should be preserved—that is, the notes upon each syllable should be
printed close together, and a wider and distinct space left between
syllables and words. An intelligent system of writing plain chant upon
the modern musical staff is yet to be invented. We have been told that
in some places the Tonic Sol-Fa system is being attempted, with what
success we have not learned.
LOTOS FLOWERS, GATHERED IN SUN AND SHADOW. By Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1877.
Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum is already known to the readers of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD through her poems, “Advent” and “A Birthday Wish” (appearing
under the name of “Twenty-one” in the present collection), published in
its pages during the present year. Her verse is pure in thought and
written out of a woman’s heart full of love and enthusiasm. With true
Southern fervor she revels in the luxuriant flora of her home, and in
the landscape of all her pictures she takes a dear delight. Even so
unsightly an object as a Mississippi steamboat-landing grows
picturesque under her hand, and do we not feel soft Italian air as we
read?—
“Peaceful stand
The sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumes
Beside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofs
Of flying squadrons scared th’affrighted land
The soft cloud-shadows chase each other now
O’er violet gardens.”
As with many another poet, the ease with which Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum
writes is at times a snare, leading her to accept too readily a
hackneyed term or word, surrendering after too slight a struggle to the
tyranny of rhyme. In her verse, also, there is sometimes a lack of
smoothness that would set despair in the heart of the faithful scanner.
Was it because our ears were sick with a certain slang of “culture”
that, when we stumbled over Krishna in the “Christian Legend,” we felt
a strong desire to banish these Indian immortals to that Hades where
languished the gods of Greece until Schiller called them forth to run
riot in the field of religion as well as of art? And is not the term
“legend” a strange misnomer, for the New Testament narrative of the
raising of Lazarus? For Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum’s verse is essentially
Christian and womanly, and even so short a notice of it would scarcely
be complete without a mention of “Benny,” who, with his kitten and his
“baby’s sense of right,” is already dear and familiar to the mothers
and children of our whole country, whose kindly hearts will surely give
to Benny’s mother their sympathy in his loss.
SURLY TIM, AND OTHER STORIES. By Francis Hodgson Burnett. New York:
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Unfortunately for our first impression of the merit of the little
volume of which “Surly Tim” is the initial story, we began our reading
with “Lodusky,” attracted to it by the locality of the tale, its hill
people and dialect being a loadstone to us, but lately returned from
similar surroundings. But as even in our mountain Edens we find the
trail of the serpent, so in “Lodusky” we seemed to be treading the
familiar path of moral irresponsibility and the tyranny of personal
magnetism, and we craved the flaming sword of the archangel to put the
evil to flight.
Nor did our impression grow fairer on turning to “Le Monsieur de la
Petite Dame.” But in “One Day at Arle” and in “Seth” we welcomed truly
the author’s strong and exquisite pathos. In these pictures of the
sorrow of the laboring classes the author draws with a pencil full of
feeling, working under a sky whose hue is the leaden monotone of modern
French landscape painting; a break of sunshine here and there, but the
light seems to fall, after all, on earthly stubble and the dumb, almost
soulless faces of patient cattle that know nothing beyond their daily
furrow and the mute, faithful service they bear a kindly hand at the
plough.
We are reminded of the pathos of Robert Buchanan’s North-Coast verse,
and we close the little volume sadly, almost as if all human sorrow
wherein is no Christian joy stood at our threshold, asking from us an
alms we had no power to give.
REPERTORIUM ORATORIS SACRI: Containing Outlines of Six Hundred Sermons
for all the Sundays and Holidays of the Ecclesiastical Year; also
for other solemn occasions. Compiled from the works of eminent
preachers of various ages and nations by a secular priest. With an
introduction by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Dwenger, D.D., Bishop of Fort
Wayne. New York and Cincinnati: Fr. Pustet, Typographus Sedis
Apostolicæ. 1877.
This publication is to be continued in monthly parts, each part
containing the outlines of two sermons for each Sunday and holiday for
one quarter of the year. There will be four volumes of four parts each,
so that when the work is completed there will be eight sermons for each
occasion.
