The life of Las Casas is scarcely less eventful and interesting. Las Casas was the first bishop of Chiapa, in Mexico, and probably the first priest ordained on the American continent. He was one of those Spaniards who labored sincerely for the welfare of the Indians. Nearly fifty years he spent in advancing the spiritual and temporal interests of this rude and savage people. He wrote several works exposing the cruelties and injustice of the Spaniards toward them. He crossed the ocean five times to plead their cause before the Spanish court. At that time many Spaniards wished to reduce the natives of the West Indies to slavery. Las Casas once argued this question before the royal council, and, in spite of the eloquence of Sepulveda, the Spanish Cicero, he gained his point. The subjects of Spain were forbidden to make slaves of the Indians, or to retain those in slavery of whom they then held possession. Even in the history of the church, there have been few so untiring as Las Casas in their devotion to a noble object. Charlevoix said of him that he “had an excess of virtue." He died in Madrid at the advanced age of ninety-two. He was a priest for forty-two years, a bishop for twenty-four years, and a missionary among the Indians for nearly half a

century.

Both of these books are suitable for holiday presents. They are well written and handsomely printed.

GOD. Conferences by Lacordaire. New York: Scribner, Welford & Co. 1870. Pp. 260.

JESUS CHRIST. Conferences by Lacordaire. New York: P. O'Shea. 1871. Pp. 301.

The power of the great Dominican orator is shown by the increasing desire to know more of his life and his works. These two volumes will give the American reader a very fair idea of the character of his preaching in Notre Dame. conferences upon God, and, indeed, those upon Jesus Christ, are intend

The

ed to meet the objections of Parisian atheists and infidels. In these conferences he proves the existence and inner life of God; man's relations to the Creator; and he refutes the efforts of rationalism to deny pervert, or explain the life of our Blessed Redeemer. As oratorical compositions, the conferences upon Jesus Christ are considered the finest given by Lacordaire. Their perusal would do a great deal toward counteracting the infidel and materialistic tendencies of our country.

SONGS OF HOME. Selected from Many Sources, with Numerous Illustrations from Original Designs. I vol. 4to. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1871.

A beautiful volume containing selections from different poets, edited with judgment and taste, and elegantly illustrated. Nothing could be more appropriate for a holiday gift.

ROSA ABBOTT STORIES. The Pinks and Blues; or, The Orphan Asylum. By Rosa Abbott, author of "Jack of All Trades," "The Young Detective," etc Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard, New York: Lee, Shepard & Dilling. ham. 1871.

A very pleasant, lively story, and nicely illustrated.

THE HELPING HAND SERIES

The Little

Maid of Oxbow. By May Manning. author of "Climbing the Rope," "The little Spaniard," etc. Boston: Lee & Shepard. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1871.

The story of a very lovable little girl, well written and finely illus

trated.

THE PROVERB SERIES. A Wrong Cesfessed is Half-Redressed. By Mrs. Bradley, author of "Birds of a Fea ther," etc.-One Good Turn deserves Another.-Actions speak Louder than Words. Boston: Lee & Shepard. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1871.

These books are great favorites with the young folks, and deserve to

abiding trust in God, and a filial devotion to Mary, Mother of Mercy.

IRISH FIRESIDE TALES. By Robert D. Joyce, M.D. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

We originally made the acquaintance of these tales in Irish periodical literature. They seem to have improved with age. They are very neatly got up, and they will doubtless long continue to enliven many a fireside.

THE PATRANAS LIBRARY. Spanish Stories, Legendary and Traditional. Fourvolumes, illustrated. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

A beautiful little series which is no less instructive than entertaining. Nations in their legends and traditions more than aught else hold the mirror up to nature, and pervading these quaint tales we behold the noble spirit of Old Spain, her spotless chivalry, her unstained loyalty, and her heroic and indomitable Catholicity.

THE BLACK PROPHET. A Tale of the Irish Famine. By William Carleton. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

As a delineator of the lights and shadows of Irish life, Carleton has few equals, and perhaps no superior. Such being the verdict alike of reader and critic, there is no necessity for an elaborate notice of the volume before us.

