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Adelaide Capece Minutolo.

Par Mdme. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN, née La

Ferronnays. Pp. 170. Paris: Didier. London: Burns & Oates.

WE

E have read with keen enjoyment this short sketch of a beautiful, happy, useful life; a chaplet worthy of the head for which it has been woven by the skilful hands of Mrs. Craven, but which she is only able to hang upon the tomb of one so dear to her. The charm of her style (as we need hardly tell those who have read the " Récit d'une Sœur," and who has not?) would suffice to make attractive anything that she wrote; but apart from this, no one can read this uneventful narrative without feeling that her departed friend was one of those who most justly and most closely wind themselves about the hearts of those whose privilege it is to share their daily lives.

The feature most remarkable in the life of Adelaide Capece Minutolo is one which gives it special interest in our eyes, and makes it, we think, important at the present day. In Italy, Mrs. Craven says, far more than even in France the notion prevails, which is so much more prevalent in France than in England, that a woman has no choice in life to make except between marriage and a convent.

"For a woman who does not marry no place is reserved in the world, and less than any where else in the high world to which she and her sisters belonged. And therefore any girl who by some exceptional circumstance does not marry, as soon as she is deprived by death of her natural protectors, is bound to find others, and in return for the protection with which people will not hear of her dispensing, she is obliged to submit to conditions hard enough fully to justify the antipathy which is almost universally felt for the very name as well as the position of an old maid. To her years bring nothing of independence, and never remove the trammels which were designed for the protection of her youth, but from which age never sets her free."

Adelaïde and her two sisters, daughters of a Neapolitan noble, whose family history runs back to the times when our Saxon fathers were converted to Christianity by S. Augustine, were early left by his death under the care of a tender mother, a Spanish lady of high family. The death of the mother, when the eldest of the three had just married, left the two younger at their own disposal. The best matches were in their power, if they had chosen to accept them. But, says Mrs. Craven,

"She looked life in the face, and honestly asked of herself what were the conditions necessary to her happiness in it. She saw clearly that in her eyes happiness meant peace, perfect sympathy of two hearts and two souls, a perfect conformity of tastes, and a oneness of will to walk side by side in a path which, without being singular, was always tending upwards, and from which God was always in sight. She was conscious that she was already possessed of this ideal without having to seek it where it was uncertain whether she would attain it, in married life, and amid the passionate and glittering joys of the earth. She wished for nothing more. Clotilde, her younger sister was united to her by a oneness of sentiment which fulfilled all the

conditions of what she had dreamed. To her she proposed that they should seek for nothing beyond that of sharing their lives together, de ne rien chercher au delà de leur vie à deux. Both agreed not to marry and never to separate. Opportunities of changing her resolution were afterwards presented to Adelaide, on terms which might have touched her heart and flattered her vanity. But nothing ever induced her to waver, and no regret ever came to make either of them doubt the wisdom of their choice from the day on which that choice was made until, eight-and-twenty years later, they were parted by death."

No one will say that such a life should be more than the exception; and English people, we think, will be inclined to believe that in a country in which marriages of affection and inclination were the custom, the “ideal” which Adelaide had formed would have seemed to her, to say the least, more likely to be realized in marriage than in any other state of life. Still, it must ever be a hazard; and it is impossible to doubt that she had a better chance of realizing it by taking for her companion for life a sister whose tastes she knew to be the same with her own, than by marrying under the only conditions that the social system of Naples put within her power. She declared her resolution to be "the founder in Naples of the institution of old maids ;" and perhaps hardly anything that she could have done would have so much tended to raise women to their just place in society. For how can they in any degree be the equals of men if it be an established rule in society that a man has the choice of married or of single life, but that for a woman, unless she be married, there is no place in society. It was this social prejudice that she and her sister resolved to break through: and they succeeded. They began, no doubt, with great advantages, as the representatives on both sides of ancient and illustrious families, with high rank, unusual talents and education, and a fortune competent though not splendid; above all, with the knowledge of God, and loving Him above all things. They were happy too, in that their lot was cast in the most beautiful corner of the whole earth, and under the most radiant of skies, on the shores of the Bay of Naples. On certain days they received, in their villa and its grounds, which ran down to the sea, the best society of Naples; but their chief pleasure was on the others, when their time was devoted to painting, study, and music; both sisters having a talent rarely found amongst amateurs, not only in executing but in composing it. But to these they added, or rather, they placed in the first rank with these, numerous works of charity, unostentatiously performed on every side of them. If any one of these were specially dear to Adelaide, it was the instruction of some poor boys, whom Adelaide gathered about her, and on whom she lavished the choicest treasures of Christian charity and religious culture. On these days there was little time to spare, even for the most intimate friends; yet they were never shut out, and they found them far preferable to those on which she was surrounded by society; and yet no one, says Mrs. Craven, could justly estimate her who had not watched her also in the midst of this, for which she had a special talent. What was more valuable and more unusual was, that she never said a word to the discredit of any one. Yet she was distinguished for the readiness and penetration characteristic of the Neapolitans; and for a vivid imagination, stored with images of beauty, and keenness of wit, which were all her own.

