The Correspondence and Diaries of John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830; a Founder and for Many Years a Chief Contributor to the Quarterly Review; and the Political, Literary or Personal Associate of Nearly All the Leading Characters in the Life of his Time. Edited by Louis J. Jennings. With portrait. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

John Wilson Croker was one of the most noted men of his day, not perhaps to the world at large, but to those who knew him in the important relations he bore to the many distinguished personages of his era. He knew everybody worth knowing; he was often in the secret councils of the great; he had an official position of great confidence; he was a literary man of brilliant ability which he, however, sometimes used unscrupulously; he was the principal power in one of the great English reviews, which fifty years ago were formidable agencies in making and unmaking men and opinions. These things make his reminiscences highly fascinating. He takes us into the best company, Wellington, Canning, Lyndhurst, Peel, Lord Ashburton, Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, Guizot, Metternich, Sir Walter Scott, Isaac D’Israeli, Lockhart, Madame de StaËl and innumerable others of similar celebrity. It need hardly be said that personal information, anecdotes and gossip about such people, who filled a large place in the public eye and mind, are all very fascinating. So we find, on opening these thick volumes anywhere, a mine of the deepest interest, and one can hardly go astray in turning over the pages. There can be no doubt that aside from the personal interest of these reminiscences, they constitute material of the richest character to the early history of our century. The only way properly to represent the value of such a work, is to give extracts from it indicating its quality, and this we shall propose to do. Among the things to which we shall first call attention, are the conversations with the Duke of Wellington, taken down as they occurred. The Iron Duke expressed the following opinion of his great antagonist, Napoleon, whom it seems he thoroughly despised as a man, however much he admitted his military genius: “I never was a believer in him, and I always thought that in the long-run we should overturn him. He never seemed himself at his ease, and even in the boldest things he did there was always a mixture of apprehension and meanness. I used to call him Jonathan Wild the Great, and at each new coup he made I used to cry out ‘Well done, Jonathan,’ to the great scandal of some of my hearers. But, the truth was, he had no more care about what was right or wrong, just or unjust, honorable or dishonorable, than Jonathan, though his great abilities, and the great stakes he played for, threw the knavery into the shade.” Again, he tells the following of Napoleon: “Buonaparte’s mind was, in its details, low and ungentlemanlike. I suppose the narrowness of his early prospects and habits stuck to him; what we understand by gentlemanlike feelings he knew nothing at all about; I’ll give you a curious instance.

“I have a beautiful little watch, made by Breguet, at Paris, with a map of Spain most admirably enamelled on the case. Sir Edward Paget bought it at Paris, and gave it to me. What do you think the history of this watch was—at least the history that Breguet told Paget, and Paget told me? Buonaparte had ordered it as a present to his brother, the King of Spain, but when he heard of the battle of Vittoria—he was then at Dresden in the midst of all the preparations and negotiations of the armistice, and one would think sufficiently busy with other matters—when he heard of the battle of Vittoria, I say, he remembered the watch he had ordered for one whom he saw would never be King of Spain, and with whom he was angry for the loss of the battle, and he wrote from Dresden to countermand the watch, and if it should be ready, to forbid its being sent. The best apology one can make for this strange littleness is, that he was offended with Joseph; but even in that case, a gentleman would not have taken the moment when the poor devil had lost his chÂteaux en Espagne, to take away his watch also.”

In a letter to Croker, the duke tells the story of the truth of his order to the Household troops at Waterloo, “Up, Guards, and at ’em,” so often quoted as the mot d’ordre of that famous charge which finally decided the day: “I certainly did not draw my sword. I may have ordered, and I dare say I did order, the charge of the cavalry, and pointed out its direction; but I did not charge as a common trooper.

“I have at all times been in the habit of covering as much as possible the troops exposed to the fire of cannon. I place them behind the top of the rising ground, and make them sit and lie down, the better to cover them from the fire.

