The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-02 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Pilgrimage in the Pyrenees and Landes. By Denys
Shyne Lawlor. One vol. pp. 634. Longman, Green,
and Co.
The true-hearted Irishman who wrote this book penned
the dedication of it upon last New Year's Day. He inscribed
it to his beloved daughter—the daughter-in-law of the
' Liberator—the wife of the younger Daniel O'Connell, of
"wild Darynane." Originally jotted down page by page,
and chapter by chapter, in France, the work here under
notice was chiefly transcribed, it seems, under the roof-
beams of the Abbey, henceforth always to be regarded as
L historical, from having been the home of the greatest of
all Irishmen.. As a literary production the volume is in
many ways really remarkable. Its composition through-
' out has evidently been at once a labour of love and a
labour of piety. It is the elaborate record of a series of
veritable pilgrimages. Localities eminently, some among
them pre-eminently, picturesque are herein described with
the most loving, the most tender, and the most reverential
admiration. Legends and traditions, many of them exqui-
sitely beautiful, have been treasured up by the believing
traveller precisely as they have been related him by those
tO whom those legends and traditions have come floating
down orally from generation to generation. Anything like
faith nowadays, anything like an absolute childlike credence
in the past and the present and the future, exercises a fascina-
tion over a thoughtful reader, in this age of cynical un-
belief, as irresistible of its kind as that wielded by the
Ancient Mariner over the marriage guest who beat his
breast when he "heard the loud bassoon." And a credence,
a faith, precisely of that unoonditional and unquestioning
kind inspires the every thought, emotion, and sentiment
of Mr. Denys Shyne Lawlor in first of all writing, and
afterwards in recording these Pilgrimages of his in the
Landes and the Pyrenees. Vado in ter'r'ain visionis is
his chosen motto, And, opening the book, we
accept it—we go with him into the land of visions. Fol-
lowing one after another in his footsteps we witness and
realize as we track them what De Lugreze has referred to
in his Pelerinages des Pyrenees—"le charme des souvenirs
religieux, la vieille chroniques des montagnards, la
legende d'autrefois, naive mais touchante peinture d'une
pidte simple et profonde," Under an overwhelming do-
mestic affliction, Mr. Shyne Lawlor went in 1867 to
Biarritz, accompanied by his daughter. Staying at
Biarritz he there had placed in his . hands the Abbd
Fourcade's book in relation to " La grotto de Lourdes." To
Lourdes, as a not usnatural consequence, he him-
self proceeds soon afterwards. In this simple
manner begun, he afterwards continued step
by step his Pyrennean Pilgrimages. Lourdes,
Nestes, 316dous, Bourisp, T-14as, Poeylahufi, Pidtat, Sar-
ranee, Garaison, Bdtharram—those are the pearls strung
on the thread of his narrative. Chapters he has after-
wards on St. Vincent de Paul, on St. Savin, on St.
Aventin d'Aquitaine, on St. Bertrand de Comminges.
Buglose he visits, and the Refuge, nearly midway, this
latter, between Biarritz and Bayonne. As descriptive of
a comprehensive series of pilgrimages through the Landes
and the Western Pyrennees, the work appears to be as
complete as it is certainly profoundly interesting. We have
already spoken of it as, briefly, a labour of love. We
should now add that it is also assuredly, on the part
the author an act of expiation or of reparation. In his
hot youth, he tells us how towards the close of the intro-
duction, it was his misfortune to publish a poem, described
by a friendly critic as containing within it " a large and
disproportionate admixture of strong passion, languishing
sentiment, voluptuous description, and fierce and menac-
ing politics." In remorseful recollection of this, it is, that
he has slung gourd over shoulder and gone forth staff in
hand, with scallop shell and broad-leafed palmer hat,
on his southern pilgrimages. In a somewhat kindred
spirit we may imagine, though not nearly so lovingly and
tenderly, Thomas Moore, in remorseful remembrance of
certain ditties of his, penned by him, as
Thomas Little, went forth years ago in the
character of "An Irish gentleman in search of a Religion "
Altogether Mr. Shyne Lawlor's book is in many respects
charming, and in these days, when the war clouds a're

OUR COTEMPORARIES---This Morning.
THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND THE WAR.
The Times is not satisfied with the declaration of the
Government. We are bound, it says, if ever a nation
was bound, to repel violations of the neutrality and inde-
pendence of Belgium, and the real point at issue last
night, the gist of the whole matter, was whether
it was vise to recognize in the face of Europe
the extent of our obligations and to pro-
claim our intention of fu,filling them. Mr. Glad-
stone, in his reply to Mr. Disraeli, dexterously
ignored the question. No word that could be interpre-
ted in any way as referring to Belgium . escaped his
lips, and in his second speech, later in the
evening, he said he could give no more explicit
assurance, hoving given none before. It is apparently
the opinion of the Cabinet that safety, if not wisdom,
if found in concealing their intentions, or, as it is
more plausibly expressed, in abstaining from threats.
Recent experience ought to have warned them of
the futility of a policy which is, in truth, not merely
idle, but dangerous. What can result from it except
an increased conviction on the Continent that we shall
under no circumstances fulfil our pledges ? What
could result from a frank statement of our serious
resolution but a disyosition to think twice before
a danger now counted as imaginary should be
provoked ? A distinct recognition of the duties
of England by the Prime Minister of England could give
umbrage to no one, while it might check at the out-
set movements that might otherwise go so far that
it would be impossible to arrest them. Everything con-
spires to encourage—nay, to compel—a British Minister
to declare his resoution to maintain its neutrality inviolate.
