excuse is unanswerable. One good result is that the life is given in two volumes of modest size; and for the record of so simple a history that seems to be ample. We do not, perhaps, know very much more than an attentive reader could infer from Dr. Holmes's own writings; but the facts are brought together in a definite and authentic shape, and combined in a simple and agreeable narrative.
Every reader of the Autocrat has his own distinct image of the author. As he remarks himself in a characteristic passage, there are three people on each side of every dialogue; the real John, and John's ideal John, and Peter's John; and no doubt there may be a real Holmes, different both from the Holmes of Holmes's own imagination and the reader's Holmes. There are, however, very few people of whom one believes that the three have a more substantial identity. The true man, as every one remarks, shows himself with all his idiosyncrasies in every page of his writing. This suggests certain difficulties for the writer. Mr. Morse observes that the true Holmes was a New Englander 'from the central thread of his marrow to his outermost rind.' That is undeniable; but Mr. Morse proceeds to answer that
