Cineas; or, Rome under Nero. From the French of J. M. Villefranche. 1 vol. 12mo. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1871.
If we except Fabiola, Callista, and Dion, we feel no hesitation in saying that Cineas is equal to any production of its kind yet offered to the English reader. In this tale, history and tradition are interwoven with fiction, and the result is a graphic sketch of Christianity in the apostolic ages. The portico, the Pantheon, the temple, and the catacomb are brought upon the stage, and made to represent their parts. The scene changes from the Circus Maximus to the Mamertine, from Rome to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Athens; and at each
change of scene the infant church appears clothed in new beauty, in new holiness, in new strength. It is much to be desired that Catholics of the present day should become acquainted with the religious life of their brethren of the early church. No other study is so well calculated to enliven our faith, animate our hope, inflame our charity, and incite us to that heroic virtue so necessary to perseverance in the present age. Cineas tends to promote this study, and as such we welcome it, commend it to the perusal of every Catholic, and thank the translator and publisher for the care with which they have performed their respective tasks.
The Letters of Madame de Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends. Edited by Mrs. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1871.
The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited by Mrs. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1871.
These two books, simultaneously issued from the same press and edited by the same author, bear strong marks of similarity and contrast. Each, in its way, has long been looked upon as a model of epistolary correspondence in its appropriate language, and each is defaced by that superficial, not to say anti-Christian, philosophy which prevailed among the “higher classes” in France and England during the last and the preceding century. The French authoress, however, has somewhat the advantage of her English sister, not only in the possession of a language especially adapted, by its grace and flexibility, to this species of composition, but from the fact that she lived surrounded by a strong Catholic public opinion, which, with all her cynicism and fashionable scepticism, she could not wholly disregard. We find, therefore, in many of her letters, particularly those to her daughter, flashes of true, genuine moral sentiment, which are the
more striking from contrast with the worldly tone which generally characterized her life and correspondence. Lady Montagu, on the contrary, was brought up in that hard, unsympathetic school which was inaugurated in England after the frenzy of the Reformation had subsided, and with all her wit and womanly elegance we cannot look upon her otherwise than as an intellectual pagan. We may search from cover to cover of Mrs. Hale’s edition of her correspondence in vain to find one religious sentiment that would not have been as appropriate in the days of Horace or Zeno as in the eighteenth century of the Christian era. This is the more singular when we recollect that these gifted women, married to husbands far their inferiors mentally, and, as it appears, merely for the sake of conventionalism, by a not unnatural effort transferred the love women usually bear to the partners of their joys and sorrows to their offspring, and centred all their affections and hopes in their children. With our children we are apt “to assume a virtue if we have it not,” yet still we find these two intellectual mothers writing to their daughters in strains which, if not positively immoral in the broad sense of that term, certainly could not actively conduce to strengthen them against the temptations by which they were constantly surrounded, or to elevate their minds above the glitter and hollowness of the society in which they were obliged to move. Both these distinguished writers were well-bred, thoroughly educated according to the idea of their times, and were the associates of generals, statesmen, poets, and artists, and their frequent and familiar reference to the then leading men of their respective countries are not only interesting, but instructive, as giving us a view of the interior life of many eminent personages hitherto known to us only by their public acts; but when we consider how many unexceptionably
good books this age of cheap printing has put within our reach, and the shortness of this busy life itself, we cannot recommend to our readers, particularly the younger portion, the perusal of either volume; nor do we see the necessity of a new edition of works which are merely ornamental, without having the merit of being innocuous.
A Collection of Leading Cases on the Law of Elections in the United States. With Notes and References to the latest authorities. By Frederick C. Brightly, author of “The Federal Digest,” “The United States Digest,” etc. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 17 and 19 South Sixth Street, Law Booksellers, Publishers, and Importers. 1871.
Mr. Brightly, who has done so much in his previous works to facilitate the law-student and the lawyer in their studies and preparation of cases, by means of his admirable and learned digests and treatises, has now acquired a new claim upon the gratitude of the student and professional man by his Collection of Leading Cases on Elections. The author has been most happy in the selection of his subject, for there are few branches of the law so important, in a free and representative government like ours, as the law of public elections.