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THE

DUBLIN EEVIEW.

VOL. XVII.

PUBLISHED IN

SEPTEMBER ^- DECEMBER, 1844.

LONDON:
THOMAS RICHARDSON AND SON,

172, FLEET STREET,
J. GUMMING, DUBLIN.— W. TAIT, EDINBURGH.

NEW YORK: Messrs. Casserly & Sons, 108, Nassau Street.
A PARIS: 24, Rue St. Guillaume, Faubourg St. Germain.

1844.

■ ^ EX LIBRIS
ST. BASIL'S SCHOLASTICATE

No.

CONTENTS

No. XXXIIL

I. — Ireland and its Rulers, since 1829. Parts I and II.

London: 1843-4. - - - - 1

II. — Adam CEhlenschlager's Werke: zum zweiten Male
gesammelt, vermehrt und verbessert. Breslau,
1839. The works of Adam OEhlenschlager. A
second edition, enlarged and improved. Breslau,
1839. - - - - - - 34

in. — Grallus, or Roman Scenes of the time of Augustus,
■with Notes and Excursus illustrative of the Man-
ners and Customs of the Romans. Translated from
the German of Professor Becker, by F. Metcalf.
London: 1844. - - - - 69

rV. — The Life of George Brummell, Esq., by Captain

Jesse. London: 1844. - - - 92

V. — 1. Voyage dans le royaume de Choa. M. Rochet
D'Hericourt. Paris, 1841.

2. Journals of the Rev. Messrs. Isenberg and Krapf,
missionaries of the Church Missionary Society.
1 vol. London, 1843.

3. The Highlands of Ethiopia. By Major W. Com-
wallis Harris, of the East India Company En-
gineers. 3 vols. London, 1844.

4. Travels in Southern Abyssinia. By Charles John-
ston, M.R.C.S. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1844.

5. Annals of the Propagation of the Faith. Dublin,
1842-43. - - - . - 105

VI. — The Industrial Resources of Ireland. By Robert
Kane, M.D,, Secretary to the Council of the Royal
Irish Academy, Professor of Natural Philosophy to
the Royal Dublin Society, and of Chemistry to the
Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland. Dublin: 1844. -133

CONTENTS.

VII. — The Dark Ages. A series of Essays, intended to
illustrate the state of Religion and Literature in
the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.
By the Rev. S. R. Maitland, F.R.S. and F.S.A.,
&c. &c. London : 1844. - - - 159

VIII. — " Opinions delivered by the Judges on the Questions
of Law propounded to them in the Case of O'Con-
nell V. the Queen ; Writs of Error, ordered to be
printed the 2nd Sept. 1844." London : 1844. - 198

IX. — Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund
Burke, between the year 1774 and the period of
his decease in 1797. Edited by Charles William,
Earl Fitzwilliam, and Lieutenant - General Sir"
Charles Bourke, K.C.B. 4 vols. 8vo. London :
1844. - - - - - - 212

X. — The Anglican Church the Creature and Slave of thg
State ; in a series of Lectures delivered before the
Academy of the Catholic Religion (Dublin). By
the Rev. P. Cooper, of the Church of the Con-
ception, Dublin. London : 1844. - - 236

XL— 1. A Letter to the Very Rev. G. Chandler, D.C.L.,
Dean of Chichester, &c., containing some Remarks
on his Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church
of Chichester on Sunday, October 15, 1843, "on
the occasion of publicly receiving into the Church
a Convert from the Church of Rome." By the
Rev. M. A. Tierney, F. R. S., F. S. A. London :
1844.
2. A Narrative of Iniquities and Barbarities practised
at Rome in the Nineteenth Century. By Raffaelle
Ciocci, formerly a Benedictine and Cistercian Monk,
Student and Hon. Librarian of the Papal College
of San Bernardo alle Terme Diocleziane in Rome.
Second Edition. London: 1844. - -252

Notices of Books - - - - -

Note to Article I. No. XXXH.

CONTENTS

No. XXXIV.

ART. PAGE

I. — Vie de Ranee par M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand.

Paris: 1844. 297

II. — Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, &c. By

George Wilkins Kendal. London: 1844. - -335

III. — 1. The Neighbours; a Story of Every-day Life. By
Frederika Bremer. Translated from the Swedish
by Mary Howitt, 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1843.

2. The Home; or, Family Cares and Family Joys.
By Frederika Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt,

2 vols. 8vo. London: 1843.

3. The President's Daughters, including Nina. By
Frederika Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt,

3 vols. 8vo. London: 1843.

4. The Diary, and Strife and Peace. By Frederika
Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt. London :
1844.

5. The H Family. By Frederika Bremer.

Translated from the Swedish. London: 1844.

6. The Bridesmaid. By Frederika Bremer. London :
1844.

7. The Twins, and other Tales. By Frederika Bremer.
London: 1844. 351

IV. — Considerations sur les Ordres Religieux, addressees aux
Amis des Sciences. Par le Baron A. Cauchy, Mem-
bre de 1' Academic des Sciences de Paris, de la So-
ciety Italienne, de la Society Royale de Londres, des .
Academies de Berlin, de St. Petersbourg, de Prague,
' de Stockholm, de Gottingue, de la Soci^te Am§ri-
caine, &c. &c. Paris: 1844. - . _ -376

CONTENTS.

ART. PAGE

V. — Gesammelte Schriften des Verfassers der Ostereier Chris-
toph von Schmid. (The collected works of Chris-
topher von Schmid, author of the Easter Eggs,)
15vols. 12mo. Augsburg: 1842-3. - - -392

Vl. — The Works of Edmund Spenser. London : Routledge,

1844. 415

VII.— Tracts for the Last Days. London: Painter. 1843. - 447

VIII. — 1. Rogeri de Wendovcr Chronica, sive Flores Ilistoria-
rura. Nunc primum edidit H. 0. Coxe, M.A.
Printed by the Royal Historical Society. London :
1841-1842.
2. Monkish Historians. Royal Historical Society.
Second Series of Monkish. Historians. Shortly will
be published, Matthew of Paris, &c. Prospectus of
the Royal Historical Society. - . _ _ 487

IX. — The Star of Attcghei, The Vision of Schwartz, and

other Poems. By Frances Brown. London: 1844. 617

X.— The Chimes: a Goblin Story. By Charles Dickens. -560

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

SEPTEMBER 1844.

Art. T. — Ireland and its Bulers, since 1829. Parts I and II.
London: 1843-4.*

NO doubt these volumes have furnished abundant enter-
tainment to that class of readers whose opinions co-
incide with those of the author. The work consists chiefly
of a series of sketches and narratives, selected and executed
with considerable dramatic skill. The great Daniel, the
Repeal, Long Jack Doherty, Lords Stanley, Anglesey, Wel-
lesley, and Normanby, Fergus O'Connor, the Catholic priests,
Maynooth College, Charles Kendal Bushe, Baron Smith,
Mr. Sheil, the Irish Protestant establishment, with many
other interesting men and things, are passed in review before
us. These are topics which the world cares to hear about.

The style, too, as well as the subject, has its attractions.
Smart, flippant, and sometimes picturesque ; by no means
remarkable for grammatical accuracy, and still less for purity
or propriety of expression, there is little in it to oifend the
taste of the mob of readers ; and minds whose sphere of
enjoyment extends not beyond the last new novel or monthly
magazine, will find their ordinary food of excitement in the
pages of Ireland and its Rulers.

With this work, therefore, as a piece of pleasant reading,
we are very well satisfied. It costs little more attention in
the perusal than Martm Chuzzlewit or Windsor Castle, and
forces the mind into a train of thought, no farther than
would the bare mention of the subjects of which it treats.
Pointed phrases, amusing descriptions of character, bits of
transcendental philosophy, dovetailings of fiction and fact

* It may be right to state that this article was intended for insertion in our
preceding number, and that part of it had actually been printed before our last
publication.

VOL. XVIT. NO. XXXIII. 1

2 Ireland and its Bulers : [Sept.

together, Boswellian reflections upon momentous subjects, —
all, in short, that make up the general features of a third-
rate historical romance, compose its matter and form. We
have no right to quarrel with a writer, whose object is merely
to please, for choosing, or colouring, or inventing the inci-
dents of his story, so as most effectually to strike the imagi-
nation and chain the attention. He deals not so much in
the true as in the plausible ; and, if he fails, his failure will
be owing rather to violations of probability, than of the laws
of historical composition or of exact reasoning. The canons
of criticism by which the merits of mere works of fiction are to
be tried, are numerous and severe enough : but the poet, or
wit, or story-teller, who conforms to them, and to them only,
has succeeded.

Far different, however, are the principles for testing the
real value of a work which proposes to treat seriously most
serious questions ; to review great historical events, to sketch
eminent historical characters, in which millions of fellow-
beings now living take an absorbing and personal interest ;
to discuss points of political philosophy, on the true solution
of which the welfare of a kingdom depends. There is nothing
which men may not make, as there is nothing which men
have not made, a subject of pastime, of epigram, of declama-
tion. ~ There are, however, some subjects, and these apper-
taining to affairs of this world, which it is not lawful to
approach inconsiderately, or to treat lightly, even where the
purpose is avowed ; and, of course, still less, where there is a
profession of seriousness and impartiality.

As a work of amusement, then, we have, as we have said,
no fault to find with Ireland and Rulers ; but to the rank of a
thoughtful, impartial production,— of a production, the ac-
curacy of whose statements, the justness of whose views, the
solidity of whose reasoning may be relied upon, we cannot
admit its claims. We have perused it with great attention,
and with a disposition rather to find beauties than faults.
We have perused it with that tendency to favour, which an
Irish Catholic is apt to feel in reading any work which has
now and then a kind word of his country and his creed, and
of the men who adorn and defend both or either of them. —
So much have we been used only to the language of raving
bigotry, of scorn and vituperation from popular Protestant
writers.* But the time, we trust, is come, when a little mix-

♦ In writing the above we supposed the author of the work before us to be a

1844.] O'^Connell and the People. S

ture of truth will not be allowed to give currency to a whole
mass of error ; when we are to distinguish justice from injus-
tice, and give to each its proper appellation, even when com-
ing both from the same quarter; when we are not to thank a
man for spitting in our faces, merely because he does not also
knock us down and trample u^ under his feet. We are for
the truth and nothing but the truth. The work under review
is, however, rather a favourable specimen of the class to which
it belongs ; but that class comprises nearly the whole body of
modern EnofHsh literature. The universal custom of viewing
deep and serious subjects with a laughing and half-shut eyo,
of copying instead of examining, of substituting wit for argu-
ment, of looking over instead of into, the misrepresentations,
the slanders, the monstrous lies on which the reformation was
in part based, and by which it has been up to this very day,
and is at this very day, supported in part, has infected, in a
more or less malignant form, the whole of our literature
through all its departments. We can hardly trust a single
popular book in our language on any subject out of the exact
sciences. We cannot depend upon our biographies, our his-
tories, our geographies, our books of travel, our books of phi-
losophy. " The trail of the serpent is over them all."" What
is worse, a veiy considerable number of so-called Catholic
writers have caught the spirit of the literature in which they
have been trained up. But of this we have spoken on former
occasions, and we shall have more suitable places for speak-
ing hereafter.

Ireland and its Rulers is, as may be inferred from the cha-
racter we have just given of the class to which it belongs, a
compound of truth and falsehood, of prejudice and imparti-
ality, of sophistry and fair reasoning. Its merits gratify the
taste, and lie on the surface ; its faults offend the judgment,
and are not so apparent. Every one knows the effect of a
good joke or smart saying in helping out a lame argument,
or helping over a good one. Voltaire''s jesting account of
the marine deposits found on the summits of the Pyrenees
was swallowed by ten thousand feather heads, who could not
understand the most solid proofs of De Luc or Guenee. A
nickname or an epigram has perverted in many mind's the

Protestant. Indeed, in reading the work it never occurred to us to suppose
anything else. We have, however, since learned, from the best authority, that
he was a Catholic, and that his relatives still are devout and edifying Catholics.
Of course the opinions of such a writer against the Catholic priests and the
Catholic religion, are entitled to great respect ! But of this more hereafter.

4 Ireland and its Rulers : [Sept.

light of revealed truth : no wonder that similar tricks should
be used successfully to pervert truths of a lower order. Thus,
in the present work, many undeniable and favourable facts,
and many just observations, are stated regarding the Irish
Church, the Irish priesthood, the Irish people, regarding
O'Connell, the grievances of the country and the true reme-
dies of these grievances. But then all those fine things, some-
times finely expressed, are so mingled with mis-statements,
slanders, mischievous insinuations and sarcasms, and low
buffoonery, that one is at a loss to know when the writer is in
earnest, when indulging the caprice of fancy, how much is
fact, how much is fiction ; what is to be ascribed to his
spleen, what to his ignorance, what to his impudence, what to
his vanity, what to the better parts of his head and heart.
To give a searching, and therefore, detailed commentary on a
work written after this fashion, and embracing so many and
such topics, would obviously require not one long article only,
but several. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to a few
of such matters as appear to us the most interesting at the
moment. We shall follow the order of the work itself, and
therefore commence with O'Connell, the Alpha and Omega
of Irish history, for the last twenty-five years ; the representa-
tive of her virtues and her genius ; her statesman, her orator,
her liberator, her champion ; the monument of her glory and
the darling of her affections.

O'Connell is not, of course, in this work represented, as he
used to be by his assailants, — a very incarnation of evil, a
vampire, a noonday devil, a roaring lion going about seek-
ing whom to devour. The day for such a tone is passing.
Men have become tired of spitting at the sun, or of paying
and applauding those who did. The plan now is to mingle
falsehood and truth, censure and praise ; to admonish as a
friend, that you may slander as an enemy. Nobody at
present, out of an Irish court of justice, believes that O'Con-
nell is really anxious to get up a rebellion, or that the Pro-
paganda is at the bottom of the repeal agitation. No, no ;
he has been from time to time exposed to the gaze of the
English people, and they have heard his voice frequently in
parliament and out of it. They have found that he is a man
born of a woman, like one of themselves ; that he has neither
iron talons nor forked tongue ; and though they are ready
enough to believe without evidence, they are not a people to
believe against the testimony of their own senses.

The impression produced upon the mind of a person who

1844.] CConnell and the People. 5

had never heard of O'Connell before, by the work before us,
would be that he is a man of very ordinary genius as an
orator or a statesman, but of uncommon sagacity, and of
considerable practical talent; who in times and circumstances
extremely favourable to his purposes, has raised himself to
the eminent position which he holds, by perseverance, by
always flattering the prejudices and passions of an excitable
people, whom he knew thoroughly and practised upon un-
scrupulously. The name of the Liberator is introduced, and
his actions and motives commented upon, in different parts
of the work ; indeed, they make the strong point of the first
volume. We speak of the notion of the man which all these
comments taken together would, in our judgment, be likely
to convey to such a reader as we have supposed. This sort
of meaning which results from the comparison of different
passages viewed as a whole, may be, we are well aware, often
made a matter of dispute, like a question of taste or feeling;
and is of course — much more than the drift of a single con-
nected passage — liable to be coloured by previous knowledge
of the subject, or preconceived prejudices in favour of the
writer or against him. As it would occupy too much space,
and task our readers' patience too far, to cite together all
the passages to which we refer, we have only to say that we
have formed our estimate impartially.

It is said that one of the chief means by which O'Connell
has acquired his power and preserves it, is by flattering the
people's prejudices, by inflaming their passions, by unmea-
sured praise poured out upon whatever are the objects of
their love, and unmeasured abuse poured out upon the objects
of their hatred. Our caricature-monger is not the first, and
of course will not be the last, to advance such a statement.
The charge — if it be a charge — is one which has been made
by the slaves of despotism, and the slaves of spleen, against
every popular leader, whether he may have been an honest
patriot like O'Connell, or a trafl&cker in public discontent
like Wilkes, Let us examine it in reference to the Liberator.

O'Connell has always humoured the prejudices of the
people. Well, let us grant this for a moment. If the pre-
judices of the people are just prejudices, if the strengthening
of them be a means to accomplish the freedom and hap-
piness of the people, why not humour them, and strengthen
them, and keep them alive ? The prejudice which the people
have against perjury or theft is a just prejudice. Will any
one dare to say that it is not meritorious in the eyes of God

6 Ireland and its Rulers : [Sept.

and man to humour this prejudice ? The prejudice which
the Catholic people have against a young man keepmg a
mistress is a just prejudice, although our cockney moralist
would seem to think otherwise, from his giving the denuncia-
tion of this crime by priests, as an example of what he calls
their " fanatical austerity."* Whoever strengthens this
prejudice is so far a good Christian and the best of patriots.
There is a prejudice of the people against packed juries,
against unjust judges, against bribery, against grinding op-
pression of the poor, against turning them hungry and naked
out of house and home, against wholesale robbery, against
iniquitous government. Are not these just prejudices 2 Is
not perjury in a scoundrel sitting in a jury-box a crime
against God's eternal law, as well as in the same man in the
affairs of private life ? Is not oppression of the poor a sin
that '* cries to heaven for vengeance" as well in a landlord
as in a surly farmer? Is not injustice in a minister of
justice a crime, as well as in a man who is no minister of any
kind ? We know very well that the sins of an individual,
which do not injure society, ordinarily ought not to be pub-
lished to the world. We know that every fault of those who
are placed in authority is not to be paraded before the eyes
of men. But when injustice and oppression are worked into
a system having extension and stability, and when millions
groan under the weight of other men''s iniquities, and when
the ordinary channels of redress, or even remonstrance, are
closed up, and publication is the only means of redress left,
then we know of no law which compels us to pay homage to
crime, to abjure the decalogue, to call vice virtue and virtue
vice ; we know no law or counsel to prevent a man like
O'Connell from inspiring a hatred — or rather from giving
loud expression to a hatred already inspired — against enor-
mities which are hated by God and man. O'Connell
humours the prejudices of the people ! But did not St.
Paul create a new prejudice among the people when he de-
nounced idolatry and fornication ? Were not the Popes of

* " So far from being lax in their morals, the priests are more liable to the
charge of fanatical austerity. For example, it is a practice in country parishes
to denounce from the altar a young man who has a mistress," &c. — vol. i. p. 277.
This practice is by no means so arbitrary or so universal as is here insinuated.
It is, of course, like every other mode of ecclesiastical punishment, regulated by
considerations of prudence. In most, probably in all of the dioceses of Ireland,
it is exprewly prohibited to any priest to denounce even scandalous and notorious
sinners from the altar, wUhout the express kave of the bishop or vicar-general in every
ease.

1844.] O'Connell and the People. 7

the middle age humouring the prejudices of the people, when
they interposed the authority with which they were then
vested, between the oppressor and the oppressed, between
the fierce and cruel lords and their serfs ? Did not the men
who in every age succeeded in resisting despotism owe their
success to the excited prejudices, the just prejudices of the
people \ The question ought not to be whether O'Connell
humours the prejudices of the people, but whether these
prejudices are just ; and that they are just, as far as he has
gone with them or created them, will the author of ' Ireland
and her Rulers'' dare to deny ?

O'Connell has made the people's prejudices his own, be-
cause these prejudices were in favour of virtue and justice
and rational freedom. He has gone with the people, and the
people have gone with him, and both have gone upon a right
path. He has eulogized the genius and the dispositions of
the people, because they are a people full of genius and of
every generous quality of the heart ; and a feeling of self-
respect was among the things which they wanted, as it
assuredly is among the means to enable them to work out
their regeneration. He has described in thrilling words the
wrongs which they suffered and still suffer ; because, as a
man born blind knows not what it is to see the light of
heaven, so a nation that has never tasted the blessings of a
paternal government, has not, until taught, a just idea of its
own degraded state. He who is reduced to slavery feels the
weight of his chains a hundredfold more than he who was a
bondman from his birth. O'Connell has often described the
beauties of green Erin. But it is a lovely land, and the
theme is one to fill the heart with emotions that quicken
into resolves, and resolves that quicken into deeds. God did
not intend that man should be a creature of mere ratiocina-
tion, any more than he meant him to be a creature of mere
impulse. He gave him a soul that feels as well as thinks ;
and the very revelation he has imparted is formed as well by
its influence to captivate our feelings, as by its evidences to
captivate our reason. O'Connell appeals to the people's feel-
ings and to their prejudices : if he did not, he never would
have rent the people's chains asunder, nor bent — for he has
yet to break — the rod of their oppressor's power.

But is it true that he has never opposed popular prejudice,
where he believed that prejudice to be in favour of what was
politically or morally wrong ? We have no desire to invest
him with impeccability or infallibility. That he has com-

8 Ireland and its Bulers : [Sept.

mitted mistakes, and that all his words and actions would
not pass muster in a process of canonization, with the devil s
nicknamed attorney-general in Rome, any more than with the
deviFs real attorney-general elsewhere, we suppose no one will
suspect us of doubting. But we shall state this proposition—
that of all the popular leaders, of whom history or men's me-
mory has preserved a sufficient record, and who have had, like
him, to combat against domestic tyranny, and whose whole
influence and power rested upon popular opinion, not one, not
even one can be found, who preserved such popularity, as he
has preserved, so long or half so long or a quarter so long, and
who was less the creature of the people's caprice, and who so
uniformly resisted popular prejudice, when he believed him-
self right in resisting it. This is our proposition. We might
put it in a much stronger form, but we prefer to say nothing
that is not only not provable but that is not easily provable ;
and, as the proposition lies, we defy the author of Ireland
and its Bulers to disprove it, we defy the most learned his-
torian of the Tory party or of the Whig party or of any
other party to disprove it. Let the ancient or the medieval
or the modern history of Greece, or of Rome or of England,
or of any other country, which has given birth to patriotic
men who resisted oppression and overcame it, be ransacked ;
and no name can be found like this which sheds such a sur-
passing glory over the dreary records of our own land.

O'Connell has sometimes compared himself to the straw
which floats on the mountain torrent, and only shews the
force and direction of the stream. This may come very well
from his own lips, but the muse of history will paint him in a
far difi'erent relation, and, from the groundwork of his own
metaphor, will present a far different picture. She will
represent him as the giant — for monster images associated
with his name are now familiar — who found popular opinion
only as a tiny current, broken into a thousand dribbling
streamlets, and brawling uselessly down the hill's side, and
who, with his own hands, hewed for it a channel broad and
deep, wherein its scattered waters are gathered together and
roll on with increasing volume, calm, majestic, and irre-
sistible.

We have granted for a moment that O'Connell has always
gone with popular opinion and prejudice. But what we have
conceded in one sense and for argument's sake, we must now
deny in another sense and for truth's sake. We have granted
that he has gone with prejudice — when it was right : we

1844.] 0'' Connell and tJie People. 9

deny that he has gone Avith it, when it was wi'ong. To bear
us out in our denial we need only point to a few notorious
facts that have occurred within or near our own recollection ;
that have occurred since the passing of the Emancipation bill,
that is, since the period when he became emphatically and for
ever the Man of the People, and since when, to carry out his
views, he has needed more than ever to keep the popular mind
in a state of activity, and to keep it with him. For before
that era his cause was one which to excite men required no
aid of artifice ; it was one which numbered among its warmest
supporters whole masses of men, who, beyond this single case,
had little sympathy with the people, and were decidedly op-
posed to any further extension of popular rights and privilegs.
Whereas in his great movements since then, his whole or
almost his whole support was from the people. With them
alone he has been strong : without them he would have been
nothing. Their breath is the life of his political power. See
then how since that period he has shaped his course.

We well remember the stand which he made against the
abominable system of combination among the trades six or
seven years ago. Was this humouring popular prejudice!
We were ourselves present at the Corn Exchange, when he
there first denounced, in uncompromising terms, that system
which often led to scenes of bloodshed, and always to in-
justice. We were present afterwards, when, in the same
place, renewing his attacks, with increased energy, he was
clamorously and fiercely assailed with the most opprobrious
epithets from all sides of the room. Neither the justice of
his cause, nor the manifest honesty of his motives, nor the
recollections connected with his name and with the spot on
which he stood, could protect him from insult. We were
also present at the meeting afterwards convened by the lord
mayor of Dublin, in the Eoyal Exchange, and at which his
lordship presided. We remember the scene well ; the
image of it can never be effaced from our memory. We saw,
when O'Connell rose to address the meeting, a hundred faces
swollen with rage, and we heard the groans and hisses in
which even his strong voice was drowned. Then, heaving
his huge frame upon the table at which the chairman sat,
and, overtopping the multitude, he concentrated all his ener-
gies of voice and manner to make himself heard. And for a
moment he was heard. For a moment the assembly stood
abashed and awed by his dauntless demeanour. After a
few seconds the clamour recommenced and increased, the
groans and hisses became louder, the looks of the people

10 Ireland and its Muki's : [Sept.

more menacing. There were two young Catholic priests
present on that sad occasion, and one of them succeeded in
pacifying ono or two of the disturbers in a corner of the
room, who said, " We will be silent for your sake, but not
for O'Connell's." It moved us almost to tears to witness in
these little instances, the influence (for such it was) of the
Catholic feeling over the Catholic heart, even in its most
ungovernable mood — the influence over the people of the
priest of the people. The history of the Church, the history
of the Irish Church is full of like examples on an infinitely
grander scale. But wo are describing the scene in the
lloyal Exchange. It was manifestly impossible for the
business of the meeting to proceed. O'Connell could not
obtain a hearing even for a moment. Each effort on his
part was met with increased efforts on the part of his
assailants. The lord mayor sat very quiet — perhaps it was
his duty to do so. The sheriff looked on with apparent
calmness : there was even a smile of heartfelt satisfaction
visible on his features. But this was in the time of the old
rotten corporation. One person, whose name we remember
well, under the very nose of the chairman, confronted
O'Connell, and, with a demoniacal grin, snapped his fingers
in the very face of the Liberator, and mimicked his manner
with all the grimaces of an untaught buffoon, and especially
the peculiar intonation of voice with which he pronounced
" the trades of Dublin."" Then the tumult rose to its highest
pitch. The lord mayor stood upon his feet, the sheriff
waved his official bonnet, the crowd wedged in round the
Liberator, the voices became still; a tremendous rush was
made towards the door, he was in the midst of the fierce
mass. We saw him borne down and onward by it, — we
heard the stifled breath of violent exertion, — the colour left
our cheeks, — a dreadful suspicion passed through our minds, —
a moment or two of agonized suspense was passed, — and wo
heard that he was alive in the street below. Here he was
received with marks of disapprobation from an immense
multitude who were assembled, no doubt, for the purpose.
We do not recollect to have heard that any missiles were
flung at him. But he was conducted home in the midst of a
strong detachment of the then new city police — and we were
told that not a single cheer, not a single loud voice of sym-
pathy, greeted him on the way.

And this is the man who always humoured the prejudices,
whether right or wrong, of the people !

But this was not the end. The news of the Royal lux.-

1844.] O'Connell and the People. \\

change meeting, of course, went abroad. There was no
deep, loud, long, universal burst of indignation against the
perpetrators of the black deed. Quite otherwise. We were
assured upon good authority, and we know it was commonly
reported, that there were many parts of the city — Church
Street, for instance — where he could not have appeared,
without imminent danger of personal violence. We know
that a bitter spirit of hostility towards him pervaded many
of that class of the people who had been always before, as they
are once more, among his most devoted supporters. We
know, moreover, and it is with feelings of no ordinary delight
we mention the fact, that the beautiful and timely pastoral
of that model of Christian prelates, the Catholic Archbishop
of Dublin, addressed to the Catholic tradesmen of the city,
was the principal cause of allaying the popular indignation.

Through all this severe, and to him peculiarly severe trial,
O'Connell stood firm, and braved the people's anger for the
people's good. Even his enemies were forced to applaud his
conduct on this occasion, however grudgingly and coldly they
did so — even his enemies who openly rejoiced in his apparent
downfall, and who would have gladly awarded him the crown
of martyrdom for sake of the martyrdom itself.

Again, the English Chartists were a party from whose co-
operation O'Connell, if a mere popularity hunter, might
expect to reap great advantages, direct and indirect, and
whose opposition, at least, he would be slow to provoke.
They came not across his path ; the great mass of them were
Englishmen ; the ground on which they carried on their
campaign was English ; the cause for which they contended
was English. Yet not only did he stand aloof from the con-
tamination of their society; he denounced them; he assailed
them ; he held them up to the execration of his countrymen.
And these things he did when their strength would have
been (for the time) his strength ; when their machinations
were embarrassing the power he was trying to weaken ; when
it was not his interest to array against himself a vast combi-
nation of popular talent, of deadly animosity, of great
physical force. Men who never learned in O'Connell's school
of politics stood confounded at seeing him not only casting
away so powerful an auxiliary, but actually converting it into
a hostile power.

A mere selfish agitator, — nay, many an honest agitator, —
would have, if not actually made common cause with the
Chartists, at least avoided every topic and every movement

12 Ireland and iU Rulers: [Sept.

that might bring him into collision with them. But O'Con-
nell was a true patriot, and therefore preferred his country's
real good to the glory of ruling the democracy of two king-
doms: he was a sound Catholic, and therefore knew that
the end could not justify the means ; he was a wise states-
man, and therefore saw that honesty is — as it has turned out
to be — the best policy.

Again, the Irish poor law was certainly, at first, a popular
measure. We do not, of course, mean that there was any
universal enthusiastic feeling in its favour, such as there is
for the Repeal of the Union, for instance. Nevertheless, it
cannot be doubted that the great mass of the clergy and the
people were well disposed towards it; and that any opposi-
tion on the part of either (if we may speak of their senti-
ments on such matters as the sentiments of distinct bodies),
was partial and feeble, and, such as it was, we believe mainly
attributable to the influence of O'Connell's name, and the
conviction which his opinion, so decidedly formed and ex-
pressed, would naturally produce. Here again the popular
prejudice was wrong, and here again O'Connell set himself
against it openly, absolutely, perseveringly. He declaimed,
he argued, he prophesied. He moved a few, he alarmed a
few, he convinced a few — ourselves among the number. He
pulled against the stream, but, though he ruffled its surface,
he did not change its direction. Time has, it is true, proved
the solidity of his arguments, and converted his prophecies
into facts. But before the law came into operation, many of
his best friends, many who were avowed Repealers in 1832,
and Precursors in 1837, and who became again avowed Re-
pealers in 1843, were fretted and chagrined at what appeared
to them the unreasonable obstinacy of his opposition. Any
other man than O'Connell would have made himself ridi-
culous by adopting the course which he pursued. Yet he
pursued it to the end. Nor did his ardour abate in the
smallest degree, when he saw, at length, that his authority
and his arguments were put forward in vain to rouse and
combine the whole country against the measure.

Yet this is the man whose whole aim is, we are told, to
practise upon popular delusions for his own base purposes !

Again, the crowning glory of CConnell's whole career, the
great achievement which, though he did nothing else, or
though all else that he did were forgotten, gives to his name
a lustre beside which the renown of mighty kings, and con-
querors, and statesmen, and popular chiefs, grows dim, is the

1844.] G'Connell mid the People. 1^

achievement which he performed in spite of the people's pre-
judice, in spite of a habit which the misrule of centuries had
strengthened. We need hardly add that we allude to the
glorious principle of peaceful, legal, moral, and yet persever-
ing— or rather, therefore^ persevering — agitation, which he
has not only preached, but made us to believe, — not only
made us to believe but to practise, not only to practise but
to embrace as a habit and a rule for ever. For this he has
called himself an apostle; and truly never did the work of
unconsecrated hands bear upon it more clearly the great
mark of the apostolic labours, " ut eatis et fructum offeratis
et fructus vester maneat." His other achievements have
been great — more dazzling to the eye, more sounding to the
ear, more captivating to the imagination ; a more interesting
theme for the poet to sing, for the historian to narrate, for
the orator to point to, when addressing the ardent and
young of future days. But this is the work which the re-
cording angel shall write in golden letters in that book which
man's eye shall not look into until doomsday. Oh, it was a
splendid work to have awakened a whole nation that lay
sleeping as if dead — to have braved successfully the greatest
chieftain of the greatest empire in the world — to have con-
quered the religious prejudices, the national prejudices, the
political prejudices, the personal prejudices of Englishmen, and
of many among his own countrymen — to have emancipated
the Irish Catholics, whose emancipation, neither the fears
of the dominant party during the ascendency of Napoleon,
nor the solemn pledge given or implied at the passing of the
Union, nor the progress of the maxims of toleration, nor the
advocacy of the most enlightened men, nor the eloquence of
Grattan and Plunket, and the rest, nor the growth of reli-
gious indifferentism, nor the claims of humanity, or policy, or
justice, could have effected ; — to have acquired in the great
imperial parliament, on hostile ground, in the decline of life,
and without the schooling which had been always deemed
necessary for success on such a theatre, to have acquired an
influence like to that which he was accustomed to wield over
his own millions — to have turned out one ministry and kept
in another — to have made proud and untameable members
of the high nobility of England, like Lord Stanley, stagger,
and writhe, and bite the barbed shafts of an eloquence
cradled among the wilds of Kerry : these were, indeed,
mighty works. But greater far, in our eyes, was the infu-
sion of the new spirit of peace, order, virtue, perseverance,

14 Ireland and its Rulers : [Sept.

into the mind of the universal people — the breath of a new
life breathed into the whole mass, and moulding its loose
and jarring elements into moral beauty and power. There
were, it is true, fine materials to work upon, and zealous
co-operators to assist him. But the difficulties to be over-
come were great exceedingly, and such ai) would have
daunted the courage and defeated the labours of any other.
Now that the work is so far accomplished, its merit must
be completely hidden to those who only look at the present.
To understand the greatness of the change that has been
effected we must carry our minds back not only to the be-
ginning of the present centurj% or the close of the last, to
the days of Cromwell the accursed, and, farther still, to the
days of Saint Laurence CToole and Strongbow. Through
the whole of that long and dismal period, how many golden
opportunities presented themselves to our infatuated fore-
fathers of recovering, at a single blow, or without a blow,
their complete national independence; or, after that had
been utterly wrested from them, of at least securing their
l*ight8 as subjects of the English crown ! How often did
victory hang within their very grasp, like the ripe fruit that,
to be plucked, requires but the stretching out of the hand I
These are melancholy facts : this is assuredly no flattering
tale to those among us, whose principal " relief from the
sense of present humiliation and suffering is sought in dreams
of former glory." Nevertheless it is the truth : we cannot
deny it, and it is useless to conceal it from ourselves. What
is to our purpose is to know the causes that led to such
results —

" How hands so vile
Could conquer hearts so brave" —

and these causes are as plain on the surface of our history
as the results themselves. Of course there was perjury, and
deception, and diplomatic skill, and military skill, and viola-
tions of treaties, and unspeakable cruelties on the " other
side.*" Against these were chivalry, and valour, and genius.
But of what avail were chivalry, and valour, and genius, to
our fathers, while their councils were divided, and their
power divided — while their efforts were rashly planned and
rashly made — while, after having lifted the weapons against
the oppressor that might have smitten him to the earth,
they turned them against each other, and plunged them in
each other's bosoms — while they drew the sword in the day

1844.] 0''Connell and the People. 15

of their weakneiss, and sheathed it in the day of their
strength — while they trusted whom they had not tried, and
laughed at councils that never deceived them — while they
suffered themselves to be wheedled and cajoled when they
could have dictated terms, and to be excited and goaded to
violence when their power was clipped and their eyes put
out —

" And while their tyrants joined in hate,
They never joined in love."

These — internal strife, rashness, blindness to consequences,
the violence of despair, and the rest, were among the chief
elements of our forefathers' ruin, and have made us what we
are. They were rooted in the habits, in the very hearts of
the people : and it is the glory of O'Oonnell that he has
plucked them out and planted in their stead the seeds of our
greatness and our happiness. This is the glory of O'Connell.
Not many years ago, the strength of the people was eaten
up by jealousies, discords, despair, discontent, and apathy.
Provinces were divided, parishes were divided, villages were
divided. There was no common end, or common means, or
common love, or common hope, or common faith. Spies and
informers, and the rest of that loathsome brood of reptiles
that increase and multiply under the malediction of unjust
laws,-fattened upon the folly and simplicity and weakness of
the people. There were ribbon societies, and other societies,
whose names we know not, or do not recollect, scattered
over the north. The south was split up into a thousand
factions. Among these parties there were nightly meetings,
and watchwords, and appointed leaders. Their exploits
were housebreakings, and waylayings, and pitched battles at
fairs and markets, and burials, and even at weddings — but
we need not enumerate what we all remember. They are
gone, blessed be God ! — they are all gone. The ribbonraen
are gone — the whitefeet and blackfeet are gone — the shana-
vests and caravats are gone — the three-year olds and the
four-year olds are gone — the men who would renew the
murder of the Sheas and the burning of Wildgoose-lodge
are gone — the bickerings between parish and parish, and
between province and province, are gone — disunion and
despair, and fickleness of purpose, and the old blindness and
infatuation, are gone — the employment of spies, and of hired
witnesses, except for the exclusive work of perjury, is gone —
the professional employment of Lord Norbury, and Hem-

18 Ireland and its Rulers: [Sept.

penstal, and Major Sirr, and Tom Reynolds, and the old
hangmen, and the old peelers, and the old yeomen of the
north, are gone. They are gone — they are all gone. There
is a new generation — there is a " new heaven and a new
earth." The beautiful aspiration of the poet is at last verified
in one, and that the principal, part of it —

" Like the rainbow's light,
Thy various tints unite,
And form in heaven's sight,
One arch of peace!"

To whom — to what cause or combination of causes is this
wonderful change, so rapid and so complete, to be attributed ?
Has a new revelation come down in thunder and lightning
from heaven ? Have the laws of nature been suspended to
terrify men into repentance and newness of life ? Has the
old generation been swept away like the world before the
flood, to make room for a new race ? None of these things
has happened. All has been the work of one master mind.
There was another great revolution in our island in the fifth
century, in many leading features like to this of the nine-
teenth. Each was the fruit of the zeal of one man — the
traces of a heavenly influence being manifest in one as well
as in the other. Both were the dawning of a new order of
peace, of charity, of freedom, upon a night of misery and
bondage. God grant that the day of the later may be as
unclouded and as long as that of the earlier I

This, we again repeat, is the work of O'Connell. And
how has he achieved it ? — by flattering the bad prejudices of
the people ! — by making himself the pander of their passions!
If this be so, then words have lost their significancy, and
things have lost their essence. If this be so, to hate, to
attack, to persecute, to crush — this is to flatter. If this be
so, St. Paul was a flatterer of men's passions, and so were
the other twelve, and so were their great successors, and so
is Daniel O'Connell. Thus much we know, that what
O'Connell has succeeded in effecting, the very pastors of the
people, beloved and revered as they are by the people, often
attempted in vain, and hardly anywhere with complete suc-
cess. We have ourselves witnessed instances, and have
heard of several others, on credible testimony, where the
most zealous, and, therefore, well beloved, priests have been
threatened with personal violence for denouncing ribbon
societies and factions. IJut why waste words in answering

1844.J O'Connell and the People. Vl

such a question ? The very judge who, a few weeks ago, pro-
nounced the sentence of condemnation on this man for the
crime of conspiracy, pronounced, in the same breath, his inno-
cence, by proclaiming that by his guiding counsels and influence,
peace the most profound was preserved in a movement which
called forth and combined together whatever of enthusiasm
and angry passion the love of country and the remembrance
of wrong would create in the bosoms of a people, who have
suffered so much, and who so acutely feel, even while they
patiently endure. In hearing such an avowal on such an
occasion, we could not help remembering what is told, in the
legend, of the idolatrous judge who condenmed the martyr
Venantius, and who afterwards fell suddenly from the judg
ment seat, exclaiming, " Verus est Venantii Deus, nostros
deos desti'uite."

Once more. A large number of the Americans have
always exhibited a strong sympathy with the people of
Ireland in their struggles for political rights — a sympathy
testified in the most unequivocal manner, not only by the
declarations of leading men and the resolutions of public
meetings, but still better by the frequent transmission of
large sums of money to the coffers of the Repeal Association.
Now it. is manifest that if O'ConnelFs object were chiefly
to acquire money and popularity, or if such were his object
in any decree, except as a legitimate means to a just end, he
would not, unnecessarily, say or do anything calculated to
extinguish or cool this very effective sympathy ; and such a
policy, in such an hypothesis, would, for obvious reasons, be
much more necessary in the case of the Americans than in
that we have already alluded to of the English Chartists.
Yet, how has he acted I If there be any one vile passion
stronger than another in the breasts of the slave-holding
portion of the Americans, it is the untameable ferocity with
which they cling to the practice and defence of their abomi-
nable slave-trade. Whoever dares to raise his voice against
it among them, runs the imminent risk of having his brains
dashed out in the open day. Whoever co-operates in the
escape of a slave, runs the risk of being hanged according to
the laws of the country. Such is the strength of the p.opular
feeling on the side of iniquity. Yet against this feeling and
this practice, O'Oonnell has brought all the powers of his
massive intellect, all the brilliancy of his fancy, all the fer-
vour of his heart to bear. He not only has denounced the
slave-trade in its principle and practice, he loses no oppor-
\0L. XVII. — NO, XXXII r. 2

18 Ireland and its Rulers: [Sept.

tiinity of denouncing it, he looks out for and makes oppor-
tunities of denouncing it, of vilifying it, of cursing it, of
making men loathe it as they would loathe cannibalism, of
creating among his hearers a resolve, like that of the Athe-
nians of old, " Let us go and break their chains." He has
acted and spoken thus at the very time when the cheers and
the money of these very Americans were wafted to him
across the Atlantic. He has acted and spoken thus, having
no other end to serve but the great end of justice and
humanity, while the objects of his attack were separated
from himself and his cause by thousands of miles, while his
bitterest enemies could not have thought of blaming him if
he held his peace, while many of his best friends trembled
lest, by the imprudent, though not unjust violence of his
attacks upon the slave-holders of far distant climes, he might
only weaken his efforts against the slave-holders nearer
home. We certainly do not share in these fears. We are
not for holding the Gospel in bondage. Give truth and
justice to the world in all their beauty and might, and they
will at last conquer the world. " Magna est Veritas et prse-
valebit." But be this as it may, thus much, at least, is clear,
beyond all contradiction or cavil, that O'Connell's views are
not personal, or private, in any way, but for the triumph of
mercy, of love, of truth, of right, over the rulers of darkness
and the deeds thereof. That he has succeeded in part is
matter of history, that he will succeed yet farther we firmly
believe. But that he will completely succeed we do not
believe, unless the devils who invisibly tempt men are sent
down to their own abodes, and the worse devils who walk
about in human bodies are converted by miracles, or swallowed
up with them. And these things, we know, shall not all
happen until Christ comes in power and majesty to judge the
world.

We have said enough for our purpose, but there is one
other fact which we must not pass over — the refusal of
O'Connell to connect his cause in any way with — nay, his
hearty and open opposition to, that species of Liberalism
which, as in the case of the body of the French and Spanish
Liberals, and of a small, an exceedingly small, fraternity
nearer home, identifies itself with infidel principles. We
have not space to say all we would, or could, upon this in-
teresting topic. But we may easily make ourselves intelli-
gible to those who are willing to understand us. We need
not dwell upon the manifest inconsistency and folly (con-

1844.] O'Connell and the People. 19

sidering his purpose) in a mere unscrupulous demagogue of
unnecessarily seeking an occasion of quarrel with these anti-
christian parties — an inconsistency and folly which we have
already adverted to, in speaking of O'ConnelFs attacks on
the Chartists and American slaveholders. The point to
which we wish to direct attention is, that his opposition to
the liberal party in France and Spain is not so much that
they are for violence and bloodshed, as because their princi-
ples are uncatholic and Anti-catholic. In the commencement
of Espartero's career, and before he had yet developed his
true nature of bloodhound and Antichrist, or rather before
his real character was known in this country, O'Connell, like
many others who ought to have known better, hailed the
dawning of a new era of liberty on Spain. But the moment
it became manifest that the so-called war for freedom was,
in reality, a war against the Church, and that the champions
of a free constitution shewed their zeal for civil toleration,
by expelling bishops and murdering priests, and pulling down
monasteries and preaching up infidelity, that moment O'Con-
nell's sympathy turned into aversion, and his panegyrics into
invectives ; and the Catholic spirit, fearless and indomitable,
blazed forth in his harangues. In like manner he has always
shewn a cold, unfriendly disposition towards the great mass
of the French Liberals as a party. He refused all commu-
nion with them, as was remarkably instanced in one of the
most beautiful letters ever penned by him, ^vritten to one of
that party some six or seven years ago. JNow this line of
conduct was to him most critical, and to one of less deter-
mined purpose to pursue the right path openly and at any
risk, would have been, perhaps, fatal. For one of the
strongest prejudices which the enemies of Ireland are most
active and most successful in throwing in his way is, that he
is striving to create a Catholic ascendancy ; and of course
the most powerful means which he uses to destroy this pre-
judice are constant and vehement protestations to the con-
trary, and appeals to the acts of his whole political life in
confirmation of his assertions. Every one knows how easy
it is to throw two-thirds of the population of the three king-
doms into a paroxysm of Protestant indignation and fury.
A scrap out of an old chronicle, or an old theologian, or an
old ballad, is sufficient to bring half the rank and wealth of
a kingdom together to applaud the ravings of a maniac at
Exeter Hall ; is sufficient to move the tongues and pens of
learned bodies who had enjoyed their "fat slumbers" un-

20 Ireland and its Rulers : [Sept.

broken for a century. Accordingly, O'Connell has been
denounced a thousand times by the Tory and much of the
Whig press as a Jesuit, a concealed Titus Gates, laying his
plans for blowing up the Protestant, only to build a Catholic
ascendancy in its place, — a slave of Rome, as blind a follower
of the infallible Church (in their conception of it) as the
humblest devotee who tells his beads annually at Lough
Derg. The very author of the work before us admits (vol. i.
p. 10.8) that " the English Liberals did not understand a
man of democratic principles inveighing, in the style of a
Spanish friar, against the Liberals of France, whom he
abused with his accustomed scurrility." Again (p. 107),
*' His [O'Conneirs] attack upon the French Liberals, who
were then oppressed by the priest-ridden government of
Charles the Tenth, did him great injury through England ;
not so much for the attack itself as for the weapons he made
use of. The English Liberals could not see, without sur-
prise, O'Connell raising the old war-whoop of ' atheism and
infidelity' against men seeking for the political rights of
citizens," &c.* Yet O'Connell, knowing full well the con-
sequences of the open avowals of his thoroughly Catholic
feelings and principles, has never shrunk from publishing to
the world his detestation of the criminal and the crime ; his
repudiation of all sympathy and connexion with the men of
blasphemy and blood. He has never shrunk from publishing
to the world his love and veneration for the Church of the
rude altar, the plebeian priesthood, the beggar congregation
— not even before the learned and the wealthy and the great,
to whom her creed was as the foors gabble, and her name a
byeword of reproach, and her badge the mark of a dotard —
not even in that ancient hall which had not resounded with
such accents for more than a hundred and fifty years, and in
the presence of that assembly which, in times not long passed,

* It is hardly necessary to say that this sentence insinuates a gross slander.
O'Connell attacked the French Liberals not for seeking for political rights, but
for using, as a means for that purpose, the circulation of the most abominable
blasphemies against religion; for seeking to establish their political rights on
the foundation of Atheism, or Pantheism, or Deism. It is not their fault that
they have not been quite so successful as they wished. There are two classes
of these French Liberals, those who are for (at least the theory of) the present
government in opposition to the old regime, and those who are for a republic,
in opposition to both. The eloquent and learned and truly Catholic Count
Montalembert is the great ornament, perhaps we ought to say the centre, of a
new party, the foes alike of despotism and infidelity. Their numbers are yet
comparatively small. May God grant them to increase. Only such men can
place their country's freedom and glory on an imperishable basis.

1844.] O'ConnelVs Eloquence. 21

would have punished such bold words with degradation and
torture. Be is not the man to stand up in an assembly com-
posed of men of many creeds, and mix up the name of the
most exalted and most venerable of human beings, the vicar
of Jesus Christ, the successor of a hundred saints, the centre
of Catholic unity, the pastor, and father, and teacher, and
ruler, of all the Church of God in every clime, from the
rising to the setting sun — he is not the man to mix up such
a name, on such an occasion, with hypotheses at once
slanderous and absurd, to make it an object of defiance to
the scorner and the unbeliever. Worldly prudence indeed, the
fear of creating hostility without any apparent corresponding
advantage, the still more powerful fear of making himself an
object of laughter, or pity, or contempt, — these, added to the
conviction that he needed no such professions to make him
better known to his own people, might have dictated to him
more reserve, and cooled the ardour of his language, if not
of his heart. But little do mere politicians, or philosophers,
or sensualists, know how weak is the influence of such mo-
tives upon the soul, when once the full Catholic spirit has
seized it, and filled it, and warmed it, and concentrated
all its energies with a vigour divine, before which the mere
prudence of the flesh and interest and fear vanish, like chaff
consumed by a globe of fire.

There is no doubt that the fervent, uncompromising
Catholic tone of O'Connell has been an obstacle to the
triumph of his principles, in one way, and for the present.
There is no doubt that much fearful outcry would have been
prevented, much explanation rendered unnecessary, much
hard opposition softened down, had he assumed the language
of a few (to whom we have already in this article, as well
as on former occasions, alluded) whom his shadow as yet
darkens, and who love him not in their hearts and would
thwart him if they dared — of the few who, while they fear-
lessly advocate sound and popular opinions on politics, think
they are showing manliness and freedom of mind, by crouch-
ing, shuffling, compromising wherever there is question of
Catholic faith or discipline unconnected with certain political
mews; by imitating the mawkish liberalism of such' men
as Charles Butler, on one side, while they rival the tone
of the boldest champions of civil liberty, on the other.
We are not speaking at random — indeed we are not. Nor
have we made a single allusion in this page without abund-
ant evidence of its truth. Let it not be supposed, how-
ever that we are not willing to make every allowance for

22 Ireland and its Rulers : [Sept.

ignorance, for the influence of uncatholic education, un-
catholic publications, but, above all, for the influence of
fellowship with some whom to describe would be to name.
We do make allowance, and therefore — as well as for other
reasons — we deal as yet only in allusions. Neither let it be
supposed, from what we have said, that we are for religious
persecution, or bitter recrimination, or social dissensions.
We are, with all our hearts, for civil toleration, for peace, for
charity — charity not only in words and in works, but in the
soul. But we are not for calling vice, virtue. We are not
for that sort of charity which would unite right and wrong
under a common name. We are not for that sort of peace
which is purchased by the surrender of one iota of religious
truth — as if this were at our disposal, like our moneys, or our
houses, or our lands. These are our principles, which we
shall maintain, despite the sneers and the slanders and vitu-
peration of masked infidels and Catholics in name. These
are our principles, and, if we forget them, may our right
hand be forgotten.

But it is time to draw our argument to a close. It were
superfluous to add more, though very much more might
be added. We have established our proposition. If ever
man worked for the weal of his fellow men sincerely,
zealously ; not to be purchased, not to be conquered ;
the same through good report and evil report, the same
in the day of hope and in the day of peril ; nor cor-
rupted by flattery, nor embittered by slander, nor daunted
by threats, nor deceived by promises, nor disheartened by
defeat, nor made giddy by triumph ; nor too ardent in youth,
nor too cautious in old age ; the severe censor of the people''8
faults and the idol of their hearts, the author of revolutions
and the champion of the law, the friend of democracy and
the respecter of rank, the terror of rulers and the prop of
their authority, the trumpeter of agitation and the apostle of
peace, the presiding spirit of the storm and the restrainer of
its fury, the exciter and the chastener of a nation's passions,
the announcer of truths to the teachers of men, and the
silent listener in the porch of the temple and fervent wor-
shipper at its altar— if such a man ever existed in the world,
or could exist, that man is CConnell.

The author of Ireland and its Rulers, though he assigns to
O'Connell's intellectual endowments a very high place in the
order of mind in which he has classified them, seems to us to

1844.] O'ConneWs Eloquence. 23

have totally erred in the order itself to which they — at least
the hie^hest of them — belong. We have now so nearly
approached our limits that we dare not venture upon such a
topic, however tempting. We must, however, make room
for one or two remarks on the oratorial abilities of O'Connell,
which our author has sadly underrated, by putting them
below those of Curran and Erskine. Had the comparison
been made between O'Connell and Grattan, there might be
some fair grounds for diversity of opinion. But to place
him on a level, or nearly on a level, with Curran, betrays the
grossest prejudice or the grossest ignorance of the principles
consecrated by the example and the authority of the great
masters and teachers of the art of oratory.

If by an orator be meant what is commonly understood by
a " fine speaker" — and perhaps this is what our author does
mean — then Curran is to be ranked not only above O'Connell
but above Demosthenes himself. What strikes us as most
unaccountable is, that although Shell belongs (in essential
points) to the same school of oratory with Curran, yet not
only are his individual oratorial talents, but the class itself
to which they belong, spoken of in the most disparaging and
contemptuous terms. Indeed, there appears through all the
remarks on Sheil's character, as a man or a speaker, a base
and truculent spirit of personal malignity, which disgusted us
more than all the other faults of these volumes together.
Whatever may be thought of the oratorial merits of these
two eminent Irishmen, assuredly the man who admires the
eloquence of Curran shows the grossest inconsistency in de-
preciating the kind of eloquence in which Mr. Shell has
endeavoured to excel.

But to return to Mr. O'Connell. We have never had the
happiness of hearing any of his great displays, but we have
heard him on several ordinary occasions. Though we
fancied we saw the Hercules from the foot, yet to estimate
his real powers of elo(iuence from such specimens as we
happened to witness, would be about as unfair as to estimate
them from his after-dinner conversations, or as to judge of
the military genius of a great general from the skill he might
display at a game of chess. This is sufficiently manifest from
the nature of the case, and we have heard it confirmed by
several excellent judges, who heard him both on ordinary
and extraordinary occasions, and who assured us that we
could not form the least idea of his capabilities on the latter
from what we might have witnessed on the former. We

24 Ireland and its Rulers: [Sept

have, however, read over and over such of his greater
speeches as we could procure ample — we are not sure that
we can add authorized — reports of, such for instance as his
speeches in the case of jMagee, the proprietor of the Evening
Post, of Blackwood versus Blackwood, of Mr. Barrett, the
sensible and patriotic proprietor of the Pilct — his speech
in the debate on the Reform Bill, in the Dublin Corporation,
last year, &c. Now wo have no hesitation in stating our
deliberate opinion that he stands, and that the impartial
judgment of posterity will place him, in the very first rank
of modern orators — and if not the first, certainly among the
first, and with no superior, in that first rank. It is not
that he constructs periods of harmonious iam})ic8 and dac-
tyls, like the orators of old. It is not that his speeches are
ind)edded with sentiments of deep philosophy, like Burke''s ;
nor that they gleam, like Grattan's, one time with anti-
theses, another time with a crowd of striking thoughts,
coming one upon the other, "like a quick fall of stars;"
nor that, like Plunket's, the weight of the matter is only
surpassed by the chastened and manly beauty of the lan-
guage, in which nothing can be altered or taken away ; nor
that, like Brougham's (" ere he fell flat and shamed his
worshippers,"), they lift you up and bear you onward on a
stream of copious diction, gradually rising and expanding like
the sea. It is not that O'Connell surpasses, or even equals,
any of these or other great orators in the peculiar excellence
of each. The truth is that one of the qualities of his elo-
quence, which form its highest excellence, is, that putting
yourself in the place of a hearer (and this is the only way to
judge of the real merits of a spoken discourse) you see no one
peculiar, prominent excellence in it. There are in his
speeches hardly any brilliant passages, little isolated gems,
rounded and polished, perfect in themselves, and deriving
little or none of their beauty from their connexion with what
precedes or follows, or with the great object of the discourse.
In this respect his style of oratory approaches, nearer than
that of any other with which we are acquainted, to that of
Demosthenes, in some, and these among the best, of his
orations. We do not mean to say that there is a general
resemblance in other respects ; but in this the resemblance
does appear to us very striking. O'Conneirs first object, and
beside which every thing else is forgotten, is to gain his
point — not, however, to gain it by any means ; for if this con-
stituted the perfect orator, vile rant and thundering bombast

1844. 1 O'Conneirs Eloquence. 25

would often merit the name of genuine eloquence — but to
gain it by fitting thoughts and fitting words in their fitting
places. He fixes his eye first of all upon the goal, and he never
turns aside his gaze until he has reached it. He, indeed,
adjusts his dress, and braces his limbs, and measures the
distance, and chooses the path that is least slippery and least
obstructed ; but, having done so, he forgets all but the one
object before him. He runs with agility and gracefulness,
and the bystanders see his movements and admire them —
or would admire them, if their minds were not, like his own,
absorbed in the earnestness with which he presses forward
to victory. They do not say, " see how he moves, see how
skilfully he manages his strength, so as to use without exhaust-
ing it, see with what power he breaks thoroughly this impedi-
ment, with what art he passes over that ;" — these things they
do not speak or think of, though they behold them : they
are occupied with but one thought, — he is determined to win,
and he is able and he deserves to win. In the speeches of
others, more striking paragraphs, taken by themselves, will
be found, paragraphs which boys love to declaim and old men
love to remember. But a splendid paragraph is not a
splendid oration; nay, however beautiful by itself, it may
be, as a part of the discourse, a blemish, and always is a
blemish when it does not contribute to the effect of the
whole, and further the oratory's main design. Whatever di-
minishes the interest of the hearer in the chief business in
hand, or draws away his attention from it, may show to
greater advantage the speaker's power of language or fertility
of imagination, may even elicit extraordinary applause at the
moment, but is sure to lower his merits as an orator in the
proper sense of the term. There is in this respect a very
great difference between written and spoken eloquence,
arising from causes which (especially as we are not at pre-
sent entering into the depth of our subject, but only touch-
ing lightly some of its prominent points,) we need not stop
to explain. So great indeed is this difference, that some
have held that, ordinarily, a speech that reads well must,
therefore, have been a bad speech in the delivery. This is
an exaggeration, or rather a slight distortion of the truth.
What one is pleased with as a composition, and in the retire-
ment of the closet, would seldom, if ever, please so well, if
delivered as a speech — unless it were for the mere purpose
of declamation. But there is one rule, to which we have
already alluded, for testing, by the effect of private perusal,

26 Ireland and its Bulen : [Sept.

the effect of public deliver)', and this is for the reader to
imagine himself a listener, to represent to himself the time,
the place, the occasion, the assembly, and other circum-
stances in which the discourse was or is to be spoken. A
speech which interests, convinces, or persuades, those who
with such preparation commence the perusal of it, will not
fail {servatis servandis) to produce the same effects in a still
higher degree when pronounced upon the real occasion. It
is, we are convinced, from not attending to this very obvious
rule, that you will sometimes hear persons of respectable
classical acquirements and sufficiently correct taste, wonder-
ing what it is in Demosthenes that has placed him above all
orators of ancient times, and O'Connell, in the judgment of
so many (and certainly in our very humble but most decided
judgment) at least among the first of modern orators. Such
persons read Demosthenes as they would a chapter in Epio-
tetus, and O'Connell as they would an essay in the Spectator.
Their estimate of both is of course low ; for they form it like
a man who would take the snarling affectation of Junius as
a standard to judge of the sweet simplicity of Plato, or of
one who would pronounce upon the merits of a drama with-
out adverting to the plain principle that, to be a drama, it
must be so constructed as to represent a variety of human
characters with various feelings. The best orations, then,
as orations, are not those which read best as specimens of
mere composition, nor those which abound most in splendid
passages for recitation : their best parts are often those
which will lose by separation from the main body, as if you
were to chop off an exquisite nose, or a well turned limb from
the human frame. To borrow, with a slight change, the
language of a celebrated critic, the whole is beautiful, because
the beauty is in the whole ; the great merit of the parts is
that of fitness.

There is another characteristic of O'Connell's eloquence,
and which belongs less to the matter than to the style — or
rather belongs altogether to the style, taking that word in
its wide sense, as comprehending more than the mere choice
and number and arrangement of words and phrases, and the
structure of sentences. We allude to the extreme simplicity
of his language, his perpetual avoidance of all false orna-
ment, or of true, for mere ornament's sake. There is in
the whole of his speeches, even in his ordinary, every-day
harangues, which he throws off, like the breath in which
they are uttered, without effort, hardly a single example of

1844.] O'ConneWs Eloquence. 2?

tinsel, or puerility, and never an example of bombast. His
very jests and droll anecdotes, which, to our knowledge, have
sometimes made grave men in public assemblies fall back and
throw up their heels in extacies of delight, come in naturally
and artless. His repetitions — and no great orator since
Demosthenes indulged in repetitions so much — never tire.
Even in his longest and (apparently) least studied speeches,
and in which the same thought is again and again presented,
there is not a word too much in any sentence. This is
according to the sound principle of rhetoric — if the audience
are slow of apprehension or conviction, or if it be necessary
to press home a particular point, let the same idea be
brought forward again and again, in different forms, rather
than but once, and then encumbered with weight of words.
The purity of his taste displayed in the use of figurative
language is above all praise. In his great speeches you
never meet with a mixed or broken metaphor, or with a
metaphor merely ornamental, patched on for its own sake.
You rarely meet with what is called a bold metaphor, and,
when such does occur, it rises as if spontaneously from the
current of his thoughts. His figures and tropes are always
parts of his discourse, furthering its end, like his arguments,
and deriving their chief if not their whole beauty and force
from the circumstances in which they are used. They are
not, as in so many others, like flowers wreathed round him,
bedizening his person and embarrassing his movements ; they
are parts of the armour in which he is clothed, or of the
weapons which he wields. In the finest passages of his
finest orations — among the finest that ever, from the lips of
orator, swayed the judgment and the hearts of men, or made
corruption tremble on the judgment-seat — the words are
common words, their construction most unartificial, the
thoughts plain, and, lohen expressed^ seem so obvious and
natural, that the hearer for the moment imagines he himself
would utter the same, if put into the speaker"'s place. We
need only refer to one of the speeches we have already
named, that for Magee, for illustrations of all we have been
saying. One great cause — the primary one is the genius and
judgment of the man — of these characteristic qualities of
O'Connell's eloquence is, that he is always in downright
earnest. There never lived a public speaker, we firmly be-
lieve, by whom mere display has been more despised. To
him tropes and figures and magnificent words and picturesque
descriptions of themselves are as nothing. He is a perfect

1^8 Ireland and its Bulers: [Sept.

illustration of the well-known principle of Horace, " Cui
lecta potenter erit res," &c.

The author of Ireland and its Bulers is of opinion that
O'Connell is " totally deficient in poetic feeling." (vol. i. p.
180.) This is of course meant as censure, but it is, in reality,
the very highest praise. By poetic feeling our critic under-
stands (for Fergus O'Connor is the example) that species of
it which some one of the ancients called a drunken frenzy —
poetic feeling which begets wild abortions of fancy, like
fumes of intoxication, incongruous images, metaphors, whence,
or what, or wherefore, no one can tell, broken and mingled
and massed together, like bits of coloured glass in a kaleido-
scope. To the possession of this sort of poetic feeling
O'Oonnell assuredly has not the smallest claim, and as little

Eretensions can he have to the softer inspiration which ex-
austs itself in images of flowers, and blushes, and murmuring
streams, and such like materials of many a sweet song. He
has very little in common with the poetical Fergus, or with
the young lady who died the other day to the sound of an
^olian harp, or with any other of the ten thousand votaries
of flash, or rant, or bombast, or rigmarole, or slip-slop, or
namby-pamby. But that poetic feeling which grasps mighty
realities — that poetic feeling which springs pure and healthy
from the depths of a lofty and enlarged soul, and is nourished
by the contemplation of great truths and heroic virtues, and
by sympathy with real suffering for justice' sake — that poetic
feeling which the great and good of all times have been, more
or less, gifted with, as a power to help them in raising men's
minds from the little to the sublime, from the base to the
beautiful, in changing the hearts, in kindling the genius, in
creating the new and nobler character of present and after
generations — this poetic feeling O'Connell possesses, though
fools cannot appreciate it, and the blind cannot see it, and
the wicked hate it. His destiny is a high one, his mission is
among men ; his poetic feeling is of too lofty an order to be
lost among singing birds and butterflies and gems.

We have spoken of the extreme simplicity which charac-
terizes O'Connell's style of eloquence. It is quite common
for English and Scotch critics to lay down this character of
simplicity in any of our writers or speakers as an exception to
the general rule. The author of Ireland and its Bulers says
a great deal to the same purpose, conceived and expressed
in the vilest spirit and taste. Now we entirely dissent from
this judgment as most unjust. Nor are we in the smallest

1844. J G'ConneWs Eloquence. 29

decree influenced by that paltry and false patriotism which
seeks, without any regard to evidence, to adorn the national
character with every possible excellence, intellectual and
moral. We speak what we sincerely, and on good grounds,
believe to be truth, when we assert that simplicity of thought
and expression is decidedly the predominant character of the
national mind, and to such a degree that the examples to the
contrary are not worth reckoning. We shall be asked at
once, "What say you to the bombast, the 'six feef words,
the affectations, the mad metaphoi's, the stilted penury of
* * * and * * * and * * * and, &c. &c. ?" Wh)% we answer
at once that examples enough of this kind of style may be
found amongst us. But we say these are the exceptions —
specimens of vile taste such as would be found in every
country under the sun where writers and public speakers
might abound. But our critics will tell us, " These are the
specimens we see." Now, in the first place, we would reply,
you see but a very small minority. " What then, have you
others whom we never see or hear of — a host of active genius
hidden among yourselves ?" We answer, yes : and we ask,
have you ever been present, in different parts of the kingdom,
at the instructions of the Catholic clergy to the people on
Sundays. No, perhaps not one among you ever heard a
single discourse of the kind. Now, if the idea you have
formed of the national taste be correct, most of these in-
structions should confirm it : for surely it is among the
clergy, who are taken from the nation, it is upon the occa-
sions we are speaking of, that the characteristic faults and
excellencies of the national taste and genius would appear.
And yet — we are sure all our Irish Catholic readers (saving
the Cockneys and the critic-quacks) will agree with us that
the discourses of the clergy to the people, especially in rural
districts, are the very patterns of simplicity. We are not
confounding simplicity with rudeness — though even in the
latter the former will be seen — still less with coarseness,
which is very distinct from either. Again, at parochial meet-
ings— repeal meetings for instance — the same simple style
will be found among the bulk of the speakers : in truth it is
only such style that tells with the people. But, in the
second place, is it true that, among the specimens which do
appear, this affectation, this imagination run mad, so much
prevail I They prevail to a far less extent than dulness and
mystification prevail among your own writers and speakers.
You take up Charles Phillips and Maturin, and * * * and

30 Ireland and its Riders: [Sept.

* * *, and you select their fineries and the drunken frenzies,
and you call those specimens of Irish eloquence ; as if such
men were not only our great men, but our only great men ;
as if their "beauties" were anything more than the very
dregs of Irish genius which your own criticisms or some
transient popular excitement sent up to the surface for a mo-
ment. "But such men are objects of admiration among you."
They may have been (or may be) admired for a little time by a
small coterie of puffers, or by others for other qualities than
their style of writing. Who admired Satan Montgomery
through half a dozen editions ? How many English reviews

" Made immortal and divine of him,
Before the world had read a line of him,"

until the *'blue and yellow pestilence" overtook him at last
and carried him off? In what field did Fergus — the poetical
Fergus — win his most splendid triumphs of eloquence ? We
might quote instances without end. But why judge of the
national taste by half a dozen bad specimens, and leave alto-
gether out of view so many eminently good ones, and many
of them so eminent I What say you of O'Connell, of Gold-
smith, Berkley, Leland, Plunket, Canning, Grattan, Flood,
Dr. Doyle, and hundreds of others whom we might name.
Or, to come to more recent times, what say you of the
speeches delivered at the so-called trial of the Irish patriots ?
What say you of the speeches delivered during the three
days'" discussion in the Dublin Corporation last year ? We
are not drawing up a catalogue : we are merely referring to
a few specimens that just now occur to us. We wish, how-
ever, that a list were made out by some one better qualified
for such a work than we are, of all the Irish men and women
who, for the last hundred years, have attained eminence in
oratory, poetry, and the different departments of the belles
lettres, and we have no doubt that the very simplicity, the
want of which has been assumed as a blemish in the style of
our writers and speakers, would be found to be its predomi-
nant and pervading charm.*

* We shall take leave to make a suggestion here which we forgot (though
we had intended) to make in its proper place. We would earnestly press
upon Mr. John O'Connell the importance of publishing, in an authentic form,
the whole of his illustrious father's principal speeches, — his orations in popular
assemblies, at the bar and in the senatfi. It would be mere waste of time for
us to point out the value of such a publication to all Irishmen, to the student of
oratory and of Irish history, to the admirers of genius and wisdom and pa-
triotism in every quarter of the globe. We have expressed our wishes, from

1844.] O'ConnelVs Eloquence. 31

It must be admitted, however, that many vain and shallow
young men among us, who have read the indexes of a few
books and the title-pages of a few more, to whom nature has
vouchsafed a florid imagination, an exhaustless fund of im-
pudence, very small abilities and less common sense, have
contributed in some degree to give a colour of truth to the
very absurd notion we have been commenting upon. They
will elbow their way into notoriety at all risks. They know
nothing well, and they will dogmatize upon every thing.
They will pronounce upon the characters of men whose
names they hardly know, upon the merits of books whose
titles they can hardly spell. They are lay doctors in divinity,
and canon law, and civil law, and philosophy, and medicine,
all at once, and they are quacks in every thing. There is a
great deal more of this elsewhere than among us. But that
others do wTong is no excuse for our imitating them. These
persons imagine, in the first place, that they are gifted with
imagination, and, in the next place, that exuberance of
imagination is a mark of genius, at least in the young. — A
dangerous principle, this latter, to get into the minds of
youth, even if true ; but we believe, though often repeated
and sanctioned by some high names (Quintilian's, if we re-
member well, among the rest) a principle, at least in its
common acceptation, the reverse of true. We might quote
many celebrated names in point. We need only mention
two of our own countrymen, Burke and O'Connell. The
early productions of both were sim-ple and severely chaste as
to style, much more so than their later, certainly much more
so in the case of Burke : the chief merit as to matter con-
sisting in the sensible and argumentative manner of handling
the subject treated of. The truth is, though a clever boy at
ten will utter many silly things, a babbler at twenty-five will,
a thousand chances to one, remain a babbler all his life.
In boys of this age an over florid fancy is a decided mark of
weakness rather than of strength of mind, of barrenness rather

time to time, on this matter to several persons, all of whom felt strongly as
■wre do the want of such a work, and agreed with us in thinking that Mr. John
O'Connell is the very man to undertake it. To say nothing of his obvi6us and
peculiar qualifications in other respects, the common sense and discretion for
which (as we had occasion to observe in a former number) he is remarkable, fit
him in an eminent degree for an undertaking which, to be well executed, re-
quires far more judgment and tact than would at first sight be supposed. Nor
do we think our excellent and amiable friend (for such we are happy to have
the honour of calling him) could produce a nobler monument of " the days of
his captivity."

32 Ireland and its IluUrs : [Sept.

than of richness. The flowers fade according as the fruit
ripens. " When I cannot talk sense," said Curran, " I talk
metaphor." If the class of persons to whom we allude were
capable of receiving advice, we would give them one. We
would propose for their imitation the extraordinary man of
whom we have been writing. See the dizzy eminence to
which he has risen in three of the highest departments to
which human genius can hope to aspire — statesmanship,
eloquence, legal knowledge. And how has he risen ? To
pass over the moral means, — by incessant toil ; by cultivating
the higher powers of the mind ; by regarding mere ornament
and show as nothing in comparison of accuracy, solidity,
strength ; by storing up fruits rather than leaves ; by the
study of things rather than of words ; by grasping not at the
inaccessible, but building his way up to it slowly, surely,
until it came within his reach ; by the union of many intel-
lectual powers, but —

" "Where sense o'er all holds mastery."

Here we must stop. We have two remarks "deprecatory**
to make : 1st. In what we have written on O'Connell's elo-
quence we wish again to signify to our readers that we in-
tentionally aimed at condensing, and still more at curtailing.
If our suggestion to Mr. John O'Connell should be taken
up by him — and we are sure that he will receive it in the
same spirit in which it has been offered — we shall then have
an opportunity of entering fully and unrestrictedly upon a
subject so interesting to ourselves, and not less so, we are
convinced, to all our readers — and we promise to do so as far
as our small abilities and knowledge will enable us : 2nd. We
intended, at setting out, to devote six or seven pages, at the
close of our article, to a great variety of topics which the
author of Ireland and its Rulers has touched or dilated upon.
We meant merely to give a sentence or short paragraph to
each, chiefly with a view to exposing certain mischievous
sophisms, and misstatements, and absurdities. The only
apology wo have to offer for leaving this part of our task
even unattempted, is the length to which our article has
already extended. We have yet room, however, for stringing
together a few short sentences from these volumes, and most
of which will, we trust, require neither note nor comment
from us.

Mixed Marriages. "Friendly alliances should be promoted
between persons of opposite religions. From the spirit of mere

1844.] CfConnell and the People. 33

bigotry, mixed marriages are condemned in Ireland. All efforts
should be had recourse to, for bridging over the chasm which keeps
the two Irish nations asunder." — vol. i. p. 7.

O'Connell's eably Principles. " Young O'Connell was not
seduced by the Revolution of France, which he regarded as a
blasphemous eruption in the face of God. He left France a little
after the cruel and needless execution of Louis XVI. He
crossed the channel on his return homeward with a young Cork-
man, who was a zealous propagandist of levelling principles, and
who enthusiastically dilated on the glories of French freedom.
O'Connell had, from the first, little sympathy with his fellow-
traveller, who was so violent in the cause of the rights of man, but he
did not feel thoroughly disgusted, until his companion (who had many
noble, gallant, and amiable traits of character), taking a bloody
handkerchief from his pocket, exultingly boasted that he had
dipped it in the blood of the French king. In five years afterwards
the young enthusiast was himself executed for his principles. He
was John, the youngest of the unfortunate brothers Sheares." — ^i. 15.

Portraiture of Catholicism. "The Catholic Church depends
more on the use of forms than any other religion whatever. It is
a vast work of art, achieved by the most gifted Italian minds of

several centuries Its leading principle is, that men can

never be trusted to themselves — that in religious affairs they must
always be hoodwinked, and kept in leading strings .... it disre-
gards the thirst for knowledge, so natural to the human mind — and
the honest and innate aspirations of the soul, on which it sets little
value .... like Calvinism, it succeeds in creating disgust amongst
many purely religious minds."!!! — i. 29.

Spanish Jesuits "A falsehood too black for any ma-
lignity save that of Spanish Jesuits to invent." — i. 32.

O'Connell's Catholicism. " He has essentially one of those
minds that would in any age follow whatever faith — Mahommedan
or Gentoo^Greek or Roman — Catholic, Lutheran, or Presbyte-
rian— it chanced to have been reared in." — i. 33.

Irish feeling regarding Murder. " It is lamentable to
observe how, from its habitual character, the crime of murder does
not excite in Ireland the same horror as in other parts of Europe,"
&c.— i. 5Q.

O'Connell a Demagogue rather than Statesman. "It
must be said that O'Connell was more formidable than sublime ;
more energetic than grand ; moi-e overbearing in manner than suc-
cessful in object ; and that he exhibited on the largest scale rather
the strenuous talents of an unrivalled demagogue, than manifested
the commanding powers of a creative statesman." — ii. 155.
VOL. xvn. — NO. XXXIII. 3

34 Danish LUeratitre — [Sept.

We wish we had space for a few comments, embracing a
few "formidable" and "energetic" facts, upon this last
sentence.

We had marked thirty or forty passages more for extracts,
a few of them interesting, and one or two with the sentiments
of which (as with those of the second extract above) we
entirely and heartily concur. But we have not room.

Art. II. — Adam CEhlmscUdger's WerJce : zum zweiten Male
gesammelt, vermehrt und verbessert. Breslau, 1839. The
works of Adam CEhlenschldger. A second edition, enlarged
and improved. Breslau, 1839.

THERE is a class of critics that considers the biographies
of poets and other literary men as generally unsatis-
factory and disheartening. They think the splendour of their
works overcasts the events of their worldly existence. Dazzled
by the radiance of their stately and engrossing creations, they
have no eye for the actual life of the producer ; deficient in
faith in the greatness of genius, they dread a scrutiny into
the deeds of the man, lest the charm should be broken, the
brightness of the character wrought by their fancy should be
tarnished by the weaknesses and imperfections arising from
the poverty, temptation, trial, or neglect, that so often marks
the lot of gifted men.

We are not of this opinion. The lives of these benefactors
of their kind are to us of commanding interest. The chronicle
of the meanest is a gospel of humanity. WTien recording
even the errors and vices of the subject, it deters from evil,
exhorts to good, and warns against weakness ; when depicting
his trials and temptations, admonishes us of the similarity of
our lot; when shewing his struggles against the untoward
circumstances that beset them, appeals to our fortitude and
manly energy ; when narrating his sorrows, awakens sym-

Eathy in our hearts and religion in our souls ; when detailing
is triumphs, makes our bosoms beat with joy at the strength
and faith of our kind. Each is a type of all our brethren.
The least distinguished symbolises the whole race with his
golden age of innocence and peace, his youth of hope and
love, his fall into the knowledge of evil, his wanderings in the

1844.] CEhlenschldger^s Autobiographi/. 35

wilderness, his promised land, his home, and protecting Provi-
dence, redemption, death, and life beyond the grave.

" Mortal, howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.
He saw whatever thou hast seen ;
Encountered aU that troubles thee ;
He was — whatever thou hast been.
He is — what thou shalt be."

It should be the aim of every investigator to avoid the cold
and unsubstantial region of abstractions in such matters, and
come down into that of breathing and actual humanity ; to set
up his tabernacle among flesh and blood, in the atmosphere of
life and character; and even from the errors and wrongfulness
of his fellow-men to gather lessons of wisdom, light, and
hope; as the bee, by its cunning alchemy, extracts honey from
the chalice of the noxious flower, the dirt of the trampled
highway, or the clustered soot of the city-chimney.

But the disparaging apprehensions of this class of thinkers
have, in general, but insufficient foundation. Genius has in
most cases been true to its divine vocation, — ^lias maintained an
unblemished scutcheon ; and while we have been justified in
our admiration of the productions, we have been enabled to
love and honour the producer. The instances of moral dis-
sonance have been exceptions of unfrequent occurrence, and,
in almost all cases, traceable to some hereditary disease, some
fatal combination of circumstances, the result of social evils,
or of a momentum given by some influence originally inde-
pendent of the personal control of the exhibitor.

And how often have the loftiness and worth of men of
genius, and the creations of their immortal works, which raise,
and cheer, and guide mankind, been achieved in despite of
the world's hard dealing, its coldness and contumely, its
defamation and niggardliness ! The clever practical man has
sneered at them ; the sordid has been apathetic ; the timid has
held aloof from them. Oh ! the free and brave hearts, that in
strength of soul have risen above all this ; that in poverty,
solitude, neglect, and scorn, have been true to their ingtinct
and noble calling, and moulded into forms, beautiful and
enduring, the visions and high thoughts that came to them in
their hours of trial ! Looking at what they have done, and
under what circumstances it has been accomplished, it is
more natural we should desire to know whatever of the per-
sonal character and actions of these men is extant, and expect

36 Danish Literature — [Sept

to find, as we so often do, a noble approximation to the ideal
which our study of their works had begotten.

Strong in our conviction of the instruction and gratifica-
tion to be derived from the biographies of literary men, we
are about to introduce the life of one, certainly not amongst
the most tried or most suffering, but who, in deiipite of humble
birth and adverse circumstances, has by his productions raised
himself to a station of dignity and renown, shed a lasting
glory on his native land, and enlarged the sphere of the
beautiful, which he has peopled with new forms of the stately,
the lovely, the heroic, and the great.

By such considerations as these we have been led to our
present subject, which may at first sight seem unattractive to
the general reader. But little is known in these countries of
Danish literature, and that little through the medium of Ger-
man. It is a subject, however, which is becoming more in-
teresting every day, and we hope to find an early occasion of
entering into it in detail. For the present we shall content
ourselves wi€h offering, as an introduction, some account of
one of the most remarkable of the poets of Denmark, derived
chiefly from a memoir written by himself, and displaying, on
a small scale, most of the peculiarities by which his writings
are distinguished. His Autobiography is to us especially in-
teresting, as it brings out more strongly than almost any of
his other works the decidedly Catholic tendencies which, in
common with Schlegel, Novalis, Tieck, and the rest of the
modern German school, he has continued to cherish from his
earliest years.

The fame of " CEhlenschlager the Dane" many years since
reached our shores, and as the author of Hakon Jarl, Aladdin,
and Correggio, not only in his own country, but here and in
Germany, he has taken his place as a man of genius and an
undisputed classic. Two-and -thirty years since, by the en-
couragement of Goethe, Tieck, Jean Paul, and some other
distinguished men, he aspired to enrol himself among Ger-
man poets, although prior to his twenty-fourth year he had
not written a line of the language. His works, originally
composed in Danish, have been reproduced by him in German,
and a second edition in twenty-one volumes, containing his
dramas, novels, and minor poems, has been issued in Prussia,
which is significant enough of their merits and importance in
that thoughtful land. Prefatory to them, he has given us a
selhst hiographie, a sketch of his own life, from which we have
drawn the incidents which form the staple of the present
article.

1844.] (Ehlenschldger's Autobiography. 37

It consists of a circumstantial and picturesque detail of the
leading events prior to his thirtieth year, when he married.
** Comedies and romances," he says, " usually terminate with
the marriage of the hero, and most biographies should also.
The strange and eventful, the period of psychological de-
velopment which makes a narrative entertaining, then chiefly
ceases, and it is the contest and onward striving, not station
and attainment, that most interest in the communication."
The occurrences after this period he relates very briefly,
bringing the statement down to 1839, and the fifty-eighth
year of his life. The canvas does not present the breadth and
richness of Goethe's " Poetry and truth," nor the mixture of
exuberant humour, grace, and pathos of Jean Paul's frag-
ment, " Truth from my life," — that captivating sketch, so
redolent of the spirit of Teniers, Raphael, and Correggio ; nor
the minute and unseemly confessions of Rousseau ; but it is a
production of considerable interest and attraction, manifesting
the quiet, manly, genial character of the artist, and an utter
absence of all affectation, that is quite charming. It is im-
possible to doubt the thorough honesty and heartiness of the
man. From its comparative brevity, it is frequently more
suggestive |than graphic, presents more for the imagination
to colour and fill up than the eye to comprehend; but the
whole forms an engaging picture, reflecting the culture and
illumination of the nineteenth century, and the simplicity,
frankness, steadfastness, and homely virtue, of the old Norse
character.

Adam CEhlenschlager was born the 14th of November,
1779, in a suburb of Copenhagen, near the royal palace of
Friederickberg. He derived no distinction from birth, in
which he has resembled so many men of distinguished name
and powers. The race of seers and intellectual benefactors of
mankind is rarely traceable to lofty ancestral origin. Although
" of earth's best blood, of titles manifold," they seldom spring
from duke or count, successful conqueror, or tyrannical
wrong-doer. Their genealogical tree is not found to have
its root in some olden palace or mountain-citadel, nor to have
spread its branches over wide principalities, renowned for
sovereignty or worldly greatness ; but their race,

" Like violet in greenwood bowers
Is lost amidst its brother flowers,"

by the dusty way-sides of life, humble as the commonest
weed that is trampled by the clouted shoe of the peasant.

38 Danish Literature — [Sept.

neighboured by the resting lark, and lighted only by the sun
and the million orbs of the overcanopying heavens. But as
if to shew more noticeably the spiritual greatness and in-
defeasible nobility of genius, for which Heaven has granted
the patent, and which these great souls have ennobled and
ratified with ever-quickening deeds and deathless songs, — they
have usually been of lowly extraction. The name of their
progenitors has scarcely been discoverable for three genera-
tions, and all further links lost amidst the great mass of the
people, whose lot it has been to carry on the tendency of the
world's advancement from the earliest ages, tilling their
native soil, peopling their ancient villages with a robust and
patient race, practising the rude rites of some vanished form
of religion, which had for them its sustaining power of faith
and immortality, or shedding with free and undaunted hearts
their ignoble blood in defence of their forest dwellings against
the Roman invaders, or some other desolating aggressor.

His father was from Holstein, where his predecessors had
been for some time organists and schoolmasters. Coming to
Copenhagen in his twentieth year, an accomplished performer
on the harpsichord, and with excellent testimonials as an in-
structor of youth, he had been taken into the service of Count
Moltke as teacher of the young countess, his daughter. By
his patron's influence, he also attained the post of organist at
Friederickberg, and subsequently of intendant of the royal
palace. For several years, he had a hard struggle with a
scanty income and increasing family ; but, attaining after-
wards a higher station in the kingly household, of good emolu-
ment, he was placed in happier circumstances, and enabled
(as the son takes delight in recording) to confer many benefits
on the needy and deserving, in which his generous spirit re-
joiced. His mother was of earnest, pious, and reflective
character, — a Dane, but of German origin ; and he takes
delight in thus belonging by blood to both nations, as he did
subsequently by his intellectual productions. " She pos-
sessed," he says, "a strong understanding and great sensi-
bility, that at times tended to a morbid enthusiasm, and
though of serious mood, was good-tempered withal. In later
years, as her health declined, she sought consolation in re-
ligion, and devoted much time to the perusal of sermons and
sprlrltual songs whenever she was prevented from attending
church. She zealously endeavoured to bring her children
under the influence of her religious feelings." From their
infancy, she fostered and nurtured them with the most assidu-

1844.] (Ehlenschldger's Autobiography. 99

ous and motherly care. Two precious gifts of a gracious
Providence, of priceless value to a human home, — a pious and
loving mother, and a father whose early indigence and priva-
tions had not destroyed his native generosity of character, and
sympathy for the wants and afflictions of others.

He was sent to school, at a tender age, to an ancient and
crabbed dame, where he suffered much with his companions
from the severity of her treatment. They were compelled to
sit for hours motionless on their forms, until they envied the
very poultry that ranged about the yard freely in sight of the
school-room, and cackled and quacked at their pleasure. His
only consolation here was Huber"'s Bible History, from which,
after the lessons were concluded, they had permission to read
aloud. From this work, he became early acquainted with
the lives of Moses, Joseph, David, and Solomon, and that
history of sorrow, that awfid epic, the sufferings and death of
the Saviour, which awakened the deepest anguish in his
youthful breast, while the events of the chUdhood of Jesus
delighted him as the loveliest of idylls. He accompanied his
father every Sunday to the organ-loft, and as he possessed a
good voice, was made precentor of the choir. Here, with the
earnest and pious enthusiasm of youth, he assisted in the
psalmody, and listened with deep attention to the evangelical
lessons of the day.

He was soon removed to another school, kept by the
sacristan, but governed by his deputy, a corpulent man of
indolent character, who walked to and fro in the school -room
in his morning gown, smoking his pipe, whUe the boys were
left to their own control. Punishments were not spared, but,
as substitutes for instruction and judicious government, they
effected little for the intellectual improvement of the scholars.
But under all these repressing circumstances, the innate pro-
pensity of the boy broke forth. In his ninth year he penned
his first poetical composition, a psalm, which the master dis-
covered. Its spirit and treatment were not objected to, but
the worthy critic denounced the metre as faulty. The young
author demurred stoutly, produced a song-book as arbiter,
and gained his first triumph by wringing from the defeated
didasculus an admission of the correctness of the prosody.

If the formal scholastic education he was receiving was
barren and defective, there were other humanising and elevat-
ing influences in operation upon him, which were doubtlessly
silently moulding the eager and apprehensive spirit of the
boy. Nature was at hand with her inexhaustible beauty and

40 Danish Literature — [Sept.

impressive ministrations, teaching the moral relation of all
things to man, and prophesying, in all her pomp and richness,
of the eternal and divine as the foundation and end of being ;
and, in all her gorgeous variety, proclaiming an absolute unity,
the Supreme and Ineffable One, which religion reveals to
us as God and Creator, and the heart of man in all ages
denominates in its language as Father. And society with
its classes, civilization, arts, and protection, ever moving on
in its march from the savage to the sublime, — expressive of
law and order, foresight and justice, harmony and peac«.
His hours of recreation were spent in and about the royal
palace, where his father resided. On one side was a park in
the English style, on the other a garden in the stiff and
architectural taste of Louis XIV, with its clipped hedges,
fountains, and pyramids. These placed before his eyes, on
an extended scale, for daily observation and comparison,
English nature and French artificiality, added to which was
the imposing beauty of the Italian Palazzo, with its stately
apartments and rich collection of mimetic life and beauty, —
its paintings, arabesques, and sculptures. The modes of
life were as varied as the seasons. In summer, the court
assembled here, and the scene was thronged with official dig-
nitaries, gay cavaliers, and lovely and elegant women. The
children caught frequent glimpses of the royal family at table,
and heard the sweet melodies that enlivened their meals, or
gazed upon the crowd of guards and citizens that perambulated
the gardens, listening to the wild Turkish music of the mili-
tary bands. The park was kept private for the household ;
and, at certain times, he and his sister would delight them-
selves and their youthful acquaintances with rambles through
its quiet and solitary walks, rapt in wonder and delight at its
scenic displays. Here were low Norwegian houses amidst
forest-like groves of pine and oak, in whose branches the
winds would repeat their melodies brought from seas and
distant mountains, songs of the Maelstrom and wild Lapland
heights, — hermits' cells, grottoes sparkling with crystals,
spars, and metallic petrifactions, beautiful as a fairy's dwel-
ling,— Chinese pagodas, decorated within with coloured por-
traits of mandarins and small-eyed ladies, in singular and
flowing attire, while above were suspended numerous bells
round the roof, from which every breeze in its agitation rung
out sweet and fantastic music.

All this was changed in the autumn, when the royal family
returned to the capital. The music and gay promenaders

1844.] CEhlenschldger's Autobiography. 41

departed, and a new scene was opened to the young and In-
quisitive observer. The palace and grounds were filled with
labourers and artizans; and he mixed with masons, carpenters,
painters, upholsterers, and gardeners, noticing their craft and
dexterity, and enjoying their hearty jocularity and rough
gibes. In the winter, the family had the stately palace to
themselves, with two sentinels and two huge dogs, as guards.
Tlien the children roamed through every chamber; gazed
undisturbed on the paintings; stretched themselves under
royal canopies; and, with the lifeless materials without, and
the magical power of a plastic fancy within, framed for them-
selves engrossing combinations of things — wild, wondrous, and
bewitching.

At other times, the young CEhlenschlager fetched books
from \hQ neighbouring town, " in a large bundle, swung on a
little stick over his shoulder ;"" and then they were indifferent
to the storm without, or rain, or snow. The father sat down
by the stove in his morning- gown, the little house-dog lying
near him, and read aloud to the children and mother seated
around : or the young lad, reading by himself in a low tone,
followed Robinson Crusoe in his solitary island, revelled with
Aladdin in the land of faery, or laughed at the fooleries of
Siegfried of Lindenbergh. The comedies of his countryman
Holberg, he says, he knew by heart already.

In passing the court-yard one day, he was bitten by one
of the huge dogs kept there. His mother first washed the
part most carefully, then hastened to the sentinel and re-
quested him to shoot the animal forthwith. " Madam, I dare
not," was the reply ; " it belongs to the king, is a great rarity,
and the gift of some distinguished foreigner." " Shoot him
instantly," rejoined the mother ; " although nothing ails him
now, he may become mad. He has bitten my boy, and I
must take every precaution for his safety. A child is more
precious to a mother than any royal hound. I will bear all
the blame." The creature was instantly destroyed, and the
needless act went unreproved, although the apprehension and
carefulness of the mother were the results of the grossest
prejudice.

Another event that he describes, as breaking in upon the
monotonous winter life, was the entrance of the Crown prince
and his bride, in 1790, with its gaiety and illuminations for three
nights, and triumphal arches in many of the streets. The boy
was astounded at the beautiful devices, transparencies, and
gem-like constellations around him; and believed that the

42 Danish Literature — [Sept.

romantic world of the Arabian tales, with its train of wonders
and strange delights, was realized before him. The very snow
in the streets, which, under the variegated masses of light,
wore a bright yellow hue, he supposed to be a golden sand,
strewed over the roads as decoration for the occasion.

He intimates that the days of his childhood did not traverse
a pathway of roses, as his parents were poor, and they had to
encounter many troubles and privations, that tried the cheer-
ful firmness of the one, and the earnest piety of the other.
But it is to be hoped that these had a beneficial result ; for
heaven does not send these trials in vain. The waters of
afl[liction may be presented in the cup of life — repulsive to the
eye and bitter to the taste; but to the patient, the thoughtful,
and the pious, they sparkle with vigour and hope, and have
the freshness of the waters of immortal life.

Under the pressure of this poverty, the education of the
young CEhlenschlager seems to have been much neglected,
as it does not appear that he remained long with the sacristan.
He had completed his twelfth year, and learned nothing ; but
he had read three hundred volumes from the circulating library,
and had unconsciously acquired considerable knowledge and
command of his native language. In one of his rambles, he
became acquainted with a Norwegian poet named Storm, of
clear head and warm heart, the director of a school in Copen-
hagen, who offered to instruct the lad gratuitously, if the
parents would pay for his board during the winter months.
This was accepted, and he stepped into a new sphere, where
he applied himself with great diligence and profit to his
studies. While here, the constructive faculty more fully
exhibited itself. He wrote several comedies, which were per-
formed by himself, his sister, and a few youthful friends, in
the royal dining-room of the palace. At one of these his
good friend Storm was a spectator. " My dear ffihlenschla-
ger," said he, " you are a greater poet than Moli^re. It was
thought extraordinary that he should complete and bring out
a play in eight days, but you do it all in one. Think not,
however, that you are a genius because you make verses with
facility. You may become a good scholar, a respectable man
of business, but you will never be an Edward Storm." This
criticism, it may be supposed, gave little satisfaction to the
young playwright ; what is of more consequence, it does not
appear to have acted as any discouragement.

He took private lessons in Latin, which formed no part of
the regular instruction of the school. He had from his earliest

1844.] (EhlenscMdger's AutohiograpTiy. 43

childhood great delight in teaching others, and during his
visits to his parents at the palace, he gave instructions to his
sister in all that he had himself acquired in his absence.
Whenever he was in the church, and thought himself alone,
he mounted the pulpit, and preached aloud. On one occasion
he was overheard by the clergyman, who was so much struck
by the power and eloquence displayed in the address, that he
strongly recommended his father to let him study theology.
In school he ranked amongst the foremost scholars ; in later
years, he was always dux. He was also equally prominent
in the playground, being generally the leader in all the games.
He had, however, much to undergo here; in early years,
being placed in the junior classes, from his backwardness in
knowledge, and afterwards, from a trouble that may be classed
with Jean Paul's "apparel martyrdom." His needy father
could not afford proper clothing for him, but bought the cast-
off habiliments from the master of the royal wardrobe. The
young Adam, therefore, exhibited a singular and ludicrous
style in his daily costume, walking about in the scarlet coat
of the Crown prince, and the stiff boots of the king, while his
breeches were constructed from the cashiered cloth of a palace
billiard table. In this strange garb, with his long black hair
hanging on his shoulders, he attracted the ridicule of his
richer and more elegant school-fellows. The kind-hearted
and gentle boy first deprecated this treatment with good
words, and often with tears, but ineffectually. Feeling that
what the tender heart cannot effect the strong hand must ac-
complish, he turned with determined courage upon his perse-
cutors, bravely fought out his deliverance, and secured peace
for ever.

While here, his kind friend Storm fell dangerously ill, and
died at one of the hospitals of the city. He was beloved by
all his pupils ; and, in the fulness of their sorrow, when the
sad intelligence was communicated to them, the mathematical
master insisted upon their continuance of the lessons, and
began to describe on his board his lines and circles. The
rector of the school, however, felt that their sincere and
youthful grief, so honourable both to the scholars and the
teacher, was deserving of more respect, and gave them- per-
mission to visit the remains of their friend. They met the
bearers with the bier conveying the body, which the boys
accompanied to the late residence of the departed. When
deposited there, and the honoured countenance of their friend
was uncovered, they wept over it long, and CEhlenschlager,

44 Danish Literature — [Sept.

pressing the cold hand of his loved master, silently blessed
him for all the kindnesses and benefits which he had received
at his hands.

He continued the pursuit of his studies at this institution,
acquiring rewards and general estimation, until he attained
his sixteenth year. He found time, with all his application,
to write weekly literary journals for his comrades, and to take
part with them in private dramatic performances. They once
represented, before the family of a celebrated actor — Schwartz
and his friends — the Slave in Tunis, in which the character
of the Slave was sustained by CEhlenschlager, who so vividly
depicted the distress of the captive, severed from home and
his relatives, as to draw tears from the eyes of the ladies, and
call forth the warmest applause of Schwartz. His young
co-actors, feeling jealous of his success, or in the irrepressible
frolicsomeness of youth,

" Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can,"

made grimaces, and mocked at him from behind the scenes.
This but increased his emotion, and caused him to throw
more passion into his representation of the character. Schwartz
repeated his praises at the termination of the piece, which, it
is highly probable, had considerable influence on some of his
future proceedings, as may be surmised from the sequel.

The prejudice in Denmark against the stage, as a profes-
sion, was not so great as in Germany and other countries.
As the only and national establishment, it was shielded from
the character of vagabondism, so freely aflfixed to it else-
where. Regulated by royal ordinance, and directed by
officers appointed by the crown, a certain dignity was con-
ferred on it, and order and decorum preserved among its
members. It presented powerful attractions to a youth like
CEhlenschlager, of ardent poetical temperament and aesthetical
cultivation, but who had not enjoyed sufficient opportunities
of acquiring the more weighty and dignifying accomplishments
of the scholar.

To this profession he now determined to devote himself,
not, as he says, from any sensual captivation cast over him by
the fascinations of the actresses, nor from any particular love
for histrionic art, but from the strong bias of a poetical nature
urging him upon the novel and adventurous — a desire to place
himself in a new arena of human character, and to make himself
intimately acquainted with so powerful an organ of dramatic

1844.] (EhUnschldger^s Autobiography. 45

poesy, as the musician must know the differences and capabi-
lities of orchestral instruments prior to the construction of an
opera, or any other grand harmonic composition. From his
intellectual and imaginative cast, he would be disposed to
contemplate the drama in its ideal, rather than in its empi-
rical, phasis, and would not fail to draw conclusions in favour
of its pretensions to worth and utility as a great and effective
means of operating on human nature, and evoking and foster-
ing into a rich fulness all the noble capacities of social and
national character. He would see, that, under the pressure
of daily necessities, the understanding was receiving an undue
development, that society was made up of selfish units, who,
in their sordid narrowness of sphere, lost sight of the all, the
whole, " seeing in the universe but the house they dwelt in,
and in the history of eternity but their own little town." He
would respect it for its power of recalling men to the observa-
tion of the universal, of educating the feelings and the imagi-
nation, quickening the sense of individual greatness, revealing
the mysteries of human nature, "so fearfully and wonderfully
made," and casting light into the deep abyss of man'^s heart
— that strange and wild labyrinth where powers and passions,
strength and weakness, self-sacrifice and self-love, evil and
good, lie couched side by side, like Satan in the neighbour-
hood of Eve in the golden bowers of Paradise.

His father gave his approval, and on application to the
royal chamberlain, who had known and noticed him about
the palace, he was kindly received, placed under the direction
of a distinguished actor, named Rosing, a man of education
and accomplishments, and had masters in fencing, dancing, and
singing, appointed to instruct him.

"My old fencing-master, Ems," he says, "was a big, good-
hearted, rattling fellow, — a Prussian of the days of Frederick the
Great, that knew his business well. I was delighted to learn the
use of arms from him. But I preferred the broadsword to the
rapier, the striking and cutting to the stabbing. The first seemed
to me more heroic and magnanimous, less subtle and ferocious.
The latter malicious and murderous, requiring you continually, by
all artful means, to delude your adversary, and give him a mortal
wound unexpectedly. Cunning and cold blood gave you the ad-
vantage. In the hewing action of the broadsword, you proceed
with more energy and self-abandonment. I believe that neither
Achilles, nor the hardy Siegfried, Starkodder, nor Palnatoke, ever
stabbed, except with their lances, in the charge. They struck with
their broad falchion, as Thor felled with his iron hammer. Stab-

46 Danish Literature — [Sept.

bing is a meanness from the French school of later days, which I
have no doubt Bayard and Du Guesclin would have disowned.

"My dancing master was named Dahlen, a nobly -proportioned
Swede, of regular and handsome features, very well bred, engaging
in manners, and an excellent dancer. I preferred the minuet to
the brisker social dances. The minuet taught stetely and imposing
attitudes, to move the body with grace and dignity, and seemed to
be an ideal, though mute, love scene, in which the youth and
maiden approached each other in earnest and intense longing, then
reverentially and modestly withdrew themselves, again drew near
in the fluctuations of passion, lightly and timidly embrace, and, as
if daunted, fly off from each other, and, finally, with reserved but
courteous greeting, place themselves on the same spot where the
symbolic process began."

He remained in his new vocation two winters, performing
on many occasions, but only filling four leading parts. During
this time he saw the reverse side of theatrical life ; the poverty,
envy, and gross vanity of the actor class, and how entirely
the vices and defects of his associates resembled those of the
great world without, save only in degree, being more com-
pressed and less polished.

He soon had experienced enough of this dependant mode of
life, and determined to abandon it. He felt that, in order to
enjoy the rainbow's splendour, or the silver shimmer of the
moon on the moving waves, it was not necessary to place
himself in the falling cloud, where the heavenly cameleon
spreads its beautiful curve, nor on the dancing waters ; but
that they were seen to the best advantage at a distance. He
was intimate with two estimable men, the brothers Oerstedt,
since of distinguished rank in the scientific world, of great
application and acquirements, who were students at Ehlersen's
college in Copenhagen. When alone in the library there, on
his occasional visits to them, he found himself strangely
wrought upon. The books of ancient and modern lore, in
their old parchment and golden bindings, seemed to look
reproachfully upon him, and say, " Why hast thou forsaken
us?" By the advice of his friends, the Oerstedts, he termi-
nated his connexion with the theatre, and resolved to prepare
himself for the usual Latin and jurisprudential examinations,
to adopt the law as his profession, and become an advocate.

He was now in his nineteenth year, and passed the requi-
site preliminary scrutiny with credit. At this time he became
acquainted with the writings of Goethe and Schiller, which, —
as on all men of fervid and imaginative nature, — made a deep

1844.] (Ehlenschlager's Autohiography. 47

impression on him ; and in the seventh chapter we have his
judicious reflections on their productions, too long, however,
for extraction.

The health of his mother now became seriously affected,
and she evidently was approaching the confines of that " high
world which lies beyond our own."

" She loved me much," he says, " and in many respects I re-
sembled her. The feelings of melancholy and earnestness I owe to
her; to my father robust health and cheerfulness. Imagination
and fire I derive from both, the propensity to the tragic from my
mother. And yet did she see no production of my muse to gladden
her weary spirit. No laurel did I bring to her to share in my joy.
Only upon her honoured grave was I enabled to plant it. Oh !
how would she have rejoiced had she had any foresight that some-
thing more than the common would have been achieved by her son.
And I saw her gradually sinking away, after she had taken her last
afiFectionate farewell of us all, her eyes again and again closing, and
the look of consciousness departing. The hands that had so often
borne and comforted me, I saw busied, for the last time, clutching
the counterpane in the usual restlessness'that precedes death. Then
she slept the last sleep ; my father closed her eyes, and now she
rests in peace in the Friedericksberg churchyard, whither my
father and sister have followed her, and where I myself hope finally
to repose. Forgive me, dear reader, if I have somewhat saddened
thee. He who will accompany man in his path must share with
him sorrow and joy. I will lead thee now from the realm of shadows
into sunshine again."

There is but little of the Catholic tone here, but still
it is not without a deep religious feeling. Sad and solemn
is the death-bed, but sanctifying also. The most hard-
ened and thoughtless are impressed by its dread announce-
ment, though sin and the world may soon, in them, oblite-
rate the record. The pious and tender are sustained in
their anguish by a divine voice, breathing consolation and
immortal hope, and a light from beyond the grave brightens
the gloom with the promise of an eternal day. The valley
around us is cold and grey, but the far-off mountain ridge that
bounds it, is illuminated by the golden sunbreak of morning,
with the promise of freshness, glory, and peace.

The heart of man is ever made more susceptible by sorrow.
As in physics, so in the soul, nature always abhors a vacuum.
Shortly after the loss of his mother, he became acquainted with
Christiana Heger, the daughter of a counsellor of state :

" A lovely girl of seventeen, of mature and noble figure, with
large blue eyes, snow-white complexion, rose-tinted cheeks, and a

48 Danish Literature — [Sept.

luxuriance of hair rarely seen; for when the long fair tresses were
unbound, they completely concealed her person. She was the
sister-in-law of Professor Rahbek, elegant, well-educated, and
witty. The first time that I saw her she wove for me a garland
of corn flowers, blue as her eyes. I yet possess it and it still
retains its sweet hue."

The result may be forseen, he fell in love with the beautiful
creature.

How gladly he turned his footsteps to the house that held
his enchantress may easily be imagined.

" Here I met," he says, " in the professor, an enlightened com-
panion and humorous poet ; in his wife an intellectual and sprightly
friend, rare and unrestrained hospitality, and almost always a lovely
girl that sat very industriously engaged in her work, in whose eyes,
however, when she raised them at my entrance, I fancied I read
an expression of delight

" When I escorted Christiana home, after some of these happy
evenings, in the bright moonlight and stai*ry nights, the merriment
suddenly ceased. I was serious, embarrassed, and monosyllabic,
and she also; generally we walked along, arm in arm, silently
absorbed in our own thoughts."

At last love gave him what it had so frequently deprived
him of — courage ; he declared his passion, and was accepted.
He continued his studies now zealously, though subject to
occasional interruptions from Apollo and the muses, or Bragi
with her harp, or Idun sitting beneath her apple-tree, and if
these did not suffice, they summoned Venus or Freia, Mars or
Thor, to their aid, who arrayed themselves against his legal
investigations.

War with England now broke out, and he volunteered into
a military corps, raised among the students, of which he be-
came ensign, and we have some amusing anecdotes of his
associates, with details of the fatiguing but bloodless cam-
paigns. But peace soon ensued, and he returned to his more
tranquil engagements, his law books, attendance at a certain
literary re-union^ where he met many men of distinguished
station, large acquirements and sound views, and to the con-
tinuation of his essays on belles lettres. His accomplished
companions wrought much intellectual improvement in him.
His judgment was invigorated, his knowledge of men and
things extended, his taste refined and enlarged, and a lofty
emulation excited within him.

He read the ancient northern mythology and history, and
applied himself to the study of the Icelandic language, assisted

1844.] €Ehlenschldget^''$ Autobiography/. 49

by an eccentric antiquarian and scholar named Arndt, who
seems to have been one of the most remarkable caricatures of
the day :

"He walked one day into my chamber," says the narrative,
"with filthy boots, a very coarse blue great-coat, and with long
hair, which, like a woman's, reached to his hips, stuck in between
the body coat and upper one. He was born at Altona, and seemed
only a spirit from the past, revisiting the favourite scenes of his
former life. He had first applied himself to botany, but graven
stones and ruins soon supplanted flowers and plants in his regard.
He was an antiquarian such as few have been. "Whatever lived
and bloomed, prospered or worked together in present society,
he despised. He loved only mouldering ruins, obscure legends,
traditions of the olden time, and words of half-dead or defunct
languages. He considered all Europe but as a wide study, over
which he rambled to gather archaic fragments and citations He
was once in the extreme parts of Norway, beyond Drontheim, for
the purpose of copying sundry Runic inscriptions, when it suddenly
occurred to him to visit Venice, to transcribe some Greek lines on
a statue, wherein he expected to find certain words of the ancient
Danish language. All states and degrees of civilization, all political
forms and regulations, he ignored altogether; or if he spoke of
them, it was only to ease his heart by abusing them. In his wan-
derings, he stopped at the houses of the gentry and clergy, lived at
their cost, and slept in their best chambers, but requited their
hospitality with coarseness and impertinence; deeming it their duty
to render him every assistance, who, in his zeal and love of antiquity,
renounced all comfort and convenience. A servant girl was once
about to take away his boots to clean them. ' "Will the hussey,' he
roared out, ' let my boots alone ? I care nothing about such sense-
less finery. "When they are too dirty, I wash them in some brook,
and there is an end of it !' He often met with deserved chastise-
ment, and was turned out of doors, but that produced no alteration
in his manners. He had no friends, no home. He carried his
multitudinous manuscripts in his pockets, till they were overloaded;
he then placed them, not in towns, nor in the charge of any literary
inhabitant, but concealed them amongst heaps of stones, or in some
hedge or fissures of old ruins. He had not the slightest regard for
modern poetry; but, on the contrary, every Runic letter, every
distorted figure of the old Skalds, was sacred to him, and as he was
deeply versed in the literature, manners, and remnants of the' old
northern heroic times, I gathered considerable knowledge in these
studies, and dehghted to lose myself with him in the gloom and
wonders of the heathen by-gone ages."

About this time he met with another man, although of
different character from Arndt, of great vigour of mind and

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIII. 4

50 Danish Literature — [Sept*

acquirements, and imbued with the spirit of the new philosophy
and school of poetry which was then stirring the German mind
to its centre, This was Heinrich Steffens, of whom and whose
influence he thus speaks.

" The first means whereby he won my regard, was his estimation
and love of poetry; which he not only recited enthusiastically, but
the powers, scope, and laws of which he clearly proved and defended
philosophically. These I had always felt deeply, but I had not yet
succeeded in fashioning their anticipated truths into distinct con-
ceptions. I had heard poetry, by some persons even of taste and
intelligence, rated as a pleasing but secondary and trivial thing, to
which men might apply themselves in hours of leisure or relaxation,
after they had devoted their best powers to more profitable and
important subjects. By others, the useful, the material, was ranked
as of foremost importance, and all creations of the imaginative
faculty extruded from classification with utility. Thus in reference
to its capacity and end, conceding to it but a very subordinate
consideration, and blinding themselves to the spiritualizing and
rectifying influence it bestows on the intellectual and sensual man.
I was for a time disturbed and dazzled by these sophisms, which
falsely estimated the useful as the highest aim of humanity, and
confounded the nature of the necessary and the essential. I soon,
however, discovered that the useful is but a condition of our earthly
being, to enable us to preserve the animal in health and physical
comfort; while our more dignified and supersensual aim as rational
creatures, must be the apprehension and practice of the True and
the Beautiful, which are evoked and attained by us through the
revelations of Science and Art. I speedily discerned that the
practice and perfection of the Beautiful was not subordinate to the
love of the True; no more than the objective appearance is inferior
to the subjective perception: and that the True and the Good con-
sisted iu the recognition and practice of the Beautiful, in all the
relations of nature, and the multifarious complications of human
life.

"From these heresies relative to the useful, all the other mistakes
and false notions of the age were easily deduced: for example, the
immoderate estimation of the (so called) modern illumination; which
consisted, not in genuine enlightenment, but in a selfish and extra-
vagant valuation of the opinions of the day, comprising a contempt
of all that related to the imagination and the sphere of lofty ideas,
with a fantastic appreciation of the trivial and the common. All
these errors the new school, in which SteflFens had studied, had
rightly attacked ; but when, however, they came to appUcation, they
were not free from the charge of falling into the opposite extreme.
They were quite right in maintaining that the practical and the
beautiful in the middle ages had not, before, been either recognized
or prized. The philologists and poets of the new school were

1844.1 (EhlenscM'dger's Autobiography. 51

deserving of high praise, when they rescued old pictures and books
from the dust of monasteries, aud, nourished and quickened by
these, presented the world with works of excellence themselves,
where the beautiful of the middle ages, new born and idealized, was
displayed. They erred, however, when they pronounced every-
thing connected with that period as beautiful, and, blind to the
follies and ferocity of those beclouded centuries, would have us
imagine that time had only retrograded, recommending us again to
become romantic barbarians. Eight was it in them to re-publish
the songs of the old knightly days, and to direct our attention to
the noble, national tone, the heroic sentiments, the harmony, the
heartiness of the language, and the many individual beauties of
those productions. But they were wrong to praise as finished
masterpieces, interminable rhyming chronicles, wherein monotony
and wearying repetitions prevailed; at the same time that they
fiercely and unmercifully rejected works of their own day, as worth-
less and uninteresting, many of which, however, embodied much
of the beautiful."

" Good and noble in them was it, as Protestants, to abandon the
old spirit of rancour, and to declare their esteem for the beautiful
in the religious services of our Catholic brethren; for Protestantism
had gone too far, and, in an iconoclastic spirit, men had protested
at last against everything beautiful that associates itself so nobly
with religion. There was no tolerance for those stately and noble
churches, for magnificent images, heart-stirring music, for the
poetical and touching legends of the earlier Chi*istians. A melan-
choly and hateful spirit had taken possession of so many Protestants.
They considered life as a vale of misery, joyless and flowerless, and
wandered on with half-frenzied eyes directed to death, the grave,
and corruption. The new school endeavoured to counteract this,
and held up to Protestantism all that was cheerful and beautiful in
the Catholic religion and its imposing service, wherein they did
well."

He had previously written and published several songs,
some smaller dramatic pieces, and tales embodying old northern
traditions and manners. He now worked up some old Danish
heroic legends and poems of greater volume in the ottava
rima. Among these were the Vigil of St. John and the
Evangel of the year. These attracted general notice and
approbation, and secured him "a name among the poets."
Tlie chief production of this period, however, was bis dramatic
l^em of Aladdin. He says: —

" I seized this beautiful Arabian tale with youthful joy and
enthusiasm. The natural resemblance it bore to my own domestic
history gave something vatve and attractive to the whole, and

4«

53 Danish Literature — [Sept.

heightened the colouring. Had I not myself discovered a won-
derful lamp, in the poetic capacity within me, which put me in
possession of all the world's treasures, while Fancy was the spirit
of the ring that brought to me all that I desired ? The growth and
structure of my intellectual being had also rapidly developed itself,
like Aladdin's, and like him also, I had learnt to love. My mother
was dead, and as I wrote Aladdin's cradle song my tears flowed on
her grave."

His determination on his future course of life was now
fixed; he abandoned the law for ever, feeling that nature had
destined him for a poet, and that it was in vain to strive
against her. The Countess Schimmelmann, the consort of
one of those princely men who had befriended Schiller, had
read and admired some of his poems. At her desire he was
introduced to her, the impression in his favour was strength-
ened by the interview, and she remained his "loveful" pa-
troness till her death. By this lady's husband an allowance
was obtained for him from the royal purse, to enable him to
dedicate himself to literature, with un(£stracted attention, and
to travel in other countries, that, by the study of mankind,
nature, and the fine arts, his taste and knowledge might be
improved, and his talents more fully cultivated.

For the attainment of this object, in August 1805, when in
his twenty-sixth year, he set off for Halle in Germany, where
he agam met his friend Steffens, became acquainted with
Schleirmacher, Von Raumer, and Goethe. Of the latter he
says —

" His fine manly person charmed me, and had the most imposing
effect at the same time. The splendid hazel eyes attracted me, in
which Werther's love, Gotz's truth, Faust's penetration and melan-
choly, Iphigenia's nobleness, and Reinecke's waggery seemed to
gleam. He knew somewhat of my Aladdin. Wilhelmina "Wolff,
the daughter of the celebrated philologist, had translated for him
Noureddin's first soliloquy. 'When I wish to become speedily
acquainted with a poet,' said he, *Iread his monologues first, therein
he mostly expresses his own mind.' How earnestly did I desire to
have a prolonged conversation with him the first time of our meet-
ing, but politeness compelled me to break off. He invited me to
visit him at Weimar."

"With the distinguished Schliermacher I associated much. I
translated to him some of my writings, which first encouraged me
to become a German poet. He read Greek to me in return (the
whole of the (Edipus in Colonos) ; he translated it for me, word for
word, and taught me to note and comprehend correctly the varieties
of Grecian prosody, of which, after a diligent study of Solger's
Sophocles, I made use in my tragedy of Baldur the Good. His
noble sermons I never neglected to hear."

1844.'] (Ehhnschldger's Aittohiography. 53

From Halle he went to Berlin, where he visited the cele-
brated Fichte, who so tutored and elevated the intellect and
will of young Prussia, while Arndt, (not our eccentric friend
of the same name previously mentioned,) by his gymnastic
exercises invigorated the body, and by his Tyrtean lyrics
emboldened the hearts, that at the call of their country they
were so well qualified to make those noble and successful
efforts to enfranchise it from the tyranny of Napoleon.

" Fichte was at first reserved in his reception," Q^hlenschlager
states, "but soon relaxed and became very friendly. I had to
accustom myself to his didactic tone. He supposed that no man
could comprehend him ; but as he observed that I also, although
after a manner of my own, could think rationally, he became more
favourable to me, and said, * CEhlenschlager is a fine fellow ; he
must study my Wisseiischaftslehre* I felt myself flattered by
this ; for I knew that the greatest praise he could bestow on any
man, was to suppose him capable of penetrating the depths of his
metaphysical creed. I read several of his minor works. In all I
admired the deep searcher, the heroic thinker, the inspired orator,
the energetic man. His great fault was, that he deemed his system
the only true and absolute one."

Fitche's aim, both as teacher and author, was ever to elevate
the mind above the body and all sensual feelings, to repre-
sent the life of the spirit as the only true life, and thereby to
excite the mind to the highest purity, virtue, and self-denial.
And his example corroborated his precepts ; for he was, in
his whole conduct, of noble principles, of unblenching honour
and firmness, though somewhat proud of his endowments,
physical and intellectual. " Do you think," he once said to
a friend, " that I should have such shoulders, and such calves
to my legs, if I had not buckled on such maxims as I profess?"

Our poet's greatest delight in Berlin was to hear the perform-
ances of Mozart's masterpieces, Figaro on^ Don Giovanni^ which
were quite new to him. In these incomparable compositions,
a new, and yet apparently well-known, world opened upon
him. "I heard," he says, "in melodious tones, the great
thoughts of Shakspere, Sophocles, and Goethe, as I after-
wards recognized them again in the forms and colours of
Raphael." He frequently met Alexander Von Humboldt,
and heard him recount, in private social meetings, much of
his travels, which were not yet published. At the Academy
of Sciences, he read an essay on the luxuriant vegetation of
nature, in which he concluded with the remark that the same
spirit of manifold life which flourished and blossomed in

54 Danish Literature — [Sept.

vegetable richness in the warmest climates, was repeated
morally and physically in the northern poet's fancy and
creativeness.

He passed on to Weimar, where Goethe received him most
kindly, and with whom for nearly three months he was in
daily communication. He rejoiced to tread that classic soil
which so many great spirits had consecrated and adorned.
He was invited to the table of the dowager duchess Amelia,
who was extremely affable and intelligent, and, notwithstand-
ing her age, of great activity and cheerfulness. He there
met her son, the grand duke (a man not only princely in
rank, but princely in accomplishments, heart, and spirit), and
his family, together with Von Knebel, Einsiedel, Wieland,
and other men who formed the refined circle of that distin-
guished court. Wieland was now old, but cheerful and
vigorous in intellect. By permission of the dowager duchess
he always retired after dinner into the garden, and slept for
an hour under a large umbrageous tree. Herder and Schiller
were dead, but he visited the wife and children of the latter,
and the pretty house in the Allee, near the theatre, where he
had written many of his noble tragedies.

" I could not look upon these dear children," he says, " who had
so lately lost their great and glorious father, without the deepest
emotion. With what bitter pain and sorrow did he contemplate
the face of his youngest, when brought to him for the last time, as
he felt that his heart was breaking under the stroke of death — that
noble heart, that was united with an acute understanding and the
highest inspiration! Yes, therein consisted his greatness, ye cold
egotists and malignants! Therein consists the greatness of Goethe,
Schiller, Herder, and Jean Paul, that with their extraordinary
talents was combined a fervent goodness of heart — they loved man-
kind. Many may possess intellect and imagination, but when
these are united with a noble and beautiful soul, then does true
genius manifest itself."

With young Heinrlch Voss, the son of the translator of
Shakspere, and the friend of Jean Paul, he had many
friendly meetings. From him he had an amusing and cha-
racteristic anecdote of Goethe. He had confided to Voss
the task of correcting the versification oi Hermann and Doro-
thaa, preparatory to the publication of a new edition ; for
all the Voss family had learnt to construct most accurate
hexameters, from the learned father even to the old and
intelligent mother, who had on one occasion invited Goethe
to join them in a punch party, in most choice and classical

1844.] CEhlenscMdger's Auiohiogra/phy. 55

spondees and dactyls. While engaged in this duty, young
Voss entered Goethe's room with frolicsome countenance,
and said, in a mixed tone of triumph and diffidence, " Mr.
Privy-Councillor, I have here discovered an hexameter with
seven feet." Goethe examined the line attentively for a
moment, then said, "Right, by heavens!" Voss handed
him his pencil to correct it, but his friend returned him the
book very quietly, saying, " The beast shall remain."

From Weimar, he went to Jena and Dresden. At the
latter place, he was delighted with the grand harmonies of
the Catholic religious service, and felt the fuU dominion of the
Beautiful, embodied in the magnificent pictorial creations
assembled in that celebrated collection. The Madonna of
Raphael, in its overpowering beauty and truthfulness; the
noble compositions of Correggio, among which the earlier
ones struck him "as more powerful and Raphaelesque in
character than his celebrated * Night;'"" the severe *' Christ
Preaching " of Giovanni Bellini, so striking in contrast with
the gracious and winning countenance by Carlo Dolce, ** which
seemed to dissolve itself in harmonious tones;" the lovely
and serene figure of the Virgin, as addressed in prayer by the
Burgomaster family of Holbein ; the works of Raphael's noble
pupils, Francesco Penni, Giulio Romano, and Andrea del
Sarto, with the true though homely nature of the Nether-
lands' school, made the deepest impression on him. He here
encountered Ludwig Tieck, who met him with the most
friendly bearing ; they discoursed with each other *' confiden-
tially and faithfully, as brothers who had been long separated.**

"His fine characteristic head," he records, "his sonorous voice,
his wondrous eloquence, his intelligent hazel eyes, prepossessed
me immediately. I thought of the beautiful connexion between
Franz and Sebastian, between Albrecht Durer and Lucas of Leyden,
as depicted in his Franz Sternbald; and in the few days that we
were in communion we lived on this footing together. I read to
him my Hakon Jarl, much of Aladdin, and the Evangel of the
year. He paid me the tribute of his hearty approbation, and
lamented that his friend Novalis was not alive to hear the last poem."

But "a change came o'er the spirit of the dream." The
serene and beautiful in art, the gorgeous and lofty creations
of poets, the stateliness of courts, the calm wisdom of phi-
losophers, were for a season to be banished by the fiery
visitation of war, with its wondrous phantasmagoria of pomp,
horrors, and tumultuous changes. And yet, in its effects, the
contemplation of this scene must have had a marked and im-

56 Danish Literature — [Sept.

portant influence on him. For all facts speak in an emphatic
language to the spirit of the poet, contribute to his culture,
have a plastic power on his life and character. He is a genuine
free trader, throwing open his heart to all the variegated im-
pressions of the outward, — be they called little or great, to
him they utter golden and weighty truths. He can uplift
himself above the stormy region of sense, into the celestial
serene, where the tragic and passionate clouds of sorrow do
not obscure, where the things of sadness and pain fulness that
disturb this lower world, are, by the imagination and the
moral faculty, converted into rich and instructive pictures,
solemn and sustaining in music, and enlightening and elevat-
ing in precept.

Hejourneyed from Dresden with two compatriots, Brcinsted
and Koes, to Weimar, to visit Goethe again, intending from
thence to go to Paris. From his various occupations, or per-
haps from a distaste for politics, he read no newspapers. He
knew that France and Prussia Avere at war ; but that Napo-
leon had pushed his army between the Elbe and the Saale,
and had cut off the Prussians from the former, the German
general did not know, and it was not surprising that our
young Danish poet was ignorant of the fact. vVar on a
Napoleonic scale, conducted by the hand of such a master,
was something to witness, and his chapter entitled " The
Battle of Jena" is a graphic and interesting sketch of what
he saw, and an accurate picture of the miseries inseparable
from that vaunted and most demoralizing of man's activities.
From this we shall make a large extract.

" The Prussian head-quarters were at Weimar, where the king
and queen had arrived. Every day the streets were thronged with
well-grown and mai'tial-looking Prussian oflficers of rank, who spoke
busily with one another, or passed hurriedly on, reading papers.
Every evening they were at the theatre. The camp was without
the town. I traversed it with Goethe, and thought of Wallen-
stein's, as depicted by Schiller. What a wide, wondrous and
bustling city was it, filled with its small tents, where even the most
turbulent soldier was compelled to preserve peace ! The market
women seemed to me an extraordinary race. The care and atten-
tion of these persons, not the wildest warrior can dispense with
after sanguinary encounters. I recollected those so admirably
described by Schiller, then the gay thoughtless Courage, in the old
romance of Simplicissimus, and, finally, on the Cimbric wives, who
desperately clung to the tails of the horses as their vanquished hus-
bands came flying from the battle-field.

"The memorable Hth of October now arrived, Some days

1844. J CEhlenschldger's Autobiography^. 57

previously, we had heard the thunder of cannon at a distance, now
it approached nearer. I ran to Goethe's house, where I was told
the contest was withdrawing from us; in returning by the market-
place, however, I learnt that all was lost. Lately we had seen the
Prussians bringing in French prisoners, and selling the captured
horses to the citizens; now they fled through the town with hanging
bridles. 'Where is the road that leads to the mountains,' cried
they. * Here we have no mountains,' was the reply. ' On which
road shall we meet no Frenchmen,' they asked again; and, without
waiting for an answer, hurried on.

" Shortly before, a young Silesian officer had been brought to
our hotel severely wounded. A cannon ball had shattered his
thigh, and the French had robbed him of all his money. My com-
panion, Bronsted, supplied him with some. The unfortunate youth
died two days afterwards. A year subsequently, his family remitted
the amount that my friend had advanced, with many expressions
of gratitude, for having lightened the last hours of their brave
relative.

" The French now began to cannonade the town and we de-
scended to the lower part of the house, seating ourselves on the
steps of the cellar, to avoid injuries. Uncertain what might be the
result, we divided the gold we had with us, to defray our expenses
to Paris, and secreted it in our neckcloths.

" Suddenly all was still, in Weimar, as the grave. Every shop
was shut, no person was visible in the streets, and the October sun
gleamed through the powder-smoke that overspread the sky like a
pallid moonlight. Then the French entered the town, at first in
orderly columns, and quartering themselves in different districts.
We advised our host to open all his cupboards and stores, and
receive the approaching troops with unrestrained hospitality.
Eight fine-looking fellows, chiefly subalterns, blackened with
powder, sunburnt, and covered with sweat, drew up at the door on
horseback. * Bourgeois,' they called out, ' de Feau de vie, du vin,
du Kirsckwasser.' The landlord rushed out with his bottles ; they
put them to their mouths and drank eagerly, then dismounted and
entering the house, sat down to the table. We showed them our
passports, and reminded them of our neutrality as Danes. They
assured us, politely, that we need fear nothing. They said the
Prussians had fought well, but were ignorant of the art of war.
Notwithstanding the immense numbers that thronged into the
town and occupied every house, for the first hour or two perfect
stillness filled the place. This was not, however, surprising. They
had arrived from the field of battle fatigued, hungry, and thirsty,
but, after they had satisfied their appetites and rejoiced over their
late success, they started off in parties on plundering excursions
and then the true misery began. Luckily the soldiers quartered
with us were worthy fellows, and helped us to defend the house

58 Danish Literature — [Sept.

against the intrusion of the marauders. A scoundrel was pressing
in at the doorway, when one of our determined subalterns seized
him by the throat, and hurled him back into the street, exclaiming,
* Brigand, je t'6craserai la tete.' We made the door secure with
bars and great stones. Without, in the market place, hundreds of
soldiers were bivouacked, that could find no room in any of the
houses.

" Fatigued with the excitement and exertion of the day, I and
my friends retired to rest. Our French visitors caroused below,
undisturbed by the dying young Silesian, who was laid on a table
in the same room, but whom they did not otherwise molest. I had
not long been asleep, when I was aroused by cries of women and
children. The plunderers, to facilitate their operations, had fired
the city. The flames were, however, soon extinguished, and some
check put to these proceedings. The next day, Augereau and
Berthier entered, and took possession of our hotel, only leaving us
our sleeping rooms; and, while they feasted, we had to content
ourselves with a crust of bread and a glass of wine. As soon, how-
ever, as Napoleon arrived, a stop was put to the work of the
despoilers, although, in fact, by that time very little was left
to the plundered inhabitants. Orders were instantly issued, pro-
hibiting, under the penalty of death, all spoliation; nevertheless,
we heard seven or eight times daily the ring of musquetry in
the park, where the detected culprits were instantly shot. As
the emperor entered the castle, he greeted the duchess, who met
him at the gate, with 'Eh bien, vous avez voulu la guerre, la
voila!*" She soon, however, won him by her engaging gentleness
and intelligence. The French buried the Prussian general Schmet-
tau with all military honours; but it appeared to the deeply humi-
liated Germans, who were spectators, as if the freedom and
independence of their native land were committed to the grave with
him."

" Goethe was married during the battle, that, in the event of
any misfortune occurring to himself, he might secure the civic
existence of his son. We dined with him one day, and then
hastened to quit Weimar — that seat of the muses, now converted
into a lazaretto of wounded soldiers ; while its beautiful theatre,
where for so many years the masterpieces of Schiller had been
represented, was made an hospital for dying cripples. We set off
for Gotha, on our way to Paris, as soon as horses could be
procured. Our carriage was frequently driven through cultivated
fields, and when we remonstrated with the driver, the only answer
we received was, ' Oh, it is war-time!'"

He arrived in Paris, where he remained eighteen months,
visiting the usual places of attraction. He there wrote a new
tragedy, in Danish, entitled Palnatoke; translated into Ger-

1844.] (EhlenscTildger's AutoUography. 59

man his Aladdin and Hakon Jarl; and prepared an edition of
his minor poems in the same language. He witnessed the
performances of Talma, Mademoiselle Mars, Potier, Dazin-
court, and the other distinguished actors of the day. He
particularly admired, in the former, the characteristics of
nature and simple greatness which he threw into the pompous
diction of the French school. To him he seemed a noble
Greek or Roman statue, to which life had been given to
express the passions and emotions of tragic situations. He
met his countryman Malte-Brun, who had left Denmark a
republican, and was then a slavish admirer of Napoleon, and
Frederick Schlegel, whom he had depicted to himself as a
lean, thin, and critical-looking personage, with sharp, solemn
features — instead of which, a fat and rather jovial countenance,
with an expression of humorous irony, greeted him with
friendly smiles. He visited Madame de Stael, at her house
in the environs of Paris, who gave him a kindly reception,
and invited him to visit her at Coppet, which he did on his
journey to Italy, where we are subsequently furnished with
many interesting particulars of this remarkable woman. In
Paris he again met with his eccentric friend Arndt, who on
his journey, when very near to the French capital, recollected
that he had left an important manuscript behind him, con-
cealed in a heap of stones near Lubeck, and had retraced his
steps to secure it. In Paris, Qiihlenschlager was compelled
to prolong his sojourn, inconveniently, waiting for his ex-
pected remittance from the Danish government, which had
had its attention lately but too fully occupied by the bom-
bardment of Copenhagen by the English. When it arrived,
it just sufficed for the payment of his debts. He borrowed a
small sum of a friend, packed up his manuscripts, and started
for Germany, to sell his works to Cotta, with the produce of
which he intended to undertake a journey to Italy. The
bookseller gave him a liberal price for his productions, and
the delighted poet set off afresh for Schaflfhausen. Switzer-
land, with its romantic scenery, its historical associations, and
simple people, could not fail to make a deep impression on
one of his age and temperament; and his animated record
bespeaks the fox'ce of it. Among other interesting incidents,
he mentions an ascent of Mount Rigi in the beautiful tran-
quillity of a summer's evening, while in the fading twilight
the stars came gradually out, like freslily-arrived sentinels
from the distant abysses of the universe ; the mountain-tops
reflected the rosy farewell of the sun, and the Swiss maidens

60 Danish Literature — [Sept.

sang the ancient fireside songs of their country, one of which,
with the following chorus, pleased him much —
" For not by noble hand,
But with hardy mood.
And heart's best blood,
Wert thou freed, my fatherland."
He proceeded to Coppet, to pay his promised visit to Madame
de Stael. There he met A. W. Schlegel, B. Constant, Bon-
stetten, Sismondi, Werner, Frederika Brun, and other cele-
brated members of the world of letters. Schlegel was cold
but polite.

" I felt great esteem," he writes, " for his profound learning,
acuteness, wit, and extraordinary talent for languages. I know no
better tranalations than his of Shakspere and Calderon. He has
delivered much that is true and excellent in a fine strain of elo-
quence on poetry and art. He seems to me, nevertheless, not free
from a certain one-sidedness and undue partiality. He preferred,
for example, Calderon to Shakspere, censured Herder sharply, and
his whole being had something that did not respond to my own.

" How quick, intellectual, witty, and amiable Madame de Stael
was, is well known to the world. I know no woman who has mani-
fested so much genius. She was by no means handsome, but her
bright hazel eyes had much that was attractive; and that feminine
talent of winning men, and, by grace and refinement, ruling the
most diverse characters, binding them in social harmony, she pos-
sessed in the highest degree. Her genius and countenance, her
voice almost, was manly; her soul, however, was intensely womanly,
as she has proved in Delphine and Corinne. She was then en-
gaged in her work on Germany. It has been erroneously stated
that she was ignorant of the books therein criticised, and that she
had been prompted in her judgments of them by Schlegel. She read
German with great facility, the pronunciation of it only was diffi-
cult to her; so that when she wished to quote from any publication
in that language, she instantly translated it into French. Schlegel
had doubtless had much influence on her; she had first gathered her
knowledge of German literature from him, but her judgment in
many cases differed widely from his. She was one who would think
for herself; she opposed him frequently, and bantered him when-
ever he appeared to her too partial.

" Her great talent consisted in the power of saying something
striking and piquant on every subject that was presented to her
notice. This talent made her a most delightful companion. Where -
ever she appeared, notwithstanding the presence of young and
beautiful women, she attracted all the men of any head and heart
within her circle. When, in addition to her intellectual fascinations,
it is remembered that she was wealthy, extremely hospitable, and

1844.] (EMemchldger's Autobiography. 61

daily gave sumptuous dinners, it will perhaps not excite so much
wonder that, like a queen, or a fairy in her magic hall, she drew
men around her and ruled them. At table, her servant always
placed a small twig of evergreen, of flowers, or flowering shrub,
beside the knife and fork, which she held constantly in her hand,
and played with or waved during conversation, as if symbolic of
her dominion over society."

On the approach of winter, his brilliant hostess and her
train of intellectual guests took up their residence in Geneva,
where, from her rank, talents, and fortune, the saloons of the
most distinguished inhabitants were thrown open to the party.
He was not, however, very favourably impressed by the
Genevese.

" They are," he says, " a very sensible, well-bred, moral people,
but, with permission be it said, they are neither fish nor flesh —
neither French nor German. They have neither the vivacity of
the former, nor the solidity of the latter, nation. They are southern
Protestants and democratic aristocrats. Every thing there moves
on the most cold and measured footing. Those persons who pride
themselves on their superiority of station, would feel quite at home
with them; for although there is properly no noble class, certain
families presume much on their descent. Every thing is classified
and separated, even youthful society from that of their parents."

After sojourning some months with the De Stael, in the
spring of 1809 he took his departure for Italy. Nothing
that he had witnessed throughout his peregrinations struck
him so profoundly as the Alps.

"Who first beholds those everlasting clouds.
Seed-time, and harvest, morning, noon, and night,
Still where they were — stedfast, immovable ;
Those mighty hills, so shadowy, so sublime.
As rather to belong to heaven than earth, —
But instantly receives into his soul
A sense, a feeling that he loses not ;
A something that informs him 'tis an hour
Whence he may date henceforward and for ever."

The fancy, in most cases, fashions an image of the thing
which we generally find to be excessive, when we contem-
plate the reality ; but here, in presence of these mighty bar-
riers, he felt the short- coming of all his previous conceptions.

" Here fancy had been unable to exaggerate, for nature was
grander than her wildest creations, and the enormous solidity of
reality made all visionary shapings dislimn themselves and dis-
appear, like weak vapours before the morning light. These granite
capriccios of nature, made me shudder in the intensity of veneration.

ai Danish Literature — [Sept.

Here history had left no memorials. For thousands of years
they had been unchangable, save in the fine and commodious road
that connects France and Italy, now winding round rocks and over
precipices, now piercing through stony caverns, the most remark-
able record of Napoleon, lasting as the pyramids of the Nile, and
as useful as those are vain and uncouth. But I thought of other
heroes also ; as my eyes dwelt on the distant and gloomy spots
on these rocky walls — that looked like patches of moss, but were
enormous pine forests — I thought of the heroic Hannibal, of my
stalwart forefathers, the Cimbri, Teutons, and Longobardi, who
climbed these gigantic heights, and glided down on their shields,
having no road to aid their advance.

*' In descending from these heights [we continue our extract
from his biography] the snow gradually disappeared, the cold
mountainous masses were left behind, the evenings became exces-
sively beautiful, the vegetation of spring appeared in richer bloom,
and the thought that I was now in Italy, ' where the pale lemon
blows, the bright orange glows,' exalted every thing. It seemed to
me, after the mighty sterile scene was passed, as if the newly-created
earth arose from lifeless chaos. There landed Noah with his ark
on Ararat ; there, by yonder cavern, under the trees, sat Deucalion
and Pyrrha ; here Baldur and Vidar were playing on the grass
with the newly -found golden dice, and the former distresses of life
lay behind like an evanished dream."

He encountered, in the diligence, an amusing speclnaen of
the Smelfungus class of travellers, in an old French merchant.
He disliked the people of Italy, and could tolerate nothing
Italian. While the young poet was all enthusiasm and ad-
miration, he sat in scornful silence, until they passed some
cattle with very long horns.

" * See, sir,' said he, * how monstrous, tasteless, and exaggerated,
is every thing in this cursed country.' — * What brings you, then,
to Italy ?' — ' Commercial affairs.' — ' Can you believe that there
have been men who have traversed the mountains we have passed
before any roads existed ?' — ' They must, then, have been the
fool-hardy, or the English.' "

Passing through Turin, with its rectangular streets, and
its fine, but monotonous, architecture, and Milan, with its
glorious cathedral, he arrived at Parma, where, in the San
Giovanni Church, he saw the admirable frescoes of Correggio,
so rich in their perfect humanity, naivete, and beauty ;

" Filling the soul with sentiments august,
The beautiful, the brave, the holy, and the just."

The magnificent places of worship every where, made the
profoundest impressions on him, by their lovely proportions,

1844.] CEhlenscMdger''s Autohiography. 63

rich marbles, solemn and graceful paintings, and effective
distribution of light and shade ; and we see, in the record he
has furnished us with, the truth of the declai-ation, that the
contemplation of the beautiful always produces a religious
emotion in the heart of man. He especially describes the
results on a particular occasion, while standing under the
majestic cupola of San Giovanni, which, as also furnishing an
interesting extract from a poet's breviary, we shall partly
transcribe :

" The church gradually filled with people, who placed themselves
on their knees around me, and were instantly engaged in their ab-
stracted and fervent devotion. Desirous of offering no disturbance
to them, I withdrew into a retired part of the aisle, and there
poured out my heart in prayer also. My petition was to this
effect : * Almighty God ! make my heart pure and open, that I
may recognize thy greatness, goodness, and beauty, in nature, and
in all human productions. Protect my fatherland, my king, my
beloved, and my friends. Let me not die in a foreign land, but
return happily to my native country. Grant me a contented,
tranquil, and stedfast spirit, that I may go on my way in this thy
beautiful earth without sickly hate or bitter contempt of my neigh-
bour, and without submitting myself, in slavish timidity, to the
prejudices of the world. Let me become great as a poet, for thou
hast created within my soul a love and genius for art, and that is
the noblest vista through which I can discern thee. Grant that I
may live in my works after death, as even this good Correggio, aiid
that, when I am dust, many a youthful heart may be quickened and
inspired by my productions.' This was my prayer, which I have
neither altered nor sought to improve, as I stood before the works
of Antonio AUegri, when the notion of composing some poem about
him first rose in my mind, and which, as I subsequently stood
before the little fresco in the ducal palace at Modena, painted by
him in his seventeenth year , ripened into determination."

He alludes to his celebrated tragedy, Correggio. In
Florence he remained fourteen days, enraptured by the glori-
ous specimens of art assembled there, in a dreamy reproduc-
tion of past centuries, indifferent to the every-day processes
of the world about him ; he was aroused from this abstraction
by being most successfully practised ixpon by his host, in a
device smacking considerably of those clever and industrious
feats so triumphantly exhibited at the expense of another
celebrated wanderer, — our old friend Gil Bias. The Incident
is most amusingly told, quite in the spirit of Le Sage.

At last he arrived in Rome, that city of the soul, consecrated
spot in the world's history, centre and source of some of the
mightiest influences that have moulded the destinies of nations,

64 Danish Literature — [Sept.

and whicb, from its very name, its ruins and statues of
ancient times, its buildings and works of art of later ages, the
southern nature of all in and around it, and as the rallying-
point of accomplished foreign artists and travellers, possessed
such powerful attractions for him. The people of Rome
pleased him much, that is to say, the middle and lower classes ;
the noblesse was a fade, decayed, and bloomless race, though
the women, physically, were beautiful and imposing. They
were of energetic but serene and contented character, ready
and quick in perceiving and comprehending things, cheerful,
good-hearted, and in nowise deceitful. The city he describes
as a silent, inactive place, where everything seemed, at least,
two centuries old, the inhabitants as if they had been cast
into sleep for that time, and wandering about as in dreams,
but in which enchanted town it was delightful to roam, where
the noblest, fairy-like palaces, with all their splendid wonders,
and the coolest gardens, were open to the inquirer, and lovely
women moved about under the brightest and bluest of heavens.

He arrived at the moment of one those violent constitu-
tional changes wrought by the French, when Miollis was
governor. He heard the proclamation made by some military
officer on the Piazza d'Espagna, that "henceforth the States of
the Church were incorporated with the French empire," while
the populace stood around pale as ghosts, but with flashing
eyes, muttering between their teeth, "Ah lo scehrato, ah! il
maledotto ! " The worthy head of the Church, Pius VII, had
just been seized in his palace by General Rodel, and carried
captive to France, so that he had no opportunity of being
presented to him. Tranquillity, however, reigned throughout
the city, it was more than usually peaceful and secure, under
the stringent and vigorous police established by the con-
querors.

He here again met his country-woman Friederika Brun,
who, with heart and soul steeped in the spirit of the antique
world, learned in the merits of every ancient stone and vene-
rable ruin, was his accomplished cicerone to the many im-
pressive remnants of the olden time to be found there. He
spent many hours in the ample and beautiful churches, the
halls of the Vatican, and the splendid museums and galleries
of art. Here the southern luxuries of silence and coolness
were ever to be met with ; here, beauty and heavenly con-
templation seemed to have their natural home and resting-
place, and from the glorious conceptions of the great masters
was shed an inward peace more soft than the sweet Italian

1844.] (Ehlenschldger's Worh. 65

sky overhead, and a wisdom more pure and invigorating than
the light of the untainted dawn. Here the various powers
of the man, intellect, soul, and sense, would be profitably and
actively engaged, no one in opposition to another, or in viola-
tion of the regulative laws of the moral being. The eye
would be charmed and refreshed, the fancy quickened, the
spirit elevated, the heart warmed and ennobled, the under-
standing exercised and contented.

He visited the atelier of Thorwaldsen, with whom he was
yet unacquainted, where he was enchanted with the Jason,
the Mars, and the other splendid productions of the great
sculptor.

"As I stood in deep contemplation," he states, "and finally cast
my eyes from the figures around me, I beheld an indifferently clad
man, with fine blue eyes, regular features, and countenance highly
intellectual, his boots plentifully besprinkled with clay, who was
looking at me attentively. I presumed this was my countryman.
' Thorwaldsen,' I exclaimed. * Q^Iilenschlager,' he replied. We
embraced each other instantly, and from that moment had woven
our indissoluble bond of brotherhood. An indescribable feeling
pervaded me as I thought of our barbaric forefathers, who, desti-
tute of all sense for art, had so often raged untameably here in
Rome. Now two Danish artists embraced within its walls, the
elder of whom might stand in rivalship with the noblest of the
Greeks, while in the bosom of the other an ardent flame at least
burnt, and a youthful and vigorous aspiration to produce also
something rare and noble."

Driven from the city by the intense summer heats, he took
up his residence at Grotta Ferrata, where he occupied himself
in writing his tragedy of Correggio, verifying the assertion of
his brother-poet, Schiller, who speaking of the effect of the
beautiful in artistic productions, finely and truly says that
*' works of the imagination produce no idle enjoyment, but
excite the mind of the beholder to activity." Works of art
lead us back to art, they even first evoke art in us. It is a
lively historico-tragical idyll, in which, under three different
phases, the artist-character is depicted : — simplicity, naivete,
and truthfulness in Correggio ; the power of genius, and
bizarre humour of one who had studied deeply, and was
conscious of his greatness, in Angelo ; and the combination
of intellect, heart, and foresight, in Giulio Romano. An
entire chapter, in the second volume of the biography,
QEhlenschlager devotes to the defence of this work against
the severe and questionable criticisms of Tieck, too long for

VOL. xvir. — NO. XXXIII. 5

66 Danish Literature — [Sept.

extraction, and little needed, as the tragedy itself is a suffi-
cient justification of the author.

At the departure of the fierce heats of summer, he returned
to Rome, when, having been absent from his native land and
friends more than four years, he thought of returning to
Copenhagen, that he might be present at the first representa'
tion of his play of Axel und Walburg, which was to be given
at the opening of the next dramatic season.

He associated, in the venerable city, with its most brilliant
society, made up of those distinguished by ancient blood,
rank, and genius. He describes one assemblage at the noble
villa of Prince Colonna, where the marble ruins of the early
ages of Rome were interspersed among myrtle and laurel
groves, and the evening was enriched by the presence of
beautiful women, and the magical tones of exquisite music.
He relates an occurrence at another of these, at a farewell
entertainment given by his friend Riphausen, a Danish
artist, which expresses, as much as an elaborate detail, the
enthusiastic character and vivid feelings of the Italian female.
The daughters of the family gave a pantomimic representa-
tion of the parting of two lovers ; the younger one enacted
the youth, the elder the ladye-love. As the forsaken and
despairing maiden sank upon a couch, when the lover was
about to leave her, but did not appear suflficiently excited by
the trial, the younger one, with all the passion and fire of the
Roman women, burst forth with, "Fate le smanie hestiar

Prior to his departure he visited again and again, melan-
choly and alone, all the various places of attraction ; the
churches, the Vatican, the Villa Borghese, the Campo Vaccino,
and the memorable remnant of Roman greatness, the arch of
Titus, with its sculptured relievos recording the fatal triumph
over old Jerusalem. By the side of the latter, the Jews had
made a narrow path, that they might not pass through its
hated portal. He spent the last evening of his stay at the
house of Thorwaldsen, who on the following morning, with
other of his artist-friends, as was the custom, accompanied
him some distance from the city. His sojourn in Rome had
been solemnizing and instructive. The genius of the past
had presented to his eager and admiring notice the fragments
of her former greatness — fragments how mournful, yet how
elevating and consoling! Mournful, because the material
spoke of transitoriness and decay, a homily on the vanity of
worldly things, a litany uttered over the evanishment of the
powerful and the proud, yet full of deep wisdom and warning.

1844. J (jEhlenschlliger's Works. 67

lest man should make earth the scope of his aspirations,
and the limit of his hopes. Elevating and consoling in the
inevitable conclusion that this cannot be all — that these
productions, speaking of might, beauty, and stateliness, were
offsprings of a spirit in man, which must have its origin in
the Absolute and Supreme, the source, the centre, and end
of all ; for the soul, in its invincible activity and instinctive
dignity, rises up in antagonism against the sensual and
material ; it will not submit to be cast with the things of
time and space into the darkness of annihilation, the dust and
mouldering chaos of the finite, but has a faith in the prophecy
of a future, unfading and immortal ; a life beyond the grave,
pure, perfect, and everlasting.

Leaving Kome, he passed through a beautiful mountain
district to Terni; Perugia, the residence of Pietro Vanucci
(Raphael's master), where his portrait has been religiously
preserved by his townsmen, in spite of the enormous prices
that have been offered for it; Arezzo, where Petrarca was
born; to Florence and Pisa, with its hanging tower and
Campo Santo, where the distinguished nobles of the middle
ages sleep in consecrated earth that had been brought from
the Holy Land for the purpose. In the latter city, the grass
was growing in the streets and in front of its stately palaces ;
but the enormous iron chain which had secured its harbour
had been broken and removed by the hands of the conqueror,
and was now rusting in the Battistero at Florence ; while on
the walls of the Campo Santo the works of the oldest Italian
masters were living in their youthful bloom and freshness.
Thus had these products of the creative spirit in man sur-
vived the results of mere physical power, and Fichte was
right when he said of the poet, philosopher, and artist, *' we
also are a power, and doubtless no insignificant one." In
Florence he saw the eccentric Arudt for the last time. He
lived several years after this, hurrying from the south to the
north of Europe and back again, and was finally found dead
at Tornea or Moscow, in a field under a hedge, clad in his
usual beggarly garments, his pockets stuffed with manuscripts
that were illegible and useless to every one.

He resumed his journey by Milan, the Lago Maggiore,
with its beautiful islands, and arrived at Heidelberg, where
he visited Voss, the author of the celebrated idyll Louise, and
found him such as he had prefigured him to himself. Tall,
thin, somewhat grave and pedantic, but intelligent and frank,
and in his house cordial and hospitable. Voss had not then

68 Danish Literature — [Sept.

written his virulent attack on Stolberg, or our young Dane
states that he would have abstained from visiting him, for he
estimated Stolberg highly as a man of noble mind and great
poetical capacity.

He passed two days at AVeimar for the purpose of com-
munion with Goethe, to whom he had dedicated his Aladdin.,
and from whom he expected a paternal reception, as that of
a pupil from his master. He received him, however, coldly
but politely. He dined twice with him, and recited to him,
among other things, two epigrams which he had written on
two well-known authors. Goethe said to him mildly, " Such
things you should not fabricate. He who can make wine
should manufacture no vinegar." His young visitor replied,
alluding to the Xenien, and which was trespassing on rather
dangerous ground, " Have you manufactured no vinegar, Mr.
Privy-Councillor ? " — " The devil ! if I have done it, is it
therefore right?" — "No; but at vintage time many grapes
fall which are unfit for wine; they yield, however, good
vinegar, and that is an admirable preventive of putrescence."
He took an affectionate farewell of his illustrious friend,
whom he never saw again, and of whom, till the last, he
speaks in the strongest terms of admiration and respect.

He hastened to Copenhagen, where he met with the most
welcome and honourable reception, not only from his imme-
diate friends, but from his sovereign and noble patrons, who
felt the gratifying conviction that the royal munificence had
been justly bestowed. The lady to whom he was betrothed —
she of the brijjht blue eves and redundant tresses — had
become the confidential friend of his generous protectress.
Countess Schimmelmann. He had the honour of reading his
Correggio to the royal family; and, shortly after, was ap-
pointed by the king extraordinary professor of restlietics at
the university of Copenhagen. Count Schimmelmann had a
delightful residence at Christianholm, about a mile from the
city, at which he was invited to take up his residence the
following summer. Near this was the little village of Gjen-
tofte, on the borders of a beautiful lake. To its humble
church, one lovely spring morning, he and his bride walked
alone, where they found by appointment a third person, the
clergyman of the place, by whom they were married in this
quiet and unostentatious manner, and then returned to
Christianholm.

Since this period his life has passed on calmly and honour-
ably, in the peaceful and genial occupations of literary life.

1844.] (Ehlenschldger^s Autohiography. (j9

respected by his countr}'men and his contemporaries, rejoicing
in the inestimable blessings of a happy home, made joyous and
radiant by the affection of a beloved wife and the sweet and
interesting society of his fonr children. In 1815, the King
of Denmai-k made him a Knight of Dannebrog; and in 1827,
he was appointed Professor Ordinarius and Assessor Con-
sistorii; honours and dignities equally creditable to both
donor and subject. In 1838, at the close of his autobio-
graphical sketch, he informs us that he was happy and con-
tented, and yet in the full freshness of life and bloom as a
son of the Muses. Long may the gracious Disposer of all
things grant him the enjoyment of so enviable a destiny !
The peaceful and precious felicities of the poet''s lot described
in Wordsworth's sonnet are the inheritance that life has
bestowed on him —

" He lives remote

From evil speaking ; rancour, never sought.

Comes to him not ; malignant truth or lie.

Hence has he genial seasons, hence has he

Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought :

And thus from day to day his little boat

Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably."

On him, as on all the race, we leave the benison pronounced
by his illustrious contemporary in the same lyric, with which
we will conclude our imperfect sketch, and in the spirit of
which we most fervently concur.

" Blessings be with them, and eternal praise.
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays."

Art. III. — Gallus, or Boman Scenes of the time of Augustus,
with Notes and Excursus illustrative of the Manners and
Customs of the Romans. Translated from the German of
Professor Becker, by F. Metcalf. London: 1844.

rv\ HE histoiy of Rome is the history of the world. Those
JL men who went forth from the thickets of the A ventine, con-
quering and to conquer, have exercised an influence upon the
destinies of their race, which shall cease only when time shall
be no more. A horde of barbarous adventurers, fresh from
the lair of the wolfj and with the predatory habits of the
robber, which legends say they were, they yet built up to

Classic Scenes in Itotne —

[Sept.

themselves a mighty empire, such as never has been seen
upon the earth. Tne history of its progress, from weakness
to strength, from obscurity to renown, the events of its
chequered and eventful career, the achievements of its war-
jf riors, and their deeds of stern, unbending, and devoted valour,
■will command attention throughout all time. With all their |
faults, their ambition, their grasping cupidity, there was yet f
a nobleness of character, a firmness of determination, an |
unbending energy of purpose about them, which, however |
involuntarily, compels our respect. The assembly of aged ^
patricians, who awaited the Gauls In the senate-house, or |
rejected the proposals of Annibal after the disastrous battle )
of Cannse, would almQat recQucile us to centuriej_Qf-aggFes=--4
BJonand misrule,J The mighty events of their career, have
eeii the study of men throughout past ages, and will be read
^ and studied by many a generation to come. But there is
I another phase of their character, which has been liittierto in-
\ adequately explored, and therefore but little known. We \
I are familiar with the Roman in the senate and the forum,
I but we know not how he comported himself in the privacy of
ihis home and the bosom of his family. Whenever we have
\contemplated him, it has been detecting treason in the senate,
|or combating it in the field. It has been in some relation of
^public life, or some department of public duty. But
^vould also wish to see him in the private relations of
life, y Having tfeard and seen so much of him abroad, we
would wish to know how he felt and acted, when, laying '
aside the shield and spear, and putting off the toga which he
wore in the curia and the forum, he retired into the secresy
of his home. jN\^wishTo see not theTtoman, but theHlanT^r
I hie must have been, with his feelings, his privations, his
comforts. Lord, and ruler, and conqueror of the earth as he
was, he must have had his bodily wants and cares. He must
have had his hours of I'elaxation and enjoyment, of ac-
tivity and repose. Wife, and children, and servants, there
must have been about hiniy^ Wc^alipuld wish to kno>y_liQBL^
he behaved towards th€m.Jj We would, if possible, sit down j i

with him at tablc,"lina Jcnow Avhat he had for dinner and for
breakfast ; whether he used a knife, and had a cloth upon his
table during meals ; and whether hisdiiiing room was on a
^ound floor or an upper story. /When he visit5d~1iis villa Tn
xihe country, what was the TTTode of conveyance he used;
whether it bore any resemblance to those which are now in
iise ; whether he sent his letters by post or by hand ; whether

1844

Becker's Gallus.

he paid his servamr ty the quarter, or purchased them by
the head ; at what hour he rose in the morning ; when he
received his visitors, and when he retired to bed. These, and
many like them, are not very important subjects of inquiry,
it is true ; but yet we should feel an interest therein, and
feel a pleasure in having our curiosity gratified. Only sup-
pose it possible for us to spend a day vAth. Cicero or Horace,
how anxious we should be to know how his time was spent^
_and how astonished^at many of the things we ^^^^..y'^i^'O
satisfy, as fkr as possible, this curiosity, and initiateus in
some at least of the domestic ci^stpms of the Romans, Pro-j^ jU
fessor Becker has written his doo^ It is neither a historyf^
a novel, nor a dissertation ; but it endeavours to combine the
three. Gallus, the hero of his tale, is a historical personage ;
the incidents are, in a great measure, fictitious ; the disser-
tations are replete with much learning, and profound historical
observation.

On such a subject, we should at first sight be perhaps led
to expect that the sources of information would be very
abundant, — that on subjects which formed part of their every-
day life and occupations, many important particulars would
be found in the pages of their literature. Yet such is far
from being the case. Of the domestic manners of the Romans
prior to the time of Augustus, we know very little. Of the
great work of Varro, De Vita Populi Bomani^ only a few
fragments have reached our times ; and we must trust to the
writings of the earlier comedians for great part of the infor-
mation we wish to obtain ; though, as they wrote for effect,
their accounts are probably strained and exaggerated. The
works, and especially the letters, of Cicero give us some
valuable information concerning the later times of the re-
public, as do also Horace and the elegiac poets, as far as
matters of such minor importance can claim attention in the
vicissitudes of that eventful period. In the later times of the
empire, when the public mind ceased to take much interest
in political events, and the increasing luxury of all classes
became matter of indignant notice, the course of their private
life is brought more prominently before us, and Juvenal,
Martial, Statins, may be consulted with advantage. Only for
the reason just now assigned, we should prefer Terence to
them all. And even with this drawback, his pages will, for
such purposes, be found eminently useful, as will also those of
his predecessor Plautus. The more general traits of Roman
society, and therefore the most interesting, are those which

iA.^^

72 Classic Scenes in Borne — [Sept.

we should most rarely meet with in their literature. Persons
who write for their own generation, and their own countrymen,
do not care to draw attention to those things which every
one knows as well as themselves. It is only by one out of a
thousand, and for very peculiar circumstances, that note will
be taken, or mention made, of these matters which are as
familiar to us as the very air we breathe. The very famili-
arity and frequency of their occurrence, makes us lose sight
of them altogether; and if after-times were to infer their
non-existence, from the silence of contemporary writers, they
would be proving their own want of judgment and discrim-
ination. There is more light thrown on the domestic life and
customs oi' the ancient Romans by the ruins of one house on
Pompeii and Herculaneum, than almost by the whole of their
literature together. What little reliance should be placed in
negative evidence, or rather, how cautious we should be
in rejecting any circumstance merely because it has not been
alluded to by contemporary writers, may be inferred from this
one fact. It was always believed that the ancients were un-
acquainted with the use of window glass. Yet in the windows
of Pompeii, panes of glass have been found. This one fact
has dispelled any doubt (and it was more than doubt) that

^_jnay have been enteyjained m)on thg subject^^ - .,

>--^^^Gailus, the hero of ^Professor B^kerVtale, is a personage
of the time of Augustus. We know very little of his
personal history ; what we do know, is procured from the
meagre and scanty statements, principally of Dio Cassius,
Strabo, and Suetonius. A few fragments of his poems have
reached our times, but, assuredly, the man to whom Virgil
dedicated his tenth Eclogue, must have been one of no ordi-
nary merit. He was of humble extraction, but the lowliness
of his origin did not prevent his attaining the favour and even
the friendship of Octavius. He was a general of division in
the army, during the war with Antony; and he acquired
the reputation of a brave soldier by his gallant defence of the
port of Paraetonium. After the subjugation of Egypt by the
imperial troops, he was made praefect of that country. During
his government he made an attack on the cities of Hieropolis
and Thebes. Whether it was that he exceeded his authority,
or was guilty of some unrecorded excesses, or that the crafty
Augustus was jealous of his influence, this attack was
urged by his enemies, as ground of accusation against him.
Rising greatness Avill ever have enemies in the court of
princes, and the rash and thoughtless conduct of Gallus him-

1844.

