Miscellany.

We learn with much regret that on the 12th of February the printing establishment of the Abbé Migne, at Mont Rouge, in the southern suburb of Paris, was totally destroyed by fire. No particulars of the occurrence have yet been given. The enterprise, conducted with extraordinary vigor and ability by the abbé, was unique in the history of publishing. It was founded for the purpose of supplying books for the Catholic clergy of France and the whole world. Nearly two thousand volumes, in large imperial octavo, comprising the whole of the Greek and Latin fathers of the church, and writers on theology and ecclesiastical history, were edited, published, and kept constantly in print, employing a staff of several hundred persons, including literary men, printers, binders, etc.—London Publishers' Circular.

Amaurosis from Tobacco-Smoking.—Mr. Hutchinson has reported thirty-seven cases of amaurosis, of which he says thirty-one were among tobacco-smokers. Mr. Hutchinson concludes:

1. Amongst men, this peculiar form of amaurosis (primary white atrophy of the optic nerve) is rarely met, except among smokers.2. Most of its subjects have been heavy smokers—half an ounce to an ounce a day.3. It is not associated with any other + affection of the nervous system.4. Amongst the measures of treatment, the prohibition of tobacco ranks first in importance.5. The circumstantial evidence tending to connect the affection with the habit of tobacco-smoking is sufficient to warrant further inquiry into the matter on the part of the profession.—Popular Science Review.

The New Laboratory at the Sorbonne.—This magnificent establishment, which is to be devoted to the pursuit of chemical investigation, seems to provide for the student's wants on even a more liberal scale than its celebrated rival at Berlin. Besides the various rooms for researches in chemistry,pur et simple, there are numberless apartments exclusively intended for investigation in optics, electricity, mechanics, and so forth. Motive-power is provided for by a steam-engine of great force, which is connected by means of bands with wheels in the several laboratories. Again, besides the ordinary pipes carrying coal-gas, there will be a series of pipes supplying oxygen from retorts kept constantly at work. Indeed, altogether the new laboratory will be a species of Elysium for the chemical investigator.

The Bessemer Steel Spectrum.—Father Secchi, who lately presented to the French Academy his fine memoir on the Stellar Spectra, compared the spectra of certain yellow stars with the spectrum produced in the Bessemer "converter" at a certain stage of the process of manufacture. The employment of the spectroscope in the preparation of this steel was begun a couple of years since; but the comparison of the Bessemer spectrum with the spectrum of the fixed stars has not, so far as we can remember, been made before. The Bessemer spectrum is best seen when the iron is completely decarbonized; it contains a great number of very fine lines, and approaches closely to the spectrum ofaOnonis andaHerculis. The resemblance, no doubt, is due to the fact that the Bessemer flame proceeds from a great number of burning metals. The greatest importance attaches to the analogy pointed out by Father Secchi. Father Secchi suggests that beginners could not do better than practise on the Bessemer flame before turning the spectroscope on the stars. Difficult an instrument to conduct investigations with as the spectroscope undoubtedly is, the difficulty almost becomes perplexity when the student tries to examine stellar spectra.

Count Lucanor; or, The Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio. Written by the Prince Don Juan, A.D. 1335-1347. First done into English, from the Spanish, by James York, Doctor of Medicine, 1868: Basil Montague Pickering, Piccadilly, in the City of Westminster. For sale at the Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau Street, New-York.

Mr. Pickering seems to revel in literary oddities. His book on thePilgrim's Progresswas quaint enough, and this volume is scarcely behind it in any of its queer qualities. A more totallyforeignbook we do not remember ever seeing. In style, idiom, turn of thought, everything, it is remote,toto caelo, from all the ideas and criteria of English and modern criticism. Its publication strikes us as being a remarkably bold stroke; we cannot imagine for what class of readers it could have been intended. The only market we could conceive of for such a work in this country, would be a class of Mr. George Ticknor's, if he were to have one, in Spanish archaeology. In Spanish, and as Spanish, we should think it would prove most interesting; even though the translation is intensely Iberian, both in structure and thought.

