There was a diversity of opinions about the declaration of the 15th of

March, but at first there was nothing in the state of public opinion

to excite alarm. As for the war, if the people looked upon it without

much favor, at least no one could assert that it was contrary to the

national interests. There were recent injuries to be avenged, glory

and profit to be won; above all, immense advantages to accrue to

English commerce from the crippling of one of its most formidable

rivals: all these considerations kept the minds of the nation in

suspense.

But unfortunately one naval engagement after another was fought with

no decisive results; and while the French gained brilliant victories

on land, the English seemed to be only humble, docile instruments in

the hands of their allies. The Protestants eagerly seized upon these

circumstances to arouse an undertone of discontent among the masses.

The Duchess of York had just died a Catholic. The Duke of York, the

heir presumptive to the throne, was strongly suspected of having

embraced the Catholic religion. Then there was England in league with

Catholic France against Protestant Holland; and the little army which

Charles had sent to the continent, though placed under the command of

Schomburg, a Calvinist (but for all that a Frenchman), had among its

subordinate officers a major-general, Fitzgerald, and many other

Catholics. All these things, they said, taken in connection with the

recent declaration, boded nothing but evil to the Reformed churches.

Such was the state of public feeling when, after a recess of two

years, parliament opened at the beginning of February, 1673. In the

troubles {832} which he saw were coming, the king relied for

assistance in the houses principally upon Clifford, whom he had

appointed a lord of the treasury, and the Chancellor Ashley, recently

created Earl of Shaftesbury, a man of no principle, but of great

ability and value in critical emergencies. At the opening of the

session Charles spoke of the French alliance, of the causes of his

rupture with the States General, and of the declaration of indulgence,

which he declared himself resolved to stand by.

The opposition had already matured their plan of campaign, and their

first measure was to deprive the Catholics of their new allies by

persuading the dissenting sects to renounce the precarious advantages

of the declaration for the toleration, less complete, perhaps, but

more assured, which they would infallibly obtain from the favorable

dispositions of the Commons. The manoeuvre was perfectly successful.

The Catholics were completely isolated. The "Country Party," as they

called themselves, then opened fire with more confidence in

Parliament. "The attack was made," says Macaulay, "not in the way of

storm, but by slow and scientific approaches. The Commons at first

held out hopes that they would give support to the king's foreign

policy, but insisted that he should purchase that support by

abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. Their first object was

to obtain the revocation of the declaration of indulgence. Of all the

many unpopular steps taken by the government, the most unpopular was

the publishing of this declaration." In fact, the annulment of the

edict was a matter of life or death for the Protestants. They wanted,

however, a constitutional argument, and they had not far to look for

one. We quote Macaulay again:

"It must in candor be admitted that the constitutional question was

not then quite free from obscurity. Our ancient kings had undoubtedly

claimed and exercised the right of suspending the operation of penal

laws. The tribunals had recognized that right. Parliaments had

suffered it to pass unchallenged. That some such right was inherent in

the crown, few even of the Country Party ventured, in the face of

precedent and authority, to deny. Yet it was clear that, if this

prerogative were without limit the English government could scarcely

be distinguished from a pure despotism." A hypocritical fear of

despotism and inviolable respect for the law were to be the standard

under which the dissenters should fight, and it was agreed that the

Anglicans should intrench themselves behind the ramparts of the

constitution.

The opposition in parliament did not disapprove of toleration in

itself; they only blamed the form of the edict. They were perfectly

willing to alleviate the condition of the Protestant nonconformists,

provided it could be done through the regular parliamentary channels.

Even if the king could remit a penalty, he could not suspend a law in

ecclesiastical, any more than in civil, matters. In support of this

position they argued at great length, with a good deal of passion and

obscurity and a great lack of common sense, for more than a month. The

real strength of the party lay in its popularity, and in that

irresistible power which the daring aggressors of a declining monarchy

always possess, in every country. The partizans of the court, by their

injudicious defence of the crown, did their best to aid the opposite

party. Instead of defending the prerogative by the precedents afforded

by previous reigns, they grounded its exercise upon the necessity for

some _ad interim_ power which, during the recess of parliament, might

act upon urgent cases, and, if need were, suspend the laws. "An

exempting power," they said, "must of necessity exist somewhere;

otherwise cases may arise, when parliament is not in session, in which

the welfare and even the safety of the state would be sacrificed to

impolitic and unreasonable {833} fears." This was playing directly

into their adversaries' hands. After long discussions, several times

interrupted by adjournments, the House of Commons, by a vote of 168

against 116, resolved "that the penal laws touching ecclesiastical

matters could not be suspended except by an act of parliament."

In replying to the message of the Commons, Charles declared himself

deeply concerned that they should question the ecclesiastical

authority of the crown, which had never been contested during the

reigns of his ancestors. He certainly pretended to no authority to

suspend any law touching the property, rights, and liberties of his

subjects. His only object in the exercise of his ecclesiastical power

was the relief of the dissenters. He was not disposed to reject the

advice of parliament, and would always be found ready to agree to any

bill which might seem better adapted than his declaration to

accomplish the chief object which he had in view--the welfare of all

his subjects, and the tranquillity and stability of England. This

moderate language did not satisfy the house. A second address

admonished the sovereign that his counsellors had deceived him, and

that none of his ancestors had ever claimed or exercised the power of

suspending statutes touching ecclesiastical matters; and his faithful

Commons implored his majesty to give them a more satisfactory and

complete answer. The king felt the insult, and did not conceal his

resentment. His course was chosen. He would dissolve parliament,

rather than submit to the dictation of his enemies. But he hoped to

subdue the opposition by exciting a conflict of opinion between the

two houses. He went to the House of Lords, and in a short and spirited

address complained that the Commons usurped the royal authority, laid

before their lordships the two addresses from the lower house, with

his replies, and concluded by asking the advice of the hereditary

counsellors of the throne. Clifford followed, and pleaded with his

accustomed fire and energy the cause of offended majesty. But the

spirit of defection had spread even among the chiefs of the

government. The chancellor went over to the enemy. "Shaftesbury," says

Macaulay, "with his proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent reaction

was at hand, and that all things were tending toward a crisis

resembling that of 1640. He was determined that such a crisis should

not find him in the situation of Strafford. He therefore turned

suddenly round, and acknowledged in the House of Lords that the

declaration was illegal." A month had not passed since, in another

place, Ashley had appealed to the justice of his fellow-subjects

against the adversaries of the edict of toleration. The lords made

haste to follow the example of the prudent chancellor. Ten years

before they had solemnly declared their opinion that Charles II. had

received from the English people a legitimate mission to establish

liberty of conscience; to-day, after maturely considering the royal

motion, they resolved "that the proposal of his majesty to settle the

dispute by parliamentary ways was a good and gracious answer."

The disapprobation of the Upper House filled the timid monarch with

consternation. Three days afterward Colbert presented himself* as the

bearer of officious advice from Louis XIV. The King of France felt but

little regret at the turn affairs were taking with his new allies; for

the Commons, who, in order to overthrow more surely the royal plan,

proposed to demolish it slowly, piece by piece, had not uttered a

single murmur against the French alliance or the war. Not only that,

but with a calculating shrewdness they had offered the king a

compensation for the sacrifices which they demanded of him, and

granted a subsidy of £1,260,000 sterling, destined to be expended in

more vigorously pushing forward hostile operations on land and sea.

Pleased with these favorable {834} dispositions, Louis XIV.

represented to his brother of England the sad consequences of a

rupture with parliament. The wisest course was to submit to necessity.

At the return of peace, when Louis would have troops and money to

spare, he would place both at the service of the Stuarts, and it would

then be easy to repair these temporary misfortunes. Charles listened

willingly to the ambassador. The offers of money he did not refuse;

but as for the assistance of French troops, he declared that he would

never use them against his subjects, unless a Second civil war should

reduce him to the very last extremity, as it had reduced his father.

The same day, in council with his ministers, he withdrew his edict of

toleration; and the next morning, the 8th of March, he annulled it

again, in presence of the Lords and Commons, promising that it should

never serve as a precedent. The royal communication was received with

acclamations of joy, and at night innumerable bonfires illuminated the

streets and squares of the capital.

The opposition party had received an impetus in its course, and it

needed a stronger arm than that of a Stuart to check it. The House of

Commons was already discussing its famous test bill, by the provisions

of which every Englishman holding any civil or military office was

required to take an oath of allegiance and subscribe to the royal

supremacy; he was to receive the sacrament according to the rites of

the Established Church, and to sign a declaration against

transubstantiation; and the penalty for violation of this law was a

fine of £500 sterling, and disqualification from filling any public

function or dignity whatsoever, from prosecuting any cause before the

courts, from acting as guardian or testamentary executor, or receiving

any legacy or deed of gift. Together with the test bill another was

introduced for the relief of the Protestant nonconformists. The former

passed quickly through both houses, and became that odious law which

England kept upon her statute-books until far into the present

century. As for the other bill, all the well-known arts of

parliamentary tricksters were brought to bear upon it. It was

postponed; it was amended again and again; it was thrown out; it was

brought in again. At last the end of the session found it effectually

killed; and, despite the insidious promises which had effected a

division among the several victims of the Anglican episcopacy, no new

act was passed with regard to the dissenters.

In a single day the test act deprived the Catholic cause of all its

defenders. The Duke of York, who, as lord high admiral, directed the

operations of the combined fleets of England and France, resigned his

command and his commission. Clifford, though a new convert, laid down

the white rod. All the Catholic officials, governors, magistrates,

naval and military officers, retired at once. One only--who had been

bold enough to praise the bill in the House of Lords as a wise and

opportune measure--was exempted from taking the test oath and branded

with the disgrace of a national recompense. This was the same Earl of

Bristol whom the Bishop of Salisbury had regarded as the inspirer of

those popish tendencies which he boasted of having detected under

Charles's dissimulation.

There was none of the cabinet whose fidelity Charles could now trust.

Shaftesbury had betrayed him; and it seemed certain that Buckingham,

Arlington, and Lauderdale were secretly in league with the chief

agitators. In return for their services parliament granted them

complete impunity for the past by freely condoning all the offences

committed previous to the 25th of March.

Thus the isolation of the king at home was complete. Louis XIV. was

still left him, but he was soon to lose even this last support. At the

beginning of 1674 the French alliance offered only very doubtful

advantages. On the continent the war had assumed the proportions of a

conflict of all Europe, and Montecuculli, seconded by {835} the Prince

of Orange, what successfully against the genius of Turenne. On the

sea, Prince Rupert, the successor of the Duke of York, with

ninety-ships of the line, had gained not a single notable advantage,

though he ought to have swept all the Dutch fleets before him. As

Lingard says, he was too intimately allied with the opposition party

to be very eager for a victory which would have given the ascendency

to their adversaries. Finally, the Commons manifested, from the

opening of the new session, a decided unwillingness to vote a subsidy.

Charles listened, therefore, to the proposals of the allied powers,

and, of his own accord, without asking the consent of "his suzerain"

(as Macaulay charges), concluded a special peace on the most honorable

conditions. "Necessity forbade him any longer to assist France as an

ally," he said to Louis' ambassador; "but he hoped to be able to serve

his good brother as a mediator between him and his enemies."

Thus all Charles's plans were overthrown, and England was delivered

for two centuries from the twin misfortunes against which she

struggled with equal energy--a French alliance and the inroads of

Popery.

