelevant With this limitation-if that can be called a limitation which some readers will regard as the chief matter. Read in this manner it is seen that, while merit of the book—Mr. Froude's study of Bunyan is each story is complete in itself, a certain identity of one of the most profoundly interesting and touching relation between them is much closer than is implied

motive and purpose pervades them all, and that the of the little volumes that have been contributed to by a mere similarity of subject. That motive may the series to which it belongs. Bunyan's character be described as not merely the artist's impulse to and career can never have been attractive in the utilize excellent“ material,” but the nobler wish to sense of being pleasing, and, fortunately or unfortu- interpret the North and the South to each other. nately, the world has completely outgrown all sym. Though a Northerner by birth and feeling, Miss pathy with the dominant motives that shaped them; Woolson has resided in the South during the greater but interest of a certain kind must always attach to the man “whose writings have for two centuries af- part of the past six ycars, and the stories themselves fected the spiritual opinions of the English race in show how keenly alive she was to "the inward charm

of that beautiful land which the writer has learned every part of the world more powerfully than any

to love, and from which she now severs herself with book or books, except the Bible"; and the fascination possessed by the narrative of the “ Pilgrim's dor, the squalor, the beauty, the luxuriance, the pas

true regret.” The pathos, the pitifulness, the splenProgress" belongs also to the spiritual experiences sionate ardor, and the romantic charm of the South of which that narrative is an almost exact record. It is to these spiritual experiences that the bio- doxical qualities are depicted can hardly be over

are in them; and the skill with which these paragraphical portion of Mr. Froude's work is mainly

praised. The little book deserves a place on the confined. To the mere outward circumstances and

same shelf with Bret Harte's California Sketches and events he gives as little attention as Bunyan himself Mr. Cable's Creole Stories; and, taken together, they could have desired; but ample space is assigned to suffice to show that American life is not really defithe delineation of those“ tumults of the soul" through cient in material for such artists as have the insight which Bunyan developed from a profane swearer and to perceive and the skill to utilize them. religion-contemner to a participation in what he called

.... To write a book which shall be sufficiently "the grace and life that is by Christ in His Gospel," and to such a vivid sense of the awful reality of the to serve as a text-book for the schoolroom, and yet

systematic in arrangement and exact in statement, scheme of salvation, as offered by Protestant Christianity, that he became the most successful propa- reader-this is the task assigned to the authors who

interesting enough to attract and please the general gandist of the faith among the common people that contribute to Mr. Green's series of “Classical Writthe world has known since Luther. Much space is also assigned to a descriptive all the requirements of the task in his little mono

ers"; and Professor Nettleship has happily fulfilled analysis of Bunyan's less known works-his poems, “ The Life and Death of Mr. Badman," and "The graph on “Vergil.” + Much more, indeed, will be Holy War"--and here Mr. Froude's exquisite skill

*“Rodman the Keeper : Southern Sketches." Ry

Constance Fenimore Woolson. New York: D. Applein narrative appears to best advantage. In the chap