It will, if it fulfils the promise of this first number, be the best
and most complete collection of the kind ever published so far as we
are aware. It hardly needs to be said that plans of sermons such as are
here given are very much more valuable to a preacher than the actual
sermons themselves; for there are few who can give with much effect the
words of another, to say nothing of the trouble involved in committing
them to memory. The sermons of great pulpit orators are indeed
extremely useful and deserving of study as models of style; but a few
will answer that purpose as well as a thousand.
The work is in English, being designed principally for use in this
country. It is most earnestly to be hoped that it will receive the
liberal support which it certainly deserves.
NICHOLAS MINTURN. A Study in a Story. By J. G. Holland. 1 vol. 12mo.
New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
We prefer Dr. Holland’s stories to his essays. He possesses fine
descriptive powers; his genial humor captivates the reader; his power
of analysis is searching. No one can read _Nicholas Minturn_ without
recognizing the author’s ability to lay bare the vices and follies of
the various classes with whom his hero is brought in contact. In doing
this, however, Dr. Holland is apt to forget their redeeming virtues.
This is his great fault as a novelist. He lacks the power to vitalize
the subtle traits that appeal to our humanity. There is no bond of
union between his people and us. He is unable to centralize our
interest. When disaster overtakes the ocean steamer there is not a
single figure to start out from the group and wring a groan of
compassion from us. We listen to the wailing of despair and the shriek
of terror with as much apathy as if it arose from a distant
battle-field. In all other respects the story is far superior to the
great mass of light literature.
THE ETERNAL YEARS. By the Hon. Mrs. A. Montgomery, author of _The
Divine Sequence_, also _The Bucklyn Shaig_, _Mine Own Familiar
Friend_, _The Wrong Man_, _On the Wing_, etc. With an introduction
by the Rev. S. Porter, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.
_The Eternal Years_ is a republication of a series of articles from THE
CATHOLIC WORLD. A number of thoughtful readers of our magazine have
expressed the great interest with which they have read those articles
and their desire to know the name of the author. They will be pleased
to see that they are now published in a volume under their author’s
name. _On the Wing_ will be remembered as having been one of the most
popular of the series of sketches taken from scenes in European life
and incidents of travel which we have from time to time published. Mrs.
Montgomery possesses a very versatile talent as a writer, and passes
with facility “from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” Whatever she
writes is always both instructive and pleasing.
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER’S MANUAL; or, The Art of Teaching Catechism.
For the use of teachers and parents. By the Rev. A. A. Lambing,
author of _The Orphan’s Friend_. New York: Benziger Brothers. 1877.
Father Lambing has done for Sunday-school teachers what M. Amond, the
curé of St. Sulpice, and Father Porter have done for those engaged in
the sacred ministry of the pulpit.
This manual, written in a clear and popular style, supplies a need that
should have been more felt than it was. It gives those in charge of
Sunday-schools a true idea of their very important mission, a deep
sense of the responsibility that rests upon them, points out the
various qualifications necessary for the faithful discharge of their
duties, and contains many useful instructions which will aid them in
becoming effective catechisers.
IZA: A STORY OF LIFE IN RUSSIAN POLAND. By Kathleen O’Meara. London:
Burns & Oates. 1877. (New York: The Catholic Publication Society
Co.)
