plot. But the drawing of each particular scene is very animated and life-like, and the songs and stories are, we doubt not, full of truth and reality; indeed this character is very clearly stamped on them all. The description of the "Courtship in Carlow" is very amusing, and the "Battle of Ballinvegga" is a dark chapter out of the history of Cromwell's time. "The Usurer's Ghost" presents a very graphic picture of the simplicity and credulity, yet solid, earnest faith of the peasantry. The story of the "Young Prophet" is a wild tradition, showing the love of the people for the wonderful and mysterious, without, however, real injury to their faith. The "Fight of Shroughmore takes us back to the time of intrigue and adventure, while the "Story of King Art" carries us still further into the past, with its legendary tales of romance and chivalry; and at last, "Scollagh Gap" lands us altogether amongst the fairies. The songs are quaint and rough, either telling of love or dealing in wit, and a few are strictly national and political in bearing. The course of the narrative introduces us into the interior, we feel sure, of many an Irish home, and gives us the details of every-day life with a simplicity of description that reminds us not a little of the style of Washington Irving. Love, innocence, simplicity, and a taste for the superstitious and marvellous are all blended together just as they are in the lives of the peasantry, with the free interchange of wit and practical jokes. But in nothing is the writer more happy than in the thoroughly Catholic tone which he has imparted to all the acts and feelings of his characters without hesitation or affectation, apology or display. He has no mawkish sensitiveness in portraying the superstitious tendencies of wild country life, but he shows how little of the gross, how much of sprightly romance and poetry there is about them, and above all, that they are really a national characteristic, and are not connected with that firm attachment to the Faith, which on the contrary tends to restrain and correct it. His success hitherto will, we hope, encourage Mr. Kennedy to make us still further acquainted with the habits and traditions of his fellow-countrymen. There has been far too decided a monopoly on the Protestant side in the portrayal of Irish character, the racy droll illustrations, and less pure morals of which have been all arrayed against the Church; while Catholics have been too often placed before us in a light as unfavourable to their Catholicity as it is, happily, untrue in itself. We are doubly glad, therefore, to hail a Catholic delineator of Irish life who can enter himself into, and can communicate to us, a full enjoyment of all the best features of the national character.

7. The excellent publishing establishment of M. Herder has lately given to the literary world another splendid work, which will be read with great interest by German lovers of history. The life, letters, and smaller writings of Johann Friedrich Böhmer* give us an admirable Durch

*

Johann Friedrich Böhmer's Leben, Briefe und Kleinere Schriften. Johannes Janssen. Frieburg im Breisgan. Herder'sche Verlagshandlung.

insight into the heart and intellect of a man who stands in the foremost rank among modern German historians. Her Janssen has traced with a masterly hand the gradual development of a mind which, up to the time of manhood, wavered from side to side in the choice of a profession of life, while along a parallel line are marked the religious tendencies and impressions of a soul which passed successively through the stages of Protestantism and doubt almost into the bosom of the Catholic Church. Böhmer's reputation rests upon his Kaiserregistern, for the compilation of which he had to travel much, in order to consult the various sources of history bearing upon his subject. Nothing is so necessary to the writer of history as the examination of its sources which lie in State papers and other original and official documents. The neglect of these is fatal to a writer's authority, and-what is of far greater moment-falsifies the facts of history by throwing the author back upon his own imagination for theories which are worthless because untrue. We have had occasion in another part of this periodical to call attention to some grave instances in point in the history of the Thirty Years' War. Though born of a strongly Lutheran family of Frankfurt, Böhmer was led, after a life spent in the study of historical records, to entertain a great predilection for the Catholic Church. It was a saying of his that "the Catholic Church alone could preserve culture and science among men"-a valuable testimony when forced from one whose name for learning stands second to none in Germany. It is of course to be expected that in his letters he here and there puts forward views in which Catholics cannot altogether concur; these letters, nevertheless, are full of the most hearty and favourable judgments on matters of history connected with the Church, and therefore, in the present temper of the times, the authority of such a man will doubtless be allowed its full play by those Protestants in England who read him.

