One of the most interesting episodes in the life of Madame de Montagu

was her intimacy with the celebrated Count Stolberg, whose conversion

to Catholicism seems to have been mainly attributable to the influence

of her character. She came across him during her residence at Ploen

and Wittmold. {266} He was at that time at the head of the government

of the Duke of Oldenburg; and he assisted her with all his power in

her charitable labors for the relief of the French emigrants. The

acquaintance between them sprung up in 1796. Count Stolberg, with his

wife and sister,--the only one of the three who did not afterward

become Catholic,--had already begun to see something of the

inconsistencies and deficiencies of Lutheranism. They were calm,

thoughtful, upright souls; grave, severe, and simple, after the best

type of the German character. They often conversed on and discussed

religious matters among themselves; but they were very ignorant about

the Catholic Church and its doctrines. Madame de Montagu taught them

more about Catholicism, without speaking on the subject directly, than

a whole library of controversial theology. Fragile in health,

sensitive to excess, overflowing with sympathy and tenderness, tried

by long and varied suffering, and strengthened, elevated, and

spiritualized by the cross, without having been hardened or made

impassible,--her whole character showed a force and power and

greatness that was obviously not its own. Such persons have an

irresistible attractiveness; and they speak with a strange silent

eloquence to intelligent hearts in favor of the religion which can

produce and sustain them. Madame de Montagu was not a person to

introduce controversial topics; but she won upon her new friends

gradually, and at last they could not help telling her so, after

listening to the account they had begged her to give of her own and

her sisters' sufferings. After a time their hearts strongly turned to

Catholicism; but intellectual difficulties remained on the mind of

Stolberg, which were not set at rest till 1800, after he had been

engaged in a correspondence with M. de la Luzerne and M. Asseline, to

whom Madame de Montagu and her sisters had introduced him. The French

prelates did their part; but the illustrious convert must ever be

considered as in truth the spiritual child of Madame de Montagu.

------

From All the Year Round

A FEW SATURNINE OBSERVATIONS.

Here is a gentleman at our doors, Mr. R. A. Proctor, who has written a

book upon that planet Saturn, and he asks us to stroll out in his

company, and have a look at the old gentleman. It is a long journey to

Saturn, for his little place is nine and a half times further from the

sun than ours, and his is not a little place in comparison with our

own tenement, because Saturn House is seven hundred and thirty-five

times bigger than Earth Lodge.

The people of Earth Lodge made Saturn's acquaintance very long ago;

nobody remembers how long. Venus and Jupiter being brilliant in

company, may have obtruded themselves first upon attention in the

evening parties of the stars, and Mars, with his red face and his

quick movement, couldn't remain long unobserved. Saturn, dull, slow,

yellow-faced, might crawl over the floor of heaven like a gouty and

bilious nabob, and be overlooked for a very little while, but somebody

would soon ask, Who is that sad-faced fellow with the leaden

complexion, who sometimes seems to be standing still or going

backward?

He was the more noticeable, because {267} those evening parties in the

sky differ from like parties on earth in one very remarkable respect

as to the behavior of the company. We hear talk of dancing stars, and

the music of the spheres, but, in fact, except a few, all keep their

places, with groups as unchanging as those of the guests in the old

fabled banquet, whom the sight of the head of Medusa turned to stone.

Only they wink, as the stone guests probably could not. In and out

among this company of fixtures move but a few privileged stars, as our

sister the moon and our neighbors the planets. These alone thread the

maze of the company of statues, dancing round their sun, who happens

to be one of the fixed company, to the old tune of Sun in the middle

and can't get out. Some of the planets run close, and some run in a

wide round, some dance round briskly, and some slip slowly along. Once

round is a year, and Saturn, dancing in a wide round outside ours, so

that in each round he has about nine times as far to go, moves at a

pace about three times slower than ours. His year, therefore, is some

twenty-seven times longer; in fact, a year in the House of Saturn is

as much as twenty-nine years five months and sixteen days in our part

of the world. What, therefore, we should consider to be an old man of

eighty-eight would pass with Saturn for a three-year-old.

A hundred and fifty years ago, Bishop Wilkins did not see why some of

his posterity should not find out a conveyance to the moon, and, if

there be inhabitants, have commerce with them. The first twenty miles,

he said, is all the difficulty; and why, he asked, writing before

balloons had been discovered, may we not get over that? No doubt there

are difficulties. The journey, if made at the rate of a thousand miles

a day, would take half a year; and there would be much trouble from

the want of inns upon the road. Nevertheless, heaviness being a

condition of closeness and gravitation to the earth, if one lose but

the first twenty miles, that difficulty of our weight would soon begin

to vanish, and a man--clear of the influence of gravitation--might

presently stand as firmly in the open air as he now does upon the

ground. If stand, why not go? With our weight gone from us, walking

will be light exercise, cause little fatigue, and need little

nourishment. As to nourishment, perhaps none may be needed, as none is

needed by those creatures who, in a long sleep, withdraw themselves

from the heavy wear and tear of life. "To this purpose," says Bishop

Wilkins, "Mendoca reckons up divers strange relations. As that of

Epimenides, who is storied to have slept seventy-five years. And

another of a rustic in Germany, who, being accidentally covered with a

hayrick, slept there for all autumn and the winter following, without

any nourishment." Though, to be sure, the condition of a man free of

all weight is imperfectly suggested by the man who had a hayrick laid

atop of him. But what then? Why may not smells nourish us as we walk

moonward upon space, after escape from all the friction and the sense

of burden gravitation brings? Plutarch and Pliny, and divers other

ancients, tell us of a nation in India that lived only upon pleasing

odors; and Democritus was able for divers days together to feed

himself with the mere smell of hot bread. Or, if our stomachs must be

filled, may there not be truth in the old Platonic principle, that

there is in some part of the world a place where men might be

plentifully nourished by the air they breathe, which cannot be so

likely to be true of any other place as of the ethereal air above

this? We have heard of some creatures, and of the serpent, that they

feed only upon one element, namely, earth. Albertus Magnus speaks of a

man who lived seven weeks together upon the mere drinking of water.

Rondoletius affirms that his wife did keep a fish in a glass of water

without any food for three years, in which space it was constantly

augmented, till at first it could {268} not come out of the place at

which it was put in, and at length was too big for the glass itself,

though that were of large capacity. So may it be with man in the

ethereal air. Onions will shoot out and grow as they hang in common

air. Birds of paradise, having no legs, live constantly in and upon

air, laying their eggs on one another's backs, and sitting on each

other while they hatch them. And, if none of these possibilities be

admitted, why, we can take our provision with us. Once up the twenty

miles, we could carry any quantity of it the rest of the way, for a

ship-load would be lighter than a feather. Sleep, probably, with

nothing to fatigue us, we should no longer require; but if we did, we

cannot desire a softer bed than the air, where we may repose ourselves

firmly and safely as in our chambers.

As for that difficulty of the first twenty miles, it is not impossible

to make a flying chariot and give it motion through the air. If

possible, it can be made large enough to carry men and stores, for

size is nothing if the motive faculty be answerable thereto--the great

ship swims as well as the small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as

well as a little gnat. Indeed, we might have regular Great Eastern

packets plying between London and No Gravitation Point, to which they

might take up houses, cattle, and all stores found necessary to the

gradual construction of a town upon the borders of the over-ether

route to any of the planets. Stations could be established, if

necessary, along the routes to the moon, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and the

rest of the new places of resort; some London society could create and

endow a new Bishop of Jupiter; and daring travellers would bring us

home their journals of a Day in Saturn, or Ten Weeks in Mars, while

sportsmen might make parties for the hippogriff shooting in Mercury,

or bag chimeras on the mountains of the moon.

Well, in whatever way we may get there, we are off now for a stroll to

Saturn, with Mr. R. A. Proctor for comrade and cicerone, but turning a

deaf ear to him whenever, as often occurs, he is too learned for us,

and asks us to "let N P' P" N' represent the northern half of Saturn's

orbit (viewed in perspective), _n_ E n' E' the earth's orbit, and N p

p' p" N' the projection of Saturn's orbit on the plane of the earth's

orbit. Let N S N' be the line of Saturn's nodes on this plane, and let

S P' be at right angles to N S, N', so that when at P' Saturn is at

his greatest distance from the ecliptic on the northern side." When of

such things we are asked to let them be, we let them be, and are, in

the denseness of our ignorance, only too glad to be allowed, not to

say asked, to do so. We attend only, like most of our neighbors, to

what is easy to us. Sun is gold, and moon is silver; Mars is iron.

Mercury quicksilver, which we, in fact, rather like still to call

Mercury, thinking nothing at all of the imprisoned god with the winged

heels when we ask how is the mercury in the thermometer. Jove is tin;

yes, by Jove, tin is the chief among the gods, says little Swizzles,

who, by a miracle, remembers one thing that he learnt at

school--Jove's chieftainship among the heathen deities. Venus is

copper, for the Cyprian is Cuprian; and as for Saturn, he is lead. A

miserable old fellow they made Saturn out in the days of the

star-decipherers. Mine, Chaucer makes Saturn say, is the drowning in

wan waters, the dark prison, the strangling and hanging, murmur of

discontent, and the rebellion of churls. I am the poisoner and the

house-breaker, I topple down the high halls, and make towers fall upon

their builders, earth upon its miners. I sent the temple roof down

upon Samson. I give you all your treasons, and your cold diseases, and

your pestilences. This is the sort of estimation in which our

forefathers held the respectable old gentleman we are now going out to

see.

{269}

When Galileo's eyes went out toward Saturn through his largest

telescope--which, great as were the discoveries it made, was clumsier

and weaker than the sort of telescope now to be got for a few

shillings at any optician's shop--he noticed a peculiarity in the

appearance of Saturn which caused him to suppose that Saturn consisted

of three stars in contact with one another. A year and a half later he

looked again, and there was the planet round and single as the disc of

Mars or Jupiter. He cleaned his glasses, looked to his telescope, and

looked again to the perplexing planet. Triform it was not. "Is it

possible," he asked, "that some mocking demon has deluded me?"

Afterward the perplexity increased. The two lesser orbs reappeared,

and grew and varied in form strangely: finally they lost their

globular appearance altogether, and seemed each to have two mighty

arms stretched toward and encompassing the planet. A drawing in one of

his manuscripts would suggest that Galileo discovered the key to the

mystery, for it shows Saturn as a globe resting upon a ring. But this

drawing is thought to be a later addition to the manuscript. It was

only after many perplexities of others, about half a century later,

that Huygens, in the year sixteen fifty-nine, announced to his

contemporaries that Saturn is girdled about by a thin, flat ring,

inclined to the ecliptic, and not touching the body of the planet. He

showed that all variations in the appearance of the ring are due to

the varying inclinations of its plane toward us, and that, being very

thin, it becomes invisible when its edge is turned to the spectator or

the sun. He found the diameter of the ring to be as nine to four to

the diameter of Saturn's body, and its breadth about equal to the

breadth of vacant space between it and the surface of the planet.

The same observer, Huygens, four years earlier, discovered one of

Saturn's satellites. Had he looked for more, he could have found them.

But six was the number of known planets, five had been the number of

known satellites, our moon and the four moons of Jupiter, which

Galileo had discovered; one moon more made the number of the planets

and of the satellites to be alike, six, and this arrangement was

assumed to be exact and final. But in sixteen seventy-one another

satellite of Saturn was discovered by Cassini, who observed that it

disappears regularly during one-half of its seventy-nine days' journey

round its principal. Whence it is inferred that this moon has one of

its sides less capable than the other of reflecting light, and that it

turns round on its own axis once during its seventy-nine days'

journey; Saturn itself spinning once round on its axis in as short a

time as ten hours and a half. Cassini afterward discovered three more

satellites, and called his four the Sideria Lodoicea, Ludovickian

Stars, in honor of his patron, Louis the Fourteenth. Huygens had

discovered, also, belts on Saturn's disc. Various lesser observations

on rings, belts, and moons of Saturn continued to be made until the

time of the elder Herschel, who, at the close of the last century,

discovered two more satellites, established the relation of the belts

to the rotation of the planet, and developed, after ten years' careful

watching, his faith in the double character of its ring. "There is

not, perhaps," said this great and sound astronomer, "another object

in the heavens that presents us with such a variety of extraordinary

phenomena as the planet Saturn: a magnificent globe encompassed by a

stupendous double ring; attended by seven satellites; ornamented with

equatorial belts; compressed at the poles; turning on its axis;

mutually eclipsing its rings and satellites, and eclipsed by them; the

most distant of the rings also turning on its axis, and the same

taking place with the furthest of the satellites; all the parts of the

system of Saturn occasionally reflecting light to each other--the

rings and moons {270} illuminating the nights of the Saturnian, the

globe and moons enlightening the dark parts of the rings, and the

planet and rings throwing back the sun's beams upon the moons when

they are deprived of them at the time of their conjunctions." During

the present century, other observers have detected more divisions of

the ring, one separating the outer ring into two rings of equal

breadth seems to be permanent. It is to be seen only by the best

telescopes, under the most favorable conditions. Many other and lesser

indications of division have also at different times been observed.