The "Fifty Pleasant Stories" are very simple as to the machinery, so to speak, of the telling of them. "Count Lucanor" throughout the book asks advice of his friend Patronio, stating his case, and being responded to with a story. Who Count Lucanor may have been is a mystery for ever. The book shows him to posterity only as a Spanish gentleman of apparent consequence, whose forte, as poor Artemus Ward would say, seems to have been to fall into difficulties and ask advice of Patronio. This gentleman appears as a sort of Don Abraham Lincoln, or Señor Tom Corwin, rather. Every question instantly and irresistibly reminds him of "a little story, you know," etc., etc. This is all of their history. What the end of a man must have been who answered every question with an anecdote, we can only shudderingly decline to conjecture. Whether the gallant Count Lucanor sportively ran him through the body after one story too many some roystering day; whether he went mad when the stories gave out, or whether death interrupted him in a sage narrative, with his sapient hand button-holing the count's doublet, it is not said.

There is a world of dry, old-world, dusty, aged pithiness about the stories. They are generally very fairly to the point, and often full of the peculiar patness so characteristic of Sancho Panza. The most remarkable thing about the book, though, is the really large number of apparent originals it contains. In it are gems of all manner of precepts and principles that others have amplified into poetry, and tragedy, and novels, and almost everything. Still, we cannot call this more than a seeming originality, because directly alongside of a tale we are surprised to trace in Shakespeare, or La Fontaine, (a principal debtor to Count Lucanor,) or some other admired author, we are as likely to find some story so aged, so thread-bare, so worn and torn and sapless with the use of centuries, that one is tempted to refer it back to the year 1. Several of the tales are taken from theArabian Nights, and Don Juan Manuel generally modernized them (?) to suit the enlightened Castilian and anti-Moorish tastes of A.D. 1335, The old, old story of Alnaschar, for instance, is dished up as "What happened to a Woman called Pruhana," and the note to the story quietly goes on to the original original, (skipping old Alnaschar with a word as a mere junior copy,) namely, "the fifth part of thePantcha Pantra," which, all will be charmed to learn, is entitled "Aparickchita Kariteva," which latter an Irish friend translates, "Much good may it do ye," and our annotator "Inconsiderate Conduct."We will not quote the intensely thrilling narrative of this Hindoo classic, but content ourselves with assuring our readers, on our honor as a Brahmin, that the point is identically the same.

One of the best examples of the characteristic aptness of the book is Chapter vii.—"The Invisible Cloth." Count Lucanor's quandary is all of a man who offered the count great advantages if he would trust absolutely in him and in no one else. Three impostors (we condense the good Patronio mercilessly) come to a king as weavers of a peculiar cloth that no man but a legitimate son of his father could see; to any one with even a secret taint upon his authenticity it was utterly invisible. The king, delighted with this test of so interesting and gossipable a matter, shuts them up in his palace to make the cloth, furnishing them rich raw material of all sorts. After some days the king is invited alone to see the wonderful woof. King-like, the king sends his chamberlain first. The chamberlain, trembling for his pedigree, opens his mind's eye, sees the cloth distinctly, and returns full of its praises. The king goes next, can't see it either, is terrified for his title to his throne, and decides to see it also; does see it, and admires it extravagantly. Finding it still rather puzzling, he sends his Superintendent Kennedy (alguacil) to work up the case. This functionary, likewise failing to see it, and fearing supersedure by the senior inspector of police, makes up his mind that the king's eyes are good enough for him, and, through them, sees it too. Next a councillor goes to report, and, like a true councilman as he is, honors his father and mother by seeing it in the same light as the powers that be. Finally, for some one of the three hundred and sixty-five extraordinary feast-days of Spain, the king orders a suit of the invisible cloth, doesn't dare not to see it, and rides forth among his leal subjects in a costume strikingly like that famous fatigue uniform of the Georgia cavalry, that we used to hear so much of during the war. His people generally, out of respect to their parents, submit to the optical illusion, till, finally, a Spanish citizen of African descent, "having (says Patronio—not we) nothing to lose, came to him and said: 'Sire, to me it matters not whose son I am; therefore, I tell you that you are riding without any clothes.'" The result is a general opening of eyes, a sudden change of tailors, it is hoped, by the king, and the disappearance of the weavers with the rich raw material. Moral (slightly condensed from one page of Patronio)—"Don't Trust."

