562 Monthly Rcviav of Literature, [Nov. 



Dialogues on the Catholic and Protestant Rules op Faith, &c., by 



James Smith, Edinburgh. 



These dialogues originated in a public discussion at Edinburgh, between the 

 author, a Catholic priest apparentlv, and a member of the British Society for 

 Promoting the Principles of the Reformation. The poiut deoated, as usual 

 between Catholics and Protestants, is, in the language of controversialists, the 

 Rule of Faith. The Catholic appeals to the sense of the Church ; the Protestant 

 to the Scriptures. The Catholic excludes all private interpretation, while the 

 Protestant will listen to no other. In the case before us, it is the Catholic who 

 writes — it is he who selects the Protestant's arguments, as well as his own — of 

 course the result is obvious. He is not such a fool as to set up what he cannot 

 knock down. And here is the grand absurdity of all controversial dialogues 

 thus written by one of the parties. A man must care a fig for the sentiments of 

 neither to give fair play to both ; and such a man can scarcely be expected to 

 do justice to either. With all the professions of fairness and candour, the Pro- 

 testant is made to look exceedingly small — it cannot be otherwise if the Catholic 

 be sincere. He makes up his mind that he is right upon a most momentous 

 question ; and it is not in the nature of man, that he should not think contemp- 

 tuously of those who differ tolo ccelo from him. Slight shades of difference may 

 be accounted for, and borne with, but an absolute contradiction — a direct and 

 full opposition of sentiment, it is not in mortals to submit quietly to. The most 

 remarkable omission on the Protestant side of the argument is, that of all inquiry 

 of a close kind, as to v.'here the sense of the Church, whose interpretation the 

 Catholic regards as absolute, is to be found. It is not in the Pope, nor in the 

 Councils, nor in the Fathers, for they, one and all, at one time or other, have con- 

 tradicted each other. The reader will find all that can be adduced in support of 

 the Catholics, but he must look elsewhere for the Protestant's sentiments. 



The Poetical Works of C. B. Ash, of Adbaston. 2 vols. 8vo. 



Defend us ! As if Mr. C. B. Ash had ever been heard of before out of the 

 smoke of the Wrekin ! We remember some few years ago meeting with the 

 " Works, Prosaical and Poetical, of W. Dyason, eight volumes, 1804." Inquir- 

 ing of the publisher who this voluminous personage might be, we learnt that he 

 was at the time an apothecary's apprentice of Canterbury, who had thus spent 

 all his little patrimony upon paper-makers and printers. Not a line of the whole 

 mass, probablj', was readable ; but they consisted of a hodge-podge of all sorts 

 of things, and imitations, as the writer called them, of all sorts of authors — 

 good, bad, and indifferent. They have doubtless long since been consigned to 

 the waste-paper shops, which, by the way, we hear are so much overstocked, 

 that the price has fallen 100 per cent, in an incredibly short period. Mr. C. B. 

 Ash talks a good deal of lang syne, and so is not, it may be supposed, a youth ; 

 but he does not require being told there are old fools as well as young ones, 

 though he will not put himself in the category. The poem at the head of this 

 mighty collection is entitled Adbaston, which proves to he the name of Mr. Ash's 

 Cunabula — in the neighbourhood of the Wrekin. The said poem takes the tone 

 of Goldsmith, many of his lines, and more of his sentiments — of all which 

 Mr. Ash was not in the least aware till some good-natured friend told him of 

 it. Pol.' me occidistis! would have been the exclamation of any body else; but 

 no, Mr. Ash contents himself with accounting for the fact, which he does very 

 satisfactorily, by telling us, that at the time of writing the poem, he had recently 

 been reading Goldsmith's productions, and was so delighted, and so imbued 

 with them, as not to be able to distinguish them from his own. 



While laurel'd bards attune the sounding strings, 

 And tell of battles, and the courts of kings ; 

 On other themes the pensive muse would pore. 

 And cast a thought on days that are no more. 

 Ye who, in revels at the midnight hour. 

 Ne'er feel a rapture but from pride or power ; 



