Chapter VII (3)

A proportionate part of Mr. Wood's interesting volume is devoted to the smaller subject of watches. The invention of the coiled spring as a motive power instead of the weight used in clocks seems to have taken place in 1477, at Nuremberg, where watches were first made, and called, from their oval shape, Nuremberg eggs. In 1530. we find Charles V., in his retirement at the monastery of St. Yuste, amusing himself with "portable clocks;" reflecting: "How foolish I was to have squandered so much blood and treasure to make men think alike, when I can't even make a few watches keep uniform time;" and good naturedly observing, when a monk overthrew them all: "I have been laboring for some time to make these watches go together, and now you have effected it in one instant." This emperor possessed one watch that was made "in the jewel or collet of his ring," so that diminutiveness of construction must have been rapidly attained. George III., however, had a repeating watch presented to him (by Arnold of Devereux Court, in the Strand) whose size did not exceed that of a silver twopenny-piece. "It contained one hundred and twenty different parts, but altogether weighed not more than five pennyweights, seven grains and three-fourths. ... For this delicate and exquisite specimen of his art, Arnold had to make nearly all the tools used in its manufacture. This tiny watch contained the first ruby cylinder ever made, The king presented Arnold with five hundred guineas; and when the Emperor of Russia offered a thousand guineas for a similar one, the watchmaker refused to make it lest he should depreciate the value of his gift."

Sir John Dick Lauder possesses a skull-watch that belonged to Mary Queen of Scots; this is of silver gilt, and ornamented with representations of death between the palace and the cottage; the garden of Eden, and the crucifixion; the holy family at Bethlehem, etc. The works are as brains in the skull, the hollow of which is filled by a silver bell; the dial-plate being on a flat upon the roof of the mouth. With reference to this ghastly subject, Mr. Wood relates that, in a French engraving of 1830, death enters a watchmaker's shop, and shows his hour-glass to the master, saying: "_Vais-je bien?_" to which the latter answers: "_Vous avancez horriblement._" Many persons addicted to the science of watchmaking seem, indeed, to have been on unusually familiar terms with the king of terrors; and some have left epitaphs behind them of a very characteristic nature. In the churchyard of Lydford, in Devonshire, is to be read the following:

"Here lies in a _horizontal_ position,
the outside _case_ of
George Rautleigh, watchmaker,
whose abilities in that line were an honor to his profession.
Integrity was the _mainspring_, and prudence the
_regulator_ of all the _actions_ of his life;
Humane, generous, and liberal, his _hand_ never
_stopped_ till he had relieved distress;
So nicely _regulated_ was his _movements_,
that he never _went wrong_,
except when _set-agoing_
by people who did not know his _key_;
Even then he was easily _set right_ again.
He had the art of disposing of his _time_ so well,
That his _hours_ glided away in one
continual _round_ of pleasure and delight,
Till an unlucky _moment_ put a _period_ to his existence.
He departed this life November 14, 1802,
Aged 57, _wound up_.
In hopes of being taken in hand by his Maker;
And of being thoroughly _cleaned, repaired_, and
_set-agoing_ for the world to come."

Of course, watches could not be made to imitate the feats of the Strasburg clock; but in the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg there is a watch which was made by a Russian peasant, named Kulubin, in the reign of Catharine II., which is sufficiently wonderful. It is about the size of an egg, and contains a representation of the tomb of Christ, with the Roman sentinels. On pressing a spring, the stone is rolled from the tomb, the sentinels fall down, the angels appear, the holy women enter the sepulchre, and the same chant which is sung in the Greek Church on Easter eve is accurately performed.

The most costly and elaborate watch ever produced by British workmen, up to 1844, was made in that year by Hart & Son of Cornhill, for the Sultan Abdul Medschid; the brilliancy of its colors and exquisiteness of its pencilling seem to have surpassed anything of the kind of foreign manufacture. It struck the hours and quarters by itself, and repeated them with the minutes upon pressing a small gold slide; and the sound, produced by wires instead of a bell, resembled that of a powerful and harmonious cathedral clock. Its price was one thousand two hundred guineas.

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The most accurately exact watch is probably Mr. Benson's Chronograph, used for timing the Derby. "It consists of an ordinary quick train lever movement, on a scale sufficiently large to carry the hands for an eight-inch dial, and with the addition of a long seconds-hand, which traverses the dial, instead of being, as usual, just above the figure VI. The peculiarity of the chronograph consists in this seconds-hand and the mechanism connected with it. The hand itself is double, or formed of two distinct hands, one lying over the other. The lower one, at its extreme end, is furnished with a small cup or reservoir, with a minute orifice at the bottom. The corresponding extremity of the upper hand is bent over so as to rest exactly over this puncture, and the reservoir having been filled with ink of a thickness between ordinary writing fluid and printer's ink, the chronograph is ready for action. The operator, who holds tightly grasped in his hand a stout string connected with the mechanism peculiar to this instrument, keeps a steady lookout for the fall of the starter's flag. Simultaneously, therefore, with the start of the race, the string he holds is pulled by him, and at the same moment the upper hand dips down through the reservoir in the lower, and leaves a little dot or speck of ink upon the dial. This is repeated as the horses pass the winning-post, so that a lasting and indisputable record is afforded by the dots on the dial of the time--exact to the tenth of a second--which is occupied in running the race. As an example of the results of this instrument's operations, we may add that it timed the start and arrival of the Derby race in 1866 as follows: Start, 3 hours 34 min, 0 sec,; arrival, 3 hours 36 min. 49 sec.; duration of race, 2 min. 49 sec."