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"Sweet, indeed, it was to converse with Adelaide on that beautiful terrace, from which the eye takes in the whole bay. On the left Naples, Vesuvius, and the mountains which form their background; before us, those which tower over Castellamare and Sorrento, while their graceful and majestic outline stretches to the extremity of the opposite shore; above our heads the bright sky, at our feet the still blue sea. When the garden-gate was closed, and the din of the world seemed as much excluded as the sounds of the city, it was not difficult to talk intimately; and neither did all these smiles of nature prevent our conversation from being serious. Then came naturally to her lips her real feelings, those which before the world were not to be seen. These are the conversations which remain fixed in the memory ." (p. 18).

Among her occupations, painting seems, on the whole, to have been the favourite. By a chance very rare in her oountry, the district which immediately surrounded her was without a church. She undertook to provide one; and the whole of its ornaments, whether in pictures, sculpture, or carved wood, were the work of her own hands. The expense of building, however, as always happens, turned out more than had been expected, and so much exhausted the property of the sisters, that they resolved to leave their villa and live in a part of the new edifice opening into the church. Here was Adelaide's home for the remainder of her days.

But these days were not to be prolonged. Long before, she had interrupted Mrs. Craven, when speaking of death, by saying, "Death! but death is no more"; and then explaining herself, "As it is, I exercise perception, prayer, affections, intellect. These are my life now, and will be so to its appointed limit. Then this life will undergo a change. It will become better, but it will not be broken off. I shall still exercise perception, prayer, affections, intellect. It is a change of life, not an interruption of life. Where is death, then?" . . . "But the sufferings through which one may have to pass before leaving this life!" She made the gesture which in Italian means that a thing is of no consequence. And then she said, "Much may be borne if people do not occupy themselves with what they are suffering, as far as that is possible. And when that becomes difficult, God gives His help, and with that nothing is impossible." Words like these are easily spoken. There are those who would fear to indulge in them, lest they should sound like the prayer, "Lord, if it be Thou; bid me come to Thee on the water"; and He answered, "Come." But who shall dare to blame them when that gracious word has been spoken and obeyed, and when the disciple has been preserved from fear even in the midst of the wildest storm? And this was the experience of Adelaide. In the midst of her happy, peaceful life, she found growing in her the seeds of a malady, hideous, lingering, tormenting, and deadly; but she knew no fear. She was subjected to a terrible operation; and at the moment when she learned that it was inevitable, "I was overcome as I looked upon her," says Mrs. Craven, "and did not dare to speak; but she was more calm than I. Do not be disturbed,' she said; 'I am not afraid.' And then, kissing me, she whispered, in a tone never to be forgotten, I love God more than ever before.""

The operation lasted three-quarters of an hour, and the effect of chloroform (which was used) went off after the first twelve minutes. "She told us afterwards

that when she became perfectly conscious, she heard one of the assistants say to another, 'I never saw such courage in a woman,' and the other replied, 'It's no secret where their courage comes from.' This gave her pleasure, 'but,' she added, after all it was not courage; it was only a little love.""