Becker's Galhis.

self gave a colour to the suspicions that were entertained
against him. The calumny of his adversaries, and, it may be,
the consciousness of his own innocence, urged him beyond the
bounds of prudence, and in his convivial moments, and the
hours of social intercourse with his friends, he gave expression
to thoughts which it would have been well for him to have
kept in the secresy of his own bosom. In a jealous court,
and before an emperor not over-confident of his tenure of
sovereignty, the excitement of wine was no justification of
treason, and Gallus was condemned to exile, and his property
confiscated. But though fallen, he was a Roman still ; and,
in accordance with the false maxims of honour then generally
admitted, he saved himself from disgrace by liis own right
hand, and rescued himself from dishonour by his sword.

The first scene of the story places before us Gallus return-
ing home at midnight from some debauch, where, as usual, v^«*A><
he has been led to make use of expressions injurious to ,„^,^.<rfLt>t-*>t«*.
Augustus. He has been worked up to a high degree of ex- xXj^
citement by Pomponius, who is the lago of the tale; and the
immediate cause of his displeasure has been some slight insult
which he had received the day before from the emperor. Qi^;??
readef^-uiay wisK-ta^kiiiQw something -oiL^ibe'^omestic con-
dition of Gallus- "Jiere is a description of his house and
household, while the master is sleeping off the effects of the
last night's potations :

" The city hills were as yet unillumined by the beams of the
morning sun, and the uncertain twilight which the saffron streaks
on the east, spread as harbingers of the coming day, was diffused
but sparingly through the windows and courts into the apartments
of the mansion. Gallus still lay buried in heavy sleep in his quiet
chamber, the carefully-closed position of which, both protected him
against all disturbing noises, and prevented the early salute of the
morning light from too soon breaking his repose. But around all
was life and activity ; from the cells and chambers below, and the
apartments on the upper floor, there poured forth a swai'ming mul-
titude of slaves, who presently pervaded every corner of the house,
hurrying to and fro, and cleaning and arranging with such busy
alacrity, that one unacquainted with these customary movements,
would have supposed that some grand festivity was at hand.. A
whole decuria of house slaves, armed with besoms and sponges,
under the superintendence of the atriensis, began to clean the en-
trance rooms. Some inspected the vestibulum,to see whether any bold
spider had spun its net during the night on the capital of the
pillars or groups of statuaiy, and rubbed the gold and tortoise-shell
ornaments of the folding-doors and posts at the entrance, and

74 Classic Scenes in Boms — [Sept.

cleaned the dust of the previous day from the marble pavement.
Others, again, were busy in the atrium and its adjacent halls, care-
fully traversing the mosaic floor and the paintings on the walls
with soft Syrian sponges, lest any dust might have settled on the wax
varnish with which they were covered. They also looked closely
whether any spot appeared blackened by the smoke of the lamps,
and then decked with fi-esh garlands the busts and shields which
supplied the place of the imagines, or were marks of departed an-
cestors. In the cavum milium, or interior court, and the larger
peristyle, more were engaged in rubbing with coarse linen cloths
the polished pillars of Tenarian or Numidian mai'ble, which formed
a most pleasing contrast to the intervening statues and the fresh
green verdure of the vacant space within. No less were the tri-
cliniai'ch and his subordinates occupied in the larger saloons, where
stood the costly tables of cedar wood, with pillars of ivory support-
ing their massive orbs,* which had, at an immense expense, been
conveyed to Rome from the primeval woods of Atlas. Here the
wood was like the beautiful dappled coat of a panther ; there the
spots, being more regular and close, imitated the tail of a peacock ;
a third resembled the luxuriant and tangled leaves of the apiicm^each
of them more beautiful and valuable than the other, and many alover
of splendour would have bartered an estate for any one of the three.
The Tricliniarii^cautiously lifted the^^mirple covers, and then
whisked them over with the shaggy gnusnpe, in order to remove
any little dust that may have penetrated through. Next came the
side-boards, several of which stood against the walls in each saloon,
for the purpose of displaying the gold and silver plate and other
valuables. Some of them were slabs of marble, supported by silver
or gilded ram's feet, or by the tips of the wings of two griffins
looking in opposite directions. There was also one of artificial
marble, which had been sawn out of the wall of a Grecian temple;
while the slabs of the rest were of precious metal. The costly
articles displayed on each were so selected, as to be in keeping with
the architectural designs of each apartment. In the tetrastylus,
the simplest saloon, stood smooth silver vessels, unadorned by the
* ars Torentica,' except that the rims of most of the largest bowls
were of gold. Between these were smaller vessels of amber, and
two of great rarity, in one of which a bee, and in the other an ant,
had found its transparent tomb. On another side stood beakers of
antique form, to which the names of their former possessors gave
their value and historical importance. There was, for instance, a
double cup which Priam had inherited from Laomedon; another

* These were known by the name " orbes" and resembled in size and shape
the loo tables of the present time. They were articles of great luxury in Rome.
Pliny relates that Cicero paid for one no less a sum than one million of sesterces.
About £8,000 of our money.

1844.] Becker's Gallus. 75

that had belonged to Nestor, unquestionably the same from which
Hecamede had pledged the old man in Pramnian wine before Troy.
The doves which served as handles were much worn, of course by
Nestor's hand. Another, again, was the gift of Dido to ^neas !
and in the centre stood an immense bowl, which Theseus had
hurled against the face of Eurytus. But the most remarkable of
all, was a relic of the keel of the Argo; only a chip, it is true, but
who did not transport himself back to the olden days, when he saw
before him, and could touch, this most ancient of ships, on which
perhaps Minerva herself had placed her hand."

This description may answer for the house of many a
wealthy Roman of the days of Gallus. There was a perfect
rage for the collection of such specimens of the antique; and,
as in our own times, the supply was always equal to the de-
mand. But Gallus was also a man of letters ; and the library
of a Roman author, the friend of Augustus and of Virgil,
will not be uninteresting. Here it is:

"A lofty window, through which shone the light of the early
morning sun, pleasantly illuminated from above the moderate-sized
apartment; the walls of which were adorned with elegant arabesques
in light colours, and between them, on darker grounds, the luxurious
forms of attractive dancing-girls were seen sweeping spirit-like
along. A neat couch, faced with tortoise-shell, and hung with Baby-
lonian tapestry of various colours, by the side of which was the
scrinium, containing the poet's elegies, which were as yet unknown
to the majority of the public, and a small table of cedar wood, on
goat's feet of bronze, comprised the whole of the supellex.

" Immediately adjoining this apartment was the library, full of
the most precious treasures acquired by Gallus, chiefly in Alex-
andria. There, in presses of cedar-wood placed round the walls,
lay the rolls, partly of parchment and pai'tly of the finest Egyptian
papyrus, each supplied with a label, on which was seen, in bright
red colours, the name of the author and the title of the book. Above
these, again, were ranged the busts, in bronze or marble, of the
most renowned writers : an entirely novel ornament for libraries,
first introduced into Rome by Asinius PoUio, who, perhaps, had
only borrowed it from the libraries of Pergamus and Alexandria.
True, only the chief representatives of each separate branch of
literature were to be found in the narrow space available for them;
but to compensate for this, there were several rolls, which contained
the portraits of seven hundred remarkable men. These were the
hebdomades or peplography of Varro, who, by means of a new and
much-valued invention,* was enabled in an easy manner to multiply

* It has been supposed by many ingenious modern writers on art, that the
'benignissimum Varronis inventum," was some species of engraving, by which

76 Classic Seems in Rome — [Sept,

the collection of his portraits, and so to spread the copies of tliem,
with short biographical notices of the men, through the -whole
learned world.

" On the other side of the library was a larger room, in which a
number of learned slaves were occupied in transcribing, with nimble
hand, the works of illustrious Greek and the more ancient Roman
authors, both for the supply of the library and for the use of those
friends to whom Gallus obligingly communicated his literary trea-
sures. Others were engaged in giving the rolls the most agreeable
exteriors ; in glueing the separate slips of papyrus together, draw-
ing the red lines which divided the different columns, and writing
the title in the same colour ; in smoothing with pumice-stone and
blackening the edges; fastening ivory tops on the sticks round
which the rolls were wrapped ; and dyeing bright red or yellow
the parchment which was to serve as a wrapper.

" Gallus, with Chresimus (a trusty and confidential slave), en-
tered the study, where the freedman, of whom he was used to avail
himself in his studies, to make remarks on what was read, to note
down particular passages, or to commit to paper his own poetical
effusions as they escaped him, was already awaiting him. After
giving Chresimus further instructions to make the necessary pre-
parations for an immediate journey, he I'eclined in his accustomed
manner on his studying couch, supported on his left arm, his right
knee being drawn up somewhat higher than the other, in order to
place on it his books or tablets. ' Give me that roll of poetry of
mine, Phajdrus,' said he to the freedman ; ' I will not set out till
I have sent the book finished to the bookseller. I certainly do not
much desire to be sold in the Argiletan taverns for five denarii, and
find my name hung up on the doors, and not always in the best
company; but Secundus worries me for it, and therefore be it so.'
* He understands his advantage,' said Phaedrus, as he drew forth
the roll from the cedar chest. ' I wager his slaves will have nothing
else to do for months but copy off your Elegies and Epigrams, and
you will be rewarded with the applause poured upon them, not by
Rome only, nor by Italy, but by the world.' ' Who knows ? ' said
Gallus. 'It is always hazardous to give to the opinion of the
public that which was written for a narrow circle of tried friends ;
and our public is so verj' capricious. For one, I am too cold ; for
another, I speak too much of Lycoris; my Epigrams are too long
for a third; and then there are the grammarians, who impute to me
thejalanders which_the copyist in his hurry has committed.' "

To allow the anger of Augustus to pass away without
aifording him any new provocation was the interest of Gallus.
The emperor had .still some lingering affection for his former

the portraits of illustrious men were multiplied, and sent to other countries,
" ut (to use the words of Pliny) prjjesentes esse ubique possunt."

1844.] Becl-ers Gallus. 77

friend, and was iinwIHIng to visit him with severity ; and the
disgraced favourite was in hopes that when the excitement
cooled, and the recollection of the offence was weakened by-
time, he might yet recover the place in the esteem of his
master which he had so unfortunately forfeited. He deter-
mined, therefore, to repair for a few months to his villa.
Can we conceive it possible that the villa of a wealthy Roman
should be anywhere but at Baije ?

" NuUus in orbe sinus Bails praelucet amoenis."

The bath was an important item in the pleasures of the
voluptuous Roman. Introduced onglnally and employed
solely for the purposes of cleanliness, its use soon became
general as a mere sensual indulgence alone. Some were
known to have recourse to it six or seven times a-day ; and
the state provided that the poor man, who could only afford
the fourth part of a denarius, should not be deprived of the
luxury it afforded. Besides the several varieties of bathing,
whether cold, or hot, or vapour, which were provided in the
same establishment, the public baths seem, at least in Rome,
to have furnished to the public many sources of intellectual
enjoyment, and to have supplied, in a great measure, that
want which in our cities is supplied by the public clubs and
newsrooms. The baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian,
in Rome, were constructed on a most magnificent scale, and
supplied with every requisite for comfort and enjoyment.
Several ancient writers have described the mode of erection,
and tlie interior arrangement of these buildings; but the
remains of some at present in existence, enable us to form a
more accurate estimate of what they were than all these
accounts together. Such are the I'emains of the Roman bathsA '
just ipentloned, as also that discovered in the year 1784 atN
Badenweiler ; but the most important by far of any yet dis-
covered, is that at Pompeii, which, when excavated, was in a
tolerable state of preservation. This was complete, not only
in its essential parts, but also in the ornaments, inscriptions,
and even the utensils. Much valuable information on this
subject has also been derived from a painting found in the
baths of Titus, which represents a section of one actually
occupied by the bathers, and each part has its name written
underneath. The baths at Pompeii will, perhaps, convey an
accurate notion of the others, as to internal arrangement, but
not as to size.

From the court, those who intended to bathe passed from

78 Classic Scenes in Borne—' [Sept.

a small corridor into an apartment called the frigidarium,
which corresponded with the first room of the Turkish bath.
There are apertures still in the walls, which once held pegs
on which the clothes were hung of those who went into the
cold bath. Those who took hot baths, undressed in another
apartment, called the tepidarium, where the heat was pro-
duced by a large fire-place. From the frigidarium, a door
led into the piscina, or cold plunge-bath. This is perfectly
preserved. Nothing seems wanting but the water and the_
bathers. Tjba <vo&ovvoiv -iu a oirolo enclosed Bj
the-angles-of— vvhieh -are^ftmr ^IcoresrinTd^tt Tsr-i&lS.'/B'm^ln

fUampfpr. Bound-tbe-wholc, runs a walk-^ ft. 4 in. \vide,

leaving lihus-the^^aiscma itaelf-only^43^ A. iOin., ^nd-tlie depth
Cf-waieg-vgas-only about 3 ft. — It will be seen by these dimej
sioBS, thai the pluuge-bdth TTf tiiis eafeabliahmenfr^gag'only a
-good-sited wjfeliiiig basin. The whole is of white marble. It
was surmounted by a dome, and the walls were painted red
and blue. The piscina of the baths of Diocletian was 200 ft.
long, by half that number in width. The caldarium, or
sweating bath, was the most important of all, as it was pro-
bably the most frequently employed. The whole room rested
on small pillars, so that underneath it, the heat, and even the
flame, from the fire-places might be disseminated. The walls
were also so constructed, that a column of heated air enclosed
the room on all sides. This is not effected by flues, but by
one universal flue, formed by a lining of bricks, strongly con-
nected with the outer wall by cramps of iron, yet about four
inches from it, so as to leave a space by which the hot air
might ascend from the furnace. The heat was increased or
diminished, by rising or lowering a valve which was over a
furnace in the room. At the extremity of this apartment
was the balneum, or hot baths. Besides the application of
water or steam, the skin was stimulated by mechanical means,
and the different operations carried on in them, may be un-
derstood from the words of Lucilius :

" Scabor, suppilor, desquamor, pumicor, ornor,
Expilor, pingor;"

and the several instruments employed for the purpose are
well known, and frequently met with in the collections
of the curious. In the early times of the empire, some
decency and moderation were observed. There were sepa-
rate places for the sexes ; but, in the increasing corrup-
tion, they became places of open and undisguised liccn-

1844.] Becker's Galhs. 7d

tiousness. -Hadrian attempted to prohibit ^^ scandalous
improprietfi-'^lBBilflimHHHMiBAii^iihapdi^^, but the
frequent renewal of these interdicts, shews that the evil could
not be eradicated.

Long before vice ventured to violate public decency at
Rome, it had shaken off all restraint at Bai?e. So undisguised
and unfettered was the voluptuousness of this fashionable
watering-place, that Seneca left it in disgust the second day-
after his arrival. The enervating influence of climate, the
soft and balmy mildness of the air, the surpassing loveliness
of the scenery, the luxurious taste of those who sought health
and pleasure in its waters, and the absence of any other pur-
suit than that of pleasure, all combined to weaken the last
hold which decency might have had upon the giddy and
thoughtless crowd that assembled there. Before setting out
for Baise, where he had hoped to avoid for a time the dis-
pleasure of Augustus, Gallus wrote a letter to his lady-
love Lycoris, which he entrusted for delivery to his slave
Cerinthus. Pomponius, who was plotting his ruin, wished to
obtain possession of this letter for his own purposes, and
the means by which he succeeded in this object, will give us,
what we seldom have, a sketch of low life in Rome. The
scene is laid in one of the taverns frequented by the slaves,
and Dromo is the agent of Pomponius.

"The sixth hour was past, and there was less bustle in the
popinae. Only here and there remained a guest, who could not
break from the sweet mead and the maid who waited on him, or
was still resting heavy and overcome by his sedulous attention to
the fluids. In a small 'tabema' of the suburra sat two slaves
draining a goblet, which apparently was not their first. The one
was a youth of pleasing exterior, numbering little more than
twenty years, Avhose open and honest-looking countenance was in a
rubicund glow, while his reddening neck, and the swelling veins of
his full round arms, shewed plainly that the earthen vessel before
him contained something besides vinegar. The other, whose age
might be between thirty and forty, inspired the beholder with less
confidence ; his bold and reckless mien, lips turned up scornfully,
and rough merriment, betokened one of those slaves, who confiding
in the kind disposition of their master, and the thickness of their
own backs, were accustomed to bid defiance to all the elm-staves
and thongs in the world.

" ' But now drink, Cerinthus ! ' exclaimed the latter to his
younger companion, as he quaffed the remainder of his goblet.
' Why, you take it as if I ordered nothing but Vatican, and
yet the landlord has given us the best Sabina in his cellar ; and I

80 Classic Scenes in Rome — [Sept.

assure you the Falernian I slily sipped behind the column at the
late banquet was scarcely-so-good.' ■— •• • — -

" * In truth, Gripus,' answered the young slave, * the wine is
excellent, but I fear I shall be drinking too much ; my temples
burn, and if I taste more, I shall be tipsy when I go to Lycoris.
You know how Gallus insists on order and punctuality.*

"*Gallus, indeed!' said the other; 'why he drinks more than
we do. Besides, he has to-day gone into the country, and the old
grumbler Chresimus with him ; therefore we now are free, and
moreover it is my birth-day, and as nobody has invited me, why
I'll be merry at my own expense.'

"As he thus spoke, a third person entered the popina. *Ah!
well met,' cried the little fat figure ; ' I salute ye both.' * Oh
welcome, Drorao,' exclaimed Gripus, as if surprised at his appear-
ance. ' You have come at the happiest possible moment. Our lord
is set out on a journey, and I am now celebrating my birth-day.'

"*How, your birth-day? Excellent! We must make a rich
offering to the genius. But, by Mercury and Laverna, your
glasses are empty. Halloa, damsel, wine here. Why, by Hercules,
I believe ye have ordered but a glass each. A lagena here,' cried
he, tlirowing a piece of gold on the table, ' and larger goblets, that
"we may drink to the name of our friend.'

"The lagena came. 'The name has six letters,' exclaimed
Dromo ; 'let six cyathi be filled.' 'But not unmixed, surely?'
put in Cerinthus. ' What cares the genius about water ?' replied
the other. ' To Gripus' health. How, Cerinthus ! you won't
shirk, surely? Bravo! drained to the bottom, so that the genius
may look down brightly upon us. So Gallus has departed from
Rome ? To the Falernian region for certain ? Well, he knows
how to live. An excellent master ! We'll drink to his well-being
also. Actually just the same number of letters. Now Cerinthus,
health to your lord.' ' Long life and happiness to him,' cried the
other, already intoxicated, as he emptied the goblet.

" ' One thing is still wanting. Come hither, Chione, and drink
with us. By Hercules, though, a spruce lass.' ' True,' stammered
out Cerinthus, with much difficulty. ' What say you?' interrupted
Gripus, who thought this was the right moment for the prosecution
of his scheme ; ' she was always pretty, Lycoris herself has not
finer eyes.'

" The name struck the ear of Cerinthus, in spite of his drunken-
ness, like a clap of thunder. He tried to spring up, but his feet
refused their office, and he leaned reeling against the damsel.
'What's the matter, man? Whither would you go?' exclaimed
the other two. * To Lycoris,' stammered he ; ' you don't suppose
I'm drunk, do ye?' 'Oh no,' said Gripus, 'but you seem weak
and fatigued.' ' How, I fsx-fatigued ?' He tried to depart, but
after a few paces sank down. ' Take a sleep for a little while,' said

1844.] Beckers Gallm. 81

Gripus, * and let me have charge of your letter, and 111 immedi-
ately carry it to its destination.' The drunken man nodded assent,
and produced the tablets. Dromo obtained from the landlord a
place for the unconscious slave to sleep in, paid the score, and
hurried off with Gripus." — p. 87.

In the voluptuous enjoyments of Baiae, Gallus little thought
of the schemes that were plotting for his destruction. The
sun shone brilliantly on that shore, the loveliest that it looks
down upon of all the wide earth's domain ; but there was a
dark spot gathering in the horizon, ominous of impending
ruin and disaster. Pomponius, his treacherous friend, and
Largus, his avowed rival and enemy, were in league with one
another to compass his utter ruin. The retirement of Gallus
at Baise was likely to frustrate their intentions, and it was
therefore their interest to bring him back once more to Rome.
His reliance upon the fidelity of Pomponius, makes this an
easy matter ; and the latter accordingly writes to inform him
of the comparatively lenient sentence which the still lingering
affection of the emperor allowed him to inflict. He exagge-
rates its nature, and insinuates that his return to the city
would, by braving public opinion and the displeasure of his
master, be likely to demonstrate his innocence, by confound-
ing the hatred of his accusers. The-too confiding Gallus falls
into the snare laid for him, and makes his appearance in the
city with the least possible delay. Not as friends suggested,
with the humble garb and subdued demeanor of a penitent,
but in the apparel, and with the mien of one to whom the
imperial disfavour was a matter of very little consequence.
In this wayward mood and spirit of obstinacy, he accepts the
invitation of Lentulus to sup with him and a party of his
friends. Lentulus was a young man of fashion. With no
capacity, and less inclination, for civil or political employment,
he only thought of pleasure and amusement. He was rich,
and few gave better dinners ; no one dressed with more care,
or arranged his hair in more elegant locks, or diffused around
him such a scent of aromatic perfume ; no one was better
acquainted with the news of the city i^bwi^tia buLiutlied"

•^t^wUii'dci)! , — why TituH had proem cd a divuice'', tin tvliuu».

-.NLes&farfaad olOBed^rei doors. The/copvi^ial foa/ts of /such a
character must indefedjbe worthy <k oLx attenjticp.* '

* The saying " II faut manger pour vivre et non pa^jwrre'pour manger," was
completely inverted in Rome. Tht/baiiquut of^lJentulus is, by no means, an
exaggerated description of one of thsup-entert3MaenU.-,^They made thre«

VOL. xvn.— NO. x^ttir^ ^^J-- J 6

urw*-e^k' i*^*^

Classic Scenes in Rome —

" Lentulus had only invited six friends, but Pomponiusi anxious
that the number of the muses^ should occupy the triclinutm and no
place be left empty, brought with him two friends, whomne intro-
duced as gentlemen from Perusia. * It is long, methinks,' said
Gallus to his courteous host, on entering, ' since we last met in this
saloon; how beautifully you have in the meantime ornamented it.
You certainly could not have chosen a more appropriate picture for
a triclinium i^haxi those satyrs celebrating the joyous vintage; and
the slain boar, a scene from Lucania, the fruit and provision pieces
over the doors, and between the elegant twigs, on which thrushes
are sitting, — all ai-e calculated to awaken a relish for the banquet.'

" ' Yes, really,' interrupted Pomponius, ' Lentulus understands
how to decorate a dining hall far better than Calpumius. The
other day, he had the walls of his finest triclinium painted with the
murder of Hipparchus, and the death of Brutus; and instead of
agreeable foliage, threatening lictors were to be seen in every
corner.' * He too is right in his way,' said Gallus, * but where is
he ? I understood that you had invited him, Lentulus.' ' He was
unfortunately pre-engaged,' replied the other. ' But we shall see
him before the evening is over,' added Pomponius. * As our friend
Fannius is, you know, averse to sitting late, and Lentulus will not
I am sure let us go before the crowing of the cock, we shall be one
short at the triclinium, unless Calpurnius come according to his
promise, and fill the vacant place, so soon as he can get released
from his formal consular supper. But I scarcely think we ought
to keep the cook waiting any longer. The tenth hour is, I believe,
almost elapsed ; had we not better take our seats, Lentulus ? '

" The host nodded in the aflSrmative, and conducted Gallus to
the lowest place on the middle sofa, which was the seat of honour
at the table. At his left, and on the same lectus, sat Pomponius,
above him, Fannius. The sofa to the left was occupied by Bassus,
Faustinus, and Caecilianus. To the right, and next Gallus, sat
Lentulus himself; below him, the Perusians whom Pomponius had
brought. As soon as they had reclined, slaves took off" their san-
dals, and youths, with their loins girded, offered water in silver
bowls for their ablutions. At a nod from Lentulus, two slaves
entered, and placed upon the table the tray on which were the
dishes composing the first course. Li the centre of the plateau,

principal meals in the course of the day, called, respectively, jentaculum, pran- j
dium, and coena. The first was simply bread and fruit, taken frequently walking s
about in the discharge of business, sometimes omitted altogether. The pran-
dium, sometimes called merenda, was the mid-day meal, as otill nsdd ia many
"'i^'^triri fff tha rnntinrntj The coena was the great meal of the Romans. It
was generally taken about half-way between noon and sunset, and continued for
the greater part of the evening, frequently until morning, hence the expression,
" coena in lucem." Pliny, in speaking of his uncle's economy of time, describes,
... in ternw of admiration, how he only spent three hours at supper.. ^

1844.] Becker's Gallus. 83

ornamented with tortoise-shell, stood an ass of bronze, on either
side of which hung silver panniers, filled with white and black
olives, preserved bj the art of the cook until this season of the
year. On the back of the beast sat a Silenus, from whose skin the
most delicious ganim* flowed on the sumen\ beneath. Near this,
on two silver gridirons, lay delicately-dressed sausages; beneath
which, Syrian plums, mixed with the seed of the pomegranate,
presented the appearance of glowing coals. Around stood silver
dishes, containing asparagus, radishes, and other productions of the
garden ; in addition to lacerta, flavoured with mint and rue, and
with Byzantize muria, and dressed snails and oysters, while fresh
ones in abundance were handed round. At the same time, slaves
carried round in golden goblets the rmilsuniy composed of Hymettian
honey and Falernian wines.

" They were still occupied in tasting the several delicacies, when
a second and smaller tray was brought in, and placed in a vacant
spot within the first, to which it did not yield in point of singu-
larity. In an elegant basket sat a hen, ingeniously carved out of
wood, with outspread wings, as if she were brooding. Straightway
entered two slaves, who began searching in the chaff which filled
the basket, and taking out some eggs, distributed them among the
guests. * Friends,' said Lentulus, smiling, ' they are pea-hens*
eggs, which have been put under the hen; my only fear is that she
may have sat too long upon them; but let us try them.' A slave
then gave to each guest a silver cochleare, which was, however,
found almost too large for the purpose, and each proceeded to break
an egg with the point of it. Most of the guests were already
acquainted with the jokes of Lentulus, but not so the Perusians.
* Truly my egg has already become hen I ' cried one of them in dis-
gust, and about to throw it away. 'Examine a little more closely,',
said Pomponius, with a laugh, in which the guests at the upper
sofa, who were better acquainted with the matter, joined; 'our
friend's cook understands well how to dress eggs that have been
already sat upon.' The Perusians then for the first time remarked
that its shell was not natural, but made of dough, and that a fat
figpecker was hidden in the yolk, which was strongly seasoned with
pepper. Many jokes were made; and whilst the guests were eating
the mysterious eggs, the slaves again presented the honey-wine.
When no one desired more, the band which was at the other end
of the hall began to play, as a sign for the slaves to remove, which
they proceeded to do."

In the interval of the courses, the Falernian is handed round

* A sauce made of shell-fish.

■{■ Among the most favorite dishes of the ancients, were the womb, wlva, and
the breast, sumen, before it had been sucked, of a porca. Tliere are none so
frequently mentioned from the earliest to the very latest periods.

6»

84 Classic Scenes in Rome — [Sept

to the guests, who amuse one another with stories of ghosts
and witches, vftyy lifee those ^hii;ir"Since' terrified uh in the
jagrw nriiiii I'lllTitllMiid, iiiul very unlike those we should expect
from the contemporaries of Cicero and Virgil. The second
course is brought upon the table, consisting of dishes equally
elaborate and equally fantastic with those already described.

d- The next dish is of a still more grotesque character.
^{ " The slaves produced a fresh ferculum, which, to the astonish-

^^^"■v^J^ment of the company,! contained a vast swine, cooked exactly like
»*- the boar. * Ha,' saidU^enturus, rising from his couch to examine

■^^ it more closely, * I really beliave that the cook has forgotten to dis-

embowel the animal, i Bring him hither directly.' The cook
appeared with troubled\mien, knd confessed, to the indignation of
the whole party, that in his hurry he had forgotten to cleanse the
beast. * Now, really,' Isaid the enraged Cecilianus, * that is the
most worthless slave llever beheld ; who ever heard of a cook
omitting to gut a swirle ? "Were he mine, I would hang him.'
Lentulus, however, was more leniently disposed. * You deserve a
severe chastisement,' saidl he to the slave, * and may thank my good
humour for escaping it. 1 But as a punishment you must imme-
diately perform the neglected dbty in our presence.' The cook
seized the knife, and haV^ing caitefuUy slit open the belly on both
sides gave a sudden jerk,, when,i to the agreeable surprise of the
guests, a quantity of little sausages of all kinds tumbled out. ' That
is, indeed, a new joke,' cried POmponius, laughing, ' but tell me
why did you have a tame fewine SOTved up after the wild boar ?' * If
the remainder of my friends be of that opinion,' replied the host,
* we will grant him his liberty, and he may appear to-morrow at my
table with his cap on.' ^

" Whilst this was being done, the eyes of the guests were sud-
denly attracted to the ceiling by a noise overhead. The ceiling
opened, and a large silver hoop, on which were ointment bottles of
silver and alabaster, silver garlands with beautifully-chiselled leaves
and circlets, and other trifles, descended upon the table ; and after
the dessert, prepared by the new baker, whom Lentulus purchased
for an hundred thousand sesterces, had been served up, the party
rose, to meet again in the brilliant saloon, the intervening moments
being spent by some in sauntering along the colonnades, and by
others in taking a bath." — p. 124.

After the ccena followed the commessatio, which was pro-
longed to a late hour of the night ; the excitement of the
hour and scene, the seduction of the society about him, the
influence of the wine he had taken, hurry Gallus beyond
the bounds of discretion. As usual in his cups, he indulges
too freely in strictures on the conduct of the emperor. The
crafty Perusians and the insidious suggestions of Pomponius

1844.]

Becker^ Gallns.

lead the bewildered and infatuated Gallus to talk of the fate
of Julius and the dagger of Brutus ; and the party breaks up
in hurry and confusion. The consequences need not be told.
The strangers prove to have been the spies of Pomponius ;
the treason is immediately denounced to the government;
and Gallus awakes in the morning only to hear of his being
sentenced to perpetual exile and the confiscation of his pro-
perty. The closing scene is as follows : —

" In the seventh hour Calpumius rushed into the house of Gallus,
bringing confirmation of the dread decree, and was soon followed
by others from all quarters. Gallus received the news, which
cleared up the last doubts concerning his fate, with visible grief but
manly composure. He thanked his friend for his sympathy, warn-
ing him at the same time to be more cautious on his own account
for the future. He then requested him to withdraw; ordered
Chresimus to bring his double tablets; and delivered to him money
and jewels, to be saved for Lycoris and himself. Having squeezed
the hand of the veteran, who wept aloud, he demanded to be left
alone. The domestic loitered for a while, and then retired full of
the worst forebodings.

" Gallus fastened the door, and for greater security placed the
wooden bar across it. He then wrote a few words to Augustus,
begging him to give their freedom to the faithful servants who had
been in most direct attendance upon him. Words of farewell to
Lycoris filled the other tablets. After this, he reached from the
wall the sword, to the victories achieved by which, he owed his
fatal greatness ; struck it deep into his breast ; and, as he fell tipon
the couch, dyed yet more strongly the purple coverlet with the
streams of his blood. The lictor sent to announce to him the sen-
tence of banishment arrived too late. Chresimus had already, with
faithful hand, closed the eyes of his beloved master ; and round the
couch stood a troop of weeping slaves, uncertain of their future lot,
and testifying by the loudness of their grief that a man of worth
was dead." — p. 159.

"^ Such is the substance of Professor Becker's story. Nothing
can be more simple and unartificial than the entire narrative ;
and it seems to be nothing more, to use a homely method of
expression, than a peg whereon to hang a number of very
learned and useful dissertations, Avhich constitute two-thirds
of the entire volume. They are by far the most valuable
portion of the work, and we regret that they have not been
embodied in the story. Indeed, if there be any fault more
especially to be found, it is a certain want of method. We
have noticed also in several places a want of perspicuity,
which, notwithstanding the valuable additions of the trans-

#-J^-ir^

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Clai

he Scen^ m Rome — \P^V^J^t»rikr

lat(br, make It not a little
ingl However, theiiii
Avhi^li ilA studenfr^^ll

jectB whic 1 are not
course of 1 1 classical

lifficul
these
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often! taker
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not

to two or three; firft, to that o

4 The Romans contracted marriage

to catch Ithe aiithqr'simdan- I

page^ mi|ch vaAuab^e matiifir, J

findlelsefvher^, arid on sub- ^/
jof inj tha orainaii;y>-^^^
nly spaed to ai^verfc
n niirriage.

threefold form :

acco
eh

\^p^ Ja confarreatio, coemptio, and usus. The first, confarreatio, was
J'^jf the most ancient, the most solemn, and of course the most

^ ;yr respectable form ; and was the only one that was attended
by a religious ceremony. The greater pomp and expense
attending it was the cause of its being used by the patricians,
as of its being the first to disappear from the poorer classes.
The bride was escorted by a band of youths, was adorned by
a bright yellow veil, and carried in her hands an oaten cake,
whence the ceremony obtained its name. When she arrived
at the house of the bridegroom, she was carefully lifted over
the threshold, to prevent her from knocking her foot against
it, Avhich would have been a most unlucky omen, and greeted
her husband with the customary salutation, " Uhi tu Caiics
ego Caia.'''' The second form was coemptio, a fictitious sale,
made by the parent or the guardians in the presence of wit-
nesses, by which the wife became the property of the husband.
The third, usus, was a free union of the parties, without sale
or contract. If the woman lived with him for a year, with-
1 out having spent three nights consecutively out of his house,
iehe became his lawful wife. In whatever form the marriage
iceremony was performed, it was possible to obtain a divorce,
{provided a satisfactory reason was assigned. The first public
divorce in Rome is said to have been in the five hundred and
twenty-first year of the city ; but in the increasing corruption
of later times it became exceedingly common, though, when
the marriage was contracted by confarreatku a formal cere-
mony galled diffareatio was necessary .^^'(J'Wia*** ti- W^^'^^^J^P^
The power which the Roman father had over the child ^as \
rery arbitraiy, and its exercise, in many instances, tyrannical.
The child was his property in the strict sense of the word.
It was in his power to expel him from his house, or to sell
him in the public market. Were he inhumanly to deprive
him of life, there was no law that held him accountable. At
no age, however advanced, and in no position, however ex-
alted, was he emancipated from the father's authority. The
only way by which he could obtain his liberty, was by a triple
«ale by the father, in tlie public market-place. The son who

1844.J Beckers Gallus. 87

had been thus three times sold as a slave by his father, could
never again be recovered, and was for ever emancipated from
his authority. Nine days (nundinae) after his birth, if a boy,
and eight, if a girl, it received its name, and the lustratio was
performed by the family. Some attention was paid to its
education, though, in early times, it does not seem to have
included more than the rudiments of our present knowledge.
The child who could read and write, (gaWPUp simple acoeuBts,
and repeat the laws of the twelve tables by i«ete, was perfect ;
for the most accomplished scholar could do no more. How-
ever, when the Romans came into contact with Greece, the
course of education was extended, and a knowledge of its
language and literature was required. Horace gives an
amusing account of the Roman schools to which his father
sent him ; and Martial gives a sad account of the tyranny of
a master who kept a school not far from where he lived. In
the later times of the empire, it was customary for the wealthy \
\ Roman to send his child to Athens, to receive that knowledge l
i,^f rhetorJQ and philosophy, whicJi.thlafiiiy,-bfi§t.GQHl^^

^M»»J«7G there any more usefiil or more necessary article than a
clock ? What should we be able to do without it ? Can we
even form an idea of a well-ordered regular society without
one ? Yet Rome was nearly five hundred years without a
clock of any kind whatsoever ; and, even in her most en-
lightened days, what was employed for the purpose of indi-
cating and recording time, was of the rudest and most imperfect
description. Let our readers represent to themselves a large
vessel of water, with an aperture in the bottom, and marks to
register the flowing of the water, and they will have some
idea of the " clepsydra," which Scipio Nasica set up in Rome
for the convenience of the public, in the year u.c. 595 ; and
the public was astonished and delighted at the ingenuity
of the contrivance, for such a thing was never seen till
then. When the sun shone in the heavens, they could dis-
cover the time of day by the sun-dial, which was invented
by Anaximander, five hundred years before our era, and
which was brought to Rome a few years before the war
with Pyrrhus; but, when the sky was overcast, or stormy,
or during the dreary hours of night, the Fabii and the Cor-
nelii could not tell the hour, until the wondrous invention of
Nasica. Only think that the men who conquered the world,
knew not the luxury of a watch, or even a clock. When
there was no fixed standard of measurement, the division of
time must necessarily have been uncertain. They reckoned,
indeed, twenty-four hours, from midnight to midnight ; but

88 Classic Scenes in Home — [Sept.

twelve of these were always from the rising to the setting of
the sun. Hence the hours of the summer months were
longer than those of winter. They were equal only at the
equinoxes. At the winter solstice, their eleventh Jiour began,
according to our mode of reckoning, at fifty-eight minutes past
two, while in the winter it did not commence till two minutes
past five. Thus, to compare their hours with ours, we must
always know the natural length of the day in the latitude of
Rome, that our computation may be a correct one.

A remarkable feature of private life in Rome, was the
general use of gymnastic exercises. These, as well as the bath,
were used for the purpose of promoting perspiration, and it wa«
believed to be impossible to preserve a regular and healthy
mode of life without using them. They had a number of
exercises, more or less severe, which were regularly practised
every day, to promote strength and activity, and to promote
an appetite. Nor were these exercises confined to the young,
or to the humbler classes of society, they were practised by
all, whatever may be their station and character. It was
considered a remarkable thing in Augustus, to have given up
the more violent games after his elevation to the empire ; and
Suetonius thinks it worth recording that the very games of
foot and hand ball, which he practised for some time, were,
after a few years, exchanged for the milder exercises of riding
or walking. Occasionally, at the termination of one of his
garden walks, his old habits would come upon him, and urge
him to enjoy the luxury of hop step and jump. " Decambu-
labat, ita ut in extremis spatiis subsultim decurreret." He
was accused of indolence for neglecting them. There is no
doubt that modern society may take a lesson from them in
this particular department. Bodily exercise contributes, when
not taken to excess, to strengthen both the body and the
mind. Of all these games, none seems to have been more
popular than that of ball (pila). The learned Galen himself
wrote a special treatise to recommend it for general adoption.
There were several varieties of ball used for this purpose,
viz. pila, foUis, paganica ; and different modes of playing, such
as trigon, harpastum, sparsiva. Of the greater part of these
games, we have very obscure accounts, of some we have none
at all. Our juvenile readers may be gratified with an account
of more common ball or pila. The most simple use of this
was that in which two persons opposite to each other, either
threw a ball alternately to one anotlier, or perhaps each threw
^ ball simultaneously, and caught the other thrown to him ;

1844.J Becker's Gallu?. 89

and we find from Plautus, that this took place even In the
streets. When three persons played, and threw the balls to
one another, it was called trigon. This was by far the most
popular game. The players stood in a triangle ; and it was
looked on as a great awkwardness if they made use of any
other than the left hand to catch the ball, and like many of
their games and bodily exercises, was probably played by the
parties unencumbered with any habiliments. The karpastum
was perhaps not unlike our game of football, and also the
sparsiva; dumb-bells were also frequently employed. In
each house, at least to those of any note, a particular room
was set apart for these gymnastic exercises. It was called a
sphceristerium, and was used when the inclemency of the
weather, or perhaps the description of amusement, required
the warmth or retirement of a chamber.

Connected with this subject, is that of their social games.
Gambling is a custom which dates farther back than the time
of Augustus. It was principally by means of dice. These
were of two kinds ; tali and tessarce. The latter precisely
resembled ours. The tali had only four flat surfaces. The
other sides were rounded off, so that the die could not rest
upon them ; one and six were marked on two opposite sides,
and four and three upon the others. Four tali were always
used together. The best throw, which was called Y^nus^ was
when all showed different numbers ; the worst, c^ms, when
the four turned up aces. The tessarce were always played for
money, but the others were used for various purposes. They
had also the ludus latrunculorum, resembling somewhat our
game of chess ; and the ludus duodecim scriptorum, in which
the moves were regulated by dice, and which seems to have
been almost the same as our game of ^'^liTi^TffnnHHiffTrr'*^ /^^^*^
a 'I'here are many other topics touched on in the dissertations
, rf^^f Professor Becker, whieb-we would wriiim^^fcrtOTTdT on, but^
' ^ we-find^-tbai^-we-haive-^ieady -exceeded the -spaee-^Hotted^ixT
i;a,_aiBtiiBa8t leave several interesting subjects unnoticed.
The gardening of the ancients ; their long and verdant walks ;
I their alleys of mingled rose and myrtle ; their box trees, cut
\ into the likeness of all things in heaven above and on the
earth beneath, bring to our recollection the views which we
have often seen in paintings of the old French style of orna-
mental pleasure grounds. The description of their dress,
■ their table utensils, their drinks, their manner of lighting
i their houses, and even the random conjectures as to the man-
\ ner in which they fastened their doors, — for concerning such

90 Classic Scenes in Rome— [Sept.

a h^^ly matter we have nothing more than a conjecture, —

however curious and interesting^^ j ma^g^Jje, we f[tuat Vg-

luctantly forcn[Q.^BHt~^c1ore w&njtOse' uul' -ac^iceptthere is ^t^s^
onc'TcaTTirc oiiloman society l:o which •»» must allude, rt-^'
-thai=^ slavery, which shed its deadly and degrading influence
on every form of their social and domestic life, and which,
perhaps to a greater extent than is generally imagined, was
the cause of its corruption and consequent downfall* •»■*■■— ^

tbio foul -and diohonouring staiBy^withopt-a«y of the mitifflttiag^
fui-pnni&fjinfAnft wliirh -U^Awanpfl its p^^prmify irL-pa^^rnrr -HrymffT

The number of slaves in the Roman territory was enormous.
Some of the patricians reckoned more belonging to them than
perhaps some European princes could reckon subjects. Pliny
relates that a man whose name would not have been known
to us, but for the fact recorded, after having lost much of his
property by the civil wars, was yet able to leave to be dis-
posed by will so many as 4116 slaves. Petronius says, that
in many families the slaves became so numerous that not one-
tenth knew even the person of their owner, and an actuary,
reading out the occurrences of the day on a single farm, is
made to say: "on the 7th of the calends of August, there
were born on the farm of Trimalchlo thirty boys and forty
girls." ^his'iya^' ijg-fln oxaCTgeratioBr"ijTIt it wi"

must~tn-thos€ tinres^haC^i
^hen-^ich4n^asseiiion^ was at till within-tW4imits^o'f/
^rc^iaBUity./Tor^iWTnaiote^noe of jader among tb^ghrus well'
--fis--^BHr'1iTk^urpo8e~l5^ eMct^icy,-^ylrey^Wc?g' ^drv ided~into
distinGfe-clggiyieS, each class, xyr decUria^ '^s they ^svere calted,
_beiiig_-sul;:^eefr-4o-4ts"0w«^-gaperKmF- They were distributed
into four principal divisions, known respectively by the
names of ordinarii, vulgares, mediastini, and the quales-
quales. For the knowledge of these divisions, we are in-
debted to Ulpian. Each was again subdivided into other
minor branches. They became the property of their mas-
ters, when born in his household. These were called
vernw, and not unfrequently deserved the name of vernoB
procaces, from the liberties which, from being born and
educated in the family, they sometimes took in the presence
of their masters. Some became his slaves by purchase. A<t J
female slave was sometimes purchased for ^ in the Romanni^O
market; at other times they went as high as ^4fe ; while f'^'^
Martial makes mention of some boys having been purchased'^^rp^
for such sums as 800^. This must, however, have been a^

1844.] Becker i Gallus. 91

rare instance, and in consequence of his possessing some rare
accomplishment. Only the meaner and common sort were
exposed for sale in the public market. The Roman, like the
Turkish slave merchant, had his inner and private apartment,
wherein the more precious specimens of human kind were
submitted to the inspection of his_chosen customers, ^us j

iMartial:— ~~'^^- — ^ /

" Inspexit molles pueros, oculisque comedit ^ '

Non hos quos primae prostituere casae, (yJnu-T
Sed quos arcanas servant tabulata catastae
JEt quos non populus,.nec mea turba vidit." .-^--^

Their position and treatment must have depended almost
entirely on the temper and disposition of their owners. But
the law recognized in the owner the right of making any use
he thought fit of them ; he may strike, or mutilate, or sell
them. He was permitted even to take away their lives,
without assigning a reason to any human tribunal. In most
instances his own interest would dictate to the master to
treat them with attention and mildness, but there are in-
stances on record, where the dictates of reason and the
suggestions of humanity afforded but a feeble protection
against the severity of a tyrannical master. We recollect
the instance of the poor cook who, for some trivial mistake
in the discharge of his duty, was thrown to be devoured by
the lampreys. Nor was it altogether safe for the master to
goad the slave beyond the limits of endurance ; for there are
instances also on record, in which they took a terrible re-
venge ; but on the other hand, the character of the slave has
been ennobled, and the dignity of his nature vindicated, by
more than one instance of the most devoted attachment, and
the most heroic sacrifice. The slave who could lay down his
life for his master, must have been bound to him by a stronger
and nobler tie than that of mere interest or duty.

In the latter ages of the empire, when the increasing volup-
tuousness of the Roman nobility and people extinguished
every feeling of virtue and sentiment of propriety, the power
of the master over his slave became perverted and abused for
purposes of the grossest licentiousness. In the all-searching
justice of the great Ruler of states and men, the countless
crimes that cried to heaven for vengeance, may have been
the secret and hidden cause of those disasters which were
soon to burst over the do^Mtcd city. The arms of Alaric and
his barbarian followers may have been the visitation of God's

92 Jetse's Life of Brummell. [Sept.

justice on dark deeds of depravity done within its walls, and
the final expiation was only made when war, and famine, and
pestilence had exterminated them from the earth, and the
mistress of nations became a waste and h»iivling wilderness ;
and a waste and h«wli»g wilderness, lenely and doBolato-aa — -*
Babylon or Nincygb, she might perhaps have still continued,
despite the trophies of the Caesars and the glories of the
Republic, but that God had mercy upon her once more,
because of his two martyred witnesses, the one a tent-maker
of Tarsus, the other a fisherman of Galilee.

Art IV. — The Life of George BriunmeU, Esq. By Captain
Jesse. London : 1844.

BRUMMELL was the last of the real dandies ! Pretenders
there have been in abundance since his time, — men
who blindly imitated the stiffness of his cravats, and the cut
of his coats, and who even descended to copy the fashion of
his nether garments. They only aspired to ape his outward
man. None of them, however, knew the art of attaining the
supreme power, or exercised the tyrannical sway over the
realms of fashion, that he did. His sceptre was broken, even
before his death. Those that came after him had all the
characteristic weakness and imbecility of imitators.

A combination of circumstances may produce another
Napoleon, or a second Washington. There cannot be another
Brummell ! The depraved state of public morality in England
towards the close of the reign of George III, and the influ-
ence which the Regent exercised over what are called the
fashionable circles, afforded opportunities to such a man as
Brummell, which never can occur again.

The eldest son of the reigning monarch, the heir apparent
of the British crown, was called by his flatterers, " the first
gentleman in Europe." If a constant and laborious attention
to his toilette — a fastidious taste in the selection of his wigs,
and a studied finish in the delivery of the common-places of
conversation — give any claim to the title, he well deserved it.
He had, however, no other pretensions. He was the very
reverse of a gentleman, in the proper signification of that
word. He was sensual, faithless, fickle, and selfish to the
last degree — superficial in his acquirements, changeable in
his friendships, and ungrateful to those who had ministered

1844.] Jesse's Life of Brumrmll. 83.

either to his pleasures, or his ambition. Unfortunately his
position in society, made the vices of such a character fashion-
able. The aristocracy aped the manners of the prince. The
cultivation of the mind was considered secondary to the
adornment of the person. The sterner virtues of domestic
life exposed those who practised them to the sneers and scorn
of the courtiers who learned their canons of morality from
their master. Carelessness of dress was an unpardonable
offence, while the desertion of a wife was near akin to a
virtue; the one would be an insuperable barrier to being
admitted into what was called good society ; the other would
be rather a recommendation. As we judge of the component
parts of the sub-soil by the weeds that grow upon the surface;
so we may fairly form an estimate of society by the character
of the men who hold prominent positions within its bounda-
ries. Brummell's notoriety — we may almost call it fame —
is a sure index to the state of English morality in high places
in his day.

Brummell was the creation of the times he lived in — he did
not create them ; he was merely the straw upon the surface,
not the current that impelled it. Matters would have been
no worse had he never existed. The young men would have
been equally extravagant and thoughtless. Old age would
have brought with it neither prudence nor discretion. His
was not one of those commanding intellects, that, either for
weal or woe, give a direction to public opinion, in their time;
he was, in truth, merely a small space in advance of his
fashionable compeers. It was not Eclipse first, and the rest
nowhere. There were numbers prepared to struggle for the
sceptre of the fashionable world, had he been induced to
throw the gilded bauble down. That none could have, per-
haps, wielded it so tyrannically as he did, we have little
doubt — still, although they might have failed, they would, at
least, have made the attempt.

We may grieve that there should have been a period in
our history when the adjustment of a cravat, or the formation
of a coat would have conferred a fame on the wearer, almost
equal to that enjoyed by the warriors and statesmen, the
poets, and philosophers of the day. We may marvel to see
such a low-born man as Brummell, virtually at the head of
the English aristocracy, with power to deliver over to public
contempt, any one bold enough to dispute his sovereignty.
Humble men in our times have attained great influence ; but
they were men of cultivated minds — not creatures of the

94 Jem's Life of Brummell. [Sept.

curling-tongs and scissors. In Bruramell's time, dress levelled
the distinctions of rank, as education does now ; the tailor
introduced the dandy to the table of the Regent, as the school-
master brought Lord Brougham into Buckingham Palace.
But we must look beyond the outside in Brummell's case ;
we must not, while dissecting " with edge severe " his vices,
forget that he merely floated upon the surface of the society
in which he flourished, while the rank and fetid stream on
which he was borne in triumph, was pouring its dark tide
over the land. We are, however, digressing from our main
object, and will now hasten to give our readers a hasty sketch
of the life of Brummell. Read in a proper spirit, it will
convey a lesson to the most thoughtless, and suggest re-
flections and speculations that may not be without a good
result.

George Bryan Brummell, or, perhaps, we should call him
simply George Brummell, as he appears to have dispensed
with the baptismal name of Bryan at an early period — was of
obscure parentage. Fortunately for his biographers, there
have been no contentions about his birth-place. London
enjoys, unchallenged, the honour of having given him birth.
Although poor at his outset in life, his father appears to have
been a prudent saving man, and to have amassed considerable
wealth. We are told that he left behind him, in the hands of
trustees for his children, a sum of £65,000. How he accumu-
lated so large a fortune from small beginnings, does not very
clearly appear; but from the education his sons received, it does
not seem that extreme parsimony was among his vices. At the
age of twelve, the future beau was sent to Eton, and here we
are told the first indication of that love of dress, which so
distinguished him in after years was exhibited : — his white
stock with gold buckle was even then remarkable.

In the year 1793 he entered Oxford, and was an unsuc-
cessful competitor there for the Newdegate prize. We are
told he was second, but as the number of aspiring young
men who all hut attain honours at our universities have been
at all times very large, at least in the estimation of their
hopeful relatives, we confess we do not attach much faith to
this tradition. It is however a cheering fact, that the future
compotator of the Prince Regent did so far stoop to drudgery,
as to be an unsuccessful competitor for a prize when at the
university. Had he been successful, how different might
have been his destination in after life 1 He had talents that,
if properly cultivated, might have placed him in a proud

1844.] Jesse's Life of Brummell. 95

position, in a sphere widely opposite from that in which hig
lot was eventually cast ; his name might have been honoured
among the sages and philosophers of the present age, and his
ashes perhaps have been now reposing under the roof of
Westminster Abbey, instead of lying in an humble burying-
place in a foreign land. But these speculations are unavail-
ing. His lot was otherwise cast; he was an unsuccessful
competitor, and took to tuft-hunting and dissipation, instead
of walking in the rugged paths of science and literature.

The next important step in Brummell's life was the pur-
chase of a commission in the 10th hussars — a regiment even
at that time celebrated for its exclusiveness. When a cornet,
he became first acquainted with the Prince Regent, then
considerably his senior; and that introduction, no doubt,
materially influenced Brummeirs after life. Of his irregu-
larities, as an officer, many anecdotes are related. He
appears to have been more constantly in the drawing-room,
and perhaps the dressing-room, of the Regent, than on parade.
His negligence, however, seems only to have accelerated his
promotion, for in three years we find him elevated to the
rank of captain — of course, over the heads of many hard-
working and attentive fellow-oncers — we cannot bring our-
selves to write the word soldiers. So auspicious a commence-
ment would have stimulated less ambitious minds to bear
with patience the gentle yoke of hussar discipline, but
even it was too heavy for Brummell. He aspired to fill a
higher position, and to rule over the realms of fashion, instead
of obeying the commands of even an aristocratic colonel.
The Tenth were ordered to Manchester ; the sensitive mind
of Brummell shrunk from contact with such a locality, and
he bade a long " farewell to the plumed troops and the big
wars." The particulars of his leave-taking with the regi-
ment are not recorded, but we may fancy that it was not
dolorous.

We find Brummell now young, good-looking, accom-
plished, and although by no means wealthy, still with a
moderate competence for a young unencumbered man, cast
upon the smooth waters of English fashionable life. His wit
— his intimacy with the person next in rank to the throne,
and the numerous aristocratic connexions he had formed in
Eton and Oxford, and during his brief military career, — all
conspired to open to him the doors of the most select circles.
This was the culminating point in the life of Brummell.
A career of pleasure was before him. He had already over-

96 Jesse^s Life of Drummell. [Sept.

come the impediments that his humble origin had thrown
across his path. Here is Captain Jesse's description of him at
the period we allude to : —

" He was a beau, but not a beau of the Sir Fopling Flutter or
Fielding school ; nor would he, like Charles James Fox, have been
guilty of wearing red-heeled shoes ! He was a beau in the literal
sense of the word — *fine, handsome.' As an auxiliary to his suc-
cess in society, he determined to be the best-dressed man in
London ; and, in the commencement of his career, he perhaps
varied his dress too frequently. The whim, however, was of short
duration ; and, scorning to share his fame with his tailor, he soon
shunned all external peculiarity, and trusted alone to that ease and
grace of manner which he possessed in a remarkable degree.

" His chief aim was to avoid anything marked ; one of his
aphorisms being, that the severest mortification a gentleman could
incur, was to attract observation in the street by his outward
appearance. He exercised the most correct taste in the selection
of each article of apparel of a form and colour harmonious with all
the rest, for the purpose of producing a perfectly elegant general
effect ; and no doubt he spent much time and pains in the attain-
ment of his object."

To this period of Brummell's life is to be attributed most
of the witty sayings that have so long been floating upon the
surface of society attached to his name. Later in life, when
he had squandered his patrimony, and when his early dissi-
pation had undermined his health, we find him sinking into
the satirist and cynic. His wit had not at any period of his
career much of body in it, and therefore as age came upon
him, it very soon grew sour ; at the time we allude to, how-
ever, he was more of the humorist than of the cynic. We
cannot say that Captain Jesse has displayed much taste in the
selection of those stories, nor are they all well told ; but we
extract one or two of them at random.

"On another occasion, the late Duke of Bedford asked him for an
opinion on his new coat. Brummell examined him from head to
foot with as much attention as an adjutant of the Life Guards would
the sentries on a drawing-room day. * Turn round,' said the beau.
His grace did so, and the examination was continued in front.
When it was concluded, Brummell stepped forward, and feeling the
lappel delicately with his thumb and finger, said in a most earnest
and amusing manner, ' Bedford, do you call this thing a coat ?'
The following reply to a question addressed to him by one amongst
a knot of loungers at "White's, was given in the same spirit of
badinage. ' Brummell, your brother William is in town ; is he
not coming here ?' ' Yes, in a day or two ; but I have recom-

1844.] Jesse's Life of Bnmmetl. 97

mended him to walk the back streets tUl his new clothes come
home.'"

At this period too, he seems to have spent much of his
time with the regent ; and, altliough captain Jesse is by far
too great an admirer of royalty to tell the whole truth of that
time-honoured personage, still we make one or two extracts
which will sufficiently display the man.

" Brummell's good taste in dress was not his least recommenda-
tion in the eyes of the prince of Wales, by whom his advice on this
important subject was consequently sought, and for a long time
studiously followed. Mr. Thomas Raikes says, in his France, that
his royal highness would go of a morning to Chesterfield street, to
watch the progress of his friencCs toilet, and remain tiU so late
an hour, that he sometimes sent away his horses, and insisted on
Brummell's giving him a quiet dinner, which generally ended in a
deep potation.^

" After their quarrel, however, the prince spoke of his former
friend as a mere block which a tailor might use with advantage to
shew off the particular cut of a coat, and this speech went some
way to confirm the notion of the nonentity of Brummell's character.
But there is good reason for asserting, that an extravagant devotion
to dress might, with far more justice, be charged against his royal
patron ; especially when corpulence, that sad annihilator of ele^
gance, made it difiicult for him to get into leathers of the dimen-
sions he was anxious to wear. It was this that gave rise to the
caricature in which a pair is represented lashed up between the
bed-posts, and their owner having been lifted into them, is seen
struggling desperately to get his royal legs satisfactorily encased,
leaving the imagination to picture the horizontal hauling that must
have taken place after the perpendicular object had been effected, to
make the waistband meet."

" In fact the prince, not Brummell, was the Mecaenas of tailors ;
and perhaps no king of England ever devoted so much time to the
details of his own dress, or devising alterations in that of his troops.
On this point, whatever attention he gave to it, he displayed little
judgment, as the chin of many a Life Guardsman on a windy day
attested. The extent to which he indulged his passion for dress is
seen in the proceeds of the sale of his wardrobe, ichich amounted to
the enormous sum of £\ 5,000 ; and, if we are to judge by the price
of a cloak purchased by Lord Chesterfield for £220, the sable lining
alone having originally cost £800, it is scarcely straining the point,
to suppose that this collection of royal garments had cost little less
than £100,000. A hst of the articles was given in the. Athencxum
of the day, which, after expressing its astonishment at the prodigious
accumulation of apparel, says, that ' wealth had done wonders,
taste not much.' "

VOL. XVII. — NO. xxxin. 7

98 Jessed Life of BrummeU. [Sept.

What a delightfiil glimpse are we not here afforded of the
future king of England ! His royal highness, — then, be it
remembered, a full-grown man, and the heir apparent to the
sovereignty of a kingdom upon which the sun never sets, — is
here seen sitting watching the progress of a dandy's toilet !
And afterwards we find them enjoy a quiet dinner, and — a
deep potation ! We are not surprised at his royal highness's
subsequent abuse of his pot-companion, — the proverb tells us
the result of too much familiarity, — nor do we wonder at his
designating the beau as " a mere block for the tailors." The
conduct of the prince appears, however, in darker relief at a
subsequent period of poor Brummell*'8 life, when Brummell
describes himself as *' lying on straw, and grinning through
the bars of a gaol ; eating bran-bread, my good fellow, eating
bran-bread." George IV was then king of England; he
was in Calais, and might have been an eye-witness of the
miserable condition of his quondam friend, whose toilet he
had once so sedulously watched. His conduct to poor Brum-
mell on that occasion is thus described in Captain Jesse's book :

"In September of the following year, 1821, the greatest event
of his Calais life took place ; the royal personage, at whose festive
board he had in former days been so frequent a guest, arrived in
that town. George IV was on his way to visit his Hanoverian
subjects, and the place was not a little shaken from its monotonous
routine by that occurrence. Fishing-boats were laid up, and the
fishwomen * all alive 0,' the authorities polished up their old
uniforms, and the Duke d'AngoAl^me, who had been deputed by
Louis XVIII to congratulate his majesty on his arrival in the
French dominions, received him at Dessin's hotel, and there they
put up their horses together. When the king landed, the pier was
crowded with spectators, and, as he stepped on shore from his
barge, his hat fell from his hand: this accident a quick-witted
urchin immediately took advantage of, and rushing forward, re-
stored it to his majesty, who put his hand into his pocket, and
drew forth enough of the precious metals to provide his impromptu
page with peg-tops and brioches for years to come.

" But where was the beau all this time ? According to one
rumour, he accompanied the mayor to the landing-place, ready to
profit by any opportunity that might occur of placing himself in
the king's way. But this is an error ; Brummell had gone out to
take his accustomed walk in an opposite direction, and was return-
ing to his lodgings at the very moment that liis former patron, ac-
companied by the French ambassador, was proceeding in a close
carriage to the hotel. ' I was standing at my shop door,' said Mr.
Leleux, *aud saw Mr. Brummell trying to make his way across the

1844.] Jesse's Life of Brummell. 0^

street to my house, but the crowd was so great that he could not
succeed, and he was therefore obliged to remain on the opposite
side. Of course all hats were taken off as the carriage approached,
and when it was close to the door, I heard the king say in a loud
voice, ' Good God ! Brummell !' The latter, who was uncovered
at the time, now crossed over, as pale as death, entered the house
by the private door, and retired to his room without addressing me.' "

In reading this passage, how forcibly are we reminded of
poor Sheridan, the orator, wit, and dramatist, and of his treat-
ment by the same personage, under nearly similar circum-
stances. There is a kind of hint given by Captain Jesse, that
£100 was sent at this time to poor Brummell by the king,
but the story is evidently apocryphal. We are, however,
anticipating a little, but our anxiety to get rid of such a
subject as Brummeirs '* fat friend" in one paragraph, induced
us to dispatch him at once, and not be obliged a second time
to sully our pages with his name.

We now return to Brummell's life in London. He ap-
pears to have mixed in all the aristocratic amusements of the
day. Horse-racing was not at that time so fashionable as at
present, and we, therefore, do not find that he was a fre-
quenter of Newmarket, or that he kept a book at the corner;
but we find testimony borne by a faithworthy witness — the
Rev. G. Crabbe — to " the plainness of his dress, and the
manly and even dignified expression of his countenance," as
he took his place among his brother sportsmen of the Belvoir
hunt. We find, too, the celebrated Nimrod speaking of him
as a respectable rider, which, considering that he had been
some time in the Hussars, who are proverbially bad horse-
men, is by no means faint praise. At his first entrie into
London life, he appears to have eschewed the gambling table,
though shortly before his departure from England, he seems
to have yielded to its seductions, and was, of course, com-
pletely ruined by it.

The next important epoch in Brummell's life was his flight
to Calais. Having squandered his patrimony and exhausted
his credit, the fear of imprisonment became too strong for
him, and he made a hasty retreat from London — the scene of
all his glory — and found a refuge in "the small fishing- town"
(as he called it) of Calais. He arrived there a beggar ; and,
during the fourteen years he resided in it, was content to live
upon the contributions of his friends. His eleemosynary
condition does not appear to have taught him to be grateful to
his benefactors ; a j^lr. Marshall appears to have treated him

7«

100 Jesse's L}fe of BrummelL [Sept^

with great kindness, and we give a specimen of the return,
that gentleman received at his hands : —

" It is said to have been at a dinner party at this gentleman's
house, that he gave the following perfect specimen of his prodigious
impudence. On the occasion in question, he was as usual accom-
panied by one of his canine favourites, who crouched at his feet
during the repast, and, as will be seen also, partook of the feast.
Amongst the delicacies handed round was a roasted capon stuffed
with truflBes, from which Brummell very considerately helped him-
self to a wing ; this, on tasting, he fancied was tough, and taking
it up in his napkin, he forthwith called his dog, and addressing him,
said aloud, before the astounded guests and his horrified host,

* Here, Atous! try if you can get your teeth through this, for I'll
bed— d if I can!'"

In Mr. Jesse's book, too, we find the following anecdote: —
" At this time, the year of his arrival, he had all his wits about
him, was quite equal to his reputation, and his sarcastic vein was.
very droU and amusing to those who were not at the moment the
objects of his satire ; but friends and foes alike left his presence
with the conviction that each would in turn be served up, a la
Tartare, for the amusement of his neighbours : he was, in fact, a
walking lampoon ; every individual that came within the sphere of
his vision was subjected to his censorious spirit. The best houses
did not escape, not even those in which he received the most kind-
ness. A French family in the neighbourhood had given a dinner,
almost expressly on his account, and everything had been done to
make it perfect, if possible; the ortolans had been sent from
Toulouse and the salmon from Rouen, and the company were
legitimists to the backbone. The morning after this fete, some one
who met him inquired how the diner commande had passed ofi^?
when the beau, lifting up his hands, and shaking his head in a
deprecatory manner, said, * Don't ask me, my good fellow ; but,
poor man! he did his best.*

" Of those among his countrymen and women whose manners
were not quite so polished as they might have been, he would ob-
serve, * How can such people be received ? it is deplorable to be in
such society!' Brummell affectioned all those who fell in with his
own ideas, or appeared to make observations in a similar vein.
Very soon after I was introduced to him, I found that I had un-
wittingly gained his approbation by a remark accidentally made in
this spirit, or rather that he chose to construe it as such : the cir-
cumstance occurred at a large evening party, when, after having
made my bow to the lady of the house, I approached the fire-place,
and said to one of the company, who I thought was in the country,

* Why, Mr. D , are you here ? ' Brummell overheard the

exclamation, and imagined that I meant to imply that he was not

1844.] Jesse's Life of Brummell. 101

Jit to be there ; whereas it was a simple expression of surprise, and
of a totally different kind."

This will be admitted to have been going far enough in
one who, at that time, was living on the largesses of others.
'As a specimen of his cool assurance, we cannot help extract-
ing one or two passages : —

" The day after this fgte, one of his acquaintance, who happened
to meet him in the street, inquired whether he had been to the ball
given in honour of the king the night before. 'What king?' in-
quired Brummell, in a tone of feigned surprise and inquiry. — * The
French king, to be sure ; Louis Philippe.' — ' Oh ! the duke of
Orleans, you mean ; no, I did not go, but I sent my servant.' "

Again : we find this anecdote, which, for impudence and
ingratitude combined, so far overtops the rest, that we will
close our reference to this portion of his life with it : —

*' I am afraid there is good reason to suppose that Brummell was
not particularly grateful to those who assisted him ; or if he was,
he did not certainly show it in his conversation, ' Shortly after
his imprisonment,' says one of his Caen acquaintances, * I asked him

if he had been as intimate with the duke of C e as he was with

his other brothers, when he replied, " The man did very well to
wear a cocked hat, and walk about the quarter-deck crying 'luff;'
but he was so rough and uncivilized that I was obliged to cut him.
You may believe this, when I tell you that he used to recount the
amorous exploits in which he was engaged at Portsmouth to the
bishops and the ladies of the court at his father's table, and this to
the inexpressible delight of the prince of Wales and the duke of
York." ' The reader will bear in mind that this incredible story
was told after the late king had subscribed one hundred pounds
towards effecting his release from prison, and it shows how little
amiability was left in the mind of him who had been a recipient of
his bounty; but the beau was a man of the world, and also a wit."

We cannot but admire the fastidiousness of Captain Jesse
in concealing the name of the duke of Clarence in the para-
graph, when there can be no earthly reason for such a trans-
parent attempt at mystification.

The next step in Brummell's life was his appointment to
the situation of British consul at Caen ; a ray of sunshine
appeared now to gleam upon his pathway, but it was eva-
nescent. We are told in a letter of his, written after he had
arrived at Caen, that he had been fortunate in his selection
of lodgings in that town ; for he states that his landlady was
cleanly and devout, and, besides, was the proprietor of two
Angola cats and a parrot. The entire emoluments from his

102 Jesse's Life of Brummell. [Sept.

consulship were reduced to eighty pounds a year, the rest
being devoted to pay his Calais creditors. This sum would
hardly suffice to defray his washing, and the donations of his
friends seem to have been dried up, for we shortly find him
confined within the walls of a prison. Previous to his im-
prisonment, the slender pittance he derived from his consul-
ship had been also taken from him, as the office was abolished ;
and poor Brummell appears now fast sinking in the midst of
the clouds which sickness, sorrow, and infirmity had cast
around him. We will not follow his biographer through the
disgusting details of the sufferings of the once elegant and
fastidious beau ; suffice it to say, that his mind sank beneath
the weight of misery and misfortune, and that he left the
prison a living^monument of the vanity of all human accom-
plishments. Broken down in health, his mind fast sinking
into idiotcy, an object of loathing to the most humane,
Brummell at length found a refuge in«a place of which in his
palmy days he little dreamt he ever would have been an
inmate.

In the Bon Sauveur of Caen, poor Brummell found at last
a resting-place. It is delightful, after gazing at the different
scenes of the unfortunate man's life — some gaudy and glaring,
others gloomy and revolting — to pause for a moment on its
closing one. Deserted by the summer friends who had en-
joyed his society, and had been flattered by his notice, when his
smile could make a reputation, as his frown or shrug would
destroy it ; apparently left without any hope on earth, we
find the Sisters of Charity watching over the twilight of his
days, like guardian spirits.

" The house in which Brummell lived was quite detached from
the principal building of the establishment, and did not look in the
least as if it was intended for the reception of lunatics ; the windows
were without bars, and the garden in which it stood was filled with
a profusion of roses and other flowers ; the walks were nicely
gravelled and edged with box ; and so long as his strength and the
weather permitted, he was wheeled up and down them in an easy
chair by the sex'vant, who was in constant attendance upon him
only. In this oasis, poor Brummell, surrounded by comforts that
he had long been a stranger to, passed the remainder of his days,
not, however, destined to be numerous, but which, thanks to the
humane conduct of the inmates of the institution, were spent in
perfect tranquillity. The few friends who paid him an occasional
visit always found him sitting before a blazing fire, and his man-
servant or one of the sceurs, for he was never left alone, sitting in
the room, to anticipate his every want. When asked by au old

1844.] Jesse^s Life of BrummeU. lOS

acquaintance, whom he did not however recognize, whether he was
comfortable, Brummell replied, 'Oh yes!' and turning to the nun,
who was standing by his chair, and taking her hand, he said, ' this
excellent nurse of mine is so kind to me, that she refuses me
nothing ; I have all I wish to eat, and such a large fire ; I never
was so comfortable in all my life.' The nuns observed that he was
the most docile patient that had ever entered the Bon Sauveur,
and that nothing could exceed his politeness and gratitude for the
attendance he received. Expressions of this kind were always
poured forth, when they complied with any particular request:

* Ah, madame, vous etes trop bonne pour moi, je suis tres recon-
naissant.' He scarcely ever thoroughly recognized his visitors;
but when his old landlord called, he knew him immediately, and
said, *Bon jour, Fichet; table d'hote toujours a cinqheures?' —

* Oui, monsieur,' he replied. — ' Tres bien,' said Brummell, ' tres
bien ; je descendrai.' "

Those pious ladies, who would have ayolded him when, in
the full flush of youth and manly beauty, he attracted the
attention of the fairest and most high-born ladies of England,
now tended him with the constancy of sisters, when he was an
object of aversion and disgust to all the world besides. Their
kindness appears to have got the better of his natural feelings
of ingratitude and moroseness ; and even he admits that " he
was never so comfortable in all his life."

In the month of March 1840, in his sixty-second year,
poor Brummell was released from his mortal sufferings ; and
the earthly remains of the " king of the dandies," now repose
in the cemetery of the town of Caen, in an humble tomb,
overgrown with the rankest weeds. After his death, we are
informed that, —

" Several packets of letters, tied up with different coloured rib-
bons, and carefully numbered, a miniature, a silver shaving-dish, a
gold ring, and a few silver spoons, were found in a trunk at the
hotel. The miniature and letters were taken possession of by the
vice-consul, and the remaining effects by the landlord, in liquida-
tion of an account which had only been partially cancelled. This
person said, that in the same parcel with the letters, was another,
containing a great many locks of hair."

What a sermon does not this fact contain ! In poverty, in
sickness, even in his madness, he saves these relics of his
early vanity and folly !

We had intended to have made some general observations
on Bruramell's " decline and fall," but want of space warns
us to draw this paper to a conclusion. The moral to be de-
duced from his history lies upon the surface : we hope it may

104 Jassh Life of Brummell. [Sept.

not be without Its uses. Many a young man, who enters life
with bright prospects, with ample means, fascinating exterior,
and brilliant talents, may be tempted to distinguish himself
in the fashionable world as Brummell did. If such there be,
and this page should meet his eye, let him remember the
squalid and filthy old age of the once witty and fastidious
Brummell ; and, above all, recollect that he died in a mad-
house. Let him pause ere he launches into a life of fashion-
able dissipation, and reflect whether another and a less brilliant
course, may not lead to a happier termination even in this
world.

So much for Brummell. We have, perhaps, at too great
length dwelt upon his sad story ; not so much for any interest
that it possesses, as for the moral it conveys. We will now
devote a few lines to his biographer.

■ We regret we cannot bestow much praise either on the
matter or the manner of the book. The chapter, by the way,
headed the " Conclusion," appears to be written by another
and a better hand than Captain Jesse's. The whole would
have been a more creditable production, if it were just one
fourth of its present size. A number of silly letters are
transcribed into it, and a quantity of still more silly verse,
that would have been better omitted, with the evident pur-
pose of puffing it out into two volumes. Another offence of
a graver description. Captain Jesse has been guilty of: he
has had the bad taste to insert the following impertinent and
irrelevant piece of personality in his book :

" It would be unjust indeed to Brummell's memory, if I neglected
to show the impropriety of calling him a ' dandy.' The few associa-
tions connected with the term, all teem with vulgarity; the tap-
room measure of that name is not an example of refinement ; and
in Johnson, the nearest approach to the word is 'Dandelion,' a
vulgar flower! But, if in the true etymological style, we divide
the word, with the hope of improving its credit, wliat does the first
syllable bring to mind ? Somebody quite as notorious as Brummell,
hut whose follies have been, far more mischievous; whose eloquence
is great, but certainly not always refined; and to whose health many
a dandy of whiskey has been tossed off."

Now, Captain Jesse knows that the individual against
whom he has directed his pointless shaft, and who, in addition
to his transcendant merits as a statesman, orator, and philan-
thropist, is also a distinguished literary man, was when his book
appeared, the inmate of a prison. The feelings of a gentleman,
therefore, and of a British officer, should have induced him to

1844.] Jesse's Life of Brummell. 105

have repressed this silly and malignant attempt at pleasantry.
We fear, however, Brummell knew his man, when, according to
Captain Jesse's own account, he said to him, '^My dear Jesse,
excuse me, you look very much like a magpie.'''' We now dis-
miss Captain Jesse, with the assurance that his book does not
contain a single observation in which we more cordially concur.

Art. V. — 1. Voyage dans le royaume de Choa. M. Rochet
D'Hericourt. Paris, 1841.

2. Journals of the Rev. Messrs. Isenherg and Krapf missioii-
aries of the Church Missionary Society. 1 vol. London, 1843.

3. The Highlands of Ethiopia. By Major W. Cornwallis
Harris, of the East India Company Engineers. 3 vols.
London, 1844.

4. Travels in Southern Abyssinia. By Charles Johnston,
M.R.C.S. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1844.

5. Annals of the Propagation of the Faith. Dublin, 1842-43.

THESE works are all by different authors, have made
their appearance, as the reader will observe, at different
times, and been written without any previous concert ; they
are decisive proof of the increasing interest with which
Abyssinia is beginning to be regarded by the people of
Europe. Instead of being surprised at the interest now ex-
cited in its regard, we should rather be astonished at our
previous indifference. A country possessing a climate tem-
perate as our own, and professing a Christianity, which, how-
ever corrupt and imperfect, is yet kindred to ours, should
have sooner obtained the privileges of brotherhood. Of
all the countries of the African continent, reeking, for the
most part, with a pestilence fatal to European constitutions,
this alone seems to enjoy a bright and pure atmosphere;
where, amid verdant meads, and running brooks, and smiling
woodland scenery, the traveller almost forgets that he is in
the iieart of Africa, and only nine degrees from the equator.
But for the strange costume that meets his eye, and the dark
faces of the Amharra that occasionally cross his path, he
would almost fancy himself at times in some quiet rural spot
of the northern counties of England. There is not perhaps
on the earth a country possessing superior advantages of cli-
mate to Abyssinia. The greatest difference between the
hottest month in summer and the coldest month in winter, is

106 The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept.

only 10 degrees. During the years, 1841 and 1842, that
Captain Harris was in Shoa, the thermometer never sunk
below 41°, and never once rose beyond 69°. There were
only two months without at least four days' rain ; and these
months were January and December, during which, with a
light breeze from the east, and the thermometer at 51°, the
days must have been somewhat like those of our March and
April. It is intersected in every direction by rivers of the
most limpid water, running along with the velocity of our
mountain streams, and by valleys of the richest and most
varied luxuriance, where every shrub is redolent of the most
aromatic perfume, and every tree is musical Avith the voices
of winged choristers. It owes these advantages to its elevation
of 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the moun-
tain peaks are covered with perpetual snow, and therefore in
that latitude must be at least 15,000 feet in height. But in
the inhabited parts of the country snow is never known to
fall, though the fields and plains are frequently, during the
mornings of January and December, covered with a hoar
frost, which disappears at the rising of the sun. With such
natural advantages, and possessing the probably stronger
recommendation of being a Christian people, it is not surpris-
ing that the Abyssinians should have been long ere now an
object of deep interest to their Christian brethren of the west.
In adverting to the recent attempts to open an intercourse
with them, we shall have occasion to place before our readers
some of the principal facts connected with their early history.
Their present condition will be best understood, and, in fact,
can only be understood, by a partial reference to the past.

From the obscurity of primeval time, Ethiopia, of which
Abyssinia forms a part, and of which it inherits the glory, is
one of the earliest that emerges into the light of history.
In the pages of holy writ, in the monumental inscriptions of
the Egyptians, and in the historical records of the Greeks,
there are traces of its former renown. The progress made
by it in civilization, is even yet attested by the remains that
exist in several parts of the country, and more especially at
Axum, the seat of government, and the residence of its kings,
when those kings were the rivals, in power and opulence, of
the Pharaohs of the Nile. The visit of the queen of Sheba
to the court of Solomon, has given them an opportunity of
deriving the royal pedigree from the seed of Abraham ; and
even to this day, the ruling powers of Abyssinia boast their
extraction from Menilek, the son of the Hebrew king. On

1844. J The Christians of Ahyss'mia. 107

her return from Jerusalem, she prevailed, it is said, on her
people to embrace the religion of the Jews. We shall see that
many Jewish rites are still in use among them. Another tradi-
tion there is, that Candace, one of their queens, being brought
over to the Christian faith by her eunuch, the convert, who
was baptized by the deacon Philip, was the first to introduce
the knowledge of Christianity, and to establish its observ-
ances among the Ethiopians. The first recognized apostle of
the Abyssinians is St. Frumentius, who lived in the third
century. His history is, in many respects, similar to that of
our own national apostle. He was reduced to slavery by the
natives of one of the islands of the Red Sea, and sold to the
king of Abyssinia. During his residence in that country, he
gained the favour and affection of his master, by his attention,
intelligence, and obliging disposition. He sanctified the pri-
vations and sufferings of his condition by his piety, and gained
the respect of all by the virtues he exhibited. During the
regency of the queen, who exercised the supreme power, after
her husband's death, and during the minority of her son, Fru-
mentius was intrusted with an important share in the govern-
ment of the kingdom. He used his influence to extend the
knowledge of Christianity among them. But the honours which
he had acquired had not extinguished in his breast the love of
his native land ; and when the young king became of age, he
sought, and obtained, leave to visit his friends once more.
He accordingly repaired to Alexandria, where the great
Athanasius was then bishop. He had been but a short time
appointed, when the stranger presented himself before him,
gave a description of the country, pointed out the facility
with which it could be converted, and recommended the adop-
tion of some active measures for the purpose. The zeal of
the holy bishop was at once excited. The field was ripe for
the sickle; and what more worthy, more fitting, or more
able minister to achieve his objects, than the man who so
feelingly and effectively described them ! His knowledge of
the language of the country and the people, and his influence
with the monarch, pointed him out as the individual who,
of all others, was most likely to exercise that ministry .with
success. He was accordingly consecrated bishop, and sent
forth, with the necessary assistance, to establish religion in
the country. After a long and useful life, he succeeded ; and
his memory is still honoured in the country which was bene-
fited by his labours, and by the Church at large, as the
apostle of Abyssinia.

108 The Christians ofAhyss'mid. [Sept.

The Church of this country has, even in the early periods
of ecclesiastical history, been one of some distinction. At the
council of Nice, in 325, its bishop ranked the seventh after
the bishop of Seleucia. He was always appointed and con-^
secrated by the patriarch of Alexandria ; and hence in all the
vicissitudes of fortune and doctrine to which that see has
been subjected, the suffragan of Abyssinia has participated.
At first orthodox, then heretical, it has now adopted all the
peculiarities of the Coptic creed and ritual. There is, in fact,
but the one bishop in the whole kingdom, who is always
consecrated by the Coptic patriarch of Cairo. He is known
by the distinctive term of Abuna ; he pays, on his consecra-
tion, certain fees to his metropolitan, and the latter has been
always cautious in never consecrating but one. The apostolic
canons require three bishops to be present at an episcopal
consecration, and he takes special care that they never shall
have the power of consecrating an Abuna for themselves. It
has sometimes happened that the bishop elect has resisted
the demand upon him, and refused to pay the sum sought to
be exacted. The see has been vacant in consequence for
years. This occurred so late as 1842. For the preceding
fourteen years, there had been no bishop in the country, and
for want of priests, many of the religious establishments were
closed. In that year the difference was arranged, and, after
a long interregnum, the Abuna was appointed.

The doctrines of the Abyssinian Church are nearly the
same as those of the Coptic Christians of Egypt. If there be
any difference, it is in the strong infusion of Judaism which
is to be found among them. In common with the mother
Church, they are Monophysites, or acknowledge but one
nature in Christ; and if we may believe Mr. Rochet, they
iattribute to the Virgin Mary, who is a special object of
veneration, an equal share in mediatorial efficacy with the
Son. Some individuals may entertain this opinion, but we
cannot admit that it has ever been sanctioned by their
Church. They admit the seven sacraments in common
with us, but they renew on the Epiphany of each year the
ceremony of baptism. Confirmation is administered by the
priest immediately after baptism, according to the rite of the
Copts. Communion is always administered under both kinds.
It is given to the newly-baptized infant, and again when it
arrives at the age of eight years. After that age, they are
not admitted until their marriage ; and those who remain un-
married, are for ever excluded, unless they enter a religious

1844.] The Christians of Abyssinia. 109:

state, and take the necessary vows. The practice of con-
fession is enjoined; though in some instances they have
adopted a singular custom of confessing their sins in the pre-
sence of a censer in which some grains of incense have been
thrown. They believe that this very easy method of accusa-
tion will be available for the remission of their sins. But the
confession to a priest is very general; and in the pages of
our English travellers, there is frequent mention of the con-
fessor. The priest who performed this office for the king
of Shoa is a very important and influential person in the book
of Captain Harris.

The monarch is the only one who is allowed a plurality of
wives. We know not whether it is as the descendant of
Solomon that he claims this privilege, but it is given to no other
individual. The secular clergy who have been married before
their ordination, are, like those of the other Greek Churches,
allowed to retain their wives ; but, if she dies, they cannot
marry another. The marriage of a priest, after he has once
received holy orders, is a thing absolutely unheard of. There
are numerous monasteries of men, who take the usual vows,
and practise the usual duties of a religious life. They follow
the rule of Tecla Haimanot, and the largest and most cele-
brated monastery is at Debra Libanos, but it has no spiritual
jurisdiction over the other houses of the order. It is served
by thirty religious, who have a large tract of land in the
vicinity. The produce which this land affords, together with
the profits of several trades, which they are permitted to
exercise, constitute their means of support. The reputation
of its founder for sanctity, and the reputed virtues of a holy
well, within the precincts of the convent, attract vast multi-
tudes, more especially on the festivals which are celebrated in
his honour. A journey of ten hours, brings the traveller to
the monastery of Sene Markos, which is inhabited by a dozen
religious, some of whom are in holy orders. It is beautifully
situated on the top of a lofty hill, and can be reached only
by a road winding through rocks and overhanging precipices,
where the traveller is each moment in danger of being dashed,
to pieces. Sene Markos was to Debra Libano^, what Eliseus
was to Elias of old. His tomb is shewn in a beautiful grotto,
from which flows a well of chalybeate water, to which the
prayers of Markos have communicated a healing power. At
least it is so believed by the blind, the lame, and the infirm,
of whom vast numbers come from all directions to experience
their efficacy.

Ilff The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept.

The Abysinian is not allowed to eat with the Jew, the
Pagan, nor the Mahomedan. Any violation of this injunc-
tion is punished with exclusion from the Church while living,
and from consecrated burial when dead. The meat of the
hare, the swine, and all aquatic fowl, and the use of coffee
and tobacco, — those universal luxuries of the east, — are also
included in this prohibition. The very patriarch of Cairo,
were he to sip his coffee or smoke his chibouk on the high-
lands of Ethiopia, would be looked on as little better than an
apostate to Mahomedanisra. Like the children of Israel, too,
they do not eat of " the sinew which shrinks, which is upon
the hollow of the thigh." It is universally believed, that the
very touch of the proscribed meat, would be punished with
the loss of the offending teeth. These are not the only rem-
nants of Judaism to be found among them ; for they observe
the Jewish Sabbath with as much strictness as the Christian.
The distinction of vessels into clean and unclean is on some
occasions observed ; but the strongest of all their Israelitish
symptoms, is the universal practice of the rite of circumcision.
So strong is their reverence for this Hebrew custom, and
their conviction of its necessity, that there is on record an
instance of their having once rejected a newly-appointed
Abuna from Cairo, because of his not having complied with
this important obligation. We have also mentioned the
austerity with which they observe the law of fasting. During
the fast of the Holy Virgin, even children of tender age are
obliged to fast sixteen days ; and from the Thursday in Holy
Week, until the morning of the following Saturday, neither
food nor drink must enter the lips. Those dispensations,
which the milder discipline of the Latin Church grants to the
requirements of infirmity, age, and toil, are entirely un-
known. Their belief in the intercession of the saints, and
the eflScacy of praying for the dead, is in conformity with the
other Churches of the Christian world, as is also their belief in
the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist.*

* Mr. Ludolf, who has written with much zeal and industry on the subject
of ^Ethiopia, and facilitated so considerably the study of the language, has
laboured, but unsuccessfully, to throw doubt on the belief in several of these
doctrines. His strong Lutheran prejudices led him on many occasions to admit
as certain, what is exceedingly ctoubtful. His principal source of information
was an Abyssinian, of the name of Gregory, whose knowledge was very im-
perfect. As a sample of the mode of enquiry which he employed, we may
quote one query proposed to the Abyssinian : " Do they believe in the seven seals of
faith?" Which of us would suppose that by these words he meant to inquire
whether the Abyssinian Church believed in the seven sacraments ? Mr. Ludolf
never visited the country, and seems not to have examined the .Ethiopian

1844.] The Christians of Abyssinia. Ill

They observe their several Lents with the most scrupulous
exactness, nay with the most rigid austerity. They take, during
the time of their observance, but one meal in the twenty-four
hours, and this not before the setting of the sun. The use
of meat, milk, and eggs, is not permitted; and their only
nourishment is a few pulse seasoned with spice and oil. They
scarcely think it possible for any Christian not to fast. If
he does not, they think him little better than the heathen
Galla by whom they are surrounded. It was a most uncom-
fortable predicament for a Protestant missionary, to have
found himself among a people with such opinions ; and it is
most ludicrous to contemplate the struggle between his sen-
suality on the one hand, and his desire of gaining the good
will of the natives on the other.

" After the priest left me, I thought it fit to consult with brother
Isenberg on this point before he departed. First, we considered
that the omission of fasting had been a continual stumbling-block
in the eyes of the Abyssinians since the commencement of our
mission in this country. Secondly, that fasting is not sinful in
itself ; and hence not against the principles of the Bible, nor the
Church of England. And thirdly, we referred to the examples
of the apostles, particularly to that of St. Paul, who, though he
strictly adhered to justification by faith, yet condescended, in this re-
spect, of his own accord, to the weakness of his brethren. Relying on
this great example, we thought we could, with the Lord's assistance, re-
solve to fast, hut only voluntarily, and out of love for our brethren,
not seeking thereby oiu* own righteousness. However, we thought
it fit not to act rashly in this matter" — Isenberg, p. 138.

It would be no sin, at least, to think about it, and to re-
solve ; but it was more prudent to put off the evil day as long
as possible, and not to act so rashly as to fast as long as they
could avoid it. Whether they ever actually carried this reso-
lution into effect, Mr. Krapf has nowhere informed us.

A peculiarity of their religious belief, is the renewal of
baptism, which we have before alluded to, as made each year
on the feast of the Epiphany. It is said that this ceremony was
brought into general use about three centuries ago, in the
religious dissensions of the native clergy and the Portuguese.
The Latin patriarch had published a jubilee, and the Abuna,
not to be outdone by his rival, commanded a general baptism
for all his people. We give a description of this ceremony,
from the work of Mr. Rochet :

Liturgy. However great his industry, we must prefer the more authentic state-
ments of the Portuguese writers, Alvarez and Jerome Lobo. Their accuracy
has been amply corroborated by the recent French and English travellers.

112 T^he Christians of Abyssinia, [Sept.'

" On my return to Angolala, I was present at one of the most'
curious of the religious practices of this people. I mean the bap-
tism, which is repeated every year on the 18th of January, in com-
memoration of the baptism of Christ by the Baptist in the Jordan.
On the 17th, at six o'clock in the evening, all the inhabitants,
preceded by the clergy, repaired to the river Tshatsha, three-
quarters of an hour's walk from the city. Wishing to see what
was going on, I resolved to take part in the ceremony, and followed
them. The crowd spread out on the banks of the river amounted
to about 4,000 persons. Many came on horseback from the sur-
rounding country to join it, and enjoy the benefit of the immersion.
All waited in the most pious resolution the moment when they
should plunge into the purifying waters of the stream. The mild-
ness of the temperature, and the clear blue atmosphere, that made
even the smallest stars visible, made this one of the most delicious
of the many beautiful nights that this favoured country enjoys. I
should have enjoyed it more but for the unintermitting chant of
the priests, who did not for one instant cease their mad bowlings,
which the crowd listened to, but did not join. At length, about
two or three o'clock in the morning, the moment arrived for the
baptismal ceremony. Men, women, and children, threw themselves in-
discriminately into the water, and remained there some minutes, while
the priests continued their prayers. They then dressed, and gave each
other the kiss of peace. The king was each moment expected. He
came at five o'clock, and took his bath in private. When he was
dressed, the priests presented themselves to kiss his hands, and
then the chief officers of state. This ceremony being completed,
he put himself at the head of the crowd, who formed themselves in
procession to Veturn to Angolalo." — Rochet, p. 228.

Old Father Alvarez gives a description of an ordination at
which he was present, and which will sufficiently account for
the low state of religion in Abyssinia :

" Five or six thousand persons are generally ordained together.
At the ordination which I am now speaking of, the number of can-
didates amounted to two thousand three hundred and fifty-six. A
white tent was erected and properly adjusted for the solemn cele-
bration of the ceremony, to which the Abuna, mounted on his
mule, rode in solemn procession, accompanied by a numerous re-
tinue. Before he alighted, he made an harangue in the Arabic
language, the purport of which was, that if amongst those who pre-
sented themselves, there was any person who had more wives than
one, he should forthwith withdraw, on penalty of excommunication.
After this he dismounted, and seated himself at the door of his tent,
whilst several persons arranged, in three distinct rows, all those
who were to be ordained. At the same time they examined them,
by tendering them a book for no other purpose than to ascertain

1844.] The Christians of Ah^ssinia. 113

whether they could read. According as they found them qualified,
they marked them on the arm, and those who were thus marked,
withdrew. The Abuna thereupon entered his tent, and those who
were admitted were ordered to file off, one by one, before him. He
put his hand on each of their heads, and then repeated, in the
Coptic language, the prayer beginning with the words Gratia
divina qucB infirma sanat, &c Having thus ordained each of these
priests in particular, he pronounced several other prayers, and gave
his benediction to all with a little steel cross. After that, a priest
read the Epistle and the Gospel. In the next place, the Abuna
said mass, and administered the blessed sacrament to those who
were thus admitted to holy orders, with as little regard to their
personal as their mental perfections ; for some of them were blind
and lame ; and stupidity and ignorance were most expressively en-
graved on the countenances of others. Nor 'was there any regard
paid to modesty in the performance of the ceremony, for some of
the ordained were entirely naked."

With such subjects for the ecclesiastical state, we should
not expect to find much theological discussion among them.
Yet is the Abyssinian Church not exempt from the evils of
religious dissension. The question which, at this moment,
is most warmly agitated, is that of the three births of Christ.
All admit his eternal birth from the Father, and also his birth
in the flesh ; but in addition to these a large and influential
body maintain a third birth, which, they say, took place when
Christ was anointed by the Holy Ghost in the womb. The
king of Shoa took part with the advocates of this latter opi-
nion, and expelled from their convents those who denied it ;
but the new Abuna has endeavoured to bring him back from
his error, and as yet been only partially successful. Ano-
ther subject of discussion is whether the soul of man knows
-God, or prays to him, while in the parent's womb.

" There are more churches in Abyssinia," says Captain Harris,
" than in any part of the Christian world ; and he who has erected
one believes he has atoned for every sin. But even the best are
very miserable edifices of wattle, plastered with mud, only to be
distinguished from the surrounding hovels by a thin coating of
whitewash, which is dashed over the outside, to point with .the
finger of pride to the peculiar privilege of the two great powers of
the land. Circular in form, with a door to each quarter of the
compass, and a conical thatch, the apex is surmounted by a brazen
cross, which is usually adorned with ostrich eggs ; and the same
depraved and heathenish taste pervades the decorations of the inte-
rior. Sculpture is strictly forbidden ; but the walls are bedaubed
with paintings of the patron saint of the church, the blessed Virgin,

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIII. 8

114 The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept.

and a truly incongruous assemblage of cherubim and fallen angels,
with the evil one himself enveloped in hell flames. Timbrels and
crutches depend in picturesque confusion from the bare rafters of
the roof. No ceiling protects the head from the descent of the
lizard and the spider, and the tout ensemble of the slovenly Abys-
sinian church presents the strongest imaginable picture of cobweb
finery. The Jewish temple was divided into three parts, — the fore
court, the holy, and the holy of holies. To the first, laymen were
admitted ; to the second, only the priest ; to the third, the high
priest alone. All entrance was denied to the pagan, — a custom
which is rigorously enforced in Abyssinia ; and her churches are in
like manner divided into three parts. Eight feet in breadth, the
fii'st compartment stretches, after the fashion of a corridor, entirely
round the building. It is styled Kene-Mahelet ; and strewed
throughout with greeh rushes, forms the scene of morning worship.
To the right of the entrance is the seat of honour for priests and
erudite scribes ; and beyond this court, save on certain occasions,
the bare foot of the unlearned laymen cannot pass. Makdas is the
second compartment. This is the sanctuary in which the priests
ofiiciate, and a corner is set apart for laymen during the adminis-
tration of the holy supper, while a cloth screens the mysteries of
the interior. Here also hang, arranged round the walls, the bones
of many deceased worthies, which have been carefully gathered
from the newly opened sepulchre, and are deposited by the hand of
the priest in cotton bags. By the nearest relative, the first oppor-
tunity is embraced of transporting these mouldering emblems of
mortality to the sacred resting-place of Dabra Libanos, where the
living and the dead are alike blessed with a rich treasure of right-
eousness, since the remains of Tecla Haimanot, the patron saint of
Abyssinia, shed a bright halo over the scenes of his miracles upon
earth. To the Kedis Kedisen none but the alaka is admitted. Behind
its veil the sacrament is consecrated, the communion vessels are
deposited, and the tremendous mysteries of the Tabot or ark of the
covenant are shrouded from the eyes of the uninitiated. The gold
of the foreigner has penetrated the secret of the contents of this
box, which are nothing more than a scroll of parchment, on which
is inscribed the name of the patron saint of the church ; but the
priest who dared to open his lips on the subject to one of his own
countrymen, would incur the heavy penalties due to sacrilege. '

" All the disqualifications of the Levitical law oppose entrance to
the sacred edifice, and both the threshold and the doorposts must
be kissed in passing. Like the Jews, the Abyssinians invariably
commence the service with the Trisagion, " Holy, holy, holy, is
God, the Lord of Sabaoth." The sweet singer of Israel danced
before the Lord, and a caricature imitation remains, the chief point
of Abyssinian worship. Capering and beating the ground with
their feet, the priests stretch out their crutches towards each other

1844.] The Christians of Abyssinia. 115

with frantic gesticulations, whilst the clash of the timbrel, the
sound of the drum, and the howling of harsh voices, complete a
most strange form of devotion. The lessons are taken partly from
the Scriptures, partly from the miracles of the holy Virgin and of
Tecla Haimanot, the life of St. George, and other foolish and fabu-
lous works ; but all are in the ancient JEthiopic tongue, which to
the congregation is a dead letter ; and the sole edification of a visit
to the church is therefore comprised in the kiss that has been im-
printed on the portal." — Highlands of Ethiopia, vol. iii. p. 133.

From the earliest period of its history to the tenth century,
Abyssinia formed but one undivided empire, subject to one
supreme power, which, as we have already stated, derived its
origin from the queen of Sheba. About the middle of that
century, an important change was brought about by the
crimes of one ambitious woman. From time immemorial
there had existed on the mountain of Samen an independent
colony of Jews. The rock on which their fortress was built
is still pointed out and known by the name of the Jewsrock.
Judith, the daughter of the prince of Samen, had been mar-
ried to the governor of Bagna. She was a woman of consi-
derable talents, and of inordinate ambition. The sudden
death of Aizor, king of Abyssinia, — the confusion caused by
a destructive pestilence, and the youth of the reigning king,
Del Naad, — inspired her with the hope of securing the sove-
reignty for herself and her children. The royal family were
confined on a high mountain, in conformity with a custom
which has been long familiar to English readers in the pages
of Basselas. She determined to annihilate them by an unex-
pected blow. It is said that four hundred persons were
massacred in a day. But the young king was saved by the
fidelity of his followers. The province of Shoa was the only
one that acknowledged the supremacy of the descendant of
Solomon, and here the exiled princes reigned in safety, if not
in splendour, during the successful usurpation for eleven
generations of their rightful inheritance. They owed their
restoration, after a lapse of three hundred years, to the kind
offices of Tecla Haimanot, the founder of the order of Debra
Lebanos, who was then Abuna. The prescription of- so
many centuries did not justify, in his eyes, the possession of
a throne which had been acquired by crime ; and he prevailed
on the reigning sovereign, Nacueto Laab, to resign in favour
of Icon Amlac, prince of Shoa, By one term of the agree-
ment, a third of the kingdom was ceded to the Abuna for the
support of religion ; and by another, no native Abyssinian

116 The Christians of Ahyssinia, [Sept,

was to be chosen to that dignity, even though he was edu-
cated and ordained at Cairo. This treaty forms an important
epoch in the civil and religious history of these countries, and
is called the asra of pai'tition.

It was in the beginning of the sixteenth century that
Abyssinia first became involved in the events of European
history. In their progress along the African coast, the Por-
tuguese navigators got acquainted with the condition of this
interesting people. Their Christian character marked them
out as deserving more particular attention than the infidel
and pagan nations by whom they were surrounded. In the
year 1499 the first Portuguese made his appearance in the
country. His name was Pedro Covilham, and he was re-
ceived with honour, as the representative of the powerful
nation to which he belonged. His representations of the
power and wealth of Portugal induced the king of Abyssinia
to send an embassy to Lisbon, and the two nations continued
on terms of friendly intercourse for forty years.

" It was shortly after the departure of this embassy," says Mr.
Harris, " that Graan, * the left-handed,' made his first appearance
on the Ethiopian stage, where he was long the principal actor. In
league with the Turkish bashaw on the coast of Arabia, this mighty
warrior sent his Abyssinian prisoners to Mecca, and in return was
furnished with a large body of Janizaries, at the head of whom he
burst into Efat and Fatigar, drove off the population, and laid waste
the country with fire. In 1528 he took possession of Shoa, overran
Amharra, burnt all the churches, and swept off immense booty. In
his next campaign the invader wintered in Begameder, and the fol-
lowing year hunted the emperor like a wild beast through Tigre
to the borders of Sennaar, gave battle to the royal troops on the
banks of the Nile, with his own hand slew Gabriel, the monk, who
had vanquished Hafoodi in single combat, — cut the army to pieces,
practised every species of atrocity, and set fire to half the churches
in Abyssinia. Famine and plague now raged, and carried off those
whom the sword had spared. The princes of the blood were all
destroyed, Axum was burnt, and the monarch himself, after being
compelled to take refuge in the wilderness, was finally slain. "With
him died also the boasted splendour of the Abyssinian court, for he
was the last monarch of -Ethiopia who displayed the magnificence
of a ' king of kings.'

" Mark, the aged archbishop, had on his deathbed appointed as
his successor John Bermudez, a Portuguese physician, who had
been detained in the country ; and at the request of Claudius, who
succeeded to the throne, he now proceeded to Europe to obtain
assistance. Don Chiistopher de Gama, with five hundred soldiers,

1844.] The Christians of Abi/ssinia. 117

obtained possession of Massowah, slew the governor, and sent his
head to Gondar, where, as an early pledge of future victory, it
was received with raptures by the queen. The general was shortly
confronted by Graan in person. Artillery and muskets were for
the first time opposed in Abyssinia ; and the Portuguese leader
being wounded, took refuge in a cave. Deaf to persuasion, he
refused to seek safety in flight ; and a Turkish lady of extraordi-
nary beauty, whom he had made prisoner, and who had affected
conversion to Christianity, shortly betrayed him to the enemy.

" He was carried before Graan, who with his left hand cut off
his head, and sent it to Constantinople ; his body being mutilated,
and sent in portions to Arabia. But the Portuguese were far from
being disheartened by this grievous misfortune, and the armies
were shortly in a position again to try their strength. Before the
engagement had well commenced, Peter Lyon, a marksman of low
stature, but passing valiant withal, who had been valet to Don
Christopher, having stolen unperceived along the dry channel of a
ravine, shot Graan through the body. He feU from his horse some
distance in advance of the troops ; and the soldier cutting off one
of the infidel's ears, put it into his pocket. This success was fol-
lowed by the total rout of the Mahometans ; and an Abyssinian
officer of rank finding the body of the redoubted chief, took pos-
session of his mutilated head, which he laid at the feet of the
emperor, in proof of his claim to the merit of the achievement.
Having witnessed in silence the impudence of his rival, the valet
produced the trophy from his pocket, with the observation that his
majesty doubtless knew Graan sufficiently well to be quite certain
* that he would suffer no one to come sufficiently near to cut off his
ear who did not possess the power to take off his head also.' " —
vol. ii. p. 236.

The reputation for valour which they had acquired, and
the important services which they had rendered to the
Abyssinians in their utmost need, secured for them conside-
rable influence over the monarch and his people. The patri-
arch Bermudez exerted this influence to bring them over to
the communion of the Holy See. The conversion of the sove-
reign, the possession of one-third of the kingdom, and, it is
said, an acknowledgment by the emperor Claudius that he held
his crown as a lief of the Pope, — were the terms required
by him. The monarch rejected the proposal with scorn ;
and the patriarch in return threatened to excommunicate him.
While the Portuguese soldiers were in the neighbourhood,
the prelate was safe from the imperial anger; but, under
various pretexts, they were divided among the provinces of
the empire, and ceased to be a source of alarm ; and when his
strength was thus weakened, the offending and indiscreet

H8 The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept.

BcrmuJez was banished beyond the frontiers. The new and
arduous mission was now assigned to the rising Society of
Jesus. St. Ignatius himself would have accepted it with glad-
ness ; but his followers dissuaded him from the purpose, and
it was accordingly committed to other and less able hands.
Nunez Barretto was appointed patriarch, and Andre Oviedo
his associate and provisional successor ; — both were members
of the institute of Ignatius. St. Barretto remained at Goa,
while Oviedo and his companion Rodriguez presented them-
selves at the court of Claudius. Argument and entreaty,
threats and solicitation, were employed in vain to bring the
monarch over to their opinions ; and their prospects becoming
each day more hopeless, they were at length ordered by their
superiors to leave the mission altogether. Unwilling to
depart, yet afraid to disobey, Oviedo alleged the impossibility
of retiring from the country, urged his petition for more
effective aid, and the aid which he required was of a nature
little suited to the character of his mission. " Give me," said
he, " five hundred soldiers, and I will bring over Abyssinia
to the faith, and extend the knowledge of the Gospel to the
infidel nations of the south." The military apostle failed to
bring over to his views those whom he had sworn to obey.
They sent an imperative order for his departure, and a vessel
which arrived soon after on the coast bore away the reluctant
prelate to his monastery of St. Francis Xavier at Goa.

Of very different character was the man by whom he was
succeeded in his mission, though not in the dignity of patri-
arch,— Peter Pays, a member of the same institute. In his
first attempt to enter the coimtry. Pays fell into the hands of
the Turks. They discovered his real character even beneath
the disguise of an Armenian merchant, which he had assumed*
In this prison he languished for seven years. He was at
length ransomed by his society, and appointed to proceed to
his original destination. Instead of proceeding by the methods
which had so egregiously failed, when employed by his prede-
cessors, Peter settled quietly with his followers at Maiguagua.
He opened schools ; gave instruction in the different branches
of learning. His pupils made a remarkable proficiency ; and
the public soon began to talk of those wonder-working men,
who could make beardless children more wise than the hoary
sages of Gondar. The rumour reached the monarch's ears,
and Peter was summoned into his presence, and completed
by his discourses what the fame of his wisdom had begun.
The king became a convert, but only in secret, lest he should

1844.] The Christians of Abyssinia. 119

offend the pride and prejudices of his subjects. The royal
convert was soon after defeated and slain by his rebellious
subjects. His successor, though of a different party and a
rival, was yet friendly to the Christian missionary. His good-
will had been gained by the construction of a two-storied
house, such as had never been seen in the land before. These
varied talents were united to a consummate address and
perseverance, and some of the first persons in the court
became converts to his religious opinions. The conversion of
Kas Scellas Christos was soon followed by that of his brother,
the Emperor Segud. The first act of his Catholic majesty
was an edict commanding all persons, under pain of death, to
believe and maintain two natures in Christ. It would be far
beyond the limits of our present space, to give the minute
details of the troubled events that followed ; the remonstrance
and the threats of the Abuna, the firmness or the obstinacy
of the king. The people of Tigre and other provinces rose
in defence of their altars, but the opposition was useless ; the
malcontents were defeated, and even the aged Abuna himself
fell a victim to the fury of his enemies.

The tidings of these events spread joy among the friends
of the Abyssinian mission ; and, to complete the good work,
it was deemed advisable to elect a patriarch. Alphonso
Mendez, a learned Jesuit of Lisbon, was appointed to that
ofl&ce, and landed on the coast with a large and nume-
rous retinue. But he seems to have been a man in many
respects unfitted for his position. The lessons of experience
were thrown away upon him; and he seems not to have
borrowed one useful practical hint for his guidance either from
the ill-success of Oviedo or the experience of Pays. It is
not always just to pronounce upon the conduct of men in
situations of diflBculty ; for we never can know the entire of
the circumstances in which they were placed, or the motives
under which they acted. But we know enough of the con-
duct and capacity of Mendez, to say that he was not equal to
the duties required of him.* Acting under the impulse of
that restless and fiery enthusiasm which, in the sixteenth
century, led so many of his countrymen to deeds of daring

♦ Father Lobo, who was one of the missionaries, and who himself recom-
mended, even before the pope and cardinals, the employment of an armed force
in the mission of Abyssinia, says of Mendez, " That it is not easy to excuse the
rigour with which he insisted on the abolition of some ancient customs, which
the Abyssinians had received with the truths of the gospel, and which have
never yet been condemned by the Church. — p, 164.

120 The Christians of Abyminia, [Sept.

and dangerous enterprise, he was too fond of arguing with
those who differed from him, or requiring some new mani-
festation of zeal from the monarch, or fulminating excom-
munication against some contumacious offender. A long and
disastrous civil war ensued. The king himself, horrified and
disgusted at the evils of reli^ous dissension, determined on
permitting the observance of the ancient religion of the
country; and though he remained faithful to the Catholic
religion to his dying hour, his son and successor, Facilidas,
an inveterate enemy of Mendez, banished the missionaries
from the different quarters of his kingdom. This event took
place in the year 1 632, and was followed by the extinction of
the Jesuit missions of Abyssinia.

After the expulsion of the Jesuits, several unsuccessful
attempts were made to penetrate into the country, and renew
the intercourse with the churches of the West. Brevedent,
and after him Du Roule, endeavoured to reach Abyssinia by
the Nile ; but the former died in the deserts of Nubia, ex-
hausted by the hardships of his journey, and the latter was
assassinated by the king's order in the market-place of
Sennaar. The hatred of the Abyssinians for the Portuguese
and the Jesuits was so intense, and so many mournful and
bitter recollections were associated with their sojourn in the
country, that, even after the lapse of two hundred years, the
names are held in abhorrence by the people, and no one who
avowed himself either one or the other would be tolerated in
the kingdom of Abyssinia. The Catholics who, aided by the
ministry of some Franciscans, remained faithful to their con-
victions and the holy see, had to profess their faith in secret ;
and when they died, they left not one member of that com-
munion among the native population of Amharra,

It is time that we come now to the present condition of
Catholicity in the kingdom. Since the invasion of Mahomet
Graan in the sixteenth century, the provincial chiefs have
been only nominally dependent on the reigning kingof Gondar.
The pagan Galla tribes have succeeded in establishing them-
selves in several districts ; and even the prophet of Mecca has
many followers, not only among the Galla tribes, but among
the native Abyssinians. In 1 842, Ras Aly, king of Gondar,
put on the turban and became Mahometan, but was compelled
to return to the Christian faith by the influence of his clergy
and followers. It is said that he was led to the adoption of this
measure by the obstinacy of the Coptic patriarch of Alex-
andria, who refused to consecrate an Abuna. It has been

1844.] The Christians of Abyssinia. 121

already mentioned, that the episcopal see of Ethiopia had
been fifteen years without an occupant, when Abba Salama
arrived at Gondar to take possession of the dignity. He was
only twenty-two years of age, and had received some portion
of his education under the Rev. Dr. Lieder, a member of the
Church of England and missionary at Cairo. This was in
1842. For some few years before, a Lazarist mission had
been established in Abyssinia. The earliest grant of money
made by the Association of the Propagation of the Faith for
its support, we find to have been in 1839. In the letter of
Father Montuosi, dated from Gondar on the 28th of March
1840, he describes his entrance to Adowa, on the northern
frontiers, in company with Father Jacobis. He does not
make mention of a single Catholic among the population.
Father Jacobis and he were obliged to recite their office in a
low tone of voice, so as not to be overheard ; and whenever
they celebrated mass, which was but seldom, it was always
with closed doors, as if they were celebrating in the catacombs.
Had they openly disclosed themselves, they would have excited
against them the people of the town, and probably subjected
themselves to insult and ill-treatment. To avoid detention
and increase their efficiency, they divided their little company.
One took up his residence at Gondar, another at Scios, and
Jacobis was stationed at Adowa, on account of the facility of
communication with Europe. His zeal and address in a short
time gained him universal respect, and several influential
individuals were brought over to the faith. To make the
impression more durable, he determined to exhibit religion
to them in a sublimer and more impressive aspect than in the
character of a simple missionary; and he accordingly prevailed
on several Abyssinians, and even some of high rank, to ac-
company him to the capital of the Christian world. They
went ; visited Rome and several of the cities of Italy ; were
delighted with the wonders they saw, and the gracious recep-
tion they met with, at the courts of Rome and Naples. The
holy father received with the tenderest affection these repre-
sentatives of the Abyssinian people, and hailed them with
joy, as the first fruits of that darkened land over which heresy
and idolatry had so long shed their disastrous influence, and
which the enterprizing spirit of modern times has not yet
been able to penetrate.

On the 13th of May, they made their solemn entrance into
Adowa on their return. They were mounted on mules richly
caparisoned, which had been sent to them by Messrs. Schimper

123 TJie Christians of Ahi/ssinia. [Sept.

and Abbadie, the sincere and efficient friends of the mission.
Nothing could have been more unpropitious than the moment
of their return. Ubie, prince of Tigre, had been long medi-
tating revolt against his sovereign, the king of Gondar. He
brought over the new Abuna to his views ; and while the
prince was occupied in the field, the Abuna was active ill
excommunicating whoever should place himself under the
banners of the enemy. The two armies met at Dabra Gabra.
Ubie had associated with him Berra, the bravest warrior of
the Amharra ; and the victory would most assuredly have
been his, if he had not indulged too freely in the pleasures of
the intoxicating Hydromel. The truth, however humiliating
to his majesty, must be told. He was drunk upon the field
of battle, and victory was reluctantly compelled to desert
him for his cowardly but temperate adversary. In the
beginning of the engagement, Ras fled for refuge to a con-
vent; and while he fancied himself defeated, his victorious
troops had forced the tent of Ubie, found him in a state of
insensibility, and loaded him with chains. The Abuna and
his principal followers shared the same ignominious doom.
Ras Aly could scarcely be convinced of his victory, until he
saw his rival in chains ; but whatever may have been his
want of physical courage, he made a worthy and a Christian
use of that which he had won. " You are my father," said
he to Ubie. " The law of Jesus Christ commands me to
honour you, and I do so. Unbind," cried he to his guards,
" his hands, and set him at liberty." Then turning towards
his captive, " Your brother is marching upon your city, and
wishes to make himself master of it. Take again your sol-
diers, and defend your throne." Marco, the ally of the con-
queror, and brother of the captive prince, was marching upon
the capital, to secure it for himself. These are strange words
for one who but two years before had given in his adhesion
to the Moslem, and swore by Allah and his prophet.

" The journey of Mr. Jacobis to Rome has already produced its
fruits," say Messrs. Gabinier and Ferret, French officers ; and we
prefer their testimony to that of the missionaries themselves. " The
Abyssinians who accompanied him are Catholics through con-
viction, and they fear not to say so to their countrymen. They
have the greatest veneration for the holy father, and imagine they
saw in him something more than human. Formerly the Abyssinians
thought there were no true Christians except among themselves,
but those who have lately seen Borne have discovered their error.

1844,] The Christians of A hyssinia. lt$

The Alaca-apte-Selassi* said, on leaving us, *The sun shines in
your country, but Abyssinia is still in darkness. Let us hope in
God.' There was also with Mr. Jacobis a priest, who has so great
a reputation for sanctity that they take his words for oracles. The
king, Ubie, has the greatest esteem for Mr. Jacobis, and is most
grateful for his having protected those who went in search of the
Abuna, and particularly for having the Alaca-apte-Selassi, who is
his friend and minister, treated with distinction in the country of
the whites. The most powerful chief of Tigre, Balgadara, nephew
of Rassahle-Selassi, who knew by reputation the admirable mis-
sionary, has also sent to compliment him, and has offered him a
place in his country, giving him permission to build a church, and
officiate according to his religion. Thus, whoever may be the
prince that shall triumph in the struggle, the Catholic mission will
be established in Abyssinia. We owe these happy results to the
edifying conduct of our missionaries ; but above all, to the inex-
haustible goodness, the generosity, the zeal, and the ability of the
Rev. Mr. Jacobis. For a long time, we feared that the Abuna
would be an almost insurmountable obstacle to the progress of the
Catholic religion ; but having been dragged to the war by Ubie,
he has been made prisoner, and entered Gondar after having lost
much of his respect and importance. Wearied with the religious
discussions of the Abyssinians, he has neglected nothing to become
reconciled with the Europeans, and he has given them a very gra-
cious reception. He has even rendered a valuable service to Mr.
Montouri, and has advised him to remain in Abyssinia, assuring
him that even in matters of religion he would agree more easily
with him than with his own flock."

In a letter dated from Adowa on the 31st of May 1842,
and which is the latest we have seen, Mr. Jacobis expresses
the warmest hopes that the prejudices of the people against
the Catholic faith will at no distant period be removed.
Above all things, the missionaries should avoid mixing them-
selves up with the political squabbles of the country. Let
them take no part with one prince or with another, but
endeavour, by their meekness and charity, to win the good-
will of all. The history of the Portuguese mission should
teach them, that it is not by the intrigues of political diplo-
macy, nor by the assumption of undue political power, nor
by the harsh and imprudent exercise of ecclesiastical autho-
rity, that souls are to be gained over to God. They may
succeed for a time, and procure an external conformity, but
they never can gain the heart. They must proceed cautiously

* This is the name of the principal Abyssinian who accompanied Mr. Jacobis.
It means, Slave of the Trinity.

124 The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept,

and perseveringly, never omitting an opportunity of doing
good, and showing charity to all men. Let them plant and
water and fence their little vineyard with care, and cultivate
it with diligence, and God will give them in His own season,
and, when it is His will, fruit one hundred-fold.

It is now time that we leave the northern provinces of
Abyssinia for the kingdom of Shoa. This is decidedly the
most powerful of the states into which the great Ethiopia
empire has been divided. This importance it owes, no less to
its natural advantages and its proximity to the great highway
of European commerce, than to the character of its sovereign,
Sahela Salassie. The wisdom, intelligence, and enlightened
policy of this semi-barbarian monarch have elicited the admi-
ration of those who, whether in a private or public capacity,
have presented themselves at his court. Mr. Rochet, m
particular, is quite fascinated with him. His patriarchal
simplicity of manners, the facility he affords to all classes of
approaching him, and the readiness with which he listens to
and remedies their grievances, are traits of character that
remind us of what a sovereign ought to be — the father of his
people. And when, at the end of the day"'s journey, Sahela
Salassie seated himself at the foot of a tree, to hear what the
poor peasants of the district had to complain of misery and
injustice, the French traveller fancied he saw embodied before
him whatever the fond recollections of his country had ascribed
to the good St. Louis. Even the phlegmatic Englishman,
notwithstanding the coolness of his national temperament, is
compelled to admit, that very few, with his opportunities and
in his position, would be so wise and good. Yet, with all his
wisdom, Sahala is fond of presents. He has all a barbarian's
fondness for novelty. Whatever indicates more than ordinary
ingenuity, or whatever may assist him in strengthening hia
power over his dependent but often refractory subjects, is
more especially welcome ; and perhaps the cordiality of Mr.
Rochet's reception at the court of Ankobar may be to some
extent owing to the portable powder-mill which he presented
to the sovereign. But even this object of the royal admiration
was eclipsed by the rich and magnificent presents which the
representative of her Britannic majesty presented to the king
of Shoa.

" The king," says Captain Harris, "was attired in a silken Arab
vest of gold brocade, partially shrouded under the ample folds of a
white cotton robe of Abyssinian manufacture, adorned with sundry
broad crimson stripes and borders. Forty summers, whereof eight

1844.] The Christians of Ahyssinia. 125

and twenty under the uneasy cares of the crown, had slightly fur-
rowed his dark brow, and somewhat grizzled a pale bushy head of
hair, arranged in elaborate curls, after the fashion of George the
First ; and although considerably disfigured by the loss of the left
eye, the expression of his manly features, open, pleasing, and com-
manding, did not in their " tout ensemble," belie the character
for impartial justice which the despot had obtained far and wide,
even the Danakil comparing him to * a fine balance of gold/ All
those manifold salutations and inquiries which overwrought polite-
ness here enforces, duly concluded, the letters with which the
embassy had been charged — enveloped in flowered muslin, and rich
gold kinakhab — were presented in a sandal wood casket, minutely
inlaid with ivory ; and the contents having been read and ex-
plained, the costly presents from the British government were
introduced in succession, to be spread out before the glistening
eyes of the court. The rich Brussels carpet, which completely
covered the hall, together with Cashmere shawls and embroidered
Delhi scarfs of resplendent hues, attracted universal attention ; and
some of the choicest specimens were from time to time handed to
the alcove by the chief of the eunuchs. On the introduction of each
new curiosity, the surprise of the king became more and more un-
feigned. Bursts of merriment followed the evolutions of a group
of Chinese dancing figures ; and when the European escort in full
uniform, with the Serjeant at their head, marched into the centre of
the hall, faced in front of the throne, and performed the manual
and platoon exercises, amidst jewellery glittering in the rugs, gay
shawls and silver cloths which strewed the floor, ornamented clocks,
chiming and musical boxes playing • God save the Queen,' his
majesty appeared quite entranced, and declared that he possessed
no words to express his gratitude. But many and bright were
the smiles that lighted up the royal features, as three hundred
muskets with bayonets fixed, were piled in front of the footstool.
A buzz of mingled wonder and applause, which half drowned the
music, arose from the crowded courtiers, and the measure of the
warlike monarch's satisfaction now filled to overflowing. ' God
will reward you,' he exclaimed, 'for I cannot.'" — vol. i. p. 411.

But the presentation of some pieces of artillery was a yet
more valuable and acceptable present than any of these to a
monarch who never loses an opportunity, or neglects a
means of extending his empire, or strengthening his power.
Shoa is surrounded on all sides by numerous Galla tribes ;
some of these have been brought over to Christianity, others
owe him a doubtful allegiance, and pay him an uncertain
tribute. Scarce a summer passes that he does not visit some
frontier of his kingdom to levy tribute, and reduce some
refractory vassal to subjection. An annual present, of no

126 The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept,

considerable value, is all that he requires ; but woe to those
by whom it is negleeted and refused. Sudden and terrible
as the lurid lightning bolt is the scourge that falls upon
their devoted fields and hamlets, every cottage is consigned
to the flames, the herds and flocks are led away as booty, and
the hapless owner is cut down by the sword. The dread of
such a visitation keeps many a lawless Galla chieftain in
fealty and subjection.

The great object of the British embassy to Shoa, was to
form a treaty of commerce with the government, and to
facilitate the introduction of British manufactures into the
country. By an old law and established custom of the
Abyssinian empire, no foreigner can enter or depart the
kingdom without the permission of the king. His consent
is also necessary to buy or sell ; and excessive taxes and
customs on the several articles of sale, are a serious impedi-
ment to commerce. To open a new market for British
produce, and to check to some extent the traflSc for slaves in
that quarter of Africa, it was deemed advisable to open
negotiations with his majesty of Shoa ; and after a residence
of nearly two years, Captain Harris succeeded. He has not
given the terms of the treaty to the public, nor do we know
how long it is likely to be observed ; but yet one step in
advance is made, and though unexpected difficulties may
arise, there is every probability that civilization will, ere long,
acquire a firm and lasting possession of this important portion
of the African continent. Its Christianity, imperfect as it
is, has to some extent prepared the way. The purity of the
atmosphere, and the salubrity of the climate, point it out as
the place where European constitutions will be most readily
acclimated, and by which they may be gradually inured to the
warmer climates of the south ; and it is by no means
improbable, that elevated table lands and lofty mountain
ridges extend from the Abyssinian Alps to the banks of the
Niger. Deep and navigable rivers, like the Gochob, extend
from the eastern coast to remote and unknown distances into
the interior of the continent, forming as it were natural
highways, which the mighty agency of steam can bring under
the control of the white man. There is a large and increasing
trade in slaves carried on in the markets of Shoa and Hurrur.
Crowds of these wretched creatures, of every age and sex,
and from countries whose names no European tongue has
ever uttered, torn from their parents and their husbands, are
brought there for sale and exportation, and a considerable

1844.] TJie Christians of Abyssinia. 127

share of the royal revenue is derived from the taxes upon
this inhuman traffic. Shoa is indeed the only province of
the Abyssinian empire in which slavery is allowed. In Tigre
and Gondar little more than the name is known. It is there-
fore of the utmost importance to the interests of religion
and civilization, that an early intercourse be opened with this
interesting people. From the port of Tanjura, where the
English government has acquired a small station, to the city
of Ankobar, where the king resides, is only a journey of 370
miles, and by a regular establishment of camels, and a friendly
understanding with the neighbouring tribes, the communi-
cation could be carried on with sufficient speed and safety.
On this route there is the magnificent river Hawash, which
may be navigated for 200 miles. We believe that there is
not a more important and interesting object to the civilization
of Africa, than the Christian kingdom of Shoa.

It is peculiarly an object of interest to the lover of religion.
This seems to be the only practicable route by which the
negro can be brought to the knowledge of God in the heart
of his own soil. The mission of Shoa has been as yet occu-
pied by the ministers of the Church Missionary Society. The
journal of the Rev. Messrs. Krapf and Isenberg, which we
have mentioned at the head of this article, contains the record
of what they did, or rather, to speak more correctly, of what
they allege to have done. If we may believe their words, no
missionaries that ever went forth to do the work of the
Gospel, were more zealous, more indefatigable, more diligent
in sowing the seed of the word in season and out of season,
and serving the Lord in good report and in evil. Every
entry in the journal speaks of something done for the objects
of the mission, either in discussing with the priests, or in-
structing the ignorant, or distributing testaments, or trans-
lating the Scriptures into the spoken language of the country.
At one time the missionary has finished geography with a pupil
as far as Prussia, or read Church history with Guebra Georgis
as far as Mahomet ; at another, he has added a few words to
his vocabulary of the Galla language. On the 27 th of June,
1839, the entry is, " This day it rained very much. I felt my
heart confused and longed for the grace of heavenly rain." At
another time it is, "On the road this morning I stayed alone
with the Lord, and stood before him like Jacob of old at the
ford of Jabbok, and he blessed me." What a precious farrago
of pride and self-reliance is the following : —

"It is particularly consolatory for me to know that the blood of

128 The Christians of Abyssinia. [Sept,

Jesus Christ cleanseth me from all my innumerable sins which still
cleave to me. To whom could I direct myself, in order to find rest
and safety, if this blood did not speak better things than that of
Abel. The whole head is sich, and the whole heart is faint.
Sanctification advances so slowly, that it seems rather to retro-
grade. Nevertheless, the Lord has called me to glorify him before
all the world. The constant necessity of insisting on the fulfilment
of the stipulated agreements with our fellow-travellers, in order to
prevent unnecessary delay, gives much nourishment to the natural
man, and many occasions for the excitement of unholy passions.
This however is our consolation, that the Lord is ever ready to
receive us back, and does not take away from us his Holy Spirit —
the spirit of faith, and power, and discipline. Thermometer yes-
terday evening, near nine o'clock, 73° ; this morning, after sun-
rise, 66°. The night was pretty cool, though the day was hot ;
ten minutes past eleven, 104". Diseases of the eyes are very com-
mon in this country, no doubt occasioned principally by the dust,
with which the atmosphere is constantly filled."

We have extracted this entry just as we found it in the
journal, italics and all. What a curious jumble of worldly
and unworldly things. This is just the man to suit the
Church Missionary Society. One or two short extracts more
may shew how explicit they were in avowing the object of their
mission: — "The king wishes for many things from us; he
seems only disposed to decline accepting the one thing need-
ful. As he intends to set out to-morrow on an expedition,
we have urged him to give us previously a decision as to
how far he would assist us In our work." *'We urged the
king many times to send us boys for instruction." "Our
chief endeavours are directed to our calling as missionaries,
and therefore we have been able at present to make but few
inquiries into the state of the country. The king treats us
quite as his guests, sending us daily our maintenance into
our house, and has ordered our guardian to keep all trouble-
some persons away from us ; by this means we are not
molested by disagreeable calls, but on the other hand we are
also prevented from frequently preaching the Gospel in season
and out of season. We have however obtained a promise from
the king that such persons are not to be prohibited who express
a desire to be instructed by us." " We told the king that
we were ministers of the Gospel, interfering with no other
business." *'We told him that I wished to remain here, and
in course of time to go to the Gallas, to preach the Gospel to
them." " The people know distinctly who we are, and why
we have come to their country."" No wonder that the worthy

1844.] The Christians of Ali/ssiuia. 129

men who had the publishing of these journals should have
concluded, as they seem unhesitatingly to have done, that
they uniformly avowed their character " as Protestant mis-
sionaries, whose only object was, the Lord blessing their
labours, to diffuse scriptural light in a region of spiritual
darkness/' This may do very well when there was no one to
contradict the statement. But let our readers compare it
with the following testimony of one who was acquainted with
Mr. Krapf, and saw on the spot the real facts which he
describes.

" As to Mr. Krapf, he selected Ankobar as his place of residence.
He is perfect master of the language of the country ; he speaks
and writes it very correctly. Though religious proselytism is the
only visible object of his stay in Shoa, he has not been at all
successful, as far as I have seen. It is true, that he does not
openly profess his missionary character. He conceals his inten-
tions by devoting himself to the instruction of youth ; the number
of those intrusted to his care is very small. He pays court* to
the priests, and to gain their good will, follows with exactness all
the practices of their rehgion. Nevertheless, the king looks on
him with distrust, though he is ignorant of his not being of the
same religious conununion with himself. I saw many instances of
this afterwards."

So Mr. Krapf did not avow his character as a religious
missionary ; he did not proclaim his intention of jireaching
the Gospel ; and the people, so far from knowing distinctly
who he was, and why he came into their country, had not
the most remote suspicion of his real character. Mr. Krapf
first entered Abyssinia in 1837, and after being compelled by
the native priesthood to leave the country, he and Mr. Isen-
berg penetrated into Shoa, in May 1839. In 1842 his
private affairs called him into Egypt, and these private affairs
we find on examination to be, "that alone, and painfully
feeling the difficulties and disadvantages of his solitariness,"
he determined to take unto himself a wife, and brought with
him from Cairo a Mrs. Krapf, to comfort him during his
many lonely and tedious hours in the pilgrimage of Ankobar.
But on his ai-rival at Tajura, whence he expected to reach the
highlands of Abyssinia, he found his progress arrested, his
entrance strictly prohibited, and he himself compelled to
return to Aden. Thus ended, so far as we can discover, the
protestant mission in the kingdom of Shoa.

* II meuage les pretres.
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIII. . 9

130 The Christians of Ahyss'mia. [Sept.

Would our readers wish to know something more of this
worthy missionary of the Church of England? His own
journal gives us a sufficient insight into his character, and
accounts sufficiently for his failure. From the very com-
mencement of his sojourn at Ankobar, the king of Shoa had
taken a strong prejudice against him. Mr. Kochet, who was
on terms of intimacy with Mr. Krapf, tells us on more than
one occasion, that it was at his earnest solicitation he ob-
tained for him those ordinary civilities which the other
Europeans received almost without asking.* His entire
occupation seems to have been teaching school to a few boys,
who were in all likelihood glad of the opportunity afforded
them, and distributing copies of the Scripture to such as were
willing to accept them. And in a country where books are so
high in value, that one is neither to be bought nor borrowed,
it is not probable that many were found to reject a present so
acceptable as a new and neatly-bound copy of the Scriptures,
were it only to be hung up in their apartments as an object of
attraction to visitors. It would have proved, however, far more
acceptable and useful to the receiver, if it had been in the
JEthiopic, the ancient language of the country. But however
valuable such a present may have been, there were others
which an Abyssinian would have received with more favour,
and cherished with a fonder remembrance of the donor.
Mr. Krapf had something in his possession which he would
not willingly give, even as a parting present to the king.
Bibles, of languages old and new, he would have given away
with pleasure, but there was something that the missionary
prized more than all ; will our readers believe that it was —
a rifle gun. But, as the public may look on our statement
with suspicion, though far be it from us to set down aught in
malice, we shall allow him to relate the circumstance, and
come in judgment against himself.

" I had no sooner returned to my house, than Ayto Habti
appeared again, and informed me that his majesty had taken a
fancy to my beautiful rifle gun, and that his majesty had ordered
him to express his wish that I would leave it with him before I

* J'eus dans cette circonstance une preuve de I'eloignement du roi pour M.
Graphfe. J'annoncai, en effet, k ce missionaire I'invitation^qu'il m'avait faite de
I'accompagner dans son expedition centre les Gallcs; il me temoigna le desir le
plus vif d'etre lui aussi de la partie. Je me chargeai d'en parler a Sahle-Sallassi.
Celui-ci refusa d'abord de I'admettre dans sa compagnie : ce ne fut qu'apres Tavoir
long-temps soUicite que j'obtins a M, Graphfe la faveur qu'il ambitionnait si
ardemment.— Kochet, p. 224.

1 844.] The Christians of A hysslnia. 131

departed. I replied that I had formerly given several handsome
presents to his majesty, and could not therefore give any more ;
that I wanted the gun for myself on my dangerous journey ; and
besides, I could not part with a present which I had received from
a friend whom I valued and respected. I hoped that this reply
would induce his majesty to desist from his desire for my rifle ;
but far from giving up the matter, he carried it on so long, that I
became tired and disgusted, and parted with the beautiful weapon.
He sent me a double-barrelled flint gun, but so miserably made,
that I would not look upon the messenger who brought it. This
he requested me to accept instead of the rifle, which, if I should
lose on the road, would make him very sorry. I sent word, that
the desire of his majesty for my rifle had made me very sad ; yea,
angry with him, at the moment of my leaving his country ; that it
was a bad practice, disgracing his name in my country, to deprive
strangers of the veiy property which they consider most valuable"
—p. 267.

The most valuable property it seems to have been indeed.
The loss of the whole stock of Bibles would have been more
patiently endured than that of the beautiful weapon ; and
we need scarcely point attention to the spirit of affectionate
regret which breathes through the words of the apostolic
missionary for its loss. He is sad ; yea, angry, that in his
zealous labours for the conversion of souls, he must for the
future be deprived of so powerful a means of opening a way
to the heart. But still, he is not utterly unprovided. The dew
of heaven has fallen upon him abundantly, and he has other
resources at his command.

"This answer so enraged them, that it was evident they would
have plundered us upon the spot, if they had not been afraid of
exposing themselves to the effect of our small and large shots, with
which they had seen us loading our guns. Besides, they were so
afraid of the bayonets and the muskets which I had received from
his excellency the ambassador, that they would not touch them, for
fear of being poisoned." — p. 333.

" About twelve o'clock we met on our road about thirty soldiers
of the governor, who were all armed with shields and spears. I
instantly ordered five of my musketeers to advance, while I was in
the rear with the others. The soldiers immediately withdrew from
the road, and gazed on our imposing weapons. The bayonets
particularly attracted their attention." — p. 336.

" The Imam requested me to allow my people, who had been
drilled a little by the English artillery-men at Ankobar, to go
through the military exercises of my country. I said that I was
no soldier, but a teacher of the word of God. That I was a
Christian teacher, sent to Abyssinia to teach its inhabitants the

132 The Christians of Ahyssi7iia. [Sept.

true way to their eternal welfare, and not to teach them military
matters, with which I was unacquainted. However, if he wished
to see the military exercises of my country, my people would shew
him. Most of them managed the business so well, in firing quickly
and precisely, that the Imam covered his face, and exclaimed with
astonishment, that no Abyssinian force could stand against a few
hundred soldiers of my country." — p. 345.

Such are not the men by whom salvation is to be wrought
in Israel. Beautiful on the hills are the feet of him who
bringeth good tidings, who cometh to preach the Gospel in
peace ; but the poor native of Abyssinia is not to recognize
that character in Mr. Krapf and his musketeers. He is not
the successor of those poor men who went forth from their
mountain homes in Galilee to preach the Gospel to the
nations of the earth ; who went forth as their divine Master
sent them, without scrip or staff, to endure opposition and
insult, contumely and danger, without any other defence than
the sanctity of their character; who when reviled, did not
revile ; who, struck on one cheek, presented the other ; who
preached Christ crucified in the halls of science and the courts
of kings. The missionary only who uses the means, and is
influenced by the spirit of the Apostles, can hope to be like
them successful. If the Church Missionary Society wisli to
ascertain what a Christian missionary ought to be, let them
contemplate those heroic men who are preaching the Gospel
in the countries of the East, who have no musketeers to send
out in advance, no rifle guns to part with, no worldly pelf or
family incumbrances to fetter their steps or embarrass their
ministry ; but who go to the extremities of the earth with
one poor breviary to enable them to sing the Divine praises,
and one poor set of vestments wherewith to celebrate the
divine mysteries of their religion ; who have nothing that
the violence or injustice of men can deprive them of, for they
have left all things for the one great object of their lives.
Let them contemplate the humble missionary, whose en-
lightened mind and cultivated taste would have slied lustre
on religion in the highest circles of society in his native land,
spending the best years of his life in some remote and pesti-
lential spot of the Indian archipelago, and devoting the best
powers of that mind to the instruction of some poor savage ,
or pining away in the dungeons of China or Slam, awaiting
the moment when the bowstring or the sword sliall admit
him to the enjoyment of his immortal crown. Let them
study the lives of those great, and holy, and heroic men ;

1844.] The Christians of Abyssinia. 133

for such there are at the very moment that we write this
line. Let them contemplate their virtues, their disinterest-
edness, their sublime devotedness. They are the successors
of the valiant men of old ; they are the successors of those
who eighteen hundred years ago were commissioned to teach
the nations, and to preach the Gospel to the extremities of
the earth. God's spirit has been with them, and is with
them, and will be with them for ever. It is already beginning
to breathe over the highlands of Ethiopia, making its fields
green with a lovelier verdure, and its streams sparkle with a
holier brilliancy, and every feature of the smiling landscape
to utter the pleasing hope that the period is not far distant
when, under that sacred and renovating spirit, the face of the
land shall be renewed. But the spirit which is to work that
change is not that of Mr. Krapf and the Church Missionary
Society.

Art. VI. — The Industrial Besources of Ireland. By Eobert
Kane, M.D., Secretary to the Council of the Royal Irish
Academy, Professor of Natural Philosophy to the Royal
Dublin Societv, and of Chemistry to the Apothecaries'
Hall of Ireland. Dublin: 1844.

IT is happy for the patriotic author of the Industrial Re-
sources of Ireland, that he did not write some century
and a quarter ago, when to be Irish was to be disloyal, and
Dean Swift's Proposal for tlie Use of Irish Manufacture — a
satirical, but yet very peaceful and inoffensive, production —
was denounced from the Irish bench " as a design for bring-
ing in the Pretender." Had Dr. Kane written in those days,
his work would have been, at the least, constructive treason.
Instead of being rapturously applauded by an assembly of all
the rank, enterprise, and intelligence of Ireland, he Avould
have been prosecuted by a Dublin grand jury " as a scan-
dalous, seditious, and factious pamphleteer;" and his pub-
lishers, instead of congratulating themselves on the unprece-
dented success of their sales, would have been afraid, like the
worthy dean, " to own that they were ever without money in
their pocket, lest they should be thought disaffected in making
the avowal." *

* See the Dean's humorous, but masterly and spirited account of this pro-
ceeding in his works. — vol. ii. p. 62, and 98, royal 8vo. edition.

i84 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

Dp. Kane's lot has fallen upon better days. If ever there
was a time when the inquiry to which he has applied himself
may be conducted with a prospect of exciting a useful interest
in the public mind, it is the present. Many circumstances
conspire to direct attention, seriously and practically, to the
fruitful though long-neglected resources of the country. The
stagnation of many of the ordinary channels of commercial
industry — the eager anxiety with which every new project is
canvassed and examined — the ready confidence with which
capital is embarked in any enterprise which promises an
advantageous return — the unemployed funds which recent
monetary revolutions have withdrawn from government
security, and placed at the disposal of any one who can point
out a profitable means of investment; — above all, the awakened
spirit of nationality which pervades all classes of the people,
and manifests itself in every variety of form, political, anti-
quarian, literary, commercial, — seem to warrant a confident
hope, that prudent, rational, and well-directed measures of im-
provement, whether undertaken by public bodies or by private
individuals, will not fail to find encouragement and support
to a degree far beyond what could have been expected at any
former period.

The proverbial stagnation or ill-success of industry in
Ireland may all be traced to one or other of two causes — to
the want of enterprise, or its misdirection ; both traceable to
ignorance, though of different kinds : — the first, to ignorance
of the existence of our own resources ; the second, to igno-
rance of their real nature and extent, and of the means neces-
sary for their profitable development. From the first arose
a cowardly and absurd belief, that it was idle for us to compete
with the superior advantages of the manufacturers of other
countries, and a consequent unwillingness to embark in any
Irish speculation, however safe and even emolumentary: from
the second sprung a host of wild and ill-directed schemes, too
great for the resources of the projectors, or too limited for the
real requirements of the undertaking, which, after a brief day
of promise, brought ruin upon their projectors, and, by their
signal failure, created a deep and lasting prejudice against
every enterprise originating at this side of the channel.

Of these two vices, the latter may have been the more
injurious to individual interests, but it was certainly the less
discreditable to the nation at large. The great bane of the
country has been the pusillanimous or ignorant imbecility
which led men to doubt or underrate the capabilities of Ire-

1844.] Kaixe^s Industrial Resources of Ireland. 135

land for industrial prosperity; a feeling akin to that political
despondency which assumes, as its leading principle, that
Buffering and humiliation are her destined portion ; that

^-^— ^ " while Peace was singing
Her halcyon song o'er land and sea,
Though joy and hope to others bringing,
She only brought new tears to thee."

It Is plain, therefore, that he who would hope to see a better
state of things in Ireland must attack the evil in its source.
He must investigate calmly and dispassionately the real re-
sources of the country ; and, contrasting our condition with
that of the countries whose rivalry we shall have to encounter,
he must estimate, in the same impartial spirit, how far we
actually possess, or can render otherwise available, the means
necessary for their full, or, at least, their advantageous deve-
lopment. It is to this task Professor Kane has addressed
himself in the volume before us ; the only work, we do not
hesitate to say, in which the subject has ever been considered
as its importance and difficulty demand.

And, indeed, the truth is, that, until now, it was hardly
possible to treat the subject with full justice. When the
Drapier wrote his powerful Letters, and the many other
tracts which had for their end the amelioration of the con-
dition of Ireland, he had absolutely nothing to rely upon but
the suggestions of a ready wit and the resources of a strong
and original mind. Arthur Young, except in one depart-
ment, had but few facts beyond what his own observations
enabled him to collect. The parliamentary returns which
the brief interval of awakened nationality between 1782 and
1800 brought to light, were never turned to a judicious use
for the purpose of any general inquiry; and the suggestions
of individuals, however gifted, for the improvement of the
country, lost half their weight when unsupported by accurate
and unquestionable official returns. In this particular. Pro-
fessor Kane has enjoyed opportunities very far superior to
those of his predecessors in the discussion of the case of
Ireland, though still (through the paltry economy of the
government) infinitely below those enjoyed by the statists of
France, Belgium, and other countries of the continent, in
their respective departments. The minute and elaborate
returns of the census of 1841, the extensive researches of
the Ordnance Survey, and the reports of the Railway
Commissioners, and of the ^Mining and Inland Navigation

136 Kane's IndiLstrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

Companies, though far from forming a complete body of
statistical facts, yet furnished a basis far more satisfactory than
had ever existed before, being now completed ; and, assisted
by Dr. Kane's patient and laborious personal investigations,
and by the supplementary information derived from numerous
friends and correspondents, scientific as well as practical,
render the Industrial Resources of Ireland a work of standard
authority upon every topic which it undertakes to treat. The
high character of Dr. Kane's previous works, especially his
Elements of Chemistry^ had led us to expect a great deal from
him in his present undertaking, in which the generous impulse
of patriotism was superadded to the ordinary inspiration of
genius. But we confess that his success has far surpassed our
highest anticipations. It would be difficult to suggest a topic
connected with his subject which he has not introduced ; and
yet so admirably has he condensed and methodized his over-
flowing materials, that each and every one seems to be treated
almost as fully and with as much detail as though itself formed
the exclusive subject of the volume. We have no diflficulty
in saying that the matter compressed into his four hundred
pages would easily fill three, or perhaps four, of the costly
octavos of the fashionable press.

The work is strictly scientific, yet written in a style so
clear, and with so happy a knack of popularizing science
without divesting it of its closeness and accuracy, that it may
be understood and relished alike by both classes of readers ;
and although some of the chapters — as those upon the fuels,
minerals, and agricultural produce of Ireland — are filled with
long tables of chemical analyses, with startling arrays of
figures and other still more imposing technicalities, yet the
arrangement is so simple, and the explanation so lucid and
orderly, that we defy the most unpractised reader of ordinary
intelligence, provided he but apply his mind seriously to the
study, to misconceive the meaning or misappreciate the result.
We shall only add, that we have seldom met a scientific work
written in a more pleasing style. Avoiding most happily
both the extremes — dry and uninteresting technicality on the
one hand, and fine writing and affected elegance on the other
—it combines the accuracy and precision of the mathematician
with the cultivation and refinement of the accomplished
literary man.

Dr. Kane's work is divided into ten chapters. The first
and second are devoted to the fuels of Ireland as a source of
mechanical power; the third, to the water power of the
country ; the fourth, to its iron mines ; the fifth and sixth, to

1844.] Kane^s Industrial Resources of Ireland. 137

its general geological structure and mineral resources; the
seventh and eighth, to its agricultural capabilities and re-
quirements ; the ninth, to the question of internal communi-
cation, especially by railroads and inland navigation ; and the
tenth, to the general condition of the country, as regards
labour, capital, and industrial skill and knowledge. From
this comprehensive plan, it will easily be seen that it would
be idle for us to attempt, within the limits at our disposal, to
discuss these subjects in detail, or even to give a summary of
each chapter. In a diiFuse and declamatory disquisition this
might be possible ; but Dr. Kane's materials are already so
compressed as to preclude the idea of further condensation,
and any analysis would necessarily be meagre and uninterest-
ing. We have deemed it better to confine our observations
chiefly to one or two points, contenting ourselves, for the
rest, with the most important general conclusions deducible
from the facts and opinions which he has collected ; and we
do not hesitate to give the chief place to the chapters on the
sources of mechanical power in Ireland, both on account of
the importance of the subject, and, still more, of the universal
and inveterate prejudices which have hitherto been current
regarding it.

Mechanical power is the first and most essential element of
the success of a manufacturing country ; and it has long been
the fashion to consider this identical with the possession of
an abundant supply of those fuels (especially coal) which are
indispensable for the production of steam. To the almost
exhaustless resources of England in this mineral her indus-
trial pre-eminence is popularly attributed; and nothing has
been more common than to hear Irish rivalry ridiculed as
preposterous and chimerical, on the sole ground of our infe-
riority in this one department. If Dr. Kane's book therefore
contained not a word beyond the masterly refutation of this
unfounded prejudice, with which it opens, we should regard
it as the most important contribution to the practical litera-
ture of the country which the present century has produced.

For all practical purposes, steam and water nmst now be
regarded as the great sources of mechanical power. We shall
take them in their order.

For the creation of steam, fuel is of course indispensable ;
and in order to produce it in such a way that it may be a
profitable and advantageous mechanical agent, the fuel must
be cheap and abundant. Now it has hitherto been believed
that the supply of Irish fuel is so limited and so defective in

138 Kane^ 8 Industrial Resources of Ireland, [.Sept.

those qualities which are essential for the production of steam,
as to render indispensable the importation of English coals.
On the contrary, Professor Kane, by a most minute and
patient investigation, has demonstrated, first, that the resources
of the country in this particular have been vastly underrated ;
and secondly, that our inferiority in this one respect, even
taking it at its utmost limit, forms too small an item in the
general estimate of our industrial capabilities to deserve even
a moment's serious consideration. With this object, he passes
in review the different available fuels of Ireland, coal, turf,
and lignite.

The last-named, lignite or wood-coal, need not occupy us
long ; but, as it has hitherto received but little attention, we
must say a word or two regarding it. It is a more recent
formation than coal, intermediate in its heating power between
it and wood, and more diffused but less intense than coal,
Professor Kane estimates its value as a fuel at about two-
thirds of that of average coal. It appears to be found only
in one locality, around the southern shore of Lough Neagh,
whose waters, well known for their petrifying qualities, appear
to have something to do with its formation. It stretches from
Washing Bay, in Tyrone, to Sandy Bay, on the Antrim
shore ; and though its extent is not fully ascertained, yet
that it is by no means inconsiderable appears from the account
of a boring at Sandy Bay described by Mr. Griffiths, which,
in a depth of seventy-six feet, gave, in three separate strata,
no less than sixty feet of combustible lignite. Dr. Kane, how-
ever, appears to attach but little importance to this material
as a fuel for general use, though there can be no doubt that
it well deserves the attention of those who have an interest
in the localities where it is found in such profusion.

The subject of coal is treated at much greater length. The
principal coal districts are four in number: 1. The Leinster
coal field, which is found in Kilkenny, Carlow, and the
Queen's county, and extends into the north of Tipperary.
2. The Munster field, which is the most extensive development
of coal strata in the empire, and occupies a considerable part
of Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. 3. The Ulster field,
which is found in Tyrone, Antrim, and Monaghan; and 4, the
Connaught field, stretching over a large part of Roscommon,
Leitrim, and Sligo, and extending into the county of Cavan in
Ulster. These four, however, are not of the same character.
The Leinster and Munster districts produce only anthracite,
or non-flaming coal ; those of Connaught and Ulster (which,

1844.] Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. 139

however, are the less extensive) supply bituminous or flaming
coal, perfectly available for all the industrial purposes to
which coal is applied in England. Of all the varieties of coal
supplied by these different beds. Dr. Kane has given a most
minute compai-ative analysis, accompanied by an estimate of
the economic value of each. To enter into this portion of the
subject, would carry us beyond our limits, and is unnecessary
for the object which we have in view. Referring, therefore,
to the work itself all who are anxious to pursue this inquiry
further, we shall content ourselves with a few observations
on the general results of his investigation.

The Leinster coal field (anthracite) consists of eight work-
able strata, arranged in regular succession, two of which have
been entirely, and a third partially, exhausted by former
operations. Five still remain untouched. An idea may be
formed of their still unexplored contents, from a description of
the fourth stratum, called the four-foot coal, and lying at a
depth varying from one hundred to a hundred and forty yards.
It extends over nearly five thousand Irish acres, and, accord-
ing to Mr. Griffiths' estimate, contains no less than 63,000,000
tons. Owing to the careless and unskilful operations of for-
mer mining speculators, the supply from this valuable district
was precarious and expensive; but in latter years, a decided
improvement has taken place. The work is now conducted
on scientific principles. Steam pumps have been set up. The
draining operations are under the management of skilful
engineers. The supply of coal has advanced to 120,000 tons
annually, while the cost has been reduced from 20s. to lis. 6d.
per ton for large coal, and 4s. per ton for culm. From the
similar character of its coal, the Tipperary district, though
separated by an intervening neck of limestone, is considered
as forming a part of the Leinster field ; but it differs in some
particulars, especially in the number of its strata (which are
only three), and still more in their undulating form, from which
arises a peculiar mode of working, which deserves to be
noticed. As the coal, in consequence of this undulating form
of the strata, lies, not in one continuous plane, but in a series
of troughs, it is found necessary to sink a shaft in the centre
of each trough, from which point the coal is worked upwards
to either ridge. The quantity of coal annually raised in this
district is about 50,000 tons, at a cost of lis. per ton, and
about 4s. for culm.

Though tlie strata of the Munster coal-district, properly so
palled, are found to possess the same physical features with

140 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

those of Tipperary, yet as the coal differs very much in
character, it is regarded as geologically a different field.
The examination of this district, though the most extensive
in the empire, is still in a very imperfect state ; but it is
found to consist of six beds of coal, three of which are of
very considerable value. The principal seat of mining ope-
rations is Duhallow, in the county of Cork. The quantity
annually raised is not well ascertained, as the supply is
variable in the different localities.

We have already stated that the coal of both these districts
is anthracite, or non-flaming. From the peculiar composition
of this coal, and the small quantity of volatile combustible
material which it contains, the heat that it produces, though
extremely intense, is very limited in its range, and almost
entirely confined to the immediate spot in which the fire is
situated. It was long considered, in consequence, altogether
unfit for industrial purposes. But science has removed the
difficulty.

"If anthracite be used as the fuel under a steam boiler, the
heat in the fire-place may become so great, as to melt away the
bars of the grate, and to burn out the bottom of the boiler, and yet
the air passing into the flues may not be of such temperature as to
produce an evaporation by any means economical. In such case,
we must call in the aid of science, to free our fuel from this disad-
vantage. It is at once done by passing the vapour of water through
the mass of red hot anthracite; the water is decomposed; its oxygen
combines with carbon, and forms carbonic oxide; its hydrogen is
set free. These mixed combustible gases pass into the flues, and
inflaming in the excess of air which enters, give a sheet of flame
which I have seen to extend for thirty feet under and through a
boiler. The anthracite is thus converted into a flaming coal. There
is no loss of heat; there is no gain of heat either, as some persons
liave supposed, but the action, beneficial in its results, is to absorb,
in the first place, the excessive heat which was doing local injury,
and to distribute it over the entire surface of the flues, where its
maximum of good can be obtained." — pp. 26, 27.

By this simple, but admirable device, the immense re-
sources of these districts may be rendered availalile for all the
uses for which diffusion of heat is required. This is a prin-
ciple which has been in use for a considerable time. But
there is another fact regarding anthracite coal no less im-
portant, which is but little known, and which may prove
extremely valuable in the practical working of the projected
railways whose course lies through the interior of the coun-
try. It is found to serve as an economical substitute for

1844.] Kane's Indiistrtal Resources of Ireland. 141

coke in the locomotive engine ; and in the experiment cited
bj Dr. Kane, the engine would have consumed 7i cwt. of
coke, in performing the work which was actually done with
5^ cwt. of anthracite, although, from the wideness of the fire-
bars, a large portion was wasted. This is a fact which may
prove of incalculable value in future railway operations in
Ireland.

The coal of the western and northern districts is bitumi-
nous. The seat of the latter is in the hills which encircle
Lough Allen, and which also contain iron of an excellent
quality and in great abundance. This field consists of three
strata, the most valuable of which is the three-foot coal ; and
as this lies at a higher level than the surrounding country,
the works may be carried on with peculiar advantages. The
extreme length of the district is about sixteen miles, which
may also be taken as its greatest breadth ; and Mr. Griffith
estimates the three -foot coal to contain above 30,000,000
tons; an estimate, however, regarded as too high by the
railway commissioners, who state it at about 20,000,000.
The cost is calculated to be about 4s. per ton. When the
mines were formerly wrought in connexion with the iron
works, the coal was contracted for at 5s. per ton. At
present it can hardly be said to be wrought at all, the quan-
tity raised yearly not exceeding 3,000 tons ; this un-
happy district, teeming with mineral wealth, is allowed to
lie neglected and fallow ; and the population, active, indus-
trious, and eager for employment, are starving in the midst
of these hidden riches, restrained only by their innate virtue
from turnino- into unlawful channels the eneroies which
nature destined to an honourable and remunerative industry.
Dr. Kane describes this unhappy state of things with great
feeling ; and as it is one of the few passages in which he
gives a loose to his pen, we shall transcribe it here.

" The picture of this district, as I saw it some two years since,
lias never left my mind. The dark brown hills, heather-clad, rose
abruptly from the water, excepting towards the south, where they
were separated from the lake bv level spaces of marshy bog. . The
patches of cultivation, small and rare, far from relieving the aspect
of the scene, served but to render its dreariness more oppressive.
The lake, smooth as a mirror, reflected the brilliant sky of midsum-
mer. No wave disturbed it; the noise and bustle of active industry
were far away. The melancholy solitude of ray walk was only
broken by the approach of some wretched men, who had heard of
the phenomenon of a stranger's presence in their wilds, and pressed

142 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

around, asking whether I was about to do anytliing for the country,
to give employment. Alas ! it was not in my power. As I walked
on, there lay around my path masses of iron ore, equally rich with
the best employed in England. I knew that in those hills, whose
desolate aspect weighed on ray mind, there were concealed all the
materials for successful industry. A population starving, and
eager to be employed at any price. A district capable of setting
them at work, if its resources were directed by honesty aud com-
mon sense. But all sacrificed to the stock -jobbing speculations of
a few men acting on the gross ignorance and credulity of some
others." — pp. 14, 15.

The Ulster field (also bltuminou8)is not continuous, like those
of the other provinces, but lies in separate basins sometimes
many miles asunder. One of these, that of Tyrone, presents,
in a depth of a hundred and twenty fathoms, no less than
from twenty-two to thirty -two feet of solid workable coal, —
an amount greater than is found within the same distance
from the surface in any of the countless pits of England. As
an encouragement to private enterprise, we may add that the
collieries of this district, which are in the hands of private
individuals, have proved more profitable and successful than
those of the Hibernian Mining Company. The total area of
this district is about 7,320 acres ; and the strata are six in
number, varying in thickness from two to eight feet.

Before we pass from the subject of coal, we must say a
word of a much more interesting, though by no means so
valuable coal district, in the county of Antrim, which was the
seat of considerable mining operations at an indefinitely
remote period, when the mineral treasures of the rest of the
empire lay in unknown and neglected obscurity. In the year
1770 the miners broke accidentally into an old gallery, the
walls and roofs of which were hung with stalactites of very
remote foundation. Several antique mining tools, of an age
long anterior to the traditions of the district, were found in
the excavation.

We have very little doubt that these statements will take
the greater number of readers by surprise. But Dr. Kane's
report on the subject of turf, trite and common-place as it
might appear to be, is still more interesting and important.
This despised and ill-used fuel has hitherto been reserved
for the very lowest purposes, — in fact, only for domestic and
culinary use, and not even for these when it is found practi-
cable to procure English coal. Now it is quite certain that
there is hardly a use to which coal is applied, which may not.

1844.] Kane^s Industrial Besources of Ireland, 143

by the application of simple and inexpensive devices, be
equally, or almost equally, supplied by this neglected material,
which we possess in such thankless abundance. It covers nearly
one-third of the surface of the island. Of the 20,000,000
acres which form the area of Ireland, 2,300,000 are turf, by
far the larger proportion of which lie waste and unprofitable,
unemployed for the purposes alike of agricultural and of me-
chanical industry; and even the part which is turned to
account for the production of fuel, loses more than a-third of
its utility by the unscientific management of the process.

