apher as
Dr. Elder. Nobody could have been selected for the task who would have
worse performed the business of puffing, or the work of recognizing and
celebrating lofty traits of character and vigorous mental endowments
better. He is a friendly biographer,--and well he may be; for he
declares that his researches into Dr. Kane's private correspondence and
papers revealed not a line which, if published, would injure his fame.
It is, of course, impossible for so genuine a man as Dr. Elder to
refrain from hearty eulogium where not to praise is the sign of a
cynical rather than a critical spirit; but his panegyric has the
raciness and sincerity which proceed from the generous recognition of
merit, and never indicates that ominous falseness of feeling which the
simplest reader instinctively detects in the formal constructer of
complimentary sentences. Throughout the book, the biographer writes in
the spirit of that sound maxim which declares it to be as base to refuse
praise where it is due, as to give praise where it is not due; and we
think that few readers will be inclined to quarrel with him for the
quickness and depth of his sympathies with his hero, except that small
class of "knowing" minds who, mistaking disbelief in human probity for
acuteness of intellect, find a mischievous satisfaction in depressing
heroes into coxcombs, and resolving noble actions into ignoble motives.

We have been especially interested in the account given of Dr. Kane's
boyhood and early life. As a boy, he had too much force, originality,
and decided bias of nature to be what is called a "good boy,"--one of
those unfortunate children whose weakness of individuality passes for
moral excellence, and who give their guardians so little trouble in
the early development and so much trouble in the maturity of their
mediocrity. He would not learn what he did not like, and what he felt
would be of no use to him. He kept his memory free from all intellectual
information which could not be transmuted into intellectual ability. The
same daring, confidence, enterprise, and passion for action, which in
after life made him an explorer, were first expressed in that love of
mischief which vexes the hearts of parents and calls into exercise the
pedagogue's ferule. All arbitrary authority found him a resolute little
rebel. Dr. Elder furnishes some amusing instances of his audacity and
determination. Though smaller than other boys of his age, he possessed
"the cl