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THE DUBLIN REVIEW
Edited by Wilfrid Ward
Volume CXLV
Quarterly Nos 290, 291; July & October 1909
BURNS &> OATES 2 8 Orchard Street London W
THE CONTENTS
July and Odtober 1909
The Literary Aspect of the Old Testament. By
Canon William Barry, D.D. I
Politics and Party
I. The Diseases of the House ot Commons. By
Lord Hugh Cecil 25
II. Edmund Burke on Party Action. By the
Editor 36
The Failure of the Workhouse. By Mrs Crawford 59 Light at Evening Time. A Poem. By W. G. Hole 78 A Century of Socialistic Experiments. By W. H.
Mallock 79
St Anselm of Canterbury. By Monsignor Moyes 107 The Modern Surrender of Women. By G. K.
Chesterton 128
Lord Curzon and Oxford Retorm. By F. F. Urqu-
hart, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford 138
English Catholics in the Eighteenth Century 147
Swinburne's Lyrical Poetry. By Alice Meynell 172
Some Recent Books 184
The Love Letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh. Edited by Alexander Carlyle, M.A. — Folk-Memory. By Walter Johnson — History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. By Darwell Stone — Six Oxford Thinkers. By Algernon Cecil — The White Sister. By Marion Crawford — The Old Wives' Tale. By Arnold Bennett — Russian Essays and Stories. By Maurice Baring — The Science of Ethics. By Rev. Michael Cronin. D.D. — Baldassaro Castiglione. By Julia Cartwright — Gentlemen Errant, By Mrs Henry Cust — The Condition of England. By C. F. G. Master- man — The East End of Europe. By Allen Upward — Dieu et L'Agnos- ticisme Contemporain. By Georges Michelet — Revision of the Vulgate — Biology and its Makers. By Professor Locy — St Justin, Dialogue avec Tryphon — Figures de Moines. By Ernest Dimnet — University Adminis- tration. By Dr Eliot — Galatea of the Wheatfield. By M. E. Francis — The Blue Bird. By Maurice Maeterlinck.
"J
The Contents
The Catholic Disabilities Bill. By the Rev. Herbert
Thurston, S.J. page 225
Maria Edgeworth and Etienne Dumont. By Rowland
Grey 239
The Taxation of Rent. By Hilaire Belloc, M.P. 266
London. A Poem. By James Barr 282
The April Mutiny in Stamboul. By F. McCullagh 283
(Petersburg correspondent of the New Tor\ Times).
The Tennyson Centenary: Tennyson's Religious
Poetry. By the Editor 306
St Anselm of Canterbury {concluded). By Monsignor
Moyes 323
Epigenesis and Preformation in Organic Development.
By the Rev. G. A. Elrington, O.P., F.L.S. ^53
A Medieval Princess. By the Hon. Mrs Maxwell
Scott of Abbotsford 371
The Ancients in Racine and in Shakespeare. By F. Y.
Eccles 393
Spiritualism. By the Rev. Robert Hugh Benson 406
Some Recent Books 422
Problems of Evolution. By Rev. Erich Wasmann — Materials and Methods of Fiction. By Clayton Hamilton — The Score. By Lucas Malet — Discourses and Sermons on various Subjects. By Cardinal Gibbons — Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England — Readings on the Paradiso of Dante. By the Honble W. W. Vernon — Lyra Evangelistica. By A. S. Cripps — Oxford Lectures on Poetry. By A. C. Bradley — A Century of French Poets. By F. Y. Eccles — The History of the English Labourer. By Professor Hasbach — Life of Mary Ward, the Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary — An Englishman's Castle. By Miss Loan — The Pyrenees. By H. Belloc — The Chronicle of Thomas of Eccleston. By Father Cuthbert — The Mythology of the British Islands. By A. Squire. — Mendel's Principles of Heredity. By Professor Bateson — The Stone Ages. By Rev. Frederick Smith — Peter Homunculus. By Gilbert Cannan. — Catholic Social Work in Germany. By Rev. C. D. Plater.
IV
LITERARY ASPECTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
LIFE, on the whole, is governed by certain great commonplaces which at our peril we forget. In pre- vious articles I have drawn attention to the fact, con- stantly disregarded by men who write " Progress " on their banners, that our civilization comes from the South, and that the adventurous Northern races found in Greeks and Romans the masters by whom they were educated. Athens will ever be the school of philosophy and science; Rome has never ceased to be the representative of law. But religion, however closely in touch with Plato by its theology, or with Justinian by its canons of discipline, is, and must remain, Hebrew till the world's end. " The Hebrew," says De Quincey, " by introducing himself to the secret places of the human heart, and sitting there as incubator over the awful germs of the spiritualities that connect man with unseen worlds, has perpetuated himself as a power in the human system; he is co-enduring with man's race, and careless of all revolutions in literature or in the composition of society."* And St Paul — the recon- ciler of East and West — " Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the pro- mises ; whose are the Fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came."t
Whether we like it or no, therefore, we speak and think about religion in an Oriental language, not akin to the Teuton, most foreign in structure and movement to Latin, the antithesis of Greek by its essential form. It is curious to reflect that, whereas the Jew became our teacher and thereby planted his very idioms in the heart of Europe, there had been a day when his cousin, the Phoe- nician, might have got the start of him. What would have happened after the defeat of Cannae if Hannibal had marched on Rome? Livy tells the tale of his refusing to
* Works, vol. x, 250, "On Language." f Romans, ix, 4, 5.
Vol. 145 i 1
Literary Aspects of
follow fortune, and how Maherbal exclaimed in despair, " Vincere scis, Hannibal; victoria uti nescis." That day's delay, concludes the historian, was looked upon as the sal- vation of the city and the empire.* Hannibal, whose name is pure Hebrew, signifying " God be gracious," lost his opportunity; and the Phoenician dialect, which might have grown into an imperial language, spoken from Sicily to the Shetlands, dwindled away, leaving an inscription here and there, with some eighteen corrupt lines as its epitaph in the Pcenulus of Plautus.f
Undoubtedly, between the sons of Tyre and those who went out to subdue the world from the mountain-fastness of Salem there was a difference as of life and death. The Carthaginian was a trader and nothing more. His " fac- tories " were places of exchange on the coast; the only shadow of a real dominion which he established lay across the Pillars of Hercules; neither religion nor civilization owed an idea to the middleman of classic antiquity. Sup- pose Hannibal had triumphed in Rome; it is hard to imagine that his people would have welcomed or spread the Hebrew revelation, in which their man-devouring god Baal is termed their shame and an unclean idol. Rome put down Carthage ; and, in the three centuries following, Israel was given time to develop from the prophetic scrolls that New Testament which is its spiritual legacy to man- kind, while a " holy remnant " made proselytes in all the great cities, and the preparation for the Gospel was com- pleted. Few pages in history stir up deeper thoughts than this rejection of one branch of the Semites, aspiring to be cosmopolitan by virtue of their Oriental turn for trading, and the choice of another, driven into exile by a long train of misfortunes. The outcome is that we are familiar with Hebrew life and literature as though it were our own; but the word "Punic" is confined to our Latin schoolbooks, " Ut pueris placeas et declamatio has."
England's chief treasure, it has been said, is the Bible. I think that witness true, even now amid the smoke and conflict of so many modern ideas. If a common language
* Livy, xxii, 5 1. \ Pcenulus, Act v, so i, 2,
2
the Old Testament
binds together races not of the same stock, as Latin created the empire that was to become Christendom, then the tongue of Shakespeare and Milton, and of Holy Writ as known to them, may well have been chosen by Providence for some large design, the scope of which is not yet fully disclosed, but analogous as regards the English-speaking millions to that whereby the Rome of the Caesars was transformed into the Western Zion., There is no accident in the march of events. Joseph de Maistre felt in his pro- phetic way that even the Bible Societies, of which Lon- don is the headquarters, would take their share in carrying out this divine purpose, undesirable as might be the methods of their propaganda. He likened the translations into all dialects, which they were promoting, to the Septua- gint, in which Hebrew genius received the universal stamp that only a Greek rendering could bestow on it ; and he foresaw consequences without end as the Farther East and Africa and the Ocean Isles arrived at a know- ledge of the inspired Word.
But the fountain-head of these countless versions is King James's Bible. So long as the English tongue is spoken it will vindicate to itself the first place as a stan- dard of literature, religious in its contents, unrivalled in the grace and dignity of its expression. Far outside the British dominions, and in states that yet shall be, its power is destined to endure. How, then, ought Catholics to judge and deal with the Authorized Version? It is an enquiry abounding in delicate problems, insistent and clamorous. I would aim at their solution in the spirit of those pas- sages, the last he ever wrote, which De Maistre has left us in the Soirees de St Petersbourg, n, 230-242. Forward we must glance, forgetting the things that are behind, transcending the controversial jealousies of our dead an- cestors, but making our own the best of whatever kind that has come down to us from them.
Dear as to the Catholic heart is the conversion of Eng- land, which we feel sure lies among predestined things in the days to come, it may often seem as if we had scarcely touched the fringe of all that so great a revolution must
3 1*
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involve. In these high matters one speaks under correction, nay, with stammering lips. But unless we consider them our labour will be in vain. Now the Roman tradition has this advantage over Calvin — who formulated the only genuine Protestantism and abides as its Doctor Maximus — that it never would accept the principle of man's total depravity. On the definitions of the natural order and divine grace laid down by the Fathers of Trent there is no human virtue, no exalted achievement, of any race or society, which, being good so far as it goes, the Church is unwilling to bless and consecrate. Our philosophy teaches us to baptize whatever we light upon in Adam's children that has a particle of worth, be it valour, intellect, genius for the plastic arts, for music and literature, for practical wisdom, or what you will, provided the evil accidents that cling to it be taken away. " I came not to destroy but to fulfil," is true of the Church as of Christ who bequeathed to her that saving sentence. And if the English-speaking universe ever is baptized into the sacrament of unity, English it will remain as before. It will not come without its treasures. Whatever is characteristic in its make and qualities will show the added beauty of its recovered religion; it will not be stripped bare of the glorious ves- tures wherein this remarkable people have clad them- selves from of old. Here it is that the national literature claims a place. For it stands not lower than the Greek, and in many respects as far above the Latin as Shakespeare excels Terence or Edmund Burke rises beyond Cicero. And of all that has been said or sung in English from Chaucer downwards, the Bible is chief and crown.
During nearly four centuries the process of assimilation between the people and the Book has been going on — since Tyndale printed his New Testament in 1525 — until its very Hebraisms have come to sound in the ears of Englishmen like their mother tongue. We shall discover no parallel to such a story in the Romance languages ; for the Vulgate has held its own among ecclesiastics, and the mul- titude did not get their religious training from the ver- nacular Scriptures. Luther's Bible, again, is, no doubt, a
4
the Old Testament
German classic; but we may question if it has exercised upon the native authors an influence at all comparable to that which, by quotation or allusion to Scripture, can be traced in English writings from the age of Elizabeth to our own. As the Koran is ever present in Arabic litera- ture, as the Latin Bible dominated for well nigh a thou- sand years the thoughts and discourses, the correspon- dence and teaching, of Western Europe, so their religious " Matter of Britain " has been familiar and has furnished household words to ten generations of this island. In sub- stance the thing is done for ever. We cannot rewrite Mac- beth or Othello; their language affords at once a stereotype and a limit; no revised version of them is conceivable. And so, in a literary point of view, does it stand as regards the Bible text, elaborated from unknown periods down to 1 6 1 1 . Mistakes in detail cannot overshadow its excellence ; these admit of correction, but to displace the old and substitute a new rendering, be the apparatus of scholarship as per- fect as modern research will ever make it, lies not in man's power. The revision of 1 881-1884, helpful in many ways to students, has failed precisely in the degree in which it moves upon uniform rules of translation. It is singularly uninspired; and whatever beauty it possesses we feel at once to be derived from the original which it has under- taken to improve.
Thus, our English problem bears little resemblance to St Jerome's when he girded up his loins for the mighty task of which what we now term the Vulgate was to be the out- come. The Old Latin versions were in form rustic and in text largely corrupt. They had degenerated into number- less variations; a standard edition did not exist. And the result justified him by presenting a translation of the Scriptures far superior, in all that Jerome gave it of his own, to those which it supplanted. Who would now anti- cipate such an advance upon the " authorized " English text from any committee of modern scholars? The spirit which we have mocked as the Zeitgeist troubles us all; we suffer from it but must endure it. That mingled sense of simplicity and majesty peculiar to a creative epoch, and
5
Literary Aspects of
conspicuous in the Elizabethan, has almost wholly for- saken us. We could no more equal or transcend the virile beauties of which the Old Testament, in particular, keeps the secret than we could outdo in our trim Gothic taber- nacles the wonders of Amiens and Chartres. He is the true Vandal who attempts to restore the antique. Living as we do in a period when ideas are debased and language is setting towards decay, our efforts at a new creation of the English Bible would probably be marred by the same faults that disfigure religious writing in general. At the best we should betray by our imitation of ancient models how poor a thing is deliberate pedantry.
The conclusion seems unassailable. England has its Bible in the only form that is likely to be accepted when one-third of the human race will have learned its lan- guage and taken over its civilization. We cannot offer them anything better in the shape of literature, no, nor by many degrees so good. But even if we had that more excellent style, how undo the past? How get rid of the associations, memories, attachments, in virtue of which, as Emerson remarks, every sentence in the sacred volume is like an old Cremona that has been played upon until human passion seasons it through and through? Happily, these associations, intimate and affecting enough to pierce the hearts of a whole people as though it were one man, do not spring from any dogma reprobated by our creed. Neither Calvin nor Cranmer has taken the English Bible captive, or made of its sentences a tenure which heresy may claim. Certain mistranslations, due to Tyndale's fierce hatred of the Catholic priesthood, have long since been corrected as we would have them to be. Whatever is left unsound a very slight handling would remove. On the subject of various readings more is to be said by and by. At present my contention is only that the Bible holds a place in the world-wide literature of England from which it cannot be ousted, and that in the problem of conversion so momentous a fact demands more notice than it has hitherto received.
Some help in considering it we may gain by viewing
6
the Old Testament
the Scripture in its literary aspect, and thus bringing out the state of the case on which authority will be called to decide. Theologians naturally are not apt to regard the sacred text in this light, while admitting its justice. They know well that Revelation has not been given in the form of axioms and definitions, nor by way of science; that tradition is a living memory, rooted in the hearts of Catholics, handed on by personal teaching; and that its record in Hebrew and Greek is no treatise after the method of Aristotle. Inspiration has produced a series of books on which is everywhere set the seal of their authors, their age, and their local origin. They are composed in the language of Israel, a peculiar people, and they reflect the colours of a civilization which has passed away. They do not proceed on general or abstract principles. They are a history, or a drama, or a biography of heroic figures, and show a greater likeness to the pages of Herodotus than to the diagrams of Euclid. They abound in human touches, in characteristic sayings, in allusions to rites, customs, beliefs, usages often primitive and continually foreign to our habits of thought. All this rich array, spreading be- yond the margin of formal treatises, we have to reckon in our account when we would measure what the Bible means to those well- versed in it.
There are still devout souls to whom the notion of bringing Holy Scripture under the microscope of critical analysis borders on the profane. They look only at its mes- sage and its Divine Originator; to the human element they pay little or no regard; and the adept who pries into sources, composition, peculiarities of speech, historical circumstances, they are tempted to define as one who would "peep and botanize upon his mother's grave." They feel that what we term culture, applied to Revelation, is artificial if not superfluous, and comes in at the door as faith flies out at the window. Analysis, they dread, may end by denying inspiration. Now, it is quite true that scholarship has often, elsewhere than in dealing with Psalms and Prophets, proved fatal to poetry. The gram- marian— let us call by his old name this latter-day appa-
7
Literary Aspe&s of
rition — cannot, unless he rises above the crowd of details, see the wood for the trees. We have sometimes to rescue from his blind grasp our early English drama, sometimes the Attic tragedians. But here, too, the wounds made by the spear of Achilles that spear alone will heal. Since Richard Simon opened the door to critical enquiries (his Old Testament leading the way in 1687), and Lowth attempted an estimate of Hebrew rhythm, while Herder sought the contrasts and resemblances in all works of genius, sacred and secular, Eastern and Western, the Bible has moved into a fresh horizon. Formerly held to be in every sense unique, it stood without relation to any other writings. On the legendary view which expresses this idea, Hebrew was the language of Adam in Paradise, and Genesis the oldest book in the world. No other books professing to be sacred, i.e., inspired or God-given, were known save the Koran, itself a reminiscence of floating Jewish traditions. How altered is the case now! Relation and comparison have become universal methods of knowledge; the humble spade has enriched archaeology with countless fragments from worlds long buried, from Babylonia, Elam, Egypt, Asia Minor. The land of Canaan yields, and will yield, its data, from which we may hope to construct an outline of events throwing light on the story of Israel. Thus, by mere juxtaposition, the human element of Scrip- ture has gained in depth and breadth, in afhnities and antecedents, beyond all that men could have dreamt a hundred years ago. And this exactly it is which literature takes for its province. Religion looks up to the First Cause and is content. History, criticism, philology, psycho- logy, and our other inquisitive sciences, are never done searching out the second causes, in and through which the First manifests Himself.
We possess now such instruments for this purely ana- lytical account of Scripture as the Fathers would have envied; but they had advantages of their own. Can we not enjoy the new without losing the old? Our Vulgate will be held more precious in the measure that its Hierony- mian text is made more certain ; what shall we call the pro-
the Old Testament
cess by which to recover it? Surely criticism, the Higher and the Highest, demanding a fine sense for every shade of meaning, a mastery over sources, a knowledge as minute as extensive of medieval history. Are we permitted to be experts in this fashion while restoring a translation, but forbidden to touch the original? Who would say so? The greater questions will take us beyond St Jerome to the matters now in debate among learned men. A re- vised Hebrew text, such as Baer's, further studies in the Septuagint, and even the distant gleams cast on the Old Testament by Talmudic illustrations, cannot but lead up to more precise acquaintance with that which, after all, is the head and front of written religion — I mean, the books themselves. Any comment, to be of value, should enhance the significance of its subject. And here, again, we observe that while religion interprets the present by the past, being essentially a tradition from antiquity, the critical historian reverses that method, and places himself as near the origin as possible, in order to travel down stage by stage to actual fact.
Thus, theologians view the finished results in creed and dogma; but critics unravel the process of development, so far as the evidence will allow. To speak technically, it is the form of Revelation which dogma contemplates; in his- tory we are concerned with its matter and circumstances. These distinctions imply no more contradiction here than elsewhere, unless it be one to master the story of England that we may the better understand living Englishmen. But it will not do to confound the methods. Moreover, according as we employ them the relative importance of the different parts will change. To the critic, of necessity, the Old Testament comes first, the Gospels and Epistles are derived from it ; but the teacher of doctrine takes these for a rule, or as the final cause, the scope and real intention of the Law, the Psalms, the Prophets. I may study man in his nature and thence forbode his destiny — that would yield me the human dogma, so to name it. Or I may follow him up from his first appearance on this planet, tracing out his relation to other species, and thereby
9
Literary Aspects of
attain a true, though fragmentary, knowledge of what he has been, even if unable to guess what he will be. The logic that deduces from his rational constitution man's various qualities will surely not make void his ascertained or ascertainable past. He is what he has grown to be. And religion has grown with him. Shall we not interest our- selves in the strangely chequered course of that evolution which has brought us hither?
Origins and authors, language and history, charm us as they never did our Christian forefathers. We desire to see the pages of Holy Writ as they appeared in the eyes of con- temporaries, to grasp their immediate intention and work out how it stands towards the final, to march up with Israel from the Euphrates or the Nile and share in the training, thanks to which it has taught mankind the law of Righteousness. For an end in its nature historical, using means offered us by archaeology, the science of language, primitive customs, and the like, the Old Testament is a necessary foundation. Revealed doctrine has taken the shape of an Eastern and Semitic literature. To Westerns generally this at once implies the duty of translation with all its difficulties of letter and spirit.
Translation is not only from language to language ; it is also from ideas to ideas. When the Alexandrian Jews under- took to render into Greek some portions of the sacred volume, they softened many sayings which to aboriginal Hebrews gave no offence, but which would have shocked more modern ears. In such " anthropomorphisms " a double difficulty rose to light. As symbols of the Divine they were imperfect, and in a foreign tongue misleading; but they were also highly concrete, while the tendency of later Greek was towards the scientific or the abstract. If we consider the Bible as a whole, we shall perceive in it scarcely an admixture of Hellenic thought and nowhere any trace of reasoning by rule. For science, as the " divid- ing and distinguishing intellect " employed on general ideas, the Semite shows no capacity whatever. He cannot enter into our logic and has never assimilated the Organon of Aristotle. How shall we get inside this other soul,
10
the Old Testament
which cares nothing about our grammar, confuses our many particles, and measures the world on a scale of its own? Speculation, disinterested, impersonal, " pure," as we say, is only not disdained by the Arab (and the Jew is an Arab in this wider sense) because he does not so much as know what it means. The Sadducee hated Greek culture as tempting Israel to idolatry; that it could pass by every form of worship into a region of thought simply absorbed in thinking, not even Plato (nay, Plato least of all) could have driven into that brain, stored with images and similitudes, alive to emotion, keen upon action, but innocent of metaphysics.
In this, and no other mould the Bible is cast. It utters the language of childhood, juventus mundi, but not of a child who will grow into a European man. Our dramatic poetry, our reasoned narrative, of which Sophocles and Thucydides are respectively models, find no likeness among Oriental writings. Hebrew story proceeds by simple addition, the particle " and " serving to connect its incidents even when highly contrasted. How strange this loosely built structure appears in Greek anyone may learn by reading the Gospel of St Mark, which follows the native idiom; and to Latin it is equally repugnant. The Hebrew poets, again, are essentially of a lyric type, carried on not by a theme of which they unfold the several parts, but by feeling drawn out in the presence of an object loved or hated. They command, entreat, compassionate, curse or bless, in short flights of song, the effect heightened by repetition, the manner violent and picturesque. As they never appeal to abstract reason, or the nature of things apart from its Maker, so they move onward by association of moods, which themselves evoke the corre- sponding images. Hence the abrupt transitions, disjointed, as we think, and perplexing to us, who look for cause and effect where the Semite will not stop to bind them explicitly together. He sways himself according to a rhythm of passion, allows nothing to the opposite side, and as children live in the present so does the prophet, his one tense being the " Now " of excited interest. That
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Literary Aspefts of
species of return upon the words, which Lowth called "parallelism," belongs to extempore eloquence; it enables the orator to fling the object under varied lights, to watch it in movement, and to sustain his quivering voice, dominated by a feeling that shakes him out of him- self. In the beginning, as many scholars hold, such lyrical outbursts had more than a touch of ecstasy; they are still observed in the Bedawin of the Desert wrangling over dis- puted claims.* But everywhere the key-note is subjective, the horizon close, the source of feeling an interest not a pure idea.
Again, as the audience is the tribe, and literature, when it comes on the scene, takes this form of rhetoric, author- ship, too, is collective long before it assumes the privileges of the lonely genius. It is the work of the community. We read about the " schools of the prophets," who anticipated not merely the common life but in some sense the scrip- torium of Christian monasticism. Their leader may be imagined as controlling like a choirmaster those vivid explosions of enthusiasm during which his disciples uttered their sentiments. We do not attempt now to improvise in company except for sport; but the Easterns, and per- haps the half-Arab Sicilians, find in the crowd an inspira- tion which suddenly reacts upon all within hearing, and between them a story or poem is made out. Job argues with his friends in a moving dialogue, whereas Hamlet soliloquizes. Meditation in the Psalms is vocal and popular. The Talmud shows what is meant by a master and a school of law, where lectures are not treatises but aphorisms pointed by examples. And in like manner the Dervishes, who have preserved a much earlier form of religion than the Koran, seek for illumination in excitement, not in consecutive reasoning. These instances we quote by way of analogy; they will at any rate serve to bring out that characteristic of the Bible which makes it different from all Western literature not founded upon it.f
In every language words and thought are constantly
* See Dr Peter's Nippur, i, 238, ed. 1897. t Cf. The Tradition of Scripture, 203-7. 12
the Old Testament
reacting upon each other. Out of what strong feelings the Semitic verb, with its peculiar attributes, was elicited we shall never, perhaps, learn; but one thing is clear, the mental states of which it furnishes an expression do not resemble, even generically, those that our Aryan system represents. This all translators know by the embarrass- ment and confusion of tenses they cannot but fall into, so long as they give to the Hebrew conjugations a definite time-value. Examples abound even in St Jerome, and are notable in the Psalms, which he was not suffered to write over again. Jewish grammarians themselves failed in their apprehension of the principles, latent but real, whereby the true character might be explained of these puzzling differences. Our grammars, until Ewald showed a more excellent way, taught us to speak of past and future tenses, with no present, and plunged us into the darkness of the Van conversivum, a magic formula that by changing the vowel-points tossed the reader to and fro as it pleased but gave no reason why. At length understanding came. The Oriental verb-system is rude and inadequate, com- pared with our magnificently organized Greek, our Latin subjunctive, and our precise way in Western speech of marking time. But there is another logic which will reduce the Hebrew forms, so arbitrary in appearance, to reason and good sense. They must be treated rather as moods than tenses; what they regard is the quality of an action, whether perfect or imperfect, finished or still in move- ment, from the point of view chosen by the speaker. So, in French, the historical present, natural to their lively his- torians, describes the past, or even the future, but leaves it to the reader's sagacity to find that out. In Hebrew the actual succession of time must be gathered from the context; it possesses no forms that fix the date, but it evades this difficulty by " a subtle and unique applica- tion " of the two forms expressing " kinds " of time. Their use determines relation in a series of events, and that series is contemplated by the narrator with reference to his own attitude.
We have thus arrived once more at the rhetoric of feel-
*3
Literary Aspects of
ing, the sudden, passionate seizure of every detail as it flashes into light by a vision glancing from point to point with Dantean swiftness. "The Hebrew's mind," it has been well said, " moved on with his thought, and was present with the whole range of ideas included in his thought." Might we not term this manner of speech a lyrical pro- gress? It combines the two elements which are admirably fused in Shelley's Adonais and Spenser's Epithalamium, for it is all motion and emotion; nor can it endure the indirect narrative which, in other languages, substitutes hearing for seeing. That is how we should define the picturesque — a painted present, so to say — and where is the writing that excels Holy Writ in the depth and brilliancy of its descriptions?*
Attempts have not been wanting in modern Hebrew (especially, we are told, by Russian men of letters) to manipulate the language so that it shall express philoso- phic systems like the Hegelian. But they
Do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence.
Neither for science nor speculation does it afford an ade- quate medium. It triumphs in a loftier sphere; the heights of religious intuition are its own. Infinite expansive power lies hid within those brief sentences that cannot be woven into periods, or wrought up by articulation to Demos- thenic harmonies. The Bible uses facts as a great orator uses them, for persuasion and rebuke, not by way of build- ing a theory. On this ground also we affirm that there is no science in Scripture, and that the religion of Israel was something else than philosophy. The Talmudic Jew, un- tainted by Western ideas, never strays into problems of How and Whence and Why; he does not exclaim, " Happy the man that has learned the causes of things!" but " O the blessings of him that keepeth the law!" He is utterly unconcerned about causes, and regards only him- self and his Creator; these are his " luminous realities," as they were to the greatest religious genius of the nine- * See Driver's Hebrew Tenses, Introd. p. 7. H
the Old Testament
teenth century. To him the universe, with all its wealth of life and beauty, remains what it was in the Book of Job — a theme for wonder, not for investigation. " Canst thou by searching find out God?" he asks, not without scorn; " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ?" The law which he reveres is not cosmic law, it is God's will, " Thus saith the Mighty One of Jacob." God is the Revealer, but His command- ment runs, " Thou shalt do," not " Thou shalt know." Hebrew natural history, set forth in the last chapters of Job, from which we have been quoting, overleaps all second causes; and so throughout the Bible. " He giveth them meat in due season," or " He maketh the grass to spring up," or " He calleth the stars by their names " — such is the science (most true and needful) which con- tents the Israelite. There is no hint of a search after earthly origins. The six days of creation represent a series of divine mandates, where Fiat is the first word and the last. Other creators, indeed, are eliminated; Bel and Anu vanish before the face of the Lord; but never a syllable is expended on the process by which things have been drawn from their elements or the stages of their growth.
Yet again, " wisdom " is not the answer to problems of being, as it is with us. The wise man drives at practice; understanding teaches a shrewd morality, as in Proverbs, so whenever any son of Israel instructs the world. His energy (to use the Aristotelean formula) is action, its mo- tive love or hate or acquisition — personal at all times, though it need not be selfish. When the Kabbala tries to reason after the style of Greeks, it produces a fanciful doctrine of numbers, a guide to mysticism, and a method of attaining union with the Supreme; it is a divine Ars Amandi. Even Spinoza, who dreamt he was following Des- cartes, looks on philosophy as a way of life; he terms it Ethics, and his One Substance forms the prelude to a code of behaviour by which happiness may be found. These are not accidents. In Hellas, the seer yielded place to the "disputer of this world"; but no Socrates has ever ap- peared among Israelites; none certainly is discoverable in
i5
Literary Aspects of
the Old Testament. And if he had risen up to argue and define, the language itself would have cast him out.
Familiar as these distinctions are now, and deeply fixed in German thought since Goethe, while Matthew Arnold, borrowing from Heine, drew out by their means almost a grammar of religious criticism, we still need to apply them, directly and at every turn, to the Bible itself. Granting that, as a literature, it has no European features, we must forbear in the details to construe its prose and poetry by Western rules. The effort of reading a Hebrew volume with Hebrew eyes cannot succeed unless we transport ourselves to the time and place which truly fur- nish the context, or the scene, of its publication. De Quincey glances at " those conceits which every Christian nation is apt to ground upon the verbal text of the Scrip- tures " in its own vernacular.* They would melt away, he observes, were the original looked into. Much Biblio- latry, as he says with justice, depends on ignorance of Hebrew and Greek, or on peculiarity of idiom and struc- ture in modern tongues. The argument might be turned against all translations whatsoever, including the Vulgate, which, often as it sacrifices classical forms to an inter- linear fidelity, is yet Latin by its general make no less than by diction. Translations, however, there must always be; the corrective is to spread among readers a knowledge of the conditions under which they were executed. Even a sight of the Hebrew characters would help to check the mischief of taking a version for the autograph. Marginal notes, or a few pages of introduction, would save a world of misunderstanding which, among Protes- tants, has aggravated the evil of sects, while it has made of the Old Testament to Catholics in general a sealed volume. They have opened it once and felt bewildered at a style so abrupt, so full of strange alternations in subject, tense, person, so vehement yet so obscure; and they have shut it with a conviction that it had no message for them. But, granting the requisite age and discretion, that is by no means the case, even where lay-folks are concerned.
* fVorks,vo\. vni, " Protestantism," p. 263 16
the Old Testament
And how great is the loss to preaching in proportion as the clergy do not take the Law and the Prophets in their range, only those can estimate who will compare modern sermons with St Augustine's. The Reformers made much of the Hebrew saints and heroes, but is that a reason why we should neglect them? If there is one thing more than another which deprives the pulpit of influence at this day, it is probably the ever-narrowing circle of texts from which subjects are chosen, the popular and, I had almost said, journalistic, handling of contemporary topics. Now the whole Bible is not only inspired, but inspiring; and a very little attention to the structure of its language, the form and movement of its ideas, would greatly enlarge our acquaintance with it, as well as kindle our admiration for the marvels it contains.
An excellent rule, laid down by Jacob Grimm on another subject, viz., the folk-tale, warns us that rightly to take hold of it we should be " initiated into all the innocence of popular poetry."* So, too, the Bible is in a grand sense naive, like Homer and the oldest legends. Just by not bur- dening itself with the reference to some paramount philo- sophy which runs through our common literature it keeps this air of youth — is not the poet an eternal child? Do we expect of him to prove his dates, or to be pedan- tically accurate in apicibus juris? He stands above these things, not below them. To his purpose and ours they are of no consequence. We want the poem which he alone can give, and on his own terms. And, in reading the ancient Scriptures, "Nifi. efhciamini sicut parvuli," is a true liter- ary axiom. Critical training is intended to give us that simplicity of aim and sympathy of disposition without which the works of genius are not to be understood. He is the best critic who throws himself into the heart of the book, and is subdued to its deepest colour. He may judge after he has felt, but not before.
It is remarkable that Voltaire, who was one of the acutest men of letters that ever lived, should not have known this much as belonging to his profession; and that,
* Teutonic {Mythology, in, xiii, Eng. tr. Vol. 145 17 2
Literary Aspects of
in consequence, all his gibes and sarcasms at the expense of the Old Testament recoil on his own head. Of M. Renan, whose feeling for the greatness of the Bible was genuine, and his scholarship on the literary side unde- niable, we need not fear to say that he has done some rare things in its honour, especially by insisting on the unique position it holds above the " Sacred Books of the East," The Old Testament yields the quintessence of Oriental literature under a classic form. It has all the modes of Eastern poetry, the tale, the apologue, the proverb, the hymn, the laws and the chronicles, the heroic adventures, the ecstasies and the visions, the pilgrim's chant, the warrior's battle-cry, the meditative exchange of pregnant thought, the romance of love, the elegy on dead friends and desolate cities — what is there not of all this in its pages? It is the key that opens for us a gallery of nations and is their record. Without the Bible we should never have known Asia. It gave us Egypt before Champollion and Assyria before Layard. It kept alive the name of Elam, which seemed a myth until De Morgan laid bare the dy- nasties of Susa, and Scheil deciphered the language of Anzan. It has educated Europe to an intimate sense of reality, wjien Persia, Canaan, Tyre and Sidon are men- tioned. And it remembered extinct peoples like the Hit- tites during the vast ages since their empire fell into oblivion. To sum up all, Hebrew Scripture unfolds the central history of the world.
Moreover, if we put the Old Testament aside, the New is a fragment. Every sentence, at least in spirit, which the latter contains may be derived from the former. Christians brought to the West a Hebraism purged of its imperfec- tions, a Bible that recorded them while prophesying of some better covenant, and in the Psalms a Book of Com- mon Prayer for mankind. There are those to whom the inclusion of books such as Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Esther, among revealed documents is a rock of offence; and one must grant their difficulties, while transcending them by Bishop Butler's appeal to analogy, to the principle of growth in which the lower stages, because inchoate and
18
the Old Testament
imperfect, point to an upward way. " The Hebrew," says De Quincey again, " meagre and sterile as regards the numerical wealth of its ideas, is infinite as regards their power." And why? Because they manifest an infinite per- sonality, whose name unites all times and moments as parts of a scheme of Righteousness. Dominus regnavit, " The Lord is King." And here is the need of an Elder Testament in our Bible, to remind us that once the shadows only were discerned of those good things which we possess sub specie sacramentorum. We, too, are pilgrims under the cloud and journey with the tabernacle. If the New Testament, according to St Augustine, was latent in the Old, then it is our duty not to cast either from us.
Allegory, as employed by commentators, was a rude instrument of culture. It insisted on the quality of Holy Writ by which relations were opened with future times and distant peoples, and on its universal or Christian mean- ing, and so far well. But allegory neither attracts nor per- suades a generation brought up on scientific methods. Such is the state of the case with which we have to reckon. What we will call prophecy was, indeed, a power and a fact, so full of godlike energy that to it Hebraism owes the sceptre of the world-religion. There never can be another. It is inconceivable that a concrete form, larger than Christianity and absorbing it, will rule over Western civilization, among other grounds, because the elements of any form whatso- ever, free from essential impurity, are already contained in the Gospels. The Incarnation is our " anthropo- morphism," since Jesus of Nazareth is " the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature."* This all- encompassing definition of One who was absolutely real and personal cannot be superseded. And we might boldly say that the Old Testament moves on from a less anthro- pomorphic conception of the Supreme to a greater, be- cause more human, and so it leads up to Christ. For when the lines of the picture have been completely drawn the Messiah appears, and what is His name but the " Son of Man" ? I do not call this allegory; it is the thing
*Colos3ians, 1, 15.
19 2a
Literary Aspefts of
that happened. To show in detail how it came to pass, by considering the words of Scripture and the events which throw light on them, can anything be better adapted in our day than literary criticism applied to the original records?
All this, I may be told, lies within the bounds of exe- gesis, and over exegesis the Church has jurisdiction; nay, more, she has a way of her own in handling Scripture testimonies, viz., the mystical, which differs much from the literary. We must not hold out our hands to the Jewish ferule, making unchristian Rabbis our masters. Have we not a sufficient, because authentic, version of the Hebrew in St Jerome? What more do we want? Let us be satisfied with our Douay Bible, which no one has ever thought unfaithful to the Vulgate. Why exalt a transla- tion that took its rise in heresy and has proved a most effective instrument in keeping Britons isolated from the Catholic world?
That there is a certain force in arguments like these I should be the last to deny; but they require some dis- tinctions and a more precise consideration, if we would learn what they really involve. The Church has jurisdic- tion, by virtue of her duty towards the Deposition fidei, over exegesis. Who that is orthodox will question it? Again, her appeal to the ancient Scriptures goes upon a sense of her own, call it mystical or prophetic, as it is, in fact, traditional. Of course, and that sense is justified by the New Testament writers who exemplify it, for " Christ is the end of the law."* But when we have said thus much a wide territory is left where critics may expatiate. The general application of Old Testament lan- guage and meaning to our Lord as its consummate flower, leaves all but a few passages, comparatively speaking, with- out particular reference until or unless literary methods come to our aid. No school of exegesis prevails in the Fathers, or in any subsequent time, to the exclusion of another. Names equally great can be arrayed on either side. If the pure mystics boast of Origen and St Augustine, * Romans, x, 4. 20
the Old Testament
the literal commentators glory in St Chrysostom, St Jerome, and a growing multitude of Catholic divines since the Reformation. Authority leaves us free to pass on with a smile when the African saint draws theo- logical truths out of numbers and figures curiously mani- pulated; we may feel that his gematria resembles the Jewish Kabbala in being at once intricate and unsubstan- tial, but the Church will not censure us. St Gregory the Great has quaint " accommodated " moralizings of a similar value — the lesson is always sound, the argument belongs to an obsolete school. Literary methods claim, at all events, one advantage, if employed as they ought to be — their principles are those of reason exercised upon the actual facts. To this extent criticism partakes of the nature of science and occupies a ground common to all the Western world. It is forbidden to reject any article of the creed; but it does not make the creed a starting- point, for otherwise it would no longer be criticism but theology.
And if pure literary treatment of the Bible is legiti- mate, then to get elucidations from Jewish Rabbis can be as little blamed in the scholar of to-day as in St Jerome. The Hebrew text, edited by their ancestors, has its own merits and defects, but to overlook it is impossible. How the Catholic Church regards it in the main we know from the happy circumstance that Leo X accepted the dedica- tion of the Rabbinic Bible published by Felix Pratensis in 1 5 17 at Venice. The Complutensian Polyglot of 15 14 bears witness to the same consideration for the Massoretes. Rome has condemned extravagances and superstitions too often associated with Talmudic studies, but she is not jealous of attention paid to Hebrew, and by the chairs erected in her local universities she encourages the clergy to learn it thoroughly. As the Scriptures recover their place in seminary teaching — which the stress of modern disputes will certainly bring about — an acquaintance with the actual words of Revelation will no longer be the privi- lege of a few, and those looked upon as somewhat eccen- tric. Bible-learning demands a knowledge of the Biblical
Literary Aspe6ls of
languages. If it were fairly at home among us it would prove a check by its very seriousness upon the unbalanced popular movements, wanting as much in depth as in per- spective, that have weakened such an ancient Church as that of France and are working disastrously in other lands. Scripture does not lend itself to vagaries of devotion; it steadies worship, recalls the divine to the sources of his dogma, and adds to preaching an authority not other- wise attainable. Theology was written for experts; the Bible is composed in the language not of the schools, but of the people.
The people — but what people? Here I come round to the point from which I set out. Every nation requires to be taught Christianity, as on the first Whitsuntide of the New Covenant, in " their own tongue wherein they were born." Shall Holy Scripture be given to them or with- held? To-morrow the elements of education will be uni- versal; literature in our schools is even now winning the upper hand over catechism; and I ask whether the inspired volume is to be a dead letter, sacrificed to Wordsworth and Tennyson at the best, or to current verses on a level with magazine-writing? Literature, says Carlyle, should be a Bible. Excellent, but have we not in the Bible our grandest literature ? Shakespeare cannot teach us religion ; the secu- larist therefore gives prizes to all who have learned As You Like It, and exiles Holy Writ to the topmost shelf of the school library. That sacred word, on which society, in spite of itself, is yet established, now surrenders the guidance of life to poets favoured by the local authorities who choose reading-books, to scraps of so-called philo- sophy culled from everywhere, to little apologues and parables illustrated by oleographs or picture postcards. It is a mad world that deems itself Christian while such things are done. Brought up myself on the Bible as our daily lesson, not at second hand, to me it appears that edu- cation has travelled downhill, and is going ever more rapidly towards the deep. I would not put the whole Bible into children's hands; but assuredly neither would I take the whole of it from them.
22
the Old Testament
When I say the Bible I mean its very words, not an account of it by the teacher, not any summaries or arrangements of its incomparable prose, but the stories, prophecies, psalms in their own phrasing, to be known hereafter as Ruskin knew them, matter and form to- gether. The present neglect of form in Catholic pages is to me perplexing. Distinction and literary grace were of old cultivated by Churchmen at a period when the classic elegance had been forgotten. Bossuet thought it due to the Gospel that he should utter its truths in a style worthy of them. We, however, stand midway be- tween the classics, which we have ceased to make our own, and the high modern authors whom we do not profess to know. A supreme English standard was given us in New- man, but how few are the traces of his influence on the religious publications that find a welcome among our people! Meanwhile the question I have raised, though urgent upon us during a good half-century, remains without an answer. What is to be the Catholic way of dealing with England's great literary achievement, the Authorized Version of the Bible?
Strong precedents favourable to a policy of assimila- tion or reconcilement are by no means far to seek. All through the Church's missionary campaigns, from St Paul's speech on the Hill of Mars, it has been her maxim to build up rather than pull down. Her eclectic spirit is even a charge against her. Languages, philoso- phies, rites, festivals, antique places of pilgrimage, cus- toms beyond number, she has absorbed them all. She vindicates her right to them by use and profit, as the man of science becomes lord of the elements which he controls. Latin was once the language of her persecutors, now it serves to express, with magnificent pathos, the liturgy, in which all day long she praises God. There is no reason why another tongue, spoken throughout an Empire to which the Roman was a province, should not yield her as great a homage in the Scriptures translated to do her harm, but now made to acknowledge her protection. For the Church is at last seen to be the true keeper of the Bible,
23
Literary Aspects of the O.T.
having an indefeasible right to watch over it, wherever found.
Catholics, on the other hand, by recognizing the English Scriptures in their permanent literary form, would have taken a long stride towards the unity in all things lawful which is a necessary condition of their act- ing on the English world. To an extent which many do not realize we still speak a foreign language, not understood of the people whom we address. A common Bible, itself rich with the spoils of the mother tongue — not so much a cre- ation of its own century as incorporating all that was pre- cious from ages far past — would be a Catholic trophy, the well of English pure and undefiled to our successors, who must put off the speech of aliens that they may the better explain the universal creed. It is not, then, a thesis in literature that I have dwelt upon for its own sake, but an interest of deepest moment to religion. That Bible of the Imperial race, which we regard, and justly, as hitherto the most formidable hindrance in the way of conversion, might surely be turned to a means of Catholic triumph, were we courageous enough to deal with it as the Fathers dealt with Greek wisdom and the Popes with Northern customs and usages. But I speak under correction.
WILLIAM BARRY
24
POLITICS AND PARTY
I. THE DISEASES OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
[The following is a report of a speech delivered, at the invitation of Mr Wilfrid Ward, before the Westminster Catholic Dining Society in order to initiate a debate. I have endeavoured to corre£t and amend it, but even now it has no pretensions to the careful and complete treatment that the subjecl deserves. I have only consented to its publication because I understand Mr Ward means to make it the text of some observations of his own, which cannot fail to be far more valuable than itself. — Hugh Cecil.]
THE topic on which I am venturing to speak is one upon which it is, perhaps, presumptuous for me to touch. But one of the purposes I have in view, one of the morals I am anxious to draw, is that the House of Com- mons is a matter of general interest — not merely of in- terest to its members — and, therefore, that every citizen in the country is entitled, and even bound, to consider the question of its efficiency for the purposes for which it exists.
That the House of Commons has fallen in reputation during recent years will, I think, scarcely be disputed by any attentive student of public opinion. I do, indeed, remember hearing the House of Commons described by an eminent member as " the most august of human institutions," but that, as I thought at the time, was simply an illustration of the tendency of human beings to hide an unwelcome truth from themselves by making an exaggerated statement in direct opposition to it. Now- adays, it may truly be said, the clever young man who used to sneer at the House of Lords sneers at the House of Commons; and that fact marks the decay of the reputa- tion it used to enjoy. There is no counterbalancing com- pensation to be found in the opinion of those better qualified to form a judgement. The member of the House of Commons is commonly not at all disposed to rally in defence of its reputation. On the contrary, if you get him alone, if you get him anywhere away from the ears of the
25
Politics and Party
reporter, he will generally take the lead in criticising the assembly to which he belongs.
Some of the diseases of the House of Commons are so familiar that it would be tedious to dwell on them at great length. First, there is the evil of obstruction; that is to say, discussion carried on not for the purpose of elucidating a subject, or giving information upon it, or educating the uninstructed outside, but simply of con- suming time. And associated with that evil is the corre- sponding evil of remedies for obstruction, which have culminated in the frequent use of what is called " the guillotine." Though every one can appreciate these evils, it is necessary to be of the House of Commons rightly to estimate their gravity; on the one hand the degree to which members, persons even of considerable ability, are content to bend their minds to no other object but the expenditure of as much time as possible in the observa- tions they may make; and, on the other, the extraordinary absurdity of a mechanical closure on discussion, coming at the most inopportune moments, sometimes at the very crisis of a discussion of evident importance, which results in the adoption of paragraphs and even pages of legislation without the slightest deliberation — it requires a close study of the institution to realise in its full magni- tude the extent of these evils. It is only when you have sat through a debate which is to be closed by the guillotine that you understand how vain a discussion becomes which is automatically to be brought to a conclusion. Those opposed to a Bill delight in turning into ridicule the proceedings of the assembly, insisting upon discussion of the less rather than the more important topics, while the Government promoting the Bill care very little what is said in the debate. They have only to wait till it is over, like persons standing in an archway till the rain shower shall abate. I surely need not dilate on these evils beyond recalling the fact that they exist.
Another less noticed evil is one that may be described as the evil of the empty house. Nothing can be more astounding than the experience of an enthusiastic stranger
26
Politics and Party
who obtains (or, rather, I should say, in happier times obtained) an order for the Gallery, and is present on the occasion of some great discussion, perhaps on the Army or Navy estimates, when it may happen that the number of members present is less than the legal quorum, and when, except for the Minister in charge of the estimates, there is no one of the slightest distinction or interest to look at or to listen to. That, I believe, at any rate to the extent to which it now exists, is a new phenomenon. I reckon the palmy period of the House of Commons' existence to have been between 1832 and 1878. I do not think you can find in English history a period in which, by general consent, the House of Commons played a more creditable, dignified and useful part. Some people may consider that the Long Parliament was greater, some may prefer the claims of that of 1689. But those were great controversial occasions, remote from our quiet needs and habits. 1832-78 was the palmy period of the House of Commons as we know it and think of it. During that period there were, doubtless, many occasions when the sittings were badly attended, but when business of importance was on hand members of the first rank of ability thought it their duty to be present. In Lord Beaconsfield's Government of 1874 every Minister was expected to be usually on the Bench for important busi- ness, and was there as an ordinary rule. There is a re- markable account of regular attendance at an earlier date in Lord George Bentinck's life. He thought it necessary, when he was playing a great part in the House of Commons, to be present regularly during the whole sitting, remain- ing from 4.30 to 1 or 2 in the morning without leaving even to get food. When he went home, of course, he had a large supper late at night, the consequence of which was that he died of heart disease. There is no defending this practice, but he felt he must be there because, if not, some return or motion would slip through before anyone was aware. That represents a House of Commons altogether different from the present assembly. The idea of a motion or a re- turn slipping through while no one is looking has an almost
27
Politics and Party
mythical air, and the leader of a party being present during the whole sitting is almost incredible to our experience.
What is the extent of this change ? Perhaps it will be convenient if I briefly refer to the different kinds of debate, the extent to which this evil of the empty House exists, and the changes which have taken place in respect of the different kinds of debate.
I reckon there are four different kinds of debate which are of importance in the present House of Commons. First, there is the occasion of Government statements. These are always very well attended. They are not very fre- quent. The Budget is a typical case, or the Navy Estimates. The other day a debate began with a great statement and then developed into controversial deliberation.
Secondly, there is the great parliamentary field day, when the parties have a fixed pitched battle. The only change which the student of parliamentary debate will notice in these is that the speeches are less elaborate and thorough than they used to be. It is very interesting to look up a great debate in Hansard, and to see what sort of speech was thought adequate in olden times. Every one must be struck by the fact that speeches were then very much longer and more thorough on a great occasion than they are to-day. Mr Gladstone's great speeches extended to two or three hours, and sometimes longer still. Lord Palmerston's famous Don Pacifico speech lasted for five hours. No one thought it at all odd that a distinguished politician should rise at midnight or one in the morning and deliver a speech, even of great length. In Lord George Bentinck's life there is a little incident of this kind which is striking. The effect of Peel's reforms on the colonies was reached late at night — not as a part of the question under discussion but as a new motion coming up. Lord George thought it not at all inconvenient, and nobody else was surprised, that he should then rise and make a long speech full of statistics; and debate followed.
Thirdly, there are debates on grievances. The Com- mittee of Supply is the great occasion for these, and the only change that really has taken place here is one in the
28
Politics and Party
relations of the Government and the House. Formerly the Government was called to account by the House as by a superior. The old forms are to some extent kept up, but bit by bit the reality has been modified; and now, I think, it is not untrue to say that a very considerable part of the debates on grievances is taken up by individual members, who bring the grievances in which they or their constituents are interested before the Government, very much in the way that a person in some Oriental country may bring his grievance before the Pasha and seek for redress. The change to be noticed here is that the Govern- ment are now supreme, and the individual member brings his grievance before them. In olden days the House of Commons was the superior and called the Government to account.
Fourthly and finally, there are the real debates for deliberation, such as the proceedings on a Bill. In the olden days, and even within my recollection, deliberation was more elaborate than now. Formerly there were long debates on the main principles of a Bill, while the details passed with comparative ease. Then there came a time when the Committee stage was greatly prolonged, and discussion, half obstructive, half useful, was poured on to the details. But now this is diminishing, and is even less than when I left the House of Commons. The mode of procedure now in a Committee of the whole House on the Bill is to debate before empty benches, and, if the Bill is a controversial one, under the guillotine. The consequence is that the whole system of deliberation is altered, and it is scarcely ever possible to impose a change upon the Government in the legislation they have pro- posed. And Government legislation is now the only controversial legislation. In earlier times no inconsiderable part of the time of the House was devoted to private members' legislation, on which the deliberative power of the House was quite unrestricted. Speeches were made which were directed to persuasion, and which did per- suade. Speeches made on private members' business influenced the House in important decisions. Now, all
29
Politics and Party
controversial legislation originates with the Government, and with the Government alone; and it is the rarest thing in the world for the Government to be forced seriously to modify their legislative proposals. Accordingly, the deliberative function of the House has sunk to insig- nificance, except on Bills relating to private interests, technically called Private Bills. Deliberation has sunk into a subordinate position altogether. There is, in short, no room for persuasion. That is the source of all the House of Commons' diseases. In olden days, even within the last thirty years, there were occasions on which great speeches were made which produced an immediate and powerful effect. And apart from immediate effects there is the case of ultimate persuasion. Though for the moment no change in votes may be made, the majority feel uncomfortable, they are conscious of defeat in the debate, and though, on that particular night, no change is observable, they are uneasy, remonstrating with the Government in private and ultimately changing the decision of the House. That still happens occasionally, I believe, but much more rarely than it used to.
The function of persuasion in the life of the House of Commons is steadily diminishing, and it is diminishing because there is no one to persuade. This is the source of all the evils I have alluded to. People do not obstruct because they like obstructing, but because they have nothing else to do, because it is useless to try to persuade. The uselessness of persuasion leads to obstruction, and obstruction to " the guillotine." So, too, with the empty House. No one cares to sit on the benches of the House of Commons if the debate can have no real result, if it is known beforehand that people may speak till they are hoarse and influence nobody. The only occasions on which the members care to attend are the occasions when there are other interests — when there is a great statement or a speech in itself interesting. They won't attend to the ordinary deliberative business of the House, even when it is highly important, because they know that persuasion is useless. If there were any members of Parliament who
30
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were open to persuasion, the evils of which we have been speaking would be cured directly. Indeed, it is remarkable that on the rare occasions when there is any doubt as to the result the debate is raised to a higher level. Members attend; the debate is spirited and interesting. The bore — the member to whom no one wishes to listen — is suppressed, not by his opponents, but by his own friends, who will not allow him to spoil their opportunity of persuading some one known to be in doubt. This better tone was illustrated in the Home Rule debates, when the House was nearly balanced. It was also apparent in the Fiscal debates in the last Parliament. On the Ministerial side there was a batch of Unionists known to be in doubt. Accordingly the Liberal party were most anxious to put forward their case as strongly as possible, and exercised the most severe censorship over those who were allowed to take part in it. I was much struck on one occasion by the discourtesy with which a tedious speaker was checked by those sitting round him.
Some people will say, " All this is very true, but it does not much matter. We do not care whether the House of Commons deliberates or not. In the end the people will decide, and all that has really taken place of recent years is that the process of deliberation has been transferred from the House of Commons to the country." I am quite clear that, if deliberation, in the true sense of the word, does not take place in the House of Commons, it will take place nowhere. Deliberation in the country is not a reality in the sense that it is a reality in an assembly. In the country it is chiefly conducted by the Press, who are largely the exponents of wealthy interests. We are but at the beginning of a development in that direction, which is sure to go further. The Press will speak the mind of a certain number of wealthy people who can start or buy newspapers with a political object in view. Discussion by the Press cannot be so disinterested, nor at such close quarters, and is never so candid as discussion in an assembly, where people are face to face and bring one another to book. And, however the discussion be conducted, the
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electors themselves have no opportunity of deciding any particular issue. They are obliged to decided between two very broad syntheses of issues. One party puts forv\ ard a case extending over a great number of political issues, and another party advocates the opposite case. At the present moment we are told that the next General Election will be fought on two dominant issues — Free Trade and the House of Lords. What possibility of deliberation has an elector in such a situation ? How is he to determine on either of these issues ? He will also have to consider the question of Education, the question of Licensing, and the personal merits of the candidates before him. There- fore, there can be no real decision on any one particular issue submitted to him. Then again, the machinery of electioneering being so elaborate, the choice of a candidate is placed to a large extent in the hands of political organizations. A large proportion of the electorate are apathetic; consequently any candidate must have some sort of organization behind him. It follows that the elec- torate cannot have submitted to them any point of view upon an issue which has not behind it a certain amount of organized support. On all these grounds — the influence of the Press, the complexity of the issues, and the organiza- tion necessary to modern electioneering — there can be no true deliberation by the electorate.
The old idea of Parliament was that the electorate should decide not upon measures but upon men. They selected certain men who, they thought, were to be trusted to express the mind of the Commons of England, and these gentlemen, so selected, freely decided on the issues submitted to the House of Commons. In Burke's famous speech to the electors of Bristol he pointed out that a member was a member of Parliament, not a member of Bristol; that he was part of the body of Parliament, not in any sense the agent of the electorate. He was sent as a representative man to take part as a member of a body in representing the mind of the Commons. That idea in its full perfection has long been only partly insisted upon, but it is only in our own time that it has been formally
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cast aside. During the last fifty or sixty years it has been slowly losing in force. The electorate are supposed more and' more to decide upon parties and abstract propo- sitions, and less and less on the merits of the individual they send to Parliament. The idea that the electorate can really be a deliberative body has grown stronger and stronger, so that the House of Commons has changed its character and almost abandoned its deliberative function. And this abandoned function of the House of Commons no one else can perform. The Cabinet is a deliberative body of great importance, but, sitting in secret and being small in numbers, it cannot exercise the same sort of deliberative function. The House of Lords, though it is in a degree a substitute for the old deliberative powers of the House of Commons, though it discusses many questions more deliberately than the House of Commons does, nevertheless cannot take its place. The House of Lords is for Legislative purposes seriously handicapped by having so great a preponderance of one party; and it is also hindered from entering upon any strictly financial issue.
What do I put forward as the remedy of these evils ? A remedy, which I believe would be of a certain value, is to establish some proportional representation. I do not urge that as desiring to see groups in the House of Com- mons. I do not think the formally organized group will prevail in politics during our lifetime, but what I desire to see is that there should be in each party a persuadable element. There should be no more enormous majorities, and a certain number of members should be attached loosely to their party, so that there should be an important persuadable element in each. It is not the group that I advocate but the luke-warm partisan, the person who sits loosely to his party and is open to persuasion. That reform would certainly destroy obstruction and regulate the length of speeches as they ought to be regulated. The people who could speak to profit would speak long, and those who could not would speak short. The moment there was a persuadable element, the House of Commons would Vol. 145 33 3
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begin to take itself seriously. In the case of the human body, when one organ is out of health everything goes wrong. If you can restore the strength of that organ every- thing is cured. Make the House of Commons debates really deliberative, and all these evils will cure them- selves. When I speak of persuadable people, it must not be forgotten that everybody would not be persuadable on all issues. A is persuadable on one question, B on an- other, and so on. This is not a new idea. In Lord Palmer- ston's day there were some thirty Conservative members who commonly supported his last Government, and it was only by their support that he held office for six years. The objection to this suggestion is that it would reduce the constitution to chaos, that no one could reckon from day to day on what the House of Commons would do. I do not think that is really an objection which in practice would be operative. It is quite true that you would have to alter to some extent the conventions now regulating the relations of the Cabinet and the House of Commons. It is regarded now as a serious parliamentary disaster if the Government are put in the minority on any question. You would have to abandon that idea, because in any House of Commons in which the Government had not a large majority there would be frequent occasions on which on minor issues they would fail to carry their point. But there is no sort of reason why we should not go back to the older parliamentary system, when no one thought it dangerous on a minor question for the Government to be placed in a minority. It is remarkable that the power of the House of Commons has diminished just because it must never disagree with the Government; its slightest dissent is fatal to the Government, so it is constrained always to agree.
Finally, let me ask the question, Is it worth while maintaining the deliberative function ? Let it be granted that unless it is maintained in the House of Commons it will be maintained nowhere. Is it worth having ? I do not plead for the House of Commons because it is an ancient institution, or because it is the mother of parliaments. By
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all means let any institution, however venerable, be cast aside if its usefulness is at an end. But I do plead for govern- ment by discussion. I am quite sure that what makes England a great country is that English people believe in liberty; and liberty cannot be upheld without govern- ment by discussion, and by free discussion. If I were asked to state in a sentence why the English people have attained to their world-wide greatness, I should say it is because they believe in liberty and do not believe in equality. That is why they can govern subject races and harmonise a complex colonial system with all the develop- ments of modern times. But if we lose government by discussion we lose the apparatus of liberty, and we imperil liberty itself. To save it we must influence opinion. Opinion must be taught to set itself against the recent developments in the character of the House of Commons and in the methods of its business. Formal alterations, however valuable, will never do anything without opinion. It is because I am persuaded that opinion must re- establish in the minds of English people that the deliberations of the House of Commons are almost a sacred matter, because they secure to us the heritage of liberty that I bring this topic forward for discussion to-day. Such discussions are valuable as forming opinion — the seed from which the harvest will be reaped in some great politi- cal movement not now visible. It is by casual discussion, by one man speaking to his neighbour, and to a few gathered together in a room, that opinion is gradually built up. I submit to this Society that it really is their duty, as patriotic citizens of this country, to rally to the idea that the deliberative function of the House of Commons is worth saving and redeeming; so that we may secure such alterations in the law as may be necessary and, above all, may sustain by the support, which public applause and approval alone can give, those who seek to uphold inde- pendence in Parliament as a valuable ideal, as a precious element in public life.
HUGH CECIL
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II.— EDMUND BURKE ON PARTY ACTION.
LORD HUGH CECIL in the above remarks raises a very interesting question. Party discipline in its ex- tremist form means that the leaders decide, and the rank and file obey without a question. If this system obtains com- pletely on both sides of the House of Commons, speeches become mere manifestations to the outside world, through the daily press, of what is to be said on either side. They could, with advantage, be immensely curtailed. The idea of genuine deliberation, representing individual opinion and carried on with the object of persuasion, vanishes. The debates in the House of Commons lose half their sincerity and half their value. And this is, Lord Hugh Cecil contends, what has now come to pass. With his argument, printed above, should be read that which the same writer published in the Nineteenth Century for April, on " The Unionist Party and its Fiscal Sore." In that article he complains that on the fiscal question a minimum of defined programme is united with a maximum of demand for party allegiance, claimed by the local associations. A candidate, to gain acceptance by the Unionists in a given constituency, must pledge himself beforehand to a policy which is not yet embodied by the leaders in specific propositions.
In both essays the writer deprecates the loss of individual freedom, and urges, in different forms, a greater liberty than is at present tolerated, and a greater reality among private members in the formation and expression of opinion, as beneficial to the country at large. He maintains in his address that it would be well that a certain number of members of a political party, while in full accord with its fundamental principles, should so far "sit loosely" to the party as to offer really effective criticism on specific proposals, with a view to persuasion, and should be them- selves "persuadable." And in the Nineteenth Century article he pleads for the toleration in the party ranks of men who cannot follow the leaders on this or that particu-
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lar point in the official programing. To exact a pledge be- forehand to support what is not explicitly defined is, indeed, a course obviously open to exception — a special and addi- tional grievance. But Lord Hugh's plea goes further than to deprecate this course. Even when it is practically certain that on one point — in his own case the taxation of food — -a member will be at variance with the leaders, he pleads that his acceptance as a candidate is desirable. Unless Tariff Reform is the be-all and end-all of the party, unless the present Unionist coalition is to be avowedly a Tariff Reform party, the exclusion of members on the ground that, on this one point, they cannot agree with the leaders is, he argues, a very extreme measure. It places Tariff Reform in a very unique position. Liberal politi- cians who are opposed to the " licensing " Bill are not ipso facto considered to be ineligible as candidates. Lord Hugh Cecil himself most pertinently notes that dissen- tients from Mr Balfour's policy on the Education question are not thus treated. Why should different measures be meted out to one who is opposed to the equal treatment for denominational schools which Mr Balfour advocates, and one who, like Lord Hugh Cecil, is opposed to Tariff Reform where it involves taxation of food? Is such dissent from the Government programme on one point — in the case of Tariff Reform but in that of no other measure — to neutralise agreement on everything else? Does not such a course — I may add, for it is suggested by the personality of the man who is pleading his cause — tend to purge the Union- ist party of its men of first-rate ability? For thinking men cannot be made to run in droves with the same ease as unthinking partisans. We often have complaints as to the lack of first-class ability in the party. Is not this want likely to be increased by a policy which exalts unthinking obedience, in a very complex and difficult issue, as the best qualification for a seat in Parliament, and dismisses the able critic who, on this one issue cannot say " aye " to the official proposals, as therefore incapable of election — as disloyal and untrustworthy ? The question here raised is a very important one. It concerns the whole nature of the party system. I
37
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shall incidentally use the present fiscal crisis to illustrate its bearing, because it is in some ways singularly apposite. For it is the instance in which the claim for allegiance outside the fundamental principles of the party has been pressed furthest. But throughout my object is a wider one, namely, to discuss the general question of the value of party alle- giance and of genuine individual thought and sincere deliberation, with their apparently opposite interests. This concerns both parties equally, and is a question vital to our whole political system. And I need hardly say that The Dublin Review is identified with neither party, and that its interest, therefore, is concerned rather with the welfare of the system than with that of one of the existing political groups.
The function of liberty of opinion and debate in our constitution, and its compatibility with effective and prompt action by the Government, is not an easy question. Some speakers of long Parliamentary experience, in the discussion opened by Lord Hugh Cecil's address, referred to certain causes of the present curtailment of liberty of speech, both by the guillotine and by increased strictness of party discipline. One cause alleged was the immense ad- ditional Government business of modern times. Were de- bate unrestrained this could simply not be got through at all. The difficulty is increased (as was also pointed out) because so many more members than of old want to address the House. Modern County Councils are a practice-platform for public speaking, and men who fifty years ago would have been diffident, and would have addressed the House of Commons seldom, are now practised speakers, and take up its time — not always to its advantage. Again, the same authority noted that the old traditions of " good form," which were violated by systematic obstruction, and have now become obsolete, cannot be adequately replaced by formal rules. The fact would seem to be that while free debate among a few persons of public spirit, conduct and ability is in accord with the genius of our constitution; while within such limits freedom of speech helps to wisdom, and safeguards liberty, freedom among a mixed crowd of
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speakers, many of whom have private objects in view, tends not to light or wisdom but to waste of time, and to making effective Governmental action impossible. It violates the compromise on which the constitution is tacitly based. Therefore the Government has to assert itself by the guil- lotine. It is an instance of the tendency noted already in the thirteenth century by St Thomas Aquinas (in his work De regimine Principum) of a popular Government to pro- duce by reaction a dictatorship, of excess of liberty to bring its destruction.
Lord Hugh Cecil dates the palmy period of the House of Commons from 1832, yet I should be inclined to trace the modern curtailment of the liberties of our parliamen- tary discussion ultimately to the democratic wave which that year embodied in the Reform Bill. "You cannot eat your cake and have it," writes Cardinal Newman, " you cannot be at once a self-governing nation and have a strong Government. Recollect Wellington's question in opposition to the Reform Bill — How is the King's Govern- ment to be carried on? We are beginning to experience its full meaning."
This was written in 1855, an<^ t^ie working out of the democratic system since then has made us find its theoreti- cal liberties too large for their practical exercise, compat- ibly with effective action on the part of the Government — not only in conducting a war (for it was the Crimean war, which called forth Newman's criticism), but in time of peace. The theory that the whole people deliberates and decides, becomes the reality of a Government dic- tatorship in details, restrained on broader issues not by measured deliberation but by waves of popular feeling. The ruling power loses the benefit of expert delibera- tion among representatives of the people, and is further handicapped by having to humour the prejudices of those who are in no sense experts.
Whether and by what machinery it would be possible to reconstitute effective and real debate in the House of Commons under present conditions, I leave it for those more familiar with the House than I am myself to decide.
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But the permanent principles involved are within the competence of us all to consider. They were equally opera- tive 140 years ago, in the days of Burke, who combined almost unique qualifications for throwing light on the subject, being at once a profound and candid thinker and observer, and long a member of the House of Commons. If it is Utopian to think of some of his suggestions as literally applicable to our own time, this does not very materially diminish the practical value of his writing. For he dealt with permanent principles of human society and of Government. From the Thoughts on Present Discontents, in 1770, in which he protests against the usurpation of the power rightly belonging to the elected representatives of the people by a Court clique, to the Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old, twenty years later, in which he protests against the usurpa- tion of their rights by a mob, Burke was the champion of real liberty and of the genuine voice of the people as a whole. Burke may, in his extravagant eulogies, have exag- gerated the merits of the British constitution; but his warning contains on both its sides so much more of depth and truth than is generally appreciated, that it is worth while to remind ourselves of it. He expressed the English characteristics above referred to by Lord Hugh Cecil — the belief of the nation in liberty, its disbelief in equality. No one saw more plainly than he did that the excesses of a democracy tell as much against liberty in the long run as aristocratic tyranny does — for the obvious reason that they tell against the natural order of society, and liberty is only possible where there is order. It remains as true now as it was 120 years ago that the attempt to press the democratic principle and the rights of the masses too far is in its nature disorderly, and leads to a reaction in favour of order, which can only be restored at the temporary expense of liberty."The people "have, indeed, sacred rights, sacred authority — but to be "the people," he argues, implies ordered society, and not units in a state of anarchy. The recognition of the organic character of human society and of the untenable nature of any theory of equal or similar functions for all, when natural conditions have made
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those functions different, has never been better put than in the following passage in the Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old, which I may be allowed to reproduce :
To enable men to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer the ends for which they are incorporated into that capacity, we must suppose them (by means immediate or conse- quential) to be in that state of habitual social discipline, in which the wiser, the more expert, and the more opulent, conduct, and by conducting enlighten and protect the weaker, the less knowing, and the less provided with the goods of fortune. When the multitude are not under this discipline, they can scarcely be said to be in civil society
When the great multitudes act together, under that discipline of nature, I recognise the PEOPLE. I acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and ought always to guide, the sovereignty of con- vention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mighty and decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony; when you break up this beautiful order, this array of truth and nature, as well as of habit and prejudice; when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains so as to form them into an adverse army, I no longer know that venerable object called "the people" in such a dis- banded race of deserters and vagabonds.*
In the form of this passage, and of the sequel to it, we doubtless see the keen edge of the hostile feeling which had been aroused in Burke by the tyranny of the tiers etat in the France of 1789; but the principle is what he had ever maintained — that order and liberty are possible only by observing the conditions laid down by Nature. A funda- mentally unnatural experiment is fatal to order and, there- fore, to liberty.
Burke would doubtless have welcomed reforms which tended to realise the ideal of " the people " sketched in the passage just quoted — to make the aristocracy more and more the true aristocracy which Nature demands. But even in this he trod warily, because he held that the English constitution had, on the whole, so well combined liberty with order and effective rule that those who had not got
* Burke' 's Works, edition of 1803 (Rivington), pp. 216 et seq. 41
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at the root of its grounds in reason, might in their reform- ing zeal easily destroy what was of far greater importance than they reckoned, and do irreparable harm. " None," he writes, " except those who have profoundly studied, can comprehend the elaborate contrivance of a fabric fitted to unite private and public liberty with public force, with order, with peace, with justice, and, above all, with the institutions formed for bestowing permanence and stability through ages, upon this invaluable whole."
Burke saw in the English party system an effective means of combining free deliberation with effective action in Government. But party, as he conceived it, was a far looser structure than the strictly disciplined army which modern democratic developments have brought about — and, perhaps, even necessitated, much as a Roman rebellion made necessary the stringent rule of a dictator. In Burke's day the sound party man was Lord Hugh Cecil's "persuad- able member. "And the typical "persuadable member "of that time was a free lance, and not a party man at all.
That adherence to a party is necessary to the politician who would really benefit his country, Burke points out in a forcible passage in the Thoughts on Present Discontents. For a statesman to express personal opinions, even with the ut- most conscientiousness, but with no regard for the opinion of his fellows or to combination with other politicians, is to ensure the inoperativeness of his words. Measures can only be brought into the statute book by the vote of a majority — that is, by party combination.
It is not enough [he writes] in a situation of trust in the common- wealth, that a man means well to his country : it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires that what is right should not only be made known, but made pre- valent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect, it is an omission that frustrates the purposes of
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his trust almost as much as if he had formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational account of a man's life, that he has always acted right; but has taken special care, to act in such a manner that his endeavours could not possibly be productive of any consequence.
I do not wonder that the behaviour of many parties should have made persons of tender and scrupulous virtue somewhat out of humour with all sorts of connexion in politics. I admit that people frequently acquire in such confederacies a narrow, bigoted, and proscriptive spirit; that they are apt to sink the idea of the general good in this circumscribed and partial interest. But, where duty renders a critical situation a necessary one, it is our business to keep free from the evils attendant upon it; and not to fly from the situa- tion itself
Of such a nature are connexions in politics; essentially necessary for the full performance of our public duty, accidentally liable to degenerate into faction.*
But all this is fairly obvious. More pertinent to the present enquiry is Burke's treatment of politicians who declare, as an objection to the party system, that party action involves a blind adherence to the party view and a renunciation of the right to original thought. Here Burke clearly contemplates that party allegiance in an able man should be limited, should tally with Lord Hugh Cecil's view of members who, as judged by present ideals, should " sit loosely" to their party. And the ground which Burke alleges for such general agreement as would be quite com- patible with individual sincerity is very much to the point. He holds that the most important party measures will naturally depend on party principles in which all are agreed, and that in immaterial matters one should sacrifice a pri- vate view to that of the party. This view, we may remark, would leave dissent of a Unionist from his Government on the present Fiscal question entirely allowable — for it can- not be said that either advocacy of Fiscal Reform is the necessary outcome of Unionist principles, or that the matter is immaterial. Here are Burke's impressive words on the subject:
In order to throw an odium on political connexion, [certain] politicians suppose it a necessary incident to it, that you are blindly * Burke's Works, II, 330, et seq.
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to follow the opinions of your party, when in direct opposition to your own clear ideas; a degree of servitude that no worthy man could bear the thought of submitting to; and such as, I believe, no connexions (except some court factions) ever could be so senselessly tyrannical as to impose. Men thinking freely, will, in particular instances, think differently. But still as the greater part of the measures which arise in the course of public business are related to, or dependent on, some great leading general -principles in govern- ment, a man must be peculiarly unfortunate in the choice of his political company if he does not agree with them at least nine times
in ten
When the question is in its nature doubtful, or not very material, the modesty which becomes an individual, and (in spite of our court moralists) that partiality which becomes a well-chosen friendship, will frequently bring on an acquiescence in the general sentiment. Thus the disagreement will naturally be rare; it will be only enough to indulge freedom, without violating concord, or disturbing ar- rangement. And this is all that ever was required for a character of the greatest uniformity and steadiness in connexion.*
The intelligent party man who is at once loyal to his party and yet true to himself is clearly Burke's ideal of an efficient statesman. And he himself set the example. He was a thorough-going Whig, and yet he dissented emphati- cally from Fox, and brought on himself the direct censure of the party, by his Reflections on the French Revolution. Indeed, his Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old has a real analogy to Lord Hugh Cecil's position, for Lord Hugh takes his stand on the original principles of the Unionist party, and protests against an addition to the party creed of Tariff Reform as de fide. Burke's protest is yet more fundamental, for he holds Fox's admiration for the pro- ceedings of 1789 to be in direct opposition to the genuine Whig principles of 1688.
The self-respecting party man is before all things a man of principle. Principles must lead to parties in those who share them; and principle must also lead the individual, in exceptional cases, to dissent from his party. For the same reason the free lance of those days, the out and out "persuadable member," is the object of Burke's great-
* Ibid, 338 et seq\ 44
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est scorn — for he was a man without principle. We get an interesting glimpse at the House of Commons in one of its bygone phases in Burke's account of such a member (in his speech on American taxation), and we are incidentally reminded that the "hear, hear" of the present house is a survival of the cry " hear him, hear him," which was called out by members of the party which claimed the speech as telling for their side. Burke thus describes the member who had attained to prominence and importance, solely by keeping his vote entirely uncertain — an asset, therefore, to be hoped for by either party:
They were a race of men (I hope in God the species is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, no man living could divine, from any known adherence to parties, to opinions, or to prin- ciples; from any order or system in their politics; or from any sequel or connection in their ideas, what part they were going to take in any debate. It is astonishing how much this uncertainty, especially at critical times, called the attention of all parties on such men. All eyes were fixed on them, all ears open to hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately for their vote, almost to the end of their speeches. While the House hung in this uncertainty, now the hear-hims rose from this side — now they re-bellowed from the other; and that party to whom they fell at length from their tremulous and dancing balance, always received them in a tempest of applause.*
The question on which Lord Hugh Cecil's plea for toleration must turn, according to Burke's principles, would seem to be this — do the Unionist Free Traders ful- fil such conditions of party allegiance as may fairly be expected from able and thoughtful men? Or do they be- long to either of the classes whom Burke reproaches for standing aloof from party? Are they, either from un- practical stubbornness or from want of principle, unduly independent of their party — obstructing the good it may do, or wantonly embarrassing it? The second alternative — want of principle — is obviously not worth even consider- ing. The first alone deserves discussion. Are such men so un- duly opinionated in their line of action as to go beyond the limits of freedom which a loyal party man may justly
♦11,427. 45
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claim? And this brings us to the peculiar character of the Fiscal question. Is it a matter on which precise concur- rence with the leaders may fairly be imposed as obligatory? Here a careful distinction seems to be necessary. That the initiation of Fiscal Reform may be made part of the party programme seems indisputable. But when we come to actual legislation, are there not strong and peculiar reasons which must make it difficult for any Government to treat the particular measures proposed as a party question in the strictest sense? There are certain things in relation to which stability and permanence in a line of policy are intrinsic- ally necessary for the welfare of the country. Such is our foreign policy. A total want of continuity between the policies of Lord Lansdowne and of Sir Edward Grey would make English foreign relations incoherent and absurd and very highly dangerous. Of a similar non-party nature is, or ought to be, national defence. Does not a fundamental change in the fiscal system of a great commercial country in some degree share this character? Time is needed for the readjustment of financial conditions on a new basis. Would the abler advocates of a drastic measure of Tariff Reform, as intrinsically desirable, advocate its being enacted if, a few years later, the advent of a Liberal Government to power would reverse it? Could a commercial country prosper if made the corpus vile for such contradictory experiments? Would a system of Colonial preference, or a general Tariff, which might not last three years, be worth trying? Could Free Trade have done the good it did — even allowing for its drawbacks — if the Corn Laws had been re-established a few years after their repeal? Their repeal was no sudden, drastic, party measure; no fad of a few enthusiasts. It was enacted by the chief of one political party, and supported by the whole of the other. The method of its operation was gradual, and the ground had been tested and prepared for it by a considerable modification of the Tariff. It was called for by an urgent crisis and supported by a steady growth of expert opinion, under the influence of the Anti-Corn Law League. "Peel," writes Mr Bright in his history of the period, " felt that to relax the corn-laws was practically
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to abolish them ... in the face of the growing power of the league a restoration of the duties would be impossible." It has been evident from the time of the great Sheffield speech that a sense of the immense importance of public opinion in the matter of fiscal changes has weighed very heavily on Mr Balfour, in spite of his own clear sympathy with Tariff Reform on the economic side, and his desire, on both political and economic grounds, for Colonial prefer- ence. Is there then such a public opinion in favour of a drastic measure of Tariff Reform as would give its enact- ment the stability and permanence that are necessary for fairly testing its success? That is the question. If the pro- posal is thus in its nature largely outside mere party con- siderations, the f ree-f ooders, who have felt this most keenly, have had a motive for their action to which justice must be done.
The optimistic " whole-hogger " will reply that ex- perience shows the necessity of party agitation for any great reform; that to place Fiscal Reform outside party considerations is, therefore, a polite way of saying that it must be abandoned; that, on the contrary, the party ma- chinery should be brought to bear with the greatest com- pleteness on the achievement of this great object, "the first constructive work "of the Unionist coalition; that the admission of free-fooders as candidates would hamper the party in a task already difficult enough. But the reply to such an argument is that, although it may be admitted that party organization must supply the driving force for initiating reform, it cannot in this case supply all the material needed for its success. A part of that necessary material is the opinion of the country; and if public opinion already offers such obstacles to the measures they advocate as the above argument supposes, if the pre- sence of a handful of free-fooders in Parliament would prevent the passing of such a scheme as the "whole-hoggers" desire, a wise statesman's conclusion will be that such a scheme ought not to pass, even though it be otherwise as intrinsically desirable as its promoters believe. It is one thing to admit the necessity of party agitation to secure
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Fiscal Reform; it is quite another to admit that the wisest measure of reform will be that which commends itself to the keenest agitators — the zealots and the optimists. In the measure actually passed there must be a regard for general opinion, in order to secure stability and permanence. And, I may add, Mr Balfour's quick eye has detected, in the needs of revenue, a motive which will help towards securing a wide assent to such a measure as he may formulate. For this is a ground of taxation admitted by Free-traders; and even opponents of food-taxation do not always press their opposition in the case of taxation for purposes of revenue.
I repeat then, that while party action is undeniably necessary for securing fiscal change, the nature and degree of such change as would have fair play and be allowed relative stability must depend largely on public opinion. And how does opinion stand in the country? The Liberal party is, on the whole, for Free Trade, and there is, I think, a very large body of Unionist electors, whose per- sonal opinions are against any drastic measure of Tariff Reform, though they accept the Government programme, confident that Mr. Balfour's clear knowledge of the politi- cal and economic situation will enable him to deal better with the very difficult situation than anyone else.
The present writer can at least claim to speak with no bias whatever on the subject. He is in the position of that large number of electors who form a judgement on the question, based only on the economic knowledge common to most educated men, and on certain maxims which appear to him the best guide in the absence of a specialist's know- ledge.The class to which he belongs are in a certain restricted sense Tariff Ref ormers.They believe the shibboleths of Cob- denism to be artificial, as applied to the existing condition of things in which foreign countries are protectionist. They regard Mr Chamberlain's original representation, in 1903, of a commercial crisis in the country which urgently called for a large measure of Tariff Reform, as having been very exaggerated and inaccurate. But they would wish that any proposed fiscal changes should be fairly and favourably con- sidered on their own merits — on the ground of expediency,
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and unhampered by rigid a priori maxims on either side. The wisdom, and even occasional necessity, of retaliation is to them evident. They cannot see that Continental ex- perience bears out the necessity of an absolute rule against the taxation of food, and they agree with those who think that Lord St Aldwyn's old tax on corn, which hurt nobody, was a successful experiment which might be tried on a somewhat larger scale. They are not sure enough, so far as their own lights enable them to judge, that Colonial pre- ference, including a tax on food, would do harm, to refuse the allegiance of party men to those trusted leaders who think it will do great good. As to rival tariffs, they are, per- haps, impressed by the views and arguments of able men of business who are strongly against the proposal. But here again they feel the formulation of a definite programme to be necessary before they can see how far these objections apply, or could take the strong measure of denying the assent which members of the party should presumptively give to the policy of its leaders. And, as has already been said, they have great confidence that Mr Balfour's ex- ceptional insight, caution and knowledge of political and economic conditions will keep any scheme to which he should assent on safe lines. Finally, such men feel the need of revenue to be an argument of very great force on behalf of Tariff Reform. Such I believe to be the attitude of a very large body of Unionist electors. And I further believe their attitude to be the unreasoned reflection in them of the con- clusions of some of the ablest economists among the mem- bers of the party. As to the rank and file of the party, a a writer in the Morning Post, who had given special per- sonal study to the opinions of electors in various parts of the country, testified not long ago to something like the above view being in his own experience a general one. The country has, since the last general election, he said, travelled some way from extreme Free Trade. But very many electors are anxious as to the effect of a drastic measure of Tariff Reform.
Having ceased to be out and out Free-traders, such men are not aggressive, and therefore not prominent. They have Vol. 145 49 4
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every wish to support the Unionist Government. But as they accept Tariff Reform without enthusiasm they do not make themselves heard. They do not desire to oppose; they cannot be enthusiastic or prominent advocates. Thus, while the militant Tariff Reformers are shouting and claiming every victory at the polls, which is really won by the aid of these men, as a victory for Tariff Reform, the moderates themselves are silent. They vote with the Opposition from strong disapproval of the present Government and all its works; and as to Tariff Reform they trust to Mr Bal- four's long-tried wisdom in action. The common sense which still marks the average Englishman confirms this attitude. Common sense says at least this much — if many of the ablest and most practical men find the path of Fiscal Reform to be beset with difficulties and dangers we should tread it warily. That very attitude, again, which is the raison d'etre of Conservatism — the sense that drastic change is in itself an evil, and that any change should be undertaken only in virtue of unquestionable evils and on behalf of a gain which is clear — is indisputably against the policy of the " whole-hoggers."
So much for the moderate supporters of Tariff Reform, whom I believe to be more numerous than is commonly supposed. But, even as regards some of the extremists, we have to consider a further and an interesting phenomenon. It is not unusual that in cases of a strong corporate senti- ment people may be individually lambs and collectively wolves. One may talk to an Italian anti-clerical Member of Parliament and extract most satisfactory admissions as to the value of the Church to Italian Society. But he will not make those admissions from his seat in Parliament — on the contrary, he will say what is quite inconsistent with them. So, too, in the present case, while the " whole-hoggers " maintain, collectively, a very high level of optimism as to the results of Tariff Reform, if one talks to them indi- vidually one finds that the abler minds are to a great extent alive to difficulties in framing a wise measure. We are glad to note that this sense, which we have again and again observed in private conversation, has become
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visible in their own organ, the Morning Post, which, on April 9, boldly declared against extremes, and advocated caution, saying that there is " no reason why the nation should swing from one extreme to the other," and wel- coming the " surviving Cobdenite sentiment " as a safe- guard against this danger — as ensuring that the " Tariff Reformer should walk warily and avoid extreme measures." These remarks were called forth by the difficulties which have been perceived by the American Senate in connec- tion with the revision of the tariff in that country. Again, Mr Balfour warned us impressively in February against regarding Tariff Reform as a panacea for all evils — espe- cially against exaggerating its efficiency in remedying the evils of unemployment. Mr Balfour has, indeed, through- out, as I have elsewhere insisted, shown the utmost caution, in spite of his own keen personal sympathy with Tariff Reform; and it is only gradually that the statesmanship underlying his attitude has been recognized. We have then, if I am right, on the one side the best intellect of the Unionist party and its common sense in favour of, or acquiescing in, a measure of Tariff Reform in very various degrees ; some so conscious of its difficulties that they are personally disposed to think that no clear case has been made out for it except the need of revenue, which is a real and powerful argument ; others who began with un- mixed enthusiasm for Mr Chamberlain's programme but have become gradually more and more alive to the pitfalls attending on a fiscal revolution in a commercial country, and feeling it wise to go warily.
The question I would raise then is this: If one political party has declared against Tariff Reform, and if we are right in believing that a large proportion of the other party (including some of its ablest members) at most only assents to it passively or even reluctantly, any drastic measure would represent the views only of a minority,* passed by
* I note that Professor A. V. Dicey in his admirable article in the Quarterly ReYiezv for April, takes a somewhat similar view to that in the text. The present article was in type before its writer saw Professor Dicey's essay.
51 4*
Politics and Party
the aid of those who reluctantly vote with them only as an alternative to being excluded from the party. Can there be in these circumstances such support of public opinion as would give the experiment the necessary stability? And if instability would be fatal, assuming even that extreme Tariff Reformers are right as to the benefits that might be looked for from the prolonged trial of their programme, must not the party be thrown back on confining itself for the time to that minimum on which opinion is largely agreed — namely, what is called for by the needs of revenue? No Government lightly reverses an important financial measure. The consequences are too serious and too un- popular. And careful legislation based on this ground would probably be left undisturbed.
But while, to anyone who reflects, the grave practical difficulties in the path of Tariff Reform are apparent, what is the sentiment prevailing in the local Conservative associations which determine the choice of candidates? For it is the associations and not the leaders who oppose the selection of such candidates as are lukewarm or hetero- dox in the matter of Tariff Reform. I venture to say that it is of the nature of a passionate, optimistic faith which cannot be justified by the reasoned opinions of any of the ablest members of the party. The sentiment in- spiring most of the associations is that which has got hold of the keen and active and less reflective members of the party — not those who determine the elections (for the party often cannot spare a vote, much less afford to neglect the considerable body of moderates who can vote though they do not talk loudly) but the bulk of the keenest politi- cal workers. The associations were early captured by the " whole-hoggers " — before the pressure of argument and reflection had even effected such a modification as I note in the recent tone of the Morning Post. The economi- cal considerations adduced by the typical representative of those associations which are violently in favour of Tariff Reform are superficial and one-sided. The real inspiring motive is the utility of an optimistic political faith, of a party watchword, of a cry for the elections. There is often
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visible in such men much of the blind fanaticism which has been shown in the proceedings of the " Confederates." It is common to hear them say that they would prefer the party not to get in if Tariff Reform is not secured by its triumph at the polls. The test applied by them of prospec- tive efficiency as a member of Parliament, is the unreflect- ing championship by the candidate of Tariff Reform in such a shape as will arouse most enthusiasm — quite irre- spective of its intellectual accuracy or its practical conse- quences. It is an old story, especially familiar to the student of theological struggles. In the eyes of some zealous but unthinking Catholics, with but little knowledge of the difficulties of modern controversy, the more you claim for the Pope and the Bible, the better Catholic you are. So, too, for those I am considering, the higher the Tariff he advocates the more orthodox the Unionist candidate. The greater the value he claims for Tariff Reform in curing trade depression and unemployment, and the less he looks at unpleasant facts, the more loyal he is to the party.
The present writer was asked to preside at a local Union- ist meeting in which Tariff Reform was represented, in a play which formed part of the programme, as doing away with all unemployment. He declined, and felt that he was, in consequence, regarded as half a heretic. To point out probabilities or possibilities at variance with the golden dreams of "whole hoggers" is, in their eyes, to be only a half hearted Tariff Reformer, only half true to the great cause, a half loyal member of the party. Obviously, if the primary object of the party is to picture Tariff Reform to the people in such a way as to make it promise a mil- lennium,— as a faith warranting the expectation of its bringing an earthly paradise; and so to gain their votes by hopes, irrespective of their probability of realization ; the men who do this best are either credulous and one-sided men, or blind partisans, or men without knowledge, or unscrupulous men who wish to stand well at the moment with the party, and do not hesitate to win votes by saying what they suspect to be untrue. If this policy is to prevail the Conservative party will soon be purged of many of its
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most honest men, and must, moreover, revert to its old reputation of being the " stupid party."
Lord Hugh Cecil suggests a more closely reasoned policy on the part of the extremists — a scheme for the develop- ment of a bureaucracy, a reasoned mistrust of liberty and self-help. I do not deny these tendencies. But I wish to insist on the unreasoning fanaticism which gives them so great and dangerous a force, and makes them so undis- criminating in their action. There is a passage in Burke's Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs which helps us to understand how such violent, indiscriminate, intolerant sentiments are manufactured. It is an extremely curious psychological study, and I am glad to forestall all sus- picion of suiting the account to present circumstances only, by citing words which were spoken 120 years ago. People ask — how can an opinion which was at the outset held strongly by only a few be transmuted into a passionate party cry, inspiring a violent and intolerant party pro- gramme? Without denying that other forces have been at work in the present instance, Burke's words are peculiarly apposite, as showing that even without the initial passionate conviction of some leading advocates which has been a factor in the present situation, such a feeling may be worked up by the exaggerations of a small and insignificant group. The resulting sentiment and programme are not those of the leaders. They develop by a series of accidents ; they live and thrive because they supply the need for a faith ; and, once they have attained their full power, the leaders, if they would hold their position, cannot thwart a feeling so powerful or disavow the programme with which it is associated. The most they can do is to keep it from fatal extremes. They are riding a res- tive, if not a runaway, horse. The small group who initiate the movement — though possibly not at first in an extreme form — Burke calls "go-betweens" or "middle- men." These men represent certain measures to the leaders as desired by some of their followers, and then, when the leaders have to some extent acquiesced, the same middle- men represent the measures, perhaps, in a stronger and
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more definite form to the followers as desired by the leaders. A very curious development follows, representing in its origin no deep or precise conviction on the part of anyone whatever.
As to leaders in parties, nothing is more common than to see them blindly led. The world is governed by go-betweens. These go-be- tweens influence the persons with whom they carry on the inter- course, by stating their own sense to each of them as the sense of the other; and thus they reciprocally master both sides. It is first buzzed about the ears of leaders, " that their friends without doors " are very eager for some measure, or very warm about some opinion " — that you must not be too rigid with them. They are useful per- " sons, and zealous in the cause. They may be a little wrong; but " the spirit of liberty must not be damped; and by the influence " you obtain from some degree of concurrence with them at pre- " sent, you may be enabled to set them right hereafter."
Thus the leaders are at first drawn to a connivance with senti- ments and proceedings, often totally different from their serious and deliberate notions. But their acquiescence answers every pur- pose.
With no better than such powers, the go-betweens assume a new representative character. What at best was but an acquiescence, is magnified into an authority, and thence into a desire on the part of the leaders; and it is carried down as such to the subordinate members of parties. By this artifice they in their turn are led into measures which at first, perhaps, few of them wished at all, or at
least did not desire vehemently or systematically And thus
things proceed, by a sort of activity of inertness, until whole bodies, leaders, middle-men, and followers, are all hurried, with every appearance, and with many of the effects, of unanimity, into schemes of politics, in the substance of which no two of them were ever fully agreed, and the origin and authors of which, in this cir- cular mode of communication, none of them find it possible to trace. In my experience I have seen much of this in affairs, which, though trifling in comparison to the present, were yet of some importance to parties; and I have known them suffer by it. The sober part give their sanction, at first through inattention and levity; at last they give it through necessity. A violent spirit is raised, which the pre- siding minds, after a time, find it impracticable to stop at their pleasure, to control, to regulate, or even to direct.*
# Works, II, pp. 236 et seq.
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And Burke proceeds to note that this violence of feeling is immensely intensified when the agitation concerns some theory which has got hold of the popular imagination as of almost sacred value. In such a case he says it " may be- come as much a cause of fanaticism as a dogma in religion. There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of ima- gination." To meet a specific commercial disadvantage by broadening the basis of taxation belongs to the former category. To raise the banner of Tariff Reform, spelt with capital letters, belongs to the latter. And it is this which has been done in the case of many local Unionist associations.
I think that the above considerations add very mate- rially to the force of Lord Hugh Cecil's plea for toleration on behalf of the free fooders. The intolerance which ex- cludes them is not that of the able leaders, but that of mere enthusiasts. The policy of the Unionist party stands in danger of being determined, very largely, not by the real and mature deliberation of its leaders, but by their action under pressure from an unreasoned wave of political en- thusiasm, which demands measures of which the full cost has not been counted, and impatiently excludes from the party those who would make them count the cost. If any man is suited by his special gifts to cope with this danger it is Mr Balfour. And, though it seems a paradox, I believe that his hands would be strengthened by the presence in the House of Commons of certain men with whom he does not agree. Personally, he is a keen Tariff Reformer, and in favour of taxing food — Lord Hugh Cecil and his friends are free fooders, and without enthusiasm for Tariff Reform ; yet their criticisms, if given in a loyal spirit would add to the intellectual force of the Unionists, and help to counter-balance the immense and dangerous wave of unreasoning partisanship visible in extreme Tariff Reformers.
