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the vraisemblance that hall-marks the others. The perfect felicity with which he describes Irish character, both lay and cleric, is even more marked, because more various, in this book than in its predecessor. His wide and exact knowledge enables him to depict with unerring touch the very different types of Irish priest whom he has here given us. Such creations as Father Pat, Father Tim, and Father Martin are marvels of realism, while the Canon, round whose relatives and their doings. much of the story revolves, is inimitably described.

But it is not alone for their faithful portrayal of character that these books are deserving of attention; they discuss and throw light upon many things that are of perpetual interest to thinking men; they have deep meaning, and are informed by a true philosophy as to the essential facts of life.

Dr. Sheehan is not indifferent to the faults that exist in places that some would guard from criticism. Incidentally in Luke Delmege those whom it touches nearly have perceived some strictures on the system that prevails in the college at Maynooth, where vast numbers of the Irish priesthood are trained. That his criticisms were well directed was proved by the unfriendly reception they met with from those in whose interest they were made. Knowing how powerful is the influence that they eventually come to possess, Dr. Sheehan would have the young clerical students educated and trained in a true liberal spirit, freed from the trammels of fettering tradition. He brings things to the test of experience, and thus is enabled to detect, and he does not hesitate to expose, the weakness where it exists. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." In the same spirit his contribution to the thought of the day when it turns towards the social and political aspects of Ireland is eminently worthy of notice; and it is clearly because he recognizes in the novel the greatest educational force in literature that he has selected it as the vehicle of his thought. He has looked with discerning eyes on the world moving around him, and can draw from it a lesson, and point, perhaps, a moral which, touched with gentle irony and sympathetic satire, makes delightful reading. These books have a value and attractiveness that the two earlier works would hardly have led one to anticipate. They are instinct with the movement of life

glee, which soon fades away into native melancholy,-all are portrayed for us with an artist's hand. The vividness of the pictures, the delicacy of the light and shade, are masterly; there is no exaggeration, no over-emphasis, but a truth of detail which is the outcome of long, close, sympathetic observation. Sympathetic observation-that is the secret of his success. The Irish character is an enigma-an enigma worth solving, the key to which is true sympathy. Dr. Sheehan has this key, and with it he has opened a gallery into which it is well worth while to enter. His pictures are living pictures, showing us contemporary life and thought in Ireland as they can be found nowhere else. On his own ground Dr. Sheehan is unapproached by any living writer who has attempted the same theme. In an especial degree one feels that he has a grip of his subject, and an ability to handle it equalled only by his thorough knowledge of his clerical brethren.

In My New Curate, for example, Father Dan, the parish priest of Kilronan, loved his people, and they loved him, and when in tardy recognition of his great merit his bishop desired to elevate him to the dignity of a canon he sadly but resolutely declined the proffered honor, because he was "Father Dan" to his people, and they wanted him to be Father Dan to the end. The true note is touched here, as indeed all through the book. The bond between priest and people in Ireland is no common one, and not easily understood outside Ireland. That is one of the many causes of much misunderstanding amongst those who, with a very superficial acquaintance with the country and the people, form opinions based not seldom upon prejudice, often upon that "incompatibility that exists between a slow, conscientious, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon race, and a quick-witted, Celtic, Roman-Catholic race, with different characteristics, different ideas, different traditions, different aims."

*

I said awhile ago that on his own ground Dr. Sheehan is facile princeps. The reason for the reservation is seen in his last work, Luke Delmege, wherein he has attempted, amongst other things, to depict scenes and characters with which he is less intimate. The weakest portions of this story are those wherein the action takes place out of Ireland. They have not

the vraisemblance that hall-marks the others. The perfect felicity with which he describes Irish character, both lay and cleric, is even more marked, because more various, in this book than in its predecessor. His wide and exact knowledge enables him to depict with unerring touch the very different types of Irish priest whom he has here given us. Such creations as Father Pat, Father Tim, and Father Martin are marvels of realism, while the Canon, round whose relatives and their doings much of the story revolves, is inimitably described.

