been concocted the most wonderful story about the boy having acknowledged that the whole affair was an imposture, and then having been examined by the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, and very severely rebuked for his misconduct. Both assertions are utterly false. We do not indeed know the precise details of what passed at Ars; it seems tolerably certain that there was some degree of temporary misunderstanding between. the curate and the boy, arising, as far as we can gather, partly from the indistinct utterance of the aged ecclesiastic, partly from the particular way in which he worded one of his ques tions. But what is beyond all dispute is this, that the curate himself believes in the reality of the vision as reported by the children, and recommends many of his penitents to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary. These facts, attested by innumerable friends of the venerable curé, are abundantly established by the Abbé Rousselot in the volume now before us. We can afford to dismiss, therefore, as utterly futile, all objections urged against the history of La Salette on the authority of an imaginary confession of imposture made by the boy. Neither Maximin nor Melanie have ever prevaricated or wavered in the tale they originally told. It has Another objection which we have sometimes heard, and which is sufficiently disposed of in this little volume, concerns the alleged imbecility of the Bishop of Grenoble. been whispered in certain quarters that an episcopal decision coming from so aged and infirm a prelate is not entitled to any real weight; and it is added, that the Apostolic See has given a very significant token of its assent to this same judgment, by depriving the said Bishop of all exercise of episcopal functions, and appointing another in his place. The fact is, that the Bishop petitioned to be relieved from a burden, the adequate discharge of which was rendered extremely difficult by reason of his bodily infirmities; Rome granted the petition, but requested the venerable Bishop to recommend his own successor, a tolerably clear proof that the Holy See, at least, does not consider him to be in his dotage. A third point, on which M. Rousselot has furnished us with new and interesting particulars, concerns the decision of the children that they would reveal their secret to the Pope. It appears that towards the middle or end of March 1851, it was intimated to the Bishop of Grenoble by his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, that his Holiness had expressed some desire to be informed of the secret. Two priests were immediately appointed to have an interview with the children, and to instruct them in the obligation of obedience they were under, if the Pope should see fit hereafter to issue his commands upon this subject. M. Auvergne, the Bishop's secretary, was one of these, and M. Rousselot the other. Maximin seems to have had no difficulty or hesitation in the matter at all; at first he declined to give an answer to the hypothetical case proposed to him. "If the Pope were to ask you to tell him your secret, would you tell it?" he was asked. His reply was, "When the Pope has asked me, it will be time enough to think of this. I shall see when the time comes, according to what he says to me." "But if he should command you?" "Oh, then I should tell him." Melanie was more timid and doubtful; and it cost her two or three days of painful anxiety before she could resolve the same question in the affirmative; and her consent was given at last only with a very strict proviso that the communication was to be made either immediately to the Pope himself, or to be written in a letter which should be sealed and conveyed to him by some thoroughly trustworthy person. "Supposing the Pope," it was asked, "when he knows your secret, should publish it; would this distress you?" "No; for that would be entirely his affair; it would be no longer any concern of mine. But how would it be," continued Melanie, "supposing the secret were something which concerned himself?" "In that case," was the prudent answer, " he will of course use his own discretion as to publishing it or not." Two other little details connected with this secret, and the manner of its communication to the Pope, are worth mentioning. Maximin being asked how he had begun his letter to the Pope, answered, "I began in this way: They say (on dit) that on the 19th of September, 1846, I saw the Blessed Virgin; one may judge of the truth or falsehood of this opinion by what follows." Melanie was asked whether any particular dates had been assigned to the calamities which were foretold, and she replied in the affirmative. This answer, taken in conjunction with her inquiry about the Pope addressed to the Abbé Rousselot, which has been already recorded, may justify a suspicion that the events foretold are at no considerable distance; certainly it seems to shew that the present generation may reasonably expect to see them come to pass; but even though this expectation should be realised, we do not doubt but that ingenious means will still be devised whereby the whole history may be brought into discredit, or at least made to appear as in no way superior to the order of things human and natural. 