'Seize by its horns the shaggy Past,
Full of uncleanness.'
A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON MIDWIFERY. By M. CHAILLY, M. D., Professor of
Midwifery, etc., etc. With two hundred and sixteen wood-cuts.
Translated from the French, and edited by Dr. GUNNING S. BEDFORD, of
the University of New-York. In one volume. pp. 530. HARPER AND
BROTHERS.
This work comes to us under the fairest auspices. The author, M. CHAILLY,
is a distinguished Parisian lecturer on Obstetrics, a pupil of the eminent
PAUL DUBOIS, of the University of Paris, and generally recognized as the
exponent of the views of that celebrated _accoucheur_. By all who are
familiar (and who of the medical world is not?) with the high reputation
of DUBOIS for sound medical philosophy and unbounded practical knowledge,
it has been long regretted that the just opinions he so eloquently
promulgates in the lecture-room have never assumed the diffusible shape of
a printed book. M. CHAILLY, in the work before us, supplies us with that
which has been so much desired, and which Prof. DUBOIS himself, from some
cause not easily appreciated, has so long withheld from the world. The
Parisian board of public instruction has moreover stamped the work of M.
CHAILLY with their approbation, and fixed it as the standard text-book of
the French medical schools. This is a promise of excellence which a
diligent perusal of the work will fully confirm. Professor BEDFORD, the
American translator, who has performed his duty as might be expected from
his high character and prominent position, as Professor of the flourishing
medical school of the University of New-York, felt the want of a good
text-book for the student, and a sound practical guide for the physician,
and has exhibited a sound judgment in this selection to supply that want.
The work of VELPEAU, hitherto unquestionably the most popular book with
the medical profession, is diffuse and speculative. The present work is
direct, concise, and complete. Dr. BEDFORD has enriched the original with
copious notes, the result of his own extensive experience and observation.
The publishers have performed their duty well, in presenting the work in a
handsome library form; and it is only the very extensive business
facilities of the MESSRS. HARPERS that could afford so full and well
illustrated a _scientific_ book at so reasonable a price.
THE LITERARY REMAINS OF THE LATE WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK: including the
'OLLAPODIANA' papers, 'The Spirit of Life,' and a choice Selection
from his Miscellaneous Prose and Poetical Writings. With a Memoir of
the Author. Edited by LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK. Complete in five Numbers of
ninety-six pages each. New-York: BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY.
It does not become us, perhaps, to enlarge upon the merits of this work,
the character of which is known to many of our readers. As there are
_other_ many of them, however, who may not be conversant with much of the
prose which makes up a large portion of its contents--having become
subscribers to this Magazine since the 'Ollapodiana' papers and the other
prose miscellanies appeared in its pages--we shall venture to present a
few extracts, and to preface them with the following remarks of the able
Editor of the _United States Gazette_, of Philadelphia, upon the writer's
merits; praise, we may add, which has been confirmed by the kindred
commendation of almost every journal in the Union: 'Messrs. BURGESS,
STRINGER AND COMPANY, of New-York, have commenced the publication, in a
series of numbers, of the Literary Remains of WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. The
first number has been for some days upon our table, and after a
biographical notice of the author, contains a portion of the
'_Ollapodiana_,' those admirable papers furnished for the KNICKERBOCKER.
Almost every body, who read five years ago, knows the _beauties_ of
CLARK'S composition. They are permanent beauties; beauties that always are
to be found by those who ever had taste to admire them. They are not
dependant upon a jingle of words for temporary popularity; they appeal
from the heart to the heart, in language that knows no variation of time.
They express sentiments that are permanent, feelings common to mankind;
and those who would profit by a delicate delineation of the affections of
the human heart, will love the poetry of CLARK. Those who would have a
broader seal set upon manners, and the peculiarities of the mind set forth
in pleasant grotesqueness, will smile at the 'Ollapodiana.' But all will
profit by _all_; and we regard it as a literary obligation conferred upon
the age, and carrying with it a moral obligation also, to multiply the
copies of such writings as CLARK prepared. We express not our feelings,
when we write of CLARK as an author. There are some of us who knew his
heart better than he did, and who have never forgotten his worth. These
monuments, that are erected to his fame from his own works, like the
trophies of victory, moulded to a triumphal pillar, denote public respect.