Born in 1795,

Böhmer's patriotism was of the most sterling kind. he was a witness of the overthrow of his country, and of the prostration of his native city, Frankfurt, at the feet of Napoleon. He thus describes his own feelings when, in 1810, the city was under the conqueror's heel :---" Already, as a school-boy, I conceived a special predilection for old Frankfurt and its constitution. . . Old Frankfurt was, as it were, my first love, and thus I remained during the whole of my life a citizen of the empire (Reichsbürger). . . . To my love for everything old and venerable corresponded my hatred towards everything new. In Napoleon and his adherents I beheld a kingdom of incarnate devils." This dislike for innovation so animated him in later years that he always attributed his country's unhappiness to the Bund, and strove to the last after that German unity which alone could heal the wounds of the grievously-smitten Fatherland. “For people and Fatherland!" he wrote in 1829, “shall be the watchword of my life. I will remain a German to the back-bone. I will feed upon the old loyalty and upon the old freedom, upon the solidity

and the plain simplicity of our forefathers, and I will do what I can, by pushing on the knowledge of historical truth, to preserve for a better time the inheritance of the past. This is my vow." We close this notice with the words of Dr. Döllinger, which show how he kept his vow :—“ Böhmer was the most pure patriot, the most German soul, that I ever met. I believe he produced upon every one who knew him intimately the impression that his whole being and action were concentrated in the thought of the common German fatherland, and in working for its honour and prosperity. Few of the learned have produced, in so high a degree as Böhmer, the impression of a perfectly pure action, free from all self-seeking, from all interested motive."

8. The Pastor and his People is the title of a new work by Mr. Potter, of Allhallows College, which is intended as a sequel to a former volume by the same author on Sacred Eloquence. There can be no doubt that even those very highly fitted by nature and grace for the important work of preaching-in all its various departments can always derive great benefit from a knowledge of the rules which experience has suggested for the composition and delivery of a discourse, while those who would otherwise be poor preachers are sometimes so far assisted by these rules as to obtain a fair share of success. Rules help every one, and often prevent great failures, and this is quite enough answer to the critics who, like Dr. Whately, would absolutely forbid their study, on the ground of the artificial character of the result. Mr. Potter has put together, in the volume before us, a complete series of very valuable hints as to the various heads of sermons and methods of preaching, as to homilies and more familiar instructions, catechisms, and the like, and, again, on the important subject of "delivery." The work strikes us as the result of much industry in the collection of materials, and much judgment in their selection and arrangement, and we have no doubt that it will be found widely useful.

9. True to the instincts of Presbyterianism, the literary ability of a certain well-known Doctor in the north has made the public familiar with the title of Good Words; it is peculiarly fitting that a Catholic writer, by choosing the title of Good Deeds, should exhibit the Church's appreciation of the real point to be aimed at deeds rather than words. In truth, nothing could more neatly and truly strike the keynote that marks the difference between the spirit of the Church and the spirit of Protestantism, than the naming of the two titles, one after the other. Good Words have been put forth, fairly enough, as a motto expressing the pith and chief strength of Presbyterianism— may we not say in a word, Protestantism. It has been left for a Catholic to supplement the substance to the shadow by starting a serial under the title of Good Deeds; Sketches of Holy and Devoted Lives, vol. i., pt. 1 (John Philp, London). The first part of this little

book, which is exceedingly nicely and cheaply got up, contains three lives of very holy founders of good works, under the three different circumstances of the single, and of the married life, followed by the Religious state, and of the married state, not so closed in, but continued on for many years by the association of the husband and wife in good deeds of the most saintly order.

The lives of Madame de Bonnault d'Houet, Foundress of the Faithful Companions of Jesus-of the Count and Countess de La Garaye of the Mère Geoffroy, Religious of the Sacré Cœur, present to us in their very different vocations the same energy of character beautifully regulated by the most self-controlling obedience, the same spirit of earnest prayer, and the same clear appreciation of the infinite superiority of deeds over words in the esteem of God and of His Saints. We can unhesitatingly recommend the first part of this series.