But even in its rudest state, this fuel may be employed
with success ; and if proper furnaces be used, will produce
the same degree of useful heat, at a cost but little exceeding
that of average coal, under the favourable circumstances in
which it is supplied in the manufacturing districts of Eng-
land. By a careful comparison of the economic value of the
two fuels. Dr. Kane shows that good turf, in its rudest form,
provided only it be well dried, produces about 44 per cent, of
the heat developed by average coal. Now taking the price at
As. per ton — a high estimate — a heating power equivalent to
that of a ton of coal may be obtained at the cost of 9s. \d.
There are, however, many industrial uses for which turf, in
its rude state, is entirely unfit. Its great defects as a fuel are
moisture, want of density, porosity, and elasticity. To re-
move these, several plans have been adopted, which are
detailed by the author. One of these consists in drying it
well, and impregnating it with tar, — a process which gives,
at a cost of from 6^. to 8s. per ton, a calorific power but little
inferior to that of coal. A second is compression with the
hydraulic press, the cost of which amounts to about 5s. per
ton. A third is carbonization, either in close vessels, or
in heaps, after the manner of preparing wool charcoal. The
charcoal thus obtained is light and friable ; and, according to
the report of M. Daroust, the pyrotechnist of Vauxhall, it is
peculiarly fitted for the manufacture of gunpowder, being
twenty per cent, more combustible than wood charcoal. A
fourth process is coking the turf after it has been com-
pressed in the hydraulic press. The density of the coke thus
produced exceeds that of wood charcoal, ranging from 913 to
1040 ; and its cost does not exceed 20s. per ton, while wood
charcoal is sold for four times that amount. We may add,
that since the publication of Dr. Kane's work a prospectus
has been issued, and patents have been taken out in all the
countries of Europe, for a fifth process, the particulars of

144 Kane^s Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

which have not yet transpired, but whose results are described
as very satisfactory. The fuel produced, we are 'informed, is
hard, smooth, and polished like coal, easily combustible, and
affording an agreeable flame. The patentee undertakes, with
• the aid of a dozen labourers, to produce sixty tons per day.
Having thus calculated the quantity of native fuel. Dr.
Kane proceeds to consider its relative cost in England and
Ireland. The basis of his comparison is, of course, the recog-
nized standard of a horse-power, i. e. the capability of raising
33,000 lbs. one foot per minute (or 884 tons one foot per
hour); or, what is equivalent, the povv^er of vaporizing 0,54
of a cubic foot of water per hour. The details are extremely
interesting, but too minute for insertion. It will be enough
to state two or three general facts. First, with regard to the
native coal, he has satisfactorily shewn, that in the interior,
when it is used, a horse-power, per day of twelve hours, costs
7f d., about the same as English coal on the coast of Ireland.
Secondly, that a horse-power, using well-dried turf, costs only
6d. per day. Thirdly, that the cost, by using a process suggested
by Mr. Williams, is reduced to 6\. per day. Fourthly, that this
expense may be still further reduced by the use of the Cornish
engine, in which the peculiar construction of the boiler (which
exposes a large surface of water to the flame), and the great
economy of steam, arising from the mode in which the piston
acts (the steam being let on only during one-fourth of the
stroke of the piston, which is afterwards propelled by the ex-
pansive power of the steam), reduce the expenditure of fuel
in the proportion of three to fourteen. Using this engine.
Dr. K. concludes that the cost of the horse-power in Ireland
per day may be rated at

With coals 3§d.

With well-dried turf 3.

These results are extremely encouraging. That they are
not mere theory may be gathered from the report of the
secretary of the Shannon steam company, whose expenses, by
the substitution of turf for coal (though in a most unecono-
mical shape), have been reduced from £,^Q 12s. 3d. per month,
to ri£'41 7s. 9d. And it is still more gratifying to add, that
this saving to the company has actually produced, in wages
to the peasantry of the surrounding districts, no less than
£1200 per annum.

But the most important conclusion of all is, that the dif-
ference of the cost of steam power in England and in Ireland,

1844.] Kane s I iidastrial Resources of Ireland. 145

is so trifling an item in the total cost of manufacture, as to be
utterly unimportant to the judicious manufacturer.

" These results are, however, but collateral. THiat we have
now to do with is the fact, that in manufacturinfr cotton by steam
iwwer, the cost of fuel is scarcely more than one part in 100 of the
value of the manufactured article, Wages make up 33 per cent.,
a third of the entire; the raw material a fourth of the entire; rent
and taxes also a large proportion. Now in Ii'cland wages are
lower, I'ent is lower, taxes are lower, and there is a difficulty about
coals, of which the increased cost is not more than a half per cent.,
which may be obviated by attention to economy, or which is neu-
tralized by a difference of average wages of Id. per week." — jj. 60.

There are some readers, we doubt not, to whom all this
minuteness will appear sufficiently tiresome. But we must
pray them to remember its extreme importance, and bear
with us while we pass ou to a question still more interesting to
Ireland, — the judicious management of her wat^r power. It
is a subject wliich even practical men are wont to underrate.
There is, of course, a general impression of its importance ;
but we doubt whether, when it comes to detail, there are
many who are at all prepared for the fact that, in the midst
of England's coal treasures, above one-fourth of the existing
industrial power is generated by water; that the Irwell,
which passes by the "steam-cities" of Manchester and Bolton,
is the hardest-worked stream in the world ; and that even in
Lancashire, the head-quflrters of the coal trade, the manufac-
turers find it their interest to economize water power to an
extent which, if carried out in Ireland, would supply us with
a power in water alone, exceeding the entire power from
steam, water, and every other source which is at present at
work in the whole British empire I Thus, even if our infe-
riority, as regards steam power, were infinitely more hopeless
than it is, we still possess, in the available water power of the.
country, a resource which far more than countervails it. It
is admitted by the most interested parties, that water power
is cheaper than coal at the very mouth of the pit. An accu-
rate estimate of the comparative cost of steam and water in
the factories of the Bann, makes the latter less than one-
seventh ; and it is calculated that, on the completion of the
works, it will be reduced to one-twentieth ; and even in
Greenock, where the comparison is made under the most un-
favourable circumstances for the water power, it is hardly
one-tenth of the cost of steam.

Few countries possess greater capabilities than Ireland in
VOL. XTir. — NO. xxxnr. 10

146 Kane^s Industrial Resources of Ireland, [Sept.

this particular. Taking the number of working days at
three hundred per annum, a very moderate calculation rates
the water power at about 3,500,000 horse power per day of
twelve hours. The Shannon alone, between Killaloe and
Limerick, affords, at a very low estimate indeed, a force of
33,950 horse power, day and night, all year, and between
Killaloe and Lough Allen 4,717 ; making in all no less than
77,334 horse-power per day of twelve hours all year — an
amount very little inferior to the total power in use through-
out England. For the particulars of these interesting re-
ports, we must refer the reader to Dr. Kane's pages. We
shall pass to the application of this enormous power.

Always most clear and happy in his expositions. Dr. Kane
is nowhere more successful than in his comparative estimate
of the various engines by which water power may be applied
to machinery. It is evidently a favourite subject with him,
as it is with ourselves ; and its importance in a natural point
of view, must be our apology for extracting copiously from
this portion of his work, to the exclusion of other topics,
which many may deem more interesting. His observations
on the water engines in ordinary use, — the overshot, under-
shot, and breast-wheels, — his estimate of their respective
advantages, and of the circumstances in which each may be
employed with most economy ; and his suggestions for avoid-
ing the disadvantages to which they are severally subject, are
all most solid, simple, and judicious; and, while they well
deserve the attention of practical men, will be perused with
pleasure even by the casual reader. It will be more interest-
ing, however, to extract some particulars regarding certain
more modern water engines, as yet but little known in this
country, but possessing many advantages over those in pre-
sent use, in their applicability under circumstances in which
the ordinary machines cannot be used without great waste of
power. We should premise that all water engines may be
reduced to four classes: 1, those in which the water acts by
its weight, as in the overshot-wheel ; 2, those in which it acts
by impulse, as in the undershot (the breast-wheel may be
said to combine both principles of action) ; 3, those in which
the water acts by pressure, as in the water-pressure engine,
hereafter to be described ; 4, those in which it acts by reaction,
as in Barker's mill and the turbine, which is the most recent
of all.

The following is the water-pressure engine :
" The water-pressure engine is a machine but little known in
this country. In fact, borrowing as we do our mechanical ideas

1844.] Kane^s Industrial Resources of Ireland. 147

from England, a country, generally speaking, so rich in fuel, as to
render the economy of "water power unimportant, water engines do
not fix the attention of mechanists as they deserve. In mechanism
the water-pressure engine is essentially the same as a steam engine,
usually single acting. The valves and passages are large, as water
cannot he wire-drawn like steam. A main-pipe from a reservoir
at a distance, brings the water to the valve box, through which it
enters the cylinder, which, raising the piston, it gradually fills: the
entrance valve closes, the water is let off by the opening of an exit
valve, and the piston falls by the weight of the machinery with
which it is in connexion. Some engines are made double-acting ;
in which case they are absolutely constructed as the simple high-
pressure steam engine, but they use cold water in place of steam.

" Now as to the mechanical power of these engines. The water
acts, not by its weight or impulse, but by its pressure. The height
of head to give this pressure must, therefore, be considerable, but
the quantity of water consumed may be very small. In a moun-
tainous district a reservoir is formed among the hills. From it the
water is conducted, not by a costly embankment, but by a pipe of
a few inches diameter. The machine is erected at the most con-
venient locality. For every thirty-five feet of head, the pressure
is one atmosphere on the piston, fifteen pounds to the square inch.
A head of 350 feet gives, therefore, ten atmospheres; and in mining
districts, where such elevation is often available, those engines are
peculiarly suitable. "With such a head, and a piston of a square
foot of surface, moving with a mean velocity of two feet per second,
there should be produced a force of seventy-eight horse power, and
as the engine is found to deliver in practice 70 per cent, of the
theoretical amount, the working efficiency of such an engine should
be fifty-four horse power. The expenditure of water would be 120
cubic feet per minute." — pp. 82-3.

Although the efficiency of this engine is to a trifling
amount inferior (as 54 to 55) to that of the overshot wheel,
it has the advantage of being applicable with its full power
in cases where, from the height of the fall, a great portion of
the water would necessarily be wasted in the latter engine.
Hence it has come into very general use on the continent, in
France, Belgium, and Switzerland. In the salt districts of
Salzburg, the brine is transported, by a series of seven engines,
over a height of 1200 feet, in order that it may be evaporated
in a district where fuel is comparatively cheap. It has also
been introduced, with considerable improvements, in the
mining districts of Cornwall.

The turbine is still more interestinsr.

" Coals being abundant, the steam engine is invented in England;
coals being scarce, the water-pressure engine and the turbine are

10^

148 Kane 8 Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.'

invented in France. It is thus the physical condition of each
country directs its mechanical genius. The turbine is a horizontal
wheel furnished with curved float-boards, on which the water
presses from a cylinder which is suspended over the wheel, and the
base of which is divided by curved partitions, that the water may
be directed in issuing, so as to produce upon the curved float-boards
of the wheel its greatest effect. The best curvature to be given to
the fixed partitions and to the float-boards is a delicate problem,
but practically it has been completely solved. The construction of
the machine is simple; its parts not liable to go out of order; and
as the action of the water is by pressure, the force is under the
most favourable circumstances for being utilized." — p. 86.

The economy of this wheel is about the same as that of the
Overshot, but it possesses many advantages.

" In a water wheel you cannot have great economy of power,
without very slow motion; and hence, where high velocity is
required at the working point, a train of mechanism is necessary,
which causes a material loss of force. Now in the turbine, the
greatest economy is accompanied by rapid motion, and hence the
connected machinery may be rendered much less complex. In
the turbine also, a change in the height of the head of water, alters
only the power of the machine in that proportion, but the whole
quantity of water is economized to the same degree. Thus, if a
turbine be working with a force of ten horses, and that its supply
of water be suddenly doubled, it becomes of twenty-horse power;
if the supply be reduced to one half, it still works five-horse power:
whilst such sudden and extreme changes would altogether disarrange
water wheels, which can only be constructed for the minimum, and
allow the overplus to go to waste." — p. 86.

Hence in all cases of very high or very low falls, or where
the motion to be given is directly horizontal (as in grinding),
or when the machine has to work against back-water, it will
be found to possess a decided advantage over all the others.

It may be safely assumed that the adoption of these im-
provements would tend to develope and extend the available
water-power of this country, and to place our manufacturers
more nearly on a level with those of the sister-island. But
there is one great objection to its use which has operated
more unfavourably than all the rest — the irregularity and
precariousness of the supply ; abundant and even excessive
m the winter season, absolutely nought in the summer. One
of the modes ordinarily adopted to meet this precariousness
is the employment of a supplementary steam-engine; but
modern enterprise has led men to reflect, that " as we have
under the earth vast deposits of coal, the source of steam-

1 844.1 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. 1 49

power, from which we draw at desire the necessary supply,
■so it is necessary to organize on the surface vast depositories
of water-power, to be made available at our will. In place
of w^retched mill-ponds, by which a stock of water is scarcely
secured for a week, there should be a basin so capacious that
the floods of an entire winter might be received, and thus
invested for most profitable expenditure in summer." In
illustration of the importance and utility of such reservoirs,
it is stated, that in a flood of four days, upon the Shannon
alone, 98,000,000 tons passed idly away, which, if properly
husbanded by means of fitting reservoirs, would have fur-
nished, to be distributed over the entire year, a force equi-
valent to 3,934 horse power per day of twelve hours! The
particulars regarding the several reservoirs, either in operation
or in progress, in Ireland will be found at pages 91 — 98,
and form one of the most important sections in Dr. Kane's
book. The reservoir of Lough Island Reavy, in connexion
with the factories of the Bann, has been attended with the
most favourable results. The additional power obtained
thereby is secured at about one-seventh the cost of steam,
and, were the works fully completed, might be had for one-
twentieth of that amount. A still more striking illustration
may be expected nearer to this metropolis in the projected
embankment of the river Dodder, as reported by Mr. Mallet.
The fall of this river is 370 feet, and its present amount of
power (precariously available) is 926 horse power, or about
2^ per foot of fall. Mr. Mallet proposes, by the formation of
a reservoir at the head of Glenismaul, with an area of 162
statute acres, to secure a constant supply of 456,000,000 cubic
feet of water, which will be equivalent to 1,387 horse power,
i.e. above 5^ per foot of fall permanently available — more
than double the present precarious supply.

While we are upon this subject, there is another point to
which we must advert, and which, for many at least, will have
novelty to recommend it— the water-power derivable from the
alternate rising and falling of the tide. We shall leave Dr.
Kane to describe it in his own happy manner.

" If we conceive a reservoir situated near the shove, and sepa-
rated from the sea by a narrow canal, and that at low water the
reservoir is dry, we will have the conditions necessary for the
economy of motive power. Let the canal be provided with a
sluice, and waiting until the tide has risen to a certain height, say
two feet, let the sluice be opened, and the water let in, in such
quantity that it shall rise in the reservoir as rapidly as the tide

150 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland, [Sept.

rises outside. Hence, through the period of the influx of the tide
there will be a current through the canal, with a head of two feet.
Finally, the reservoir fills to the same height as the sea outside.
Then let the sluice be closed, and remain closed, until the tide has
fallen two feet. On opening the sluice the water of the reservoir
flows out with a head of two feet, and will continue until the tide
is out ; the reservoir will then empty itself, and be ready for re-
peating this operation the next tide.

" Now let us consider how this is circumstanced as to time. We
may take the duration of a tide as twelve hours twenty minutes,
and as the tide in average rises and falls twelve feet in that time, the
mean rate of motion of the tide, in height, is found to be one foot
in thirty-one minutes. We may take half an hour to a foot without
sensible error. Now the tide being out, the sluice must be closed
for an hour, in order to allow the water outside to get the head of
two feet, with which it has to work. On opening the sluice, it will
then flow into the pond, and so continue for five hours, when the
tide will be fully in. The reservoir being then allowed to fill com-
pletely, for which there is ten minutes available, with additional
sluices, the canal is to be closed for an hour, until the sea outside
shall have fallen two feet. On opening the sluice the water will
issue for five hours, with a two foot head, and then, by the extra
sluices, the remaining water of the reservoir may be got rid of in
ten minutes, so that it shall be ready to begin again." — pp. 105-6.

The power obtainable from this source is peculiarly appli-
cable, as will appear from what we have already said, to the
turbine wheel, and is more considerable than might at first
sight be imagined. An acre of reservoir gives 4^ horse
power ; hence ten acres will furnish 45 ; and as the turbine
economizes about two-thirds, a reservoir of ten acres may be
taken as practically equivalent to 30 horse power for twenty
hours of the twenty-four. There are some difficulties arising
from the inversion of the action of the wheel, consequent
upon the successive changes of current during the ebb and
flood of the tide, and also from the irregular level at which it
must act during the rising and falling of the water. But
these and similar difficulties will not long stand in the way
of modern science; and it should never be forgotten that
tidal reservoirs, such as those described, may form an im-
portant feature in a general and most practicable scheme of
improvement — the reclaiming of salt-marshes and waste lands
upon the coast.

Such are the general results of Dr. Kane's inquiry into the
question how far we possess the means of competing in
industrial power with the manufacturers of other countries,

1844.] Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. 151

and especially of England. We would gladly follow him
with equal minuteness through his chapters upon the minerals
and the agricultural resources of the country ; but believing
that the subject on which we have hitherto been dwelling is
of the very last importance, we have devoted to it almost all
the space at our disposal. But little is popularly known
regarding the real value of our mines. Owing to causes to
which we have already alluded, the subject is almost insepa-
rably associated with the idea of visionary schemes and abortive
enterprises ; and there are many who have never bestowed a
thought upon it beyond what is suggested by the beautiful
allusion in Moore's song to

" our Lagenian mine,
Where sparkles of golden splendour

All over the surface shine.
But if in pursuit you go deeper,

Allured by the gleam that shone,
Ah ! false as the dream of the sleeper.

Like love, the bright ore is gone."

To all such we heartily recommend a patient perusal of the
fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of the Industrial Resources
of Ireland* first offering, as a kind of set-oflf against this
poetical slur upon the character of our gold mines, a few par-
ticulars about the silver produced in the working of the lead
mines, which are themselves highly remunerative. The ores
of the different mines are found to contain silver in the fol-
lowing proportions per ton ; —

Luganure mine, Wicklow ... 3 oz.

Cairne mine, Wexford . . . 12

Follynatty mine, Down ... 10

Ballyhickey mine, Clare ... 15

Kilbricken mine, Clare . . .120

The last is, indeed, an extraordinary proportion. The average
produce of the leads worked by the Mining Company (Irish)
in the last year was 7^ oz. of silver per ton. The total
quantity was 4,261 oz., which produced 1,157?. 10s. 8(f.
The process of extracting the silver is as follows : —
" The lead having been obtained by the ordinary smelting pro-
cess, it is remelted, and the concentration of the silver effected by

* Since the above was written, we perceive that Mr. M'Nevin, chairman of
the committee of the Repeal Association, has published a report upon the sub-
ject It is a most careful and elaborate analysis of Dr. Kane's work, and enters
very fully into all its most important investigations.

152 Kane's InduBirial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

the very ingenious plan invented by Mr. Pattinson. This is
founded on the fact that an alloy of lead and silver is more fusible
than pure lead. Hence, the lead, being melted, is allowed to cool
very slowly, until it begins to solidify. What becomes solid con-
tains no silver, and by removing the grains of lead as they form,
with a perforated ladle, the silver is concentrated in the portion
which remains liquid, so effectually, that ultimately, after several
repetitions of the process, the whole quantity of silver is obtained
united with about one-tenth of the lead, whilst the remaining nine-
tenths of the lead is free from silver, and is sent to market.

" The rich portion of the lead is then cupelled. A shallow cru-
cible, or capsule, is formed of bone dust and ashes; in this the lead
is melted, and then a strong blast from a bellows is blown across
its surface; the lead is oxidized, and the oxide of lead is partly
absorbed by the porous cupel, partly blown off over the edge of the
cupel, and being collected forms the litharge of commerce. This
process is continued until all the lead is oxidized, when the dull
film, which had throughout covered the melted metal, passes off",
and the pure silver remains." — pp. 206-7.

This, however, is but a small item in the mineral resources
of Ireland. The iron ore of the Arigna district is calculated to
be sufficient to employ two furnaces for 250 years, and is fully
equal to the black band iron-stone of Glasgow. The cost of
preparing it for the market does not exceed, and probably does
not reach, that of the most favourably circumstanced districts
in England. Still, in the present depressed state of the
trade, Di\ Kane regards the attempt to work these mines as
impolitic and unremunerative. The copper ore raised in
Ireland amounts to about 25,000 tons, and the quantity of em-
ployment is very considerable. In Wicklow alone, about 2000
persons are employed ; and the Irish Mining Company pay an-
nually in wages in the Waterford district at least 30,000^. The
ores sold in 1843 from this district produced 62,9567., nearly
double the sum produced by the sales of 1836. The sulphur
contained in the iron pyrites of Wicklow has, since the mis-
imderstanding with the Neapolitan government about the
Sicilian sulphur, become an object of very considerable export.
From • 500 to 1 000 carts are daily employed in conveying it
to Wicklow for exportation. The alum manufacture may
be carried on with as much advantage as in England; and
there exist in many districts numberless varieties of very
valuable clay, not indeed fitted for the very finest porcelain
manufacture, but well suited to all ordinary uses.

Indeed there is not a single topic connected with our
mineral resources which is not minutely discussed, from the

1844.] Kavie^s Industrial Resources of Irelavid. 153

gold mines of Wicklow to the humble pipe-clay of Lough
Rea ; and the details are so full, and the statements so plain
and satisfactory, that each one is fully competent to judge for
himself without taking a single conclusion on the authority
of the writer, except in so far as they are borne out by the
facts and observations on which he relies. If there be any
who are tempted to regard them as fireside speculations, and
to point significantly to the Wicklow gold mines and the
Arigna iron works as an answer to the paper statements
Avhich are here presented, we need only refer to the present
condition of the Irish Mining Company as the best evidence
of what may be hoped from a fuller and more generous
development of our long-neglected resources.

The chapters upon agriculture are extremely interesting.
They may be briefly described as containing, in its application
to Ireland, a full but extremely concise view of the entire
modem theory of agricultui*al chemistry ; the nature and
composition of soils and manures, the composition of the
different crops, their dependence upon the several soils, the
elements necessary in soils and manures to produce things,
the principles which should guide the selection and rotation
of crops, &c. ,

The area of Ireland is 20,808,271 statute acres. From the
census of 1841, it appears that of these there are of arable
land 13,464,800 acres at present available, and of the remain-
ing portion, 4,600,000 acres may be rendered available by
the adoption of proper means to reclaim them. In estimating
the fertility of the soil, Dr. Kane has had recourse to several
authorities; we shall content ourselves with one, that of
M. Moreau de Jormes, in his Statistique de la Grande Bre-
tagne et de VIrelande. The standard of measure which he
assumes is a hectare (2.47 statute acres), and that of produce
is a hectolitre (2.8 bushels). He rates the three countries as
foUows: —

ENGLAND. SCOTLAND. IRELAND.

Wheat .... 18 16 20

Rye ... . 10 12 32 -

Barley .... 21 12 21

Oats .... 16 16 16

Mean, 16 14 17^

This Is a fact, the importance of which can hardly be
exaggerated ; and it possesses additional weight, as emanating
from an intelligent and uninterested foreigner, free from all
suspicion of being influenced by national partiality. Next in

154 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

importance to the improvement of these advantages which
we already possess in the superior fertility of the soil, is the
reclaiming that which at present lies waste or imperfectly
cultivated. Of this a very large proportion may be easily
recovered, especially the bog districts, in the reclaiming of
which, draining is of course the principal agent. The follow-
ing statement cannot get too much publicity.

** Such undertakings, however, cannot be carried out by any
individual effort, except in very peculiar localities. This difficulty
has, however, been recently removed, and power granted to the
Board of Works to carry on drainage operations. From this the
greatest benefit may be expected to result, principally to the agri-
culturist, but also to the manufacturer requiring water power.
The land will be brought into a better state for cultivation, the
supply of water to mills may be rendered steadier and even increased,
as the loss by evaporation from a great flooded surface will be obvi-
ated, and by the body of water being confined more strictly to the
river channels, the navigation of these will be, in many cases, ma-
terially facilitated.

" That the advantages derivable from effective drainage are fully
appreciated by our agricultural proprietors, is shown by the fact,
that although the powers and regulations of the Board of "Works
are yet but little understood by liie public, there had been between
August 1842, when the Act passed, and January 1844, applications
made and surveys instituted for the drainage of 44,498 acres of
land liable to flood. The estimated cost of thoroughly draining
these lands amounted to £127,945, or £2 17s. 6d. per acre. The
expected increase in the annual letting value of the lands amounted
to £16,482, or about 13 per cent, on the capital invested, and this
capital is to be derived from the parties benefited by the improve-
ment, to whom indeed the return is rendered somewhat larger by
the fact, that certain portions of the operations are carried on at the
public cost. Since the commencement of the present year, the
applications have very much increased in number; and I am in-
formed by Mr. Mulvany, to whom this department of the duties of
the Board of "Works is more specially assigned, that the total amount
is not now (end of March) less than 70,000 acres." — p. 260.

A most important feature in these, and most other mea-
sures of improvement, is the amount of employment they
afford to our impoverished population. Thus of the 127,945^.
estimated above as the outlay, 96,000^. would go in labour
alone ; and the same will be found to apply in great measure
to the formation of railways and all similar operations.

Connected with this interesting and important branch of
the subject, is another, intimately associated with the welfare
of the humbler classes in Ireland — the distribution of farms.

1844. J Kane^s Induslrial Resources of Ireland. 155

The advantages of the small-farm system are fully brought
in an admirable essay by Mr. Blacker of Armagh. But we
must pass it by ; and what we regret still more. Dr. Kane's
remarks on the growth and manufacture of flax — the staple
of the north of Ireland. It is so concise, and yet so full, that
to curtail would be only to thwart curiosity, and to epito-
mize would be to sacrifice the effect. With great reluctance,
therefore, we pass it over, as well as many of his suggestions
upon railways and inland water communication, which are all
extremely solid and practical.

However, even at the risk of appearing immeasurably
tedious, we 'must make room for the following most just and
very moderate observations. They form part of a plan for the
construction of railways by means of government advances,
the interest on which should be paid by the profit of the
railway trafl&c ; the surplus (if any) to be applied to public
purposes ; and the deficit (if any) to be raised by an assess-
ment of the benefited districts. This assessment could not
exceed 4c?. per annum, even in the districts most benefited.

" Such being the results of the opening out of communications
through the country, it may well be supposed that it should form
one of the dearest objects of a government anxious for the improve-
ment of the people, and that the suras necessary for such purposes
should be most heartily afforded. It is to be regretted that such is
not found always to be the case. The benefits derivable are often
so remote, and are spread over so great a space of country and of
time, that they do not present, to ordinary statesmen, a sufficiently
definite aspect to justify the actual advance of sterling money; it
may, therefore, be not without interest to point out that such an
advance is really an investment of capital on the part of the govern-
ment, and one generally yielding profits of a high, even usurious
return.

" The town of Clifden in Connamara, and the surrounding
country, were in 1815 in such a state of seclusion, that it contri-
buted no revenue whatsoever to the state, and up to 1822, its
agriculture was so imperfect that scarcely a stone of oats could be
got. In 1836, Clifden had become an export town, having sent
out 800 tons of oats, and it produced to the revenue annually
£7,000. From the expenditure in Connaught in eleven years of
£160,000 in public works, the inci'ease of annual revenue derivable
from the province has become equal to the entire amount.

" In Cork, where Mr. Griffith expended £60,000 in seven years,
there is a annual increase of customs and excise of £50,000 imme-
diately derivable from the territories benefited by those works.

" Those should not be called grants of money, but investments

156 Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

of capital, with realization of enormous profit. An individual
would most happily advance the money, if he were allowed to
appi'opriate a fourth of the returns. Such sums, thei'etore, when
advanced by the state, should not be looked upon as boons or
favours, as they too frequently are, but as a part of the ordinary
duties of a government.

" Three quarters of a century ago, when Scotland, poor, barba-
tous, and ignorant, lay at the feet of England, withering under the
results of two unsuccessful rebellions, the central government saw
the necessity of creating at once such a system of internal commu-
nications, as whilst it enabled the instruments of government to
penetrate to every portion of the country, should also place at the
disposition of the inhabitants the means of pacific intercourse and
trade. Hence between canals and roads a million and a half of
money was given to Scotland. Of this there was to be no repay-
ment. Other large sums, as a quarter of a million to Leith harbour,
were lent at very moderate interest, and an arrangement was made,
that for all roads required in Scotland, the state pays one half of
the expense, and the locality is burthened only with the other
moiety. It is not with any idea of objecting to those grants that I
here mention them. On the contrary, they were pei'fectly proper;
and the government did its duty to Scotland nobly, although some
of the plans, such as the Caledonian canal, were failures as to the
particular result : but what has been the consequence to Scotland ?
How much of the intelligence and business habits, the general
morality, and amenability to law, by which the people of that
country are distinguished, is due to the abundant means of inter-
course with each other, and with their richer and more cultivated
neighbours? Certainly a great deal. Scotland furnishes to the
state more revenue in proportion to her population than Ireland
does, but she certainly does not return a larger proportion of profit
on the sums which the state has expended in the sound improve-
ment of her people." — pp. 332-33.

We must endeavour to make room for another extract— a
passage on the subject of labour, which well deserves the atten-
tion of every employer. It is taken from the last chapter, Avhich
to the literary reader will probably prove the most attractive
of all. The subject is the necessity of industrial education,
as an element of the industrial prosperity of a nation. Solid,
simple, and comprehensive in its views, this chapter displays
a perfect acquaintance with every branch of the subject, and
bespeaks a mind of the very highest order, elevated by the
inspiring suggestions of patriotism, and warmed by a fervent
love of its fellow-men. The extract must be a long one. It
goes to prove a proposition but little understood, that clieap
labour is not identical with low wages.

1844.] Kane's Industrial Itesonrces of Ireland. 157

" That human labour can be obtained in this country on lower
terras than almost any other in Europe, is too well known to require
example. A population, for which the existing modes of cultiva-
tion do not supply occupation on the land, and which is not, as in
the sister kingdom, drafted off to manufacturing employments in
the towns, must, in order to live, accept of any terms of remunera-
tion which they can get in exchange for labour. It is thus that
8d. or lOd. per day is found to be the usual rate of wages, at a
distance from large towns, and that, even on such terms, thousands
of men remain unemployed during the greater portion of the year:
this nominal cheapness is, however, by no means necessarily
economy in final cost. A wi-etched man who can earn, by his
exertion, but four or 4s. or os. a week, on which to support his
family and pay the rent of a sort of habitation, must be so ill-fed,
and depressed in mind, that to work, as a man should work, is
beyond his power. Hence there are often seen about employments
in this country a number of hands, double what would be required
to do the same work, in the same time, with Bi'itish labourers.
The latter would probably be paid at least twice as much money
per day, but in the end the work would not cost the employer
more ; although the wages, therefore, in a former example were
lower, labour was not cheaper, on the contrary, somewhat higher,
as the trouble of overseeing twice the number of men is a source of
additional expense.

" When I say that the men thus employed, at low wages, do so
much less real work, I do not mean that they intentionally idle, or
that they reflect that as they receive so little they should give little
value ; on the contrary, they do their best honestly to earn their
wages, but supplied only with the lowest descriptions of food, and
perhaps, in insufficient quantity, they have not the physical ability
for labour, and being without any direct prospect of advancement,
they are not excited by that laudible ambition to any display of
superior energy. If the same men are placed in circumstances,
where a field for increased exertion is opened to them, and they are
made to understand, what at first they are rather incredulous about,
that they will receive the full value of any increased labour they
perform, they become new beings : the work they execute rises to
the highest standard, and they earn as much money as the labourers
of any other country ; wages are no longer low, but labour is not,
on that account, anything dearer than it had been before. An oc-
currence at a certain public work will exemplify this principle.
Many hundreds of men were employed at lOd. per day. They
worked slowly, and ineifectually ; the work was not progressing,
and as time was an object, a parcel of English labourers were in-
troduced who were paid ISd. per day, which they fully earned.
None of the Irish labourers were dismissed, but they struck work,
and demanded they should have all 18d. per day. The Englishmen
feared for their lives. The police and military were called out.

158 Kane s Industrial Resources of Ireland. [Sept.

and the affair might have eventuated in a scene of blood, adding
another to the tales of horror so industriously circulated about the
savageness of the native Irish. At this moment one of the prin-
cipal engineers, an Irishman, respected by the people for his
abilities, and esteemed by them as a countryman, came amongst
them, and penetrating into the mass of excited labourers arrested
and gave into custody all the ringleaders. The crowd of labourers
would not do him an injury. He then, in place of the common
practice of saying they were brutes, and none but English labourers
were fit for any useful purpose, quietly explained to them that the
Englishmen did much more work and deserved to be paid higher,
but that he would be very willing to secure 18d. per day to every
man who would do as much work as the Englishmen, and more, if
they could do more. He showed them that from their rude way
of managing their tools they wasted their strength, and that by
simple improvements a great deal of time could be saved in their
operations. The people knew and trusted him; the police and
military were withdrawn ; the whole body of labourers went to
work, and after the first Saturday night they found, that without
combination or violence, they could earn more money by laying
themselves down steadily to do more work. After some weeks
there were very few of the men earning less than 18d,, and many
of them were earning at the rate of 2s. 6d. per day." — p. 378-80.

"We have left ourselves but little space for comment or
criticism, but we cannot conclude without expressing our
cordial approval of the spirit in which the work is conceived,
and the calm and dispassionate tone in which the investiga-
tion is conducted. Avoiding alike the exaggerated estimate
of our resources, which national partiality would easily
suggest, and the desponding and depreciating opinions which
the recollection of past failure might appear to warrant, and
indeed to provoke. Dr. Kane weighs every question with
the cool impartiality of a true patriot, desirous of developing
the real capabilities of his country, and drawing away her
energies from vain and unprofitable pursuits, ill suited to
her industrial condition, to the cultivation of those rational
schemes of improvement which nature, reason, and science
point out as legitimately her own. Where there is such a
variety of conflicting interests, it is not easy to avoid offend-
ing some cherished fancy, or clashing with some preconceived
opinion. Some of his conclusions may possibly disappoint
the sanguine speculator ; but we have no hesitation in de-
claring our belief that he has lield the balance with an honest
hand, and professing our unbounded gratitude to him, as one
of the best literary benefactors of his country.

1844.] Maiiland's Dark Ages. 159

Art. VII. — The DarTc Ages. A series of Essays, intended to
illustrate the state of Religion and Literature in the ninth,
tenthy eleventh, and twelfth centuries. By the Rev. S. R.
Maitland, F.R.S. and F.S.A., &c. &c. London: 1844.

THE author of these essays has the singular merit of
having taken his ideas of the *' dark ages " from those
ages themselves, instead of the usual Protestant mode of
adopting the miserable and ignorant second-hand calumnies of
their revilers. Being a minister of the Church of England,
and librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the author
is a man whose situation enables him to explore the darker
recesses of literature, and whose convictions in favour of the
monks and clergy of the middle ages, must have been forced
upon him in spite of the prejudices of his creed and of his
profession. He is besides no mere transcriber, but has, he
assures us, wherever the contrary is not expressly stated,
consulted the originals of the works which he quotes. For
these reasons, Mr. Maitland must be admitted to be a most
important witness, and we shall endeavour as far as possible
to submit his evidence to the reader in his own words.

The period to which he ' has directed his attention more
particularly, but not exclusively, is that which elapsed from
the beginning of the ninth until the end of the twelfth
century, or what is generally considered the darkest portion
of the middle ages. " My purpose is," says the author, " to
furnish some materials towards forming a right judgment of
the real state of learning, knowledge, and literature during
the dark ages." And a little further on he observes, " My
object is to inquire what knowledge, and what means of
knowledge the Christian Church " actually had during the
dark ages, and what was in fact the real state of the Church
on these points during that period."

These objects are faithfully carried out in the volume
before us. The reader will find in it not a mere dry detail
of facts, but along with a vast quantity of important matter
heretofore very little known, his perusal of this volume will
be rewarded by a number of entertaining anecdotes,- and
instructive biographical notices. The very quaintness of the
author's style has a charm, because whilst we read his book
we are insensibly led back to the "good old times" of
which he speaks. He has the candour to acknowledge the
calumny and ignorance by which the ** zealous children of
the Reformation " have ever vituperated the medieval

160 Maitland's Dark Ages. [Sept

Church, and the manliness to denounce them. He looks
back with the eye of a philosopher and of a Christian through
many troubled ages of religious strife and dissension, to those
times when all Christians knelt at the same altar — when
vast multitudes in every country and clime devoted them-
selves exclusively to the service of God — when the poor were
fed in the convent instead of the workhouse — and when the
ministers of religion, instead of calumniating their neighbours,
spent their time in instructing the poor, and in shedding the
light of the Gospel among those who walked in darkness and
in the shadow of death. "Well," observes the author : —

" And these old folks of the dark ages were our grandfathers
and grandmothers ; and, in a good many points, vastly like our-
selves, though we may not at first see the resemblance in the
few smoky old family picutres which have come down to us ; but
had they 'not eyes?' had they ' not hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions — fed with the same food, hurt \\\i\\ the
same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer 'as we
are ? ' Yes ; but they knew nothing.' Well, then, it is strange to
think how they could do and say so much as they did without any
knowledge. But you do not mean quite nothing — ^you will allow
that they knew the Pater-noster and Credo, and that is something
— nay, a good deal, in itself, and the pledge of a great deal more."
—p. 8-9.

Mr. Maitland was not ignorant of the vast amount of
prejudice and ignorance with which he would have to con-
tend, in giving anything like a favourable account of the
middle ages. Every good Protestant, from the swaddler in
his tub to the bishop in his lawn, has a sneer for those
monkish times. Calvinists, the destroyers as we shall see of
manuscripts ; Presbyterian ministers, old light and new ;
Evangelicals, Quakers, " et hoc genus omne^^ can never finish
a sermon without a hit at those Popish times of superstition
and ignorance. Yet, though horrified at the supposed igno-
rance of others, they are themselves the most ignorant of
mankind. It requires a little knowledge to make a person
sensible of his own ignorance ; and if these individuals could
by any means acquire just so much knowledge, they would
be spared a great deal of declamation, and their hearers a vast
amount of absurdity. If the monks of the middle ages had
not been their superiors in every thing; — in piety, which
made them preserve the word of God with so great care — in
industry, by whiclrthey multiplied books, and transmitted to

1844. J Maiiland's Dark Ages. 161

us the treasures of sacred and profane learning — in know-
ledge of every kind, of agriculture, of the arts and sciences,
and of the Scriptures; the splendid monuments which by-
gone ages have bequeathed to mankind as an everlasting
inheritance, would have been lost, and the Bible itself must
have perished. It is only a few years since a noted declaimer
of the kind we are speaking of, and the leader of a church in
Ireland, proposed in open synod to banish all classical learn-
ing from the seminaries where their young ministers — the
future revilers of the ignorant monks of the middle ages —
are taught ; and he declared that there was not one in the
synod Avho would not be puzzled in translating the com-
monest Latin authors. These men are fit to be the revilers
of the middle ages, and of those who have transmitted the
classics to us ; but they ought to blush when they speak of
ignorance. It is of the calumnies of such persons that Mait-
land indignantly says, " But that there even was truth in
the coarse and filthy abuse heaped upon the monastic order,
as a body, by some who were forward in the business of the
Reformation, is what I suppose never was believed by any one
who has a moderate knowledge of facts." But unfortunately,
most of those who hear such things, have no knowledge of facts,
and believe it almost as firmly as the Gospel. There Is not,
however any means of refuting mere declamation, whether it be
directed against the Church of the ninth, or that of the nine-
teenth century, except by simply declaring that it is " coarse
and filthy abuse, and that no one who has even a moderate
share of knowledge will believe it."

There is another and a very numerous class of calumniators,
who are not altogether so untangible as those whose merits we
have been just discussing. They pretend to state facts and
to quote authorities, and although they thereby exposed them-
selves to the danger of being convicted of ignorance and im-
posture, owing very likely to their being forward, as Maitland
would say, in the work of the Reformation, they have managed
for a very long time to impose upon the credulity of the Pro-
testant public. At length they have been thoroughly .un-
masked, and, to his honour be it told, by a minister of the
Church of England. He was, no doubt, at one time like most
others — the dupe of their fictions ; but he has nobly revenged
himself, by exposing their ignorance and empiricism to the
world. Besides, by convicting the writers whom we are

* Preface, p. 11.
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIII. 11

162 Maitland's BarTc Ageg. [Sept.

about to mention, of the grossest wholesale deception, he, in
effect, dries up the sources from which the whole kennel of
brawlers draw their inspiration. Not that they would ac-
knowledge any such thing, liy no means. They are quite
original, and without being able to translate Latin, you must
admit them to be familiar with the writers of the dark ages.
There is another and a far more numerous class, who are quite
content with saying, " I know nothing of those ages which
knew nothing." Upon which text Maitland observes : " I
have often thought that I should have liked to ask the wit
who used this expression, how he came to know so curious
and important a fact about ages of which Jie kneio nothing."
He then proceeds to ask : —

" Do we always clearly know what we should understand — or,
indeed, what we mean to express — when we hear or talk of the
dark ages ? Do we mean ages which were dark in themselves, and
with respect to those who lived in them ? Or, do we mean that
they are dark to us, and that it is very difficult for us to form a

clear idea of them? Many causes — of some of which I hope to

speak hereafter — have concurred to render those ages very dark
to us ; but, for the present, I feel it sufficient to remind the reader,
that darkness is quite a different thing from shutting the eyes ; and
that we have no right to complain that we can see but httle, until
we have used due d^gence to see what we can." — pp. 1-2.

After stating that his assertions about the ignorance of the
popular writers on the Middle Ages are strong, but that he
is prepared to prove them, he says : —

" There is no difficulty in knowing where to begin, for before
we can think of building, we must clear away the rubbish — or, to
recur to the figure which I have already used, before we can pos-
sibly look out of the window, we must open the shutters ; for, if
we only go to * windows that exclude the light,* we might as well
keep our eyes shut. I feel it necessary to do this, because state-
ments extremely false have been handed about from one popular
writer to another, and it is impossible to form any correct opinion
on the subject without knowing that they are false." — p. 7.

Robertson, whose view of the progress of society, prefixed
to the History of Charles V, is so full of gross and impudent
lies, is the first person whom our author takes to pieces.
David Hume, the infidel, who knew about as much concern-
ing the Middle Ages as Robertson himself (and God knows
that would be a small burthen for any man's brains to carry),
says in his letters, that this " introduction of Robertson's is
excellently well Avrit, and contains a great deal of matter not

1844.] MaitlancVs Dark Ages. 1G3

generally known ; " but Dr. Johnson, who was at least a hun-
dred times more learned than the two historians, and who
also had the great advantage over them of being a Christian,
gruffly replied to Boswell, when praising Robertson's history,
" Sir, I love the man, and will not speak of his book." Hume,
however, was right in stating that Robertson's book contained
a great deal of matter not generally known, for it never had
any existence, except in his own brain, or in that of some
more inventive calumniator, whose lies he stole, and quoted
for them, at the foot of the page, some of the writers of the
Middle Ages. Before entering into the calumnies which
Robertson claims as his own property, we cannot resist the
temptation of extracting from the preface to the book before
us, the following beautiful vindication of Monasticism, and of
the ages in which it flourished to such an extent as to claim
them as its own : —

"It is quite impossible to touch the subject of Monasticism
without rubbing off some of the dirt which has been heaped upon
it. It is impossible to get even a superficial knowledge of the
mediaeval history of Europe, without seeing how greatly the world
of that period was indebted to the Monastic Orders ; and feeling
that, whether they were good or bad in other matters, monasteries
were beyond all price in those days of misrule and txu-bulence, as
places where (it may be imperfectly, yet better than elsewhere)
God was worshipped — as a quiet and religious refuge for helpless
infancy and old age, a shelter of respectful sympathy for the orphan
maiden and the desolate widow — as central points whence agricul-
ture was to spread over bleak hills, and barren downs, and marshy
plains, and deal its bread to millions perishing with hunger and
its pestilential train — as repositories of the learning which then
was, and well-springs for the learning which was to be — as nurseries
of art and science, giving the stimulus, the means, and the reward
to invention, and aggregating around them every head that could
devise, and every hand that could execute — as the nucleus of the
city which in after-days of pride should crown its palaces and bul-
warks with the towering cross of its cathedral.

" This I think no man can deny. I beUeve it is true, and I love
to think of it. I hope that I see the good hand of God in it, and
the visible trace of his mercy that is over all his works. But if it
is only a dream, however grateful, I shall be glad to be awakened
from it; not indeed by the yelling of illiterate agitators, but by a
quiet and sober proof that I have misunderstood the matter. In
the mean time, let me thankfully believe that thousands of the per-
sons at whom Robertson, and Jortin, and other such very miserable
second-hand writers, have sneered, were men of enlarged minds,
purified affections, and holy lives — that they were justly reverenced

112

164 Maitland's DarJc Ages, [Sept.

by men — and, above all, favourably accepted by God, and distin-
guished by the highest honour which he vouchsafes to those whom
he has called into existence, that of being the channels of his love
and mercy to their fellow -creatures." — Preface, pp. iv. v.

To come now to Robertson's specific statements. The
following passage occurs in his History of Charles V (vol. i.
p. ] 8), where he is expressly speaking of the period from the
seventh to the eleventh century : —

" ' Literature, science, taste, were words scarce in use during the
ages we are contemplating ; or if they occur at any time, eminence
in them is ascribed to persons and productions so contemptible that
it appears their true import was little understood. Persons of the
highest rank, and in the most eminent stations, could not read or
write. Many of the clergy did not understand the Breviaiy which
they were obliged daily to recite ; some of them could scarce read
it.'— Vol. i. p. 18."— p. 10.

On this statement Robertson has the following note : —
*' ' Innumerable proofs of this might be produced. Many char-
ters granted by persons of the highest rank are preserved, from
which it appears that they could not subscribe their name. It was
usual for persons who could not write, to make the sign of the
cross in confirmation of a charter. Several of these remain, where
kings and persons of great eminence affix signum crucis manu pro-
pria pro ignoratione lilerarum. Du Cange, voc. Crux, vol. iii. p.
1191. From this is derived the phrase of signing instead of sub-
scribing a paper. In the ninth century, Heribaud Comes Palatii,
though supreme judge of the empire by virtue of his office, could
not subscribe his name. Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique par
deux Benedictins, 4to. torn. ii. p. 422.'— Note X. p. 232."— p. 10-1 1.

On these passages Maitland justly observes : —
" It is extremely difficult to meet broad general assertions which
it is, in the nature of things, impossible to disprove; but we may
reasonably call for evidence of their truth, and, if it is not produced,
we may be allowed to doubt and to dispute them. If ' many char-
ters* are preserved in which 'kings and persons of great eminence'
avow their ignorance, surely many might be, and, I think, would
have been, produced. The ignorance of the dark ages has long
been a matter of triumphant retrospect ; and such regal curiosities
of literature, or illiterature, would have been highly interesting to
an enlightened public. Perhaps, indeed, 'many' instances have
been adduced ; but I do not remember to have seen, or specifically
heard of, more than four. One of them is, I believe, less commonly
known; but the other three have been repeatedly pai'aded in decla-
mations on this subject." — ^p. 11.

After mentioning the four instances, which are those of

1844.] Maitland's Dark Ages. 166

Withred, king of Kent; Tassilo, duke of Bavaria ; Heribaud,
comte du Palais, under Lewis II ; and Gui Guerra, count
of Tuscany ; he makes the following just observations : —

" To me it appears that three or four instances, occurring be-
tween the eighth and twelfth centuries, are so far from demonstrat-
ing the certainty of a custom, that they do not prove that anything
which can properly be called a custom existed; unless, indeed,
these writers meant (as perhaps their language elsewhere might
almost incline us to believe) that these instances prove the usage
of kings and great men, when they could not write, to state that
fact on the face of the instrument. There is, however, no need to
pursue this point ; for, of course, I do not mean to deny that there
was, in those days, a much greater ignorance of writing than in
ours, and that men of rank were much more frequently unable to
write then than they are now. But when Robertson talks of
' innumerable proofs,' and tells us that ' 7nany ' charters are pre-
served, from which ' it appears^ that such persons could not sign
their names, I feel it right to question his statement. Had he seen
the original charters ? I very much doubt it. If he had seen them,
would it have enabled him to decide the point ? I am sure that it
would not ; and I feel this certainty, not only because I do not give
him credit for so much research in re diplomatica as that he should
bring forward ' innumerable proofs,' when Mabillon, and Toustain,
and Tassin, gave only four between them, but from the very nature
of the case. The fact that a man's name was subscribed to a docu-
ment by another, was, in those days, no proof that he could not
have done it himself; and though, in the present day, we should
hardly give any one credit for being able to write if we found that
he had only made his mark, yet we must not entirely judge of other
ages by our own." — p. 12-13.

He continues by saying that Mabillon has given and dis-
cussed four reasons why charters were frequently signed by
proxy. 1st. The inability of parties to write. 2d. Physical
inability, arising from blindness, disease, or old age, as in the
case of Eugenius, at the council of Constantinople, who sub-
scribed by the hand of Paul, a deacon. 3d. An affectation
of dignity, through which many high official persons chose
that their names should be written by the notary. 4th. : —

" What is most to our purpose, a custom growing out of this, and
extending so far as that by the eleventh century it had become
almost universal. In imitation of their superiors, almost all persons
— all at least who could pretend to any kind of distinction or title —
preferred having their names written by the notary (who could say
of them what it might have seemed ostentatious to say of them-
selves), and then adding, or sometimes omitting to add, their mark
— that is, the sign of the cross made with their own hands. It will

166 Maiiland's Dark Ages. [Sept.

bo obrioui, therefore, that it does not 'appear' in all cases, even
from the original document, whether the parties could write their
names. Indeed, if it did not suppose an almost incredible degree
of ignorance, one would be tempted to think that Heribaud's affix-
ing the sign of the cross, ' pro ignoratione litterarum,* had led
Robertson to infer, that all persons who made the sign of the cross
on such occasions did it for the same reasons; for he says, it was
usual 'Jor persons who could not write to make the sign of the cross
in confirmation of a charter.' No doubt ; but it was also usual for
those who could write. The sign of the cross was, in fact, Hhe
confirmation and the signature' and the subscriber, in thus making
the sign of his holy religion, was considered as taking an oath. He
was, in fact, said manujurare; and for greater solemnity, the cross
was sometimes made with the consecrated wine. The subscriber's
adding his name was no essential part of the confirmation, but
simply a declaration and notification that the person whose name
was there written, was he who had thus bound himself by his signa-
ture. If he were unable, or if he did not choose, to do the writing
for himself, it was done for him by the notary." — pp. 14-15.

We are very sorry that we cannot make room for the note,
in which Maitland proves, from contemporary documents,
that the cross was the confirmation and the signature ; that it
was an oath ; and that it was sometimes made for greater
solemnity, not, as he says in the text, with the consecrated
wine, for that Protestant expression was utterly unknown to
the middle or early ages ; but to use the very words of the
proof which he cites at the foot of the page, with a pen
dipped in the precious hlood of Christ : " Calamo in pretioso
sanguine Christi intincto." If any one in the early or Mid-
dle Ages had talked of consecrated wine, no one Avould have
understood him to refer to the blessed Eucharist, which was
always called and believed to be the precious blood of Christ.
But this is digressing from Robertson, whose innumerable
proofs and illustrations the author sums up in the following
words : —

" Well, then, surely two instances in the eighth century, one in
the ninth, and one in the twelfth, of men of rank who could not
write — it does not appear, and really does not follow, that they
could not read — form too slender a ground for such broad assertions
as Robertson has ventured to make respecting the state of letters.

" Having, however, disposed of the laity, he proceeds : —

" * Nor was this ignorance confined to laymen ; the greater part
of the clergy was not many degrees superior to them in science.
Many dignified ecclesiastics could not subscribe the canons of those
councils in which they sat as members. Nouv. Traite de diplom.,
torn. ii. p. 424.'

1844.] Maitland's Darh Ages> 167

" If the reader turns to the authority cited, he will find some
general statements respecting the ignorance of the laity as to writ-
ing (with no specific instances, however, except those already
named), but no mention of ecclesiastics. It is true, that, in the
succeeding pages, the bishops and other ecclesiastical persons are
mentioned, and several are named in a note at page 426 ; but
Robertson should have observed, what is there so plainly stated,
' Tons ces exemples sont anterieurs au VII^ Siecle.' I do not say
that later instances might not be produced ; but I do not remember
to have seen any. Robertson proceeds : — •

" * One of the questions appointed by the canons to be put to
persons who were candidates for orders, was this, ' Whether they
could read the Gospels and Epistles, and explain the sense of them,
at least literally ?' Regino Prumiensis ap. Bruck. Hist. Philos. v.
iii. p. 631.'"— p. 16.

Robertson would wish to make the reader believe that the
fact of the canons putting the question to the candidates for
orders, whether they could read the Gospels and Epistles, and
explain the sense of them, at least literally, is a decisive proof
that few of the clergy, even of the bishops, could read, and
that not one of them could write. Supposing for a moment
that Robertson's quotation were as true as it is mendacious —
** granting," says our author, " that up to about the year 900,
when Regino wrote, all bishops, priests, and deacons had been
entirely ignorant and illiterate — granting that these very
canons were written by those loho could not write, for the sake
of those who could not read, still they would be a standing
proof that the heads of the Church did at that time require,
even from candidates for orders, what Robertson would lead
us to consider as rather an unusual accompHshment in a
bishop."

But Robertson's quotation is entirely false, for the words
quoted by Brucker, to whom he refers, are — "Si Evangelium
et Epistolam bene legere possit atque saltem ad litteram sensus
ejus manifestare. Item si sermonem S. Athanasii de fide,
SS. Trinitatis memoriter teneat et sensum ejus intelligat, et
verbis communibus enuntiare sciat," the meaning of which is
embodied in the following extract from Maitland :

" Surely there was no proof of brutal ignorance in inquiring
whether a candidate for holy orders could read Latin well in public
— could repeat, understand, and explain the Athanasian Creed, and
preach the doctrine contained in it, in the vernacular tongue. The
question did not imply the slightest doubt whether the man could
read ; but only directed an inquiry whether he could do that which
many a man of the present day, who has chuckled over the igno-
rance of the dark ages, could not do."' — p. 18.

168 Maitland's Dark Ages, [Sept.

The question which was put to the candidate for orders
(that is, supposing what is not the fact, that these questions
alluded to them exclusively), embraced two things : " first,
could he read Latin well ; and secondly, could he explain, at
least literally, the entire gospels and epistles cf the year, along
with the creed of St. Athanasius?" How many of those
ministers who are so luminous in their own estimation, and
who, to use Maitland's words, " chuckle over the ignorance
of the dark ages," could do that now which the mere candi-
date for orders was then required to be able to do. To read
well included more in the dark ages, than Robertson, or most
of his readers, suspect. It is well known, that no one could
then, or can now, be promoted to holy orders in the Catholic
Church, who has not first received the minor order of reader.
In the dark ages, every candidate for the priesthood was
obliged to remain in that order for five years. Even at the
expiration of that period, the canons required that he should
be examined if he could read well. We know what was re-
quired to read well in the seventh century, from St. Isidore
of Seville ; in the ninth, from Rabanus Maurus, afterwards
Archbishop of Mentz ; and in the eleventh, from Ivo, Bishop
of Chartres. The following are Rabanus's words, which are
almost verbatim those of St. Isidore and Ivo :

" * He,' says Rabanus, ' who would rightly and properly perform
the duty of a reader, must be imbued with learning, and conversant
with books, and instructed in the meaning of words, and the know-
ledge of words themselves ; so that he may understand the divisions
of sentences, where a clause ends, where the sense is carried on,
and where the sentence closes. Being thus prepared, he will obtain
such a power of reading as that, by various modes of delivery —
now simply narrating, now lamenting, now angry, now rebuking,
exhorting, pitying, inquiring, and the like, according to circum-
stances— he will affect the understanding and feelings of all his
hearers. For there are many things in the scriptures, which, if
they are not properly pronounced, give a wrong sense ; as that of
the apostle — " Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ?
God who justifieth." — Now if, instead of pronouncing this properly,
it were to be delivered confirmatively, it would create great error.
It is, therefore, to be so pronounced as that the first clause may be
a percontation, and the second an interrogation. Between a per-
contation and interrogation, the ancients made this distinction —
that the former admitted a variety of answers, while the latter
must be replied to by "yes" or "no." It must, therefore, be so
read that, after the percontation — " Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect?"— that which follows be pronounced in an

1844.] MaiilancTs Dark Ages. 169

interrogatory manner — "God that justifieth?" — that there may be
a tacit answer, "no." And again we have the percontation —
" Who is he that condemneth ?" and again we interrogate — "Christ
that died ? or rather that is risen again ? who is at the right hand
of God ? who also maketh intercession for us ?" At each of which
there is a tacit answer in the negative. But in that passage where
he says, " What shall we then say ? that the Gentiles, which fol-
lowed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness,"
unless after the percontation — "What shall we say then?" — the
answer were added — " that the Gentiles which followed not after
righteousness have attained to righteousness," the connexion with
what follows would be destroyed. And there are many other parts
which, in like manner, require to be distinguished by the manner
of pronouncing them. Besides this, a reader ought to understand
the force of the accents, that he may know what syllables he is to
lengthen ; for there are many words which can only be prevented
from conveying a wrong meaning by being pronounced with the
proper accent. But these things he must learn from the gramma-
rians. Moreover the voice of a reader should be pure and clear,
and adapted to every style of speaking, full of manly strength, and
free from all that is rude or countrified. Not low, nor yet too high;
not broken, not weak, and by no means feminine; not with inflated
or gasping articulation, or words mouthed about in his jaws, or
echoing through his empty mouth; not harsh from his grinding his
teeth; not projected from a wide-open mouth, — but distinctly,
equally, mildly pronounced ; so that each letter shall have its proper
sound, and each word its proper quantity, and that the matter be
not soiled by any affectation.' " — pp. 23-5.

" I cannot help suspecting," says Maitland, " that if Robert-
son (whom the reader will please to remember was a minister of
the Kirk) had gone to the archbishop of Seville, in the seventh
century, the archbishop of Mayence, in the ninth, or the
bishop of Chartres, in the eleventh, for holy orders, he would
have found the examination rather more than he expected."
He would, in fact, have run a very fair chance of being re-
jected, on the ground that he could not read well ; and, after
all, this was but the preliminary, and comparatively easy,
part of the examination of the candidate for orders, for he
must, in the second place, have been able to translate and
explain the literal meaning of the epistles and gospels through-
out the year, and also to repeat from memory St. Athanasius's
creed — or rather, the creed which is called by that name, —
and to explain the doctrine which it contains concerning the
Trinity. The gospels, of course, belong exclusively to the
New Testament; but the epistles and lessons did then, as

170 Maitland's Dark Ages, [Sept

they do now, include a very large portion of the Old Testa-
ment. It may be necessary to observe, that the sacred Scrip-
ture, like any other book, may have two meanings, the one
literal, the other, to use the language of commentators,
spiritual. The first is that which is derived f'-om the natural
force or ordinary usage of words, and includes the metaphorical
as Avell as the literal meaning. Thus, when Christ is baptized
by St. John in the Jordan, Ave look for nothing but the his-
torical fact ; but when he is called the Lamb of God, we
understand that there is a metaphor, and that the lamb sig-
nifies the meekness of Christ, as well as that he is the innocent
victim who has atoned for our sins. The spiritual or alle-
gorical sense, is that which the author has in view often prin-
cipally, but which he has concealed under the literal meaning.
There are three spiritual meanings, — the allegorical, tropo-
logical, and anagogical. When an historical fact contains
under it an allusion to Christ or his Church, it is called an
allegory ; thus Isaac carrying the wood on which he was to
be sacrificed, signifies, in the allegorical sense, Christ carry-
ing his cross. When the literal meaning contains under it
an instruction concerning a moral obligation, it is called the
tropological meaning. Thus the law, Deuteronomy xxiv. 5,
which forbids the mouth of the ox which ploweth to be bound
up, signifies, according to St. Paul, the obligation which the
fiiithful are under of afibrding support to the ministers of the
altar. This is the moral or tropological sense. Finally,
when the literal meaning relates to temporal matters, and
gives us an idea of eternal felicity, it is called the anagogical
meaning, as the temporal blessings, promised to the observers
of the old law, are emblems of the eternal reward which
virtue shall receive in heaven. St. Paul himself frequently
' discusses the spiritual meaning of Scripture, a glorious ex-
ample of which occurs in the chapters on Melchisedeck, in
his epistle to the Hebrews. All the interpretations which I
have mentioned are enumerated by St. Augustine, and were
familiar with the early fathers of the Church. We could
very easily shew that the writers of the middle ages knew far
more about the interpretation of Scripture than their revilers ;
but at present we shall not enter into the matter farther, nor
would we have alluded to it at all, if we had not found it
necessary for the illustration of our subject. The mere can-
didate, then, for orders, taking it for granted that Robertson
is right in restricting these questions to them, must be able
to explain at least the literal meaning of the greater portion

1844.] Afaitland's Dark Ages. 171

of the New Testament, along with a great deal of the most
intricate part of the Old. The words "at leasf' evidently imply-
that many were able to explain the other meanings also. We
should like to have heard Robertson himself — we should like
to hear any of those who have copied and improved upon his
scurrilous abuse of the middle age, tried by the test which
was applied to the candidate for orders in those times, and we
conscientiously believe that very few of them Would be able
to pass through the ordeal.

These interrogatories, which Robertson never saw, and
about which he has invented so many calumnies, were in fact
by no means directed with regard to candidates for orders ;
but as Robertson mentioned them, we thought it right to take
that opportunity of saying something about the qualification
of such persons in the middle ages. After dwelling at great
length on this charge, Maitland says: —

" To come, however, to the point, the inquiry does not at all
respect candidates for orders, but is one which a bishop is directed
to make in all the cures in his diocese. I may have to recur to it,
but for the present it is enough to say that it is entitled, ' Inquisitio
de his quae Episcopus vel ejus ministri in suo districtu vel territorio
inquirere debeant per vices, pages, atque parroechias suae dioceseos."
It suggests ninety -five points of inquiry ; of which the first fifteen
relate to the church, its state of repair, and the requisites for the
performance of divine service. No. 16 — 73, concern the life and
conversation of the priest. No. 74 — 80, respect points on which
the priest was to be personally questioned ; that is, as to his parent-
age, place of birth, by what bishop he was ordained, &c. No. 81
— 95, relate to his ministry (Posthaec de ministerio sibi commisso
inquirendum est) and it is that part of the 83rd and 8oth which I
mark by italics that is quoted by Brucker, but I must extract the
two which precede : * Si expositionem symboli atque orationis do-
minicce juxta traditionem orthodoxorum patrum penes se scriptam
habeat, et earn pleniter intellegat, et inde prasdicando populum sibi
commissum sedulo instruat. 82. Si orationes Missarum, praefa-
tionem quoque canonis, et eundem canonem bene inteUegat, et me-
moriter ac distincte proferre valeat. 83. Si epistolam et evangelium
bene legere possit atque saltern ad litteram ejus sensum manifestare.
84. Si psalmorum verba et distinctiones regulariter ex corde'cum
canticis consuetudinariis pronuntiare sciat.* 85. Si sermonem
Athanasii Episcopi de fide Sanctce Trinitatis cujus initium est
" Quicunque vult salvus esse" memoriter teyieat, et sensum illius
intellegat et verbis communibus enuntiare sciat.'' The remaining

* 81. If he has in his possession a written explanation of the Creed and the
liOrd's Prayer, according to the tradition of the orthodox fathers 5 if he entirely

172 Maitland's Dark Ages. [Sept.

ten questions inquire minutely as to his capability to perform dif-
ferent parts of the service, and the 94th inquires, * Si habeat quad-
raginta homilias Gregorii et eos studiose legat atque intellegat.'
To say nothing of the erroneous application of this document to the
examination of candidates for orders, is it not most extraordinary
that it should have been brought forward to proi^e that the clergy
could not read ? " — ^p. 49-50.

The priest was expressly required to explain these things
to the people in the vernacular; and among the canons of
jElfric, which were written in the tenth century, to which
period Robertson chiefly refers, and addressed to Wulfin,
bishop of Sherburn, in England, the twenty-first orders —
"Every priest also, before he is ordained, must have the arms
belonging to his spiritual work; namely, the Psalter, the
Book of Epistles and the Book of Gospels, the Missal, the
Book of Hymns, the Manual, the Calendar, the Passional, the
Poenitential, and the Lectionary. These books a priest requires,
and cannot do without if he would properly fulfil his office, and
desires to teach the law to the people belonging to him. And
let him carefully see that they are well written." And the
twenty-third canon says : " The mass-priest shall on Sundays
and on mass-days explain the Gospel in English to the people^
and by the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, he shall as often as
he can stir them up to faith and the maintenance of Chris-
tianity. Let the teacher be warned to avoid that which the
prophet has said, ' Canes muti non possunt latrari,' — ' Dumb
dogs they cannot bark.' We ought to bark and preach to
the laity, lest perchance we should cause them to perish for
lack of knowledge. Christ saith, in his Gospel, of ignorant
teachers, if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the
ditch. Blind is the teacher, if he is illiterate and misleads the
laity hy his ignorance. Beware of this as your office requires.^^
Yet Robertson would have us believe that at this time the
clergy could not read or write! Now, to go back to the
middle of the eighth century, it was decreed at the Council
of Cliffe, near Rochester, a. d. 747, " that the bishops shall

understands it, and if, by preaching from it, he diligently instructs the people
committed to his charge. 82. If he understands well and can repeat distinctly
from memory the orations of the mass, the preface to the canon, and the canon
itself. 83. If he can read well the Epistle and Gospel, and can explain their meaning
at least litercdly. 84. If he can repeat regularly and by heart the words and
distinctions of the psalms, with the usual canticles. 85. If he has the sermon
(sermo) of Athanasius the bishop concerning the faith of the Trinity, which
begins "whoever wishes to be saved," committed to memory, if he knows its
meaning, and can explain it in the vernacular.

1844.] Maitland's Dark Ages, 173

ordain no man, either of clerks or monks, to the holy degree
of priesthood, without public inquiry as to his previous life
and his present purity of morals and knowledge of the faith.
For how can he preach to others the whole faith^ minister the
word of knowledge^ and appoint to sinners the measure of
penance, unless he first with studious care, according to the
measure of his capacity, takes pains to learn, so that, accord-
ing to the Apostle, he may be able to exhort according to
sound doctrine." The seventh canon directs that " bishops,
abbots, and abbesses, shall study and provide with diligent
care, that the custom of continual reading may be practised
in their societies, and may become more common, to the

benefit of souls and the praise of the Eternal King

Let them therefore be compelled, and let the children in the
schools he brought up to the love of sacred learning, that by
these means well-educated persons may be found for every
kind of service in the church of God."

To pass over to the continent, Charlemagne, in the same
century, a. d. 789, in his capitulary of Aix-la-Chapelle, ad-
dressed to ecclesiastical authorities, says : " We beseech your
piety, that the ministers of God's altars may adorn their

ministry by good morals And let them collect and

keep under their care, not only children of servile condition,
but those belonging to persons of better rank ; and let there
be schools of reading-boys. In all monasteries and dioceses,
let them learn the psalms, the musical notes, the chants, the

calendar, and grammar ; and do not suffer your boys

to spoil the books by either their reading or writing.""^ What
a booby this great emperor must have been to set persons to
teach reading, writing, and grammar, who knew none of all
these things themselves! Again, in his capitula, a.d. 804,
he says : " 1 . A priest of God should be learned in holy
Scripture. 2. He should have the whole psalter hy heart.

3. He should know by heart the creed and office for baptism.

4. He should be learned in the canons, and well know his
penitentials. 5. He should know the chants and the calendar."
To go still further back, but keeping to Robertson's period,
for we suppose he includes the seventh century, St. Isidore
of Seville, in his rules for the clergy, says " that they should
be continually occupied in teaching, in reading, in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs ;"" * and the eighth council of
Toledo, A.D. 653, declares, that it is "absurd that they who

* Bib. Pat. X. 203.

174 MaitlancVs Dark Ages, [Sept.

are ignorant of the law of God, and not at least moderately
learned, should be promoted to any degre6 of orders or eccle-
siastical office in which it is their business to teach simple and
lay persons, to whom they ought to be mirrors of life and
discipline. Let no one then who is unlearned approach to
meddle with the holy mysteries of God, none who is blinded
by the darkness of ignorance ; but let him only come who is
adorned with innocence of life and splendour of learning.
Otherwise the vengeance of God and of his Church will follow
loth the ordainers and the ordained.^ We are really sorry
that we cannot follow Maitland through the various passages
in which he convicts Robertson, in some places, of gross
ignorance ; in others, of downright falsification ; and in almost
all, of the quackery of pretending to have read authors, the
very title of whose writings he did not know. He has the
manliness to avow in a note, page 33, that he " cannot tell
why, in things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and on
which man can be enlightened only by the word and spirit of
God, they (the people of the middle ages) might not be as
trull/ and even as fully enlightened as any of mankind before
or after their time." Let it not be forgotten that the people
of those times were all Catholics, in communion with the see
of Rome; at least, all those of whom the author is here
speaking, for the few miserable heretics who appeared in the
middle ages have been always lauded by those whose calumnies
Maitland is here refuting. We now dismiss Robertson's accu-
sation against the clergy of not being able to read or write,
by merely observing that he charges them with erasing Livy
and Tacitus by writing over them the legendary tales of
saints. How consistent liars always are I

The next count in the indictment against the middle ages
is the scarcity of books which existed in them. " Many cir-
cumstances," says Robertson, " prove the scarcity of books
during the middle ages. Private persons seldom possessed
any books whatever. Even monasteries of considerable note
had only one missal. — Murat. Antiq. vol. ix. p. 789." The
first thing to be remarked on this passage is that Robertson
evidently never saw the Antiquitates Italici Medii ^vi of
Muratori, for he says the " breve recordationis" of the abbot
Bonus is contained in the ninth volume, whereas there are
only six volumes of the work altogether. This document of
the abbot, which Maitland inserts at full length, is found in
the fourth volume instead of the ninth of Muratori. The
exposition of Robertson's perversion of the poor abbot's story

1844.] Maitland^s Dark Ages. 175

is so powerful and so eloquently expressed, that, even at the
risk of being tedious, we cannot help giving part of it at least
in the author's words : —

" To come, however, to the specific statement, backed by the
authority of Muratori — for my present business is chiefly with it —
* even monasteries of considerable note had only one missal.' In
the first place, will anybody tell me what they wanted with more ?
'Monasteries of considerable note' had but one church, or chapel,
and not more inmates than one building would contain ; and might
not mass be said every hour of every day all the year round, out of
one missal, as well as if there had been fifty ? ' Yes,' it may be
said, ' but one is accustomed to look on monasteries as having been,
in some small and comparative degree, places where there was some
learning, and some appearance at least of religion ; and one is sur-
prised to hear of their being so ill provided with books.' I know
it — I know that no man who has any tolerable acquaintance with
history, sacred or secular, can help having some idea — perhaps a
very vague and discouraged idea — that, in those ages, the monastery
was the refuge of want and weakness, the nursery of art, the de-
pository of learning, and the sanctuary of religion. This, I say,
every man who is moderately acquainted with history must know ;
even though he should not be aware of the less obvious, but not
less certain influence of monastic institutions on agriculture, com-
merce, and those comforts and pleasures of social life from which
their inmates were themselves excluded. Something like this, I
repeat, every tolerably educated man does feel ; but a strange sort
of vague contradiction is thrown over it by such foolish statements
as that which I have quoted from Robertson. Half the readers of
his History of Charles V. do not know what a missal is, or why the
monks wanted any, or what they did with that single one which
they are admitted to have had ; but yet, from the way in which it
is stated, they take it for granted that it was a horrible delinquency
in * monasteries of considerable note,' to have only one missal —
and if they were so wretchedly off, in what state were the thousands
of monasteries which were of inconsiderable note, or of no note at
all?"— p. 42-43.

But, moreover, Robertson's statement is so untrue in every
part, that Maitland says, if the abbot had foreseen the use
that would be made of his story, " he could hardly have- told
it in terms more adapted to preclude the possibility of such
perversion." The monastery of considerahle note was, accord-
ing to the abbot Lupus himself, at the time he speaks of the
one missal in the *' breve recordationis," no monastery at all,
but a chapel near Pisa, which was in a most deplorable con-
dition when senior Stephanus procured this poor monk to
come and perform divine service. "I found there," says

1 76 Maitland's Dark Ages. [Sept.

Bonus, " neWier monk, nor ahbot, nor dwelling-j)lace save one,
but where I began to dwell with my uncle." He then pro-
ceeds to say that he found in the church itself only one missal.
But be it remembered, that it was no monastery at the time
at all ; and that as soon as it became a monastery, it is related
in the very same " breve recordationis," that they began with
all zeal to get books, and that the catalogue of them is given
by the abbot. That catalogue contains, amongst others, a
book of sermons written by the abbot himself and the prior,
St. Augustine's treatise on Genesis, the book of Job, a book
of dialogues, a book of canons, a glossary, pastoral, a com-
mentary on Ezekiel, a beautiful copy of the psalms, the gospels
bound in silver, five missals, and a bible purchased for libros
decern. " Will the Protestant reader," says Maitland, " give
the abbot and his monks any credit for buying a bible at so
early a period of their monastery, and for so great a price ?
and honestly (but quite between ourselves), would he have
expected to find that book in the list?" The fact is, that
whilst the poor monks were buying a bible and other books
for considerable sums, they were in absolute want of the
necessaries of life ; for the abbot tells us, that during the first
two years he had only a single shirt, and that he used to lie
in bed while it was washed ; and that during the whole thirty
years he was never possessed of two suits of clothes or a
horse. Would Robertson, or any of the modern bible-loving,
saintly revilers of the middle ages, have thought of buying a
library, or even a dear bible, under such circumstances ? Or
was anything ever printed more scandalous than Robertson's
calumny of Bonus's narrative, when he calls a ruined church,
where there was neither monk nor abbot, a monastery of
considerable note, and when, in the very document which he
quotes, there is a catalogue of books which were obtained
when it became a monastery ?

We now come to that part of Robertson where he tells us
that the price of books in the Middle Ages proves that
such things scarcely could have been procured for love or
money : —

" ' The price of books became so high, that persons of a moderate
fortune could not afford to purchase them. The Countess of Anjou
paid for a copy of the Homilies of Haimon, Bishop of Halberstadt,
two hundred sheep, five quarters of wheat, and the same quantity
of rye and millet. Histoire Litteraire de France, par des Religieux
Benedictins, tom. vii. p. 3.'" — p. 61.

Robertson seems to have been ashamed of the price, for he

1844.] Maitland's Dark Ages. 177

omits ^'several costly furs" which are mentioned in the origi-
naL Without noticing a slight error as to what the homilies
were, we should rather say that the whole story would prove
that the passion for books must have been excessive during
the Middle Ages, when such an enormous sum was given
for one ; and " that from that time forth every man, in Anjou
and every where else, who heard of the transaction, set about
learning the art of penmanship, which must have been, beyond
all comparison, the most lucrative which had ever been prac-
tised, and which might fairly vie with alchemy itself:" —

"Now let me appeal," continues Maitland, for we have been
using his words, " to eveiy rational and reflecting person, whether
it is from such cases that we can judge of the price of books in
general, or of the comparative ease or difficulty of procuring them?
Are we to form our ideas from the sums paid or given by royal
and noble patrons and patronesses to artists, whose skill in writing,
illuminating, and embellishing manuscripts, enabled them to ask
what they pleased, and get whatever they asked ?

" Suppose, however, that there was no fine writing in the case,
it is still very possible that, on other grounds, the book might have
been worth twice, or twenty times, as much as the countess gave
for it, without pi'oving that books in general were so outrageously
scarce and dear. From such cases, indeed, we cannot, as I have
already said, prove anything. Will it not be quite as fair for some
v/riters a few centuries hence to bring forward the enormous and
absurd prices which have been paid by some modern collectors for
single volumes, as an evidence of the price of books in our age ?
May he not tell his gaping readers (at a time, too, when the march
of intellect has got past the age of cumbersome and expensive
penny magazines, and is revelling in farthing cyclopaedias), that in
the year 1812, one of our nobility gave 2260/., and another,
1060/. 10*. for a single volume? and that the next year, a John-
son's Dictionary was sold by public auction, to a plebeian purchaser,
for 200/. ? A few such facts would quite set up some future
Robertson, whose readers would never dream that we could get
better reading, and plenty of it, much cheaper at that very time.
The simple fact is, that there has always been such a thing as biblio-
mania since there have been books in the world ; and no member
of the Roxburgh Club has yet equalled the Elector of Bavaria, who
gave a town for a single manuscript — unless, indeed, it be argued
that it was a more pure, disinterested, and brilliant display of the
ruling passion, a more devoted and heroic sacrifice of property and
respect, to give 2000/. for an unique specimen of obscene trash,
than to part with a German town for a copy of the New Testament."
— pp. 66-67.

Robertson continues : —

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIII. 12

178 MaitlarKTs Dark Ages. [Sept.

" *Even 60 late as the year 1471, when Louis XI borrowed the
works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, from the Faculty of Medi-
cine in Paris, he not only deposited as a pledge a considerable
quantity of plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join
with him as surety in a deed, binding himself under a great for-
,feiture to restore it. Gabr. Naude Addit. a I'histoire de Louys XI,
par Comines. edit, de Fresnoy, torn. iv. p. 281. Many curious
circumstances with respect to the extravagant price of books in
the middle ages, are collected by that industrious compiler, to whom
I refer such of my readers as deem this small branch of literary
history an object of curiosity.'

" Might I not add," says Maitland, " that 'even so late as' two
centuries after the occurrence mentioned by Robertson (that is, in
the middle of the seventeenth, and in England when it was enjoy-
ing all the light of the Reformation), when Selden wished to borrow a
MS. from the Bodleian Library, he was required to give a bond for a
THOUSAND POUNDS ? but docs it foUow that in that dark age he could
not have got as much good reading on easier terms?" — p. 67-68.

The fact is, that books in general were not at all so extra-
vagantly dear in the Middle Ages, although they must have
been considerably dearer than at present ; but it is astonish-
ing how many books even one scribe was able to copy.
Diomedis, a nun who lived in the eleventh century, " wrote
with her own hands, in a most beautiful and legible character,"
says a monk of Wessobrunn, in Bavaria, "many volumes
both for divine service and for the public library of the
monastery, which are enumerated in a list written by herself,
in a certain plenarius. This list contains nearly forty volumes,
including, besides works of many of the fathers, Eusebius's
Ecclesiastical History, five Missals, and two Bibles, one in two
and the other in three volumes. It is indeed just about as ra-
tional to assume the price of books in general from the homilies
bought by the Countess of Anjou, as it would be for some
future historian of the nineteenth century to prove the extra-
vagant cost of books in these our times, by asserting that a
Johnson's Dictionary cost two hundred pounds, and that single
volumes were sold at the rate of from one thousand and sixty
pounds to two thousand two hundred and sixty. "Books,""
says Maitland, "and especially those used in the Church
service (to which I suspect this homily belonged), were fre-
quently written with great care and pains, illuminated and
gilded with almost incredible industry, bound in, or covered
with, plates of gold, silver, or carved ivory, adorned with gems,
and even enriched with relics.''^ We have ourselves seen a
Bible, which was printed within the last two years, which

ISi^.J Maitland's Dark Ages. 179

might be had at the booksellers for three shillings and six-
pence, and which cost the person who presented it to a friend
ten guineas. It was bound round with plates of gold, after
the antique fashion. Would not the man be an ass who
would assert that no copy, even of the same impression, could
be had for a less sum than ten guineas ? In the Middle Ages
such was the love of books, as even Robertson's text shows,
and especially of the Holy Scriptures, that no more acceptable
gifts could be presented to churches and monasteries. They
were generally offered on the altar, to obtain the prayers and
sacrifice of the Church, for the repose of the soul of the donor,
and also the prayers of the patron saint, as Maitland proves
(pp. 74-76). As an instance of the immense cost with which
these donation books were bound, we may mention "a copy
of the gospels which Leo III gave in the beginning of the
ninth century, so ornamented with gold and precious stones
that it weighed seventeen pounds C^ and another which
** Benedict III gave to the church of St. Calistus, adorned
with gold and silver of nearly the same weight." We now
come to what Maitland justly calls the " hack story " about
St. Eloy, " which," says Dr. Lingard, " holds a distinguished
place in every invective which has been published against the
clergy of former ages." But let us hear Robertson. He
says : —

" * Even the Christian religion, though its precepts are delivered,
and its institutions are fixed in Scripture with a precision which
should have exempted them fi-om being misinterpreted or corrupted,
degenerated during those ages of darkness into an illiberal super-
stition. The barbarous nations, when converted to Christianity,
changed the object, not the spirit, of their religious worship. They
endeavoured to conciliate the favour of the true God by means not
unlike to those which they had employed in order to appease their
false deities. Instead of aspiring to sanctity and virtue, which
alone can render men acceptable to the great author of order and
of excellence, they imagined that they satisfied every obligation of
duty by a scrupulous observance of external ceremonies. Religion,
according to their conception of it, comprehended nothing else; and
the rites by which they persuaded themselves that they could gain
the favour of Heaven, were of such a nature as might have "been
expected from the rude ideas of the ages which devised and intro-
duced them. They were either so unmeaning, as to be altogether
unworthy of the being to whose honour tliey were consecrated, or
so absurd, as to be a disgrace to reason and humanity.' p. 19."
—p. 103.

The only proof which he attempts of this frightful abuse

12 2

180

Maitland's Dark Ages.

[Sept.

is contained in a note on the word " ceremonies," in the fore-
going extract, which he begins by saying, "All the religious
maxims and practices of the dark ages are a proof of this. I shall
produce one remarkable testimony in confirmation of it from
an author canonized by the Church of Rome — St. Eloy, or
Egidius, bishop of Noyon, in the seventh century."" Remark-
ing, by the way, that Robertson is so ignorant of the person
of whom he is speaking, that by using Egidius instead of
Elidius, he shows that he mistakes St. Elo^ for St. Giles, we
proceed to give his version of this story, side by side with
Mosheim's, from whom he has copied it : —

" Mosheim.
" ' Bonus Christianus est, qui
ad ecclesiam frequentius venit,
et oblationem, quaj in altari Deo
offeratur, exhibet, qui de fructi-
bus suis non gustat, nisi prius
Deo aliquid offerat, qui quoties
sanctfe solemnitates adveniunt,
ante dies plures castitatem etiam
cum propria uxore custodit, ut
secura conscientia ad Domini al-
tare accedere possit, qui postremo
symbolum vel orationem Domi-
nicam memoriter tenet. - - - -
Redimite animas vestras de poena
dum habetis in potestate remedia

oblationes et decimas eccle-

siis ofFerte, luminaria Sanctis locis

juxtaquod habetis exhibete

ad ecclesium quoque frequentius
convenite, sanctorum patrocinia

humiliter expetite. Quod si

observaveritis, securi in die ju-
dicii ante tribunal aeterni judicis
venientes dicetis : Da, Domine,
quia dedimus.' — p, 269.

" Robertson.
" ' He is a good Christian who
comes frequently to church ; who
presents the oblation which is
offered to God upon the altar ;
who doth not taste of the fruits
of his own industry until he has
consecrated a part of them to
God ; who, when the holy festi-
vals shall approach, lives chastely
even with his own wife during
several days, that with a safe
conscience he may draw near to
the altar of God ; and who, in the
last place, can repeat the creed
and the Lord's prayer. Redeem,
then, your souls from destruction
while you have the means in your
power ; offer presents and tythes
to churchmen; come more fre-
quently to church ; humbly im-
plore the patronage of the saints;
for if you observe these things,
you may come with security in
the day of the tribunal of the
eternal Judge, and say, " Give
to us, O Lord, for we have given
unto thee:' '—Vol. i. p. 236."—
p. 105.

" This then," says Maitland, " is, according to Robertson,
a remarkable testimony of his assertion, that * all the maxims
and practices of the dark ages' are a proof that men, * instead
of aspiring to sanctity and virtue .... imagined that they had
satisfied every obligation by a scrupulous observance qf ex-

1844.] MaitlancTs Darh Ages. 181

ternal ceremonies.' Let us then look at It as it stands. Some
of it appears to me quite unobjectionable, and indeed, as far
as I can judge, there are only (or to say the least) chiefly
three points at which Protestants would take offence. 1. * Re-
deem then your souls from destruction while the means are
in your power; offer presents and tithes to churchmen.'' ^^
Robertson here mutilates even Mosheim, for the latter shows
by hyphens that he omits something, and moreover the pas-
sage as it stands in him is, " Redeem your souls from destruc-
tion whilst you have the means in your power, offer oblations
and tithes to churches^ So that Robertson has changed obla-
tions into gifts, and churches into Churchm^w. But who
would believe either from Mosheim or Robertson, that the
passage in St. Eloy's sermon is as follows : —

" * Behold, brethren, ye have heard what sort of persons are
good Christians ; and therefore labour as much as you can, with
God's assistance, that the Christian name may not be falsely applied
to you; but, in order that you may be true Christians, always
meditate in your hearts on the commands of Christ, and fulfil them
in your practice ; redeem your souls from punishment while you
have the means in your power; give alms according to your means,
maintain peace and charity, restore harmony among those who are
at strife, avoid lying, abhor perjury, bear no false witness, commit
no theft, offer oblations and gifts to Churches, provide lights for
sacred places according to your means, retain in your memory the
Creed and the Lord's Prayer, and teach them to your sons." —
pp. 112-113.

This part, extracted and mutilated by Mosheim and Ro-
bertson, is an allusion to Dan. iv. 24 (Protest, vers. 27), " Re-
deem thou thy sins with alms."

The second objection which a Protestant might make to
the passage is because St. Eloy recommends the faithful hum-
bly to implore the patronage of the saints. But this doctrine
we have not time to defend here, nor need we, for it is not
peculiar to St. Eloy, but has always been believed and prac-
tised in the Catholic Church. The third is, "give to us,
O Lord, for we have given unto thee." We have only to
observe that the unto thee was added by Robertson, and that
the words of the saint express nothing but the spirit of the
Lord's Prayer — forgive as we have forgiven.

" The charge, however, against Eligius is not only, and perhaps
not principally, that his doctrine is popishly heretical, but that it is
grossly defective ; he is much to blame, we are told, for what he
says, but much more to blame for what he does not say. Robertson

182 Mait!and*s DarJc Ages. [Sept.

tells us, ' The learned and judicious translator of Dr. Mosheim's
Ecclesiastical History, from one of whose additional notes I have
borrowed this passage, subjoins a very proper reflection — "We see
here a large and ample description of a good Christian, in which
there is not the least mention of the love of God, resignation to his
wiU, obedience to his laws, or of justice, benevolence, and charity
towards men.'" Jortin says, 'As to the true religion, here is the
sum and substance of it as it is drawn up for us by Eligius, one of
the principal saints of that age ;' and, in his table of contents, this
scrap is referred to as * Eligius's system of religion.' White, in the
notes to his Bampton Lectures (if they should be called his), tells
us that, * no representation can convey stronger ideas of the melan-
choly state of religion in the seventh century, than the description
of the character of a good Christian by St. Eligius, or Eloi, bishop
of Noyon.'

" As to defectiveness, then, let it be observed in the first place,
that this scrap is but a very small part — as nearly as I can calculate,
not a hundredth part — of a very long sermon ; or rather, as one
might suppose, from its prolixity and tautology, even if the lan-
guage of St. Eloy's biographer did not suggest it, of several sermons
mixed up into one great homily. If it were printed like Bishop
Horsley's Sermons, it would, I believe, occupy just about the fifty-
six octavo pages which contain the first three of them. Candour
would suggest a possibility that the other ninety-nine parts may
contain something that may go towards supplying the deficiencies
of the scrap.

" But this is not all ; or even what is most important. Mosheim
printed the passages in such a way as to show that there were some
omissions, though he did not indicate all. In Jortin's translation,
only one mark of omission is retained ; and that is, between the
words 'prayer' and 'redeem.' In the version given by Robertson,
all such indications are removed, and the scrap stands as one con-
tinuous passage. White goes a step further, and prints the Latin
text without any break or hint of omission. Let us, therefore, see
what is omitted in the part which is professedly quoted ; and as
that part is not far advanced in the sermon, it will be best to begin
at the beginning. The part actually extracted by Mosheim I mark
by italics: —

" ' I beseech you, most dear brethren, and admonish you with
great humility, that you would listen attentively to those things
which I desire to suggest to you for your salvation. For Almighty
God knows that I ofier them with fervent love towards you, and
were I to do otherwise I should undoubtedly be held to have failed
in my duty. Receive, then, what I say, not for my sake, who am
of little account, but for your own salvation, willingly ; at least, in
such a way that what you receive by the ear you may fulfil in prac-
tice, so that I may be counted worthy to rejoice with you in the

1844.] Maitland's Bark Ages. 183

kingdom of heaven, not only by my obedience, but through your
profiting by it. If there is any one of you who is displeased that
I persist in preaching to you so frequently, I beg him not to be
offended with me, but rather to consider the danger to which I am
exposed, and to listen to the fearful threatening which the Lord
has addressed to priests by his prophet, — " If thou dost not speak
to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his
iniquity ; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless,
if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it ; if he do not
turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast
delivered thy souL" — Ezek. xxxiii. 8. And that, " Cry aloud,
spare not, and show my people their sins." — Is. Iviii. 1.

" * Consider therefore, brethren, that it is my duty incessantly
to stir up your minds to fear the judgment of God, and to desire
the heavenly reward, that, together with you, I may be counted
worthy to enjoy perpetual peace in the company of angels. I ask
you, therefore, always to hold in dread the day of judgment; and
every day to keep before your eyes the day of your death.

" Consider how far you would be fit to be presented before
angels, or what you would receive in return for your deserts, and
whether you will be able in that day to show that the promise of
your baptism has been kept unbroken. Remember that you then
made a covenant with God, and that you promised in the very
sacrament of baptism to renounce the devil and all his works.
Whosoever was able then made this promise in his own person and
for himself. If any was unable, his sponsor, that is, he who
received him at his baptism, made these promises to God for him,
and in his name.

" ' Consider, therefore, what a covenant you have made with
God, and examine yourselves whether after that promise you have
been following that wicked devil whom you renounced. For you
did renounce the devil, and all his pomps, and his works ; that is,
idols, divinations, auguries, thefts, frauds, fornications, drunkenness,
and lies, for these are his works and pomps. On the contrary, you
promised to believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus
Christ, his only Son, our Lord, conceived of the Holy Ghost, bom
of the Virgin Mary ; that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, rose
from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven ; and
then you promised that you would believe also in the Holy Ghost,
the holy Catholic Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of
the body, and the life everlasting. Without all doubt, this your
covenant and confession which you then made will never be lost
sight of by God ; and, therefore, most dearly beloved, I warn you
that this your confession or promise should always be kept in your
own memory, that so your bearing the Christian name, instead of
rising in judgment against you, may be for your salvation. For
you are made Christians to this end, that you may always do the

184 Maiiland's Dark Ages. f Sept.

works of Christ ; that is, that you may love chastity, avoid lewd-
ness and drunkenness, maintain humility, and detest pride, because
our Lord Christ both showed humility by example and taught it by
words, saying — '* Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart ;
and ye shall find rest to your souls." (Matt. xi. 30.) You must
also renounce envy, have charity among yourselves, and always
think of the future world, and of eternal blessedness, and labour
rather for the soul than for the body. For the flesh will be only
a short time in this would ; whereas the soul, if it does well, will
reign for ever in heaven ; but, if it does wickedly, it will bum
without mercy in hell. He, indeed, who thinks only of this life
is like the beasts and brute animals.

" * It is not enough, most dearly beloved, for you to have received
the name of Chnstians, if you do not do Christian works. To be
called a Christian profits him who always retains in his mind,
and fulfils in his actions, the commands of Christ; that is, who
does not commit theft, does not bear false witness, who neither tells
lies nor swears falsely, who does not commit adultery, who does
not hate anybody, but loves all men as himself, who does not render
evil to his enemies, but rather prays for them, who does not stir
up strife, but restores peace between those who are at variance.
For these precepts Christ himself has deigned to give by his own
mouth, in the gospel, saying — " Thou shalt do no murder, Thou
shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not
bear false witness. Thou shalt not swear falsely nor commit fraud,
Honour thy father and thy mother: and. Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself." (Matt. xix. 18, 19.) And also, "All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them; for this is the law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.)

" * And he has given yet greater, but very strong and fruitful
(valde fortia atque fructifera) commands, saying — " Love your
enemies, do good to them that hate you," and " pray for them which
despitefully use you and persecute you." (Matt. v. 44.) Behold,
this is a strong commandment, and to men it seems a hard one ;
but it has a great reward ; hear what it is — " That ye may be,"
he saith, "the children of your Father which is in heaven." Oh,
how great grace ! Of ourselves we are not even worthy servants ;
and by loving our enemies we become sons of God. Therefore,
my brethren, both love your friends in God, and your enemies for
God ; for " he that loveth his neighbour," as saith the apostle,
"hath fulfilled the law." (Rom. xiii. 8.) For he who will be a
true Christian must needs keep these commandments; because, if
he does not keep them, he deceives himself. He, therefore, is a
good Christian who puts faith in no channs or diabolical inventions,
but places all his hopes in Christ alone ; who receives strangers
with joy, even as if it were Christ himself, because he will say — ' I
was a stranger, and ye took me in," and, " inasmuch as ye have

1844.] Maitland's Dark Agds. 185

done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me." He, I say, is a good Christian who washes the feet of
strangers, and loves them as most dear relations ; who, according
to his means, gives alms to the poor ; who comes frequently to
church : who presents the oblation which is offered to God upon the
altar ; who doth not taste of his fruits before he hath offered some-
what to God ; who has not a false balance or deceitful measures ;
who hath not given his money to usury; who both lives chastely
himself, and teaches his sons and his neighbours to live chastely
and in the fear of God ; and, as often as the holy festivals occur,
lives continently even with his own wife for some days previously,
that he may, with safe conscience, draw near to the altar of God ;
finally, who can repeat the Creed or the Lord's Prayer, and teaches
the same to his sons and servants. He who is such an one, is,
without doubt, a true Christian, and Christ also dwelleth in him, who
hath said, " I and the Father will come and make our abode with
him." (John xiv. 23.) And, in like manner, he saith, by the pro-
phet, " I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their
God, and they shall be my people." (2 Cor. vi. 16.)'

"'Behold, brethren, ye have heard what sort of persons are good
Christians ; and therefore labour as much as you can, with God's
assistance, that the Christian name may not be falsely applied to
you ; but, in order that you may be true Christians, always medi-
tate in your hearts on the commands of Christ, and fulfil them in
your practice ; redeem your souls from punishment while you have
the means in your power ; give alms according to your means,
maintain peace and charity, restore harmony among those who were
at strife, avoid lying, abhor perjury, bear no false witness, commit
no theft, offer oblations and gifts to churches, provide lights for
sacred places according to your means, retain in your memory the
Creed and the Lord's Prayer, and teach them to your sons. More-
over, teach and chastise those children for whom you are sponsors,
that they may always live with the fear of God. Know tliat you
are sponsors for them with God. Come frequently also to church ;
humbly seek the patronage of the saints; keep the Lord's day in
reverence of the resurrection of Christ, without any servile work ;
celebrate the festivals of the saints with devout feeling ; love your
neighbours as yourselves ; what you would desire to be done to you
by others, that do to others ; what you would not have done to you,
do to no one ; before all things have charity, for charity covereth a
multitude of sins ; be hospitable, humble, casting all your care upon
God, for he careth for you ; visit the sick, seek out the captives,
receive strangers, feed the hungry, clothe the naked ; set at nought
soothsayers and magicians, let your weights and measures be fair,
your balance just, your bushel and your pint fair ; nor must you
claim back more than you gave, nor exact from any one usury for
money lent. Which, if you observe, coming with security before the

186 Maitland's Dark Ages. [Sept

tribunal of the etemalJudgef in the day of Jtidgment, you may say,
*^Give, Lord, for we have given ; shew mercy, for we have shewn
mercy ; we have fulfilled what thou hast commanded, do thou give
what thou hast promised." '

"I feel that by this extract I do very imperfect justice to the
sermon of St. Eloy ; of which, indeed, I might say that it seems to
have been written as if he had anticipated all and each of Mosheim's
and Maclaine's charges, and intended to furnish a pointed answer
to almost every one. I feel it to be most important to our forming
a right view of the dark ages, that such false statements respecting
the means of instruction and of grace should be exposed ; but with
so wide a field before us, I am unwilling, at present, to give more
space than this to one subject, especially as I am anxious to get
beyond that part of the subject which consists in merely contra-
dicting misstatements ; but I cannot do so until I have ofiered some
remarks on the work of a popular historian whom I have not as yet
noticed."— p. 108-114.

Maitland gives seven pages more of this sermon, to answer
other slanderers, and at length concludes by declaring that it
seems as if it had been written purposely to anticipate and
refute the charges which are made against it. By the same
process which has been adopted with regard to this sermon,
we could make the Lord''8 Prayer consist of these words,
" Our Father who art in heaven, lead us into temptation.
Amen." Yet this would scarcely be looked upon as quite
candid. Mr. Rose, the editor of the British Magazine, the
High Church periodical, in which Maitland's papers first ap-
peared, observes on this passage : " Here we find not only an
individual traduced, but through him the religious character
of a whole age misrepresented, and this misrepresentation now
generally believed. We find men leaving out what a writer
says, and then reproaching him with not saying it. We find
Mosheim, Maclaine, Robertson, Jortin, White, mangling,
misusing, and (some of them) traducing a writer, whose works
not one of them, except Mosheim (if even he), had ever seen.

Every one must recollect Robertson's account of the feast
of asses, which he says was not a mere farcical entertain-
ment, like the feast of fools; "it was an act of devotion,
performed by the ministers of religion, and by the authority
of the Church.^'' He says it was celebrated in commemoration
of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt. " It was called the
feast of the ass. A young girl richly dressed, with a child
in her arms, was set upon an ass superbly caparisoned. The
ass was taught to kneel at proper places ; a hymn, no less
childish than impious, was sung in his praise, and when the

1844.] Maitland's Dark Ages. 187

ceremony was ended the priest, instead of the nsual words,
brayed three times like an ass; and the people, instead of
their usual response, * we bless the Lord,' brayed three times
in the same manner." — Hist. Charles V. p. 237. In the first
place, as to the facts ; this feast was not to commemorate the
Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt, nor was she mentioned at
all. The ass was Balaam's. Secondly, it never extended
beyond a few churches in the dioceses of Beauvais and
Autun. Thirdly, it was not the clergy, but the people who
patronised Balaam and his ass ; and so far was it from
having the authority of the Church, that the very persons
from whom Robertson borrows the story, state that the
bishops attempted to put down the practice by the censures
of the Church, and that they did not succeed until they were
backed by the authority of the senate.

Henry, who rivals Robertson in abuse of the dark ages,
relates a story in his History of England, book 2, chap. iv.
vol, iv., p. 68. The following is the text : — " The clergy in
this age (the 10th century) were almost as illiterate as the
laity. Some who fiUed the highest stations in the Church,
could not so much as read ; while others, who pretended to
be better scholars, and attempted to perform the public
offices, committed the most egregious blunders, of which the
reader will find one example, out of many, quoted below."
Here it is, and "ex uno disce omnes." " Meinwerc, bishop of
Paderburn in this century, in reading the public prayers, used
to say, * Benedic Domine regibus et reginis mulis et mulabus
(sic) tuis,' instead of *famulis et famulobus (sic),' which
made a very ludicrous petition; it changed 'thy servants,
men and women,' into ' male and female mules.' " Will any
one believe that this was so far from being usual with the
bishop, that it was a trick played upon him once by the
emperor, who was his kinsman. The following is the true
story : —

"The emperor had a mantle of marvellous beauty, and ex-
quisite workmanship. Meinwerc had often begged it for his
church in vain ; and therefore, on one occasion, when the em-
peror was intent on some particular business, he fairly snatched
it from his person, and made off with it. The emperor charged
him with robbery, and threatened to pay him off for it sometime or
other. Meinwerc replied that it was much more proper that such
a mantle should hang in the temple of God, than on his mortal
body, and that he did not care for his threats. They were, how-
ever, carried into execution in the following manner : — * The em-

188 MaitlancTs Dark Ag03, [Sept.

peror knowing that the bishop, being occupied in a great variety of
secular business, was now and then guilty of a barbarism, both in
writing and in speaking Latin, with the help of his chaplain effaced
the syllable ya from the words famulis and famulabus, which form
part of a collect in the service for the defunct, in the missal ; and
then called on the bishop to say a mass for the souls of his father
and mother. Meinwerc, therefore, being unexpectedly called on
to perform the service, and hastening to do it, read on as he found
written, mulis et mulabus, but, perceiving the mistake, he repeated
the words correctly. After mass, the emperor said, in a sarcastic
manner, to the bishop, " I asked you to say mass for my father and
mother, not for my male and female mules." But he replied, " By
the mother of our Lord, you have been at your old tricks, and have
made a fool of me again ; and now, in no common way, but in the
service of our God. This he who is my Judge has declared that
he will avenge ; for that which is done to him will not pass by
unpunished." Thereupon, he immediately convened the canons in
the chapter-house of the cathedral, ordered the emperor's chaplain,
who had been a party to the trick, to be most severely flogged ; and
then, having dressed him in new clothes, sent him back to the em-
peror to tell him what had happened.'

" And here, good reader, you have, I believe, the whole and sole
foundation for the notable story of Bishop Meinwerc and his mules.
If you have been at church as often as you should have been in
these five years past, perhaps you would have heard King George
prayed for by men who were neither stupid nor careless ; but who
were officiating from a book which had not been corrected. I am
sure I have heard it within these six months ; — but there is no need
to apologize for the bishop." — p. 136-138.

Did any one ever hear of a charge against a whole century
being founded on so ridiculous a story ? It is not wonderful
that Maitland should exclaim (p. 157) that he can "no
longer call these the darker, but the earlier ages of the
Church;" that he should declare (p. 159) that the abuse
heaped upon the monks for being unlearned, is altogether
unjust and absurd. "I know," says he, (p. 164), "as well
as Mabillon did, that the monks were the most learned men ;
and that it pleased God to make monastic institutions the
means of preserving learning in the world, and I hope to
shew this ; but before I do so, I wish to come to a clear
understanding with those who, instead of thanking the
monks for what they did, find sufficient employment in
abusing them for not doing what they never undertook to do,
and were in fact no more bound to do than other people."

We are very sorry that we cannot follow the author
through " his dark age view of profane learning ;" and that

1844.] Maitland^s Dark Ages. 189

we must be very brief in our notice even of the sacred learn-
ing of those times — a subject which is ably and learnedly
discussed in the remaining portion of this book. The ques-
tion the author now asks is, " Did the people know anything
of the Bible in the dark ages ?" It would be utterly im-
possible to give any adequate idea of this part of Maitland,
without transcribing nearly one hundred pages. He wishes
to infer the number of Bibles which existed in the middle
ages from the number of manuscripts of that time which are
still preserved ; and we unfeignedly feel with him the great-
est astonishment, not that they are so few, but that they are
so many. Talking of the literary tour of the Benedictines in
search of manuscripts, he says, " Still, though they did not
see all that might have been seen, though their object
was not precisely the same as ours, and they did not think of
mentioning the manuscripts of the Scriptures they met with,
unless some accidental circumstance rendered them remark-
able, yet it would be easy to specify one hundred copies of
the whole or parts of the Bible which they happen thus to
mention, and which had existed during the dark ages. At
some places they found no manuscripts, which may be easily
explained ; at others, there were one or two, or a few only
remaining. And it is worthy of notice, how frequently such
relics consisted of Bibles or parts of the Scriptures." If we
take into account the various causes of destruction to which
manuscripts were exposed — war, fire, the religious fury of
the Calvinists (which Maitland mentions among these causes),
ignorance, cupidity, dishonesty, and the other casualties which
have occurred within the last six hundred years, we must be
amazed that so many remain ; and it is an evident demon-
stration that the copies must not only have been very nume-
rous, but that they must have been preserved with the
greatest care. The author mentions several instances where
the Bible alone was saved, when the priests and monks were
able to rescue nothing else ; and of the affectionate reverence
with which they speak of the word of God, and the necessity
of having it in every monastery ; which ought to satisfy every
rational being that they had the sacred oracles in their hands,
and that they knew how to use and respect them. It is
keeping quite below the probable estimate to say, that in all
the public libraries there must be at least one thousand copies
of the Scriptures remaining from those times of which we
are speaking ; and we question much if, after the lapse of
six centuries, posterity will be able to boast of so many copies

190 Maiiland's Dark Ages. [Sept.

of the Scripture having gone down to them from this Bible-
loving age.

" I have not found any thing," says Maitland, where he speaks
of the frequent notices of the Scripture which he met with in the
middle ages, " about the arts and engines of hostihty, the blind
hatred of half barbarian kings, the fanatical fury of their subjects,
or the reckless antipathy of the popes (to the Scriptures). I do
not recollect any instance in which it is recorded that the Scrip-
tures, or any part of them, were treated with indignity, or with
less than profound respect. I know of no case in which they were
intentionally defaced or destroyed (except, as I have just stated, as
to their rich covers), though I have met with and hope to produce
several instances, in some of which they were the only, and in
others almost the only, books which were preserved through the
revolutions of the monasteries to which they belonged, and all the
ravages of fire, pillage, carelessness, or whatever else had swept
away all the others. I know (and in saying this, I do not mean
anything but to profess my ignorance ; for did I suppress such
knowledge, I might well be charged with gross dishonesty), of
nothing which should lead me to suppose that any human craft or
power was exercised to prevent the reading, the multiplication, the
diffusion of the word of God."—^. 220-221.

In several of the subsequent chapters, Maitland proves
that the monks were obliged to have the psalms by heart,
that they repeated them on their journeys, that their time
was spent in celebrating the Divine mysteries, in prayer, and
sacred reading ; that they were in the habit of carrying the
Bible with them when they went any distance from home ;
and that the whole Scripture, Old and New Testament, was
publicly read through for the whole community every year,
part of it in the church, and part in the refectory.

" A monk, says the author, was expected to know the Psalter by
heart. Martene, in his commentary on the rule of St. Benedict, quotes
and acquiesces in the observation that the words 'legantur'and'dican-
tur' had been used advisedly, and with a design to intimate that the
lessons were to be read from a book, but the psalms were to be said or
sung by memory, He also quotes, from several of the ancient
rules, proofs that means of instruction were used, which render it
probable that this was practicable, and was required. From Pacho-

mius, 'He who will renounce the world must remain a few

days outside the gate, and shall be taught the Lord's Prayer, and
as many psalms as he can learn ;' and again, ' There shall be no-
body whatever (omnino nuUus) in the monastery who will not learn
to read, and get by heart some part of the scriptures ; at the least
(quod minimum est) the New Testament and Psalter.' St. Basil,
* If any one who is in good health shall neglect to offer prayers,

1844. J Maitland's Dark Ages. 191

and to commit the psalms to memory, making sinful excuses, let
him be separated from the society of the others, or let him fast for
a week.' St. Ferreol, ' No one who claims the name of a monk
can be allowed to be ignorant of letters.' " — pp. 338-9.

Lest any one should imagine that such practices were
confined to the monks, we subjoin the first three canons of
the council of Pavia, held in the ninth century, a.d. 850.
The council of Rheims gave similar commands in the same
age.

" * I. The holy synod has decreed that the domestic and private
life of a bishop ought to be above all scandal and suspicion, so that
we may (according to the apostle) provide things honest, not only
before God, but before all men. It is meet, therefore, that in the
chamber of the bishop, and for all more private service, priests
and clerks of sound judgment should be in attendance; who, while
their bishop is engaged in watching, praying, and searching the
scriptures, may constantly wait on him, and be witnesses, imitators,
and (to the glory of God) setters forth, of his holy conversation.

" * II. We decree that bishops shall perform mass, not only on
Sundays, and on the principal festivals, but that, when possible,
they shall attend the daily sacrifice. Nor shall they think it be-
neath them to offer private prayers, first for themselves, then for
their brethren of the priesthood, for kings, for all the rulers of the
Church of God, for those who have particularly commended them-
selves to their prayers, and especially for the poor ; and to offer
the sacrifice of the altar (hostias offere) to God, with that 'pious
compunction, and deep feeling of holy devotion, which belongs to
more private ministration, that the priest himself may become a
living offering, and a sacrifice to God of a broken spirit.

" ' III. It is our pleasure that a bishop should be content with
moderate entertainments, and should not urge his guests to eat and
drink ; but should rather at all times shew himself a pattern of
sobriety. At his table let there be no indecent subjects of dis-
course ; and let no ridiculous exhibition, no nonsense of silly stories,
no foolish talking of the unwise, no buffoon tricks, be admitted.
Let the stranger, the poor, the infirm, be there, who, blessing
Christ, may receive a blessing from the sacerdotal table. Let there
be sacred reading ; let viva voce exhortation follow, that the guests
may rejoice in having been refreshed, not only with temporal food,
but with the nourishment of spiritual discourse, that God may be
glorified in all things through Jesus Christ our Lord.' " — p. 341-2.

We would gladly follow the author through the entire of
the arguments by which he proves that the Scriptures were
familiar to the Christians of the middle ages. One of these
consists in the fact, that all the distinguished ecclesiastics of
those times were eulogized for the knowledge of the sacred

192 Maitland's Dark Apes. [Sept.

volume. Again, we have direct evidence of the same fact in
numberless instances. We have only room for a small
portion of Maitland's evidence. The first instance relates to
John, abbot of Gorze. "Being therefore," says his bio-
grapher, " greatly stimulated by them (a company of nuns),
and more inflamed than he had been before by any example
of virtue, he deliberated with a fixed mind on a plan for a
more perfect life. He therefore immediately began with
these hand-maidens of God a course of divine reading with all
his might, having first read through the whole of the Old and
New Testament." — Maitland, p. 465. This man flourished
about the end of the tenth century. We are told also of
Ludiger, bishop of Munster, who died in the beginning of
the ninth century, " that he was well instructed in the sacred
writings, and that he did not neglect to lecture his disciples
daily; and whatever he found to be enjoined in the holy
books, he studied to practise and teach." It is told of this
saint, that when he was quite a child, when any body asked
him, what have you been doing to-day ? he would say that
he had been all day making books, or writing, or reading.
And when he was further asked, " Who taught you ?" he
would answer, " God taught me." " The reason," says
Maitland, most justly, " why this circumstance is worth
mentioning is, that it indicates a state of things in which the
child was familiar with books, and reading, and writing. If
he had not seen it practised, he would have no more thought
of writing than Philip Quarl's monkey did, before his master
came to the island." Of St. Dunstan, who lived in the tenth
century, it is told that he spent his leisure in religious exer-
cises, in reading the divine writings, and in correcting copies
of them. The same thing is told of Maiolus, abbot of
Clugni, in the tenth century ; of Lambert, abbot of Lobbes,
in the eleventh century ; and in the same century of An-
selm, bishop of Lucca, "that he knew almost all the holy
Scripture by heart, and as soon as he was asked, could tell
what each and all the holy expositors thought on any par-
ticular point. William of Malmesbury says of Wulstin,
bishop of Worcester, who lived in the same age, that " lying,
standing, walking, sitting, he had always a psalm on his lips,
always Christ in his heart ;" and of his contemporary Arnold,
bishop of Soissons, we are told that for " three years and a
half he never spoke to any creature, but spent his time
in reading the word of God, and in meditation." Abbot
Thierry had the Scriptures by heart ; and " the table-talk

1844.] Maitland's Dark Ages. 193

of Aufidius, a man of high rank and military education, was
always seasoned by references to holy Scripture."" "We
shall not,"" says Maltland, (p. 465), " surely, be told that
such stories as these are either fictions or very singular cases,
or even that they are to any important extent either coloured
or exaggerated. It would be easy to multiply them, and not
easy to escape the inference that a familiar knowledge of the
Avord of God was possessed and valued by many in those ages
which have been represented not merely as without light, but
as so fiercely in love with darkness, that they were positively
hostile to the Scriptures, and not only virtually destroyed
them, and made them void by their wicked doctrines, but
actually hated and destroyed the very letter of the Bible."

The next proof that the Scriptures were familiarly known
by both clergy and laity is taken from the sermons and homi-
lies of that period which have come down to us. The reader
will find one in Maitland, from page 479 to 488. It was
preached by Bardo, archbishop of Mentz, on an occasion when
his object was to recover his character for learning, and to
remove an unfavourable impression from the minds of the
people. We have not room for it, but may refer the reader
to our extract from St. Eloy, or to any other homily of the
middle ages. They are almost a string of scriptural quo-
tations, which it is truly astonishing that the preachers ever
got together without a concordance, and which the audience
could neither have listened to nor endured if they had not
been familiar with the Bible. After part of Bardo's sermon
has been quoted by Maitland, he observes (p. 488): —

" These extracts may give the reader some idea of the sermon,
and whatever a severe criticism might find to say respecting the
taste or the truth of some of the applications, 1 feel that I may
confidently ask whether it does not imply a greater familiarity with
the Scriptures in both the preacher and the hearers than most
people would have given them credit for ? "When it is considered
how small a part I have given, and that the whole is characterized
by the same biblical phraseology, it really does appear to me sur-
prising how any man could on such short notice put together such
a string of texts at a period when concordances, common-place

books, and other pulpit assistants, had not been invented But

what did the audience think of the sermon ? "Was the unhappy
preacher really casting pearls before swine in thus profusely quoting
a book, the very existence of which was unknown to them? Surely,
if they knew nothing of the Bible, they must have wondered what
he was talking about and what he was driving at, and have sorely
repented that they had expressed discontent with his former brief
VOL. xvn. — NO. XXXIII. 13

194 Maitland's BarTz Ages, [Sept.

sermon. Surely, if the emperor participated in the blind hatred of
the * half-barbarian kings of feudal Europe,' and the audience in
' the fanatical furies of their ignorant people,' by which we are told
that the Scriptures were so cruelly and hatefully oppressed, such a
preacher was likely to be torn in pieces. But nothing of the sort
appears to have happened. The people certainly were astonished ;
and it is said that all of them agreed in the strangest notion imagi-
nable, namely, that the preacher was a highly Jit man to he Pope."

The last argument and the most irresistible is that taken
from the histories, biographies, familiar letters, legal instru-
ments, and writings of every kind in those times, for no matter
by whom they were written, they are all literally made up of
the Scriptures. If the Scriptures had not been most familiarly
known, no person could have written these documents, nor
could any one have understood them when they were written.
Now, when we reflect on the enormous amount of these
manuscripts which must have existed — when, in spite of fire,
war, pestilence, and time, hundreds of thousands of them of
one kind or another have come down to us, we must admit
that an extraordinary knowledge of the Scriptures must have
been universal. This argument is put by Maitland in the
following words : —

" The fact, however, to which I have so repeatedly alluded is
simply this — the writings of the dark ages are, if I may use the
expression, made of the Scriptures. I do not merely mean that the
writers constantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them as
authorities on all occasions, as other writers have done since their
day — though they did this, and it is a strong proof of their fami-
liarity with them — but I mean that they thought and spoke and
wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the bible, and that
they did this constantly and habitually as the natural mode of
expressing themselves. They did it too not exclusively in theolo-
gical or ecclesiastical matters, but in histories, biogi-aphies, familiar
letters, legal instruments, and documents of every description. I
do not know that I can fully express my meaning, but perhaps
I may render it more clear if I repeat that I do not so much refer
to direct quotations of Sci'ipture, as to the fact that their ideas seem
to have fallen so naturally into the words of Scripture, that they
were constantly referring to them in a way of passing allusion,
which is now very puzzling to those who are unacquainted with the
phraseology of the Vulgate, and forms one of the greatest impedi-
ments in the way of many who wish to read their works. It is a
difficulty which no dictionary or glossary will reach. What the
reader wants, and the only thing that will help him, is a concord-
ance of the Vulgate, in which to look out such words as seem to be

1844.] Maitland's Baric Ages, 195

used in a strange and unintelligible way. Without seeing them in
their original context, there is little chance of discovering their
meaning — but then is it not clear that the passage was present to
the mind of the writer, and that he expected it to be so to those of
his readers ? How could it be otherwise ? " — p. 470.

Yet, in spite of this overwhelming mass of evidence, evidence
derived from so many diflferent sources, each of which in-
creases the stream, until it at length becomes irresistible, we
shall still hear very likely the old trumpery about Luther and
the Bible, which he, happy man ! discovered after it had been
lost in the dark ages. Yet look at these facts. A multitude
of the writers of the middle ages speak of the Bible as a
book familiarly known ; it was in all convents, monasteries,
churches ; parts of it were repeated from memory ; the whole
of it was read through in the religious communities each
year ; it was carried about on journeys ; it was ornamented
with gold, silver, and precious stones, and publicly presented
in the churches; a large number of copies have survived
rapine, murder, fire, and the casualties of six hundred years ;
it was constantly and sometimes exclusively read by those
pious men whose lives have come down to us ; the sermons
of the period were a string of texts, and every thing that was
written by priest or monk, by secular or regular, was written
in scripture phraseology, and filled with passages from and
allusions to the sacred volume. Is it not strange that after
all this any one would be so barefaced and so ignorant as to
repeat the old calumnies against the dark ages ? But, unfor-
tunately, there are such people to be foimd.

" I am not," says Maitland, " such an enthusiast as to suppose
that a series of papers in a magazine, desultory and superficial as I
sincerely acknowledge these to be, can do much to stop the per-
petual repetition of falsehood long established, widely circulated,
and maintained with all the tenacity of party prejudice. If I were,
the occurrences of almost every day would, I hope, teach me wis-
dom. While these sheets have been going through the press they
have brought me a specimen quite worthy of Kobertson, and so
much to our present purpose that I cannot help noticing it. Even
since the foregoing paragraph was written, a proof sheet has come
from the printing-office, wrapped in a waste quarter of a sheet of a
book which I do not know that I have seen, but the name of which
I have often heard, and which I have reason to believe has been
somewhat popular of late. The head-line of the page before me is

"ZSSTiiJ: "'D'AUBIGNE'S REFORMATION. I'JL^IbK:
" Among the contents of the page thus headed, and in the column

13 2

196 MaitlancTs Dark Ages. [Sept.

under ' Discovery. The Bible,' we find the following passage re-
lating to Luther : —

" ' The young student passed at the university library every
moment he could snatch from his academic duties. Books were
still rare, and it was a high privilege in his eyes to be enabled to
profit by the treasures collected in that vast collection. One day
(he had then been studying two years at Erfurth, and was twenty
years of age) he opened one after another several books in the
library, in order to become acquainted with -their aiithors. A
volume he opens in its turn arrests his attention. He has seen
nothing like it to this moment. He reads the title — it is a Bible !
a rare book, unknown in those days. His interest is excited to a
high degree ; he is overcome with wonder at finding more in the
volume than those fragments of the Gospels and Epistles, which the
Church had selected to be read in the temples eveiy Sunday through-
out the year. Till then, he had supposed these constituted the en-
tire word of God ; and now behold, how many pages, how many
chapters, how many books, of which he had not before had a notion.'

" Is it not odd that Luther had not by some chance or other
heard of the Psalms ? — but there is no use in criticising such non-
sense. Such it must appear to every moderately informed reader,
but he will not appreciate its absurdity until he is informed that on
the same page this precious historian has informed his readers that
in the course of the two preceding years Luther had * applied
himself to learn the philosophy of the middle ages in the writings of
Occam, Scot, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas,'— of course none of
those poor creatures knew anything about the Bible." — pp. 467-70.

Milner, the deacon, has given the following version of this
story : —

" In the second year after Luther had entered into the monas-
tery, he accidentally met with a Latin bible in the library. It
proved to him a treasure. Then he first discovered that there
were more scripture-passages extant than those which were read
to the people: for the scriptures were at that time very little known
in the world.' Vol. iv. p. 324. Really one hardly knows how to
meet such statements, but will the reader be so good as to remem-
ber that we are not now talking of the dark ages, but of a period
when the press had been half a century in operation; and will he
give a moment's reflection to the following statement, which I
believe to be correct, and which cannot, I think, be so far inaccu-
rate as to affect the argument. To say nothing of parts of the
bible, or of books whose place is uncertain, we know of at least
twenty different editions of the whole Latin Bible printed in
Germany only before Luther was born. These had issued from
Augsburg, Strasburg, Cologne, Ulm, Mentz (two), Basil (four),
Nuremberg (ten), and were dispersed through Germany, I repeat,

1844.] Maitland's Dark Ages. 197

before Luther was born;* and I may add that before that event
there was a printing press at work in this very town of Erfurt,
where, more than twenty years after, he is said to have made his
' discovery.' Some may ask what was the pope about all this time?
Truly one would think he must have been off his guard ; but as to
these German performances, he might have found employment
nearer home if he had looked for it. Before Luther was born, the
bible had been printed in Rome, and the printers had had the
assurance to memorialise his holiness, praying that he would help
them off with some copies. It had been printed too at Naples,
Florence, and Placenza, and Venice alone had furnished eleven
editions. No doubt we should be within the truth if we were to
say that beside the multitude of manuscript copies, not yet fallen
into disuse, the press had issued fifty different editions of the whole
Latin Bible, to say nothing of Psalters, New Testaments, or other
parts. And yet, more than twenty years after, we find a young
man who had received ' a very liberal education,' who 'had made
great proficiency in his studies at Magdeburg, Eisenach, and Erfurt,'
and who, nevertheless, did not know what a Bible was, simply be-
cause ' the Bible was unknown in those days.' " — p. 469, note.

If one-tenth part of the calumnies which have been invented
concerning the middle ages — all because the people of those
times were Catholics, and some of them monks — had been
written or spoken about anything but religion, their authors
would have been hunted out of society, and the books which
contained them would be consigned to eternal Infamy. If
persons who did not knoAv the very alphabet of science were
to cast wholesale aspersions upon its most eminent professors
without ever having seen or read their works, would any one
endure such intolerable insolence ? Yet here Ave find some-
thing infinitely worse, not only endured but encouraged. All
the millions of Christians who inhabited the world for six or
seven hundred years, are found guilty of the grossest ignorance,
of superstition and idolatry, on the evidence of men who
have never seen any of their works beyond a few mutilated
extracts, which they still farther mutilate, and pervert in
the most scandalous and flagitious manner. No one seems to
recollect tliat the monasteries were the houses of the poor and
the afflicted; that their inhabitants devoted their time to
prayer, meditation, and study ; that they were the physicians,
not only of the soul, but also of the body ; and that it is to
their labour and care we are indebted for the Bible itself, as
Avell as for all the works of antiquity which have come down
to us. The Christian Church also was in those times, to use

* For an enumeration of these editions, see two articles, " Versions of Scrip-
ture," in Nos. n. and v. of this Journal.

198 The Irish State Prosecution. [Sept.

Maitland's words, " the source and spring of civilization, the
dispenser of what little comfort and security there was in the
things of this world, and the quiet scriptural asserter of the
rights of man." In the long and beautiful account which the
author gives of St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable, he
alludes briefly to the character of the monks as landlords.
** Without entering," he says, "into a subject (page 393)
which is extremely interesting, and for the illustration of
which materials are very abundant, I may just observe that
the extraordinary benefit which they conferred on society by
colonizing waste places — places chosen because they were
waste and solitary^ and could not be reclaimed except by the
incessant labour of those who were willing to work hard and
live hard — lands often given because they were not worth
keeping .... was small in comparison with the advantages
derived from them by society after they had become large
proprietors — landlords with more benevolence, and farmers
with more intelligence and capital, than any others. One
thing, however, is worthy of notice that these ecclesi-
astical landlords did not make so much of their property as
they might have done, or as would have been made of it by
the unprincipled and tyrannical laymen by whom they were
surrounded, and too often robbed. I think we may infer,
from Peter's (the venerable abbot of Clugni) way of alluding
to their mode of treating their tenants and those serfs over
whom the law gave them so great a power, that, though in
one sense very careful of their property, they were not care-
ful, or had not the wisdom, to make the most of it."" It is
no wonder that he designates the flagitious robbery of these

food landlords, who supported the labourer comfortably at
ome, and fed the poor in their halls, by the epithets " bare-
faced spoliation and brute force."

Art. VIII. — ^^ Opinions delivered hy the Judges on the Questions
of Lain propounded to them in the Case of G'Connell v. the
Queen ; writs of Error, ordered to be printed the 2nd Sept.
1844." London: 1844.

"¥TTE resume, not reluctantly, our review of the Irish State

V V prosecution. The scene of our former notice was laid

in the Irish Court of Queen's Bench, the present will be

chiefly conversant of the proceedings in the House of Lords.

In our last number, we carried our hasty sketch of the

1844.] The Irish State Prosmition. 199

proceedings down to the verdict. The forms of law allowed,
or rather compelled, the ardent prosecutors to pause for a
space ; weeks were passed without any move on either side.
No sooner had the judges reassembled, however, than a motion
was made on the part of the Traversers for a new trial, on the
ground, principally, of the fraudulent tampering with the
panel, the reception of illegal evidence, and the one-sided
charge of the Chief Justice. It is not within the scope of
our design, to enter into the arguments of the counsel on this
motion ; neither will we be guilty of the injustice of making
extracts, where the entire should be read. We cannot, how-
ever, help pointing the attention of our readers in an especial
manner, to the solid and masterly argument of Thomas
O'Hagan. It was worthy of the occasion ; it was the speech
of the lawyer, the orator, and the scholar. Well may the
North be proud — and the North is proud — of having cradled
such a man. Unlike many of his brethren, who are only
great on great occasions, Mr. O'Hagan is one of the readiest
and quickest advocates at the Irish bar, and is rapidly advanc-
ing to the leadership of his circuit. The new trial, was, of
course, refused. Judge Perrin dissenting from his brethren.
Would that he had been on this, and on other occasions during
the trial, a little more firm and self-relying.

The last of the motions made on the Traversers'* part, was the
motion in arrest of judgment. Our limited space compels us
to dispatch this too in a very few words. The argument was
opened by Sir Coleman O'Loughlin, the junior counsel of
the Traversers, who had sustained the heaviest part of the
labour of the case on his shoulders from the commencement,
and who in his excess of zeal for his clients, nearly sacrificed his
own life. We need not remind our readers of the general
regret expressed and felt at the illness, and the universal joy
experienced at the recovery, of this highly gifted and able
young man. To him is due much of the credit attachable
to the successful termination of the case. He has inherited
fi'om his father a name dear to Ireland, and his struggles with
the serpent of this State Prosecution, while yet in the infancy
of his professional career, foreshadow a fame not inferior to
his father's, when years shall have imparted to him increased
confidence and experience. We question whether any man
of his standing, at the Irish or English bar, could have made
&uch an argument as he made upon this motion. But all ar-
gument, and reasoning, and reference to authority, were in
vain ; the court ruled every thing against the accused. Like
those judges, who in the sanguinary days of the criminal law,

200 The Irish State Prosecution. [Sept.

" emptied the gaols into the grave ;" the Judges of the
Queen's Bench appeared to side in all things with the prose-
cutor. It is ludicrous now to turn back to the judgments
delivered upon this occasion, over-nilcd as they arc in almost
every particular by the House of Lords ; for example, the sixth
and seventh counts in the indictment appeared to have been
the pet ones of the Irish Judges ; and these, their English
brethren have unanimously declared to be quite untenable.

So far, the Irish Attorney-General's progress was one con-
tinued victory ; flushed with his triumph, therefore, and
unmindful of the means by which it had been achieved, he
dragged his victims up for sentence. The leaders of the Irish
people were called to the bar of the Court of Queen's Bench as
convicted conspirators. With cheek unblenched, and with
haughty port, they entered the court. The moment they
appeared, the bar — the Irish bar, to their eternal honour be it
recorded — rose and gave them an enthusiastic greeting ; Con-
servative and Radical, Catholic and Protestant, Repealer and
Anti-Repealer, joined in the demonstration. It was only thus,
that they could protest against the unjust sentence that was
about to be recorded. Many of them hated O'Connell politi-
cally ; some were indifferent ; all felt that he had not got a fair
trial. The judges frowned, but their frowns were unheeded.
Public opinion is now of too sturdy a growth in Ireland to be
checked by the scowl of power. The sentence was passed ;
Judge Burton wept as he delivered it. Had his lordship been
gifted with a prophetic spirit, he would have treasured up the
tears he shed over the Traversers, to let them fall soon after
for himself and his brethren. The British House of Lords has
judicially declared the whole proceedings in the Irish Court
of Queen's Bench, erroneous and fraudulent. Should not
those weep who permitted that fraud, and who, when applied
to, refused to remedy it ?

The sentence was listened to by the Traversers without
any apparent emotion. There were many anxious and eager
whisperings through the court, as every one imparted his
opinion of its severity to his neighbour. There was the pro-
foundest silence however, as Daniel O'Connell spoke the very
few words he did speak in reply to that judgment and sen-
tence. He knew that that was not the time or place to enter
fully into the matter. Few therefore, and dignified, were his
observations ; they had the solemn earnestness of truth —
"/if is noio, my Lords, with great regret^ that I express my
painful conviction that justice has not been done." Tlie
pent-up feelings of that crowded court, could be repressed

1844. J The Irish State Prosecution. 201

no longer. A loud and long continued cheer spoke the assent
of the auditory to the declaration of O'Connell — that indig-
nant shout expressed the feelings with which that sentence
was received all over the world. In sooth, it was a sentence
that carried no moral weight with it. The gambler, it was
true, had won the game, but the paltry fraud by which he
had attained success, had been detected and exposed. To re-
peat the scathing words of Jonathan Henn — " that sentence
*' was unjust and oppressive, and amounted to an exercise of
" legal tyranny which ought not to be known to the English
« law."

On a glorious sunlit evening, the 30th of May 1844, the
Irish Patriots left the Four Courts in custody of the Sheriff
to be consigned to a dungeon. There was no tumult, no
groaning, no apparent excitement, as they passed rapidly to
the prison. The people looked on in speechless horror. It
was an insult to Ireland which ages may not obliterate.
Had O'Connell wished it, the chivalry of England, with the
Great Captain at its head, would have found it no easy task
to make him a prisoner. He preached peace, however, and
the most infirm tipstaff of the court would have formed a
sufficient escort to the prison. Still the smoothness on the
surface shewed the depth of feeling beneath. The absence
of all noisy ebullition only proved its intensity. It is when
the steam is letting off, and when the pressure on the engines
is least, that the noise is the greatest. A far-seeing states-
man would have read this correctly, and have retraced his
steps. Mr. Attorney -General Smith, and his man Brewster,
clapped their Avings and crowed defiance. With them the
end justified the means. They had thrust the foremost man
of modern times into a dungeon ; and thus by the rule that
had been acted upon for years in Ireland, had fitted them-
selves for the bench. Great was the glorification of their
friends. The Attorney-General was compared to Lord
Coke, and Brewster, it was thought, greatly resembled Lord
Mansfield. The Irish people waited patiently. There was
a final appeal to the House of Lords, but many thought it
worse than mockery to test it ; so thought not O'Connell. He
resolved that no act or default of his should be construed
into an acquiescence in such a great injustice. It was true,
some of the most flagrant grievances that had been suffered
upon the trial, could not be reviewed in the court of appeal
at all. The utter inadequacy of the evidence to sustain any
count in the indictment — the reception of testimony which

202 Th IrisJb Bate Prosecution, [Sept.

eliould have been rejected — the refusal of the 'witnesses'
names — the one-sided charge of the Chief-Justice, and the
sectarian character of the jury — were all, by the unbending
rules of law, shut out from the consideration of the court of
error. In the literal sense of those solemn words, these
should now be left " to God and the country." The court of
appeal could not travel out of the record, and these mon-
strosities did not appear upon the face of it.

The House of Lords is an appropriate assembly room for
the peers of England. There is a subdued grandeur about
its general arrangement and its smallest details. The royal
throne is not elevated too high above the seats of the aristo-
cratic senators. The Chancellor presides over the debates ;
but his seat — the woolsack — is on a level with those of the
spiritual and temporal peers. The thick carpets on the
Chamber itself, and upon all its approaches, prevent the foot-
fall of those entering or leaving the house distracting the
sedate consultations of the unexcitable senate. The infusion
of plebeian blood in the person of an occasional law lord, is
too small to instil much healthy vigour into the veins of this
venerable body. Every one, except Lord Brougham, seems
to enter its precincts with measured steps and slow. The
very doors creak not on their well-oiled hinges, and open
as it were spontaneously to admit the titled aristocracy
of England. The ushers and vergers look more like marble
statues in full dress than like living men. If they com-
municate with each other, it is only by signs. On those
occasions when the House of Lords sit as a court of appeal,
they hear barristers on the part of the litigants at their bar,
and allow an influx of strangers into the body of their house
in the persons of the learned judges of England. Those
grave personages, however, although they sit in the house,
do not mingle with the peers. Their places are at the table,
around which they cluster, living impersonations of all the
deep knowledge that is to be found buried in the legal text-
books and reports — the depositaries of the lex nan scripta of
England.

Before a tribunal thus constituted, the case of the Lish
State Prisoners came to be argued. The Attorney-General
for Ireland had called upon the Irish judges to fling the
Traversers into a dungeon, before their appeal had been
adjudicated upon. Let the decision of that tribunal be what
it might, he was determined that the Traversers should be
punished. A fine levied might be repaid; a recognizance

1844.] Tie Irish State Prosecution. 203

might be cancelled; but the prisoner can never get back
months spent in a dungeon. It must never be forgotten — it
never will he forgotten — that the order of reversal of the House
of Lords only reached the state prisoners after they had been
for upwards of three months the inmates of a gaol — the com-
panions of pickpockets and petty-larceners. Imprisonment
for such a space at his advanced age, might have proved fatal
to ordinary men ; but O'Connell was no ordinary man. His
body and mind seem equally adapted for his high position ;
and he left the Richmond Penitentiary with step as light and
elastic as he entered it.

Sir Thomas Wilde, the ex- Attorney General of England,
had been selected by O'Connell as his leading counsel in the
lords. Three things mainly contribute to success in legal
strategy — a good cause — an able advocate — and just judges.
The two former were within the prisoners'* own selection ; the
latter they had to take as they found them. Had their
consent been asked on a recent occasion, it is more than pro-
bable they would not have been satisfied with the Irish Court
of Queen's Bench. They had now a just cause. They had
been falsely accused, foully convicted, and illegally punished
in their own country, and by their own countrymen. They
came to seek redress from the law lords of England, not as a
boon, but as a right. The government had closed the prison
doors upon them, before their appeal could be heard ; if they
had not been thus precipitate, Daniel O'Connell could him-
self, once more, have stood at the bar of the House of Lords,
and stated his own and his fellow-traversers' case. We can
well conceive the triumphant chuckle of Brewster, and the
other small officials, at this notable move. To use a legal
phrase, however, " they took nothing by their motion" but
ultimate discomfiture and defeat. The small elevation they
acquired by the imprisonment of the traversers only served to
increase the severity of their fall.

Sir Thomas Wilde occupied the place that the Irish people
would have selected for their own countryman. It is only
justice to him to say, that he was worthy of being the national
advocate; he threw his whole heart into the case. He
brought the vast stores of his legal learning, and the blunt
manliness of his thoroughly English character to bear upon it.
Many an argument used by him in the course of his opening
speech, obtained the weight and importance of a judicial
decision, when afterwards adopted and embodied in the judg-
ments of the learned law lords. It is not our object, nor in

204 Tlie Irish State Proseaifion. [Sept.

sooth would it be at all consistent with our limited space, to
attempt to give anything like a full analysis of the speeches
made upon this memorable occasion. We have reason to think,
however, that they will appear in an authorized shape, and
have no doubt that they will be useful studios in all after
times for the statesman and the lawyer.

The counsel concerned in the cause had, very projierly,
divided the several matters to be argued between themselves ;
and upon Mr. Peacock devolved the task of grappling with
some of the nicer and subtler legal points in the case. No
one could manage them more adroitly. The special pleaders,
and black-letter men, listened to him with ecstasy. He had
cases innumerable, and if we are not greatly misinformed, his
argument upon this occasion, has raised his fame, as an astute
and painstaking lawyer, even higher than it was before.

To Mr. Hill's part in the division of professional labour,
fell the argument of the traversers' challenge to the array, in
consequence of the fraudulent tampering with the jury book.
He argued it with great force and ability. That challenge
signed " Coleman O'Loughlin" stands uncontradicted — ad-
mitted— on the files of the Irish Court of Queen's Bench —
an eternal memorial of the corrupt administration of justice
in Ireland. The ruffian who dared to profane the sanctuary
of justice, by filching away a part of the jury list, may per-
haps escape exposure and punishment ; but little doubt is
entertairied as to the persons who planned the fraud and
suborned the perpetrator.

Mr. Kelly closed the arguments on the part of the ap-
pellants. He powerfully and successfully attacked the entire
frame-work of the indictment. From tlie immense farago of
legal verbiage, and nonsensical repetitions which seemed
studiously to have been strung together, not for the purpose
of explaining clearly to the accused the accusations he was
to answer, but to mystify and mislead him — the learned
counsel dragged forth the charges stripped of their legal
technicalities. He demonstrated that the greater part of
them were no offences at all. Under one count, the sixth,
the appellants were found guilty of conspiring to cause large
numbers to assemble for the purpose of procuring changes m
the law ! In the seventh, they were found guilty of having
conspired to bring into disrepute the tribunals established in
Ireland for the administration of justice, in order to induce
parties to have recourse to other tribunals! Now, the
learned sages of the Queen's Bench in Ireland, declared that

1844.] The Irish State Prosecution. 205

both these counts disclosed serious and grave offences ; and
the House of Lords was called upon to affirm that decision.
The judges of England, and the law lords — with the single
exception of Lord Brougham (!) who doubted- — over-ruled the
absurd and monstrous decision of the Irish judges, and de-
clared these counts did not contain any legal charge. If they
had come to any other conclusion, it would have behoved
Lord Brougham and Sir James Graham, and even the
premier himself, to have obtained a bill of indemnity from
parliament to save them from the legal consequences of their
exertions for parliamentary and legal reform.

Sir William Follett, confessedly the most highly-gifted
legal man of the English bar, opened the case for the crown.
As Attorney-general for England, it was his duty to hold the
shield over his Irish brother. What a revolting task must it
not have been to him ! He had to argue that the indictment
was a good one ; that the trial had been a fair one ; and that
the sentence following upon the trial had been a just one I
Labouring under great physical weakness, he still proved
himself Avorthy of his high place at the bar, and hie still
higher position in the estimation of his brethren. His was a
clever argument, cunningly put together, and admirably
delivered. He studiously avoided, or as it is technically
called, "shirked" the broad constitutional questions arising in
the case. As a skilful soldier, who has the care of a weakly-
garrisoned citadel, and is afraid to expose his slender forces
in a pitched battle, contents himself with strengthening his
defences, without attempting aggressive warfare; so Sir
William avoided the great questions involved in the chal-
lenge to the array, and contented himself with arguing that
the challenge itself was informal. On the whole, however,
we must admit that his argument, looked upon as that of an
advocate, was excellent ; and we hope when he next appears
in a great case, that he will have a better foundation upon
which to raise his legal superstructure.

He was followed by the Irish Attorney-general ; of him
we have so fully spoken before, that we shall not now. revert
to him at any length. For some of those who were con-
nected with the prosecution, we have no sympathy, and
have expressed none. We really feel for the Irish Attorney-
general. The ridiculous vauntings of his professing friends,
but real enemies, at the Irish bar and the English press, had
attributed the conviction obtained by such means as we have
faintly described, to the superhuman exertions, the deep legal

206 The Irish State Prosecution, [Sept.

learning, and powerful elocution of Mr. Smith. They kept
in the back-ground the packed jury, the over-zealous judge,
and the court that always leaned against the side of mercy —
forgetting the old time-honoured maxim of Matthew Hale, —
" In criminals, where there is a measuring cast, to lean to
mercy and acquittals." Loud and vehement were the lo
irumph^s! when O'Connell was imprisoned. Bitter were
the taunts against the traversers for daring to bring a writ
of error. Poor Mr. Smith! His inflated elevation has
subsided, and his former adulators are now among his ac-
cusers. His argument upon the writ of error Ave shall not
dissect; it forms an excellent companion to his opening
speech upon the trial; the latter being the longer, was of
course the worse of the two.

On the second of September the Judges of England as-
sembled in the House of Lords to answer the several ques-
tions put to them touching the writ of error. Their decision
was not to be conclusive, nor in any way binding on those
learned personages who sought their advice. Still their
answers were looked for with an interest proportionate to the
great importance of the matters in issue, and which their
opinions would undoubtedly in some way influence. Rumour
had it that there was a division of opinion among those learned
personages, and the public marvelled that those high function-
aries to whom the empire looked up as their oracles in all legal
controversies, could not agree among themselves. Lord Chief
Justice Tindal delivered the unanimous answers of the Judges
to nine out of the eleven questions propounded to them. We
have already informed our readers, that wide as was the
ground taken by these questions, they left untouched some of
the greatest hardships complained of by the traversers. In
addition to this, the questions themselves by no means opened
the points to be argued in a Avay favourable to the appellants.
A decision against them would not therefore, in any respect,
make the case for the crown better, while an opposite result
would be doubly damnatory upon them.

We shall not exhaust our space, nor Aveary our readers by
going through the answers of the Judges ; they all upheld
the technical propriety of the judgment upon the minor
points ; but Baron Parke (admittedly the highest legal au-
thority on the Bench in England) and Mr. Justice Coltman,
differed from their brethren, and considered that certain counts
of the indictment being bad, a sentence inflicted generally
upon all, could not be supported. This appears common

1844.] The Irish State Prosecution. 207

sense. For example. A man is indicted for conspiring to
create a mutiny in the army, and in another count in that
indictment, he is charged with being a law reformer. An
enlightened and constitutional judge (Justice Pennefather,
suppose), tells the jury that both are grave oiFences, and the
jury find him guilty on both. The judge sentences him
generally, laying great stress on the iniquity of all reforms,
and all attempts to change or alter the law. The court of
appeal review the judgment, and then it is in effect said,
" True, sir, you were erroneously convicted for what is a
virtue, not a crime ; but we shall presume, notwithstanding,
that the judge who differs with us as to the law, thought one
thing when he said another. It is true, he sentenced you for
doing what is right ; but we shall presume that he punished
you for doing what is wrong." We cannot reconcile this
with our notions of unswerving justice and unbending right ;
no matter who the judges are who state so, nor where they
state it, we will not believe that such is the law of England.
We thank God ! Lord Denman lives to bear testimony
against it. No wonder therefore that the agents for the
traversers, who had listened from the beginning to this
eventful trial, and who had heard the Irish Judges resting
the validity of the judgment principally on the counts which
the House of Lords declared good for nothing, while ad-
mitting in a letter addressed by them to the editor of the
Morning Chronicle, — " that it was not their province" (we
would add, nor their habit) "to set boundaries to the force of
presumption,"" yet protested in the face of the English
public, and in the face of the world, against a presumption
not in accordance, but at variance, with the truth. It was
rumoured that for this letter the four Irish attorneys were to
have been brought up to the bar of the House, but it was
passed over in silence. Had they been committed, we think
"Black Rod" would have found he had caught a bevy of
Tartars, and certain we are that the House would soon be
glad to get rid of them. They would not have been silent
sufferers.

Wednesday the fourth day of September 1844, will be a
day long marked with white, in the annals of Ireland. Truly
was it said by O'Connell, to have been the first occasion on
which England had done justice to Ireland — full justice she
could not do. She could not recall the imprisonment that had
been unjustly and illegally inflicted ; she could not wipe out
the insult that had been offered to the country. But what

208 The Irish State Prosecution. [Sept.

could at that period be done, was done by Lord Denman,
with the sanction of Lords Cottenham and Campbell, and,
what enhances the favour, against the wishes of Lords Lynd-
hurst and Brougham. Had they joined in the favourable
judgment, it would not have been so received in Ireland as it
was : —

" I saw my livid tormentors pass ;

Their grief it was joy to hear and see,
For never came joy to them, alas !
That did not bring bitter woe to me."

The Irish people would have feared that something dread-
ful was lurking beneath, had Lyndhurst and Brougham given
a judgment favourable to the traversers.

Unusual excitement pervaded the passages, and the portion
of the Lords'" chamber devoted to strangers, on that eventful
morning. The traversers"' friends, trusting more to the innate
justice of their cause, than to the forms and technicalities of the
law, closed their ears to the general rumour of an unfavourable
judgment. The crown counsel looked gloomy and doubtful.
The peers sat stately and unexcited, as became their rank.
Lord Brougham alone seemed uneasy, and flitted about from
place to place, as he was wont to do in the other house.

There was silence — a hushed and eager and anxious silence,
if we may so speak, as the Lord Chancellor of England left the
woolsack, and stood to the left of the throne to address their
lordships. His appearance and demeanour were imposing in
the extreme. He had a great part to perform, and not one of
those great men who had preceded him in his high office,
knew better how to perform it. We will not now stop to
cavil at the matter of his judgment, but we are bound to ac-
knowledge that nothing could be more majestic than the
manner in which he delivered it. Every one knew that that
judgment would be adverse to the accused ; still all were
anxious to hear how so expert a tactician would deal with so
difficult a theme. The involuntary exclamation that rose to
the lips as he concluded, was, not what a just judge, hut what
a great actor !

We now come to Lord Brougham's judgment : he followed
Lord Lyndhurst. " How art thou fallen from heaven, Luci-
fer, star of the morning ! " How changed from that Henry
Brougham, who once led the van in the forward march of free
opinion ; whose hand was uplifted to strike the fetter from
the slave, and whose voice sounded through the world as a

1844.] Tlie Irish State Prosecution, 209

trumpet In the days of the Reform Bill. Fallen, debased,
and degraded, he is now the living mockery of his former
self. The poet says that the recollection of former happiness
aggravates misery ; the severest censure upon Brougham would
be to remind him of what Henry Brougham once was, and
then to tell him what Lord Brougham now is. We shall not
perform the nauseating task. We once looked upon him
as one of the lights of the age — one of the safest guides
in the yet untrodden ways to freedom. We now, — alas !
that we are obliged to write it — consider him as one of
those wandering meteors, that lead, in the words of Moore,
"the other way."

In matter, as well as manner, his judgment was a wretched
exhibition. The greater part of it consisted of some misera-
ble trash, about the appellate jurisdiction of the House of
Lords, which any Old Bailey lawyer could have done better.
It was read, too, in the sing-song tone of a lubberly school-
boy. As we listened in wonder and amazement, we doubted
the testimony of our senses, for a time, and but for the con-
vulsive twitching of the ex-chancellor^s nose, and his subse-
quent restlessness, we might have hoped that we had been
deceived, and that one of those gentry, who, at the Garrick's
Head, in Bow Street, are in the habit of performing the
" double of Brougham," had for once found his way into the
House of Lords. AYho could have believed that the great
advocate of the Reform Bill, and the Law Reformer, would
have given a judicial opinion, that to meet in large numbers
to procure changes in the legislature, or to establish new
courts of law, was illegal and contrary to the old common
law of England. Yet this did Henry Brougham (or rather
Lord Brougham) sjiy with unblushing face before the assem-
bled peers of England. If he was right, how illegal must
have been the career by which he found his way to the wool-
sack ! In his endeavour to defend the monstrous judgment
of the Irish Court of Queen's Bench, he effaced, as far as he
could efface, with suicidal hand, the name of Henry Brougham
from the muster-roll of the friends of freedom. Posterity,
however, will save him from himself — will describe him as he
was when he grappled, and not unsuccessfully, with Canning
in the House of Commons ( — " There were giants in those
days" — ), and will draw a veil, in mercy, over the closing
scenes of his career, when he became the slave of Ly ndhurst
and the parasite of Wellington. He was too old when trans-
planted into the ungenial soil of the House of Peers, and " has
VOL. xvn. — NO. xxxiii. 14)

210 The Irish State Prosecution. [Sept.

withered at the top." How marked was the contrast between
him and his old colleague — Denman !

The Lord Chief Justice of England was there, in the
House of Lords, carrying out as a peer, in "his pride of
place," the principles he had advocated as a commoner. From
his high official and moral elevation he gave expression to
sentiments that will long reflect honour upon his name. It
has been suggested that his judgment should be written in
letters of gold. We hope this Avill be done ; it would be a
compliment not less due to him who spoke it than to the
noble principles he gave expression to. His was a masterly
exposition of the law of England. He rent asunder the small
web of legal subtleties with which it was attempted to en-
cumber the case. He took up the question of the packing
of the jury, which none of the judges had attempted to
grapple with ; he exposed the fraud, and boldly stated that
" if such practices as had taken place in the present instance
in Ireland should continue, the trial by jury would become a
mockery, a delusion, and a snare." This was speaking as
became the Lord Chief Justice of England ; this was in the
spirit of the old worthies of the law, whose motto was " fiat
justicia ruat coelum," *' we will interpret the law as it was
bequeathed to us, we leave the consequences to the Al-
mighty." We will not do such an injustice as to attempt to
abridge Lord Denman's judgment; every man should read
it ; it now forms part of the constitutional history of Eng-
land; it will be an authority hereafter. No one has yet
dared to gainsay it. The daws of the Tory press have not
attempted to peck at it.

Lord Oottenham, the best chancellor of modern times, and
Lord Campbell agreed with the Lord Chief Justice in re-
versing the judgment of the court below; and the majority
of law lords being of that opinion, the judgment was reversed.

We pass over the attempt of some of the Tory lay lords to
Tote, without either having heard, or being able if they had
heard, to understand, the subject. Of course they would have
asked what judgment would have kept O'Connell in gaol, and
would have voted accordingly. Fortunately they were saved
from such degradation.

We have already stated that the Irish people had borne
with patience and in silence the imprisonment of O'Connell
and his fellow-sufferers. The news of their liberation, how-
ever, was not so calmly received. Fires blazed on every
hill-top ; men and women rushed into the thoroughfares to

1844.] The Irish State Prosecution, 211

congratulate each other on the happy event ; it brought glad-
ness to every heart and homestead through the length and
breadth of the land. As the day of their incarceration was
a day of mourning, so the day of their deliverance was one of
national rejoicing.

Saturday, the seventh of September, was fixed upon for
the public exit of the prisoners from the Richmond Peni-
tentiary. The procession was a glorious one. The trades
of Dublin, with their banners, flags, and music, marched past
the prison; next came the members of the corporation in
their robes, and gentry innumerable in private carriages and
on horseback ; and lastly, in the ma,jesty of their numbers —
the People. In keeping with the other portions of the trans-
action, this procession was on the largest scale, and might
appropriately be called a monster procession. Its vast tide
of human life, as it poured along for miles from the prison
towards the city, would have formed a fitting subject for one
of Martin's pictures.

The scene in Dublin, as O'Connell and his son, Mr. John
O'Connell, were conveyed through its crowded streets on the
triumphal car, we will not, for in sooth we cannot, describe.
Every window was crowded, and every voice was uplifted to
welcome the prisoners back to their native city. No violence
was offered to the person, to the property, or even to the
feelings, of any one. The national heart was too full of joy
to find room for resentment.

We have thus hurriedly brought to a close our review of
this state prosecution. It entailed great expense upon the
government and upon the traversers, or rather upon the
nation that sustained them. It called forth talent, too, of the
highest order, and opened the eyes of many to the wrongs
and sufferings of Ireland. It subjected the leaders of the Irish
people to an ordeal that they passed through triumphantly.
We do believe that it will not be without its happy results.
All parties are beginning to see their own real interests.
Fraud and villainy need only to be exposed, to be hated and
abhorred. The legal annals will never again be sullied with
the report of such a trial. The people of England have now,
from the mouth of one whose testimony may not be gain-
say ed — the Lord Chief Justice of England — that the law is not
fairly administered in Ireland ; and that trial by jury, which
in England is the great bulwark of freedom, the safeguard
of the rights and liberties of the people, has degenerated in
Ireland into "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare." They

14^

212 Edmund Burke's Corres2yondence. [Sept.

will no longer then be surprised at the general discontent,
and the monster meetings in Ireland. They will ask them-
selves, had such provocations been given in England, would
they have been so calmly endured. The people of England
would have had their monster meetings too, hut they would
not have left their arms behind them. The sun shines upon no
people so grateful for benefits conferred, or so patient under
long suffering, as the people of Ireland !

Art. IX. — Correspondence 0/ the Bight Honourable Edmund
Burke^ betvjeen the year 1 774, and the period of his decease, in
\19*J. Edited by Charles William, Earl Fitzwilliam, and
Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Bourke, K.C.B. 4 vols.
8vo. London: 1844.

^' C IR," said Dr. Johnson, " if a man were to go by chance
at the same time with Burke under a shed, to shun a
shower, he would say, * this is an extraordinary man.' " What
would the Doctor have said, could he have foreseen that four
goodly volumes of the most important part of his ** extraordi-
nary man's" corrrespondence, would be withheld from the
public for nearly half a century after his death ?

The preface of this collection explains the cause of the
delay of its publication, as well as that of the long-expected
life of Burke, which it was hoped would accompany it. This
hope, it would now appear, if not entirely abandoned, is at
least indefinitely postponed. With Dr. French Lawrence
and Dr. King, bishop of Rochester, to whom Burke's papers
were successively entrusted for publication, have perished
numberless memorials of their deceased friend, the recovery
of which is now hopeless, but which are indispensable for an
authorized biography.

From a letter of Boswell's — a very characteristic one —
given in this collection, it might seem as if he once had an
idea of attaching himself to Burke as he did to Johnson, and
perhaps of collecting memoranda for his life. We know not
how it is, but we can hardly bring ourselves to regret the
failure of the project, if it really were seriously entertained.
It is true, that a life composed on such a principle, and by a
collector so indefatigable and so remorseless as Boswell, would
in a literary point of view be almost invaluable. Burke was
one in whose regard no ordinary biography, however minute,
could ever satisfy curiosity ; his mind should be seen in

1844. J Edmund BurMs Correspondence. 213

every phase ; every detail of his life would form In itself an
interesting study. His habit of constant thought, his mi-
nutely accurate acquaintance with every subject, the freedom
and candour with which he delivered his opinions, and the
singularly honest and straight-forward character of his rea-
soning faculty, gave a value to anything which fell from him,
even his most casual and unprepared observations. But
although we should be sure of having all such details as these
from 13oswell, with an accuracy and minuteness which no
biographer ever yet equalled ; though he would tell us every
little peculiarity of his hero — his air, his tone, his gait, his
dress, the persons he conversed with, the subjects he dis-
cussed, even the words he used ; though he would transport
us into his very society, and shew us how he first frowned,
and then smiled, and then laughed outright ; how he bolted
his food, and how the veins swelled in his forehead after
dinner ; though he would place before us every working of
his mind, its likings and antipathies, its excitement and de-
pression ; how it depended upon the chances of appetite and
of digestion ; how it Avould shroud itself in " sulky virtue "
in the presence of a Wilkes, and gradually relax into good
humour under the softening influence of "veal pie, with plums
and sugar ;" — though, in a life from Boswell's pen, we should
be sure of these and a thousand other minutije, yet we must
plead guilty, nevertheless, to a sort of superstitious reverence
for the memory of Burke, which make us shrink from the idea
of such a biography, as a kind of minor profanation. With all
our fondness for that most extraordinary of books, the Life
of Johnson, we are hardly ever at perfect ease in reading it.
There is always, even when it is most amusing, a tormenting
doubt and scruple as to the kindness, not to say the justice, of
such revelations as it contains. We are among those who think
that Homer would have done better for his gods, by leaving
them on the dim and misty heights of Ida and Olympus. What-
ever may be its historic merit, we can hardly help regarding
the Boswellian system of biography as little better than a
literary post-mortem examination. A memoir so composed,
always reminds us of one of the " preparations " in the glass
cases of an anatomical museum ; and, with a full conscious-
ness of the amount of positive information which we should
derive from it, we entertain, in our own despite, the same re-
luctance to see it tried upon any really great man, which we
should feel to see Byron's head in the hands of a phrenologist,
or Howard's heart on the demonstration-tabl^ of a dissector.

214 Edmund Burke's Correspondence. [Sept.

' This, however, is but idle speculation. All chance of such
a memoir of Burke is now at an end. His reply to Boswell's
letter (if, indeed, he wrote one) is not given in these volumes ;
but it is very unlikely that he would ever have submitted to
the unceasing persecution, the perpetual system of annoying,
though deferential, espionage, to which we owe the Life of
Johnson.

At all events, a biographer of this school would derive but
little aid from the voluminous correspondence now before us.
We have seen very few collections of letters, not purely and
entirely official, which throw less light on the purely personal
history of the writer. It is probable that the greater number
of letters regarding Burke's personal history, were anticipated
in Prior's life, and the correspondence with Dr. Laurence.
The vast majority of the present collection are political, and
addressed to political personages. Very few are literary:
scarcely one at all can be called light. If he ever relax at
all, it is seldom beyond a half-smile, and even then without
changing his general character. You recognize Hercules,
even in the slippers and embroidered gown. The very letters
addressed to his own family are political: nay, those to the
ladies of his family and acquaintance, where, at least, you
might expect the writer to be betrayed for a moment into
the chit-chat which ladies love to read, as well as to listen to.

But to the history of his public life, and that of the event-
ful times in which he lived, these volumes are a most im-
portant contribution. They range from the year 1744 to
that of his death in 1797; and though some of those years
are but scantily supplied, there are others, especially in the
latter part of his life, of which the correspondence is almost
a continuous history ; and there is one series of letters — those
addressed to, or otherwise regarding, the members of the
French royalist party after the revolution — which, in itself,
forms a complete episode in the history of that memorable
event.

It would be a very great mistake, however, to imagine that
these volumes are nothing more than a collection of letters in
the ordinary sense of the word. It is not easy to define the
characteristics of a good letter. If Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu be the model of letter-writing, these are not letters
at all; and, even were Mme. de Sevign6 to sit in judgment, a
large proportion of them would be struck oiF the list. This,
however, is but a question of name ; and whatever be their
merits as letters, we doubt whether among the twenty volumes

1844.] Edmund BurMs Correspondence. 21^

to which Burke's works have now swelled, there be any which
give so lofty an idea of his extraordinary powers. Call them
by what name you will, — ^letters, or essays, or dissertations, — ■
it is impossible to mistake the authorship. The stamp of his
genius is upon them. They could only have come forth from
that simple but stately mould which produced the " Thoughts
on the Cause of the Present Discontents," or the " Reflec-
tions on the French Revolution."

