that was destined to provide the breath of a purified faith which was to break forth in laudi and canticles composed in the new halfformed Italian language spoken by the peasant and the goatherd. The vital force of the Franciscan revival that, a century later, was to find a visualized expression through Giotto's brush on the walls of San Francesco, already in the lifetime of Francis found a more available outlet in hymn and verse. The Saint himself in early youth having been a passionate lover of all the romance and chivalry of his day, with its songs ever on his lips, it is little wonder that in later years his burning faith broke out in poems of praise and love. Ozanam writes some singularly attractive pages on this aspect of the Poverello as poet and troubadour. Of the wonderful Canticle of the Sun he says very truly: "It is only a cry, but it is the first cry of a nascent poesy which will develop and make itself heard through the whole world." Curiously enough, however, the still more rapturous canticle, "In foco amor mi mise-Love has thrust me in the furnace," of which a very beautiful translation is given, should have been attributed not, as here, to St. Francis, but to the greatest of the poets that Francis was to number among his own, Jacopone da Todi.

For to Ozanam undoubtedly belongs the credit of re-discovering this long neglected poet and mystic. It is to Jacopone he devotes his most illuminating chapters, Jacopone, who to outward appearances was the most mad and disconcerting of all those who, following in the footsteps of the lover of Poverty, defied the conventions of the society to which they belonged. His stormy career presents one of those series of astounding contrasts which the Middle Ages so frequently offer us: successful lawyer, penitent, poet, friar, excommunicate, prisoner by order of the Pope for six long years, and in the end a saint, beatified, if not by the Roman authorities, at least by the unerring veneration of the common people. Such was the man who, born of a noble family of Todi, is known only to posterity by a scornful diminutive. His radiant death effaced the memory of the religious dissensions in which so many years of his life were unhappily involved. "There remained of Jacopone only the memory of his penitence, the example of the love of God revealed in him in the highest possible degree, and, lastly, his popular songs which stretched like a rainbow over the mountains of Umbria."

Jacopone stands at the very fountain-head of modern art and poetry. It was from him that Fra Angelico gained his most ex

quisite inspirations; from him that Dante learned the marvelous possibilities of the half-formed Italian speech; it is-need we addto him that all Christendom is indebted for the undying pathos of the Stabat Mater. Of his songs in the vernacular, Ozanam gives some examples, exquisite even in a translation, inspired by a mystical passion that carries all before it, by a joy the more triumphant the more miserable his outward condition: "O Love, divine Love! Why hast Thou taken possession of me?" Or again, the song with the refrain, "O joyous heart that sings of Love!" written under circumstances of peculiar depression.

Of the essence of these laudi Ozanam gives a detailed analysis, pointing out how Jacopone, when he announced his determination to forsake philosophy, merely entered into the ranks of the mystics. But, strangely enough, besides being a mystic and a poet, as enamored of poverty as his master, the friar was also a satirist who spared the sins and weaknesses of his contemporaries as little as did Dante. It was this versatility of genius, combined with his amazing austerity of life, that gave him so great an ascendency in his century. That his name should have fallen for so long almost wholly into oblivion is but one more example of the way in which, for over three hundred years, the Renaissance and its achievements have been allowed to crush out of men's memories all the glories that went before. Jacopone's right to a resuscitation is surely as irresistible as that of the primitive painters, whom he forestalled by a few decades.

It is a pleasure to testify to the scholarly care with which this translation has been produced. The rendering throughout is fluent and literary; there is almost a superabundance of notes provided at the end of each chapter, correcting here and there attributions which, current sixty years ago, have long been abandoned; also an index and a very full contents table, making the volume everything that the student could desire. Finally there are some well-selected and attractive illustrations.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE TRUE CHURCH OF THE BIBLE. By Very Rev. C. J. O'Connell. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.25 net.

Dean O'Connell of Bardstown, Kentucky, has written an excellent volume on the Scriptural basis of the chief Catholic doctrines. In thirty different chapters he sets forth clearly the Biblical proof of the primacy, the unity of the Church, the Sacraments, the

invocation of the saints, indulgences, justification, etc. Priests will find this a most helpful book to give to inquiring "Bible Christians."

LIFE, SCIENCE, AND ART. Being Leaves from Ernest Hello. Translated from the French by E. M. Walker. New York: Benziger Brothers. Leather, $1.00; boards, 50 cents.

We reviewed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD a few months ago a reprint of the French critic of Hello's book l'Homme, which was first printed during the siege of Paris in 1871. In it he treated of Life, Science, and Art, and shows how each, rightly understood, is a mirror that reflects the Face of God. We are grateful to the translator for these brief extracts from this well-known work.

Ernest Hello first studied for the Bar, but gave up his profession, because his fellow barristers decided in conference that it was quite permissible to defend an unjust cause. He next turned his attention to journalism, founding, together with his friend, Georges Seigneur, a newspaper called Le Croisé. Ably conducted, it was at first successful, but came to an end after two years under circumstances which led to a break with his friend. He retired soon after (1861) to his country home at Kéroman, where he studied and wrote incessantly until his death in 1885.