Seventeen years ago an eighth satellite of Saturn was discovered by

Mr. Bond in America, and by Mr. Lassell in England. Two years later,

that is to say, in November, eighteen fifty, a third ring of singular

appearance was discovered inside the two others by Mr. Bond, and, a

few days later, but independently, by Mr. Dawes and by Mr. Lassell in

England. It is not bright like the others, but dusky, almost purple,

and it is transparent, not even distorting the outline of the body of

the planet seen through it. This ring was very easily seen by good

telescopes, and presently became visible through telescopes of only

four-inch aperture. In Herschel's time it was so dim that it was

figured as a belt upon the body of the planet. Now it is not only

distinct, but it has been increasing in width since the time of its

discovery.

These were not all the marvels. One of the chief of the wonders since

discovered was a faint overlapping light, differing much in color from

the ordinary light of the ring, which light, a year and a half ago,

Mr. Wray saw distinctly stretched on either side from the dark shade

on the ball overlapping the fine line of light by the edge of the ring

to the extent of about one-third of its length, and so as to give the

impression that it was the dusky ring, very much thicker than the

bright rings, and, seen edgewise, projected on the sky. Well may we be

told by our guide, Mr. Proctor, that no object in the heavens presents

so beautiful an appearance as Saturn, viewed with an instrument of

adequate power. The golden disc, faintly striped with silver-tinted

belts; the circling rings, with their various shades of brilliancy and

color; and the perfect symmetry of the system as it sweeps across the

dark background of the field of view, combine to form a picture as

charming as it is sublime and impressive.

But what does it all mean? What is the use of this strange furniture

in the House of Saturn, which is like nothing else among the known

things of the universe? Maupertuis thought that Saturn's ring was a

comet's tail cut off by the attraction of the planet as it passed, and

compelled to circle round it thenceforth and for ever. Buffon thought

the ring was the equatorial region of the planet which had been thrown

off and left revolving while the globe to which it had belonged

contracted to its present size. Other theories also went upon the

assumption that the rings are solid. But if they are solid, how is it

that they exhibit traces of varying division and reunion, and what are

we to think of certain mottled or dusky stripes concentric with the

rings, which stripes, appearing, to indicate that the ring where they

occur is semi-transparent, also are not permanent? Then, again, what

are we to think of the growth within the last seventy years of the

transparent dark ring which does not, as even air would, refract the

image of that which is seen through it, and that is becoming more

opaque every year? Then, again, how is it that the immense width of

the rings has been steadily increasing by the approach of their inner

edge to the body of the planet? The bright ring, once twenty-three

thousand miles wide, was five thousand miles wider in Herschel's time,

and has now a width of twenty-eight thousand three hundred on a

surface of more than twelve thousand millions of {271} square miles,

while the thickness is only a hundred miles or less. Eight years ago,

Mr. J. Clerk Maxwell obtained the Adams prize of the University of

Cambridge for an essay upon Saturn's rings, which showed that if they

were solid there would be necessary to stability an appearance

altogether different from that of the actual system. But if not solid,

are they fluid, are they a great isolated ocean poised in the

Saturnian mid air? If there were such an ocean, it is shown that it

would be exposed to influences forming waves that would be broken up

into fluid satellites.

But possibly the rings are formed of flights of disconnected

satellites, so small and so closely packed that, at the immense

distance to which Saturn is removed, they appear to form a continuous

mass, while the dark inner mass may have been recently formed of

satellites drawn by disturbing attractions or collisions out of the

bright outer ring, and so thinly scattered that they give to us only a

sense of darkness without obscuring, and of course without refracting,

the surface before which they spin. This is, in our guide's opinion,

the true solution of the problem, and to the bulging of Saturn's

equator, which determines the line of superior attraction, he ascribes

the thinness of the system of satellites, in which each is compelled

to travel near the plane of the great planet's equator.

Whatever be the truth about these vast provisions for the wants of

Saturn, surely there must be living inhabitants there to whose needs

they are wisely adapted. Travel among the other planets would have its

inconveniences to us of the earth. Light walking as it might be across

the fields of ether, we should have half our weight given to us again

in Mars or Mercury, while in Jupiter our weight would be doubled, and

we should drag our limbs with pain. In Saturn, owing to the

compression of the vast light globe and its rapid rotation, a man who

weighs twelve stone at the equator weighs fourteen stone at the pole.

Though vast in size, the density of the planet is small, for which

reason we should not find ourselves very much heavier by change of

ground from earth to Saturn. We should be cold, for Saturn gets only a

ninetieth part of the earth's allowance of light and heat. But then

there is no lack of blanket in the House of Saturn, for there is a

thick atmosphere to keep the warmth in the old gentleman's body and to

lengthen the Saturnian twilights. As for the abatement of light, we

know how much light yet remains to us when less than a ninetieth part

of the sun escapes eclipse. We see in its brightness, as a star,

though a pale one, the reflection of the sunshine Saturn gets, which

if but a ninetieth part of our share, yet leaves the sun of Saturn

able to give five hundred and sixty times more light than our own

brightest moonshine. And then what long summers! The day in Saturn is

only ten and a half hours long, so that the nights are short, and

there are twenty-four thousand six hundred and eighteen and a half of

its own days to the Saturnian year. But the long winters! And the

Saturnian winter has its gloom increased by eclipses of the sun's

light by the rings. At Saturn's equator these eclipses occur near the

equinoxes and last but a little while, but in the regions

corresponding to our temperate zone they are of long duration. Apart

from eclipse, the rings lighten for Saturn the short summer nights,

and lie perhaps as a halo under the sun during the short winter days.

------

{272}

From Chamber's Journal.

SLIPS OF THE PEN.

When Mrs. Caxton innocently made her wiser-half the father of an

anachronism, that worthy scholar was much troubled in consequence. His

anachronism was a living one, or he might have comforted himself by

reflecting that greater authors than he had stood in the same paternal

predicament. Our old English dramatists took tremendous liberties this

way, never allowing considerations of time and place to stand in the

way of any allusion likely to tell with their audience. Shakespeare

would have been slow to appreciate a modern manager's anxiety for

archaeological fidelity. His Greeks and Romans talk about cannons and

pistols, and his Italian clowns are thorough cockneys, familiar with

every nook and corner of London. And so it is with other caterers for

the stage. Nat Lee talks about cards in his tragedy of "Hannibal;"

Otway makes Spartan notables carouse and drink deep; Mrs. Cowley's

Lacedaemonian king speaks of the _night's still Sabbath_; D'Urfey's

ancient Britons are familiar with Puritans and packet-boats; and Rymer

(though he set himself up for a critic) supplies a stage direction for

the representative of his Saxon heroine to pull off her patches, when

her lover desires her to lay aside her ornaments.

When Colman read "Inkle and Yarico" to Dr. Moseley, the latter

exclaimed: "It won't do. Stuff! Nonsense!"--"Why?" asked the alarmed

dramatist.--"Why, you say in the finale:

'Come let us dance and sing.

While all Barbadoes' bells shall ring!'

It won't do; there is but one bell in the island!" This mistake was

excusable enough; but when Milton described

"A green mantling vine,

That crawls along the side of yon small hill,"

he must certainly have forgotten he had laid the scene of "Comus" in

North Wales. Ernest Jones, describing a battle in his poem, "The Lost

Army," says:

"Delay and doubt did more that hour

Than bayonet-charge or carnage shower;"

and some lines further on pictures his hero

"All worn with wounds, when day was low.

With severed sword and shattered shield;"

thus making his battle rather a trial of the respective powers of

ancient and modern weapons than a conflict between equally-armed foes.

Mr. Thackeray perpetrates a nice little anachronism in "The Newcomes,"

when he makes Clive, in a letter dated 183-, quoting an Academy

exhibition critique, ask: "Why have we no picture of the sovereign and

her august consort from Smee's brush?"--the author, in his anxiety to

compliment the artist, forgetting that there was no consort till 1840.

A bull in a china-shop is scarcely more out of place than a bull in a

serious poem, but accidents will happen to the most regular of

writers. Thus Milton's pen slipped when he wrote:

"The sea-girt isles

That like to rich and various gems _inlay_

The _unadorned_ bosom of the deep;"

a quotation reminding us that the favorite citation,

"Beauty when unadorned, adorned the most,"

is but a splendid bull, beautiful for its {273} boldness. Thomson was

an adept at making pretty bulls; here is another:

"He saw her charming, but he saw not half

The charms her downcast modesty concealed;"

as if it were possible to see some of them, although they were

concealed. Pope, correct Pope, actually tell us:

"Young Mars in his boundless mind.

A work t' _outlast immortal_ Rome designed."

The author of "The Spanish Rogue" makes "a silent noise" invade the

ear of his hero. General Taylor immortalized himself by perpetrating

one of the grandest bulls on record, in which he attained what a

certain literary professor calls "a _perfection_ hardly to be

surpassed." In his presidential address he announced to the American

Congress that the United States were at peace _with all the world_,

and continued to cherish relations of amity with the _rest_ of

mankind. Much simpler was the blunder of an English officer, during

the Indian mutiny, who informed the public, through the _Times_, that,

thanks to the prompt measures of Colonel Edwardes, the Sepoys at Fort

Machison "were all unarmed and taken aback, and, being called upon,

laid down their arms." There was nothing very astonishing in an Irish

newspaper stating that Robespierre "left no children behind him,

except a brother, who was killed at the same time;" but it was

startling to have an English journal assure us that her majesty Queen

Victoria was "the last person to wear _another man's_ crown."

A single ill-chosen word often suffices, by the suggestion of

incongruous ideas, to render what should be sublime utterly

ridiculous. One can hardly believe that a poet like Dryden could

write:

"My soul is packing up, and just on wing,"

Such a line would have come with better grace from the author of "The

Courageous Turk," a play containing the following curious passage:

"How now, ye heavens! grow you

So proud, that you must needs put on curled locks,

And clothe yourself in perwigs of fire."

Nearly equalled in absurdity by this from Nat Lee's "OEdipus:"

"Each trembling ghost shall rise,

And leave their grisly king without a waiter."

When the news of Captain Cook's death at Owhyhee came to England, the

poetasters, of course, hastened to improve the occasion, and one of

the results of their enthusiasm was a monody commencing:

"Minerva in heaven disconsolate mourned

The loss of her Cook;"

an opening sufficient to upset the gravity of the great navigator's

dearest friend.

Addison lays it down as a maxim, that when a nation abounds in

physicians it grows thin of people. Fillibuster Henninpen seems to

have agreed with the essayist, or he would hardly have informed

General Walker, in one of his dispatches, that "Doctors Rice and Wolfe

died of the cholera, and Dr. Lindley sickened, _after which the health

of the camp visibly improved._" Intentionally or not, the

stout-hearted soldier suggests that the best way of getting rid of the

cholera is to make short work of the doctors. Among the obituary

notices in a weekly paper, not many months ago, there appeared the

name of a certain publican, with the following eulogium appended to

it: "He was greatly esteemed for his strict probity and steady conduct

through life, he having been a subscriber to the 'Sunday Times' from

its first number." This is a worthy pendant to Miss Hawkins's story of

the undertaker writing to the corporation of London, "I am desired to

inform the Court of Aldermen, Mr. Alderman Gill died last night, by

order of Mrs. Gill;" and not far short, in point of absurdity, is

Madame Tussand's announcement of the exhibition of the effigy of the

notorious Palmer, "who was executed at Stafford with two hundred other

celebrities." {274} The modern fashion of naming florists' flowers

must be held responsible for the very dubious paragraph we extract

from a gardening paper: "Mrs. Legge will be looked after; she may not

be so certain as some, but she was nevertheless very fine in the early

part of the season. Lady Popham is useful, one of the old-fashioned

build, not quite round in the outline, but makes up well."