One of the defects charged upon Burke's oratory, is its
tendency to run into the form of dissertation. The same may
said of the great majority of his letters. They are almost all
philosophical essays. Not that they do not contain the or-
dinary staple of news, and speculations upon news, which are,
of course, inseparable from correspondence ; but the same
constitution of mind which imparted to his speeches, even
those upon the most exciting and engrossing topics, so much
of abstraction and generality, led him also in his letters to
speculate and generalize far more in the style of a philo-
sophical historian than of a familiar correspondent. Still,
when we speak of this as an admitted defect in his oratory,
we must not be understood to set it down as a defect, at
least to the same extent, in his letter-writing. They are very
different exercises. In a letter, no matter what may be its
subject, no one expects that unity of purpose and plan, which
is indispensable to a speech. Even supposing, what is far
from universally true, that both have the same objects — to
convince and persuade — the circumstances are, or may be, very
different. If there were no other ground of discrepancy, it is
far easier to deal with the eye than with the ear. It was
said by a shrewd observer —

" Segnius irritant animas demissa per aurem
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus:"—

and, though he used the principle for another purpose, yet
the application here is perfectly just. When Burke spoke, he
frequently had to encounter an indifferent, perhaps an adverse
audience, on whom his " deep-drawn eloquence and quaint
philosophy" were all but lost. When he wrote, he was sure
of an attentive and respectful consideration for all that fell
from his pen. He had no fear of the weary and reluctant
benches on which he so often wasted his elaborate oratory —
no consciousness that his words were to fall upon languid
ears, impatient for the close of a protracted debate, on the
stretch for the exciting call to a division, and indifferent, for

216 Edmund Burke's Corres^wndmce. [Sept.

the moment, to all other sounds beside. That to such an
audience, many of the characteristics of his oratory, and
especially its discursiveness, were ill-adapted and even un-
palatable, may be easily understood, and is fully proved by
the results. But, in his letters, he addressed himself to indi-
viduals, who, for the most part, felt as great an interest in
the subject as he did himself, and before whom, therefore, he
might give a free vent to his philosophic vein, secure, from
the very nature of the relations between them, of an anxious
and undivided attention. Hence, his very diffuseness — his
habit of tracing every thing back to first causes — his dispo-
sition to run out into every branch and subdivision of the
subject — all which, in his speeches, often bear the appearance
of an eflfort at display, in his letters lose all semblance of this
character.

And, indeed, it would hardly be possible to devise any
species of composition more fitted for the display of the varied
powers of his versatile mind. Those who have read Cicero's
exquisite letters will understand our meaning. The parallel
which has often been traced between him and Burke is
nowhere more striking or more complete. In their shorter
and more familiar letters, this is, of course, less remarkable ;
for such letters as these can hardly be characteristic ; almost
all educated men must, on such subjects, write alike. But
Cicero's more finished and elaborate letters — those to Attlcus,
and the first and fourth books AdFamiliares (to Lentulus and
Appius Pulcher), might, allowing of course for the difference
of time and circumstances, take their place among those in
the volumes before us. Who has not risen from these charm-
ing compositions with a feeling of admiration for the writer
even deeper than his orations had inspired — for his simple
yet polished style, the golden purity of his language, the
clearness of his narrative, his graphic power of description,
and, above all, the exquisite skill with which he philosophizes
on the causes, or speculates upon the result, of the events
which he describes! It is so also with those of Burke.
There is none of the productions of his pen in which his
singular felicity of illustration tells with happier effect, none
better calculated to display the copiousness and flexibility of
his style, —

" Musical as is Apollo's lyre,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets."

The reader is borne insensibly along, pleased, yet uiicon-

1844.] Edmund BurMs Correspondence. 217

sclous of the source of pleasure, and submitting his judgment
implicitly to the master-mind of the instructor, while he
imagines — so gentle is the mastery — that he is but following
the suggestions of his own undirected understanding.

We have long meditated an article on the general character
of the writings of our illustrious countryman ; but, for the
present, we must devote all our available space to the Corre-
spondence. It is not confined (as, indeed, the title itself
implies) to the letters of Burke himself. It contains those
of many other personages, most of them historical, and a large
proportion in the very highest rank of historical celebrity.
Among his correspondents are numbered several royal person-
ages— Marie Antoinette, Monsieur (afterwards Louis XVIII),
the King of Poland, and the Comte d'Artois ; almost all the
noblemen who took a part in the politics of the last century —
the Dukes of Portland, Richmond, and Buckingham, Lords
Fitzwilliam, Charlemont, Auckland, Rockingham, North;
almost all his contemporaries of any political eminence —
Franklin, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Wyndham, Sir Philip Francis ;
with a host of literary friends — Garrick, Malone, Sir William
Jones, Reynolds, Barry, &c. ; and a crowd of less distin-
guished personages, many of them known to us only through
the notices which the editors have judiciously appended. The
great majority of the letters now published " were obtained
many years ago," we are informed in the preface, " through
the kindness of the persons to whom they were addressed, or
of their representatives, in compliance with the applications
of Dr. Laurence and the Bishop of Rochester. They were
sent mostly in original, but a few in copy. Of the last, the
greater part has been compared with the originals. A few
additional letters in original have been obtained at a later
period, and a very small number are printed from corrected
drafts found amongst Mr. Burke's papers. Several letters,
both to and from Mr. Burke, have, at various times since his
death, and in various publications, been given by others to
the world, without the authority of his executors or trustees.
The rule adopted in this publication has been, not to reprint
any such letters, except in cases where their republication
was essential to the illustration of his life or character at the
period to which they belong. To the letters are added a few
short pieces, which, though incomplete, are of some interest.
Some papers written by his son, Richard Burke, are also
given in this collection." The editors. Earl Fitzwilliam and
Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Bourke, have executed their
share of the task in a manner which reflects srreat credit on

3 IS Edmund Burke's Correspondence, [Sept,

their judgment and taste. The notes are very judicious, and
just tell as much as is required for the illustration of the
letters, without burdening the page with the minute and un-
necessary details on which annotators so often love to dwell.
We have said that the letters contain comj aratively little
of his personal history. Those to his early school friend,
Richard Shackleton (a Quaker, and the son of his school-
master), are an exception. They go back as far as 1744, the
sixteenth of Burke's age; a circumstance which of course
increases the interest with which they will be read. The
following account of his early college studies will explain, to
some extent, the vast variety of knowledge which distinguished
him in maturer life.

" You ask me if I read ? I deferred answering this question,
till I could say I did ; which I can almost do, for this day I have
shook off idleness and began to buckle to. I wish I could have
said this to you, with truth, a month ago. It would have been of
great advantage to me. My time was otherwise employed. Poetry,
Sir, nothing but poetry, could go down with me ; though I have
read more than wrote. So you see I am far gone in the poetical
madness, which I can hardly master, as, indeed, all my studies have
rather proceeded from sallies of passion than from the preference
of sound reason ; and, like the nature of all other natural appetites,
have been very violent for a season, and very soon cooled, and
quite absorbed in the succeeding. I have often thought it a
humorous consideration to observe, and sum up, all the madness
of this kind I have fallen into this two years past. First, I was
greatly taken with natural philosophy; which, while I should have
given my mind to logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my
Juror mathematicus. But this worked off, as soon as I began to
read it in the college ; as men, by repletion, cast off their stomachs
all they have eaten. Then I turned back to logic and metaphysics.
Here I remained a good while, and with much pleasure, and this
was my furor logicus ; a disease very common in the days of igno-
rance, and very uncommon in these enlightened times. Next suc-
ceeded the furor historicus, which also had its day, but is now no
more, being entirely absorbed in the furor poeiicus, which (as skil-
ful physicians assure me) is as difficultly cured as a disease very
nearly akin to it; namely, the itch." — vol. i. pp.21, 22.

That there is no cause to regret his abandonment of the
last-named passion, the furor poeticus, the following specimen
(one of several equally unpromising) will be as much evidence
as we shall think ourselves warranted in submitting : —

" Soon as Aurora from the blushing skies
Bids the great ruler of the day to rise,
No longer balmy sleep my limbs detains ;

1844.] Edmund Burke's Correspondence. 219

I hate its bondage and detest its chains.

Fly ! Morpheus, fly ! and leave the foul embrace,

liCt nobler thoughts supply thy loathsome place.

By the foul river's side we take our way,

JVJiere Liffey rolls her dead dogs to the sea ;

Arrived, at length, at our appointed stand,

By waves enclosed, the margin of the land,

Where once the sea with a triumphing roar,

RoU'd his huge billows to a distant shore.

There swam the dolphins, hid in waves unseen.

Where frisking lambs now crop the verdant green.

Secured by mounds of everlasting stone,

Jt stands for ever safe, unoverthrown." — vol.i. pp. 4-6.

Among the letters connected with Burke's earlier years, is
one, which, though it bears not directly upon his own history,
yet throws so much light upon the state of Ireland at the
time, that we cannot resist the temptation of making a few
extracts from it, if it were for no other purpose than to ac-
knowledge the kindly spirit, on the part of the editors, which
seems to have dictated its insertion. It is addressed to INIr.
Hamilton, the Irish Secretary, by Chief Justice Aston, at the
close of the summer assizes, 1762; and may serve to show
how little connexion there is, or has been, between the
religious feelings of the people and the tendency to violate
the law, into which, then as now, they were occasionally
betrayed : —

"In obedience to your commands, I have the satisfaction to
assure you, that upon the strictest inquiry into the causes of the
many outrages committed in the different parts of the province of
Munster, there did not appear to me the least reason to impute
these disturbances to disaffection to his Majesty, his government,
or the laws in general ; but, on the contrary, that these disorders
really, and not colourably, took their rise from declared complaints
and grievances of a private nature ; and which, at the time of the
several tumults, were the motives avowed by the rioters themselves;
and not broached ostensibly only, when, in fact, some other cause
or expectation was the latent spring of their actions The sub-
ject matter of their grievance was chiefly such as — price of labour
too cheap — of victuals too dear — of land excessive and oppressive.
In some instances their resentment proceeded against particular
persons, from their having taken mills or bargains over the head of
another (as it is vulgarly called), and so turning out, by a consent
to an advanced price, the old tenant. Such was the nature of their
complaints : to redress these, they acted in a very open and violent
manlier j and might, I think, have fallen under the statute of 25th

220 Edmund Burkes Correspondence. [Sept.

Edward III, by carrying their schemes to such an excess, as to
magnify their crimes into a constructive treason, of levying war
against the king. But yet, daring as their proceedings were, there
was no ingredient of any previous compact against government, or,
as I may say, tlie original sin of high treason In the perpetra-
tion of these late disorders (however industriously the contrary
has been persuaded). Papist and Protestant were promiscuously
concerned: and, in my opinion, the majority of the former is with
more justice to be attributed to the odds of number in the country,
than the influence arising from the difference of principle." —
vol. i. pp. 38-40.

This important letter is followed by a very masterly, tliougli
unfinished, paper from Burke's pen on the same subject — the
origin of agrarian disturbance in Ireland. It appears to have
been written about 1768 or 1769. But as we shall hereafter
have occasion to submit many specimens of his opinions on
Irish subjects, we do not deem it necessary to offer any ex-
tract from this paper. So little has hitherto been known of
his more youthful compositions, that we are tempted to give,
in its stead, a short specimen, taken from the letters, or rather
journals, which he addressed, during his vacations (1751-52),
to his friend Shackleton, and which contain some memoranda
of the tours in the rural districts of England and Wales, in
which these law-vacations appear to have been spent. The
companion to whom he alludes, was his relative William
Burke ; and the place where their sojourn occasioned so much
speculation was Monmouth.

" "Whilst we stayed, they amused themselves with guessing the
reasons that could induce us to come amongst them; and, when we
left them, they were no less employed to discover why we went
away without effecting those purposes they had planned for us.
The most innocent scheme they guessed was that of fortune-hunt-
ing; and when they saw us quit the town without wives, then the
lower sort sagaciously judged us spies to the French king. You
will wonder that persons of no great figure should cause so much
talk; but in a town very little frequented by strangers, with very
little business to employ their bodies, and less speculation to take
up their minds, the least thing sets them in motion, and supplies
matter for their chat. What is much more odd is, that here at
Surlaine, my companion and I puzzle them as much as we did at
Monmouth; for this is a place of very great trade in making of fine
cloths, in which they employ a vast number of hands. The first
conjecture which they made was that we were authors, for they
could not fancy how any other sort of people could spend so much
of their time at books; but finding that we received from time to

1844. 1 Edmwfid Burke's Correspondence. 221

time a good many letters, they conclude us merchants; and so,
from inference to inference, they at last began to apprehend that
we were spies, from Spain, on their trade. Our little curiosity,
perhaps, cleared us of that imputation; but still the whole appears
very mysterious, and our good old woman cries, ' I believe that
you be gentlemen, but I ask no questions;' and then praises herself
for her great caution and secresy. What makes the thing still
better, about the same time we came hither arrived a little parson,
equally a stranger; but he spent a good part of his hours in shoot-
ing and other country amusements — got drunk at night, got drunk
in the morning, and became intimate with everybody in the village.
He surprised nobody: no questions were asked about him, because
he lived like the rest of the world: but that two men should come
into a strange country, and partake of none of the country diver-
sions, seek no acquaintance, and live entirely recluse, is something
so inexplicable as to puzzle the wisest heads, even that of the
parish clerk himself." — vol. i. pp. 28-9.

To those who know Burke only from his more serious and
stately compositions, trifles like these will not be uninterest-
ing. His later correspondence is of a very different stamp ;
but there is an occasional trace of the waoroish humour which
seems to have been natural to him, though it was early re-
pressed, or perhaps forgotten, in the habit of serious thought
which his extraordinary devotion to business could hardly fail to
induce. One of his letters to his school-friend, Dr. Brocklesby,
written long after he had burled himself in the anxieties of
public life, and became mixed up in all the intricacies of party
politics, breathes the same light and boyish humour. It was
written in acknowledgment of a present and a letter from his
friend, a day or two after the public fast (December 13, 1776),
which had been appointed to avert the evils of the American
war. We give it as indicating one of the peculiarities of the
writer''8 character, which appears to be but little understood.

"December 15, 1776.
" My dear Doctor, — A thousand thanks for your remembrance,
your intelligence, and your cod. The first wiU always be most grate-
ful; the second is as good as the nature of things will give us leave to
expect; the third was in high perfection, and consumed, according
to the intention of the donor, with all possible execration of un-
charitable fast and hypocritical prayer. Instead of this, we had
very charitable cheer, and very honest and sincere toasting ; and
when we drank the health of the worthy founder of the feast, I
assure you we did not dissemble. We made your cod swim in port
to your health, and to those of the few that are like you. Had the
times been very good, we must have been very intemperate; but

222 Edmund BurMs Correspondence* [Sept.

the character of the age gave us our virtue — tlmt of a small degree
of sobriety. Mrs. Burke and all here salute you.

" I am, most truly and affectionately yours,

Edm. Burke." *
— vol. ii. pp. 130-1.

In one of his letters to Shackleton, he alludes to his Essay
on the Sublime and Beautiful, which though written nearly
nine years before, was not published till 1756, and it would
appear from this letter, that his prospects were at that time
extremely unsettled ; — his designs lying " sometimes in Lon-
don, sometimes in remote parts of the country, sometimes in
France, and shortly, please God, in America." But the
fame which this publication, as well as his Vindication of
Natural Society, a very happy parody on Lord Bolingbroke's
Essays, procured for him, seems to have fixed him in this
country ; and his marriage in the following year furnished
an additional tie to home. It will be a little provoking, es-
pecially to our lady readers, that not a single letter regarding
this event, so interesting in the life of all, and especially of
literary men, is preserved in this collection ; and that the very
few fragments of his married correspondence with his wife
are not in any way characteristic.

In 1759 he connected himself in some unexplained way,
probably as secretary, with Mr. William Gerard Hamilton,
whom he accompanied when he removed to Ireland as secre-
tary of the viceroy. Lord Halifax, in 1761. Prior has given
in his Life some particulars of a difference between them re-
garding a pension of 300?., which Burke obtained partly
through his influence. The correspondence is here given at
full length, and is an eloquent lesson on the fatal conse-
quences of patronage and dependence. It ended in a disso-
lution of their connexion, and the resignation of Burke's
pension ; and it is hard not to sympathize with him in his
regrets for the loss of time and opportunity " for six of the
best years of his life," in which it had involved him. He
repines bitterly " at seeing himself left behind by almost all
his contemporaries. There never was a season more favour-
able for any man who chose to enter into the career of public
life ; and he thinks he is not guilty of ostentation in sup-
posing that his own moral character and his industry, his
friends and connexions, when Mr. H. first sought his ac-
quaintance, were not at all inferior to those of several whose

♦ There is another very amusing letter in vol. iii. p. 75.

1844.] Edmund BurMs Correspondence. 2S3

fortune at that day was upon a very different footing with hia
own."

Of the circumstances which led to his subsequent connexion
with the Marquis of Rockingham, and his return to parlia-
ment in 1765, we learn nothing that was not known before;
but from this period forth, the letters both of Burke and of
his correspondents throw a great deal of light on the private
political history of the times, especially on the affairs of
America, with which he was oflScially connected, and of India,
to Avhich he gave so much of his time. Into this branch of
the subject we do not mean to enter. But there is a series
of letters addressed to him in 1778, by the Right Honourable
Edmund Sexton Pery, speaker of the Irish House of Com-
mons, which will be read with great interest, as explaining
the views then entertained towards the Catholics of Ireland
by the more liberal party of the time. It would seem that
even then the scheme of a domestic education for the Catho-
lic clergy was seriously canvassed. Pery, among other
questions, consults Burke anxiously regarding it, but his
answer is not preserved; and the letter to Pery, already
published in his works,* though full upon other topics, has no
allusion to this branch of the enquiry. His letters to his con-
stituents on the proposed removal of the restrictions on Irish
trade, are all of the same tenor with those already published.
They reflect great credit on the integrity and firmness of the
writer; and a correspondence with the secretary of the Catho-
lics in Ireland, on the subject of a tribute of 500?. voted to him
by them in return for his exertions in their behalf, is equally
honourable to his disinterestedness. He respectfully declines
the proposed tribute ; and his letter (which is addressed to
Curry, author of the Civil Wars in Ireland) contains the
germ of that project for the freedom and security of Catholic
education, on which, as we shall hereafter see, all his affections
were fixed.

" I am glad," he says, " that you have thought of collecting some
little fund for public purposes. But if I were to venture to suggest
any thing relative to its application, I think you had better -employ
that, and whatever else can be got together for so good a purpose,
to give some aid to places of education for your own youth at home,
which is, indeed, much wanted. I mean, when the legislature
comes to be so much in its senses, as to feel that there is no good
reason for condemning a million and a half of people to ignorance,
according to act of parliament. This will be a better use of your

* Vol. ii. p. 105, royal 8vo. edition.

224s Edmund Burke's Correspondence, [Sept.

money, than to bestow it in gratuities to any persons in England ;
for those who will receive such rewards very rarely do any services
to deserve them."

His well-known devotedness to Catholic interests, and ad-
miration of Catholic institutions, drew upon liim a consider-
able share of unpopularity, and even the suspicion of being
a Papist in disguise ; and, indeed, it could hardly be wondered
that such expressions as the following, if made public, should
create that impression.

" I wish very much to see, before my death, an image of a pri-
mitive Christian Church. With little improvements, I think the
Roman Catholic Church of Ireland very capable of exhibiting that
state of things. I should not, by force, or fraud, or rapine, have
ever reduced them to their present state. God forbid ! But being
in it, I conceive that much may be made of it, to the glory of
religion, and the good of the state. If the other was willing to
hear of any amelioration, it might, without any strong, perceivable
change, be rendered much more useful. But prosperity is not apt
to receive good lessons, nor always to give them ; re-baptism you
won't allow, but truly it would not be amiss for the Christian world
to be re-christened." — iv. p. 284.*

With opinions such as these, one can hardly feel surprised
to find him, during Lord George Gordon's riots, marked out
for the vengeance of the mob. We do not recollect to have
read anywhere a more startling picture of those nights of
terror — not even in Dickens''s terrific pages — than is contained
in the following letter from his relative, Mr. Richard Burke.
It is addressed to their friend, Mr. Champion, of Bristol, one
of Burke's most sincere and faithful supporters during his
long connexion with that constituency.

"June 7, 1780, in what was London.

*#♦♦*****#» rpj^is ig tiie {o^ivih. day that
the metropolis of England (once of the world) is possessed by an
enraged, furious, and numerous enemy. Their outrages are beyond
description, and meet with no resistance. I believe, had the town
been taken by storm, more misery would have attended the first
and instant possession, but we should long since have been at least
in safety. You will, before this reaches you, have the melancholy
list of the burnings, plunderings, and devastations. This moment,
the King's Bench, New Gaol, and another prison, are (as a Surrey
magisti-ate tells me) in flames. What this night will produce is
known only to the great Disposer of all things. What it is intended
this night shall produce is, I believe, known to some who are not

* We have often thought of collecting all his opinions regarding the Catholic
reli^on: they would shew how far he was in advance of his age.

1844.] Edmund BurJce^s Correspondence. 225

known themselves. For an increase of horror, we hear that at
Bristol you are in the same way. Lancaster, we are told, is in a
similar situation. If one could in decency laugh, must not one
laugh to see what I saw, a single boy, of fifteen years at most, in
Queen Street, mounted on a pent house, demolishing a house with
great zeal, but much at his ease, and throwing the pieces to two
boys stiU younger, who burnt them for their amusement, no one
dai-ing to obstruct them. Children are plundering, at noonday, the
city of London ( !)

" Champion, my dear friend, this is the first pen I have used for
many days. We are all, thank God ! hitherto safe. Edmund,
who delivered himself with his name into their hands, is safe, firm,
and composed. Some blame him. Utcunque fervent ea fata
minores, vincit amor patrice. Jane has the firmness of an angel ;
but why do I say an angel ? — of a woman ! The house yet stands.
I rather think it will go to-night, if their other more important
objects do not divert them. The Bank is, by rumour, the great
object of this night. I may almost assure you that no plan of
defence, or much less of offence, is resolved on. May I be mis-
taken ! The magistrates have all refused to act. This night
delivers us to a furious rabble, and an army who, I fear, have but
little discipline.

" Fuimus. Adieu, my dear fiiend. Heaven save you, your
truly amiable wife, and your innocent children. Adieu again ! " — •
iii. pp. 350-52.

Burke''8 conduct on this terrible occasion, reflects the highest
honour on his courage and resolution. Though he was In-
formed of the design for the destruction of his house, and saw
with his own eyes the fatal certainty with which these furious
projects were put in execution, he not only resisted the en-
treaties of the friends who urged him to withdraw from the
city, but he boldly presented himself to the mob, informing
them who he was, and remonstrating with them on their
wickedness and folly. He concurs, however, In the judgment
which most of the later historians of the event have expressed,
that though some of the mob were malignant and fanatical,
** the greater part of those he saw were rather dissolute and
unruly than very ill-disposed."

There are several letters to and fi'om Sir William Jones ;
several also from the poet Crabbe, Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Shakespeare Malone, and from other literary characters of
the time. One of Sir William Jones''s (vol. li. p. 456), dis-
plays in its full force that disinterested love of literature by
which he was afterwards distinguished. But we must pass
over these, and several others on literary subjects, to come to

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIII. 15

226 Edmund Burke's Correspondence. [Sept.

what was the crisis of Burke's fortunes, both in literature and
in politics — the French revolution. We shall allude only to
one circumstance, which, indeed, it can hardly be necessary
now to record— his formal and authoritative contradiction of
the statement that he was the author of Junius. Several of
the letters refer to this report ; but there is one, in which, to
clear away all doubt which might have hung around his former
denial, he "gives his word and honour that he is not the
author of Junius, and that he does not know the author of
that paper," and gives full authority to his correspondent to
declare so.

We cannot be expected to go into any of the particulars of
the history of the revolution. These letters throw a great
deal of light on a portion of it, regarding which but little was
hitherto known — the history of the emigrant royal family, and
of the devoted few who attached themselves to their fortunes.
For us, however, there are few documents more interesting
than the following letter of our countryman (at least by
descent), the Abbe Edgeworth :

" You are undoubtedly surprised, my dear and honoured friend,
that, whilst the clergy of France are flocking to England for shelter
and support, I should remain here, amidst the ruins of this afflicted,
persecuted Church. Indeed, I often wished to fly to that land of
true liberty and solid peace, and to share with others at your hos-
pitable board, where to be strangers and in distress is a sufficient
title. But Almighty God has baffled all my measures, and ties me
down to this land of horrors, by chains which I have not liberty to
shake off. The case is, the Malheureux Maitre charges me not to
quit the country, for that I am the person he intends to employ to
prepare him for death, in case the iniquity of the nation should
commit that last act of cruelty and parricide. In these circum-
stances, I must endeavour to prepare myself too for death; for I am
convinced that popular rage will not allow riie to survive one hour
after that tragic act. But I am resigned: my life is of no conse-
quence; the preservation of it, or the shedding of my blood, is not
connected with the happiness or misery of millions. Could my life
save him, ' qui positus est in ruinam et resurrectionem mtdtorum,'
I should willingly lay it down, and should not then die in vain.
' Fiat voluntas tua!' Receive the unfeigned assurance, perhaps
for the last time, of my respect and affection for you, which I hope
even death shall not destroy." — vol. iv. pp. 109-10.

Burke's house at Beconsfield was open for the reception
of the friendless victims of popular fury, who, during
those years of horror, crowded to the shores of England.
He was the guiding spirit of all those laws for their pro-
tection and relief which originated at this period, and re-

1844.] Edmund Burke^s Correspondence. 227

fleet so much credit on the benevolence and liberality of tbe
British public. His pen, his purse, and his hand, were ever
ready at the call of distress ; and he appears to have inspired
his son with all his own zeal and fervour in their cause. The
letters addressed to this lamented young man, during his
mission to the royal family of France at Coblentz, and his own
frequent and ample reports on the progress of the negociations,
are, in a historical point of view, among the most important
in the entire collection.

With Burke, devotion to the cause of the royal family of
France had become an absolute passion ; and the rupture with
his early friends and colleagues, to which it led, is an evidence
of the extent to which it engaged all his feelings. The reader
will be disappointed in not finding almost any reference to
this unhappy quarrel in these letters, much less a full ex-
planation of its origin and progress. From the first symptom
of disaffection in the debate upon the army estimates, in
February 1790, to the memorable 6th of May 1791, when
Fox wept over the memory of their past friendship, we find
hardly an allusion to the quarrel ; a clear proof, if any indeed
were wanting, how little of premeditation there was in Burke's
conduct throughout the unhappy affair.

The truth is, that he threw himself into the cause with all
his characteristic impetuosity, at first thoughtless, and after-
wards reckless, of the consequences to which this violence
eventually led. We can see this in his entire conduct ; and
the length to which his feelings carried him, may be gathered
from the incident related by Mr. Curwen, of his stopping the
carriage and insisting upon being set instantly down, as soon
as he discovered that Curwen did not side with him on the
question which lay so near his heart. There is a great deal
of the same impetuosity in the following passage, regarding
the Coryphfeus of the revolution, Mirabeau. It is from a
letter in which, after expressing, in most impassioned terms,
his unbounded admiration of Maury's genius, his eloquence,
and, above all, his devotedness to the cause of loyalty and
religion, he offers him a refuge in his house from the daiigers
which were then daily thickening around him. He thinks it
necessary to offer an apology for inviting the abbe to a house
which had once been desecrated by the presence of Mirabeau ;

" I have had the Count de Mirabeau in my house ; will he
[Maury] submit afterwards to enter under the same roof ? I will
have it purified and expiated, and I shall look into the best formulas
from the time of Homer downwards, for that purpose. I will do
everything but imitate the Spaniard, who burned his house because

228 Edmund Burkes Correspondence. [Sept.

the Connetable de Bourbon had been lodged in it. That ceremony
is too expensive for my finances ; anything else I shall readily
submit to for its purification; for I am extremely superstitious,
and think his coming into it was of evil augury ; worse, a great
deal, than the crows, which the Abbe will find continually flying
about me. It is his having been in so many prisons in France
that has proved so ominous to them all. Let the Hall of the
National Assembly look to itself, and take means of averting the
same ill auspices that threaten it. They are a fine nation that send
their monarchs to prison, and take their successors from the jails !
The birth of such monsters has made me as superstitious as Livy.
A friend of mine, just come from Paris, tells me he was present
when the Count de Mirabeau — I beg his pardon, M. Ricquetti
[Mirabeau's family name] — thought proper to entertain the assem-
bly with his opinion of me. I only answer him by referring him
to the world's opinion of him. I have the happiness not to be dis-
approved by my sovereign. I can bear the frowns of Ricquetti

the first, who is theirs To be the subject of M. Ricquetti's

invectives and of Abb6 Maury's approbation at the same time, is
an honour to which little can be added. Mirabeau, in his jail,
would be an object of my pity ; on his throne (which by the sport
of fortune, may be the reward of what commonly leads to what I
don't choose to name), he is the object of my disdain. For vice is
never so odious, and, to rational eyes, never so contemptible, as
when it usurps and disgraces the natural place of virtue ; and
virtue is never more amiable to all who have a true taste for beauty,
than when she is naked, and stripped of all the borrowed ornaments
of fortune."— vol. iii. pp. 199, 200.

Connected with this part of the subject, there is a most
interesting correspondence with Sir Philip Francis, in which
both parties appear to have spoken with great unreservedness
and freedom. Burke, it would seem, sent to his friend the
])roof-sheets of his Reflections on the Revolution in France^ as
they were passing through the press. Francis's answer is a
long letter, containing very free strictures both upon the
style and the matter of the work. We cannot find room for
any lengthened extracts from either, but it would be unpardon-
able to omit Burke's defence of the well-known passage on the
ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. It is plain that the whole
soul of the writer is in the words which burst from him, in
his indignant scorn of the criticism of his correspondent :

"Am I obliged to prove juridically the virtues of all those I
shall see suffering every kind of wrong, and contumely, and risk of
life, before I endeavour to interest others in their sufferings, and
before I endeavour to excite horror against midnight assassins at
back-stairs, and their more wicked abettors in pulpits ? What ! —
Are not high rank, great splendour of descent, great personal

1844.] Edmund BurMs Correspondence. 229

elegance and outward accomplishments, ingredients of moment in
forming the interest we take in the misfortunes of men ? The
minds of those who do not feel thus, are not even systematically
right. ' What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should
weep for her ?' — Why, because she was Hecuba, the queen of Troy,
— the wife of Priam, — and suffered, in the close of life, a thousand
calamities ! I felt too for Hecuba, when I read the fine tragedy
of Eui'ipides upon her story ; and I never enquired into the anec-
dotes of the court or city of Troy, before I gave way to the senti-
ments which the author wished to inspire; — nor do I remember
that he ever said one word of her virtue. It is for those who
applaud or palliate assassination, regicide, and base insult to Avomen
of illustrious place, to prove the crimes (in sufferings) which they
allege to justify their own." — vol. iii. pp. 137-8.

And to Sir Philip's charge of "foppery," against his lament
for the departed chivalry of the country which could now
look tamely on such scenes as these, he replies :

" Pray, why is it absurd in me to think, that the chivalrous
spirit which dictated a veneration for women of condition and of
beauty, without any consideration whatever of enjoying them, was
the great source of those manners which have been the pride and
ornament of Europe for so many ages ? And am I not to lament
that I have lived to see those manners extinguished in so shocking
a manner, by means of speculations of finance, and the false science
of a sordid and degenerate philosophy? I tell you again, — that the
recollection of the manner in which I saw the queen of France, in
the year 1774, and the contrast between that brilliancy, splendour,
and beauty, with the prostrate homage of a nation to her, — and the
abominable scene of 1789, which I was describing, — did draw tears
from me, and wetted my paper. These tears came again into my
eyes, almost as often as I looked at the description ; they may again.
You do not believe this fact, nor that these are my real feelings ;
but that the whole is affected, or, as you express it, downright
foppery. My friend, I tell you it is truth ; and that it is true, and
will be truth, when you and I are no more ; and will exist as long
as men with their natural feelings shall exist. I shall say no more
on this foppery of mine." — vol. iii. pp. 138-9.

These, and similar passages, both in this collection of
letters, and in tlie works already published, might lead one
to suppose that his views on the subject of France were
merely the result of feeling and imagination. This, however,
we need hardly say, would be a grievous mistake. There
is abundant evidence in the correspondence before us, that he
was fully cognizant of all the defects and corruptions of the
ancien regime In France, though he entertained a natural
horror of the sanguinary revulsion by which it was sought.

230 Edmund BnrMi Correspondence. [SciDt.

not to purge the constitution of its accumulated impurities,
but to annihilate it altogether, and, with it, all the religious
and social institutions which had grown up under its shadow.
The communications to his son, during his mission to Cob-
lentz, are full of instructions and hints for his guidance ; and
from these it is quite clear that he contemplated a thorough
reform of the French constitution. He expressly declares it
as his opinion that the royal manifesto which it was intended
to publish, would be " dangerously defective," unless it con-
tained a distinct promise " to secure, when the monarchy as
the essential basis shall be restored, along with the monarchy
a free constitution." He requires that they shall pledge them-
selves to call a meeting of the states, freely chosen according to
the ancient legal order, to vote the abolition of all lettres de
cachet, and other means of arbitrary imprisonment ; that all
taxation shall be by the states conjointly with the king ; that
there shall be a fixed responsibility in the use and application
of the public revenues ; that there shall be a synod of the
Church of France to reform all real abuses ; and that all the
friends of the monarchy shall solemnly bind themselves to
support with their lives and fortunes those conditions, and
that order which can alone support a free and vigorous go-
vernment. For his own part, he declares, that though he
doubts not he should prefer the old course, or almost any
other, to " this vile chimera, and sick man's dream of go-
vernment," yet he could not go with a good conscience to the
re-establishment of a monarchical despotism in the place of
the existing system of anarchy.

We have reserved for the last place what in our eyes is
the most interesting portion of the entire correspondence ;
that which contains his opinions on the condition of the
Catholics of these countries, and especially on the relations of
the Catholic Church in Ireland to the state. His general
views on these topics are sufficiently contained in the works
and letters already published, especially his letters to Sir
Hercules Langrishe, Mr. Smith, and "to a noble lord on
the penal laws affecting Roman Catholics." But they are here
found more in detail than in any previous publication. There
are several most admirable letters on the general question of
Catholic claims, addressed to certain members of a Scottish
Protestant association ; but the series to which we chiefly
refer, are those to the Rev. Dr. Hussey, the first president of
St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and afterwards named bishop
of Waterford, a few months before the death of Edmund

1644.] Edmund BurJce's Correspondence. 231

Burke. This eminent ecclesiastic was for many jears at-
tached to the Spanish embassy in London, and having been
employed in a diplomatic mission to Spain, of considerable
difficulty and importance, he enjoyed for a long time the
familiar acquaintance of many of the leading political per-
sonages of his day. With Burke he was upon terms of most
intimate, and even tender friendship ; and their correspond-
ence evinces the most perfect mutual confidence and good
feeling. When the project of the establishment of a college
for the domestic education of the Irish clergy was first
mooted. Dr. Hussey, who was deeply interested in it, main-
tained a most careful and anxious surveillance over all the
successive steps in the progress of the measure. He con-
sulted Burke upon them all, and seems to have delivered his
opinions with the utmost unreservedness and familiarity.
Their correspondence extends back as far as 1790; but the
portion to which we refer, is contained in the fourth volume,
and commences with the year 1795, when Dr. Hussey was in
Ireland, engaged in the negotiations for the establishment of
the college. We shall make no apology for extracting largely
from these letters ; nor do we think it necessary to offer much
commentary of our own. The following is from a letter dated
March 17 — fitting day for such a theme — the festival of our
national saint.

" It is my poor opinion, that if the necessary money is given to
your own free disposal, (that is, to the disposal of the Catholic
prelates), that it ought to be readily and thankfully accepted, from
whatever hand it comes. It is my equally clear opinion, that they
ought not only to consent, but to desire, that an account of the
expenditure, with proper vouchers, should be annually or bien-
nially, according to convenience, laid before a committee of the
House of Commons, to prevent the very suspicion of jobbing, to
which all public institutions in Ireland are liable. All other inter-
ference whatever, if I were in the place of these reverend persons,
I would resist ; and would much rather trust to God's good provi-
dence, and the contributions of your own people, for the education
of your clergy, than to put into the hands of your known, avowed,
and implacable enemies — into the hands of those who make 'it their
merit and their boast that they are your enemies — the very foun-
tains of your morals and your religion. I have considered this
matter at large, and at various times, and I have considered it in
relation to the designs of your enemies. The scheme of these
colleges, as you well know, did not originate from them ; but they
will endeavour to pervert the benevolence and liberality of others
into an instrument of their own evil purposes. Be well assured

232 Edmund BarMs Correspondence. [Sept.

that they never did, and that they never will consent, to give one
shilling of money lor any other purpose than to do you mischief; if
you consent to put your clerical education, or any other part of
your education, under their direction or control, then you will have
sold your religion for their money. There will be an end, not only
of the Catholic religion, but of all religion, all morality, all law, and
all order, in that unhappy kingdom." — vol. iii. p. 298-9.

His apprehensions happily proved groundless. He himself
lived to see the college established on a basis which, though
miserably inadequate to the wants of the country, yet secured,
and still secures, the complete independence of its educational
system. For the few years during which Burke survived
its foundation, he continued to take a warm and active inte-
rest in its progress ; and the library still possesses several of
the books of his beloved son Richard, presented by the be-
reaved father through his friend and correspondent, the Rev.
Dr. Hussey.

On the necessity of a separate education for the Catholic
clergy, his opinions were very stern and decided; and he
entertained the strongest repugnance to any attempt at
associating the new college with the Dublin University, or
rendering it in any way subject to its control.

" You are to judge of their plans and views by the act of parlia-
ment which they passed a year or two ago, when they took off the
penalties on your keeping schools. They put any schools you
might have in future under the direction of the College of Dublin.
Probably a more contumelious insult was never added to a cruel
injury, from the beginning of the world to this hour. I believe
I revere the College of Dublin as much as any man, and am sure
a better inspection over schools belonging to our Church could not
be provided. But it is neither fit nor decent that they should have
any meddling whatever with your places of education. I say no-
thing of the other parts of that act, which are all in the same spirit,
or worse.

" Consider, before you put your seminaries under the direction
of those enemies of yours who call themselves Protestants, the
manner in which they conduct themselves with regard to the schools
that belong to the religion they pretend themselves to believe in.
I have put the report concerning those schools into your hands.
You know what to think of it. You know what to think of the
charter schools. You remember the mention you made of them in
your sermon on St. Patrick's day, when my dear son and I heard
you. You did not scruple the more to do them justice, because
Lord Westmeath, as well as some other gentlemen, zealous for the
Protestant ascendancy, were among your auditors. If schools of

1844.] Edmund BurMs Correspondence. 233

their own are so managed by them, think of what must become of
yours in such hands." — pp. 301-2.

The grounds on which he argues for the propriety, and
indeed necessity, of educating the clerical student apart from
those who are destined for secular occupations, will be con-
sidered very remarkable in one who was not a Catholic.
They imply a sense of the fitness of things, which gives us a
higher idea of Burke's sagacity and power of comprehending
all the bearings of every subject, than almost anything we
have ever read from his pen.

" When we are to provide for the education of any body of men,
we ought seriously to consider the particular functions they are to
perform in life. A Roman Catholic clergyman is the minister of a
very ritual religion : and by his profession subject to many re-
straints. His life is a life fuU of strict observances, and his duties
are of a laborious nature towards himself, and of the highest pos-
sible trust towards others. The duty of confession alone is suffi-
cient to set in the strongest light the necessity of his having an
appropriated mode of education. The theological opinions and
peculiar rights of one religion never can be properly taught in
universities, founded for the purposes and on the principles of
another, which in many points are directly opposite. If a Roman
Catholic clergyman, intended for celibacy, and the function of con-
fession, is not strictly bred in a seminary where these things are
respected, inculcated, and enforced, as sacred, and not made the
subject of derision and obloquy, he will be iU fitted for the former,
and the latter will be, indeed, in his hands a terrible instrument.

" There is a great resemblance between the whole frame and
constitution of the Greek and Latin Churches. The secular clergy,
in the former, by being married, living imder little restraint, and
having no particular education suited to their function, are univer-
sally fallen into such contempt, that they are never permitted to
aspire to the dignities of their own Church. It is not held respect-
able to call them papas, their true and ancient appellation, but
those who wish to address them with civility, always call them
hieromonachi. In consequence of this disrespect, which I venture
to say, in such a Church, must be the consequence of a secular life,
a very great degeneracy from reputable Christian manners has
taken place throughout almost the whole of that great member of
the Christian Church.

" It was so with the Latin Church before the restraint on mar-
riage. Even that restraint gave rise to the greatest disorders,
before the Council of Trent, which, together with the emulation
raised, and the good examples given, by the reformed Churches,
wherever they were in view of each other, has brought on that
happy amendment, which we see in the Latin communion, both at
home and abroad.

29i Edmund BurMs Correspondence. [Sept.

" The Council of Trent has wisely introduced the discipline of
Seminaries, by which priests are not trusted for a clerical institu-
tion, even to the severe discipline of their colleges ; but, after they
pass through them, are frequently, if not for the greater part,
obliged to pass through peculiar methods, having theiv particular rituar
function in view. It is in a great measure to this, and to similar
methods used in foreign education, that the Roman Catholic clergy
of Ireland, miserably provided for, living among low and ill regu-
lated people, without any discipline of sufficient force to secure
good manners, have been prevented from becoming an intolerable
nuisance to the country, instead of being, as they generally are, a
very great service to it." — vol. i. p. 540.

There is a great deal of shrewd common sense in the test,
by which he purposes to try the motives of those who clamour
for control over the Irish Catholic clergy.

" You will naturally ask those politicians who are so desirous of
regulating your ecclesiastical affairs, one plain question : — Wliy,
when they gave, about three years ago, a no smaller sum than five
thousand pounds a year to the dissenting ministers, they never
reserved to themselves any share in the inspection or control of
that body to which they gave that donation ? Ask them another :
— Why they did not secure to themselves some share in the election
or approbation of their ministry, when they would fain arrogate to
themselves a large share in the approbations of yours ? They can
give no answer but this : — That they fear them, and they despise
you — that they look on the Dissenters as good subjects, in whom
they can trust; and that they look upon you as under a just sus-
picion of being traitors, over whom they must hold a strict hand
and a careful watch. The gentlemen of the Catholic clergy know
whether, by their future actions, they are to countenance a conduct
on the part of power, which can be defended only on the one or the
other of the above suppositions, or, indeed, only by both these
suppositions together." — pp. 303-4.

The above allusion to the loyalty of the Catholics of Ire-
land reminds us of a passage which we had marked for
extract at an earlier page of this paper, but which, even
through late, we deem not undeserving of insertion. It is a
letter of George Goold, Esq. grandfather of the present Sir
George Goold, addressed to Burke in 1781, at the time when
the rumours of French invasion were rife throughout the
country. It is one of the many proofs (in great part lost to
history) which our fathers, despite of every provocation to
disloyalty, never failed to give of their too-confiding and ill-
requited fidelity: —

" You no doubt have known our alarm must be much, from an
apprehension of our being visited by the French in this city. Sir

1 844.1 Edmund Burke^s Correspondence. S35

John Irwine, commander-in-chief, came down here on the occasion.
One of his aides-de-camp came to me a few days since, reporting
that Sir John had been in much distress for money, as apprehen-
sion had run among the people, and he could not find guineas for
Latouche's paper. I answered him that I was singularly happy to
have it in my power some supply. I gave him about five hundred
guineas, and desired his informing Sir John, I would give to him
my last guinea, and support his majesty's service, &c. The next
morning I had General Baugh and Lord Ross, to announce Sir
John's feelings at my doing this. They (that is, the general) wanted
some guineas, and such 1 gave him. A day or two after, I had
a message from the general by his aide-de-camp, to know if I could
supply them with money for his majesty's services. I answered
him by letter, and he, in consequence, sent me that of the 13th,
which I beg leave to send you. My interview with Sir John was
on the 10th, and, I find, my word was conveyed by Sir John's
letter to Lord Carlisle. The letter I received this day has been
in consequence. Yesterday morning, I paid to Captain James
Allen, five thousand guineas. My letter has been sent to Dublin, and
probably may go further. Hence, you see, a Roman Catholic stepped
forth in the hour of danger to support the government, when others
would not risk a guinea. Your sense of us is, in this small in-
stance, proved. I am singularly happy to have had in my power
the doing what I have done ; and I hope our legislators will see
that there are not a people more steady in this quarter, nor a people
that less merit a rod of severity, by the laws, than we. I took in
my fellow-subjects in my report, at the time when I took every
shilling in advance on my own shoulders."

But we must cease our extracts; and we do so with
extreme reluctance, for there is much more to which we
should gladly call the attention of the reader. We repeat
our conviction, that the volumes which have been so long
withheld from the public will prove among the most popular
in tlie entire series of the works of our distinguished country-
man. It is not a little curious, that he himself seems to have
foreseen, very early in his life, the interest which would one
day attach to his letters. " Let us once get a reputation by
our writings," says he to his friend Shackleton, "and our
letters shall at once become most valuable pieces, and all their
faults be construed into beauties." We shall only add, in
conclusion, that we know few compositions which have less
need of this indulgence, few which require less to draw upon
what Pope considered the great advantage of a literary repu-
tation— "the privilege of saying foolish things unnoticed."
It is a singular evidence of the originality of Burke''s mind,
and the vast extent of its resources, that in this enormous

236 Church and State. [Sept.

mass of correspondence, written by fits and starts, and under
every variety of circumstances, oftentimes, of necessity, hasty
and imperfectly digested, and almost always, in a greater or
less degree, careless and unprepared, there is hardly a page
that does not sustain a reputation which is al.nost without a
rival in the literature of England.

Art. IX. — The Anglican Church the Creature and Slave of the
State; in a series of Lectures delivered before the Academy
of the Catholic Religion (Dublin). By the Rev. P. Cooper,
of the Church of the Conception, Dublin. London: 1844.

THE present condition of the Anglican Church makes
every question relating to her, at this moment, a subject
of serious interest. It is true that the movement of contro-
versy is gradually carrying it into a totally new sphere. Those
who are now guiding it are enabling us to dispense, at least,
in arguing with them, with much that used to form the staple
of controversy. Their concessions are so ample and so ex-
plicit, that we may now assume much which before formed
tedious preliminaries to more vital questions. When it is
freely granted that the Reformation was " a sin,"" that it is
an object of hatred, that it was unjustifiable, that it introduced
a gospel, which was no gospel at all ; when every circum-
stance connected with its rise, progress, and effects is heartily
and unreservedly condemned, it would appear that the whole
territory of historical discussion is at once given up; and that
so far as relates to facts, we are standing upon neutral ground.
Even mere dogmatical disputation has been drawn into very
narrow compass, if it can be said at all to remain between
ourselves and those whose opinions in the Church of England
now interest us most. We hardly know where we should begin
to argue our matters of doctrine with Mr. Ward, or with the
authors of the Lives of English Saints. Though there are
inaccuracies, no doubt, in the theological statements of both,
they are clearly not the result of ])rinciples wilfully opposed
to Catholic teaching. No ; our differences have now assumed
another aspect, and a far more practical tendency. It is a
question of duty and of action that now forms the knot of
our difficulties — the quid agendum? not the quid sentiendum?
that keeps up separation.

Still there are many who are yet entangled in old preju-

1844. J Church and State, 237

dices, many who are yet attached to the " pure and apostolic""
view of the English establishment, and believe its origin
heavenly, and its presence a blessing ; who still nurse up
venerable antipathies to the Pope and popery, and stick to
the "thirty-nine" with earnest fidelity. For these it is
necessary to go repeatedly over the same ground, and to re-
argue the ancient cause, historical and controversial.

The work before us comes in opportunely for this purpose.
It contemplates, we think, a middle state between the older
heads of dispute, and the more urgent one to which we have
alluded. It takes its position usefully and well at the point
of transition. It is based on the view presented by the
earlier Tracts for the Times, of the relative position between
Church and State, of the independence of the former from the
latter in matters ecclesiastical. From that standing many of
the designers and executors of the plan proposed in the Tracts,
have gone forward in their truth-seeking direction, and
they certainly cannot be held responsible any longer for
opinions which fall infinitely short of what they now openly
profess. We are sure that many Anglicans of note will
agree in all that Mr. Cooper has written on the disgraceful
surrender by the Reformed Church of her noblest rights, at
the bidding of kingly and queenly tyrants, and will deplore
the utter powerlessness of that Church now, for carrying on
the most solemn duties and affairs of a Church, partly at
least in consequence of its thraldom. Certainly no one can
read Mr. Ward's most remarkable book (which considerations
of a serious character have withheld us from reviewing at this
present) without seeing in every page a readiness to acknow-
ledge the fallen and trammelled state of the English Church.

But there are many no less, who, like and with Mr. Palmer,
have lingered behind, and still claim for their idol, the English
Church, all the veneration and homage bestowed upon her in
her most palmy days. They still consider her immaculate
in every word and deed, from her origin till now. They
hold her birth to be divine ; her claims to apostolicity, nay,
to catholicity, complete ; the State had no part in calling her
into being, and has never received from her any submission
or exercised influence, save in such matters as belono; of riorht
to the temporal rulers of every Christian country ; and she is
perfectly spiritual and undefiled by secular influence in the
construction of her formularies, and the transmission of her
orders.

This view the work before us meets boldly ; its object is

238 Church and State. [Sept.

to prove that from the beginning the English Church has
been, and is "the creature and slave of the state." It is thus
a valuable addition to our controversial literature ; for it does
ample justice to the subject which it undertakes. It traces,
step by step, the strange history of the alliance between the
State and its creature, the Anglican Church ; and the mixture
or combination of patronage and tyranny which constituted
that alliance. It shows us the Church, when withdrawn from
the pretended thraldom to a foreign prelate, and placed under
the high protection of national authority, to become " the free
Church of a free people," fall into a slavery the most com-
plete both of word and action, gagged and fettered, pro-
hibited alike from pronouncing on matters of doctrine and
from enforcing laws of discipline. Mr. Cooper's work may
thus be divided into two parts. The three first lectures are
occupied with tracing the history of Anglican slavery with
respect to doctrinal teaching. Commencing with " the legis-
lative view of the subject," the learned author shews that,
by the joint enactments of the civil and the ecclesiastical
legislative assemblies, the Church is bound hand and foot to
the throne, and acknowledges her total dependence on the
temporal power, not merely in matters administrative, such
as the feudal times would have exacted, but in all matters
purely religious and ecclesiastical. Whatever power the
Pope possessed in Catholic times was spontaneously surren-
dered by the Church of England (so far as words could do
it) into the hands of the sovereign. Of all this, abundant
evidence is brought forward by Mr. Cooper.

We next have the history of " the Act of Submission," by
which the unhappy clergy of England put their necks under
the foot of the arch- tyrant Henry. The consequences of this
disgraceful proceeding are detailed in the third lecture, from
Protestant authorities ; they consist in the rendering of con-
vocation utterly dependent upon the civil power, unable to
meet, to deliberate, or to pronounce, without, at every step,
a regal sanction. And even then, high legal authority has
pronounced that its canons or decrees are not binding on the
legislature. So that when the royal power has put the rod
into the Church's hands, and bid it strike, it is only on con-
dition that the blow falls on its own body I

We next proceed to the contemplation of " the Church as
an executive," but no less " the slave of the state." (Lect. iv.)
This portion of the subject introduces us to " the Church
Courts of England ;" and first to that monstrous offspring of

1844.] Church and State. 239

the tyrannical Reformation — *' the Court of High Commis-
sion ;" a tribunal almost exclusively composed of lay men,
yet empowered to exercise the highest ecclesiastical jurisdic-
tion, even amounting to deposition, over bishops themselves.
Dr. Cardwell has attempted to trace this extraordinary tri-
bunal to a Catholic source ; by considering it a copy of what
Queen Mary had previously done, by her " general," and her
" special, commissions." But Mr. Cooper goes fully into this
question, and solidly and thoroughly vindicates the unrivalled
and unenviable claims of Protestantism to the conception and
formation of the grossest usurpation ever attempted by any
sovereign of purely ecclesiastical rights. And at the same
time he vindicates Dr. Lingard from the unjust charge made
against him by Dr. Cardwell, for the purpose of supporting
his own views. This discussion occupies a considerable por-
tion of the fifth lecture ; and the following one is taken up
with the consideration of the frightful cruelties which this
iniquitous tribunal was the instrument of inflicting upon the
poor oppressed Catholics.

The three remaining Lectures treat of succeeding Eccle-
siastical Courts in England ; their past condition, their present
state, and their future prospects. Into this portion of the
work, we regret that our prescribed limits do not allow us to
enter. We must content ourselves with recommending our
readers to peruse the entire volume, as we are sure they will
derive satisfaction and instruction from it. Our author is
ever scrupulously exact in alleging proofs for everything he
asserts, and makes good every step from Protestant authorities.
He has given us a valuable addition to our controversial stores,
by compiling and condensing much historical matter upon the
particular topic which he has selected. We trust, therefore,
that this is not the last work that we shall have from his pen,
but that we shall soon find him actively engaged in some
other matter of research, to which we doubt not he will do
equal justice.

This brief review of Mr. Cooper's work opens to us the
consideration of another subject, naturally connected with it.
His Lectures were read to a society wisely formed by the
clergy of the archdiocese of Dublin, on the model of the Roman
Academy of Catholic Religion. The object of both is to hear
papers read on subjects illustrating or defending the doctrines
or practices of the Catholic Church, whether from historical,
scientific, or literary sources. The Dublin Academy is clearly
a most valuable institution; and its creation reflects the

240 Catholic Literary Societies. [Sept.

highest credit on the intelligent and exemplary clergy who
compose it, and on the enlightened and venerable prelate
who has so cheerfully encouraged and patronized it. Those
who are acquainted with the labourious duties discharged by
the parochial clergy of Dublin, will indeed aimire the spirit
and good taste that lead them to seek relief and recreation
in literary pursuits, and to unbend their minds in that " feast
of reason and flow of soul," which is to be found in such
instructive meetings as those of the Academy of Catholic
Religion. We hope to see the example followed everywhere,
and similar societies established in every district in Ireland,
and in every diocese of Great Britain.

But our wishes would aspire higher still. While England
and Ireland are overrun with societies, literary, philosophical,
statistical, archaeological, medical, agricultural, bibliographical,
and architectural ; while the Surtees, the Roxburgh, the
-^Ifric, the Cambden, the Parker, the Bannatyne, the Ab-
botsford, and countless other societies, are publishing rare
and curious works of ancient times ; and while all and every
of these are mainly administered by Protestants, and too often
pay but little regard to the feelings of even their own Catholic
members, why should not we all unite to form one general
Catholic society, directed to promote the interests of truth by
means of every other branch of science ? Monthly meetings
might be held both in London and in other large towns, to
read papers upon any subject bearing on the interests and the
beauties of the Catholic religion, and a yearly meeting at
some principal town, in rotation, would afford an opportunity
of bringing Catholics together, and entertaining them use-
fully for a few days with topics calculated to interest and
instruct them. And as now almost every year presents the
attraction of some great and splendid church being opened in
some part of England, what would be more appropriate and
more beneficial than to select the time and place in accord-
ance with any such event? Experience has shewn how at-
tracted our people are by it, and how eagerly they listen to
accounts there presented them of the progress of our sacred
cause.

The machinery of the Catholic Institute could, in these days
of peace, be made subservient to such an object. Through it
members could be enrolled, and branch societies organized,
and persons engaged to supply the matter for local and
general meetings. A little energy and zeal would soon dis-
cover a great amount of talent, not rendered as yet available,
and brinor it into exertion.

1844.] Catholic Literary Societies. 241

As it is. Catholics are driven to seek for that solace and
instruction which such associations give, to bodies which,
even when they profess impartiality, shew themselves strongly
biassed against us, (as the Historical Camden Society lately
did by the publication of Mr. "Wright's letters on the sup-
pression of monasteries, noticed in this Review), or are even
framed for purposes of which a Catholic cannot conscien-
tiously approve.

We have before us an inedited document bearing upon this
subject, which we are sure our readers will feel interested in
perusing. The Cambridge Camden Society was pleased to
elect as a member a distinguished Catholic peer of France,
one who has always boldly stood in the breach whenever
religion has been assailed by the government of his country,
and who lately more particularly was the bold champion of the
rights of conscience in the great University question. The
following is a letter addressed by him in consequence to a
learned member of that society, well known by his works. It
bears the stamp of that warm zeal and bold declaration which
have ever distinguished all his generous efforts in the cause
of truth. If these require apology, he has been careful him-
self to make it ; nor will we venture to change or modify
what he has written, beyond admitting one or two verbal
corrections. The Saxon blood in his veins will shew itself in
the accuracy and energy of his English. This letter too has
no small reference to the main topic of this article.

^^ Funchal {Madeira), February 20<A, 1844.

To the Rev. Member of the Cambridge Camden Society.

*' The Camden Society having done me the unsolicited and
unmerited honour of placing my name among its honorary mem-
bers, I feel not only authorized, but conscientiously obliged to
speak out what I inwardly think of its efforts and object : and I
am happy to be able to do so, in addressing myself, not only to one
of its most influential members, but to one for whom I feel a most
lively sympathy,^ on account of his talent, science, courage, and,
indeed, of every thing except what the Church which I believe
to be infallible, reproves in him.

" I first thought that the Camden Society was merely a scientific
body, pursuing an object which, like all branches of history, is of
the utmost importance to religion, and to which all religious minds
could associate, but like the French Comite historique, not setting
up the flag of any special ecclesiastical denomination. On a nearer
study of your publications, I have perceived that they are carried
on, with the professed intention of blending together the interests
VOL. xvn. — NO. XXXIII. 1 6

242 Catholic Literary Societies. [Sept.

of Catholic art and of the Church of England, and of identifying
the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages in England with the An-
glican schism begun by Henry VIII and Cranmer, and professed at
present by all those who agree to the Thirty-nine Articles. Against
this intention, I, as an honorary member of the said society, beg to
enter my most earnest and most Catholic protest. First, and prin-
cipally, I protest against the most unwarranted and most unjusti-
fiable assumption of the name of Catholic by people and things
belonging to the actual Church of England. It is easy to take up
a name, but it is not so easy to get it recognized by the world and
by competent authority. Any man, for example, may come out
to Madeira and call himself a Montmorency or a Howard, and even
enjoy the honour and consideration belonging to such a name, till
the real Montmorencys or Howards hear about it, and denounce
him, and then such a man would be justly scouted from society,
and fall down much lower than the lowliness from which he had
attempted to rise. The attempt to steal away from us and ap-
propriate to the use of a fraction of the Church of England that
glorious title of Catholic, is proved to be an usurpation by eveiy
monument of the past and present ; by the coronation oath of your
sovereigns, by all the laws that have established your Church, even
by the recent answer of your own university of Oxford to the lay
address against Dr. Pusey, &c,, where the Church of England is
justly styled the Reformed Protestant Church. The name itself is
spurned at with indignation by the greater half, at least, of those
who belong to the Church of England, just as the Church of Eng-
land itself is rejected with scorn and detestation by the greater half
of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. The judgment of the
whole indifferent world, the common sense of humanity, agrees with
the judgment of the Church of Rome, and with the sense of her
150,000,000 of children, to dispossess you of this name. The Church
of England, who has denied her mother, is rightly without a sister.
She has chosen to break the bonds of unity and obedience. Let
her, therefore, stand alone before the judgment-steat of God and of
man. Even the debased Russian Church", that Church where lay
despotism has closed the priest's mouth and turned him into a
slave, disdains to recognize the Anglicans as Catholics : even the
Eastern heretics, although so sweetly courted by Puseyite mis-
sionaries, sneer at this new and fictitious Catholicism. It is
repudiated even by your own hero. Laud, whose dying words on
the scaffold, according to the uncontradicted version of contem-
porary history, were, I die in the Protestant Faith, as by law
ESTABLISHED (a pretty epitaph, by-the-bye, for the life of the
future St. William of Canterbury !*) Consistent Protestants and
rationalists are more Catholic, in the etymological sense of the word,
than the Anglicans ; for they at least can look upon themselves as

* See ffieroloffus.

1844.] Catholic Literary /Societies. 243

belonging to the same communion as those who, in every country,
deny the existence of Church authority, or of revealed religion ;
they have at least a negative bond to link them one with another :
but that the so-called Anglo- Catholics, whose very name betrays
their usurpation and their contradiction, whose doctrinal articles,
whose liturgy, whose whole history, are such as to disconnect them
from all mankind, except those who are born English and speak
English ; that they should pretend, on the strength of their private
judgment alone, to be what the rest of mankind deny them to be,
will assuredly be ranked amongst the first of the follies of the 19th
century. That such an attempt, however, should succeed, is, thank
God, not to be expected, unless it should please the Almighty to
reverse all the laws that have hitherto directed the course of human
events. You may turn aside for three hundred years to come, as
you have done for three hundi'ed years past, from the torrent of
living waters ; but to dig out a small channel of your own, for your
own private insular use, wherein the living truth will run apart
from its ever docile and ever obedient children, — that will no more
be granted to you, than it has been to the Arians, the Nestorians,
the Donatists, or any other triumphant heresy.

"I therefore protest, first, against the usurpation of a sacred name
by the Camden Society, as iniquitous ; and I next protest against
the object of this society, and all such efforts in the Anglican
Church, as absurd. When the clergy and Catholic laymen in
France and Germany, when Mr. Pugin and the Romanists of Eng-
land, labour with all their might to save and restore the monuments
of their faith, — unworthily set aside by the influence of that fatal
spirit which broke out with the so-called reformation, and con-
cluded with the French revolution, — they know that they are labour-
ing at the same time to strengthen, in an indirect manner, their
own faith and practice, which are exactly and identically the same
as those followed by the constructors of those glorious piles, and by
all the artists of Catholic ages : and this object sanctifies their
labour. But is this the case with the members of the Camden
Society ? Not in the least. They are most of them ministers of
the ' reformed Protestant Church as by law established ;' pledged
under oath to the thirty-nine articles, which were drawn up on
purpose to separate England from Catholic Christendom,* and to

♦ [It is asserted by modern High-Church Anglicans, that the Church of
England never rejected the communion of Catholic Christendom, but merely
threw off the usurped supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. This assertion is
overthrown by the history of the Reformation. It was the unanimous opinion
of the British Reformers that the tisille Church had apostatized, that her chief
bishop was Antichrist, and that communion with her was unlawful. The
Homilies of the Church of England assert this in the most decisive manner.
(Vid. Third part of the sermon against peril of idolatry, p. 224, ed. Oxon. 1831.)
For testimonies of indi%ddual reformers, and other Anglican divines, see Essays
on the Church, p. 323, ed. 1838. See also the Archbishop of Canterbury's
charge just delivered.]

16 2

244 Catholic LUerary Societies. [Sept.

protest against all the barbarous superstitions of the dark ages.
By attempting to re-establish their churches, chalices, and vest-
ments, in their original form, they are only setting under the most
glaring light the contradiction which exists between their own faith,
and that of the men who built Salisbury and lork. Surely no
man in his senses can pretend that Dr. Howley and Dr. Mant pro-
fess the same faith, and follow the same discipline, and acknow-
the same spiritual head, as William of Wykeham or Gundulph of
Rochester : and no man in his senses can deny that Dr. Wiseman
and Dr. M'Hale do at least px*ofess to obey the same holy see, to
preach the same doctrines, and to practise the same spiritual rites
and sacraments, as all the English episcopacy of the middle ages.
Let, then, the Camden Society put itself under the authority of
Dr. M'Hale and Dr. Wiseman, and then everything will be right :
but as long as they do not, and remain under Dr. Howley and Dr.
Mant and their fellows, they are nothing but parodists, and incon-
sistent parodists. If St. Dunstan and St. Anselm, St. Lanfranc,
St. Thomas of Canterbury, or Archbishop Chichely, could be called
out of their tombs to resume their crosiers in any English cathedral,
their horror would be great at seeing married priests reading English
prayers in those desecrated edifices. But assuredly their horror would
be much greater still, if they were to find, beneath copes like their
own, and at the foot of altars like theirs, and rood lofts with crucifixes,
and every other exterior identity, these same married priests carrying
in their hearts the spirit of schism, glorying in the revolt of their fore-
fathers, and pledged by insular pride to insult and deny that infallible
see of St. Peter, from which all those great saints had humbly soli-
cited tlie pallium, and for whose sacred rights they so nobly fought,
and conquered the insular pride and prejudices of their time.

" Catholic architecture, and Catholic art in all its branches, are
but a frame for the sacred picture of truth. This one holy truth
is beautiful and pure, even amidst the worthless clergy and decayed
discipline of Funchal, even, and still more so, amidst the missionary
dioceses of Polynesia ; although, both here and there, she is deprived
of the frame which the humble genius of Catholic generations has
worked out for her in western Europe. But without her, — or with
her, defaced and adulterated by insular pride, — the most beautiful
frame is fit for nought but for the antiquary's shop. Supposing
the spirit of the Camden Society ultimately to prevail over its
Anglican adversaries, — supposing you do one day get every old
thing back again, — copes, letterns, rood-lofts, candlesticks, and the
abbey lands into the bargain, what will it all be but an empty
pageant, like the tournament of Eglinton Castle, separated from the
reality of Catholic truth and unity by the abyss of three Imndred
years of schism? The question, then, is— have you. Church of
England, got the picture for your frame ? have you got the truth —
the one truth — the same truth as the men of the middle ages ? The

1844.] Catholic Literary Societies. 245

Camden Society says, yes : but the Avhole Christian world, both
Protestant and Catholic, says, no: and the Catholic world adds,
that there is no truth but in unity, and this unity you most certainly
have not.

" Who is to judge between these conflicting assertions, on earth?
Before what tribunal, before what assembly, is this most vital cause
to be brought forward, to the satisfaction of those who have re-
nounced the jurisdiction of the Holy See, and that of the last
oecumenical council ? I know of none ; but one thing I know,
that before whatever earthly tribunal it may be, as well as before
the judgment-seat of God in heaven, against the Church of Eng-
land and her so-called Anglo-Catholics, will appear in formidable
array the seven millions of real Catholics, whom you call British
and Irish Romanists, and who will thus arraign the Anglicans on
the behalf of ten generations of their ancestors, and on their own : —
' For the love of unity and obedience, we have endured from the
hands of these pseudo-Catholics every extremity of cruelty, of
robbery, and of insult ; we have stood firm through every variety
of military, legal, civil, and religious persecution ; in the holes and
corners where these persecutors have confined us, we have kept
true to every traditional beauty which they would fain now re-
cover. We have nothing to restore, because tve have ?iever destroyed
anything. We want no erudite quibbles, like No. 90 ; no disser-
tations on long-forgotten rubrics, to enable us to believe in justi-
fication by works, or in baptismal regeneration, to honour the
blessed Virgin, to pray for our dear departed. We have never
doubted any article of Catholic faith, and never interrupted any
practice of Catholic devotion. Here we are with our priests, our
monks, and our bishops, and with the flame of Catholic unity,
which we have fed with our substance, and with our blood. If
these men, who after having robbed us of every temporal good,
would fain now rob us of our name, are Catholics, then we are not ;
then we have been mistaken fools, and not we alone, but thirty-
five popes, and all the Catholic bishops, and all the Catholic nations
in the world, who have till now praised us, helped us, loved us,
prayed for us and with us, as their brethren. If they are Catho-
lics, then Catholicism is but a shadow and a name, and a paltiy
vestment, fit to be put on and off" at the world's pleasure.'

" To this language the Church has answered long ago, in the
words of the Divine spouse : ' Oves mece vocem meam audimit, et
EGO coGNosco EAs, ct sequuutur me ; et ego vitam ceternam do
eis, et 11071 rapiet eas quisquam de manu meaJ

" Does the Camden Society, that lays such a stress on history
and tradition, think that these mines are closed to every body
except itself, or that the world will not dive into them for any
other purpose than for archasological or architectural curiosities ?
Do the Anglo-Catholics think that the world is blind to their own

946 Catholic Literary Societies. [Sept.

history ? that the events of the Reformation in England are un-
If nown abroad ? that the word apostacy is effaced from the diction-
ary of mankind ?

" If you had pushed on a little further your Spanish tour, you
would have found at Grenada, depicted by the pencil of a monk,
the martyrdom of those holy Carthusians of London, who were
hanged, disembowelled, and quartered, for having denied the su-
premacy of the author of Anglo-Catholic Beformation. "What !
shall the tombs of unknown knights and burgesses be treated with
the deepest reverence, and singled out for admiration and imitation,
because they are in brass, or with a cross Jleurie, or a dos d^ane?
and shall the blood of our martyrs be silent, and their noble memory
buried in darkness and oblivion ? Believe it not ; such will not be
the case ; no, not even in this world of sin and error, and how much
less before the justice of God ? Believe not that we shall ever
forget or betray the glory of Fisher, of More, of Garnett, of those
abbots who were hanged before the gates of their suppressed mo-
nasteries; of so many hundreds of monks, of Jesuits, of laymen,
who perished under the executioner's knife, from the reign of
Henry VIII down to the palmy days of Anglican episcopacy, under
the first Stuarts ? Were they not all Romanists ? did they not all
die for the defence of the supremacy of the see of Rome against the
blood-thirsty tyranny of Anglican kings ? "Were they not the vic-
tims of the same glorious cause which St. Dunstan, St. Elphege,
St. Anselm, and St. Thomas had struggled for ? and were they
ours or yours ? I know that the modern Anglo-Catholics would
attempt to throw back on the Puritans of 1640, most of the sacri-
legious devastations that attended the Reformation : but I know
also that Pugin, in that article of the Dublin Review which you were
good enough to lend me, has completely demolished that false pre-
tence ; and irrefutably demonstrated, that every sacrilege committed
by the Puritans had been inaugurated on a much larger scale by
Cranmer and Elizabeth : and I have looked in vain through all the
publications of the Camden Society for one word of answer to this
most damning accusation. As for moral sacrilege, if I may so say,
as for the surrender of spiritual independence and Christian free-
dom to the sanguinary pride of royal theologians, assuredly the
Anglo-Catholic fathers of the sixteenth century have surpassed in
that respect every example of the kind, both in Pagan and Christian
times. That debauched and murderous tyrant, called Henry "VIII,
could find his models amongst the monsters who reigned at Rome
while the Church was in the Catacombs. But the slavish sub-
serviency of the English apostate bishops, to this baptized monster's
caprices, has remained unequalled since their days, as it had been
before them. "Where was Latimer, that father and martyr of the
Anglican Church, on the 30th of May lo38? preaching at the
stake where a Catholic friar was bui'ning, for having denied the

1844.] Catholic Literary Societies, 247

king's supremacy over the Church of which Latimer was a bishop !
"Where were Cranmer and the other prelates, from whom the mo-
dern English bishops pretend to derive apostolical succession ?
sitting at the council-board of the tyrant, voting in his parliament,
helping him to butcher his wives, his principal nobility, his best
and most innocent subjects, and acquiescing in his judgment against
St. Thomas of Canterbury ! Has not Cranmer come down to pos-
terity branded with the monster's eulogium, ' that he was the only
man who had loved his sovereign so well, as never to have opposed
the royal pleasure?' (Vit. Cranm. MS. apud Legrand, ii. 103.)
" Is there anything, even in the annals of continental Protestant-
ism, to be compared to this origin of a Reformed Church ? And
has this Church purified the dark and bloody stain of its origin by
its subsequent conduct ? "Was there ever a Church, except perhaps
the Greco-Russian since Peter I, which has so basely acknowledged
the supreme right of secular power, the absolute dependence of
spiritual jurisdiction on royal and parliamentary authority, from the
days of Cranmer down to Archbishop Whately's last motion on
Church government, debated upon, as he says in print, ' with the
tacit acquiescence of the whole episcopal body ? ' was there ever a
Church, Tiof even excepting the Russian, which so completely sacri-
ficed the rights and dignities of the poor to the rich, as the writer
of the History of Pues must know better than any one ? "Was
there ever, under the face of heaven, a more glaring focus of
iniquity, oppression, and corruption, than the existence of the
Church of England in Ireland, as denounced, not only by the
groans of the Catholic victims, or by those foreigners who, like
myself, have seen and cursed the abomination in its own den, but
by your own authorities, such as Strafford's Correspondence with
Laud, and Monk Mason's Life of Bishop Bedell? Have not these
pseudo- Catholic bishops been sitting for centuries as Lords spiritual
in a parliament whence has issued that penal code against fellow -
Christians, the like of which has never been seen or imagined even
under the reign of terror and atheism in France ? Have they not
for centuries, and without ever lifting up a dissentient voice, wit-
nessed, approved, and, for all I know, themselves taken those tre-
mendous oaths against the most sacred mysteries of the faith of the
whole Catholic world, both Greek and Latin, in that assembly
' where,' to use the words of an English writer, ' the Holiest of
holies has been chosen as the favourite object of the profanest treat-
ment, and pierced day after day by the jeer of the scoffer ; where
alone denial of the blessed Eucharist has been made a public, a
legal, a national, a royal act ; and where more impious blasphemies
have been uttered, more sacrileges committed, more perjuries pro-
nounced, against the divine sacrament than in the whole world
besides?' And shall these men, forsooth, be acknowledged by us
as our brethren, or as our spiritual fathei's ? Shall the perpetrators

248 Catholic Literary Societies. [Sejit.

and inheritors of these unexpiated, unrepented, unforgiven sins,
come in quietly and sit down among the Catholic churches and
nations of the world, with bundles of tracts about hierurgical anti-
quities and monumental brasses under their ai*ms: and shall we not
one and all arise to reject and expel them? God forbid that we
should do otherwise! There is a place in the Catholic Church
for public penitents, whence many saints have risen on the wings
of humility and contrition to the glorious eminence of an Augustine:
but there is no place for proud sinners, who would shake off the
chains of isolated error, without confessing their guilt and that of
their forefathers.

" I dislike every mixture of nationality with Catholicity; and the
fatal example of England is well calculated to justify this dislike in
every Catholic heai't. But I cannot, in this circumstance, refrain
from I'everting, with legitimate pride, to the difference between the
conduct of the English bishops of the sixteenth century, and that
of the French hierarchy, when exposed in 1790 to the fury of a
much more formidable tyrant than Henry VIII, to the whole
French nation. The French bishops of that period were far from
being saints or ascetics ; their high birth had been generally the
only reason for their promotion. They had to struggle, not like the
English bishops, at the issue of long ages of faith, of devotion, of
popular enthusiasm for the Church ; but after more than two long
centuries of secular invasion and monarchical despotism. Their
people were not, like the people of England, up in arms for their
monasteries and their orthodoxy ; but, on the contrary, had been
intoxicated during a hundred years by the poison of scepticism and
philosophical scurrility. Lastly, the Galilean Church was not, like
the Anglican, the immediate daughter of the see of Rome : she had
not been founded by a papal legate in the sixth century, but by St.
Irenfeus, St. Denis the Ai'eopagite, and other disciples of the
Apostles. The reformation which was imposed on her, was not
obedience to a theological tyrant, but a pretended return to the
primitive Church, giving the election of bishops to the people, and
allowing them to communicate with the holy see. And yet, out of
a hundred and thirty-six French bishops, ybwr alone betrayed their
trust ; the hundred and thirty-two others gladly went forth to im-
prisonment, to exile, to death. When you go to Paris, pray visit
the Carmes, an ugly, insignificant, low, square-built modern chapel,
without any vestige of archaeological symbolism, but where the
pavement is still red with the blood of the bishops and priests, who
were murdered there for having refused the oath to the civil con-
stitution of the clergy.* There you will learn at what price a
national Church can purchase the rights of talking about apostolical
succession, and styling itself a ' branch of the Church Catholic'

. I 5

* [See the British Critic, No. LXIV, p. 286-288.]

1844.] Catholic Literary Societies.

"But now let me suppose that the Camden Society and the new
Anglo-Catholic school have both gained their point ; that liturgy,
architecture, and theology, are brought back precisely to the point
they were, at the close of the reign of Henry VIII, when, as Dr.
Lingard so justly says, *to reject the papal creed was heresy, and
to admit the papal supremacy was treason.' Supposing all this,
what will you have gained after all? Nothing at all, I should say,
grounding myself on Mr. Newman's own words. Does he not say,
' We cannot hope for the recovery of dissenting bodies, while we
are ourselves alienated from the great body of Christendom. We
cannot hope for unity of faith, if we, at our own private tvill, make
a /ait/i for otirselves in this our small corner of the earth. We
cannot hope for the success among the heathen of St. Augustine or
St. Boniface, unless, like them, we go forth with the apostolical bene-
diction. Break unity in one point, and the fault runs through the
whole body.' (Sermons bearing on subjects of the day, 1843, pp.
149-50.) But when the work in which you are engaged shall
be achieved, you will be as far from unitt/ as ever, and you will only
have alienated your Church from the great body of Protestant
Christendom, to which you were formerly accounted to belong, by
that general feeling which led the poor king of Prussia to give you
his Protestant money and Protestant sympathies, in order to endow
Protestant bishoprics in Syria. But you will not have come one
step nearer to unity, because, as Mr. Newman says : ' Break unity
in one point,^ &c. . . . The Greek Church has been at the point
you aspire to ever since the eleventh century ; and can anything be
further from unity with the Latin Church than she in the nine-
teenth ? Every Catholic will repeat to you the words of Manzoni,
as quoted by Mr. Faber : ' The greatest deviations are none, if the
main point be recognized ; the smallest are damnable heresies, if it
be denied. That main point is, the infallibility of the Church, or
rather of the pope.* The Coptic, Maronite, and Catholic Armenian
Churches, although differing in every thing outward from the
Church of Rome, are in unity, since they acknowledge her supreme
authority. The Anglican Church, even brought back to the most
Catholic externals, can never be in unity as long as she denies her
legitimate mother.

" One thing quite certain is, that individuals or churches cannot
be both Catholic and Protestant ; they must choose between one
and the other. In politics, in literature, transactions and" com-
promises are advisable, and indeed are often the only thing possible;
but in religion, in eternal truth, there is none. Notwithstanding
Dr. Jelf, there will never be any via media between truth and
error, between authority and rebellion, no more than there is be-
tween heaven and hell. If Fisher was right, then was Cranmer
wrong ; they cannot be both right, both the murderer and the
victim. If Archbishop Plunkett was a martyr, then Archbishop

250 Catholic Literary Societies. [Sept.

Laud waa not. If the Church of France is to be admired for
having held out against schism through martyrdom and exile, then
the Church of England must be blamed for having given waj to
schism. It is like the ostrich, that thinks it saves itself from the
hunter by refusing to look at him, to say that the present English
Cliurch is a holy although less distinguished brancn of the Church
than that of Rome. If the Church of Rome, when she maintains
that out of her pale there is no salvation, and that she alone has
the power of governing the Christian world, is not infallibly right,
then she is infallibly wrong ; and so far from being a distinguished
branch of truth, she is founded on imposture or error ; and in
neither case can be a true church. On the other hand, if the
Church of England is not the only true Church on earth, then she
is an apostate rebel.

*' There is only one sure way of passing from error to the one
sure truth ; that which St. Remigius showed to the first Christian
king of France. When baptizing him, he said, * Bow thy head,
proud Sicamber ; burn what thou hast adored, and adore what thou
hast burned.'

"It is true that to reconciled and forgiven rebellion may be
granted certain privileges, as conformable to the weakness of a
fallen Church. The Anglican Church may demand what was
granted in 1595 to the united Greeks of Poland — the degrading
exception of married clergy, and the use of the national language
in the Liturgy. These concessions are not incompatible with the
essentials of faith or authority; but they would make the re-united
Church of England sadly different from what she was in the days
of St. Dunstan or St. Anselm.

" I am not a doctor, nor a minister of the Church ; I am only
her soldier, faithful though unworthy. But I can fearlessly assert
that among the millions who belong, like me, to the Church of
Rome, there is not one who, being led by leisure or duty to con-
sider attentively what is now going on in England, would arrive
at a different conclusion from mine. Seeing the profound igno-
rance which reigns among even the best informed Anglicans (such
as Mr. Faber) on the feelings and duties of churchmen out of
England — seeing also the furious prejudices which animate the new
school against English and Irish Catholics, probably on the old
pagan principle of Odisse quern IcEseris, I have presumed to think
that it might not be quite useless to you to hear the opinion of a
continental Catholic, than whom no one can be more interested in
England's welfare, or more attentive to her present struggles. Fas
est et ab hoste doeeri.

" Need I beg of you to acquit the warmth and asperity of my
language of any intention of personal disrespect to you? No,
surely not. I have much too high an opinion of you not to be cer-
tain that you will perfectly understand the motives that have die-

1844.] Catholic Literary Societies. 251

tated my words ; and I hope that you will see, on the contrary, a
mark of deep respect on my part for your turn of mind and your
jDersonal character. I have written to you as to a man who knows
the value of truth and the value of a soul. I should cei-tainly not
have done so to most memhers of your schism. Although taught
by conscience and authority to look upon the Church of England
as one of the most awful forms of sin and pride that have ever
appeared in the world, I have loved and esteemed several of her
children. I feel a compassionate sympathy for those of her ministers
who know the weight of her present degradation. But, at the
same time, I feel a most legitimate terror for the fate of their souls,
when I see them, after having removed the rubbish which their
forefathers had piled up to the very clerestory of their church, close
their eyes against the light which, from the past and present, is
now pouring down upon them. They are thus losing thai invincible
ignorance, which is the only reason which the Church admits for
not belonging to her ! This feeling has inspired me with the
thought of thus writing to you. This feeling must plead my
excuse, if I have wounded your feelings. Indeed, I wish I may
have done so. Truth is a weapon intended to wound and destroy
everything that is not truth. iVbw veni pacem mittere sed gladium.
Convinced as I am that -you do not belong, as you say I do, to a
distinguished branch of the Church, but that you are in error, and
that wilful error is mortal sin, I have spoken for the love of your
immortal soul. If I have done so roughly, it is the roughness of
love. Is there not more charity in pulling roughly back a man who
is on his way to perdition, than in bowing him civilly on to the
brink of the precipice ?

" This letter requires no answer. "We are not called upon to
carry on a controversy with each other. The ground on which we
stand is unequal, and the odds between us would be uneven. To
convert you, as well as all heretics, is and must be my desire, but
not my province. To convert me can neither be your province
nor your desire. You cannot look upon me as being in a state of
rebellion, as I do you. What would become of me, if I was to be
convinced of the truth and right of the Church of England ? I
must then immediately doubt the truth and right of the Church of
France, which acts and teaches the very reverse ; for what is true
and right on the north of the Channel cannot surely be otherwise
on the south. And yet, according to the principles laid down by
Mr. Faber and the British Critic, supposing myself convinced of
the error and misconduct of my own Church, I must wait till she
recognises it herself, before I have a right to act up to what I think
true, and to save my own soul. Alas ! what a lamentable non-
descript sort of thing I should be !

"Our position is, therefore, quite different. The faith I profess,
the authority I obey, the holy sacrifice of mass at which I assist,

253 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

the very prayers I daily say, are fitted for you, for me, for the
Portuguese ox-driver who is passing under our windows, as well as
for the savage who is at this moment being baptized in Oceania.
Your faith, your spiritual superiors, your liturgy, can be of no use
but to those who are English born and English bred. This shall
be my last argument, for it would alone suffice to show which of us
is the Catholic. You cannot, in conformity with your own doc-
trine, Avish me to be what you ai'e. I can, and indeed I must, wish
you to be what / am. To you I can say, like Paul to Agrippa,
* Opto apud Deum et in modico et in magno...fe...hodie fieri talem
qualis et ego sum, exceptis vinculis his ;' or rather as Bossuet beau-
tifully modifies this text in speaking, I believe, to one of your own
communion, prcEsertim vinculis his, the bonds of faith, of obedience,
of unity with the past, the present, and the future.

In conclusion, let me beg your acceptance of the enclosed
papers,* that will show you how the torrent of grace is flowing
among Romanists, and what are the fruits of Mariolatry. It is a
good thing to write books, like Mr. Newman, about the miracles jof
the fourth century; but it is a better still to acknowledge and
experience miracles in the nineteenth. Never, assuredly, were
miracles more wanted than in these ages of light, and never, I may
say, were they more abundant ; for can there be a greater miracle
in the world than the sudden and mysterious conversions of sinners
in an age like this ?

" May that Blessed Lady, who has been so long the object of the
jeers and blasphemies of Anglican divines and Anglican travellers,
and who seems now at last to inspire your countrymen with some
degree of veneration — may she use her omnipotentia supplex to
enlighten, to bless, and to console you ! Such will be for ever the
prayer of your obedient servant and sincere well-wisher,

" Le Comte de Montalembeet."

Art. XI. — 1. A Letter to the Very Rev. G. Chandlery D.C.L.y
Dean of Chichester, <§rc., containing some Remarks on his
Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of Chichester on
Sunday, October 15, 1843, "on the occasion of publicly re-
ceiving into the Church a Convert from the Church of Rome.''^
By the Rev. M. A. Tierney, F.R.S., F.S.A. London:
1844.

2. A Narrative of Iniquities and Barbarities practised at
Rome in the Nineteenth Century. By RafFaelle Ciocci, for-

'* Annals of the Archiconfraternity of the Holy and Immaculate heart of
Mary.

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates. 253

merly a Benedictine and Cistercian Monk, Student and
Hon. Librarian of the Papal College of San Bernardo alle
Terme Diocleziane, in Rome. Second Edition. London :
1844.

OFTEN the deep wisdom of God's holy Word is mani-
fested thus. All seems going well with us, or still
more with His Church ; for we are speaking of ourselves only
in conjunction with her. We see in all that happens the
clear manifestation and fulfilment of His great and glorious
promises, the fruit of prayer, the reward of zeal and virtue.
Every thing is natural, and according to order. Then on a
sudden there befals us that which seems to run counter, to
perplex us, to be without cause. But somewhere or other
we shall find that full warning has been given us ; that it has
been threatened, or perhaps rather jjromised us, that we ought
to have been prepared and forearmed for it. It may be but
a phrase, a word, that has to give us consolation ; but it is
Avritten somewhere, and if we seek it diligently we shall
find it.

Even so has it been with us of late. We have been
cheered on by many happy events ; by the progress of truth,
by conversions, by visible tokens of Divine watchfulness over
the Church, and of the accomplishment of the "glorious
things that have been said of the city of God." Never did
the golden pages of eternal truth glow more vividly before
our eyes, in the reflection of the brightness from above, in
the assurance of their fulfilment ; never was our heart more
full of joy at the works of grace which surrounded us, and
seemed to await us ; when suddenly more of darkness and of
heaviness fell upon us than in many preceding years had been
our lot. Defection from the Truth, open and public, such as
had not been for years witnessed amongst us, and such as
might well nigh break the heart of any ardent believer,
became almost frequent ; blow followed blow so quickly and
so heavily that we were staggered and fairly beaten to the
ground. Where look for comfort? where seek to rally our
fainting hopes? From words which at another time -might
well have struck us with terror. " It needs must be that
scandals come." This is a portion of the destined trials of
the Chui'ch and her children; this is an appointed lot, as
necessary for their prosperity and for their existence as the
most cherished graces. And as scandals could hardly exist
as prominent and striking evils, except where they shock and
clash with a state of things most discordant with them (being

254 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

as darkness coming suddenly upon a bright light) ; as, where
all is lukewarm or disorderly, all consequently scandalous^
such occurrences could hardly be noted, and the necessity of
scandals not be needed as a topic of comfort, we may justly
conclude that the appearance of unusual and startling acts of
wickedness crossing the march of religious progress is cha-
racteristic rather of success than of failure, and forms part
of that mysterious economy which God employs in regard of
His Church.

When, too, even in the very earliest period of its history,
while it enjoyed the passing glory of the Apostleship within
it, the trials of the most zealous and holiest were to contain
among them " perils from false brethren," it surely is right
that we should look for a similar snare and danger in more
evil times. And who are " false brethren "" but those who
have been brought up and have lived with us as children of
the same fond parent, and then turning traitors and belying
the faith of their youth, seek to turn their faithlessness to
account, by calumny and misrepresentation against us ?

Again, we have been comforted by being told that " the
disciple is not greater than his master ;" and that, "as men
have persecuted the one, so shall they the other ;" and that,
" if in the green wood such things are done, what shall be
done in the dry ?" Now it was a painful feature of our
Lord's sufferings, that the treachery of a friend, a brother, one
admitted to his closest councils, should be the root and origin
of them, and that violated pledges of love should be the first
step in his bitter passion ; that the very first to profane his
blessedest ordinance, to scandalize his Church, should be an
apostate bishop, a traitor Apostle ! Nor can we overlook
this striking consideration, that he was chosen to be one of
the twelve, with full foreknowledge of his terrible scandal
and treachery. (Jo. vi. 65, 71.) The simple omission of his
name, and the substitution of Cleophas or any other follower
instead, in that sacred college, would have made up the
mystical number without a blot. Surely, whatever other
reasons, far beyond our scanning, there Avere for the prefer-
ence given to the Iscariot, we may well admit this, that both
an awful warning and a consoling lesson was intended to be
conveyed. A warning which every succeeding age of the
Church has repeated from Tertullian till Lamcnnais, that the
very pillars of the sanctuary may be shaken, and that the
secure in their own confidence are most in danger of a flill ;
that no dignity^ no richness of grace, no privilege of the

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates. 255

spiritual life, bestows a guarantee against the lowest, the
deepest, generally the most hopeless, abyss of dark abandon-
ment and degradation. But a consolation, too, if we are
doomed to bear the trial, the most afflicting one that can
befal a Catholic, of seeing those dear to us in the faith and
love of Christ, fall away from our sides, and go over to the
enemy, perhaps to fight from thenceforth against us.

In the distressing occurrences to which we have alluded,
we have observed how almost always the apostacy has been
double ; from the vows of the religious state, and from the
communion of the Church. " Corruptio optimi pessima ;"
and so when one whom closer ties bound to God, by the en-
gagement of a greater purity and holiness, throws off his
yoke and turns wanton, the scandal to the sorrowing Church
is far more grievous, as the guilt is blacker.

We cannot, therefore, but consider it a most artful machi-
nation of Satan, to have directed to our shores the two un-
happy individuals to whom the publications at the head of
our article refer, just at the time when the flow of conversion
towards our holy faith seemed to have set in, as if to present
a counterfeit parallel to the good work that was accomplished,
and to whet the edge of a hostility which seemed waxing less
keen. Both were religious men ; the one a friar, the other a
monk; both Italians. We propose to discharge in regard to
both, a painful, but a serious duty. We must guard against
the possibility of any being deceived by the cunning of the
evil one, so far as lies in our power ; and if in stripping off
the mask of those who put it on to accomplish his work, pain
and shame are inflicted, the fault is theirs who have chosen to
Avear it ; not ours, whose duty it is to tear it away, and ex-
pose the real features concealed beneath.

The first of these wretched men is Mr. Vignati, the history
of whose apostacy has been fully and satisfactorily recorded
by Mr. Tiemey, in his Letter to Dr. Chandler, dean of Chi-
chester. Mr. T. premises a truly curious episode in the history
of Protestant conversion. The good people of Chichester
seem to have a pecular affection, or a peculiar attmction, for
the rejected of Catholicity. A short time before, there had
been introduced among them another apostate priest, whose
history seems, after his conversion to protestantism, scarcely
fit for the public eye. This was INI. L'Herminez, ordained
in France, and for a time a fervent young ecclesiastic in the
diocese of Cambray ; who allowed himself to be entangled in
the toils that enslaved even Solomon, and soon fell into the

256 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

mire of corruption. He disappeared, with a victim of his
wicked arts, and reappeared in Kome as a father of a family,
and teacher of languages. Of course, his true character was
there unknown, till he met with the high-church archdeacon
of Chichester, Mr. Manning ; from whom we should have
expected better things than encouragement to a violator of
his ecclesiastical engagements, and of vows solemnly pledged
to God. But on the contrary, such a man was a prize: he was
transplanted to Chichester as a convert priest, was petted and
courted, was admitted as a teacher into the bosom of orthodox
families, and repaid their confidence and their kindness, as
might have been anticipated, by profligacy the most revolting
and the most heartless, which shamed his protectors, and
drove him with ignominy from the town. And yet Mr.
Tierney assures us, that even after his guilt was known, every
attempt was made by many parties to uphold him, and to
suppress the evidence, and to hide the appearance of his
crimes.

" Their hatred of popery was greater than their hatred of vice ;
their desire to retain a proselyte outweighed their desire to discard
a libertine. Mr. L'Herminez had been brought to do great deeds ;
to arrest the insidious progress of ' Romanism ;' and to exemplify
in his own person, that * advance of scriptural truth,' which you,
sir, so eloquently describe. It was mortifying of course to see these
mighty projects destroyed by the very instrument which had been
selected for their accomplishment ; but it would be doubly mor-
tifying to discover, and to let the world discover, that the ' interest-
ing convert ' was nothing better than a profligate renegade." — p. 10.

After this discomfiture, it so happened, that a young gen-
tleman well known in Chichester, after having been for some
time an inmate of Mr. Newman's community at Littlemore,
joined the Catholic Church. Such an event could not fjiil to
produce a sensation among his friends and acquaintances ;
but we must continue the narrative in Mr. Tierney's own
words : —

" Under such circumstances, it was but natural to look for
some counteracting influence ; and that influence, it was doubtless
thought, would be found in the exhibition of Mr. Vignati.

•' With the history of this person we are but imperfectly ac-
quainted. The little that we know is derived entirely from him-
self; and of that little you have not deemed it prudent to publish
the whole. He was boi'n, and I suppose educated, at Lodi ; became
a member of the order of Friars Minors, or Franciscans (the locality
of his convent is not mentioned) ; and, having been secularized, at

1844.] Mecent Italian Apostates, 257

his own request, by the authority of the present Pope, took the
opportunity to leave Italy, and declared himself a Protestant, first
in Switzerland, and afterwards in France. This was about four
years ago. Some seven or eight montJis since, he removed to Eng-
land, and became a member of the Established Church. But to be
a member of the Church was not sufficient. * He wished to make
a public renunciation of the errors of his former creed ;' and as his
residence at Brighton had placed him within the limits of this
diocese, so Chichester and its cathedral were selected as the scene
of his edifying performance. Thus much, sir, at least in substance,
you have condescended to tell us : but you have not told us why
he resorted to this proceeding :' you have not told us why ' he
wished to make this public renunciation of his former creed.'
He had been a Protestant for nearly four years. He had been a
Swiss Protestant : he had been a French Protestant : ' for nearly a
twelvemonth,' so you assure us, he had been an English Protestant.
Why was this exhibition now thought of for the first time ? Already
' in communion with your Church,' why did he thus wish to place
himself before the world, and go through the *form of admission ?'
What spell thus suddenly came over him ? What power had been
able to raise that spirit of ' repentance,' which, neither in Switzer-
land, nor in France, nor even in the midst of the first fervour of his
conversion, had ever shed its influences upon him ? — It may be awk-
ward, sir, to reveal the fact, which your prudence has so studiously
withheld: but report has supplied at least one answer to these
inquiries, — Mr. Vignati wanted a fortune and a wife. You inform
us that, on his arrival at Brighton, he had attached himself to 'the
ministry of the Rev. T. C. Maitland :' — but he had attached him-
self also to another and^ a gentler ' ministry :' he had disengaged
himself from the light trammels of his earlier vows ; and had wooed
and won the heart of a youthful heiress. In what manner the lady's
family received his advances I have no means of knowing. But
her father, at least, is said to have been cautious. If he consented,
his consent, so we are told, was accompanied with a condition ; and
that condition was, that the 'renunciation' in question should be
made. And it was for this, that the public service of the Church
was to be interrupted ! It was for this that an unauthorized form
of prayer and protestation was to be introduced into the liturgy ;
that the Sabbath of the Lord was to be made a day of exhibition,
and that which should be the temple of peace and the chair of
truth, converted into a theatre of slander against five-sixths of the
Christian world ! It was not that Mr. Vignati felt more scruples
now than he had felt for the four preceding years : it was not that
the horrors of popery were more dreadful, or that the necessity of
being admitted into a Church which he had already entered, became
more apparent : but the heiress, the heiress was the point. The
'renunciation' formed a necessary adjunct to the marriage deed ;

VOL. xvn. — ^NO. XXXIII. 17

258 Recent Italian Apostates, [Sept.

and the dignitaries of the Church, therefore, were to lend them-
selves, in the abused name of religion and repentance, to the holy
enterprise of securing the wife I Verily, Mr. Dean, there was
reason for the light step and jocund air with which the ' penitent'
appeared in the cathedral. A bride with some 50,000/. was not a
subject to make a man doleful."* — pp. 12-15.

So true is the saying of a learned bishop, that every apos-
tacy of a Catholic priest, like a comedy, is sure to end by a
marriage. But in this instance, the mockery of the whole thing
was greatly enhanced by a formulary being used for the act of
apostacy, which was originally prepared by Dr. Tillotson,
but never sanctioned, and which, on this occasion, was mu-
tilated to suit the prevailing High-Church views of the
Chichester authorities. In the interrogatory made to the
" penitent," the question was omitted — " Dost thou acknow-
ledge the supremacy of the kings and queens of this realm,
as by law established, and declared in the thirty-seventh
article of religion?" Thus do these functionaries equally
violate rule and consistency, in making use of unauthorized
forms, and then even perverting those.

How few of those who witnessed the ceremony thought
even of penetrating into the history of the unhappy man,
brought forward for a specimen of the conquest of the English
Church ! Or if they did, what else did they imagine him but
a retired and mortified inmate of a convent, whom grace
touched during his pious meditations, and prompted to fly
from the bondage and abominations of Popery, and seek a
shelter in a happy Protestant land. Perhaps the Bible, read
by ste.alth, suggested the blessed thought, and bid him " go
out of her, lest he might be made a partaker of her plagues !"
Alas! alas! how would the truth have disappointed them!
They would have found, that the Church which received him,
had it known its duty, or had feeling to follow it, would have
sent him to do penance in sackcloth and ashes, instead of
parading him before a Christian congregation as an object
of triumph.

After mature consideration, we shrink from making public
the authentic information before us of his early life, and the
whole of his career. Had he, Indeed, merely sunk Into apos-
tacy from the high dignity of the Catholic priesthood, shun-
ning, as he ought to do, the light of day, we should not even

* " Mr. Vignati was married two or three days after the ceremony of his
recantation, — I believe on the following Tuesday."

1844.] Mecent Italian Apostates. 259

have troubled ourselves to obtain information concerning him ;
but should have felt that we had satisfied our duty when we
had humbled ourselves before God for his scandal, and prayed
for his return. But the publicity which he and his ill-starred
friends chose to give to the wicked act, made us feel it import-
ant to possess such true accounts of his previous course, as
would enable us to counteract any mischief which he might
attempt by attacking his former friends. Luckily, he has
made his ibrtune too soon to require this, like others ; he has
attained, without the trouble of slander, the usual aim of such
renegades. We will, therefore, content ourselves with a few
facts, to explain or correct the scanty notice furnished gra-
tuitously by his panegyrist. Dr. Chandler.

We are assured, therefore, that while Mr. Vignati's apos-
tacy filled all his former acquaintances with sorrow and dismay,
it did not cause surprise or astonishment to any one acquainted
with him in Italy. He was bom at Lodi, and would have
embraced the ecclesiastical life, but no bishop would accept
him as his subject, or admit him to orders. On the other
hand, his circumstances prevented him from qualifying himself
for any profession. He therefore resolved to enter the re-
ligious life, in a place where he was not so well known, and
proceeded for this purpose to Piacenza. There he was ad-
mitted among the Friars minors, or Franciscans: and it is
acknowledged, that till he received orders, nothing occurred
to excite suspicion in the mind of his superiors. But no
sooner had he attained his object, by being .admitted to the
priesthood, than he reappeared in his former and real colours,
both as to moral conduct and as to doctrine. He attempted
to sow the seeds of infidelity among his companions; so that,
to save others from his pernicious influence, it was found
necessary to transfer him from Parma, where he then was, to
the convent of his order at Bologna. But here things went
on worse than before ; he wrote and distributed lampoons and
libels against his superiors, till they, finding him beyond cure,
applied to the present pope to have him secularized, that is,
expelled from the order. It was not, as Dr. Chandler tells us,
at his own request, but at that of his superiors, that he was
removed from that body. For a time, he wandered about in
his habit from diocese to diocese, leading anything but an
edifying life, till he came to Lodi, and applied to the bishop
to receive him among his clergy. This application he backed
by threats of going to Switzerland, and there throwing oflfbotli

his religious and his sacerdotal habit. But the venerable

172

260 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

prelate would not listen to his application. In fact, as he him-
self assures us, all the unhappy man's family, including his
parents and brothers, entreated him not to do so, as they could
not think of admitting him beneath their roof!

In the summer of 1839, he fled into Switzerland; thence
to Belgium and to France. The rest of his history is already
known. But we may add, that we have now before us an
official report of the police abroad respecting him, which con-
firms much of what has been communicated to us from other
authentic sources. A great deal we have withheld ; but what
we have given will suffice to console Catholics for the loss
from their ranks of brother Cajetan, now Mr. Vignati, and
to show Protestants that even here is no exception to the
saying (which Mr. Tierney hesitates to apply to the case, p. 5)
that " when the pope cleans his garden, he throws the weeds
over their wall." This may be very well ; but it is certainly
foolish to make a nosegay of them, and carry them in triumph,
as sweet of odour, and goodly to behold. The sooner they are
swept away into a corner, and left to ferment and fester in
secrecy and silence, the better for all parties, including the
unhappy beings themselves of whom we treat.

We now proceed to the second work before us, — " the
awful disclosures " of Raffaele Ciocci, the " Maria Monk" of
monks. Doubtless many good people have sighed over the
" narrative of iniquities and barbarities practised in Rome in
the nineteenth century," and have pitied the poor youth who
has been their victim. They have taken every description
for a fact, and every exclamation for a true burst of feeling ;
and their hair has stood on end, and their flesh has crept at
the murderous doings of monks and Jesuits, popes, cardinals,
and inquisitors !

"What!" some one will indignantly exclaim, "are you
prepared to deny and contradict this narrative too, as you did
that of Maria Monk, and cruelly to deprive Mr. Nisbet's cus-
tomers of another rich treat of religious empiricy and holy
wrath ? Are you going to give the lie to a work that has
passed through two editions for the edification of the godly ?
Let it, at least, stand over till the next ' May meetings' at
Exeter Hall, where it may be most useful in arousing the
flagging spirits of the Protestant Association." To such an
expostulation, we at once reply, that it is our intention openly
and fearlessly to give the lie to the entire narrative. Not
but that some mere indifferent facts may be true — the frame-
work, so to speak, of the romance ; but, as to all that makes

1844. J Recent Italian Apostates. 261

up the tale of horror, all that has interested the religious
world, we solemnly believe it untrue ; we consider it a fabri-
cation, a wicked forgery, the invention of one over whom
Satan has obtained power, and whom he is employing, in
punishment for his past guilt, in the horrid work of scandal,
in placing stumbling-blocks before many hastening on the
right path.

In doing this, we have before our eyes the author's vaunts
at the close of his volume. These are his words :

" Having brought my narrative to a conclusion, I would express
my earnest desire that the truth of these facts may be fully esta-
blished. I have written nothing but what may be authenticated by
testimony or by public documents. Though malice may tear these
from the protocols of the convocation of Bishops and Regulars, or
from the archives of the Penitentiary, it cannot close the mouths of
hundreds of witnesses. All Rome can bear testimony to my pro-
cess for a declaration of the nullity of my vows, and very many
are acquainted with my incarceration in Sant Eusehio. I would
that the defenders of Roman tyranny should attack anything Avhich
I have narrated, for I am prepai'ed authentically to corroborate all
that I have brought forward ; and, even whei-e the necessary proofs
may be in the talons of my enemies, I know how to extract them.
But they will, I am persuaded, maintain silence, well knotoing that
in a discussion of this kind, in a free country, the tyrant has the
worst of it; besides which, they are careful to keep their machina-
tions secret. Much do I desire that my narrative might reach the
hands of my parents and my relations. But I know well that the
most watchful care will keep it far from what was once my home,
and from all those who would receive it kindly." — pp. 186-7.

Mr. Ciocci will find that " the defenders of Roman
tyranny," as he is pleased to call us, do not shrink before the
tribunal of a " free country." We do not intend to maintain
silence. He will have his desire, however, of his work reach-
ing Rome, and going into the hands of some of the few of
whom he has said a good word in his book. There many of
his statements will be brought to proof, Avhich at this distance
we are not able to examine : and the resvdt of such examina-
tion shall be made known. How then, we may again be
asked, do we intend at present to meet these charges, and on
what ground do we so boldly pronounce them false ? We
reply, on a variety of grounds. For instance, the entire
work carries on its very face self-confutation in the improba-
bilities, not to say impossibilities, it contains ; its statements
are at variance with the well-known characters of persons
mentioned ; it is full of contradictions ; and, finally, on every

262 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

point on which we have it in our power to put its assertions
to the test, we find thera untrue, and the statements positively
false.

But before we go into these matters, we may be allowed
to say a few words, upon some expressions in the extract just
cited.

On the 20th of March, of this year, Mr. Ciocci wrote to
one of our bishops, to inform him of his having joined the
Protestant religion ; and made, in his letter, the following
remarks: —

" Believe me I am not one of those who recant in public, or who
are ambitious of making themselves known in newspapers ; I am
quite the reverse. * * * l am not like those, who, on passing
to a new religion, hate those who adhere to their former faith : on
the contrary, I love my Italian brethren, as I love you too.

" Upon hearing the news of my separation from * Popery,' my
parents would die of grief : this may guide you to suggest in Rome,
that the news be so conveyed to them as not to take them by sur-
prise."

Several remarks suggest themselves to us, on comparing
these lines with the published statement. The wish now to
pour on his poor parents the whole bitterness of his abomina-
ble narrative, contrasts painfully with the remnant of tender-
ness which made him shrink from communicating the bare
news of his apostacy without precautions. Some change, not
surely for the better, must have come over him.

Then, again, it is clear that a few months ago he had no
idea of thrusting his name upon the public, and seemed with
laudable sensitiveness to draw back from the unworthy noto-
riety courted by others similarly guilty. All this virulent
and bitter attack on Rome has clearly been an afterthought,
written, we may suppose, to satisfy the desires of his new
friends. And in this we are confirmed by the following
occurrence. Soon after his arrival in England, he showed to
a friend of ours, on whose word we can implicitly rely, and
who is ready to corroborate his statement by oath, a letter
written to him by the Rev. Mr. James (one, if not the prin-
cipal, contriver of his flight from Rome), with the concurrence
of the Rev. Messrs. Blackburn and Noel, requesting him to
favour him with a statement of his religious sentiments, and
of his sufferings in his monastery. Whereupon Ciocci ex-
claimed, "Ah! these scoundrels {questi Signori furfanti*)

^ * His ordinary expression then, when speaking of those who had decoyed
him from Rome.

1844.] Becent Italian Apostates. iM8

wish to induce me to write, that so they may publish some
horrible book against our holy religion. Never will I do this,
as I would rather die than utter a word against it." No
doubt he has found his account in changing his mind ; he had
not then discovered that " the land of religious liberty " was
likewise the land of " religious gulls."

"We have said, then, that Mr. Ciocci's book bears on its
very face self-confutation, from the improbabilities and im-
possibilities which it contains. Now, those who have been
bred in the belief that Rome is as mysterious a place as
Timbuctoo; that one ever walks through its streets with
trembling, for fear of meeting a bravo, and speaks always in
whispers, for fear of being overheard by an inquisitor ; that
every young monk whom one sees is a victim, and every old
one a tyrant; that the cardinal's robes are dyed in the blood
of heretics, and prelates amuse themselves every morning
with a puU at the rack ; that every house is provided with
pitfalls, to send one down into the dungeons of the Holy
Office ; and every night half-a-dozen refractory unbelievers
are pitched into the Tiber; those, we say, that believe, or
would believe, these and any other amount of bugaboo
stories — and really, if told with grave face, many would —
about Rome, will see nothing but what is probable and most
credible in Mr. Ciocci's history. But they who know that
Rome is a city as open to day as London, and peopled Avith
human beings composed of flesh and blood, and having
common sense and common feelings at least ; that its religious
houses are communities of men and not of wild beasts ; that
they are visited and known by hundreds and thousands;
that their inmates go to and fro, have their friends and
acquaintances in the city, and can speak their minds ; that
men live and die there without once in their lives troubling
their heads about the Inquisition ; those, in fine, who have
conversed, lived, and moved in the place, would just as soon
believe the story of the Forty Thieves or the veracious his-
tory of Bluebeard to have happened there last year, as give
credit to Mr. Ciocci's tale. To us, one is just as probable or
as possible as the other.

Let us suppose that a book appeared at Geneva, giving
an account of the terrible doings at Oxford by the enemies
of Calvinistic opinions ; and that it told us how the writer,
an interesting youth, who clearly does not think little of
himself, has been from seven years old and upwards singled
out to be the special object of their love and persecution ; —

Becent Italian Apostates. [Sept

strange combination, but so it is! — that is to say, that so
determined were they to have him, in spite of himself, for
what reason they knew best, that they got his parents to
force him, not into their own college, but into another, with
which they were quite unconnected — (nay, what lie considers
a rival establishment, with which they were at daggei's
drawn); and that there he had been kept in spite of his
parents' remonstrances and his own refractory behaviour;
that while he did all in his power to make himself a pest to
them, they only embraced him the closer, coaxed and tor-
mented him, indulged and imprisoned him, pampered and
poisoned him, all for the same good end of keeping him, all
through the sheer unaccountable love and hatred which they
bore him; that the agents in all these matters were Mr.
Newman and Dr. Pusey, and the Bishop of Oxford ; and
that they called in Mr. Maitland and Archdeacon Manning
to help and back them; and they all gave in to the same
most unreasonable iniquities; and that, when nothing else
would serve their turn, rather than lose so precious a subject,
they coolly poisoned off half-a-dozen heads of houses, called
together, like poultry, to be killed ; and that all this passed
off in Oxford like an every day thing, which astonished
no one, though it Avas the talk of all the town ; what should
we think of the people of Geneva, if they quietly swallowed
all this as easily as their breakfast, aye, and digested it, and
called for a second edition, as most delectable food; what,
but that they must be a most inexplicable set of credulous,
deceivable, hoaxable old women? Yet this is really the
sketch of Mr. Cioccl's marvellous narrative. Put Rome for
Oxford, and there it is. All that contradicts common sense
in this brief outline is there ; and that criterion is as true in
Italy as in England. All that depends for probability on the
character of parties is as fairly set forth in our parallel as in
his counterpart ; for if, in the one, we have been free with
names which at once protect our credulity from being imposed
upon, Mr. Ciocci has associated with the black deeds of his
volume persons as well known, as highly distinguished, as
deeply venerated, and as universally honoured, as any that
we have chosen; nay, saintly men, whose piety and con-
spicuous virtues will shake the infamous slander from their
names and memories as easily as the lion will the dew-drops
from his mane. Yes, we fear not to repeat it ; such men as
the Canon Del Bufalo, whom God, since his demise, as in
his life, has honoured with sj^lendid miracles ; as the Abbate

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates. 265

Pallottj, a man whose days are passed in the confessional, the
prison, or the hospital, the comforter of the poor and the
counsellor of the great, the father of the orphan, and the
model of the clergy, bent down and worn down in youth
to the semblance of age by mortification and labour ; as
F. Rossini, revered till his death as a matchless spiritual
guide, in the holy exercises of St. Ignatius; such men as
Cardinals Patrizi and Castraccani, eminent for their virtues
and their prudence ; and as many others, held up to public
hatred in Ciocci's work, are as full security to those who know
them, against the truth of anything wicked or infamous with
which their names are connected, as the most honoured and
esteemed in Church or state could be in England.

Mr. Ciocci commences his autobiography from his earliest
years. Over these we pass lightly for the present ; they will
afford matter for a few remarks, and, what is more important,
for a few detections, later.

At the age of sixteen, we find him at home, frequenting
the public schools of the Sapienza — the Roman university.
Here occurred a most extraordinary incident, of which, of
course, Mr. Ciocci is the hero. It is worth examining, be-
cause, though in itself a trifle, it may show his trust- worthiness
in matters of greater moment. Here is his account of the
matter : —

" We attended school five days in the week ; Sundays and
Thursdays were holidays. On these two days, after the devotional
exercises of the morning, we assembled outside the city walls, to
the number of about two hundred, all youths from sixteen to nine-
teen years of age, for the purpose of exercising ourselves in the art
of war. The ideas we had acquired, from the study of our natioual
history, of the greatness of the Roman people, and of their military
exploits, had roused in us a desire to render ourselves skilful in
arms. We were further stimulated to these proceedings from
perusing the wars of Napoleon, the history of America, and other
warlike treatises. Hence we conceived and followed out the project
of organizing two armies, each of which was headed by a general.
We took our positions, and following the evolutions and manoeuvres
as well as we were able, commenced an attack. Two trumpets and
two drums animated the combatants on either side ; banners were
displayed ; swords, lances, pistols, cannons, and other implements
of war, all of wood, composed our arms. After having exercised
ourselves for the space of three or four hours, we returned to the
city ; some abandoning themselves to the innocent joy of having
gained a bloodless victory, others to the passing soitow of a transient
defeat. We took the precaution of re-entering the city in small

266 Recent Italian Apostate?, [Sept.

parties, lest our numbers should attract notice, and we should be
forbidden to repeat our diversion." — pp. 17, 18.

We have said that this is a most trifling incident, and yet
it is fraught with the grossest improbabilities. Let it there-
fore be first observed that we, who are examining it, were
ourselves at that time connected with that establishment, and
discharged the office of public professor in it ; and are there-
fore tolerably entitled to judge of the truth or likelihood of
such a story. It is well known that in Rome the very idea
of two hundred youths of the class of students, organized in
military order, and going twice a week through the military
exercise out of one of the gates, is of itself hardly credible.
After the attempted revolution in the papal states in 1831,
the government, seeing how widely revolutionary ideas had
spread among youths at the university, broke up the Sapi-
enza, sending the legal schools to one quarter of the city, and
the medical to another, reserving only the theological classes
at the usual place. This was done with the avowed object
of preventing their combining together for any foolish po-
litical purpose. Further, we well remember how complaint
was made because the law-students, after their " devotional
exercises" at the church of St. Giovanni della Pigna, re-
mained collected in groups in the square without ; and how
a particular friend of ours, their spiritual instructor, by one
kind word in a sermon, put an end to the grievance. With
these jealous and guarded feelings just before, for this sepa-
ration lasted some years, are we to believe that two hundred
of these youths were permitted to assemble with swords,
lances, pistols, and cannon, (all of wood, to be sure, but sym-
bolical enough in the eyes of a foreign police of something
worse), and at least with trumpet and drum, which we are to
suppose were real, sonorous, clattering instruments, quite
enough when regularly repeated twice a week, to bring a posse
of gens-d'armes upon the combatants. But Mr. Ciocci tells us
that they " took the precaution of entering the city in small
bodies, lest their numbers should attract notice, and they
should he forbidden to repeat their diversion.'''' Now compare
this with what he says in page 22 : — " Our proceedings are
all carried on in public, and there is nothing of which we can
possibly be ashamed." So that , the whole affair was public,
and yet they stole into the city in small bodies for conceal-
ment I How are we to reconcile these two — publicity and
precautions — against detection ? They knew, however, that
such a diversion would not have been allowed, and this is

1844. J Beceni Italian Apostates. 267

enough for our purpose. We must be permitted to doubt the
existence of it, under the eye of the police.

But no doubt the police who would "have forbidden
such a diversion," could not see what was "carried on in
public." But there were others, far more keen, that did.
Ah! those prying, lynx-eyed Jesuits, who could discover
two hundred youths publicly making sham-fight, to the
sound of trumpet and drum, while the police were asleep !
No doubt they took care to give information to the autho-
rities, and aroused all the slumbering suspicions of the " ty-
rannical" government, and had all the young would-be generals
lodged in the castle of St. Angelo ! No such thing. They
went a much more cunning way about it. Instead of de-
nouncing the matter as a nuisance, and getting the young
gentlemen's ears roundly boxed by the police, and themselves
sent home, the Jesuits commence a most complex intrigue,
and put themselves to immense trouble. First, it is resolved
that Master Ciocci is, must be, the life and soul of the whole
concern, the Mars from whom the belligerent spirit emanates,
and he must be put out of the way. Such is the deep thought
of Father Brandi, who " plotted the dissolution of this festive
meeting." " The wily Jesuit," continues Ciocci, " thus rea-
soned with himself:" (We do not stop to discover how Mr.
Ciocci got to know the secret musings of " the wily Jesuit,"
because it is a privilege conceded to all writers of romance, to
describe the secret thoughts of their characters) : " The most
effectual way of dispersing these restless youths, who may at
some future period render themselves formidable to the govern-
ment of the priests, would be to take away the leaders. Of
these the foremost and least tractable is R. Ciocci;* when he
is removed, it will be an easy matter to separate the rest.
His family are scrupulously devout ; let us attack their vul-
nerable point," &c. Then come a series of discourses made
by this artful man to the mother of our hero (not, of course,
made before him) which end in his family determining to send
him to college to study his philosophy — a wise determination,
forsooth. Surely, however, the Jesuits tried to secure him
for their own schools. Oh no: they determined that he
should be a Cistercian monk. Just compare this with our

* Ciocci was all this time tonsured, and consequently, if he attended the
schools of the Sapienza, must have worn the ecclesiastical dress. Let those
who know the usages of Rome, believe tliat a young abbate was at the head of
an organized body of two hundred young men, playing such fantastic tricks
before high heaven as these, and no notice taken of it, till the Jesuits feared for
the safety of the pontifical government.

268 Becent Italian Aijostates, [Sept.

author's reasoning about the Jesuits at p. 115. "The idea
at last occurred to me that I was not fox enough to be able
to cope with the wiles of these tyrants (the Cistercians),
brought up in deceit and therefore it behoved me, if pos-
sible, to enlist in my cause some person, who, oeing as crafts/
as themselves, should fight against them with equal arms.
Could I but succeed, thought I, in engaging in my defence
one of a rival order, I might look upon myself as emancipated.
With this motive / formed the project of imploring the assist-
ance of some Jesuit, well knowing the influence these men
possess in Rome, and also how eagerly they seize every oppor-
tunity that presents itself of lowering the pride of those monastic
orders superior to themselves in endowments and power."
Assuming, therefore, in " the crafty " F. Brandi these feel-
ings of his order towards the rival order of the Cistercians
(here declared as such), we must conclude that when he
recommended young Ciocci to be 'sent to this, he had nothing
less in view than its humiliation and disgrace. This was
indeed a long-sighted policy, and fully proves his sagacity.

But we certainly do not see this quality much displayed
in what follows. Father Brandi having disposed of Ciocci^
all the influence of other powerful men of the order was
brought to bear upon other striplings. But, by the bye, we
are in Falstaff^s case ; the men in buckram have increased.
** While the Jesuit Brandi was employed in deciding my
destiny, other Jesuits were likewise exerting themselves to
dissolve the union of the three hundred^'' (p. 23.) A hundred
more have come up, who certainly complicate the case not a
little. But let it pass. What think you, reader, was the
notable way taken by these clever men (amongst whom F.
Peronne, author of a learned course of theology, is expressly
named) to break up the rest of the university corps ? Did
they send them all to college ? Oh dear, no ! For one they
procured a situation in Torlonia's bank ; another they compel
to enrol himself as a cadet among the dragoons, and "his
brother is placed among the noble guards," that is, receives a
commission which is an object of high ambition, and of diflfi-
cult attainment to the best families. A son of Prince Chigi
gets, in spite of himself, an appointment in the line. (It is
hardly worth while mentioning that there is no son of the
family in that branch of the service). Thus far the young
soldiers realize their aspirations; but another is still more
curiously disposed of, by being sent ofi;" somewhere as "under
cancellor/' after the Jesuits have decorated him "with

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates. 269

laurels," as Mr. Cioccl's translation has it, not knowing that
*'^« laurea^^ means, in scholastic phraseology, the degree of
doctor. To qualify him for the office, this could only be the
doctorship in laws, which the Jesuits have not the power of
conferring. But never mind : some way or other, here is a
boy " between sixteen and nineteen " made at once a judge,
to bribe him from going out to exercise with a wooden
gun !

Really the whole transaction is too absurd to be treated
seriously. It reminds one of the story of the charlatan
who sold powder for killing fleas ; which was to be effected
by catching the offender, opening his mouth, and putting in
the powder. " Would not crushing it do as well ? " asked a
bystander : " Just the same," was the honest reply. And so,
if F. Brandi seriously apprehended the overthrow of the
government from these puerile diversions, one word to the
authorities of the university would have put an end to them,
instead of the rather expensive process of procuring clerkships,
judgeships, and military commissions, by way of coaxing boys
to give up playing at soldiers.

However, according to Mr. Ciocci, he received, as his
douceur, confinement in the college attached to the Cistercian
monastery of St. Bernard, under pretence of studying philo-
sophy, but in reality to be compelled to join the order against
his will. The whole business is to us more than incredible,
and we must be excused if we refuse our assent, without
better proof than declamatory assertion, to a narrative which
supposes a preternatural amount of folly and wickedness, in
men whose characters stand fair before the world, and have
as good a right to be heard and believed, as Mr. Ciocci, whose
veracity and character appear sufficiently at a discount in his
own pages. No : he has overdone the thing ; his slander is
too thickly laid on to hold.

On his entering the house, he is first treated with peculiar
honour, having a suite of apartments assigned him, till, by
degrees, he is fully thrust into the prison-house of the novi-
ciate or college. Now in all this history we are met with so
many incredibilities, that we wonder how any one can have
written them. First, the master of the novices conducts him
along a corridor, and them ushers him through the massive
gate of the novice's apartment, with the words which Dante
tells us are written on the infernal gates —

" Lasciate ogni speranza, vol ch'entrate."

270 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

A very likely speech for one who was in a conspiracy to
entice him into the place. There he is left alone, with the
novices, ten young men of fifteen or sixteen, " with pallid
countenances, sunken eyes, and attenuated forms," though he
had known several of them " vigorous in heal 'h, ruddy, and
joyous." Yet a few pages on we are given their daily bill of
fare, no stinted one, with an assurance that " there was no
cause to complain " on that score, (p. 34.) What then had
reduced these youths to so sad a condition ? It is intimated
that the whole had been kidnapped like himself, and im-
prisoned there against their wills ; that forged letters were
sent to their parents expressing how happy they were, and
forged replies returned ; and, finally, a particular friend
among them cautions him to beware how he tells a word of
his revelation, lest, he adds, " a few drops of the water of
Tofania" (a poison, the very ingredients are as unknown as
those of the philosopher's stone) may be in store for both of us!"
"For both of us?" exclaims Ciocci in very natural surprise;
" my object in coming here is study, and you say they will
dare to give me the water of Tofania. No, no, it cannot
be." ** I repeat, what I have uttered is true ; I conjure you
to submit, as I have done ; or in a ievr days you may cease
to exist." " How ? Die ! Die in the hands of these cruel
men ! O unhappy me ! where am I ? " (p. 32). Well,
indeed, might he ask this question, and so may we. Was he
in the den of the forty thieves, or in the castle of some
baronial rubber of ancient days? For truly, elsewhere one
must be strangely credulous to believe such a tale. Is it
possible to imagine that any body of men, religious or other-
wise, could exist by such means ; that is, that eleven families
at least, including Ciocci's, (and, supposing this to be the
plan of other religious houses in Rome, some hundreds
more), can be got over to give up their children to be
imprisoned, and made to pine away, and forced into a life
that they detest ? is it possible that they can allow them to
be excluded from the light of heaven (ji. 33), and be per-
secuted in every form? that the whole of them could be
kept in ignorance by means of forged correspondences being
kept up between the superiors and them, where hand-
writing, style, little family particulars, could not fail to
betray the deceit ? for how can we believe that every father's,
mother's, brother's, and sister's hand was imitated, and all
their ideas caught up faithfully ? For Mr. Ciocci (though
his poison-fearing friend had told hira of this wholefcale

1844."] Recent Italian Apostates. 271

forgery) assures us that he wrote home and received replies,
and neither side detected the fraud, though both the right
letters were suppressed, and forgeries substituted, to the
number of near sixty on both sides, i. e. one hundred in
one year. (pp. 49 — 51.) And all this time, be it under-
stood, that parents and friends have access to the novices
or students, and ample means of communicating with them ;
and Mr. Ciocci has himself taught us, that it was easy
enough to get servants to violate rules, and lend a hand
to any secret service, especially conveyance of letters.
(pp. QQ, 74, &c.) Now if all this folly and unnatural
dealing of families, with respect to their children, is to
be supposed possible, on such a scale, what gain on earth
could it be to the religious order to encage young men for
the sake of poisoning them ? Surely, if Masters Ciocci and
ApoUonj gave their superiors trouble, it would be a much
simpler process, and one more likely to serve the interests of
their order, to send them about their business, than to murder
them. Surely monks have common sense enough to see a
middle course between being plagued by refractory pupils
and giving them ratsbane ! Will any one in his senses
believe that there is a body of men, putting aside their
religious character, who would make nothing of killing off
youths when they got troublesome, instead of at once dis-
missing them? What good on earth could it do them?
What serious evils must it not bring on them? Can we
imagine, too, such a system going on for years, the victims
being young men of good family, and no public indignation
felt or, expressed, no punishment demanded ? or, worse than
this, parents going on sending their children to these dens of
murder and iniquity ? * Are charges such as these to be
taken at the word of an utter stranger, whose very work, as
we shall see, entitles him to anything but credit ?

However, we may make ourselves easy. For Mr. Ciocci, with
one of his usual kind contradictions, a few pages on, sets us at
rest. He had been introduced to ten emaciated youths, who
mysteriously let him understand that he would soon be as
reduced as themselves, not through want of food, but from
unhappiness like their own. But someway or other, the

* Last year, an ex-Dominican friar and a priest was convicted in Rome of the
cruel treatment of a ward, which ended in the child's death. In spite of every
effort to the contrary, he was degraded and executed. This does not look like
any toleration of such murder as Mr. Ciocci would have us believe the pontifical
government coolly permits.

272 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

number increases to four-and-twenty, and it turns out that
"ally with the exception of D. Cherubino, had voluntarily
given themselves to the sacrifice; but this young man, like
himself, had been victimized. He had not yet completed his
fifteenth year. Circumstances, age, and misfortunes, bound
them together, &c., but being at length worn out with suffer-
ing and ill-treatment, he bent his back to the yoke, and yielded
himself to their hands." (p. 36.) If there is any consistency
in the narrative, among these young men were the ten pallid
youths who first greeted him, and Apollonj himself; yet, as
he is not Don Cherubino, how are we to reconcile this volun-
tary surrender of the novices with their former reluctant
imprisonment, and their sad pining away ? That Ciocci was
considered a novice, is plain, from his making his vows, as he
says, at the end of the year, he was, therefore, in the company
of those same young men. Let others reconcile the two state-
ments,— we cannot.

We next have a long narrative of the important event of
his profession, which, of course, is made out to have been
accomplished by violence and deceit. As usual, letters were
forged from his mother ; he was assured that the ceremony
was a mere form, was got to sign a declaration before a notary
that he willingly renounced his property, under the pretence
that its operation would cease at the expiration of his term of
study ; and so, after one or two scenes, he is brought like a
sheep to the church, and there makes his vows, all the ladies
pitying him !* (By the bye, we were not aware that P. Abbate
D. Nivardo Tassini was a bishop, p. 56.) Now to all this
we simply reply by asking, Cui bono ? Are we to believe so
much gratuitous malice for no purpose ? Those who have
the least opinion of monks will be the most inclined to give
them credit for a sharp look-out to their own interests. But
really, unless Mr. Ciocci would have us believe that there was
something so transcendently super-excellent in himself as
would make the Cistercian order determined to secure him,
in spite of himself, at any cost of lying, forgery, violence, and
perjury (for the notarial declaration was equivalent to an

* Mr. Ciocci tells us that as a preliminary the barber came to shave his head.
But he, quite amazed, asked what he wanted, as he had no beard, and his
hair was short. The superior, of course, tries to deceive him, and tells that it
was necessary only that the tonsure should be made. " This is a formality."
At the first touch of the razor, he felt his indignation kindle, &c. Yet, observe,
that he had received the tonsure at seven, and must have worn it tilj now.
Whence then the amazement? whence the indignation?

1844.] Jtecent Italian Apostates. 273

oath); of hypocrisy, too, impiety, and sacrilege, we cannot
imagine how else to explain the transaction. Out of four-
and-twenty youths, he was the only one who resisted ; was
he so necessary to them that they could not forego him, but
would wade up to the neck in vice and crime to have him ?
Of what use would a fractious, discontented, rebellious mem-
ber be to the order ? What credit, support, or benefit could
he gain for it? Of Mr. Ciocci's abilities (except in fiction),
or of his learning, this, his only work, gives us no high idea ;
it is filled with high-flown declamation, and common-place,
and whenever he touches on any subject of literature, clas-
sical or native, he is almost sure to blunder. We have seen
his Italian : it is deficient both in orthography and in con-
struction. In the short note translated at the beginning
of our remai'ks on his book, there are eight or ten such
errors. How, then, are we to account for this strange eager-
ness to possess him at any cost ?

After this, in consequence of an interview with his mother,
who promised him that after he had finished his studies, he
should apply to the " Congregation of Bishops and Regulars"
for release from his vows, he was put in confinement, threatened
with death, debarred from all communication with his friends,
and applied himself assiduously to the study of philosophy.
And why all that rigour ? Because his mother had shewn
him all the fifty or sixty forged letters received by her from
the monastery ; and he, " on finding them to contain senti-
ments never expressed nor even thought by himself," — how
well the hand- writing &c. must have been imitated, to require
such a mode of detection ! — had pronounced them forgeries
(p. 58). Yet his mother, who now knows how he has been
deceived, and how wretched he has been, coolly tells him to
go back to his murderous prison for two or three years more,
when every one in Rome knows that to get vows declared
null, it is necessary to apply as soon as possible after they
have been taken. We cannot understand the conduct of an
affectionate mother to have been such as Ciocci describes it ;
especially when, after his return to the monastery, he .was
forbidden to write letters, or see any of his friends. Surely
she must then have thought of lookinor after him.

He now begins to read " the History of the Popes, Mura-
tori's Annals of Italy, and the Councils. These books con-
tain the few truths that her vigilant governors allow the
people of Italy to read. Here I observed that pride, thirst
for dominion, cupidity of riches, and easy and voluptuous
VOL. XVII. NO. xxxiii. 18

274 Recent Italian Apoetatee. [Sept

living, had, in every age, been the main-spring of action" (easy
and voluptuous living a main-spring of action !) " to the
Church of Rome" (p. 64). Are these, then, the onlf/ truths
which the governors of Italy, Rome included, allow the people
to read? Truly, how generous in the p3rmis8ion, how
sensible in the selection I But this is to us quite new in-
formation, that the Councils are an important portion of the
restricted literary course permitted to poor benighted Italians.
Twenty folio volumes of Greek and Latin, or thereabouts,
and of solid theology, is a fair allowance. We own, of reading,
instead of Penny Magazines and Penny Cyclopedias.

We now come to the very climax of Mr. Ciocci's horrors :
and we will give his account in a summary manner, and make
our comments upon it :

A certain D. Alberico Amatori, " a very learned and pious!
monk,"" librarian at the monastery of Santa Croce, belonging
to the same order, took a great liking to our hero, and began
to extol the Bible to him. It was not long before he put
forward the doctrine that the Bible is " the only book that
contains the word of eternal life." Finding in the youth art
apt scholar, he unfolded to him, under secresy, his plan for
reforming the order. " The change was to be effected by
simply adopting the Bible alone as the rule of faith.^'' Ciocci
subscribed with fourteen others. D. Alberico, " in the sim-
plicity" (aye, truly !) "of his heart, applied to the General"
for permission to retire with his fifteen disciples to some
monastery, "for the purpose of living in the perfect ob-
servance of the proposed rule." — (p. 69.)

In other words, the modest application was made to the
superior of a Catholic religious order, for permission to erect
in t^e very heart of it a Protestant community/, directly reject-
ing the fundamentals of Catholic faith, and for the giving up
of a monastery for the trial of the experiment ! The whole
thing is just as probable as if tve were told that a deputation
from the Unitarian or Baptist body had called on Dr. Bloom-
field, to request him to give up one of the London parish
churches, or Westminster school, to their care. We will
believe the one as soon as the other. Either D. Alberico had
studied the first principles of his religion, not to say theology,
and then he must have known that what he asked (//"he asked
it, mind,) was contrary to them ; or he had not, and then he
certainly was no learned man, nor fit to be librarian. But
the speech put into his mouth, is far more likely to be Mr.
Ciocci's fabrication, than the expression of any learned man's

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates^ ITS

sentiments. It is as follows : " The Bible is become a book
almost disused. Here and there a priest or monk may he
founds tcho htrriedly repeats a feio scattered fragments, a few
mutilated psalms, and that is all. Instead of the homilies of
the fathers, and the lives of the saints, how much better would
it be to devote oneself entirely to the constant reading and
meditation of the law of God," &c. Now, if there be any
sense in the first part of this sentence, it means : first, that
only a few priests or monks are found to recite the psalms ;
and secondly, that the psalms which they recite are mutilated.
Yet Mr. Ciocci knows, or ought to know, that both assertions
are false ; that every priest and every monk recites the bre-
viary (the religious in choir), in which are all the psalms en-
tire, without the slightest mutilation ; and that the breviary
and missal do not contain a few scattered fragments, but
large, and the principal, portions of the Old and New Testa-
ments. Yes, Mr. Ciocci did know this : shame ! shame ! to
tell deliberate lies ! And further, after D. Alberico has been
made to throw a slur on the homilies of the fathers, a little
further on, he is said, by way of still uncatholicizing him, to
have procured him " the Commentaries of the Holy Fathers^
translated from the French.'''' So much for consistency: but
why have them translated from the French ?

Don Alberico's proposal was considered "scandalous,"
and so it was ; and these reformers " were all denounced
before the Holy Convocation," (what on earth is that? we
never heard of it before,) "as heretics and apostates." What
else were they ? The tribunal to which cognizance of such
conduct, as the preaching up Protestant doctrines, and the
attempt to establish a Protestant branch of the Cistercian
order in Rome, would belong, would be the terrible Inqui-
sition, or Holy Office, concerning which Mr. Ciocci makes
such a flourish at the outset of his work, where he says that
he is, "one of those unfortunate beings upon whom the
Roman tigers had fixed their claws ; victim of an Inqui-
sition," &c. (p. 3,) while his whole work shews that he never
once came in contact with this tribunal, unless this " Holy
Convocation," is it; and then, certainly, he and his friend
came oiF very easily. For after the notable plan of a re-
ligious house, in which the Bible alone was to be the rule of
faith and life, had been discussed, what think you was the
result ? Pariuriunt montes, Sec. Why this terrible tribunal,
whatever it was, "thought it advisable to impose silence
on the parties," which means, in the judicial language of

18^

276 Mecent Italian Apostates. [Sept.'

Rome, allowed each side to hold its opinion, and forbade
either to impugn the other. In other words, this awful tri-
bunal, speaking the sentiments of the Church of Rome, has
pronounced that any person, and a Catholic, may in Rome
maintain the Bible alone to be the rule of f^ith, and no one
must gainsay him ! Reader, believe that, if thou canst ! If
thou canst not — then don't believe Ciocci.

Surely, it is now high time for the order to get rid of
Ciocci and his new master in mischief. It would be easy,
after such an affair, to get them expelled the order, or to
remove them elsewhere. Instead of tliis, see the creditable
way in which they go to work. They poison all, except these
two ! Six escape death after many months' illness, the others
die at very regular intervals of about two months ; so that two
abbots and lour fathers are despatched in a very short time !
Is it to the hearty good sense of the people of England, or
only to the blind fanaticism of a few bigots, that Mr. Ciocci
has the hardihood to address such a statement ? Will any
one believe that, "in the nineteenth century" any com-
munity of men could be kept up, in Avhicli a few superiors
poison not only their subjects, but their brother-superiors,
like flies, without any notice being taken of it by the public,
by the authorities, or, still more strange, by the survivors?
Neither Don Alberico nor Ciocci seem to take the least step
in consequence, nor do the lucky six who survive to prove
that the monks are not sure poisoners ; though if they got
rid of " the abbot Bucciarelli, a man of herculean stature, in
three days," they must have been pretty good hands at the
work. The families of these murdered men ask for no
enquiry, and give themselves no trouble. The ecclesiastical
authorities, in fine, must have seen that this sudden death
fell on the very men who had been acquitted, wlien accused
by the order before them, and therefore, one would think,
must have resented the matter and taken it up, and looked
into it. Oh dear no ! they are all quite used to it. In Rome
it is quite a matter of course ; and every religious order is
understood to be kept up by wholesale poisoning of a dozen
members at a time I * And then, no doubt, the same wisdom

* A few years ago, shots were fired at night into the window of the superior
of the Greek monastery of Grottaferrata, near Home. He was not hurt, but
died some months after from the fright. There was a suspicion that some
young and discontented religious had been parties to the outrage, by procuring
It to be committed. A severe investigation took place : Cardinal Mattei was
appointed to enquire into the whole business. In the mean time, the regular

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates. ^t

which dictates that plan of destroying a troublesome little
nest of reformers, teaches them to keep whole and sound the
authors and ringleaders, and not even disturb them in their
posts. D. Alberico was continued librarian, and Ciocci,
for the present, left to study philosophy — the only two un-
poisoned. But there is one monk not yet disposed of. Why
a middle course was pursued in his regard, we cannot say ;•
but he was not poisoned, and yet was not forgiven. " The
monk Stramucci was sent to the monastery of San Severino,
in the marshes ; where, oioing to tlie insalubrity of the situ-
ation, or from some other cause, in the course of a few
months he was from a robust man reduced to a skeleton."
We must here share an error between Ciocci and his trans-
lator ; or rather, we must first divide it into two portions,
into a blunder and an untruth ; giving the first to the trans-
lator, and the second to the author. On first reading the
sentence, we were quite perplexed to make out whereabouts
" in the marshes," understanding as every one would, the
Pontine marshes, there was a Cistercian monastery. More-
over, we only knew of one place of the name of San Severino.
But as that is situated not in any marshes, but in the pro-
vince of "the March of Ancona," we were led to assume
that Ciocci wrote " San Severino nelle Marche,^^ which would
be the ordinary Roman designation ; and that his translator,
seeing the expression coupled with a charge of insalubrity,
rendered it by the marshes. But how Ciocci could talk of
the insalubrity of San Severino, a hill in the centre of the
healthiest and richest province of Italy, (the residence of a
bishop — generally a cardinal,) we are at a loss to determine,
except on the ground that he will dare to say anything that
serves his purpose. And speaking of salubrity, we may as
well make another comment. In the next sentence he tells
us that " D. A. Gigli, curate in the monastery of Chiaravalle,
was called to Rome,*" and knocked off in two months ; being,
when he arrived, in excellent health, (p. 70.) At p. 104,
we are informed that at length Don Alberico " was com-
manded to quit Rome for the monastery oi'Chiaravalle, on

authorities of the house were superseded, and the suspected monks were closely
confined in other religious houses. The enquiry was conducted with tho
utmost rigour; all the guilty parties were severely punished, some we believe
by imprisonment for life ; the monastery deprived of its own government, and
a superior from another order placed over it. Yet we are to believe that four-
teen religious, including abbots, could be coolly poisoned in a religious house in
Rome, and attract no notice !

278 Beceni Italian A^Jostatee* [Sept.

the frontier. Such a decree was equivalent to sentence of
death ; for the noxious air of the locality was calculated to
produce on his weak frame an effect as fatal as poison."
Now let us compare notes, Gigli enjoys excellent health at
Chiaravalle, and Amatori is sent there to be poisoned by
the climate. The one must, forsooth, be brought at some
expense to Rome to be literally poisoned (was there no bane
to be got there ?) ; the other must be sent to that very place
to be killed by the atmosphere. Would it not have been as
easy to poison Amatori at Rome as Gigli? or to let Gigli
die by the noxious air of Chiaravalle as Amatori ? Truly
the devices of these good disciples of St. Bernard puzzle one.
It seems as if they always went the clumsiest way they can
about things. Again : why send Stramucci to one pestiferous
place to be choked with foul air, and bring Gigli from
another to be poisoned ? But no : it is no use trifling about
the matter; wherefore we tell the reader at once, that
Chiaravalle is not on the frontier, nor within a hundred miles
of it anywhere ; and we tell him, moreover, that he will find
it in his map on the banks of the Esina, not far from Ancona.
Aye, and if ever you travel in that lovely part of Italy,
descending from the hill of Jesi towards the sea, you will
pass through fertile lands like gardens, and, down in the
valley, you will go through the cheerful and thriving town
of Chiaravalle, the great depot of the tobacco-plant, sur-
rounded by vineyards and olive-grounds, and teeming with
a healthy population, and remember that this is the my-
sterious spot in which one Cistercian enjoys excellent health
(and you will believe it), and to which another is sent to be
poisoned by bad air. Fie, Mr. Ciocci, fie ! And this process
of settling monks is considered by him as a practical appli-
cation of the maxim of governing, " Divide et impera ;"
which, we suppose, ought to be translated, " Kill your sub-
jects, and you will then govern them quietly ! "

But, before quitting this disgraceful attempt to play on
the credulity of religious fanaticism in England, let us say
one word more, about the slander conveyed through it.
Mr. Ciocci is a person unknown to the world, save through
his autobiography. The superiors of the Cistercian order,
including its general, D. Nivardo Tassini, are well-known
public characters, hold station and ecclesiastical rank in
Rome and before the world. We will, therefore, fairly stake
their reputation against his; and let any impartial person
judge between them. In reading his account, some people

1844.] Mecent Italian Apostates. 9W

will imagine that these personages, at such a distance, are
parts of a dark, mysterious system ; and they feel no more
startled at hearing such atrocities attributed to them than if
they were told of Don Pedro the Cruel or the Ameers of
Scinde. But let them alter their view, and remember that
these terrible charges are made against persons living and
enjoying fair reputation in the heart of European civilization,
in a state with a government, in the midst of a society as
refined as that of England. They are men engaged in the
discharge of religious duties ; dally assisting at the altar, and
singing the divine psalmody of the Church ; acting as parish
priests, preaching or instructing. As for ourselves, we know
them personally ; we have spent hours, almost days, in the
library late in charge of D. Alberico, but then in the hands
of a young man, worth twenty Cioccis, who was pi'ematurely
cut off — we expected to find his name somewhere in the book
among the poisoned — by his own excessive application to the
"codes" (as Oiocci's translator renders Codicil codices, manu-
scripts,) of the library of Santa Croce; we were his most
intimate friend, consulted by him in all his pursuits; we
have conversed freely and unreservedly with him and others
in the order, having been visited by them repeatedly ; nay,
we have familiarly conversed with the very individual to
whom all these deeds of atrocity must be principally (if true)
referred, and have conversed about the very author of these
imputations, who was spoken of with all the kindness and
tenderness that a father could apply to an erring child. We
therefore, at least, must feel the whole malignity of such
charges ; but we feel also that we have a right to appeal to
the justice of our fellow-countrymen on behalf of such per-
sons against their accuser, till opportunity at least has been
given for a reply, which we certainly shall not consider
necessary, for no proof has been brought against them.
Think with what horror men would instinctively recoil from
any person who should bring the charge of deliberate
murder, the hideous charge of poisoning the children con-
fided to him by their parents for education, merely because
they were troublesome to him, against one moving honour-
ably, with reputation, in society — against a clergyman of
known character in any denomination of Protestants ! How,
unless he brought overwhelming evidence of the fact, would
the accusation rebound on his own head ! And so let it be
here ; especially if we have succeeded, as we trust we have,
in establishing gross improbabilities and glaring contradic-

£80 Recent Italian Apostates, [Sept.

tions in the accuser's own narrative. Some may appear
trifling ; but if Daniel, not only confuted the accusations of
the two elders against Susanna, but condemned them and
put them to death, as seekers after innocent blood, because
the one placed the false charge under " a mastic tree," and
the other under "a holm tree" (Dan. xiii), surely such self-
contradiction as is found in every page of this narrative may
well throw doubts upon the cool imputation of foul, dia-
bolical murders, cast upon persons of fair repute.

After this, Ciocci gets from his friend the librarian a copy
of the New Testament, and reading it, becomes quite a
Protestant. It is the old story : for he tells us how he came
to conclusions about the blessed Eucharist, purgatory, con-
fession, indulgences, &c., so pat to his present purposes, so
nicely chiming with English evangelical notions, so exactly
based upon the very arguments used by Exeter-hall champions,
that really it is quite marvellous. In a w^ord, he became a
complete Protestant : and it is clear from what he says, that
if Luther, and Calvin, and Zuinglius, had never lived, he
would, in his cell, at San Bernardo, have hit upon exactly the
same ideas with them, on those very points in which English
Protestantism agrees with one or other of them — but only
just on those ; so that his bible-reading led him to make for
himself precisely, and to a tittle, that farrago of Wittenburg,
Geneva, and Zurich theology, which constitutes evangelical
Church-of-Englandism ! How lucky ! How true ?

But now comes the crowning scene. He was not poisoned
with the others ; no, because he wanted to have a poisoning
*' fit of his own." It might have been useful then to the com-
munity ; there would have been an ostensible reason for it.
But now that all is over, and no one any longer suspects him,
the monks, — we must suppose merely for the humour of the
thing, — determine to get rid of him in the same way. One
evening, after supper, he is seized with frightful spasms in
the stomach. This and other symptoms led him to suspect
the cause of his illness. Wherefore, u[)on seeing the monks
come about him, he exclaimed, " you have your revenge," &c.
He is asked to go to confession, but he is too much of a Pro-
testant for that, and refuses. Whereupon he is duly exorcised
as possessed! (Every Catholic knows that this can never be
done, and never is done, without express leave from the
bishop.) After some other struggles, a ])hysician arrives,
who is evidently in the secret, for he brings his medicine with
him, which turns out to be only another dose of poison

1844.] 'Eecent Italian Apostates* 28i

Still he is a match for this, and insists upon having his own
physician. Dr. Riccardi, called in. Now, if the monks had
poisoned him, and intended to kill him, it does not seem very-
likely that they will call in a man to snatch their victim from
their deadly grasp, and to detect their villainous design. Nor
is it probable that they will take care to leave the remains of
the poison in the phial on the table. However, they do both.
Dr. Riccardi comes, and finds the poison, examines it, shud-
ders, utters "a mysterious and significant 'ah!'" and — throws
it out of the window ! He then some way or other prepares
another medicine, &c., and restores him. And after this,
Ciocci is not only left unmolested, but is sent out in a carriage,
and quite indulged. He lets his mother know, by a letter,
that he has been poisoned, and she (who is everywhere spoken
of as most affectionate) replies by exhorting him to patience !
Will any mother believe this ? He now receives the minor
orders.

We are almost weary, we fear our readers are quite so,
'with following the steps of this foolish young man in his
egoistical narrative. But it is better to finish the subject at
once ; and, therefore, we pray our readers to iear with us,
while we touch summarily on a few more points. His
mother, who could have done the thing just as well or better
at any previous time, now gets him to write a memorial to
the "Congregation of Bishops and Regulars,"""* praying for the
declaring of his vows, null and void. The memorial is read
aloud by the secretary of the congregation, and he is per-
mitted to support the prayer of his petition. His proceedings
" were the general topic of conversation in Rome." (p. 90.)
Yet we have not found any one who heard of them ; while
persons high in ecclesiastical dignity and office there at that
time, assure us that they never heard them mentioned. But
the superiors, "counselled by the wolfish heart enclosed in
their breasts, assumed towards him the conduct of lambs.'"
Then comes a digression about Unity, because *' unity being
the boasted palladium of the Romish Church, it is necessary
that she should see how weak is her battle-steed, her invul-
nerable Achilles." (p. 92.) This is classical with a vengeance !
The whole of this portion of his history, as every other part,
exhibits what is at the heart of all, the importance of the
writer. Here he is struggling, single-handed, against a
powerful religious body, the superiors of which are now at
his feet, most humbly gracious to him ; all Rome is ringing
with his name; all its great men, the saintlv Del Bufalo, the

282 Recent Italian Apostates, [Sept.

pious Palotti, the eloquent Finetti, come to wrestle with the
youthful champion, but in vain. Only one thing more is
wanted — the notice and sympathies of royalty. These are
soon procured. The good old dowager queen of Sardinia
comes twice to the monastery, and is " informed of his
mournful history ;" of course by himself. But this only gives
occasion for a disgusting outburst against her and all Italian
princes, in which figures this most humane sentence : "Groans
are a pleasing harmony to Italian sovereigns," &c. Alas!
that the spirit of vanity should have so prevailed over th^
spirit of truth.

However, after a long suspense, the decision has to be
given on his petition, backed by his charges against the order.
We cannot stop to mark a number of inconsistencies which
will at once strike any one acquainted with the forms of pro-»
cedure at Eome, in ecclesiastical congregation, enough to
convince us of the untruthfulness of the narrative. The
decision, as given by him, we unhesitatingly pronounce un-
true. It was, according to him, as follows : " That the mo'
nastie profession was null, that he was at liberty to lay aside
the Cistercian habit and to return to live freely in the bosom
of his family. But let it be known, was continued, that he is
prohibited from marri/ing ; though a secular, he must remain a
celibat, like the Knights of Malta ! " Well may Ciocci ex-
claim, " behold the wisdom of justice ! the infallibility of
a pope." (p. 98.) For we have no difficulty in declaring,
that such a rescript never issued from any congregation
at Rome. Why did not Mr. Ciocci give us the original,
or a literal translation of it? There are two ways of
dealing with liberation from the monastic state, — by
declaring the vows null, and by secularization. In the
former case, the prohibition to marry is absurd and impos-
sible — it is a contradiction in terms. The annulling of the
vow of chastity signifies that the person may marry. In
the latter the person is transferred from the regular to
that of the secular clergy, with the clause " servata tamen
substantia votorura." In other words, the vows are affirmed,
and only a change of state is permitted, for motives of con-
science or convenience. Let the reader consult any Catholic
theologian on vows, and he will see the truth of our state-
ment. If, therefore, a clause analogous to that given by
Ciocci was added to the rescript, it is a proof that his vows
were held good, and a He was given, after ten months' trial
and deliberation, to his accusation against the monks, of

1844.] Becent Italian Apostates, 283

having used fraud and violence. We say a clause analogous
to what he gives ; because the flourish about the Knights of
Malta is a pure and puerile invention of his own, nor is ever
such an expression, as "he is forbidden to marry," introduced
into such documents.

One must come to a very satisfactory conclusion as to the
good-nature and easy-heartedness of the monks. For imme-
diately after this occurrence, they select him to the honour of
holding a public disputation on philosophy ; yes, the moment
after he had publicly accused them to the cardinals and pope
of being poisoners, and of every other crime, and after they
had retorted on him that he was *' a heretic, insolent to supe-
riors, negligent in psalmody," &c. What a spell he must
have held over them, — no, it is clear that the Cistercian body
could not live without him, even though now, by the rescript
above quoted, they could justly and rightly have ejected him
and sent him home. Nay, they now even want the young
heretic to go on with theology. To-day poisoned, to-morrow
eagerly wanted to study !

Another persecution now comes, and another petting, — a
new bubble, and a new bursting of it. His young companions
are drafted off to Santa Croce, and he is told that in order to
go with them, he must sign a retractation of his application
to the congregation of bishops and regulars. He refused.
** * Very well,' the superior replied, with that horrid grin
w^hich adapts itself so well to the lips and physiognomy of
tyrants, * very well, you show you are as stubborn as an old
man'" (the superior was one himself), "*and therefore you
must remain with them.'" He "did not at that moment,
understand the malignity and cruelty of this new species
of torture :" neither, we own, do we now. For the result of
this terrible persecution was, that he had three furnished
rooms allotted him to live in, a young man appointed to
wait on him, good cheer, the affection of the old men, and the
office of librarian. So ended this terrible trial.

He was, however, determined to run his head against
something else ; and therefore goes to a Jesuit to get him to
take his part. There is a long history of his intrigues for
the purpose ; of his conferences with two cardinals ; of his
thoroughly putting himself again into hot water ; and being
sent to make a spiritual retreat in the Jesuits' house of
S. Eusebio. All these matters we must pass over, because
Ciocci's own showing puts him in the wrong. He tells us
then that he was put into a close, dark room, barely large

284 Recent Italian A2)08tates. [Sept.

enough to contain "a small liard bed — liard as the conscience
of an inquisitor, a little table cut all over, and a dirty chair."
The window was shut, and bai-red with iron. His luggage
was not admitted with him, and he had not the means of
washing properly; so he never washed or combed himself
for fifteen days or more. Fathers Rossini and Giuliani ai'e
represented as making terrible speeches and preaching long
sermons to him ; a skeleton is put on his table ; a horrible
picture was hung in his room ; all which frightened him to
death (because Romans are terribly afraid of hobgoblins !) ;
then, worse than all, a discipline was laid on his bed; he
was nearly starved to death ; if he asked any one whom he
met a civil question, he was answered, *' My son, think of
hell!" or some such speech. To all this, we have only one
word to say ; that we do not believe a syllable of it. "We
know that house, we know those men too well, not to feel
assured that there can be no truth in it.

A form of retractation was proposed to him ; and on his
refusal, he "expected to be conducted to the torture. When-
ever I was taken," thus he writes, " from my room to the
chapel, I feared lest some trap-door should open beneath my
feet ; and therefore took great pains to tread in the footsteps
of the Jesuit who preceded me. No one acquainted icith the
Inquisition will say that my precautions were needless. My
imagination was so filled with the horrors of this place, that
even in my short, interrupted, feverish dreams, I beheld
daggers and axes glittering around me ; I heard the noise of
the wheels ; saw burning piles and heated irons," &c. &c. &c.
Very fine, Mr. Ciocci, but not true ! and you know it too I
No, no, the truth will come out. You know that you were
no more in the Inquisition at S. Eusebio than you were in
your oAvn convent. You know that the Boly Office is by the
colonnade of St. Peter's, and that S. Eusebio is two miles
off, beyond Sta. Maria Maggiore. You know that if you
had been wanted for business belonging to the Inquisition, it
is not to a house of retreat that you would have been taken.
A coach could have taken you to one place as easily as to
the other, or removed you from one to the other. You talk
of being a victim of the Inquisition, and you have no more
been in it than we have. But here we will put you to the
test, even as Maria Monk was ; and, like her's, your " nar-
rative" will break down. Hear, then, our proposal. There
are plenty of English gentlemen going to Eome this winter ;
there are many there already. Choose any one that you

1844.] Reant Italian Aposta'e?. 285

please, and we will pledge ourselves that lie shall be permitted
to search the house from garret to cellar, and measure the
thickness of the walls, aided by an architect; and see whether
there be even a possibility of trap-doors, «Sz;c., or any single
arrangement that could warrant your pretence of its being
an inquisition, or anything like one. The house belonged
to the Irish Augustinians before it was converted to its
present holy purpose of a house for spiritual exercises, and
is totally unlike what you represent it. There are plenty of
persons now in England and Ireland, noble and simple, who
have gone through the course of spiritual retreat there, and
will bear witness to the untruth of your statements.

We next have a concluding scene, of three Jesuits sitting
at a table, immoveable, who threatened him with death, if
he did not sign his recantation. Everything persuaded him
that " these bloody men were firmly bent on his extermina-
tion," and he signed the paper. This is the Inquisition, we
suppose ; but Mr. Ciocci knows perfectly well that there was
no such thing there, and that three, or three hundred Jesuits
can form no tribunal. The whole story is as true as the
Arabian Nights.

We reach at last the final period of Mr. Ciocci's history.
He falls in with two English gentlemen, one at least a clergy-
man, who persuade him to fly from Rome. Now we do not
deny this fact, nor the reality of his flight ; but it is worth
while, in order to shew the credit which the writer deserves, to
look at some of his statements. It will be seen how, even
in relating a true event, he cannot tell it truly.

He goes into the library, after some absence, on Easter
Monday, and finds, why or wherefore we cannot see, that the
floor has been covered Avith fragments of his papers, torn
wantonly in pieces. Now if people wanted to destroy his
manuscripts, we cannot see why they should litter the floor
with them, instead of carrying them away and burning them.
However, this is so, and he determines to quit Rome. He
fixes his departure for Thursday. That same Monday he
goes to Santa Croce, to see his friends. As he returned
home, he thought he would return by the Church of Si.
Gregory, " at that time gorgeously decorated for the solemni-
zation oi the festival of the saint. ^^ The Pope was there, as he
generally is on St. Gregory's day, he having been a monk of
that house. Another scene takes place, but we pass it by.
On Tuesday he visits his family ; on Wednesday he took
leave of the monks, &c. That evening, as far as we can

286 Recent Italian Apostates. [Sept.

gatlier, lie went to the liouse of his friend, and put on his
disguise of a servant. He started from Rome, we must sup-
pose, next day, and was two days on his journey to Civita-
vecchia, (though certainly the usual time is one.) He
remains four days at Civita-vecchia, and embarks for Leghorn.
His flight (from Rome) we are told took place on the thir"
teenth of March.

Now let us put these dates together.

Easter Monday, in 1842, fell on March the twenty ^eighth.

The Thursday following was consequently the thirty-first.

Yet Oiocci visited the library on Easter Monday, and left
the following Thursday, and that was the thirteenth.

Again, St. Gregory's day is the twelfth of March, and in
that year fell on Saturday before Passion Sunday, and was
kept on that day. Yet Ciocci, on Monday the twenty-eighth,
went to the church of St. Gregory, for his festival !

These chronological matters may be trifles in themselves,
but they shew the accuracy of the writer. Some of these
statements must be false.

At length he reaches London; and we are prepared to
declare that what he has written in this part of his narrative
is false, and can be contradicted in the most positive manner.
He writes, " This quiet soon met with an interruption, in the
form of a call from Dr. Baldacconi." Now, so far from this
being the case, Ciocci was the first to call on that rev. gen-
tleman, and, with tears in his eyes, made himself known as
" an apostate," and promised to return to Rome. Every con-
versation which he relates as held with that gentleman, he is
prepared to assert is most false. Mr. C. pretends that he
was quite a Protestant before he quitted Rome : why, then,
did he go to mass, at the Sardinian chapel, on the 29 th of
June of that year, the feast of the holy apostles SS. Peter
and Paul ; and even go into the vestry, and speak with the
priest there ? No : here are points on which his statements
can be flatly and clearly contradicted, and so enable us to
judge on other matters. He tells us that he " could not stir
from the hotel, without meeting now a Franciscan, a Do-
minican, or a Jesuit, who, upon some pretence or other, sought
to engage him in conversation." (p. 183.) This is bringing
his fictions too near home. There is not, it is well knoAvn, a
single Dominican or Franciscan in London, nor was there
then ; we would engage to prove an alihi for every one of
those bodies in England. And if there had been, how would
he have distinguished one from the other here ?

1844.] Recent Italian Apostates. 887

These are palpable untruths ; and we have reserved one
other clear one for the conclusion, though it will take us
back to the early period of his life. He tells us that, after
he had been five years with the Redemptorists, he " was sent
to the college of the Jesuits in Rome." On being admitted,
the rules of the establishjnent were read to him. (p. 8.) At
p. 15, we find that he could not get certain books to read,
unless secretly provided for him. Moreover, after four years,
he tcriies to his mother, exi)ressing his firm determination to
stay no longer at college, and his ardent desire to return to
the bosom of his family ; and, living at home, to frequent the
schools of the Sapienza. (p. 16.) Now we would fain ask,
what college was he in ? For all this supposes his being an
inmate of some establishment. Yet the Jesuits harie no such
college at Rome, except the Noble College, to which there is
no appearance of Ciocci's having been admitted. The Col-
legio Romano, the schools of which he may have frequented,
has no boarders, and admits only day-scholars, as the Sapienza
does. We must therefore conclude, that even in so simple a
matter as his place of education, Ciocci cannot tell us the
simple truth.