"James York, Doctor of Medicine," has wasted valuable medical time in translating this, with a good deal of fidelity to the spirit of the Spanish. His style really does render much of its quaintness; as much, perhaps, as today's English will hold in solution. He is also very fairly fortunate with certain small mottoes, or couplets, which close each story, prefaced thus, with slight variations: "And Don Juan, (another utterly mystical character, who does nothing but what follows,) also seeing that it was a good example, wrote it in this book, and made these lines, which say as follows:

'Who counsels thee to secrecy with friends,Seeks to entrap thee for his own base ends.'"(Chapter vii., above given.)'

The notes appended to each story are as odd, many of them, as the stories. Generally, they are little more than notes of admiration, but often briefexcursuses, showing quite a varied range of reading, and full of all manner of reconditeness. These would seem to be mainly Mr. York's, and they do him credit in spite of their ludicrously high praise now and then.

In the mechanical execution of the volume, Mr. Pickering, we observe, cleaves to his chosen model, the Aldine press, and so gives us in great perfection that accurate and studious-looking print which we all feel we ought to like, and which none of us do like. For our own part, we frankly own our preference for the shorts, and all the modern improvements.Still, one must bear in mind a thing very obvious in all this line of publications, that it is expressly to meet and foster a kind of taste almost unknown in this country, and that the publisher is evidently carrying out with consistency and energy a peculiar policy of his own, whose success must at last be the test of its own merit.

The general American reader will find this a thoroughly curious book; the lover of cheap learning, a perfect treasure-house of rather uncommon commonplaces; and the Spanish scholar, "a genuine, if rugged, piece of ore from that rich mine of early Spanish literature which yet lies hidden and unwrought."

Peter Claver: A Sketch of his Life and Labors in behalf of the African Slave. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1868. For sale at the Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau street, New York.

This little book is a brief compendium of the life of a great saint, who was the apostle of the negro slaves in South America. Its publication is very timely, as it shows to the philanthropists of New-England and of the country at large, who interest themselves so much in behalf of the African race, what Catholic charity has done and can do in their behalf. We recommend it to their attention. The Catholic religion, and it alone, can really and completely meet the wants of this much-to-be-compassionated portion of mankind. The striking vignette of this little volume, representing St. Peter Claver supporting the head of a dying negro, who holds a crucifix clasped to his dusky bosom, is an expressive emblem of this truth. It would be an excellent thing if our philanthropists, in Congress and out of Congress, would get a copy of this very suggestive photograph framed and hung up in some place where they are accustomed to say their prayers.

The Book of Moses; or, The Pentateuch in its Authorship, Credibility, AND Civilization.By the Rev. W. Smith, Ph.D.Volume I. London: Longman, Green & Co. 1868.For sale at the Catholic Publication House, New York.

Dr. Smith has given us in this volume the first instalment of an extensive work on the Pentateuch. The authorship alone is treated of in this portion of the work. Dr. Smith happily combines orthodoxy of doctrine with a scientific spirit. He has evidently studied Egyptology, geology, comparative philology, and other sciences bearing on sacred science. He has also made himself familiar with Jewish and Protestant, as well as Catholic commentators. From a cursory examination, we are inclined to judge that his great and useful task has been thus far very well and thoroughly performed, and to expect that it will be completed in a satisfactory manner. The volume is brought out in the best style of English typographical art, with fac-similes of ancient pictures and inscriptions, which add much to its value. We recommend it to all students of the Holy Scriptures as one of the most valuable aids to their researches which has yet been published in the English language.

Life of St. Catharine of Sienna.By Doctor Caterinus Senensis.Translated by the Rev. John Fen, in 1609, and Reëdited, with a Preface, by Very Rev. Father Aylward.New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1868.