To give an idea of the extraordinary division of labor in this delicate science, it was stated in evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, that there are one hundred and two distinct branches of the art of watchmaking, and that the watch finisher, whose duty it is to put together the scattered parts, is the only one of the hundred and two persons who can work in any other department than his own. The hair-spring gives a very curious proof of the value that can be given to a small piece of steel by manual labor. Four thousand hair-springs scarcely weigh more than a single ounce, but often cost more than a thousand pounds. "The pendulum-spring of a watch, which governs the vibrations of the balance, costs, at the retail price, two-pence, and weighs three-twentieths of a grain; while the retail price of a pound of the best iron, the raw material out of which fifty thousand such springs are made, is the same sum of two-pence." Mr. Bennett--whose advocacy of female labor in the watch-trade has rendered him obnoxious to some persons--states that he found at Neufchâtel, where the Swiss watches are chiefly made, twenty thousand women employed upon the more delicate parts of the watch-movement.

The last part of this very interesting volume is devoted to that perfection of timekeepers, the chronometer, by which is found the longitude of a ship at sea. Twenty thousand pounds was offered by the British government for the invention of this instrument, which was awarded to John Harrison in 1765. His chronometer, in the first instance, was discredited on a voyage to Jamaica, since it differed with the chart by a degree and a half, but it was eventually discovered that it was the chart that was wrong. Of how accurately chronometers are made, there are numberless instances; here is one with which we must conclude. "After several months spent at sea," writes Dr. Arnott, "in a long passage from South America to Asia, my pocket-chronometer, and others on board, announced one morning that a certain point of land was then bearing north from the ship, at a distance of fifty miles. {280} In an hour afterward, when a mist had cleared away, the looker-out on the mast gave the joyous call of 'Land ahead!' verifying the reports of the chronometers almost to one mile, after a voyage of thousands of miles. It is allowable at such a moment, with the dangers and uncertainties of ancient navigation before the mind, to exult in contemplating what man has now achieved. Had the rate of the wonderful little instrument in an that time quickened or slackened ever so slightly, its announcement would have been useless, or even worse; but in the night and in the day, in storm and in calm, in heat and in cold, its steady beat went on, keeping exact account of the rolling of the earth and stars; and in the midst of the trackless waves, which retain no mark, it was always ready to tell its magic tale, indicating the very spot on the globe over which it had arrived."

Among the relics of the Franklin expedition brought home from the arctic regions by M'Clintock was a pocket-chronometer in excellent preservation; it had stopped at four o'clock. The owner probably had done with time ere that.

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Translated from Revue Génétale, Brussels.

Catholic Doctrine and Natural Science.

M. D'Omalius D'Halloy, in a discourse recently delivered at a general annual meeting of the class of sciences of the Royal Academy of Belgium (December 16th, 1866), treated the question which has frequently and seriously occupied learned minds. Director of an order which has for the past fifty years been signalized by assiduous labors and patient researches, he has once again attested, with that superior authority which none can deny, that "the pretence is shameful, that our religious teachings are in opposition to the progress of natural science." We receive, with respect and attention, this frank declaration as the testimony of a noble mind surrounded with the double glory of science and faith. After the exordium, the speaker thus pursued his demonstration:

If we commence with that which related to the creation, we shall see, on the one side, those men who, not wishing to forsake the ideas which were formed in their early years, have profited by their influence in religious matters to condemn others who do not desire to follow their conclusions in regard to the phenomena of the natural development of the world; meanwhile, on the other side, those men who, inflated by their pride, or prompted by their desire to divest themselves of the restraint that religion imposes upon their passions, have profited all they could in whatever they found obscure or contradictory in the explanations of their adversaries to deny divine inspiration to the sacred books, and consequently to the fundamental principles of our religious belief.

I am, on the contrary, led to believe that we can see nothing in the cosmogony of the book of Genesis but the consecration of several grand principles; namely, the existence of an all-powerful God anterior to matter, and its creation by him. I acknowledge that our minds conceive with difficulty these two principles, but it is more difficult to conceive the existence of the universe and its admirable arrangement without the pre-existence of [an] omnipotent being; one against whom neither science nor reason could raise an objection, or refuse to admit the existence of its two component principles. {281} When we say that God inspired our sacred books, we mean to convey that he has caused certain men to understand the great truths which they contain; we do not wish to assert that he has endowed these men with a complete scientific knowledge. Besides, to comprehend all that study has revealed to modern _savans_, they should speak or understand the rude language of the age in question; even at this period, though civilization and the art of printing have greatly increased the instruction of the masses, we find astronomers speaking of the _rising_ and the _setting_ of the sun.

We should not take the sacred writings for other than what they really are; namely, as the medium through which we are to understand the great principles which form the basis of our religious belief; and not as treatises upon natural science.

