86

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Paterfamilias's Diary of Everybody's Tour. London: Hatchards. IF Mr. Chadband had been a professing member of the Church of England, and had been sent across Europe, with Cuthbert Bede, B.A., to do his unctuous reflections into grins and slang, flinging them promiscuously into a note-book-" sine ordine quodam aut respectu "the pair might have been expected to elaborate such a mixture of twaddle and cant as this book consists of. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most disagreeable we ever read. A good deal of it is too shocking to laugh at, and much more, too foolish to criticise. We notice it, however, at some length, that our readers may have an opportunity of judging if we have given anything but an honest opinion of its contents; and because it will probably command the attention of not a few, by a circumstance, which, though not paraded on its title-page, is no less publicly made known to all whom it may concern, namely, its authorship. For the contents of the book are certainly as insufficient to procure for it on their own merits the circulation which it has attained, as the reasons assigned are inadequate to explain its publication. We are desirous, for the sake of common sense, of believing the author's protestations that it was an unpremeditated insult to the reading public; but we are somewhat amused as to the principal reason given for his change of mind. Though "tired out of pen and ink, weary of books, and sick of criticism !"-1st, "The cacoëthes claims its way," (so here our author's experienced antecedents are suggested to us); and, 2ndly, "Friends are so expectant;" and 3rdly, "Travelling en paterfamilias' so far from inexpensive." Naturally the paterfamilias and paymaster of a party of eleven would be not unwilling to set a balance against his expenses by the publication of his note-book; but what conceivable ground could there be for expecting that the publication of such a note-book would realise such a desire?

Why this, reader: the " name "of its author modestly withheld from the title-page, suggested in the composition, promulgated by his friends-avowed by his publishers-and confirmed by the introduction of its owner's" local habitation," Albury,―was intended to command, and no doubt has commanded a circulation as remunerative as it is unmerited. On the concurrence of all these testimonies we consider ourselves as entirely at liberty to hold Mr. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER responsible for the contents of this silly production, as if he had put his name to it, as he ought to have done; and as he surely would have done, if he had not been ashamed of it, and anxious to avoid criticism. Apart from its pervading spirit, which is one of bitter and positively scandalous virtuperation of Roman Catholics, and every thing belonging to them, and every thing by the author's suspicions connected with them, the style of the book is meagre, careless, and puerile to the last degree.

We are continually being told that the author aims merely at a compilation which shall " serve as a reminder" to himself, and those who have been with him, or before him, or after him; and so surely as we

reach an object, of which an educated gentleman's opinion might be expected to be at least readable, we are rudely put off with, "Don't think now that I am going to describe it-this is a journal, not a guidebook," &c. It seldom rises above the interest of a catalogue, and most "items of adventures are enumerated as in this irritating passage, taken from the latter part of the book, after publication had come in view; and really a very favourable specimen of the whole :

"At L'Aigle noticed a picturesquely spired château on the right, in a valley sentinelled by mountains: item, the Chinese hats of two women: item, the teeth-like character of the mountain-tops throughout, justifying their local names as 'Dents:' and so, at the grand palatial hotel Byron in due time we pull up. . ."-P. 220.

And where the style is not bald to stupidity, it is pedantic and affected. Witness this Pepysian paragraph :

"In the evening took wife and daughters to see Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Theatre, while the boys went with Pierre to see monkey horsemanship: a splendid house: and we in the galerie noble, its best place."

By the way, we confess that we were startled at our philosopher's dramatic taste, or tastelessness, apropos of this said Royal Theatre. Not to be hard upon him, he shall speak for himself: "Shakspeare in unintelligible German is (to be honest) very dull." No doubt, but the play was the same; and why go to see it, if neither it nor the language were to his taste, or within his comprehension? Simply, we suppose, to have an opportunity of making this notable bid for the applause of Government-Inspector, and Mechanic's-Institute readers :

"The incidents are, now-a-days, so impossible that sympathy is nowhere: we want a modern tragedy constructed of some such materials as chloroform, mesmerism, steam, gas, the electric telegraph, and the great seaserpent: irascibility and mystery, and love regardless of settlements, and all the machinery of the Hamlet and Romeo style of thing, are quite obsolete: the Shakspeare of our railway era has yet to arise!"

Mr. Tupper might have gone to the monkey-horsemanship.

