SPRING has been celebrated in glowing terms by the poets of all ages, but in the climate of North America, the weather is by no means so mild and delightful, especially in the early part of the season, as it is painted. In Greece and Rome indeed, which were the birthplaces and nurseries of our poetry, the temperature of the air, the pure blue of the sky, the soft green of the opening leaves, the thousand delicate tints of the flowers scattered profusely on swelling hill and sweeping valley, with the perfume they exhale, and the music poured from every grove, all unite to fill the senses with enjoyment. There the descriptions of the enraptured muse are true to nature, and the inhabitants of such latitudes feel that the language of poetry is only a transcript of their own sensations. But it is not so in more northern climates, such as our own. Our bards, indeed, equally kindle when Spring is their theme, but they glow with a borrowed warmth. Their taste and fancy, having been moulded by the Greek and Latin authors, almost unconsciously transport them to the classic ground from which their models drew their images, causing them to breathe, as it were, the same atmosphere, and to luxuriate in the same delicious climate. It would be more gratifying to the acumen of the critic, than pleasing to the feelings of the man of taste, to examine how much of the language and imagery of modern poetry relative to Spring, is drawn from classic ages and classic scenery, and then to estimate what remains of direct inspiration poured into the soul in this changeable and backward climate, from our own earth, and sea, and sky. We have no relish for such an

inquiry, though it seems to be almost forced on the mind in comparing the ethereal mildness and balmy sweets which breathe in Spring, as portrayed by our poets, with the actual experience of our atmosphere, and of the vernal productions of our native soil.

In the commencement of the season, winter not only lingers but rages. Our rivers, ponds, and lakes are still either rigidly bound by icy chains, or only partially disengaged from them; and in some respects the severity of the climate is frequently even more intense than during winter itself. Sometimes the tempest howls with redoubled fury, driving broad flakes of snow through the darkened air, and incumbering the wide earth with its drifted heaps; and while the herds on the low grounds stand forlorn and destitute of food, the flocks on the hills are in danger of finding a sudden grave at the bottom of the precipice, whither they have fled for shelter. At other times, the cold and sleety rain falls in torrents, carrying along with it the snow which it has melted in the mountains, and spreading dismay and ruin over the inundated valleys; and at other times, again, the hoar frost lies thick and chill, and spreads its snowy mantle over hedge and field, while the deep blue sky, and the sun rising in the glowing east, without a cloud, speak deceitfully of to-morrow's softness and beauty.

But notwithstanding the rigors of the climate, there are not wanting, even at the commencement of the season, interesting proofs of the advancing year, and harbingers of a more genial season. The day has already encroached on the long and dreary night, and the sun takes

daily a wider circuit in the heavens. The buds of many trees and flowers have begun to swell; the anemones are in flower, and the crocus spreads its cloth of gold on the sheltered borders; and most interesting of all, the swowdrop, which had for weeks burst through the rigid soil, has now opened its chaste and delicate blossoms to the chilly breeze, and seems to vie in whiteness with the winding-sheet of winter, from which it derives its name.

Among the feathered tribes, the rooks are beginning to obey the first law of nature, and their incessant notes of enjoyment, mingled with the bustle of preparing for the important duties of incubation, everywhere attract the attention of the lovers of nature. The croaking raven, led by a congenial instinct, selects some venerable tree, where she may build a nest; and the sweet songs of the woodlark and chaffinch, mixed with the mellow tones of the blackbird, from the neigh boring groves, delight the ear; while the wren, the titmouse, and hedge sparrow, flutter from spray to spray, and utter their varied notes of gladness, as the sun sheds his warmer rays on wood and field, giving the promise of approaching mildness and fertility. "Turkeycocks now strut and gobble; partridges begin to pair; the house pigeon has young; field crickets open their holes, and wood owls hoot; gnats play about, and insects swarm under sunny hedges; the stone curlew clamors, and frogs croak."

These indications of the advance of Spring precede more unequivocal symptoms of awakening nature. The sun continues longer above the horizon, and the weather, though still unsettled, is sufficiently dry to evaporate the superabundant moisture poured on the earth, at the commencement of the season, in the form of rain or snow, and to favor the various processes of vegetable

life, which are now in active operation, while it prepares the soil for the labors of the husbandman.

