It is an excellent essay marked by no little learning and originality. The American Ecclesiastical Review, of which we have more than once expressed our admiration, published as a supplement to its May Number a "Manual of Ceremonies for the Episcopal Visitation of Parishes, and the Administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation." It contains complete directions about the things to be prepared, the ceremonies and offices of the Visitation and Confirmation, together with special directions for Solemn Mass in presenee of the Ordinary.

12. It is very pleasant to be able, by means of a few drops of ink, to ensure that many hours will through many future years be spent more profitably and more happily by many of our fellow-creatures than they would have been if those few drops of ink had not flowed from the tip of our steel pen. Please God, this is the consequence of any conscientious batch of notes on new books; for, though many let them in through one eye and out through the other—a process more usually assigned to ears- - there are others who act upon our hints and get for themselves or for those under their care the books that we are able to recommend. This will be the case this month with at least one Irish story and two or three American stories; but the book that suggested these last remarks belongs to quite a different category, and we have not the slightest doubt that our account of it will determine many readers to secure a copy. Though it has 630 pages of rather large and very clear type, it is small enough to be carried conveniently to church. "Manual of the Holy Eucharist: Conferences on the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Devotions, with prayers for Mass, Holy Communion, the Hour of Adoration, etc." The publishers are the American firm we have occasion to name so often, Messrs. Benziger Brothers of New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago. This very practical and devout manual has been prepared by the Rev. F. X. Lasance, spiritual director of the Tabernacle Society of Cincinnati, and is earnestly recommended by the Director General of the Priests' Eucharistic League, which, beginning in France, is organised in all the dioceses of the United States, having as its organ the pious little periodical Emmanuel. All the instructions and prayers regard the Blessed Sacrament. Thus thirty-five pages are given to different methods for the devotion now practised by many pious persons, the Hour of Adoration. Not only is help suggested for each quarter of the Holy Hour, but each quarter is divided into three portions, and each five minutes provided for,

13. It is hardly within the scope of these book-notes to express an opinion on the Speech delivered by Mr, Edward Blake, M, P., in the House of Commons, March 29th, 1897, on the Over-taxation of Ireland. It has been published as a sixpenny pamphlet by Sealy, Bryers and

Walker of Dublin, and admirably edited by Mr. Alfred Webb, who has prefixed an index and affixed twelve most useful tables showing the comparative population, capital, revenue, emigration, births, deaths and marriages, etc. of England, Ireland and Scotland, at different dates during the last century. We extract one sentence. "Though Ireland still has a population of between one-seventh and one-eighth of Britain's, the number of her railway passengers is but one thirtyseventh; of tous of railway freight, one-seventieth; of telegrams oneeighteenth, and of money and postal orders, one nineteenth-facts which prove her comparative stagnation."

14. We must end by merely announcing the most important addition that Irish Literature has received for many a day-Dr. Sigerson's Bards of the Gall and the Gael, Examples of the Literature of Erin done into English according to the Metres and Modes of the Original." Dr. Sigerson dedicates his work to Sir Charles Gavan Duffy as representing the Gael, and to Dr. Douglas Hyde as representing the Gall. The publisher, Mr. Fisher Unwin, has produced this most valuable aud interesting volume elegantly, and even sumptuously. It is fully worthy of the care bestowed upon it. Happy and ingenious beyond the common is the choice of mottoes that adorn the first pages and of the colophon that winds up the whole.

Finally, Messrs. Browne and Nolan of Dublin have published "Another China: Notes on the Celestial Empire as viewed by a Catholic Bishop." It is called "Another China," as the country with which it deals is in many respects distinct from the China of bookmaking travellers. Monsignor Reynaud is a Vincentian Bishop and an enthusiast in favour of the capabilities of the Chinese race. His account has, with great skill, been partly translated and partly edited by Miss M. T. Kelly. There are eight full-page illustrations, curious and interesting. The price is 1s. 6d. The comparison between

Catholic and Protestant missions is interesting.

15. We had brought these book-notes to an end for this month when Messrs Brown and Nolan of Nassau Street, Dubiin, forwarded to us a stately royal octavo volume too important and too interesting to be left unmentioned till our next Number: "The Irish University Question, the Catholic Case-Selections from the Speeches and Writings of the Archbishop of Dublin." These selections have been made by Ilis Grace himself, who has prefixed an historical sketch of all the vicissitudes through which the University Question has already run up to the present. Except these fifty pages, and an introduction of twenty pages dated March 13, 1897 which brings the discussion down to the present moment, the work consists of the public discourses and letters in which the Archbishop of Dublin has treated of the claims of

Irish Catholics to University Education since his appointment in 1885 down to the present time. The order of arrangement is chronological, though unfortunately in the admirable table of contents-which occupies nine compact pages-the very first speech is by a mistake of the printer, dated 1895. Extracts from the speeches of Mr. Morley and Mr. Balfour, and other documents are given when necessary to explain the practical bearings of the Archbishop's arguments. It is evident that this important volume must needs be studied by every public or private person who aspires to understand the actual state of the question of the Higher Education of Catholics in Ireland.

