saying, Why did you not write Hickory and Victory: they are but one?' After supper we were treated to a most delicious pas de deux by the conqueror and his spouse, an emigrant of the lower classes, whom he had from a Georgian planter, and who explained by her enormous corpulence that French saying, She shows how far the skin can be stretched.' To see these two figures, the general, a long, haggard man, with limbs like a skeleton, and Madame la Générale, a short fat dumpling, bobbing opposite each other like half-drunken Indians to the wild melody of Possum up de gumtree, and endeavouring to make a spring into the air, was very remarkable, and far more edifying a spectacle than any European ballet could possibly have furnished."

In another page we have another French victor, Moreau, in contrast with the mercantile spirit pure and undefiled. Moreau was in New York, and the American sympathisers honoured him with a concert and shaking of hands unparalleled elsewhere:

"Just as I got there," says our author, 66 a quaker had himself introduced to the latter; and shaking him heartily by the hand, uttered the following words: Glad to see you safe in America. Pray, general-say, do you remember what was the price of cochineal when you left Cadiz?' The victor of Hohenlinden shrugged his shoulders, and was unable to reply."

New Orleans furnishes an actual application of the old logical puzzle about Epimenides and the Cretans too curious for omission:

"I recollect particularly a remarkable criminal suit against a certain Beleurgey, the editor of one of the first American papers, Le Télégraphe by name, which was published at New Orleans, in the French and English languages, during 1806-7. The accused had forged the signature of a wealthy planter for the purpose of raising money; and when he was detected, had confessed his guilt to the planter in writing, and urgently besought him not to appear as prosecutor. The planter felt disposed to accede to this request; but the letter was already in the hands of justice. How, then, did Livingston manage, as the attorney and advocate of Beleurgey, to secure the discharge of the accused, notwithstanding this confession, this damning evidence of his guilt? Davezac got together witnesses, who swore before the court that they had long known Beleurgey to be the greatest of liars, from whose lips there never fell a word of truth. Look at this!' said Livingston to his French jury, the man could not tell the truth; the very acknowledgment of his guilt is a lie, for only a fool would be his own accuser. So then Beleurgey has either lied, or he has not the control of his own understanding; and in either case has not been conscious of what he was doing, and cannot be found guilty! So the jury brought in a verdict by which he was discharged !"

Just now some of the most attractive parts of Mr. Nolte's Reminiscences will be those which touch upon Russia; all the more so because they were written without reference to the present excitement. The story about the quarantine at Jassy one would think possible no where but under Russian dominion; and certainly the following, with which we must end, could take place only in a country which so singularly unites modern organisation with old-world despotism and semi-savage caprice:

"The Grand Duchess Helena, daughter of Prince Paul of Wurtemburg, lately deceased in Paris, and wife of the Grand Duke Michael, was in Odessa, on her way to some baths in the Crimea. The princess wanted to get a wholesale idea of the commerce of Odessa, and ordered all the wheat-laden waggons to be drawn up side by side in the main street. Thus several thousand had collected, waiting for the arrival of the lady. All the water-carts also, which supplied drinking-water to the city, were ordered to occupy themselves in laying the dust. It was of no importance that the market was in want of wheat, and the citizens in want of water; they had to wait five days, and then the princess arrived. On the next day she went on board the fleet, and the waggons were then ordered to come in and unload, and the water-carts to return to their usual business. When the owners asked for compensation for their six days' loss, they were sent to the devil, and told to hold their tongues; and this is Russian justice.

"The vessel that carried the princess brought back on its return a young American named Codman, in charge of the police. He was from Marblehead, Mass., and had come out as supercargo. He had excited the attention of the police by his habit of asking questions, and popping the answers down in a note-book, &c.; and they were ordered to bring him before the emperor. He was a right inquisitive Yankee. The Czar asked the object of his visit, and his intentions when his business was ended. He replied that he wanted to see Russia for himself, that he might tell his countrymen the truth about it. The naïveté of the young man pleased the Czar, who, the Marquis de Custine has shown, is very anxious to hide Russian tyranny and slavery from foreigners, and to cause a belief in advanced civilisation. Here was an opportunity to get the Americans. So,' said the Czar, 'you want to see and learn all about Russia? Well, you shall; and at my expense. I will give you letters, and see that you are every where well received. Where do you want to go first?' 'To Moscow.' 'When?' The day after to-morrow, at 6 o'clock.' 'Good! the day after tomorrow, at 6 o'clock, I will send for you; be ready.'