I conclude, then, by submitting the following view as that which Burke's principles, and the facts as I understand them, appear to suggest in reference to the particular crisis of which I am speaking:
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Nearly the whole of the thinking portion of the Union- ist party, taken as units, regards the elaboration of a satis- factory and safe scheme of Tariff Reform as a very delicate and difficult task; extreme and indiscriminate optimism characterises very few, if any, able minds, except in occa- sional public utterances, where speakers may catch the spirit of the unthinking masses they address ; and the optim- ism of those masses exists in virtue of an almost total dis- regard of real difficulties — for party enthusiasm is their main inspiring motive. This being so, there is a very real danger lest the party should act, in respect of a very grave measure, on a faith which represents, not the careful thought of the leaders, but, in great part, the unthinking optimism and violence of a crowd. It is this unreasoning sentiment which is at the root of the fanaticism which has given Tariff Reform its peculiar place and its intolerant character — which has given it a position so far beyond its reasoned merits, which has even helped to keep it unde- fined, for the unexplained has, in affecting the imagination, the advantage represented by the proverb ignotum pro magnifico reputatur. This intolerant spirit, which makes all balanced reasoners objects of suspicion with strong par- tisans, renders their presence in the party all the more im- peratively necessary. Unionists cannot in such a matter dispense with the brains of the party and leave its fortunes to those who do not think. For Tariff Reform is a proposal which vitally concerns the national welfare, and cannot be treated as an experiment worth trying on the ground of its immediate party utility. And the very best contribution to its consideration on the side of caution and a recognition of rocks ahead will come from those whose opposition is reluctant, in so far as they are members of the party; whose whole self-interest points to acquiescence in its programme ; whose criticisms, therefore, arise simply and solely from a keen perception of facts and considerations which make them regard certain measures of Tariff Re- form as detrimental to the welfare of the country. Such criticism as theirs has every guarantee of sincerity — while the motives of the opposite political party may well be
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mixed, and their strictures consequently less genuine and less useful. It is they who will, therefore, best help the Government in framing a scheme which will secure such assent of public opinion as is necessary for its stability — for its securing a fair trial, undisturbed by a change of Govern- ment. The Unionists of whom I speak have a claim to utility then, on the grounds urged by Lord Hugh Cecil in both his essays. If debate in the House of Commons is to be a real force in coming to a wise decision, it is they who especially are likely to help the Government in forestalling dangers, and realising the full consequences of their pro- posals. And moreover — as he argues in the Nineteenth Century — while they may thus improve a measure of Tariff Reform, they cannot, with their present small numbers, be strong enough to defeat it. Any such measure as the bulk of the party with its eyes open did ultimately decide upon, would pass. Half a dozen first-rate intellects could aid immensely in counsel, but they could only com- mand six votes on a division.
I would only say, in conclusion, that the above argument is simply and solely an attempt to apply Burke's principles to the question of tolerating the free fooders as Unionist members, provided that they are loyally devoted to the other objects of the party. It would be obviously out of place to discuss in detail the action of individuals in the struggle we have witnessed, or even the corporate action of the Free-Trade Unionists. I should probably be by no means in accord with Lord Hugh Cecil on those questions. But, besides being for other reasons out of place, they would carry me beyond the limit I have marked out for myself in the present paper.
WILFRID WARD
58
THE FAILURE OF THE WORKHOUSE
RATE-SUPPORTED workhouses, administered by an independent authority, known as the Poor Law, have long been accepted as one of the characteristic fea- tures of our system of national economics. They have re- ceived much attention from foreign economists, who have sometimes extolled them, with Dr Aschrott,* as an indis- pensable adjunct of our salutary system for the repression of idleness and mendicity, and sometimes, as in the case of Professor Chevallier,t have suspected the existence of fundamental drawbacks to this plausible method of coping with poverty. By writers of every school, however, our Poor Law has been regarded as something essentially British, something that other countries have had, indeed, no need to adopt, but that we must have grave and suffi- cient reason for maintaining.
To-day it is we ourselves who are driven to ask whether we intend to maintain it any longer; whether the Poor Law is, in very truth, an efficient destitution authority, or whether the familiar workhouse, hitherto an unquestioned feature of our social organization, is not proving a canker in our midst rather than a centre of salutary discipline. And, necessarily, there follows the further question : What, if the Poor Law is abolished, do we propose to put in its place?
One thing the report of the Royal Commission has effected : it has brought the reform of the Poor Law not only within the limits of practical politics, but has pro- moted it to a foremost place among pressing legislative needs. We may differ profoundly as to what should be done and how to do it, but no responsible person to-day — save, perchance, some member of the threatened Boards of Guardians — would dare suggest that things can remain indefinitely as they are. The reference of any subject of
* Das Englische Armen-Wesen by Dr P. F. Aschrott, Konig: preuss: Amtsrichter.
t La Lot des Pauvres by Emile Chevallier, docteur en droit. Paris, 1895.
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The Failure of the Workhouse
controversy to a Royal Commission for examination and report has sometimes been held tantamount to conferring upon it a dignified funeral: the subject is shelved and for- gotten. The very reverse has been the case in the present instance. The most cursory examination of this blue-book of 1,238 pages is sufficient to reveal the vital importance of the problems discussed, and the public conscience has been genuinely roused by the revelations it makes. The three years' labour of the Commissioners has resulted in a stu- pendous array of facts, skilfully grouped, presented for the most part with an admirable impartiality. So solid, so statesmanlike a piece of work deserves all the praise that has been lavished upon it. It is a mine to which we can all turn for material, knowing that the facts we quarry from it will stand the test of the most scientific investigation.
Startling as the Commissioners' findings may have appeared to the outside public, some of us, at least, who have worked for years as Poor Law Guardians were pre- pared for all that has now been made public. We have long known how entirely inadequate are the legal means at our disposal for the task with which we are assumed to cope. Again and again we have understood the hopeless- ness of trying to infuse a spirit of helpfulness and social service into a system framed for the grudging relief of destitution alone. If, on the one hand, we have had nothing but the mixed workhouse to offer to the actually desti- tute, while realizing in our hearts that residence within its walls habitually served to the manufacture of fresh paupers, on the other, we have seen wholly insufficient doles of out-relief granted to widows, or, perchance, with- held on trivial grounds, while in contiguous parishes relief was being administered on principles largely at variance with our own, so that the poor have never known what to expect and have been demoralised and discou- raged by the uncertainty. We have grown accustomed to see one of the most difficult departments of public admin- istration entrusted in considerable measure to people who not only have had no training for the duties they have voluntarily undertaken, but who have not even grasped
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that some sort of qualification was essential, or that deal- ing with destitution and unemployment demanded a higher level of knowledge and judgement than street paving and dustbins. Under discouragements such as these not a few Guardians have persevered in work which un- doubtedly makes a heavy demand on time and energy, mainly in the hope of seeing the dawn of better things and of participating in that great reform which they have believed to be near at hand.
To-day, all the evils that individuals have been able to verify only in single parishes, all those detrimental tenden- cies that have been suspected, indeed, but that are only capable of accurate demonstration if pursued relentlessly over a wide area, stand revealed, so large and plain that no one can question their existence any more. The Poor Law is a failure : that is the simple finding of the whole body of the Commissioners. Is it to be ended or mended? That is the problem of the future on which the signatories of the Majority and the Minority Report are at issue. Whichever view may ultimately prevail with the nation, it is beyond question that the problem to be solved is one of the most complex and far-reaching that Parliament of recent years has been asked to face.
To travel, within the limits of a magazine article, over the whole ground covered by the Commissioners were obviously impossible. I propose dealing only with that portion of the Report that refers to the operations of the Poor Law proper, excluding for the moment those wider considerations bearing upon unemployment and the general relief of distress. In the concrete the Poor. Law may fairly be judged in reference to the two main branches of its administration, the Workhouse proper and out-relief. If it has failed in these it stands condemned; if it can show a satisfactory record here, want of success in other quarters is of minor importance. It is, in fact, to these two great branches of Poor Law administration that the bulk of the recommendations of the Commissioners refer.
The first salient point that springs from the Report is
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The Failure of the Workhouse
that some of the most serious evils exposed converge pre- cisely on the Workhouse proper, on that " general mixed Workhouse," which, as the Minority Report states," forms to-day the basis of the whole system of Poor Relief." (p. 727.) The further individuals — even though tech- nically remaining paupers — can be removed from its pre- cincts, the more hopeful becomes the outlook and the more beneficent do the operations of the Poor Law authorities appear. Thus, the big infirmaries of our metropolitan and large urban centres, usually in premises quite separate from the workhouse, are public hospitals in all but name; they form a necessary complement to our voluntary hos- pital system, which without them would have broken down years ago, and although the conditions attached to admission — conditions indicating their development from the sick wards of the workhouse — have placed an un- merited slur upon them, they are, at their best, not un- favourable examples of municipal enterprise. Still higher praise can be bestowed upon the specialized institutions — for fever, small-pox, ophthalmia, ringworm, etc. — ad- ministered by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, a body which represents the Poor Law at one remove, and whose institutions are legally exempt from the disfranchising clauses of Poor Law establishments. They have proved a veritable boon to the London poor, and may be regarded as a standing example of how entirely the " pauper taint " disappears there, where it is not laboriously and delibe- rately perpetuated. Yet another class of afflicted hu- manity, the pauper lunatic and idiot, though remaining financially chargeable to their respective parishes, have, in the metropolitan area, been removed wholly from the con- trol of Boards of Guardians, and no one has ever ventured to assert that the change was not greatly to their benefit. It is where all these same categories of sick and afflicted persons are housed, not in separate institutions, but in the wards of the general mixed workhouse, that their lot is so pitiable.
When we pass from patients to children the same truth becomes obvious. The various methods which the more
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enlightened Boards now adopt for the education of Poor Law children — Boarding-out, Scattered Homes, Cottage Homes — depend largely for their success on the extent to which they withdraw the children from workhouse influ- ences. " We have visited homes and schools of every type, and have found excellent work being done in all," report the Commissioners (p. 182). The failures occur where the children are still kept in the workhouse itself, and where they do not even go out to a day school the results are simply deplorable. But even in the case of boarded-out children a distinction has to be made that is far from flattering to Boards of Guardians. Both Majority and Minority Re- ports are agreed (pp. 184, 808-810) that while boarding- out " without the union," which means the permanent removal of the children from Poor Law influences, and their supervision by a voluntary committee of ladies, gives, on the whole, excellent results, boarding-out "within the union," i.e., under the immediate super- vision of the relieving-officers and Guardians, is, in the words of the Majority report, "very unsatisfactory " (p. 184) and the supervision exercised " quite inadequate "
(P. i85).
Another test, and one which readers of The Dublin Review will scarcely be inclined to question, is supplied by our own Catholic certified schools in comparison with the ordinary Poor Law or "barrack" school. Considering the high commendation bestowed upon them by the lady- inspector of the Local Government Board in her evidence before the Commission, it is a little disappointing to find somewhat grudging references (pp. 810-81 1) in the Minority Report, not, indeed, to Catholic schools in par- ticular, but to all privately managed schools as being insufficiently inspected. Undoubtedly the Local Govern- ment Board should restrict the sending of Poor Law chil- dren to such homes as have been duly certified, and the education given in them should be under the supervision of H.M. inspectors of schools. This is happily the case in regard to many of our Catholic schools and largely contri- butes to their efficiency. The fundamental advantage they
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enjoy, however, is that, strictly speaking, they are in no sense Workhouse schools although receiving workhouse children; in them the rather low standard of Poor Law service is replaced by the voluntary service of our reli- gious congregations, with the result that, as every com- petent witness is ready to admit, our Catholic children under the Poor Law do unquestionably fare better than the majority of their Protestant companions.
We come then to the position clearly demonstrated by both Reports, that the farther individuals can be removed from under the immediate supervision of Boards of Guardians, whether by Boarding-out, certified schools, specialised institutions or what not, the better their chance in life becomes. Where they do worst is in the general mixed workhouse. Unhappily this sorting out of paupers according to health and capacity is only carried out to a very limited extent and has rarely been under- taken voluntarily by Boards of Guardians; it has been forced on them by the central authorities or by the power of public opinion. Ever since 1834, when the Royal Com- mission of that day reported emphatically against general workhouses, and in favour of a series of detached institu- tions, there has been an irresistible tendency to retain the bulk of the destitute of every class under one roof. The system is held to be cheaper and to give less trouble: Poor Law officials take pride in the size of their establish- ments, and Guardians like to feel that they have every- body, as they would express it, " under their own eye." Hence, after seventy-five years, the mixed workhouse, with all its hideous evils, still flourishes among us. " The descriptions of the workhouses of 1834," says the Minority Report, " might be applied, word for word, to many of the workhouses to-day. The dominant note of these insti- tutions of to-day, as it was of those of 1834, *s their pro- miscuity " (p. 728). Even in the best of our London work- houses there are still to be found, side by side, the aged and the able-bodied of both sexes, children up to the age of three, women, married and unmarried, in the lying-in wards, cripples, blind people, epileptics, feeble-minded
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The Failure of the Workhouse
boys and girls, as well as temporary lunatics, imbeciles, and other afflicted persons waiting, sometimes for months, for admission to suitable homes. In country workhouses pauper imbeciles are often permanently detained and, in addition, children of all ages. "The mixed workhouse," writes Dr J. C. McVail, is at once " a home for imbeciles, an almshouse for the destitute poor, a refuge for deserted children, a lying-in hospital for dissolute women, a winter resort for the ill-behaved casual labourer or summer beggar, a lodging for tramps and vagrants as well as a hos- pital for the sick " (p. 722).
Having brought all these people together, nothing fur- ther is done for them. It is no part of the duty of a desti- tution authority to do more than house and feed as cheaply as may be. There is no attempt at training for any adults, no possibility of giving to any a fresh start in life. Labour tasks are, indeed, imposed, but a very low standard of work is exacted, especially from the men. Indeed, the higher the numbers, the less work there is for each to do, and the more crowded the house, the slacker the disci- pline grows. If, from humanitarian motives, extra comforts are introduced there is always the real danger that the wrong people will profit by them, and that a reputation for softheartedness will quickly send up the numbers. Classification inside the workhouse can be carried out to a very limited extent — even the sexes are not kept strictly apart — and it is impossible to devise rules and discipline suited to so varied an assortment of individuals. The net result is that the average workhouse is at once " too good for the bad and too bad for the good," and while the respectable poor " have a horror of it " and " some would rather starve than enter its portals " (p. 732), the loafer and the work-shy have come " to regard it as a kind of club-house, in which they put up with a certain amount of inconvenience, but have very pleasant even- ings " (p. 133).
More than anything else, it is the slackly governed, mixed workhouse that tends to perpetuate pauperism. Every Guardian knows from experience that the longer Vol.145 65 5
The Failure of the Workhouse
inmates remain in the workhouse the more hopeless it is to try and help them. The very atmosphere of the place has a demoralising influence. A chaplain to the Holborn Workhouse declared in his evidence that " Life in the workhouse deteriorates mentally, morally and physi- cally " (p. 134). Men and women alike become adepts in eye-service and in all the tricks of the confirmed loafer. " The commonest faults of able-bodied women," writes a lady member of the Liverpool Select Vestry, " are lazi- ness and dishonesty. I have never yet seen a workhouse woman hurry " (p. 134). In idle hours it is undeniable that much mischievous gossip and objectionable conversation is indulged in, much quarrelling, too, and petty tyranny and thefts from one another, the development, in short, of all those vices which render a man's return to the ranks of the independent self-supporting labourer practically impossible. Hence we find whole families constantly in and out of the workhouse at their convenience, a per- petual burden on the State, families that none the less increase and multiply. In the S. Marylebone Work- house, a few years ago, there were being maintained simultaneously three generations of one family — the old couple, of the " ins and outs " class, much addicted to drink; their son, who had been dragged in and out of the workhouse all his life and who had never done any regular work; a young woman of no character whose acquaintance the son had made in the workhouse, and with whom he was in the habit of taking his discharge ; lastly, one or two illegitimate children, the result of these outings. Such instances could probably be found in every union, and must continue as long as the nation elects to maintain that evil promiscuity which the Commissioners have been unanimous in condemning.
When we turn from the administration of the work- house to the second main function of the Poor Law, the distribution of out-relief, which amounts at the present time to some £4,000,000 per annum for the United King- dom, we find a condition of things no less unsatisfactory.No portion of the duties of Boards of Guardians has been sub-
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The Failure of the Workhouse
jected to such persistent criticism as this. It is a problem bristling with difficulties. Within the limited scope to which out-relief has been confined since the great reform of 1834, it has been largely directed by waves of popular sentiment, which sometimes has demanded a sternly re- pressive policy, with the workhouse as a " test " to be offered to all and sundry, and sometimes has favoured a generous consideration of widows and old people, usually resulting in a somewhat lavish expenditure, occasionally even in a scandalous waste of public money. The right via media of a careful, thorough and yet kindly adminis- tration has, I fear, been rarely attained. And even when, as sometimes has happened, an individual relief committee has succeeded in carrying through, for a time, a judiciously thought-out scheme of relief, this has, in many cases, been reversed at the next Guardians' election, and simul- taneously with their own policy Guardians may have seen the neighbouring union granting out-relief on a totally different system or, perchance, on no system at all. Hence there has always been, and always must be, as things are, a lamentable confusion in the distribution of out-relief, with all the consequent evils of waste in one place and cruel hardship in another.
Both the Majority and the Minority Reports are unani- mous in deploring the grave abuses that result from the. utterly haphazard manner in which relief is administered. Innumerable specific examples are quoted of methods in vogue, all of which leave much to be desired. " Opinions may differ," says the Majority Report severely, " as to the degree of strictness desirable in Poor Law administration, but no possible j ustification can be advanced for the granting of out-relief in such a way as to perpetuate pauperism and the evil conditions which give rise to pauperism " (p. 150). The signatories make a variety of suggestions, the most notable being that assistance, when given, should always be adequate, that it should only be granted on a complete knowledge of the facts and never to families living in un- sanitary houses. They believe this " will involve much closer supervision of cases than is now common " (p. 159),
67 5a
The Failure of the Workhouse
and this they hope to effect by enlisting the help of volun- tary agencies.
The criticisms of the Majority Report are, however, mild compared with those of the Minority. After sum- marising in scathing terms the amazing variety of often con- tradictory rules by which out-relief throughout the country is supposed to be regulated — although by most Boards cases are really settled " on their merits," " a formula used to conceal much caprice, prejudice and favouritism " (p. 746) — the signatories declare that amid all this variety of prac- tice one fact stands out incontrovertibly, that " the dole given is practically never adequate to the requirements of healthy subsistence." Guardians assume the existence of other sources of income, but rarely take effectual means to discover if these actually exist, with the result that " the dole of Poor Law relief — upon which thousands of old people, sick people and even widows with young children are steadily degenerating — is a starvation pittance " (p. 770).
It is as regards these " widows with young children " that the Minority Commissioners bring against Boards of Guardians perhaps the most grave indictment of the whole Report, one that, for my own part, I am thankful to see made at length in this official manner, having been personally long convinced of its truth, namely, that the welfare of the children on out-relief under their care has been grossly neglected. It is customary for Boards of Guardians to make an allowance of is. or is. 6d. per week for each dependent child of a widow. Under no other conceivable circumstances is is. 6d. a week deemed sufficient for the maintenance of a child — for these same children, if boarded out, the sum of 4s. a week with an allowance for clothes and medical attendance would be paid — yet on this meagre sum a widow is expected to feed and clothe her children, her own usually scant earnings barely sufficing to pay the rent and maintain herself. Curious to learn how this impossible feat was accomplished, the Com- mission appointed special investigators to inquire into the conditions under which these children were living, chil-
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The Failure of the Workhouse
dren, it must be repeated, for whom Boards of Guardians are directly responsible, and with whose condition it is inexcusable that they should not have made themselves familiar.
" The result of this inquiry was to prove conclusively that in the vast majority of cases the amount allowed by the Guardians is not adequate." "The children," sums up our principal children's investigator, " are under-nourish- ed, many of them poorly dressed and many bare-footed. . . . The decent mother's one desire is to keep herself and her children out of the workhouse. She will, if allowed, try to do this on an impossibly inadequate sum, until both she and her children become mentally and physically dete- riorated " (p. 747).
This, however, is only part of the evil. Moral and sani- tary considerations have been considered by many Boards of Guardians as little as the economic in the granting of out-relief. The investigators have calculated that out of the 170,000 children whose circumstances they inquired into, no less than 30,000 live in homes classified as unsatisfac- tory, with " slovenly and slipshod parents, women of weak intentions and often of weak health," while another 20,000 live with " really bad mothers, people guilty of wilful neglect, sometimes drunkards or people of immoral character, all unfit to have charge of children " (p. 753).
When we call to mind the national gravity of the pro- blem of infant mortality and physical degeneration, all that is being attempted to remedy it by devoted workers through health societies, Schools for Mothers, Children's Aid societies and many more, all that the Government and the Education authorities hope to accomplish through the new " Children's Charter," and the newly organised Children's Care Committees for the protection of child life, it is indeed deplorable that public bodies, such as Boards of Guardians, responsible for hundreds of thou- sands of children throughout the country, far from co- operating in this great work, should have been positively thwarting the beneficent activity of others by an indif- ference to duty which has amounted at times to positive
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The Failure of the Workhouse
inhumanity. Yet such is the lightness of heart with which the most serious responsibilities are incurred, that, in spite of what the Minority Report rightly describes as " these terrible figures," Boards of Guardians are at pre- sent eagerly occupied in passing resolutions affirming their work to have been a splendid success, and demanding that it should not only be continued but that fresh and more extensive powers should be conferred upon them. For my part I can only acquiesce in the condemnation pro- nounced by the Commissioners when they say, " In our opinion the Local Authority to which this important duty [of out-relief] has been confided ... is by its very nature inherently incompetent to fulfil the requirements we have postulated " (p. 754).
In truth, no unbiassed student of the Report can deny that an extremely strong case has been made out against the Poor Law in its administration both of out-relief and of the general mixed workhouse. And these, as I have said, constitute its main duty. The fault lies far more with the system than with the individuals who have been called upon to carry it out. The Minority Report has put its finger unerringly on the fundamental weakness of Poor Law administration : elected to relieve destitution, it has necessarily assumed quite other functions. The basis of poor relief, as understood by the reformers of 1834 — that the condition of the rate-supported pauper should be less favourable than that of the independent labourer — has long been abandoned in practice, and survives to-day only in regulations, such as the disfranchisement of every one who becomes technically a pauper. The change, though inevit- able, has had unfortunately a twofold drawback. Not only are Guardians called upon to perform duties as educa- tional, sanitary and hospital experts, for which they possess no qualifications, but they are driven to undertake work which is already being done by authorities far better qualified than themselves. The Guardians feed and edu- cate children: so do the Education authorities. They nurse the sick : so do the hospitals and the sanitary authori- ties. They give relief in the homes of the poor : so do innu-
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merable charitable agencies. Thus, one child of a family- may be in a reformatory under the Home Office, another in a special school under the County Council, the mother may be in receipt of out-relief and the remaining children of school age may be enjoying free meals at school, the various authorities all acting without co-ordination among themselves and without any official knowledge of each other's intervention. The result is the most amazing overlapping and confusion of authorities, causing, it need scarcely be said, much misuse of public funds and a use- less squandering of public effort. This overlapping consti- tutes one of the great difficulties that the Commissoners have had to meet in framing their constructive proposals.
Practically there exist at the present time but three ways of meeting extreme want. There is the workhouse, with its " baneful influence," hated by the respectable poor ; there is out-relief, with all the varied evils admitted by economists of every school; and there is private charity. Few people would seriously urge that charity, however munificent, could, unorganized by the State, cope with so gigantic a problem as pauperism in England has become. The Commissioners are unanimous in rejecting this solu- tion as impracticable, mainly because it is still true to say of charity what J. S. Mill wrote of it in his Political Economy, " Charity almost always does too much or too little : it lavishes its bounty in one place and leaves people to starve in another. ... If the poor are left to individual charity, a vast amount of mendicity is inevitable" (Book v, chap, xi, par. 13). On the other hand, the Commissioners are equally emphatic in condemning the once prevalent idea that the workhouse offers a sufficient remedy for destitution. Belief in the efficacy of a " test " appears to have vanished wholly. The Majority Report admits that the workhouse " is not only repellent but degrading to the honest man," and that it affords " no abiding help " to those willing and anxious to work (p. 364). It therefore only proposes to continue it in an extremely modified form. The Minority Report proposes to abolish it alto- gether.
7i
The Failure of the Workhouse
How, then, is destitution to be met in future? It is the hope of the Commissioners of every shade of thought that henceforth the treatment of the poor shall be preventive and restorative. The old idea of a destitution authority, acting in a deterrent spirit, is frankly abandoned. The Poor Law of the future, or whatever may take its place, is to step in and save a man from destitution; it is not to wait until he is destitute before it comes to his assistance. By both parties on the Commission it is, of course, recog- nized that there is no one panacea for existing ills, and that the prevention they aim at can only be brought about through a comprehensive scheme of social and economic betterment which would include the establishment of labour exchanges, of training colonies and detention colonies, besides some form of insurance against unem- ployment, and the curtailment of boy and married women's labour.
Salutary as all these preventive measures will doubt- less prove, there remains, and there will remain for long years, a large number of persons, able-bodied and non- able-bodied, who, for a variety of reasons, moral as well as physical, either cannot, or will not, support themselves. To whom is to be entrusted the double duty both of supervising these necessitous persons and guarding against any undue increase in their numbers? This is the point at which the Commissioners, who have agreed in much, part company somewhat sharply. The issue, as Mr Sidney Webb phrased it at the Guildhall Conference, convened by the British Institute of Social Service (May 18), is between a new Poor Law and any Poor Law.
The signatories of the Majority Report believe that an enlarged and reformed Poor Law, endowed with a new name — that of Public Assistance Authority — and streng- thened by a considerable infusion of experienced philan- thropic workers, may safely be entrusted with the carrying out of all the reforms on their programme. Differently con- stituted, differently named and in the closest co-operation with voluntary charitable effort, this new Public Assistance Authority would yet still be in essence the old Poor Law,
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The Failure of the Workhouse
because it would still be a destitution authority. The sig- natories of the Minority Report, on the contrary, do not believe in a destitution authority at all, i.e., do not believe in destitution as a basis for social and economic activity. Such authorities, they contend, have always failed in the past, and always will fail, because founded on a radically false basis. It must be conceded that the Majority has worked out a most ingenious and elaborate scheme for linking up official relief and voluntary aid, and for co- ordinating in every locality all the now scattered and often wasted forces of endowed charity and private benevolence. It is a scheme that will undoubtedly commend itself to a large number of persons, those more especially who fear democratic institutions and have a genuine belief in the necessity for educated people settling the domestic affairs of the uneducated. Nevertheless, the Minority will have none of it. They contend that any authority, however constituted, based on destitution must partake of the faults of our present Poor Law, must deal with a bewilder- ing variety of specialised duties for which it has no quali- fications, and might even perpetuate the mixed work- house, condemned emphatically in 1834 and surviving to this day. " What is demanded," they say, " by the con- ditions, is not a division according to the presence or absence of destitution, but a division according to the ser- vices to be provided " (p. 1,006). This, then, is the method they have adopted. They differentiate carefully in the first place between the non-able-bodied and the able-bodied. The former are to be sorted out according to age and incapacity and are to be dealt with by those official bodies to which they naturally belong : children of school age to the Education authorities; the sick, the infants and the old needing medical care to the Public Health authorities; the mentally defective to asylums; the aged to the Pension Committees. All these various bodies would doubtless require some strengthening and enlarging, but no essential change in their constitutions, to enable them to assimilate these added responsibilities. A more difficult point is how to ensure the necessary co-
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The Failure of the Workhouse
ordination between these authorities when dealing, maybe simultaneously, with one and the same necessitous family. This point is met by the appointment in each county or borough of a registrar, who will keep a register of all cases in receipt of public assistance of any kind, recover cost from relatives where possible, and control " home ali- ment," or out-relief, to the extent of verifying that it is given in accordance with the regulations. As regards the able-bodied, the Minority Report expounds a wide states- manlike scheme, not for giving relief, but for curing in various ways the economic conditions that make for un- employment and destitution. No individual parish can deal successfully with the ever-recurring problem of unemployment — every one admits the failure of local relief works or of recourse to out-relief for the able-bodied under the plea of " urgent and sudden necessity " — hence the Minority Report lays down boldly the lines of a really national policy which will have to be developed simul- taneously with the suggested local reforms. But into this portion of the scheme I do not propose to enter in detail.
It is instructive to listen to the views of the rival parties on each other's schemes. In the opinion of the Minority, the Majority recommendations will not prevent, but rather increase, over-lapping; will prove extremely costly, owing to the necessity of providing immediately for a large number of specialised institutions, and are "politi- cally quite impracticable," owing to the fact that they fail to safeguard the ultimate authority of the county or borough councils over the spending powers of the Public Assistance Authorities or of the statutory Voluntary Aid Committees, " those irresponsible committees of benevo- lent amateurs " to whom such important duties are con- fided (pp. 1,003-1,007).
In the opinion of the Majority, the scheme of the Minority is founded on an idea that is faulty and unwork- able, as the relief of a family cannot be done in sections, but must be considered as a whole, nor will it ensure that co-ordination of official and voluntary effort which it is so eminently desirable to bring about. The Minority
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The Failure of the Workhouse
pleads for the services of the expert. The Majority ex- presses frank distrust of the expert, and prefers " a disin- terested authority practised at looking at all sides of the question " (p. 602).
Where specialists of such eminence and knowledge dis- agree, it seems presumptuous to offer an opinion. It is only a somewhat lengthy experience as a Poor Law Guardian that enables one to arrive at some appreciation of how the two rival solutions of a most complicated pro- blem will work out in practice. The proposals of the Majority Report have in their favour a definite complete- ness that commend them at first sight; none the less, I am convinced that they are unsound in principle, and that no swollen Poor Law, disguise it as we may, will escape the inherent weaknesses of our present system. Moreover, I must confess to a considerable distrust of the personnel of the scheme. There is much to be said for democratic rule, based on popular election, something for bureaucratic, when you can get it uncorrupt, but there is extremely little to be said for administration by a system of semi- private selection and nomination, which would quickly result in the real power falling into the hands of a clique, from whom there would be neither appeal nor escape. The fact that the clique, in this instance, would consist of highly educated, superior persons does not at all reconcile me to the fact of the poor being left wholly in their hands.
Perhaps intentionally, the signatories of the Minority Report have drawn up a much less detailed scheme of administration. They have been content to lay down cer- tain broad principles, which promise greater hope of diminishing pauperism in our midst than any that have as yet been presented to the British people. Certain points, however, appear to me to be left unfortunately vague, points which, I fully admit, turn rather on details of local administration than on questions of principle. The aboli- tion, especially in large urban centres, of the relief office and the ever-open workhouse, however desirable in itself, presents greater practical difficulties than the signatories seem to grasp. One wants to know that the poor them-
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selves will not be temporarily the sufferers by these far- reaching changes, that there will be no unforeseen gaps in the scheme of relief prepared for their benefit. With all his faults and failings, the relieving officer is on the spot and always to be found; someone equally available must take his place when he is abolished.
Admitting these difficulties, which would have to be solved by any Bill before Parliament, a study of this weighty Report brings me to the conviction that the time is ripe for heroic measures, and that what we need is the " break-up of the Poor Law," the ending, not the mend- ing, of our present system. The overwhelming service rendered by the signatories of the Minority Report is that, from out of the conflicting mass of evidence laid before them, and the bewildering multiplicity of views expounded for their benefit, they should have discerned so unerringly, and expounded so clearly, the fundamental weakness which, since 1834, has vitiated our whole treat- ment of the poor.
Perhaps I may add one word more for the readers of The Dublin Review. We, as Catholics, have an immense deal at stake in these impending changes. There is a quite disproportionate number of Catholics in our workhouses. The Irish labourer is to be found in preponderating num- bers in the ranks of the unskilled, whose future prosperity depends very largely upon the solution selected by the State. Hitherto, under the Poor Law, treatment, in prin- ciple at least, has always been frankly denominational; a creed register for paupers has always been kept, and in workhouse schools, if nowhere else, a father has had the legal right to demand, at public expense, religious educa- tion for his child in accordance with his own wishes. Will this same fundamental right be observed when the chil- dren are transferred en masse to the Education authorities ? Will the invaluable services rendered by our religious congregations of women to all classes of afflicted and help- less humanity — the crippled, the feeble-minded, the tuberculous, the epileptic — receive the generous recog- nition from the authorities of the future that to a large
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extent they have received in the past? Will facilities for Mass for Catholic inmates be as complete in the numerous specialised institutions of the future as happily they are to-day in most of our overgrown mixed workhouses? The answers to these questions lie mainly with ourselves. It is satisfactory to find, among the recommendations of the Majority Report one to the effect that, " Provision should be made for inmates of all denominations receiving reli- gious administration and instruction from the clergy of their respective churches," but these matters cannot be left to chance. Great changes are upon us — that we may take for granted — and to adopt a timid attitude of mere protest would be worse than useless and would damage our own cause. For it is just in proportion as we make our weight felt in the political field and as we exert ourselves, intelligently and unitedly, on behalf of our poorer co-re- ligionists, that we shall secure for them a continuation, under all circumstances, of those religious rights that they and we value so highly.
VIRGINIA M. CRAWFORD
77
LIGHT AT EVENING TIME
From dawn till eve thick mist had veiled the sky; The ancient hills were shrouded; ceaseless rain Obscured the fields, and now the light was fain,
Scarce having lived, to steal away and die ;
The hours in prayerless gloom had drifted by — For prayers but woke old memories again Of dear ambitions laid aside as vain —
And faith long since had failed in things not nigh.
But in that last dark hour, once bringing rest, When men returned from labours far afield
Heavy of foot, with souls denied their quest, A sudden wind the gathering gloom unsealed,
And on a peak far down the golden west God for a splendid moment stood revealed.
W. G. HOLE.
78
A CENTURY of SOCIALIS- TIC EXPERIMENTS
IF a detached spectator — a visitor from some other planet — were to give his attention to the socialistic movement of to-day, what would probably strike him as most curious is the fact that the men by whom this movement is represented are preparedto do anything on behalf of their principles and ideals, except to show that they are practicable by putting them into experimental practice. According to these theorists all economic problems would be solved if only the labourers could be masters of their own capital, and divide amongst themselves, on approximately equal terms,the entire product of their exertions. But, though the working-classes of this country, for example, are known to possess capital to the amount of something like £500,000,000, though it is claimed that socialism finds its chief support, not amongst the population of the slums, but amongst the more pros- perous and skilled mechanics, by whom we may naturally assume that a large portion of this sum is owned, no attempts are made by them to employ this capital themselves under their own corporate direction, and in accordance with their own theories. If one tenth of the upper stratum of theBritish working-class is socialistic, this body must possess a capital of at least £50,000,000; and if each member of it would ven- ture as much as 4jd in the £, a capital of £1,000,000 might be very easily raised, with which to start some model enter- prise. But nothing of this kind is attempted. Indeed, one British socialist alone, since the days of Robert Owen, has exhibited anything like business capacity at all. This man was William Morris ; and he actually embarked in business in a highly successful way, as an artistic printer, and a maker of artistic furniture. But, the moment he did so, he threw his socialism to the winds. He ran his business on strictly capi- talistic lines. At the end of each of the beautiful books printed by him, were the words, "Printed byme, William Morris," not "Printed by the labourers known as William Morris and
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his associates." He not only followed the methods of capi- talism, but he devoted himself to the production of luxuries which only capitalists could buy — carpets worth a guinea a yard, and books at twelve guineas a volume; and he ended by bequeathing to his heirs a comfortable "bourgeois" for- tune in the approved manner of the men whom, theoretically, it was his object to exterminate.
Such is the case in the socialistic world to-day, but it has not been so always. People are apt to regard socialism, with its current ideas and catch-words, as a much newer thing than it is. As a matter of fact it existed, so far as its crucial ideas are concerned, at least fifty years before the word "socialism" was invented, as it was by Owen or his sym- pathisers, before George III was buried ; and the earlier socialises, in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, were in one waydistinguished very honourably from their successors, by the fact that they were not content with the mere promulgation of principles, but endeavoured to makethem prevail bytranslatingthem into industrial action.
One of the most remarkable of these attempts, and incom- parably the most successful, was started nearly twenty years before the French Revolution, and was followed by a series of others for at least a century afterwards. The particular attempts to which I here refer, though they owed their in- spiration to Europe, all took place in America; and, though they do not stand alone, I shall confine myself here to these, because they have the advantage of having been studied systematically by careful and sympathetic observers — Mac- Donald, Noyes, and Nordhoff, of whom the two latter have devoted voluminous books to the subj ect. The latest of these books, that of Nordhoff, was published in 1875, almost exactly a century after the first of the experiments in ques- tion was inaugurated — namely that of the Shakers, in 1 774.
In many respects the ideas at work in these societies were various, some of them being primarily religious, others aggressively secular: but even the societies in which the religious idea was paramount, had their purely material and economic side also : and,in so far as this side is concerned, their ideas and principles, even before the word "socialism" had
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Socialistic Experiments
been heard, were identical with those put forward by socialists at the present day.
In order to make this plain, it will be enough to take the two most important of the earlier of these religious com- munities— namely the Shakers, established in 1774, and the Rappites, established in 1805.
The founder or foundress of the Shakers was an English woman, Ann Lee, of humble birth, but of very remarkable character, who believed herself to be the recipient of a num- ber of divine revelations, in accordance with which she mi- grated from England to America, where she succeeded in establishing a society consonant with her conception of the mind of Christ. The principle of this society, on its eco- nomic side, was that the members " should have," as she expressed it, "a united interest in all things": that the society, or as socialists would now say, the State, should be primarily the owner ot whatever was produced by in- dividuals, and should then dispense to individuals what- ever each might need, at the same time providing each with suitable and socially useful work.
The founder of the Rappites was George Rapp, the son of a small farmer in South Germany. He, too, like Ann Lee, developed early in life peculiar religious views; and in the year 1 805 he, too, migrated to America, taking with him some 300 followers, his object being to found a society in which Christ, when he came, should recognise the realization of his own will. Rapp was a man who, besides being a re- ligious enthusiast, possessed great talent for business and the practical management of men, and the economic prin- ciples which were involved in his new society were set forth in a series of Articles of Association, which each mem- ber was required to sign. The first of these Articles con- stituted a deed of gift on the member's part of all property whatsoever possessed by him or her, no matter where situa- ted, to George Rapp, and his heirs or assigns for ever, to be neld and administered by him or them on behalf of the members generally, and the said George Rapp covenanted on his part, and on the part of his associates, and their suc- cessors, "that they would supply all the members severally Vol. 145 81 6
A Century of
with all the necessaries of life," whether in youth or age, whether in sickness or health, together with all such "care and consolation" as their situations might "reasonably demand."
Here we see that, however far the religious ideas of these communities may seem to remove them from the majority of socialists to-day, they are both, on the economic side, animated by the same idea. All private interests, all special connexions between work and reward, are to be abolished, or as far as possible minimised; and so long as each man does his best, one man's best is regarded as equal to the best of another. All are to labour with the same good will, and all are to have similar claims on what would now be called "the social product."
Let us now turn from these pioneer communities to another group, the first of which was established just half a century after the successful establishment of the Shakers, and twenty years after that of the Rappites. Of this second group of experiments the inspirer and initiator was Owen, who hoped to accomplish in the New World, what he had failed to accomplish in the Old. Just as the Shakers and the Rappites were essentially religious, Owen was essentially a secularist, but his purely ecomonic ideas were the same in essence as theirs. They were the same also as those to which forty years later Karl Marx gave what purported to be an exact scientific expression and which are still echoed to-day on a hundred socialistic platforms.
The connexion of Owen the secularist with the fanatically Christian Rappites was incidentally of a very dramatic kind. About two years before Owen's arrival in America, the Rap- pites, who had acquired an estate and built a village in Indi- ana which they called Harmony, were desirous, for various reasons, of moving to another locality, if they could only find a purchaser for Harmony on sufficiently favourable terms. Such a purchaser they found in Owen. The estate of Har- mony, comprising 30,000 acres, together with all the Rap- pite buildings, he bought outright, and entered into posses- sion of it with nine hundred followers. At a meeting in the old public hall of the Rappites he enunciated to his follow-
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ers the principles of the new venture : and it is interesting to note one pregnant sentence, which shows how far these principles accorded and how far they differed from those of the religous socialists, his predecessors. Mankind, said Owen, hashitherto been "crushed by a Trinity of Oppressors — Private property, irrational religion, and marriage. "With regard to the first, it will be seen that he and his predecessors were at one, and, in a certain sense, they were at one with re- gard to the third ; but here, underlying their unity, there was one fundamental difference. To a certain extent the Rap- pites condemned marriage ; but the Rappites condemned it because it involved sexual passionand relationships ; and such they deemed incompatible with the highest human perfec- tion. Owen condemned marriage,not because it involved sex- ual relationships, but because it embarrassed men by making such relationships sacramental. For the moment, however, we will confine ourselves to the economic side of the matter, and here we shall find that Owen and the apocalyptic vision- ary were at one. Owen called his society The New Harmony Community of Equality : and the economic basis of it was to consist, he said, of the following principles : " To unite sepa- rate interests into one, by doing away with divided money transactions, and by exchanging with one another all pro- duels on the basis of labour for equal labour." Here we have almost the words of Marx, uttered forty years before Marx made himself famous.
This was in 1825. Fifteen years later a yet more mo- dern note was struck, that is to say about 1840, when a third class of socialistic experiments began to develop themselves under the influence of the ideas of Fourrier. Fourrier's root principle differed from Owen's in this, that, whereas Owen dwelt almost exclusively on the rights of labour, Fourrier recognized those which arose from the possession of capital ; but what he aimed at was so to distribute capital that every labourer should be a shareholder in a joint-stock enterprise, thus becom- ing, together with every one of his fellows, his own capitalist, in a sense his own employer, and the recipient of a dividend resulting from his own investment. " The
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employers of to-day," said one of the leaders ot the movement, "whoare employersonly because they monopo- lize capital, will thus disappear as individuals distinct from the labourers, and will reappear divided and multiplied in the persons of the labourers themselves."
I give these briet summaries of the utterances of these three schools of socialists — the essentially religious, such as the Shakers and the Rappites; the essentially secular, such as the Owenites; the primarily secular (though not essentially opposed to religion), such as the Fourrierists — in order to show how closely the ideas of the men and wo- men who sought to realise socialism in action a hundred and thirty, eighty-four and seventy years ago, resemble in their likenesses and their differences those which unite and which disunite the socialists of the present day.
And now, from the principles of these experimenters, let us turn to their practical policy, which was eminently reason- able. They all aimed at securing the triumph of socialism by means similar to those which resulted in the triumph of capitalism. Modern capitalism developed itself, and has spread itself throughout the civilised world because, where- ever it was tried, it was found to work. Each factory sucess- fully managed by a capitalistic employer gave birth to other factories: and the general triumph of the system was the multiplication of individual successes. The practical social- ists with whom we are now dealing proposed to establish socialism in precisely the same way. Just as the units of suc- cess which have made up the general triumph of capitalism have been individual businesses managed by capitalistic employers and their partners, so these practical socialists proposed to secure the triumph of socialism through cor- responding units of success, but units of a different kind. Instead of establishing successful businesses, they aimed at establishing successful communities: and the difference be- tween a business and a community was understood by them to be this. In an ordinary business, employer and employed alike work for the benefit of themselves and their individual families. In a socialistic community all would be one family. As matters stand, they argued, within the family circle eco-
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nomic advantages are shared, not divided. Wife, husband, children, all alike regard the common home as their own. They participate in the same meals. They have common rights in the hearth and the joint living-rooms. No one member of the family competes against any other. The gain of each is the gain of all. Each family group, in fact, is a miniature socialism in itself. In order, therefore, that social- ism might be developed into a social system, the first thing to be done was, according to them, to enlarge the socialism of the family, so that a considerable number of men, wo- men and children, might be welded together into a family of a larger kind, united, not by blood-relationship, but by a sense of human brotherhood. They very rightly recognized than an extension of these intimate bonds must have its limitations; and the idea common to all of them was to begin with an extended family, comprising from a few hundred up to, perhaps, a thousand persons. As soon as such a group had been once successfully established, their intention was that other groups should be established on the same principles, and in fraternal connexion with it, so that these socialistic units would in time cover the earth. At all events, they rea- lized that if an effective socialistic sentiment could not extend itself to a community of some hundreds of persons, it was hopeless to expect that it would extend itself to the world at large, or even to an entire nation.
And now let us consider how these experiments worked. Those described by the writers I have mentioned are seventy- five in number, covering a period of almost exactly a hundred years. To examine all these in detail would be impossible, and it is unnecessary; for the fortunes of many were almost exactly similar. Some two-thirds came to no- thing in the course of a few years or even sooner. Of the remaining third, all showed more vitality; and, though even of these the larger part were failures, they had so many elements of success in them that their failure is exception- ally interesting ; whilst the comparative success and per- sistent life of nine possess for us, by the way of contrast, an interest which is still greater.
We will, therefore, select for special consideration those
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which have met with a success which, even if partial, was permanent, and those which, though failing ultimately, lasted for an exceptional time.
Of the permanently successful communities two of the most important were the earliest, the Shakers and the Rap- pites — both essentially religious. Both were flourishing in 1824, when Owen arrived in America as the first pioneer of socialism on a secular basis, or of the kind of socialism which to-day would be called scientific. Under the influence of Owen's principles ten communities or associations were started. Eight out of ten failed within two years. Only two lasted longer. One of these consisted of only fifteen per- sons, it is not a very instructive example. The other — and this alone is important — was the community of New Har- mony, which had at one time a membership of nine hun- dred, which was equipped with a large capital, and organized by Owen himself. Of the amended class of experiments which followed on the failure of the Owenite, and which were based on the principles of Fourrier — principles funda- mentally secular though capable of being associated with religion — the number was much greater, amounting to nearly fifty. Several of these lasted so long as four years. One lasted for five, another for six, another for twelve years. These three last mentioned communities, or as they were called, Phalanxes, are all that we need consider now. They are the Brook Farm Phalanx; thdfWisconsin Phalanx, and the North American Phalanx. Of the semi-successful fail- ures, then, we have four cases to consider — these three, animated by the scientific but permissively religious prin- ciples of Fourrier; and their predecessor, New Harmony, animated by the scientific and aggressively secular principles of Owen.
Owen's great experiment started, in many respects, under exceptionally favourable auspices. Owen himself, unlike the majority of most sincere socialists, was a practical business man. He had, indeed, made a fortune as a mill owner ; and he was able to put into the undertaking some ^30,000 of capital. He purchased, as has been seen, a large estate with a com- modious village ready-made on it, and in a few months he
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had collected a population of many hundred persons, all eager to escape from the constraints and other evils of the capitalistic system, and to enjoy a world transformed by the magical wand of socialism. Beside providing land, houses, and capital, he provided the community also with a definite economic constitution. The management of all industry was vested in a "Preliminary Committee," which started a variety of manufactures, and other businesses, the products of which were to be shared without charge amongst all. An apothecary distributed drugs gratis to all who needed them. A general store supplied "all necessaries to the inhabitants " on the same terms. Education was considered public pro- perty, and all the children received free meals and clothing. Free music was provided by a public band. There were also free dances and games, which anticipated the ideas of the most enterprising Progressives of to-day.
Owen, having placed matters on this satisfactory footing, was called back, for nine or ten months, to England, and on his return to New Harmony he made some disappointing discoveries. The Preliminary Committee had been unable to conduct industry efficiently, and the majority had developed inclinations to talk rather than work. Owen, therefore, re- constituted the managing body, putting an Executive Coun- cil in place of the Preliminary Committee. The Executive Council, however, did no better than its predecessor, and Owen was ultimately called upon to take the reins into his own hands, and become, for a time at all events, a dictator. No sooner had he done this than matters began to mend. Different groups of labourers fell into their proper stations. Industrytook the place of oratory; and everything appeared to be so prosperous that applications for admission to the community were made faster than they could be enter- tained. Owing to this cause and to others, it presently came about that the parent community divided itself into several, each having allotted to it a portion of the communal estate, and trading with the others by means of paper money, in accordance with the great principle of labour for equal lab- our. Each of these communities was managed by its own council; but the councils soon showed themselves so little
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up to their work, that all the communities demanded at a general meeting that these bodies should be dissolved, and the principle of a dictatorship revived. Each of the three new communities was to have a dictator of its own, appointed by Owen, who was himself to be dictator of the first. This step was taken, with results that were at first promising, but promising for a time only. It gave rise before long to a crop of dangerous jealousies, which nothing availed to check. One man, or one group, or one part of a group, wanted one thing; another wanted another: and con- sumption to an increasing degree ran ahead of production. There were only two articles of which the supply did not fall short of the demand. One was glue and the other was soap. Nothing could check the discontent, the disagreements and disappointments which the socialistic regime was caus- ing; so that finally,as the only way to make the best out of a bad matter, Owen began to sell portions of general property to individuals. The effect was magical. There was a new out- burst of energy. Facing the socialistic tavern a private grocery was established; signboards began to show themselves on the buildings, announcing the establishment of private trades and manufactures. Under these conditions Owen determined to abandon his enterprise, and allow his Utopia to lapse, as he saw it was bound to do, into a community of men and wo- men pursuing their individual interests, and indistinguish- able from the citizens of the ordinary world around them.
Such, then, was the result of Owen's attempt to free man- kind from the Trinity of oppressors — Private property, irrational religion, and marriage: and the other attempts made underthe influence of Owen's principles came to an end even more rapidly than his own.
Let us now turn to the amended socialisms of the Fourrier group. Of these the most widely known is the Brook Farm experiment, which was started in 1 842 on lines peculiar to itself, but which, a few years later, was reconstituted in ac- cordance with the theories of Fourrier, adopting a new name — that of the Brook Farm Phalanx. Brook Farm is remark- able on account of the character of its chief projectors.They were persons of some means, high education and fastidious
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culture, the philosophic Emerson being a prominent figure amongst them. Philosophy, a poetic religiosity, and sensitive and fastidious refinement, were their distinguishing charac- teristics; and their original aim was to found, as they put it themselves, a sort of university, or secluded college, which should give to the world a pattern of what life ought to be. The first requisite was, according to their theory, that this college should be self-supporting— that the labour of the members should produce the income on which they lived. It was, therefore, to have an agricultural basis. As soon as might be practicable it was to develop all necessary manu- factures ; "but a true life," said the proje&ors, "though it aims beyond the highest star, must always remain redolent of the healthy earth, and the perfume of clover must linger about it. "With these charming obj eels in view their first prac- tical rule was that all "labour, bodily or intellectual," was to receive the same reward, on the ground that though intel- lectual labour is, in a sense, higher than bodily, it is more agreeable to those who perform it, and thus spiritually pro- vides itself with whatever extra wages may be due to it. All would thus enjoy a position of material equality ; and so efficient would labour be when prosecuted on these ideal terms, that the university would soon be providing itself with all the reasonable "elegancies as well as with the com- forts of life, with all the means of study, and all the means of beautiful amusement," by the expenditure of so few hours of ordinary work daily, that the settlement would be a para- dise of leisure, unequalled in the outside world.
This community consisted of 1 1 5 members; and the ac- count which they gave of themselves, when, after the first two years of their experiences, they framed a new consti- tution in accordance with the principles of Fourrier, throws some light on what their history, as read by themselves, had been. "Every step," they said, "has strengthened the faith with which we set out . . . and the time has passed when even initiative movements ought to be prosecuted in silence." They were convinced, they said, that Fourrier was right in his view that socialism was to be propagated by groups, which would multiply in proportion to the examples
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of practical success achieved by them. What was wanted was a socialistic community which would be a light shining before men; and only a little fresh aid on the part of sympathisers was now necessary to enable Brook Farm to accomplish this high destiny. We have already, they said, got through the rough preliminary work. Our original capital of £6,000 has been increased by a fresh subscription of £2,000. We have made agricultural improvements ; we have built a large work- shop for mechanics, we are building one wing of our great unitary dwelling, a hundred and forty feet long. Nothing is wanting now but some addition to our capital ; and though in all human investments there is, of course, a theoretical possibility of loss, "we have arrived at a point where this risk hardly exists. . . . We have before us a solemn and glorious work — to prepare for the time when the nation, like one man, shall reorganize its townships on the basis ot perfect justice, such as ours."
Notlongafterthese inspiriting statements had been made, a misfortune occurredwhich had nothing to dowith socialism. One of the main buildings, before it had reached completion, caught fire, in consequence of the bad construction of a chim- ney, and was destroyed. This disaster, though the pecuniary loss it involved was estimated to have been not more than £1,400, proved sufficient to ruin the community which was on the point of reforming the whole social system of the world. The apologists of the enterprise endeavoured to account for its failure on various grounds. One was that the locality, which they had originally declared to be ideal, was "most unfavourable," that their capital, of which they had originally boasted as one of their most important assets, amounted practically to nothing, and that the members were all deficient in two things yet more important — one being "industrial experience," and the other "industrial capa- city." Of these deficiencies more will be said presently.lt is enough to say, for the moment, that Brook Farm, when dissolved as a community, came to life again, but in an en- tirely changed form. It came to life in the persons of some few of its members, not as an ideal community, but as the proprietors and editors of a journal called The Harbinger,
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which they devoted as theorists to the impassioned advo- cacy of principles, of which, as practical men, they had done nothing but exhibit the failure.
They themselves had, however, some justification for their optimism in the fact that they were able to point to two other associations, similar in character to their own, namely the Wisconsin Phalanx and the North American, which seemed to be pushing matters to a more successful issue. Let us now give our attention to these.
The Wisconsin Phalanx, which was started about two years later than Brook Farm, comprised about 150 per- sons. They had sufficient capital to purchase 1,800 acres, with a powerful stream and a saw-mill. Their first care was to organise their labourers into groups, and they suc- ceeded so well that within the space of a year they had raised considerable crops, constructed a flour mill, a general shop, a wash-house, a shoemaker's shop and a smithy; and, besides other minor buildings, had nearly finished a great communal residence, 280 feet long and more than 30 in breadth. The original value of their property, estimated by the price they paid for it, was a little under £4,000. In two years' time, through their buildings and other im- provements, they claimed to have increased its value by about £1,000, which comes to an annual saving of about £4 4s. per head. During the next twelve months the capital increased further, and now at the rate of about £5 per head. The net income of the community was about £8 10s. per head. The Wisconsin Phalanx, indeed, so far as their corporate property was concerned, appear to have made a continuous though slow advance. Neverthe- less, accounts of their proceedings, published from time to time by their officials, seemed to outside observers almost too good to be true, and enquiry on the spot by a correspondent of the New York Tribune brought to light some very interesting particulars, which showed that this impression was correct. He found that the dwellings of the members were such as few ordinary labourers in the Eastern States would be contented to live in; and, such as they were, they shocked him by the condition in which
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they were kept. Of this fact the inhabitants gave him the most significant explanation, that they were too much occupied " in the struggle for the necessaries of life " to have time to think of such superfluous things as neatness. It further transpired that not a few of their number had been driven, for part of their time, to work for wages for outside employers, either because the managers of the Phalanx could find no work at all for them, or else because the work found for them was not sufficiently profitable to supply them with their simple needs. Jealousies, moreover, had developed themselves between the mechanics and the agricultural workers. But a source of discontent and difference much more important than this arose in con- nexion with the question of separate and associated living. Should each family have its own home, as it has in the outer world, or should all lodge under a common roof and share a common table? The advocates of communal living had at last carried the day, but a large majority protested. Mothers, especially, complained that this system of living interfered with their relations with their children, and robbed them of their power of exercising a mother's care. The final result was that individualism was driven to revolt. The private family found the communal family intolerable, and at last the drama of Owen's New Harmony re-enacted itself. The communal property was sold in separate lots, most of the members becoming purchasers; and the socialistic Utopia, after six years of life, recon- structed itself in the form of an ordinary village. Finan- cially this enterprise was so far successful that its capital had increased at the rate of about 8 per cent, per annum, yielding an average increment to each member of £12 12s., or a bonus of £2 2s. annually, besides having distributed wages at the rate, first of 2£d. and subsequently of 3 id. per hour. But this financial progress, although steady, had been small and disappointing. The general social conditions proved more disappointing still, and one of the members adds that this disappointment was felt most acutely by the men of light and leading, who soon began to feel that their faculties were hampered by their socialistic surroundings,
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and were anxious on the first opportunity to return to the outside world.
We now come to the North American Phalanx, which was, as Noyes says, the great test experiment on which the later socialistic movement in America " staked its all." In this Phalanx, which purported to be founded on a thoroughly thought out and scientific theory of society, " we have," said one of its founders, " the relation of employer and employed stricken out of the category of relations, not merely as in the j oint-st ock corporations (such as Brook Farm and Wisconsin) by substituting for the in- dividual employer the still more despotic and irresistible corporate employer; but by every one becoming his own employer, doing that which he is best qualified to do by endowment, and receiving for his labour precisely his share of the product. . . . [We aim at showing] man's capacity for increased production by establishing true social rela- tions . . . and that men [emancipated from employers] may by their own efforts, command all the means of life." As to sexual relationships, " we leave our members free," though the present institution of marriage " we regard generally as rotten." "We claim also that we guarantee the sale of the products of industry, that is we secure the means of converting any and every product of fruit or labour at the cost thereof into any other form, also at cost."
This Association, which was started in 1844 and lasted for twelve years, claimed that it doubled its original capita in the course of the first eight years, the amount credited to each family being at one time not less than £700. This yielded an annual interest of about ^35. Wages amounted to an average of 15s. a week, or ^75 a year for a man and his wife together, so that family incomes would average about £110. Such was the account given by one of the heads of the association in 1852.
Let us now take a look at this association in action, as at various stages of its career it presented itself to sympa- thetic visitors. In the summer of 1845, the second year of its existence, a visitor gives us a picture of a specimen day of haymaking. The whole community seemed to take to
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work as if it were some happy game. A simple but plentiful dinner was served in a common hall, water being the only beverage. After dinner they worked again till evening, and the younger members ended up with a dance. A year later, another visitor, though he makes a mysterious allusion to the sacrifices made by the members, speaks in glowing terms of their health, their hopes and their happiness. A third visitor, in 1847, bears testimony likewise to the general harmony and content. He found the younger girls ornamented with wreaths of flowers. The next account that has been preserved is dated four years later. The writer arrived at night. He found the communal building full of dancing and music, and the lighted windows made him fancy that he had arrived in fairyland. He had a kindly welcome, a good supper in a dining-hall, and a bed- room which was clean, though carpetless. Next day Mr Sears, the principal, gave him all the information he asked for; but another prominent member, to whom Mr Sears passed him on, seemed to be suspicious and irritable, as though fancying that the visitor had come to spy out shortcomings, and began to discuss the reasons why socialistic experiments always failed. Another person — a woman — descanted on the same subject. But, in spite of these warning symptoms, all seemed to be prosperous. A year later the same visitor found that the wages of labour had undergone a slight increase, that the crops all seemed flourishing, but that the communal method of feeding had been changed to that of an ordinary restaurant, where popular prices were charged and everybody ordered what he liked. This change appeared to give great satisfaction. Moreover, a new member had arrived, bringing with him a substantial capital; but this member insisted on building a private house for himself, and living in it in his own way. At a later date we learn that various other members began to admit privately that, though the socialistic life was not without its advantages, they could do better for them- selves financially by working as individuals in the world. Again, a little later the significant fact is recorded that, though the Association was said at one time to have had a
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capital which yielded an average of ^700 per family, very few of them really had managed to save anything, and that such of them as did save were beginning to invest their savings, not in the stock of the Association, but in outside enterprises of the ordinary capitalistic kind. The men who had eagerly joined the Association on the ground that its object was to abolish the category of employer and employed, to make every man his own employer, and enable him to work according to his own propensities and endowments, began to complain about the fatal ineffi- ciency of management, and of labourers whose labour was wasted for want of officers competent to direct them. Some men there were, so one correspondent writes, whose talents raised them above the rest, and exercised some con- trolling influence; but these men were divided into two classes — the men of sentiment and ideals, whose one desire was to give everybody the best of everything, not per- ceiving that their expenditure would thus outrun the communal income; and men, on the other hand, of certain business capacity, who saw that if much was to be distri- buted much must be first produced. But, unfortunately, as this writer goes on to observe, the former — the theo- retical sentimentalists — had the gift of persuasive speech, whilst the men of business had not, and so the former gained the day. Incompetent management brought its inevitable penalties, and the time arrived when provisions would often fail, and hardly anything was to be had for break- fast. Then, as in the case of Brook Farm, an accidental calamity happened. One of their principal buildings was destroyed by fire. This was the finishing stroke, and though the loss did not amount to more than a tenth of their nominal capital, and though Horace Greely offered to do more than make it good, the general opinion of the members was that affairs were hopeless, and after twelve years of existence the North American Phalanx, which was by its assured success to light all men on the way to socialism, was dissolved. Its property was sold, and its socialized acres reverted to the ownership of unregenerate individualists.
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Such were the typical ways in which, when Noyes wrote his book in 1870, sixty-six out of seventy-five attempts at practical socialism had failed. Nine, however, within certain limits, succeeded. By comparison with others they may be said to have succeeded signally. When Noyes wrote, and when Nordhoff wrote some years later, they were all of them still flourishing. One of them had been in existence for a hundred years. The chief of these were the Shakers, the Rappites, the Zoar Community, the Ebenezer Community, and the Oneida Community. Noyes described some of them as being not only flourish- ing, but also very wealthy. As to the wealth of those whom he calls very wealthy, too much stress must not be laid on this, for of the two communities to whom he specially refers, though both were organised internally on socialis- tic principles, one comprised from the first men of large property, who endowed the community as other men have endowed colleges, whilst the other invested its sav- ings in enterprises external to itself, such as railways and oil-wells, from which, like any ordinary capitalist, it de- rived an increasing revenue. But apart from this fact, all these communities prospered from their own internal industry no less remarkably than those which we have just been considering, failed.
To what distinguishing feature, then, is the difference in their fortunes due? Is there any essential feature in which they all differed from the rest? As Noyes points out, there is one distinguishing feature which we find com- mon to all of them. These successful communities were one and all religious. Their religion was not permissive, as it was at Brook Farm or in the North American Phalanx. It was a definite and fundamental creed. It determined their entire constitution. Their economic systems grew out of it. It was not an accessory or ally of their economic systems. In other words, these successful communities closely resembled the monastic orders of Catholicism; and when we remember that not a single one of them was Catholic — that, on the contrary, the inspiration of all of them was of the extremest Protestant type, it is hard to
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imagine a fact more curious and more interesting than this. In the first place, like the Catholic Orders, these com- munities appealed to the elect few only — to those who had a special vocation; and their invitation to produce and to possess was primarily an invitation to renounce. The case of the Shakers' communities, which have had the longest life of all, illustrates this most notably. The socialism of the Shakers is founded on strict celibacy, and their mem- bers are recruited only from postulants from the outer world, selected with the most stringent care.The Rappites, the Zoarites, and the Ebenezers, though not forbidding marriage, look on it as a concession to the frailty of man's nature, and they made of the bridal garments a hair shirt of contrition. The love of women for them is essentially a wile of the devil, and all daily intercourse between the sexes is subjected to the severest discipline. The only exception is that of the Oneida Community, of which I will speak presently.
But this monastic attitude towards marriage, with all that is implied in it, forms only one feature of their sys- tems. A monastic discipline pervades their entire conduct of life. The Shakers will not receive very young persons as members. They only receive those who have had enough experience of life to show that they differ in character from the majority of men and women, and are emanci- pated from man's normal impulse to pursue individual interest. Even those admitted must undergo a year's novitiate, and before the year is over most of the novices depart. The first question asked of each postulant is not, " Do you believe in the rights of labour, and would you if you could, annihilate all capitalists?" It is " Are you sick of sin, and do you want salvation from it?" Then, if to this question the postulant answered "Yes," the next act imposed on him in this home of Socialistic Protestantism, is the act of oral confession, as though he were a Catholic ascetic preparing to receive the Sacrament. Two elders take the place of a priest; and the questions asked are in many minute particulars identical with those asked the penitent in the confessionals of the Catholic Church. To Vol. 145 97 7
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read an account of a day passed in one of these communities is like reading an account of a day passed amongst Trap- pists. Meals, work, recreation, prayer, are all regulated by the sound of a conventual bell. Meals are eaten in silence, the sexes sitting apart, and entering and departing in solemn procession by different doors. Next to chastity their great obligation is obedience. All the work of the community is directed by elders, who alone have the power to transact business, to handle money, or deal with the outside world. And in the other religious communities the discipline, though less strict, is similar.
What, then, are the conclusions to be deduced from all these facts? The main conclusions which at once come to the surface are three. One is that, however socialism in practice may aim at abolishing the category of employer and employed, it has only prospered in proportion as it maintained and accentuated the category of the directors and the directed, and utterly eradicated the principles of self-employment, in the sense of leaving the labourer to work in accordance with his own discretion. Another con- clusion is that, in proportion as the individualistic motive is abolished, and exceptional talents are deprived of any cor- responding rewards which will raise their possessors above the common lot, nothing will induce such exceptional talents to exert themselves, unless it is that ascetic enthu- siasm which religion alone can generate. And behind these two conclusions there remains a third, which is this — that the individualism of the ordinary world — the desire of each to possess in accordance with his own powers of production, and to retain for himself such advantages as his own efforts have gained, has its deepest roots in mar- riage and the passions of the individual family, and that, therefore, in order to make socialism possible, marriage and the individual family are the ultimate factors which must be eradicated.
This is not only an inference which we, as critics, can draw from these experiments. It was definitely recognized at the time by the more thoughtful of the experimenters themselves. One of the promoters of the Brook Farm ex-
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periment described the affections " out of which our present family relations spring " as the fundamental factor on which all other arrangements hinge ; and he warned his colleagues that history seemed to teach us that, "in these natural affections, and in their consequences in living offspring, there was probably an element so subversive of general association that the two could not co-exist." What this writer puts forward as speculative truth the definitely religious communities acted on from the first, as an obvious and assured fact, and they saw that this difficulty could be met only by the complete or partial adoption of one or other of two methods, each of which had for its aim the destruction of the individual family — the abolition of the categories of parent and child, of brother and sister. One of these methods was that adopted by the Shakers — namely, the prohibition of all sexual union. The other was the establishment of what is called " free love," as adopted by the Oneida Community. The Shak- ers, by adopting the former method, proved in the first place that socialistic life was a possibility, but admitted at the same time that it was practicable only amongst persons of exceptional character; for the very existence of a body like the Shakers depended on the existence of an outside world, by whose marryings and giving in marriage their own members would be produced. Their socialism was essentially parasitic — a rare flower drawing its life from the great individualistic tree.
For those who look upon socialism as a scheme generally practicable, and potentially self-supporting, the method adopted by the Oneida Community is the only logical method — namely, the method of free love, since only by this method can the individualism of marriage, and of all the intimate ties between father, mother and child be destroyed, and the Socialistic State be saved from dying in a single generation, through a suicidal inability to provide itself with fresh members. When I speak of free love, as understood by the Oneida Community, I do not connect it with the advocacy of a saturnalia of sexual profligacy. The leaders themselves endeavoured, and no doubt hon-
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estly, to clear themselves of such a charge, contending that, in the ordinary world, the main characteristic of ordinary sexual license was the cynical indifference of the men to such children as might result from their amours, and to the stigma and burden that would be cast on the forgotten mothers. According to their scheme, they said, together with the abolition of marriage and the private family would be abolished all the penalties at present attaching to the unmarried mother. She would lose nothing in character; and her burdens would be less than those of the married mother now, for as soon as her child was born she would virtually be a mother no longer. The child would pass from her arms at once into the arms of the State, and father and mother would become mean- ingless names, for no child would know who were its physical parents, and no father and mother would be able to identify their own offspring.
Now here, in view of certain points much debated at present, we have evidence of a most valuable kind, which I would earnestly press on the attention of all critics of contemporary socialism. Socialism to-day is often at- tacked as being essentially anti-religious; and it is perfectly true that countless socialists are so; but others, again, are not. On the contrary, in this country at all events, an immense number of persons who preach socialism — the majority, probably, of the Labour members in the House of Commons — are religionists of the narrowest type, and would justly resent, and be able most successfully to refute, the imputation to themselves either of atheism or any sympathy with licentiousness. They would also deny in- dignantly that either of these was involved in socialism. What I desire to impress on the reader is that in a certain sense they are right — more profoundly right than they themselves suspect. The whole moral to be drawn from the socialistic experiments in America is not that social- ism is essentially irreligious, but that it can only realize itself as the result of a religious enthusiasm of a kind so rare and exceptional as to be wholly outside the potentialities of ordinary men and women ; and, further, that this being
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so, one or other of two things is necessary to the continued existence of any socialistic community — either the sup- pression of the private family and the family affections, by the enforcement of celibacy, as among the Shakers, and in the monastic orders of the Catholic Church, or else the suppression of the private family by the abolition of mar- riage, and the substitution for it of temporary unions, which will divorce mothers from their children at the eariiest possible period, leaving the parents ignorant and careless as to whether they have any children or no, and the children without experience of love for mother or father, or any knowledge of the links that unite brother and sister. If socialism is purchased at the price of absolute celibacy, as among the Shakers, I need hardly repeat that such socialism is necessarily an ex- ceptional thing, for there must be an outside world in which children are produced, contrary to the socialistic rule. The only kind of socialism which is self-supporting, or could conceivably become general, is a socialism or- ganised like that of the Oneida Community, in which the private family is dissolved and lost in the State by the abolition of any permanent and exclusive union between the parents.
The fact that of all the many socialistic experiments in America those only have succeeded in which the religious element has been predominant shows that socialism can succeed only in proportion as it is religious in one sense — in the sense that it requires a devotion to some spiritual ideal which demands personal sacrifice, quite as much as it promises personal gain, and differs essentially from the popular socialism of to-day, which, though it involves a suicide of self-interest on the part of the able few, appeals to nothing but self-interest on the part of the less gifted many. Thus, while it is untrue to say that socialism is in its principles irreligious, being only practicable in so far as it is a form of religious enthusiasm, it is equally true to say that, considered as a scheme for all men, it is essentially hostile to the moral ideals of Christianity, for it essentially demands, before all things else, the destruction of that
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sanctuary of Christian morals, the individual home. Nor is it only the Christian home that is thus aimed at. What is aimed at are all those primary affections which Chris- tianity has done no more than sanctify, and to abolish which would, in the opinion of the masses of mankind, be nothing less than to eviscerate human life.
For certain persons, endowed with peculiar tempera- ments, and so long as these persons are animated by some peculiar form of enthusiasm, these American experiments show that socialism is a possible form of life. For persons who are untouched by this rare and austere excitement, and who are attracted towards socialism by its promises of material prosperity, or of some vague kind of economic emancipation, these American experiments show to us that socialism is an impracticable dream, and they show us this because these experiments, which were exclusively or primarily economic — these sixty-six experiments out of seventy- five — failed one and all of them for precisely similar reasons. When they first started all seemed to go well. The hope for to-morrow did duty for the accomplishments of to-day. In one case all the members thought that all social problems had been solved so long as the first stock of gro- ceries in the grocery store lasted. When the original stock gave out, then came the problem of how this stock was to be replaced. Who was to do that? And how was any- body to do anything? They had abolished the categories of employer and employed. Everybody was to employ himself, and work voluntarily in accordance with his own endowments. Such were their ideas at starting. But hard facts soon brought home to them the perception that the great essential was some body of men possessing business talent and authority, who would tell the rest what to do, when and how to do it, and see that they did it at the proper and appointed times. The Shakers solved this problem, because everything was in the hands of the elders, and it was a part of their religious discipline to yield to their elders a humble and unquestioning obedience. An obedience of this kind was the one thing which the non- religious socialisms set out to abolish; and yet guidance,
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direction, authority on the part of the more capable mem- bers was the very thing for which they were soon forced to clamour. Owen, in initiating his own special community, settled all preliminaries himself, but his intention was that his own authority should be temporary, and he at once delegated it, during his absence, to committees who should act for the mass. Returning in less than a year he found that, under these committees, everything had fallen into confusion. By general request he took the mastership of everything into his own hands again. At once matters began to mend; but Owen, true to his own principles of industrial democracy, again insisted on making his power over to new popular bodies called by a new name. Again confusion developed itself, and now to such an extent that his 900 citizens split themselves into four communi- ties, each of which was to work by itself in confederation with the three others. But now the confusion went from bad to worse, and Owen, at the request of all, became general dictator once more, and appointed to share his authority three other dictators — one dictator for each of the four States. But all to no avail. The individualizing pro- cess still held its way; the forces which had converted one community into four was rapidly resolving each of the four into individuals, and Owen, who remained through- out the technical owner of the capital, was forced to sell the property in lots to such of the members as would remain on it, the rest passing into other hands.
Of all the other non-religious experiments the history is virtually the same. Thus, of one we read that it failed because there were two things lacking in it — men with the capacity to command, and men with a disposition to obey. Of another we read that it failed because, out of the only members who possessed any gift of leadership, those who could persuade men had no practical talents, and those who had practical talents had no gift of persuasion. From his experience of another, one of the members wrote that " there is floating on the surface of society a body of dis- appointed, jealous, indolent spirits, disgusted with our present social system, not because it enchains the masses,
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but because they cannot render it subservient to their own private ends. Experience shows that this class stands ready to mount every new movement that promises ease, abun- dance and individual freedom; and then," he goes on, "as soon as it becomes evident that the enterprise cannot con- tinue to support men, unless all ' skill and talent are made subservient ' to a general principle, these persons at once raise the old ' cry of tyranny and oppression,' anarchy ensues, and the enterprise goes to pieces." In other cases we read that for a certain time men of real business ability obtained the control of labour, and wealth began to in- crease, but that, as soon as this happened, these men began to realize that they could do better for themselves and their families in the outer world, and with their alienation from the communities the communities themselves fell into disorder and ended. In yet another case — that of the Wisconsin Phalanx, which was singular in the fact that it did for a series of years actually continue to make some industrial progress — small indeed but unchecked — we read that it owed its end not to industrial anarchy, but to a general dissatisfaction with the socialistic atmosphere. Its sameness palled on all. It stifled the very idea of indi- vidual success and adventure.
And now, before concluding, let me go back to the religious communities which, after a life of from fifty to a hundred years, were reported by Noyes and NordhofT to be all prosperous, and some of them actually rich. We shall find that, even in these communities, with the one exception of the Shakers, the growth in riches corre- sponded with a departure from socialistic principles. Of all these religious communities, the Perfectionists, as they called themselves, of Oneida, with their regime of free- love, came closest in their industrial practice to the ideas of the secular socialists of to-day. In some branches of manufacture they achieved a solid, though but a moderate success. Compared with the Rappites, the Zoarites, and the Ebenezers, they remainedjpoor. But even the Perfec- tionists of Oneida had no sooner made a little money than they began to readopt some of the[principles of the capi-
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talistic system which they had repudiated, and to employ hired labour and run some of their enterprises for profit in the ordinary way. Whilst if we turn to the three com- munities who grew to be really rich, the same fact en- counters us on a yet more extended scale. I have mentioned already that the Rappites, whose original village was bought by Owen, spent their savings in the purchase of oil wells and shares in railways. Noyes mentioned this fact in 1870. Nordhoff, writing five years later, chronicles their continuance of this policy, mentioning that by that time they had become the chief sleeping partners in one of the largest cutlery businesses in the United States, and were now beginning to figure as employers of Chinese labour. With the others the case was the same. With the first achievement of prosperity they began to delegate the simpler forms of labour to ordinary hired labourers, any one of whom, as was caustically remarked at the time, " would do more in one hour than one of the members would do in six." Only the Shakers remained at once prosperous and consistent, and the Shakers form the com- munity in which, beyond all comparison, the religious element was most complete and most highly organized, subduing to its discipline every antagonistic impulse.
The voluminous works of Noyes and Nordhoff do not carry us beyond the year 1875, nor do I know of any com- prehensive work that does. There are two communities, however, of which I can give the reader some later intel- ligence. One of these is Icaria, which for one reason stands apart from the rest, for, whereas all the rest were Ger- man, English or American in origin, Icaria was wholly French, and was started to show how, on French demo- cratic principles, labour, emancipated from the capitalist, could create for itself its own paradise. Icaria was started in 1849. In x^75 Nordhoff records that, instead of having realized a paradise of plenty, the fare of the members was of the plainest and their dwellings of the barest kind, but, he added, " I think that their hardest struggles are over." A year ago I had a letter from America which described their actual fortunes since then. Slowly but steadily their
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numbers began to fall off, till at last no one was left but one enterprising man and his sons. Icaria now consists of this single firm, and it has lately been converted into Icaria Limited. Another community, one of the strictly reli- gious groups which had been in existence for something over fifty years, found it impossible to continue the struggle longer. Reduced to something like 150 persons, it sold its property, dividing the price amongst its mem- bers, the efforts of fifty years yielding something like ^200 apiece to them. This took place when I was in America only two years ago, and the purchaser was the owner of a great neighbouring mill, who proceeded, on the land which had supported 150 Socialists, to build a model village for 3,000 of his own work-people.
W. H. MALLOCK
06
ST ANSELM OF CANTER- BURY
Eadmer. Historia Novorum. De Vita et Conversatione Anselmi.
Arch. Cantuar. Roll Series. Historiae Normannorum Scriptores Antiqui. Ed. A. Duchesne.
Ed. 1619. S. Anselmi Opera Omnia. G. Gerberon. Migne. Patrologia. Tom.
158,159. The Norman Conquest. Proressor Freeman. The Reign of William Rufus. Professor Freeman. And other works.
ON Wednesday, April 21 of the present year, exactly eight centuries had rolled over since that other Wed- nesday in Holy Week, 1109, when St Anselm, amid the shadows of the early dawn, with his monks reading to him the Passion of Christ, breathed his last at Canterbury,
The eighth centenary of his death has been solemnly commemorated in Westminster Cathedral and also at Rome, and in September next a further commemoration, in which the Archbishop of Westminster has been invited to take part, will be held at St Anselm's birthplace in Aosta, in North Italy.
St Anselm has a triple claim to be regarded as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — amongst the Archbishops of Canterbury in Pre-Reformation times. Intellectually, he takes rank amongst the most profound and influential thinkers and writers of his day. Spiritually, he was a saint of a singularly winning and beautiful type. As an Arch- bishop, he stands next to St Thomas a Becket, as a cham- pion of Church liberty and of Papal authority, and is second to him only in so far as a martyrdom of anxiety, labour and exile may be accounted to fall short of the martyrdom of blood actually shed and life actually laid down for the Church's freedom.
The great work achieved by St Anselm is never likely to be adequately appreciated unless it is considered in con- nexion with the whole age-movement of which it is a
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part. The fact must serve as an apology for the literary mistake which the present writer proposes to commit, of halving a portrait in order to admit more of the back- ground, and this on the plea that it is only in the historical setting, and especially in the historical prelude, that one can measure the man and his mission, and estimate the worth of the one, and the far-reaching significance of the other. St Anselm was pre-eminently a man of his time, and it is his time which more than anything else, in the newest sense of the word, serves to " explain him." Even as compressed within the compass which these pages will afford, a part of the tale may be worth the telling, were it only to enable us to read in the events of that period how wide and wondrous was the scope of God's providential action in dealing with the destinies of England. If the story had been written as a whole, it might not unaptly have been called the epic of the Three Kings and the Three Monks — the battle of the golden Crown with the shaven one! — and it might be said that it was in large measure from the clash and counteraction of the two great systems which these triads really represented — the Feudal and the Monastic — that emerged as a resultant the constitutional England of the Plantagenets.
Any study of the inwardness of the Norman Conquest suffices to convince us that its rule, however draped with the garb of legality and continuity, was essentially that of a military despotism.
As the adage has it, bayonets cannot be easily sat upon — at least in the West — and the one thing which is quite clear, about such a regime, is that it could not continue. Military work is necessarily dynamic, and by the very fact of terminating its task it terminates the justification of the methods by which it has achieved it. In proportion as the work of subjugation became complete, the need of the heavy hand would be felt to be less urgent; civic ideals would gradually creep into and transform those which were military and feudal, and rulership could only survive by undergoing a process of adaptation to the static or fruitional life of the nation. For this reason it was natural
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that the Conquest should be followed by a period of re- adjustment, and it was equally natural that the read- justment, which meant the unloosening of the monarch's clutch upon methods of absolute power, should result in a period of friction — the rougher or gentler breaking of eggs without which, in one form or another, evolutions, as well as revolutions, are never successfully effected. The strain of the new conditions, as far as the civic Common- wealth was concerned, made itself felt about a century later, in the demand for the Great Charter. But the Church, by the very nature of her position and mission, was forced to vindicate her liberty sooner, and we have the historical result in the fifteen years of medieval Kulturkampf which will ever be associated with the name of St Anselm.
If it be asked in what respect the liberty of the Church was found to be in jeopardy, the answer will be seen to lie somewhat deeper than the accident of the tempera- ment or character of those who were engaged in the con- test. In the abstract, it would be easy to think of the Church, as a purely spiritual or missionary agency, in which the priesthood lived by the altar, and by the manual oblations of the people to whom it ministered. But, as a matter of fact, the concept of the Church, in the mind of the Middle Ages, was already a higher, as well as a larger and broader one — and especially for the needs of the time — a more practical one. Men expected the Church to be not merely pastoral, in the narrower sense of the word, but beneficent in the whole-man breadth of the term, and to be not only the saver of souls, but the reliev- ing officer of the poor and the dispenser to the wayfarer of a generous hospitality. Above all, they most rightly realized that the Church's august mission was not only man-ward but God-ward, and included a ministry not only to the needs of man but to the glory of God. They felt that she was God's great Worshipper on behalf of the nation, and that it was, consequently, her office to main- tain bodies of spiritual men in her cathedrals and monas- teries, whose main work should be to discharge the daily
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duty of prayer and praise, and to see that God, the good giver of all things, was duly thanked and glorified. Finally, they looked to the Church to take a generous view of her function, and to broaden out her beneficence into patriotic philanthropy, and allow her great bishops and abbots to bring freely to the general service of the realm the advantages of superior knowledge and of integrity with which as Churchmen they might well be credited.
It is obvious that such a concept of the Church required for its realization and working a breadth of financial re- sources far beyond the parochial revenue of tithe or casual oblation. It naturally sought its stability in permanent endowment. But endowment in the Middle Ages was only thinkable in terms of land, and land-owning necessarily drew the Church, -pro tanto, within the sweep of the Feudal System.
The Feudal System was, to all intents and purposes, a militia which occupied, possessed and governed the land which it conquered. Its baronies were, in a looser bond of co-ordination, the great divisional units of an army, of which the Sovereign was commander-in-chief, and to him, in the measure in which he might exact it, they owed an obedience which was military in its nature if not in its rigour. The bishops and abbots, in becoming tenants-in- chief of the Crown, became by the fact feudatories — albeit eleemosynary — of the monarch, responsible to him for the military strength and defence of the lands which they held, and bound to him by an act of homage which may be regarded as the feudal equivalent for the military oath of obedience. The estates or temporalities of bishop- rics and abbacies were conveyed very much like an ordi- nary fief, and the King actually put into the hands of the bishop or abbot-elect the ring and pastoral staff after the manner of feudal investiture. Hence, in the current phrase of the time, the King is often described as " giving the bishopric." The results of this involution of the Church in the Feudal system undoubtedly contributed to her enrichment and temporal prestige, but its effects upon
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the morale and personnel of her hierarchy were very much what might have been expected. The State gripped the Church tightly by her feudal clothing. A King could not, even if he wished it, be an indifferent spectator in the case of the appointment of a bishop or an abbot, who would probably sit at his council-board, and would certainly be an officer, responsible at least for the equipment and mobilization of a contingent of his feudal army. He could not, in such a matter, afford the risk of having a lukewarm., or incompetent, much less a hostile, depositary of his authority. We may regret, but we cannot be surprised, that English Kings very often did all in their power to influence or control such appointments, and that, during the stress of the Norman Conquest and occupation, William endeavoured, in the graphic words of the chroni- cler, " to get all the croziers in his hands," which means that he did his uttermost to see that the croziers were in the hands of men of his own choosing or of men upon whose loyalty he could rely. This influential intervention of the monarch in episcopal or abbatial promotions did not, and could not, amount to absolute appointment, for, after all, the last and decisive word lay with the Church herself, who could always bar an unworthy candidate by refusing to bless or consecrate or institute, and there was in medieval times no Erastian statute like 25 Henry VIII, c. 20 (7), which could in any way coerce her into com- pliance. At the same time, it is to be remembered that this high and ultimate check, upon the due exercise of which much might depend, was not in Norman times directly, but only indirectly, in the hands of the Holy See, as far as the ordinary bishops and abbots were concerned. The Pope, indeed, confirmed the appointment of the arch- bishops, and invested them with the Pallium, but having done so, he left it to them as his Vicars to confirm the appointments to the suffragan sees. Thus the main check to the King's influence was inland, and lay in the arch- bishops and the chapters, and upon both of these, as feudatories within his reach, his position as feudal sove- reign enabled him to exercise a general pressure which
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might not be, but probably would be, effectual. Bishops, like Ralph Flambard or William of St Carileph, not to speak of others, illustrate only too well the working of the system.* The effect of such ingerence upon the composi- tion of the Episcopate was inevitable. One is glad to know that in the Episcopal fasti of the Middle Ages, both here and abroad, there was always to be found a large number of virtuous and saintly bishops, and many of whom it is more than a technical phrase to say that they were men of good and pious memory. But we cannot wonder if, at a time when every bishop was a feudal baron and a " King's man," there should be instances as well of the worldly, courtier, or even warrior cast of prelate, in whose mind the secular interest and the favour of his feudal Sovereign were ever likely to be uppermost. Anselm, as we know, found to his cost that this unspiritual type was fairly plentiful in England. Bearing in mind the fact that in those days, and for centuries afterwards, the King had a large amount of what we should call his civil service work done by clerics, and that he found it convenient to reward or pension off these, his own chaplains or officials, by nominating them to bishoprics, it would have been indeed agreeable, but remarkable, if in his struggles with the King, Anselm had found himself supported by anything like the entire episcopate. As a matter of fact, he stood almost alone in England, and it was only his strong re- liance upon Rome that enabled him to fight a battle in which he had arrayed against him not only the Crown,
* It was not until later that Rome brought about an effective remedy by the practice of Papal Reservation. Under Benedict XII, in the earlier half of the fourteenth century, diocesan bishops required to be preconized in the Roman Consistory and appointed by Bulls from the Roman chancery. But long before the era of reservation, the frequency of appeals to Rome had already checked the Crown's overbearing influence in Episcopal appointments, and numbers of royal nominees were rejected in almost every diocese of England. Eventually, by the " Concordia " under Edward III, the right of nomination or presentation was left with the King and his council, but the final judgement and the actual appointment, with the examination of fitness of the candidate, were wisely removed to the Roman tribunal which, as outside the realm, lay beyond the sphere of the King's direct feudal pressure and influence.
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but most of the very bishops for whose liberty he was contending.
The Conqueror, ruling amid all the stress of his titanic task, holding England with one hand, and retaining Nor- mandy with the other, very naturally gathered into his grasp all the sources of power and influence which his feudal position could give him. A number of claims, privileges and precautions — many of them of older date — born, for the most part, of feudalism and tending to tighten or secure the hold of the Sovereign upon the machinery of the Church, had hardened into a code of " customs," which represented the King's armoury of aggression or self-defence in regard to the spiritual power. Some of these have been mentioned by Eadmer, and some of them have been noted by him as " new " in his time, but it may help towards a clearer view of the Norman situation if we bear in mind the following seven.
1. On the vacancy of a See, the Church lands, as an eleemosynary and not hereditary fief, passed into the hands of the King, who could claim the fruits as long as the vacancy continued. The Chapter, before electing a successor, had to ask leave of the King, and also to obtain his assent for the person elected. It is not difficult to see that this custom was based on the principle of the ancient law of Church patronage, and the supposition that the King, as giver of the Church lands, and thereby as the founder and patron of the benefice, had the right of pre- sentation or nomination, which was exercised by the Chapter by way of concession and delegation. Such a conception — stated very clearly in the preamble of the Statute of Provisors — applies in its measure to any lay patron, and differs essentially from the sixteenth century theory of Royal Supremacy, which regards the King as holding from God " the Royal authority," which is the source " of all jurisdiction, both secular and ecclesias- tical."*
2. The Bishop elected, in order to obtain the restitu- tion of his temporalities, did homage to the King as his
* See Henry VIIFs writ to Bishop of Hereford. Wilkins, in, 798. Vol.145 n3 8
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feudal Sovereign, and was invested by him with ring and crozier in conveyance of the fief thus held of him.
3. Papal Bulls brought into the realm were to be first shown to the King before publication. Such Bulls might contain sentences of excommunication or interdict, and it was felt to be a necessary precaution that the King should be acquainted with the fact, which would affect his sub- jects temporally, and that he should be in a position to take such steps as might be advisable.
4. The King's assent was held to be necessary for the excommunication of any of his barons or ministers. As excommunication brought with it consequences of infamy or avoidance, such a sentence might seriously embarrass the King's service, and hence he claimed to be a consenting, or at least a notified, party.
5. When a general council of bishops of the realm was held the King claimed that the canons passed therein ought to have his consent.
6. A Papal Legate — other than the Archbishop of Can- terbury, who acted as Papal Vicar — was not to be sent into the realm except by the King's invitation.
7. In cases in which there were several claimants of the Papacy, and it was doubtful which of them had been duly elected, it was for the King, guided, no doubt, by his advisers, to decide to which of the two claimants the obedience of the realm should be rendered. Such a diffi- culty could only arise in exceptional and abnormal cir- cumstances, but when it did, it was felt that it would be impolitic, and make confusion worse confounded, if the country were to be divided into contending factions, each adhering to different claimants of the Holy See.*
* This protective customary with which the King fenced round his prerogative had its substantial analogy with what was observed in other countries of Europe, and many of its provisions were therefore not created, although no doubt accentuated by the necessities of the Conquest. A more deplorable state of civil aggression obtained under the earlier Merovingian Kings, and many of the customs, in their worst form, were in force in Normandy before the time of the Conqueror. See " Elections Episcopales, sous les Merovingiens," by the Abbe Vacandard. Revue des Questions H is toriques. Avril, 1898.
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Some of these elements rested upon a rational basis of equity, founded on the quid fro quo of patronage; others, like the sixth, were (as Henry I declared),* the outcome of privileges accorded by the Popes themselves ; others are plainly abusive, and were tolerated rather than sanctioned by Church authority.
It was not that this policy of the Conqueror, in sternly insisting on these customs, could be regarded as in any real sense anti-Papal. In numerous ways the Conqueror had shown himself a friend of the Church and an upholder of the authority of the Holy See. It was under Papal sanction, first sought and obtained, that he had carried out the Conquest. His very banners had been blessed by the Pope ; he had had himself crowned by Papal Legates, and it was by a Legatine Council, convoked by " the authority of the Roman Church," that the great ecclesiastical changes of the Norman settlement were canonically effected. Although he had refused — as he had an undoubted right to refuse — feudal fealty or temporal vassalage to Pope Gregory VII, he recognized in the clearest and most prac- tical manner the Pope's spiritual jurisdiction, and throughout the whole of his reign he remained steadfastly loyal to the profession which he made to the Sovereign Pontiff, that " he sincerely loved him above all others, and wished to listen to him with obedience. "f
* See Eadmer. Hist. Nov., 295.
t Dean Church, speaking of this period, says very aptly, " The notion of being independent of the See of Peter is one which was never found amongst the thoughts of a religious man; even as a possibility it never occurred to an irreligious one, except as involving disobedience and re- bellion. . . . We would have people reflect .... that there was a time when the authority of the Popes was no controverted dogma, and when it was as much a matter of course, even to those who opposed its exercise, as much an understood and received point, as the Primacy of Canterbury or the King's supremacy is with us." St Anselm and William Rufus, p. 176. All students of this period owe a debt of gratitude to Dean Church for the charming manner in which he has told the story of Anselm's life, and for the sympathy and insight with which he has vindicated the character of the saint against the Erastian tradition of other writers. The Catholic reader cannot, indeed, regard the monastic life, founded as it is on our Lord's counsels, as a passing or temporary stage in the plan of religious
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On the death of the Conqueror and the accession of his son, William Rufus, 1089, all was changed for the worse. The Red King is described by those who knew him best as a vicious and merciless tyrant, a hater and scoffer of all religion, " boundless in his love of the world and in his hatred of God."* During his whole reign the Church was subjected to unceasing pillage and persecution. He kept the sees vacant so as to enjoy their revenues; he seized Church lands and gave them to his soldiers; he nominated his creatures and favourites to bishoprics in virtue of bargains which amounted to simony; he harried the churches and monasteries by continual exactions; he levied a species of iniquitous blackmail upon the bishops, who were forced to purchase by gifts of money the con- tinuance of his favour, or a respite from his enmity. His court was a sink of vice and ribaldry. In his hands, the " customs " of the Conqueror became so many weapons for the oppression and spoliation of the Church. Taking advantage of the fact that there happened to be at that time two claimants of the Papacy — Clement, the Anti- pope, supported by the Emperor, and Urban, the true Pope, elected by the Roman Church — he chose to treat the succession as doubtful, and refused to recognize either, so that he might be able to continue, unchecked by Papal censures, his career of Church robbery. As he had for five years kept vacant the See of Canterbury, he had thus at his feet a realm without either Pope or Primate of all England.
In the rule of the Red King feudal tyranny is revealed at its worst, and as rampant and unrestrained by the only
evolution, and still less, could he accept the statement, quite recently repeated, that the Church had little or no hold upon the masses before the tenth century — a statement disproved by the fact that the great monastic movement was itself recruited from amongst the masses. Nor would he be likely to think that Rome was lukewarm in the support due to Anselm, in view of the overwhelming mass of evidence to the contrary. But these are at most obiter dicta, and are easily forgotten in view of the many excel- lencies, both of matter and style, which commend the work of Dean Church to all lovers of St Anselm. * John of Salisbury, c. vn.
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influences which could temper it or hold it in check, namely, the saving power of a spiritually minded episco- pate within the land, backed and supported by the extra- national fulcrum of Papal authority.
In the Red King's brother and successor, Henry Beau- clerc, we have the perpetuation of much the same- despotism, but in a more subtle, and thereby, in a more dangerous form. Henry was much too clever to discount the usefulness of the Church as an ally, provided always that the ally was kept sufficiently under control. Whether the Church be petted or bullied into wearing handcuffs, the result is much the same from the point of view of Church liberty. The clergy were still mercilessly fleeced and harried, and there was even a demonstration of some hundreds of priests, marching in procession in their vest- ments and assembling under the windows of Queen Maud and clamouring for redress, much after the manner of our unemployed. Henry I not only clung with all the strength of his Norman tenacity to the Conqueror's customs, but threw his whole energy into insistence upon the one, which was, above all others, the most significant and the most mischievous — the practice of the Investitures.
It was thus that Feudalism, which we may readily recognize as a mighty moulding force on the side of order, and possibly the only practical system of national evolu- tion and formation in its day, brought with it a growing menace to the life and liberty of the Church by its lust of power and wealth, and by its crushing, absorbing and secularizing influence, and that this menace expressed itself in varying measure and form, but with deepening emphasis in the policy of the first three monarchs after the Conquest — the Conqueror, the Red King and Henry Beauclerc. Left to follow its bent, it is not difficult to foresee the depths of abasement and of episcopal attenua- tion into which it might have dragged the Church in this country. Once more, as in later Anglo-Saxon days, God was preparing a remedy.
# *
In the early thirties of the eleventh century, when
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William the Conqueror was still a masterful child on the lap of the tanner's daughter, there lived in a remote village, near the woods of Brionne in Normandy, a good, brave, simple and loyal knight, called Herlwin. He was about thirty-seven years of age, and had seen much service and won much glory in the incessant wars of the duchy. While still in his prime, there came to him the other- world light which, if once seen, makes this world and its ways seem for ever empty. He grew weary of the life at Court, and began to spend long hours in a neighbouring church, where, the chronicler* tells us, he sat in its quiet solitude, and tears of gladness filled his eyes, as he felt the joy and the peace of the better part.
