The Layman's Breviary.
From the German of Leopold Shefer.
By C. T. Brooks.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.
Whatever may be the merit of the original German, certain it is, this English version flows like a free rivulet. Mr. Brooks is singularly happy in his versification. It might, however, just as well have been entitled by the author, the "Priest's Breviary" as the "Layman's Breviary," for it is quite plain he thinks both of those terms convertible. We search in vain for any trace of faith in the supernatural, and, considering the beauty of the sentiments, are sorry to find it wanting. The lack of it jars upon our Catholic nerves from the beginning of its perusal to its ending.
The Young Fur Traders, A Tale Of The Far North;
The Coral Island, A Tale Of The Pacific;
Ungava, A Tale Of Esquimaux Land;
Morgan Rattler; or,
A Boy's Adventures in the Forests of Brazil.
By R. M. Ballantyne. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons.
In these "books for boys" amusement and instruction are admirably combined, the adventures met with being varied and thrilling, while the local descriptions embody so thoroughly the natural features of the regions visited, the productions, atmospheric phenomena, etc., as to render them not unworthy the perusal of children of a larger growth; they are also well got up; good paper, neat binding, numerous illustrations.
Where so much is praiseworthy, we are sorry their universal diffusion should be so seriously impeded, or rather utterly destroyed, by a most wanton display of sectarian rancor. In the Young Fur Traders, for instance, we meet with the following definitions, certainly not according to Webster: "Papist, a man who has sold his liberty in religious matters to the pope;" "Protestant, one who protests against such an ineffably silly and unmanly state of slavery." And in Morgan Rattler, a virulent attack on the Brazilian clergy, who, we are told, "totally neglected their religious duties; were no better than miscreants in disguise, teaching the people vice instead of virtue a—curse not a blessing to the land," etc.
We regret this pitiful outpouring the more that, as books of adventures for boys, they are otherwise all that could be desired.