LITERARY NOTICES. 



561 



graphical art, may be commended to 

 the attention of our readers, but we 

 must remind tliem that it is a very in- 

 complete representation of the original 

 lecture. A condensation in literature 

 is generally the worst kind of mutila- 

 tion ; for, instead of cutting the thing 

 into large sections by which considerable 

 portions are left unmutilated, the con- 

 denser performs his crushing operation 

 on the whole, so that very little is left 

 as the author puts it. Compression is 

 often necessary, but it is generally at the 

 expense of the symmetry and finish of 

 the performance. The President of the 

 Geographical Society expresses regret 

 that his pressure of legal duties during 

 the past year had not allowed him time 

 to work up the progress of current geo- 

 graphical discovery, as he has been in 

 the habit of doing in the preparation of 1 

 his annual address. But in place of it 

 he has given the world unquestionably i 

 the best monograph on the history of | 

 map-making in connection with the de- \ 

 velopment of early geography that can • 

 anywhere be found. It is a careful 

 statement, laying under contribution 

 all the resources of geographical erudi- 

 tion, and the few small cuts we repro- 

 duce from it but poorly represent the 

 full series of old maps that have been 

 prepared to illustrate the subject, and 

 are contained in the pamphlet issued by 

 the Geographical Society. To that doc- 

 ument the reader is referred for the 

 ampler and more satisfactory discussion 

 of the subject. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



OcTAvitTS Perinchief: His Life of Trial 

 AND Supreme Faith. By Charles Lan- 

 MAN. Washington : James Anglim. Pp. 

 403. Price, $2. 



This is the biography of a devout clergy- 

 man, who was at the same time a cordial 

 and fearless friend of science. We call at- 

 tention to some features of the work that 

 illustrate this combination of traits. 



The subject of it was born in Bermuda 

 VOL. XVI. — 36 



in 1829. He got the rudiments of a com- 

 mon education there, and came to New 

 York at the age of eighteen. Having a 

 thirst for study, and deciding to become a 

 clergyman, he went to Amenia Seminary, 

 and then to Trinity College at Hartford. 

 After graduating there he taught a year at 

 Racine College, Wisconsin, and then wound 

 up his professional studies in the General 

 Theological Seminary in New York. He 

 was ordained by Bishop Potter as a clergy- 

 man of the Episcopal Church in 1857. 



Mr. Perinchief's pastoral experiences 

 were varied. He had charge of several 

 parishes, beginning to preach in Brooklyn ; 

 he afterward went to Bridgeport, then to 

 York, Pennsylvania, from which he removed 

 to Mount Holly, New Jersey, and finally re- 

 turned to Bridgeport, where he died in 1877, 

 at the age of forty-seven years. 



Mr. Perinchicf was during all his adult 

 life an invalid and a great sufferer. Strait- 

 ened in means, and fighting his way through 

 the educational institutions, he was often 

 subjected to great privations, living for long 

 periods on bread and water, with insuffi- 

 cient clothing, which, with the customary 

 overwork in such circumstances, permanent- 

 ly impaired his constitution. Besides this, 

 he early met with a terrible accident which 

 produced a lesion of the spine, that was 

 ever afterward a source of much pain and 

 prostration. 



It is hardly possible that so intense and 

 prolonged an experience of physical suffer- 

 ing could have been without its influence 

 upon his mental life. Yet he was far from 

 being the victim of his bad bodily conditions. 

 His subjective experiences did not color or 

 distort his view of the world. His manhood 

 triumphed over the unhappy accidents of 

 his lot, and the influence he exerted upon 

 all around him was in a remarkable degree 

 healthful, ennobling, and purifying. He had 

 a large measure of that quality which is 

 currently characterized as "personal mag- 

 netism," and all who knew him were brought 

 under its influence, and quickened in their 

 aspirations after a higher and more perfect 

 life. He was a man of great spirituality 

 and profoimd devotion, but this involved' 

 no weakness, and he did not waste himself " 

 in mere fervid emotion. His judgment was 

 clear, his criticisms telling, and his views 



