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however, understand our writer's complaints of the slowness of the pace of the camel, and even of the dromedary, though he admits that the latter is capable of going much faster. We remember that, during the French general Kleber's government of Egypt, when it was found impossible to check the incursions of the Arabs, owing to the fleetness of the Arab horses which bore them beyond pursuit, a troop of dromedaries was formed, which completely overmatched the boasted steeds of the desert. We have no doubt "that the gait of the beast is as tiresome" as Lord Nugent represents it to be, though we are not yet convinced of its slowness.

In conclusion, we heartily recommend this book to our readers as one that will afford information and much amusement in its lively sketches of Lands, Classical and Sacred.

Mores Catholici, or Ages of Faith. Parts III, IV, V, VI. Dolman.

Such are the numbers of this beautiful republication of a most extraordinary work that have appeared since our former notice. Few of our readers require to be told that the interest called forth by the former numbers sustains itself. We particularly like Number VI. The descriptions it gives of the rich decorations of churches in ages when the faithful could afford so to expend their money, will encourage those of our own time to provide schools for their poor children and free sittings for their poor, that they may be afterwards justified in showing their taste in architectural decorations.

The remarks on the poetry of the middle ages, commenced in this number, are very pleasing.

We hope that the concluding number will contain a summary of the contents of the whole work, and an alphabetical reference to the many subjects to which it refers, and to the authors quoted in it.

Sibyl, or the Two Nations. By B. D'Israeli, M.P., author of " Coningsby." 3 vols. Colburn.

This, like "Coningsby," is a political novel. If our readers should ask us what are the aspirations, hopes or plans of the writer, we answer frankly that we do not know. Mr. D'Israeli and those who think with him seem to have quaffed largely of effervescent draughts-mingled strongly in this instance with tartaric acid: and great is the bustle and froth and vapouring that thence ensues. What practical scheme -practical even according to his own showing-the writer may entertain for the removal of the grievances which overwhelm or threaten the Two Nations, it would, we suspect, puzzle Mr. D'Israeli or any of his party to explain.

The Two Nations are the rich and poor: and the book before us gives an exaggerated account of the ills endured by the one at the hands of the other class. This is an old story. Sancho Panza long ago divided the world into two classes-that of the haves and of the haven'ts: and while the world exists, the distinction of classes must ever remain. Good men will wish to lessen the evils that necessarily result from it; practical men will endeavour to do so. This is not to

be done by setting the poor against the rich, nor by vapouring about institutions however excellent, which can never again be re-established amongst us: but by enabling the workman to earn such wages as will allow him to feed and clothe his wife and children at home, instead of sending them to the factory or to the mine, because the pittance they may there earn is necessary to their existence. Until the father of the family can earn these wages, he who offers honest employment of whatever description at wages however low, is a benefactor to the poor creatures who avail themselves of it. They are the best judges of their own condition. They voluntarily accept the employment, because they know that it will in some degree better their lot.

A book of politico-economical tendencies written by an M.P. ought to have explained this, and should have urged on all who had the good of the poor at heart to enable them to earn higher wages by increasing the value of their labour in the market of the world. This can only be done by promoting the prosperity of employers: by making them anxious to obtain "hands;" by making it their interest to pay more for them; by making them outbid one another in order to obtain them; and by so making labour scarce and enabling those who have it to sell, the poor, to raise the price of it upon their employers. Το have explained this to his readers while writing on the subject, might have been very uninteresting, very unsentimental: but to have done so would have shown that the writer had really studied the condition of the poor and wished to amalgamate the Two Nations without injuring either.