Under the enormous pressure brought to bear upon him the unhappy king,

deserted by all his auxiliaries and all his friends, gave way, and

tried to stifle the voice of conscience. No doubt he is gravely to

blame when he receives the sacrament in the Protestant chapels of his

palace, and urges the Duke of York to imitate his unworthy weakness,

when he renews the protestations--which nobody believes--of his firm

adhesion to Anglicanism. He is inexcusable for his apostacy. But that

these criminal actions were not incompatible with a sincere resolve to

return to the Roman Catholic Church, and that one can trace in

Charles's conduct a plan seriously conceived and for three years

perseveringly followed, to establish freedom of Catholic worship

throughout the United Kingdom--these are the points which we have

endeavored to prove. We are not without hope that we have shed some

light upon an important series of events, which for two centuries have

been enveloped, through the bad faith of historians, in an obscurity

that until now the keenest glance has failed to pierce.

------

From The Month.

SAINTS OF THE DESERT.

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

1. A careless brother said to Abbot Antony, "Pray for me."

The old man made answer: I shall not pity thee, nor will the Highest,

unless thou hast pity on thyself, and makest prayer to God.

2. Abbot Arsenius used to say: I have often had to repent of speaking;

never of keeping silence.

3. Abbot Theodore said: If God impute to us our negligences when we

pray, and our distractions' when we sing, we cannot be saved.

4. Abbot Pastor said: One man is at rest and prays; another is sick

and gives thanks; a third ministers cheerfully to them both.

They are three; but their work and their merit is one.

{836}

5. A brother said to Abbot Sisoi: "What must I do to keep my heart?"

The old man made answer: Look to your tongue first, for it is nearest

to the door.

6. Abbot Abraham said: Passions live even in the saints here below;

but they are chained.

7. Abbot John said to his brother, "I do not like working; I wish to

be in peace, and to serve God without break, like an angel;" and he

set off to the desert.

In a week's time he returned, and knocked at his brother's door,

saying, "I am John."

His brother answered, "No, you are not; for John is an angel." He

insisted, "Yes, but I am John."

His brother opened to him, saying, "If you are a man, why don't you

work? If you are an angel, what do you knock for?"

------

From Chambers's Journal.

LITTLE THINGS.

Often, little things we hear,

Often, little things we see.

Waken thoughts that long have slept,

Deep down in our memory.

Strangely slight the circumstance

That has force to turn the mind,

Backward on the path of years,

To the loved scenes far behind!

'Tis the perfume of a flower.

Or a quaint, old-fashioned tune;

Or a song-bird 'mid the leaves.

Singing in the sunny June.

'Tis the evening star, mayhap.

In the gloaming silver bright;

Or a gold and purple cloud

Waning in the western light.

'Tis the rustling of a dress.

Or a certain tone of voice,

That can make the pulses throb.

That can bid the heart rejoice.

Ah, my heart! But not of joy

Must alone thy history tell.

Sorrow, shame, and bitter tears

Little things recall as well.

------

{837}

From The Month.

THE POEMS OF ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER. [Footnote 147]

[Footnote 147: "Legends and Lyrics." By Adelaide Anne Procter. With

an Introduction by Charles Dickens. New edition, with additions.

Illustrated by W.T.C. Dobson, A.B.A., Samuel Palmer, J. Tenniel,

George H. Thomas, Lorenz Fröhlich, W. H. Millais, G. du Maurier.

W.P. Burton, J.D. Watson, Charles Keene, J.M. Carrick, M.E. Edward,

T. Morten. (Bell & Daldy.) "A Chaplet of Verses." (Longman.)]

The appearance of the beautiful edition of Miss Procter's poems lately

issued among the Christmas gift-books of the season forms a fitting

occasion for some remarks upon the special character and genius of the

authoress whose verses are inscribed upon its delicately-toned pages.

Of both the first and second series of Miss Procters "Legends and

Lyrics" numerous editions have been called for by the public: they are

now collected into a quarto, illustrated by many excellent artists,

and are prefaced by a slight biographical introduction from the pen of

Mr. Charles Dickens, who, being intimately acquainted with Miss

Procter's family, had known her from her early girlhood, and

entertained for her the truest admiration and the most cordial esteem.

In attempting an analysis of Miss Procter's poetry, we may well

preface it by a few words concerning her life and character, because

these were the roots of her verse. To speak of the dead is at all

times a sacred thing, demanding heedful words and careful justice. To

speak of the beloved dead is always a doubly difficult task, requiring

a specially sober modesty of expression, even while giving some scope

to that instinctive power of true appreciation which affection best

insures. The writer of these pages knew and loved her long and well;

and in so far is qualified to speak of what she was: yet of a nature

which was all womanly, and which retained to its last earthly moments

a singular charm of childlike playfulness and innocence--having been,

as it were, at all times sheltered from life's rougher experiences--it

is not quite easy so to speak as to bring out a distinctive image to

those who knew it not.

Adelaide Anne Procter was born in October, 1825, in Bedford Square,

London; the eldest child, the "sweet beloved first-born," of Brian

Waller Procter, best known to literature as Barry Cornwall. We have

often heard her described as she was at three years old--"the

prettiest little fairy ever seen," with fair delicate features and

great blue eyes; always frail in health, but exceedingly intelligent.

Mr. Dickens tells of a tiny album, made of note-paper, into which her

favorite passages of poetry were copied for her by her mother's hand

before she herself could write; and she very soon began to acquire

foreign languages, and even to learn geometry. One of her early

accomplishments was drawing--she composed little figure pieces with

grace and facility; and we remember hearing from a loving relative of

Miss Procter's, many long years ago, of a certain set of sketches of

the Seven Ages of Man, done by her in pencil when she was yet a little

girl. Being at the time still younger, we heard of it with a sort of

admiring awe, which it is now pathetic to remember; considering in our

own mind what a wonderful and even alarming little girl this must be.

Some five-and-twenty years later (since her death) those little

sketches came to light; the sight of them smiting upon the heart with

the memory of that long-ago conversation, so full of fond hope and

pride.

{838}

Miss Procter was very thoroughly educated, and from her youth went

much into society, possessing in a marked degree the best

characteristics of a woman of the world. Mr. Dickens says that she had

nothing of the conventional poetess about her; was neither melancholy,

nor affected, nor self-absorbed. What she _had_, was the ease, the

polish, and the extreme readiness which we are taught to consider the

traditionary charm of a Frenchwoman of the old school. To perfect

self-possession she added a sort of feminine mastery of those about

her. Single out any of the famous Parisians gifted with the power to

win and to keep, and imagine this sort of power grafted on to a nature

_au fond_ very simple and sterling; and thus the reader will attain to

a conception of what she was in social life. She had deep and strong

feeling, which she poured out in her poetry; but it did not come

uppermost in her conversation. _That_ was always vivid and usually

lively, and, moreover, edged with marvellous finesse. "Sweet-briar"

one loving friend used to call her.

Her outward life was not very varied; but her conversion to the

Catholic faith, which took place when she was about four-and-twenty,

gave her a wide circle of intellectual interests beyond those of

ordinary English minds. Two years later she went to Piedmont, and

passed a year with a relative there. She always recalled this Italian

experience with lively pleasure; and it colored many of her poems. Her

letters home were very lively and pictorial, showing that she would

have excelled in prose composition.

Of her first entrance into literature Mr. Dickens has given an amusing

account: how she sent poems to _Household Words_ under the signature

of Miss Berwick, and how at the office they all made up their minds

she was a governess; and how Miss Berwick turned out, after all, to be

the daughter of his old friend Barry Cornwall, who preferred to win

her spurs with her visor down. When, some years later, she was with

much difficulty induced to collect her poems into a volume, with her

name, their success was immediate; both that volume and a second

series passed through edition after edition, till she truly became a

_household word_ in England.

There is not, alas! very much more to tell. Just when she became

famous, and opportunities of literary exertion were opening on every

side, her health began to fail. For three or four years before her

declared illness she was very delicate, and, with the fatal animation

of her peculiar temperament, always overworking herself. But that

dread malady, consumption, the scourge of England, can rarely be

averted when once it has marked its prey. In November, 1862, her

increasing illness first confined her to her room, and very shortly to

her bed. For fifteen long months she lay there, wasting gradually

away; yet not only was she patient and thoroughly resigned, but up to

the very last her bright cheerfulness never quite deserted her. When

not actually in pain, she would enter into conversation with all her

old zest, taking just the same interest in her friends and their

affairs; lively, sympathetic, and helpful to the end. On the very last

evening of all, one of her friends, thinking to interest her in the

old pursuit, brought her a little poem in proof. It was a Catholic

ballad for _The Lamp_, Miss Procter was sitting up in bed, supported

by pillows. She was too weak to speak any unnecessary word; but her

large blue eyes roused into their wonted intelligence as she listened;

and then, with the sweet sympathy which she at all times gave to

others, she made a slight applauding motion with those slender wasted

fingers, and smiled into the reader's face. It was such a very slight

thing, and yet so utterly characteristic--courtesy and kindness and a

sort of unselfish readiness surviving to the very end.

{839}

That night, an hour after midnight, on the 2d of February, the summons

came. She had been reading a little book--trying to read, rather--and

as the clock was on the stroke of one she shut it up, and with some

sudden mysterious rush of consciousness, having suffered greatly all

the evening from oppressed breathing, she asked quietly of her mother,

who was holding her in her arms:

"Do you think I am dying, mamma?"

"I think you are very, very ill tonight, my dear."

"Send for my sister. My feet are so cold--lift me up."

Her sister entering as they raised her, she said: "It has come at

last."

And then, with so soft a change that the anxious eyes bent upon those

sunken features could hardly detect the moment of her ceasing to

breathe, death came to the beloved of so many hearts. The prayers of

the Church, of which she was so devoted a child, were audibly uplifted

throughout that closing scene; they were the last earthly sounds that

can have reached the dulling ear. Opposite to her, as she lay upon her

little bed, was a photograph from that loveliest image by Francia of

the dead Saviour lying upon his mother's knees. At all times ardently

religious, the last days of her frail life were elevated and cheered

by the holy rites of her faith. As she lay in her coffin, a crucifix

upon her breast, and camellias and violets sprinkled over her fair

white garments, she looked the loveliest image of peace which a pure

and pious life could bequeath to perishable clay. The delicate face

was but little changed. Up to the very last it had retained its bright

spiritual expression, just as her voice had retained its musical

inflections, and her smile its blended charm of affectionate sympathy

and childlike gaiety. In death that smile had vanished for ever, but

something of its sweetness still lingered about the brow and mouth.

The tapers for which she had asked a little while previously (for the

due keeping of Candlemas-day) burnt at the head of the coffin, and

shed their soft light down upon that still face. When at length it was

covered up from mortal sight, and all that remained of her laid in the

grave at St. Mary's Cemetery, the sun shone out with the first

cheerfulness of early spring. Coming from behind a little cloud, that

sunshine lit up the white vestment of the priest, who, standing by her

coffin in the little chapel, spoke of the joyful resurrection of the

children of God. There is a little garden upon that simple grave,

where fresh flowers bloom every spring; and beside it many prayers are

offered up with each returning season of the year.

But we must linger no longer on memories and associations which are

almost too sacred for more than a passing word. To the world at large

Miss Procter is known through her genius only; but it is, perhaps, not

too much to say, that through it she is also endeared in a singular

degree to thousands who never looked upon her face. To some

consideration of her poems we will therefore address ourselves; the

less reluctantly that they were truly so much a revelation of her

life.

If canons of criticism be based on something deeper than mere

superficial rules in regard to the expression of the sublime and

youthful, it must be doubly interesting to trace the causes of a

wide-spread popularity attaching to any series of works from the same

pen. Such an appreciation cannot be won by a trick of form, or by a

deliberate appeal to well-known popular sympathies. It must arise from

the touching of universal emotions; from a true correspondence with

those thoughts and feelings which are the heritage of the race under

its most general conditions, or which have become the common property

of a people in all its various grades of culture.