“After the fire of the enemy’s cannon, the enemy’s troops may have advanced, or a favorable opportunity of attacking might have arrived. What I must have said, and possibly did say was, Stand up, Guards! and then gave the commanding officers the order to attack.

“My common practice in a defensive position was to attack the enemy at the very moment at which he was about to attack our troops.”

Of Madame De StaËl, of whom he saw much in London, he has many interesting anecdotes. He enlarges on her facial ugliness, redeemed by an eye of extraordinary brilliancy and meaning, her egotistic eloquence, her dazzling coruscations of wit, and her mannishness with a good deal of vigor. On the whole, Croker was not a great admirer of this brilliant woman, and declares that some of her most pungent sayings were audacious plagiarisms. He writes: “Moore in his lately published ‘Life of Sheridan,’ has recorded the laborious care with which he prepared his bons-mots. Madame de StaËl condescended to do the same. The first time I ever saw her was at dinner at Lord Liverpool’s at Coombe Wood. Sir James Mackintosh was to have been her guide, and they lost their way, and went to Addiscombe and some other places by mistake, and when they got at last to Coombe Wood they were again bewildered, and obliged to get out and walk in the dark, and through the mire up the road through the wood. They arrived consequently two hours too late and strange draggled figures, she exclaiming by way of apology, ‘Coombe par ci, Coombe par lÀ; nous avons ÉtÉ par tous les Coombes de l’Angleterre.’ During dinner she talked incessantly but admirably, but several of her apparently spontaneous mots were borrowed or prepared. For instance, speaking of the relative states of England and the Continent at that period, the high notion we had formed of the danger to the world from Buonaparte’s despotism, and the high opinion the Continent had formed of the riches, strength, and spirit of England; she insisted that these opinions were both just, and added with an elegant Élan, ‘Les Étrangers sont la postÉritÉ contemporaine.’ This striking expression I have since found in the journal of Camille Desmoulins.”

Several very funny stories were told him by Sir Walter Scott, as among the traditions of Dr. Johnson’s visit to Scotland, and certainly they well establish the reputation of this great man as a rude and unsocial bear, except when he chose to be otherwise: “At Glasgow, Johnson had a meeting with Smith (Adam Smith), which terminated strangely. John Millar used to report that Smith, obviously much discomposed, came into a party who were playing at cards. The Doctor’s appearance suspended the amusement, for as all knew he was to meet Johnson that evening, every one was curious to hear what had passed. Adam Smith, whose temper seemed much ruffled, answered only at first, ‘He is a brute! he is a brute!’ Upon closer examination it appeared that Dr. Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he brought forward a charge against him for something in his famous letter on the death of Hume. Smith said he had vindicated the truth of the statement. ‘And what did the Doctor say?’ was the universal query: ‘Why, he said—he said—’ said Smith, with the deepest impression of resentment, ‘he said—“You lie!”’ ‘And what did you reply?’ ‘I said, “You are a————!”’ On such terms did these two great moralists meet and part, and such was the classic dialogue betwixt them.

“Johnson’s rudeness possibly arose from his retaining till late in life the habits of a pedagogue, who is a man among boys and a boy among men, and having the bad taste to think it more striking to leap over the little differences and courtesies which form the turnpike gates in society, and which fly open on payment of a trifling tribute. The auld Dominie hung vilely about him, and was visible whenever he was the coaxed man of the company—a sad symptom of a parvenu. A lady who was still handsome in the decline of years, and must have been exquisitely beautiful when she was eighteen, dined in company with Johnson, and was placed beside him at table with no little awe of her neighbor. He then always drank lemonade, and the lady of the house desired Miss S——h to acquaint him there was some on the sideboard. He made no answer except an indistinct growl. ‘Speak louder, Miss S——h, the Doctor is deaf.’ Another attempt, with as little success. ‘You do not speak loud enough yet, my dear Miss S——h.’ The lady then ventured to raise her voice as high as misses of eighteen may venture in the company of old doctors, and her description of the reply was that she heard an internal grumbling like Etna before explosion, which rolled up his mouth, and there formed itself into the distinct words, ‘When I want any, I’ll ask for it,’ which were the only words she heard him speak during the day. Even the sirup food of flattery was rudely repelled if not cooked to his mind. I was told that a gentleman called Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a particular admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further notice. ‘He admires in especial your “Irene” as the finest tragedy of modern times,’ to which the Doctor replied, ‘If Pot says so, Pot lies!’ and relapsed into his reverie.”

