We lighted our pipes and went forth, turning our steps toward the

barn. Half a dozen wolves sat around the building, looking like

professional mourners, and moaning their hunger-melancholy moans.

We were close to them before they would move. One of them was so

hunger-bold that he stood at bay for a moment, and the lieutenant

thought it necessary to draw his pistol and cock it. The click

was enough for the wolf, who dashed off at once, growling with

head still turned towards us, and teeth shining in a parting

snarl. After smoking we proceeded upstairs, to a cold, cheerless,

unfurnished room, and betook us to our blankets. The wind howled

dismally through the unglazed sashes. We sought positions the

least exposed to cross-draughts. Spreading our blankets on the

floor, unswept except by the wind, we lay down to such rest as

excitement, fatigue, and youth can bring.

We did not rise so early next morning as might be supposed from

a calm consideration of our sleeping accommodations. We were up

in time for breakfast, however. It was a good one, and we enjoyed

it. After its conclusion arrangements were made for the burial of

MacSorley. It was decided that he should be buried on the top of a

high mound within about a thousand yards of the station.

The funeral _cortége_ was neither large nor imposing. It consisted

of Mr. Bunter, two or three stage drivers and stock-tenders, the

lieutenant, the sergeant, and the writer. The guards, excepting

those necessary to protect the station, were out, posted around on

commanding eminences to prevent a surprise.

The grave was already dug. The rough substitute for a coffin, drawn

to the place of interment on a hayrack, was covered with its earthy

bed as tenderly as possible.

Bunter had asked the lieutenant to read prayers at the grave; and

the latter had consented. But there was no prayer-book to be found

at the station. Bunter requested the lieutenant to improvise a

prayer for the dead, when one of the men began shovelling the earth

into the grave.

“Hold on, Jack!” said Bunter, “the lieutenant’s goin’ to say a

prayer.”

Jack “held on,” looking rather astonished at this unusual delay.

The lieutenant threw earth upon the coffin, repeating, with a

voice full of emotion, such devotional passages, appropriate to

the occasion, as occurred to him, ending with the simple but

all-including words of the church: “May God have mercy on his soul!”

Jack, supposing it unnecessary to “hold on” any longer, commenced

pitching in the clay with the rather out-of-place energy usually

displayed in the performance of that last duty.

“Hold on, Jack!” cried Mr. Bunter a second time, “the lieutenant

ain’t through yet.” And Jack unwillingly ceased his labors for

awhile.

“I have finished,” said the lieutenant. “I am but a poor hand at

public praying; but if I spoke for an hour it would amount to no

more than what I have said.”

“We don’t know whose turn it may be next,” said a young driver,

feeling it proper to indulge in the hackneyed morality of such

occasions--words given forth, perhaps, as mere conversational small

change; but their truth was made terribly manifest shortly after.

It was the young driver’s turn next. A month had not elapsed before

he was killed and scalped within a mile of the station. When I

passed there at a later period, they recalled what he had said, and

showed me his grave by the side of MacSorley’s.

ROUTE IV.

The Big Sandy Station soon became terribly dull. I felt I would

rather risk being scalped than stay there any longer. Learning that

some emigrants with their families, two wagons, etc., were about to

push westward, and that the lieutenant had determined to go to the

next station with them, though they set out against his advice, I

concluded to go on with him.

We made an early start next morning. We had two government wagons

and some half a dozen men besides the emigrant contingent. When we

had reached a point about a mile and a half from Big Sandy Station,

the sergeant said to the lieutenant in a low tone:

“Lieutenant, there are Indians on that hill in front of us.”

The hill was about fifteen hundred yards distant. The lieutenant

called a halt, and examined the redskins through a field-glass.

“They are Indians,” he said, “and in pretty strong force,” at the

same time handing me the glass.

The hillside literally swarmed with mounted Indians, moving

incessantly, like ants crawling up and down an ant-hill. The

dust of two parties--each about fifty strong, judging by that

indication--could be seen rising from a ravine which ran along the

base of the hill and across the road over which lay our route. It

was also noticed that the dust aforesaid ceased at the road.

The move was evident. They lay in ambuscade to capture us. We got

out our arms, but eight or nine weapons in all, the emigrants being

unarmed, and began withdrawing slowly to Big Sandy.

The children wept and screamed. The women howled that they _would_

be taken by the Indians. They scolded and lamented by turns. The

men said nothing. They were not in a talking mood, nor was anybody

just then--except the ladies. We effected our retreat in good

order, the unarmed men driving the teams, the armed protecting “the

movement.” Some Indians followed us, just out of range, and one

whom I shall always see in my mind’s eye, on a white pony, followed

on at the same distance until we reached Big Sandy Station once

more.

The next day we again got tired of smoking, talking, and reading

novels. The lieutenant succeeded in getting a coach, and he and I

with three men and the sergeant, all armed this time, started once

more for Welcome Spring Station--the next on our route West.

We had a good driver and a splendid team of mules. Arrived at

about six miles west of Big Sandy, we saw some Indians, twelve

or fifteen, coming toward us from a distance. A judicious use of

mule power soon put them out of sight. We had no further trouble

until we came within five or six miles of Welcome Station. There,

after we had almost entirely dismissed Indian dangers from our

minds, we suddenly discovered three parties in uncomfortably close

proximity. They were coming towards us at a good round pace. Two of

the parties numbered about fifty each, the third about half that

number. The last mentioned was evidently trying to cut us off from

the station, while the other two were closing in upon us from the

right and left.

The curtains were thrown up. The coach bristled with needle-guns on

every side.

“NOW GO IT,” said the lieutenant.

_And we went it!_

“If the wheels don’t take fire,” said the driver tremulously, “we

may make it!”

On we went!--good Springfield breech-loaders, loaded and cocked,

thrust out behind, before, and on each side of the coach. On came

the Indians! Rather chary, however, of the breech-loaders, but

looking for something to turn up. Their sudden dash had failed.

There was now the chance of our being cut off by the third party.

The driver plied whip and voice. The mules almost flew to gain the

turning-point.

We passed the important point without breaking anything. Then our

mules were brought down to a less expeditious, though by no means

contemptible pace. The Indians slackened their speed and gave up

the job. They still followed us, however, at a respectful distance,

until we came in sight of the station.

Welcome Spring Station was a welcome station to us. I felt so

happy that I jumped out through the coach window, disdaining the

commonplace convenience of a door. What appetites we had! What a

dinner we ate! And what a glorious sleep we had on some corn-sacks

in the stable!

Our route henceforth lay through a more settled country. No further

danger from Indians was to be feared. We enjoyed the ride. The

sight of mountains in the distance and soon, of tall pines all

around us had a cheering influence on me. The lieutenant, who was

in the very best humor, said he was so much accustomed to life on

the plains that he had acquired a dislike to wooded countries. Even

when on leave of absence in the East, where there was not the ghost

of an Indian to be feared, he experienced a feeling of insecurity

when in woodland. He wanted to have plenty of elbow room, he said,

and to see all around him for miles.

We reached Sierra City without further incident next morning. The

lieutenant and I parted, with many kind wishes on both sides and

hope of meeting again.

I have not since met my military friend. I have even forgotten his

name. My memory never was much better than a waste, and names were

the very last things that would take root in it. I hope yet to meet

my old Misty Mountain companion. When I do, may he be, at least, a

major!

I returned over the same route. All was then quiet on the Misty

Mountain. The only change I saw was that two more graves had been

made by the side of MacSorley’s, on the high mound near the Big

Sandy--“killed by Indians.”

Before I made my Misty Mountain trip, I had a boy’s usual desire

for a soldier’s life. That trip was the turning-point in my

desires. I have “seen Indians” since, and in my summer vacations

have occasionally accompanied scouting parties against the hostile

tribes. My further experience completed the change in my tastes.

The life of a soldier on the frontier has no charms for me.

Fighting Indians is far harder work than fighting a civilized foe.

It is continued privation, suffering, and danger. Even success, so

difficult of achievement in this species of warfare, is generally

repaid, not by glory, but by misrepresentation and ingratitude.

I am content with my old desk in the dingy old office in the

leathery old Swamp. The smell of the leather is more grateful to me

than the purest of prairie breezes, which, when it plays with your

locks, is unpleasantly suggestive, to those acquainted with the

usages of Indian warfare.

ORLÉANS AND ITS CLERGY.

In the outskirts of Orléans, between the roads leading to Paris and

Chartres, stands an antique chapel under the invocation of Notre

Dame des Aydes--the remains of a former hospital. Thousands of

pilgrims have been here to pray, from age to age: among them the

last of the Valois, the indolent Henry III. A small statue of Our

Lady of Aid on one of the gables seems to welcome and bless the

traveller. To this sacred spot, that for ages had known no other

sound but the voice of prayer and praise, and no other smoke but

that of holy incense, came the din of war and the smoke of cannon.

Around this asylum of peace took place one of the most thrilling

scenes of the late war. The battalion of foreign legions held the

place for a time under a frightful cannonading on the part of the

Prussian forces. M. Arago, the commander, perished gloriously on

the field of battle. The thirteen hundred men under him were of all

races and climes. The Austrian mingled with the Italian; the negro

of the desert with the Polish exile; the Chinese with the Servian

prince. Of these, six hundred were killed or wounded; three hundred

made prisoners; the remainder escaped to recommence the combat

elsewhere. The Germans pressed on, leaving behind them the flaming

houses of the faubourgs to record their triumph. They pushed into

the very heart of the city--to the statue of Joan of Arc, which

must have wept out its very heart of stone at its powerlessness to

drive out this new invader--to the steps of the church where the

holy maid once worshipped, or, if not the same, to one on the same

spot, for the ancient church of Ste. Croix was destroyed by those

_Brise-Moutiers_, the Calvinists, and rebuilt by Henry IV.

Among the inhabitants of Orléans, one man of sacred character and

European reputation stands out prominently at the time of this

invasion--the illustrious Bishop Dupanloup. This eminent prelate

has had the unique privilege of displaying his eloquence before

a very unusual variety of audiences--at the Sorbonne, the French

Academy, the Palais de Justice, the National Assemblies, the

pulpit of Notre Dame de Paris, and the Council of the Vatican. He

has also pleaded the cause of weakness, justice, and patriotism

before an arrogant conqueror. In this time of universal alarm, the

Bishop of Orléans proved himself a worthy successor of the bishops

in the times of the invasions of the barbarians, around whom

gathered the multitude with a feeling of security. Wherever there

was severity to be tempered, crime to be denounced, wounded to be

rescued, or condemned to be saved, he was brought to interpose.

The panic-struck women from the smoking ruins of Châteaudun betook

themselves to him. He was a refuge when every other hope failed.

The august function of Defensor Civitatis, Defender of the City,

which the popular voice once bestowed on the bishops, had come

down from the ages of faith. St. Agnan’s holy prayers are said to

have delivered Orléans from Attila, who besieged it in the fifth

century. Hence, every bishop of Orléans, when he took possession

of his see, enjoyed for ages the privilege of delivering all

prisoners. When the new bishop approached the city, all the

prisoners came out in procession with ropes around their necks, and

knelt before him to implore release. Then they went back to the

city, and heard Mass in the church of St. Yves. At a later hour

they assembled in the court of the _évêché_ to listen to an address

from the bishop, who, from a window, exhorted them to atone for

their previous misdeeds by their penitential lives. He then gave

them his blessing, a dinner was provided for them, after which

they all went where they pleased. This was only one of the results

of the moral power of the first bishop of the country. What the

popular voice at first bestowed, afterwards merged into political

power when the time of peril was past, and the burden accepted as a

possible duty to their flock became a source of reproach, as if it

were usurped.