{840}

There are two theories regarding the nature of poetry and of that

Genius which creates poetry, whether in literature or in the sphere of

any art. They will never be harmonized; for, like many other opinions,

doctrines, and theories, of which we are separately forced to

acknowledge the truth, they are irreconcilable by any effort of the

human understanding. One of these theories says that genius is rare,

recondite, unusual; that its creations are, by the very nature of

things, little likely to be appreciated; that, indeed, the higher and

the deeper it is, the more likelihood there is that it will not be

entered into by numbers. Such genius found its embodiment in the

phantasmagoria of Blake, in the poetry of Shelley, in the profound

insight of this or that thinker. It is the vivid but momentary flash

of lightning irradiating a sombre sky; it is the gnarled and solitary

pine; the deep still tarn upon the mountain-side; it is the vein of

bright ore buried in the darkness of the mine; the electric thrill

evoked from inert matter, interesting, delightful, and suggestive from

the very strangeness of its apparition. Who shall deny this is _one_

definition of genius, one way of picturing the idea of high art?

But there is another theory, which says that genius is that which

possesses the faculty of incarnating universal affections in a type

readily and instinctively appropriated by the imagination; that it

painted the Huguenots, and wrought out the image of Jeanie Deans; that

it sung the simple melody of "Auld Robin Gray," and accumulated the

massive choruses of Handel; that--putting aside those greatest men,

the Shakespeares, Groethes, and Raphaels, regarding whom criticism or

definition are alike exhaustless and for ever inconclusive--the most

admirable genius is that which thrills in the ballads, the religions

literature, and imitative art of a people, and which a whole nation

"will not willingly let die." Such genius, such art, is like the fair

sunshine upon corn-fields, the rippling of the running stream, the

silver surface of the lake, the profuse luxuriance of spring and

autumn woodlands. It embodies light, air, and the song of birds, the

solemnity of the universal twilight, and the radiance of the universal

dawn. Almost every one can see and feel it in _some_ wise, though the

keenness of the appreciation will be in proportion to the

sensitiveness of the eye and ear. Who shall deny that this is another

and equally true description of the highest genius and the noblest

art?

The poems we are now considering, and which have won such general

admiration wherever they have become known, belong to the latter class

of works of art. Their simple, delicate beauty appeals alike to men

and women, and to the soul of the young child; their transparent

clearness is that of an unusually lucid intellect; their profoundness

is only that of a believing heart. She who wrote them would often say,

with a certain characteristic simplicity, "I only write verses--I do

not write poetry;" and would fasten upon the products of some powerful

and mystic mind as an illustration of what genuine poetry ought to be.

But the mis-estimate was great. The absolute absence of claptrap, of

any appeal to the passions of the hour or the popular idols of the

English people, showed that if these volumes lay on so many tables,

and their contents were so often sung and quoted in public and in

private, as expressing just that which everybody had wanted to say,

the reason lay deeper than the ring of the verse-writer who knows how

to play into the fancy of the multitude. They are popular because they

are instinct with dainty feminine genius, and reach the hearts of

others with the sure precise touch of slender fingers awakening the

silver chords of a harp.

Three volumes originally comprised the whole of Miss Procter's

writings: a first and second series of legends and lyrics, and one of

religious poems, published for a night-refuge {841} kept by Sisters of

Mercy. The two former have now been printed in this rich quarto by

Messrs. Bell & Daldy; and it may not be amiss to say that the whole

_three_ have been republished in America in one small but excellently

got-up volume, at once a casket and a shrine (Ticknor & Fields,

Boston). Of the secular poems now brought before our English public in

so beautiful a dress, we would attempt a slight analysis of contents.

There are fourteen legends or stories, long and short--little tales in

verse, of which the gist generally lies in some very subtle and

pathetic situation of the human heart. Anything like violent wrong or

the ravages of unruly passion seemed rarely to cross this gentle

imagination; and yet the legends are nearly all sorrowful; but the

sorrow seems to spring from nobody's fault and perhaps for that very

reason it is all the more sorrowful, for repentance will not wash it

away. Little dead children borne to heaven on the bosom of the angels

while their mothers weep below; or a dying mother, dying amidst the

splendors of an earl's home, and calling to her bedside the son of an

earlier and humbler marriage, revealing herself to him at the last; or

the history of a stepmother, long loved but late wedded, and who had

given up the lover of her own youth to a younger friend, and afterward

taken the charge of that friend's jealous and reluctant children; or

the pitiful tale, since elaborately wrought out by Tennyson in his

"Enoch Arden," of the sailor who returns home to find his wife the

wife of another man. In one and all the pathos is wrought out and

expressed with the most extraordinary delicacy of touch. The reader

says to himself, "Nay, is it so sad after all?" And yet it is; sad and

spiritually hopeful too; sad for this earth, hopeful for heaven. This

seems the irresistible conclusion of almost every tale; even the story

of the stepmother, supposed to come quite right at last, is made

inexpressibly plaintive by being told by the first wife's nurse--she

who "knew so much," and had lived with her young mistress from

childhood, and would not call the cold husband unkind; "but she had

been used to love and praise."

In others of these legends the telling of the tale is simpler, the

pathos more direct, but almost always strangely subtle. In "Three

Evenings of a Life" a sister sacrifices her own hopes of married life

that she may devote herself to a young brother who needs her care. But

the young brother marries--a catastrophe which she does not seem to

have contemplated; and she finds too late that her sacrifice was

useless; and, what was worse, that the bride is ill-fitted to sustain

him in his life or in his art; and the unhappy sister

"----watched the daily failing

Of all his nobler part;

Low aims, weak purpose, telling

In lower, weaker art.

And now, when he is dying,

The last words she could hear

Must not be hers, but given

The bride of one short year.

The last care is another's;

The last prayer must not be

The one they learnt together

Beside their mother's knee."

Herbert sickens and dies, leaving the poor weak little Dora to Alice's

care; and we are told how Alice cherishes her, and bears with her

waywardness through sad weeks of depression, till news comes in spring

that Leonard--the rejected lover--is returning from India. Now Alice

is free! Now she may love Leonard and lean upon his strength. He

comes; the little household smiles once more. Summer succeeds to

spring; when one twilight hour Alice is aware of the perfume of

flowers brought into their London home. She goes out into the passage,

and through a half-opened door hears Leonard's voice:

{842}

"His low voice--Dora's answers;

His pleading;--yes, she knew

The tone, the words, the accents;

She once had heard them too.

'Would Alice blame her? Leonard's

Low tender answer came.

'Alice was far too noble

To think or dream of blame.'

'And wishes sure he loved her?'

'Yes, with the one love given

Once in a lifetime only;

With one soul and one heaven?'

Then came a plaintive murmur:

'Dora had once been told

That he and Alice--' 'Dearest,

Alice is far too cold

To love: and I, my Dora,

If once I fancied so,

It was a brief delusion.

And over long ago.'"

Very tender and touching is the description of the forlorn woman's

recoil upon her brother's memory:

"Yes, they have once been parted;

But this day shall restore

The long-lost one; she claims him:

'My Herbert--mine once more!'"

One of the most highly finished of the legends is "A Tomb in Ghent,"

setting forth the life of a humble musician and his young daughter. It

contains lovely touches of description both of music and architecture.

How the youth knelt prayerfully in St. Bavon--

"While the great organ over all would roll,

Speaking strange secrets to his innocent soul,

Bearing on eagle-wings the great desire

Of all the kneeling throng, and piercing higher

Than aught but love and prayer can reach, until

Only the silence seemed to listen still;

Or, gathering like a sea still more and more.

Break in melodious waves at heaven's door.

And then fall, slow and soft, in tender rain,

Upon the pleading, longing hearts again."

Not only what he heard, but what he saw, is thus exquisitely imaged in

words:

"Then he would watch the rosy sunlight glow.

That crept along the marble floor below,

Passing, as life does with the passing hours.

How by a shrine all rich with gems and flowers.

Now on the brazen letters of a tomb;

Then, again, leaving it to shade and gloom,

And creeping on, to show distinct and quaint,

The kneeling figure of some marble saint;

Or lighting up the carvings strange and rare

That told of patient toil and reverent care;

Ivy that trembled on the spray, and ears

Of heavy corn, and slender bulrush-spears.

And all the thousand tangled weeds that grow

In summer where the silver rivers flow:

And demon heads grotesque that seemed to glare

In impotent wrath on all the beauty there.

Then the gold rays up pillared shaft would climb.

And so be drawn to heaven at evening time;

And deeper silence, darker shadows flowed

On all around--only the windows glowed

With blazoned glory, like the shields of light

Archangels bear, who, armed with love and might,

Watch upon heaven's battlements at night."

The second critical division of Miss Procter's poems comprises those

beautiful lyrics, many of which have been set to music, and all of

which are full of the melody of rhythms--inspired, as it were, by a

delicate AEolian harmony, having its source in the fine intangible

instinct of the poet's ear. Amidst more than a hundred of such short

poems and songs, selection seems nearly impossible to the critic. Many

of the little pieces and many of the separate verses are destined to

float on the surface of English literature with the same secure

buoyancy as Herrick's "Daffodils," or Lyttleton's verses to his fair

wife Lucy, or Wordsworth's picture of the maid who dwelt by the banks

of Dove. They have that short felicity of expression, that perfect

finish in their parts, that cause such poems to abide in the memory,

or, as the expression is, to "dwell in the imagination." In the six

verses of "The Chain,"

"Which was not forged by mortal hands.

Or clasped with golden bars and bands,

is one--the third--which exemplifies our assertion. It reads like one

of those immemorial quotations we have known from infancy:

"Yet what no mortal hand could make.

No mortal power can ever break;

What words or vows could never do.

No words or vows can make untrue;

And if to other hearts unknown,

The dearer and the more our own,

Because too sacred and divine

For other eyes save thine and mine."

Two songs, written in the quaint, irregular metre delighted in by the

seventeenth-century poets, seem like forgotten scraps by one of the

more elegant contemporaries of Milton; these are, "A Doubting Heart,"

and "A Lament for the Summer," of which the first and last verses are

instinct with the feelings of October days:

"Moan, O ye Autumn winds--

Summer has fled;

The flowers have closed their tender leaves, and die;

The lily's gracious head

All low must lie.

Because the gentle Summer now is dead.

Mourn, mourn, O Autumn winds--

Lament and mourn;

How many half-blown buds must close and die!

Hopes, with the Summer born,

All faded lie,

And leave us desolate and earth forlorn."

{843}

Equally musical, but full of the more personal sentiment of our

century, is that lovely song, "A Shadow," beginning,

"What lack the valleys and mountains

That once were green and gay?"

Quite different in tone, full of ringing harmony, is the little poem

of "Now?"

"Rise, for the day is passing,

And you lie dreaming on;

The others have buckled their armor,

And forth to the fight are gone.

A place in the ranks awaits you--

Each man has some part to play;

The Past and the Future are nothing

In the face of the stern To-day."

And so on, through four spirited verses. Something in these strikes

the ear as peculiarly illustrative of the active pious spirit of her

who wrote them, of the voice whose every tone was so dear, and of the

smile whose arch intelligence conveyed the same expression of lively

decision.

We must now bring our remarks to a close, having tried to indicate the

different qualities of Miss Procter's verse. The permanent place which

it will retain in English literature it is not for us to decide. She

has had the power to strike the heart of her own generation by its

simple pathos. That it is purely original of its kind can hardly be

denied; but it is hard, if not impossible, so far to separate

ourselves from the standard of our own generation as to judge where

the limits of the _special_, and therefore the _transient_, elements

of fame are passed. But we at least must not be wanting in gratitude

to one of the sweetest singers of the day that was hers and our own.