" Mentita est Iniquitas sibi," would be an appropriate motto
for his book. It is a tissue of such improbabilities, incredi-
bilities, contradictions, and clear untruths, as have not often
been put together. "We hope it will not be long before we
have still stronger evidence to bring before the public. In
the mean time, we have a right to call upon them to beware
how they are imposed upon again, as they have been before,
by narratives of "atrocities." Let them suspend their judg-
ment upon an accusation from a person of whose character
they have no evidence.

Yet we cannot but be consoled by one thing. While
Ciocci pursues every religious and good point in the Catholic
Church with his implacable hatred, while he spares no amount
of spite, and obloquy to bring all that he once deemed sacred
into contempt, his silence in many cases, and his positive tes-
timony in others, must weigh much with impartial men, in
favour of the monastic life. We have, indeed, insinuations,
that monks serve mammon, that they lead eifeminate lives
(p. 147), that they live luxuriously (p. 109). But fortunately
these are accusations which can be examined into and easily
disproved: whereas the silence, throughout this wicked
volume, of a single attempt to fasten upon any of the religi-
ous orders, with which its author is at deadly feud, the

288 Recent Italian Apostate.\ [Sept.

slightest suspicion of immoral principles or conduct (we use
the terms as generally understood) must go far to form a
strong argument in their favour. But more than this, in
his attempt to ridicule, he has given the highest praise, and
confirms the exalted view which many are beginning to take
of Catholic education, and Catholic institutions. Let any
one read what Mr. Ward has written in his Ideal of a Christian
CImrchf on the wants of Protestant, and the superior advan-
tages of Catholic, education, (pp. 260, 363, 371, &c.) How
often does he enumerate as the most powerful means of train-
ing to virtue, " repeated meditation on such subjects as sin,
death, and judgment to come," daily examination, frequent
confession, mortification, &c. Now, Ciocci bears witness to
the practice of these things in his place of education from
seven years of age. " Half an hour every morning was dedi-
cated to the meditation of great and abstruse mysteries

the subjects were generally chosen from the four last things
— death, judgment, hell, heaven." (p. 5.) NoWf indeed, he
thinks he "might, with infinitely more comfort to himself"
(has Protestantism taught him that comfort is the criterion of
right?) "have been enjoying his repose in bed." Once a
week, he frequented confession and communion ; and he was
frequently, even at that early age, enjoined the practice of
mortification. " It was also frequently suggested to me,"" he
adds, after enumerating other penitential prescriptions, which
we fear become hispresent state more than his boyhood, " that
I should, at breakfast or at dinner, leave a portion of food
untouched, and that I should at times abstain from those
amusements most congenial to my lively disposition, in order
that I might, by such acts of self-denial, acquire command
over my appetites and desires. Sacrifices of this nature are
called by the friars in Italy, * Flowers whose odour is agree-
able to Mary.' " (p. 7.) Is this meant for ridicule ? For our
parts, we care not by what name such sacrifices are called, —
" a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." No one
with true religious feeling will gainsay that the training of a
youth in such early sacrifices, and in the acquisition of
mastery over his appetites, must be pleasing to God, and is
putting him on that right way, from which, when he is old,
it will be well if he do not depart.

We now close the volume for the present. Tliat we shall
soon be able to give more pointed and authentic contradiction
to many of its statements, we have no doubt.

1844.] Becent Italian Apostates, 289

Indeed, even after most of this article was in type, and the
first portion of it printed, we have been able to examine
another of Ciocci's statements, and find it false. The name
of the arch-plotter in dispersing the young university troop,
and in kidnapping Ciocci, Father Braudi, sounded to us new.
We have, therefore, searched through the printed catalogues
of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus for the years
1836, 1837 and 1838, in which every member's name is given.
The result is that no such Jesuit as Father Braudi is found in
any of them at Rome, or elsewhere ; and, as we firmly believe,
no such person was in existence. This is enough to throw
discredit on that tale, and, in fact, on the whole book.

But as it is, and in the absence of much information which
we expect, we did not wish to allow the present Number to
appear, without some contradiction to the impudent untruths
contained in this work. This has been attended with some
delay in the time of publication, which we are sure our readers
will excuse in consideration of the motive.

If in what we have written there shall appear to have been
severity and harshness, we may fairly say that we have been
compelled to employ them. It is in itself a severe duty to
have to lay bare deceit and imposture; nor can it well be
done with gentle words and soothing speeches. But let our
writing have only its desired effect, let it hegin to strip the
bandage from the eyes of Mr. Ciocci's supporters and en-
couragers, let him feel the first tinge of shame upon his cheek,
and consider it as the precursor of yet deeper confusion ; let
him ponder on the truthful adage, "melius est relinquere
quam relinqui," the sure fate of most who have preceded him ;
and perhaps his heart may warm again towards his ancient
mother, whose arms are ever open to receive again the most
erring and sinful of her children. The gate of repentance
(the gate of Peter) is never closed, day or night, in the city
of God. At whatever hour the prodigal returns, he will find
this way open, and at it an ever ready welcome, to his Father's
house.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

A Guide to the Blackwater in Munster. By J. R. O'Flanegan,
Esq. London : 1844.

It is very easy to perceive, by the title of this work, what a "terra
incognita" Ireland is to the great majority of the English public.
What would be thought of a tourist on the Rhine, were he to tell
his readers that that river was in Germany ; or the Danube, that
VOL. XVII. — Na. xxxni. 19

290 A Guide to the Blackwaier. [Sept.

it was a river of Austria. While an Irish tourist thinks himself
bound to tell his unenlightened, or his careless readers, that the
Blackwater, one of the loveliest and finest rivers of the kingdom, is
situated in the province of Munster. And a fine and beautiful river
it is, as ever attracted the steps of tourist or traveller. In a course
of more than seventy miles, it is one unbroken succession of scenes
of the most varied and picturesque beauty ; and if it had been any
where but in Ireland, would have long since attracted visitors from
every kingdom of Europe. It is withal ennobled by associations
of deep historical interest. By its banks, Sir "Walter Raleigh mused
and meditated, and even the very room may still be visited, where
he planned and brooded over many a scheme of wild and desperate
adventure. The garden is still pointed out, where that root was
first planted, which has since become the food of millions. By its
murmuring waters, Spenser conjured up many a bright form of
poetic excellence ; and the reader of his pages must be, ere now,
familiar at least, by name, with

" Swift Auniduff, which of the Englishmen
Is named Blackwater."

If the tourist should prove one for whom the fame and traditions of
Ireland possess an interest, when she was an island of saints and
scholars, he will be gratified wi^h a visit to the spot where Carthagh,
the sainted bishop of Lismore, diffused around him the odour of
sanctity, and the light of knowledge to the multitude, that thronged
to hear him from every province of the west. Every castle that
stands upon its banks, and every ruined abbey that looks out from
the overhanging foliage, and every blue hill that lends its charm
to the landscape, is one of interest to the historian, the poet,
and the Christian. And the public should feel grateful to Mr.
O'Flanegan for the clever and attractive manner in which he has
brought these varied beauties before it in the present volume.
Those who have travelled over this fairy ground, will have all their
pleasant recollections renewed in the perusal of this delightful and
instructive book. And those who have never seen, and yet purpose
visiting the reality of what is there described, should, above all
things, peruse it, and carry it with them as their travelling com-
panion. It will make every jutting headland in the river be viewed
with more pleasure, and every frowning battlement eloquent with
recollections of the past.

The author has evinced, by his varied learning and accurate
local information, that he was fully qualified for the work he has
undertaken. He has played as a boy on its banks, and whilom too
has disported himself in its crystal stream ; he has thought and
studied, aye, and hunted too, he tells us, by its waters ; and he
has brought with him to the execution of his self-imposed task, the
enthusiasm of an early love. This makes us value it the more.
There is a freshness and a buoyancy of feeling about it which re-
minds us of the bright dreams and sunny pleasures of our youth,

1844.] Ireland and the Irish. 291

and which makes us linger over its lines, as if each sentence gave,
expression to some fond memory of the past. The work is em-
bellished with numerous illustrations in the best style of wood-
engraving, in perfect keeping with the very creditable manner in
which the work is executed. The present work had its origin in
the following circumstances, we quote the author's words, — "At
a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
held at Cork in August 1843, the author read a paper on the
statistics of the River Blackwater, the object of which was to aid
the laudable endeavours of the Earl of Mountcashel, and Sir Richard
Musgrove, in rendering this beautiful river available for the pur-
poses of inland navigation. The essay having met the approval of
the meeting, the author was solicited to extend his enquiries ; and
embodying the ftiibstance of the essay, to prepare the present work,
for the use of strangers visiting the picturesque district of the
Blackwater."

The Blackwater is navigable from Youghal to Cappoquin, a dis-
tance of sixteen mUes. A small steamer plies daily between these
towns. From the latter place to Femoy, it may be rendered navigable
for small boats alone at a very inconsiderable expense. Since the
publication of this work, the Duke of Devonshire has made a sacri-
fice of no less than £700 a year, to forward this great national
object, by consenting to the removal of a weir in the neighbour-
hood of Lismore, that obstructed the navigation of the river. If
this example was more generally followed by those interested in
the improvement of the locality, this noble river would be more
useful to themselves, and more creditable to the country than it is
in its present condition. We think that the publication of the pre-
sent work, will contribute, in a considerable degree, to forward this
important object ; and that besides its utility to the tourist and the
traveller, it will render good and substantial service to the public.

Ireland and the Irish during the Repeal Year, 1843 ; from the
German of Herr J. Venedey. Translated, and with Notes, by
"William Bernard Maccabe, Esq. Dublin: 1844.

This stirring volume is an evidence of the interest with which our
affairs are regarded on the Continent, and especially in that country
where public opinion, so long suppressed, like a walled-up torrent,
has begun to give indications of an approaching outburst, which it
is not easy to mistake. It is a translation of the second of two
volumes upon Ireland, published this spring, by M. Venedey, a
native of Cologne ; who visited this country during the summer of
1843, and returned to prepare his two volumes for the Easter fair.
The first, a hasty, and, though well-meant, not very profound or
accurate sketch of Irish history, is judiciously passed over by the
translator, who confines himself entirely to the second ; in which
the author relates his impressions of what he saw and heard during

292 Ireland and the Irish. [Sept,

the bustling months of his Irish tour. Never had tourist a more
exciting period to record. His opportunities appear to have been
very considerable, and he used them with very great industry, and
certainly in an honest and candid spirit. His notes, of course, are
not very profound, nor does he often go far below the surface ; but
they evince a great deal of good feeling ; and while his style wears
a certain air of flippant self-reliance, his reflections are generally
those of a thoughtful and benevolent mind.

We have received the work at so late a period, that it is not
possible for us to dwell upon it at such length as, under other cir-
cumstances, we should have desired. Of the translation and notes,
we cannot speak too highly. The style is vigorous and racy, with-
out a single taint of German idiom ; and there are some passages
straggling and mystical enough in the original, of which the trans-
lator has made more than we thought it possible to make. We
perceive too that he has had the good taste and good feeling to
omit a few extremely offensive and uncalled-for expressions, — one
of them especially, piis auribus offensiva^ by which the original
work, otherwise excellent, is deformed.

We can find space but for one little picture : but if there be any
one so insensible to simple beauty as, after he has gazed upon it, to
rest till he shall have mastered the whole volume, we could not
hope to please him, though we were to extract almost without limit.
It is from the account of the monster meeting at Dundalk, and
though a slight sketch, displays the hand of a master : —

" At length the procession moved on, and in a few moments
afterward O'Connell's carriage, drawn by four horses, was seen
turning into the town. O'Connell stood erect in the carriage and
saluted the people on all sides, whilst in every glance of his eye
there was triumph and the exhilarating feelings of joy. And
wherefore should there not ? Who could, as he, this day say — * I
AM THE MAN — Daniel O'Connell?'

" I have often seen many princes and royal personages make
their solemn entries into my own old Cologne and other places, but
all was as 'child's play' to that which now presented itself to my
view. The streets were so full, that there was no longer left the
possibility of walking in them. All were either borne or pushed
forward. I had a bird's eye view of the entire scene ; I looked
down upon it, and could behold nought but heads — not even the
shoulders of the men were visible. Never did I see anything like
to this, and never did I hear anything like to that prolonged, that
never-ending ' hurra for O'Connell — hurra for the Liberator.' He
stopped before the house where I was — he descended from his car-
riage, and oh ! miracle of miracles ! a large broad path was instantly
opened for him in that dense crowd, which as instantly closed again
behind him, when he had passed. Yes, I could not but feel that I
saw, as if before me, the passage of Moses through the Red fc^eai
It was represented to the very hfeC

1844,] NoU on Irish MSS. 293

" While I was engaged reflecting upon this wondrous spectacle, I
beheld another, and one that was still more beautiful. In the very
centre of that closely- pressed, that jammed-together throng, I ob-
served one small point unoccupied, which always came nearer and
nearer towards the house. What, I asked, can that be ? or why is
there that little spot left free ? The riddle was soon explained —
the mystery was speedily unravelled ; for in the centre of that un-
occupied space I beheld — a cripple! I love the Irish people ; but
never did I in my life behold anything which so much entitles them
to the love, the admiration, and the respect of every philanthropic,
of every feeling, of every honest heart, as this — ^making a space, and
giving free room to the helpless, pithless cripple, in a crowded mul-
titude, through which the strongest giant would in vain have
struggled to force his way. Oh ! yes, they are a good, a truly good
people, these poor Irish ! "

[Note on Irish 3183.]

As an evidence of the reviving spirit for the encouragement
of our national literature, to which we referred in our last
number, we deem it right to give publicity to the following
Report of the Royal Irish Academy. We have no hesita-
tion in saying, that the work is a national one. The balance
of the purchase money which remains unsubscribed is com-
paratively small ; and we feel assured that there are many of
our readers to whom it is only necessary to explain the nature
of the collection which it is thus intended to secure for the
public, in order to enlist their warm and active co-operation
in the work.

"An Abstract of the Report of the Committee of Antiquities to the
Council on the Irish MSS. of Messrs. Hodges and Smith."

"Messrs. Hodges and Smith's Collection of MSS. consists of
227 volumes, including upwards of 3,000 separate pieces, of which
the names are indexed, and about 4,000 minor pieces included
under general heads.

" The Index and Catalogue Raisonne (the latter forming a folio
of 769 pages) have been carefully drawn up by Mr. E. Curry, who
is at present employed in executing a similar work for the academy.

*' The Vellum Manuscript, known as the Leabhar-na-Huidhre, is
the most ancient in the collection. From internal evidence, the
date of the compilation of this exceedingly curious volume is fi^xed
at the end of the eleventh, or early part of the twelfth century,
and some idea of the value attached to it by its possessors may be
formed from the fact, that the siege of Sligo, carried on by O'Don-
nell in a.d. 1470, was undertaken chiefly for the purpose of recover-
ing this book, and the Leabhar Gearr, or Short Book, from the

294 NoU on Irish MBS. [Sept.

O'Connors, to whom they had been given in ransom of O'Dogherty
and the son of O'Donnell's chief poet.

" The next piece, in point of antiquity, is a copy of the ancient
Dictionary, known as Cormac's Glossary, transcribed anterior to
the close of the fourteenth century, and (with the exception per-
haps of the imperfect copy in the Bodleian Library) the oldest
known copy extant.

" Cormac, to whom this very interesting compilation is attri-
buted, flourished in the ninth century. The work exhibits an ac-
quaintance with the Irish, Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Danish and
Welsh languages, and preserves some words of the lost language of
the Picts. It is generally believed to be the work of the learned
prelate whose name it bears, and may perhaps be regarded as of
equal curiosity with the more celebrated, but less ancient Glossary
of Aelfric.

" The medical and botanical MSS. in this collection, are chiefly
compilations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They give
a highly interesting view of the state of medical knowledge under
the old system of hereditary professions. One of them appears to
have been the Text Book of the O'Lees, hereditary physicians to
the O'Flaherties, and was long celebrated as the subject of a fiction,
which represented it to have been brought originally from the
enchanted island of O'Brasil.

" With the exception of Leabhar-na-Huidre, and the medical and
botanical tracts above mentioned, the collection consists mainly of
compilations and original compositions of the last century. But
with respect to the antiquity and value of the MSS. so preserved,
their actual age affords no criterion ; thus, Mr. O'Donovan's
transcript of the Book of Feenagh, though made so recently as
A.D. 1828, contains poems ascribed with every appearance of
truth to Flann of Monaster-Boyce, who lived in the eleventh, and
to Benignus, the disciple of Patrick, who lived in the sixth
century. The same remark applies to almost all the compilations
in the collection, in which are generally mingled pieces of the
most various dates and subjects ; of these, several are th^ works
of professed compilers, attached to particular families, as No. 178,
a thick volume, compiled in 1746, by James Maguire, from the
earliest writings of the O'Clerys, &c., illustrative of the family
history of the Maguires and other Fermanagh families. No. 207.
A transcript, by John Murphy, of Rahinch, in 1744, of the work
of Daniel O'Gara, who appears to have been, in like manner,
attached to the family of O'Hara, and whose collection embraces
several poems relating to many of the chief families both of South
and North Munster, as well as of Sligo and Tyrconnell. No. 200,
A transcript, made in 1706-9, by John Stack, from the Book of
O'Bruodar, a retainer of the Fitzgeralds of Desmond, originally
compiled in 1682-92, and being perhaps the most interesting of this
class, of which we enumerate only the most remarkable. No. 201

1844] Note on Iriah M8S. 295

is a compilation transcribed within the last ten years by John
O'Clery, senior, of Dublin, the direct descendant of the famous
Peregrine O'Clery, the chief of the Four Masters, and contains a
great number of exceedingly curious genealogical, historical, and
romantic pieces.

" As it would be inappropriate, however, to specify each work
of the collection in this manner, we proceed to give the following
general synopsis of the subjects embraced in the collection, which,
for convenience sake, we take up in the order of historical, ro-
mantic, and lyrical compositions.

" In civil history, the collection embraces a vast number of
genealogies and family affiliations, which are brought down to
within a very short distance of the present time, and form the most
valuable and complete genealogical libraiy of the native Irish
families that is known to exist.

" There are several copies of Dr. Keating's History of Ireland,
and poems by him on various subjects, historical, political, and
religious.

" There are various transcripts from the Book of Conquests, the
Book of Munster or Leabhar Oiris, the Book of Lismore, and
several other historical books still existing ; besides extracts from
the now lost Leabhar Gearr or Short Book, and Leabhar Buidhe
or Yellow Book of Slane, and from the still more ancient lost Book
of Dromsneachta.

" To the ecclesiastical writer, this collection supplies several
original lives of Irish saints, which are not only of great value as
ascertaining early topography, but also showing the state of mental
advancement of the times in which they were written.

"It is difficult to separate the early history from the early
romance of any country ; and there is unquestionably much histo-
rical material in the section of romance, embracing a great variety
of poems, which may be classed as Pagan, Finian, or purely fabulous.

" The three most famous romantic tales of the native Irish from
a very early age, are considered to be the following, viz.: The
Death of the Sons of Usneach, The Metamorphosis of the Children
of Lir, and The Death of the Sons of Turion ; in all which the
events are laid in Pagan times. These, as well as several other
remarkable romantic tales and poems concerning the Pagan Tuath
de Danaan, are among the collection; and although there is no
reason to attribute any of them to the very ages to which they
refer, it is not to be doubted that they are among the older tra-
ditions of the Irish, a people whose love of tradition is proverbial,
and who, longer than any other in Europe, have retained their
primitive manners.

" The Finian Romances of this collection constitute by far the
most complete series of these pieces with which we are acquainted;
the total number preserved is upwards of one hundred, relating
principally to the ancient names of a great variety of districts and

296 Note on Irish MSS.

places, with the accounts of battles, hunting matches, adventures,
&c., which led to their respective denominations. These would
supply a great part of the deficiency in The Book of Lismore, at
present in the Academy. We are not aware of the existence of
any equally authentic and voluminous collection of these remark-
able compositions.

" The purely fabulous poems and tales (of which there is a con-
siderable number) are, of course, inferior in value to those from
which historical facts or analogies may be collected. Still it is
impossible to say what pieces may eventually prove to be of this
comparatively worthless character, inasmuch as the labours of other
societies are daily bringing to light numbers of similar compositions
of other nations, among which many of the more marked charac-
teristics of Irish compositions are strikingly observable, and which
may reasonably be expected to develop still further analogies as
they proceed.

" These remarks are applicable equally to the lyrical portion of
the collection, and particularly to that large class devoted to the
politics so popular among the native Irish during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, but which, we trust, may now be regarded
as merely matters of history. The great exertions that have been,
and are now, making in other parts of the empire to preserve the
songs and ballads expressive of the popular feeling of those times,
are well known, and we need do no more than refer to the ardour
with which Sir "Walter Scott devoted himself to the preservation of
every fragment of this kind, to justify us in expressing a hope, that
if the academy should now prevent the dispersion of these relics,
their efforts will not be unappreciated by that large class of the
community, whose tastes have been so strongly influenced by the
writings and example of that illustrious man.

"Another considerable division of the lyrical pieces of the col-
lection, comprises the elegies of the professed poets on the deaths of
members of their respective patrons' families. The number of
pieces of this description is considerable, upwards of a hundred,
some of them are extremely ancient, and all particularly interesting,
from their allusions to the domestic habits and local superstitions of
our native great families. The remainder of the lyrical collection
(including nearly a hundred songs ascribed to Carolan) is of a mis-
cellaneous character — amatory, satirical, descriptive, and humorous.

" Besides these there are several lexicons and glossaries of the
Irish language, of which we have already noticed a copy of Cormac's
Glossary, as remarkable for its antiquity, and in addition would
desire to specify Nos. 153 and 156, copies of the glossary of old
Irish terms, compiled by the distinguished chief of the Four
Masters in 1643."

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

DECEMBER 1844.

Art. I. — Vie de Ranee par M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand 4
Paris: 1844.

SOME men achieve celebrity for themselves, others have
celebrity conferred upon them by their biographers.
It is not often that the historian and the hero of his tale are men
whose names would be immortal independently of their re-
lation to one another ; yet it has happened so upon the present
occasion ; for one is the Abbe De Ranee, and the other is the
Viscount Chateaubriand. The pen of the gifted author of
the G^nie de Christianisme is able to confer on any subject
that enlists its services the immortality of literary fame. We
know no more fortunate circumstance in a great man"'s destiny
than to obtain the services of genius. Without it, what must
have become of the great men whose lives are the study of
the world ? How few would ever have heard of Agricola but
for the pen of Tacitus? Of course, we speak not of that
loftier and more abiding reward of excellence, Avhich the
great and good should ever, and beyond all others, aspire to,
and which consists in the consciousness of goodness here, and
the hope of happiness hereafter ; but of such as may be found
in that public and respectful homage which rescues the good
man"'s deeds from obscurity, and proposes them for the imita-
tion and enlightenment of the world. This homage it is the
duty of genius to give when it is due. It has no nobler
function to discharge, than to invest the good man's name
with those graces which it can confer upon the subject of its
advocacy, and vindicate for it that place in the public esti-
mation which It should possess, but which it may not other-
wise obtain. The stately pile which the piety of after ages
rears to the memory, and over the ashes of the sainted dead,

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV, 20

298 Chateaubriand's Life of De Bancd. [Dec.

where the rich and mellow tints streaming in golden floods of
light through the stained window, the triumphs of human
art that look down from the niche and canvas, or that hang
in such gorgeous profusion from the overhanging dome, the
clustered pillars, and tapering arches, that stretch far away
in the dim perspective before us, and the solemn majesty
that surrounds, and takes possession of the soul, will extort
from even an unwilling votary that reverence to departed
worth, which would be slowly and coldly rendered over the
unadorned tomb, that simply bore the record of a name.

The present work was not the voluntary undertaking of
the Viscount Chateaubriand. He says it was a duty imposed
by his confessor ; and its faults or its beauties must be laid
to the account of the Abbe Seguin,* whose name is inscribed
upon the title-page. That name few Avould have heard or
known, if, like the bee embalmed in amber, it had not been
rescued from oblivion in the Avork of his illustrious penitent.
Can it be that the lighter productions of his muse needed such
an atonement, or that the reveries of Eene or Attala were to
be expiated by meditating on the stern and rugged virtues
that distinguished the reformer of La Trappe ? The life of
De Ranee has been written by several biographers. The
most distinguished and trustworthy are Le Nain, a brother
of the illustrious Tillemont, Maupeou, and MarsoUier. None
of these have been rendered into English ; and the only in-
formation which our language affords, is to be sought for in
a few meagre and imperfect notices. We therefore think
that we shall be doing some service to our readers, and sup-
plying, to some extent, this deficiency, by presenting them
with a few of the particulars of the life and conversion of this
remarkable man, principally, but not entirely, as they are
detailed in the work before us. We regret to say, — and we
do it with all respect to its distinguished author, — that it is
less a life, than a dissertation upon the life, of De Ranee. It is
marked, too, with many of those literary imperfections which
have been noticed in the author's later writings. He not
unfrequently places himself between us and his subject, and
obtrudes his own achievements when we are only anxiously
thinking of De Ranc4 Many pages are taken up with events
of his own life, — his embassy to London, his acquaintance

* The Abbe Seguin was a native of Carpentras. Born in 1748, he wit-
nessed and survived all the horrors and atrocities of the revolution. A brother
of his was one of the martyrs of the 2nd September. After a long and, holy
life he died in Paris in 1843, at the advanced age of ninety-five years.

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranc^. 29^

with Mr. Canning, Mr. Croker, and Lord Liverpool, — when
his reader is only anxious about La Trappe : and a French legi-
timist may read with interest those digressions about "le
pauvre orphelin Henri V," which, in the present work, only
the garrulity of old age can excuse. There is much to
instruct in a life like this before us. There is many a salu-
tary lesson in the struggles, the temptations, the triumphs,
the vicissitudes of such a character ; nay, even in those darker
shades which obscure and tarnish its early existence, when
they are unfolded to us, not in any captious or censorious
mood, — not for any purpose of idle or reprehensible prying
into the wayward wanderings of the prodigal son, who squan-
dered his substance in a foreign land, — but, when we approach
them with humility, to derive therefrom a lesson and an
example for ourselves ; and to contemplate with a Christian
fear and charity that inwai'd and purifying process, by which
the sensualist and the infidel, the proud man or the ambitious,
is transformed into the child of God. Our own heart and
reflection tell us that such an ordeal is a fearful one to feel,
and that it is to be contemplated with sentiments of reveren-
tial awe, and canvassed with a &\nvit of charitable indulgence,
knowing that we ourselves have been tempted, and that " he
who stands should take heed lest he fall."

Armand Jean Bouthillier de Ranee was the second son of
Denis le Bouthillier de Ranee, private secretary of Mary of
Medici. He was born in 1626, in Paris, where his parents
were then residing. The family from which he was descended
held high rank among the nobility of France. The archi-
episcopal see of Tours was filled by one of its members, the
see of Aire by another. The name may be found in the list
of many of the great functionaries of the state of those times.
They themselves took no small pride in their connexion with
the dukes of Brittany ; and it is supposed that the name of
Bouthillier was first derived from some Ganymede of that
ancient and almost royal court ; the name, which first only
expressed the official dignity, becoming in after times the sur-
name of the family. But we apprehend that few indeed
beyond the walls of the herald's office would ever have heard
of the name of Bouthillier de Ranee, but for its being possessed
by the reformer of La Trappe. He was called Armand Jean
after his godfather, the Cardinal Richelieu. His elder brother,
Denis Francis, besides being a canon of Notre Dame, held
also, " in commendam," the abbey of La Trappe, and pos-
sessed its revenues from his childhood. He died young ; and

20 2

300 Chateaubriand's Life ofDe Banc6. [Dec.

as the custom of the times made such property a kind of heir-
loom, the abbey descended to the next of kin — his brother
Arraand. A child with such expectations deserved and ob-
tained the best education which the schools of Paris could
afford. He had one tutor to teach him Greek, another to
teach him Latin, and a third to teach him virtue. The latter,
we are sorry to say, does not seem to have been as success-
ful or as diligent as the others. The young Armand had
scarcely put off the dress of childhood, w^hen he was able to
translate the poets of Greece and Rome. We are told that a
benefice of some value was then vacant; the name of the
godson of Richelieu was, of course, put on the list for pro-
motion. A violation of propriety so outrageous was made
the subject of remark : the clergy remonstrated, and the
people were scandalized. Caussin, a Jesuit, the king's con-
fessor, sent for the boy. He had a copy of Homer on the
table when he came, and requested him to translate a passage,
■which he placed before him. The youth did it so much to
his satisfaction, that he supposed at first that he read it out
of the Latin translation at the bottom of the page. This he
covered with his hand; but finding that he translated as
fluently as before, he exclaimed, " Habes lynceos oculos,"
embraced him with affection, and made no further opposition
to his preferment. He was only twelve years of age w hen
he published an edition of Anacreon, which he dedicated to
the Cardinal Richelieu. A boy of such promise and such
patronage was on the high road to preferment. He was
already abbot of La Trappe and canon of Notre Dame, the
benefices which had been held by his elder brother. He was
in due time made prior of the abbeys of Chambor, of Notre
Dame de Val, of St. Symphorian near Beauvais, of St. Cle-
mentin near Poitou, archdeacon of Angers, and a canon of
Tours. What a shower of honours for the editor of Anacreon !
If the bard of Teios were to return to earth again, how amazed
he would be at the rewards that awaited a commentator upon
his labours. De Ranee made his studies in the usual course,
and took out the degree of doctor at the Sorbonne with much
distinction. Among his classfellows was one whose name is
not without honour in the annals of his country, — Bossuet.
We suspect that when they were boys together, the future
looked and promised more favourably for the godson of
Richelieu and the editor of Anacreon, than it did for the
eagle of Meaux. He received the order of priesthood in 165 1,
and said his first mass at the Chartreuse. Soon after, he

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranc^. 30I.

commenced his career as a preacher, for which duty he pos-
sessed many qualifications, and in which he would have
acquired celebrity, if the seductions of Parisian society had
not diverted his thoughts from his professional avocations.

The fashionable society of the capital, to which his rank
gave him easy access, was split up, at this period, into several
coteries, each of which was under some distinguished leader
of the ton, and held its meetings in one of the elegant man-
sions which, after the disturbances of the Fronde, were erected
by Italian architects, on the plan of the princely mansions of
their own country. There can be no question as to the lux-
urious taste and costly elegance which shed their charms over
these social circles. They were formed on the model, and
in many respects had adopted the phraseology, of classic
times. The locality of each " reunion " was honoured with
an appellation borrowed from the shores of the Egean;
and none but the initiated could find out the precise lati-
tude and longitude of •' Corinth," and " Delos," and the
"little Athens." We know not whether there was among
them a '* little Cyprus ;"" but if the private memoirs of the
times tell truth, the name would not be altogether misapplied
to many a mansion upon the banks of the Seine. Tomfooleries
which now would be tolerated but in the nursery ; shepherds
and shepherdesses wandering about, in would-be Arcadian
simplicity, through shady bowers long after night set in ; dit-
ties, sung by love-sick swains, which, without the elegance,
had all the voluptuousness of Tibullus, were the prevailing
fashion of the age. It must be admitted that such society
was but an indifferent school for the young ecclesiastic. When
he should have been poring over the pages of Aquinas, the
fashionable abbe was, perhaps, discussing the rival pretensions
of a Longuevil and a Rambouillet, and devoting to the Duchess
of Montbazon those hours that would have been more profit-
ably given to Augustine or the Master of the Sentences.
The life of De Kanc6, at this period, is one on which we would
not wish to dwell. The abyss into which he sunk in a very
few years, is one from which he could have been rescued only
by an angel's hand. We think that our author has evoked
rather unnecessarily the spectral images of voluptuousness
with which several pages of his work ai*e filled. Such details
are repulsive enough in the memoirs of living men ; but they
are beyond descx'iption loathsome when the actors have long
since gone to their dread account, and the skeleton and the
charnel-house are visible in the back-ground of the picture.

302 ChateauhriancTs Life of De Ranc^. [Dec.

If the nobles of France have done deeds unworthy of a Chris-
tian people and a Christian country, they have been severely
tried, and let us hope that the dark stains upon their scutcheon
have been washed away in the bloody stream of the Place de
Grbve. God may have armed the hand of Kobespierre to
avenge the excesses of the Regent Orleans.

De Ranee had a beautiful country residence at Veretz.
Thither he frequently repaired, when tired of the gaieties of
Parisian life, or when he wished to indulge in the pleasures
of the chase, of which he was excessively fond. The house at
Veretz was remarkable for the magnificence of its decoration,
and the extent and splendour of the accommodation it afforded.
Everything that wealth and taste could do — and what is there
that they cannot do, was done. The gardens and surround-
ing lawn were laid out with exquisite taste, and every feature
of the landscape was made to harmonize with the splendour
which pervaded the whole establishment. A succession of
fetes attracted from all quarters the gentry of the neighbour-
hood— and there were no entertainments like those of the
Abbe de Ranee. When even these pleasures had palled
upon the taste of their author, he determined on varying
the monotony of existence, by sallying forth, like some knight-
errant of the olden time, in quest of adventure. It was an age
of superstition, too, with all its fancied refinement, and there
were many who, like Catherine of Medici, tried to read their
fate in the movements of the heavenly bodies. The tower
which she had built for the purpose, is still, we believe, shown
to the stranger in Paris. De Ranee was led by the prevail-
ing opinions of the day ; but we should hoj)e that there was
some lingering sense of his Christian, if not of his clerical,
profession, and some promptings of his better nature, to save
him from the folly of yielding seriously to so monstrous a
delusion. One day at Veretz he ran great risk of losing his
life. He heard in a distant part of his lawn the noise of some
persons who were trespassing upon his preserves of game :
he rushed out upon them, unarmed as he was, accompanied
only by a single servant, and afler a short struggle disarmed
their leader. But he little knew the danger to which he
exposed himself. This leader was a gentleman well known
in the sporting world of that day. He was notorious for the
many duels in which he had been successfully engaged — and
the shedding of human blood was a thing of very little mo-
ment in his eyes. The law could not reach, and the public
opinion honoured, instead of stigmatizing, the murderer who
could show the emblems of nobility upon his scutcheon.

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life ofDe Ranee. 808

From such an adversary, and in the excitement of the chase,
he could scarcely hope for quarter or for mercy. And after
the event had taken place, the trespasser was wont to say,
that Providence had something yet in store for De Ranee, for
though he had him in his power, and feared neither God nor
man, yet there was something he could not tell which pre-
vented him from killing him upon the spot, as he intended
more than once to do.

The darkest page in the history of De Ranee is, that which
describes his connexion with the Duchess of Montbazon.
The duke, her husband, had been an old friend of his father,
and the friendship was extended to the son. He was near
eighty years of age when he married Mary of Bretagne,
daughter of the Count de Vertus. She was then only in her
sixteenth year, and as happens in almost all such unequal
connexions, sacrificed her happiness at the shrine of her vanity
and ambition. In this instance the sacrifice included, it is
said, her virtue also. The husband died after a few years,
leaving her a widow while the sheen of girlhood yet lingered
upon her cheek. The intimacy of De Ranee with the family
continued after the duke's death. He took a great interest in
the management of her business. He was a constant visitor
at her house ; he was always present at her parties ; and had
a right of admittance to her presence when many others were
excluded. The widow was young and handsome, and the
abbe was gay and fashionable. Is it surprising that the
world, which is never sparing of its censure, or charitable in
its constructions, should have said more in reference to them
both than it had a right to do ?

Our readers may wish to know something of his outward
garb at this period of his life. The following sketch is by an
eye-witness : —

" He wore a tight coat of beautiful violet-colour cloth. His hair
hung in long curls down his back and shoulders. He wore two
emeralds at the joining of his ruffles, and a large and rich diamond
ring upon his finger. When indulging the pleasures of the chase
in the country, he usually laid aside every mark of his profession ;
wore a sword, and had two pistols in his holsters. His dress was
fawn-coloured, and he used to wear a black cravat embroidered
with gold. In the more serious society which he was sometimes
forced to meet, lie thought himself very clerical indeed, when he
put on a black velvet coat with buttons of gold,"

As for the great and important function of his ministry,
the writer says a great deal in a few words — " Pour la messe
il la disait pen."

304 Chateaubriand's Life of De Banc6. [Dec.

The worldly and unprofessional habits of the abb6 do
not seem to have in any material degree impeded his promo-
tion. He was offered the bishopric of Laon in Brittany, but
deeming the revenue too small, or the distance too great from
court, he declined its acceptance. His uncle, the archbishop
of Tours, who largely shared in the ambitious views of the
family, wished him to be appointed coadjutor and provisional
successor to himself, but could not prevail on Mazarin to
comply with his wishes. Disappointed in this hope, he re-
solved on giving his nephew an opportunity of displaying
those brilliant talents which he unquestionably possessed,
and had him nominated one of the deputies of the clergy of
Tours at the general assembly of the French Church which
was then about to be held. He attended only one of the two
years which the meeting lasted, but during his attendance he
attracted much attention by the seasonable aid which, in the
course of a stormy debate, he afforded to Harlay, who was
subsequently archbishop of Paris. He was also commis-
sioned, in connexion with the bishops of Vence and Mont-
pellier, to superintend a Greek edition of Eusebius, for which
his previous study and well-known proficiency in that lan-
guage had qualified him ; and he reached the culminating
point of his clerical promotion, when,' on the resignation of his
uncle the archbishop in his favour, he was appointed almoner
to Gaston Duke of Orleans. If Providence had not some
other object in view for De Ranee, the inevitable consequence
of this appointment would have been his speedy promotion
to some episcopal or archiepiscopal dignity.

We have hitherto contemplated only the young and gifted
cleric, climbing the rugged steep of ambition, and striving
for those honours, which his great connexions promised to
secure for him. We have seen him the victim of pride, am-
bition, perhaps of other and less worthy influences. A great
mind, and a noble generous heart, were perverted from their
high purpose, as many such have been perverted before ; and
we turn with pleasure to the consideration of those events by
which they were brought back to God. Why should not we
rejoice at such a salutary change in one who is of our own
flesh and blood, when even seraphs are filled with joy, on
seeing from their starry thrones some poor erring child of
Adam returning from the evil of his ways ? The precise cir-
cumstances of De Ranee's conversion are no tcorrectly known.
Some of his biograj)hers, perhaps the most trustworthy,
ascribe it to the natural working of his own mind, directed

1844.] ChateauhriancTs Life of De Ranci. 8(WJ

and sanctified by a special grace, without which it could do
nothing ; but occasioned, it is said, by his providential escape
from those dangers to which he had been sometimes exposed.
One of these we have just now alluded to ; another occurred
while he was one day on a shooting excursion. The conversa-
tion between him and his only companion was of that irreli-
gious nature then fashionable in many circles of the capi-
tal ; and the abbe, so far from opposing the principles in
vogue, was expressing his concurrence in them ; and some
even go so far as to say, that with him the subject originated,
when a shot was heard from a neighbouring copse, and De
Ranee was struck in the side by the ball of some rival sports-
man. On examination it was found flattened against the
steel buckle of his shooting-bag. So slight was the thing
that preserved him from a sudden and unprovided death.
What would have become of him, had he thus unexpectedly
been called before the judgment-seat of God ? In this reflec-
tion, so natural in the circumstances, we may discover, it is said,
the germ of his reformation, and the immediate occasion of
his repentance. But this is too homely a way to account for
a great man's conversion ; and accordingly, we find that ro-
mance has come in to lend her aid, and by filling up the de-
tails, has contributed to give a beauty and interest to the
narrative. And though we have called it by the name of
romance, we know not but we may be bearing false witness,
or utterinor a malicious insinuation aojainst the facts of his-
tory ; for it has often happened, that history has outstripped
romance in the wildness of its narrations. It is said that
after the circumstance just related, he was returning to the
residence of the Duchess of Montbazon, whom he had not
seen for some days, having been absent in the country on the
shootinor excursion durinjT which it occurred. It was late in
the evening, and he was sad and thoughtful. When he came
to the door he found it closed, and apparently deserted by all
its inmates. Surprised and alarmed, he went round to a
postern, through which he had often before got admittance,
and tied his horse to a post. The servants knowing his at^
tachment to their mistress, were unwilling to tell him' what
had taken place, and he ascended a small private stair that
led to the apartments of the lady. On the top was a small
chamber, — half library, half dressing room, — where she was
wont to see her most friendly visitors, and where De Ranee
now wished to give her an agreeable surprise. He tapped softly
at the door, and hearing no sound, he opened it slowly and

306 Chateaubriand's Life of De Bonce. [Dec.

went in. She was there indeed, but — it was in her coffin.
She had been carried away by the small-pox after a short
illness, and the horror of the dreadful contagion was such,
that neither friend nor attendant would keep her company.
The undertaker was the only one who ventured to touch her
remains, and perform towards her the last duties of respect.
Yet, even so hastily and carelessly was his task discharged,
that on finding the coffin too short, he had recourse to the
barbarous expedient of cutting off the head, to find room for
the remainder of the body in the coffin. The head was placed
in a dish, — clotted blood upon it, — the teeth were firmly set,
and the lips drawn back, as if she had expired in great agony,
— her features, once beautiful, were now disfigured by the
ravages of the horrible disease, — the face was turned towards
the door of the apartment, and was the first thing that pre-
sented itself to De Ranee as he entered. There on that
clotted dish, and on her neglected mutilated bier, lay the life-
less Mary of Bretagne. Where was her loveliness now ?
where the group of admiring worshippers ? where the votaries
of fashion ? What did it avail her to have been loved and
esteemed ? or the gaities and amusements of life, what now
did they profit her ? De Ranee hurried away to his green
fields and sunny lawns at Veretz. He wished to bury him-
self in the shade of his forest trees, and recover his peace of
mind, in silence and alone. He took long walks in the woods
and fields about him, to try to get rid of the weight that was
pressing upon his heart. He wandered about in his gardens
amid sweet-smelling flowers, and shrubs fragrant with the
odours of far oif lands, hoping that his mind would be di-
verted thereby from the horrible thought that was pressing
upon his brain, and goading him well nigh to madness. He
wandered by running streams on the surrounding hills, and
watched their crystal waters as they ran in murmuring whis-
pers along their pebbly bed, and wished to forget the world
and the world's cares ; but there was a harrowing remem-
brance that followed him even there. He reclined upon the
green sward, or sat in some shady arbour of his own princely
domain, or gazed upon the many forms of sculptured beauty,
which for years had been collected within its walls, and
asked himself why he should not be happy and at ease?
But a spirit was evoked which would not suffer him to be at
rest, and whithersoever he turned, or to what dissipation
soever he applied himself, — whether in his hours of forced
occupation, or sullen loneliness in the silence of his chamber.

1844.] Chateauhriand' n Life of De Ranc^. iOTl

or the world's noise, in the midnight darkness, or the glare
of noon, — that countenance so sad, so horrible, cast its re-
proachful look upon him, and, calling up many a remembrance
of other days, seemed to accuse him as the author of its ruin.
He had recourse to the wizard's skill and dark pretensions,
to penetrate the secrets of the tomb ; but the summoned
spirit refused to answer. He spread before him the book of
the heavens, and attempted to read in its mystic page the
doom of the departed; but he found there no intelligible
sound ; all was void and empty, and there was darkness upon
the face of the abyss. In the rush of confused and distract-
ing thought that pressed upon his mind, he would at times
turn back upon the lessons of his early years, and found
some clue to hope and certainty in the promises of religion.
It is said, that once he left his bed, after a sleepless night, and
went out to cool his fevered brow in the fresh morning air.
After a short walk, he was returning by the avenue which
approached the front of the house, when he fancied he saw
the basement story in flames. A ruddy glow lit up the entire
front of the building, as if a considerable portion were already
consumed. Alarmed and surprised, he rushed towards the
house. The blaze, by some strange influence, seemed to sink
and die away as he approached, and, at a short distance,
assumed the appearance of a pool of fire, on which a female
form la}"^ floating, half enveloped in the liquid flame. It
needed but one glance to tell him who that female was.
Could this have been the creation of his own disturbed
imagination, excited to a high degree of tension by the
thoughts of the preceding days ? or could it really have been
a salutary warning given him, as to many holy men of other
times, by God, for His own wise purposes ? That De Rancd
himself was firmly convinced of its reality, we have his own
express and written declaration. Whatever its nature may
have been, it exercised a salutary influence upon his mind.
Terrified at the judgments of God, his soul was at length
humbled before Him, and he resolved to return to Him by a
sincere repentance, knowing that a contrite and humble heart
God will never despise. He had often preached that truth
to others, but he never felt it himself till then ; and it became
in his breast an active element in his existence, which never
lost its power or its activity during the remaining portion of
his life.

" Veretz," says M. Chateaubriand, " which was once so agree-
able a residence, now became insupportable to De Ranee. Its

308 Chateauhriand's Life of De Ranee, [Dec.

magnificence was revolting to him. The furniture which every-
where sparkled with silver and gold, — the gorgeous beds, where
even luxury — to use the words of a standard writer of the times,
would have found itself too comfortable. The rooms hung with
pictures of great price, the gardens exquisitely laid out, were too
much for a man who looked at everything through a shower of fall-
ing tears. He resolved on reforming everything. For the former
sumptuousness of his table he substituted the strictest frugality.
He dismissed the greater part of his servants, gave up hunting, and
even drawing, an art of which he was passionately fond, was aban-
doned. Some maps and landscapes from his pencil have reached our
times. Some friends who, like himself, had to weep over past
excess, joined him in his mode of living, and in the practices of
those austerities of which he was subsequently to give so great an
example. He seemed to be taking lessons, as it were, in the science
of mortification before he began to teach it seriously to others. A
man struggling with himself, and seeking a victory over his pas-
sions, must ever be an object of interest to his fellow men. ' If I be
not greatly mistaken,' he would say, *in the spirit of the Gospel, this
house must be the house of a reprobate.' Having occasion shortly
after to go to Paris, he took up his abode in the convent of the
Oratorians. It must have been a task of no ordinary difixculty to
divest himself of the thoughts he had cherished so long. A famed
anchoret of the early ages thought to get rid of them by fleeing to
the sepulchres, but they followed him even there ; and Jerome, for
a like intent, had recourse to unintermitting labour, and earned
heavy loads of sand up and down the beach of the Dead Sea, but,
alas! he toiled and carried these loads in vain. I, too, have paced
that beach myself, bearing my heavy load of care. Two emissaries
of the evil one tried the virtue of De Ranee. They had not,
indeed, they said, forms as fair and beautiful as she for whom he
grieved, but they would love him as truly and as well. He looked
at his crucifix and fled. In doubt as to his future prospects, De
Ranc6 consulted with his friends. Some recommended him to go
to the foreign missions; to repair to the Indies or the frowning
rocks of the Himalaya, and such a mission would have suited the
stern and gloomy grandeur of his mind; but the vocation of De
Ranee did not lead him there." — p. 71.

As he had not yet resigned his situations, the course of
duty required his attendance on the Duke of Orlean8,J|^and
the religious enthusiasm which filled his own breast soon
communicated itself to his friend and patron. The duke had
largely shared in the vices and follies of the times, and many
an erring daughter had to rue the mention of his name.
But he was now an old man. Time, which silvered his locks
with grey, brought with it soberer thoughts, and more mature
reflection ; and the example of one who had been, like him-

1844.] Chateaubriand^ s Life of De Ranee. 3011

self, a sinner, completed the good work for which he had
been already in part prepared. A retreat of a few weeks
at his retired country house at Chambor, afforded him an
opportunity of entering seriously into himself, and making
his peace with God ; and it was well for him that he did that
work in time, for death was nearer than he supposed. He
was seized with his last illness, after he had received the
sacraments. He was a great man during his life, had a large
and numerous retinue, and many looked up to him for pa-
tronage and protection ; but when he lay upon his dying bed,
he was deserted by them all, and there was no one to receive
his last breath, or perform towards him, in his greatest need,
the last kind offices of friendship, but his faithful and devoted
chaplain. A penitent himself, he could best appreciate those
advantages and consolations of religion which he administered
to others.

It would be vain to attempt, within the pages at present at
our command, to trace minutely the progress of his conver-
sion, or the motives that finally decided his choice of a state
of life. He was for a long time undecided as to the course
he should adopt. At one period he thought of burying him-
self amid the solitudes of the Pyrenees, and in some dark dell
which the noon-day sun would seldom penetrate, or in some
rocky mountain cell, where no one should ever reach his
lonely hermitage but the reckless chamois hunter inured
from his childhood to the storm, to weep over his sins alone,
and die to all other interests, save those of God and of eter-
nity. At another he was counselled to embrace the monastic
life, and benefit the Church by edifying and instructing his
brethren. This advice he finally adopted, though he long
cherished a repugnance to this mode of life, and sometimes
gave expression to sentiments which were far from compli-
mentary to the cowl and the cassock. But his mind was no
sooner decided upon the course to be adopted, than he pur-
sued it without hesitation. He was not a man to turn back
when once he had put his hand to the plough. He resigned
all his benefices save one, and sold out his property. Veretz
brought him 100,000 crowns. He gave it all to the poor; of
the monasteries which he held " in commendam" he kept
only the poorest, the most unhealthy, and the least known of
all — the abbey of La Trappe in the ancient province of
Perche.

This province is divided from Normandy by a range of
hills which commence at Cherbourg, and, extending in a
south-easterly direction, disappear near Chalons. This range

310 Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranc6. [Dec.

of hills, for the most part of very moderate elevation, is inter-
sected here and there by ravines and narrow valleys, and
clothed in many places with dense masses of the ancient
forests of the country.* In one of these ravines, lay the
monastery which has since acquired a more than European
celebrity. The nearest towns were Seez and Mortagne, be-
tween which it was situated. The geographical distance was
small, but for all pur})Oses of human communication, it was
as far removed from the abodes of man, as if it were a hun-
dred miles away. Nature had surrounded it with hills and
woods, as if it was resolved to shut out all intercourse with
the world that was beyond them ; and the hardy traveller
who succeeded in passing the barrier of rocky hills, was still
debarred access to the convent walls by a chain of small lakes
which encircled them like the moat of a castle, and could only
be passed in safety under the direction of an experienced guide.
A few fields of corn and some fruit trees were all that the
most laborious industry could wrest from the stubborn soil.
Such was the dreary loneliness of the place, that save some
stray sound from the monastery, nothing was ever heard but
the rustling of the trees, the wild notes of the water fowl,
and the rush of the water that fell from the surrounding hills.
In the heat of the noon-day sun the venerable walls of the
convent were seen distinctly from every point of the hills
around, but in the morning and evening the eye would look
for it in vain amid the thick mist that settled upon the
valley. A dark grey tower would now and then raise
its head through the mass of curling vapour, but at other
times its existence and position could only be determined
by the' sound of the large bell that came booming up the
mountain side at the stated hours of prayer. It was founded
by Rotrou, the second of that name. Count of Perche, in the
year 1122. Once on his way from England he was in danger
of being lost at sea. He made a vow that if ever he saw his
native hills again, he would build a chapel to our Lady in
gratitude for his deliverance. The storm ceased, and he
returned in safety. The convent of La Trappe was the ful-
filment of his vow. In token of the event, he had the roof
constructed to resemble the keel of a vessel turned upside
down. Louis VII was King of France, and Bernard was
Abbot of Clairvaux, when this event occurred, and the con-
vent embraced his rule, and was united to the Cistercian

♦ At least it was so two hundred years ago, though we believe there are few
remains at present.

1844.1 Chateaubriand!' s Life of De Ranc6. 311

Institute in 1144. One of its early abbots, of the name of
Herbert, accompanied the Crusaders of 1212, and with
Renald of Dampierre, and Simon of Montfort, was taken
prisoner by the Caliph of Aleppo. After a captivity of
thirty years he returned at length to his own country, and
founded Claretz, a dependency of La Trappe. The thirteenth
abbot, in regular succession, died in 1526, and in that year
Cardinal du Bellay received it " in commendam" from Francis
the First. Thenceforward, it continued to be so held, until
the strict observance of the institute was restored by the
subject of our notice, in 1662.

" There are in existence," we quote the words of our author,
" formal reports in writing of the early condition of this monas-
tery. That which bears the date of 1685, signed by Dominick
abbot of Val-Richer, describes the state it was in before the reform
of De Ranee. Day and night the gates were open ; males and
females were indiscriminately admitted to the cloisters. The
enti'ance hall was so dark and filthy that it was more like a prison
than a house consecrated to God. Access was had to the several
floors by a ladder placed against the walls, and the boards and joices
of the floors were broken and worm-eaten in many places. The
roof of the cloister had fallen in, and was hanging down, so that the
least shower of rain deluged the place with water. The very pil-
lars that supported it were bent, and as for the parlour, it had for
some time been used as a stable. The I'efectory was such only in
name. The monks and their extern visitors played at nine pins
or shuttlecock in it when the heat or the inclemency of the
weather prevented them from doing so outside doors. The dor-
mitory was utterly deserted ; it was tenanted only by the birds
at night, and the hail and the snow, the rain and the wind passed
in and out as they pleased. The brothers who should have occupied
it, took up their quarters as they pleased, or as they could. The
church itself was not better attended to. The pavement was
broken, and the stones thrown about. The very walls were crumb-
ling to decay. The belfry threatened to come down every moment.

It shook alarmingly at every ringing of the bell When he set

about reforming the monastery, it was but the ruin of a monastic
establishment. The monks had dwindled down to seven. Even

these were spoiled by alternations of want and plenty When

De Ranee first began to talk to them of reform, the whole establish-
ment was in commotion. Nothing was heard but threats of ven-
geance. One spoke of assassinating him, another advised poison,
while a third thought the best and safest way of getting rid of him
would be to throw him into one of the lakes that surrounded the
monastery. A gentleman of the neighbourhood, apprehensive for
his safety, proffered his assistance, but it was immediately declined.

312 ChateaubriarKTs Life of De Ranc^. Dec.

* The Apostles,' said the abbot, * established the faith in defiance of
earthly power, and that come what may, there was no happiness
after all like that of suffering for the saJce of justice.' The abbot
threatened to report their irregularities to the king, and the very
dread of his authority, and the fear of his vengeance, had penetrated
these remote localities. The monks consented at length, and
unwillingly, to the changes proposed. A formal agreement was
drawn up, which secured a pension of four hundred livres to each
of the seven surviving members of the old community ; and they
were allowed the choice of living in the monastery according to the
rule, or taking up their abode elsewhere. Shortly after, two reli-
gious of the abbey of Perseigne, at the request of De Ranc6, came
to take temporary possession of the monastery." — p. 95.

The abbey had been, since 1526, held, as we have already
seen, "in commendam." The special permission of his
majesty was therefore required, to enable the abbot to
assume the regular jurisdiction of the community ; and this
permission he succeeded in obtaining. But, to render this
permission binding upon his successors, the joint concurrence
of the courts of Rome and Paris was necessary. It was
evident that until this was obtained, only half the work
was done ; and, by the aid of influential friends, in this also
he was successful. H^ began his noviciate at the reformed
house of Perseigne. After spending about five months there,
a malady, which he vainly endeavoured to conceal from his

Ehysicians, compelled him to leave the house for a time, until
is health should be restored. His medical attendants even
went so far as to say, that unless he moderated his austerities,
his very life would be in danger. But a resolution embraced,
and a state of life adopted, after an internal' conflict like his,
were not to be so easily shaken. He went for change of air
to La Trappe, and recovered. On his return to Perseigne,
his influence was required by his superiors to defend the
reformed institute in one of the 'houses of the order. The
strict observance of rule had been introduced into a convent
in Champagne. Some of the community were opposed to its
introduction, and were supported in their opposition by the
gentlemen of the neighbourhood. A party of these came
one day to the convent, to expel by force the members who
had introduced the change. As such an event was expected,
\ De Ranee was sent down expressly from the parent house, to
oppose and baffle the assailants. He met them at the gate.
They were led on by the Marquis de la Vasse, an old friend
of De Ranee. The marquis recognized him in a moment, and,
descending from his horse, clasped him affectionately in his

1844.] Chateaubriand'' s Life of Be Manc^. 313

arms. It is scarcely necessary to add that the errand on
which he came remained unfulfilled. When his noviciate
was expired, he prepared to consecrate himself by his solemn
vows to God. The better to arrange his affairs, he went for
a few days to La Trappe ; made his last will and testament,
bequeathing to his convent his remaining property, making
special mention of his library. " And if," said he, " from any
causes which I do not at present foresee, La Trappe should
cease to observe the reformed rule, I bequeath my books to
the Hotel Dieu, at Paris, to be sold for the benefit of the sick
and poor." He had several letters of the Duchess of Mont-
bazon, and two portraits. The former he consigned to the
flames, the latter he returned to her son, the Marquis de
Soubise. The only memorial of his former attachment which
he continued to retain was, it is said, the identical head which
startled him on his return from the chase, which haunted his
imagination in the halls of Veretz, and whose sad and mourn-
ful expression had for many a long day and night carried terror
and dismay to his inmost soul. This skull he is said to
have kept in his cell at La Trappe, as a memento of his past
transgressions, and an incentive to increased compunction. So
at least it was currently reported at the time, though it is but
fair to add, that this fact has been denied by the later members
of the community. He was anxious to make his solemn pro-
fession in company with Bernier, one of the old religious of
La Trappe, and who was also, it is said, one of those that
conspired to take away his life, though afterwards brought to
follow his example. But some obstacle intervening, and
being desirous to complete his sacrifice, he made his solemn
profession to Guiton, a deputy of the Abbot of Prieres, on
the 26th of June, 1664. Two others were professed with
him, of whom one had been an old servant of his in the days
of his worldly splendour. A few days after this event he
went to take formal possession of his convent, having pre-
viously received the abbatial blessing and investiture from one
of our own expatriated countrymen. Dr. Patrick Plunket,
bishop of Ardagh. This prelate had been himself a Cistercian
monk, before his elevation to that dignity, and had probably
taken shelter among the brethren of his order from the dan-
gers of his own distracted country.

The first days of the Abbot of La Trappe were principally
employed in putting his monasteryin repair, and in establish-
ing judicious regulations for the performance of the choral
service. He was himself employed among them like the

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 21

314 Chateaubriand' B Life of De Rand. [Dec.

humblest of his brethren. At his suggestion, the obsequious
and docile community gave up the use of meat, eggs, fish, and
wine, and adopted a more respectful and deferential deport-
ment in their intercourse with one another. He had not been
long engaged in the work of reformation, when he was selected
by the chapter of reformed Cistercians to advocate their
claims before the Holy See, which were called in question by
the parent house of the Cistercian institute. On the eve of
his journey he was working in the garden of his convent : the
spade struck against some hard substance, which, on being
turned up, proved to be a number of gold six-shilling pieces,
of English coinage. The brethren looked upon them as sent
by Providence, to defray the expenses of his journey. At
Chalons-sur-Saone he was joined by the Abbot of Val Richer,
his fellow-traveller and appointed associate, and reached the
eternal city on the 16th of November 1664. He had been
preceded about six weeks by the Abbot of Citeaux — the leader
and advocate of the opposition he came to combat. He had
an audience in the beginning of Advent of Alexander VII,
who then filled the chair of Peter. The claims of the re-
formed Cistercians were looked on with an unfavourable eye
at Rome. The question between the parties, perhaps, was not
perfectly understood at the time; or, perhaps, it was feared that
some of the old leaven of the Waldenses was at work in their
longing after evangelical perfection. The examination of the
points in dispute was referred to a committee of the cardinals.
De Rauce, finding their sentiments unfavourable to his cause,
left the city, but was compelled to return by his superior, the
Abbot of Prieres.

" He ascended," says our author, " once more the hill of the
Vatican. He traversed in vain that noble staircase which so many
now forgotten footsteps had traversed before him, and down which
messengers had so often come, bearing with them the destinies of
the world. He addressed a memorial to the cardinals. One of them
spoke rather warmly on the subject. The demands of the poor
monk, perhaps, put him in a passion. De Ranc6 meekly answered,
' I do not speak from any impulse of passion, my lord ; but I speak
from a sense of justice.' "

During his stay in Rome, and while awaiting the issue of
his mission, he was remarkable for the austerity and seclusion
of his habits. His food was coarse brown bread, his drink
water. His daily expenditure never exceeded six small pieces
of the Roman copper coin. Having much time upon his
hands unoccupied, he spent it in visiting — not the monuments

1844.] Chateauhriand's Life of De Manc^. 8J5

of Roman grandeur or the triumphs of human art — but some
of the least frequented churches, in which he was wont to
spend many hours in prayer. It was also remarked 4hat he
paid long and frequent visits to the catacombs. The darkness
of these caverned recesses ; the sepulchral purposes to which
they had been applied ; the multitudes that had passed and
repassed these gloomy pathways for more than two thousand
years ; the mouldering emblems and remnants of mortality,
pagan and Christian, of martyred saint and unrepenting sin-
ner, that lay strewed around him, were in harmony with the
stern complexion of his feelings, and uttered with their own
terrible impressiveness that warning lesson, which in after
years he taught so well — " Vanity of vanities, and all is
vanity."" He wished to spend the Christmas holidays in some
convent of his order, but an old religious, with whom he
formed an acquaintance, happening casually to mention that
they had no pious reading at meals, and that after supper the
brethren amused themselves with a game of cards, he became
shocked at the irregularity, and celebrated that festival in the
quiet and privacy of his own lodging.

On his return to La Trappe, after an absence of nearly two
years, he began to establish on a firm basis those observances
which have rendered his name and that of his house so well
known to the world.* Dissensions had unfortunately sprung
up between the prior and the assistant during his absence.
The prior was of opinion that the walls of the convent cells
looked altogether too bare, and that the brethren stood a fair
chance of going to heaven without working altogether so
hard. Meat and fish, which De Ranee removed, began again
to find their way upon the table of the refectory. He had
already, by letter, expressed his displeasure at these changes ;
and on his return, he took care to remove the prior from his
oflfice, and restore the original regulations. In addition, he now
began to introduce the observance of that stricter discipline,
which distinguishes the Trappist institute from the other
houses of the Cistercian order. The details of this discipline,
— its short sleep, its rigorous abstinence, its unbroken silence,
are well known, and we will not here wait to describe them.
They have become more or less familiar to our Irish and
English readers since the introduction of the -order into these
countries. From the commencement of his labours in this

* We doubt whether there be any convent so generally known by name as
that of La Trappe, except, perhaps, that of the Great St. Bernard, on the Alps.

212

316 Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranc^. [Dec.

department, to his death, there are inscribed in the registers
of the convent no less than ninety-seven professed religious and
forty-nine lay brothers. They presented themselves for admis-
sion slowly in the commencement ; but when the virtues and
example of the members and the abbot became better known,
the postulants that presented themselves were more than they
could well accommodate. The penitent who felt his heart
pressed down by the consciousness of guilt, and the Christian
who aspired to more than ordinary perfection, sought refuge
within its walls ; and many a contrite and humble soul, on
which the recollections of early days pressed dark and heavily,
came to tread in the footsteps of the abbot, and prepare for
its dread accounting. Something, too, we should perhaps set
down to the impulse of that enthusiasm which novelty ever
excites, and which is one of the auxiliaries which religion
borrows from the earth, and, by employing, consecrates and
hallows for its own high purposes. Various as are the ways
of God with man, and manifold as are the means by which
souls are conducted to sanctity, are the names of those who
first presented themselves, and whose characters are described
in its early archives. Ragobert, once a monk of Clairvaux,
who sought in vain within the degenerate cloisters of Bernard
the perfection which he found only at La Trappe. Le Nain,
elder brother of the illustrious Tillemont. He was subse-
quently prior of the monastery, and employed his pen in
sketching the biography of his friend and abbot. Brother
Placide, who, on his dying bed, and awaiting the coming on of
his agony, was so full of heavenly joy and hope, that when
his abbot asked him whither he was going, " To the mansions
of the blessed, of course," he replied. Brother Bernard had
just received the viaticum, when a severe fit of coughing
came on ; expectoration would have relieved him, but out of
respect to the body of his Lord that reposed within his bosom,
he did violence to the requirements of his physical nature,
and died a martyr to his reverence for the eucharist. Claude
Cordon, a learned doctor of Sorbonne, who, after a career
of much distinction in the theological world, took the
habit of religion and the name of Arsenius, and died in the
odour of sanctity. A few days after his death, one of the
brothers said he saw him surrounded with a brilliant light,
and heard him say in rapturous extacy, "Oh if you knew
what it was to be in the society of the saints ! "" Peter For^
had been a lieutenant of grenadiers. He bore about him thg
marks of several engagements, in which he had proved him

1844."] ChatmubriarKPs Life of De Ranee. 317

self the bravest oi' the brave : but he was also wicked and
depraved. The blood of many a murdered man, and the curse
of many a dishonoured maid, were upon his head. So reckless
and abandoned had he at length become, that twelve warrants
Avere at one time out against him. But in the darkest depths
of guilt there is an element of correction. He heard of the
wonders of La Trappe, and determined to seek for admission.
Starting from his place of refuge, he travelled in a few days
over two hundred leagues, through bye-paths and under
heavy rains ; and on a cold day in winter presented himself
at the gate of the convent. His eye was wild and blood-shot ;
his features haggard ; his look indicative of despair. The
hardships he had undergone imparted a savage fierceness to
his whole demeanour. He asked admission, and obtained it.
The repenting sinner, be he who or what he may, was sure
to be received ; and Fore was not unworthy of the kindness
during the few weeks he survived, — for, alas! his course of
penance was short. His iron frame was broken by the hard-
ships he endured. Ulcers began to form in his chest. Reduced
to extremity, he asked to be laid upon a bed of ashes, and
died in the warmest sentiments of compunction. The won-
ders of asceticism and rigorous self-denial which are recorded of
the early members of La Trappe, would have been worthy of
the solitaries of the Thebaid; and had Pachomins been admitted
to contemplate that community, he would have been proud
to acknowledge them as brothers. The monks, though living
in the same house, were strangers to one another. Each one
followed to the choir, the garden, or the refectory, the feet
that were moving before him, but he never raised his eyes to
discover to whom the feet belonged.

There were some who passed the entire year of their no-
viciate without lifting up their eyes, and who, after that long
period, could not tell how the ceiling of their cells was con-
structed, or whether they had any ceilings at all. There is
mention made of one, whose only anxiety was for an only
brother, whom he had left leading a scandalous and disorderly
life in the world. Since he entered the convent, he never
passed a day without shedding a tear over his miserable' con-
dition, and begging for him from God the grace of repentance
and amendment. On his dying bed he asked one request of
the abbot — It was, for a continuance of his prayers for the
same 'purpose. De Ranee retired for a moment, and returned
with one of the most useful and valued members of the bro-
therhood. When the cowl which concealed his features was

818 Ohaieauhriand's Life of De Ranci. [Dec.

removed, the dying monk recognized the brother for whom
he had so often wept and prayed. An aged monk was once
selected to attend a youth of great promise, who had entered
the monastery and was dying of a slow decline. Day and
night he watched by his bed, with the most anxious care, and
the most untiring solicitude — but in vain. The young man
pined away like a crushed and broken flower, and his remains
were borne to their resting place, in the burial ground of
the brethren. One day the aged monk was observed standing
over the grave of the departed. Tears flowed down his
wrinkled cheeks, and his breast heaved with the intensity of
his emotion ; for a moment, nature triumphed over duty.
The inscription upon the grave told him that it was the grave
of his only son. He had not seen him since he left him a
boy, to the care of his guardians, in the world. Such was
their ignorance of the world's ways and usages, that when the
Duchess of Guise was permitted to see the chapel, one of the
brethren accused himself in chapter of having looked at the
hishop that had visited the convent. Even the death of
Louis XIV, occurred some months before it was known to
any but the abbot. The following incident we should rather
expect to meet in the history of the Caliph Haroun Al Ras-
chid : A traveller, making his way through the mountains,
missed his way ; he wandered about some time after sunset,
in danger of being dashed to pieces among the rocks, or of
sinking in the morasses that surrounded him. About eight
o'clock he heard the tolling of a large bell, and, with some
difficulty, made his way to the spot from which the sound
proceeded. It was a large monastery. He sought shelter for
the night, and was admitted. One kind attendant took care
of his jaded steed, another divested him of his wet and travel-
stained habiliments, another conducted him to the apartment
where he got refreshment, and where a plain but neat bed
received his weary limbs. But, from his entrance to his de-
parture in the morning, strange to say, no sound of human
voice broke upon his ear. His noiseless attendants came and
went, like so many beings of another world, ready to antici-
pate his slightest wish ; but, as it was the hour of silence,
even for those who waited upon the strangers, not a word was
spoken when he went, or when he came.

To some who may cast their eyes over these pages, a life
like that which we have described, will seem nothing but the
veriest fanaticism. We have often before now heard the
names of Paul, and Anthony, and Francis, and De Ranc^

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life of De Bance. 31d

classed in the same category with the Fakirs of Hindostan.
There is in modern civilization, and occupying an important
place, a desire of ease and comfort, an anxiety to provide for
man's mere physical nature, which, however useful and
praiseworthy, is not all that man requires. Who can tell the
various shades of character,of disposition, of usefulness, of
which society is composed, from those who are clothed in soft
garments in the houses of kings, to those whose dwelling-
place is in the desert, and whose food is the locust and wild
honey ? Shall we say that the Baptist in the wilderness,
where from childhood he had been sanctified by God's spirit
in lonely meditation and rigorous abstinence, was not as great
and useful as the merchant, the soldier, the courtier, or the
monarch ; or that, in the divine economy, he had not his own
high function to fulfil ? We should rather think it was this
previous preparation, hallowed as it was by heavenly in-
fluence, that elicited from the Saviour the magnificent eulogy,
** Amen, I say to you, there hath not arisen, among those bom
of woman, a greater than John the Baptist ! " No doubt, the
example thus afforded, was never intended for universal
adoption. Those who are specially called to such a life, are,
and have been, comparatively few ; but in every age of the
Christian dispensation, as before it in the old, there have been
found persons like Elias, and the Baptist, and Paul, and
Anthony, whose home was to be the desert, and who were to
serve God in solitude and in prayer. Some called away
from the busy abodes of men in the very innocence of child-
hood, ere yet the world and its corrupting influence had
tarnished the purity of their souls ; others who were sum-
moned to weep in solitude, and eat the bitter bread of com-
punction, over the wanderings of a sinful life ; others whose
mind and disposition were little adapted to the ways of men,
and who determined to flee for ever from seductions which
they were afraid openly to encounter ; others whom God's
spirit set apart to pray, with a strong cry and tears, for the
welfare of their people, and, like Moses, to extend their
hands to heaven upon the mountains, while the people
were battling upon the plain. Who will say that, even in
these evil days, the fate of empires, and the destiny of
peoples, are not more influenced by some poor and unknown
solitary, whose voice ascends to heaven in secret, than by the
movements of armed men, or the intrigues of diplomatic
agency, to which they are generally ascribed? The Trappist,
and similar institutes, are not to be viewed independently

320 Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranee. [Dec.

in themselves. They are but parts of the Christian system,
which must be considered in their bearing upon the whole.
It was no small service for the Trapplst institution, to have
given the corrupt times in which it originated an example of
penance and mortification. We know of no leseon more needed
by the voluptuousness of those among whom De Ranee lived.
The almost pagan tendency and epicurean morality, or im-
morality, of the day, required to be checked and censured by
the example of Christian mortification. The same service which
the monks of the Thebaid rendered to the tottering empire
of the Caesars, was conferred by the Trappists upon the liber-
tinism of their own. De Ranee was to the Longuevilles and
the Montmorency 8, what Anthony and Arsenius were to the
degenerate children of Constantine. The marvellous and
ever abiding spirit which presides over the children of God,
will always provide a fitting and adequate remedy for the
disorders of the time ; and the salt of the earth will never be
wanting, when the corruption of human nature requires it to
be applied.*

Among the names of those who from time to time visited
the monastery, to be edified by its inmates, and witness the
wonders that had been achieved among them, our attention
is at once arrested by the name of Bossuet.

" He was the college companion of the abbot, and he went to see
his old friend. He rose in La Trappe like the noonday sun over
some forest wilderness. Eight times did the eagle of Meaux ascend
to this eyrie among the mountains, and the various flights are in
some measure connected with things which have now become a part
of history. In 1682 Louis XIV removed to Versailles. In 1685
Bossuet wrote at La Trappe his introduction to the catechism of
Meaux. In 1686 he put the finishing hand to his funeral orations,
by that chef-d'oeuvre which he pronounced before the bier of
Conde. In 1696, Sobieski, the old soldier of Louis, departed this
life for a better. He had entered Vienna by a breach made by the
Turkish cannon. The Poles saved Europe, and Europe permits
Poland to be blotted out from among the nations. History has
sometimes as little gratitude as men. Bossuet nowhere felt himself
more at home than at La Trappe. Brilliant minds have sometimes

* The words of D'Alembert, with reference to this subject, may not be tin-
deserving of notice. "Le Sejour de La Trappe parait destine a faire sentir
aux cceurs nieme les plus ti&des, jusqu'ft quel point uue foi vive et ardente
peut nous rendre cheres les privations les plus rigoureuses ; Sejour meme qui
pt'ut oftnr au simple philosophe line matiere interessante 4e reflexions pro-
fondes sur le neant de I'ambition et de la gloire, les consolations de la retraite,
et le bonheur de I'obscurite.' '

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranee, 321-

a passion for out of-the-way-places. When the high road of Perche
had become tolerably well known to him, Bossuet, writing to a nun
who was ill, said, ' When I am coming back from La Trappe, I will
pay you a pretty long visit.' The only interest of these words is,
that they were written upon his journey, thrown into a post office
as he passed, and bear the signature of ' Bossuet.' He took parti-
cular pleasure in hearing the brethren sing the divine office. The
solemn chanting of the psalms, which was the only sound that
could be heard ; the long pauses, the soft and searching tones of
the ' Salve Regina,' inspired him with a devotional feeling that was
very acceptable to him.* He fancied, perhaps, at La Trappe that
he heard the world and its cares hurrying by on the wings of each
passing wind. It was as if he stood in one of those distant fortresses
which our country has established upon the very confines of civili-
zation, where morning and evening the hills around echo sounds
which they never heard before, for the strangers are singing some
sweet melody to remind them of their native land. One by one the
strangers die away, and the notes of that sweet song are echoed
back no more. Bossuet took care to attend the service of the night
as well as the day. Before vespers he took a walk in company
with De Ranee. I had pointed out to me, near the Bernard grotto,
a path overrun with brambles, and which formerly was a causeway
between two lakes. Those same feet which carried me during my
day-dreams of Ren6, walked over this causeway, which formerly
supported two great men while talking over heavenly things. On
the green banks by my side, I almost fancied I saw projected the
shadows of the greatest orator of France, and the first anchoret of
his time." — p. 173.

The society of Bossuet was of much greater advantage to
the reformer of La Trappe than perhaps he was himself
iiware. In early life De Ranee contracted intimacies with
many of those distinguished men who, unfortunately for them-
selves, became involved in the Jansenistical controversy.
The brother of Tillemont was among his earliest associates ;
and Pavilion, bishop of Alets, one of those whom he consulted
in his choice of a state of life, was deprived of his see, for his
avowed and obstinate advocacy of the proscribed opinions. It
would be, therefore, natural to suppose, that his mind would be
more or less imbued with sentiments, more congenial, perhaps,
to his austere disposition, than the milder and orthodox doc-

* There was, down to the latest times of La Trappe, a peculiar reverence in
the manner in which they recited the Anthem of the Virgin. The following is
from the Pelerinage des deux Proven^aux : " Rien n'egale le respect avec
lequel ils recitent I'antienne de la Vi^rge. Le ' Salve Regina^ dura plus d'une demi
heure. lis resterent plus d'une minute sur chacune de ces exclamations,
' O Clemens,' ' O pia,' en faisant a chaque fois unc genuflexion profonde."

322 Chateaubriand's Life of De Banc4. [Dec.

trines. But the truth of this supposition has been placed
beyond doubt by a letter of his addressed to M. de Brancas,
sometime in the year 1676.* It is not, therefore, surprising
that Louis should have looked upon him with suspicion. In
fact, it was at one period contemplated to involve his monas-
tery in the fate of Port Royal des Champs ; and the calamity
was only averted by the influence of powerful friends, —
among the rest of Bossuet. His enlightened mind must have
seen the tendency of De Ranee's convictions ; and we can
have little doubt, that the little causeway between the lakes,
was the scene of many an animated conversation on the sub-
jects that were then agitating the theological world. It was
no common intellect that could resist the reasoning, or baflle
the intellectual power, that have never perhaps been equalled.
The result of these conversations may be inferred from the
after silence and submission of De Ranee.

Among those who visited the monastery, and learned a
lesson from the example of its inmates, was the well-mean-
ing but unfortunate monarch, our own James II. Once
the sovereign of three kingdoms, but then an outcast and an
exile, he came to learn resignation in the sanctuary of reli-
gion. About the period that he visited La Trappe, the
cannon of Limerick was carrying destruction among the
ranks of William, and the banks of the Shannon resounded
with the tumult of armed men. Had James taken his stand
among them, and died upon the field that was red with the
blood of his devoted followers, the world would regard with
more sympathy his fallen fortunes, and his star would have
gone down in glory. But if his destiny is mournful, and
his after career without honour in the world's estimation,
and no halo surrounds his latter days, it is yet not without

* " Je croirais faire un mal si je soupsonnais leur foi (des Jansenistes) ; ils
sont dans la communion et dans le sein de I'Eglise. Elle les regarde comme
ses enfants ; et par consequent je ne puis et ne dois les regarder autrement que

comme mes frferes Pour vous parler franchement, monsieur, je ne suis nen

moins que moliniste, quoique je sois parfaitement soumis k toutes les puissances
ecclesiastiques. Je ne pense point comme eux, pour ce qui regarde la grace de
Jesus Christ, le predestination des saints, et le morale de son Evangile, et je

suis persuade que les Jansenistes n'ont point de mauvaise doctrine lime

reste, monsieur, une autre affaire, qui est d'empecher, qu'on ne croie que je
favorise le parti des molinistes, car je vous avoue, que la morale de la plupart
de ceux qui en sont, est si corrompue, les maximes si opposees k la saintet6 de
I'Evangile et ^ toutes les regies et instructions que J^sus Christ nous a donnfes,
ou par sa parole, ou par le ministfere de ses saints, qu'il n'y a guere de choses
que je puisse moins souffrir, que de voir qu'on se servit de mon nom pour auto-
riser des sentimens que je condamne de toute la plenitude de mon coeur." —
Chateauhriantt, page 181, et seq.

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life of De RancS.

interest for the Christian observer. He bore his reverses
with dignity, and hallowed his sufferings by patience and en-
during fortitude. God chastens those whom He loves ; and
better may have been the crown of thorns which was given
him to wear, than any that earthly monarch ever wore. It
was on an autumn evening in the eventful year 1690, that
James rode up to the gate of the convent, attended by a few
friends. Lord Dumbarton among the number. He was kindly
received by the abbot, and after partaking of his hospitality,
attended evening service in the chapel. After communica-
ting on the following morning, and inspecting the respective
occupations of the religious, he visited a recluse that lived
some distance up the mountains. His solitude was never
interrupted, save by an occasional visit from his abbot, and
he spent the greater part of his time in prayer. In the re-
cluse, James immediately recognized an officer who had for-
merly distinguished himself in his army. He asked him at
what hour in the winter mornings he attended service in the
chapel of the convent, and was answered, at half-past three.
" Surely," said Lord Dumbarton, " that is impossible. The
way is dark and dreary, and at that hour is highly dangerous."
*' Ah !" said the old soldier, " I have served my king in frost
and snow, by night and day, for many a year ; and I should
blush indeed, if I were not to do as much for the Master
who has called me to his service now, and whose uniform I
wear." The afflicted monarch turned away his head. His
attendants remarked that his eyes were filled with tears. On
his departure the following day, he knelt down to receive the
abbot''s blessing, and on rising he leant for support on the
arm of a monk that was near him. On looking to express
his thanks, he saw in him another of his followers, — the Hon.
Robert Graham. He too had been an officer in his army,
and lost besides a splendid fortune in his service. His ma-
jesty spoke a few words of kind recollection. Even the soli-
tudes of La Trappe were filled with the ruins of his great-
ness. These visits he repeated each year as long as he was
able ; and to his dying day cherished a most grateful remem-
brance of the benefit which he derived from the edifying
lives of the abbot and the community.

Disgusted with the world, De Ranee would have been
content to live and die unknown in his dear solitudes. The
great Avork of religious reform, in which he had succeeded so
well, would have rescued his name from oblivion, without
other aid ; but he was also to obtain what he least expected.

324 Chateauhr'iand^s Life of De RancS. [Dec.

and what he least desired, — a literary reputation. In the
spiritual guidance of his brethren, he had frequent occasion
to study the duties and obligations of the monastic institute,
and to make himself well acquainted with the principles and
examples of religious perfection, handed down by those who
have gone before us. In the alembic of his strong and ori-
ginal mind they assumed a new, if not more impressive form,
than they had before. The discourses which he delivered to
his monks on these subjects were taken down in writing, and
began to find their way into circulation. One of the copies
fell into the hands of Bossuet, who no sooner read it, than he
wrote to the author, and insisted in the strongef^t terms on its
immediate publication. The answer of De Ranee was to
throw the manuscripts into the fire. But it would not do :
other copies were in existence. His friends renewed their
entreaties, Bossuet promised to superintend the publication,
and correct the press. He did more. He gave a written
approbation, which was prefixed to the first edition, dated
from Meaux, on the lOth of May 1685 ; in which year the
work appeared.* It was read with much eagerness. The
world was anxious to know, what the great reformer of his
time had to say about the state of life he adopted, and for
two years its positions remained undisputed. The first
murmur of dissatisfaction was heard from the Low Coun-
tries, where the opinions that were oppressed or persecuted
at home, found a free and unchecked expression. It pur-
ported to be a true and accurate account of the conversion
of the abbot De E.anc6. It was written in the form of dia-
logue, and was marked by a spirit of personal acrimony and
vituperation. The treatise on the duties of the monastic
state found another opponent in the P^re Mege, who, in
in his commentary on the rule of St. Bennet, took occasion
to mention it in terms of censure. It reached its third edition
before it provoked any antagonist worthy of the notice of the
author. It was Mabillon that spoke from the cloister of St.
Maur. The old chronicles of the early kings, the records of
early European history, and the ponderous folios of the fathers,
were piled around him on the right hand and on the left ; and
on the table before him lay the annals of his order, which he
was employed in publishing. His threadbare cassock was
covered thick with the dust of many a mouldering and worm-

* This work has boon lonp; and favourably known to the English public
untler the title of "A Treatise on the Duties of a Monastic Life," by the Abbot
De Ranee.

1844.] CJiateauhriand' s Life of De RancP. 325

eaten document, brought from the libraries of Italy and
France ; and his grey hair and wrinkled brow told of study,
and thought, and labour, beyond what are given to other men.
Yet he, the most learned man of the most learned order that
the Church has produced, was told by the abbot of La Trapj>e,
that the pursuit of human learning was unworthy of the mo-
nastic state and opposed to the essential duties of the profes-
sion. It was only such a charge that could arouse the great
Benedictine, or provoke him into the arena of controversy.
But when he does buckle on his armour for the fight, he does
it with a dignity worthy his name and cause. His reply, un-
der the title of " Traite des Etudes Monastiques," is very ap-
propriately addressed to the young religious of his community.
He lays it down as an incontrovertible position, that though
monasteries should never be made mere schools of human
learning, nor of that knowledge which merely puffeth up, yet
that the cultivation of human learning may be rendered emi-
nently conducive to the interests of religion ; that if influenced
by charity, it may be very useful in promoting humility and
knowledge of ourselves ; but that in all his studies, and in all
his eagerness for knowledge, the true religious should ever
seek to i)erfect himself in the love of God, and to know, with
the apostle, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. To maintain
this position — about which, at the present day, we should
think there will be no second opinion — he employs all the re-
sources of his rich and well- stored mind. His favourite pur-
suit, nay the object of his whole life, was censured ; perhaps
his character as a religious in question. He appeals with pride
to the great men whom the religious institute has given to
the world in every age ; to the magnificent collections of books
which were amassed within the walls of convents, to prove
that literature was loved and cultivated by the inmates. He
alludes to the doctors of Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, whose
knowledge was thus acquired ; to the schools established
wherever a religious foundation was made ; to the master-
pieces of human genius preserved by religious men ; to the
numerous popes and councils that praised these labours and
required them to be continued. Nor is France unnoticed in
his pages, for he appeals with confidence to the names of An-
selm and Lanfranc, and mentions with honour the abbeys of
Bee and the Grande Chartreuse. Modesty prevented him from
alluding to his own times ; but posterity will say, that in the
brilliant galaxy that sheds lustre upon the monastic institute,
there are no more illustrious names than Mabillon and St.
Maur. De Ranee replied to this treatise, and Mabillon an-

326 Chateaubriand'' s Life of De Ranc6. [Dec.

swered by his " Reflexions."" There have been few contro-
versies conducted with more zeal and erudition, with more
consideration for each other's character, and, what is more
creditable, with less loss of temper. The Benedictine in par-
ticular, seems to write for the world and posterity, rather than
for the abbot of La Trappe. What can be more dignified,
more Christian, more worthy of his great name, than the fol-
lowing words, with which he closes for ever the discussion.

" I have endeavoured to observe all the rules of moderation, but
I cannot flatter myself that nothing opposed thereto has escaped me,
or that I have not strayed from my original intentions, however
pure and upright. "Would that you could see my heart, dear rev.
father (he is addressing De Ranee), for permit me so to address you,
that I may prove the sentiments which I entertain for you and
yours. I am far from blaming your mode of acting towards your
religious with regard to study ; but if you think they are able to
dispense with it, at least do not deprive others of a support of which

their weakness stands in need I wish that, however divided our

hearts may be on the subject of knowledge, they may be united in
charity. Forgive me, rev. father, for I must conclude with the
words of a holy doctor. Forgive me if I have spoken with too
great a freedom, and rest assured that I never intended by anything
I said to hurt in the slightest degree your feelings. Non ad con-
tumeliam tuam sed ad defensionem meam. However, if even in
this respect I am mistaken, I pray you to forgive me."

Bossuet, with his customary acuteness and precision, solved
the difficulty in a few words, by distinguishing the hermit
from the cenobite. The words of De Ranee applied to the one,
those of Mabillon to the other. To prove to the world, aa
well as his opponent, that the feelings of Christian charity
did not vanish in the heat of controversy, the Benedictine
visited La Trappe in 1693, and spent several days in the
society of his friend.*

In his later years, finding himself unequal to the duties of so
large a community, De Ranee wished to resign his office in favour
of some of the more active religious, thinking that the power
of the abbot required to be exercised by a younger and more

* Besides the works mentioned above, we have from the pen of De Kance —
1. Lettres Spirituelles, 2 vols. 12mo. 2. Instructions Chretiennes, 2 vols. 3.
RSglemens de I'Abbaye de La Trappe, &c. 1 vol. 4. Institutions de La
Trappe. 5. Reflexions sur les quatre Evangelistes. 6. Vies de plusieurs
Solitaires de la Trappe. All marked by the same severe spirit of asceticism
which distinguishes his " Devoirs Monastiques."

[From a correspondent of the Athenaeum (Nov. 16) we learn that fifty MS.
letters of De Ranee have been discovered in the library of Clermont, by M.
Gorrod, the librarian, and may be expected to be published in a short time. —
Ed.]

1844.] Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranc^. 327

energetic hand. Perhaps he thought that his institute would
be more durable if the transfer of authority were made during
his own lifetime, and confided to a successor animated with
sentiments kindred to his own. Such an arrangement would
also have the effect of preventing the abbey being given
away " in commendam," as it had been before, and as it was
likely to be again, if the rule and mode of life established by
him w^as not made perpetuaL Accordingly, in the month of
October 1695, he sent in his resignation to the king. It was
presented by the archbishop of Paris. His majesty mani-
fested his respect for De Ranee by leaving to him the appoint-
ment of his successor. He named Peter Foisil — in religion,
brother Zozimus, — the prior of the monastery, and an intimate
friend of his own. The new abbot died within a twelvemonth
after his election, and was succeeded by Francis Armand
Gervaise, who had been a Carmelite friar before he entered
La Trappe, and who was also appointed at the instance of
De Ranee. But in this case the penetration of De Ranee
was baffled. Gervaise, after his election, began to exhibit
qualities which never were discovered in his character till
then. He wished to become a great man ; took every oppor-
tunity of vilifying his old abbot, and of weaning from him
the affections of the religious. In his pride and affectation,
he unfortunately fell into some grievous fault which gave
great scandal to the community, and in a sudden fit of shame
and compunction, gave in his written resignation. De Ranee,
glad of such an opportunity of remedying the false step he
had made in the selection, would not allow him to retract,
which in his cooler moments he wished to do ; and notwith-
standing the calumnies which he circulated, and the intrigues
he excited at court, succeeded in getting Jacques De la Cour
appointed abbot of the monastery. With this appointment,
neither De Ranee nor the religious had ever any reason to be
dissatisfied.

The reformer of La Trappe was now an old man. The
rheumatism, that had hitherto disabled only his left hand,
now seized upon the right, which, notwithstanding the. kind
attendance of the surgeon of the duchess of Guise, whom she
commissioned to take charge of him, he found himself, in a
short time, unable to use. His stomach had an extreme re-
pugnance to every kind of food, and in addition to a distress-
ing cough, and a want of rest at night, his teeth gave him
much trouble, and he got a swelling in his legs. The last
six years of his life he spent in the infirmary, reclining in an
easy chair, almost without changing his position. When the

ChateauhriancTs Life of De Ranee. [Dec.

lay-brother in attendance came to give lilm a drink, he used
to say, with a smile, " Here is my persecutor again,"" The
religious, one and all, would have deemed it an honour to be

Permitted to do him the slightest service, but he was often
nown to bear thirst for hours together, without mentioning
it, so unwilling was he to give them trouble. Even the acute
internal pain which he endured would never have been dis-
covered, but for the convulsive twitching of his features, and
the sudden paleness which at times overspread his counte-
nance. On the wall over against his chair, were written the
words of the royal penitent : " The sins and ignorances of
my youth remember not, O Lord." In his advanced age and
increasing infirmities, his brethren besought him to moderate
somewhat of his rigorous austerities ; they even obtained
from the Holy See permission for the purpose, but his love of
penance was stronger than his love of life, and he continued
them to the last. When the days of the exhausted and worn-
out invalid were drawing to a close, and apprehensions were
entertained of his death being near at hand, the brethren
of the monastery began to gather around the door of the in-
firmary, anxious to have one look at their respected father,
and to hear one word from his venerated lips, before he was
taken away from among them. De Ranee, from his bed,
heard their whispered inquiries, and was informed of their
solicitude. He dictated his last farewell, which he wished to
have read for them by the abbot :

" God alone," said he, " knows how desirous I am to see you
once more. Though I long for that happiness more than ever I
did through life, yet I grieve to say, that in the present state of my
health, it is one which I must forego. Pray for me, my brethren ;
and ask of God, that if I be still good for anything, I may be con-
tinued to you a little longer, if not, that He take me from the world."

The bishop of Seez, his friend and confessor, was sent for.
De Ranee seemed much pleased when he saw him : took the
prelate''8 hand, and raised it to his forehead, as if he meant to
form with it the sign of the cross upon himself, repeated the
general confession, and requested his kind influence at court
in favour of the discipline he had established in the monastery.
This was the only solicitude that troubled his dying hour.
Seeing one of the monks in tears, he stretched out his hand,
and said, " I am not going away from you for good. I am
only going before you a little while." He attempted to write
a parting letter to James II, who since his visits to La Trappe
had kept up a friendly interchange of letters and kind offices,

1844.] ChateauhnarKTs Life of De Ranee. 329

but not being able to finish it, he prayed the abbot to make
the necessary apology to his majesty. The night of the 25th
of October was a long and restless one for the sinking patient.
He spent it in a straw chair, with sandals that belonged to a
deceased religious placed on the ground before him, as if to
remind him of the journey he had to go. He rallied a little
on the following day, but at eight o'clock in the evening it
was evident to all around him that his agony was coming on.
He required to be placed on his knees to receive once more
the bishop"'s blessing, and then laid on the bed of ashes on
which, according to his institute, the Trappist must always
die. A king might envy the unearthly joy that sparkled in
his eyes as he helped to arrange his emaciated limbs upon his
bed of pain. The bishop, who stood by his side, asked him
whether he knew him. " Perfectly ; I never will forget
you," was the reply. He then inquired of the attendants
whether they gave anything to sustain the strength that was
each moment becoming less. De Ranee heard the question,
and faintly whispered that nothing remained undone. Some
verses of psalms were repeated alternately by him and his
attendants. " Lord, thou art my protector and my deliverer,"
repeated the bishop. " O Lord, do not delay," faintly mut-
tered De Ranee. They were the last words he spoke. He
looked for a moment stedfastly at his friend, then raised his
eyes to heaven and died. This was on the 26th of October
in the year 1700. He was seventy-four years of age, and
had spent thirty-seven — just half his life — in the penitential
exercises of the cloister. He was buried in the common
cemetery of his convent. In death, as in life, he wished to be
in the midst of his brethren.

Thus far only the noble author, whose work is before us,
continues his history, and here, too, we had intended to con-
clude this notice, but we feel that a few observations may
not be out of place concerning the after condition of his
institute. We are sure that those who have gone with us
through the preceding remarks cannot but feel an interest in
the fate of the great work for which De Eance prayed, . and
watched, and laboured, — the reformed monastery of La
Trappe. At his death, in 1700, it was under the direction of
the Abbot Jacques de la Cour, and the monks shut out in a
great measure from the world, and secluded by their rule, as
well as by their local situation, from any intercourse with man-
kind, continued for near a century in the strict observance of
the reform which had been delivered to them ; and would

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 22

330 Chateaubriand'' s Life of De Ranc^. [Dec,

have continued until the present time, if the even tenor of
their lives had been disturbed by any visitation less terrible
than the first French revolution. Peter Olivier was the
seventh abbot in succession from De Ranc6, when, some time
in the middle of the year 1791, two commisfioners from the
administrative assembly of the department of Orne presented
themselves at the convent, to inquire why or on what grounds
they claimed exemption from the law of the National As-
sembly, which suppressed the religious orders in France.
There were then in the convent fifty-three choir religious,
thirty- seven lay-brothers, and five novices. They were all
called in, one by one, and minutely examined. The inqui-
sitors reported favourably. " With the exception of five or
six," they said, " and these were persons naturally of weak
minds, the choir religious are in general of very strong and
decided character, which has not been at all impaired by their
fastings and austerities. Their thoughts are utterly absorbed
by religion. The piety of some, — and it is easy to perceive
it by their words, — has even reached the very highest degree
of enthusiasm. The others, who are the majority, are under
the influence of a more subdued spirit. They seem to have
the sincerest affection for their state of life ; and to find in it
a kind of happiness and tranquillity, which should be highly
fascinating." Of the fifty-three choir religious, forty-two
expressed their most anxious desire to live and die in the
strict and unmitigated observance of their institute ; of the
remaining eleven, two were deprived of the use of reason ;
the others divided in their opinions, — two wished to pass to
another house, where the rule was less severe ; two more
wished to have the power of doing so, if at any time their
health should be impaired, or their minds should change.
Four said they would leave the community, if by any inno-
vation certain changes were made in the rule. There was
only one, who expressed a wish to go home to his friends,
as he said, until his health, which was delicate, should be
restored. Of the thirty-seven lay-brothers, seven only ex-
pressed a wish to leave the monastery. What a remarkable
proof is thus afforded us of the influence of the religious in-
stitute on the individual mind and character. How frequently
is it remarked, that the adoption of the vows and obligations
of the religious life is the result of youthful enthusiasm,
operating on tender and susceptible minds ; and that the
walls of the convent and the monastery contain within their
enclosure many a heart grieving for the worldly hopes and

1844.] Chafeatihriand's L//e of Be Ranee. 331

joys which it sacrificed for ever in a moment of delusion.
Yet here, in one of the most rigorous and self-denying insti-
tutes of the Church, — an institute against which men's phy-
sical nature would soonest and most strongly rebel, and
where, in the solitude of the wilderness, there were none of
those human aids of vanity or ambition, to keep alive the de-
caying strength of their early determination, — there was only
one individual of the actual community willing to depart ;
and even he was influenced only by the perhaps pardonable
motive of recruiting his health in the society of his friends.
As for the lay-brothers, they are never looked on in any reli-
gious house as forming part of the real body of the commu-
nity. But the sentiments of the majority of the Trappists
could not avert their impending doom. The executive of
the department reported that their plea of exemption should
not be allowed, and the constituent assembly pronounced
the sentence of suppression.

Then began for the children of De Ranee a long, and weary,
and troubled pilgrimage of over thirty years. But as to the
wandering sons of Israel, God gave light and strength in the
years of their journeying, and raised up from among them-
selves one who was to be their guide and to make known to
them his will, and to bring them in safety through their many
perils to the resting-place which his providence had prepared
for them ; so did he raise up for the outcast Trappists, in their
hour of need, a leader even from among themselves. Louis
Henry Lestrange was born of an honourable family in the Vi-
varais. He received his education in the college of St. Sul-
pice, where he was ordained priest at the age of twenty-four.
He officiated for some time upon the mission, but alarmed at
the responsibility attached to the cure of souls, he took refuge
in La Trappe, where he took the habit and the name of Au-
gustine, about the year 1780. When the decree of their ex-
pulsion was made known to the inmates of the monastery, he
was master of novices ; and as in situations of great difficulty
great minds will always acquire the ascendancy, Augustin
became immediately the leader of his brethren. If Olivier
was still living we know not ; but we do not find his name
mentioned nor his influence felt in the various vicissitudes of
the community. Twenty-four of the religious sought and
obtained a refuge in the canton of Friburg. Augustin, by
whose influence and address they were successful, came back
to conduct them to their destination. They passed through
France, and arrived in Switzerland in 1792. Valsainte, the

22'^

332 Chateaubriand's Life of De Rand. [Dec.

new habitation, was to become to them another La Trappe.
Though three of their number deserted them upon the way,
deterred probably by the dangers that encompassed them, they
received so many accessions in the course of three years, that
it was resolved to form other establishments elsewhere. Co-
lonies were therefore sent to Catalonia, to Darfield, near An-
vers, and to Monbrech, in Piedmont. Three religious, destined
for the Canadian mission, were detained by Mr. Weld, at
Lulworth, on their way through England. The house of
Valsainte, on its first establishment, made some alterations in
the rule of La Trappe, and added somewhat to their customary
austerities. It was raised to the dignity of an abbey by Pius
the Sixth, in a brief dated the 30th September, 1794, and
Augustin received the investiture from the papal nuncio in
Switzerland. He founded a convent of female religious in the
Valais, some time in the year 1796. Among these Trap-
pistines, as they were called, was a member of the illustrious
house of Conde, and for their religious guidance and instruc-
tion, he established, in the same locality, a convent of monks.
In the following year he made a still greater change in the
Trappist institute, by establishing a third order for the in-
struction of the young. Schools were accordingly opened,
and in a short time above one hundred and fifty pupils were
receiving a practical religious education in the seminary at
Valsainte. But this career of prosperity was not to last. In
1798 the victorious armies of the French directory overran
Switzerland, and established the Helvetian republic. As this
invasion was professedly undertaken in consequence of the
intrigues of the French who had taken refuge within its fron-
tiers, the French Trappists could not expect favour. Neither
as exiles, nor as religious, could they hope for mercy. The
entire establishment of Valsainte was broken up, and two
hundred and fifty monks and nuns were cast forth again upon
the world. Many of the pupils had become so attached to
their masters, that they had rather be houseless wanderers with
them, than enjoy peace and comfort at home. A body of
seventy-four made their way in the direction of Munich, when
Augustin received a message from the Emperor Paul, stating
that he would give an asylum to fifteen monks and as many
nuns, in his dominions. After conducting them to their as-
signed place of abode, at Orcha, in the dutchy of Mohilev, in
White Russia, Augustin repaired to the capital, and suc-
ceeded in obtaining the imperial protection for the remainder
of his followers. They had been wandering in the Austrian

1844.] Chateaubr%an<rs Life of De Band. 333

dominions, antt being expelled from thence by the orders of
the government, had passed into Russian Poland. There
the abbot found them on his return from St. Petersburg, hav-
ing performed the journey in the depth of winter, and con-
ducted them to the houses assigned for their use by Paul, in
the diocese of Lucko, in Lithuania. They were not well
fixed in their new abodes, when the imperial ix)licy was re-
versed, and an ukase was issued, expelling every native of
France from his dominions, and they had to go forth once
more. After many hardships, they arrived at Dantzic, and
were received with every mark of attention by the Protestant
authorities of the town, who gave them, as a place of tempo-
rary residence, the old convent of the Brigittines. It was a
Protestant merchant too, that gave them the means of pro-
ceeding to Lubeck, and subsequently to Altona, where they
spent the winter of 1801-2. Baffled, on the continent, in his
efforts to find a home for his houseless brotherhood, Augustin
tried the hospitable shores of England, where so many of his
creed and country had succeeded in obtaining refuge, and had
the good fortune to establish, near London, a house of Trap-
pistines. He also sent thirty monks to lay a foundation in
Kentucky.* He quitted Altona in the spring of 1801, and,
with the remaining members of the community, returned to
Valsainte, after an absence of three years. How many pri-
vations, and anxieties, and disappointments, and hardships,
had he endured since he went forth an outcast from its walls !
But France was the birthplace of the order ; there it grew,
and strengthened, and flourished ; and there, beyond any other
country, did its members wish to be established. The older
members of the community, who survived their hardships,
and who recollected the old convent of La Trappe, and loved
it, as every heart will love the place, Avhatever its defects may
be, where it has learned the first lessons of knowledge and
piety, cherished this desii'e, and wished more than others to
see it realized. Coming from Spain, whither he had gone to
visit the house of his order in Catalonia, Augustin passed
through Paris, and at some risk to himself, being obnoxious to
the government both as a religious and a refugee, determined
to ascertain whether there was any likelihood of restoring the

* The ruins of their unsuccessful mission are those described by Dickens, in
his "American Notes," and the passage in which he describes them is, we
believe, the only one in the works of this charming writer on which we
are compelled to pass sentence of condemnation. It is not what we should
expect &om his fine taste and exquisite feeling.

334 Chateaubriand's Life of De Ranc^. [Dec.

order in his own country. Bonaparte was nOt an enemy to
the religious institute, except where his own power was con-
cerned. He thought they afforded a secure and tranquil asy-
lum to many, to use his own words, " for whom the world
was not suited, or who were not suited for the world ;" and
following the advice of his uncle. Cardinal Fesch, he provided
them with an asylum in France. This gleam of sunshine was,
however, but the harbinger of the storm. Bonaparte quar-
relled with the Pope, and to make sure of the religious orders,
he had tendered to them the oath of allegiance. The Trap-
pists took it at first, but the abbot ordered them to retract as
speedily and as publicly as possible. He who could treat
with indignity the successor of Peter, was not the man to
have his will opposed or his policy frustrated by a Trappist
monk. He gave orders to have Augustin arrested, and the
abbey of Valsainte dissolved. The abbot was taken prisoner
as he was going on board a vessel at Bordeaux, but escaped
by a mistake of the police, made his way through France and
Switzerland, procured a Russian passport, and got sale to
Riga, in company with the Chevalier de la Grange, since be-
come a member of the order, who escorted him on the joui'ney.
From Riga he proceeded to England, and thence to Marti-
nique, from which place he found his way to the United
States, where he oathered togetiier the scattered members of
the order, some of whom had left Bourdeaux at the time he
was taken prisoner. But quiet times came on. The eagle of
i" ranee was struck down. He that so often had led that eagle
to victory, and controlled the destinies of Europe, was an
exile upon a barren rock in the Atlantic : and the Trappist
returned once more to his native land. The abbot Augustin
had the good fortune to purchase La Trappe, after the resto-
ration, and make it a religious house again. The principal
convent of the reform of Valsainte — which, as we have
already seen, is somewhat different from the institute of De
Ranee, — was Melleray, in the diocese of Nantes. The chief
house of the original observance as established by him, was
the convent of Port-du-Salut, near Laval, in the diocese of
Angers. It was taken possession of by the Trappists, on the
2l3t of February 1815; and on the 10th of December in
the following year, Pius the Seventh, by a special brief, raised
xt to the rank of an abbey. The monks on whura this honour
was conferred were those who, as we have already mentioned,
had been previously established at Darfield. In 1825, Augustin
was summoned to Rome, to answer some statements that

1844.] Kendal" s Texan Expedition. 335

were made against him. While in Italy, he visited Naples
and Monte Cassino, where he was taken ill, and from which
he addres^sed a circular to his brethren. But after the wan-
derings of near forty years, in so many quarters of the globe,
it was given him to lay his bones in his own fatherland,
and among his own brethren. He died at Lyons, in 1827,
on his way from Rome.

With this event we must conclude our notice. The changes
which took place in the Trappist institute, and which led to
its introduction among ourselves, are within the recollection
of all our readers. We can bear our own humble testimony
to the piety and self-devotion of their lives, and the example
of every good and exalted virtue which they afford to their
own immediate locality, as well as to the country at large.
The Irish soil has not been uncongenial to the institute of
De Ranee. It has taken root amongst us. We trust that
its after course will be free from those perils that beset the
past ; and that in the onward progress of our religion, and
the increasing prosperity of our people, it will, with God's
blessing, bear fruit an hundred fold, and shed a lustre on the
country it has adopted as its own.

Art. II. — Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition^ Sgc,
^•^ George Wilkins Kendal. London : 1844.

" Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where flowers ever blossom — the beams ever shine,

And all but the spirit of man is divine ?"

AKING every allowance for the exaggeration of inter-
ested writers in describing the innumerable natural
advantages of Texas,* we can well believe it to be the lovely
land which it appeared to the philosophic eye of Humboldt ;
but unhappily the lines prefixed to this article too truly indi-
cate its political status, abandoned, temporarily we hope, to
the vilest and basest of mankind ; — reminding us mostTorcibly
of what may have been the condition of ancient Rome, when,
according to the legend of its origin, adopted by Livy : Hue
omnis turba finitimorum populorum^ nullo discrimine liber an

* A writer whose work is the latest of the season, speaks of Texas as " A
country which had some time loomed up as the asylum of that portion of op-
pressed humanity which feels nervous under the restraints of law." — Feather-
stouhuugh, " Excursion to blave iStates." London, 1844.

336 KendaVs Texan Expedition. [Dec.

servus esset, avida rerum novarum 'perfngiV That the standard
of morals should be low among this convenarum plehSi transifuga
exsuispopulis ; — that " the more unfathomable the falsehood,"
the greater is the energy employed in the utterance of the
most fearful oaths, though painful enough, is yet not astonish-
ing;— that "luggage," in their conventional language, should be
called " plunder," may only serve to remind us of the facetious
pleasantries of the knights of the road. But not even in the
twilight of the human mind, did the butters on the Palatine
adopt for their rule of conduct such a comprehensive sanction
of every form of iniquity. Divorce is so completely the lex
loci, that forty cases occurred during the few months of Mrs.
Houston's sojourn. Any one who even listens to an argument
against slavery will be hurried out into the wilderness by men
more savage than the wolf and the hyaena, to whose com-
panionship he is left. Lynch-law is the national code, and as
if to whet perpetually the appetite for blood, Mrs. Houston
tells us, " but should it ever be pronounced by the unpreju-
diced voices of the people that either the punishment of his
enemy was undeserved, or not warranted by the first duty of
self-preservation, he becomes amenable to punishment by
means of the same law."

The defeat and capture of Santa Anna, the president of
Mexico, in the fatal battle of Jacinto, unhappily completed
the dismemberment of Texas from the Mexican republic : —
the stealing we should rather have said, which even Miss
Martineau calls " the most high-handed theft of modern
times." The subsequent recognition of Texas by France and
Holland and England, rendered this gigantic fraud un fait
accompli, and makes it superfluous to pain ourselves by dwell-
ing longer upon the prodigious villanies of Moses Austin and
his accomplices, by which the purchasers of a few hundred
empresarios from the government of Mexico, wrested a
region vaster than the kingdom of France from a people to
which they had voluntarily sworn allegiance. In Texas, as
the beginning was, such has been the middle ; — may the end be
different I The success of the first body of land jobbers had
the effect of encouraging all the unquiet spirits in the southern
states of the union to form a sort of conspiracy against the
states of central America. One of its overt acts was an
attack by a gang from New Oi'leans upon the island of Eleu-
thera in the year 1835, where their ill-usage of the inha-
bitants was so atrocious that it fortunately provoked the
British naval commander at Nassau to dispatch a frigate to
pursue and capture the pirates. Another pai-ty, led by a man

1844.] KendaFs Texan Expedition. 337

who assumed the title of general (Mexia), subsequently made
a piratical descent upon Tampico, but were fortunately cap-
tured by the Mexican troops, and suffered the well-deserved
punishment of their crimes. But for the vigour with which
these atrocities were resisted, buccaneering would soon have
been as prevalent in the Carribean Sea as it had been in the
seventeenth century.

The author of the work before us, is, or was, the editor of
a New Orleans paper ; our readers therefore will not wonder
much when we add that he is much of a braggart; that he is
so thoroughly selfish, as to be ungrateful for all the bene-
volence and mercy of which he has been the unworthy object ;
that his testimony is always to be believed, when it is corro-
borated by unimpeachable collateral evidence : and that he has
strongly impressed on us the wisdom of the old proverb
regardino; « good memories," for the numerous falsehoods
with which his pages are crammed, receive the strongest con-
tradiction from himself. From his own account of the objects
of the expedition, it appears that the pretence to trade was
merely a flimsy veil to cover the real purpose of exciting
a rebellion at Santa Fe ; and while he states that he left New
Orleans only for the purpose of travel, he drops some hints
about certain newspaper articles, the fame — the infamy — of
which probably preceded him to Mexico.

A brief description of the physical geography of Texas
will, perhaps, enable our readers to follow the thread of
the story with more pleasure. Its area is about 300,000
square miles, extending between the 2oth and 30th parallels
of N. latitude; the 94th and 101st degrees of W. Ion.;
bounded on the N. by the Red river, on the S. by the gulf of
Mexico, on the E. by the Sabine river, which separates it
from the United States (according to the treaty of 1819),
and on the W. by the Nueches, or, as the Texans assert, by
the Rio Del Norte.

The whole country may be called an inclined plane, sloping
gradually from the mountains on the west, eastward to the
sea. It is, however, naturally subdivided into three regions :
the flat, which is one hundred miles broad in the centre, and
only thirty in the S.W. ; next, the rolling, about two hundred
miles in breadth ; the third, the mountainous region, in the W.
and S. W. is a continuation of the Sierra Madre, or Mexican
chain. At its extremity we reach an elevated plateau,
where, according to Kennedy, the prairies not unfrequently
resemble the vast steppes of Asia, except in their superior
fertility. Besides the Sabine and Rio Del Norte, five other

338 KendaVs Texan Expedition. [Dec

considerable rivers empty their waters into the Gulf of
Mexico. The wet season is from December to March ; the
dry from March until November; the heat is often excessive,
the thermometer at noon standing at 83°. A writer who is
not inclined to despise the attractions of the country, seems,
notwithstanding, to dread the enervating influence of the
climate upon emigrants from northern countries; for, after
stating some other drawbacks, he remarks, —

" The inclination for luxurious indolence, to which the climate
predisposes, is a worse evil than either serpents or mosquitoes ; the
settler will have much greater reason to guard against this agree-
able poison, than against that of the anguis in herba."*

Mr. Kendal arrived at Galveston in the summer of 1841,
and immediately proceeded to Austin, the capital, which lies
about two hundred miles from the mouth of the Rio Colorado.
He spent the interval, until the starting of the expedition, in
scampering about the neighbourhood, and, upon one occasion,
fell in with a body of Texan patriots returning from hunting,
not the roebuck, but the Cumanchee Indians. It was ever
the policy of the Spanish governments to foster the Indian
race ; and hence their happy condition within the limits of
Mexico, even to this hour, in spite of the shocks of repeated
revolutions.

Catlin, in his Travels and Sketches among the Red Indians,
bears testimony to the line qualities of this particular tribe,
whose abode is on the Washita, a feeder of the Sabine, and
we grieve to find them exposed to the attacks of these ruth-
less brigands. We remember to have read in a letter of the
Vicar Apostolic of Texas, an allusion to the sufferings of
his little flock from bands of marauders in this very year.
He describes one party of seventy, that attacked a village
(Refugio) inhabited by fifteen Catholic families — could it be
with these Pandours Mr. Kendal fell in ?t

The expedition finally left Austin on the 18th June, 1841.
Two hundred and seventy volunteers, in six companies, one
an artillery company (oh, these peaceful merchants !) with a
staff of fifty supernumeraries. The president. General Lamar,
for these Texan equality men, nevertheless, rejoice in high-
sounding titles, accompanied them for two days, and reviewed
and tooic his leave of them at the San Gabriel on the 21st.
Their way being now through the rolling prairie region, they
enjoyed an animated spectacle on the 30th.

"At sundown, a drove of mustangs, or wild horses of the

* Ikeoii' Texas. \ Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, 1842.

1844.] KendaVs Texan Expedition. 339

prairie, paid us a flying visit. They were first seen ascending a
hill at the distance of half a mile, and as they were coming towards
us, were taken for Indians. When seen on a distant hill, standing
with their raised heads towards a person, and forming a line, as is
their custom, it is almost impossible to take them for any thing but
mounted men. Having satisfied their curiosity, they wheeled with
almost the regularity of a cavalry company, and galloped ofi', their
long thick manes waving in the air, and their tails nearly sweeping
the ground. They are beautiful animals, always in excellent con-
dition, and though smaller than our American horses, are very
compact, and will bear much fatigue. — vol. i. p. 88.

TodoMr. Kendal justice, he does not wrong the brute beasts;
as this description bears to be contrasted with the poet's : —

" A thousand horse and none to ride,
With flowing tail and flying mane,
Wide nostrils never stretched with pain,
Mouths bloodless by the bit or rein ;
And feet that iron never shod.
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod ;
A thousand horse, the wild, the free.
Like waves that follow in the sea.
Come thickly thundering on.''

The character our author gives of his companions, gentle
and simple, damns them to everlasting infamy ; we find that
even he is shocked at the prevalence of the vice of blasphemy
among them. He tells us that the only business of the
teamsters seemed to be, to invent oaths, which, for their out-
rageous impiety, exceeded all former experience. About
the 2 1 th of July, they reached that curious forest belt, called
the Cross Timbers, reaching all the way from the Great
Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, with a breadth, varying from
five to fifty miles, and their camping ground on one of these
nights, possessed many charms ibr the way-worn adventurers.

" The location upon which we were encamped, being on the edge
of the timber, with rich prairie directly in front of us, was one of
the finest we had yet met on our route. The valley of the Brazos
abounded with every species of timber known in Texas: grapes,
plums, and other fruit, were found in profusion; honey could be
obtained in almost every hollow tree; trout and other fish were
plentiful in the small creeks in the neighbourhood; and the woods
and prairies about us, not only afforded excellent grazing for our
cattle and horses, but teemed with every species of game — elk,
deer, bears, wild turkeys, and, at the proper season, buffalo and
mustang." — vol. i. p. 102.

The party reached Noland's river on the 23rd, and, on the

340 KendaVs Texan Expedition. [Dec.

27th, having taken the latitude and longitude, found them-
selves two hundred miles nearly north of Austen, and about
five hundred miles from Santa Fe, which lay in a direction
north of west. Having quitted the margin of the Cross
Timbers in the end of July, they approached a location of
the Waco Indians, on the river Wichetie ; and, as a taste for
natural beauty is almost the only merit of the author, we
more willingly give his own words : —

" When within a couple of miles of the Indian village, a beau-
tiful spectacle presented itself. Before us was a large and delightful
valley, through which a river coursed along, with just trees enough
to relieve the eye, without concealing any of the beauties. In a
large bend of the stream the village was situated, and all around
were corn fields, pumpkin and melon patches of the inhabitants.
In the distance, on the other side, the prairie rose gently, without a
tree or bush to destroy the uniformity of the rich carpeting of green
with which it was covered." — vol. i. p. 135.

In a former number, we have borne testimony to the zeal
of Cortez for the protection of the aborigines. A Mr.
Gregg, who has very recently published an interesting ac-
count of the commerce of the prairies, is compelled to admit
that the wanton cruelties of these brigands has had a dis-
astrous effect upon the trade. In one instance, the inhabit-
ants of an Indian rancheria were lured within cannon-shot,
and slaughtered without mercy.

Mr. Kendal had been induced to visit the celebrated mis-
sion of San Antonio Bexar before the march of the expedi-
tion from Austin ; and he is almost disposed to admit that
evidences of civilization, such as we have instanced, were
attributable to the influence of similar establishments,
scattered through the country. The Wacoes must have very
soon perceived the difference between the gentle fathers and
the Exaltados. Mr. Kendal confesses that an attempt at a
parley proved a failure — the reputation of the Texans not
being frasrrant in the nostrils of these keen-scented Indians,
for we are told —

" In the early history of Texas, they were at peace with the
inhabitants of that republic. Large hunting parties of the tribe
were frequently seen within her limits, and every relation seemed
to bring additional peace and harmony, until an unfortunate affray
occurred, which induced them to dig up the tomahawk; and, since
that time, many have been the inroads they have committed along
the northern frontier of Texas. I heard it said, that the whites
were guilty of bringing on the war, by some act of bad faith to the
"Wacoesj and the wound they then received has never been healed.

1844."] KendaVs Texan Expedition. 341

From the fact of their hurrying off their women and children, as
well as their large cavalcade of horses and mules, it was evident
that they placed no reliance on our assertion, that we were among
them with pacific intentions: they had been deceived once by our
men, and, Indian like, looked for another violation of our words."
— vol. i. p. 142.

Surely this passage is enough to remind us of the sentence,
" Out of thine own mouth," &c. And, indeed, we must freely
admit that Mr. K. is nowhere backward in shewing up his
new allies. Anxious, as he tells us, to be foremost in every
scene of adventure, he joined a reconnoitring company on
the 6th August. Journeying, with occasional intervals of
rest, on the 13th they beheld that phenomenon, at once so
magnificent and terrible, the prairie on fire. Most of our
readers doubtless remember the eloquent description in
Cooper's novel ; but the narrative of an eye-witness cannot
be uninteresting.

" If the scene had been grand previous to the going down of the
sun, its magnificence was tenfold as night in vain attempted to
throw its dark mantle over the earth. The light, from miles and
miles of inflammable and blazing cedars, illuminated earth and sky
with a radiance even more lustrous and dazzling than that of the
noon-day sun. Ever and anon, as some one of our comrades would
approach the brow of the high bluff above us, he appeared not like
an inhabitant of this earth. A lurid and most unnatural glow, re-
flected upon his countenance from the valley of burning cedars,
seemed to render more haggard and toil-worn his burned and

blackened countenance From the spot on which I was lying,

a broad sheet of flame could be seen, miles and miles in width, the
heavens in that direction so brilliantly lit up, that they resembled
a sea of molten gold. In the west, a wall of impenetrable blackness
appeared to be thrown up, as the spectator suddenly turned from
viewing the conflagration in the opposite direction. The subdued,
yet deep, roar of the element could still be plainly heard, as it sped
on, as with the wings of lightning, across the prairies; while, in
the valley far below, the flames were flashing and leaping among
the dry cedars, and shooting and circling about, in manner closely
resembling a magnificent pyrotechnic display." — vol. i. p. 180.

On the 1 7th, a party was detached from the main body,
under the command of a person who enjoyed the soubriquet
of Old Paint, as well as the title of Captain (titles, to be sure,
were rife among them) ; the leader of the party being known
as General jSIc Leod. On the same day, the surgeon, a Doctor
Brashear, died ; and, a few days after, Lieut. Hull and four
men were cut off by the Cayquas. Luckily for himself, the

342 KendaVs Texan Expeditiov. [Dec.

author now joined an advance party, consisting of ninety-nine
men.

Quitting the banks of the river Quintufue on the 31st of
August, they suddenly came upon a stupendous chasm, not
visible fifteen yards off, in Lat. 34^ N., Long. \0^ W.
Upon reaching the ridge which bounded the plain, tliey
enjoyed the last view of the prairie region.

" There we were again gratified, by finding spread out before us
a perfectly level prairie, extending as far as the eye could reach,
and without a tree to break its com[)lete monotony. We halted a
few minutes to rest our horses, and occupied the time in surveying
the calm and beautiful valley lying hundreds of feet below us.

" It was a lovely scene, beheld from the point where we stood ;
and I could hardly believe that but a few houi's previous a horrible
tragedy had been enacted upon its fair surface. Softened down by
the distance, there was a tranquillity about it which seemed as
though it had never been broken. The deep-green skirting of the
different water-courses, relieved the eye as it fell upon the wide-
extended plain, The silver waves of the Quintufue were occasion-
ally brought to view, as some turn of the stream brought them in
line with us, and again they were lost to the sight under the rich
foliage of the banks." — vol. i. p. 216.

The adventurers had been for some time ignorant of their
whereabouts, until, on the 10th of September, tliey reached
the Angosturas (the narrows) of the Ilio Colorado, in the
105th degree of W. longitude. The crisis was now approach-
ing ; and it was resolved by the leader of the party to send
on two of his number to the frontier town of San Miguel,
with the motive evidently (as the author lets slip) of blind-
folding the Mexican authorities. For while — like the am-
bassadors of Tarquin the Proud to the senate — they were
instructed to declare that they had come in the character of
peaceful delegates, they were also provided with General
Lamar's proclamation, written in Spanish and English, to be
distributed if an opportunity should offer, and of which we
may judge the spirit from the confession of the author : —

" Not a doubt existed that the liberal terras offered would be at
once acceded to, by a population living within the limits of Texas,
and who had long been groaning under a misrule the most tyran-
nical."

Colonel Cooke's detachment, which the author accompa-
nied, arrived on the 15th of September at Auton Chico,
where the women and children hid themselves, and the men
would have attacked them, they were told, but for their arms.

1844.J Kendal's Texan Expedition. 343

At Cuerta they were surrounded by a Mexican company,
commanded by an officer named Salazar, and immediately
disarmed. Five of the prisoners, amongst them the author
and a Mr. Van Ness, were led on in advance of the rest.
Van Ness, we are told, had taken the precaution of sending
back certain papers and letters, which might have made in-
convenient disclosures. Kendal and his four companions were
brought into San Miguel at sunset, where the good and
charitable priest sent them hot coffee to their quarters, and
in the morning a comfortable breakfast. In a few days after,
they heard of the capture of Colonel Cooke"'s party, and
Armijo, the governor of the province, marched out against
General Mc Leod, whom he captured, with 160 of his asso-
ciates. On the 17th of October, the whole of the prisoners,
with their escort, began a march of 2000 miles, in a direction
almost due S. towards the capital. Mr. Kendal abuses the
Captain Salazar for his cruelty, and yet he tells us that him-
self and half-a-dozen of his colleagues were generally on
parole ; generously received in the private houses of the hos-
pitable Mexicans, and often permitted to be present at ter-
tulias and fandangos, and at the same time, confesses that
they had no scruple about escaping, but for the danger. We
know well what, according to the common law of nations,
would be the fate of such a party of robber merchants landing
on the shores of Britain.

They were at El Paso about the beginning of November,
where he acknowledges they were treated with the most in-
dulgent kindness by Gen. Elias ; and a Capt. Ochoa, a man
of great benevolence, relieved Salaza in the charge of the
prisoners. They feasted sumptuously for several days (of
course we mean Kendal, and half a dozen friends ; the main
body of the prisoners were, necessarily, lodged in barracks)
at the house of Gen. Elias. Amongst the daily visitors was
the young and generous curate of the place, Ramon Ortez,
who treated this man with ill-requited kindness — for he pro-
vided him with a complete change of raiment, pressed a purse
of money into his hands, and subsequently furnished him
with a horse to proceed as far as Chihuahua, 300 miles beyond.
As this was the only priest in Mexico, with whom the author
was upon terms of domestic intimacy, we pray particular
attention to the character he gives of him, while the memory
of his charity was not yet wholly effaced: —

" Professing a different religion from mine, and one, too, that I
had been taught to believe, at least in Mexico, inculcated a jealous

344 KendaVs Texan Expedition, [Dec,

intolerance towards those of any other faith, I could expect from
him neither favour nor regard. How surprised was I, then, to find
him liberal to a fault, constant in his attentions, and striving
to make my situation as agreeable as the circumstances would
admit His charity and virtues adorn the faith which he pro-
fesses and illustrates by his life; and should this page ever meet
his eye, let it assure him of the deep respect and reverence with
which the moral excellence of the pious cure of El Paso, inspired
more than one Protestant American." — vol. ii. p. 41.

We observe two or three amusing Yankee traits in the pro-
gress of the narrative, of which the author seems entirely
unconscious. In one place he had bought a horse, a dead
bargain, which proved to have been stolen ; but he felt no
scruple about retaining it. At El Gallo a young lady, in
whose father's house he had been hospitably entertained, took
a fancy to his watch, and, as a great favour, he made her a
present of it, in exchange for more than its value, in good
Mexican dollars from her father's purse. The party reached
Zacatecas on the 30th of December, and in January 1842,
they arrived at Espiritu Santo, where they found a well-
informed and gentlemanly priest, and passed the evening
(these sufferers) at a tertulia. They travelled through a highly
picturesque region, on their way to La Parada ; wild flowers
of every hue mingling their delicious fragrance with the
mountain air ; orange and other fruit trees were growing lux-
uriantly, and a species of cactus, the tall and symmetrical
organo plant, tapering upward gradually, from eighteen to
twenty-five feet high, and destitute of limbs or leaves. A few
days before, they had received a visit from a young Irishman
and three elegant young women, the daughters of an Irish
father at the Hacienda of La Noria. Why will our fellow-
countrymen task the hospitality of " Native America," at
Boston or Philadelphia, or cast themselves on the desert shores
of New Holland, when they might be received, with open
arms, in such a country as this, sanctified by the religion of
their fathers, and pledge the devotion of their manly hearts
and stalwart arms, to shield it from the " Forty Thieves" of
Texas ? In the noble city of San Luis they were lodged in
the convent of the Augustine friars, where the holy and be-
nevolent brotherhood " kindly appropriated two or three large
rooms in their convent to their use." (vol. ii. p. 159.)

In the beginning of February, the author was lodged in
the ancient palace of San Christobal, where he was visited
by Mr. Brantz Meyer, United States secretary of legation ;

1844.] KendnVs Texan Expedttion. 345

to whom we shall have occasion to allude again, as he was
then ostensibly cultivating friendly relations with Mexico,
Mr. Kendal seems to have shammed sickness, to avoid join-
ing a working-gang of his comrades, who were lodged in the
convent of Santiago ; and was therefore sent into the leper
hospital of San Lazaro, in the city of Mexico, on the 9th of
February. We may remark that this is one of the noble
foundations of Cortez ; and it is some proof of the public mo-
rality of Mexico, that all the religious and charitable institu-
tions of the country have been held inviolable in every
revolution. We are so tired of the egotism of this man, who
is manifestly *' plenus se ipso," that we will spare our readers
the details of his indignation, whenever the poor lepers came
** betwixt the wind and his nobility,"- — his complaints against
the sentinel, who would not let him run away, — his accept-
ance of alms, for which he did not thank the donors, upon the
festival day, when all the beauty and fashion of the capital
visited the hospital, in compliance with an ancient usage, to
bestow their charity on the inmates, — and merely add, that,
by an excess of lenity, he was liberated on the 21st April, 1842.
He enjoyed the sight of the capital, for some days after,
sharing the hospitality of a courteous and generous people,
and in return, imputes to them faults which existed only in
his own foul imagination. But although he is in King Cam-
by ses' vein, he adds, with singular inconsistency :

" The early fathers next zealously inculcated that heavenly spirit
of charity which teaches that we must clothe the naked, feed the
hungry, and relieve the sick and distressed ; and with such untiring
ardour did they impress this article of their creed upon the natives,
that it took root, and has increased and continued to the present
day. For evidence, we have but to look at the hospitals for the
sick and wounded scattered through the country, to the institutions
for relieving the distresses of the unfortunate, and to the different
orders of sisters of charity, — those meek handmaidens of benevolence
whose eyes are ever seeking the couch of sickness, and whose
hands are ever raised to succour with a beneficence that knows no
tiring. It is not in Mexico alone that this holy feeling of charity
towards the sick and helpless exists ; but wherever the religion of
Rome is known, there do we find the same active benevolence
exerted — the same attention to the wants of the suflf'ering ; and
well would it be were other denominations of Christians to pattern
after the Catholics in all that pertains to pity and compassion
towards their sick and needy fellow creatures — in plain terms, if
they would make fewer professions, and enter rnore into the real
practice of charity." — vol. ii. p. 341.

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV, 23

346 KendaVs Texan Expedition. [Ded.

He had written thus far, when we suppose it occurred to
him that the book would not tell at home, and that to make
it palatable, it must be seasoned (cum sale multo); and,
accordingly, he passes away into a dissertation on the Mexican
priesthood, in which he repeats and amplifief all the calumnies
that have ever been devised against that misrepresented body.
It would be easy, if we had time or inclination, to refute
most of his statements from his own pages. But it is entirely
unnecessary. His violence defeats its own object ; and there
are few so blinded by prejudice, as to forget the honourable
testimonies of such writers as Madame Calderon de la Barca,
or Mr. Bullock, for the intemperate and inconsistent invectives
of a speculating New Orleans editor.

It is often in scenes most remote from the observation of
the busy world, that ministers of religion are found practising
the most exalted virtue ; and, as the train of thoughts in
which we have been indulging has led us into that region,
we subjoin a notice of one of the missions of California, from
the work of another American, a man of very different stamp
from our author — the celebrated voyager Cleveland. He is
speaking of the mission of San Borgia : —

" The more intimately we became acquainted with Padre
Mariano, the more we were convinced that his was a character to
love and respect. He appeared to be one of that rare class, who,
for piety and the love of their fellow-men, might justly rank with a
Fenelon or a Cheverus. His countenance, beaming with the love
and benevolence which were his prevailing motives of action,
inspired immediate and perfect confidence, even in those who had
seen as much of the Spanish character as it had been our lot to do.
The mild and humane treatment of his domestics, made their inter-
course more like that of father and children, than of master and
servants. His regular observance, morning, noon, and evening,
of his devotional duties, with his uncouth-looking domestics assem-
bled round him, and on bended knee participating in his prayers
to the throne of grace with the utmost decorum, was affecting, and
might be received as a tacit reproach for indifference to such duties
by that part of his audience whom his brethren would call heretics.
But this good man was gifted with a mind too liberal and noble,
and a benevolence too extensive and pure, to pronounce condem-
nation for difference of opinions." — Cleveland Narrative,\o\.\.^. 222.
In describing the architectural glories of the churches of
Mexico, and the costly decoration of their altars, Madame
Calderon remarks, that native America, as she suspects, looks
with gloating eyes upon the treasures which it longs to ap-
propriate. Mr. Kendal imparts the character of prophecy to

1844.] KendaVs Texan Expedition. 347

this conjecture of the nohle-minded and accomplished lady,
as he can see no value in the ornaments of the altars at
Puebla, save the market price of the silver, to be expended in
the construction of rail-roads. Mr. Brantz Van Meyer, to
whom we have made allusion, has just tesfified his gratitude
to the Mexican people, for all the attention he experienced,
while residing in their capital as American secretary of lega-
tion, by the publication of a work, in which he repeats a good
deal less than we already knew on the subject of Mexican
antiquities and statistics. But he outvies the Hebrew in the
exactness of his calculations, as to the value, — aye to the very
ounce, — of the gold and silver of the sanctuary, and in the
unblushing effrontery of his scheme of spoliation. Even
from the pages of Mr. Kendal, we would correct one mistake
of the Yankee functionary, in the narrative of what was,
under any circumstances, a fearful tragedy, — we mean the
murder of Mr. Egerton, the English artist, and his female
companion. Mr. Kendal states that she was not his wife ;
poor Egerton was a married man, and had abandoned his
wife and three children, in London, to elope with this
female, who had even been under a contract of marriage to
another. The transaction was wrapt in mystery; but Mi*.
Kendal insinuates, that some relative of the wronged family
might have come from England to avenge the injury. The
notions of the rights — rather the wrongs — of property, enter-
tained by these men, remind us of the anecdote of a friend,
who consulted another citizen of native America, as to the
sum which an industrious person should carry out, in order
to embark in trade with a prospect of success ; and the an-
swer was, " If you bring anything, you'll lose every cent of
it ; have nothing, and you'll not fail to make a dig some-
where." To see these rapacious adventurers boldly asserting
the policy of destroying institutions which have wrought the
happiness of a people that do them no wrong, — of desecrating
the temple of a purer worship than their own, — reminds us of
Milton"'s fearful image of the great enemy of mankind, rearing
himself above the verdurous wall of Paradise, to gloat upon
that scene of vernal delight he was about to mar for ever.

Attacks upon' the Mexican border have been renewed since
the failure of this Santa Fe expedition ; and we observe, in a
note of Mr. Kendal's, that a companion of his, one Brenham,
of whose unmerited (!) captivity he complained so bitterly,
joined another gang in 1843, and was killed at the battle of
Mier. The scheme for the annexation of Texas to the

348 KendaVs Texan Exped.iion. [Dec.

United States was projected so far back as 1829; and,
though it has been rejected by congress for the present, we
apprehend its ultimate success, unless the representatives of
civilized nations countenance the better disposed section of
the American community in frustrating the plot. The real
motive of the projectors of the scheme, is to throw open the
country to the planters of the Southern States of the Union,
and perpetuate the curse of slavery. How alarmingly the
evil has already spread, may be deduced from the fact, that,
whereas in 1834, the whole white population of Texas was
but 20,000, in 1841 no less than 12,000 slaves had been im-
ported within the limits of Texas.*

The rulers of this mighty empire, which has made such
pecuniary sacrifices to give liberty to the enslaved African,
should not be indifferent to this gigantic treason against the
rights of mankind. In this season of almost universal peace,

" The flag that braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze,"

is only unfurled against the pirate and the man-stealer ; and
though we are not slow to censure our own government upon
matters of domestic policy, yet sure we are that the minister,
no matter who he be, that should wiekl the power of this
great country to repress this mighty wrong, would receive
the enthusiastic support of all the subjects of the crown
of Britain. The influence of the deceased Dr. Channing
seems to have been felt in the late deliberations on this
subject in Congress ; and though we differ from him most
widely upon other topics, we are glad to be able to refer
to his opinions^ upon this vital question. He declares that
Mexico had been more sinned against than sinning ; and that
at the moment of throwing off the Spanish yoke, she gave
a noble test of loyalty to free principles in the emancipation
of the slave population. For it was enacted that " No human
being should hereafter be born a slave within the limits of
Mexico ; that no slave be introduced into the country ; that
the existing slaves should receive wages, and be subject to no
punishment but on trial." We have asserted that the main
object of the land-jobbers is to throw open Texas to the
slave-breeder. Here is the ninth article of the Constitution
of Texas :

* Letter of Dr. Channinp; to the Hon. Henry Clay. Boston, 1827. Passim.
t "The occupation of Texas makes the abolition of slavery hopeless." —
Jfeatherstonhaugh, "Excursion to the Slave States," vol. ii p. 189.

1844.] KendaVs Texan Expedition. 349

" Sec. 9. — ' All persons of colour, who were slaves for life
previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in
•bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude : provided, the
said slave shall be the bona fide property of the person so holding
said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit
emigrants from bringing their slaves into the republic with them,
and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were
held in the United States : nor shall Congress have power to eman-
cipate slaves : nor shall any slave-holder be allowed to emancipate
his or her slave or slaves without the consent of Congress, unless
he or she shall send his or her slave without the limits of the re-
public. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in
part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the republic with-
out the consent of the Congress; and the importatioji or admission
of Africans or Negroes into this republic, except from the United
States of America, is for ever prohibited, and declared to be
piracy^ '''' — Kennedy's Texas, Appendix.

The turpitude of the last clause, which we have under-
lined, is greater, because, appeai'ing, upon a cursory glance,
to oppose a barrier to the progress of slavery, it is really in-
tended to raise the value of slave property in the slave states
of the Union, by securing a monopoly to them ; this Con-
gress of Texas being actually a cabal of the planters, calling
itself by another name.

Even on this earth crime eventually entails its own punish-
ment, and, accordingly, the national distress of America is
partly owing to the fact, that such a sum as two hundred and
fifty millions sterling is invested in slave property. Slave
labour too has proved so inefficient, that much ol" the soil is
exhausted — hence the inferiority in the management of the
farms of Virginia, contrasted with those of Pennsylvania,*
Among the task-masters themselves, it has introduced those
indolent and slovenly habits, which jirovoke the <lisgust of
travellers; those savage passions, which make every man a
Cain, ready to shed liis brother's blood.

An impatience of the liberty of all, save their own privi-
leged class, has been characteristic of ancient and modern de-
mocracies, and we bless the good Providence which has willed
us to be born the subjects of a monarchy.

To show what manner of men these planters be, we copy
one advertisement, out of many similar, from a Carolina paper,
the Newhurn Spectator^ December 2, 1836.

* Mr. Fcathcrstoiibau<j;h notices the striking superiority in the industrious
habits of the people of ludiaua over the slave owuers of Kentucky and Ten-
nessee.

350 KendaCi Texan Expedition. [Dec

" Two Hundred Dollars Reward. — Ran away from the subscriber,
negro Ben, also one by the name of Rigdon. I will give the re-
ward of one hundred dollars for each of the above negroes, or for
the killing of them, so that I can see them. W. D. Cobb."

But the torture of the body is not enough, without the
destruction of the immortal spirit ; for in the Carolinas,
Georgia, Louisiana, any slave is to be flogged for learning
or teaching to read any book, even the Bible, (the old Irish
ascendancy-men must have lent them their statute book for a
model), and, O holy and insulted nature ! a father is liable to
be flogged for teaching his own babe to lisp the praises of his
God ! In the interior of Georgia, the white Baptist ministers
have discontinued preaching Christianity altogether to the
slaves. May we not expect the red right arm of an avenging
God to smite the people of a state (North Carolina) in which
a law has been enacted, which authorizes a master to kill that
slave, the husband, who may presume to shield the wife from
his attempts at violation. To perpetuate these horrors is the
object, or will be the effect, of the annexation of Texas ; and
who will not wish " God speed" to Santa Anna in his deter-
mination to resist It ? It was his powerful denunciation of
this unspeakable treason against the moral law, that earned
for Mr. O'Connell the proud distinction of being " the best
abused" of the planters. But, alas ! we are bearing testimony
against the errors of others, how shall we render an account ?
What has been the reward of this foremost man of the age —
the author or promoter of every great legislative or adminis-
trative reform that our times have witnessed— one who com-
bines the love of liberty, the master passion of Fox, with the
political wisdom, the love of order, characteristic of Burke —
who unites the loyalty of Malsherbes with the dazzling
eloquence of Mirabeau.

It was his manly voice that, on the auspicious day of her
accession, assured to our Sovereign Lady the loyal attachment
of eight millions of Irish ; and yet him, to whom (had his lot
been cast in other times) Greece would have raised altars ;
whom future ages will ever venerate among the great bene-
factors of mankind ; the gratitude of our rulers has rewarded
with three months — three lost, irrecoverable months — In the
gaol of the malefactor or felon. We have no power to pur-
sue the subject,

" Leves curse loquuntur, ingentes stupent."

1844.] Frederiica Bremer's Sicedish Novels. 351

Art. III.— 1. The Neighhours ; a Story of Every-day Life.
By Frederika Bremer. Translated from the Swedish by
Mary Howitt, 2 vols. 8vo. London : 1843.

2. The Home ; or, Family Cares and Family Joys. By Fre-
derika Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt, 2 vols. Svo.
London: 1843.

3. The Presidenfs Daughters^ including Nina. By Fre-
derika Bremer. Translated by Mary Howitt, 3 vols. 8vo.
London : 1843.

4. The Diary ^ and Strife and Peace. By Frederika Bremer.
Translated by Mary Howitt. London: 1844.

5. The H Family. By Frederika Bremer. Trans-
lated from the Swedish. London : 1 844.

6. The Bridesmaid. By Frederika Bremer. London : 1844.

7. The Twins, and other Tales. By Frederika Bremer.
London : 1 844.

'T'HE London " trade " have usually got credit for consider-
-'^ able sagacity in catering for the taste of the novel-read-
ing public. It would seem, however, that no oracle is gifted
with infallibility, not even that of " The Row." The success
of Miss Bremer''s novels is a heavy impeachment of their
power of discrimination. Mrs. Howitt tells us, in one of her
prefaces, that, no less than six years ago, a translation of one
of these works, by an accomplished hand, was sent over from
Stockholm, and offered to the principal London publishers,
none of whom could be induced to embark in the speculation.
She does not specify the work which was thus rejected. For
the honour of the craft, we trust it was not Home, or The
Neighbours. We can only say that any publisher who was
timid enough to refuse either of those tales well deserves to
have lost the golden opportunity which has since been turned
to so profitable an account.

Mrs. Howitt and her publishers cannot be accused of
timidity, though we believe they have had to encounter an
amount of opposition from rival translators, almost unexam-
pled in the history of the trade. Finding, however, by the
success of the first publication, that they were not deceived
in their estimate of its suitableness for the English market,
they have actively improved the favourable moment. The
series has been brought out with unprecedented rapidity, and
thus, almost before we have had time even to call attention
to the Swedish authoress, we find our library table literally
laden with her works. We cannot help regretting the

352 j^redcrika Bremer's Swedish Novels. [Dec.

delay of our notice. Had we taken an opportunity of exam-
ining this very remarkable series before it had advanced so
far towards completion, we should have avoided, in a great
degree, the most disagreeable duty of the critical office, and
one which is peculiarly ungracious when the works of a
stranger and a lady are the subject of criticism — that of
dwelling upon the faults of the author. Those of Miss
Bremer are far less numerous, or, at all events, less palpable,
in the earlier volumes of the series of the translated works ;
and much of what we shall have to say regarding the collec-
tion would have been in a great degree uncalled for, if we
were dealing only with The Neighbours^ or, Home, the two
first works translated into English.

Mrs. Howitt did wisely in commencing with these most
charming stories. They belong to that class of fiction, the
domestic novel, which must always be popular, and which
possesses a double interest when it comes from a foreign
country. They open to us an entirely new field in foreign
literature. Among the countless novels and romances trans-
lated into English from foreign languages, we have not
a single book of the class to which these Swedish tales
belong ; and, indeed. Miss Bremer may be regarded as^ out
of England, the founder of this class. French literature has
never had, and does not seem likely ever to have, anything of
the kind ; at least if we may judge of the future, from the un-
natural and overstrained sentimentality which till now has
been the very life and soul of French fiction. The Italians,
except in their comedy, have hardly attempted it at all ; those
of the Germans who have done so, have disfigwred their per-
formances by the very extravagances which they are the first
to censure in the French school. This is not the place to go
into any detail ; but we may instance the extent to which
Goethe, Tieck, Jean Paul, and, above all, Hoffmann, have
abused their unquestionably great power of analysing and
describing characters. Could they have been content to fol-
low nature, they might have rivalled the very best writers of
the English school. But there is hardly a single chapter,
even in their best works, which can be called natural ; nay,
there is scarcely a single scene that is not deformed by some
absurd or grotesque conception — some ridiculous hizarrerie —
often absohitely painful to contemplate.

It is no wonder, therefore, that a writer of the natural and
hoinely school from the " far north," — one, too, formed upon
our own models, — should be received among us with a joyous

1844.] FrederiJca Bremer's Siceflish Novels. 353

welcome. It was a phenomenon which took the public com-
pletely by eurprise. Mrs. Howitt, in taking to herself the
credit of Miss Bremer''8 introduction into England, very truly
observes, that, till she ventured upon the experiment, nothing
whatever was known among us of Swedish literature. If we
reflected upon the subject at all, our ideas were of the most
vague and undefined character ; and far from our forming a
just estimate of their real merit, we are sure that very few, ex-
cept perhaps in the foreign reviews, or through the medium of
Genuan translations, had ever heard the names of Thorild,
Stagnelius, or Vitalis, not to speak of the more recent au-
thors, Bottinger, Nicander, Oloff Texell, or Fru (Madame)
Lengrenn. Certain it is, at all events, that we had no idea
of the extent and variety of the resources of Swedish litera-
ture ; and perhaps there is not a single department in which
we were so little prepared to expect any considerable pro-
ficiency, as that in which Miss Bremer most excels. The
accounts of the moral and social condition of Sweden with
which even the most recent tourists — and especially Mr.
Laing — have made us familiar, were not such as would seem
to promise the refinement, and even delicacy of sentiment, —
the elevation of thought, — the tenderness and purity of feel-
ing, which characterize many of her sketches, though others
of them are not without traces of levity, if not of grossness.
It can hardly be considered a drawback on the pleasure with
which we peruse these delightful stories, that we are irre-
sistibly led to believe them to be far from impartial, and to
represent " Life in Sweden " as much purer and more amiable
than the melancholy reality. For, if the authoress has dis-
guised the more coarse and ungraceful traits of national
manners and elevated the tone of national morality, she has
made her books, not only more agreeable, but more improving
thereby ; and we have no hesitation in declaring that what-
ever is lost to the artistic truth of her sketches, is far more
than compensated by the immeasurable gain to their moral
effect and tendency.

This feeling of wonder to which we have referred is the
secret of a good deal of Miss Bremer's popularity. A Swedish
writer of even tolerable pretensions, was, to the vast majority
of readers, a phenomenon as little expected as an Esquimaux
giant, or a Lapland maitre de ballet. The same cause has led,
as might be expected, to an exaggerated idea of the extent,
or rather, of the variety, of her powers. In one particular
department she is unrivalled, but only in one. As the his-

354 Frederika Breniers Swedish Novels. [Dec

torian of the domestic circle, — the chronicler of "family cares
and family joys," — we do not know her superior in any
literature. Were the worship of the Penates— one of the
most poetical in the whole range of Roman mythology — to
be revived, she might well be chosen for its priestess ; for she
is perfect mistress of home and all its tenderest and most
touching mysteries. While her pictures are confined within
these sacred precincts, we could linger over them for ever.
There is an indescribable charm about them all : the break-
fast table, — the family dinner, — the quiet supper party ; even
the kitchen, and the bakehouse, and the larder : the solemn
consultation of the heads of the house, — the less sober, but
more interesting, deliberation of the junior members, — the
walking parties, and sledging parties ; above all, the family
meetings at the evening fire-side, with all its beautiful revela-
tions and confidences — its hopes, and fears, and joys. In
scenes like these, she is without a rival ; nor, indeed, do we
know any author who has everywhere painted with more
exquisite tenderness and truth, the relations of the family
circle, — the love of parents for children, and of children for
parents, — above all, of brothers and sisters for each other;
their partings and meetings, — their quarrels and reconcilia-
tions,— their little struggles to secure each other's happiness,
and yet to conceal the effort, — the self-forgetting sacrifices,
which those only can know and appreciate, who are blest with
that best of earthly blessings, a sister's love. All this the
Swedish authoress can describe with a touching truthfulness
hardly surpassed even by Dickens in his happiest passages.
It is impossible to look upon her pictures without recalling
the memory of many a long-forgotten scene, and reviving
associations from which we had long been parted.
" My mither, ah, I see her still !

She smiles our sports to see,

Wi' little Jamie on her lap,

And Jennie at her knee ! "
In a word, within this charmed circle — home — she rules with
undisputed sway; she is mistress of the heart, and all its
affections. But take her beyond its limits, and her power is
gone ; she sinks into a second-rate— and, indeed, hardly
second-rate — imitator of the sickly sentimentalism of the
French and Gallo-German school. And what is most unfor-
tunate, with a fatuity from which it is the privilege only of
the very highest order of genius to be exempt, she has been

1844. J Frederika Bremer^ s Simdish Novels. 355

betrayed into a mistake of her vocation, and has devoted
herself to a line of literature for which she is entirely unfit.

Mrs. Howitt would have done well, therefore, for the fame of
her Swedish friend, if she had stopped short after the publica-
tion of the two first works which she translated. It is hardly
possible to recognize the later translations — for example, the

Presidenfs Daunhters^ the Diary ^ or The H Family, — as

the work of the same hand. We meet, it is true, an occa-
sional trace of the same graphic pencil in them all, but the
prevailing character is entirely different ; and instead of the
lively and natural, and almost gossiping, narrator of the events
of every-day life, we find a bad though ambitious imitator of
the philosophic novelist, pretending to penetrate into all the
recesses of the human heart, and to lay bare all the springs
of human passion ; and not so much seeking to produce a
rational and instructive picture of real life, as using the facts
of the story as a thread whereon to hang a series of psycho-
logical speculations and metaphysical theories. In the con-
struction of the plot, too, she is far from felicitous ; and
hence it is, that she is best in those stories which can hardly
be said to have a plot at all. It is much to be regretted,
therefore, that she has contrived to introduce into them all
some ill-conceived episode or other, which, in almost every
instance, not only is no help to the general interest of the
story, but might even be omitted with manifest advantage.
Thus, the character of Baron Stellan, in The Neighbours;

Sara,, in ffome ; Elizabeth, in The H Family; Angelica,

and still more Don Juan, in The Presidenfs Daughters; might
each and every one be cut out from their respective tales,
without the smallest injury to the general plot, and some of
them, especially Baron Stellan and Don Juan, with a decided
advantage to the moral of the story.

In power of varying her characters, also, she is remark-
ably deficient. Her heroines are all doubles of Franceska,
the heroine and narrator of the first tale. The Neighbours ;
just as much as Lady Morgan''s Miss O^Halloran, or the
Harolds and Laras of Lord Byron''s poetry. Thus we meet
Franceska over and over again — as Elise, in Home ; as Ma-
demoiselle Ronnquist, in The Presideni''s Daughters ; and as
Beata, in The Diary. Edla, in The Presidenfs Daughters, is
the very same with Leonore in Home ; and though both are
most beautiful and instructive sketches, yet some of the co-
incidences are absolutely tiresome. The same is true of the
gentlemen also. Lars Anders and Judge Frank, Jacobi

356 Fred rika Bremer's Swedish Novels* [Dec

and Hervey, Count Alarik and Count Ludwig, arc identically
the same. The names only are changed ; and the necessity of
varying the action, so as to adapt each to the circumstances
of his own position, has often betrayed the authoress into
serious and even painful departures from probability.

There is another still more serious blemish which we deem
it our duty not to overlook, — the low standard of domestic
virtue which she assumes, and the apparent indifference with
which she supposes or speculates upon, even in some of her
most amiable characters, departures from morality which a
well-regulated mind cannot contemplate without horror. We
shall not go into examples of this grievous defect, which are
to be met, in a greater or less degree, even in the very best
of Miss Bremer's tales. It is evidently an unconscious fault,
and probably the result of the unhappy state of morals in
Sweden, so forcibly depicted by Mr. Laing. There are some
incidents in Miss ]3remer"'s tales, which, though they are free
from absolute impropriety, and are redeemed by the general
correctness of tone which pervades them all, yet argue a very
low condition of morals indeed in the average society of the
country for which they were written.

It is hard to give any general description of her style and
manner. Mrs. Howitt characterizes her (we think very un-
happily) as the Miss Austen of Sweden ; and indeed she has
been compared by her critics to almost every lady novelist
in the language — to Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, Lady
Morgan (!); nay, what is more surprising, to Oliver Gold-
smith, and even to Fielding. We shall not yield to the
temptation of tracing further analogies upon our own account.
Indeed if her works be taken as a whole, it would be an idle
effort. We know no more unequal writer, not only in the
merit, but even in character, of her writings. Nor perhaps is
there any single one of her works for which anything ap-
proaching to a counterpart could be found in our language.
She is herself evidently an admirer of Miss Edgeworth, and
in the general structure, as well as in many particular pas-
sages of her earlier publications, she has very successfully
caught up the tone of this most instructive and charming
writer. The Home is very little inferior to Miss Edgeworth's
best novel, Patronaqe ; and we have little doubt, that had
Miss Bremer known her real calling, and laboured faithfully
to follow it out, she would have equalled in moral influence,
and perhaps surpassed in general interest and effect, the very
best fictions of our gifted countrywoman. With all the

1844.] Frederika Brenwrs Swedish Novels. 357

earnestness of purpose, elevation of thought, and delicate
discrimination of character, which distinguish Miss Edge-
worth, her Swedish imitator possesses (within her own sphere)
a quicker faculty of hitting off the little details of a picture, as
well as far more liveliness and grace, and infinitely more dra-
matic power. We say, within her own sphere ; for, unhap-
pily for her fame, she differs in this respect from the Irish
novelist, that she does not know, or has been induced to re-
linquish, the line in which nature had peculiarly fitted her to
excel.

Having said so much in the way of general criticism, lest
we should seem to echo the too indiscriminate praise
which has been bestowed on Miss Bremer's novels in many
of the highest quarters, we shall turn to the much more
agreeable office of pointing out the numberless beauties of
this very remarkable writer. As we mean to speak of her
works generally, and not of any particular tale, we shall not
embarrass ourselves by attempting an analysis of the several
stories. It is seldom interesting, and would here be espe-
cially out of place, inasmuch as the stories contain but little
of intricacy. We shall be content, therefore, with such
occasional explanations as, without puzzling the reader with
a maze of names and incidents, will suffice to make him
understand the passages which we shall transcribe ; premising
that we mean to select specimens from almost all the tales,
without following out any of them to their full denouement.

Our first shall be from The Neighbours, a delightful tale of
middle life in Sweden. It is related by the heroine, if so
matter-of-fact a little lady may be called by this dignified
title. This is the Franceska of whom we have already spoken ;
and who, if fame may be trusted at such a distance from the
shores of the Baltic, is no other than the lively authoress
herself. She is a very plain, unpretending little personage,
and, at the opening of the story, has just concluded, at
the staid age of twenty-seven, a quiet and unromantic mar-
riage with Dr. Lars Anders, a bachelor of fifty, with as little
romance in his composition as his lady. Both, however, have
a large share of what is a great deal better than romance —
sound sense and unsophisticated good-nature,

The details of the home-coming of the bride and her
husband, and of their reception by " Ma chere mere,"
the step-mother of Lars Anders, are extremely lively,
and graphically descriptive of Swedish life. But we prefer
the following sketch of a matrimonial quarrel and reconciii-

358 Freder'iJca Bremer's Swedish Novels. [Dec.

ation, which may have its lesson at home, as well as in the
far north from which it is transplanted. The young wife,
after many happy days at home, has been brought by her
husband — rather reluctantly, for she was suffering from head-
ache and ill-humour — to spend a day with the stately old
" chfere m^re." The day passes over, not without its ddsa-
gr^mens ; and after dinner her husband offends mortally by
leaving her for the purpose of playing billiards. After a long
absence, the unconscious offender returns. We should pre-
mise that she familiarly speaks of him under the endearing
appellation of " Bear.''''

" At last Lars Anders came, and then it was time to leave ; the
weather had become fine, and the tea had done me good, but the
mischief had taken possession of my soul. I was out of humour
with myself, with my husband, with the whole world ; and more
than this, Bear sat all the time silent, and never seemed to trouble
himself about my headache, for after he had just asked how I was,
and I had answered ' better,' he did not speak another word.

" When I came home I had something in the kitchen to see after,
and when I returned to the parlour, there had Lars Anders settled
himself into the sofa, and was blowing the tobacco smoke in long
wreaths before him while he read the newspaper. He had not
indeed chosen a suitable time for the breach of our compact. I
made a remonstrance, and that truly in a lively tone, but in reality
I was angry. I took, as it were, a bad pleasure in making him
pay for the annoying day I had passed.

" * Pardon!' exclaimed he in a cheerful voice, and still continued
to sit with the pipe in his mouth. I would not allow that, for I
thought the old bachelor might have indulged himself freely enough
the whole afternoon.

" He prayed for permission only this once to smoke in the parlour;
but I would admit of no negotiation, and threatened that if the pipe
was not immediately taken away, I would go and sit for the whole
evening in the hall. In the beginning, he besought me jokingly to
grant him quiet; then he became graver, and prayed earnestly,
beseechingly; prayed me at last out of 'regard to him.' I saw
that he wanted to try me ; saw that truly from his heart he
wished I would yield — and I, detestable creature, would not. I
remained steadfastly, although always cheerfully, by my determina-
tion, and at last took up my work in order to go out. Then Lars
Anders laid down his pipe: — oh, if he had been only angry and
spiteful ; if he only would not have laid down his pipe, but would
have marched out as proud as a nabob, banged the door violently
after him, and never come back again the whole evening, then
there would have been some * come off' for me, some comfort,
something paid for and done with ; and then I could have touched

1844. J FrederiJca Bremer's Swedish Novels. 359

over this fatal history so finely and so superficially. But he did
none of all these ; he laid the pipe aside, and remained sitting
silently ; and with that I began immediately to endure the gnawings
of conscience : neither did he make any of his grimaces, but re-
mained looking on his newspaper, with a certain grave and quiet
mien that went to my heart. I asked him to read aloud ; he did
so, but there was a something in his voice that I was in no condition
to hear; still, in a sort of stifled bitterness against myself, T must
yet tyrannise over him. I snatched the newspaper away from him
— understand, this was in joke — and said I would read it myself;
he looked at me, and let me have my way. I read, in a tolerably
cheerful voice, of a debate in the English House of Commons ; but
I could not hold out long. I burst into tears, flew to him, threw
my arms round his neck, and prayed him to forgive my bad
humour and my folly. Without answering, he held me close to
his breast so tenderly, so forgivingly, whilst a tear ran dowly down
his cheek. Never did I love him so much as in this moment ; in
this moment I felt for him real love !

"I would have begun an explanation, but he would not permit it;
and now it was my turn to beg of him, if he loved me, to re-
light his pipe, and to smoke directly at my very side. He refused;
but I besought him so long and earnestly, besought it as a token of
continued forgiveness, that he at last yielded. I held my face as
much as possible over the smoke — it was to me the incense of recon-
ciliation ; once I was nearly coughing, but I changed this into a
sigh, and said, " Ah, my ow^n Bear, your wife would not have been
so angry if you had not forgotten her for the whole afternoon ; she
lost all patience while she was longing after you.'

" 'I had not forgotten you, Fanny,' said he, taking the pipe from
his mouth, and looking half reproachfully on me ; ' but I was be-
side a peasant's painful death-bed in the next hamlet: this prevented
me from being with you.'

"Ashamed to the very soul, I covered my face with my hands —
I, I who had been fostering such wicked and false mistrusts against
him, and now in my vanity had been revenging myself — I, un-
worthy one — I who wished to make him so happy, what sweet
refreshment had I prepared for the weary, troubled man !

" The thought of my folly distresses me even at this very mo-
ment ; and the only thing that can give me any comfort, is the feeling
that he and I love one another better since this occurrence than
before.

"Beloved, good Lars Anders! before I will occasion you another
disagreeable moment, you may smoke every day in parlour, sleep-
ing room, yes, even in bed itself, if you will; only I pray God that
the desire to do so may not possess you."

No wonder that scenes like these should make home happy.
" Away from home may be good, but at home is best ! So have

360 FrederiJa Bremer's Siredish Novels. [Dec.

I often thought during the two pleasant days I have passed quietly
in looking after my own affairs, in taming my Bear and my little
animals. All goes on quite well : six hens, three ducks, and two
turkeys, are now my intimate acquaintance. I have caressed and
fed the cows to-day — the fine creatures; the largest and handsomest
of which I have christened Audumbla, in memory of the beautiful
northern mythology, of which I have read in the symbolical lore of
the Edda.

