gether well "got up," whilst the translator has performed his far more difficult task with singular ability. Père Lacordaire's French does not readily lend itself to translation; Mr. Langdon, however, if we may judge from the first two or three conferences-which alone we have yet had time to examine has given us a version which combines the merits of fidelity to the original with a fluent, easy, and not ungraceful English. Of the merits of the conferences themselves we need say nothing; the breathless attention of the crowded audiences to which they were delivered is a sufficient guarantee for their value. We will only add, that the present volume contains the conferences on the Church, and on the effects of Catholic doctrine upon the mind, the soul, and human society; and the remaining portion of the dogmatic conferences is promised in another volume. There is yet a third volume of translations upon our table-Miscellaneous Translations, by J. S. Moorat. (Burns and Lambert.) This volume consists of translations, confessedly free, from Metastasio and Lamartine. There is only one specimen from the former-The Death of Abel; and three-fourths of the volume are devoted to more fragmentary pieces from Lamartine. The former is, to our taste, both more interesting in itself and better executed by the translator; so that we should have been glad if the proportions from the two authors had been reversed. We have no right, however, to quarrel with the translator for indulging his own taste rather than ours; and the modesty of his preface entirely disarms criticism. "These translations," he says, 66 were not made with any intention of publicity; but copies having been requested by several persons of the translator's private circle, and the idea suggested that the little production might be interesting to many, it is thus modestly offered to those to whom it may be acceptable;" and we have no doubt that there are many to whom it will be acceptable. Messrs. Burns and Lambert have just issued an enlarged List of Books suitable for Lending-Libraries, School-Prizes, &c., which will be found very useful, especially at special seasons like this, and can be forwarded by post to all applicants for a mere trifle. To such of our readers as are not already aware of the fact, we need only announce the reprint from the Dublin Review of two articles from the pen of His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman; the one, as solid in matter as it is brilliant in execution, on "The Bible in Maynooth;" the other on Convents" (London, Richardson), being a crushing and most conclusive reply to the scurrilous falsehoods and misrepresentations of Mr. Hobart Seymour. The really "truth-seeking" portion of the Protesttant public have now an opportunity of testing the arguments and the facts (?) alleged by No-Popery orators, whether in the House or out, on the two subjects which have been so much agitated of late in the politico-religious world. The Life of S. Francis of Assisi; with an Essay on the Characteristics of the Lives of the Saints. By the Very Rev. F. W. Faber. (Richardson.) That the Essay prefixed to this volume is by a master-hand will be evident to any competent reader who peruses but a couple of pages taken at random. There is a charm of freshness and originality, as the most matter-of-fact person must acknowledge, about all F. Faber's writings; but nothing that we have hitherto received from his pen is, in our judgment, comparable in interest as in power with this most remarkable production; nothing which so strikingly exhibits the mental grasp and peculiar genius of this gifted priest. We will not call the present Essay fascinating, though fascinating it undoubtedly is in the very highest degree, lest we should seem to speak but of its power to engage and enthral the mind: we say emphatically that it is a work to study, to read again and again, and to meditate upon, till its principles and the solid lessons it conveys have been so wrought into the spiritual part of our nature, that they influence not only our conceptions of the Saints of God and their supernatural lives, but our own daily habitual intercourse with the Church triumphant and the unseen world. All spiritual writers, as is known, strongly insist on the necessity of a continual reading of the Lives of Saints for those who would advance ever so short a distance on the road of perfection. The Essay before us teaches how those Lives are to be read worthily and with profit; and with all the earnestness we are capable of expressing we would urge our readers, not merely to read, but to ponder it. It is not only an instructive-it is an eminently suggestive book; and we question whether any one could peruse it once without returning to it again and again, as to a mine of rich and varied thought on a subject than which there is none more worthy in every way of the serious attention of mankind. We may add, that the Essay not only contains very valuable lessons of a practical kind, but by means of the line of argument it adopts, and the peculiar information it affords, is admirably calculated to obviate the objections and remove the difficulties which are felt by some minds to lie in the way