In 1034, he became a monk, and used his possessions to build himself a monastery, into which he gathered a few religious men, earnest, simple and hard-faring as himself. It was a busy little hive, and between the hours of the Divine Office, Herlwin and his monks seized the axe or the spade and worked joyously at raising the buildings or cultivating the fields of their settlement. Moreover, there came into their midst a gracious helper, in the person of Herlwin's mother, the Lady Helo'i'se — a nobler type of French womanhood than that later one! — and she not only brought her dower lands to the new foundation, but became herself the willing servant of the little com- munity, washing their clothes and " discharging the duties of a handmaiden,"f happy if only allowed to be near her son, and to share in the common joy of prayer and labour. Later on, Herlwin, feeling the dearth of wood and water, transferred his whole establishment to the other side of the hill, where a rivulet or " bee " flowed through a wooded valley. It was thus that his monastery came to be called by that name of " Le Bee," which was destined to become so illustrious in the annals of medieval Christen- dom and to mean so much to the destinies of England and Normandy. In the great drama of God's providence, Herlwin, the knight-monk, was to play his part in found- ing the great Abbey of Le Bee, and then Le Bee was to
* William of Jumiiges, vi, 2. t William of Jumieges, vi, c. 9.
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train and to give to England two other monks who were to shape the whole course of our Church history.
In 1042, some eight years after the first founding of Le Bee, there came to its gates a stranger, who carried within him the future fame of the abbey. He was no other than Lanfranc, the great teacher who had established a flourishing school of learning at Avranches. He was then just the same age — thirty-seven — that Herlwin had been when he began to lay the foundations of the monastery. Born at Pavia, the son of a leading citizen family, he had made a brilliant course of studies at his native university. He had journeyed into Normandy, and brought with him all the charm and erudition of his Italian culture. In the very midst of his success as a teacher at Avranches there came to him also the same calling light which had spoken its silent summons to Herlwin. He asked to be guided to the humblest and poorest monastery in the land, and some robbers, who had already initiated him into the vow of poverty, directed him to the spot where Herlwin was busily engaged in building the ovens for his new settlement. He was admitted as a monk, and became Prior, and, under his rule, Le Bee became renowned not only as a home of religion, but as a celebrated centre of learning.
Meanwhile, William, the masterful child of Herlwin's days, had succeeded to the Duchy of Normandy and grown up into a masterful young man. He had the wis- dom to choose Lanfranc to be his counsellor. Thus, some seven years after his coming to Le Bee, there began for Lanfranc those activities of high public service which were to endure until his death and were to range far afield, from Rome on the one side to Canterbury on the other. How active and prominent was the part which he took in the Church and State movement of his time may be seen even from the briefest summary of his career.
In 1049, P°Pe Leo IX, the vigorous reforming Pope, presided over the Council of Rheims, which, amongst other things, forbade William of Normandy's projected mar-
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riage with his kinswoman, Matilda, daughter of the Count of Flanders. Lanfranc loyally stood by the decree of the Pope and the Council, and incurred William's indigna- tion and sentence of banishment. After the well-known incident of the " lame horse," the Duke and Lanfranc were reconciled, and later on Lanfranc became the Duke's advocate to obtain from the Holy See a dispensation for the marriage on which William had set his heart. In the meantime, Lanfranc had eagerly taken up the defence of the Real Presence against the heretic, Berengarius. A letter from Berengarius advocating his tenets, addressed to Lanfranc, had arrived in his absence at Le Bee, and had fallen into other hands and was reported by a cleric of Rheims to the Holy See. Lanfranc hastened to Rome, where he not only explained the fact of the heretical letter, but proved himself to be the brilliant champion of the Catholic dogma in the second Council held at Rome in 1050, in which Berengarius and his doctrines were con- demned (Mansi, xix, 759). Pope Leo IX was so charmed with Lanfranc's learning and zeal that he retained him at Rome with himself until the following September, when Lanfranc assisted, by the Pope's "request and com- mand," at the Council of Vercelli, in which once more his defence of the Faith was applauded and approved, and the heresies of Berengarius rejected (Mansi, xix, 773). After the Council, the Pope journeyed into France, and had Lanfranc for his travelling companion. Leo IX died in 1055 and was succeeded by Pope Victor II, who in the same year sent his legate to preside over the Council of Tours. The legate was the famous Hildebrand — later on the great Pope, Gregory VII — and again, Lanfranc took an active part in refuting the errors of Berengarius, who here made his full submission to the teaching of the Roman Church (Mansi, xix, 839). In the same year there took place in Normandy a notable event, which, fifteen years later, was destined to have its counterpart in England. Duke William's uncle, Malger, was Archbishop of Rouen and Primate of Normandy. He had obtained the see by very questionable means, had been refused the Pallium
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by the Pope, and had lead a life which could not be said to tend to edification. At the Duke's instance, and evi- dently by Lanfranc's advice, a Council of bishops, with Ermenfrid, the Papal Legate, was held at Lisieux, and Malger was canonically deposed from his see and the saintly Maurillus chosen in his stead. A few years later, 1059, Lanfranc went again to Rome, and assisted at the Council of the Lateran, where decrees were passed against simony, marriage of the clergy, and where the doctrine of the Real Presence was again clearly affirmed against the errors of Berengarius (Mansi, xix, 898). It was on this occa- sion that Lanfranc finally obtained, from Pope Nicholas II, a dispensation ratifying the marriage of Duke William and Matilda, which, in contravention of the prohibition of the Council of Rheims, had been contracted, appa- rently, some years previously. The Duke faithfully ful- filled the penance imposed upon him by the Pope, that he should build a monastery for men, and another for women, and it was to the first of these, St Stephen's at Caen, that Lanfranc was promoted as Abbot in 1066. In the meantime, the great affair of William's claim to the kingdom of England had been laid before the Papal Con- sistory, and the full sanction of the Pope had been obtained for the enterprise. There can be little doubt that these successful negotiations at the Roman Court were entirely due to the zeal and activity of Lanfranc. In 1067 Mau- rillus, the Archbishop of Rouen, died, and Lanfranc, though elected to succeed him, could not be prevailed upon to accept the Primacy of Normandy. Duke William, now sovereign of England, was most anxious that the Bishop of Avranches,should succeed to the see. He despatch- ed Lanfranc to Rome to obtain from Pope Alexander the favour of his consent, so that by his authority the Bishop of Avranches should be appointed to the Metro- politan Church, and, if need be, commanded by Apostolic letters to accept the Archbishopric* In England, William
* " On the death of the Venerable Maurillus, the aforesaid William, King of the English, sent to Alexander, the Sovereign Pontiff and Vener- able Pope, the most reverend Lanfranc, Abbot of Caen, learned in all
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had emphasized the Papal sanction to his accession, by having himself crowned by the Papal Legates, and in 1070 the Council of Winchester was summoned by the author- ity of the then Papal Legates, Ermenfridand the Cardinals John and Peter. In this Council Stigand, who had usurped the See of Canterbury, was deposed, and Lanfranc was chosen to succeed to the Primacy of England. The Papal Legates themselves went over to Normandy to obtain his consent. Lanfranc was unwilling to accept the dignity, but finally yielded his assent at the pressure of the Legates, who, as he himself bears witness, " commanded him by the authority of the Apostolic See to assume the govern- ment of the Church of Canterbury." In the following year, 1071, Lanfranc went to Rome for his Pallium, and was received with special honour and cordiality by Pope Alexander II, who had been his pupil at Le Bee. The Pope, as a particular mark of his favour, gave Lanfranc two Pallia, one from the body of St Peter, and one as a gift from his own hand.* Lanfranc, after prostrating himself in reverence at the feet of the Pope, presented Thomas, Arch- bishop of York, and Remigius, Bishop of Dorchester, who had been irregularly promoted to their sees, and made them surrender their pastoral staffs into the hands of the Pontiff. Alexander received the staffs but returned them to Lanfranc, empowering him to examine into their cases, and deal with them accordingly (Eadmer, Hist. Nov., 11). Five years later, in 1076, Lanfranc and Thomas and Remigius returned to Rome, as ambassadors sent by the Conqueror, to petition the Pope for the confirmation of certain privileges bestowed upon his predecessors. They were received in Rome with much splendour and special favour, and all that they had sought for was cheerfully
liberal knowledge, and eminent in holiness of life and work, whom he afterwards made Archbishop of the Church of Canterbury and Primate of the English, asking his favour that he would give his consent, so that by his authority he would appoint John, Bishop of Avranches, to the Metro- politan Church, and command him by letters Apostolic, if he should, on any pretext, offer any opposition." Acta Arcbiepiscoporum Rothomagensium. Vetera Analecta. Mabillon, 224.
* William of Malmesbury. Gesta Pontificum, 40.
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granted. In dealing with the Conqueror Lanfranc fol- lowed a tactful policy of conciliation and avoidance of friction. At the same time, when the interests of the Church were at stake, he knew how to make a firm stand, and to prove very practically that the supremacy in matters ecclesiastical did not lie with the Crown. This attitude is very clearly shown in the well-known incident, when Walkeline, Bishop of Winchester, set on foot a project to remove the monks from his cathedral and sub- stitute secular canons. He had obtained the full approval of the King, and counted upon receiving that of the Pri- mate; Lanfranc, however, opposed both Bishop and the King, and appealed to the Pope, and obtained a decision of the Holy See in favour of the monks, and thus success- fully maintained them in the possession of their rights, which they preserved intact up to the Reformation. When Lanfranc was summoned to Rome by Gregory VII, about the year 1081, he must have been an old man of more than seventy-five years of age. The King had put difficulties in the way of his going, and the Pontiff seems to have charged him with remissness and to have com- manded him, under pain of suspension, to present him- self in Rome before the end of the year. Whether or not he was able to fulfil this command there is no record to prove, but Lanfranc's own words in reply to the Pope are conclusive on the point that his absence implied no lack of obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff. He says, " I call my conscience to witness that I cannot even understand how any bodily absence, or local distance, or any exaltation of honours given to me here, could avail in the least whereby my soul should not in all things, and throughout all things, according to the precepts of the canons, be subject to your commands " (Ep. 11).*
* It is surprising that Professor Freeman should have read into this letter an evidence of " guarded language," and have added, " In professing his devotion to the Pope, he makes no promise of unlimited submission, but simply of a legal obedience bounded by the canons." (Norman Conquest, IV> 433-) But what more could the most devoted bishop in Catholic Christendom profess than subjection to the Pope's commands " in all things, and throughout all things," "according to the precept of the canons?"
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The two elements which enter into the life of Lan- franc, and did most to mould his character and action, were his religious training at Le Bee, and his close and cor- dial association with the Holy See. He was quite as much of a Rome-runner as St Wilfrid or St Benedict Biscop, and his five momentous journeys to the Apostolic See — in 1050, 1059, 1067, 1071 and 1076 — and the leading part which he took in the Council of Vercelli, and the two Councils of Rome, bear witness to the measure in which the sense of Papal supremacy dominated throughout his conviction and conduct. It was precisely in these two elements, the fervour of his monastic spirit and the strength of his loyalty to the Apostolic See, that he con- tributed during his whole career, both at Le Bee and at Canterbury, a controlling check and counterpoise to the mighty feudal forces with which he was brought into working contact in England. When we bear in mind how strong these forces had become, and the climax to which they were rapidly tending, and the crisis which was impending, we may well feel that it was providential for the cause of Church liberty that Lanf ranc was raised up and specially fitted to be the forerunner of Anselm.
About the year 1060, while Lanf ranc was still Prior of Le Bee, Anselm came as a stranger to its gates, very much as Lanfranc himself had come thither some eighteen years previously. He had journeyed by the same path, and was, like himself, a celebrated teacher. Anselm was born at Aosta, near Turin — then within the confines of Burgundy — about the year 1033, just about the time when the good knight Herlwin was bidding good-bye to the life of the world, seeking a site for his monastery. Who could have told the simple-hearted Herlwin that at that moment, far away across the Alps, a little child had come into the
That the obedience has the sanction of the canons strengthens the pro- fession rather than limits it. The phrase, moreover, is one of the most usual in ecclesiastical diction, and carries with it, no doubt, a perfectly rational limitation, but no such pointed denial of cordial as marked off from legal obedience, as Professor Freeman would ask his readers to accept. The pro- fession is one which might well be used by the most loyal Catholic Arch- bishop at the present day.
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world who, in the designs of God, would one day be the glory of the very monastery of which he was then planning the foundation? Anselm's mother, Ermenberga, was related to Rudolph III of Germany, and also to Humbert of the White Hands, an illustrious ancestor of the House of Savoy. He owed everything to his mother's wise and saintly training, and on her death he describes himself as " a ship drifting without an anchor." He wished to become a monk in the neighbouring Benedictine monas- tery, but was prevented by his father, Count Gun- dulph. When in his twenty-third year he left home and crossed the Alps — he and his father did not very well understand each other, — he very nearly perished on the journey. After some three years — about 1059 — he made his way to the great school at Avranches, which had been founded by Lanfranc, who was now at Le Bee. Here Anselm, in his turn, felt the light a-calling, and he pro- ceeded to Le Bee, and was received by Lanfranc. One day they walked together through the woods to Rouen to visit and take counsel with the holy Archbishop Mauril- lus, who decided that Anselm should become a monk of Le Bee. In 1060, he received the religious habit. Three years later Lanfranc became Abbot of St Stephen's, Caen, and Anselm succeeded him as Prior of Le Bee, and on the the death of Herlwin in 1078 he became Abbot of the Monastery. Anselm spent no less than thirty-three years in the seclusion of the monastic life at Le Bee — three years as simple monk, fifteen years as Prior, and fifteen years as Abbot. He was venerated not merely for his holi- ness of life, his wealth of learning, his profundity of intel- lectual research, but for the winning sweetness and irre- sistible charm of his character. His equanimity and invin- cible patience in dealing with the froward and perverse, his imperturbable self-possession and inflexible strength of purpose in confronting danger and difficulty; his calm- ness and cheerfulness of outlook and conversation; his affectionate tenderness towards the sick, whom he used to visit and feed with his own hands; his power of under- standing and sympathising insight in the management of
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the young; and withal, his qualities of heart, as revealed in his priestly sorrow when he sobbed bitterly at the news of the passing of the unshriven soul of William Rufus, and his almost passionate grief at the death of the young monk Osbert, the rebel novice whom he had won to his alle- giance by pure dint of gentle forbearance, and had nursed in his last sickness and for whom he said his Mass daily for a whole year afterwards — these are the main lines of the portrait of Anselm as he lived in the hearts and memories of the men who knew him, and loved him, and shared his daily life at Le Bee, and who stood at his side in the troubled years of his episcopate in England. Eadmer, in his way, sums it up in his well-known saying that Anselm was " a father to those who were well, and a mother to those who were sick, and father and mother in one to both one and the other " (De Vita et Conversatione 5. Anselmi
328).
In September, 1092, Anselm came to England, and on " the eve of the nativity of the Blessed and Ever- Virgin Mother of God " he arrived at Canterbury. It was not his first visit to the country. He had come over thirteen years before, in 1079, on business of the English manors belonging to his monastery. He had come now in response to an urgent invitation from his old friend, the fierce Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who later on gave up the world and became a monk. Anselm found the country at its worst and lowest depth, groaning and ground down under the ruthless tyranny of the Red King. The See of Canterbury had been kept vacant for several years, and the letters of Anselm himself and of the bishops depict the condition of the Church as one of lamentable oppres- sion and confusion. Anselm had an interview with the King, and with monastic simplicity and candour told the Monarch what his people were suffering and saying, and how justly they resented his disregard of the promises made at his coronation. The King laughed at the idea of anyone being expected to fulfil all his promises, and turned the conversation. Anselm withdrew, but both were soon to meet again under other circumstances. While
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Anselm was at Chester, the King came to Gloucester, and fell dangerously ill. When the King learned that his life was despaired of, and it became a matter of preparing for his last end, he sent for Anselm. At the exhortation of Anselm, he made his confession, with a promise to amend his life, and to make due satisfaction for all wrongs done to the Church and to the poeple. While still lying upon his sick bed he nominated Anselm to the vacant see of Canterbury, and caused the bishops present in his sick chamber to elect and proclaim him as their Archbishop. Anselm energetically refused, but the bishops knelt around him, and forced the pastoral staff into his unwilling fingers, and amid his protests carried him off by force to the near- est church, and chanted the Te Deum. It was only later, when Anselm had received from the King the assurance that full restitution should be made to the see of Canter- bury of all the lands which had been alienated, and that he should be free to recognise Urban II as the true Pope, that he finally consented to accept the Archbishopric, and was enthroned at Canterbury on September 5, 1093, and consecrated on December 4 following.
J. MOYES [To be concluded^
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THERE is a thing which is often called progress, but which only occurs in dull and stale conditions; it is indeed, not progress, but a sort of galloping plagiarism. To carry the same fashion further and further is not a mark of energy, but a mark of fatigue. One can fancy that in the fantastic decline of some Chinese civilization one might find things automatically increasing, simply be- cause everybody had forgotten what the things were meant for. Hats might be bigger than umbrellas, because every one had forgotten to wear them. Walking sticks might be taller than lances, because nobody ever thought of taking them out on a walk. The human mind never goes so fast as that except when it has got into a groove.
The converse is also true. All really honest and coura- geous thought has a tendency to look like truism. For strong thought about a thing is always thought about its original nature; while weak thought is always thought about its most recent developments. The really bold thinker is never afraid of platitude; because platitudes are the great primeval foundations. The bold thinker is not afraid to say of the hat that it is a covering for the head; when he has said that he knows that he has his hat and his head in the right place. The strong thinker does not shrink from saying that the walking stick is a stick with which one goes walking; then he knows that he has got hold of the right end of the stick. All civilizations show some tendency towards that weak-minded sort of pro- gress which is mere accumulation. Some time ago a well- dressed English gentleman wore two or three waist- coats. It would be easy to be purely progressive about him, to make him wear more and more waistcoats of different colours until he died. Some time ago a Japanese nobleman wore two swords; it would be easy to be progressive and suggest nine swords or twenty-three swords. But the strong thinker does not go forward with
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the flood, but back to the fountain. If once we think about what a sword is and what it symbolizes, we shall see that a man ought to have one sword because he has one right hand. And if we meditate deeply upon what a waist- coat is, it will become apparent to us, after a brief effort of philology, that a man ought not to have more than one waistcoat unless he has more than one waist. All tame and trivial thought is concerned with following a fashion onward to its logical extremity. All clear and courageous thought is concerned with following it back to its logical root. A man may make hats larger and larger and be only as mad as a hatter. But if he can quite perfectly explain what a hat is he must have the great sanity of Aristotle.
Now, in that quarrel about the function of the two sexes which has lately disturbed a section of our wealthier classes, nothing seems to me more marked than this habit of pur- suing a thing to its conclusion when we have not tracked it to its origin. Many of the women who wish for votes urge their case entirely as a development from what exists. They argue from precedent, that most poisonous and senseless of all the products of our Protestant Constitution. Precedent is the opposite of doctrine. These ladies, who believe themselves revolutionary, are really moving along that line of least resistance which is the essence of the evil sort of conservatism. They 'say, "Men have votes; why shouldn't women have votes?" I have met many able and admirable ladies who were full of reasons why women should have votes. But when I asked them why men should have votes they did not know.
I shall pursue here the opposite course. I shall try to start with a truth, even if it is a truism. I shall try to state the substance of suffrage, instead of pulling it out into long strings like liquorice or treacle till it reaches the end of the world. If the question stands whether a woman should have a vote, I beg leave to begin by asking what a vote is, and even (so far as the subject can be safely ap- proached) what a woman is. But the nature of a vote is the vital and really interesting^thing.
I trust that the reader will remember that I am, for the Vol. 145 129 9
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moment, the professor of platitudes. As the man seeking to preserve sanity among hatters would begin by remind- ing them that hats have to cover heads, so I begin all state- ments about the vote at the humblest and most evident end. Two things are quite clear about the vote. First that it is entirely concerned with government, that is with coercion. Second, it is entirely concerned with democratic government; that is, with government by chorus, govern- ment by public quarrel and public unanimity. First, to desire a vote means to desire the power of coercing others; the power of using a policeman. Second, it means that this power should be given not to princes or officials, but to a human mass, a throng of citizens. If any person does not mean by voting coercion by the will of the masses, then that person does not know what the word means. He (or rather she) is simply stunned with one monosyllable that she does not understand. If a woman wants democracy or mob law, or even riot, I think she should be listened to most seriously and respectfully. But if she only wants the vote, it is a proof that she ought not to have it. She should be refused just as a would-be nun should be refused who has no vocation except a wish to wear the costume.
Now this is exactly where my personal lament begins. I weep for the collapse and complete surrender of woman. People tell me that this modern movement is a revolt against man by woman. It seems to me to be the utter submission of woman to man upon every point upon which they ever disagreed. That woman should ask for a vote is not feminism; it is masculinism in its last and most insolent ^triumph. The whole point of view which is peculiar to man is here riding so ruthlessly and con- temptuously over the whole point of view that is peculiar to woman that I cannot but regret it, though it is the triumph of my own sex. After all, I am a human being as well as a male, and my pleasure in knowing that masculine prejudices are at last prevailing is poisoned with the thought that after all women do exist, and that their present humiliation cannot be good for the common stock.
The facts themselves, of course, are clear enough.
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Voting, as has been said, involves two primary principles; it involves the coercive idea, and it involves the collective idea. To push and kick men into their senses, and to push with a throng of arms, to kick with a crowd of legs, that is the quite just and rational meaning of voting; it has no other just or rational meaning. And certainly the privilege should be extended to everybody, certainly the arms and legs might be of any sex, if only this were quite certainly clear and proved — that the coercive and the collective ideas are the whole of human life. But the truth is that the coercive and collective ideas are not only a mere half of human life, but have been from the beginning a mere half of the human species. From the dawn of the world there has been another point of view, the feminine point of view, which was against mere force, but even more against mere argument. This strong feminine posi- tion has kept the race healthy for hundreds of centuries. It has never really been weakened until now.
Every good man is half an anarchist. That is, that with half his mind he feels it is a cruel and clumsy business to be always catching his fellows in the man- traps of merely human by-laws, and torturing them with ropes and rods and long terms of living burial. Coercion is necessary, no doubt; but it should be conducted in the presence of some permanent protest on behalf of a humane anarchy. That protest has always been provided by the other half of life called Society; by the enormous success with which women have managed their social empire. They have done it not without cruelty, but quite without coercion. They have made the cold shoulder as unmistakable as the branded shoulder; they have found it quite easy to lock the offenders out, without finding it necessary to lock them in. Not only is one half of the good man an anarchist, but the anarchist is his better half; the anarchist is his wife. It is the woman who stands for ever for the fu- tility of mere rules. Women could justly contrast Society's swiftness with the law's delay. It takes such a long time to condemn a man — and such a short time to snub him. Tact is only a name for anarchy when it works well. But this free
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and persuasive method, for which women have stood from the beginning, has much stronger examples than any mere diplomacies of social life.
The two or three most important things in the world have always been managed without law or government; because they have been managed by women. Can anyone tell me two things more vital to the race than these; what man shall marry what woman, and what shall be the first things taught to their first child? Yet no one has ever been so mad as to suggest that either of these godlike and gigantic tasks should be conducted by law. They are matters of emotional management; of persuasion and dissuasion; of discouraging a guest or encouraging a governess. This is the first great argument for the old female point of view, and we could never deny that it had force. The old-fashioned woman really said this : " What can be the use of all your politics and policemen? The moment you come to a really vital question you dare not use them. For a foolish marriage, or a bad education, for a broken heart or a spoilt child, for the things that really matter, your courts of justice can do nothing at all. When one live woman is being neglected by a man, or one live child by a mother, we can do more by our meanest feminine dodges than you can do by the whole apparatus of the British Constitution. A snub from a duchess or a slanging from a fishwife is more likely to put things right than all the votes in the world." That has always been the woman's great case against mere legalist machin- ery. It is only one half of the truth; but I am sorry to see the women abandon it.
But voting not only stands for the coercive idea of government, but also for the collective idea of democracy. And a surrender to collective democracy is even more of a feminine collapse than a surrender to regimentation and legalism. Woman would be more herself if she refused to touch coercion altogether. That she may be the priestess of society it is necessary that her hands should be as blood- less as a priest's. I think Queen Victoria would have been more powerful still if she had never had to sign a death
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warrant. But although I disagree with votes for women, I do not necessarily disagree with thrones for women or imperial crowns for women. There is a much stronger case for making Miss Pankhurst a despot than for making her a voter. Among other reasons, there is the fact that she is a despot. Moderns complain of a personal voice in the Papacy; but it is odd to notice that every one of the highly modern and slightly hysterical moral and religious move- ments of to-day is run with the most irresponsible despot- ism: General Booth's despotism in the Salvation Army; Mrs Eddy's despotism in Christian Science; and the Pankhurst despotism amongst the Suffragettes. But I do not so much complain of this. It was always plain to me that there are two principles in life, the harmony of which is happiness: the horizontal principle called equality and the vertical principle called authority. For we require authority even to impose equality. The first is life con- sidered as a perpetual playground, where the children are under one law and should share and share alike. The second is life considered as the perpetual repetition of the relation of mother and child. I would be much more willing to give women authority than to give them equality. I can imagine that a queen might really be the mother of her people without ceasing to be the mother of her babies. She must be a despotic queen, of course; there must be no nonsense about constitutions. For despotism is, in its nature, a domestic thing; an autocracy is run like a household; that is, it is run without rules.
But voting is government conducted entirely by this other element in man; this sense of fraternity and simi- larity. Voting is gregarious government. The only reality behind voting is that instinct of men to get together and argue; unless they can fulfil this they are unhappy. In our somewhat morbid age, when representative government has become only an unwieldy oligarchy, and when decent pleasures have stagnated into poison, there is said to be some kind of quarrel between the Parish Council and the Public House. But in a plain and happy society the Public
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House is the Parish Council. The townsmen argue in the tavern about the politics of the town, invoking abstract principles which cannot be proved, and rules of debate which do not in the least matter; their wives teach the children to say their prayers and wish politics at the bottom of the sea. That is the happiest condition of humanity. But in any case this is the basis of voting: the elders of the tribe talking under the tree: the men of the village shouting at each other at the " Blue Pig"; the great and mysterious mob, singing, fighting and judging in the market place. This is democracy; all voting is only the shadow of this ; and if you do not like this you will not like its shadow.
Nothing is more unfair in the current attacks on Chris- tianity than the way in which men specially accuse the Church of things that are far more manifest in the world. Thus people will talk of torture as a disgrace to the Church, whereas it is simply one of the few real disgraces of Euro- pean civilization, from the Roman Empire to Francis Bacon or Governor Eyre. But of all the instances there is none more unjust than the ordinary charge against re- ligion of being a mere ritual or routine. So, indeed, it some- times is; but never so much as all other human institu- tions, especially modern institutions. Talk of clerical government becoming stiff and unmeaning! What, in heaven's name, has become of representative government by this time? Talk of a praying machine; what could one say of the voting machine? I doubt if the dullest peasant or the most reckless brigand ever made the sign of the cross on his body with such a deathlike indifference as many a modern citizen makes the sign of the cross on his ballot papers.
So long as the vote is thus a meaningless and useless thing it is natural that women should want it. I do not say this as a traditional sneer at their unreason; on the contrary, I think their feeling is quite reasonable. If the vote means nothing it must be a mere badge; and if it is a badge it is a badge of superiority. It is exactly because most female suffragists think that it is a mere formality
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that they object to the public insult of being kept out of that formality. It is only when we ask ourselves what the vote ultimately means when it means anything, what democracy is when it is direct, that we discover why the folk of all ages, male and female alike, have felt that this function is rather male than female.
j^Women might like an unreal democracy; and they may possibly be called upon to comply with the forms of one. But they dislike a real democracy; and it is well that they do. For real democracy has its peculiar perils and exaggera- tions, against which woman has wisely pitted herself from the first. She hates that vagueness in democracy which tends to forget the fact of the family in the theory of the State. She dislikes the democratic tendency to discuss abstractions; or, as she sees it, the tendency to arouse dis- cussions that have no end. To her the Good Citizen of the Revolution is best defined as the man who begins to ask unanswerable questions when it is time to go to bed. Now there is a truth and a corrective value in this attitude; the Good Citizen may really become an uncommonly bad husband. Most men with anything manly about them can remember arguments started some weeks ago which might be going on now but for the interruption of the ladies. It is sufficient here to maintain that woman, as compared at least with man, dislikes this atmosphere of government by deafening and protracted debate; dislikes it and also distrusts it, not by any means without reason. If anyone thinks this too sweeping, it is easy to make an imaginative test. Think of any street in London at a late hour of the evening, and ask yourself in how many of the houses it is likely that the men are yawning and wondering when on earth the women will have done talking.
Thus we see that on both points — the coercive or legal conception, and the collective or democratic conception — a great part of the power and importance of woman from the first has been concerned with balancing, criticizing and opposing them. It is the female, as symbol of the family in which there are no laws and no votes, who has been the permanent drag, both on the fantasies of de-
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mocracy and the pedantries of law. But what shall we do if womencease to make game of us?
The immediate effect of the female suffrage movement will be to make politics much too important ; to exagger- ate them out of all proportion to the rest of life. For the female suffrage movement is simply the breakdown of the pride of woman; her surrender of that throne of satire, realism and detachment from which she has so long laughed at the solemnities and moderated the manias of the mere politician. Woman tempered the gravity of politics as she tempers the gravity of golf. She reminds us that it is only about things that are slightly unreal that a man can be as solemn as that. The line of life was kept straight and level because the man and the woman were pulling at opposite ends of it in an amicable tug-of-war. But now the woman has suddenly let go. The man is victorious — but on his back. We males permitted our- selves exaggerated fusses and formalities about the art of government, well knowing that there was one at home who could be trusted to dilute such things with plenty of cold water, or occasionally even of hot water. We allowed ourselves outrageous pomposities of speech; we talked about the country being ruined if the other party won the election; we talked about the intolerable shame and anger which we felt after Robinson's speech; we talked about Jones or Smith being necessary to England. These things were not exactly lies. They were the emphatic terms of a special art which we knew was not the whole of life. We knew quite well, of course, that the country would not be ruined by politicians half so utterly and sweepingly as it could be ruined by nurse-maids. We knew that our pain at any political speech was not actually as intense as that which a bad dinner or a curtain lecture can produce. We knew that Smith is not necessary to England; that nothing is necessary to England except that its males and females should continue to behave as such. But now, to our horror, we find that our fantastic technical language is actually taken seriously. Instead of the old strong, scorn- ful woman, who classed sociology with skittles, and re-
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garded politics as a pretext for the public house, we have now a new converted and submissive sort of woman. Miss Pankhurst owns, with tears in her eyes, that men have been right all along, and that it was only the intellectual weak- ness of woman that prevented her from seeing the value of a vote until now. This state of things throws out all the balance of my existence. I feel lost without the strong and sensible Mrs Caudle. I do not know what to do with the prostrate and penitent Miss Pankhurst. I feel that I have deceived her, but not intentionally. The Suffragettes are victims of male exaggeration, but not of male cunning. We did tell women that the vote was of frightful importance; but we never supposed that any woman would believe it. We men exaggerated our side of life as the women exaggerated the dreadfulness of smoking in the drawing room. The war was healthy. It is a lovers' quarrel which should continue through the ages. But an awful and unforeseen thing has happened to us who are masculine : we have won.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
i37
LORD CURZON AND OXFORD REFORM
FOR over two centuries the Chancellorship of Oxford University has been a dignified but mainly orna- mental post, ornamental sometimes to the Chancellor, sometimes to the University — often, let us hope, to both. But Lord Curzon is not the man to take an easy view of the duties of office. His Viceroyalty in India was an epoch in the history of the country, and with him the Chancellorship of Oxford has now entered on a period of renewed activity. Chancellors were not always limited to occasionally reign- ing in gowns of black and gold ; they governed once, and we are told by Dr Rashdall in his classic history of medie- val Universities that from the end of the fifteenth century " the Chancellorship, once the symbol and the organ of academic autonomy, became practically the instrument of its subjection to an autocratic Court and an Erastian prelacy." It is possible Lord Curzon's reforming energy may have led some of the more conservative of his subjects to fear that he might become the instrument of their sub- jection to an autocratic State and a Radical Parliament. The publication, however, of the Chancellor's Principles and Methods of University Reform has been received with pretty general applause. The book is extremely con- ciliatory in tone and very clear in expression. It is more of a summing up than a sentence. Lord Curzon has set him- self the task of condensing many of the arguments which have been drifting about Oxford and into the London press. He will certainly succeed in clarifying ideas and in giving information not only out of Oxford but in it. A great Civil Servant, Lord Curzon has been attracted by questions of University and College administration, and he has been struck by anomalies and pieces of College par- ticularism which those who live amongst them are, per- haps, too apt to take for granted. His political experience, on the other hand, has made him sensitive to those phases of University Reform which interest the world at large.
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His initiative has already been taken up. Under the Chan- cellor's presidency, the Hebdomadal Council, the execu- tive body of the University, has adopted fourteen resolu- tions embodying a number of the principles which he advocates; committees are at work formulating and dis- cussing schemes of reform, and in the autumn definitive legislative proposals will be laid before Congregation. It need hardly be added that this official discussion is sur- rounded and nourished by a vast amount of criticisms and recommendations from independent committees and individuals, great and little. Many of the proposed changes deal with questions of administration and finance which, however important indirectly, are yet of little interest to the world outside. The remainder may, for convenience sake, be classed under two heads. There is the problem of heightening the efficiency of Oxford as it is at present constituted, and there is the question whether its actual composition is not too narrow. The first is a question of internal reform, the second, to use a pompous phrase, is that of the attitude of Oxford towards the nation.
It is clear, to begin with, that Oxford is not a "national " University in the sense that the Universities of Paris, Berlin and Glasgow are national. It does not appeal to all sections of the people. It is occupied in the education mainly of the well-to-do, though not so exclusively as its critics suggest. Should Oxford open her doors wider, even at the risk of losing something of her peculiar character? This is the question which troubles most profoundly the academic peace of mind. Lord Curzon has summed up much of the discussion on the topic in the chapter which he bravely names " The Admission of Poor Men." He emphasizes the useful distinction between the " profes- sional " and the " working " classes. The former the Colleges of Oxford have not neglected. They are to be found in large numbers among the open scholars of the different Colleges. In addition, some £13,000 a year is spent on close scholarships and exhibitions confined to poor men, and at least £3,000 is distributed in the form of private exhibitions which are quite independent of any
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competition. Up to a point such men are, and should be, encouraged to come to Oxford. They are prepared by their education in the Secondary Schools to profit by the studies of the University and by the surroundings of their boyhood to join with more or less zest in the life of their College. The chief limitations will come from the expenses of life at Oxford and from the liberal character of its education. Efforts have been made to cheapen the life, and they must be continued, if only to react against the tendency which makes the luxury of yesterday the necessity of to-day. But that closeness of intercourse, that homely and familiar companionship which results from the College system cannot be had without a good deal of expense, especially when most of those who share in it are the sons of well-to-do families and come from comfortable homes. The judicious use of scholarships and that wise extravagance which makes English parents educate their sons out of their capital, a practice all but unknown abroad, will do much to overcome this economic difficulty. The character of an Oxford education is a more serious drawback to a father of slender means. Such a man is pre- pared, perhaps, to sacrifice much for his son's education, but he is not prepared to find him at two-and-twenty unfit for any profession except that of a schoolmaster. If he is fortunate, a competitive examination may admit him into the Civil Service; but every other profession, whether it be the Bar, medicine or business, will require some fur- ther time of professional training. Doubtless, a young man who has taken advantage of the mental edification which he has received will, in the long run, catch up those who have started ahead of him; but in the meantime the financial difficulty remains. So serious is this question, in these days of competition, that there is in some quarters a steady effort to introduce semi-professional studies. The School of Forestry, and, probably, the School of Engineer- ing, both of which have been recently established, would have been counted by Cardinal Newman as less " liberal " than a game of cricket, because they are frankly utilitarian in character. Lord Curzon himself advocates a " business
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education," which would come under the same con- demnation. To do them justice, even the extremest of reformers profess their allegiance to the sacred cause of liberal studies, and they maintain that the admission of a number of working men would, if anything, add to the intellectual interests of Oxford. This may be true of a small number of picked men, yet, taking human nature as it is, it must be admitted that a substantial increase in the number of men who, on leaving the University, must at once earn a living would inevitably lead to the introduc- tion of utilitarian studies. Such men, with the best inten- tions in the world, cannot afford to make knowledge its own end. In foreign Universities the large majority of the students are engaged in the professional studies of law or medicine. Literary studies are confined to a minority, and even in their case it is often with a view to a subsequent profession. It is the pride of the older English Universi- ties that they are still able to keep so many young men occupied in studies which do not " pay." Were they the only places of advanced study in the country such a curri- culum would be open to obvious objections, but the foundation of modern Universities of a more practical character has strengthened the position of Oxford. Let one fair home of learning be preserved where the literary and philosophic spirit prevails. One concession, however, might well be made to the utilitarians. The average age at which the schoolboy enters the University should be lowered. Most boys of eighteen are quite sufficiently grown up to undertake the mental and moral responsi- bilities of the freshman, and the last year at a public school seldom seems to contribute to their intellectual develop- ment.
When we pass from Lord Curzon's professional " poor men " to his working men, we leave behind us the comfortable regions of experience and have to face an entirely new problem. For this is not a case of the " edu- cational ladder." The exceptionally clever boy who has wits and character enough to take him from the poorest of homes into the^professional classes or the Civil Service
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is already provided for. On the contrary, the proposals made by the Joint Committee, to which Lord Curzon refers, concern working men, who declare that they wish to acquire some measure of general education without leav- ing their class and with the idea of returning to their work. The best argument in favour of the movement is the fact that the appeal comes from the men themselves and their leaders. The new provincial Universities do not satisfy them, for they cannot find there that change of sur- roundings, that atmosphere of a more liberal culture, that contact with classes other than their own which at least the leaders desire. An appeal of this kind is hard to resist, and he would be but a cold-blooded son of Oxford who did not feel its force. If we believe in our University and our Colleges, how can we refuse their advantages to those who ask? A monopoly in spiritual goods is of all the least defensible. Again, there is a sense in which the proposal is not new. Oxford makes great account of the statesmen she has nourished, of the political education she has indirectly given : in responding generously to this appeal she would be but continuing the same office in days
When more and more the people throng The chairs and thrones of civil power.
The Trades Union Secretary is likely to be one of the political forces of the near future, and it is of the greatest importance for the national welfare that he should have every possible opportunity of seeing current questions from different points of view. On the other hand, the ordinary undergraduate's own range of vision will be extended by an acquaintance with a sensible working man. Many considerations, then, both of sentiment and utility, point in the same direction, and it is not sur- prising that Lord Curzon declares himself heartily in favour of the scheme.
Still, there is another side of the question, even apart from the difficult financial questions involved. It is clear, to begin with, that the intellectual standard of such men, according to the ordinary methods of testing it, will be lower than that of all the other freshmen. The working-
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men undergraduates will, in fact, be a class privileged because they are poor. Perhaps the objection will be thought pedantic, but there is an inconsistency in en- couraging the admission of men who cannot pass the ordinary entrance examination at the very time when it is proposed to raise its level for the rest. Nor is this objection merely formal. The inability of the working man to pass Responsions, or any similar test, is, after all, an outward sign of the many differences which must necessarily exist between him and the young men in whose midst he will find himself. Relations will be awkward and artificial; much in their manner of life will be uncongenial. At a foreign or Scotch University in which the students live where and how they will, the experiment would be a simple one, but at Oxford the semi-domestic College life makes it much more hazardous. For economic, and possibly for other reasons as well, Lord Curzon suggests that the working men should live apart in a College of their own. They might thus be in the University; they would hardly be of it, and class differences would probably be emphasized rather than toned down. This working-man movement would appear then to come into conflict with the two characteristics which most distinguish Oxford from other Universities, its literary non-professional spirit and its College system, and to many the introduction of this new element seems premature. A University career is valuable only when it is preceded by an appropriate education; without such a foundation the acquisition of general ideas may lead merely to a very superficial appear- ance of knowledge and to real mental confusion. How- ever, until the experiment is tried, it would be rash to prophesy its failure. When you have to do with human nature, and especially young human nature, it is safer to prophesy after the event.
Whatever doubts may exist as to the obligations of Oxford to these possible, but as yet unmatriculated sons of hers, there can be none as to her duty to carry out in- ternal reform wherever it may be wanted, and Lord Curzon's " Principles " is concerned mainly with the
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many proposals that have been urged on this burning topic. Several chapters deal exclusively with questions of administration and finance, and they will be neither very comprehensible nor very interesting to those who do not know Oxford. They will at least show what a tissue of complications a federation of Colleges can be, and they will probably tempt the reader to join in the reformer's cry for simplification and uniformity. The relations between the twenty Colleges and the University are astonishingly complicated; a wonderful instance, as Sir James Bryce has pointed out, of a federation and of the difficulty of laying down distinct spheres of action for the central government and the local authority. This College v. University con- troversy is never far from any question of reform, and on the whole the reformers are, in varying degrees, on the side of the University. The reasons of this choice are many; impatience with the varieties of College traditions, the ex- ample of other more democratic Universities, the instinct that so often puts the reformer on the side of centraliza- tion, the conviction that College autonomy is the most serious obstacle to change, the wealth of some of the Colleges which he would like to tap for university purposes : these are some of the motives which influence the reformers in their attack on College independence and individuality. It will be round this subject that much of the academic battle will rage. One aspect of it is the controversy be- tween the tutorial system of the Colleges and the lecture of the University professors. The teaching of science in Oxford is organized as a university system, but the scien- tific population is small. The studies, on the other hand, which occupy the large majority of the Honours men, classics, philosophy, history, are in the hands of the college tutors, and the professors, or some of them, com- plain of this monopoly. They declare that the pressure of the examinations and the influence of the tutors keep the undergraduates to well worn and rather monotonous tracks of learning, so that they have neither the time nor the opportunity to take up the subjects lying outside the road which leads straight to the examination room. The
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examination system is, indeed, a hard taskmaster, and though a good class is probably of less practical value than it used to be, it is surprising how the undergraduate's mind is dominated by the thought of examinations. Still, the ablest men find that the " Greats " course, which con- sists of philosophy and ancient history, can with difficulty be mastered in the two years and a term alloted to it, and there are many who think that a young man's time is better employed in the systematic study of the main problems of philosophy and history, rather than in in- dividual excursions into those by-paths where alone " research " is possible. Lord Curzon steers a judiciously middle course, but he seems over-anxious to endow the University with a multiplicity of teachers on subjects of all kinds, and to promote the newer " schools " of English literature and modern languages. Such studies are ad- mirable when taken in addition to "Greats," but it will be a misfortune if able men are lured away from their philo- sophical and even their historical studies to the flowery paths of literature.
It is often said that Oxford is an " unlearned univer- sity." Except in a narrow sense of the word the charge is not true of the abler men among the students, and there is no reason why they should be learned specialists. It is true of the teachers, taken as a whole, and no doubt it would be far better if those who taught had more leisure to pursue studies of their own, though the tutorial system will never allow them the opportunities possessed by a foreign professor. Something might be done by a little more combination between tutors, and there is a danger in some quarters of excessive tuition. In another sense of the word the " Pass " men might well be more " learned." Pass work ought be increased in quantity so that it should demand some study in the vacations, and to be improved in quality by being brought nearer to Honours work. A " Pass " examination is in itself a de- moralizing test. To pass with plenty to spare is not un- like reaching a station half an hour too soon.
How many of the Chancellor's suggestions will find their Vol. 145. 145 I0
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way into the Statute Book of the University? That is a question which the most experienced university poli- tician cannot answer. But whatever is done or left undone, it is to be hoped that Oxford will carry on with the more efficiency her traditional office, and succeed in preserving her unique personality under whatever change of form she may think it necessary to adopt.
F. F. URQUHART.
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ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN THE XVIIIth CENTURY
The Dawn of the Catholic Revival (1781-1803). By the Right Rev. Monsignor Bernard Ward, F.R.Hist.S., President of St Ed- mund's College, Ware. Longmans & Co. 1909.
THAT careful and laborious student, Mandell Creigh- ton, desired that on his epitaph should be inscribed the words: " He tried to write true history." It seems an unpretending claim, but the work of a lifetime had shown him the difficulty of the task, and had shown him besides, that which some others, writers as well as readers, appear hardly to understand, namely, the worthlessness of any history which is not "true." He knew how long and pains- taking must be the research, how measured the state- ment, how sincere the intention, before a work may claim to rank as history. Even in our daily life, the experience of every law court shows that it is no easy matter to attain " the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." How much more skill and industry are needed when the witnesses have all of them long since passed away and their evidence is left only in documents, partial, obscure, and incomplete. There are, indeed, eager champions for the doctrine that history must be regarded purely as a science, who sometimes speak as though almost its only work is the ceaseless amassing of fresh detail. And yet what avails the accumulation of documents without the power and insight to interpret them? It has been jestingly said, in this connexion, that a medieval washing bill, however imposing it may look in a learned collection, is, after all, no more than a washing bill.
But if insight and penetration, an unerring sense of what is evidence and what is not, a skill in estimating the relative values of testimony, the perception of its true bearing, and that sympathetic understanding that can evoke life out of the dead past, are gifts essential even for dealing with familiar records, how all important must they be when the personages are little known, when the period
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is obscure, and all the materials must be gathered for the first time. It is no less a task that Mgr Ward has set him- self in this work, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival, which will surely rank among all his writings as by far the most weighty and important.
To use Creighton's phrase, he has written " true his- tory," and the achievement was as difficult as it is wel- come. In spite of the praiseworthy efforts of the very few who attempted to deal with the subject before him, Husenbeth and Amherst, and some others, hardly more than a beginning had been made. As a whole, the work was still to be begun.
The period was one of a bitter, it may almost be said, an envenomed strife, and if the echoes thereof are now quite stilled, it may still happen that here and there fires are lurking beneath the treacherous ashes. The theme has so much likeness to that of Pollio that the familiar Hora- tian tag may not be wholly inept :
Motum ex Metello consule civicum bellique causas et vitia et modos ludumque Fortunae gravesque principum amicitias. . . .
Save that the conquest was not of flesh and blood, there is plenty of analogy.
Metellus the consul may stand for the great and vener- able Bishop Challoner, who only just outlived the Gordon riots, and passed to his reward in 178 1. The knowledge of the period that follows is often so vague and confused, the details so unfamiliar, that it is a prophecy quite safe to hazard, that this contribution is sure of the warmest welcome from all who count themselves men of letters, quite irrespective of their religious faith. One and all will be grateful alike for the mass of fresh knowledge now first available, and for the skill which has known how to control and use it.
To the Catholic student of history the work will prove indispensable. The author has had access to materials and authorities hitherto unpublished, and sometimes even un- suspected, and has brought them into such satisfactory
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the Eighteenth Century
shape as will — in some instances — move astonishment by its vividness and force. Not, indeed, that every page will prove pleasant reading — the book is too faithful a tran- script of life for that, and records a fierce division of thought and feeling between good men. But the story is told throughout with such fullness of knowledge, such candour and fairness, that the words of Tacitus might with all propriety have been set upon the title page : " sine ira et studio quorum causas procul habeo." The book is not an historical essay; nor is it the work of a mere "literary man." Large generalizations are as little to its author's taste as second-hand knowledge. It is genuine history, cautious, detailed, accurate.
The work opens at a clearly defined epoch. The death of Challoner, on Jan. 12, 1781, had deprived English Catholics of a leader whose personal influence, holiness and learning had made his authority secure. But some time before his death the bishop had discerned signs of the growing tendency among influential laymen to act independently of the bishops and clergy. The first Cath- olic Relief Act had been passed two years before by the unaided efforts of the laity, who, so far from seeking the co-operation of the clergy, had deliberately kept their own counsel. " We want no bishops," was the blunt inti- mation made by Sir Robert Throckmorton to Bishop Hay when, as representing the Scottish Catholics, he sought to attend a meeting of Catholic gentlemen convened to further the passing of the Bill. Challoner himself would probably have been powerless to resist the growth of this spirit of jealous independence, and his successor, Bishop James Talbot, though a man of saintly life, and a member of one of the most ancient families in England, proved quite ineffectual as a leader of men. Yet wise leadership was at the moment the one thing necessary; for the relief granted by the Act of 1778, strictly limited as it was, had awakened in the Catholic body a desire for complete de- liverance from their social and political disabilities. The history of the half-century that followed Challoner's death shows them pressing on, first to the abolition of the
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penal code, in 1791, and finally to the Catholic Emancipa- tion Act of 1829, which restored to them nearly all the rights of citizenship. So complete a change could not, in the nature of things, come suddenly. It was, as the title of the book suggests, a gradual dawn; and one with its vanishing shadows and twilight to contrast with its grow- ing completeness.
Had a fearless and clear-sighted leader been at hand when the first gleam of relief was beginning to dissipate the darkness, much subsequent confusion would have been avoided. As it was, there were misunderstandings and false moves, and wasted time and energy, while friends were mistaken for foes in the uncertain light, and much regrettable strife ensued. As a faithful historian, Monsignor Ward has patiently unravelled the confused thread of events, and set himself to understand the differ- ent points of view. Nor has he sought to minimize the disastrous differences in which the lack of a leader resulted. Speaking of the Catholic laity he says :
It cannot be denied that there had grown up amongst them an undefined sense of distrust of their spiritual rulers, and a suspicion that the bishops were taking too strict a view of the position of Catholics. There was undoubtedly a feeling that the accepted attitude of dependence on the Holy See was incompatible with the national aspirations and duties of an Englishman; and it was even questioned whether the Penal Laws themselves had not been, at least to some extent, due to the unreasonable attitude assumed by Catholics of former days.
Yet it must not be supposed that the whole story re- solves itself merely into a tale of contentions. There is, fortunately, another side to the history of the period to be chronicled, a story of positive achievement and successful creative effort. One fact in particular arrests the attention, namely, that at once, from 1778 onwards, there was a new spirit abroad among Catholics. Now that the strictest bonds of repression had been relaxed there was an in- evitable tendency, especially among the laity, to a wider life and an enlarged activity, though no one at the outset knew what form that expansion would take. At first it
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showed itself on the social side. Catholics began to move more freely among their fellow countrymen. Their ostracism was at an end; and — astonishing change — it was, actually, not long before the King himself was entertained at the homes of some of his Catholic subjects, by Lord Petre at Thorndon, and by Mr Weld at Lulworth. Next came the stage when the leading Catholics aspired after fuller liberty, an impulse which found scope for its energy in the persistent efforts that won at length the Relief Act of 1 79 1. A less praiseworthy movement was shown in their attempt to claim a voice in spiritual affairs, such as the election of their bishops. Finally, the new spirit of initiation found its true direction and scope when the outbreak of the French Revolution led to events which caused a sudden growth of Catholic life and organization in this country. Colleges and religious communities were driven by force of circumstances to return to England, and vast numbers of refugee priests poured into the country. These forces were actively at work during the the last decade of the eighteenth century, and English Catholics were busy in all directions in founding missions, building chapels, providing shelter for religious com- munities, and setting up again their places of education. Clergy and laity joined in this work upon which our later development has been so largely based. The colleges of Stonyhurst, Ushaw, Downside, Oscott, Ampleforth and Old Hall came into being at this time; many of our best known convents were founded, and a complete ecclesi- astical organization slowly developed. The story of these origins has been told in many published records. It has remained to Monsignor Ward to bring them all into one connected whole, and by the addition of many fresh and graphic details to draw a picture, as true as it is vivid, of the new life which was springing from the ruin and wreck brought about by the Revolution.
The plan of his work is simple. By way of introduction, the first four chapters describe the condition of English Catholicity in England in the years immediately follow- ing 1 78 1. The social and political condition of Catholics
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during the last days of the Penal Laws is described, and illustrated by details of Catholic life in London, in the Home Counties, and beyond the seas. Then follow what may be described as the two main divisions of the work, the first dealing with the difficulties between the laity and the Vicars Apostolic, arising out of the preparation and passing of the Relief Act of 1791, and including the ques- tion of the appointment of bishops; the second treating of the effects of the French Revolution, the coming of the refugees, the transfer to England of the colleges and religious communities, the mission of Monsignor Erskine, and incidentally the progress of the revolution in Rome. The concluding chapters show how some of the chief troubles worked themselves out into a state of renewed tranquillity and fairer promise for the future.
To the ordinary reader the interest of the book will be heightened by the excellent and carefully produced illus- trations. These number no less than thirty-six, in addition to the photogravures in the forefront of either volume, the one of Bishop Walmesley, from a picture at Lulworth, never copied before, the other the portrait of Bishop Douglass, from the painting at St Edmund's College. Something of the grand manner of English painting is reflected in the portraits of Lord Petre, Sir John Throck- morton, and Mr Thomas Weld — all of them recalling the general style of Lawrence, Romney and Sir Joshua; and no more vivid contrast could be desired than between the homely features of Dr Milner, of whom there are three representations, and the thin, delicate, courtly face of Cardinal Erskine — finished type of the ecclesias- tical diplomatist. The reproductions of Milner will not fail to gratify his admirers, as they represent him in three stages of comparatively early life, and have never hitherto been published. Of Charles Butler, the champion of the Committee, there is given an interesting drawing which represents him while still a boy at Douay College, and an even more interesting bust showing him as he was in later years — the true effi.gy of a learned lawyer, strong, thought- ful, determined. Still another type is seen in the unfor-
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tunate Dr Alexander Geddes — the pioneer of Biblical criticism — rugged and haggard, yet by no means without refinement, and with an almost wild gleam of ardour in the large expressive eyes. Quite different, again, robed and bewigged, is Dr Samuel Horsley, Bishop of St Davids, most appropriately included, since it was his intervention in the Lords' Debate that determined the final issue. These are only some out of the collection, and there are, besides, views of places, as well as persons. The connoisseur of architecture will look with an amused indulgence at the early attempt at Gothic in the church at Winchester, of which Milner says with a glow of conscious pride :
If the present chapel of St Peter really has the effect of pro- ducing a certain degree of those pleasing and awful sensations, which many persons say they feel in entering into it; the merit is entirely due to the inventors of the Gothic style of building and of its corresponding decoration in the Middle Ages, which have been as closely followed in the present oratory as the limited finances of the persons concerned in it would permit.
These, however, are only embellishments ; it is the story itself that is all important, and of that, almost half is the record of a bitter strife waged with the passionate intens- ity sure to be found in a body whose numbers are small. Our manners, perhaps, are softer now than when an adherent of one side could write to a bishop upon the other : " Yours with the utmost contempt," or to the secretary of the Committee : " Yours without any re- spect."* But neither party can be exempt from the charge of violent and foolish words.
It may not be amiss just to urge two considerations. The first : that sad and disastrous as the struggle was, yet we may find in this ferment of renewed life after 1778 a token of the vigour latent among English Catholics; for even the most misdirected efforts show how sincerely and truly the laity felt that the cause of religion was their own. The other: that even in the hottest conflict there were interests common to both sides recognised as vital, and
* Rev. John Barrow to Bishop Berington and to Charles Butler, re- spectively.
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never for a moment in dispute. Other lands and other years have shown us what this quarrel may become. It may be a providence that with us the battle is fought and over.
Yet it is true, as the author does not shrink from saying, that a wave of " Anticlericalism " had overmastered the chief laity in England. It prevailed much more in the south than in the north, and, quite possibly, never really affected any below the middle classes of the congregations anywhere; but the leaders bore names of lineage and re- nown, and by no means lacked considerable public sup- port. One name, and perhaps the most important, is at first the least prominent, that of Charles Butler, the secretary of the Catholic Committee, and true director of the whole movement. This remarkable man was the nephew of the well-known author of The Saints' Lives, and, like his uncle, received his education at Douay College. He exemplifies in his own person the cruel hard- ship of the Penal Laws; for if a career had been truly open to his great talents, his place might well have been among the famous in law, with such as Coke and Somers and Mansfield. He was eminent in his profession, yet forbidden by law to practise at the Bar. Not until his middle life was the prohibition removed, but even so his fame is not for- gotten in the Courts, and his more fortunate grandson, who was able to attain to judicial rank, was greeted as " a conveyancer by descent." It would spoil Monsignor Ward's description to curtail it :
The man who had the most influence in their proceedings was not, strictly speaking, a member of the Committee at all, but their secretary, Mr. Charles Butler, the distinguished lawyer of Lincoln's Inn. We shall meet with his name so continually in the following pages that the reader will have a full opportunity of making ac- quaintance with this remarkable mind. And a full acquaintance is needed in order to understand such apparent contradictions "as we find in him. A more learned man, and a more persistently indus- trious man has rarely lived, and the volumes of his writings are a permanent testimony to his unremitting application. He himself tells us how he managed to find time — for he asserts that he never
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once neglected his professional duties for the sake of his studies. "Very early rising," he says, speaking of himself in the third person, "a systematic division of his time, abstinence from all company and from all diversions not likely to amuse him highly — from reading, writing, and even thinking on modern politics — and above all, never permitting a bit or a scrap of time to be unemployed — have supplied him with an abundance of literary hours." He further adds his chief rules of life, which were:" To direct his attention to one literary object only at a time, to read the best book upon it, consulting others as little as possible; when the subject was con- tentious to read the best book on each side; to find out men of information, and when in their society to listen, not to talk."
In private life Charles Butler was religious and devout; even Dr. Milner, his unrelenting opponent, admitted that he might with truth be called an ascetic. He was married to a daughter of Mr. Eyston of Hendred, by whom he had a small family. His only son died young; his two daughters survived him. He rarely entertained visitors, leading a life of seclusion and study within his house in Red Lion Square. With a great taste for the liturgy, he was a regu- lar attendant at the London churches, and only regretted that the circumstances of Catholics at that time prevented the proper cele- bration of Church functions. Every day of his life he recited the Office of the Blessed Virgin, and he was at all times ready to throw himself heart and soul into any work for the good of religion. Yet with all this he identified himself with the action of those who held views which can hardly be described as less than unorthodox. While ever professing the greatest respect for his Episcopal Su- periors he often acted in opposition to their wishes; and though his extensive learning usually enabled him to persuade himself that he understood the true issue better than they and that his action was justified, nevertheless at times he went to somewhat extreme lengths.
From what has been said it will be seen what a valuable ally Butler was to the Committee. He was then in the full vigour of manhood, thirty-five years of age, and already a lawyer of repute. His extensive learning, both ecclesiastical and secular, were placed at their disposal, and his acquaintance with the first lawyers of the day enabled him to obtain legal advice and assistance, while his personal influence helped to secure for his party a hearing from men of standing.
The whole state of Catholic England is depicted in these chapters, and not only here at home, but also in that
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kind of 'EXAac cnropaSiKri that lay scattered in colleges, convents and settlements abroad. Never has a clearer account been given, at once full and precise, and it is safe to say that it will often be cited in time to come. Of the London Vicariate, as may be expected, the story is par- ticularly close, exact and detailed. Thus the stage is set, the characters are introduced, and the drama begins.
First of all it must be remembered that, invaluable as was the relief afforded by Sir George Savile's Act of 1778, its scope was very limited. It ended the perpetual im- prisonment of priests for saying Mass, the forfeiture of estates of Catholic heirs educated abroad to the next heir being Protestant, and also the prohibition to acquire land by purchase. But how much it left. There was still a legal bar to any public exercise of religion, to any Catho- lic education at home, to the opportunity of any public or professional career, to the acquiring of honours or distinc- tions, and there remained the vexatious obligation of enrolling all deeds and the burden of the double land tax.
It is not wonderful, therefore, that the Catholic gentry upon whom these disabilities pressed so hard, should have begun to entertain the thought of concerted action to obtain further relief, or that they should deem that they had earned the peculiar consideration of their ecclesias- tical rulers by their efforts in the past to preserve the Catholic worship, and to confirm the position of their co-religionists.
We must begin [says the author] by reminding ourselves of the relative position of the Vicars Apostolic and the laity in those days. The existence of the Church in England was due almost entirely to the latter, who supported the priests and the missions. The only secure centres of Catholicity were the country seats of the aristocracy. There priests and often bishops had found refuge and shelter; and the little community grouped around, consisting for the most part of dependents of the squire, created almost the atmosphere of a Catholic country. It was, perhaps, a natural con- sequence that the Catholic gentry obtained the impression that they had a right to direct at least the external affairs of the Church. When, as the century wore on, and times became easier, the Vicars
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Apostolic began to exercise their jurisdiction, the jealousy evoked in the minds of the laity, if not excusable, was at least intelligible. . . . Moreover, as in the course of time the barriers of the penal days were gradually broken down, so that Catholics became able to mix more with their fellow countrymen, they began to realise in a way which had not before appealed to them with such force, that they were as foreigners in their own country. They asked themselves whether this position was a necessary consequence of their prin- ciples; whether a foreign education was in reality an unavoidable accompaniment to the profession of their faith, and whether the instinct of hostility to the Executive Government begotten of long persecution, was either necessary or even justifiable in their own day. They carried this reaction to extreme lengths, adopting an exaggerated attitude of respect towards the civil power.
The growth of this two-fold sentiment accounts both for the formation of the famous "Catholic Committee," inaugurated in 1782, and for its action during the space of five years. The idea was not new; but a previous council, which had helped the negotiations for the first Relief Act, was never prominent. The new body was not only pro- minent but aggressive, and one member at least, Sir John Throckmorton, was an extremist. Quite a new tone began to be heard, in phrases like : " papal pretensions," " too frequent recurrence to the Court of Rome," and in the term " Cisalpine," which was adopted ten years later. All this was in truth but the echo of Continental Gallican- ismand Febronianism,but it was new in our own country. Equally new was the authoritative, and even peremptory character of the utterances of the Catholic Committee, assuming throughout that they had the right, indeed, the sole right, to speak in the name of all English Catholics. But in spite of the " general meeting," to which they re- ferred in their election, in spite of the considerable sup- port given them not only by laymen but by many priests, and at least one of the bishops, representative they never truly were; and the lofty claim to be " The Committee appointed to manage the public affairs of the Catholics of this kingdom," was energetically repudiated. John Milner, future Bishop of the Midland district, very soon made his presence felt in the field; but the first champion
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against them was Dr Charles Walmesley, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, and his antagonism remained stern and inflexible and unchanging until his death, in 1797. He was not only the senior Vicar Apostolic; he was deservedly eminent both for his character and his attainments.
He was a member of a well-known Lancashire family — the eleventh of twelve children — and from early years had been edu- cated by the Benedictines, first at St Gregory's, Douay, after- wards at St Edmund's, Paris, in which house he joined the order. As a mathematician, quite in early life he gained a European repu- tation. His treatise on " The Motion of Comets," read before the Academie des Sciences, in 1747, when he was only twenty-five years old, attracted great attention, and a paper on "The Precessions and Nutations of the Moon," printed in the Philosophical Transactions of 1756, was much admired for the originality of the methods used. The Government is said to have consulted him on the calculations rendered necessary by the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, or "New Style," as it is called, in 1752. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and likewise belonged to similar societies in Berlin,
Paris and Bologna He is described as being of good presence
and agreeable manners, but his speech, like his writings, was blunt to the verge of roughness, a defect which was emphasised by a partial deafness with which he became afflicted, and which helped to isolate him from those with whom he lived. He entirely gave up the study of mathematics, a determination to which he came, according to Charles Butler, in consequence of a distraction he once had during Mass, when he found himself drawing diagrams on the corporal with the paten.
From the first the Bishop seriously doubted the expedi- ency of any change in the law; for though he believed that further relief might be granted, he feared lest it should be attended with restrictions, perhaps of an op- pressive nature. Beyond that, he felt, and felt increasingly as years went on, an instinctive dread of the spirit of revo- lution, which, rising in France, a country he knew very well, was threatening also to spread disaster elsewhere. Most of all, his indignation was aroused when the Com- mittee began to speak, in a strain he deemed very ominous, about a national hierarchy of bishops who were to be less dependent on Rome than were the Vicars Apostolic.
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Besides his militant ally, Milner, the Bishop had the constant support of his colleague, Matthew Gibson, Vicar Apostolic of the Northern District, and of his devoted friend Mr Thomas Weld, the wealthy owner of Lulworth. Time has brought the fullest justification to the Bishop's policy, and it is idle to speculate whether a manner some- thing more suave and urbane might not have mitigated the tension. The arts of conciliation were not to his taste, and he did not care to employ them. Milner, possibly, might even have scorned them as a weakness. During their first term of office, however, the Committee did little. The real activity began when they were reappointed for a further period of five years, from May, 1787. It was a time crowded with incident, so crowded as to be at first rather bewildering; but the events become easy to trace in the lucid and useful chronological table appended to the nar- rative.
Three objects were in view. They desired a school in England itself, which should afford education of a more modern character, more suited to English professional life than that of Douay. But the project was coldly re- ceived by the bishops, and was so vigorously opposed by the northern Catholics that before long it was dropped. The second object is best indicated in their own mani- festo, in which, as in all their documents, a lawyer will notice the legal style, and the frequency of " terms of art."
At present we are governed by Vicars Apostolic appointed by the Court of Rome without any election by the Clergy or Laity; their power is curtailed or enlarged at the will of the Court of Rome and revocable by the same Court.
And a little later follow these truly remarkable words :
Your Committee think it would be needless to point out to you the advantages which would result from having pastors thus chosen by the flock they are to teach, and direct, and in conjunction with which they would be competent to regulate every part of the national Church discipline.
No wonder that such pretensions caused deep mis- giving on the part of authority in Rome, as well as in Eng-
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land. Yet there was a very determined effort to act upon these principles in 1790 when the London Vicariate be- came vacant by the death of its saintly and charitable Bishop, James Talbot. The Committee were bent upon the appointment of Dr Charles Berington, Coadjutor of the Midland District, who had already shown considerable sympathy with them, and whom they trusted greatly to further their views. The intrigue was frustrated, though not too easily. Dr John Douglass, then stationed at York, was at length appointed, and proved himself, by his devo- tion and integrity, his zeal and ability, his character, firm yet gracious, admirably endowed for a place and time of great difficulty. Dr Berington himself observed a perfect propriety of behaviour throughout.
The third, and, perhaps, the main object, was to secure the passing of a further Act of Parliament. That purpose was entirely laudable; but not so the course of action in promoting it; nor the famous Oath, which they were more than willing to have embodied in it,* and that in spite of the twice repeated condemnation by the bishops.
The narrative now before us is henceforth indispensable for the unravelling of the network of incident, accom- panied by so much passion and scheming, that covered the next four years until the unexpectedly happy conclusion, when the Royal Assent, on June 10, 1791, marked a fresh stage in the liberties of Catholic Englishmen. No summary can do it justice; nothing but the meo^st headings can be indicated.
Almost at once the Committee, through one of their number, a personal friend, opened negotiations with Pitt, the Prime Minister, and instructed their secretary to pro- ceed with the drafting of a Bill. The Minister was sym- pathetic, but recommended delay. Meanwhile, and it was a very clever device to strengthen- their position, the Committee, hitherto entirely a lay Body, added to their number three ecclesiastics, Bishop James Talbot, Bishop Charles Berington, and the Rev. Joseph Wrkes, a Bene- dictine, who became subsequently involved in serious trouble with Bishop Walmesley, his Superior, and near
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neighbour. There was no pretence of any process of elec- tion in these three cases.
At this time in Parliament there was a movement in favour of removing the disabilities of dissenters, the leaders of which naturally looked with sympathy on the Catholic efforts, and one of them, the Earl of Stanhope, by way of conciliating popular favour, himself drew up a " Protestation," which was a disclaimer of dangerous tenets popularly, but unjustly, attributed to Catholics. This he handed to Lord Petre, chairman of the Com- mittee, with the recommendation that it should receive general signature. By the strenuous effort of the Com- mittee, which overbore all reluctance, it did so. Out of this the trouble grew. For one cause or another the intro- duction of the Bill had been deferred, but in the mean- time an " Oath," based on the Protestation, was prepared, which it was designed to include in the proposed Act. The feeling of uneasiness and alarm increased. Bishop Walmesley asked most pertinently, why, after the previous Oath already taken in 1778, any fresh one was required at all, and he angrily pointed out most serious theological objections to the language adopted. On this ground the bishops felt bound to issue their first condemnation. The Committee rejoined that those who had signed the protestation had forfeited all grounds for objecting to the Oath, and though slight verbal modifications were introduced, they persisted in their course. Three of the bishops then united in an "Encyclical" letter with a second condemnation of the oath. Its effect was, however, weakened by the dissent of Bishop Thomas Talbot. Negotiation proved futile, and the crisis approached. It lasted less than six months.
On February 21, 1791, a Bill was introduced in the Commons for the relief of " Protesting Catholic Dissent- ers " — such was the grotesque appellation which the Committee was at much pains to justify and explain. It was referred to a committee of the whole House, and March 1 was what Milner called " the day of trial." He had prepared for it by circulating generally among mem- Vol. 145 161 11
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bers, and with useful effect, a handbill against the measure, representing that it was entirely vitiated by imposing a form of oath that wounded the conscience of all true Catholics. The debate was not unworthy of the occasion. The three giants of Parliament all took part. Fox proposed an amendment disregarding all distinction between " Pro- testing" and "Non-Protesting" Catholics, and pleading for universal toleration. Burke, after some fun, not indeed of a very light kind, about Popes of Rome, " Pope " Julius Caesar, and " Pope " Domitian, enquired why the Oath of 1778 was insufficient: " Why heap one upon another?" Pitt closed by begging his great opponent to withdraw the amendment. Let the present Bill pass, he said, and all alike " Protesting " and " Non-Protesting," should ulti- mately be relieved; it was only a question of method.
On May 3 the measure was read for the first time in the Lords. Meanwhile, as Bishop Douglass wrote : " The al- terations in the Bill are many, in the Oath, few," and the distress of the bishops was acute. Milner had distributed a second handbill. Dr Walmesley took the step of writing directly, a most grave and dignified epistle, to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury himself. But the relief was destined to come from a quite unexpected quarter :
Via prima salutis, Quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe.
Dr Samuel Horsley was Bishop of St Davids, a learned man, a mathematician, and Fellow of the Royal Society. He was not the peer whom any could have expected be- forehand to intervene on behalf of Catholics, still less of their bishops, for only the previous year he had urged that deep political reasons made restraint upon them necessary. Neither could any one have expected that his help would have been invoked by Joseph Berington, the unswerving friend of the Committee, a divine credited with views approaching " latitudinarian." Yet it was the action of Dr Horsley that turned the scale. He was one of those small dark men of determined expression, and with rich deep voices that not infrequently dominate a public as-
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sembly. In brief, his argument was this : the time for relief has come; the relief should be general; that afforded by this Bill will be very partial, for it will reach only those who do not " scruple the terms of the Oath." The Oath divides instead of uniting; let there be either no Oath at all, or one acceptable to all.
For a moment it looked as though all was lost and that the Bill would drop. But in the meanwhile Bishop Doug- lass had communicated to Dr Horsley, and others of the spiritual peers, that the Oath of 1774, taken by the Irish bishops could be substituted, and would present no diffi- culty. The happy suggestion was adopted. On June 10 the Royal Assent was given; on the 24th the Act came into operation.
It was the burial of the Penal Laws. The deep thank- fulness of Catholics found expression in the words, in- stinct with feeling, of Dr Douglass' Pastoral. "At length," he begins, " the day is arrived when I may congratulate with you on the greatest of blessings — the free exer- cise of our holy religion." Not all at once, indeed, nor suddenly, could the noxious growth of strife and bitter- ness and discontent pass altogether from view; but the fair fruits of peace did not delay to appear. A new era had begun.
There were tasks in plenty to engage attention, and before many months were over came a necessity so urgent that contention, for a time, at least, was bound to dis- appear. This was the crowding to this country of the French refugee clergy, and, unless we are mistaken, this almost forgotten story will be read with astonishment as well as with interest. For while Catholics, who have reaped many lasting advantages from the presence in England of these exiled priests, have ever kept their com- ing in grateful remembrance, the English nation as a whole has forgotten this episode in its history. That French priests during the Reign of Terror did find refuge in Eng- land in considerable numbers is, indeed, known to have been the case ; that which has been forgotten is*the magni- tude of their number and the profuse liberality with which
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public and private generosity came to their aid.The French clergy themselves have not altogether forgotten it — wit- ness the work of Canon Plasse, Le Clerge Francaise refugie en Angleterre, published some twenty years ago — but we in England have done scant justice to our ancestors in this matter. This reproach is now removed, for we have here the whole story in vivid detail. From sources old and new facts are brought together which are honourable in the highest degree, both to the exiles who sought refuge in this land and to the nation which received them with open-handed welcome.
In the account before us we first meet with a distinction between the emigres properly so called — that is, the French people who voluntarily left their country in 1789, and the succeeding years, to avoid the evils impending — and those who were actually banished in 1792, and who had no choice but to leave France and seek refuge else- where. A law passed on August 26, 1792, required all priests to take the civic oath or to leave the country within fourteen days, under penalty of being deported to French Guiana. As the early days of September were marked by the wholesale massacre of priests in Paris, the warning was too clear to be disregarded, and within the next month French bishops and priests poured into Spain, Italy, Switzerland or Germany; while many of those in the northern parts of France — Brittany, Normandy and Picardy — hastened to cross the channel to England. Within a few days no fewer than sixteen bishops and three thou- sand priests had landed at various places on the south coast, most of them being entirely destitute. The Abbe Barruel, in his History of the Clergy during the French Revolution, tells how they were received :
Every vessel that arrived with a cargo of these exiles seemed to have been foreseen by the English through an instinct of benevo- lence. They flocked to the landing place to offer us a lodging or refreshments. Fifty, a hundred of us arrived at a time. They seemed more concerned for us than we were for ourselves. Where lodgings could not be had a spacious room was prepared for the reception of those who were least able to provide for themselves. There they
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were nourished, visited, and questioned about their wants. Car- riages were hired for them, and frequently on the road a gentleman, a lady, a tradesman, paid their expenses at the inn, and sometimes defrayed their whole journey to London. They were stopped at the country seats of the nobility to allow them some rest, and money was put into their hands or their pockets. Such as stood not in need of it, were told that it might be of use to their brethren.
The question of the permanent relief of these exiles became a pressing one, and some sort of organization was necessary. Fortunately, among the exiles was the Bishop of St Pol de Leon, Mgr de la Marche, a man of imposing personality, who took the lead in making arrangements for the systematic disposal and maintenance of the exiles. An English lady, Mrs Dorothy Silburn, devoted herself to the work, and made her house in Great Queen Street a centre from which relief was distributed to those who succeeded in reaching London. Money was received in large sums in answer to her appeal, but so destitute were many of the refugees that for want of sufficient clothing they could not leave their poor lodgings even to seek food. Other well- known Catholics supported her efforts, Dr Douglass, as bishop, taking the lead, hiring rooms for them to use as chapels, and paying the expenses of the wine and candles necessary for the celebration of Mass. One instance suf- fices to show how private efforts served to alleviate the general distress :
According to a family tradition, Charles Butler was one of those who exerted themselves most to provide for the spiritual wants of the sufferers. In his own house twelve French priests said Mass daily, and he gave them breakfast, knowing that in some cases it was questionable whether they would have anything further to eat until they came again the following morning.
The efforts of individual Catholics would, however, have been utterly inadequate to the situation had it not been for the assistance rendered by the charity of the entire nation. The Marquis of Buckingham and Mr John Wilmot, F.R.S., set on foot a movement which resulted in the appointment of a committee. Edmund Burke wrote an appeal to the English nation, and in a short time a sum
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exceeding thirty-three thousand pounds was at the dis- posal of the committee, including large subscriptions from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Colonies of priests were established in empty houses at Gosport, Lewes, Arundel, Slindon, Guildford, and other towns ; while as many as six hundred found a refuge in the King's house at Winchester, which the Government had put at their disposal. To the priests who were thus pro- vided for in the matter of lodging the committee dis- tributed allowances on which to live :
The amount subscribed was enough for the immediate needs of the exiles. At the commencement each priest received £2 a month, which, even allowing for the difference in the value of money between then and now, was still a very small pittance ; but it was enough to keep them from absolute want, especially in cases where two or three lived together, and formed a common fund. The bishops received £10 a month.
But the constant drain on the funds exhausted it in six months, at the end of which time there would have been a crisis to meet had it not been that the King himself came to the rescue with a letter dated April 17, 1793, recommending the work to his people :
This letter was sent in the first instance to the two Arch- bishops of Canterbury and York, and by them forwarded to the other bishops of the Establishment. It was read out in all the Pro- testant churches in the kingdom and followed by a house-to-house collection during the week. The amount realised was £41,304.
This second supply of funds lasted no longer than the first, so great was the continual drain upon the resources of the committee, and then the Government, seeing^that there was no immediate prospect of any improvement in the state of France, and that the burden of supporting the vast crowd of emigres was too prolonged for private charity, took a vigorous line of action which will ever remain to its credit :
When Pitt stood up in the House of Commons to propose that the refugees should be assisted out of the national exchequer, not a dissentient voice was raised. From this time forward Parliament voted public money for the relief of the refugees at the rate of
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about £200,000 annually. No special distinction was made between priests and laymen, and a certain proportion was devoted every year to the latter. In order to arrange for the distribution of this, a committee was formed consisting of the Bishop of Montpellier and fifteen French laymen, presided over by the Baron de Renac. They held their meeting at Mrs Silburn's house, and in order to simplify working arrangements, the English committee moved its place of meeting thither also.
At this time it was estimated that there were 1,500 priests in London, 600 at Winchester, 500 at other places in England, and 2,200 in Jersey. Four years later the num- ber had risen from the 4,800 here enumerated to 5,500, but 500 priests were supported by their own industry, so the number of the clergy remained approximately the same. But besides these the French laity supported by Government amounted to nearly 3,000, and thus out of the twelve thousand exiles known to be in England, eight thousand were maintained at the expense of the country.
The London Catholics who had been foremost in the work of charity reaped an almost immediate reward, for many of these priests devoted themselves to the service of the country which sheltered them, and set on foot works of piety and charity which proved of permanent value. Thus, the Abbe Morel built the existing chapel at Holly Place, Hampstead, and ministered there for more than half a century; the Abbe Cheverus, afterwards Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux, founded the mission at Totten- ham, which was continued after his departure by MM. Filaire and Salmon, and the Abbe Voyaux de Franous succeeded in establishing another mission at Chelsea. Even more remarkable was the Abbe Carron, who set on foot in Somers Town a chapel, a seminary in which twenty-five students were educated for the Church, boarding-schools, both, for boys and for girls, and day-schools for poorer children. Another relic of those times remains to us in the French Chapel in Little George Street, Portman Square, the survivor of eight French chapels opened for the use of the refugees.
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This chapel derived its importance chiefly from the fact that it was attended by the French Royal Family. The mission was originally founded in a room of a house in Dorset Mews. In 1797 Abbe Bourret, a Sulpician from Montreal, undertook its charge, and built the present church, which was opened in 1799. It soon became one of the chief centres for the emigre clergy, and it is said that Masses were proceeding at each of the four altars daily from six o'clock in the morning until after one o'clock in the afternoon. On Sundays there were often as many as fifteen bishops assisting at the chief Mass, while on the opposite side of the sanctuary was a bench reserved for members of the French Royal Family in England. These included, at different times, the Count de Pro- vence (Louis XVIII), the Count d'Artois (afterwards Charles X), the Duke d'Orleans (afterwards Louis Philippe), the Princess Royal (daughter of Louis XVI), the Prince de Conde and the Due de Berry.
It will be seen that Catholic history at the close of the eighteenth century, so far from being sterile and barren of incident, was both eventful in itself and fruitful in future results. Nor has it been possible here to touch on more than a few of the aspects of its many-sided interest, the variety of which lends the charm of a certain unex- pectedness to the volumes. For instance, there was the mission of Monsignor Erskine, prolonged for many years, though on the whole barren of results. A prelate of high rank in the Roman court, he was shown by the fine simple shield he bore — argent a pale sable — to belong to the noble Scottish house of Mar and Kellie. He was accordingly chosen as the most suitable envoy to bear to the court of St James the Pope's message of thanks for the protection afforded by the English Government to the Holy See in its troubles with the French. But though duly accredited, and afterwards received by King George, frequently, as well as graciously, he found his first entree none too easy. There was the grave question of the dress he ought to wear. Finally it was decided that he might appear in black, but in lay attire and wearing a sword. The lay attire mat- tered less, since he was not, and indeed never became, a priest, though he had taken subdeacon's orders to qualify for the " camera."
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But it was not only his mission to Court that brought him to England. It was hoped that by his character, rank and influence he might secure a lasting peace among the still divided Catholics. In effect he did little. As a man of birth and station he was naturally drawn to the members of the Committee, with whom he became very friendly. With Bishop Douglass his relations were less cordial; and, perhaps, his diplomatic tact was not displayed to its best advantage in their meetings. His courtly ways, belonging rather to the high-born ecclesiastics of the ancien regime, were something of a contrast to the simpler ways of the English clergy. Milner frankly did not like him, and viewed his elevation to the purple in 1803 with very scant approval. Yet in Rome it was no other than Cardinal Erskine that urged, and at length secured, Milner's own appointment as Bishop of the Midland District.
Even more agreeable would it be to recall how the homes of religious women, especially of the great cloistered orders began once more to be set up in England to carry on that work which, though hidden from the eyes of the world, is of such vital importance to the full life of the Church. Most of the communities which, during the previous two centuries, had persevered in their daily life of praise and prayer in convents on the Continent weathered the storm. After many trials, and, in some cases, prolonged suffering, heroically borne, these venerable houses one by one took the form in which, for our consolation, we know them to-day. Benedictine Dames of Bergholt and Stanbrook, of Oulton and Colwich and Teignmouth; Augustinian Canonesses of Newton Abbot and Hoddesdon; Poor Clares of Darlington; Franciscans of Taunton; Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre at New Hall in Essex; Carmelites of Dar- lington and Lanherne; and the Dominican Nuns of Caris- brooke, preserve among us in a way which no newer con- gregations can ever do the memory of the days when vocation to the religious state involved a life-long exile.
There remains a vivid chapter on events in Rome. We find in it the Revolution of 1798 illustrated by entirely fresh light, derived from the descriptions written by an
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eye-witness as events followed one another day by day. This new and valuable source of information, hitherto entirely unsuspected, has been discovered in the long series of letters written by the Rev. Robert Smelt, agent to the Vicars Apostolic. This priest, whose true family name, by the way, was Archdeacon, had recently succeeded the aged Monsignor Christopher Stonor, who had held that office with credit and success for more than forty years. It was the agent's fortune to witness the outbreak of the Revolution in the Eternal City in December, 1797, the extraordinary scenes of devotion which took place when clergy and people realized the danger they were in from the power of France, the entry of the French army, on February 10, 1798, and finally the capture and exile of the Holy Father himself. A fortnight later the agent himself escaped, not without hazard, from the stricken city, of which he sent a graphic account to Bishop Douglass :
Rome is by this time nearly reduced to half its ancient popula- tion, the inhabitants in distress and misery, famine staring them full in the face, money so scarce that a piece of silver coin of any country or denomination sells for six times its value in paper. Tradesmen shut up their shops to avoid selling their goods in return for paper money, but were compelled to open them again undei pain of being considered bad citizens and treated as such. The nobility and others possessing property forced to remain under pain of losing it, their palaces full of officers and soldiers whom they are forced to maintain in an elegant style, their horses seized and sent away, themselves forced to walk on foot, enormous contribu- tions demanded of them — cloth, leather, linen, hats, as well as every other article necessary for clothing the army put in a state of re- quisition, the inhabitants at large invited to contribute their money for the same purpose, at the same time informed if they don't contribute voluntarily they will be compelled by force; but what is more extraordinary, the clergy now reduced to poverty are invited by a particular edict — to contribute towards this good work.
The Collegio Inglese was seized, in which, since the days of Edmund Campion, priests have been prepared for the English mission, the students were sent back to Eng- land, the movable property rdisposed of, the estates
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offered for sale. Of all this Mr Smelt gives gloomy ac- counts :
In the meantime the income is stopped and the furniture daily selling off, hence they (the rector, masters and servants) will soon be deprived of bed and board, which may be considered the same as starving them out of possession, such is Republican warning. I have desired a person at Rome to purchase the Archivium of the College; another, who understands English, is to examine and separate what regards our concerns from papers of no value. The ex-Rector promised to secure for me the book containing an account of all the students since its foundation.
So the venerable building was given over to waste and emptiness till that day in the future, when young Nicholas Wiseman and his fellow students came to re-people it with English scholars once more. But that event was full twenty years later, and it prompts at once the reflection that much as has been done, much still remains to do. In these volumes we have a worthy instalment of the history that must some day be complete, and what is even more im- portant, we have a standard set, below which subsequent writers must be careful not to fall. The author implies that his labour is by no means over, and leads us to hope that his narrative will be carried to a further stage. Nothing could be more welcome. To better hands the task could not be assigned; so much at least is evidenced by the patient research, the skill, the judgement, the candour that mark the present work.
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SWINBURNE'S LYRICAL POETRY
THE makers of epigrams, of phrases, of pages — of all more or less brief judgements — assuredly waste their time when they sum up any one of all mankind, and how do they squander it when their matter is a poet! They may hardly describe him, nor shall any student's care, or psychologist's formula, or man-of-letters' summary, or wit's sentence define him. Definitions, because they would not be inexact or incomprehensive, sweep too wide, and the poet is not held within them; and out of the describer's range and capture he escapes by as many doors as there are outlets from a forest. But a thousand failures have not yet discouraged the critic and the biographer, who continue to appraise, explain, and expound, little guessing how much ready-made platitude brought about their guesses at a man, or what false and flat thought lies behind their epigrams. It is not long since the general guess work assigned melancholy to a poet lately deceased. Real poets, it was said, are unhappy, and this was one ex- ceptionally real. How unhappy must he, then, certainly have been ! And the blessed Blake himself was incidentally cited as one of the company of depression and despair ! It is, perhaps, a liking for symmetry that prompts these futile syllogisms; perhaps, also, it is the fear of human mystery. The biographer used to see " the finger of God" pat in the history of a man ; he insists now that he shall at any rate see the finger of a law, or rather of a rule, a cus- tom, a generality. Law I will not call it; there is no intel- ligible law that, for example, a true poet should be an unhappy man; but the observer thinks he has noticed a custom or habit to that effect, and Blake, who lived and died in bliss, is named at ignorant random, rather than that an example of the custom should be lost.
But it is not only such a platitude of observation, such a cheap generality, that is silenced in the presence of the poet whose name is at the head of these pages.
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For if ever Nature showed us a poet in whom our phrases, and the judgements they record, should be denied, defeated, and confused, Swinburne is he. We predicate of a poet a great sincerity, a great imagina- tion, a great passion, a great intellect; these are the master qualities, and yet we are compelled to see here — if we would not wilfully be blind or blindfold — a poet, yes, a great poet, with a perfervid fancy rather than an imagina- tion, a poet with puny passions, a poet with no more than the momentary and impulsive sincerity of an infirm soul, a poet with small intellect — and thrice a poet.
And, assuredly, if the creative arts are duly humbled in the universal contemplation of Nature, if they are accused, if they are weighed, if they are found wanting; if they are excused by nothing but our intimate human sympathy with dear and interesting imperfection; if poetry stands outdone by the passion and experience of an inarticulate soul, and painting by the splendour of the day, and build- ing by the forest and the cloud, there is another art also that has to be humiliated, and this is the art and science of criticism, confounded by its contemplation of such a poet. Poor little art of examination and formula! The miracle of day and night and immortality are needed to rebuke the nobler arts; but our art, the critic's, mine to-day, is brought to book, and its heart is broken, and its sincerity disgraced, by the paradoxes of the truth. Not in the heavens nor in the sub-celestial landscape does this minor art find its refutation, but in the puzzle between a man and his gift; and in part the man is ignoble and leads us by dis- tasteful paths, and compels us to a reluctant work of literary detection. Useful is the critical spirit, but it loses heart when (to take a very definite instance) it has to ask what literary sincerity — what value for art and letters — lived in Swinburne, who hailed a certain old friend, in a dedication, as " poet and painter " when he was pleased with him, and declared him " poetaster and dauber " when something in that dead man's posthumous auto- biography offended his own self-love; when, I say, criti- cism finds itself called upon, amid its admiration, to do
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such scavenger work, it loses heart as well as the clue, and would gladly go out into the free air of greater arts, and, with them, take exterior Nature's nobler reprobation.
I have to cite this instance of a change of mind, or of terms and titles, in Swinburne's estimate of art and letters, because it is all-important to my argument. It is a change he makes in published print, and, therefore, no private matter. And I cite it, not as a sign of moral fault, with which I have no business, but as a sign of a most significant literary insensibility — insensibility, whether to the quality of a poetaster when he wrote " poet," or to that of a poet when he wrote " poetaster," is of no matter.
Rather than justify the things I have ventured to affirm as to Swinburne's little intellect, and paltry degree of sincerity, and rachitic passion, and tumid fancy — judgement-confounding things to predicate of a great poet — I turn to the happier task of praise. A great writer of English was he, and would have been one of the re- curring renewers of our often renewed and incomparable language, had his words not become habitual to himself, so that they quickly lost the light, the breeze, the breath ; one whose fondness for beauty deserved the serious name of love; one whom beauty at times favoured and filled so visibly, by such obvious visits and possessions, favours so manifest, apparitions so overwhelming, inspirations so complete, that inevitably we forget we are speaking fic- tions and allegories, and imagine her a visiting power exterior to her poet ; a man, moreover, of a less, not more, than manly receptiveness and appreciation, so that he was entirely and easily possessed by admirations. Less than manly we must call his extraordinary recklessness of appreciation; it is, as it were, ideally feminine; it is pos- sible, however, that no woman has yet been capable of so entire an emotional impulse and impetus; more than manly it might Jiave been but for the lack of a responsible intellect in that impulse; had it possessed such an intellectual sanc- tion, Swinburne's admiration of Victor Hugo, Mazzini, Dickens,Baudelaire,and Theophile Gautier might — so sung — have resembled an archangel's admiration of God.
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We are inclined to complain of such an objection to Swinburne's poetry as was prevalent at his earlier appear- ance and may be found in criticisms of the time, before the later fashion of praise set in — the obvious objection that it was as indigent in thought as affluent in words; for, though a truth, it is an inadequate truth. It might be affirmed of many a verse-writer of not unusual talent and insignificance, whose affluence of words was inselective and merely abundant, and whose poverty of thought was something less than a national disaster. Swinburne's failure of intellect was, in the fullest and most serious sense, a national disaster, and his riches in words was a national wonder. For what words they are! True, it is in their inexplicable beauty that Swinburne's art finds its absolu- tion from the obligations of meaning, according to the vulgar judgement; and we can hardly wonder.
I wish it were not customary to write of one art in the terms of another, and I use the words " music " and " musical " under protest, because the world has been so delighted to call verse that is pleasant to the ear " musi- cal," that it has not supplied me with another and more specialized and appropriate word. Swinburne is a com- plete master of the rhythm and rhyme, the time and accent, the pause, the balance, the flow of vowel and clash of consonant, that make the " music " for which verse is popular and prized. We need not complain that it is for the tune rather than for the melody — if we must use those alien terms — that he is chiefly admired, and even for the jingle rather than for the tune: he gave his readers all three, and all three in extreme perfection. Nineteen out of twenty who take pleasure in this art of his will quote you first
When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces The Mother of months, in meadow and plain,
and the rest of the buoyant familiar lines. I confess there is something too obvious, insistent, emphatic, too much that is analogous to dance-music to give me more than a slight pleasure; but it is possible that I am prejudiced by a dislike of English anapaests. (I am aware that the classic
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terms are not really applicable to our English metres, into which quantity enters so little, but the reader will under- stand that I mean the metre of the lines just quoted.) I do not find these anapaests in the Elizabethan or in the seventeenth century poets, or most rarely. They were dear to the eighteenth century, and, much more than the heroic couplet, are the distinctive metre of that age. They swagger — or, worse, they strut — in its lighter verse, from its first year to its last. Swinburne's anapaests are far too delicate for swagger or strut; but for all their dance, all their spring, all their flight, all their flutter, we are com- pelled to perceive that, as it were, they perform. I love to see English poetry move to many measures, to many numbers, but always with the simple iambic and the simple trochaic foot. Those two are enough for the infinite variety, the epic, the drama, the lyric, of our poetry. It is, accordingly, in these old traditional and proved metres that Swinburne's beautiful music seems to me most worthy, most controlled, and most lovely. There is his best dignity, and therefore his best beauty. For even beauty is not to be thrust upon us; she is not to solicit us or offer herself thus to the first comer ; and in the most admired of those flying lyrics she is thus immoderately lavish of herself. " He lays himself out," wrote Francis Thompson in an anonymous criticism of which I am glad to make known the authorship, " to delight and seduce. The great poets entice by a glorious accident . . . but allurement, in Mr Swinburne's poetry, is the alpha and omega." This is true of all that he has written, but it is true, in a more fatal sense, of these famous tunes of his " music." Nay, delicate as they are, we are convinced that it is the less delicate ear that most surely takes much pleasure in them, the dull ear that chiefly they delight.
Compare with such luxurious jingles the graver music of this " Vision of Spring in Winter " :
Sunrise it sees not, neither set of star, Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune, 176
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Nor strong sweet shape of the full-breasted noon; But where the silver-sandalled shadows are, Too soft for arrows of the sun to mar,
Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon.
Even more valuable than this exquisite rhymed stanza is the blank verse which Swinburne released into new energies, new liberties, and new movements. Milton, it need hardly be said, is the master of those who know how to place and displace the stress and accent of the English heroic line. His most majestic hand undid the mechanical bonds of the national line and made it obey the unwritten laws of his genius. His blank verse marches, pauses, lingers, and charges. It feels the strain, it yields, it resists; it is all- expressive. But if the practice of some of the poets suc- ceeding him had tended to make it rigid and tame again, Swinburne was a new liberator. He writes, when he ought, with a finely appropriate regularity, as in the lovely line on the forest glades
That fear the faun's and know the dryad's foot,
in which the rule is completely kept, every step of the five stepping from the unaccented place to the accented with- out a tremor. (I must again protest that I use the word " accent " in a sense that has come to be adapted to English prosody, because it is so used by all writers on English metre, and is therefore understood by the reader, but I think " stress " the better word.) But having written this perfect English-iambic line so wonderfully fit for the sensitive quiet of the woods, he turns the page to the onslaught of such lines — heroic lines with a difference — as report the short-breathed messenger's reply to Althea's question by whose hands the boar of Calydon had died :
A maiden's and a prophet's and thy son's.
