The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Manual of the Lives of the Popes. By John Charles
Earle. One Vol. Pp. 270. Richardson and
Son.
Mr. Earle's charmingly succinct and entertain-
ing, as well as instructive, Manual is a sort of
Ranke in little. It is the epitome in a few pages—
in less than 300 pages—of the history of the not far
short of 300 Popes of whom Macaulay wrote
years ago in the Edinburgh (when reviewing
"Ranke") as of "that august dynasty," the consecu-
tive line of which extends back until, as he expressed
it, it "was lost in the twilight of fable.". "From
St. Peter to Pius IX." are the explanatory words
which Mr. Earle has appended to the very title of
his book as it appears there upon his title-page. From
St. Peter to Pius IX.—from A.D. 33 to A.D. 1816—
from the first Pope to the two hundred and fifty-
ninth—from the beginning of the first century
of the Christian era to the middle of the
nineteenth. The larger part of the work, as he
tells us himself, in his modest little, almost de-
precatory, Preface, has previously appeared some-
where—he does not say when,—in a periodical
publication. It is here reproduced in a collective
form, and, as far as possible, in a form very care-
fully completed. It is anecdotal. It is entirely
uncontroversial. It is—as strictly as it well could
be rendered so—purely and exclusively historical.
It is steadily sequential throughout—carrying the
record down, link by link, reign after reign, ago
after age, pontificate after pontificate. Every-
thing relating to the Papacy is touched upon—facts
and fables—the mythical Pope Joan and the
heroic Hildebrand. Supplemented to the text of
the work are several very acceptable Indices—one
of these being an alphabetical list of the
Popes, beginning with Adeodatus, and ending
with St. Zozimus—another being a chrono-
logical catalogue of their llolinesses ani
another an index of General Matter relating to the
one great subject of the book, matter so generalised
indeed in its character as to include within it such
names as those of Rienzi and Mazzini, of Haroun
Alraschid and Napoleon Bonaparte. Questions of
peculiar historical interest will be found to have
been very clearly epitomised and elucidated by Mr.
Earle often in just half a dozen sentences very well
worth the reading : such questions, let us say, as
those relating respectively to the Time of Keeping
Easter, to the rise of the Greek Schism, to the
adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, to the five
Propositions of Janrsenius, to the (Ecumenical
Councils, and to the habitation for so long an
interval of the subterranean world of the Cata-
combs. The record—even as it is here given,
given slightly, that is to say, though it is, in this
brief and unpretentious narrative—is one that
carries the reader's imagination back, as by a single
flight, across the wide span of the eighteen centu-
ries intervening between the present hour and the
very dawn of the Christian epoch. Regarding it
from this point of view alone, the History of the
Popes possesses in itself an extraordinary interest
and value of its own in the eyes of every thought-
ful student of Modern History, of the whole his-
tory, indeed, of Christendom, from its beginning
downwards. For connecting together the more
important facts consituting, so to speak, the salient
points in that enthralling and momentous history,
and presenting them anew to us in a popularized
form, the readers of this Manual of Mr. Earle's can-
not but feel indebted to him for the evident assi-
duity with which he has devoted himself to the
grateful task of its intelligent compilation.

THE SECOND NUMBER OF "THE ST. STEPHENS."

—The New Political Weekly Magazine, recently
commenced by Mr. Bentley, her Majesty's Publisher
in Ordinary, more than simply confirms, it enhances
and advances the very favourable impression pro-
duced upon our judgment on our very areful exam-
nation of No. I. It is even bulkier than its predeces-
sor. Tile purchaser gets more for his money, and
certainly, to adopt the poet Philips' phrase, obtains
a " Splendid Shilling" 's
-worth. After a comment
upon the vexed question of the hour—that relating
in one and the same breath to " Ministerial
Responsibility and Reform"—The St. Stephen's
Chronicle gives an account of " Fenian Dis-
turbances"—and a " Summary of Events of the
Week," a translation of the " Speech of the Em-
peror of the French," together with extracts from
some of the leading journals in regard to "Govern-
ment Policy," to 4, Our Poor Law," and to ,t The
Reform Demonstration"—the whole number wind-
ing up with a full and copious Report of the Pro-
ceedings and Debates in Parliament. The accuracy
of this report, upon the whole, appears to us to be
highly commendable : though, oddly enough, in two
instances we cannot but fancy that we detect 3
curious discrepancy between what is here said
to have fallen from the lips, and what
actually seemed in our own hearing to fall from
the lips of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
on Monday week. As we at any rate under-
stood Mr. Disraeli to say, while listening to that
speech of his in the House of Commons, he de-
scribed the Government of last year, not as he is
here reported to have done, as a " moderate Liberal
Government," but as " an immoderate Liberal Go-
vernment"—the sentence running (as we heard It,
or fancied that we heard it)—" In the year 1866
there was a—a Government which I will, notwith-
standing the present rage for analysis, describe ao,
an immoderate Liberal Government, &c., &e.
Again, surely, the /closing words of his peroration
were, " and the wealth of nations is"—not as he is
here reported to have expressed it, " a thing of cor-
ruption and decay," but—" the lees of corruption
and decay." Otherwise, than in these two instances,
however, we have nowhere been able to detect the
slightest inaccuracy in these, as we have aheady
described them, full and copious reports of the pro'
ceedings and debates in Parliament.
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER'S LlONS—after having
been criticised and photographed, one would think.,
from every imaginable point of view—have just nevr,,
elicited a rhythmical tribute from " An Old Sailor,
who affects (in his mode of putting it forth)
to be no other than Nelson himself. The lines t°
which we are referring, and for the original publi-
cation of which we are indebted to one of our Glow*
cestershire contemporaries—the Looker on of Chch
tenham—we are tempted to transfer, as it were,
from the top of the Nelson column to the middle (/'
one of our own. One of the rhymes we can't help
wincing at—to wit, iron and lion—but otherw!so
i
the verses may pass muster as a sequel to the
d'csprit given in the same quarter, and apparetlVe
from the same hand, a year and a half ago— t“0
sequel (as we have called it) now given to that Jeo
d'esprit running as follows—signed "An
sailor," dated from the "Athenaeum, 31st January'
—and under the subjoined heading :-
1867—NELSON LOQUITUR.

Bravo, my Boy ! you've heard my voice,
Let every British Tar rejoice,
You've nobly won tho fight!
Lot Englan I speak, and proudly toll
Who did the deed, and did it well,
Sir Edwin Landseer, Knight !

Your paint may fade—your canvass rot,
They each may pass, tho' no'er forgot,

But bronze can never die,*
When touched by Genius such as thine,
It wins on earth a life divino,
An immortality.

Tho' wooden walls are changed to iron,
In hearts of oak the British Lion,

Majestic—calm—and grand—
Still lives to guard in stern reposo
Our native laud from all her foes.
As imaged by your hand.

Tho' lost the form, and hushed the roar
Of cannon which aro seen no more,
Their soul and spirit live,
The past, and future, both are shrived
In forms which show your gifted mind,

And you alone could giyo! 10r
* According to his way of thus putting it,
-I a,
ever, 4, An Old Sailor" must think rather deprco' t
tingly, we are left to imagine, of the familiar Wi
of Horace about a certain very different Illeilv:)r
indeed, acre perennius !—ED. SUN.

l Ole
The winter general meeting of the Nationa j.tyr,
Association will be hold at Willis's Rooms on Wodesou'li.v
the 13th of March, at 2.30 ; his Royal flightless the
"1 Cambridge in the chair.