The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

To those who may not care to master the philosophy of "Man and Nature," the book presents great attractions in the fund of new and entertaining knowledge given in the text, and yet more largely in the foot-notes. Many have waded through Mr. Buckle's two volumes a second time for the purpose of gleaning his facts and gathering up in the easiest way the latest word in science and literature. Mr. Marsh spreads a homelier table, but one just as varied and hearty. Never in the course of our miscellaneous reading have we met an equal store of fresh facts. As hinted above, they are gathered from every source: the experience of the maple-sugar maker in Vermont is quoted side by side with the testimony of the European scholar. The reader will be amazed that there are so many common things in the world of which he has never heard, and that they have so large and fruitful an influence over the world's progress.

If there are striking faults in Mr. Marsh's work, they seem to be these: want of continuity in treatment, and disproportionate development of some subjects in contrast with others. The book is, in fact, too large for a popular treatise, and not large enough for a scientific exposition of all it essays to discuss. It claims to be a popular work; but the elaborate discussion of Forests is far beyond the wishes or needs of any but a scientific reader. The broken, jagged, paragraph style is a drawback to the pleasure of perusing it: the notion seems to impress the author that people will not read anything elaborate, unless it be broken up into labelled paragraphs. It is true of the newspaper: it is not true of the octavo, to which they sit down expecting a different mode of treatment, a broad, discursive style, flowing, redundant, and even eloquent. Yet Mr. Marsh has in some instances transgressed, we think, even in fulness: the great prominence given, for example, to the drainage of Holland is untrue to the general tenor of the book and to the prospective future of the world. It was a great historic deed, when the relations of man to Nature were quite other than what they are to-day; but now that man is master of the sea, regulates the price of bread in London by the price of corn in Illinois, and of broadcloth in Paris by the cost of wool in Australia, the recovery of a few hundred thousand acres from the bottom of the North Sea is a great thing for Holland, but a small thing for the world.

Yet we accept this book with grateful thanks to the accomplished author. In the present transition-stage from metaphysical to physical studies, it will be eagerly accepted, as showing, not openly nor yet covertly, yet suggestively, the true connection of both. Few books give in quiet, modest fashion so much theology as this, and yet few claim to give so little. Few bear more strongly on the mooted points of Anthropology; few strike so strong a blow at that Development-theory which makes man merely king of the beasts, and superior to the ape and the gorilla only in degree; and yet few proceed in such high argument with less ostentation. This book leaves one great want unfulfilled: to take up the mantle of Ritter and proceed carefully to the study of French, German, Russian, English, Spanish, and Italian history, and indeed all great nations' history, by the light of geography. The problem is stated; it has now only to be wrought out. Perhaps Mr. Marsh, whose acquisitions seem to be boundless, and whose powers unlimited, may live to win fresh laurels on this field.

1

I was once trying to convince an eminent prelate—one of the most learned and liberal of his order, and even then close to the red hat—of the importance of admitting laymen to certain State functions. "All right," said he, "from your point of view; but still I shall oppose it always, tooth and nail; for, if they come in, we must go out."

2

Dr. Lieber, in his "Reminiscences of Niebuhr,"—a delightful book of a delightful class,—records the great historian's testimony in favor of Italian Latin.

3

This is a metrical version of the following passage of the "Scaligeriana":—"Les Allemans ne se soucient pas quel vin ils boivent pourvu que ce soit vin, ni quel Latin ils parlent pourvu que ce soit Latin."

4

Need we say that this gentleman is a member of the French Academy, a librarian of the Mazarin Library, and the well-known author of "Mademoiselle de la Seiglière," "La Maison de Penarvan," "Sacs et Parchemins," etc.?