This book, by a lady who since its first appearance has become
distinguished in the higher walks of literature, has been republished
at a very seasonable time, when the Eastern war, and the novel
pretensions of Russia to be considered the friend and protector of
oppressed nationalities, have once more called public attention to her
barbarous treatment of the gallant Poles. The scenes are laid in
Poland; the characters, which are few and clearly drawn, are Polish or
Muscovite, and the plot, though simple and natural, is well and
artistically wrought out. The theme of the whole story is the
oppression of the Polish nobility by the shrewd, keen, and unscrupulous
agents of the czar, wherein the generous, high-spirited and confiding
patriotism of the one class is strongly contrasted with the
accomplished villainy of the other. Though the superstructure is, of
course, a work of pure fiction, it is based on well known historical
facts. The entire work is written with great care and accuracy as to
names, places, costumes, and local customs, the situations are highly
dramatic, and the moral effect produced on the reader is healthful and
salutary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
The attention of readers will be directed to the advertisement of
complete sets of THE CATHOLIC WORLD and THE YOUNG CATHOLIC as suitable
and valuable Christmas presents. Bound volumes of THE YOUNG CATHOLIC
make the very best present that could be offered to children. The
reading matter is interesting, the illustrations are really excellent,
and the puzzles and charades afford unfailing amusement for the long
winter evenings.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD is now in its twenty-sixth volume. It constitutes a
library, and a most valuable and varied library, in itself. In it is
everything that could be desired. Theology and philosophy have their
departments, filled by men of known and recognized competence, master
minds indeed in those higher sciences. The literary articles and
reviews are acknowledged by the secular press to be unsurpassed in
power, grace, and strength. The polemics of the day find their true
solution in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, which has told upon the non-Catholic
mind in this country as no other magazine or publication has been able
to tell. There is an abundance of fiction and light literature in its
pages, a fiction that has known how to be interesting without being
dangerous, and good without being dull. Many stories that have already
made their mark in the literary world and won deserved fame for their
authors began by passing through the columns of this magazine. All the
leading and absorbing questions of the day are taken up and discussed
in it by men thoroughly equipped and fitted for so important a task.
Indeed THE CATHOLIC WORLD may fairly claim to be a channel through
which the very best Catholic literature of the day, in all its forms,
passes, a guide to and in all the questions of the day, and a
compendium from year to year of all that is best and most worthy of
attention in the higher sciences, in physical science, in politics, in
literature, and in art. His Eminence the Cardinal has recently kindly
taken occasion to “congratulate the Catholics in America on possessing
a magazine of which they may be justly proud,” and trusts “that they
will contribute their share to make THE CATHOLIC WORLD still more
useful to themselves and to the Church at large.” No words could add
strength to this commendation and appeal; and it is to be hoped that
Catholics will take both to heart. No intelligent Catholic in this
country should be without a magazine that is peculiarly and designedly
his own. Yet are there thousands of intelligent persons who are without
it, who probably do not know of its existence. It is for those who do
know it and appreciate it to make it known among their friends. Taken
in the very lowest sense, no man has yet complained that in THE
CATHOLIC WORLD he did not receive the full, and more than the full,
value of his money.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVI., No. 155.—FEBRUARY, 1878.
CEADMON THE COW-HERD, ENGLAND’S FIRST POET.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
The Venerable Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation_
contains nothing more touching than its record of Ceadmon, the earliest
English poet, whose gift came to him in a manner so extraordinary. It
occurs in the 24th chapter: “By his verses the minds of many were often
excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven. Others after him
attempted in the English nation to compose religious poems, but none
could ever compare with him; for he did not learn the art of poetry
from man, but from God, for which reason he never would compose any
vain or trivial poem.” ... “Being sometimes at entertainments, when it
was agreed, for the sake of mirth, that all present should sing in
their turns, when he saw the instrument come towards him he rose from
the table and retired home. Having done so on a certain occasion, ... a
Person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting him by his name,
said, ‘Ceadmon, sing some song for me.’ He answered, ‘I cannot sing.’”
Ceadmon’s song is next described: “How he, being the Eternal God,
became the author of all miracles, Who first, as Almighty Preserver of
the human race, created heaven for the sons of men, _as the roof of the
house_, and _next_ the earth.” ... “He sang the Creation of the world,
the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis, ... the Incarnation,
Passion, Resurrection of our Lord, and His Ascension.”[158] Ceadmon’s
poetry is referred to also in Sharon Turner’s _History of the
Anglo-Saxons_; and Sir Francis Palgrave points out the singular
resemblance of passages in _Paradise Lost_ to corresponding passages in
its surviving fragments. To the history of Ceadmon Montalembert has
devoted some of the most eloquent paragraphs in his admirable work,
_Les Moines d’Occident_—see chapter ii., vol. iv., page 68.
Sole stood upon the pleasant bank of Esk
Ceadmon the Cow-herd, while the sinking sun
Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank
With pomp beside of golden Iris lit,
And flamed upon the ruddy herds that strayed
Along the marge, clear-imaged. None was nigh:—
For that cause spake the Cow-herd, “Praise to God!
