should be spared to circulate Dr. Lingard's work, the only passable history of England ever written. The Catholic may complain justly of Dr. Lingard of yielding too much to Gallicanism, but his work has done an immense service to the cause of truth in England. Its general merits and accuracy are too well known and too generally admitted to need to be pointed out by us. We hope our Catholic public will continue to patronize it liberally.

8. We have before us, issued within the last few months, Angelica, The Melon, The Little Lamb, The Cakes, The Cherries, Best Inheritance, and The Carrier Pigeon, by Canon von Schmid, extending to No. XIV. of Dunigan's Library of Popular Instruction and Amusement. We have so often commended these exquisite tales, and the tasteful manner in which they are sent out, that we need say nothing more.

9. — Reviews and Essays. By E. G. HOLLAND. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1849. 12mo. pp. 397.

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A VERY respectable volume, so far as paper and typography are concerned, and exceedingly important, original, and profound as to its contents, in the estimation of its author, a young minister of the Christ-ian sect. The author is not one of those who have any occasion to put up the old Scotch prayer, "O Laird, gie us a gude conceit o' oursel's." He is a marvel to us. He knows all things, and some others, and has a command of words we have never seen approached, save in John Neale and Alexander Campbell, and a simplicity of thought not by any means approached in either of those distinguished gentlemen. He is a wonderful man. Yet let us not be misunderstood. Mr. Holland really has good natural gifts, gifts of a high order, and only lacks modesty and proper discipline. He has grown up amongst men of little learning and less knowledge, and has never learned to measure himself properly. He overrates his acquirements, and undertakes to discuss matters of which he knows only enough to render his discussions ridiculous. His pompous manner, his swelling periods, and his verbose and bombastic style are really intolerable to persons of genuine cultivation and good taste. If he will go to school and put himself under rigid professors for eight or ten years, and attain to some proportion between his acquirements and his ambition, he will be able to write Reviews and Essays creditable to himself, and acceptable to scholars and men of solid attainments.

10.

The Incarnation. By ROLLIN H. NEALE, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston. Boston: Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln. 1849. 32mo. pp. 94.

Messrs. Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln have sent this little work out in a very tasteful, and even beautiful dress, and Mr. Neale has evidently bestowed great pains in its composition. We cannot treat otherwise than with respect any honest attempt made to vindicate any one of the sacred mysteries of our religion, let it be made by whom it may, especially in these days of Rationalism and Transcendentalism. Mr. Neale is a Calvinistic Baptist minister in this city, and deservedly ranks high among the ministers of his own sect. We remember him as a frank, social, good-hearted man, with less of the peculiar characteristics of Baptist ministers than we commonly meet with. As for the Baptist sect, we have less patience with them than with most others, in consequence of their denial of infant baptism. In denying that, and on the ground on which they deny it, they really place themselves out of the pale of Christendom. Even our New England Unitarians are to be preferred to them, for, as a general thing, the children of Unitarians are, or at least have been heretofore, baptized. We quarrel not with Baptists about the mode of baptism, but we must tell them that they do not recognize Christian baptism at all, and therefore are in no sense joined to the Church of Christ.

BROWNSON'S

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

APRIL, 1850.

ART. I. The Works of the RIGHT REV. JOHN ENGLAND, First Bishop of Charleston, collected and arranged under the immediate Advice and Direction of his immediate Successor, the RIGHT REV. IGNATIUS ALOYSIUS REYNOLDS. Baltimore: J. Murphy. 1849. 5 vols. Large 8vo. Double

columns.

THE wide-spread fame of Dr. England as an orator, a divine, a patriot, and a scholar, will doubtless be greatly enhanced by the publication of his works. Some acquire a high reputation for oratory in the pulpit or at the bar, whose discourses, when published, leave us astonished at the weakness of their reasoning, and the flimsiness of those ornaments of speech which fascinated multitudes. Not so with those of the illustrious Bishop of Charleston. His arguments are such as bear the severest scrutiny; his discourses are the compositions of a skilful artist, who combines each part with the other in close union. and harmony; his images are natural and striking. It may, indeed, be a matter of surprise to those who peruse the solid and persuasive sermon which he delivered in the hall of Congress in 1826, and which we take to be a fair specimen of his doctrinal discourses, that he could succeed in arresting the attention of popular assemblies on matters better suited to a highly intellectual audience, such as that which he then addressed; but the fact is widely known, that the unlearned, as well as the philosophical inquirer, hung with delight for hours on his lips, whilst he descanted on the evidences of Christianity, and that children fancied they understood what he propounded. This

