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and yet to those who reflect how deeply any external forces that may affect a country must be qualified by the internal condition of that country, there are many profoundly suggestive facts and statements here.

The particular value of this book is that it brings before us, with a simplicity and freshness of which the subject might have been thought unsusceptible, the every-day life of Venice and the traits of its people. The Objects of Interest with Mr. Howells are rarely those indicated in one's guide-book. He was evidently not one of the suspected consuls, but has been able to go into the blindways of Venetian life, and reports to us what, in that shadowy realm, housekeeping, dining, study, love-making, and social life really mean. He tells us also, with subtlety of expression, something that almost explains the noble habits and professions peculiar to that region for which there are no English names, as the Dolce far niente, and that expressed in the proud reply of a Venetian father, when asked his son's profession, "E in Piazza!" He gazes on Venice sculptured in snow; he sees-still more hears-the uproarious people emerging under the first touch of spring; and he sinks with the city into the summer sleep, where "the slumbrous bells murmur to each other in the lagoons; the white sail faints into the white distance; the gondola glides athwart the sheeted silver of the bay; the blind beggar, who seemed sleepless as fate, dozes at his post."

The glitter of the Piazza San Marco has allured Mr. Howells less than the shrine-tapers in the byways, of which they were once the only illumination, and where they still perhaps shine dimly on the most real life of Venice. Some of his sketches of lowly figures and incidents around him are excellent. Occasionally he may forget that soldi are, after all, not florins, and may make too much of some old coffee-grinder or fancier who may have provoked his humour; but generally these etchings are made with exquisite art.

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We forbear to speak of the many errata which the book contains, as Mr. Howells leaves to the mercy of the reader" the imperfections "which refuse to be detected in manuscript," and which the publication of his work at a distance of three thousand miles from its author prevented his correcting in print. Mr. Howells is a serious, careful writer, and therefore it is with some surprise that one finds hin, now and then, betrayed into such sentimentalism as the "narrow, narrow" this, the "gentle, gentle" that, and even, in one instance, falling into the "blue, blue sea!” MONCURE D. CONWAY.

THE LITURGIES OF 1549 AND 1662. Edited by the Rev. ORBY SHIPLEY, M.A.

Joseph Masters. 1866.

In the "Church and the World," a volume which has been already noticed in the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, Mr. Shipley has an essay entitled "The Liturgies of 1549 and 1662 Contrasted and Compared." It is curious and interesting, because, like the other essays in the volume, it contains the views, forcibly and clearly expressed, of the extreme ritualist party-of the men who regard the Holy Communion as the highest mystery of our faith, who talk largely of sacramental efficacy and priestly power, who treat of postures and genuflexions, of altar-cloths and confession, of the blessedness of celibacy, and the duty of praying for the dead; of men who, calling themselves Catholics, are singularly exclusive, and who discuss with equal seriousness the great doctrines of the

Christian faith and the most trivial details of ecclesiastical upholstery. It is impossible not to honour the ritualists for their earnestness, their practical piety, their self-denial, and for the energy with which they have undertaken to reform (according to their notions of reformation) the Church of England. As a body they have done much good by stirring up the zeal of more moderate Churchmen, and they have succeeded in removing, or in lessening, many serious abuses. The publications of the ritualists, however, reveal their weakness as well as their strength; and the very able papers published in the volume to which I have alluded will not be likely to have much weight with those who have been educated in a more healthy school, and whose Protestant proclivities forbid their seeking for the advance of Christianity in the extension of priestly power and the revival of patristic superstitions.

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Mr. Shipley maintains that the First Liturgy of King Edward VI. is considerably in advance of our present office, and that if a revision be forced upon the Church, this is the standard to which she ought to appeal. From a Catholic point of view, he considers that this Liturgy ever has been, and is still at the present day, the standard of ritual in the Church of England." In the little volume placed at the head of this notice, the two Liturgies are so arranged as to enable the reader to compare them. The variations between the earlier and later forms are many, and in some instances important. King Edward's Liturgy does not contain the Ten Commandments, and it does contain more than one passage from which sound Protestants would dissent, but which the Anglican treasures as dear to the Catholic mind.

As a ritualist, Mr. Shipley lays down a number of rules-the revival of old usages for the instruction of good Anglicans; as, for instance, that the sentences of the Offertory should be said as an antiphon, i.e. facing east, and not as an exhortation, i.e. facing west; that to the wine used in the Holy Communion should be added "a little pure and clean water;" and he asserts that the mystical symbolism of the mixed Chalice is not hard to discover. At the same time he proposes other and less technical alterations which appeal to the good sense of his readers, as when he proposes that the Beatitudes of the New Law, or the Summary of both Laws, in the words of Christ, should be substituted at certain seasons for the Ten Commandments, which form so discordant a portion of the Communion Service.

It will be evident from these few remarks that neither the small volume containing the Liturgies of 1549 and 1662, with the editor's introductory remarks, nor the essay which he has written on the subject, will have much interest for a non-Anglican; but Mr. Shipley's concluding statements are of wider importance, as they show the wishes and determination of a large section of the Church. He observes that the Church party, which means his party, deprecates any alteration in the Prayer-book, but that if those favourable to revision are urgent in their demands, certain changes may be effected for which they are not prepared, and that" a Catholic restoration in conformity with the standard of the First Book of Edward VI., is, to take a low ground, not more improbable than a Protestant revision in accordance with the second book of that king's reign." JOHN DENNIS.

THE

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

No. XXXII.-SEPTEMBER 1, 1866.

A HUNGARIAN ELECTION.