The long periods, the existence of which has been revealed by the study of the terrestrial globe, have also been placed in opposition to the recent period which we find named in the Bible as the epoch of the creation. But it is to be remarked, in the first place, that the term translated _day_ has been erroneously rendered; the seven successive periods indicated in the Bible as the limits of events were not confined to twenty-four hours; and, in the second place, that the calculations derived from the age and genealogy of the patriarchs should not be regarded as imperative; first, because we do not possess the positive value of the expression translated as _year_, and, further, because it appears that a portion of the terms of the genealogical series has been lost in the lapse of time.

The question of the deluge has also given rise to numerous contradictions; but it seems to me that we can say, on the one side, that these contradictions support themselves upon the susceptible hypotheses of discussion, and, on the other, upon the interpretations of modified nature which they will eventually acknowledge. It is thus that, while there exist in geology schools which deny the great cataclysms, there are others which admit them; and we cannot deny that the theory which attributes the origin of our high mountains to swellings of the crust of the earth relatively recent, destroys the objections raised against the return of the waters upon the materials forming the summits of our most elevated plateaux. Notwithstanding the objections which anthropologists make against the opinion that all mankind are descended from Noah, which agrees with pure hypothesis, can we not say that the contrary opinion is founded upon but one interpretation of Genesis, which cannot be very exact? Indeed, it appears to me that the book, after the account of the creation, which should be applied to the entire universe, does, while it always teaches the power of God and the origin of things, assume: an especial character; namely, it becomes a history of a people whom God had chosen to serve him in a particular manner. Thus the history of the Bible does not relate to any other people than the Hebrews, although these people had relations with the most powerful races on the earth; the races that are willing to admit that the deluge of which they speak submerged all the countries known to the Hebrews, but not all the terrestrial globe. They object in this manner to see that the book of Genesis gives to the deluge the title of universal; but is not this one of those expressions often employed to designate something understood? Do we not often say, All the world was united, all Europe is afraid, all the world listens? Expressions of this kind are very common in the florid style of the orientals; and, without leaving the sacred books, do we not read of the Pentecost, that there were in the assembly who listened to the apostles "Jews of all the nations under heaven;" and in the enumeration of the countries from which they came, "Rome was the most distant?"

{282}

If I here recall the hypotheses of the anthropology of all men who did not actually descend from Noah, I am far from saying that they were not descended from one couple. I have had, on the contrary, occasion to declare that, according to my views, science, in its present state, is powerless to resolve the question whether the human race is descended from one or from several sources. However, I am convinced that the differences which actually present themselves in the diverse human races have not manifested themselves since the deluge of Noah. I have said, long since, that paleontology has led me to admit that hereditary transformations are much more important than the differences which exist in the human race. At all times admitting that man has hardly suffered the transformations analogous to those described in the paleontological order, I am far from concluding that he descends from a beast. Existing observations do not disprove the distinct creation attributed by the Bible to man. The opinion of some authors, that all living beings derive their origin from a monad, is a gratuitous hypothesis, which cannot be supported by facts. Quite to the contrary, we learn, by paleontology, that all the great organic types existed in the silurian period; and, if the vertebral type had not yet been observed in the anterior deposits, this negative circumstance is considered of small importance. For it is only a short time since that the existence of organic remains in these deposits has been revealed; that these remains are very rare, and that even they differ but slightly from those of the silurian soil. Now, if the present state of observation leads us to admit that the Creator originally and distinctly formed the great types of organization, nothing authorizes us to deny that he created in a distinct manner the only being endowed with the faculty of knowing and adoring him.

On the other side, we do not see why the special origin of man is denied, even if he should have changed his form with time, as I suppose other living creatures may have done. Genesis tells us truly that God created man in his own image; but we cannot understand this phrase to signify that he himself actuated a material form. God has taken the human form under certain circumstances to communicate with man, but no one maintains that this is the normal form of an essentially spiritual being. The Bible, in speaking of the image of the Deity, scarcely alludes to the material and decomposable part of man, but always to the spiritual part; which, to be the _image of God_, should be endowed with immortality. But this spiritual part, which we call the soul, may have been placed in a being who had a different form to that worn by man at the present time; one more appropriate to the sphere in which he lived. Because God now permits the existence of men, who, by their brutishness, assimilate to the beasts, we see no reason for supposing that the first men had forms unsuited to the development of the faculties which characterize the civilized world of to-day.

They have also denied particular immortality to human souls in assimilating them to vital force, but this is one of those hypotheses unfounded upon any observation.

I am convinced that the life, that is to say, the vital force, or the union of forces which gives to matter the attributes characteristic of organized bodies, can be assimilated, to a certain degree, to the forces which determine physical phenomena; because the condition of its effects are more restrained, and only develop by continuation with the body with which it was originally endowed, and is not a sufficient reason for concluding that it belongs to an entirely different order of things. We see, in effect, that the order of forces presents phenomena which becomes successively less general; it is thus that attraction constantly acts upon all bodies, while there exist circumstances where affinity acts upon certain bodies; and the manifestation of electricity is due to conditions again less general. {283} On the other side, we cannot conceive the movement of the stars without the first cause of impulsion, any more than we can conceive the birth of a living being without the intervention of a pre-existing cause; we cannot give to these connections any consequence contrary to the dogma of the immortality of the soul. Nor can science decide whether physical phenomena are owing to diverse forces, or to a single force that manifests itself in various ways; neither resolve the question whether life is composed of an individual force or the union of many. It is certain that _vegetable life_, a term which we consider applicable to all living things, is something different from _animal life_, a term applied to all sensible beings. It is contended no longer that man has attributes not possessed by beasts. Now we see nothing in physiology which opposes itself to these aptitudes being determined by a particular force named the soul, and that this force be endowed with immortality; that is to say, the power of preserving eternally its individuality after separation from the matter which it once animated.

