BOOKS.

CATHARINE AND CRAUFURD T A.IT.* ME.. BENHAM'S brief preface explains the purpose of this volume,- and if apology be needed for publishing memories so sacred, it will belound in the frank words of Miss Tait, with whom and with the Archbishop the final decision rested. " If it be thought," she said, " that the history of my mother's life is likely to do good, by helping and encouraging anybody in good living, then let the thing be done, but any other motive ought not to be heard of." The hope expressed thus simply is likely to be fulfilled by the publication of this pathetic, though by no means depressing, narrative. In a lite rary point of view, the biographies are injured from the form in which the book is cast. The Archbishop, in the first part, sup- plies some recollections of his wife and son ; and in Part II., Mr. Benham's continuous narrative touches inevitably upon points that have been mentioned before. We do not say that this is au objection. On the contrary, it, perhaps, enhances the impression every reader will receive of the extreme simplicity of the volume. The taste and judgment of the editor are also evident, in the modesty with which he keeps himself in the back-ground. The book will have a charm for a very large class of readers, but it is not a charm which can be at all adequately described in a review. We shall endeavour, however, to take from the beautiful picture presented such hints as may be fitly trans- ferred to our columns, the best notice which can be given of such a volume being that which will send the reader most eagerly to the book itself.

* Catharine and Craufurd Tait, Wife and Son of Archibald Campbell, Archbishop Qt Canterbury : a Memoir. Edited, at the request of the Archbishop, by the Bev. W. Benham B.D:, with Two Portraits, engraved by Jeans. London ; Maomillan and 00. Me.

When Dr. Tait was at Rugby, his future wife, the daughter of Archdeacon Spooner, came to stay with a friend in the neigh- bourhood, and there she was wooed and won by the Head Master. The girl, young, beautiful, full of energy and intelli- gence, and earnestly devout, had lived a retired country life, and had never even seen the sea until a year or two before her mar- riage. How the courtship came about is so pleasantly told by Dr. Sandford, the Bishop of Gibraltar, that we must transcribe the passage. It was at his father's house Catharine Spooner was staying :-

" She was staying with us shortly after Dr. Tait had entered upon his claims as Head Master of Rugby School ; and when the work of the day was over, often would the head master be seen galloping over to Dunchurch, to spend the evening under my father's roof. We used at times, after dinner, to read aloud Walter Scott's novels, or some .other interesting book, and we all felt pleasure when Catharine Spooner took the book. On one occasion we were reading Agathos and she made a false quantity in pronouncing the Greek word 4 Agape,' and was set right by the .head master. She was very pretty and graceful, in those sunny days, and, moreover, had a sweetness, a freshness, and a charm of manner which were peculiarly attractive. She won the heart of every one at Duncharch. Her lightest wish was law to my brother and myself. Nothing would we not have done to win a smile from her, or a kindly word. Her engagement was glad news to the home circle at the Vicarage My father, on hearing of the engagement, wroto to the head master that ho was glad to find that he had taught Catharine the right way to pronounce .‘ Agape.' " The removal to the busy life of a public school must have been a great ohauge to the young wife. And the atmosphere of Rugby proved in some respects uncongenial. Some family influences had led her warmly to favour what was then known as the Oxford School, and years afterwards she said to the Archbishop's sister," Had I not fallen in love with your brother, I should long ere this have been a nun ; and a very bad nun I should have made." She was destined to pursue a nobler vocation, but a certain regard for the Anglican view of Christ- ianity remained, and the doctrine of Sacramental grace " deeply influenced all her after-life." The following anecdote is char- acteristic :—" A University Don, who luxe since

Rugby, 'become strictly

orthodox, was visiting and gave utterance to some theo- logical opinion or other which scared

and grieved her. Her precautionary measure was prompt. She left the room, shut herself into a spare room, and repeated aloud the Apostles' (Creed."

Mrs. Tait's winning grace and unaffected sympathy won the heart of the Rugby boys, and of all who came under her influ- ence. Her naturalness and simplicity, her joyousness of heart, and tenderness of feeling—united, be it said, to a splendid con- stitution and a well-dieciplined mind—fitted her for any position to which she might be called. Among other gifts, she had that writes that if his affairs have 'of a financier, and the Archbishop been well managed, it was her doing. " Rigid punctuality in payment, clear balancing of the accounts on certain stated days, and methodical arrangement, these were the main features of her system ;" and the story is told of how the young wife of twenty-four convicted a Rugby Master, with a great reputation for finance, of a serious mistake in his calculations. The sense of duty and the capacity for work were united to a buoyant nature. She used to say that when a young girl, she would laugh to herself through mere joyousness of spirit; and a story is told illustrative of this light-heartednees, which, as Mr. Benham truly says, is too good to be lost :—" During one of the Rugby vacations, the master took his young wife to St. Leonard's ; and there was a ball in the house in which they were visiting. It was the first time she had seen such a sight, and she broke out into admiration. Her husband came up in the midst of it. Come, let us try,' said he, and immediately flew round the room with her in a waltz. Oh, it was delicious 1' she said." No one who reads this memoir can doubt that Mrs. Tait's life was a happy one, and that her joy in the saddest mo- ments was due to " the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever." There were days of bitterest anguish in store for the wife and mother. Five years after the marriage, Dr. Tait was struck down with rheumatic fever, and more than once in later years he was brought near to the gates of death. His first great ill- ness was followed by the removal to Carlisle, and there, in the Deanery, occurred the terrible tragedy which, as we well re- member, excited the deepest sympathy even in persons unac- quainted with.the sufferers. Within five weeks, in the spring of 1856, five little daughters, the eldest ten, the youngest under -two, were swept away by that dreadful scourge of children, .scarlet-fever. When this occurred, Mrs. Tait was still suffering from the weakness of a recent confinement, and what the blow

