tale" for all that. In fact, poetry is the most beautiful form of the expression of truth. Tell the truth in honest plain prose, and the chances are that you tell something very unpalatable. Facts are proverbially hard. On the contrary, poetry (if it deserves the name) is ever charming, winning, and popular. We say without hesitation, few of our living lyric poets have wreathed more charming verses than Mrs. Howarth. Simple and unaffected as they are, every line breathes the purest sentiment, and sends its touching pathos straight to the heart. The reason is plain. She reveals the truth as her own heart has known it. Here she guilelessly tells more of her own life, with all its struggles, toil, and bitter sorrows, than we think she intended. In a word, it is a volume not for the eye of strangers, but for the loving perusal of friends to whom she would wish to speak "eye to eye and soul to soul." We do not wonder, therefore, that, when these poems appeared a few years ago under the title of "The Wind Harp," without any prefatory key to their origin, a few careless critics should have failed to penetrate the hidden depths of their meaning. Our space does not permit us to quote as freely as we could wish. There are some undoubtedly better than others, but there is not one which our readers would not find worthy of particular choice and of special merit.

The first, "The Passion Flower," well deserves its place of honor. We give the opening verse:

"I plucked it in an idle hour,

And placed it in my book of prayer;
'Tis not the only passion flower

That hath been crushed and hidden there.
And now through floods of burning tears
My withered bloom once more I see,
And I lament the long, long years,
The wasted years afar from Thee."

From a poem entitled "Gethsemane" we cull this most beautiful and truly .sublime thought.

"Tis said that every earthly sound

Goes trembling through the voiceless spheres,
Bearing its endless echoes round
The pathway of eternal years.
Ah! surely, then, the sighs that He

That midnight breathed, the zephyrs bore
From thy dim shades, Gethsemane,

To thrill the world for evermore !"

And who can read the following witout emotion?

MY SOLDIER COMES NO MORE.

"Yes, many a heart is light to-day,
And bright is many a home,
And children dance along the way
The soldier heroes come :
And bands beneath the floral arch
The gladdest music pour;

While beats my heart a funeral march-
My soldier comes no more.

One morn from him glad tidings came,
Joy to my heart they gave;
At night I read my hero's name

Amid the fallen brave.

I know not where he met the foe,
Nor where he sleeps in gore;
Enough of woe for me to know,

My soldier comes no more.

Now here they come with heavy tramp,
And flags and pennons gay,
Who were his comrades in the camp,
His friends for many a day.
The music ceases as they pass
Before my cottage door;

The flags are lowered; they know, alas!
My soldier comes no more.

What care I for the seasons now?
The world has lost its light:
No spring can clothe my leafless bough,
No morn dispel my night;
No longer may I hopeful wait

For summer to restore :
My heart and home are desolate-
My soldier comes no more.

Judging from such poems as "The Tress of Golden Hair," " Adrift," "The Stranger's Grave," and other pieces suggested by some ordinary accident in life, Mrs. Howarth possesses one of those finely strung natures which, like the Æolian harp, are moved to give forth harmony at the slightest breath that passes. The former title of her book, "The Wind Harp," was, to our thinking, singularly appropriate. The present volume is published in first-class style.

An Epistle of Jesus Christ TO THE FAITHFUL SOUL. Written in Latin by Joannes Lanspergius, a CharterHouse Monk, and translated into English by Lord Philip, XIXth Earl of Arundel. New York: Catholic Publication Society.

This little book will be hailed by the faithful soul who desires to increase very much in the love of God, as if it were, what its title expresses, a letter written by the Saviour of the world himself, and

It em

addressed to him personally. bodies the very spirit and life of his instructions, and teaches us practically how to carry out in a systematic way the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. It is easy to read that divine sermon in a sentimental way, to feel somewhat good while reading it, but without gathering much of its meaning, or with any desire to practise it any more than may be convenient. This book will not be very palatable to such persons. It contains the strong meat for vigorous and earnest souls, rather than the light and unsubstantial froth which merely nourishes a sickly sentimentalism. We do not doubt there are thousands of devout persons in this country who would find in this little work an invaluable treasure, and, once possessing it, they would on no account be willing to part with it. They would find its directions plain and simple, and eminently fitted to lift them up out of a low spirituality to the highest state of religious peace and perfection. Would to God this notice may meet their eye, so that they may not be without it. We need just such books now in this country, to serve to make a number of saints and saintly persons, who shall draw down from heaven a benediction on not only themselves, but on the church of God and all our fellow-citizens. May more of them be drawn out of the storehouse of old true Catholic piety and devotion, for our spiritual joy and edification.

