PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A LATE PHYSIC IAN.
THE Diary of a Physician is calculated to be one of the most popular and widely-circulated books of the day. The idea alone is felicitous, and the execution is equally happy. Already have these touching passages of real life acquired high fame from their publication in Blackwood; but the effect, as they are here collected, is likely to be greater, and more decisive. We know no late work so calculated to become a general favourite; and few that deserve it better, from the interesting character of its incidents, its striking and picturesque delineations, and the air of real life and genuine truth which distinguishes most of the narratives. This Diary leads us from the palace to the hovel—from the sick bed of the dying girl to the heart-broken moan of ruined age— from the spectacle of secret wo to raving madness: all the great and agitating events of life more or less terminate in bodily de- rangement, and the physician assumes the place of the ancient confessor; the bosom is bared to him—while he notes the pulse, the heart itself throws open its portals. No man sees so much of the aside play of the world as the physician, for he freely passes both before and behind the scenes. Many of the faculty are be- nevolent men, most of them able, some are social, most are plea- sant persons; but here is one who is evidently all these, and more, for he has the graphic art.
It seems implied that these anecdotes are at least mainly based on actual occurrences; and we do not doubt it, while we hold the charge levelled against the author as disclosing the secrets of the prisonhouse to be "frivolous and vexatious." No one could pos- sibly bring these tales home to any party, unless they knew the circumstances; if they know them, no secret is betrayed.
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