Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

be a sufficient guarantee that it is not fraudulent. If Brown Brothers & Co. were to advertise some financial scheme, the clerk who would do more than count the lines, and give the price, would spend his strength for naught, and insult the house. In point of fact, Caswell & Hazard prepare many medicines whose ingredients are known to the medical profession, but they are used in domestic medicine by those who do not know their ingredients at all. Here, by the way, the doctors make a difference between what they call a "quack" medicine, and a "proprietary" medicine. The fact, however, that a doctor knows the ingredients of a "proprietary" medicine, makes no difference to the man or woman who uses it as a quack medicine, of which he or she knows nothing except by its results. We see no difference between advertising a "proprietary" medicine and a patent medicine, so far as the people are concerned. They judge by results, and have a perfect right to do so.

All simples-all extracts of simples-all medicines and external applications that have been proved to be not only not dangerous but salutary in the treatment of disease, have a right to be known through whatever medium of advertising their owners are willing to pay for. And publishers of religious papers, or of any other periodicals, have a right to judge what medicines and applications have this right to be known, and to do their advertising without being hauled over the coals by anybody. This treating them as culprits, and, as a matter of course, indefensible, is insulting and grossly unreasonable,

[ocr errors]

especially by a profession that cannot afford to throw stones at the public authority in this matter.

We would not like to be misunderstood on this subject, so we close with two or three considerations. We have no affection for patent medicines or quackery. If medicine is not an exact science, there exists in the medical profession an accumulation of wisdom which forms a much better resort for suffering humanity than patent medicines, no matter how care. fully and wisely they may be selected and applied. Sometimes, undoubtedly, men break away from the routine of medical practice and prescribe for themselves with advantage, but it is rational to suppose that men who make diseases and their remedies the study of their lives are our safest counselors.

Again, what we protest against—and this only-is the professional idea that all patent medicines are frauds, and that those who advertise them are parties to an intentional popular deception. We recognize a field of domestic medicine that is entirely legitimate, in which the people may, and often do, choose with great wisdom and success from the field of medicines in various ways offered to them.

Once more, we sympathize entirely in the preju dice of the profession against the patenting of a medicine by one of their own number. Such a proceeding is most unprofessional, in that it locks up in one man, and makes subservient to one man's profit, that which should be at the command of all profes sional healers, for the benefit of humanity. The non-professional healer, however, can hardly be held amenable to this consideration.

COMMUNICATIONS.

The Lashing of Admiral Farragut in the Rigging. NEW YORK, September 6, 1880.

EDITOR OF SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY.

SIR: In answer to your request for a statement of the facts with regard to the lashing of Admiral Farragut in the rigging at the battle of Mobile Bay, I beg to say that the account contained in "The Life and Letters of David Glasgow Farragut, the First Admiral of the United States Navy," by his son, is correct. The facts are, briefly, as follows:

little distance below the main-top. Here he could lean either backward or forward in a comfortable position, having the free use of both hands for his spy-glass, or any other purpose. Captain Drayton, commanding the Hartford, and also Chief-of-Staff to the Admiral, becoming solicitous lest even a slight wound, a blow from a splinter, or the cutting away of a portion of the rigging, might throw the Admiral to the deck, sent the signal-quartermaster aloft with a small rope, to secure him to the rigging. The latter at first declined to allow the quartermaster to do this, but quickly admitted the wisdom of the precaution, and himself passed two or three turns of the rope around his body, and secured one end while the quartermaster (Knowles) fastened the other. The Admiral remained aloft until after we had passed Fort Morgan.

At the commencement of the action Admiral Farragut was standing in the port main rigging, which position enabled him to overlook the other vessels of the fleet while at the same time it gave him perfect command of both his own flag-ship and the Metacomet. The latter vessel was lashed on that side of the Hartford for the purpose of carrying the flag-ship inside of the bay, in case of the disabling of her own machinery. A slight wind was blowing the smoke from our guns on to Fort Morgan. As the wind fell lighter (which it frequently does during heavy firing), the smoke gradually obscured the Admiral's view, and he, almost unconsciously, climbed the rig-flag-lieutenant (myself), who were standing on the ging, ratline by ratline, in order to see over it, until finally he found himself in the futtock-shrouds, some

While leaning against the futtock-shrouds, he was near enough to the pilot-who was in the main-top, just over his head-to communicate with him by word of mouth, though by no means sufficiently near to reach him with his hand, as has been stated. was at all times visible to Captain Drayton and the

He

poop-deck, and conversed with him several times during the action. Lieutenant A. R. Yates, now

Commander in the United States Navy, who was acting as a volunteer aid, was stationed underneath the Admiral, and carried his orders to the other parts of the ship.