He made the worlds; and now, by Hilda’s hand
He plants a fair crown upon Whitby’s height:
Daily her convent towers more high aspire;
Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain!”
He stood and listened. Soon the flame-touched herds
Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied,
And Ceadmon thus resumed: “The music note
Rings through their lowings dull, though heard by few!
Poor kine, ye do your best! Ye know not God,
Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God,
And him ye worship with obedience sage,
A grateful, sober, much-enduring race
That o’er the vernal clover sigh for joy,
With winter snows contend not. Patient kine,
What thought is yours, deep-musing? Haply this—
‘God’s help! how narrow are our thoughts, and few!
Not so the thoughts of that slight human child
Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod
From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged!’
Take comfort, kine! God also made your race!
If praise from man surceased, from your broad chests
That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died,
Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay:
God knoweth all things. Let that thought suffice!”
Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine:
They were not his; the man and they alike
A neighbor’s wealth. He was contented thus:
Humble he was in station, meek of soul,
Unlettered, yet heart-wise. His face was pale;
Stately his frame, though slightly bent by age:
Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow
His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath,
A massive hand, but soft, that many a time
Had succored man and woman, child and beast;
Ay, yet could fiercely grasp the sword! At times
As mightily it clutched his ashen goad
When like an eagle on him swooped some thought:
Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front
Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon
Unrisen is near its rising.
Round the bay Meantime with deepening eve
full many a fire Up-sprung, and horns were heard. Around the steep With
bannered pomp and many a dancing plume Ere long a cavalcade made way.
Whence came it? Oswy, Northumbria’s king, the foremost rode, Oswy
triumphant o’er the Mercian host, To sue for blessing on his sceptre
new; With him an Anglian prince, student long time In Bangor of the
Irish, and a monk Of Gallic race far wandering from the Marne: They
came to look on Hilda, hear her words Of far-famed wisdom on the
Interior Life: For Hilda thus discoursed: “True life of man Is life
within: inward immeasurably The being winds of all who walk the earth;
But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows Of that wide greatness:
like a boy is he That clambers round some castle’s wall extern In
search of nests—the outward wall of seven— Yet nothing knows of those
great courts within, The hall where princes banquet, or the bower Where
royal maidens touch the lyre and lute, Much less its central church,
and sacred shrine Wherein God dwells alone.”[159] Thus Hilda spake; And
they that gazed upon her widening eyes Low whispered, each to each,
“She speaks of things Which she hath seen and known.”
On Whitby’s crest The royal feast was
holden: far below, A noisier revel dinned the shore; therein The
humbler guests partook. Full many a tent Glimmered upon the white
sands, ripple-kissed; Full many a savory dish sent up its steam; The
farmer from the field had driven his calf; The fisher brought the
harvest of the sea; And Jock, the woodsman, from his oaken glades The
tall stag, arrow-pierced. In gay attire Now green, now crimson, matron
sat and maid: Each had her due: the elder, reverence most, The lovelier
that and love. Beside the board The beggar lacked not place.
When hunger’s rage, Sharpened by fresh
sea-air, was quelled, the jest Succeeded, and the tale of foreign
lands; But, boast who might of distant chief renowned, His battle-axe,
or fist that felled an ox, The Anglian’s answer was “our Hilda” still:
“Is not her prayer puissant as sworded hosts? Her insight more than
wisdom of the seers? What birth like hers illustrious? Edwin’s self,
Dëira’s exile, next Northumbria’s king, Her kinsman was. Together bowed
they not When he of holy hand, missioned from Rome, Paulinus, poured
o’er both the absolving wave And knit to Christ? Kingliest was she,
that maid Who spurned earth-crowns!” The night advanced, he rose That
ruled the feast, the miller old, yet blithe, And cried, “A song!” So
song succeeded song, For each man knew that time to chant his stave,
But no man yet sang nobly. Last the harp Made way to Ceadmon, lowest at
the board: He pushed it back, answering, “I cannot sing:” Around him
many gathered clamoring, “Sing!” And one among them, voluble and small,
Shot out a splenetic speech: “This lord of kine, Our herdsman, grows to
ox! Behold, his eyes Move slow, like eyes of oxen!”
