mentaries and memoirs which were designed for the edification of persons already Christians, who had already received the truth from the mouth of a living and infallible authority, he supposes that we cannot possibly believe any thing that is not first propounded to us in Scripture. Of course he does not see that on this principle we should not be able to accept the Scripture itself, for it nowhere defines itself.

Next he "sifts" the testimonies of the early Fathers, and the cases of ecclesiastical history generally alleged to show the estimation in which the Pope was held. In all these he thinks that by discovering a difficulty he destroys the collective proof; that by weakening each stick he nullifies the total strength of the faggot. He forgets the laws of cumulative evidence.

In succeeding chapters he pretends to trace the supremacy of Rome to merely secular and civil causes, and to forgeries and corruptions of documents. He pretends that the succession has failed in the Roman Church, though he weakens his argument by owning in the beginning that he does not understand what the succession is; a fact which is abundantly proved by his subsequent reasoning. Then he devotes a chapter to prove that there has been a want of unity in doctrine on the question of supremacy, Pope or Council; on Gallicanism and Ultramontanism; on the doctrines of Justification and Predestination, as exemplified in the two tendencies whose extremes are Calvinism and Pelagianism; and in the case of the Immaculate Conception. The very existence of this chapter proves that the author does not comprehend his own argument. If an authority is required to decide on matters of faith, there must be controversies on which it is called to decide; and before the decision, neither side of the controversy can be an article of faith. Variations in belief show the necessity of an authority, as the cessation of such variations proves its reality. Mr. Robins' argument is, that there is no authority, because there has been occasion for its exercise; and that the very effects of its energetic activity (namely, the successive development of Christian doctrine) prove its non-existence; i.e. wherever there is an effect, there is no cause,- a new and truly Protestant principle in logic.

The seventh chapter shoots small pellets at the Council of Trent, and the eighth is devoted to picking to pieces the claim of infallibility. According to Mr. Robins, when we call the Pope infallible, we mean to endow him with "an universal certainty of knowledge." But we cannot test such omniscience without being omniscient ourselves; therefore the only persons to whom an infallible authority could be of any use are people who are just as wise without the authority, to whom it is therefore of no use. A state of religious doubt and uncertainty is in all respects preferable to infallible certainty. Surely there is an omission in the scriptural account of the Sermon on the Mount; it ought to say, "Blessed are the unbelievers."

Mr. Robins, with great parade of learning and candour, is as shallow, foolish, and unphilosophical as his compeers the Cummings and Achillis, the Noels and Stowells, the Tohus and Bohus of controversy. We have no doubt that his work will be praised as a miracle of learning; but it will be shelved all the sooner for that. It is just what might have been expected from the minister of a London proprietary chapel.

Scientific Certainties of Planetary Life. By T. C. Simon. (London, T. Bosworth.). A positive certainty announced in the title-page of this little volume becomes in the conclusion merely negative: ເ We see with scientific certainty that there is no reason to suppose the planets not inhabited." As for the probability that they are, the more

planets astronomers discover or assume, the less probability can they show for the belief that they are all inhabited by living creatures and moral agents. One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one instance make an induction. If our planet was one of six or seven, it would be a fairer instance of planets in general than when you suppose it to be one out of hundreds of millions. The wider the assumption, the less can it claim the character of scientific certainty.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

My First Season. By Beatrice Reynolds. Edited by the Author of "Charles Auchester." (London, Smith, Elder, and Co.) We should not have noticed this insipid story, with its wax-dolls for characters, except that we think we can discern some traces of a good promise in the conception and portraiture of the chief character, Miss Beatrice herself. All the other actors in the drama are, as we are told, very clever; but we should certainly have failed to discover it. The heroine herself, though not quite such a genius as she fancies herself, has certainly good points about her, and for her sake we read her story, which but for her we should have thrown aside before we had finished a dozen pages.

The Araucanians; or Notes of a Tour among the Indian Tribes of Southern Chili. By E. R. Smith, of the U. S. N. Astronomical Expedition in Chili. (London, Sampson Low.) This is an American book; and though neither very exact nor very deep in research, it presents an interesting picture of the savage life of Southern Chili, and a sketch of the history of the free and warlike Indian tribes since their first subjugation by the Incas of Peru. The tribes were once converted to Christianity by the Jesuits; but since the withdrawal of the Fathers, they have relapsed into heathenism. Mr. Smith has not been successful in collecting their traditions; but he has stored up many valuable observations on their present customs and modes of living, which, by the way, do not much differ from the customs of any other savages, African or Australian.

