Walt Whitman : the Man. By Thomas Donaldson. (Gay and
Bird.)—We do not think that the fame of Walt Whitman is altogether served by this memoir of him. Mr. Donaldson describes a number of absolutely trifling habits of the man,—how he ate and drank, and used his finger-napkin, with other impertinences of Cie kind. Still, having begun the book with something of a feeling against the subject of it, and having been not a little irritated, now and then, by this habit in his eulogist, we finished it with a distinctly higher opinion of the man. Nothing can be said in defence of some things that Whitman wrote. They were outrages not on literature only, but on common decency. But there was something great and loveable about the man after all. Anyhow, men whose judgments are above criticism had a great regard for him. There are letters from Tennyson to him, to name only one out of many, which display a genuine affection. No man whom Tennyson liked and admired could have been con- temptible. Then he did some good work in the hospital. Strangely enough, the United States Government never acknowledged his services. Every one who was in the war, and not a few who took good care not to go near it, has been pensioned ; but Walt Whit- man got nothing, Out of .Z28,000,000 a year a few pounds might have been spared for him.
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