CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Present Position of the High-Church Party. By William Maskell, M.A. (Longmans.)—Mr. Maskell, whose secession to Rome some years ago excited some attention, comes forward, after a silence of many years, to deliver a vehement attack on his old friends. The position of such an assailant, as we have often taken the opportunity of saying, is one of great advantage, but Mr. Maskell is rather vehement than vigorous; in his preface especially he scolds in a most undignified manner, Mr. Ffoulkes especially exciting his wrath. We feel disposed to leave our author and his antagonist to fight out their battles with as much mutual loss as may be. There are, however, one or two noticeable things in Mr. Maskell's book. He says of the temporal power of the Pope. "He [the Pope] has the same right, neither more nor less than they [the other Sovereigns of Europe] ; in other words, neither his nor theirs is a Divine right." It seems that English recruits will not keep the Ultramontane step. Elsewhere he describes the position which he attempted to hold when he was still a member of the Anglican corn.manion. "Believing, as at that time I did, with the strongest confidence and trust that the Church of England was a living and sound portion of the One Holy Catholic Church, I could not but assert, as being capable of undeniable proof, her claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the Catholic Church." This accounts for some remarkable phenomena. The argument of the High Anglicans sans thus :—Our Church ought to teach such things, therefore it does teach them ; if they cannot be found in the Articles, so much the worse for the Articles, which, as this or that man's temper may suggest, must either be tortured into the right meaning or neglected altogether. Familiar Quotations : being an Attempt to Trace to their Source Passages and Phrases in Common Use. By John Bartlett. (Routledge and Sons, 1869.) —There are several thousand fragments broken off oar English literature and presenting about as much beauty in this naked isolation as chips of marble from a mighty temple, or as solitary leaves plucked from a majestic forest tree. Imagine a large picture by some great master cut into strips, an arm on one, a nose on another, a bit of blue sky on a third, and the kind of interest that attaches to those pieces of canvas resembles perhaps the interest that may be claimed for a volume like this. Such a book has, no doubt, its uses. People are glad to know upon whom they may father a brilliant saying, or a sententious couplet, possibly, too, they like to have a number of portable quotations available for conversational uses. Yet this surely must be placed, in Charles Lamb's classification, among the books that are no books. It is "neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring ;" it neither satisfies the appetite nor pleases the palate, is neither fit for reading nor for amusement. Nevertheless, we are far from saying that such a compilation is unserviceable, or that it may not fairly occupy its place on the shelves devoted to such literary provender as directories, gazetteers, and books of the peerage. Mr. Bartlett has, we think, creditably accomplished his wearisome toil. Mistakes in such a work are inevitable ; there will be errors of judgment, errors arising from defective knowledge, and errors which may be set down to a lack of taste. In these Familiar Quotations some of the passages strike us as long without purpose, and others as too brief to express the meaning of the writer ; then, again, while the incisive words of some men occupy several pages, others, whose sayings we should have supposed were equally familiar, are dismissed in a few brief lines. Yet Mr. Bartlett has perhaps done as well as any man could do what no man could do perfectly. Some of the notes showing how the same thought has suggested itself to different writers are peculiarly happy, and these might probably have been amplifiel with advantage. The book is compiled with great care, and may be pronounced the best book of the kind that has hitherto been published.
Madame Silva's Secret. By Mrs. Eiloart. (Hurst and Blackett.)— Readers who have but little experience in novel-reading will soon, we imagine, guess the "secret." In actual life, it is true, persons who are anxious to keep themselves concealed do not come to the place where they are most likely to be known ; but the practice is so common in novels, that it does not cause perplexity or surprise. There is no room for perplexity when we recognize at once in the mysterious stranger the very person whose existence is required to upset present arrangements, and the faculty of surprise as applicable to such incidents has
• been used up once for all by the marvellous incident of the return of the divorced wife in Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne. Madame Silva's Secret is a novel which relies very much upon its plot for snob interest as it may excite ; and the plot is certainly defective. Yet it is a fairly readable book ; there is some life in the characters and ease in the dialogue, and sometimes, as in describing the parvenu heir to the Tremaines, tho writer resists with laudable forbearance the temptation to caricature.