But it is not alone for their faithful portrayal of character that these books are deserving of attention; they discuss and throw light upon many things that are of perpetual interest to thinking men; they have deep meaning, and are informed by a true philosophy as to the essential facts of life.

Dr. Sheehan is not indifferent to the faults that exist in places that some would guard from criticism. Incidentally in Luke Delmege those whom it touches nearly have perceived. some strictures on the system that prevails in the college at Maynooth, where vast numbers of the Irish priesthood are trained. That his criticisms were well directed was proved by the unfriendly reception they met with from those in whose interest they were made. Knowing how powerful is the influence that they eventually come to possess, Dr. Sheehan would have the young clerical students educated and trained in a true liberal spirit, freed from the trammels of fettering tradition. He brings things to the test of experience, and thus is enabled to detect, and he does not hesitate to expose, the weakness where it exists. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." In the same spirit his contribution to the thought of the day when it turns towards the social and political aspects of Ireland is eminently worthy of notice; and it is clearly because he recognizes in the novel the greatest educational force in literature that he has selected it as the vehicle of his thought. He has looked with discerning eyes on the world moving around him, and can draw from it a lesson, and point, perhaps, a moral which, touched with gentle irony and sympathetic satire, makes delightful reading. These books have a value and attractiveness that the two earlier works would hardly have led one to anticipate. They are instinct with the movement of life

questions in the solution of which we are all interested. Dr. Sheehan's style is always good, and frequently rises to a high level of distinction. There is a quiet force in his writing that is distinctly impressive, and marks him as the foremost man of letters in Ireland to day. Those who would know how the Ireland of his day looked to a learned and cultured man with the seeing eye and the gift of expression should turn to the pages of My New Curate and Luke Delmege.*

THE SEA GULL.

BY REV. WILLIAM P. CANTWELL.

I.

H restless bird, what dost thou seek?

Thy soul is troubled as the sea:
What urgent message wouldst thou speak?
Why hurriest on so eagerly?

II.

Dost tell of storms that lash the main ?

Of sailors 'gulfed in watery grave?

Alas! thy tidings now are vain,

For who these luckless ones may save ?

III.

Then stay thy wing and rest awhile

Upon the dark waves' surging crest;

While I my anxious heart beguile

Aweary with its ceaseless quest.

These two books have been translated into French, and Mon Nouveau Vicaire and Luc

THE GENIUS OF LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.

BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET.

"Time with a stealthy hand has put to shame

The tints of many a canvas rich of yore;

But they who bear the Della Robbia name,

Could they return and see their work once more,

Should nothing find therein to mourn or to restore."

[graphic]

N the ancestral home of his race in the Via San

Egidio, where

the Arno doubles,

And Florence with her hoarded art

Forgets old troubles,"

Luca della Robbia was born A. D. 1400, and after the tranquil customs of his day and race, untouched by modern hurry and desire for change, there he lived in the quaint old stone house for many years. It was not until 1446 that, with his brother Marco and his nephew Andrea, he removed to a newer house in a thoroughfare then called Della Robbia, but which is now the Via Guelfa.

It is difficult to gather definite information concerning many of the Renaissance artists. The noisome pestilence too often visited mediæval cities, and everything upon which it had laid its devastating finger, was burnt to avoid infection. Such family records as were not thus lost were destroyed in the frequent pillage of dwellings and churches which war, and more frequently internecine strife, engendered. But in fair and flowery Italy, land of sunshine and blossoms and art, the artist is happy in his whilom biographer, garrulous Giorgio Vasari, and to him we are indebted for most of the facts which have come down to us anent the life of Luca della Robbia. At the cavilling critic who would, in carping spirit, complain that the interesting Vasari was not always exact; that he let his heart run away with his head to the distorting of accurate truth at times; that he was more loving to his friends than just to his enemies, we would only say, with a shrug: "He is all the authority we have; he gives us dates and facts; his opinions matter little; we can judge for ourselves. What would you?

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