But awkwardness of style and solecisms in good taste, are not the gravest defects in the book. The whole "Diary" is made a peg whereon to hang a series of coarse invectives against the religious belief and practice of our fellow-Christians on the Continent, which could not fail to rouse the scornful indignation of all faithful Churchmen at home as well as abroad, even if Mr. Tupper had not been good enough to indemnify himself for their denunciation, which he foresaw, by stigmatising them in terms more forcible than elegant (more suo), as "soi-disant Churchof-England false Priests I wot of,"-"Brummagem Priests,"- "PseudoAnglican Clergy,"-with other more comprehensive expressions for the benefit of the laity likewise. Flippant irreverence disfigures every page from the moment when this interesting party's" search after novelty at Ostend, is rewarded by the discovery of "the Virgin Mary's blue calico gown at church,"-to the final chuckle at the "filling to the brim of the guilty cup of Mariolatry;" or, in another place, the “ripening unto judgment of Rome's monster sin."

Mr. Ruskin, in his new volume, divides the professors of religious

belief into two broadly definite classes-Romanists and Puritans; cherishing strong and irreconcileable mutual animosity, and entertaining severally an intense desire to reduce their antagonists to ashes. This, he says, Rome has always done when she could, and does now when she can. Puritans have occasionally gratified their desire; and indemnify themselves for their present inability to do so by contemplating the destruction of Rome and her adherents by volcanic fires. "Paterfamilias," though rejoicing in this comfortable doctrine, is not yet content to remain in a state of quiescent expectancy, but cannot restrain himself from aggressive language at all events against his enemy. Like Mr. Macaulay his writings have a "leading feature," to which the minor characteristics of ordinary narrative-such as truth, honesty, and charity-are judiciously subordinated. And this is the exhibition, in the most unfavourable colours of the adversaries whom he cannot reduce to ashes, but only malign. It is true that our philosophical tourist had once told the world that,

66

Carefully with sifting search laboureth the pale historian,

The calm philosopher marshalleth his facts noting on his page their principles."

99 66

But "leading features" cannot be postponed to "facts," sifting search," or "sober argument:" besides, "friends are so expectant,' and,

"The leering looks of humour tickle the childish mind;"

so down goes a frivolous paragraph in which the solemnities of Christian worship, and the most awful of Christian mysteries, are held up to the ridicule of the irreligious :

"Seams of thought for the sage's brow, and laughing lines for the fool's face."

But no comment is needed on such a passage as this :—

"We heard a priest descanting from that miraculously-carved pulpit, all about the efficacy of the Sacraments, just as our Anglo-Catholics do, and all about the 'miraculous hosts; wafers stabbed by unlucky Jews, who were burned alive for having cut their fingers and blooded the paste in the transaction; remember some daubs of pictures, or tapestries, hung about the choir, in illustration thereof. After all this, and the multitudinous fidgeting of priests in golden copes, bowing, and kneeling, and crossing, and incensing, and busying themselves in every sort of way, except spiritual worship and instruction of their far too patient flock.”—P. 17.

"These Churches pall upon the eye, and in the very cataloguing vex the ear: all are equally wealthy in carving of oak and marbles, pictures, gildings, idols, and all profusion of ecclesiastical furniture; they are museums wherein taste might spend at each a week, and superstition a life-time. Service is perpetually going forward in them, at one altar after another-that is to say, priests in splendid copes, with gilt and flowered crosses, are everlastingly celebrating the Eucharist to use their own phrase, making GOD' (!), by dint of the magical words of consecration: and so the poor credulous people, who leave all their religion to be got through by the priest, are always being sent empty away."

We are inclined to suspect that not a few of our readers will be surprised to read such language from the pen of the author of the very popular "Proverbial Philosophy." It is beside our present purpose to criticise that book; we can only say that if our exposure of the irreverence of this offensive "Diary," demonstrates for the first time its author's real "animus," to any of the inconsiderate admirers of the vague and awkward platitudes of that over-rated work, we shall not be sorry. It would not be difficult however to exhibit the most painful contrasts between the theories of "thinking," "of speaking," "of authorship," and the practice of them,-as exemplified in the "Diary," or in fifty other particulars to judge the writer out of his own mouth. But it is unnecessary to do more than quote him as he stands. There will be found in addition to the audacity in speaking of the Sacraments and sacramental doctrine and worship which we have already illustrated, a flippancy of allusion to everything connected with the Roman Catholic system, and a recklessness of accusation, of accusations too of the most awful nature against Roman doctrine and discipline, which positively compel us to ask if the writer recognises any kind of community of religion between himself and them? If he is aware of certain precepts of his own religion, if it be exclusively his own, against evil speaking, lying, and slandering? or, to bring him to the source and centre of his Protestantism, as of many other people's, himself,—his intellect, and the works thereof; does he still hold that

"Rashly, nor ofttimes truly, doth man pass judgment on his brother; For he seeth not the springs of the heart, nor heareth the reasons of the mind?"

