journal, The Academy. Its date is last Christmas. It appears that a Mr. Mahony, whose biography is there reviewed, made the same blunder as you in using the words, Liberalibus disciplinis excultus. And the reviewer condemns it as I have done, calling it, as I have called it, "a painfully English idiom," while he moreover explains very interestingly how Mr. Mahony, a man otherwise of education and quite capable of writing as good an article as any in The Academy, came to commit himself in so very extraordinary a manner. He got his first taste for the classics, as the reviewer well remarks, "probably" from one of "the hedge schoolmasters of Ireland, who had wonderful, ill-assorted stores of knowledge in their minds, were almost always ridiculous pedants, and were generally the laughing-stock of the neighbourhood," yet, for all that, "discovered and fostered literary genius among the Irish peasants." But he most certainly, as the reviewer tells us positively, acquired in later years with regard to Latin "a frequent habit of speaking it at the Jesuit College of Amiens. But the very habit of constantly speaking Latin," continues the reviewer, "the familiarity with monkish terms and idioms marred the really classical flavour of his compositions." Verily those French colleges, and that Gallican or rather that Ultramontane training, are evil things in every point of view.

H. S.-I believe indeed 'tis the London newspapers we must go to for larning afther all.

M. T.-The reviewer, my dear young friend, notices a still more extraordinary slip of the writer of whom I speak. In some Latin of Mr. Mahony's, after blandus is found the word comus, though this word, as the reviewer well observes, "will in vain be sought, not merely in Facciolati, but in the infamous Latinity of Ducange."

H. S.—Well now, that bates! Ah, come now, don't be purtendin'. Sure you know as well as me that comus is a misprint or a "lapsus calami" for comis. Sure a baby in arms would be able to tell you that, if it had only the laste taste in life of Latin schooling.

M. T.-On the contrary, the article regards comus as evidently a blundering formation from comiter, which was clearly in Mr. Mahony's head.

H. S.-Well now, to think of that! Arrah, why should the man be thinking more of comiter than of comis? Sure it was comis was in the man's head; aye, and in his handwriting too, I'll engage. And to think that the London newspaper was hunting for comus in Fashullatty and Jew Cange! Oh, wasn't that a purty innocent!

M. T-No, no, my young friend; we must take these things strictly.

H. S.-Faith 'en, yer rivirince, you must be a regular slasher. It's yerself can give hard measure whin you like. May good betide the poor young men that have to go up to you to be examined. It's you that's able to settle them. (Is going, but pauses). What's this? A Stephanus! Poor ould Robert! Well to be sure! Av coorse those ancients is no good now-a-days. But jist for ould acquaintance sake I'll look at it if you plaze Och, murdher in Irish! This is too bad, intirely!

....

M. T.—What is the matter?

H. S.-What's the matther? Wait till you hear what is undher Ingenuus! (reads) Artes Ingenuae sive Disciplinae i. e. Liberales. There's the painfully English idiom itself. Oh, Roberte Stephane, after that I give you up!

M. T.-No doubt, Robert Etienne was not what would be considered a finished scholar now-a days.

H. S. Oh, thin indeed he wasn't. Etienne, indeed! I don't believe he was a Frinchman at all. He was an Englishman, and his name was Steevens. He called himself Stephanus to consale his country (good rayson he had to be ashamed of it), but you see you've the intarior evidence of his nationality in his painfully English idiom.

NEW BOOKS.

I. Life of Pius VII. By MARY H. ALLIES. (London: Burns and Oates.) THIS is the last of the four volumes which the year 1875 added to the Quarterly Series which for the last four years has appeared under the general editorship of Father Coleridge, and which thus consists already of sixteen original works varying in price from four to ten shillings. We are delighted to perceive that some of the earlier volumes have reached a third edition. The successful management of this enterprise is perhaps the greatest of many services which Father Coleridge has conferred on Catholic literature. His own "Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier" and the great "Life of our Lord," of which the third and fourth volumes are announced for next year, are by far the most valuable of the series. This new volume is worthy even of such companionship. Anyone recalling the outline of the Pontificate of the Seventh Pius will be prepared for the almost dramatic interest of the story told very gracefully in these pages by one who seems to have inherited more than the name of the author of the "Formation of Christendom." Mr. Allies has prefaced his daughter's work with a few very vigorous pages which point the moral of the story very aptly by referring to the sufferings of another Pius who is still dearer to Catholic hearts.