It is lamentable that in his latest blank verse Swinburne should have made a trick and a manner of that most energetic device of his by which he leads the line at a rush from the first syllable to the tenth, and on to the first of Vol. 145 177 12
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the line succeeding, with a great recoil to follow, as though a rider brought a horse to his haunches. It is in the same boar hunt :
And fiery with invasive eyes,
And bristling with intolerable hair,
Plunged; —
Sometimes we may be troubled with a misgiving that Swinburne's fine narrative, as well as his descriptive writ- ing of other kinds, has a counterpart in the programme- music of the new composers. It is even too descriptive, too imitative of things, and seems to outrun the province of words, somewhat as that does the province of notes. But, though this hunting, and checking, and floating, and fly- ing in metre may be to strain the arts of prosody and dic- tion, with how masterly a hand is the straining accom- plished ! The spear, the arrow, the attack, the charge, the footfall, the pinion, nay, the very stepping of the moon, the walk of the wind, are mimicked in this enchanting verse. Like to programme-music we must call it, but I wish the concert-platform had ever justified this slight perversion of aim, this excess — almost corruption — of one kind of skill, thus miraculously well.
Now, if Swinburne's exceptional faculty of diction led him to immoderate expressiveness, to immodest sweet- ness, to a jugglery, and prestidigitation, and conjuring of words, to transformations and transmutations of sound — if, I say, his extraordinary gift of diction brought him to this exaggeration of the manner, what a part does it not play in the matter of his poetry! So overweening a place does it take in this man's art that I believe the words to hold and use his meaning, rather than the meaning to compass and grasp and use the word. I believe that Swin- burne's thoughts have their source, their home, their origin, their authority and mission in those two places — his own vocabulary and the passion of other men. This is a grave charge.
First, then, in regard to the passion of other men. I have given to his own emotion the puniest name I could find for it; I have no nobler name for his intellect. But
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other men had thoughts, other men had passions; poli- tical, sexual, natural, noble, vile, ideal, gross, rebellious, agonizing, imperial, republican, cruel, compassionate; and with these he fed his verses. Upon these and their life he sustained, he fattened, he enriched his poetry. Maz- zini in Italy, Gautier and Baudelaire in France, Shelley in England, made for him a base of passionate and intellec- tual supplies. With them he kept the all-necessary line of communication. We cease, as we see their active hearts possess his active art to think a question as to his sincerity seriously worth asking; what sincerity he has is so absorbed in the one excited act of receptivity. That, indeed, he performs with all the will, all the precipitation, all the rush, all the surrender, all the whole-hearted weakness of his subservient and impetuous nature. I have not named the Greeks, nor the English Bible, nor Milton, as his inspirers. These he would claim; they are not his. He received too partial, too fragmentary, too arbitrary an inheritance of the Greek spirit, too illusory an idea of Milton, of the English Bible little more than a tone ; — this poet of eager, open capacity, this poet who is little more, intellectually, than a too-ready, too-vacant capacity, for those three august severities has not room enough.
Charged, then, with other men's purposes — this man's Italian patriotism, this man's hatred of God (by that name, for God has been denied, as a fiction, but Swin- burne and his prompters temporarily acknowledge Him to detest Him), this man's love of sin (by that name, for sin has been denied, as an illusion, but Swinburne, follow- ing Baudelaire, acknowledges it to love it), this man's despite against the Third Empire or what not, this man's cry for a liberty granted or gained long ago — a cry grown vain, this man's contempt for the Boers — nay, was it so much as a man, with a man's evil to answer for, that fur- nished him here; was it not rather that less guilty fool, the crowd? — this man's — nay, this boy's — erotic sickness, or his cruelty — charged with all these, Swinburne's poetry is primed; it explodes with thunder and fire. But such fra- ternity is somewhat too familiar for dignity; such com-
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munity of goods parodies the Franciscans. As one friar goes darned for another's rending, having no property in cassock or cowl, so does many a poet, not in humility, but in a paradox of pride, boast of the past of others. And yet one might rather choose to make use of one's fellow-men's old shoes than to put their old secrets to usufruct, and dress poetry in a motley of past passions, twice corrupt. Promiscuity of love we have heard of; Pope was accused, by Lord Hervey's indignation and wit, of promis- cuity of hatred, and of scattering his disfavours in the stews of an indiscriminate malignity; and here is another promiscuity — that of memories, and of a licence partaken. But by the unanimous poets' splendid love of the land- scape and the skies, by this also was Swinburne possessed, and in this he triumphed. By this, indeed, he profited; here he joined an innumerable company of that heavenly host of earth. Let us acknowledge his honourable alacrity here, his quick fellowship, his magnificent adoption, his filial tenderness — nay, his fraternal union with his poets. No tourist's admiration for all things French, no tourist's politics in Italy — and Swinburne's French and Italian admirations have the tourist manner of enthusiasm — prompts him here. Here he aspires to brotherhood with the supreme poets of supreme England, with the six- teenth century, the seventeenth, and the nineteenth, the impassioned centuries of song. Happy is he to be admitted among these, happy is he to merit by his wonderful voice to sing their raptures. Here is no humiliation in ready- made lendings; their ecstasy becomes him. He is glorious with them, and we can imagine this benign and indulgent Nature confounding together the sons she embraces, and making her poets — the primary and the secondary, the greater and the lesser — all equals in her arms. Let us see him in that company where he looks noble amongst the noble; let us not look upon him in the company of the ignoble, where he looks ignobler still, being servile to them; let us look upon him with the lyrical Shakespeare, with Vaughan, Blake, Wordsworth, Patmore, Meredith; not with Baudelaire and Gautier; with the poets of the
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forest and the sun, and not with those of the alcove. We can make peace with him for love of them; we can ima- gine them thankful to him who, poor and perverse in thought in so many pages, could yet join them in such a song as this:
And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drew With all her spirit and life the sunrise through, And through her lips the keen triumphant air, Sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were, And through her eyes the whole rejoicing east Sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast Spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth Of wind and light that moved upon the earth, Making the spring, and all the fruitful might And strong regeneration of delight That swells the seedling leaf and sapling man.
He, nevertheless, who was able, in high company, to hail the sea with such fine verse, was not ashamed, in low com- pany, to sing the famous absurdities about " the lilies and languors of virtue and the roses and raptures of vice," with many and many a passage of like character. I think it more generous, seeing I have differed so much from the chorus of excessive praise, to quote little from the vacant, the paltry, the silly — no word is so fit as that last little word — among his pages. Therefore, I have justified my praise, but not my blame. It is for the reader to turn to the justifying pages : to " A Song of Italy," " Les Noyades," " Hermaphroditus," " Satia te Sanguine," " Kissing her Hair," " An Interlude," " In a Garden," or such a stanza as the one beginning
O thought illimitable and infinite heart Whose blood is life in limbs indissolute
That all keep heartless thine invisible part And inextirpable thy viewless root
Whence all sweet shafts of green and each thy dart Of sharpening leaf and bud resundering shoot.
It is for the reader who has preserved rectitude of intellect, sincerity of heart, dignity of nerves, unhurried
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thoughts, an unexcited heart, and an ardour for poetry, to judge between these poems and an authentic passion, between these poems and truth, I will add between these poems and beauty.
Having had recourse to the passion of stronger minds for his provision of emotions, Swinburne had direct re- course to his own vocabulary as a kind of treasury wherein he stored what he needed for a song. Claudius stole the precious diadem of the kingdom from a shelf and put it in his pocket; Swinburne took from the shelf of literature — took with what art, what touch, what cunning, what complete skill! — the treasure of the language, and put it in his pocket.
Into the pocket he thrusts urgently for his hate in the word " blood," for his wrath in the word " fire," for his wildness (he is anxious for his wildness) in the word " foam " with hyphen-joined companions, for his sweet- ness in the word " flower," also much linked, so that " flower-soft " has almost become his, and not Shake- speare's. For in that compound he labours to exaggerate Shakespeare, and by his insistence and iteration goes about to spoil for us the " flower-soft hands " of Cleo- patra's rudder- maiden; but he shall not spoil Shake- speare's phrase for us. And, behold, in all this funda- mental fumbling Swinburne's later critics see nothing but a " mannerism," if they see even thus much offence.
One of the chief pocket-words was " Liberty." Who, it has been well asked by a citizen of a modern free country, is thoroughly free except a fish? Et encore — even the " silent and footless herds " may have more inter-accom- modation than we are aware. But in the pocket of the secondary poet how easy and how ready a word is this, a word implying old and true heroisms, but significant now of an excitable poet's economies. Yes, economies of thought and passion. This poet, who is conspicuously the poet of excess, is in deeper truth the poet of penury and defect.
What, finally, is his influence upon the language he
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has ransacked? A temporary laying- waste, undoubtedly. That is, the contemporary use of his vocabulary is spoilt, his beautiful words are wasted, spent, squandered, gaspilles. The contemporary use — I will not say the future use, for no critic should prophesy. But the past he has not been able to violate. He has had no power to rob of their freshness the sixteenth century flower, the seven- teenth century fruit, or by his violence to shake from either a drop of their dews.
At the outset I warned the judges and the pronouncers of sentences how this poet, with other poets of quite different character, would escape their summaries, and he has indeed refuted that maxim which I had learned at illustrious knees, " You may not dissociate the matter and manner of any of the greatest poets; the two are so fused by integrity of fire, whether in tragedy or epic or in the simplest song, that the sundering is the vainest task of criticism." But I cannot read Swinburne and not be com- pelled to divide his secondhand and enfeebled and excited matter from the beautiful art of his word. Of that word Francis Thompson has said again, " It imposes a law on the sense." Therefore, he too perceived that exceptional division. Is, then, the wisdom of the maxim confounded? Or is Swinburne's a " single and excepted case "? Excep- ted by a thousand degrees of talent from any generality fitting the obviously lesser poets, but, possibly, also excepted by an essential inferiority from a great maxim fitting only the greatest ?
ALICE MEYNELL.
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fl Under this beading will be noticed a limited number of bo o\s to which the Editor is unable to devote one of the longer articles, but desires, for one reason or another, to call attention.
IT is too often the case that an increase of intimacy tends to obscure our judgement of character. We sometimes get a first view of a man or woman clear enough, and just enough, which we lose by a knowledge of details. This is especially the case in matters in which we all feel com- petent to decide, as, for instance, in judging our acquaint- ance as to their domestic loves and lives. And when there is added to such questions of intrinsically human interest the fascination of a literary quest, it is more than likely that we shall emerge from its pursuit not much nearer the truth than we set out. Anyone who has lived at times in fancy in the little house in Cheyne Walk has known what it was to tremble lest some noise in a harmless neighbour's garden should bring down the Sage from his sacred cham- ber to lament in the language of a Jeremiah until the delicate woman on the sofa should arise to cope, with all her weapons of subtle sarcasm and charm, with the offend- ing householder. We have felt the electric atmosphere of tense nerves and the intolerable exhaustion both of the productive genius on the one hand, and of the other genius who had to defend him from a harsh and noisy world at her own expense. As we have been admitted into an almost painful intimacy with the household in Chelsea, it is as well that we should be allowed the full record of how this couple came to know one another — in *I he Love Letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh. (Edited by Alexander Carlyle, M.A. John Lane. 25s.). But it is well to beware of the temptation to make up pictures of their characters from clues and suggestions and hints out of this abundance of material. The temptation is immense to trace, like a copy book moralist, from those stormy gorgeous exaggera- tions of the young peasant, cursed with intellect and indigestion, how the absence of self-control was from first
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to last the blight of his life. It would be easy to show how Jane Welsh, an only child, flattered and petted, " stuffed with adulation" is her own phrase, was so far spoilt in nature that though she could be generous in action and do the work of a servant when need were, she could never resist the temptation to sarcasm and the bitter ironies of a great discontent with her lot. It would have been better to have read the story of this strange, stormy courtship without the shadow cast by our fancied knowledge of their married lives. Then it would have stood out more simply as being on a very high moral plane as well as being amazingly intellectual. Quite the earliest letters are disappointing from most points of view. They are stilted and heavy, and the advice given to Miss Welsh on her studies is occasion- ally truly astonishing, as in the suggestion that she should write a drama on the subject of Boadicea. The letters soon grow richer, more human, more humorous. But from the earliest pages there is struck a note that saddens us with our knowledge and their ignorance of their own future. After exciting his pupil's ambition in an early letter he exclaims, " If, in striving after what is great and produc- tive of honour, you do not too widely differ from what is common and productive of comfort, the result will not still be unmixed, but I shall join with thousands in re- joicing at it. The hazard is great, the alternative appalling; but I augur well"
Is it surprising that Mrs Welsh dreaded as too hazardous the relation of tutor and pupil between Thomas Carlyle and her petted daughter? And Jane Welsh herself was not easy to woo. There seems to have been a very natural shrinking from the influence of this too-dominant per- sonality, mingled with the strong desire to fulfil his ex- traordinary ideal of her future greatness. It is indeed tragic that Carlyle should have stimulated so fiercely literary ambitions that were to be buried in a life of domestic drudgery as his wife. At times she protests, " I have neither genius, taste, nor common sense; I have no courage, no industry, no perseverance. ... I begin to think I was actually meant by nature to be a fine lady. ... I shall
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never hold a respectable place among literary ladies. But I know I can be a first-rate fine lady whenever I please. The temptation is strong; furnish me with an antidote if you can." That was written in May, 1822, and by the August of the following year it is evident that the antidotes to worldliness supplied by Carlyle have taken full effect. Perhaps Mrs Welsh had striven too openly in the summer months to keep the tutor and pupil apart. The pupil writes :
And then when your letter comes — when it repeats that one in the world loves me — will love me ever, ever — and tells me more boldly than I hope, that my future may yet be glorious and happy, there is no obstacle I do not feel prepared to meet and conquer. I owe you much ! feelings and sentiments that ennoble my char- acter, that give dignity, interest and enjoyment to my life. In return I can only love you, and that I do from the bottom of my heart.
Carlyle's answer to this letter is not surpassed by any other in these volumes for psychological interest or for pathos.
I often ask myself: " Is not all this a dream? Is it true that the most enchanting creature I have ever seen does actually love me? No ! thank God it is not a dream : Jane loves me ! she loves me ! and I swear by the Immortal Powers that she shall yet be mine, as I am hers, thro' life and death and all the dark vicissitudes that await us here or hereafter." In more reasonable moments I perceive that I am very selfish and almost mad. Alas ! my fate is dreary and obscure and perilous; is it fit that you, whom I honour as among the fairest of God's works, whom I love more dearly than my own soul, should partake in it? No, my own best of maidens, I will not deceive you. Think of me as one that will live and die to do you service; whose good will, if his good deeds cannot, may perhaps deserve some gratitude; but whom it is dangerous and useless to love. If I were
intellectual sovereign of all the world, if I were . But it is vain
to speculate. I know that I am nothing. I know not that I shall not always be so. The only thing I know is that you are the most de- lightful, enthusiastic, contemptuous, affectionate, sarcastic, capri- cious, warm-hearted, lofty-minded, half-devil, half-angel of a woman that ever ruled over the heart of a man; that I will love you, and must love you, whatever may betide, till the last moment
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of my existence, and that if we both act rightly our lot may be the happiest of a thousand mortal lots. So let us cling to one another, and live in hope that prospects so glorious and heavenly will not end in darkness and despair. If your happiness be shipwrecked by my means, then woe, woe is to me without end! But it will not; no, you will yet be blessed yourself in making me more blessed than man has right to look for being upon earth. God bless you my heart's darling; and grant that our honest purposes may prosper in our hands !
Truly these letters give the story of a very noble courtship which was the overture to lives of high aims, endeavours and accomplishments. It is easier for those who " do not too widely differ from what is common and productive of comfort " to be even tempered and. sunny in their homes. This couple aimed too high for happiness, not high enough, perhaps, for holiness. But no amount of biography or autobiography, reminiscences, love letters, or later letters can give us material that can qualify us in forming a judgement of the mutual relations of Thomas and Jane Carlyle. The vigour of their expressions, their amazing treatment of the details of daily life, their power of transforming every molehill they came across into a mountain, have provoked easy judgements — judgements often false as they were facile. It is time to remember that no quantity of picturesque incidents and literary comments can give us a true view of motives, infirmities, ambitions and affections that are only known in their com- plete and mutual proportions to the Searcher of Hearts.
S.
FOLK-MEMORY, by Walter Johnson (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1908. price 12s. 6d. net) is an extremely interesting book, containing many out of the way facts, gathered together by one who describes him- self as "a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."
By folk-memory he understands " the conscious or un- conscious remembrance by a people collectively, of ideas unconnected with the retention of rites and superstitions, habits and occupations."
Those who are in search of facts proving the " amazing
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toughness of tradition " will find them here in plenty. From amongst many examples one may be selected (p. 19). It is told by Sir Archibald Geikie, who heard it from an old lady in the Lammermuirs. " Before the battle of Dun- bar, Cromwell, finding his retreat cut off by Leslie, and his fleet delayed by storms, tried to communicate with his English base by land. With this purpose, so ran the Lam- mermuir tradition, two men, disguised as natives, were sent on the errand. The messengers got as far as the valley of the Whiteadder, where they were detected and shot." Sir Archibald continues : "Miss Darling told me that tradi- tion had always pointed to some old whin bushes at the opening of the cleugh as the place where they were buried. At the lady's instigation the ground was dug up, and among some mouldering bones were found a few decayed buttons and a coin of the time of Charles I."
The earlier portion of the book contains a series of chap- ters dealing with subjects with which many readers will be fairly familiar from the text-books on prehistoric anti- quities, but containing also many traditions and other facts which do not ordinarily find a place in such works.
Later chapters deal with subjects less frequently to be met with in books of the kind just mentioned. There is, for example, a very interesting and valuable chapter on the question of " marling " as a means of improving land, and this leads to a discussion of the much vexed question of the so-called Chislehurst Caves, which Mr Johnson thinks were nothing more or less than chalk mines. If his supposi- tion is correct, and he certainly brings forward very formidable reasons in support of it, a whole edifice of fancy as to Druids, altars, and other matters, which has been built up in connexion with these curious subterranean chambers topples to the ground.
Here also is a chapter on the " dene-holes " of Kent and elsewhere, another fertile topic of controversy. Mr Johnson is not quite so sure as to the purpose of these underground chambers, but he sums up the matter by stating that : " either the dene-holes were constructed as underground stores, and the chalk thrown out was disposed
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of in manuring the fields ; or the dene-holes were originally 1 marl-pits,' which were afterwards utilized as subterranean barns." (p. 259.)
Dew-ponds, which have of late received so much atten- tion, and the curious physical problems associated with them, are dealt with in a separate chapter, and we note that the author pins his faith very largely to this provision for the supply of water to the British camps and fortresses, whose means of obtaining this necessity of life is still a vexed question.
In a book so full of facts as this it is not easy to select for the purposes of a short notice, but it may safely be said that all students of antiquity will find in it a storehouse of information, and that the excellent bibliography at the end greatly enhances the value of a very useful work.
B.C.A.W.
WHETHER we agree with the author's conclusions or not, there can be no two opinions as to the value and the comprehensiveness of the researches which Mr Darwell Stone has incorporated in his History of the Doc- trine of the Holy Eucharist. (2 vols, 1,080 pp. Longmans. 1909. Price 30s. net). The book leaves the impression of a very honest attempt to grapple with a doctrinal problem of supreme importance and of no little difficulty. The work of immediate preparation must have occupied the author's best attention for a decade of years, at least; in proof of which it may be noted that much of the substance of these volumes appeared in the form of articles in the Church Quarterly Review, between 1901 and 1903. In any case, as a mere collection of materials, these two volumes are of very great utility, for they evidently[represent[the results of independent reading, unhampered by the tra- ditional fetters of the text books. To say the truth, the interest and importance of Mr Stone's work impresses us so much that if we had anything to do with the regulation of the studies in our theological seminaries we should like to see a substantial prize offered for the student, who, working steadily through the first volume, verifying every reference in the original, and examining it in the setting
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of its context, should at the end of a year or a couple of years produce the best and most fully documented criticism of its contents. We believe that the scholar who, under capable supervision, should essay such a task would find the exercise a most admirable mental discipline and a thoroughly profitable employment of his spare hours. But it would be an undertaking, of course, for the chosen few, not for the rank and file.
Mr Stone's arrangement of his materials is orderly and natural. Beginning with the New Testament, he passes on to consider the doctrinal teaching about the Eucharist found in the writers of the Ante-Nicene Church. Then he devotes his attention to what he has aptly named " the period of the great Councils," from a.d. 325 to about a.d. 500, comprising, of course, such great names as those of Saints Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Augus- tine, Chrysostom, etc. This is followed by a section of some length devoted to Eastern History from the sixth century onwards, while the remainder of the first volume embodies the Western theology of the early and later Middle Ages, including a study of the great schoolmen, a study which we should have liked to see proportionately much longer than it is. For a Catholic reader the second, and more bulky volume, is by no means of equal interest with the first. The section devoted to the Reformation period, with its appreciations of the position of Luther, Zwingli, and the other reformers, and more especially its careful discussion of the English Articles, is no doubt of value, and let us say in passing, that we are glad Mr. Stone shows little inclination to identify himself with Mr Kidd's view of the " later medieval doctrines of the Eucharistic sacrifice," which has always struck us as a peculiarly ex- travagant piece of special pleading. But the Eucharistic speculations of Hooker, Cosin, Jeremy Taylor, etc., while naturally matters of importance to Anglicans, have a limited bearing on Christian dogma at large, and it is difficult to resist an inclination to skip when one discovers the views of a number of seventeenth century English churchmen, set forth at considerably greater length than
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those of St Jerome or Pope Leo the Great. But making due allowances for the line of approach which is natural in a clergyman of the Church of England we are satisfied that Mr Stone writes throughout as a real student, and not as a doctrinaire. This lends additional value to the general outcome of his researches, which is certainly to vindicate the existence, from the beginning, of the idea of a Eucharistic sacrifice, and what may most conveniently be called a belief in the Real Presence. We are particularly grateful to Mr Stone for his insistence (in connexion with many utterances of early writers who describe the Blessed Eucharist as the figure, symbol or antitype of the Body of Christ) upon a truth already enunciated by Harnack: "What we nowadays understand by symbol is a thing which is not that which it represents ; at that time symbol denoted a thing which in some kind of way really is what it signifies." Also, even though the avowal is made in a way that is not particularly flattering, we are glad to find Mr Stone assuring his fellow Anglicans that " a close study of the literature does not support the theory that the Eucharistic doctrine of the medieval Western Church was wholly or mainly mechanical and carnal." To which he adds : " Rather the facts show that it was part of the work of the greatest and most representative and most influ- ential teachers, while taking care that the central points of their sacramental belief were not refined away, to maintain the spiritual character of the Eucharistic pre- sence and gift."
There are a good many points of detail in Mr Stone's treatise which suggest matter for criticism. For example, the remarks upon the continued existence of the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist, on pp. 99-102 of vol 1, should be considered in the light of Father Lebreton's essay printed in the London Eucharistic Congress Report, while Dom P. de Puniet's discovery of an Alexandrine liturgical text in which the epiclesis precedes the words of institution, as recorded in the same Report, must now stand in the way of any hasty generalizations upon the epiclesis question, either as regards the Alexandrine or
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the other early rituals. At the same time we gladly bear witness that the book as a whole seems to us to have been carefully compiled, and to show no signs of negligence or undue haste. H.T.
IN Six Oxford Thinkers (John Murray. 7s. 6d.) Mr Alger- non Cecil has given us some thoughtful studies, based on very careful reading. John Henry Newman dominates Mr Cecil's thoughts, almost as he dominated those of young Oxford in 1838. And it is interesting to see which aspect of the many-sided mind and character appeals to his latter-day disciple. It is the opponent of " liberalism " in religion, the Newman of 1833-45, that holds Mr Cecil's imagination. Indeed, in more than one instance the zeal of the disciple for this aspect of Newman's teaching makes him overlook qualifications to his general line of thought on this subject which were in Newman's own eyes important. One who reads Mr Cecil's remark (p. 254) that "New- man felt Lacordaire, Montalembert and the school of Catholic liberals to be deeply illogical," would be hardly prepared to find in the Apologia, on the page preceding that to which Mr Cecil refers, the following appreciation of those two great writers : " I do not believe that it is pos- sible for me to differ in any important matter from two men whom I so highly admire. In their general line of thought and conduct I enthusiastically concur and con- sider them to be before their age." Again, Mr Cecil represents Newman (p. 88) as the champion of the philo- sophy of intuition, forgetful of his criticism of the intui- tionist philosophers, for, speaking of first principles, as " /^//-evident, because they are evident in no other way." Newman's own phrase was not " intuition," but " as- sumption," and he differed on this point from W. G. Ward (with whom Mr Cecil represents him as agreeing). The present writer believes that Newman's " assump- tions adopted under the happy guidance of the moral sense," imply a view not far apart from the theory of "intuitions" which he deprecated; but in both cases there was a very subtle difference from the school of
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thinkers with whom, on the whole, he concurred, which was extremely characteristic of his mind.
Mr Cecil has some very good things to say on New- man's style, among them the following :
.... Devoid of all show and glitter, simplex munditiis, always very plain and neat, it made its way because it was the vehicle of thoughts that much needed to be spoken; and only afterwards did men realise that the vehicle itself was beautiful. The proof of its excellence, if proof be required, is that it is impossible to cari- cature it. . . . Like Bunyan, he was a conservative liberator, and freed the language from a certain stiffness of diction, whilst pre- serving for it an easy dignity. Nor is it any accident that these two writers of the purest English were deeply religious men. Stateli- ness and majesty he had not, nor cared to have.
All this is true of his style as an " Oxford thinker " — that is, down to 1845. Mr Cecil can hardly have forgot- ten the great change evident in the Sermons of 1849, and the Lectures of 1852 on University education.
The other Oxford thinkers reviewed are Gibbon, Dean Church, J. A. Froude, Pater and Morley. The essay on Pater is, perhaps, the best. And we may select for quota- tion the very interesting account of his last years, based on the lives of Pater by Wright and Benson, but also made vivid by the very delicate personal appreciation of Mr Cecil himself :
Slowly, and with lapses, but very certainly, he began to advo- cate the recall of art to the service of the Church, and at the same time to busy himself with the disciplinary value of faith, and more than ever with the thoughts of death. We may date this last phase of his life, perhaps, from the essay on " Sir Thomas Browne," written in 1886, and trace it through the essay on " Style " until it reaches its final, scarcely expected, in " Plato's ^Esthetics." And it is a consciousness of this great change in himself which explains that otherwise cryptic remark that " if there was anything of his that had a chance of surviving, it was his Plato," Plato being exactly one of those who had passed from a too sensuous love of visible things to " a certain penitential colour of fancy and ex- pression." This temperate habit of mind, this true ascesis — is advanced in the " Plato " as a condition of membership in the per- fect state, as a discipline to which art must conform to be made Vol. 145 193 13
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perfect, and appears in the essay on " Style," as an injunction to do all to the glory of God. And that pathetic half-line about imagina- tion being a malady, which closed the unfinished essay on " Pas- cal," and came to the world as a word from the grave, was, for all we can tell, the last confession of one to whom imagination had once meant very much indeed.
Pater had not severed his connection with Brasenose when he abandoned historical work, and there was no doubt, whatever tem- porary disgusts he might experience, that his proper sphere was in an academy. In 1893 he gave up his London house and took another at St Giles', Oxford, in addition to his college rooms. The President of Magdalen has described his appearance about this time — his " pale face, strong jaw, heavy, chopped, German moustache, tall hat, apple-green tie " and laboured walk, giving an impression of pain. The sands, indeed, though he did not know it, were running out. At Brasenose they noticed as a curious trait how stern an advocate of compulsory chapel for undergraduates he had become. His own Sunday attendances there had long been invariable, and he began to confine his general reading within the limits of the Bible, the Prayer-Book, and Bute's translation of the Breviary. He was, it is likely, growing to be acutely sensible of that " homeless- ness " of the human soul in the world of which he speaks in the essay on " Sir Thomas Browne," and took full advantage of the passionate, if subdued, ritual of the Church in order to allay his suffering. Still deep in his nature there lay " a certain untamed scepticism," as Mr Benson calls it, which is very apparent in his thoughts about Pascal. It was, after all, upon the patterns of the heavenly things that he had looked, not upon the heavenly things themselves. He died suddenly and painlessly on July 30, 1894, " Whatsoever things are true, and honest, and pure," they wrote on his tablet in Brasenose. They might have added, and with greater truth, " whatsoever things are lovely."
w.w.
THE WHITE SISTER (By Marion Crawford. Mac- millan. 6s. net) is a posthumous work of the dead novelist. We are not told in any foreword of when it was written or how it was published. But we imagine it was written at the end of his life. Mr Crawford never wrote the heart-searching novel of the present day, stirring up the dregs and lees of human nature, dissecting and exam- ining under the microscope all its meanest motives and
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their selfish impulses. He reckons with the simpler emo- tions and passions. He likes to send us away from the reading of his stories without any doubt in our minds as to who has acted rightly and who wrongly — who is the hero and who is the villain of the piece. His story is always worth telling, and he tells it simply and for the sake of story telling. His characters are cleanly and clearly cut, there is never any doubt about them, and they are alive — almost always.
In this book Mr Crawford tells the story of Angela Chiaramonte, a youthful Roman Princess, who finds her- self, on the death of her father, without a penny — her jealous aunt having destroyed the will leaving her the fortune and palazzo of the house of Chiaramonte. She is betrothed to Giovanni Severi, a soldier, who goes on a dangerous punitive expedition to Africa, whilst she waits for him under the wing of her old French governess. The punitive party is cut to pieces, and Giovanni, it is sup- posed, amongst the victims. Angela becomes a nun, joining the nursing order of the White Sisters. She nurses the Prin- cess Chiaramonte, her aunt (incognito) through a delirious fever, and learns all about the destruction of the will. Then after six years as a nun, in which she has become the most trusted and valued nurse in the convent, Giovanni returns from slavery and captivity in an African tribe. He is furious at finding Angela vowed to religion. There is a stormy scene between them in his own rooms to which she has been carried off under false pretences. She is firm to her vows, though she loves him always. (She is sister Giovanna, by the by. Would she have been allowed to take the name of her lover as her name in religion by her supe- riors? This is surely a false note.) Then Giovanni is blown up in the explosion of the powder magazine and is brought to the hospital to have his arm amputated to save his life. He refuses and prefers to die. Angela is allowed to nurse him. He refuses to live unless she will give up her vows and make his crippled life bearable by marrying him. This is a terrible situation for her. How is she to choose between being her lover's murderess and breaking her religious vow ;
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and the decision is urgent — delay is danger for Giovanni. Monsignor Saracinesca, her director and friend comes to the rescue. He will petition the Pope for a dispensation of the nun's vows, and he is not likely to be refused.
Angela is charming all through, especially as the dis- inherited princess at the beginning; and she must have been a perfect nurse with her quiet strength and quick, practical mind. But one wonders how her vocation throve so well under the circumstances. For there is a melo- dramatic element in the story that might well have been left out. The Mother Abbess of the convent (she is described as a little white volcano) reveals herself to Sister Giovanna as her own mother who had given up her illegitimate child to her sister, the Princess Chiara- monte, to be brought up as her own daughter, and retired into a convent to avoid the scandal. The elements of the story are quite complete without this factor, which at best only serves to pile the agony a little higher, and the Mother Abbess is the only unreal and rather forced character in the book. One is glad Giovanni wins his lady. But will not Angela find her vocation in the world a far harder one than the quiet discipline and devotion in the Convent? C.B.
THOSE who have read Mr Arnold Bennett's former novels will agree that The Old Wives' Tale (Chapman and Hall. 6s.) is amongst his best. Those who are not familiar with this author will do well to make his acquaint- ance in this his latest novel. He lays his scene once more in the Midland towns of which he writes in Anna of the Five Towns and Tales of the Five Towns, and others. In the first part of The Old Wives' Talehe takes us again into a middle-class milieu, and recounts to us the minute details of the life of one of two sisters, her mother, her husband, a prosperous and extremely unromantic draper in Bursley, and their child.
Their lives contain only the most normal elements, birth, death, marriage, the education of their son, the difficulties of his character (which is handled with a
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delightful humour) the success of Mr Povey's drapery business.
Mr Bennett makes these people act, feel and think only the most ordinary things ; he shews us all their little fail- ings, their absurdities and weaknesses, all their good in- stincts and humdrum virtues. He interests us deeply in their fortunes, and he makes us love his men and women. He is entirely un-morbid. He never sneers at human nature; he is amused at its limitations and also full of admiration for its courage and goodness.
Mr Bennett's philosophy would seem to be that, in Goethe's words, " Du bist am Eade was du bist" Life may go easy or it may go hard with you; it will make no difference. Those qualities that you are born with, and no newly acquired ones, will surmount the circumstances of life, be they hard or easy. Constance and Sophia Baines, when we see them first as happy little girls of fifteen, living over the draper's shop in St Luke's Square, shew their different temperaments as clearly in the small events of their childhood as they do later on when the circumstances of life develop them more fully. Constance is a " provincial " through and through. She marries Samuel Povey, the shop- walker in her father's shop, and their fortunes, as we have said, are entirely normal.
Sophia's fortunes, which are told in the second half of the book, are, however, more dramatic. She falls in love with Gerald Scales, a commercial traveller, and elopes with him. She soon realizes that he is a hopeless fool and a spendthrift, and after a few sordid years of hotel life in Paris, he leaves her penniless to fend for herself. All through the flashy sordidness of the life he provides for her, Sophia's distinction and charm of person and char- acter maintain one's interest. In her subsequent struggle for her livelihood, her instinctive, almost dogged, up- rightness of character, leads her simply and directly through the mazes of her life in Paris. It is common-sense that keeps her from straying. In the end she returns to Bursley, having made a fortune as the " patronne " of an English pension in Paris, and takes up her abode with
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Constance Povey, now a substantial widow. It is amusing to see the sisters resuming the relationship of their girl- hood— Sophia inevitably imposing her forceful nature upon Constance up to that certain point, when Constance, by sheer persistence in resisting, gains her own negative way. Gerald Scales turns up at the house of a cousin in Manchester to die, a broken old tramp of seventy. Sophia is summoned to find him dead. This is what she feels :
Sophia then experienced a pure and primitive emotion, un- coloured by any moral or religious quality. She was not sorry that Gerald had wasted his life, nor that he was a shame to his years and to her. The manner of his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had once been young and that he had grown old, and was now dead. That was all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to that. Every- thing came to that. He had ill-treated her; he had abandoned her; he had been a devious rascal; but how trivial were such accusa- tions against him! The whole of her huge and bitter grievance against him fell to pieces and crumbled. She saw him young, and proud, and strong, as for instance when he kissed her in the Lon- don hotel — she forgot the name — in 1866; and now he was old and worn, and horrible and dead. It was the riddle of life that was puzzling and killing her. By the corner of her eye, reflected in the mirror of a wardrobe near the bed, she glimpsed a tall forlorn woman who had once been young and now was old; who had once exulted in abundant strength and trodden proudly on the neck of circumstance, and now was old. He and she had once loved and burned and quarrelled in the glittering and scornful pride or youth. But time had worn them out. "Yet a little while," she thought, "and I shall be lying on a bed like that! And what shall I have lived for? What is the meaning of it?" The riddle of life itself was killing her, and she seemed to drown in a sea of inex- pressible sorrow.
There are some unforgettable scenes. The chapter describing the execution by guillotine of the French mur- derer is extraordinarily vivid. The scene of debauch and the horrible picture of a crowd of men and women gloat- ing over the public execution, is somehow robbed of its more revolting aspect because we see it through the eyes of Sophia, and her sufferings become the real interest in the scene. C.B.
Russian Essays
IN this book you will not find, thank Heaven, very much talk of politics. You will find, on the other hand, truthful and accu- rate records of real people, seen with the naked eye, unobscured by prejudice and not magnified by the spectacles of exaggeration. Also some true stories. I hope it will amuse you.
These are Mr Maurice Baring's own words in his dedi- cation of Russian Essays and Stories (Methuen. 6s.) and they perfectly describe the nature of this collection of short essays. Most of the articles appeared in the Morning Post, Mr Baring having been special correspondent for that paper during the recent disturbances in Russia. This is not his first book on Russian things, A Tear in Russia and With the Russians in Manchuria, are the records of his experiences as special correspondent during the Man- churian campaign, and afterwards in Russia itself. This last volume has a rather more literary character, though the vein is the same. Mr Baring never dogmatizes. He tells a story, transcribes a conversation, recounts the trivial but significant events of a journey, and leaves his reader to draw his own conclusions. He loves the Russian peasant because he does not allow himself to get exasperated by his inertia and takes him as he is. Travelling third class through Russia, he has original conversations with mem- bers of every grade of society, and his literal translation of the Russian speech gives them a delightful quaintness.
The essay called " A Russian Mystery Play " is very striking. Mr Baring gives a close analysis of a play by one Andreev, called " The Life of Man," and says of it that " Algebra is to Arithmetic what * The Life of Man ' is to all other plays . . . Andreev, in his play, represents neither types nor individuals, but simply the algebraic symbol of man. Not man the miser or man the infinitely complex Hamlet, but man the quantity. Man x in face of fate the quantity y." This is a new analysis, and surely applies to all mystery plays.
There are one or two stories of Russian peasants that are very sinister. In " The Anti-Christ " we see the lethar- gic peasants roused to horrible deed? by superstition; and in the " Dirge in Marriage " the Bride hangs herself
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because she loves another man and not her husband, so he marries the younger sister. " Pogrom " shows us how the local anti-semite disturbances were all organized from headquarters by the Revolutionary party, and were no indication of local feeling. There are plenty of pictures to illustrate the darkness and backwardness of the Russians, but we are shown the other more hopeful aspect of things as well. In the article called, " Modern Literature in Russia," Mr Baring says, after praising Tcheckov as the most representative modern writer :
It is too soon yet to discern and to gauge what is the literary value of the thick and turbulent mass of production which has been poured out in Russia during the last few years. But one thing is certain, namely, that there is nothing stagnant in the new pheno- mena. The writers of the younger generation are still often pessi- mistic in the extreme; they shriek, they vociferate, and they anathematize, but they do not say, " There is nothing to be done, let us sit down and play Vindt." It is true that this revolutionary outburst was succeeded by weariness and apathy. It is true that reaction was again in its turn as triumphant as it was in France during the reign of Louis XVIII. That the Liberal movement suffered a great blow owing to the fa£t that a considerable part of the population, namely the landed proprietors and all people of means . . . frightened by the spectres of revolution, anarchy and ruin, veered to the Right. It is true that some people think it will need another war or other disasters to set the movement going again. But in spite of this we shall never get back to the old stag- nation, because of the flood of light which has been let into the country, and which cannot now ever be driven out of it.
Mr Baring claims so little to be a prophet, and throws his observations down before his reader in such an un- doctrinaire manner, that he is pretty sure to be taken at his own valuation, and to be passed by in favour of the more professional journalists who claim to have their finger on the pulse of the Russian Nation. But Mr Baring's observa- tion ranges over a wider field than most, and his method is the true one. He fits his conclusions to his observations, not his observations to foregone conclusions.
C.B.
2 00
The Science of Ethics
ENGLISH philosophers have long bestowed a large share of their attention on the deeper problems of conduct, but unfortunately the conclusions at which they have arrived are too often as curious and unsatisfactory as their systems of metaphysics and psychology. Never was the effort to discover some satisfying explanation of the ground and real inwardness of morals more serious and sustained than it has been during the past hundred years, and never was the outlook more discouraging than it is at the present moment. We have reached a chaos of contra- dictions, and nothing seems left us but a common measure of plain good manners. Whatever may be the explanation of the fact, it must be confessed that our Catholic writers of the English-speaking nations have not kept abreast with this bewildering movement. Little has been done to con- struct a breakwater, broad and strong enough to stem the rushing tide of moral nihilism. At length, however, a bold and successful attempt has been made to deal with the existing situation. A first instalment of an important pro- duction (The Science of Ethics. By Rev. Michael Cronin, M.A., D.D. Vol. i. General Ethics. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Sons. 1909. pp. xx, 660. 12s. 6d.) faces the problem in the sphere of general principles. The scope and sub- stance of the work is frankly Aristotelean and Scholastic. Its method is in one sense essentially modern, but in sim- plicity of statement, in the order and definiteness of its proofs, in the straightforward discussion of difficulties, it is happily differentiated from the bulk of the philo- sophical literature of the time. The subjects dealt with by the author are, of course, familiar to all students of moral philosophy under the name of General Principles, and to the Scholastic as General Ethics.
The arrangement of materials stands out in marked con- trast with any of the familiar English manuals, both on account of its comprehensiveness and by reason of the amount of space devoted to the examination of recent systems of morals, such as Hedonism, Utilitarianism, the Ethics of Evolution, the treatment of which occupies something more than a third of the entire volume. Again,
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the treatment is marked off from non-Catholic ethical studies generally by being complete, supplying, as it does, a full exposition of the ordinary doctrine of the purpose of human life, the distinction between good and evil, the criteria of morality, the relation of freedom to conduct, the true standard of morality, conscience, responsibility, merit, punishment, law and rights.
A sense of independence pervades the exposition of even the most familiar topics of the orthodox manual. At times the author follows St Thomas Aquinas paragraph by paragraph; still, while always retaining his individu- ality, he is at his best when he is free to develop the argument after his own fashion. Many of his proofs, sup- ported, as they are, by careful and broad inductions, are spirited and illuminative. No small portion of his work must be described as appearing for the first time in a Catholic work on this wide and yet growing subject. His note, for example, on Ethical Optimism, or the relation of virtue to happiness, is a substantial contribu- tion to ethical science, and will remove much confusion. His views on the development of morality in the child's mind, though they may be received by some with hesi- tation, are an acceptable introduction to the study of a problem that has engrossed more attention than it deserves. In some of the well-worn controversies the author is compelled to take up one side, as on the question of the primary foundation of morality, and the admission of a " last practical judgement," as a condition of the exercise of free choice. In both of these opinions, as well as in others set forth in this volume and suggested for the next, the author may expect adverse criticism from the ranks of Catholic philosophers. No doubt, too, he has his forebodings of a storm in the near future by reason of his uncompromising rejection of Cardinal Newman's argu- ment for the existence of God drawn from the voice of conscience. But these are details of comparatively small importance. And valuable as are the expository sections of this fine piece of philosophical work, its real interest and helpfulness for many, both of the orthodox and unortho-
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dox school, will be found in the 230 pages devoted to the examination of current systems. It is hard to say in which section the subtle and complicated subject-matter is handled with the most conspicuous success; at all events, it is safe to affirm that the discussion of the ethics of evo- lution in two chapters forms the largest section of the book, and that it will be found by every reader to be intel- ligible, honest and, we venture to think, convincing. The particular merit of this discussion is that it is fairly com- plete, minute and thorough. Certain common features, moreover, pervade the treatment of each large section of the work. Advocates of opinions subjected to criticism will have no cause to complain of any unfairness or want of insight in the exposition of their peculiar systems. They will find the author eager to discover points of agreement, ready to hear and chivalrous to reinforce their objections. At times they will be surprised at beholding their root failures disclosed with a sudden and disconcerting clear- ness.
Swiftness of treatment is quite characteristic of the writer. Moreover, a practice deserving of no small praise is the prompt and constant elimination of irrelevant or incidental issues. The book, however, must be read and leisurely studied in order to be appreciated at its true worth. In parts it is hard reading, though the hardness arises not from unskilful handling, but from the subtlety, the multiplicity and evasiveness of the subject-matter. Our own impression, after perusing the volume carefully from cover to cover, is that professor, student and oppo- nent will all derive advantage from these pages, which at present they can obtain from no other ethical work in the language.
It might appear ungracious to point out minor flaws of expression, which could easily have been avoided by the attentive vigilance of some critical friend; still, the curious slip of " ought wish " which occurs many times on pages 211-212 is too singular a phenomenon to escape mention. There is, however, one annoying and persistent defect of which complaint may justly be made, namely, a want of
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scholarly finish and consistency in references. The reader is frequently reminded of a proof already given, or is pro- mised proof in a succeeding section, without any indica- tion of page or chapter. In various places St Thomas is followed closely through several questions or articles with- out any indication of the passages under treatment. The text of Aristotle is not once referred to, notwithstanding the declaration made in the Preface that the book is Aristotelean and Scholastic. No Greek quotation has gained admission into the volume, and the four or five Greek words mentioned are given in English characters. Very many instances occur in which the references to modern works are quite inadequate.
Blemishes of this description do not diminish the sub- stantial value of this offering to ethical science, but they affect the convenience of the reader and the efficiency of the work. No one would desire to see text or notes bur- dened with cheap or superfluous erudition; but surely it cannot be supposed that the scholarly nicety and enrich- ment we have suggested would be out of place in a produc- tion of such importance and dimensions as The Science of Ethics.
H.P.
THERE are men whose characters we may abhor, but whose genius, strong personality and achievements make them for ever interesting. A similar remark may be applied to certain historical epochs. In spite of the crimes, excesses and principles of the French Revolution,we greed- ily devour fresh details or newer views of that terrible tragedy. The Renaissance is a period that falls into the same class, and the book before us, Baldassaro Castiglione, the Perfect Courtier: His Life and Letters, 1478-15 29, by Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady) (John Murray. 1908. 30s.), is a pleasing story pleasantly told of its brighter side. Here is a man well-endowed by nature, handsome of person, elo- quent of speech, courteous and tactful, with the learning and zeal for knowledge of the keenest humanist, yet withal an orthodox Catholic and one who " not only believed in virtue but practised it " — " insignem pietate virum." He
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spends Holy Week in the quiet retreat of San Benedetto, and there communicates, a place, he says, " well fitted for these devotions." Another Holy Week he pilgrimages to Camaldoli. After the happy termination of an anxious business he writes to his mother : " I am going to our Lady of Loreto, to whom I owe a vow." At the time of the plague he tells his mother that " there are said to be many miracles in Rome — among others, a mother bore her child, who had the plague, in one of those processions, and the other women knew this, but the mother, filled with ardent faith, carried her child in her arms to S. Agostino, and laid it on the altar of our Lady, and it was restored to health at once. And many other stories of the same kind are told."
In the early years of the Lutheran revolt, Alfonso Valdes, Charles the Fifth's Latin Secretary, wrote a pamphlet in dialogue form attacking Catholic truths and justifying Bourbon's sack of Rome as a judgement of God. Castiglione, Papal Nuncio to the Imperial Court, took up the cudgels in behalf of the Church and soundly belaboured him. " But what kindled his anger to the highest pitch was Valdes' appeal to the Emperor to take possession of the Papal States and destroy once for all the temporal power of the Popes, as the first step towards the reform of the Church. This heresy he denounced in no measured terms, telling the Imperial Secretary that he was following Lu- ther's example and doing devil's work," and that Luther himself was " the greatest enemy and most perfidious heretic who has ever risen up against the Church of Christ." According to the author, " Castiglione's argument is, in the main, sound and just, marked by good sense and sober logic. The metaphors are well chosen, the style is clear and in- cisive, and in certain passages attains to eloquence." Whilst Valdes, she says, " was animated by the Protestant spirit that was already abroad .... in Castiglione, on the other hand, we have the defender of the Church, the champion of the old faith learnt at his mother's knee, and of the devout rites and practices sanctioned by the consent of ages."
He is best known, of course, as author of II Corte-
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giano, first issued from the Aldine press at Venice in April, 1528, and soon to become of world-wide celebrity through its translation into every European tongue. It was especially popular in England, and a clever American writer, Miss Scott, with great ability has maintained that Shakespeare owes his Benedick and Beatrice to two characters in this " most popular prose work of the Italian Renaissance." Presumably, owing to the license of some of its reported stories, and the freedom with which prelates are treated, Sixtus V put the book on the Index with the reservation of an expurgated edition. The censure was afterwards re- moved and again renewed. A complete edition, based on the original Aldine edition, was published in 1733, after submission to the Inquisition, but it abounds in errors, and it was not until 1894 that Professor Cian brought out a correct version from the original manuscript in the Laur- entian library. Its themes are the accomplishments of the Courtier and life at the model court of Urbino. In this little city, on the slopes of the Apennines, and in one of the noblest of Italian palaces, its Dukes and Duchesses enter- tained the distinguished wits of the period with lavish yet refined hospitality. Surrounded by the loveliest creations of art, and with a library of a rare collection for their use, their days and nights were filled by all that could make life enjoyable. There was hunting and hawking and joust- ing in the day time, and at night masques and balls, read- ings of original works and conversation till the stars paled and the east was flushed with dawn. It is the picture of the gay and bright side of that epoch, and yet, from allusions in the letters of Bembo and Bibbiena, we suspect that the serpent had wound its way into that seeming Eden. One ghastly incident that occurred shows that Urbino was not entirely sundered from the spirit abroad wherein virtue, vice and genius were so startlingly mingled — where " artists who mixed colours exquisitely mixed poisons exquisitely," and "princes who designed instruments of music also designed instruments of torture"(G. K. Chesterton). Francesco Maria della Rovere, heir to the Dukedom, had a serious grievance against a young squire of Verona named Giovanni Andrea,
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Gentlemen Errant
a guest like himself at Urbino. In the absence of the Duke Francesco invited Andrea to dinner, proposing a fencing bout afterwards. Foil's were produced in due time, and in the middle of what appeared a friendly trial of skill, two of Francesco's servants rushed in, pinioned Andrea's arms behind his back, and their master then stabbed him to the heart. The crime made a noise for a few days, but the mur- derer, after another murder, a Cardinal his victim this time, quietly succeeded to his duchy.
Life at Urbino was one long round of pleasure, but we cannot help thinking that to a serious-minded man like Sadoleto, for instance, it must have palled after a brief
P ' If all the year were playing holidays
To sport would be as tedious as to work.
And so, no doubt, thought Castiglione. Bembo stayed there for six years in " content and gladness of heart," and might have been happy to stay there the remainder of his life, but Castiglione was made of sterner stuff. With Bacon he would have said " these things are but toys." From Rome, on one occasion, he writes to his mother : " Many masks are being made in Rome. Princes, Cardinals and Prelates all intend to wear them; I expect it is the same in Mantua, or better still. For my part I cannot say that these things give me much pleasure." The world of Urbino was to him only an occasional holiday, which he thoroughly enj oy- ed indeed, in the midst of a strenuous life : soldier, courtier, diplomatist, — study and writing were his sweetest recrea- tions.
The book is embellished with various views and por- traits of its principal personages ; amongst others, there is one of Cardinal Bibbiena, but Pastor says " his portraits cannot be authenticated with any certainty."
P.H.
THE pages of Gentlemen Errant (Mrs Henry Cust. Murray. 12s. net) afford a series of brilliant and detailed pictures of the past ; much like those old tapestries and processional frescoes on which hunters and warriors ride forever, hawk on wrist or lance in rest, through
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fantastic landscapes peopled by quaint beasts and birds. It is not the heroic side of history which is set forth in these memoirs — the struggle for great principles and the clash of conflicting ideals. Though the period covered is that of the Reformation in Germany, the kindred struggle in England, and the war in the Netherlands, we are little concerned with the large religious issues, and the ambi- tions of the rulers of Europe are shown chiefly in their more personal aspects. Many important figures do indeed cross the stage or hold it for a moment. We see the win- ning, unstable Maximilian " last of the knights," Charles V, in his early-ripened diplomacy; Francis I, debonair and unscrupulous; Henry VIII, burdened with his many matrimonial problems, and, beside him, his terrible minis- ter, Thomas Cromwell, sombre and restless with the prescience of his coming fall. Around these famous and familiar characters gather others whose names are un- known save to the special student, yet who pranked it gallantly enough in their time; nor must one forget the fair and great ladies who, in their brave array, play no inconsiderable part in these chronicles.
The first story which Mrs Cust elects to tell, that of the wanderings of the Bohemian, Leo, Lord of Rozmital, is in some respects the most attractive of all, as it takes us back into comparatively early times, showing us a world in which the dreams of chivalry yet lingered and faith kept its old simplicities, when men passed from tourney and banquet to make pilgrimages to saintly shrines, and when miracle and marvel were accepted as parts of daily life. The Lord of Rozmital was a mighty wanderer, and takes us to the England of the Wars of the Roses, to Portugal, yet all astir and glorious with the visions and achieve- ments of Henry the Navigator, and to other courts and countries, all of which were duly described by his careful chronicler. The reader would gladly linger awhile in that age of undefined horizons and splendid credulities, " of wide strange landscapes lying in the twilight of a morning world." But as the book proceeds it brings us to days which are less poetic, in a way, if more magnificent, days
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Gentlemen Errant
out of which the world, as we know it, was slowly being forged and fashioned.
The second life story, which tells of the adventures of Wilwolt of Schaumberg, soldier of fortune, gives an amazingly vivid picture of the life of a mercenary captain, its hardships and triumphs, march and siege and battle, difficulties with the hungry and mutinous soldiery, brief intervals of peaceful revelry and resumptions of the grim, interminable business of war. Wilwolt appears to have been a fine type of his class, invincibly loyal to his master, Albrecht of Saxony, and brave and skilful in his calling; but the narrative of his exploits is stern reading enough, and will not encourage roseate romantic illusions about old-world warfare.
The record of Frederic II, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, brings us into a tangle of diplomacy which Mrs Custjhas unravelled with a sure hand. These fascinating annals, however, are by no means exclusively concerned with the schemes and rivalries of Charles V and Francis I. Frederic is the hero of a series of delightful tragi- comedies of courtship, in the course of which we follow him to most of the courts and great cities of his time, and grow dazzled with the splendour of the pageants in which the " all-beautiful " Palsgrave shone. His personal vicissi- tudes were closely interwoven with the political questions of the time, but, though the author has not evaded the historical complications, her keenest interest is in the small individual details which she gives so admirably.
The " Epic of Debt," which closes the volume, is a truly delicious bit of comedy, conceived, as the author says, in a spirit between those of Falstaff and Pepys. Hans von Schweinichen, the writer of the memoirs, and his irre- pressible, debt-driven master, Heinrich XI of Leignitz, are figures of magnificent humour, and their feasts, rich apparel, and perpetual want of money, move the reader of to-day to a mood of jovial and irresponsible sympathy with those brimming beakers of pleasure drunk out so long ago.
It is impossible, within the limits of a brief review, Vol. 145 209 14
Some Recent Books
adequately to suggest the richness and complexity of texture of this fabric of Mrs Cust's weaving. She has brought a wealth of out-of-the-way knowledge to illus- trate her quaint old-time chroniclers, and her trenchant, vivid style makes her characters live before us, feasting, fighting and intriguing, sojourning in stately cities, wandering and starving on barren ways, touching to sudden reality and nearness the remote high roads and by-paths of the past.
D. McC.
MR C. F. G. MASTERMAN, in treating of The Con- dition of England (Methuen. 1909. 6s.), has his eye far more on posterity than on people of the present day. His book is exactly of the kind that an historian of a hundred years hence will find invaluable as representing not, indeed, the whole truth, but that selection of truth visible to one individual. For, in spite of the fact that chapter and verse can be produced for nearly ever^ state- ment that he makes in reviewing the morals and tempera- ment of the age, the reader has an unpleasant suspicion that similar chapters and verses could be produced for precisely opposite statements. Society, unfortunately, no more than the individual, can be labelled " Good," " Bad," " Selfish," " Altruistic," since it is all these things simul- taneously. (One must hasten to add in parenthesis, how- ever, that Mr Masterman is most engagingly explicit as to his own limitations as an individual.) The historian of the future, therefore, will be well advised if, together with this very gloomy picture of twentieth century society, he studies also some, at present unwritten, book, by, let us say, Mr Chesterton, showing that our morals are ex- cellent, our religion firm and unwavering, and our altru- ism unexceptionable. And, if he adds the two together, he will come to the conclusion that the reign of Ed- ward VII was exceedingly like the reign of Edward VI, and Edward I, and William the Conqueror; and that human nature is always much about the same in all ages and countries. Especially gloomy is Mr Masterman on the subject of religion. We have no faith left, neither have
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The East End of Europe
we even the foil of infidelity; we are just ephemeral dilettanti. It is curious that he has no remarks to offer on the future of Catholicism in England, which, in Mr Wells's opinion (whom he quotes frequently), is on the verge of a vast revival. It is the author's ambition to con- ceal his own views — whether they are those " of Free Trade or Protection, of Socialist or Individualist, of Pagan or Christian." Yet his views are none the less apparent, regarded at the angle from which he looks; and, indeed, it is humanly impossible that it should not be so. But when will historians learn that history written with- out bias becomes nothing but a list of dates, more or less imperfect ? The book, of course, is pleasantly written, it is interesting, and it is excellently printed and produced.
B.
TO " tell the truth and shame the devil " was the advice given to Mr Allen Upward by the late Ambas- sador at Constantinople. Mr Upward does not in his recent book (The East End of Europe. John Murray) happily make a claim it would be impossible to substantiate, that so great a diplomatist as Sir Nicholas O'Conor allowed him to know whether they saw the controversies with which he deals from at all the same standpoint. The value of the advice was moral, and the advantages of candour, both to friend and opponent and to the general reader, are cer- tainly evidenced in the East End of Europe.
" A visitor in Rumelia," writes Mr Upward, " may be Philhellenic or Bulgarophile, but he cannot be both." Mr Upward's opinions might carry more weight if he were more impartial in stating the case between the Bul- garian and the Greek and the overruling Turk, but there is a good deal to be gained from the views of a biassed partisan, who, while omitting nothing that tells for his own side, confesses that he is an advocate and does not persuade us that he has summed up the whole case.
The "Historical Outline," of some fifty pages, which opens the book is very clear and interesting, and the dedi- cation has a fine touch of true feeling and literary art. The East End of Europe is dedicated to the memory of one
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who sacrificed his best years, his leisure and his health to the great questions with which the book attempts to grapple: "In Memory of Sir Nicholas R. O'Conor, for many years Ambassador of Great Britain at Constanti- nople, who died on the eve of the fulfilment of his hopes for the regeneration of Turkey."
S.
IN a volume of more than usual interest {Dieu et V A gnostic isme Contemporain. Paris: Gabalda. pp. xx, 416, 8vo. 3fr. 50c.) M. Georges Michelet, Professor at the Institut Catholique of Toulouse, has published the results of his studies in modern religious thought bearing upon the origin of religion and the source of our knowledge of God. The subject is a living one, and the solutions offered manifold. These solutions are each in turn exa- mined in their authors' mental context, their strong and weak points noted, and the reasons for not accepting the conclusions as final, firmly developed.
The first part of the book is concerned with the " Var- ieties of Contemporary Agnosticism," as manifested in present-day thinkers, grouped as belonging to the Socio- logical, Pragmatist and Immanentist schools. The second part (pp. 313-416) is concerned with the positive teaching of Scholastic Philosophy on the source, process and char- acter of our natural knowledge of God; and with the difficulties raised against the " Intellectualist " position by philosophical, scientific, and critical writers. To those who have been watching the signs of the times it will come as no surprise that he has assigned the first place to the efforts of the young Sociological School (founded in 1 898 by M. Durkheim) to solve the problem presented by the existence of religion in the human race: the data of an- thropology and ethnology, which of recent years have been accumulating so rapidly, have found sociological workers who undertake to interpret for thinkers the meaning of the masses of material which it needs a specialist to sift ; man- uals of the History of Religion and Studies in Comparative Religion are multiplying in this country, and in them the conclusions of the Sociological school reign supreme. In
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L'Agnosticisme Contemporain
one sense they are most sympathetic: they emphasize the importance of the study of religion ; but they effect a com- plete revolution in the way of stating the problem and of solving it. To religion are applied the methods of the positive sciences. The deductive method is to be replaced by the inductive. Religion is no longer to be linked with psychology but with history. No further need of psycho- logical analysis ; religion is an expansion of social life, and is essentially a social fact ; it springs from and terminates in the social group, and hence the necessity of seeking from the science which investigates social laws the real explanation of religious facts. A strenuous attempt is made to set forth, as proved by facts, a solution which in reality is imposed from without by a philosophical system; and M. Michelet does good work by insisting upon the im- portance of testing at the outset the philosophical value of the hypothesis which they thus seek to accredit by the accumulation of facts gathered from all races and ages.
M. Michelet's study of Professor William James's Var- ieties of Religious Experience (pp. 71-183) is distinguished by the calm judiciousness with which he points out the dangers into which the American Psychologist's method tends to lead him, emphasizing the tendency to allow the study of mental pathology to replace psychology; the tendency to overlook the interior life and to link the sim- pler forms of psychological experience with experiences termed religious, with the implication that the latter have no specifically differentiating elements. At the same time he is most generous in his recognition of the good work done by Pragmatism in reacting against Idealism, and in protesting in the name of what interests all men against the abtruse technical jargon in which " Philosophy " was being hidden. There follows a valuable study and criti- cism of the doctrine and method of Religious Immanence as expounded by such writers as Sabatier, Menegoz, Reville, Loisy, De Broglie, Blondel, Laberthonniere, Le Roy; while maintaining the fundamental unsoundness of their system, he does full justice to the measure of truth they rightly emphasize. The book concludes with a par-
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ticularly able sketch of the psychological basis of the Scholastic teaching on the origin of our natural knowledge of God; full of insight and discriminating analysis, and characterized, as is the rest of the work, by a thorough acquaintance with the best recent literature on the sub- ject. The book is a valuable one for all who would think aright on the fundamental truths of Theism, and who wish to read a well-balanced criticism of contemporary Philosophical thought by a Catholic thinker who has taken the trouble to master the systems he criticizes.
E.M.
AN interesting report of the work of the Benedictine Commission for revising the Vulgate {Revision of the Vulgate: a Report. St Anselm's, Rome. 1909), has just been published. Pius X takes special interest in the labours of the Commission. The work before the Commissioners con- sists in determining the text of St Jerome's Latin Transla- tion, made in the fourth century, and of which different versions have been in use ever since — not in correcting his translation, which would (it is pointed out) be difficult, seeing that St Jerome had recourse to documents even then considered ancient, but now wholly obsolete.
The first step in the investigation is to collect the various Biblical manuscripts in the chief libraries of Europe and compare them with the Clementine version, and for that purpose an exhaustive examination of the European Libraries is now in progress. For the purposes of the colla- tion the Commission have determined to print a copy of the version now in use, without stops or capitals of any sort (in order to make it as much as possible like a manu- script) and with large margins on each side so that the reviser might, on comparing it with the manuscript about to be collated, reproduce all the important features of that document by correcting the print as on a proof sheet. The three versions of the Psalms made by St Jerome have already been dealt with. The Romana and Gallicana versions have been printed on the same sheet — one version on each side — and the matter common to both in the middle, so that the reviser may compare the two at a
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Biology and its Makers
glance. The third (the Itald) has been dealt with separ- ately.
A certain number of libraries have been already visited by the Commissioners, and the Latin Biblical texts found in them copied; and already six or seven important col- lations have been collected at St Anselm's (the head- quarters of the Commission). When other collaborations have been made they will be sent to St Anselm's and bound up with the collection already formed.
In determining the country from which the MSS came, and the influences to which they were subjected, the Cap- itulas, or tables of contents are of great use. Many of these Capitulas, which differ considerably, have been collected, and a table has been drawn up giving the best known "incipits " of each book. This table has already been com- pared with a vast number of Capitulas found in the Bibles of many European libraries.
"Let us now praise famous men" —
Men of little showing — For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continueth,
Greater than their knowing!
MR. KIPLING'S lines might well serve as the motto of Professor Locy's work {Biology and its Makers. George Bell and Sons: London. 1908. Price 10s. 6d. net), in which the non-biological reader, if he adventures on the pleasant task of reading it, will be introduced to a number of persons whose very names are wholly unknown to him, yet whose work, " greater than their knowing," has helped to revolutionize the scientific ideas of the world. Every- body has heard of Darwin, and some have even read his works, or parts of them. Everybody has heard of Huxley, but how many persons could say whether Vesalius was a man, a wine, or a cheese? Yet the legacy of Vesalius — who died at the age of forty-eight — which he left to science is a far greater one than any which the executors of Huxley could lay claim to. Similarly, most persons have heard of Linnaeus and even of Cuvier, but
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who, save biologists, have heard of Vicq d'Azyr, of Fabri- cius ab Aquapendente, of Meckel, of a score of other giants of science? Of these and many others and of their services to science much may be read in Professor Locy's work, and we welcome it as a useful addition to scientific literature, and, on the whole, a very fair and just contri- bution to that subject.
We cannot agree that the passage " the vital processes which take place in all animals and plants have been shown to be physico-chemical, and, as a consequence, one must go both to physics and to chemistry in order to under- stand them " (p. 4), is one which can be accepted with- out considerable reservations. If it means that an infinite number of physico-chemical processes take place in the living organism, the statement is no doubt overwhelmingly true; but if it means that there is nothing else behind these processes, then the author wholly ignores the very great and very rapidly growing opinion to the contrary, which, especially in his own country and in Germany, but also in these islands, is sweeping away the materialistic views of the middle and late Victorian periods. Again, we are inclined to think that a further acquaintance with the history of the Universities, especially in Italy, during the much belied Middle Ages, and particularly some study of his fellow-countrymen — Professor J. J. Walsh's erudite works would have very considerably mitigated Professor Locy's opinion as to the black darkness of those ages of history. No doubt there was a good deal too much reliance on authority in scientific matters at that time; there were scientific conservatives then as there are now, for at the present day no one is so severely and unalterably conser- vative as your old-fashioned, thorough-going materialist; but that there was no real observation, no true investigation is not the case, though one would rather infer it from the work under review.
But with these exceptions, and, perhaps, a few others, we can highly commend the way in which the writer's task has been accomplished. The book is the work of one who is mainly a zoologist, but certain botanical points are well
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brought out, and we only pause over this matter to express regret that some corner could not be found for a note on the methods and valuable results obtained by the modern school of oecological botanists.
The chapter on the question of Biogenesis pleases us as much as any in the book, and strikes us as being a model of what an exposition of a difficult scientific question for non- scientific readers ought to be.
The chapters on Evolution are also admirably done, and might serve as a model for the rash — and usually ignorant — writers of epitomes of this subject. That the doctrine of transformism was not invented by Darwin; that many of his theories are discredited or discarded; all these things are fairly and squarely stated, and the views of St Augustine, of St Thomas Aquinas and of Suarez are also set out in an adequate manner.
Evolution " is not a theological question, as so many have been disposed to argue, depending upon theological methods of interpretation. It is not a question of creation through divine agencies, or of non-creation, but a ques- tion of method of creation " (p. 348), a method of putting the position which is very different from that which we so constantly meet in the windy little manuals which pass for introductions to science.
Again, the statement of the case with regard to Natural Selection is most judicial. The arguments for and against are fully put, and the conclusion arrived at is very much that which most persons who have fully thought out the matter have also arrived at, namely, that the agency in question, whilst an adjuvant to evolutionary processes, is that and nothing more, and is in no way an adequate explanation of that process. This, by the way, as the author points out, was very much Darwin's own view, though his commentators have not always been content to accept so modest a r61e for the process in question.
Respecting Haeckel, Professor Locy writes : " He has written widely for general readers, and although his writings are popularly believed to represent the best scientific thought on the matter, those written for the
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general public are not regarded by most biologists as strictly representative. As a thinker he is more careless than Huxley, and as a result less critical and exact as a writer " (p. 431). We have no doubt that this was placed on paper before the recent astounding revelations with regard to Haeckel's scientific methods had been made public.
The recapitulation theory "has received its most sweep- ing application in the works of Ernst Haeckel" (p. 230). It has, indeed! but how? By a system of " faked " dia- grams which have recently been exposed by a number of writers and characterized by Wilhelm His, one of the greatest embryologists who ever lived, as a " wanton tampering with facts." Those who are desirous of under- standing the methods of Haeckel will do well to study an article, entitled Scientific Forgeries, in the New Ireland Review (May, 1909), from the pen of E. Wasmann.
A word of praise must be given to the general get-up of the book, and especially to the very valuable series of illustrations which it contains, many of which are quite new to the present reviewer, who may yet claim to be fairly acquainted with portraits of scientific worthies. The author is to be congratulated on his success in secur- ing the many rare pictures of which copies are given in this book. To this statement, however, two exceptions must be made : the head of John Hunter, from the well- known picture by Reynolds (p. 145), is wholly inadequate, and the portrait of Owen (p. 161), is not much better.
B.C.A.W.
THE series of Textes et documents four V etude his- torique du C bristianisme, published under the direc- tion of two French Priests, H. Hemmer and Paul Lejay, has reached its eighth volume with the first part of St Justin's Dialogue. (Justin, Dialogue avec Tryphon, par Georges Archambault, directeur a l'ecole Fenelon. Tome 1. Paris: Picard. 1909. 360 pp. 3fr. 50c.) The remainder of the work is to follow shortly. The series consists of texts of the Fathers, in Greek or Latin, as the case may be, with French translation, notes, and full introductions. The
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Figures de Moines
volume before us shows both care and learning. The text is newly edited from the best of the only two manu- scripts of the Dialogue, and much new information as to this Codex is imparted, so that the introduction has an independent value for scholars, and is not intended for the general reader alone. The former volumes of the series include the apologies of Justin, the first four books of Eusebius's History, Tertullian's De paenitentia and De Pudicitia, his De Praescriptione, the Didache and Epistle of Barnabas, St Gregory Nazianzen's Funeral Oration of St Caesarius and St Basil, and the Catechetical discourse of St Gregory Nyssen, at a price varying from two to four francs. The names of MM. Hemmer and Lejay answer for the scholarly nature of the editing. Some five-and- thirty more volumes are promised. C.
M ERNEST DIMNET is well known as an Anglo- #phile, and the reader turns, therefore, instantly in his book {Figures de Moines. Perrin et Cie. 1909. price 3 fr. 50 c.) to the exquisite little chapter on " Les Benedictins Anglais de Douai," and is not disappointed. Here once more it is found how that which seems naturally to our- selves romantic and interesting, is interesting and romantic also to our sympathiser, who, as a cultivated and tender- hearted Frenchman, sees in us beauties and depths of which, with all our pride, we were unaware. It is a curious sensation, this regarding of ourselves as strangers and exiles in a delicately tinted foreign mirror.
Trois benedictins y etaient assis. . . . Aucun de ces hommes ne parlait. lis me regarderent quelque temps avec la fixite d'expression caracteristique de gens qui revent, ou qui se croient examines. De nouveau je sentis se reveiller le desir de penetrer dans Tame de ces hommes que leur origine, leur vocation et leur vie mettaient a part de tous ceux que j'approchais.
That is the touch of the bookthroughout. We accompany a warm-hearted, keen and mystical pilgrim to religious house after religious house. We see the buildings through a veil of suggestive history, under sunlight or cloud, we observe figures moving in their habits, and we not only
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" feel to rise within us the desire to penetrate into the souls of these men," but we do actually penetrate some distance, catch something of their point of view, and, in a certain sense, perhaps, understand a little of what they symbolize and for what they stand, better than they under- stand it themselves. Trappist and Benedictine and Car- thusian— they are all the same and all different. Each has his own life and method, but all appear as sentinels of an invisible city, whose sounds they hear without, and for which they live, its silent witnesses and slaves — a city vanishing ever more and more from the gross eyes of modern France, and, indeed, of modern Europe.
There are two chapters towards the end of the book on more external subjects: " Les Moines de Shakspeare " and " Lettres de Moines." But continually through the book we are reminded of that spiritual entente cordiale which Catholicism alone can bestow.
B.
AT a time when new universities are springing up on every side, and when university reconstruction is so much in the air, any well-considered treatise on the sub- ject, based upon real first-hand knowledge, deserves and is sure to obtain full consideration and recognition from those whose attention is directed to the problems of Higher Education. It would be hard to find any man better quali- fied to write on the subject than that distinguished ex- President of Harvard University who, if newspaper gossip is to be credited, might at this time be the ambassador from the United States to the Court of St James. Dr Eliot's work, University Administration, (London: Con- stable. 1909. price 6s. net) gives the ripe experience of a well-tried administrator, and is packed with practical hints of the highest value to those concerned in the task of uni- versity administration.
Like all other competent writers on the subject, he agrees that "the prime object of university methods of teaching to-day is to make the individual student think, and do something himself, and not merely to take in and re- member other people's thoughts; to induce the student to
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do some thinking and acting on his own account, and not merely to read about other people's doings " (p. 176). That is the object; we are all agreed upon that. But how is it to be achieved? Dr Eliot gives us his solution of the problem, and it need not be said that every word which he writes, and every piece of advice which he offers is well worthy of consideration.
But the university has not merely to educate the stu- dents who resort to it. It has also to commend itself nowa- days to the people in whose midst it is placed and upon whom, in the vast majority of cases, it must depend for some portion, perhaps indeed, for the greater part of its financial support.
" The University must accommodate itself promptly to significant changes in the character of the people for whom it exists." (p. 240.)
" If the industries of the State are developed in any par- ticular direction, as, for example, towards mining, or agri- culture, or forestry, or manufacturing, the University trustees will naturally endeavour to serve conspicuously the special industry of the State ; because a popular interest in the University thus aroused can be depended on to pro- mote enlargements in many other directions." (p. 19.)
" A college or university should be careful to offer facilities and gratifications to the residents of the place, such as interesting lectures open to the public, and muse- ums of art, history and archaeology, to keep the view of its grounds open from the outside and to give the use of its halls and grounds to the town or city on festival occa- sions." (p. 22.)
We cull these few suggestions on one particular point as an example, but only one of many which might have been selected, of the practical, common-sense attitude towards educational problems exhibited from cover to cover of this work.
We cannot refrain from noting one further point in con- nexion with the last of these quotations. Dr Eliot states and, as we think, truly, that " urban universities whose buildings are situated in compactly built streets can never
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exert on their students all the beneficial influences which suburban or rural universities can exert" (p. 23). That this is most abundantly true will be admitted by every person who is conversant with what is now going on in England, who has visited, and, perhaps, come away depressed by the crowded, factory-like edifices which serve as the homes of so many of the modern universities, and has contrasted them with the park-like surroundings of the older seats of learning, and who has, moreover, compared not only the character of the product turned out by the two kinds of institutions, but still more their attitude of mind towards their respective places of education.
One last word : the necessity for constantly overhauling and renewing University statutes is an obsession in some minds. Without denying that such may from time to time require attention and alteration, we should like to draw the notice of our readers to this one pregnant fact. " It is a curious and interesting fact that the university with the most fortunate organisation in the country is the oldest university, its principal governing board, the President and Fellows of Harvard College, consisting of seven men, who still act under the charter of 1650, in which no line or word has ever been changed." (p. 6.)
B.C.A.W. " A WHITE niche in a green studio," murmured /VGerald, " a statue all alive. Galatea ! Galatea of the Wheatfield " {Galatea of the Wheatfield. By M. E. Francis. Methuen. 6s.). And he thought he had kissed his Galatea (otherwise Tabitha) to life, had awakened his Sleeping Beauty from her dreams, when in truth they were neither of them awake to the great realities of life. The story of their dream, of the imaginary and the real awakening, is told with all M. E. Francis's unfailing charm. She relates how the young lover tried to transplant his wild flower and turn her into a hothouse bloom, and how in the end she had to go back to her wheatfield :
" It was a mistake from the very beginning," she went on, steadying her voice. " Do you remember that day in the dell, when the lark was singing, you said, * We are no longer boy and girl, but
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The Blue Bird
man and woman'? That was the mistake; we weren't man and woman — we were children. But we are man and woman now, and our eyes are opened at last ". . . .
For a moment or two they stood looking at each other, man and woman now in truth, and between them rose the ghosts of their dead selves — of the boy and girl who had kissed in the green hollow beneath the flowering thorn. Then with one accord they clasped hands and kissed for the last time, with deep sadness, as became two who stood by a grave.
Very living pictures there are in the book of Tabitha's family and life on the Dorset farm, and throughout we feel the country and draw in deep breaths of its clear air. And it is impossible not to regret that the old thorn tree was cut down and the dell filled up, though, thanks to Abel's care, the thorn tree, like Tabitha herself, blossomed again in the end.
M.W.
THE BLUE BIRD (Maurice Maeterlinck. Methuen. 3s. 6d.) rather falls between two stools, for, as a fairy play for children it is too elaborate, and the incidents are too elusive and monotonous to attract the child's attention, and as an allegory again the interest fails somewhat for the grown up reader from mere obviousness. The theme is that all material things have their own spirit, that every- thing in nature is the enemy of man who makes them serve his purpose. The Blue Bird is, of course, happiness, always escaping, never caught, or else losing its colour as soon as it is grasped. Light is the friend of the two children who represent men and women — likewise the dog alone of all animals, and they come to the rescue when the other creatures conspire for their ruin. To read, the play is rather confused, the scene seems overcrowded, and the events too many and monotonous. But if this is the impression given a great deal must be put down to the translation, which is so prosaic and bald that it probably obscures half the subtlety of the allegory. Bread, the con- ventionalist is an amusing character — also the cat Tylette, who is selfish and hypocritical, and never puts herself out to help the children in their difficulties.
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Taken singly, the scenes are often delightfully fantastic and mysterious. One wonders if Mr Maeterlinck has ever read the Phantastes of Mr George Macdonald, for the forest scene is very reminiscent of that. Then what does he mean by the scene where the children seek the Blue Bird among the Dead. Here the scene, at first gloomy, becomes flooded with light, the birds sing, the bees hum, and the graveyard is transformed into a fairy-like garden. " Stunned and dazzled, Tyltyl and Mytyl take a few steps among the flowers while they seek for the trace of the tombs.
Mytyl (looking in the grass) : Where are the dead?
Tyltyl (looking also) : There are no dead."
B.R.
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THE CATHOLIC DISABILITIES BILL
THE official report of the debate, which took place last May upon the second reading of Mr William Redmond's Bill for the Removal of Catholic Disabilities, is full of instruction regarding the attitude towards Catholicism of a certain proportion of our fellow coun- trymen. Of the seven speakers who addressed the House in opposition to the proposed repeal, there was not one who really attempted to traverse the arguments urged by its supporters — the Prime Minister, it will be remem- bered, being included amongst the latter. From first to last the objectors based their resistance almost undis- guisedly upon the contention that Catholicism was a menace to the safety of the Constitution, and that, con- sequently, it was well to maintain such barriers, however feeble and nugatory in themselves, as the various Relief Acts had hitherto spared. Reduced to its simplest terms, the opposition to the Bill amounted to this, that it was a good thing that Catholics should understand that they enjoyed their political rights only on sufferance and that they were, and always would be, objects of suspicion to their fellow citizens. If the Royal Declaration conveyed that truth a little brutally, tL e was no great harm, they hinted, in a rudeness that was founded on a deep and real feeling. We are not, of course, forgetting that those who recorded their votes in the same lobby with Mr William Moore and Mr Sloane did not necessarily endorse the arguments with which these champions had defended the extreme Protestant position, neither must it be forgotten that Mr Redmond's Bill included the repeal of certain clauses in the Emancipation Act affect- ing outdoor ceremonial and the Religious Orders as well as the proposal to abolish the existing Royal Declara- tion. But no one, we think, can read the debate without being satisfied that, so far as opponents of this Bill Vol. 145 225 15
The Catholic Disabilities Bill
proved anything, they proved, intentionally or not, that the Roman faith, was so justly an object of mis- trust that Catholic Emancipation ought never to have been conceded.
And herein, as we conceive, lies precisely the whole strength of the Catholic protest. The speeches delivered in support of the Bill covered a very wide range of ground and came from men who looked at the matter from many different points of view. But the underlying feeling, though not everywhere expressed in words, was always substantially the same. Why should a slur be affixed to the creed of Catholics by special denuncia- tions and disabilities such as are applied to no other religion or sect in the Empire ? It was admitted on both sides that these remnants of penal legislation, in so far as they were repressive, were not acted upon; it was not even suggested in terms that they ought to be acted upon — and for this degree of moderation on the part of extreme opponents we would not be thought ungrate- ful. No man ventured to say that the Emancipation Act of 1829, which gave the substance of liberty to Catholics, was ill-advised and ought to be repealed, and yet practi- cally half the members present declared by their votes that, though the substance had been already given, the shadow should still be withheld. The twelve million Catholic subjects of the British Empire must not be allowed to forget that they have long ago been branded as dangerous men. They are to bear in mind that, amongst anar- chists and socialists, atheists, idolaters and heathens, their opinions, and their opinions alone, are proscribed by name and subjected to penalties. No doubt the whip, which is the emblem of their bondage, is not intended to be used, but it is to be hung up in full view of all, that they may not for a moment suppose that they have been admitted to share the benefits of the British Consti- tution on terms of equality; and, lest, even thus, fami- liarity should induce complete oblivion, once at least, at the beginning of every reign, the whip is to be taken down and solemnly cracked in the presence of the repre-
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sentatives of Church and State. By such generous treatment will the young Catholics of Ireland and our Colonies learn to appreciate the benefits of British rule, to renounce all dreams of independence and avert their eyes from the temptation to seek religious freedom under another flag.
It is this fundamental unity of aim in removing what traces still remain in the British Constitution of a formal stigma upon Catholicism which makes the two parts of Mr Redmond's Bill homogeneous, and which renders it , yw^p ,w[\\ De cordially accepted by ed on similar lines. Of course, is a more serious grievance terance which survive in the - is this royal test derived from as we propose briefly to show, ing revived periodically with sovereign, it may be counted t source of friction and irri- 3 in its present form. But the the Declaration is conceived f the disfavour with which times over it was urged in the the Catholic grievance against ncere, because, in 1901, a modi- proposed by Lord Salisbury, ds, " superstitious and idola- :hanges in the same direction, w ■ v D tne Catholic peers. From this, d notably Mr McArthur, who ent on to infer that the repeal lply brought forward as a stalk- ing iiwxov. „x^ _ or object, and that that ulterior
object is the removal of the guarantee of the Protestant Succession in order to throw the throne open to Roman Catholics." Similarly, Dr Hazel, a jurist of some distinc- tion, in the last sentences spoken before the question was put, reiterated the same contention.
If Hon. Members [he said]who support this Bill are really in earnest and are really sincere in what they tell us, that all they desire is tore-
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The Catholic Disabilities Bill
move something in the nature of an insult which is contained in the Declaration, why, I ask again — and we have had no answer to it — if they are content to take out that part which contains the ob- noxious words, do they also insist on taking out that which alone secures that the Sovereign, in his personal belief, shall be a Pro- testant?
The course of the Bill before the Lords in 1901 was by no means so simple as this language seems to suggest. The Committee of Peers appointed to consider the subject not only contained no Catholic name but included no member of the Anglican episcopate, and the amended Declaration, as at first proposed, required the Sovereign to assert his belief " that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or of any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are contrary to the Protestant religion." It is, perhaps, one of the most astonishing illustrations upon record of the incapacity of the average Protestant lay- man to appreciate the Catholic point of view that a Committee, consisting of the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Argyll, and Lords Salisbury, Spencer, Cadogan, Crewe, Aberdeen, Dunraven and Tweedmouth, can seriously have supposed that such words would give no offence to their Catholic fellow countrymen. Even when further modified by the omission of the word " adoration," the Catholic peers withheld their support, first, because it was sufficiently plain that the Bill, in the divided state of Anglican opinion, had little chance of being accepted by the Lower House, and secondly, because any such direct repudiation of Catholic tenets implied an un- necessary slur upon the religion which they shared with so many millions of the King's subjects. If the Declara- tion were once modified there would be little prospect, they thought, of any fresh legislation for long years to come, whereas, if it were left for the present unchanged, there was every hope that some day before the Throne should again be vacated by death the subject would be tackled by Parliament in a more generous spirit. Apart from this, there is, we are convinced, no more desire among
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Catholics, to repeal the Act of Settlement and render it possible for a Catholic to become King of Great Britain and, consequently, head of the Church of England by law established, than there is to render it possible for a Catholic to become Archbishop of Canterbury. And surely it ought to be easy for the Sovereign to give a sufficient guarantee of his Protestantism without formally banning the convictions of one specified section of Ms subjects. One feels tempted to say that the religion of the Established Church must be a strange religion if its beliefs can only be defined by negations or anathemas.
Moreover, there is abundantly sufficient reason in the history of that form of Declaration which is here in question, why nothing short of its complete abrogation should satisfy those who have so long smarted under its effects. It is at any rate something to learn from the course of the debate, that the infamous origin of this Test, for Test it is, though, on account of the earlier Test of 1673 it was not commonly so called, is now generally understood by all parties. The form is one devised by the House of Commons in the first frenzy of the excitement caused by the pretended revelations of Titus Oates. It was framed with all its insulting repudiations of papal pardons and licenses to commit perjury, with the simple object of excluding Catholics from either House of Parlia- ment. Its immediate and practical effect regarded only the House of Peers. The Commons had already been purged of popery five years before by a much more compendious Test couched in the following terms :
I, A.B., do declare that I believe that there is not any Transub- stantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever.
This, when associated with the obligation of taking the Sacrament, might surely have been deemed suffi- cient to rid the Upper House of Papists, as it had already proved to be for the Lower. But, in the light of Oates' revelations, something more was judged to be needed,
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though the matter of papal dispensations had already been considered in the debates upon the former Test. In- deed, the terms in which the historian, Ranke, refers to this former Test of 1673, are not without interest.
The apprehension [he says] which Coventry expressed, and the universally prevalent wish to exclude the Catholics unconditionally from Parliament, led to the most memorable determination of this kind which has ever been taken: it was decided to make not only the taking of the Sacrament, but also the acceptance of a certain view respecting a transcendental doctrine connected therewith, the stamp and condition of any share in the legislative power of the Kingdom.
Ranke then explains that at the third reading of the Bill against the increase of Catholicism, in March, 1673, a member of the Commons named Harwood
proposed still to insert the proviso that in future no one should be admitted to any office or public position unless he abjured the doctrine of Transubstantiation and confessed that in the Sacrament merely the substance of bread and wine remained. Many opposed altogether this scholastic and ecclesiastical oath, others declared it useless to associate it with eligibility to Parliament, for the Catholic who took the Oath of Supremacy might also be brought to deny Transubstantiation. Coventry rejoined that he had gathered information on that point; for taking oaths like that of supremacy, the Pope could grant dispensation because they were forbidden by Papal Bulls, but the doctrine of transubstantiation was one of the articles of faith; from these the Pope could not absolve. There was a further change made in the words . . . but there was no objection taken to the main point, since what was wanted was once for all a distinction between Protestants and Catholics; there was no other to be found from which a dispensation could not be obtained.*
Despite this information about the papal dispensing power, which, allowing for some awkwardness of expres-
* Ranke, History of England, hi, p. 539. Ranke, perhaps, attributes a too predominating voice to Sir William Coventry. Col. Strangeways also made a speech, thus summarised by Grey: "You are now making distinction between Protestant and Papist. A criterion you must have. The Pope will never dispense with doctrinal points; with human laws of the Church he can. I think that this test will puzzle all priests and Jesuits." 11, p. 99.
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sion, corresponded fairly enough with the facts,* Oates, in his information given before the Commons on Octo- ber 24, 1678, positively deposed upon oath against Mr Wilde, a member of the House :
That Mr Wilde had a dispensation to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test, the better to enable him to get an interest among Parliament men for the Catholics and to be a justice of the peace and Deputy Lieutenant, and that he had Mass said in his house.t
As this information was laid at the very time that the Bill which contains our Declaration and which was entitled, "An Act for the more effectual preserving of the King's Person and Government by disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament," was under dis- cussion in the Commons, the members, no doubt, believed that the Pope did issue dispensations from the Test of 1673 and consequently tried to make it more effective by introducing such terms as " idolatrous " and " super- stitious " and by appending all the grotesque verbiage about papal dispensations which the Sovereign has to repeat to-day. In any case, this Declaration now exacted from the Sovereign as a test of his Protestantism, is, word for word, identical with the profession which was framed in the frenzied excitement of 1678 to exclude the Catholic Lords from Parliament and from all access to the Court. When that Test was drafted it was intended to be taken by all men of mark, excepting only the King. Even the hysterical no-Popery leaders during Oates' reign of terror stopped short of such an outrage upon royalty. By a strange irony of fate it has come about that after the Sovereign was required by the Bill of Rights to make the same profession of Protestantism which was at first
* The lawfulness of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance was to some extent matter of controversy. There were those who maintained that they could be construed in a sense not at variance with Catholic teach- ing. None the less, the popes had condemned them and prohibited Catholics to take them. But this prohibition might be withdrawn by the same authority which had imposed it.
t Grey, Debates, vol. vi, p. 1 1 6, note.
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exacted of all his Parliament and officers,* the King is now the only person who is subjected to an ordeal almost as primitive in its brutality as the E-fumi, or ceremony of trampling upon the crucifix, which the Japanese at one period required of every stranger suffered to land upon their shores.
Neither must it be supposed that this ignoble origin of the Declaration is merely a discovery of the last few years. As far back as 1687 Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, an unpopular man, no doubt, and suspected of Papistry, because he had found favour with James II, but still a man declared by the Dictionary of National Bio- graphy to have been loyal to his own Church, published his tract entitled, Reasons for abrogating the Test imposed upon all Members of Parliament, anno 1678. In this he does not scruple to speak in the clearest terms of the tainted source from which the Declaration had sprung.
Secondly, the Test [imposed upon all members of Parliament] ought to be repealed because of its dishonourable birth and original; it being the first-born of Oates's Plot and brought forth on purpose to give credit and reputation to the perjury.
Now I should think when the villainy of this is so laid open to the world, it should not a little concern the honour of the nation, but very much concern the honour and wisdom of the House of Peers, to deface so great a monument erected by themselves in honour of so gross an imposture.
It is shame enough to the present age to have given any public credit to so enormous a cheat, and the greatest kindness it can do itself is to destroy, as much as may be, all the records of acts done by the Government to abet it.
Bishop Parker says more to the same effect, and in another place he speaks of the " Oatesian villainy of which this Test was the first sacrament." Seeing that all this was printed within ten years of the passing of the Act, and that Parker's Reasons called up a troop of contradictors,
* The reigning sovereigns William and Mary, it will be noticed, were never subjected to this indignity. It was only provided by the Act that future sovereigns should give this guarantee of their sincerity.
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John Phillips, Milton's nephew, amongst the number, it becomes interesting to consider the treatment accorded to the particular argument just quoted. For the most part the replies leave it severely alone. Phillips, for example, though he had been closely associated with Oates, ignores it altogether. Of the others the following may serve as a specimen.
Now let us suppose [the writer answers] that the plot was Oatesian and that the whole of it was a perfect imposture; yet why must the Test suffer for those miscarriages? ... A law may be continued for better and, perhaps, juster reasons, than those for which it was first enacted. Indeed, 'tis ill manners to fall foul upon anything for the faults of its production. The reflection would come home to him [the Bishop of Oxford], for even some men have been so unhappy in their extraction that they would deserve but little esteem if the blemishes of their birth were always re- membered.*
This seems to be an inuendo directed against Parker's father, who had been a Puritan in the service of Crom- well. Another opponent waives the question of origin, but implies that having once been adopted as a test, the Declaration must remain, quoting:
Turpius expellitur quam non admittitur hospes.t
It is plain that these writers did not see their way to call in question the fact that the new Test really was inspired by Oates. What is equally clear from contem- porary references is that, from the first, sincere men found a difficulty in pronouncing the Mass idolatrous. In the extremely interesting collection of letters now being pub- lished by the Historical Manuscripts Commission under the title, Ormond Papers, we have a despatch written by Sir Robert Southwell, in London, to the Duke of Ormond, on November 16, 1678, while the measure was still under discussion in the Lords. After describing the intense feeling on the subject in the Commons, and their determination
* J Letter to a Person of Quality, 1 688, p. 5.
t The Reasonableness of the Church of 'England'' 's Test. London, 1688.
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that the Lords must be compelled at all costs to pass the new Declaration contained in the Bill, Southwell remarks :
This Test has, it seems, some new clause about idolatry or adoration, which did so far stumble the Archbishop [Sancroft], the Bishop of Rochester, and the Bishop of Ely, that they voted against the Test.
Similarly we read in Evelyn's Diary, about the same period :
I went with Sir William Godolphin, a member of the Commons House to the Bishop of Ely (Dr Peter Gunning) to be resolved whether Masses were " idolatry " as the Test expressed it, which was so worded that several good Protestants scrupled, and Sir William, though a learned man and excellent divine, himself had some doubts about it. The Bishop's opinion was that he might take it, though he wished it had been otherwise worded in the Test.*
The same point was raised in the pamphlet literature of the times, for example, in Henry Care's Draconic a. He writes thus :
In the other Test of the 30 Car. 2, it has been shrewdly urged by a late writer whether all Protestants especially those of the Church of England (which grants a Real Presence in the Sacrament only declines to determine the manner, and which delights both to call her ministers Priests, her Communion Table an Altar, and practises bowing towards it and enjoins receiving kneeling), it may, I say, be a question whether all her sons can, satisfactorily to their own consciences, take such a Test as that wherein they must solemnly, and in the presence of God, testify and declare that they do believe that there is not any Transubstantiation, etc., and that the sacrifice of the Mass, as now used in the Church of Rome, is idolatrous. For a man may be far from believing Transubstantia- tion, or thinking the Sacrifice of the Mass warrantable; and yet scruple to swear that there is not any such thing as the one, or that the other is formally idolatrous. t
Care was a man of no weight and though he never pretended to be a Catholic, his motives were open to
* Evelyn, Diary, ed. 1850, 11, p. 127. The Sir William Godolphin here mentioned does not seem to be identical with the Sir William Godolphin who was English Ambassador in Spain, and who, becoming a convert, lived on and died there as a Catholic.
t Henry Care, Draconka, 2nd ed, 1687, p. 32.
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suspicion, but what he says here is good sense in itself, and is based by him upon the argument of some earlier writer. He may possibly be referring to William Penn, the Quaker, or to the author of a pamphlet entitled The Reasonableness of Toleration, who, for example, remarks :
As little reason is there to enforce this Test upon the Papists when we know that many of our own persuasion would scruple to take it, and some so nice as absolutely to refuse it. At least it is very severe to compel such as are young and unlearned (for all are not casuists that enter the Parliament House or have preferment in the Kingdom) to swear that such an opinion or doctrine is not true, which they have always been bred up to from their infancy.*
It is well known that Dr Johnson, when Boswell, trying to elicit his views upon Catholicism, once ventured to refer to the "idolatry of the Mass," replied, sharply: " Sir, there is no idolatry in the Mass. They believe God to be there, and they adore Him." Supposing Johnson to have acted consistently with this view, it would have been impossible for him to make the Declaration. We may fairly infer that a test which excludes such a typical Churchman as Samuel Johnson, cannot be regarded as satisfactory.
And this, to return now to the debate of last May, seems to be before all others the practical question, and also one of considerable difficulty. If the present Declara- tion be abolished, what is to be substituted for it ? A test apparently there must be, to guarantee the Protestantism of the head of the State. It is curious, certainly, that amongst those who most resolutely insist upon the reten- tion of this Protestant Declaration are to be found many Nonconformist divines, who cannot endure the thought of any religious pledge being exacted from teachers. No tests for teachers but a test for kings seems somewhat in- consistent as a principle of politics. But we are dealing here not with abstractions, but with facts, and the trouble is to find any formula which, while giving every security for the genuineness of the Protestantism of the Sovereign who
* The Reasonableness of Toleration, etc. London: 1687, p. 36. Cf. A New Test for the Church of 'England 's Loyalty. June, 1687, p. 8.
