consecrate inspirations by giving them a supernatural direction. One of the most important conclusions arrived at in the early chapters is the distinction between the Catholic and the Pagan Renaissance, or the true and false humanism. Another is the broad exhibition of Catholic energy in the publication and translation of the Holy Scriptures, and their diffusion amongst all sections of the community. Those who imagine that Europe was uneducated in the fifteenth century, and has come to be educated in the nineteenth, may here find reasons for looking once again at their opinion and the grounds of it. But we desist. If the cause of the medieval church has, up to this, been condemned without a hearing, we may fairly say that its revision has begun. We may expect in the succeeding volumes the materials for a verdict against Luther, and no less against the superficial culture of an age which calls itself the heir of all the ages, and is only the echo of what was least noble in them, of their turbulence and luxury, not of their light.

De Intellectualismo, juxta mentem Syllabi Vaticanique Concilii, Auctore P. M. BRIN. Tomus tertius. Coutances. 1876.

HE preceding volumes of this course appeared last year, and were

of philosophy. M. Brin has now brought his text-book to a close by applying the double method of analysis and synthesis to Natural Theology and General Metaphysics, or, as it has been called since the time of Wolf, Ontology. Though not a member of any religious order, the writer has adopted the Dominican teaching in every particular. Other portions of the work gave less opportunity for the display of what are known as Thomistic principles. But, here, the author has to deal with questions of divine fore-knowledge, of free will, and the divine concursus in the Ontology, too, the celebrated, perhaps misunderstood problems of Essence and Existence, Substance and Real Accident, are of necessity to be discussed. And these constitute pretty nearly the whole battle-ground in philosophy, upon which the schools of rival Catholic teachers are encamped. M. Brin has decided that S. Thomas can be restored, like Henri Cinq, only under the white flag. He belongs to the ancien régime. Napoleon said of the Bourbons, “Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublié." We will not so criticise M. Brin as to accuse him of the former defect; his notes show an extensive and well-applied learning out of recent publications. But it is true, notwithstanding, that he has not studied his adversaries from their point of view. He surveys them from without, and would impose upon them the attitude, which they have never yet taken, of rebels who ought to disperse at the sight of the imperial standard, who know they are in the wrong, and only wait to be told so. This, in any one who aimed at pure metaphysics, would be a capital fault. The mere unreflecting appeal to authority or common reason is not admissible in a science which, more

than all others, is the science of intellectual analysis and conscious verification. Likewise, M. Brin does not seem to have realized that the Aristotelian scheme of knowledge is but a partial measurement of the universe in which we are now living. Nor has he considered whether identical problems admit of being recast and stated in formerly undiscovered terms. Aristotle's abstraction of the Greek world is no doubt a magnificent prospect to look out upon. But the modern horizon is wider. That erroneous abstractions have been made of this new cosmos we do not deny, we feel profoundly how much they need correction and expansion. But this must be done by adjusting to the right proportion whatever has been ignorantly misplaced. Each false doctrine must be made to confute itself and to suggest the way of escape out of error into truth. Whilst, then, in direct proof, we find our author both illuminative and impressive, it is otherwise, very often at least, with his polemic. His review of the modern doctrines is frequently, not an essay in metaphysics, but the reply of astonished common sense to what look like combinations of methodic madness. His reflection is not complete. It reminds one of a person who has begun to meditate, but is as yet a stranger to the region of Pure Thought. And the test is this. An Hegelian or a Neo-Kantian would be sure to say that his doctrine had not been apprehended, much less scientifically convicted of falsehood, in these pages. He would content himself with remarking that of course the world's superficial sense was against him, but that he never expected anything else.

If, we say, a metaphysician were to seek in this author for a text of genuine metaphysics, he would, on the whole, be disappointed. There are exceptions, for instance, in the schemata proposed throughout the book, which are at once seen to be reflex, and also in the concluding part of the Ontology-worthy of high praise in almost every respect. Again, many of the quotations from S. Thomas give the actual thought in its working and development. This was to be supposed, for no one is likely to have excelled the Angelic in those passages where he writes as a dialectician, or is directing us to an analysis of our unconscious reasonings. But, granting our first observation, does it follow that M. Brin has not succeeded in what he undertook to perform? That he has produced a very interesting, erudite, and readable book will be plain to any one who takes him up. We think likewise that he has done a successful piece of work of the sort which he had in view. He did not really mean to write a philosophy, but to prepare the way for such.

Something like this is the explanation of that increase in Catholic hand-books of philosophy, which is now going on. Strictly speaking, they do not address themselves to the metaphysical few; they are for "the million," who would like to get information without the inconvenience of having to read great volumes and forgotten authorities. They furnish plain serviceable answers to questions which may have been stated by thinkers of the first order, but are repeated in many quarters where thinking is not so formidably abstruse. There are primers of physical science, and it is a token of change for the better, that we have now our primers of metaphysical science. Original writers are seldom understood in their own.

language; they converse through interpreters and exert a wider sway on that account. So is it with S. Augustine, S. Thomas, and all the most eminent Scholastics. Versions come forth, which to one acquainted with the sources are not entirely exact, and, what is worse, they have lost the inexpressible charm of the first masters. But they speak to those who will listen, they make disciples, they continue a tradition, they contribute to unity. The old doctrine puts on a new form, in order to live it changes with a changing world; but, though receiving the stamp of the age, it remains unaltered in essence and in virtue. Thus should our text-books be an Instauratio Magna of the ancient doctors, for the benefit of the fairly-educated amongst us.

And, in many cases, they are what they ought to be. M. Brin is not behind the others, unless, as we have hinted above, when he presents to the nineteenth century a somewhat crude Aristotelian doctrine—or imagines that the "beauty" of pure Thomism will recommend it to an age so sensitive, and, we may add, so sympathetic as our own. The historical part of his book is fully up to the level of contemporary discussion; the theoretical, because he has not entered deeply enough into what he has read of the other side, is sometimes weak and declamatory. We wish he had considered a little more than he seems to have done the proper function of metaphysics.

