owards his. They would cross each other soon at this
rate, and might as well exchange pulpits,--as Colonel Sprowle once
wished they would, it may be remembered.
The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, was almost equally
puzzled. He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored
to make her minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly
influence to bear upon her at this critical period of her life. His
sympathies did not seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished.
Perhaps he had vastly more important objects of solicitude in his own
spiritual interests.
A knock at the door interrupted them. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather rose
and went towards it. As he passed the table, his coat caught something,
which came rattling to the floor. It was a crucifix with a string of
beads attached. As he opened the door, the Milesian features of Father
McShane presented themselves, and from their centre proceeded the
clerical benediction in Irish-sounding Latin, _Pax vobiscum!_
The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left the priest and his disciple
together.
* * * * *
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
_Autobiographical Recollections_. By the late CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE,
R.A. Edited, with a Prefatory Essay on Leslie as an Artist, and
Selections from his Correspondence, by TOM TAYLOR, Esq., Editor of the
"Autobiography of Haydon." With Portrait. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
1860. pp. lviii., 363.
Those who remember the excellent judgment with which Mr. Taylor selected
his material for the Autobiography of Haydon from the papers left by
that artist need not be told that this work is executed with spirit and
discrimination. It is a delicate task to publish just so much of the
letters and reminiscences of a man lately dead as shall consist with
good taste and gentlemanly feeling, to discriminate between legitimate
anecdote and what at second-hand becomes tale-bearing gossip, and not to
break faith with the dead by indiscreet confidences about the living.
If the dead have any privilege, it ought to be that of holding their
tongues; yet an unseemly fashion has prevailed lately of making
them gabble for years in Diaries, Remains, Correspondences, and
Recollections, perpetuating in a solid telltale record all they may
have said and written thoughtlessly or in a momentary pet, giving to a
fleeting whim the printed permanence of a settled opinion, and robbing
the grave of what
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