Individual feeling loves a silent flow, that is constant and hearty.'
If the reader has had the fortune to travel in a canal-packet, in the
summer solstice, he will readily recognize the faithfulness of the
following picture:
'At first, when you embark, all seems fair; the eleemosynary
negro, who vexes his clarionet, and governs its tuneful ventiges,
to pay for his passage, seems a very Apollo to your ear; the
appointments of the boat appear ample; a populous town slowly
glides from your view, and you feel quite comfortable and
contented. As yet, you have not gone below. 'Things above' attract
your attention--some pretty point of landscape, or distant
steeple, shining among the summer trees. Anon, the scenery becomes
tame, and you descend. A feeling comes over you as you draw your
first breath in the cabin, which impels to the holding of your
nose. The cabin is full; you have hit your head twice against the
ceiling thereof, and stumbled sundry times against the seats at
the side. Babies, vociferous babies, are playing with their
mothers' noses, or squalling in appalling concert. If you stir,
your foot treads heavily upon the bulbous toes of some recumbent
passenger; if you essay to sleep, the gabble of those around you,
or the noisy gurgle of a lock, arouses you to consciousness; and
then, if you are of that large class of persons in whom the old
Adam is not entirely crucified, then you _swear_. Have you any
desire for literary entertainment? Approach the table. There shall
you find sundry tracts; a copy of the Temperance Recorder;
Goldsmith's Animated Nature, and Plutarch's Lives. By and by
dinner approaches: and oh! how _awful_ the suspense between the
hours of preparation and realization! Slowly, and one by one, the
dishes appear. At long intervals, or spaces of separation from
each other--say five for the whole length of the boat--you behold
tumblers arranged, with two forlorn radishes in each. The butter
lies like gravy in the plate; the malodorous passengers of the
masculine gender draw nigh to the scanty board; the captain comes
near, to act _his_ oft-repeated part, as President of the day. Oh,
gracious! 'tis a scene of enormous cry and scanty wool. It
mendicants description. · · · But the grand charm and scene of
a canal packet is in the evening. You go below, and there you
behold a hot and motley assemblage. A kind of stillness begins to
reign around. It seems as if a protracted meeting were about to
commence. Clergymen, capitalists, long-sided merchants, who have
come from far, green-horns, taking their first experience of the
wonders of the deep on the _canawl_, all these are huddled
together in wild and inexplicable confusion. By and by the captain
takes his seat, and the roll of berths is called. Then, what
confusion! Layer upon layer of humanity is suddenly shelved for
the night; and in the preparation, what a world of bustle is
required! Boots are released from a hundred feet, and their owners
deposit them wherever they can. There was one man, OLLAPOD beheld
him, who pulled off the boots of another person, thinking the
while--mistaken individual!--that he was disrobing his own
shrunken legs of their leathern integuments, so thick were the
limbs and feet that steamed and moved round about. Another
tourist, fat, oily and round who had bribed the steward for two
chairs placed by the side of his berth, whereon to rest his
abdomen, amused the assembly by calling out; 'Here, waiter! bring
me another pillow! I have got the ear-ache, and have put the first
one into my ear!' Thus wore the hours away. Sleep, you cannot.