After the passage of the forts was accomplished, and the vessels were anchored and anchoring, the Confederate ram Tennessee was observed to be moving out from under the guns of Fort Morgan. Captain Drayton reported this fact to the Admiral, who was then on the poop, stating that Buchanan, the Confederate Admiral, was going outside to destroy the outer fleet. The Admiral immediately said, "Then we must follow him out!" though he suspected that Buchanan, becoming desperate, had resolved to sink or destroy the flag-ship Hartford, and do us as much injury as possible before losing his own vessel. Immediately after the above remark, Farragut said: "No! Buck's coming here. Get under way at once; we must be ready for him!" Captain Drayton could not believe this, and we were a little slow about getting up our anchor, in spite of the Admiral's impatience.

In Lieutenant Kinney's interesting account of the battle, which you are publishing, the subsequent events are described. I have only to add that, when the Hartford rammed the Tennessee, the Admiral was standing in the port mizzen-rigging, near the rail, where I secured him with a rope's-end, having first remonstrated with him and begged him not to stand in so exposed a place,—as he was only a few feet from and above the deck of the ram, which scraped her whole length along that side of the Hartford.

There could never have been any dispute as to the Admiral's having been lashed in the main-rigging, had the fact been generally known that the Admiral himself told Captain Drayton and me, shortly after the battle, exactly what took place when the quartermaster came up to him with the rope and the message from the captain, just as I have related it. He was afterward amused and amazed at the notoriety of the incident. When a comic picture of the scene, in one of the illustrated weeklies, came to hand, a few days after the battle, he said to Captain Drayton and myself, in conversation: "How curiously some trifling incident catches the popular fancy! My being in the main-rigging was a mere accident, owing to the fact that I was driven aloft by the smoke. The lashing was the result of your own fears [Captain Drayton's] for my safety." At the close of the war, he yielded to the solicitations of Mr. Page to stand for a historical portrait in the position in which he was first lashed.

Yours truly,

J. CRITTENDEN Watson, Commander, U. S. N.

"The Music of Niagara."

427 Milwaukee street, Milwaukee, Wis. EDITOR OF SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY.

SIR: The author of "The Music of Niagara," in the February issue of SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, assumes, without demonstration, a parallelism between the formation of musical tones in organ-pipes of definite

extent, and the formation of musical tones in sheets of water. While the same law applies to the formation of musical tones in pipes, whether air or water is forced through them, the tone obtained depends on the velocity with which sound is transmitted through the two media, consequently a definite length of pipe would yield a different fundamental note under the action of air, or water.

If musical tones are evolved from Niagara, they derive their origin either from the vibrations of the air back of the sheet, or the vibrations of the sheet itself.

The depth of water on the crest of the falls is variously estimated at from 20 to 30 feet. Assuming Mr. Thayer's height of the falls, 160.42 feet, to be correct, the height of the air-space could not exceed 140 feet. Since the music of Niagara rests upon a fundamental note such as would be evolved by an open organ-pipe 160.42 feet in length, it is evident that the vibration of the air-space back of the sheet-having a height not exceeding 140 feetcannot be the origin of this fundamental note.

A properly constructed organ-pipe may be made to yield musical tones by forcing water through it. The fundamental tone of Niagara, as determined by Mr. Thayer, would have 33 vibrations per second. The theoretical length of a stopped pipe which, under the action of water, would yield this fundamental tone, would have a length in feet equal to the velocity of sound through water, divided by four times the vibration number of the tone. Assuming the temperature of the water to be 45° F., its length would be 4557 ÷ (4×33%)=368.24 feet. An open. pipe would require double this length.

It would seem from the foregoing that the determination of the height of Niagara from the fundamental tone of its roar could not be properly made.

It may be of interest in this connection to state that a careful determination of the height of Niagara, made by the Lake Survey, fixes the height of the falls, on the Canadian side, at 155 feet, at Terrapin Tower 161 feet, and at Prospect Park, easterly side of American Fall, 169 feet.

Very respectfully yours,

L. Y. SCHERMERHORN.

State Normal School, Winona, Minn. EDITOR OF SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY.

