Irish Jesuit Province

Notes on New BooksThe Irish Monthly, Vol. 18, No. 206 (Aug., 1890), pp. 437-440Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498083 .

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Notes on Newt, Books. 437'

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

1. We do not remember hearing before of the firm of Hutchinson and Company, 25 Paternoster Square, who are the publishers of ani extremely attractive series of books called " The Idle Hour Series," each volume containing a set of stories by R. E. Francillon, George

Manville Fenn, and other popula'r novelists. The form ancd type are the most convenient and most readable that could be chosen, and a pleasant frontispiece faces the title-page. " The Idle Hour Series" leads off very happily fvith " The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly, and. other Stories," by Rosa Mulholland, author of " Marcella Grace," " A Fair Emigrant," "1 The Wild Birds of Killeevy," etc., etc. Two of the previous works thus named on the title-page are issued by the neighbouring firm of Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., at I Paternoster Square; but this newest addition to the long catalogue of Miss

Mulholland's works bears more affinity to her " Eldergowan and Other Stories," published by Marcus Ward and Company. Even that volume had much less variety than the present series of tales,

which are ten in number, and are pretty equal as regards length, the nine " other stories" being " The Country Cousin," " The Hungry Death," " A Strange Love Story," "The Ghost at the Rath,"' "IKrescenz," " The Signor John," "The Fit of Ailsie's Shoe," "A Will o' the Wisp," and " The Ghost of Wildwood Chase." These names will warn the ingenious reader that in the collection before us the author of " Hester's Historv" has not catered merely for thost youthful lovers of fiction whom she has so often delighted with her "Puck and Blossom," her " Four Little Mischiefs," and her "c Little Flower Seekers." Indeed it would be hard to find anywhere more exquisite samples of the characteristic charms of her style than in these slight and dainty sketches, whether the scene be laid in Ireland or Italy. There is very great variety of theme and spirit. The first two are a little too weird for some tastes, and perhaps the place of honour ought rather to have been given to '' The Country Cousin" or the " Strange Love Story." But, in spite of the sunny, idyllic grace

of " Tho Signor John," it is a comfort that the most successful of all ,are the two which have a distinctively Irish accent -" The Hungry

Death " with its wholesome pathos, and the winsome humour of " The Fit of Ailsie's Shoe."

2. "T Thomas Davis: the Memoirs of an Irish Patriot, 1840-1846." By Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, K.C.M.G. (London : Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1890). A large octavo of four hundred pages

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438 The Irish Monthly.

on Davis by Duffy must be the literary event of the season for Irish men at home and abroad. No doubt the interest would have been still greater if the Editor of The Nation had not already given the world two much larger volumes, one of which at least had anticipated a good many of the personal revelations that might be expected from him as Davis's biographer. Occasionally Sir C. G. Duffy has felt this so far as to be obliged to repeat his previous treatment of certain parts of his subject; but there remained plenty of incidents and documents to give originality and freshness to this first adequate account of a famous Irishman who is already nearly fifty years dead. When he lay dying, though no one guessed that the end was near-one of his young friends,

who is amongst us still, uttered in jest what has proved a prophecy. ", C. G. D. " writes to him two or three days before the last: "I John

O'Hagan says you have an opportunity of rivalling Mirabeau by dying at this minute; but he begs you won't be tempted by the inviting opportunity." As a fact, he died at the very moment that was best for his fame, when men of very different views could unite in cherish ing his memory and pointing to his example. The closest ally of his brief but crowded manhood has in this fine volume done his last duty to his friend, showing that his feelings have not changed since, forty five years ago, he made his ballad of " The Irish Chiefs " culminate in the prayer, " Oh, to have lived as Davis lived!"

3. "CAn Essay contributing to a Philosophy of Literature. By Brother Azarias, of the Brothers of the Christian Schools." (New York: P. O'Shea). This is the sixth edition of a work published sixteen years ago. Its author is an Irishman labouring in the United States among those who are best known as French Christian Brothers. He has done a great deal for American Catholic Literature, but the present volume seems to us the most generally useful. It applies Catholic feelings and principles to a very wide and necessarily superficial survey of the literatures of many countries from the earliest dawn of literature to the present time. Books about books are the fashion of the day; and it is well to have such subjects treated in the spirit rather of Ozanam than of Taine. In our " necessarily superficial survey " we have noticed one oversight. -Brother Azarias very justly places "that trumpet-blast of chivalric action, the Chanson de Roland, among the most ancient, the

most beautiful, and the most artistically complete of all the cyclic poems that have been handed down." As a Catholic Irishman, he ought to have claimed for a Catholic Irishman-Mr. Justice O'Hagan the distinction of having enriched English literature with so perfect a

metrical version of this great medieval epic as enables us to appreciate the praises bestowed upon it in this excellent " Essay towards a

Philosophy of literature."