The animal tribes now find a delicious repast in the sweet and tender herbage which begins to clothe the sheltered valleys with its soft verdure; and among the innumerable sources of enjoyment which this most interesting of all the seasons affords, perhaps there is none which sheds so sweet a pleasure over the benevolent mind as the universal gladness which, as the weather becomes more genial, sensibly pervades everything that lives. There is a kind of mysterious sympathy which seems to pass from tribe to tribe of the animated world, and to unite them all in one common hymn of gratitude and praise to the bountiful Giver of all good. The lowing of the cattle as they browse on the green fields; the bleating of sheep from heath-clad hills, while their new dropped lambs sport near them, exulting in the consciousness of young existence; the hum of the industrious bees, as they fly from flower to flower collecting their sweet food; and the varied notes of love and joy, pouring from bush and brake, all unite in one harmonious and spirit-stirring chorus. Nay, inanimate nature itself seems conscious of the general joy, and as the sun breaks forth from the genial shower, every blade of grass sparkles in his beams, wood and meadow smile, and the very silence of the clear heavens and swelling earth utters the voice of enjoy

sequences. There is here, therefore, a wise adaptation; but the proper way of viewing it is, not so much to consider the climate adapted to these existences, as them to the climate. There are necessarily great varieties of climates from the equator to the Arctic circle, and in them all we discover a most admirable fitting of the produce and living inhabitants to the conditions of their respective localities; insomuch as, that changes, which would utterly destroy the plants and animals of one climate, only tend to give vitality and health to those of another. For example, fatal effects would ensue in our climate, were the alteration from Winter to Spring to be sudden. And yet nothing can easily be conceived more rapid than the change of temperature from intense cold to genial warmth, in Siberia and other regions verging on the Polar circle; and there the conditions of the animal and vegetable world are such, that the violent impulse is just what was required to bring them hastily into life, and enable them quickly

to fulfil their various functions during their few and fleeting weeks of summer. In the whole economy of nature, there is scarcely anything more worthy of remark, as indicating a designing cause, than this species of adaptation, by which the powers of life are suited to the varying conditions of climate. There is, indeed, something extremely satisfactory, as well as peculiar, not only in this respect, but in the whole plan of creation, exhibiting, as it does, so much uniformity, combined with such variety, a uniformity as to general design, which might even be supposed to indicate poverty of invention, were it not for the amazing skill with which that general design is modified and altered, so as to be rendered suitable to change of circumstances and conditions, the former by its analogy, marking unequivocally one contriving mind, the latter by its endless variety, displaying the all-pervading wisdom and beneficence of unwearying energy and never-exhausted resources.

THE LIFE OF J. THEOPHANE VENARD, MARTYR IN TONQUIN; or, What Love Can Do. Translated from the French by Lady Herbert.

THE LIFE OF HENRY DORIE, MARTYR. Translated from the French of Abbé Baudry, by Lady Herbert. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1873.

St. Joseph's College, at Mill Hill, England, is a large seminary for the training of young ecclesiastics for the special duty of the foreign missions, and Lady Herbert, the well-known English authoress, is one of the most ardent patrons of this noble institution. She endeavors to give a practical proof of her sympathy by the publication of what is known as the Foreign Missionary series of books, the profits arising from the sale of which are devoted to the college in question. The two works on our table are the latest issues of this series, the lives of two of the French missionary martyrs who suffered by the recent bloody persecutions in China and Corea. We might, from the fact that these books are mostly compiled from the letters of the sainted priests themselves, almost designate them as autobiographies. Lady Herbert has evidently selected her subjects with a view of animating the young English seminarists, and even young laics, with a spirit of enthusiastic zeal to emulate the example of their French brethren. Certainly she could not have selected lives better calculated for her purpose than those whose soul-touching histories are before us-lives whose strength sprang from the sweetness of that divine love which influenced their every action.

We think that, apart from the main effect for which these books were intended, we can discern the secondary one, scarcely less important, of popularizing in the public mind what it too often regards with a careless eye, if not as almost a subject of ridicule for its supposed chimerical tendencies, namely, the Foreign Missionary movement. With the former advantage to be gained by those who are destined to bear abroad the gospel of peace, and the latter by the devout Christian in the world, we cannot too strongly recommend to both classes the perusal of these biographies.

CHURCH DEFENCE. Report of a Conference on the Present Dangers of the Church. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1873.

Would anybody ever imagine from the above title that there was anything in this book that was not serious? Would anybody suppose from the appropriate extract from Shakspeare's "Tempest," which graces the title-page

"Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind."