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A Visit to India, China, and Japan, in 1853. By B. Taylor. (London, Sampson Low.) Another American book, not deeper or more exact than the former, but written by a more experienced author, whose descriptions, though the fruit of a very hasty view, are life-like and graphic. Like Shelley, he enters into the spirit of the religions whose remains he contemplates. Not a worshipper, but a reverer of Osiris and Amon in Egypt, he is afraid to speak against Siva or Brahma in India. "The naked and savage Dinkas of Central Africa," he says, worship trees; and so do I. The Parsees worship the sun; and Í assure you, I have felt very much inclined to do the same, when He (sic) and I were alone in the desert." Even the phallic worship of the Lingam finds an advocate in Mr. Taylor: "There is a profound philosophical truth hidden under the singular forms of this worship, if men would divest themselves for a moment of a prudery which is the affectation of the age. The Hindoos are far less licentious than the Chinese and Mussulmen." With this view of the deep philosophy of Brahminism, it is no wonder that he looks rather unfavourably even on the attempts of his compatriots, the American missionaries, to convert the people to Christianity. Their present religion would be good enough, if it were not for the abominable knavery of the sacerdotal Brahmins.

It is very doubtful whether missions in general repay the vast pecuniary expense and sacrifice of life and talent which they exact. No results which he has seen have satisfied the author that this expenditure has been repaid.

Mr. Taylor gives a curious sketch of an experiment for imparting some sort of an education to the 2800 prisoners in the Agra jail. Some difficulty was at first felt, from their suspecting that some mysterious Christian doctrine lay covert in the multiplication-table and the spellingbook, but now all are willing scholars. Mr. Taylor saw hundreds of men seated at their looms weaving carpets and singing the multiplicationtable in thundering chorus. Twelve times twelve? sang the monitor, in a shrill solo; one hundred and forty-four, burst out the chorus, in all sorts of voices. So in the blacksmiths' shops, where the men were forging their own fetters, themselves fettered, and drowning the clang of the iron with their answers. "In the women's department there was a shrill tempest of vulgar fractions; the cooks recited astronomical facts while mixing their rice. Even the hardest cases, confined in solitary cells, were going on with their a b, ab, through a hole in the door, to a monitor standing outside. The murderers, confined for life, went through the numerals while they worked at paper-making." Some moral improvement seems to have resulted from the experiment, and there has been a great reduction in the number of punishments for offences committed within the jail.

The author's description of scenery, and criticisms on architecture and art, are well written and judicious. It is a book quite worth perusal.

Life of Thomas Young, M.D., F.R.S., &c. By G. Peacock, D.D., Dean of Ely. (London, J. Murray.) Dr. Young died in the 56th year of his age, in 1829, and it is only this year that a biography of him has appeared-for the memoirs of him, by Mr. Gurney and Arago, cannot be dignified by such a title. The delay has not been caused by any want of materials, or by any want of interest in the life of one of the greatest discoverers of the age, but by the infirmities of Dr. Peacock, who, twenty years ago, undertook the task he has but just fulfilled.

The present volume is open in some degree to the objections we brought against Brewster's Memoir of Newton, in which events are classed as in an almanac, where the battle of the Alma may precede by four days the death of Queen Anne. Perhaps it is difficult to treat the discoveries of scientific men in chronological order, but, at any rate, the memoir of their lives might be reduced to some consistency. One of the most interesting parts of the present volume is the sketch of the early self-education of Young. The account of his optical discoveries, especially his great achievement on the undulatory theory of light, and of his investigations of hieroglyphics, are also well worth reading. The latter subject necessitates one of those painful investigations into the honour and veracity of philosophers which continually remind the stuIdent that no intellectual endowments save a man from the common lot of the sons of Adam. However, if Champollion unwarrantably usurped Dr. Young's happy guesses, he at least proved his capacity of using them. The genius which could form such a system as Champollion's Dictionary and Grammar of Hieroglyphics has no need to claim the prize of the first accidental discovery of the principles on which they were to be read.

Sporting Adventures in the New World; or Days and Nights of Moose-hunting in the Pine Forests of Acadia. By Lieut. C. Hardy.

2 vols. (London, Hurst and Blackett.) Those who like to read of mild sporting adventures, mixed up with scraps of natural history, and with descriptions of the sights and sounds and smells of the forest, will find these two not over long volumes pleasant enough. They have no peculiar or distinctive character, and do not stand much chance by the side of the exciting topics which now engage public attention.

The Palace at Westminster, and other historical Sketches. By W.D. Arnold. (London, J. W. Parker.) This little volume, by a son of Dr. Arnold, whose novel, entitled Oakfield, or Fellowship in the East, we noticed favourably some time ago, contains four lectures delivered in the early part of this year at Kendal and Ambleside. They comprise a notice of the rise of our constitution, a lecture on the development of English power in India, a very interesting and original lecture on caste, and a fourth on the discovery of America. All but the third are more or less hackneyed and commonplace. We regret to find that a person of Mr. Arnold's talents should have adopted the vulgar prejudices with relation to the Catholic Church, even when recording the enterprises of one of the most illustrious of her children, Christopher Columbus.