THE DEATH OF FATHER CLORIVIERE.

LONGFELLOW begins one of his ballads in this businesslike

fashion:

"In Mather's Magnalia Christi,

Of the old colonial time,
You may find in prose the legend

That is here set forth in rhyme.

On the contrary, the death which I am now going to describe in prose was the subject of a little poem which I published in the English Messenger of the Sacred Heart more than a quarter of a century ago under the title of "The Death of Claude Cloriviére." But that name was a mistake. Perhaps the Apostle of the Sacred Heart, the Venerable Claude Colombiére, who lived more than a hundred years earlier, was running through my head, for I gave his Christian name to Father Peter Joseph Picot de Cloriviére.

Father Cloriviére lived from 1735 to 1820 and was in France what Father Betagh was in Ireland, the link between the Fathers of the Society of Jesus who flourished before and those who flourished after the Suppression of the Society and the revolutionary era. His life, full of interesting vicissitudes, and bristling with interesting names, has been written by Father James Terrien, in a fine volume of more than seven hundred royal octavo pages; but we are only concerned with his death.

It occurred in the first month of the year 1820, when he was 85 years old. His health was good. In the evening of January

8, he joined gaily in the community recreation, performed his usual exercises of piety, and received sacramental absolution from his ordinary confessor, Father Ronsin. The next day, Sunday, he rose as usual-so Father Terrien states explicitly-a little before three o'clock made his meditation, and at four o'clock in spite of the cold which was very severe, he went to the domestic chapel to visit the Blessed Sacrament with the community. It was remarked afterwards that, instead of placing himself in a corner near the window as he had been in the habit of doing, he knelt down in front of the Tabernacle, leaning on the altar rails, his head bent within his hands, as he went on praying fervently. After quarter of an hour, two lay brothers who were kneeling near heard a slight waile-his crucifix had escaped from his hands. One of them, Brother Pelissier, from his attitude grew afraid that the old man had fainted, went over to him, placed him in a chair, and gave the alarm. His confessor and the other Fathers were soon around him. It isnot mentioned whether Father Ronsin tried to administer Extreme Unction.

The bench at which he prayed his last prayer has been preserved as a precious relic, and bears this inscription:

Hoc in Schemate

Coram SS. Sacramento
Summo mane hora diei quarta

Summa hieme die Januarii nona

Anno MDCCCXX

Obiit

R. P. Petrus Picot de Cloriviére

Annos natus 85.

I had at first written at the top of this little paper, "A Happy Death;" and was it not a happy death? But, as I mentioned at the beginning

'Tis full a quarter century

(Ah me! how quick time goes!) Since I told in verse the story

I have now set down in prose.

In transcribing the verses I have omitted the mistaken Christian name, Claude, and I have changed fifty years into seventy-strictly it ought to be seventy-seven.

The good old Father de Cloriviére

Went to his God some seventy years ago; Full many a holy deed and fervent prayer Had filled his busy lifetime here below. Serenely faded out his eventide

Serener still the blessed death he died.

Long years before, a keen-eyed, clever youth,
He linked His fate unto that earnest band
Named by Ignatius from his Lord. In sooth

That was their darkest day, and close at hand
Loomed death and ruin: but the fearless lad
Would fall with them. Was he a saint, or mad?

The dark day darkened. He who willed not spake
The word which scattered all that gallant host.
Our orphaned Novice thought his heart would break
Beside the grave of her he loved the most.
Moving his lips in meekest prayer, we weeps:
"She is not dead, she is not dead-she sleeps!"

So pined he on through those unholy years
With stealthy zeal and solitary strife,
In loyal trustfulness; nor dried his tears
Till at the Voice Supreme she sprang to life.
With joy he flung himself into her arms—
His mother still, with all a mother's charms.

With fresher, gayer zeal he laboured then,

And with far ampler blessing, we are told,
To force God's law on lawless, selfish men-
Till he had grown blind, frail and very old.
His toils now o'er, with heart serene and gay,
He prayed the twilight of his life away.

The old man, blind and frail, would rise from bed
Before the young and healthy were awake,
And grope his way, each morn with feebler tread,
Down to the altar-home, where, for his sake,
The Lord, Whose will the winds and lightnings do,
Had watched in loneliness the long night through.

One early dawn, his face within his palms,
He leans him so upon the sacred rails,
Blessing Emmanuel in silent psalms;

And o'er his sinfulness he meekly wails.
Sinful? The Sacramental Hand but now
Was raised in pardon o'er his snowy brow.

When thus too long the saint was wrapt in prayer,
A Brother whispered: "Come, it is the hour."

But other messenger was earlier there,

And he had drooped as droops an altar-flower. They loved him well, yet no one sighed or wept ; They could but envy; in the Lord he slept.

M. R.