The operation seemed for a time to have saved her life; but the deadly malady returned, and she sank to rest January 9, 1869, with words on her lips which she had repeated over and over again in her last struggle, “In Te Domine speravi, non confundar in æternum.”

The whole account of her illness is most beautiful, touching, and engrossing. The little volume also contains a number of most interesting letters, written chiefly to the daughter of her elder sister, whose education she had in a great measure conducted. No one can be more conscious than we are, how very little of the perfume of the original is retained in the extracts we have somewhat unwillingly forced ourselves to subject to the cruel process of translation.

Since this notice was written, Miss Emily Bowles has conferred on English Catholics the great boon of publishing an English translation of the work, at Mrs. Craven's desire.

Cantorbéry, une Ville de Souvenirs à propos du Mouvement Religieux en Angleterre. Par F. X. PASSE, Professeur d'Histoire.

Clermond

Ferand; topographie Mont-Louis. London: Burns, Oates, & Co.

WE

E are much accustomed to notices of foreign countries by English travellers. It is not so often that we meet with a foreigner's notice of England, and so strange is English society to most men of the Continent, that when we do we are often amused by enormous misconceptions of English society and habits. We need hardly refer to the late case of Victor Hugo, who wrote after spending among us an exile of some seventeen years. Professor Passe gives us only a few pages, but he understands us better. The first part of the pamphlet is devoted to the early history of Kent, Cæsar's invasion, S. Augustine's mission; then he passes to S. Thomas of Canterbury and Henry II., and traces some of the great historical events connected with the tomb of the martyr; and ends with a cordial acknowledgment of the changed feeling of England in the present day, as shown in the public feeling towards Sir Thomas More. The Professor understands, and cordially sympathizes with, the religious movement now in operation among us, although we fear he would not satisfy the advocates of "corporate reunion than does the Holy Father Himself, or our own Archbishop.

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The Writings of Madame Swetchine. Edited by Count de FALLOUX, of the French Academy. Translated by H. W. Preston. New York: The Catholic Publication Society; London: Burns, Oates, & Co. 1869.

WE

E have no space here to do anything like justice to Madame Swetchine. Of her, therefore, we shall say nothing; and of the work, of which this volume is a translation, only that it is worthy of its author. We confine ourselves to the translation. This we think at least equal, we incline to say superior, to the mass of translations; for instance, it is far superior to that given by an English translator of the journals, and again of the letters, of Eugénie de Gérin, and to that of the valuable work of M. Cochin on Slavery, by an American. If, however, we should content ourselves with saying this, we might be understood to mean that it is satisfactory, and does justice to the original; and that impression we could not with truth allow ourselves to convey. The fact is, that there are real differences of opinion among persons of education, as to the standard which a translator ought to strive to attain. It may well be, therefore, that a translation which we should pronounce to be excellent, would be condemned without hesitation by the translator of the work before us. In our judgment no translation is satisfactory, which might not be read aloud without suggesting to any hearer that what he heard was not an original English work. Many translators, we believe, would not merely find it difficult to attain to this standard-so much all must admit- but would consider it a mistake to aim at it. Their ideal is to give what every one who knew French would recognize as a French sentence, in words which will be intelligible to an English reader who does not know it. We can hardly say how great and how fatal a mistake this seems to us. Our opinion is, that to any one who can read the original any translation is of necessity worse than useless'; and that to one who cannot, a work loses just so much of its value, as it falls short of being what we may reasonably suppose the author would have written, had English, not French, been his native language. It is true, this imperatively requires that the turn of the sentences, the idiomatic phrases, &c., should be as much changed as the actual words. In fact, it is necessary that the sentences, as well as the words, should be translated. This, of course, implies some considerable sacrifice of the literal character of the translation. In our judgment a literal translation is a most imperfect one, if indeed it deserves to be called a translation at all. For assuredly no two men that ever lived, one being a Frenchman and the other an Englishman, if they desired to express exactly the same thought, would express it with merely this difference, that one would use French and the other English words. The result is that what we should praise as an idiomatic, others might perhaps condemn as not a literal translation; what they would praise we should pronounce to be hardly a translation at all.

The translator of the volume before us, then, has set before herself an

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