Although I am unfamiliar with physiological studies, I will add that these considerations compel me to say that I have no right to apply the name of soul to that force which animates beasts; not that I wish to rob certain animals of the faculties which they enjoy, but whatever may be the intelligence or social capacity with which these animals are endowed, they cannot pretend to perform the _rôle_ that man maintains upon earth. And neither physiology nor the sacred writings lead us to believe that the force which animates beasts should be endowed with immortality. I can only avow that the birth, the existence, and the death of an animal are but the manifestation of a vital force determined by particular circumstances, as lightning and thunder are but the manifestations of electricity.

Again, according to my views, a religious sense has hardly been given to the admission or the rejection of a human kingdom, a question frequently agitated in these modern times. In fact, the division of natural bodies into three kingdoms, with their inferior subdivisions, has only been made to facilitate the knowledge of these beings, and to designate by name the different groups of which we would speak. We cannot deny that by the mineral, the animal, and the vegetable kingdoms we understand three divisions, which include all bodies on the terrestrial globe; and that each one has common attributes which are not found in the two others; it follows that, when we admit a human kingdom, we have no term to designate the class of beings possessing the attributes which distinguish man and the beasts from the two other kingdoms. This consideration causes me to reject the human kingdom, without always classing man in the animal; the enlargement of the vertebrae and the mammiferous class appear to me to oppose themselves in another order of ideas; we must, therefore, believe that man is endowed with a soul enjoying attributes different from the force which animates beasts.

In conclusion, I do not hesitate to say that there exists in my mind no real opposition between our religious belief and the demonstrations afforded by the present state of the natural sciences.

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{284}

Miscellany.

_Meteoric Stones_.--M. Daubrée records his observations on a great shower of meteoric stones which fell on the 30th of May, in the territory of Saint Mesmin, in the Department of the Aube. Mr. Daubrée gives the following account of the phenomenon: The weather being fine and dry, and only a few clouds in the sky, at about 4,45 in the morning a luminous mass was seen to cross the sky with great rapidity, and shedding a great light between Mesgrigny and Payns. A few seconds after this appearance, three loud explosions, like the report of cannon, were heard at intervals of one or two seconds. Several minor explosions, like those of muskets, followed the first, and succeeded one another like the discharge of skirmishers. After the detonations a tongue of fire darted toward the earth, and at the same time a hissing noise was heard like that of a squib, but much louder. This again was followed by a dull, heavy sound, which a person compared to that of a shell striking the earth near him. After a long search he perceived, at the distance of about two hundred feet from the place where he was when he heard the noise, a spot where the earth had been newly disturbed; he examined the place, and saw a black stone at the bottom of a hole nine inches deep, which it seemed to have formed. This stone weighs nearly ten pounds. On the following day a gendarme named Framonnot picked up another meteoric stone of the same nature, weighing nearly seven pounds, at about two thousand feet distant from where it first fell. A third stone was found on the first of June by a man named Prosat, five to six thousand feet from the two spots above referred to. This last meteorite weighed nearly four pounds and a half.-_Science Review._

_Father Secchi_.--A new spectroscope has been constructed by Father Secchi, S.J., and seems to be a very excellent instrument. It absorbs a very small quantity of light, and is therefore admirably adapted for stellar observations. The inventor has analyzed with it the spectrum of the light emitted by the star Antarés. It is of a red color; the luminous bands have been resolved into bright lines, and the dark ones are checkered with light and dark lines, so there is no black foundation.--_The Reader._

_The Heat-conductibility of Mercury_.--M. Gripon, who has been making experiments after Peclet's method, thinks he has demonstrated that if the conducting power of silver be regarded as 100, that of mercury is equal to 3.54. He places mercury, therefore, the lowest in the scale of metals, as far as the conductibility of heat is concerned. It is strange that electric conductivity is quite different, being represented by the figures 1.80.--_Science Review_.

_Penetration of Platinum and Iron by Hydrogen_.--From time to time we have reported the discoveries of Troost and Deville in this field of research. These conclusions have recently been collected by the master of the mint, Mr. Thomas Graham, in an admirable paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. He thinks that this wonderful penetration is connected with a power resident in the above-mentioned and certain other metals to liquefy and absorb hydrogen, which latter is possibly in the condition of a metallic vapor. Platinum in the form of wire or plate at a low, red heat may take up and hold 3.8 volumes of hydrogen, measured cold; but it is by palladium that the property in question appears to be possessed in the highest degree. Palladium foil from the hammered metal, condensed so much as 643 times its volume of hydrogen, at a temperature under 100° C. The same metal had not the slightest absorbent power for either oxygen or nitrogen. The capacity of fused palladium (as also of fused platinum) is considerably reduced, but foil or fused palladium, a specimen of which Mr. Graham obtained from Mr. G. Matthey, absorbed 68 volumes of the gas. Mr. Graham thinks that a certain degree of porosity may be admitted to exist in all these metals.--_Science Review_.

