Thomas Sopu'ith, M.A., C.E., P.R.S. With Excerpts from his Diary
of Fifty-seven Years. By Benjamin Ward Richardson, M.D., LL.D., F R.S. (Longmans.)—As a surveyor of mines and railways, Mr. Sopwith lived an active and successful life. He appears to have been entirely pleased with himself and with his friends ; he had unbounded health, was happy in his domestic relations, loved society and travel, and had a variety of interests congenial to his taste. He gained, too, all the honours due to a man of high professional ability, was associated with twenty-six learned institutions, and "by these bonds of fellowship was connected with general science and literature ; geological, mining, engineering, and useful arts ; geography, meteorology, and natural history ; and statistics, antiquities, and the fine arts." Mr. Sopwith was, we do not doubt, greatly gifted, but in spite of his eminent virtues and acquirements, the narrative of his life is so far from proving attractive, that the reader will be inclined to ask why it was written. His Diary consists, we are told, of "no fewer than one hundred and sixty-eight small, neatly and strongly bound volumes, and of three large volumes ; " but if we may judge from the extracts selected by Dr. Richardson, it is essentially common- place,—useful and interesting, no doubt, to the writer and his family, but of little public value. The task of reading through one hundred and seventy-one volumes of manuscript must have proved a heavy one ; but if in so doing Dr. Richardson has skimmed the cream, the milk must be of a poor quality. Some- thing there is of value which a careful reader may extract from the text; it would be strange were it not so, for Mr. Sopwith did not live the life of a recluse ; but, however interesting he may have proved in society, as a diarist he is dull, and there is nothing in the biographer's style or matter to lighten the somewhat leaden weight of the volume.
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