Thackeray seems to have had an intense dislike to the trouble of

revision, for his popular works, especially those published

periodically, abound in trivial mistakes, arising from haste,

forgetfulness, and want of care. The novelist mortally wounds an old

lady with a candle instead of a candlestick, and afterwards attributes

her death to a stone staircase. Newcome senior is colonel and major at

one and the same time; Jack Belsize is Jack on one page and Charles on

another; Mrs. Raymond Gray, introduced as Emily, is suddenly

rechristencd Fanny; and Philip Fermor on one occasion becomes

transformed into the author's old hero, Clive. With respect to the

last-mentioned gentleman, author and artist seem to have differed, for

while Mr. Thackeray jests about Clive's beautiful whiskers and

handsome moustaches, Mr. Doyle persists to the end in denying young

Newcome's possession of those tokens of manhood.

It is not often that an author is satirical upon his own productions;

but Charles Dickens has contrived to be so. Describing the old inns of

the Borough, in his "Pickwick Papers," he says they are queer places,

with galleries, passages, and staircases wide enough and antiquated

enough "to furnish materials for a hundred ghost-stories, _supposing

we should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing

any_." How little could Boz have anticipated certain charming

Christmas books witching the world a few years later! So, also,

"American Notes," Mr. Jefferson Brick, and the transatlantic Eden lay

unsuspected in the future, when he made Old Wellor suggest Mr.

Pickwick's absconding to America till Dodson & Fogg were hung, and

then returning to his native land and writing "a book about the

'Merrikens as 'ill pay all his expenses and more, if he blows 'em up

enough!"

------

From The Month.

SAINTS OF THE DESERT.

BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Abbot Antony said: The days are coming when men will go mad; and,

when they meet a man who has kept his senses, they will rise up

against him, saying, "You are mad, because you are not like us."

2. While Arsenius was still employed in the imperial court, he asked

of God to lead him in the way by which he might be saved.

Then a voice came to him: "Arsenius, flee the company of men,

and thou art in that saving way."

3. Abbot Agatho said: Unless a man begin with the observance of the

Precepts, he will not make progress in any one virtue.

{275}

4. Abbot Ammonas said: Such be thy thought as that of malefactors in

prison. For they are ever asking, "Where is the judge? and when is he

coming?" and they bewail themselves at the prospect.

5. Holy Epiphanius said: To sinners who repent God remits even the

principal; but from the just he exacts interest.

6. Abbot Sylvanus had an ecstacy: and, coming to himself, he wept

bitterly. "What is it, my father?" said a novice to him.

He made answer: Because I was carried up to the judgment, O my son,

and I saw many of our kind going off to punishment, and many a secular

passing into the kingdom.

7. An old man said: If you see a youngster mounting up to heaven at

his own will, catch him by the foot, and fling him to the earth; for

such a flight doth not profit.

8. Abbot Antony fell on a time into weariness and gloom of spirit; and

he cried out, "Lord, I wish to be saved; but my searchings of mind

will not let me."

And, looking round, he saw some one like himself, sitting and working,

then rising and praying, then sitting and rope-making again. And he

heard the angel say: "Work and pray; pray and work; and thou shalt be

saved."

9. Arsenius, when he was now in solitude, prayed as before: "Lord,

lead me along, the way of salvation." And again he heard a voice,

which said: "Flight, silence, quiet; these are the three sources of

sinlessness."

10. "Which of all our duties," asked the brethren, "is the greatest

labor?" Agatho answered: "Prayer; for as soon as we begin, the devils

try to stop us, since it is their great enemy. Rest comes after every

other toil, but prayer is a struggle up to the last breath."

11. Abbot Theodore said: "Other virtue there is none like this, to

make naught of no one."

12. Abbot Sylvanus said: "Woe to the man whose reputation is greater

than his work."

13. Holy Epiphanius said: "A great safeguard against sin is the

reading of the Scriptures; and it is a precipice and deep gulf to be

ignorant of the Scriptures."

14. Once a monk was told, "Thy father is dead." He answered:

"Blaspheme not; my Father is immortal."

------

{276}

MISCELLANY.

_The Dead Sea_.--The level of the Dead Sea is at last finally settled

by the party of Royal Engineers, under Captain Wilson, who were sent

by the Ordance Survey for the purpose of surveying Jerusalem and

levelling the Dead Sea. The results of the survey are being prepared

for publication. The levelling from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea

was performed with the greatest possible accuracy. The depression of

the surface of the Dead Sea on the 12th of March, 1865, was found to

be 1,292 feet, but from the line of drift-wood observed along the

border of the Dead Sea it was found that the level of the water at

some periods of the year stands two feet six inches higher, which

would make the least depression 1,289.5 feet. Captain Wilson also

learnt from inquiry among the Bedouins, and from European residents in

Palestine, that during the early summer the level of the Dead Sea is

lower by at least six feet; this would make the greatest depression to

be as near as possible 1,298 feet. Most of the previous observations

for determining the relative level of the two seas gave most

discordant results. The Dead Sea was found by one to be 710 feet above

the level of the Mediterranean, by another to be on the same level, by

another to be 710 feet lower, and by another to be 1,446 feet lower;

but the most recent before that now given, by the Duc de Luynes and

Lieutenant Vignes of the French navy, agrees with the present result

in a very remarkable manner.

_Eozoon in Ireland_,--The fossil Rhizopod is not confined to the

Canadian rocks. Mr. W. A. Sanford has discovered Eozoon in the green

marble rocks of Connemara in Ireland. His assertion that it is to be

found in these deposits at first excited very grave doubts as to the

accuracy of his observations. Since his first announcement of the

discovery, his specimens have been examined by the distinguished

co-editor of the "Geological Magazine" (Mr. H. Woodward), and this

gentleman fully confirms Mr. Sanford's opinion. In the specimens

prepared from Connemara marble, "the various-formed chambers--the

shell of varying thickness--either very thin, and traversed by fine

tubuli, the silicate filling which resembles white velvet-pile, or

thick, and traversed by brush-like threads, are both present. Although

the specimens were not so carefully prepared as those mounted for Dr.

Carpenter, still the structure was so plainly perceptible as to render

the diagnosis incontrovertible."

_The Mont Cenis Tunnel_.--The following particulars of the state of

the works at Mont Cenis will be read with interest. We owe them to a

recent report of M. Sommeiller, the engineer in charge. The length of

the tunnel from Bardonnêche to Modena is 12,220 metres, and, at the

end of 1804, 2,322 metres had been pierced on the Bardonnêche side,

whilst the work had advanced 1,763 metres from the Modena end, making

in all 4,085 metres--nearly a third of the whole distance. From the

1st of January to the 10th of June of the present year the progress of

the work has been considerably augmented, upwards of 654 metres having

been accomplished. The excavation is now, however, retarded by a mass

of granite, which lessens the work of the machinery by one-third. The

presence of this impediment was almost exactly predicted by MM. Elie

de Beaumont and Sismonda, who stated, as a result of their survey,

that granitic rocks would be met with at a distance of 1,500 or 2,000

metres from the mouth of the tunnel on the Italian side.

_Lightning._--M. Boudin has recently laid before the Academy of

Sciences a return of the deaths which have been caused by the action

of lightning in France during the period 1835-63. During these thirty

years 2,238 persons were struck dead. Among 880 victims during

1854-63, there were but 248 of the female sex; and in several

instances the lightning, falling among groups of persons of both

sexes, especially struck those of the male sex, and more or less

spared the females. In a great number of cases flocks of more than 100

animals, {277} cattle, hogs, or sheep, have been killed, while the

shepherds or herdsmen in their midst have remained uninjured. In 1853,

of 34 persons killed in the fields, 15, or nearly half, were struck

under trees; and of 107 killed between 1841-53, 21 had taken shelter

under trees. Reckoning, then, at only 25 per cent, the proportion

struck under trees, we find that of 6,714 struck in France nearly

1,700 might have escaped the accidents which occurred to them by

avoiding trees during storms.

_More about the Nile_--Another source of the Nile has been discovered

by the adventurous Mr. Baker, whose name has been frequently mentioned

of late among geographers. But this so-called source is a lake only,

the Luta Nzige, about two hundred and sixty miles long, and of

proportionate breadth, which lies between the lake discovered by

Captain Speke and the heretofore explored course of the Nile. The

great river flows from one to the other, forming on the way the Karuma

waterfall, one hundred and twenty feet in height, in which particular

it represents the Niagara Fall between lakes Erie and Ontario. But it

seems right to remark that the true source of the Nile has not yet

been discovered, and that it must be looked for at the head of one of

the streams which flow into the upper lake--the Victoria Nyanza of

Speke. That the two lakes are reservoirs which keep the Nile always

flowing, may be accepted as fact; but to describe them as sources is a

misuse of terms. If Dr. Livingstone, in his new exploration, should

get into the hill-country above the Victoria Nyanza, we might hope to

hear that the real source, the fountain-head, of the Nile had been

discovered. It is worthy of remark that these lakes of the Nile are

laid down and described in old books on the geography of Africa.

Ptolemy mentions them; and they are represented in some of the oldest

Arabian and Portuguese maps. It is well known to scholars that the

Emperor Nero sent two officers expressly to search for the head of the

Nile. "I myself" writes Seneca, "have heard the two centurions narrate

that after they had accomplished a long journey, being furnished with

assistance by the king of Ethiopia, and being recommended by him to

the neighboring kings, they penetrated into far distant regions, and

came to immense lakes, the termination of which neither the

inhabitants knew nor could any one hope to do so, because aquatic

plants were so densely interwoven in the waters." This description

holds good to the present day; and it is thought that certain rocks

seen by the centurions mark the site of the Karuma Falls. Mr. Baker

describes his voyage down the Luta Nzige as "extremely beautiful, the

mountains frequently rising abruptly from the water, while numerous

cataracts rush down their furrowed sides. . . . . . The water is deep,

sweet, and transparent," and, except at the outlet of the river, the

shores are free from reeds. "Mallegga, on the west coast of the lake,

is a large and powerful country, governed by a king named Kajoro, who

possesses boats sufficiently large to cross the lake." "About ten

miles from the junction," he writes, "the channel contracted to about

two hundred and fifty yards in width, with little perceptible stream,

very deep, and banked as usual with high reeds, the country on either

side undulating and wooded. At about twenty miles from Magungo, my

voyage suddenly terminated; a stupendous waterfall, of about one

hundred and twenty feet perpendicular height, stopped all further

progress. Above the great fall, the river is suddenly confined between

rocky hills, and it races through a gap, contracted from a grand

stream of perhaps two hundred yards width to a channel not exceeding

fifty yards. Through this gap it rushes with amazing rapidity, and

plunges at one leap into a deep basin below."

_The Burning Well at Broseley_.--Mr. John Randall, F.G.S., writes to

the "Geological Magazine" anent this extinct petroleum spring. The

so-called burning well has ceased to exist for nearly a century. It

was fed by a spring, and petroleum and naphtha also found their way

from rents in the rock into the water of the well. Springs of

petroleum on a much larger scale are met with in the neighborhood, and

the yield of them was formerly much greater than at present. Many

hogsheads from one of these were exported some years ago under the

name of "Betton's British Oil," The rocks were tapped by driving a

level through one of the sandstone rocks of the coal {278} measures;

but these are now drained; and very little is found to flow from them.

_The Origin of the Salt in the Dead Sea_.--One of our most

distinguished explorers of the Holy Land attributes the intensely

saline character of the Dead Sea to the hill of Jebell Usdum. This is

a huge ridge of salt, about a mile wide, and running N.E. and S.W. for

a distance of three miles and a half, then due N. and S. for four

miles further. It is situated near the southern extremity of the Dead

Sea, and renders that portion of it much more salt than the northern

portion. Further, Mr. Tristram thinks that it is the proximate cause

of the saltness of the Dead Sea, the drainage to which has been

dissolving away portions of salt, and carrying it to the Dead Sea,

ever since the elevation of the ridge of Akabah separated the latter

from the Red Sea, or since the desiccation of the ocean, which existed

to the Eocene period, presuming (which seems most probable) that the

fissures of the Ghor were of submarine origin, and that the valley

itself was during the Tertiary period the northernmost of a series of

African lakes, of which the Red Sea was the next.--Geological

Magazine.

