LITERARY NOTICES. 



853 



takes no delight in the * march of civiliza- 

 tion,' the axe and the plow are to him sym- 

 bols of barbarism, and the reclaiming of 

 waste lands and opening up of his favorite 

 haunts to cultivation he instinctively de- 

 nounces as acts of vandalism." Yet we 

 may add, the botanist himself is no vandal, 

 but his humble labors do contribute to the 

 onward march of civilization. The humblest 

 flower or coarsest weed may contain lessons 

 of wisdom the most profound, and botany 

 is particularly adapted to combine science 

 and culture. 



We can not close our brief notice without 

 a mention of his defense of the herbarium 

 as an instrument of scientific culture. It is 

 a collection of natural objects, scientifically 

 classified and ever present for inspection ; 

 an herbarium is a library to be consulted, 

 studied, and read. It is a library filled with 

 volumes written by Nature, and which those 

 who have learned the language of Nature 

 can read and enjoy with a satisfaction as 

 much keener than anything that man-made 

 books can give as it is nearer to the source 

 of all truth. 



Reminiscences chiefly of Oriel College 

 and the Oxford Movement. By Itev. 

 T. Mozely, M. A., formerly Fellow of 

 Oriel. In 2 vols. Boston: Houghton, 

 Mifflin & Co. Pp. 900. Price, $3. 



These volumes belong to a popular class 

 of works, and have attracted a good deal of 

 attention as being quite unique in their line. 

 They are gossipy, sketchy, spicy, and read- 

 able, and, although dealing with characters 

 that figured and events that occurred half 

 a eentury ago, and across the ocean, they 

 will be read with interest and by many with 

 avidity in this country. The interest in 

 Oxford University, as a great seat of learn- 

 ing, is not ' confined to England, and every- 

 body has heard of the Oxford movement, an 

 ecclesiastical fermentation in the university 

 which greatly disturbed the English Church, 

 and involved the secession of many of her 

 theologians to the Church of Rome. The 

 work is thus characterized by a writer in the 

 " Quarterly Review " : 



" It is, in great measure, a gallery of 

 portraits, vividly and even brilliantly 

 sketched, of the remarkable body of men 

 who were connected with Oriel College for 



about half a century of its most famous 

 period. The book is a succession of short 

 chapters, each about the length of a leading 

 article, most of them depicting the appear- 

 ance, the habits, the capacities, and charac- 

 ters of a number of men who, for two gen- 

 erations, have played a leading part in 

 English thought and life. Nothing but in- 

 timate daily association could have enabled 

 even a genius like that of Mr. Mozely to 

 hit them off with such distinctness and 

 accuracy. But he and they were, for the 

 most part, fellows or gentlemen commoners, 

 or undergraduates of the same college ; even 

 if of different colleges, tliey lived in the 

 same university, under similar conditions. 

 lie saw them going out and coming in ; he 

 dined with them ; spent the evenings with 

 them ; worked side by side with them ; man- 

 aged business with them for years. All 

 their characteristic and tell-tale traits fell 

 under his daily observation, and he came to 

 know them as well as, or perhaps better 

 than, himself. If we had no other occa- 

 sion for welcoming this book, we could not 

 but rejoice to have such a vivid picture of 

 a kind of life which has played so large 

 a part in English society, drawn at the 

 very time and in the very college where, 

 perhaps, it reached its culmination. Mr. 

 Mozely depicts it, not only with very rare 

 powers of observation and of description, 

 but with the keen appreciation of sympa- 

 thy and of close attachment. As we read 

 his pages we live in the Oxford and the 

 Oriel of his day ; we fellow all its social 

 politics, slight as they may seem, with the 

 interest of real human life ; we discern how 

 all the little details developed characters 

 and determined careers, and see before us, 

 in scores of instances, that constant ac- 

 tion and reaction of individuals and circum- 

 stances out of which the drama of life is 

 developed." 



In a book of so many details, and re- 

 lating mainly to distant personal experi- 

 ences, we might naturally expect a good 

 percentage of error, and our pages this 

 month bear testimony to Mr. Mozely's fal- 

 libility in this respect. He was a pupil in 

 Derby of Mr. George Spencer, father of Her- 

 bert Spencer, and some of his reminiscences 

 of his early teacher have proved so mislead- 

 ing as to require particular correction. 