This biography is a charming one, translated in the inimitable English idiom of the 17th century. Father Aylward has very successfully imitated the antiquated style in his valuable preface. The biography leaves nothing to be desired as a history of the private, interior life of the saint, though her wonderful public career is but slightly touched upon. The sketch of it in Father Aylward's preface induces us to wish that he would add to the history of Saint Catharine's private life by Caterinus, an equally complete history of her public life, with translations of her letters, from his own graceful and devout pen, which would furnish the English public with one of the best and most valuable biographies of a truly great and heroic woman to be found in any language.

Prayer the Key of Salvation.By Michael Müller, C.S.S.R.Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1868.

This book is an expansion of the excellent work of St. Alphonsus Liguori on Prayer. The object of it seems to be, to explain the saint's doctrine and illustrate it by examples, so as to bring it more within the comprehension of the mass of the people. But we are sorry to be obliged to say that the execution of the work does not come up to the idea. Without commenting on the matter, which is, in general, very good, we are compelled to say that the style is faulty in the extreme; the sentences are mostly un-English in their construction, and sometimes so long and involved that they are hard to understand. It also abounds in grammatical errors. In short, it is a pity it was not first thoroughly overlooked and revised by a competent hand before being allowed to go to press. However much we may desire to commend this book, we cannot in conscience do so, so long as it continues in its present dress.

La Reforme en Italie, les Precurseurs:Discours Historiques de César Cantu.Traduits de l'Italien par Aniset Digard et Edmond Martin.Paris: Adrien le Clere, 29 Rue Cassette. 1867.

Caesar Cantu is the author of the best universal history extant, and of other historical works of the first class. He has undertaken the task of crushing the destructive pseudo-reformers of Italy under the weight of his massive historical erudition. The first volume of the present work, which is the only one yet published, brings down the subject to the 16th century, and will be followed by three others. The author is a sound and orthodox Catholic, yet, as a layman and as a historian, his work has not the distinctively professional style and spirit which are usually found in the works of ecclesiastical authors. He is fearless and free in speaking the historical truth, even when it is discreditable to ecclesiastical rulers and requires the exposure of scandals and abuses in the church. His spirit is calm and impartial, and the theological and ascetical elements are carefully eliminated. He has gone back to the very origin of Christianity, in order to trace the course of events from their beginning, and has traced the outlines of the constitution of historical Christianity. Church principles and dogmas are, however, exhibited in a purely historical method, and as essential portions of the history of facts and events. Such a writer is terrible to parties whose opinions and schemes cannot bear the light of history. The whole class of pseudo-reformers, whether semi-Christian or openly infidel, are of this sort. Cantu sweeps them off the track of history by the force and weight of his erudition, as a locomotive tosses the stray cows on the track of a railway, with broken legs, to linger and die in the meadows at each side of it. It is only Catholic truth, either in the supernatural or the natural order, which can bear investigation, or survive the crucial test of history. The so-called Reformation retains its hold on the respect of the world only through ignorance. When history is better and more generally known, it will be universally admitted that it was not only a great crime, but a great blunder, afaux pasin human progress.

The Infant Bridal, and other Poems.By Aubrey De Vere. London: MacMillan & Co.

We are glad to see this book, rather for the memories than the novelties it brings us. Almost all its contents have been published in the author's other volumes, and there is nothing in this to alter the opinions, either good or ill, that we took occasion to express in a former review of them at large. The most remarkable about the book is the selection of the republished pieces.It only verifies anew the observation that authors, no more than we of the world, have the giftie to see themselves as others see them. Some of the best poems are there, and some of the worst.The Infant BridalandThe Search for Proserpineare perhaps the very two poorest of all the author's longer productions. Still, perhaps the many faults we fancy we see in the tact of the compilation, only come to this—that we ourselves would have compiled differently, and possibly worse.

But we meet, all over these elegant tinted pages, lines and beauties that we fondly remember loving of old—fine blank verse, wonderful descriptions, delicious idyls. These latter, by the way, are equally remarkable and unremarked. They are from the same fount with Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. We cannot resist giving one extract, fromGlance, p. 64:

"Come forth, dear maid, the day is calm and cool,And bright though sunless. Like a long green scarf,The tall pines, crowning yon gray promontory,In distant ether hang, and cut the sea.But lovers better love the dell, for thereEach is the other's world. How indolentlyThe tops of those pale poplars, bending, swayOver the violet-braided river brim!Whence comes this motion? for no wind is heard,And the long grasses move not, nor the reeds.Here we will sit, and watch the rushes leanLike locks, along the leaden-colored streamFar off; and thou, O child, shall talk to meOf Naiads and their loves."

