en of his class.

The description of the early life of Jonathan Romer is in the main the
history of the author himself. At the age of seventeen he commenced the
study of medicine, which he pursued with ardor and success. In 1832,
having attended for three years the lectures of the College of
Physicians and Surgeons in this city, he underwent his examination for a
degree, but did not receive a diploma till the ensuing term, not having
attained the legal age of twenty-one. After spending several years in
the city hospitals and in private practice, he abandoned brilliant
professional prospects to go abroad, partly for the benefit of his
health and partly urged by the spirit of adventure, which had long led
him to form plans for the exploration of Central Africa. Perhaps it is
to be regretted that he was prevented by the infirmity of
short-sightedness from emulating the achievements of Park, Clapperton
and Ledyard, for which his moral and physical constitution eminently
fitted him. He travelled extensively in Spain and Barbary however, and
we have the results in Kaloolah and in The Berber.

Anonymously, in various magazines, Dr. Mayo had written much and well,
but he was scarcely known as an author until the appearance of the work
upon which his fame still chiefly rests, _Kaloolah, or Journeyings to
the Djebel Kumri_, in the spring of 1849. It has frequently been said
that Kaloolah was suggested by the popular works of Herman Melville, but
it was written and nearly printed before the appearance of Typee, the
first of Mr. Melville's productions; and we see no reason for another
opinion, that it was an offspring of the author's love for Defoe; if it
was not an altogether spontaneous and independent work, its parentage
was probably less famous; we know of no composition so nearly resembling
Kaloolah as the pretended _Narrative of Robert Adams, an American sailor
who was wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1810,
detained three years in slavery by the Arabs, and afterward several
months a resident in the city of Timbuctoo_. This was a piece of pure
fiction, though brought out in London in a splendid quarto under the
endorsement of the Lord Chancellor, the President of the Royal Society,
and many other eminent persons in literature, science, and affairs, and
elaborately and credulously reviewed in the Edinburgh, the Quarterly,
and other Reviews. The hero of this performance, after various
adventures, was married