In the present disorganized condition of the Anglican Church it is not to be wondered at that Christians outside of her pale should speak only of Anglicanism becoming absorbed into the other bodies of Christendom. Moreover, when English Churchmen call themselves Catholics, let it be distinctly understood that they do so in the sense of belonging to the Anglican branch of the Catholic Church. As the name is at present used by the party which is loudest in its utterance, it rather means those whose mouths are watering for the forbidden fruit of the Roman branch, than those who believe in the catholic life of their own communion. In short, looking both to the political question, and also to the reunion movement, it is manifest that if the Anglican Church is to triumph in the one, and act with effect in the other, she must have loyalty, esprit de corps, and selfrespect, within her own communion. 236 NOTICE S. 'LYRA GERMANICA' (Longmans). This is the second part of a book much and deservedly valued. We owe the series to Miss Winkworth's labour of love, and it consists, as everybody knows, of the spiritual and subjective musings in poetry of the latter age of German religion. We say this because the term Hymn seems only properly applicable to the public devotions of the Sanctuary. Somehow Wesley and Toplady missed the purpose of this important branch of literature by using it for public purposes; and it is a remarkable sign of the innate temper of the Church that now that we are developing a genuine Hymnody it follows a different type from the Teutonic. For general purposes, and under the regulating power of distinct dogmatic convictions, there yet remains a use for such a collection. We mean a practical purpose; for as regards the literature and bibliography of the subject there cannot be two opinions. The translations are charming in execution; and the sumptuous decoration of the pages makes the volume one de luxe. In the character of the artists, Messrs. Armitage, Madox Browne, and Leighton, who takes the labouring oar, the Lyra Germanica follows a type of firstclass ornamented books, which seems to be giving way to evanescent photography. Among gift-books is a very beautiful edition of the 'De Imitatione' (Macmillan), got up, as they say, with great care. The borders are of the Durer-sometimes a later-period, and will recall the fine blocks of the early sixteenth century Hora. A slight inequality in the relative tints of the ink might perhaps have been avoided. The pure white and gold cover is, we suppose, symbolical of the author: at any rate it is very appropriate. What is curious about this edition is that it is printed at Leipsic. So was Mr. Hayman's 'Odyssey.' Can it be that, as in so many other things, our English supremacy in typography is sharply contested? It would be absurd to affect to underrate the influence of the publication of a translation of (a portion of) Ewald's Geschicte des Volkes Israel. Mr. Russell Martineau has translated, or rather, as we gather, has edited, a translation of the first part, that which takes the history to the death of Moses. We should almost conjecture that the version is by different hands, or that the translator improved as he went on; for the latter part is much more readable than the early chapters. To review such a book in this place would be absurd. It is curious, anyhow, to note one thing which is on the surfacethe contradiction which Ewald so often offers to Bishop Colenso's speculations. As in other things, a little learning is a dangerous thing, so it might perhaps be an advantage to have accessible to English students a complete conspectus of the critical school. Their mutual contradictions are important; and the results attained by a consensus of the Tübingen school might be published in a very small volume indeed. On one important point, the number of the Israelites at the Exodus, Ewald-which is a sore point to Colenso-seems to think that the Bible account is rather under the mark. At any rate, he vindicates the authenticity of the ancient census papers.' The name of Frederic Ozanam was at one time better known in France than it is now. Its echo has scarcely reached this country. Ozanam was not only a writer of history but a practical politician, and in company with M. Monta lembert he united liberal opinions with decided orthodoxy, and neither of the two friends has taken much by their line, unless to be suspected and undervalued by the Ultramontane faction is an honour. But we cannot be surprised. The Roman is not the only Church which cannot understand its own policy or appreciate its truest friends. Ozanam's chief work, the History of Civilization in the Sixth Century,' has been translated by Mr. C. Glyn (Allan and Co.), and a delightful book it is. Mr. Glyn attaches B.A. to his name, and he is a barrister. But either he cannot correct the press, or his classical attainments have been fugitive: ex grat. 'Adolescentes, quomodo possint ex Gentilium libris fructum capo.' (Vol. i. p. 220.) Prologus ad vitam sancti Maximam Milinensis.' (Ibid. p. 132.) 'Abstulit nunc primum Crisprini pœna tumultum We believe that the reviewers, who have a very sheep-like tendency to follow a lead, have laid it down that Mr. Baring Gould's second series of 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages' (Rivingtons), is inferior in interest to the first series. We cannot see this. Rather, we should say that the analysis of the S. George myth displays more learning, and a wider research than was displayed in any of Mr. Baring Gould's previous essays; while the monograph of the History of the Cross is very important. When Mr. Baring Gould declines to attach any weight to the view which connected pre-Christian crosses with nature worship we follow him, but we do not understand him to deny the great prevalence of that cult under other emblems. Up and down this volume are hints of a curious theory of the author's, which we should like to see more fully illustrated. He traces, or thinks that he traces, in some forms of popular religionism even among ourselves, as for instance, in Cornish Wesleyanism, a resemblance to old Paganism. No doubt a good deal of cryptoPaganism in the shape of folk-lore and popular superstition long survived the introduction of the Gospel. Brittany was, and perhaps is full of traces and shades of old Celtic religion, and England is not without analagous fossils of the old dead gods. The European history of Paganism surviving in Christendom has not yet been written; but Mr. Baring Gould would contribute an important chapter to it were he to develop his view that English dissent is, to a greater extent than