------

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

THE ADVENTURE.

Sir Brian O'Brian McMurrough commenced life as possessor of a

_nominal_ rent-roll of twelve thousand pounds sterling per annum,

although in reality, between mortgages, and rent-charges, and

incumbrances of every possible shape and hue, probably five would

represent the net sum received by the proprietor. Still, it was not

the age of economical reflection, nor was the young baronet either a

financier or a philosopher. He had been cradled in luxury, and bowed

down to with slavish senility; he had been educated at Cambridge, and,

one way or other, his bills there had been met, though not always

pleasantly, by his father. He had travelled over Europe, Asia, and a

good part of America, for four years, and at last a letter had caught

him at Vienna, telling him that his father, Sir Patrick, had died

suddenly, "full of years and honors," and that he was now the

representative of one of "the oldest and best families in Ireland,"

and possessor of its splendid estates, etc. On his return home he was

surrounded by troops of friends and hordes of sycophants, and for some

years was far too much engaged in pleasure not to let business attend

to itself. His fathers had lived "like kings," and he had too much the

spirit of an Irish, gentleman to let prudence or economy come "between

the wind and his nobility." He married, too, and chose for his wife a

far-descended and beautiful pauper, with tastes to the full as

reckless and extravagant as his own. This lady had brought him a

daughter, who lived, and in four years after {844} a son, who had died

a few hours after his birth, and whose death preceded that of his

mother by a single day. After her death Sir Brian became more careless

and reckless than ever. His spirits sank as his debts mounted; he saw

from the first that ruin was inevitable; section after section of his

splendid estates were put up for sale and swept away; until at last

all that remained to him was a half-ruined building, called "The Black

Abbey," which he sometimes used as a shooting and fishing lodge in

happier days, and a tract of mountain land, wild, and for the most

part sterile and unprofitable, and for part of which he paid rent. In

the present gloomy temper of his soul, however, it suited his humor.

The building stood halfway up a mountain, the base of which was almost

washed by the waters of a broad lake, or lough, and from which it was

only separated by a slip of meadow. The lake itself was several miles

in extent, and at least three miles and a half broad immediately

opposite the abbey, to which the only access from the mainland was by

a skiff or boat, except you chose to travel several miles round so as

to head the lake. It was a romantic but utterly desolate retreat, made

still more so, if possible, by the sullen gloom which had now taken

possession of the fallen man. He had secured some remnants of a once

splendid library, and sometimes amused himself by teaching his

daughter Eva, although there were weeks at one time when a restless

and morose spirit beset him, and then with a gun in his hand he

wandered idly through the mountains, or with a boy, named Paudreèn,

took to his yacht, and was never to be seen on shore, sometimes

sleeping on board, or bivouacking on some of the many small islands

which dotted the loch.

At such times Eva was left in possession of the abbey, accompanied by

old Deb Dermody and her husband Mogue (or Moses), who, of all his

followers, had stuck steadily to Sir Brian, and would not be shaken

off. Before utter ruin had come upon them, Eva had been for a year, or

somewhat better, at a boarding school, the mistress of which had

evidently done her duty by the child. The little girl, indeed, "showed

blood" in more ways than one: she was small but hardy, and, without

being critically beautiful, she was very lovely to look upon: her

features were delicate but full of animation. Her temper was lively,

but all her instincts were genial and generous, and she had, in a

particular manner, the gift of conciliating the affectionate regards

of all who came within the sphere of her innocent influence. True it

was, her worshippers were neither numerous nor select. A few hands

employed by the "steward" (as Mogue was magniloquently called) to till

the ground and attend to the "stock," consisting of mountain sheep and

Kerry cows, together with stray "cadgers," pedlars, and other

wanderers who occasionally visited the neighborhood, and the

"neighbors" on both banks of the lough (the hither and thither),

consisting for the most part of an amphibious sort of population, who

netted fish in the lake, or cultivated patches of ground to keep life

and soul together. Beside these, now and then the "agent" of the

estate, Mr. Redmond Hennessey, sometimes visited at the abbey, to look

for or receive the rents paid by Sir Brian, and another more welcome

occasional visitor was Father John Considine, the P.P. of a long,

straggling parish, which extended over both sides of the mountain, and

whose house and church lay in the valley which separated Ballintopher,

on which Sir Brian lived, from Ballinteer, a higher hill which ran

beyond. Sir Brian and his daughter belonged to the old faith, and as

the priest was a large-minded, liberal man, with a well-cultivated

mind, and a good-humored and even jovial temperament, his visits

always enlivened the abbey, and sometimes won a smile from its

proprietor. His literary tastes and recollections, also, were

exceedingly {845} useful to the young girl, particularly as he

sometimes ran up to Dublin, or even over to London or Paris, in the

summer holidays, from whence he was sure to bring back the gossip for

Sir Brian, and a budget of new books, periodicals, and songs for his

favorite. Thus matters went on for some years--nothing better, nothing

worse, apparently--until Eva was in her eighteenth year. The large

estates originally owned by Sir Brian had, in a great measure, fallen

into the hands of a single proprietor, Sir Adams Jessop, a rich London

merchant and banker, who had purchased them by lots on speculation,

because, in the first place, they were sold low (as at first all the

Irish estates were under the Incumbered Estates Court), and because he

had advanced large sums to the holders of the mortgages, etc., with

which they were embarrassed, and thus sought to recoup himself. Since

they came into his possession he had been over for a few days

twice--once to look over the property, and again to appoint an agent

recommended to him by some neighboring proprietors, who all spoke of

Mr. Redmond Hennessey as a man of zeal and industry, who always had

his employer's interest at heart, and detested a non-paying or

dilatory tenant as he did a mad dog. Under this gentleman's

supervision the estates put on a new aspect; rents were raised, and

covenants insisted on, such as "the oldest inhabitant" had never even

dreamed of; and as Mr. Hennessey was a solicitor as well as an agent,

processes followed defalcations, and the only sure road to his

friendly sympathy was punctuality in payment, and liberality (in the

shape of gifts, such as fowl, butter, eggs, fish, socks, flannel, and

so forth) from those who had favors to ask or bargains to make. Of

course he was a thriving man, but it was remarked that illicit

distillation, poaching, and illegal practices of all kinds were

greatly on the increase; and when Sir Brian heard of all this, and saw

that additional magistrates were sworn in, and a large draft of

constabulary and preventive police sent into the new barracks

specially constructed for them, he grimly triumphed in the change, and

made no secret of his sympathy with the malcontents, since, as he

said, "what better could be expected on the estate of an absentee?"

Neither did matters seem to mend when Sir Adams Jessop died somewhat

suddenly, and was succeeded by his only son, now Sir William Jessop,

who was understood to be a gay young man of indolent habits and roving

propensities, and who seemed to have even less sympathy for his Irish

tenants than his father--if, indeed, that were possible. Mr.

Hennessey's power and authority were now unlimited, and stories were

told of his rapacity and impatience of all control which appeared

incredible. Whole townships were depopulated by his _fiat_; families

were reduced to beggary and desperation by his determination to "make

the estate pay;" and some said (for every man has his enemies) that

when his new master informed him by letter of appeals being made and

of his wish that they should be attended to and the appellants dealt

more lightly with, his answer invariably was, that the accusers were

established liars, who would be the first to shoot down Sir William

himself should he ever be foolish enough to venture amongst them.

II.

Like all inland lakes of considerable extent, that which lay before

the windows of the Black Abbey was subject to violent changes of

temper on slight and sudden provocation. In the morning it would lie

dimpling and smiling before you, as full of placid beauty and as

incapable of a wrathful outburst as a ball-room belle; while at noon

its aspect would become as terrible as that of a virago, whose whole

family and neighborhood tremble and fly from the fearful storm which

no submission can allay. On such occasions, considerable danger {846}

menaced those who sailed on business or pleasure over the waters of

the lake, and it so happened that on the eve of a September day, the

yacht of Sir Brian McMurrough was caught in one of those sudden bursts

which had swept down from the mountains, accompanied by torrents of

rain and violent thunder and lightning, although in the morning, and

until after midday, there had been no warning of a gale.

To make matters worse, Miss McMurrough was known to be on board the

boat, as she had accompanied her father to a town at the other end of

the lake to make household purchases for the coming winter; and the

amount of agitation evidenced by a group of men who stood on the banks

of the lough and witnessed the fearful struggles of the little craft,

amounted gradually to extreme terror as they saw the principal sail

give way and flutter in the wind like ribands, while the waves washed

over the helpless vessel and threatened speedily to engulf her.

"It will never do, boys," at last said one of the men, "to stand idly

by and see the best blood of the country die the death of a drowned

dog without putting out a hand or an oar to save him. Run up, Patsy,

and tell Mick Mackesy to come down at once, while we launch _Sheelah_,

who never turned her back to the whitest horses that ever gallopped

over any water that ever ran; and don't let grass grow to your heels,

for a life may hang on every step you take. Away with you."

"Has he far to go?" asked another of the group.

"About a mile, sir," replied the man, touching his cap to the

questioner, who had been a stranger to him until on hour or two

before; "and the worst of it is Mick may be out, or drunk, and then

we're done for."

"Don't send for him, then," said the stranger; "I have pulled an oar

at college and elsewhere, and am pretty well up to the management of a

boat. Where is your craft?"

"Yonder in the cove, sir; but it's a bad business."

"Then the sooner we get rid of it the better, my friend," said the

energetic stranger. "Come, boys, I have a sovereign or two to spare,

and I promise you that no man shall lose by his humanity. Now, my

friend, lead on."

"May I never," said the first speaker, whose name was Andy Monahan,

"but you've a stout heart in your bazzom, whoever you are, and it's a

pity to baulk you!"

In an incredibly short space of time the boat was launched, and the

gentle _Sheelah_ fled on her mission of mercy, impelled by four pair

of hands who knew right well how to handle her. By this time the

baronet's yacht was a sheer wreck, and although the owner and his boy

struggled hard to keep her head to the wind, it was evident that if

she did not fill and go down, she would drive bodily on the ragged

rocks which shot perpendicularly up on that part of the shore toward

which she was drifting. The boat reached her safely, however, and by

the excellent management of the volunteer boatman mainly. Miss

McMurrough was got into the shore-boat, and her father and the boy

followed, while an anchor was let go in the yacht and she was then

left to her fate.

In moments of great danger and excitement there is little room for

ceremony or introduction, and on the present occasion only a few

words, and those of direction, passed on any side. Sir Brian's main

care was for his daughter, who, drenched and terrified as she must

necessarily be, bore up wonderfully, and even managed to murmur a few

words of gratitude to the stranger who so sedulously bore her into the

boat, and, so far as he could, protected her. When all was done, the

boat's head was again turned to the shore, and "in less than no time,"

as Andy promised, its wave-worn load was safely landed, wet, weary,

and chilled, but otherwise unharmed. After a few words in private

{847} with Andy, the boat-owner, Sir Brian turned to the stranger and

addressed him.

"I am told by my friend here, sir," he said, "that it is to your

dexterity and courage my own preservation and that of my daughter is

mainly due. I trust that you will accompany me to my residence, and

allow me, when I have regained my presence of mind, more suitably to

thank you for the signal service you have done me than I can find

words adequately to do now."

"You are very kind, sir," was the prompt and cordial reply, "and I

shall be very happy to accept your hospitable offer, as I am

altogether a stranger here, and the boatman tells me that I will have

to cross the mountain before I can reach an inn."