Narrative of a Campaign in the Crimea, with an Account of the Battles of Alma, Balaklava, and Inkermann. By Lieut. G. S. Peard, 20th Regt. (London, Bentley.) Really a readable and life-like narrative of the events of the war, and of the life-in-death at the hospitals of Scutari. One peculiarity of this book induces us to believe that Lieut. Peard knows his business well; and that is, the contrast between the utter dulness and insipidity of his opening chapter, in which he goes over old ground, and describes scenery, &c., and the flow of his narrative when he approaches professional subjects. His book is a valuable contribution to the history of the war.

Memoirs of Philip de Commines. Edited, with Life and Notes, by A. R. Scoble, Esq. 2 vols. (London, Bohn.) De Commines has been called the father of modern history. He does not merely relate occurrences like Froissart, but he traces their causes and the motives and characters of men. He treats of the period from 1464 to 1498, a time of quiet preparation for the outbreak of the movements of the next century, in which the germs that produced the Reformation were secretly putting forth their roots deep in the earth. Every one who wishes to see an artless picture of the manners and customs of the middle ages daguerreotyped on the spot should look at this curious book.

The Catholic Institute Magazine. No. I. Oct. 1855. (Published at the Catholic Institute, 8 Hope Street, Liverpool.) There are few things more promising in the present state of English Catholicism than the institution which is venturing into the world of letters in this new serial. We shall be much interested in watching its progress, and rejoiced to see its permanent success. The present Number is a very satisfactory specimen of what such a periodical ought to be. The reports of the lectures delivered at the Institute are particularly interesting. The essay on Politeness is also just the sort of thing for a magazine of this kind.

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Sebastopol Sermons. Many are the curiosities of sermonising, as existing among our separated brethren," as it used to be the fashion to call those who are not Catholics; but we have not for some time met with any thing more curious in its way than the following, which we extract from the Athenæum: "Another grievance, still wide of our espe

cial province, which has given rise to a good deal of dissatisfaction, is the literary character of the great majority of our sermons. People fancy that, somehow or other, the clergy as a body do not in this matter quite keep pace with the times. Some months ago, a venerable Archdeacon charged his clergy to bestow more pains upon their pulpit-addresses, to take a wider range, and introduce into them a greater diversity of topic. These recommendations were shortly afterwards enforced by a leadingarticle in a highly important newspaper. The article gave strong expression to the general opinion; but we do not hear that much good has yet been effected, either by the functionary of the Church or by him of the Press. A correspondent (J. C.) sends us an anecdote which may perhaps throw a little light upon the matter. He tells us, that having on the late Thanksgiving-Sunday morning been annoyed by a nonsensical sermon in his own parish-church, he sought on the evening of the same day for improved spiritual food in the church of the adjoining parish. There, in due time, to his horror and amazement-he re-heard the same text given out, and was condemned to sit through the same identical sermon, delivered over again, word for word, by another clergyman. He was at first inclined to believe that this was mere evidence of the good understanding between the rector of the one parish and the curate of the other, a proof of a kind of intercommonage between these reverend worthies, by which one set of sermons was made to do duty for two parishes. But chancing the following morning to take up one of the clerical newspapers, his attention was attracted by the following advertisement: -To the Clergy. SEBASTOPOL.-Sermons ready for Sunday next, being the day appointed for offering up prayer and thanksgiving for the capture of Sebastopol.' Curiosity prompted our correspondent to expend half-a-crown in the purchase of one of these ready-made ecclesiastical articles. On looking at it, he found that it was merely Monsieur Tonson come again-the very same identical prosy thing, without religion or patriotism, that he had twice been entrapped into listening to on the day before. Our correspondent is extremely indignant, but surely all this is very natural. Fuller quotes grave authority for the existence of a Saint Rumball who began to preach as soon as he was born. Our young lads are not quite so clever, but they begin to preach as soon as they are ordained; and as it cannot be expected that they should know much about the business (no pains having been bestowed on instructing them in it), it is not at all wonderful that they should occasionally take advantage of the frippery provided for them by some theological Moses and Co. Bad as the article provided on this occasion was deemed to be by our correspondent, it is by no means clear that he was not a gainer by the two clergymen having on this occasion treated their congregations with that which cost them something."

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

The Oriental Church. By James G. Pitzipios.-L'Eglise Orientale. Par Jacques G. Pitzipios, Fondateur de la Société Chrétienne Orientale. (Rome, Imprimerie de la Propagande, 1855.) The possibility of the healing of the Greek schism, always sufficiently interesting to the Catholic, is now rendered more so than ever by the events going forward in the East. Surrounded as we are in the West by Protestantism of