SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading tee notice *Isola Boobs of the *eels as have net been reserved for revitto in ether forms.] The Story of the Later Popes. By the Rev. Charles S. ThaliCSOn. (Elliot Stock. In i3d.)—Mr. Isaacson tells the story of the Popes of nearly five centuries, from the election of Martin V. in 1417 down to the present year. One thing strikes us at once. Excluding the three years during which Pius X. has occupied the Papal
throne, we have a period of four hundred and eighty-three years and fifty-one Pontiffs—i.e., not quite nine and a half years to each.
• Non excedes alines Petri," used to be said to every Pope when he was installed. But Pins IX. did exceed them by seven years, and Leo XIII. just equalled them. The average tenure of the last three Popes is nearly three times that of their forty-eight predecessors. The fact is significant in many ways. Mr. Isaacson is candid in his treatment of his subject. Though the Papacy never fell to the absolute degradation of earlier days, as when it was held by Benedict IX., it was represented from time to time by men whose character contrasts strangely with its pretensions. It is, to say the least, a severe demand on faith to be told that the infallible teacher of faith and morals was in his own person an unblushing atheist and profligate. Mr. Isaacson acknowledges that bad Popes might be good men, and never fails to recognise the individual virtues of the men whom he regards as representatives of an evil system. His volume covers so great a period, working out at nearly two years to a page, that it necessarily leaves much unsaid—no question can be thoroughly discussed in such condi- tions—but it will be found useful as a sketch. This usefulness would have been increased by a bibliography. The book itself cannot pretend to be more than an introduction to the study of this portion of history.
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