In the meanwhile, the storm had lulled considerably, and half a score

of women had come from the surrounding cottages, some with cloaks,

blankets, and shawls for "Miss Eva," and some with "poteen" jars or

bottles, to "warm the hearts" of the rescued mariners. But Sir Brian

persisted in going home, and refused the proffers of profuse

hospitality pressed on him, accepting a "wrap" for his daughter, and

sanctioning the attendance of the stranger, on whose offered arm she

leaned as they began their walk to the abbey. Before they set off,

however, the stranger found time to thrust five sovereigns into Andy's

hand, saying to him, in a low voice--

"Divide them among your brave comrades, my good friend, and say

nothing to Sir Brian. I only wish I could make it ten times as much,

since every man of them is worth--nay, don't refuse them, or I shall

say that you are too proud to be obliged by a friend. You and I must

become better acquainted hereafter."

He hastened away, and Andy pocketed the gratuity, which he had neither

expected nor was at all anxious to receive.

"We'll drink his health anyway," he said, as he pocketed the money;

"and if he stays in the country, we'll find a way to pay him back, if

not in his own coin, maybe in one that'll please him as well. A brave

chap he is, and feathers an oar as well as myself, who was born, I may

say, with one in my right hand."

The stranger had requested that a small, neat knapsack, which he had

flung down when he stripped for the lake, should be sent after him to

the abbey, at which, on arriving at it, he was warmly welcomed by the

master, and was ushered to a spare bed-chamber by Deb Dermody herself,

who had been advertised of the coming of the party by a "runner," and

had everything prepared to receive them.

When the stranger had dried his clothes and changed his linen by the

huge turf fire which blazed in the room allotted him, he descended to

the "refectory," of general dining and drawing-room, and so called

from its use by the monks "lang syne." He found the baronet and his

daughter ready to receive him, a large fire in the grate, a table

ready laid for dinner, and a fresh arrival in the sturdy person of

"Father John," who had come on one of his periodical visitations.

Evidently the good priest had heard of the adventure, and of the

gallant part which the stranger had performed in it, and, when

presenting him his hand, had good-humoredly thanked him for helping to

preserve two lives that were so precious to all who knew their worth.

The young man, in his turn, found it necessary to introduce himself,

and stated that he was an idle rover, with some taste for drawing,

literature, and music, and who came on an exploratory expedition to

see what he could pick up in the way of old airs or legends, or new

scenery, to forward some speculations of his own. His name was

Redland, and he considered himself fortunate in having been able to

assist Sir Brian and Miss McMurrough in their difficulty, etc.

{848}

The dinner was good. Fish from the lake, game from the mountain, fowl

from the stubble, and a capital ham, fed and cured by the "steward,"

who prided himself on fattening and killing swine. The night sped

pleasantly by. Redland was evidently a gentleman, and both the baronet

and the priest knew what that meant right well. He was light and

cheerful without being frivolous, and seemed more inclined to ask for

information from others than to obtrude his own. He spoke well without

speaking too much, and greatly pleased Father John by the interest he

took in Irish affairs. In the course of the evening the management of

the "Jessop property" was spoken of, and incidentally the character of

the agent was discussed.

"After all," said Sir Brian, "the devil is not so black as he is

painted; Hennessey is not the worst among the bad. I for my own part

have always found him civil and obliging, and not at all pressing for

the rent of my miserable holding, which, as you well know, Father

John, I never ought to be called on to pay a shilling for; but

Hennessey's not to blame for that; no more, I dare say, than for other

things laid to his charge. He sent Eva a whole chestful of books to

read last week, and baskets of fruit from his hot-houses, although I

dare say he was the first of his family that had any better sort of

house than a mud cabin to rear pigs instead of grapes and peaches in."

"He is a confirmed scoundrel, however, and a curse to the country that

holds him," ejaculated the priest, sternly and gravely.

"You ought to blame his absentee master rather than him," said Sir

Brian.

"Under your pardon, Sir Brian, I ought to do no such thing," persisted

the priest; "his master knows nothing of his doings, of that I am

certain, or if he did, as an English merchant, as a man of humanity,

he would be the first to reject and put down such intolerable tyranny,

which is equally miserable and profitless. In fact, the fellow is true

to no one or nothing but his own selfish interests, for he throws the

blame of his own cruelties on his employer, and perpetrates enormities

sufficient to draw down God's vengeance, under the plea of being

driven to it by a man to whom such cheese-parings and petty gains can

be of no possible account."

"I should think then, sir," said the stranger, "that it is high time

for him to look to his interests and good name, if your account be

true, and my only wonder is that he delays it so long."

"Poh! the present proprietor is a gay young fashionable fop, they were

called dandies in my day, who well pockets his rents and only thinks

of his Irish tenants when his purse runs, dry," said Sir Brian,

bitterly.

"Is not that a harsh estimate, papa," said Eva, gently and timidly,

"when you can only speak by surmise?"

"Then why is he not here?" asked Sir Brian; "why does he leave his

tenantry to be ground to powder or driven to desperation, if he could

cure it by his presence?"

"That question may be answered, too," said the priest; "it is

Hennessey's interest to keep him away as long as he can, and you may

be pretty sure that he has painted us in colors that would not waste a

long journey to witness them. I, however, have taken upon myself the

liberty of writing to Sir William Jessop, and it will not be my fault

if he does not see reason in my statements to come and have a look at

us himself."

"You will get into a mess with Hennessey if that comes to his ears,"

said the baronet, laughing.

"He knows right well I don't care a farthing for either his friendship

or his enmity," replied Father John. "'Be just, and fear not,' is my

motto, and if it please God to let him injure me, I will bow to the

chastisement, since it will be in a good cause."

{849}

"I think that your act was both justifiable and merciful," said the

stranger; "and I should say that Sir William will be little better

than a heartless fool if he should not respond to your application as

he ought."

"He'll never do it," said the obstinate host; "he'll be thinking of

his tallow and cotton, and molasses, as matters infinitely superior in

his estimation to Irish kernes and their wrongs."

"Ought we not to hope and pray that he will take a more considerate

view of Father John's application to him, papa?" said Eva. "He is an

English gentleman, and they are always alive to the interests of

humanity--at least I have always heard so."

"And you have heard right, my dear Miss Eva, so we'll hope for the

best," replied the priest. "So now let us have one cup of tea, and

afterward we'll trouble you for 'Love's Young Dream,' or 'The Minstrel

Boy,' or 'Silent, O Moyle!' or 'The Young May Moon,' and I'll grumble

a bass in 'St. Senanus and the Lady,' if Mr. Redland will help us

out."

The tea was drunk, and the songs sung to the accompaniment of a wild

Irish harp, which made excellent music in Eva's fair hands. A light

supper followed, and then to bed, after various arrangements for the

following days, which Sir Brian insisted Redland should give to them;

while Father John, whose time was his own, as he had a curate,

promised to remain at the abbey also for a few days.

Near to midnight Redland found himself in a very tidy and comfortable

room with a blazing fire, and as he undressed his thoughts took the

form of soliloquy.

"Pleasant enough all this," he said, as he sat before the fire, "and

not a bad beginning, at all events. Sir Brian is a gentleman

certainly, although his prejudices--natural, too--master him; the

priest, however, is my strong card, and I must stick to him; while as

to Eva--Miss McMurrough--who in the world could have thought of

finding such a choice and beautiful blossom in such a site? She is

equally Rich in blood and beauty, and no mistake, and her soprano has

a great deal of the Jenny Lind fine _timbre_ about it. I'm in luck, at

any rate, so here goes to enjoy and make the most of it." Thus saying

he went to bed.

For the next few days a great deal was done. The yacht was recovered

and made available; fish were caught, birds shot, views taken,

cottages visited, histories detailed, dinners eaten, songs sung, and

conversations enjoyed, in all which the stranger took part, making

himself both useful and agreeable; putting Sir Brian in mind of "the

good days," charming the priest by his humane and liberal philosophy,

and gradually stealing into Eva's good graces so far, that when one

evening he said to her he must think of going, she sighed, and said

plaintively--

"Yes, that's the worst of your coming, Mr. Redland, for when you leave

us how shall we ever get over your loss? Though of course one ought to

be always prepared for misfortune, and no one who wished you well

would think of detaining you in so dreary a place."

"Dreary! it has been a paradise to me, I assure you. Miss McMurrough,

and when duty demands my presence elsewhere, inclination will be sure

to draw me back by the hair of the head, and--and by the cords of the

heart as well."

The latter part of the sentence was spoken partly to himself and

escaped Eva's ear.

It so chanced that, the next morning, Father John left them, after a

hearty invitation to Redland to visit his cottage at the side of the

mountain; but it was doomed that his place was supplied about mid-day,

or rather toward dinner-time, by no less a person than the formidable

"agent," Mr. Redmond Hennessey, himself who announced to his "friend,"

Sir Brian, that, having a day to spare, he came to tax his

hospitality.

{850}

"Beside," he said, as he and Sir Brian sat in conclave, while Redland

and Eva were wandering on the banks of the lough--"beside, Sir Brian,

a report has reached me that a stranger has intruded himself on your

hospitality whom I think you ought to beware of."

"He is a fine young fellow, and saved my life," replied the baronet.

"Specious, I dare say; flippant, but anything but safe company, I

should say, if my information be correct," said Mr. Hennessey.

"What has he done?" demanded Sir Brian.

"A great deal that he should have left undone," was the reply. "I have

heard of the goings on of him and that confounded priest, whose finger

is in every man's dish; of their visitings to tenants, and their

bribes for information; in point of fact, I look upon him as a

dangerous person--one of those English radicals who, driven from their

own country, come to ours to plunge it into convulsion and confusion."

"I think you are mistaken in your estimate," replied Sir Brian.

"You will change your opinion by-and-bye," said Hennessey; "the proof

of the pudding is the eating of it; I have received three threatening

letters since he has been here, short as it is, and I mean, after

dinner, to draw him out a bit, and make him show his true colors, if

possible."

"You had better not, perhaps," was the reply; "he is an outspoken

young fellow, and seems to fear no man, no matter how potential he may

think himself. Better let him alone, for your detectives have tracked

the wrong man this time, Mr. Hennessey, I assure you."

"We shall see, however," said the agent, made more obstinate by

opposition.

The young people did not return until dinner was ready, and then

Redland and Hennessey were introduced to each other. The agent was

superciliously cold, and Redland hardly civil, so reserved was his

demeanor. It seemed to be "hate at first sight on both sides." Under

these circumstances, conversation was slow and restrained; Mr.

Hennessey talked of himself a good deal; of the improvements in his

house, his grounds, and gardens, and of his associations with the

aristocracy of the district; while Redland conversed with Eva in a low

voice, mercilessly inattentive to the utterings of the great man,

which were frequently interrupted by the ill-repressed laughter of Eva

at what her companion was saying. At last, however, dinner was done,

and when Eva left the room, Mr. Hennessey began his "drawing-out"

system by a point-blank question addressed to Redland.

"I understand, Mr. Redland," he said, "that you have been very

particularly anxious in your inquiries about the state of Sir William

Jessop's extensive property. I presume you are an author, and mean to

publish your travels in a neat volume, with wood-cut illustrations?"

"No, no; you are altogether mistaken," was the chilly reply; "I am

content to read books, without having the ambition to write them."

"Well, then, the greater compliment to us poor Irish that such an

independent inquirer should come amongst us," said Hennessey. "I hope

you are satisfied with what you have observed."

"I do not wish to answer your question, sir, since, without intending

it, I might give you offence," was the guarded reply.

"Pray don't spare me, young gentleman," sneered the agent, "as I am

used to misconstruction, and have shoulders broad enough to bear it.

You find fault with my management, of course?"

