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this reason esteemed above others. A continuation was issued in 1818-23 as Nouvelles Lettres Édifiantes, which also enters into several foreign editions in connection with the first set. The Spanish translation is interesting from the fact that it shared in the troubles which fell upon the original, and stopped in consequence with vol. 16. Cartas Edificantes. Madrid, 1753-7. It was compiled by P. Davin from the Lettres as well as the Mémoires du Levant, and prefaced in each volume with a review of the contents, and of mission progress. The letters of the original collection were published as soon as a sufficient number had accumulated, without regard to the country they related to, so that a lamentable want of order resulted, which had to be rectified in later editions. In that of 1819 they are separated into sets called Mémoires du Levant d'Amérique, etc.; but are otherwise not well arranged. In the earlier volumes, for instance, relating to America, IV. is devoted to the north-east coast of the northern continent, and to South America. The latter region extends over the greater part of V., wherein is given also a memoir on Lower California. P. Charles le Gobien was the first editor, succeeded by the talented P. Du Halde, well known through his History of China, and after them came Ingoult, de Neuville, and Patouillet. The value of the letters to science as well as to history becomes apparent from a mere consideration of the extensive learning and zeal of the Jesuits, and their power of observing and of acquiring influence with rulers and people. But the valuable material is interwoven with a mass of prosy tedious details, chiefly of a religious nature, and it is to be noticed that the contributions of the Spanish and Italian fathers appear more exaggerated and credulous than those written by men from France and adjoining countries in the north. The needless prolixity was the chief cause of the many abridgments which taxed the forbearance of the worthy editors by their. irreverent omissions, and by frequently giving no credit to the original. The Mémoires Géographiques, etc., Paris, 1767, 4 vols., affords an instance. A more ungrateful borrower is Lockman, who, in condensing the first ten volumes of the Letters in his Travels of the Jesuits, announces that he omits prosy accounts of miracles and conversions as 'ridiculous to all persons of understanding.' The promised continuation of the work failed to appear, to the delight of the pious fathers, who no doubt saw in this non-success a condign punishment of blasphemy.
