Literature.

recollect to have met , in any work of a siniiliar design , with so many pages of valuable and suggestive matter When once we forget the mere novel in the wisdom , experience , and noble ethics of the work , an interest of a very different , and of a much higher kind is awakened . . . . We are introduced into the Society of great and good men . "Wo are made familiar with the results of extended travel and experience . There is as much matteras much good senseknowled observationin these

, , ge , , volumes , as we could find in any two dozen ordinary novels . " If a preference might be given to any of the sketches whicli embellish "The Curates of Rivcrsdale , " we should be disposed to accord it to the picturesque history of the Monteseones , ivhich extends over a period of five centuries . Such of our readers as may act on our recommendation will have reason to thank us for

pointing out that chapter for careful perusal . It is the very essence of a " Romance of Real Life . " Our Hebrew brethren , in the bonds of freemasonry , may be especially interested in the narrative . The following passage from the history of the " Riversdale " Monteleone may also be read with pardonable complacency by Israelites of our

fraternity : — "' Let mo give you another piece of advice , ' continued my Rector ; ' mind thafc you do not utter a syllable of disparagement against his nation in his hearing . You will rue it bitterly ; he is provokingly ready with unpleasant data in our national character . He will bring you face to face witii the refuse of our countrymen of every class ancl degreein church and stateon the exchangeand

, , , at the counter , in the navy and the army , in palaces and in unions ; lie will drag before your eyes our prisoners at home and in the colonies ; ho will bring before you , in bold relief ; the officials of Missionary and Church Building Societies with an accuracy frightfully true . He will then insist upon your giving judgement as to where meanness , dishonesty , immorality , theft , murder , in short , the whole category of the works of the fleshaboundwhether in

, , unbelieving Israel , or amongst baptised Britons . You will feel so humiliated as not to have a spark ol patriotism left in you . He will make you acknowledge the church was holy , just , and good , as long as her deacons , priests , and bishops were ' Jews ; that she became depraved , unrighteous , and bad , as soon as she became Geutilizcrt . '"

The Chapters on "Augustus Meander" ancl " Cardinal Alezzofunti , " are invaluable additions to the biographies of those two famous men . Our Roman Catholic readers—and we know we have many —will be scandalised at not onl y finding the great Cardinal ' s pedigree traced to Judreo-Spanisli family of the fifteenth century , whoso name was Reuben Bensusan , but that his eminence was lax and

loose in his faith in the miracles which are from time to time performed in the Papal States . The winding up of the circumstances connected with the supposed miraculous conversion of an Israelite from Strasbourg—M . Alphonse Ratisbonne by name—concludes with the following remark from Mezzofanti , which onr Masonic readers will appreciate : — j

"I do not wish to publish my views here ( at Rome ) at present ; so that I must beg in the ancient order of freemasons , of which I have the honour to be a member , that you will lock up , for the present , the secret in tho safe repository of your heart , under the seal of fidelity , fidelity , lidelitv . "

The chapters on Jerusalem are at once graphic and thrillingly affecting . We cannot attempt to quote from them , as we . should not know where to stop . But we aro tempted to give an extract quaintly headed— "Rhapsodies shot into my Thoughts out of the Camion's mouth , on the thirtieth of March , eighteen hundred and fifty-six . " The chapter was manifestly penned on the very day to which it refers . It begins in tlie following quaint and eccentric ' stvle : —

"Hark ! Boom ! boom ! boom ! Firing of Camions !—Sunday too !—Peace ! Peace !—Thank Heaven ! Boom , Cannons , boom ! Ye are herald angels now ! Sweet messengers of pence ! ' Lo DO

peace , y wrong , . I'inil a field for a hero , a hero for a song . "Now , for a stroll through the streets of the city . Let me sec how the people enjoy the glad tidings of peace . Strange the people do not care whether it be peace or war . Probably the

proclamation of peace will announce the failure of many a speculation . Probably the people have been frenzied and fevered in their imagination , by the newly invented specific for securing insanity , viz ., Russiaphobia . But they will be cured now . " Boom , Cannons , boom ! I like the repeated ancl constant roaring of the cannons . It argues that the powers that be are glad that the war is over . It proves that theyat leastdo not