SIR: I have a question or two to ask regarding the article on "The Music of Niagara," in SCRIBNER for February. An organ-pipe 160.42 feet long would give only 3.49 vibrations per second in air at 60° F. Now, 16 vibrations per second is generally accepted as the lower limit of the human ear in its percep tion of musical sounds. Savart, who used shocks of great power in the production of vibrations, fixed the limit at 8, but is supposed to have mistaken overtones for the fundamental one. May not Mr. Thayer have done the same?

If Mr. Thayer does hear a musical sound produced by so few vibrations, does the force of the shock caused by the falling water suffice to blend them? Can he hear so grave a sound when produced in any other way?

[blocks in formation]

EDITOR SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY.

SIR: In answer to the communications which you have sent me, and to many private letters I have received, in relation to "The Music of Niagara," I would say that I find the questions met and answered in the article itself. For example: Mr. Schermerhorn's first objection is met in my article at the top of page 586. His next statement, that the depth of water on the crest of the falls is from thirty to twenty feet, is manifestly incorrect. The depth varies from thirty feet to less than thirty inches, a fact which observation will prove. That "an organ-pipe may be made to produce musical tones by forcing water through it," is doubtless true, although I have never known when or where such an experiment was tried.

It seems to me that Mr. Boutelle asks the only really new question, viz.: "What is the physical basis of the beat or accent?" The true answer, I believe, is found in the fact that everything in the universe vibrates. All vibrations, by some law of differentiation, separate themselves into major and minor, the greater ones naturally producing a beat or accent from which rhythm is evolved.

If the readers of my article will but read it again a little more closely (and perhaps between the lines in some places), I think they will find that all their questions are met and answered in words or by easy inference. Yours truly,

EUGENE THAYER.

The Rise of the Columbia River. FOREST GROVE, OREGON, Sept. 10, 1880. EDITOR SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY.

SIR: The article entitled "Our River," in the issue of SCRIBNER for August of this year, contains an allusion to the Columbia which greatly needs enlargement. It mentions as a remarkable fact that

the Columbia often rises fifteen feet during the summer floods.

This presents so inadequate an idea of our great river that I am compelled to call your attention to the fact that, during the flood of this summer, the Columbia rose at Umatilla about forty-five feet; at Dalles fifty-one; at the upper Cascades about sixty, while at Portland, twelve miles from the junction of the Willamette and Columbia, the former was "backed up" to a height of twenty-eight feet above low water mark. At Vancouver, where the ordinary width of the Columbia is a mile and a half, the flood extended it to a width of six miles. To give some idea of the immensity of waters coming from the snows of our great Western mountains, I might add that at the Dalles the mass of water superimposed on the low stage of the river was fifty-one feet thick, a mile wide, moving at the rate of nine miles per hour. For several days it rose at the rate of an inch an hour. Its hourly increase was therefore enough to make a large creek, while its daily increase was just about equivalent to such a river as the Hudson.

The Columbia has, of course, no need to feel jealous of any of the brotherhood of rivers, but

it would like to have its Eastern friends know what it really can do in the way of rising.

[blocks in formation]

HOME AND SOCIETY.

Young Men's Society for Home Study. THE remarkable success of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, which, beginning with eight students in 1873, has now not far from a thousand names on its rolls, has suggested the organization of a similar society to do for young men what this does for young women. The field is not so large; that is, the number of young men having some leisure and having also a desire for study is not so great as that of young women; but although the society has not yet completed its first year, there are upon its list more than sixty students drawn from all sections

of the country, the greatest number-more than half-coming from the Middle States. The plan pursued is, in the main, that which has been well tested with the other society. Several courses of study are open: American and English History; English Literature; German and French Literature; Philosophy; Natural Science, under the sections of Botany, Zoology, and Geology; and Mathematics. The greater number choose the first two courses, and of all the students, only one has dropped off. The students are assigned to competent teachers, with whom they enter into correspondence and to whom they report progress. Nothing could be

more simple than the device: a young man, sensible of his deficiencies in some study which interests him, and ignorant of the best way to go to work, is able to receive the advice and stimulus of some welleducated, kindly man, who tells him what to read, how to read, and how to get the most complete mastery of his subject. The mails carry few more valuable letters than those which pass in this correspondence. So well equipped is the society that it is able to direct the work of men who have had a collegiate education, and perhaps for that very reason are reluctant to fumble their way when a little guidance will enable them to work economically and with force; among the most faithful students are some of this class. There are literary societies, also, which have placed themselves under the direction of the organization. The absence of machinery, the freedom of association, and the directness of method render this society capable of doing a most admirable work. A small annual fee is required, to cover expenses of postage and the like, and the society is able to lend books to those who are remote from libraries. The secretary may be addressed by his title, at Cambridge, Mass.

