slow ourselves. But what every one does not think is, that we are slow to-day. Any one who happens to glance over the shelves of any of our large publishing houses. can find there numbers of dull-seeming works, on various specialties, full of facts, figures, demonstrations, discoveries, and what seems to us literally lumber of all sorts. Yet these books sell, and pay an invariable profit to a well-established house. Who buys them and what becomes of them, we shall probably learn when the disappearance of pins, and the necessity of summer clothing, and the origin of evil, are duly cleared up. Certain it is, that the Pèlerinage de l'Homme enjoyed a wide reputation and diffusion. Chaucer, especially, was familiar with its author, and his famous "A, B, C," is a palpable and, so far as we know, an undisguised imitation of De Guileville's Prayer to the Virgin, published in the same year 1330. Now, a work which, after filtering through three hundred years, another language and the brains of "painfulle" translators, could still yield the germ of the most nationally popular book in all English literature, has some claim to be called its original. We shall not attempt to pass upon the question of plagiarism, for the honest reason that, as we have said, we really do not exactly know what the word means in the critical vernacular of to-day. The coincidences we have cited would certainly go to show that The Pilgrim's Progress is not the entire novelty which its author so explicitly proclaims it. On the other hand, it is not proven to complete satisfaction that "John such a dirt-heap ever was" as to mean to steal anything from anybody. Perhaps the most peaceable as well as the most novel conclusion that suggests itself, is to harmonize both sides of this question by a third theory, namely, that one may be a palpable plagiarist, as the word is often used, without in the slightest degree detracting from his originality. The statement sounds extraordinary, but its ingenious advocate, M. Philarète Chasles, is an extraordinary Frenchman, and is talking when he advances it, about the "divine Williams," who is an extraordinary subject for a Frenchman to talk about. We are very much mistaken if those who smile at this seeming contradiction of terms will not find some force in the subjoined excerpt, which we premise, however, suffers greatly in translation for want of the peculiar super-emphatic style of the original French. "Genius arranges and imitates, studies and deepens; it never invents." "Genius consists in understanding better, penetrating better, surrounding with more light, what every one does superficially, or understands by half. One of the singular traits of Shakespeare is his supreme indifference as to the subject he is to treat of. He never cares about it; the excellent artisan knows how to find material in everything. He takes up at hap-hazard a pebble, a bit of wood, a block of granite, a block of marble. Little he cares for his predecessor's having made an old king disinherited by his daughters, act and talk upon the stage; it is a fact like any other fact, that counts for no more and no less. Shakespeare goes on to find whatever of tears and of power there is in the soul of this old man." "People to-day are running after an inventiveness which real originality lacks; it dwells in the artist, not in the materials he employs. With all great men it is tradition, it is the people, it is the common heritage of ideas and customs that has gathered the materials. They have taken them as they came, and then laid their foundations, transmuted them, immortalized them. "If what is called invention were not a deceptive quality, we should have to rate much higher than Dante, the first idle monk, who wrote, in lumbering style, a vision of Paradise and Hell; the coarse authors of certain Italian delineations would carry the day over Molière; the unknown writers of certain chronicles, divided into acts, would eclipse Shakespeare. "In the epochs of literary decadence those are taken for inventors who, impelled by a certain ardor of temperament, and a certain fieriness of phrase, dislocate words and im ages, and think they have launched ideas. These folk proclaim themselves orators. Montaigne, Shakespeare, Molière took to themselves no merit but that of studying nature, the world, and man." "The true function of genius is to second. -Etudes sur W. Shakespeare, etc., par Philarète Chasles. 1851; p. 88, sqq. There is no labor like making up one's mind, (unless it be, keeping it made up,) and we own ourselves charmed to find in this acute and able reasoning an outlet of escape from the whole duty of decision. And we think, too, that the many friends of the old Pilgrim-those whe love him because (tenderest tie !) be was one of the picture-books of their infancy, those assuredly who have laughed at him in his French dress, converted to a good Catholic Palmer; and above all, the large Baptist connection of this magazine, w thank us; and if not, we assure them they ought to thank us, for this third horn of his sore dilemma. *Petite Bibliothèque de Catholique, tom. xix. This is a translation of the first part of The Pilgrim's Progress, and is duly modified to doctrinal fitness, and embellished with a frontispiece head of the Blessed Virgin. Southey speaks also of a Portuguese tranolation of 1782. Nil admirari THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SLEEPERS, A.D. 439. THE slaves of Adolius went forth on the hill, And in toiling and talking got half through their day. The sun was declining; the landscape was still, As it stretched far beneath. While they delved in the clay, Their stories and comments came faster and faster "How hot it became about noon !" "How the olives were prospering greatly!" That "the figs and the grapes would be plentiful soon-" They wandered a century back, ay, and more, To the time when the edict of Decius went out, As they heard from their fathers. How fiercely it bore By description, those martyrs with horror did view! How the Goth with his merciless torch From the Euxine had rushed, an invincible foeman, 46 Then one ceased his work, who was wrinkled and gray, By the emperor's soldiers, who came