the remonstrances made from various sources, he says (p. 37): "The rectors of the different foreign colleges addressed to you fresh remonstrances, and again claimed your promise. No answer. The Holy Father then took up the cause and claimed restitution: so did the bishops, the professors, the rectors of colleges, even directly to yourself. You never deigned to give the smallest response. You keep the buildings of the Roman college, which are ours by right, and you pocket the 12,000 Roman scudi which was assigned to the professors by the Pontifical Government. And thus M. Minghetti and his Government ignore the sacred rights of the Pope, the bishops, and the Catholic powers; they have thrown immense difficulties in the way of instruction in the sacred sciences; and they have injured, in the highest degree, the spiritual and scientific interests of Catholicity itself.' Notwithstanding the fact that the law recognizes the principle that the Pope is entirely free to accomplish the functions of his spiritual ministry, and that he cannot fulfil the functions of his ministry alone, and that the Church is necessarily a secular body served by regular · Orders,' yet the first thing you did was to destroy these regular Orders. By striking at them in the centre or heart of the Church, you have done an irreparable injury to institutions which are of vital interest to the whole of Catholicity, and which were created, not only for this universal end, but with funds to which the Pontifical States have contributed little or nothing." He then goes into the subject of the disorganization of the Roman congregations, and then regarding the menaces made to the Propaganda he says (p. 41) "This is the institution, the most inseparable from the Papacy, and the most necessary to Catholicity; that, also, which the highest interests of civilization, no less than those of religion, command you to respect." He reminds M. Minghetti (p. 42) “that he will find Catholic missionaries in Europe from the Highlands of Scotland and Sweden, to the banks of the Danubian provinces, and at Constantinople, in the whole of Asia, at Jerusalem, and all the cities of the Levant; in Persia, China, in the Indies and Japan, and in Oceanica. There, the black savages of New Guinea, the Protestant colonies of Holland, the new world of Australia, the scarcely known islands of Polynesia, are full of missioners. In Africa they are labouring in Algeria, at Tunis, Tripoli, &c.; beyond the Sahara, in Abyssinia, Senegal, Zanzibar, in that vast Nigritia, where 50,000,000 poor negroes are waiting to become men and Christians; at the Cape of Good Hope, in Madagascar, in Sierra Leone. In America you find them in New York, as in Canada, even to the wild lands of Arkansas and Hudson's Bay; in Texas, at the Antilles, in Guiana, everywhere! Shall I reckon up all those Orders devoted to distant missions, Lazarists, Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Passionists, the Lyons Missionaries, those of Picpus, the Marists, the Oblates of Pignerolles and of Charity, the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, &c. And how many others? I stop; for it would be too long to pass, in review, that great and noble army of the Catholic Apostolate, and this noble army of missioners is organized and directed by the Propaganda, which is the prime minister of the Catholic missions; the first and most indispensable of those administrations by which the Pope governs the universal Church. It is the Propaganda

which, by its Vicars Apostolic, governs and directs all those countries where the Catholic hierarchy is not yet regularly constituted. She is the resort of all the missionary establishments (both men and women) scattered throughout the East, in India, China, Africa, America, and the isles of the ocean; all the clergy, regular and secular, who, under one name or the other, are labouring for the propagation of the faith, are consolidated, directed, and depend entirely upon her. It is so true that the Propaganda is an Apostolate, not for local purposes, but for the whole world, that she does not receive students of Italian nationality. All her subjects, formed in her school, are to return to their respective orders, belonging to different countries who have sent them there." Besides this (p. 44) "each Order had certain fixed missions assigned to it. For instance, the Carmelites had, at St. Pancrazio, their seminary for the Malabar Mission and the Indies; from whence came the first lights that were thrown on Sanscrit, a language which is now studied throughout Europe as the mother tongue of the Indo-Germanic tribes. The Franciscans had, for their Syrian and Egyptian missions, the convent of St. Bartholomew à l'Isola. And so with all the others. You have suppressed all these seminaries and convents; their libraries have been confiscated and scattered, and everything is disorganized and destroyed. And now the Italian Government would attack this great congregation of the Propaganda. Its expenses are defrayed by certain houses situated in Rome, and certain lands in the Pontifical States; but how heavy would be the loss which you would make the Propaganda incur by the inevitable depreciation of the value of its property, consequent on a forced sale in a limited time!" The Government has further attacked all the scientific lay institutions, and because the Professors of the Roman University have remained faithful to the Sovereign Pontiff, they have been compelled to take the political oath to the Government. M. Dupanloup then proceeds to ask M. Minghetti if Italy has been enriched by these spoliations, and reminds him of Bossuet's words: "Woe," he exclaims, "be to those who lay their hands upon Church property!" Look at Spain, and so many other nations, whom such robbery has neither saved from bankruptcy nor from invasion, nor from the disaster of assignats. For Church property never brings any luck to those who take possession of it. How vividly do these words bring back to our mind the state of England at the Reformation. Was she enriched by the dissolution of the Monasteries? Henry VIII. died poor, so did nearly all the grantees of Church property. In Italy the expenses are enormous, something quite incredible. Eternal justice still exists, and Eternal justice will, sooner or later, have her day; to Eternal justice every Catholic must appeal against the enormities daily enacted against Rome, the mistress and mother of the Church. As M. Dupanloup says, the present rupture is a deplorable aberration, which will become more fatal to Italy than to the Church. It is this fixed principle that leads us to hope that He, who in His Divine ineffable mercy spared the penitent thief, and said to him on the cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,' will open the door of repentance to Victor Emanuel and M. Minghetti, and lead them, in a truly penitential spirit to the feet of that magnanimous