One more sample of the contents of this volume, and we have said all there is to say. It is an unusual vein for De Vere, but one in which, like Tennyson, he engages never lightly and always with telling success. It is the close ofA Farewell to Naples, p. 255:

"From her whom genius never yet inspired.Or virtue raised, or pulse heroic fired;From her who, in the grand historic page.Maintains one barren blank from age to age;From her, with insect life and insect buzz.Who, evermore unresting, nothing does;From her who, with the future and the past,No commerce holds—no structure rears to last.From streets where spies and jesters, side by side.Range the rank markets and their gains divide;Where faith in art, and art in sense is lost.And toys and gewgaws form a nation's boast;Where passion, from affection's bond cut loose,Revels in orgies of its own abuse;And appetite, from passion's portals thrust.Creeps on its belly to its grave in dust;Where vice her mask disdains, where fraud is loud.And naught but wisdom dumb, and justice cowed;Lastly, from her who planted here unawed,'Mid heaven-topped hills and waters bright and broad,From these but nerves more swift to err has gainedAnd the dread stamp of sanctities profaned;And, girt not less with ruin, lives to showThat worse than wasted weal is wasted woe—We part; forth issuing through her closing gate.With unreverting faces, not ingrate."

Cannot this book speak better for itself than our good word?

Folks and Fairies. Stories for little children.By Lucy Randall Comfort.With engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1868.

Judging, not, however, from perusal, but from hearsay, we think the pleasure of Mrs. Comfort's juvenile readers would be increased if she had given them more "Folks" and less "Fairies." On the same high authority we also protest against some of the engravings, for example, "Otho returning home," as illustrations of the text.

From Leypoldt & Holt, New York:

Mozart. A Biographical Romance.From the German of Heribert Ran.By E. R. Sill, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 323.Easy French Reading: Being selections of historical tales and anecdotes, arranged with copious foot-notes, containing translations of the principal words, a progressive development of the form of the verb, designations of the use of prepositions and particles, and the idioms of the language. By Professor Edward T. Fisher. To which is appended a brief French grammar. By C. J. Delille. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 232.

From Kelly & Piet, Baltimore:

A Catechism of the Vows.For the use of persons consecrated to God in the religious state.By the Rev. Father Peter Cotel, S.J.

From Samuel R. Wells, New York:

Oratory, Sacred and Secular: or, The Extemporaneous Speaker. With sketches of the most eminent speakers of all ages. By William Pittenger, author of Daring and Suffering. Introduction by Hon. John A. Bingham, and appendix containing a Chairman's Guide for conducting public meetings according to the best parliamentary models, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 220.Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley. By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor of the New York Tribune, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 360.

From Lee & Shepard, Boston:

Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales.A story of Travel and Adventure.By Oliver Optic,1 vol. 12mo, pp. 336.

For a poet eminently modern and English in his modes of thought, Tennyson is singularly free from the spirit of controversy. His native land is distracted by religious feuds, yet he who has been called "the recognized exponent of all the deeper thinkings of his age," takes no active part in them, and seldom drops a line that bespeaks the school of theology to which he belongs. At long intervals, indeed, devout breathings escape him. Once now and then he extracts a block of dogma from the deep quarry within, and fixes it in an abiding place. He never scatters doubts wantonly; he is always on the side of faith, though not perfect and Catholic faith. He alludes to Christian doctrines as postulates. For his purpose they need no proof. It would be idle to prove anything if they were not true. They are the life of the soul, and the vitality of verse.

"Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the press,"

he cries; but he adds this apostrophe likewise:

"Fly happy withthe mission of the cross."The Golden Year.

