poetical compositions, did space permit. "As a Christian poet," says his biographer, "he will surely be ranked amongst the foremost of the present century, a century which has produced a Wordsworth, a Keble, a Faber, a Neale, an Isaac Williams, a Miss Procter"-and, may we not add, to supply an unaccountable omission on Dr. Lee's part, a John Henry Newman?

Into Mr. Hawker's religious views we do not propose to enter at any length. He saw clearly enough, we are told, the wide distinction between the sound and solid principles of the old Oxford school of Dr. Newman's time," and those of the bishop-defying Ritualists of later years; he felt strongly that the Christian religion rests on the great principle of authority; and he perceived that the shadow of Erastianism deepened on the heads of his ecclesiastical superiors. "These thoughts," says Dr. Lee, "and such as these, troubled Mr. Hawker sorely. A perusal of undigested statements resulting from a prolonged inquiry into the character and motives of the Reformers,' entirely overthowing ordinary Anglican traditions, came upon him like a shock; while doubts about the validity of English ordinations. coupled with the discussion which arose concerning the validity of Archbishop Tait's baptism, added efficiently to his difficulties. But I do not believe that he altogether lost hope until the final passing of the Public Worship Regulation Bill." It has been said that Mr. Hawker intended to do battle with his bishop, Dr. Temple, under the regulations of the new Act, and that this was the only reason why he any longer retained his position in the State Church. Be this as it may, the intention was never carried out. In August, 1875, he paid a visit to his brother, and on his way home was taken so seriously ill at Plymouth, that it was deemed prudent to remain there, instead of pushing on to his beloved Morwenstow. It was doubtless a special providence that chose a place within easy access of a priest as the scene of his last illness and unexpected death. His wife, who for many years had been a Catholic, soothed the last hours of his long, laborious life; and in a letter she wrote to the curate of Morwenstow, announcing her husband's death, and the circumstances attending it, she says: "No one converted him, as no human being influenced him in the slightest degree. On Saturday night, twelve hours before his death, he was received into the Catholic Church, and the last rites and ceremonies of that communion were administered to him by Canon Mansfield." Another, who was present at that last closing scene, says: "I shall never forget it. He looked so peaceful, and was so full of thankfulness, released from the burden which I had so often heard him. say was greater than he could bear." He was buried, wearing cassock, surplice, and stole, in the Plymouth cemetery, and the following inscription was placed upon his coffin :

"ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER,

For 41 years Vicar of Morwenstow,
Who died in the Catholic Faith,

On the Feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, 1875,

Aged 71.
Requiescat in pace."

It is said that Cornwall was one of the last of the English counties to embrace the Christian Faith, and also one of the latest to abandon it in its fulness, in the sixteenth century. Christianity was originally taught to its people by sons and daughters of Erin, and the sweet names of Irish saints are perpetuated in the little towns and hamlets that studits moorlands and its coast-such, for instance, as St. Ives and St. Just, St. Madron, St. Neots, and St. Mawr. The Irish and the Cornish cross closely resemble each other; and between the traditions and characteristics of the two races there are many and striking points of similarity. May the prayers of the ever-faithful people of Ireland do for the Cornish men and women of to-day what Irish teaching and preaching did for their fathers long ago! And to their prayers his also will be added, who, even at the eleventh hour, found peace for his soul, and fell asleep on the fragrant bosom of the true mother of us all-the Holy Catholic Church.

W. M.

II. Gold and Alloy in the Devout Life. By PERE MONSABRE, O.P. Authorised Translation. With Preface by the Very Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P. (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 50, Upper Sackvillestreet. 1876.)

THE names of the two very eminent Dominican Fathers which grace the title-page of this book are a sufficient guarantee of its great merit. One of those names is "familiar in our mouths as household words:" and of the successor of Lacordaire, Ravignan, and Felix in the pulpit of Notre Dame, it is hardly too high praise to call him the Father Burke of the Church of France. Our Father Burke has fortunately not considered his duty fulfilled by a few words of recommendation for the work of his French brother, but he has enriched the English translation with a spiritual essay of some twenty pages, so attractive and so original as to make one regret that he has hitherto confined himself to the spoken word.

Father Monsabré discusses the characteristics of true and false devotion in a dozen chapters, which have probably grown out of practical conferences addressed to pious ladies of the world. While giving a very modern "piquant flavour" to his reflections, he secures their solidity by grounding them chiefly on the doctrine of Thomas a Kempis and his own St. Thomas Aquinas.

We know nothing of the writer to whom we owe this work in its English garb, and, if forced to use pronouns, we should hesitate between he and she with their variations. But, although we have not been able to compare the translation with the original, we can assure our readers (whom we wish to make its readers) that it has been executed with singular ability. It is decidedly clever. There is none of that slipshod semi-English stuff which has been too often allowed to pass current in translations from the French.

Good paper, ample space between the lines, and a generous margin, aid the clear round type in making "Gold and Alloy" one of the most creditable products of the Dublin press.

III. Memoriale Beatissimæ Virginis Maria. (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, Nassau-street. 1876.)

IF a Parliamentary return were ordered of all those of her Majesty's female subjects who are qualified to write after their names the coveted title of Enfant de Marie, how many thousands would they be found to amount to? For this pious constituency many publishers have catered in providing manuals of devotion. Of all these, we think that the present "Remembrance of Mary" is, without exception, the prettiest and most perfect. From the exquisite photograph which forms the frontispiece to the parting stanzas on the last page, everything breathes the fragrance of piety and good taste.