CORNELL'S PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY: accompanied with nineteen pages of maps, a great variety of map questions, and one hundred and thirty diagrams and pictorial illustrations; and embracing a detailed description of the physical features of the United States. By S. S. Cornell. New York: D. Ap. pleton & Co.

This completes the well-known and popular "Cornell's Series of Geographies." As a text-book, we have no doubt it will prove attractive to the pupil and satisfactory to the teacher.

WONDERFUL BALLOON ASCENTS; or, The Conquest of the Skies. A History of Balloons and Balloon Voyages. From the French of F. Marion, with Illustrations. WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL IN ALL AGES AND ALL COUNTRIES. Translated and enlarged from the French. By Charles Russel. Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

We have here two new volumes of the "Library of Wonders." The one on Balloons is most interesting, as showing that, notwithstanding all the attempts that have been made for the last seventy years to navigate the air, human invention in that department has not advanced. A complete history of such attempts are given. The work on Bodily Strength and Skill takes up a wider and more extensive range, and goes into the history of such feats in all ages and centuries.

DICK MASSEY. A Tale of the Irish Evictions. By T. O'Neill Russell. GLENVEIGH; or, The Victims of Vengeance.

A Tale of Irish Peasant Life in the Present. By Patrick Sarsfield Cassidy. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

Irish evictions individual and wholesale ejectments-the iniquities of the landlord, the brutality of the bailiff, the sufferings of families thrown homeless and, humanly speaking, helpless on the cold charities of the world, will, we trust, soon be numbered with things past and forgotten. Full of this hope, and anxious for its speedy realization, as one great stride toward the permanent prosperity of Ireland, we need hardly say that we derived greater pleasure from our perusal of Dick Massey, the author's object being, while deploring, to allay the strifes and distractions of his native land, than from the sad tale of Glenveigh, the author of which tells his countrymen "to blow out the brains of every whining knave who presents himself as a fit and proper per son to be your representative beggar at the gates of the brutal British parliament." Yielding to none in

love for and sympathy with "Old Ireland," we unhesitatingly pronounce such friends as the author of Glenveigh her real enemies.

PIANO AND MUSICAL MATTER. By G. de la Motte. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

A glance at the contents of this work will astonish any one. The amount of "musical matter" there promised at least a partial notice or treatment in a volume of less than 150 pages is prodigious. We do not say that each subject is fully treated, but we do say that in no work of this kind with which we have any acquaintance can one gain a more concise and intelligible explanation of which it behooves a musician to know than in this deservedly popular book. It is a most useful compendium of musical science, arranged in a masterly progressive order of instruction.

LEANDRO; or, The Sign of the Cross Philadelphia: Peter Cunningham. 1870.

The religious sentiments put forth in this book are unexceptionable: the explanations and illustrations of the use of the sign of the cross are instructive, and will serve to im bue the minds of youth with a rough knowledge of the desig the church in her frequent i this precious symbol of ou faith.

The delusions of "mode ism" are here accounted only way in which a Chi look upon them (in so f have a supernatural ori work of the evil one.

The story, however, plot, and strikes the re of clothes-press, in w the best sentiments the author; yet the minds who would r contained in this by them, even thr a medium as a st of style or speci

THE

APOCRYPHAL HISTORY.

THE name of this distinguished pontiff and great sovereign is in English literature popularly associated with the romantic story of a cardinal who throughout long years affected retirement and profound humility, feigned extreme old age and physical weakness, and, racked with a hollow cough, appeared to be fast sinking into the grave. Even crutches were necessary for his support as he tottered along. But these props were thrown aside, and he intoned the Te Deum in a rich, full voice the instant his election to the papal throne was announced. The story, it is hardly necessary to say, is pure fiction, and was never heard of until more than half a century after the death of Sixtus V., who was made its hero.

