We believe, although we have never seen any announcement of it, that Dr. Bourke is also the editor of the Keltic Journal and Indicator, a semi-monthly commenced at Manchester, (England,) in January last. Why it is called Keltic, instead of Gaelic or Irish, we do not know, nor can we understand why it should be published in England rather than in Ireland. Two other Gaelic races, the Welsh, and the Bretons of France, have periodicals in their native dialect; the latter, the Feiz he Breiz, and the former, several.
The dying out of the Irish language on the lips of a million of people who speak it, may be attributed mainly to two causes—emigration, and the indifference of its own race.
There is still another difficulty. Its pronunciation no longer accords with its received orthography, and, as written, it is encumbered with a quantity of unpronounced letters. If the language is to continue to exist as a written one, a radical reform similar to that effected by the Tcheks in the Bohemian dialect at the end of the last century is absolutely necessary. Meantime, Dr. Bourke is entitled to great praise for his unceasing efforts in the cause of Ireland's national literature.
The publishing house of Adrien Le Clerc (Paris) announces an important work in press. It is L'Histoire des Conciles, in ten volumes 8vo, (large,) of 640 pages each. The first volume appeared on the 31st of January. It is a translation, by the Abbés Goschler and Delarc, from the German of Dr. Ch. Jos. Hefele, Professor of Theology at the University of Tübingen. The Messrs. Clarke, of Edinburgh, have announced an English translation of the same work from the German.
The Femall Glory, or the Life and Death of our Blessed Lady, the Holy Virgin Mary, God's owne immaculate Mother, etc. etc. By Anthony Stafford, Gent. London, 1635. Reprinted in 1869. An exact typographical reproduction of the original, in all its quaintness of ancient characters and antiquity of English, preceded by the apology of the author (Stafford) and an essay on the cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Edited by the Rev. Orby Shipley.
Independently of its intrinsic merit, this work has always attracted great attention, from the fact that it was written by a member of the English (Episcopal) Church, and approved by prelates of that denomination as distinguished as Laud and Juxon.
As a matter of course, such a book was found to be "egregiously scandalous" by the Puritans, who looked upon it as nothing short of a device of papacy. And Henry Burton, minister of Friday street, London, in a sermon, For God and the King, denounced "several extravagant and popish passages therein, and advised the people to be aware of it." This was the beginning of a controversial war concerning the "Femall Glory" that made it one of the most notable works of the day. That a papist should have written such a book might have passed without comment, but that a noble Stafford of Northamptonshire, a graduate of Oriel College Oxford, and a staunch Church of England man, should have done this thing was an irremissible sin in Puritanic eyes.