of their understanding, or rightly appreciating and heartily sympathising with, those marvellous creations of Divine grace, the Saints of holy Church. A still later volume of this series, The Life of the Blessed Paul of the Cross, will be specially interesting to English readers, Blessed Paul having been the founder of the Passionist Order, now happily established in more than one diocese in this country. The approaching solemnity of his public beatification gives the work an additional interest. So also does the fact, that the author of the present life, Monsignor Strambi, himself died in the odour of sanctity. A want long felt by choir-masters and singers is at length supplied in A Collection of Music suitable for the Rite of Benediction (Burns and Lambert), edited by Dr. Newsham, with the assistance of Mr. Richardson of Liverpool. The collection includes pieces for the O Salutaris, the Tantum Ergo, and the Litany B.V.M., by various writers, none of them (so far as we are aware) hitherto published, with the exception of Webbe's unequalled Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris. There is a considerable variety in the styles of the pieces given, and, of course, all are not of equal merit; but as a whole the selection is excellent. Nothing is admitted that is unfit for choral singing, and nothing that is either artistically or religiously objectionable. We recommend it to all Catholic choirs; taking the liberty to add one hint-that they do not give their congregations too large a variety of tunes out of the abundant materials here at hand. The Editors of The Choir (Burns and Lambert), having completed their first volume, are wisely intending to confine their second volume to Mass music adapted to choirs of limited powers. The object they aim at is a most important one, and we cannot too sincerely wish them success. Levey, Robson, and Franklyn, Great New Street, Fetter Lane. 880 MADELEINE, THE ROSIÈRE. Chapters VI., VII. REVIEWS.-PROTESTANTISM AND SOCIALISM. Du Protestan- tisme et de toutes les Hérésies, dans leur rapport avec OUR ANTIPODES.-Our Antipodes; or, Residence and Ram- bles in the Australasian Colonies, with a Glimpse of the Gold-Fields. By Lieut.-Col. G. C. Mundy PROTESTANT ROSARIES.-Rosaries, compiled for the use of the SHORT NOTICES.-The Dublin Review.-Peach's Practical Reflections.-Rev. J. Appleton's Analysis; or, Familiar Explanation of the Gospels for all Sundays and Festi- vals.-St. Francis de Sales' Treatise on the Love of God.-The Clifton Tracts.-Lazarine; or, Duty once understood, religiously fulfilled.-De Ponte's Medita- tions.-Dr. Crookall's Mass in E-flat.-The Catholic School, vol. ii.-Joe Baker; or, the One Church.- To Correspondents. Correspondents who require answers in private are requested to send their complete address, a precaution not always observed. We cannot undertake to return rejected communications. All communications must be postpaid. Communications respecting Advertisements must be addressed to the publishers, Messrs. BURNS and LAMBERT; but communications intended for the Editor himself should be addressed to the care of Mr. READER, 9 Park Street, Bristol. The Rambler, A CATHOLIC JOURNAL AND REVIEW. VOL. XI. MAY 1853. PART LXV. CHARITABLE TRUSTS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. We have shewn in our former paper on this subject, that before the Reformation the bishops had exclusive cognisance of religious trusts, testamentary or otherwise. The Court of Chancery itself had, up to that time, no cognisance of such trusts; and even if it had, was presided over by ecclesiastics, who of course followed the principles of the civil and the canon laws, and made it a "court of conscience." At the era of the Reformation a series of lay chancellors commenced. The Court of Chancery was legalised and secularised, and ceased to be a court of conscience; and at the same time the spiritual power of the bishops was crippled under the influence of the new despotism of the royal supremacy, and such charities as escaped the plunders of that age of spoliation came under the control of the Court of Chancery, whose system rapidly became cumbrous and costly. The result of this system of administering charitable trusts, we have seen, was a legislative confession half a century afterwards, that the funds were very generally misapplied, "by reason of frauds and breaches of trust," which the Court of Chancery had failed to remedy, and to provide a remedy for which the legislature passed the act of Elizabeth in 1602; under which commissions might issue out of Chancery to the bishop of any diocese and his chancellor, with any other "proper and discreet persons," empowering them to remedy, summarily and without expense, all abuses of charitable trusts. Thus then we have shewn, that for centuries before the Reformation, the administration of all religious trusts was exclusively spiritual and episcopal; and that within half a century after the Reformation, it was found requisite to recur in a great degree to the same principle, by reason of the utter inadequacy of a lay and secular system to repress and redress "frauds and breaches of trust." The earliest and greatest of our lay chancellors (com |