The first part furnishes the history, rules, and indulgences of the Sodality, with all the prayers and offices required by Children of Mary in the various grades of their complex hierarchy. Next follows a very beautiful collection of prayers for daily use, compiled and arranged with much practical skill, so as to satisfy all the needs of the devout faithful. In the appendix, besides Latin hymns and others which have been printed before, there are several very sweet and graceful hymns to the Blessed Virgin, which, we are told," have been translated so as to suit the music of Père Hermann's Cantiques á la Sainte Vierge." Choirs that provide themselves with the French music and with these English words will be able to lend a little novelty to their next Mois de Marie Devotions.

Manifestly all concerned in producing this "Remembrance of Mary" have taken the utmost pains with their respective parts. Every fragment of space has been utilised, and the type, though the perfection of clearness, is compact; so that a great variety of useful matter is given in a volume quite light enough to be carried without inconvenience in the pocket of a young lady's barége dress.

Finally, on this Manual, which bears the autograph imprimatur of the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, and which we owe to the zeal of the Dominican Convent of Sion Hill, Blackrock, his Holiness Pius IX. has (through the venerable President of the Irish College at Rome) bestowed his special blessing, "to the end that all those who shall devoutly use it, may, with the Divine grace and the Apostolic benediction, derive therefrom greater advantage to their souls."

IV. Contemporary Evolution. By ST. GEORGE MIVART. (H. S. King and Co.)

DR. Mivart's services to science have won for him the respectful attention of men of all schools of thought, while the eminent services he has rendered to Catholic science, so to speak, have placed him in a professor's chair in the Catholic London University, and have gained for him, only a few months back, the honour of a special recognition from the Holy Father, in the shape of a doctor's cap. In his present volume, Dr. Mivart has treated, in a masterly manner, some of the burning social, scientific, and religious questions of the hour, combining, in an almost unique degree, a thorough mastery of

the technical side of his subject, a devoted loyalty to the Church, together with a spirit of fair play and considerateness to his opponents, which they will not, we hope, be slow to recognise and to profit by.

There is not scope in a short notice to enter into the argument or design of Dr. Mivart's volume, which, in its manner of dealing with some abstruse points, will afford a fresh instance of the proverbial truth that even doctors disagree. We cannot, however, refrain from laying before the reader our author's admirable remarks with regard to the Pagan revival, which he considers to be one of the growing forces of the day, and out of which much that is pregnant of importance to the future must necessarily evolve: "When from some smooth-browed, chalky down, reposing amidst fragrant wild flowers and the hum of busy insect life, we look down on the peaceful ocean rippling in sun-lit splendour at our feet, as we mark the sea-fowl sailing in circles with rarely flapping wing, or listen to the lark rising blithely through the summer air-how strong with many will be the impulse towards the joyous cultus of an underlying soul of which such visible beauty is the living and palpitating garment! The great Pan lives once more, nor is Aphrodite unlikely to receive a mute and mental homage. The world is felt to be lovely and sweet indeed, and visions of exclusively terrestrial joy pass before the mind, and tend to produce in it scanty reverence for the forms, and but slight admiration for the beauties of Christian supernaturalism. But it may be said that many sincere and thorough Christians have been profoundly imbued with a love of nature. St. Francis, the tenderly beloved and unspeakably revered father of so many saintly followershe who was deservedly called an alter Christus-was, indeed, a lover of nature; and, as we read in his life, the creatures of the forest recognised and responded to his love by familiar approach and ready obedience; however, he always loved the creature for and in the Creator; he would address the insect as 'brother fly,' recognising in it an inferior created image of the same personal God whose chosen servant he was. The divinity he worshipped was no pantheistic soul in nature, but one who was his King as well as He in whom all things had their being. For whole days, kneeling in devout contemplation, with tears of love he would again and again repeat with fond iteration the words, Rex meus et Deus meus, as well as, Deus meus et

omnia.

"Such love of nature is profoundly Christian, and thoroughly antagonistic to that love of it for its own sake simply, which is as profoundly pagan. In as far as our modern poets and other artists partake of this Franciscan spirit, in so far are they in harmony at once with nature and Christianity. But there is little doubt that the prevailing tone of sentiment has long been increasingly pagan, until its most hideous features reveal themselves in a living English poet, by open revilings of Christianity, amidst loathsome and revoltingly filthy verses, which seem to invoke a combined worship of the old deities of lust and cruelty."

VI. The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Translated from the Latin Vulgate, diligently compared with the origiginal Greek, and first published by the English College at Rheims, A. D. 1582, with Annotations, References, and an Historical and Chronological Index. (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 50, Upper Sackville-street. 1876.) THE New Testament, when read with the fitting dispositions, especially in such passages as our Lord's discourse at the Last Supper, exceeds infinitely in force and unction all other spiritual lectures. The ordinary editions are printed in too small a type to be suitable for this purpose. Messrs. Gill's new half-crown edition is in large, clear type, and yet of portable size, and will be found very convenient for private use and for the pulpit.