was to the parents will be understood by all who have loved and lost children. The bereaved mother wrote an account of this time of sorrow for the perusal of her family and a few friends. After her death, a memorandum was found addressed to her son Craufurd, expressing her wish that the little narrative should be published. " As the suffering," she writes, " is one which must recur over and over again while the world lasts, it may speak a word of help and comfort to those upon whom a similar burden is laid, and who are feeling that it is too heavy for them to bear." It is inserted in the volume, and oc- cupies about 140 pages. A more touching narrative was never written, and few mothers will read it with dry eyes. At this juncture, owing partly, we believe, to the sympathy felt by the Queen, the Dean of Carlisle was offered the See of London ; and glad, no doubt, were the parents to escape from the scene of so much sorrow.

Mrs. Tait's work in London was such as befitted a bishop's wife. She forgot herself in ministering to others, and set on foot several benevolent plans for the benefit of sick and poor,

the principal of them being the Orphanage which is now in- separably associated with her name. "I used to say," writes a,

friend, " one never know what one was in for when one went out driving with her, for she took you one minute to call upon a Duchess, and the next into the ward of a hospital." In the garden at Fulham pleasant parties of clergy and laity used to meet, and she writes at one time of having probably a thousand of the former. An emu had been sent from Australia, and when on one occasion it was turned out into the meadow to be seen by the guests, the cows resented the intrusion, and gave chase to the unfortunate bird. " Hallo ! exclaimed Dean Mil- man excitedly, 'there goes Colenso, and all the Bishops after him.' " There are some pleasant but rare glimpses of leisure moments during the Loudon life, and it is amusing to learn

how, when reading Miss Austen's Emma aloud in the even-

ings, the Bishop appropriated to himself the name of " Mr. Woodhouse." Reading aloud was a constant habit in those days, and we aro told that on such occasions the children and their mother always made clothes for the poor. Every kind of Christian activity was familiar to this admirable woman, whose pleasures were to be found in the path of duty.

To her, the " stern lawgiver," to quote Wordsworth's familiar words, did indeed " wear the Godhead's most benignant grace."

Her earnestness and zeal in good works inspired enthusiasm in others, and George Moore used to say that though he did not always approve of her plans, ho never could resist her. Her large heart and noble charity enabled her to sympathise with goodness under all its phases, and according to the Superior of a Sisterhood, there are few things in which her example is more worthy of note "than the way in which she could apprehend the truth and beauty of another's mind, while seeing the same truths herself from a different point of view." With certain forms of worship, however, she was unable to sympathise,.and while " she never talked with a spiritually-minded Christian of 'any denomination without feeling her heart warm towards him and his work," she showed no appreciation for the worship of the Presbyterian Church, and " even in Switzerland and Ger- many always felt a sort of shudder at the bareness of the ecclesiastical arrangements."

Years passed ou, and from Fulham, Bishop Tait was trans- lated to Lambeth. The change in dignity and responsibility only added. fresh impetus to Mrs. Tait's genial activity. The gardens at Lambeth were filled with visitors, as had been those at Fulham ; time was found for visiting the sick and poor ; and

individual cases were not overlooked, in what Dr. Johnson would have called the suffusion of general benevolence. A pleasant picture, too, is drawn of the life led at Addington and..

Stonehouse; and the way in which she performed her charities in the country, and gained a practical knowledge of' the manage- ment of her gardens and farms,'shows an unusual capacity for work, and that a wise judgment regulated her enthusiasm. It was of others she always thought in the first place, and " it seemed as if it would have made her positively unhappy that God should have bestowed on her so many common worldly blessings, unless she had been able to share them with all who were brought within her influence."

Other daughters had been born to compensate for the loss of the five little ones at Carlisle, but Craufurd was Mrs. Tait'e only son, and round him her warmest affections were entwined. There is no attempt in this volume to credit the young man with extraordinary ability, but the talents he undoubtedly possessed were wisely used, and his purity and beauty of char- acter made him universally beloved. His position gave him opportunities such as are rarely enjoyed by young clergymen, but it was to the gracious deVelopment of a singularly guileless nature that ho owed the affection he inspired. The highest prospects of usefulness and happiness were before Cranfurd Tait, when death summoned him away. He was not yet thirty, he was engaged to be married, he had just been appointed to the important living of St. John's, Notting Hill ; but he was ready to give up all, and the calmness with which he received the announcement that the end was near was in accordance with the unwavering trust that had inspired him through the different stages of his short life. When the end came, " he was," writes the Archbishop, " the calmest of us all, and almost seemed to be helping us to bear up." To the mother,. this loss proved more than her strength could bear

She by no means shut hereolf up with her grief. She endured, as seeing Him who is invisible,' and went about her daily work courage- ously as ever. But the change which sorrow wrought upon her countenance, the furrowed cheeks and rapidly whitening hair, told what had else been almost untold."

Six months later, and she had followed the son she loved so well.

Our bare sketch of a memoir which depends for all its inter- est upon details must necessarily be unsatisfactory. It is only by a number of small circumstances, and by a variety of sug- gestive remarks, that the impression is made which will abide with the reader.when he shuts up the volume. The narrative teaches some significant lessons, in this age of religious contro- versy and strife. It is a book for the time, and the Archbishop of Canterbury deserves the thanks of the public for allowing it to be published.