He looks for the resurrection of the body, and bids the dry dust of his friend (Spedding) "lie still,secure of change." (Lines to J. S.) When the spirit quits its earthly frame, he follows it straight into the unseen world and the presence of its Creator and God. He points to "the grand old gardener and his wife" in "yon blue heavens," smiling at the claims of long descent, (Lady Clara Vere de Vere;) and he speeds the soul of the expiring May Queen toward the blessed home of just souls and true, there to wait a little while for her mother and Effie:

"To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."The May Queen.

Intensely as he loves nature, Tennyson is no Pantheist. Though like the wild Indian, he "sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind," he does not therefore confound matter with its Maker, nor lose sight of the personality of the Being whom he adores. He is no disciple of fate or chance, but recognizes in all human affairs the working of a divine and retributive providence, whose final judgment of good and evil is foreshadowed and begun during our mortal life.To His presence and promptitude in reply to prayer, he refers more than once in pathetic and pointed language. He tells us how Enoch Arden, when cast away on a desert island, heard in his dream "the pealing of his parish bells," and

"Though he knew not wherefore, started upShuddering, and when the beauteous, hateful isleReturned upon him, had not his poor heartSpoken with that, which, being everywhere.Lets none who speak with Him seem all alone,Surely the man haddied of solitude."Enoch Arden.

It would not be difficult for those who are acquainted with Tennyson's earlier history, to discover the church of which he is a member, and the section of it whose views he adopts.In Memoriamtakes us into the interior of his father's parsonage, to the Christmas hearth decorated with laurel, and the old pastimes in the hall; to the witch-elms and towering sycamore, whose shadows his Arthur had often found so fair; to the lawn where they read the Tuscan poets together; and the banquet in the neighboring summer woods. We almost hear the songs that then pealed from knoll to knoll, while the happy tenants of the presbytery lingered on the dry grass till bats went round in fragrant skies, and the white kine glimmered, couching at ease, and the trees laid their dark arms about the field. "The merry, merry bells of Yule," with their silver chime, are referred to more than once in Tennyson's poems. They seem to be ever ringing in his ears. They controlled him, he says, in his boyhood, and they bring him sorrow touched with joy.

It is in singing of Arthur Hallam that the poet's faith in the immortality of the soul is brought out with beautiful clearness. The bitterness of his grief draws him to the "comfort clasped in truth revealed," and he looks forward with hope to the day when he shall arrive at last at the blessed goal, and He who died in Holy Land shall reach out the shining hand to him and his lost friend, and take them "as a single soul." (In Memoriam, lxxxiii.)

From the verses addressed to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, (January, 1854.) we learn that one of Tennyson's children claims that gentleman as his godfather, and we gather from it and other poems, what all the Laureate's friends know, that his sympathies are with theBroad Church, of which Mr. Maurice, Kingsley, Temple, the Bishop of London, and Dr. Stanley are distinguished leaders. It is one of the peculiarities of this school to moderate the torments of the lost and to deny that they are eternal, to hope that good will in some way be the final goal of ill, and that every winter will at last change to spring. It cannot be disputed that this teaching is at variance with Catholic doctrine; but it is one which Tennyson puts forward with singular modesty, describing himself as

"An infant crying in the night;An infant crying for the light;And with no language but a cry."In Memoriam, liii.

TheBroad Church, as its name implies, professes large and liberal views. Not wishing to be tried by too strict a standard itself, it repudiates all harsh judgments on others. Accordingly, we find in Tennyson few allusions to errors, real or supposed, in the creed of others. He regards as sacred whatever links the soul to a divine truth. He has many friends who are Catholics, and we have heard that he has expressed sincere anxiety to publish nothing relative to the Catholic religion calculated to give offence to its followers.There are few lines in his volumes which grate on the most pious ear, and no devout breathings in which we do not cordially join. It is in one of his earlier poems, and only in sport, that he makes the Talking Oak tell of—

"Old summers, when the monk was fat,And, issuing shorn and sleek,Would twist his girdle tight, and patThe girls upon the cheek,Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's pence,And numbered bead, and shrift.Bluff Harry broke into the spence,And turned the cowls adrift."