It is only necessary to add, that the English of the translation is delightful, while the mechanical getting up of the book, its paper and type, render it most agreeable to read.

I. NAPOLEON AND THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA. An Historical Novel, by L. Mühlbach. Translated from the German, by F. Jordan. Complete in one volume, with illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1867. 8vo, pp. 265.

2. THE DAUGHTER OF AN EMPRESS. An Historical Novel, by L. Mühlbach; translated from the German by Nathaniel Greene. Complete in one vol

ume, with illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1867, 8vo, pp. 255.

3. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND HER SON. An Historical Novel, by L. Mühlbach. Complete in one volume, with illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1867. 8vo, pp. 301.

On a former occasion we noticed three of the Mühlbach books, all we had then read, as favorably as our conscience would permit ; for we wish to be thought capable of recognizing literary merit in books written by others than Catholics. Now, Catholics have at least nature, and, though we do not recognize the sufficiency of nature without grace, we yet do not hold it to be totally corrupt, or count it good for nothing. We are always ready to recognize merit in literary works, by whomsoever written, if able, and true to genuine nature. The Mühlbach novels are written with spirit and ability, a talent almost approaching to genius, with some touches of nature, and with considerable historical infor- * mation. Having said so much, we have exhausted our praise. The works are true throughout neither to nature nor to history, and their moral tone is low and unwholesome pagan, not Christian. Their popularity, which can be but shortlived for it is hardly possible to read one of them a second time-speaks very little in favor of the taste, the knowledge of history, or the moral tone of our American reading public, as far as published. The least faulty, and to us the least repulsive of the series, is Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia, though it shows less ability than Joseph II. and his Court. We broke down before we got half through The Daughter of an Empress, and we have read only a few pages of Marie Antoinette and her Son. We have had no desire to have our feelings harrowed up by a fresh recital of the horrors of the French Revolution, especially of the wrongs of the beautiful and lovely Queen of France, and the young Dauphin. Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia is, however, a book we can read, and some portions of it with deep interest; but even this is disfigured by namby-pamby sentiment.

Adulterous love, self-murders, and horrors of all sorts, enough both to disgust the Christian reader, and to give even a reader of strong nerves the nightmare for weeks after reading it. The Mühlbach is in ecstasy of delight when Napoleon overcomes the virtue of the Countess Walewski, and has no doubt that the self-murderer has ended all his troubles and rests in peace. She seems, through all her books, not to regard adultery, if prompted by love, or suicide either, if inspired by disappointed patriotism, as a sin. Indeed, throughout she writes as a low-minded pagan, not as a high-minded Christian. She apotheosizes persons who die with imprecations of vengeance on their enemies in their mouths, and by their own hands; and even the beautiful and slandered Queen Louisa has no higher aspirations than those of patriotism.

We have heretofore said of the Mühlbach books that they have too much fiction for history, and too much history for fiction; but even a great part of her history is itself fiction, in the sense of being untrue, which fiction never need be. Scott, in his historical novels, commits a thousand anachronisms, mistakes one person for another, and is rarely accurate in the minuter details; but he never falsifies history, and the impression he gives of an epoch or a historical person is always truthful. The impression the Mühlbach gives, even when historically correct as to details, is unhistorical and untrue. We are no believers in the immaculate virtue or highmindedness of the royal and imperial courts of the eighteenth century, but no one who reflects a moment can believe that the Mühlbach gives a true picture of them. There is no doubt at all times much illicit love, cunning, intrigue, cruelty, vice, and crime, in the ranks of the great, but our experience proves that there is something else there also. At the time of the French Revolution the nobility were corrupt enough, but were they more so than the people who warred against them? Were the murderers and applauders of the murder of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette superior to them in either public or private virtue? If the great are bad, the little

are seldom better; and nothing can have a more unwholesome effect on societ than the multitude of novels poured forth by little women and less men, pro fessing to describe the manners and morals, but really traducing the manners and morals of the upper classes. Suc novels are untrue in fact, and serve oth to gratify the mean curiosity and malce of the envious and the malignant. Whoever reads the late book of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland will find that she and her husband furnished a model of the domestic virtues and affec tions.