, , share in the intoxicated thirst for more suicidal bloodshed . It shows that the Government was goaded into the war by a statesman's whim , floundering onward , drifting downward , reeling and staggering to ancl fro ! I love peace ; it is my inotto 'Peace , peace , to him that is far oil ' , and to him that is near . ' Boom , Cannons , boom ! 'Lo vo yr ' ulaudo , Face ! pace ! pace ! ' It is tbe key-note of the angel's—of the seraph's lyre . Peace ! peace ! peace !

"' I will not , as bards have been wont since the flood , AVith the river of song , swell the river of blood . ' " AVhat wonderful conversions has not the war effected ? Have you forgotten the wisdom of the Laureate , which speaketh , according to the anti-Laureate , in this wise : —¦ "' Why do they prate of the blessings of peace ?—¦ Bloody war is a holthing .

y The world is wicked , and base , and vile—Shall I show you a new kind of cure ? Smeared with blood , and the parent's tears , Call for Moloch , horrible king ! Let him trample to dust , with a brutal foot , Whatever remains of good or of pure ! "' Wanted a quarrel to set the world straight ,

Ancl cure it by letting of blood ! AVe are sick to the heart of ourselves , I think , And so we are sick of each other : Rapine , and courage , and rage would do Us all manner of good . Let Christians rise up against Christians , And brother take arms against brother !'

""Ami the Laureate ivas not wrong in his oracular outpourings . Has not the war brought mighty things to pass ? 'Talk of the achievements of the different Missionary Societies ! AVhy , they are like the chaff in comparison with thegranary—like dust in comparison with the sandy rock—like a drop in comparison with the ocean . "Before tho war commenced , the Turks were admitted by all parties to have been the most degraded and depraved amongst men ; their corruption ancl pollution sickeningand harrowing beyond

, degree ; their baseness unfathomable ; their dark private intercourse horrible , unearthly horrible ! Lo , and behold , since the war commenced , the Turks have become the most exalted and elevated amongst mortals ; their chastity ancl purity , charming and exemplary ; their greatness immeasurable ; and ' poor Turk ' become a pet phrase on the purest lips of the chastest and fairest of Britain's innocent daughters ! There is a miracle of conversion ! Can the history of the world match such a stupendous

transformation ! I wonder whether the renewed Turks were baptised in tho rivers of blood which the English , the Prench , and the Sardinians caused to ( low in behalf of Islam ' s faith ! It wassaid of old tbat the unbelieving Jews thought that there was groat transmutation virtue in Christian blood , but that was a fable maliciously invented . The conversion of the Turks is possibly no fable— ' Seeing is believing !'

I should like vastly to see Turkey and tho Turks again . " Before the war commenced , a certain ' bumptious neighbour was branded as the most unprincipled , inhuman being in Europe ; he was held up , in this country , to execration and contempt , as a robber , a murderer , a usurper , a perjurer ; one who , with reckless enormity trampled under bis cloven foot the laws of God and man , some even supposed him as great a fool as others considered him a knave . Lo and beholdsince the war began he has become a different individual

, —be has become , all of a sudden , high principled , transecndantly humane , scrupulously honest , a most vigorous respecter of an oath , responding and upholding the laws of God and man , wise in counsel , and truthful in word and in deed ! Oh , who can contemplate this matchless and astounding conversion , and not oivn that the life and wealth spent upon it , was but a small price ? AA'ho would nofc like to heboid , with his own eyes , the country , at least , ivhere this

great convert lives ? 1 , for one , feel a longing curiosity to visit Prance again . ' ¦ ' Nor have the magic transmutations , which the war brought about , always been on the bri ght side ; in some cases it hacl a gigantic perverting instead of converting effect . Before the war commenced , all the British Statesmen maintained that Russia was right in her demands on Turkey ; they spoke , they wrote , they insisted the same . Nicholas was held up , by Christian statesmen , as a great master mind . " In the same strain of stern satire does our author probe the