LITERARY NOTICES. 



415 



will be considerable, furnished by the dis- 

 coveries in the telephonic transmission of 

 sound. 



Myron Holley ; and what He did for 



Liberty and True Religion. Pp. 328. 



Boston : Printed for the Author, P. 0. 



Box 109. 



The name of the author of this work is 

 not given upon the title-page, but by turn- 

 ing over the leaf we get an explanation of 

 the matter as follows : 

 " Copyright secured by Elizur Wright." 



" A copy of this book, which three lead- 

 ing publishers, though guaranteed against 

 loss, have declined to publish, either with 

 the author's name or without it, will be sent, 

 post-paid, on the receipt of $1.50 addressed 

 to Elizur Wright, Box 109, Boston. Or ten 

 copies will be sent, free of freight, on the 

 receipt of $10. 



"If any profit should accrue from the 

 sale, it will all be paid to the descendants of 

 Myron Holley till such time as the State of 

 New York shall have paid the just debt it 

 owes them." 



"We have to thank the writer of this 

 book for one of the most readable and in- 

 structive biographies we have ever read, 

 and for doing justice to the character of a 

 very rare and remarkable man. Myron Hol- 

 ley was born in 17*79, and died in 1841. His 

 career, which was thus ended more than 

 forty years ago, belongs to the early part of 

 the century, and we had heard much of his 

 noble work and his manly characteristics, 

 though only in a fragmentary and unsatis- 

 fying way, and had often expressed regret 

 that there was no accessible sketch of his 

 life. Now that we have it, it is more appar- 

 ent than ever how great would have been 

 the loss to the world if the task had remained 

 unperformed. 



The character of Mr. nolley has been 

 brought out vividly in this volume in several 

 relations. In the first place, he was one of 

 the most efficient, influential, and indefati- 

 gable of the pioneers to which we owe the 

 canal system of the State of New York. 

 No matter how this system may be now re- 

 garded, the construction of the Erie Canal 

 was a leading step in the progress of our 

 Western civilization, and full of formidable 

 difficulties from the novelty* and magnitude 



of the project, and the state of the public 

 mind upon the subject. One of the most 

 interesting portions of Mr. Wright's racy 

 and graphic book is the account he gives of 

 the origin and growth of the canal policy, 

 which he found it indispensable to delineate 

 in order to bring out the full import of Mr. 

 Holley's relation to it. He was not only a 

 man of great energy and determination, but 

 of admirable tact, clear judgment, and invin- 

 cible integrity. He entered into the project 

 with his whole soul, subordinated all personal 

 interests to it, neglecting his own private 

 affairs, under the unwise impression that, 

 when the great public work was done, the 

 State would do him justice. We have no 

 room here for explanations upon this point, 

 and must refer the reader to the pages of 

 Mr. Wright, where it is proved that the 

 I State of New York cheated Myron Holley 

 i out of more than a hundred thousand dol- 

 lars, when millions would not have repaid 

 the State for the value of his services in 

 carrying out the canal project. 



Myron Holley's name will also be his- 

 toric in connection with the progress of 

 American ideas by his early and controlling 

 alliance with the anti-slavery movement. 

 He was a pioneer reformer in the days when 

 : opposition to slavery meant social execra- 

 tion, and when the North in all its great ele- 

 ments political, ecclesiastical, collegiate, 

 literary, and social was on its knees to the 

 South for every vile and venal purpose. It 

 i was in the palmy days of Northern pol- 

 troonery when the South was told that she 

 could have anything she wanted, and all she 

 1 wanted ; that she had but to name the term3 

 on which this government might continue, 

 and they should be conceded, and when 

 slavery was rampant and regnant as the su- 

 preme interest of the American Republic 

 that Myron Holley took the lead in found- 

 ing the Northern Liberty party. 



To this history Mr. Wright also adds an 

 interesting account of Holley's independent 

 and advanced religious views, and also his 

 ideas of domestic culture, family interests, 

 the education of children, and the conduct 

 of social life. In all these relations Mr. 

 Holley was a man of great individuality, and 

 freedom from the tyrannical restraints of 

 mere conventionalism. He was a thorough- 

 going reformer when reform was less a vo- 