Even when the Mühlbach pro fesses to write history, she does not write it, and perverts it quite unneces sarily when by no means demanded by the aesthetic exigencies of her story. We pass over the calumnies of the Jesuits and the private life of Ganganelli, Pope Clement XIV. They please us better than would her praise. Br she represents Charles III., King of Spain, as refusing his consent to the suppression of the Society of Jesus after he had expelled the Jesuits from his own dominions, and when he was most urgent of all the Bourbon princes for their suppression. She represents France as in favor of the suppression. but holding back her formal assent till she could secure that of Spain, when it is well known, that the King, Louis XV. and Choiseul, then at the head of the French government, were rather favorable to the Jesuits than otherwise, and gave them up only after a decree of parliament had been rendered against them, and even then only in order to obtain from the parliament, always their bitter enemies, the registering of certain edicts in which the minister believed France was more interested than in preserving the society. The Spanish, French, Portuguese, and several of the Italian princes, demanded of the pope, under threats of schism, the suppression of the order before the Empress Marie Theresa reluctantly consented, at the order of the pope, to allow the Bull suppressing the society to be published in her dominions, as the Mühlbach has herself described in her Joseph II. and his Court. These works are not only not trustworthy in their history, not

only in their grouping and coloring falsify it, but they pervert the judgment, prejudice the mind so against the truth that it is able only with great difficulty to recognize it when it comes to be presented by learned and faithful historians.

The real name of the writer of the Mühlbach books is no secret. She is a widow, said to be personally a very estimable lady; and it has been reported that she intends coming to this country and taking up her residence with us, and certainly we would not treat her uncourteously. But if the report be true, it is a good proof that her works are not very popular in Germany, and bring her but small pecuniary remuneration. Her works will not long be popular even in this country; for their popularity here has, to a great extent, been due to their supposed value as truthful pictures of the courts of Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, and Rome, in the last century, not to their weak and sickly sentimentalism, their low moral tone, their worship of Venus or Anteros, or their cynicism in religion. The American people are excessively fond of reading about courts, kings and queens, emperors and empresses, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses; and chiefly because they have no such things among themselves, they see them only as shrouded in mystery. But when they find that the Mühlbach books do not, after all, raise the veil, or give any trustworthy account of them, they will drop them; for they adopt as their motto, Ernst ist das Leben, and can never be long fascinated by the debased paganism of the Mühlbach. We would by no means do the author the slightest harm in character or purse, but we advise her in the future not to make her novels sermons or moral lectures, but to animate them with a real ethical spirit, so that they will make the reader stronger and better, not weaker and worse even in the natural order.

TWO THOUSAND MILES ON HORSEBACK.--SANTA FE AND BACK.-A SUMMER TOUR THROUGH KANSAS, NEBRASKA, COLORADO, AND NEWMEXICO, IN THE YEAR 1866. By

James F. Meline. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1867.

Really good books of travel have been found so entertaining and successful in time past, that more recently every quarter of the accessible globe has spawned tourists, and journals, and diaries, and "notes," and "visits," of a thousand varieties of vapidness. England, as usual in matters of superficial mediocrity, has been completely distanced by America. We have dozens of diarists who are promising candidates for the compliment some wicked spirit once paid Bayard Taylor-of having travelled more and seen less than any man living. Singularly enough, our own country has fared the worst at our own hands; singularly, because, full of natural wonders of its own, it has not to send its Winwood Reades to Senegambia for interesting material, and its charming, boy-beloved Captain Mayne to swear at the luckless "closet-naturalist" from all the corners of the world. We could turn all the Royal Societies loose along the Mississippi, and furnish them matter for a quarto to each F.R.S. Yet since Porte Crayon sharpened the lead-pencil into the war-spear, and his charming cousins stepped finally out of the carriage, and "Little Mice" sank to the level of a "man and a brother, and possible Congressman," only one traveller worth following has kept the field-the inimitable, the perennial Ross Browne, in Washoe, or Italy, or St. Petersburg, still the prince and paladin of tourists. Thus there is wondrous great room in the upper story of this literature, with a whole fresh young continent to hold the mirror to. Mr. Meline has challenged boldly and well for a good place in the front rank of our books of travel. He has great advantages and great aptitude for the task. His advantages are that, unless our spectacles and his artifice deceive us, he is a thorough good fellow-the sine qua non of the traveller everywherethe shibboleth of the brotherhood of cosmopolites. But besides this, mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes. If we are not mistaken in remembering Mr. Meline as the same gentleman who was formerly French Consul in Cincinnati,