was, or ever will be, found immaculate. At least, there seen through the obscuring glasses of friendship-on should be presented on the other side such examples of another, most scandalous anecdotes of Charles IV. of piety and virtue-such lessons of wisdom and truth-as Spain, the queen, and the "Prince of the Peace;"-and have been furnished by the Church, which is placed upon again still more outrageous on dits of the Prussian Court, its trial; and if this were done, the Catholics would cer- Ferdinand, and the handsome chamberlain, Schmettau, tainly not lack a powerful counterpoise, to the mass of who annually announced to the king the birth of a prince, odium and reproach that is heaped in the other scale. and received for answer from his master on the third announcement. “Schmettau trois ! c'est assez."

The fact is, that the Catholic church is the oldest in Christendom-it has been longest and most intimately associated with the State-it has grown up in the darkest ages of Christianity-it has possessed the largest secular power-it has amassed the greatest wealth. In all these respects, the Protestant churches have been, more or less, contrasted with it. They have struggled into existence from poor beginnings, amid difficulties and dangers, discouraged by the government, jostled and impeded by one another, and never attaining the possession of unbounded power and exhorbitant wealth, such as those enjoyed by the Church of Rome. But, just in proportion as they have acquired these great objects of human desire, in the same degree has the purity of the Church been the sufferer: in the same degree, have pride, luxury, sloth, intolerance, and cruelty, reared their fronts in the holy temples of the Prince of Peace. And, if the Protestants have fewer and less gross errors to be purged out of their churches, they owe it to the kind Providence which ordained that they should be planted in an age of more light, and should flourish amid influences more favourable to the preservation of their original spirit. Let us not, therefore, boast ourselves of our superiority, which is not of ourselves : but rather, while we view with satisfaction the changes which are silently wrought in the Church of our Catholic brethren by the spirit of religious freedom, let us look narrowly into the defects of original construction, and the breaches which have been made by time, in the fabric of

our own.

FOREIGN REMINISCENCES. By Henry Richard, Lord Holland. Edited by his son Henry Edward, Lord Holland. New York. Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff street. 1851.

If the reader, however, once consents to yield himself to Lord Holland's guidance, he will find the anecdotes, on dits and personal details of the exalted personages who figure in these pages, very entertaining. In a historical point of view too they are valuable as transcripts from the diary of a man who was "a part of all that he had met," who knew intimately the prominent characters of his day, and whose recollections, though obscured in some degree by personal likes and dislikes, bear the stamp of the author's upright and truthful character.

Morris and Brother have the book for sale.

THE BALLADS AND SONGS of William Pembroke Mulchinock. New York: Published by T. W. Strong, No. 98 Nassau Street. 1851.

Several of the pieces which compose this volume were written for the Messenger, and our readers have therefore had the opportunity already afforded them of making up an opinion upon Mr. Mulchinock's powers as a poet. For ourselves we rate him, if not among the first, yet as far above the middle class of rhymers, although, assuredly, the contents of the present work are rather to be taken as an earnest of what Mr. Mulchinock can do, than as efforts upon which he would be willing to rest his fame. Very great facility of versification and rare choice of epithets are what strike us most forcibly as the good points of the author. On the other hand, a somewhat too diffuse expression of a single thought, the result of haste in composition, is the most frequent blemish that we notice. But we are not disposed to look for faults in the verses of one who writes for his daily bread, and who can not therefore permit his MSS. to undergo the mellowing process which Henry Richard, Lord Holland, was a favorite with his Horace recommends. Mr. Mulchinock is a young Irishgeneration and his name is still, to all who came in con- man whom the political disturbances of his native land tact with him during his long life, a synonyme for every have driven to our shores, and upon whose exertions dething upright and excellent. To a spirit as guileless as a pends the support of a wife and children. We could wish child's, and a warmth of heart which never lost sight of him a more lucrative profession than that of poet, in an those to whom his friendship had once been given, he uni- age and country so utilitarian as our own, but we are not ted a consistency in politics seldom met with in the trou- without hopes that the peculiar circumstances of the case blous times in which he lived. For forty years he remain- will ensure him a handsome reward for his present labor. ed a staunch Liberal without varying or shadow of turn-One piece of advice, Mr. Mulchinock will permit us to give ing, and though his talents were not of the first order, his observations display a faculty of accurate discrimination and an insight into human motives, highly creditable to his intellect and character.

him and we offer it with all respect. Having contended so long with the evils of a bad government, it is but natural that Mr. Mulchinock's feelings and sympathies upon becoming the citizen of a republic, should be democratic (we use the word in no party sense) and he has given utterance to them boldly and becomingly in his "Chaunts for Toilers." But there is danger, we think, that he may be hurried away by his impulse into the ranks of the ultraists whose fevered and fitful complainings have found the way to the common ear, always too open to such addresses, as well through the ringing lines of the versifier as in the editorial columns of socialistic newspapers. We fear our young friend has got into bad company when he fraternizes with Greeley and Whittier—and we caution him above all not to write anything upon Slavery until he has made himself acquainted with the Southern On one page we have an account of Talleyrand in which people. We offer this friendly admonition not because that delectably cold-blooded, selfish and treacherous time- we think Mr. Mulchinock's verses will be apt to endanger server is made out every thing upright, truthful and pure- the stability of our domestic institutions, but because we

The "Reminiscences," however, in our opinion, have been somewhat overrated. They have naturally challenged extensive notice for the new light thrown upon many of the events and personages of the French Revolution, but this attention they must have excited under any circumstances-the literary merits of the work had nothing to do with it. Lord Holland writes in but an indifferent style, and his ideas spurn all connection whatsoever; he flits from subject to subject-from France to Spain, from Talleyrand to Charles and Ferdinand, without connecting in the reader's mind by so much as a hurried sentence the sequence of events.

feel an interest in him, and would dislike to see him ren- | means, that this volume is as satisfactory to the admirer der himself ridiculous. His present efforts are altogether unexceptionable and we commend them most heartily to public appreciation.

It is only necessary for us to say of this work that it belongs to the excellent classical series of Drs. Schmitz and Zumpt, which have met with such large and merited MARY BELL; By the author of the Rollo Books. New success from one end of the country to the other. It is neatly and carefully printed, of convenient size for the school-boy, and the fact of its being approved by the learned German doctors whose names we have just mentioned, is a sufficient voucher for its value as a lexicon. It may be obtained of Morris & Brother.

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As to the character of the reports of the " Law Journal" and " The Jurist," but little need be said. They were established to furnish the profession with the actual decision of causes, and the reasoning of the Court thereupon, with a clear, concise, and sufficient abstract of the facts, without the prolix arguments of counsel usually found in the late English Reports. They are not encumbered with Nisi Prius decisions, but contain only those cases argued and decided in banc, and upon mature consideration. In England these Reports are regarded as of high authority, and are cited with approbation and respect in the English Courts, and by their most eminent elementary writers. They are regularly digested and inserted in the Annual Digests of Harrison, and others, and have received the express sanction of distinguished English Judges. They are cited with confidence, and as authority, in the judicial opinions of Judge Story, and other eminent American Judges, and in the writings of Greenleaf, Kent, Angell, Phillips, Chitty, and others; and, for accuracy, clearness, and brevity are believed to be equal to any English Reports now published. The publishers feel confident that the low price of this series, combined with the promptness and regularity with which the latest decisions will here be offered to the profession, cannot fail to recommend it as a useful and desirable publication.

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