" What of my husband? Since he has given up his little vices,
he has acquired — God knows how! — continually a greater influence
over me. This however is certain, that he is good and reasonable.
Yesterday evening he came into our best sitting-room with the pipe
in his mouth, but stood at the doorway looking at me, and made
such roguish, questioning grimaces, that I sprang up, embraced
both him and his pipe, and di'bvv them both into the room. I was
so happy that the pipe did not hate the room — but really too much
friendship."

It would not be easy to convey this lesson — a lesson, we
fear, not entirely unnecessary, even in the " best regulated
families" among ourselves — in a happier or more impressive
way.

We are induced, by the similarity of subject, to add
another passage of the same tenor — the reconciliation of a
father and daughter, after a long and painful estrangement.
It is from " The President's Daughters." The first part of
this tale (which is in every way inferior to the earlier works
of this author), contains the history of two elder daughters
of President von P., Adelaide and Edla. The former, a
beautiful and most amiable girl, is beloved, not only by her
father, but by the whole circle of their acquaintances. Edla,
plain, sickly, unaccomplished, and uninteresting, meets with
comparative neglect from all, even her own father. Sensitive
to an excess, her spirits, as well as her temper, give way
under this coldness and neglect, to which she is constantly
subjected, and even the affectionate attentions of her sister,
Adelaide, become an object of suspicion and distrust. Wo
shall transcribe her portrait, before we pass to the scene of
which we spoke ;

" ' This unhappy young creature,' writes her governess, ' seemed
to have a bitter root in her heart, which shed gaU over every object
which surrounded her. She was for the most part silent and re-
served ; but what she did say was caustic, and what she did was
unpleasing and unfriendly. Adelaide could not approach her with
her beneficent warmth and affection, because Edla repelled all
friendly advances; but Adelaide never replied to her sister's bitter*

1844,] Frederila Bremer s Swedish Novels. 361

ness; she bore her ill-humour quietly, and if she knew anything
that was agreeable to her she did it. Nevertheless she seemed
almost to fear her, and rather to avoid any interference with her.
This connexion between the sisters would have been quite inexpli-
cable to me had they grown up together; but at the age of eight
Edla had been sent from her father's house and placed in a school,
whence she had only been recalled a year before the death of her
mother, about two years before my entrance into the family.

" I contemplated Edla narrowly, and discovered in her a deep
and wounded sensibility. What she said often betrayed a convic'
tion of injustice in the distribution of human lots, and great bitter-
ness of mind in consequence. She seenred to feel deeply the human
inability to avoid suffering and unfortunate fate; she considered
this fate to be her's, and yet would not submit to it. She seized
upon the discordances of life with a keen glance ; and pondering
on the niggardliness of nature towards herself, her eye had be-
come sick, and her heart wounded. These wounds she regarded
as incurable, and she became reserved to the whole world. Her
lips never complained, and no one ever saw her eye shed a tear.
It might be said that her whole life and temperament was a silent,
bitter, and proud repining. vShe was irritable and sensitive ; but
shyness and pride prevented her exhibiting her wounded feelings,
except by a contemptuous and bitter demeanour. Beneath all this,
however, there existed real power, deep feeling, love of truth, and
extraordinary, though very much neglected, powers of mind."

At length, by a variety of combined influences, a most
salutary change is effected in her disposition. As yet, how-
ever, she has not gained the affection or confidence of her
father, though she pines for it with all the fervour of new-
born filial love ; and his coldness towards her is rendered
still more painful b^ his affectionate preference for her sister
Adelaide. The description of the working of this feeling is
among the most successful efforts of the authoress. The
opportunity at length arrives for a full and cordial expla-
nation :

" The President was at this time in great trouble about a journey
he was forced to make to his mines on the borders of Lapland, and
from which he could not return till Adelaide's marriage. The
summer was rainy and cold, and the President had strong symptoms
of rheumatism ; and, between you and me, my reader, the President
was something helpless in attending to himself when he was well,
and very apt to complain when he was sick. He required more
than any one else to be surrounded with care and comforts.

" One evening we were collected round the fire, for the weather
was so cold that we were obliged to heat almost all the rooms. I
sat quite near the stove, warming my frozen feet ; Edla was making
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 24

362 Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. [Dec.

the tea a little further off in the room ; and from the drawing-room
we heard Adelaide, who was teaching her little sister to sing the
* Little Collier Boy.' The President sat in an arm-chair right be-
fore the fire, and lamented over his journey, which was to be com-
menced on the following day.

« « Were not Adelaide engaged,' said he, * and had such a deal
to do with her bridal paraphernalia, I would have taken her with
me : then, at all events, I know that I should have been well at-
tended to. But now, this is not to be thought of. The household
requires also to be looked after up there, — who is to do this ? If
the late Frederica lived '

" I sat just turned towards the President with that side of my
profile which was like the late Presidentska, and I wondered if
now, in the moment of embarrassment, this likeness would not
appear more striking. But the President was silent, looked
straight into the fire, and bit his seal ring.

" ' If I might — if I could — ' Edla now said, with a voice so weak
and so trembling that it was scarcely heard.

" My genius now whispered to me to seek my knitting in the
next room, whence I heard the following conversation :

" * What do you say ?' was the President's answer to Edla's stam-
mering offer.

'" If I could be useful to papa,' she said more firmly, as she came
nearer, * it would make me happy.'

" ' You !' said the President, not without bitterness, ' you have
more important things to attend to ; — remain you with your studies,
your books, your Plato.'

" Edla was hurt, and made a movement as if to draw back ; but
conquering herself, she went near, and begged with tearful eyes :

" Let me go with you, — let me take care of papa ! I will will-
ingly leave everything for that.'

" * I do not exact,' said the President coldly, * such great sacri-
fices from my children ; I do not ask that they should leave their
pleasures for my comfort. I did so before, perhaps ; but I have
seen I was wrong. Remain you with your books, Edla.'

" This moment was decisive. I trembled for fear that Edla's
wounded feelings might prevent her from making a new trial on
the President's heart ; I feared that this moment would for ever
divide father and daughter from each other. But Edla drew her-
self a little farther off, and said mildly, —

" * And if my books admonish me of my duty ? And if that
goodness papa has shown me, has made this duty dearer to me than
everything else ?' She stopped : the President said nothing. * I
shall not ask more,' she continued ; ' I shall not be obtrusive. Papa
does not love me, and I know that I have not been in the right, — I
have not deserved to be loved : but — but I would, if I could, make
up ' She stopped again.

1844.] Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. 363

" * The fault has been mutual, Edla,' said the President with cold
friendliness. ' I have no right to expect love from you, when I
have not tried to make you happy ; and it would be egotism of me
were I now to avail myself of what your sentiment of duty offers.'

*' ' Oh, this is hard, — very hard !' said Edla, with deep pain, but
without bitterness. She drew herself back, and was about to leave
the room.

" Edla !' called the President hastily, as he turned and stretched
his arms towards her ; " Edla, my child ! come here !' Large tears
stood in his eyes. Edla threw herself weeping on his bosom.

" A silent, long, and heartfelt embrace succeeded, on which the
angels smiled.

" * Forgive — forgive, — my child !' said the President, with a
broken voice ; ' 1 wanted to try you. Your mildness enchants me.
We shall go together. God bless thee, my child! This was
wanting to my happiness.'

" Edla let her head rest upon her father's shoulder, and her tears
flowed unrepressed.

" Softly and melodiously Adelaide's silver voice rose from the
next room. She sung to the guitar, —

" Blest, oh blest are they who weep
On the reconciled breast ;
Who forgive, forget, and reap

Rapture from the voice loved best." — vol. i. p. 240-3.

It would be difficult to imagine anything more beautiful
than this. But it is not merely in scenes of this character
that the author's power is seen. We shall give one of a very
opposite description — an outburst of wild and stormy passion
in one of its most revolting forms — a deadly strife between a
mother and her son.

The stately old lady in the Neighbours, " Ma ch^re mbre,"
has a secret history, which comes in as an episode in the main
story, and is related by her step-son, Lars Anders, to his
wife. Warm and impetuous in proportion to her apparent
coldness and insensibility, she had lavished upon her only son,
Bruno, a boy of ardent and fiery temperament, the tenderness
which she denied to all others ; and under her affectionate,
but injudicious indulgence, he grew up a wild and ill-regulated
youth, restrained by no feeling but love and reverence for
his doating mother. His step-brother, Lars Anders, who
was brought up along with him, used all his influence to keep
him within bounds; but at last, in a moment of excitement,
and driven to despair by a pressing call for a sum of money,
which he could not otherwise command, the unhappy youth
is tempted to pilfer from the stores of his mother. The young

24*

S64 Frederika Bremer s Swedish Novels. [DeC*

men were both on the point of setting out for the university ;
but the theft is discovered before their departure ; and, stung
to the quick by the taunts of one of the servants who had
been accused of the theft, the stern mother insists upon prob-
ing the matter to the bottom. The scene is described with
great power, though we must say that the character of Bruno,
generally, is extremely ill-conceived, and very unequally sup-
ported.

" When all had been examined, Ma chere mere cast upon me a
glance full of maternal love and joy. Alas ! she had had suspicions
of me — of the thoughtful man rather than the wild youth ! and now
she raised her head, and one could read, in her strong expressive
countenance, ' Thank God ! now I am easy.'

" ' Now, then, there are only the things of the young Baron left,'
said one of the old servants, respectfully; ' but the chest is locked;
and besides this, it is not necessary.'

" ' That may be,' said Ma chere mere,' * but he must fare like the
rest ; the box shall be broken open.'

" ' But the young Baron — is not at home,' said the servant
anxiously; ' we cannot — '

«' ' His mother commands it,' said she, warmly.

*' It was done.

" With her own hand the mother took out books and clothes
which had been thrown in in great disorder. Presently the hand
was withdrawn, as if it had been burnt by red-hot iron ; she had
stumbled upon a bundle of notes. It was the missing money. She
took it out ; turned it about in her hand ; examined it, as if she
could not believe her own eyes ; grew paler and paler ; and then
exclaiming in a voice of inexpressible anguish, * My blood! my own
flesh and blood!' sank as if lifeless to the floor.

" We carried her out ; and our exertions at length recalled her
to consciousness. Terrible was her awakening. But she shed no
tear, uttered no word of anger or complaint. She appeared strong
and determined.

" She sent immediately to Pastor Rhen, the clergyman of the
district. He was a man of iron ; stern, strong, and one ready to
combat with word or deed, in support of what he considered right ;
and more than this, he was an honest and faithful friend of Ma ch^re
mere. To him she confided this painful circumstance, and they two
decided the steps which should be taken in consequence. I antici-
pated what was designed, and made use of the influence I had fre-
quently found myself to possess with Ma chere mere, to induce her,
but in vain, to resort to less severe, or, at all events, less violent
measures. But all my representations were useless ; she merely
answered, * Unpunished crime only induces to still further crime.
Bitter must be atoned for by bitter.'

1844,] Frederika Bremer's Sicedish Novels. 365

" In the evening, about the time when Bruno was expected to
return— myself; my three brothers, the old servants, and the book-
keeper, were ordered into Ma chere mere's apartment. The room
was dimly lighted ; and there, in its gloomy half-light, sat, in a tall
armed chair, Bruno's mother, with Pastor Rhen beside her ; her
countenance beax'ing traces of the sorrow which she bore in her
heart. But over soi-row, and shame, and anger, there prevailed
such an expression of stern determination as I never saw before in
a human countenance.

" Thus then was assembled that small but fearful court of judg-
ment before which Bruno was to be cited. Here we awaited him
— a terrible hour ! during which no one spoke ; but I saw, in that
dull light, the drops of cold sweat stand like beads on the brow of
that unhappy mother.

" It was towards the end of September— a stormy evening, and
a gusty wind shook the casements. One moment it was still, and
then we heard the fiery clatter of a horse's hoofs on the court pave-
ment. Ma chere mere trembled as I had never seen her before. I
heard a dismal rattling — not of the casements — but of her teeth, as
they chattered together. My brothers wept; the old servants stood
dumb, and with downcast glances : an expression of remorse was on
the countenance of the book keeper, and even the iron-souled pas-
tor seemed gasping for breath.

" The door was quickly opened, and Bruno stepped in. I see
him this moment, as if he stood before me, as he was then — warm
from riding, and from the storm; fuU of health and spirit ; I never
saw him handsomer than then ! He came to his mother, longing,
as he always did, even after only a day's absence, to throw himself
into her arms ; but as he reached the door he paused, started, and
threw a terrified glance on his mother, who covered her face with
her hands. Bruno grew pale, looked round upon us, and then again
upon her; she cast a flashing glance upon him, and his countenance
feU; he became yet paler, and stood there a criminal.

" At that moment her voice was heard, hollow and stern, to ac-
cuse him of theft ; and pointing to his rifled chest, and to the money
which had been found in it, she demanded his confession.

" Bruno acknowledged himself guilty, with an inconceivably bold
haughtiness.

"'Fall upon your knees and receive your punishment!' said
the stern judge. But Bruno bent not. A consciousness which
after his haughty confession, seemed to have deprived him
of all volition, overwhelmed him ; he stood pale as death, his head
dropped upon his breast, and his eyes riveted to the ground.

" Pastor Rhen approached him. ' Young man,' said he in a low
voice, ' you have grievously sinned against the commands of God,
and against your mother — acknowledge your guilt, and submit to
your punishment.' "

366 Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. [Dec.

" * Fall upon your knees, sinner!' exclaimed Ma chere mere, rais-
ing herself, and in an awful voice.

" Bruno cast a dark and threatening glance upon her, which she
returned, and then he replied proudly, ' I will not ! What,' demanded
he, * has this priest to do with me ? I have not desired him. If he
be here about confessions of guilt, others may come in question as
well as I! Exasperate me not — or'

" * Silence!' said Ma chere mere, gloomily, * and answer only to
my demands. Acknowledge, are you alone guilty in this theft ?'

" Bruno answered only by a dark glance.

"'Answer!' said she hastily, 'answer! Is there any partner
with you in this guilt ?'

"Bruno cast another long look on his mother; and then, with a
firm voice, said, ' No ! I alone am guilty.'

" * Bow down your knee, then, unhappy one !' said she. * Your
mother, whom you have covered with shame, commands you to en-
dure the dishonour which you have deserved. Fall down!'

"Bruno stamped his foot in wild rage, clenched his fist, and
darted a furious glance at her.

" * Compel him down, you people!' cried Ma ch&re mere, in ter-
rible anger : ' Priest, if thou art a man, bow the disobedient, de-
generate son to the earth. Make him humble himself before the
commands of the Lord.'

" I was about to step between them; but the moment the Pastor
laid his strong hands on Bruno's shoulders, they were flung oft" again
with a violence which whirled the Pastor completely round.

" ' Lay est thou hands on the servant of the Lord!' exclaimed the
Pastor in a frenzy of rage, forgetting himself, and seizing Bruno
with a sinewy grasp. But Bruno had the strength and elasticity
of the lion; and, after a strong struggle, the Pastor lay stretched
on the ground.

"'Seize him! hold him!' exclaimed Ma chere mere, beside
herself.

" The book-keeper and one of my brothers, who attempted to hold
him, soon lay by the Pastor; and then Bruno, starting back a few
paces, seized a staff which stood in a corner of the room, and swing-
ing it over his head, threatened, with the expression of mad frenzy,
to strike it upon the face of any one who should dare to approach
him.

" No one dared to do so, except his mother, * Remain where
you are,' said she to the others; and then, with firm steps and quiet
mien, she approached him, laid her hand upon his head, bowed him
down before her, and aslced, in a voice which made the blood freeze
in my veins, whether he would submit himself to her will, or receive
her curse.

"Mother and son looked at each other with eyes of flame and de-
fiance. They stood so, long. Again she repeated the question;

1844.] Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. 867

and then followed terrible words on both sides. Again all was still;
the curse-speaking lips became stiff, the haughty glance dimmed,
and mother and son sank fainting together."

This is really overpowering. The picture of that stem
mother and unbending son, standing face to face in fierce hos-
tility, is too terrible to look upon. We turn with a sense of
pleasure, almost of relief, to the delightful story of the
'* Home" — most truly described in its title as a tale of " Fa-
mily cares and family joys." The leading personages of the
tale are a family in middle rank, Judge Frank and his wife,
a son, Henrik, and five daughters, Louise, Leonore, Eva,
Petrea, and little Gabriele. These are all children in the
commencement of the story, and their characters, as deve-
loped in infantile years, are described by their mother in a
very beautiful letter, with which the book opens. The story
of the parents themselves is not without its own little ro-
mance of love and jealousy ; but we cannot help considering
this as a decided blemish. It is but an off-set of the plot,
and the main interest rests with the children. In course of
time two other members are added to the family group,
Jacobi, Henrik's tutor, a candidate for orders, and Sara, a
gifted, but wayward and unamiable orphan girl, adopted by
the tender-hearted judge and his wife. The latter is an un-
necessary, and far from agreeable excrescence upon the story,
to the moral of which it contributes but very questionably.

In the delineation of the characters of the sisters. Miss
Bremer is more happy than in any other of her works. Each
of them is a distinct individuality, and the part assigned to
each is, with few exceptions, well and judiciously sustained.

We would gladly extract at great length from this de-
lightful tale ; but we cannot afford more than a few morsels.

What a charming family re-union is the following ! Henrik
and his tutor have just returned from the university, after a
protracted absence, and are gone to change their travelling
dress before supper : —

" * By Jove, my dear girls, how comfortable it is here!' exclaimed
the judge, in the joy of his heart as he saw the library thus popu-
lous, and in its, for the future, every-day state. ' Are you comfort-
able on the sofa there, Elise? Let me get you a foot-stool. No,
sit still my child! what are men for in this world?'

" The Candidate — we beg his pardon, the Master Jacobi — appeared
no longer to be the same person who had an hour before stood there
in his wet dress, as he made his appearance, handsomely apparelled,
with his young friend, before the ladies; and his countenance actually
beamed with delight at the joyful scene which he there witnessed.

•368 Frederika Bremer s Swedish Novels. [Dec.

" People now examined one another. They discovered that Hen-
rik had become paler as well as thinner; which Henrik received
as a compliment to his studies. Jacobi wished also a compliment
on his studies, but it was unanimously refused to him, on account
of his blooming appearance. Louise thought privately to herself
that Jacobi's bearing was considerably more manly ; that he had a
simpler and more decided demeanour; he was become, she thought,
a little more like her father. Her father was Louise's ideal of per-
fection.

" Little Gabriele blushed deeply, and half hid herself behind her
mother, as her brother addressed her.

" 'How is your highness, my most gracious princess Turndot!'
said he, ' has your highness no riddle at hand with which to confute
weak heads?'

" Her little highness looked in the highest degree confused, and
withdrew the hand which her brother kissed again and again — Ga-
briele was quite bashful before the tall student.

" Henrik had a little tete-a-tete with every sister, but it was
somewhat short and cold with Sara; after which he seated himself
by his mother, took her hand in his, and a lively conversation began
while Eva handed about the confectionary.

" ' But what is amiss now?' asked Henrik suddenly, * Why have
the sisters all left us to take counsel together there, with^^such im-
portant judge-like faces? Is the nation in danger? May not I go,
in order to save the native land? If one could only first have eaten
one's supper in peace,' added he, speaking aside, after the manner
of the stage.

" But it was precisely about the supper they were talking. There
was great danger that the pancakes would not succeed; and Louise
could not prevent Henrik and Jacobi running down into the
kitchen, where, to the greatest amusement of the young ladies and
the tragi-comic despair of the cook, they acted their parts as cooks
so ridiculously, that Louise was obliged at last, with an imposing
air, to put an end to the laughter, to the joking, and to the burnt
pancakes, in order that she herself might put her hand to the work.
Under her eye all went well; the pancakes turned out excellently.
Jacobi besought one from her own hand, as wages for his work;
graciously obtained it, and then swallowed the hot gift with such
rapture, that it certainly must have burned him inwardly, had it
not been for another species of warmth — which we consider very
probable — a certain well-known spiritual fire, which counteracted
the natural burning, and made it harmless. Have we not here, in
all simplicity, suggested something of a homoeopathic nature?

" But we will leave the kitchen, that we may seat ourselves with
the family at the supper-table, where the mother's savouring white
pancakes, and the thick ones for Henrik, were to be found, and
where, with raspberry cream, the whole was devoured with the
greatest enjoyment.

1844.] Frederic Bremer*s Swedish Novels. 369

" After this they drank the health of the travellers, and sang a
merry little song, made by Petrea. The father was quite pleased
with Petrea, who, quite electrified, sang too with all her might, al-
though not with a most harmonious voice; which, however, did not
annoy her father's somewhat unmusical ear.

" ' She screams above them all,' said he to his wife, who was
considerably less charmed than he with the accompaniment." — i.
pp. 186-9.

Soon after the return of Henrik and his tutor, the whole
family are invited to a bridal party, where, according to
Swedish usage, the hospitalities are kept up with spirit for
an entire week. We wish it were possible to transfer the
whole chapter to our pages — the preparations of the sisters
for the party, their purchases, their conferences, and their
anticipations* The following scene would, under any circum-
stances, be extremely amusing ; but we prize it more for the
deep and tender moral it contains. Each of the sisters, in
pursuance of a wise arrangement of their mother, had been en-
trusted with a sum of money, which she might expend accord-
ing to her own judgment in such purchases as were necessary
for her preparations. The characters are extremely well
brought out in the account of their several negociations ; and,
as if for the sake of contrast, the adopted sister Sara is de-
scribed as selfish enough to take advantage of the generous
affection of the simple-minded Petrea, by accepting her offer
of the sum allotted to herself, to be expended along with
Sara's own money in purchasing a more costly dress than any
of the rest. They are all naturally indignant at this unworthy
and selfish proceeding. Poor Petrea is driven to great straits
in furbishing up some old dress for the occasion ; and, in the
end, high words are exchanged between the eldest sister and
the unamiable Sara. Their mother, however, succeeds in
restoring peace, and in a short time they are as if nothing had
occurred to disturb their cordial sisterly affection.

" ' There are certainly too many bitter almonds in this; it does
not taste good,' said Elise, setting down a glass of almond milk.

" ' Be pleased with us, dear mother,' whispered Eva tenderly,
' we are all friends again.'

" The mother saw it in their beautiful beaming eyes ; she read
it in Louise's quick glance, as she turned round from the table,
whei'e she was helping Sara with her tunic, and looked at her
mother. Elise nodded joyfully both to her and Eva, * * * *
' Mamma, dear,' said Gabriele, ' we must certainly do something
towards Petrea's toilette, otherwise she will not be presentable.'

" But Louise took Petrea's gauze dress secretly in hand, and
sate up over it till midnight, and adorned it so, with her own

870 Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. [Deis.

ribbons and lace, that it was more presentable than it had ever
been before.

"Petrea kissed her skilful hands for all that they had done.
Eva, — yet we will for the present keep silent on her arrangements.

" But dost thou know, O reader ! — yes, certainly thou dost ! —
the zephyrs which call forth spring in the land of the soul — which
call forth flowers, and make the air pure and delicious ? Certainly
thou knowest them, — the little, easy, quiet, unpretending, almost
invisible, and yet powerful — in one word, human kindnesses.

" Since these have taken up their abode in the Franks' family, we
see nothing that can prevent a general joyful party of pleasure.
But yes ! — it is true —

" Petbea's Nose !

" This was, as we have often remarked, large and somewhat
clumsy. Petrea had a great desire to conform it, particularly for
the coming festivities.

" ' What have you done to your nose ? "What is amiss with your
nose ?' were the questions which assailed Petrea on all sides, as she
came down to breakfast on the eventful day.

" Half-laughing and half-crying, Petrea related how she had
made use of some innocent machinery during the night, by which
she had hoped somewhat to alter the form of this offending feature,
the consequence of which had, unfortunately, been the fixing a
fiery red saddle across it, and a considerable swelling beside.

" ' Don't cry, my dear girl,' said her mother, bathing it with
batmeal-water, * it will only inflame your nose the more.'

" * Ah,' burst forth poor Petrea, ' any body is really unfortunate
who has such a nose as mine ! "What in the world can they do
with it ? They must go into a convent.'

" * It is very much better,' said her mother, ' to do as one of my
friends did, who had a very large nose, much larger than yours, Petrea.*

" ' Ah, what did she do ?' asked Petrea eagerly.

** * She made herself so beloved, that her nose was beloved too,'
said her mother. ' Her friends declared that they saw nothing so
gladly as her nose when it came in at the door, and that, without
it she would have been nothing.'

" Petrea laughed, and looked quite cheerful. * Ah,' said she,
* if my nose can but be beloved, I shall be quite reconciled to it.'

" * You must endeavour to grow above it,' said the good prudent
mother, jestingly, but significantly." — i. pp. 255-7.

But there is yet another still more beautiful little incident
connected with this all-important festivity. Leonore, the
third girl, was too delicate to join the party. Her character
may be gathered from the description already given of Edla,
the President's daughter. Notwithstanding an occasional
fit of moroseness and discontent, however, she is, in reality,
a warm-hearted and affectionate girl, and the sisters vie with

1844.] Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. 371

each other in their devoted attention to all her wants and
wishes. The struggle of each, on this memorable occasion,
to be permitted to remain at home with the poor invalid, is
beautifully portrayed ; as well as her unwillingness that any
of them should forfeit their share of enjoyment on her ac-
count. At last, all seemingly yield to her importunity, and
take leave of her in travelling costume ; but, scarcely have
they gone, when poor Leonore's old feeling of discontent
returns, and she begins to repine again at the fancied neglect,
to which, as she imagines, her deficiencies have condemned
her. While she sits alone in this gloomy and repining mood,
the door suddenly opens, and Eva enters. She had but
seemed to take leave along with the rest, partly to avoid
Leonore's importunity, partly to heighten the pleasure of the
surprise. Now be it remembered, that Eva was the beauty
of the family, and the one to whom the sacrifice was greatest.
Her efforts to cheer the poor desponding invalid, are, in our
judgment, extremely simple and natural :

" But, dear Leonore, I assure you, you are unjust towards your-
self. Your figure, for example is very good ; your eyes have
something so expressive, — something, at the same time, so soft and
so earnest ; your hair is of a beautiful brown, — it would become
you so, if it were better dressed ; but wait awhile, when you are
better I will help you to do it, and then you shall see.'

" ' And my mouth,' said poor Leonore, ' that goes from ear to ear,
and my nose is so flat and so long, — how will you mend that ?'

" ' Your mouth ?' said Eva ; ' why yes, it is a little large ; but
your teeth are regular, and with a little care would be quite white.
And your nose ? let me see ; yes, if there were a little elevation —
a little ridge in it, it would be quite good too. Let me see, I really
believe it begins to elevate itself ! yes, actually, I see plainly enough
the beginning of a ridge ! and do you know, if it come, and when
you are well, and have naturally a fresh colour, I think that you
will be really pretty.'

" ' Ah ! if I can ever believe that !' said Leonore, sighing, at the
same time that an involuntary smile lit up her countenance.

" ' And even if you are not so very lovely,' continued Eva, * you
know that yet you can be infinitely agreeable ; you have something
pecuUarly so in your demeanour, I heard my father say so this
very day.'

" ' Did he really say so ?' said Leonore, her countenance growing
brighter and brighter.

"'Yes indeed he did!' replied her sister. 'But ah ! Leonore,
after all, what is beauty ? It fades away, and at last is laid in the
black earth and becomes dust ; and even while it is blooming, it is
not aU-sufficient to make us either beloved or happy ! It certainly
has no intrinsic value.'

372 Frederika Bremer a Swedish Novels. [Dec.

" Never was the power of beauty depreciated by more beautiful
lips. Leonore looked at her and sighed.

" ' No, Leonore,' continued she, ' do not trouble yourself to be
beautiful. This, it is true, may at times be very pleasant, but it
certainly is not necessary to make us either beloved or happy. I
am convinced, that if you were, not in the least prettier than you
are, yet that you might, if you would, in your own peculiar way,
be as much in favour, and as much beloved, as the prettiest girl in
the world.'

" ' Ah!' said Leonore, *if I were only beloved by my nearest
connexions ! What a divine thing it is to be beloved by one's own
family ! '

" ' But that you can be, that you will be, if you only will. Ah !
if you only were always as you are sometimes, — and that you are
more and more so, and I love you more and more, — infinitely I
love you.' " — vol. i. p. 264-6.

There is frequently a liveliness and spirit in Miss Bremer's
sketches, not excelled by the very best of the modern novelists.
What could be better than the following scrap of a dinner-
table conversation, in the beginning of the Fresidenfs Daughters.
Mademoiselle Rcinnquist, the narrator of the story, has the
good fortune to find a place beside a gentleman who knows
everybody, and has an eye for every dish upon the table.
The mixture of gallantry and gastronomy, of gourmand ism
and good nature, — the medley of criticisms on the company
and on the fare, is absolutely irresistible.

" ' Count Alarik W.,' said he, ' is one of the most excellent and
extraordinary men that I know. He served with distinguished
bravery in the German war. When peace was made for Sweden,
he retired from the army, and withdrew altogether from the world,
devoting himself to science and philosophy, on an old family estate,
which had come to his hands in a ruinous condition, and loaded

with debt don't burn yourself with the bouillon ! Ah ! I see

you have cold milk to satisfy the demands of needy creditors,

he sold whatever valuables he had inherited from his forefathers,
and lived for many years in extremely narrow circumstances ; nay,
he was even, I believe, poor. Now, however, he has improved his
lands ; which, after all, are not large, and make no Croesus of him

O! oysters, oysters! thank Heaven! and the most delicious

grouse ! this a la daube is the hostess's crown ! they say now

that he is come out into the world again to look about for a rich
wife ; but I don't believe it.'

" ' And why not ?' asked L

" ' Madeira or port wine, my most gracious ? He is not the

man,' continued my neighbour, as he filled his glass. * Not that I
tliiuk there is anything wrong in a man looking for money and a

1844.] Frederila Bremer's Swedish Novels. 373

wife at the same time — I am just doing the same myself — but
Alarik has his own notions. He is an uncommon and an excellent
man — a true lion nature, and I have only one thing against him ;
that he is too particular, too obstinate, and even severe to harshness

against the weaknesses of others poached eggs and mushrooms

— a little weak

" ' They say now, that he is to marry the President's step-daughter,
Countess Augusta U. Well, she is handsome, and extremely rich,
and does not seem very much to hate him ; but, after all, I know

a wife that would suit him better cold pike with shrimp sauce

— almost too salt — aj ! aj !'

" ' And who then is it ? ' asked I.

" * Just that good, beautiful angel to whom he is now talking.'

" I looked, and saw Count Alarik leaning over Adelaide's chair ;
they were both laughing.

" ' Faith, a handsome couple,' continued my neighbour. * No,
but this is pleasant ! I have not seen him laugh so heartily since
his brother's death. Now; let us look a little at the rest of the
good people here. What luxury in toilette and eating ! our finances

must suffer i we must be ruined, all and every one of us ! what

is this again ? Fowls with oyster sauce ! for the second, third,
fourth times, welcome, ye oysters ! One cannot live without

oysters! Do you see that pale, fine countenance, expressive

both of talent and goodness, and who contemplates that lovely Miss
Adelaide with such sincere admiration ? Can you believe that
fortune and the world have done all they could to spoil her, and
have not succeeded ? She never ceases to forget herself for others.
That young man standing behind her chair there, seems to have

very kind intentions towards her And there is Aunt Gunilla

in a turban, than which Mahomet could not have a finer 1 Twenty
years ago, a little girl who was fed on morning dew and parsley,
and now a great lady — is it not quite wonderful that we mean quite
a different thing when we say, " a great lady," to what we mean
when we say, "a great man ?" — she eats with a keen connoisseur's
tongue from every dish, and thinks meanwhile on her supper next

week ; I hope she will invite me ! pudding ? That was a pity!

No, I thank you! Baroness B. is charmingly beautiful this

evening — and her husband, as usual, jealous of that little fair
gentleman, who certainly never thought of anything wrong, but
who has become the man's bete noire. Look at that betrothed pair

who have flitted through the honeymoon before the bridal hem !

aj ! aj ! there, two servants came in contact ! Preserve the roast !

1 am sorry for that young woman ; she tries to be gay, but is

pale, and scarcely can eat ; and that because her husband sits at the
card-table, and takes the food from the mouths of his children, or
others, which is no better. Look at the Mamselles T., who are
eating turkey and giggling ! and their father, who swallows them

874 Frederika Bremer's Sioedish Novels. [Dec.

with his eyes, and thinks nothing on the whole earth so charming
as his daughters. " They are wonderful, wonderful," he says. A

happy family ! you will drink, I hope, a glass of negus ? See,

here we have an Etna ! — admire in this ice-cake the power of art
to unite cold and heat, and, by means of the agreeable, to destroy

the appetite, which is such an especial means of health look,

now, how anxiously mamma yonder winks to her young daughter
not to eat, and how dutifully she lays down the spoon which was
just at her lips — such a daughter would just suit me. We have

really a very fine collection of people listen, what a noise and

hum, just like a bee-hive when it is about to swarm. It is really

wonderful how people are capable of talking so incessantly. The

women really dress themselves well in our days ; elegance without
extravagance, an agreeable medium, with the exception of what
regards arms, and that strikes both my eyes and my shoulders.
But see the heads of the young ladies, how beautiful they are with
their uncovered hair. May I help you to jelly?" — ^vol. i. p. 29-33.

We must make room for one other extract, — a Swedish
housewife's troubles at the arrival of a fashionable party, for
whom she sees no means of providing with due credit to her
housekeeping. The scene is an humble rustic parsonage,
and the heroine is the sister of the parson, Pastor Hervey.

"'Where is Maria?'

"I am at this moment a little ashamed of Maria, since no one
can look less festively arrayed than she. She will only prepare a
banquet for those who have forgotten themselves. She stands still
and hot at the oven, and bakes fine bread. The greatest consterna-
tion shows itself in her countenance, while, in the deepest anxiety,
she gazes round her, with the words — 'Our maid-servants are
gone out! The house full of guests ! — The countess ! — Supper ! —
I here ! white bread must be baked, and both girls are out !'

" I will venture to assert that none of my fair readers will
peruse this without the greatest sympathy for Maria, and even a
little sympathetic distress. If they wish, however, to get rid of
this distress, it is only necessary to accompany me a little farther.
Maria, between her oven and her anxiety, would have lost her wits,
if her brother, like a consoling angel, had not suddenly made his
appearance, and, with friendly words, active help, and pleasant
jokes, put to flight her trouble. She took courage, — all will go
well; and from this it came to pass, that the baking turned out so
admirably, — for, in fact, when the cakes in the oven rise well, the
heart of the housewife rises with them. Maria felicitated herself
on being able to treat her guests with her beautiful white bread,
particularly the lovely Nina, whom, with a maiden's enthusiasm,
she admired. For her was an especial cake baked.

" Maria speedily spread the cloth in the eating-room, and her
brother spoke courage to her. He himself helped to cut bread,

1844.] Frederika Bremer's Swedish Novels. 375

and to set on the table the dishes of curd; so that his sister became
quite easy and cheerful. Will you see Maria ? She is like a
thousand others, — fair, kind, blue-eyed, of features by no means
remarkable, but with an expression of good-nature. Her dress
was something worn, but far from being worn out; a warm heart,
a good understanding, in whose joys house-keeping and heaven
occupy the whole space, without much fascination; diligent, con-
scientious, affectionate, indefatigable — the first up, the last to bed;
you see, in a word, before you, one of the many who live for others
— of those who will probably think for the first time of themselves,
when the Lord of the world says to them — " Tliou good and faith-
ful servant, thou hast been faithful in a few things, enter thou into
the joy of thy Lord.' But for such an one what joy can there pro-
bably be, except that of being able yet more freely to live and work
for those that she lOves ?

" But we loiter — Maria does not. She has set the cold roast
meat, the steaming potatoes, and the fresh butter, on the table; she
has conducted the guests into the eating-room, and has invited
them kindly and somewhat embarrassed to partake, and wishes that
they may enjoy the repast.

" Here, also, the countess found herself quite out in her expecta-
tions, and saw not the smallest thing at which she could have
smiled. For here all was too pretentionless and too good. The
meal resembled rather an idyllean banquet, than a supper ' at the
countess's visit.' And in truth the milk, with the excellent cream,
she found, as well as the rest, so delicious after the long walk, that
she bestowed a particular attention upon the dish. It did not
escape her, however, that Hervey was more gay and social than
usu^. He looked around him as if he would bless everybody. But
while all are eating, chatting, and laughing, I will make a little
digression, and say a word with the

FATHERS OF FAMILIES.

" Thou who sittest at thy table like a thunder-cloud charged with
lightning, and scoldest the wife and the cook about the dinner, so
that the morsel sticks in the throat of the mother and children, — .
thou who makest unhappy wife, and child, and servants, — thou
who preparest for every dish a bitter sauce out of thy gall, — shame
and indigestion to thee !

But —

" Honour and long life to a good stomach, and especially all good
to thee who sittest at thy table like bright sunshine; thou who
lookest round thee to bless the enjoyment of thy family, — by thy
friendly glance, thy kind speech callest forth sportiveness and appe-
tite, and thereby lendest to the gifts of God a better strength, a
finer flavour than the profoundest art of the cook is able to confer
upon them, — honour to thee, and joys in abundance. May good-
will ever spread the table for thee; may friendly faces ever sit
round thy dishes. Honour and joy to thee !" — vol. iii. pp. 97-100.

S76^ Frederika Bremer s Swedish Novels. [Dec.

With such charming tableaux as these before him, the
reader will forget all the criticisms with which we began.
Nor shall we be sorry if he does ; for we ourselves have not
had the heart to say a word on the improbable and unskilful
combinations in which they are too often found.

In conclusion, we may say with perfect truth, that in the
earlier stories there are comparatively few of these blemishes ;
and though here and there a few incidents or allusions may be
met, which we should be glad to see withdrawn, yet, when
we contrast the general healthy and natural tone which charac-
terises the Swedish novels as a collection, with the diseased
and unnatural spirit of the seductive trash poured in upon us
from the French and German markets — the works of Goethe,
and Spindler, and those of Balzac, Sand, Sue, and Victor
Hugo — we cannot be sufficiently grateful to Mrs. Hovvitt for
this important addition to our stock of foreign fiction. Most
of the stories may be read with interest throughout ; all con-
tain numberless passages of great beauty and power. There
are scenes in Home which might draw tears from the most
hackneyed novel reader ; and if we may be allowed to judge
from ourselves, there are few of us who might not rise from
the perusal of this charming book with softened, and, per-
haps, improved, hearts — hearts touched by the recollection of
times and scenes when we were happier, because more humble
and more innocent than now ; and it may be, by the desire of
regaining that guileless innocence which years and intercourse
with the world have too completely rubbed away, and that
peace and happiness which were at once its accompaniment
and its reward.

Art. IV. — Considerations sur les Ordres Beligieux, addressees
aux Amis des Sciences. Par le Baron A. Cauchy, Membre
de TAcademie des Sciences de Paris, de la Soci6te Ita-
lienne, de la Soci6te Royale de Londres, des Academies de
Berlin, de St. Petersbourg, de Prague, de Stockholm, de
Gottingue, de la Societe Americaine, &c. &c. Paris : IS^^.

THE work of which we are about to give an account, is one
of the numerous protests of the French Catholic press
against the unsatisfactory relations of Church and State. ~ It
claims the repeal of jealous legal restrictions as due, not only
to the Church, but to the social and scientific interests of the

1844.] Baron Cauchys Religious Orders. 377

kingdom. The university controversy is already well known
to the readers of the Dublin Remew. The controversy on
the religious orders, though of less general interest, has of
late acquired an importance proportionate to the revival of
Christian faith. Baron A. Cauchy''s Considerations, recom-
mended by a reputation of the first order in science, and
free from the suspicion of partiality to the cloister, may open
the eyes of his countrymen to the merits of a system which is
blended with the noblest associations of France, and is des-
tined to a conspicuous part in her regeneration.

In his preface he hints that he had been once opposed to
religious orders, and that he had even collected historical
materials as the grounds of his opposition. But as his
researches extended, his prejudices yielded to the conviction
that the monastery, in past ages, was a vital principle in
civilization, and that in the present age it could be equally
useful. Not that its action would be now equally extensive ;
for the Baron does not dream that the modern monastery
need combine, like the old, all the functions of a host of our
modem societies — agricultural and horticultural, societies for
the reclamation of waste lands, for the construction of roads
and bridges, for the encouragement of painting, sculpture and
architecture, and the preservation of public documents; or
that the modern monk should, like the old, be at once hotel-
keeper, and poor-law guardian, and printer and publisher,
and professor and schoolmaster. Such were the monk and
his monastery in olden times, as Protestants, at homo and
abroad, now generally admit. But the wants of the present
age do not demand all those duties. If he hallows the school,
cheers the hospital, reforms the prison ; if he opens a port
for the guilty, beaten by the storms of the world, and for the
innocent, whom Christ inspires to leave all to follow Him ; if,
by his example, he warns all to look forward to the eternal
years, and, by the silent influence of his monastery, circulates
the life blood of Catholic piety through the Church, he can
resign to others the duties imposed upon him by the pupilage
of ancient society, and seek the kingdom of God and his jus-
tice, undisturbed by earthly cares. This is all that Baron A.
Cauchy requires. This is all that he demands from the
French government, in the name of the Catholic Church and
of the French charter. He demands that the laws of man
should not oppose or punish the vocations of heaven. He
might be visionary, if he imagined a new generation of Cister-
cians improving the French soil which their good fathers

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 25

378 Baron Cauchy'a Religious Orders. [Dec.

reclaimed ; a new family of the monks of Cluny making their
chapel a " Palais des beaux arts ;"" in every department of
France ; a new legion of the monks of mercy, in their white
robes and red and blue cross, bearing over the Mediterranean,
liberty to the dungeons of Morocco and Algiers, or, in fine,
fresh hosts of military orders protecting Europe, on the
north, from the pagans, and on the south and east from the
Mahometan ; the necessity of these institutions has passed
away with circumstances ; but while the Catholic faith is a
reality, men will make the three vows, which form the essence
of the religious life ; and devote themselves to what Christian
charity may point out as the most pressing exigencies of the
age. Liberty to devote themselves to the good of their
country, without privilege, or endowment, or favour, is the
demand of Baron A. Cauchy for the religious of France.

The accident that made the Baron the apologist of the
religious orders, exhibits his motives in a most amiable light.
As professor in some of the scientific institutions of the ca-
pital, he had seen young candidates of the religious orders
attending his lectures. Several of them, in course of time,
did honour to their master, and had they not chosen the
cowl, would have adorned the first chairs in the university.
But as the law stands, they think themselves happy that they
are allowed to live in France ; that they are not compelled to
carry their knowledge to other climes, provided they keep it
themselves, do not dispute the sway of the autocrat of the
university, and suffer in patience the calumnies of the univer-
sity press and professors against the history, laws, and living
members of all the religious institutes of France.

With a zeal for science, honourable in a professor, and for
religion, meritorious in a Christian, Baron A. Cauchy protests
against such injustice, as disgraceful to the spirit of French
institutions. The young men who surrounded his chair were
not asked, in their various professions, whether they were
Lutherans or Calvinists, Catholics or infidels. Sect or irre-
ligion was no bar to promotion. But the three vows of po-
verty, chastity, and obedience, — vows approved by the Catho-
lic Church as the most perfect form of her moral code, — put a
man out of the pale of the charter, for that very religion
whose liberty the charter expressly proclaims ! Religious
liberty, that opens all offices to all religions or no religion,
locks the doors of the monastery, or holds over the heads of
its inmates, vague laws that leave them at the mercy of a
common policeman ! We fear that we detract from the

1 844.] Baron Caucliy's Religious Orders. 379

value of Baron A. Cauchy's services by dwelling on this point.
Surely, a consistent politician, whatever be his creed, must
see the propriety of permitting the freest extension of reli-
gious associations solemnly approved by the Catholic Church.
She has the same chartered right to liberty that the people
have to representation, or the king to his throne.

The opposition to the religious orders appears the more
extraordinary, when we consider that in France there are
more than thirty millions of professing Catholics under the
government of more than thirty thousand priests, paid by the
state. If jealousy of ecclesiastical influence be a motive for
proscribing the monk or nun, ought not the priest, who lives
in the world, to be infinitely more dangerous ? and yet the
priest receives his pension, and is even exempted from some
of the common burdens of citizenship. Is the convent an
enemy of the throne of 1830 ? is it a school of absolute mo-
narchy ? does it impede the workings of free institutions ?
does it hold the deposing power of the Pope ? or refuse to
pay taxes ? or claim any privilege possessed before the revo-
lution ? No ; but it is a symptom of vigorous health in a
creed which, the philosophers say, is dead ; it is an agency
neither connected with, nor dependent on, the state ; and for
that very reason an object of jealousy, where no association,
political or literary, of more than twenty members is per-
mitted without the consent of the police. As this power of
associating in twenties is the amount of French political li-
berty, if the same power were allowed to the religious, there
might be no reason of complaint on the score of equal law ;
but alarmed at the progress of religious institutes, the philo-
sophic party seeks to rob them of that power. An edict of
the empire is produced which dissolves all religious associa-
tions formed without the consent of government ; and on
that edict of a tyrant, the friends of liberty demand the sup-
pression of some of the religious institutes of France. But
as M. Vatismenil, an eminent lawyer, already noticed in our
Review, clearly shows, the imperial edict has been repealed
by the sixth article of the criminal code ; and on the faith of
that article numerous religious associations have been esta-
blished. The limitation of the number of members to twenty
does not affect persons living in the same house ; and cannot
therefore affect the members of the same convent. But no
convent or religious association whatsoever can receive any
donations or bequests, unless it has received the authoriza-
tion of the state. Has M. Guizot given a lesson to Peel ?

25'

380 Baron Caucliy's Religious Orders. [Dec.

Such is the French law on religious institutes. It appears
stringent enough, even for the most bitter prejudices, but
the men against whom Baron A. Cauchy writes are not satis-
fied. They would destroy the convent altogether, and supply
its place by government officials, — the pliant instruments of
an absorbing centralization. The following extracts give his
views on the duty of the state towards the religious orders,
their objects and social influence ; and especially on those
which he considers most imperiously demanded by the present
necessities of his country.

" Man being born for society, it is, of course, natural that indi-
viduals should unite together, and form what are called associations.
When the object of these associations is good, it is the interest of
all, not to discourage, but to protect them. To suppose that we
can, without a reasonable motive, destroy with impunity these
private associations, — that we can dissolve them without injuring
the general interests of society, — is the same as to suppose that we
could preserve uninjured a piece of ice or crystal, though we, at the
same time, liquified by the dissolving action of caloric, the different
parts of which it is composed.

" An isolated individual soon is made sensible of his weakness.
Associations are necessary for men, to strengthen and incite them
to labour, to inspire mutual encouragement for the prosecution of
useful enterprises, and to insure their success, by the combination
of many exertions for one object. So imperious is the impulse of
human nature to association, that if men are not permitted to asso-
ciate for good objects, they will associate for evil. Proscribe those
useful associations, that pursue with perseverance an object which
they are not afraid to avow, and you will soon see dark associations
extend themselves, scattering the seeds of disorder, and threatening
the ruin of the state. The legislator can no more annihilate that
indestructible force which impels men to association, than the
chemist or the natural philosopher can annihilate those internal
forces that act from atom to atom, in solid or fluid bodies, — forces
salutary or fatal in their effects, according to their good or evil
directions.

" Of all private associations which may be useful to society in
general, those which deserve especial favour and protection, those
which it is most desirable to propagate and extend, are associations
for disinterested sacrifice. When men associate for the cultivation
of the earth, for the formation of canals, for the construction of
rail-roads, or the utilization of recent discoveries, they confer
signal benefits on agriculture, commerce, and industry. But if
they associate for sacrifice, what services will they not do their
country, civilization, and the whole human race ! "

In an age when association seems the presiding spirit in

1844.] Baron Cauchy's Religious Orders. 381

all human pursuits, no ono contests the truth of the preced-
ing remarks. It would be waste of time to transcribe them,
if they did not show how utterly the antagonists of Baron
de Cauchy forget the spirit of their age, the natural rights
of man, of which they boast themselves the champions, and
that charter, which they hold cheaply purchased by the
blood and subsequent anarchy of 1830. They teach us, more-
over, the value of the pretensions of French Liberals to
enlarged and enlightened statesmanship. Patents and autho-
rizations are at hand for whatever gratifies the animal crav-
ings of avarice or luxury. Encouragement, worthy of the
imitation of other governments, is also given to literature
and the fine arts ; but if the Church, to whose prelates the
infidel Gibbon attributes the growth and strength of the
French nation, wishes to extend religious associations, her
applications are rejected, or hampered with restrictions de-
vised by the tyrannical spirit of the republic and the empire,
although these associations seek to remedy social evils which
defy the skill and excite the despair of political economists.
Let philosophers dream as they please on the besoins of so-
ciety, and amuse themselves with sounding abstractions on
the progres humanitaire, they cannot banish poverty, and ig-
norance, and discontent. St. Simonian schemes for levelling
all distinctions of rank, and introducing a community of pro-
perty, will always have advocates ; the facilities of commu-
nication which now aid the accumulation of wealth, will
enable the poverty-stricken masses to know their strength,
and act with concert, and excite convulsions which could
be more easily prevented by the active beneficence of religious
associations, than resisted by bayonets and the combination
of kings.

" Society cannot subsist unless its members impose upon them-
selves continual sacrifices. If society, at this moment, suflfers from
deep and dangerous wounds; if cupidity, egotism, and ambition,
threaten its destruction ; if crimes and disorders are annually in-
creasing, in frightful progression ; does not that frightful increase
arise from the disappearance or decrease of the spirit of sacrifice
amongst us ? The most urgent want of society is to renew that
spirit of sacrifice in all ranks and conditions so that we be all dis-
posed, if possible, not to sacrifice others to ourselves, but to sacrifice
ourselves to others. *****

" The spirit of charity, of disinterestedness, and sacrifice, being the
most urgent want of human society, should be the peculiar charac-
teristic of the true religion. Accordingly, the divine Author of
Christianity has inculcated the great law of self-sacrifice, not oulv

882 Barm Cauchy's Religious Orders. [Dec,

by words, but also by his own example ; having loved men even to
sacrifice his life for them on the tree of the cross, he has ordained
that the cross should be a sign of hope and salvation to regenerated
nations; he has ordered every believer to renounce himself, and
take up his cross, — he has declared that the spirit of sacrifice and
love should be the distinguishing mark of his true disciples.

" This spirit of sacrifice, which heaven alone could inspire, is the
very thing that gave the Christian religion so prodigious an in-
fluence over the destinies of nations — an influence whereby civili-
zation is developed wherever Christianity flourishes, and disappears
where it disappears ; so that Montesquieu could truly say, — ' Sin-
gular fact ! the Christian religion, which appears to have as its sole
object the interests of a future life, is our happiness even in the
present.'

" Evangelical perfection is the spirit of Christian sacrifice, made
without reserve, with the view of pleasing God, and of serving our
brethren. * * * * But can the natural weakness of man give
us any ground to hope that he can ever attain such heroical virtue?
Suppose even that he could attain it, can we hope that he will per-
severe in such sublime perfection ? Does not everything, without
and within him, conspire to overturn an edifice raised at the cost
of so much labour ? Do the most holy conditions of life make men
infallible ? and may it not happen that the priest himself should be
faithless to the noble mission which he has received from heaven ?
Let not those who make these objections, imagine that they tell the
Catholic Church something she did not know before ! She knows
as well and better than you the weakness of human nature. But
she is not satisfied with knowing it, — she endeavours to assist it.
She knows that generous examples have a great influence on the
soul ; that strength and courage spring from a union of minds and
hearts. Directed by the purest light of the Gospel, inspired by
God Himself, she has accordingly fearlessly conceived a design,
which confounds and amazes the mind of man — the design of asso-
ciating men for self-sacrifice, — the design of establishing, not
transient and temporary, but durable and permanent, associations,
whose sole law and sovereign rule is the spirit of sacrifice. To the
terrible disorders that ravage society she determined to apply effi-
cacious remedies, by opening in the midst of us inexhaustible
springs of self-devotion and love. She wished that souls, enervated
by the pleasures of earth, should come and invigorate themselves
in those sacred fountains. In a word, she instituted I'eligious
orders, to give the world a lesson and an example of the most
angelical virtues."

Such was the object of the Church in founding the reli-
gious orders ; and with the history of Europe before him,
who can deny that they fulfilled their mission ? The altars
of Woden and Thor would have risen with the feudal for-

1844.] Baron Cauchifs Religiom Orders. 383

tresses of the savage warriors of the North over the WTeck of
the Roman Empire, were it not for the calumniated monks.
They were the apostles of England and Scotland, and of a
large portion of Germany. For many centuries they alone
kept public schools, and at all times they gave the Church
her most illustrious doctors, bishops, and Popes. Baron de
Cauchy passes lightly over these services ; probably, because
they are but a slight recommendation in philosophic eyes ;
but philosophy ought not to overlook what the monks have
done for mere earthly interests. They proposed to them-
selves to seek in the first place only the kingdom of God and
his justice ; but their whole history is a miraculous fulfil-
ment of the promise of our Redeemer, that everything else
would be added unto them. The wealth, acquired partly by
the liberality of the faithful, but principally by their own
hard toil, was not squandered on their own indulgence, or
hoarded up for their relations. It flowed in an inexhaustible
stream of charity and social beneficence. The superior agri-
culture of England, the vineyards of the Rhine, the corn
trade of Poland, the linen trade of Silesia, owed their origin
or perfection to monkish industry and skill, utilizing the
peculiar capabilities of each country, stimulating lay enter-
prise, winning men to the arts of peace, and ennobling
poverty and labour, when the nobles of Europe, as in the
instance of St. Bernard, toiled side by side with the peasant,
clothed in the same garments, and sleeping in the same
hard cell.

Whoever has travelled through Ireland, and seen on the
one hand her uncultivated bog and mountain, and on the
other the piety of the people, who would gladly embrace the
religious state, cannot but regret, if he be a Catholic, that
Mount Mellerays are not more numerous. A monastery on
some waste spot in each county would do more good than all
the agricultural societies, and cattle shows, and royal pre-
miums put together. While it swelled the national wealth,
by the reclamation of the waste lands, it would difiuse piety
and industry, and submission to the laws. No enlightened
Protestant could be alarmed at a colony of monks on his
estate. Maitland, the librarian of the Archbishop of Can-
terbury, in the Dark Apes, and Hurter, in his Institutions of
the Catholic Church, in the same ages, satisfy any reasonable
man, that the prejudices against the monk are the calumnies
of bigots. But it is not colonies of Cistercians that are
most wanted in France. It is not to fell the forest, or clothe
the moor with deep green pasture or gc^den harvest, or rear

384 Baron Canchy's Religious Orders. [Dec.

cathedral spires and city ramparts in place of the savage
pine and secular oak, or any other work of the old monks of
France, that she now needs them ;* but to reclaim man's
mind, laid waste by infidelity ; to consolidate our shifting
opinions, and restore social order, by re-establishing among
the mass of the people the influence of the Catholic faith.
In Ireland, they are poor in wealth, but rich in faith. In
France, the great revolution equalized wealth ; and as much
will have more, wealth became the idol of the unbelieving
masses. The religious orders are labouring hard in the great
work of regeneration, and none more successfully than the
Brothers of the Christian schools.

" Behold these little children affectionately crowding around a
monk, whose severe dress does not frighten them. What has as-
sembled them in this spacious hall, which can scarcely accommodate
them? The rags that cover them, the rough robe of their humble
and modest teacher, the naked walls, all suggest images of poverty.
Nothing appears to catch the eye, and yet here a most sublime work
is going on. Here the highest wisdom is successfully taught to the
poor labourer's child. Instructed by a good brother, the child is
initiated in the most sublime mysteries, and in the secrets of a phi-
losophy far superior to that of the most celebrated philosophers.
He will have more correct ideas of God, of the end of man, and of
his immortal destiny, than those which were the boast of the philo-
sophers of Greece. The Christian doctrine, after having pointed
out the path they must follow, will inspire them with the courage
necessary to overcome the obstacles that oppose them ; and after
having enlightened his understanding with the purest beams, the
rays of heavenly truth will enkindle in the heart of these children
a love of the purest and most solid virtues. But to accomplish this
wonderful work, of which society is to gather the happy fruits, what
humility, patience, and mildness are required in the Brother of the
Chi'istian Schools. Surrounded by numerous disciples, he will
teach them, not systems flattering to his pride, but salutary truths.
He is not animated in his laborious duty by the love of gloiy — by
the hope of having his name transmitted to posterity. His whole
life is spent in obscure labours, devoted exclusively to the education
of the poor. He is not supported by the hope of making a fortune,
nor even of acquiring one day a decent competence ; for he has made
a vow of poverty. His existence is known to the rich and the
powerful only by that coarse dress which conceals from their eyes a
soul, raised by the spirit of sacrifice to a sublimity of devotion of
which they can have no idea."

Changing the scene of the Christian brother's labours, M
doCauchy conducts him from the school-room to the prison

* See Appendix,

1844.] Baron Cauchfs Religious Orders. 385

In the former he prepared members for society ; in the latter
he reforms its outcasts, or alleviates their misery. The con-
vict, in the opinion of the heartless politician, is a diseased
member, who must expiate his offences by perpetual exile or
temporary detention, under a prison discipline that makes
little or no provision for the reformation of the offender; but
in the eye of the religious, the abode of misery is the attrac-
tion of charity; the darker the dungeon, the stronger the
claims of its inmate to the consolations of a religion of love.

" This spirit of sacrifice, of devotion and love, can. when occasion
requires, work other miracles. The good brother, so skilful in
forming to virtue the simple souls of the children of the poor, is
equally successful in causing it to spring up anew in the degraded
soul of the convict, whom society rejects from its pale. We com-
plain every day, that offences and crimes increase and multiply at
an alarming rate; and the official tables of criminal statistics heighten
our despair, when they show that from 1830 to 1840, the number
of criminal cases has increased from 62,000 to 98,000. We com-
plain of the imperfection and insufficiency of our criminal code;
that the means for the suppression of crime, far from healing the
cancer that devours us, seem to poison it more and more; and in
truth, as one of our most distinguished publicists has remarked,
' our prisons not only do not reform, but they deprave. The fact is
indisputable. They give back to society citizens much more dan-
gerous than those whom they have received.' Alas! every day's
experience but too truly demonstrates that melancholy truth. But
let the most hardened criminals be entrusted to the care of humble
monks; let the care of awakening remorse in their souls, of in-
structing and of bringing them back to virtue be confided, as it is
in the central house at Nimes, to the brothers of the Christian
Schools; and, as it happened in that city, we shall soon see order
established among our prisoners here; we shall see submission and
the love of labour supplant tumult and revolt ; and the wonderful
change produced by the good brothers will demonstrate, that the
spirit of sacrifice can attempt and realize that reformation of our
prisons and criminals which appeared impossible to us."

Another religious order described by Baron Cauchy, needs
no words of ours to describe its origin or celebrate its merits.
Many towns in Ireland, and even in Protestant England, know
the zeal, the heroic self-devotion, of the Sisters of Charity
and of their kindred orders.

" Behold that young lady, whose beauty is, as it were, but the
irradiation of a noble soul. What innocence, what virginal candour,
reveal themselves in her whole exterior. She is tenderly loved by
her father, and, from her childhood has been the pride and joy of

SS$ Baron Cauchy's Beligious Orders. [Dec

her mother. She was born, perhaps, in the bosom of opulence and
in exalted rank. She has it in her power, if she wishes, to unite
her destiny to that of the wealthy representative of some illustrious
line, and already you are congratulating the happy man who can
aspire to possess so rare a treasure. But you are deceived. She
is inspired by an ambition which you can scarcely comprehend.
Her ambition is to retire to the country, and teach the children of
the humble labourer. Her ambition is to protect in our cities the
abandoned orphan; to live in our hospitals, serving the sick and
dressing their wounds. Without fearing either famine, or pesti-
lence, or war, she is at hand wherever misery is to be relieved; and
ever ready to sacrifice her life, she encounters eveiy danger, and
goes, if necessary, to the extremities of the globe, to soothe the
suffering and console the afflicted.

" Such is the Sister of Charity. That spirit of sacrifice, which
inspires her with such heroic devotion for the poor and the afflicted,
admirably answers, you must admit, the most urgent calls of suffer-
ing humanity. So dear is the Sister of Charity, not only to France
but also to other nations; so indispensable does she become to them,
that wherever she appears, in Europe, Asia, or America, she is
welcomed as an angel from heaven. She is so necessary for the
consolation of the afflicted, that the good sisters were respected even
in the most disastrous times. You, who are tempted to reject evan-
gelical perfection, as useless to the happiness of the human raoe,
tell me, I pray you, how can you, except in the school of the gospel
and the cross, succeed in educating a single daughter of Vincent of
Paul, a single sister of charity?"

Whoever has seen a beloved relative struck down by a con-
tagious distemper, and abandoned perhaps to the care of a
nurse whose heart has felt the hardening influence of a public
infirmary, will bless the charity that comes in the person of
the ' Soeurs de Bon Secours,' to the bed-side of the rich, and
with feelings held ever fresh by communion with the God of
love, administers to the wants of the patient, with an affection
and devotion as great as the closest ties of blood could in-
spire. Many an old Voltairian, who would spurn the priest,
has been converted by his nurse. Daily examples are recorded
in the French Catholic journals. Many persons in high rank,
who had never bent the knee since their first communion, die
in peace by the zeal of the Soeur do Bon Secours.

" "We have seen the Sister of Charity devoting herself to the
cause of the poor and the afflicted. We have seen her affectionate
solicitude for the poor in their sickness. But shall the rich, when
they are sick, have no share in her charity? The God of our
Gospel wishes, it is true, that the poor should be objects of predi-
lection with his disciples. In order to inflame the spirit of sacri-

1844.] Baron Cauchys Religious Orders. 387

fice, devotion, and love, in order to animate them to relieve the
unfortunate and console the afflicted, he wished that the poor
should represent Himself. But does pain never seize the rich?
Does it not sometimes surprise them in the midst of intoxicating
pleasures, and but too often aggravate the sufferings of the body,
by the anguish of the soul ? The ' Soeur de Bon Secours ' devotes
herself to the relief of both. Like an angel guardian, she watches
and prays by the bed side of the rich man, whose life is endangered
by a burning fever, and perhaps by bitter remorse seems rapidly
sinking. She raises the courage and excites the hope of the
despairing soul — and the terrible disorder, which threatened to defy
all medical skill, yields to the enlightened care of the good sister,
whose experience and skill are made more efficacious by the un-
tiring zeal of industrious charity. "What services have not the
' Soeurs de Bon Secours ' done to the numbers whom they saved ?
How many husbands owe the lives of their wives to these holy
women ? How many children owe to them the life of a beloved
parent? But if their zeal has such power to heal sickness and
console affliction, it is because it springs from the spirit of sacrifice.
That spirit is the motive of all their actions, the thought of all their
life, the treasure amassed by their united care,"

The influence of these various orders — their charity, speak-
ing more powerfully than any language — is renewing the face
of French society to such a degree as to excite the frenzy of
those philosophers who can tolerate the Catholic Church as
a convenient engine of state, but cannot tolerate the hold
which her beneficence gives her on the hearts of the people.
Neither respect for sex, nor reverence for heroic self-devotion,
deters the philosophic press from publishing, against com-
munities of defenceless ladies, ribald obscenities, which we
are sure an English Protestant jury would punish with the
utmost rigour of the law. Be it remembered that the French
convents enjoy no legal privileges — their houses and lands
are subject to all the burdens of the state. Why, then, do
the advocates of liberty and equality persecute them ? The
principal object, at present, appears to be, to raise popular
prejudices against all religious institutions, in order to secure
the university monopoly, and exclude the Jesuits from all
share in education. We do not intend to dwell on the
university monopoly — that monster grievance of France;
but the following extract is a specimen of the arguments
which Catholics are every day urging, to save their children
from a club of infidels :

" "We have seen the highest wisdom taught to the children of the
poor by the brothers of the Christian schools. But the doctrine of

388 Baron Cauchy's Religious Orders. [Dec.

the Gospel, — that doctrine so full of consolation and hope, — that
doctrine which reveals the most sublime truths — trutlis whose
knowledge is so necessary, that they alone can secure subordination
in society and in families, — shall that doctrine be the exclusive
patrimony of those who are born in indigence and in humble life ?
They arc, it is ti'ue, specially dear to God, who came to preach the
Gospel to the poor, and to protect the weak and miserable. But
is the child of the rich disinherited of his share of the treasures of
grace and life bequeathed by the Saviour of the world ? Has not
the child of the rich the same need of heavenly truth, a mind
capable of knowing, a heart capable of loving it ? Like the child of
the poor, has he not passions to subdue, and passions still more
formidable, because he has greater opportunities of indulging them?
Do not the allurements of pleasure and banqueting, the illusions of
pride and of fortune, expose them to a thousand dangers from
which the poor child is free ? Knowledge itself, if not accompanied
by moral training, will it not reveal to the rich the disoi'dered
licentiousness of the opinions and passions of man, without enabling
him to resist seducing maxims and pernicious examples ? In the
midst of so many obstacles and dangers, what prudence, what skill,
what courageous and persevering zeal, ought the master to have, to
whom a father entrusts the care of educating his children, of pro-
tecting their innocence, of planting and nourishing in their souls
the pi'ecious germs of science and virtue ? Here, indeed, the spirit
of sacrifice is specially necessary. At all hours the master should
watch over his pupils, and instruct them in their duties, more by
his example than his words ; he should counteract their levity by
his patience, their pride by his humility, their effeminacy by the
austerity of his life, their revenge and hatred by his meekness and
his charity. Can we be surprised, then, if the masters who gave
the most solid education, if those who most successfully inspired the
most heroical virtues — disinterestedness, respect for the laws, love
of family and country — have always been those who were them-
selves most profoundly penetrated with the spirit of sacrifice ? if
the masters most esteemed by parents, most celebrated for the edu-
cation of youth, if those whom Leibnitz, Vincent of Paul, Henry
the Fourth, Bossuet, and Fenelon, regarded as the wisest and most
experienced, were modest religious, who bade an eternal adieu
to the riches, the pleasures, and honours of the earth, by the
three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience."

If Baron Cauchy wished by these remarks to claim the
education of the youth of France as the exclusive right
of any religious order, or even to confer any privileges on any
of their colleges, there would be some grounds for charging
him with reviving the partial and class-legislation of the old
regime. But he asks no privilege. Cordially accepting the

1844.] Baron Cauchifs Religious Orders. 389

French charter, he insists on its stipulations, which guarantee
the free exercise of religion, and ought not therefore to
compel a Catholic to have his child educated by M. Cousin,
who denied the Incarnation, and, if not the existence, at
least those attributes of God, upon a belief of which all
morality depends. He demands liberty of education, as due,
not only to the Church, but to science itself; for the palmiest
days of Grecian sophistry never saw such monstrous systems
of morals and metaphysics as now gambol through the howl-
ing abyss of the French university. Yet, there is a society
in France, which, if it could not suppress this intellectual
anarchy, could at least make it comparatively harmless.

" I suppose you are the friend of science, and love to find, in
those who cultivate it, that candour and modesty which are the
brightest ornaments of talent. You love literature, sound philo-
sophy, and the progress of knowledge. You love amicable discus-
sion, clear and precise dissertations. You wish that science should
be presented to you without pomp or ostentation, — with benevolence,
mildness, and charity, so that the savant or literaiy character
should be one whom you would wish to make your friend. Well
then, there exists a society to which we owe classical works, in
literature, morals, and philosophy, — learned treatises on the origin,
languages, manners, and institutions of various nations ; useful and
important discoveries in the arts and sciences ; in medicine the
most precious specific quinine ; in physics the invention of the
air balloons ; and the first experiments that led to a knowledge of
that singular phenomenon, the refraction of light ; a society which
had a great share in the reform of the Calendar : which gave to
mathematics, physics, and astronomy, Scbeiner, Clavius, Gaubil,
Guldin, Kircher, Grimaldi, Lana, Boscovich ; to the art of fortifi'
cation and naval tactics, Breuil and L. Hoste ; to history, Petavius,
Sirmond, Daniel, Duhalde, Charlevoix, Premare, Eckhel ; to Chris-
tian philosophy, Buffier, Bellarmine, Lugo, Suarez, Vasquez," &c.

The society which formed all these illustrious men is, at
this moment, ready to take as high a part in education as ever.
The French Jesuits have amongst them men, who, for oratory,
science, or historical research, are not inferior to the
greatest lights of the order. The philosophers themselves
cannot deny it. But the learning of the Jesuits is their
crime, not their shield. Had they not kept pace with the
progress of science, they would be feeble competitors of
university monopoly ; but when the Institute of France
passes a merited encomium on their splendid contribution to
archaeological science, their treatises on the differential cal-
culus, their astronomical observations, and even gives the

390 Baron Cauchy^s Religious Orders. [Dec.

gold medal to the monographs of Pere Martin and Cahier, it
would not bo safe for the university, though it would be a
blessing to science, to allow such men to take a part in
public instruction. Baron Cauchy thus sums up his proofs,
and demands —

" "We have proved that the first duty of our times is not to oppose
but to promote the exercise of evangelical perfection, and we have
seen that facts themselves incontestably demonstrate our position.
We have seen the immense services done by the Sisters of Charity,
the ' Soeurs de Bon Secours,' the Brothers of the Christian Schools,
and finally, by the disciples of Ignatius Loyola. ♦ * * "We could
mention many other orders whose labours, inspired and directed by
the same spirit of sacrifice, have been eminently useful. We could
urge the services rendered to agriculture by the order of St. Bernard;
to prisoners and the deranged, by the Brothers of St. John of God; to
the missions by the Franciscans, Lazarists, and Dominicans; to the
education of young ladies by the religious of the Sacre Coeur.
We have said enough to convince all who sincerely seek the truth,
that the religious orders give to society, not ignorance, darkness,
and barbarism, but science, light, and civilization. Our proposition
is so evident that, wherever true liberty reigns, the people affec-
tionately cherish the religious orders. In order to make them pro-
duce the fruits of benediction and life in the soil where they are
planted, it is by no means necessary that men should give their op-
pressive and often fatal protection to the work of the Almighty; it
is merely required that tyrannical laws should not punish with pro-
scription or exile those who have the confidence to presume that
they please God, when, at the expense of the greatest sacrifices,
they devote themselves, without reserve, to the service of suffering
humanity, the consolation of every affliction, and the education of
youth."

Let those whose Protestant reading may, perhaps, have
associated the religious order with wealth and privileges
heaped on useless members of society, mark the words in
italics. The religious orders seek no privileges. They seek
no connection with the state. They claim nothing more than
was enjoyed by their brethren in the British empire. The
Jesuit, the Lazarite, the Benedictine, demand now in the
name of religious liberty, that protection which the charter
gives every citizen in the exercise of his religion. The phi-
losopher, not the monk, retrogrades. The latter adapts his
institution to the times; the former calls for its suppression,
and urges as his precedent, the absolute monarchy of Louis
XV. The contest of liberty and religion against infidelity
and tyranny will be hard fought, but when men like Baron
Cauchy speak out, we have no fear of the result.

1844.] Baron Cauchy's BeligioTis Orders. 391

"I know that in some minds the prejudices which I combat begin
to disappear. Great truths have been announced by men gifted
with splendid talents and noble souls; and France never resists
the united force of eloquence and virtue. France loves frank and
open declarations, and is sure to listen to him who speaks to her
with candour. There is every reason to hope that prejudice must
one day disappear before truth ; still, that happy day has not yet
come — and even though it were, as I confidently hope, rapidly ap-
proaching, I do not wish to wait until France, being weary of pro-
scribing and persecuting virtue, eloquence, and genius, there
would be no merit in boldly proclaiming the truth. — I address,
then to the lovers of science, to men of sense and candour, and
especially to youth, these few reflexions which I am sure will not
be displeasing. I remember, with delight, that during many long
years I have seen them assembled around my chair, in the Poly-
technic School, in the Faculty of Sciences, and in the College of
France. I remember, with pleasure, that the course of studies
which I was allowed to direct during that time was attended not
only by eminent men from all quarters of Europe, and by most of
the geometricans who have been since received into the academy,
but also by humble religious, who are now eminent masters. Not
to defend the latter, when attacked, would be to betray the duties
of a father, who, when danger threatened, neglected to give aid to
his sons, whose talents and virtue should be to him a subject of
honourable pride."

It is much to be regretted that the Baron has not taken a
more comprehensive view of his subject. He has confined
himself almost exclusively to the orders that exist in France.
Had he followed in the track of Hurter, and sketched the
origin, the objects, and services of the different orders, his
Considerations would be much more useful, especially at
a time when historical studies are so much prized in France.
But we perceive that others have already applied to past
ages the principle by which he tests the social usefulness of
religious orders in the present. His work is useful rather as
illustrating the contests of the Church in France, than
as adding anything to what even the Protestant literature of
England confesses were the merits of the religious orders.
His Considerations^ we hope, will have their effect with the
friends of science, to whom they are addressed, and protect
from the attacks of infidelity, asylums where religion and
knowledge are more usefully combined than the poet pictures.

Knowledge, methinks, in these disordered times,
Should be allowed a privilege to have
Her anchorites like piety of old ;

392 Canon Schmidts Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

Men, who from faction sacred, and unstained
By war, might, if so minded, turn aside,
Uncensured and subsist, — a scattered few
Living to God and nature, and content
With that communion. Consecrated be
The spots where such abide.

Art. V. — Gesammelte ScJiriften des Verfassers der Ostereier
Christoph von Schniid. (The collected works of Christopher
von Schmid, author of the Easter Eggs.) 15 vols. 12mo.
Augsburg: 1842-3.

ii'T DO not wish my people," said King Lewis of Bavaria,
X in opening his new University at Munich, "to be
learned at the expense of religion, nor religious at the expense
of learning." It was a noble sentiment, well worthy of a
Christian king. This judicious combination of religious and
secular knowledge is the ideal of a solid Christian literature.
Perhaps it is idle to discuss such an ideal in a country pos-
sessing a literature like ours ; but at all events it is useful to
tend towards it, as an ideal, in order that, if we cannot hope
to realize it fully, we may at least seize every opportunity
which gives promise of improvement.

We have long contemplated a notice of the charming little
series of moral tales which stands at the head of these pages;
and indeed it speaks badly for the condition of English
Catholic literature, that the works of Canon von Schmid
should need any introduction at our hands. The good old
canon has long been a familiar and honoured friend at every
fireside in Catholic Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy;
and it is no credit to the taste and enterprise of our pub-
lishers that his works are not equally familiar among our-
selves. The copy before us is a last edition, revised by the
venerable author himself, after nearly half a century of
uninterrupted popularity all over the continent ; and yet we
doubt whether the author's name is known to one in ten
even of the educated portion of our community. His history,
it is true, has but little of romance, to give it interest ; and his
popularity is of that quiet kind which is not likely to attract
the attention of the learned ; but his history should endear
him to every true friend of religion, and his popularity has

1844.] Caiwn SchinidsJurenile Tahs. .393

the best mark of genuineness ; — it is greatest among those for
whom his writings were intended. He is the idol of the young
generation, not alone of Germany, but of the entire continent.

The history of his tales is rather remarkable. They were
commenced without any idea of publication. The author,
soon after receiving holy orders, was appointed to the admin-
istration of a parish, to which the care of a public school was
attached, and afterwards became director of a numerous
seminary. Partly with the view of beguiling the tedium of
instruction, partly of conveying it in the most attractive and
interesting form, he drew up a series of simple stories, illus-
trative of the moral and religious lessons he meant to impart,
which he made it a practice to dictate for the pupils after
school hours, on days upon which they had displayed more
than ordinary diligence. The lesson was thus at once an
incentive and a reward of industry. The tales were eagerly
looked for, and enthusiastically received. Their moral influ-
ence far exceeded the most sanguine hopes of the unpretend-
ing author ; and the effect which he found them produce on
his own immediate circle of pupils, induced him to consent
that they should be printed for general circulation. Every
year has added to their populai-ity. Edition has followed
edition throughout every state in Germany ; and in foreign
counti'ies, especially in France, not only have all the tales
been translated, but two, and sometimes even three, rival
translations of the same tale have made their appearance.

The circumstances under which they were composed were
certainly very favoural)le. The author did not write at ran-
dom, as is too often the case, and without any definite object
beyond the amusement of the hour. In habitual contact
with those for whom he wrote, perfectly familiar with the
words and thoughts best suited to their comprehension, and
possessing abundant opportunities of discovering the avenues
by which their hearts were best approached, he was able to
accommodate himself to them, and, in them, to the whole
youthful generation. He sav/ at a glance what incident
would affect the young heart ; what idea would lay hold on
the young imagination ; what form of argument or illustration
was adapted to the young understanding. He had, in the
little circle for which ho read his simple tale, the best and
most instructive of all criticism — the criticism of experience.
He saw without an effort what it was that brought the tear
to the eye, and the flush to the cheeks of his little hearers.
He saw, too, what was heard without emotion, and passed

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 26

3.94 Canon Schnid's Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

away without leaving an echo in their hearts. Many a
laboured and high-wrought description was reluctantly re-
trenched, in deference to this practical criticism ; many a
simple and unstudied narrative became yet more simple, when
its effectiveness was established by the best test of success —
the unequivocal and undisguised emotion with which it was
received. And it can hardly be matter of surprise, that books
written and corrected under such circumstances, though in-
tended for a small circle in an obscure village of Bavaria, and
filled with provincial idioms and local allusions, should have
met with universal favour through the length and breadth of
Germany ; because they aimed at the universal human heart,
and addressed it in language which all alike must understand
— the language of the affections, the source of simplicity and
truth.

The material of the tales is just as simple as their manner.
Some of thorn are purely imaginative ; others are derived from
the personal experience of the author ; others are founded
on events in more remote history, — in the early ages of
Christianity, or the Crusades, or the struggle of the Moors
in Spain, or the long and sanguinary thirty-years' war of
Germany. Some of them have an elaborate and complicated
plot, others are but a slender thread, whereon to hang the
moral lesson which they are intended to convey. Some are
told in the form of letters, others of the direct narrative.
Some are for mere children, others for a more advanced
generation. But whatever the primary object, there is no
one who may not read them with pleasure. They resemble
Miss Edgeworth's admirable juvenile tales in this respect ;
that, while they are not too elevated for the tenderest and
most infantile capacity, the most learned may not scorn to
derive wisdom from their perusal. In some of them there is
a considerable variety of characters ; in others the action is
confined to one or two individuals. But whether the canvass
be large or small, the sketch is always worthy of a master-
hand ; and whatever variety of characters it discovers, the
prominent and striking figures of the piece never fail to tell
a tale which all may learn with profit, — of virtue, and its re-
ward, or of crime, and the judgment it invariably brings in
its train.

It will be seen, however, from what we have said of their
history, that these tales were mainly intended for juvenile
readers ; indeed, some of them are professedly addressed to
very young children. We confess, this is the very last de-

1844.] Canon Schmidts Juvenile Tales. 395

partment in which we should have expected to find a German
author attain any considerable success. There seems to be
something so vague and dreamy, — so absorbed in speculation,
and so forgetful of practice, in the very constitution of the
German mind, that we could hardly hope to see it lower itself
to the humble sphere in which alone the youthful reader is at
home. And indeed, overlooked and disregarded as is this
department of literature, it is one which requires a rare com-
bination of qualities, — genius of no ordinary character, coupled
with great tact of delivery. It is only the author who pos-
sesses both these gifts, that will ever be able to hit off suc-
cessfully the things which are suited to the youthful mind ;
and, what is still more difficult, to place them before it, in a
light sufficiently clear and strong to engage and interest its
attention, without at the same time releasing it from the ne-
cessity of so much exertion on its own part, as is indispensable
for the due development of its powers. It is not enough to
teach, nor even to teach in a pleasing and interesting strain.
The young student must be stimulated to enquire; and a
taste must be created in his mind for self-instruction. There
is a large class of modern juvenile books which we can hardly
open with common patience ; some of them in the shape of
tales, others of catechisms, grammars, or compendious expo-
sitions of the difterent branches of juvenile education. They
seem to proceed on the principle, that the pupil's mind is an
intellectual vacuum ; and the only test of utility they appear
to regard, is the actual amount of positive knowledge which
it is possible to pump into it in a given time, and with a
given literary apparatus. They forget that the great object
of juvenile education, is far more the development of the
mind, and its preparation to avail itself, at a maturer stage,
of the advantages which will be placed at its disposal, than
the acquisition of any given amount of actual knowledge by
an injudicious and jejune method. It is a vastly greater
service to place in a man's hands the means of benefiting
himself, than to confer upon him, without his own coopera-
tion, actual favours to a far greater amount. And the most
useful part of the process of acquiring knowledge, is that in
which the mind, left unaided by the teacher, is yet stimulated
and encouraged to develope itself, by pursuing the enquiry
through the steps which it has been left to explore under its
own direction.

Canon Schmid has in a great measure avoided this dan-
gerous defect. He makes no attempt to teach natural phi-

26 2

596 Canon SchmiVs Jiivenlk Tales. [Dec.

losophy in his stories, nor does ho even turn them to account
(though this would be much less objectionable) for the pur-
pose of conveying historical knowledge. The main end
which he proposes is evidently to render reading agreeable
to the young, and to combine, with the interest of the tale by
which he seeks to effect this most desirable object, some use-
ful moral or religious lesson, which will be sure to be remem-
bered long after the medium through which it came has been
effaced from the memory. If there be any defect in his tales,
it is that he occasionally dwells too long upon his moral, and
brings it too prominently forward ; assuming too directly the
office of professed instructor, instead of allowing his little
pupils to draw in their own minds the conclusion which forms
the moral of his tale.

Our account of the particular tales must necessarily be
very brief and imperfect. They are above fifty in number,
and occupy fifteen 12mo. volumes, averaging considerably
above two hundred pages each. As they came from the
author's hands, they were entirely without arrangement, each
being written as the occasion arose. But the French trans-
lators, who never fail to exercise their own judgment in some
shape or other on the book they undertake to translate, have
divided them into series, according to the ages for which they
appear to be best adapted. However, the venerable author has
followed a different arrangement in the collected edition wliich
he has published in his old age. His arrangement is based upon
the different relations of the tales to the great end which all
are intended to forward — the moral and religious training of
the young reader. He begins, therefore, as he himself
explains in a charming pi'efacc, with those tales which illus-
trate the knowledge and love of Grod and His unspeakable
mercies to man, and which place before our eyes the blessed
hopes beyond the grave for which we have been created.
Thence he proceeds to the relations which subsist between
God and us, illustrating, by the examples on which his tales
are founded, the great general duties of faith, hope, and love.
Then come examples of particular virtues — parents who
brought up their children in piety and Christian virtue; chil-
dren who were the staff and the joy of their parents' old age;
brothers and sisters who left all for each other's sake ; friends
who sacrificed everything for their friends; husbands and
wives who loved each other truly, though good and ill, with
a Christian love ; servants who faithfully served their masters
under every temptation and every difficulty ; masters who

1844.] Canon Schm id's Jurenile Tales. 397

made the happiness of their servants the study of their lives.
And, of course, the effect is heightened by the introduction
of warning examples of men who have departed from God,
fallen away into sin, and drawn upon themselves the extreme,
even of earthly misery. With all these are interspersed illus-
trations of the advantages derivable from the pious practices
which the Christian religion prescribes; — whether the general
practices — as prayer, meditation, &c., to which all Christians
consider themselves obliged ; or those specific devotions —
as the use of the sacraments, the veneration of the saints, the
consoling use of holy images — which are peculiar to the Ca-
tholic religion. In a word, the sei-ies is arranged as a sort
of practical commentary upon the entire Christian code — a
commentary the most useful and impressive which it is possi-
ble to devise, because it is, for the young reader, the represen-
tative of the actual experience by which he will afterwards
learn to apply to himself the great obligations of the Christian
religion.

It must not be supposed, however, that the tales are all
directly and professedly religious in their character. The
very titles will show that in a vast majority of cases it is
otherwise ; and indeed it is impossible not to be struck by
the ingenuity and skill, with which the moral is not only
engrafted upon the tale, but is made to form the very hinge
upon which all its interest turns ; — precisely that interest
which is sure to fix the youthful attention. Let us take one
of the stories as an example.

We select at random a little tale, entitled T/ie Best Inhe-
ritance L" Das beste Erbtheil"]. The scene is laid in one of
the free cities of Germany, towards the end of the eighteenth
centur}% about fifty years after the close of the thirty years""
war. It is extremely simple ; the characters are neither nu-
merous nor elaborately described, being merely a merchant,
Herr VoUmar, his wife and two children, together with a blind
old man and his grandson, on whom the chief action of the
plot is made to rest. Herr Vollmar had been one of the
richest and most extensive merchants in the city, but by one of
the ordinary vicissitudes of trade has been brought to the very
verge of bankruptcy. The failure of an eminent house with
which he had had extensive commercial transactions, carries
away, at a single stroke, a large part of his property. Se-
veral minor failures, consequent upon the first, increase his
embarrassments ; and at length the wreck of a ship with a
costly cargo, precipitates the ruin which had before seemed

398 Canon (^chnid's Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

all but inevitable. Ilis business engagements, which this
cargo was intended to meet, are heavy and pressing ; and
though his property, if at once available, is fully adequate to
the discharge of all obligations, yet he is unable to command
the resources necessary to meet engagements actually press-
ing upon him. In vain he applies to old friends whom he
had often similarly obliged. One politely regrets that he is
himself in similar straits. Another openly and unfeelingly
declares his doubts of Vollmar''8 ability to repay the ad-
vances : and, to complete his distress, the banker who holds
his largest bills refuses to forego his claim even for a single day.

In the gloomy and desponding state consequent on the
failure of all his efforts, poor Vollmar goes, almost broken-
spirited, to his garden in one of the suburbs of the city, and
while he sits there, gloomily pondering on the ruin which is
before himself and his little family, he overhears a conversa-
tion which passes outside the garden between a blind man of
aged and venerable appearance, and a little boy, who turns
out to be the old man's grandchild. Their dress and look
bespoke extreme, but yet decent, poverty ; and their soiled
and travel-worn appearance gave evidence of their having
made a long and fatiguing journey. From their conversa-
tion it appears that they have come from a remote village,
the old man having been induced, by the fame of a celebrated
oculist of this city, to undertake the long and distressing
journey in the hope of recovering his sight, which had been
destroyed by cataract. But, now that he is at the very gate,
his courage begins to fail him. He feels, for the first time,
in their full strength, the difficulties which he has to en-
counter— an utter stranger in this vast city, his money almost
exhausted by the journey, and unable any longer to support
himself by the labour of his hands. But the little boy does
his best to encourage him. We must translate the simple
little dialogue :

" ' Don't be afraid, dearest grandfather,' said the boy. ' Even if
our money should run out, I will pray and beg hard of the rich
people of the city to take pity on you. They will not be so hard-
liearted as to let you die in hunger and distress. And then, never
forget the proverb, ' The old God is still alive!' You always tell
me so yourself. He will take care of us, and put us in the way of
some charitable folk or other.'

" ' I trust so,' said his grandfather; 'but still I am cast down, and
cannot shake off my anxiety.'

*' ' See, dearest grandfather,' said the boy, * I have led you thus
far by the hand. Do you think I could now run away from you,

1844.] Canon Schmid's Javeniie Tales. 399

and leave you here alone? Do not think more lowly of our dear
God than you would of a simple boy. That would be a great sin.'

*" You are right, dear Aloysius,' said the old man; ' God, who
has led us hither, will not forsake us. He will still watch over the
poor blind man.' "

Herr Vollmar, who had distinctly heard this conversation,
was deeply moved :

" ' My God!' said he — 'to be blind — not to be able to see the
beautiful blue sky, the green trees, the flowers, the sun, the faces of
men, — this is hard! This affliction is far greater than the loss which
is before me. I still have both my eyes, sound and whole; and
though I were to lose the whole of my fortune, what would it be
compared with the loss of ray eyes? How well those poor people,
this good old man and this sweet boy, know how to console them-
selves in their misery by confidence in God! It would not be right
for me to be less trustful in him.' "

While he is in this meditative mood, he is joined by his
wife and children, to whom he tells the story of the strangers.
The mother's heart is moved with pity for the poor child and
his aged grandfather :

" ' Dearest Frederick,' said she to her husband, * what would you
think, if we were to take this old man and the dear little boy into
our house?'

"'What?' said Vollmar, 'is it now? in our present circum-
stances? The whole city would cry out against us. We are our-
selves, perhaps, in danger of being soon as poor as these poor
people !'

" 'Ah!' said his wife, ' you are too desponding. I still have hopes.
And though we were to lose the greater part of our property, we
should even still, please God, have enough to be able to give a meal
to a blind old man and a poor child. What these poor people would
cost us will make no great change in our present circumstances.
AVe can give them a room in our large house without its costing us
a penny, and their support will make no notable difference in our
house, where, at times, above twenty dine every day. Let us take
them in. Christ our Lord says: * Be ye merciful, and ye shall find
mercy !'

" ' Well,' said Vollmar, ' though you be of the weaker sex, you
have more courage than L Be it so ; we will give them food and
lodging, and call in the oculist, who, by-the-bye, is our family phy-
sician, to the old man.'

" The old man here stood up; the boy took him by the hand, and
led him on. They went very slowly. The lady went to her chil-
dren and said ; ' Come with me, Max!' Both the children followed
her to the garden gate, ' See!' said she, ' there on the footpath, is
walking a blind old man, with a little boy leading him. Tell them
to come to us here in the garden; that we wish to speak with them.'

400 Canon Schinid's Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

" The children ran as fast as they could, and gave the message.

" When the old man and the boy, accompanied by the children,
came near the gate, Herr YoUmar and his generous wife wei'e
standing there to meet them. They manifested the liveliest sym-
pathy with the old man in his blindness ; praised the boy who had
taken so much care of him, and offered to provide for them both in
their house till the cure of his eyes should be quite complete. The
old man felt as though he had fallen from the heavens. ' Good
God ! ' said he, clasping his hands, ' trust in Thee is never in

vam

" ' Now you see, dear grandfather,' said the boy, ' that God never
forsakes His own!'" — vol. xii. pp. 100-5.

Among the disclosures contained in the report of the Irish
poor-law inquiry, there was none which excited more astonish-
ment than the extent to which, among our poor countrymen,
the duty of supporting the poor devolved upon the poorest
and most distressed of the agricultural population. Even
still this generous reliance on Providence, which the good
old canon so beautifully expresses in the passage here cited,
is daily manifested by our peasantry under the pressure of
poverty, which, in other countries, would be considered abso-
lute famine. Yet the charity thus bestowed, is bestowed
without a grudge, in the true Christian confidence that it
will not pass without its reward.

This then, it will be seen, is the moral of the canon's tale.
Upon this act of disinterested benevolence, the whole plot is
made to turn, and by a beautiful retribution, it is made the
means of delivering the good merchant and his family from
the ruin w-hich hung over them.

The blind man and his grandchild are brought home and
treated with the utmost tenderness; and as soon as he is
sufficiently restored after the fatigue of the journey, the
])hysician proceeds to perform the operation for cataract.
It is entirely successful. After a few days of total darkness^
the patient is removed to a small cabinet, which, as being
dimly lighted, and painted green, is intended gradually to
prepare his eyes to bear the full glare of daylight. The
only ornament of this quiet little apartment, is a beautiful
Ecce Homo, an old and very valuable picture, which had
been, for generations, a cherished heir-loom in the merchant's
family, and for which an English visitor had, a short time
before, vainly offered a large sum of money. The moment
the old man sees this very striking piece, he recognizes it, at
a glance, as a picture which he had once seen before on a
very memorable occasion, when he had served as a mason's

1844.] Canon Schmid's Juvenile Tales. 401

journeyman, in this very city, full fifty years before. This
fortunate recognition leads to the recovery of the good mer-
chant's fortunes,

A^ollmar"'s grandfather had been one of the first merchants
in the city in which his grandson still resided, but which, in
the unsettled state of Germany during the thirty years' war,
had suffered more, from both the contending parties, than
perhaps any other city of the empire. On occasion of sudden
alarm, created by the menaced advance of one of the armies,
he, with many others of his fellow citizens, had been com-
pelled to fly ; and, as the only means of securing his treasures
in those unsettled times, he resolved to deposit them in a
vault many feet under ground, and far below the reach of
pillage and even of conflagration. With this view he de-
spatched a trusty messenger to the builder whom he had
been in the habit of employing, to request his assistance in a
matter of great importance; but the builder, unable to come
himself, was obliged to send a youthful assistant, with an
assurance, however, that the fullest reliance might be placed
upon his honesty and trustworthiness. That assistant was
the blind man, whom the old merchant's grandson had now
so charitably taken into his house; and the secret of the
hidden treasure, which, by a series of unlucky chances, had
perished with the grandsire, was thus happily recovered for
his descendant, in the hour of his utmost need !

The old man retained a perfect recollection of the spot,
and the treasure — an immense sum of gold and silver, be-
sides a large quantity of jewels and family plate — is found
untouched and whole. The cases in which it was contained
held also a will, drawn up by the old merchant, which is a
perfect sample of the wise and pious feelings of the good old
times- The property is all recovered without the slightest
trouble, and is amply sufficient, not only to enable the mer-
chant to discharge all his obligations, and regain the position
from which he was in danger of falling, but also to make a
munificent provision for the good old man and his grand-
child, who had been, under Providence, the instruments of
this happy discovery.

There is a little moi*al in the winding up of the tale,
which we transcribe as a sample of the author's manner.

Vollmai', his wife, and children, are seated at table (in the
same garden where they had first met) with the old man and
his grandchild, on the eve of their departure to their native
place. The conversation, of course, turns upon the merciful

402 Canon SchmiiTs Juvenile Tales. [Dec

interference of Providence, by which tho family had been
rescued from ruin.

" ' It was a lucky chance for me,' said the old man, * or rather a
merciful arrangement of God, that Herr Vollmar saw me sitting
yonder, and heard my conversation Avith my grai dson.'

" ' Yes, worthiest of men,' he continued, * I cannot repeat it often
enough. It was God who moved your heart to take pity, though
yourself in the greatest embarrassment, on my distress, and receive
me so kindly into your house. Ah, as I then sat upon that spot, blind
and enveloped in darkness, within my soul still deeper darkness dwelt.
How my heart trembled for my prospects, old and strange as I was in
the great populous city. How happy am I now, that I have got back
both my eyes, just as good as new! Blind and poor came I hither :
I return seeing and laden with gifts! What joy shall I bring to
my home, where my son, his wife and children, will be raised up
from care and relieved from distress. Oh, I am unworthy of all
the mercy my God has shown me!'

*' ' To us too,' said Madame Vollmar, ' He has been equally gra-
cious and merciful. We were in imminent danger, not only of
losing our house and our garden outside of the city, but of being
reduced to a very poor condition, and exposed besides to a good
deal of neglect and scorn. God has used you, dear old father, as
an angel, to show us where assistance lay ready prepared for us.
Ah, even at the very time when our grandfather, by your hands,
placed this treasure in that secret vault, our good God had ordained
to show a great mercy to us and to you ! He foresaw this very hour,
in which we rejoice here in common, and praise his goodness. He
gave his blessing to the great treasure which our grandfather laid
up for us!'

" ' Yes, yes,' said Max; * the rich treasure, which our grandfather
left for us, is a princely inheritance.'

" ' Dear Max,' said his father, * I know a still better inheritance,
which has come down to us from our ancestors.'

" ' A greater treasure than all the gold and silver!' said Max, in
amazement.

"'And than the beautiful sparkling jewels,' said Fanny, 'which
are worth more than a heap of gold and silver!'

" ' All the gold and silver, and all the jewels in the world, are
nothing compared with the treasure that I mean,' said their father.

" * And do you really know where this treasure is hidden?' said
Max.

" ' It is no hidden treasure' replied his father. * Every one that
is not entirely devoid of feeling can find it.'

"*0h! I know now what my father means,' said Max. 'It is
the beautiful Ecce Homo. My mother often said there was a special
blessing on it. And had my father sold it the time the Englishman
offered so much money for it, we should never have found the trea-
sure which was hidden in our house.*

1844.] Canon SchmuVs Juvenile Tales. 403

" * Neither is it the beautiful picture that I mean,' returned his
father, * though it is of great value, both on account of the painter's
skill, and, still more, of Ilim whom it represents. The best in-
heritance, which your ancestors inherited from their own and
transmitted to us, and which I hope will be your inheritance too, is
— Fear of God, piety, virtue, and integrity. It was of this
that the Lord Christ himself said, when Mary the sister of Martha
sat at his feet, solely intent on hearing and keeping his word, ' One
thing is necessary. Maiy hath chosen the better part, which shall
not be taken away from her.' " — pp. 141-4.

We cannot help thinking this is extremely beautiful ; and,
what is still more important, admirably calculated to produce
a lasting impression on the youthful mind. An ordinary
writer might have been content with exciting the interest of
the reader for the M'orthy merchant, struggling with unde-
served embarrassments, and then inventing some pretty inci-
dent by which he should be rescued from his difficulties. But
the good old canon knew the young mind better, and made
his own charity and benevolence the direct, though unforeseen,
instrument of his deliverance.

The same idea is to be found, in a variety of shapes, in
several other tales. We may instance one very pretty and
instructive story, " The Wooden Cross" (Das Holzerne
Kreuz). Sophia, the heroine of this delightful tale, was a
poor orphan girl, the child of humble but virtuous parents,
whom she lost at a very early age. She was adopted, under
circumstances of great interest, by a charitable and pious
lady, who, as long as she lived, ti'eated her with all the ten-
derness and affection of a second mother — an affection amply
returned by the grateful and gentle girl. At length her bene-
factress dies, bequeathing to Sophia a small competence,
suited to her rank of life, and fully adequate to all her humble
wishes. The old lady's will further entitles her to select from
among the family jewels whatever set she may think proper,
as a memorial of her departed friend. Sophia is, of course,
advised to choose the most costly, but her own grateful heart
directs her choice, in preference, to a simple wooden cross,
valueless in itself, but endeared to the gentle girl because it
had been held in the dying hand, and pressed to the expiring
lips, of her pious protectress.

The choice is, of course, derided by her vain and worldly-
minded companions ; but Sophia is consoled by a conscious-
ness of having loved truly and gratefully. And her disinter-
estedness is not left without its reward.

Years pass on, and Sophia is not without her share of those

404 Canon 8chmid''8 Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

troubles which seem inseparable from our common lot; but,
through them all, she finds her best support and consolation
at the foot of that little cross, which is the only memorial of
her kind friend. At length reduced, by a series of misfor-
tunes, to the last extremity of distress, and on the point of
being stript of the last little remnant of her property, she
turns in her affliction to her habitual consoler. The scene is
extremely affecting, and written with great power. At the
close of her prayer, while she still holds the precious cross
in her hands, a spring opens, a bright sparkling stone is seen
within, and the plain and valueless wooden cross is found to
bo but the outer case of a diamond cross of such value as to
raise her above all her difficulties, and to secure her a happy
competence for the remainder of her life.

In another of the stories {Ludtvip, der Heine Auswanderer),
a poor peasant and his wife, struggling with the most pinch-
ing poverty, and burthened with a large and helpless family
for whom their efforts are barely sufficient to provide, have
courage and charity enough to take upon themselves, without
hope of reward or even of indemnity, the care and mainten-
ance of a young boy, who has been lost by his parents during
the war, and left entirely friendless and unaided. This act
of charity proves to be their own salvation in the hour of dis-
tress. At the very moment when they are upon the point of
being ejected from their little tenement for non-payment of
rent, a sum of money is found in the boy's clothes, which re-
lieves them from all embarrassment; and this extraordinary
circumstance itself leads to the discovery of the parents, and
the restoration of the long-lost child. What happier mode
could be devised of conveying the little moral of charity and
compassion for the distressed I And how would it be possible
to fix it more firmly in the mind of the youthful reader ?

There are others of the stories in which the same moral is
coupled with a little more of romance. Thus in " The Water-
pitcher" {D(fs Wasser-krug), a staid, matter-of-fact old mer-
chant, who had spent his life among his account-books — and
who, though his dealings have all been marked by the strictest
honour and integrity, and his private charities have been
most profuse, yet never had got credit with the public for a
single grain of disinterestedness, not to say generosity, in his
composition — is made the chief actor in a tale, romantic
enough for the most fastidious critic. He accidentally meets
in the evening, and in an obscure part of the city, a young
girl, whose appearance is far beyond the menieJ office in which

1844.] Canon Schmtd's Juvenile Talcs. 405

he finds her engaged, of carrying water on her head in a rude
pitcher of the commonest earthenware. He is tempted to
make inquiries, and finds, with some difficulty, that she is the
daughter of a respectable but poverty-stricken widow, and
that the water is intended for a poor bed-ridden servant of her
family, who, in better days, had been her nurse, but is now
reduced to the very lowest extremity of distress. Discovering,
by further investigation, that this is but a single trait of a most
charming and amiable character, he makes himself fully ac-
quainted with all the circumstances; and when his son — a
youth of the highest promise, and whose alliance would be
eagerly courted by the proudest of the land — returns from his
travels, manages, by a little of that diplomacy which fathers
and mothers understand, to throw him into the way of this
interesting girl. An intimacy ensues — the father wisely ab-
stains from interfering — it ripens into esteem and affection ;
and in the end, to the astonishment of the entire city, this
seemingly cold and calculating father, who during life had
had no other apparent wish than to accumulate money, be-
stows his blessing upon their union, in which the virtue and
beauty of the bride were her only fortune.

So also in " The Rose-tree" {Das Rosen-stock\ honest gra-
titude meets a similar reward. A rich merchant is plunged
into the greatest affliction by the sudden intelligence of the
wreck of a ship in which his son, the object of all his hopes
and affections, was returning from England. Grief for this
loss, added to the pressure of other afflictions, brings the old
man in sorrow to the grave. He dies, while in the act of dic-
tating a will in favour of an old and trusted clerk, to whose
zeal, industry, and integrity, he has owed most of his success.
The will, however, is incomplete, and the inheritance passes
to the next of kin, to be distributed in the proportions fixed
by the law. As too frequently happens in such cases, the
sudden accession of unexpected wealth is a source of endless
contentions among the relations. Each intent solely on appro-
priating as large an amount of the spoil as possible, they all
forget the memory of him to whom they owe it. The old
clerk is not only excluded from the provision which his master
had contemplated, but rudely dismissed from the service which
he had long and faithfully occupied ; and, what is still more
disgraceful, the grave of their deceased benefactor is left with-
out even a stone to mark where he is laid. The poor clerk
feels bitterly not only his own treatment, but still more the
neglect of his beloved master's memory ; and his daughter,

406 Canon Schnid's Juvenile Tales, [Dec.

as the only mark of respect their little means afford, plants
on the fresh grave a rose-bush, which she tends with her own
hands.

' Meanwhile, just when the newly-enriched relations were
only beginning to enjoy the wealth for Avhich they were
making so ungrateful a return, the lost heir, who had escaped
from the wreck by one of the ordinary chances of romance,
suddenly appears. He sees at a glance the real state of
things, — the heartlcssness and ingratitude of his father's
relations, and the hypocrisy with which they seek to deceive
himself. He learns, upon the other hand, the piety and
affection for his father"'s memory manifested by the good old
clerk and his daughter ; and finding that her other qualifi-
cations are in keeping with the grateful heart she had dis-
played, he completes the disappointment and discomfiture of
his ungrateful relations, by marrying the humble and virtuous
maiden, and sharing with her and her father the riches of
which their selfishness had proved them unworthy.

The effect produced by these examples of virtue, is backed
by frequent and moving illustrations of the sad effects of sin
and crime. And by the same principle of retribution which
tells so happily in the cases already described, the unhappy
sinner is frequently represented as the instrument of his own
punishment. There is especially one characteristic of these
most instructive stories in which they differ from a large class
unhappily too popular among us, — the crime is seldom allowed
to pass, without a full illustration of the remorse by which it
is invariably followed. Not that the author dwells upon that
phase of this fearful passion, v.hich many of our English
artists affect to portray, which consumes without improving
the heart. This would be a painful and profitless picture.
The Canon's warning page displays rather that saving and
salutary sorrow which " worketli unto penance," and which,
by arming the sinner against himself, disarms for him the
justice of the God whom he had offended. And it is a cir-
cumstance pregnant with instruction, that among the many
shades of crime which he depicts in his various tales, there
is but one to which he assigns the most fearful of all judg-
ments— an impenitent death-bed. The murderer, the thief,
the public robber, the hardened profligate, the unhappy
victim of unrestrained passion,— all are reclaimed in the end,
and die confessing their sins, and admitting the justice of
their punishment. It is only avarice, narrow hard-hearted-
ness, insensibility to the wants of the poor, and undutifidness

] 844.1 Canon Schmid's Juvenile Tales. 407

to parents in old age, that are visited with the poetical justice
of final impenitence. We allude to the story of The Flower-
basket (Das Blumen-korbchen), one of the most affecting in
the entire series.

Another equally admirable characteristic of the good
Canon's tales, is the sound and healthy tone which pervades
them. We never find him introducing into his tales as a
principle of action, or setting up as a standard of morality,
that false and hollow sentiment of which we meet so much in
novels generally, — a mere natural sense of honour and of
integrity, abstracted altogether from the moral obligations
of Christianity. Nor, on the other hand, are we pursued at
every turn by that silly and sickly sentimentality (not to use
a truer and harder name), which in all our standard fiction
is sure to form the beginning, and the middle, and the end.
We abstract altogether from the unhappy consequences, in
a religious point of view, of the false and unhealthy tone of
mind engendered thereby, and the vast amount of moral
injury which it is calculated, of its own nature, to produce.
But even looking merely to the social results, it is impossible
not to feel that they are most pernicious. If fiction, judiciously
managed, have any practical utility beyond the temporary
amusement of a vacant hour, it can only be, that it is calcu-
lated to fit the reader for the better discharge of his social
duties. Unhappily the specimens of fiction which we con-
stantly meet fall very far short of attaining even this low
standard of utility. On the contrary, how many a sensible
head has been turned, how many an innocent heart has been
corrupted, by the deleterious trash with which the youthful
reader is beset at every turn ! How many have been dissatis-
fied and disgusted with their condition in life, taught to look
up for better and higher things than, in the ordinary course
of events, it is reasonable for them to expect; and to let slip,
in the ambitious pursuit of these unsubstantial shadows, the
solid prospects for which nature, education, and position, had
destined them. If the dissemination of the tales of Canon
Schmid were not to produce any effect beyond the expulsion
of this " perilous stuff"," we should look on it as beneficial in
the highest degree. Nothing could be better or more judicious
than their spirit in this particular. There are but few ex-
amples to be found of individuals raised, by any extraordinary
combination of good fortune, to a rank notably beyond that
in which they were born ; and in the cases which are related
of such success (as in The Nightingale and Christ mas-eve)^

408 Canon SchnicPs Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

their elevation is ascribed to causes which could not possibly
be misinterpreted, or produce an injurious effect. The general
tendency of the tales is rather to make men content with ful-
filling conscientiously the obligations of their actual state,
and to trust for the rest to God's good providence. In the
simple narratives of this wise old teacher, young men attain
to success, each in his own department, — become eminent
merchants or artists, or skilful mechanics in an humbler
grade. But hardly any are raised to extraordinary rank. It
was wrong, he thought, — though it might have a useful influ-
ence on a few individuals, — to set before the mass of his
readers examples which it would be stark folly for the vast
majority to think of imitating ; or to hold out rewards of
industry to which it would be madness for them to aspire.
On the same principle, his pages contain no examples of
young girls captivating their admirers at first sight ; effect-
ing brilliant conquests by the power of their beauty and
accomplishments ; triumphing over all the difficulties which
over-wise parents and friends placed in their way; and,
in the end, forming magnificent alliances in a rank far above
their own. How much of reality and truth is sacrificed, in
the common run of tales of fiction, to the false interest cre-
ated by these romantic triumphs of beauty I How seldom
do we meet such occurrences in real life ; and what a fatal
mistake to place such books in the hands of the young gene-
ration, necessarily creating impressions, as they do, and en-
gendering hopes, wliich, in the vast majority of cases, cannot
possibly be realized !

These general remarks will serve to give an idea of the
manner in which Canon von Schmid acquits himself of the
duty of instructing the young. They will also, perhaps,
account for the enthusiasm with which his works have been
received upon the Conthient. It would not be fair to close
without translating one or two passages as a specimen of his
simple and unstudied, but extremely interesting manner.
The reader is not to expect any display of fine writing, or
any pretension to profound or original thought. The author''s
great object was utility; and to this he seems to sacrifice all
else beside, — eloquence, philosophy, scenic effect. But there
is in his pages, notwithstanding, more of natural eloquence,
true philosophy, and real dramatic power, than may be met
in many a far more ambitious writer. Take, for example,
this nocturnal inundation of the Rhine : —

" But this good and happy family were soon visited by a great
nfHiction. Winter set in, more severe than had been known within

1844.] Canon Schmidts Juvenile Tales. 409

the memory of man. An enormous mass of snow covered the
mountains and valleys. The cold was terrific. The Rhine was
frozen a full ell deep, and as hard as marble ; and it was feared that
the breaking up of the ice would occasion great inundations, and
be attended with fearful destruction. At length, a rapid thaw set
in, but as yet no imminent danger was apprehended.

"Martin, with his little family, lay sound asleep, when, on a
sudden, he was aroused at midnight by the alarm-bell; signal guns
were fired, and he heard a fearful roaring of water. He jumped
hastily out of bed, flung on his clothes, and ran out of the room to
see what was the matter. But the outer room and porch were
already so full of water that he was obliged to wade through it ;
and, when he opened the door, a toiTent rushed in with such violence,
that he was almost flung to the ground. He flew back to the room,
and cried, ' Ah, Ottilia, let us first of all save our children !' Ottilia,
still half asleep, tottered out of bed, and hui'ried on her most neces-
sary clothes, in the utmost confusion. The wretched parents en-
deavoured to make their way with the children to the vineyard
upon the hills; but the swollen flood rushed so strong against them,
that they were unable to reach it. They then attempted to gain
another height at the opposite side of the village. But the night
was so dark, that they could not see a staff" before them. The
moon had long gone down, and the stars were hidden by dark
clouds. It rained heavily, too, and the storm howled fearfully.
A deep flood rushed through the streets of the village, and covered
every passage. The poor parents were afraid every step they
made that they would be overwhelmed in the rush of waters; and
their children, who had been so suddenly waked out of their sleep,
cried and screamed loudly. Shrieks of terror echoed from every
house.

" Meanwhile, a few torches appeared in the village above ; and
their deep-red glare revealed to sight the terrors which till now
could but be heard. Hundreds of men were straining all their
might to escape a fearful death in the waters by which they were
surrounded. Wherever the eye fell, it encountered nothing but
misery and danger. At the lowest window of a little hut, stood a
distracted mother, with her children crying around her, and handed
them out, one after the other, to the father, to save them, though
he himself, sunk up to his breast in the raging torrent, could hardly
maintain himself upon his feet. Sons and daughters were carrying
their sick mother out of the house, to save her from the flood which
had already burst in. The poor creatures were all in the utmost
danger of perishing together in the flood ; but a body of hardy and
charitable men came to their aid, and rescued them from their peril.

" Ottilia, with a child upon each arm, was carried away by the
force of the water; her husband, equally encumbered by the chil-
dren, was unable to assist her; but two powerful men hastened to
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 27

4tiO Canon SchmicTs Juvenile Tales, [Dec.

their aid, rescued the mother and children, and reached the neigh-
bouring height along with their father. Then they lighted a large
fire under the pine-trees, at which the entire body of those who
were saved, and who were thoroughly drenched with water, might
make a shift to dry themselves.

" When Ottilia, breathless and almost insensible, had reached the
top of the hill, and recovered a little from her terror, she looked
round, and exclaimed in a voice of horror, * Where is my youngest
child ? where is my Caspar ?" The baby had been laid in the
cradle by the mother's bed side; but the water burst so suddenly,
and in such a torrent, into the room, that the cradle was at once
floated from the ground, and carried out of its place. The mother
had instantly endeavoured to grasp the cradle in the dark, but not
finding it in its place, she concluded that her husband had already
carried the cradle and the child to a place of safety, and thence-
forward thought only of saving the rest of the children. Now that
she discovered her error, she clasped her hands above her head, and
cried and sobbed so piteously, that it might have touched the heart
of a stone. She attempted to rise up at once, and hasten back
through the foaming flood to her house, to rescue her darling babe
from a fearful death in the waters. But the father held her back :
* Stay here ! dear Ottilia !' said he : ' you would never reach our
house in safety. The torrent rushes too strong, and would over-
power you. I will try to save the dear child ; our true neighbours
will stand by me ! ' ' Yes, that we will ! ' cried the two men who
had saved Ottilia and her two children. They provided themselves
with long staves to sound for bottom, and to support themselves
upon, and set out without delay, one of them bearing a lighted
torch in his hand.

" Ottilia tried to run after them. But the women who were at
the fire with her, held her back with great difl&culty, and, indeed,
not without force. * Have patience,' they said ; 'wait here : you
would but run upon your death ; the gallant men will surely save
your child, if it be possible to do it.'

" The group upon the height gazed with trembling hearts after
the three men, till the torch disappeared behind a house. They
still continued to gaze with straining eyes into the thick darkness ;
but they saw no more of them, and heard nothing but the fearful
roaring of the water, the howling of the wind, mingled with the
occasional crash of a falling house. It was a terrific moment for
the poor people ; and they all with one mind prayed with uplifted
hands to heaven : * O God ! have mercy on the good men, and the
poor babe ! Stand by them, and suffer them not to perish. Thou
alone canst save them !'" — vol. iv. pp. 187-91.

We recommend to our young and fair readers the follow-
ing charming lecture on what we may call, the " morality of
botany." We cannot help thinking it extremely beautiful.
It is the counsel of a father to his orphan daughter :

1844.1 Canon Schmidts Juvenile Tales. 411

" He used to point out to her in her favourite flowers the emblems
of maidenly virtue. One day very early in March, when she joyfully
brought him the first violet, he said to her, * Let the violet, dear
Mary, be to you an emblem of humility, retiringness, and unosten-
tatious virtue. It arrays itself in the delicate hue of modesty: it
loves to blossom in secret; and under its covering of leaves, fills the
air with the sweetest perfumes. Be thou also, dear Mary, a quiet
little violet, which despises gaudy and glowing apparel, seeks not
the notice of men, and does good without ostentation, till its bloom
is at an end.'

" When the roses and lilies were in full bloom, and the garden
appeared in its greatest splendour, the old man pointed to a lily just
tinged by the morning sun, and said to the delighted Mary, * Let
the lily, dearest daughter, be to you the emblem of innocence. See
how fair, how bright, and pure it stands there! The fairest silk i8
nothing compared with its leaves : they are as white as snow.
Happy the maid, whose heart is thus pure from all evil ! But the
purest of all colours is also the most difficult to preserve. The fly-
leaf is easily damaged. You must not grasp it rudely, or stains will
remain after your touch. Even so, a word, a thought, may sully
innocence!'

" ' But let the rose,' said he, pointing to one, * be to you the em-
blem of modesty. Fairer than the rose-colour, is the tinge of a
blush of modesty! Hail to the maiden, who blushes at every un-
seemly jest, and from the glow which she feels upon her cheek,
takes warning against the danger of sin. Cheeks which blush easily,
long remain fair and blooming — cheeks which can blush no longer,
soon become pale and sallow, and moulder prematurely in the grave!'

" He plucked a few lilies and roses, bound them together in a
bunch, gave them to Mary, and said: * Lilies and roses, those fair
sister-flowers, match well together; and in a bouquet or a garland,
each adds immeasurably to the other's beauty. So also, are Inno-
cence and Modesty, twin sisters, which cannot be parted from one
another. Yes, God gave Modesty to Innocence as a warning sister,
that she might protect herself the more easily. Be ever modest,
dearest daughter, and you will ever be innocent too. Let your
heart be ever pure like the pure lily, and your cheek will ever
bloom, like the blooming rose!'" — vol. vi. pp. 19-20.

We would gladly extract at greater length from these
delightful little stories. But we have done enough to enable our
readers to form an idea of their general character. How we
wish we could call them our own ! and what an immense
amount of good might be expected from their dissemination
among our people. How sadly do we need some such anti-
dote to counteract the poison which is in constant and most
extensive circulation among us ! It is time that a new spirit

27 2

412 Canon Schmidts Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

were infused into our literature, or, at least, that if we
cannot get rid of the old one, we should make an active, vi-
gorous, and well-organized effort to neutralize its influence.
It can be done only in one of two ways — either by alienating
the offensive works entirely from the use of Catholic readers,
or by guarding their use with such caution as to obviate or
diminish the danger with which it is fraught. The first,
were it practicable, would be a secure and certain course.
The second is obviously a perilous experiment. It is to leave
a patient, who has certainly swallowed poison, to the chances
of a doubtful and precarious antidote.

But is the first course really practicable? Is it practicable,
in the present condition of English literature, for a parent or
guardian, who wishes to educate a Catholic youth liberally,
and to secure for him a competent acquaintance with the or-
dinary branches of secular knowledge — history, statistics,
biography, general literature — to place in his hands such
books, and such only, as, along with the necessary quantum
of information, will be sure, we do not say to convey sound
Catholic principles, but even not to convey grossly incorrect
and pernicious principles on the subject of religion ? We do
not hesitate to say that it is not. We have already, on more
than one occasion, given painful evidence that it is not.

This is, undoubtedly, a humiliating acknowledgment ; but
it is the truth. In this enlightened country, possessing a
vast Catholic population, wealthy, intelligent, active, and not
destitute of public spirit, it would not be possible to select a
complete educational course, which could be put into the hands
of a young Catholic, without undermining his principles, or,
at least, shocking his natural sense of religion !

The first step, therefore, is to procure the compilation of a
complete series of useful educational treatises, — histories,
geographies, reading-books, &c. — entirely free from the anti-
catholic spirit which has so long disgraced our literature.
To some this may seem a difficult enterprise. But it is only
an utter ignorance of the resources of the Catholic body that
would warrant such a supposition. A good deal has been
already done. The humble brothers of the Christian schools,
with their limited means, have made an effort which deserves
the lasting gratitude of every friend of education, and there
needs but a little organization on our part to render perfectly
practicable, not only this, but many far more difficult and
comprehensive undertakings.

This, however, would be but the first step in the work. If

1844.] Canon Schmidts Juvenile Tales. 413

Ave had it in our power to expunge from the books in general
circulation, whether for the purposes of education or general
literature, every single obnoxious or offensive passage, and to
purify them thoroughly from the anti-catholic virus with
which they are all infected, we should still look on this but as
one step in the great literary reform. It would be, at best,
but a negative measure — but a pulling down of the old and
crazy fabric. The work of reconstruction would still remain.
To have got rid of an anti-catholic literature, would be far
from satisfying our ambition. It would still remain to set
up a Catholic one in its place.

That our literary organization falls notoriously below the
requirements of our social and religious position, it would
be idle affectation to deny; and that we are ourselves uncon-
scious of this shortcoming, is perhaps an aggravation of the
evil. Of our purely religious literature, especially the ascetic
and devotional department, we do not now complain. There
is no doubt that here there has been an extraordinary ad-
vance. Controversy, too, is tolerably well supported ; though
it is certainly very discreditable to the body that the Catholic
Library should have fallen to the ground for want of en-
couragement. But, after all, these and similar works can
effect good only with a limited class — and that a class which
least needs improvement — the class of persons already reli-
giously disposed. But for the casual reader, who is but
little inclined to seeh instruction, and to whom it must rather
be insensibly administered than openly offered, —

Cosi al fanciuU' egro porgiamo aspersi
Di licor soave gli orle del vase, —
for him we have hardly any provision at all.

In the first place, periodical literature is far from receiving
from our body support and encouragement commensurate
either with our resources or with its own importance. It is
humiliating to think that there is hardly a sect, however
small and unimportant, that is not equally if not better
represented in this influential department. We should desire
to see, in addition to the existing monthly journals (which
are chiefly religious in their contents), another class, mainly
literary, conducted with a view to amusement and general
instruction ; with but little ostentation of religion in its tone,
but yet under Catholic management, and directed, quietly
and silently, to the support of Catholic views, and the in-
sensible diffusion of Catholic notions and impressions. Why
should not a Catholic editor and a Catholic staff combine

414 Canon SchmicTs Juvenile Tales. [Dec.

for the maintenance of a monthly magazine on the plan of
Blackwood, or Bentley, or Ainsworth, or Frazer, excluding
Catholic politics and polemics, if you will, and devoting
themselves entirely to literature; but yet, pursuing their
task in such a spirit, as not only not to offend any Catholic
feeling, but even to illustrate, incidentally and by allusions,
the beauty and harmony of the Catliolic system, and to dis-
pel, insensibly and unostentatiously, the prejudices with which
it is regarded by those who know it not ?

There is another department in which we are still more
deficient, — the higher and more ornamental literature of the
day. We do not mean alone works of poetry and fiction ;
but also that extensive and undefined class, which form the
medium, as it were, between the purely imaginative and
those which appeal exclusively to the understanding. What
a world of good might be effected by a judicious selection of
Catholic biography, written in a calm and inoffensive, but
uncompromising tone ! — by a few tours in Catholic countries,
composed in a serious and reverent spirit, selecting those
features in the national character which illustrate the in-
fluence of the national religion, and explaining their distinctive
usages in a kindly but impartial spirit. How much benefit
would even Catholics — the very best informed among them
— derive from sketches of the Catholic institutions of other
countries ! How few of us fully understand and appreciate
the temper of the Catholic times ! How much do we require to
be instructed in their usages and minute history ! For all this
we have no provision whatever. We have hardly a Catholic
tract at all ; and, of the few who have written, hardly one has
the courage to write as a Catholic. It is a very painful reflection,
that the most interesting work on Italy in this language, though
written by a Catholic and a priest, is so deformed by this
" liberal" and complying spirit, that it is hardly safe to place
it in Catholic hands, and that, after a career of high literary
fame and popularity, the author''s death-bed was tormented
by unavailing regrets for the weakness into which a false
idea of liberality had betrayed him. Perhaps the history of
the times in which he wrote — now nearly half a century ago
— and of the society in which he lived, may furnish a clue to
this seeming anomaly ; but it is far worse than weakness to
tolerate it now. It belongs to the Catholic public — and they
have the power as well as the privilege — to give the tone to
Catholic literature ; and we shall never rest satisfied till we
see our principles fully represented in every department, —

1844.] The WorJuS of Edmund Spenser. 416

till we see Catholic Cyclopjedias, Catholic Family Libraries,
Catholic poetry. Catholic biography, Catholic tales, Catholic
juvenile books, — in a word, till we see a disposition to seize
and avail ourselves of every really practicable medium,
through which we can bring our true principles to be known
and respected by " those who are without," and understood
and realized by the members of our own community.

Art. VI. — The Worh of Edmund Spenser. London:
Koutledge. 1844.

TT is not our intention to discuss the poetical merits of
Spenser, or to offer any opinion on the obscure points of
his life. His great fame among his contemporaries, sealed as
it has been by the sentence of posterity, has enlisted such a
host of commentators and biographers, that it would be hard
to find in his poetry or his life, any new title to confirm his
general character as one of the greatest of English poets, and
the most amiable of men. Ours is a more humble and more
ungracious task — to speak of plain facts which have been
overlooked by his admirers — to consider him, not as a poet
establishing all the virtues in his Faery Realm, but as a poli-
tician applying his philosophy to an earthly kingdom ; not
as polishing the language and exalting the poetry of England,
but as expressing her prejudices and swaying her councils in
the government of a land which must bitterly regret that he
ever set his foot on her shores.

Judging from his Faery Queen, and his general character,
his connexion with Ireland should have been a blessing to the
empire. His great literary fame, his opportunity of acquir-
ing accurate information, as secretary to a Lord-Lieutenant,
and as a landlord residing among the Irish people, the sup-
posed gentleness of the man, the universal sympathies of the
poet, — all conspired to point him out as one who could probe
with a healing hand, the evils of his adopted country, and
bequeath his State of Ireland as a monument not only of
genius, but of saving political truth. Had he done so, it is
useless to inquire what might have been the effects of his
work on the late of the empire. It is certain, that the reign
of Elizabeth was the great crisis of modern Ireland. It is
certain that succeeding reigns, with a few brief intervals.

416 The WorJcs of Edmund Spenser. [Dec.

adopted, with greater or less severity, the maxims of Eliza-
beth's policy ; and it is equally certain, we fear, that whatever
was irritating or oppressive in that policy, was, if not origi-
nated, at least recommended by the gentle Spenser. His
work, indeed, may be cited as one of the most fatal instances of
genius, — errors, for which the lively imagination and strong
feelings of the poet might have been some excuse, had he
erred by excess of humanity or justice, and not by excesses of
an opposite kind.

It would be unfair to test Spenser's policy by a standard
of ideal excellence (though it is hard to apply any other to
the author of the Faery Queen), or to make no allowance for
the influences that degrade even the greatest men to the level
of an unreasoning mob. Spenser"'s genius, one would think,
should have raised him to an elevation, commanding the
whole human family, effacing petty prejudices and national
peculiarities, and showing the broad lines of human nature,
without a knowledge of which, the native of one country can
never be fit to judge, much less to govern, another. But
Spenser, in Ireland, was like a Cockney in the country, — a
stranger in a world which had none of his sympathies. He
was passionately sensible, no doubt, to the beauties of ex-
ternal nature, because he had the same sun, soil, and stars, as
in England, but as intolerant of the habits and peculiarities
even of the Anglo-Irish, as if he had never studied man,
except in the English mould. Scarcely ever respecting the
rights or just feelings of the Irish, he illustrates in his own
person what he says of the fall of men from primitive
innocence :

" For that which all men then did virtue call,
Is now called vice ; and that which vice was hight,
Is now bright virtue ; and so used of all.
Right now is wrong, and wrotig that teas is right ;
As all things else in time ai'e changed quite :"

Almost every page of the State of Ireland is a violation of
the morality of the Faery Queen, and of that by which he
would have judged human action in England.

A metaphysical critic might attribute Spenser"'s errors to a
want of that power by which his great contemporary, Shak-
speare, was at home, under every government, and in every
clime, and never erred in his judgments on men. This Avould
be the most charitable apology. But, unfortunately, Spen-
ser was on some points so far in advance of his age, that we
cannot excuse his heart at the expense of his head. Thus,

1844.] The Worh of Edmund Spenser. 417

■with regard to religion ; though he proposes plans to pervert
the Irish to Protestantism, he abstains from ribald abuse of
the Catholic Church, boldly censures the persecuting statutes
of the Irish parliament, and pours out his wrath on the
greedy covetousness, the fleshly incontinency, and hunting
vicars of the Established Church. But other causes biassed
his judgment. He wrote at a time when English prejudice
was excited to frenzy by the danger of losing Ireland ; and if
ev^en at the present day, impartiality from an English pen is
welcomed as a novelty by the Irish press, it would be too
much to expect impartiality even from Spenser in the reign
of Elizabeth. Writing, moreover, in an age, which, if it was
an Augustan age in English literature, was also an Augustan
age in English slavery, when the noble independence, the
chartered rights, the Church and conscience of Englishmen,
were basely laid at the feet of a profligate woman, he was
prepared by his previous idolatry of absolute power, to ex-
hibit in his State of Ireland, a spirit which better suits a law
of Woden than the gentle day-star of English poesy. Besides
these causes, arising from the public opinion of the age, there
were personal reasons which should have deterred him from
perilling his fame by Irish politics.

His opinions on Ireland were formed in Kilcolman Castle,
one of the baronial fortresses of the last Earl of Desmond.
The unhappy earl, driven to arms in self-defence, forfeited
his property and his life. His estate was parcelled among
English adventurers, and Kilcolman, with three thousand acres,
fell to the lot of Spenser. To this circumstance, to the same
fell spirit that haunts the usurper on his throne, or the
brigand in his cave, we must attribute the sad metamorphosis
of the angel of poesy into a dark spirit in politics, gloating
over the atrocious horrors of the Munster war, and sternly
urging their perpetration against the Irish in Ulster. W'ith
the solitary exception of his protest against the sharp pe-
nalties on recusants, and his tribute to the industry and bra-
very* of the Irish, he has not one favourable word, one word of
pity for the miseries of Ireland. Denying her even those virtues

* And to these English inhabitants and colonies * ♦ * there repaired divers
of the poor distressed people of the Irish for succour and relief; of whom such
as they thought fit for labour, and industriously disposed, as the most part of their
baser sort are, they received unto them as vassals, &c. (p. 483), for I have heard
some great warriors say, that in all the serrices they had seen abroad in the
foreign countries, they never saw a more comely man than the Irishman, nor
that Cometh on more bravely in his charge, &c. — p. 500.

418 The Works of Edmund Spenser, [Dec.

which were admitted by his English contemporaries, he
appears to have written under the impression that the slightest
sympathy in her sufferings would shake his title to his estate,
and send him back to the smoke of London from the " sweet
Boil" of Munster.

It is painful to look at the dark side of a character so gene-
rally admired ; but the greatness of his fame is our extenuat-
ing plea. This State of Ireland, bound up as it is in the
edition before us with the Faery Queen, is now within the
reach of every cottager in England, and will very probably
be much more extensively circulated than if published sepa-
rately. Its poison must operate more fatally, coming from a
hand from which no evil could be suspected. If, then, it be
desirable that the subjects of the same crown should free
themselves from prejudices pernicious to their common good,
there can be no charge of irreverence to genius in exposing
the errors of a talented calumniator. If the great Spenser,
— the name which has been associated in prose and verse with
every endearing epithet in the English tongue, — was a blind
and corrupt guide on the affairs of Ireland, who can be
trusted ?

Besides the prejudices of an English planter, he had to
contend with other feelings, more pardonable than sordid in-
terest, but not less dangerous to truth, at least in a generous
mind. In an evil hour for his own fame, he came as secre-
tary to Lord Grey, one of the worst of a bad line — the lord-
lieutenants of Ireland. Gratitude to a patron often makes
good men do strange things ; but few would carry their gra-
titude so far as Spenser, who not only perilled his fame by
an elaborate defence in prose of Lord Grey's government, but
even devotes to the same object the noblest inspirations of
his muse. To form some idea of the government of Ireland
by the Earl Grey of Queen Elizabeth, we have only to call
to mind the government of the Lord Grey of Queen Victoria.

Suppose that the traversers in the late prosecution had
been fraudulently convicted, not of a misdemeanor, but of
high-treason, and that while their heads were spiked on the
walls of Dublin, Earl de Grey, instead of gathering cockles on
Clontarf, had followed up the blow, seized Sharman Crawford,
and the Earl of Charlemont, and the Duke of Leinster, and
cast them into a dungeon ; that during two years he had violated
the rights of all classes of Irishmen, massacred, perhaps against
sworn faith, but certainly in cold blood, the soldiers of a foreign
state, and had at last so inflamed the fury of Irishmen of every

1844.] The WorU of Edmund Spenser. 419

sect and race, that nothing but his instant recall could avert
the impending storm for one month, and save Ireland to the
English crown. Suppose that a great English poet, Words-
worth for example, were secretary to Lord de Grey instead of
Mr. Lucas, and that in a great poem, destined to live for ever
among the classics of the English tongue, he had resolved to
immortalize the good Earl de Grey, and that when about to
speak, with all the authority of genius, on all the moral vir-
tues, he burst forth with this noble invocation of justice :

Most sacred Virtue, she of all the rest,

Resembling God in His imperial might,

"Whose soveraine powre herein is most exprest,

That both to good and bad He dealeth right,

And all His workes with justice had bedight.

That power He also doth to princes lend.

And makes them, like Himself, in glorious right

To sit on His own seats. His cause to end,

And rule His people right, as He doth recommend.

XI.

Dread soverayne Goddesse, that doest highest sit
In seate of judgment, in the Almighties stead.
And with magnificke might and wondrous wit
Doest to thy people righteous doom aread.
That furthest nations fiUes with awfull dread ;
Pardon the boldness of thy basest thrall.
That dare discourse of so divine a read
As thy great justice, praised over all.
The instrument, whereof loe here thy Artegall !

If, when filled with reverence for justice by these beautiful
lines, the reader should see the Earl de Grey selected by the
poet, from all men living and dead, as her most fitting repre-
sentative on earth, how would the friends of virtue and the
muse hang their heads in shame ? how would all, except the
Tories, protest against the blasphemy ? Decency might re-
quire from the secretary the charity of silence for the crimes
of his patron, friendship might permit a tribute to some of
his relieving qualities ; but to make him the personation of a
virtue of which his whole life was a profanation, is an outrage
unparallelled in the annals of literary curiosities. An ironical
hymn to purity in the dens of a brothel, a hymn to pity on
the lips of the lurking assassin, or the hymn of the Atheists
of '92 around the altars of God, might be as bad ; but what
could be worse ?

Our imaginary case of Wordsworth was the real case of

420 The Worlks of Edmund Spenser. [Dec

Spenser. Lord Grey fraudulently convicted and executed Lord
Nugent, and imprisoned the Earl of Kildare, and other lords of
the pale, and massacred in cold blood the Spanish garrison of
Smesnick, and committed such atrocities against the native
Irish, that, in the words of Spenser himself, " he was reported
to Elizabeth as a bloody man, who regarded the life of her
subjects no more than dogs, but had wasted and consumed
all, 80 that now she had nothing almost left but to reign in
their ashes." Even Elizabeth blamed and recalled him ; but
Spenser defends him, and even makes him the hero of his
canto on justice. Poor Ireland is thus introduced, welcom-
ing the monster to her shores, and regretting his recall :

in.
And such was he of whom I have to tell,
The champion of true justice, Artegall (Arthur Grey)
Whom as you lately mote reraembei* well
An hard adventure, which did then befall,
Into a redoubted perill forth did call,
That was to succour a distressed dame,

Whom a strong tyrant did unjustly thrall.

* * * * ^ #

IV.

Wherefore the lady which Irena (Ireland) hight,

Did to the Faerie Queen her way addresse.

To whom complaining her afflicted plight.

She her besought of gratious redresse :

That soveraine queene, that mightie emperesse

Whose glory is to aide all suppliants pore,

And of weak princes to be patronesse.

Chose Artegall to right her to restore.

For that to her he seemed best skilled in righteous lore.

For Artegall injustice was upbrought.

Even from the cradle of his infancie

And all the depth of righfulle doome was taught.

By faire Astrea, with great industrie,

Whilest here on earth she lived mortallie.

* » # » # «

XII.

But when she parted hence, she left her groome,
An young man, which did on her attend
Always to execute her stedfast donne,
And willed him with Artegall to wend.
And doe whatever thing he did intend.

1844.] The WorH of Edmund Spenser, 421

His name was Jalus, made of yron mould,

Immoveable, resistless, without end;

Who in his hand an yron flale did hold,

"With which he thresht out falshood and did truth unfold.

XIII.

He now went with him in this new inquest

Him for to aide, if aide he chaunst to need.

Against that cruel tyrant which oppresst

The faire Irene with his foul misdeede.

And kept the crowne in which she should succeede.

After many adventures, the yron man, with the yron flale,
the true emblem of British justice in Ireland, comes to the
relief of the fair Irene in the xii canto :

XT.

The morrow next that was the dismal day
Appointed for Irena's death before,
So soon as it did to the world display
His chearful face and light to men restore
The heavy mayd, to whom none tydings bore
Of Artegall's arrival here to free,
Lookt up with eyes full sad and heart full sore.
Weening her life's last houre then neare to bee,
Sith no redemption nigh she did nor hear nor see.

XII.

Then up she rose and on herself did dight

Most squalid garments fit for such a day,

And with dull countenance and with doleful! spright

She forth was brought in sorrowfull dismay

For to receive the doome of her decay.

But coming to the place and finding there

Sir Artegall in battailous array,

Waiting his foe, it did her dead hart cheer,

And new life to her lent, in midst of deadly feare.

XIII.

Like as a tender rose in open plaine

That with untimely drought nigh withered was

And hung the heade, soon as few drops of raine

Thereon distUl and deaw her daintie face

Gins to look up, and with fresh wonted grace

Dispreds the glorie of her leaves gay.

Such was Irena's countenance, such her case,

When Artegall she saw in that an-ay.

There waiting for the tyrant, till it was faire day."

422 The WorJcs of Edmund Spenser, [Deo.

The battle rages through ten stanzas, and when at last Ar-
tegall had brought his antagonist to the ground, the people

XXIV.

Running all with chearful joyfulnesse,
To faire Irene at her feet did fall,
And her adored with due humblenesse,
As their true liege and princesse naturall,
And eke her champion's glorie sounded over all.

XXV.

Who, streight her leading with meete majestic

Unto the pallaee, where their kings did rayne,

Did her therein establish peaceablie.

And to her kingdom's seate restore again ;

And all such persons, as did late maintayne

That tyrant's part with close or open ayde,

He sorely punished with heavie payne ;

That in short space, whiles there with her he stayed.

Not one was left that durst her once have disobeyed.

XXVI.

During which time that he did there remayne

His studie was true justice how to deale,

And day and night employed his busie paine

How to reforme that ragged comraonweale :

And that same yron man, through all that realm he sent

To search out those that used to rob and steal,

Or did rebell against lawfuU government,

On whom he did inflict most grievous punishment.

XXVII.

But ere here could reforme it thoroughly.

He through occasion called was away

To fairie court, that of necessitie.

His course of justice he was forst to stay;

And Jalus to revoke from the right way

In which he was that realme for to redresse.

But envies cloud still dimmeth virtues ray :

So having freed Irena from distresse,

He took his leave of her there left in heavinesse.

Such is the poetic history of the government of Lord Grey.
Jalus, the yron man, is forbidding enough even in his poetic
dress. The following is a part of " the course of justice"
administered to the Irish, which Spenser describes, not to re-
probate, but to recommend it. Suggesting plans for the re-
duction of Ulster he says ; —

" The end will, I assure me, be very short, and much sooner than

1844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 423

can be, in so great a trouble, as it seemeth, hoped for ; although
there should none of them [the Ulster Irish] fall by the sword, nor
be slain by the soldier, yet thus being kept from manurance, and
their cattle from running abroad, by this hard restraint, they would
quickly consume themselves and devour one another. The proof
whereof I am sufficiently exampled in these late wars of Munster ;
for notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful
country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they
should have been able to stand long, yet in one year and a half
they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart
would have rued the same [except the stony heart that sternly calls
for its repetition] : out of every comer of the woods and glens,
they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not
bear them ; they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like
ghosts crying out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions,
happy when they could find them, yea, and one another soon after,
insomuch as the veiy carcasses they spared not to scrape out of
their graves ; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shami'ocks,
there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to
continue there witbal ; that in short space there were none almost
left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void
of man and beast."

When we compare the naked horrors of this scene of deso-
lation with the honied lies of rhyme on Lord Grey — when we
see helpless women and infants doomed by the gentle Spenser
to extirpation by famine, and yet find that the heaviest cen-
sure, even of Sir James Hare, on Spenser, is a slight want of
moderation, we may ask, whether the fanaticism of Mahomet,
or the ferocity of the priests of Woden, ever more extinguished
the feelings of humanity, ever more fatally perverted the pub-
lic mind, than these extracts prove them to have been in the
days of Spenser. He spoke the feelings of his day. His
lines on Lord Grey, like the idol temples of the Mexicans, are
the relics of a horrible system that immolated hecatombs of
human victims. The excellence of Spenser's character, in
other respects, aggravates his guilt in yielding to prejudices
which his genius should have resisted. His was a noble des
tiny, had he raised his voice for the cause of humanity and
the happiness of the empire, instead of giving the whole weight
of his authority to a system which has cost Ireland tears of
blood, and England millions of money, and which now defies
the skill of imperial legislation. But we must not be too
severe on the anti-Irish prejudices of an age, when all the
great literary characters bowed in base adulation to the throne,
adorning with every virtue, a woman whom any honest man

424 The Works of Edmund Spenser. [Dec.

would be ashamed to call his sister. The errors of Spenser
and his compeers, like all great national lies, will last as long
as the system from which they sprang. When the Anglican
Church shall have spent its time, and when Ireland is as she
ought to be, England will understand the error of connect-
ing private virtue with Elizabeth, or public justice with Lord
Grey.

Spenser's prose work, The State of Ireland^ is a statement
of what he calls the abuses in laws, in customs, and in religion ;
together with an historical sketch adapted to each, and the
reforms which he suggests. The historical part, as far as it
regards the ancient history and origin of the Irish, is almost
entirely conjectural, and we omit it entirely ; our object be-
ing to show that most of the grievances of Ireland under
Elizabeth remain to this day, and that if Ireland is to be no
longer " a ragged realm hanging on the hack of England,'^
Spenser's policy must be abandoned. Englishmen ought to
mistrust their judgment when they find Spenser deceiving and
deceived ; Irishmen must rely on themselves for the redress
of their wrongs. Our limits allow us to touch only on few
of his projected reforms. Some of them regard the Anglo-
Irish, others the native Irish, and all are founded on this prin-
ciple, that the Queen could, hy her own mere will, change all the
laws of the kingdom. The following is a characteristic appli-
cation of the principle : —

" The common law appointeth, that all trials, as well of crimes as
titles and rights, shall be made by a verdict of a jury chosen out of
the honest and most substantial freeholders. Now most of the
freeholders of that realm are Irish, which, when the cause shall fall
betwixt an Englishman and an Irish, or between the queen and any
freeholders of that country, they make no more scruple to pass
against an Englishman and the queen, though it be to strain their
oaths, than to drink milk unstrained ; so that before the jury go
together, it is all to nothing what the verdict shall be. Yet is the
law of itself (as I said) good, and the first institutions thereof being
given to all Englishmen very rightfully ; but now that the Irish have
stepped into the very rooms of our English, we are now to become
heedful and provident of juries. *****

" Eudox. — But doth many of that people make no more con-
science to perjure themselves in their verdicts, and damn their souls?

" Iren. — Not only so in their verdicts, but also in all other their
dealings, especially with the English they are most wilfully bent ;
for though they will not seem manifestly to do it, yet will some one
or other subtle-headed fellow amongst them ptit some quirk or
devise some evasion, whereof the rest will likely take hold, and

1 844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 425

suffer themselves easily to be led by him to that themselves desired.
For a question or doubt that may be raised, will make a stop to them,
and put them quite out of tlie way. Besides that, of themselves
(for the most part), they are so cautelous and wily-headed, espe-
cially being men of so small experience and practice in law matters,
that you would wonder whence they borrow such subtleties and
sly shifts."

Eudoxlus suggests as a remedy the selection of none but
Englishmen and honest Irishmen to serve as jurors ; but Ire-
neus, admitting that there are some honest Irishmen, objects,

" That then the Irish party would cry out of partiality, and
complain he hath no justice, he is not used as a subject, he is not
suffered to have the free benefit of the law, and their outcries the
magistrates here do much shun, as they have cause, since they are
readily hearkened unto here ; neither can it be indeed, although
the Irish party would be so contented to be so compassed, that such
English freeholders, which are but few, and such faithful Irishmen,
which are indeed as iew^ should be always chosen for trials, for
being so few they should be made weary of their freeholds. And
therefore a good care is to be had, by all good occasions to increase
their number and to plant more by them. But were it so that the
jurors could be picked out of such choice men as you desire, this
would nevertheless be as bad a corruption in the tiial; for the
evidence being brought in by the baser Irish people, will be as
deceitful as the verdict, for they care much less than the others
what they swear, and sure their lords may compel them to say any-
thing ; for I myself have heard, when one of the baser sort (which
they call churls) being challenged and reproved for his false oath,
hath answered confidently, that his lord commanded him, and it
was the least thing he could do for his lord to swear for him ; so
unconscionable are those common people, and so little feeling have
they of God or their own souls."

Let the reader remember that this common people did,
according to Spenser's own confession, bear " sharp pains and
penalties,'''' rather than take the oath of supremacy, or frequent
the conventicles of the Established Church. But the charge
of perjury was then, as at the present day, the pretext to rob
Ireland of her rights. Spenser thus puts his tyrannical plea
for the abolition of trial by jury.

" Eudox. — It is a most miserable case ; but what help can there
be in this ? for though the manner of their trials should be altered,
yet the proof of anything must needs be by the testimonies of such
persons as the parties shall produce, which, if they be corrupt, how
can any light of the truth appear ? AVhat remedy is there for this
evil, but to make heavy laws and penalties against jurors ?

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 28

42(J The Works of Edmund Spenser. [Dec.

" Iren. — I think, sure, that will do small good; for when a
people be inclined to any vice, or have no touch of conscience nor
sense of their evil doings, it is bootless to think to restrain them by
any penalties or fear of punishment ; but either the occasion is to
be taken away, or a more understanding of the right or shame of
the fault to be imprinted. For, if that Lycurgus should have made
it death for the Lacedemonians to steal, they being a people which
naturally delighted in stealth, or it should be made a capital crime for
Flemings to be taken in drunkenness, there should have been few
Lacedemonians then left, and few Flemings now ; so impossible it
is to remove any fault so general in a people with terror of laws or
most sharp restraints." — p. 486.

That this attempt to exclude Irish subjects from appearing
as evidence or jurors is based on malignant slanders, is evident
both from the well-known testimony of Sir John Davis to
the love of justice which he always found in the Irish, and
also from the following words of one of Spenser's fellow-
adventurers, Payne, whose description of Ireland was pub-
lished some time since by the Irish Archaeological Society.
Writing from Ireland to his English friends, he says —

" Let not the reports of those that have spent all their owne, and
what they could by any means get from others in England, dis-
courage you from Ireland, although they and such others, by bad
dealings, have wrought a general discredit to all Englishmen in that
country, which are to the Irish unknown. These men will say
there is great danger in travelling the country, and much more to
dwell or inhabit therein ; yet they are free from three of the greatest
dangers, — first, they cannot meet, in all that land, any worse than
themselves; secondly, they need not fear robbing, because they
have not anything to lose ; lastly, they are not likely to run in
debt, for that none will trust them. * * * * "What these men
have reported, or what the simple have credited, that would rather
believe a runagate than travel to see. But what I have discovered
or learned in that country, I will herein recite to you. First, the
people are of three sortes ; the better sorte (who alone could serve
on juries) are very civil and honestly given. * * * * Their
entertainment for your diet shall be more welcome and plentiful
than cleanly and handsome ; for, although they did never see you
before, they will make you the best cheare their country yields
for two or three days, and take not anything therefore. * * *
They keep their promise faithfully, and are more desirous of peace
than our Englishmen, ibr that in time of warres they are more
charged ; and also they are fatter prizes for the enemie, who re-
specteth no person. * * * Nothing is more pleasing to them
than to hear of good justices placed among them. They have a
common saying, which I am persuaded they speake unfainedly,

1844.] The WorJcs of Edmund Spmser. 427

which is Defend me and spend me, — meaning from the oppression
of the worser sort of our countrymen. They are obedient to the
laws, so that you may travel through all the land, without any
danger or injurie offered of the very worst Irish, and be greatly
relieved of the best." — p. 1-2.

Many of the good people of England who now swallow the
slanders of the runagate tory press, will no doubt prei'er the
testimony of Spenser to that of this honest merchant, whose
mortal dread of the Pope could not deter him from doing jus-
tice to the Irish Papists. Yet Payne was a most pious Pro-
testant. Neither was he blind to what he believed were the
faults of the Irish, but he had no infamous lord-lieutenant to
defend, or private interests to serve by slanders.

" I cannot deny," he says, " but in the Desmondes warres were
many Irish traitors, ; yet herein judge charitably, for such was the
misery of that time that many were driven to this bad choice, viz.
that whether they would be spoiled as well by the enemy as the
woi'se sort of soldiers at home, or go out to the rebelles and be
hanged, which is the fairest end of a traitor. But as touching their
government in their corporations where they bear rule, it is done with
such wisdom, equity, and justice, as demands worthy commendations.
For I myself have seen, divers times, in several places within their
jurisdictions, well near twenty causes decided at one sitting, with
so much indifference that, for the most part, both plaintiff and de-
fendant hath departed contented ; yet many that make show of
peace and desireth to live by blood do utterly mislike this, or any
good thing that the poor Irishman doth ; wherefore let us daily pray
unto Almighty God to put it into the heart of our dread sovereign
Elizabeth, that as her highness is queen of so great and fruitful a
country, wherein her majesty hath a great number of good and
loyal subjects, to have especial care that they be not numbered^ nor
gathered up with traitorous rebels."

On this evidence of the plain-dealing English merchant, we
have no hesitation in applying to Spenser's accusation his own
well-known lines, book v. canto 12.

XXXIV.

For whatsoever good by any said

Or done she heard, she would straightwayes invent

How to deprave or slanderously upraid;

Or to misconstrue of a man's intent,

And turn to ill the thing that well was meant.

Therefore she used often to resort

To common haunts and companies frequent,

To hcarke what any one did good report.

To blot the same with blame or wrest in wicked sort.

282

428 The WorJcs of Edmund Spenser. [Dec

And if tliat any ill she heard of any,

She would it eke and make much worse by telling,

And take great joy to publish it to many,

That every matter worse was for her meUing.

Her name was hight Detraction, and her dwelling

Was near to Envy, even her neighbour next;

A wicked hag, and Envy's self excelling

In mischief, for herself she only vext,

But this same doth herself and others eke perplext.

XXXVI.

Her face was ugly, and her mouth distort,

Foming with poyson round about her gills.

In which her cursed tongue full sharpe and short,

Appeared like aspe's sting, that closely kills.

Or cruelly does wound whoniso she wills.

A distaff in her other hand she had.

Upon the which she little spins but spils

And faines to weave false tales and leasings bad.

To throw amongst the good which others had disprad.

Some of Spenser's exquisite descriptions of Irish scenery
were much more agreeable than the preceding /^^o de se\ but,
for the present, " false tales and leasings bad*"^ must be the bur-
den of our page.

One class of the natives of Ireland had the strongest claims
on the gratitude of England. The corporations, without a
single exception, adhered to the English crown, in every
change of the chequered destiny of Ireland, from the days of
Henry II down to those of Elizabeth. When England
changed her faith, the Anglo-Irish towns still remained Ca-
tholic. They saw their abbeys unroofed, or occupied by the
English undertaker, their churches seized by tlie Anglican
minister and his clerk, and a few English soldiers and officials,
and tlieir own religion proscribed, except the precarious tole-
ration of the private mass. During the reign of Elizabeth,
English dominion was often reduced to such a state, that the
revolt of a few of those Catholic towns would have made
Ireland independent. Yet they preserved unbroken allegiance
to their Protestant Queen. What reward does Spenser pro-
pose for their fidelity ? He proposes that Waterford and
Cork should be heavily taxed to pay a standing garrison, that
their charters should be violated, and that her majesty ""s sword
should be the sole answer to their remonstrances. Here are
the privileges :

1844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 429

" There are other privileges granted to most of the corporations
here, that they shall not be bound to any other government than
their own; that they shall not be charged with garrisons; that they
shall not be travailed forth out of their own franchises; that they
may buy and sell with thieves and rebels (the native Irish); that all
amex'cements and fines that shall be imposed upon them shall come
unto themselves. All which, though at the time of their first
grant, they were tolerable and perhaps reasonable, yet now are
most unreasonable and inconvenient; but all these will be easily
cut off with the superior power of her majesty's prerogative, against
which her own grants are not to be pleaded or enforced." — p. 488.

' This is a sample of the spirit of liberty infused by the
Reformation into our old Catholic institutions. The plan
which he suggests to reconcile Cork and Waterford to their
garrisons is chai'acteristic of English domination. Why should
they complain, since they were to have fellow-sufferers ?

" Eudox. Let me ask, why in those cities of Munster, "Waterford
and Cork, you rather placed garrisons than in all others in Ireland?
for they may think themselves to have a great wrong to be so
charged above all the rest?

" Iren. I will tell you : those two cities, above all the rest, do offer
an ingate to the Spaniards most fitly; but yet, because they shall
not take exceptions to this that they are charged above all the rest,
I will also lay a charge upon all the others likewise; for indeed it
is no reason that the coi'porate towns, enjoying great privileges and
franchises from her Majesty, and living thereby not only safe, but
drawing to them the wealth of all the land, should live so free as
not to be partakers of the burden of this garrison, for their own
safety, especially in this time of trouble." — p. 520.

The reasoning is specious, but it was against a charter;
and Spenser must have known that during Desmond's war,
Cork and Waterford had been willing and able to defend
themselves ; but truly has he written :

"What tygre or what other salvage wight,
Is so exceeding furious and fell.
As wrong, when it hath armed itself with might?
Not fit mongst men, that doe with reason mell.
But mongst wild beasts and salvage woods to dwell,
"Where still the stronger doth the weak devoure.
And they that most in boldnesse do excell
Are dreaded most, and feared for their power.

Book v. cant. 9.

Perhaps of all the causes of Irish discontent and calamities
from the accession of Elizabeth to the catastrophe under
CromweU, there was not one — not even religious persecution

480 The Works of Edmund Spenser, [Dec.

itself — more pernicious than the inquisition into defective
titles. In the hands of needy and unprincipled adventurers,
it was a fearful instrument to ruin the peace of private
families, to shake all public confidence, and to goad and tor-
ture the nation into rebellion. In the days of Elizabeth,
lands that had been peaceably possessed for two centuries,
were resumed by the crown — and every one knows how fatally
and disgracefully the same policy was followed by the base
Stuarts, — James and Charles. The very lands that Spenser
held were indirectly the fruits of this inquisition ; for by it
the unfortunate Desmond was driven into rebellion, and his
country wasted, as we have seen, with fire and sword. To
question the justice or policy of this robbery would not suit
Spenser's principles. He encourages it by holding out the
strongest possible bribes to the harpies of Elizabeth. Having
stated the uncertainty of Irish tenures, he says :

" For the reformation of which, I wish that there were a com-
mittee granted forth, under the great seal, as I have seen one
recorded in the old chronicle book of Munster, that was sent forth
in the time of Sir William Drury (who planned Desmond's rebellion)
unto persons of special trust and judgment, to enquire throughout
all Ireland, beginning with one county first, and so resting awhile
till the same were settled, by the verdict of a sound and substantial
jury, how every man holdeth his land, of whom, and by what
tenure ; so that every one should be admitted to show what right
he hath, and by what services he holdeth his land, whether in chief,
or in soccage, or by knight's service, or how else soever. There-
upon would appear, first, how all those great English lords do claim
those great services, what seigniories they usurp, what wardships
they have taken from the queen, what lands of hers they conceal.
And then, how those Irish captains of countries have encroached
upon the queen's freeholders and tenants ; how they have translated
the tenures of them from English holding unto Irish tanistry, and
defeated her majesty of all her rights and duties which are to accrue
to her thereabouts, as wardships, livries, marriages, fines of alien-
ations, and many other commodities, which now are kept and con-
cealed from her majesty to the value of £40,000 per annum, I dare
undertake in all Ireland, by that which I know in one county." —
p. 524.

How the sound and substantial jury would be composed,
and what were the qualifications of the special and district in-
quisitors, is evident from Spenser's views already cited on
Irish juries. He says, indeed, that he did not wish to deprive
the occupants of their property, but he leaves the matter to
the packed jury. This was setting Jalus the yron man, witli
the yron flail, on the bench, and throwing the ermine over

1844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 431

the coat of mail. The whole history of this court of inquiry
is a frightful commentary on Spenser's justice to Ireland.

Some of the real evils of the realm Spenser certainly ex-
poses, and calls for their redress. But by a wretched fatality
in so great a man, he himself perpetuated, by his example, the
evil of which he complains. It has been the miserable lot of
Ireland, to this very hour, to be governed by men who, from
the first authority in the island down to the policeman or
clerk, have regarded their oflfices as a private speculation, and
not as a charge for the public good. Much of this evil there
is, of course, in every government ; but it stares us in the
face at every page of Irish history, and in Its most disgusting
forms. Does not the following look like a history of the Shin-
rone police, or the more frightful machinations by which the
rebellion of '98 was fomented by government ?

*' But there is one very foul abuse, which, by the way, I may not
omit, and that is in captains, who, notwithstanding that they are spe-
cially employed to make peace, through strong execution of war,
yet they do so daudle their doings, and daudle in the service to them
committed, as if they would not have the enemy subdued or utterly
beaten down, for fear that afterwards they should need employment
and so be discharged of pay; for which cause, some of them that are
laid in garrison do so handle the matter, that they will do no great
hurt to the enemies; yet for colour sake, some men they will kill
even half with the consent of the enemy, whose heads eftsoons they
send to the governor, for a commendation of their great endeavour,
* * * * and therefore they do cunningly carry their course of
government, and from one hand to another do bandy the service like
a tennis-ball, which they will never strike quite away, for fear lest
afterwards they should want."

How could this traffic in public disorder be abandoned by
the fry of officials, when it had the sanction of the highest
authorities in the land ?

" And if I should say there is some blame thereof in the prin-
cipal governors, I think I should also show some reasonable proof of
my speech. As for example, some of them seeing the end of their
government to draw nigh, and some mischiefs and troublous prac-
tices growing up, which afterwards may work trouble to the" next
succeeding governor, will not attempt the redress or the cutting off
thereof, either for fear they should leave the realm unquiet at the
end of their government, or that the next that cometh should receive
the same too quiet, and so haply win more praise thereof than they
before. And therefore they will not seek at all to repress that

evil, what comes afterwards they cax'e not, or rather wish the

worst The governors usually are envious one of another's

432 The Works of Ednmnd Spenser. [Dec.

greater gloiy, which if they would seek to excel by better governing
it should be a most laudable emulation, but they do quite otherwise.
For this, as you may mark, is the common order of them, that who
Cometh next in place will not follow that course ol" government,
however good, which his predecessors held, either for disdain of
himself, or doubt to have his doings drowned in another man's praise;
but will straight take a way quite contrary to the former, as if the
former thought by keeping the Irish under to reform them ; the next,
by discountenancing the English, will curry favour with the Irish,
and so make his government seem plausable as having all the Irish
at his command ; but he that cometh after will perhaps follow neither
the one nor the other, but will dandle the one and the other in such
sort as he will suck sweet out of them both, and leave bittei'ness to
the poor country." — p. 506.

