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resulted from some probable event. Our only other criticism is that the plot is from the beginning rather too obvious. Few readers, we suppose, get far into the first volume without guessing what is distinctly told them in the third. These however hardly deserve to be called blemishes, in a work so beautiful as that before us.

We have no intention of telling the story; and shall therefore say only, that the book gives us an account of the lives and loves of several persons in the well-to-do classes of English country life in the present day. It is a striking proof of the greatness of the change which has passed over the national mind within the last forty years, that to say this, almost of itself implies that the interest turns more or less upon religious questions.

Miss Austen was the daughter of a clergyman of unblemished character and repute; and she was herself a person in all respects exemplary: yet it evidently never occurred to her that perplexity about the line of religious duty could be, to any sober person, one of the practical trials of life. If any writer should undertake to describe the same class of English society in 1870, it would be impossible that that subject could be left out, unless it were deliberately avoided. It forces itself, as one of the prominent characteristics of the day, upon every one who watches the society he sees around him. This does not necessarily imply that our own time is more religious than that in which Miss Austen lived. For there have been times when religious feel-. ing was universal and strong, and when, owing to this very state of things, religious perplexity was unknown. But in a Protestant country that cannot exist; less than anywhere else, in one so much divided in religious opinion as ours. In England we may confidently say that if, in any age, religious thought is general and earnest, religious perplexity will be little less general. This will be plain to any one who looks back on our history. The educated and political classes seem to have been little troubled with it between 1660 and the earlier part of last century. This was the result of the reaction from Puritanism. But even then, under the surface, religious movement enough and to spare was going on; and John Wesley was born hardly forty years later. Now we must doubt whether there was any period of English history at which so keen an observer and so accurate a painter as Miss Austen could have written so many novels, entirely omitting any remark which could suggest any thought of doctrinal religion, unless it had been under the Georges. Indeed, we doubt whether-except under the two last Georges-there would have been the total absence of all reference to unbelief as much as to belief. This last feature seems to have resulted from that general reaction in favour of all that was established both in Church and State,-which was caused by the overthrow of social order, as well as of religion, by the French Revolution. Should any one therefore be inclined to blame the degree to which Lady Georgiana Fullerton introduces religious questions in the work before us, our answer would be, that as an artist she could not do otherwise; for a picture from which religious questions were omitted would not be a picture of the higher stratum of the middle classes in 1870.

Another result of what we must call this reality in her picture is, that the religious Anglicans of the work before us are wholly different from those of "Grantley Manor," for instance, which (if our memory does not deceive us)

was published more than twenty years ago. The change is a real one, and could not have escaped so observant an artist. It may be described in few words as the change from the disciples of Mr. Newman to those of Mr. Mackonochie.

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The "Spectator" seems to us to have overlooked this, in a very fair and appreciative review of the work before us. The writer says: If Lady Georgiana Fullerton really hopes that her work will be of any use in setting forward the divine claim of her adopted Church (the Roman) to the obedience of Englishmen and Englishwomen, she would have done better to give less attention to the Anglican controversy with Rome, in dealing with which she can secure an easy triumph, and do a little, at least, to the far more powerful and impressive objections which genuine Protestants urge." The writer proceeds to state some of what may be called the sceptical or rationalistic objections to the Catholic Faith. No doubt these are likely to last much longer, and spread much farther than the others; but not to say that they are of a kind with which a religious writer may well be pardoned for not being willing to grapple, and with regard to which she might possibly not trust her own powers, although (for our own part we should most gladly see Lady Georgiana Fullerton enter upon this part of the subject) we believe that in truth her picture of the particular section of English society described in the .book before us-that of religious ladies of the class of the country gentry and of the beneficed clergy—is more true to nature, in that she has not represented them as either meeting with, or perplexed by, rationalistic doubts against Christian belief. Be this as it may, the characters represented seem to look only upon two systems of belief as practically possible, that of the Ritualists, and that of the Church.

For ourselves we confess, that, as a general rule, we are so little drawn towards controversial novels that we took up this without great expectations. But we were soon undeceived. It could hardly fail to attract any one, however little he might care about the religious questions touched, if he delights in skilful delineation of character.

