Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

to attend its progress, all these things together would add not one iota to the hope that the Papacy would ever be reconciled to the principles of the revolution. Italy one, united, and uncatholic, the rival of France in arms, of England in wealth, of Germany in intellect, Italy greater than her poets in their wildest dreams have pictured, would yet be unable to reverse the sentence which the Pope and the bishops assembled in solemn conclave at Rome, have but now pronounced upon her. Not all the greatness we have imagined for her, is able to equal the moral power and grandeur which the Papacy, surrounded by the representatives of Christendom exhibits without an effort. Italy, were she to triumph over the outraged Pontiff of the Christian world, would still be only the condemned, but escaped convict of nations. But whether the revolution prosper or no, our duty is clear and simple. Let us throw in our lot with the grand moral demonstration of the meeting at Rome, let us subscribe to the declaration of the bishops of the Universal Church as to the rights of the Papacy and as to the necessity of the temporal power of the Pope, and let us join with heart and soul in the acclamation which burst from the lips of the vastest assemblage that has ever filled St. Peter's-in that acclamation which, throughout the Christian world, has since been repeated in their hearts by countless millions of men.-Evviva il PapaRé.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

I.-The Crown of Jesus: a Complete Catholic Manual of Prayers, Devotions, Hymns, Instructions for the Public, Private, or Domestic Use of all the Faithful, with Sacred Scripture, Epistles and Gospels, by the REV. FATHER SUFFIELD. With Imprimatur and Recommendation of His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman, also Recommendations of the Most Rev. the Archbishops of Ireland. 18mo. pp. 880. London, Dublin, and Derby: Richardson and Son.

As a collection, this is, in truth, a beautiful work of devotions. The only exception that could in any way be taken to it, is one, however, that if the cause for it were removed, would thereby deprive it necessarily also of one of its most obvious excellences-meaning its cheapness. Could only that cheapness be rendered compatible with better paper and handsomer typography-the volume would, as a Manual of Devotion, Doctrine, and Instruction, be just as nearly as possible perfect. Better paper, however, and handsomer typography would remove the work at once out of the reach of the very classes for which it has clearly enough been designed, both by compiler and publisher. For, inasmuch as it fulfils in its present shape its manifest intention in these respects, therefore, the work is really already as near perfection as could be! And earnestly can we recommend it to the Faithful accordingly.

II.-School Days of Eminent Men. By John Timbs, F.S.A. Fcap. 8vo. 312 pp. Second Edition.

The indefatigable industry with which Mr. John Timbs during many years past wielded the sub-editorial scissors in connection with the Illustrated London News, and the unflagging assiduity with which he plied his pencil continually as the ever-watchful compiler of the YearBook of Facts, have latterly been winning their reward. They have enabled him to pour forth from the abundant stock of memoranda heaped together in his portfolio, volume after volume of amusing Ana, chiefly literary and scientific, anecdotal and biographical "Popular Errors,'

"

Curiosities of History," ""Stories of Inventors and Discoverers," and. best of all, series after series of "Things Not Generally Known Familiarly Eexplained." Never has there appeared, we believe, any man-of-letters who has more perseveringly and systematically, throughout his life, endeavoured to act upon the advice of the immortal Captain Cuttle "When found, make note of!" Mr. Timbs's com mon-place book, we take it, must be ever ready to his hand, his pencil must be always trembling eagerly to jot down some newly-discovered data, or to scrawl upon the margin some hint for a fresh quotation. Here, in this volume, entitled "School-days of Eminent Men," is a revised and partly re-written" edition of one of the last of our compiler's books of memorabilia. The eminent men it refers to, being for the most part celebrated British Authors both in prose and poetry, divines and philosophers, inventors and discoverers, heroes, statesmen, and legislators. Incidentally, moreover, the book presents us, though in a very loose way, with sketches of the progress of education in England, and with records, (in every instance that has fallen under our notice, very unsatisfactory and superficial), of the foundation of the public schools, colleges, and universities of the United Kingdom.

[ocr errors]

It will be remarked from the very title of the compilation before us, that it is merely the bare beginning of the lives of these eminent men that Mr. Timbs has undertaken here to annotate. Just as a few years back the Rev. Erskine Neale undertook to afford us glimpses of the fag end of them. Indeed the discursive little work now under consideration is much more of a companion volume to Mr. Neale's "Closing Scenes," than-as the publisher's advertisement, we observe, rather rashly and certainly very pretentiously intimates it to be-to Mr. Hughes's hearty, blithesome book of "Tom Brown's School Days;"an ebullition, that last, of brave lightheartedness, breathed forth in a narrative redolent at every page rather of the freshly dinted turf of the playground than, as in the desultory work before us, nay as in every instance we have yet seen of Mr. Timbs's labours as a collector of information-smelling of stale paste and mouldy paper-cuttings.