_Iron Implements in Crannogues_.--In a letter addressed to the London

_Reader_, by Mr. George Henry Kinahan, some important points relative

to the antiquity of iron, and the necessity for seeking for traces of

this metal, have been dwelt upon. While investigating one of the

largest crannogues or artificial islands in Loughrea, County Galway,

Ireland, he found only stone implements, with the exception of a rude

knife, which appeared to be of some sort of bronze. But he observed

facts which would seem to indicate that iron implements had been in

use among the inhabitants of the crannogues. These facts are as

follows: 1st, All the stakes that were drawn had been pointed by a

sharp cutting instrument, as were evidenced by the clean cuts. 2d,

Pieces of deer's horn that were found had been divided by a very fine

saw, as was proved by the absence of marks of graining on the surface

of the sections. 3d, On some of the bones there were farrows,

evidently made by sharpening fish-hooks or some pointed implement on

them. 4th, In various places nests of peroxide of iron were observed,

as if an iron instrument had once been there, but had been corroded

away in course of time. Mr. Kinahan draws particular attention to the

circumstances that "few metals corrode as fast as iron, and that,

while stone and bronze would last for ages, iron would disappear,

owing to corrosion, in a comparatively short space of time."

_The Gibraltar Cave Fossils_.--Mr. Busk in his paper on this subject

says: The rock in which the caverns of Gibraltar were found is

limestone, and extends for about three miles from north to south, at

an elevation varying from 1,400 to 1,200 feet. It is geologically

divided into three nearly equal portions by cleavages which separate

the higher parts of the rock on the north and south from the central

and lower part. At the southern face of the rock there is

comparatively low ground, the Windmill Hill being about 400 feet above

the level of the sea; but the strata there are inclined in an opposite

direction to the great mass of what is termed the "Rock of Gibraltar."

In the Windmill rock the caverns have been found, and in these latter

a great quantity of bones was discovered. The bones, which were

mingled with pottery, flint implements, and charcoal, appear to have

been deposited at different periods, and were found at various depths,

the lowest being fourteen feet below the floor of the cavern. Those in

the lowest layer consisted of the bones of mammals, several of which

were of extinct species. They were imbedded in ferruginous earth

partially fossilized, and were covered with stalagmite--no human bones

were with them. Above this layer were deposited the remains of about

thirty human skeletons, with fragments of pottery, flint implements,

particles of charcoal, and a bronze fishing-hook. Some of the pottery

had been turned in a lathe, and bore evidence of classic art. In

another cavern, discovered under the foundation of the military

prison, the remains of two isolated skeletons were also found. Only

one skull had been discovered there, and that had been sent to Mr.

Busk, who remarked that the lower jaw transmitted with the cranium did

not belong to it, showing that there must have been another skull

{279} in the cavern, though no trace of it had been found. There was

nothing in the form of the skull to distinguish it from the ordinary

European type; but the bones of the leg were remarkably compressed;

for which appearance it was difficult to account. Since Mr. Busk's

attention had been drawn to this character, he had observed a similar

compression in the leg-bones of other human skeletons which were known

to be of great antiquity. Whether this conformation was to be regarded

as a race-character, or was produced by special occupation or habit,

Mr. Busk would not venture an opinion upon.--_Social Science Review_.

_Sun's Photosphere_.--From a strict examination of the sun-pictures

obtained at Kew, near London, and from Mr. Carrington's maps, Mr. De

la Rue and assistants hare arrived at the conclusion that the

sun-spots are cavernous, and lie below the general level of the

luminous surface, whilst, on the contrary, the faculae are elevated

above the latter. The reason that the faculae appear brighter is, that

on account of their height above the solar surface, they are less

dimmed by passing through its atmosphere. They further conclude that

the sun's luminous surface is of the nature of cloud, and that the

spots are influenced by the planet Venus. They find that the faculae

retain nearly the same appearance for days together, and consider them

to be small particles of solid or liquid matter in suspension, and

composed of the same cloudy matter as the luminous surface of the sun.

They notice that in the majority of cases the faculae appear to the

left of the spots, as if they had been abstracted from them, and,

rising to a greater elevation where the velocity of rotation is

greater, are consequently left behind. They remark that all the spots

which are seen on the solar surface about the same time show a

resemblance to each other; for instance, if one spot increases to the

central line or past it, another will do the same; if one spot

diminishes from its first appearance, another will do the same; if one

spot breaks out on the right half; another will do the same. It

appears from Mr. Carrington's and all the Kew pictures, that the

influence of Venus is exerted in such a manner that as the spots

approach the neighborhood of this planet by rotation they decrease;

but as the solar surface passes away in the same manner, this

influence causes it to break out into spots on the opposite side. The

question is also proposed, whether the falling behind of the faculae

may not be the physical reaction of the motion of the spots detected

by Mr. Carrington, the current passing upward and carrying the

luminous matter falling behind, whilst the current coming down from a

colder region moves forward, carrying the spot with it, and accounting

for its deficient luminosity.--_Social Science Review_.

_The Arctic Expedition--The Open Polar Sea again_--Last month we

published an extract in which it was stated as the belief of the

writer that there was an open Arctic sea. Here is another opinion

which we find in the _London Reader_ of a late date: "We have received

from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences a map of Spitzbergen, with

explanatory remarks in illustration (by N. Duner and A. E.

Nordenskiöld). This beautiful map is the result of the two last

expeditions undertaken to explore that group of islands. It is based

upon astronomical observations, made at about eighty different places

on the shores of Spitzbergen, with prism-circles by Pistor and

Martins, mercury horizons and good chronometers by Frodsham and

Kessels. The observations were calculated by Professors D. G.

Lindhagen and Duner. The latitude and longitude of seventy-nine

different points are given--the longitude of Sabine's Observatory,

determined as 11° 40' 80", being taken as the starting point of the

longitudes. The value of such a map is at once apparent. All the

highest mountains were ascended during the expedition, and the height

of twenty-eight peaks is given; the highest being Lindström's Mount of

8,800 English feet. The permanent snow-line commences at about 1,500

feet. The whole interior country forms an even ice plateau, here and

there interrupted by rocks. There are many good harbors, and on this

map the places are marked where the explorers anchored. Fish, fowl,

and reindeer are to be met with in great numbers. We quote from the

memoir as bearing upon one of the most interesting questions of the

day. 'During the last years the idea has been vindicated that the

Polar {280} basin is composed of an open sea, only here and there

covered with drift ice. The learned geographer, Dr. Petermann, has

even asserted that it would be as easy to sail from Amsterdam Island

(70° 47') to the Pole, as from Tromsö to Amsterdam Island. This view

is in itself so contrary to all experience that it scarcely merits

refutation, but as different prominent English Arctic navigators seem

inclined to adopt the same view, in spite of the experience gained by

their own numerous Arctic expeditions, we will here give some of the

most important reasons against this supposition. All who for a long

period have navigated the northern seas, whalers and Spitzbergen

hunters, have come to the conclusion that the Polar basin is so

completely filled with ice that one cannot advance with vessels, and

all the attempts that have been made to proceed toward the north have

been quite without success. Passing by older voyagers, Torell and

Nordenskiöld ascended, during the expedition in 1861, on the 23d of

July, a high top on Northeast Land, Snötoppen (80° 23' L.), without

being able, from that height, to see trace of open water to the north

of the Seven Islands. A few days later, when the ice between Northeast

Land and the Seven Islands was separated a little, they could push

forward as far as to Parry's Island, though they, even from the

highest tops on these islands (1,900 feet, 80° 40' L.), could see

nothing but ice northward. From the top of White mountain, at the

bottom of Wijde Jans Water (3,000 feet), we could, on the 22d of

August, 1864, not see anything but ice between Giles Land and

Spitzbergen. Some vessels that had the same year attempted to sail

round Northeast Land were shut up by ice, and had to be abandoned by

their crews. Before leaving the ships, an attempt was made to sail

north, in order to return this way to Amsterdam Island, but they were

soon met by impenetrable fields of ice. Notwithstanding a high prize

has been offered for the reaching of high degrees of latitude, none of

the whalers, who else sail boldly wherever the hope of gain allures

them, have considered it possible to win this prize. We have had

opportunities of speaking to most of the masters of vessels sailing to

Spitzbergen. All experience hitherto acquired seems thus to prove that

the Polar basin, when not covered with compact, unbroken ice, is

filled with closely-packed, unnavigable drift-ice, in which, during

certain very favorable years, some larger apertures may be formed,

which apertures, however, do not extend very far to the north. Older

narratives, by Dutch whalers, who are said to have reached 86° or 87°

nay, even 89-1/2° must therefore be received with the greatest

diffidence, if not looked upon as pure fictions, and the prospect of

being able to advance with vessels from Spitzbergen to the Pole is, no

doubt, extremely slight. _It would be particularly unwise to choose

the spring for such an attempt, and the passage east of Spitzbergen.

At that time and by that passage it would be difficult, if not

impossible, to reach even 78° of latitude._ Whereas, on the west side,

one can every year depend on reaching the 80th degree of latitude, and

in favorable years it might be possible, _in September or October_, to

sail even a couple of degrees higher.'"

------

{281}

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SIXTEEN REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE, made to a devout servant of our

Lord, called Mother Juliana, an anchorite of Norwich, who lived in the

days of King Edward the Third. 12mo., pp. 214. Boston: Ticknor &

Fields.

We Catholics of the United States have good reason to congratulate

ourselves upon the appearance of this work. The selection of such a

work for republication is proof of good judgment in the Boston

publishers, while certainly nothing can be more elegant and tasteful

than the "getting up."

Mother Juliana lived in the city of Norwich, England; and, as we are

notified by the famous Father Cressy, who first published and edited

her "Revelations," she wrote during the reign of Edward the Third, and

about three years before his death. She was an anchoret or recluse, a

religious woman who, like St. Bees and many others in England and

elsewhere, lived alone, shut up by herself, in contemplation and

prayer. It is to us a great mystery that these "Revelations," so

excellent in themselves, and edited once by such a man, should be so

little known in our day, and should owe their reproduction once more

in English literature to Protestant curiosity and not to Catholic

piety. We know of nothing of the same kind which can compare with

them. There is an odor of supernatural sweetness about them, and a

depth of contemplative thought, a freshness moreover and originality,

which has never impressed us before when reading books of revelations.

Critical authors have sometimes complained of works of this nature

that much in them of what seems elevated or profound is evidently

derived, at second hand, from the speculations of theologians, and

especially of the philosophical schoolmen; while other things,

supposed to have been seen in vision, are the reproduction of early

histories, once popular, but proved to be apocryphal and destitute of

all authority. Nothing of the kind can be said of these revelations of

Mother Juliana. They sometimes touch upon questions most profound and

difficult, but in the simplest and most inartificial manner, and there

is not the slightest appearance of reproducing what she had read

elsewhere. Every thought bears the stamp of originality and freshness.

All is drawn from the same deep well of contemplation. All comes from

her own mind, whether that mind be divinely illuminated or not. There

is not the least semblance of searching after what is wonderful, or

calculate to strike an undisciplined and curious imagination. For our

own part, we cannot resist the impression that the beautiful and holy

light which beams upon these pages is a divine illumination, is

something supernatural. When we say _supernatural_, this does not

necessarily infer anything strictly miraculous, or revelation in the

highest sense of the word (supernaturally attested, as well as

supernaturally given). We mean simply to say that there is apparent a

certain unction and power of spiritual vision which betokens an

extraordinary gift of divine love and light, to which her natural

power, unaided, could never reach. In reading this book one is

impressed in the same way as when reading the Holy Scriptures or

Thomas à Kempis. There is a natural beauty of style and thought, but

that is not all. There is inspiration, too. It is like a far-reaching

landscape in a fair day, where the distant hills are not fairly

distinguishable from the sky, and the beauty of earth is mingled with

the beauty of heaven.

We have room to give just one example, which we select as showing, in

a few lines, the general characteristics of piety, sweetness,

simplicity, and beauty which everywhere pervade this little book:

"He is our clothing, that for love wrappeth us, and windeth us,

halseth us, and all becloseth us, hangeth about us for tender love,

that he maie never leave us. And so in this sight I saw that he is

all thing that is good, as to my understanding.