Such was the system of Irish government in the days of
Spenser, and such, with merely a change in the name, it con-
tinues. But all this fine philosophy was, on Spenser's lips,
nothing hut the rhetoric of an ex-minister and expectant place-
man. We must deny him the credit of speaking for the pub-
lic good, because he afterwards applies these very principles to
the exculpation of his patron Lord Grey, and the condemnation
of Sir John Perrott, one of the best governors, by the consent
of all historians, that ever ruled Ireland. Perrott succeeded
Grey, and pursued a policy diametrically opposite. He en-
deavoured to govern, not for a faction, but for the nation at
large ; and though the Armada threatened England, the Irish
gave him their affectionate allegiance, and remained so tranquil
that, humanly speaking, his recall and the abandonment of
his just government must be classed amongst those acts of
mercy to the Catholic Church, which removed temptation from
her children to join the Anglican sect. Just government
would have been a more dangerous antagonist to the Catholic
faith at that period than the famines and mass acreeof the
Drurys and Greys. But let us hear Spenser : —

" After Lord Grey's calling away from thence, the two lords jus-
tices continued but a while ; of which the one was of mind (as it
seemed) to have continued in the footing of his predecessors, but
that he was curbed and restrained. But the other was more mildly
disposed as was meet for his profession, and willing to have all the
wounds of the commonwealth healed and recured, but not with that
heed as they should be. After, when Sir John Perrott, succeeding
(as it were) into another man's harvest,found an open way to what
course he list, the which he bent not to that point which the former
governors intended; but rather quite the contrary, as it were in
scorn of the former and in vain vaunt of his own councils, with the

1844.] The WorU of Edmund Spenser. 433

which he was too wilfully carried; for he did tread down and dis-
grace all the English, and set up and countenance the Irish all that
he could, whether thinking thereby to make them more tractable
and buxom to his government (wherein he thought much amiss),
or privily plotting some purposes of his own, as it partly afterwards
appeared. But surely his manner of government could not be
sound nor wholesome for that realm, it being so contrary to the
former (Lord Grey's). For it was even as two physicians should
take one sick body in hand, at two sundry times; of which the
former would minister all things meet to purge and keep under the
body ; the other to pamper and strengthen it suddenly again ;
whereof what is to be looked for but a most dangerous relapse?
That which we now see through his rule and the next after him,
happened thereunto, being now more dangerously sick than ever
before. Therefore it must by all means be foreseen and assumed,
that after once entering on this reformation, there be afterwards
no remorse or drawing back, for the sight of any such rueful ob-
jects as must thereupon follow, nor for compassion of their calami-
ties; seeing that by no other means it is possible to cure them, and
that these are not of mild but of very urgent necessity." — p. oil.

Here the "gentle" poet bolts the door, and blocks the
windows, and stops up every outlet that might convey the
sci'eams of his victims to the ear of mercy. He forgets the
profound tranquillity of Ireland under the strong but just
government of Perrott, and in scorn of that government and
vain vaunt of the bloody policy of Grey, with which he was
identified, he makes the lives of the Irish, and the peace of
the realm, the tennis-ball of his factious gratitude. We
could not think of transcribing so many extracts from a work
80 well known as the State of Ireland, if they did not apply
to the present day as well as to the period when they were
written, and every succeeding period. What can be more
humiliating than that Ireland should remain the battle-field
of English factions, fomenting the discord of her children
to their common degradation and ruin ? It is, indeed, a
shameful thing for Irish Protestants, and Irish Catholics, that
where there is so much genius, so much virtue, so much
kindness in the intercourse of private life, and, of late, .such
cordial co-operation in matters of minor national interest,
there should not be a strong and united resolve to compel the
government to rule for the general good. Protestants complain
of clerical agitation ; but look over the ten thousand speeches
of j)riests for the last few years, delivered often in presence
of their flocks alone, and always with the native ardour of
Irishmen ; and where do we find, in all these speeches, even

434 The Works of Edmund Spenser. [Dec.

one stray word to justify the imputation of an intolerance
inconsistent with the most perfect union with all religions for
civil and political objects ? The Catholics of Ireland ever
did, and we trust ever shall, maintain the sacred inflexibility
in all religious matters ; but what body has ever given such
proofs of rooted hatred and contempt for exclusive temporal

frivileges and state endowments ? Do the Protestants of
reland imagine that " the traitor of 1829" would hesitate to
sacrifice them, or stop at any amount of annual pension or
green acres to make the Catholic Church, by state connexion,
an accomplice in Irish misgovernment ? But so rooted is the
aversion of the Catholic clergy to state connexion, so firm
their resolve to remain, in the words of Burke, " the perfect
image of the primitive Christian Church," dutiful subjects,
but independent priests, that we are sure the most ardent
clerical repealers would fling repeal to the winds, if they
thought that the young repealers, who sometimes give the
Irish people weekly glimpses of French political philosophy,
could succeed in making the Catholic Church the paid func-
tionary of even an Irish parliament. These thoughts occurred
to us when we found Spenser and his imitators enabled by
Irish discord to traflHc in the misery and degradation of
Ireland ; but we hope the day is not distant when all Irish-
men will be reconciled by " the amiable dame," —

" Who Concord ycleped was in common reed,
Mother of blessed Peace and Friendship trew ;
They both her twins, both borne of heavenly seed.
And she herself likewise divinely grew,
The which right well her works divine did shew.
For strength, and wealth, and happiness, she lends.
And strife, and war, and anger, does subdew.
Of little, much; of foes she maketh friends;
And to afliicted minds sweet rest and quiet sends."

Where could concord more appropriately erect her temple,
and difluse more strength, and wealth, and happiness, than
in Ireland as she was made by God ?

" For sure it is a most beautiful and sweet country as any is
under heaven, being stored throughout with many goodly rivers,
replenished with all sorts of fish most abundantly, sprinkled with
many sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland seas, that
will carry our ships upon their waters; adorned with goodly woods,
even fit for building of houses and ships ; so commodiously as if
some princes in the world had them, they would soon hope to be
lords of all the seas, and ere long of all the world; also full of very

1844.] The Worls of Edmund Spenser. 4S5

good ports and havens, opening upon England, as inviting us to
come to them, to see what excellent commodities that country can
afford; besides the soil itself most fertile, fit to yield all kind of
fruit that may be committed thereunto; and lastly the heavens
most mild and temperate." — p. 484.

But to return to our sad task. Even in this sweet passage,
so like the lulling melody of his verse, Spenser is a tempter,
depicting the glowing charms of helpless beauty. His plan
for the subjugation of the native Irish is conceived in the
worst spirit of barbarian conquest. Tyrone and Wicklow
were the strongholds of the Irish, who, during the whole
reign of Elizabeth, baffled by an intrepid guerilla the whole
power of England. A levy of 10,000 footmen and 1000
horse was to be the first step : 8,000 were to be quartered in
Ulster, in four garrisons of 2,000 each, on the Blackwater, at
Castleliifer, at Fermanagh, and in Monaghan. 1000 men in
the county Wicklow in six garrisons, and 1000 in two gar-
risons in Connaught, in Mayo, and Galway, " to keep down
the Burkes, and Connors, and Kellies, and Murries, and all
them thereabouts." The garrisons being thus placed, proclama-
tion was to be made that whatever inhabitants of these countries
should absolutely submit themselves within twenty days (ex-
cept only the very principals and head leaders) should find
grace. But those that did not come in and submit them-
selves on the first summons, should never afterwards be re-
ceived, but left to their miserable end ! because they were
stout and obstinate rebels, and never could be made dutiful
and obedient, nor brought to labour or civil conversation ;
for, being acquainted with spoils and outrages, they will ever
after be ready for the like occasions, there could be no hope
of their amendment, and therefore needful to be cut off. A
winter campaign, well followed up, was to be the agent of
extermination.

" For it is not in Ireland as in other countries, where the wars
flame most in summer, and the helmets glisten brightest in the
brightest sunshine ; but in Ireland the winter yieldeth best services,
for then the trees are bare and naked, which used both to clothe
and house the kern ; the ground is cold and wet, which useth fo be
his bedding ; the air is sharp and bitter to blow through his naked
sides and legs ; the kine are barren and without milk, which useth
to be his only food, neither if he kill them will they yield him flesh,
nor if he keep them will they yield him food ; beside, being all
with calf for the most part, they will through much chasing and
driving cast all their calves and lose their milk, which should relieve
them the next summer Towns there are none of which he

436 The JVorh of Edmund Spenser. [Dec

may get spoil, Ihey are all burnt ; bread he hath none, he plougheth
not in summer ; flesh he hath, but if he kill it in winter he shall
want milk in summer, and shortly want life ; therefore, if they be
well followed but one winter, you shall have little work with them
the next summer." — p. 509.

Spenser calculates that before the second winter, the enemy
would be brought so low, as to accept any conditions. Judg-
ing from what he had seen in Desmond's wars, he supposed
that no living thing, man or beast, could be found in Tyrone,
Tyrconnell, or the county of Wicklow; but should any re-
main, he wished a general proclamation to be made in Her
Majesty's name, that whoever came in and submitted, should
either have pardon, or permission to return in safety. Sup-
posing that all the survivors would come in, he suggests that
those Avho were fit for subjection, or even all (because, he
adds, "I think that all will be very few"), may be received, on
condition of resigning themselves to the absolute disposal of
the conqueror. When a similar proclamation was issued at
the close of Desmond's war, he saw those who were refused
protection, begging that anything should be done to them
rather than that they should be compelled to return and die
of hunger and misery.

From the manner in which he wished to dispose of the
remnant of the northern and Wicklow Irish, it would appear
that he believed there was a deathless spirit of liberty breath-
ing from their native soil, which could never brook the chains
of the stranger. Like the giant of old, the kern and galloglass
were invincible as long as they trod their native hills. To
break this spirit, the poet proposes the following singular plan:

" "VVlien the Ulster men be come in, I would have them first
xmarmed utterly, and stripped quite of all their warlike weapons,
and then these conditions set down and made known to them : that
they shall be placed in Leinstex*, and have land given them to
occupy and live upon, in such sort as shall become good subjects,
to labour thenceforth for their living, and to apply themselves to
honest trades of civility, as they shall every one be found fit and
able for.

" Eudox. Where then, a God's name, will you place them in
Leinster? or will you find out any new land there that is yet un-
known ?

"Irett. No; I will place them all in the county of the Binnes and
Tools, which Pheagh M'Hugh hath, and in all the lands of the
Cavanaghs, which are now in rebellion, and all the lands which will
fall to her majesty thereabouts, which I know to be very spacious,
and large enough to contain them, being very near twenty or thirty
miles wide.

1844.] The Worh of Edmund Spenser. 437

' " Eudox. But then what will you do with all the Birnes, the
Tooles, and the Cavanaghs, and all those that are now joined with
them ?

" Iren I will translate all that remain of them unto the

places of the other in Ulster, with all their creete and what else they
have left thera." — p. 516.

AVe remarked that Spenser's policy to the Anglo-Irish
could be traced in the acts of every succeeding governnient,
and the same may be said of his schemes of extermination, or
transplanting, for the native Irish. ^Mountjoy, in the war
with Tyrone, carried out Spenser's campaign to the letter ;
and James the First, in the confiscation of the six counties of
the north, the county of Wicklow, and King's and Queen's
County, did but realize the settlement projected by the gentle
poet.

The civil reformation of Ireland was to be completed in the
same spirit in which it was commenced. When the Irish
septs were broken, and their remnants dispersed and inter-
mingled with the English colonists throughout the country,
the sword was still to continue unsheathed. Martial law, in
the most summary forms, was to be permanently enforced
against all who left the places where they were located. Here
Avas the precedent for those suspensions of the constitution
which have been so cherished a remedy for all the evils of
Ireland.

" But afterwards, lest any of them (the Irish) should swerve,
or any that is tied to a trade should afterwards not follow the same,
according to this institution, hut should straggle up and doAvn the
country, or mich in corners among their friends idly, as carrowes,
bards, jesters, and such like, I would wish that a provost-marshal
should be appointed in every shire, which should continually walk
about the country, Avith half-a-dozen or half-a-score horsemen, to
take up such loose persons as they should thus find wandering,
whom he should punish by his own authority, with such pains as
the person shall seem to deserve ; for if he be but once so taken
idly roguing, he may punish him more lightly, as with stocks or
such like ; but if he be found again so loitering, he may scourge
him with whips or rods, after which, if he be again taken, let him
have the bitterness of martial law."

Thus, whatever was exclusive, or tyrannical, or sanguinary.
In British misgovernment, had the sanction of Spenser, though
he had before his eyes, in the administration of Perrott, a
proof of the ease with which the Irish people could be won
over by gentleness and justice. One merit the State of Ireland
certainly possesses, and in the highest degree. No book with

438 The Works of Edmund Spenser. [Deo.

which we are acquainted, sketches so vividly the scenes and
characters of the age. If we are ever to have a history of
the Irish reign of Elizabeth, not a cold skeleton, but a breath-
ing figure picturing the men and events of that great crisis,
Spenser can be consulted with great advantage. O'Sullivan,
in his Historic^ Catholicce, often omits things which, from
being so familiar to himself, were deemed unworthy of notice.
But in Spenser, the features of the country, so different from
what they are to-day, the manners of the Irish through all
their grades, the woodkerne, the gallowglass, " the rake
hell horseboy," the daring mountaineers of Wicklow and
Tyrone ; together with the poor hunted friar, and the lazy or
vicious Anglican, — are all depicted in vivid colours. The
bards were objects of special attention.

" There is amongst the Irish a certain kind of people called
bards, which are to them instead of poets, whose profession is to set
forth the praises or dispraises of men, in their poems or rythms,
the which are had in so high regard and estimation amongst them,
that none dare displease them for fear to run into reproach through
their offence, and to be made infamous in the mouth of all men.
For their verses are taken up with general applause, and usually
sung at all feasts and meetings by certain other persons whose
proper function that is; who also receive for the same great rewards

and reputation amongst them These Irish bards are so far fi-ora

instructing young men in moral discipline, that they themselves do
more deserve to be sharply disciplined ; for they seldom used to
choose unto themselves the doings of good men for the arguments
of their poems, but whomsoever they find to be most licentious of
life, most bold and lawless in his doings, most dangerous and des-
perate in all parts of disobedience and rebellious disposition, him
they set up and glorify in their rhymes; him they praise to the

people, and to young men make an example to follow As of

a most notorious thief and wicked outlaw [some independent chief
or subject driven to arms in self-defence], which had lived all his
lifetime of spoils and robberies, one of their bards in his praise will
say, that he was none of the idle milk-sops that was brought up by
the fire-side, but that most of his days he spent in arms and valiant
enterprises ; that he did never eat his bread before he had won it
with his sword; that he lay not all night slugging in a cabin, under
his mantle, but used commonly keep others waking to defend their
Kves, and did light his candle in the flames of their houses to guide
him in the darkness; that the day was his night, and the night his
day; that he loved not to be long wooing of wenches to yield to
him, but where he came he took by force the spoil of other men's
love, and left but lamentation to their lovers; that his music was
Bot the harp, nor lays of love, but the cries of people, and the clash-

1844.] The WorJcs of Edmund Spenser. 439

ing of armour ; and, finally, that he died not bewailed by many,
but made many wail when he died, that dearly bought his death.
Do you not think, Eudoxus, that many of their praises might be
applied to men of best deserts ? Yet are they all yielded to some
notable traitor, and amongst some of the Irish not lightly accounted
of. For the song, when it was first made and sung to a person of
high degree there, was bought, as their manner is, for forty crowns."

It is clear from these extracts, that the great crime of the
bards was their love of Ireland and independence, — a crime
which met no mercy from a brother bard. Had they pro-
faned the muse like Spenser himself, by blazoning the evil
deeds and consecrating the crimes of Earl Grey, all their sins
would have been covered by political apostacy. But they
were doomed to extirpation because they spurned the Saxon
chain, and devoted their genius, which extorts the admiration
of Spenser, to the liberty of their country.

" I have caused," he says, " divers of them to be translated unto
me, that I might understand them, and surely they savoured of
sweet wit and good invention, but skilled not of the goodly orna-
ments of poetry ; yet were they sprinkled with some pretty flowers
of natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them,
the which it is a great pity to see so abused, to the gracing of
wickedness and vice, which with good usage would serve to adorn
and beautify virtue." — p. 501.

It were well for the fame of Spenser, that almost all his
political writings, and too much of his poetry, which graces
wickedness and vice, had shared the fate of the artless effu-
sions of the forgotten bards.

With few exceptions, he enters fully into the exclusive and
tyrannical spirit of Anglo-Irish legislation. Descending to
the minutest details of dress, language, intermarriages, foster-
ing, he wished to mould the whole frame of society after the
English fashion, without any regard to the national character
or the circumstances ol' the country. Once indeed, he
ventures to condemn the laws that forbade saffron shirts and
smocks, gilt bridles and petronels, and the wearing of beard
on the upper lip ; but a look at his own portrait, shows he
had personal grounds for defending the moustache ; and the
following laboured philippic against Irish mantles and glibbs,
deprives him of all claims to statesman-like views in tolerating
gilt bridles or saffron shirts. The glibb, as every one knows,
was a thick curled lock of hair flowing over the forehead.
Spenser called for a law against it ; because whenever an
Irishman broke the law, he either cut off his glibb or pulled

440 The Works of Edmund Spenser. [Dec*

it down over his eyes, masking himself as securely from the
pursuits of justice, as if he had been wrapped in the Proteus
folds of his Scythian mantle. Spenser against the mantle is
a study for all small politicians, from the wise head that saw
treason in moustaches, or in gold lace, or ladies' gowns, —
down to the collective wisdom that branded Irish arms.

" The Irish mantle should be prohibited, because it is a fit house
for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak for a thief.
First, the outlaw being, for his many crimes and villainies, banished
from the towns and houses of honest men, and wandering in waste
places far from danger of law, maketh his mantle his house, and
under it covereth himself from the wrath of heaven, from the offence
of earth, and from the sight of men. When it raineth, it is his
pent-house; when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it freezeth, it is
his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose, in winter he can
wi'ap it close ; at all times he can use it — never weary, never cum-
bersome. Likewise for a rebel it is as serviceable : for in the war
that he maketh, when he still flieth from his foe, or lurketh in the
thick woods and straight passages, waiting for advantages, it is his
bed, yea, and almost his household stuff. For the wood is his house
against all weathei's, and his mantle is his couch to sleep in ; therein
he wrappeth himself round, and coucheth himself strongly against
the gnats, which in that country do more annoy the naked rebels
whilst they keep the woods, and do more sharply wound them, than
all their enemies' swords and spears, which can seldom come nigh
them. Yea, and oftentimes their mantle serveth them when they
are near driven, being wrapped about their left arm, instead of a
tai-get ; for it is hard to cut through with a sword, besides it is light
to bear, light to throw away, and in all. Lastly, for a thief it is so
handsome, as being, as they commonly are, naked, may seem as
though it was first invented for him ; for under it he may cleanly
convey away any fit pillage that cometh handsomely in his way ;
and when he goeth abroad in the night in freebooting, it is his best
and surest friend ; for lying, as they often do, two or three nights
together abroad, to watch for their booty, with that they can prettily
shroud themselves under a bush or a bankside till they can conve-
niently do their errand : and when all is over, he can, in his mantle,
pass through any town or company, being close hooded over liis
head, as he useth, from knowledge of any to whom he is endangered.
Besides this, he or any man else that is disposed to mischief or
villiany, may under his mantle go firmly armed, without suspicion
of any, carrying his head-piece, his skean, or pistol, if he please, to
be always in readiness." — p. 495.

This extract reminds one of the discursive trifling of Spen-
ser's muse, often leading the reader from the main subject,
and bewildering him in a maze of airy speculations, which

1844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 441

prove at once an inexhaustible fertility of imagination and a
strange weakness of judgment. Seriously to recommend a law
prohibiting all rebels and outlaws f to whom sword or spear
could seldom come nigh) to wear the mantle, is something the
same as if Marshal Bugeaud issued an order to the tribes of
the desert not to wear the turban, because it protected their
heads from the African sun. Perhaps the originators of the
Irish Arms Act could take the hint, and have a law passed
against the great coats now worn by the Irish peasant ; they
have all the traitorous properties of the Scythian mantle.
Still it would be unjust to attribute Spenser's dislike for Irish
dress to whim or national prejudice. He wished to enslave
the Irish ; and he had read in Aristotle, " that when Cyrus
had overcome the Lydians, that were a warlike nation, and
desired to bring them to a more peaceable life, he changed
their apparel and music, and instead of their short warlike
coat, clothed them in long garments like women, and instead
of their warlike music, appointed to them certain lascivious

lays, and loose jigs, by which they became tender and

effeminate." Slavish subserviency to English interests was
the civilization which Spenser wished to the Irish.

We have already had occasion to adduce his evidence on
the disorders of the Established Church. The following were
his views on the means by which these disorders were to be
reformed :

" In planting of religion, thus much is needful to be observed :
that it be not sought forcibly to be impressed into them with terror
and sharp penalties, as now is the manner, but rather delivered and
intimated with mildness and gentleness, so as it may not be hated
before it is understood, and their professors despised and rejected.
And therefore it is expedient that some discreet ministers of their
own countrymen be sent over amongst them, which, by their meek
persuasions and instructions, as also by their sober lives and con-
versations, first to understand, and afterwards to embrace, the doc-
trine of their salvation, wherein it is great wonder to see the

odds which is between the zeal of popish priests and the ministers
of the Gospel; for they spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome
and from Remes, by long toil and dangerous travelUng hither,
where they know peril of death awaiteth them, and no reward or
riches is to be found, only to draw the people into the Church
of Rome ; whereas some of our idle ministers having a way for
credit and estimation thereby opened unto them, without pains
and without peril, will neither for the same nor any love of
God, nor zeal of religion, nor for all the good they may do by
winning souls to God, be drawn forth from their warm nests to
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 29

442 The Work8 of Edmund Spenser. [Dec

look out unto God's harvest, which is now I'eady for the sickle, and
all the fields yellow long ago. Doubtless, the good old godly fathers
will (I fear me) rise up in the day of judgment to condemn them.

Were there ever so many of them (sober Englishmen) sent,

even they should do small good till one enormity be taken from
them (the Irish) ; that is, that both they be restrained from sending
their young men abroad to other universities beyond the sea, as
Remes, Douay, Lovain, and the like; and others from abroad be re-
strained from coming unto them; for they lurking secretly in the
houses, and in corners of the country, do more hurt and hindrance
to religion, with their private persuasions, than all the others can
do good with their public instructions."

It is good to ponder on this contrast : to weigh well the
destiny of these poor lurking priests ; to see them maintain-
ing for three centuries the Catholic faith against the mightiest
kingdom in the world ; and when the hour of deliverance
was come, emancipating themselves by the arms of truth and
justice, and by the moral influence of that victory, bringing
back by tlie Heform Bill the constitution of England to its
Catholic form ; to behold the Irish Catholics, the nucleus
of Catholic congregations in the towns of England, or carry-
inor the cross wherever the British banner floats over the
ocean, or infusing the Catholic element into the great Ame-
rican republic, or, more than all, exhibiting to the Catholics
of Europe the image of an independent Church, perfectly-
free in an Erastian age, and reviving, by the incredible
number of churches and convents erected within the last
fourteen years, as well as by the lavish charity and increasing
piety of her sons, — reviving, we say, the most zealous ages
of the Christian Church. It is good to ponder on these
things — not to feed our pride, but to know our duty ; to
make no change in what works so well, but transmit with our
ecclesiastical liberty, a salutary distrust of the arm of flesh,
which may attempt to bribe what it could not crush. The
lurking friar was very probably the original of the following
picture of the enchanter, who, according to Spenser, seduced
the Church into the ways of error :

At length they chaunst to meet upon the way,

An aged sire in long blacke weedes yclad,

His feete all bare, his beard all hoarie gray,

And by his belt, his booke he hanging had,

Sober he seemed, and very sagely sad;

And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent,

Bimple in show and void of malice bad,

And all the way he prayed, as he went.

And often knockt his breast as one that did repent.

1844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 443

(His house) xxxiv.

A little lonely hermitage it was,

Downe in a dale hard by a forest's side,

Far from resort of people that did pass

In traveill toe and froe; a little wyde

There was an holy chappell edifyde,

Wherein the hermite duly went to say

His holy things each morn and eventyde,

Thereby a christall stream did gently play,

Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway.

XXXV.

Around there, the little house they fill,
No booke for entertainment where none was,
Rest is their feast and all things at their will,
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
With faire discourse the evening so they pass,
For that old man of pleasing words had store,
And well could file his tongue as smooth as glass,
He told of saintes and popes, and evermore
He strowed an Ave Mary, after and before.

We had intended to lighten our task by a few extracts
from the Faery Queen, descriptive of Irish scenery. Besides
the celebrated description of the Irish rivers, and of Arlo
Hill, copied into Sir James Ware's edition of the State of
Ireland, the poem has many illustrations of a similar kind.
But we must be content with a stanza on Arlo, and another
on the allegory of the three rivers, the Barrow, Nore,
and Sure.

Whilom when Ireland flourished in fame,

Of wealth and goodnesse far above the rest

Of all that beare the British Islands' name.

The gods then used for pleasure and for rest.

Oft to resort thereto (Arlo) when seemed them best.

But none of all therein more pleasure found.

Than Cynthia, that is several ne queene profest

Of woods and forests which therein abound.

Sprinkled with wholesome waters more than most on ground.

The three rivers are the "three fair sons" of the giant
Blomius (Slieve Bloom) and the Nymph Eheusa: —

The first the gentle Shure that making way

By sweet Clonmell adorns rich Waterford,

The next the stubborn Neure whose waters gray

By faire Kilkenny and Rossepont boord;

The third the goodly Barrow which doth hoord

444 The WorJcs of Edmund Spenser. [Dec.

Great heaps of salmon in his deep bosonie,
All which long sundered do at last accord
To joyne in one, ere to the sea they come,
So flowing all from one, all one at last become.

The epithets, "gentle" and "stubborne" are not happily
applied, unless there has been a great change since the days
of Spenser. His lines —

The spacious Shannon spreading like a sea,
and

Mulla mine, whose waves I whilorae taught to weep,

are not bad specimens of his artful melody, which, like the
sounds in the cave of his magician, is as

A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down.
And ever drizzling rain upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring wind much like the sowne
Of swarming bees.

Thousands know Spenser's poetry who never heard of his
politics. To such we feel some apology is due, for raking up
these heavy charges on his memory. Should any person re-
gard our notice as an effusion of monkish ignorance or bigoted
intolerance, it must not be forgotten, that Spenser's calumnies
and policy are still the maxims of British governors, and un-
fortunately, the public opinion of a large class of Englishmen
towards Ireland. Had his errors died with him, like those of
Cambrensis, who metamorphosed the people of Ossory into
wolves, or like those of more modern historians, who gave
tails to the wild Irish ; or even like Milton's huge lie on the
Irish massacre of 1641 ; no person could condemn, more
severely than ourselves, the wretched taste which should dis-
inter the follies of a man who has been the delight of three
centuries and the glory of English literature, But Spenser's
spirit survives in Irish misgovernment. His work is the fruit
and food of prejudices injurious to some oi' our fellow-subjects
and disgraceful to all. Such is the fate of the errors of ge-
nius, especially when they are the errors of an age. The
impure novelist, the lying historian, the factious pamphleteer,
generally survive their works ; but the man whose life is an
epoch in the literature of his country, whose genius gives him
an eminence through all time, is guilty indeed, when his
splendour misleads and enthralls, by the spell of his name, the
minds of his countrymen in pernicious errors. Spenser found
many statesmen, as he tells us, heartily wishing that Ireland
was "a pool of water;"" he found others plotting the ex-

1844.] The Works of Edmund Spenser. 445

tirpation of all her inhabitants ; others fomenting her disor-
ganization lest she should grow too strong : and others haunted
by the gloomy apprehension "that Almighty God had reserved
her for some secret scourge which, through her, was to come
unto England." " A thing," he says, " which was hard to
know, but much to be feared." Should God, in his retribu-
tive justice, make England "suffer in that in which she has
sinned," what has Spenser done to arrest the judgment? No-
thing, we fear. He found England prejudiced, he confirmed
her ; he found Ireland miserable, and plunged her still deeper
in the gulph. In life and in death, by his writings and by
his woes, when he wandered an outcast in London, after the
loss of his property and the death of his child in the flames
lit by Irish revenge, he was a firebrand between those whom
it has pleased Providence to make the subjects of the
same crown.

Should the name of Spenser attract to our pages any of
those gifted minds whose high prerogative it is to reform
public opinion, perhaps when they review the errors of a
kindred spirit, they will acknowledge that, as anti- Irish pre-
judice has been one of the most fatal aberrations of the
British mind, so there could be no greater blessing to the
empire than to bury that prejudice for ever. So little inclined
are we to part in anger with Spenser, that we have reserved
for the close an appeal which covers a multitude of his sins,
though it is clear his motive was not humanity, but policy —
not the good of the tenant, but the destruction of the land-
lords' political power. How few the victims, how slight the
rapid havoc of Irish wars, compared to the millions of hearts
broken by the tyranny of landlords, from the days of Spenser
to Lord Devon's commission.

" There is one general inconvenience which reigneth almost
throughout all Ireland ; that is, the lords of lands and freeholders
do not there use to set out their land in farm or for terms of years
to their tenants, but only from year to year, and some during plea-
sure ; neither, indeed, will the Irish husbandman or tenant other-
wise take his land, than so long as he list himself. The reason
hereof in the tenant is, for that the landlords there used most shame-
fully to rack their tenants, laying upon them coigny and livery at
pleasure, and exacting of them besides his covenants, what he
pleaseth ; so that the poor husbandman dare not bind himself to
him for a longer term, or thinketh by his continual liberty of change
to keep his landlord the rather in awe from wronging of him. And
the reason why the landlord will no longer covenant with him is,

446 7'he Works of Udamnd Spenser. [Dec.

for that he daily looketh after change and alteration, and hovereth
in expectation of new Avorlds.

" Eudox. But what evil cometh hereby to the commonwealth, or
what reason is it that any landlord should not set, nor any tenant
take his land as himself list.

" Iren. Marry, the evils which come hereby are great ; for by
this means both the landlord thinketh that he hath his tenant more
at command, to follow him into what action soever he shall enter,
and also the tenant, being left at his liberty, is fit for every occasion
of change that shall be offered by time ; and so much also the more
ready and willing he is to run with the same, for that he hath no
such state in any his holding ; no such building upon any farm; no
such cost employed in fencing or husbanding the same, as might
withhold him from any such wilful course as his lord's cause or his
own lewd disposition may carry him into. All which he hath fore-
borne, and spared so much expense ; for that he hath no firm estate
in his tenement, but was only a tenant at will or little more, and so
at will may leave it. And this inconvenience may be reason enough
to ground any ordinance for the good of the commonwealth, against
the private behoof or will of any landlord that shall refuse to grant
any such term or estate unto his tenant, as may tend to the good of
the whole realm.

" Eudox. Indeed, methinks it is a great wilfulness in any such
landlord to refuse to make any longer farms to their tenants, as may
tende the general good of the realm, be also greatly for their own
profit and avail. For what reasonable man will not think that the
tenement shall be made much better for the lord's behoof, if the
tenant may by such good means be drawn to build himself some
handsome habitation thereon, to ditch and enclose his ground, to
manure and husband it, as good farmers use; for when his tenant's
term shall be expired, it will yield him in the renewing his lease, a
good fine and a better rent. And also, it shall be for the good of
the tenant likewise, who by such buildings and enclosures shall re-
ceive many benefits; first, by the handsomeness of his house he
shall take more comfort of his life, more safe-dwelling, and a delight
to keep his said house neat and cleanly; which now being, as they
commonly are, rather swine-styes than houses, is the chief cause of
his so beastly manner of life and savage condition, lying and living
together with his beast in one house, in one room, in one bed ; that
is, clean straw, or rather a foul dunghill. And to all these commo-
dities he shall, in a short time, find a greater added ; that is, his
own wealth and riches increased and wonderfully enlarged, by keep-
ing his cattle in enclosures where they shall always have fresh pas-
tures, that now is all trampled and overrun; warm covert that now
Heth open to all weather."

If this extract should prompt any of our lawgivers to check
the grinding extortions of Irish landlords, Sjienser's appeal

1844.] The Papal Swpremacy, ^c. 447

on behalf of the poor tenants may be regarded as the same
amende for his political, that the following is for his moral
delinquency.

Many lewd layes (ah ! woe is me the more)
In praise of that mad fit, which fools call love,
I have in the heat of youth made heretofore,
That ill light wits did loose affection move.
But all those foUies now I do reprove,
And turned have the tenor of my string,
The heavenly praises of true love to sing.

And ye that wont with greedy vaine desire,
To reade my fault and wondering at my flame,
To warme yourselves at my wide sparckling fire,
Sith now that heat is quenched, quench my blame,
And in her ashes shroud my dying shame;
For, whx) my passed follies now pursewes,
Beginnes his owns, and my old fault renewes.

Art. VII. — Tracts for the Last Bays. London: Painter. 1843.

TO those Catholics who have carefully and impartially
watched the progress of the Anglican controversy during
the last ten or twelve years, the present state of the theologi-
cal movement by which this eventful period has been charac-
terized, must, on the whole, however accompanied with pain-
ful and anxious feelings, afford abundant matter for deep and
heartfelt satisfaction. The sacred doctrines for which we had
so earnestly to contend a few years back, are now not only
admitted but maintained by those very persons against Avhoni
we then contended, and are maintained with a zeal and ten-
derness which are better proofs of sincere conviction than
even the unanswerable arguments with which they are sup-
ported. That all the original supporters of the present move-
ment should not be prepared to go all the length of Catholic
doctrine with Mr. Newman or Mr. Ward, is a thing which
was to be expected, and may be accounted for on many
grounds short of insincerity. Inveterate prejudices, misun-
derstandings, or want of moral or intellectual insight, whether
resulting from the difficulties of position, or from indi-
vidual incapacity, will amply satisfy any charitable person
who has the slightest knowledge of human nature, as the real

448 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

causes of the short-comings of many who have taken part in
the Oxford movement. And to deny that certain principles
have taken deep root in the minds of religious Protestants,
which cannot fail in their season to produce a favourable har-
vest, would at once betray a total ignorance of the popular
Anglican literature of the day, and also of the tone of conver-
sation in religious society.

Of the final result we have, of course, no doubt, but
we can easily understand why many Catholics should look
with coldness and suspicion on a movement which origi-
nated in a feeling of the most ardent devotion towards
the Anglicah Church, and which, to be consistent with
itself, could not at first but treat the Catholics of Eng-
land as schismatical pretenders to the privileges of the true
Church. And again, it by no means follows that persons
holding a large portion of Catholic doctrine are any nearer in
reality to the full integrity of Catholic truth than persons Avho
hold less; for, if so, the schismatic Greeks, who are orthodox on
nearly every point of faith, and, indeed, the Oriental heretics
of every description, would be nearer to us than such persons
as Dr. Pusey or Archdeacon Manning. It is, again, most
difficult for those who are unacquainted with the personal
characters of such persons as Mr. Newman, or the writer in
the British Critic, to conceive how persons can admit so much
as they do without forfeiting that invincible ignorance w^hich
can alone excuse a person, in the sight of God, from openly
deserting the heresy with which he is connected, and profess-
ing himself a member of that one Church which is divinely
established as the ark of our salvation. From our study of
the movement in its different bearings, and from the accidental
knowledge we possess of the persons who originated it, or
have since been raised up to accelerate its development, we
are happy in being able to adopt a more consoling view
of what we have to expect from the natural course of events ;
and we are encouraged by the consideration that those who
have spoken on the other side of the question have no preten-
tion to information on the subject not accessible to ourselves,
but are rather deficient on this essential point ; and where
their reasons have been given, we have found them deserving,
indeed, of all attention, but very far from being conclusive
against us. It is not our intention in this article, which is
expressly written in confutation of a section of tlie movement
party, to enter upon the reasons which inclined us to look

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 449

with interest and hope upon the present state of things ; still,
as we have noticed some of the considerations which would
lead to a different conclusion, we may as well state the
grounds which prevent their having any weight with us.

And first of all, we look with hope upon the present move-
ment, because it is a religious movement, and in the right di-
rection. The cases of the Greek Church, and the other east-
ern heresies, are not parallel cases. If there were as much
religious activity in those quarters as we see in England, we
should have the most unbounded hopes of their speedy con-
version. In England it is true that many may have joined
the movement merely from a keen perception of the aesthetic
beauty of the Catholic religion or its forms of worship, or
from a sense of the intellectual inanity of ordinary Protes-
tantism, and that such persons have, as might have been
expected, been loud and forward in trumpeting their own
claims, according to the true Anglican practice. Such persons
do exist, and it is against such that the letter of the Comte de
Montalembert is especially written. Would that that won-
derful letter, of which we cannot sufficiently express our
admiration, might utterly root out that most hateful vice
of unreality, which is the especial danger of the present day !
But to say that the whole movement was characterized with
unreality, is to show an acquaintance with only one, and that
the worthless, or, at least, most unpromising, section of the
party. We are anxious to avow our sincere conviction that
the real strength of the movement consists in its being the
result of the spiritual cravings of a multitude of religious
hearts, whose dissatisfaction with their present position arose,
unconsciously at first, out of their exertions to live up to that
standard of holiness which their own Church proposed to
them. In so doing they found that their efforts were not
assisted by their Church, and hence have arisen those com-
plaints for which the " high and dry " orthodoxy of the esta-
blishment can only account, by attributing them to "morbid"
feelings. If our solution of this most striking religious phe-
nomenon of the nineteenth century be a true one, it is .easy
to see how many apparent and real inconsistencies are
accounted for. And if, as every Catholic is bound to believe,
the Catholic Church be the only haven of repose for the
humble and contrite heart, and if God will give His grace to
all Avho ask it in truth and sincerity, a Catholic cannot doubt
of the final issue of such a movement as we have described.

450 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

But a humble person will naturally pause before he condemns
the religious community in which he was placed by Provir
dence, and will be more inclined to mistrust himself than his
Church, and this we know to be the case with many most
humble and affectionate souls, whose hearts are entirely with
us, and who would only be following their natural inclinations
and desires were they to desert the Anglican for the Catholic
Church. It is our business to satisfy them that it is in the
One Fold alone that they can hope to attain that supernatural
eminence of holiness at which they aim, and this we shall do,
not so much by force of argument as by exhibiting before them
the exercise of those unearthly virtues which are so distin-
guishing a note of the Church of Christ. And though we
should sin most grievously by uttering a single word that
could tend in any way to countenance their present unhappy
separation from the Catholic Church, which, however incul-
pable it may be in them, is yet most full of fearful peril to
their souls ; we should improve the matter but little by being
angry, or fretful, or impatient, because the grace of God was
slow in manifesting itself.

"God hath sown, and He will reap;
Growth is slow when roots are deep."

We propose in the present article to continue the series of
papers which has already been commenced in this journal,
with a view to establish, by means of documentary evidence,
the existence of facts, doctrines, and principles, in the earlier
ages of Christianity, which form an essential part of the pre-
sent Catholic system, but which are utterly unknown to An-
glicanism, and are rejected by its advocates as errors in doc-
trine, or corruptions in practice. And as offence has been
taken at the language used in this Review with reference to
the advocates of high-church Anglicanism, we must beg
leave to say a few words on the subject.

We have great happiness, as we have already said, in
knowing that a great many members of the Anglican Church,
although brought up in bitter hostility to the sacred truths of
Catholicism, have, by dint of living up to the positive truths
which their communion has not yet denied, and by improving
their knowledge by ecclesiastical studies, outgrown tlie
narrow formulas of high-church orthodoxy, and are really,
however unconsciously, only waiting for some crisis, openly
to declare themselves Catholics, in communion with the Holy

1844. J Division of the East and the West. 451

See. Many of them have, in the course of their writings,
used very strong expressions against Rome, which were the
natural result of their position at the time ; and at which it
would now be foolish and unphilosophical for any Catholic to
be astonished or annoyed, when he considers the circum-
stances under which they were written. Mr. Newman has
since nobly atoned for his mistake by a public retractation.
Others, like Mr. Ward or Mr. Oakeley, have been so cautious
from the beginning, that they have had nothing of the sort
to retract. Against such persons we should be sorry to utter
a single harsh or unkind word. But there are others, Avho
follow in their train, who are not content with embracing
doctrines, which, let them say what they will, are utterly at
variance with what they had been taught from their child-
hood, and which, when first started a few years back, startled
and scandalized all the elder members of their communion ;
which, however consistent with the formularies of their
Church, they no more learnt from their Church than they
did from the Grand Lama ; and which, if they be true, their
Church has been teaching heresy for the last three centuries,
more or less. Not content with this, — not aware that every
change in religious teaching involves either the commission
of present, or the confession of past, sin, — these gentlemen,
whose constant cry is " Church authority," make no scruple
of asserting, that doctrines which have had the sanction of
the whole of Christendom, their own Church inclusive (pre-
vious to its schism), are false as hell, blasphemous, and idola-
trous ; that the whole of Catholic Christendom is still plunged
in the deepest abyss of error and superstition, and that the
voice of nearly two hundred millions (whom they allow to be
members of the true Church), with respect to their ecclesias-
tical position, is not merely erroneous, but undeserving of the
slightest consideration. And here, where sects and heresies
are daily springing up, like worms, from the decaying carcase
of the establishment, — where, in the larger towns, vice reigns
with almost undisputed sway, and in the most appalling
forms ; in short, where souls are perishing on all sides> and
the bottomless abyss yawns daily for new victims, — we have
grave clergymen proposing to cure the deep-rooted diseases
of our social system, by preaching in surplices on the imma-
culate purity of the Anglican Church, turning to the East at
the creed, setting up Gothic fittings, reading the prayer for
the Church Militant, the weekly use of the offertory, and
placing candlesticks upon the communion table, provided only

452 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

■ — most expressive, most significant symbol — that the candles
be not lighted ! And these are people who dare to talk of
extreme views, — who dare to make a stir, when holy and
self-denying members of their own communion are forced, in
spite of themselves, to protest against the hollowness of
Anglicanism, and the heretical and anti-christian character
which has characterized it from the beginning. These per-
sons it is who bring contempt upon their party, who give a
point to the accusations of evangelicals, and to the blas-
phemies of infidels and latitudinarians, and who discourage
earnest and truth-loving men from searching deeper into the
causes of a phenomenon which bears such rottenness and un-
reality upon its surface. Mr. Carlyle was thinking of such men
when he spoke of "Puseyism" asa "gham"of the nineteenth
century, which was calculated " to strike one dumb." The
disgust we feel at the spirit of such proceedings, is not con-
fined to Catholics and low-church Protestants. Mr. Newman
has spoken most strongly and bitterly against it in his last
volume of sermons. The eloquent biographer of St. Wilfrid
has characterized it as " a fearful, indeed a sickening, de-
velopment of the peculiar iniquity of the times — a masterpiece
of Satan's craft !" A nd we boldly challenge any one to point
out any expressions of abhorrence which have been used,
either in the Tablet or the Dublin Review, against the An-
glican system, which would not be mild, when compared with
the sustained and crushing attack which it has lately met in
Mr. Ward's " Ideal of a Christian Church." Let those who
feel inclined to quarrel with us, first settle their quarrels with
Mr. Ward: when they have done so, we shall be happy to
hear what they have to say for themselves. Meanwhile,
believing, as we do, that the spirit we have described, which
is one of the most odious and despicable formalism (compared
with which Puritanism itself, were it the only resource,
would become beautiful and attractive), has always been one
of the chief characteristics of high-church Anglicanism, and
that in close union with an infatuated self-complacency,
which would be ludicrous, were it not awfully revolting, —
believing all this, never can we permit an occasion to pass
by, whenever it presents itself, of denouncing as energetically
as we can the lying counterfeit which would fain pass itself
off as genuine and pure Catholicism.*

* In all fairness we are bound to say that the editor of the "English Church-
man " (whose remarks on the " Dublin Review " have occasioned the above

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 453

The supremacy of the Roman pontiff, — that one doctrine
which all heretics and schismatics have hitherto failed in
acknowledging, however closely they have agreed with the
Catholic Church on other points, — has for some time been
acknowledged by the most advanced of the Oxford party.

An extract was given last Christmas in this journal, in
support of the doctrine in question, from Mr. Newman's
" Sermons for the Day ;" and we are now happy in having
the testimony of Mr. Palmer that the interpretation then
given was a correct one. This gentleman, in his review* of
Mr. Newman's sermons, quotes the very same passage, and
thus comments upon it:

" We have examined and turned this concluding passage in every
way, but we fear that it can bear only one interpretation — the
Papal supremacy/, and that by Divine right."

The same authority! tells us, that the biographer of St.
Stephen Harding, has reverence for the Papacy, " the same
in kind and degree as that of St. Bernard, or any other
zealous adherent of Rome, when its claims and its powers
were most exalted." Mr. Ward| demands that a Pope's dog-
matic decree should be received without comment or criticism ;
and the life of St. Wilfrid, recently published, is one con-
tinued eulogiura on the Holy See, and those who devoted all
their energies in its support. When less advanced high-
churchmen, therefore, challenge us to prove the Pope's supre-
macy, we might at once refer them to Mr. Newman, whose
opinion on this subject, let them say what they will, is de-
serving of their most serious attention. The last years of
his life have, as is well known, been almost exclusively de-
voted to the study of ecclesiastical antiquity ; and his recent
labours, on St. Athanasius, justify us in pronouncing him
the most learned writer the Anglican Church has yet pro-
duced. Is he less learned than when he denied the Pope's
supremacy ? or, if mere erudition be not a sufficient claim to
authority, are his reasoning powers impaired ? For this let
any one consult his Essay on Miracles, or his University
Sermons, and, if the enquiry be an impartial one, we fear not
the result.

observations) is infinitely less Anglican than his correspondents, and we should
be sorry should our remarks be looked upon as applying pei'sonally to himself.
Only since he was displeased at oiu" attacks upon Anglicanism, we thought it
right to say plainly what we meant by high-church Anglicanism, and he will
surely allow that our picture is not that of an ideal existence.

* " English Review," No. II. p. 330. f lb. p. 476 \ " Ideal of a Christian
Church," p. 100, first edition.

454 The Paiial Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

But we have no wish to shelter ourselves behind the au-
thority of Mr. Newman ; and, as we have been repeatedly
informed of late, by persons who profess, with Bishop Ken,
to hold the faith of the universal Church anterior to the divi-
sion of east and west, that the papal supremacy is their great
difficulty, we propose, in the following pages, to examine into
the faith of the Church during the period referred to, on this
momentous subject.

Now, we suppose that no candid reasoner will deny, that if
the universality of this doctrine before the schism can be
proved, a very material point indeed will have been estab-
lished. For such a doctrine as the papal supremacy could not
possibly creep imperceptibly over the whole of Christendom.
We might as reasonably suppose it possible, for a king of
England or France suddenly and peacefully to acquire domi-
nion over tJie whole of the civilized world, without its being
perceived by the politicians of the different nations. Or even
supposing this absurd impossibility to be got over, the diffi-
culty remains as great as ever. For if the whole Church
unconsciously* agreed in acknowledging the papal supremacy,
it follows that the supremacy is a natural and necessary deve-
lopment of Catholic Christianity, and could not have been
denied without doing violence to existing and deep-rooted
principles of action.

All this seems to have been allowed, or at least not denied,
by Anglican controversialists. What they deny is, the his-
torical fact of the universality of the doctrine, and they con-
fine its reception to the " western branch of the Church, at
the utmost." Mr. Palmer, t for instance, assures us that —

" The Eastern Church has not varied on the primacy ; for she
does not deny that the pontiff might fairly be considered the first
bishop, according to the customs and synods of the Church; but she
has never admitted that this primacy is divino jure.''''

We trust the evidence that shall be produced, in the course
of this article, wiU enable the impartial reader to form a very

* We suppose that none of our opponents maintain that the Church ever
conferred the supremacy upon the JRoman pontiff. If so we demand historical
evidence of the fact.

t " Treatise on the Church," vol. i. p. 207. We are sorry to be obliged to
refer so frequently to Mr. Palmer's writings, but he is really the only one of the
party we are opposing who has any claims to knowledge of ecclesiastical history.
It is not then from a monomaniac feeling against this gentleman, but simply
because we have no one else to refer to. Mr. Sewell, Dr. Hook, &c. content
themselves with assuming their facts, and then reasoning as if that assumption
were a universally acknowledged tnith.

1844. J Division of the East and tlie West. 455

different opinion on the subject. Before producing this evi-
dence, we must entreat our readers to bear in mind Avhat the
doctrine is which is called in question, as almost every argu-
ment against it is founded on some misunderstanding or other.

We believe, then, that our blessed Lord intrusted the care
of his faithful followers to the twelve apostles, to be by them
guided, governed, and fed with the food of spiritual doctrine.
As far as the office of the apostolate is concerned, all Catholics
are agreed that the twelve were invested with perfectly equal
prerogatives of power and dignity ; and that to them in com-
mon was committed the charge of feeding the flock of Christ.
So far we are agreed with Protestants ; but we maintain that,
over and above his apostolate, certain privileges were conferred
upon St. Peter, with relation both to the apostles and to the
Church at large. Thus it is perfectly sound theology to
speak of the Church as founded upon the twelve apostles, for
the reasons above mentioned : and yet we believe it no less
true to say that the Church is founded upon St. Peter, in a
way quite peculiar to himself. And, if the apostles were en-
trusted with the care of all Christians, it was the especial pri-
vilege of St. Peter to be entrusted with the care of the apostles
themselves. Our blessed Lord having in an especial manner*
committed to him his sheep and his lambs (that is his whole
flock), we cannot believe those to belong to the flock of Christ
who refuse to submit to the guidance and government of
St. Peter.t

And as we believe that the government instituted by our
Lord was meant to continue even to the world's end, we at-

* Protestants argue against the prerogative of St. Peter from the similarity
of language used on other occasions to the Twelve. The fallacy of their argu-
ment will appear on taking a parallel case. A king says to his commander-in-
chief, " To you I give charge of my army, and every act of disobedience against
you shall be punished as if done against myself." On another occasion he uses
the very same words to the assembled officers of his army. Would any one
maintain that by so doing he had revoked the supreme authority committed to
the commander-in-chief? Yet this is really the Protestant argument.

t The doctrine of St. John Chrysostom relative to St. Peter, may be taken
as illustrative of what was taught by the Eastern Church in early times. He
says of the Apostles, that they were " irdvTtQ Koivy ttjv oiKoviikvtjv tfiTnartv-
BkvTss" (De Util. Lect. Scrip, t. iii. p. 75. Ed. Ben.) Of St. Peter he say.s,
" Trpwroc ^ou irpdyfiaroc avOevrti, art avrbg irdvraQ IfiaOtjrdg'] iyxfipioOtig."
(In Act. Apostol, Horn. iii. t ix. p. 26.) See also Horn. v. De Poenitentia.
" Trjv iniaraaiav riig olKoVfitviKJiQ iiocXijffj'ae I vfx^'P'"'*'" Some of the fathers
speak out more strongly. Thus Eusebius says that Peter succeeded Christ as
Joshua succeeded Moses ; but we have taken St. Chrj'sostom, first, as being
one of the great doctors of the Church ; secondly, the first of these passages
has been quoted against us.

456 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

tribute to the successors of St. Peter the same relation to
other bishops that St. Peter held with respect to his brethren.
The supreme pontiff, as far as the si)iritual power of the order
of the episcopate is concerned, is neither greater nor less than
any other bishop, and the most humble prelate in the Catholic
world directly receives this authority from the same divine
source as Christ's Vicar upon earth. Yet the chair of St. Peter
claims prerogatives due to itself alone, as the divinely con-
stituted centre of unity, and the see of the universal pastor
and doctor of Christendom.

Now, once more, we must remind our readers of the extreme
importance of bearing in mind that the whole doctrine of the
papal supremacy is comprised in the foregoing propositions.
We believe, of course, that a consistent person living now-a-
days, if he believes as much as this, will necessarily believe a
great deal more, which logically follows from premises so
pregnant with consequences. But we do not assert that these
consequences have always been held in the Church ; we know
and willingly acknowledge, that the contrary has been the
case. The humble and persecuted converts of the apostles
could as little foresee the future triumphs of the papacy, as
they could realize the possibility of bishops living in splendid
palaces, or sitting in the House of Lords. And though we
are fully satisfied that the infallibility of the Pope, and the
consequent duty of implicit and unreserved submission to his
authority, are necessary conclusions from his supremacy, we
need not be astonished that members of the Church, in the
third or fourth centuries, should not have maintained* what
the Galilean bishops of the seventeenth century concurred in
denying.

Now be it observed, that the two facts in early Church
history, which are commonly considered by Protestants as
fatal to the doctrine of the supremacy, would really, even
when viewed through the medium of Protestant spectacles,
be inconsistent only with the " ultramontane" development of
the supremacy, and not with the doctrine as we ourselves have
stated it. The two facts we allude to are known to Pro-
testants as —

1. " St. Irenseus rehuMng Pope Victor for excommunicating
the Asiatic churches."

* We do not mean that Gallicanism derives any countenance from antiquity
for the fathers held none of those qualifying principles which disgraced French
theology two hundred years back.

1844."] Division of the East and the West. 457

2. " St. Cyprian opposing the Pope on the question of
heretical baptism."

As these two cases are perpetually cited against us, (in
private conversation much more than in public,) it will be
worth while to say a few words about each of them.

1. Now, first of all, the mere fact of thinking a Pope's
measures wrong is not inconsistent even with the highest
ultramontane doctrine. Bellarmlne,* whom no one will sus-
pect of Protestantism or Galllcanism, expressly allows that a
pope may commit errors in Church government, and enact Im-
prudent.or injudicious laws. As far, therefore, as relates to find-
ing fault with a pope's proceedings, St. Irenseus Is not proved to
have held doctrines inconsistent with modern Catholicism.
But what shall we say to his rebuking the Pope ? Is not this
inconsistent with all our notions of the Papacy? By no
means. Of course no Catholic would venture to do such a
thing, except under very peculiar circumstances ; but these
circumstances once existing, there would have been no more
inconsistency in a person of surpassing holiness, like St.
Irenseus, rebuking his ecclesiastical superior, than there was
under the old law for a holy prophet in rebuking the high
priest, whose supremacy he fully admitted. St. Bernard Is
a well-known instance in point. Allowing therefore, for the
sake of argument, that St. Irenseus, like St. Bernard, used very
strong language in addressing the Pope, what proof have we
that he differed from St. Bernard in the opinion he enter-
tained of the Pope's power ?

In point of fact, however — ^which, although of little con-
sequence to the argument as far as we are concerned, is of
considerable importance to the Anglican side of the question —
what authority is there for saying that St. Irenaeus rebuked
the Pope at all ? Euseblus, who is the writer always referred
to on this occasion, merely says that he wrote " in a becoming
manner" to St. Victor, entreating him not to excommunicate
the Asiatics.

Let us now carry the war into the enemy's country.

It Is pretty generally allowed that ** Victor acted in a man-
ner which countenances the claims set up by the popes of
later days.'"* The Anglican reply to this, however, is, that

* De Romano Pontif. iv. 5. It will be allowed that no modern " Papist "
ever held stronger doctrine about the pope than M. De Maistre. Yet this
illustrious writer quotes, with entire approbation, a passage from BouRDALonE,
in which, among the glories of St. Bernard, one is " Ueprimandant des Fapes." —
Dn Pape, Disccurs Preliminaire.

+ Beaven's Account of St. IrenjBus, p. 49.

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 30

458 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec

" the Catholic Church negatived his claim."* When we ask,
in return, how this is proved ; we arc told that " many" in that
day, and St. Irenseus among the number, wrote very strongly
indeed against St. Victor's proposed excommunication of the
Asiatics. But before this reply can have any weight, our
opponents must show the inconsistency of holding that the
pope has power to cut off individual Churches from Catholic
unity, and of at the same time questioning the prudence or
justice of his exercising that power in a given case. Now
there is no inconsistency at ail in the matter. A priest re-
fuses baptism to a child, who dies soon after. The priest has
committed a sin, yet no one, who pretends to the name of
Catholic, will deny that he has nevertheless deprived the child
of a means of a grace necessary to salvation. So St. Irenaeus, and
those who agreed with him, might think it imprudent and un-
just in the Pope to excommunicate the Churchesof Asia, and yet
allow that, by so doing, he would really cut them off from Ca-
tholic unity. In fact they did so. The language of St. Irenaeus
is plain enough. He besought St. Victor wq nfi aTroKoirroi 6\ae
iKK\7](T(aQ, K. T. X. Aud SO it was always understood. Even the
schismatic Photiusf understands the case as one of excommu-
nication from the Church, and treats it as a matter of course,
without expressing surprise or indignation.

Mr. Palmer has however discovered, that the Asiatic
Churches, although excommunicated by the Pope, still re-
mained in communion with the rest of the Catholic Church.
This startling fact, if it could be proved, might be something
to the point ; but as there is sufficient evidence to show that
the sentence of excommunication was never carried into effect,
we are compelled to believe, that in trusting to his memory,
Mr. Palmer was deceived by his imagination.

2. St. Cyprian's case is equally consistent with the Catholic
hypothesis. If any one at the present day were to profess
his belief that out of the Catholic Church there is no possi-
bility of salvation ;J that the Church is one, even as the
seamless robe of Christ, and cannot be divided ; that the
Church is founded upon St. Peter; that St Peter is the

* lb. 52. Mr. Beaven speaks of St. Victor's as a "rash and determined
mind ;" Dr. Burton talks of his "violence" and "uncharitable" conduct, and
similar expressions are constantly found in Anglican writers. We should like
to know from which of the fathers they learnt to talk in this manner of one
whom antiquity reverenced as a " thrice blessed" saint and martyr.

t " BiKTiop Sk dpa KOT iKHvo Kaipov 'Pwftric iirtOKO TTti irpds bv Kal 7ro\Xd»ftc
ypaipu [6 EtpjjvaToc], irapaiviZv' fii) ivtxa rijc Trepi rov Traffxa Staipuvidg,
Tivde r^c iKK/.rtffidc diroKijpvTTtiv." — ^Phot. Biblioth. § 120.

X T>e Unitate, et Epp. passim.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 459

source of unity in the Church,* and the foundation of the
authority of all bishops ; that the Church of Rome is the see
and chair of St. Peter,t the root and womh of the Catholic
Church,! the principal Church, and the source of ecclesiastical
unity ;§ that the unity of the Catholic Church is to be found
in the communion of its bishop ; and that its bishop had the
power of deposing other bishops ; || no one would hesitate for
a moment in pronouncing; him an avowed Romanist. And
such was St. Cyprian. On the other hand, he nowhere pro-
fesses the doctrine of the infallibility of St. Peter''s successor ;
it was therefore no inconsistency in him to resist St. Stephen
under circumstances most trying to himself. Believing as he
did (most erroneously it is true,) that to acknowledge the bap-
tism of heretics was to take part in their sin, he could not
have acted differently from what he did. A Gallican bishop
two centuries ago, however orthodox in his ^^ositive belief in
the supremacy, would have acted precisely in the same man-
ner. We allow that St. Cyprian's mode of acting proves that
he did not believe in the Pope's infallibility, but it proves no-
thing against the supremacy, which is what we are concerned
with at present. A parallel case will at once show the in-
conclusiveness of the Protestant objection. A priest is com-
manded by his bishop to preach some doctrine which he con-
siders, rightly or wrongly, to be inconsistent with the Catholic
faith. He is bound in conscience to resist, yet no one could
argue from this that he denied his bishop's jurisdiction over
himself to be *' jure divino.""

Let us now proceed to the positive proofs of the reception
in the Eastern Church of the doctrine of the papal supremacy
in times " anterior to the division of east and west."

Our proofs fall under two classes : viz., direct and indirect ;
the former consisting of testimonies directly taken from east-
ern sources ; the latter from the doctrine professed by the
popes, and other western authorities,^ from the fourth to the

* Ep. 33, 66, 73. t Ep. 55, 69. t Ep. 48. § Ep. 59.

II Ep. 68. St. Cyprian begs of the pope to address letters " to the province
and the people of Aries, whereby Marcian (the Bishop of Aries) being deposed,
another may be substituted for him." Some people cannot understand how
two distinct propositions can be equally true. It is argued that because the
Church is infallible, the pope cannot be. And so again, because St. Cyprian
elsewhere implies that the Church can depose bishops, some people argue that
the pope cannot.

^ We are not concerned here with ante-Nicene evidence. We wish to carry
out a hint of Mr. Ward (Ideal, p. 1 65) to drive honest Anglicans to the three
first centuries. When they take that ground we shall be fully prepared to
meet them.

30 2

460 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

eleventh century. The force of this latter kind of proof will
be apparent to any one who will bear in mind the following
consideration. Any one, on ascertaining that the Church of
Spain was in communion with the bishop of Rome at the pre-
sent day, would at once, upon antecedent grounds, and without
taking any trouble to read the works of Spanish theologians,
take it for granted that the papal supremacy was there ac-
knowledged. For the pope, considering, as he does, that his
supremacy is of divine right, must look upon all who deny it
as heretics, and would necessarily deny his communion to
such persons. And on the other hand, the absence of protests
on the part of the Spanish Church, and its peaceful commu-
nion with Rome, is an equally satisfactory proof of its belief.
If, in the above argument, we substitute the Greek Church
for the Spanish, and allow that the popes from the fourth to
the eleventh century, throughout, maintained the same claims
of supremacy as their present successor, it follows of logical
necessity that the Greek Church allowed these claims during
the whole of this period. But Anglicans deny that the doc-
trine of the supremacy was held by the popes of the first seven
or eight centuries. They have even the rashness to quote
St. Gregory the Great, to show that it was of later date than
the seventh century. Such statements, indeed, most fully
convince us, either of the almost incredible dishonesty of the
old Anglican theologians, or of their astounding ignorance of
ecclesiastical history, otherwise than from second-hand sources.
Of the rravroXfioQ afxadeta of some living writers there can be
no question. To the testimony of the first pope that shall
be quoted, we shall add that of several circumstances in con-
temporaneous ecclesiastical history, by way of illustration ;
and those readers who should wish to carry out this plan for
themselves in all the other cases, will find the task by no
means an unprofitable one. There can scarcely be a more
edifying investigation, than that into the mutual relations, at
different periods, between the Roman pontiff and the Church
at large.

1 . Our first testimony shall be taken from the letter of St.
Damasus, the contemporary of St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose,
and St. Jerome, to the bishops of the East, who had petitioned
him to depose Timotheus, a Greek bishop, and a disciple of
the heresiarch Apollinaris. The ecclesiastical reader who is
accustomed to the style of the Roman pontiffs of later times,
will at once recognize the " papal pretensions," in the open-
ing sentence : —

1844. J Division of the East and the West. 461

" Dearest children.* — When ye render to the Apostolical see
the honour which is due to it, the greatest profit falleth to your-
selves. For although it behoveth us, especially in that holy Church
■where the blessed apostle sat and taught, to govern the hehn^ which
we have received, we nevertheless confess ourselves undeserving
of that honour. And therefore we labour in every way that so we
may be able to arrive at the glory of his felicity. Know, therefore,
that we have long since deposed the profane Timothy, the disciple
of the heretic Apollinaris, together with his impious doctrine, and
we trust that what remains thereof will remain powerless for the
future. And if that ancient serpent ceaseth not from his attempts
to beguile some unbelievers with his deadly poisons, do ye shun it
as a pestilence ; and always being mindful of the apostolic faith,
especially of that which was written and set forth by the fathers at
Niccea, do ye remain with a firm footing secure and unshaken in
the faith. And henceforth sufier not your clergy or your laity to
listen to vain babbling and exploded questions. For we have,|
once for all, issued a declaration § [or confession of faith] that he
who pi'ofesses himself a Christian may keep that which has been

handed down from the Apostles "Wherefore, then, do ye again

ask for the deposition of Timothy, who hath here been already
deposed, together with his master Apollinaris, by the sentence of
the apostolical see, in presence of Peter, the bishop of Alexandria,
and awaiteth the punishments and tortures due to him at the judg-
ment day ?|| God preserve you in health, dearest children."^

Such was the tone In whidi the Roman pontiff addressed
the bishops "ruling in the East," little more than three hun-
dred years since the foundation of the Church. The Greek
ecclesiastical historian by whom this letter has been handed
down to us, records it without any expressions of surprise or
disapproval, and without hinting that St. Damasus was taking
unwarrantable liberties, or usurping power which did not law-
fully belong to him. He introduces it in the following man-
ner**:—

* Compare Euseb. Hist. iv. 23. St. Soter (a.d. 170) affectionately exhorted
travellers from all the Churches of Christendom, wq TtKva irariip (piXoaropyog.
St. Basil addresses the pope as Tifiiwrare irdTtp.

t In allusion to the well-known figure of the Church, as the ship of St. Pet*r,
in which alone Christ sat, Vid. St. Ambrose (in Luc. v. 3) torn. ii. p. 847.
Also St Maximus.

% Compare Sozomen's account of the Controversy about the consubstanti-
ality of the Holy Ghost, quoted infra. Also, the language hereafler cited
from St. Innocent and St Zosimus, with St. Augustin's " Causa finita est,"
and the exclamation of the Council of Chalcedon.

§ TOTTitv, the word used infra by Socrates for the letters, on the strength
of which St. Athanasius and the other bishops were restored to their sees.

II Here the power of binding on earth and heaven, given to St Peter, is
claimed by his successor.

^ Theodoret, Hist Eccles. lib. v. cap. 10. ♦* lb. cap. 9, fin.

4d2 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

" When the entirely -praiseworthy Daraasus learned that this
heresy had sprung up, he deposed and excommunicated, not only
Apollinaris, but Timotheus,* his disciple."

Here let us pause and reason for a moment. If an histo-
rical student were to read in some French chronicler a chance
Btateraent that the king of England had deposed and outlawed
the governors of Calais and Rouen, there is no doubt what
his conclusions would be. Even though there were no other
positive reason for supposing that the king of England had
authority in the north of France, he would remember that
history scarcely records the thousandth part of passing events,
and that if it were universally known that the north of France
was always subject to England, this would be the very reason
for its not being expressly mentioned. But supposing the
letter of the king to the authorities of these northern pro-
vinces actually to be extant, (in which he takes it for granted
that they acknowledge his power), and to be recorded without
protest by the French chronicler ; supposing also that there
were several cases on record of appeals to the English king's
authority, — that, in spite of local opposition, his decisions had
been invariably acceded to, — that he had interfered in dis-
putes, and that these had been put an end to by letters bear-
ing his seal ; we have no hesitation in saying, that the man
who should ask for additional evidence of the English king's
authority in the north of France, would at once be pro-
nounced incapable of forming an opinion on historical matters.
Such is not the enlightened scepticism of a Niebuhr, but the
intolerable incredulity of a Hardouin. A genuine critic is
constantly aware that such chance statements are often infi-
nitely more valuable than actual dissertations ; that when a
number of them occur, all tending in the same direction, the
light which is furnished by one of them is indefinitely in-
creased ; and that in forming an opinion, it is in the highest
degree unphilosophical to consider each separately, as if it
stood by itself.

After these observations, we trust our Protestant readers
who are really desirous of knowing something about the nature
and extent of papal power in the fourth century, will care-
fully weigh the following circumstances of Church history
during the Athanasian period, in connection with the letter
of St. Damasus, and the notice of that pope's proceedings by
the Greek historian Thcodoret.

* Both bishops, and in the east.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 463

1 . The historian Sozomen, when speaking of the disputes
in the East about the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost,
enumerates the principal defenders of that sacred doctrine.
He then proceeds :* —

" This dispute having arisen, and, as was natural, gathering
strength from day to day, through men's love of strife, the bishop
of Rome, when informed of it, wrote to the Churches of the East,
that they should acknowledge the Trinity, one in substance and in
glory, together with the bishops of the West. Whereupon they all
acquiesced ; the question being once for all decided by the Church
of Rome, and the dispute, to all appearance, was brought to a close."

2. The historian Socrates tells usf that certain eastern
bishops, viz., St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Paul of Constan-
tinople, Asclepas of Gaza, Marcellus of Ancyra in Galatia,
and Lucius of Hadrianopolis, on being expelled from their
sees by their opponents, came to Eome and laid their cause
before the pope.

" And he," continues Socrates, " according to the prerogative of
the Roman Church, sent them back to the East, furnished with
plain-spoken letters, restoring to each one his see, and censuring
those who had rashly deposed them. They therefore left Rome ;
and, upon the strength of the.letters of Bishop Julius, retook pos-
session of their Churches."

Sozomen's account of the matter is substantially the same.
Speaking of St. Julius, he says, J

" And because, on account of the dignity of his see, the care of
them all belonged to him, he restored each one to his Church."

3. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, was also restored to his see
by letters of St. Damasus, according to Socrates§ and Sozo-
men. ||

4. Our next instance Is so often quoted in controversial
works, that we should not have thought of repeating it here,
were it not that the case of St. Meletius of Antioch, with
which it is so closely connected, has become, in a very incor-
rect and mutilated form, the one grand ecclesiastical to-woq in
defence of separation from Rome among the advanced guard
of the Oxford party. The common version of the story
among the admirers of the British Critic, is as follows : —

" St. Meletius lived and died out of the communion of Rome,
and yet was summoned to the Council of Constantinople instead of

* Sozomen, lib. vi. cap. 22. + Socrat. lib. ii. cap. 1 5.

X Sozom. lib. iii. cap. 8. § Socrat. lib. ii. cap. 37.

II Sozom. lib. vi. cap. 39.

46^ The Pmpal Sujaremaci/ anterior to the [Dec.

Paulinius, who was the bishop in connexion with the chair of St.
Peter, and was vii'tually canonized alter his death."*

The real facts of the case are these : During the thickest
part of the Arian controversy, there was a dispute for the
bishopric of Antioch between Meletius and Paulinus, two
orthodox Catholics, each of whom had episcopal consecration,
and was supported by a considerable number of followers.
Each party fancied that there were sufficient reasons for
throwing doubts on the orthodoxy of the opposite party.'
Paulinus was accused of favouring the heresy of Marcellus ;
Meletius was supposed to favour Arianism. At the same
time, a third person, Vitalis, an Apollinarian heretic, laid
claim to the throne of Antioch. All three claimants professed
to adhere to the Roman pontiff.] The dispute, therefore, let it
be clearly understood, was between two parties in Antioch,
each of which had partisans elsewhere, and not, as is often
most erroneously and most injuriously supposed, between St.
Meletius and the pope. For a long time it was impossible to
know which party was favoured at Rome ; but the orthodoxy
of Paulinus being fully established, the Clmrch of Rome
rejected the communion of the (supposed) Arian Meletius.
The friends of Meletius being still convinced of his orthodoxy,
and, as they conceived, of the heterodox tendencies of Pauli-
nus, and having the very best reasons for believing that their
enemies had grossly misrepresented St. Meletius, they natu-
rally supposed themselves free from the obligation of comply-
ing with a decision palpably founded on a vital error of fact.
And no one questions that in so doing (abstraction being
made of individual frailty) they were perfectly right; and
that were it possible, which it is not, for similar circumstances
to occur at the pi-esent day. Catholic bishops would be justified
in acting as St. Basil did in support of St. Meletius. The
party of St. Meletius never for a moment denied the supre-
macy of the pope, but, on the contrary moved heaven and
earth to acquaint him with the real facts of the case, and to
obtain a decision in their favour. St. Easily addresses the
pope as his " Most honoured Father," and entreats him to

* The British Critic (No. 67, p. 44, n) adds, " Nay, was a link in the suc-
cession which finally prevailed in Antioch, for it was his successor, and not
Paulinus's, who reunited the contending parties." Now, first of all, the schism
of Antioch was healed by a reconciliation with Rome, and secondly, there was
no successor of Paulinus at the time of the reconciliation.

+ Vid. S. Hieron. quoted infra, and Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 3.

% Ep. 70, alUer 220.

1844.] Division of the East and the West, 465

send legates who may settle the disputes, reestablish unity,
and crush heresy. He concludes by telling Damasus, that
unless he will speedily take some such measures, there will
soon be no orthodox Catholics in the East to whom he may
extend his consolations or assistance. The dispute between
Paulinus and Meletius was at length amicably terminated ;
and it was not till after this that St. Meletius was called to
the Council of Constantinople, at which time he was in full
communion with Rome. It is, therefore, utterly irreconcile-
able with fact to speak of him as a saint who lived and died
out of communion with Rome. And those who wish to
establish a parallel case between the Church of Antioch in
his day, and that of the Church of England since the refor-
mation, must prove that the Anglican bishops since that time
have agreed in the minutest articles of faith with the Church
of Rome, and have openly professed to adhere to the popes
during the whole of this period.

It will be allowed, we suppose, by every one that any docu-
ment throwing light upon the feelings of spectators uncon-
nected with either party, during this dispute, is deserv'ing of
the most attentive consideration. Such a document exists in
the well-known lettert of St. Jerome to Pope St. Damasus.

St. Jerome begins by saying that in these times when the
seamless robe of Christ is being torn to shreds, and wolves
lay waste the vineyard of the Lord, it is difficult among
broken cisterns that hold no water, to find out tlie " sealed
fountain" and the "closed garden;" on which account, he
thought it necessary to consult the chair of St. Peter, and
that faith which had been praised by the apostle. After
many similar expressions, he continues : —

" I am united in communion with your holiness, that is with the
chair of Peter. On that rock I know that the Church is built.
Whoever eateth the lamb out of this house, is a sacrilegious person.
If any one be not in the ark of Noah, he will perish whilst the deluge

prevails I know not Yitahs, I reject Meletius, I have nought

to do with Paulinus. Whosoever gathereth not with thee scatter-
eth; that is, whosoever is not of Christ, is of Antichrist."

The Pope, as it is supposed, not having immediately re-
plied, St. Jerome wrote to him another letter, repeating the
same inquiries.

" The Church," [of Antioch] he writes* " divided, as it is, into
three sections, calls upon me to choose my side In the mean-

* Hieron, Ep. xv. Id. Ep. xvL

466 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec

while, I continue to cry out, If any one is united to the chair of
Peter, he is mine. Meletius VitaUs and Paulinus profess to ad-
here to thee. I could believe if only one made this profession; but
now two of them, if not all three, speak falsely. Wherefore, I be-
seech your holiness." &c.

This is precisely the sort of inquiry we eliould have ex-
pected, were our doctrine received by the Church in the fourth
century. And, strange to say, Mr. Palmer* looks upon St.
Jerome's strong words as merely " complimentary expres-
sions." Complimentary expressions from St. Jerome on a
subject of spiritual life and death !

In order to be satisfied that St. Jerome's sentiments on the
necessity of communion with the chair of St. Peter, were not
peculiar to himself, we need only remind our readers of the
doctrine of his great contemporary, St. Optatus of Milevi,
one of whose arguments against the Donatists is simply their
non-communion with the chair of St. Peter at Rome. Even
Mr. Palmer is forcedt to make the following concession :

" It is not denied that St. Optatus, in arguing against the Dona-
tists, as to the ' cathedra,' which they admitted to be one of the
gifts of the Church, refers to the chair of Peter at Rome, as con-
stituting the centre of unity in the Catholic Church. It was so, in
fact, at that time, and had long been so. But Optatus does not
affirm that it was in such a sense the centre of unity, that whatever
Churches should be at any time separated from its communion, must
be schismatic or heretic."

And yet Mr. Palmer has just been quoting a passage where
St. Optatus says that the chair was divinely established for
the preservation of unity ; " so that whosoever should set up a
chair against the one chair, should he a schismatic and offender"
In fact, the whole force of the argument lies in this.

Mr. Palmer continues :

" It may be added, that the argument of this holy bishop alone,
is quite insufficient to establish an article of faith, or even to render
a doctrine probable."

And pray what Catholic ever founded the supremacy of
the Holy See upon the authority of St. Optatus ? But where
is the candid person who has ever read St. Optatus in con-
junction with the two letters of St. Jerome we have just quoted,
and the other historical facts already cited, with the perfectly
identical argument of St. Augustine^ against the Donatists,

* Vol. ii. p. 5 ,34, t W. vol. p. 535.

X Ep. 53, torn. ii. p. 120. £cL Ben. Psalm contra Donat torn. ix. p. 7.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 467

and with such other testimonies as that of St. Ambrose* or the
Council of Aquileia,t and will yet dare to say, that it is not
even probable that the Pope's supremacy was asserted and ad-
mitted as early as the pontificate of St. Damasus.

ir. St. Siricius. Himerius, the Bishop of Tarragona in Spain,
having consulted St. Damasus on certain important matters
of discipline, Siricius, his saintly successor, wrote back a
reply, which he begins by describing the overwhelming re-
sponsibilities of his post. For, says he,| " We bear the
burdens of all who are heavy laden, yea, rather the blessed
Apostle Peter beareth them in our person ; tcho, as we trusty
protecteth and guardeth us, the heirs of his administration.'^

Our readers will perhaps remember how Mr. Palmer was
shocked at the encyclical letter of the present Pope, because
it spoke of St. Peter and St. Paul as guarding and protecting
the Church.

St. Siricius then lays down a rule, with a view to put down
a frightful abuse in the administration of Baptism. He pro-
ceeds : " Now, let all bishops keep the above rule, who do not
wish to be separated from the integrity of that Apostolic
Rock upon which Christ founded his Universal Church."

There is another very un-Anglican decree in this letter.
All bishops, priests, and deacons, who shall dare to marry,
*' Noverint se ab omni ecclesiastico honore quo usi sunt,
Apostolicas Sedis auctoritate dejectos, nee unquam posse ve-
neranda attrectare mysteria, quibus se ipsi, dum obscenis
cupiditatibus inhiant, privaverunt."

In is after this, we hope, unnecessary to adduce farther
proof that St. Siricius was not an Anglo-Catholic, but a Ro-
manist in every sense of the word. Yet it is no less a person
than St. Ambrose§ who describes " his holiness" as " the good
shepherd who diligently keeps the gate entrusted to him, and
guards with pious solicitude, the fold of Christ, worthy to be
obeyed and followed by the sheep of the Lord."

HI. St. Innocent, it is well known, was the rock of refuge
to St. Chrysostom, when that blessed saint was well nigh
hunted to death by imperial and episcopal oppression. . He
was also the ecclesiastical bulwark of the Church during the
Pelagian controversy, as St. Augustine was argumentatively.

Five African bishops and the Councils of Carthage and

* In Psalm xl. " Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia." D« Poenitentia, lib. L cap. 7.
>' Non habent Petri haereditatem, qui Petri sedem non habent."

t " Inde [a Romana ecclesia] in omnes venerandse communionis jura dima-
nant." — Ap. Amb. Ep. xi.

X Coustant. Ep. Kom. Pontif. p. 624, et seq. § Ep. Kom. Pontif, p. 669.

468 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

Milevi, wrote to St. Innocent on the subject of Pelagius.
The answers of the holy pontiff assume throughout that they
acknowledge his supremacy. In his reply* to the Councils of
Milevi, he speaks of his having " the care of all the Churches,"
and praises the bishops for acknowledging, by their practice,
that when a question of faith is agitated, reference is due to
Peter ; that so all provinces may derive information from the
Apostolic fountain. He also commendsf the bishops of Car-
thage for knowing what is due to the Apostolic See, and ex-
presses his wish to follow the Apostle " from whom the
episcopate and the whole authority of this name is derived."
Pie says " that it was instituted, not by a human, but by a
divine decree, that whatsoever was agitated, even in distant
and separate provinces, they should not think to be finally
settled, till it had reached the knowledge of the Apostolic See,
that by its full authority a just decision should be confirmed,
and that other Churches might clearly know what to enjoin,
whom to absolve, and whom to avoid, even as waters might
proceed from their source, and the pure streams of an uncor-
rupted fountain-head might flow through the different regions
of the world." /

This is certainly a very plain statement of the papal supre-
macy, and that by divine right. The idea contained in it is,
however, almost entirely taken from the concluding para-
graph of the letter! s^nt by the five African bishops, one of
whom was the great St. Augustine. That blessed saint, in
relating the particulars of the correspondence between the
African Church and " Pope Innocent of blessed memory," so
far from saying that St. Innocent assumed an authority which
he had no right to claim, says, " He wrote hack all thinps to us,
according to due order, and as became the apostolic see."^ And
when the answer of the Pope arrived, St. Augustine is known
to have said publicly, ||

" Duo concilia missa sunt ad sedem apostolicam, inde etiam re-
scripta venerunt : causa Jinita est, utinam aliquando finiatur error."

Of this striking expression, Tournely has given a most ex-
traordinary explanation, of which our sharp-sighted friend,
Mr. Palmer, IT has been glad to avail himself.

* Ep. R. P. p. 896. t lb. p. 888. % lb. p. 887, Ep. 28 fin.

§ S. Augustin. Ep. 18G. || Id. Scrm. 131.

S Treatise on the Church, vol. ii. p. 521. The language of St. Augustin
ently implies that the cause having been decided by the pope's authority,
no further dispute remained. " No," says Tournely, "not by the pope's, autho-
rity, but by the authority of the Catholic Church. The Pelagians had already

1844."! Dimsion of the East and the West. 469

IV. St. Innocent was succeeded, in 417, by St. Zosimus, who,
although at first (humanly speaking) in danger of being de-
ceived by the representations of the Pelagian heretics, was
destined to accomplish their final overthrow by his encyclical
letter, in which, to use the words of St. Prosper,* " he armed
the hands of all bishops with the sword of St. Peter, for the
destruction of the wicked." In one of his letters to the
African bishops, he maintains the following doctrine respecting
his position in the Church ; viz. that the power of binding and
loosing was divinely transmitted from St. Peter to those who
should succeed him ;f that St. Peter still has the care of all
Churches, but chiefly of the Church of Rome, and that he will
allow no one to invade its privileges ; in short, that he (Zo-
simus) had succeeded into the place of St. Peter, and that his
sentence was law, from which none could appeal.|

It may be answered that the African Church did not ac-
knowledge the authority of St. Zosimus to be so great as he
maintained. But such a reply is really an evasion of the
question, which is not whether idtramontane doctrine has
always been maintained, and that universally in the Church,
but whether the Popes have always claimed supremacy, and
whether the Church, or any portion of it, has ever protested
against that claim. We have no objection whatever to allow
that the Africans at this period had sti'ong national opinions,
which in a later age would be called Gallican ; but we demand
proof that they went farther in this than such Catholics as
Bossuet, Fleury, or Du Pin. If they did not, then their tes-
timony is on our side, and not on that of Protestants.

V. The short pontificate of St. Zosimus was followed by
that of St. Boniface, at whose feet St. Augustine laid his
four books against the Pelagians, " non tarn discenda quam
examinanda, et ubi forsitan aliquid displicuerit emendanda,"§

been condemned in the Councils of Diospolis and Jerusalem in Palestine, and
of Carthage and Milevis in Africa. Nothing, therefore, was wanting to universal
consent than the judgment of Rome." As Mr. Palmer has adopted this answer
of Tournely, will he be kind enough to explain how Africa, Palestine, and the
pope, between them, constituted the universal Church?

* Contra Collat. cap. xxi.

+ S. Zozimi Ep. xi. Ex ipsa quoqne Christi Dei nostri promissione, ut et
ligata solveret, et soluta vinciret, par potestatis data conditio in eos qui sedis
hereditatem, ipso annuente, meruissent: habet enim ipse cum omnium ecclesia-
rum, turn hujus raaxime ubi sederit curam, nee patitur aUquid privilegii aut
aliqua titubare aura sententise, &c.

X Quamvis patrum traditis apostolicae sedi auctoritatem tantum tribuerit, ut

de ejiisjudiciodisceptare nullus audcret Cum tantum nobis esset aiicioritas

ut nullus de nostra possit retractare sententia,

§ Contra, epp. Pelag. lib. i. torn. x. p. 4 13.

470 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

And when in addition to this, we learn from St. Augustine
how highly esteemed this blessed pontiff was in his day, and
how full he was of the grace of God, we have some clue to
the doctrine of the Church of the time, when we meet with
such statements as the following in his epistlas : —

" It never was allowed to agitate a question which has once been
settled by the apostolic see."* — Ep. 13.

" The government of the universal Church, at its commence-
ment, derived its origin from the dignity of the blessed Peter, in

whom its rule and management abide It is certain, therefore,

that this [Roman Church] is as the head of its members over all
other Churches, from which if any one cut himself off, he becomes
an alien from the Christian religion, since he has ceased to be in
that unity. "t Ep. 14.

Our space will not permit us to quote all the popes who,
from this period till the great schism, advanced those claims
of supremacy which we have heard from the mouths of those
holy pontiffs, who lived in the age most fruitful in the fathers
of the Church. St. Damasus, St. Siriclus, St. Innocent, and
St. Boniface, were contemporaries of all those fathers whom
Protestants are so glad of quoting whenever they have an
opportunity. Surely no one can deny that St. Ambrose,
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and again St. Basil and St. Chry-
sostom, were most painfully sensitive when any doctrines not
congenial to their minds were broached in the Church ; yet
how is it, that no protest against the " exorbitant claims" of
the Bishop of Rome is recorded on their part, if, as high
church Anglicans would have us believe, their views agreed
upon the whole with those of modern *' Anglo-Catholics,"
nay, of Cranmer and Ridley.

Of course the Popes who succeeded St. Boniface were not
more Anglican or less popish than himself; and of this we
hardly expect that proof is required. Still, we may as well
quote a few more links in the chain of evidence, pledging
ourselves to be more minute in proof, should any respectable
antagonist of ours adduce any reason for denying our asser-
tion, that the Popes from the fourth to the eleventh century
asserted their supremacy in as explicit terms, as Catholics are
now required to believe it, and that in so doing they met
with no opposition from the Church or any of its orthodox
members.

VI. St. Leo is given up by Mr. Palmer himself. " You

* Ep. Pontif. Rom. Constant .p. 1036. t lb. 1037

1844.] Dimsion of the East and the West. 471

are right," says that gentleman* to Dr. Wiseman, " in saying
that the Bishop of Rome might safely repeat the homilies of
St. Leo, without disparagement to his claim of supremacy !
His continual object was to represent that St. Peter still lived
in his successors, and that all the promises made to him were
made to the Bishops of Rome also." This is precisely the
doctrine we have heard from St. Leo's predecessors already
quoted ; and Anglican readers may learn from Mr. Newman
that the same doctrine is visiblef in the language of Popes
St. Julius and Liberius, who flourished in the earlier part of
the fourth century, and that it is countenanced by no less a
person than St. Athanasiusif himself. We may judge of the
opinion entertained on this subject by the contemporaries of
St. Leo, by the following passage, which occurs in a letter of
St. Peter Chrysologus, the Metropolitan of Ravenna, and one
of the most illustrious saints of the time, to Eutyches :

" We exhort thee to attend with obedience to all things
written to thee by the most blessed Pope of the Roman city,
since St. Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, affords
the true faith to all who enquire of him."§

Every student of ecclesiastical history is aware that the
same doctrine was put forth in the presence of the assembled
CEcumenical Council of Ephesus, and was received without a
dissentient voice.

VII. St. Hilary, one of the papal legates at the Council of
Chalcedon, succeeded St. Leo in the chair of St. Peter. The
following words, from a letter || addressed to him by the
united bishops of the province of Tarragona in Spain, will
show that the doctrine he held forth at Chalcedon was not
unknown to the Church in the farther West :

" Even though there were no necessity of ecclesiastical discipline
at issue, we might well have recourse to that prerogative of your
see, whereby, when he had received the keys of the kingdom, after
the Saviour's resurrection, the matchless preaching of the most
blessed Peter took charge of the enlightening of all nations ; the
supremacy of whose vicar, as it shines forth conspicuously, so it is
to be loved and feared by all. And therefore, adoring in you -that

* Letter v. p. 48. Philip, one of the papal legates at the Council of Ephesus,
said, before the whole synod, and without any contradiction on its part, that
St. Peter, as they were aware, " to this very time and always, lives in his suc-
cessors and exercises judgment."

t Library of the Fathers, vol. xiii. p. 57, 249. % lb. p. 251.

§ S. P. Chrysolog.op. p. xlvii. || Harduin, Concilia, torn. ii. p. 787.

472 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

God whom you serve unfeignedly, we have recourse to that faith
which was praised by the Apostle's mouth ; seeking replies from
that source where nothing is prescribed erroneously or with pre-
judice, but after a true pontifical deliberation."

This mode of addressing the Pope Avas not peculiar to the
Spanish Church, or even to the West, as we shall see before
the end of this article ; and as we are prepared to show at much
greater length if required.

viir. Ecclesiastical antiquity becomes more un- Anglican
than ever as we advance. In the next generation we find
two of the most illustrious and renowned saints of the period
writing, in the most ultra-montane tone, about the superiority
of the Pope to a council. St. Avltus, Bishop of Vienne in
France, and St. Ennodius of Pavia, are far too popish for
such a writer as Du Pin, who takes upon himself to censure
them very freely for their ultra doctrines. These doctrines
were also maintained by a council, held at Rome in the time
of Pope Symmachus, consisting of upwards of seventy bishops
from all parts of Italy, and including the Metropolitans of
Milan and Ravenna.

IX. About a hundred years after this, St. Gregory the
Great sat in St. Peter's chair. No Pope was ever more
humble in proclaiming his rights ; no Pope was ever less
vigorous in exerting them when occasion required. He most
distinctly asserts* his jurisdiction even over the see of Con-
stantinople, assuring us at the same time that the emperor of
East and the archbishop of that see were earnest in their
professions of submission. In fact, according to St. Gregory,
every bishop was subject to the Apostolic See. " SI qua
culpa," says he, " in Episcopis invenltur, nescio quis ei Epis-
copus subjectus non sit." He exercised the most unquestion-
able acts of jurisdiction In such countries as England, France,
Spain, Dalmatia, Africa, and Egypt. He sent the pallium
to the Bishops of Antloch, Corinth, Ravenna, Milan, Salone,
Aries, Autun, and Seville. One of the necessary conditions
of receiving the pallium was, that It should be humbly sued
for ; and the giving it was a real act of jurisdiction. And
yet, In spite of St, Gregory's claiming jurisdiction over every
bishop, Anglicans have had the Incredible folly of citing him as
a witness against the doctrine of the papal supremacy, because,

* " De Constantinopolitana ecclesia quod dicunit quis earn dubitet sedi Apos-
tolics esse sub^ectam ? quod et piisimus dominus Imperator ct frater noster
ejusdem civitatis episcopis assidue profitentur." S. Gregor. torn. ii. p. "941.

1844.] Division of the East and the West, 473

forsooth, he protested against the title of Oecumenical Bishop,
which was most ridiculously assumed by the Archbishop of
Constantinople, and denied the propriety of its application to
any one bishop. But really, Protestants, if they wish to
show the discrepancy between the doctrine of St. Gregory
and that of the present supreme pontiff, ought to show that
his present holiness claims that title ; and this they would
have hard work to do. That it is claimed for him by many
theologians is quite true ; but it is equally true that it was
yielded to the Popes long before the time of St. Gregory ;
and this we shall see before we are done of the present subject.
Nay, St. Gregory himself will tell them that the CEcume-
nical Council of Chalcedon Avished to grant the title to his
predecessors, but that these in their humility always refused
to accept it.

But, it will be objected, by refusing the title on prin-
ciple, St. Gregory must have rejected the doctrine of uni-
versal supremacy which it implies. Now, without falling
back again upon the unanswerable fact that St. Gregory has,
in express terms, claimed this universal supremacy, we must
directly deny the connexion between the title in question and
the doctrine we are defending. The Idea of such a connection
does not seem to have occurred, either to the foolish arch-
bishop, who assumed that title, or to St. Gregory, who repu-
diated it. The Archbishops of Constantinople never claimed
universal jurisdiction ; and yet they have called themselves
universal patriarchs down to this day. St. Gregory most
certainly understood the word "universalis" in its natural
sense, as identical with "unlcus" or " singularis." And in
this sense the title of Universal Bishop,* even as applied to
the Pope, Is most decidedly impious, sacrilegious, and hereti-
cal. We are equally sure that no Pope, however jealous of
his prerogatives, or that no canonist or theologian, however
high his views of papal authority, ever claimed or defended it
when so understood.

We should be satisfied with leaving it to the candid de-
cision of any honest reader, whether the explanation which
has been given of St. Gregory's refusal of the title of Unl-

• This may be seen in every place where he objects to it Thus, in a letter
to John of Constantinople, " Ad hoc perductus es, ut despectis fratribus epis»
copus appetas *o/us vocari." (St. Greg. torn. ii. p. 741. ed. Ben.) St. Eulogius,
the Patriarch of Alexandria, having addressed St. Gregory as Universal Pope,
the latter entreated him not to use a title which was inconsistent with his own
right.

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 31

474 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

versal Bishop be not the true one. But, as the great majority
of our readers may probably find the works of St. Gregory
difficult of access, we offer the following direct proof that the
rejection of the title is not inconsistent with the doctrine of
the supremacy.

No one, we suppose, will hold out that St. Gregory the
Seventh was Protestant on the subject of the Papal authority.
Now he is known to have been the life and soul of all that
proceeded from the papal chair during the pontificates of his
immediate predecessors. We propose then to quote from a
letter,* which bears evident marks of his influence, from St.
Leo IX to Michael Cerularius, just before the final separa-
tion of east and west. In this letter he says that " what-
ever nation proudly dissents from the Roman Church, is no
longer to be called or esteemed a Church at all, but is alto-
gether a nullity ; yea, rather an assembly of heretics, or a
conventicle of schismatics, and a synagogue of Satan." Yet he
protests against the idea of the Roman Church being con-
sidered universal; for if it be so, "how," says he, "can it be
called the head and mother of Churches ? " With reference
to the title of universal patriarch, he writes as follows to the
Archbishop of Constantinople : —

" But what, and how detestable and lamentable, is that sacrile-
gious usurpation, by which you boastfully style yourself, both in
word and in writing, universal patriarch, though every friend of
God has hitherto shuddered at being honoured with such a title?
For to whom, after Christ, could it more appropriately have been
given, that to him who was divinely thus addressed, ' Thou art
Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church,' &c. Yet because
he is nowhere found to have been called the Universal Apostle,
although he was chosen to be Prince of the Apostles, none of his
successors have ever consented to be called by so monstrous a title,
although the Holy Synod of Chalcedon bestowed it by decree upon
the great Leo our predecessor, and his successors."

A still more direct, and, if possible, more satisfactory proof
will be found in a letter t to the bishops who had held a
synod at Constantinople, from Pope Pelagius II, the pre-
decessor of St. Gregory the Great. This letter is referred to
by St. Gregory himself, as expressing his own sentiments on
the matter, and was very probably composed by himself, as
he was secretary and counsellor to the pope when it was
written. The following passages speak for themselves : —

" It has been reported to the Apostolical see, that John of Con-

* Harduin, Concil. torn. vii. p. 955. f See Ceillier, torn. xvi. p. COS.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 475

stantinople subscribes himself universal patriarch, and has, from this
presumption, convoked you to a general council ; although the
authority of summoning general councils was given by a special pri-
vilege to the Apostolical see of the blessed Peter, and no council
was ever considered of authority which was not supported by the
Apostolical authority. Wherefore whatever ye have determined in
your aforesaid conventicle, I do, from the authority of St. Peter, the
prince of the Apostles, and the words of our Lord and Saviour, by
which He gave to the blessed Peter the power of binding and
loosing, which power has without doubt passed into his successors,
ordain that they shall be null and void, so that they may never again
be heard of, or agitated.

"And let no Patriarch ever use so profane a title, for if even the
chief Patriarch he called universal, the name of Patriarch is denied
to all the others.''^

All the preceding testimonies from popes of different ages,
but who all, with one exception, flourished during the ages
when doctrine and discipline were most pure, will serve
to show with what truth and decency Anglican divines, pro-
fessing to be learned, have dared to assert that the first
claim of supremacy was " made by the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, in the time of Gregory I, and shortly q/ifer usurped
by the bishop of Rome, the first founder of the papacy and
supremacy of that see, by the authority of Phocas, the traitor
and murderer of his lord."*

We come now to the evidence directly taken from eastern
sources, under which we consider ourselves at liberty to
include statements of doctrines made publicly by western
theologians in eastern assemblies, without any protest, or
rather with hearty approbation, on the part of the latter.

I. Our first piece of evidence shall be taken from the
history of the Nestorian controversy. It is well known that
St. Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, presided at the
Council of Ephesus, as Vicar of the Apostolic See, and that
this holy synod pronounced sentence against Nestorlus,
*' being compelled to do so, by the sacred canons and the
epistle "t of the Eoman Pontlif. One important fact, how-
ever, Is not sufficiently known, and this is, that the opponents
of St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus acknowledged the
authority of Rome In the strongest terms; until (as in the
history of all heresies) Rome spoke out so plainly against

* Strype's Whitgift, vol. i. p, 197, quoted very frequently of late years, with
great approbation, by Dr. Hook, and other members of the same school.
+ See Palmer, Treatise on the Church, vol ii. p. 503.

312

476 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

them, that tliey were forced to rebel against acknowledged
authority.

A letter is still extant* from Eutherius, bishop of Tyana,
and Helladius, bishop of Tarsus, to St. Xystus, the reigning
pontiff, protesting against the proceedings at Ephesus. It is
impossible in a few words to give anything like an adequate
conception of this letter, but no eulogist of the Holy See
could wish for a more eloquent testimony to its power and
divine authority. The pope is compared to Moses as opposed
to Jannes and Jambres, and to St. Peter as opposed to Simon
Magus ; he is addressed as the expected Saviour of the or*
thodox believers, the divinely appointed ruler of the Church.f
The constant victories of the Apostolic See over heresy, false-
hood, and impiety, are elaborately set forth. In short, to quote
their own words —

" We entreat you, and we throw ourselves at the sacred feet of
your holiness, that you would stretch out a saving hand, and put an
end to the shipwreck of the world, by commanding an enquiry to
be made of all these things, and administering a heavenly correction
to these unlawful proceedings ; that those holy pastors may be res-
tored who have been unjustly torn from their flocks, that their former
order and peace may be to the sheep, and that lamentation and
weeping may no longer be offered up instead of prayer and psalms."

These two bishops wrote in the names of their partisans in
Euphratesia, either Cilicia, Cappadocia Secunda, Bithynia,
Thessaly, and Moesia. The document we have quoted is cer-
tainly a very remarkable indication of the feeling of the times,
proceeding, as it does, from the Anti-Roman party. We
know very well what weight it would possess in the eyes of
any writer of secular history.

II. The history of the Eutychian controversy presents equally
striking facts for the consideration of the historical enquirer.

The blessed Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus near the Euphrates,
having been deposed from his see, appealed to the pope that
he might be restored to it. We have already seen how
strongly St. Leo asserted his supremacy, even by the confes-
sion of our opponents. We may judge whether the following
expressions from the letter of Theodoret were calculated to
undeceive him, if he thought that the whole Church acknow-
ledged his primacy.

" If Paul, the preacher of truth, and the trumpet of the Holy

* Galland. Bibl. Patrum, torn, ix, p. 522, et seq.

+ " Nostrum est ... ad eum clamare qui a Deo productus est gulemator." —
See Fleiiry, Hist. Eccles. liv. xxvi. p. 194.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 477

Ghost, had recourse to the great Peter, that he might obtain from
him a reply to those at Antioch, who were doubting about the ob-
servation of the law, with greater reason have we recourse, who are
humble and lowly, to your Apostolical see,* that from you we may
receive a remedy to the ulcers of the Church. For on all accounts
does the primacy justly belong to you. Your See is adorned with
many prerogatives. Some cities, indeed, are illustrious through
their magnitude or beauty, or their numerous inhabitants, and
others, which are deficient in these, through their spiritual gifts ;
but the Giver of all good things has given to yours superabundance
of gifts."

It is the greatest and most illustrious of cities, and presides
over the world.

" But chiefly faith adorns it, to which the divine apostle beareth
witness, saying, 'Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole
world.' Besides this it has the tombs of Peter and Paul, our com-
mon fathers and masters of the truth, which illuminate the minds of
the faithful. These have rendered your See the most illustrious of
all ; this is the climax of your gifts."

"And now I await the sentence of your Apostolical See, and I
pray and entreat your holiness to assist me, appealing to your just
and equitable tribunal, and to command me to come to you that I
may shew forth how my teaching follows upon the footsteps of the
Apostles. And do not, I pray, reject my suppliant prayers, or
despise my miserable old age, thus unworthily treated after so great
labours. Before all things, I pray that I may be informed by you
whether or no I should acquiesce in this unjust deposition, for I
await your sentence. And should you command me to abide by
what has been decided, I will do so, and will no longer be weari-
some to any man, but will await the just sentence of my God and
Saviour."f

In the same strain did he write to Eenatus, a presbyter of
Kome, begging of him to persuade St. Leo " to use his Apos-
tolical authority, and command him to present himself at the
Roman tribunal." J St. Leo restored him to his see, and
Theodoret was admitted at the Council of Chalcedon in con-
sequence.

The acts of this sacred synod are most instructive as to the
relation between the Pope and the Church. At its com-
mencement, the legates of the Apostolic See, who presided

* Rome is called " the Apostolical See" in the letter of the Council of Ephesus
to the pope. In the recent translation of St Athanasius, we observe that
diroaToXiKo^ 9p6vog, is translated "an apostolical throne," in a sentence where
fiT}Tpoiro\iQ Pw^avoQ is termed "the metropolis." p. 248.

+ Theodoret, torn. iii. p. 984, et seq. % p. 959.

478 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

there, opened its proceedings by protesting, in the following
manner,* against the presence of Dioscorus, the Archbishop
of Alexandria, who had presided at the atrocious Latroci-
nium of Ephesus.

Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybceum, thus begun: " We have
orders from the most blessed and apostolic Bishop of Rome,
which is the head of all Churches, that Dioscorus should not
Bit in the council, and that should he attempt to do so, he
must be expelled from it. If, therefore, it please your greatness
(the representatives of the civil power), let him depart, other-
wise we go." It was then asked what the special charge against
him was ? Lucentius replied, " He has dared to hold a
synod independent of the authority of the Apostolic See,
which was never done, or allowed to be done."" In conse-
quence of this, Dioscorus was commanded to sit in the midst
of the assembly as a criminal instead of a judge. Not a voice
was raised by any one of the bishops then present, — and they
were all orientals, without a single exception, — against the
new doctrine, as Anglicans would have it, which was put
forth by the legates.

The cause of Dioscorus was now examined, and his crimes
being sufficiently established, his deposition was agreed upon.
The legates were called upon to pronounce the sentence of
deposition, on which Paschasinus asked,t " What pleaseth
your blessedness that should be done ?" The Bishop of An-
tloch replied, " That which seemeth fit to your holiness, and
we agree to it." The three legates upon this read out the
sentence of Dioscorus, setting forth his misdeeds at Ephesus,
and pronouncing the pardon of the Apostolic See to all who
unwillingly took part at that council, " and who have since
continued obedient to the most holy Archbishop Leo^ and to
every most holy and oecumenical council." In fine, "the
most holy and blessed Leo, Archbishop of great and elder
Rome, through us and the present synod, together with the
thrice blessed and most glorious Apostle Peter, who is the
rock and support of the Catholic Church, and the foundation
of orthodox faith, has deprived him of his episcopate, and has
removed him from all sacerdotal rank."

Then followed the subscription to the deposition of the
Archbishop of Alexandria. The following few specimens may
serve to show how little anti-papal feeling there was in the

* Harduiu, Concil. torn. ii. p. 67.

t Uarduin, Concil. torn. iL p. 344, et seq.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 479

sacred synod, notwithstanding the bold and plain-spoken lan-
guage of the legates :

Anatolius, Archbishop of Constantinople. — " I agree in all par-
ticulars in one sentiment with the Apostolic See, and join in tho
deposition of Dioscorus, late Bishop of Alexandria."

Peter, Metropolitan of Corinth. — " I too agree to what has been
said, both by the legates of the most holy and blessed Leo, Arch-
bishop of great Rome, and the most holy Anatolius."

Seleucus, Metropolitan of Amasea. — "I consent and agree to
these things, which have just been set forth lawfully and canonically
by the Apostolic See of Rome, through the most holy bishops who
came in its place, and by Anatolius," &c.

Julian, Bishop of Hypaepi. — *' I consent to all the things which
have been said by the most holy bishops, Paschasinus and Lucentius,
and the most religious priest, Boniface, the legate of the most holy
and blessed Archbishop of Rome."

And when it is remembered that St. Leo's doctrine, like
that of his predecessors, was that St. Peter continually lived
and presided in the person of his successors, it cannot be sup-
posed that the Council of Chalcedon was much averse to this
doctrine, when it cried out with one voice, upon the reading
of St. Leo's epistle, " Peter has spoken by Leo ! " The
letters of this sacred synod to the Emperor Marcian, and to
the Pope himself, show how far they were from protesting
against the claims of Rome. The holy fathers acknowledge*
St. Leo as the interpreter of St. Peter, as the head of the
Church, and the divinely-constituted guardian of the Lord's
vineyard. This is as strong doctrine as we could wish to
have from any one. But if Bossuet had lived at that period,
Anglican controversialists would quote him now, against doc-
trines for which he would gladly have laid down his life.

III. Our limits compel us to be brief in laying down the re-
mainder of our evidence of the belief of the orthodox Oriental
Church previous to the final schism. We have selected it
from the principal controversies in the East, after the Council
of Chalcedon. During the pontificate of Pope Symmachus,
a letter was addressed to him by the orthodox bishops of the
East, which was then involved in the Acacian schism.. In
thist they acknowledged that the chair of Peter, the prince
of the Apostles, was given to the charge of his holiness by
Christ himself; and they addressed the Pope as one "taught

* Harduin, Concil. torn. ii. p. 655.

t Labbe, Concilia, torn. iv. p. 1304, et seq. ; and Baroiiius, 312, xlrilL

480 The Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

by St. Peter to feed the sheep entrusted to his care all over
the habitable world."

IV. Five years after this, we find a letter* addressed to
Pope Hormisdas by upwards of two hundred priests and
archimandrites (or heads of monasteries) of S;Tia Secunda, on
the subject of Severus, the heretical Patriarch of Antioch.
They write " to the most holy and blessed Hormisdas, Pa-
triarch of the whole earth, holding the see of Peter, the prince
of Apostles," thinking it right, " since Christ had constituted
him, and his holy angel, the prince of pastors, and the doctor
and physician of souls, to lay before him the tribulation they
were suffering, and to point out those ravenous wolves who
were laying waste the flock of Christ ; that he might expel
them with the staff of authority from the midst of the sheep,
and heal the soul with the word of doctrine, and soothe it
with the medicine of prayer. AVe entreat you, therefore,"
they continue, " most blessed father, and we pray and be-
seech you, that you would arise with zeal and fervour, and
justly condole with the lacerated body [of the Church], for
you are the head of all ; and vindicate the despised faith, the
insulted canons, the blasphemed fathers, and the anathe-
matized council, t To you have power and authority been
given by God to bind and to loose."

V. The proceedings of the Church, a few years after this,
in the case of Anthimus, the heretical Archbishop of Con-
stantinople, are equally worthy of notice. Upwards of ninety
archimandrites of Constantinople and its neighbourhood,
Palestine, and Syria, Avrote| to "the most holy and blessed
Agapetus, Archbishop of ancient Home, and Universal Pa-
triarch," entreating him to depose and anathematize Anthimus.

The same prayer was addressed to the Pope by the bishops
and other clergy of the province. The devotion of monastic
orders to the Holy See is so well known, that it might be
suspected that the archimandrites had gone beyond their
secular brethren in their prayer to the Pope. It is well,
therefore, to mention that the letter of the bishops is ad-
dressed § "to our Lord, the most holy father of fathers,
Agapetus, Archbishop of Rome."

Soon after this, a council was held at Constantinople under
Mennas, the orthodox successor of Anthimus. In the sen-

* Harduin, Concil. torn. ii. p. 1031.

t t. e. the Council of Chalcedon, which was anathematized by Severus and
his party.

X Harduin, Concil. torn. ii. p. 1193. § lb. p. 1203.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 481

tence of the council against him, it is mentioned as a specimen
of his deceitful profession of orthodoxy, that he sent word to
the emperor, "promising to do whatsoever the pontiff of the
great Apostolical See should decree, and he wrote to all the
holy patriarchs that he followed in all things the Apostolical
See. But," continues the council, "our God and Saviour
Jesus Christ not permitting such things to last, the most
blessed Pope Agapetus, of blessed and sacred memory, was
sent by God to this royal city, who immediately, with God's
assistance, put in force the sacred canon, and expelled him
from his ill-gotten see.""'

The new patriarch, Mennas, almost immediately after this,
made his own profession of faith before the council as follows :
— " We FOLLOW and obey the Apostolical See, holding com-
munion with those who communicate with it, and condemning
those whom it condemns." f

The council Avhich was held at Jerusalem on the same
subject, under the Patriarch Peter, gave its hearty consent to
all the proceedings of Pope Agapetus, and of the council
under Mennas.

VL The next great controversy in the East was that concern-
ing the Monothelite heresy. The three great sees of Alex-
andria, Antioch, and Constantinople, were held by Monothe-
lites. St. Sophronius of Jerusalem alone of the eastern
patriarchs stood up in defence of orthodoxy. Towards the
end of his life, he took Stephen, bishop of Doria, the first in
rank of the bishops of his province, and led him to Mount
Calvary. He there adjured him by Him who was there cru-
cified, and by the account he should have to render at the last
day, " to go to the apostolic see, where are the foundations of
orthodoxy, and not to cease to pray till the holy persons there
should examine and condemn the novelty." Stephen, moved
by the awful nature of this adjuration, and by the entreaties
of the orthodox bishops and laity in those parts, " gave not
sleep to his eyes, or slumber to his eyelids,"" till he had fulfilled
his promise. In the letter which he presented to the Roman
pontiff, he describes the orthodox Christians of the East as
" wishing for the wings of a dove, to fly and announce their
distress to the see which governs and presides over all (I mean
your own high and exalted see), for the healing of the uni-
versal wound, for it hath been the custom to do this from the
beginning from apostolic and canonical authority. For not

* lb. p. 1257. + lb. p. 1261.

482 The Papal Bupremacy anterior to the [Dec.

only were the keys of the kingdom of heaven exclusively in-
trusted to the truly great Peter, the chief of the apostles, but
to him first it was given to feed the sheep of the whole Ca-
tholic Church."

The feeling expressed in this letter was not peculiar to the
Christians of Palestine.* The following passages are taken
from the writings of one of the greatest saints and ecclesias-
tical authorities of the period.t St. Maximus was born at
Constantinople and was educated there. He was for some
time secretary to the emperor, until he retired into a monas-
tery at Chrysopolis, near Chalcedon, of which he became the
abbot.

" Whosoever anathematizes those who repudiate Pyrrhus, ana-
thematizes the Roman see; that is, he anathematizes the Cathohc
Church."

" Let him, before all things, hasten to give satisfaction to the
Roman see. For this being once satisfied, all people will every-
where speak of him as pious and orthodox. For he talks in vain,
who thinks that such persons as myself are to be persuaded and won
over, and does not satisfy and implore the most blessed Pope of the
holy Roman Church, that is the apostolic see, which, from the In-
carnate Word of God Himself, as well as from all holy synods, has
received and possesses authority and power of binding and loosing. "J

Our next contemporary authority Is that of a letter from
Serglus, metropolitan of Cyprus, in the name of his province,
" to my most holy, and blessed, and godly lord, the Lord
Theodore, father of fathers, archbishop, and universal pope."
We hope the beginning of the letter will be suflficient to give
some idea of his faith in the Pope's supremacy.

" Christ our God hath constituted thine apostolical see, O sacred
Head, as the God-fixed and immovable support and the conspicuous
exemplar of the faith; for as the Divine Word hath truly said, ' Thou
art Peter, and on thy foundation are the pillars of the Church
founded, for to thee hath he committed the keys of heaven, and hath
given charge to bind and to loose, with power in heaven and earth.
Thou art constituted as the destroyer of profane heresies, as the
leader and doctor of orthodox and immaculate faith. "§

* Facts are as valuable as any other testimonies. Pope Theodore appointed
this same Stephen, bishop of Dona, as his vicar in Palestine, with authority to
depose certain bishops irregularly consecrated, unless they consented to act
canonically. He exercised his authority without opposition.

t Ceillier says of him : " Dieu semble avoir fait naitre ce saint expr^s pour
la defense de la foi Catholique contre les Monothelites." tom. xiii. page 609.

t S. Maxim, tom. ii. p. 76.

§ Harduin. ConcU. tom. iii. p. 729.

1844. J Division of the East and the West. 483

vir. The Iconoclast controversy yields most satisfactory
evidence of the doctrine of the Greek Church as to the pope's
supremacy.

In the second Council of Nice, which is acknowledged as
oecumenical by the present Greek Church, a letter* was read
from the Roman pontiff, in which the following statement of
his authority is found : —

" Let the words of our Lord Jesus Christ be fulfilled, * The gates
of hell shall not prevail against it.' And again, ' Thou art Peter,'
&c. Whose see shines forth as holding supremacy over the whole
universe, and is the head of all the Churches of God. To which
if your holiness [the Abp. of Constantinople] wishes to adhere and
to hold the orthodox creed of our apostolical see, which is the head
of all Churches," &c.

When this letter had been read out, the papal legate said,
" Let the most holy patriarch Tarasius, of the royal city, tell
us whether he consents to the letter of Hadrian, the most
holy pope of the elder Rome, or no." Tarasius answered,
that St. Paul in writing to the Romans had said, " Your faith
is spoken of throughout the world. This testimony it is
necessary to follow, and to oifer opposition were senseless."
The legates then asked whether the holy synod received the
letter of Pope Hadrian or no. The holy synod answered,
'"Enofdsda, Kai ^e^d/ifOa Kai irpoaiinEOa.

The same doctrine was maintained by contemporary private
theologians. St. Theodore Studites, who is honoured by the
modern Greeks as one of their greatest saints, thus begins a
lettert to Pope Leo IH : — " Since Christ our God, after the
keys of the kingdom of heaven, conferred upon the great
Peter the dignity of pastoral supremacy, it is necessary that
reference should be made to Peter or his successor when in-
novations are made in the Catholic Church, by those who err
from the truth." After having explained the nature of his
complaint, he addresses the Pope in the words of the chief of
the apostles to Christ, " Save us, Chief Pastor of the Church
upon earth, or we perish."

vin. The chief conversions wrought by the Greek Church
in its later times were, as we are informed by Mr. Palmer him-
self, the Moesians, Gazarians, Bohemians, Moravians, the Rus-
sians, and other Sclavonic tribes. These conversions were the
Avork of the missionaries sent out by the blessed Saint Igna-
tius, patriarch of Constantinople, especially by those wonderful

* lb. torn. iv. p. 102.

t S. Theodor. lib. i. ep. xxviii. vid. etiam ep. xxxiv. ed. Sinnond. torn. r. p. 300.

484 The Papal Supi^emacy anterior to the [Dec.

brothers, St. Cyril and St. Methodius.* It is assumed by our
opponents, that all these countries were originally innocent of
admitting the Pope's supremacy. We shall see whether their
holy instructors, or the patriarch, Avere likely persons to have
omitted instructing them on this point.

And first, as to St. Cyril and St. Methodius, we offer the
following extract from Butler's Lives of the Saints,-\' as suffi-
ciently indicating their creed : —

** Cyril and ^Methodius translated the liturgy into the Sclavonic
tongue, and instituted mass to be said in the same. The Archbishop
of Salzburg and the Archbishop of Mentz, jointly with their suf-
fragans, wrote two letters, still extant, to Pope John VIII, to com-
])lain of the novelty introduced by the Archbishop Methodius.
Hereupon the Pope, in 878, by two letters, one addressed to Tuvan-
tarus, count of Moravia, and the other to Methodius, whom he styles
Archbishop of Pannonia, cited the latter to come to Rome, forbidding
him, in the mean time, to say mass in a barbarous tongue. Me-
thodius obeyed, and repairing to Rome, gave ample satisfaction t6
the Pope, who confirmed to him the privileges of the archiepiscopa!
see of the Moravians, declared him exempt from all dependance on
the Archbishop of Saltzburg, and approved for the Sclavonians the
use of the liturgy and breviary in their own tongue, as he testified
in his letter to Count Sfendopulk, still extant."

Had St. Methodius been an " Anglo-Catholic" he would
have merely said, " The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction
in this realm."

This extract from Alban Butler, which agrees with the ac-
count of all other historians, throws great light on the re-
markable fact, which was brought out by M. de Maistre, that
the Russian liturgical books are in many places most glori-
ously orthodox on the subject of the Pope's supremacy, pre-
cisely in the same manner as the Anglican prayer-book con-
tains the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ; though perhaps
the majority of the Anglican clergy regard that doctrine as
anti-Christian. Russia, as it is well known, was in communion
with Rome as late as the time of St. Gregory the Seventh
and even later.

IX. We come now to the commencement of the great
schism. It originated, as all students of ecclesiastical history
are aware, in the refusal of the holy patriarch St. Ignatius, to
comply with the wishes of the Greek emperor, who deposed

* St. Cyril and St. Methodius are styled the apostles of Moravia, Upper
Bohemia, Silesia, Gazaria, Croatia, Circassia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Russia, Dalmatia,
Pannonia, Daria Carinthia, Carniola, and of almost all the Sclavonic nations.

f December 22.

1844.] Dimsion of the East and the West, 485

and banished him, and put into his place Photius, a layman
and a soldier, who was moreover ordained by a schismatic
bishop of Syracuse.

The following is the opening passage of a letter* from St,
Ignatius, the persecuted patriarch, to Pope Nicholas I, who
had nobly taken up his cause and deposed Photius: —

" Science has produced many physicians of the wounds and
diseases of the human body, one taking especial cognizance of one
disorder, and another of another ; but of those diseases which affect
the members of Christ, our God and Saviour, — the head of us all,
and of His Spouse the Catholic and Apostolic Church, God has
constituted one an especial physician of surpassing excellence and
most Catholic, namely, your brotherly holiness and paternal reve-
rence. Wherefore, he said to the great Peter, the chief of the
Apostles, ' Thou art Peter,' &c., and again, ' To thee will I give
the keys,' &c. These words He did not restrain or limit to the
chief of the Apostles only, but through him transmitted them to all
who after him should like him be the chief pastors and most divine
and sacred pontiffs of elder Rome. On which account, from the
earliest times, when heresies and schisms have sprung up, many of
those who preceded your holiness and exalted paternity have eradi-
cated and destroyed the evil tares, and the diseased and almost
incurable members ; being successors to the chief of the apostles,
and imitators of his zeal in the faith which is according to Christ,
and now in our times your holiness has worthily handled the power
given to it by Christ."

Surely these words are as strong as those quoted by Mr.
Palmer from Mr. Newman's sermons in favour of the papal
supremacy, and that by divine right.

Perhaps, however. It may be said that St. Ignatius, though
a patriarch, was speaking as a private individual ; we there-
fore beg to refer to the council held at Constantinople in 869,
which was attended by the representatives of the great sees
of Antioch and Jerusalem, as well as by the patriarch of
Constantinople. The papal legates read out a formulary
before the council, which it was necessary to subscribe, in
sign of communion with the Church of Rome. The follow-
ing words, among others equally strong, occur in it.

" We follow in all things the apostolical see, and observe alt its
constitutions, we therefore hope to enjoy communion with it, in
which is the solidity of the Christian religion in all its truth and
integrity ; and we promise not to recite at the holy mysteries the
names of those who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic
Church, that is, who do not agree with the apostolical see."

* Hardiiin Concil. torn. v. p. 791.

486 TJie Papal Supremacy anterior to the [Dec.

The legates, after this had been read, asked the council :
"Doth this formulary please you in all things V The whole
sacred synod answered : " The formulary which hath been
read to us has justly and expediently been put forth by the
holy Roman Church, and moreover it pleaseth us in all things."

The same doctrine was held even by Photius and his par-
tisans, as long as they enjoyed the communion of Rome. It
is known that, upon the death of St. Ignatius, the Holy See,
to gratify the Eastern Churches, acknowledged Photius as
his successor. In the year 879, a large synod of all the great
Eastern bishops was assembled at Constantinople, for the
purpose of confirming him in his see. A letter* was read as
usual from the Pope, and approved by the council as far as
ecclesiastical matters were concerned. In this letter the doc-
trine of the papal supremacy is thus asserted :

" The Apostolical See has received the keys of the kingdom of
heaven from the first great Pontiff Jesus Christ, through Peter, the
prince of the Apostles, in these words : ' To thee I will give the
keys,' &c. It hath power of binding and loosing in all places ; and,
in the words of Jeremias the prophet, of planting and of rooting
up. By the authority, therefore, of Peter, the prince of the
Apostles, together with all our holy Church, we announce to you,
and through you to our holy brothers and fellow-ministers the
Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and all
other bishops and priests, and to the whole Chureh of Constanti-
nople, that we consent and agree in all things, yea rather God by

us, to all things which ye have asked Receive [Photius] as the

Patriarch of your Church. Confirm your love and faith, and with
reverence obedience to him, and through him to the holy Roman
Church. For whosoever receiveth him not, receiveth not our
decrees, or those of the holy Roman Church concerning him ; nor
doth he wage war against us, but against the most holy Apostle
Peter, yea, rather against Christ the 8on of God, who hath so
honoured and glorified his Apostle, as to give him the power of
binding and loosing."

It would be idle to cite additional testimonies. Those who
are acquainted with the original authorities, will be aware
that we have not by any means exhausted the testimonies
which meet us everywhere in orthodox oriental councils to
the papal supremacy. In fact, to a person who has studied the
subject, the notion of the original independence of the Eastern
Churches is no less astounding than would be the assertion
that consular government was unknown in the earlier periods

*. Harduin ConciL ton), vi p. 258.

1844.] Division of the East and the West. 487

of the Roman republic. Let any enquirer take up the acts
of those many Eastern councils where the papal legates were
present, from the Council of Ephesus till the final separation ;
and the authority which they assumed, on the grounds of the
papal supremacy by Divine right, and which was most
heartily granted as a matter of course, will be no less instruc-
tive than astonishing to him, if he be sincere and candid in
his investigations.

We have not professed to give more than the bare evidence
of the reception of the papal supremacy in the Eastern
Churches, as stated by ourselves at the commencement of this
article. There are, however, many important questions re-
maining, over and above this, upon which we cannot now
enter, but which may form the subject of another article. In
the meantime, we hope we have adduced sufficient evidence
to show how little reason Bishop Ken had for professing in
his last will " to die in the holy Catholic and Apostolic faith,
professed hy the whole Church before the disunion of East
and West,^^ and what little security Anglicans of the present
day have in attaching their hopes of everlasting salvation to
the historical enquiries of such men as Mr. Palmer, Mr.
Sewell, or Dr. Hook.*

Art .VIII. — 1. Bogeri de Wendover Chronica^ sive Flores His-
toriarum. Nunc primum edidit H. O. Coxe, M.A. Printed
by the Royal Historical Society. London : 1841-1842.

2. Monkish Historians. Royal Historical Society.

Second Series of Monkish Historians. Shortly will be pub-
lished, Matthew of Paris, &c. Prospectus of the Royal
Historical Society.

THERE is scarcely a nation of Europe that possesses so
copious and uninterrupted a stream of history as that
which Britain owes to the labours of its monks. But for
them, the history of our country for fifteen hundred years,
would be a blank ; the origin of our greatest institutions, a
problem. Were their labours of the humblest character,
and conveyed in the meanest language, it might be supposed
that no one, that had the feelings of a man and a Briton,
could withhold his commendation. Now it is certain, that
much as is said of " monkish Latin," remote as the monks

* It may be well to mention that the first part of this article was written
before the appearance of Mr. Oakeley's recent letter.

488 The Church and Empire [Dec.

certainly were from the pure latinity that a classical scholar
would require, some at least, as St. Bede, Wendover, and
others, are far from being obscure, harsh, or invoh ed in their
style : while nearly all display a picturesque simplicity and
hearty sincerity, that amply atones for faults of manner. But
whatever the opinion of their merit as writers, there can be
but one opinion of the invaluable service which they have ren-
dered their country. Their reward has been that which
impretending worth too often experiences: has been but
scorn and obloquy.

Too often has it happened, that men have scoffed at the
ancient memorials which yet they condescended to copy ;
have claimed from an over-indulgent public that homage and
praise which was chiefly due to the original compilers. We
have long boasted of a Robertson and a Hume, but what
would a Robertson or a Hume have been, had the chroniclers
been such lazy, ignorant monks, as these authors would have
us imagine ? When men pander to the errors and prejudices
of the age ; when they make a traffic of the evil which they
ought to remove ; when they build their own reputation on
the ruined fame of others, they may be idolized by the ma-
licious and the ignorant, but they cannot escape the ultimate
contempt of men, any more than the just retribution of God.
Such contempt, such retribution, even on earth, seems now
impending. It is therefore well for England, that its historic
fame is not grounded on the productions of the last century.
Europe has uttered against them its solemn protest ; has
weighed them and pronounced them wanting. Mere beauty
of style is little regarded by those that thirst after truth ;
and, happily, such a thirst is now experienced. The age has
discovered its error ; has discovered that it mistook a mirage
for the fountains of truth ; it turns back in disgust from gor-
geous style and perverted fact, to the precious though un-
adorned pages of " Monkish Chronicles."" Until however
these writings are faithfully translated, they will be accessible
to few. Struck with this idea, the Historical Society is not
only issuing, in the original tongue, a variety of chroniclers,
and, among others, the hitherto unpublished work of Roger
of Wendover ; but has commenced a translation, if not of
the whole, at least of the contemporary portions of the
" more important writers." It is hoped that the public will
be thus enabled to see the events of each century in the same
light as they were seen and recorded by living witnesses.

It is needless to dwell on the utility of such an imder-

1844.] i%-the Thirteenth Century. 489

taking ; needless to praise what, in design at least, is so ob-
viously meritorious. Among the few histories that are to be
translated entire, is the Historia Major of Matthew of Paris,
The recent translation into French, and the proposed trans-
lation into English, of an author so often quoted, so little
read, is like the publication of a new work ; and a new work
ushered into the world under such high recommendations is
likely to be received without further examination as a true
picture of its age. The selection of Matthew of Paris for
such a purpose is not a little remarkable.

The society, in one of its publications, acknowledges that
up to the nineteenth year of Henry III, Matthew of Paris is
only the copier of Wendover ; and that in the account of his
own times the latter has impartiality and kindliness of feeling,
and a style far from inferior to that of Paris.* Wendover,
moreover, is to form the text down to the Conquest. But why
discontinue him then I why abandon him for the works of
Paris I The latter died, according to the prospectus of the
Historical Society, in 1259, or according to some in 1250 ;
if then he continued his history till his death, it could
not embrace more than four-and-twenty years, perhaps
did not extend to more than sixteen. His merits, then, rest
upon his narrative of sixteen or four-and-twenty years ; and
if we may believe the editor of Wendover, he is neither in
style nor manner superior to his predecessor. What then is
the reason that he is so great a favourite ? Does it not ap-
pear that the true reason is not expressed ? The prospectus
may afford some insight into the subject. Paris's history,
they tell us, extends from the Conquest to Henry HI, and
is so " bewitching," that it resembles " a well-written and
amusing novel." Is this then the reason ? Hardly, we
think. For this praise is given to the whole history from
the Conquest, and not to any specified portion of it ; and con-
sequently, the greater part of the praise is due to Wendover.
But waiving this difficulty, what do you see, gentle reader,
before, and repeated after, these words of praise ? Before, is
a quotation from Henry, telling us that Matthew of Paris
"paints the insatiable avarice, intolerable tyranny, unbounded
luxury, and abandoned perfidy of the court of Rome in
stronger colours than any Protestant writer hath done. From
all his writings he appears to have been a man of genius,
taste, and learning." The latter sentence appears either mis-

* See Preface to Rog. de Wendorer, voL i. p. viii and xxnii,
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 82

490 TIte Church and Empire [Dec

placed, or intended to convey an inference from the former.
It almost makes one suspect that Matthew of Paris seems a
man of " taste," because he agrees with Protestants in their
hostility to the See of Rome. For there is much tru£h in the
assertion that our chronicler assigns pride ard avarice as ge-
neral motives of the popes, and that too with a zest and bold-
ness that would not discredit a Hume or a Gribbon. The society,
however, to shew, we suppose, that this was not the reason for
the selection, inserted the last sentence of the quotation in
Italics, and then proceeded to a general commendation of the
work. But immediately after follows a passage from Sharon
Turner, informing us that Matthew of Paris " rejoices in the
acquired liberties of the nation ; notices without acrimony
the faults of the royal administration ; and states with a fair
censorial impartiality the avarice and tyranny of the pope-
dom." '' I think," he adds, " I never read a more honest
historian." How softly these accents fall upon the ear;
hardly could " avarice and tyranny " be more sweetly uttered,
not the less do they teem with insidious error. Coupling
Paris'^s claims to preference, with the words of the prospectus,
we must say that our suspicions are awakened ; still we could
hardly blame the society, were it not for its own professions :
but when it pretends to give us a true picture of the age,
yet selects an author that is an exception to his class, our sus-
picions amount almost to certainty.

It is not very difficult to account why Protestants should
be partial to a writer that asperses an authority which they
have rejected. In the first edition of Paris's works. Arch-
bishop Parker expresses the same feeling ; but he seeks no
concealment ; he avows what he thinks ; but, at the same
time, acknowledges that Paris did not represent his age;
that he was contrary to the general feeling of the nation ;
and that the acts which he branded as despotic and avari-
cious, " were supported and endured even with applause" by
men of " prudent and magnanimous minds."* Yet in the face
of such a testimony, Paris is to be preferred before every
other. The English of that day, says the Anglican archbishop,
applauded the conduct of the popes ; yet the society is about
to present us with a delineation of the thirteenth century, in
which, according to its own account, the conduct of the
popes is held up to execration. The very fact of the broad
distinction between their chosen writer and the greater part of

* Se« Preface to the edition of 1571, as affixed to Watts' ed. of 1640.

1 8-I-4.] in the Thirteenth Century. 491

his conterapories ; the fact, too, that he was little popular,
almost forgotten, until the Reformation,* should of itself have
produced caution — should have elicited, from those that
intend to enlighten the public, at least a fair statement of the
question. We protest, then, in the name of the thirteenth
age, against the insidious plan that is thus proposed.

But if the society fails in its proposed design, in giving
US " the predilections and impressions of the public mind
of the period," may it not at least have given the true
account ? was not the nation utterly darkened and be-
sotted ; and was not Paris far in advance of his time ? This
supposition would be too absurd to be noticed, were it
not, in substance at least, constantly asserted. It would be
to suppose that Matthew of Paris knew the ordinary facts
and impulses of his age better than nearly all the rest of the
nation — a nation, too, that did not sit down in ignorance of
what was passing on the continent, but sent forth a constant
tide of its population to the tombs of the Apostles, and to
the holy sepulchre of our Lord. We are to believe that
yeoman and burgher, abbot and bishop, noble and prince, were
mistaken, not only in the bearings, but in the existence of the
facts about them ; that not only the English nation, but the
Spanish, French, and greater part of the German and Italian
chroniclers, are not to be put in competition with Matthew
of Paris and one or two Germans, that sought to purchase
favour both by flattering the emperor and by railing at the
Holy See. Gross as the supposition is, it has yet been sup-
ported. Men are to be found that will condemn numbers
of historians, of every profession, and rank, and country, on
the word of a handful of censorious and interested declaimers.

It might, perhaps, be interesting, but it is not our present
purpose, to examine how such an impression has arisen, and
what is Matthew of Paris's real value as an historian. As a
preparatory step to such an examination, we propose to
glance at the history of the Popes of his time, and thus
arrive at our first general conclusions as to the truth or false-
hood of his representations.

This outline we have derived from various authors, both of
the same and the following century. The chief of those are
Ricardus de S. Germano, a contemporary, and on some occa-
sions an eye-witness, of the events which he describes ;
Amalric, who lived about the same time ; Nick. Ross.

* Preface to the first edition of Par. ib.

32 2

492 The Church and Empire [Dec.

Arago, made cardinal in 1356; Bernard Guido, born 1260,
well known, says Muratori, for his learning, judgment, and
accuracy ;* and Andrew Dandolo, the celebrated Venetian
doge, who lived in the time of our Edward III, and who
occasionally refers to the affairs of Rome in his Chronicles of
Venice. These authors agree in all important particulars,
and are borne out in their statements by the incidental nar-
ratives of the biographers of St. Louis, and of many other
authors of the same period. As the narratives of Arago
and Rich, de S. Germano are the most copious, they will
form our principal guides. The brief narrative or rather
panegyric of Nick, de Jamsille, — the work, as Muratori justly
remarks, of a professed Ghibelline, or partisan of the em-
peror,— omits many circumstances, from its excessive brevity,
but contains hardly a single fact in opposition to the authors
already mentioned.f Epistles and other monuments are to be
found in abundance in Raynaldi's continuation of Baronius.
These authorities unveil to us not a time when refinement
disguises the woes of man under soft appellations, or pro-
scribes their very mention from the domestic circle ; but one
in which these woes stood forth in ghastly nakedness from
the depths of society ; where neither good nor evil was
ashamed to avow itself: but each in open defiance waged its
incessant strife, " a spectacle to angels and to men."

Eight hundred years of Roman sway had not sufficed for
the fusion of the Italian races into one great nation. The
Roman empire was the triumph of one city over the world ;
it modified external forms to its own likeness, but scarcely
affected the internal structure of society. Naturally sub-
divided into several districts by the varying sweep of its
mountains, and being rather conjoined by the ties of Roman
policy than amalgamated by its influence, Italy found itself
in nearly the same situation at the close, as it had been at
the commencement, of Roman greatness. The key-stone of
the arch had fallen, and all was again in fragments. The
only essential difference was, that the Italian had lost the
spirit that had made Rome stoop to the Caudine Forks, and
that in the social war had taught it to tremble for its existence
when it was the acknowledged dictator of kings. Even this
difference was soon obliterated ; and beneath the rude strokes
of adversity, the olden spirit began to revive. Not in vain
did Herulian and Goth scourge the Italian into life ; not in

* Tom. iii. Pref. to G.'s Chron. + See Mur. It Script, torn. viii.

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 493

vain did Lombard, Norman, and Arabian, infuse into the
native races their own wild energies. Italy, as of old, was
once more a pent-up volcano, where the fierceness of the
north, and the keen susceptibilities of the south, acted and
reacted with ever-increasing violence. The torrent of Huns
that poured from the Alps in the tenth century added to the
confusion, not only by its own ravages, but by tearing asun-
der still more completely the elements of society. Over-
whelmed in the field, the chiefs took refuge in their mountain
fortresses, and beheld with indifference the ravage of the
plains : the people determined to be their own protectors.
While some restored the half-ruined towns of the Roman
empire, others sought inaccessible places, and girt them with
walls. The love of liberty was awakened : they began to
struggle no less with their former masters than with the
infidel invader. The death of a warrior was felt to be pre-
ferable to the feudal yoke, no less than to foreign slavery.

The Hun was still sweeping away the riches of the land ;
the Saracen fleet was ever and anon upon the shores ; the
Crescent gleamed even among the passes of the Alps, and
almost met the Raven that told of havoc from the north ; and
yet did the struggle go on between vassal and lord, serf and
burgher, baron and vavassour. The kings of Germany were
invoked amid the contest, and, allured by the prospect of the
Italian crown, they summoned their vassals and raised the
German war-cry amid the Italian strife. Occasionally they
compelled an acknowledgment of their sovereignty ; but, in
general, their claims were eluded or their power defied. Three
centuries passed ; centuries of gradual subsidence yet of per-
petual strife ; of heroic virtue and fiendish crime. At the
commencement of the thirteenth century their exuberant
energy was not yet exhausted. In the extensive and fertile
plain which is guarded by the Alps and Appenines and opens
only towards the isles of Venice, a confederation of republics
had arisen which, in love of freedom and martial exploit,
might compete with ancient Greece. United against a foreign
enemy, triumphant over the might of Barbarossa, the Lom-
bard league was yet true to its age : amid the avocations of
a thriving commerce it never lost its ardour for war. " Every
where," says Hurter, the then Protestant biographer of In-
nocent III, " we discover a relish for the military state ; cries
of joy for victory ; or redoubled exertions to wipe away the
shame of defeat. In the short intervals of peace, we behold
festive games whose renown was heard afar ; and the bland

494 The Church and Empire [Dec.

light of the Church encircled as with a halo the calmed spirits
of men,"

With the bold republicanism of the north was contrasted
the stern but imposing feudalism of the south. The Norman
sceptre was now wielded by the Hohenstauffen race ; but the
chivalry of the barons, their impatience of restraint, their
numerous vassals, their gorgeous tournaments, were no less
conspicuous than under their native kings. In the centre of
Italy the elements of the north and south often clashed ; but
there the burghers seldom triumphed, though not unfrequently
both burghers and nobles defied the temporal authority of
the popes.

When all these circumstances are kept in view, we easily
understand why, amid the reverence and splendour of the
middle ages, the pontificate should be highest in dignity only
to be highest in toil and danger. The Pope felt it his duty
to arbitrate to prevent enmity and the effusion of blood. This
custom of arbitration, which was not only acknowledged but
even spontaneously invoked, became a recognised riffht.

In disputes there is often some reason on both sides. It
consequently happened, that the impartial adjustment of the
pope gave to neither party the entire prize for which they
contended ; and thus he often incurred the resentment of one
or both. If the dispute continued, the same principles of
justice obliged the pope to advocate the cause of one, and thus
incur the hostility of the other. Hence it became easy for
short-sighted or unprincipled men to accuse him of inconsis-
tency, and even to allege a plausible reason for impeaching
his intentions. His efforts to obtain peace, thus not unfre-
quently ended in diverting the contest from others only to
make it fall upon himself with redoubled fury. His con-
scientious boldness in enforcing the public duties of the great,
checking the violence of kings, and defending the oppressed
of every rank, continually produced the same bitter results.
The storm which thus arose was often more violent than that
which it was intended to suppress ; but where principles are
at stake consequences must be left to Providence. Thus felt,
thus generally acted the Vicars of Christ : the weak engaged
with the strong and tyrannical ; often threatened, often in
exile or in chains, they were always struggling, always in-
vincible.

Like his predecessors, Innocent III assumed the tiara as
a warrior assumes his helmet. He laid down for his great
principle to " fear God rather than man :" to devote all his

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 495

energies to make war upon vice, even when decked with the
pomp of kings. When he was crowned with peacock's fea-
thers, he seems to our ideas to dwindle to an empty lover of
parade. But to men of those earnest times, symbolism, whe-
ther in minute objects or in the glorious structure of a
cathedral, was not as now, a body without a soul. Let the
cold-hearted scoff: whatever can rouse our sluggish nature to
good is not to be contemned. Not in vain was a golden orb
placed in the left hand of the emperor at his coronation. Its
splendour was but external ; its interior was filled with ashes,
to remind him that held it to what all earthly greatness, to
what he himself was one day to be reduced. Thus did the
eyes of the feathery crown remind Innocent of the constant
vigilance which his office required. Nor was its admonition
lost ; the abundant tears that Innocent shed during the cere-
mony " proved the violence of his emotions."*

Soon had he occasion for all his watchfulness and vigour.
Two injured queens implored his protection. Ermenburga
had been driven from the palace of her unfeeling husband,
Philip Augustus of France. Snatched from starvation by
the charity of the nuns, she was finally imprisoned in one of
the royal fortresses. Berengaria, the widow of King Richard,
was the other suppliant. Her brother-in-law, John of Eng-
land, had unjustly seized her dower. Never did the voice of
the oppressed appeal to Innocent in vain ; but the passions
of the two kings rendered them deaf to remonstrance. The
contest with John became absorbed in another for the free-
dom of ecclesiastical election. His bribes were spurned ; and
France and England were successively punished with inter-
dict, the dread of those days of faith. In Spain, the Pope
had to grapple with similar difficulties.

Meantime, from encouraging and directing the efforts of
Christians towards the recovery of the Holy Land, the attention
of the pope was forcibly recalled to the violences of the Manl-
chees, or Albigenses, of the South of France. These men were
not less conspicuous for their general rejection of the Old
Testament, condemnation of marriage, and belief in a gpod
and an evil principle, than for their unanimous and furious
hatred of the Church, The Abbot of St. Genevieve, writing to
the Archbishop of Narbonne, who must have known the truth
or falsehood of his assertions, depicts in mournful colours the
ruined churches, desolate hearths, and general state of wretch-

* See Hurter's Iniioc. Ill, torn. i. Ht. 1, Fr. ed.

496 The Church and Empire [Dec.

edness, to which the fury of the Albigenses had reduced the
south of France. For nearly a century every measure had
been adopted for their conversion, that either zeal or charity
could devise. Their numbers however, no less than their
aggressions, continued to increase. All the unprincipled
spirits in the neighbourhood, whether heretic or Catholic,
were glad to join in their plundering excursions. In several
places the clergy were expelled ; the sanctuaries pillaged and
turned into stables ; and the churches moated and walled,
and converted into nests of banditti.* Such proceedings
were more alarming than the sound of war from the distant
east. The Pope demanded help, and sixty thousand men flew
to arms. The Crusade, led on by the heroic Montford,
speedily triumphed ; but the struggle was more than once
renewed, and long before its close, Innocent had gone to his
reward.

While thus incessantly watching and repressing evil,
Innocent had been unconsciously rearing and exalting to
empire one that was to be the scourge of Italy, and the
reckless enemy of the Church. The dynasty of the Norman
kings of the two Sicilies had become extinct ; and Henry VI
of Germany had claimed and seized the vacant throne. At
his death, his infant son, Frederic, might easily, and even
justly, have been set aside. Innocent, however, the suzerain
of the disputed territory, decided in his favour, and on the
death of the empress his mother, took him under his more
especial care. Under the tuition of able instructors, the
young prince became well versed in the languages both of the
east and west, and in all the knowledge of the period.

When Frederic was seventeen years of age, Otho, the
German emperor, was crowned at Rome. Otho determined
to lose no time to crush the young Frederic, the only male
representative of the hated race of Hohenstauflens. In
contempt of the solemn oaths which he had just taken, he
hurried from the scene of his coronation to the invasion
of Naples. The interference of the pope, and the revolt of
the Germans, forced him to abandon his project.

Assisted by Innocent, with money and troops, Frederic,
with all the ardour of youth, pursues his rival across the
Alps (a.d. 1212), and in a few weeks is crowned emperor at
Aix-la-Chapelle. Humbled by his losses on the field of Bou-

* Compare Fleur. vol. xv. p. 438, &c. 8vo. with Hurter's In. Ill,, torn. ii.
liv. 14, passim.

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 497

vines, Otho appeared at the council of Lateran, to plead his
cause against his rival. There were present the patriarchs of
Constantinople and Jerusalem, and the deputies of those of
Antioch and Alexandria, seventy-one metropolitans and pri-
mates, four hundred and twelve other bishops, and more than
nine hundred abbots and priors. Ambassadors were there
from almost all the sovereigns and princes, and from many
of the lords and great cities of Europe ; two thousand
two hundred and eighty-three persons had the right of assist-
ing its deliberations. " Catholic Rome V exclaims Innocent,
" Catholic Rome, appeared with a splendour such as ancient
Rome in all its greatness could never boast." The bishop of
Toledo, by his eloquence and knowledge of languages, gained
universal applause. To all in general he spoke in Latin ;
but as he turned to each nation in particular, he addressed it
in its native tongue.

The cause of Frederic prevailed in the council ; and by
the death of Otho (1218) he became undisputed master of the
empire. He had already been crowned a second time (1215),
On that occasion, he and many of his nobles spontaneously
assumed the cross.* At his departure from Italy he had pro-
mised Innocent that, in case of success, he would abdicate the
kingdom of the two Sicilies in favour of his son. This promise
he repeated in an epistle to Honorius III, at the time of his
second coronation. In 1220, he was crowned at Rome by
Honorius, and swore to maintain the donation of Matilda,
and to go in person to the Holy Land.

Forgetting, however, his reiterated promises, he occupied
himself in affairs that, at any other time, would have been
worthy of a great prince — the erection at Naples of a palace
and an university. There is strong ground for believing that
even at this early period he contemplated the reduction of all
Italy, and the erection of Naples into the first capital of the
world. The injustice of the design was lost sight of in its
dazzling magnitude : expediency, not justice, is too often
the guide of the ambitious. From the days of Uelisarius, the
title of King of Italy was either merely nominal, or com-
manded obedience only in the northern districts. Barbarossa,
the grandfather of Frederic, had resolved to become king,
and real king, of all Italy. The project was too vast even
for his gigantic powers. Young and ardent, Frederic II
thought that he, at least, could achieve the work. After

♦ Rich, de St. Germ. ap. Mur. Eer. It. Script, torn. vii. p. 989.

498 The Church and Empire [Dec.

thirty years of exertion and crime, the storm which he had
evoked burst upon himself : he fled from the walls of Parma,
and perished, it is said, by the hands of his son.

At present, however, he saw nothing before him but fame
and empire. The pope reminded him of hii repeated oaths,
and of the urgent necessities of the Christians in Palestine.
He replied that he had made a truce for three years with the
Saracens. Well might the pope be surprised at so long, and
so unnecessary a delay. It is true that several of Frederic's
barons were refractory, and held out in their fortresses against
one whom they deemed a foreigner and a tyrant ; it is true,
moreover, that the Saracens, who still occupied some parts of
Sicily, were occasionally troublesome. These, however, were
transitory difficulties, speedily quelled, and unless wantonly
provoked, were not likely again to occur.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries men did not regard
the crusades with that cold philosophy which was the boast
of the eighteenth. It was to them no trifling matter. The
Saracens were firmly planted in the south of Europe, while,
excepting the few spots where the cross still prevailed, their
banners floated in triumph from their native deserts, to the
walls of Constantinople. Their hostility to Christians was
more furious than ever ; their thirst for conquest still un-
slaked. Nor was this the only danger : already the name
of Jenghis Khan had spread terror from the confines of China
to those of Europe. Before many years elapsed, Kussia be-
came the prize of his hordes (a.d. 1237); and even the
shores of the Adriatic were startled by his savage multi-
tudes. At present this danger was remote and indistinct ;
but men remembered well the traditions of Dane and Hun ;
and to avert the danger from their own hearths, were eager to
grapple with the Saracen on the distant shores of the east.
Policy, valour, romance, and eastern riches, all had their share
in arraying warriors beneath the standard of the cross ; but
there was another, and a far different feeling, that elevated
and ennobled, if it did not always purify. The wild son of the
forest will shed his blood to save the graves of his fathers
from the polluting tread of the stranger. This feeling burnt
no less in the breast of Saxon, Frank, Burgundian, and all the
varied tribes of the German race ; but it was directed to the
tomb of their common Father — not of an earthly parent, but
of Him who had been consigned to the tomb, that they might
one day arise from it in glory and immortality. The feeling
that was a mere impulse of natural affection, became vivified

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 499

and hallowed by faith. They went, indeed, to seek adven-
ture, glory, and booty ; they went to beat down Paynim in-
solence ; they went to the rescue of their oppressed brethren;
but more than all, they went to the land where God had had
" His tabernacle with men ;" they went to the spot where
God had died ; they went to rescue from the insulting pre-
sense of infidels. His holy sepulchre.

With such a feeling breathing in the strains of trouvere,
troubadour, and minstrel, the engrossing subject of conver-
sation in all classes, giving birth to holy thought, and
earnest prayer, and heroic deed, what wonder that Christen-
dom was scandalized to see the fatal indolence of the
mightiest of its warriors ?

In 1213, and again before the pope in 1220, Frederic, as
we have seen, had solemnly pledged himself to go in person
to the crusades. Until the death of Otho (1218), and the
adjustment of the affairs of Germany, he was clearly unable
to fulfil his engagements. Now month passed after month,
and still the emperor was at Naples, dishonouring his crown,
not only by his apathy, but by his abandoned life.

Honorius reproves his shameful delay — cannot sufficiently
express his astonishment that he should neglect to fulfil his
vow, though " the Lord had given him every facility." Fre-
deric dispatches forty triremes, and swears that he will speedily
follow with another fleet. News arrives of the surrender of
the Christian army at Damietta. Overwhelmed with grief,
Honorius writes in mournful language to the emperor, chiding
him as the cause of the disaster. " What wonder," continues
the epistle, " if Christian people murmur against us, and
against you ; if they think, and say that we have given you
license to remain; and hence imputing to us the whole calamity
that has happened, cease not with unheard-of reproaches to
harass us and the Roman Church instead of you. We will no
longer prefer you to our own salvation, and the utility of all
Christian people ; in truth we will solemnly proclaim you ex-
communicated as a contemner of your own vow, unless," &c.*

Honorius was succeeded by Gregory IX. This aged pre-
late, when bishop of Ostia, had given Frederic the cross
(a.d. 1220), and had learned by experience his crafty dispo-
sition. When Frederic married the daughter of John de
Brienne, the titular king of Jerusalem, he bound himself to
the service of the Holy Land, not as an ordinary pilgrim,

* Rayn. an. 1221, p. 490, &c.

500 The Church and Empire [Dec

but as stringently, we are told, as the vowed knights of St.
John and of the Temple. At the approach of the appointed
term, he informed the pope that he had not completed his
preparations, and asked for the indulgence of another period
of three years. After some demur, the pope granted two ;
and Frederic " spontaneously" subjected himself to excom-
munication, if " by any excuse or delay," he should defer the
expedition, or refuse to comply with its terms. He was to
expend 100,000 ounces of gold, and to take two thousand
knights, and a fleet of one hundred chelanders, or swift-sailing
vessels, and fifty triremes.*

The two years were now rapidly closing. August arrives ;
the allotted day is passed ; and no expedition has sailed.
Crusaders had gathered from all parts of Europe ; but were
suffered to pine beneath the burning sun and pestilential
atmosphere of Brundusium. A frightful distemper broke
out; and thousands perished. Among the dead were two
bishops and many nobles. The Landgrave of Thuringia died
probably of the same disease ; but, by common report, he was
said to have been poisoned by Frederick.t Scared by the
scenes of death, and panting for water and shade, numbers
wandered, and died in heaps, among the rocks and woods ;
others returned home in despair ; and some, finding the em-
peror little inclined to embark, extorted an ungracious per-
mission, and sailed without a leader. J

August had now passed, and September was drawing to a
close, when Gregory announced that the emperor had in-
curred the excommunication to which he had rendered him-
self liable (1227). The Pope made known to all the princes
of Europe, the frequent promises and frivolous excuses of
Frederic ; and at the same time declared that the only
reason why he had not interfered to check his contempt for
the rights of the poor and his encroachments upon those of
the Church, was his fear of interrupting the business of the
crusades.

Frederic was not silent : but sent a reply to all the Chris-
tian princes. It is, however, remarkable, that while the Pope
enumerated his charges in detail, Frederic''s defence was no
more than a general denial and a vague charge against the
popes of avarice and ambition. §

* See Ep. of Greg. EX, ap. Wend, and Sigonius De Beg, Ital. lib. xvii. ap.
Sig. Op. toin. ii. p. 926.

T Raynold. an. 1227. J Ep. of Greg. ap. Wend, an 1228.

§ See their Ep. in Rayn. or. Wend, and his copyist Matt. Par.

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 801

Although the Pope excused himself for not having checked
the ambition of Frederic, he had on several occasions been
obliged to speak. The emperor had banished several bishops
for trifling and even imaginary offences, and thrust others
into their places, without regard to the laws of the Church.
If he could rebel with impunity against even these laws, he
was still amenable to those of feudalism. He was well aware,
— he himself had acknowledged in the most ample terms, —
that Sicily was a fief of the Holy See.* A fief, as is well
kno\vn, is land held on certain conditions during good beha-
viour. It presupposes attachment and protection between
both lord and vassal ; it was given under the solemn triple
form of homage, fealty, and investiture ; and was forfeited
by treason or the refusal to discharge its essential obligations.

Now, suppose it were granted that for the appointment of
bishops, the permission of the secular power was necessary :
whose permission must it be ? That of the chief lord, or of
each landholder in the bishopric ? Not the latter ; such a
claim does not seem to have been dreamt of in the days of
feudalism. It must then have been that of the former. Now
who was chief lord of the Two Sicilies I The Pope ; as
Frederic himself acknowledged. According to the supposi-
tion, then, which we have laid down, and waiving for the
moment the rights and canons of the Church, the permission
of the Pope, and the Pope only, was necessary for the elec-
tion of the bishops. The claim of Frederic to such a right was
as unreasonable as if, in England, the Earl of Kent were to
have claimed in preference to the king, the power of ratify-
ing or annulling the appointment of the bishop of Rochester,
or of the archbishop of Canterbury.

It was not, however, the illegality or absurdity, it was
the irreligion of Frederic's practices, that called for the de-
nunciations of the Pope ; it was not merely that he usurped
the right of nomination, it was that he kept the sees vacant,
to obtain for himself those revenues which were appropriated
to the support of the Church and the poor. " Is it possible,"
exclaims the pontiff*, " that you aspire to imitate your fore-
fathers, whom a jealous God so intercepted in His provi-
dence, that besides yourself hardly one of their race sur-
vives."t The warning was disregarded, but was almost literally
fulfilled.

* See his express and repeated declaration in an epistle to the pope, ap.
Kaynv ann. 1216, voL xx. p. 38. + Ap. Rayn. ann, 1221, p. 494.

502 The Church and Empire [Dec.

Another remonstrance had been called forth by the injus-
tice of Frederic''8 officers and by his own ambiguous conduct.
Berthold, son of the former Duke of Spoletto, and Gonzalini,
dapifer or steward of the imperial court, invade the Pope's
territory of Spoleto. The emperor swears *.hat it has been
done without his orders, and commands them to return. As
they still continued their invasion, the complaints of the
Pope are renewed. The emperor repeats his protestations,
and to prove his sincerity, sends Gonzalini himself with the
legate to see that right was done. No matter ; Gonzalini
still refuses obedience. It was the Pope's conviction that
this could not have happened without the commands, or at
least the connivance, of Frederic. Gonzalini would not have
dared to disobey, or his master would have taken a speedy
vengeance ; for Frederick was not one to brook an insult, or
to tolerate the slightest symptom of disregard to his autho-
rity. To the Pope's astonishment, he replies with excuses,
protestations, and oaths ; but he inflicted no punishment
upon a vassal whom he thus stigmatized as a rebel.* What
confirms the suspicion of Frederic's duplicity is, that the
people of Spoleto complained soon after to the Pope, that
they had received a summons from the emperor to attend his
court in Lombardy, as if they owed him service. •!•

Thus far the words of the Pope had been few and sparing ;
but it was now time to be no longer silent. He reproved the
emperor for his breach of faith towards many of his nobles ;
for his oppression of the poor ; for his disregard of the
Church's censures ; and for his expulsion of the Archbishop
of Tarento from his see without any apparent cause. Frederic,
however, continued his career, and was placed under an in-
terdict (Maundy Thursday, 1228). Wherever he appeared,
the bells were hushed ; the chaunt ceased ; the church doors
were closed. He might affect to scoff, but he feared the
consequences ; he feared that sentence of forfeiture of his
lief might follow; he feared that his subjects would rise
against him as a rebel to his suzerain ; he feared his father-
in law, John de Brienne, whom he had forced to surrender
his claim to the crown of Jerusalem, and who was now the
governor of the papal states. He began to hesitate ; for
awhile he excited the turbulence of some of the Romans ;
but his crafty policy overcame at length his thirst for imme-
diate revenge. To the surprise of every one, he suddenly

* Kayn. ann. 1225. t Ric. de St. Ger. ap. M. torn. viL p. 1000.

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 503

embarks for the Holy Land. He left, however, the ^eater
part of his army in Italy, and, instead of conducting to
Palestine a hundred and fifty vessels, he took but forty
galleys.*

This precipitate departure, with a force so comparatively
small, and after so long a delay, can hardly be accounted for
without impeaching the motives of the emperor. His par-
tisans, however, allege that the delay was caused by his fear
of the Lombards.! But what fears ? The Lombards had
remained quiet till aroused by his own injustice. He had
refused to acknowledge their right of contracting mutual
alliance, though such right had been acknowledged by Bar-
barossa, Henry VI, and Otho IV. Exasperated no less than
alarmed by his menaces, the towns deputed representatives to
a general conference, renewed their league, and repelled with
defiance the threats of the emperor. The Pope mediated
and procured a pacification.

He that could thus renew, could doubtless preserve peace.
Frederic knew well that in his absence his lands would be
guarded by the influence of the Church, — an influence which
the Lombard league was seldom known to resist. What, on
the other hand, is the time that Frederic selects for his de-
parture ? Is it when the Lombards are helpless or pacified ?
It is when they have been embittered by his frequent hos-
tilities ; when his aggressions have created enemies in all
parts of Italy ; when he has raised such disturbances in Rome
itself as compelled the Pope to quit his capital. He departs
when he had aggravated to the utmost the Italian jealousy
of the foreigner, and when all that wanted a pretext for
humbling his power could accomplish their purpose with
every appearance of justice. Where was now his fear of the
Lombards? Another reason must be discovered to account
for his delay ; from all circumstances, it appears to have
been no other than that he had taken the cross for his pre-
sent expediency, and trusted to future events for an excuse
to elude his vow.

He goes, however, at length, as if to fulfil his vow, though
he does not comply with half its conditions ; he goes to
mingle with the soldiers of the Church, though he is under
the bann of the Church ; he goes, therefore, without that
protection of the Church which could secure his dominions

* And. Dand. Chron. Ven. ap. Mur.

+ See Du Barre, Hist. Germ. vol. v. p. 700, &c.

504 The Church and Empire [Dec.

from insult. Yet Frederic was neither unwise nor rash : he
did not go without a design. What could that design be ?
Was it not to raise a war that would be a sufficient excuse
for an early departure from the Holy Land, and that might
end in the subjugation of Italy ? Whatever his motives, he
had scarcely landed in Palestine than he began to treat for
peace with the Sultans of Babylon* and Damascus. The
latter rejected his offers ; his messengers to the former were
frequently insulted and plundered. Yet he continued the
negotiations ; sent him his own coat of mail, helmet, and
sword, — " the sword," exclaims Pagi,t " which had lain on
the tomb of St. Peter." The Patriarch of Jerusalem^ whose
long epistle to the Pope throws much light on these transac-
tions,J informs his holiness that he had received intelligence
from a quarter on which he could depend, that the person that
bore the imperial presents, bore likewise the message that he
might do with the emperor whatever he pleased, for that
Frederic was determined never more to arm against him.

When at last the negotiation was making progress, Frederic
called four of the chiefs, pleaded his poverty, and asked their
opinion of the treaty, and in particular of the offer of Jeru-
salem. They replied, that, if he could fortify and keep the
city, it would be well to accept the offer. The Magistri
Domorum, and the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, were
likewise called ; but refused to give an opinion till they had
consulted the patriarch. The emperor replied that he had
no need of their opinion ; and made the treaty upon his own
authority. It was concluded for ten years. Frederic in-
duced the Germans to give it their applause ; but the other
nations were ominously silent. The treaty made no stipula-
tion for Christians, or the Church : it was merely a conven-
tion between Frederic and the Sultan of Babylon. In his
epistle to Henry III of England, the former boasts of the
extensive possessions that had been ceded to him. His in-
sincerity, however, is too gross for much reliance to be placed
on his words ; and it is certain that of his vaunted posses-
sions, none passed into the hands of the Christians but the
wreck of Jerusalem. §

To the indignation of many a bold warrior, the army was
escorted on its way to the Holy City by the purchased sci-
mitars of the infidels. On their arrival, the Crusaders were

* Wend, and Matt. Par. ann. 1228. t Brev. Gest.

X Ap. Bayn. ann. 1229. § Ap. Matt. Par.

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 505

anxious to rebuild the walls. Frederic deferred the question
to another day ; and on that very day, to the astonishment
of every one, left Jerusalem. The Christians hastened after
Iiim, and promised all possible help in raising the defences.
He evaded their pursuit, and hurried so rapidly to Joppa, that
he out-stripped his followers, and arrived there almost alone.
Before his departure, his conduct became outrageous : he
plundered the clergy ; caused some Franciscans and Domi-
nicans to be dragged from the pulpits and scourged through
the town ; attacked and besieged the Templars for several
days. Of the arms that had been furnished by John de
Brienne and others, for the defence of the Holy Land, and
of the warlike engines, some he carried off, some he gave
to the sultan, and the remainder, as well as the triremes upon
the coast, he destroyed.* After vainly endeavouring to
entice away even the Teutonic knights, he embarked for
Italy, amid the execrations of the Christians. On his
voyage, he stopped at Cyprus, invited the king and his court
to an entertainment, and threw them into chains.