7

In selecting as his theme the earliest recollections of great men, Mr. Timbs has shewn, we cannot but think, somewhat of an error of judgment. Mr. Neale chose, in

every respect, the better part, when he turned by preference to the contemplation of their death-beds. Greatness and genius are almost always of so slow a growth, that the childhood of eminent men is perhaps of all epochs of life in their instance the least distinctively characteristic. Even with the most precocious intellects, the dawn of intelligence often appears to come the most tardily. Chatterton, about whom, by the way, Mr. Timbs says absolutely nothing, perhaps upon the score that even when he died he was nothing more than a marvellous stripling, Chatterton, "the wondrous boy that perished in his pride," was returned home by his first schoolmaster as incorrigibly dull;"-an incident, in fact, recorded, with a sameness of phrase very remarkable, in the biographies of others who have eventually rendered themselves intellectually illustrious. Instance Moore's mention in his Life of Sheridan of the future dramatist and orator at eight years of age being returned from the seminary in Grafton Street, Dublin, with the pedagogue's intimation about poor Richard Brinsley that he was 'a most impenetrable dunce." Or, turning to Mr. Timbs's own volume do we not find him at p. 108, making mention of Waller the poet as "dull and slow in his task," when first entered at the grammar school of Market Wickham? It is indicative of the lack of precision with which Mr. Timbs hurries even these revised compilations of his through the press, that he here immediately afterwards, when quoting Aubrey's description of Waller's handwriting lamentable hand, as bad as the scratching of a hen," contents himself with adding merely "this is an exaggeration and disproved by his autograph, which is, however, very rare. Now in point of fact, the handwriting of Edmund Waller-in general character not unlike the handwriting of the late Leigh Hunt-was an elegant Italian hand: as any one may see any day by looking at several pages of Waller's verse exquisitely written upon the fly leaves of a volume carefully treasured up in the King's Library at the British Museum. There is something fantastically

[ocr errors]

66

66
as a

Since the above words were written a selection of the more curious and interesting among the treasures of literature stored up in the great National Library at Bloomsbury, has been opened to public view by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, and

kindred, we would observe in conclusion, between the careless extravagance of the illustrations scattered through this volume of Mr. Timbs's, and the careless extravagance here and there noticeable in the letterpress itself. As where at p. 52 Edward VI. is coolly spoken of by the orthodox compiler of this work, as "the most munificent patron of education who ever sat upon the British throne:' while with no less amusing exaggeration the artist who has pencilled the interior of Harrow school-room at p. 92 has given one the notion of an apartment about three quarters of a mile long. In each instance there is something decidedly faulty-every one can see it at a glancein the perspective. You turn over the pages amused, but by no means confiding. You feel that your cicerone is pleasantly gossipping and anecdotal, but that his information is not always to be implicitly relied upon for its

accuracy.

III.-Love for Holy Church.-From the French of M. l'Abbé Petit, by Edward Caswall, Priest of the Birmingham Oratory. London, Dublin, and Derby: Richardson and Son. 1862.

For this eloquent and accurate version of the tender "Amour à la Sainte Eglise" penned by the Curé à la Rochelle, we are grateful to Father Caswall. And many others, we doubt not, will share our gratitude. To this end indeed we would fervently commend the little volume before us to the attention of our fellow-catholics throughout the United Kingdom. It is one of a series of threethe two remaining volumes of which we would gladly see translated in like manner, the "Amour à la Sainte Vierge" and the "Amour à la Sainte Eucharistie." The Reverend

will remain thus accessible to all visitors, both natives and foreigners, during the period of the Great International Exhibition at South Kensington. As not the least attractive item of this temporary collection, at any rate to the students of English Literature, we observe in the printed catalogue (p. 25) a catalogue raisonné, compiled by Mr. Winter Jones, mention made of the very volume we have here particularised. It is numbered 20 in Case xii. among "the books with autographs and broadsides," and is thus described by the assistant librarian: Waller's Poems, 1668, with his autograph dedication in verse, to Hir Royal Highness,' the Duchess of York. Purchased in 1848."

66

[ocr errors]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »