the memoir, however, "ventures to say that they had a joyous time of it." It is interesting to family friends, we adınit, and even in a certain measure to the bumane public generally, to be assured that any persons-and proportionally more so that two brothers-and still more that two gentlemen whose services the country could ill afford to spare-have passed over one of the New Jersey railroads in safety, and that they quite probably had a joyous time while doing so. But, after all, if such a journey had no further bearing on their future life; and if we do not even know, but only conjecture, that they were pleased with each other's society, it seems hardly worth while to tell of the matter after an interval of fourteen years. But if there are no letters and no diary, what shall the biographer do, it may be asked? We think it would be better to dispense with one volume of the book, as we have said before. But the further point to which we desired to allude in connection with this citation, is this: that the volumes mingle together the lives of Dr. James Alexander and Dr. Addison Alexander in a very remarkable way, considering the fact that they are written as the life of the latter. It is sometimes difficult, except by close observation, to tell which of the two brothers the author is speaking of. We think this is unfortunate, and even a decided fault in the book. But it is doubtless to be accounted for by the same scarcity of details connected with the career of the younger brother, of which we have already spoken more than once. We ask the reader's attention to but one more extract in this connection, which may serve to show both the peculiarities referred to. At the beginning of chapter xxviii., the biographer says, as if he were about to tell us something of much interest:

"But it is time to go back with the traveler [i. e., Dr. Addison Alexander] to Princeton and hear the news of Commencement. His former connection with Nassau Hall had not been forgotten by Dr. James Alexander. The young men of the College Societies were disappointed this year as regarded their Commencement Orator, who unexpectedly, and at a very late hour, decline. In the emergency they applied to Dr. Alexander [i. e., Dr. James Alexander], of New York, who consented to fill the gap, and at the time appointed made the address. It was, of course, very hastily prepared, but was a graceful and felicitous composition, and was widely commended."

This passage, again, has no relation to anything which goes

before or follows after it. It certainly is of very slight importance as connected with the life of Dr. James Alexander, and not the slightest as connected with that of Dr. Addison Alexander. And yet it is introduced as if some interesting circumstances, or some important events in the college world, were to be mentioned, which made the delay of the preceding narrative almost too long for the impatient writer and reader. We should not speak of these things at all, were they not found so frequently. But when we come upon them at intervals of only a few pages, from the beginning of the book to the end, we can hardly help asking what the author's ideas of biography are?

We wish to notice only one other point for criticism in this work. Dr. Alexander was a remarkable man, we believe, and we join our praise of him with that of others. But he was not the greatest man that ever lived. His biographer, however, couid not have used more, and more numerous, adulatory phrases than he has done, if Dr. Alexander had been Paul himself. Indeed, we do not believe there were ever any five men in the world who, together, deserved more extreme admiration than this writer has bestowed upon his distinguished uncle. He is never compared to any one except the most world-renowned of men. He looked like Napoleon. His faults as a commentator or lecturer were like those of Neander. His style was like that of Calvin, his general knowledge, like that of Macaulay, his linguistic acquirements, like those of Sir William Jones. He died like Whitefield. It is admitted that he was inferior to Mezzofanti in the number of languages which he knew, but only in this respect; for, says his nephew, "Dr. Russell, the biographer of Mezzofanti, cannot persuade the world that he knew philology," while he, the biographer of Dr. Alexander, can assure inquiring friends that his uncle, "the ardent lover of Sir William Jones, the friend of Franz Bopp, the pupil of Dr. Pott, the early admirer of Grimm and Humboldt, and the careful student of the more recent efforts of German and English scholarship in this department, as well as of such authors as Freytag, De Sacy, Ewald, Rosenmüller, Thiersch, Buttmann, Winer, Wahl, etc., was not likely to be indifferent to the amazing advances of the new science.""

