and which at this moment appears to be the only
system that can create a strong, united, independent Italy. It was to
him, perhaps, more than to any other single man, that the difficulties
which lately arose in the settling of the mode of annexation of Sicily
and Naples to the Sardinian kingdom were due; and the small party in
Parliament which recently refused to join in the vote of confidence in
the ministry of Cavour was led by Ferrari, the disciple of the Milanese
Doctor.

But however impracticable Cattaneo may be, and however mistaken and
extravagant his political views, he is a man of such vigor of mind, that
a journal conducted by him becomes, from the fact of his connection with
it, one of the important organs of Italian thought. We trust that the
"Politecnico" will find subscribers among those in our country who
desire to keep up their knowledge of Italian affairs at a time of such
extraordinary interest as the present.

_Elsie Venner_. A Romance of Destiny. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 2 vols.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.

English literature numbers among its more or less distinguished authors
a goodly number of physicians. Sir Thomas Browne was, perhaps, the
last of the great writers of English prose whose mind and style were
impregnated with imagination. He wrote poetry without meaning it, as
many of his brother doctors have meant to write poetry without doing it,
in the classic style of

"Inoculation, heavenly maid, descend!"

Garth's "Dispensary" was long ago as fairly buried as any of his
patients; and Armstrong's "Health" enjoys the dreary immortality of
being preserved in the collections, like one of those queer things they
show you in a glass jar at the anatomical museums. Arbuthnot, a truly
genial humorist, has hardly had justice done him. People laugh over his
fun in the "Memoirs of Scriblerus," and are commonly satisfied to think
it Pope's. Smollett insured his literary life in "Humphrey Clinker";
and we suppose his Continuation of Hume is still one of the pills which
ingenuous youth is expected to gulp before it is strong enough to
resist. Goldsmith's fame has steadily gained; and so has that of Keats,
whom we may also fairly reckon in our list, though he remained harmless,
having never taken a degree. On the whole, the proportion of doctors who
have positively succeeded in our literature is a large one, and we
have now another very marked and beautiful case in Dr. Holmes. Since
Arbuthnot