Bishop Dupanloup was worthy the old title Defensor Civitatis.

He filled the office simply and generously, with a devotedness

nothing could exhaust and a firmness nothing could bend. At the

second occupation of Orléans, when the Prussians had replaced the

Bavarians, the kind of Truce of God that naturally established

itself around the servant of the Most High was done away with. The

bishop was an object of severity in his turn; he was imprisoned in

a corner of his own palace and strictly guarded. Prince Frederick

Charles was impolitic. He should have been mindful of a great

captain of loftier genius than his--Prince Eugene, whom history

honors for honoring Fénelon at Cambrai.

In speaking of the Bishop of Orleans, we must not forget the

priests that everywhere, in town as well as hamlet, walked in his

noble footsteps. In the engagements at Notre Dame des Aydes and

Coulmiers, as well as elsewhere, the priests, both curé and vicar,

were at their posts, going to and fro among the wounded, with hands

not raised with murderous weapons, but uplifted to bless; not

inflicting death, but braving it, and consoling the dying.

The _Moniteur Officiel_ at Berlin has reproached the clergy of

Orléans for what is really their glory. “At the approach of our

troops,” says the Prussian journal, “the solitary laborer threw

down his spade, seized his musket on the ground beside him, and

fired. Every day such opponents were brought to headquarters and

shot according to martial law. Priests were often brought with them

who had abetted or been actors in some instance of bold resistance.”

Such was the touching emulation of all classes in rallying to

defence against the invader.

In the Armée du Nord, General Faidherbe also testifies to the

same devotedness on the part of the clergy, and mentions with

special gratitude the bold stand of the Archbishop of Cambrai,

the Bishop of Arras, the hospital sisters at Corbie, and the

clergy generally. He especially holds up one brave Dominican monk

for admiration--doubtless a disciple of Lacordaire, or one of

the companions of the Martyrs of Arcueil--the Père Mercier, “who

received four wounds at the battle of Amiens, where he displayed

remarkable courage.”

The bravery and patriotism of the priesthood is no new thing. How

constantly were they evinced during the middle ages! If their

sacred character did not allow them to participate actively in the

fray, they were there to animate and encourage, and especially to

succor the dying. Among a thousand instances, we read that, at the

battle of Neville’s Cross, the Prior of Durham, England, and his

monks, took the sacred banner of St. Cuthbert, and repaired to

a hillock in sight of both armies, hoisted it, knelt around it,

and prayed. Other brethren from the belfry of the cathedral sang

hymns of praise and triumph, which were heard afar off in a most

miraculous manner.

Yes: Orléans has reason to be proud of its clergy, with its

hereditary spirit. “The heart of France” has not lost its ancient

courage. The service its people rendered the crown in ancient times

induced Louis XI. to give it as its arms an open heart, showing the

lilies of France within. Above this _blason_ is the quatrain

“Orléans, ville de renom,

De haut pris, de grand’ excellence,

Eut pour blazon le cœur de France

De Loueys, onzième du nom.”

And another poet has said:

“Non potuit regni caput esse Aurelia magni

Ergo quod superest, corque, animusque fuit”--

Orléans being so-called from the Emperor Aurelian, who enlarged the

city towards the end of the third century, and gave it the name of

Aurelianum, from which Aurliens, and finally Orléans.

Perhaps Orléanais has had the glorious privilege of suffering

more than any other part of France for its country. It has been a

battle-field on which some of the most famous personages in history

have figured. Cæsar ran over the country as a conqueror; Attila

withdrew from it conquered and humiliated; here the Maid of Orléans

delivered France; here Francis de Guise died after forcing Charles

V. to give up Metz; and here Turenne saved the country threatened

by the Fronde. For two centuries the valley of the Loire had not

been disturbed by the noise of arms, but Orléans, Coulmiers,

Villepion, etc., now testify how the open heart of France has again

bled and suffered.

USE AND ABUSE OF THE STAGE.

We are a very theatrical people. The old unbending Puritan stuff

has almost died out amongst us; whether for better or worse,

such is the fact. If a Brutus appeared in our midst to-day, he

would be dubbed a “rowdy”; a Cato, a decided bore. Where we would

not turn to look at them, we rush pell-mell to catch the first

glimpse of a prince; even a lord finds a following here that must

rather surprise him in a nation where he only expected to meet

with the stern virtues of republicanism. We crowd in the same way

to see a new “star” in the theatrical firmament, whether that

star’s radiance consist in a melodious voice, or a dexterous use

of the limbs, or a display of physical charms, so artistically

concealed that not one of them is missed. So we throng to hear

a great preacher or a loud one, provided he is “puffed” enough.

Our politics have degenerated into a money-making concern; our

religion, almost to a fashion. As it was a fashion in the old

days when the Pharisee went up to the temple to pray, and his

prayer consisted in thanking God that he was so far above the

poor publican, together with a grand recital of his fastings and

self-flagellations, and alms given to the poor; as it was a fashion

later on, in the time of the Puritans and the Scotch under right

John Knox, as Carlyle would call his hero--when the godly sat out

their two hours’ sermon, and at the end applauded, and begged the

preacher to continue, and sat them grimly a two hours more; going

their way, comforted at heart, to murder Cavalier and Catholic, and

all who wore the mark of the beast and the color of the scarlet

woman.

We have touched on religion, for it is inwoven with our theme,

the theatre, which sprang from religion, and, could it be made

to preach as it has done, would, without lack of amusement or

attraction, become a house of prayer, and not, as it now is, a home

of corruption. The Greeks used it for a twofold purpose: to lash

vice or as a political weapon. And nothing pierced so fatally the

thick hide of the low demagogue, Cleon, as the barbed shafts of

Aristophanes, scattered with all the great master’s skill among

the keen-witted and appreciative Athenians. We see a similar

instance to-day in the attack by one of the leaders of the modern

French drama on a much greater man than Cleon. The _Rabagas_ of

Sardou has tended to demoralize Gambetta more than the holocaust

he sacrificed, in his unwise and inopportune zeal, to the glory of

France, as he would claim; in reality to its ruin. It has done more

to lower him in the eyes of the people than the terrible logic of

events. Why have not we a man to do the like for the _rings_ and

the political immorality that inundates us; from which we are only

just beginning to emerge, without the certainty of not sinking

beneath it again?

The stage with the Greeks was, moreover, a preacher. It held up

lofty thoughts in language worthy of them. It preached the virtue

of self-sacrifice and its nobleness in tones that could not fail

to be heard. It did not mock the false with puny laughter and weak

travestie; but laid it bare in all its ugliness, cutting deep

into it and round about it, probing the soil that it grew in,

piercing its thick rind with a weapon whose wound was death. And

there stands out that wonderful play of the _Prometheus Vinctus_:

the bold story of the god-born man, who, with the insight of the

god-nature that was in him, saw the misery of his brethren, and

dared to filch the sacred fire from heaven that he might lift them

up from their degradation; who suffered on an eternity of woe,

with the relentless bird ever gnawing at his vitals; and, as the

curtain fell upon the convulsion of nature, foretold, in words

indeed prophetic, the fall of Jove and of his false heaven. We read

and stand amazed; wondering, now at the grace, now at the terrible

power of the words; pitying the great and tameless soul enduring

an agony unspeakable for his kind, chained there to the bare rock

with the pitiless heavens above him, the starry-curtained night,

and the ever-dimpling ocean smiling beneath him. We see Calvary and

the Saviour there; and marvel at the boldness of the conception,

the magnificence and prophetic truth of its carrying out. From this

story of a pagan Greek, told to pagans before Christ came into the

world, bearing the fire that he willed only to be kindled, we turn

with shame and sickness at heart to the things of this day, of this

era of civilization and enlightenment.

But first let us trace the course of the drama when it fell into

Christian hands.

That fierce Northern blast which overthrew for ever the gorgeous

fabric of the Roman Empire, withered and blighted everything

that could be called intellectual or refined. The civilization,

the literature, the very language of Greece and Rome, were

extinguished, and the world had to begin its intellectual

schooling anew. Then the church stepped in, and moulded those rough

elements into a nobler race than that which had been swept away.

The Roman had been taught to live for the state; the Christian was

taught to live for Christ. The church filled their rugged minds

with great ideas and noble purposes; she laid the foundation of

a great faith, and on that built up everything. A belief in one

Supreme God, in eternal joy for the good, eternal pain for the

wicked: such was the doctrine, easily learned, easily understood,

which she unceasingly poured into their untutored minds. It was a

hard task. There was no press then; there were no newspapers, no

telegraph wires flashing thought from world to world in less time

than it takes to conceive it. Men were taught by word of mouth.

And when we contemplate the magnitude of the work--the education

and conversion of an illiterate world--we can only wonder at its

success, and see therein the finger of God, guiding and directing

his daughter--the one stumbling-block to the march of reason,

according to our modern notions.

Then came up those quaint old miracle plays, performed at fairs

and festivals, and sometimes even in the cathedrals and churches.

They clothed the mysteries of religion in simple language, well

adapted for simple minds, and brought home to the crowds assembled

great and impressive truths. A relic of them to-day attracts the

fashionable world, _ennuyé_ of the opera, the conventional stage,

and an existence weary of itself and its emptiness. It takes

its opera-glasses and scent-bottles and flirtation to the rude

rocks of the Tyrol to behold the Ammergau _Passion Play_. It is

a novelty. We wonder that no enterprising manager has offered

fabulous sums to bring the performers out here to us. They would

certainly “draw.” To be sure, he could scarcely transport the

Tyrol, but then the scene-painter and machinist could manage that.

If the butterflies of fashion can find motive enough to brave the

terrors of sea-sickness and flit out thither to behold a novelty,

can sit it out without a yawn, and be struck by the reverence of

the performance and its effect on the grave mountaineers, surely

something far less taxing on our conventional notions, but bearing

the germ of a great truth within it, might send the thousands who

flock nightly to our theatres home with a thought in their heads

and a more earnest feeling in their hearts.

The stage grew with the growth of time and the spread of education,

till, at the close of the sixteenth century, we find it at its

zenith in Spain and in England. The French and Italians never

possessed a _great_ stage--a stage, that is, for all time and all

nations; the German is of recent growth. At this point the stage

was great; was in the broad sense moral, elevating, high. It

towered above men, above the times; it educated while it attracted

them. In plot, in action, in delineation of character, in thrilling

scenes and happy conceptions, the plays of the sixteenth century

are unrivalled, while their language makes of them classics. Dr.

Arnold of Rugby proposed that the English classics should be made

one of the principal studies of boys at school. We wonder what

benefit boys would derive from the study of the trash we listen to

and applaud in these days--whether it would be better calculated to

improve their morals than a close application to the pages of the

_Newgate Calendar_ or the columns of the _Police News_?

From that period the course of the stage has been a downward one

passing from bad to worse, till it has been our fortune, with

a solitary exception here and there, to light upon the worst;

for the plays of the time of Charles II., bad as they are and

revolting, are safer from their very outspokenness than the gilded

licentiousness that allures us. We rival them in obscenity, as we

fall immeasurably below them in wit. The reason of this decline, at

a time when the discovery of the art of printing gave a new impetus

to the spread of education, is foreign to our present purpose.

With a glance at the past, at what the theatre was, and what it

might become, we turn to that which immediately concerns us, the

present: what the theatre now is, and why--restricting our remarks

principally to New York.

