The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

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1. For this and many other valuable works we naturally look to
Stonyhurst. If the Musæ Exulantes,[The title assumed by them, in the
preface to the Latin translation of Cato.] in the swamps of Bruges,
could produce an elegant and nervous translation of Cato, will their
notes be less strong or less sweet in their native land? May we not
expect from Stonyhurst other Petaviuses, other Sirmonds, other
Porées, future Strachans, future Stanleys, future Heskeys, future
Stricklands. If any of them would favor us with a translation of
Father Montreuil's _Vie de Jésus Christ_, he would supply the
English Catholic with the present desideratum of his library, an
interesting and accurate life of Christ. A literary history of the
gospels, showing the state of the text, and the grammatical
peculiarities of their idiom, and containing a short account of the
early versions, would be an invaluable work. The excellent
translation by Mr. Combes, the professor of divinity in St. Edmund's
College, of selected parts of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom,
shows his ability to execute such a work, and leads us to hope it
for him. The mention of these gentlemen naturally makes us reflect
on the singular kindness shown by this country to the foreign
exiles. The editor begs leave to copy what has been said by him on
this subject in a small work entitled _Hors Biblicæ_. After
mentioning some of the most splendid of the biblical exertions of
the English, the compiler of that work says, "Yet, useful and
magnificent as these exertions have been, an edition of the New
Testament has lately appeared in this country, which, in one point
of view, eclipses them all. It has been our lot to be witnesses of
the most tremendous revolution that Christian Europe has known: a
new race of enemies to the Christian religion has arisen, and, from
Rome to Hungary, has struck at every altar and shaken every throne.
One of their first enormities was, the murder of a large proportion
of their clergy, and the banishment of almost the whole of the
remaining part. Some thousands of those respectable exiles found
refuge in England. A private subscription of 33,775_l_, 15_s_.
9-1/2_d_. was immediately made for them. When it was exhausted, a
second was collected, under the auspices of his majesty, and
produced 41,304_l_. 12_s_. 6-1/4_d_. Nor is it too much to say, that
the beneficence of individuals, whose charities on this occasion are
known to God alone, raised for the sufferers a sum much exceeding
the amount of the larger of the two subscriptions. When at length
the wants of the sufferers exceeded the measure of private charity,
government took them under its protection, and, though engaged to a
war exceeding all former wars in expense, appropriated, with the
approbation of the whole kingdom, a monthly allowance of about
8000_l_. for their support; an instance of splendid munificence and
systematic liberality, of which the annals of the world do not
furnish another example. The management of the contributions was