But if there is something terrible in the appearance and customs of the barbarians whom we have mentioned, it is surpassed by what we are told of the Huns. We shall not be able to form a true idea of the dreadful avengers who are to come down out of that Northern gloom, unless we look for a moment at this most terrible of the barbaric tribes. The Goths themselves, the stalwart giants of the Scandinavian forests, who knew no fear of men, could not but be terrified when they first fixed eyes on the hideous forms of the Huns. Jornandes, the Gothic historian, tells us that “the livid color of their skin had in it something shocking to the sight; theirs was not a face, but a deformed mass of flesh, provided, instead of eyes, with two black sinister spots. Their cruelty wreaked itself even upon their own new-born offspring, whose cheeks they lacerated with iron before they had tasted their mother's milk; and from this cause no down graced their chin in youth, no beard gave dignity to their old age.” We are told by Ammianus that “they looked not like men, but like wild beasts standing on two legs, as if in mockery of the human species.” They were, in truth, the wildest and most savage of all the barbarian hordes. They loved to be free and unrestrained as the wandering blasts of their native solitudes. They ate and slept on the ground under the open sky. They took their food raw and uncooked, like the tigers of the forest. No temples of worship had they; their God was a naked sword fixed in the ground. They were devoured by an insatiable thirst for gold, which they were ever ready to procure through blood, and smoke, and wholesale ruin. But the characteristic of their race was a ferocious delight in cruel massacre, and they gloried in pillaging, burning, and levelling down to the ground every monument of civilization that came in their path, till the regions over which they swept bore a resemblance to their native deserts. The rest of the [pg 857] barbarians were amazed at their inhumanity, and looked upon them as fiends under the likeness of men.
But we need say no more. We have caught some few glimpses of what is behind the dark storm-cloud, and we can form some idea of the horrors that are hidden there. Well may men tremble as they look northwards in the Vth century. Well may Christians think they hear now again, ringing out more clearly than ever, the warning voice of S. John, and flee to far-off hiding-places. The sinful empire herself feels, at times, as if under the horrors of a nightmare; in her frightful dreams she thinks she is trampled upon, and crushed under the feet of fierce, wild men of terrible aspect, and torn and hacked by their strange weapons of war. As the tempest lowers over her darker and darker, and threatens to become all-enveloping in its wrath, a deep shudder runs through her mighty frame. And well may she stagger and quake for fear. The reckoning-day is close at hand, so long waited for by the holy martyrs of foregone centuries. And a day of dreadful destruction it will be.
But lo! the hour has already struck. God has given the signal to his warrior-hosts. The Goth has given a ringing blast on his horn, and the German has shouted the first notes of his terrible war-song, and the pine-trees of the Hercynian forest are trembling at the sound. The avengers of the martyrs and the Christian name are coming, and the whole North is shaking under their tread. At last the storm-cloud bursts, and fiery destruction sweeps down upon the doomed empire of Rome.
New Publications.
Ireland's Case Stated: In Reply to Mr. Froude. By the Very Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P. New York: P. M. Haverty. 1873.
Ireland's case has been stated, argued, vindicated, and, so far as the verdict of the American people is concerned, adjudicated. Mr. Froude has given his last scowl and his last growl, and gone back to his own country—which he has damaged by his foolish escapade—the most badly beaten man of the present decade. It is rather late in the day to revert to the topic of F. Burke's combat with this obstinate champion of bad characters and bad causes, and we will, therefore, let it pass with these few words. We are hoping to see soon issued Mr. Haverty's promised second volume of F. Burke's Discourses and Lectures, and we once more express our regret that any should be found so unmindful of propriety and courtesy, to say the least, as to interfere with F. Burke's control of the publication of his own works. The eloquent Dominican preacher may be assured that the respect and sympathy not only of all Catholic Irishmen, but of all other Catholics of the United States, will be his while he remains here as our honored guest, and will follow him when he returns to his native land, or to his own beloved and imperial Rome.
Keel and Saddle: A Retrospect of Forty Years of Military and Naval Service. By Joseph W. Revere. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1872.
We are so often disgusted, in reading books of entertainment, with a revelation of positive rascality and impiety, or at least of a want of high moral and religious principle in the author, that it is a relief to meet sometimes with a happy disappointment. [pg 858] This is a lively, entertaining book of varied adventures on field and flood. Yet we always find the author, when his personality comes into view, not only a bold and brave soldier, but a gentleman, an honorable man, and a frank, staunch Catholic Christian, who never obtrudes yet never hides his faith and his principles of virtue. His views of Spanish affairs strike us as rather defective, and occasionally there is a narrative concerning persons of depraved morals which would have been better omitted for the sake of his youthful readers. The “Golondina” episode in chapter xxiv. relates an adventure whose lawfulness, we suspect, though perhaps admitted by quarter-deck theology, would not stand the test of a strict examination. Sometimes we are at a loss to discover whether the author intends us to understand his narrative as historical, or is merely relating a conte for our amusement. In his own personal adventures and the descriptions he gives of what he has seen, we discover at once that his narrative is real as well as picturesque. And it is certainly most interesting. The off-hand, unstudied, and unaffected style reveal the character of the true, genuine, frank sailor and soldier; while at the same time, the refinement of taste and the cultivation of mind which are manifest throughout give these sketches from the diary of a long and adventurous life the literary finish which belongs to the work of a scholar. Notwithstanding certain exceptions we have made, we reiterate our commendation of the high tone of moral principle, the unaffected religious reverence, and the generally healthful and invigorating spirit which pervades the book which the gallant General Revere has given to the public as the retrospect of his forty years of naval and military service.
Hymns and Poems: Original and Translated. By Edward Caswall, of the Oratory. Second Edition. London: Burns, Oates & Co.; Pickering. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)