Could any one credit, we repeat, that the "storm brewing" was a storm of laughter, not of terror; that the "singing i' the wind" was only the merry premonitory whistle of that prince of religious jokers, gay Dr. Marshall, backed by the rising chorus of pealing mirth from the future readers of his latest squib against the Anglican Catholics (!) Spurious specimens of Catholicity have no reason to love the Marshall brothers; for while one ized name of "Herr Frolich," is slaying of them, under the appropriate German

with the sword of keenest satire" The old Catholics at Cologne," the irrepressible Doctor, under the dignified title of “Archdeacon Chausable," is never easy unless he is tilting his well-sharpened goosequill against the " Anglican Catholics" nearer home; while the poor victims, like Goldsmith's village boys,

"Full well they laugh, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke has he." But how much longer are these mirthprovoking sallies to continue? Surely the Comedy of Convocation" was enough. Surely My Clerical Friends more than enough; but "No," says the Doctor, "on with the dance," Canon Lightwood and Prebendary Smiles, Archdeacon Softly and Rev. Silas Trumpington, the Professor of Chaldee and Prebendary Creedless, Dean · Marmion and Rev. Mark Weasel, Archdeacon Tennyson and Rev. Cyril Hooker, the Bishop of Dorchester and the Bishop of Brighton, a lively double cotillion, dancing, "with solemn step and slow,” over the ruin of their quartered church. Representatives, these gentlemen, of every shade of that church's beliefHigh Church, Low Church, Broad Church, Ritualist and Anglican unattached, all keeping time to the Doctor's solemn

baton. No wonder if there should have arisen a doubt as to whether Mr. Weasel did wink at Dean Marmion during the entertainment. Of course he did. How could so jocund a gentleman help it? or how can anybody help winking his whole face into "one vast substantial smile," who studies the performance of these reverend disciples of Terpsichore from the pages of Church Defence.

TENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NEW YORK CATHOLIC PROTECTORY to the Legislature of the State and to the Common Council of the City.

In this Report, covering some eighty closely-printed pages, we have an account of one of the greatest charities of modern times; one to which Catholics throughout the country point with pride, and whose workings some of the best minds in the land are now studying. From this pamphlet we glean that visitors are welcome at all hours, and every facility will be given to examine the workings of the institution. There are about 1300 boys and about 450 girls. The great fire which destroyed the buildings of the female department has prevented the complete carrying out of the Sisters' views, but the Brothers' department for boys has surpassed all expectations.

The pamphlet before us is evidence of their skill in the printing department, as are also The Little Schoolmate and Brownson's Quarterly Review, all published in the Protectory printing-rooms. Brothers have been sent from this establishment to open a similar home in Quito, South America, and the rector, Brother Teliow, has been called to several places to give advice in the starting of similar enterprises.

Brother Teliow is a practical man; and how completely he refutes the charges that have been made against this institution by its enemies, will be seen by the following extract from the Report before us:

"For the better information of the public, it may be well to state that the success of the New York Catholic Protectory does not result from the immense appropriations which we are falsely accused of receiving from the city treasury, as some would have it, but rather from its beneficial and economical manage

ment.

The city vouchers show that two similar reformatory institutions, the House of Refuge and the Juvenile Asylum, received respectively $210,000 and $195,000 for building purposes, while our institution was granted but $100,000.

"And in this connection it will not be

irrelevant to state, that the inmates of our Protectory exceed numerically the united totals of these two institutions by SEVEN HUNDRED, whilst our per capita allowance is equal to that only of the last mentioned of them, viz., the Juvenile Asylum.

"Our success must proceed, then, from a different source, namely, from economy and the harmonious working of our system."

WILD TIMES. A Tale of the Days of Queen Elizabeth. By Cecilia Mary Caddell. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1873. Received through Peter F. Cunningham, 216 South Third

Street.

We are of opinion that in order to insure the success of this work it would be only necessary to say that it is from the same gifted pen which gave us, some years ago, that most charming of Catholic novelettes, Blind Agnes, which, albeit a simple little story, has deservedly ranked in profundity with those widely different works, Cardinal Wiseman's Fabiola and Father Boyce's Shandy Maguire. But lest we should be accused of arguing only by analogy of the merits of Miss Caddell's present work, we will say that we were quite unprepared to expect from her so brilliant a romance as WILD TIMES. The narrative displays a richness of scenic description, an easy flow of fine dialogue, a graphic portrayal of characstartling episodes, which, without imter, and a fertility in the invention of pairing the originality of the work, mark it with a strong similarity to some of the finest pages of Walter Scott. The days of Queen Bess were indeed times to try the souls of men of faith, and the able manner in which our authoress has de

picted the heroic constancy of the faithful Catholics in contrast with the debased meanness of the world-blinded recreants of that period, is not the least of the recommendations of this novel. The story is interspersed with several fine poetic gems; The Gipsies' Chorus, The White Rose, and The Song of the Lily-Bells, adding very considerably to the attraction of some of the more effective passages. The binding is neat, and sufficiently beautiful

to make the book an adornment for a drawing-room table.

CONSTANCE AND MARION, OR THE COUSINS. By M. A. B. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.

An interesting little tale, in which love and controversy are very neatly combined. The scenes are laid in Ire