Now the dramatic season has just drawn to a close,[203] so it

is a fair time to indulge in a retrospect. We believe it has

been on the whole what managers might term a fairly good season;

that is, people have gone to the theatres, paid their money, and

endorsed, by their presence and applause, the various species of

entertainments which the managers, in their capacity of public

caterers, have provided for them.

Our question is, What have we endorsed? What have been the

theatrical “hits” of the season? What are the plays which have

brought crowds to the theatre, money to the manager, and delight to

the public at large? The answer, looked at soberly and honestly, is

startling.

With the exception of the Shakespearian and a few other classical

plays at one of the theatres, some transitory pieces got up

occasionally for “stars,” and French adaptations, which we shall

refer to after, we have not had a single play worthy of the name,

worthy of the actors who performed them, worthy, we sincerely hope,

of the audiences who witnessed them.

It may be as well to explain that by actors we mean ladies and

gentlemen who are equal to the very difficult position they have

taken upon themselves; who can speak pure English in a manner we

can all understand--a slight qualification seemingly, yet in these

days one of the rarest; who can portray emotions with fidelity;

who can forget, first of all, themselves; secondly, the audience,

in the character they have assumed. We do not mean those with

whom vulgarity passes for wit, coarseness for humor, or a liberal

display of the person for all that is needed. The name of the

latter class is legion; the individuals who compose the former,

exclusive of passing stars, might be almost counted on our fingers.

And now for the performances we have endorsed. The great

attractions, the “hits” of the season, beyond _Humpty Dumpty_,

which is no play at all, but a display of the antics of the

cleverest mime who has appeared on our stage, have been the _Black

Crook_ and _Lalla Rookh_. These two pieces drew the largest crowds

for the longest time; one of them is an old favorite, and vies with

_Humpty Dumpty_ in duration; the other, but for its untimely end

by fire, was as likely to become so, and may yet, for all we know

to the contrary. We wish to place this well before the public; the

chief theatrical attractions in New York, the commercial capital

of our Republic and the New World, during the past year, have been

_Humpty Dumpty_, the _Black Crook_, and _Lalla Rookh_!

What are these two latter things? Are they plays? Is there any

acting in them at all? Is there a single good thought inculcated,

good feeling stirred, good end attained by their presentation?

Are they fit to place before a public composed of ladies and

gentlemen, of virtuous men and women, above all before the young,

the pleasure-seekers, of both sexes?

To all these questions we answer an emphatic no; and we are certain

that the managers who got them up would agree with us. Yet all

New York--speaking generally--crowded to see them. The expense

in producing them was enormous. Actresses, scenery, dresses,

machinery, were purchased and brought from over the sea; and all

for what? A display of brilliant costumes, or rather an absence of

them; crowds of girls set in array, and posturing so as to bring

out every turn and play of the limbs. Throughout it was simply a

parade of indecency artistically placed upon the stage, with garish

lights and intoxicating music to quicken the senses and inflame the

passions. The very advertisements in the streets and in the public

press set forth as their crowning attraction the crowds of “ladies”

and their scanty raiment.

How women with any pretensions to modesty could sit out such an

exhibition without a blush--how men could take women for whom they

had any respect to witness it, are things we cannot understand.

That such things can succeed at all, can succeed so well, can

beat everything else from the field, among us, speaks ill for

us; speaks ill for our taste, our morality, our civilization. To

Protestants and Catholics alike we say: Cry down, with all the

power that is in you, public exhibitions that are daily undermining

and uprooting the morality of this great nation, which affects, as

it must continue to affect more and more day by day, the destiny

of the world. They influence the fashions; they fill the public

streets with impurity. Their effect is in the very air we breathe,

the press we read, the pictures that meet our eyes on every

stand. To the recognition and open admiration we display for such

performances on the public stage, we owe those lower dens of infamy

that corrupt our youth, poison their life, and cause the whole race

to degenerate; and the bloody tragedies in real life which have

from their frequency almost ceased to create a sensation. They are

a blot upon our institutions, a stain upon our morality, a scandal

to every decent eye.

But who is to blame?

The public deplores the depravity of the taste of the age, and

carries its opera-glass to the theatre so as not to miss an iota.

The manager blames the actor, the actor the author, and the author

the manager. Perhaps all are to blame more or less; but undoubtedly

the onus of it rests with us who pay for and go to see such

things. The manager whom we blame so much objects very properly:

The people want to be amused, and we must find something to amuse

them. Good plays that are presentable are almost as rare as good

actors to interpret them, as an appreciative audience to come and

admire them. If the public did not demand such sights, you may be

perfectly certain we should not present them. Our interest in the

whole matter is merely one of dollars. Love of art, and educating

the public taste, and so forth, sound very well in the abstract,

but they do not pay. These things are of enormous cost in the

scenery, the putting on the stage, the costumes, and, as far as the

actors are concerned, to-day we are compelled to pay a higher price

for limbs than for genius.

Now, this sounds very plausible, and there is, no doubt, a vast

amount of reason in it. Certain it is that, if the public kept away

from such exhibitions, the manager would scarcely ruin himself by

presenting them to empty houses. But are good plays so scarce, and

why?

Shakespeare, we fear, is almost out of the question. We confess,

in common with very many, a secret misgiving, almost amounting to

horror, at the idea of going to see Desdemona or Banquo doubly

murdered. The education of the vast majority of our actors renders

them incapable of catching the meaning of the great master’s

words, far less of interpreting them in a manner to enchain our

attention or enthrall our senses: the invariable result when we sit

down to read them. We generally find one or two characters ably

sustained, and the rest, as a rule, rendered absolutely ridiculous.

Notwithstanding, we take it as a very encouraging thing, and a

great sign of advancement in intelligence and education, to see

in one instance, at least, this class of drama drawing houses the

whole year through. The more we have of such plays, the less we

shall see of _Black Crooks_ and _Lalla Rookhs_. Sheridan, again,

and Colman are almost beyond our actors, though they are scarcely a

hundred years old. An actor undertaking a character must understand

not merely the words he utters, but the _character_ he represents,

the position it holds in the play, its _bearings_ on the others;

for our modern actors are too apt to consider that there is only

one character in every play, and that their own. The costume, mode

of life, look, gait, air, _tout ensemble_, should fit the person

to the age in which he lived. Now, how many of those employed to

personate the fops, or fools, or men about town of Sheridan, know

the age in which those characters lived, the mode of conversation,

the walk, “the nice conduct of the clouded cane,” the way of

passing the time, the affected laugh and pronunciation of certain

letters, the ceremony thrown into a bow or a proffer of a pinch

of snuff, with a thousand other little things only to be found

in a close study of the writers of the time? Yet, without this

intimate knowledge, our modern actor must trust to his wig and

antique coat and ruffles to give us an idea of Charles Surface or

Sir Peter Teasle. Passing regretfully by these, then, we come to

the question before us, the drama of to-day, where we atone for

lack of genius by sensation; where words give place to “business”;

where for a good author we substitute a good carpenter, aided by

a good scene-painter; where a conflagration, or a shipwreck, or a

cab, drive Shakespeare and the rest off the boards. Wherein lies

the excellence of the sensational school of playwrights? Strip them

of their drowning scenes, fires, chloroform, and slang phrases,

and what have we left? Simply nothing. Not a single conception of

a great idea or a great character; no noble purpose to fire the

soul; no keen wit to scorch the age and purify while it burns;

but in their stead sorry jokes, and the meanest and most ordinary

characters speaking bad grammar; with plenty of howling, and

climbing, and swimming, and water and fire and limelight, and a

stirring song that is not the author’s, all interspersed with stray

spars of wit floating about here and there in the heterogeneous

mass, and turning up at happy places--wit, by the way, which is

generally stolen from the French or from some well-known story, all

adjusted to slow music, set to magnificent scenery, with mechanism

enough to construct a city; and the audience, wheedled there by

puff, is amazed and overcome, and, going away, tells its friends

that there is not much in it, but the scenery alone is well worth

the money.

This is undoubtedly the English drama of the day, dividing the palm

with the anatomical exhibitions we have previously referred to, and

almost as prolific of good results to the public. _Eileen Oge_, one

of the latest and best plays of this class, was the only one which

attracted audiences to that splendid failure, the Grand Opera House.

There is another class of play to which we promised to refer--the

modern French school--which finds its home in one of our theatres,

and which, by lavish expenditure, the splendor of costume,

excellence of mounting, and general efficiency of the cast, has

proved more or less a success. They pass among us as dramas of

society. Let us examine the most recent of these “society plays,”

and see if they are worthy of their name.

_Article 47_ runs as follows: A lover, in a moment of jealousy,

shoots his mistress, attempting at the time to gain possession

of a casket belonging to her. She escapes with life, but that

life is dead to her, for her beauty, though not destroyed, is for

ever marred. Her love changes to hate. She appears as a witness

against her lover on a charge of attempted murder and robbery.

He is acquitted of wilful attempt to kill, but condemned to five

years at the galleys, and placed for ever, by Article 47 of the

penal code, under police surveillance. Both lives are embittered,

the one with the consciousness of a wrong done to the woman he

loved, but loves no longer; the other from the consciousness of,

to her, an irreparable loss sustained, a beauty marred in the

dawn of life, and a love contending with hate for the man who

once loved her, and whom she still, in her sane moments--for the

crash of contending emotions and the brooding over her lost life

are goading her to madness--loves. The term of his confinement

ended, the lover changes his name, flies to Paris, and hopes thus

to escape the surveillance of the police. He enters society again,

and falls in love with an old acquaintance who has ever loved

him. They are married. In society he meets with the old love. She

recognizes him, and, finding that his love is turned to abhorrence,

hate again strives for mastery, and she compels him to frequent

the _salon_ where she is to be seen, and spend a certain time of

each day in her society, on pain of disclosing to his wife that

he is a convicted felon, and the whole story of her wrong. In a

moment of despair he unfolds all to his wife in her presence; they

determine to fly. The madness has been working all this time in the

other’s blood. She retains enough reason to send a message to the

prefect of police, disclosing the person and whereabouts of the

ex-prisoner. The letter is intercepted, and she finally dies at

his feet, still mad, and thinking that he loves her. The play is

a powerful one, but revolting. The gradual growth of the madness

in the woman is well worked up. But the woman is a fiend, and her

fiendishness is the whole point of the play. We have women as bad

or worse in plays that are infinitely superior, Lady Macbeth,

for instance; but the mastermind that conceived that character

conceived it aright--laid it bare in all its hideousness, and

surrounded it with such moral strength and contrasts that we hate

it. The French writer enlists a forced sympathy for his heroine.

Everybody is in a chronic state of misery all the way through; the

vice of the thing is condoned or glossed over, and the character

most to be pitied at the end is the hideous thing that is called a

woman. It is a delineation and upholding of a false principle from

beginning to end; and, if such is society, we can only pity it.

While there are such things as truth, honor, womanly nature, and

manly strength among us, such a play should hold no place in our

midst; and the writer debases his talents when he can turn them

to so much better account. Most French plays of the modern school

come to us in this fashion. They are all unhealthy, morbid, false

to God and man; and though they are well written, abounding in

felicitous repartee, clever tirades against society, witty mockery

of characters that go down among us, and in their English dress are

stripped of the dangerous _équivoque_ and _double entendre_, it

is better for us either to let them alone, or so change them that

we do not recognize them, as the late Mr. Robertson succeeded in

doing. All, or nearly all, of his comedies were originally founded

on the French. But he did not reproduce; he adapted. And his

plays, the most charming, as they are by far the wittiest and most

brilliant, of the day, are always presentable, always enjoyable,

though they strike out no great thought, nor, indeed, aim at it,

but are clever satires on society as we find it, as it comes and

goes. We should very much like to see them produced oftener here.