Croker was in Paris during the days after Waterloo, just subsequent to the accession of the Bourbon dynasty, and he is full of anecdotes of the people he met there, among others Talleyrand and FouchÉ.

“July 17th.—We dined yesterday at Castlereagh’s with, besides the Embassy, Talleyrand, FouchÉ, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, and the Baron de Vitrolles, Lords Cathcart, Clancarty, Stewart, and Clive, and two ladies, the Princesse de Vaudemont, a fat, ugly old woman, and a Mademoiselle Chasse, her friend, a pretty young one. At so quiet a dinner you may judge there was not much interesting conversation, and accordingly I have not often been at a dinner of which I had less to tell. The wonder was to find ourselves at table with FouchÉ, who, to be sure, looks very like what one would naturally suppose him to be—a sly old rogue; but I think he seems to feel a passion of which I did not expect to find him capable; I mean shame, for he looks conscious and embarrassed. He is a man about 5ft. 7in. high, very thin, with a grey head, cropped and powdered, and a very acute expression of countenance. Talleyrand, on the other hand, is fattish for a Frenchman; his ankles are weak and his feet deformed, and he totters about in a strange way. His face is not at all expressive, except it be of a kind of drunken stupor; in fact, he looks altogether like an old fuddled, lame, village schoolmaster, and his voice is deep and hoarse. I should suspect that at the Congress his most natural employment would be keeping the unruly boys in order. We dined very late—that is, for Paris, for we were not at table till half-past six.”

Macaulay hated Croker bitterly, on account of the latter’s severe critiques on him in The Quarterly, and in no way was any love lost between the two men. This personal quarrel is described in an amusing way. Croker, by the way, was just as bitterly hated by Disraeli: though the former had been a highly esteemed friend of Disraeli the elder, author of the “Curiosities of Literature.” Among the amenities of the Macaulay squabble we have the following:

Among the budget of anecdotes so profusely strewn through the book, the following may be given at random. The following is from a letter of Lady Ashburton to Croker, and reflects severely on one of the suave defects of Sir Robert Peel, then recently returned from office: “I must tell you an anecdote of Sir Bobby. If you read the list of people congregated to see his pictures, you will have seen there, not only all the artists, drawing-masters, men of science, but reporters and writers for journals. Thackeray, who furnishes the wit for ‘Punch,’ told Milnes that the ex-Minister came up to him and said, with the blandest smile: ‘Mr. Thackeray, I am rejoiced to see you. I have read with delight every line you ever wrote,’ Thackeray would have been better pleased if the compliment had not included all his works; so, to turn the subject, he observed that it must be a great gratification to live surrounded by such interesting objects of art. Sir R. replied: ‘I can assure you that it does not afford me the same satisfaction as finding myself in such society as yours!!!’ This seeking popularity by fulsome praise will not succeed.”

Here we have a capital French story:

“Old Languet, the celebrated CurÉ of St. Sulpice, was remarkable and disagreeable for the importunity with which he solicited subscriptions for finishing his church, which is not yet finished. One day at supper, where Cardinal de Fleury was, he happened to say that he had seen his Eminence’s portrait at some painter’s. The old Cardinal, who was stingy in private as well as economical in public expenditure, was glad to raise a laugh at the troublesome old curÉ, and replied, ‘I dare swear, then, you asked it (the picture) to subscribe;’ ‘Oh, no, my Lord,’ said Languet, ‘it was too like!’”