"Not of course, sir," replied Redland, "but if you insist on having my

opinion, I think that Sir William Jessop's estates are very wretchedly

managed indeed."

{851}

"Hah! that is candor with a vengeance!" said the agent, startled out

of his self-possession; "you must be a disinterested observer to jump

at once to so decided a conclusion."

"I had my eyes and ears, sir, and made use of them," answered the

composed stranger; "where everything is miserable, and everybody

wretched, on an estate which pays eight or ten thousand a year to its

owner, somebody must be to blame, since there can be no possible cause

for it."

"Go on, sir, go on," said the agent, winking at Sir Brian.

"At your invitation, I will, sir," was the cool reply. "Seeing what I

have seen, and hearing what I have heard, I do not wonder that

discontent and disaffection should prevail amongst men whom no

industry can raise, and no good conduct can protect. It is the

skeletons of a population that I have been among, and not men and

women of flesh and blood; and as to their homes, I profess that the

snow-hut of an Esquimaux would be less inhabitable. I shall call Sir

William Jessop a bad Englishman, and a worse Christian, if he shall

persist in sanctioning a state of things, which, of course, must be

out of your control, since I presume you act according to your orders,

and cannot help witnessing the terrible miseries which you are every

day compelled to increase."

"You have been in America, sir, I suppose?" was the irrelevant reply

of Hennessey.

"I have--both North and South."

"And have been a practitioner of 'stump' oratory? I thought so,"

replied Hennessey, with a coarse laugh. "Here's to your health, young

Cicero, and a better way of thinking to you!"

"To both of us, sir, if you please," replied Redland, touching his

glass, and then leaving the room.

"A dangerous fellow, just what I thought him," said Hennessey, when

the door closed. "But now that I see his game, I am prepared for him;

we'll have no stump orators--no Captain Rocks or Sergeant Starlights

amongst us here, if we can help it, Sir Brian. But let it rest--let it

rest; we have not quite done with him yet. And now, Sir Brian, to turn

to a pleasanter theme; the last time I was here I did myself the honor

of making known to you my ardent good wishes for a closer connection

with you, through the medium of Miss McMurrough, whose humble slave I

have long been."

"I have trusted the matter to my daughter, Mr. Hennessey, and find

that her objections are insuperable; she would not listen to me,

except at the risk of tears and hysterics," said Sir Brian. "I am

obliged to you, but we will speak no more of it, if you please."

"I am sorry for it," 'replied Hennessey, "as I thought that, under

such circumstances I might find means to allow your arrears, and the

fifty borrowed from myself, to stand over. I fear I can't promise

anything of the sort now, but I suppose you are prepared to back up,

and the sooner the better, as Sir William is pressing hard for money

and must have it. Let me have all, if possible, before Saturday, and

so save trouble to both of us. With thanks for your hospitality, and

wishing you a safer guest under your roof, I bid yon good-night."

In three minutes more he had left the house, and Sir Brian felt that

he had an enemy for life. He said nothing to his guest or his

daughter, however, save that Mr. Hennessey had been obliged to

leave--on business, he supposed.

The next day, Mogue, who had been at the other side of the lake,

brought back word that there was "great ructions" in the town of

Ballinlough, as Mr. Hennessey had been fired at early that morning, on

riding to one of his farms, and that "a whole pound of bullets had

lodged in his hat." Everything was in commotion; the "peelers" were

out, and "a whole bunch (bench?) of magistrates were to meet

immediately." So that day passed over; but the next morning a new

state of affairs occurred. About {852} ten o'clock, half a dozen

policemen, with an officer at their head, arrived at the abbey and

showed a warrant of arrest for Mr. William Redland, as a suspicious

person, etc., with a civil intimation that his body was to be produced

before the bench of magistrates now sitting at Ballinlough. Of course,

to hear was to obey.

"My accuser will make nothing of it, sir," said Redland to the

officer, "and if I really wished him evil he has now afforded me an

opportunity of doing it."

"You may require bail, however," said Sir Brian, "so I have dispatched

a messenger for Father John, although we can easily defeat him by an

_alibi_."

"Or by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,"

said Redland, with a smile.

When they arrived at the courthouse of Ballinlough, they found at

least a dozen magistrates in full conclave, who all scowled on "the

prisoner," as Hennessey was their friend.

Redland at once confronted this august assembly, and without waiting

for his accuser to begin, thus commenced:

"In order to save time and trouble, gentlemen," he said, "I think it

necessary to make a confession for which you may be unprepared.**

"Too late, my fine fellow," said Hennessey; "you should have thought

of what you were about before. I heard you myself at Sir Brian's table

spout as much treason as would set all Ireland in a flame. I do not

wish to prosecute you vindictively, however, although I was near

losing my life by your preaching and teaching, so if you will

undertake to leave the country, after telling us who and what you are,

I will give up the prosecution, and you may go about your business."

"You are very considerate, sir, and I accept your offer," said the

undismayed prisoner. "I acknowledge, therefore, that both my name and

my occupation have been assumed----"

"I knew it--I could swear it from the first moment I laid eyes upon

you," said the triumphant agent; "but go on; you have told us who and

what you are not, now oblige us with similar information as to whom

and what you are."

"Willingly, sir," replied the young man. "My real name is not Redland,

but Jessop--a baronet by rank, an Englishman by birth, and your

employer, I think, into the bargain. I am called, then, Sir William

Jessop, and my occupation here has been quietly to supervise my

estates--and a very wretched supervision it was, as I had the honor to

tell you in Sir Brian McMurrough's house. I am willing to remain under

arrest until I am fully identified, and as you are not vindictively

influenced, I trust you will accept bail for my appearance when called

upon."

Hennessey was foiled and defeated by his employer's ruse, and he saw

it. He was crestfallen, too, for his warmest friends crowded round

"Sir William," and left him in the lurch, although his employer was

more merciful.

"I, and my father before me," he said, "have been to blame for not

sufficiently making ourselves acquainted with the serious

responsibility we had undertaken. I have seen with my own eyes that my

estates are sadly mismanaged, and I have reason to complain that your

conduct has been both selfish and unjust; selfish, in thinking solely

of your own interests--and unjust, in saddling me with your faults.

We cannot act longer together, Mr. Hennessey, and you will be good

enough to prepare your accounts, so as that they may be duly audited

as soon as possible. I will remain the guest of Sir Brian McMurrough,

at whose house I am for some little time to be found."

Hennessey left the court-house, degraded and dismissed, leaving with

him "his hat with the pound of bullets in it." "I always knew it was

Miles Casidy the driver put them m {853} it by Hennessey's order,"

said Andy Monahan, "and more be token be hinted as much himself

yesterday after the seventh glass."

Sir William Jessop went back to the Black Abbey in triumph; and never

left it until he had made Eva McMurrough his bride, so that the

estates still run with the "auld stock," and Sir Brian and Father

John, who is almoner-general to Sir William, are as happy as kings.

------

MISCELLANY.

_The Source of the Nile_.--Mr. S. W. Baker read a paper before the

"Royal Geographical Society," London, giving an "Account of the

Discovery of Lake Albert Nyanza." The author commenced by saying that

he began in 1861 the preparation of an expedition, in the hope of

meeting Speke and Grant at the sources of the Nile. He employed the

first year in exploring the tributaries of the Atbara, and afterward

proceeded to Khartoum, to organize his party for the great White Nile.

In December, 1862, he started from Khartoum with a powerful force,

embarked on board three vessels, and including twenty-nine animals of

transport, camels, horses, and asses. Pursuing his course, he entered

upon a dreary waste of water and reedy banks, where he soon lost his

only European attendant, who was killed by fever. The remainder of the

party safely reached Gondokoro, which is a wretched place, occupied

only occasionally by traders seeking for slaves and ivory. After

fifteen days the firing of guns announced some new arrivals, and a

party arrived, among whom were two Englishmen, who proved to be

Captains Speke and Grant, clothed in humble rags, but with the glory

of success upon them. Captain Speke told him the natives declared that

a large lake existed to the westward, which he believed would turn out

to be a second source of the Nile, and that he himself had traced the

river up to 2° 20' N., when it diverged to the west, and he was

obliged to leave it. Mr. Baker undertook to follow up the stream, and

made his arrangements to join a trading party going southward. The

trade along the White Nile really consisted of cattle-stealing,

slave-catching, and murder, and the men whom he was obliged to engage

at Khartoum were the vilest characters. He had applied through the

British consul at Alexandria to the Egyptian government for a few

troops to escort him; but the request was refused, although an escort

was granted to the Dutch ladies upon the request of the French consul.

After Speke and Grant had left him, his men mutinied and tried to

prevent his proceeding into the interior. His forty armed men

threatened to fire upon him, and the Turkish traders whom he intended

to accompany set off without him, and forbade him to follow in their

track. At that time, beside his wife, he had but one faithful

follower. But he managed to get back the arms from the recalcitrants,

and induced seventeen of the men to go with him to the eastward,

although none would undertake to go to the south. It was imperative

that he should advance, and he followed the trading party who had

threatened to attack him, and to excite the Ellyria tribe, through

whom he must pass, against him. However, the chief of the trading

party was brought over, and on the 17th of March, 1862, they safely

arrived in the Latooka country, 110 miles east of Gondokoro. That

country was one of the finest he had ever seen, producing ample

supplies of grain and supporting large herds. The towns are large and

thickly populated, and the inhabitants are a warlike but friendly

race, who go naked, and whose chief distinction is their hair, which

they train into a kind of natural helmet. The bodies of those of the

tribe who are killed in fight are not buried, but those who die

naturally are buried in front of the house in which they had dwelt,

and at the expiration of a fortnight the bodies are exhumed, the flesh

removed, and the bones put in earthen {854} pots, which are placed at

the entrance of the towns. Like all the tribes of the White Nile, the

Latookas seemed entirely devoid of any idea of a Supreme Being.

Indeed, the only difference between them and the beasts is that they

can cook and light a fire. There are forests abounding with elephants,

but cattle cannot live there on account of the "tsetse" fly. The chief

was an old man, who was held to possess the power of producing or

restraining rain by a magic whistle; but one day Mr. Baker happening

to whistle upon his fingers in a loud key, the natives assumed that he

had a power to control the elements, and frequently called upon him to

exercise it. From Latooka he proceeded to Kamrasi's country, across an

elevated region, the water-shed of the Sobat and White Nile rivers.

From the ridge he descended into the valley of the Asua, which river

Captain Burton regarded as the main stream of the White Nile, but

which, when Mr. Baker crossed it in January, did not contain enough

water to cover his boots. On arriving at Shooa, a large number of the

porters deserted him, but he pushed on for Enora. He crossed Karuma

Falls in the same boat which had carried Captain Speke across, but he

was detained for some days by the disinclination of the King Kamrasi

to allow strangers to pass over, and it was only when Mr. Baker had

exhibited himself on an elevated spot in full European costume that he

received the desired permission. It appeared that a trading party,

headed by one Debono, a Maltese, who had escorted Speke and Grant, had

made a foray upon Kamrasi's country, and Mr. Baker was therefore

looked upon with suspicion. From Karuma Falls the Nile flows due west,

a rapid stream, bordered with fine trees. King Kamrasi, who was a

well-dressed and cleanly person, although a great coward, was very

suspicious, and sought to prevent Mr. Baker continuing his journey by

representing that the great lake was six month's journey--a statement

which Mr. Baker, himself ill, with his wife prostrate from fever, and

his attendants refractory, received as a fatal blow to all his hopes.