There is only one house which, as a rule, attempts this class of

play; and its programme has to be changed so often that it looks

very much as though the public did not appreciate its efforts. Yet

we have never met with a single person who has witnessed one of Mr.

Robertson’s plays and would not be very happy to witness another.

We think the fault lies chiefly with the company. The rank and file

are not adequate. At the Prince of Wales’ theatre in London the

same company performs still that performed when Mr. Robertson first

produced his plays; and each one of them, from first to last, is

a thorough actor. We hear a great deal about people, immediately

they make a hit, demanding an enormous increase of salary; and,

if their demands are not conceded, rushing off to “star it in the

provinces.” In England it is just the reverse. If actors can obtain

a footing at all in London, they abide there. And we cannot but

think that, if fair inducements were held out here, a stock company

of excellent actors could be organized who might form a school;

and the manager would not be compelled to hunt Europe for a name,

and spend a small fortune nightly on a single individual, which he

might much more judiciously divide among his own staff, and keep

his house well filled in spite of all the stars of the firmament.

But good plays are needed as much as good actors; and good plays we

shall never have so long as managers can procure gratis the latest

London success, which London itself has generally derived from a

French source. Managers are cautious of new playwrights, and wisely

so. But this caution may be, is carried a little too far. We have

a society of our own, and a history of our own. We have already a

host of clever and even brilliant writers. We have had a great war

and a great convulsion. We have plenty to attack, and plenty to

uphold. Our society, political, social, and religious, is scarcely

what it might be. There is many a foul thing to sweep away; there

is a meeting of many elements in this land of ours; there is a

history to look back upon, and a glorious history to build up, if

we build rightly. At the same time, there is a licentiousness,

outspoken, scornful, and gaining ground day by day, which it is our

duty to withstand by every force in our power. There is that aping,

too, of the worst imported fashions, that running after wealth

and rank, when they come among us, that betokens a wandering from

the sturdy ways of our fathers. There is a widespread corruption

in the administration of the law, a venality in political life,

which it would be well to crush. There is here field enough for the

native dramatist, without looking abroad for the “cheap and nasty.”

Could a Sheridan rise up among us now, he would find no lack of

subjects for his pen in the extravagance, the contradictions, the

licentiousness of this age and this great Republic. At all events,

if we must import, let us import the best, and not things which

poison our life, and stop our intellectual and natural as well as

our moral growth, and make us a laughing-stock to the outer world.

FOOTNOTE:

[203] At the time of writing this article.

HOW I LEARNED LATIN.

When I was young, I travelled a good deal, but travel then was very

different from what it is now. My travelling was all obligatory, it

was on business, and I sometimes found myself detained in places

from which I would gladly have taken a quick departure. It happened

once that, during my tour through France, I had to stay a Sunday at

Lyons. The stages on Saturday were few, and did not suit me, and

of course it was against my principles to travel on the “Sabbath.”

I had been brought up a very strict Presbyterian, and was very

particular, especially in a foreign country, about attending

service. I could hardly speak any French, which perhaps you will

think strange, since I had business to transact in France, but my

business was with English and American houses and their agents. You

know, too, in my time young people did not learn French as they do

now, any more than young ladies learned to play on the piano. But

I was determined I would go to church, and so set about finding

out whether there was any English-speaking clergyman in Lyons. I

could not find any, and, when I inquired after a church, I was

deafened and confused by the number of St. Marys’, St. Monicas’,

St. Vincents’, St. Josephs’, that were pointed out to me. If it

had not been the “Sabbath,” I think I should have been tempted to

swear at the whole calendar and its Lyons representatives. I asked

for a _Protestant_ church. “Oh! yes,” said one (all the others

looked blank), “there is a ‘temple’ (so they call them in France)

in such and such a street,” naming it, and giving me directions

by which I could not fail to discover it. I started, fearing I

should be late. I had heard that the French Protestant religion

was not unlike the Presbyterian, but I had never been to one of

its churches before, having always been luckily within reach of

some church where my own tongue was used. At last I found my

“temple,” and got in, rather behind time, to be sure. The people

were singing. The church--meeting-house, I should say--was bare

and whitewashed, large square windows lighted it with a painful

exuberance of brightness, the seats were stiff and uncomfortable.

I could not understand one word, and thought the voices rather

nasal. The congregation sat down and the minister got up. This

evidently meant a sermon. I tried hard to fix my mind on some Bible

texts I knew by heart, so as to prevent my thoughts from wandering.

As the preacher went on, his voice droning into my ear, I caught

myself wondering whether I were in the right place after all, and

whether his doctrine was the same as mine. I could not tell what

he might be saying, but, of course, the hymns must be all right.

I took up a hymn-book, and tried to make out from their analogy

to some English words what these French words could mean. I could

see the name of “Jesus” pretty often, and could make out “Saviour”

too, but that was about all. The sermon was very long, and I was

hardly quite awake at the end. Then the people sang again, and a

harmonium joined in from somewhere. When it was all over, I felt

very dissatisfied, and somehow it did not seem to me as if I had

been to church at all. I lost my way going back to my hotel, and

happened to pass one of the “saints’” multitudinous shrines, just

as the Catholic congregation were coming out. An acquaintance of

mine, a young Englishman, was among them. He came across the street

and shook hands.

“Why, where have you dropped from?” he said.

“From church,” I answered.

“What church?” he asked, rather blankly.

“The Protestant ‘temple,’ of whatever religion that may be,” I

said, not in the best of humors. I told him my whole adventure,

whereat he seemed very serious.

“My dear fellow,” he said at last, “have you not often heard us

Catholics abused for all sorts of mummeries, for muttering and

mumbling in an unknown tongue, for bowing and scraping, and popping

down, suddenly on one knee, and so forth?”

“Of course I have,” I said.

“Well, and what do you think of what you saw in the French

Presbyterian church, this morning?”

“Think! I simply think it was unintelligible.”

“Well, say, quite as unintelligible as our Latin, for instance?”

“Yes, but not for the Frenchmen who were there.”

“But if those Frenchmen had been in a Presbyterian church in

America, they would have been as badly off as you were this

morning. And if both you and they went to a German church, as

Calvinistic as you could wish and as like your own in belief, would

not you and your French friends be all at sea, as the saying is?”

“Exactly so; but what are you driving at?”

“Only this: that, when you go to the church, and know that the

people believe pretty much as you do, you would like, I think, to

be able to join in their devotions, and not feel yourself left out

in the cold, as if you were a heathen or a Mormon, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course; but it can’t be helped.”

“I tell you it can, my dear fellow. Look at us, millions and

millions of Catholics, all believing the same doctrine, all going

to the same ceremonies, and taking part in the same devotions,

because we have only one language for our services, one language

that is spoken in Canton, in San Francisco, in London, in Africa,

everywhere where a Catholic altar is put up and a Catholic priest

says Mass.”

“There is some convenience in that, I’ll grant you.”

“I tell you, my friend, when I come to a foreign city and find

everything strange and feel very lonely in the hurrying crowd that

has not one idea in common with me, I just find out a Catholic

church as quick as I can, and hear Mass. See if every worshipper

does not become a brother then, and if one’s feelings don’t change!

I take my chair, put it where I like, open my book, and follow the

same old prayers that I heard long ago in little poky chapels in

England. I feel quite at home.”

“Well, it _is_ pleasant: but that is not all one wants.”

“But is it not a great deal? What do you think of a religion that

meets you everywhere, just the same, dear old familiar faith, never

changing among the mandarins of China, the Red Indians of your own

territories, the blacks of South Africa, and the traders of London

and Birmingham? Don’t you call it comfortable, homely, to say the

least?”

“Yes, but I suspect it is all sentimentalism: you like the sound of

the old words, but you don’t really understand them. A baby would

like the same cooing it was used to at home, supposing it got lost

and picked up somewhere, but there would be no sense in the cooing,

for all that.”

“But, my dear fellow, we _do_ understand our Latin. All of us who

can read have the translation of it plainly printed alongside

of the text in our books of devotion, and the greater part we

are already familiar with on account of its being taken from the

Gospels and the Psalms.”

“No, really? Is that so indeed?”

“Indeed it is. And, now, what do you think of this? You see the

priest ‘pop down suddenly on one knee, and pop up again,’ as you

would put it. Well, he has been saying, ‘The Word was made flesh

and dwelt among us.’ Is not that in the Bible, in St. John’s

Gospel? Of course you are well up in texts, you know where _that_

is. And, again, when you see the priest beat his breast three

times, and you call out ‘Superstition!’ do you know what he is

saying? ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my

roof; but say the word, and my soul shall be healed.’ Is not that

in the Bible (with the substitution of ‘soul’ for ‘servant’),

where the centurion begs our Lord to cure his servant? And so on

through the greater part of the Mass. When you see the priest

wash his hands, he repeats a whole Psalm, the Twenty-fifth; and

at the very beginning, when you see him stand at the foot of the

steps, he is also repeating a Psalm, the Forty-third. Further on he

repeats the ‘Our Father,’ and there are other parts of the Mass,

whose names would only confuse you, which change according to the

ecclesiastical seasons, but are always exclusively composed of

Scripture texts, aptly chosen for the different solemnities of the

year. So, you see, we know all about what we hear said in Latin.”

“Well, you surprise me; all that mumbling seemed to me so childish.”

“Do you think these Frenchmen childish when they speak their own

tongue, and do their business in it, and their courting, and their

literature?”

“Well, no, of course that would be absurd.”

“And the Italians, the Germans, the Greeks, the Spaniards, don’t

they all talk foreign languages, yet you don’t think them childish,

or call their conversation _mumbling_?”

“No; I simply say I am sorry I cannot understand them.”

“Then don’t you see that as a Catholic you would be even better

off, for though the Latin would be a foreign language, yet you

_would_ understand it?”

“Certainly, if all you say is true, the Latin is by no means a bad

contrivance.”

“Do you know that, up to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries at

least, most books were written in Latin, no matter to what country

the author might belong, and that till even later than that all law

business was transacted in Latin all over the civilized world?”

“Was it indeed? Well, I have learnt something this morning, and it

is really worth thinking over.”

“Come this afternoon to St. Vincent’s, and I will show you at

Vespers how well every one understands the service.”

“All right! agreed.”

And so we parted, and in the afternoon my English friend and I went

to a Catholic church, and sat down among a crowd of very attentive

worshippers, all of whom were reading their prayer-books. My

friend opened his, and pointed out the Psalm the choir was singing;

it was one I knew very well: “The Lord said to my Lord.” The people

about us were all French; their books had the same Latin Psalm on

one column as my friend’s book showed, while the French translation

was in the place of the English one which he had on the opposite

page. Many of the congregation were singing alternately with the

choristers at the altar. My friend sang too; he did not mumble,

but said the words distinctly, so that I heard each syllable,

though I could not understand the meaning. He gave me his book

presently, and chanted by heart. As we came out, there was a group

of dark-skinned men, talking eagerly near the door. They were

Spaniards; they too seemed quite at home. The next day, I was

curious enough to go to Low Mass with my friend; as the ceremony

went on, he showed me every word, and made me follow everything,

even the introit, collects, gradual, communion, which he looked

out for me in a missal he had with him. I was puzzled by all these

names then, though they are A B C to me now. My friend had to leave

in a day or two, but I had bought a book like his in the meanwhile

at an English library, and continued through curiosity to go to the

different Catholic services, just to assure myself that the Latin

was not gibberish. It struck me as strange that three-quarters of

the prayers should be my own Bible texts!