any one has supposed, a revival of ancient Paganism, which has long lain dormant among the English peasantry.' We are not very great admirers of the late Mr. Monro's style of stories. They are too fine and pictorial, and somehow, though he was always painting landscape, the landscape seemed artificial and Claude-like-very fine as composition and for certain effects of writing, but not nature. In his 'Tales for the Million' (Masters), we have we think a reprint, or perhaps re-issue, of some well-known stories. We believe that they tell considerably on young people, with whom a disciplined taste is a late acquirement; and there can be no question of the writer's power, or of the moral effect of the tales. Merely as compositions they are worth studying, and will hold that place which they have won. The 'Kiss of Peace' (Hayes) is really a remarkable essay. Its object is to reconcile doctrines on the Eucharist. In this attempt, as everybody knows, Leibnitz and others have preceded the writer. He deserves great credit for the fairness with which the various views are stated, and as becomes an Eirenicon, he sets down nothing in malice or exaggeration. The main object of the essay is to clear the term Transubstantiation from its popular, and as this writer holds, its wrong meaning. But something remains. If, which we are not concerned with, the doctrine pronounced by the Church of Rome can be cleared from its grosser sense, what guarantee have we that the Church adopts this interpretation? It is past question that a sense very different from that attributed by this writer has been given to the dogmatic statements of the Roman Church not only by writers of authority, but by authority. As in our own case, how are we to get an authorized meaning of authority? "The Government of England' (Longmans) is an essay on our political history, and the extant relations of the kingship to parliament, with an historical survey of the rise of constitutionalism, as well as an examination of the functions of a ministry, which strikes us as being by far the best work on the subject which has appeared. Not only is the writer, Dr. Hearn, an accurate historian, but exceedingly well versed in modern parliamentary history. The illustrations are not only abundant, but selected with great judgment. Mr. Tristram's 'Natural History of the Bible' is one of the very few books which does credit to the S. P. C. K. In a moderate compass Mr. Tristram exhausts Palestine, both as regards its fauna, flora, climate, and geological history. An accomplished traveller, the writer, has verified all his facts, and with full indices, and admirable illustrations cut on wood, the work may be said to have attained a rare completeness. 'Edward Campion' (Williams and Norgate) is a remarkable biography of a very remarkable, and we believe a very good man. It is written, of course, and not improperly, from a Roman Catholic view; and the author has made great use of contemporary records and documents. Among many other inte resting points of history it shows how much connivance with the unreformed faith went on in England till the issue of the bull of excommunication; and an interesting speculation is suggested as to what the English religion might have been had not precipitate political action been taken by Pius V. Up to 1572 the reformed doctrines were not even professed in so important an institution as St. John's College, Oxford. 'English Monasticism' (Jackson and Walford) is by Mr. O'Dell Hill. Somehow it jars unpleasantly with our recollections, recent recollections, of the Count de Montalembert's work. But comparisons are odious, and in this instance otiose. Mr. Hill has got together a good deal of information, but he has picked it up by research, and has not the least notion of grouping his information. Mr. Theodore Martin has one great quality essential to the success of a biographer, an affectionate or rather enthusiastic veneration for his subject. In Memoir of W. E. Aytoun' (Blackwood) he describes the uneventful life of one who is most familiar to us as the colleague of Mr. Martin in that famous collection of jeux d'esprit, the Bon Gaultier Ballads. As a constant and brilliant contributor to Blackwood's famous magazine Mr. Aytoun wore the mantle of his more famous father-in-law, Christopher North. He was the last representative of a peculiar type of literature which never flourished out of Edinburgh. A Tory of the most vehement school in politics he carried his principles and method into literature: and he succeeded, by his admirable Firmilian,' as far as poetry is concerned, in crushing the sensational and immoral school which has of late acquired new and mischievous life in novels. 6 THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. APRIL, 1868. ART. I.-Report to the Right Honourable the Master of the Rolls upon the Documents in the Archives and Public Libraries of Venice. By THOMAS DUFFUS HARDY, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen's most excellent Majesty, for her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1865. 8vo. pp. 108. A FLOOD of light has been shed upon the history of the Reformation of the Church of England, from various and unexpected quarters. And the next generation will probably be enabled to form a much more accurate estimate both of the persons and the events which contributed to bring it about, than has hitherto been possible. All our modern historians, with a single exception, have written with a strong Protestant bias. And even Lingard was acquainted with but a small portion of the evidence, both of facts and motives, which may be found in or elicited from contemporary writer's documents; though it is but fair to add that this extraordinary sagacity, together with his thorough acquaintance with the modes of procedure of the Roman Court, have enabled him in many cases to anticipate the story which has yet to be told by the Calendarer of the State Papers of the reign of Henry the Eighth. We venture to assert that this publication will show that nearly all his conjectures have been proved true by the production of evidence which was not accessible to him, and will perhaps indicate an excess of caution which inclined him to understate the case on the Roman as opposed to the Protestant side of the question. Since his death we have become acquainted with the documents at Simancas, the stores which M. Theiner has produced from the Vatican library, and last, and not least, the Venetian Archives seem likely to furnish us with ample details to illustrate the reigns both of Henry the Eighth and of Mary the First. There were earlier historians of the NO. CXL.-N.S. R |