344 SHORT NOTICES. THE last month has brought an unusual supply of Catholic literature from America. Messrs. Dunigan, New York (London, Dolman), are bringing out in numbers a magnificent edition of Haydock's Family Bible. Of the contents of this work it is not necessary that we should say more than that the Notes and Commentaries are given without abridgment from the original edition; as a specimen of typography, it reflects the highest credit upon the publishers; and when completed it will form a really magnificent volume, supplied at a very reasonable price. Messrs. Murphy and Co., Baltimore (London, Dolman), send us The Spaewife, or the Queen's Secret, a tale (in two volumes) of the times of Queen Elizabeth. It will enable our readers to guess what the secret is, if we refer them to the last note at the end of Dr. Lingard's Life of the "Virgin Queen ;" and when we add that the book is from the same pen as Shandy Maguire," they will know that there can be no lack of interest either in the subject or in the mode of handling it. We have been much interested by reading it; but we are not sure that we think it quite so successful as its predecessor. It is of so much more ambitious a character; and its readers will feel that they are scarcely able to do it justice, from the fact that some of the dramatis personæ necessarily bring to mind recollections of the principal characters in other novels with which it is dangerous to provoke comparison; we allude especially to the historical portion of the Waverley Novels. The plot is cleverly conceived, and enables the author to draw a striking picture of the principal characteristics of the age in which it is laid. From the same publishers we have two excellent compendiums of history, the one ancient, the other modern, from the pen of Dr. Fredet, Professor of History in St. Mary's College, Baltimore. We observe that this is the fifth edition of the Ancient History, and the tenth of thé Modern. From their literary merit, however, we are not at all surprised to learn that they have been so well received, whilst for the soundness of their principles we sincerely rejoice that they should enjoy so extensive a circulation. Dr. Fredet seems to us to have achieved the difficult task of writing history briefly without making it dull. Most men who might undertake to give us the history of the world from the dispersion of the sons of Noe, after the building of Babel, down to the battle of Actium and the change of the Roman republic into an empire, and again from the Birth of Christ down to the year of our Lord 1850, in two volumes of 500 pages each, would have produced a mere dry chronicle of unconnected facts, most accurately true perhaps, yet at the same time most hopelessly uninteresting: Dr. Fredet's books, while written principally for the use of schools, will be found eminently readable by all persons. The Governess, or the Effects of Good Example (Baltimore, Hedian and O'Brien; London, Dolman), is not so recent a publication as those we have hitherto mentioned; we believe, however, that we have not before recommended it, as we now desire to do, for lending-libraries, &c. It is one of the best American Catholic tales we have met with for a long time. It deserved to fall into the hands of a better printer or more careful corrector of the press. Its misprints are unfortunately innumerable. A Letter has just appeared addressed to his late Parishioners, by Lord Charles Thynne, &c. (Bristol, Reader; London, Burns, and Dolman). Lord C.T. was received into the Church some few months since; and, like so many other English clergymen under the same circumstances, he had fully determined, as he says, on remaining perfectly silent" as to the important step he had taken; the Bishop of Salisbury, however, chose to speak publicly against him from his own pulpit; and this has caused him to change his determination, and to publish these few words of explanation to his former parishioners. The letter is very short, and characterised by extreme simplicity, both in its style and matter; no one can read it without being struck with the tone of affectionate regard for those to whom it is addressed, which pervades every part of it; and we shall be much surprised if, sooner or later, it does not bear fruit to the Church. Altogether it is much of the same character as the Letter of the Hon. Towry Law, published some months ago, which we have reason to know has been doing good service in that gentleman's old neighbourhood. A brief Summary of the Four Books of the Imitation (Burns and Lambert) will be found a very useful little book for the object intended, viz. to shew "the exact scope of the author in his various instructions, and their connection with one another;" for, as the writer observes, though the work may seem to consist of so many 66 unconnected sentences," there is in it "a natural