Well, to make a long story short, I left Lyons soon after, and

travelled to many other places, European and Asiatic. At last

one day I was in Canton, in high spirits, for I was to go home

soon and be a partner in the firm whose foreign business I had

been managing. Sunday came, and I went to church; I was just as

anxious as ever about my Sunday duties, but somehow it was not for

a Presbyterian church that I was looking. I knew my way very well

to _my_ church, and my church had a cross on its gable end, and

was called “The Church of the Holy Childhood.” There were plenty

of Chinese there, a few English, a few Americans, and a good many

French people. They all had the Latin on one page of their books,

and their respective languages on the opposite page. But I did not

need to look at my English translation, for I knew the Latin by

heart now. I am sorry to say I had distractions, and during one

of them I suddenly perceived my old friend of Lyons. When Mass

was over, I went to him and called him by name; he stared and did

not recognize me; we had never met since, and I had a beard of

many years’ growth. I told him my name, and asked him if he had

forgotten St. Vincent’s Church at Lyons? I can tell you we had a

good long talk over the past, and he congratulated me heartily,

while I thanked him eagerly for the best lesson I ever learned in

my life.

And that, boys, was how I learned Latin.

But I have only told you about one reason which our church has for

keeping to the Latin tongue; that particular reason struck me most,

because it was through that I was converted; but of course, when

I came to examine things thoroughly, I learnt all about the other

very good reasons assigned by the church for this practice. You

know how modern languages are always changing, and how the same

word will mean a different thing in two separate centuries; there

is the word “prevent,” for instance, which now means to hinder, but

which formerly was used in the Anglican liturgy in its Latin sense,

to succor and to help. Well, it would not do for the dogmas or the

rites of the church to be subject to these apparent changes, which

would lead most likely to misunderstandings and perhaps heresies,

so the church chose to fix her liturgy in a language whose rules

and construction undergo no alteration from century to century. You

know the law, also, has Latin terms, probably used for the same

reason. Then, besides, it is not necessary for the people to be

able to join in the absolute words of the Mass and other services,

provided they join heartily in the _intention_ of the sacrifice

and prayers. As I have told you already, the _fact_ is that

most Catholics do understand the words themselves, and not very

imperfectly; still, the _theory_ remains that such comprehension

(which after all is more a grammatical accomplishment than a devout

necessity) is not absolutely required. If it were otherwise, you

see, the doctrine of intention would suffer. In the old days, the

Hebrews--on whose ritual all non-Catholics claim to take their

stand, or by which at least they measure their standard of adequate

worship--used to stand outside the temple, where they could neither

see nor hear, though they knew that by their presence alone they

were participating in the sacrifice and receiving the blessing

attached to it. Then, again, we forgot, when as Protestants we used

to object to the Latin liturgy, that the Catholic ceremony of Mass

is essentially a _sacrifice_ offered to God _for_ the people, the

priest being the sole representative of the people and interceding

in their name. Long ago, at the English court of the Plantagenet

kings. French was the language universally spoken, while the

Saxons, the subjects, adhered to their own tongue. The petitions of

the people were offered to the king in the language of the court,

that is, French; but the result was identical with that which would

have been the consequence had the prayer been in a tongue the

people could understand. So in the church it is sufficient for God

to hear the petition of his children; they themselves would not be

benefited the more for understanding every word of the pleading of

the priest. The things that are said _to_ us, not _for_ us, the

sermons and instructions which are to explain God’s will and our

duty to us, are always in the tongue common to each particular

country; and when there is a large foreign settlement in a town,

it has a church of its own where such instruction is administered.

Look at this large city of New York: have we not German churches

and a French church besides our English-speaking churches? The Mass

is identically the same in each, but for those who are to be taught

the language is varied according to their nationality. And so for

all offices which the priests perform toward us, as, for instance,

confession. In the great church of which you have all heard, St.

Peter’s at Rome, there are confessionals where priests of every

nation are ever ready to receive and console the sinners of every

clime, while above each box is plainly written “For the English,”

“For the Spaniards,” “For the French,” “For the Germans,” “For the

Greeks,” “For the Poles,” etc., etc. So, you see, the church, after

all, is quite as wise as she is loving, and indicates her claim to

be our mother in every way. Take my advice, and always look well

into things before you condemn them; for, if _I_ had done so when a

boy, I should have saved myself a great deal of trouble in getting

rid of prejudices which every year increased and deepened, till

it needed a miracle of the grace of God to strip the tightening

garment they were wrapping round my fettered soul.

THE HANDKERCHIEF.

If there is one article of the toilette that, more than another,

appeals particularly to the imagination, it is certainly the

handkerchief. The favored glove that has encased a fair hand is

often treasured up by a sentimental admirer; a broidered scarf or

a knot of ribbon has been worn by many a gallant knight as the

colors of the lady of his choice; the collar encircling some ivory

neck is envied to such a degree as to almost warrant the ambition

of Winnifred Jenkins: “God he nose what havoc I shall make among

the mail sects when I make my first appearance in this killing

collar”; but a thousand killing collars bear no comparison to that

delicate fabric of muslin and lace which plays as important a part

in the flirtations of fashionable life here as the fan among the

ladies of Spain. Who could imagine so small a square of cloth--if

it be not profanity to apply so common a term to so wondrous a

tissue--could be made to express or conceal so much in the hands

of its fair owner? Such an expressive toss or whisk could only be

the result of the profoundest study. And what a delicate attractive

odor it gives out, suggestive of roses, and violets, and all the

flora of occidental as well as oriental gallantry. And then the

touching _rôle_ it plays in the pathetic--it is the recipient of

some timely tear--perhaps too, vain coxcomb, a screen for many a

yawn. We can never be too sure of what is confided to this bosom

companion.

The sacredness imputed to the handkerchief is no modern idea. It

came to us from the East, whence sprang religion, science, and

romance itself. Ages ago the handkerchief was regarded in Egypt as

a kind of amulet. The fair one of later days, who interweaves a

thread of her own life into the handkerchief she intends for some

favored knight, hopes it may prove like the magic handkerchief

given by the Egyptian charmer to Othello’s mother, endued with a

power to subdue him “entirely to her love.”

“There’s magic in the web of it:

A sibyl that had number’d in the world

The sun to make two hundred compasses

In her prophetic fury sew’d the work:

The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk:

And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful

Conserved of maidens’ hearts.”

The handkerchief is the strongest proof of love, not only among the

Moors, but among all Eastern nations, says Byron, who approved of

Shakespeare’s making the jealousy of Othello turn on this point.

But poor Desdemona found the inherited talisman she “kissed and

talked to” a fatal gift.

Perhaps the handkerchief immortalized by Drummond of Hawthornden,

embroidered for him by the beautiful Lesbia to whom he was

betrothed, was likewise ominous, for she died “in the fresh April

of her years,” and the handkerchief she gave him was steeped in

tears at her loss.

Calderon says:

“She gave me too a handkerchief--a spell--

A flattering pledge, my hopes to animate,

An astrologic favor, fatal prize

That told too true what tears must wipe these eyes.”

The significance of the handkerchief is referred to in Horace

Walpole’s letters: “Lord Tavistock has flung his handkerchief to

Lady Elizabeth Keppel. They all go to Woburn on Thursday, and the

ceremony is to be performed as soon as her brother, the bishop, can

arrive from Exeter.”

Miss Strickland tells us that when Anne Boleyn dropped her

handkerchief from the balcony at the feet of Henry Norris, the

latter, heated from the part he had just been taking in the

jousts, took it up, presumptuously wiped his face with it, and

then returned it to the queen on the point of his lance. At this,

King Henry changed color, abruptly retired in a fury of jealousy,

and gave orders for the arrest of the queen and of all who were

suspected of being favored by her. It proved a fatal handkerchief

to him also, for he was soon after executed.

The handkerchief may be regarded as one of the great indications of

civilization. Though the Celestials have not yet arrived at this

climax, and still carry their small sheets of delicate paper as a

substitute, but which possess no moral significance whatever, so

far as we know, more refined nations have made its use universal.

Even the poorest may whip out of his pocket, in these days, not

that red cotton flag of abomination that used to offend the

sight, but one of pure white linen, betokening a higher state of

cultivation.

We are quite well aware that the handkerchief is, notwithstanding,

a luxury some of the laboring classes reserve for Sundays and high

festivals, which alone should invest the article with a quasi

sanctity, associated as it is with religious observances. With

what careful deliberation such an one draws it forth from the

receptacle devoted to its use! With what a tremulous awkwardness he

applies it, as though he were making an unaccustomed experiment; or

losing his caution, perhaps he charges with desperation, like Miss

Wix, one of whose peculiarities was that she always blew her nose

as if it belonged to an enemy! And how carefully it is refolded

and returned to the secret depository. What heaps of “wipes” the

astonished Oliver Twist saw in the Jew’s den, and all so badly

marked, too, that the stitches had to be picked out!

We cannot help rejoicing over the handkerchief the Artful Dodger

drew from Mr. Brownlow’s pocket which led to such a change in

Oliver’s fortunes.

The handkerchief is an important article in many a romance, as well

as in real life. Tears more touching than those of Mr. Mantalini

have brought it into requisition. If all the handkerchiefs in the

world could tell their experience, how many a sad tale they would

unfold!--We cannot help regarding Adam and Eve with the deepest

commiseration without a handkerchief between them, as hand in hand

through Eden they took their solitary way. What bitter tears poor

Eve shed!--but those that fell on the ground were turned into

roses, and those that dropped into the water were changed into

pearls, as ours too will be shown not wholly lost at some future

day.

Many a hero’s bleeding wounds have been bound up by the

handkerchief of some Sister of Charity on the battle-field, and

many such handkerchiefs have been sent as sacred remembrances to

dear ones at home, ensanguined like that Orlando sent his Rosalind,

but, alas! not always so happy an omen.

The handkerchief has been made a signal of distress from more than

one watch-tower besides that we used to linger by in our childhood

with fear and trembling, waiting anxiously till Sister Ann’s

fluttering kerchief brought deliverance to Bluebeard’s fearful hold.

We will not pass over the handkerchiefs, or aprons, mentioned

in the Acts of the Apostles, that received a virtue from the

very touch of the holy Apostle Paul to heal the sick--the first

intimation, perhaps, of the wonder-working scapular; nor of that

other handkerchief over which have been shed the tears of the whole

Christian world--the _sudarium_ of Veronica, sometimes called

her veil, and again a napkin (Othello’s handkerchief is called a

little napkin), which has been enshrined by tradition, and to which

artists and poets have paid tribute, Dante himself mentioning it

in his _Paradiso_--the handkerchief that wiped the dust and sweat

from the face of the Divine Sufferer and bore away the impress of

his wondrous face.

To those of our readers who think every article in a magazine of

this character should have a direct moral bearing, and can see none

in what has just been said, we will mention an important instance

of the possible power so humble an article as the handkerchief may

exert in the spiritual world. We beg leave to refer them to the

noble society so solemnly recommended by the Rev. Mr. Stiggins,

for providing the infant negroes in the West Indies with moral

pocket-handkerchiefs.

“What’s a moral pocket-ankercher?” said Sam. “I never see one o’

them articles of furniter.”

“Those which combine amusement with instruction, my young friend,”

replied Mr. Stiggins, “blending select tales with wood-cuts.”

“Oh! I know,” said Sam, “them as hangs up in the linen-drapers’

shops with the beggars’ petitions and all that ’ere upon ’em?”