Color in American Art and Dress. WHATEVER the future of America-by "America" I mean the United States-whatever her future is to be in art, it is clear that she ought to be first among all nations in color. It only needs that the painter shall arise who dares to use color as he sees it before him in the clear air and wonderful skies of our summers and winters-in our sunset clouds and our autumn woods. Say what you please of Turner's "Slave-ship," at least it is true that he has dared to paint a sunset-a thing no other artist has ever done. Is there an American who dares to

paint our autumn, who dares to step out of the ranks of the copyists of Old-World scenes and say on his canvas that America is the home of color, and warmth, and brilliancy, and paint her as she is? He will find full appreciation when he does it, for the quiet teachings of nature have had their effect upon us. We are freeing ourselves from our traditional English tastes and habits, for women are more sensitive to these subtle influences than men, and are making our homes bright with color and warm with sunshine, instead of making them dark and "cozy" like the English, who, a great part of their year, must depend for brightness upon firelight and candles. In dress, too, our women show Justin McCarthy says that

their love of color. nowhere in the world is there to be seen so brilliant a street-scene as an American congregation coming out of church on a pleasant Sunday-and this is as it should be. In their embroideries and in their porcelain-painting, too, women show this, and it is beginning to be felt in some of the arts. Doubtless they are crude in their use of it oftentimes, for we are still new to this country, and not yet fully acclimated-we have not yet gained the full effect of the gorgeous nature about us, and learned, like the Eastern races in their long years of color-breathing, that one rich tint subdues another, and that if there is only depth enough in brilliant colors they must harmonize, while breadth of light will surely har. monize light tints.

But we are growing rapidly in these things, and it is time for some one to come forward and say boldly: "Our skies and our lights are as brilliant as those of the tropics. We have a right to a school of color as rich, as glowing, as lavish, and profuse as any of the Orientals, though it must be as different as are our countries or our peoples."

H. W. H.

CULTURE AND PROGRESS.

Ward's Anthology of English Poetry.* THIS anthology on the coöperative plan has the obvious advantage of assigning different parts of the field-in the case of English poetry a very large field-to specialists. The editor, e. g., takes Chaucer; Spenser is intrusted to the Dean of St. Paul's, Shakspere to Professor Dowden, Milton to Mr. Pattison, and Dryden to Professor A. W. Ward. The selections are, in general, excellent, and the introductions, taken together, form a valuable and authoritative body of criticism. The rule of the book excludes dramatic poetry and the work of living authors.

Not the worst thing in the book is the general

*The English Poets. Selections, with Critical Introductions by Various Writers, and a General Introduction by Matthew Arnold. In Four Volumes. Edited by Thomas Humphrey Ward. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 1881.

introduction by Matthew Arnold, who lays down very clearly the true rule to be followed in such a compilation, viz. : the selection of the best, and points out the danger of being tempted to substitute the "historic or the "personal" for the real estimate of a poem. It might be wished that the editor had attended more carefully to this warning. The first principle of a florilege is economy. Sins of commission are here important because they necessitate sins of omission. For, where space is unavoidably restricted, every poor thing included keeps out some good thing that ought to go in. The severity of taste demanded in a little volume like Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" need not, indeed, be required, yet even within the wider limits of the present collection a nicer discretion would be easy. The plan of the work, perhaps, involves a certain unevenness, and it is not, therefore, surprising to find parts of it presided over by the "old-maidenly genius of

antiquarianism," rather than by the spirit of Mr. Arnold's introduction.

This criticism applies particularly to the selections from English and Scottish poets between Chaucer and Spenser. Dull rhymers like Gower, Occleve, Hawes, Lyndesay, and Gascoigne have no business at all in an anthology-unless, of course, the "historic" estimate is to be the criterion. Lydgate might possibly claim a place on the strength of his "London Lickpenny," while Henryson, Douglas, and Dunbar might be represented by brief selections. As it is, these nine poets occupy nearly a hundred pages.

