Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/8

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“We cordially recommend this volume as a valuable contribution to our ecclesiastical history.”—Scotsman, 21st November 1844.

“The work does all that is here represented; and in a manner, too—in a purity of style, and a force and eloquence of expression, that we have never seen surpassed in any work of history.”—The Scottish Herald, 28th November 1844.

“This is an excellent book, and one which we are glad to see in English dress. The preface, or preliminary essay, is itself an admirable work. The Frenchman writes in the spirit of Milton and Channing. His discourse is an able and eloquent argument for the fundamental principles of the Reformation,—namely, freedom of conscience, freedom of inquiry, and freedom from the sacerdotal yoke. It is, in one word, written in the spirit of the most Catholic Christianity. . . . We regret that we have not the power of speaking of this work with the fulness due to its merits.”—Tait’s Magazine, December 1844.

“The subject of the work before us is the last part of the great Western Schism, and the religious wars in Bohemia, which were the result of the fatal decrees of the Council of Constance. The task which the author has undertaken is well and ably executed.”—Banner, December 6.

“This work of M. De Bonnechose sets before us events in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which not only prepared the way for the great movement of the sixteenth, to which Luther and Calvin have given their names, but rendered such movement inevitable, even though these great leaders had never been.”—Athenæum, December 14.

“The incidents connected with the history of John Huss, with his trial, conviction, and death, are brought together with spirit and effect; and the character not only of Huss, but of the principal personages mixed up with his trial, is sketched by the hand of a master.”—Oxford University Herald, December 21.

“We gave, a few numbers back, a passage from this thrilling history, relative to the martyrdom of John Huss. The work itself is translation from the French, and is apparently the first of a series, by the same author. What D’Aubigné has done for Luther and his associates, Bonnechose has succeeded, although with less poetic imagery, in doing for Huss. His work, although but lately published, has attracted much attention, having been favourably noticed by some of the principal London and provincial journals. We have much gratification in introducing it to our readers, a duty which we should have discharged sooner, but that we had intended to bestow upon it a more extended notice. Finding this impossible in the mean time, we are unwilling to withhold our commendation longer, satisfied, as we are, that those who will peruse it, will unite with us in bearing testimony to its intrinsic excellency.”—Banner of Ulster, December 24, 1844.

“The account given by De Bonnechose of those illustrious martyrs, the pioneers of the Reformation, who preceded and paved the way for that grand event in the history of European civilization, is compiled with singular ability, and distinguished by the impartiality of an historian whose aim is the elucidation of the truth. . . . The period the author has selected for illustration is full of the most eventful and interesting circumstances; and his work will be found to comprise a very