Mr. Stiggins began a third round of toast, and nodded assent.

So do we. And it is not difficult to imagine the budding Othellos

contending loudly for their share of the didactic “ankerchers.”

“Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain

Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain!”

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LECTURES AND SERMONS. By the Very Rev. Thomas N. Burke, O.P. New

York: P. M. Haverty, 5 Barclay Street. 1872. pp. 644.

Mr. Haverty has brought out this eagerly expected volume in

splendid style, and, what is better still, in a style which

is tasteful and appropriate. The title-page, adorned with the

Dominican coat-of-arms, is especially beautiful, and the portrait

of F. Burke is both an excellent engraving and a good likeness. We

are also pleased to notice that there are but few typographical

errors, and, in general, that the care and pains which were due

from courtesy and gratitude to the immense labors which the

author of these lectures and sermons has performed for our profit

and pleasure, have been diligently bestowed in making his first

published work worthy of his high character and reputation. The

cost of the volume will not, we trust, deter any who can possibly

afford it from adding this rich legacy of instructive and eloquent

teaching to the Catholics of the United States to their libraries,

and thus, at the same time, contributing some trifling offering

to the Order with which the author is identified, and which is

itself wholly identified with the good of the poor Catholic people

of Ireland for seven long centuries of labor and martyrdom. It

is much to be desired, however, that as soon as the first costly

edition is disposed of, a cheap one should be issued for the vast

body of people who cannot afford to buy an expensive book. We hope,

however, for the credit of our country, that no publisher will

so far forget himself as to publish any such edition without F.

Burke’s permission and full sanction.

The contents of the volume, which is a large royal octavo, comprise

thirty-eight lectures and sermons on a great variety of the most

important and interesting topics of the Catholic religion, and

Irish history in its relation to religion, although there are

sometimes several lectures on the same or very similar topics.

Only a few of these were written out for the press by the author,

most of them being extemporaneous discourses which were taken down

by reporters, and only hastily revised by the father in the short

and broken intervals of his incessant labors. It is due to the

reporters, however, to say that their work has been performed with

the utmost diligence and accuracy, and that they have reproduced,

with almost literal fidelity, everything which fell from the lips

of the orator--a service to religion and literature for which we

tender them our most sincere thanks. F. Burke, with characteristic

modesty, apologizes for the publication of his discourses, which,

he tells us, he would have prevented if possible. We are very

glad that it was not possible, for we have gained in this volume

a new and rich casket of real jewels of truth and beauty. It is

true that it is necessary to hear F. Burke in order to appreciate

and enjoy fully the power of his word, which is emphatically a

spoken word, and not a mere written and readable expression of

thought in language. His voice, with its baritone richness; his

action; his Dominican habit, so beautiful and graceful a dress

for a sacred orator in itself, and so sacredly impressive from

its associations; and, above all, the magnetic power of his vivid

faith and noble enthusiasm for truth and justice, together with

the surrounding circumstances of the scene and audience, all

enter into the correlation of causes producing the convincing,

persuasive, inspiring, and captivating effect of his eloquence.

The power of producing the effect which he does produce, and

that generally and continually, would prove F. Burke to be an

orator of a high order, even if his discourses, written out and

read, like those of Massillon and Henry Clay, were incapable

of producing a similar effect upon a cultivated reader. But F.

Burke’s discourses will bear reading, and their publication will

enhance instead of diminishing his fame. Their intrinsic merits as

products of learning, intellect, and imagination, prove him to be

something more than an orator: they prove him to be a theologian, a

philosopher, and a poet, although he is all these in subservience

to his distinctive and specific character and vocation as a popular

preacher and orator. F. Burke is a master of the most profound

Catholic theology, a true disciple of St. Thomas. His logical and

argumentative ability in proving the Catholic doctrines, especially

those relating to the constitution of the church, is equal to that

of our best controversialists; he is a scholar and a historian

of rich and varied acquisitions, and he has the sentiment of the

beautiful in nature and art to a high degree, joined to a happy

descriptive faculty which belongs to his oratorical gifts. He has

also an abundance of wit and humor.

But, beyond and above all this, F. Burke is a man of faith; pure,

intelligent, uncompromising, Catholic faith and loyalty to the

Vicar and the Church of Christ; an apostolic preacher and champion

of the truth and law and cause of God. All his gifts are placed in

the censer, and made to send up the incense of praise to God; they

are laid on the altar and consecrated to our Lord Jesus Christ. The

great aim and effort of his sermons and lectures has been to revive

and strengthen faith and virtue in the breasts of the people, to

arouse their devotion to the Holy See, and enlighten them on the

duty of obedience and loyalty to the teaching and the cause of the

Holy Father. As an instance of the effect which he has produced

on the minds of the people, we may relate an incident which came

to our knowledge a few days ago. A longshoreman, who had come to

a priest to take the pledge, said to him: “You see, father, that

since we heard F. Burke, we have been talking among ourselves a

great deal about penance and putting ourselves all right, and so I

have just come up to your reverence to begin by taking the pledge.”

These are the best triumphs of the Catholic priest, and of far more

value to him than the applause of listening thousands. There is no

one who has such an empire over the hearts of his countrymen at

present in New York as F. Burke. We think there is a greater work

for him here than anywhere else in the world, and we therefore

conclude by expressing the hope that he may remain here to do it.

* * * * *

MEMOIR OF ROGER B. TANEY, LL.D., Chief-Justice of the Supreme

Court of the United States. By Samuel Tyler, LL.D., of the

Maryland Bar. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1872.

This long-expected and important book has just appeared. It was

known that Chief-Justice Taney had, in his lifetime, selected Mr.

Tyler to write his biography, a fact well calculated to prepossess

the public favorably towards the author and his work. It inspired,

also, the hope that ample materials were placed within his reach,

and that he would be peculiarly favored in his labors. But as the

Chief-Justice, with characteristic modesty, preserved but little

of his own writings, and was in the habit of destroying most of

the letters he received, and of retaining no copies of those he

wrote, it appears that Mr. Tyler labored under great difficulties

in accomplishing his appointed duty. Towards the close of his

life, when in his seventy-eighth year, the Chief-Justice was

reminded, by seeing his biography in Van Santvoord’s _Lives of the

Chief-Justices_, that his life would form a part of the history of

his country, and he commenced then a _memoir_ of himself, ending

with the account of his early life and education, which now forms

the first and an extremely interesting chapter of Mr. Tyler’s

_Memoir_. It seems that the author had to rely, beyond this,

chiefly upon his own industry and researches. He has done his work

well and faithfully, not as an allotted task, but as a labor of

love, a tribute of manly friendship. He has collected a vast amount

of historical matter relating to the scenes and times in which the

Chief-Justice’s lot was cast, to the great lawyers and judges of

the past, most of whom Judge Taney survived, to the public men and

statesmen who have shaped the destiny and made the history of our

country for the last fifty years, and to the great constitutional

questions which, during that period, have agitated the public mind.

In order to vindicate the memory of the eminent jurist, he has,

from necessity, introduced into his book issues that are now dead;

he does not do this in a partisan or aggressive spirit, but treats

them rather historically, and with the view of showing what were

Judge Taney’s sentiments and what the motives of his action. In the

Appendix he gives at length the opinions of the Chief-Justice in

the celebrated Dred Scott case, in the cases of Ableman _vs._ Booth

and Kentucky _vs._ Ohio, both relating to the same subject, and

in the noted Merryman _habeas corpus_ case, and has done well in

doing so, because these remarkable papers are thus brought within

the reach of many not in the habit of reading the law-books. Mr.

Tyler’s style is easy and fluent, though not of a high literary

order. The book must prove very interesting and instructive to

all connected with the law and the administration of justice.

Perhaps the subject has been treated too much from a professional

standpoint, and for this reason may not prove as interesting to the

general reader as such a theme might have been made.

There is one respect in which we regard this work with regret.

Chief-Justice Taney was a Catholic and his biographer is a

Protestant. It was, then, impossible for Mr. Tyler, even with

the best intentions, to do full justice to the character of the

Chief-Justice, to his interior life, to his Catholic virtues, and,

consequently, to the motives which governed his public actions.

We find no fault with Mr. Tyler for this, for he has shown an

earnest desire to be fair and just, and has done his best in

this as in every other respect. But that best does not meet the

necessities of the subject. Mr. Tyler, himself a lawyer, was

selected to write the life of a great lawyer and judge, and he has

performed his work with ability and zeal, but he has performed it

as a lawyer--he could not perform it as a Catholic. To the eyes

of Catholics the faith and piety of Chief-Justice Taney were more

beautiful and more precious than even his transcendent abilities

and profound learning. We think they were the glory of his life

and the motive power which made him superior to fear and to all

human respect. We think they constituted the charm of his public

and private life; and had they been handled by a Catholic, and as

none but a Catholic can handle them, the work would have been far

more valuable. There were points in the Chief-Justice’s life as a

Catholic which remain to this day undeveloped and unelucidated, and

for this reason, while Mr. Tyler’s memoir will prove invaluable to

the legal profession and general reader, it will disappoint the

expectations of his Catholic readers. No Protestant writer could

be more free from bigotry than Mr. Tyler, and none could have

written Chief-Justice Taney’s life as well. We impute no blame;

on the contrary, we thank him for the admiration he expresses of

the Chief-Justice’s religion and piety. But the subject was deeper

and more fruitful than any Protestant eye could perceive or pen

portray. Notwithstanding this, we can and do earnestly commend the

work to all Catholics. It is a noble tribute to one of the purest

and greatest men of our age. No one, be his faith or politics what

they may, can read it without instruction and improvement. Indeed,

no one can fairly read it without conceiving a greater respect for

that ancient church of which its hero was so devoted a son.

Our duty obliges us, however, to add that Catholics should also

take warning from his life of the fatal effects flowing from early

disobedience to the precepts and counsels of the church, which

subsequent penance is frequently unavailing to remove. All the

children of the Chief-Justice were Protestants--a sad fact which is

its own best comment.

* * * * *

HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Rise and Progress of Universities, Northmen

and Normans in England and Ireland, Mediæval Oxford,

Convocation of Canterbury. By John Henry Newman, of the

Orator, sometime Fellow of Oriel College. London: Basil

Montagu Pickering. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic

Publication Society.)

Mr. Pickering, who is the very pink of elegant and aristocratic

publishers, edits Dr. Newman’s works in just the style most

suitable to the classic productions of that thoroughly English

gentleman and scholar. We cannot give a better or more attractive

description of this new volume in the series of the Newman

republications, than by simply copying the table of contents:

“1. Introductory; 2. What is a University? 3. Site of a University;

4. University Life: Athens; 5. Free Trade in Knowledge: The

Sophists; 6. Discipline and Influence; 7. Influence: Athenian

Schools; 8. Discipline: Macedonian and Roman Schools; 9. Downfall

and Refuge of Ancient Civilization: The Lombards; 10. The Tradition

of Civilization: The Isles of the North; 11. A Characteristic of

the Popes: St. Gregory the Great; 12. Moral of that Characteristic

of the Popes: Pius the Ninth; 13. Schools of Charlemagne: Paris;

14. Supply and Demand: The Schoolmen; 15. Professors and Tutors;

16. The Strength and Weakness of Universities: Abelard; 17. The

Ancient University of Dublin; 18. Colleges the Corrective of

Universities: Oxford; 19. Abuses of the Colleges: Oxford; 20.

Universities and Seminaries: L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes.”