Life of Napoleon M. By the Rev. Pascoe G. Hill, RN., RA. (Moxon.)—Mr. Hill, who is a fervent admirer of the Emperor, wishes
to make him better known to, and so to commend him to, the English nation. He modestly sip that he cannot compose "a five-volume, or even a three-volume, work," and so he gives the public this single volume, which is, ho wever, a very respectable specimen of bookmaking, containing as little for its size and weight as could be reasonably expected. About the better known events of the Emperor's life, as, for instance, the Austrian campaign of 1859, the information is comparatively copious ; the less known are left in their obscurity. For anything like an intelligent review of policy or trustworthy estimate of character we look in vain. One word more. There are many, we know, of Mr. Liars profession to whom order seems better than morality, yet it would have been more becoming to an English clergyman if, amongst his glowing
eulogiums on the Second Empire, he had found room for a few words of reprobation of the most shameless social corruption that has been seen in Europe since the days of the Regent Orleans. Girlhood and Woman1oot4 by Sarah Tytler (Straban), is a collection of stories, most of them, as indeed we should expect from the authorship, decidedly above the average. Some of them, we think, have appeared before in the magazines. One, "Diana," where the heroine has a swindling father and a drunkard for a husband, we distinctly remember. We repeat, though in vain, that this ought always to be mentioned. Of all the tales, "On the Stage and Off the Stage," with the masterly picture of Lady Betty, the ideal of a vanished age, is the best. Next to this comes "A Cast in the Waggon," which is told with very striking truth. The two painters, with their manly love for each other, finding out suddenly, through a quarrel about a woman, that their powers are so different, and their destinies must be so wide apart, and then the noble reconciliation when Will Locke lay dying, are capitally described. There is also some beautiful writing in "Hector Garret, of Otter," which is a tale to take up again and again, as indeed, more or less, they all are.
Medical Life in the Navy. By W. Stables, M.D. (Hardwicke.)—If the writer could get rid of the notion that he is bound to commend himt;s1f to the public by being funny, he might produce a tolerable, even a valuable book. He has evidently seen many things, and has some power of description. He has got something to say—something which ought to be said—about the grievances of his profession in the Navy, but the fun spoils everything.
Recollections of Central Atnerica, tc. By Mrs. Foote. (Newby.)— Mrs. Foote, who lived for some years at San Salvador, describes pleasantly enough her impressions of the country, which would not be far inferior to Paradise, were it not for the villanons Government, the venomous creatures, and the earthquakes. Ladies who may be thinking of going to that country will remember not to engage a servant who wears shoes and stockings, a mark, we are told, of indolence and fineladyism. Among curious facts we pick up this, that an Indian bridegroom makes his wife's trousseau himself. The Indian guide who refused to proceed because he had dreamt of evil, and was satisfied when he had received a sound thrashing from his employer, is an old friend, who, like William Tell, occurs in the legends of every country. Mrs. Foote concludes her book with slighter sketches of Madeira, Sierra
Leone, and Lagos.
Found Dead. By the Author of "Lost Sir Massingberd," &c. 1 vol. (Tinsley.)—This tale, which, notwithstanding the author's protest, we shall take leave to call "sensational," is very good for all that, as good, perhaps, as any of the writer's stories, which are always powerful, and certainly exhibiting fewer faults of style. It recalls, as we read, something of the sensation mixed of fascination and terror which the readers of Caleb Williams must feel. We are possibly using a comparison unfamiliar to most of the new generation, but all who know God win's great novel will appreciate the illustration, and will allow that the praise which it implies is of no ordinary kind. The story is full of excitement, without any obtrusion of the horrible. The only distinct fault is the episode of Eloise Bird, which it would have been better to have omitted. We do not say that it is absolutely inconsistent with the murderer's character, but it introduces a complication which the writer does not attempt to work out. The characters generally are vigorously sketched.
Mea Culpa. By Amelia Perrier. 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)— There is considerable power shown in this novel, in which two characters certainly, Louis Armour, the self-willed egotist, smoothest and pleasantest of men while all goes well, but capable, on contradiction, of all fierceness and cruelty; and Margaret Hatton, too good for the evil fortune which consigns her to such a lover, are very well drawn. Louis Armour is not an impossibility, indeed, it is possible that the idea was suggested by a recent case of murder, but the female character is the better drawn and more artistic of the two. She, indeed, is a genuine woman, full of contradictions, but never ceasing to be loveable ; constant in heart to her first love, yet willing to marry a man whom "she likes very twich " when that first love seems lost to her for ever ; refusing to satisfy her lover by taking a step which would place her in an equivocal position, but deliberately perjuring herself to save his life, conscious that she had sinned, and grief-stricken at the thought that she could not repent. All these are genuine elements of character, and they are well worked up.
The Story of the Chevalier Bayard. From the French. By C. Walford. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This is a very good story, which Mr. Walford wisely lets those who are best able to tell it tell in their own way. But perhaps it would have been as well if he had said a few words in moderation of the excessive praise which the hero has received from his French biographers. "Manly virtues" may possibly be taken not to include Chastity, but Bayard certainly lived with a lady whom, in default of any satisfactory explanation of the relation between them, we must call his mistress. And it seems to indicate a slight failure from the absolutely heroic standard of courage, that he was in the habit of refusing quarter to enemies armed with an arquebuss. But the book, we need hardly say, is well worth reading, and it is et a most elegant appearance and Convenient shape.
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