The Protestant historian of the popes-Professor Ranke-long ago had the good sense to reject it along

• Sixte-Quint. Par M. le Baron De Hübner, ancien ambassadeur d'Autriche à Paris et à Rome. D'après des Correspondances diploma!ques inédites tirées des Archives d'Etat du Vatican, de Simancas, Venise, Paris, Vienne et Florence. Paris. 1870. 3 vols. in-8vo.

with other like inventions. More than this, he declares that, so far from any apparent feebleness of Cardinal Montalto being an inducement to his election, "his comparatively vigorous years were taken into account, he being then sixty-four; for all were persuaded that a man of unimpaired energies, whether physical or mental, was imperatively demanded by the circumstances of the times."

Baron Hübner disposes of the fables referred to even more thoroughly than Professor Ranke, and shows that they all had their common origin in a book (History of Sixtus V.) written by one Gregorio Leti, an apostate priest, sixty years after the death of that pope.

What is known as the Ficaresque style of literature, introduced in Spain by the Lazarillo de Tormes of

Mendoza and the Guzman de Alfaraché of Mateo Aleman, and followed by Le Sage in his Gil Blas— an imitation far more brilliant than any of its originals-was then in vogue; and the hero of every novel was made a smart Macchiavellian rogue, full of expedients, demonstra. tive show of honesty and even of

piety, and great capacity for rascality. This fashion infected English literature to some extent, as may be seen in the productions of Fielding and Smollett, and was imitated by Leti, who strove to make of Felice Peretti a cunning adventurer seeking through discreditable means to attain the object of his ambition. Leti was not without talent, and wielded what is nowadays called a wonderfully facile pen. After his apostasy, he lived successively in Geneva, Paris, London, and Amsterdam, pouring forth books in surprising quantity. He wrote histories of England, of Oliver Cromwell, of Queen Elizabeth, e tutti quanti. Leti threw into his writings a great deal of imagination, was eagerly and immensely read in his day, and in these and in other respects was the worthy predecessor of the latest historian of England, who, yet more widely read than Leti, is destined like him first to be found entirely untrustworthy, and then to be cast aside and totally forgotten.

Leti's history of Sixtus V. was simply a work of fiction, from which, unfortunately for truth, the grotesque mask made for the great Sixtus has been by too many accepted as a por

trait.

With commendable candor, even Ranke rejects Leti as unworthy of credit.

HISTORIC MATERIAL.

For the life of Felice Peretti down to the period of his accession to the throne of St. Peter, the German Protestant historian and Baron Hübner refer to and work up almost the same historical documents. Tempesti's reliable history of Sixtus V., and the diplomatic records in Rome, Paris, and Venice, to which both these

writers had access, form the main body of this material.

But when Professor Ranke wrote

his History of the Popes, the archives of Simancas were not yet opened to scientific research. For the history of Sixtus V. the value and importtance of the Simancas papers le herein the leading political movements in which Sixtus V. was an actor were necessarily to great extent treated by him with Spain, then the leading power of Europe. Now, Sixtus V. had no minister of foreign affairs. With all the ambassadors accredited to his court he negotiated personally, alone, and viva voce. All he wished to say he said in plain terms, and often in the most undiplomatic phrase.

Of all these negotiations, there never was any record in the archives of the Vatican. The foreign ambassadors with whom he treated in all cases made immediate report to their several sovereigns not only of the tenor and substance of the pope's dis course, but of his manner, intonations of voice, gesture, etc., so that many despatches gave, as it were, a living portrait of the great pontiff.

Although, personally, the Venetian ambassadors were more acceptable to Sixtus V. and possessed his confidence and friendship, yet, politically, the influence of Spain was stronger with him, and his secret negotiations with the latter were on the most important questions of the day. Of these negotiations the only record exists in the despatches of the Spanish ambassadors at Rome to Philip II. Hence the importance of the archives of Simancas, the admirable use of which by Baron Hübner gives his work an incontestable superiority. By way of showing the estimate in which Baron Hübner's history is held in the Protestant literary world, we may mention that