Every scholar will eagerly desire to read these essays on such

interesting topics, handled by the masterly pen of Newman. The

subject of universities is one just now of great practical

importance, and Dr. Newman’s long experience qualifies him in a

special manner to write about it. We can only hope that we may not

much longer confine ourselves to writing and reading about the

matter, but may soon be up and doing, both in England and in the

United States.

* * * * *

(1.) THE DIVINE TEACHER. With a Preface, in Reply to No. 3

of the “English Church Defence Tracts,” entitled “Papal

Infallibility.” By Wm. Humphrey, of the Oblates of St.

Charles.

(2.) ANGLICAN MISREPRESENTATIONS: A Reply to “Roman

Misquotations.” By W. E. Addis, of the Oratory. London: Burns

& Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

The polemical writers of the High Church party have taken to

the swamp, like the old moss-troopers, where it is vexatious to

follow them. The rehashing of old, stale lies, calumnies, and

misrepresentations, interspersed with a good deal of impudent

abuse, has become, alas! the tactics of a party once so remarkable

for calm reasoning, conscientious adhesion to truth, so far as

known, and courtesy. It is a sign that their cause is nearly

desperate. Meanwhile, they dupe and mislead, or at least perplex

and distress, for a time, some very sincere inquirers after truth.

It is necessary, therefore, although very vexatious, to chase them

out of their morass. Happily, there are some Englishmen who have a

talent and a liking for this work. They are cool and quiet, patient

and minute, accurate, logical, and clear in their statements and

arguments. They enjoy hunting such writers as the Canons Liddon

and Bright out of their hiding-places, as much as Grahame of

Claverhouse did beating up the quarters of the Covenanters. The

two young and chivalrous knights of the faith whose names stand

at the head of this notice are of this sort, and their raid has

been performed gallantly and well. The essay first on the list, in

particular, is an excellent little treatise on Papal Infallibility,

which we commend to our readers who like something short and sweet.

* * * * *

GREAT TRUTHS IN LITTLE WORDS. By the Rev. Father Rawes, O.S.C.

Third Edition. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 12mo. (New York:

Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

A well-printed book of modest pretensions, and not devoid of merit,

containing in its two hundred and sixty pages thirty chapters on

various religious topics, both of controversy and devotion, and a

good deal of simple, practical instruction.

THE OLD GOD: A Narrative for the People. Translated from the

German of Conrad von Bolanden. By the Very Rev. Theodore Noethen.

Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

Some time ago, we published one of Bolanden’s longer and more

elaborate novels, entitled “Angela,” in this magazine. He has

written a number of these, and particularly a series of historical

romances on the Thirty Years’ War, of the first order of merit;

all of which we hope to see translated. We are now publishing one

of his short popular novels, entitled “The Progressionists,” and

the present volume is another of the same class. The subject of

it is the imprisonment of Pius VII. in France. There are several

more of the same series, “The New God,” “The Infallibilists,” “The

Marvel of the Cross,” etc. They are very popular in Germany, where

they sell at the rate of 85,000 copies of a single story. They are

capital for their purpose, and we are glad to see the indefatigable

Father Noethen giving them to the public in an English dress.

* * * * *

THE ORDER AND CEREMONIAL OF THE MOST HOLY AND ADORABLE SACRIFICE

OF THE MASS EXPLAINED, ETC., ETC. By Frederick Oakeley,

Canon of the Metropolitan Church. New York: The Catholic

Publication Society.

We take great pleasure in announcing, in behalf of The Catholic

Publication Society, a new edition of Canon Oakeley’s well-known

and admirable little book on the ceremonies of Holy Mass.

* * * * *

PONTIFICATE OF PIUS IX. By J. F. Maguire, M.P. London: Longmans.

1870. (From the author.)

Mr. Maguire is well known on both sides of the Atlantic as an able

and upright member of the British Parliament, representing an Irish

constituency, as the editor of one of the best Catholic newspapers

in the English language--the _Cork Examiner_--and as the author

of several interesting books. The present volume, published two

years ago, has just been sent to the editor of this magazine by

the author, for which courtesy he will please accept our thanks.

It is a revised and enlarged edition of a work already well known

and extensively read in this country, under the title “Rome and

its Ruler.” The author has made many additions to it, and has

brought it down to the year 1870, so that its value is, we may

say, trebled, so great are the events which have crowded these

later years of our glorious Pontiff now happily reigning. It is

impossible to exaggerate the value and importance of a work like

this. In momentous interest, the topics of which it treats are

on a level with those of the Sacred History itself. The means of

information for English readers are scanty. Mr. Maguire is a loyal

and devout Catholic, an able, well-informed, and conscientious

statesman and historian. It is therefore of the utmost consequence

that his book should be circulated and read extensively. We trust

the demand for it will be such as to induce American publishers to

make ample provisions for supplying the American public with this

most necessary and valuable work.

* * * * *

TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST. By Rev. J. Vetromile, D.D. New

York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

This is a volume of quite large size, handsomely printed, and

ornamented with a fine portrait of the reverend author, who is an

Italian priest, for many years laboring as a missionary among the

Indians of the State of Maine. The style is easy, agreeable, and

entertaining, and the book is very much like a cosy afternoon chat

with an intelligent and travelled gentleman about the scenes and

countries he has visited. Reading the description of the pleasant

home and delightful circle of friends which the author has left, we

can better appreciate the great sacrifice he has made in banishing

himself to the Indian settlements of Maine, and we are sure he will

make a friend of every reader of his book.

* * * * *

MEMOIRS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND. By

Rev. James Fitton. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872.

Father Fitton is the oldest priest in New England, having exercised

his sacerdotal ministry there during forty-seven years. At the

time when, in company with one other young deacon, he was

ordained priest by Bishop Fenwick, there were only three other

priests in that prelate’s diocese, which embraced all New England.

Father Fitton is entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all

the Catholics of New England, as one who has been an apostolic

missionary and a laborious parish priest for almost half a century.

He is also worthy of confidence and credence as a competent and

truthful witness and annalist of the principal facts and events

in the history of the Catholic religion in New England. He has

prefaced his history of the church as existing in modern times

by an interesting account of the ancient mission in Rhode Island

during the residence of the Northmen at Newport, and of the early

Indian missions. This is the romantic part of the history. The rest

of it is prosaic and commonplace, and yet of great value, and made

interesting by the great results which have come from small and

humble beginnings. Every priest and layman in New England ought

to have this book and read it attentively, and it is worth the

perusal of all those out of New England who take an interest in the

progress of the Catholic religion in the United States of America.

* * * * *

HORNEHURST RECTORY. By Sister Mary Frances Clare. New York: D. &

J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

The appearance of a novel from this distinguished writer will be

an agreeable surprise to her numerous admirers in this country,

who have read with so much pleasure and profit her graver

historical and biographical works. _Hornehurst_ is an English tale

illustrative of the movement in the ranks of the English Church

towards Catholicity, inaugurated some forty years ago by Dr. Newman

and the Tractarians. The characters throughout are well drawn, the

writer being of course thoroughly acquainted with the expressions,

modes of thought, and arguments of the class she portrays.

The book presents a handsome appearance, and we anticipate for

it an extensive patronage, and a permanent place in our Catholic

libraries.

* * * * *

GOING HOME. By Eliza Martin. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey. 1872.

We are glad to see that this novel, which has already appeared

serially in a Philadelphia Catholic newspaper, has been published

in a more portable and permanent form. It is a work of very

considerable merit, combining amusing and exciting incidents

with sound instruction; and from its latent power and partially

developed dramatic strength we judge that it is not the last nor

the ablest of the productions with which the authoress is likely

to favor the public. We are sadly in need of books of its refined

and humanizing character, for, if our young people must read

fiction, they ought to be supplied with the very best attainable

in temper and tendency. The plot of the tale is not complicated,

the leading characters are well and clearly delineated, the moral

obvious, and the scene confined to our own country, not overdrawn.

As a whole, its tone is sad, sometimes even painfully so, and in

our opinion the contrasts between abject poverty and unlimited

affluence, virtue almost superhuman and unmitigated villany--though

all drawn with great vigor--are too violent to be thoroughly

artistic. A novel should be like a well-finished painting, with a

middle distance softening and blending the more prominent lights

and shadows of the picture. It might be objected, also, that the

physical beauty of Mrs. Martin’s heroines, of whom there are three,

is too highly colored, too elaborately depicted, for actual life;

but as this is a fault which carries with it its own palliation,

we presume it will not be considered a very great blemish by most

of her readers. For the sake of the authoress, who doubtless has

devoted much time and labor to her work, as well as from the

respect in which we hold her publisher, we would be glad to be

able to extend our praise from the literary qualities of _Going

Home_ to its mechanical execution, but in common justice we find

it impossible to do so. On the contrary, it must be admitted that

the paper upon which it is printed, the type, ink, and presswork,

are all of the most inferior sort--carelessness or want of ordinary

taste, for we cannot attribute it to design, is evident on every

page, lessening in no slight degree the unalloyed pleasure one

might otherwise feel in reading so interesting a story.

* * * * *

THE PLEBISCITE. By Erckmann-Chatrian. New York: Scribner,

Armstrong & Co. 1872.

This prettily bound and printed book is the combined effort of the

authors of the _Conscript_ and other tales well known by English

translations on this side of the water. Its object is to give,

in the form of a tale, a picture of French peasant manners and

opinions immediately before and during the late Franco-German war;

and to a certain extent it may be considered a success. A vein of

irony and sly humor, at which our “volatile neighbors” are such

adepts, runs through every page, and, Napoleon III. having been

unfortunate, of course it is directed against him and his line of

policy. There is nothing, it is said, so successful as success,

and, now that the mighty Empire has failed, every good Frenchman

with brains enough to write a pamphlet or a song considers that he

is perfectly justified in heaping obloquy on everything connected

with the late order of things. The authors of the _Plebiscite_ are

foremost among this army of ingrates, but they go even further than

politics, and venture their ridicule on more sacred matters, a step

which much greater men than Erckmann-Chatrian have attempted before

now, and for which they have repented when too late.

* * * * *

A BAKER’S DOZEN. Original Humorous Dialogues. By George M.

Baker. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1872.

The dialogues contained in this neat little volume, first appeared

in _Oliver Optic’s Magazine_. They are well adapted to school

exhibitions, etc., and will meet a very general and urgent demand.

* * * * *

MARION HOWARD; OR, TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS. By F. A. Philadelphia:

Peter F. Cunningham.

In the modest preface to this volume, we have the reason for its

appearance before the public, which is most praiseworthy--‘the

dearth of Catholic light literature.’ While the majority of

readers will seek light reading, it is certainly to be regretted

that there is so little that can be read without injury to faith

or morals. The author of _Marion Howard_ has given us a pleasing

story of English life, into which she has skilfully introduced

conversations on various Catholic dogmas, which are well sustained,

and in which the principles of the faith are given in a form that

may attract the attention of numbers who would never look into a

controversial work. It is doubtful if Protestants can be persuaded

to any great extent to read even the light literature of Catholics,

but such a work as _Marion Howard_ will bring pleasure and help to

many a young Catholic, in need of a pleasing answer to the common

objections of Protestants to the Catholic faith. The youth of the

church in this country, surrounded by and mingled with those who

have a false faith or no faith, should be prepared to meet the

assaults they are sure to receive, and books like the one under

notice will be a great assistance to them. We surmise that the

author is a convert, from the multiplicity and variety of the

conversions related in the book. We only wish this were true to

life, and that friends would follow each other into the church in

such rapid succession. There are carelessly written sentences

scattered here and there through the story, but the narrative is

interesting to the end, and we find a loving, tender devotion to

our mother the church, like a golden thread woven into beautiful

thoughts of our holy religion, that could only have been wrought by

one who has the eye of faith.

