442 A Century of Science 



upstart upon Americans as the true candidate for 

 these posthumous honours, the man or saint to 

 whom they are to do homage, and through this 

 homage allow the Church of Rome to slip the yoke 

 of spiritual subjection over their necks ! " 



A shrill note of anger is sometimes the sure 

 ear-mark of a book from Queer Street, Anger is, 

 indeed, a kind of transient mania, and eccentric 

 literature is apt to be written in high dudgeon. 

 When you take up a pamphlet by " Vindex," and 

 read the title, " A Box on Both Ears to the Powers 

 that ought not to be at Washington," you may be 

 prepared to find incoherency. I once catalogued 

 an edition of Plutarch's little essay on Superstition, 

 and was about to let it go on its way, along with 

 ordinary Greek books, when my eye happened to 

 fall upon the last sentence of the editor's preface : 

 " I terminate this my Preface by consigning all 

 Greek Scholars to the special care of Beelzebub." 

 " Oho ! " I thought, " there 's a cloven foot here ; 

 perhaps, if we explore further, we may get a whiff 

 of brimstone." And it was so. 



It thus appears that the topics treated in ec- 

 centric literature are numerous and manifold. 

 Not only, moreover, has this department its vigor- 

 ous prose-writers ; it has also its inspired poets. 

 Witness the following lines from the volume en- 

 titled Eucleia " (Salem, 1861) : 



