weeks. Here he effected a great cure, discovering in a
patient the cause of illness, which no one else had been able to detect, and so curing him. This was a surgical case. It was in surgery that be first made his mark. We cannot follow him through his career; but it is a most interesting story that be tells. If it is curious bow he came to enter the profession, it is not less so how near be was three years afterwards to leaving it. Ire bad made up his mind to start in busi- ness as a cloth-merchant at Vicksburg, when some commercial diffi- culties arose, and he had to fall back on medicine, in which it was his fate—a fate almost forced upon him—to gain fame and fortune. . Life's Changes. By "W. M." (London Literary Society.)—This is a novel with several very conspicuous faults, but at the same time, not without a certain merit. It is far too ecstatic throughout, and the addresses to tho characters are tiresome. The plot, too, is, in parts, wildly improbable ; a desire of the authoress to wind up in the orthodox fairy-tale fashion, leads her—for we feel sure that this story is by a lady—to bring about conversions and reconciliations which seem to us inconsistent with a faithful study of character. The most glaring instance of this fault is that of Colonel Clifford. This person is represented as a villain without a single redeeming feature. We are unable to say whether his treatment of his sister, his first wife, his second wife, or his child, is the most revolting and brutal. Yet in the concluding chapter we find him converted into a model husband. Another case in point is the reconciliation of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie, which could not, we fancy, be paralleled from real life. There are however, some striking situations, the interest is fairly maintained, and Beatrice Trevor inspires real affection. We imagine that this is a first attempt ; and, if our surmise is correct, the authoress may attain considerable success if she will only try to be more restrained in expression, and to draw her characters and incidents from the world she actually sees around her.
Previous page