The type is large and clear, and the volume presents an attractive

exterior.

* * * * *

BY THE SEASIDE. By a Member of the Order of Mercy, authoress

of “The Life of Catherine McCauley,” “Glimpses of Pleasant

Homes,” etc. New York: P. O’Shea. 1872.

This is a prettily got up book, written by one who has heretofore

shown her capacity to interest and benefit the young folk. We are

glad to see attractive books of a healthful tone, suited to the

rising generation, thus multiplying on our publishers’ lists, as

a necessary antidote to the baneful literature with which those

addressed are frequently assailed. The church is the home of beauty

as it is of goodness and truth, and we should not allow those who

do not possess either, except in fragments, to excel us in the

artistic features of their publications, any more than in what

relates to ethical proprieties.

* * * * *

CHRISTIAN COUNSELS, selected from the Devotional Works of

Fénelon. Translated by A. M. James. London: Longmans, Greene

& Co. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Our Protestant friends have, of late years, set to work very

industriously in translating Catholic books and in writing original

works on Catholic subjects. Besides the Edinburgh edition of the

Ante-Nicene Fathers, just completed, and individual and collective

lives of the saints we could once enumerate, the English versions

of Continental devotional works have increased so rapidly as

to alarm those High Churchmen who are averse to any further

investigation. Of course we can only augur favorably of such

enterprises when undertaken in the right spirit, though we may fear

lest formulas be adopted without the necessary accompaniments of

faith and obedience. Their “starved imaginations and suppressed

devotional instincts,” as Dr. Bellows once phrased it, cannot

long be satisfied with words only, one would think. The writings

of the Archbishop of Cambrai have been too long before the

English-speaking public to need any characterization at our hands,

and we therefore simply chronicle the appearance of a new edition

of the _Christian Counsels_ under Protestant auspices.

* * * * *

PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. By Michael Müller, C.SS.R. Boston: P.

Donahoe. 1872.

This is Father Müller’s contribution to the literature of one of

the great questions of the day. It will have attained its end if

it awakens Catholics to the importance of the general theme and

their duty in its regard; and also enables judicious Protestants

to comprehend why we are so solicitous that our children should

receive their religious training at the same time that they acquire

secular knowledge.

* * * * *

SIR HUMPHREY’S TRIAL: A Book of Tales, Legends, and Sketches,

in Prose and Verse. By Rev. Thomas J. Potter. Boston: P.

Donahoe. 1872.

Father Potter seems equally at home in addressing the young and the

mature, priests and people; as witness his works on homiletics and

those of a miscellaneous character adapted to different ages. He

evidently believes that variety is the spice of books as well as

of life, as will be seen by the title of the present volume; and

readers indisposed to take up a more serious book will find this an

agreeable substitute.

_The Catholic Review_ of Brooklyn has already established its

position among our best weekly papers. Its sound principles, and

the tact and liveliness with which it is edited make it well

worthy of support. We trust that it will soon attain a sufficient

circulation to furnish the means of still further increasing its

value and interest, and that it will prove to be permanently

successful.

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY will publish at an early day a

new work, now in preparation, by the author of _The Comedy of

Convocation_, entitled _My Clerical Friends_. It will be published

with the consent and approval of the author.

* * * * *

WANTED.--Numbers 494, 501, 502, 504, 505 of the _Civilta

Cattolica_, for which a fair price will be paid. Address the editor

of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 9 Warren Street, or corner of Ninth Avenue

and Fifty-ninth Street.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: Excelsior; or, Essays on

Politeness, Education, and the Means of Attaining Success in

Life. Part I. for Young Gentlemen, by T. E. Howard; Part II.

for Young Ladies, by A Lady (R. V. R.) 12mo, pp. 318.--The

Gold-Diggers and other Verses. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

12mo, pp. xi., 187.--Dramas: The Witch of Rosenburg.--The

Hidden Gem. By H. E. Cardinal Wiseman. 12mo, pp. 76,

105.--Lectures by the Most Rev. Henry Edward Manning: The

Four Great Evils of the Day; The Fourfold Sovereignty of God;

The Grounds of Faith. 18mo, pp. 133, 170, 101.--St. Helena. A

Drama for Girls. By Rev. J. A. Bergrath. Paper, 12mo, pp. 43.

From P. DONAHOE, Boston: Devotions for the Ecclesiastical Year.

By the author of “Jesus and Jerusalem,” etc.

From P. O’SHEA, New York: Meditations on the Passion of Our

Lord Jesus Christ. By Brother Philip. 12mo, pp. ix.,

483.--The Profits and Delights of Devotion to Mary. By Rev.

J. O’Reilly, D.D. 12mo, pp. 153.--The Crown of Mary. By a

Dominican Father. 24mo, pp. 101.--The Agnus Dei: Its Origin

and History. 32mo, pp. 78.--Evaline. By P. J. Cohen. 12mo,

pp. 225.--Spiritual Retreat of Eight Days: Extracted from the

Works of St. Alphonsus Liguori. 12mo, pp. viii., 160.

From SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., New York: Within and Without.

By George MacDonald, LL.D. 12mo, pp. 219.--Easy Experiments

in Practical Science. By L. R. C. Cooley, Ph.D. 12mo, pp.

85.--Natural Philosophy. By L. R. C. Cooley, Ph.D. 12mo, pp.

192.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired. Common alternate

spellings were retained. Hyphenation is not necessarily consistent

from author to author, and was retained as written.

It appears that “Sand” was used where “Shund” was meant on page

624, but the text has been left as printed. (How come you, then,

to call Mr. Sand a good-for-nothing scoundrel)

“Voltarian” changed to “Voltairian” on page 17. (you will find

under it a Voltairian)

Repeated word “the” removed on page 27. (the diary of the first

Mrs. Williams)

“Honi” changed to “Honni” on age 32. (Honni soit qui mal y pense)

“Amecan” changed to “American” on page 35. (An American best

understands the American mind.)

“felfow” changed to “fellow” on page 41. (doing good to his

fellow-men)

“has” changed to “have” on page 50. (the principles which have

always guided them)

“Cathoolic” changed to “Catholic” on page 51. (by which Catholic

life)

“inpired” changed to “inspired” on page 71. (Felix had always

inspired her)

Extra word “to” removed on page 73. (But their claims are not

equal to his) “Marceliinus” changed to “Marcellinus” on page 81.

(Alexander, Marcellinus, and _Peter_)

“migh” changed to “might” on page 105. (might go on indefinitely)

“Castel-Gaudolfo” changed to “Castel-Gandolfo” on page 108. (the

pleasant hamlets of Castel-Gandolfo)

“á” changed to “à” on page 138. (Demander à tes champs leurs

antiques ombrages)

“Engénie” changed to “Eugénie” on page 138. (Eugénie de Guérin’s

library)

“orgin” changed to “origin” on page 140. (origin of the Greek

people)

“ehurch” changed to “church” on page 142. (the church honors real

reformer)

“glace” changed to “glance” on page 161. (cast an indignant glance

on her sister)

Repeated word “to” removed on page 185. (it amounted to any

reproach to be a new man)

“fel-asleep” changed to “fell asleep” on page 188. (I fell asleep

and actually dreamed)

“Gallaic’s” changed to “Galliac’s” on page 206. (at Madame de

Galliac’s)

Repeated word “at” removed from page 207. (They were both sound at

heart)

“abandantly” changed to “abundantly” on page 234. (perhaps more

abundantly accorded)

“step” changed to “stept” on page 247. (Her bosom heaved, she stept

aside)

“copmanions” changed to “companions” on page 260. (Melania and her

companions)

Extra word “of” removed from page 266. (the wife of King Ethelbert)

“Captains” changed to “Captain” on page 301. (Captain Cary’s way of

expressing the fact)

“familar” changed to “familiar” on page 317. (a familiar swing and

freedom)

“Elyseés” changed to “Elysées” on page 324. (drive home by the

Champs Elysées)

“bétises” changed to “bêtises” on page 326. (Edgar _a fait des

bêtises_)

“formulalation” changed to “formulation” on page 334. (its precise

formulation)

“where” changed to “were” on page 367. (were shamed into less

inhuman ways)

Extra word “to” remove on age 368. (she had it placed in a shrine,

to which it was carried)

“Bulter” changed to “Butler” on page 376. (After her husband’s

death, Adelaide, says Butler)

“illustrous” changed to “illustrious” on page 379. (the merits of

its illustrious foundress)

“surrended” changed to “surrendered” on page 379. (voluntarily

surrendered itself)

“seventeeth” changed to “seventeenth” on page 382. (the beginning

of the seventeenth century)

“succcessful” changed to “successful” on page 384. (more successful

than Lord Derby)

“ἡροων” changed to “ἡρωων” on page 385.

“οἰονοισι” changed to “οἰωνοισι” on page 385.

“ψύχας” changed to “ψυχὰς” on page 385.

“προ-ιαψσεν” changed to “προ-ιαψεν” on page 385.

“Byrant” changed to “Bryant” on page 389. (reproduced by Mr. Bryant)

“Τροων” changed to “Τρωων καιοντων” on page 389.

“εὐθρονον” changed to “ἐυθρονον” on page 390.

“Byrant” changed to “Bryant” on page 392. (Then Mr. Bryant:)

“Byrant” changed to “Bryant” on page 392. (Voss and Mr. Bryant)

“know” changed to “known” on page on page 431. (discovery known as)

“becauuse” changed to “because” on page 434. (because Streichein

has lavishly greased their palms)

“dedeprive” changed to “deprive” on page 445. (combine not only to

deprive the building of scale)

“picturesqe” changed to “picturesque” on page 449. (part of a

picturesque whole)

“freqently” changed to “frequently” on page 450. (frequently

supplied the place)

“remaing” changed to “remaining” on page 452. (the richness of our

remaining material)

“cenventionality” changed to “conventionality” on 455. (An utter

absence of conventionality)

“â” changed to “à” on page 459. (_A l’eau! à la lanterne!_)

“sufficent” changed to “sufficient” on page 478. (having sufficient

control)

“equilibrum” changed to “equilibrium” on page 544. (poised in

rational equilibrium)

“eradiate” changed to “eradicate” on page 544. (It seeks to

eradicate)

“inflnences” changed to “influences” on page 576. (correct these

literary influences)

“wordly” changed to “worldly” on page 598. (sagacity as of worldly

ambition)

“importanc” changed to “importance” on page 612. (which gives them

their importance)

“sieze” changed to “seize” on page 673. (seize some unlucky porter)

“beggers” changed to “beggars” on page 676. (all the beggars who

were refused entrance)

“envv” changed to “envy” on page 729. (envy is but thinly concealed)

“unburbened” changed to “unburdened” on page 740. (the sweetness of

an unburdened heart)

“Adelentado” changed to “Adelantado” on page 750. (the title of

Adelantado of Florida)

Extra word “of” removed from page 754. (Many of these missions and

residences)

“westtern” changed to “western” on page 757. (the power of Spain in

the western world)

“Lallemant” changed to “Lalemant” on page 762. (Jogues, Brébeuf,

and Lalemant)

“Christain” changed to “Christian” on page 763. (their white

Christian neighbors)

Extra word “my” removed on page 772. (I prevail on myself)

“descending” changed to “descended” on page 825. (Having descended

the Hollow)

“posisition” changed to “position” on page 827. (fourth or fifth

occupant of the position)