In illustration of this dictum, to which we heartily subscribe, and appeal to our quotation to verify it—we transcribe a series of the deliberate and apparently unconcerned charges of "idolatry," which Mr. Tupper makes against the immense numerical majority of his fellow Christians. Whatever may be said of the tendency of recent developments, whatever may be said of the practical result of the invocation of saints among the uneducated,-supposing a hundredth part of what is said on the subject to be true,--nothing can justify a deliberate preference of this awful charge, against a portion of the Church, maintaining (as a matter of course) the incommunicable honour due to the Almighty Trinity, as unequivocally as our own. We can only hope that the writer is ignorant of the full meaning of his words,-who can write such sentences as these :

"Altars of idolatry and ignorance."-P. 33.

"This idolatrous town."

(Brussels.)-P. 18.

"A new idol to the honour of 'immaculate' Mary.”—P. 35.

"This skeleton (S. Lucidus) is one of the gods to tasteful and fastidious Bavaria."-P. 98.

"The canonical god of Milanese idolatry, (S. Charles Borromeo,) lies in hideous splendour to be worshipped.”—P. 165.

With a dozen other passages which we have not room to quote. Does Mr. Tupper recollect that the expression of the most intense abhorrence which the angelic host could employ in celebrating the overthrow of Satan, in the beatific vision of the Apostle, was, "the

accuser of the brethren, ," "the accuser of our brethren is cast down." But we willingly turn from so painful a subject; we have not however altogether done with the "Diary."

Even amid the attractions of a general tilt against the Catholic Faith, the sprightly Paterfamilias has his hobbies, his particular "windmills,"--against which his lance is turned with especial gusto. Perhaps those whom he most delights to vilify are the Jesuits. They are "the unholy fathers," they have "azure neckcloths, and all else as black as their morality;" "Louis's land is exempted from their pestilence." We hear of "the guilt of Ignatius Loyola and his system of high treason against humanity;" that a Jesuit is an "unmitigated villain," and that they are a "detestable body of conspirators, for Jesuitism is Thuggee." In dismissing this part of the subject, we subjoin a few passages taken at random from the pages of the "Diary,"-half-adozen among a score or so, which will illustrate the impartiality with which continental religion in general is made merry with :

"The Chapel of the Holy Blood, a beauteous piece of Moresco-Gothic architecture, having a curious globe pulpit; here, people are crowding in to kiss a crystal phial for a fee,-the priest who holds forth the idolized bottle of blood, knowing very well that it is a fabricated miracle-most likely duck's blood shed this morning."- P. 8.

"S. Castor (was he a monk who attained to a Cardinal's hat? who ever heard of his Beavership elsewhere?)”—P. 48.

"Went to S. Castor's, (query, any relation to Pollux ?)"-P. 49.

"I wonder what the believers in the Assumption of the Virgin Mary will think of her Holy Maidenship having left one of her hands behind her!"— P. 85.

"The arrow-head that killed the very popular S. Sebastian, and one of his probably numerous leg-bones."-P. 106.

"So are miracles wrought or made, Papistically."

Paterfamilias is very enthusiastic about the French alliance; we wonder what he imagines would be the effect of a perusal of his flattering "Diary" upon an educated Frenchman: not that he need be very apprehensive, for no one could have the patience to translate, or what does he think of his hero the Emperor, occupying, hard and fast, as he is gradually doing, the bone of contention, Constantinople?-or still worse, how does he like the active proselytism which our allies are carrying on there? or how do he and politicians of his school propose to counteract the influence of that long-headed despot in this particular?

Lastly, there are some allusions, which we scorn to discuss in detail, -to the great and powerful party in the Church of England,-which Mr. Tupper hates and fears. His language respecting us outdoes in

coarse invective the not mild criticisms of Roman Catholics which we have quoted. Its positive savageness is such as we could not have suspected a Philosopher,-even a Proverbial one, to be capable of. But

"Softer is the hide of the Rhinoceros, than the heart of deriding unbelief."

No unprejudiced person,-a foreigner, for instance,—could believe his language to be employed respecting members of the same religious Communion as himself. Or he would at least predict that nothing could