{285}

_Improvements in the Barometer_.--Some important improvements have recently been effected in the Aneroid barometer by Messrs. Cook &; Sons, the opticians. Although the Aneroid, under ordinary circumstances, has been shown by Mr. Glaisher and others to be very much more effective and satisfactory in its results than could have been hoped, still, under conditions which bring rapid changes of pressure into play, the instrument when it returns to the nominal pressure does not always indicate correctly. This results from the motion being communicated to the index axle by a chain, and this chain, from other considerations, is the weakest part of the instrument, and is the first acted upon by climactic influences, rust, etc. Mr. Cook has abolished this chain altogether, substituting for it an almost invisible driving-band of gold or platinum, and the result of this great improvement is that the Aneroid may now be looked upon as an almost perfect instrument for scientific research. Several such Aneroids, placed under the receiver an air-pump, not only match absolutely together, but all return unfailingly to one and the same indication--_The Reader_

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Original.

New Publications.

1. Frederick The Great And His Court.
An Historical Romance. By L. Mühlbach.
Translated from the German
by Mrs. Chapman Coleman and her
daughters. New York: Appleton & Co.
1867. 12mo, pp. 434.

2. Berlin And Sans-Souci; or, Frederick
The Great and His Friends.
An Historical Romance. Author,
translators, and publishers the same.
New York. 1867. 12mo, pp. 391.

3. Joseph II. and His Court.
An Historical Romance. By the same.
Translated from the German by
Adelaide de V. Chaudbron; complete
in one volume. New York: Appleton & Co.
1867. 8vo, double columns, pp. 343.

We know nothing of the writer of these works, save the works themselves, and even them we know only in the translations before us. The last-named volume reads more like an original work in English than the others. Mrs. Chapman Coleman and her daughters appear not to have learned the proper use of _shall_ and _will_, and make now and then the same sort of blunder the Frenchman did when he fell into the river and exclaimed: "I _will_ be drowned, and nobody _shall_ help me out." The use of _shall_ and _will_ is a little arbitrary in English. _Shall_ in the first person simply foretells, in the second and third persons it commands; _will_ in the first person promises or expresses a determination or resolution, in the second and third persons it simply foretells. The same rule applies to _should_ and _would_. The Scotch, Irish, and most foreigners are very apt to reverse the rule, as do some New-Yorkers and most western writers and speakers.

These works themselves are too historical for romances, and too romantic for histories. Unless one is exceedingly familiar with the real history of the times, one never knows whether he is reading history or only romance. The historical predominates in them, and most people will read them as histories rather than romances, and thus imbibe many erroneous views of real persons and events. The Empress Maria Theresa is praised enough and more than enough, so far as words go, both as a woman and as a sovereign, but she is, after all, represented very untruthfully as weak, sentimental, permitting her ministers to persuade her to adopt measures to which she is conscientiously opposed, and really ruinous to the empire. She is arbitrary, despotic, and the slave of her confessor. The author even repeats the silly story that Kaunitz persuaded her, in order to further his policy, to write an autograph letter to Madame Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV., and to praise her for her virtue and modesty, a story invented, it is said, by Frederick the Great. The _béte noir_ of the writer is the clergy, and alike whether Catholic or Protestant. {286} The author sympathizes from first to last with Joseph II.; thinks the Josephine reforms or pretended reforms very just, very wise in themselves, but that the people were too ignorant and superstitious to appreciate them. From first to last humanity takes precedence of God and the state of the church. The great divinity the author worships is the mutual love of man and woman, and the greatest evil that afflicts humanity, or at least princes and princesses, is that they cannot follow the inclinations of their own heart, but must sacrifice their affections to the demands of state policy.

Joseph II. is a great favorite with the author, but Frederick the Great is her hero. He is always great, noble, wise, just, with a most loving heart, which he sacrifices to the necessities of state. No censure is breathed against his infamous conduct in invading and taking possession of Silesia, without even a color of right, and without even the formality of declaring war against Austria, and while Austria, unsuspicious of any invasion, is wholly unprepared to resist it, and embarrassed by a disputed succession. He was successful, and in our times success is proof of right. Frederick was utterly without principle, without faith of any sort, a _philosophe_, corresponded with Voltaire, invited him to his court, and even paid him a salary, and detested the clergy, and therefore was a fitting idol of our modern liberals and humanitarians, and worshippers of FORCE like Carlyle.

