t receive from it, would be lamentably false. In a special
department, Dr. Ray is an able scientist. To a wide-embracing philosophy
he does not always show claims. There has been heart-sickening
corruption in all prosperous societies,--especially in such as have been
debauched by complicity with Slavery. It is the duty of some men of
science and benevolence to be ever probing among the defilements of our
fallen nature, to breathe the tainted air of the lazar-house, to consort
with madness and crime. Few men deserve our respect and gratitude like
these. But let them be cheered by remembering that in the great world
outside the hospital there are still elements of worthiness and
nobility. Wealth was never more wisely liberal, talents were never held
to stricter accountability, genius has never been more united with pure
and high aims, than in the Loyal States to-day. The descendants of
"those much-enduring men and women of colonial times" have not shown
themselves altogether "incapable of toil and exposure." From offices and
counting-rooms, from libraries and laboratories, our young men have gone
forth to service as arduous as that which tried their fore-fathers. How
many of them have borne every hardship and privation of war, every
cruelty of filthy prisons and carrion-food, yet have breasted the
slave-masters' treason till its bullet struck the pulse of life! Let us
remember that the most divergent tendencies of character, even such as
we cannot associate with an ideal poise of mind, may work to worthiest
ends in this ill-balanced world of humanity. The saying of Novalis, that
health is interesting only in a scientific point of view, disease being
necessary to individualization, shows one side of the shield of which
Dr. Ray presents the other.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

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The Life of Philidor, Musician and Chess-Player. By George Allen, Greek
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on Philidor as Chess-Author and Chess-Player, by Tassilo von Heydebrand
und der Lasa, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the
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Spots on the Sun; or, The Plumb-Line Papers. Being a Series of Essays,
or Critical Examinations of Difficult Passages of Scripture; together
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