ity, of mental endowment. Not unto him the glory, but unto God, through his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.

No one can read the work before us without feeling how much higher and broader is Catholic theology than Protestant theology; nor can any one read it without feeling how much freer and fuller scope Catholicism gives to our reasoning powers than Protestantism. No Protestant can reason; not because of any natural deficiency, indeed, but because he has no principles which he dares push to their remotest logical results. At every moment, he is obliged to arrest his logic, and throw in an arbitrary qualification, lest he be driven into some fatal extreme. His garment of salvation is never of a single piece, woven without seam from top to bottom, but a mere patchwork, of all sorts of stuffs and colors. But we did not intend running into this train of remark. Our purpose was merely to draw the attention of our readers to the work before us,- - a work which whoever would become acquainted with the doctrinal differences of Catholics and Protestants, or with the great theological book of our age, must read, and which every one would do well, not only to read, but to study. It is a profound work. No man, after reading it, can be what he was before. It is one of those works which stamp themselves on their age, and make an epoch in the history of the human mind. We shall take the earliest opportunity of bringing it again before our readers, and of attempting to give them a fuller account of what it proposes to do, and of what it has done. The work may be had in this city, of Donahoe & Rohan, No. 1, Spring Lane.

2.-D'Aubigne's "History of the Great Reformation in Germany and Switzerland," reviewed; or the Reformation Examined in its Instruments, Causes, and Manner, and in its Influence on Religion, Government, Literature, and General Civilization. By M. J. SPALDING, D. D. Baltimore: John Murphy. 1844. 12mo. pp. 379.

THIS is a work that was much needed. M. D'Aubigné's work has been circulated very extensively, and very generally read. It was highly desirable that a work of a moderate size, supplying its deficiencies, and correcting the more gross and important of its errors, should be prepared and sent out to counteract, in some degree, the false impressions it could not fail to make on all not thoroughly versed in the real character of the Reformation. Dr. Spalding has given us, in this volume, just such a work as was needed, and a work which cannot fail to do great service to the cause of truth. It is written in good taste and temper, with great calmness and candor, and proves the author to be a man of learning and ability. We have read it with deep interest, and we have found little to dissent from, either in its speculations or in its statement of facts. It is one of the best essays on the Reformation, the character of the men who introduced it, the means they employed, and its effect on

religion, morals, manners, liberty, literature, and general civilization, that we have met with, and we recommend to all who have read M. D'Aubigné to procure and read it. If any one has looked upon M. D'Aubigné's work as any thing more than a flippant romance, characterized by some ingenuity and considerable smartness, the work before us, if he will read it, will undeceive him, and satisfy him, that, as a history, it deserves not the least confidence.

3. The First Ten Cantos of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri, newly translated into English Verse. Boston: William D. Ticknor. 1844. 8vo. pp. 83.

WE notice this specimen of a translation of Dante, for the purpose of urging the author, as we do most sincerely, to lose no time in giving us the whole of the Divina Commedia. Every man is said to be sent into the world on some errand, to perform some task creditable to himself and serviceable to his country or his race. We know not what other missions may have been assigned Mr. Parsons, but we are sure that he ought to regard it as his especial mission to reveal the great Christian poet of the Middle Ages to the English mind and heart. We cannot speak of the original, for our Italian is not equal to its difficulties, and our pursuits give us no leisure to master them. But we know something of Dante, of the age in which he lived, of his general spirit and character; and this translation, as far as it goes, reproduces him very much as we had pictured him to ourselves, and we feel that it is faithful, and not wholly inadequate. Through it breathes the Dantean spirit, and runs the Dantean thought; and the verse, if somewhat rugged, is appropriate, and moves forward with a calm majestic march rarely equalled in English versification.

Dante stands out alone, the poet of Christendom, to Christianity what Homer was to Grecian Paganism. He is the Christian poet, with the Christian's deep sorrow, pure love, and sublime hope; and not only the Christian poet, but the Christian poet after the genuine Catholic type. The attempt of some moderns to find in his poem an incipient Protestantism merely proves their own ignorance of Catholicism. He who was the apostle of unity, who wished to model the State after the Church, and give to the universal temporal power a visible head, placed in Rome by the side of the spiritual head of the Church, he a Protestant! Grant that he now and then blames the reigning pontiff, that he directs the withering curse of his immortal lines against some of the occupants of St. Peter's chair, others have done as much; St. Bernard has done as much himself, than whom a better Catholic never lived. But, however severely Dante attacks the Pope, he never attacks the Papacy. The new and increasing attention now paid to Dante is a favorable symptom; an indication that Christendom is about preparing to be true to herself, and to study her own antiquity, instead of that of Greece

and Rome,-Christian antiquity, in preference to Pagan antiquity. In those Middle Ages we have all so despised, there is much on which a Christian can linger with a grateful heart; much to which he can point as a triumphant proof that God was with our fathers.

We pray Mr. Parsons to accept our thanks for his translation, and the assurance that we believe he will do good service to the country, and to the cause of literature, by completing it. We have only one suggestion to make; it is, that Dante was a Catholic Christian, and any Protestant interpretation of his invectives will be false and unjust.

4.- Mores Catholici; or Ages of Faith. By KENELM H. DIGBY. Cincinnati : Published by the Catholic Society for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge. 1841. 8vo. Vols. I. and II.