Joseph the Second, we are inclined to believe, was sincere, and really wished to benefit the nation committed to his charge, and he gave proof of it in revoking most of the changes he attempted, and dying as a Christian. He was vain and ambitious, and was led astray by the philosophy of his times, and his unprincipled minister, Prince Kaunitz, a legacy from his mother. He, like all the philosophers of the eighteenth century, understood nothing of the laws of continuity, and supposed anything he decided to be for the good of his people, however contrary to all their most deeply cherished convictions and their most inveterate habits, could be forced upon them by power, and should be received with grateful hearts. Two things he appears to never have known, that despotism cannot found liberty, and that power must, if it would make people happy, suffer them to be happy in their own. There was, in the eighteenth century, with the European rulers and the upper classes much sincere and active benevolence--a real and earnest desire to lighten the burdens of government and ameliorate the condition of the people; and no one can read these volumes, with sufficient knowledge to distinguish what in them is history from what is mere romance, without being persuaded that real reforms would have gone much further, and European society would have been far in advance of what it now is, if the revolution of 1789 had never been attempted. All that was true in the so-called principles of 1789 was favorably accepted by nearly all European statesmen and sovereigns who were laboring peaceably and earnestly to develop and apply it. The statesmen and sovereigns, unhappily, had utterly false and mischievous views of the relation of the church to the state, and imagined that the only way to reform society was to begin by subjecting the spiritual to the temporal; but they went in this direction not so far as went the old French revolution. Indeed, the great lesson of history is that the attempt to effect real social reforms by raising the people against legitimate authority, whether civil or ecclesiastical, always turns out a failure. Some good may be gained on one side, but is sure to be more than overbalanced by the evils effected on another side.

As purely literary works, these historical romances possess a high degree of merit, and prove that the writer has rare powers of description and analysis. They read like the genuine histories, and from them alone it is impossible to say where the real history ends and the romance begins, so completely is the verisimilitude maintained throughout. If, as we are told, they are the production of a female pen, as they bear indubitable evidence of being, they are truly remarkable productions. The characters introduced are all, or nearly all, historical, and if not all or always faithfully reproduced, they are presented without any violence to the generally received history of the two courts described. There is a little too much German sentimentality in them, if faithfully translated, to suit our taste, and more than we believe is usually to be found in imperial or royal courts; and the _liaisons_ of princes are treated with too much lenity, if not downright approbation, to have a good moral effect; but they indicate a rare mastery of the subjects they treat, and intellectual powers of a very high order. {287} They are by no means faultless, and their spirit and tone are pagan rather than Christian; but they who are familiar with the history of the two courts described, and are accustomed to master the works they read instead of being mastered by them, may read them even with profit.

Lectures On Christian Unity,
delivered in St. Ann's Church, Eighth Street, during the season of
Advent, 1866, with an appendix on the condition of the Anglican
Communion, and of the Eastern Churches. By the Rev. Thomas S. Preston,
Pastor of St. Ann's Church and Chancellor of the diocese. 12mo, pp. 264.
New-York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

Father Preston's style is natural, earnest, and direct. He is too anxious to impress truth on the minds of his readers to load his pages with rhetorical ornaments; too resolute in his opinions to hesitate at the most downright and unmistakable expression of them. His ideas are clear, and therefore his style has the two chief requisites of all good writing, clearness and simplicity. It has also the beauty which invariably radiates from a devout heart. Love of God, love of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, love of the holy church and all her teachings and her ways, illuminate every chapter with the light of an unaffected piety. And like the majority of really devout controversialists, he writes without rancor or bitterness. "No true Catholic," he says, "can be intemperate in speech, much less in heart. .... When we speak of the claims of our religion or announce our doctrines and urge them upon men, it is not to advance our own opinions so much as to benefit mankind, and promote their best happiness, temporal and spiritual. We feel that the church answers the very questions which are agitating their souls; that it responds to the wants of their spiritual being, now unsatisfied; that it is the only and the divine barrier to infidelity so fast increasing among us. ... It is in this spirit that these lectures are begun, with the earnest desire for truth, and a comprehensive charity for all who differ from us."

The first of the four lectures comprised in this volume proves from reason, Scripture, and the writings of the primitive fathers the necessity of unity among all who profess the Christian faith. The second shows how impossible it is of attainment under the theory of Protestantism, which holds that everything concerning faith and salvation must be left to the private judgment of each individual, and that no external authority has power to bind the conscience or compel the obedience of believing men. There can be no unity of belief unless there be an admitted standard of truth; and under the Protestant theory such a standard cannot be found. There is no church which can be such an authority, for, according to the doctrines of all the reformed bodies, a church has no authority except that given to it by the members. As then the members are not infallible, the church cannot be. The Bible cannot be the authority; for history shows that the Scriptures, subjected to private interpretation, have never been able to effect any agreement whatever; and, moreover, it is practically impossible to prove either the authenticity or inspiration of the sacred books without falling back upon the authority of the church. The objections to setting up the consent of the majority or the opinions of antiquity as a standard of doctrine are likewise exposed with clearness, though very briefly. The third lecture is devoted to an examination of the claims of Protestantism to represent the Church of Christ, and a survey of the present condition and history of the principal reformed bodies. In lecture the fourth the claims of the Catholic Church upon the obedience of mankind are summarized with beautiful lucidity and eloquence.

An appendix of 100 pages contains an interesting and valuable note on the position of the Anglican churches, and some welcome information respecting the church union movement, from which it is hardly necessary to say that Father Preston expects no good. Neither is he so sanguine of happy results from the ritualistic movement as a writer in a recent number of this magazine; but of these, as of all other matters, he speaks with his accustomed charity. A second part of the appendix gives an account of the present position of the Eastern churches.