Such was the issue of an expedition that had raised to
the highest pitch the expectations of all Europe. Every
country had sent forth its host ; England alone had mar-
shalled forty thousand warriors.t Yet what was the result ?
A pompous entrance into a town which had not been won,
and could not be maintained. Jerusalem left as it was found,
a wide ruin, without a bulwark to check the inroads of the
sultan of Damascus. What was all this, what was the article
that yielded Jerusalem, but a mockery on the part of his
enemies, a piece of folly and parade on his own? The
sultan of Damascus was nephew of the ruler of Egypt, and
therefore probably connived at the farce, as the readiest
means of getting rid of his enemy. Surely nothing more is
necessary to prove how glorious, how enviable was the renown
of Barbarossa's grandson.

In his epistles to Henry III and other princes, Frederic
laboured to remove the odium which, as he was well aware,
he had universally incurred. He alleged the distrust of the
Hospitallers, and the number of the enemy. But had' ho
given no cause for distrust ? When he first landed in Pales-
tine, the Hospitallers were among the foremost to welcome
his arrival ; " they adored him and kissed his knees," in the

* See various epist. ap. Kayn. ann. 1229.

+ "Wend. Paris (ann. 1227) increases it io 60,000, but probably includes
women and children,

VOL. xvri. — NO. XXXIV. S3

506 The Church and Empire . [Dec.

excess of their joy.* If distrust had afterwards arisen, had
he done nothing to excite it ! Could he not have removed it
at once by a prompt and hearty combination for the over-
throw of the enemy ? If he feared the united array of the
Saracens, why did he not seize the opportunity while they
were scattered over the country in several camps, and while
their chiefs were all but at open war, to fall upon them sepa-
rately, and rout them in succession ? The land was still
ringing with the exploits of the " lion-hearted " Richard, —
exploits achieved in the very midst of the Saracen host, when
the infidels were united, — when their leader was the re-
doubted Saladin, Had Christian prowess degenerated? Did
they now begin to count the numbers of their enemies ? or
was Frederic himself faint-hearted ? The knights clamoured
for battle. Frederic had long ago proved himself no coward.
What, then, could be the motive of his conduct but treachery
to the cause, and a desire to escape the punishment of per-
jury by complying with the form, while he eluded the real
object of his vow 1

Frederic had committed the regency of his Italian do-
minions to Raynaldo. If we are to believe Arago''st account,
this nobleman emulated and even surpassed the cruelty of
his master. He did not content himself with expelling the
clergy, but imprisoned them, deprived them of sight, and put
them to death. Weary of executions, he bursts with fire and
sword into the March of Ancona. Having been admonished
to no purpose by the pope, he is excommunicated. Troops
arrive from France to the help of the holy see, but are sent
back with thanks. John of Jerusalem leads the papal troops
against the invader, while Pandulf enters Campania, over-
throws the imperial forces, and takes all the castles and
towns as far as Capua. This twofold attack compels Ray-
naldo to return to the defence of his regency.;);

Frederic at length arrives ; and after a succession of
victories and defeats, tenders his submission. He agrees to
make restitution to the churches and monasteries, and to the
adherents of the pope ; to restore the bishops ; to preserve
inviolate the rights of the churches and of the holy see ; and
to compensate the invasion and the expenses of the war with
100,000 ounces of gold. He visits the pope ; receives, as if
by a new infeudation, the lands which he had lost, and all
seems to speak well for the future.:{:

* Wend. ann. 1228. t -A.p. Mur. torn. iii. p. 575, &c.

X Ap. Chr, ap. M. torn. iii. p. 576-577.

1844.] in ilie Thirteenth Centw^. 507

That future, however, was far from being tranquil. The
next nine or ten years was a series of insidious aggressions
or open outrage, against both the Lombard cities and the
States of the Church. Everywhere, says the Universal His-
tory, the Ghibellines, the partisans of the emperor, strove to
expel the Guelphs, and at Perugia, Perouse devoted them to
destruction. The pope deputed one of the cardinals, and
at last went in person, to terminate a contest in which
fathers were armed against their sons, and sons against their
fathers."* Scarcely had tranquillity been restored in one
place, when it was disturbed in another. Men scarcely knew
how or why, but the war-cry suddenly arose, blood flowed,
and then all again was still.

When once faction has become organized against faction,
and opposition has ripened into hatred, a mere suspicion will
sometimes enkindle the flames of war. These causes, how-
ever, were not quick enough for Frederic's impatience.
Money, he was aware, is the sinews of war, and money he
was determined to have ; and knew but too well how to em-
ploy, not so much in open war, as in secret mischief. In the
chronicles of the time, we have but imperfect glances into his
proceedings. We see enough, however, to form some idea
of the reality, — enough to teach us the harsh nature of his
government, and to make us shrink with horror from its later
scenes.

In Apulia we hear of the justiciary being torn " limb from
limb" by an enraged multitude. The chronicler tells us that
this was done by " the emperor's enemies."t That these
enemies were his own injured subjects, we may conclude from
the fact of there being no mention of any hostile party in
the neighbourhood, and still more from the fact that a late
justiciary, Peter de Yignes, the emperor's favourite, and at
last his victim, wrung from the Apulians no less a sum, it is
declared, than ten thousand pounds of gold.^ Supposing,
however, that the justiciary suffered from the vengeance of
the Guelphs, we have no means whatever of accounting for the
disturbances in other places, but from the supposition of local
oppression. Every now and then some castle or town rebels,
is besieged, and destroyed : every now and then some feuda-
tory is summoned to Frederic's court, stripped of his pos-
sessions, and, in some cases, punished with death. The

* Tom. xxxii. p. 191, Fr. ed. t R de St. Ger. ap, llxxr. p. 1014.

X See uote to Biog. Univer.

508 77^1? Church and Einjure [Dec.

oppression of Richard de Montenegro, the jupticiary of Sicily,
provokes a dangerous rebellion in Messana.* The very de-
mands of the people, and the promised concessions of the
emperor, tell amply the real state of things : the exactions
on the various kinds of trades and professioi^s — tanners, fish-
ermen, fruit-sellers, wine-merchants, and others — were to be
greatly reduced, or altogether abolished, conformably to " the
ancient custom;" and courts were to be erected, to check
the rapacity of the royal officers.f

His oppression was not confined to individuals, but em-
braced at once entire districts. He ejected the inhabitants
of Luceria. Of some of the deserted houses and part of the
cathedral he erected a palace ; nearly all the rest of the city
he gave to a colony of Saracens.^ These infidels he is said
to have transplanted from Sicily. He made a distinction be-
tween them and his Christian subjects remarkably similar to
that " Presentment of Englishry," by which William the Con-
queror distinguished his Norman soldiers from the vanquished
and trampled Saxons : if a Saracen was slain, even in the act
of aggression, the slayer was put to death, or the whole
neighbourhood punished ; if a Christian dies by the hand of
a Saracen, redress is out of the question. It would appear
that it was to please these infidels that Frederick seized,
despoiled, and imprisoned the nephew of the sovereign of
Tunis, when hastening to Rome to receive baptism. To the
Pope's remonstrances Frederic gave the satisfactory reply,
that he had arrested the prince as a punishment for having
allowed himself to be suborned to Christianity ! The Pope
had already been greatly blamed for not having sufficiently
checked the abandoned career of Frederic. Now he deter-
mined to refrain no longer ; he enumerates the emperor's acts
of oppression, and especially his simoniacal retention of the
bishoprics, and pronounces against him the sentence of ex-
communication (a.d. 1239).

Frederic now set no bounds to his fury. While the poorer
classes were ground to the dust and deluded with promises
that were seldom observed, the barons were not exempted
from the iron grasp of royal exorbitance. Probably, being
mostly of Norman blood, they could ill brook the tyranny of
their German ruler. In addition to this, however, they had
assisted the Pope to quell the revolt of some of his vassals ;

* R. de. St. Ger. p. 1030, &c. t lb.

X Compare Chron. And. Dan. (ap. M. torn. xii. p. 343) with Card.
M. torn, iii, p, 583.

1844.] in tlie Thirteenth Cent art/. 509

this was a piece of presumption that could not be forgiven ;
the gibbet and the sword, fire, famine, and the waves, rapidly
thinned their ranks. Even ladies were tortured till they
purchased exemption by revealing their treasures.* He had
already seized the chief part of the possessions of the Tem-
plars and Hospitallers ; but in a treaty with the holy see had
promised restitution. Instead of complying with the treaty,
he now seized all that he had hitherto spared. Wo to the
bishop that dared to warn the tyrant of his duty. Frederic
thought little of getting rid of such unpleasant monitors and
taking possession of their revenues. If they were not yet
silenced, exile or death awaited tliem.t When Gregory pub-
lished the sentence of excommunication, Frederic did not
make even this distinction ; all were involved in one common
persecution. The Bishop of Catana, Chancellor of Sicily,
the Archbishop of Tarento, the guardian and instructor of
his youth, and five other bishops, he drove into poverty and
exile. The Dean of Militenses he drowned on some trifling
suspicion. The Archbishop of Naples and others he de-
stroyed by the hardships of a dungeon. Nickolas archdeacon of
Messana, he burnt. The Pope's notary, the archdeacon of Sa-
lernum, and a multitude of the clergy, he despoiled and ban-
ished. The famous monastery of *' Cassino," where lay
the blessed body of Benedict, could not escape his fury. It
belonged by direct dominion to the holy see, and enjoyed
many privileges, conferred both by popes and emperors. No
matter ; its monks were expelled, its castles seized, its lands
pillaged, its vassals plundered : the vestments were made a
spoil, and even the gold and silver vessels of the altar were
desecrated to the service of the table. Frederic seized upon
the revenues of the churches which he had thus rendered
vacant, expending them in the erection of fortresses, and in
the gratification of illicit pleasures.-f-

From these numerous exactions and confiscations money
poured into the royal treasury, and scattered the seeds of dis-
cord in many a tranquil city, or changed the commotion that
already existed into a scene of carnage. He could now pay
the thousands of Saracens, whose mortal enmity of Christians
he let loose upon the Lombard and Koman states, and whose
cruelty he glutted, by allowing them to torture at will their
prisoners of war.

* Curd. Ar. ap. M. torn. iii. p. 584. t lb, passim,

X (Jard. do Ar. vol. iii. p. 583.

510 The Church and Empire [Dec.

While Gregory was mediating peace among the various
states, and before he had pronounced the sentence of excom-
munication, Frederic was engaged in promoting discord in
Rome itself. More than once the gates of his capital were
closed against the Pope. The rebels even attempted, and but
for the gallantry of the people of Viterbo, would not have
failed to drive him from his dominions. On this occasion
Frederic occupied and again relinquished the patrimony of
St. Peter. In violation of a recent peace (1235), he again in-
duced Frangipane, an old abettor of his, and Oincio, one of the
senate, to seize the walls and gates of Rome, in the absence
of the Pope (1236). On the appearance of his holiness the
people indignantly flew to arms, stormed the Capitol, ex-
pelled the traitor, and issuing from the gates escorted Gregory
to his palace with wreaths and songs of victory. It almost
seemed as if some conqueror was renewing the wonted tri-
umphs of ancient Rome (1237). Indeed it was a conqueror,
but one who fought for " no earthly prizp."*

It is wearisome to follow in detail the conduct of Frederic,
To such a degree did he strive to debauch the Roman loyalty,
that according to Arago's statement he offered his gold
by public proclamation. Depending on the party which he
could not command, he had already summoned deputies to
Lombardy from (1238) all parts of Italy, as if he was its ac-
knowledged lord.t

Implored by the pope, the Genoese and Venetians hush
their quarrels, and with fleets bearing the standards of both
nations, become at once the warriors of the pope, and the
champions of Italian freedom,:}: All Italy is arriving ; the
Lombards concentrate their strength ; the Romans receive
the cross, and animate one another to the defence of the
city. Nor were their preparations unnecessary : Frederic
thunders for three successive days beneath their walls.
Baffled in his attempt, he expends his fury in the torture of
his prisoners and the ravage of the country.

Disastrous tidings arrive from Palestine, and Gregory de-
termines to call a general council. For this Frederic himself
had asked. Scarcely, however, had the prelates received
Gregory ■'s summons, when they received threatening letters
from the emperor, withdrawing his promise of a safe conduct.
Many, however, determined to bravo his displeasure, and em-

* Ar, p. 582. Ricl|. de St. Grog. p. 1037. j lb. pp. 1030-37 (1236.)

X And. Dnud. Chron, ap. M. torn. 12.

1844.J in the Thirteenth Century. HI

barked at Genoa under the protection of a fleet. The ships
of Frederic and the Pisans suddenly issue from the Arno,
defeat the Genoese, and capture the greater part of the
bishops. Chained in frightful dungeons and pining with
hunger, few but the French prelates ever again beheld their
homes.* That the French were more favoured than the rest
was not owing to Frederic's mercy : St. Louis their king de-
manded their release. The emperor replied that they had
been scheming against him. St. Louis declared that he was
astonished at the refusal ; that the letters of the captives
had convinced him of their innocence ; and that " the realm
of France is not so far tamed as to obey your spurs." The
empei-or understood the hint, and, much " against his will,"
complied. t

This rapid succession of evil tidings, added to the weight
of a hundred years, reduced the energetic pontiff to his grave.
His successor, Celestine IV, reigned but a few days. All this
time Frederic had remained encamped in the neighbourhood
of Rome. Great was the exultation displayed by his courtiers
when Innocent IV, the friend of the emperor, was now upon
the papal throne (June 25, 1243). In his congratulatory
letters, Frederic familiarly wrote to the pope, that from " an
old friend" he had become " a new father." Negotiations for
peace immediately began. Innocent remembered that the
" friendship of this world is the enemy of God," and de-
termined, at any sacrifice, to forego the offers of the emperor,
rather than yield what he knew he ought to retain. He de-
manded that Frederic should liberate the prelates, clergy,
and laity, whom he had seized on their way to the council ; and
that he should clear himself of the accusations of Gregory IX.
On the other hand. Innocent promised that if the Church
had injured him, it would make satisfaction, according
to the judgment of the bishops and princes assembled in
general council, in some place of security. Astonished at so
unexpected an answer, Frederic burst into a fit of passion ;
blocked up the roads to the city ; and cut off all communica-
tion with the princes and people beyond the Alps. Some friar-
minors attempted to carry despatches to the pope, and being
taken, were hanged. The Italians in many places fly to arms.
Those of Viterbo take their citadel from the emperor's party.

* Card. Ar. ap. M. p. 583, &c. Frat. Nich. Vit. In. ap. M. torn. p. 592. Pag.
Brer. Ges. vol. ii. p. 164.

t Ges. St L. ap. Duchesne, torn. v. p. 336.

SiZ The Church and Em^nre [Dec.

and attack and overthrow the emperor himself. Frederic
thought it time to submit, and swears to abide by the pope's
judgment with respect to all injuries offered to Church or
Churchmen.

That Frederic, on the plea that it was injuious to himself,
did not intend to keep his oath, was asserted ])y Innocent ;
and the assertion was corroborated by Matthew of Paris,
who declares that the emperor, " urged on by the goads of
pride, began to repent that he had bound himself to the
Church, as above mentioned, and began to lay snares for the
pope's heel." He adds, the pope did not trust himself to the
emperor or his party, because, " comparing the future with
the past, he knew them all." Innocent goes to Castellion,
to treat with the emperor. The latter demanded to be ab-
solved before anything else. Moreover the latter only wanted
to lull him into security, and was preparing to seize his
person; the pope escaped with difficulty to Sutrium. Departing
from thence at dusk, he toiled all night long amongst moun-
tains, rocks, and forests ; from thence, after many dangers,
he reached Genoa. His fatigues and alarm brought on a
serious illness, which prevented him from reaching Lyons
till December. A general council was immediately sum-
moned. There were present three patriarchs, one hundred
and forty bishops and archbishops, many deputies of absent
prelates, a great concourse of abbots, priors, &c.

Among the secular princes were Baldwin Emperor of Con-
stantinople, Raymund Count of Toulouse, kings of France
and England. The great object of the council, as mentioned
in the decree for its meeting, as well as in the opening dis-
course, was to consider the state of the crusades and the case
of Frederic. In the second session, some of the bishops,
particularly those of Spain, complained of Frederic, and
animated the pontiff to take decisive measures in his regard.
The emperor's ambassador tried to defend his master, and
at last begged for a delay that he might come himself, being
already at Turin. A delay till the 17th was granted, " not
without great inconvenience.*" No Frederic came. After
some other business about the crusades and the rights of
England, the question recurred to Frederic. Thadeus, his
ambassador, was far from denying the right of the council,
but appealed in his name to a future pope and general
council. To this subterfuge Innocent replied that this coun-
cil was general. The sentence of deposition and excommuni-

* Bern. Gukl. p. 5<J2, E.

1844.] in tite Thbi,eenih Centurtf. Sl^

cation against Frederic and his abettors was then read before
the whole synod. The " Te Deum" was next intoned, and
the council was dissolved. The council had already taken
part in the cause of Frederic, some by complaining against
him, all by assigning time in which he was to appear. Can
it be said then, that the act of reading the deposition was
nothing to do with the council ? that they merely heard it
as indifferent spectators ? After all they had done, what can
their silence be called but an act of consent ?*

For awhile Frederic carried on a desperate struggle with
the Italian states. Defeated at Parma, he " goes into Apulia ;
and he that surpassed all the emperors from Charlemagne in
riches, power, and glory, being oppressed with a sore distem-
per, dies, carrying with him nothing but his sins.^f William
de Padio tells us that on his death-bed Frederic was struck
with remorse, and forbade his corpse to be honoured with an
imperial funeral, or that there should be any mourning for
one that had been so rebellious to the Church. J

When Frederic was dead, his son Conrad exercised every
species of atrocity against the clergy and the laity of every
age and condition. Innocent determined to have no such
vassal in his fief, and offered the crown to Charles of Anjou,
and then to Edmund, son of Henry III. Urban IV, finding
that Henry and his son did not and could not observe their
promise, gave the fief to Charles of Anjou.

Innocent had long before departed. His pontificate, began
at Home while Frederic's army was blocking up every out-
let, is continued in the midst of alarms, of exile, and of the
labours of a general council. Once more in Italy, and study-
ing peace, he is surrounded with the din of armed Saracens,
when Manfred as yet refused the oath of fealty. At last he

* On this point Pagi says," that some have denied the participation of the
council because the words "Sacro praesente concilio," are added, instead of
" Sacro approbante concilio ;" but he observes, such titles and explanations are
often inserted by copiers. Besides, what did Innocent read before he pro-
nounced the sentence? "We, therefore, having held beforehand deliberate
consultation with our brethren and the sacred council, show the foremeutioned
prince to be deprived bv the lord . . . and, by our sentence, deprive him of all
honour and dignity for tis aforesaid innumerable and abominable excesses."
Matt. Paris says, " Our lord, the pope, therefore, and the prelates assisting at
the council, with lighted tapers, fulminated terribly against the said Frederic,
who is now no longer to be termed emperor," &c. Paris speaks clearlj^ of " all
the prelates deposing the emperor." Nicholas de Curbio (Vit. Inn. c. xiv) says,
that not only did all the prelates approve the sentence of deposition ; but put
to the instrument their names and seals.

t And. Dandulo Chron. c. vi. part 42, ap. Mur. torn. xii. p. 35&.

j Ap. Pagi Bi'cv. Gcs. torn. ii. p. 181.

514 The Church and Empire [Dec*

seems to have attained one great object : he enters the king-
dom of Naples in peace, and is welcomed by its nobles and
people. Manfred, with the rest, had sworn to obey his com-
mands, and held his bridle as he entered Capua. A few days
after, Manfred murders a feudatory of the holy see, collects
the Saracens of Luceria, and makes a sudden and murderous
onslaught upon part of the pope's army. Grief added to the
infirmities of age, and thus closing his career as it had begun,
Innocent quitted this scene of strife in December 1254.

Before many years had elapsed, he was followed to the
tomb by the whole race of Hohenstauffen. Frederic II had
departed in 1250. Henry was murdered soon after, it is
said, by his brother Conrad. The latter dies in 1254. Man-
fred is slain on the field of Benevento (126G), and Conradin,
the son of Conrad, dies on the scaffold in that Naples which,
twenty years before was Frederic's favourite abode (126.9).
This extinction of so illustrious a family recalls to us the
warning of Honorius, who reminded Frederic, in the begin-
ning of his career, that he was the only survivor of his race,
and bade him not imitate his fathers' crimes, lest he should
be involved in their punishment.

Such were the eventful scenes that engrossed the attention
of the Holy See during the whole period of the real histoiy
of Matthew of Paris. Knowing what was occurring at
Bome, we shall be better able to judge of the decisions that
were issuing from the centre of Christendom, as well as of
those distant occurrences that were more or less connected
with the Holy See. The consideration of these two classes
of transactions will require much detail, and though they can
be fairly judged only in reference to the state of things at
Bome,they are not essentially involved in our present question.

That question is, whether we are justified in assigning
avarice and ambition as the main-springs of papal affairs.
In the prolonged contest between the popes and Frederic II,
there can, we think, be little or no doubt that Frederic
had no justifiable reason for deferring the fulfilment of his
vow. He acted as one that cared not how often he renewed
what he had no intention of observing.

He invokes excommunication upon himself : still fails in his
solemn promise ; again invokes excommunication, if he does
not, within a fixed time, comply, according to his own words,
" without excuse or delay." How eould he then complain, if,
when the time had elapsed, the excommunication was pro-
nounced? A bargain between man and man, if broken, is

1844.] in the Thirteenth Century. 51^

punishable by the law ; a treaty between state and state, if
broken, is punished by the sword : a treaty between the
Church and an individual is surely as binding : its infraction
is surely no less deserving of punishment, than either of the
former. If then the Church exclude from its communion
one who is the scandal of its children, does it exceed the
bounds of right and justice ? Is he that is its instrument, in
uttering its censures, to be branded, for this fact only, as
unjust, ambitious, and t}Tannical?

The popes are men ; and, like other men, are liable in their
earthly rule to fall • into error. Remembering then the com-
mon frailty of humanity, and keeping our eyes on the facts
of the contest between the popes and Frederic II, we may
occasionally, think that the former were carried away by the
heat of the struggle, or carried their pretensions beyond what
the customs of the age allowed, but, in the main, where was
the fault — in Frederic or the popes ? Who played the
tyrant ? Who invaded the rights of his barons, the customs
of the middle-classes, the charters of ti'aders, and privileges
of the monasteries ; who oppressed with taxes, and punished
complaint with fire and sword ? Who set at naught that
feudal system, to which he owed the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, who sought what had never belonged to him and his
— the kingdom of Italy ? Who attacked his feudal lord, and
when his treason was pardoned, strove to hurl him from his
throne ? Had the pope suffered him to proceed, would he
have complied with his duty either as a chief lord, a ruler, or a
pontiff"? When Damietta fell, what was the cry throughout
Christendom ? That it was the pope's fault by not com-
pelling Frederic to keep his vow. What then might they not
have said, and justly, if the pope, the chief lord of the Sicilies j
had suffered his vassal to riot in oppression, to which that
of the infamous John Lackland is not to be compared I What
if the pope, the sovereign of the ecclesiastical states, allowed
his own subjects, to be left open to the inroads of Frederic"'s
blood-thirsty Saracens, no less than to the confusion produced
by Frederic's gold ? What if a state, not the least power-
ful in Italy, idly looked on while the independence of the rest
was crumbling beneath the assaults of the empire ? W^hat
if the pontiff", the recognized peacemaker, whose fiat had so
often stopped the effiision of blood, had refused to exert
his powers — had shrunk from a contest that has justly been
termed the strife of the " Titans and gods," and, terrified at the
din and suffering of the battle, had silently sat down and

516 The Chui'ch and Empire.) ^c. [Dec.

permitted tyranny to stalk unchecked along its bloodstained
path ? We cannot avoid the conclusion, in which, on this
occasion at least, any impartial reader will agree with us, that
the popes fought the battles of justice, humanity, and free-
dom ; tliat their opponent was a tyrant whon it was mercy
to the human race to disarm.

As well might we stigmatize as avaricious the man that
has lost his estates, and begs from his friends the means of
subsistence : as well too might we brand him with inordinate
ambition, if ho sought, by all the legal means and customary
resources of his times, to recover what he had lost. His
importunity for assistance might annoy his friends ; his im-
portunity for justice might annoy his enemies; but should
we be right in judging from the complaints of his friends, or
the calumnies of his enemies, that he was either avaricious or
ambitious ?

Exactly such was the position of the popes. The rights of
the Church were invaded ; they craved the help of its chil-
dren. Innocent was driven from his see in the cause, and in
the Council of Lyons he appealed to the justice, not only of
the assembled bishops, but to that of the assembled princes
of all Christendom.

Their importunity may seem too great ; their agents
might sometimes have become oppressive ; but these were only
some of those abuses to which all earthly things are liable ;
while in the essential facts, in the conduct of the popes them-
selves, where is there room for a deliberate judgment, that
their actions were the result of avaricious, or ambitious,
much less tyrannical projects ?

For the present then we leave it to the candour of our
readers to say, so far as we have yet proceeded, whether the
outcry of papal avarice, and papal tyranny, is founded upon
fact, and how far the popes were real tyrants, how far they
were the protectors of the weak, the poor, and the oppressed l
Strange it is that the outcry against them should proceed
only from the rich and mighty ; and that the strong cry of
the poor should so loudly and so constantly appeal to their
assistance : the poor and the oppressed may crave the for-
bearance, but they seldom ask for the help, of the tyrannical
and the avaricious.

1844.] The Life and Writinps of Miss Brotrn. 517

Art. IX. — The Star of Atteghei, The Vision of Schmrt::^
and other Poems. By Frances Brown. London: 184-4.

THERE never was a nation that had not its poets and po-
etry. In poetry we must seek the earliest records of every
people, and however fabulous its narrative may be, the rude
and unpolished way in which the exploits of the warrior are
celebrated, is pregnant with instruction for the philosopher
and the historian. It is the first light which shines amid the
darkness that envelopes the origin of a nation, and although
in the beginning it may uppear unshapen and irregular, it will
in some after time be formed into a sun, and a moon, and
stars, which will enlighten with their glory not only the
country over which they rose, but the most distant regions of
the world. It would be an interesting and a delightful study
to trace the origin and progress of poetry among the different
nations, and to see how genius almost always rose by its own
might, in spite of every obstacle of worldly circumstance.
Homer was blind, and, it is said, a beggar. How many of
his contemporaries, who enjoyed a little wealth, despised the
})lind beggar and his verses ! He has made for himself an
everlasting name ; he has rendered the very language in
which he wrote imperishable ; his pen has conferred immor-
tality on all whom it touched, and the memory of his glorious
song was able, after the lapse of thousands of years, to rouse
Europe, and make her rescue his degenerate countrymen
from slavery. Many of the brightest and most gifted children
of poesy have had to endure in " this dim world " as great
afflictions as the mighty father of verse. Milton was blind
and poor, and Tasso was shut up from the sight of the blessed
sun in a dungeon ; but none has ever rivalled his peerless re-
nown. Even Shakspeare, who of all others approaches near-
est to him in grandeur of thought, and who, in spite of his
many absurdities, must imdoubtedly be placed second on the
list of fame, if we can believe the meagre and uncertain
records of his life, narrowly escaped being hanged in his
youth ; and whatever competence he may have obtained in
his old age, certainly spent the greater part of his life as an
actor, which was then only little better than a beggar.
The Paradise Lost was bought for £15, and Dryden's fables
for dPJO; remunerations which, in the first instance, would
not pay the writer one third of the wages of a common la-
bourer for the time employed in composition, and which, in

518 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

the latter, would be spurned by any clerk who could write a
tolerable hand. Even the polished writers of the Augustan
age, — our own Pope, and some other moderns on whom for-
tune would seem to have smiled, — can scarcely be considered
exceptions ; for the lawyer, the statesman, the feoldier, received
infinitely greater rewards for discharging the ordinary duties
of their professions, than any of these received for their
writings : and moreover it was not until after they had risen
by the unaided efforts of their own minds, that the great and
the powerful condescended to bask in the blaze of triumphant
genius. At all events, this can be true of those only who
were fortunate enough to live in a polished age ; but it is a
strange and almost unaccountable phenomenon, that the
brightest stars in the firmament of poesy have arisen and
culminated in the early and comparatively rude ages of
dififerent nations. Some mighty spirit generally appeared in
the very infancy of a people, who at once created and per-
fected their language and literature. The very grandeur
of his genius placed him beyond the sympathies and the
appreciation of his contemporaries, — his apotheosis did not
take place until after his death ; and when the hurricane of
revolutions has swept over his country, he is once more left
in isolated glory, the solitary representative of the literature
which he formed, and of the language which exists only as
the sanctuary of the imperishable records of his genius.
Imitators always follow in crowds in the track of genius, but
they are for the most part only opaque bodies, which borrow
the light and bask in the glory of the luminary they follow.

" Time, that gray rock
On whose bleak sides the fame of meaner bard
Is dashed to ruin, was the pedestal
On which his genius rose, and rooted there,
Stands like a mighty statue, reared so high
Above the clouds and changes of the world,
That Heaven's unshorn and unimpeded beams
Have round its awful brows a glory shed
Immortal as their own. Like those fair birds
Of glittering plumage, whose heaven-pointing pinions
Bear light on that dim world they leave behind,
And while they spurn, adorn it; so his spirit —
His ' dainty spirit,' while it soared above
This dull gross compound, scattered as it flew
Treasures of light and lovehness."

Perha{)s the expression would gain as much in truth as it

1844.] Miss Brown, the Blind Poetess. 1S\^

would lose in poetry, if it were said that the world spurned
the bard, instead of the bard spurning the world. It may
be, however, that the frowns of fortune are the surest intro-
duction to the smiles of the muses, and this may be one of
the " sweet uses of adversity,"

" Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel iu his head."

The privation of sight must certainly be reckoned amongst
the greatest of earthly afflictions ; and yet we see that the
most splendid achievements of genius have been produced
under this sad bereavement. It would appear as if the in-
tellect could absorb all the outward sense of vision, and that
the darkness of the body rendered the mind doubly bright
and luminous. But Homer and Milton did not become
blind until they had acquired those ideas which can reach
the soul only through the sense of sight ; with them, memory
could supply the place of vision ; and perhaps it is not won-
derful that the mind, when shut out from communion with
the world, should discover hidden treasures within itself,
which it might otherwise never have employed, — and that
when it had for ever lost the view of " the earth with its
thousand streams, and the heavens with its myriad of stars,"
it should create new heavens and a new earth of its own,
and should give to the airy beings of its imagination "a
local habitation and a name." But Miss Brown presents us
with the new and more interesting phenomenon of a poetess
who, although not born blind, was deprived of sight at an age
when she could have acquired none of the ideas which are com-
municated to the soul by the organ of vision. She is the only
person whom we remember — with the exception of Blacklock,
whose productions are very inferior to those of this gifted
authoress — to have wTitten poetry without having read and
studied the great book of nature, in which God has displayed
his riches and his glory for the contemplation of his creatures.
Miss Brown's history is therefore as novel in its kind as it
is instructive and interesting in its details, and we are glad,
that the editor of her poems has enabled us to trace the pro-
gress of her mental culture under the almost insuperable dif-
ficulty of total blindness, in her own simple and touching
narrative. We agree with the editor, who has well and mo-
destly discharged his duty, that though the plea of circum-
stance be not admissible in the critic's court, it is rarely
without its influence, and that one's ordinary and irresponsible

520 The Life and Writmo-f of [Dec.

judgments are apt to measure merit in relation to the circum-
stances amid which it grew.

" The flower that has struggled into beauty under unHivourable
conditions of air and light, testifies to more than common vigour in
the soil whence it sprung : and they whose senfe has first been
secured by the absolute claims of a woi*k of art, are for the most
part willing to add something to their admiration on the score of any
peculiar difficulties under which it may have been achieved. This
is a principle to which the editor of these pages would not consent
to appeal on behalf of their author, if it went the length of excusing
the negative as well as enhancing the positive — of imputing desert,
instead of only acknowledging it with warmth : but thei/ are in
general the most impatient under an appeal to their indulgence hav-
ing no foundation in merit, who are most liberal in its grant where
their sympathies have been bespoken by the language of genius.
It is the editor's wish then to put forward all these claims for Miss
Brown — to add the merit of her tale to the merit of her poetry,
taking them in that order — referring the reader to the poetry first,
which speaks of her mind, and then asking him to turn to the tale
that tells of her life. It is with the music in his ears of some of
those beautiful little poems which occupy the miscellaneous portions
of the volume, that the editor would engage him in the touching
account of those impeding circumstances amid which has welled up
this natural fountain of song."

Now we, although occupying the critic's chair, cheerfully
subscribe to all the editor has said in this passage. Nay, if
we could say nothing favourable of the " poor blind girl's
poetry," we would pass it by altogether; nor could we bo
severe on such an occasion without reproaching ourselves in
the language of the poet—

"Poor harmless fly!
That with his pretty buzzing melody
Came here to make us merry; and thou hast killed him."

" The story of Miss Brown's mental education is well worth
telling, both for its own interest and for the example. It is at
once curious and instructive to watch a strong mind developing
itself under conditions of social and physical disadvantage so great,
— groping, by the aid of its poetic instincts, through the darkness
of which it was conscious, — appropriating to itself everything
whence it could draw nourishment, in the barren elements by which
it was surrounded, — fastening upon all that could help it onward,
while by its own undirected energies, it was struggling upwards
to the light.

"Excellent rules for self-training — the promptings of a clear
natural intellect — may be adduced from the narrative, which is best
related in the language of the poetess herself, — its humble incidents

]844.] Miss Brown the Blind Poetess. 521

taking increased interest from the personality and simplicity of her
narrative :

" ' I was born,' she says, writing to a friend, whose communica-
tion of her letter has enabled the editor to make Miss Brown her
own biographer, 'on the 16th of January 1816, at Stranorlon, a
small village in the county Donegal. My father was then, and still
continues to be, the postmaster of the village. I was the seventh
child in a family of twelve, and my infancy was, I believe, as pro-
mising as that of most people ; but, at the age of eighteen months,
not having received the benefit of Jenner's discovery, I had the
misfortune to lose my sight by the small-pox, which was then pre-
valent in our neighbourhood. This, however, I do not remember ;
and, indeed, recollect very little of my infant years. I never re-
ceived any regular education, but very early felt the want of it ;
and the first time I remember to have experienced this feeling
strongly was about the beginning of my seventh year, when I heard
our pastor (my parents being members of the Presbyterian Church)
preach for the first time. On the occasion alluded to, I was par-
ticularly struck by many words in the sermon, which, though in
common use, I did not then understand ; and from that time
adopted a plan for acquiring information on this subject. When a
word unintelligible to me happened to reach my ear, I was careful
to ask its meaning from any person I thought likely to inform me
— a habit which was, probably, troublesome enough to the friends
and acquaintance of my childhood: but, by this method, I soon
acquired a considerable stock of words ; and, when further advanced
in life, enlarged it still more by listening attentively to my young
brothers and sisters reading over the tasks required at the village
school. They were generally obliged to commit to memory a certain
portion of the Dictionary and English Grammar each day ; and by
hearing them read it aloud frequently for that purpose, as my
memory was better than theirs (perhaps rendered so by necessity),
I learned the task much sooner than they, and frequently heard
them repeat it.'

" The whole of this narrative," says the editor, after having ex-
posed the barrenness of the spot from which Miss Brown started in
her pursuit of knowledge, and the way in which the craving for it
arose, — "is, it will be seen, full of useful morals and appeals to the
sympathies of the right-minded. It furnishes a striking example
of the way in which the absence of the gifts denied may be com-
pensated by a right use of the gifts that are left, and a position of
apparent barrenness compelled into the yielding of abundance. For
the acquisition of the intelligent graces, no lot could well seem more
hopeless than Miss Brown's at the outset of her mental life, as
stated in the above simple paragraph. De Foe's castaway was not
more apparently helpless and companionless on his desert island,
than this young girl, cut off by her calamity from the peopled world
VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 34

522 The Life and Writings of [Dec

of vision, and left to an intellectual loneliness whose resources she
had none to help her in finding out. The hint given by the preach-
ing of the pastor was the first * foot-print left on the sand' of her
desolate place, by the native genius which she afterwards reclaimed
and made a friend of, and educated, till it did her precious service
and pointed out to her all the fruitful places of her solitude. It
* showed her the best springs,' and ' plucked her berries' in that
seeming waste ; — filling it with occupations, and peopling it with
friends, that smiled upon her darkness, like the forms of the un-
known world which dawned upon the inexperience of Miranda : —

" How many goodly creatures are there here !

O brave new world,

That has such people in't !

" * My first acquaintance with books was necessarily formed
amongst those which are most common in country villages. St/san
Gray — The Negro Servant — The Gentle Shepherd — MungoParKs
Travels — and, of course, i^oim^onCrMwe — were among the first of my
literary friends ; — for I have often heard them read by my relatives,
and remember to have taken a strange delight in them, when I am
sure they were not half understood. Books have been always
scarce in our remote neighbourhood, and were much more so in my
childhood : but the craving for knowledge which then commenced,
grew with my growth ; and, as I had no books of my own in those
days, my only resource was borrowing from the few acquaintances
I had, — to some of whom I owe obligations of the kind that will
never be forgotten. In this way I obtained the reading of many
valuable works, though generally old ones ; — but it was a great day
for me when the first of Sir Walter Scott's works fell into my
hands. It was The Heart of Mid Lothian; and was lent me by a
friend whose family were rather better provided with books than
most in our neighbourhood. My delight in the work was very
great even then, and I contrived, by means of borrowing, to get
acquainted, in a very short time, with the greater part of the works
of its illustrious author,— for works of fiction, about this time,
occupied all my thoughts. I had a curious mode of impressing on
my memory what had been read, — namely, lying awake, in the
silence of night, and repeating it all over to myself. To that
habit I probably owe the extreme tenacity of memory which I now
possess ; but, like all other good things, it had its attendant evil, —
for I have often thought it curious that, whilst I never forget any
scrap of knowledge collected, however small, yet the common events
of daily life slip from my memory so quickly that I can scarcely
find anything again which I have once laid aside. But this mis-
fortune has been useful in teaching me habits of order.'

" The above is an interesting remark, — pointing out a distinction,
the psychology of which does not, however, seem far to seek. That

1844.] Miss Brozcn, the Blind Poetess. 523

sense by which the merely trivial and inexpressive occurrences of
the outer world make their chief impression, had, in the case of the
author, been early closed against their passage to her memory.
Passing events on which the heart puts no stamp, the eye must
mark, or they run the risk of being lost amid the lumber of the
mind. But the knowledge for which her spirit thirsted came in,
by many of its natural avenues, to a mind eager to appropriate and
mark it at once, — and memory, in the sound subject, registers all
that the heart receives. To a mind thus hungering, and digesting
in the dark everything she heard that contained in itself the
nourishing principle, yielded literary chyle, on which her intel-
lectual constitution fed and expanded ; and the knowledge so
acquired became an indefeasible portion of her mental self. She
had too many visitors in her world of shadows, to take note of all
that came and went in the world of ordinary things about her. In
some respects, the blind bard may perhaps be a gainer by the
calamity which shuts out the sense of common things, and turns
the vision inward. Milton had taken leave for ever of the faces of
the earth, ere he met the angels face to face in paradise : — but he
was familiar with the commonplaces of the outer world long ere his
darkness came down — was a man of business and detail, — and the
distinction which Miss Brown perceives in the power of her own
memory, as applied to diflPering subjects, is the more easily ex-
plained because it had no existence with him.

" * About the beginning of my thirteenth year,' continues Miss
Brown, * I happened to hear a friend read a part of Baines's His-
tory of the French War. It made a singular impression on my
mind ; and works of fiction, from that time, began to lose their
value, compared with the far more wonderful Romance of History.
But books of the kind were so scarce in our neighbourhood, that
Hume's History of England, and two or three other works on the
same subject, were all I could reach, till a kind friend, who was
then the teacher of our village school, obliged me with that volu-
minous work. The Universal History. There I heard, for the first
time, the histories of Greece and Rome, and those of many other
ancient nations. My friend had only the ancient part of the work ;
but it gave me a fund of information, which has been subsequently
increased from many sources ; and at present I have a tolerable
knowledge of history. My historical studies made a knowledge of
geography requisite ; but my first efforts to acquire it had been
made even in childhood, by inquiring from every person the situa»
tion and locality of distant places which they chanced to mention.
As I grew older, and could understand the language of books, the
small abridgments of geography, which were used by my brothers
and sisters at the village school, were committed to memory, by a
similar process to that by which I had learnt the Dictionary and
Grammar. In order to acquire a more perfect knowledge of the

624 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

relative situations of distant places, I sometimes requested a friend,
who could trace maps, to place my finger upon some well-known
spot, the situation of which I had exactly ascertained, — and then
conduct the fingers of the other hand, from the points thus marked,
to any place on the map whose position I wished to know, — at the
same time mentioning the places through which my fingers passed.
By this plan, having previously known how the cardinal points
were placed, I was enabled to form a tolerably correct idea, not
only of the boundaries and magnitude of various countries, but also
of the courses of the rivers and mountain-chains. The first geo-
graphical problem that I remember, occurred to me on hearing, in
an account of the discovery of America, that Columbus at first
intended to reach the coasts of Asia by sailing to the west ; and, as
I knew that Asia was in the eastern portion of the world, as laid
down on our maps, the statement puzzled me much. At length,
however, hearing our village teacher explain to my elder brothers
and sisters the globular figure of the earth, that problem was solved;
— but to comprehend it cost me the study of a sleepless night ! As
I increased in years and knowledge, the small school-books already
mentioned were found insufficient ; and I had recourse to my old
method of borrowing. By this, I obtained some useful information;
and increased it by conversation with the few well-informed per-
sons who came within the limited sphere of my acquaintance. In
the pursuit of knowledge, my path was always impeded by diffi-
culties too minute and numerous to mention ; but the want of
sight was, of course, the principal one, — which, by depriving me of
the power of reading, obliged me to depend on the services of
others ; — and, as the condition of my family was such as did not
admit of much leisure, my invention was early taxed to gain time
for those who could read. I sometimes did the work assigned to
them, or rendered them other little services ; for, like most persons
similarly placed, necessity and habit have made me more active in
this respect than people in ordinary circumstances would suppose.
The lighter kinds of reading were thus easily managed ; but my
young relatives were often unwilling to waste their breath and
time with the drier, but more instructive, works which I latterly
preferred. To tempt them to this, I used, by way of recompense,
to relate to them long stories, and even novels, which perhaps they
had formerly read but forgotten : — and thus my memory may be
said to have earned supplies for itself. About the end of my
fifteenth year, having heard much of the Iliad, I obtained the loan
of Pope's translation. That was a great event to me; but the
effect it produced requires some words of explanation. From my
earliest years, I had a great and strange love of poetry; and could
commit verses to memory with greater rapidity than most children.
But at the close of my seventh year, when a few psalms of the
Scotch version, TVatts's Divine Songs, and some old country songs

1844.] Miss Brown, the Blind Poetess. 525

(which certainly were not divine), formed the whole of my poetical
knowledge, I made my earliest attempt in versification — upon that
first and most sublime lesson of childhood, The Lord's Prayer. As
years increased, my love of poetry and taste for it increased
also with increasing knowledge. The provincial newspapers at
times supplied me with specimens from the works of the best living
authors. Though then unconscious of the cause, I still remember
the extraordinary delight which those pieces gave me, and have
been astonished to find that riper years have only confirmed the
judgments of childhood. When such pieces reached me, I never
rested till they were committed to memory ; and afterwards re-
peated them for my own amusement, when alone, or during those
sleepless nights to which I have been, all my life, subject. But a
source of still greater amusement was found in attempts at original
composition ; which, for the first few years, were but feeble imita-
tions of everything I knew — from the Psalms to Gray's Elegy.
When the poems of Burns fell in my way, they took the place of
all others in my fancy ; — and this brings me up to the time when I
made my first acquaintance with the Iliad. It was like the dis-
covery of a new world, and effected a total change in my ideas on
the subject of poetry. There was, at the time, a considerable
manuscript of my own productions in existence, which, of course,
I regarded with some partiality ; but Homer had awakened me, —
and, in a fit of sovereign contempt, I committed the whole to the
flames. Soon after I had found the Iliad, I borrowed a prose
translation of Virgil, there being no poetical one to be found in our
neighbourhood ; and in a similar manner made acquaintance with
many of the classic authors. But after Homer's, the work that
produced the greatest impression on my mind was Byron's Childe
Harold. The one had induced me to burn my first manuscript;
the other made me resolve against verse-making in future — for I
was then far enough advanced to know my own deficiency — but
without apparent means for the requisite improvement. In this
resolution I persevered for several years, and occupied my mind
solely in the pursuit of knowledge; but, owing to adverse circum-
stances, my progress was necessarily slow. Having, however, in
the summer of the year 1840, heard a friend read the story of La
Perouse, it struck me that there was a remarkable similarity be-
tween it and one related in an old country song called the Lost
Ship, which I had heard in my childhood. The song in question
was of very low composition; but there was one line at the termi-
nation of each verse which haunted my imagination, and I fancied
might deserve a better poem. This line, and the story of La
Perouse, together with an irresistible inclination to poetiy, at
length induced me to break the resolution I had so long kept ; and
the result was the little poem called La Perouse, which will be
found at page 207 of this volume. Soon after, when Messrs. Gunn

526 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

and Cameron commenced the publication of their Irish Penny
Journal, I was seized with a strange desire to contribute something
to its pages. My first contribution was favourably received; and
I still feel grateful for the kindness and encouragement bestowed
upon me by both the editor and the publfshers. The three small
pieces which I contributed to that work were the first of mine that
ever appeared in print, — with the exception of one of my early
productions which a friend had sent to a provincial paper. The
Irish Penny Journal was abandoned on the completion of the first
volume: but the publishers, with great kindness, sent me one of the
copies, — and this was the first book of any value that I could call
my own ! But the gift was still more esteemed as an encourage-
ment— and the first of the kind.

" * At this juncture, I had heard much of the London Athenceum;
and the accounts of it which the provincial papers contained made
me long to see it, — but no copies reached our remote neighbour-
hood. Finding it impossible to borrow the publication, I resolved
to make a bold effort to obtain it; and, in the spring of the year
1841, having a number of small poems on hand, I addressed them
to the editor, promised future contributions, and solicited that a
copy of the journal might be sent to me as the return. My appli-
cation was long unanswered ; and I had given up all for lost, when
the arrival of many numbers of the journal, and a letter from the
editor, astonished me, and gratified a wish which had haunted my
very dreams. From that period my name and pretensions have
been more before the public, — many poenis of mine have appeared
in the pages of that publication, in Mr. Hood's Magazine, and in
the Keepsake, edited by the Countess of Blessington. Ten only of
those contributed to the Athemsnm have been included in the pre-
sent collection; because most of them were so widely copied into
the journals of the day, that I feai'ed they might be too familiar for
repetition.'

" In a long letter," remarks the editor, " from which these ex-
tracts are taken, there are other passages furnishing interesting
examples of the earnestness which let no opportunity escape which
might help to reverse the seeming decree of her destiny, by which
the author was shut out from the tree of knowledge. Thus, an
opportunity having come in her way for acquiring, through the
kindness of a friend, a knowledge of the French language, poetry
and some objects in connexion with it very dear to her imagination,
are put resolutely aside, for the purpose of securing this one more
golden bough. * * Every step gained by her in learning, valued
for itself, is valued more as the road to another. The knowledge
earned is at once invested in the purchase of further knowledge.
Of all the fruit which she gathers the seed is saved for a new increase.

" The energy displayed from her childhood by this almost friend-
less girl, raises, the editor cannot but think, at once the interest

1844.] 3fiss Brown^ the Blind Poetess. 627

and the character of her muse. There is something touching, and
teaching too, in the picture of that perseverance which has con-
quered for itself an inner world of thought, in lieu of that outer
world so early withdrawn from the sense. The bard gathers dig-
nity from the darkness amid which she sings, — as the darkness
itself is lightened by the song. There are lessons to be drawn
from both; and the editor believes that this little volume has a
variety of titles which should procure it a sure and extended
popularity."

We cordially concur with what the editor says in another
place, that the reader of this narrative will rather wonder
that so little indulgence should be needed, than refuse the
indulgence which is unhesitatingly asked.

There can be no doubt, considering the age at which Miss
Brown was deprived of sight, that she could have retained
no image or recollection of those objects which the eyes alone
can present to the mind. She could have no idea of light or
colour, and consequently she must have been shut out from
the actual as well as from the intellectual vision of creation.
Yet by the almost unaided efforts of her own mind, she has
made a bright light shine amid this darkness — she has made
a firmament of her own, and enlightened it with a sun, and
moon, and stars. Her perceptions of the objects of vision
must be purely ideal, for whatever knowledge she has of them
must be derived from the sense of hearing, and it is just as
impossible for the ear to become the organ of sight as for the
eye to become the organ of hearing. It is therefore just as
impossible that those who are blind from infancy should have
the idea of light, as that those who are born deaf should have
the idea of sound and melody. Yet Saunderson can discuss
learnedly and accurately of the properties of colours, and we
find Miss Brown's illustrations from visible objects, as nu-
merous and as appropriate as in any other author. Sight is
certainly the most noble of the senses ; it is able unaided to
derive a vast quantity of knowledge from the great book of
nature, which all can read who can look upon it, and it at
once understands a very great number of natural signs of
ideas. Hearing, on the contrary, can acquire no direct in-
formation of itself, because all language is purely conven-
tional, and the number of natural sounds, such as weeping
and laughter, of which it takes cognizance, are neither nu-
merous nor important. Yet, notwithstanding these disad-
vantages, we think the ear the more important organ, because
through it, by the use of speech, a vast quantity of information

528" The Life and Writings of [Dec.

can be speedily conveyed. These are proper and important
subjects for philosophical investigation. But what mainly
concerns the philanthropist to know is, that through either
tile eye or the ear, aided by the sense of touch, almost all
useful information can be conveyed, and thao the defect of
one sense can be in a great measure supplied by the superior
acuteness which is acquired by those that remain. The learned
Mossieu was born deaf, and Miss Brown's various and elegant
accomplishments, include, as we have seen, in addition to
a very great mastery over the English language, a knowledge
of history, geography, poetry, French, and we have no doubt
much more which her modesty has prevented her from reveal-
ing. How many are there who, besides enjoying all their
senses, have had far better opportunities of acquiring inform-
ation, and who have not the one-tenth part of her knowledge ?
Her information was also acquired at an early age — she is
indeed still young, being only in her 28th year. It is most
important to be furnished with such facts as those with which
the life of Miss Brown supplies us, because it shows us what
our fellow-creatures are capable of under the most severe be-
reavements. The great problem to be still solved is, how far
those who cannot see can have ideas of light and colours, and
how far those who cannot hear can understand what is meant
by the word sound. We mean that it should be investigated
by sound philosophy, not that it should be attempted to be
explained by the empiricism and absurdity of catalepsy and
mesmerism. The appropriation of each sense to its proper
organ is thus beautifully expressed by Shakespeare.

" How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank,
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness and the night
Becomes the touches of sweet harmony.

Look how the floor of Heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest oi-b which thou behoUTst
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims,
Such harmony is in immortal souls."

We are convinced that these lines could only be written by
one who had gazed upon the firmament, and who had been
" moved by the concord of sweet sounds."

But the chief difficulty in imparting knowledge is when
all these bereavements are combined, and the poor sufferer is
deaf, and dumb, and blind. A paper on a case of this kind

1844.] Miss Brown^ the Blind Poetess. 539

was read by Dugald Stewart, before the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, in 1812. It was published during the same year
in Edinburgh, with the title " Some account of a boy bom
blind and deaf." The boy was the son of a clergyman, his
name was James Mitchell, and he was born in Scotland, in
1795. He was not however entirely blind, as he could cer-
tainly distinguish light from darkness ; nevertheless, from the
preternatural acuteness which his senses of taste and smell
had acquired, in consequence of their being habitually em-
ployed to collect that information for which the sight is pe-
culiarly adapted, it may be presumed with confidence that he
derived little, if any, assistance from his eyes or organs of
vision. His smell always informed him of the arrival of a
stranger, and he immediately proceeded to the place where
he was, and then examined him carefully by the sense of
toucli. The first thing he generally did, was to ascertain
whether the stranger wore boots, and if this were the case he
went to the lobby, felt his whip, and then proceeding to the
stable handled his horse with great care, and with the utmost
seeming attention. When strangers arrived in a carriage he
always went to the place where it stood, examined the whole
of it with great anxiety, and tried innumerable times the
elasticity of its springs. In all this he was guided by the
smell and touch only.

The servants were instructed to prevent his visits to the
horses of strangers in the stable ; and after he had been
several times thwarted by them, he had the ingenuity to bolt
the kitchen to prevent them from interfering with his curi-
osity. He frequently employed himself in gathering from
the bed of a river round and smooth stones, which he after-
wards arranged in a circular form, placing himself in the midst.
He explored by touch a space of about two hundred yards
around the parsonage, to every part of which he walked fear-
lessly and without a guide, and scarcely a day elapsed in
which be did not cautiously feel his way into ground which
he had not before explored. In one of these excursions of
discovery, his father with terror observed him creeping on his
hands and knees along a narrow wooden bridge, which crossed
a neighbouring river at a point where the stream was deep
and rapid. He was immediately stopped, and to deter him
from the repetition of such perilous experiments he was once
or twice plunged into the river, which had the desired effect.

Having at one time appeared to distinguish a horse, which
his mother had sold a few weeks before, the rider dismounted

690 The Life and Writings of [Dec

to put his knowledge to the test, when he immediately led
the horse to the stable, took off' the saddle, and put the key
in his pocket. He knew the use of most ordinary utensils,
p,nd visited the shops of carpenters and other mechanics, to
understand the nature of their tools and operations. He fre-
quently assisted the farm servants, and even attempted to
build small houses with turf, leaving little openings with win-
dows. Means were taken to teach him to make baskets, but
he seemed to want the perseverance necessary to finish his
work. He acquired some sense of property, and valued things
as his own, whilst he abstained from those which he knew to
be habitually used by others.

In 1811 his father died, and it appears that attention, cu-
riosity, and wonder, were excited by the novelty of the out-
ward circumstances, but he did not exhibit those sentiments
which would presuppose a conception of the nature of the
change which had occurred in the state of his parent. He
had previously amused himself with placing a dead fowl re-
peatedly on its legs, laughing when it fell ; but the first
human body which he touched was that of his father, from
which he shrunk with signs of surprise and dislike. He felt
the corpse in the coffin, and on the evening after the funeral
he went to the grave and patted it with both his hands, and
for several days he returned to the grave, and regularly at-
tended every funeral that afterwards occurred in the same
church-yard. When a tailor was brought to make a suit of
mourning for him, the boy took him into the apartment where
his father had died, stretched his own head and neck back-
wards, pointed to the bed, and then conducted him to the
church-yard and to the grave in which his father had been
interred. Shortly afterwards, being very ill, he was put into
the same bed where his father had died ; he would not lay a
moment in it, but became quite peaceable when removed to
another. Discovering shortly afterwards that his mother was
ill and in bed, he was observed to weep.

His sister, by various modifications of touch, conveyed to
him her satisfaction or displeasure at his conduct, and he
seemed to understand very readily the intimations intended
to be conveyed. Patting him much and cordially on the
head, back, or hand, signified entire approbation. This ac-
tion, more sparingly used, conveyed simple assent, and the
idea of displeasure was imparted to him by refusing these
signs, or by gently repelling him. To supply the obvious and
glaring defects of tliis mode of communication, she had re-

1844.] 3Iiss Brotc7i, the Blind Poetess. 531

course to a language of action, representing those ideas which
none of the simple natural signs cognizable by the sense of
touch could convey. Thus, when his mother was from home,
his sister allayed his anxiety for her return, by laying his
head gently down on a pillow, once for each night that his
mother was to be absent ; implying that he would sleep so
many times before her return. It was once signified to him
that he must wait two days for a new suit of clothes, and this
also was effectually done, by shutting his eyes and bending
down his head twice.

We have here given all the important features of this ease,
from Dugald Stewart's paper and the Edinburgh Review for
1812. The case is certainly interesting, as it shows what
perceptions a human being is capable of acquiring purely by
his own instincts, when he is deprived of the most important
senses. Culture or instruction he received none from the
philosophical observers who so narrowly watched his motions.
With the true instincts of Scotch metaphysicians, they seem
only to have been anxious to make an experiment, and they
certainly took care not to mar its effects by any adventitious
assistance. All the signs, including the ducking in the river,
were perfectly natural. After the whole process has been
described, we are at length let into the tremendous secret
that he seemed to have no conception of any beings superior
to human, and that he was consequently without any of those
religious feelings which are among the most general charac-
teristics of our species. In the name of Scotch metaphysics,
how could the child have acquired any such ideas ? Was it
by being patted on the head or thrown into a river ? Tho
child, indeed, seems to have grown up a perfect animal, but
with higher instincts than belong to the brute creation. He
used the sense of smell for the very same purposes for which
it is employed by the lower animals ; and, as was to be ex-
pected, from the privation of the other faculties, it had acquired
wonderful acuteness. With care and attention, the immortal
spirit might have been awakened in this boy ; but instead of
this, he was neglected, to be subjected to meet the same kind of
an experiment as the children who were shut up by a king to
try what language they would speak naturally. Hunger, we
are told, was as efficacious in making them cry out for bread,
as the dip in the river was in keeping James Mitchell from
transgressing the bounds which he had explored.

The next case to which we beg to call attention, is of a very
different character. It is of a young girl, blind, deaf, and

d82 The Life and Writings of [Dec

dumb, destitute of smell, and nearly so of taste. Here the
privations were much greater, and the obstacles far more in-
surmountable, than in the case of Mitchell ; and yet, because
she did not fall into the hands of cold metaphysicians, but
of genuine philanthropists, her soul has been illumined even
in this hour of darkness — it has been made to feel the con-
sciousness of its own intelligence, and it can even look ahead,
and hold sweet converse with its kind. This girl has been
educated in the Purkins Institution and Massachusetts
Asylum for the Blind, at Boston. The story is told so beauti-
fully in Mr. Dickens' American Notes, that we think it a duty
to extract it entire :

" I went," says Mr. Dickens, " to see this place one very fine
winter morning. The children were at their daily tasks in different
rooms, except a few who were already dismissed and were at play.
Good order, cleanliness and comfort, pervaded every corner of the
building. The various classes, who were gathered round their
teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness and in-
telligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence, which
pleased me very much. Those who were at play were gleesome
and noisy as other children. More spiritual and affectionate friend-
ships appeared to exist among them than would be found among
other young persons, suffering under no deprivation ; but this I
expected, and was prepared to find. It is a part of the great scheme
of Heaven's merciful consideration for the afflicted.

" In a portion of the building set apart for that purpose, are
workshops for blind persons, whose education is finished and who
have acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary
manufactory, because of their deprivation. Several people were
at work here, making brushes, mattresses, and so forth ; and the
cheerfulness, industry, and good order discernible in every other
part of the building, extended to this department also. On the
ringing of a bell the pupils all repaired, without any guide or leader,
to a spacious music hall, where they took their seats in an orchestra
erected for that purpose, and listened with manifest delight to a
voluntary on the organ, played by one of themselves. At its con-
clusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or twenty, gave place to a
girl, and to her accompaniment they all sang a hymn, and afterwards
a sort of chorus. It was very sad to look upon and hear them —
happy though their condition unquestionably was — and I saw that
one blind girl, who (being for the time deprived of the use of her
limbs by illness) sat close beside me with her face towards them,
wept silently the while she listened.

" It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free
they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts;
observing which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the

1844.] Miss Broim, the Blind Poetess. 533

mask he wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious expression,
which is never ahsent from their countenances, and the like of which
we may readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way
in the dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is expressed with
the lightning's speed and nature's truth. If the company at a rout
or drawing-room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious
of the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets
would come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight — the
loss of which we so much pity — would appear to be!

" The thought occurred to me, as I sat down in another room be-
fore a girl — blind, deaf, and dumb, destitute of smell, and nearly so
of taste — before a fair young creature, with every human faculty,
and hope, and power of goodness and affection inclosed within her
delicate frame, and but one outward sense — the sense of touch.
There she was before me — built up as it were in a marble cell, im-
pervious to any ray of light or particle of sound — with her poor
white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some
good man for help that an immortal soul might be awakened. Long
before I looked upon her the help had come. Her face was radiant
with intelligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by her own
hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and de-
velopment were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline and
its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern
of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted lay beside
her; her writing-book was on the desk she leaned upon. From the
mournful ruin of such bereavement there had slowly risen up this
gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being. Like other in-
mates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound round her eye-
lids ; a doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground. I took it
up and saw that she had made a green fillet, such as she wore herself,
and fastened it about its mimic eyes. She was seated in a little en-
closure made by school-desks and forms, writing her daily journal.
But soon finishing this pursuit, she engaged in an animated com-
munication with a teacher who sat beside her. This was a favourite
mistress with the poor people. If she could see the face of her fair
instructress she would not love her less I am sure.

"I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history,
from an account written by that one who has made her what she is.
It is a very beautiful and touching narrative, and I wish I could pre-
sent it entire.

"Her name is Laura Bridgraan. She was born in Hanover,
New Hampshire, on the 21st of December, 1829. She is described
as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue
eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until after she was a
year and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She
was subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost
beyond endurance, and life was held by the feeblest tenure ; but,

534 Tlie Life and Writings of [Dec,

when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally, the dangerous
symptoms subsided, and at twenty months old she was perfectly well.

" Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, ra-
pidly developed themselves, and during the four months of health
which she enjoyed she appears (making due allowance for a fond
mother's account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intel-
ligence.

" But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great
violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed,
suppurated and their contents were discharged. But though sight
and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were not
ended. The fever raged during seven weeks; for five months she
was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could
walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up aU day.
It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely
destroyed, and consequently that her taste was much blunted.

" It was not till four years of age that the poor child's bodily
health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her appren-
ticjeship of life and the world.

" But what a situation was her's ! The darkness and the silence
of the tomb were around her ; no mother's smile called forth her
answering smile; no father's voice taught her to imitate his sounds.
Her brothers and sisters were but forms of matter which resisted
her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of the house,
save in warmth and in the power of locomotion, — and not even in
these respects from the dog and the cat. But the immortal spirit
which had been implanted in her could not die, nor be maimed nor
mutilated ; and though most of its avenues of communication with
the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself through the
others. As soon as she could walk, she began to explore the room
and then the house. She became familiar with the form, density,
weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon.
She followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms, as she was
occupied about the house, and her disposition to imitate led her to
repeat everything herself. She even learned to sew a little, and
to knit. The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that
the opportunities of communicating with her were very, very
limited, and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began
to appear. Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only
be controlled by force ; and this, coupled with her great privations,
must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than that of the
beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped-for aid.

" At this time I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and im*
mediately hastened to Hanover to see her. I found her with a
well-formed figure, a strongly-marked nei*vous, sanguine tempera-
ment, a large and beautifully-shaped head, and the whole system in
healthy action. The parents were easily induced to consent to her

1844. 1 Miss Brown, the Blind Poetess. 535

coming to Boston ; and on the 4th of October 1837, they brought
her to the institution.

" For a little while she was much bewildered ; and after waiting
about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality,
and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to
give her knowledge of arbitrary signs by which she could inter-
change thoughts with others. There was one of two ways to be
adopted : either to go on to build up a language of signs on the
basis of the natural language which she had already commenced
herself; or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common
use, — that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to
give her a knowledge of letters, by combination of which she might
express her idea of the existence, and the mode and condition of
existence, of anything. The former would have been easy, but
very ineffectual ; the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accom-
plished, very effectual. I determined, therefore, to try the latter.
The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use
— such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c. — and pasting upon them
labels, with their names printed in raised letters. These she felt
very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked
lines spoon differed as much from the crooked lines ket/, as the
spoon differed from the key in form. Then small detached labels
with the same words printed upon them were put into her hands,
and she soon observed that they were similar to the ones pasted on
the articles. She showed her perception of this similarity by laying
the label kei/ upon the key, and the label spoon upon the spoon.
She was encouraged here by the natural sign of approbation,
patting on the head.

" The same process was then repeated with all the articles which
she could handle, and she very easily learned to place the proper
labels upon them. It was evident, however, that the only intel-
lectual exercise was that of imitation and memory. She recollected
that the label book was placed upon a book, and she repeated the
process, first from imitation, next from memory, with only the mo-
tive of love of approbation, but apparently without the intellectual
perception of any relation between the things.

After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were given
to her, on detached bits of paper; they were arranged side by side,
so as to spell book, key, &c. ; then they were mixed up in a heap,
and a sign was made for her to arrange them herself, so aS to
express the words hook, key, &c., and she did so. Hitherto the
process had been mechanical, and the success about as great as
teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child
had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her
teacher did, but now the truth began to flash upon her — her intellect
began to work. She perceived that here was a way by which she
could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her own mind

■536 Ths Life and Writings of [Dec.

and show it to another mind, and at once her countenance lighted
up with a human expression; it was no longer a dog or parrot —
it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union
with other spirits ! I could almost fix upon the moment when this
truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her counte-
nance. I saw that the great obstacle was overcome, and that
henceforward nothing but patient and persevering — but plain and
straightforward — efforts were to be used. The result thus far is
quickly related and easily conceived : but not so was the process ;
for many weeks of apparently unprofitable labour were passed
before it was effected. When it was said above that a sign was
made, it was intended to say that the action was performed by her
teacher, she feeling his hands and then imitating the motion. The
next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the different
letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a board in which
were square holes, into which holes she could set the types so that
the letters on their ends could alone be felt above the surface.
Then, on any article being handed to her, — for instance, a pencil
or a watch, — she would select the component letters and arrange
them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure. She
was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her vocabulary
became extensive; and then the important step was taken of teach-
ing her how to represent the different letters by the position of her
fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the board and types.
She accomplished this speedily and easily, — for her intellect had
begun to work in aid of her teacher, — and her progress was rapid.
" This was the period, about three months after she had com-
menced, that the first report of her case was made, in which it was
stated that ' she had just learned the manual alphabet as used by
the deaf mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how
rapidly, correctly, and eagerly she goes on with her labours. Her
teacher gives her a new object, for instance a pencil, first lets her
examine it and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell
it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers ; the
child grasps her hand and feels her fingers as the different letters
are formed ; she turns her head a little on one side, like a person
listening closely ; her lips are apart ; she seems scarcely to breathe;
and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes to a smile,
as she comprehends the lesson. She then holds up her tiny fingers
and spells the words in the manual alphabet; next she takes her
types and arranges her letters; and last, to make sure that she is
right, she takes the whole of the types composing the word and
places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or whatever the
object may be.' The whole of the succeeding year was passed in
gratifying her eager inquiries for the names of every object which
she could possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of the
manual alphabet ; in extending, in every possible way, her know-

1844.1 J//^« Brown^ the Blind Poetess. 537

ledge of the pliysical relations of things; and in proper care of her
health. At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from
which the following is an extract. ' It has been ascertained be-
yond the possibility of doubt, that she cannot see a ray of light,
cannot hear the least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell,
if she have any. Thus her mind dwells in darkness and stillness,
as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful
sights and sweet sounds and pleasant odours she has no conception;
nevertheless she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a lamb ;
and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquire-
ment of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly
marked in her expressive features. She never seems to repine,
but has all the buoyancy and gaiety of childhood. She is fond of
fun and frolic, and when playing with the rest of the children, her
shi-ill laugh sounds loudest of the group.

" When left alone she seems very happy if she have her knitting
or sewing, and will busy herself for hours ; if she have no occupa-
tion she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by re-
calling past impressions. She counts with her fingers, or spells
out names of things which she has recently learned in the manual
alphabet of the deaf mutes. In this lonely self-communion she
seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if she spell a word wrong with
the fingers of her right hand she instantly strikes it with her left,
as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation; if right, then she
pats herself upon the head and looks pleased. She sometimes pur-
posely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks roguish for a
moment and laughs, and then with the right hand strikes the left,
as if to correct it. During the year she has attained great dex-
terity in the use of the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes, and she
spells out the words and sentences which she knows so fast and so
deftly, that only those accustomed to this language can follow with
the eye the rapid motion of the fingers. But wonderful as is the
rapidity with which she writes her thoughts upon the air, still
more so is the ease and accuracy with which she reads the words
thus written by another, — ^grasping their hands in hers and follow-
ing every movement of their fingers, as letter after letter conveys
them to her mind. It is in this way that she converses with her
blind playmates, and nothing can more forcibly show the power of
the mind in forming matter to its purpose than a meeting between
them. For if great talent and skill are necessary for two panto-
mimes to paint their thoughts and feelings by the movements of
the body and the expression of the countenance, how much greater
the difiiculty when darkness shrouds them both, and the one can
hear no sound ! "

Success, in such a case as this, must be considered amongst
the noblest achievements of cultivated science. It is a per-
voL. Tcvn. — NO. XXXIV. 35

538 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

feet triumph of mind over matter — a triumph in the in-
structor as well as the instructed — it is a work which angels
might not blush to perform. It is an exercise of the most
tender mercy of which man is capable ; and the exercise of
mercy makes man like unto God, for mercy is His attribute :

" The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes ;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the form of temporal power, —
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings :
But mercy is above this sceptred sway —
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings —
It is an attribute of God himself."

There is not, as far as we know, any Catholic institution
for the deaf and dumb, or the blind, in the whole wide ex-
tent of the British dominions. There is not one in Catholic
Ireland. But there are institutions, or at all events there is
an institution, for the deaf, and the dumb, and the blind, in
Ireland, where the price the parents must pay for their child's
instruction is to allow it to be perverted from the faith of its
ancestors. What is there so holy, that it has not been per-
verted to the purposes of wickedness ? what is there so pure,
that it has not been polluted by the diabolical spirit of
bigotry which animates a portion of the inhabitants of Ire-
land ? Every spring of charity is poisoned by the arsenic of
intolerance. We have Protestant meat for the hungry,
Protestant clothes for the naked ; and the blind or the deaf
and dumb child of Catholic parents will not be instructed,
unless they allow it to be dosed with the Westminster Con-
fession or the Thirty-nine Articles. If Bamaby Budge's
famous Protestant bird had visited Ireland, he would have
found Protestant inexpressibles as well as Protestant tea-
pots. One would imagine on entering such an establishment
in this country, that the instruction of the deaf and the dumb
and the blind was the offspring of the exclusive genius of
Protestantism — that a wholesome horror of popery was the
necessary foundation of all the information that they can
receive. Who could imagine that the entire process of train-
ing was borrowed from the Catholic nations of the Continent ;
and that whilst such institutions have attained to full and

1844.1 Miss Bromn, the Blind Poetess. 539

wonderful maturity in France, in Belgium, and in Rome,
they are still in their infancy in this country.

The first idea of instruction for persons deprived of the
use of the senses of sight or hearing, is most probably to be
traced to a monastery. Pontius, a Benedictine monk, born
at Valladolid in 1520, is said to have made this precious dis-
covery in the following manner: — a certain person, called
Gaspard Burgos, not being able to enter the monastery, ex-
cept in the character of a lay-brother, because he was deaf
and dumb. Father Pontius undertook to instruct him, and
succeeded so well, that brother Gaspard was not only able to
make his confession but became an accomplished scholar, and
composed several books.* The same author on whose autho-
rity we relate these facts, says that he also instructed two
brothers and a sister of the constable, and another person,
all born deaf and dumb, whom he not only taught to write,
but even to talk by means of signs. We know, however,
comparatively little of his method, as he did not commit it
to writing. Bonnet, a Spaniard, was the first who wrote
upon the subject, in a book entitled " Redmon de los letros,
y arte para ensenar a hahlar los mudos,'''' which was published
in ] 820. But the persons who brought this science to per-
fection were two French priests, the abbes L'Epee and Sicard.
The former commenced this benevolent work out of his own
private resources, with the aid of the voluntary contribu-
tions of the charitable. In 1778 and 1785, he received a
public revenue of six thousand livres out of the property of
a suppressed convent of Celestine monks. This institution
at Paris was very celebrated. The Abbe Sicard, who was
born near Toulouse on the 20th of September, 1 742, and who
had been previously director of an establishment for the deaf
and dumb supported by the archbishop of Bourdeaux, suc-
ceeded the Abbe TEpee on his death in 1789 in the ma-
nagement of the establishment in Paris. But the institution
was deprived of its revenues when the Constituent Assembly
declared the property of the ancient monasteries to belong
to the nation. In 1791, it was again endowed, and in the
following year the abbe, who was a very moderate supporter of
the revolution, had to take the oath of " liberty and equality."
But on the 28th of August he was seized by the " terrorists"
in the midst of his pupils, and dragged to the arsenal, and
on the 2nd of September he was removed to the " Abbey y"*

* Ambrose Morales Description of Spain, vide Feller v. Ponce .

540 The Life and Writings of [Dec

where the frightful massacres of the second and third of the
same month were already planned. Desolation reigned among
the deaf and dumb and blind, and at the risk of their own
lives, they presented a most affecting petition to the assembly,
imploring it to restore to them their master. But their
prayers and their tears were alike disregarded, and Sicard
owed his life to Monnot, a watchmaker and an officer of the
national guard, who covered the abbe with his own body.
He remained in prison until the 4th, in the midst of execu-
tions and victims, and in the most frightful agony, expecting
each moment the fate of his unfortunate companions. In this
terrible situation he wrote to M. Laffan-Lodelot, who, wishing
to save so great and good a man, had the address to bring
Chabot to see him, whose hard heart was softened at the sight ;
and at seven o'clock the same evening Sicard was brought before
the assembly, where, after delivering a public defence of him-
self, he was set at liberty. On the establishment of the normal
school in 1 795, he was appointed professor of general grammar.
He was at the same time professor in the national Lyceum, and
assisted in the compilation of the Lycean Encyclopoedla. He
was associated with the Abbe Faupprett in the publication of
the periodical entitled Religious, Historical, and Literary An-
nals, for which, after the revolution of the eighteenth Fructi-
dor, he was included in the decree of banishment issued against
the journalists who had been condemned by the directory.
The deaf and dumb and blind were again left desolate, again
they had lost a kind father, and again they sought, by every
means in their power, to get back their master. He was at
length restored to them on the 18th brumaire, but found his
establishment in the most deplorable condition. There were
no funds for its support, and religion had been banished from
the place. Sicard soon remedied all these evils. He esta-
blished a printing press in 1800, which was worked by the
deaf and dumb with great effect. He gave public exercises
each month, to which a select company was admitted to
witness the almost miraculous progress of the pupils, and
especially of Mossieu, who had gained the greatest and
most deserved celebrity for the institution. These exercises
procured large sums, which he devoted to the purposes of
the institution. His holiness Pius VII honoured the esta-
blishment for the deaf and dumb with his presence in 1805,
and, on the 18th of February, blessed the chapel belonging
to the house. The pope assisted at some of the exercises,
during which he received a present of a book of prayers, com-

1844.] 3Iiss Broicn, the Blind Poetess. 541

posed and printed by the deaf and dumb. His holiness made
presents to the abbe and M. Leclerc, a deaf and dumb
pupil, who directed the management of the printing press. The
name of this illustrious priest was known over all Europe, so
that when the allied sovereigns were in Paris, they attended
his lectures, and after the restoration, he received the deco-
rations of the legion of honour, as well as those of St. Ann
of Russia, and of Gustavus Vasa. This latter was conferred
on him by the Queen of Sweden, as an acknowledgment of
the important service which he had rendered to the new
establishment for the deaf and dumb at Stockholm. Before
the time of Abbe Sicard, the instruction of the deaf and
dumb was nothing better than a pure mechanism. He
was the first who raised their minds to intellectual objects,
and made them comprehend the abstractions of philosophy.
He died the 10th of May 1822, in the eightieth year of his
age. Whilst on his death-bed he wrote the following re-
markable letter to the Abbe Gondelin, who had succeeded
him in the institution for the deaf and dumb at Bourdeaux : —
" My dear Compere, — Before I die, I bequeath to you my dear
children ; 1 bequeath their souls to your religion, their bodies to
your care, their intellectual faculties to your enlightenment and to
your culture: fulfil this noble trust, and I die happy."*

It was one of the Abbe Sicard's most celebrated pupils,
Leclerc, who, at the age of twenty-five, went to America to
found a school for the education of the deaf and dumb and
blind, and carried this important science to the shores of the
new world. It does not appear that the Abbe Sicard met
with any one who was blind and deaf and dumb at the same
time. Still, he contemplated the possibility of such a calamity,
and laid down most important rules for the treatment of such
a case, whenever it should occur. Indeed the case of Laura,
the American girl, is little more than the practical develop-

* The following is a list of his works : Memoires sur I'art cVinstruire les
sourd-inuets de naissance, Bourdeaux, 1789. Catechisme ou Instruction Chre-
tienne, a I'usage de sourd-muets, 1796. Manuel de I'enfance contenant des
eleniens de lecture et des dialogues instructifs et moraux, 1796. Thebrie de
signes pour linstruction de sourds-muets, Paris, 1808. Alphabet et cours
d'instruction de sourd-muets de naissance, pour servir a I'education de sourd-
muets, Paris, 1800. De I'Homnie ct de ses facultes physiques et intellectuelles
de ses devoirs, &c. Jovirnee chretienne de sourd-muets. Dictionnaire genealo-
gique de I'Eeriture Sainte," It is strange that at one time of his life this great
man was so simple as to sign bills of accommodation for some of his friends,
which he was afterwards obliged to pay, in order to do which he was obliged
to deprive himself of the revenues of his professorships, to sell his carriage and
furniture, and to live for ^ time in a state bordering upon indigence.

542 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

ment of the principles which he had discovered. There is
one thing which cannot fail to strike any one who will read
the note at the foot of the page, — it is, the number of his
works which are upon religious subjects. This principle was
faithfully borne out in practice; and the infidtl spirit which
was let loose during the hurricane of the French revolution
he has never allowed to enter the precincts of the " Institu-
tion for the instruction of the deaf and dumb."

At present these establishments for educating the deaf and
dumb and blind, are spread over all Europe, and some excel-
lent ones have taken root in America. The course of instruc-
tion is generally far more extensive than persons unacquainted
with the matter would imagine. There is a very excellent
institution of the kind at Rome, where almost every branch
of science is taught, and we know a gentleman who was pre-
sent and saw a sermon preached to its pupils. At the con-
clusion they all told their prayers upon their hands, appa-
rently with great piety. An humble priest, like the Abbe
Sicard, has established a house of this kind at Genoa, where
there are at present about sixty inmates, and nearly as many
extern pupils. His name is Assarotti. Many of the child-
ren under his care are intimately acquainted with the Italian,
French, English, Spanish, and German languages ; so that
they are not only able to read but to write in them, with ease
and correctness. There are several institutions for the same
charitable purpose in France, Belgium, and the other nations
of the continent. They are all conducted nearly on the same
plan. The boys who are found deficient in literary talent
are instructed in those trades for which they manifest an in-
clination, and in which it is thought they will be able to make
the greatest proficiency. There are amongst them printers,
bookbinders, shoemakers, carpenters, tailors ; and the females
are instructed in needle-work and embroidery. There are
also to be found in these schools several who have attained
to eminence in the liberal arts ; there are in them excellent
painters, engravers in wood and copper, scriveners, draughts-
men, engineers, and designers.

The institutions, then, for the " instruction of the blind
and the deaf and dumb," are Catholic in their origin and
Catholic in their progress and development. It is a shame
for the Catholic priests and people of Ireland not to have an
establishment of this kind on an extensive scale, where those
who are afflicted with the loss of any of their senses might be
instructed in science as well as in religion. We have asylu m

1844.] Miss Brown, the Blind Poetess. 543

for the guilty and the fallen, why have we not even one for
the little innocents who, being deprived of their faculties, are
much less able to buffet their way through this harsh world ?
Consider, too, the great temptations to which the parents of
these children are exposed. They are told that there are
houses open for them where they will be fed, clothed, in-
structed, and put to some useful trade or employment, if they
will only send them. There is not a word said about the
poor soul, which, in such a case, is only awakened in order
to be led astray from the faith of its ancestors and of its
country. This work of enlightened benevolence should not
be any longer neglected ; such an engine of mischief should
not be allowed to remain in the hands of our enemies. The
want of such an institution says but little for either our zeal,
our science, or for our benevolence. Even to pass over those
higher points of view, in which undoubtedly it ought to be
primarily regarded, an institution for the blind and the deaf
and dumb would be a curious and interesting object to the
philosopher. It would, a priori, appear to be an impossi-
bility to arouse the spirit in a person who had no sense but
that of touch left, and to make it capable of communicating
with its fellow-beings ; and yet we see how triumphantly this
has been accomplished. Still it is a problem which is yet to
be solved, whether it be possible to communicate to a person
in this situation any abstract or purely metaphysical concep-
tions. The philosophers of the Dugald Stuart school have
long since pronounced any attempt of this kind to be a down-
right absurdity ; and we confess that, at first sight, we would
be inclined to agree with them. But, when those who have
been deprived of four out of the five senses, who have neither
sight, hearing, taste, nor smell ; who can only feel the harsh
touch of a world, whose light, and melody, and sweetness, has
been withrawn from them for ever ; whd are apparently placed
far beneath the instincts of the brute creation, can be elevated
to the rank of thinking and sensible beings ; who can receive,
increase, and communicate knowledge, we dare not say that
the progressive triumph of benevolent genius may not enable
the soul to look through the natural even into the super-
natural world.

It has pleased the Almighty that such instances of entire
bereavement should be of rare occurrence, and for the most
part the calamity does not extend beyond one sense ; and, as
a sort of recompense, the other four are generally more per-
fect than in the rest of mankind, and are even employed to
collect that information which ordinarily comes through the

544 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

organ that is wanting. Thus the boy Mitchell used the
sense of smell to supply the place of sight, in ascertaining
the presence of strangers ; and he also distinguished objects
from one another, — an office which is usually performed by
the eyes, — by tasting them, if that were poesible, or, if it
were not, by touching them with his hands, or even with his
tongue, to ascertain their different degrees of hardness. In
a perfectly organized man, the senses of taste and smell are
almost always used for animal, scarcely ever for intellectual,
purposes. In a person who has his other senses, the loss of
these, too, is a great animal, but a very small, if any, mental
privation. Even the sense of touch, although it extend over
the entire body, is scarcely ever used for intellectual purposes
by those who have all their organs perfect, except as an
auxiliary of sight and hearing. Yet these three senses are
capable of supplying, as we have seen, in certain cases the
place of sight, which is naturally the highest intellectual
organ, and even of acquiring some information which is de-
rived from the ear. Thus we strike a coin upon a hard sub-
stance, to ascertain the quality of its metal by the sound
which it makes. This knowledge deaf persons acquire, in
most instances, by the peculiar delicacy of the sense of touch.
But the chief and most interesting enquiry is, to ascertain
how far the senses of sight and hearing can supply each
other — that is, how far the ideas of sight can be acquired l)y
the ear, and the ideas of sound by the eye.

There is, of course, no question about the ideas of pleasure,
pain, power, existence, and unity, because these, notwith-
standing the superlative refinements of some moderns, calling
themselves philosophers, who would allow no two of the
senses to be conversant with the same idea, most certainly
do " convey themselves to the mind by all the ways of sen-
sation and reflection."* We also get the ideas of space, ex-
tension, figure, rest, and motion, by the eye as well as by the
touch ; and by the latter alone the perceptions of heat, cold,
and solidity. But light and colours can come only through
the eyes, and music and sound only through the ears, when
we speak of the impressions which are made upon the mind
by the actual presence of the material objects. If we shut
our eyes at noon-day, we can have no idea of light from any
actual impression made at that moment upon us, because the
only organ through which such a perception can enter the mind

* Locke.

1844.] Miss Broicn^ the Blind Poetess. 545

is closed against it. When, however, we are in utter darkness,
and when the stillness of death reigns around us, we can
recall the ideas of both light and sound ; nay we can,
by the abstraction of the mind, behold a light far more glo-
rious than any that ever shone on this dim world, and listen
to the music of the seraphs as they sing the eternal halle-
lujah before the throne of the omnipotent God. But it is
evident that the light which we behold in darkness, is but
the memory of the light which actually shone upon our eyes ;
and that the glory of heaven, and the song of the angels, are
abstractions which are wholly derived from the actual ideas
of light and sound. If we had never seen or heard, could we
have any such ideas at all ? If, on the other hand, those who
have never received any impression of vision from the eyes,
or of sound from the ears, can have no ideas of light or
sound, how can they talk as correctly or consistently, and as
truly to nature, of such objects, as those who have derived
their ideas of them from their proper organs ? How can
any one who has not the ideas of light and sound >ATite
poetry ? For without the latter they can have no idea of
harmony ; and it is from the former that the imagination
draws all its best illustrations, and all its finest perceptions
of the beautiful. Thus the Princess of France says,

" My beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the pointed flourish of your praise;
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye.
Not uttered by base sale of chapmen! s tongues."

That the imagination draws its chief images from the eyes,
the same poet thus testifies, in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream :

" The poet^s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imaginatio7i bodies forth
The forms of things unhnown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name."

That all poets have derived almost all their illustrations
from visible objects, requires no proof, as any one who will
open their works will find this assertion verified in every page.
A thousand instances crowd upon our memory ; but we re-
sist the temptation of transcribing any of them, as this truth
is abundantly illustrated by the writings of the blind poetess
herself, from whose beautiful verses we have too long detained
the reader. AVho will believe that the writer of the follow-

546 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

ing beautiful lines has no idea of light ? We have marked
in italics the images which are taken from light and colours :
The First Friend.

The priceless gifts of the soul were hisj

And fame, whose eariy light
In darkness rose as the stars arise

From the silent depths of night.
And his upwai'd course was brightly calm,
For his glory grew Ulce the fadeless palm;
It felt no blight and it feared no blast,
But stood in its greenness to the last.

Yet ever around his spirit hung

A shadotc like a spell,
And his eye grew weary of looking long

For a place remembered well.
Though many a bright one met his gaze
In minster's gloom or in banquet's blaze,
Yet none could waken again the glow
That gladdened the pilgrim long ago.
For once in the cold world's careless crowd,
When hope was faint and dim,
Like a sunbeam blight through the wintry cloud,

A young face smiled on him !
That moment seemed as if night were past.
And the day of his life had dawned at last ;
And the strength of his soul returned again.
As rivers rise in the mountain rain.

Oh ! never again could time or toil

The wanderer tire or chill.
For he kept the light of that blessed smile

The star of his desert still:
And now he had reached the pleasant streams,
But they took their hue from its quenchless beams,
For many shone on his after lot,
But that was the only unforgot.

The winter's passed and the summer's come

And his fortune's yroicw* were o'er;
For he wore the fadeless wreathe of fame :

But he saw that face no more !
The sunny shore and the stormy sea.
The cities throng'd and the woodlands free.
All, all he sought, but he sought in vain,
For it never smiled on him again.

Oh ! did the grove in its quiet close
O'er the flower he loved so long.

1844',] Miss Brown, tJte Blind Poetess. 547

Whose nameless memory ever rose

On the breath of his sweetest song.
Ah ! many a lyre the laurel wreathes
That but of the withered myrtle breathes,
And the sweetest incense ever shed
Hath been an offering to the dead.

Silent and swift his years sped on,

And they bore his youth away;
But the vision lingered still that shone

So bright on his early dai/, —
For roses fade when the summer flies,
But the rose of the canvas never dies.
And thus when his summer days were gone.
The rose of his memory still bloomed on.

Oh ! well that he had not seen it fade.

Or change as the living changed;
But blooming ever through sun and shade,

In, its beauty unestranged !
There fell no blight on its tearless youth,
There came no stain on his spirit's truth ;
For he sought that friend on the earth no more,
But turned his gaze to a brighter shore.

We will not trouble the reader by marking any more of the
poetry, as, after his attention has been directed to the matter,
he cannot fail to observe it himself. The following poem is
perfect in diction and versification, as well as in truth, sim-
plicity, and beauty : —

The Parting Gifts.

'Twas early spring, and the violets' scent

The winds from the woodlands bore,

Where stood a youth, on far travel bent,

At a lonely cottage door.

His best beloved stood with him there:

One was a sister young and fair.

With eyes of azure and golden hair.

And the rose-bud's early bloom ;

The other had locks like raven wings.

And her dark eye show'd thought's deeper springs;

For she seem'd as if born for higher things

Than a peasant's hearth or tomb:

But dearer far to that youth was she

Than sister, country, or home could be.

And yet he went, for their lonely lot
Was darkened by fortune's frown.
That brings a blight on the peasant's cot

548 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

As well as the monarch's crown :

But ere they parted, that dark-eyed maid

Gave from her brow one raven braid, —

Ah ! long had the peasant lover prayed

For that shining tress in vain!

But it was given freely now

As the golden curl from his sister's brow.

With many a blessing and many a vow,

And the hope to meet again.

So he turned away from the cottage door,

"With tears he went — but he came no more!

Long years had passed; and the northern light

In its starry splendour shone

On a stately chamber, hush'd and bright,

"Where an old man sat alone, —

He sat alone by a silent hearth,

That knew no music of household mirth.

And far from the country of his birth

Was the wanderer's dwelling now :

His eyes were dim, and his locks were gray, —

Yet oft would his lonely visions stray

To a woodland cottage far away.

And a maiden's whispered vow ;

For the boy who had left his home with tears.

Was the same with that man of care and years.

Oh, bright did the star of his fortune beam

In a far and stranger clime ;

But he lost the light of his early dream,

And the flowers of his summer time !

He had stood in the sceptre's shade of power,

He had shone in the senate's thoughtful hour :

Through the battle-field and the festive bower,

The path of his fame had past :

But age was with him, and nought remained

Of all that his toil and years had gained.

To which he turned with a love unfeigned

And changeless to the last —

Save the golden curl and the raven braid.

And the looks from memory ne'er to fade.

How fondly still were the tokens saved

Of that early parting scene.

When the grass was long, and the wild weeds waved,

Where the cottage hearth had been, —

And the light of the golden locks was low —

For the dust liad covered them long ago !

And the queen of his early joy or woe —

1844.] 3Iiss Broicn, the Blind Poetess. 549

Her fortunes too were changed ;

For she kept youth's pledge to woman grown,

And a more than regal wreathe put on, —

But the dark hair's gloiy long was gone,

And the lovers far estranged : —

Yet time brought neither snow nor shade

On the golden curl and the raven braid I

And now, as the old man gazed on them,

How the tide of time rolled back,

Till the years of his youth before him came,

Like a green untrodden track !

The hope that was then his only store.

And the love that had been his early lore.

And the home that should smile for him no more, ■

To his weary heart returned !

Ambition's dream had been more than crowned.

And his age a fairer home had found;

But the light of the love that had shone around

His youth he missed and mourned: —

And pomp looked pale in the mystic shade

Of the golden curl and the raven braid !

Ah! well might the Persian vizier prize

The weeds of his shepherd years.

That brought again to his aged eyes

The dew of his childhood's tears !

And thus had that old man prized and kept

The tokens frail of the love that slept

Too long, till time had darkly swept

Its fairest flowers away !

By strangers laid at length to rest.

Strange hands arranged upon his breast

The locks his dying fingers prest

When their clasp was turned to clay: —

But they knew not the wealth of affection laid

"With the golden curl and the raven braid.

The little poem which follows, entitled The Picture of the
Dead, is exquisite. However, we must pass it over, in order
to be able to illustrate a peculiarity of Miss Brown's poetry
which evidently arises from her blindness. The reader of
this volume cannot fail to be struck by the frequent allusion
which is made to the " music of streams." The image
occurs in almost every possible variety in these little poems.
This is an idea which she has not picked up second-hand
from others, but which she has immediately derived from the
impressions made upon her own senses ; and hence we should

660 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

expect her to cherish it with peculiar fondness. Hero is a
whole poem devoted to this subject :

STREAMS.

Ye only minstrels of the earth—

Whose mighty voices woke
The echoes of its infant woods

Ere yet the tempests spoke !
How is it that ye waken still

The young heart's happy dreams;
And shed your light on darkened eyeSy

O bright and blessed streams?

"Woe for the world! — she hath grown old

And gray in toil and tears;
But ye have kept their harmonies

Of her unfallen years.
For ever in our weary path,

Your ceaseless music seems
The spirit of her perished youth,

Ye glad and glorious streams!

Your murmurs bring the pleasant breath

Of many a sylvan scene, —
They tell of sweet and sunny vales,

And woodlands wildly green.
Ye cheer the lonely heart of age, —

Ye fill the exile's dreams
With hope, and home, and memory,—

Ye unforgotten streams!

Too soon the blessed springs of love

To bitter fountains turn.
And deserts drink the stream that flows

From hope's exhaustless urn ;
And faint upon the waves of life

May fall the summer beams;
But they linger long and bright with you,

Ye sweet unchanging streams.

The bards — the ancient bards — who sang

When thought and song were new;
O, mighty waters, did they learn

Their minstrelsy from you?
For still methinks your voices blend

With all their glorious themes.
That flow for ever, fresh and free,

As the eternal streams !

1844.] Miss Brown, the Blind Poetess. 551

"Well might the sainted seer of old

Who trod the tearless shore,
Like many waters deem the voice

The angel hosts adore !
For still where deep the rivers roll,

Or far the torrent gleams,
Our spirits hear the voice of God

Amid the rush of streams.

We have marked in italics the touching allusion of the
authoress to her blindness. In the " Bard's Farewell," the
last poem in the volume, she again speaks of it thus ; —
Farewell ! some mightier hand may strike

Thy chords to prouder themes,
Yet not to waken memories like

To mine of all the dreams
That o'er my darkened path have shed

A briefly glorious light.
Like wandering stars that wildly sped
Across the gloom of night.

In the next verse we have again the image drawn from
streams, and another characteristic of Miss Brown's poems,
which is evidently occasioned also by her bereavement.
Oh ! bright amid those early dreams

One glorious vision shone;
A land of brighter flowers and streams

Than earth had ever known:
Where song gushed forth from golden wires,

Like some deep river' sjlow;
But— all unlike our earthly lyres — .
They had no tones of woe.

My young, my beautiful were there,

The loved of other years.
With locks unblanched by time or care.

And eyes that knew no tears;
Their youth had left me for the gloom

Of death's eternal shade.
But in that land of changeless bloom

I knew it could not fade!

Oh ! oft amid the mist of night

That glorious land arose,
But ever nearer to my sight
\ As life drew near its close!

!, And now upon the midnight air

s. I hear its music swell —

f.- A sweeter harp awaits me there^

My lonely lyre — -farewell!

652 The Life and Writings of [Dec.

The peculiarity to which we allude is the settled melan-
choly which pervades all Miss Brown's compositions. We
do not recollect one that is not of this character ; and un-
doubtedly this is a defect, as it gives a tone of monotony to
the volume. Every one must, however, see how perfectly
natural it is that she should be of this cast of mind, and that
she should look forward with more than ordinary desire to
that country where the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the brightness of God will shine on them for ever. This
is finely expressed in her poem on " The Hope of the Resur-
rection."

Thy voice hath filled our forest shades,

Child of the sunless shore !
For never heard the ancient glades

Such wondrous words before.
Though bards our land of palms have filled

With tales of joy or dread,
Yet thou alone our souls hast thrilled

With tidings of the dead.

The men of old, who slept in death

Before the forests grew.
Whose glory faded here beneath

While yet the hills were new;
The warriors famed in battles o'er

Of whom our fathers spake;
The wise, whose wisdom shines no more,

Stranger, will they awake?

The foes who fell in thousand fights

Beneath my conquering brand,
Whose bones have strewn the Caffres heights,

The Bushman's lonely land;
The young who shared my warrior way.

But found an early urn;
And the roses of my youth's bright day —

Stranger, will they return?
My mother's face was fair to see,

My father's glance was bright.
But long ago the grave from me

Hath hid their blessed light ;
Still sweeter was the sunshine shed

By my lost children's eyes.
That beam upon me from the dead,

Strangei", will they arise ?
Was it some green grove's early guest,

Who loved thee long and M'cU,

1844.] Miss Brow'V, ile Blind Poeiess, '5o3

That left the land of dreamless rest,

Such blessed truths to tell ?
For we have had our wise ones too,

Who feared not death's abyss ;
The strong in hope, in love the true,

But none that dreamed of this !

Yet if the grave restore to life

Her ransomed spoils again,
And even hide the toil and strife

That died with wayward men:
How hath my spirit missed the star,

That guides our steps above,
Since only earth was given to war,

That better land to love.

Miss Brown is also a patriot ; she evidently loves Erin, the
land of song and of minstrelsy. She sympathises deeply with
the poor exiles, whom hard necessity obliges to abandon the
home of their fathers, and seek a foreign clime, where they
may earn the daily bread which is refused them at home.
She has expressed this feeling — which is so well worthy of
her gentle and tender heart — in several exquisite poems.
The following is one of them : —

TUE emigrant's REQUEST.

O friends! dear friends! if a thought remain,

Of our childhood's vanished day,
"When the joy of the summer comes again.

And my steps are far away:
Some gentle drops from the founts that flow

So sweet in the sultry hours,
Like an offering poured to the past bestow

On my lonely garden flowers !

The flowers I have left and loved so well —

For their early blossoms wore
The hues that still in my memory dwell —

But they bloom for me no more!
My home is far in a brighter clime,

Where the southern blooms expand.
But my heart grows sad in the summer time

For the flowers of its native land!

The holy haunts of my childhood's love,

And its joy were still with them.
When my dearest wealth was the forest dove,

Or the violet's purple gem.

VOL. XVII. — NO. XXXIV. 36

554 The Life and Wntings of [Dec.

How fast the heart's young myrtles grew ! —

Yet their bloom was brightly fleet;
For it changed to the cypress' sombre hue —

But the flowers were ever sweet!

O, friends! you may watch the wild bird's wing,

When it seeks the ocean track ;
But await the breath of the coming spring,

It will waft the wanderer back:
But where is the spring time that can give,

My voice to your distant bowers ? —
Oh ! then let my lingering memory live

In the breath of those home-born flowers !

We shall quote one or two more of those sweet little
pieces, which are both music and poetry, at the end of this
notice ; but the specimens which we have already given are
quite sufficient to convey a very high impression of Miss
Brown's poetic powers, as well as to prove that the charac-
teristics of her muse are those which we should expect in one
deprived of the sense of vision. It is our duty now to look
to her longer poems, and we could really wish that this task
were not imposed upon us. The title of her book mentions
decidedly the two worst as well as the two longest poems in
the collection. We by no means wish to imply that they are
devoid of merit, especially " The Star of Atteghei ;" but that
they are not to be at all compared in vigour or originality to
the smaller poems. The story of the first poem, which is
called " The Star of Atteghei," whatever the newspapers to
which Miss Brown refers may say on the subject, is a very
old one. A Circassian marries a Christian, and an Irish-
woman, who is killed by lightning, leaving behind her one
daughter. She grows up as all heroines ought — a very ro-
mantic and, we should add, obstinate young lady. The
father is in the interest of the Russians, and she is a patriot.
A distinguished Russian comes to her father's, falls in love
with her, and her father tells her that she must marry him,
and that it is a fine day which offers her so excellent a husband.
She thinks differently, and makes a midnight flitting with a
young Pole, who was attached to the train of the Russian.
They join the ranks of the patriot Circassians, and she, the
Star of Atteghei, is at length slain by the very Russian who
came to woo but not to win her. The main incident of this
talo occurs in the twelfth book of the Jerusalem Delivered,
where Tancred kills Clorinda, with whom he was in love
under the very same circumstances. As for the previous

1844.] Miss Brown, the Blind Poetes?. ^S8

part of the story, it is very like Lara^ except that the lady is
made the warrior in Miss Brown's tale. There are also
some expressions in it which are scarcely justifiable, such as,
page 9,—

'* 0 lovely are the mountain maids,
With starry eyes and gleaming hair.^^
Again, page 39, —

« but the grave

Closed o'er her early bright and brave,
And she became a Cossack's slave."
If it were not for the last line, we would think that it was
the lady herself who died ; for to express the death of her
lover by " the grave closed o''er her early bright and brave,"
is, to say the least, unintelligible.

In page 45, the expression, " And from its mass a bright-
ness fell," meaning the mass of a star, is neither poetical nor
correct.

There are a few other difficult and questionable metaphors
in this poem which we omit, as those which we have pointed
out may serve to warn Miss Brown to be cautious, even in
these lesser matters. But we have graver charges against
this tale. First, we do not like the story, and it is not ori-
ginal ; secondly, the scenery and incidents are not peculiar
to Circassia ; thirdly, the metre, although it has been used
by some of the greatest of the modern poets, is fit for nothing
higher than burlesque. It is deciedly the worst metre in the
language for such a tale as IVIiss Brown's. It is almost im-
possible to impart to it any degree of vigour, and hence Miss
Brown's poem, although there are in it many redeeming pas-
sages, is on the whole weak, and wants the fire which is
necessary to give life and animation to such scenes as she
describes. There is nothing affecting in this poem ; even
the dialogue between the lovers, on the eve of the battle in
which they are slain, is quite devoid of tenderness and even
of interest. It does not make the "big tear tremble in
our eyes," like some of the sweet little poems at the end
of the volume. Yet, with all these faults, the " Star of
Atteghei" is by far the best poem which has been published
for some time. It is perfectly wonderful when we consider
that it is the production of a self-taught blind girl of twenty-
eight. Indeed we should never have thought of criticising it
as we have done, if we had not been rendered fastidious by
the great beauty of the poems at the end of the volume.
We extract a portion from the beginning and also from the

36 2

(556 Thfi Life ami Wriihwn of [Dec.

end of this poem, as giving a tolerably fair specimen of it,
and also as illustrating the observations which we made on
the peculiarities of Miss Brown's poetry. Before doing so,
we beg to warn her to be cautious in allowing her admiration
of some modern poets to lead her into a too servile copying
of their metres, especially when it is of that ranting kind
which is adopted in the " Star of Atteghei." She should
also recollect that it is a most perilous experiment to have
even the semblance of telling the same tale as the illustrious
author of the Jerusalem Delivered. It will suggest compari-
sons, and all comparisons are odious. Again, over since
Hector and Andromache thought fit to hold a conversation
before the hero went to the battle, which conversation one
Homer, who must have been hid behind the curtains, has
thought fit to publish, all future lovers have considered them-
selves obliged, in similar circumstances, to hold similar dia-
logues, which some eaves-dropping poet has managed to pick
up and give to the world. Their " last speeches and dying
declarations" have been generally received with but small
favour. Byron has certainly succeeded, and even improved
upon the original, in the peerless scene in which he depicts
the " parting of Conrad and Medora." But it certainly does
not diminish the difficulty of all future imitators, that they
have not only to tread in the steps of the great father of
song, but in those also of

" The grand Napoleon of the realms of Rythm,"

in one of the most successful and brilliant efforts of his
gigantic mind. It is no slur on Miss Brown's genius that
she did not succeed where there were two such illustrious
competitors ; but it is a slur upon her judgment that she
entered the field with them at all. We are sure that she had
not the least idea of rivalling either Homer or Byron ; per-
haps she did not, whilst writing the parting scene of her hero
and heroine, on the eve of the battle, even recollect that
either of them had written on precisely the same subject
before her. On this hypothesis, which wo believe to be*true,
we will found the last word of warning which we intend to
address to Miss Brown, and we hope that she will receive it
in the same kindly spirit in which we assure her it is given.
Every one who reads much is liable to pick up the ideas of
others, without having the least intention of doing so, and to
appropriate them to himself, quite unconscious that thoy are
not his own property. Miss Brown's calamity renders her

1844.] Miss Bi'own^ the Blind Poetess. 5^7

peculiarly liable to this, for she must pick up her ideas of
visual objects primarili/ from the writings or conversation of
others. We do not say that she has done so to a greater
extent than any other modern ^^Titer. On the contrary, in
her minor poems more especially, she has shown that she can
think for herself, even on objects of sight. Our wonder and
admiration is increased every time we cast our eyes on the
bright and sparkling little gems at the end of the volume.
The following are the extracts which we promised from the
"Starof Atteghei":—

Muse of my country ! if thy smile

May beam on tuneless harps like mine —

As o'er our darkest homes the while,

Some gleams of early glory shine.

I ask not for the bays that shed

Their greenness o'er thy glorious dead.

Their grace is for a nobler brow ;

But breathe upon my spirit now

The freshness of the garland Avorn

By him thy last and brightest born,

When first he struck his harp to sing,

The lay of Tara's breaking string !

For mine is but a broken chord ;

And if it breathe of distant lands,

It is that Erin's fame is poured

In loftier strains by mightier hands :

A thousand bards have sung the shore —

But none have ever loved it more :

Though not to souls like mine belong,

The glorious heritage of song ;

Yet if my hand have power to wake

The theme which mightier hands forsake ;

Muse of my country's song, inspire

At once the minstrel and the lyre! — p. 2-3.

My song hath been more sad than sweet ;
But noAv the strain hath reached its close,
Muse of my country ! at thy feet
I leave the lyre — to thee it owes
At least its sorrow —if no more
Of thine hath touched its tuneless strings;
But wouldst thou wake upon our shore.
Some harp like those that spoke of yore,
Beside the fairy-haunted springs. —
Its voice like freedom's trumpet tone,
Might sound in Europe's startled ear —
To summon freedom's soldiers on

958 . The Life and Writings of [Dec.

Yet if there be no sword to save,

Nor bard to sing, nor heart to hear —

Strength to thine own bright shield and spear.

Land of the Atteghei ! thou bearest

A banner of that verdant hue

Which to my country's hills is dearest j

And it may be that in thee too

Are found such brave and gifted hearts

As her's: — but better fortune smile

On them than ever blessed the isle !

And thus an humble minstrel parts

From a proud theme : — but as the song

Is feeble may the prayer be strong 1"

Every one must admire the ardent love which the blind
poetess bears to her own beautiful country — a beauty which,
alas ! " her darkened orbs may never see ;" but she can
hear and turn into sweetest melody the music of the stream,
as it sweeps on to the embraces of ocean. Her sympathy,
too, with the chivalrous Circassians, who have so long, — and
hitherto so successfully, — resisted the gigantic power of
Russia, is well worthy of her gentle heart. Even now, whilst
the tyrant of the North is gathering his might and girding
on his armour to crush, perhaps the song of the blind min-
strel may arouse some mighty arm to defend their freedom.
We must now hasten to the conclusion of this protracted
notice. The following poem at once strengthens our admira-
tion of the poetess, and confirms what we have said concern-
ing the characteristics of her poetry :

THE FOUNT OP SONG.

"Where flows the fount whose living streams

Are heard in every clime —
"VVTiose voice hath mingled with the dreams

Of far departed time ?
Is it where Grecian fanes lie hid

Among the olives dim,
Or the Nile beside the pyramid,

Sends up its ceaseless hymn?

Alas, by old Castalian wave

The muses meet no more,
Nor breaks from Delphi's mystic cave

The prophet voice of yore:
Old Egypt's river hath forgot,

The Theban glory gone;
And the land of Homer knows him not, —

Yet still that fount flows ou !

1844.] Miss Broimi, the Blind Poetess. 559

The sacred fount of song, whose source

Is in the poet's soul,
Though living laurels crown its course

All-glorious to the goal;
Yet who can tell what desert part

Its earliest springing nursed'? —
As from the glacier's icy heart

The mightiest rivers burst !

Perchance the wind that woke the lyre

Was but a blighting blast
That sear'd with more than tempest's ire

The verdure where it passed.
Perchance the fire that seemed divine

On ruined altars shone,
Or glowed, like that Athenian shrine,

For deity unknown.

It is not fame, with all her spells,

Could wake the spirit's springs.
Or call the music forth that dwells

Amid its hidden strings:
For evermore, through sun and cloud,

To the first fountain true,
It flows — but oh ! ye soulless crowd,

It never sprang for you !

The wild bird sings in forest far,

"Where foot may never be;
The eagle meets the morning star,

Where none his path may see.
So many a gifted heart hath kept

Its treasures unrevealed, —
A spring whose depth in silence slept,

A fount for ever sealed I

Woe for the silent oracles

That went with all their lore !
For the world's early wasted wells,

Whose waters flow no more !
Yet one remains no winter's wrath

Can bind, or summer dry;
For, like our own, its onward path

Is to eternity.

We have here the peculiarities of Miss Brown's muse — her
love of streams, and her yearning after a world of light. We
have also marked in italics her allusions to her own bereave-
ment, and a conjecture that from this sad calamity might
have arisen — as we hinted in the beginning of this article-—
her gift of song.

560 Dickens' Chime?. [Dec.

We give thia little volume a hearty welcome, and although
it is a little melancholy in its tone, we recommend it most
strongly and earnestly to all our readers. They will find in
it nothing offensive — nothing but what will call forth the
purest and holiest feelings of the heart. It will be found a
very delightful companion during the long winter evenings.
Nothing has appeared for a considerable period which has
more gratified us than Miss Brown's short poems. The
thoughts are bright and sparkling — the diction is pure, and
the metre is most musical. We honour her not more for her
genius than for the warm and patriotic feelings of her
generous Irish heart. She is one, of whom, considering every-
thing, her country ought to be proud. Now that she has
overcome those difficulties which would appear to have shut
her out for ever from the bright realms of poesy, her cala-
mity may give stronger wings to her fancy, on which she
can rise into brighter worlds than ever mortal eyes looked
upon. And we, therefore, expect that her next volume, which
we hope will not be long delayed, will establish her place
amongst the most gifted children of song.

Art. X. — The Chimes : a Gohlin Story. By Charles Dickens.

E are happy to welcome another delightful tale from
Mr. Dickens ; combining genuine amusement for Christ-
mas with deep and thoughtful instruction for this and each
succeeding new year. We prefer it to the Christmas Carol:
like that, it is a vision, but of a more condensed and earnest
character. Not contented with exciting the warm sympathies
of feeling, Mr. Dickens has here tried in earnest to direct
them so as best to serve the poor, — the objects of his unfail-
ing love : every species of cant, worldly-mindedncss, and affec-
tation of humanity, and all the mere talk, which has so often
made the heart to sink and the hope to flag, are here keenly
exposed. Dickens has set a mark upon them — he has arrested
them in their vague forms, as they change and reappear, form-
ing daily fresh combinations of self-interest, and worldly
pride ; and has fixed them in such vivid portraits, that they
will not easily be again mistaken.

Here in one scene we find these social grievances in their
most ordinary forms, — those of the mere political economist,

1844.] Dickens' Chimet; 56t-

and of the justice — shall we call him so ? — let him describe
himself :

" Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute! Never
out of temper with them! easy, affable, joking, knowing gentleman!
" * You see, my friend,' pursued the Alderman, ' there's a great
deal of nonsense talked about Want — ' hard up,' you know : that's
the phrase, isn't it? ha! ha! ha! — and I intend to Put it Down.
There's a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation, and I
mean to Put it Down. That's all! Lord bless you,' said the alder-
man, turning to his friends again, * you may Put Down anything
among this sort of people, if you only know the way to set about it!'
" Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his arm. He did
n't seem to know what he was doing though.

*' ' Your daughter, eh?' said the Alderman, chucking her fami-
liai'ly under the chin.

" Always affable with the working classes, Alderman Cute ! Knew
what pleased them! Not a bit of pi-ide!

"'Where's her mother?' asked that worthy gentleman.
" ' Dead,' said Toby. * Her mother got up linen; and was called
to Heaven when she was born.'

" ' Not to get up linen there, I suppose,' remarked the Alderman
pleasantly.

" Toby might or might not have been able to separate his wife
in Heaven from her old pursuits. But query: If Mrs. Alderman
Cute had gone to Heaven, would Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured
her as holding any state or station there?

"' And you're making love to her, are you?' said Cute to the
young smith.

" ' Yes,' returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the
question. ' And we are going to be married on New Year's Day.'
" ' What do you mean?' cried Filer sharply. ' Married!'
" ' 'Why, yes, we're thinking of it Master,' said Richard. * We're
rather in a hurry you see, in case it should be Put Down first.'

" * Ah !' cried Filer with a groan. * Put that down indeed. Al-
derman, and you'll do something. Man-ied! Married!! The ignor-
ance of the first principles of political economy on the part of these
people; their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens!
enough to — Now look at that couple, will you !'

" Well ! They were worth looking at. And man*iage seemed as
reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in contemplation.

" ' A man may live to be as old as Methusaleh,' said Mr. Filer,
'and may labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those;
and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures,
mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade 'em
that they have no right or business to be mai'ried, than he can hope
to persuade 'em that they have no earthly light or business to be

562 Dickens' Chimes, [Dec

born. And that we know they haven't. We reduced it to a ma-
thematical certainty long ago.'

" Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right fore-
finger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends,

* Observe me, will you? Keep your eye on the practical man !' —
and called Meg to him.

" ' Come here, my girl !' said Alderman Cute.

" The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrathfully,
within the last few minutes ; and he was indisposed to let her come.
But setting a constraint upon himself, he came forward with a stride
as Meg approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand
within his arm still, but looked from face to face as wildly as a
sleeper in a dream.

'* ' Now I'm going to give you a word or two of good advice, my
girl,' said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. * It's my place to
give advice, you know, because I'm a justice. You know I'm a
justice, don't you?'

" Meg timidly said, * Yes.' But everybody knew Alderman Cute
was a justice! Oh dear, so active a justice always! Who such a
mote of brightness in the public eye, as Cute?

" ' You are going to be married, you say,' pursued the Alderman.

* Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex ! But never
mind that. After you are married, you will quarrel with your hus-
band, and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not : but
you will, because I tell you so. Now I give you fair warning, that
I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So don't
be brought before me. You'll have children — boys. Those boys
will grow up bad of course, and run wild in the streets, without
shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I'll convict 'em sum-
marily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes
and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most
likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you'll be turned out of
doors, and wander up and down the streets. Now don't wander near
me, my dear, for I am resolved to Put all wandering mothers Down.
All young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it's my determination to
Put Down. Don't think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or
babies as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and young child-
ren (I hope you know the chUrch-service, but I'm afraid not) I am
deternjined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately and
ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown
yourself, or hang yourself, I'll have no pity on you, for I have made
up my mind to Put all suicide Down. If there is one thing,' said
the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, ' on which I can be said
to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide
Down. So don't try it on. That's the phrase, isn't it? Ha, ha!
now we understand each other.' " — pp. 39-44.

Can anything be better than this ?— this chuckling in the

1844.] Dickens* Chimes, 563

sense of power, — revelling in it, making it minister to the
secret hatred of poverty that lurks in the heart of the worldly-
man. And again, how different a form is assumed by pre-
cisely the same love of power, the same lurking hatred, in the
exquisite character of the Friend and Father :

" ' Your only business, my good fellow,' pursued Sir Joseph, look-
ing abstractedly at Toby; 'your only business in life is with me.
You needn't trouble yourself to think about anything. I wiU think
for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent.
Such is the dispensation of an all- wise Providence ! Now, the design
of your creation is : not that you should swill, and guzzle, and as-
sociate your enjoyments, brutally, with food' — Toby thought re-
morsefully of the tripe — ' but that you should feel the Dignity of
Labor; go forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and — and stop
there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exercise your
self-denial, bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your rent
as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in your dealings (I set
you a good example; you will find Mr. Fish, my confidential secre-
tary, with a cash-box before him at all times); and you may trust
me to be your friend and father.'

" * Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!' said the lady, with a shud-
der. ' Rheumatisms, and fevers, and crooked legs, and asthmas, and
all kinds of horrors !'

" ' My lady,' returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, * not the less
am I the Poor Man's Friend and Father. Not the less shall he re-
ceive encouragement at my hands. Every quarter-day he will be
put in communication with Mr. Fish. Every New-Year's Day,
myself and friends will drink his health. Once every year, myself
and friends will address him with the deepest feeling. Once in his
life, he may even perhaps receive; in public, in the presence of the
gentry; A trifle from a friend. And when, upheld no more by
these stimulants, and the Dignity of Labor, he sinks into his com-
fortable grave, then my lady' — here Sir Joseph blew his nose — ' I
will be a Friend and Father — on the same terms — to his children.' "
—pp. 59—61.

It may be well believed that so keen an observer of the
absurd, has not passed over that popular and more specious
form of condescending pride, which enables a rich man to
rejoice in affording his poor neighbours that cheap cure for
pining bodies and dejected hearts, — the beaming light of his
countenance, his presence, his patronage. " But there was
more than this to happen. Even more than this : Sir Joseph
Bowley, Baronet and member of parliament, was to play a
match at skittles — real skittles — with his tenants."

There is a slight but forcible notice, also, of the lover of

56-4 Dickens Chimes. [Dec.

the picturesque, — the ragged dilapidated picturesque ; it is
chiefly conveyed in an illustration, but one which brings out
the full moral of the story. The toil-worn labourer, his tools
dropped from his hand, sits cowering, with dejected heart,
upon the fallen timber before his wretched hu!}. He forms
an admirable foreground; and a lady, sheltered from the
summer shower by the umbrella which her footman holds, is
tranquilly transferring the scene to her album ; or, had it
been to the pages of a novel — to give relief and contrast to
the general polish — might not that have done as well ? But
to all these different errors, what theory has Dickens opposed ?
None : for he has penetrated and deeply felt their great de-
fect. It is want of heart, nakedly shewn in the unyielding
system which could not be pursued where love existed. To
do away with these systems, these theories, is our author's
constant object. That each case should be treated upon its
own merits, every poor man according to his individual cha-
racter and wants, is what he inculcates obviously and unceas-
ingly ; giving to the feelings, eccentricities, and even faults,
of the poor man, as large a share of considerate indulgence
as though he had met them in a country justice, — this is
his system, and the true one. That generally pursued is,
to class "the poor" together as a separate race, upon whom
Ave speculate, experimentalize, and talk ; for whom we
devise cunning rules and restrictions ; and for whom it is
fair to say we feel some compassion, not unmixed with
anxiety ; but all upon a limited and distinct scale, allotting
even justice in such measure as if their claim to it rested
solely upon our own good nature, much as a kind-hearted
landholder views his flocks and herds, unwilling to see them
suffer, yet quite resolved to turn them to his own purposes ;
pleased to see happiness, provided always that it be consistent
Avith the main object of their being — which (it must never be
lost sight of) is his advantage. And this is the best view
of the question. The "putters down" cannot enter into a
discussion upon charity, even of the most imperfect nature.
Now, all this godlike superiority does not become us — we
liave no claim to it ; our poorer brethren Avill not submit to
it : and, while it continues to lurk in our hearts, the wisdom
of Solomon could not devise a means for making the rich and
poor to draw together with kindly harmony, as Christ willed
them to do. It is not now our purpose to point out Avhat
tcould divest the heart of the rich man of pride, make him
serve his poor brother as a brother, blend respect with his

1844.] Dklens' Chimr?. 565

compassion, Indulgence with his consciousness of more culti-
vated intellect, and, above all, give even-handedness to his
justice, making him balance the scales, not as between one
poor neighbour and another (even that, often carelessly-
enough), but as between them and himself, both in the sight
of God. For such high truths this slight article is not the
place ; and the more so as the author of whom we treat has
never chosen to introduce them. We are inclined sometimes
to regret this ; for you cannot cultivate or long preserve sweet
flowers, if the roots are not well laid. But we must always
respect the unusual modesty which makes men, treating ad-
mirably what they thoroughly know, decline to enter upon
subjects to which they are less competent. If Mr. Dickens
has not proclaimed religion as his principle, he at least speaks
her language, and admirably serves her cause. To him the
poor man is truly a familiar friend ; thoroughly understood
by him, and invested with qualities the most endearing. He
has taken for the hero of his present story an old porter,
Toby or Trotty Veck (to be sure what a collection of names
might be made from his works), who is truly described as-
" the simplest, hardest-working, childest-hearted man as ever
drew the breath of life." He is introduced beguiling his
patient stand beside the churchyard with the following ob-
servations ;

" ' Why! Lord!' said Toby, " The papers is full of obserwations
as it is; and so's the Parliament. Here's last week's paper, now;'
taking a very dirty one from his pocket, and holding it from him at
arm's length; 'full of obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like
to know the news as well as any man,' said Toby, slowly; folding it
a little smaller, and putting it in his pocket again ; ' but it almost
goes against the grain with me to read a paper now. It frightens
me, almost. I don't know what we poor people are coming to.
Lord send we may be coming to something better in the New Year
nigh upon us!'

" ' Why, father, father!' said a pleasant voice, hard by.

" But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards and for-
wards : musing as he went, and talking to himself.

" ' It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,*
said Toby. ' I hadn't much schooling, myself, when I was young;
and I can't make out whether we have any business on the face of
the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have a little; and
sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled some-
times that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there
is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to
do dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are al-

566 Dickens* Chimes. [JDec.

ways being complained of and guarded against. One way or an-
other, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year !' said Toby, mourn-
fully. ' I can bear up as well as another man at most times; better
than a good many, for I am as strong as a lion, and all men an't;
but supposing it should really be that we have no right to a New
Yeai" — supposing we really are intruding ■* " — pp. 16-17.

These doleful musings are cut short; his pretty young
daughter has come to put him in better humour with him-
self, bringing a good dinner, and cheering him while he eats
it by her bright eyes, and, at last, by a modest intimation
that the fine young fellow who has long intended to be his
son-in-law, considers now that an immediate marriage will be
the best way of welcoming the new year. We think there
cannot be a prettier scene than the old man's introduction to
his hot and savoury dinner :

" * Why Pet,' said Trotty. " Wliat's to do? I didn't expect you
to-day, Meg.'

" ' Neither did I expect to come, father,' cried the girl, nodding
her head and smiling as she spoke. *But here I am! And not
alone; not alone!'

" ' Why you don't mean to say,' observed Trotty, looking curi-
ously at a covered basket which she carried in her hand, ' that
you '

" ' Smell it, father dear,' said Meg. ' Only smell it !'

" Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great hurry,
when she gaily interposed her hand.

" * No, no, no,' said Meg, with the glee of a child. ' Lengthen
it out a little. Let me just lift up the corner; just the lit-tle ti-ny
cor-ner, you know,' said Meg, suiting the action to the word with
the utmost gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were afraid
of being overheard by something inside the basket; ' there. Now.
What's that?'

" Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket,
and cried out in a rapture :

"'Why, it's hot!'

" 'It's burning hot!' cried Meg. * Ha, ha, ha! It's scalding hot!'

" * Ha, ha, ha!' roared Toby, with a sort of kick. ' It's scalding
hot.'

"'But what is it, father?' said Meg. 'Come! You haven't
guessed what it is. And you must guess what it is. I can't think
of taking it out, till you guess what it is. Don't be in such a
hurry! Wait a minute! A little bit more of the cover. Now guess?'

" Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right too soon;
shrinking away, as she held the basket towards him! curling up
her pretty shoulders; stopping her ear with her hand, as if by so

1844.] Dichns' Chimes. 567

doing she could keep the right word out of Toby's lips; and
laughing softly the whole time.

"Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent down his
nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration at the lid; the grin
upon his withered face expanding in the process, as if he were
inhaling laughing gas.

" ' Ah! It's very nice,' said Toby. ' It an't — I suppose it an't
Polonies?'

" ' No, no, no!' cried Meg delighted. ' Nothing like Polonies!'

" ' No,' said Toby, after another sniff. * It's — it's mellower than
Polonies. It's very nice. It improves every moment. It's too
decided for trotters. An't it?'

" Meg was in an extacy. He could not have gone wider of the
mark than Trotters — except Polonies.

"'Liver!' said Toby, communing with himself. *No. There's a
mildness about it that don't answer to liver. Pettitoes? No. It
an't faint enough for pettitoes. It wants the stringiness of Cock's
heads. And I know it an't sausages. I'll tell you what it is. It's
chitterlings !'

" ' No, it an't!' cried Meg, in a burst of delight. *No, it an't!'

" * Why, what am I thinking of!' said Toby, suddenly recovering
a position as near the perpendicular as it was possible for him to
assume. ' I shall forget my own name next. It's tripe!'

" Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he should say,
in half a minute more, it was the best tripe ever stewed.

" And so,' said Meg, busying herself exultingly with the basket,
* I'll lay the cloth at once, father; for I have brought the tripe in a
basin, and tied the basin up in a pocket handkerchief; and if I like
to be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and call it a cloth,
there's no law to prevent me; is there father?'

" * Not that I know of, my dear,' said Toby. ' But they're always
a bringing up some new law or other.' " — pp. 18-21.

This savoury tripe procures for Toby Veck a vision : he
finds himself among the old church bells he so loves to hear,
and the " spirits of the chimes " — wild and fantastic sprites
they are, as ever Dickens drew — lead the old man's spirit
through scenes of sorrow sweetly and sadly described, from
whence he is to draw the moral of trust and patience. That
there is good to be found in the most hopeless of characters,
— that love lingers with a redeeming light in guilt, and even in
desperation, — is the truth from which that trust and patience
are to spring. Alas, it is an insufficient foundation ; nay, in
the end, to see those driven to desperation whose redeeming
qualities deserved better things, could but destroy that very
trust and patience. We need a firmer clue than this in ex-
ploring the mysteries of life, — we feel this, and feel accord-

568 Dickens^ Cfnmes.

ingly some dissatisfaction with the vision, exquisitely as it is
written ; we rejoice when the old man springs up to life and
joy, to find his pretty Meg sewing ribbons on her wedding
dress for the glad to-morrow, nay, for the day that is come
already, as is joyfully proclaimed by the bridegroom, by the
strangers whom the old mau''s kindness has sheltered, by the
friends and neighbours who come to congratulate sweet Meg,
and welcome in the new year with a dance. It is a sweet
and joyous scene ; with less of broad farce than in its proto-
type of the Carolf to which, we acknowledge, we prefer it.

We do not yet feel that we have done justice by this charm-
ing story; it is so lavish of beauties, that every line might bear
extraction ; and in no one of his works do we find his style
so polished, or his vigorous thought and fanciful ideas so
carefully developed.

We hope no year may go by without bringing us from
Mr. Dickens some such sweet memorial of our duties. It will
be wanting to complete the gay catalogue of the new year's
triumphs, with which we will conclude our article.

" The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out
gaily. The New Year, like au Infant Heir to the whole world,
was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There
were books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the
New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the
New Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled
out in almanacks and pocket-books; the coming of its moons and
stars, and tides, was known beforehand to the moment; all the
workings of its seasons in their days and nights, were calculated
with as much precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and
women.

" The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year!
The Old Year was already looked upon as dead ; and its effects
were selling cheap like some drowned mariner's aboardship. Its
patterns were Last Year's and going at a sacrifice, before its breath
was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its
unborn successor!" — pp. 52-53.

END OF VOL. XVII.

INDEX

TO THE

SEVENTEENTH VOLUME OF THE DUBLIN REVIEW.

Abyssinia, ref^arded with increasing interest,
105— its early history, 106— its church, 108—
their marriages, 109 — and monasteries, I(i9 —
Jewish character of their observances, 110 —
ceremonies of re-baptism and ordination, 1 13
—their dissensions, lla — and churches. 113 —
usurpation of part of their country by the
Jews, 115— first noticed hy the Portut;uese,
116 — who send them assistance against
Graan, the left-handed, 116— the Portuguese
place the Abyssinian mission under the
charge of the Jesuits, 118 — Patriarch appoint-
ed, 119— present state of the Church, 120—
several Abyssinians visit Europe, 121 — their
return home, 121 — condition of its southern
province, the kingdom of Shoa, 124.

Academy, Dublin, its value as an iDstitution,
239.

Act of submission, 338.

Agapetus, Pope, controversy referred to him,

Albigenses, their doctrines, and the erils which
they did, 495.

Apostates, recent Italian, 253 — M. L'Herminez.
2-M — M. Vignati broue;ht forward to repair
the disgrace of his exposure, 356 — his admis-
sion into the Church and marriage, 256— in-
Testigationof hislifeand story, 259 — RaflTaelle
Ciocci, refutation of his history, 260.

Aradt, a Danish scholar, description of, 49 — his
death. 67.

Assarolli, fonnder at Genoa of an institution
for the deaf and dumb, 542.

Attorney General, Irish, appears against O'Con-
nell at the House of Lords, 205.

Augustine, 8t, 468.

Baths of the Romans, 77.

Becker, Professor, his " Gallns," illustrating
Roman manners, 71.

Biographies of literary men, their value, 34.

Bossuel, the first who wrote about the instruc-
tion of the deaf and dumb, 539.

Bossuet visits La Trappe eight times, 320.

Boswfll, his style of biography, 213.

Bremer, Miss, character of her novels, 354 —
their faults, 355— criticism of some of lier
works, 357.

Briifgeman, Laura, a girl bom blind, deaf,
dumb, and without smell, Dickens's account
of her present condition, 532 — birth and edu-
cation, 53.3.

Brothers of the Christian schools, 384.

Brougham, Lord, his speech against O'Connell,
203.

Bronm, Miss, the only poet blind from infancy,
519— her birth and early education, 521 — her
flrst attempts at versilieation, 525— her verses
ait sent to the Irish Penny Journal, 526— ex-
tracts from her poetry, .546.

BrtiPtmell. George, his notoriety, 93— birth and
education, 94— his life in London, 95 — quar-
rel with the Prince, 97— arrives at Calais, 99
— anecdotes of his ingratitude, ItiO — finds a
resting-place in the Bon Sauveur at Caen,
102— his death, 103.

Burke, Edrannd, reasons for the delay in pub-
lishing his life and correspondence, 212 —
character of his letters, 214 — style of his ora-
tory, 215 — his numerous and distinguished
correspondents, 217 — his account of his early
studies, 218— his account of his stay at Mon-
mouth, 220- fixed in this country by the re-
putation of bis Essay, 222 — his connexion
with Mr. Hamilton, secretary to the Irish
viceroy, and its results, 222— his connexion
with the Marquis of Rockingham, 223— his

projects for the education of Catholics, 223—.
letter concerning the Lord George Gordon's
riots, 221— Burke's bouse a home for the re-
fugees from the French revolution, 225 — his
devoied attachment to the French royal fami.>
ly, 227 — letter about Mirahean, 227 — his let-
ters to Sir Philip Francis justifying his sen-
timents on the revolution, 22S — his ideas upon
the reformation of the French monarchy, 230
— his opinions respecting the Catholics in
England, 230 — advocates separate education
for the Catholic clergy, 232.

Camdtn Sonety, Comte de Montalembert's letter
addressed to it. 241.

Cauchy, Baron de, his " Considerations'' on the
Stale of the Church, 377 — demands liberty of
relicious duties for monasteries, 377 — his
motives, 378 — views of the duty of the State
towaids them. 3^0- insists on the freedom of
education, 389 — might have rendered his
work more useful hy a more enlarged view of
his subject, 391.

Chancellor, the Lord High, his speech against
O'Connell, 20'*.

Chateaubriand, Vicomte de, his life of De Ranee,
29H — why undertaken, 298— faults of the
work, 298.

Chimes, Dickens's, .563.

Church. Catholic, her present relations with the
State in France, 376.

Church, Eastern, how far the doctrine of the
Pope's supremacy was there received, 4-39 —
asserted by St. Damasus, 461 — other proofs,
4o3 — further proofs, statements made in their
assemblies without protest, 475— Controver-
sies, 479 — converts made by her, 483 — all
admitted the Pope's supremacy, 484 — com-*
mencement of the schism, 484.

Church of Russia, her liturgies orthodox on
the subject of the Pope's supremacy, 484.

Church of Abyssinia, 108 — its doctrines, 108 —
ceremonies of re-baptism and ordination, 112
— their dissensions, 113— and churches. 113 —
the reformation of the Abyssinians undertaken
by the Jesuits, 118 — Peter Pays establishes a
footing there, 1 18— patriarch appointed, 119
— expulsion of the Jesuits and persecution of
the Catholics, 120 — present state of the
church, 120.

Church of the Dark Ages, how calumniated, 160.

Church of England, concessions now made by
lier, 236 — always the creature and slave of
the State, 238 — the church courts, 238—
its heresies compared with those of the Greeks
449 — character of the present movement in
it, 449.

Ciocci, RalTaelle, an Italian apostate, 260 — his
work confutes itself, 2<);1 — describes warlike
meetings of students at Rome; their ithpossi-
bility, 265 — describes various means adopted
to make him a Cistercian, 269 — absurd story
of a poisoning, 270— proposal to establish a
Protestant community, 274. . numberless blun-
ders, 276— character and station of the men
against whom he brings his charges, 278..
has a poisoning fit of his own, 28(> — a rescript
such as was never yet heard of made in his
favour, 28"-' — another persecution and anothef
petting, 283 — false descriptions of places,
284— is persuaded by two Englishmen to fly
from Rome, 2S5— discrepancies in his story,
28.5— false account of his interview with Dr.
Baldacconi,286.

Coal, Irish, 138.

Controversies in the Greek church, 479— during
the Pontificate of Pope Symmachus, 479.

570

INDEX.

Cooper, Mr., his views of the reformation, 337—

his exactness in quotin|r, 339.
Corfiorations, Irish, their loyalty, and the reward

they received for it, 428.
Council of Ephesus compelled to censure Nesto-

riiis, 475.
Council of Chatcedon, 477 — dismiss Dioscoros

from his see, subscriptions to tlie depositions

aj^ainst him, 479.
Comici/of Constantinople, 480 — 2iid council, 485.
Criisade«,many and various motives from uhich

they were adopted, 498 — crusade led by the

emperor Frederic, disasters at its commence-
ment, 502— at its close, 505.
Cyprian, St., his doctrines on the supremacy,

459.
Cyril, St., presides at the council of Ephesus,

475. .conversions by him, 484.

Damasus, St., his letter to the Bishops of the
East, 461.

Dark Affes, so called, wliether or not the art
of writing was so little known, l()5..what
qualitications required of candidates for ordi-
nation, 168. .alleged scarcity of books during
that period, 174.. whether the Bible was
known, 189.

Denman, Lord, his speech upon O'Connell's
trial, aiO.

J)e Ranee .\rmand .lean Bouthillier, his life by
Chateaubriand, 297.. his birth and lineage,
299.. his education, talent, and preferment,
300.. is ordained, 3(;0. .his dissipation, 301. .
duel fought at bis country-seat, 302. .his con-
nexion with the Duchess de Montbuzon,
303.. his rapid promotion, 304.. a wonderful
escape, 305.. inquiry as to what led to his
conversion, 305. .death of Madame de Mont-
bazon, 306., effect of it upon the mind of De
Ranee, 307.. his conversion, 308.. of all his
property reserves only the Abbey of LaTrappe,
3>I9. .state in which lie found it, 311. .his no-
vitiate, 312. .settles his affairs, makes his pro-
fession, and takes possession of the monas-
tery, 313. .is sent to Rome, 314. .mode of life
there, 3l4..eonlinues bis reformation on his
return to La 'I'rappe, 315. .names and cha-
racters of those who joined it, 316.. benefit
derived by him from Ilossuet's visit, 321.. bis
discourses on the monastic lite are published,
324. .appoints his successor, 327. .his suffer-
ings, 328. .and death. 329.

Dtoscnriudismisse.l by the council of Chalcedon
from his see, 4/8.

Ecclesiastical courts, 239.

Edyeworlli, Abb6, his letter from France, 226.

Entication, 387. .in France, 389. .books for edu-
cation, 393.

Eloy, St., misrepresented by Robertson, 179. .
his genuine discourse, 182.

Ephesus, Council of, censures Nestorius, 475.

Eulychian Controversy, some account of, 476.

Fichte, his meeting with CEhlenschlager, 63.

Follett, Sir William, his ar^umellts against
O'Connell in the House of Lords, 20.5.

Fore, Peter, a penitent at La Trappe, 317.

Fraticis, Sir Philip, correspondence with Burke,
228.

Frederic, of Germany, assisted by Pope Inno-
cent, 496. .is crowned at Aix la Chapelle, 496
..(Mho pleads against him befoie the council
of Lateran, 497.. is crooned a second time,
497.. swears to assume the cross, 497.. delays
to do so, and is reproved by Honorius, 499. .
is pledged in a more than a common manner
to the crusade, 499.. by his delay causes the
disasters of the crusade, 500. . is excommuni-
cated, 5C0.. his remonstrance, 601.. the Pope's
charges against him, 501. .effec.sof the inter-
dict upon him, 502.. departs suddenly for the
Holy Land, .003. .inquiry into his motives for
going at that time and in that manner, 503. .
makes a treaty with the Snltans of Babylon
atid Damascus, 504.. incurs universal odium
and returns home, 606. .excuses made

for his conduct, and their falsehood, 606...
makes submission to the Pope, and is recon*
ciled, 50S. .resumes a career of rapine and
violence, 507. .is excommunicated, 508. .at-
tacks the Pope himself, 610. .menaces the
Bishops whom the Pope had summoned, ."ilO. .
he swears to submit, but without intending it,
612.. is solemnly deposed by a general coun-
cil, 513.. bis death, 513.
Frumentius, St., apostle of the Abyssinians, 107.

Galhis, Roman personage, 72. .description of
his house, 73. .his library, 75.. occasion of his
disgrace, 79. his su.cide, 85.

George IV., his character, 92. .his conduct to
Brummell, 98.

Goethe, description of, 52— anecdote of, 61.. 68.

Goo/rf, George, Esq., his letter to Burke in 1781,
234.

Graan, the left-handed, raises war in Abyssinia,
116.

Greyory, St , his claim to the supremacy, 492..
his refusal of the title of Qi^cumenical Bishop
explained, 473 — further proofs of bis claiming
the supremacy, 474.

Greyory IX. excominunicales the emperor
Frederic, .500. . his charges against him, 501. .
again excommunicates him, 508. .determines
to call a general council, 610.. bis death, 611.

Grey, Lord de, a parallel between bim and his
predecessor, 418.

Grey. Lord, in queen Elizabeth's reign, bis cha-
racter and cunduct, 420. .eulogy of him by
Spenser, under the name of Artegall, 420.

Bill, Mr., Counsel for O'Connell, 204.
History of England, chiefly indebted to the

Monks, 487.
Historia Major of Matthew Paris, 489. .reasons

for selecting it for translation, 489.
Historical Society, about to publish translations

of the Chronicles, 488
Hohenslavffen, race of, its final extinction, 514.
Honorius, Pope, reproves CreJeric for bis delay

in assuming the Cross, 499.
Hormisdas, Pope, Letter to h im, 480,
House of Lords, the building appropriate and

grand, 202. . U'Conueil's case brought before

it, 202.
Boniit, Mrs., her trauslatioi); of the Swedish

Movels, 351.

Ignatius, St., appeals to Pope Nicholas, 485.

India7is, the red, hunted by the Texan patriots,
338.

Innocent, St., 467.

Innocent III., Pope, his crown of peacocks' fea-
thers, feelings with which he assumed it, 495
. .espouses the cause of two injured queens,
49.].. lays interdicts on France and Spain,
495. .calls for help against the Albigenses,
495.. espouses the cause of Frederic, sou of
Henry VI. of Germany, 496.

Innocent IV., determines to bring the Emperor
Frederic to reason, 511.. summons a General
Council. .512. .who solemnly depose the Em-
peror, 5i2. .is surrounded by alarms and war,
613.. enters the kingdom of Naples in peace,
614. ..Manfred rebels against him, 614. .bis
death, 514.

Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb, none Ca-
tholic in England or Ireland, 638. .areCatho-
lic in their origin and progress, 642,

Interdict, effects of one, 502.

Ireland and its rulers, 1., Mis-statements con-
tained in the Work, 32.. its industrial re-
sources, Dr. Kane's inquiries into, 134.. pre-
sent state of its statistics, 136. .its sufhciency
of fuel for manufacturing purposes, 137,, lig-
nite, 138.. coal, 138. .turf, 142. .cost of fuel,
144. .its water power, 146. .means (\f making
itavailable, 146. .mines of silver and lead,15l
..agricultural resources, 153. .necessity for
railroads, 155. .state of in Spenser's days,416.

Ireneeus, St, reproves the Pope, 457.

Irish, the, their former dissensions, 14, .present
unanimity taught by O'Connell, 15,. their style

INDEX.

of eloquence is simple, 28. .their poor food
produces incapacity for work, anecdote of
this, lo7.. Payne's testimony to their charac-
ter, 426.
Italij, after 800 years of Roman sway, not yet
fused into one nation, 492. .its condition, and
the revivinR spirit of its people durin*; the
Northern invasion, 493. .a confederation of
republics arises in the north, 493. .condition
of the south, 494. . difficulties of the Popes, 494
..dreadful state of Italy under the Emperor
Frederic, o07..the people combine against
him, 510.

James II. of England visits La Trappe, 322.
Jerome, St., his letter to Pope Damasus, 465.
Jesuits, their learning considered as a crime,

389. .undertake the Mission to Abyssinia, 118

..their final expulsion, 120.
^uir/^fs of Kni;land, their answers to qnestions

upon writ of error in O'Connell's case, 206.
Judith, a Jewish Princess, ttsurps a part of

Abyssinia, 115.

Kane, Dr., his Work on Ireland, 134.

Kelly, Mr , Counsel for O'Connell, 204.

Kendal, George Wilkins, author of a narratire
of the .Santa Fe Expedition, his mendacious
and worthless character, 337. .amuses himself
in hunting Indians. 338. .falls in with a troop
of wild horses, 339. .describes an encamp-
ment, 339. . describes the Prairie on fire, 3U
..his party disarmed by the Mexicans, 343..
generous treatment he receives, 343. .his de-
scription of a Priest, .343. .his rogueries, 347
. .bears testimony to the charily of the Mexi-
cans, 34o.

Krapf, Mr., Protestant Missionary in Shoa, bis
proceedings, J27.

Land, inquisition into defective Irish titles, an
excessive grievance, 430.

Lateran, Council of, its splendour; Otho ap-
pears to plead his cause before it, 497.

La Trappe, Monastery of, 309.. stale in which
De Ranc^ found it, 311.. names of many
who sought admission, 316. .austerities prac-
tised there, 317.. visited by Bossuet, 320.. by
James II., 322. .account of tbe Institute after
De Ranee's death, 329.. is visited by revolu-
tionary aixents; results of their inquiries, 330
..the institution broken up, 331.

Lentulus, bis banquet, M.

VEpee, Abbe, founds an iBStitntion for tbe
deaf and dumb, 539.

Lest range, Louis Henry, becomes the leader of
the Trappists after their dispersal, 331.. is
summoned to Rome, 334.. and dies, 33o.

Len-is, KingofBavaria, his noble sentiment. 393

L'Hemiinez, M , history of his apostacy, 255..
his disgrace at Chichester, 256.

Lignite, or wood coal, 138.

Literature of England, requiring a great and
Catholic reformation, 412.

Lombard League, circumstances under which
it arose, 4t'3.

Liidolf, Mr, his inaccuracies concerning the
i£thiopians. 110.

Luther, Martin, ridicule of the story of his
discovery of the Bible, 196.

Bfabillon answers the discourses of De Ranc6,
321.

Mailland, Mr., his inquiry into the state of the
church in the Dark Ages, 159. .confules the
calumnies of Robertson, 162. .concerning the
learning of the middle ages, 16o. .concerning
the scarcity of books, 174. . and their price,
176.. contradicts two of his absurd stories,
187.. inquiry to what degree the Bible was
known, 189.. ridicules the story of Luther's
discovering it, 196.

Manuscripts, Irish, note concerning them from
report of Royal Irish Academy, 293

lUalthew of Paris, 489.. a favourite with the
Historical Society, because he condemns

Rome, 490.. how far he deserves the prefe-
rence, 491.

Meletius, St., mistaken version of his story,463.

Mendez, Alphonso, Patriarch in Abyssinia, 119.

Mennas the Patriarch, bis submission to the
Ho!ySee,48I.

Methodius, Saint, conversions made by him,484.

Missionaries, Catholic, at present in Abyssinia,
121. .Protestant, iheir embarrassment with
respect to fasting. 111.. Protestant, in Shoa,
127.

Miichell, James, a boy born blind and deaf,
•529. .his means of acquiring information
from the smell and touch, 529. .his feelings
on the death of his parents, 630. .modes of
expressing to him approbation, or otherwise,
530,. no attempt made to give him religious
knowledge or feelings, 531.

Monasteries, difference of their ancient and
present duties, 3'7..what good might be
done by them in Ireland, 383.

Alonasliinsm, beautifully vindicated by Mait-
land, 163., prohibition under which it labours
In France, 378.

Monks, the Latin they wrote, the histories we
owe to them, 488.. their histories the source
from whence all others are drawn, 488.. tbe
translations now issued of them, 488.

Monkish Chronicies, about to be translated, 468.

Montalembert, Comte de, bis letter to the Cam-
den Society, 241.

Montbazon, Duchess de, well-known story of
her death, 306.

Newman, Mr., acknowledges the church's su-
premacy, 4.33.
Notices 0/ Books, 289.

(yCon^ell, Daniel, his character and conduct,
5. .attacked in the Corn Exchange, 9. . teaches
unanimity to the Irish, 14.. his conduct to
the Americans, 17. .opposition to French and
Spanish liberals,l8. .his religion, 21. .charac-
ter of his eloquence, 22. .mis-statements con-
cerning him. 32. .judgment delivered against
him. 2110.. his reception by the Irish bar, 200
. .feelings of the people on his imprisonment,
201.. his counsel before the House of Lords,
203 .counsel against him, 203. .judges as-
semble to answer questions upon writ of
error, 206. .reversal of the judgment against
him, 210.. his release from the Penitentiary,
and public reception, 211.

CEIilensihlager, the Dane, .36. .his birth and
education, 36. .is bitten by a dog, 41.. his
' school career, 43. . writes for the stage, 44. .
and acts upon it, 45,. becomes an advocate,
46.. death of his mother, 47. .acquaintance
with his future wife, 47.. acquaintance with
Arndt, 49. .with Heinrich Steffens, o0..with
Goethe, 52. .wiih Fichte, 53.. with Tieck, 55
..describes tbe occupation of Weimar by
the Prussians, 57. .visits Paris and Switzer.
land, 59. . remarkable characters be meets at
Coppet, 60. .his feelings on crossing the
Alps, 61. .and in the Italian churches, 62 .
and in Kome, 63. .meeting with 'I'horwald-
sen, 6.5. .his return home and marriage, 68.

O'Hngen, Mr. Thomas, his masterly argument
on the motion fur a new trial for CTConnell,
199.

O' Loughlin, Sir Coleman, motion in arrest of
judgment in case of Queen t;. U'Connell, 199.

Opiatus, St.. 4fi6.

Orders, candidates for, what qualifications re-
quired of them in the Dark Aces, 168.

OrrftTS. religious, 376.. restrictions upon them
in France, 378. .absurdity of such restric-
tions, 379. .duty of the state towards them,
3J'0.. formed for encouraging the spirit of
self-sacrifice, 382.. their benefits to society
in former ages, 383. . Brothers of the Christian
schools, 384. . Sisters of Charily, 385. . Soeurs
de Bon Secours, 386.. their influence in
France, 387.. seek no privileges, 3i)0.

Orleans, Duke of, bis conversion and death, 308.

672

INDEX.

Palmer, Mr., mistake in Ecclesiastical History,
408. .respecting St. Jerome, 466. .argument
^ncernin;; St. Uptatus,466.

Parker, Archbishop, his preference of Paris as
an liistorian, admits that he is an exception
to his age, 490.

Pa<ri«rcAof Jerusalem, his letter to the Pope,
504.

Payne, his testimony to the character of the
Irish, 420.

Pays, Peter, Missionary in Abyssinia, llfi.

Peacock, Mr., O'Coniiell's counsel, 204.

Peirot, Sir .lolin, the best Irish Viceroy, 432.

Photius, made by the Emperor Patriarch of the
east, 486.

PiusW I. visits the Institution for the Deaf and
Dumb, 540.

Plunket, Dr. Patrick, gives investiture to the
abbot Ue Raucd, 313.

Poetry, 517.

Poels, their misfortunes, generally speaking,
517.

Pontius, a Benedictine monk, first discovered
the method of instructing the deuf and dumb,
539.

Po/>es,tl>e,theirsupremacy lately acknowledged
by many in the Anglican Church, 4.53.. by
Mr. Newman, 453. .doctrine of their supre-
macy explained, 4-55.. how far it was held in
the early ages of the Church, 456.. instances
of popes being reproved by St. Irenajus, 457
. .by St. Cyprian, 4o8. .their authority assert-
ed in the East by St. Damasiis, 46 1.. other
proofs that it was there acknowledged, 463. .
and all over the world, 467.. and from that
time downwards, 470. .claimed by St. Gre-
gory, 472. .proofs that it was admitted by the
Eastern Church, 475. .admitted in the Coun-
cil of Ephesus, 475. .of Chalcedon, 477.. of
Constantinople, 480.. admitted by Mennas,
481.. by St. Sophronius, 481.. by St. Maxi-
mus,4H2.. claimed and admitted in theCoun-
cil of Nice, 483.

Priests, Catholic, their zeal borne testimony to
by Spenser, 411.. by St. Theodore Studiles,
483. .admitted by St. Ignatius, 485.. and even
by Photius, 486.. causes of their difficulties
during the middle ages, 494. .general justifi-
cation of their conduct, 514.

Pitseyites compared with the Greek Church, 448
..present condition of many amongst them,
4.J0..have for some time acknowledged the
supremacy of the Pope, 453.

Rabnntts Maurns, archbishop of Seville, his di-
rections concerning reading, 168.

Robertson, falsehood of his statements concern-
ing the learning of the middle ages, 162. . also
concerning the scarcity of hooks, 174.. his
misrepresentation of St. Eloy, 179. .two dis-
torted anecdotes told by him, 18(>.

Romans, the, their private manners little known,
71, .illustrated by Profe.ssor IJecker's Gallus,
72.. their modes of contracting marriage, 86. .
power over children, 86. .methods of measur-
ing time, 87.. gymnastic exercises, 88.. and
games, 89.. condition of their stares, 90.

Sahela Salassie, king of Shoa, 124.

Snint Frunientius, 107.

Scandals, their existence necessary, 2-53.. upon
the whole cheering symptoms, 2/)4.

Schmid, Canon Von, popularity of his works
abroad, loo little known here, 392. .his tales
composed for his own school, 393. .materials
and beauty of his tales, 394.. their number
and arrangements. 396. .examples and stories
of some, 397.. their line moral, 40j.

Scgiihi, the Abb6, 298.

Shoa, kingdom uf, its importance, 124. .its kin.g,
124.. presents made to him by Queen Victo-

ria, 124. .treaty of commerce with England,
126.. slavery encouraged there, 126. .it is in-
teresting to religion, 127.

Sicard, Abb6, establishes an institution for the
deaf and dumb, 540. . it is visited by the pope
Pius VII., 540,. recommends his institution
to the Abb6 Gondeliu, and dies, 54L

Siriciuj!, St., 467.

Sis<ers of Charity, 3&5.

Slavery, its encouragement in Texas, 448.

Slaves, their condition in Rome, 90.

Society, requires the spirit of self-sacrifice, 361
. .alone found in the Catholic Church, 3s2.

Sceurs de Bon Secourj, 386.

Sofihronitis, St., appeals through Bishop Stephen
to the Roman See. 481.

Spenser, Edmund, his character as a politician,
415. .his intolerance in Ireland, 416.. his re-
sidence in Kilcolman Castle,4l7. .ill efl'ects
upon his mind of his secretanship to Lord
Grey, 418.. eulogises Lord Grey's policy, 421
..his plans for the reduction of Ulster, 422..
his slavish attempts to pervert the laws, 424..
encourages the great grievance of inquisition
into titles of land, 4;i0. .acknowledges the
misconduct of officials, 431.. plans the re-
conquest of Ireland, 435.. for transplanting
the Irish people, 436.. his descriptions of the
Irish bards, 438. .advocates the most minute
and tyrannical rules, 439.. bears testimony to
the zeal of the Catholic Priesis, 44 1.. some
descriptions of Irish scenery, 443. .his com-
plaint against the landlords, 445.

Start, Madame de, 60.

Stevens, Heinricli, .50.

Storm, his death and funeral, 43.

Symmachus, Pope, 479.

Theodoret, St., his letter to Pope Leo, 476.

Tfxns, beauty of tile country, 335.. excessive
depravity of its people, 336 .history of the
commencement of its career, 336. .geographi-
cal description of the country, 337. .the ut-
most encouragement given there to slavery,
448.

Thorrvaldsen, his meeting with CEhleoschlager,
65.

Toledo, bishop of, his eloquence and learning,
497.

Trappists, their wanderings aftertheir dismissal
from the monastery, .331. .succeed in obtain-
ing under Bonaparte an asylum in France,
334. . are banished on account of refusing the
oath of allegiance, 334. .finally repurchase La
Trappe, 334.. other monasteries established^
334. .now established iu Ireland, 335.

Turf, its value as fuel, 142.

University of France, its oppressive monopoly,
387.

Valismenil, M. shows that the limitation (in
France) of persons assembling, to twenty,
does not alTect monasteries, 379.

Veretz, country-seat of the Abb6 de Rancfi, 302.

Ki(/"«(t, Mr. an Italian apostate, 255.. account
of his reception in form into the church of
England, 256.. his birth and disreputable
career, 2.59.

Voss, Heiurich, his anecdote of Goethe, 154.

Wevdover, Roger of, translation abont to be
issued of his works, 488.

Wilde, Sir Thomas, the advocate of O'Connell
before the House of Lords, 203. .manner in
which he performed the duty, 203.

Xiistus, St. and Pope, letters to him acknow-
ledging his supremacy, 476.

Zozimus, St., his answer to the Pelagians, 469.

LONDON:
RICHARDS, PRINTER, 100, ST. MARTIN'S LAiNE.

ERRATA.

Page 417, line 18, for law read bard.

— ■■ — 418, line 12 from the end, for Earl read j'^rd.

418, line 11 from the end, for Grev read De Grey.

-r^ — 420, line 3 from the end, for donne read doome.

421, line 6 from the end, for deaw read dewe..

421, line 4 from the end, for Dispreds read Dispreaaes,

421, last line, for faire read farre.

872

INDEX.

Palmer, Mr., mistake in Ecclesiastical History,
4j8..re.specling St. Jerome, 466. .argument
#>ncernin»; St. Optatus,466.

Parker, Archbishop, his preference of Paris as
an liistorian, admits that he is an exception
to his age, 490.

PatriarcAof Jerusalem, his letter to the Pope,
5U4.

Payne, his testimony to the character of the
Irish, 420.

Pays, Peter, Missionary in Abyssinia, 11«.

Peacock, Mr., O'Comiell's counsel, 204.

Peirot, Sir.lolin, the best Irish Viceroy, 432.

Photius, made by the Emperor Patriarch of the
east, 486.

PiusW I. visits the Institution for the Deaf and
Dumb, 540.

Plunket, Dr. Patrick, gives investiture to the
abbot Ue Rauce, 313.

Poetry, 517.

Poets, their misfortunes, generally speaking,
617.

Pontius, a Benedictine monk, first discovered
the method of instructing the deaf and dumb,
539.

Po/!>es,the,theirsupremacy lately acknowledged
by many in the Anglican Church, 4-33.. by
Mr. Newman, 4.53. .doctrine of their supre-
macy explained, 4-55. .how far it was held in
the early ages of the Church, 45R.. instances
of popes being reproved by St. Irenseus, 457
. . by St. Cyprian, 4-58. .their authority assert-

cul .1. iI.o t'o.t K« St r»..™«»..- Aai -*■---

ria, 124.. treaty of commerce with England,
lie.. slavery encouraited there, 126. .it is in.
teresting to religion, 127.

Sicard, Abbfe, establishes an inslitntion for the
deaf and dumb, 540. .it is visited hy the pope
Pius VII., 540.. recommends his institution
to the Abb6 Gondeliu, and dies, 641.

Siricius, St., 467.

Sis<ersof Charity, 385.

Slavery, its encouragement in Texas, 448.

Slaves, their condition in Rome, 90.

Society, requires the spirit of self-sacrifice, 361
. .alone found in the Catholic Church, 3s2.

Sceurs de Bon Sccours, 386.

Sophroiiius, St., appeals through Bishop Stephen
to the Roman See, 481.

Spenser, Edmund, his character as a politician,
415. .his intolerance in Ireland, 416.. his re>
sidence in Kilcolman Castle,4l7..iU efl'ecta
upon his mind of his secrelariship to Lord
Grey, 418. .eulogises Lord Grey's policy, iil
..his plans for the reduction of Ulster, 422..
his slavish attempts to pervert the laws, 424..
encourages the great grievance of inquisition
into titles of land, 4;iU. .acknowledges the
misconduct of ofticials, 431.. plans the re-
conquest of Ireland, 435.. for transplanting
the Irish people, 4XM>. .his descriptions of th«
Irish bards, 438. .advocates the most minute
and tyrannical rules, 439.. bears testimony to
the zeal of the Catholic Priests, 44 1.. some
descriptions of Irish scenerv, 443 hiii «»».

//9^-C- /^^.eU^ii.^^'-H^

Rabnnus Mawrus, archbishop of Seville, his di-
rections concerning reading, 168.

Robertson, falsehood of his statements concern-
ing the learning of the middle ages, 162. .also
concerning the scarcity of books, 1 74.. his
misrepresentation of St. Eloy, 179. .two dis-
torted anecdotes told by him, 18(i.

Romans, the,their private manners little known,
71.. illustrated by Profe.ssor Becker's Gallus,
72. .their modes of contracting marriage,86. .
power over children, 8t>. .methods of measur-
ing time, 87.. gymnastic exercises, 88.. and
games, 89.. condition of their slaves, 90.

Sahela Salassie, king of Shoa, 124.

Saint Frunientitis, 107.

Scandals, their existence necessary, 2-53.. upon
the whole cheering symptoms, 254.

Schmid, Canon Von, popularity of his works
abroad, too little known here, 392. .his tales
composed for his own school, 393. .materials
and beauty of his tales, 394.. their number
and arrangements, 39t>. .examples and stories
of some, 397.. their fine moral, 40 j.

-Srjrimj, the Abbi, SiJA.

Shoa, kingdom of, iis importance, 124. . its king,
124,. presents made to him by Queen Victo-

oaili of allegiance, 334. .finally repurchase La
Trappe, 334. . other monasteries established,
334.. now established iu Ireland, 336.
Turf, its value as fuel, 143.

University of France, its oppressive moaopotj,
387.

Vatismenil, M. shows that the- limitation (in
France) of persons assembling, to twenty,
does not atfect monasteries, 379.

Verefx, conntry-seat of the \bbi de Rancf, 302.

Ki(/»n(t, Mr. an Italian apostate, 255.. account
of his reception in form into the church of
England, 256.. his birth and disreputable
career, 259.

Voss, Heiurich, his anecdote of Goethe, 154.

Wendover, Roger of, translation about to be
issued of his works, 488.

Wilde, Sir Thomas, the advocate of O'Connf 11
before the House of Lords, 203. .manner in
which he performed the duty, 203.

Xysltis, St. and Pope, letters to him acknow-
ledging his supremacy, 476.

Zozimtcs, St., his answer to the Pelagians, 469.

LONDON:
RICHARDS, PRINTER, 100, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

Does Not Circulate

AP 4 .08 SMC

The Dubl in review.
AIP-2395 (awab)

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