In conning his verse, therefore, the Catholic mind is at ease; it lights on no charges to be repelled, and (so far as we know, after long and close study of every line he has published) no mistakes regarding our faith which require to be rectified. There are those who imagine that inSt. Simeon Stylites, he has wilfully misrepresented the character of a Catholic saint; but we venture to entertain a more lenient opinion, and shall endeavor presently to justify it. It is in a tone of irony, such as we must admire, that he describes the "heated pulpiteer in chapel, not preaching simple Christ to simple men," but fulminating "against the scarlet woman and her creed," and swinging his arms violently, as if he held the apocalyptic millstone, while he predicts the speedy casting of great Babylon into the sea. (Sea Dreams.) Nor are there wanting points of contact between Tennyson's ideas on religious matters and some of those dwelt on by Catholic divines. Thus he, like Dr. Newman, finds the arguments for the existence of God drawn from the power and wisdom discoverable in the works of nature, cold and inconclusive in comparison with that one which arises from the voice of conscience and the feelings of the heart. The cxxiiid section ofIn Memoriamruns singularly parallel with this beautiful passage in theApologia, (p. 377:)

"Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist or a polytheist, when I looked into the world. ... I am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general facts of human society; but these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice."

The arguments adduced by infidels, in support of their unbelief, have never been rebutted in verse more cleverly than by Tennyson. His blade flashes like lightning, and severs with as fine a stroke as Saladin's scimitar.The Two Voicesmay be cited in proof, and also the following passages in the matchless elegy on Arthur Hallam:

The Fates not blind,(In Memoriam) iii.Life shall live for evermore.(In Memoriam) xxxiv.If Death were death, lovewould not be true love,(In Memoriam) xxxv.Individuality defies the tomb,(In Memoriam) xlvi.Immortality,(In Memoriam) liv. lv.Doubt issuing in belief.(In Memoriam) xcv.Knowledge without wisdom.(In Memoriam) cxiii.Progress,(In Memoriam) cxvii.We are not all matter.(In Memoriam) cxix.The course of human things,(In Memoriam) cxxvii

These verses are no doubt the record of a mental conflict carried on during some years of the author's earlier life—a battle between materialism and spiritualism, between faith and unbelief, reason and sense. TheTwo Voicesis philosophy singing, asIn Memoriamis philosophy in tears. TheEnglish Cyclopaediawell calls the last poem "wonderful," and adds: "In no language, probably, is there another series of elegies so deep, so metaphysical, so imaginative, so musical, and showing such impassioned, abnormal, and solemnizing affection for the dead."

But it is now time to point to those passages in which Tennyson may be said to have, more particularly, Catholic aspects. Be they few or many, they are worth noticing, even though they prove nothing but that a Protestant poet of the highest order has such aspects, intense, striking, and lovely in no ordinary degree.Every true poet is in a certain sense a divine creation, and nothing but a celestial spark could ignite a Wordsworth, a Longfellow, or an Emerson. It has ever been the delight of the ancient church and her writers to discover portions of her truth among those who are separated from her visible pale. Far from grudging them these precious fragments, she only wishes they were less scanty, and would willingly add to them till they reached the full measure of the deposit of the faith. It would be easy to make out a complete cycle of her doctrine in faith and morals from the poems of Protestant and Mohammedan authors, but it would be only by combining extracts from many who, in matters of belief, differ widely from each other. In looking through the Laureate's volumes for traces of the church's teaching, we are in a special manner struck by his treatment of the invocation of the departed. With what deep feeling does he invite the friend, who is the subject of his immortal elegy, to be near him when his light is low, when pain is at its height, when life is fading away. (In Memoriam, xlix.) It reminds us of good Dr. Johnson's prayer for the "attention and ministration" of his lost wife, as Boswell has given it us. Can any Catholic express more fully than the Laureate the frame of mind becoming those who desire that the departed should still be near them at their side? (In Memoriam,1.)

"How pure at heart andsound in head,With what divine affections bold.Should be the man whose thoughts would holdAn hour's communion with the dead."In vain shall thou, or any, callThe spirits from their golden day,Except, like them, thou too canst say,My spirit is at peace with all."They haunt the silence of the breast,Imaginations calm and fair,The memory like a cloudless air,The conscience as a sea at rest."But when the heart is full of din,And doubt beside the portal waits.They can but listen at the gates.And hear the household jar within."In Memoriam, xciii.