The richness of the following situation could hardly be paralleled:

“Every one knows the story of a gentleman’s asking Lord North who ‘that frightful woman was?’ and his lordship’s answering, that is my wife. The other, to repair his blunder, said I did not mean her, but that monster next to her. ‘Oh,’ said Lord North, ‘that monster is my daughter.’ With this story Frederick Robinson, in his usual absent enthusiastic way, was one day entertaining a lady whom he sat next to at dinner, and lo! the lady was Lady Charlotte Lindsay—the monster in question.”

These chance excerpts (and just as good things lie scattered on every page, so as to make a veritable embarras des richesses), indicate the character of the book, and how amply it will repay, both for pleasure and instruction, the reader who sits down to peruse it. Few works of recent times are so compact and meaty in just those qualities which make a work valuable alike for reference and continuous perusal.

The Story of My Life. By J. Marion Sims, M.D., L.L.D.. Edited by his son, H. Marion Sims, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. The great name of Dr. Marion Sims in gynÆcology, or the treatment of women’s diseases, has never been equalled in the same line in America, and the story of his life related in language of the plainest homespun is quite a fascinating record. Dr. Sims has several titles to fame, which we think will secure the perpetuity of his name in the annals of surgery and medicine. These are: his treatment and care of vesico-vaginal fistula, a most loathsome disease, before deemed incurable; his invention of the speculum; his exposition of the true pathology and method of treatment of trismus nascentium, or the lockjaw of infants; and the fact that he was the founder and organizer of “The Woman’s Hospital, of the State of New York,” the first institution ever endowed exclusively for the treatment of women’s diseases.

J. Marion Sims was a native of Alabama, and was educated academically in the Charleston College. His account of his early struggles for an education (for though born of a well-to-do family, money was not over plenty in his father’s home), is very entertaining, and the anecdotes of his juvenile life among a people full of idiosyncracies, are marked by humor and point. His medical education was completed at Jefferson College, Philadelphia, an institution which, ranking very high to-day, had no rival in the country half a century since. It is to be observed that Dr. Sims has a very graphic and simple method of telling his story, showing a genuine mastery of the fundamental idea of good writing, though he is always without pretence, and takes occasion from time to time to deplore his own faults as a literary worker. Yet no contributions to medical literature, aside from their intrinsic value have been more admired than his for their simple, clear force, and luminous treatment. After practising for several years as a country doctor, our great embryo surgeon moved to the city of Montgomery and began to devote himself more exclusively to operative surgery, the branch in which his talents so palpably ran. It was at Montgomery that he became specially interested in women’s diseases, and began to experiment on methods of treating one of the most loathsome and hitherto incurable diseases, which afflict woman, vesico-vaginal fistula, a trouble so often produced by childbirth. Dr. Sims practised on slave women, and turned his house and yard into a veritable hospital, spending a large part of his income in his enthusiastic devotion to the great discovery on the track of which he was moving. At last, he perfected the method of the operation, and made peculiar instruments for it. What had been impossible, he now performed with almost unerring certainty, and rarely lost a case. This became heralded abroad, and the name of Dr. Sims was discussed in New York and Philadelphia, as one who had made one of the most extraordinary discoveries in operative surgery.