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is accounted for by the plain and clear language which he employed, by his illustrations, which brought sublime truths down to the level of the humblest intellects, and by the life and spirit which breathed throughout, since he acted, but without affectation, all that he spoke. The maxim of Demosthenes, that delivery is the chief qualification of an orator, was illustrated in him, since his long and profound discourses, without this charm, would necessarily have fatigued the attention of his hearers. His gesticulations were almost too animated for the pulpit; but they were perfectly in character, and they gave charm and effect to his appeals. As he stood, with folded arms, pausing at the close of some luminous argument, and surveying his audience, to discover whether they felt and acknowledged its force, all remained entranced. The effect of the oratorical pause was never seen to more advantage. The mind, surveying the chain of reasoning which, link by link, had been formed, admired its beauty, and felt happy in being encircled by its magic power, and made captive to truth. Interrogatories, with the responses, opportunely intermingled, relieved the seriousness of logical exercise, and fixed the attention of all on the point under consideration. We recollect to have heard him in the first Council of Baltimore, above twenty years ago, when he presented the claims of the Church to be our guide in the things of salvation, with a combination of argument and authority not easy to be resisted. At the close, he asked himself in the name of some votary of liberty, "Do you mean, then, to establish the despotism of authority? Will you have us to renounce reason, and follow blindly the dictates of erring fellow-mortals? Will you deprive us of the liberty of thought?" To each of these questions he emphatically answered, "No." "What then?" said he. "I will only," he replied, "that man be subject to God."

His descriptions were picturesque and animated, bringing, as it were, under the eyes of his audience the scenes which he represented. In treating of the evidence of miracles, he observed that the reality of death can be ascertained beyond all doubt, and, as if a corpse lay before the audience, he pointed to each symptom, the stiffened limbs, the glazed eyes, the absence of all pulsation, the commencement of decomposition; and, as he proceeded in his scrutiny, he demanded with earnestness, “Is he dead?" The oratorical pause which ensued, and which was wonderfully expressive, left the audience in deep reflection ; but on one occasion it was wellnigh being disturbed by almost ir

repressible laughter, produced by a somewhat ludicrous reminiscence. There sat in front of the pulpit the revered proto-sacerdos of the United States, who had been an actor in a scene not dissimilar. In the earlier part of his ministry in Kentucky, he had attended many times a chronic patient, whose sufferings made such an impression on his imagination, that his sleep was disturbed with the painful idea that the afflicted man was buried alive. The man died at length, during the absence of the missionary, who, however, returned in time to assist at the burial. Just before the coffin was deposited, its lid was raised to give the friends for the last time the opportunity of looking on the face of the departed. The priest demanded with earnestness, "Is he dead?" All stood silent and motionless, astonished at the unusual interrogatory, and unaware of the dream that disturbed the imagination of the good father; but, on the repetition of the question, one of the by-standers, who was deemed halfwitted, and whose pronunciation was nasal, replied, "I reckon he is; he don't speak." This curious occurrence had long passed away from the remembrance of the aged father; but it was brought fresh to the mind of the younger priest, who sat at his side, and who in his boyhood had assisted at the interment. The vivid description of the Bishop would have infallibly convulsed him in any other place, but a sense of the sacredness of the temple and the solemnity of the occasion enabled him to preserve his gravity, and leave the audience under the influence of the powerful eloquence of the orator.

The outline of his general reasoning on this subject is found in the admirable discourse delivered in the hall of Congress, to which we have already referred. His arguments on the authority of the Church are dispersed throughout the collection of his works. "An Essay and Letters on Infallibility" are, with great propriety, placed at the commencement of the first volume, which will be found to exhibit that accuracy of statement and strength of reasoning which so eminently characterized him. We should be pleased to see it published apart, in pamphlet form, for general distribution, as one of the clearest and strongest essays adapted for general use. The letters to the Rev. Hugh Smith, a Protestant Episcopal minister in Georgia, "On the Judicial Office of the Catholic Church," treat of the same subject under a different point of view, with such happy variety of method, that the reader is not wearied by repetition, but finds delight, as well as an increase of information, in the new phases of the discussion. The same observation ap