The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-12-16
sloughed of. the Queens service will be
the finest in the world. Mcclure, Phil
lips 6 Co. $1.60)
seventeenth Century Civilization.

the UneSt III the WOrlO. tMcciuTe,
lips 6 Co. $500
Seventeenth Century Civilization.
1.-THE Transit Of Civilization is a new
book by Edward Eggleston, who has put
into a series of essays on the civilization
of the seventeenth century vast amount
of information on the habits, thoughts,
customs, and superstitions Of colonial
America. The work is well done. and
the book extremely interesting.
In thinking of this country as 1t was
in colonial times we are too apt to IDEAL
ize the life of the common people. and
forget how full of quaint and sometimes
unpleasant superstitions, meaningless Gus
toms. and foolish opinions it must have
been. The ordinary man of those days
was no more uncommon than he is now,
and his judgment was certainly perverted
and his intellect warped by hundred
untrue beliefs. His mind was like the
glass III his windows. full Of wavering
lines and flaws. But it is fascinating to
study. all the same when its workings
are described by writer as skiliful and
well informed as Dr.. Eggleston.
The ideas of natural history which pre-
vailed at the time of the settlement OF
this country were vague to the last de-
gre5, and so quickly have the sciences NJ
ornithOlogy, zoology. biology, and anat-
omy attained their present comparatively
advanced condition that 1t is hard to con-
ceive of time when the simplest facts
of animal and vegetable life were mis-
construed or unrecognized. Here, for ex-
ample, is the theory that certain species
of waterfowl grew on trees, in shells
like nuts: and it was seriously supposed
h1 ba b,r Ia, Il
barnacle; that other birds were produced
by spontaneous generation from rotten
wood or fruit; and that insects were born
Of carrion. Even in our own time, in
Virginia. there may be found people who
believe that the sora, which suddenly ap-
pear in great numbers at certain seasons
of the year, are produced from frogs,
but this is a bit of information which
has not come to the notice Of DR.. Egg
gleston. He tells us, however, that mi
gratory birds were supposed to hibernate
in holes and caves, and even to take
refuge in the clay at the bottom of rivers.
Bishop Goodwin preached sermon ex-
planning that such birds passed the win
ter among the mountains and valleys of
the moon-the telescope was new thing
in his time. $685. rf nf .. -9'f
The chapter on medical science is a
thing to make modern readers devoutly
thankful that they do not live in time
when medicines were made Of the things
used by colonial doctors. Pulverized but
terflies, crickets, and grasshoppers were
not the only insects in demand for this
business.
There is chapter on language and it
contains some exceedingly interesting in
formation about the origin of certa n
forms of speech current insthis country.
The Yankee twang in heouse" OF
"haouse" is, Dr.. Eggleston tells us, part
of the archaic patois of a portion Of
County Wexford, in Ireland, which was
settled by colony of English people in
the Middle Ages, 200 years before the Can
terbury tales were written. Four or five
hundred years after, the descendants OF
these English-Irish farmers of 1169 emf
grated to America and brought with them
not only that same twang. but such words
as "kiver" for cover, "cOtch' for caught,
and man for husband Truly might
Archbishop Trench say that language is
fossil history. We are told here also that
there is an old folk-version of "Cindar-
ella" known in New England as Rose,
Pink, and Piney.''
Another particularly fascinating chapter
describes the way in which the two civili-
cations of colonial times. that of New Eng
land and that of Virginia. came to be. In
the one case the village, the town owned
and decided everything; this produced
state of affairs essentially democratic and
developed also the faults OF the village
In Virginia the vestry managed all the
concerns of the neighborhoOd: this pro-
duced and favored an aristocracy and also
a growth of craftsmanship. The virtues
of both types of citizen We're needed by
the young Republic. and as time goes on
they are likely TO become more and more
thoroughly blended through the mixing of
Northerner and Southerner in the affair
Of the Middle and Western States, whore
they have been. and still are, the lcayen
of older settlers which determined the
character of community partly composed
of immigrants. tNew York: D. Appleton
& Co. SL50.)