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1Votes on New Books. 439

4. "Aids to correct ancd effective Elocution, with selected readings

and recitations for practice," by Eleanor O'Grady (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers) has, it seems, circulated for many years in manuscript among the compiler's numerous pupils.. A good many of the rules for gesture and delivery read very funnily, hut for all that they may be very useful in practice. There is a great deal of freshness and novelty in-lot us give her the benefit of a doubt-ffiss O'Grady's illustrative extracts. With a view to a second edition, we record our vote against " The Heliotrope" as stupid and unsuitable.

5. The same Publishers have sent us " The Leper Queen," a story

,of the thirteenth century, slight but prettily done. Father Damien in heaven is, we suspect, partly responsible for it, and also for a very long and beautiful poem in the June Catholic World, in the metre

which most of us associate with Longfellow's Evangeline.

6. An extremely interesting and an extremely edifying book is "Father Perry, F.R. S., the Jesuit Astronomer: a sketch of his Life,

Work, and Death." By Aloysius L. Cortie, S..J. (London: Catholic Truth Society). Father Cortie has put the simple facts together admirably, and has given the unscientific reader the means of

appreciating Father Perry's work, and this with a clearness and

simplicity which could only be secured by a very thorough knowledge .of the subject in all its bearings. The personal traits of Father

Perry's character are touchingly edifying, especially the details of his

death, none the less interesting for our readers on account of the Irish -names of the chief assistants thereat, Brother Ropney, S.J., and Dr.

McSwiney, " an old Clongowes boy." An excellent portrait in front, and eight illustrations scattered through the 120 pages, and the pric only one shilling.

7. " Plain Sermons on the Fundamental Truths of the Catholic Church " by the Rev. R. D. Browne (London: Burns and Oates), bears -the. Nikil Obstat of an Oblate of St. Charles. These sixty eight sermons are for the most part very short, sometimes only a page or two, like the Five-minute Sermons of the New York Paulist Fathers;

but Father Browne aims at giving a good deal of theological instruc tion. We do not think he has been very successful. Some of the

minute details about justice Land other subjects are hardly judicious when given so crudely. One small point of another sort is that the Jesuit author;of Christian and Religious Perfection is confounded at page 309 with our recently canonised laybrotlher, St. Alphonsus

Rodriguiez.

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440 The Irish lonthly.

8. A Visitandine of Baltimore has translated, and the Benzigers h-ave published in a fine octavo of four hundred pages, Bougaud'R, excellent Life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque. " An Ossory

Priest" has composed, and James Daffy and Company have pub lished, "The Life of St. John the Baptist," in which all the circum stances of the career of the Precursor are carefully studied by ant

enthusiastic client of the Saint.

9. Father William B. Morris of the London Oratory has for many

years devoted himself to the study of all that concerns the life of the Apostle of Ireland. His " Life of St. Patrick " has reached a fourtl edition, which is by no means a mere reissue of former editions, but

contains the substance of many disquisitions contributed by the author to The Dublin Review and The lrish Ecclesiastscal Record on some con

troverted points in the history of St. Patrick. The publishers havit brought out this new edition with perfect taste.

10. Mr. R. Washbourne, 18 Paternoster Row, London, has pub lished the first English edition of Father Jenkin's answer to the

question: Should Christianity leaven Education ? The essay has gone through four editions in the United States. The Catholic 4uth Society has issued a fresh number of the excellent penny series of

meditations by Father Richard Clarke, S.J., as well as a biographical sketch of the Ven. Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh, and a story full of romance and conversions, by Miss H. M. Lushingtori, called "H Helen Forsyth, or a Shadowed Life."

11. Two extremely interesting papers by Dr. Thomas More Mad den have been reprinted from medical journals-one on Schwalbach as a health-resort, and the other against Hypnotism and two other

medical fads which are shown to have not even novelty to recommend them. The son of Dr. R. R. Madden copies his father in linking literary studies with the practice of the healing art; but his writings are confined to more strictly professional subjects than those which

engaged the author of " Lives of the United Irishmen."

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