The author of the article referred to undertakes to discuss the meaning of the words Dimittantur opera; but while professing to admit their force, he reduces it well-nigh to nothing. For he says: "We do not deny that Dimittatur is, in a certain respect, equivalent to permittatur: but to permit that a work may be published and read without incurring ecclesiastical penalty, has nothing whatever to do with declaring the work itself uncensurable." Now by those words one is led to suppose that the Sacred Congregation, or rather the Holy Father, by pronouncing that judgment, did nothing more than permit that the works of Rosmini may be published and read without incurring a penalty. But I ask: What penalty did the editor and readers of Rosmini's works incur before those works were subjected to so lengthened and accurate a scrutiny? None whatever. What, then, would the Sacred Congregation of the Index have done by such grave study and labours so protracted? Nothing whatever. And to what purpose would the judgment of the Holy Father have been given? To no purpose whatever. If, then, we do not wish to fall into these absurdities, we must say that the accusations brought against the works of Rosmini were false; that in these works nothing was found contrary to faith and morals; that their publication and perusal are not dangerous to the faithful. Who can ever suppose that the Holy Father has licensed for publication works containing erroneous doctrines? And liberated the readers of them from penalty? To liberate from penalty the readers of books infected with error would be an act productive of greater injury, than if a penalty were imposed or (assuming its previous existence) were maintained in full vigour. I might touch on other points of the article in question, and show that its author has presumed to dive further than he ought into a matter which does not belong to him. But L'autore dell' articolo suaccennato prende a discutere il senso delle parole Dimittantur opera; ma egli ne afferma di guisa la forza, che la riduce poco men che a nulla. Imperocchè dice: "Non neghiamo poi che il Dimittatur sotto un certo rispetto equivalga al permittatur: ma il permettere ch' un' opera si possa divulgare e leggere senza incorrere nella pena, non ha che far nulla col dichiarare l'opera stessa incensurabile." Or con queste parole viensi a far supporre che la Sacra Congregazione o meglio il Santo Padre col pronunziare quel giudizio non altro fece che permettere che le opere di Rosmini si possano divulgare e leggere senza incorrere nella pena. Ma domando io: l'editore e li lettore delle opere di Rosmini innanzi ch' esse fossero sottoposte a si lungo ed accurato esame, in qual pena incorrevano? In niuna. Che cosa avrebbe dunque fatto la sagra Congregazione dell' Indice con si gravi studi e si prolungate fatiche? Nulla. E a che giovato avrebbe il giudizio del Santo Padre? A nulla. Pertanto se non vuolsi cadere in questi assurdi, fa duopo dire che dall' esame lungo e coscienzioso è risultato che le accuse mosse alle opere di Rosmini erano false: che in queste nulla fu trovata contro la fede e la morale: che l'edizione e la lettura di esse non sono pericolose ai fedeli. Chi mai può darsi a pensare che il Santo Padre abbia licenziato alla pubblicita opere contenenti dottrine erronee? E abbia liberato dalla pena chi le legge? La liberazione dalla pena recherebbe maggior nocumento che se ve l'avesse posta o conservata, dato che per l'innanzi fossevi stata. Altri punti potrei toccare dell' articolo e mostrare che l'autore di esso volle addentrarsi troppo in una materia che non gli spetta. Ma basta il detto per dovere rivolgere what I have said suffices to make it imperative on me to address this letter to you. As it may not be known to every one that the Master of the Sacred Palace does not, under existing circumstances, revise the journals, and as the character and fame of the Osservatore Romano might lead to a belief that he (the Master of the Sacred Palace) has approved of the article in question, I think it necessary to declare to you that I should never have given my consent to the publication of the same. Further, I have to request that you will not, in future, receive any articles either on the sense of the judgment Dimittatur or against the learned and pious Rosmini, or against his works, examined and dismissed. I take this opportunity to remind all concerned, that the Holy Father, from the time of the issuing of the Dimittantur opera, enjoined silence: and this, in order that no new accusations should be put forward, nor, under any pretext, a way made for dissensions among Catholics: "That no new accusations and dissensions should arise and be disseminated in future, silence is now for the third time enjoined, on either party, by command of His Holiness." Who does not see that the seeds of dissension are sown by traducing the works of Rosmini either as not being yet sufficiently examined, or as suspected of errors which were not seen either before or after so extraordinary an examination, or as dangerous; or by using expressions which take away all the value or diminish excessively the force and authority of a judgment pronounced with so much maturity and so much solemnity by the Supreme Pastor of the Church? By this it is not meant to affirm that it is unlawful to dissent from the philosophical system of Rosmini, or from the manner in which he tries to explain some truths; and even to offer a confutation thereof in the schools: but if one does not agree with Rosmini in the manner of explaining certain truths, it is not on that account lawful to questa mia alla Signoria Vostra. Siccome non a tutti può esser noto che il Maestro del sacro Palazzo non rivede nelle attuali circostanze i giornali; e la qualità e fama dell' Osservatore Romano potrebbe dar a credere ch' egli abbia approvato l'articolo in discorso; reputo necessario dichiarare a Vostra Signoria ch' io mai avrei acconsentito alla pubblicazione di esso. Anzi La prego di non ricevere