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takes it, nevertheless abstains from any invidious rejection of the specific doctrines of the Catholic Church. It was stated, or at least implied, by more than one of the oppo- nents of Mr Redmond's Bill, that nothing but a repudia- tion of Catholic dogma would serve, because it was so extremely difficult to determine what a Protestant was. Mr William Moore, for example, declared that this was " the only touchstone to apply to the conscience of the candidate to see that he came up to the statutory descrip- tion of Protestant," and he asserted:
It has been proved in our experience of the last seven or eight years in this House, that the only way you can test the opinion of the successor to the Throne is by putting to him in some form — make it as little offensive as you can — this Test. I do not see how you can alter what we have got. We have here the form which must be one of repudiation of the essential differential doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.
The difficulty does not appear to us so obvious, and we venture to offer a practical suggestion, which seems to supply a guarantee to which no reasonable Protestant can take exception. Mr Redmond's Bill proposed to replace the Protestant Declaration by a form of oath already existing in the Coronation service, in which the Sovereign promises " to maintain and preserve inviolably the Settlement of the Church of England and the doctrine, worship, discipline and government thereof, as by law established in England." This, however, was rejected as insufficient by various critics, on the ground, mainly, that " the terms are ambiguous." " The words of the Corona- tion Oath," said one speaker, Mr Boulton, do not go to the extent of saying, " I am not a Roman Catholic ! " " The King might easily subscribe to that [the Coronation Oath]," objected Mr McArthur, " and yet be eligible as a Roman Catholic." Still more explicitly Mr William Moore contended in the course of a detailed argument, " I do say this, that if you construe that amendment sentence by sentence, there is nothing in it which a loyal Roman Catholic — I mean one loyal to his own Church — could not take, and at the same time support his own
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Church, just as James II supported the Established Church of the realm."
Let us admit, at least for argument's sake, that there is a certain reasonableness in this and that the wording of the Coronation Oath, taken by itself, does not afford a sufficient pledge of the Sovereign's Protestantism. But if the main thing required is security that the king is not a Papist in disguise, it is easy to supply an absolutely infall- ible guarantee that the sovereign holds no communion with the Church of Rome. Let it be required that either on the occasion of his Coronation or before that date, the new monarch must receive the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England, and that upon meeting his first Parliament he not only takes the Corona- tion Oath as Mr Redmond's Bill proposes, but also gives a solemn undertaking to receive Communion as prescribed. If the real object of Mr Redmond's opponents is to ex- clude from the throne those who own allegiance to the Pope, this test is absolutely sufficient and infallible. Under no circumstances could the Pope grant a dispensa- tion for that sort of communicatio in sacris which is in- volved in partaking of the Lord's supper in a Protestant Church. If the champions of Protestantism doubt it, let them submit the question publicly or privately to any Roman theologian or body of theologians. We are con- vinced that the answer would be such as to satisfy any person who was capable of listening to argument at all.
The guarantee afforded by such a reception of the Sacrament is quite as satisfactory as that involved in the repetition of any form of words. James II promised to maintain the rights of the Church of England, and he accepted consecration at the hands of a Protestant Arch- bishop, but he did not communicate at his Coronation ceremony, he and King John being the only English monarchs of whom this is recorded. So far as Roman Catholicism goes, the test we propose is entirely decisive, but we fear that it is not only Roman Catholic opinions but English Catholic opinions also that the opponents of the Bill are anxious to exclude from the throne. If this be
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indeed so, as we very strongly suspect it is, it must be con- fessed that our case is peculiarly hard. As Lord Edmund Talbot said in the course of the debate with admirable point :
It is sometimes suggested that the retention of this Declaration is now insisted upon by a section of the Church of England, not so much against my co-religionists as against another section of the Church of England. I respectfully demur to my faith being used as a handle for one section of another religious community to beat another section of the same, and I would suggest that some better means should be devised by which the Church of England should settle its own quarrels.
Finally, with regard to the form of guarantee just sug- gested, we can only say that if English public opinion shrinks from the violence that might be done to the con- science of the Sovereign by requiring him to receive the Sacrament in the Church of which he is the official head, the violence done to his possible convictions by the present Declaration is of a kind still more to be deprecated.
HERBERT THURSTON.
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MARIA EDGEWORTH & ETIENNE DUMONT.
TO reflect that Maria Edgeworth's peaceful life ended as peacefully in 1849, and deliberately to attempt to throw a fresh search-light upon it, may well seem daring to rashness. Three admiring biographers have painted pleasant pictures of eighty-two years, of a sunny con- tentment sweetening them more, even, than the long sequence of literary successes; for was ever another author at once so famous and so happy? Miss Helen Zimmern has fittingly placed her in the Eminent Women Series; Miss Lawless deserves our gratitude for a brilliantly written, but all too brief, appreciation; and Augustus Hare has allowed his subject to speak for herself in the Life and Letters to a degree as rare as it is admirable.
Yet, on a fortunate rose-scented summer morning, it seemed to me as if I met the real Maria Edgeworth for the first time, for all her shy reticence. Geneva is still waiting for the adequate biography of that great law-maker, Etienne Dumont, for which one who has already achieved the difficult task of an ideal chronicle of delightful Topff er, is leisurely amassing materials. He, all unwittingly, was the true finder of this other Maria Edgeworth, so much more interesting than the familiar, sedate, small woman "qui se perdait dans votre triste utilite," according to Madame de Stael, who did not lay herself open to that accusation in the lover-haunted exile which made Coppet a sort of " Pays du tendre."
" We have lately acquired a number of letters from your Maria Edgeworth to our Dumont, bequeathed to a mem- ber of his family." That remark stirred its hearer from restful contemplation of a broad, beautiful view, backed by Saleve as by a rampart, to face the ordeal of braving the heat, going down to the Museum, and joining two workers and an irritating band of idle flies in the airless little Salle des Manuscripts, there, with a posy of lemon-scented verbena, where its perfume mingled with something
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subtler and quite as sweet, to con over a pile of papers — all written in English, one blotted with many tears — mostly in the well-known elegant writing, with scanty punctuation, and occasionally something of the spelling we now condemn as American; a few in the big, loose- jointed screed of Mr Edgeworth, "bouncing in," as the irritated Byron described him on another occasion, alas, too often, to dictate pages of platitudes to his extra- ordinary daughter.
To look at the fine Reynolds engraving of Madame Meunier Romilly's portrait of Dumont is to seem in the presence of one whose keen, clear eye proclaims him as remarkable as he was, a man sacrificing his own notable individuality to a singular and noble preference for being a sort of cup-bearer to what he considered genius. He began life as a pastor, went to the French Church at St Petersburg, and at once proved his quality by an eloquence so brilliant that the Empress Catherine and Prince Potem- kin listened with edifying admiration to an animadversion against " Selfishness." Catherine, in the character of sermon-taster, like the inimitable widow in A Window in Thrums, is a novelty; but she probably did not sustain it after Dumont was commanded to Berlin to give the same discourse before the King of Prussia. For some unex- plained cause, there were no more pulpit triumphs, and shortly afterwards Lord Shelburne engaged him as tutor in that family where he was at once placed on a perma- nently intimate and affectionate footing.
His life, indeed, was a veritable romance of friendship from the day when he and Sir Samuel Romilly swore eternal brotherhood, like a pair of German students, to that beginning his singular devotion to Jeremy Bentham, for which the world owes a definite debt of gratitude. How much of Dumont there was in Bentham's work we shall never know; but the Conversations with Mirabeau, pub- lished after his death, prove conclusively that he acted as " ghost " to the Demosthenes of the French Revolution, and that he was the actual author of many of the most belauded passages of the famous speeches.
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It is essential to see Dumont clearly in order to com- prehend the enthusiasm — there is no other possible word — he excited in the well-balanced mind of the moralist of "Purple Jars," and other cruelties to children. He is in- variably making a modest effort to conceal himself behind some great shadow, invariably being thrust into promi- nence by others, with an urgency arguing him charming. London was his home by adoption, but it was in Paris, in 1802, that he first met the Edgeworths at Madame Pas- touret's, where was also Madame Gautier, " handsome and not at all naked " — a real distinction just then — for whom Rousseau had written the letters on botany. " Mon- sieur Dumont, a Swiss gentleman travelling with Lord Henry Petty, very sensible and entertaining," notes Maria Edgeworth in her enumeration of the company, not per- ceiving that the pleasant evening of " good talk " and " excellent cakes " was a turning point in her career.
Thirty-six, " always well dressed," " well-looking, if not handsome," according to Byron, surely no despicable authority, bearing no resemblance to the ridiculous ac- cepted portrait we know now to have been a sheer flight of American imagination, she was busy in this same event- ful year with her Swedish Chevalier. We have been told rather too often that Leonora was a tribute to the sole lover who officially pressed " hand and heart " on the talented little lady, and it has been alleged that she was deeply in love, and faithful for the rest of her days to his apparently perfidious memory. It is authentic that, like her own Belinda, she had " to struggle against depression"; but did it continue? Was it true that she could never hear the word " Sweden " without emotion? or did her ex- cellent stepmother, last of that bright band, exaggerate the eternal feminine pleasure in echoing Sir Andrew Ague- cheek's " I was adored once " ? Dumont clearly never viewed the rapidly ripening friendship sentimentally. That an unlucky Russian romance closed that chapter of his full life, his rather lazy neglect to visit Edgeworths- town sufficiently attests.
But in turning over the yellowed sheets, and deleting Vol. 145 241 16
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their excess of politics, and of her father — " toujours le noir geant qui fume a Phorizon " — surely the experienced eye will find very pretty traces of something like an " Amour d'Autornne," of which the writer herself, so innocent in such matters, despite the " Presbyterian Cu- pid " of her novels, is winningly unconscious. She says in a published letter to a female friend, " I do not carry on what is called a regular correspondence with anybody but one or two of my nearest relations, and it is best to tell you the plain truth, that my father particularly dislikes to see me writing letters, and therefore I write as few as I possibly can."
What, then, are we to think of postscripts " en con- science," and a bold "Please do not show this to anybody," addressed to those bachelor quarters in the Haymarket whence Dumont fared forth nightly to shine as a fixed star in the best intellectual society? It all ended in one of the usual Dumont friendships; but if there had been any question of hands and hearts, it seems probable Geneva might have added one more to her list of adopted celeb- rities. Is it unfair to unfold these letters she was so anxious to have burnt, from which she emerges engagingly differ- ent because so very womanly? May it not be forgiven, since the grass has so long been as green on her grave as the laurels of her lifetime, a little dusty now?
The first letter, in 1805, is in her writing, but we can hear the " tireless and endless " Mr Edgeworth sonor- ously dictating his invitation on the grounds that " A large family fond of literature and some of them known in its republic who live from choice in retirement is a spec- tacle you nor Lord Henry can often see." Number two — on foolscap, appropriately enough — says truly, " I have written a volume not a letter," and quite accounts for the poor secretary's weak eyes.
" Jove ordains it that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his wealth away."
is the opening shot. Then come minute comments on Dumont's edition of Bentham, and notes of admiration
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for his boldness in differing from Rousseau. " You have put the matter in a new light by showing that security may produce equality, but that equality cannot produce security." He majestically approves Dumont's opposition to the Rousseau theory against plays, backed by sound statistics that Paris was more criminal when the theatres were closed in Lent. " Fashion is a deity over whom the legislator has no control and who laughs at the moralist," is a fine Edgeworthian flourish, and he is condescending in saying, " I like your idea of selling tea and coffee against spirituous liquors but fear they are no match for each other in this country." Then Mr Edgeworth thrashes out the duelling question, and the " conduct of gentlemen in England in open defiance of the law of the land." He quotes a case of an officer who had to resign his commission be- cause he would not fight, and adds that " king and judge held diametrically opposite opinions." Next, like " Gen- eral B.," that arch-bore of the bores of Leonora, he is very virtuous on divorce, and very moral on imprudent mar- riages— a subject on which he assuredly had a right to speak. He branches off to the telegraph, and his own share in that invention; boasts that there are " no poor laws in Ireland, and no country where filial affection is more respected"; mentions with commendation a Dumont obiter dictum that, "Quand le langage du sentiment est juste, on peut toujours le traduire en celui de la raison "; proves himself a press corrector in pointing out an amusing printer's error — " bouillir " instead of " batir la maison " — and so on. One sees the patient Maria, in curls and a short-waisted muslin gown, taking it all down with the utmost gravity, even when it deals with her half-brother Sneyd as " a young man of uncorrupted morals," for all the world like Alfred Percy in Patronage.
" As her Father's secretary," Dumont's " obliged ser- vant Maria Edgeworth " writes on August 7, 1807, " with much respect," an invitation for " some months," and promises " an apartment where you could enjoy learned leisure," underlining these last words with a reckless disregard of the severe remarks of Mr Henry Tilney. But
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her crowning inducement is clearly: " My Father is also engaged in a work on education and your literary conver- sations would be advantageous and agreeable." No idle visitors, " As we endeavour to cultivate friendship not acquaintance." There is not one word of herself here, and Dumont did not come. It may well be that he feared those " advantageous conversations," all the world having smiled at the Edgeworthian weakness of talking "straight through," and taking his daughter's tales " out of her mouth."
One other letter from the indefatigable parent, in his own hand, has an interesting point to justify a pause, for it proves that it was Dumont who actually suggested the extremely successful and lucrative Tales of Fashionable Life. " J'aurais voulu faire un conte sur chacun des fausses manieres de raisonner en morale et en legislature sur les causes d'antipathie etc. Les gens du monde ont besoin d'etre instruits comme des enfants." "You have opened a noble and vast field to her, practicable paths she would do her best to make attractive to common passengers," is the comment.
In the same letter Mr Edgeworth thoroughly unjustly blames that non-existent quality, " Maria's laziness," for certain errors in press correction in Belinda, and assures Dumont that he could give chapter and verse for " the female duel and the pigs and turkies " attacked as im- probable. He sternly condemns historical novels " as giv- ing to truth all the disadvantages of fiction," makes a rather neat epigram as to a forgotten philosopher, " once a taper and now a snuff," and, touching the current scandal of the chemical Count Rumford's ill-treatment of his rich wife, rounds off with an amusing mention of a scene in Goldoni's Pamela Maritata, where the Lord Mayor of London comes in to settle a family dispute.
Then, on the same sheet, the secretary writes for her- self, with refreshing change of style, and without any formal beginning :
That poor Comtesse Rumford has she been beaten or is she beaten, has she bought her separation from the philosophic tyrant
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or is she still bargaining for her liberty? I hear Scott is at work on another poem in which I am told by some that Scotch and Irish legends are to be blended. At all events I hope it will be free from the papillotage with which you justly reproach the " Lady of the Lake." How much excellent criticism Mr Scott has called forth, and how much service his poems are to the public even from this point of view.
Here speaks the triste utiliti with a vengeance ; the poet singing that the critic may prosper, is a " nice derange- ment of epitaphs." Then she goes on :
Will you tell me why people are so apt to get angry on meta- physical subjects? Why to doubt is so often accounted criminal? And what are all those terrible dangers with which Mr Stewart alarms his readers? I wish the world had no dangers to fear but what Tooke's Etymologies might produce.
She thanks Dumont very prettily for kindness to brother Sneyd, ready for his first circuit, and more like Alfred Percy than ever. " Resolved to persevere to bear being nobody until he has the opportunity to prove he is some- body." Then there is a postscript: " Neither I nor any one in this house has fear of revenans when they are friends like you."
A tiny playful note on small paper, dated April 1 1,181 1, is full of very feminine excuses for writing at all.
But you need not answer it till you hear from my Father who is 100,000,000,000 more -prudent than I am. I wish you well through the purgatory of authors as some one has called the correction of proofs and again in their heaven original composition. / don't think you have a friend in the world who wishes more eagerly to see your new work. En conscience. Have you or have you not the least thought of coming to us next spring? — Maria E.
Then follow many letters full of dull dictated platitudes of which only the writing is interesting; one, in February, 1 8 10, in which Mr Edgeworth complains of Sydney Smith having " vented his gall and bladder on me " in his certainly severe attack on the Essays which had so marked a popular success. We can almost envy Mr Edgeworth the matchless, comfortable conceit which decides him that
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Sydney Smith was jealous because he had " preferred the society of Dugald Stewart at Edinburgh." Sir Walter Elliot, of Persuasion, could alone have thus found balm in Gilead for wounded vanity, and Maria adds more to the point : " My father who has just come home would not do anything till he had answered your letter. He has given me his pen and I use it to send you for the second edition of Essays on Practical Education an epigram given to us for the Edinburgh review of that book
S S who reviews by abusing and lying,
Says this volume is worth neither borrowing or buying But the world buys the book and finds out to his sorrow That he's eager to steal what he scrupled to borrow.
All these prosy letters reveal Dumont as such an in- dustrious proof corrector for his friends that the author of to-day may well give a sigh of envy. But Mr Edgeworth is worth reading occasionally, as when, after praising Sir Samuel Romilly's speeches concerning the appall- ing legal inequalities of that time, he instances a man imprisoned for five months before trial for stealing five apples; a woman sentenced to be "hung drawn and quar- tered and her heart taken out," lamenting, " 'Ah boo, boo, me Lord I'll never be able to bear the half of it.' "
Maria, in February, 1811, remarks gracefully, "The author might say like the beauty:
Let me be seen! Could I that wish obtain All other wishes my own power would gain,"
and is Austen-like in her comment on a certain visitor full of anecdotage : " I could wish for variety's sake some few anecdotes of good as well as bad people, for vice, vice, vice, crime, crime, crime fatigues and depresses the mind."
In the same year she breaks out into another postscript : " What can prevent your coming to Ireland? Surely not eight hours' sea-sickness? The moment you land in Dublin you will find a coach as comfortable as any in England to bring you to our gate or a canal boat within twelve miles." Peggy O'Dowd's own boats, with the " rapid travelling " and the "elegant cattle," do not, however, bring the
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desired guest. A nephew keeps him in London — or at any rate serves as an excuse for his remaining there. Yet his vanished letters were surely satisfactory, or how could she reply as she does?
July 9, 181 1 (no beginning) :
{Do not show this letter to anybody)
When you wrote to me on the fourth, I think you had not re- ceived a joint letter from my father and me written I believe about the 24th of last month and sent under cover to Lord Lansdowne. It has probably reached you by this time, and you may from the eagernqss of our hopes and urgency of our invitation form some idea of the disappointment I felt this morning in opening your letter and finding that your promised visit is again delayed. My father's share of the disappointment poor man is yet to come — he returns from Dublin to-day and the disagreeable news with which I have to greet him is that Monsieur Dumont is detained yet another month in London. If your nephew were an angel I should bear him malice at this moment, and the only way by which he can ever make me amends for the pain he has caused me is by bringing you to us. You see I am obstinate as well as yourself but when I have so good a cause I call this resolution not obstinacy. You urge us to come
to London Now, before my father returns home and when I write
from myself and not as his secretary I am determined to tell you my mind upon that subject and you who have such perfect tact will immediately perceive that I tell you the truth and the whole truth. If this whole large family consisting of 5 children of Mrs E.'s from 12 to 1 year old, a sister of 18 and two elderly good aunts who live with us could all be transported and established in a good house in London and if our living there for a winter did not interfere with the establishing my brother William, a most promising young man of 17, in his profession of civil engineer I should like to spend a winter in London very much.
But these ifs are absolute impossibilities. W's advancement in his profession depends upon his remaining in Ireland at present where he has employment in surveying these bogs and his employ- ment depends upon my Father's name and credit being joined with his. William out of the question our fortune is not sufficient to make a journey for so large a family and the taking a large house in London etc. prudent. My Father and Mrs Edgeworth would I know much like to procure for me any amusement, or gratification of any kind, much more than I could either desire or would accept.
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But why could not a part of the family, you will ask, come to London? I will tell you. Because Mrs E. could not leave her children withour great regret and inconvenience nor without put- ting herself under obligations to those who should take care of them in her absence. And / knowing all this, could not be happy in letting her make such a sacrifice for me. Nor should I be at all happy in going as she has often proposed that I should with my Father with- out her. You will understand that though she is my mother-in- law she is next to my father the friend I love best in the world and I should not enjoy any pleasure without her, on the contrary I should feel pain and continual anxiety from taking my Father away from her, which would absolutely prevent all possibility of my being happy or even amused in London. Now — trusting still to your penetration that you will not suspect me of sentiment or affectation of humility, I will venture to tell you more of my mind, more than I would tell to anyone who I thought considered me only as an authoress, more than I would tell to any Frenchman because I know with the best dis- position possible to believe me, he could not. But you are a Swiss and a friend and therefore I trust you can and will believe me when I tell you that what the French call un grand succes in society would add very little to my happiness. I have tried Paris, and Edinburgh, and Dublin and know pretty well what the pleasure of seeing and hearing and being seen and heard amount to, and I enjoy amuse- ment, and compliment, and flattery all in their just proportion. But they are as o in my scale compared with domestic life, and whenever I have been in a capital city (no later for instance than last winter so I have a recollection sufficiently clear to be certain I am not mistaken) I have always looked through the crowd of acquaintances to see whether there was a possibility of making a friend out of any of them, all the rest pass away like figures in a panorama. But I have always felt deep regret when I have tran- siently seen and been obliged to part from any who might on fur- ther acquaintance have become friends. And this is one of the evils of a town life — people are doomed to meet in such crowds, and with so many circumstances of constraint or theatric decoration that they cannot in ten years become as well acquainted with each other's opinions and characters as they could in ten days or ten hours in a private family in the country. Common characters, such as com- pose, and must ever compose the greater part of general society, pass away from my mind without leaving the slightest trace behind. I take what amusement I can from them when I am in their com- pany and am said to be always very civil to them, but they would
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detest me if they saw into my mind and knew how completely in- different they all are to me and what a waste of time I think all that I spend with them. As to the good it might do me as a writer to see the fashionables of London, I do not think from my own experience of character that I should expect nearly the advantages from it that you do. I don't think I was much if at all improved as a writer by a winter in Paris or by a visit to Edinburgh or Dublin. The views of character in society are too confined and transitory. There is not time to see justly, the objects are too near. Travellers seldom from such cursory observation represent manners much less motives faithfully. I have I think gained more as a writer by hearing and comparing the representations of persons of sense and of fools who have furnished me with facts and observations according to their various ways of seeing and feeling. I have a Father and brother and friends who continually supply me with variety from that world in which I dont live or wish to live. If I were merely a writer I might perhaps see better and see only as a writer in society, but a number of different feelings — many of them most trifling and foolish perhaps, some for the friends who are with me, some for myself disturb my spirit of observation and unfit me for a philo- sophical spectatress in the world. For instance I might at a dinner with the grandest and wittiest people in London, be totally absorbed in considering whether the bones in the fish my Father was eating would choke him or not, or (more foolish still) whether my Mother's cap became her or whether the persons who might be compliment- ing me, thought me idiot or authoress enough to believe them au pied de la lettre.
If you were to send me the " rouleau de signatures " you mention, I do not know any name public or private that could have as much weight with me as that of Dumont, and I would much rather see him at Edgeworthstown than in London for iooo reasons chiefly because I should see more of him and (oh pretender to humility and monster of pride/) because he would see and know more of me than he possibly could in a capital city. If I were this instant asked, would you rather spend next winter in a capital city or that M. Dumont should spend two months at Edgeworthstown ? I should without the slightest hesita- tion answer that M. Dumont should spend two months at Edgeworths- town. I feel convinced that our manner of living — and I will boldly say at once our whole family would be quite to your taste, and that the more you knew of my Father and Mrs E. the more you would love and esteem them. In short by that visit [broken seal destroys here a few words] make an intimate of the person to
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whom we now all look up as the superior person of this day. As to Bentham — I have not patience with him. I think he uses you ex- tremely ill. Will you send for me the enclosed note to Johnson to desire him to send us your book as soon as possible. Accept our most grateful thanks for giving us the first copy. Of Madame de Stael or even her German letters I cannot think at present. — M.E.
If this letter is contrasted with any of those quoted by the biographers, its startling difference will be apparent. She, who had usually so little to say about her own con- cerns, even the wonderful success that might have turned the strongest head, puts aside the veil for an intimate moment. To one of the most modest of literary men, the most modest of all literary women shows her real self. "I will venture to tell you more of my mind than I would tell to any one." We like to think that for once a free Maria Edgeworth wrote freely, " with my Father away," and we like Dumont for having kept the letter for us.
Madame de Stael was as important just then in Eng- land as in France, for in the same year, 181 1, Maria writes :
Madame de Stael has shown wonderful ability in out-general- ling the greatest general of the age. I give her joy of her success; at all events it is a great triumph but if I were in her place, I should not have the confidence in Bernadotte she appears to have. The Swedish gentleman for whom my Father asked you to enquire is the Chevalier d'Edelcrantz.
The momentous name is written in pretty capitals, but the most romantic could scarcely take this single inquiry as evidence of a broken heart.
I hope Madame de Stael will be in London in the spring and that we shall see or rather hear her, for Monsieur Morellet (that most genial of Abbes) gave me the highest idea of her eloquence and I have a great desire to be acquainted with a woman of her extraordinary genius — yes genius, you see I am forced to use the word. That single expression of hers " La solitude est l'antichambre de la mort" is an expression of genius. Your description of her and of her Father and of Monsieur Neckar's uneasiness in the society of Geneva after being accustomed to the flattery of Paris is excellent. But I wonder that a man of sense did not soon learn the different rate of exchange in the two places and then the commerce would
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have gone on just as well. Your comparison of the bear living on the licking of his own paws of vanity with the little bird that must be fed with crumbs daily is so new, so true, and so ingenious I must beg it from you. Will you give me your bear and your bird? I have such a happy snug place for them that if you do not give them I shall steal them.
Perhaps to some of us the allegory may suggest Mr Tupper, but to Maria Edgeworth everything Dumont wrote was evidently precious.
In another postscript, in September, 1811, she says: " I cannot leave my Father at his age nearly 70. 1 cannot." So that it is clear Dumont is still pressing her to come to London. " I have done nothing to Patronage this month I have written nothing but a little play for our present large juvenile audience. The Absentee diverted my young audience much. I have been fully paid for my month's idleness or work by their laughter, the most un- feigned applause and from children I love the most agree- able." The group of merry boys and girls were good judges. A year later ten thousand readers laughed as heartily as the first gay critics. The Absentee is, perhaps, the best story Maria Edgeworth ever wrote, and no miniature classic could have had a pleasanter genesis.
In January, 1812, she is amusing over the Edinburgh critique of Chateaubriand :
Oh that interminable Chateaubriand and his " enthousiasme de commanded I think he mistakes his own talent and does not know he has humour. Is there not humour in many passages in the descrip- tion of his blue velvet coated guide Joseph and of that other ser- vant to whom he was always tempted to say " marchez droit et parlez haut " — and himself and his guides bawling together about the site of Lacedaemon? But your Abbe Montgon do not imagine I shall flatter you with liking that stupid man. No, if you had recom- mended him a hundred times I could not endure him he is so in- sufferably tiresome, eight volumes, interminable indeed. Unless you will mark the book for me I will never read more than the first fifty pages which sent my Father dead, dead asleep. Do you see that Lord Walpole laughs at the Abbe and so does Fleury? I wish I could find anything to laugh at in him.
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Surely a woman must be a little in love to face eight volumes if marked by a certain pencil!
In 1 812 Madame de Stael is to the fore again, to call forth the unexpected remark from Miss Edgeworth: " No one ever before did such justice to Shakespeare," though she is much inclined to ridicule the " douce melancolie a la mode" being herself " never sad with our new-fashioned sorrow."
Dumont evidently criticised the Tales, in spite of the words of cordial admiration, for once quoted by their re- cipient in a letter to Miss Ruxton as supreme evidence of her success :
Nous avons lu en societe a Bounds Tales of Fashionable Life. Toute societe est un petit theatre. Ennui et Manoeuvring ont eu un succes tres marque, il a ete tres vif. Nous avons trouve un grand nombre de dialogues du meilleur comique, c'est a dire ou les personnages se developpent sans le vouloir et sont plaisants sans songer a Pe'tre. Ne craignez pas les difficultes, c'est la 011 vous brillez!
For Mr. Edgeworth writes himself to him: " What you say of Maria's Tales is just but they are given as tales and not as epics and to make them better for the best tastes would be to make them worse for general consumption. She has another tale to finish, Patronage, in three volumes. This will be a higher flight and perhaps not so popular." Then follows one of his very rare sentences of praise: " Maria is in real truth free from the French rage for succes. We go to London to see and hear."
In a letter of August 7, 181 3, the real Maria Edgeworth surely shows herself again very clearly :
I do not write letters to obtain a reputation as a letter writer. If that were my object I could adapt my means to my end. I could commence a correspondence with some of the fetchers and carriers of bays whose suffrages and services are to be had at a cheap rate by one who has any literary name. I might, with full certainty that they would give them publicity in society, address brilliant epistles to the Miss B. [Berrys] or Lady D. or C. or any of the bels esprit characters of the alphabet. But I utterly disdain and detest the commerce of epistolary affection and flattery. Such a waste of time!
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such a waste of talent ! Your eloquence almost inclines me to believe notwithstanding all my experience of your vis inertiae that if we were actually within five or six miles of London and if every convenience of time and circumstance concurred, you might take the trouble to come and see us and not answer our invitations by ce bete de mot you and Mirabeau equally despise. But I cannot in conscience maintain the tone of reproach or irony with you when I consider the kindness with which you write. You seem to have looked into my mind and to have anticipated all I should have said to you of the effect which our visit to London has produced on me. I saw more domestic value and less talent than I expected. What was to be learnt from conversation in crowds was indeed nothing, but much was to be learned of human nature from ob- servation not of what individuals desired to show, but what they wished to conceal of their motives and character. Besides there is a security and sense of reality in studying from life which the most inventive imagination can never attain. I remember your saying to to me one night, "Ah vous voulez me prouver un fait et vous me citez un conte." This is the consequence of dealing so much in fiction, but, believe me, I do not complain of being brought back to la vie reelle nor do I think that this kills the imagination. Thank you for your admirable description of Mad. de Stael. My Father seems to fear that if I had heard her I should have been fascinated by her genius, her eloquence and sensibility. But in this I think he is mis- taken in me. No^all the talents she possesses nor yet her generosity and magnanimity would ever make me forget " all the virtues she wants." As to her sensibility I do not apprehend that it would touch me. The Corinna exaggeration of sentiment would effectually disgust me. It is not all that can be displayed of feeling but on the contrary the idea that much is from some noble motive suppressed and commanded that would affect my mind. I do admire eloquence but I think I should soon be heartily tired of it if it could not be translated into common sense. Madame de Stael's contempt for the system or the principle of utility is certainly no proof of her sense. As you say, there is no answering metaphor or allusion by reason and argument. In the midst of her antipathy to anatomy she forgets how much painting owes to it, how impossible it is to cover by the finest drapery any defects in the original proportion of the figure. The anatomy of the mind is just as necessary to the orator as the anatomy of the body to the painter. I shall not for- get your description of the public as a child that must be fed with sugar plums at the end of every page. Adieu I can no more say a demain. — M.E.
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There was a little undated note from Mr. Edgeworth enclosed with this letter, evidently written in London, to invite Dumont to breakfast after the Rogers mode. Its interest lies in a postscript signed " Yours afftly., M. E.," criticising De UAllemagne very aptly: " False eloquence and true mixed together, diamonds and paste." She asks Dumont to " put his La Fontaine in his pocket," and we should like to think he chose to read :
Je ne suis pas de ceux qui disent
Ce n'est rien c'est une f emme qui se noie !
Je dis que c'est beaucoup, et que cette sexe vaut bien
Que nous la regrettions puisqu'il fait notre joie.
But the rest is silence regarding this delicate point.
Has not the fact that so many of these earlier letters have no beginning a certain almost tender significance? Mon ami means so much more in French than it does in English that we are excusably reminded of the pretty scene in Villette where that strange enigma in petticoats, Lucy Snowe, refuses to say those two words to Paul Eman- uel. Is there not something other than so-called Platonic affection in the following long explanation, with its eager readiness to forgive something sadly like neglect? After all, the real Maria Edgeworth is tres femme, and who will not love her better for such an assurance as her own modest confession?
September 18th, 1813. "N'allez pas imaginer que je voudrais faire de belles lettres de lettres d* esprit, des lettres a imprimer" — No danger of my imagining it. I could as soon imagine that you had two heads or two hearts or no head or no heart, or any other absurdity. Believe me I understand you better than you think I do. Abuse your own letters as much as you please, but let me have them and frequently and allow me to judge of them myself, and pray permit me to like them for indeed I cannot help it. Tet I acknow- ledge that I prefer you to your letters. Will this satisfy the inordinate modesty of your pride? You ask me how it could come into my head that you wanted a lesson about letter-showing. Simply because you told me you had shown bits. Now every bit of my letters to you I wish to be for you and you alone. Even to him to whom every thought and feeling of my mind are known as well as they are to myself, even to my
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Father I felt some unaccountable repugnance to showing the last letter I wrote to you, and when he asked me to let Mrs E. see it I refused till he urged it in a manner I could not resist. " / beg you will. She deserves it of you.'''' Still I yielded with reluctance; it was disagreeable to me. Not I am sure for want of affection or confidence in her, nor yet 1 hope and believe because there was anything in the letter that I should have been ashamed she should see, but still it was disagreeable to me. You find, great philosopher as you think me, that I have my unreasonable fancies. Indulge me in this one. Reasonable or unreasonable I know my little self and I know that I could not write to you as I do if I thought any creature were to see my letters. I wish as far as absence and distance will allow, to retain the privilege, to enjoy the charm of intimate con- versation and entire confidence. If you value them you will secure them.
[Here follows a long passage concerning the very prudent but happy marriage of Sneyd with a plain heiress. She points out that she had never heard of this lady when, in The Absentee, she actually called her own heiress by the same uncommon name — Broadhurst!]
You know how fully I depend on the interest you take in me otherwise it would be absurd and impertinent to give you all this
domestic detail I think I have now taxed your sympathy in
our concerns unconscionably and I will go on to our intended re- view [of Dumont's book] from which you see I am a great way off. This fortnight I have done nothing about it. And why? Oh, if I tell you, your high opinion of the effects of my stoical education will fall to naught at once, yet I will tell you why. Because I thought from your not answering my letter that both the review and I had be- come matters of indifference to you, and I was provoked by a message you sent me through Mrs Marcet that during the whole summer my letters would be safe if I directed them to Mr Dumont Hay- market London. As if he had the conscience to conceive I would go on writing for him without his ever taking the least notice of my letters or my labors! You say to me "Vous aimez, la peine P Never was a man more mistaken. "Et je ne suis pas etonne que vous benissez l'education stoi'que que vous y a accoutume. Le sentiment qui s'y joint est au dessus de tout." That last is true enough, and the only true part of the sentence for without le sentiment by which I here understand affection I should no more work than a steam engine without fire. Be it further known to you — I am sensible at the moment I tell it you, I shall sink, sink, sink in your opinion
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lower ''than ever plummet sounded," but sink I must till I come to the firm foundations of truth, and there however low I can at least stand safely. Then be it known to you, my dear friend, that notwith- standing my being an authoress and a philosopher ess by profession and reputation, nevertheless I have only the smallest conceivable portion of public spirit or general philanthropy. It would have been a sad thing for the world if I had been appointed Vorateur du genre humain, for unless affection for some individual had prompted or inspired the exer- tion, I should not have said a word, certainly never have got through a sentence. Seriously it was to please my Father I first exerted myself to write, to please him I continued. He has abundance of public spirit. He by degrees enlarged my views, one circle succeeded to another larger and larger, but the first stone was thrown the first motion given by him, and when there is no similar moving power the beauteous circles vanish and the water stagnates. In plain prose I hope I am capable of a great deal of exertion for the friends I love, but I certainly have neither my Father's philanthropy nor yours, and I can only admire and sympathise with you both. I am utterly incapable of the species of self-devotion you practise to- wards Mr Bentham for, if I understand rightly, your adoration of him .is founded solely on your esteem for his writings or at least without any particular regard for him. I admire his works as you do, think they contain useful, invaluable truths, but as to Mr Bentham himself I consider him — (now you will execrate me) but on I must go or else deceive you — I consider him but as a sort of philosophical humorist who wants to be humored and whom I would never stoop to humor. A literary Diogenes whom I would leave in his tub and if I were Alexander I would never expose my- self to be bid to stand out of his sunshine. I know this is as bad as Mad. de Stael substituting declamation for reasoning. Forgive me. But in sober, sensible earnest I cannot understand Mr Bentham's character. The sort of philanthropy that labors enthusiastically for the whole world which it knows not, and has never a mite of affec- tion to bestow on the individuals which it knows I suspect of char- latanerie or self-deception. But be this as it may let me confine myself to what concerns you since that is all that concerns me in the business. Surely if this Mr Bentham has all this philanthropy which makes him desirous to produce truths for the benefit of mankind, he ought were he consistent to feel warm gratitude, esteem, and admiration for him who brings those truths to light, who dicyphers, interprets them and devotes his life, his fame most generously most disinterestedly to the task, the ungrateful labour! His conduct to
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you of which I heard much from Lord Lansdowne provokes me so much that if I heard Mr Bentham was sunk up to the chin in the frozen ocean I should not care. I should only say I was glad his
works did not go along with him My Father thinks the same of
Mr Bentham that I do, and his chief object in reviewing this book is to oblige you to comply with my request. Now if you were to for- bid me to mention the editor or to impress me with the idea that instead of working for him I was labouring for Mr B. I would throw down my pen and go and flay with my little brother Pakenham. Mr B. whafs he to me? or I to him? If you take away my motive I cannot move. I must be assured that you wish the thing for your own sake or I cannot do it. As to the manner of speaking to the editor I will not say you may trust to my judgment or my taste, but I will venture to say that you may securely trust to my friendship and my delicacy. Do you think that if I were to review a work of My Father's or my brother's I should come forth with a flaming panegyric? No, there is a sort of consciousness, a modesty which prevents our saying too much of our friends as of ourselves. Independently of this timidity I have a sufficient fear of the recoil of injudiciously managed praise. I am aware that it often fatally injures those it is employed to serve. I am aware too of the danger of exciting envy by praise even the best deserved in short when acting for you my dear friend you may
depend upon my prudence If you give motive to go on with
the business you will find that I shall not spare labor if not you will only see I do not love labor in the abstract. I have finished the six little volumes of New Early Lessons, so that is off my hands. Our trunk containing Patronage has been wandering ever since we left London. As soon as my Father arrives I know he will desire me to give all my time to the corrections of the three vols, of Patron- age. A well-intentioned Irish newspaper The Farmer's Friend is glad to insert translations and extracts from Les feines et les re- compenses "in lieu of certain soporific Sunday readings."
During the few days I passed with Mrs Clifford in the country I saw a great deal of Sir James Mcintosh. I admired his incomparable memory and the splendid display of his abilities and acquire- ments, splendid beyond what I had ever before seen of conversa- tional powers. Yet I was sometimes obliged to close my eyes "blasted with excess of light." When I went to bed I used to feel actually fatigued with admiration and attention. I recollect one night in particular my sister followed me into my room and throw- ing herself into a chair with a doleful length of face and exhausted tone said: "My dear Maria how very strong you are grown, not to
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be tired." "My dear Anna you are quite mistaken. I am tired to death, tired as if I had been seeing a first-rate actor the whole day." What surprised me and provoked me with myself was to find that notwithstanding my full perception of Sir J. M.'s transcendent talents I was but little interested about him. I am not envious, I hope I am generally enthusiastically fond of superior abilities and I saw my Father transported with admiration for Sir James. Yet I do not care if I never see him again while I exist On the con- trary I have an earnest anxious desire to know more of Sir S. Romilly. He seized strong hold of my mind. I should be less happy, I should think less well of myself if I were to forfeit his esteem which I know I possess though he never told me so. If I were to describe the two men I should say the one is more root than flower, the other more flower than root. Lord and Lady Lansdowne spent a few days with us. What a well marched pair! Cupid and Hymen must have been in uncommonly good humour when they met. She tells me you will come to Edgeworthstown this summer. What pleasure, what exquisite pleasure it would be to me to see you in the midst of my family loving and beloved by them. This I am sure would be if you were known to them and they to you, for I judge for myself. / cannot believe what one who pretended to know you well told me, that you had hut little sensibility. Why did you force your pen to stop just when I wished it to go on? — Maria E.
There is something half ludicrous, half pathetic, in the poor lady, at her age, forced to read her letters aloud to " Mrs E.," a stepmother younger than herself. She may well have " felt repugnance," and she is almost exasperat- ingly like her own Caroline, that " pattern of prudence," in her submission. However, this time it is clear there was no question of such an ordeal, and she lets her pen trot a la Sevigne with a delightful freedom.
Next follows a long letter from Maria, dated August 12, 1815:
This morning a note from Lady Romilly, most kindly written in the hurry of her preparations for her journey to Geneva, offering to convey letters to our friends, on the continent, and she gives us an irresistible motive for writing to you my excellent and highly esteemed friend. She tells us you are not as happy in your native country as we all hoped you would have been. This hope was the only consolation to your friends in England and Ireland for the loss of your society and correspondence. In these times of wonderful revolu-
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tion and incalculable and sudden changes in the fate of empires and fortunes of individuals the only good things of which we can feel absolutely secure are the possession of our minds and of the esteem and affection of our friends. Consequently these must rise in the estimation of every reasonable person.
In this letter Maria mentions the fact that the " best pamphlet of the year " is six letters in reply to Sir J. Mcintosh's review of De V Allemagne in the Edinburgh. It is curious to note the literary dominion of Corinne, that such an affair should find readers in England.
Under date August 15, 18 16, there is an interesting letter to Lady Lansdowne, evidently lent to Dumont, and never returned, when Lady Lansdowne was at Geneva :
Remember us afftly. to all our friends there especially to our excellent M. Dumont who has been very naughty about writing. Not one letter have we received from him since he went to Geneva. Is he so taken up in making new constitutions that he cannot write
a letter to his old friends Lady C. Lamb has just published
a book in which there is not one grain of common sense, and no pretence to "la triste utilite" It does not do much credit to the Byron school. He is the hero. She the heroine. Such a farrago of love and murder, blood and nonsense, I never read. I could not get further than the second volume; there are some pretty scraps of poetry -perhaps Ld. Byron's or Moore's. A few passages and some descriptions as of Lady Holland as the Princess of Madagascar and some others appear to have been written by a different hand. One letter is said to be Lord Byron's verbatim. I make no doubt he is drawn from the life. But what could any woman find to like in him? Even by her own account of the matter she seems to have loved Lord B. for hating and betraying her. Indeed, all the love in the book seems to me to be the pure love of wickedness and Calantha's motto "Je veux ctre l'enfant perdu." Some say the book will do a great deal of harm. I cannot think that such soporific nonsense can be pernicious. I know that I fell fast asleep over it last night while Mrs E. was reading it aloud to my Father and he laughing at it and exclaiming, and now and then rousing me from time to time. But all in vain. It is like a senseless horrid dream or a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury but signifying nothing, and I have wasted too much time in saying this about it.
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The rest of this friendly letter consists of notes of ad- miration for Lord Lansdowne's recent speech, and then the correspondence has a long, significant gap. Not till September, 1817, could Maria Edgeworth write of the sorrow of her life, the death of her father, on June 1 3 of that year, and then it is with a pathos which checks an involuntary smile at the characteristic final utterance, re- ceived with the usual blind, but not the less beautiful belief in the infallibility of the speaker. It is good to find that Dumont's sympathy was at least given in no stinted measure, for it seems as if to him only were these last words confided.
You know and describe so perfectly all our feelings and mine in particular it seems as if you had been inside our minds. To Mrs E. the last judgement of his heart and understanding was that take her all in all he had never known so perfect a female character. To me in the fulness of his own affection he said: " No daughter since the creation of the world had ever given a Father more pleasure." His last commands to me were: "Do not bewail me. Be worthy of me" [!!] His last exhortation was against the indulgence of weak and vain sensibility. He knew the danger and he alone could give while living and leave after death motives sufficiently powerful
to counteract the defect of my disposition You know what I
have lost — you have suggested every possible source of consolation — I try to turn my thoughts to what it is yet in my power to enjoy
or to do I believe you know my eldest brother Lovell a little,
but you could not know him to be such as he is now. He could not know himself till he was tried and until his powers were called forth in a new and difficult situation. Twelve years exile and adversity strengthened, consolidated and formed his character. "Be worthy of me" still sounds and ever will sound in my ears. ... As to litera- ture you judge rightly that the charm is gone. The partnership the most delightful literary partnership of thought and affection that ever existed is dissolved. For some time I could not bear to open a book. Those books in particular, those tales I never have yet been able to look at except once at the preface to see that the terrible note was added. Oh my dear sir I cannot tell you under what circumstances Harrington and Ormond were written, under what powerful desperate motive, under what false, false hope. It astonishes myself at this moment that it could be done by me as it was and when it was and all in vain. No, I am ungrateful : not all in
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vain. I owe to that desperate exertion the exquisite pleasure of soothing hours of his illness. At 3 o'clock on the last morning but one of his existence in a pause of violent pain he called me closer to him. " Now Maria let us have one page more of Ormond." To Ormond I owe that invaluable expression of affection, those last words which I told you at the beginning of this letter. He has left me a high trust a sacred duty to perform — to finish and publish his life. Some months hence whenever and as soon as ever I can possibly think of it properly, I will apply to it with all my soul but at present it is impossible. I could write his death but not his life. Nor could I write anything for the public. I regret that not one of the copies of your work reach us. I regret that he never saw the sketch of your code of laws. The large object was suited to your great mind. / will only add that if you in future wish me to presume upon your friendship and to consult you about the object upon which I shall be intent, you must write to me and give me reason to believe I have not already encroached upon you by this full outpouring of my private sorrow. — M.E.
To compare the brilliant Ormond, scintillating with wit — King Corny, immortalised by Macaulay — the gay scenes in Paris — with the heart-broken writer racing Death him- self with her unfaltering pen, and dreading that his awful finis should be written first, is to witness a remarkable triumph of the intellect over the heart. There is absolutely no trace of her anguish in those merry scenes, but that years were to elapse before they had any successors proves its depth. The ill-starred memoirs occupied her exclu- sively for a long and very sorrowful period, and in 18 19 she acknowledges gratefully to Dumont " your most touching and affectionate letter."
" The book will be printed at Christmas but I hope not published till the spring because I should like to be abroad when it comes out."
Of Byron's attack on the man she so justly revered Maria Edgeworth writes with excusable indignation :
But there was one object on which he has fastened his talons from which he would not be terrified even though he knew he must perish in the attempt to wreak his vengeance there. He had written some lines on Sir S. Romilly. In reply to the publishers and Mr Hobhouse's entreaties that he would leave them out Lord
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B. refused saying that alive or dead he detested Sir S. Romilly and would not relinquish his vengeance. H. has at his own peril taken them out. He has done well for his friend. As to our friend, Lord B. could not touch his fame. There is in his reputation a living principle which the animals that prey on the dead cannot touch.
Those last lines give a salient value to this letter, al- though in the trifling matter of the publisher of Don Juan Miss Edgeworth was, of course, misinformed.
On January 20, 18 19, she begins with a quotation : "Mon sincere et inalterable ami" and is full of congratulations to Dumont upon the tribute to their long friendship ex- pressed in warm words as well as deeds in the will of Sir Samuel Romilly, whose tragic suicide after the death of his adored wife would have touched any heart but Byron's.
Tell me something about the Code, something also of that strange perverse being to whose head you bow a head worth two of his, and whose dark and crabbed oracles you have so interpreted, so translated, as to enlighten his own and surrounding nations and reflect a glory upon your unfeeling idol. Tell me whether he was quite of hard stone to you at the last, or whether any signs of human feelings appeared on the death of Sir S. Romilly? Has he assisted you since, or did he continue to ask what right you had to expect the sacrifice of his time?
The indignation against Bentham for his cool indiffer- ence to Dumont's unparalleled self-sacrifice is warrantable enough, and the strength of her feminine prejudice quite natural.
She writes from Paris on May 21, 1820, of the all- absorbing subject of the memoirs: " I cannot express to you how anxious I feel to hear your opinion of the book from you. I know that I shall hear the truth and a judg- ment against which in my own and my Father's opinion there is no appeal." Dumont had previously waded through the original manuscripts, with his accustomed patient readiness to work for his friends, and the biographies give plentiful evidence that this time his praise was unstinted. The violent criticism in The Quarterly Review Miss Edge- worth so courageously refused to read, he stigmatised as " Infdme attaque calomnieuse" and these were doubtless
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very comfortable words to her. The long interregnum be- tween this letter and the next was, in part, happily filled by those travels in " Swisserland " — which she always spells like Emma — when her dream of uninterrupted inter- course with her " inalterable ami " was most satisfactorily realised. Among the houses she visited with Dumont and those pretty half-sisters to whom she loved to play fairy godmother, was stately Malagny, near Geneva, with its park, sloping lakewards, planned by an English gardener. There is still undisturbed the charming library, with an original Gibbon in brown calf and gold, a funny Paris- printed Scott, and all The Edinburgh Reviews, of which each issue made literary history then. It is especially easy to picture Maria Edgeworth there — the short figure, with the bright face looking up so intelligently to the man she admired, certainly worthy of admiration.
After her return to England the correspondence is re- sumed vigorously, on her side at least. She was at 8, Holies Street, in March, 1822, when she says :
We spent a happy week at Bowood which would have been happier still if you had been there. You were often wished for by our hosts as well as ourselves. Last week the London diners-out were discussing the demerits of Lord Byron's " Cain " (we our- selves see those " demerits " even more clearly when we contrast it with Lecomte de Lisle's line poem on the same subject) " Sardan- apalus " and the " Foscari." The misfortune of all the ultra-good was that they could not condemn Lord Byron as much as they wish without condemning Milton and all his devils. The " F." I think the most disagreeable tragedy I ever read, — a Father standing 3 times passively to see his son tortured without utility to any creature living or any state, or any principle. " S." I like. The two female characters are beautifully drawn and will be of service to the cause of Greece indirectly
This lengthy letter is the only one of the series which contains really familiar matter, and it has seemed best to delete an account of the famous visit to Mrs Fry at New- gate, minutely described in her biographies, as she repeats almost verbatim what she first said to "MrsE.," as she in- variably calls her step-mother when writing, although Jane
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Austen had already sharply condemned that odd practice as vulgar with her bores immortal, the Eltons.
Then she continues :
We are going to see Walter Scott in his own home in spring. We have taken the house which we now inhabit till April, No. 8 Holies Street. We are within reach of the Hopes, the Lansdownes, the Marcets, Mrs and Doctor Baillie, Dr Holland, Dr Wollaston, Mr Hallam and the Somervilles a family to which we have become much attached. Mrs S. has four of the happiest best educated children I ever saw and she and her husband tell me that they have as far as possible followed all my Father's advice in Practical Educa- tion. Now my dear M. Dumont I see you smile and hear you exclaim " Voila le secret. Voila le charme. Voila la verite" We wish to Heaven you were here to mix your good humorical satire to- gether in your inimitably happy proportions. With all my enumera- tions, with all my interlineations I have not named to you half the agreeable people who form our London societies. That is the charm of London, the having not one society, but many societies. Geneva cannot say that, but then you are the 270th part of a king there, besides being a Lycurgus or a Solon or whatever philosophical name you please to call yourself — perhaps a Swiss Bentham. N.B. The English Bentham cannot stand without you.
On July 6, 1822, she reverses her early opinion of Sir James Mcintosh as follows :
He does not now flash with excess of light but throws a just proportion, sometimes strangely, sometimes playfully according to the value of the object and the temper of the spectator. In capital cities those please the most who either skim the surface or dive the most quickly. Sydney Smith an adept in both arts holds his con- versational reputation much to his own satisfaction and that of his audience. His spirits seem to be never failing. To maintain his popu- larity at dinner and in mixed companies he is obliged to laugh and joke too much I think for his own taste. I agree with Mrs Marcet who says that while we laugh at his jests we sometimes regret that a man of his powers should always jest. His article in the last Edinburgh Review on Prison Discipline is admirable. . . .
The final words show the sweetness and soundness of Miss Edgeworth's nature. Not even her passionate love for her father and the recollection of the attack on Practical Education could embitter her against a man she believed to be doing good.
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And now, inexplicably enough, comes the last letter, dated April 29, 1823, six years before the sudden death of Dumont at Milan: "My very bad correspondent and good friend. — Here have I been waiting with more than the patience of Job or woman six mortal long months in a letter whose date ought to strike you dumb with shame. I told you a subject I had in view for a new story and I told you I would not put pen to paper till I had your approbation du roi."
There is clearly a letter missing here, but there is other evidence that this never-executed project was to have been a skit on the tourist traveller of the Eyes and No Eyes order, which might have been a trifle like Lever's Dodd Family Abroad, plus the pointing of some tiresome moral to disfigure rather than adorn the tale.
If you care to read a modern English tragedy read Lord John Russell's Don Carlos and you will not have miss-spent your time. The character of the Grand Inquisitor is drawn by a master hand. Though a more philosophic tragedy than any Voltaire ever wrote, it has none of the defects of philosophic tragedy it is full of life, rapidity of action and sustained interest. In the midst of so much hate one wishes there were a little more love. His Don Carlos did not admit of it. It reminds me of Walter Scott's saying " few can imagine how insipid a character a lover is to a poet."
Believe me with esteem and affection which has been encreasing any time these twenty years and which is not likely to diminish during the rest of my life. Tour sincere friend in s fight of your shameful conduct, M. .E.
This is the end so far as we know it. If there were other letters " in spight " of all, they would seem to be lost. But one more very significant fact stands out in relief. There is no mention of the death of Etienne Dumont in any pub- lished letter, no record of the grief of his " sincere friend." Is it too much to fancy that her secret mourning was all the truer for the silence, that something, as it were a fra- grant pot-pourri of the fresh rose of a romance that might have been, remained to perfume the past?
ROWLAND GREY.
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THAT element in the value of landed property which is sometimes known as " site value " and may be more accurately called Economic, or Ricardian, Rent is, at the pre- sent moment, regarded by most writers upon economics as a source of public revenue at once distinct from all others, as being (in part at least) morally the property of the com- munity, and also of necessity an expanding fund. In all countries the proposal to tax economic rent in a peculiar and especially heavy degree is discussed: in some it has been put into practice, and in our own it forms the chief feature of the new Budget proposals now before the country.
It is essential at the outset of any discussion upon such proposals to see clearly in what they differ from other fiscal experiments. That taxation should -be levied in proportion to a man's total wealth, has always been a familiar prin- ciple. That it should be levied in a higher proportion ac- cording as the fortune or the increment is larger, is a princi- ple equally familiar; for it is an attempt to realise that equality of sacrifice which all recognise as a just principle in any scheme of taxation. That landed property should be taxed in a different manner from personal or movable property is again a principle familiar to most societies and discoverable in most civilizations.
What is novel in the proposal especially to tax Ricardian or Economic Rent, is that such rent is to be regarded as a form of property less absolute than any other, one over which the community has a peculiar claim, and of which it is in a particular sense the rightful master.
Thus, the supporters of that policy known in the United States as "the single tax" would confiscate the whole of the Ricardian Rent now accruing to individuals, and retain it for the uses of the State. In our own more practical and more moderate proposals, future increment therein alone is to be considered, and that increment is not to be con- fiscated, but only one-fifth of it is (so far) to be retained
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for public uses. Still, that fifth is a peculiar proportion of exceedingly high taxation which it is proposed to impose upon this form of property alone. If the value of a man's pictures go up in his lifetime from £20,000 to £120,000, the death duties will rise in a corresponding proportion according to the sliding scale established for various limits of fortune. If his income from an investment in mines in- creases largely from the discovery of unexpected veins, and rises, let us say, from £20,000 a year to £70,000 a year, he will be taxed upon that increase in proportion to it, upon the sliding scale now established for various types of income. But if he has land the economic rent of which (or the rent for site values as it is sometimes called) rises between two transactions from twenty to seventy thousand, the State will, upon the second transaction, not be content with imposing the ordinary taxes, but will reserve to itself as by a proprietary right, one-fifth of the whole increment. It will not only demand as a tax, but, in some degree, claim as a rightful owner, £10,000.
Or again, if an owner of economic rents which were worth £20,000 when they last changed hands, sells or leaves them to another, and they are discovered to be worth £120,000 at this second transaction, the State does not tax the increment as it would tax an increment in movable goods, it taxes it as something in which it has a proprie- tary share and claims £20,000, one-fifth of the increase, quite as much in its capacity of owner as in its capacity of tax-gatherer: for, indeed, the whole of this policy is based upon the conception that the community has in a peculiar sense a proprietary right over Economic or Ricardian Rent, which it has not over other forms of what is now private property.
Whether that thesis, now so widely accepted, is sound in morals or no, I shall not assume the province of dis- cussing here. All that I propose to do is as follows:
I propose to state in elementary terms what the economic doctrine of Ricardian Rent is ; from this definition the reader will easily see what aspect of it has led to the moral or immoral attitude towards it which I have just alluded to.
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Next I propose to show how Ricardian Rent being what it is, it is commonly supposed to vary with the energies, prosperity and material progress of a community, and to increase in an automatic manner as that material prosperity increases.
I shall then proceed to show that such a proposition (upon which reposes the practical side of the whole policy) is erroneous; that it is possible for a community to increase greatly in wealth while the total of its Ricardian Rent shall actually decline; that, conversely, it is possible for Ricard- ian Rent to increase while the prosperity and total wealth of the community is declining; and in general that no direct or logical connexion exists between them.
I shall end by pointing out the cardinal importance of the thesis I shall thus have proved, and by suggesting that, while in no way affecting the abstract discussion as to the morality or immorality of the community's claim to pro- perty in Economic Rent, my conclusion does very largely affect, and affect adversely, the practical side of the sug- gested reform.
In the first place, then, what is Economic Rent?
Wealth is produced by the application upon a certain site and to certain material of capital and labour, and neither capital nor labour will come into action until what may be called the "worth while" of each has been satisfied. The two "worth whiles," the minimum, that is, which in a particular community at a particular time capital will ac- cept for its reward, and the minimum which in that com- munity and at that time labour will accept for its reward, form between them a total minimum reward which estab- lishes what is called the Margin of Production.
This Margin of Production sets an inferior limit below which, though the material may be there for the produc- tion of wealth, capital will not permanently engage itself nor labour be coming forward for that production. For instance, in modern England to-day, you could not con- tinue an enterprise of, let us say, brick-making, upon a site whose distance from communications, or other disad- vantages, would forbid you to pay more than a shilling a
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day to your labourers, and even paying that wage forbid you to expect more than one per cent, upon your capital. Such an enterprise would be conducted below the Margin of Production of our society. On the other hand, you could easily float a company, and continue to work it suc- cessfully, which should propose to make bricks upon a site where an average of five shillings a day could be earned by the labourers and six or seven per cent, upon the capital employed. For such conditions are superior to the margin of production in that occupation to-day in Eng- land. The limits of this essay do not permit me to enter into a discussion either upon the economic analysis of a Margin of Production (we all practically accept it as a fact in our economic life), or upon the precise limits which are set by it in modern England. It is sufficient for my purpose to postulate that such a margin of production does exist in every industry, and that there is in the community, as a whole, an average Margin of Production which is arrived at as the average of the various margins in various trades. This margin satisfied, production begins to take place. Now, as sites vary indefinitely among themselves, very few will be found to lie immediately upon this line. The great majority will be either above or below it. Those which lie below it will remain unused. What about those which lie above it? They will produce a surplus which may be indefinitely greater over and above the minimum amount demanded by the capital and labour employed upon them. And this extra advantage that they enjoy can be segregated in theory from the earnings of labour and of capital, and is segregated in practice whenever the ownership of the site lies in other hands than those of the labourers upon it or of the capitalists who exploit it. The owners under such conditions can, through the com- petition of capitalists among themselves, and of labourers among themselves, count upon receiving the surplus in the form of rent. And rent in that sense, the mere extra advantage of a situation, as distinguished from interest upon any buildings or improvements effected upon the site, is what we call Economic or Ricardian Rent. It is pre-
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sent in the results of all productive enterprises, save those which are being worked upon the very lowest conditions, and its total forms in all societies a certain proportion of the total wealth annually produced.
It is obviously of no moment in pure economics whether he who receives this rent is a separate person from the producer. One peasant proprietor, owning an unfertile farm, puts in exactly the same capital and works just as hard as his neighbour who possesses a farm of similar area but of more fertile soil. The second farmer is wealthier than the first, and though there is no landlord here to receive the economic rent, it appears in the shape of the extra prosperity of the man with the more fertile land. Similarly of two freeholders, one with a shop in the centre of a large town, the other with a shop on the outskirts, the former can command a larger trade with the same capital than the latter, and his extra profit is the difference in economic rent between the two sites.
At this point the three characteristic propositions which accompany the special taxation of site values can be ap- proached.
These propositions are, first, that the economic rent of a particular site being in no way the product of the owner's industry or skill may not morally be detained by him; secondly, that the economic rent of a site is always, in a measure, the product of the community, and therefore, in a measure, belongs to the community; thirdly, that the economic rent of a community is bound by a strict relation to the total wealth, increases with that total wealth, and, if it be left in private hands, allows private individuals to levy a constantly increasing toll, as it were, upon the com- munity as the community develops and progresses.
As to the first of these propositions, it consists, like many a modern thesis, of two parts, the one self-evident, the other incapable of demonstration. That the owner of a site did not make the site needs no argument. The other limb of the thesis, that because he did not create the sur- plus values therefore he cannot own them, depends upon the first principle that no man can morally own that which
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he has not called into being. With this ideal discussion I will not busy myself.
The second proposition, that the economic rent of a site is always, in a measure, the product of the community, is not absolutely or universally true. Thus, of three ripa- rian owners upon a tidal stream, each attempting to live by bringing fish in from the sea in a boat, the one nearest the sea will have, let us say, one-tenth of his time taken up in their transport, leaving him all the rest for fishing; the one next to him loses one-half of his time in trans- port, and still finds it just worth his while to fish in the other half; he is on the margin of production. The third finds transport taking up nine-tenths of his time, he can- not "make it pay" and gives up fishing. Here, clearly, the community has had nothing to do with the advantage the first enjoys over the second, or the second over the third.
But in modern England the disputant upon this subject has in his mind the case of our great towns where advan- tage of site is due to human accretion under the action of human wills, and in these it is evident that some part of the increased value of a site as the town expands, must in all cases be created, not by the will of the owner of the soil, however much he may have "developed" the place, but by the will of those who come to settle there. In some cases it is wholly so created, as can be proved by the example of such owners (and they are not a few) who reap an in- crement by the mere efflux of time, without attempting any expenditure whatsoever upon the sites they own.
This second principle, however, that the community is often in part, and sometimes wholly the creator of site values, does not affect the argument I have in hand, which is to show that the third proposition, the most practical by far, and the one which is immensely of the greatest influ- ence in urging special taxation of site values, is erroneous.
That third proposition, it will be remembered, was to the effect that the economic rent of a community is bound by a strict relation to its total wealth, increases with that total wealth, and, if it be left in private hands, allows private individuals to levy a constantly increasing toll upon
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the community as the community develops and progresses.
This widespread but quite false economic thesis has, in part, arisen from the observation of particular instances (and numerous ones) in our industrial civilization where the rapid increase of total wealth, and the still more rapid increase of economic rent, can be seen proceeding side by side. But a mere coincidence of the sort, powerful as it would have been with politicians, could hardly have influenced economists unless an economic explanation of the phenomenon were provided. It was provided thus:
Society (so the argument ran) used the best sites it had — agricultural, mining, etc. — and was not compelled, for a given extent of population, to have recourse to fields less fertile than a certain standard. Population increased; in order to feed and clothe and house it more land must be occupied. A less fertile kind of field had therefore to be ploughed, a more distant or less convenient wood to be felled; in other words, the Margin of Production had lowered. Fields that were once just worth cultivating were now well above that doubtful point, and having once had an economic rent of zero, had now an economic rent of some positive quantity, and so on all up the line. The population continued to increase, worse and worse land was taken in for cultivation, etc., and economic rent per- petually increased as the State increased in population and in total production.
Such was the first crude explanation of a phenomenon which many had noticed, to wit, that the increase of economic rents of certain sites ran contemporaneously with the increase of wealth produced upon those sites.
Such an explanation was, of course, grossly insufficient; but as the economic analysis proceeded, a more general and comprehensive proof was formulated:
Let any greater activity occur, let any greater produc- tion take place, and the total of economic rent must neces- sarily rise. Not merely pressure of population, but any extension of the powers of man must, (since space was limited), increase the amount of the total that would lie above the margin of production. There need be (for
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instance) in the production of wheat no added pressure of population upon the means of subsistence; there was needed nothing more than new and better methods of production to increase existing economic rents. If two ears of wheat could be made to grow where one grew before for the same expenditure of capital and labour, then it would "pay" to cultivate the less fertile lands. There would be room for more people without any necessity of lowering the Margin of Production. The ex- isting standard, the old worth whiles of capital and labour, could be satisfied upon lands that had hitherto been neglected; on the more fertile lands vastly increased pro- duction would take place, and all this increased pro- duction would fall into the province of economic rent. Men might discover (for instance) a method of mining at 3,000 feet depth, no more expensive in capital or human energy than mining had once been at the depth of 1,000 feet. The 3,000 feet levels would come into use, and all the old mines which were just at 1,000 feet and barely paid their way, would, by the new method, show ample profits, and those profits were an addition to economic rent.
The community, satisfied in wheat and coal, discovered some way of producing wealth out of hitherto neglected materials. Some barren patch, abandoned by all industry, was found to produce an oil that could be turned to the service of man, and at once its exploitation produced in all oil wells, save those just upon the margin of produc- tion, a new batch of economic rents.
In general, it seemed by this line of reasoning impossible that a community should develop in numbers, or in the control over Nature, or in its knowledge of new sources of wealth, without, in each of these three cases, increasing the economic rents incident to its total production; and since these three forms of development would naturally go on together, what could be generally called the progress of the community seemed mathematically certain to produce a progressive increase of the Ricardian Rent attached to it.
This apparently incontrovertible proposition contained three fallacies which I now propose to examine :
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It postulated the absence of imaginary values; it postu- lated the regular progression of sites from those that just paid, very gradually, upon a straight ascending line, to those that were immensely valuable; and it postulated for a given population and a given productive power, a con- stant margin of production. None of these postulates was true. Imaginary values increase enormously with the com- plexity and economic development of a society; there is no necessarily regular and straight ascending progression, up through infinitely small differences, from conditions which just pay under a given Margin of Production to those which afford the greatest opportunity of profit; and finally, the Margin of Production of a society may, and does, fluctuate upwards or downwards without necessarily largely affecting the total production of the community.
Let me take these three points in their order, and test them by concrete examples:
First, as to imaginaries. Suppose a community of 10,000 families, producing in all a million pounds of values in a year, that is an average of ^100 each. Suppose wealth to be so distributed in that society that each family has much the same power of demand as any other. Then the sum which any particular site used for residence will fetch, will not be much higher than what a man with ^100 a year can afford. In such a community there will be ample productive power to produce comfortable houses, but no one house will earn as rent much more than the normal interest of the time upon the capital expended in building it, and the total site values or economic rents paid merely for the choice of particular residences will be very small. One man may choose to go as high as £20 a year because he prefers to be near the waterside, while another man does not care to pay more than ^15 for his house, and does not much mind where it is. But the cases of excess over the normal earnings of capital in that community will, so far as mere residence is concerned, be rare and the total amount of their surplus value insignificant.
Now consider that community with precisely the same productive power, suffering from less even distribution
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in power of demand; and of the 10,000 families, let 500 own half the power of demand of the community, that is half a million, while the 9,500 left have only the other half between them. The poorer portion, who are now enjoying but little more than £50 a year per family, will be more crowded. You will have two families in one house, and the two between them will only be just able to pay the rent which makes it worth while to build such a house. The other part of the community, with an average of £ 1 ,000 a year each, will be in a position to compete for special sites which they find agreeable, and to pay high prices for those sites. Some part of their increased power of demand will go, of course, in the demand for more house room, and their payment for this will be a payment of normal interest upon the capital expended in building; but a large part will take the form of payment merely for the agree- ableness of the site. And as the differentiation in power of demand increases, as you get, for instance, a small group of, perhaps, a dozen men much wealthier than the rest, the site values which they are prepared to pay merely to escape contact, with the poor, or merely to enjoy some wholly imaginary social advantage, which can bear no relation to production, will increase very largely. In the end of that small society you may be having, in these residential rents alone, surplus values of fifty or even a hundred thousand pounds.
Note what has happened in the department of economic rent. The total wealth of the community is precisely what it was before. But that portion of it which can be assessed as economic rent by the Fisc in the one department of residential rents alone, has risen from a little more than zero to something between five and ten per cent, of the total wealth of the community. It would be equally easy to show that the wealth of that community might actually be declining, and yet if, during its decline, the differentiation between rich and poor proceeded, the economic rent attaching to purely residential sites would continue to in- crease, while the total wealth of the community was falling.
There is one very obvious case which disproves the
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universality of the common theory, and it is only one out of innumerable cases that arise in a complex, wealthy and highly differentiated society. The usurer, the bucket shop- keeper, the gambler, all need a site for the exercise of their energies. They are, by very definition, wholly unin- terested in the production of wealth; they are interested only in the diversion of existing wealth from another man's pocket to their own. Yet particular sites will have for them very special advantages, as sites that are central, sites that bring them into close touch with their victims, etc., and they will pay for that advantage. Into the same category of imaginaries will come the enjoyment of open spaces. Not that the enjoyment of those open spaces is not real, but that the economic rents which they represent are no addition to the total wealth of the community. The Fisc would be perfectly reasonable if it included in the economic rents which it proposed to tax, the large town gardens of wealthy men, for such gardens would have a very high market value if they were sold as building sites. But once sold and built upon, the community is wealthier only by the capital value of the buildings erected. It has not acquired new positive wealth by the mere acquirement of the space.
This is not an argument against the right of the com- munity to acquire such spaces; it is not even an argument against the necessity of acquiring such spaces. It is merely an argument against the regarding of such spaces as repre- senting positive wealth. They do not. The economic rents charged upon them are imaginaries. A simple illustration will make this point clear. There are, in a restricted space, 101 families. A hundred live in houses without gardens, the ioist has all the rest of the space as its park. The hundred families want each a garden to be cut out of that park, or more house room for themselves to be built upon the site of that park. They approach the ioist family and say: "We will each give you ten measures of wheat of our annual production if you will let each of us have his share of your park." The owner of the park agrees, and the transaction is completed. The wealth of the com-
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munity has not increased in any fashion, it stands just where it did before, but if the Fisc comes to the owner of the park and says: "You could at any moment let your park to these good people and get 1,000 measures of wheat a year off it. As you do not do so, we shall tax you on that economic rent which, though invisible, your land actually carries with it, and of that imaginary 1,000 measures of wheat which you might be receiving, be kind enough to hand over 500 measures" — then the State will be requiring the owner to give it 500 real measures of actual wheat, and that amount of the total wealth of the community will, by the taxation of site values, be added to the total taxation of the community though it has no more wealth than before.
There is here, I repeat, no argument against the public policy of such an action; it may be a just, a wise or even a necessary thing to make the owner of the park pay to the community 500 measures of wheat every year. But the total result of the policy would be that, without any increase of the total wealth of the community, an increase of 500 measures of wheat would have been added to the former total of taxation. The point need not be further elabo- rated. It is self evident. And not only is it self evident, but in communities such as ours it is of very high practical importance. Many, many millions a year are changing hands in London now, in a form that could be strictly de- fined as economic rent, and which yet represent nothing more than imaginary values.
But more important than the interference with the taxa- tion of economic rent caused by the existence of these imaginary values is the fact that economic rent can be proved not to follow nor to be directly connected with the increase of true values in a community. To convince the reader of this I shall again cite certain concrete examples.
I have said above that the commonly accepted view, that economic rent would increase proportionately with the increase of wealth in a community, postulated certain con- ditions which, as a fact, did not exist; and that among other things it postulated a straight and regular ascension from those sites, no amount of capital and labour spent upon
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which could produce any wealth (they might be marked at zero), though the point at which the Margin of Production was touched and the exploitation of the site began (though as yet producing no economic rent) up to the case where the site was of the utmost extreme of value and produced for a given amount of capital and labour expended the largest return possible.
If it were possible to draw such a straight ascending line, the thesis of those who regard economic rent as strictly dependent upon, and progressing with, the total wealth of the community would hold good. Lower your margin of production slightly, get people content with less wages and less return of capital, and you would be able to exploit a new number of sites proportionate to the lowering of your Margin of Production. And as you lower it the amount of of wealth over and above the margin of production would regularly rise.
Again, without lowering your Margin of Production, but only by increasing your power over the forces of Nature, sites now just on the margin of production would produce an economic rent, and with every increase of your control over the powers of Nature a proportionate new number of sites, hitherto below the margin of pro- duction, could be made to produce the minimum which that margin required. And here again the surplus over and above the margin of production would correspond strictly to, and would be proportionate with, the increase in the total wealth of the community. But, as a fact, there is no such regular and straight ascension. The series of sites from the least to the most valuable is always (like all natural things) a capricious series, and may be very capricious.
Consider, for instance, this case: A small fertile district of land has for the belt next it a sterile extent of territory, much larger than itself and hitherto untouched as not being "worthwhile": such cases are quite common in new coun- tries, and the parallel to them (as I shall presently show) can be discovered everywhere.
Suppose that the fertile patch is producing one million pounds' worth of agricultural values in the year. Sup-
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pose that capital demands, after the "worth while" of labour has been satisfied, five per cent, on its invest- ment. Certain portions of the fertile belt will produce no more than this and, for every £1,000 of capital invested, will support so much labour, pay £50 a year profit to capital, but leave nothing over for economic rent. Other, better, or more convenient, portions of the fertile patch will give economic rent of £50, £100, £200 to the £1,000 of capital employed; and let us suppose that the total of economic rents on this fertile belt is £300,000, while the whole amount of wealth produced is a million. A method is discovered of using the sterile belt outside. This sterile belt is more or less homogeneous, and can under the new methods be made to pay in many cases just up to the Margin of Production, but in few cases to afford any sur- plus. This exploitation of the sterile belt by new methods, not applicable to the old fertile belt (as, for example, irrigation), may double the total wealth of the community, without adding any appreciable sum to the economic rent it yields. You may get a million pounds' worth of agricul- tural produce, by your new methods, off the sterile belt, so that the total produce of the community is now two million pounds; but so homogeneous is the new territory exploited, and so near are you always in it to the margin of production, that the economic rents recoverable from it are insignificant. It will just pay capital and labour, and no more. You will be dealing in the end with a community twice as wealthy, but with a total of economic rent that has not appreciably risen.
A parallel more familiar to the English investor can be found in the case of mines. Suppose a coal mine, a lead mine and a copper mine, the lead mine just on the margin of production and producing £1,000 a year, just enough to satisfy labour and to pay the normal interest of the place upon the capital invested. The coal mine producing £2,000 a year with the same investment and carrying therefore an economic rent of £1,000 a year ; while the copper mine is for the same investment turning out £11,000 worth of values, £10,000 of which is, therefore, economic rent.
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Copper falls in value so that the produce of the copper mine is now but ,£8,000 a year, and lead so that the economic rent on the lead mine disappears. Then in the place of the old £11,000 a year economic rent carried by this community of three mines, only £7,000 a year of economic rent remains. But meanwhile numerous coal mines of poor quality, but just good enough to pay, are dis- covered. Let the total production of such new coal amount to £5,000 a year, and yet the surplus beyond what is neces- sary to satisfy capital and labour be no more than £1,000. Then the total economic rent borne by the new condition of that district is exactly £8,000 in place of the old £ 1 1 ,000. Economic rents have fallen by £3,000 a year. Yet the total production has risen from £14,000 to £15,000.
This point again need not be laboured. It should be obvious that if any large opportunity for the exploitation of wealth on a very narrow margin is opened up, the total wealth of the community will increase out of all propor- tion to the economic rents which it will pay, and if the especially favoured opportunities decline in value, while the less favoured opportunities increase in number, the total economic rent will fall though the total wealth of the community will rise.
Another illustration of the truth that economic rent does not follow directly or necessarily the movement of the total wealth of the community, is afforded by this further ex- ample: Suppose a community to be at once accumulating capital and degrading the standard of living of its prole- tariat— the two processes very frequently go on side by side. Then the margin of production will fall and, perhaps, fall rapidly. Capital, which formerly would not accumulate for less than five per cent., will now accumulate for three. Labour, which was not forthcoming for less than £100 in the year, will now be forthcoming for £50. The fall in the margin of production, supposing the methods of produc- tion to remain the same, will increase the total of economic rents. It will be objected by the school of economists whom I am here criticising that the fall in the margin of produc- tion will involve immediately the exploitation of sites
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hitherto neglected; that the total wealth produced will therefore be greater than it was, and that a rise in economic rent will here also correspond to an increase of total pro- duction. But this objection presupposes as necessary what I have pointed out to be fortuitous. It presupposes that there is a regular falling scale of sites from the more to the less useful, and that, just below the old margin of production, there must be a large number of sites almost good enough to use. There may have been many such sites; or a few or none; or the vast majority of them may still remain so far below the new margin of production, that the fall from the old margin has vastly increased economic rent without appreciably increasing the total wealth of the community. There are districts in Ireland where at one period in the economic history of the country precisely this phenomenon was witnessed. The fall in the standard of living of the people, coupled with the general fall of interest upon capital throughout Europe, led to the appreciation of economic rent, without any increase of the total productive power of the community whose economic rent was thus ap- praised.
In general then, it can be proved that economic rent, though necessarily a surplus of such total wealth as is to be discovered in a community, does not necessarily increase or decrease with that total wealth. To rely upon economic rent as the index of prosperity, to tax it as a principal source of revenue, still more to tax it as the only source of revenue, would leave the fiscal system out of touch with the true wealth of the community.
The government of a nation acting in this manner, would sometimes find itself impoverished, though drawing upon a community of increasing wealth; it would at other times find itself increasing its revenues though the popu- lation from which those revenues were drawn was becom- ing poorer; in a word, it would be suffering from a fiscal system not proportionate to, nor in touch with, the positive wealth of the community.
H. BELLOC
281
LONDON
THOU art sad with the sorrows of ages, Thou art grim with the lusting of gain. Thou art wise with the wisdom of sages,
And heartless, and heavy with pain. Thou hast passion no sating appeases,
And thy tears are more bitter than brine — Yet thy voice is as vast as the sea's is, Oh, mother of mine!
Thy soul is more strange than our life is,
And subtle, and secret with sin: Thou art mad with more madness than strife is,
That was mad since God bade it begin. Thou art cruel, and thou know'st not of pity,
Yet sweeter than love is, or wine, O weary, unwearying city,
Oh, mother of mine !
O maker of men and unmaker,
Thou art drear with the ruin of dreams;
O lover, beguiler, forsaker,
Thou art dark, yet a-glitter with beams:
Thy secret is thine, and is no man's, Thou hast sin in thy streets for a sign,
Yet thy voice is more sweet than a woman's, Oh, mother of mine !
JAMES BARR
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AMONG the dramatic events which led to Abd-ul- Hamid's overthrow, one of the most important un- doubtedly was the Stamboul Mutiny of April 13. It was the climax of the Hamidian intrigues which began imme- diately after the July revolution. Yet so far as I am aware no adequate description of this great occurrence has hitherto been given to the public, principally, I suppose, because the Macedonian march, which immediately succeeded, robbed it, for the moment, of all interest from the point of view of the correspondents of the Press. Moreover, the leading actors in it are not very much inclined to speak, and this for the very obvious reason that on April 13 they were all caught napping — all except the Old Turks who planned the conspiracy, but who are also not in a position to speak, having all been hanged. I am not so ambitious as to think that 1 can supply the public with a complete history of the mutiny; but having been in Stamboul at the time, and having lived ever since among the Young Turks and spoken with the two men who know most about this mutiny, — Hilmi Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and Mahmud Mukhtar Pasha, Commander-in-chief of the First Army Corps at Constantinople, — I venture to present the readers of the Dublin Review with an account of it which is, at all events, derived from authentic sources.
April 13 dawned so beautifully in Constantinople that I decided to remain for the day in the pleasant Bosphorus village where I live, but, on going to the scala or landing- place to see a friend off, I changed my mind and bought a ticket for town. This alteration in my plans was brought about by the fact that, while we were waiting at the sca/a, an aged Turk who knew my friend, came up to him, and, after the usual salutations had been exchanged, said that fighting was going on in Stamboul, and that consequently
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he would have to go to the city to look after the safety of his property there.
When this information was translated for me I could not have been more astonished than if I had been told that S. Sophia's had disappeared, but as my friend gave me to understand that our Turkish informant was trustworthy, I felt that, as a newspaper correspondent, my place that day was in town. I had little time to make up my mind, as the boat had already arrived, but I got on board before it started, and then we — my English friend and I — began to interrogate the old Turk afresh. It was difficult work, however, owing to the facl that, probably as the result of a paralytic stroke, the old gentleman's voice was very in- distinct, but there was evidently something in his original statement, judging by the facl; that consternation seemed to prevail among the passengers who, at the next scala, quietly left the steamer, which then continued its trip to town, empty.
Foremost among the panic-stricken who fled from it on this occasion was the paralytic Turk, and also the director of the steamship line to which the boat belongs, an elderly, substantial-looking Ottoman, who hurried to his home, and, as soon as he had reached that haven of safety, dropped dead of heart failure, a disease to which about half-a-dozen other persons succumbed during the next few days.
Why we all left the steamer it is difficult to explain, but I suppose it was because men sometimes seem to fear vague dangers more than dangers which are well defined, and that here was a danger of the vaguest possible descrip- tion, and a steamer that, with the insensibility of an inani- mate thing, and the heartless accuracy of a machine, pro- posed to carry us straight into it. No wonder, therefore, that, when once we fully realised that a catastrophe of some kind lay at our journey's end, we unanimously declined the invitation. Most of the passengers returned home, some (like myself) determined to collecl: our thoughts and a little additional information before taking the final plunge.
On the scala I could get hardly any additional news, though my friend speaks Turkish and Greek, and though
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there was a constant babble of conversation going on around.
"The soldiers are righting among themselves," was a phrase which was constantly repeated. We also heard, dis- jointedly, that " Legislature, Cabinet, Committee of Union and Progress, have all been swept away. The Parliament House and the Sublime Porte are surrounded by troops. Nobody is allowed to enter Stamboul. The soldiers are attacking Pera," — the foreign quarter.
A group of Kurdish porters and loungers — the gentry, it will be remembered, who carried out the Armenian massacres for Abd-ul-Hamid thirteen years ago — listened eagerly to this conversation, and when they heard that pil- lage had begun (it proved to be an unfounded rumour) their eyes shone strangely, they glowered at my companion and myself — the only two " pigs of Unbelievers " who hap- pened to be, at that moment, on the scala — with a look of fanatical hate which brought before me again, as in a flash, the black looks I had so often seen, as a boy, in the eyes of Ulster Orangemen on "the Twelfth," and finally they held a consultation by themselves at the far end of the landing-place. When the next boat came in, they struck work (such of them, at least, as had work) and went to town in a body, the only other passengers being my friend, several Turkish clerks in Government offices and myself.
The Bosphorus was at its best that bright spring morn- ing, but I was in no frame of mind to pay attention to its beauties, being absorbed in the contemplation of the shore, where I expecled to see the smoke of burning Embassies at least. There was no smoke, but the Embassies and Con- sulates were all flying their flags, a sign of danger, a signal in effecl to Christian Europe, to the fleets outside the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Another sign of danger was the alarmingly small number of people on the Galata bridge, which is invariably thronged in the morning, almost as thronged as the Strand is at 9 a.m., but the external appearance of the city was little altered. On the steps of the Valideh Mosque, at the Stamboul end of the bridge,
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was an enormous crowd of fezzed and turbaned natives, watching in perfect silence and motionless. What they were watching we could not see till we had got on to the bridge, and then we noticed that across the Stamboul end of it was drawn a line of soldiers, whose bayonets flashed in the sunlight. They had a machine-gun with them but no officer, and in a wooden shed on their left lay the dead body of a captain who had been killed while attempting to harangue from a carriage some of the mutineers passing over the bridge. A group of men and boys were peering at the corpse through the chinks in the shed. About a fortnight later they were peering with equal curiosity at the bodies of that captain's murderers, dangling from gib- bets on the very spot where they had committed the crime.
I afterwards learned with surprise that these soldiers at the end of the bridge — they could not have numbered more than half a dozen in all — had been stationed there by the military authorities in order to prevent any more mutineers from entering Stamboul; but why they were not more numerous, and why there was no officer with them I could not say. When I returned to the bridge, after having had lunch in Pera, they had disappeared, having, I believe, joined the mutineers, and brought their machine-gun with them. And it is no wonder if they did so, for how could a handful of disheartened and officerless soldiers take on themselves the responsibility of firing on thousands of mutineers in defence of a Government which gave no sign of life, and which threw up the sponge a few hours later?
This weakness and irresolution on the part of the authorities impressed me at every step throughout this fatal day, and at the time I quite failed to understand it. The Grand Vizier and the Commander-in-Chief of the First Army Corps have each tried to explain that he was not responsible; but, though there are many mitigating cir- cumstances in their favour, especially in favour of Mahmud Mukhtar Pasha, I have come to the conclusion that to some extent they were both to blame. The Committee of Union and Progress seems to be of the same opinion, for, in a proclamation which its central office at Salonica addressed
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"to all the Ottomans " on the first anniversary of the July revolution, about two months ago, that organization de- clares, apropos of the present Cabinet Ministers, and with especial reference, I suppose, to Hilmi Pasha, that:
it is the cowardice, indecision and incapacity of these men, who were believed to be able men and who have been in office for a year, that opened in the bosom of the Fatherland those two almost mortal wounds — the Constantinople mutiny of April 13 and the tragic calamities of Adana.
So much for the Committee's opinion of Hilmi Pasha. Of General Mahmud Mukhtar Pasha, it has said abso- lutely nothing; but on August 24 that gentleman was obliged to resign his command of the First Army Corps and to accept the position of Governor of Smyrna. His case is hard, for he is a man of exceptional resolution and ability, who easily crushed two such movements previ- ously, one of which took place in the Tash-Kishla barracks at the end of the year 1908, and the other among the Syrian Zouaves at Yildiz in March, 1 909. But on April 14, when his house was surrounded by mutineers thirsting for his blood, he committed the fatal mistake of allowing a foreigner, Sir William Whitall, to smuggle him out of the country in his yacht. Had he not done this he might pos- sibly have been forgiven by the Committee for his failure to suppress the mutiny, but then he would certainly have been shot by the mutineers.
I have Mahmud Mukhtar's account of the mutiny, but, as it is much too long to quote in full, I shall confine my- self to occasional extracts from it. The general lives in Moda, near Scutari, and at seven o'clock on the morning of April 13 he received telegrams from the Minister of War, the Minister of Police and Djerad Pasha, commander of the Second Division of the First Army Corps, telling him that two detachments of infantry had mutinied and assembled in front of the Parliament House in S. Sophia Square. He at once went to the Ministry of War in Stam- boul; and here I should explain that this Ministry of War or Seraskierat, as it is called in Turkish, is situated on the summit of one of Stamboul's seven hills, about half a mile
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from S. Sophia's, and is surrounded by barracks, walls and railings which render it easy to defend. On finding that the soldiers in the Seraskierat showed " a certain want of entrain" Mahmud Mukhtar C£ harangued them for a con- siderable time" and appealed to their feelings as soldiers. Then he received a letter from the Minister of War asking him (Mahmud) to join in the deliberations of the Cabinet at the Sublime Porte, which is situated within ten minutes' walk of S. Sophia and which was, on the day in question, quite unprotected. To this invitation, Mahmud writes,
I replied saying that the troops were out of hand, that I was awaiting the arrival of the cavalry, artillery and machine guns, that it would be necessary to take the offensive when they arrived; that meanwhile my presence with the troops was indispensable; that if I accepted his proposal to join him at the Sublime Porte we would run the risk of being all surrounded there by the mutineers, and that the best thing that he and all the other ministers could do under the circumstances would be to come at once to the Ministry of War.
Meanwhile Bayezid Square, in front of the Seraskierat, became filled with the mob, some of whom "succeeded in getting on to the parade-ground where they won over some of our troops in the name of the Sheriat," i.e., the Sacred Law of Islam, this propaganda being helped a good deal by the fad that, in order to make themselves look like ecclesiastics, the reactionaries wore clerical turbans.
In order to prevent this fatal propaganda, Mahmud Mukhtar went personally among the soldiers, and by bringing a fire hose to bear on the crowd, he finally succeeded in driving it back a little. Meanwhile he was continually getting news of fresh defections in various parts of the city, but, on the other hand, reinforcements reached him and a cavalry charge finally cleared the square.
But, according to the same authority, the Cabinet spoiled all.
It based its hopes on the exhortations of the clergy, especially of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the Fetra Emini,
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and as a great number of ulemas had gone among the mutineers with the object of persuading them to disperse, it had now become impossible to fire on the rebels without running the risk of shooting down half the Moslem ecclesiastics in Stamboul. The Cabinet and the Minister of War, therefore, commanded Mahmud repeatedly to refrain from using violence or even from opening the bridge. They were probably afraid of taking on themselves the responsibility of wholesale bloodshed (an unexpect- ed weakness, this, in Turks!), and early in the afternoon the Grand Vizier and the Minister of War both placed their resignations in the Sultan's hands.
As a result of this step and of the appointment of a new Ministry the crisis was over and Abd-ul-Hamid was victorious — for eleven days. Mahmud Mukhtar was now ordered by the new Government to "transmit to the troops" (the now absolved mutineers included), "the august salutations of the Sultan and, at the same time, the assurance that the Sheriat would henceforth be pre- dominant in the government of the State," also to march the loyal troops into S. Sophia Square in order to make them shake hands with their rebel comrades.
Both these commands Mahmud Mukhtar refused to obey, and at the same time he resigned and went home. Some of his observations about the Council of Ministers are couched in vigorous language. He says that this body " composed for the most part of poltroons incapable of displaying in moments of crisis the energy necessary to accomplish their duty, permitted this movement" — the reactionary movement which preceded the mutiny — " to spread enormously and to acquire a great importance when it could have been destroyed in the germ." Then, if " the Council of Ministers had not been almost para- lysed and incapable of acting according to the circum- stances of the case, it would have met in the Ministry of War instead of sitting at the Sublime Porte. In the Ministry of War, and protected by loyal troops, it would have been able to examine the situation d'un esprit degage, and to calmly take the necessary decisions. In this case Vol. 145 289 19
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the first decision to take was to immediately proclaim a state of siege, and give dictatorial powers to the Com- mander-in-chief of the army."
As for the Minister of War, Mahmud Mukhtar thinks that, at the very outset, and without waiting for the arrival of the Commander-in-chief, he should have con- centrated the loyal troops in the Seraskierat, in which case " it would have been very easy for him, before the mob gathered, to surround the mutineers that had col- lected at an early hour in front of the Parliament House."
Judging from this statement of Mahmud Mukhtar, he himself was not in the least to blame, but naturally, it is an ex-parte statement, and no good explanation is given as to why he did not act with decision the instant he reached the Seraskierat.
As for Hilmi Pasha, he admitted to me in a conversa- tion I had with him in the Sublime Porte on June 1 1 last, that he forbade Mahmud Mukhtar to use force, but he defended this attitude with some skill.
"On the morning of April 13," said he, "I saw that practically the whole garrison of Constantinople was un- trustworthy. I had also to consider the fad that, since July last, some 30,000 or 40,000 bad characters had drifted into the Capital or been released from the local prisons, and were only awaiting the first opportunity to massacre and loot. If, under these circumstances, I had permitted the shooting down of hundreds of mutineers in St Sophia square, the probabilities are that, instead of restoring order, this severity would have produced chaos. There would have been frightful disorder in every street in the city, and not only would it have been an absolute impossibility for the small body of troops (2,000 or 3,000 men at most) at the disposal of the Government to keep order throughout Stamboul, Pera, Galata, Scutari and the suburbs — which latter are, as you know, thickly inhabited by foreigners — as well as to guard the Parliament, the deputies, the ministers, the embassies, the foreign residents, the arsenals, the powder-magazines, etc., but it would have been im- possible to keep that small body of troops loyal, especially
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if it were shown to them that Abd-ul-Hamid was on the side of the mutineers. It is true that the Government would soon have got reinforcements from Macedonia, but it is doubtful if these reinforcements would have come before dreadful things had happened in the Capital and foreign troops had been landed. On the whole, I thought that the best thing I could do would be to give way, and to wait till a Constitutionalist General, at the head of a powerful Constitutionalist army, came to deal with those mutineers. And the event justified my expectations."
I did not ask Hilmi Pasha why he had neglected to take precautionary measures beforehand. Had I done so, and had he been quite frank, he might have advised me to address that question not to him but to the Committee of Union and Progress; for possibly the curious advisory and controlling role which the Committee occupied at this time, vis-a-Yis of the Cabinet, may have weakened in the latter the habit of initiative and responsibility, and tended to make the Grand Vizier place too much dependence on his unknown and apparently omniscient masters. In the present instance each party — the Government and the power behind the Government — probably relied on the other to take the necessary measures of precaution, with the result, usual in such cases, that neither of them did anything. I do not say this by way of reproach to the Committee, for, by deciding to be an imperium in imperio so long as Abd-ul-Hamid remained on the throne, it probably injured the country less, on the whole, than if, after the meeting of Parlia- ment, it had ceased to be a secret association exercising a powerful influence on the Cabinet. The fact remains that whatever policy the Young Turks adopt in their efforts to regenerate their native land, they are bound to encounter almost insuperable obstacles. One of their greatest difficulties will be to find a Grand Vizier who is neither too strong nor too weak. Kiamil Pasha was too strong and selfish, so that the Committee overthrew him. Hilmi Pasha has gone to the opposite extreme and, for this reason, the Committee wants to overthrow him also.
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To return, however, to the subject of Hilmi's neglect of precautions on April 13, the Grand Vizier has admitted that he got plenty of warnings as to what was coming. Even the leaders of the Opposition warned him; and, according to his own statement, he convoked, on April 10, a meeting of "very high personages," to whom he made known the fear which the popular effervescence caused him, and whom he asked if he could count on the Army. On receiving an answer in the affirmative, he looked forward without anxiety to any disturbances that might arise, but when on April 1 3 he learned that the Chasseurs of Salonica — the watchdogs whom the Committee had sent from Macedonia after the July revolution in order to guard the Constitu- tion— had turned reactionary, "he saw clearly that any attempt at resistance would have been madness."
With regard to my personal experiences in Stamboul on this occasion, I must say that the Turks were invariably very kind to me. Peddlers and venerable hodjas implored me not to risk my life, with as much solicitude as if they had been near relatives, deeply interested in my personal safety. There was no risk, so long as I behaved with ordin- ary prudence but (especially when mentioned in connec- tion with a mutiny) the very names Byzantium and Stam- boul might well shake stronger nerves than mine, for in no city in the world have street fighting and popular tu- mults been almost invariably accompanied by such inde- scribable horrors as in the ancient capital on the Golden Horn. Their record is not only to be found, shrouded happily in the decent obscurity of dead languages, in the writings of Pope Innocent the Third and of Phranzes as well as in the neglected pages of the historians who describe the periodical revolts of the Janissaries; but is also written indelibly on the minds of the thousands who personally witnessed the Armenian massacres thirteen years ago.