WHEN I left Pest for G in the middle of last November to be present at the elections, there was a spell of exceptionally cold weather. I therefore thought it advisable to hire, at the rate of 60 kreutzers, Austrian currency, per diem, a warm Hungarian bunda, or pelisse, lined with wolf's skin. This practice of hiring a bunda for a journey is very common among such classes as live in towns, and are not in the constant habit of travelling in all sorts of weather. Such an article of clothing is not merely very expensive-ein ganzes capital, as they say here-but also very cumbersome and unwieldly. Not only is it of no use in summer, but even in the cold of winter it is difficult, not to say impossible, to walk in one. The bunda I got on this occasion covered me from above the ears to below the ancles, and in this armour I felt safe against all the assaults of King Frost, even when sitting in the light open waggon (a truly Scythian conveyance) in which so much of one's travelling has to be done in Hungary.

The traveller who goes from Pest to G has the choice before him. of going by railway or by steamer. He will in most cases prefer, as I did, the latter, as thereby he gains in comfort without losing in time. Railways in this part of the world are so few that they are not subject to the least shade of wholesome competition, and their trains, which, as a general rule, start only once in the twenty-four hours, are as deliberate in their movements as the slowest on the Great Eastern line in their slowest days. The Government has further aggravated the matter by requiring the lines to be laid down in all sorts of curves and zigzags out of a regard to "strategical considerations." Thus it takes about the same time to go by train or by stage-coach from Pest to Miskolcz, a town which in the palmy days of Popish independence was an important emporium for Tokay

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and other Hungarian wines, and still boasts of a well-to-do population of 30,000 inhabitants.

When I had arrived at G—— my friend X. said, "The voting for the different elections in the county takes place all on the same day; you must, therefore, choose at which one of them you will be present, and after that is over you will have plenty of time to return and see the borough election if you are so inclined." As I anticipated that the election at Twould be the one most hotly contested, I determined to proceed thither, and Mr. X. accordingly introduced me to the secretary, or, as he is here styled, the notary, of the "deputation," charged with the conduct of the election. The permanent committee, in whose hands, as I have explained in my former papers, is at present vested de jure, though not de facto, the administration of the county, elect out of their own number a so-called "central committee," of which the constitutionally elected al-ispány is ex officio president. This "central committee" is entrusted with the carrying out of all matters connected with the election, such as the registration of voters for instance. I must here observe, as a point in which Hungarian practice differs from English, that this registration takes place only before an election, and especially with reference to that particular election. The laws of 1848 direct that this registration, or conscriptio, as it is called, must begin at the soonest twentyone days, at the latest thirty days, after the proclamation of the election. During fourteen days the work of registering, or conscribing, the qualified voters is carried on by a "deputation," which travels for that purpose from village to village throughout the whole district. Then a space of three or four days must intervene between the completion of the list and the actual day of election, in order to allow of objections being made against its correctness, which objections are heard, and either approved of or quashed by the "central committee" sitting in the county town. Before the Diet meets the only appeal against the decisions of this body lies to the Minister of the Interior. As, however, there is at present no Hungarian ministry in existence, all parties concerned have agreed to consider the Statthalterei (Concilium Locum tenentia), or Council of Lieutenancy, as filling the place of a Minister of the Interior. The "central committee," having charge of the elections in all the clectoral districts within the county, how many soever they be, sends out separate "deputations' to each of them. Each "deputation" consists normally of three members a president, a vice-president, and a notary. Each of these officers may, however, be represented by a substitute, or assisted by an adjunct. The "deputation" has to report directly to the "central committee," and is responsible to that body, subject to the further appeal to the Minister, as above mentioned.

The principle involved at the contest at T was one which

admits of being easily made intelligible to the English reader, and I may as well state it briefly before I proceed to make him acquainted with the new friends I made at the election. Just at the time when politicians, desirous of figuring in Pest as deputies, were beginning to sound their friends and neighbours as to their chances of success, while parties and constituencies were looking out for fit representatives, an important and decisive step was taken by one, from whose hands, I think I may venture to say, the apple of discord was not expected. The venerable Cardinal-Archbishop of Esztergom, the Prince-Primate of all Hungary, addressed a pastoral to his flock, in which he called to their remembrance the zeal which had been displayed at the last elections in 1861 by persons who did not belong to the one only saving Church in carrying out the election of candidates of their own way of thinking in religious matters. The venerable prelate reminded the faithful of the danger to which the Church would be exposed if such persons were again to display the same zeal with a like success, and of the disgrace which would fall upon a Catholic nation-the nation which in other days had produced such saints as St. Stephen, St. Imre, and St. Ladislaus-if they were to allow themselves to be represented by men who, whatever might be their other qualifications, were without the pale of the Church. He therefore exhorted all the faithful to exert themselves in all electoral districts in carrying the elections of Catholic candidates wherever such presented themselves, and, where "a-Catholic" candidates were already in the field, it called on true sons of the Church to come forward to oppose them.

It would indeed be a libel on a body which contains so many good patriots as the Roman Catholic clergy to assert that they all took part in the half-political, half-religious agitation which followed the publication of this pastoral. Still this agitation was sufficiently general to excite a very extensive dissatisfaction on the part both of the educated Catholic laity, and of the Protestants. The portion of the pastoral which especially irritated the latter was the assertion with which it opened, and on which its whole argument was based— to wit, that the Protestants had in 1861 shown a spirit of religious exclusiveness by always supporting, and, where they were able, carrying only Protestant candidates. A number of letters from diffrent parts of the country forthwith appeared in the columns of the Hon (country, fatherland), written to prove that in this or that district the Protestants were either in an actual majority, or from a combination of circumstances virtually commanded the election, and had none the less given their support to a Catholic candidate. In private life, too, I had often to listen to most animated-I had almost written most violent-debates as to which party felt, or exhibited, the most intolerance. In spite of the greater vehemence with which

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