"And in this he shewed a little thing, the quantitie of a

hasel-nutt, lying in the palme of my hand, as me seemed; and it was

as found as a ball. I looked thereon {282} with the eie of my

understanding, and thought, What may this be?' and it was answered

generallie thus.

"'_It is all that is made_.' I marvelled how it might last: for

methought it might sodenlie have fallen to naught for litleness.

"And I was answered in my understanding, _'It lasteth and ever

shall: for God loveth it, And so hath all thing being by the love of

God.'_"

COMPLETE WORKS OF THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D.D., ARCHBISHOP OF NEW

YORK. Comprising his Sermons, Letters, Lectures, Speeches, etc.

Carefully compiled from the best sources, and edited by Lawrence

Kehoe. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. 608 and 810. New York: Lawrence Kehoe, No. 7

Beekman street.

In opening these two capacious volumes, one of the first things that

strikes us is the great number of excellent pieces from the pen of the

late Archbishop of New York which are now entirely forgotten by the

general public. There never was an author more careless of his fame

than Dr. Hughes. He cast his writings upon the world, and gave no

thought to them afterward He was not even at the pains of keeping

single copies of his own publications. So it has happened that many of

his best productions have not only been long out of print, but have

never even been heard of except by a few of the writer's special

friends, or some of our oldest and best read Catholic citizens. We

make no doubt that the collection for which the Catholic public is so

much indebted to the zeal and industry of Mr. Kehoe, will cause

considerable surprise among those who supposed themselves to be well

acquainted with Archbishop Hughes's literary labors. How many persons,

for instance, have ever heard or remember anything of a tract of some

thirty or forty pages called "An Answer to Nine Objections," which

Father Hughes published when he was first a priest? Or of his

controversies with Dr. Delancey, the late Protestant Episcopal bishop

of western New York, and Dr. Onderdonk, P. E. bishop of Pennsylvania?

Or of his letters on "Infallibility," written while he was in

Philadelphia? Or his once famous series of letters on the "Importance

of being in Communion with the Catholic Church?" And yet some of these

deserve to rank among the most important and valuable productions of

his pen. Our readers will find them all in Mr. Kehoe's volumes, and

many other pieces with them which possess a more than ordinary

interest. There is a long letter here to the Leopoldine Society of

Vienna, in which Dr. Hughes exposes in a very graphic and masterly

manner the condition of the Irish emigrants in this country: to the

best of our belief it has never been published before. There is a

touching and beautiful narrative, extracted from the Annals of the

Propagation of the Faith for 1840 of the conversion of the Dodge

Family in western New York. There is a description of a storm at sea,

written during the bishop's voyage to Europe in 1839. And the second

volume closes with a "Christmas Vesper Hymn," which has often been

printed before, and even set to music, but will doubtless be new to

many people.

We have mentioned these portions of Mr. Kehoe's collection, not only

because they are less known than the archbishop's great controversies;

but because every true friend of the lamented prelate's fame ought to

desire them to be far better known than they are. Archbishop Hughes

was one of the kindest, tenderest-hearted men that ever lived; and any

one who should judge him by the severe, caustic tone of his letters to

Breckinridge, for example, or his speeches on the school question,

would gravely mistake his character. Most of the pieces that we have

named, and some others as well, show him in his true and most amiable

light.

The first volume is occupied principally by the archbishop's various

letters and speeches on the School Question; his letters to David

Hale, Mayor Harper, and Colonel Stone: Letters on the Importance of

being in Communion with the Catholic Church; Kirwan Unmasked; and a

number of miscellaneous lectures and sermons. The second contains a

number of letters, sermons, etc., on the Temporal Power of the Pope;

various lectures; over thirty miscellaneous sermons; the Church

Property Controversy with Senator Brooks and others; and a great deal

of miscellaneous matter, including the archbishop's speeches at

banquets etc., during his last visit to Europe. Bishop Bayley's

admirable lecture on {283} the Life and Times of Archbishop Hughes is

given in full, by way of introduction to the second volume.

Mr. Kehoe's collection is the most important contribution to the

history of the Church in the United States that has been made for many

a year. Archbishop Hughes not only played an important part in the

ecclesiastical history of his time and country, but he may be said

without much exaggeration to have _made_ that history. His writings

are destined to hold a permanent place in American Catholic literature

by the side of those of Bishop England, while from their subjects, as

well as the comparatively cheap form in which they are now presented

to us, they will no doubt be more popular than those of the

illustrious Bishop of Charleston.

CAPE COD. By Henry D. Thoreau. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865. 12mo.,

pp. 253.

This is a readable book, notwithstanding some of its critics have put

it down as "dry." The keen observations, and quaint remarks sprinkled

all over its pages, keep its reader in good humor chapter after

chapter until the book is read. Thoreau's books are healthy, and

deserve to be read, especially by our young men.

This is true of the general tone of his writings. Occasionally,

however, there is a slight vein of skepticism running through them.

But he has less of this than his contemporaries. Thoreau had deep

religious feeling, but he found no expression for it in the religious

denominations around him. Had he lived in the fifth century he would

have been a father of the desert. As it is, he gives you the natural

side of life and things exclusively, but with freshness and

originality.

The sturdy integrity of the man, the fixed determination of seeing

life and things with his own eyes, and his resolve to have his own say

about them, is what characterizes all his writings, and what makes

them valuable where popular opinion sways.

As a sample of his talent for description, read the following

pen-drawing of a wrecker:

"We soon met one of these wreckers,--a regular Cape Cod man, with a

bleached and weather-beaten face, within whose wrinkles I

distinguished no particular feature. It was like an old sail endowed

with life--a hanging cliff of weather-beaten flesh--like one of the

clay boulders which occurred in that sand-bank. He had on a hat

which had seen salt water, and a coat of many pieces and colors,

though it was mainly the color of the beach, as if it had been

sanded. His variegated back--for his coat had many patches, even

between the shoulders--was a rich study to us, when we had passed

him and looked around. It might have been dishonorable for him to

have so many scars behind, it is true, if he had not had many more,

and more serious ones, in front. He looked as if he sometimes saw a

doughnut, but never descended to comfort; too grave to laugh, too

tough to cry; as in different as a clam,--like a sea-clam with hat

on, and legs, that was out walking the strand. He may have been one

of the Pilgrims--Peregrine White, at least--who has kept on the

back side of the Cape and let the centuries go by. He was looking

for wrecks, old logs, water-logged and covered with barnacles, or

bits of boards and joists--even chips, which he drew out of reach

of the tides and stacked up to dry. When the log was too large to

carry far, he cut it up where the last wave had left it, or, rolling

it a few feet, appropriated it by sticking two sticks into the

ground crosswise above it. Some rotten trunk, which in Maine

encumbers the ground, and is, perchance, thrown into the water on

purpose, is here thus carefully picked up, split and dried, and

husbanded. Before winter the wrecker painfully carries these things

up the bank on his shoulders by a long diagonal slanting path made

with a hoe in the sand, if there is no hollow at hand. You may see

his hooked pike-staff always lying on the bank, ready for use. He is

the true monarch of the beach, whose 'right there is none to

dispute,' and he is as much identified with it as a beach bird."

THE STORY OF THE GREAT MARCH.

From the Diary of a Staff Officer. By Brevet Major George Ward

Nichols, Aid-de-camp to General Sherman. With a Map and Illustrations.

12mo., pp. 394. New York: Harper Brothers.

The advance of General Sherman, with 70,000 men, through the heart of

the seceded states, will ever be memorable in the annals of American

history as the greatest achievement of modern times. From the time of

his departure from Atlanta, Ga., until the purpose on which he started

was accomplished in the surrender of Gen. Johnston, near Raleigh,

N.C., his {284} movements attracted the attention, and called forth

the criticism, of _un_military as well as military men in Europe and

America. Many were the prophecies uttered of his total failure, but

the able captain who conceived the plan and to whose care it was

intrusted, carried the expedition successfully through. Of this march

most of our readers have read more or less, in the daily papers. These

statements have oftentimes been very incorrect and vague, from the

excitement and hurry of the correspondents in getting them up. The

handsome volume before us, however, is a clear and concise narrative

of that great march, noted down from day to day by a member of General

Sherman's staff. The author in this sketch gives us a true narrative

of the entire march, and account of the interview between Sherman and

Johnston. His style is plain and unaffected, but occasionally a little

inflated. This, however, is pardonable, for he is very brief, and

brevity, the poet says, "is the soul of wit." He wastes but few words

in "saying his say," and has evidently taken much pains in getting his

statements in as small space as possible. The book is embellished with

a fine map of the march, and several appropriate wood-cuts. It also

contains General Sherman's official reports of the campaign, and

statement before the Congressional committee on the conduct of the

war--valuable documents in themselves. We copy the following extracts

from the chapter personal to General Sherman:

"Late in the summer of 1864, I was relieved from detached service in

the west, and ordered to report to the general commanding the

military division of the Mississippi. I found General Sherman at

Atlanta, seated in the parlor of his headquarters, surrounded by

several of his generals, and shall never forget the kindness with

which he received me when he heard that I was a stranger in the

western army; he said, "Very well; I will retain you on my staff."

The expression of gentleness, sympathy, and consideration which

accompanied this brief announcement, made an impression upon me

which will be fully understood by any officer who has had the

fortune to be suddenly ordered to a strange and distant field of

duty, where anxiety and embarrassment awaited him. The incident is

introduced here because it gives the key-note to a striking feature

in the character of General Sherman.

"A striking evidence of his sense of justice and his unselfishness

may be seen in his refusal to accept the commission of a

major-general in the regular army which was offered him previous to

the fall of Atlanta. In his letter declining the honor, he said:

'These positions of so much trust and honor should be held open till

the close of the war. They should not be hastily given. Important

campaigns are in operation. At the end, let those who prove their

capacity in merit be the ones appointed for these high honors.'

"General Sherman's memory is marvellous. The simplest incidents of

friendly intercourse, the details of his campaigns, citations of

events, dates, names, faces, remain fresh in his mind. A soldier who

may have addressed him long years ago in the swamps of Florida; some

heroic deed of an officer at Shiloh; a barn or a hill-side in

Georgia; a chance expression of your own which you may have

forgotten; minutest description of the plan of the campaign;

whatever he has seen, heard, or read, he remembers with astonishing

accuracy. Napoleon had a similar trait.

"He is also remarkably observant, especially of the conduct and

character of the officers of the army. He sees what many persons

suppose it is impossible for his eye to reach. In an army of 70,000

men, it might be reasonably imagined that the commanding general is

too far removed from the great mass to know or be known by them; but

when it is remembered that Sherman has marched during this campaign

alternately with one and another corps, it ceases to be a matter of

surprise that he is thoroughly acquainted with the character of the

different organizations. In truth, nothing escapes that vigilant and

piercing eye, from the greatest to the minutest detail of the

command.

"General Sherman is sociable in the best sense of the word. When the

responsibilities of the hour are cast aside--and he throws them off

with the utmost facility--he enters into the spirit of a

merry-making with all the zest and appreciation of the jolliest of

the party. He has a keen sense of wit and humor; and not

unfrequently he is the centre and life of the occasion. He converses

freely, yet he is reticent to the last degree, knowing how to keep

his own counsel, and never betraying his purpose. He is cautious and

often suspicious; yet no man ever accused him of deceit or

dishonesty either in word or deed. His unmeasured scorn and contempt

are visited upon pretense, new philanthropy, arrogance,

self-conceit, or boasting; but he never fails to recognize and pay a

hearty tribute to unpretentious merit, courage, capacity, Christian

manliness and simplicity. He is not prodigal of promises, but his

word once given is {285} sacred as holy writ. General Sherman is

terribly in earnest in his method of conducting war, but he is

neither vindictive nor implacable. He once said to a Methodist

preacher in Georgia who had, by voice and example, helped to plunge

the nation into war: 'You, sir, and such as you, had the power to

resist this mad rebellion; but you chose to strike down the best

government ever created, and for no good reason whatsoever. You are

suffering the consequence, and have no great reason to complain.'