"This narrative I got from Codman himself. The next morning appeared at the Yankee's door a very handsome drosky and horses, with an imperial coachman and two adjutants. Servants in imperial livery loaded another drosky with his baggage; the adju

VOL. II.- -NEW SERIES.

tants got into a third, and he was whirled off to Moscow and put into a second-rate hotel. He had scarcely arrived when the governor and all his staff appeared, and offered to do the honours of the city. When he had seen all the lions, he asked to go to the Crimea, and visit the camp of the army of the Caucasus. He was sent there by the governor, and so brought to Sevastopol by the flag-ship of the Russian admiral. Here he wanted to go to head-quarters, to 'see the fun.' The admiral, named, I think, Etschernicheff, who had been a midshipman of Nelson at Trafalgar, and who saw nothing in his passenger but an uneducated curious individual, got rid of him at Sevastopol. But he had nothing to do there, and asked to see the camps. He was told that the commandant, Goloffkin, had refused entrance to strangers, &c.; but he did not care. The Czar had promised him admission every where, and he would complain to him if the field-marshal refused. He grew more and more insolent every day, and was so overbearing, that there came a sudden order from imperial head-quarters to send him to Odessa, and thence over the frontiers, with some money for his expenses, and the wish for a pleasant journey to him. How he got to Trieste I did not learn; but he told me his story there, and proved that favours do not always come to intelligent men, since this crazy pate had met with such attention. He did not feel a bit grateful, nor did he make any attempt at procuring useful information. All that he talked about was his personal intercourse with Nicholas, and the fact that his majesty had been kinder to him than to any other traveller."

Short Notices.

THEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, &c.

The Branch-Church Theory, a Dialogue (Burns and Lambert). When the leaves of the woods begin to fall, the publishing world begins to bestir itself, in anticipation of the coming " season," which, in books, is considerably ahead of that of the vegetable world. Save the second volume of Mr. Turnbull's well-executed translation of Audin's Life of Luther, the only Catholic publication before us is a clever little pamphlet on the standing Puseyite crotchet about "Branch Churches." The writer makes short work of its logic, but in a very temperate strain. The pamphlet is well fitted for putting into the hands of those who really imagine that half-a-dozen boughs lying separate upon the ground actually constitute one living and growing tree.

Audin's Luther brings with it an announcement which we much regret, to the effect that Mr. Dolman cannot make his "Library of Translations" pay, and, in fact, cannot carry it on unless better supported. This unfortunate result is, however, partly to be attributed to the somewhat unattractive character of the first book issued. Gosselin's Power of the Popes, however valuable to the historian and theologian, is by its nature not a popular book, and therefore has little chance with a small

body of readers like English Catholics. We trust that as the more biographical and lively volumes of the series come out, the sale will be largely increased; for it is not often that an undertaking so well deserves our general support.

The Nemesis of Power, by J. A. St. John (London, Chapman and Hall). To give an idea of this book, which is a furious and therefore blind and irrational tirade against what Brownson calls Cesarism, we will transcribe a few sentences:-" At the head of all Churches considered simply as instruments of mental subjugation stands the Church of Rome. Wherever intellect has exhibited a disposition to be refractory, whether against kings or priests, the Papal system, sympathising profoundly with tyranny, has invariably placed its racks and gibbets, its wheels and pulleys, its chains, dungeons, &c. &c. at the service of oppression. By a steady adherence to this policy, framed with consummate craft, and developed with intrepid villany, it has succeeded in defrauding a majority of Christian nations of their inalienable birthright-liberty.

"Spain has sunk gradually through the chilling influence of priests and monks. In Austria and throughout Germany, except where Protestantism is established, a formidable ecclesiastical militia suppresses all tendencies towards liberalism."

Next about the Jesuits. 66 Scarcely any fireside is free from the intrusion of this black fraternity. The numerous revolutions in France have been rendered nugatory by them. Their mission is to inculcate immorality, servility, meanness, ignorance. They distinguish themselves by their solicitude to accomplish the apotheosis of imperial guilt. The blood of the people sends up a sweet savour to their nostrils," &c. The mad dog who foams out this rabid nonsense announces that he is "preparing for publication" a volume, to be entitled "Philosophy at the foot of the Cross," with the motto, "I will arise and go to my

Father."