In his preaching, it is stated, perhaps fifteen times in the course of the two volumes, that he was like a rushing locomotive. He was also like a whirlwind-like a foaming torrentlike a storm. "Mighty intellects bowed under him like the pine before the tempest." "He fairly ravished me with his enchanting imaginative pictures and his wild bursts of music and pathos. He went through his sermon as the suminer wind goes through the trees before a thunder storm. He closed in a perfect cataract of glorious imagery and high religious feeling." He projected a commentary "which no other person but himself had the ability to complete." "When aroused, his wit flew like foam flakes, or like a gay steamer before the wind." By his sarcasm "he would cut a man's side open, to relieve him of a festering briar. Or, to change the figure, he hurled rocks at the fly that troubled his friend's slumber." "Hebrew was his atmosphere and his sunshine. It colored him as the leaf colors the silkworm." "His favorite pupils had much the same sort of vivid feeling for him that the Old Guard had for the first Consul and the Emperor; while the body of the classes had the more quiet feeling of admiration that was generally prevalent in the French army." His writings were characterized by "wonderful sententious completeness and power of statement. He could bundle up the substance of a shelf of authors in a paragraph." "The Rabbinical and classical authors were at his finger's ends." "Sometimes in his commentaries, he leaves the analytical scaffolding behind him, and mounts up as with the wings of an eagle." His work on Isaiah was a "Herculean task, but the author had great powers and an indomitable desire. There were moments of wavering, when this man upon the mountain-top needed to have his hands upheld by others, but, in the final issue, the victory over all difficulties was achieved, and the Amalek of German infidelity was overcome." "If to write noble stanzas, each instinct with imagination and passion, and full of rhythmic music, requires the effort of a constructive artist, then it must be conceded that the subject of this biography was a constructive artist, and on the same grounds that settle the claim of Ariosto or Byron." There is scarcely anything, from the

originating of a new system of theology or metaphysics to the preparation of stories for children, but this enthusiastic writer thinks his revered and admired friend might have done it equally well with the best and the greatest. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that such a man moved about in a quiet New Jersey village, for a quarter of a century, without being known all over the world. And we are quite sure that the retiring and unostentatious scholar never dreamed that his biographer would paint such an extravagant picture. We understand that the author of these volumes has been, for some years, a preacher in Virginia. If so, he has, perhaps, borrowed his style from his Southern brethren, whose extravagant imagery and magniloquent language have been always objects of wonder to the northern mind. We think, however, that the uncle would be better taken as a guide in the matter of rhetoric than his nephew; and the true estimate of the former's powers and greatness is doubtless somewhere between his own modest judgment of himself and the extremely adulatory one of his biographer. In a passage which presents a vivid description of Dr. Alexander's method of studying in his own room, we find the following pleasing picture: "His voice could be heard through his closed door, as in chirruping mood he sang his Arabic and Persian songs, blew tunes upon his ivory paperfolder, or murmured strange words in tones which might have deceived an inexperienced bee-hunter. Then he would pause, whirl the leaves of a lexicon, murmur again, whistle, soliloquize, cross and recross the floor, resume his seat, and so da capo. Sometimes, perhaps, when bending over Jarchi or J. D. Michaelis, a funny thought would strike him, and he would laugh aloud, quickly uttering the syllables, 'ha, ha, ha.'" The more we write of Dr. Alexander the more we like him; and we cannot but fancy his overflowingly joyous spirit refreshing itself with these volumes of his biography. In reading many of their sentences, descriptive of himself, he would, we are confident, pause, whirl over the leaves, murmur strange words in tones like a bee, whistle, soliloquize, cross and recross the floor, resume his seat, and so da capo, and da capo, and da capo, until, in the exuberance of his funny thoughts, he would close the

volumes with a loud utterance of those three expressive monosyllables.

NOTE.-After our Article had been written, and while it was in the printer's hands, we received the January number of the Princeton Review, containing a review of this biography. The authorship is indicated by the statement that the writer was a colleague of Dr. Alexander for twenty-five years, a statement which can be made only of the senior Professor of the Seminary at Princeton. He says, "This is one of the most skillfully executed biographies within our knowledge. ** The materials were abundant. They have been woven together with consummate skill. The style of the work also is excellent. It is clear, pure, and racy. There is no prolixity; no amplification, -all is rapid and vivacious."