Learning, however, from a native salt-dealer that the lake could be

reached in something like ten days, he induced Kamrasi, by the present

of his sword, to drink blood with his head man, and to allow them to

depart. In crossing the Karan river on the way to the lake Mrs. Baker

was struck down by a sunstroke, and remained almost insensible for

seven days, during which time the rain poured down in torrents. On the

eighteenth day after leaving Kamrasi they came in sight of the

looked-for lake, a limitless sheet of blue water sunk low in a vast

depression of the country. He descended the steep cliffs, 1,500 feet

in height, leading Mrs. Baker by the hand, and, reaching the clean

sandy beach, drank of the sweet waters. The western shore, sixty miles

distant, consisted of ranges of mountains 7,000 feet in height. Upon

achieving the object of their journeys, Mr. Baker named the lake

Albert Nyanza. That lake, together with that of Victoria Nyanza, may

be accepted as the great reservoir of the Nile. Embarking in canoes

upon the lake, the party proceeded for thirteen days to the point

where the upper river from Karuma Falls enters the lake by a scarcely

perceptible current, while the lake itself suddenly turned westward;

but its boundaries in that direction, as well as those of its southern

termination, are unknown. The Nile issued from the lake precisely as

the natives had reported to Speke and Grant, and from its exit the

river is navigable as far as the narrows near the junction of the

Asua. The author saw altogether from elevations three-fourths of the

course of the Nile between its issue from the lake to Miani's Tree.

Mr. Baker's progress up the Upper or Karuma river was stopped, at

fifteen miles distance, by a grand waterfall, which had been named

Murchison Falls, in honor of the distinguished president of the

Geographical Society. Upon their return to Kamrasi's country the

travellers were detained nearly twelve months, the king being so

impressed with the skill and knowledge of his European visitors that

he could not be persuaded to let them leave him. Ultimately the

travellers managed to get free, and, after a variety of difficulties

with their attendants and the traders, arrived safely at Alexandria.

------

{855}

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LIFE OF SAINT TERESA.

Edited by the Archbishop of Westminster. London: Hurst & Blackett. 1865.

St. Philip Neri, that gentle and wise guide of souls, advised those

under his direction to read frequently the "Lives of the Saints."

Experience teaches how very profitable this is as an incitement to

virtue. As we get a better idea of a person, a place, or an event by

an accurate representation than by the most graphic description, so

the detailed account of the workings of grace in a faithful soul

oftentimes captivates the heart for God which frequent and fervent

exhortation has failed to reach. But the amount of good which even the

most striking example will produce upon the mind of the reader, will

depend very materially upon the way in which the incidents in the life

are presented. In the work before us we have the varied experience of

one of the very noblest and most courageous souls, through a long and

eventful life, related in language which charms while it inspires. St.

Teresa's spirit was peculiarly one of chivalry and honor. She was a

true child of her native Spain, that land of romance, the mother of so

large a proportion of the more distinguished of the canonized saints

of the Church. Avila, her birthplace, was known as the "City of

Knights." She tells us herself how in youth and early womanhood she

had revelled in stories of hazardous adventure, of deeds of valor, and

acts of self-devotion, to a degree which, on reflection in after

years, she thought had been very perilous to her fidelity to virtue.

But grace led captive that warm and impassioned heart, and stimulated

her to do for God what many a brave knight is said to have done for

the object of his love. As St. Paul said, "I can do all things in him

who strengtheneth me." So, the more rough and jagged the front of the

obstacles she had to oppose, the more invincible she proved herself to

be. "No, my Lord!" she said on one occasion, "it is no fault of thine

that those who love thee do not great things for thee; the fault is in

our own cowardice and fears, because we never do anything without

mingling with it a thousand apprehensions and human considerations."

The Holy Ghost had infused into her energetic soul a holy

restlessness, and work, ceaseless work, hard work, alone could satisfy

its cravings. While the foundations of Valentia and Burgos were in

contemplation, so many difficulties came up, one after another, and

among them ill health and the feebleness natural to a life now in its

decline, that it seemed impossible that they could be effected. In

speaking of this particular time she says: "It seems to me that one of

the greatest troubles and miseries of life is the want of noble

courage to bring the body into subjection; for though pain and

sickness be troublesome, yet I account this as nothing when the soul

can rise above them in the might of her love, praising God for them,

and receiving them as gifts from his hand. But on the one hand to be

suffering, and on the other to be able to do nothing, is a terrible

thing, especially for a soul that has an ardent desire to find no

rest, either interior or exterior, on earth, but to employ herself

entirely in the service of her great God." She was in this unsettled

state, her mind oppressed with doubt, when she begged light of our

Lord at communion. He answered her interiorly: "Of what art thou

afraid? When have I been wanting to thee? I am the same now that I

have ever been. Do not neglect to make these two foundations." She

then adds, "O great God! how different are thy words from those of

men! I became so resolute and courageous that all the world would not

have been able to hinder me." Here we have the key to her whole life.

Her stimulus, as well as strength, was personal love for our Lord.

When circumstances threw her back for a moment upon her own

feebleness, she was powerless; but let her only hear an encouraging

word from him, for which she instinctively listened, and in a moment

she was fearless and unconquerable. Spiritual cowardice is the great

obstacle which lies between numberless well-disposed {856} souls,

nowadays, and perfection. How valuable, then, and how opportune, this

life of the great-hearted St. Teresa! We offer our thanks and

gratitude to the devout and active Archbishop of Westminster, under

whose editorship this useful life appears. From private authority we

learn that its authoress is a religious of a convent of Poor Clares

under the direction of the Oblate Fathers of St. Charles, in London.

We are tempted to envy this good religious the satisfaction and

pleasure she must feel at having been instrumental in giving her

Catholic brethren so welcome and powerful an aid to lead a holy life.

Although the name of the Oblate Fathers of St. Charles does not appear

in connection with this work, their very recent connection with Dr.

Manning, and their existing relation to the convent from which this

work has issued, compels us before closing this notice to thank them

for the share which we suspect them to have had in its publication.

This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that from their hands we

have received that perfect specimen of a beautiful book, "The Works of

St. John of the Cross;" in unity of labor, as in spirit, the

twin-brother of St. Teresa.

THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF ANDREW JOHNSON, SEVENTEENTH PRESIDENT

OF THE UNITED STATES, including his State Papers and Public Speeches.

By John Savage, author of "Our Living Presidents," etc. Derby &

Miller. 8vo, pp. 408.

The life of a man like Andrew Johnson must command the profound

attention of every one who wishes to understand the age and country.

It is deeply interesting to ourselves, who have raised him from

obscurity to the highest position in the nation, and are prepared to

give him, without reference to party or opinion, our cordial and loyal

support in his efforts to carry out the organic idea of national life.

The biography of Andrew Johnson is a history of the epoch. He is a

representative man of his class and age. It illustrates the power of

will to conquer and bring to its support a vast amount of coeval will,

making itself the controlling and representative _will_. Few men are

elected who are not in intrinsic as well as extrinsic harmony with the

power electing. Fraud, chicanery, and deception have less to do with

the results of our popular elections than is generally and flippantly

asserted. The great characteristics of President Johnson are strong

natural ability, invincible determination, courage, ambition, loyalty

to the Union, fidelity to his own convictions, and contempt for

privilege and prescription.

Mr. Savage has written the text well and carefully, and interwoven the

coincident history with more than ordinary correctness. There is one

little point to which we would call attention, in, the contents of

Chapter XVII. the passage occurs, "_Granger and Thomas relieve

Burnside._" In the same chapter, page 281, he says, "Granger and

Sherman were sent into East Tennessee to relieve Burnside and raise

the siege of Knoxville." Granger and Thomas did _not_ relieve

Burnside. The opportune arrival of General Grant, the intelligent and

vigorous co-operation of Sherman and Hooker on the extreme flanks, and

the almost spontaneous charge of the center by the troops of the army

of the Cumberland up and over Missionary Ridge, won the glorious

victory of Chattanooga. General Grant immediately dispatched Sherman

to the relief of Knoxville. Gordon Granger commanded a corps

temporarily under Sherman, and was not distinguished for alacrity or

zeal on that occasion. Sherman relieved Knoxville as a part of

Grant'^s grand plan of the campaign. The work is issued in handsome

style, and has a correct steel engraving of the President.

THE LETTERS OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1769-1791). Translated from

the collection of Ludwig Nohl by Lady Wallace; with a portrait and

fac-simile. 2vols., 12mo. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

The many thousands living who know, and the many thousands who are yet

to know, the works of the great Mozart, will not fail to welcome this

true picture of his artist life. It forms, indeed, rather a continuous

journal, very little short of an autobiography, than a mere chance

collection of letters; extending as they do from a date when he was

but thirteen years old up to within a few days of his death. One would

look in these letters, of course, for a great deal about music, and

musical composition, operas, concerts, and the {857} like, but hardly

expect to find so much as there is of Mozart's personal life, his

thoughts, plans, detailed descriptions of nearly all he saw and heard,

revealing to the reader, better than any biographer could, the real

character of this crowned master of the heavenly art. Possessing an

intensely vivid imagination and a sprightly wit, his letters sparkle

with humor. He dearly loves to say odd, pleasant things to make them

laugh at home. Here is one taken at random:

"VIENNA, April 11, 1781.--_Te Deum Laudamus!_ at last that coarse,

mean Brunetti is off, who disgraces his master, himself, and all the

musicians: so say Cecarelli and I. Not a word of truth in any of the

Vienna news, except that Cecarelli is to sing at the opera in Venice

during the ensuing carnival. _Potz Himmel!_ and all sorts of devils!

I hope that is not swearing, for if so, I must at once go to

confession again, from which I have just returned, because to-morrow

(Maunday Thursday) the archbishop is to administer the sacrament to

the whole court in his own gracious person. Cecarelli and I went to

the Theatine monastery to try to find Pater Froschauer, as he can

speak Italian. A _pater_ or a _frater_, who was at the altar

trimming the lights, assured us the Pater, as well as another who

perfectly knows Italian, were not at home, and would not return till

four o'clock. What did please me was, that on my saying to the

clerical candle-snuffer that eight years ago I had played a violin

concerto in this very choir, he instantly named me. Now, as far as

swearing goes, this letter is only a _pendant_ to my former one, to

which I hope to receive an answer by the next post."

Mozart lived and died a pious Catholic. Such might be gleaned from his

compositions, expressive as they are of that deep religious reverence,

and sense of the sublime majesty of the holy faith, which he possessed

in so marked a manner. He felt and fully appreciated the power of

inspiration which Catholic life possesses to elevate the soul, and

realize in art, as in every form of the beautiful and the true, its

noblest aspirations. "You know," he writes to his father, "that there

is nothing I desire more than a good appointment--good in

reputation--good in money--no matter where, provided it be in a

Catholic country." The piety of his ordinary life may be seen in the

manner in which he prepared for his marriage. "Previous to our

marriage," he writes, "we had for some time past attended mass

together, as well as confessed and taken the holy communion: and I

found that I never prayed so fervently, nor confessed so piously, as

by her side, and she felt the same."

There is throughout these letters a certain free, off-hand way of

dealing with all sorts of subjects and persons which evinces a strong

and independent spirit, and shows us that Mozart, though often obliged

to dawdle at the heels of niggardly and exacting patrons, never lost

his own self-respect. He had too keen a sense of his own merits, and

of the too frequent lack of any merit at all in his competitors, not

to be pardonably vain. He sought praise, it is true, and revelled in

it, and loved to repeat what had been said of him, yet with so much

boyish simplicity as to banish from the mind of the reader all

judgment of affectation. He gives an amusing account of an interview

with the composer Becke, of whom, it must be confessed, he was not a

little jealous. "At his request I tried his piano, which is very good.

He often said 'Bravo!' I extemporized, and also played the sonatas in

B and D. In short, he was very polite, and I also polite, but grave.