in avvenire articoli nè sul senso del Dimittatur, nè contro il dotto e pio Rosmini, nè contro le opere di lui esaminate e dimesse. Colgo qui l'occasione di ricordare che il Santo Padre fin dall' epoca del Dimittantur opera impose silenzio e ciò affinchè non si mettessero fuori nuove accuse, nè sotto qualsiasi pretesto si desse luogo a discordie fra cattolici. "Ne vel novae imposterum, accusationes ac dissidia quovis demum obtentu suboriri ac disseminiri possent, indicto jam tertio, de mandato ejusdem Ssmi, utrique parti silentio.” Chi non vede essere un gettare seme di discordia il tradurre le opere di Rosmini o come non ancor sufficientemente esaminate, o come sospette di errori non prima nè dopo si straordinario esame veduti, o come pericolose; oppure usare espressioni, le quali tolgono ogni valore o attenuano soverchiamente la forza e l'autorità d'un giudizio emanato con tanta maturità e tanta solemnità dal Supremo Pastore della Chiesa? Non per questo vuolsi affermare, essere illecito il dissentire dal sis tema filosofico di Rosmini o dal modo con cui egli tenta spiegare alcune verità, ed anche il darne nelle scuole la confutazione: ma dacchè non si conviene con essolui nel modo di spiegare certe verità, non è lecito conchiudere ch' egli abbia negato le stesse verità; nè è THE DUBLIN REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1876. ART. I.-POMPONIO LETO ON THE VATICAN Eight Months at Rome during the Vatican Council. Impressions of a Contemporary. By POMPONIO LETO. Translated from the Original, London: John Murray. 1876. FIRS IRST Janus, then Quirinus, now Pomponio Leto. These three their outward forms different, their aim and animating spirit one and the same. Their aim to blacken and degrade that Church among whose children their English patrons ostentatiously number them: their spirit a spirit of intolerable arrogance, of deadly rancour, of unscrupulous misrepresentation. Janus is dead, Quirinus is dead soon will Leto follow them to "the tomb of lost reputations." We never read a duller, heavier book than this. Walking over a newly-ploughed field; listening to a bad song worse sung; tethered in a railway carriage to a deaf old lady who is constantly asking silly questions, these and others of the miseries of human life (recorded or not recorded by Mr. Edgeworth) are summer pastimes, compared with the perusal of Leto's lucubrations. Such to us, at least, has been that perusal the narrative part so slovenly and colourless; the argumentative so droning, so mystified, and often so completely unintelligible. - It is not a little remarkable that the authors of those three works have all concealed their real names, and have addressed the public under fictitious titles-three works, which, out of the mass of foreign anti-Catholic productions on the Vatican Council, have been selected for translation into English, and have been thus issued to the world in the elegant paper, type, and binding of first-class London publishers. The anonymous in an argumentative work, the correctness or incorrectness of whose reasoning can be tested without reference to the character or position of the writer; the anonymous in an historical or biographical work, the accuracy of whose statements is not VOL. XXVII.-NO. LIV. [New Series.] U made dependent on the personal testimony of the author, but on the accuracy of his references to the reports of accessible and credible witnesses; the anonymous in such cases is or may be no reasonable ground of complaint. But when we have two anonymous writers, each giving an account of the same series of events, each resting his account on his own personal authority as that of a primary witness, and each exhibiting from first to last the most violent and open partisanship, arguing always, as if holding a brief, for one side, always speaking of that side, and of that alone, in language of respect and praise and admiration, surely the grave suspicion that such a spirit and tone naturally and most justly create, is not a little strengthened by the fact that the authors freely and deliberately choose to appear in masks. The translator of Leto, in the very first sentence of his brief preface, assures us that "The Memoirs of the Vatican Council' which are here presented to the public, are the work of a sincere and liberal Roman Catholic, and are inspired by a genuine desire to promote the welfare of that religion." The word "liberal" has several meanings. Taken in one of these, every genuine Catholic, every Catholic who knows his religion, and squares his thoughts and actions to the principles of that religion, is truly and thoroughly liberal, because he is truly and thoroughly generous and charitable and merciful. According to another, and unfortunately in certain wide circles more common, acceptation of the word, to be Catholic and liberal at once is as great a contradiction in terms as to be at once snow-white and soot-black, a servant of God and a limb of the devil, a Saint Charles Borromeo and a Count Cavour. What sort of a Catholic Leto is, we shall see by-and-by. There is another declaration which the author himself explicitly and repeatedly makes. At the close of the Introduction he tells us "that the Council is here regarded, not in its bearing on theology and canon law, but in its relation to civil life [whatever that means]; and that it is studied, not from within, which was, indeed, impossible for common spectators, but from without." Again, "It is not the aim of the present work to discuss the theological view of such decrees" (p. 85). Again, "It is almost superfluous again to remind our readers that we have no desire to pass judgment on theological questions on which we are not competent to decide" (p. 220). And again, "We have been careful in this brief sketch not to touch on any arguments directly regarding canonical or theological matters, because it is better for the profane not to meddle with these questions" (p. 245). The same is repeated elsewhere. Leto, in calling himself "pro |