His own health had been bad for years; and, as a Southern climate did not agree with him, he went to New York to live in 1852. Though at first he had a hard struggle, he fought his way with the same rugged pertinacity which he had previously shown. He was assailed with the bitterest professional jealousies, but, nothing daunted him, and he finally succeeded in founding his woman’s hospital, through the help of the wealthy and generous women of New York. His great discovery was attempted to be stolen from him by his envious rivals, but he had no trouble in establishing his right to the glory. He overbore all the opposition made against him, and settled his own reputation as one of the greatest surgeons of this or any age. In 1861, when the war broke out, Dr. Sims, who was strong in his secession sympathies, determined to take his family to Europe, so bitter was the feeling against him in New York. He went to Paris, and in a very short time his remarkable and original method of treating vesico-vaginal fistula, by means of silver sutures, gave him a European reputation, and honors were showered on him from all sides. The great surgeons of Europe freely credited him with the glory of having struck out an entirely new and splendid path in surgery, and his operations in the leading hospitals of Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin, were always brilliant ovations, always attended by the most prominent men in the profession, and a swarm of enthusiastic students. He also secured a very lucrative private practice, and performed cures which were heralded as phenomenal in medical books and journals. At different times he was the physician of the Empress of the French, of the Queen of England, and of other royal and distinguished personages. Patients came to him from the most distant quarters, and though a large portion of his time was given to hospital practice, his fees were very large and lucrative. His fame was now established on a secure basis, and the greatest men in Europe freely acknowledged in Dr. Sims their peer. Though the most seductive offers were made to him, to settle permanently both in London and Paris, his heart was among his own countrymen. So at the close of the war he returned to New York. His most important work thenceforward was in connection with the Woman’s Hospital, though he treated innumerable private cases among the wealthy classes. The memoir proper ends with his Parisian career, and the rest of Dr. Sims’s life is told in the preface. He died in 1883, and so indomitable was his professional devotion, that he took notes and memoranda of his own disease up to a brief period before death. The life of Dr. Sims, while interesting to the general reader, will be found peculiarly valuable and attractive by professional men. A large portion of the book is given to a detailed description of the various steps which he took in experimenting on vesico-vaginal fistula, and of the difficulties which he so patiently and at last so triumphantly surmounted. In addition to his professional greatness, Dr. Sims was greatly beloved for the virtues of his private life. He was in the latter years a most sincere and devout Christian, and succeeded in avoiding that taint of scepticism, which so often shows itself in the medical fraternity.

Our Great Benefactors. Short Biographies of the Men and Women most Eminent in Literature, Science, Philosophy, Philanthropy, Art, etc. Edited by Samuel Adams Drake, Author of “New England Legends and Folk-Lore,” etc. With Nearly One Hundred Portraits Emblematically Embellished. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

This volume of something over five hundred pages, is very briefly, but yet truthfully, summed up in its title. The biographies are short and well written, and the author knows how to be graphic and picturesque without being in the least diffuse. He has selected the great leading personages in the arts of peace, who have exemplified human progress among the English speaking races, and given short sketches of them in chronological order. Boys will be specially interested in such a volume, and find in it both amusement and benefit. History has been defined as “philosophy teaching by example.” If this is the case with history, it is still more true of biography, for the concrete flesh and blood facts are brought much nearer home to the imagination than can be possible in history. The sketches vary from five to fifteen pages long, and are completely given, omitting no essential fact in the career, or essential trait in the character of those treated. The book is beautifully embellished with portraits.

Life of Mary Woolstonecraft. By Elizabeth Robins Pennell. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

This last volume in the “Famous Women” Series is one of much interest. The wife of William Godwin (the author of “Political Justice,” “Caleb Williams,” “St. Leon,” and other books distinguished in their day) and the mother of the wife of the poet Shelley, her life was one of singular intellectual significance and full of pathetic personal romance. Mary Woolstonecraft was born and bred under conditions which fostered great mental and moral independence. She chafed under the restraints of her sex, and was one of the first to embody in her life and theories that protest against the position of comparative inequality in her sex, which has of recent years been the battle-cry of a very considerable body of both men and women. It is only just to say, however, that very few of her successors have carried the doctrine of personal rights so far as she did; for it is a fact beyond dispute that she lived openly as the mistress of two men successively, Gilbert Imlay an American, and William Godwin. The latter she married only to legalize the birth of the child which she expected soon to bring into the world, and whose birth was at the price of the mother’s life. While her social errors are to be deplored, even those most downright in condemning such departures from the established order of things, when they look into all the circumstances of her life are disposed to palliate them. Certainly it must be admitted that, in spite of her deviation from that path which society so rigidly and properly exacts from woman, Mary Woolstonecraft was a person of singularly noble and pure instincts. We cannot go into the full explanation of this paradox, and only hope that many will read the full account of her life, if for no other reason, to find an illustration of the fact that a sinner may sometimes be as noble and upright as the saint, and that doctrinarianism in morals as well as in politics, finds many an exception to the truth of its logic. Mary Woolstonecraft worked enthusiastically for the elevation of her sex, nor did she ever seek to enforce as a rule to be followed, that freedom of action which she conceived to be justified by her own case. The earlier part of her life was singularly stormy and tragic, and when her lover, Imlay, whom she looked on as her husband, deserted her, she attempted to commit suicide. When, at last, she met Godwin, her spirit had recovered from the shock she had received, she was recognized as an intellectual force in England, and her society was sought for and valued by many of the worthiest and most distinguished people in England. Her connection with Godwin, which was finally consecrated by marriage, was one of great personal and intellectual happiness. Her labors for the rights of woman, her fine appeals for national education, and her many tractates on not a few social, political, and moral questions, are marked by acuteness, breadth, and eloquence of statement. The author, Mrs. Pennell, has performed her labor with a nice and discriminating touch. While she does not pass lightly over the errors of her heroine, she recognizes what was peculiar in her position, and how a woman of her views could deliberately act in such a manner without essentially falling from her high pedestal as a pure woman. The author has given the world an interesting book not unworthy of the series, and one that happily illustrates the fact that two and two may make five and not four, though it would not do for the world to figure out its arithmetic on this principle.