The three principal characters are such real creations of the imagination, as by themselves to prove that the author who conceived them possesses the peculiar power of great dramatists. We insist the rather on this because it contrasts most favourably with the class of novels which is the characteristic and the disgrace of our contemporary literature. In Miss Braddon's novels, for instance, the interest (such as it is) consists merely in the strangeness of the crimes committed by, and of the events happening to, somebody-by whom committed or to whom happening makes no difference. It would do just as well and be just as natural, if A. were to murder B. and C., and to marry D. and E. and F. as it does when B. murders A. and C., and marries nearly all the remainder of the alphabet. So that there are murders and polygamies enough, it makes no real difference who commits them. Anything that is said or done would suit one character pretty much about as well as another. The writer's talent is shown in concealing what the dénouement is to be long enough to excite the reader's curiosity and keep it active to the end. This of course requires talent of a certain kind, but neither shows nor exercises dramatic powers. Neither indeed does that older style of writing

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of which Miss Edgworth is the best example, in which we have, not men and women, but virtues and vices called by masculine and feminine names, each of which begins with a capital. Edgar, Annie, and Ita, on the contrary, are real people with distinct human characters. We should know any one of them at once if we met them in society. Not a saying or an act is ascribed to any one of them, which would not lose its force and meaning and be out of place if transferred to any other; and yet so far from being mere virtues and vices they are characters made up of excellences and defects, like those of the men and women around us. It is not possible to show this by quotations expressly, because the author, with true dramatic power, instead of telling us what they were, leaves them to show it for themselves as the story goes on. Ita clearly would have been far preferable to Annie as a companion in life. We can quite feel what is said of her. "There was a charm which told on everybody she approached. It was felt by the rough peasants of the moorlands as much as by persons of refinement and education. She had a gift which when it is joined with quick, tender feelings and earnestness of spirit, exercises a wonderful influence on all sorts of persons. It is not wit-not even humour; it is what the French call le mot pour rire. It is like the ripple of the stream; it gladdens everything, and gladness is so much wanted by weary hearts. A smile on the face of a poor man has a countless value. She is a bit of sunshine'--' she is a good sight for sore eyes'-' she is a terrible one for cheering one up' were the common sayings in the mouths of the poor as Ita went in and out of their cottages" (vol. i. 324). This is exactly what every reader feels he would have said himself if he had been thrown into her company, to the very end of the book, from the scene which describes her characteristic introduction of herself (vol. i. p. 97).

"Annie saw a small figure hastening towards her whom she, of course, knew must be the young lady of the house-the little Miss Flower she was to make acquaintance with. It is rather a bore without any one to introduce me,' she thought; however, starting up, she advanced a few steps towards the breathless girl, who had been running to meet her. They both smiled and shook hands. 'You are Miss Derwent, I suppose?' 'Yes! and you, Miss Flower?' 'I am Ita; nobody calls me anything else.'”

But Annie Derwent herself, though much less attractive as a companion, is a more masterly, because a far more difficult, conception to imagine and describe. We can hardly say we ever met exactly an Annie Derwent, but her character is so manifestly one and in keeping with itself that one feels one might meet her any day. Her straightforward, conscientious, prosaic, unsympathizing nature, combined with a power and willingness to make a total sacrifice of herself and her own interests for the few she really loves. Then her religious character is quite in keeping with this. She loves intensely a far-going Ritualist clergyman, and is willing to do anything for him; but her simple reality makes her quite unable to throw herself by an act of will into what she feels to be the novelties and unrealities of his religious system, and her convictions as well as her heart clings to the "High and Dry" teaching, and the square pews which she had been brought up to venerate. And yet it is quite in keeping with the same character that she should show herself afterwards quite capable of understanding what real

authority means. But we must keep our resolution, and not lift up the veil from her after-course. Edgar Derwent the clergyman, again, is admirably drawn. It is of real use to a Catholic to study such a character. When we meet with one more or less like it in real life, we are so much tempted to think it impossible the man can really believe what he professes, that it is a lesson of charitable judgment to observe how exactly in keeping Edgar's obstinate adherence to what is so strangely self-contradicting fits into and forms part of his character. Mrs. Gerard herself, though only a sketch, is also very distinctly in outline. It is also a pleasure to those who remember "Grantley Manor" to meet again some of the persons with whom they made intimate acquaintance there. We heartily hope this is not to be the last tory of our own day, for which we are to be indebted to Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

A Sketch of the Life of St. Paula. From the French. London: Burns,

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Oates, & Co.

