us before, and Von Holst after, that great crisis in our history. Hence we think that both authors should be read, in order to appreciate the efforts of learned and distinguished foreigners to comment upon a theme so difficult to any European. This is especially desirable now, as in this case the Frenchman and the German are not admirers of each other’s respective political systems. The present volume, however, is able, spirited, and well written, and shows a remarkable acquaintance with our history and institutions, and with the lives and characters of our public men. The author is not in love with our government, and yet is not without sympathy for it and for our people. He is, no doubt, more in sympathy with our present than with our past. From his vigorously-written pages Americans may learn something of their virtues and of their faults. The animus and style of the work might be inferred from the title of the second chapter: “The Worship of the Constitution, and its real Character.” We have often been accused of making the Constitution our political bible, and Washington our political patron saint. Such seems to be the impression of Professor von Holst. But it must be said that his able and interesting work is well calculated to promote the study of the American republican form of government; for we are certainly a terra incognita to most Europeans. Having ably studied his subject, he has ably and learnedly communicated his researches to his countrymen and to the world. His work will appear in a series of volumes, of which we have now only the first, and the English translation will hereafter appear in this country simultaneously with the original German publications. The work seems to deal exclusively with political questions, and handles them ably. We commend its perusal to our readers.
Alice Leighton. A Tale of the Seventeenth Century. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
This story of the wars between Roundhead and Cavalier will prove an agreeable disappointment to the reader who contrives to wade through its first few pages, which are rather silly. We tremble for the fate of a story which in the very first page tells us of its youthful hero: “His brow was, however, clouded,
either with emotion or with sorrow, perchance with both; and a careful observer might have marked a tear in his soft dark eyes as he turned his gaze upon the fair view before him.” In the second page the hero tells us, or rather nobody in particular, that eighteen summers have at last passed over him, whereupon he proceeds to deliver a page of an address to his “own dear home,” in the course of which he remarks that “the accents of a dethroned monarch are calling for assistance,” but “the long-listened-to maxims” of his childhood hold him back from joining the king. In the third page he encounters a mild sort of witch, who is gifted with that very uncertain second sight that has been the peculiar property of witches from time immemorial, and who prophesies to him, in Scotch dialect, in the usual fashion of such prophets.
Nothing could be more inauspicious than such a beginning; and yet as one reads on all this clap-trap disappears, and a very interesting story, though by no means of the highest order, unfolds itself. There is abundance of incident, battle, hair-breadth escape, varying fortunes, misery, ending with the final happiness of those in whom we are chiefly interested. Some of the characters are very well drawn, and the author shows a competent knowledge of the scenes, events, and period in which the story is laid. It affords a healthy and agreeable contrast to the psychological puzzles generally given us nowadays as novels. It looks to us as though the writer were a new hand. If so, Alice Leighton affords every promise of very much better work in a too weak department of letters—Catholic fiction. If the writer will only banish for ever that antiquated deus or dea ex machinâ, the witch, especially if she speak with a Scotch accent, give much more care than is shown in the present volume to English, not force fun for fun’s sake, we shall hope soon to welcome a new volume from a lively, pleasant, and powerful pen.
“My Own Child.” A Novel. By Florence Marryat. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.
Florence Marryat has become, and deservedly, quite a popular novelist. She has, we understand, become something in our opinion very much better—a Catholic.
We see no reason why her faith should interfere with the interest or power of her stories. On the contrary, it should steady her hand, widen her vision, chasten her thought, give a new meaning to very old scenes and types of character; and we have no doubt at all that such will be the case. My Own Child is neither her best story nor her worst. It is a very sweet and pathetic one, simple in construction and plot, yet full of sad interest throughout, lightened here and there by bits of lively description or pictures of quaint character. It is easy to recognize a practised hand in it. The chief characters of the story are Catholics. We have only one fault to find, but that a very serious one. It is too bad to make a young lady, and so charming a young lady as May Power is represented to be, talk slang. Where in the world did she learn it, this bright, beaming, Irish, Catholic girl? Certainly not from her mother, for she never indulges in it, and surely not from the good Sisters in Brussels by whom she was educated. Yet she bounds out of the convent perfect in—slang! For instance: “‘I’ll get some nice, jolly fellow to look after it [her property] for us, mother.’ ‘You’ll never get another Hugh!’ I exclaimed indignantly. ‘Well, then, we’ll take the next best fellow we can find,’ replied my darling.” The first “best fellow,” the Hugh alluded to, happened to be the “darling’s” dead father. The same darling, only just out of convent, is anxious to make her first appearance “with a splash and a dash.” It is only natural that she should discover her mother looking “rather peaky” when that lady is threatened with an illness that endangers her life.
This is to be regretted. Young ladies are much more acceptable as young ladies than when indulging in language supposed to be relegated to “fast” young women. Slang is bad enough in men’s mouths, whether in or out of books; but, spoken by a woman, it at once places her without the pale of all that is sweet and pure and calculated to inspire that admiration and reverence in men which are the crown and pride of a Christian woman’s life. Miss Marryat is clever enough to dispense with such poor material. Meanwhile, what becomes of this slangy young lady the reader will discover for himself.