Feeble moschetoes, residents in the boat, whose health suffers
from the noisome airs they are nightly compelled to breathe, do
their worst to annoy you; and then, Phoebus Apollo! how the
sleepers snore! There is every variety of this music, from the low
wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian grunt of the corpulent
and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its tuneful oratory, until
the place is vocal. Some communicative free-thinkers talk in their
sleep, and altogether, they make a concerto and a diapason equal
to that which Milton speaks of, when through the sonorous organ
'from many a row of pipes, the sound-board breathes.' At last,
morning dawns; you ascend into pure air, with hair unkempt, body
and spirit unrefreshed, and show yourself to the people of some
populous town into which you are entering, as you wash your face
in canal water on deck, from a hand basin! It is a scene, I say
again, take it for all in all, that throws description upon the
parish, and makes you a pauper in words. '_Ohe jam satis!_'
Let the old bachelor, who 'longs but fears to marry,' perpend the annexed
invitation to matrimony:
'Some of my contemporaries have supposed that the estate of a
Benedict forbiddeth the resident therein to disport himself as
aforetime, in the flowery fields of fancy, and to ambulate at
random through the remembered groves of the academy, or the rich
gardens of imaginative delight. Verily this is not so. To the
right-minded man, all these enjoyments are increased; the ties
that bind him to earth are strengthened and multiplied: he
anticipates new affections and pleasures, which your cold
individual, careering _solus_ through a vale of tears, with no one
to share with him his gouts of optical salt water, wots not of. As
a beloved friend once said unto me: 'When a good man weds, as when
he dies, angels lead his spirit into a quiet land, full of
holiness and peace; full of all pleasant sights, and 'beautiful
exceedingly.' One's dreams may not all be realized, for _dreams_
never are; but the reality will differ from, and be a thousand
fold sweeter, than any dreams; those shadowy and impalpable though
gorgeous entities, that flit over the twilight of the soul, after
the sun of judgment has set. I never hear of a friend having
accomplished hymenization, without sending after him a world of
good wishes and honest prayers. Amid the ambition, the
selfishness, the heartless jostlinq with the world, which every
son of Adam is obliged more or less to encounter, it is no common
blessing to retire therefrom into the calm recesses of domestic
existence, and to feel around your temples the airs that are
wafted from fragrant wings of the Spirit of Peace, soft as the
breath which curled the crystal light
----'of Zion's fountains,
When love, and hope, and joy were hers,
And beautiful upon her mountains,
The feet of angel messengers.'
No common boon is it--we speak in the rich sentence of a German
writer--to enjoy 'a look into a pure loving eye; a word without
falseness, from a bride without guile; and close beside you in the
still watches of the night, a soft-breathing breast, in which
there is nothing but paradise, a sermon, and a midnight prayer!'
Here is a specimen of 'the show-man's trick,' which, as old MATTHEWS used
to say, 'made a great laugh at the time:'
'It is diverting in the extreme to observe the pompous
grandiloquence in the advertisements of the amusement-furnishing
public, about Christmas and New-Year. Sublimity glares from the
theatrical hand-bill, and the menagerie _affiche_. Curiosities,
then, have a 'most magnanimous value.' I remember, not long ago,
that I desired a lovely lady, a French countess, to accompany me
to a Zoological Institute, to behold _an American Eagle_. I was
pleased at the expressed wish which led me to make the invitation,
and proud of the prospect of showing a living emblem of our
country's insignia to one who felt an interest in the subject. The
bills of the institute set forth, that 'the grand Columbia's Eagle
was the monarch of its tribe, measuring an unprecedented length
from the tip of one wing to the other, in full plumage and vigor.'
The countess had never seen but one eagle, in the _Jardin des
Plantes_ at Paris, and that was a small one, and ungrown; so that
her anticipations of novelty were as great as mine. We went, and
with interesting expectancy, asked of the president of the
institute, who was engaged in the noble pursuit of feeding a sick
baboon with little slips of cold pork, to discover to us
'Columbia's eagle.' He marshalled us to the other end of the
institute, past the cages of lions, bears, libbards, and other
animals--among which was a singular _quadruped_, with six legs--to
the cage of the eagle. 'There,' he exclaimed, with professional
monotony, 'there _is_ the proud bird _of_ our country, that _was_
caught _in_ the West, and _has_ been thought to have killed many
animals _in_ his life-time. He _was_ five hours and twenty-three
minutes _in_ being put into the cage, _so_ strong _was_ his wings.
Look at him _clus_. He'll bear inspection. Jist obsarve the keen
_irish_ of his eye.'
'An involuntary and hearty laugh from us both, followed the sight,
and the announcement. It was a dismal looking bird, about the size
of a goodly owl, with a crest-fallen aspect, the feathers of the
tail and wings dwindled to a few ragged quills; and the shivering
fowl, standing on one leg, looked with a vacant, spectral eye at
his visitors. Nothing could be so perfectly burlesque, and we
enjoyed it deeply and long. I shall never be deceived by
show-bills again.'
