The Life of Dr. Walker, by Dr. EPPS, is a
curious volume, highly deserving the attention of the student of character. Dr. WALKER was, like HOWARD, and many other of the greatest benefactors of the world, a man with but one idea, and that was vaccination. He went about inoculating as HOWARD went gaol-visiting, or as COLUMBUS travelled from court to court showing his maps and charts, demonstrating the actuality of a new world; 'Which every body conceived to exist only in a fanatic's brain. Dr. WALKER was a walking personification of FOSTER'S Essay on Decision of Character, and perhaps might stand for that admirable writer's model,—for we find it recorded in these memoirs, that FOSTER WRE WALKER'S successor in his school at Dublin, when the latter set off to walk through Great Britain for the materials of his Gazetteer. WALKER was a man who could form no idea of a difficulty ; if the Andes were in his way, it would never have occurred to him that they were inaccessible. He would have buckled on his wallet, looked to his shoes, taken his staff, and scaled the barrier. No privation ever touched him, whether travelling for his Gazet- teer or afterwards for his diploma, or again over the wide world, the destroying angel of the small-pox : he cared for no want, suf- fered no anxiety, trusted to Providence and the good cause—and on he went. " .Never prepare—never postpone—always proceed:" was his motto.
Dr. WALKER was not a man of genius, scarcely was he a man of talent ; he was an eccentric with one fixed purpose ; and his is an example which will show, more than volumes, how much un- aided resolution will do,—for WALKER never had a farthing to pay his expenses, and yet he achieved objects that no wealth could have accomplished. He was for a long time at the head of the Vaccine Establish- ment of London ; and laboured daily and hourly for the public. without the wavering or failing of a thought in mind or a second in time, for upwards of a quarter of a century. His reward was that of most other disinterested servants of the public—neglect and poverty ; people laughed at his beard, twigged his broad brim, and paid his devotion to the cause of humanity with a sneer. Another of the nobler examples of the human race was ALEX.. ANDER WILSON the ornithologist. He was not so directly a bene- factor of his kind as JOHN WALKER, for his was enthusiasm for science and nature. But he was, like iSTALKER, pursued by a single idea : he was a poet, and consequently a general lover of Nature, till he discovered his passion was a particular devotion to the winged creation. Through poverty and difficulty, ALEXANDER WILSON devoted his whole being to the investigation of the king- dom of birds. Originally a Paisley weaver, of course poor, and with narrow means of procuring instruction, he made his way to Ann! rica, he plunged into the recesses of the forest, lived with its feathered tribes, almost became one of their community, and at least their historiographer. His were really wood-notes wild ; for he wrote his admirable descriptions of the birds of North Amet ica in the very forest under the trees, and on them, with the creatures before hint, or their nests or their eggs. The managers of Constable's Miscellany have been lucky to hit upon the idea of embracing his work as continued by BONAPARTE'S nephew (but without the platei) in their library. The first volume has appeared. We have read it, and rich has been the treat. We recommend it to every small proprietor of a book-shelf in the kingdom. The memoir alone of the man, is an invaluable document.
Let all who wish to be honest and pay their debts, buy the Life of Walker, for the benefit of his widow. It will be a small return to the memory of that good man. Let all who would understand the secrets and beauties of nature, and wish for a new pleasure, like SARDANAPALUS, purchase this number of Constable's. _Mis- cellany, and become ornithologists.
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