Some of the criticism by which

their insertion is justified is nothing less than extraordinary. Thus, Mr. J. Churton Collins is moved to say of Stephen Hawes, the author of "The Pastime of Pleasure":"But Hawes, with all his faults, is a true poet. He has a sweet simplicity, a pensive, gentle air, a subdued cheerfulness,” etc. Having once taken a "penitential course of reading" in Hawes, we are able to testify that his cheerfulness is of the most "subdued" type. Hen. ryson came much nearer than Hawes to being a poet, but Mr. Henley is very wide of the truth when he asserts that "He narrates with a gayety, an ease, a rapidity not to be surpassed in English literature between Chaucer and Burns," forgetting, seemingly, that Dryden, Gay, Prior, and Henryson's countryman, Ramsay, not to speak of earlier poets, all lived before Burns. The selections given from Henryson do not at all account for Mr. Henley's enthusiasm, and one asks why he did not give us instead that "incomparable" "Taile of the Wolf that got the Nek-herring throw the Wrinkis of the Fox that Begylit the Cadgear," which he conceives to be "one of the high-water marks of the modern apologue."

It is an article of faith in Scotland that Dunbar was a great poet, and there is, therefore, nothing unexpected in being told by Professor Nichol that the best stanzas in "The Merle and the Nightingale" are not unworthy of Wordsworth. Mr. Lowell has expressed the opinion that this was Dunbar's only good poem, quoting from it a very pretty stanza in which we remember one imaginative line:

"Her sound went with the river as it ran." Nevertheless, Professor Nichol has not seen fit to insert any part of this poem, though he makes four selections from Dunbar, including one from "The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins." We have always thought Mr. Lowell rather too hard on the last-mentioned piece, which is not without a sort of Dantesque humor. Its grim fiends, "Blak-belly and Bawsy. Broun," laughing and making “gekkis" over their victims, the shaveling priests, remind one of those merry companions of the fifth bolgia, Farfarello, Graffiacan, et als. That is a good point, too, about the "Tarmegantis" who deafen the Devil, in "Ersche," "til, in the depest pot of hell, he smorit thame with smuke."

The first really good poetry after Chaucer was the Scottish and North English ballads, whose wild music comes in like the wail of the pibroch between

the lascivious pleasings of the Elizabethan lute. Here the selection leaves little to be desired. "The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington" might better have been left out, and the first of the two Robin Hood ballads given is inferior to "Robin Hood and the Monk," for instance. Personally, too, we should much prefer "The Nut-brown Maid," "Fair Annie of Lochroyan," and "Thomas of Ersyldoune" to "Kinmont Willie" and "The Douglas Tragedy." The introduction to the ballads-by Mr. Lang-is one of the most valuable articles in the book.

No two men, sitting down to make out an anthology, would choose the same things, and every detailed criticism of such a collection amounts to making a new one. We shall, accordingly, indicate only a few of the points in which we think that the editors of this collection have made mistakes.

To begin with Chaucer: the minor and doubtful poems are of the fashion of their day merely, and should be excluded. The prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" should have been given entire. The envoy of "The Clerkes Tale" is certainly a strange selection to make from that affecting story; and "The Man of Lawes Tale," with the exception of a few stanzas, is very tame. Either "The Wyf of Bathes" prologue or one of the short humorous tales, such as "The Nonne Prestes," or "The Freres," should, by all means, have been given. As it is, the reader is presented with fair specimens of Chaucer's descriptive powers, but with hardly any illustration of his two characteristic traits, pathos and humor. From Skelton, some part of "Philip Sparrowe" should have been given. Spenser's "Prothalamion" would have been a better choice than his "Complaint of Thalia" and the sonnets; he was not a good sonneteer. And why the magnificent "Epithalamion" should have been garbled we are at a loss to see: an anthology cannot be made virginibus puerisque, like a school-reader, without injury to its representative character. Among Lyly's songs room might have been made for the pretty madrigal, "What Bird so Sings yet so doth Wail?" and among the miscellanies for the Marquis of Montrose's noble song, "My Dear and Only Love, I Pray." In Shakspere, of course, one is always confronted by an embarras de richesse, yet why leave out "Come unto these Yellow Sands " and "Take, oh, take those Lips away"? Under Donne, in place of the first song given and the poem entitled "The Will," we should greatly prefer the fine "Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness" and the "Break of Day," which Romeo might have spoken to Juliet:

66

"Stay, oh sweet, and do not rise;

The light that shines comes from thine eyes.
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that thou and I must part."

We miss Ben Jonson's "It is not growing like a Tree," and the superb "Hymn to Diana." Instead of these we have the insipid epitaph on Salathiel Pavy. Mr. Simcox goes out of his way to omit the only poem of George Herbert's which is generally known-" Sweet Day, so Cool, so Calm, so Bright." One of the extracts from "Paradise

« AnkstesnisTęsti »