Volume 5 — Original. New Publications.
Reading edition
Melpomene Divina; or, Poems' on Christian Themes. By Christopher Laoinedon Pindar. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1867.
This is an elegant little volume, but not a volume of elegant poetry. We feel unwilling to speak adversely of the effusions of a youthful author, (we suppose his youth from several poems given as "youthful efforts" as late as the year 1861,) but the truth must be honestly told, if told at all, both for young and old; and the truth is, that this book contains many easy rhymes, but very little poetic thought. The verses, too often faulty in rhythm, abound with sentences that can hardly be called good English, as, for instance, (p. 90:)
"He gazed and gazed, and deeper still The soft attachment grew, And nearer to the charmful maid His loving soul him drew."
And again, (p. 172;)
"Only pray I thee, whom first saint In America God chose, Grant that countless maids may rival In my land thee, heavenly Rose!"
In a little translation entitled The Fisher's Wife we find a verse which will illustrate the desire we now express that the writer had husbanded his poetical ability, and allowed it to find expression in a lesser number of poems more carefully worded. He might then have given us a volume of some merit. We quote:
"'O horror and woe! now breaks my poor heart! Out must I to gain relief!' She cries, and rushes from out the house, The mother in fear and grief. "And silently drifts a corse to the shore Strewn with trees and sedge and tan; There lies he all naked on the black sand: 'O merciful God! my man!'"
With so many evidences of the author's acquaintance with the classic poets upon these pages, we are surprised to meet with such words as "bluey," "bleaky," "browny," and the like; together with elisions, as "'T" for "it," to begin a line; "need'd" for "needed;" and such unwarrantable extensions as giving three syllables to words like "Christian," "solely," etc. We feel so much pleased, however, with his modest introduction to the volume that we will allow him to speak here for himself: "That the book is very imperfect, I am fully convinced of; that it be but taken by another as a spur to elicit a more perfect one in illustration of a similar theme, is my earnest desire. The many and almost unceasing demands of a higher order have allowed me to bestow only a few 'tempora subseciva' on a work to which I would have gladly devoted day and night. As such it can hardly be anything else than deficient in many respects. Yet if I be the cause of giving to but one person the pleasure of a moment in perusing these pages, and still more, if one be thence inspired to send a whisper of love to the saintly beings carolled in them, I shall consider myself happy, and my labors more than sufficiently repaid."
The Two Roads, Gabriel, Martha, Bread Of Forgiveness, Flowers From Heaven, Fragments Of Correspondence. P. O. Shea, Publisher, New York.
This is a series of beautiful stories, from the French, on the beatitudes. They are well translated, and published in good style.
Science Of Happiness; or, The Beatitudes in Practice. By Mader Bourdon. P. O. Shea, New York.
This volume contains the stories mentioned above bound together, so as to make another book.
Studies In The Gospels. By Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D. New-York: Charles Scribner & Co.
The author of this volume is well known from his valuable philological works. This volume of Studies is composed of sixteen chapters of expository notes on different parables and events recorded in the gospels. He has made free use of the standard commentaries, both Catholic and Protestant. We cannot attach any critical value to the work, as we observe that, where Maldonatus and the fathers go against the system to which he is committed, he passes over what they have said, and gives us instead the opinion of Calvin or his own. The volume contains, however, many suggestive thoughts, clothed in pure, good English. The typographical appearance of the volume is remarkably good.
Mr. P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia, has in press, and will soon publish, The new Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, edited by Edward Healy Thompson, and which has just appeared in London. It will make a volume of about four hundred pages.
Messrs. Benziger Bros., New York and Cincinnati, are about to publish Rome and the Popes: translated from the German of Dr. Karl Brandes, by Rev. W. T. Wiseman, Professor of Church History in Seton Hall Seminary.