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

The Women of the Revolution, by J. Michelet (Les Femmes de la Révolution, par J. Michelet). Paris, Adolphe Delahays, 1854. The canaille who were employed to poison the springs of education in France under the jobbery (we will not call it a government) of Louis Philippe, and whom the dawn of a better system of things chased away like evil spirits from the university which they disgraced, are determined to justify their punishment by ever-renewed proofs of their rascality. It has never been our lot to look into a more disgraceful book than this of M. Michelet. Its purpose is to provide instruments for a new reign of terror. The author foresees its commencement in the present war, which is that of the "barbarous Christianity of the East against the youthful socialist faith of the civilised West ;" and he dedicates his book to the meditation of the wives and daughters of the absent warriors, in order to raise their ambition to rival the deeds of their grandmothers. The "rich juices" which produced the heroes born about 1760, "the Gironde and the Mountain, the Rolands and Robespierres, the Dantons and Camille Desmoulins, that pure, heroic, and self-sacrificing generation, were developed and evolved in their mothers' bosoms by the reading of Rousseau's Emile." M. Michelet hopes that his book may have a similar effect. Moreover, it was by the women of "ambiguous character, devoted to the liberties of nature,” that some of the most atrocious and

therefore most-to-be-imitated catastrophes of that black period were accomplished; hence libertinism is exalted into an heroic virtue. But, on the other hand, such difficulties as the Vendean war were caused by the fanaticism of women inflamed by the priest; hence this relationship between woman and priest must be branded in some way, the easiest being to call it concubinage; and the filthy author develops his thought in the grossest terms: this, be it observed, being the only libertinage to which he seems to have the slightest objection. We were going to say, that we never yet saw a book so insanely diabolical as the present: but perhaps the devil is right; as the fathers think that Antichrist is to be born of a witch, it might really be possible that the "rich juices" developed in a woman by the double inspiration of Michelet's book and an illicit passion should produce some monster which might put even Robespierre and Danton to the blush. If it is to be so, we venture to hope that poetical justice may be accomplished, and that M. Michelet may be its first victim.

Historical and Literary Lectures, by E. Souvestre (Causeries historiques et littéraires, par E. Souvestre). 2 vols. Genève, Joel Cherbuliez. A course of lectures on literature, delivered in the principal towns of French Switzerland in 1853, and on the whole a sensible book, though the author is too much addicted to rhapsody. The following is his account and refutation of the theory of the "Economist" on the origin of literature: "Man was first implanted on the soil which he tilled,—hence arose agriculture, i. e. home and family; next the productions of the earth were exchanged, hence trade, collections of men, towns; then the need of exchange created commerce, roads, navigation. Then only, after being sure of what was necessary, men were able to turn to the superfluous. Firmly fixed on the foundation of political economy, well clothed, well fed, they began to look for amusement, and invented literature and the arts." On this M. Souvestre remarks: "Unfortunately, the human race with which we are acquainted has always preferred the superfluous to the necessary. The savage of the Orinoco is quite content to go without shoes, but he must have ear-rings. The negro of the coast of Guinea can give up prosperity and liberty, but he will never renounce his dances and his songs. The world is full of tribes without agriculture, commerce, or manufactures; but there is not one without minstrels and poets.

What must we conclude? that man has wants of two distinct kinds; co-ordinate with each other, because they answer to inseparable faculties of his nature. Man does not live by bread alone,' is the expression of an absolute truth, which reaches beyond the domain of religion. Man lives on all that corresponds to his original wants. . . . Take from him these immaterial appetites, and you have no longer the being that God created, but a fiction of your reason, a supposition, an impossibility.

"We believe firmly that art and literature are brother and sister of the first man, born in the same cradle, the same day !"

This is a specimen of his sense; it remains to give a specimen of the rhodomontade. M. Souvestre is speaking of the Jews: 'When God gave them kings 'in His anger' (they are the words of Scripture), these kings even could not commit injustice with impunity. The priests defended the right; and if they were silent, the prophets lifted up their voice! They came down from their mountains in their cloaks of goat's hair, their feet naked, and the pilgrim's staff in their hands; they appealed to the eternal laws, they pronounced their anathema against the iniquity of the mighty! It was the liberty of the