It was accordingly with the feeling of an unarmed man traversing the haunts of a ferocious wild beast that I made my way on this occasion to the Sublime Porte and S. Sophia Square. The crowds were, to an almost painful extent, mild and soft-mannered (I am accustomed to Bel-
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fast mobs) and, in fact, I have seen more "trouble" at a single contested election in Ireland than I saw in Turkey during the revolution of July and the six months follow- ing. Like all Orientals, near and far, the Turk does not know how to ££ create a disturbance " or to be " disorderly " in the mere police-court meaning of these words. He either sits still with his legs tucked up comfortably underneath him, smoking a chibook and drinking coffee at rare inter- vals out of a microscopic blue cup with a copper stand, or else he jumps up and commits atrocities that make hu- manity shudder. There is no midway course for him.
What proved most unnerving to me, therefore, was the terrible uncertainty as to what was behind all this move- ment, as to what was going to happen. The personal risk to be apprehended from this mysterious upheaval bore the same relation to a definite and explicable danger, such as one is prepared for in war, as the apparition of a malevo- lent spirit bears to the attack of a footpad. The event proved, however, that, thanks principally to the sobriety of the Moslem soldier, the whole movement was carried through with fewer horrors and with far more self-restraint on the part of the soldiers than the taking of Tientsin by the Christian Allies in 1900.
The shops were nearly all closedand the windows shutter- ed. In some shops the sliding-doors of corrugated iron had been pulled half-way down, and, through the opening thus left, the shopkeeper — one of whose hands grasped the door above his head so as to be able to draw it down instantly, on the slightest alarm — peered at the compact masses of excited men rushing past, with the terror-stricken yet curi- ous eye of a rabbit watching, from inside the entrance of its burrow, a pack of ravening hounds. Many of the houses were barricaded and in the streets there was no sign of traffic, no carts, carriages or trams, no hamals (porters) carrying loads of merchandise; only, at rare intervals, knots of sol- diers hurrying towards Agia Sophia and drifting crowds of excited, seedy-looking men and boys. The almost entire absence of respectably dressed persons and of women and children made a vaguely uncomfortable impression. Dur-
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ing the patriotic rejoicings of the preceding eight months I had seen in the street hundreds of unveiled female faces, but now the bright sun of freedom had ceased to shine, the black tempest of Moslem fanaticism blew once more, and the women of Islam had again concealed their faces behind the thick ckarskaf, and retired with their slaves to the innermost recesses of the harem.
We heard a rumble of carriage wheels. The unaccus- tomed sound filled everybody with curiosity; but the vehicle only contained the Emir Mohammed Arslan, a young Syrian deputy, whose nonchalant attitude and easy senatorial smile showed that he had no presentiment of the awful fate that was to overtake him in less than ten minutes.
I found the Sublime Porte so crowded that it resembled a railway station. One of its spacious porticoes was filled with extremely well-groomed dragomans from the Em- bassies, who conversed joyously but discreetly in impeccable French, and offered one another cigarettes.
In the hall contiguous to the Grand Vizerat sat a group of Turks, whose sombre silence was in striking contrast to the flippant animation of the foreigners. Among them was Ahmed Riza Bey, President of the Parliament and Chair- man of the famous Committee of Union and Progress, also, biting his finger-nails, the Secretary of the Grand Vizier, the Minister of the Evkaf and the Minister of Police (whose own department, close by, was deserted, save for three melancholy gendarmes who dozed on stools at the door). The other departments of the Sublime Porte were closed.
Ahmed Riza waited till 2 p.m., and having then learned that the Cabinet would resign, he wrote out his own resig- nation. An Edmund Burke would, under similar circum- stances, have written something that would never die; but, unfortunately, Ahmed Riza's letter to the Chamber is dis- tinguished by the pettiness which has, I regret to say, characterized this patriot ever since his return to Turkey. " Up to the present," he writes, " I have sacrificed my life for my country. In presence of the movement directed
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against me, and in the interests of the Fatherland, I now hand in my resignation as President of the Chamber of Deputies."
Thus he speaks of a movement directed against him personally, as if even he were of supreme importance in this great military conspiracy against the whole liberal idea.
Almost a hundred yards in front of the Sublime Porte, at the corner of a narrow street running down to Agia Sophia, there was a group of Turks to which I hastened to attach myself; but, before I could reach it, several shots were heard — they were, most probably, the shots that brought down poor Arslan Bey — whereupon the crowd came rushing like a torrent in my direction. In another moment I was caught up in it, whirled round and round and then carried by a sudden side eddy into the office of the Turkish newspaper, Servet-i-Funun, just as the door of that establishment closed behind me with a bang like a pistol-shot, leaving the rest of the human eddy to swirl down the street, after beating violently, but in vain, for a couple of moments against the ponderous portals. This was my first experience of these wild-eyed panics, whereof I was destined to see a good deal in the streets of Con- stantinople during the next fortnight.
On issuing from my hiding-place I found that the crowd was again gathering in its former position, so that I went and joined it. At the same moment a wild-looking gang of mutineers came along, and a policeman, who perspired in the middle of the road, solemnly saluted them and directed them with trembling forefinger towards S. Sophia Square, with the whereabouts of which they did not seem to be well acquainted. That salute was significant. It showed that the private soldier was the ruler of Constantinople. The Grand Vizier passed unnoticed in his carriage, the leader of the Great Committee was at that very moment stealing out of the Sublime Porte by a side door, in order to avoid the attentions of two mutineers who stood patiently waiting for him with loaded rifles at the front entrance. The Chiefs of the Army were getting rid of their uniforms with as much alacrity as if they were condemned murderers who had
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escaped in prison garb from Dartmoor; even the reac- tionary officers (as has been proved at the courts martial) dressed, by way of precaution, in the uniform of privates. But all eyes were fixed, in fear and trembling, on the man with the rifle in his hand. And, though later information enabled me to see that the private soldier was not acting on his own initiative to such an extent as I had at first im- agined, the difficulty of finding the leaders of the move- ment and of tracing its preliminary stages make this mutiny bear a remarkable resemblance to that unique coup d'etat, the Young Turk revolution of July, 1908. In both cases, too, as also in the case of the subsequent Macedonian march which this mutiny provoked, the climax came with a swift- ness which we do not ordinarily associate with the phleg- matic East. And in all three cases we had the same extra- ordinary peacefulness and disinclination to shed blood, features which do not usually characterize Turkish revolts.
During the remainder of this day 1 met scores of such groups of mutineers, some composed of a few dozen men, some composed of thousands, but all pouring into S. Sophia Square, as innumerable rivulets pour into a mountain lake. The small groups came from nine o'clock in the morning till two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and the men that composed them were very excited. The larger groups came in the late afternoon and marched very much as if they were on parade, this difference of demeanour being due, of course, to the fact that, being rebels, the men who came early ran the risk of sudden death while those who came later knew that, thanks to the Sultan's iradey they had nothing to fear.
As might consequently have been expected, the appear- ance of the first-mentioned groups was disorderly, and they ran at full speed, looking occasionally behind them and to the right and left, with the air of men who are being pur- sued for a murder. From the ugly look in their blood-shot eyes — a look that still haunts me — and from the way in which they gripped their rifles, I should have said that they were ready to shoot or stab at a moment's notice. In time of war, I have several times photographed soldiers in the
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actual firing line, but I certainly should not have cared to photograph those Turks or to excite their suspicions in any way, and that I was not over-cautious was shown by the murders which took place that day, including that of Nazim Pasha, the Minister of Justice, in the Parliament House itself, when he hesitated for a second to hand over his revolver to a private soldier who demanded it.
In the whole scene there was something of the sublime, but in the East you often find the sublime and the ludicrous combined. So it was, at all events, in the present instance, for as one of the most desperate-looking gangs of mutineers rushed over the Galata bridge, the effect of their terrible aspect was so entirely counteracted by the appearance of several small, half-naked street- arabs, who nimbly turned " cart-wheels " in front of them all the way across the bridge, that a universal roar of laughter arose from the onlookers and even from the mutineers themselves.
Between three and four o'clock I succeeded in reaching the heart of the Mutiny at S. Sophia Square, in company with Mr Frederick Moore (who was severely wounded on April 24), and in the rear of a detachment of mutineers, several thousand strong. The sentries prevented us from entering the square directly, but we went into the court- yard of the mosque and thence found our way into the square itself.
In order to get a good view of what was happening I climbed a tree, and from a branch, which I shared with two pigeons, I watched the strange scene below. Among the mutineers were some lay civilians, and a great number of hodjas and softas, the latter conspicuous by their tur- bans and flowing robes. In the centre of the square was a group of imposing looking ecclesiastics in white garments — among them, 1 think, the Sheikh-ul-Islam — grouped around something on the ground, which I at first took to be some sacred relic of the Prophet but which afterwards turned out to be a machine-gun. Overhead floated the green flag of Mohammed.
I was not able to enter the Parliament itself on this oc- casion, but luckily I am in possession of an account of
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what took place there, an account which was written in Turkish for the Tanin of Salonica a few days after the Mutiny byBaban Zadeh Ismail Hakki,the deputy for Baghdad, who was recently in London as the guest of the British Parlia- ment, and who is one of the most intelligent of the Com- mittee leaders. So far as I am aware this account has never before appeared in English.
"When I arrived in Saint Sophia Square," writes Ismail Hakki, "it was near eleven o'clock in the morning. The troops had surrounded the square and every entrance to it was occupied by soldiers, with fixed bayonets. After having had some difficulty in making these troops under- stand that I was a deputy, I was finally permitted to pass, and crossed the square under the suspicious and inquisi- tive scrutiny of the mutineers who stood beside their rifles, which, resting on their butt-ends, leant against each other, forming bundles that resembled a long series of standing ricks of new-mown grain running down the dusty square. From the overcoats that were hung up in the dressing-room of the Parliament House, I saw that only a very small number of deputies had arrived. In fa<5t, there were only twenty-five members present, and they had chosen as their President Mustapha Effendi, the duputy for Aleppo.
"When I entered the Committee-room wherein the deputies were assembled, I perceived there five or six soldiers who, with cartridge-belts strapped across their shoulders and with rifles in their hands, were in the acl of stating their grievances ; and the sight instantly reminded me of the Janissaries, Icauses of misfortunes without number to our dear country. This delegation, which was doubtless composed of the elite of the mutineers, stood in a strange, half-frightened, half-menacing attitude and attempted to explain, with embarrassment and in such a way as to only make themselves incomprehensible, demands which were, after all, however, very simple.* . . . When
* The soldiers' demands were: (i) Dismissal of the Grand Vizier, the Ministers of War and of Marine, the President of the Chamber and Mah- mud Mukhtar Pasha — in other words the overthrow of the Committee;
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the soldiers had finished and had left the room, Mustapha Effendi invited the deputies to express an opinion. I was the first to rise. After having pointed out the terrible danger which menaced the country, I explained that to acquiesce in the soldiers' demands meant the ruin of the Empire; but at this point a colleague, whose name I do not now remember, kindly touched my arm and whispered into my ear, 'What are you saying? Don't you see that one of their men is here? ' And, indeed, I had not remarked that the Sheikh-ul-Islam and an ulema, who had come in the name of the army, were amongst us. When I had finished speaking, Mustapha Effendi spoke in opposition to me, saying that this was not the moment to think of the future, that we must first of all conjure the present danger and save the capital from fighting and carnage. At this moment we were told that a delegation of ulemas had arrived to state some grievances, but the ulemas were asked to wait and the discussion continued. The extreme agitation which prevailed made it impossible for us to carry on anything like a regular debate. Other deputies having arrived in the interval, it became inconvenient for us to remain any longer in the Committee-room, so we passed into the Chamber.
"We then numbered about forty members but we were not alone in the hall, for some soldiers came in and wanted to take part in the discussions. Yussuf Kemal Bey and my- self had great difficulty in making them understand that their intervention was illegal, but finally we succeeded and they left
"Naturally, the circumstances under which we deli- berated made all calm discussion impossible. In the first place, our nerves were unstrung by the certainty that the Empire stood at the very brink of a bottomless abyss. In the second place, we were profoundly disturbed by the strident blasts of the trumpets, those sounds of sinister augury, which never ceased to resound throughout Saint
(2) dismissal of all officers save those that had risen from the ranks; (3) formal assurances that the Government would a6t in conformity with the Sheriat; and (4) amnesty for those taking part in the Mutiny.
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Sophia Square. It was decided, however, to at first ask the Government by telephone what was the actual situa- tion and what were the measures which it had taken. Ahmed Nissimi Bey was accordingly sent to the tele- phone, and he learned that the Grand Vizier had gone to the Palace with the Minister of War. We then entered into communication with Mahmud Mukhtar Pasha, who made known to us the strength of the forces which he had at his disposal. . . .
"While these discussions were going on and despite all our protests, members of the military deputation entered the hall every moment, and finally one of them said in a menacing tone: 'Several of our comrades have been killed at the Ministry of War. Blood has been spilt. If they attack us here, more blood will flow. Come to a decision or we cannot answer for the consequences of your delay.'
" Finally, yielding to the prayers and the entreaties of the deputies, the soldiery quitted the hall. In Saint Sophia Square there was assembled at this moment several hun- dred hodjas and two or three thousand soldiers. On the least sign, at the slightest tumult, these thousands of armed men became agitated, their ranks undulated like waves, their faces grew pale, their bodies trembled like leaves, they clenched their teeth, and the whole armed mob seemed ready to commit the greatest of crimes against our religion and our Fatherland. My own conviction is that two battalions — disciplined, energetic, loyal, kept well in hand by their officers — would have sufficed to disperse this horde of rebels who had nothing military about them save their uniforms and their rifles. But time passed, and the revolt spread. Strangely enough, it was on the advice of a member, whose name I cannot at this moment recall, that the House proposed to ask the Ministry of War not to attack Saint Sophia Square.
"At this point we were reminded that the deputation of ulemas was still waiting, and we at once gave orders for them to be shown in. They came and with them came some fifteen soldiers, armed to the teeth, who posted themselves before the imperial tribune. The Fetra-Emini had preceded
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them, and among them I recognized Ahmed Rassim, pro- fessor of theology in the madresi (theological college) attached to the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and Haidar Effendi, a member of the Court of Cassation. Rassim Effendi seemed to be the spokesman of the party for, mounting the tribune, in the name of the ulemas and of the troops, he made a speech to us. I find myself unequal to the task of describing the effect produced on the deputies by this discourse, whose every word was painful as a bayonet thrust and whose every phrase was an appeal to sedition and to crime. They did not want the Girls' School which the Committee was about to establish at Candelli on the Bos- phorus because, forsooth, the establishment of a School for girls was contrary to the Sheriat. They had no fault to find with the Chamber, but the deputies must take care to be more religious. The articles which Hussein Djahid, one of the Committee members, had written on the Sheriat in the Tanin were objected to. In the Chamber of Deputies were a great number of scoundrels whose names had been taken down."
I may here mention that Rassim Effendi probably repents at this moment that he ever made this little oratorical effort, in fact he told the court martial which recently sentenced him to imprisonment for life that he did not enter the Chamber at all on the occasion in question. To continue, however, the narrative of Ismail Hakki Bey:
"As the Chamber had decided beforehand not to inter- rupt the discourse of Rassim Effendi, there was no inter- ruption; and when he had finished, the soldiers, who had previously made a rambling and incomprehensible com- munication of their own to the Chamber, cried out: 'That is what we demand.' It was evident, therefore, that Rassim Effendi was the spokesman of the mutineers.
"But the men who had violated the sanctuary of the Assembly had not yet done with us. An old white-bearded major, whom I had not noticed in the room before, mounted a bench and in vulgar language, such as one hears ordin- arily in the streets, threatened the deputies and excited the soldiers so that the former began to weep. This orator"
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(whose body, I may here mention, en parentbese> dangled from a gibbet in front of the Parliament House about a fortnight later), "declared that despite his great age he was ready to sacrifice his life for the Sheriat. 'Let us sacrifice all for the Sheriat,' he cried, 'not only in word but in deed.' But a few moments later, he made it clear to us that in putting himself at the head of the muti- neers, he had not acted out of love for the Sheriat alone, for he terminated his discourse by saying that he had been placed on the retired list, that he was the father of a family, and that the injustice of which he was the victim was contrary to the Sheriat."
In other words, he was one of the " ranker" officers who have for the last score of years been the curse of the Otto- man army, the pets of the Sultan, the tools of reaction and the betes noirs of the Young Turks, whose policy, since July, 1908, of retiring them as fast as possible was one of the causes that led to the present mutiny.
The writer next goes on to describe the tumultuous debate which ended in the Chamber passing a vote of No Confidence in the Government. Then he continues:
"At half-past seven or eight o'clock, Turkish time, the trumpets sounded together, and we all ran to the windows. A large crowd was coming into the square from the Sultan Ahmed garden; and, thinking that the regular troops were advancing from the direction of Bayazid, in order to clear St Sophia Square, I was filled with joy. But soon the small dimensions of the advancing crowd made me see my error. This mob came nearer and a struggle of some kind seemed to be going on in the centre of it. Finally there appeared, in front, a man, bare-headed and mal- treated by the mob. My first impression was that this was a foreign correspondent, and that on his account our country would again have to suffer humiliating foreign intervention. Since the morning, indeed, this fear had been gnawing at my heart. The man whom I had taken for a foreign journalist now received from right and from left fisticuffs and kicks, but he advanced, staggered, fell, got up again. At the entrance to the square he was met by
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several soldiers who had run out to meet him, and who beat him so savagely on the back with the butts of their rifles, that he spun round like a top. At length he arrived at about a hundred paces from the Parliament House. Be- coming animated under the fear of death, and gathering together his ebbing strength, he suddenly darted with all the quickness of which his legs were capable towards the entrance gate. A group of cowardly scoundrels who saw him run, and who looked as if a treasure were escaping from their grasp, seized their arms, and, from the entry of the street leading to the Top-Kapu Palace," — that is, a few yards from the entrance to the Houses of Parliament — "a rifle-shot rang out. 'Bravo! he's hit! ' they cried, and in- stantly thousands of balls whistled through the air. One would have said that it was a veritable battle, the repulse of an enemy's attack. The man, whom I could not even yet recognize, fell to the ground.
"The deputies, who had followed this tragic scene from the window, understood that their own lives were in danger, and, in fear lest the soldiers who were demonstrating out- side might invade the Chamber, they all ran to the upper story, which is occupied by the Senate. The servant of Ahmed Riza Bey opened for me the door leading to the Ministry of Justice. The place was deserted, and as I entered it, I heard a voice behind me say : ' Come, Bey, get out of this, you also ! ' and then learned the dreadful news that the man whom I had seen murdered was Djahid Bey. Bursting into tears, I rushed to the window and leant out, whereupon a kind-hearted individual, whom I happened to know by sight cried out to me: 'Unfortunate man, what are you doing ? Don't let anybody here see your compas- sion for Djahid Bey.' But it was more than I could do to follow this well-meant advice, for below the window I saw, stretched at full length on the pavement, and with nobody near him, the body of the man who was supposed to be Djahid Bey. Just at the moment when 1 was about to swoon with grief, a rumour went round: 'It's Arslan Bey that has been killed. They mistook him for Djahid Bey.' This rumour became more and more persistent, and at length
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I became convinced of its truth. On that day the unfortu- nate Arslan Bey had, despite the repeated entreaties of Djahid Bey and Djavid Bey, insisted on going to the Cham- ber, and had fallen a victim to his temerity. I cannot re- strain myself from here invoking the malediction of Allah on his assassins.*
"As for myself, it was impossible for me to return to the Chamber, for the door was closed and the entrance to the Ministry of Justice was blocked with soldiers and ulemas. I examined the walls. They were very high. I tried a door which opened on Kaba-Sakal. It was guarded by sentries. Finally, confiding myself to the protection of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, and, accompanied by a single friend, I departed by the door which opens on St Sophia Square. I turned by Kaba-Sakal, and, after having crossed Sultan Ahmed Square, I got into a carriage at the Thousand Columns and finally reached in safety my father's house at Suleimanieh."
At four or five o'clock, Mr Moore and I left St Sophia Square and directed our steps towards the War Office. There were not very many people on the streets, but, close to the War Office, we found a knot of sightseers gathered round a house on the front and gable of which there were marks of about a dozen bullets, which had evidently come from the War Office barracks. At this point, we were told, five of the mutineers had been killed. But when we reached the War Office everything was quiet. The gates were locked, but, as a large portion of the iron railing had been torn away, any of the garrison who liked might walk out. In the gap thus made in the railings stood about a dozen unarmed soldiers, talking amicably to a few score of hodjas and street arabs outside. On the spacious parade-ground inside, several squads of soldiers were drilling phlegmatically.
* Suleiman el Bustani, the celebrated Arab litterateur, who was the most prominent member but one of the Turkish Parliamentary Depu- tation that recently visited England (and who is, I may remark, a Roman Catholic) tells me that Arlsan Bey was not killed in mistake for Djahid Bey, but because he was one of twenty Young Turk deputies — Suleiman el Bustani himself was another — whom the mutineers had received in- structions to murder.
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There was no excitement, and there were no preparations for resistance, for by this time all the edge had been taken off the situation by the resignation of the Ministry and the Sultan's grant of the soldiers' demands.
Walking round the Seraskierat, we noticed in one place a group of hodjas preaching energetically to a crowd of soldiers who pressed their faces close to the railings in their anxiety to catch every word. The hodjas supplemented their seditious discourses by passing in through the bars large bundles of newspapers, copies, I suppose, of reactionary and anti-Committee newspapers, but they were preaching to the converted. The soldiery were all on the side of the reaction. By invoking the Sheriat Abd-ul-Hamid had won.
But religion is a two-edged sword, for when, a fortnight later the Padishah was hurled from his throne, that good work was also performed in the name of the Sheriat, and with the solemn approbation of the Shiekh-ul-Islam.
FRANCIS McCULLAGH
St Petersburg correspondent of the New York Times.
I
Vol. 145 305 20
THE TENNYSON CENTENARY
TENNYSON'S RELIGIOUS POETRY
Tennyson's work, like that of all men whose eye-level is that of their contemporaries alone, will be forgotten, or enshrined only in school primers — forgotten, that is to say, with some excep- tions. . . . Tennyson was at once the poet of his time and of his class. Unfortunately for future fame both time and class have lost their potency. The mid-Victorian age is gone. The empire of the middle-classes has faded with it into the past. [He must now give place to other writers who] exemplify the present age as truly and as ephemerally as did Tennyson that in which he lived. . . . Tennyson was a great poet of his time. But "Ou sont ils done les neiges d'antan?"
These remarks, published recently in a widely-read weekly journal, have also been made equivalently in many other critiques of Tennyson's poetry which have appeared on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. The technical rules for writing, in prose as in verse, have doubtless been better formulated in our own time than they were fifty years ago. More persons, in consequence, are able to express themselves in readable English. But I think that posterity will say of the early twentieth century what Pope said of the early eighteenth: "ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss." It is an age in which critics are many, distinguished critics few. And it is an age in which fashion is all-powerful, and therefore a false verdict may have an obstinate life if accident makes it fashionable. Let one prominent man give utterance to apiece of criticism which sounds interesting and arresting, and a hundred will repeat it — so mechanically and blindly that they may, perhaps, miss the qualification which made it even possible for any intelligent person to have said it without positive absurdity. Instead of making the original criticism more precise and discriminating, they rob it of its subtlety and turn it into a popular cry. And the cry
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grows in confidence as it loses in justice. It is raised to the rank of an unquestionable discovery by " mutual cheers and imprimaturs" to use the witty phrase coined by Cardinal Newman in his 86th year. Thus the just remark of really able critics, that Tennyson gave voice to the sentiments and aspirations of his time, and spoke out what was in the hearts of many of his contemporaries, has issued in the ridiculous mob-cry of the papers that he did no more, that he wrote little or nothing which was for all time, which represented what is permanent in human nature. This is said of the writer who has, perhaps, given us more lines which live in the language as proverbs than any other since Shakespeare. The crowning absurdity was reached by a recent lecturer who applied the cant criticism to Ten- nyson's religious poetry, and treated as mid-Victorian its alternating moods of faith and doubt : and his remarks were received with a sympathy which showed that he knew his ground, and was repeating what is accepted by up-to-date critics. To forestall any one who may cite, in reply to me, an obvious fact which the lecturer doubtless had in mind, it may, of course, be conceded that the scientific movement of the nineteenth century did throw into a state of re- ligious doubt many minds which would at other times have been untouched by it. The number of persons whose attention was turned to reflection on religious thought was multiplied. The number who realized the alternative views in question was therefore unusually large. But among those who do reflect on the grounds of faith, the double attitude presented in such a poem as " In Memoriam " is the least ephemeral characteristic of such reflection. The recognition of the witness of the spirit to religious truth, and the wit- ness of certain aspects of the phenomenal world and of the critical intellect against it, is found in every great religious thinker. Pascal was not mid-Victorian. Kant was not mid- Victorian. Coleridge was not mid-Victorian. The attitude in question was prominent in thinkers who nevertheless accepted definite dogma. Cardinal Newman wrote most of his sermons "on the theory of religious belief" when Queen Victoria was a child. Even St Thomas
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Aquinas was not without a certain imaginative sympathy with the attitude of doubt. The contest, too, between im- memorial tradition which tells for religion, and rationalistic criticism which attacks it, is an unceasing one. Euripides was not a mid-Victorian, and it was he who wrote " we do not reason about the gods. Our ancestral traditions and those which are coeval with time — no mere argument can overthrow them." It is, thus, the ignormg of an obvious fact that makes such criticism on Tennyson, as that to which I refer, possible. Then, fired with their discovery that "In Memoriam" was only a record of peculiarities in the mid-Victorian mind, the critics "go one better" and tell us that Tennyson was no thinker. For it was not necessary to be a thinker in order to set down what every one else was thinking. And even more adventurous writers have explained that he did not understand modern science. These journalists (I may remark) hold a different opinion from that of Huxley, who once said to the present writer, in the course of a criticism of Tennyson by no means entirely favourable, "But his grasp of the present trend of physical science is wonderful — equal, I should say, to that of the greatest experts."
Probably the real cause of the disparagement of Tenny- son is much the same as that which terminates the reign of many a Government. "He has had a long innings, let us get rid of him and give others a turn." Seven years may see his rule restored and little of the present mob-cry will then be remembered; while the accompanying criticisms which are really valuable and discriminating will survive.
A word more may, perhaps, usefully be said concerning the view of Tennyson's religious poetry, evidenced in the verdict above recorded. Those who uphold it seem to regard the alternating moods of faith and doubt, which he is so fond of presenting, as peculiar to the crisis through which the Christian view of the universe passed in the intellectual world, owing to the various developments of thought and research in the nineteenth century. Geology, physiology, Biblical criticism, and the study of Christian origins each played its part. It is common to hear such
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critics of Tennyson say, that in the earlier stages of these scientific movements religious doubt was inevitable and natural; that now, however, scientific results are formulated and known ; that the controversy has assumed, therefore,defi- nite shape, and a strong man takes unequivocally one side or the other — which Tennyson fails to do. But this is surely to identify the occasion and form of Tennyson's utterances with their essence. He does take one side, though he sees two. He depicts an eternal contest, though at times its form is determined by contemporary speculation.The philosophy of necessity is far older than Christianity itself, though a prominent movement of the sciences may give it new vogue. Lucretius held it in a more uncompromising form than Huxley. And it led him to say that the gods were the creation of human fears. If "In Memoriam," in its faithful autobiographical record, presents vividly moods of thought which were coloured by the science of the moment, its alternations between faith and doubt represent some- thing far more permanent in human nature. They are the record in Browning's words of
.... Hopes and fears As old and new at once as Nature's self.
Ultimate indecision is not the characteristic of Tenny- son's thought on these subjects, but rather the realization of two ways of looking at life and the world. Tennyson showed this same phase of mind earlier, in the "Confes- sions of a Sensitive Mind" and in "The Two Voices." In its more mature form it had less and less the character of doubt, more and more that of realizing alternative views — one seen to be superficial though plausible, the other deeper and truer.
How entirely outside the special needs or peculiarities of the Victorian age in England Tennyson himself placed this vein of thought, may be seen in two poems to which (in this connexion) he attached great importance, "The Ancient Sage," and "The Dream of Akbar." "Akbar" has for time the 1 6th century, for place the Mogul Empire ; The Ancient Sage lives in the East, long before the Christian era. He does not even know the phrase, "God" as monotheists use
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it: but speaks only of the "Nameless " power which is felt in the conscience of man and to which he ascribes the ex- istence of the universe. Neither of these poems, perhaps, ranks with his greater efforts, as poetry pure and simple — though each contains most memorable lines. But their interest for those who wish to know the thoughts which exercised the poet in the evening of life is great. They appeared in the "Tiresias" and "CEnone" volumes, re- spectively. Every one knows "In Memoriam," but probably not so many read "The Ancient Sage, "therefore I need not apologise for giving an account of it, as a specimen of the poet's later manner and thought.
The poem is dramatic, and the personality of the two interlocutors is a very important element in it viewed as a work of art. An aged seer of high, ascetic life, a thousand years before the birth of Christ, holds intercourse with a younger man
that loved and honoured him, and yet
Was no disciple, richly garbed, but worn
From wasteful living ....
The younger man has set down his reflections on the philosophy of life in a set of verses which the ancient sage reads, commenting, as the reading proceeds, on the various views put forth. There seems to be a deep connexion be- tween the personal characteristics of the two men, — their habits and modes of living, — and their respective views. The younger man is wearied with satiety, impatient for immediate pleasure —
Yet wine and laughter, friends! and set
The lamps alight, and call For golden music, and forget The darkness of the pall —
He is dismayed by the first appearance of difficulty and pain in the world, as he had been satisfied for a time with the immediate pleasures within his reach. He is un- able to steady the nerve of his brain (so to speak) and trace the riddle of pain and trouble in the universe to its ultimate solution. In thought, as in conduct, he is filled and swayed by the immediate inclination and the first
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impression, without self-restraint and without the habits of concentrated reflection which go hand-in-hand with self- restraint. Failing, in consequence, to have any steady view of his own soul or of the spiritual life within, he is im- pressed, probably, by experience, with this one truth, that uncontrolled self-indulgence leads to regret and pain; and he is.consequently, pessimistic in hisultimate view of things. The absence of spiritual light makes him see only the im- mediate pain and failure in the universe. He has no patience to look beyond or to reflect if there be not an underlying and greater purpose which temporary failure in small things may further, as the death of one cell in the human organism is but the preparation for its replacement by another, and a part of the body's natural growth and development. It is a dissipated character and a dissipated mind. The intangible beauty of moral virtue finds nothing in the character capable of assimilating it; the spiritual truth of God's existence and the spiritual purpose of the universe elude the mind.
In marked contrast stands forth the "Ancient Sage." He has no taste for the dissipations of the town:
I am wearied of our city, son, and go
To spend my one last year among the hills.
His gospel is a gospel of self-restraint and long-suffering, of action for high ends regardless of the inclination of the moment:
Let be thy wail and help thy fellow men, And make thy gold thy vassal, not thy king, And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl, And send the day into the darkened heart; Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, A dying echo from a falling wall:
Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue, Nor drown thyself with flies in honied wine.
And more — think well; Do well will follow thought. And the patience and self-control which enable him to work for great purposes and spiritual aims, and to
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refrain from being mastered by passing inclination, charac- terize, also,ihis thought. "Things are not what they seem," he holds. The first view is ever incomplete, though he who has not sobriety and patience of thought will not get beyond the first view. That concentration of thought and that purity of manners which keep the spiritual soul and self undimmed, and preserve the morai voice within articulate, are indispensable if we are to understand anything beyond the most superficial phenomena about us. The key-note is struck in the very first words which the Seer speaks :
This wealth of waters might but seem to draw From yon dark cave; but, son, the source is higher, Yon summit half-a-league in air — and higher, The cloud that hides it — higher still, the heavens Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout The cloud descended. Force is from the heights.
" Force is from the heights," is the thought which under- lies the sage's interpretation of all that perplexes the younger man. We cannot fully understand what is beyond and above us, but if we are wise we shall steadily look up- wards, and enough light will eventually be gained for our guidance. "Lucerna pedibus meisverbum tuum." As God's law is enough to guide our footsteps, though we cannot hope to understand His full counsel, so the light by which the spiritual world is disclosed is sufficient for those who reverently and attentively gaze upwards, though the dis- closure is only gradual and partial. If we are said not to know what we cannot submit in its entirety to scientific tests, we can never know anything worth knowing. If, again, we are to disbelieve in the spiritual world because it is filled with mystery, what are we to say of the mysteries which face us in this earth — inexplicable yet undeniable? The conception of God is not more mysterious than the thought that a grain of sand may be divided a million times, and yet be no nearer its ultimate division than it is now. Time and space are full of mystery. A man under chloroform has been known to pass many hours of sensation in a few minutes. Time is made an objective measure of things, and yet its
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phenomena are so subjective that Kant conceived it to have no real existence. When the younger man complains that "the Nameless Power or Powers that rule were never heard nor seen," the Sage thus replies:
If thou wouldst hear the Nameless, and wilt dive Into the temple cave of thine own self, There, brooding by the central altar, thou Mayst haply learn the Nameless hath a voice, By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise, As if thou knewest, tho' thou canst not know; For knowledge is the swallow on the lake That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there But never yet hath dipped into the abysm, The abysm of all abysms, beneath, within The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth, And in the million millionth of a grain, Which cleft and cleft again for ever more, And ever vanishing never vanishes, To me, my son, more mystic than myself, Or even than the Nameless is to me.
And so, too, when the youth calls for further proof of the "Nameless," the Sage reminds him that the most in- timately known truths are incapable of formal proof. The thought which the poet here dwells upon is similar to Car- dinal Newman's teaching in the Grammar of Assent, though Tennyson's use of words does not here, as elsewhere, har- monize with Catholic doctrine. There are truths, the know- ledge of which is so intimately connected with our own per- sonality, that the material for complete formal proof eludes verbal statement. We reject, for example, with a clear and unerring instinct, the notion that when we converse with our friends, the words and thoughts which come to us proceed possibly from some principle within us and not from an external cause, and yet it is not a matter on which we can offer logical proof. The same sensations could conceivably be produced from within, as they are in a dream. Logical proof, then, has (so the Ancient Sage main- tains) to be dispensed with in much that is of highest moment:
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Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one: Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no Nor yet that thou art mortal — nay, my son, Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee, Am not thyself in converse with thyself, For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven.
And close upon this follows the beautiful passage in which the hopeful and wistful upward gaze of faith is described. While melancholy and perplexity constantly attend on the exercises of the speculative intellect, we are to "cling to faith":
She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of "Yes" and "No,"
She sees the best that glimmers thro' the worst,
She feels the sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer through the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wailed, "mirage."
These lines present to the reader the hopefulness of the spiritual mind, hopefulness not akin to the merely san- guine temperament, but based on a deep conviction of the reality of the spiritual world, and on unfailing certainty that there is in it a key to the perplexities of this universe of which we men understand so little. We know from expe- rience that material Nature is working out her ends, however little we understand the process, and however unpromising portions of her work might appear without this knowledge. That an acorn should have within it forces which compel earth, air and water to come to its assistance and become the oak tree, would seem incredible were it not so habitually known as a fact : and the certainty which such experiences give in the material order, the eye of faith gives in the spiritual order. However perplexing the universe now seems to us we have this deep trust that there is an explanation, and
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that when we are in a position to judge the whole, instead of looking on from this corner of time and space, the truth of the spiritual interpretation of its phenomena will be clear — "ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis et vincascum judicaris." This view runs not only through the passages I have just quoted, but through all the poem. The poet pleads for steadfast trust and hope in the face of diffi- culty, as we would trust a known and intimate friend in the face of ominous suspicions.
It is, of course,just that keen realization of the plausible- ness of the sceptical view of life, to which our modern critics object as a sign of weakness, which gives this poem its strength. Such assistance as Tennyson gives us in seeing and realizing the spiritual view is needed only or mainly by those to whom agnosticism in its various forms is a plausible, and, at first sight, a reasonable attitude. The old-fashioned "irrefragable arguments" are of little use by themselves to persons in such a condition. However evident spiritual truths may be to an absolutely purified reason, they are not evident to intellects which are im- pregnated with a view of things opposed to the religious view. Moreover, we do not consult a doctor with much confidence if he does not believe in the reality of our ill- ness; and one who finds the sceptical view persuasive will have little trust in those who tell him that it has no plau- sibility at all. With Tennyson, as with Cardinal Newman, half the secret of his influence in this respect is that the scepti- cally minded reader finds those very disturbing thoughts which had troubled his own mind anticipated and stated. And yet a truer and deeper view is likewise depicted, which sees through and beyond these thoughts, which detects through the clouds the light in the heavens beyond.
In the "Ancient Sage" there is a striking instance of this characteristic. The young philosopher, filled with the fail- ure of fair promise and the collapse of apparent purpose in Nature and in man, pours forth his sceptical lament. Here is a selection from it, typical of the rest:
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The years that made the stripling wise
Undo their work again, And leave him blind of heart and eyes,
The last and least of men.
His winter chills him to the root,
He withers, marrow and mind, The kernel of the shrivelled fruit
Is jutting through the rind; The tiger spasms tear his chest,
The palsy wags his head; The wife, the sons, who love him best
Would fain that he were dead;
The statesman's brain that sway'd the past
Is feebler than his knees; The passive sailor wrecks at last
In ever-silent seas; The warrior hath forgot his arms,
The learned all his lore; The changing market frets or charms
The merchant's hope no more; The prophet's beacon burned in vain,
And now is lost in cloud; The ploughman passes bent with pain
To mix with what he ploughed; The poet whom his age would quote
As heir of endless fame — He knows not even the book he wrote,
Not even his own name. For man has overlived his day
And, darkening in the light, Scarce feels the senses break away
To mix with ancient night.
The Sage — far from denying the force of what he says, far from merely chiding him as having a diseased imagi- nation, and leaving the matter there — contends for a deeper and wider view. The "darkness is in man." It is the result of the incompleteness of his knowledge. That is to say, what is black to his imperfect view, and taken by itself, may be a necessary condition to the rest
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of the scheme. Not that the things are not really sad, but that the whole is not sad. As there maybe pain in tears of joy, and yet it is lost in exquisite pleasure, so the dark elements of life, when our ultimate destiny is attained and we can view age and suffering as part of the whole, may be so entirely eclipsed, that we may say with truth that the "world is wholly fair":
My son the world is dark with griefs and graves, So dark that men cry out against the Heavens. Who knows but that the darkness is in man? The doors of night may be the gates of light; For wert thou lame, or blind or deaf, and then Suddenly healed how wouldst thou glory in all The splendours and the voices of the world! And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore Await the last and largest sense, to make The phantom walls of this illusion fade And show us that the world is wholly fair.
"The doors of night may be the gates of light," says the Sage; and in unison with this note are his replies to some of the details of the younger man's wail, while his very argument presupposes that all cannot now be answered until we have the "last and largest sense." Thus, when the dreary, hopeless vision of bodily decay, which seems to point to total dissolution of a noble nature is referred to, he says:
The shell must break before the bird can fly.
The breaking of the shell might seem, at first sight, total destruction, but the forthcoming of the bird transforms the conception of decay into a conception of new birth. And so, too, in answer to the complaint that "the shaft of scorn that once had stung, but wakes the dotard smile," he sug- gests that a more complete view may show it to be "the placid gleam of sunset after storm." The transition may be not from intense life to apathy, but from blinding passion to a serener vision.
Another of the later poems — "Vastness" — brings into especial relief the parallel I have referred to between Lord
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Tennyson and Cardinal Newman in their keen sense of the mysteries of the universe. So far as this planet goes, and our own human race, Cardinal Newman has expressed this sense in the Apologia^ and the parallel between his view and Tennyson's is sufficiently instructive to make it worth while to quote the passage in full :
To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts ; and then their ways, habits, govern- ments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent con- clusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers and truths, the progress of things as if from unreason- ing elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race so fear- fully yet exactly described by the Apostle, "having no hope and without God in the world," all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is absolutely beyond human solution.
Lord Tennyson takes in a wider range of considerations than the Cardinal. He paints graphically, not only the mystery of the lot of mankind, but the further sense of bewilderment which arises when we contemplate the aim- lessness of this vast universe of which our earth is such an inappreciable fragment. Logically, the poems asks only the question: "Great or small, grand or ignoble, what does anything matter if we are but creatures of the day with no eternal destiny?" But the grandeur of the poem consists in the manner in which it sweeps from end to end of human experience and knowledge, from thoughts overwhelming in their vastness, from ideas carrying the mind over the length and breadth of space and over visions of all eternity, to pictures of this planet, with its microscopic details, the hopes, anxieties, plans, pleasures, griefs which make up the
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immediate life of man. The imagination vacillates between a keen sense of the importance of all, even the smallest, and the worthlessness of all, even the greatest. At one moment comes the thought that one life out of the myriads of lives passed on this tiny planet, if it be lived and given up for righteousness, is of infinite and eternal value, and the next moment comes the sense that the whole universe is worthless and meaningless, if, indeed, the only percipient beings who are affected by it are but creatures who feel for a day and then pass to nothingness. Each picture of the various aspects of human life rouses an instinctive sympathy, and a feeling in the background, "it can't be worthless and meaningless:" and yet the poet relentlessly forces us to confess that it is only some far wider view of human nature and destiny than this world alone can justify, which can make the scenes he de- picls of any value. What Mill called "the disastrous feeling of cnot worth while"' threatens the reader at every turn; though the pictures of life in its innumerable aspects of happiness, misery, sensuality, purity, selfishness, self-devo- tion, ambition, aspiration, craft, cruelty, are so intensely real and rivet the imagination so strongly, that he refuses to yield to the feeling. I subjoin some of the couplets where good and bad, great and small, alternate:
Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanished
face, Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanished
race, Raving politics never at rest — as this poor earth's pale history runs, What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million
of suns ?
Faith at her zenith, or all but lost in the gloom of doubts that
darken the schools, Craft with a bunch of all-heal in her hand follow'd up by her vassal
legion of fools.
Wealth with his wines and wedded harlots ; flatterers gilding the
rift of a throne : Opulent avarice lean as poverty: honest poverty bare to the bone;
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Love for the maiden crown'd with marriage, no regrets for aught
that has been Household happiness, gracious children, debtless competence,
golden mean; National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the
village spire; Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are
snapt in a moment of fire: y
He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing
it, flesh without mind, He that has nail'd all flesh to the cross till self died out in the love
of his kind; Spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter, and all these old
revolutions of earth : All new-old revolutions of empire — change of the tide — what is all
of it worth? What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of
prayer? All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that
is fair? What is it all, if we all of us end in being our own corpse coffins
at last, Swallowed in vastness, lost in silence, drowned in the depths of a
meaningless past, What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, of a moment's anger
of bees in their hive ?
The thought which seems to oppress the seer is the in- significance of everything when compared to a standard — ever conceivable and ever actual — above it. The ruts of a ploughed field may seem to the ant as vast and over- coming as the Alps seem to us. Then contrast the thought of Mont Blanc with that of the whole globe; proceed from the globe to the solar system, and from that to the myriads of systems lost in space. All that is great to us is relatively great, and becomes small at once when the mind rises higher. So, too, in the moral order, all those aspects of human life which sway our deepest emotions are but "a murmur of gnats in the gloom," if regard be had to our comparative insignificance. The ground yields at every step and the mind looks for some terra fir 'ma , some absolute basis of trust, and this is only to be found in the conception of
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man as possessing an eternal destiny. The infinite value of all that concerns an immortal being stands proof against the thoughts that bewildered our vision. "He that has nailed all flesh to the cross till self died out in the love of his kind" may be but a speck in the universe, but faith measures him by a standard other than that of spacial vastness. The idea of the eternal worth of morality steps in to calm the imagination; and this idea in its measure justifies the conception of the value and importance of all the phases of human existence which make up the drama of life. Human love is the side of man's nature which the poet looks to as conveying the sense of his immortal destiny. The undying union of spirit with spirit is a union which the grave cannot end. The bewildering nightmare of the nothingness and vanity of all things is abruptly cut short, as the sense of what is deepest in the human heart promptly gives the lie to what it cannot solve in detail:
Peace, let it be! for I loved him and love him for ever. The dead are not dead but alive.
The above analysis of" The Ancient Sage" and "Vast- ness" is largely taken from a note-book kept by the author, when the poems first appeared, in Victorian days. He ven- tures to set it down as being accurate, though doubtless it smacks of the soil in which it first grew. Yet, if we young men took these poems very seriously in those days and wrote of them somewhat prosily, we read them too carefully to pass such judgements as we now see in the newspapers. Comprehensiveness of view is not weak- ness, though the imagination must vacillate as it takes up alternate positions. To see two sides and not one only is not to be deficient in thinking power. In such a poem as "DeProfundis" the element of doubt does not appear at all. Life and death are simply presented in it from the two points of view, the spiritual and the physical. Into "The Ancient Sage ' ' and " Vastness " doubt enters just so far as the purely material view is represented as excluding in certain minds or moods the spiritual view; and the imagination of the spectator must (as I have said) vacillate as it passes Vol. 145 321 21
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to and fro from one view to the other. Which of the two views the poet himself holds to be deeper and truer is not left in any doubt.
I have not here attempted an examination of the earlier poems in which Tennyson touches on the question of re- ligious belief. But I think that his position as clearly de- fined in the later ones, of which I have spoken, is that which on the whole he held from the first. The " faith in honest doubt" so familiar to readers of "In Memoriam" meant primarily an absolute sincerity in the recognition of all that tells either way in the battle between belief and unbelief. It was the antithesis to the one-sided bigotry which his critics seem to identify with strength. The alternative views of life were brought home vividly to many by the intellectual circumstances of the Victorian age. But they are no more especially Victorian than the tears of Xerxes, when he looked at the Persian soldiers and reflected that they would all be dead in a hundred years, were especially Persian. In each case such thoughts will belong to life and the world as long as the human race shall last. It is the modern criticism which fails to re- cognize this that is the fashion of an hour and will speedily perish.
But as I feel that the mid-Victorian character of these remarks has probably left me by now "addressing an empty house," I bring them to a close.
WILFRID WARD.
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ST ANSELM OF CANTER- BURY
(Concluded)
IN the year 1094, difficulties arose between the King and the new Primate. Anselm declared that the land was rampant with vice, and urged the immediate assembly of a Synod. The King — who was himself given to vice in its worst form — said he would call a Synod at his own pleasure, and not at Anselm's. On the other hand, their relations were further strained by the fact that the King wished to extort a large sum of money from Anselm, as he did from the other bishops, and Anselm would only give what he deemed to be reasonable, a sum which was less than half of what the courtiers expected.
The quarrels over the Synod and the subsidy were but preliminary skirmishes. Anselm's chief objective was the restoration of the normal working of Papal Authority in England, and it was upon this, the main issue, that the real battle was delivered. Anselm, like a wise leader, took the initiative, and brought matters at once to a crisis, by going to the King at Gillingham, and requesting leave to go to Rome and seek from Pope Urban II the Pallium, the sacred stole, which was the seal and symbol of the Papal sanction to his appointment to the Archbishopric. Such a demand was naturally of a kind to force the King's hand. To say yes, was to recognise Pope Urban as the true claim- ant to the Papacy, and put an end to the period of real or affected doubt as to the Papal succession, during which he had been able to carry on his campaign of plunder of Church property, unhampered by Papal sentences of excommunication or interdict. To say no, was to enter into a conflict in which he would have to measure his strength with the calm courage of the Primate. The King fell back upon his " customs," by which in cases of doubt as to who was the real Pope, it was for the King to decide in the name of England to which of the claimants the
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obedience of the realm should be given, and contended that, pending that decision — which he would be in no hurry to make — Anselm would act contrary to the royal prerogative and his own allegiance, if he communicated with Urban. Anselm, thus called upon to choose between King and Pope, was quick to perceive that the matter was really a national one, and felt the wisdom of putting the controversy on its true basis, and of lifting it above a personal issue between himself and the King. He there- fore requested that it should be referred to a council representative of the whole of the nation. At the same time, he frankly warned the King that if the decision of the Council should be to affirm that his duty to Pope Urban was incompatible with his allegiance to the King, then he would quit the country until such time as the Pope was recognised " rather than depart even for an hour from his obedience to Blessed Peter and his suc- cessor*." The King consented to have the matter dis- cussed, and the council of the Peers of the realm met for the purpose on the second Sunday of Lent in 1095, at the Castle of Rockingham.
To this stronghold in the Derbyshire weald came not only the King and the Primate, and the Bishops, and the Abbots and Barons, but a multitude of the clergy and laity. The council opened on the Sunday evening, and then began that memorable three days' struggle which stands out in English Church History as the Battle of the Pallium, and marks the council of Rockingham as the Waterloo in the war of Church and State in the eleventh century.
Anselm addressed the assembly, and put the issue in a form which was of all that he might have chosen, the most modest and conciliatory — that of asking their advice and the solution of a practical difficulty.
It was his duty to seek his Pallium from the Pope. The
King had forbidden him to communicate with the Pope.
Could they suggest to him any course which he could
follow, so that he could " be true to his loyalty to the
* Eadmer. Hist. Nov., 53.
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King, and, at the same time, act in nowise contrary to his obedience to the Pope?" *
Anselm directed this question specially to the bishops, and so put, it gave them an opportunity of coming grace- fully and of their own accord to his support. Unfortu- nately the responsibility of such support was just what the terrorised bishops feared most to incur, and their only answer to the Primate was that he " must be his own adviser; that they knew him to be wise in the things of God, and a lover of all righteousness, and therefore one who had no need of their counsel. But if he would submit himself unconditionally to the will of the King, they would willingly join with him, and do the best they could for themselves and for him." They promised to carry his words to the King, who, with some of his courtiers, re- mained apart from the Council, but in communication with it. So closed the discussion for the first day.
On the Monday morning the assembly met again in the great hall of the castle, and Anselm, who had hoped that time and reflection would have brought the bishops to a more courageous frame of mind, asked once more if they had any further counsel to give him. The fear of the King still hung heavily upon them, and they merely repeated their pitiful answer of the night before, adding that if he wished them to do anything against the will of the King they would never be found to aid him. The answer was one of which, it seems, even they had the grace to feel ashamed. Eadmer, who was an eyewitness of the scene, says that when they had given their reply " they held their peace and hung down their heads, as if expecting what was to come upon them."f Anselm, now disillusioned of any hope of their support, addressed them with the warmth and dignified sternness which their defection deserved. It was "with a kindling countenance" (vivido vultu) says Eadmer, " and his eyes raised to heaven, and in an im- pressive voice " that he administered the following rebuke :
" Seeing that you, who are the pastors of the Christian flock, and you who are called the chiefs of the people, are * Eadmer. Hist., Nov. 55. f Eadmer. Hist., Nov. 56.
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unwilling to give me, your father, any counsel except according to the pleasure of one man, I will have recourse to the Chief Pastor, to the Lord of All, to the Angel of Great Counsel, and in this cause, which is His, and that of His Church, I will follow the counsel which I shall receive from Him. He says to the Most Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and to thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth it shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed in Heaven.' And to all the Apostles in common, c He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me,'; and * He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of My eye.' Even as we receive these things as said principally to Blessed Peter, and in him to the other Apostles, so we hold them to apply principally to the successor of Blessed Peter, and through him to the other bishops who take the place of the Apostles. They do not apply to any emperor, to any king, to any duke, or any count. But in what we owe sub- jection and service to earthly princes the same Angel of Great Counsel teaches us and instructs us when He says ' Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' These are the words and these are the counsels of God. By these I stand, these I accept, and from these I will never depart. Where- fore know ye all, that in things which are of God I will render obedience to the successor of St Peter; and in those things which rightly pertain to the earthly dignity of my lord the King; I will render him, faithfully, counsel and help to the best of my knowledge and power."
In this solemn pronouncement of Anselm we have a remarkably clear statement of the doctrine of the Two Powers, the independence of the Spiritual Power, and the Authority of the See of Peter, — the three great principles of the Catholic tradition in England, which later on St Thomas sealed with his blood, and a succession of primates like St Edmund, Peckham, Stratford, Courtenay, Arundel,
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and Warham* maintained up to the very eve of the Reformation.
When Anselm had concluded his speech, the Bishops were in such a state of confusion and panic that they refused even to report his words to the King. Thereupon Anselm, with characteristic courage, went straight to the King's presence and repeated word for word all that he had just said to the assembly. Having done so, he with- drew, and the King in a towering passion — vehementer iratus — called around him his party of Bishops and barons, and these, after an angry debate, brought back to Anselm their decision.
The King regarded his action as a contravention of the rights of the Crown. They besought him, therefore, to give up Urban, and submit himself to the will of the King, and ask pardon for his offence. Anselm's answer was brief and plain. " I have heard what you said, but, not to men- tion other things, I will not in any way swerve from my obedience to the Pope."f As it was now getting late, he asked them to defer further discussion until the following day. The King, however, would not wait for the morrow, and the bishops returned, and made a desperate effort to browbeat Anselm into submission. William of Durham, their ringleader, adopting a bullying tone, warned Anselm that he must not imagine that this " was a joking mat- ter. "J And that either he must recognize forthwith the King's claim, or suffer the punishment of his presump- tion. Anselm met this attempt at intimidation by a chal- lenge, which seems to have turned the tables on his assailants. He said, " Whoever wishes to maintain that I am violating the oath and allegiance which I owe to my earthly King, because I refuse to be untrue to my obe- dience to the Venerable Sovereign Pontiff of the Holy Roman Church, let him come forward, and, in the name
* See Archbishop Warham's defence written a few months before his death. State Papers Henry VIII, v, 245. Published in Dublin Review, April, 1894.
t Eadmer. Hist. Nov., 59.
X Nee jocum existimes esse quod agitur.
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of the Lord, he will find me ready to answer him, as I ought, and where I ought."* The last three words, " Where I ought," had a sensational effect. His auditors knew that it meant nothing less than an appeal to the Pope, and they remembered, as Eadmer says, "that an Archbishop of Canterbury could be judged or con- demned by no man except by the Pope alone." This plain hint of an appeal to Rome, marks in reality the turning of the tide of victory in Anselm's favour. A mur- mur of sympathy ran through the crowd gathered in the hall, and then followed a dramatic incident. It was not a time or place when men could easily speak their minds, and, nevertheless, the faithful laity managed to find a spokesman. A brave knight stood forth and made his way through the assembly, and, kneeling before the Arch- bishop, said in the presence of all, " Lord and father, your people humbly ask you, through me, not to let your heart be troubled by the things that have been said to you, but to remember how blessed Job overcame the devil upon the dunghill, and avenged Adam who had been overcome by him in Paradise." It was a quaint speech in its way, and not over elegant in its allusion to the King and his party, but it sufficed to convey to Anselm the glad assurance that his people were with him in his struggle, and Eadmer tells us that he rejoiced in hearing it, and found in it a confirmation of the truth that the " voice of the people is the voice of God."
The King, on being informed of how things were turn- ing, burst into a fit of indignation so frantic that the chronicler describes him as " being angry unto death " — usque ad divisionem spiritus sui exacerbatus. He vented his fury on both bishops and barons, swearing " by the Face of God of Lucca " that unless they condemned Anselm, he would condemn them, and that anyone who was Anselm's man could no longer be his. The bishops pro- tested that they as suffragans could not judge or con- demn one who was their Primate, even if he had been guilty of some fault, and that that was still to be proved.
•Ibid, 61.
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Thereupon, the indignant King commanded them at least to withdraw their obedience from him, and to this the bishops basely consented. The King next turned to the barons, and demanded that they, too, should abjure their fealty to the Archbishop. Happily, where the bishops had given way, the barons — to their honour be it said — stood firm. They replied, very properly, that they were not the Archbishop's " men " (in the feudal sense of vassals), and that they could not withdraw the feudal fealty which they had never swore, but they added, " He is our Archbishop, and it belongs to him to rule the Christianity of this land, and, as we are Christians and live in this land, we cannot disobey his authority, the more so as he is guilty of no offence which would compel us to do so " (Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 64). The King had to bridle his anger before this bold answer of the barons, but he amply consoled himself by falling upon the bishops and giving them such a particularly bad quarter of an hour of blackmailing that they were glad to assuage his wrath with the usual anodyne of plentiful promises of money.
If it be asked, what is the explanation of this strange defection of the bishops, at a time when their duty most called upon them to rally to the side of Anselm and the Holy See, the answer can only be found in the plain fact that they were mostly creatures of the King, both by the conditions of their selection, as well as by the incriminat- ing circumstances which, in many cases, entered into their appointment. It was not that they were in any way troubled with any dogmatic doubts on the subject of Papal supremacy. On the contrary, the chiefest and worst of them, William of Durham, who acted throughout as ringleader against Anselm, frankly told the King that the very reason why it was quite impossible for them to refute Anselm's position was the fact that " his whole claim is founded on the words of God and the Authority of Blessed Peter."*
In fact, the bishops themselves gave to Anselm, at a
* Praesertim cum omnis ratio eius (Anselmi) innitatur verbis Dei et auctoritate Beati Petri. Eadmer. Hist. Nov. 62.
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subsequent date, very candidly and unblushingly, the true and only explanation of their conduct. They said, " Lord and father, we know that thou art a holy and religious man, and that thy conversation is in heaven. But we, hampered as we are by our relatives whom we have to support, and entangled in the manifold things of this present life which we love, confess that we cannot rise to the height of thy life, nor can we join with thee in despising the things of this world. But if thou wilt come down to our ways, and lead the life which we do, then we shall help you as we should help ourselves, and further your interests even as if they were our own " (Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 32). That was certainly, to say the least, a wonderful invitation! No wonder that Anselm one day long afterwards, speaking with the Pope about the character of his bishops, exclaimed, "And I, Father, amongst such people, what could I do?"*
On the Tuesday evening, soon after the scene just described, Anselm followed up his advantage and took the King by surprise by sending him a message claiming a safe conduct to the nearest port. The request signified clearly that the appeal to Rome would be put into immediate exe- cution, and this was just the last thing which the King and his party cared to contemplate. Their wish was to have Anselm deprived of the Archbishopric while he was still inside the realm; but to let him depart as Archbishop, carrying his complaint to the Holy See would mean the frustration of all their plans.
Anselm's stroke had told. The next morning all was changed. The Bishops met him with a message from the King. All their threatening and blustering mood was gone. They wished him to understand how sorry they were "for old friendship sake " that this quarrel should have arisen between him and the King. They desired nothing more than a reconciliation. It would make for peace, if time were given for reflection, and for angry feelings to subside, and they came therefore to suggest a truce until the following Pentecost. Anselm, who was kept well informed
* Et ego, pater, inter tales, quid facerem! Eadmer. Hist. Nov., 104.
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as to things in the opposite camp, seems to have under- stood the inwardness of this sudden change of front. He told them that he was not without an inkling of what this proposal meant, but that, as it had been made in the name of peace, he would not oppose it. He accepted the truce, but added the proviso, " saving always the reverence and obedience which I owe to the lord Urban, Pontiff of the Apostolic See."
Thus on Wednesday morning the three days' struggle at Rockingham came to a close with Anselm still holding his ground unfalteringly and unflinchingly, and his opponents themselves begging for an armistice.
It soon became clear why those who, a few hours pre- viously, were so impatient to bring matters to an issue, and had told Anselm that it was no joking matter, now spoke of peace and friendship and counselled some ten weeks of delay.
The King's object in securing this interval was to make a desperate and startling move. Anselm, from first to last, had taken his stand upon the authority of the Apostolic See. The King now resolved to capture, if possible, the base of operations by winning the Pope to his own side, and turning Papal authority to the ruin and deprivation of Anselm. He dispatched Ambassadors to Rome, who recognized Urban as the true Pope, and rendered to him, in the King's name, the obedience of England. Having thus prepared the ground, they disclosed their object. They asked that the Pope should grant the Pallium but without specific mention of the name of any Archbishop, and that they might be entrusted with it to carry it to the King, so that he might confer it on the recipient. The design of the King, apparently, was to get possession of the Pallium, and having secured by some means the deposition of Anselm, and the appointment of a new Arch- bishop of his own choice — probably William of Durham — he would be able to authenticate the position of the in- truder by covering him with the well-known symbol of Roman sanction.
It must have cost the quick-witted Italians an effort to
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keep serious in dealing with such clumsy diplomacy. At all events, Rome with her wonted tact, easily seized upon the situation and turned it to advantage. The Pope, to the joy of the ambassadors, readily promised to grant the Pallium, but — and, did they but know it, it was a "but" which meant the utter defeat of all that they hoped for — the Pallium was not to be confided to their hands, but into those of a Cardinal Legate, who would take it to Eng- land, and whose instructions, naturally, were to see that it was bestowed there in what Rome judged to be the proper way and upon the proper person. Accordingly, the Am- bassadors, accompanied by the Papal Legate, came riding in hot haste back to England, not, indeed, as they had hoped to have done with the Pallium in their own hands, but trotting at the side of one who held it, and who appa- rently knew very well how to take care of it. The Cardinal very prudently precluded all suspicion of partiality by go- ing straight to the King at Windsor, without even commu- nicating in any way with Anselm. He had an interview with the King, and as a result, next morning writs were issued to the sheriffs of England proclaiming Urban as the right- ful Pope, to whom all persons were to render reverence and obedience as the true successor of St Peter. Thus, strangely enough, as the result of the King's own plotting, the recognition of Urban in the realm, the great object which Anselm had so much at heart, was finally and suc- cessfully accomplished. " Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us." No doubt the King expected much in return. When, however, he broached to the Legate his own scheme that Anselm should be deposed, and the Pallium given to another, he found the Legate inexorable, and that Rome was as loyal to Anselm as Anselm was to Rome. The King made an offer that, if his desire were only granted, an "immense sum of money" would be sent each year to the Roman Church. The Legate was immovable, and gave the King to understand that Anselm and no other could be Archbishop, and that he alone could receive the Pallium. Even the last plea, made by some of his courtiers, that at least the King, as a solatium to his
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wounded pride, might be allowed to give the Pallium to Anselm was dismissed as unbecoming, and the Cardinal "rightly pointed out that this gift belonged not to the royal dignity, but exclusively to the authority of Blessed Peter." (Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 72.)
It was very typical of the Red King that, at the last moment, when he saw that the whole game which he had been playing was utterly lost, and that all his schemes had been hopelessly worsted, he should turn upon Anselm as fair game for some more blackmailing, and sent his bishops to engage in an attempt to extort from him a large sum of money, on the amusing plea that it was altogether thanks to the King that he was getting his Pallium, without even the trouble or expense of going to Rome for it ! Even in this last pitiable device the Red King was doomed to dis- appointment. It appears that Anselm's sense of humour did not rise to the point of paying compensation for the failure of the plans of his enemies.
The King, on learning the Cardinal's decision, "lost heart," and Anselm was sent for; and the successful Legate brought about a reconciliation between the King and the Archbishop at Windsor. It was agreed that the Cardinal should carry the Pallium to Canterbury, and lay it upon the High Altar, whence Anselm himself should take it, and thus take his normal position before the nation, invested with the highest badge of Roman jurisdiction and of Archiepiscopal dignity.
It was a memorable Sunday — in the summer of 1095 — when the Cardinal Legate made his entry in state into Canterbury, carrying the sacred Pallium in a rich silver casket. Eadmer, who was present, very graphically de- scribes the historic scene. The Cardinal was met by a pro- cession of the monks, and clergy and the people of the city, and finally by Anselm himself, who came last of all, vested in full pontificals, supported on the right and left by his bishops, and walking barefooted to show his veneration for the gift which he was about to receive. The procession defiled into the great cathedral, and the Cardinal Legate passed up the nave, and through the chancel, and, mount-
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ing the steps of the sanctuary, took the Sacred Stole from the silver casket and laid it upon the High Altar. Then Anselm approached and, kneeling, reverently assumed it, while the vast concourse of clergy and people pressed for- ward, and, kneeling one by one, kissed it devoutly while he held it in his hands.* When this popular act of homage to the see of Peter had concluded, Anselm celebrated the High Mass, in the presence of the Legate, the bishops, the clergy and the people. It was the " day of the joy of his heart." He had suffered much and striven much and had fought bravely the good fight of the Church's free- dom. Never was victory more complete. He had seen Urban II publicly proclaimed from end to end of the land as rightful Pope, entitled to the spiritual obedience of the realm, and England restored to the normal recognition and administration of Papal authority, and he himself had not only obtained the great wish of his soul, the recep- tion of the Pallium — he called God to witness how dearly he prized it!f — but had been invested with it amid a scene of such solemnity, pomp and popular enthusiasm, the like of which had never been equalled in England.
Anselm's triumph at Canterbury in 1095 sealed and secured his position as Primate, and enabled him to take his stand before the nation, like his predecessors, girt with the Roman Pallium, the visible token that he had been confirmed in the possession and plenitude of his Arch- bishopric by the supreme authority in Christendom. The success, much as it meant, was but a preliminary victory in a campaign which was far from being ended, and in which the hardest of the strife was still to come.
* This ceremony of the Procession, the Pallium carried aloft in a silver vessel covered with white silk, the Archbishop walking barefooted, and the clergy and people admitted to kiss the Pallium after the investiture, became the traditional usage at Canterbury, as may be seen in the rite prescribed for such occasions, given in Maskell's Monumenta Ritualia, 11, 313. The popularity of the ceremony is attested very clearly by the rubric, that on this day the Archbishop was to dispense with his usual escort of attendant priests, " on account of the pressure of the people about the altar."
t Eadmer describes, him some time previously, when the arrival of the Pallium was mentioned, as exclaiming: "O beneficium! Cujus aestimatio sit penes me, novit Deus inspector conscientiae meae." Hist. Nov., p. 71.
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When Anselm paid his usual visit to court at Whitsun- tide, in 1096, he found the state of things there more hopelessly bad than ever. The King was still his own wicked and incorrigible self, and his courtier bishops were as helpless and as subservient as ever. Throughout the land vice was working havoc amongst souls — the bishops themselves acknowledged it — the discipline of the clergy was deplorably relaxed; simony was prevalent, and upon all sides the Church was oppressed and plun- dered. For such national evils, the normal remedy was the assembling of a synod. To this course, the King blocked the way. He was not in the least likely ever to consent to the cutting of a rod which would be used first of all for his own correction. Even if the synod were assembled, it would be more than doubtful, after the ex- periences of Rockingham, whether the bishops, as a body, could be counted upon to make anything like a stand against the abuses of the royal authority. In this strait Anselm resolved to go to Rome and to seek counsel and help from Pope Urban. He notified his intention to the King, and, according to the custom, asked his leave to quit the realm. The King met his request by a prompt and peremptory refusal. Anselm, true to his usual policy of patience and suaviter in modo, bided his time, and after a few months asked again, but with the same result. Two months later he renewed his petition, and this time the indignant King not only refused the request but fined the Archbishop for making it. Anselm insisted and put the matter on its true basis by making it quite clear that, while asking permission to go to Rome, he claimed it as a right which could not justly be denied him (Eadmer, Hist. Nov., 80). The King would listen to no reasons and warned Anselm that if he persisted in going to Rome he would forthwith seize the lands of the Archbishopric into his own hand and never more recognize him as Arch- bishop. The courtiers who brought the King's message assured Anselm that any hope of the King ever granting the permission was out of the question. The time had come for Anselm's reserve of fortiter in re. " If he will
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not grant it," he said, " then upon myself I will take it. For it is written, we must obey God rather than men." Before taking this extreme step, he made a last appeal to his bishops as " prelates of the Church and sons of God " to stand up " for the rights and justice of God as earnestly as they were defending the rights and usages of a mortal man." Once more his bishops failed him They took counsel together, hurried to the King to ascertain what he would wish them to do, and then returned to Anselm, with that pitiable but illuminating answer to which reference has already been made in another part of this article — that they recognized " the holiness of his life and the heavenliness of his ways," but that they could not aspire to his height: that they had their " relatives to support " and were " entangled in the things of this world," which they loved, " and that they could not afford to join with him in despising this world." They added that if he " chose to cling only to God, as he had done, then, as far as they were concerned, he would have to stand alone as he had done," and that " they would depart in nowise from the fealty which they owed to the King." Anselm's reply to this confession of worldliness was, " You have spoken truly. Go to your master, and I will cling to my God." It was precisely this clinging to God, instead of to the world and the powers of this world, that lay at the root of all the friction between Anselm and his opponents.
The King had further required of him, in case he remained in the country, to take an oath not to appeal on any pretence to the see of St Peter or to his successor. To this demand Anselm replied to the King, that any such abjuration of appeal to the Pope would be a denial of the power which Christ gave to St Peter and would be tantamount to an abjuration of Christ and Chris- tianity. Or, to put it in his own clear words : " I say that this order of thine [not to appeal to the Pope] is one which you as a Christian ought never to have made. To take such an oath is to abjure Blessed Peter, and he who abjures Blessed Peter most undoubtedly ab-
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jures Christ, who made him to be the ruler of His Church."*
Anselm delivered this reply to the King and his coun- cillors on Thursday, October 15, 1097. On returning to the hospice where he stayed, he received an imperious message from the King to the effect that in eleven days from that day, he must be at the port from which he would embark, and that a Royal official would attend to see that he did not take away from the realm any of the King's property. It was the King's parting shaft, and the public indignity put upon the Primate was very much like an order to have a man's pockets searched before being allowed to leave the house of the host with whom he has been staying.
Anselm was too good a religious to trouble himself much about the slight which was thus cast upon him, and that which saddened his soul was the regret of his priestly heart that the parting between himself and the King — which might be forever! — should be in anger. As he dwelt upon the pity of it he turned upon his steps, and made his way back to the royal chamber, and said to the astonished King, " My lord, I am about to take my departure. Were I going with your good leave, it would, indeed, be more becoming on your part and much more pleasant to all good people. But it has turned out otherwise, and although I regret the displeasure that exists upon your side, I upon my part will bear it patiently as I can, and, by God's mercy, I shall never cease to have at heart the salvation of your soul. And now that I know not when I shall see you again, I com- mend you to God, and as a father to a well-beloved son, and as Archbishop of Canterbury to the King of Eng- land, I wish before I go to give you my blessing, if you
* Dico huiusmodi iussionem tuam, qui Christianus es, omnibus modis esse non debere. Hoc enim iurare Beatum Petrum abjurare est. Qui autem Beatum Petrum abjurat, Christum qui eum super ecclesiam suam prin- cipem fecit, indubitanter adjurat. Eadmer, Hist. Nov., p. 86.
(A century later Archbishop Peckham in a letter to Edward I speaks in the same way of the hindrance of Papal appeals as contrary to Chris- tianity.)
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reject it not." The Red King, sullen and angry as he was, seems to have been taken aback and touched by the sincerity of the appeal. He had the grace to reply, " I do not reject your blessing." Anselm, raising his right hand, made the sign of the cross and gave the blessing to the King, who bent his head to receive it. Anselm passed from the room. His presentiment came true; the two never met again.
It was the summer of 1098 when Anselm arrived in Rome, and was affectionately welcomed by Pope Urban II. He was lodged with his suite in the Pope's own palace of the Lateran. On the following morning the Pope admitted him to a public audience, and large numbers of the Roman nobility were present to witness his reception. Eadmer, who was present, gives us a glimpse of a Papal audience in the eleventh century. Anselm was solemnly conducted into the great Hall, and " after the usual manner " prostrated himself before the Pope, who forthwith raised him up and kissed him, and expressed before all his great joy at seeing him in Rome. The Roman court seconded the gracious words of the Pontiff by their applause. The Pope then delivered an eloquent panegyric of Anselm and his work, and affirmed very truly that Anselm had come to Rome on behalf of a cause which was as much that of the Holy See as it was of himself. Later on he entered fully with Anselm into the matter of his grievance, as stated in a letter which he had sent to the Holy See from Lyons.* He concluded
* Anselm had been delayed by the bad and dangerous condition of the roads, more than two months at Lyons in the winter and spring of 1098, and had sent on to Rome an explanatory letter to the Pope. In it, he stated fully the difficulty of his position in England, which he laid be- fore the Holy Father as the divinely-appointed head of the Church. He concluded by entreating the Pope to release him from the Archbishopric. The latter point is noteworthy. If Rome had been at all slack or tepid in support of Anselm, or had wished to shirk the conflict with the King, nothing would have been easier than to have taken Anselm at his word, and have accepted a more accommodating Archbishop. The Pope not only dismissed as unworthy all idea of Anselm's resignation, but com- manded him, under obedience, never to relinquish his pastoral charge of the English people.
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by assuring Anselm, of his cordial support, and in practical fulfilment of his promise he despatched at once to the Red King a letter in which he required that justice should be done and full restitution made to the Arch- bishop. He enjoined upon Anselm to accompany him to the forthcoming Council at Bari, at which he would cause the matter to be discussed. At the Council Anselm dis- tinguished himself by his brilliant defence of the Catholic Faith against the objections of the Greeks, and was privileged by being assigned a special seat of honour, close to the throne of the Pope. The case of Anselm, and the manifold oppression of the Church by the Red King, were laid before the Council, and it was adjudged that the impenitent monarch should be punished by excom- munication. It was at this point that Anselm rose from his place, and, kneeling before the Pope, begged and obtained a stay of justice that this, the extreme penalty of the Church, should not be pronounced against his persecutor.
Meanwhile, the Red King sent to Rome his ambas- sador, William de Warlewast (the cleric who had over- hauled Anselm's baggage when leaving), bearing a characteristic answer to the letter of the Pope. The King expressed his surprise that the Pope should have asked him to make restitution of Anselm's property. He had warned Anselm beforehand that if he persisted in his resolve to go out of the realm without his leave he, the King, would seize his possessions. Anselm had per- sisted in doing so, and he had, therefore, felt justified in seizing the Archbishopric. The Pope, in public audi- ence, asked the Ambassador if there were any other charge against Anselm, beyond that of thus leaving the realm. William de Warlewast could only reply that there was not. The Pope marvelled that he had thought it worth while to make so long a journey to carry such an answer, and added that " it was something unheard of since the world began, that an Archbishop should be despoiled of his property " for " visiting his mother, the Roman Church." He charged the Ambassador to return
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and tell the King that, unless restitution was made before the coming Easter, the sentence of excommunication would be pronounced against him. William de Warle- wast, on receiving this ultimatum, begged for a private audience before his departure. In the private audience thus procured, William, who had been busy with his gifts among the courtiers, obtained that the time granted before the issue of the excommunication should be extended to Michaelmas.
The respite was not a very long one, and was at most an act of grace, quite in keeping with the traditional policy of the Holy See, which, in dealing with a per- verse monarch, naturally wished to give time for reflec- tion and repentance before proceeding to the extremity of ecclesiastical punishment. (There was a series of such respites in the case of Henry VIII.) Yet, strangely enough, Eadmer seems to imply that Anselm and his companions were not only aggrieved at its concession but so discouraged that they thought of leaving Rome and of retiring to Lyons. The fact that Anselm himself had pleaded that the King should be spared the extreme penalty would in itself debar him of any just ground of complaint at the Pope's action, which from first to last was consistently and unfalteringly in his favour. The Pope retained Anselm for the Council at Rome which was held at Easter, 1099. Here, again, Anselm's case was vehemently set forth by the Bishop of Lucca, and the Pope publicly promised that due order would be taken to secure justice. With the assurance just given, Anselm and his company obtained leave of the Pope to quit Rome, and returned to their hospitable quarters at Lyons with Hugh the Archbishop.
The twelve months which elapsed between the close of July, 1099, and the beginning of August, 1 100, brought a sudden change in the chief actors in the drama. On July 29, 1099, Pope Urban II died, and on August 2 of the following year the body of the Red King lay lifeless in the New Forest.
Henry Beauclerc succeeded William upon the throne
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of England, and Paschal II succeeded Pope Urban upon the Chair of Peter. There was a new King and a new Pope, and Anselm remained as the embodiment of the conflict which had been bequeathed to both.
The new English King was, both in character and in policy, a striking contrast to his predecessor. William is described by his contemporaries as a royal rowdy, brutal, vicious, godless and tyrannical. Henry was clever, courtly and dignified, and more than willing to exalt the Church and to utilize her influence as a stay and support for his own authority. At the same time, no one was more grimly determined than he to maintain intact the feudal customs in which he saw the national safeguards of his prerogative. The diplomatic position had undergone a change, and with the removal of the Red King, and his impossible regime, the relations between England and Rome swung back into much of their normal comity, but in the back- ground there still remained a grave cause of friction that was destined to trouble their peace for many years to come.
One of the first acts of the new King was to recall Anselm, with every mark of honour and favour, and to promise full restitution of the temporalities of the Arch- bishopric. In September, noo — just three years all but a month after he had left its shores — Anselm re-entered England, as Eadmer tells us : " amid the enthusiastic re- joicings of the whole nation" (Hist. Nov., 119).
In their very first meeting — it took place at Salisbury — the King and Anselm found themselves at issue, and the quarrel between the Crown and the Church suddenly burst forth anew. The King received Anselm graciously, but required that he should receive, according to the feudal custom, the reinvestiture of his Archbishopric at the King's hand. This was to ask from Anselm a practical acceptance of the principle of lay investiture which the Holy See had just condemned. Anselm promptly declared then and there that this was something which he " never would or could consent to do." Thus, once again the King's feudal custom clashed with the Primate's non possumus,
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and this time over the great European issue of the Investitures.
Neither party felt that it could yield to the other. In the mind of the King, the feudal rite by which each incoming bishop and abbot paid him homage for their baronies, and received from his hands the ring and pastoral staff of their office, meant nothing if not the legal conveyance of the Church temporalities or ecclesi- astical fiefs of the land, and of these he was constitution- ally warden and founder, and to strip him of this right while leaving him merely the conveyance of the lay fiefs seemed to him nothing less than depriving him of " one half of his kingdom," and leaving him but one half of his sovereignty. It was no question of the origin or transmis- sion of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as it was in the sixteenth century, but to a feudal monarch it was something inconceivable that large estates in his dominions should change hands and pass into the possession of new holders save under the symbols of his grant and authority.
On the other side, the Holy See, with its wide and far- reaching experience, discerned in this very practice of lay investiture one of the worst and most mischievous evils of the period. It was not that the Church had any express objection to the fact of the King's wardenship of the Church temporalities, or his conveyance of them to the incumbents, or to his receiving from them their temporal allegiance in return. (That seems to be amply shown by the way in which later on in Germany the Pope willing- ly accepted the arrangement that the Church fiefs should be conveyed by the sceptre, as substituted for the giving of the ring and crozier.) But lay investiture, as practised at the time, by the King placing the episcopal ring on the finger, and the episcopal staff in the hand of the Bishop or Abbot elect, symbolized in palpable fashion the feudal control over the great benefices of the Church, and was felt ostensibly to traverse the Catholic truth that Christ and His Apostles and not the rulers of this world, are the bestowers of episcopal authority. It was not an evil which was singular or local in its influence, but rather a public
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act taking place at all times and everywhere, and ever open to the construction, as far as its symbolism went, that the charge of a spiritual office came by the hand and gift of the lay authority. It is quite true that this Erastian construction, as crudely accepted later on at the Refor- mation, was alien to the mind of the Middle Ages; that it was, indeed, disavowed, and that the lay power in handing over the symbols of office claimed to convey not the office itself, but the feudal temporalities attached to it. In Germany, the Emperor even offered to make a public declaration to that effect ; but the Church knew that the custom by the very semblance of its ceremonial was a permanent power for evil, inculcating or encouraging a false principle and that where such acts are allowed to speak loudly and constantly, mere concomitant explana- tions or qualifications are soon unheeded or forgotten, and that nothing would effectually save the great cause of Church freedom, for which the Papacy was contending, but the suppression of the practice of investitures as far as the lay delivery of the sacred symbols was concerned. The Church, in view of the supreme principle at stake, did not hesitate to enter into a struggle which meant con- flict with feudalism in one of its most cherished institu- tions, and open war with some of the most powerful princes in Christendom. The contest in England was only part of her far-flung battle line. The campaign had been fought and won in parts of Italy, France and Burgundy. It was now to be fought in England. It was only some twenty years later that in Germany the Church's victory was sealed by the Concordat at Worms.
It so happened that it was in those very Councils at Bari and at Rome at which Anselm had assisted before leaving Italy, that the practice of lay investiture had been unanimously prohibited under pain of excommunication. When upon his arrival in England, Anselm found himself summoned to do that which he had heard condemned under anathema, and had himself joined in condemning, he recognized that the moment had already come when he must again make a stand;;for the Church's freedom. He
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at once explained to the King the decrees of the Papal Councils, and his own obligation of enforcing them. He added that unless these decrees were duly observed by the King, it would be both wrong and useless for him as Archbishop to remain in England, and that he " would not stay in the country, unless the King obeyed the Roman Pontiff." He begged the King to let him know what course he proposed to follow so that he might act accordingly. (Eadmer, Hist. Nov., 120).
Thus began the Eight Years' War of the Investitures in England. It resulted in no less than six separate em- bassies from England to Rome, and to Anselm it brought a fresh period of anxiety and of exile.
The King was, for many reasons, reluctant to quarrel with the Holy See, but he was passionately resolved to maintain the custom of the investitures. His policy was not, like that of Rufus, a braving of Papal authority, much less, like that of Henry VIII, a denial of it. On the con- trary, he fully acknowledged it, and sent his ambassadors to do obedience to the new Pope, and so far from ques- tioning Papal authority, his whole endeavour was expressly to obtain from that authority an exemption or special dispensation for England from the decrees which had been passed by the Councils. He discussed the position with Anselm, and it was agreed that matters should stand as they were until Easter, without prejudice to either side, and that meanwhile, envoys should be sent to Rome to ask the Pope so to alter the Apostolic decree that England might be allowed to continue to use her ancient customs. Anselm knew that the sending of such a petition would be " futile and frivolous," but for the sake of peace consented to the dispatch of the embassy, so that every satisfaction might be given to those who hoped to find in this course a possible solution of the controversy.
In due time, the envoys returned from Rome with the Papal answer. In it the Pope first thanks the King for his embassy sent to do him obedience. He then enters into^a very full and clear statement of the^fundamental princi- ples of Church and State, and concludes by an emphatic
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prohibition of the investitures. The King resolved to make a second attempt. A second and more solemn embassy, including representatives of both parties, was despatched to Rome, with Gerard, Archbishop of York, who was going for his Pallium. The Pope received them cordially, but was immovable in his decision, and sent letters to that effect both to the King and to Anselm.
A remarkable incident occurred upon their return. A Council of the realm met at London to discuss the crisis and to learn the nature of the Pope's reply. Anselm had the letter which he had received from the Pope absolutely prohibiting the Investitures publicly read to the assembly, and his representatives who had been to Rome confirmed its authenticity. Thereupon the King's representatives (including three bishops) in the embassy came forward and actually alleged that while in Rome they had received orally secret instructions from the Pope to assure the King that the practice of the Investitures would be left undis- turbed, provided the King made full restitution of the Church property. Anselm and his envoys were thunder- struck at a statement which was in the very 'teeth of the Pope's own letter, and of what they knew to be the Pope's cherished determination and policy. The fact that the King refused to produce the letter which he had received from the Pope, was in itself plainly indicative of the side which was responsible for the fabrication. The Council resolved that a fresh embassy — the third — should be sent to Rome to ascertain without a doubt what the Pope had really decided. In the meantime, the King considered that in the report of his envoys he had suffi- cient grounds to act upon, and proceeded to force a practical solution in his favour by investing bishops- elect for certain sees which had become vacant. He sent William, elect of Winchester, and Reiner, elect of Hereford, to Anselm for consecration. The bracketing of these two was in its way clever strategy on the part of the King, for William was a personal friend and adherent of Anselm. Anselm was willing to consecrate William, who had refused investiture from the King, but he would not con-
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secrate Reiner or others who had accepted it. The King sent both for consecration to Gerard, Archbishop of York, who, as a courtier bishop, consented, and subserviently came to London for the purpose. Then Reiner became conscience-stricken and went back to the King, and re- turned into his hands the ring and staff which he had received from him. William, elect of Winchester, upon the very morning fixed for the consecration, revolted against the lawless proceeding, and declared amid the loud applause of the people that he would rather lose all he possessed in the world, than receive the sacred gift of con- secration from such an iniquitous ministration. The baffled King punished his conscientiousness by a sentence of exile.
Towards the middle of Lent, 1103, the King and Anselm met at Canterbury. The third embassy had returned from Rome, bearing letters from Pope Pas- chal, in which he maintained inflexibly the prohibition of the Investiture, and repudiated indignantly the issue of any secret instructions to the contrary. Once more matters had come to a deadlock. The King now assumed an attitude of defiance. He would have no more dallying. He would have from Anselm, once and for all, a definite answer. Things which were his own concerns were not to be discussed with the Pope. What his predecessors had done it was his right to do, and anyone who attempted to deprive him of that right which belonged to him was certainly his enemy. To this outburst Anselm's answer was calm and firm. He replied, " I neither take nor wish to take away anything which I know to belong to you. Nevertheless, be pleased to know that not to save my head shall I join with you in things which I myself, when present in the Roman Council, heard condemned, unless that there shall come a sentence of exemption from the prohibition issued by the same See, from which pro- ceeds the binding force of the things decreed." Eadmer relates that the crisis was felt to be so grave that the King's councillors were moved to tears. Suddenly the King, in a low voice, proposed to Anselm that he should
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go to Rome and see if he could not succeed where others had failed in arriving at a settlement whereby he might preserve undiminished his prerogative. Anselm promised to consult the bishops at Easter, and, yielding to the prayers of both bishops and barons, he consented to this fourth embassy, and by May, 1103, he was already on his way to the Pope. On reaching Rome he found that Henry's Ambassador, William de Warlewast, had arrived a few days before, and was busy preparing, according to his manner, a favourable atmosphere for the solution of the King's business. Once more the Holy See was immov- able. The Pope's judgement was conveyed in a letter to the King. It is couched in a friendly tone, and begins by congratulating the King on the birth of his son and heir. The King is left free to enjoy the use of certain other ancestral customs, but the Church will not tolerate the Investitures. Any person receiving such investiture will be excommunicated, and their absolution is re- served by the Pope to Anselm. Anselm before leaving Rome obtained the special blessing of the Pope and the confirmation of all the privileges of his Archbishopric. William de Warlewast, who travelled a part of the way with him, conveyed to Anselm an official intimation that he would do well not to return to England unless he was prepared to accept the Investitures. Alluding to the source of this warning, he added significantly that " a word is enough for the wise."
Anselm took the hint, and, instead of returning to England, retired to his former resting-place at Lyons, where he remained for sixteen months. Henry, in the meantime, seized the temporalities of the Archbishopric. He conceived the plan of appealing to Rome to use com- pulsion with Anselm. He sent a new embassy — the fifth — to ask the Pope to grant two things — first, that England should be exempted by the Holy See from the observance of the canons passed against Investitures, and, secondly, that Anselm should be commanded by the Holy See to return to his Archbishopric. The Pope would grant neither, and, as Eadmer records, " the Embassy
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gained nothing, and came back to England just as it left it."
In the summer of 1105 Anselm, supported by this unflinching attitude of the Holy See, judged that the time had come to assert his right and to take active steps to terminate the crisis. He proceeded to Normandy, where the King then was, and resolved to launch the sen- tence of excommunication against him for his unjust seizure of the Archbishop's temporalities. The threat was one which Henry could not afford to disregard. His posi- tion in Normandy had become critical, and the mere rumour of excommunication had already caused a coali- tion of his enemies, and it was only Anselm's sterling loyalty which rescued him from grave danger. We can see a characteristic illustration of Anselm's tactful wis- dom in the fact that he first of all paid a visit to the King's sister, Adela, Countess of Blois, who was plunged in grief at the thought of her brother's impending excommuni- cation. She played the part of the angel of peace, and arranged a friendly meeting between the King and Anselm. It took place at L'Aigle in July, 1 1 05.
The King was courteous and conciliatory, and pro- mised to restore the temporalities of the Archbishopric. He wished Anselm to return to England, but asked that he should refrain from excommunicating persons who had received Investitures or those who had consecrated them. Anselm refused this condition as contrary to his obedience to the Roman Pontiff. Both parties agreed that the only way out of the impasse was the old one — another embassy to the Pope. In a short time, William de Warle- wast, the veteran negotiator, was riding once more the road to Rome with which so many former journeys had made him familiar.
Out of this sixth, and last, embassy came the final agreement. The Ambassador in due time came back from Rome, and William de Warlewast carried to the King the Pope's answer. Its effect upon the King is revealed in the events which followed. William de Warlewast was despatched to Normandy to ask Anselm to return to
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England, and to assure him that the " King would be most ready to follow him in all things that he henceforth would command, and that he would no longer differ from the Roman Church."*
This twofold assurance that the King would do all that was required of him, and that there would be no more difference with the Holy See, was to Anselm the very consummation of all for which he had hoped and prayed, striven and suffered. The good news was brought to him as he lay upon a bed of sickness. Little marvel that it made him well and brought him back from the doors of death. There was something of poetic, if not providential, justice in the fact that he should have received the message from the lips of William de Warlewast, the one man of all others who throughout the whole crisis had been his most indefatigable opponent both in Rome and England — " that William," as the indignant Eadmer calls him, who long years before, in the bad days of the Red King, had caused Anselm's luggage to be opened and searched, "as if he were a fugitive criminal," upon the sands of Dover.
Anselm's trials were now of the past, and in the approaching meeting between himself and the King, and therein of the two great powers which they represented, and in the new and brighter era of Church freedom ushered in by their concord, there was dawning for Anselm another great day of the joy of his heart, like to that historic Sunday, eleven years before, when he received his Pallium at the High Altar of the Cathedral of Canterbury. It was part of his reward that both the place and the time of this memorable meeting should enhance his consolation. As Anselm was not yet suffi- ciently recovered from his illness to make the journey to England, the King crossed over expressly to Normandy. It was thus that the solemn celebration of the religious peace which was to crown Anselm's life-work took place
* Affirmando promittebat regem ipsum penitus at voluntatem ipsius in omne quod deinceps prseciperet promptissimam voluntatem habere; nee ulterius a Romana Ecclesia velle dissentire. Eadmer, Hist. Nov., 182.
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in Normandy — his Normandy! — and of all places, at that venerable Abbey of Le Bee — Le Bee that had deserved so well of England! — Le Bee that was Anselm's old mon- astic home, endeared to him by the associations of thirty- three years of religious life spent within its walls. The day, too, was the Assumption of our Lady, whom Anselm loved so dearly. The King and his Court assembled for the purpose in the Abbey Church, and Anselm, still weak from his recent illness, sang the High Mass, and the great reconciliation was sealed in the Kiss of Peace, the Kiss of Anselm and the King, which was still more truly, that of Rome and England.
In the same month of the following year — August, 1 107 — the meeting at Le Bee had its counterpart at London. Anselm, on his return to England, was welcomed with " joy and honour," with demonstrations of " gladness and rejoicing " of the whole Church and nation, in which the Queen herself took an enthusiastic part. A Council of the realm was held in the presence of the King and the Archbishop in the Royal palace, and it was decreed that the Investitures should be abolished, and never again did England witness the unworthy spectacle of a bishop or an abbot receiving the ring or crozier from the hand of a layman. In return, the " hominia " or practice of homage done for temporalities by bishops and abbots elect was most wisely conceded by Pope Paschal, although it had been included in the prohibitions decreed by the Councils held under his predecessor. The practice stood upon a different ground from that of the Investiture, and had been condemned not so much in itself nor in principle — the allegiance of bishops and abbots for their lands had never been in question — but rather on account of the manner of making, and for reasons of dignity or decentia*
*The objection to the " hominia " was largely one of religious senti- ment based on the feeling that the hands of the Priest " consecrated to a ministry higher than that of the Angels " should not be placed between what in medieval times might often be the bloodstained hands of the lay over-lord. In the ceremony of Fealty this objection was obviated, as in it the bishop did not put his hands in the hands of the
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These reasons subsequently had their effect, and the act of homage for bishops and abbots in later times became modified into one of simple fealty. Investiture, on the other hand, was expressive of a false and mischievous principle, and hence was the main object of the Church's hostility and condemnation. In its abolition her chief point was gained, and her great principle, that the appointment or institution to a church office lies essentially with the Church and not with the State, and that it is Christ and not Caesar who is the Door of her Sheep- fold, was publicly and triumphantly vindicated. There can be no doubt that the blow was one which, both in its moral and legal effect, helped to break the back of Eras- tian feudalism.
With this victory of peace, Anselm's mission and life- work were accomplished. His episcopate had covered more than fifteen years, and of these, thirteen had been spent in conflict — six years with all the brutal oppres- sion of the Red King, and seven years with all the subtle tenacity of Henry Beauclerc. Throughout the entire con- test, he had taken his stand on the authority of the Holy See, and without the unfailing support of Rome — the fulcrum of resistance which the King's arm could not reach — Anselm's victory would have been unthinkable. In the end was peace. Honoured and loved and revered by his Sovereign and by the whole English nation, by the Holy See and by all Christendom, he passed to his reward on the early morning of April 21, 1109.
It was thus that in the latter half of the eleventh cen- tury three monks — Herlwin, Lanfranc, Anselm — were found to be God's counterweight to the despotism of three English monarchs, the Conqueror, the Red King and Henry Beauclerc. Herlwin stands for Le Bee, and Le Bee stands for all that soul-shaping depth and power of religious life which, with the support of the Holy See — strong, because extra-national and intangible — enabled
King, but put his hand on the book on which he took the oath. The dis- tinction of the two formularies of Homage and Fealty may be seen in the ancient MS. Collection of Statutes, Harleian MSS, 395, p. 91.
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Lanfranc and Anselm to fight and to win the long- drawn battle of the Church's freedom in England.
Their victory permeated the life of the English Church in the centuries which followed it. It formed the historical prelude to the momentous struggles under St Thomas and St Edmund and shaped and inspired the traditional policy of the Catholic Archbishops of Can- terbury up to the very eve of the Reformation. In fact, its sequel is its most eloquent monument. In England of the Plantagenets and their successors, there arises from the records a picture of brighter and broader ways : free and frequent access to Rome from all parts of the realm; not a diocese in the kingdom in which Erastian or simo- niacal influences are not more and more checked by Roman appeals or by Papal reservations; the whole work of the Church brought more effectually under the benign influ- ence of Roman Canon Law and the Constitutions of the Legatine Synods; hardly a Church of any importance in the country that has not its interests protected, or its dis- putes settled, by invocation of Papal authority, and the awards of its Judices delegati; ecclesiastical justice from the highest tribunal in Christendom open to the humblest cleric in the land in the sentences of the Rota : a justice so far-reaching that even a tiny hamlet in Northampton can secure its cemetery rights by way of Papal petition,* and a poor woman in a Middlesex village can find protection from her slandering neighbours by a Papal Mandate, issued thereupon to the Bishop of London; finally, what seems most significant of all, amidst the manifold griev- ances of Papal monetary exactions, and the correlative stress of the protective legislations of Provisors and Prae- munire, the consistently reverential and cordial attitude maintained by England towards the Holy See, based, as the very words of her documents bear witness, upon the conscientious conviction of its divinely given autho- rity.
