who have had acquaintance with the work and know the difficulties which beset the path of a searcher into things unknown at the Record Office and elsewhere, can appreciate the luxury of having a collection for a county history placed within reach in a printed form. Indeed, the work is so obviously one of general utility that we might have reasonably expected it would have been long ago undertaken by the officials of the Rolls Office. In the present volume the author has given us a translation of the Derbyshire portion of Domesday Book, extracts from the Pipe Rolls for the county to the end of the reign of Edward I., the Red Book of the Exchequer, the Testa de Nevil, and some other extracts of documents relating to his subject. To each of these portions of the volume he has prefixed introductory explanations as to the nature and utility of the record. For example, he draws special attention to the importance of the Pipe Rolls in tracing the pedigrees of county families, although strangely enough these records have been almost entirely overlooked by most county historians. The letterpress to the Testa de Nevil extracts is particularly of interest to the historical student, and the author throws much light on the date of the document, which is of such importance for 13th century history, about which the editor for the Master of the Rolls in 1833 appears to have had very hazy ideas. The printing, paper and general get-up of the volume is all that the most fastidious could desire, and it is enriched by one of the best indexes we have ever seen, which should prove a mine of wealth to the genealogical student. 1. The Cornhill Magazine. Vol. VI., January-June. Vol. VII., JulyDecember, 1886. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1886. 1885-1886. London and New 2. The English Illustrated Magazine. York: Macmillan and Co. 1886. THE HE two volumes of the Cornhill for last year are excellent ones, and will maintain the reputation of this old and favourite magazine. We have for long past looked into the Cornhill with pleasure, and do not remember to have seen anything that would unfit it for the young or for general reading in Catholic families. The serial novels are of good literary quality-" Court Royal" we have already noticed; Mr. Haggard's "Jess" is not yet finished. Of shorter stories there is an abundance, and generally they are enjoyable. The popular science papers have long been noteworthy in the Cornhill; some of them models of what such papers can be made. In the number for July, 1886, there is an interesting article telling what Mrs. Ernest Hart has done towards helping industry in Donegal. Her shop at 43, Wigmore Street, Portland Place, for the sale of home-knit stockings and stuffs, has since then been much spoken of; but it is interesting to read here how she was led to revive industries once pursued in the districtspinning, weaving, knitting, embroidery, &c. are taken The volume of the English Illustrated should have been acknowledged in our last number. The magazine has now won for itself a high place in public estimation, and this, when its small price and the competition it must maintain with American "illustrateds" into account, is very creditable to its managers. We may note in particular Mr. Hugh Thomson's sketches, illustrative of "Sir Roger de Coverley;" they are first-rate, and well deserve to be issued apart, as we see they have lately been. The letterpress maintains an excellent average of literary excellence and general interest. A Lecture on Catholic Ireland. By the Rev. J. P. PRENDERGAST. THIS King, Prophet, and Priest; or, Lectures on the Catholic Church. By the Rev. H. C. DUKE. London: Burns & Oates. THE HE special feature of this series of lectures is the development given to the dogma of the divine Mission of the Ecclesia Docens. The force of the question, "Who sent you?" applied to the various religious bodies claiming to be the Church of Christ, cannot be overrated. As the apostles and their successors were sent to rule, to teach, and to administer the sacraments, so the lecturer, insisting separately on each element, has aptly chosen "King, Prophet, and Priest" as his title. His reasoning is close and convincing, and the numerous quotations from the Fathers concur to give his work value of its own. Henry Bazely, the Oxford Evangelist. A Memoir, by the Rev. E. L. HICKS, M.A. London: Macmillan & Co. 1886. HIS book will hardly appeal to any beyond a very limited circle. Mr. Bazely had attained to the dignity of what are called "Deacon's orders" in the Anglican Establishment, but subsequently abandoned that coign of vantage, and joined the Scotch Presbyterians. He was well known, chiefly at Oxford, as a revivalist preacher, and in that capacity he was a frequent attendant at fairs, race-courses, &c., where he preached and sold Bibles and tracts. We are strongly of opinion that open-air preaching, which never can lead to Sacraments, is not only generally useless, but often injurious to the highest interests 66 of religion. But we are not now discussing the point; it will be sufficient to note what we gather from the introduction, that it was due to Bazely's memory that his precise theological attitude (the italics are ours) should be made known once for all." This precise theological attitude seems to have denoted strong Calvinism, extreme scruples about purity of worship, and unvarying hostility to such Catholic principles as the Anglican sect may lay claim to. We may piously hope that undoubted and active charity to the poor may have balanced the shortcomings of narrowness of view. Not a bad subtitle to the book would have been "Private judgment in excelsis." The Final Science; or, Spiritualist Materialism. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls. 1885. PROFESSING to be written by an ardent disciple, this is really a very trenchant attack upon the evolutionary and materialist philosophy of the day. Mr. Herbert Spencer, Vogt, Büchner, and the like, are abundantly open to satire; but it may be doubted whether such a weapon, however legitimate, and effective in a magazine article, is so serviceable in a work of near two hundred pages. The assumptions, inconsistencies, and fallacies of this school will, however, be found well exposed in this little volume. An Abridgment of the Catechism ordered by the National Synod at Maynooth, and approved of by the Cardinal, Archbishops, and Bishops of Ireland for general use throughout the Irish Church. Translated from English, and printed with the authority of the Archbishop of Tuam. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. HIS catechism is correctly printed, and will be very useful to Irish-speaking people, as also to those who may wish to learn the Irish language. While free from the archaisms of the old Irish, it is removed from the vulgarisms of a modern patois. The Irish petition in the Litany, however, would really be rendered by Deus, Pater cœlestis, and so does not literally represent Pater de cælis, Deus. Une Invasion Prussienne en Hollande en 1787. Par PIERRE DE WITT. Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit & Cie. TH THIS work elucidates an episode but little known either in France or England, and lovers of political history ought to feel grateful to M. de Witt for making them acquainted with a series of events which are not only interesting in themselves, but full of European significance. When we consider that the author is descended from a family highly distinguished in Dutch annals, and entirely devoted to the French alliance, we must admit that he has described the "Prussian Invasion of Holland," and its causes, with creditable impartiality. In his expression of opinions a certain bias is apparent, but in relating facts he displays that regard to truth, the absence of which, in a would-be historian, can only result in the production of a spoiled romance. The family of Orange-Nassau had made and maintained the independence of the Seven Provinces. William I. undoubtedly aimed at establishing an hereditary monarchy in his house, but death cut short his career, and the Princes of Orange finally transmitted to each other only the dignity of Stadtholder or chief magistrate. In a country like Holland, a republic yet possessing a powerful aristocracy and opulent bourgeoisie, such a position was not without its drawbacks, and even the Taciturn had at times met with resistance from the States which owed their existence to his energy and cunning. However, so long as men of talent occupied the Stadtholderate, it was found advantageous to have a headship to the commonwealth; but when a nonentity in the shape of William II. came into power, and married a strong-minded Prussian wife, a large party among the unmannerly Republicans, under the name of "patriots," set up systematic resistance to his rule. The recent example of the States of America animated their ardour against monarchism. This party was in the pay of the French ambassador; and it seems a strange irony that France, then on the very brink of the Great Revolution, should have tried to foment a small revolution in a neighbouring country. The Stadtholder and his wife, in their struggle to maintain rather more than their rights, received the encouragement and partial support of England, then very ably represented at The Hague by Sir James Harris, afterwards Lord Malmesbury. But Prussia was the power destined to settle the question by force of arms. England had not the desire, France had not the strength, or the determination, to throw her sword into the scale; but Frederic William II. of Prussia, brother to Wilhelmina Princess of Orange, emerged at last from the dreamy society of mystics and favourites to come to the rescue of a sister who was far more kinglike than himself. There was no time to be lost. Amsterdam and several other towns had declared against the Stadtholder; Wilhelmina had been stopped and turned back in an attempted journey from Nimeghen to the Hague; the patriots were beginning to triumph. But their triumph was cut short. In September, 1787, the Duke of Brunswick, aided by the energetic counsels of Sir James Harris, led a Prussian army into Holland, and made of it a rapid conquest. The Hollanders, who had never been really apt at fighting, and who had won their independence rather through the unwisdom of their opponents, and geographical circumstances, than through any military prowess of their own, happened now to be most pitiably commanded by the boastful and incapable Rhinegrave of Salm. The French officers who assisted the patriots were unable to inspire their rude allies with their own martial fire, and Holland hopelessly succumbed. The war was in reality an episode in that rivalry which has existed between France and Prussia ever since the latter became a kingdom; but it was an episode in which Prussia had all the advantage of situation. When the crisis came, France, sapped by corruption, and trembling at the approach of an unheard-of convulsion, could lift no finger to aid the malcontents of Holland. The anti-Orange towns fell one by one; the Princess entered the Hague in triumph; the mob, less phlegmatic than might be supposed, murdered certain patriots and pillaged their houses; Amsterdam, last and greatest of the "rebel" cities, capitulated on the 12th of October; and the fortunes of the wonderfully fortunate House of Orange were re-established at the very time when those of the House of Bourbon began to set in the storm-clouds of the Revolution. Christian Iconography. By the late ADOLPHE NAPOLEON DIDRON. Translated from the French by E. J. MILLINGTON, and Completed, with Additions and Appendices, by MARGARET STOKES. Vol. II. London: George Bell & Sons. 1886. THIS HIS volume is the completion of a work left unfinished for 20 years; M. Didron's death in 1867 having interrupted this and all his other antiquarian studies. Miss Stokes' reputation as one of the ablest of living archæologists is a sufficient guarantee for the excellence of her share in the present volume, which is indeed no small one, as a considerable portion of it is altogether her own, while the materials left by her predecessor had to be collected, arranged, and amplified, by her editorial skill. The connection between medieval and antique art is dealt with in an interesting chapter, conclusively showing that the blending of classical and Christian tradition was not, as some modern critics have sought to prove, an invention of the Renaissance, but a result of the general law of human development, by which the new structure is raised on the foundation of the old. The influence of the drama on iconography is also the subject of another chapter, and a very valuable portion of the work is that in which the general scheme of early Christian art is traced to its sources in ancient manuals laying down the sequence of subjects and general manner of their treatment. Each scene in the New Testament was here associated with two in the Old, regarded as its symbolical types. Thus the Holy Family in Egypt, when the idols of the inhabitants miraculously fell, is grouped with the destruction of the golden calf by Moses and the fall of Dagon in presence of the Ark. We have only to add that Miss Stokes everywhere deals with Christian symbolism in a thoroughly reverential spirit. |