10. Cantorbéry. Une Ville de Souvenirs, par F. X. Plasse. This is the title of an interesting lecture, delivered, we presume, at ClermontFerrand, by M. Plasse, Professor of History. It connects the history of Canterbury with the names of Cæsar, of Hengist, and St. Augustine, of Henry II., and St. Thomas à Becket, of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Cromwell, and of the Primacy of the Anglican Church; and it takes these names as typifying the different principles of conquest by the sword and by the Gospel, of the contest between the sacerdotal and kingly power, of schism and heresy, of the spoliation of the monasteries and the poverty of the people, and finally of the Anglican Establishment. Its chief feature is a sketch of the life and death of the great Martyr, and it touches upon that which was perhaps the occasion of its subject-viz., the residence for some time of St. Thomas in the neighbourhood of Clermont, and the interesting fact that Montferrand had dedicated a church to his honour within sixty years after the martyrdom of the Saint.

II. The Rev. C. B. Garside, in his Discourses on some Parables of the New Testament (Burns and Oates), has published three thoughtful and earnest series of homiletic discourses on the parables of the Prodigal Son, the Sower, and the Ten Virgins. We welcome them not only on account of their intrinsic merit, but as another attempt to put before Catholics sermons which may serve for spiritual reading of the most useful kind, that, namely, which consists mainly of plain and well-reasoned exposition of the boundless treasures of practical doctrine contained in the Gospels, and especially in the teaching of our Lord. Mr. Garside has a pleasing and lucid style, and the only regret felt by his readers will be that he has not given them more of his illustrations of the Parables.

12. Dr. Hartwig, the author of The Sea and its Living Wonders, and other works of the same kind, has lately published a very comprehensive book on The Polar World (Longmans). The work embraces

all topics connected with the Polar regions, southern as well as northern; it is very well arranged, very clearly written, and teems with details of the highest interest. There is certainly a singular charm about these desolate regions, where human life can only be maintained, if it can exist at all, at the cost of great exertion and skill in counteracting the disadvantages of climate and the stern inhospitalities of nature, and which yet have their own beauties and attractions, their marvels of sublime natural phenomena, and their abundance of varied life, at least of fish and bird. All that can be told of general interest concerning these regions will be found collected in Dr. Hartwig's pages, and the story as regards the northern Polar tract is very interesting, and will certainly be very new to the majority of English readers. We are accustomed to limit our acquaintance with these regions to a study of the voyages accomplished by our countrymen or by the Americans in search of the North-West Passage, adding a slight notice of Greenland, Iceland, and the Esquimaux. We forget the immense tracts of Northern Europe and Asia, the latter especially of great importance, as supporting the power of Russia by their mineral wealth, and we have barely heard of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. There are thus several chapters in Dr. Hartwig's book which break almost new ground to many of us. Very striking, too, is the contrast which he draws between the arctic and antarctic regions-the latter so far more sterile and hopelessly inaccessible than the former, on account of the great comparative absence of land as we proceed southwards from the equator, on account of which the cold currents from the antarctic seas are perfectly unhindered in their effect upon the temperature of intermediate latitudes, which effect, moreover, is quite unbalanced by any influence corresponding to that which the Gulf stream exercises upon the shores of Northern Europe.

13. The account by Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz of their Journey in Brazil (Trübner and Co., 60, Paternoster Row) is a decided contribution to the study of physical science, and though not exactly a new work, it is a recent publication of by no means ephemeral interest or importance. Professor Agassiz could not content himself with travelling merely for pleasure, he wished to perfect his own scientific knowledge by investigating more carefully and intimately the different species of animal and vegetable life already known, rather than striving to discover new species. This we take to be the truest work of modern and future study in physical science, for in this respect it is still in its infancy, and in this way alone, by data laboriously attained, can we hope for the preservation of science from those hasty conclusions and materialistic tendencies which form the great snare in its study.

Since the advance of the Gulf Stream towards our shores is taken by some as the explanation of the increasing warmth of our summers, it may not be out of place to repeat a few remarks about this curious