We have received from Messrs. Donahoe & Rohan, of this city, a copy of the first two volumes of the American reprint of this work, all that have as yet, we believe, been issued. The entire work makes five large octavo volumes. The great interest and value of this work are very generally admitted, and can be questioned by no one who has the least faith in the gospel; and yet it is a work which can find little support in "the spirit of the age." Mr. Digby seems really to believe that mere worldly wealth and prosperity are not the loftiest objects of human pursuit; and, what may strike our readers as almost, if not altogether, incredible, he cordially assents to the declarations of our Saviour,-"Beati pauperes,"― blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, &c. To find in these days a man who really believes poverty better than wealth, humility than pride, and truth and righteousness than a "respectable standing," or a "commanding position," is so rare an occurrence, that we doubt not that most of our readers will stare at us with quite a stare of incredulity, when we tell them that Kenelm H. Digby, Esq., is such a man; and, moreover, has here written a long, learned, and eloquent work, to prove that the ages when men believed the gospel and practised its precepts, were superior to these our own blessed days of spinningjennies, railroads, paper-money, and universal mammon-worship. The work is able, but we cannot recommend it to the public. It is mild, gentle, poetical, pervaded by a true loving spirit, alive to all that is beautiful, true, or tender in God's universe; but it pays no respect at all to mammon or his worshippers. It is not in harmony with the spirit of the age. It is old-fashioned, superannuated. It seeks to demonstrate historically that the ages of faith, that is, the ages of the Church prior to Luther, prove the truth of the Beatitudes, and that it is really the part of wisdom to "seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness." In other words still, it really attempts to show from historical data, that the "Dark Ages" were preferable to our ages of light. Men will get, now and then, strange crotchets in their heads. Even men of talents, of

learning, of great purity and tenderness of soul, may now and then be led to adopt strange whims and vagaries. Yet, if there should chance to be lingering still a simple-minded believer in Jesus, one who counts the love of God more precious than silver or gold, to such a one we can recommend these volumes as replete with the deepest interest, as refreshing as the bubbling fountain to the thirsty traveller over the parched desert. If we assume Christianity to be worth any thing, this is one of the best books lately written.

5.

Principles of the Interior or Hidden Life, designed particularly for the Consideration of those who are seeking Assurance of Faith and Perfect Love. By THOMAS C. UPHAM. Boston: D. S. King. 1843. 16mo. pp. 464.

THIS work deserves more than the passing notice which is all that we are now able to give it. We welcome it, and are glad to know that it has been received with great favor by the public, and that a new edition of two thousand copies is now in press. This speaks well for the public. It proves that people are beginning to look once more to a religious life and to a real and living communion of the soul with God, that there is a real return towards spirituality, as distinguished from mere sentimentality and intellectuality. Yet, while we heartily sympathize with the general spirit and aim of this volume, we cannot but look upon it rather as the expression of a desire for a holy life than as the expression of that life itself. It does not come up, in its celestial tone and divine spirituality, in its angelic sweetness and the exquisite tenderness of its devotion, to the old ascetic books of the Church. It cannot supply the place of "The Following of Christ." Nevertheless, it is well as far as it goes, and will tend to wean our affections from things of the earth, and to place them on things above. All works which teach us to believe in the possibility of holiness are valuable; for no man will ever attain to that which he believes to be unattainable.

6. The Library of American Biography. Conducted by JARED SPARKS. Second Series. Vol. I. Boston: Little & Brown. 1844. 16mo. pp. 398.

We welcome this new series of Sparks's Library of American Biography. It is a work of a national character; for nothing can be of higher national utility than for a nation to record, and hold up to admiration and imitation, the lives of her distinguished sons. The present volume contains the lives of Robert Cavelier de la Salle and Patrick Henry, the first by Mr. Sparks himself, the latter by the Hon. Alexander H. Everett. The life of La Salle can hardly be said to belong to American biography; for La Salle was born, and

lived, and died, a subject of France. Yet his name is intimately connected with an interesting portion of our country, and his life has more than the usual stir, incident, and interest of a romance. The Life of Patrick Henry is well written, and pleases us much better than the "Life" by Wirt. Wirt's "Life" is too eulogistic, too fulsome in its praise, and entirely wanting in just discrimination. Mr. Henry was a great and good man, but he was human. Mr. Everett, it seems to us, has written his life with a very just appreciation of his talents and character, and assigns him his appropriate rank. Upon the whole, we regard it as a favorable specimen of biography, and we wish we could have the lives of several other distinguished men from the same classic pen.

7.- An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy: comprising an Introduction to the Science. By WILLIAM PHILLIPS, F. L. Š., M. G. S. L. and C., Honorary Member of the Cambridge and Yorkshire Philosophical Societies. Fifth Edition, from the Fourth London Edition, by Robert Allan; containing the latest Discoveries in American and Foreign Mineralogy; with numerous Additions to the Introduction. By FRANCIS ALGER, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, &c., &c. Boston: William D. Ticknor & Co. 1844. 12mo. pp. 662.

We do not think very highly of Phillips's Treatise on Mineralogy, and we cannot understand Mr. Alger's motive for selecting it for republication. But with the amendments the original work received from Mr. Allan, and the still more important amendments from Mr. Alger himself in the edition before us, conforming it to the present state of the science, it is probably the best elementary treatise on mineralogy within the reach of the English student. Mr. Alger's additions are very important; they comprise descriptions of about a hundred and fifty new species, and extending to over three hundred pages. He appears to have performed his duty as editor faithfully and conscientiously, and we thank him very cordially for his labors. We shall hope to be able to return to this work in our next, and notice it at greater length, and in a manner more worthy of the real contributions its editor has made to the science of mineralogy, as well as of the great interest and value of the science itself.

8.- European Agriculture and Rural Economy. From personal Observation. By HENRY COLMAN. Vol. I., Part I. To be completed in Ten Numbers. Boston: A. D. Phelps, 124, Washington St. 1844. 8vo. pp. 80.

We have read this introductory number of Mr. Colman's promised Report on European Agriculture and Rural Economy with a