We conversed on a variety of topics--among others, about Vienna, and

more particularly that the emperor was no great lover of music. He

said, 'It is true he had some knowledge of composition, but of nothing

else. I can still recall (and here he rubbed his forehead) that when I

was to play before him I had no idea what to play, so I began with

some fugues and trifles of that sort, which in my own mind I only

laughed at.' I could scarcely resist saying, 'I can quite fancy your

laughing, but scarcely so loud as I must have done had I heard you.'

He further said (what is the fact) that the music in the emperor's

private apartments is enough to frighten the crows. I replied, that

whenever I heard such music, if I did not quickly leave the room, it

gave me a headache. 'Oh, no! it has no such effect on me; bad music

does not affect my nerves, but fine music never fails to give me a

headache.' I thought to myself again, such a shallow head as yours is

sure to suffer when listening to what is beyond its comprehension."

{858}

Altogether, it is a delightful book. It comes to us in a neat

scholarly dress, creditable to the publishers, and as worthy of a wide

circulation among the lovers of art as it is certain to have a

distinguished entrée into all literary circles.

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES CAVALRY FROM THE FORMATION OF THE FEDERAL

GOVERNMENT TO THE FIRST OF JUNE THE 1ST 1863.

To which is added a list of all the Cavalry Regiments, with Names of

their Commanders, which have been in the United States service since

the breaking out of the Rebellion. By Albert G. Brackett, Major First

U. S. Cavalry, Colonel Ninth Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, etc., etc.

12mo., pp. 337. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1865.

Col. Brackett has presented the history of the U. S. cavalry, brought

down to 1863, in a modest and soldierlike manner. It is the first

attempt at a systematic literary record of an arm of the service, and

we hope it will be followed by others, in order to perpetuate

traditions most interesting to the people and honorable to the brave

men who have trodden the wilds of the forest and prairie, subdued the

savage, and performed gallant deeds from the Rio Grande to the

Columbia, and from the James to the Colorado of the West.

Few persons living in towns and cities can appreciate the

intelligence, courage, and cheerful self-sacrifice which have been the

characteristics of American soldiers, who have borne such an important

but unobtrusive part in the conquest of the natural obstacles to the

settlement of the continent, and been the pioneers on the great lines

of emigration and improvement. The material subjugation of the

wilderness has been no less heroic than their military triumphs. In

all these great events the cavalry has acted a most conspicuous part.

This book will be welcomed at all the military posts, and become an

authority at every mess-table and camp-fire. Its personal

reminiscences are, perhaps, its most pleasing and attractive feature.

They recall vividly men and scenes identified with our early life, now

passed away for ever. Col. Brackett has done a graceful thing in

including Dr. Joseph B. Brown, U.S. A., in his dedication; a purer man

and better officer does not live than Dr. Brown.

The work concludes at a period when the volunteer cavalry was

beginning to be useful and efficient. The history will not be complete

till their splendid services under Wilson at the battle of Nashville

are recorded. No one who saw them moving in long gleaming lines on the

extreme right on the morning of the 15th of December, 1864, or heard

the ceaseless converging roll of the repeating carbines of the

dismounted two thousand reverberating amidst the wood-crowned hills,

will ever forget the picture or the sound.

THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE CIVIL POLICY OH AMERICA.

By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. Crown 8vo., pp. 317. Harper &

Brothers. Third Edition.

This is the title of a beautifully printed and bound volume, by Prof.

Draper, who is well known for his scientific attainments and elegant

scholarship.

It might be called a treatise on the psychology and physiology of

national life, especially applied to the American republic in its

present and possible character and destiny. It is written from a point

of view directly opposed to Catholic theology and philosophy, and

asserts the dominion of the natural in opposition to the supernatural.

It rejects the supernatural and substitutes irresponsible force for

intelligent, benignant Providence. It recognizes only the plane of

natural reason, and denies by implication the transition from the

natural to the supernatural in the incarnation.

Dr. Draper is the best representative of the school of Guizot,

Carlyle, and Buckle, inasmuch as he is more calm and dispassionate,

and if he possess less erudition than they, he has more scientific

knowledge and the discipline of practical teaching to chasten and

modify his forms of thought and expression. Dr. Draper, we do not

question, desires conscientiously to promulgate the true doctrines of

national life and development. He announces many important truths, and

his analyses of historic periods in the domain of the material and

intellectual are often clear, precise, and beautiful. There is a good

deal of orientalism in his thoughts, and it seems to us that his own

imagination is profoundly affected by the gorgeous pictures passing

before it in the process of {859} intellectual creation. The same

observation applies to his style and imagery, and his writings possess

the power, like Carlyle's, of stimulating the imagination of the

leader to the highest degree, often to the detriment of the reason.

He chooses the close of his magnificent periods to dart a keen,

condensed, carefully studied, dogmatic assertion into the mind like an

arrow, while the faculties are for the moment blinded by the splendor

of diction and the pomp of highly colored illustration.

Dr. Draper is exceedingly cautious and guarded as to his conclusions,

and leaves the necessary inferences to be drawn by the reader. His

influence has a tendency toward one of two directions, either an

oriental, sensuous, hopeless intellectual apathy, or a senseless,

because objectless, material activity.

Dr. Draper does not deny the existence of God; but how he can assert

it while attempting to demonstrate the omnipotence of natural law and

_force_, we do not understand. His doctrines lead either to nihilism

or pantheism. Dr. Draper is entitled to high respect as a philosopher

of the natural order from Catholics, for the reason that he has always

been generous in his statements of Catholicity in its natural and

exterior aspects and relations. His tributes to the Church are among

the most cordial, appreciative, and eloquent that have been uttered in

modern times by non-Catholics. He has however done much in the present

volume to diminish this claim, established in some of his former

writings. He is the representative in this country, at least, of the

great controversy between the Church and the natural life of man--

between the two orders, natural and supernatural--between science and

authority.

There can be no antagonism between science and infallible authority;

for truth is a unit, comes from God, and returns to him, like light

from the sun, its type and figure. Religion has nothing to fear from

science. The occasional apparent opposition has been personal and

temporary, not ex-cathedral and eternal. There can be no conflict

between the spoken word of God and his actualized word, creation. The

dispute is an old one. There is no change in the principles involved;

but the form is modified by experience, development, and scientific

research. It must be reviewed in the retrospect of history, present

knowledge, and the prevision of science. There can be no doubt but the

illumination of the whole subject will illustrate (it cannot prove)

the truths of revelation, as practical science illustrates the

judgments of common sense.

Dr. Draper is an able philosopher and doctor of material progress and

the natural order. His advice to the people of this country is sound

and wise, and it will be well for our temporal prosperity if his

suggestions are heeded by those who have control of public affairs.

His work is in some sense complementary of Dr. Brownson's recent great

work, and there are some striking analogies between them.

The binding and execution of the book are in Harpers' best style, and

leave little to be desired in this department of luxury.

THE CROPPY: A Tale of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. By the O'Hara

Family, with Introduction by Michael Banim, Esq., the survivor of the

O'Hara Family. 12mo., pp. 464. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

The scene of this story is laid principally in the county of Wexford,

Ireland, where "the Rebellion of '98" chiefly raged during the spring

and summer of that memorable year. The narrative is highly

interesting, and contains about the best account of the battles of

"Vinegar Hill" and "New Ross," as well as of other skirmishes and

battles between the insurgents and the English troops. It also gives a

curious insight into the workings of the society of "United Irishmen"

and, also, of the "Orange-men" of that period. There are many fine

passages in this story, which was written by the present editor of the

new edition, Mr. Michael Banim.

THE CATHOLIC'S VADE MECUM; A SELECT MANUAL OF PRAYERS FOR DAILY USE.

Compiled from Approved Sources. pp. 415. Philadelphia: Eugene

Cummiskey.

This new prayer-book is published with the approbation of the Right

Rev. Dr. Wood, Bishop of Philadelphia, from the London edition of

"Vade Mecum." It is a useful compilation of prayers, and possesses one

merit highly recommendable--it is just the size to {860} carry in

one's pocket without any inconvenience, and contains all the prayers

necessary for ordinary occasions.

RICHARD COBDEN, THE APOSTLE OF FREE TRADE:

his Political Career and Public Services. A Biography. By John

McGilchrist, author of "Life of Lord Dundonald," "Men who have Made

Themselves," etc. 12mo., pp. 295. Harper & Brothers. 1865.

This neat little volume contains a well-written life of Richard

Cobden, and a succinct history of the Anti-Corn Law League and

agitation, the great work of his life.

Mr. Cobden, although an islander and an Englishman, justly merited the

title of "the international man." He was a man of peace, because war

is hostile to trade, and breaks up the lines of traffic, as well, no

doubt, from more humane and generous motives. He never sympathized

with the ignoble jealousy and enmity toward this country so common in

England, and was throughout the friend and defender of the Union.

His rise from obscurity to wealth, position, and almost unbounded

influence, is a remarkable event, and illustrates the tremendous power

of trade and commerce. He rose on the tide which commenced with the

adaptation of machinery and application of steam, which has wrought

the greatest revolution in the history of the world. He knew how to

take advantage of his great opportunities, and used the ability thus

acquired to advance the interests of humanity and general well-being.

His life is an example to our present race of very rich men, and

possibly may suggest to them objects more noble than mere accumulation

and personal luxury.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From B. Appleton & Co., New York: "Life of the Most Rev. John Hughes,

D.D., First Archbishop of New York. With selections from his private

correspondence." By John R. G. Hassard. 1 vol. 8vo.

We regret not having received this handsome volume in time for a

notice in this number of The Catholic World. From a hasty glance

through its pages we judge that Mr. Hassard has done his work

faithfully and well. The book is gotten up in Appleton's best style.

We shall give an extended notice of it in our next number.

From G. & C. MERRIAM, Springfield, Mass.: "An American Dictionary of

the English Language." By Noah Webster, LL.D. Thoroughly revised, and

greatly enlarged and improved, by Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., and Noah

Porter, B.D. 1 vol. royal quarto, illustrated. Pp. 1,840.

From D. & J. SADLIER & Co., New York. Numbers 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13

of the "Lives of the Popes;" Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of Banim's Complete

Works. "Christian Missions, their Agents and their Results." By T. W.

Marshall. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. 1,200. "The Peep o' Day, or John Doe;"

"The Croppy: a tale of the Irish rebellion of 1798;" and "Croohore 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. 2

vols. 12mo., pp. 412 and 435.

From JOHN MURPHY & CO., Baltimore, Md.: "Manual of the Apostleship of

Prayer." By the Rev. H. Ramiere, S.J., Director of the Association.

Translated from the French. 32mo., pp. 168. "The 'Catholic' Church and

the Roman Catholic Church: In a Friendly Correspondence between a

Catholic Priest and an Episcopal Minister." Pamphlet, 16 pages.

We have received from Messrs. J. GURNEY & SON, 707 Broadway, New York,

an excellent photographic likeness of the late Rev. J. W. Cummings,

D.D.

MR. PETER F. CUNNINGHAM, of Philadelphia, announces as in press "The

Life of Blessed John Bachman," with a fine steel portrait of the

saint; "The Life of St. Cecilia," by Gueranger; and four new volumes

of the "Young Catholic's Library."

LAWRENCE KEHOE has in press, and will publish early in April, a small

volume of poems by Aubrey de Vere, entitled, "May Carols, and Hymns

and Poems."

The MESSRS. SADLIER & CO., New York, have just issued the "Catholic

Almanac and Ordo for the year of our Lord 1866." It contains the names

of the rev. clergy; religious and literary institutions in nearly all

the dioceses in the United States and Canada; a list of the hierarchy

in Ireland as well as other valuable information.