As a critic he was original and independent, although a bit oratorical and dogmatic in tone. We do not agree at all with his pessimistic views of his age, or his bitter denunciations of mediocrity; we are always annoyed at the tone of bitterness and personal disappointment which loom up so largely in his pages; still withal we must admire his talent, his great love of truth, and his strong and uncompromising Catholicity.

Many of his utterances are well worth quoting, for instance:

To be weary of life is nothing else but to have an immense need of God.

It is the crime of the age not to hate evil, but to discuss terms of peace with it and make it proposals.

The gift of self is the condition of life. The more a man opens his heart the stronger he grows; the more he spends himself, the more concentrated he becomes; the more generous he is, the more master of himself.

The experience of centuries teaches us that men need consoling first, instructing afterwards...... Begin with argument, and all will be sterile. Begin with love, and all will be fertile.

In discussion among educated people, the man who tends to get heated is accused of giving way to hate; he is really the man who loves.

To listen to some men, one might suppose that Truth was our property, and that we could give it away when we liked.

Catholicism, because it has sacrificed no dogma, has been able to rear, maintain, and propagate that chosen race of men which carries morality to the height of sanctity; while Protestantism, though forever talking of morality, has no saints, because it has been faithless to dogma.

The man of the world is not afraid of doing wrong, but he is afraid of giving offence. In the world convention takes the place of harmony.

Envy is such a strong proof of inferiority that it draws back before an open avowal.

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF COSTA RICA. By Ricardo Fernandez Guardia. Translated by Harry Weston Van Dyke. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. $3.00.

The principal source from which the author of this most fascinating history has taken his material is that treasure-house of the American historian—the archives of the Indies at Seville. He has ransacked royal decrees and orders, contracts, or capitulaciones, entered into with the Crown by the intrepid Conquistatores for the protection of their rights in the conquest of the new American lands, quaintly phrased complaints from priests and friars, and a mass of technical legal documents. As late as thirty years ago the names of many of the first Spanish explorers of Costa Rica were unknown, and the events of the country's past were shrouded in darkness. Moreover, a great deal of the history of Spanish discoveries has been written by ignorant and prejudiced Englishmen, who never could write of Spain fairly or with an open mind. As Mr. Van Dyke writes in his preface: "We North Americans get our conceptions of the conquering Spaniard from such works as Kingsley's Westward Ho, and the tales of other English romances, which glorify such arch-pirates as Drake, Raleigh, and Hawkins, and picture the work of the Conquistatores as wholly one of blood, rapine, and destruction, inspired by no purpose but the lust for gold. This is far from the truth. While some of these Spanish explorers were cruel and avaricious like Pedrarias, Contreras, and Gutierrez, the great majority obeyed the strict injunctions of the Spanish kings

against spoliation and inhumane treatment of the Indians. Every reader will be impressed by the fortitude, heroic endurance, kindness, justice, and Christian charity of such men as González, Davila, Vasquez de Coronado, Rodrico Maldonado, Alonso Calero, and Sanchez de Badajoz.

The author describes in detail the different Indian tribes of Costa Rica, their customs, their modes of dress, their continual feuds, and shows how the work of exploration was frequently hindered by the cruelty exercised toward them by some of the rapacious gold seekers. He describes all the expeditions along the coast from the days of Columbus in 1502, and all the expeditions into the interior which so often proved disastrous.

The book rather overwhelms us with its mass of details, but the author has made the sixteenth century live again in his most interesting pages. The translation is excellent.

SPECIAL METHODS OF INSTRUCTION. By Felix Arnold, Ph.D. New York: S. Mandel. $1.50.

The majority of educational works dealing with special methods are too general and indefinite to be of much practical use in the schoolroom. Dr. Arnold is so convinced of this that he goes to the opposite extreme, and leaves little or nothing to the initiative of the teacher. Knowing that the majority of children are eye-minded, he makes continual use throughout this volume of the visual appeal. He applies it in all the elementary grades to arithmetic, reading, language, geography, history, and science.

Most teachers, being devoid of the artistic sense, find blackboard work and diagraming most difficult. After consulting the crude maps and wondrous drawings entitled "trees, carrots, rabbits" and the like in this volume, they need no longer come to the blackboard with fear and trepidation. They will at least realize at once the idea back of every illustration.

We would call special attention to the following points in which Dr. Arnold improves upon his predecessors: In the chapters on arithmetic, he is especially good on grading, the use of the motor appeal for beginners, and his clear, simple, and accurate diagrams. We noticed in his treatment of phonics that his tongue charts and directions were more accurate than those usually given, as, for instance, in the Brooklyn Training School, while his complete word and phrase lists will certainly prove invaluable to the overworked teacher. Dr. Arnold rightly says (Chapter VII.) that the com