We deem it quite unnecessary to say that Sybil abounds with wit, sarcasm and passages of the greatest brilliancy. We have only wished to put our readers on their guard against being led away by mere verbiage and jargon from understanding the real state of the question of the condition of the poor and from seeking practical means of improving it. We are convinced that Mr. D'Israeli is far too shrewd to wish for readers who would assent to all his rhapsodies, and fancy that they understood them. We have little room for extracts: but those who remember the Jew "Sidonia" in Coningsby, and the predilections of the author for the "pure Caucasian breed," will be interested in the following speculations on Christianity which this second publication affords us:

"The Church of Rome is to be respected as the only Hebræo-Christian church extant; all other churches established by the Hebrew apostles have disappeared, but Rome remains; and we must never permit the exaggerated position which it assumed in the middle centuries to make us forget its early and apostolic character, when it was fresh from Palestine, and as it were fragrant from Paradise. The Church of Rome is sustained by apostolical succession; but apostolical succession is not an institution complete in itself; it is a part of a whole; if it be not part of a whole it has no foundation. The apostles succeeded the prophets. Our Master announced himself as the last of the prophets. They in their turn were the heirs of the patriarchs: men who were in direct communication with the Most High. To men not less favoured than the apostles, the revelation of the priestly cha

racter was made, and those forms and ceremonies ordained, which the Church of Rome has never relinquished. But Rome did not invent them: upon their practice, the duty of all congregations, we cannot consent to her founding a claim to supremacy. For would you maintain, then, that the Church did not exist in the time of the prophets? Was Moses, then, not a churchman? And Aaron, was he not a high priest? Ay! greater than any pope or prelate, whether he be at Rome or at Lambeth. In all these church-discussions we are apt to forget that the second Testament is avowedly only a supplement. JehovahJesus came to complete the 'law and the prophets.' Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing. Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, as Judaism is incomplete without Christianity. What has Rome to do with its completion; what with its commencement? The law was not thundered forth from the Capitolian mount; the divine atonement was not fulfilled upon Mons Sacer. No; the order of our priesthood comes directly from Jehovah; and the forms and ceremonies of his Church are the regulations of his supreme intelligence. Rome, indeed, boasts that the authenticity of the second Testament depends upon the recognition of her infallibility. The authenticity of the second Testament depends upon its congruity with the first. Did Rome preserve that? I recognise in the Church an institution thoroughly, sincerely catholic: adapted to all climes and to all ages. I do not bow to the necessity of a visible head in a defined locality; but were I to seek for such it would not be at Rome. I cannot discover in its history, however memorable, any testimony of a mission so sublime. When Omnipotence deigned to be incarnate, the Ineffable Word did not select a Roman frame. The prophets were not Romans; the apostles were not Romans; she who was blessed above all women, I never heard she was a Roman maiden. No, I should look to a land more distant than Italy, to a city more sacred even than Rome."

This is very curious; but is it intelligible? What does the writer believe?

Memoirs of the Naval Worthies of Queen Elizabeth's Reign, &c. By John Barrow, Esq. author of the "Life of Drake," &c. 8vo. London, Murray.

This is a compilation from many sources, intended to complete the author's history of the life of Drake. Much of the additional matter is curious; though we cannot approve of the railroad activity of present days, which urges even historic writers to rush into print before they have taken the trouble of collecting all that appertains to the subjects their works are supposed to illustrate. It is hardly fair that the purchaser of what professes to be a complete history, should be compelled, after a very short while, to buy another book by the same author supplementary to the first.

The work before us contains, however, much matter which those who are interested in the naval greatness of England-and who is not?-will peruse with curiosity. In the documents selected from

the State Paper Office and other sources, they will find much which, according to their different constitutions, will either cause them to exult in the daring of our former naval worthies, or to blush for the piratical character of many of their bravest exploits. We cannot give much praise to the manner in which Mr. Barrow has linked together the original papers he presents to us. With more care, he would not only have avoided the slip-slop style into which he has often fallen, but he would have made the characters of his worthies and the events which he records stand out with far greater effect before the mind of the reader. We have, however, some curious evidence of the means by which "Gospel light" was made to illumine the minds of English sailors by these apostles of religious liberty. In 1588, it was reported that some of the crew of Lord Shefylde's ship were infected with Catholicism his lordship, we are told,—

:

"Went presently abourd, with no small care to find out this parte [party], and I assure you with much gryfe, that any suche thynge shulde happen in his shype; him selfe was to departe to London that after non apon very ernest besines, wyche I gave him leve for, but he lefte suche a strayte comandyment with Mr. Ha. Shefylde, his lyvetenant, for the fynding out of the trothe of this, as he sayde to him, beinge his kynsman, yf he had care of his honor or well dowing he wold take paynse in it, and yet my Lorde him selfe, as graet hast as he hade, maad the Barber and 3 or 4 mor wyche he suspected to be sworne, and so they weer, and they outerly renounced the Pops atoryte Mr. Shefylde after my Lord's departur toke graet paynse, and did exsamen the Barber, and founde that a 2 or 3 yerse a gonne he was soumthynge inclyned to papystre, but being matched by his wyfe with a honest rase, as it semse, they conv arted him; I have talked with the man my selfe; he offers to receve and to dow any thyng that a good Protestant shuld dow. This was the cause I thynk that bred the dowte in him, he had a bouke that wes donne by an Englyshe papyst beyond the sees, a bade bouke, but he browght it to the precher with dislyke of the bouk, and the precher is counted to be a most zelous man and very honest. The barbar had many good boukse, as the New Testament, the Bouk of Comyne Prayer, the Boke of the Salmses, wyche he dayly sange with the company. The mane wase prest by the Company of Surgense, for he is a barber-surgen, and not by my Lord, and he hathe sarved often in Heer Majesties shyps, and

acounted a very honest man; I thynke my Lord Shefylde wyll send

you the parte, and I belyve you wyll not mislyke him. Mr. Ha. Shefylde, who is very ernest and zelous in relygyon, sware unto me that it maed him rejoyse at the harte to see how ernest my Lord Shefylde wes in it, and to hear him youse those wordse he did, wyche was most vemente agaynst papystes, so by traytorynge them, saynge he that was in his shype that wold not be sworne agaynst the Pope, he wold tak him for a traytor, and so youse him, and this I dare assure you no man whosoever is redyer to comunycate then my Lord Shefyld is, wyche I thank God for."

L'Agitation Irlandaise depuis 1829, par l'auteur du Mouvement Religieux en Angleterre. 1 vol: Paris ; 1845.

It appears to us almost unnecessary to assure the reader that this must be an interesting, nay important work; as showing what our neighbours of France think of the "great difficulty" of our shuffling government. The book before us is, moreover, a careful history of the agitation to which it refers; and gives full particulars of its rise and progress, which may be useful for reference. We have not seen any other account so ample and so just.

The Falls, Lakes, and Mountains of North Wales. By L. Stuart Costello, author of "A Summer among the Bocages." Longman. A volume of flowery and rather sentimental writing, just such as those who have read the former works of the same authoress would expect to flow from her agreeable pen. But people who, either in imagination or in reality, saunter through the picturesque scenery dear to tourists, willingly give the rein to their fancies, and indulge in day-dreams which would be puerile and uninteresting amid the stern realities of the world.

Descriptions of Catholic ceremonies and Catholic "superstitions," which are so great a resource to those who write their travels on the Continent, fail them in the mountains of Wales, where multiplied forms of dissent boast, not over truly, that they appeal to the head, but leave little to the heart or the imagination. We presume that Miss Costello felt the want, and was obliged to press Catholicism into its old service; wherefore, else, this common-place fling at it from the church of Dolgelley?

"There are no pews in this church, instead of which there are open benches; a custom which allows of a great deal of space; decorated coffin-plates are hung in remarkable profusion over the pillars of the church, and convey an idea of the votive offerings to saints in Catholic places of worship; this is the usual practice here; the plates are taken from a coffin when a person is buried, and hung up there: this is, no doubt, a relic of some Catholic superstition, and it has a most singular effect."

A mind that was not resolutely bent upon Catholicism would have discovered, at once, that the custom had its origin in the feudal and family pride of the Welsh, rather than in any religious sentiment. Would Miss Costello have deemed this a "superstition ?" We wish she would define the meaning of the phrase.

END OF VOL. I.

BICHARDS, PRINTER, 100, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

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