"Yet there is a depth of tenderness akin to the love of woman behind

that face, which is furrowed with the lines of anxiety and care, and

those eyes, which dart keen and suspicious glances. Little children

cling to the general's knees and nestle in his arms with intuitive

faith and affection. During our sojourn in Savannah his headquarters

and private room became the play-ground of hosts of little ones,

upon whom the door was never closed no matter what business was

pending.

"General Sherman's integrity seemed to pervade every trait in his

character. His intense dislike of the men who have been interested

in the war only to make money out of it, is well known. From the

first instant of the rebellion pecuniary considerations were cast

aside by the general, and he has given himself wholly to the service

of his country. He knows the value of money, but he can say with

honorable pride that the atmosphere of integrity and honesty about

him withers and destroys the lust of gain. Not even the taint of

suspicion in this regard has ever been cast upon him nor upon the

officers associated with him.

"In person, General Sherman is nearly six feet in height, with a

wiry, muscular, and not ungraceful frame. His age is only

forty-seven years, but his face is furrowed with deep lines,

indicating care and profound thought. With surprising rapidity,

however, these strong lines disappear when he talks with children

and women. His eyes are of a dark brown color, and sharp and quick

in expression. His forehead is broad and fair, sloping gently at the

top of the head, which is covered with thick and light brown hair,

closely trimmed. His beard and moustache, of a sandy hue, are also

closely cut. His constitution is iron. Exposure to cold, rain, or

burning heat seems to produce no effect upon his powers of endurance

and strength. Under the most harassing conditions I have never seen

him exhibit any symptoms of fatigue. In the field he retires early,

but at midnight he may be found pacing in front of his tent, or

sitting by the camp fire smoking a cigar. His sleep must be light

and unrestful, for the gallopping of a courier's horse down the road

instantly wakes him, as well as a voice or a movement in his tent.

He falls asleep as easily and as quickly as a little child--by the

road-aide, upon the wet ground or the hard floor, or when a battle

rages near him. His mien is never clumsy or commonplace; and when

mounted upon review he appears in every way the great captain that

he is.

"When sounds of musketry or cannonading reach his ears, the general

is extremely restless until he has been satisfied as to the origin,

location, and probable results of the fight in progress. At such

moments he lights a fresh cigar, and smokes while walking to and

fro; stopping now and then to listen to the increasing rattle of

musketry; then muttering 'Forward,' will mount old 'Sam,' a horribly

fast-walking horse, which is as indifferent to shot and shell as his

master, and starts off in the direction of the fire.

"One afternoon during the Atlanta campaign the general paid a visit

to General Hooker, who had pitched his headquarters in a place

almost as much exposed to the fire of the enemy as any that could

have been found along the line. The two generals seated themselves

comfortably, with their feet planted against the trees, watching the

operations immediately in front and in full view of the rebels. Very

soon a rebel shell passed them, shrieking overhead, clearing the

crockery from the dinner-table with amazing rapidity, and

frightening the cook Sambo, who afterward excused himself on the

ground that his mate had been killed the night before by one of

'them things.' Another shell quickly followed, demolishing a chair

which had just been vacated by an officer. Meanwhile the rifle

bullets were singing and 'fiezing' about in a reckless way, chipping

the bark from the trees, and cutting their leaves and branches.

Still the two generals sat, discussing military questions, with the

utmost indifference until the sun went down; while the staff

officers, not seeing any fun in the business, carried on their own

conversation as companionably as could reasonably be expected in a

spot where the protecting trees were five to ten feet apart.

"The general's habits of life are simple. Primitive almost as first

principles, his greatest sacrifice will be made when he resigns

campaigning for a more civilized life. He has a keen sense of the

beauty of nature, and never is happier than when his camp is pitched

in some forest of lofty pines, where the wind sings through the

tree-tops in melodious measure, and the feet are buried in the soft

carpeting of spindles. He is the last one to complain when the

table-fare is reduced {286} to beef and 'hard tack,' and, in truth,

he rather enjoys poverty of food as one of the conditions of a

soldier's life. I remember that he apologized to our guest, the

secretary of war, one day at Savannah, because certain luxuries,

such as canned fruits and jellies, had found their way to his table.

"'This,' he remarked, 'is the consequence of coming into houses and

cities. The only place to live, Mr. Secretary, is out of doors in

the woods.'

"General Sherman's patriotism is a vital force. He has given himself

and all that he has to the national cause. Personal considerations,

I am sure, have never influenced him. Doubtless he is ambitious, but

it is impossible to discern any selfish or unworthy motive, either

in his word or deeds. I do not believe it possible for a man more

absolutely to subordinate himself and his personal interests to the

great cause than he. His patriotism is as pure as the faith of a

child; and, before it, family and social influences are powerless.

His relatives are the last persons to receive from his hand

preferment or promotion. In answer to the request of one nearly

allied to him that he would give his son a position on his staff,

the general's reply was curt and unmistakable: 'Let him enter the

ranks as a soldier, and carry a musket a few years!'

"In no instance is it possible for the general to favor the

advancement of soldiers upon mere political grounds; bravery and

capacity are the considerations which weigh with him. When a paper

is handed to him for endorsement, accompanied by questions relative

to promotion, he leaves the selection of the candidate to army or

corps commanders, reserving his own opinion until the proper time.

"He has had as great responsibilities to meet as any man of the age,

but there has never yet been an instance when he was not equal to

the occasion, even to the acceptance of a new truth. Few men have so

harmoniously united common sense and genius as General Sherman."

THE OLD HOUSE BY THE BOYNE. By

Mrs. J. Sadlier. 12mo., pp. 375. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1865.

Another new story by Mrs. Sadlier! "Why, it is only the other day,"

the reader will naturally exclaim, "I read one also from her pen." But

such is the fact. "The Old House by the Boyne" is, however, her latest

production, and well does it sustain her reputation as one of our best

living Irish novelists at home or abroad. Mrs. Sadlier is thoroughly

Irish in her stories, and her sole object in them all is the elevation

and edification of her countrymen and countrywomen on this side the

Atlantic. A most praise-worthy object, and one which must in the end

bring forth good fruit. The low and the vulgar, which the English

novelists, and we are sorry to say some Irish writers also, take

particular pains to bring forward as _the_ leading characters in their

works, find no place in Mrs. Sadlier's books. All that is good and

generous in the Irish character is given its true value, and when

necessity compels her to describe the ruffian, she does so in such a

manner as to make the reader abhor his actions, and not as other

writers have done--make him a sort of a hero, as if his crime was the

rule and not the exception.

Her descriptions of Irish manners, customs, and characteristics can

always be relied upon as correct, for she has made the Irish character

her constant study, and beside, she feels for the miseries and

misfortunes of that unfortunate but generous and kind-hearted people.

Mrs. Sadlier has done much for the Catholic literature of America. Her

works, original and translated, put together, make a large library in

themselves, and every year sees additions to them. We trust she will

be spared a good longtime yet, to aid by her prolific pen the good

cause in this country.

THE PEEP O' DAY; or, John Doe,|and Crohoore of the Billhook. By the

O'Hara Family. A new edition, with Introduction and Notes. By Michael

Banim, the survivor of "The O'Hara Family." Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. New

York: D. & J. Sadlier. 1865.

These are the first four parts of "The Works of the Brothers Banim,"

known as "The O'Hara Family," now publishing in numbers by the

Sadliers. The Banims were, without an exception, the most powerful

Irish novelists of the present century. Their style of writing was

altogether different from that of Griffin, who was their superior in

describing some phases of Irish life. All through Griffin's writings

can be found that deep religious feeling which he never for a moment

lost sight of. The Banims, although Catholics, launch {287} out more

boldly into the world of passion and folly, and give us more dramatic

scenes; more of reality than the "gentle Griffin" could possibly allow

his pen to write. For this reason we look upon Banim's works as bolder

and more vivid pictures of Irish life, as it existed forty years ago,

than Griffin's. Griffin's are sounder and safer reading, for no word

ever escaped his pen that could not be uttered in any society.

The present editor, Mr. Michael Banim, says in the preface to the

first volume "that my brother and myself were joint producers of the

stories now about to be republished. This being the case, it will, I

trust, be conceded that the editorship has not been intrusted, by the

publisher, to unfit hands. It is my intention, as each volume appears,

in condensed shape, to state in how far I have been concerned

therewith. It is my intention also, as we go on, to append notes here

and there. It will be my endeavor to make these notations as little

cumbrous as possible, and to throw into them whatever of anecdote or

historical reference may appear to me interesting to the reader."

So far the notes are highly interesting. We only wish the publishers

had given us the work in volumes, just as it appears in Dublin,

instead of in numbers. We do not like to read a story by "piecemeal,"

hence our objection to the publication of novels in monthly or

semi-monthly parts. When the whole is completed and published in bound

volumes, these writings will be a valuable addition to our literature.

REMY ST. REMY; or, The Boy in Blue.

By Mrs. C. H. Gildersleeve. 12mo., pp. 352. New York: James O'Kane. 1865.

Another story of the late rebellion. And we may make up our mind to be

overloaded with stories of this description for at least the next ten

years. "The Boy in Blue" is the latest we have seen, and is an

indifferent one enough. There are plots sufficient in the book for two

or three good stories, but they are badly managed, and the various

parts of the story clumsily put together. "The Boy in Blue" proves to

be a girl, who thus unsexed herself for the double purpose of

thwarting the vengeance of a rejected lover, whom she refused to marry

because he was _disloyal_, and of being near a _loyal_ lover whom she

afterward married. The scene opens in Massachusetts, jumps abruptly to

the army of the Potomac, and from there to that of the Cumberland,

where the principal events occur. The characters are nearly all East

Tennesseeans, and are made to figure in the story without any regard

to time or place. The book is one we cannot recommend; for none of the

characters are any better than the law allows them to be. The heroine

is no model for any virtuous modest girl; for no woman of correct

training or good morals could dress herself in the habiliments of the

opposite sex. If the authoress cannot write a better story than this

one, she had better give her time and attention to something else than

novel writing. It is not her _forte_.

CATHOLIC ANECDOTES; OR, THE CATECHISM IN EXAMPLES.

The Apostles' Creed, etc. Translated from the French by Mrs. J.

Sadlier. 12mo., pp. 236. New York: D. & J Sadlier. 1865.

An excellent little book, and should meet with a general circulation.

The present volume contains anecdotes on the different articles of the

Creed, and is to be followed, we believe, by two more on the other

portions of the Catechism. The translation is well made, and the book

is very neatly got up. We earnestly recommend it to our readers as a

book worthy of universal circulation.

THE METROPOLITES; OR, KNOW THY NEIGHBOR.

A Novel, by Robert St. Clar. 12mo., pp. 575. The American News

Company. 1865.

Here is a formidable volume describing fashionable society in New

York. The parentage of the leading character in the story is at first

unknown, but is supposed to be the son of some German emigrant who was

shipwrecked and drowned off the coast. He was brought up by a German

woman, and passed through all phases of New York life, from being a

bootblack and newsboy, to find himself an office boy with a lawyer,

who, seeing in him talent, sent him to college and paid for his

education. Nathan P. Trenk is the cognomen by which this person is

designated {288} in the story. The author seems to have taken every

good quality possessed by different men and placed them _all_ in the

person of his beloved Nathan. His hero far exceeds in perfection the

gods of the ancients. He speaks French like a Frenchman; German like a

German; Spanish like a Spaniard; English of course, and we are led to

infer that if he chose he could converse in the language of Timbuctoo,

Malay, or in the Sanscrit. In fact, he excelled in all things--was

perfect in dancing, music, tragedy, yachting, _and the law_. He is

made to possess nearly all these qualities before he was even sent to

school!! He was also better looking than any of his comrades--a

perfect Apollo. One gets tired of this hero called Nathan, and cannot

help asking, with the poet,

"How one small head could hold it all."

As a story, "The Metropolites" is a failure. There are many good

passages in it; but it is too inflated in style, too absurd and

impossible in its scope and plot, and too pretentious, to suit the

merest tyro in light literature. It ends too abruptly--in fact, the

story is not finished; for only one or two of the characters are

disposed of, and you are left to imagine what became of the author's

_beau ideal_ of a man--Nathan. But there is no danger of such a

question troubling the reader, for it is very few will have the

patience to wade through its pages to the end. If there be any such,

we pity them.

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.

Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O. A. Brownson, LL.D.

New York: P. O'Shea.