Those who took part in the debate last night were not
a few, and yet among them all only two were found,
one of them the member of the Society of Friends and
the other a Secretary or ex- Secretary of the Peace
Society, to approve Mr. Gladstone's reticence, while the
feeling of a House unusually large for the first day of
August was clearly shewn in favour of a declaration that
should be frank and precise, without being violent or
threatening.
The Standard remarks that the strength and the real
contribution to the public service of Mr. Disraeli's speech,
beyond this insistance upon the obligations of England,
lay in the eloquent protest he delivered against the whole-
sale and mischievous reductions of the army and navy
made by the present Government in the last
two years, and in the knowledge of the serious
dangers menacing the peace of Europe. Mr.
Gladstone, says the projet de trait 4, came upon him
as a shock. But surely Mr. Gladstone could not have
been in ignorance of the very awkward state
of affairs upon the Continant. He must have
known that an event like this—which has sur-
prised and startled him—has been imminent
any month within the last four years ; and knowing
that the reduction in the strength of the army and navy
for which he is responsible exhibits either a blind confi-
dence in the moderation of Powers engaged in what it is
the fashion to call a life or death struggle, or a disre-
gard of the public interest to serve a party purpose,
whatever explanation may be accepted, the conduct of the
Government in these wholesale reductions of our
military and naval strength is indefensible. They
were made either in an ignorance which is inexcusable or
in a disregard of warnings to which a much stronger word
should be applied.
The Telegraph considers that Mr. Disraeli's speech last
night on the present war, and the position of England, in
one respect was disappointing. It was anticipated that the
gravity of the crisis would have made him altogether lay
aside considerations of party, and speak with the response •
bility of a statesman who has already been Prime Minister
of England, and who may again fill that position. In
the early part of his speech, it is true, the expectation
was amply fulfilled. Mr. Disraeli reviewed the causes
which have led to the war with a calmness and a dignity
worthy at once of himself and of the occasion. The
irony of which he is a master was put to a legitimate
use when he disdainfully refused to believe that
the greatest contest of modern times had been
produced by such trivial causes as " a breach of eti-
quette at a watering-place." Nothing could be more
courteous or more cutting than the terms in which
Mr. Disraeli rebuked fhe authors of the present
deplorable conflict ; and no one has expressed the
national feelings in words of greater dignity than
those which made up the first part of his speech.
But, on passing from the conduct of France and Prussia
to the responsibilities of England and the policy of the
Government, the right hon. gentleman relapsed into faults
which too often characterise his chief oratorical efforts—
and his argument became fantastic. With his usual
force and point, Mr. Osborne advocated an increase
of the Army, and spoke in tones suggestive of
battle ; but the remarks of Mr. Cardwell and
Mr. Childers on the state of the army and the
navy might assure the most bellicose of members that
there is no danger of our being taken unawares. All the
world knows what we should do if Belgium were attacked;
and we need not be continually shouting words of war
from the housetop. Meanwhile the duty of the Govern-
ment is to guard against danger—that of the Opposition
to refrain from partisan attacks.
The Daily News says that although Mr. Disraeli's
speech is susceptible of consideration under three heads,
namely, the historical part, the diplomatic part, and the
part relating to the condition of our armaments, the third
must be regarded as its body, while the other two
are merely appendages or limbs. Upon it, if upon
anything, the case against the Government was evidently
to be rested ; not, indeed, in the spirit of an implacable
censor, but in the less forbidding temper of a candid friend.
The circumstances that at an earlier portion of the sitting
Mr. Cardwell had brought up his supplementary estimates
for £2,000,000 over and above the ordinary supplies
and a further provision of 20,000 men to be retained
(luring the war in Europe, tended in a great measure
to deprive Mr. Disraeli's observations of any
pungency which they might have otherwise possessed.
Mr. Disraeli was very anxious to hear something of our
strong Channel fleet, of our dockyards, of the
forts raised at an incredible expense to protect
our arsenals, of the armaments of these forts, of
the state of our stores, and of the manning of our
regiments. With respect to all these questions
Mr. Gladstone was ready with replies which must have
appeared as satisfactory to him as they must certainly
seem to the public. "We challenge comparison," Mr.
Gladstone affirmed, "comparison either of one service
or the other, with the condition in which we
found it when we took office. On the whole,
we have every reason to be contented with
the condition of the national defences, which, with the
augmentations already proposed, will be quite adequate
to support the best secured neutrality, and might, if the
calamity should fall on us quickly, expand into force quite
adequate to sustain us in the struggle.
THE HESITATION IN THE WAR.
The Times endeavours to account for the delay in the
forward movement of the French army after all is
ready. As political circumstances are now completely
altered ; as the war is between France and all Germany,
and the line of operations is extended from the fifty miles
of the Saar frontier to the sixty miles border of the Palati-
nate, and to the course of the Upper Rhine from Lauterbourg
to Basle for a length of ahundred miles, some graat change
may possibly have been made in the Emperor's strategy.
But it must be observed that a change of front in presence
of an enemy is never an easy operation. Railways, which
are of great use for the condensation of troops at the open-
ing of a campaign and before war is declared, are not
sufficient for the conveyance of troops when the danger of
an enemy's attack involves the necessity of moving them
in large bodies. The French campaigns seem to have
been originally undertaken under the influence of cir- •
cumstances which have already passed away. It is per-
haps too early to see whether the plan will be adhered
to in spite of the altered state of affairs, or whether
a new line of operations may be suggested. Whatever
arguments may be put forward to account for the present
delay, it is natural to ascribe it to " the obstacles of
various description " with which, according to the Em-
peror Napoleon, the enemy's soil is " bristling ;" those
obstacles which threaten to snake the struggle a "long
and severe one."