A complete sketch of M. Taine's system would necessitate a reproduction of the work itself. In his volume there are no wasted words; and while, perhaps, not altogether intelligible to the utterly unlearned in art, the treatise which he gives us will serve to stimulate the reader to an inquiry which cannot fail to improve his taste in literature as well as in the peculiar domain which it professes to explore.
We especially welcome this volume at this time, because of the opportunities which are now afforded for a study of the principles of M. Taine, in connection with the great schools of Italian art themselves. In the Jarves Collection, now at Yale College, may be found paintings of representative masters, from the dawn of Italian art to the commencement of its decline. Hundreds of visitors have examined this treasure-house of painting, and thousands more should follow their example. And we venture to suggest that a careful study of the work before us will render, at least in the case of cultivated persons, what would otherwise have been a mere visit of curiosity, a most valuable lesson on that ideal in art in which the true artists of every age have given the measure of their own genius and the pledge of their artistic immortality.
The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac,
for the United States, for the Year of our Lord 1869.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.
This is the first attempt by any Catholic publisher in this country to get up an Almanac suitable for Catholic families. It contains a complete calendar for the year 1869, with a variety of other matter both useful and entertaining. The illustrations, nineteen in number, are excellent. We are glad to be able to state that it is the intention of the Society to issue such an almanac every year, and we hope that this first attempt may meet with the success which it so well deserves.
It should be found in every Catholic household in the United States. Almanacs have become almost a necessity, and are looked for as regularly as the new year. It is, then, highly important that an almanac, to say the least, should contain nothing objectionable to morals, and this cannot be said of too many frequently met with, which are only mere advertising mediums for quack medicines, etc. We hope The Catholic Family Almanac will henceforth supersede all such trashy productions—which no father of a family should allow to endanger the faith and morality of his children. The excuse heretofore urged for their presence in the house, that there was no Catholic family almanac to be had, is no longer valid.
Criminal Abortion: Its Nature, its Evidence, and its Law.
By Horatio R. Storer, M.D., LL.B., and Franklin Fiske Heard.
Boston: Little, Brown & Company. 1868.
This subject is here brought before the public in a manner proportioned to its importance; and Dr. Storer, for his indefatigable efforts in ferreting out the statistics of this crime, and his outspoken honest opinions, deserves the thanks of the American people. The evidence adduced in support of the author's assertions is so conclusive that the question suggests itself, Whither are we drifting? In a note on page 74, the moral effect of the Catholic religion is shown in preventing this "slaughter of the innocents," but the author fails to suggest the general dissemination of the religion throughout the country as a means of checking this rapidly growing evil.