"If I can," says the dying May Queen inNew Year's Eve—

"If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;Though you'll not see me, mother,I shall look upon your face;Though I cannot speak a word,I shall hearken what you say,And be often, often with you, when you think I'm far away."

It is not, therefore, in a vague and dreamy way, but with the full force of the understanding, that Tennyson invokes the spirits in their place of rest. It is not merely as a poet, but as a Christian, that he exclaims:

"Oh! therefore, from thy sightless range,With gods in unconjectured bliss.Oh from the distance of the abyssOf tenfold, complicated change,"Descend, and touch, and enter: hearThe wish too strong for words to name;That in the blindness of the frameMy ghost may feel that thine is near."In Memoriam, xcii.

We say "as a Christian;" for we warmly repudiate the harsh interpretation which is often put on his words addressed to the Son of God:

"Thouseemesthuman and divine,The highest, holiest manhood thou."

"See," it is said, "this is the most you can get from your favorite about Christ—that heseemsdivine. It is an appearance, a semblance only." Now, this reasoning is most unfair. The remainder of the verse implies his godhead—

"Our wills are ours, we know not how;Our wills are ours,to make them thine."

The verses which follow are a prayer to Christ, imploring from him light and aid, wisdom and forgiveness. (Prefatory lines toIn Memoriam)In fact, it is evident from other parts of Tennyson's elegy, that he does not use the wordseemin the sense of appearing to be what a thing isnot, but in the sense of its appearing to bewhat it is. Thus, in the fifth stanza, below the lines just quoted, we have—

"Forgive whatseemedmy sin in me;Whatseemedmy worth since I began;For merit lives from man to man,And not from man, O Lord! to thee."

So again,In Memoriam, xxxiii.,

"O thou that after toil and storm,May'stseemto have reached a purer air;"

where "seemto have reached" is equivalent to "thou whohastreached," with that delicate shade of difference only which belongs to Greek rather than to English diction. Thus the verb [Greek text] is repeatedly used in the New Testament as an expletive, not meaningless to the ear, though adding no distinct idea which can be expressed in a single word, [Greek text], (St. Matt. iii. 9,) means to all intents, simply, "Say not in yourselves," and [Greek text] (Gal. ii. 9) means, "who were really the pillars they seemed to be." Such passages, it is true, prove nothing as to Tennyson's use of the wordseem, but they do illustrate it. The perfect godhead of Christ is brought out fully in the sermon preached by Averill inAylmer's Field. "The Lord from heaven, born of a village girl, carpenter's son," is there styled in the prophet's words, "Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God."

When the Laureate prays that his very worth may be forgiven, he employs the language of deep humility which meets us so constantly in the writings of Catholic saints. It reminds us of their prayers to the Father of Lights that the best they have ever done may be pardoned, that their tears may be washed, their myrrh incensed, their spikenard's scent perfumed, and their breathings after God fumigated. It is no shallow view that he takes of repentance when he makes Queen Guinevere ask:

"What is true repentance but in thought—Not e'en in inmost thought to think againThe sins that made the past so pleasant to us?"Idylls of the King.

He has been accused of making St. Simeon Stylites a self-righteous saint. That he makes him ambitious of saintdom is true, but this hope which he "will not cease to grasp," is fostered by no sense of his own merits, but, on the contrary, springs from the deepest possible conviction of his unworthiness. He describes himself as

"The basest of mankind,From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meetFor troops of devils mad with blasphemy."

He proclaims from his pillar, his "high nest of penance,"

"That Pontius and Iscariot byhissideShowed like fair seraphs."

He details, indeed, in language strikingly intense, his sufferings, prayers, and penances; but he disclaims all praise on account of them, and ascribes all his patience to the divine bounty. He does not breathe or "whisper any murmur of complaint," while he tells how his teeth

"Would chatter with the cold, and all his beardWas tagged with icy fringes in the moon;"

how his "thighs were rotted with the dew;" and how

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