Principles of Political Economy. By John Stuart Mill. Arranged with Critical, Bibliographical and Explanatory Notes, and A Sketch of the History of Political Economy, by J. Laurence McLaughlin, Ph.D., Ass’t. Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. A Text-Book for Colleges. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The views of John Stuart Mill, one of the clearest and strongest thinkers on this and kindred subjects, of our century, on political economy, have been so often discussed in all manner of forms, from elaborate disquisitions to newspaper articles, that it is not needed now to enter into any explanation of the differences which distinguished him from the rest of his brother philosophers. The object of the present edition is to add to the body of Mill’s opinion the results of later thinking, which do not militate against his views; with such illustrations as fit the Mill system better for American students, by turning their attention to the facts peculiar to this country. Mill’s two volumes have been abridged into one, and while their lucidity is not impaired, the system is put into a much more compact and readable form, care being taken to avoid technicality and abstractness. Prof. McLaughlin’s own notes and additions (inserted into the body of the text in smaller type) are printed in smaller type so as to be readily distinguished. This compact arrangement of Mill’s economical philosophy will attract many readers, who were frightened by the large and complete edition.

A Review of the Holy Bible. Containing the Old and New Testaments. By Edward B. Latch. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

Whether this work will be regarded as throwing any light on the sacred Scriptures, depends on the credulity of the reader, and his pious sympathies. After a casual perusal of the work, it is difficult to see any good end it serves, except so far as all exegetical comment may be of value. The number of such books is already legion, and their multiplication is a weariness to the flesh. The comments made by Mr. Leach, whom we judge by implication to be a layman, are such as any good orthodox preacher might make from his pulpit or in the prayer-meeting room. While they are not distinguished by any noticeable freshness and originality, they are soundly stated, accurate orthodoxy. We fancy that many a poor pious soul in the depths of country farm-houses will get spiritual refreshment, and certainly she will not be likely to find much to clash with her prejudices.

The Young Folks’ Josephus. The Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish Wars. Simplified by William Shepard. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

Every year sees more of that sort of emasculation of standard historians, annalists and others, adapted to make their matter not only cleanly, but easily within the childish grasp. While there are many reasons to deplore the necessity of doing this on the same principle that one hates to see any noble work mutilated even of its faults, there is enough advantage to justify it perhaps. The author has simplified and condensed the history of the Jews by their great annalist with taste and good judgment, by no means as easy a task as it looks. We get all the stories of a special interest very neatly told, properly arranged in chronological order, and put in sufficiently simple language to meet the intelligence of youngsters. The work is handsomely illustrated, beautifully printed, and altogether a creditable piece of typography and binding. It will make a nice holiday book for reading boys and girls, and we fancy that this is the special reason for its being.