E do not know that we can say anything which would express the beauty of this little sketch so perfectly, as to translate the quotation of S. Francis of Sales' words in the beginning of the work now before us. "S. Paula, who like a beautiful and fragrant violet has been so sweet to behold in the garden of the Church." No one can fully estimate a Saint except a Saint. And thus these few words of the most charming of the French canonized writers go further to express S. Paula's character than pages written by an ordinary person might do.

S. Francis too-who himself led to renounce the world a lady in the highest ranks of society, much gifted in every way, and especially in mindcould peculiarly enter into S. Paula's character and position; a woman with high intellectual attainments, left early a widow, with a young family of children, amongst which was an only son,-in all these respects closely resembling S. Jane Frances de Chantal. Yet even more powerful perhaps than that great Saint, it would seem, were S. Paula's maternal affections; tried by Our Lord to the uttermost, by the deaths of the most tenderly beloved of her children. And we have an extract from a most beautiful letter from S. Jerome to his grieving disciple and penitent, whose heart was almost broken by the loss of her first and most gifted child, Blesilla. The magnificent and heavenly force of S. Jerome's words, drawing the mother's riven heart to the feet of the Lord Jesus, joined with his deep human sympathy for her great sorrow, goes far to prove the power of the Christian priest to enter into and understand the breaking of those ties which he has never himself experienced. But we must leave this interesting little book to display its own attractions. We have but one regret about it, and that is its brevity. The life of S. Paula is a heavenly romance; and we shall rejoice when the translation of the Abbé Lagrange's "Histoire de Ste. Paule" appears, as the present pamphlet promises.

The Life of S. Patrick, from Walter Harris's Translation of Sir James Ware's works, together with the "Confessio Sancti Patricii" and the

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Epistola ad Christianos Tyranni Corotici subditos" Sti. Patricii. Collected and Edited by Rev. JOHN LYNCH, P.P., Ballymena. London and Dublin: Moffat & Co.

TH

HE publication of these opuscula, and their sale for sixpence, is an act of devotion on the part of the parish priest of Ballymena to the patron saint, which we wish rather than hope may be attended by no loss to himself. By inserting the two memorable tracts of S. Patrick in the original Latin and without a translation, he shows that he trusts to the support of educated readers. Yet we fear he shows that he rates too highly the average knowledge even of Latin readers, when he sets before them the "Life of S. Patrick," with no further explanation than that it is "from Walter Harris's Translation of Sir James Ware's works." The pamphlet contains nothing of his own except a short letter, explaining that his "attention was drawn to the works of Sir James Ware by the notice in the newspapers that Dr. Todd's copy sold for £450." He found that the "Life" "testified to S. Patrick's orthodox education and Roman Catholicism," and he resolved to reprint it in a form which would bring these two facts before "every Catholic and Protestant in the province." No one can think this useless, because respectable men still continue to claim S. Patrick as a Protestant. It is somewhat hopeless to meet such a claim by any argument. We only regret that he did not explain that Sir James Ware was a Protestant of the days of Strafford and Laud, who was committed to the Tower and narrowly enough escaped their fate, having been taken at sea when bearing orders from Charles to Ormond, was afterwards an exile in France, and was offered an Irish Peerage after the Restoration, which he survived only six years. His works are one of the chief storehouses of Irish antiquities, and (as appeared at Dr. Todd's sale) rare enough. A Walter Harris, who published the translation from which this life is reprinted, was the husband of his granddaughter. The new edition explains, in a footnote, that he gives an extract from Harris's preface, with "the double purpose of showing what pains he took to collect information, and how unlikely he would be to state anything too favourably of Rome and Romanism. The fact is, both grandson and grandfather were bigoted Protestants."

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