We regard this as the best work Father Preston has written, and we earnestly join in the hope he expresses in his modest preface, that it "may reach some minds who are seeking the truth, and lead them to the haven of rest."

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Lectures on doctrines of the Catholic Church are a powerful means of conversion to the faith. Never were the public better disposed to inquire, and more ready to listen to the claims of the church, than at present, and, wherever lectures of this character have been given, their fruits have been found more abundant than was anticipated.

The Life Of St. Dominic And A Sketch Of The Dominican Order.
With an introduction by the most Rev. J. S. Alemany, D.D., Archbishop of
San Francisco. P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street.

This is not a reprint of F. Lacordaire's Life, but an original biography, accompanied by a history of the Dominican order brought down to the present day. It is from the pen of an anonymous English author, and resembles the best works of the modern school of English Catholic writers in the care and elegance with which it has been prepared. No one could have introduced it more suitably to the American public than the illustrious Archbishop of San Francisco, who is himself one of the brightest ornaments of the Dominican order in modern times. It is the history of a great man and of a great order, given in a moderate compass and an attractive style, and, of course, well worth the perusal of every intelligent reader, whether Catholic or Protestant.

The Journal Of Maurice De Guérin.
With an Essay by Matthew Arnold, and a Memoir by Saint-Beuve. Edited by
G. S. Trebutien. Translated by Edward Thornton Fisher. 12mo. pp. 153. New
York, Leypoldt & Hoyt. 1867.

Our readers, already so familiar with the character and writings of Eugénie de Guérin from the frequent notices they have received, especially of her Journal and Letters, will be glad to know that this journal of her so much loved brother Maurice has been brought before the public.

In perusing the charming journal and mournful letters of Eugénie our curiosity must needs be awakened to know more of her gifted brother, of whom these pages of love speak so constantly. We have only to say that in this volume that curiosity may be satisfied. Our readers will see depicted the efforts of a soul vainly striving to find God outside of God in the worship of nature, and at last returning, wearied and disappointed, like the prodigal son to his father's home and embrace. Maurice de Guérin, who had fallen away into heartless and godless pantheism, died kissing the crucifix.

"The Catholic Publication Society" announces an American edition of a book just published in London: "The Clergy and the Pulpit, in their relations to the People," M. l'Abbé Mallois, chaplain to Napoleon III.

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Books Received.

From Hon. W. H. Seward, Secretary of State. Washington, D. C, Diplomatic Correspondence, relating to Foreign Affairs for 1865. Parts I., II., and III.; also Part IV., being an appendix to the other three parts, containing letters and documents with reference to the assassination of President Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of Secretary Seward, with extracts from the press of Europe, and letters from public communities, of condolence and sympathy, inspired by inspired by these events. 8vo.

From Kelly & Piet. Baltimore, Md, Devotion to the Holy Guardian Angels, in the form of Considerations, Prayers, etc. Translated from the Italian of Rev. P. de Mattel. S. J. 32mo. pp. 229. Price 50 cts.

From P. O'Shea, New York. The Life of St. Dominic and a Sketch of the Dominican Order, with an introduction by Most Rev. J. S. Alemany, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 370. Price $1.50.--The Gentle Skeptics; or, Essays and Conversations of a Country Justice on the Authenticity in Truthfulness of the Old Testament Records. By Rev. C. Walworth. New edition, revised. 1 vol. 12mo. Price $1.50.

From Ruttenberg & Co., Newberg, New York. An Address in behalf of Universal Education with Religious Toleration. By the Hon. J. Monell. Pamphlet.

From Lawrence Kehoe, New York. Three Phases of Christian Love. By Lady Herbert, of Lea. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 315. Price $1.50

From Dayton Ohio, we have received two pamphlets namely: the Divinity of Christ, a sermon preached in the Holy Trinity Church, Dayton, Ohio, at the conclusion of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ; St. Antony: Alban Butler and Local Gossip of the Dayton Journal. By X.

From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New. York, Lectures on Christian unity, delivered in St. Ann's Church, New York, during the season of Advent, 1866, with an Appendix on the condition of the Anglican Communion, etc. By Thomas S. Preston, Pastor of St. Ann's Church. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 264. Price $1.50--The Christian armed against the Seductions of the World, etc. Translated from the Italian by Father Ignatius Spencer. 1 vol. 18mo. pp. 320, 50 cts.--Devotion to St. Joseph By Rev. Father Joseph Anthony Patrignani, S. J. Translated from the French. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 360. Price the 63 cts.--Fourth Annual Report of the Society for the Protection of the Destitute.

From the author. Reconstruction of the Union., in a letter to Hon. E. D. Morgan. U. S. Senator from New York, from Judge Edmonds. New York American News Co. 8vo. Pamphlet, pp. 89.

From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. Manual of the Lives of the Popes, from St. Peter to Pius IX. By John Charles Earle, B.A. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 332. Price $1.25.

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The Catholic World.

Vol. NO. 27, June 1867

Translated from Le Correspondant

Lectures and Public Conferences Among the Ancients.

I.

_Nil sub sole novum;_ there is nothing absolutely new under the sun. Apart from the sciences and their application, our age differs less than we suppose from the ages that preceded it. Fancying ourselves pure Frenchmen of the nineteenth century, we discern upon a nearer view numerous traits of resemblance to the contemporaries of Pliny and Plutarch.