Pontiff, whom they have so deeply insulted and injured, Pius IX., the prisoner of the Vatican. We may say, in conclusion, that the translation of M. Dupanloup's letter has been well done, and reads as smoothly as if written in English.

Catechism made Easy. By the Rev. HENRY GIBSON. Rockliff Brothers: Liverpool. 1874.

WE

E directed attention to the first volume of this valuable aid to pastors of souls on its appearance, so far back as 1869; and we congratulate its painstaking author upon the recovery from a long indisposition which has enabled him now to give us the second volume of his work. Father Gibson has thus made progress with what promises to be a most useful manual in the hands of those whose duty it is to instruct others unto justice. And which of us is altogether exempt from such a duty? "All are bound," say the Fathers assembled in the Provincial Council of 1873, "pastors and parents, and all the faithful according to their power, to labour, and, by all the means they can devise, to maintain in the hearts and minds of Catholic children of every class the full doctrinal knowledge of the Faith." They go on to state that it will be their endeavour "to provide catechetical formularies adapted to the several degrees of intelligence and culture in our youth," and "to promote the diffusion of Catholic books." Now, in the two volumes before us, we have "means to maintain in the hearts and minds of Catholic children of every class the full doctrinal knowledge of the faith" and of the laws of God and the Church; and we have a much-needed resource for all who are bound to instruct others, to enable them to perform efficiently an important duty. With but one-and that, we venture to think, a most opportune-extract, we heartily commend this work to our readers.

"From this it follows, my dear children, that we are bound to obey the laws of our country as long as those laws are not in opposition to the law or commandments of God. Hence, we are bound to pay the taxes which are laid upon us by lawful authority for the expenses of government, the support of our armies, and the preservation of the public peace; and this not only from a motive of obedience, but also of justice; for it is just that those who share in the protection of the State should contribute to the expenses of the State. Hence, also, we are strictly forbidden to resist the authority of the law, by rebelling against our established rulers, opposing the officers of justice, or joining in secret or illegal societies. And notice, it matters not whether the rulers of a state be good or bad, gentle or cruel, we are still bound to respect and obey them. And why so? Because the authority which they hold is the same, whatever their own conduct may be, and is worthy of reverence, since it comes from God, who will require from them an account of how they have ruled, but from us of how we have obeyed."

Passages of Historic Life. By ETHEL IRVING.
London: Chapman & Hall.

