It is bad enough to disgrace one's walls with ridiculous imitations of the pictures of great masters, but to cut down a genuine Murillo or Vandyke to suit a second-hand frame, bought in a cheap auction lot, and then touch up what is left of the subject with a white-wash brush, is something too execrable to be expressed. We append an example or two for our readers' amusement.
"Verbum caro, panem verum.
Verbo carnem efficit;
Fitque sanguis Christi merum.
"Word made flesh, among us dwelling,
With true bread and wine regaleth;
By His word the mystery telling."
Page 55.
"Inflammatus et accensus,
Per te, Virgo, sim defensus
In die judicii.
"By a heavenly zeal excited,
When the judgment fires are lighted,
Then may I be justified."
Page 67.
"Dogma datur Christianis,
Quod in carnem transit panis,
Et vinum in sanguinem.
"Here to Christians Jesus preacheth,
Here to us the mystery teacheth,
Never sense perceiving it—
Flesh and blood for us devoted,
Are by bread and wine denoted,
Living faith believing it."
Page 95.
These, we think, will suffice. The appearance of this new one among the many late republications in various forms of these hymns furnishes us with another gratifying proof that our Protestant friends are beginning to regret having consigned all the works of "popery" to perdition; and we rejoice that they rehabilitate her poetry among the first of them; for the poetry of a church is as truly the sincerest expression of its heart as it is of a people's. But in the name of sincerity let us have an honest version. When or where did a Catholic ever "understand" the works of a Protestant in a Catholic sense? Let Mr. Benedict try again. We are sure he can and will do better, for there is no sign of malicious intent in his volume; and his language, when speaking of the Catholic Church, and of the writers whose poems he reprints, is that of a scholar and a gentleman.
My Prisons.
Memoirs of Silvio Pellico.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.
This well known and popular book is republished in beautiful form, with excellent illustrations, by the Messrs. Roberts, with an introductory notice by Epes Sargent. We cannot agree with Mr. Sargent, however, that Silvio Pellico, if living now, would have had any sympathy with the present Italian rebellion, or its unworthy and anti-Christian leaders, as he intimates. The publishers would do well to leave out the introductory notice.
Breaking Away: or, The Fortunes of a Student.
By Oliver Optic.
Boston: Lee & Shepard.
In this volume are described the adventures of the pupils of the Parkville Liberal Institute, consequent on their revolt against a tyrannical principal. Their "treasons, stratagems, and spoils" are told in pleasing style, and will meet none the less with boyish approval if somewhat difficult of imitation.