We have seen some of the advance sheets of Dr. Brownson's forthcoming

work with this title. The book will be out in the course of this

month. It will make a very handsome octavo volume of nearly 500 pages,

elegantly printed. It appears from what we have seen of it to have

been written with great care, and to be a profoundly philosophical

work on the principles of government, and especially on the

constitution of the United States.

NATURAL HISTORY.

A Manual of Zoology for Schools, Colleges, and the General Reader. By

Sanborn Tenney, A.M. Illustrated. 8vo., pp. 540. New York: Charles

Scribner & Co. 1865.

This is an excellent manual for schools and colleges; beautifully

illustrated; well printed on fine paper, from large type; nicely

bound; and is altogether a _fine_ book.

THE LIVES OP THE POPES.

By Chevalier d'Artaud. Translated from the French. Edited by Rev. Dr.

Nelligan. Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 96. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1865.

This is, we believe, the first attempt to give the "Lives of the

Popes" in English. The French work from which this is a translation

has been looked upon as a very reliable one. This work is one that was

much needed in this country, and will no doubt have a decided success.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From P. O'Shea, New York. Nos. 13 and 14 of the GENERAL HISTORY OF THE

CHURCH, by M. l'Abbé J. E. Darras.

From P. Donahoe, Boston. PARRA SASTHA; or, The History of Paddy

Go-Easy, by William Carleton.

From Ticknor & Fields, Boston. LYRICS OF LIFE, by Robert Browning.

From Charles Scribner, New York. Froude's History of England. Vols.

III. and IV.

------

{289}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL, II., NO. 9.--DECEMBER, 1865,

----

From Le Correspondant

GENERAL DE LA MORICIÈRE.

I.

It is the sad destiny of those who outlive their generation to be

called upon to speak over the graves of friends, companions, and

chiefs who have the happiness of being the first to depart. Forced to

envy those who precede them their lot, they readily yield to the

temptation of beguiling their regrets by recalling their memory; and

while thus essaying to lighten their own griefs, they think, perhaps

not justly, that they have something of which to remind forgetful

contemporaries, or which they may teach an indifferent posterity.

The _élite_ of the men who date from the early years of the century

begin already to be decimated by death, and this death which strikes

them with a premature blow, while in the full possession of the gifts

which God had lavished on them, has often been preceded by a disgrace

or a retreat so prolonged that we naturally regard them as having long

since entered into history. Their stern and melancholy fate,

aggravated by the inconstancy of their country, may at least serve to

lengthen the perspective from which our eye contemplates them.

What can less resemble the times in which we live than those early and

splendid years of the parliamentary royalty in which Léon de la

Moricière was first revealed to France and to glory? A whole powerful

generation, delivered from military despotism and the imperial

censorship, enfranchised, brought up, or completed by the free and

loyal _régime_ of the Restoration, was then in full sap and full

bloom. A constellation of rare men, men of original powers and popular

renown, appeared at the head of all the great departments of the

national intelligence, and fulfilled the first condition of the life

of a people that are free and master of their destiny. The nation was

governed or represented by its most eminent men. All its living

forces, all its real wants, all its legitimate interests, were

represented by men of an incontestable superiority. The names of

Casimir Perier, Royer-Collard, Molé, Berryer, Guizot, Thiers, Broglie,

Fitz James, Villemain, Cousin, Dufaure, gave to the contests of the

tribune and to the country itself an _éclat_ never surpassed, not even

in 1789. Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset stamped poetry

with a character as original as ineffaceable. Ary Scheffer, {290}

Delaroche, Delacroix, Meyerbeer, in the arts; Cuvier, Biot, Thénard,

Arago, Cauchy, in the sciences; Augustin Thierry, Michelet,

Tocqueville, in history and political philosophy, opened new paths,

into which rushed the ardent and high-spirited youth of the nation.

Lacordaire and Ravignan made radiate from the Christian pulpit a halo

of eloquence and popularity unknown since Bossuet.

Perhaps this fertile opening of political, intellectual, and moral

life did not encounter an analogous development in the military life;

perhaps this purely civil glory extinguished the necessary attraction

of the glory of arms. To this doubt, the army of Africa takes upon

itself to reply.

In the ranks of that army new men, predestined to glory, began

forthwith to appear. Each year, each day, augmented their renown. The

true soldiers of free and liberal France were found. We learned to

greet in that army a new line of soldiers, as chivalric, as

formidable, as brave, as the bravest among their fathers, and adorned

with virtues but too often wanting in our soldiers in former times

--modest and austere virtues, civic virtues, which were the honor, and

in the hour of danger the salvation, of their country. The illustrious

Changarnier is the only one of that glorious phalanx that can receive

here below the homage of our loyal gratitude. Of his noble companions,

some, like Damesme, Négrier, Duvivier, Bréa, gave themselves to be

killed in the streets of Paris in 1848, so that France might remain a

civilized country; others, and the most illustrious, Cavaignac,

Bedeau, La Moricière, have died one by one, obscurely and prematurely,

rendered by implacable destiny useless to the country they had saved.

This oppresses the heart, and certainly does no honor to our times.

Among all those valiant knights, the youngest, the most sympathetic,

the most brilliant, and the most rapidly popular, was this same La

Moricière, who has just been torn from us by death while still so full

of fire, light, and life, of strength and faith, of physical and moral

strength, of faith in God and in the future of France. Although few

to-day know, or, having known, remember, that the future conqueror of

Abd-el-Kader, a simple lieutenant of engineers at the taking of

Algiers by Marshal Bourmont, faithful to the traditions of his

royalist race, accompanied to the coast almost alone that disgraced

and proscribed conqueror, and then returned to take his rank in the

army where he was to conquer the most brilliant renown, without

suspecting, assuredly, that he himself would one day experience

injustice, ingratitude, proscription, exile, and forgetfulness.

[Footnote 41] But all the world knows that the name of La Moricière,

as that of Changarnier, is inseparably connected with the most

dramatic episode of our African history--the two expeditions against

Constantine. The pencil of Horace Vernet has made us all familiar with

those prodigious exploits; he has made live again for us the immovable

intrepidity of Changarnier, inclosed in the square battalion that

saved the army on occasion of the first retreat, and then the

impetuous daring of La Moricière at the head of his Zouaves, the red

fez on his head, the white burnous on his shoulder, rushing the first

up to the breach, where he was soon to disappear in the cloud of smoke

and dust, in the midst of a fearful explosion, to be found again, his

eyes almost destroyed, under a formless group of soldiers blackened

with powder, their garments charred, and their flesh burnt. [Footnote

42] From that day he was married to fame. All France felt what has

been so well rendered by Tocqueville in a private letter dated

November, 1887: "I am even more interested in La Moricière than I can

{291} explain. He carries me away in spite of myself; and when I read

the account of his storming of Constantine, I seem to see him arrive

first at the summit of the breach, and my soul for the moment is with

him. I love him also, I believe, for France; for I cannot help

believing that there is a great general in that little man."

[Footnote 43]

[Footnote 41: I must be permitted to refer for all the details of

the military career of General de la Moricière to the article of M.

de in "Le Correspondant" for April, 1860.]

[Footnote 42: _"Les Zouaves et les Chasseurs à

pied,"_by his Royal Highness the Duke

d'Aumale, 1855. _"Histoire de la Conquête

d'Alger,"_by Alfred Nettement.]

[Footnote 43: Tocqueville, born the 29th of July, 1805, was nearly

of the same age with La Moricière, who was born the 6th of February,

1806. Before being colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies and in the

ministry, they had, still young, met in 1828 at Versailles, where

Tocqueville was a judge auditor, and where he received a visit from

La Moricière, then hardly out of the Polytechnic School. In a letter

of that date which is found in the precious collection published by

M. Gustave de Beaumont, Tocqueville traces a portrait of the future

hero which remained a striking likeness to his last days: "I must

say that I have been charmed with him personally; I thought I saw in

him all the features of a truly remarkable man. I who am habituated

to live among men profuse in words with little meaning, was wholly

surprised at the craving for clear and distinct understanding with

which he seemed to be constantly tormented. The _sang-froid_ with

which he stopped me to demand an account of one idea before

proceeding to another, which several times a little disconcerted me,

and his manner of speaking of only what he perfectly understands,

have given me an opinion of him superior to almost any that I have

ever formed of any man at first sight."]

Incorporated with the Zouaves from the foundation of the corps in

1830, it was he who, in gaining with them all his grades up to that of

colonel, created the European reputation of that unequalled troop, at

the same time that by his vigilant activity in the Arab bureaus, he

preluded his remarkable faculties as an organizer and administrator.

Major-general at thirty-four, lieutenant-general at thirty-seven,

governor-general of Algeria _ad interim_ at thirty-nine, he never

quitted Algeria till he had rendered it for ever French by forcing

Abd-el-Kader to surrender his sword to the Duke d'Aumale, a young and

meritorious prince, whose own rising glory was soon to set

unexpectedly in the sad night of exile. He quitted Algeria in the

beginning of 1848, and bore with him a reputation whose brightness was

dimmed by not a shade or a breath. His courage, his rare strategic

ability, the number and splendor of his victories, were enhanced by

the most rigid integrity and at the same time by a humanity and a

generosity all the more meritorious from the pain it must have cost

his impetuous nature to exercise it in favor of barbarous enemies who

massacred and mutilated our soldiers who were taken prisoners.

[Footnote 44]

[Footnote 44: "In leaving the shores on which he had landed young

and obscure, and which he quitted illustrious without appearing old,

he bore with him a recollection more precious than the fame of his

heroic deeds; his glory was without a stain, his hands, always

burning for the combat, were sullied by no abuse of victory. When

the irritation against an enemy that massacred our soldier prisoners

was at its height. La Moricière, pursuing one day a tribe that was

in insurrection notwithstanding their oaths, and having driven them

to the sea, he suddenly halted his columns and suspended his

vengeance. What fear had seized his intrepid soul? He himself tells

us: 'In the disposition of mind in which our soldiers then were,

that vengeance might have been too severe!' Beautiful and touching

words, which reveal the man in the warrior, and attest a fear of

excess in the bosom of a courage that paused at no obstacles."--_Le

General de la Moricière_, by Viscount de Meaux, p. 11.]

He re-entered France, already invested with a sort of legendary halo,

and was everywhere recognized as the true type of disinterested

heroism, intelligent boldness, moral dignity, independence a little

haughty, and liberal instincts, which become the armies of France, at

least such as they were then. Race apart, these _Africans_, as

brilliant as original in the military history of Europe, as foreign to

the brutal manners of the soldier of fortune led by Gustavus Adolphus

and Frederic II. as to the savage and cruel pride of the lieutenants

of Napoleon, showed themselves always the citizens of a free country,

the missionaries of civilization, as well as the first soldiers in the

world.

But military glory did not suffice for La Moricière. Sensible to an

attraction then all powerful, he aspired to enter political life, and

as soon as he was initiated into it he relished it, and devoted

himself to it with that passion which he carried into everything he

undertook. In 1846 he solicited and obtained the suffrages of his

fellow-citizens. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he took his place

with the moderate opposition. By a privilege rarely accorded, it was

given him to conquer at once, on this new and {292} difficult

battle-field, a distinction and an authority almost as fully

acknowledged and as legitimate as that which he had gained on the

theatre of his exploits in Algeria.

La Moricière was born with the gift of eloquence--that gift which is

the first condition neither of the love of liberty nor of the exercise

of power, but which is seldom separated from either in countries and

times which permit free discussion. He united the three qualities,

very rare, which the prince of contemporary orators, M. Thiers, exacts

of those who aspire to govern--knowledge of public affairs, ability to

expose them lucidly and in order, and the weight of character

necessary to defend them. But, against the ordinary rule, his

eloquence was not at all the result of labor. With him the orator was

not slowly disengaged, as with the most illustrious, step by step, in

a continuous progress toward perfection; he revealed himself at once

as a bold and successful improvisator, who, on a chosen ground, had

nothing to fear from anybody. He jeered those who passed for eloquent

without having his extemporary facility. "You Academicians," said he,

"must always retire to make the toilet of your speech, and are never

ready when you are wanted." As for him, he was always ready, and it

was a real pleasure to hear him, and to see him spring to the tribune,

to mount it as if it were his horse, stride it, so to speak, and

master it at a single word, with the ease of the perfect

horseman--then broach the most complicated questions, provoke the most

formidable adversaries, even M. Thiers himself, overcome the tumult,

regain and fix the distracted attention, instruct and charm even those

whom he failed to convince. His eye sparkling, his head aloft, his

voice thrown out by jerks, he seemed always in speaking to be sounding

a charge. He managed figures, metaphors, arguments, with as much

celerity, dash, and freedom as his Zouaves. Supple and impetuous,

bounding as the panther, he turned around his adversary, as if seeking

his vulnerable point, before springing upon and prostrating him.