ISS IRVING has here collected into one volume four historical

MISS

sketches, the most important of which, "The Star of Poland," has been the subject of a tragedy from her pen, as well as of an article in our pages. Hedwige, second daughter of Lewis of Hungary, renounces her own lover William, Duke of Austria, for Jagellon, Prince of Lithuania, for the sake of the conversion of the Lithuanian people, which is promised by Jagellon, if Hedwige will marry him. The story is one of heroic selfsacrifice, and most beautiful and touching. Our only regret is that Miss Irving has fettered herself with antique forms of expression, which, though they have long passed muster as the colloquialisms of a medieval age, are not very acceptable to modern readers. The authoress has evidently considered that something was due to the dignity of history, whereas an historical sketch in its very idea rather pre-supposes an absolute freedom in the mode of phraseology and narration. We regret the more what appears to us a defect, inasmuch as Miss Irving, in the fourth tale, "Ellanston," shows us her own natural and graceful style, and here and there throughout her book, no mean powers of description. Few, for instance, can fail to be touched at the closing scene of the saintly Queen's life:"She rested her head on Ida's shoulder with a murmured expression of gratitude, and slumbered for several moments. Ida laid her gently upon her pillow and knelt beside her, and almost unconsciously as she knelt, there broke from her lips the words, 'There remaineth a rest.' The eyes of Hedwige opened, and looked into hers with solemn serenity, then they closed again; the faltering breath passed away, and all was still " (p. 84). Again, when Margaret, Duchess of Alençon, tells her tale at the court of the Emperor Charles, “her listeners were all attention; and as their interest became more apparent, her animation increased. The strange events of the story followed each other in rapid succession, and elicited the eager inquiries of her hearers, as their excitement was aroused. The Infanta woke from her habitual languor; the young Eleanora sat with clasped hands and flushed cheeks, her eyes beaming with delight or astonishment; and as Marguerite ended the tale, and folded up the manuscript, Charles rose impulsively from his seat, and taking her hand cordially in his, looked round upon his ministers and friends assembled" (pp. 130, 131). No less admirable is the opening description, in the third story, "Penshurst and Wilton," beginning with "the late beams of an Italian sun fell upon the domes of Venice, lit up the rich architecture of the Doge's Palace, and struck upon the lofty column of St. Mark" (pp. 161-5).

We are forced, by the way, to object to the following sentence :"Hedwige was a Catholic princess, a member of the Church of Rome; but if her forms were that (sic) of an especial community, her spirit was of the universal Church of her Lord" (p. 82). What is this but the well-worn phraseology of those who would fain explain away the denials

and affirmations of truth, and the endless inconsistencies amongst heretics? The fourteenth century certainly knew nothing of the blessings of Protestantism. To atone for this sentence we are glad to produce another :-" The abolition of the convent life and education to so large an extent has lost us much, far too much, of the devotion and the beautiful culture of women."

We can only conclude with thanking Miss Irving for her book; more especially for having reminded us once more of the affecting history of the great Catholic Queen Hedwige.

Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley. By WILLIAM MINTO, M.A. W. Blackwood & Sons.

THERE

HERE has been, perhaps, a little too much, lately, of that delicate and sickly criticism of works of the imagination which closely parallels the sort of devotion to culture which the Italians significantly call morbidezza. Those who are somewhat nauseated with the halfsensuous æsthetics of such writers as Mr. Pater, will find refreshment in this really very masterly work of Mr. Minto's. There is none of the effeminate beauty of the mannerism that goes off to painting, to porcelain, to lace, to find analogues for a poem or a thought, but there is, instead, a manly and firm analysis of character that reminds one rather of the anatomist than the artist. Strange to say, the scope of the book is one hitherto almost unattempted. "What sort of man was he?" not "How was he formed?" has been the question before the author's mind, and the reader has but to glance retrospectively over what has hitherto been written on the early English poets to realize how completely this question has been overlooked. Coleridge was conscious that it had to be answered, but his fine brain was lacking in the peculiar fibre needful for this peculiar work, and the phantom of his own individuality floated too constantly before his eyes to render him capable of forming a just opinion of any one who was dissimilar to himself. Charles Lamb has left some precious words, "alas too few"; but they are mere fragments at the best. Hazlitt did much, but not enough. Hallam, and other critics of that stamp, lacked sympathy and imagination, and wrote worst where a clear and fine judgment was most needed. Mr. Minto's new book will not supply the want exhaustively, but is a thoughtful and scholarly contribution to this neglected side of our literary history. His opening chapter deals with Chaucer, and is full of new suggestions. Over the poor poets that swarmed between Chaucer and Spenser he lingers almost too lovingly, giving to the dissection of these more or less radiant minds much patient thought and labour. The chapter on Spenser is remarkably fresh and original; on the whole, however, we prefer, to almost any other section of the book, the VOL. XXIV.-NO. XLVII. [New Series]

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