The following must close our quotations. We venture to say that it
describes a scene which many a reader has more than once witnessed:
'Talking of a man's making a hero of himself, reminds me of an old
friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about fights
and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always makes his
hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect to what he
is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour,
when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and
you could scarcely turn, for the people. The old fellow fixed his
eye on me; there was a fatal fascination in it. Getting off
without recognition, would have been unpardonable disrespect. In a
moment, his finger was in my button-hole, and his rheumy optics
glittering with the satisfaction of your true _bore_, when he has
met with an unresisting subject. I listened to his common-places
with the utmost apparent satisfaction. Directly, he began to speak
of an altercation which he once had with an officer in the navy.
He was relating the _particulars_. 'Some words,' said he,
'occurred between _him_ and _me_. Now you know that he is a much
younger man than I am; in fact, about _your_ age. Well, he '_made
use of an expression_' which I did not exactly like. Says I to
him, says I, 'What do you mean by that?' 'Why,' says he to me,
says he, 'I mean just what I say.' Then I began to burn. There was
an impromptu elevation of my personal dandriff, which was
unaccountable. I didn't waste words on him; I just took him in
this way,' (here the old _spooney_ suited the action to the word,
by seizing the collar of my coat, before the assemblage,) 'and
says I to him, says I, 'You infernal scoundrel, I will punish you
for your insolence on the spot!' and the manner in which I shook
him (just in _this_ way) was really a warning to a person
similarly situated.'
'I felt myself at this moment in a beautiful predicament; in the
midst of a large congregation of business people; an old
gray-headed man hanging, with an indignant look, at my
coat-collar; and a host of persons looking on. The old fellow's
face grew redder every minute; but perceiving that he was
observed, he lowered his voice in the _detail_, while he lifted it
in the worst places of his colloquy. 'You infernal scoundrel, and
caitiff, and villain,' says I, 'what do you mean, to insult an
elderly person like myself, in a public place like this?' and
then, said he, lowering his malapropos voice, 'then I shook him,
_so_.'
'Here he pushed me to and fro, with his septuagenarian gripe on my
collar, as if instead of a patient much bored _friend_, I was his
deadly enemy. When he let go, I found myself in a _ring_ of
spectators. 'Shame, shame! to insult an old man like him!' was the
general cry. 'Young puppy!' said an elderly merchant, whose good
opinion was my heart's desire, 'what excuse have you for your
conduct?'
'Thus was I made a martyr to my good feelings. I have never
recovered from the stigma of that interview. I have been pointed
at in the street by persons who have said as I passed them,
'That's the young chap that insulted old General ----, at the
Exchange!'
We should not omit to state that the publishers have done ample justice to
the work. It is beautifully stereotyped and printed upon new type and fine
white paper, and the numbers are enclosed in very neat and tasteful
covers. The work we are glad to say meets with a liberal and constant
sale.
ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. In a Series of Letters. By J. T. HEADLEY. In
one volume, pp. 64. New-York: I. S. PLATT.
Mr. PLATT has commenced a series of publications, at a moderate price,
which should secure a liberal share of the public favor. These 'Letters,'
which form the initial number, are replete with interest. Many of them
appeared in the original foreign correspondence of the '_Tribune_' daily
journal, where they excited the admiration of the press, and 'the people'
whom the press represents; but a large portion now see the light for the
first time. Mr. HEADLEY has not given us, in tiresome detail, minute
descriptions of galleries of art and public edifices; although his
description of St. Peter's at Rome, (a 'nice building, with a dome
handsomely scooped out,') is the most vivid picture of that world-renowned
structure that we ever perused. He has wisely chosen rather to illustrate
the people and country by things perhaps trifling in themselves, but which
give to the reader a constant succession of 'sketches from Nature,' which
are not only very pleasant to read, but which it is quite evident are
exceedingly faithful. 'The condition of the people,' in short, 'occupies
more space than the condition of art, simply because the latter is well
known, while the former is almost wholly neglected.' Briefly, for 'brief
must we be,' the book affords what Mrs. RAMSBOTTOM would call 'a supreme
_cow-dyle_' (coup d'oeil) of 'Italy and the Italians,' and is presented in
a dress worthy of its internal merits.