J. MOYES.
* Calendar of Papal Letters, I. 16, VI. 106. 352
EPIGENESIS AND PREFOR- MATION IN ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT
A THOUGHTFUL observer of the development of a tadpole from a frog's egg, to bring forward a familiar example, could not fail to ask the question how such a complicated structure is evolved from what appears to be a perfectly homogeneous mass of matter. The question, indeed, would not be new, for from the earliest times the problem of organic development has attracted the atten- tion of philosophers of various schools, and numerous solutions, or attempts rather at solutions, have been formulated, some of them the result of a certain amount of practical observation, others of a more speculative character.
The subject may be approached in two ways; either we may content ourselves with a careful and exact descrip- tion of the stages through which the animal passes during its development from the germ, or we may go further and endeavour to find a causal explanation of the facts observed. We need not be discouraged if the latter task should prove difficult and in a great measure elusive, nor if the explanation arrived at be on the whole inadequate, for, as Reinke* remarks, there can be no question for us of an absolute science, but rather only of a science of a tem- porary nature, in keeping with the age . . . the object of science must be to lessen the number of problems, and increase the number of incontestable principles.
The interesting researches of Roux, Wilson, Morgan, O. Hertwig, Driesch and others in recent years have led to the establishment of a new branch of experimental zoology, in which the factors of development are investi- gated by means of various observations and experiments, an attempt thus being made to reduce these factors to general principles. This has resulted in a system known as *Reinke, Philosofhie der Botanik. Vol. 145 353 23
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" developmental mechanics " (Roux) or " rational mor- phology " (Driesch).
From the seventeenth century onwards the different ex- planations of the problem of organic development fall into two sharply opposing groups. On the one hand, Harvey, Stahl and C. F. Wolff are the chief exponents of an epi- genetic theory, the fundamental principles of which are derived from the philosophy of Aristotle; on the other hand, Malpighi, Vallisnieri, Bonnet and Haller are all preformationists. The meaning of these terms epigenesis and preformation, as applied to the process of organic development will appear as we proceed. Even at the pre- sent day each of these rival theories claims its partisans, although the terms have come to mean something very different from the signification attached to them by the earlier biologists. Thus the term epigenetic development, or epigenesis, originally meant that the different parts of an organism were formed gradually, one after the other, and the cause of this progressive differentiation of tissues and organs was ascribed to the activity of some kind of internal principle ; preformation, on the contrary, implied that the organism already existed in miniature in the germ, and was merely unfolded or expanded as develop- ment proceeded, hence the term evolution was also used in the same sense as the term preformation.
We propose, then, in the following pages to contrast the recent phases of the theory of development with the older views, and this from the twofold standpoint of the contro- versy between epigenesis and preformation. In the first place we will briefly consider the question as it stood in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Among the first to attempt an explanation of the problem was Harvey, so well known on account of his investigations into the circulation of the blood. In his Exercitationes de generatione animalium Harvey laid down the doctrine that life is contained potentially in a primordial germ or ovum, the organism being gradually developed "per epigenesim," the various parts being formed one after the other, in succession, through the
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agency of an internal principle " ab interno principio operante."
Less well known is G. E. Stahl (i 660-1 734), who appears more in the character of a philosopher than as an original investigator, but he laid the foundations, as a recent writer* observes, " of the first important system of a scientific theoretical biology since Aristotle."
Stahl taught that the immediate principle, not only of development, but of all bodily functions, was the soul, " Ipsa anima et struit sibi corpus, ita ut ipsius usibus, quibus solis servit, aptum sit; et regit illud ipsum, actuat, movet, directe atque immediate, sine alterius moventis interventu aut concursu (Tbeoria Medic a Vera)."
At the present time Stahl would be considered an extreme vitalist. Like Harvey, he held that development is a process of successive differentiation of an originally homogeneous material, the nervous system arising first of all and controlling in some way the formation of the other parts.
In opposition to Harvey and Stahl, we find others de- fending the theory of preformation or evolution, according to which during embryonic development nothing (really speaking) new is formed, but a mere unfolding or evolu- tion of something already existing takes place. This doc- trine appears to have been introduced originally by the Italian anatomist, Malpighi (1 620-1 694) as a substitute for the philosophical teaching of Aristotle. f
The central idea of the various theories of preformation which existed during this period lies in the exclusion from the process of development of any new formations, that is to say, whatever is developed was considered to pre-exist in some definite form in the germ, and not to be formed anew. The doctrine of internal causes or principles of development having been rejected, the only other alter- native which seems to have presented itself to the minds of scientific investigators of this age is the theory of pre- formation, which reached a climax in the writings of
*Driesch, Der Vitalismus ah Geschichte und ah Lehre. fcf. Radl, Geschichte der Biologischen theorien (I. Teil).
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Bonnet (i 720-1 793), who maintained that all things were in the beginning created at once, and, therefore, the germ of an organism contained not only the entire organism in miniature, but also the germs of all future organisms, one within the other; this being known as the theory of " emboitement." The germ from which an organism pro- ceeded consisted, according to Bonnet's opinion, of a very close network of elementary particles, constituting the " primordial foundation" of the future organism, which, under the influence of nutrition, expanded and thus gra- dually assumed the proper shape and proportions of the adult animal.
The egg of a frog, according to this view, would contain a miniature frog, complete in every respect, with the exception of the external form, which would only appear later as development proceeded and the particles of matter representing the frog unfolded themselves. The opposite theory of epigenetic development would main- tain that the frog merely existed potentially in the egg, out of which the frog would grow by acquiring new struc- tures and organs, the material elements of which would be derived mainly from the food supplied to the embryo, whilst the shaping of the animal would be actuated and guided by an internal cause, but in no sense would it be said that a real frog, and much less indeed the germs of all future frogs, pre-existed in the egg at this early stage of its development.
The celebrated physiologist A. von Haller lent his support to the theory of preformation, without, however, actually formulating any definite theory himself, and doubtless the weight of his authority contributed in some measure to the wider acceptance of Bonnet's theory, the contemporary writings of C. F. Wolff from the epigenetic side remaining for the time being in obscurity.
Wolff's views on the problem of development appeared in a memoir entitled Theoria generationis, published in 1759 as a doctoral dissertation. Like his predecessors, Harvey and Stahl, he contended that development is due to the agency of an internal principle which he calls the
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" essential force," or " vis essentialis," acting in combina- tion with another principle or property inherent in living matter, viz. the capacity of becoming rigid. All organ- isms, both plants and animals, consist at first, according to Wolff, of a porous gelatinous mass, out of which the organs develop owing to different parts and surfaces assum- ing a state of rigidity under the influence of the " vis essentialis." All development of form can, according to him, be adequately explained on these two fundamental principles. Wolff, however, appears to assimilate his " vis essentialis " to inorganic forces, thus differing consider- ably from Stahl, who adheres more closely to the ideas of Aristotle.
It would, perhaps, be difficult to say to what extent Wolff's theory of epigenesis, as distinguished from his epi- genetic interpretation of his discoveries in the domain of embryology, gained credence. Considered in the latter light, he may be said to have laid the foundations of modern descriptive embryology, which is based upon the epigenetic doctrine of the successive formation of parts, a doctrine which has little in common with the older forms of the theory of epigenesis, for their cardinal prin- ciple lies in the assumption of an internal force actuating and directing the entire process of development, an assumption which necessarily excludes all idea of original formation or predelineation of any kind whatsoever, as Bonnet and his followers held.
With Bonnet and Wolff the controversy of this period practically comes to a close, to be reopened, however, on a different basis in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
In contrast with the speculations of the earlier period in the history of the theory of development, those of recent times have a firmer foundation in experience, even if the ultimate conclusions are open to criticism. Modern methods of research used in conducting experiments on the developing organism, have thrown fresh light upon the conditions governing the process of development, so that a considerable body of facts is available on which to
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build up a theory. With the advance of scientific investi- gations, these theories, too, will no doubt go the way of all theories, nevertheless, they will have served their purpose and, perhaps, carried us a step further towards an explana- tion of the problem.
Passing now to this second period we find two rival theories of development claiming a number of supporters. On the one hand it is maintained that the ovum contains specific forms of protoplasm, of " formative stuffs " destined to contribute towards the formation of certain organs or tissues of the embryo; these " formative stuffs," moreover, occupying certain definite regions in the ovum. Those who reject this view put forward the theory that development is due to the interaction of the parts or cells which constitute the embryo in the incipient stages, the ultimate destiny of any cell or group of cells being determined, not by any substance precontained in the germ cell, but by the relation of each cell or group of cells to others in the developing organism. In these two statements we have an outline of the doctrines of pre- formation and epigenesis in their most recent phases.
In 1874 the German embryologist, W. His, enunciated the principle of " organ forming germ regions," which foreshadowed the theory of preformation as at present understood. According to this principle the germ is so organized that every part of it corresponds to a future part of the organism, yet the organism is not preformed in the germ — as though existing in it in miniature, as Bonnet held — but each part has its proper germ, which occupies a definite locality in the germ cell. Referring to the development of the chick, His writes as follows :
It is clear, on the one hand, that every point in the embryonic region of the blastoderm* must represent a later organ or part of an organ, and, on the other hand, that every organ developed from the blastoderm has its preformed germ in a definitely located
*The cells formed by the cleavage of the egg form a membrane, known as the germinal membrane or blastoderm; in the chick the blastoderm consists of a small flat disc, because the segmentation of the egg is only partial, being confined to a limited area of the egg.
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region of the flat germ disc. . . . The material of the germ is already present in the flat germ disc, but is not yet morphologically marked off and hence not directly recognizable. But by following its development backwards we may determine the location of every such germ, even at a period when the morphological differ- entiation is incomplete or before it occurs; logically, indeed, we must extend this process back to the fertilized or even the unfer- tilized egg. According to this principle the germ disc contains the organ germs spread out in a flat plate and conversely every point of the germ disc reappears in a later organ; I call this the principle of the organ-forming germ regions.*
When His formulated this theory the real organ-forming substances,which recent investigators claim to have found in the ova of certain species of animals, had not been observed, consequently the true value of his theory, the real signi- ficance of which is evident in the light of later researches, was not duly appreciated at the time and was eventually obscured by the greater prominence given to a later hypothesis known as the Roux-Weismann theory, accord- ing to which the nuclear element of the germ cell con- tains the various qualities which regulate and determine the process of development, and of the gradual differen- tiation of the parts of the embryo. According to this view the constitution of the embryo may be compared to a mosaic work, the distribution of the determining qualities, or " determinants " as Weismann calls them, being effected by repeated cell divisions. But the progress made of late years in the domain of cytology, and the conse- quent increase in our knowledge of the process of cell division, particularly in regard to the development of the germ cells, has considerably weakened the Roux- Weismann theory, against which serious objections were also found in the phenomena of regeneration in animals which have latterly been the object of close investigation-!
*His, Unsere Korperform (quoted from Wilson, The Cell).
fit has been found, for example, that the limbs of a salamander grow again when amputated. The common lizard also can regenerate its tail but not its limbs, so that the capacity for regeneration is not the same in all animals. If the lens be removed from the eye of a salamander or of a fresh water newt, or if it be destroyed, a new lens will be formed in its
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A series of experiments on the development of the ova of certain animals such as the sea-urchin, amphioxus, and some of the coelenterates, carried out first by Driesch, and afterwards by Wilson, Hertwig and others, further invalidated the Roux-Weismann theory, and led to the establishment by O. Hertwig of the epigenetic theory of biogenesis. Driesch took the fertilized ova of the sea- urchin at a stage when the embryo consists of two cells only, and was able to separate the two cells or blastomeres, at the same time preserving the integrity of each. Keeping these isolated blastomeres in sea water they both deve- loped into the complete larval form of the sea-urchin, known to zoologists as a pluteus; the regular process of segmentation being accomplished, with the formation of the typical cup-shaped gastrula in the same manner as in the normal ovum. There was, however, this interesting difference, that the pluteus larva was but half the normal size.
Similar results were afterwards obtained by Wilson with the ova of the chordate animal amphioxus. These experiments were repeated on ova in which the process of segmentation had been carried beyond the double cell-stage to the four and eight cell-stage, and from the isolated blastomeres embryos were developed which were only a quarter or an eighth the normal dimensions.
Driesch also records the interesting fact that a blastula, consisting of about 800 cells, may be cut into pieces at random, and each piece, if not too small, can develop into a complete embryo.*
From these experiments Hertwigf draws the conclusion that the developing capacity of the blastomeres of the egg in the two, four, or eight cell stage differs according
place. Again, if the anterior segments forming the head of an earthworm are cut off a new head is formed, and in like manner a new tail will be developed to replace one which has been removed. Many other instances of regeneration are forthcoming which are of great interest. To explain these phenomena Weismann had recourse to a subsidiary hypothesis of reserve germ plasms, (cf. Morgan, Regeneration.)
*Driesch, Der Vitalismus.
tHertwig, Allgemeine Biologie.
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as the blastomeres develop as parts united with others in correlation to form a whole, or as individuals isolated from the rest. In the former case the destiny of each blastomere in its development will be determined by the whole organism of which it is a part, through correlation to other parts, each contributing one half (or one fourth, or one eighth, as the case may be) to the formation of the embryonic body. In the latter case, the single isolated blastomere can gene- rate a whole organism because it radically contains within itself the dispositions or " anlagen " to this end, and has, moreover, itself become a whole, by its separation from other parts corresponding to it. The cells do not them- selves determine what they are to become, but are deter- mined by laws resulting from the reciprocal action (corre- lation) of all the cells upon the actual stage of develop- ment. Hertwig points out that the actions of one cell upon a neighbouring cell are not immediately perceptible, but that they must, nevertheless, take place can be concluded from the numerous experiments by which in late years our insight into the nature of the process of organic develop- ment has been considerably deepened.
As a consequence, Hertwig definitely rejects the idea of preformation or germinal localization, and asserts that the development of an organism is a purely epigenetic process and in no way a mosaic work as Roux held it to be. In this opinion he is supported by Driesch, who has formu- lated his views in a more precise manner. We have already referred to Driesch's experiments on the segmenting ova of the sea-urchin, this animal being usually chosen because the fertilized ova can be kept under observation in sea water, and every stage of development followed with ease.
Now, according to Driesch,* whatever stage of deve- lopment the ovum may have reached, it is composed of parts, the constituent cells of which contain similar proto- plasmic characters, and are therefore of a uniform structure. Such equivalent cells or groups of cells he calls an " elementary organ," and the process by which it is formed an "elementary process"; thus the wall
*Driesch, op. cit. 361
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of the blastula* for example, or the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm, which constitute the so-called primary germ layers are elementary organs. Every elementary organ has its special part or role in the formation of the body, one part developing into one set of organs, another part into another set. The various destinies of the dif- ferent elementary organs Driesch calls their " prospec- tive value" (prospective "Bedeutung"), so that one may speak of the prospective value of the individual cells resulting from the early segmentation of the egg, or of the prospective value of the cells forming the ectoderm, mesoderm and so forth.
The question now arises, Whether the destinies of these elements are constant or variable? It is well known, for instance, that the ectodermal cells of the young vertebrate embryo eventually give rise, among other things, to the central nervous system, a destiny which, to use Driesch's term, constitutes the prospective value of the ectodermal cells. Are, then, these ectodermal cells restricted to the formation of the central nervous system, and of those other parts into which under normal circum- stances they are actually destined to develop, or could they possibly under other circumstances develop into something else? Driesch answers the question by referring to his experiments on the isolated blastomeres of the sea- urchin's egg, which develop into a complete, though under-sized, embryo, and, therefore, into something different from that into which they would otherwise
*The term " blastula " is applied to the embryo at that stage of its development when it consists of a hollow sphere, the wall of which is formed by a simple layer of cells which have arisen from the segmenta- tion of the ovum; this layer, as we have already mentioned, is called the blastoderm. A perfect blastula stage is found in many invertebrate animals and also in the chordate animal amphioxus.
The blastula subsequently develops into a cup-shaped structure called a gastrula, the wall of which consists of a double layer of cells, of which the outer layer is known as the ectoderm, and the inner layer, theendoderm, whilst between these two a third layer is developed called the mesoderm.
It must, however, be remembered that in many cases the early develop- ment of the embryo, departs from this typical mode, as is the case notably among the reptiles, birds and mammals.
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develop were they not isolated. Each blastomere, or ele- mentary organ of the segmenting ovum may be regarded as having an actual destiny and a possible destiny. The actual destiny according to Driesch's view is variable, but the possible destiny is constant; in other words, that structure into which any part of the embryonic organism may possibly develop is the same for all the parts; any part, for instance, of the sea-urchin's egg is capable of developing into a complete larva; but that which any part will actually develop into is variable and dependent on circumstances. Thus, after the second segmentation of the ovum, there are four blastomeres, each of which is capable of producing a whole embryo, hence the capa- bility of each blastomere in this respect is equivalent or constant, but whether each blastomere will actually pro- duce an entire embryo or not varies according to cir- cumstances.
These two destinies, viz. the actual and the possible destiny of an elementary organ, Driesch calls respectively its " prospective value " and its " prospective potency " (prospective "Potenz"), and he sums up his views thus: The prospective potency of any element of a germ is its possible destiny, in the same way as the prospective value is its actual destiny. In the stages of segmentation, and, indeed, it may be added, in the fully formed blastula, the prospective value of the individual elements is con- sequently variable, the potency (Potenz) of each element is, however, with certain restrictions, equivalent (op. cit. p. 189).
In view of another set of phenomena, to which we shall refer presently, we must point out here that Driesch does not intend to lay down a general law, but merely states a conclusion which he considers holds good for certain phenomena, viz. the segmentation of the ova of echino- derms, some ascidians, amphioxus, and of certain worms, in which the regeneration of a complete embryo from an isolated blastomere has been satisfactorily established. And, indeed, his conclusions are only a part of the system in which he endeavours to prove that vital processes are
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not of a mechanical nature, but are autonomous. This eminent observer does not ignore the fact that, in the ova of certain other forms of animal life, such as molluscs, and many worms, some of the blastomeres may have specific properties, and not be all alike as is the case with echinoderm ova; the process of segmentation may there- fore be, in a certain measure, a mosaic formation. Such phenomena do not indeed fall in with Driesch's theory, but at the same time they are no impediment to the further investigation of those cases in which the capa- bilities of each blastomere of the ovum are equivalent, for, as Driesch significantly remarks, one can naturally only investigate a phenomenon when it occurs (p. 192, note).
Both Hertwig and Driesch, then, are supporters of an epigenetic theory of development, but when we come to examine their respective opinions as to the causes which lead to the differentiation of the cells formed during the cleavage of the ovum, and impart to them their special characters, we find a considerable divergence of view. We have already pointed out that Hertwig considers that the correlative action which exists between the cleavage cells is one of the factors or causes of their differentiation. Driesch, however, attributes this effect to the position which the cells occupy in the segmenting ovum, an idea which he expresses in these words, " The prospective value of each element is a function of its position in the whole." But, according to Driesch, there is yet another factor, still more fundamental, which determines the prospective value of an element or cell, namely, a vital principle or " entelechy," the existence of which is suffi- ciently demonstrated by his various experiments. But to follow Driesch's subtle analysis of the process of development any further would lead us beyond the scope of the present article, which is not immediately concerned with the question of vitalism; it is, never- theless, interesting to observe that Driesch's theory leads us back in a certain measure to the older views of epigenesis in which a large share of the process of de-
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velopment was attributed to the agency of an internal principle.*
We may now proceed, however, to examine another group of facts which are apparently in contradiction to those established by Driesch and others, referred to above. Upon this group of facts the recent advocates of a theory of preformation or prelocalization take their stand.
Wilson, Conklin, Fischer, and others have shown that the protoplasm of the ova of certain animals is not isotropic (of similar organization and properties throughout), as Hertwig maintains, but is composed of different sub- stances or ooplasms, each of which has a special function in development; these specific ooplasms by a process of segregation become localized in definite regions of the developing organism, so that if a portion — let us say, one or more cells of the segmenting ovum — is removed, the embryo continues its development, but instead of com- pleting itself and producing a whole but dwarf embryo, as in Driesch's experiments, it produces an embryo want- ing in one or other part corresponding to the ooplasm which may be missing.
The egg of the mollusc, dentalium, develops into a larval organism known as a " trochophore," of a pear-shaped form, encircled about the middle by a band of hair-like protoplasmic threads or cilia, and bearing at its anterior or blunt end a ciliated sensory structure or " apical organ." The region in front of the ciliated band is the pre- trochal region, that which lies behind it constitutes the post-trochal region.
According to Wilson,f three separate zones can be dis- tinguished in the egg of this animal from the very begin- ning, viz. an equatorial pigmented zone, and two white polar zones; these contain " specific cytoplasmic stuffs " which become isolated in the early blastomeres. If then,
* This theory has been more fully developed by Driesch in his Science andTbilosophy of the Organism, A. and C. Black, 1908; which was noticed in the Dublin Review, April, 1909.
tWilson, " Experimental Studies in Germinal Localization " (Jour. Exper. Zool. vol. 1).
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after the first few cleavages of the egg, certain blasto- meres are detached from the rest, or the embryo is cut in pieces in certain directions, the pieces develop, but the results differ according to the kind of plasm which is con- tained in the particular piece. Thus Wilson finds that blastomeres taken from one particular region of the embryo will produce ectodermal cells and an apical organ, whilst another blastomere near the former will not produce an apical organ. During the first, second, and third cleavages of the egg, two lobes are formed into which the substances contained in the lower white area pass. If the first " polar lobe," as it is called, is removed a larva is developed in which there is no post-trochal region or apical organ, but if only a portion of the lobe is removed, the post-trochal region is reduced, and an apical organ may or may not be formed. Removal of the second polar lobe has the effect of producing a trochophore without the post-trochal region, but having an apical organ.
Conklin* has obtained very similar results from his experiments on the egg of the ascidian, cynthia. As soon as the egg of this animal is fertilized it begins to segment, and a flattened blastula is formed, which becomes invaginated so as to form the gastrula, the wall of which consists of an outer layer of ectodermal cells, and an inner layer of endodermal cells. The embryo now begins to elongate and the mouth of the gastrula, or blastopore, becomes smaller, whilst a dorsal and ventral surface can be recognized, the former being flat, the latter convex. Some of the ectodermal cells situated near the blastopore, which now has a dorsal position, form a plate (the neural plate), from which the rudimentary nervous system is developed. The axial structure known as the notochord develops from cells (chorda cells) situated beneath those which give rise to the neural plate. A longitudinal groove is eventually formed along the neural plate, and subse- quently becomes closed in, so as to form a tube called
*Conklin, " Mosaic Development in Ascidian Eggs " (Journ. Exper. Zoo/, vol. n).
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the neural canal, the anterior end of which dilates, form- ing an organ of sense, or sense vesicle.
According to Conklin's interesting researches, five different kinds of ooplasm or organ-forming substances, can be distinguished in the egg of cynthia before the first cleavage has taken place, (i) the deep yellow protoplasm which later enters into the muscle cells of the last of the larva; (ii) the light yellow material which becomes mesenchyme, a substance from which connective tissue is developed; (iii) the light grey material which forms the chorda and neural plate ; (iv) the slate-grey substance which becomes endoderm; and (v) the clear transparent proto- plasm which gives rise to general ectoderm. After the first cleavage these substances occupy certain definite regions, and finally become segregated in separate cells or groups of cells. After separating or isolating the cells in the early stages of segmentation, imperfect larvae developed, lacking certain organs or parts, according to the nature of the specific ooplasm which was missing.
For instance, in the four-cell stage, an anterior half embryo, that is, an embryo derived from the two anterior quadrant cells, has no trace of muscle cells or muscle substance, this having gone into the posterior quadrant- cell. In a posterior half embryo, on the other hand, muscle and mesenchyme cells are developed, but no chorda cells or neural plate. Again, if at the gastrula stage the embryo is cut in two transversely, so as to leave all of the yellow cells in one half and all of the chorda and neural plate cells in the other, imperfect larvae develop, in which certain characteristic parts are missing.
Conklin concludes from his experiments that the indi- vidual blastomeres give rise only to those parts of an embryo which they would produce under normal con- ditions, and the reason is clear, since the development of the ascidian egg is a mosaic work, because individual blastomeres are composed of different kinds of plasmic material. This mosaic work is not merely a cleavage mosaic but also a mosaic of germinal substances which are recognizable before cleavage begins. He adds the
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following observation, which is directed against Driesch : " Accordingly the potencies of individual blastomeres are dependent upon the ooplasmic substance which they con- tain, the prospective value of any blastomere is not pri- marily a function of its position but rather of its material t substance."
Wilson, however, does not entirely oppose the principle of correlation, for, in his paper quoted above, he writes as follows :
But admitting even to this degree the principle of prelocaliza- tion, self differentiation and mosaic development, it is still im- possible to escape the parallel principle of correlation or depen- dent differentiation, i.e. the influence of the totality of the organism upon the development of the individual cells. For how- ever definitely specified a cell or cell group may be, the behaviour when isolated differs in some measure from that shown when in its normal relations to its fellows. The nature of the response to the change of conditions, as the facts show, is, however, conditioned and limited by the factors inherent in the cell or group.
In another place* Wilson endeavours to show that the hypothesis of formative stuffs can also be applied to the development of the egg of the sea urchin and amphioxus, where whole dwarf embryos are produced from isolated blastomeres. Referring to earlier results obtained by experimenting upon the egg of a marine worm belonging to the genus lanice, which develops in a manner remark- ably like that of the mollusc dentalium, he says :
The explanation of the difference between the two cases appears to be that in the mollusc or annelid the cytoplasmic stuffs undergo an asymmetrical distribution during the first division. The divi- sion is, therefore, in the first case qualitative, in the second case quantitative only, thus giving the immediate possibility of the production of two embryos from a single egg. It appears to me that we find here a principle of reconciliation between the hypo- thesis of mosaic development and prelocalization, and the appa- rently contradictory one of non-mosaic or correlative differentia- tion. The facts show that each of these apparently contradictory hypotheses contains an element of truth, that we must recognize
*" Mosaic Development of the Annelid Egg " {Science, vol. xx).
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in the development of every animal the fact of pre-localization and of mosaic development, but also the fact of correlative action.
Wilson's attempt to reconcile these discordant results is a very reasonable one, but at the same time it does not quite reconcile the contradictory hypotheses of epi- genesis and preformation, which is the point at issue. The defenders of the epigenetic theory may agree with Hertwig that development is not the outcome of any pre- formation, but is due to correlative action between parts which are relatively similar, a factor which is rejected by those who adhere closely to the doctrine of preformation, or prelocalization. If, however, it can be shown that both these views are capable of being interpreted in an epi- genetic sense, a difficulty will be removed. We may, therefore, ask whether the development of ova, in which special formative substances or ooplasms are distinguish- able, may not be regarded as primarily an epigenetic process? Or, again, whether these formative substances really constitute a preformation, or are merely the result of a precocious differentiation of the protoplasm of the egg} It is not easy to understand what modern writers mean precisely by the term preformation, for it will be conceded by all that these formative substances do not constitute a preformation according to the original mean- ing of the term, that is, in the sense in which Bonnet used the word. A worm or snail is not preformed in the Qgg, because certain regions are differentiated at a very early date in a special manner and for a special purpose, although it may be said that there is a certain predelineation or foreshadowing of what is to be. It does not appear that the development of a defective larva from the isolated blastomeres of ova containing specific ooplasms, as in the cases of dentalium and cynthia, referred to above, can- not be considered as an epigenetic process, although the defects are in a measure due to the absence of the neces- sary ooplasms. I ]
The definition which Huxley gave of epigenesis,*viz. the successive differentiation of a relatively homogeneous rudiment into the parts and structures of the adult, is as Vol. 145 369 24
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applicable to the egg of the mollusc dentalium, as it is to the egg of the sea-urchin; the differences between the two examples being that in one case (dentalium) the proto- plasm of the egg is less homogeneous than it is in the other (sea-urchin). In both cases the differentiation is in the main successive — that is to say, the parts are formed more or less in succession — which is the essence of the epi- genetic theory, and in both cases it may be said that the rudiment or ovum is relatively homogeneous.
Without, then, rejecting a fact which is sufficiently well established, it can be admitted that formative substances are sometimes present in definite regions of the ovum. The term preformation, however, may be abandoned together with the mechanical conception of development which it implies, and the development of an organism from the egg regarded as an epigenetic process, in which correlative differentiation and prelocalization have a share, together with other factors both external and internal.
This view, if correct, would at least place the develop- ment of all ova on the same fundamental basis, as regards the essential nature of the process, and help to reconcile the divergent results obtained in experimental zoology. It is, indeed, inconceivable that a process which in its essential features is identical throughout the animal world should not be also of essentially the same nature.
And, moreover, as was the case with the epigenetic theories of the older biologists, an epigenetic view of development is more consistent with the antimechanical and vitalist conceptions of the internal causes of develop- ment, to which so many celebrated biologists of the pre- sent day find themselves constrained by the force of facts to return.
G. A. ELRINGTON, O.P.
37°
A MEDIEVAL PRINCESS:
Madame Loyse de Savoye 1462-1503
Amours de Sainte Madame Loyse de Savoye. Par le Marquis Costa de Beauregard. Paris: Plon Nourrit et Cie. 1907.
ALL who have read Montalembert's life of St Eliza- beth of Hungary will recall the description of his first visit to Eisenach during a weary journey, at a moment of discouragement and trial, and the seemingly accidental way in which he came across the traces of the ancient devotion to his " dear saint " which, for his consolation and ours, inspired him to write those exquisite pages in her honour. We, too, have found refreshment in studying the story of another young and saintly princess, Loyse de Savoye, whose history in its early romance and its heroic sanctity reminds us of that of St Elizabeth, although the historical features of the times differ greatly. In an age of contrasts we can hardly find a greater than that offered by Madame Loyse and her astute uncle, Louis XI of France, who appears frequently in her history, while the political unrest of the period and the very real hardships suffered by the Princess and her family, as well as the magnificence which also often surrounded their lives, form a romantic and picturesque background to the story. As Madame Loyse's latest biographer remarks, however, it would seem no easy task to portray her at this distance of time: " How shall we fix your likeness, O my Princess," he exclaims, " I possess, alas ! neither the brush of Fra Angelico to paint you, nor the pen of Messire de Joinville, which I should require to write of your warlike and heroic childhood." In this Monsieur de Beauregard does himself injustice — not only does he vividly picture for us his Princess with all the charm of his style and language, but he interleaves his story with passages from the chronicle left by Madame Loyse's faithful attendant, Catherine de Saulx, who, in quaint and charming phraseology, tells us of her dear
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lady's life, regretting her inability to do justice to the subject, for " Alas! the best writer in the world, had he seen as we did the perfections and virtues of the saintly lady would be incapable of relating them."
The Princess Loyse, daughter of Amadeus IX of Savoye and Yolande of France, was born on December 28, 1462, Feast of the Holy Innocents; a very appropriate feast, adds Catherine, for never did any human creature pre- serve a greater state of true innocence. She was the fifth child of her parents, and came half way in their large family. Her father, the grandson of the famous Duke Amadeus VIII whose extraordinary career had astounded Europe,* was a Prince of a pious and admirable character, but by the time Loyse was a few years old he had become an invalid and was forced to leave the cares of Government in the capable hands of his wife, whose authoritative and worldly character was in great contrast to that of her husband and little daughter. Loyse was devoted to her gentle father, but "Madame de Savoye never penetrated into the little soul, which remained closed, fearful and troubled before her." Had Yolande wished to do more for her children's education she would have had no time, indeed, for the purpose, owing to the difficulties of her position and the enmity of her brothers-in-law, the Count de Romont and Philippe de Bresse, both of whom strongly resented her Regency. The brothers at one moment managed to get possession of the person of the invalid Duke; carried him off and would have seized entire control of affairs had not Madame Yolande succeeded in securing the support of her brother, Louis XL
It was in the midst of such contests that the little Loyse grew up. Her tutor, Messire Jehan Choet, one of the Duke's chaplains, had never found more wisdom and love of holy things in anyone. As soon as she learnt to read she would have liked only to study the Holy
*This was the Duke who was elected Pope by the Council of Basle, 1439, and who accepted the election " in good faith." Five years later, con- vinced of his error, he retired to his Castle of Ripaille where he died a holy death.
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Scriptures, the Passion of Our Lord, and the Letters of St Bernard, but her mother's library contained other books, and to obey her wishes the child would also read, we are told, The Mirror of the World or the Praise and Virtues of Noble Ladies. Gifted with a wonderful memory, she knew many prayers by heart, and even during the night would be found kneeling before a picture of the Blessed Virgin, " Who was," says Catherine, " Madame Loyse's only refuge, and to honour whom was her only pleasure."
After years of ill-health the Duke was^seized with a nervous illness, during the attacks of which the little Loyse was his chief comfort, for when his other children, frightened by his sufferings, fled from him, she, on the contrary, loved to be near him. She shared her father's love for the poor, to whom she gave clothes and linen, and whose feet she would wash on her knees, and she would doubtless have made the same reply as did the Duke to a certain Prince who asked to see his dogs and falcons: " My dogs and falcons are here," showing him a group of beggars lodged in a pavilion of his garden. " Yes, here are those who win heaven for me." The account of the death- bed of this good Prince is very touching. Surrounded by his faithful wife, who, ill and suffering herself, shunned no pain or trouble to nurse him, and his children, he died at Verceil in the thirty-fifth year of his life. "My friends, be just, love the poor, make religion flourish," were his last words; and then turning to the weeping children he added: " I bless you that you may live in the fear of God and of respect for your mother," adding to his wife, " I leave you these orphans."*
Sorrow and joy are wonderfully mingled in this life, and Loyse had early experience of this, for on the next day, while the funeral bells sounded for the departed Duke, a silvery toned chime announced the birth of his post-
*Amadeus, whose virtues won for him the title of Blessed, reposes in the Royal Chapel at Turin, above the tomb of his daughter Loyse. Thus, in the royal House of Savoy we see the unique fact of a father and daughter honoured on the same altar for the same Virtues. — Costa de Beauregard.
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humous son. These great and touching family events were destined deeply to affect the little Princess, and to draw her thoughts still more heavenward, and we are not surprised to find that in her innocent, childish way her " eyes from now followed the star which was to conduct her to the cloister." This was evident to all around her, save to the Duchess, but for fear of offending her, Loyse told her mother nothing of this, says Catherine de Saulx, nor, indeed, would Yolande have understood her child's high thoughts. But Loyse had a long life journey to make and another vocation to fulfil before her early aspirations were to be crowned, and it is just at this moment that the human element of love and romance begins to find its place in her story.
Six years earlier the youth destined to be Loyse's husband had taken refuge at the Court of Savoy, and, although she was quite unaware of the fact, he had lost his heart at first sight of the little Princess; " On per- ceiving Madame Loyse he received an incurable heart wound." The story of Hugues de Chalon and his early adventures is very interesting, and throws a curious light on the times. Hugues came of an illustrious race, which went back to Estienne, Count of Burgundy in Iioo. His descendant, Jean l'Antique, surnamed Jean le Sage, became Comte de Chalon and Auxerre in the thirteenth century. Another Jean had the honour of fighting side by side with du Guesclin at the battle of Cocherel. The hero, indeed, desired to give him the place of honour, saying, " As you are the greatest present in bearing and lineage, be our commander"; but Jean, who was only "at his first fight," replied modestly: " Thanks, my lord, for your courtesy, but to-day I will only be your comrade; and will live or die with you." The fortunes of the family had steadily progressed in honour and titles till, at the time we speak of, the head of the House of Chalon was Hugues' father, Messire Loys, second Prince of Orange, whose successive marriages with Jeanne de Montbeliard and Eleanore d'Armagnac had made him richer and more powerful than any of his progenitors. By his first marriage
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he had a son William, " Monsieur d'Arguel," and by his second two daughters and two sons, of whom Hugues was the youngest.
Monsieur d'Orange had, as we have said, amassed great riches, " for which he had, perhaps, a greater love than was reasonable," and his castle of Noseroy, in particular, was filled with treasures. Here the Prince lay dying in 1463, and amid the trials of his last days the thought of his eldest son, who was rapacious and jealous, especially of his half brothers and sisters, troubled him greatly. The Prince felt sure that Monsieur d'Arguel, who had already made one raid upon Noseroy, would return and take possession of the secret treasure and other riches which were shut up in the highest tower of the castle, and which were destined to be part of the heritage of Hugues, whose possible fate at the hands of his brother made the old Prince tremble. In this trouble Pierre de Jougne, Seneschal of Noseroy, who had ever loyally followed his lord, came to the rescue and invented a device by which to save both the little Hugues and the treasure. Dis- guising the child and himself, and placing the treasure on two mules, Jougne successfully made his escape from the castle, and reached the town of Orbe, the apanage of the boy, whose title at the time was Monsieur d'Orbe. Here, the citizens had hardly welcomed their young lord when the news arrived of his father's death, that Monsieur d'Arguel was taking possession of all the goods of Chalon, and was terribly incensed to find the Noseroy treasure gone. Jougne, seeing there was no time to lose, sent on the precious cases to the Armagnac country, and hastened to seek the protection of Louis XI for Hugues. This was a mistake on the part of the good Seneschal, for Louis, after receiving the child with empressement, eventually abandoned his cause, and, after three years of uncer- tainties, Jougne brought the child to the court of Savoy, so denuded of everything that the good Duke Amadeus, then still living, might have welcomed him among his beggars. In this state of destitution and humiliation the poor boy met the look full, of compassion, of the third
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and adorable little daughter of Duke Amadeus and Madame Yolande; from then she appeared to him as the most ideal of consolers. Loyse was only a small child, but everything in her charmed Hugues, and she felt a great pity for the new-comer. This innocent friendship of her little daughter's was far from displeasing to Yolande. " Very solicitous," says her biographer, " to marry her daughters well, the Duchess had for long desired an alliance between the Houses of Savoye and Chalon," and, foreseeing that the boy would one day recover his position and possessions, she treated him as one of her own children, and was rewarded by seeing him grow up, surpassing in courtesy and valour the most courteous and hardy sons of Piedmont and Savoy. Thus passed eight years, and when Madame Loyse was thirteen, the Duchess's dream was realized. Hugues dared not risk any change in Loyse's gentle friendship by declaring his suit, and she might still have remained unconscious of his wishes had not a Burgundian nobleman, then visiting the court, made himself the ambassador of the Prince's wishes to the Duchess Yolande. Her joy was great, and without delay she informed Loyse that for the welfare of her people and the honour of her house she was to espouse Hugues de Chalon.
Greatly troubled, for, as we know, no thought of mar- riage had entered her young heart, Loyse did not dare to go against her mother's wishes. " She heard the word of command which seemed to her to come from God Him- self, and she felt bound to obey . . . and buried her sadness and regrets deep in her heart." Many vicissitudes, how- ever, of war and politics were destined to intervene before the nuptials so joyously announced by Yolande took place.
In order to govern peaceably her States, situated as they were between France and Burgundy, it required all the diplomacy of a sister of Louis XI. The latter 's enmity for Charles the Bold made the position most difficult, and although the Duchess would willingly have remained a good Frenchwoman there were moments when she had to appear a little Burgundian in sympathy.
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Such a moment was this, for Hugues, happy in his engage- ment, had now to seek leave for his marriage from his liege lord the Duke of Burgundy, who was just about to make war on the Swiss. Yolande, having made up her mind to seek his support, set out to join the Duke, little foreseeing the trials before her. Her people talked only of their expected victory. The Duchess, her daughter Marie, and Loyse, escorted by two thousand men, left Racconis on February 15, 1476, and after crossing the Mont Cenis entered Lausanne on March 1. Here they remained while their troops joined the forces of Duke Charles, and here presently the news of the terrible defeat of the latter at Granson reached them. When Charles, who seems to have almost lost his reason after this totally unexpected reverse, found his way to Noseroy, Duchess Yolande, followed by Loyse, was there to greet him and to attempt consolation, but the unfortunate Duke could do nothing but wander through the halls of the castle crying, Granson, Granson. To the gentle words of the Duchess he replied only by maledictions against the cowards who had lost the battle for him, showing greater indignation against the Savoy- ards than the Burgundians.
It was amidst these scenes that Loyse first saw Noseroy. destined to be her own future home, but Count Hugues was not there to greet her, as he was occupied in the sad duty of burying his elder brother Louis, who had been killed at Granson, and when he came to take possession of Noseroy, which had now become his, the Duchess and Loyse had returned to Lausanne to keep Easter in holy practices and works of devotion. Loyse's memory was long cherished at Lausanne. Wherever she went the poor formed her escort, and her prayers at the Cathedral were as uninterrupted as her alms, but the Duke soon appeared on the scene to disturb the royal ladies. Charles, who had no liking for woman's society, was forced, nevertheless, by political exigencies to make friends with Yolande. " Every day, after working and giving his orders, the Duke came to Vespers in the Church of Notre Dame, and then pro- ceeded to visit Madame de Savoye, when they would
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discuss the conduct of Louis XI, who from Lyons, where he remained like a spider in his web, continued to excite the Swiss against his sister and against Monsieur de Bourgogne." These conversations were a trial to Loyse, who would retire as courteously as she could and, alone in her room, pray God to send them thoughts of peace, union and concord, says Catherine. In the midst of these con- sultations Duke Charles fell ill, and would have died, it is said, but for the skill of Madame de Savoye's physician, who, in quaint language, " at once drowned the fever in quantities of goblets of boiling water." While the Duke lay ill his troops were suffering from famine, and quarrels raged between the chiefs of the different nationalities who had come to his aid against the Swiss. On May 9, there- fore, though still weak and unable to weir his armour Charles once more took his place at the head of his army. Full of confidence in a speedy victory, he invited the Duchess Yolande to review his troops. She arrived, there- fore, riding on a hackney of state and accompanied by all her children. For four hours the troops passed before her, in companies of a hundred lances each. " We will have vengeance on the dogs," cried Duke Charles, and the men, Savoyards, English and Italians, replied: Vive Bourgogne, but no one believed in the promised victory. Loyse on her part prayed silently, " Mercy, mercy, to God for all those who passed, and who would perhaps die so soon," and her prayers went up more fervently still, no doubt, for her fiance, on whom the Duke had suddenly be- stowed the most hazardous of posts as his "Sergeant" of Battle.
We have not time to linger over the Duke's second disaster at Morat, or his dreary flight to Gex, where he once more met the Duchess Yolande and her party. This time, although the meeting appeared most friendly, and the Duke more courteous than usual, and although to Loyse's delight he praised the valour of his Cousin of Chalon, serious trouble was brewing. In fact, the Duchess of Savoy, weary of the position, and true sister of Louis XI, had sent the latter a messenger of peace, of which — in spite
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of all efforts at secrecy — Charles had become aware, and swift was his vengeance. Whilst the courteous meeting was taking place, he gave secret orders to Olivier de la Marche, then at Geneva, to waylay the Duchess and her party, while Yolande, on her side, sent a message to im- plore the Swiss to grant peace at any price, offering to abandon her alliance with Charles and even to lend them her Savoyard troops.
The interview between the Duke and Duchess having come to an end, in a friendly manner, but cleverly man- oeuvred by the former so as not to end until dusk had come, the Duchess set off with her children for Geneva, distant about two hours' ride. Madame Loyse rode behind her mother, while her brothers rode a little apart on smaller horses, Charles, the youngest, being carried in a litter. The lights of Geneva were already in sight, when, sud- denly, Olivier de La Marche and his men appeared on the scene and he seized the Duchess's bridle. Yolande, who was riding along quietly with the Sires de Seyssel, de Vilette and Rivarol, endeavoured to get free and made her horse rear, but in vain. She was bound and placed on Olivier's horse and carried off before she could utter a cry. Loyse also was torn from her saddle and treated in the same manner. The faithful Savoyards tried in vain to follow their mistress, but, after wounding and killing some of the enemy, lost sight of them in the darkness. The darkness, however, was a protection to the little Princes who, quite unalarmed, remained unperceived in the middle of the road till the Sire de Rivarol managed to reach the young Duke Philibert and carried him to a field where they concealed themselves in the high corn, while the Sire de Vilette lifted the younger, Princejacques, on to his own horse and set off at a full gallop for Geneva, where, too late, he raised the alarm. When he heard that the heir of Savoy had escaped, Duke Charles was enraged, and would immediately have hung Olivier de La Marche had not that worthy been fortunately far away, carrying the royal ladies with him. At Saint-Cloud, where they spent a few hours, wood and horsehair were brought to make a
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saddle for Madame Loyse, and she and the Duchess were given horses to themselves.
At last, after a terrible ride, they reached Dijon, and by order of the Duke were conducted to the castle of Rouvres, situated a few miles from the town. Rouvres, a gloomy building of the eleventh century, more resembling a tomb than a fortress, was a dreary abode for the young Princess, but the solitude and retirement seemed to suit her gentle nature, and here she felt " she could talk to God and to her saints, whose sweet voices seemed to reply." Rouvres had once been hallowed by the presence of Ste Colette, and from now Loyse took her for her special pro- tectress, foreseeing, perhaps, in a dim way, that one day she would become her daughter. As a little child Loyse had listened to stories of the wonderful saint, and had heard of the illustrious ladies who left the world to follow her austere rule. As others might envy their earthly crowns, Loyse envied the poor habits of these Princesses who had become beggars, and in her childish way she had written these words: " The woollen dresses represent the patience and gentleness of a lamb, the white vestments purity of conscience, the black veils death to the world, and the hair cut off that one must think no more of it." Now, in her troubles, and sent, perhaps, by Ste Colette herself, one of the Franciscans came to console the prisoners, Father Jehan Perrin — whose name will often recur in our narrative, and on whom Duchess Yolande, reduced to real poverty now, had bestowed her little remaining money in alms. The good brother would come over from his mon- astery of Lons-le-Saunier and say his Hours with the Princesses, after which Loyse would resume her work and sew and embroider for the chapels of the neighbourhood. Wherever she was an atmosphere of peace surrounded the Princess. " No magnet ever drew iron as the gentleness of the holy lady attracted the most hardened souls," says Catherine, so that presently the Sieur de Chastillon, Governor of Rouvres, became softened and the garrison itself in presence of Madame Loyse, began to practise piety.
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But now a much harder trial was at hand for Loyse; a fresh doubt as to her future vocation. While she was living her life of prayer and patience, Hugues had, to- wards the end of the summer of 1476, rejoined Duke Charles, who, curiously enough, received him well, and actually gave him a gracious permission to visit the ladies at Rouvres. But the young and ardent lover found his lady more than ever separated in thought from him and from earthly joys, and Hugues, who was a true Christian knight in piety and chivalry, began sorrowfully to ask himself whether he ought to hold her to her engagement. Already by her influence he had risen above his contem- poraries by a " great love of justice and a profound com- passion for human misery," and now he would endeavour to rise to an heroic self-sacrifice, and give up his bride should it be God's will. He too, like St Elizabeth, when the Duke of Thuringia showed her a mirror in which to see herself, " the only one beloved " saw Our Lord standing behind Loyse, and he hesitated to withdraw her from Him.
These doubts, however, did not occur to Madame Yolande, to whom her daughter's marriage seemed more than ever desirable under their present circumstances. It was the Franciscan Father, Maitre Perrin, in whom the royal ladies had great confidence, and who was reckoned one of the best spiritual directors of his time, who finally decided the matter. It was said that " God's will had no secrets for him," and it seemed to him that at this time " it was God's will that Madame Loyse should not become a nun, but should marry." And so our Princess humbly obeyed, and allowed her heart to turn fully to Hugues, for whom, as we know, she had ever felt a gentle affection since they were children.
Madame de Savoye, although a prisoner at Rouvres, was not forgotten by her loyal subjects, and the cities of Savoy sent envoys to assure her of their fidelity to herself and to their young Duke. He, with his brother, had remained under the care of his uncle, the Bishop of Geneva, but Yolande was aware that the latter was not to be trusted
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in the matter of Philibert's succession, and once more she determined to seek help from Louis XI ; she did so hope- fully, " for had she not shown herself quite sisterly at the time of the battle of Morat?"
Towards the close of the summer, therefore, she sent a messenger to her royal brother, who was still in his web at Lyons. The Duchess charged her faithful secretary, Cavoret, with the mission, which, as it happened, proved a very dangerous one for the poor man. Yolande, who placed entire confidence in Cavoret, gave him a ring, the gift of Louis himself, to show to the King in pledge of his veracity, but she had never dreamt that he would reach the French Court still attired in the hated Burgundian livery which he was forced to wear at Rouvres. When, therefore, Cavoret opened his purse to show Louis the precious ring, the King took him to be not only a Burgundian spy but a highway robber as well, and bade him go with a gesture well known to his courtiers. The poor secretary was seized and thrown into prison, " from which to the gibbet there was but a step," under Louis's rule, and this step would soon have passed had not the Sire de Seyssel, Grand Mar- shal of Savoy, appeared at Lyons that very day on an in- dependent mission to Louis. The sequel must here be given.
" Beau Sire," said Louis, addressing the Marshal, " are you well acquainted with the servants of Madame de Savoye, my sister ? I have here an adventurer who has come from Burgundy who says he is her secretary, and brings me news from her. If he speaks truth, all the better for him. If not, he has not long to live."
Cavoret was then brought in, loaded with chains and expecting the worst, but he was quickly comforted, " Ah, Messire Secretary," exclaimed de Seyssel.
" Ah, Monsieur d'Aix," cried Cavoret, and they fell into each other's arms.
Louis was not tender hearted, but his biographer assures us that he could not conceal his emotion. Turning to Cavoret he said: " Attach yourself to me and I will make you greater than any of yours have ever been," but Ca- voret would not hear of such a thing.
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" No, no, Sire," he replied, " I will never leave my honoured mistress, your sister. Deliver her out of the hands of those wretched Burgundians, and consider as well done to me what you do for Madame."
Cavoret could not have pleased Louis better than by abusing Burgundy, and he exclaimed at once, " Tell your mistress I will not fail her in her present need, and if it is pleasing to her I will at once demand her freedom by Messire d'Ambroise, my Governor in Champagne."
The Royal ladies' liberty was thus assured, and soon after, though not without a little diplomacy on Cavoret's part, they left Rouvres one night, and, escorted by Messire d'Ambroise and his lances, they journeyed in all safety and honour to meet the terrible brother and uncle at Plessis lez Tours. This grim castle, which now appears quite familiar to us from the description in Quentin Dur- ward, was known in the talk of the day as the foxhole, within which Louis rused with both friends and enemies ; while outside its walls, as we know by the testimony of Claude de Seyssel, " men hung on the trees like fruit in autumn, gibbeted without any great proofs of guilt."
Louis, however, received his sister and nieces with great kindness, and descended to the lowest courtyard to meet them. He embraced Yolande, exclaiming, half in fun, " Ah, Madame la Bourguignonne, I welcome you." " Par- don me, Monseigneur," replied the Duchess, making a deep curtsey, " I am no Burgundian, but a good French- woman, most ready to serve you." Great was Madame Loyse's astonishment at the sight of her uncle. Accus- tomed to see her father and the other princes of her house dressed in long silk robes, and although she, from dif- ferent motives, shared her uncle's dislike for dress and dis- play, his appearance in a short, shabby tunic and the famous hat, " which the lowest shopkeeper would have despised," was a great surprise to her. Louis, on this occasion at least, behaved most generously; not only were the royal ladies' apartments worthily adorned, but he had prepared rich brocades, fur-lined mantles and jewelled head-gear for them — a welcome sight, we may be sure, to
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the impoverished Duchess, who had been obliged to borrow two hundred ecus from her treasurer to meet the expenses of the toilette.
It is at this point that Loyse's biographer tries to describe her appearance for us. According to the portrait that still exists, she resembled her father, who was reck- oned the handsomest man of his time, and in a poetical description of the Princess by Marot, he says that " her hair made the sun appear less bright, and her eyes ren- dered the skies less blue," while her complexion excelled ivory and roses in its tints. The King, who had an eye for beauty, admired Loyse, and felt her charm, and, as mar- riages were to him political means, he began to think of arranging matches for both his nieces. Madame Yolande, however, had no intention of allowing her plans to be frustrated, and took an opportunity of telling her brother that her daughters were already affianced — Loyse to Hugues de Chalon, and Marie to the Comte de Neu- chatel. At first Louis endeavoured to dissuade her from these alliances, but presently said no more on the subject, to the great relief of the Duchess. She had now gained all she wanted. The King was once more her faithful ally, peace was proclaimed in Savoy and she felt that a speedy return thither was her best policy.
On December 15 the Princesses took leave of the King and set their faces homewards, Loyse and her sister mounted on two magnificent and richly caparisoned horses presented by their uncle. At Lyons, where they arrived on the 28th, the royal ladies were met by chariots furnished with carpets and feather cushions, and in these they made their State entry into Chambery, where the people greeted them with tears of joy.
Meantime, Hugues de Chalon had rejoined the Duke of Burgundy, and had followed him in his mad expedition into Lorraine. The winter was so severe there that on Christmas night alone four hundred Burgundians perished from cold. The unfortunate Charles, as on the eve of the Battle of Morat, seemed greatly excited and vowed to win or perish — words which came too true.
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On January 6 the Duke engaged in battle and was killed, but for three days his body could not be found, and when the corpse was at last discovered, in a frozen stream, it was Hugues, now a prisoner of the Duke of Lorraine, who was called upon to identify his kinsman, and, in spite of what he had suffered from him, praised his " lofty soul."
In Savoy another calamity was threatening Loyse and her country, and the happiness of the return home was to be turned to sorrow by the illness and death of Duchess Yolande at the Castle of Moncarpel, not far from Verceil.
In spite of her faults of character, Yolande has a fine place in history. " Heroic mother and regent, she had known how to rule her ten children with the same firmness as her people, and had shown herself equal in courage to the bravest," and now, she who had been born truly royal, desired to go to Almighty God as a great Christian also, and in the words of her will, which her women had orders to place in her hands when the moment of death approached, she, " as administrix of the Duchy of Savoy, commended to the Blessed Virgin Mary her people and her domains. As guardian, she confided to Her her children. As a humble sinner she recommended her soul, now leaving its frail body, to God, taking her Angel Guardian as witness to all, but especially to her hopes of speedily reaching Heaven."
As the Duchess, though not a tender mother ,had carefully watched over her children, Loyse was now most desolate. She who had always obeyed had now lost the director of her life, and in Hugues' enforced absence there was no one to replace her. Louis XI, however, had no doubt as to his wishes and his niece's duty. " Had he," asked Loyse's biographer, " kept a gentle memory of them in his dried- up heart?" or was it from policy that he now commanded them to come to him? In any case, he announced pub- licly that they were under his guardianship and that they must return to Plessis lez Tours " without delay or excuse." As soon, therefore, as their mother had been laid beside her husband, the orphaned Princesses had to set out for France, which they did on September 25, 1478, Vol. 145 385 25
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bidding a sad adieu to their country and their faithful old friends. The Bishop of Turin, who at Suze gave them into the charge of the French gentlemen sent by Louis, was the last of these to bid them farewell.
" And now," says Monsieur de Beauregard prettily, " four hundred years were to pass before the gentle Prin- cess, who now crossed the Alps so sadly, should return to occupy her place and take her last repose in the Chapel Royal of Turin."
Life at Plessis lez Tours had become even more austere and gloomy than when Madame Loyse had first visited her uncle. Louis, who began to feel the weight of years, was more mistrustful than ever. "The Scotch archers, who guarded him by day and night, had orders to draw their bows against all comers," and now, curiously enough, in contrast to his former custom, the King wore gorgeous robes of velvet, or of satin lined with costly furs.
The winter of 1478 was a time of sadness, indeed, for our Princess, and we cannot wonder that, as her ladies relate, tears kept her eyes open at night. In addition to her sorrow for the death of her mother and her exile from home, Loyse trembled for her fiance, who was in dire dis- grace with the King. After the defeat of Duke Charles, Hugues and his nephew, the Prince of Orange, had loyally supported the cause of France, but after a time the pillage and exactions levied on Burgundy by the royal troops brought a revolt, in which the Chalon Princes could not desert their countrymen. They were defeated by Louis's general, and then nothing was bad enough in the King's eyes for the unfortunate leaders. Irons, fire, death, seemed all too good, in his opinion, for Hugues and his nephew, and, in fact, Loyse's intended husband was brought from Besancon to Chalon-sur-Saone bound by certain chains which had been invented by Louis him- self and which were adorned " with little balls and bells." At Chalon he was thrown into a dark dungeon, and even when Louis calmed down and it became a question of ransom, there seemed no hope of finding the necessary sum for the Prince's release.
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Happily, however, for every one concerned, the King's great wish to add Burgundy to the Crown of France brought freedom to Hugues, in whom Louis presently discovered the person most capable of helping him to realize his ambition, and whose marriage with Loyse should, he determined, be the link which should bind him to France and Burgundy. In consequence of these gentler thoughts the spring of 1479 broke happily; the future appeared " gracious and smiling like the good pleasure of the King," and France became suddenly aware that, according to the will of her uncle and guardian, Madame Loyse de Savoye would espouse the high and mighty lord, Hugues de Chalon. At one stroke Louis would change his former opponent into his nephew, and Burgundy would be united to France for ever. In order to give pleasure to his new subjects he decreed that the marriage should take place at Dijon, and fixed the date for August 24, the eve of St Louis Day and his own feast.
We know not how the King broke the good news to Madame Loyse on this happy occasion, but he showed himself throughout as an affectionate and generous kins- man. It no doubt afforded him also a happy opportunity of showing himself magnificent in the eyes of his new sub- jects. He added five hundred thousand livres to the dowry of his niece, which amounted to sixty thousand florins, and he also presented her with a gold embroidered wed- ding dress and many jewels. Monsieur de Beauregard seems doubtful whether the King and Loyse travelled together to Dijon, but a letter written by Louis in the June of this year and addressed to the Bishop of Albe attests the fact, and adds that on the journey he was taken ill owing to the heat, and, as we believe, could not proceed; but it is very tantalising that no details of the marriage itself have come down to us, save that Catherine of Saulx says that her mistress in all her new happiness ever gave to Almighty God the first place in her heart.
The young couple enchanted all who saw them. Hugues, tall and good-looking, in his rich dress and cap, glistening with precious stones, was radiant, and the
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crowd shouted Noe'l as he passed, while Loyse appeared " a divine personage from head to foot," says Marot, as they journeyed together to their home at Noseroy. Here they received a warm welcome from the vassals and tenants, and none warmer than that of Pierre de Jougne, who now joyfully included love for Loyse in his faithful allegiance to Hugues. To him, as to all who welcomed her, the gentle lady gave signs of affection. The Castle of Noseroy seems to have escaped pillage in the disturbances, and was a fitting home for its new mistress. The rooms for visitors in particular were incomparable, we are told; the " gold room," the " red room," and the ten " white rooms," "all furnished with beds a ciel, representing Paradise; stools covered with cloth of gold and satin; turkey carpets and high seats covered with Eastern stuffs." The ducal hall was hung with a wonderful series of tapestries woven of Cyprus gold and silk. They were considered the finest of their day, and were worth, it is said, 6,000 gold ecus; but to Loyse their chief value lay in the sacred scenes they so vividly represented from the Old and New Testament, so that from the threshold of her new dwelling she could think she was accompanied by all the holy personages she habitually lived with in thought. About a hundred years ago Loyse's own room was still to be seen. It opened on to a gallery or loggia which looked into the beautiful chapel of the Castle, and was used by the Princess as an oratory, but she much preferred going to the Franciscan monas- tery situated at some distance and where her friend of other days, Father Perrin, now again took the care and guidance of her soul.
Loyse was very happy. In Hugues she had found " the husband that she wished," but even now she and Hugues, too, would talk of death and heaven in a way which aston- ished Catherine. " During the feasts and rejoicing, while every one was amusing themselves around the dear lord and the gentle lady," she says, " they paid no attention. They spoke together of the joys of Paradise and thought of all the beautiful things of eternity." But when the courtiers remonstrated, saying, " Madame, why speak
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constantly of these things?" Loyse, for fear of frightening people by talking of death, ceased to speak of it except to Catherine. The latter says that there was no sadness in the palace in spite of the Duchess's grave thoughts. On the contrary, there were little games to pass the time, and Loyse gave her winnings to her beloved poor, and, after joining in the amusements, she would steal away to visit the sick and afflicted.
For ten years Loyse and her husband led this happy and holy life. Although it was said that Noseroy more resem- bled a convent than a court, and that only the bell was wanting, there were dances and feasts whenever Hugues desired it, and the Princess's rule was one of love. On one point, however, the gentle lady was severe. If any of her ladies spoke uncharitably they had to give money for the poor, and the gentlemen had a worse penance, for they had to kiss the ground. " Ah, madame," they would exclaim, " we would prefer to give alms than do this." But Loyse was inflexible; only with her so great was her kindness that even punishment from her was valued.
Would that we had space to linger over the description of all that Hugues and Loyse accomplished for their own people, for whom they were ever more anxious to do their duty than zealous of their own rights, or to follow Loyse in her life of prayer and charity. " In everything," says Catherine, " God kept them closely united and in such mutual affection that there was no desire and wish which they did not share with each other." Only in Hugues' enforced absences from time to time did Loyse seem sad and lonely. Was it a presentiment of the separation to come, and which, in fact, came so unexpectedly to the dear lady in the summer of 1490?
Hugues was but thirty-nine years of age when he was seized by a " vehement " illness which soon left no hope, and now for their greater trial, the wish for death which used to fill their hearts left them when it really came, and Loyse was permitted to share in all the agony of the parting.
" Ah, when the Angel of Death carried away Hugues'
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soul, why did he not also take Loyse?" exclaims Mon- sieur de Beauregard.
In the great moments of her lady's life Catherine seems to be silent, and we know not whether Loyse followed her husband in the wonderful procession to the abbey of Mont Saint Marie, where already sixteen princes of his family reposed. All Burgundy accompanied the body, and above all the faithful Pierre Jougne sorrowfully followed his lord's remains. In this grave Pierre buried, together with the standard of Chalon, forty years of devotion, fidelity, and love. How was he now to live? But Hugues, while leaving all his possessions to Loyse, had left his most precious jewel — Loyse herself — to Jougne's care, and to her service he felt he could devote his last days, little fore- seeing that she would presently leave the world also in another way. " No widowed turtle dove ever so lamented " as Loyse, and for a time this sorrow took possession of her heart, but her prayers for resignation and her own heroic efforts presently brought peace, and Father Perrin's counsels light. Through her tears the thought of that cloister once so desired came to console her. As Catherine relates, " the perfect state which she had proposed to her- self before her marriage she now desired anew, and pre- pared for it with inestimable consolation. Day and night she sang psalms, and so progressed from virtue to virtue that from now the gentle lady seemed another person."
Loyse's first care, however, was to fulfil all her duties to the State confided to her, and for two years, which seemed very long to her, Pierre du Jougne worked to arrange the transference of her possessions to her husband's nephew, Jean Prince of Orange, and all the time Pierre had to keep his lady's secret, for she trembled lest her cousin Charles VIII, now King of France, should interfere. " If the King knew I greatly doubt if he would let me go," she would say. Pierre himself was heartbroken and implored Loyse to renounce her plan. But she would only reply with her angelic smile, " If you ever loved me, Pierre, show it in helping me now," and, of course, he obeyed.
The Franciscan Convent at Orbe, the town which had
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so early owned Hugues for Lord, was to receive his widow, and here she would find also among the nuns her husband's sister, Philippine de Chalon, whom she had already often visited in her little cell.
One day in June, 1493, Madame Loyse sent for the gentlemen of her household, and the bailiffs of her estate and announced to them that she was about to leave them for the Convent, begging them if they wished to give her pleasure to call her no longer " Madame " but " Sister Loyse." The sad news soon spread and crowds came in tears to the Princess, who, seeing their grief, showed her- self even more debonnaire than usual. " I cry you mercy, my friends," she said, " for everything in which I may have been wanting towards you, I beg you to forgive me if I have ever caused you pain." But it was only the dear lady's departure that they could not forgive ; and when the Princess's litter was brought the horses had to be kept at a distance for fear the cries of mourning should make them run away. The poor people on whom Loyse daily bestowed alms were arranged in rows, and she went round giving them the little money that she had still kept, saying, " But for the love of God, I request and implore you, my friends, that you let me go," and, putting them gently aside she gained the litter. About thirty years before Pierre Jougne had ridden over the same road to Orbe when he was carrying Hugues into safety; now he had the sad honour of accompanying his beloved mistress thither. She was also followed by the faithful Catherine, who also wished to become a religious.
On the 23rd of June Orbe opened its gates to its liege lady who was about to become the humble Sister Loyse, and, after completing all her worldly business, the Prin- cess entered the Convent. The Abbess and all the Sisters received her at the door, and at the sight of them Loyse held out her arms to them and would have entered quickly, but Father Perrin, who was present, said to her, " Wait, Madame," and Loyse humbly knelt and kissed the threshold which she had not yet received permission to cross. The Abbess approached, holding a large crucifix,
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and addressing the Princess, said, " Madame, here is our true Saviour, who, for love of you and of us all, hung naked and died upon the tree of the Cross. For the love of Him will you strip yourself of all worldly goods and re- nounce everything?"
" I have renounced, and will renounce, all very wil- lingly, and do it with all my heart and soul," Loyse replied. Then, turning to those who accompanied her, she said once more, " Adieu," to which they replied by a cry so loud that it was heard throughout the town.
Would that we could linger over the next eleven years and follow Loyse in her new life of austerity and poverty, but of surpassing peace, as we have done in those of her earthly happiness. But as it is impossible here, we will con- tent ourselves by giving the account of her last days on earth.
ItwasonJuly25,i503, " the Feast of Madame St Margar- et , "that Loyse, who was slightly indisposed,foret old that she would shortly die. " The state of my heart," she said, " is such that I can no longer live." While all around her wept at her words, she alone rejoiced at the thought of being soon with God. She asked to see her sister-in-law, Philip- pine de Chalon, and, recalling no doubt her former anguish, her parting words were, " It has always been, and it always will be, my wish, sister, to will what is and what may be God's Will." Then, turning to Him, she exclaimed, "You know, oh, my God, you know that I have put my hope in you." She was taken ill on a Monday and hoped to be in Heaven on Thursday. When the Vespers of that day sounded she saw the moment approaching. " Adieu now, my dear ones," she said. " I go above — I go to Paradise," but the moment had not yet come. Father Perrin had been sent for in haste to give the last Sacra- ments, and the Abbess bade Loyse wait for his coming. Ever obedient in life, she obeyed even in the arms of death, but as the priest recited the words, " Depart, Christian soul," Loyse " expired most joyously and gently."
M. M. MAXWELL SCOTT
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r^ANCIENTSIN RACINE AND IN SHAKESPEARE
[In order to lend a little vivacity to thoughts that have occurred to me in reading two national poets and their critics, I have imagined a talk between a pair of friends who see a great deal of each other about four times a year, and differ on every subject without quarrelling. Mr Frampton, who lives in Warwickshire, is on a periodical visit to London and Mr Vernicle; he has been to the play without his host, who prefers reading in an armchair by the fire. The piece was Antony and Cleopatra.'] Vernicle. What! back already, Frampton? Did you not stay to see the worm do his kind?
Frampton. Oh, yes; but there were considerable cuts — Ver. Of course. "Hast thou affections?" "Yes, gracious madam," etc.
Fram. — and the stalls were half empty, so that I had not to squeeze through a shivering crowd, and got my cab at once. Well, I did not waste the evening; and I'm less than ever of Charles Lamb's opinion about seeing Shake- speare played. Nesta Berkeley made an admirable "serpent of old Nile," sinuous, alluring and desperate, and a great lady whether she railed or languished. Ver. And Antony?
Fram. Less good, in fact, a little depressing as a lover: he brightened in flashes of soldierly resolution when, "on the sudden, a Roman thought had struck him." The monument was well contrived. I saw people in tears over Enobarbus. Altogether a notable performance, but not one that will tyrannize my imagination and spoil the play for reading. Don't you wish you had come?
Ver. "Indeed, the tears live in an onion that should water their sorrow." No, I've been well occupied. I have been with the ancients too, reading Andromaque and Pbedre once more.
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Fram. Phldrel Andromaquel You call that the ancients?
Ver. It ought to have been Mithridate for the occasion. It would have been amusing to compare the Orient of Shakespeare with Racine's, and either's reading of Plutarch.
Fram. If only it could be done without pitting Racine against Shakespeare — that wildly absurd but inevitable diversion of both French and English critics!
Ver. Especially of English: contrasts are more usually suggested by those they natter.
Fram. It began on the French side, surely, with Voltaire and the drunken savage and the diamonds in the dunghill. And I suppose later Frenchmen have been nearly as inju- dicious in their admiration of "le grand Will." I have read Hugo's bombastic tribute of irrelevancies. He took the right side at any rate, but for the wrong reasons. And the other day I came across a silly article of the poet Ver- laine's, in which he was at the pains to tell the readers of an English review that Racine appeals to the heart, and Shakespeare to the intellect! But your average Gaul is still a classicist and prefers an orderly mediocrity to genius with freedom. You remember how Hazlitt clenched the matter. "The French," he says, "object to Shakespeare for his breach of the Unities, and hold up Racine as a model of classical propriety, who makes a Greek hero address a Grecian heroine as Madame!" I think it is in The Plain- Speaker.
Ver. Elsewhere he goes farther and laughs at Racine because the scriptural characters in Athalie call one another "Monsieur" and "Madame." The best of it is, the word "Monsieur" does not occur in any tragedy of Racine, profane or sacred, though the elder French poets did not think it beneath the tragic dignity. One might conjecture that Hazlitt had never read Racine; but by the same token he had never read Shakespeare (which is absurd), since the Roman plays and Troilus and Cressida and Timon are full of lords and ladies, Sirs and Madams.
Fram. It is a trifling point.
Ver. But full of interest. Hazlitt, you may say, took these appellatives symbolically, as Dryden did, when he
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reproached Racine for transforming the "rough young man of the Amazonian strain" into "Monsieur Hippolyte."
Fram. That is, he turned him into a French courtier. Well, you know, Vernicle, there is no getting away from that.
Ver. No. But why blame him?
Fram. I don't pride myself on insularity, but, after all, reason is on the English side here.
Ver. It is not particularly English, in any case. As far as I know, all the French critics have remarked (and many deplored) that Racine's Hippolytus is not the hero of Euripides. The question is, why should he be?
Fram. Was not Racine anxious to conform to the tradi- tional conception of famous characters from antiquity?
Ver. Yes, in the interests of probability, or rather to secure the acquiescence of the instructed public. "Me con- former a Fidee que nous avons maintenant de cette prin- cesse" — it is in the Preface to Andromaque. And Hippo- lytus as we imagine him was utterly unlike the well-spoken suitor of Aricia: that is what you mean? Well, I might answer that the poet allows for the traditional conception of the character and is careful to justify his own departure. His Hippolytus was famous for his disdain or his misogyny — until he knew the daughter of Pallas.
Quel etrange captif pour un si beau lien !
he says of himself; and the incredulity of Theseus rewards his reputation. But, again, the subject is Phaedra and not Hippolytus. To complete her figure, he had to be repre- sented as a lover.
Fram. The spectators would hardly have tolerated a hero who was not.
Ver. Very likely; but the great reason was that Phaedra must have a rival for her last excuse. The discovery palli- ates the persistence of her treachery.
Fram. So Hippolytus might have been a jolly hunts- man still, and Aricia would never have existed in the play, if Racine could have brought himself to contemplate a piece of villainy wholly explained by cowardice. Oh! I know
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your taste for paradox. Still, I maintain that Hippolytus might be a suitor without being a French fop.
Ver. Will quotations disarm you? Here is the book: Dans mes laches soupirs d'autant plus meprisable Qu'un long amas d'honneurs rend Thdsee excusable; Qu'aucuns monstres par moi domptes jusqu'aujourd'hui Ne m'ont acquis le droit de faillir comme lui. . . .
That's his ambition. Now hear the lover declaim:
Athenes dans ses murs maintenant vous rappelle. . . .
Assez dans ses sillons votre sang englouti
A fait fumer le sol dont il etait sorti.
Pr^sente je vous fuis, absenteje vous trouve. . . .
Mes seuls gemissements font retentir les bois,
Et mes coursiers oisifs ont oublie' ma voix. . . .
And now his defence:
Quelques crimes toujours pr£c£dent les grands crimes. . . . Un jour seul ne fait point d'un mortel vertueux Un perfide assassin, un lache incestueux. . . .
He, que n'ai-je point dit? Ai-je du mettre au jour l'opprobre de son lit? Devais-je, en lui faisant un recit trop sincere, D'une indigne rougeur couvrir le front d'un pere?
Is this a fop speaking? Dryden, by the way, had no pa- tience with such scruples. "This was good manners with a vengeance," he cries; "and the audience is like to be much concerned at the misfortunes of this admirable hero: but take Hippolytus out of his poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a wiser part to set the saddle on the right horse." Such was the chivalry of the Restoration. But, honestly, do you call this language foppery?
Fram. It is certainly a Frenchman who speaks, and not a Grecian prince.
Ver. All the Greeks in Racine are Frenchmen, and the Romans too.
Fram. You admit it? I seem to have read that the glory of French tragedy was the presentment of universal hu- manity.
Ver. Help yourself to whisky, Frampton, and light another cigar. I foresee a long discussion.
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Fram. You want to intimidate me. Ver. No; but I mean to have my say, for once, about the Ludovician tragedy.
Fram. Proceed; propound; define. Ver. It was a national invention rather than a natural growth, the result of a century's gropings, disputes and accommodations, and not the less autonomous for an ap- parent eclecticism. You recollect its beginnings: the period of pedagogic declamations coinciding with the edicts against religious plays; on the one hand the purely bookish drama of Jean de la Taille, and the sententious Gamier, and the languorus Montchrestien — fine poets, all of them — and on the other, the real stage, where piratical companies chal- lenged the privilege of the Confreres to provide the gross traditional fare.
Fram. There was nothing, I take it, between Seneca and the booths. The French have always wanted the gift of compromise. But how different from our drama, with its rapid fusion of popular with humanistic elements!
Ver. In French comedy the fusion was complete, if tardy; but even in tragedy, down to a certain point, there was less difference than you imagine. But I refer you to Rigal for the history of Hardy's intervention. Hardy was no poet, but an indefatigable stage-carpenter with some literary pretensions, who found that regular tragedy in spite of busy plots bored the rabble of the Hotel de Bour- gogne with its single mood and pompous subjects, and set himself to gratify them, and at the same time to overcome the disdain of a nicer public, by mixed kinds. At any rate his example tempted some delicate poets out of their cabi- nets. The same thing had happened forty years earlier in England: Theophile and Racan and Mairet did what Peele and Greene had done; and it was then, while tragicomedy and pastorals flourished, that the French might have had their Marlowe. But the divergence was no accident. After Hardy, the public could not be satisfied with a drama of gnomic duels and choric lamentations ; but when playgoing became a serious and reputable pleasure, the national taste for psychology and fair discourse became conscious and
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exclusive, and tragedy appeared as a struggle in the soul. Whether Corneille invents opportunities for the heroic will, or Racine develops calamity out of impassioned character, the action is all internal. It is a crisis, not a story. And hence the unities.
Fram. They are not in Aristotle.
Ver. They are not in Aristotle — at least, not all. Aris- totle is a pretext: in that generation men were happy to find authority for doing what they would have done at any rate. The unities are involved in the tendency to im- materialize the serious drama.
Fram. Are you going to justify that extravagant super- stition?
Ver. I shall not fall into Johnson's trap, and defend the unities as a help to people who could mistake fiction for reality 1 Call it a clumsy formula — but read it as a coun- sel of concentration and economy, a warning not to mul- tiply conventions needlessly, nor to distract the spectator's interest in moral gestures by any appeal to material curio- sity, or the hunger for vicarious adventure. Remember this: nobody bothered about the unities until the tone and the interest of the French tragedy were established. Of course the learned knew of them long before.
Fram. Tell me, Vernicle, why do you assume that the play of motives, besides affording a more elegant recrea- tion, contains the art of arts?
Ver. I don't. Shakespeare is complete — Racine is in- tense.
Fram. Which is the more like life? Shakespeare does not pretend that we are the masters of our fate, or even that all experience is significant. Things happen on his stage which neither express character nor depend upon it.
Ver. French tragedy is not "life." In the first place it is purely human. It exhibits the interaction of judgement, will and the passions. It is not concerned with fate. It neither presents nor interprets the universe. It excludes pageantry and problems. It also excludes laughter, dreams and song. Unity of tone is the fourth unity, and the most jealously observed by the French Augustans.
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Fram. Racine in short abstracts nature, while Shake- speare is coextensive with nature. To what a little thing you reduce the imaginative capacity of our neighbours!
Ver. I have been trying to define a very special art. The French who, in the seventeenth century, distributed self- expression in half a dozen distinct and clearly conditioned kinds of writing, have since put the world into one vehicle. They had no Shakespeare, and we still want a Balzac. But do you notice how far we have digressed from the original question about the Greeks and Romans in Racine? And I've left unsaid the most essential things concerning the Ludovician tragedy.
Fram. It is not too late.
Ver. No respectable critic of our day would insist upon judging it as a copy. But there are plenty of people who can't forgive Racine for what they call a travesty of vener- able figures in his plays.
Fram. I am among them, I confess. If he could not help modernizing and Gallicizing Pyrrhus and Iphigenia, why could he not have left them alone?
Ver. Their prestige, their distance (Jules Lemaitre would say), was a part of his poetry.
Fram. An affair of proper names!
Ver. His authors presented him with signal cases of love, jealousy, ambition ending woefully — perennial springs of tragic emotion. He wanted his heroes to live: they seemed worthy — immutable human types as they are in their broadest definition — to take the accidental shapes of every age. He was not an ethnologer nor an antiquary, and so, in Andromaque^ for example, he did the very oppo- site to what Gilbert Murray did so audaciously: instead of attempting to resuscitate in their conjectural prehistoric dress the originals of the refined Athenian drama, he brought them forward into his time and, being sure that their motives and sufferings are eternal, took no scorn to give them the manners of idealized contemporaries. A romantic pedant like Schlegel could not understand this !
Fram. Taine advises all who read Racine to substitute
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mentally the names of the Great King's courtiers for those of Grecian princes.
Ver. I know. It was characteristic of Taine to regard great poetry as a document for the social historian. Racine did not confound Achilles with the Duke de Guiche. If he did not realize that Pyrrhus was the savage chieftain of a little clan, holding a barren strip of coast precariously, he was certainly aware that Hermione did not really resemble Mademoiselle de la Force. He did not take the camp at Aulis for the camp outside Namur. No. Racine did not try to restore; but he tended to eliminate details that had no moral significance, and where he could not eliminate, he used deliberately a reasonable system of equivalents. Shakespeare eliminated nothing, neither the cries of the populace nor the state of the sky, nor the colour of women's eyes nor the sole of a man's shoe. He was not content to show the mind of Caesar, he must tell us also on which side he was hard of hearing. And therefore it is even more true to say that his ancients are English men and women of his time than that Racine's are subjects of King Lewis.
Fram. Now this is really interesting. Have we struck a basis of comparison at last?
Ver. It comes to this: why does your quite modern perception of anachronisms spoil your pleasure in Racine, while it leaves your enthusiasm for Shakespeare unabated? I am almost prepared to explain it, though of course I shall not content you.
Fram. Wait a moment. I have not admitted your paral- lel yet. Convince me if you can: I shall still be able to fall back upon the fad of my "unabated enthusiasm."
Ver. It is not greater than mine, I do assure you.
Fram. Anachronisms in the "ancient" plays of Shake- speare! Of course, there are notorious instances: He<5tor quoting Aristotle, and Titus Lartius invoking Cato before Corioli; the Roman mob throwing their caps into the air, and " Enter Alcibiades, with drum and fife, in warlike manner." What are these casual and allusive slips beside the spiritual disfigurements of Racine, whose drama is in-
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deed one huge anachronism ? Character's the thing ! An- tony, Brutus, Volumnia, Caius Marcius, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, yes and Hector and even Timon, bear them- selves with a nobility worthy their fame in history and legend. Deny it if you dare!
Ver. By no means. But give me leave not to confound character with manners, and I shall say the same of Nero and Titus in Racine, of Mithridates and Clytemnestra, of Agrippina and Orestes. They are full worthy, as you put it, of their fame: they do not merely act as we expect, they express the characters which explain and necessitate their actions. And yet they carry the stamp of the poet's race and time; and so do Shakespeare's ancients. You are right — the fugitive anachronisms are nothing; but what do you say of another sort, which consists in peopling the minds of his personages with such images as they could never have conceived?
Fram. I don't quite take your meaning. Quote me in- stances.
Ver. I can think of two or three without book. " Fear makes devils of cherubims" says Troilus. Ajax, in the lingo of the Panurgic Thersites, "ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning." He ends the same speech with: "A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin." Troilus talks of Helen as
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonize us.
When his friends urge Coriolanus to bear with the insolence of the populace, he answers
Ay, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece Will bear the knave by the volume.
And Menenius bids the citizens
think Upon the wounds his body bears, which show Like graves i' the holy churchyard.
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Antony :
O, that I were Upon the hill of Basan, to outroar The horned cattle!
Roman citizens, when Caesar's legacy is communicated to them, vent their gratitude by roaring, "O royal Caesar!" Indeed, Shakespeare's Romans are fond of using that epi- thet favourably.
Fram. Your examples are not all equally significant, my dear fellow. Some are mere verbal anachronisms, of no more account than those I instanced first. I don't pre- tend I could match them out of Racine. His scholarship saved him from certain petty blunders, no doubt. But where, without altering a character, they belong to the texture of thought, he is less liable just because he is less concrete.
Ver. To be just, you should add that he is, above all, supremely relevant. Racine is not colourless, and his style grew more sensuous with years. Phedre has plenty of colour, and even of "local colour." Shakespeare has more: it is easy to see that he caught eagerly, like all his genera- tion, at exotic touches. But the world which was at the beck and call of his imagination was the world he lived in. To say that he never expressed an idea without a metaphor is almost to say that when his creatures are supposed to be- long to a distant age and country they continually remind us of objects and customs and beliefs which distinguished the England of Elizabeth and James.
Fram. Well! but the people themselves?
Ver. Let it be granted that the passions do not change. Their expression does. Don't suppose that, because Cleo- patra does not talk like a well-bred Englishwoman of to- day, she talks like an Egyptian princess. She talks like a licentious bedchamber-woman of the Tudor court — and also like a poet. And the same thing holds true of the other great figures. As for the lesser — Has any one doubted that the Athenian clowns in A Midsummer Night's Dream are Stratford artisans? or that the rude mechanicals making holiday at the beginning of Julius Casar are Londoners?
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I will grant you that "the princes orgulous" in Troilus and Cressida are not so much the comrades of Sir Philip Sidney as feudal captains of the declining Middle Ages.
Fram. It's a bitter play and, for once, great heroes are belittled there.
Ver. Not in the magnificent Council scene.
Fram. Well! call Shakespeare's Greeks and Romans Elizabethans: make the most of your anachronisms. Still they impress me, not only as outstanding figures, but as true ones. They are not drawing-room puppets; they don't chill me. Racine's people often do. Explain it.
Ver. You are asking me to account for a distaste, which is more than I offered to do. But I think I understand why you notice and resent in one case, and not in the other, the presentment of the ancients in a modern dress (I prefer to put it this way rather than vice versa). In the first place, Shakespeare's integral imagination, which always looked outward as well as inward, offers us a world which is in- deed extremely different from the ancient world in every- thing but human passion, but is at all events complete. Racine's imagination, restricted to the moral sphere, barely suggests a local habitation for the spirits he calls out of the past. It is as if we heard their voices in the dark; and there- fore we incline to be exclusivelyattentive to the tone. Again, the language of Shakespeare's heroes is at once distinctive of his time and, of course, incomparably original. As a mere matter of vocabulary and syntax, French has altered far less in two centuries and a quarter than English has in three, and the French of Racine has hardly aged at all. His countrymen read him without effort: will any one say that of Shakespeare? And how often Shakespeare's men and women talk simply like poets, with superb irrelevance! Hence a double remoteness. His speech is so far from the speech of every day that we call it the eternal language of passionate experience; and so unlike the speech of our contemporaries, that it seems apt to carry the thought and emotions of the old pagans.
Fram. Nobody could feel that with Racine. I scent in him a double contradiction. His people have the manners
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of his time and the morals of antiquity; and they express the most desperate purposes with an exasperating calm. His gallantry annoys me: his rhetoric leaves me cold.
Ver. You mean his want of rhetoric — you mean his realism. But read Saint-Simon and Tallemant and the other chroniclers of seventeenth-century scandal. It was an age of violent passions — there have seldom been more domestic crimes in high places. But it was an age which cared really for manners and fine language — a gravely sociable age, when people abhorred to wear their hearts on their sleeves, not out of stoicism or hypocrisy, but out of dignity and the desire to please. Racine reflects in his tragedies both its surface and what was beneath.
Fram. I will say this of him — in his very insipidity (forgive me!) he is a great aristocrat.
Ver. How do you use the word? To me he seems rather to reflect the spirit of his own conquering class. The spirit of the French nobility, when they were still all-powerful both in letters and affairs, was full of pedantry and licence, insolent caprice and fantastic arrogance. It is significant that a soberer tone began to prevail in literature just when French society expanded, when the great feudal houses were humbled, and the King chose his ministers out of the great bourgeoisie — the class to which most of the bishops and all the judges belonged and the big permanent officials and (except La Rochefoucauld and Fenelon) all the greater writers of the reign. The gallantry of Racine's heroes is certainly a modish taint, like the hyperbole of some of Shakespeare's; in either case it is surely compatible with genuine passion. Pyrrhus is as earnest as Troilus. Nisard, who has praised Racine splendidly, has an illuminating phrase about his gallants: "A poet must often be willing to humour the strain of the moment, if he is to insinuate unchanging truths."
Fram. Tell me, Vernicle, why do you care for Racine? Have you ever analysed your enjoyment? I glanced the other day at the last pages of a book you have there — the lectures of Lemaitre on the poet. He says, I think, that half the pleasure of reading him is the pleasure of dreaming
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on two incomparable civilizations. Is that your pleasure? You are not very anxious to vindicate his interpretation of antiquity on the score of faithfulness.
Ver. I have felt it sometimes, especially with Phedre. But other virtues in him delight me more. His verse in itself, for one thing, almost suffices to create an atmo- sphere which one can breathe nowhere else. I admire the Alexandrine of Racine more than I can say.
Fram. Those monotonous couplets!
Ver. I have learned to hear their infinite variety. They don't charm you?
Fram. You know Palmerston's sally: "A man who tells you he likes sweet champagne will say anything!"
Ver. As a matter of fact, every one likes sweet cham- pagne, except a little class of rich people in England and the Eastern States of North America. But I am not so foolish as to divorce the music of Racine's lines from the sense. To the poet himself the conception was everything. "It is all finished: I have only the verse to make now," he said, when he had a new tragedy on the stocks. I admire the inexorable progress of his tragedies, the order, the severe economy. And the extreme lucidity of the charac- ters appeals to me; and the fact that they are relevant; and their purity as types.
Fram. They are not individualized.
Ver. They are strongly differentiated. But there is another virtue — call it measure, or sobriety, or discretion — which has lost him an incalculable number of foreign admirers, and for which those who love him love him best. His pathos is not insistent; his light does not dazzle. His style is a continual flattery, for we like to feel that it does not need a tumult to stir us. At least, that's my enjoyment.
Fram. One o'clock. I'm for bed. I must read Phedre again some day. But Shakespeare is the bigger man.
Ver. A word in your ear: you'll never believe me, but — I am very much of your opinion. Good night.
F. Y. ECCLES
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SPIRITUALISM*
Modern Spiritism. By Godfrey Raupert. Sands & Co. The Dangers of Modern Spiritualism. By the same. The Unseen World. Lepicier. Kegan Paul. Sermons on Modern Spiritualism. Miller. Kegan Paul. Hypnotism and Spiritism. Lapponi. Chapman & Hall.
THERE are two courses of action open to those whose desire it is to combat a growing evil; the one is to ignore it, to silence its discussion, to refer to it, when reference is unavoidable, with terse condemnation, and all with the intention of starving or stifling even the common knowledge of the evil; the second, to pull it into the open, to invite discussion, to expose its deformities. Each has its disadvantages, each its advantages ; the first method at least keeps the matter to some extent from the knowledge of the ignorant ; the second makes plain its horrors : but the first permits the poison to spread without its antidote ; and the second attracts the attention of some who might otherwise not even have had the temptation brought before them at all.
It is all, then, a matter of degree. No one wishes to dis- cuss publicly, even with the best intentions, the morbid obscurities of nameless crimes ; no one desires to stifle dis- cussion— let us say — on disobedience to parents. Some- where between two such extremities, therefore, comes the line (on which it is often exceedingly hard to decide) at which a growing evil can no more be ignored, but demands public inquiry and dissection, even at the risk of spreading the knowledge of its possibilities.
Now, until recently, in the opinion of many judges, spiritualism — emphatically an evil, of course, in the eyes of Catholics — was best treated with silence, if possible, or at the worst with a sharp word or two. The thing was comparatively unknown amongst Catholics — except to those who either by duty or chance became acquainted
* I have employed this term since it is more generally understood than the more corect term, " Spiritism."
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with it. And those — beyond the experts — who paid any attention to it at all, usually dismissed it as a farrago of fraud and fancy, with certain obscure dangers only half perceived. While such was the case probably silence was its best treatment.
But it is impossible for those who know anything of the state of affairs with regard to spiritualism at the present time to acquiesce any longer in an assumption that it is a negligible danger. Not only amongst non- Catholics is the subject coming more and more into notice, to such an extent that at the present day it is possible to reckon up without hesitation at least half a dozen names of eminent scientists who consider it worthy, at any rate, of serious consideration, and of more than one who accepts the spiritualistic theories; but even amongst certain kinds of ill-instructed Catholics, it is making amaz- ing and even disastrous progress. Probably there are not many London priests — still fewer priests in one or two of the great northern towns — who have not to deplore losses to the Church among their own flocks, attributable almost wholly to this cause.
Another symptom of this growing feeling that the subject will have to be faced openly, lies in the number of books recently issued in England dealing with the matter, written by persons qualified to know, on whom can rest no sort of suspicion of sensationalism — persons who, writing as priests or Catholic experts, desire only to warn Catholics against what is becoming, more and more, every month that goes by, a real menace to faith. One such expert has stated on more than one occasion that in his opinion the enemy to be faced in the future is no longer the old materialism of twenty years ago, since that has been practically ousted by psychical research, but by one of the elements of that which has ousted it — spiritual- ism itself.
How then stands the matter at the present time?
First, it must honestly be stated that the society best known in this field of research — the Psychical Research Society — is not in the least officially convinced of the
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objective nature of the phenomena — convinced, that is to say, in the same sense in which it is convinced of the truth of telepathy. But when that has been stated it must, again, in fairness be added, that there are a good many qualifying things to be said, which diminish the force of this argument.
First, several of the most eminent of that Society are personally convinced that Spiritualistic research has made one fact at least, certain, viz., their objective external intelligences beyond those of the others are necessary to the explanation of certain undoubted phenomena.
Next, that the Society as a whole, has not yet relin- quished research in this direction. Experiments are still in progress on the point.
Further, it must be remembered that if the spiritual- istic explanation — or even the Catholic for that matter — is the true one, the methods employed by the Psychical Research Society are almost bound, unhappily, to defeat their own object. For it is said by Spiritualists that a certain passivity of mind, if not active faith, is necessary to the production of phenomena — a parallel up to a certain point to the Christian claim with regard to miracles. And it is humanly speaking impossible for severe- minded scientists to combine this attitude of passive readiness to believe with their attitude of impartial, unconvinced research, which is the very keynote of the scientific mind. It was pointed out to Professor Huxley some years ago, that his challenge to select two wards in a hospital, to pray for the patients in one and to omit prayer for the others, and thus to test the efficacy of prayer, was in direct contravention to the very conditions on which efficacious prayer professedly rests. It must be re- membered, then, in justice to those who hold Spiritual- istic views, that the conditions generally demanded by scientists are exactly those under which, on the Spiritual- istic explanation, phenomena will not be forthcoming. Mr Chesterton, in a slightly different connexion, has drawn out this point with his usual vividness. If it is asked, he said, whether it be a scientific fact that angry
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persons see red, it is a little unreasonable to object to the evidence given by angry persons, on the ground that they were angry!
In our brief examination, then, of spiritualism at the present day it is necessary to understand, as sympa- thetically as possible, the attitude of those who support the movement, before proceeding to give the Catholic view of the matter.
First, then, let it be said that the emotion that has given rise to the movement is one with which every Christian, and, indeed, every man who believes in the immortality of the soul and the endurance of human love, is bound to be in sympathy. It is no less than the perfectly human and natural desire to be reassured that souls sur- vive what is known as death, and to receive, if possible, revelations or at least spiritual teachings from those who ought to be best qualified to give them. And it must be added, that no one who has had the opportunity of talking with spiritualists can possibly doubt that in the vast majority of cases of those who embrace these practices and even persevere in them, there is no other motive than this, no insincerity, no conscious fraud, no sinister purpose at all.
And the claim of the spiritualist is that by the mercy of God this legitimate desire can be met; that under cer- tain circumstances souls can revisit the earth, clothed even in the appearance of the bodily form that they wore on earth; and that those still " on this side " can satisfy themselves by the evidence of the senses, as well as by private and indisputable tests that those who thus com- municate, whether visible or not, whether in their proper appearances, or manifesting themselves through other means, are the persons they profess to be. Further, they claim that, for the most part, if proper precautions are observed, the spiritual teachings received in this manner are of a high and ennobling character, that no injury is done to the seekers, moral, mental or physical, and that thousands of persons have had faith in immortality given back to them in this manner, and their lives spiritualized.
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As to the spiritualistic explanation of the method by which this is accomplished, a few technical words are required.
There is, it is said, in human beings a certain substance known as " astral matter." This astral matter, which all possess, but which some, known as " mediums," can project with exceptional ease, is a substance midway between physical matter and spirit. It is of a highly etherealized nature, but can be, so to speak, condensed into visible and even tangible form. In the most advanced phenomena — known as " materialization " — the soul re- visiting the earth, drawn there by the human attraction of its relatives, or by desire, or by chance, avails itself of this " astral matter," drawn chiefly from the body of the medium, but partly also, occasionally, from all or some of those present, and moulds it into a replica of the body it wore on earth. It depends on certain psychical circum- stances as to how far this " materialization " can go. Sometimes it is invisible to the eye, but visible to the photographic lens, just as are certain rays of light or im- measurably distant stars. Sometimes it is visible to the human eye as a faintly developed mist, or nebula; some- times as a bodily form; sometimes it reaches such a degree of condensation as to be capable of being grasped and handled.
Of less sensational phenomena there are very many — the appearance of lights, sounds, the movement of physical objects; but the commonest of all is that of communications made either through the mouth of a " medium " while in a trance state, or through the writ- ing of his hand by means of an instrument known as a -planchette — a small, heart-shaped tablet on wheels, pierced by a pencil — or merely by a pencil placed in his fingers. The value of these communications, of course, is chiefly to be tested by their correspondence with knowledge known to the enquirers, unknown to the medium.
