include fixed elements--in age (four)--and in intelligence (the dull elaborated)--making up a compound vertebrate (biological analogy). Kindly elements conceded, but on the whole depressing. Holmes gave the final epithet to his novels when he referred to them as "medicated." For the other and more eminent American physician, Weir Mitchell, fiction was a resort to another world, but the author of "Elsie Venner" (1861), "The Guardian Angel" (1867), and "The Mortal Antipathy" (1885) was the essayist-physician extending the narrative process a little farther than in the conversational series. The plots were supplied by Dr. Holmes and developed by the Autocrat-Professor-Poet. Several chapters of medical lore were interpolated in each book, and several more of genial exposition. These latter are like the work of Mrs. Stowe except that their relation to story development is tenuous or imperceptible, and in characterization his successes, like Mrs. Stowe's, are with the homelier New England types. In the best sense of the word Holmes was a provincial New Englander. He was proud of the traditions of his district, devoted to its welfare, certain of its capacity for improvement, but sure of its contribution to the integrity of American character. Although he did not share the deeper enthusiasms of Emerson or even fully understand them, he had much more of the milk of human kindness in him. His "message" and his manner of delivering it were popular with the reading public. He was not a leader, but he kept up to the times, and he explained the drift of them to many who might not otherwise have perceived what was going on in the world or in themselves. In the tributes which came from every quarter after his death his geniality was the highest common factor--a wholesome and homely trait which will always be sure of affectionate regard in American literature. BOOK LIST =_Individual Author_=