Rarely did he descend from the tribune without having moved his

auditory, enlightened a question, corrected a misapprehension,

repaired a defeat, prepared or justified a victory. Never was the

celebrated word of Cato on the Gauls, _Rem militarem agere et argute

loqui_, more exactly verified. Under this relation, as under so many

others, he was the most French of the Frenchmen of our age.

This double superiority was manifested with an _éclat_ as sudden as

complete in the midst of the frightful dangers of the revolution of

February, 1848. Named minister by a last effort of expiring legality,

he presented himself with his accustomed intrepidity before the

insurgent populace. The populace mistook and outraged him: dragged

from his horse, wounded with the thrusts of a bayonet, he with

difficulty escaped with his glorious life from the cowardly assassins.

When the Provisional Government issued from the mob, he would neither

serve it nor combat it. But he promised to accept the Republic, and to

be loyal to it, if it would preserve the army. That army was about to

become, in the hands of the National Assembly and under the orders of

the _African_ generals, the last bulwark of European civilization.

When the terrible days of June came to show the depth of the abyss

excavated by February, La Moricière was then by the side of his friend

Cavaignac, who, become his chief, after having been his lieutenant,

and retained himself from personally engaging in the struggle by his

duties as head of the executive, hastened to confide to him the

principal part in repressing the most terrible insurrection that ever

broke out in the most revolutionary city in the world. Those who were

there--those who breathed the inflamed atmosphere of those solemn and

terrible days, run through those narrow streets incumbered with

barricades and heaps of the {293} slain, and where flowed literally

streams of blood, those deserted quays and blocked-up quarters, whose

silence was broken only by _the sublime horror of the

cannonade_--those who were obliged to deliberate through three days

and two nights amidst the roar of that cannonade, while came

alternately messages of death and bulletins of the most sad but most

necessary victories--those alone can know by what means and at what

cost their country could really be saved, without violating the laws

of justice, honor, or humanity. Those who were not there will never

form a conception either of the extent of the danger or of the yawning

gulf in which he came so near being swallowed up, nor of the mixture

of determined energy and invincible patience needed to vanquish those

misguided but intrepid masses inured to war, and desperate, and whose

blows too large a number of former military officers directed against

the inexperience of the Gard Mobile or the hesitation of the troops

that had just entered Paris.

La Moricière, more than any other, was the man for the occasion. His

fiery temperament protected him from that patriotic sadness which

overcast the countenance of General Cavaignac all through the bloody

crisis which must raise him to supreme power. In exposing himself as

at Constantine, for a longer time, and to still greater danger than at

Constantine, in rushing himself the first against the barricades,

defended by adversaries far more formidable than Arabs or Kabyles; in

prolonging the struggle with a revolution madder than that of the

insurgents. La Moricière finally succeeded in wresting Paris from the

insurrection. The confidence with which he inspired the troops, the

high spirits and gaiety, the heroic recklessness which he mingled with

his indomitable resolution, triumphed over every obstacle, and decided

the victory. Thanks to that victory, and to that alone, France was

drawn from the abyss and saved from barbarism.

Hence, on his return from the fearful struggle, he was greeted only

with a unanimous shout of enthusiasm and gratitude. Cavaignac hastened

to set his seal to the general acclamation by associating him to his

government as minister of war.

There was then a short period of confidence, of union, of calm, and of

relative security. Those days must have been sweet to the two friends

placed at the head of the country which they had just saved, and which

gave them freely the gratitude which they had so richly merited. Their

union, intimate and loyal, cordial and frank, contributed often to the

charm and well-being of that bright interval. It received an official

and touching consecration during the discussion of the constitution,

on the occasion of the articles relative to the public force. It was a

beautiful scene. An imprudent member, _apropos_ of the promotion, a

little irregular, of the future Marshal Bosquet, accused the minister

of war of acting from private friendship, and spoke of those whom

chance and fortune had placed at the head of the army. La Moricière

remained calm under the insult, but Cavaignac, seated by his side on

the ministerial bench, was indignant, and, ascending the tribune, and

addressing the aggressor, said: "There is one thing that astonishes

me; it is that you, sir, who were there, on the soil of Africa, as

well as me,--that you could see no other motive for the elevation of

that man but chance and fortune. As for me, if I am surprised, it is

to see him in the second rank, while I am in the first." A noble word,

and worthy of the noblest antiquity, such as could sometimes, by the

side of others by no means felicitous, fall from the lips of the proud

and loyal Cavaignac, then still the idol of the fickle enthusiasm of

conservative France, and which was so soon to leave him only the right

to say, with not less of modest dignity, "I have not fallen from

power; I have descended from it."

La Moricière was then at the {294} apogee of a fortune which nobody

was disposed to regard as excessive or usurped. At the age of forty he

was everywhere known, was invested with universal popularity, and was

the second man of France. The superiority he had won on the

battle-fields of Africa and at the much more formidable barricades in

the streets of Paris, he maintained and exercised in the councils of

his country and on the uncertain and perilous soil of the tribune.

[Footnote 45] Even when individuals were not of his opinion, which was

often the case with his friends of the evening as with those of the

morrow, they regretted or were astonished not to agree with him; they

ceased not to admire him, and were drawn toward him. It was known, it

was felt, that however the passions of the moment might mislead him,

the miserable instincts of envy, servility, selfishness, mean

ambition, or thirst for wealth, could never find a place in his robust

and manly heart. We loved him even when we were forced to oppose him.

Beside, we knew not yet how much better and further on many essential

points he saw, in his transports and gruffness, than many others more

calm or more experienced, and who were, though in a different manner,

as much deceived as he.

[Footnote 45: "Never has been pushed farther the intelligence, and

the power of labor, with the passion or struggle under all the forms

which create public life."'--_Discours du Général Trochu sur la

tombe de la Moricière à Saint-Philibert de Grand-Lieu._]

Moreover, in the public life of free nations and great assemblies, if

the clashing of opinions and the collision of self-loves give birth to

noisy or passionate dissents, they are rarely deep or lasting. This is

evident from what is seen every day and has been for a long time in

England. One is not forced there to brood in silence and darkness over

animosities which their very impotence renders incurable. Often, on

the contrary, in that open-day life, friendships the most serious, and

alliances the most sincere, succeed to misunderstandings or transports

which with well-born souls cannot survive the action of time and the

lights of experience, when people are agreed on the great conditions

of liberty, dignity, probity, and honor, without which all is null of

itself. But more than this, La Moricière, a short time before getting

power, gave to what was then called the _conservative reaction_ a

pledge the best fitted of all to make us forget the dissensions which

had separated him from us. It was he who directed the first steps of

the Roman expedition, and imprinted on it from the outset its real

character, _that of defending the Pope, and assuring the liberty and

the security of the visible head of the Church_.

To him is due the honor of initiating that expedition, of which twelve

years later he must write the sorrowful epilogue with the blood of the

young martyrs of Castelfidardo. To him and to the assemblies belongs

the glorious responsibility of that grand act of French politics,

which has been too often thrown at us as a crime, by the Caesarian

democracy, hoping to gain the right to give to others an homage not

their due.

Even afterwards, when the substitution of Prince Louis Napoleon for

General Cavaignac had removed him from office, when the dismissal of

his friends, Odillon-Barrot, Tocqueville, and Dufour, had involved his

resignation of his embassy to Russia, which he had accepted at their

request--when, in fine, the conservative party met him often among its

most active opponents, before dividing and turning against itself. La

Moricière preserved in the eyes of all a position apart and a marked

ascendency. In the present he had no peer, and the future, whatever

might happen, seemed to reserve to him a place always eminent, and

always preponderant in the destinies of France and of Europe.

{295}

II.

In one day, or, rather, in one night, all this present and all this

future crumbled. La Moricière, at the age of forty-five, falling from

the most enviable position a French soldier could occupy, without its

being possible to reproach him with the shadow of a crime or even of a

fault, saw for ever closed to him all access to either of the two

careers in which he had won so much glory, and in which he walked as

the peer, or the superior, of all his contemporaries. His military and

public life was closed. The most brilliant of our soldiers succumbed

to a military revolution. The statesman and the tribune, so in love

with popular sympathies, was swept away by a movement sanctioned by a

popularity none could dispute. He was broken when the law was broken

with the assent of the people; he was broken for having remained

faithful to an opinion which had for it constitutional right and the

inviolability of oaths; broken much less by the unmerciful demands of

victory than by the forgetfulness and abandonment of France; broken

for not having comprehended that France had wholly changed her gait

and her tendencies, and no longer held anything which she had

pretended to hold and to love ever since 1814. He must then, in his

turn, undergo those prodigies of inconstancy and ingratitude with

which the contemporary public delights to visit princes when they are

liberal, and superior men when they are honest.

No cup of bitterness was spared him: I mean bitternesses of the mind

and the heart, the most poignant and the most unbearable of all; and I

speak not for him alone, but also for his valiant and unfortunate

companions in glory and in exile. In the first years of his exile he

met, outside of his family and his wife, little sympathy in that

Belgium where Catholics especially were almost all under the

fascination of the conqueror. At that period of life when we have the

full consciousness of our strength and our resources, when the

employment of the gifts received from God is a prime necessity, he saw

himself condemned to forego not only the exercise of power and the

management of great affairs to which he had become accustomed, but all

public life, and, indeed, all active life. In vain he repeated the

device of his generous rival and friend Changarnier, _Happiness is

gone, but honor remains;_ in vain he spoke and wrote with Count de

Maistre after Tilsit, _Europe is Bonaparte's, but my heart is mine;_

he was forced to experience a long while the mortal tediousness of the

dead calm after the salutary and quickening excitements of the storm,

and to sink into a wearisome idleness, the mother, as Fouquet says to

Pignerol, of despair. He had to bear the laceration of impatience,

that mortal despite, that sterility of walks and books for a man of

his condition, that lassitude of a life deprived of all occupation,

that fatigue of doing nothing of which the bare thought made

Saint-Simon shudder, and held him fast in the ante-chamber of Louis

XIV.

But there was for him a more cruel trial still, a thousand times more

bitter, of which neither Fouquet nor Saint-Simon had the remotest

conception.

France was on the point of making war, a great war; and these valiant

guards, these great war-chiefs, are not to be there! From Africa are

drawn the battalions they formed, which they commanded, and so often

led to victory. These battalions are now to march under other chiefs

to new victories. Themselves so long first and alone, on whom the eyes

of France and of Europe were so long accustomed to be

fixed--themselves all glowing with military ardor, full of vigor and

patriotism--having never failed their country, honor, or justice, are

now condemned to inaction, to forgetfulness, to nothingness; noted

subalterns rise and seize the first rank in the eyes of the

world!--who can tell, who can conceive, the anguish, the torture of

these men, so illustrious, so intrepid, and, be it not forgotten, so

innocent, so irreproachable before the country and the army?

{296}

The "Epoque" tells us to-day that a word, a single word, had sufficed

to recall them to France, and to commands in the Crimea, the baton of

the marshal, and all the augmented splendor and prosperity which

victory brings in its train. Nothing is known of it. Always is it a

fact that this word, whether it would have been listened to or not,

was not spoken, and since it was not, it no doubt ought not to have

been spoken.

What, moreover, was that marshal's baton so cruelly stolen from those

who had so well earned it? Those grades, decorations, gildings, and

salaries, the vulgar food of vulgar souls, were they what attracted,

what inflamed, these heroic souls? No, a thousand times no. It was

danger; it was devotedness, enthusiasm, action, the service of France,

the love of country, the love of the noble flag which they had borne

aloft for twenty years; the glorious brotherhood of arms with so many

good soldiers and brave officers, their own offspring, so to speak;

the burning desire, a thousand times legitimate, of adding new laurels

to those already won; in a word, it was HONOR--and it was precisely

honor that condemned them to silence, to inaction, to death--the real

death and the only death they had ever dreaded.