Round this group of beliefs there has gathered now what is practically a new religion, and, for the most part, a religion that is not Christian in the usual sense of the
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term. In the North of England, for example, the organiza- tion of spiritualism has reached such a point that buildings are set apart for spiritualistic worship, hymn-books are issued, and Sunday-schools developed. The name of " Christian " is, of course, claimed, as it is claimed also by many Unitarians; but no more is meant by it than that the name of Jesus Christ, is treated with respect as of one who was, perhaps, the greatest moral teacher and martyr ever known, and that His ethical code is on the whole con- sidered the highest known to man. As to the manner in which His personality is interpreted it is, perhaps, enough to say that He is called by spiritualists one of the greatest mediums ever known, and that His appearances after the Resurrection are explained by the spiritualistic theory. The writer of this article was told, ten years ago, by a clergyman in Yorkshire, that the reason given by the young men of his parish for not attending church was that, " the spirits had told them that Jesus Christ was not God."
Now the teaching of theologians on the subject of spiritualistic phenomena has been absolutely clear, for years before the movement had reached anything like the proportions to which it has since attained. And it is remarkable how this very teaching — up to the point, at any rate, of the possibility of physical phenomena ema- nating from discarnate personalities — though loudly derided not only by persons who delight to call them- selves sensible, but by the scientists of thirty, or even twenty, years ago, now is fully endorsed by many repre- sentatives of science at the present day. It has always been taught by the Church, and by believers under the Old Law, that the spiritual world was so real and acces- sible a thing that communications from it, even in tang- ible form, were possible events. Further, that, by divine permission, discarnate personalities of that world could so enter into and possess inhabitants of this, that while the mouth that spoke was human and of this world, the intel- ligence behind it was neither.
It is a little lamentable, therefore, to hear, as one so
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often does hear, from Catholics, and even from priests, mere incredulity expressed whenever the subject of spiritualistic phenomena is mentioned. It is perfectly true that there have been numerous frauds in connexion with this movement, that in the portmanteau of an eminent medium or two strangely significant beards and muslin robes have been discovered, that fraud, in short, has been so common that even a careful writer like Mr H. G. Wells has been able to draw the figure of the medium " Chaffery " as typical of his class; that human credulity is almost unfathomable, that evidence of the identity of a spirit- form has been accepted which, in a matter of giving a salutation in the street, would be rejected as insufficient. Yet, all that multiplied a hundredfold, does not justify Catholics, whose belief in the reality of the spiritual world as well as its intercommunion with this is the very rock-bed of their faith, in dismissing as mere hysteria and nonsense that which not only materialistically inclined scientists consider important evidence, but which their own theo- logians take very seriously indeed.
The first point, then, of the Catholic view is this — that it is fully within the bounds of possibility — that is, of Divine permission — that discarnate intelligences from the spiritual world can, indeed, manifest themselves in exactly those ways in which spiritualists maintain that they do manifest themselves. We may or may not accept in this or that incident the evidence offered to us ; but we have no a priori principle against the main fact at all. The New Testament, the Lives of the Saints, the tradition of the Church, the very Ritual she places in her priests' hands, assert over and over again that some, at least, of the phe- nomena alleged by spiritualists not only can, but do, historically happen.
The second point, therefore, in the Catholic view, is that on which . the Church parts company with the spiritualists — the point, in fact, on which she bases her complete and final denunciation of those practices which at first sight appear so harmless and even edifying. That point concerns the identity and the nature of those
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personalities (who whether in this or that incident rightly or wrongly) are claimed as the agents of the phenomena. But before we come to that it is necessary to say a word or two as to the affair of the " astral matter."
It is exceedingly difficult to say whether or no the mind of the Church is formed at all as to this point. It is pos- sible, I think, to deduce arguments both for and against its possibility from the writings of theologians. It seems safe, however, to say that no Catholic could possibly fall under any censure for believing privately that such a substance as that indicated by this ridiculous title, is to be found in the human constitution, and is the matter by which those appearances are brought about. It is not, however, at all vital on either side. Catholics believe, at any rate, that it is within the power of discarnate per- sonalities to affect and use physical matter in their work; it is the affair of psychical students rather than of theo- logians to decide as to the possibilities of the precise methods followed.
Now, as to the nature and identity of the personalities believed to communicate in these various ways, dogmatic theology is explicit. We are taught that, except in extra- ordinary instances where an adequate need is served by the revisit of a soul to earth, all such phenomena as those put forward in spiritualistic seances are to be attributed to the work of demons. This seems at first sight a startling conclusion. Let us examine its grounds.
The main reason, final, indeed, to all who accept his- torical Christianity as Divine Revelation, though quite beside the mark to those who do not, is the undoubted fact that spiritualism, sooner or later, so far as it touches upon dogma, leads to a denial of the fundamental clauses of the Christian creed. I say " sooner or later," because it is perfectly true that enquirers are at first usually encouraged to persevere in the practice of their religion. (In fact it is this very thing that gives more reason to the Catholic for suspecting diabolical influence at work, since it is precisely the plan that would naturally be fol- lowed by any anti-Christian intelligence. Men very
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rarely lose their religion through direct assault and denial. They lose it far more commonly by a gradual process in which no considerable shock finds a place.) The expe- rience of enquirers is practically unanimous ; at the begin- ning none, or few, messages are received irreconcilable with Christianity: the seekers are bidden to pray, to sing hymns in the seance room itself, and to practise their religion outside of it. Then, little by little, what is called " higher light " is vouchsafed, Christian doctrines are slighted or "explained," until, finally, only a kind of Theism of the vaguest sort remains — a Theism that has, in only too many cases, no bearing whatever even upon ordinary mortality.
This deterioration of morals is a second reason for sus- pecting the intelligences at work to be actually diabolical ; and it is a reason that should appeal, not to Catholics only, but to all who believe in Christian morality at all. In this process the same method appears to be followed as that just described. It is exceedingly gradual and — a further point — it is, so to speak, influential rather than dogmatic. It is not, as a rule, that immoral tenets are taught, but that the character of the proselyte itself deteriorates, and this is a fact that occasionally even Spiritualists themselves admit with sorrow. Above all is this so with regard to the mediums themselves. I am aware that a general accusation of this kind ought not to be made without references; yet it is, of course, exactly one of those matters in which references cannot be given. But, I hasten to say that I do not mean for an instant that there are not many mediums and Spiritualists whose morals are above re- proach; only that these happen to be persons whose characters are strong enough to resist the influence that undoubtedly is found at work in these surroundings.
For of the fact of this unhappy tendency there is, among those that have studied the phenomena at first hand, practically no doubt at all. Not only does this deteriora- tion take place, unless extraordinary precautions and safeguards are preserved, but it reaches a point sometimes — if human evidence is worth anything — which is simply
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indescribable. Neither are these dangers merely mental in their action; it is common knowledge that certain phe- nomena take place, that suggestions are made, and that physical events occur, in extreme cases, which ought not, in detail, under any circumstances, to be given to the public. The writer of this article is acquainted with two cases at least which, while no directly moral evil was connected with the facts, yet present such revolting characteristics as to leave no doubt of the point of degradation to which such investigations were leading.
A third reason, closely akin probably to the preceding, is the bad effect upon the nervous constitutions and mental powers of those who engage in Spiritualistic practices. Some writers on this subject have gone so far as to say that it is the exception to find Spiritualists of long standing who have not suffered ill effects of this kind; and that actual insanity is very far from being an uncommon result sooner or later. Certainly these effects, so far as they exist, may be attributed by the incredulous to the evident and continuous strain upon the imagination demanded by such investigations; yet it is none the less true that the Catholic theory provides an equally adequate explanation. Certainly the argument goes far to show that, whether or no it is necessary to postulate dis- carnate intelligences at work, at least that such practices are unnatural and harmful.
A fourth reason is found in the enormous amount of fraud, both extrinsic and intrinsic, that seems so inevitably wedded to Spiritualism. There is first the extrinsic fraud — the actual deceptions used by mediums, whether con- sciously or unconsciously, in order to produce phenomena. It is not, perhaps, a very strong argument to remind those interested in the subject of the mechanical devices dis- covered in the possession of mediums, or of the deliberate tricks that have been exposed. It is more significant to remember that in very many instances, some of them quite recent and quite notorious, it was decided by experts that the medium, again and again, when phenomena were not forthcoming, used unconsciously — or, perhaps,
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it would be better to say, subconsciously — extreme muscular dexterity in order to simulate them.
But the cases of intrinsic fraud are more significant still — and by intrinsic fraud I mean deceptions used in cases where it was acknowledged by those present that dis- carnate intelligences were actually at work. For illustra- tions of this branch of fraud I cannot do better than refer those interested in the subject to some of the books named above; but, in brief, the characteristic of them is that the personality claiming to be identical with some deceased human individual has, at a certain point in his examination, utterly broken down in the tests offered, and has been shown to have got up the history of his model with considerable care, yet not with care enough. Cer- tainly these facts may find their explanation in the deliberate fraud of the medium himself; yet once more, it is equally true that, granted the presence of discarnate intelligences, they cast a very lurid light upon the nature and aim of these beings.
A fifth reason is to be found in the amazingly foolish and spiteful tricks purporting to emanate from spiritual- ized beings, whose sole object, we are told, is the illumina- tion and the ennobling of those who seek their aid. Here again the Spiritualists themselves confess the fact with lamentations. They tell us that sometimes, in spite of all precautions, intelligences of a lower order force their way in where they are not wanted; and they refer us with pride, as a counterbalance, to the noble sentiments uttered on other occasions. Yet when we turn to these " spiritual" teachings, even at their best, we find that they never transcend for a single moment, and, for the most part, seldom ever approach, for spirituality or ascetic knowledge, even the most trite maxims of recognized spiritual writers still " on this side." Lapponi, indeed, states with the utmost deliberation that never, in the whole course of his spiritualistic studies, has he come across a single state- ment, spiritual, dogmatic, historical or scientific, of any value at all, beyond those that are within the reach of any ordinarily intelligent person. Indeed, his veiled
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challenge is a very strong one indeed. Let all the Spiritual- ists together, he says in effect, reveal to us through their heavenly helpers, one single scientific fact not yet known to us, yet capable of verification, and we will take their claim more seriously.
Sixthly, there are a number of further more directly theological reasons for the Church's attitude on the matter on which I do not now propose to enter, for they would bear very little with those who, on other grounds, are convinced of the truth of the Spiritualistic claim. They are concerned rather with what we are taught of the spiritual world itself, and of the occupation of its inhabi- tants; but they can be summed up, more or less, in the statement that all the intelligent beings who inhabit that world— with the exception of one department — are better employed than in deceiving, or playing tricks or, at the best, echoing religious sentiments, round drawing- room tables.
So far we have discussed, very shortly, three theories in explanation of the phenomena known as Spiritualistic. The first is that usually professed by those who know nothing whatever about the subject — to the effect that the whole thing is a matter of fraud, hysteria and exagge- ration. Their main ground for this is one which, as we have seen, is not open to Catholics — viz., that inhabitants of the spiritual world cannot possibly communicate with the inhabitants of this, neither by physical appearance nor by the obsession or possession of human personalities. The second and the third are respectively the beliefs held by Spiritualists and Catholics — the former, that the per- sonalities that manifest themselyes are human though discarnate, and, on the whole, benevolent and beneficent; the latter, that the personalities are objective indeed, and discarnate, but inhuman, diabolical and malevolent.
There remains a fourth theory which must be dis- cussed, although very shortly and inadequately. It is to the effect that all the personal manifestations at present proved to have undoubtedly taken place, rise from certain powers in human nature of which, at present, we know very Vol. 145 417 27
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little; and that objective, extrinsic, discarnate personalities are not necessary to the explanation of such phenomena.
Very briefly the argument of those who hold this view, is as follows:
It is becoming increasingly clear, they say, that the science of psychology is still only in its infancy, yet in that infancy, what amazing powers have made themselves felt! A hundred years ago hypnotism itself stood very much in the same position as Spiritualism to-day. It was believed by some to be a matter of mere fraud and pre- tence, by some to savour of diabolical agencies. We know now that it is merely a perfectly natural effect of a per- fectly natural power. Telepathy, again, has come to be established at last as a practically undoubted fact, and has shown itself to be within the reach not only of saints and experts, but of the most ordinary kind of person. So, too, they say, is the case with clairvoyance, clairaudience and the rest. If human nature, then, has only recently been found to contain powers, which it must have held ever since its origin — since phenomenon after phenomenon has gradually been brought within its scope, is it not exceedingly likely that these further phenomena, even to the production of lights, sounds and physical appear- ances, may also be classed with the rest? Certainly we cannot at present indicate exactly the powers which can produce these manifestations, yet that is no sort of argu- ment against their existence — and, in the meantime, it is surely far more scientific to assume them hypothetically rather than to have recourse to diabolical or animistic theories, with all the rest of the nonsense dismissed, once for all, at the close of the Middle Ages.
Now it will be admitted that this argument has its attractions. It appears so reasonable, so patient, and so humbly agnostic in its best sense. Yet, if examined closely it will be found to rest, for practically all its weight, upon the dogmatic position that communication between this world and the next is not an established fact. Is it credible that anyone should hold it who was simultaneously convinced, as every Catholic is, of the
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fact that such communication can and does take place? Apart from actual revelation, the most scientific attitude in the presence of a problem with several possible solu- tions, is to select that solution, at least hypothetically, that most nearly meets all the facts. And it surely is be- yond question that the Catholic solution does most nearly meet the facts.
For if the psychological solution is accepted there remains — to take but one difficulty — the question as to why directly immoral tendencies manifest themselves so perseveringly in spiritualistic seances. On the psycho- logical side there appears no explanation of this — of why, for example, persons who, according to the theory, are merely exercising deeply- founded human faculties shoula so often develop such extraordinarily unpleasant ten- dencies towards obscenity or blasphemy. On the Catholic hypothesis the explanation is simplicity itself. And next, it must be remembered, that the psychological explana- tion for all its scientific appearance, rests really upon a simple child-like act of faith (I believe in man, the explana- tion of most things visible and of all things invisible) is the terse creed of the psychological materialist. There- fore if I meet, he continues, with any phenomenon which I cannot assign to any power in human nature known to me, I assign it unhesitatingly to a power in human nature unknown to me. His credulity on the severely scientific side can only be compared to the credulity of our un- critical forefathers, who assigned every new phenomenon beyond their comprehension to the direct action of a god. Whether or no these psychologists are partly right, at any rate, their explanation is anything but scientific in the usual sense of the term.
The evidence, then, it must be remembered, is (and quite rightly) of varying value, according to the creed of the person before whom it is laid. For the Catholic, who knows that the spiritual world is an objective reality, lying very close to this world, it is, probably, in the strictest sense, the most scientific thing he can do to accept his theologian's treatment of the matter. Granted
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the existence of evil spirits whose object is the marring of human nature, whose powers are undoubted, whose patient malevolence is unending, it would appear almost inevitable that the agencies behind these phenomena — always supposing, of course, that he is convinced that such phenomena take place — are diabolical and evil. For the materialist probably the most scientific thing he can do is to accept the psychological theory, since, indeed, for a man who believes in no intelligence except that of man, there is simply no other alternative. If both psychologist and Catholic alike accept the reality of the phenomena, the dispute between them does not really lie as to which is the soundest theory as to the explanation of these par- ticular phenomena, but as to which is the soundest theory of the universe. Neither has any right to accuse the other of folly, as to his particular interpretation of these facts ; only as to his general interpretation of all facts.
So then, until further investigations have been made by persons qualified to make them, rests the case at the present day.
It is becoming increasingly certain that phenomena derided by the early Victorians, do, as a matter of cold history, take place, that things are done for which, up to the present, no explanation is forthcoming which takes into account only the action of human powers as at present known to us. Less and less is it becoming possible, at least for those who have in the slightest degree studied the subject, to dismiss the whole matter as sheer non- sense. There remains the theories by which the phenome- na are to be explained; and these, in brief, resolve them- selves into three.
There is, first, the theory of the Spiritualists them- selves; next, the theory of the materialistic psychologists; and lastly, the teaching of the Catholic Church — teaching, it must be remembered, which has been in the field ever since the conflict first began, almost as far back as history gives us any record at all. It is these two old antagonists — the first and the third — who under other names and in all lands have faced one another so long as the conflict
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between religion and its bastard sister has formed part of history, and it seems as if it were between these same antagonists, and not with the help of any new-born science that the issue will ultimately be decided. Mean- time, the peremptory instructions of the Church are clear enough for her own children, and the reasons she gives for those instructions should surely be enough for those who, if not her children, have at least sympathy with her moral aims. In brief, she tells us that this is not the road to truth, but to deception and error; while admitting the existence of evil spirits and the possibility of their manifesting themselves to souls still incarnate on earth, she points out the extraordinary dangers that menace those who attempt by any backstairs entrance to pene- trate regions closed by the hand of God; and, as a proof of those dangers, she points to the uselessness of the informa- tion purporting to come through those channels, and the injuries to body, mind and soul sustained by those who persist in such attempts. Tfiere is nothing to be gained; there is all to be lost. She does not commit herself to any guarantee of the truth of this or that particular incident or claim; but she leaves us face to face with this dilemma. Either this or that affair is fraud, in which case its investi- gation is a waste of time, and a fruitful seed-bed of self- deception; or it is a reality, and in that case a sinister and perilous reality.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON.
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SOME RECENT BOOKS
^ Under this heading will be noticed a limited number of books to which the Editor is unable to devote one of the longer articles^ but desires ■, for one reason or another ', to call attention.
THOSE who are old enough to remember or who have had the curiosity to study the bygone con- troversies of the " Pope and Maguire " period, and who now turn their attention to the Jesuit Father Erich Wasmann's Problems of Evolution (London. 1909. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co. 6s.) will be struck by the manner in which the whole basis of controversy has shifted. Then the questions under discussion were the Cultus of Our Lady and the Saints, the Real Presence, Confession and the like, whilst now it is the fundamentals of Christianity, even of all religious belief which really engage the minds of men.
The history of this present controversy is sufficiently interesting. Father Wasmann is a very distinguished man of science, and his work in connexion with ants and ter- mites is recognized all the world over as being of first-rate importance. Moreover, he is the author of a number of other works, one of which, Die Moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungstkeorie, we had the pleasure of commending in this Review on its first appearance. In this and in some others of his writings he has avowed his belief in a polyphy- letic form of evolution, for which avowal he was made the object of attack by Haeckel and others, who maintained that in taking up this position he was really trying to bring about an impossible reconciliation between the Church and Science, and in this attack, and, indeed, in the subsequent discussion not infrequently seemed to be following the ancient advice "No case; abuse the plaintiff 's attorney."
It was regarded as advisable that Father Wasmann should make a public presentation of his position in a series of lectures delivered in Berlin, to be followed by a public discussion, in which the lecturer would answer his
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opponents' criticisms. The lectures attracted enormous interest in Germany, more than five hundred leading articles appearing respecting them in the columns of the public press of that country, and they were even alluded to in the newspapers of this country, never very apt to think such matters interesting to their readers.
To commence with the end, it may be said that a peru- sal of the discussion in which Father Wasmann was con- fronted by eleven opponents, some of them men of first- class importance, enables us to agree with a Protestant writer in one of the papers, who, with obvious regret and reluctance, admits that the Jesuit Father " routed our collective scientists " (p. 246). Whilst, as in most discus- sions, there was much in this which was wholly irrelevant, it is nevertheless worthy of the closest study, for here we have set down all or most of the arguments brought to bear against Christianity, and especially against our religion, by their scientific adversaries, together with the answers to the same of one who shows himself well able to give a good account of himself and his opinions in the fray. So much for the discussion, the report of which forms the larger part of this book. We may now turn to a consideration of the lectures themselves. The first is di- rected to the study of two important questions, namely: What is the scientific value of the Evolution theory? and Is that theory necessarily anti-Christian?
In discussing these points the author very clearly points out what the evolution theory is and what it is not. It is " not its object to explain the origin of life upon this earth " (p. 6), and it is " not an experimental science* and never can be one. It is essentially a theory based upon a group of hypotheses which are in harmony with one another, and afford the most probable explanation of the origin of organic species." (p. 7.) But according to our author the monophyletic view of development cannot be satisfactorily proved, in fact it is " a delightful dream without any scientific support " (p. 14). This is, as all will agree, a very highly controversial position for the writer * Italics throughout are those of the author. 423
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to take up, but it must be admitted that he advances very powerful scientific arguments in support of his thesis. Moreover, he is supported in it by other scientific men, notably by that most distinguished man, Professor Oskar Hertwig (not, we believe, a Catholic) who, in the last edition of his most admirable handbook on evolution, com- mits himself to the opinion that "Evidence of the mono- phyletic development of different races is altogether wanting, and we are forced more and more to accept the theory of development from a variety of stocks." Other most distinguished men, such as Boveri, von Wettstein and Steinmann have adopted the same standpoint, so that to say that the Jesuit has done so because the Church has compelled him, is obviously ignorant or malicious, or both. Finally, so far as this lecture is concerned, the writer states, " Personally I am firmly convinced that the doctrine of evolution, considered as a scientific hypothesis and theory, is not at variance with the Christian theory of life, although the contrary is often asserted" (p. 18). The second lecture deals with Theistic and Atheistic Evolution and the relation between Evolution and Darwinism. In this discourse, which is a most valuable contribution to the subject, the monistic theory is subjected to a search- ing examination which may be most fully commended to the reader, though the argument is much too close to permit of any proper analysis in a short notice such as this. As regards the latter part of the lecture it is interest- ing to note that the author's view as to the much dis- cussed question of natural selection is that it is " indis- pensable as a subsidiary factor, but only a factor — the interior causes of evolution remain always the chief point to consider, for they produce the beneficial modifications " (p. 42).
The third lecture concerns itself with the important subject of the descent of man, on which the author's views are particularly interesting and valuable. After dis- cussing the theories now prevalent as to that descent, the author concludes that, as it is the human soul which dis- tinguishes man from the lower creation (and he follows
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out the psychological argument to this end), it was the creation of the first human soul which marked the " real creation of the human race, although we might assume that a natural development lasting millions of years had pre- ceded it " (p. 51). Consequently, even if it comes to be proved that the physical frame of man has been directly developed from some lower form, " the divine origin and the divine end of humanity will nevertheless remain un- assailed and firmly established as before" (p. 51). But there is a large assumption underlying this question. Is there any real scientific evidence that even the body of man has been developed from that of some lower form? That man is a mammal no one doubts. That he is nearly alike in anatomy to the higher apes is equally certain. But these facts do not prove, though they certainly sug- gest, that man and the apes were derived from some common ancestor. Everybody knows that Haeckel has asserted that there is a complete series of intermediate forms connecting the oldest anthropoid ape with man. But then, Haeckel and his genealogies are now becoming more than a little suspect, and, indeed, it is difficult to read that of man, quoted by Wasmann (p. 80) without wonder at its promulgation and, still more, its acceptance. On the other hand, those who have most carefully studied the subject will be only too well aware how one vaunted " link " after another has been discovered to be no link at all, like the Neanderthal skull, now recognized to be of no significance in this direction, and the Trinil skull, now almost universally admitted to have belonged to a large ape, and will be inclined to agree with Professor Branco who, in his lecture on fossil man to the 1901 International Zoological Congress, declared that " We know of no an- cestors of man " and, moreover, will be constrained to admit that what was true then is no less true to-day.
We have said, we hope, enough to convince those interested in these most important questions of the day that they cannot possibly afford to neglect the very valuable contribution to the subject which is contained in this work. B.C.A.W.
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IT is open to doubt whether the growth of criticism on the art of fiction is an unmixed advantage, but whether it is an advantage or not it is likely to grow fast in the immediate future. It is not possible for an active mind to contemplate the enormous mass of fiction presented to us to-day, without an attempt, first to analyse its qualities, and then to draw up some theory as to the true laws of this most lawless department of literature. The prefaces written by Mr Henry James to the latest edition of his novels will probably prove to be milestones, marking a distinct advance in the analysis of the "why and wherefore" of the art of construction in the story.
Far less subtle and distinguished, and therefore, perhaps, less dangerous to the "law of liberty," is the extremely interesting work of another American, Mr Clayton Hamil- ton, called Materials and Methods of Fiffion. (Grant Richards. 5s.)
It is a brave book, for the author never turns aside to avoid the stiffest fence, and when his theories do not carry conviction they usually compel attention. There could be no happier example of his courage than the chapter on "Realism and Romance," in which he maintains the thesis that, "In setting forth his view of life, the realist follows the inductive method of presentment, and the romantic follows the deductive method." The following page is ex- tremely suggestive:
In order to bring to our knowledge the law of life which he wishes to make clear, the realist first leads us through a series of imagined facts as similar as possible to the details of actual life which he studied in order to arrive at his general conception. He elaborately imitates the facts of actual life, so that he may say to us finally, "This is the sort of thing that I have seen in the world, and from this I have learned the truth I have to tell you." He leads us step by step from the particular to the general, until we gradually grow aware of the truths he wishes to express. And in the end, we have not only grown acquainted with these truths, but have also been made familiar with every step in the process of thought by which the author himself became aware of them. Adam Bede tells us not only what George Eliot knew of life, but also how she came to learn it.
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Materials (^Methods of Fiction
But the romantic novelist leads us in the contrary direction — namely, from the general to the particular. He does not attempt to show us how he arrived at his general conception. His only care is to convey his general idea effectively by giving it a specific illustrative embodiment. He feels no obligation to make the imagined facls of his story resemble closely the details of aclual life; he is anxious only that they shall represent his idea adequately and consistently. Stevenson knew that man has a dual nature, and that the evil in him, when pampered, will gradually gain the upper hand over the good. In his story of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, he did not attempt to set forth this truth inductively, showing us the kind of fa£ts from the observation of which he had drawn this conclusion. He merely gave his thought an illustrative embodiment, by conceiving a dual character in which a man's uglier self should have a separate incarnation. He constructed his tale deductively, beginning with a general con- ception, he reduced it to particular terms. . . . "I have learned something of the world," he says to us: "Here is a fable that will make it clear to you."
The whole chapter, of which this passage is the kernel, is worth reading, although it shows two characteristic de- feels. First, a rather rough division of authors into realists or "romantics," to use Mr Clayton Hamilton's own terminology, and, secondly, a misleading indifference as to the historical significance of the terms. Throughout the book Scott is always alluded to simply as a romantic. But, as Mr George Wyndham has truly pointed out, it was the extraordinary combination of the qualities of both schools in one author that gave Scott his immense influence. What could be more unlike the romantic notional conception of a Highland chief than Fergus Maclvor? Fergus is the worldly politic polished product of a French education acliing on a Highland chieftain, whose last days are haunted by the superstitious traditions of his clan, and whose last words on the morning of his execution would have be- come a Greek philosopher. Is Scott in this like the roman- tic whose "only care is to convey his general idea effec- tively by giving it a specific illustrative embodiment"? The actual Fergus Maclvor, the outcome of much con- scious or unconscious indu&ive study, was far more to
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Scott than any general idea or any development of plot. The great Scott characters will appeal to the realist who is satisfied with realistic presentation without analysis, who is, indeed, willing to do his analysis for himself. George Eliot does the analysis for us, but surely Mr Clayton Hamilton would allow that such analysis is not necessary for realism?
Then, as to his indifference to the historic significance of his terms, it is natural for the author to shrink in a book that already attempts so much, from attacking the com- plicated history of the romantic school in France. But it is important for the student to remember that that school was in revolt, not against realism, but against the clas- sical school, with its tyranny of conventional laws in liter- ature. They turned back, no doubt, to medieval idealism, but they returned also to a more loving study of Nature.
The least satisfactory part of the book is a crude chap- ter on "The Epic, the Drama and the Novel." Here is shown the "triste courage''' for which we have no exact term in English. It is most unsatisfactory to treat such subtle questions in such a sweeping "tell you all about it in a few minutes" manner. It is unfortunate, as it was not necessary to take a shallow plunge into such deep waters. The book would have done better without it.
But excellent are the chapters dealing with the short story, and there is much that is valuable in the one on "The Factor of Style." The distinctions drawn between the short story and the novel, and the analysis of the dif- ferent gifts, rarely combined in one man, which are needed for each, are very instructive and useful to the student. The impression left on the mind by this part of the book is that the romantic, unlike the realist, works best in the short story, that his work requires more conscious art and can submit to more literary conventions. He gains by compression, by unity, by an artful simplicity. He wishes to make one impression, to produce one effect full, per- haps, of infinite suggestion, but not complex or divided. Whereas it seems to us that the realist not only works best on a large canvas, as Mr Clayton Hamilton tells us, but
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that, far more than he would admit, the realist must not be hampered by conventions, must expect to produce his effects by intermittent impressions, must allow his narra- tive to suffer, as we suffer in life, from the absence of unity and of perceived design, and will reap his reward in the creation of characters that can only be fashioned by the rough chances, the slow development, the seemingly in- consequent alternations that go to make up this mortal life. Mr Clayton Hamilton's book is probably symptomatic of the American taste for subtle art and exquisite workman- ship. Let it prosper, that thereby we may enjoy wonderful impressions and delicate suggestions of the beautiful and the infinite. We need to be roused from the slovenly habits and reckless workmanship too common in this country. But let us remember that as in aiming at sanctity we should rather live with the saints than live by any code of laws, so in every art it is better to live with the works of great men than to obey the best possible rules of criticism.
S.
THE first novel or story we turn to, after studying the theory of fiction, will inevitably be considered chiefly as an illustration of the ideas we have just acquired. In The Score, by Lucas Malet (Murray. 6s.), we have an interesting example of two short stories written by an author whose literary habits are those of a realistic artist, who usually works in the form of the long novel. The two stories present the greatest contrast, but in both Lucas Malet is hampered by the narrow limits she has chosen. The theme of the first, entitled "Miserere nobis," is romantic, and is an instance of the danger of the method of working from the general idea to the particular charac- ters. The dramatic idea is strong, but the personages are shadowy and notional. In the second story, " The Courage of Her Convictions," Lucas Malet is more her- self. Her heroine, whom we have known before in " The Far Horizon," is alive and goes her own way, and the author watches her, intensely anxious to follow the nature of the woman and to observe its every motion truly and dispassionately. Therefore Poppy St John, lov-
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able or not, is intensely interesting, and the struggle she passes through is a true and fearful experience. The temp- tation is faced and conquered on a summer's night under the stars — she conquers, but next day she cries out for the lamps, the noise, the smells, the crowds of London. In the loneliness of such a victory the sea, the hills, the open sky become unbearable. This passage of the story is striking and worthy of its author. But still the artist has too narrow a frame, and we could willingly spare a wide space on the walls of our gallery of fiction to gain another long novel in the larger manner of Lucas Malet !
S.
DISCOURSES and Sermons on Various Subjetls. By Cardinal Gibbons. (John Murphy and Washbourne. pp. 531.) presents almost the precise opposite of what, so very often unjustly, we are accustomed to expect from America. It is not at all sensational, or light, or startling; it is sober and solid, and even, in the best sense, a little old-fashioned. It has that particular and charming aroma on almost every page which we associate with such books as The Qarden of the Soul, and Bishop Challoner gene- rally; and offers that kind of food on which souls grow strong rather than become intoxicated: it supplies thoughts rather than suggests them. There is room for both these kinds of religious literature; but in these days, when we are a little overburdened with stimulus — a little too much inclined to over-rate the brilliant and arresting — it is extremely good for us to remember that intoxi- cants have their dangers; that sheep need food even more than the most exquisite Arcadian flute playing, and that wholesome pastures and waters are the first business of good shepherds. It is beside these ancient fields and clean- flowing streams of the Gospel that Cardinal Gibbons leads his sheep in Baltimore. B.
IF a man, wearied with brain-work, plans a holiday on the Continent at some time which he finds, after all, he cannot afford, he would be well advised, as an alternative, to read Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England (A revised
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Bede's Ecclesiastical History
Translation, with Introduction, Life and Notes by H. M. Sellar, late Vice-Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. George Bell and Sons. 1907. Price 6s. net.) He will get more of a mental change in its perusal than by a trip to Paris. He will be taken in spirit from a sceptical, comfort and pleasure-loving world to the Saxon period of our Island story, where the things of the next world held the first place in men's esteem, and were as real and solid to them as the ground they trod upon; where the pursuit of sanctity was as eager, if not as universal, as our pursuit of money; a world of saints, and a reverence for sanctity when sanctity was wanting in the worshippers, of mission- ary zeal, of miracles, visions and angelic visitings. Yet Bede, himself a saint, was no visionary, no dreamer of idle dreams, but a most sane-minded man, his sanity shown, says Miss Sellar, in her sympathetic Life of Bede, " in an unusual degree of fairness to opponents .... A character- istic akin to this is his love of truth. As a historian, it shows itself in his scrupulous care in investigating evidence and in acknowledging the sources from which he draws. No- where is his intellectual honesty more apparent than in dealing with what he believes to be the miraculous element in his history. In whatever way we may regard these anecdotes, there can be do doubt that Bede took the ut- most pains to assure himself of their authenticity. He is careful to acquire, if possible, first-hand evidence; where this cannot be obtained he scrupulously mentions the lack of it. He admits only the testimony of witnesses of high character, and generally quotes them by name." " Again," she says, " everywhere we find the impress of a mind of wide intellectual grasp, a character of the highest saintli- ness, and a gentle refinement of thought and feeling."
Lingard bears witness to the extent of his learning. " Whoever reads," he tells us in his Anglo-Saxon Church, " the treatise of Bede, De ratione temporum, in which he explains the nature of the Egyptian, Grecian, Roman and Saxon years, must view with astonishment the deep and extensive erudition of a monk who never passed the limits of his native province, but who spent the whole of his days
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among the half-civilized inhabitants of Northumbria." One of the Two Gentlemen of Verona avers that
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits;
Venerable Bede never left the four walls of his monastery, yet surveyed the wonders of the world abroad with the eyes of a statesman. Once, indeed, he paid a visit to Ripon, otherwise he was as home-keeping as the late Bishop of Arindela, of whom it is recorded that in the course of his forty years' desk-work at Archbishop's House he was on one occasion persuaded to take a holiday, but got no farther than Victoria Station.
This edition of 7 he Ecclesiastical History has the advan- tage of a map, a profusion of notes, brief, and to the point, as well as index, and the print is clear and good, though some will miss the larger type of Giles. The Editor's ap- preciation of the earliest copy of The Ecclesiastical His- tory done into modern English, marks a change in literary taste since the middle of the last century. Stapleton trans- lated Bede in 1565 for the special conversion of Queen Eliz- abeth and, writes Miss Sellar, " if charm and appropriateness of style were the only qualities to be aimed at in a transla- tion, we might well content ourselves with this rendering, which fills with despair the translator of to-day, debarred by his date from writing Elizabethan English." Talking of the same work, Giles only thinks it admirably done " for that period," and, on account of its " obsolete phrase- ology," could not be " circulated for use in the present day." It gives one pause and makes us wonder how many centuries must pass away ere, in the lines of the poet of human nature,
(The) fame that all hunt after in their lives, . . . (May) live registered on our brazen tombs, . . . And make us heirs of all eternity.
Men of settled reputation, and in the front rank of genius, exclusive of inspired writers, may be counted, I fear, on the fingers of a hand.
In her Introduction, which contains a useful analysis
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of the whole book, Miss Sellar speaks of " the legendary account of the conversion of King Lucius," and in a note she tells us that " most modern authorities consider the story fabulous." This is not surprising in days when tra- dition is always questioned and generally assailed; when the old black is white-washed and the white blackened, the auriole snatched from the head of the saint, and Nero canonized. Lingard, who, as an authority, seems to be grow- ing with time, says, indeed, that the account of the con- version is " liable to suspicion," yet, after deducting every improbable circumstance we may quite believe the whole story on the strength of collateral evidence. Burton, the ecclesiastical historian, though treating the story as a fable, allows that it contains no intrinsic improbability, ?.nd thinks "perhaps there was some circumstance about that time which was favourable to the spreading of the Gospel in Britain." (Quoted by Bright, Early English Church History, 4.) Milman, again, dismisses the story as a mere legend, but adds, " Britain gradually received the faith during the second and third centuries." (Lat. Chr. II, 226 lb.) " It is certain," writes Professor Bright, " that not many years after the accession of Elutherius — probably, indeed, between a.d. 196 and 201 — Tertullian exultingly declared 6 that places in Britain not yet visited by the Romans were subject to Christ.' " The Conversion of King Lucius is put between 177 and 181. Among the many debts England owes to the monks it is to be remembered that Bede, monk and saint, was the father of English history. P.H.
WHEN Cary published his entire translation of the Divina Commedia in 1814, Dante's name conveyed little more than a name of vague grandeur to the English reader. Ten years afterwards Macaulay could say: " The great majority of the young gentlemen and young ladies, who, when they are asked whether they read Italian, answer * Yes,' never go beyond the stories at the end of their grammar; — The Pastor Fido, or an Act of Artarserse. They could as soon read a Babylonian brick as a canto of Dante." But an interest in the poet had been created, Vol. 145 433 28
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and in Italian literature generally. The tide had turned and has continued flowing till England takes high rank for works on Dante. Amongst the most useful stand the six volumes of Mr Vernon. This second edition of his Paradiso, revised, (Readings on the Paradiso of Dante, by the Honble William Warren Vernon, with an Introduc- tion by the Bishop of Ripon, in two volumes. Methuen and Co. 15s. net), like its predecessors on the Inferno and Purgatorio, treats this third part with similar clear trans- lation and ample notes from commentators and school- men, especially St Thomas. The Bishop of Ripon may well write : " When some of us who have long been students of Dante, remember the character and quality of the books which awaited the beginner a quarter of a century ago, we are tempted to be envious of the young student of to-day, who can make his first excursion into the realms which Dante opens, under the well-skilled and enthusi- astic guidance of Mr William Warren Vernon, who in these pages gives us the fruits of the long diligence with which he has studied the poet's works."
The last part of the Commediahas been the last to receive adequate appreciation. The great Essayist blew his trum- pet and the public took up the note — " his [Dante's] de- scription of heaven is so far inferior to the hell and purga- tory. With the passions and miseries of the suffering spirits he feels strong sympathy. But among the beatified he appears as a soul who has nothing in common with them — as one who is incapable of comprehending, not only the degree, but the nature of their enjoyment. We think we see him standing amidst those smiling and radiant spirits, with that scowl of unutterable misery on his brow, and that curl of bitter disdain upon his lips which all his portraits have preserved [Giotto's portrait of Dante had not yet been discovered] and which might furnish Chantrey with hints for the head of his projected Satan." This may be the portrait of Dante of the Inferno; it is not, assuredly, that of Dante of the Paradiso. It is not even Giotto's Dante of the Vita Nuova, much less is it the likeness of Dante, who on leaving purgatory, crowned king of him-
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self, free, upright and whole in will, perfect in faith, hope and love, was pure and ready to mount the stars of paradise with the buoyant ease of ascending fire. It is not Dante, joyously intoxicated with the sights and sounds of heaven, the light of God upon his brow and God's peace abiding in his heart when he came to earth again. Sad and painful had been his toilsome descent down the terrible circles of hell, his pilgrimage round the cleansing terraces of purgatory had been no pleasure jaunt, but it may be truly said he was at home in heaven amidst its holy and happy citizens, his nature having been adapted to their country and companionship, through gazing on Beatrice, just as Glaucus had been trans- formed
. . . when he tasted of the herb, That made him peer among the ocean gods.
After the long popularity of the Inferno, the Purgatorio apparently had its little day till Ruskin and Gladstone, by their enthusiastic eulogies, set the Paradiso to the front. It is true Shelley had already expressed his supreme admira- tion for these cantiche, as " a perpetual hymn of ever- lasting love," but his voice had been as one crying in the wilderness. We doubt now if readers, slaves of fashion, would venture to give their preference to the Inferno or Purgatorio. I think that to persons who read the whole poem with intelligent love its different cantiche will appeal more forcibly at different periods of life. Youthful imagination will be captured by the tragic horrors of the Inferno. In maturer years when a serious man is trying, under many difficulties, to mould his character aright, he will find the Purgatorio most helpful for his purpose, but when, in the decline of life, he feels the near approach of eternity, he will turn wistful eyes to the Paradiso, and rest his heart in its consoling scenes as a sick man lays his head on a soothing pillow.
On a former occasion a critic, to his discomfiture, fell foul of Mr Vernon over the translation of a word in the Pur- gatorio. The same happened when he published his first
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edition of the Paradiso, translating "resplende" (I. 1.) by " shines," as he does again. The over-bold critic said it ought to be " re-gloweth." Mr Vernon sent his defence, backed by the authority of Professors Villari, D'Ovidio, and Scherillo, and afterwards by Dr Moore, to a well- known literary journal where the adverse criticism had appeared, and his defence was refused admittance. The consequence is that the mis-translation " re-gloweth " turns up in the Paradiso of the Temple Classics. It is hazardous to enter the lists over the meaning of Italian words with a man like Mr Vernon, so well acquainted with Italy and her language.
But though we should think twice before questioning Mr Vernon's knowledge of Italian, we have not the same hesitation in tackling his history. In a note on St Dominic (Canto XII) he calls the Albigensian heretics people of " blameless lives." That some of the leaders were what is called men of austere virtue may, indeed, pass, but we cannot believe in the "blameless lives" of their fol- lowers— the common ruck — who accepted as a creed the dual Deism of the Manichees — the good God of spirit, the bad God of matter — the wickedness of marriage, pro- creation and family life. Such were the only men to find salvation. To secure eternal happiness it was enough to receive at the hour of death the Consolamentum — a slight outward observance — a bit of inconsistent super- erogation, one would have thought, as their creed abolished hell and purgatory (Lachaire : La Criosade des Albigeois). " It must be confessed," says Hallam {Europe During the Middle Ages, in one vol. 802) "that the Cath- arists are not free from the imputation of pernicious licentiousness," — whether a calumny or true he could not determine; and " their prototypes, the ancient Gnostics, are said to have been divided into two parties, the austere and the relaxed; both condemning marriage for opposite reasons." And if twelfth century Catholics did not think their opponents men of blameless lives neither could they have held them as harmless, for their heresy struck at the whole social system of Christendom.
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Lyra Evangel istica
It would seem that the Divina Commedia now takes its place, in the mental stock of a cultured mind,' beside the great Epics, the Iliad, ALneid, and Paradise Lost. Mr Vernon's work will make its study easy and delightful.
P. H.
IT is remarkable that most poets of fame have given their lives to poetry or to literature. It is not easy to see why this should be so. If true poetry is distilled from life one would expect it at its best from men whose experience of life was most varied and immediate, rather than from dwellers in the study. It is clear, however, in the pages of Lyra Evangelistic a (By A. S. Cripps. Simpkin and Mar- shall. 2s. 6d. net) that a very strenuous and laborious life may be the font and inspiration of true poetry rather than an obstacle to its production. The author is an Anglican missionary in Mashonaland, and he writes chiefly about his work. That, probably, for most people, sounds a very uninviting description, yet one cannot read two pages of this book without recognizing poetic power of a far from common kind. Originality of manner is per- haps what first and most strikes the reader, but it is not originality of the kind that is determined to be either astonishing or obscure, with which we are all so familiar. A certain delicacy and grace mark every poem, and a refined, uncommon temperament looks out through them — a temperament leavened, perhaps, with melan- choly, yet keen to perceive and strong to endure. Mr Cripps is in lineal descent as a poet fromHerbert,Vaughan, Keble and the writers of Lyra Afostolica and Lyra Inno- centium. He has the sensitiveness, the sobriety, the happi- ness and delicacy of expression of these. Penitence, en- durance, difficult trust are his themes oftener than that joy of faith, that exultation in the splendour of the truth believed that is characteristic of Crawshaw and his modern descendants — though in his sureness and boldness of phrase he has learned something, perhaps, from them also.
We may quote a poem in illustration of what has been said so far:
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ANGELUS TIME (At set of sun)
Our earth grows virgin cool and calm,
Humble and simple, kind and new, In bosomed hills the red sun falls — And all at once the low bell calls
" Now and in our last hour be true ! "
Mother of earth, a child you stood
(The March eve glimmers now as then),
Shechinah of a sunset fell
Into your bosom, there to dwell, And rise to east for wandering men !
O you that know our pitfalls dark,
While high on heavenly hills you stand,
Come, Day-Shine, at the end of day!
As God stoop'd to you all the way,
Stoop to us — husht and bright and bland!
This is a fair example of the author's manner, and it is surely not without charm. Allusiveness, and an intimate welding of natural beauty with religious thought are its chief characteristics, especially the latter, though in accordance with what has been said already it is the dusk hours of the day, and the lonelier spaces of the land that afford the surest inspiration. The missionary has learnt to love the country of his adoption — and the " treeless brown " of the veldt's " old solitudes " where
The sun swings up — and down, On his own blue open way,
grow strangely clear before the reader's eyes. Over and over again, as we turn the pages, there is apparent the writer's power of making you see — and better, feel — some aspect of nature, and that often in the turn of a brief phrase.
We have said nothing so far of Mr Cripps' metrical gift, which is not the least part of his capacity for writing good poetry. He combines smoothness and variety of movement with remarkable success; and while unham- pered by the too common idea that rhythm depends upon the number of syllables in a verse, he does not contract
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or expand his lines at random, but nearly always with a just suiting of music to thought. We can best convince of this by another quotation which must not in fairness be too short. The following lines are the first half of a poem called Essex, written when outward bound. Good Easter and High Easter are doubtless Essex villages. Paigles are Essex cowslips.
I go through the fields of blue water,
On the South road of the sea. High to North the East Country
Holds her green fields to me — For she that I gave over,
Gives not over me.
Last night I lay at Good Easter,
Under a hedge I knew, Last night beyond High Easter,
I trod the May-floors blue — Till from the sea the sun came,
Bidding me wake and rue.
Roding (that names eight churches) —
Banks with the paigles pight — Chelmer whose mill and willows
Keep one red tower in sight — Under the Southern Cross run
Beside the ship to night.
Much has been said in appreciation and not much by way of criticism. No doubt faults could be found, but where a book is so full of charm, and so sure to give pleas- ure to lovers of verse, there is not, perhaps, much to be gained by hunting for them. Lyra Evangelistica is not a book of great poetry — but it is nearly all true poetry — and stands thereby wholly distinct from the great bulk of contemporary verse. Catholics will find an additional pleasure in the book from the fact that Mr Cripps writes with an almost completely Catholic outlook on religion; and the feelings that rise in us at the thought of pagans won to a form of Christianity in revolt need not, and should not detract from our appreciation of the writer's religious tenderness and sincerity, nor, indeed, of the cour- age and generosity of the life to which he has devoted himself. G.B.
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IT is a little difficult in poetic criticism to get a measure of the poetry reading public, for we are all taught in our youth to reverence poetry, and the great poetic names just as we are taught to regard a knowledge of his- tory as valuable and of arithmetic as necessary; but whereas arithmetic remains a dire necessity, and igno- rance of history is disgraceful, poetry must always be a private matter. Most of us read poetry only when we feel inclined, and we choose our poets according to our mood; we quickly make our own anthologies and are content having the best (or some of the best) to ignore the remainder whether good or bad. But though readers of this kind are in a majority it is the obvious duty of a Professor of Poetry to go beyond the conscious needs of the general public in the interpretation of his subject. Mr Bradley, in Oxford Lectures on Poetry (Macmillan. I os.), frankly grapples with fundamental problems, and though the result is not easy reading — and the author's style is often severe — yet from the mere fact that he is concerned with what lies at the root of all good poetry, there is very little in which the ordinary silent lover of poetry will not take delight.
" In some of these lectures," he says in a epilogue at the end of the volume (which should be read first with the preface), " I may have betrayed a certain propensity to philosophize. But I should ask pardon for this only if I believed it to intrude where it has no place in the imagi- native perception of poetry." The book concludes thus :
If I may use the language of paradox I would say that the pur- suit of poetry for its own sake is the pursuit both of truth and of goodness. Devotion to it is devotion to the good cause of the world; and wherever the imagination is satisfied there if we had a knowledge we have not, we should discover no idle fancy but the image of a truth.
It is this constant reference to the deeper implications of poetry which gives these lectures their chief interest. We read and re-read our poets without being able to account for our preferences till somebody shows us that the feelings and ideas uniquely presented are in truth
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part of a larger scheme to which others beside the poet have contributed. We rightly speak of our inheritance of thought and of knowledge. No one stands alone — least of all the great poets — and they, like us, have striven after something which they could not attain. It is not a matter of finding a philosophic system — Aristotle was no poet — but of understanding in each poem the mind of the author. How much fuller is the significance of
The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean;
when we have had revealed to us, as we have here, what Love meant to Shelley, and how little do we understand of Endymion till we have learnt what Beauty meant to Keats !
But Mr Bradley is too good a philosopher to neglect the grammar of his subject. What could be better than this as an illustration of the " meaning of poetry "coming at the close of a long discussion on the " antitheses of sub- ject, matter, substance on the one side, form, treatment, handling on the other " ?
If I take the famous line which describes how the souls of the dead stood waiting by the river, imploring a passage from Charon :
Tendebantque manus ripas ulterioris amore,
and if I translate it, " and were stretching forth their hands in longing for the further bank," the charm of the original has fled. Why has it fled? Partly (but we have dealt with that) because I have substituted for five words, and those the words of Virgil, twelve words, and those my own. In some measure because I have turned into rhythmless prose a line of verse which, as mere sound, has unusual beauty. But much more because in doing so I have also changed the meaning of Virgil's line. What that meaning is / cannot say: Virgil has said it.
and further on :
What Beethoven meant by his symphony, or Turner by his picture, was not something which you can name, but the picture and the symphony. Meaning they have, but what meaning can be said in no language but their own: and we know this, though some strange delusion makes us think the meaning has less worth
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because we cannot put it into words. Well, it is just the same with poetry. But because poetry is words, we vainly fancy that some other words than its own will express its meaning. And they will do so no more — or, if you like to speak loosely, only a little more — than words will express the meaning of the Dresden Madonna.
At the end of the first lecture Mr Bradley recurs to the problem of the meaning of Poetry in general. He attempts no solution here. " It is a spirit. It comes we know not whence. It will not speak at our bidding, nor answer in our language. It is not our servant; it is our master." To complain of the fine passage of which these words are the conclusion may seem ungrateful, but it expresses just such sentiments as satisfy the ordinary uncritical person who finding in poetry " an atmosphere of infinite sug- gestion " looks no further. From a Professor of Poetry we ask for more. We are conscious of the same defect in the lecture on the Sublime. Mr Bradley is not philosophical enough. He keeps carefully on this side of metaphysics when everything of real value, as he himself confesses, lies on the other. Only towards the close he seems to be nearing the heart of the subject. All sublimity, he says, is an image of infinity.
Beauty ... is the image of the total presence of the Infinite within any limits it may choose to assume; sublimity the image of its boundlessness and of its rejection of any pretension to inde- pendence or absoluteness on the part of its finite forms; the one the image of its immanence, the other of its transcendence.
But this which comes at the end we could wish Mr Brad- ley had reached earlier. True, he does not profess to be dealing with more than the grammar of it, but our real concern is not with the definition of the sublime, but with the manner in which poetry has sought to express this " transcendence." We hear nothing, for example, of Coleridge's poetry, yet it is difficult for us now to form any conception of the sublime which is not in some way due to the impression made upon our minds by Cole- ridge's verse.
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But if in these first two lectures philosophy is made subordinate, the four lectures following the third (of which we must speak separately) give an interpretation of Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, in which the larger philosophic issues have the fullest weight. Those to whom the controversies and definitions of the first two lectures seemed somehow incomplete, will find in effect the same subject much more clearly treated here, in reference to the definite aims of particular poets and to the methods they employed.
Mr Bradley claims for Wordsworth (breaking through the tradition established by Arnold that he is simple and easy to understand) profound philosophic insight and a definite and thus difficult mysticism.
His poetic experience, his intuitions, his single thoughts, even his large views, correspond in a striking way, sometimes in a startling way, with ideas methodically developed by Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer. They remain admirable material for philosophy; and a philosophy which found itself driven to treat them as moonshine would probably be a very poor affair. But they are like the experience and the utterances of men of religious genius : great truths are enshrined in them, but generally the shrine would have to be broken to liberate these truths in a form which would satisfy the desire to understand. To claim for them the power to satisfy that desire is an error, and it tempts those in whom that desire is predominant to treat them as mere beautiful illusions.
As to Wordsworth's mysticism the following passage illustrates well the author's view :
In the kind of experience which forms our present subject, there is always some feeling of definite contrast with the limited sensible world. The arresting feature or object is felt in some way against this background, or even in some way a denial of it. Sometimes it is a visionary unearthly light resting on a scene or on some strange figure. Sometimes it is the feeling that the scene or figure belongs to the world of dream. Sometimes it is an intimation of boundlessness, contradicting or abolishing the fixed limits of our habitual view. Sometimes it is the obscure sense of " unknown modes of being " unlike the familiar modes. This kind of experi-
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ence, further, comes often with a distinct shock which may be- wilder, confuse or trouble the mind. And, lastly, it is especially, though not invariably, associated with mountains, and again with solitude.
Only six out of eleven lectures deal with poetry other than dramatic. Of the remainder one is entitled " Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," the other four are concerned directly with Shakespeare. The name of Hegel carries terror to the half-initiated. The lecture begins — how else could it have begun? — with a reference to Aristotle. But the reader may take courage. Mr Bradley is more interested in tragedy than the metaphysics of the schools, and he has boldly made his own view of what Hegel taught — an intelligible precis, therefore, whether or not a true inter- pretation of Hegel — the foundation for further sugges- tions. As in the previous volume of lectures on " Shake- sperean Tragedy," so here Mr Bradley is at his best in dealing with the " affirmative aspect in the catastrophe " of tragedy. At the close of some of the greatest tragedies, Antigone, Hamlet, King Lear, " pain," he says, " is mingled not merely with acquiescence, but with some- thing like exultation." The defeat of moral evil, the triumph of the power for good behind the world — the good which is visible even in the "bad" characters of a Macbeth or a Cleon — leaves behind a glow of hope and courage. Mr Bradley analyses all this with exquisite skill, and if here and there we detect the sentiments of the modern Stoic rather than those of the Christian, the author never forces his own views, and we can set to his opinions the light of our own conceptions of human destiny. B. D.
SWINBURNE recognized no duty in the critic save the noble one of praise. The study of Mr Francis Yvon Eccles's recently published work (yf Century of French Toets. Constable, ios. 6d. net), recalls this precept of the dead master; for the note of praise rings clear and strong throughout the book. We also wish the dominant note of this review to be one of praise, though the small space into
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which we shall have to cram certain censures, without due qualification, may produce quite another impression, and we wish this, not from any special worship of Swinburne's canon, but from a sincere admiration of the deep scholar- ship, delicate taste and allusive moods of Mr Eccles. The author has shown remarkable knowledge of his subject, good judgement in his selections, and an artistic Pater- esque touch in his exposition. He has also shown real independence; for all through the book it is plain that he is no mere compiler, following blindly the patterns already set by the lords of criticism. Each piece of the mosaic has been chosen after personal examination, so that the faults of the book are the fruits of his virtues. Many, no doubt, will accuse him of subjectivism; but the personal element, we fear, can never be eliminated from criticism, especially when the critic is an artist, and Mr Eccles is essentially an artist. His manner claims kinship rather with the sugges- tive mysticism of the Symbolists than with the cold, im- passive brilliance of the Parnassians.
The book has four main parts — an introduction on the development of French poetry from the earliest times to the twentieth century, a collection of poems illustrating that development during the last hundred years, short sketches of the poets represented, and a scholarly series of notes throwing light on verbal, metrical and other difficulties. The introduction, which contains sixty-four pages, is a very serious piece of composition; but surely it is much too long, and should never have started ab ovo. The idea of introducing the collection with an essay giving a bird's eye view of evolution during the last hundred years was a happy one; but we fail to see the appropriateness of going back to the beginnings of French poetry. It will pre- vent many from reading the part they should read, especially as the various stages in this development are not clearly marked off by typographical expedients. Had he confined himself to the genesis and evolution of French poetry during the nineteenth century, he would have spared space for poems and poets whose omission many will not understand.
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Mr Eccles will have two very different classes of readers. There are those who will take up the book merely for little shocks of pure pleasure. Such readers will skip from page to page as the spirit moves, and read where the mind listeth.They will flit up and down this bright and scented garden, following no beaten track, fretful of straight lines and guiding principles. The genesis, anatomy, or growth of poetic flowers is no concern of theirs; for they seek only colour, sweetness and perfume. To them the introduction, notes, and probably the critical sketches will make no appeal, and as an inevitable consequence they will con- demn the author for omissions he has explained in his preface.
Then there is another class, more scientific in their study of poetry, and it is for these Mr Eccles chiefly caters. They wish to see evolution in literature as in everything else. They believe art to be a child of its age, moulded by cir- cumstances of time and place, and so they like to watch poet influencing poet, and school bringing forth school. But even for these the introduction is too long, and there are consequent omissions in the collection of which they will not approve. The patriot always likes to see his own country influencing others; but the perusal of Mr Eccles's introduction will not flatter his love much. The volcanic genius of Byron, whose influence was European, receives only a passing notice, though Lanson holds him to have affected the manner of Musset, Hugo and Lamartine. Passing over Naturalism, in which George Eliot was a certain force, our patriot will wonder why Mr Eccles makes no mention of pre-Raphaelitism in his appreciative analysis of Symbolism. Again, this same patriot, reading through the anthology, will seek in vain for Lamartine's magnificent poem on Byron, and for examples of Canadian art. Surely Neree Beauchemin and Albert Lozeau merit a place in the collection, and their insertion in a book fol- lowing closely on the tercentenary celebrations of Quebec would have been a graceful tribute to the great colony of the West.
It was stated at the beginning of this review that Mr
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Eccles rings the changes of praise through his book. To test the truth of this remark, the reader has only to turn to the notices of Baudelaire and Mallarme; for here, at least, he might reasonably expect some candid censures. But he will find only the mildest rebuke administered to the father of Decadentism and to the grand hierophant of Symbolism. It matters not whether Baudelaire was an un- balanced genius (the devil is one), a pathological abnor- mality, or an incorrigible poseur, his power for evil worked lasting mischief on the youth of France and of other coun- tries. We sincerely hope, therefore, that in any future edition of A Century of French Poets, the author will omit two at least of the poems inserted, rzAfleurs du mal, which can be defended on no principles of art or morals. They may be eloquent documents for the pathologist, but are poisoned fruits pro pueris virginibusque.
Let us now turn to Stephane Mallarme, a very different type, though a descendant of Baudelaire by another line. This curious creature has always seemed to us un grand poseur, a mystifier, who played his part well, and taught an esoteric circle to see the light of thought in the Cimmerian darkness of his verses. Whatever may be said about the sweetness of his poetry, this is what Brunetiere says of the light: "D'autres raisons nous ont empeche de parler de M. Stephane Mallarme, dont la premiere est celle-ci, qu'en depit de ses enegetes, nous n'avous pas pu reussir encore a le comprendre." One might be more tolerant of Baudelaire and Mallarme, if others, far more worthy, re- ceived their reward. But, whilst these two abnormalities have eighteen pages devoted to them, Heredia, Sully Prud- homme, and Coppee, must be satisfied with seven and a half, and yet Heredia is a wonder, not only of French literature, but of all literature, and Sully Prudhomme stands apart amongst Parnassians as a forger of fine ideas and a delicate exponent of sentiment.
There are many other things that might be said about this book by way of eulogy and by way of suggestion; but we have already exceeded the limits assigned us. We can- not, however, close this review without asking the author
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to reconsider his selection from Musset. Are the pieces chosen really representative of him whom many French- men consider their greatest lyric poet ? Finally, why has the author omitted Botrel, the poet-laureate of Brittany; Rodenbach, the melancholy lover of Bruges ; de Pomairols, "ce Wordsworth du Rouergue" (Bourget); Marsolleau, creator of the immortal Ophelie; and Louis Menard, Hel- lenic mentor to Leconte de Lisle? P.C.
ALMOST at the very moment when the urgency of the Budget has forced the attention of the nation on the "decaying industry" of its agriculture, ¥he History of the English Labourer (by Professor Hasbach. P. S. King and Son. Price 7s. 6d.) has arrived in England. In consequence all speakers, writers, and even mere thinkers will find this timely volume, with its apt and full quotations, its orderly and accurate statistics, a veritable godsend. We are only ashamed (as Mr Sidney Webb remarks in a stimulating preface) that such a work as this, based as it is on the find- ings of our own best scholars, should be left for the hand of a foreigner. However that may be the book is written now, and well written; but the labour of it has been immense. As the author says of himself, " He has been in the posi- tion of a workman who has to make his tools before he can use them " (p. xv). Piercing the veil of the past, Professor Hasbach tells the story of English Agriculture. It is, on the whole, a dispiriting tale. The early days showed many disquieting signs for the people, but " the Reforma- tion robbed them of the institutions which had helped them in their time of need " (p. 70). Indeed, one of the results of the Reformation was the depression of the smaller landowners into a labouring population, as the enclosures proceeded apace. This easy descent of the labourer meant the destruction of the yeoman. The inter- esting discussions between Price, Forster, Young, Kent, Davies and others (pp. 147-170) showed that men were perfectly aware of what was happening. But those in power decreed that the yeomen at least must go. Farming must be forced into larger groups. The labourer must
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be severed from land and from capital. So the yeoman disappeared, though even Young, their most energetic opponent, confessed that they " had really kept up the independence of the nation." This destruction, said Cobbett gaily, was due to the teaching of " beastly Scotch feelosofers" namely, " that the fewer poor devils you can screw the products out of, the richer the nation is " (p. 179). Hence came all the nameless horrors suffered by the luckless labourers during the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries, and the end is not yet. For we have as a result a landlord divorced from the personal direction of agricultural operations, a farmer united to his lord only by a " cash-nexus," a labourer unable to reap profit pro- portionate to the labour of his hands. Thus no one of the three is at all concerned to get the best possible yield from the soil.
Against this Professor Hasbach protests. He advocates the system of small farmers with a fixed tenure in the interests of successful production, and also to bring back to the land the town-seeking labourer. Only the strongest motives can make him return, and among these the most enticing is the prospect of personal interest in the soil, that is, of ultimately acquiring the freehold. This is confirmed by a striking quotation from Nathaniel Kent (p. 156).
It is towards the golden day when " a distribution of landed property will re-unite the labourer to the land " (p. 363), that the author looks forward, for he notes how one plan after another to reorganize agriculture along the lines of industrial reform has hopelessly and entirely failed. Towards the same conclusion, Professor Hasbach thinks Protection is tending, and hails its near advent as the dawning of a brighter day, above all as the establish- ment of a more stable condition of things.
For the translator, readers of this book will have nothing but praise, though towards the end of her long task Miss Kenyon has grown impatient of finding the exact English equivalent of the German idioms. But if, with all one's gratitude, one may yet be allowed to find fault, why are Vol. 145 449 29
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the names of Sidney and Beatrice Webb so curiously absent from the excellent bibliography supplied by the translator in Appendix vij ? Certainly all those who wish to understand the present-year agricultural problem, and who wish also, it may be, to rid themselves of any Socialistic tendency, will find here abundant matter for thought with a pointed moral that leads away from collectivism to private individual holdings.
B.O.P.
WE are reminded in the Life of Mary Ward, the Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Burns and Oates. 3s. 6d.), of Cardinal Newman's saying that " novelty is often error for those who are unprepared for it " by the opposition and difficulty that she experienced in introducing a form of religious life for women which has since become familiar and univer- sally accepted in the Church. The Council of Trent had just imposed strict enclosure on all orders of women, the obligation of wearing the religious habit was likewise enforced. In England, then under the penal laws, these two conditions made the work that Mary contemplated impossible. She aimed especially at the education of girls who could not be brought up at home in the practice of their religion during these troubled times, " without, however, excluding other works of mercy which might seem necessary." And to this end she wished to adopt the rule of St Ignatius so far as it could be practised by women. Besides exemption from the two laws of enclosure and the wearing of the habit during times of persecution, Mary petitioned that the supreme authority in the Institute should be given to a Superior General directly subject to the Pope.
It would be too long a task to dwell on all the delays and difficulties which Mary encountered so heroically in her endeavour to obtain what she desired. It is enough to say that Urban VIII in 1 631, by a Papal Bull, closed all convents of the Institute and that the Holy Office, act- ing, however, without the knowledge of the Pope, had Mary imprisoned as a heretic. When Urban was informed
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of her imprisonment he ordered her instant release and she hastened to Rome to plead her cause in person. Per- mission was granted that she should re-open a convent in Rome, with, however, some modification of her original rule, and the Holy Father took this convent under his protection, saying, " Haveremo a caro che venghino e ne terremo sotto la nostra protezione."*
Many convents in Germany, England, and other places succeeded this one, yet it was not till long after the death of the Foundress that Clement XI in 1703 officially confirmed the Rule of the Order, which proved the fore-runner of so many active communities of women.
It is pleasant for English readers to note that-all Mary's early years were passed in England, that her first and most faithful companions were all Englishwomen, and that she died and was buried in her own county of Yorkshire. It is full of interest, too, to see this little band in London in their early days. They were seven in number, none of them above the age of twenty-eight : Mary Poinz, Wine- fride Wigmore, Barbara Babthorpe, Susanna Rookwood, Barbara Ward (Mary's sister), Johanna Brown, and the Foundress herself, of whom Abbot Archbishop of Canter- bury bitterly declared, " She did more harm than six Jesuits."
In their second visit to London we find them in Spital- fields, in the Strand and again in Knightsbridge, the guests of a Protestant friend, who afterwards became a Catholic, and who used to express his admiration of Mary by quaintly exclaiming, " Except the Mother of God there was never such a woman." In those days, too, the Foundress was imprisoned and came near to winning the crown of martyrdom for which she longed, but, for reasons of which we know nothing, she was eventually released.
It is tempting to speak at length of all the little details that make personality living to the reader : of the nobility
* We are glad that they should come and we will take them under our protection.
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of Mary's appearance, so that even when she wore patched and threadbare garments " evil-minded persons re- proached her for the elegance of her attire"; to quote her words of cheerful confidence from her prison, " Be merry and doubt not in our Master," and " From my palace not prison, for so I find it."
But perhaps the best picture of Mary Ward and her gallant little band may be found in a paper of resolutions drawn up by Barbara Ward, with which we conclude :
My looks shall be always pleasant, meek, modest and grave, high in God, yet full of humility, not contemning anything, nor giving way to the least occasion wherein the Divine Majesty or others might be offended. My conversation shall be substantial, civil, sincere, and suitable to the parties' disposition with whom I speak. My countenance and exterior comportment of body shall be even, quiet, and decently ordered, such as may give all sorts of people, both secular and religious, friends and enemies, full satisfaction, and myself remain immovable and retired in God.
M.W.
THE devotion of a lifetime to the service of the poor as a District Nurse does not by itself constitute a qualification for filling a book with personal experiences, but Miss Loan is already well known as a writer, and those who have read The Next Street But One will eagerly take up An Englishman's Castle (Arnold. 6s.). They will find it less stimulating, because it is even more discursive than the earlier book; indeed, the author has gone beyond the limits of literary art altogether and seems to have written almost at haphazard; but her knowledge of the poor is so great and her appreciation of the difficulties which greet the philanthropist so keen that we soon learn to bear with her desultory method. After all, it represents the nature of her subject. The poor bewilder and confuse us. Their lives lack the simplicity which we used to attribute to them, or else because we are slowly learning to know them better we are beginning to realize how little it is that we know. And so Miss Loan's way of adding anecdote to anecdote of their virtues and their failings, of their wise economies and strange thriftless-
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ness, of their social prejudices and code of manners, serves to enlighten the social worker far more effectively than an exact treatise. There are no rules for dealing with the poor, but it is essential to learn what sort of variety to expect. , r:'
|B.D.
THE only way to test the merit of a guide-book is to use it. Mr Belloc, in his preface to The Pyrenees (Methuen. 7s. 6d.), regrets that his book is too bulky for the pocket. It is too bulky for a full portmanteau, and yet, being a guide-book, it must be taken to the Pyrenees. Here in London, to those who know the joys of travel on foot, it will stir much the same kind of feeling as the sight of their dormant ruk-sack and well-nailed boots; for this is not the time nor the place to plan the details of an expedition, and Mr Belloc's pleasant account of moun- tain paths and splendid cols, of saucisson and the taste of wine from a gourd, of village inns, generous landlords and high camping grounds under the shelter of great rocks, only serves to stimulate an appetite which cannot be satisfied now. His book must be studied with the maps (the author devotes much space to the various available maps of the district — a suggestive theme to the initiated), and even the motorists, who have a chapter to themselves, will require more aid than can be given in the text. Mr Belloc seems to have taken for his model — not, let us hope, in the matter of exact topography — Herodotus. He always makes it clear when he is speaking from hearsay and when from personal observation. If a digression from the immediate topic in hand occurs to him he digresses very engagingly. Those who can never expect to visit the Pyrenees would have welcomed more digressions, but that would have made the book bulkier still (Herodotus wrote in nine volumes), and it is a serious guide-book for the traveller — not a book of travel for the stay-at-home.
Mr Belloc has certainly described a very attractive country. There is a romance about the easy slopes and pine woods and barrier mountain walls, where any man with a map and compass and a fair store of provisions
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can find his way, which is denied to the colder glories of the Alps. But it is impossible not to read the chapter on the road system of the Pyrenees without a pang. Those who know how whole valleys have been made intolerable by motor-cars in mountainous places like Dauphine, and have been driven, without any intention of climbing, to some remote inn of the Alpine Club, at the end of a mule track, must feel that they have been born too late for the Pyrenees. Mr Belloc has made some beautiful sketches, but wherever he draws a road there we see a cloud of dust and expect to find a swarm of " rich cos- mopolitans " at the next village.
B.D.
FATHER CUTHBERT has already given us a version of Thomas of Eccleston's Chronicle in The Friars and How They Came to England. But this present translation, The Chronicle of Thomas of Eccleston (Sands and Co. 2s. 6d. net), he explains to us in a foreword is made more from the critical scholar's point of view than from that of the ordinary reader, for whom the first translation was made. Father Cuthbert also in his Note says " mea culpa " for errors in the first translation which he has corrected in his new version. The Chronicle by itself is a very speak- ing document, and we admire the spirit of disinterested scholarship which has made Father Cuthbert give his new translation to the world to stand on its own merits. Nevertheless, it is very pleasant to turn to his Friars and How They Came to England, published in 1903 and uniform in binding with the present volume, in which he gives such an admirable introductory essay on the " Spirit and Genius of the Franciscan Friars," for we find there in full what can only be indicated in the short pre- face to the present volume.
In the latter he brings out particularly the scholarship of the Friars on their first arrival in England. Their early settlements at Oxford and Cambridge soon attracted graduates from the schools, and within a very few years of their coming to England the Order possessed such famous scholars as Alexander of Hales and Haymo of
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Faversham, both masters of English in the University of Paris, Adam Marsh, the familiar friend of Grosseteste, and many others. As Father Cuthbert says himself, " The leading part taken by the Friars at the universities is so well known that it requires but a passing reference here. But," he adds, " it is noteworthy that most of the great Franciscan schoolmen were Englishmen," and he goes on to describe how the English Friars, trained in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge, were sent to teach in Lyons and Paris and other great universities. Thus their learning attracted a certain section of the community, but there can be no doubt that the cause of their imme- diate popularity in England was their sympathy with the democratic spirit of the time. Their own con- sistency in the love of High Poverty was the guarantee of their good faith, and through all vicissitudes, Father Cuthbert assures us, the English Franciscans " seem to have kept the ideal of seraphic poverty faithfully in mind : and this," he says, " for the Franciscan Friar is the highest praise."
In reading any account of those days of unrest, when the feudal system was beginning to wear itself out and the people began to conceive, for better or worse, the democratic idea, we cannot fail to make comparisons with our own days. But there was this signal difference that, although in 1224 the Church had in some degree lost her hold on the new wealthy burgher class, pre- occupied with new possibilities of making fortunes owing to the wider scope of trade and commerce, yet the poor country labourer, and the wretched pauper class who came into the towns, as in our own days, from the country, thinking to find higher wages and greater ease, only to find themselves a glut on the labour market, still had the Faith safe in his heart. Thus the Franciscan, with his spiritual ideal, was able to leaven the lump of unrest by demonstrating in his own person the difference between unholy and holy poverty.
In comparing the two ages one cannot but see how dif- ferent is the modern socialistic spirit in its cruder form
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to the Franciscan democratic spirit. The ultimate con- clusion of the one, as interpreted by the ignorant and undisciplined must be the negative sense of hatred of the rich, whereas the outcome of the other is ever the posi- tive, constructive attitude of love of poverty as a thing good in itself for the human soul. The socialistic agitator, to attract the ignorant masses, inveighs against the capi- talist and the landowner. The Franciscan demonstrates in his own person, as we see in the Chronicle of Eccleston, that in the utmost poverty and humility he can be a very useful member of any class of society. We wait for the Franciscan interpretation of the modern democratic movement in its scientific and more enlightened aspect. Will not Father Cuthbert perhaps give us this in some future work?
C. B.
MORE than one attempt has been made to popu- larize the ancient Celtic stories of the different portions of these islands, and Mr Squire (The Mythology of the British Islands. London: Blackie and Sons. 1905, 12s. 6d. net) is the author of the latest effort in this direc- tion. We gather that he has no personal acquaintance with either the Gaelic or the Cymric tongues and, if we could afford the space, we should like to have a little wrangle with him over his phonetic reproductions of some of the Gaelic words. But he has made a diligent study of the numerous excellent translations available for use by the English reader, and of the critical works of Rhys, de Jubainville, and others, and has produced a pleasantly written series of chapters embodying most of the im- portant Celtic mythological cycles.
Of course the perennial subject of controversy in this connexion crops up again : were the heroes and heroines of these tales ancient deities degraded into men and women in course of ages of transmission, or were they men and women who were exalted to the position of deities by continual accretion of myths?
The writer is quite certain himself that the former is the true explanation, and will not even allow that
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Fionn MacCumhail, whom so great a scholar as O'Curry believed to be a real personage, was anything other than a solar myth.
Arthur and all his Table Round belong, according to Mr Squire, to the category of pagan gods, in fact, he even shakes his head a little doubtfully at the name of St Patrick.
In all this he is not without support from good autho- rities on the subject. At the same time, any dispassionate student who examines into the matter will find it hard to believe that the tales of successive bands of invaders coming to the shores of Ireland and more or less over- coming and dispossessing the inhabitants whom they found in possession, which we find enshrined in the Irish stories, are to be considered as wholly disconnected with those successive invasions which most undoubtedly did take place. That the whole matter is involved in a mist of tradition no one doubts; that many accretions have occurred; that definite pieces of old religious beliefs have become embedded in otherwise vaguely historical tales; that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate truth from fiction : all these things are no doubt quite true. But all these things do not prevent us from believing that there is a substratum of historical truth under these tales, even those of the Tuatha de Dannan.
Moreover, one or two things in this book incline us to doubt whether Mr Squire is a very safe leader in matters of historical criticism. The first of these is the case of St Bridget, of Kildare. Everybody knows that there was a Brigit, said to be the daughter of the Dagda, who appears to have been a Celtic goddess of fire. Everybody knows also that St Bridget had a sacred fire at Kildare which was only once extinguished from her time to that of the dissolution of the monasteries. On this and on one or two other pieces of equally unconvincing argument, Mr Squire adopts the view first put forward by Ledwich in his Irish Antiquities (1804), that there never was a St Bridget, but that the Celtic goddess was canonized and worshipped under that name. This preposterous theory,
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for so it must be called, has been severely handled by- writers coming later than Ledwich, and we are surprized to find it once more resuscitated in the pages of a modern work.
All critics, we believe, admit that the fifth and sixth centuries in Ireland fall within the historic period, and full accounts of St Bridget and of her death at Kildare are given by the author of the Annals of Ulster. Who- ever wrote this book states that he got his information as to the period in question from the Book of Guana, and "Cuan," according to Zimmer, died in 640, little more than a century after St Bridget. Moreover, he quotes from Cuana the dates of eclipses as occurring in a.d. 496, 512, and 664, all of which eclipses actually did occur at the dates assigned for them, which would, at least, serve to show that the author was a careful chronicler. There can be no reasonable doubt that the information contained in this and other works is as reliable as any historical docu- ment can be, and that the existence of St Bridget as an actual historical person is quite as certain as that of Queen Elizabeth. One need hardly point out that the similarity of name goes for nothing — there is a St Bacchus in the Roman Martyrology — and as to the fire, a sacred fire seems to have been a common-place of many of the Irish churches, perhaps even of most of them. The Bollandists state " As to the religious reasons for which the nuns kept the fire of St Bridget as has been stated, we have often read in the lives of the Irish Saints that the fire consecra- ted specially by the Bishop at Easter, used to be carefully kept for the whole year as we shall tell in the life of St Kieran." St Bridget's fire then only differed from others in that it does not appear to have been re-kindled at Easter, as others were. Further, there is a perpetual fire mentioned in Leviticus vi, 12, 13, so that it is quite possi- ble that St Bridget may have taken her idea from Holy Writ, and not have merely sanctified a pagan idea, as some have thought was the case. Finally, it may be added, that Giraldus Cambrensis was the first person to mention this fire, that there is, therefore, no evidence that it was set
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up in St Bridget's time, and that Ware, who had access to documents now lost, expressly declares that the fire was kept up for the purpose of hospitality to pilgrims. We cannot spare space for further facts in connexion with this question, but we think it necessary to point out that Mr Squire has been wholly misled in this matter, owing to what seems to be an imperfect acquaintance with the rather copious literature of this question. At the same time a writer who admits that there were two Arthurs and two Taliessins as, indeed, every one must be forced to admit — one legendary, the other real — might surely have surmised that there might also be two Bridgets.
But to pass from this, there are certain curious archaeo- logical blunders which ought not to find a place in such a book.
The author is singularly unfortunate in his choice of examples of earthen fortresses or " castles " (p. 29). Ave- bury almost certainly is a religious shrine, and not a fortress or dwelling-place, and as to Amesbury, the earth- works in that place or near it are quite trivial in com- parison with scores of others which might have been quoted, such as Maiden Castle, Battlebury, Yarnbury and the like.
Then again, the Grianan Aileach, within a few miles of which these lines are being written, is actually described as a " tumulus "! (p. 122). One would have thought that any person writing on such a subject would have been aware that this particular Grianan was the stone fortress of the O'Nials, and was once the habitation of Nial of the Nine Hostages. The present edifice is a restoration by Dr Bernard of Derry, but it is built from the old stones, and as far as could be, on the old plan, and it is no more a tumulus than it is a dolmen. Further, in connexion with the tale of Diarmaid and Grania, it is a little curious that the author has omitted all mention of the numerous cist- vaens — there are said to be one hundred — called Lea- baidhe Diarmaid agus Grania, the beds of Dermot and Grania, each of them having, according to the tale, served the fugitives for one night's rest.
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Two small errors on p. 415 also require correction. " O'Herleby " should be O'Herlihy, and " Ballyvorney " should be Ballyvourney (Baile an Mhurnin, the Town of the Darling, i.e., St Gobnet). B.C.A.W.
IT is so short a time since we published in this Review a special article on the work of Mendel, the Augustinian Abbot, whose scientific theories as to the conditions of heredity are causing such a commotion in the biological world, that it will not be necessary for us to devote any great amount of space to Professor Bateson's latest work on this subject. {Mendel's Principles of Heredity. Cam- bridge: at the University Press. 1909. 12s. net.)
Professor Bateson reprints Mendel's original articles, as he did in his former work, and gives a very interesting biography of the Abbot himself, in which some errors in a former account of his life are corrected. Three portraits, taken at different ages, of Mendel are included amongst the illustrations, and whilst we are on this point we may congratulate all concerned in the production of this work on the excellence of the coloured figures which adorn other parts of the volume. They are amongst the most successful which we have ever seen.
The greater portion of the work is given up to an account of the various experiments and observations which have been made in relation to Mendel's theory of inheritance. It is really amazing, considering how short a period has elapsed since the re-discovery of Mendel's writings, how many and how important have been the ob- servations which they have provoked, and how very clearly these indicate the accuracy of the views of Mendel himself. As we have already pointed out, Mendel's views were received with complete indifference during his lifetime. Naturally enough this was a source of great disappoint- ment to him, but he never lost faith in the value of his own observations and the theories which he had based upon them, and was in the habit of saying " Meine zeit wird schon kommen ! " He was right, for his time has come now, and those who have any doubt on that point have
460
The Stone Ages
only to glance through the pages of the book now under review. We can commend it to all persons interested in " fancies " of any kind, whether animal or vegetable, and we can only hope that some of our readers may be en- couraged by reading it to betake themselves to carrying out some of the numerous experiments which still await the painstaking observer. B.C.A.W.
THE results of forty years' patient examination of sea-shores, gravel-pits and other places, for imple- ments fabricated from stone by early man, are given to the public by the Rev. Frederick Smith (The Stone Ages. Blackie and Son, London. 1909. 16s.) in a thoroughly interesting manner, with an enthusiasm which is quite contagious, and with the assistance of over five hundred well-produced illustrations.
Mr Smith sets himself to overthrow two ancient theories which have long held sway amongst prehistoric anthropologists; that there was a great and inexplicable hiatus between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic periods and that there is no evidence of any existence of objects belonging to the former age north of the Tweed or in Ireland. The former theory has been attacked by previous writers and it may be said that at least a number of com- petent authorities agree with Mr Smith in his view. As regards the second point, Mr Smith may be looked upon almost as a pioneer, for with the exception of some observations of Mr Knowles on specimens which he has discovered in the north-east of Ireland, we are not aware that any other person has claimed to have found Palaeo- lithic implements in Scotland or in Ireland. Further, Mr Smith states that a number of his finds are either inter- or even pre-glacial, a contention which is again quite con- trary to the views of most of the older school of writers. A fourth idea which Mr Smith propounds, seems to be eminently reasonable a priori, and that is that too much attention has been given to the weapons of the Palaeo- lithic period, whilst the domestic implements of the same age, which must necessarily have been manufactured in
461
Some Recent Books
great quantities, have been hardly looked for or described. Mr Smith endeavours to rectify this mistake and figures and describes numbers of flayers, knives, choppers, mullers, skin smoothers and the like.
Of course, the whole question turns upon the character of the stones discovered by the author in his diligent search. Are they the work of man, or are they merely the product of Nature in her more eccentric moods? This was the question propounded when Boucher des Perthes announced his epoch-making discoveries at Abbeville. All admitted that the stones were there, but many claimed that they were mere natural products. No one, it may be added, now doubts that they were the work of man's hands. In a similar manner the so-called Eoliths, believed to be of greater antiquity than the Palaeoliths, are now the subject of great contention amongst those interested in the study of stone implements. No one doubts that these things exist, but again the question is raised, are they the work of man's hands or are they natural? To this, at present, no certain reply can be given; some authorities holding one view, others, one diametrically opposed.
Mr Smith's specimens, one may predict, will undergo a similar treatment. Dr Keane, the author of several anthro- pological treatises, hails Mr Smith as the Boucher des Perthes of Scotland, and obviously accepts his specimens as artefacts. Others, we think we may venture to predict, will have none of them, and so the discussion will go on until time and further discoveries incline men's minds to one or other decision on the subject. Dr Keane has had one advantage which the writer of this notice regrets to say that he has not enjoyed, for he has seen the imple- ments themselves, and one look at a stone itself is worth more to any person habituated to such objects than twenty of the very best illustrations. Hence the present reviewer must be pardoned if he declines to commit him- self to any stronger expression of opinion than that Mr Smith has made out a case which it will take a good deal to overthrow, and that the implements which he figures,
462
Peter Homunculus
and especially the highly significant fact that they fall into series, are very strongly suggestive of genuine works of early man, even to one who has not examined the things themselves. We think that Mr Smith is a little rash in accepting the Thenay flints as artefacts, since they have been condemned by most observers; we would also point out that the Trinil bones are now believed by many, perhaps most persons, to be those of a large ape and not of a man, and we would utter a plaint that a book like this should have been issued without any index.
But in spite of these criticisms we wish to congratulate the author on the book which he has produced, a book which is sure to stir up further inquiry, and to provoke interesting discussions on that most fascinating subject, the early history of mankind in these islands.
B.C.A.W.
IF we must describe Mr Gilbert Cannan's Peter Homunculus (Heinemann. 6s.) as a raw novel, we do not mean, therefore, that it was not worth writing. That it is the writer's first novel is evident from the first, and that it is very largely autobiographical is also fairly cer- tain. We like Mr Cannan's young man extremely; we are not quite convinced of his genius, but we can imagine how his industry and his good working brains told very well in the circles of higher journalism in which, by good fortune, he found himself. The first half of the book is much the best, when Peter is keeping the secondhand bookshop for X. Cooper, who is an admirably drawn oddity. We feel he must have been sketched from life — there is no straining after originality in the portrait. Mr Cannan is more at home in the bookshop than he is when he finds himself in the houses of the " governing classes." He seems not to know how to make his women of the upper classes talk. His men manage it better, and in the bookseller's shop we feel no awkwardness in the dialogue, but Mary Dugdale and the nice, pretty Mrs Bassett-Crewe (who, we feel sure, is charming in the original and also a portrait) are made to talk in a jerky
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Meredithian method, and the love-making produces a most self-conscious impression.
Peter Davies doesn't suspect what an egoist he is, and we rather doubt if Mr Cannan does either. But he is so likeable that it is quite pleasant to spend an hour or two in the company of himself, his friends and his emotions. The author's view of life, if we are to judge by his first novel, is an emotional one rather than a very deep or responsible one, but he has a good deal of subtilty and an undeniable gift for character-drawing. Perhaps in a future novel he will develop a more serious side and justify our confidence in his powers.
C. B.
THE four articles entitled Catholic Social Work in Ger- many,by theRev.ChzrlesT). Plater, S. J., whichzpipeared anonymously in this Review, have now been published as a shilling volume by Sands and Co. The value of these articles is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that the Bishop of Salford, who had already quoted extracts from them in a recent pastoral, contributes a preface. The pro- blem of Catholic organization is clearlv one of paramount importance, and the author has rendered a genuine service by showing how difficulties, very similar to those with which we are now confronted, have been met and over- come in Germany.
464
THE INDEX TO VOL. 145
The Titles of Articles are printed in Italics.
ANCIENTS in Racine and in Shakespeare, The, by F. Y. Eccles, 393. Amours dc Sainte Madame Loyse de Savoye, par le Marquis Costa de Beauregard,
37*- Anselm of Canterbury, St, by Monsignor Moyes, 107, 323. April Mutiny in Stamboul, The, by F. McCullagh, 283. Archambault, Georges, St Justin — Dialogue avec Tryphon, reviewed, 218.
BARING, Maurice, Russian Essays and Stories, reviewed, 199. Barr, James, London, a Poem, 282. Barry, Canon W., Literary Aspects of the Old Testament, 1. Bateson, Professor, Mendel's Principles of Heredity, reviewed, 460. Beauregard, le Marquis Costa de, Amours de Sainte Madame Loyse de Savoye, 371. Bede, Ven., Ecclesiastical History of England, revised translation by H. M. Sellar, r«-
vieioed, 430. Belloc, Hilaire, M.P., The Pyrenees, reviewed, 453.
The Taxation of Rent, 266. Benson, Rev. R. H., Spiritualism, 406. Biology and its Makers, by Professor Locy, reviewed, 215. Blue Bird, The, by Maurice Maeterlinck, reviewed, 223. Bradley, A. C, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, reviewed, 440. Burke, Edmund, on Party Action, by W. Ward, 36.
C ANNAN, Gilbert, Peter Homunculus, reviewed, 463. Carlyle, Love Letters of, and Jane Welsh, reviewed, 184. Cartwright, Julia, Baldassaro Castiglione, reviewed, 204. Castiglione, Baldassaro, by Julia Cartwright, reviewed, 204. Catholic Disabilities Bill, The, by Rev. H. Thurston, S.J., 225. Catholic Social Work in Germany, by Rev. C. Plater, S.J., reviewed, 464. Cecil, Algernon, Six Oxford Thinkers, reviewed, 192.
Cecil, Lord Hugh, Politics and Party — 1, The Diseases of the House of Commons, 25. Century of French Poets, A, by F. Y. Eccles, reviewed, 444. Century of Socialistic Experiments, A, by W. H. Mallock, 79. Chesterton, G. K., The Modern Surrender of Women, 128. Condition of England, The, by C. F. G. Masterman, reviewed, 210. Crawford, Marion, The White Sister, reviewed, 194. Crawford, Mrs V. M., The Failure of the Workhouse, 59. Cripps, A. S., Lyra Evangelistica, reviewed, 437. Cronin, Rev. Michael, D.D., The Science of Ethics, reviewed, 201. Curzon, Lord, and Oxford Reform, by F F. Urquhart, 1 38. Cust, Mrs Henry, Gentlemen Errant, reviewed, 207. Cuthbert, Father, O.S.F.C., The Chronicle of Thomas of Eccleston, reviewed, 454.
DANTE, Readings on the Paradiso of, by the Honble W. Vernon, reviewed, 433. Dawn of the Catholic Revival, The, by Monsignor Ward, 147. Dieu et l'Agnosticisme Contemporain, par M. Georges Michelet, reviewed, 212. Dimnet, M. Ernest, Figures de Moines, reviewed, 219.
Discourses and Sermons on Various Subjects, by Cardinal Gibbons, reviewed, 430. Diseases of the House of Commons, by Lord Hugh Cecil, 25.
EAST END of Europe, The, by Allen Upward, reviewed, 211. Eccles, F. Y., The Ancients in Racine and in Shakespeare, 393. A Century of French Poets, reviewed, 444. Ecclesiastical History of England, by Ven. Bede, translated by H. M. Sellar, review ed^^o.
465
The Index
Edgeworth, Maria, andEtienne Dumont, by Rowland Grey, 239.
Eliot, Dr, University Administration, reviewed, 220.
Elrington, Rev. G. A., Epigenesis and Preformation, 370.
English Catholics in theXVlllth Century, 147.
Englishman's Castle, An, by Miss Loan, reviewed, 452.
English Labourer, History of the, by Professor Hasbach, reviewed, 448.
Epigenesis and Preformation, by Rev. G. A. Elrington, 370.
Eucharist, History of the Doctrine of the Holy, by Darwell Stone, reviewed, 189
FAILURE of the Workhouse, The, by Mrs V. M. Crawford, 59. Figures de Moines, par M. Ernest Dimnet, reviewed, 219. Folk-Memory, by Walter Johnson, reviewed, 187. Francis, M. E., Galatea of the Wheatfield, reviewed, 222.
GALATEA of the Wheatfield, by M. E. Francis, reviewed, 222. Gentlemen Errant, by Mrs Cust, reviewed, 207. Gibbons, Cardinal, Discourses and Sermons on Various Subjects, reviewed, 430. Grey, Rowland, Maria Edgeworth and Etienne Dumont, 239.
HAMILTON, Clayton, Materials and Methods of Fiction, reviewed, 426. Hasbach, Professor, The History of the English Labourer, reviewed, 448. Hypnotism and Spiritism, by Professor Lapponi, 406. Hole, G., Light at Evening Time, a poem, 78.
JOHNSON, Walter, Folk-Memory, reviewed, 187. Justin, St, Dialogue avec Tryphon, par Georges Archambault, reviewed, 2 1 8
IAPPONI, Professor, Hypnotism and Spiritism, 406. _j Lepicier, The Unseen World, 406. "Light at Evening lime, a Poem, by G. Hole, 78. Literary Aspects of the Old Testament, by Canon W. Barry, I. Loan, Miss, An Englishman's Castle, reviewed, 452. Locy, Professor, Biology and its Makers, reviewed, 215. London, a Poem, by J. Barr, 282. Lyra Evangelistica, by A. S. Cripps, reviewed, 437.
MAETERLINCK, Maurice, The Blue Bird, reviewed, 223. Malet, Lucas, The Score, reviewed, 429. Mallock, W. H., A Century of Socialistic Experiments, 79. Masterman, C. F. G., The Condition of England, reviezoed, 210. Materials and Methods of Fiction, by Clayton Hamilton, reviewed, 426. Maxwell Scott, The Hon. Mrs, A Medieval Princess, 371. McCullagh, F., The April Mutiny in Stamboul, 283. Medieval Princess, A, by the Hon. Mrs Maxwell Scott, 371. Mendel's Principles of Heredity, by Professor Bateson, reviewed, 460. Meynell, Alice, Swinburne's Lyrical Poetry, 172.
Michelet, M. Georges, Dieu et l'Agnosticisme Contemporain, reviewed, 212. Miller, Rev., Sermons on Modern Spiritualism, 406. Modern Surrender of Women, The, by G. K. Chesterton, 128. Moyes, Mgr, St Anselm of Canterbury, 107, 323. Mythology of the British Isles, The, by A. Squire, reviewed, 456.
o
XFORD Lectures on Poetry, by A. C. Bradley, reviewed, 440. Old Wives' Tale, The, by A. Bennett, reviewed, 196.
PETER HOMUNCULUS, by Gilbert Cannan, reviewed, 463. Plater, Rev. C. D., Catholic Social Work in Germany, reviewed, 464. Politics and Party, 1, The Diseases of the House of Commons, by Lord Hugh Cecil, 25. 11, Edmund Burke on Party Action, by Wilfrid Ward, 36. 466
The Index
Problems of Evolution, by Rev. Erich Wasmann, reviewed, 422. Pyrenees, The, by Hilaire Belloc, reviewed, 453.
RAUPERT, Godfrey, Modern Spiritism, 406. The Dangers of Modern Spiritualism, 406. Russian Essays and Stories, by Maurice Baring, reviewed, 199.
SCIENCE of Ethics, The, by Rev. Michael Cronin, reviewed, 201. Score, The, by Lucas Malet, reviewed, 429. Six Oxford Thinkers, by Algernon Cecil, reviewed, 192. Smith, Rev. Frederick, The Stone Ages, reviewed, 461. Stone Ages, The, by Rev. Frederick Smith, reviewed, 461. Spiritualism, by Rev. R. H. Benson, 406. Squire, A., The Mythology of the British Isles, reviewed, 456. Swinburne's Lyrical Poetry, by Alice Meynell, 172.
TAXATION of Rent, by Hilaire Belloc, 266. Tennyson Centenary, The — Tennyson's Religious Poetry, by W. Ward, 306. Thomas of Eccleston, The Chronicle of, by Father Cuthbert, reviewed, 454. Thurston, Rev. H., The Catholic Disabilities Bill, 225.
UNIVERSITY Administration, by Dr Eliot, reviewed, 220. Unseen World, The, by Lepicier, 406. Upward, Allen, The East End of Europe, reviewed, 211, Urquhart, F. F., Lord Curzon and Oxford Reform, 1 38.
ERNON, The Hon. W., Readings on the Paradiso of Dante, reviewed, 433. Vulgate, Revision of the, a Report, reviewed, 214.
V
WARD, Monsignor, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival, 147. Ward, Mary, Life of, reviewed, 450. Ward, Wilfrid, Politics and Party, n, Edmund Burke on Party Action, 36.
The Tennyson Centenary — Tennyson's Religious Poetry, 306. Wasmann, Rev. Erich, S.J., Problems of Evolution, reviewed, 422. White Sister, The, by Marion Crawford, reviewed, 194.
467
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