An amicable controversy has lately been maintained by the correspondents of a Catholic newspaper as to the "Great Want of Catholic Literature." In our opinion the great want of Catholic literature is buyers. Catholic books, as well as other books, are like the Newcastle razors-"made to sell." Do these correspondents who make so many complaints and propose so many improvements, buy many Catholic books and subscribe to Catholic periodicals? Let them show their zeal for Catholic literature by subscribing (for instance to this Quarterly Series which is eminently worthy of the warmest encouragement.

II. The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for the United States, for the Year 1876. (New York: Catholic Publication Society.) THERE is quite a wonderful amount of interesting matter crammed into this book which is very prettily got out. The place that "Ireland of the dispersion" holds in the American Church is indicated by the number of Irish items that are here served up, such as the sketch of Eugene O'Curry, and the picture and description of the ruins of St. Colman's Church, Innisboffin. The compilers have not mentioned that Mr. Aubrey de Vere's exquisite poem, "Pastor Æternus," is taken from the pages of the IRISH MONTHLY. Even for the Irish at home-and God grant that they may be able to stay at home-there is deep interest in all that concerns the Church in America. President Grant would do well to study in these pages or elsewhere the address of the American Catholics to Washington and Washington's reply. We extract a few remarkable statistics from "Then and Now -a Contrast:"

"The population of the thirteen colonies in 1775, at the outbreak of the Revolution, was about 2,800,000 (one and a half millions less than that of New York State in 1870.) The population of the United States in 1870 was 38,555,983, of which 5,566,546 were foreign born. The ten principal cities possessed the following populations in 1870: New York, 942,292, of which 202,000 were Irish; Philadelphia, 674,022, Irish, 96,698; Brooklyn, 376,099, Irish, 73,985; St. Louis, 310,864, Irish, 32,239; Chicago, 298,977, Irish, 40,000; Baltimore, 267,354, Irish, 15,223; Boston, 250,526, Irish, 56,900; Cincinnati, 216,239, Irish, 18,624; New Orleans, 191,418, Irish, 14,693; San Francisco, 149,473, Irish, 25,864. Of persons born in Ireland, there were residing in the United States in 1870, 1,855,779, of which 528,806 resided in the State of New York. When, in 1784, Father John Carroll, S.J., was consecrated in England first bishop for the United States, there were not above six Catholic churches in the country. In 1874 there were 6,920 churches, chapels, and stations. In 1785 Bishop Carroll estimated (doubtless too low) the Catholic population "in Maryland at 16,000, in Pennsylvania over 7,000, and, as far as information could be obtained, in other States about 15,000." In 1875 the Catholic population was over 6,000,000. On December 7, 1800, was consecrated the first bishop in the United States-Right Rev. Leonard Neale. In 1875 the American hierarchy numbered one cardinal-archbishop, ten archbishops, and fifty-six bishoprics, and vicariates-apostolic. On May 25, 1793, was ordained the first priest in the United States-Rev. Stephen T. Badin. In 1874 there were 4,873 priests."

III. Burning Questions. By WILLIAM MOLITOR. (London: Burns and Oates.)

THIS is a cleverly executed translation of a German work written with great ability and in an excellent spirit. The questions brulantes of contemporary controversy, those especially which regard Church and State, are discussed with liveliness, and at the same time with solidity, in a series of conversations between some friends, representatives of various nationalities, who chance to be gathered together in a countryhouse on the border of one of the Italian lakes. There may be some doubt, as the author confesses, about the judiciousness of the form in which the work is cast; but as to the excellence and opportuneness of the work itself there can be no doubt whatever.

THE CHANCES OF WAR.

BY A. WHITELOCK.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CHAMBER OF DEATH.

"Oh! wearily the night moaned on-
Oh! wearily dawned the light-
Oh! wearily the watcher looked,
Upon that wretched night."
I. S. Varian.