on a sally, And built up the cave." To his mattock he bent, And a rock that he loosened rolled down to the valley. They found a large rent where the rock had its bed, But look! as the mist grows more clear, There's a form moving outward-of hell or of heaven- He paused at the mouth; placed his hands on his eyes; He wondered, he doubted, he hearkened the din Was transformed—had grown foreign, and altered, and cold; 'Away to the judge with this madman or worse!" "He has treasure that must be accounted." They went. "I'm a Christian," he said, " and am wealthy; my purse I have offered for bread. Should it be your intent To enroll me a martyr, my life I'll lay down : Take my life! Take my wealth in exchange for the crown." Then the judge when he looked and saw clearly That Decius' head on the coin did appear, Declared, while he doubted, "this youth must be nearly Two hundred years older than any one here!" The bishop was sent for, and Iamblichus spoke: "Six others and he had but yesterday fled; They had slept in a cave, and this morning awoke ; And he had been sent to the city for bread." "True sons," said the bishop, "of God's predilection! These men are all saints who have found resurrection. VOL. VI.-35 Resurrection indeed but from sleep, Which the God of all nature prolonging had shed, Like a life-saving balsam, to guard and to keep The city was emptied; the emperor came, The people, the magnates and all, in a throng, Which a special design had for once set aside; And they lived but to gaze on the light of the day, Through the wide Roman empire their fame travelled round; In Syriac, in Greek, and in Latin 'tis found; The Romans and Russians agree in their glory; But sooner shall earth to destruction be hurled, Than Iamblichus' name be dethroned or die out, FAMILY, PARISH, AND SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. Ir would be trite to say that the press is an extraordinary power for good or for evil. Some have decried it, as if they looked upon it as not merely evil by accident, but bad in itself. We cannot agree with them. We regard the press, in the order of divine providence, as a rapid means of spreading the truth and the morality of the Gospel among mankind. There is an apostleship of the pen as well as of the mouth. The written word often does more than the spoken word; as a proct from Scripture may often tell more forcibly on the mind of an unbeliever, than an argument from tradition. Printing is a blessing; the press is a boon and a power which the friends of God should know how to use better than his enemies. True, the latter employ it to great effect. What a torrent of bad literature is poured daily over the world! The the disho press is a huge monster, sending forth from its giant jaws poison, that circulates in the blood of society. Infidelity and false theology; immoral, obscene, and useless books are its offspring. Reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers, issue from it; and are made the vehicles of falsehood and vice. Such is the fact. What are the friends of religion to do, when its enemies are so active? Will it do for us to sit down and express our longings for the good old times when there were no printed books? Hold up our eyes in holy horror, but let our hands hang unemployed by our side? Decry the wickedness of the press; nesty of the authors, and deplore the vitiated taste of the populace, whose minds we see daily devouring the poisoned trash of novels and newspapers; and remain content with uttering an empty sigh? No; we must be up and doing. We must fight the foes of religion with their own weapons. We must use the press against those who abuse it. The old tar who was accustomed to see only wooden ships contend on the ocean; or the veteran of the battle-field who fought for liberty with an antiquated firelock, would be laughed at now for protesting against the use of ironclads or needle-guns in warfare. In vain would he say that what won battles half a century ago ought to win them still. So would it be unreasonable to cling solely to those weapons of spiritual combat which were good enough a century ago, but which to-day are blunt or rusty. We must copper the keels and plate the sides of our wooden vessels with iron; and remodel the ancient shootingirons of the scholastics to meet the exigencies of modern circumstances. It can hardly be questioned that the amount of bad or useless books published daily is greater than the quantity of good ones. Now, whose fault is this? The fault of the writers? Yes, in part. But they tell us, when asked why they write improper works, that the people will not read any other kind; and that if they were to follow truth, and not to please the passions in their compositions, they would starve. The great cause of bad literature is, therefore, the corrupt taste of the masses. It is at the same time cause and effect; for literary men suit their books to it; and these again help to spread moral diseases farther, and make them sink more deeply into the brains of the community. The chief means of counteracting the influence of bad books is by writing good ones; by spreading a taste for sound and wholesome reading. In this way can morality be preserved in the soul. To this end should we Catholics direct our energies. We number in this country many millions; and if we were all filled with an ardent zeal for souls, we should think no sacrifice too great, of time, labor, or purse, in order to destroy the pernicious effects of unCatholic or anti-Catholic books and journals. Men will read. They need food for the mind as well as for the body. Let us give them whole some food. It was in this sense that Pius IX., in speaking of France, said, "You Frenchmen have planted the tree of science almost everywhere. I do not object to this, provided you do not allow it to become the science of evil; and this will happen, if you do not inundate France with good publications." The words apply to our own country as well as to France. Write and publish good books then! We do not mean by good books, merely technical, spiritual books. We mean interesting books, in which nothing against faith or morals is found; and in which everything tends to pro |