"Who will deliver us from Greek and Roman shackles?" cried the author of Gastronomie, in a fit of witty ill-humor. It is to be feared that for many a long year we are condemned to imitate the Latins and Athenians whom we love to slander even while copying them. What matter how unconsciously we borrow from them? Many things besides the game that made the amusement of our infancy may be considered renovations of Greek originals. Fashions, customs, pleasures even, are ours, not by right of invention, but of inheritance; and what we take for new is sometimes merely the old refurbished.

If there be a novelty, for the mass of the people who do not pride themselves on erudition, it is to be found in the lectures or conferences, to which the public is bidden every winter. Tested first successfully in Paris, through the enterprise of a few private individuals, they afterward, favored by the influence of higher powers, reached the provinces--invaded them, I should have said, if the word had not an offensive signification, far from my thoughts. It is surprising to watch the rapid development of this custom, exhibited as it is in the fact that since the second year a thousand _chaires_ have sprung up in various parts of France. Modest townships, no less than great cities, have their course of lectures, and one peruses with interest the list of lecturers, [Footnote 55] some of whom are accustomed by profession to communicating their ideas to an audience, while others essay for the first time the public expression of their opinions.

[Footnote 55: The _chaires_ have been lately interdicted to Prince
Albert de Brogile and to MM. Saint Marc Girardin, Cochin, Laboulaye,
and Jules Simon. We cannot help, while recording this ostracism,
deploring its effect upon French literature.--_Note of French
Editor_.]

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In the ranks of volunteer instructors (without mentioning professors, who are naturally called to assume such a position) lawyers elbow physicians, the Catholic priest finds himself next to the Protestant minister, and officers march abreast with men of letters. Nay more: women too are seen taking part in these manly exercises, anxious to prove good the equality of their sex with ours.

'Tis undeniably an odd spectacle to unaccustomed eyes, and there is no lack of discussion and outcry upon the matter. But one need only read a few pages from the pen of ancient authors to discover that what startles us to-day as a thing without precedent, had passed into a well-known custom in the earliest ages of Christianity. It is into the subject of lectures and conferences among the ancients that I propose to inquire, as a topic offering interest if not profit to those who like to compare antiquity with our own times.

II.

Nowadays, thanks to the printing-press, which multiplies thought and scatters it to the four winds of heaven, an author can enter into communication with the public without going beyond the threshold of his study. But among the ancients, when every copy of a work was painfully executed by hand, who can estimate the pains, fatigue, and expense that went to build up an incomplete publicity? What wonder then that an historian like Herodotus introduced his book to public notice by reading it aloud to the crowds assembled for the Olympic games, or that the people paused to listen to him for days together? The author entered without delay upon the enjoyment of his glory--the public into possession of a masterpiece. Later, we learn that Prodicus, the sophist of Ceos, went from city to city, reciting his allegory of Hercules between Virtue and Pleasure, and engraving it upon the memory of all Greece.

Other similar instances might be cited, but merely as exceptions to the customs anterior to the Christian era; nor was it in Greece but at Rome that public lecturing first became a popular usage.

In the reign of Augustus, when eloquence had become _pacifice_ (or narrow-minded, as the bitter spirits who pined for ancient laxity would have said), Asinius Pollio, having been transformed from a republican into a courtier without sacrificing his love of letters, bethought himself to replace the oratorical combats, for ever banished from senate and forum, by establishing a school of declamation, and assemblies whither authors should resort to read their works in public.[Footnote 56] It was erecting a stage for the exhibition of wits who longed for notoriety, and the plan could not fail to succeed. Augustus, in harmony, on this occasion, with popular desire, lent a hearty consent to the innovation. Not only did he sit among the audience without giving evidence of weariness or _ennui_, but he took an active part in the literary exercises, reading in person, or letting; Tiberius read for him, various compositions of his own.[Footnote 57]

[Footnote 56: Seneca the Rhetorician, Controv. V. Procem.]

[Footnote 57: Sustonius, Augustus, 85, 89.]

Without doubting that Augustus really enjoyed these intellectual entertainments, I believe the encouragement of a harmless literature to have been in accordance with his policy. Every pursuit that could turn aside the Romans from too importunate an interest in state affairs was favorably received. What time remained for meddling in public matters to any man occupied with polishing poetical phrases or rounding rhetorical periods? The chair replaced the tribune advantageously. While bread and circus games satisfied the lower classes, distractions and diversions of a nobler stamp were provided for more enlightened minds. In both cases the conduct of Augustus was actuated by the same motive. {291} So well did public lectures second his designs that be might perhaps have introduced the fashion if it had not already existed. Under the circumstances his countenance only was required to elevate what seemed like a modish caprice to the dignity and durability of an imperial institution. Even the most suspicious and distrustful of this prince's successors forbore to disturb an amusement so conducive to their own advantage. The least favorably inclined were contented with depriving the assemblies of their presence, and others esteemed it an honor to be counted among the most attentive listeners. Nero especially, imperial artist and metromaniac, seems to have honestly regarded these exercises as one of the glories of his reign.