It is painful to keep vigil by the side of the dead, doubly painful when the couch by which we watch bears a form that we have loved through life. It is hard to see the lips that have lavished a thousand endearments upon us set in pale rigidity, never to open again; to see the eyes that have looked love into our own, dimmed and glassy, closed to the world which they made bright for us; to see the hand that fondled us so often lie stiff and cold upon the white coverlet, not thrilled into motion by our own impassioned clasp. We find it almost impossible to realise the awful fact that all now remaining of the being we have venerated, loved, idolised for years, is a mass of senseless clay, indifferent to our caresses as to our sorrow. To one who has not felt it no effort of imagination can picture the overwhelming loneliness which seizes upon the heart by the death-couch of those we have loved, the unutterable sense of separation which benumbs the soul in the icy presence of the cherished dead. To think that we may call aloud, and strain our voices till they crack, but that the ears into which we have poured the secrets of our life's joys and sorrows shall hear us no more! To think that they are gone from us on whom we have ever leaned, and that now we must plod on our desolate path alone! We cannot believe it, we turn away, try to shut out the painful vision that would force itself upon us, and in tumultuous grief seek to dull the keen sense of our bereavement.

Such is, at least, the usual resource to which sorrowing affection betakes itself in presence of the dull clay from which death has stolen the spirit that made it man. But not with such a grief was Arthur Dillon mourned in the chamber where he lay. Kathleen's strange misgivings had prepared her for the blow that had fallen upon them, and she received it with a subdued, despairing sorrow when it came. She sat beside the couch on which the body of her father lay. Her long hair streamed in bright waves over the velvet pall, bright and shining as the emblazoning on the funereal draperies; she clasped in hers the cold hand of the dead man; at intervals she touched with her lips the white fingers she held within her own, and then gave utterance to her grief in a low, plaintive cry of anguish more pitiful than the wildest burst of sorrow.

There was no one to offer comfort to the helpless little mourner. Her sister sat near her, absorbed in her own grief, heedless for once

of Kathleen's distress. She had chosen to watch by her father's body, and she would admit no one but her sister to share her vigil. For hours she had been sitting motionless by the bedside, oppressed by an affliction too great for tears or wailings to express. Yet all her thoughts were not concentrated on her own bereavement. Even here, within the chamber of death, the question rose to her mind: "what had become of those who had attempted their deliverance?” She did not know the full details of the tragedy of the morning. The sounds of the combat on shore had been borne faintly to her ears, and soon after, the boat in which her father had quitted the castle returned bearing his lifeless body. It was manned by the troopers of the Parliament. But they offered insult or violence to no one. They departed as they came, leaving it to Lucas Plunkett, who accompanied them, to explain, as he chose, to the orphan girls the circumstances of their father's murder.

She could not now recall the confused story poured into her ear during the first moments of her sorrow. She could recollect that a detachment of Irish horse had come to their assistance; that her father had endeavoured to give them warning of an ambuscade that waited for them, and that he had lost his life in the attempt. What had been the fate of the Irish she had not heard, nor had she then stayed to inquire. But now, in the dread silence of that lonely room, the thought came to distract her in her mourning. What had befallen the men who had come to their rescue? They had not won the day. The Parliamentarians had not quitted their bivouac of the night before; she had seen them come and go when the engagement was over, and from the spot where she sat, she could even now see their watch-fires gleaming through the trees. Had other lives, then, besides this precious one been sacrificed in their defence? Had the generous soldier who so promptly obeyed her request perished with the rest? Had she summoned him to an inglorious death-to be shot from behind a hedge by a hidden enemy? Had he died a stranger in a strange land, for her deliverance, and at her entreaty? As often as she hid her face in her hands and shut out the absorbing vision of the pallid form that lay before her, these questions rose to her mind. But there was no one who could give an answer to them. Her cousin had been absent for hours, she knew not where, and none of the domestics would venture on shore to make inquiries; the halfwitted horseboy who perhaps would have undertaken even this service, she had not seen since he departed on the errand which had resulted so fatally.

It was growing dark, the tall candles that blazed round the bier began to cast a stronger light on the rough wainscoting of the room, and to lend a ghastlier pallor to the features of the dead man, when the door opened noiselessly, and Lucas Plunkett, with soft step, approached the spot where Mary was sitting.

"Pardon me, Miss Dillon," he began, in his mildest and most sympathetic tones, "if I intrude upon your grief. Nothing but the most urgent necessity could force me to disturb you at this moment with the mention of matters which must increase your distress."