pathetic, good-natured, and broad-natured Walter Scott himself, who, modestly hidden, as he seems to be, behind the characters and scenes he represents, really streams through them the peculiar quality of life which makes their abiding charm. He has been accepted by humanity, because he is so heartily humane, humane, not merely as regards man in the abstract, but as regards man in the concrete.
We have spoken of the number of his readers, and of his capacity to interest all classes of people; but we suppose, that, in our day, when everybody knows how to read without always knowing what to read, even Scott has failed to reach a multitude of persons abundantly capable of receiving pleasure from his writings, but who, in their ignorance of him, are content to devour such frightful trash in the shape of novels as they accidentally light upon in a leisure hour. One advantage of such an edition of his works as that which has occasioned these remarks is, that it tends to awaken attention anew to his merits, to spread his fame among the generation of readers now growing up, and to place him in the public view fairly abreast of unworthy but clamorous claimants for public regard, as inferior to him in the power to impart pleasure as they are inferior to him in literary excellence. That portion of the public who read bad novels cannot be reached by criticism; but if they could only be reached by Scott, they would quickly discover and resent the swindle of which they have so long been the victims.
It does not fall within our province to enter into a minute examination of a professional work like the one before us. As a Medical Dictionary is a book, however, which every general reader will find convenient at times, and as we have long employed this particular dictionary with great satisfaction, we do not hesitate .to devote a few sentences to its notice.
We remember when it was first published in 1833, meagre, as compared with its present affluence of information. A few years later a second edition was honorably noticed in the "British and Foreign Medical Review." At that time it was only half the size of Hooper's well-known Medical Dictionary, but by its steady growth in successive editions it has reached that obesity which is tolerable in books wo consult, but hardly in such as we read. The labor expended in preparing the work must have been immense, and, unlike most of our stereotyped medical literature, it has increased by true interstitial growth, instead of by mere accretion, or of remaining essentially stationary with the exception of the title-page.
We can confidently recommend this work as a most ample and convenient book of reference upon Anatomy, Physiology, Climate, and other subjects likely to be occasionally interesting to the general reader, as well as upon all practical matters connected with the art of healing. In the present state of education and intelligence, he must be a dull person who does not frequently find a question arising on some point connected with this range of studies. The student will find in this dictionary an enormous collection of synonymes in various languages, brief accounts of almost everything medical ever heard of, and full notices of many of the more important subjects treated, such as Climate, Diet, Falsification of Drugs, Feigned Diseases, Muscles, Poisons, and many others.
Here and there we notice blemishes, as must be expected in so huge a collection of knowledge. Thus, Bronchlemmitis is not Polypus bronchialis, but Croup.—The accent of laryngeal and pharyngeal is incorrectly placed on the third syllable. In this wilderness of words we look in vain for the New York provincialism "Sprue." The work has a right to some scores, perhaps hundreds, of such errors, without forfeiting its character. If the Elzevirs could not print the "Corpus Juris Civilis" without a false heading to a chapter, we may excuse a dictionary-maker and his printer for an occasional slip. But it is a most useful book, and scholars will find it immensely convenient.