though secret order by which the author generally leads the soul from lower to higher degrees of virtue, even to the summit of Christian perfection." We have only just received the fourth volume of Dr. Murray's Irish Annual Miscellany (Bellew, Dublin), and which its author announces is, for the present at least, to be the concluding volume. Without committing ourselves to an agreement with all the various opinions, metaphysical or moral, expressed by the talented writer, we are strongly persuaded that good service has been done, and such as is especially needful for the time, by this most laudable, and, speaking generally, most successful endeavour to state salutary and necessary truths, and expose popular fallacies and errors in plain downright language and a sprightly forcible manner. There is a manliness and an honest bluntness about the reverend author's style, which is calculated to arouse attention, where a less trenchant weapon, or one of a finer mould, might fail to strike home, or to make its force felt. One of the essays in the present volume, that on "Equivocation," we would particularly recommend to the attention of every sensible Protestant, whose mind is either free from cant already, or who at least desires to free it from that deleterious influence. The simple fact of the matter is, that in this, as in innumerable other instances, Protestants do without principle what Catholics do on principle. The Protestant is in the universal habit of equivocating, at the same time declaring it to be sinful so to do. He deliberately equivocates, and then sanctimoniously confesses himself guilty of lying. The Catholic, on the other hand,-who holds that a single wilful untruth, though it harms no one, may not be uttered even though (to put an impossible supposition) 10,000 worlds could be saved thereby,-declares explicitly, that in cases which he can specify, at least in principle, equivocation is not merely necessary, as Protestants talk, (as though God could have made it necessary for us, under any circumstances, to dó evil), but positively lawful and laudable: upon which the Protestant, who equivocates not only without rule, but against what he calls his moral sense, accuses the Catholic of odious immorality! This looks extremely like what in the case of the Pharisees our Blessed Lord called "hypocrisy." Translation of the Divina Commedia. By the Rev. E. O'Donnell, (Richardson.) "I may say," observes the translator in his advertisement, "without vanity or exaggeration, that no translator has ever done more justice to the author than I have in every respect. A literal translation of the poem is morally impossible; a loose paraphrastic one would completely distort and disfigure the natural beauties of the origi nal. I have therefore observed the medius terminus throughout, in order to satisfy all." We are sorry not to be able to class ourselves among the satisfied. But rather than pass a precipitate judgment, or unfavourably bias that of our readers, we prefer leaving them to judge for themselves. In his preface Mr. O'Donnell remarks: "Many have attempted to translate the work in verse, and, in my humble opinion, very unsuccessfully." Cary's is the only such translation we have within reach, and we will give a few quotations as specimens of the comparative fidelity of the two works: "Tal mi fec' io in quella oscura costa ; Per che pensando consumai la 'mpresa "Such was my case on approaching this gloomy region, for I accomplished my enterprise merely in imagination, whereas at the commencement it was forsaken."-O'Donnell. "E'en such was I on that dun coast, Wasting in thought my enterprise, at first So eagerly embrac'd."-CARY. "Mentre ch' io rovinava in basso loco." "Whilst I was rolling down in a low region."-O'DONNELL. We should premise that the poet is headed back by a furious beast down the hill which he is climbing. "While to the lower space with backward step I fell."-CARY. Ripresi via per la piaggia diserta Sì che 'l piè fermo sempre era 'l più basso." "I recommenced my journey through such a desolate region, that I had always to secure my steps with a solid foot."-O'DONNELL. "I journeyed on over that lonely steep, The hinder foot still firmer." Cary adds as a note, "It is to be remembered, that in ascending a hill the weight of the body rests on the hinder foot." "Guarda' in alto, e vidi le sue spalle Vestite già de' raggi del pianeta, Che mena dritto altrui per ogni calle." "I looked up and saw its sides already covered with the rays of the planet which leads man to all directions."-O'DONNELL. "I look'd aloft, and saw his shoulders broad Already vested with that planet's beam, Who leads all wanderers safe through every way." CARY. Another translation from the same publishers is far more successful, and deserves high commendation-Conferences of the Rev. Père Lacordaire, delivered in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, translated by Henry Langdon. This volume is equally creditable to the publisher and the translator. It is nicely printed, handsomely bound, and alto |