The Emerald. An Illustrated Literary Journal. Vol. III. New York: The Emerald Publishing Company. 1869. Pp. 412.
This volume, in many respects superior to its predecessors, comprises an immense amount of interesting and entertaining reading matter, and is profusely illustrated.
The Office of Vespers; Containing the Order of the Vesper Service, the Gregorian Psalm Tones harmonized, with the Psalms for all Vespers during the year pointed for chanting. By Rev. Alfred Young. New York: The Catholic Publication House. 1869.
Father Young has given us, we are glad to see, strictly Gregorian melodies, both in the ritual of the vesper service and in the psalm tones, such as are to be found in authorized editions of the Antiphonale Romanum. This is something we commend with all our heart. The melodies commonly found in our "choir books," "vesperals," and "services," are for the most part so garbled, both in the inflections and arrangements, as to leave very little of the original Gregorian tone standing. The chief merit of the book, however, consists in a new division of the tones, and of the psalms, by which but one pointing of the psalms is needed for chanting any one of the tones with their varied concluding cadences. Father Maugin attempted something of this kind in his Roman Vesperal, but succeeded only in reducing the different pointings to four. The simplicity of Father Young's arrangement cannot fail to be appreciated by organists as well as by the singers. With his book in our choirs we need not be condemned to hear the tiresome repetition of the same five psalms sung to the same five tones on every Sunday and festival in the year. We hope the author will find sufficient success with the present publication to give us, as he proposes, the Hymnal and Antiphonal. With these we can have our vespers chanted as they should be, in their truly effective style and religious spirit, in comparison to which our so-called "musical vespers" are tame, unmeaning, and, spiritually, unprofitable.
The Two Women: A Ballad. By Delta. Milwaukee: The Wisconsin News Company. 1868.
This somewhat curious effusion gave us much pleasure as we read it. The smoothness and grace of the verse, and sometimes the diction, too, remind us strongly of Tennyson.