Sudden rose
Ceadmon, and spake: “I note full oft young men
Quick-eyed, but small-eyed, darting glances round
Now here, now there, like glance of some poor bird,
That light on all things and can rest on none:
As ready are they with their tongues as eyes;
But all their songs are chirpings backward blown
On winds that sing God’s song, by them unheard:
My oxen wait my service: I depart.”
Then strode he to his cow-house in the mead,
Displeased though meek, and muttered, “Slow of eye!
My kine are slow: if I were swift my hand
Might tend them worse.” Hearing his steps the kine
Turned round their hornèd foreheads: angry thoughts
Went from him as a vapor. Straw he brought,
And strewed their beds; and they, contented well,
Down laid ere long their great bulks, breathing deep
Amid the glimmering moonlight. He, with head
Propped on the white flank of a heifer mild,
Rested, his deer-skin o’er him drawn. Hard days
Bring slumber soon. His latest thought was this:
“Though witless things we are, my kine and I,
Yet God it was who made us.”
As he slept,
Beside him stood a Man Divine and spake;
“Ceadmon, arise, and sing.” Ceadmon replied,
“My Lord, I cannot sing, and for that cause
Forth from the revel came I. Once, in youth,
I willed to sing the bright face of a maid,
And failed, and once a gold-faced harvest-field,
And failed, and once the flame-eyed face of war,
And failed once more.” To him the Man Divine,
“Those themes were earthly. Sing!” And Ceadmon said,
“What shall I sing, my Lord?” Then answer came,
“Ceadmon, stand up, and sing thy song of God.”
At once obedient, Ceadmon rose, and sang,
And help was with him from great thoughts of old
Within his silent nature yearly stored,
That swelled, collecting like a flood that bursts
In spring its icy bar. The Lord of all
He sang; that God beneath whose hand eterne,
Then when he willed forth-stretched athwart the abyss,
Creation like a fiery chariot ran,
Inwoven wheels of ever-living stars.
Him first he sang. The builder, here below,
From fair foundations rears at last the roof,
But Song, a child of heaven, begins with heaven,
The archetype divine, and end of all,
More late descends to earth. He sang that hymn,
“Let there be light, and there was light”; and lo!
On the void deep came down the seal of God
And stamped immortal form. Clear laughed the skies,
While from crystalline seas the strong earth brake,
Both continent and isle; and downward rolled
The sea-surge summoned to his home remote.
Then came a second vision to the man
There standing ‘mid his oxen. Darkness sweet,
He sang, of pleasant frondage clothed the vales,
Ambrosial bowers rich-fruited which the sun,
A glory new-created in his place,
All day made golden, and the moon by night
Silvered with virgin beam, while sang the bird
Her first of love-songs on the branch first-flower’d—
Not yet the lion stalked. And Ceadmon sang
O’er-awed, the Father of all humankind
Standing in garden planted by God’s hand,
And girt by murmurs of the rivers four,
Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life,
With eastward face. In worship mute of God,
Eden’s Contemplative he stood that hour,
Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none,
No need for spirit severe.
And Ceadmon sang
God’s Daughter, Adam’s Sister, Child, and Bride,
Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star,
That nearer drew to earth, and brighter flashed
To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence
Stood up with queenly port. She turned: she saw
Earth’s King, mankind’s great Father. Taught by God,
Immaculate, unastonished, undismayed,
In love and reverence to her Lord she drew,
And, kneeling, kissed his hand: and Adam laid
That hand, made holier, on that kneeler’s head,
And spake; “For this shall man his parents leave,
And to his wife cleave fast.”
When Ceadmon ceased
Thus spake the Man Divine: “At break of day
Seek thou some prudent man, and say that God
Hath loosed thy tongue; nor hide henceforth thy gift.”
Then Ceadmon turned, and slept among his kine
Dreamless. Ere dawn he stood upon the shore
In doubt: but when at last o’er eastern seas
The sun, long wished for, like a god upsprang,
Once more he found God’s song upon his mouth
Murmuring high joy; and sought a prudent man,
And told him all the vision. At the word
He to the Abbess with the tidings fled,
And she made answer, “Bring me Ceadmon here.”