As specimens of M. Brin's descriptive power, we would select the chapters on modern Atheism and Pantheism. They convey some very seasonable knowledge of these hateful apparitions. He has, moreover, redistributed the treatise on Ontology, after a method which makes it easier for beginners, and which is, perhaps, more in accordance with the rules of scientific progress than that usually observed.

Documents concerning the History of the Church in England during the Times of Persecution.

VER

ERY few people have any idea of the vast stores of material for history which exist in England in the various public and private collections of MSS., and in the archives of churches, colleges, and public institutions generally. Within the last twenty or thirty years a whole library of these records and documents has been published by Government, by learned societies, and by private enterprise, while the calendars of State papers which are being issued under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, and the reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, are gradually making even the unedited MSS. accessible at least to specialists. But probably all that has been actually printed bears but a small proportion to what is still unedited; and amongst these unedited materials is much that possesses at once great value and interest to a very wide circle of students, and even of readers. Of this nature are the hitherto unpublished documents which the Fathers of the London Oratory have undertaken to edit at the request of the Cardinal Archbishop of

Westminster. A prospectus of the series lies before us. We have no doubt that it will meet with a favourable reception not from Catholics only, for whom these volumes will possess a special interest, but from students of history generally.

The first volume of the series will consist of the Douay Diaries. Though, unfortunately, portions of them have been lost, they may be said to form a key to the history of the English missionary priests throughout the period of persecution. The first Douay Diary commences with a short account of the foundation of the English Seminary, and then follows a register of the students who received ordination there, or took the college oath to devote their lives to the English mission. These lists cover the whole period from 1568 to 1780.

The second Diary, to which the `name more properly belongs, is a journal of events connected with the college kept by members of it appointed for the purpose. The portion of it in the Cardinal's possession extends from 1575 to 1593, the most interesting period of the history of Douay. By its means we will be able to note the arrival of students and the departure of missionaries, to obtain occasional glimpses of the inner life of the college, and to observe, too, the presence at Douay of men whom we now know to have been the paid spies of Cecil and Walsingham. It is needless to point out the light which all this throws upon the history of the Catholic Church in England during the reign of Elizabeth. Like those of the splendid series published by the Master of the Rolls, the volume will be preceded by an historical introduction, which will be written by Father Knox.

The second volume will contain a series of narratives relating to the English martyrs,-- chiefly in the form of letters written by fellowprisoners, or by eye-witnesses of their triumph. Many of these narratives were unknown to Challoner; others, though used by him, have never yet been printed. We trust that the subscription-list for these volumes will be a large one. No library, and, above all, no Catholic library, should be without them. "It has seemed to me," says the Cardinal in his letter on the subject to the Superior of the London Oratory, "to be a duty of gratitude and veneration to our forefathers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood, that their courage and fidelity, their labours and sufferings, their heroic patience and humility, should be made known to all who through them have received inviolate the heirloom of the faith.” Quite apart from the purely literary and historical value of the series, this consideration should be sufficient to secure its success.

A Calendar of the English Martyrs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, with an Introduction by THOMAS G. LAW, Priest of the Oratory. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

HIS little work is one among many recent signs of a wide-spread

the happy idea of the Calendar. We believe it will answer its purpose,

and that it will do much "to keep alive their memory in the minds of English Catholics; and, moreover, suggest the practical devotion of habitually invoking their intercession."

The Calendar gives, under each day of the month, the names of the martyrs who suffered on it, their state of life, the place and manner of their death, the reign and year in which it took place. F. Law has reverted to the practice of older authors by including in his Catalogue the martyrs under Henry VIII., in preference to following Bishop Challoner and other recent writers, who commence the history of the persecution with the reign of Elizabeth. For our own part we wish he had seen his way to diverge still further from Challoner, and include several who suffered under Elizabeth, whom the Bishop has over-scrupulously excluded on the ground that it was not clear that they suffered for religion only.

Mr. Felton, who died for the publication of the bull of S. Pius V., James Leyburn and others, whose refusal to swear allegiance to Elizabeth was a simple act of religious obedience to the Holy See, were treated by Nicholas Sander, by the Bishop of Chalcedon, and other earlier writers, as undoubted martyrs. Does prudence still require us to follow the silence of Challoner about those holy men, who have as great a claim to the reverence and devotion of Catholics as any whose martyrdom he relates? In the introduction Father Law gives, in fourteen pages, a vivid sketch of the persecution, which can hardly fail to kindle the love and admiration of Catholics towards those glorious martyrs, martyrs, as he truly points out, at once of charity and faith. It contains a beautiful letter of Mr.John Duckett, written the night before his martyrdom (September 7th, 1644), which, we believe, has not hitherto been printed in full.

The use of the calendar is much facilitated by an appendix, containing (1) an analysis of the Catalogue of Martyrs, (2) a list of the places of their martyrdom, distributed under the present Catholic dioceses, and (3) an alphabetical index of names.

Letters of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Translated by the Rev. J. G. CUNNINGHAM. 1875.

The Confessions of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Translated and annotated by J. G. PILKINGTON, M.A. 1876. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.

TH

HESE two volumes of Messrs. Clark's English edition of S. Augustine appear to maintain the excellence of the volumes which have already appeared. They are very good English, and, on the whole, they are very faithful. A new translation of S. Augustine's "Confessions" was not an easy task to undertake. It was not merely that there was already before the public the admirable translation of Dr. Pusey, which commenced the well-known "Library of the Fathers"; neither was it the difficulty of rendering the compressed and pregnant language of the