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THE

DUBLIN EEVIEW.

VOL. XLI.

k
PUBLISHED IJf

SEPTEMBER AND DECEMBER, 1856.

LONDON:
THOMAS RICHARDSON AND SON,

147, STRA.ND; 9, CAPEL STREET, DUBLIN; Aim DERBY.

MARSH & BEATTIE, EDINBURGH; HUGH MARGEY, GLASGOW.

NEW YORK: Edwaed Ddniqan and Brotheh, 151, Fclton Street.

: PARIS: 22, Rds de la Banqos, Stassin and Xatieb.

1856.

EX UBRIS
ST, BASIL'S SCHOUSTICAit

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CONTENTS OF No. LXXXI.

Art. Page.

I. — Dr. Lingard's History of England. Sixth Edition,

vols. vi. and vii. London : Dolman, ... ... 1

II. — I. Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medi-
nah and Meccah. Bj Richard F. Burton, Lieuten-
ant Bombay Army. Vol. III. London : Long-
man, 1856,

2. First Footsteps in East Africa ; or an Exploration
of Harar. By R. F, Burton. 8vo. London :
Longman, 1856, ... 27

III.— "The Jesuits." London: Religious Tract Society, 66

IV. — History of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration
of Charles IL By M. Guizot. Translated by
Andrew R. Scott. 2 vols., 8vo. London : Richard
Bentley, 1856, 86

V. — De Immaculate Deiparse semper Virginis Conceptu
Caroli Passaglia Sac. e. S. I. Commentarius. 3
Partes, Roma, 1854-1855, 117

VI. — I. Pius IX. and Lord Palmerston. By the Count de
Montalembert. London : Dolman, 1856.

2. De I'Etat des choses k Naples, et en Italie, Lettres
k Q. Bowyer, Esq., Membre du Parlement Britani-
que. Par Jules Gondon, 8vo. Paris : Bray;
London: Dolman, 1855, 171

VII. — 1. Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed
to enquire into the State, Discipline, Studies, and
Revenues of the University of Dublin, and of
Trinity College; together with Appendices, con-
taining Evidence, Suggestions, and Correspon-
dence. Presented to both Houses of Parliament
by command of Her Majesty. Dublin : Alexander
Thorn, 1853.

contents.

Art. ^ ^ ^ Page

2. Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire
into the arrangements in the Inns of Court and
Inns of Chancery, for promoting the Study of the
Law of Jurisprudence : together with Apendices.
Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Com-
mand of Her Majesty. London : 1855.

3. Report on the condition and Progress of the
Queen's University in Ireland, from 1st Septem-
ber^ 1854, to Ist September, 1855. By the Right
Hon. Maziere Brady, Vice-Chancellor of the Uni-
versity, and Lord High Chancellor of Ireland.
Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Com-
mand of Her Majesty. Dublin, 1855.

4. A Bill to Repeal and Amend certain Laws and
Statutes Relating to the University of Dublin.
Prepared and brought in by Mr. Napier and Mr.
George Alexander Hamilton. Ordered by the
House of Commons to be printed, 23rd May, 1856. 226

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; ■ 'J . c . 6 ir .. > :- ut'itMco t s :;t.si J , rviit
' ' CONTENTS OP Nd. LXXXII. " '?i.u .

■■••-'... .;/ L,:

Art. Page.

I.— Memorials of his Time, by Henry Cockburn. 1 vol.

8vo. Edinburgh : Adam and Charles Black,

1856, .;i ' • • -..;•■- * •■ ■ *..- • ... 279

II. — 1. History of England! -"^^ from the Fall of Wolsey to the
Death of Elizabeth. By the Eev. J. A. Froude,
M. A. Vols, i, and ii. London : J. W. Parker
and Son. 1856.

•2. Lingard's History of England. Sixth Edition, vols.

iv. V. and vi. London : Dolman, ... ... 307

III. — 1. The Power of the Pope, during the Middle Ages :
or, an Historical Inquiry into the Origin of the
Temporal Power of the Holy See, and the Consti-
tutibiial Laws of the Middle Ages,: Relating to the
Deposition of Sbvereigns. By M. Gosselin, Direc-
tor of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris.
Translated by the Rev. Matthew Kelly, Saint
Patriek-'a Oolleige, Maynooth. (Library of Trail-
slations.) 2 vols. Loudon : C. Dolman, 1853.

, 2. L'Eglise et L'Empire Eomain au IV. feiecli. Par

M. Albert de Broglie, Premiere Partiei,' Regno de
Constantin, 2 vols. Paris : Didier et Ce. 1856.

3. The Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes : its
Origin ; the Vicissitudes through which it has
passed, from St. Peter to Pius IX ; is it the
Life of Rome, the Glory of Italy, the "Magna
Charta'' of Christendom ? Discussed Historically
by the Very Rev. Canon Miley, D.D., Rector
of the Irish College, Paris. Author of " Rome
under Paganism and the Papacy," "History of
the Papal States," &(^ In three volumes.
Volume the first. Dublin : J. Duffy ; Paris :
Perisse, freres, 1856.

contents.

Abt. Page.

4. Histoire de Photius, Patriarche de Constantinople,

Auteur du Schisme des Grecs. Par M. L'Abbe
Jager, Chanoine Honoraire de Paris et de Nancy,
Professor d'Histoire a la Sorbonne, 2e Edition.
Paris : A Vaton, 1845.

5. History of Byzantine Empire, from DCCXVI. to

MLVII. By George Finlay, Honorary Member of
the Society of Literature. Edinburgh : W. Black-
wood, 1853.

6. The History of the Papacy to the Period of the

Reformation. By the Rev. J. E. Riddle, M.A.,
Minister of St. Philip and St. James, Leckhamp-
ton, 2 vols. London : R. Bentley, 1854.

7. Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the Great

Latin'Patriarchate. Books i. and ii. From the
First *to the Close of the Fifth Century. By
Thomas Greenwood, M.A., Camb. and Durh.,
F. R. S. L., Barrister-at-Law. London : C. J.
Stewart, 1856, ... ... ... 344

IV. — Dr. Lingard's History of England. Sixth edition,

vols, vii.-viii. London: Dolman ... ... 383

V. — Poesies et Nouvelles de Madame D'Arbouville. (Se
vend au profit de deux (Euvres de Charlte.) Pari*
Libraire D'Amyot Editeur ; 8, Rue de la Paix.
1855. ... ... ... ... 411

VI. The Rambler, October and November, 1856, ... 441

VII. — The Great World of London. By Henry Mayhew.

Parts 1—9. Loudon : David Bogue, ... 470

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

SEPTEMBER, 1856.

Art. T. — Dr. LingarcCs Histoty of England. Sixth Edition, vols. vi.
and vii. London : Dolman.

LIBERTY ill this country fell with the Papal Supre-
macy. It has been shown that the result of servility
to royalty was the establishment of the Royal Supremacy.
It is now to be shown that the Reformation was simply the
result of royal tyranny. The establishment of the Royal
Supremacy did not arise from any alteration of religion,
either in the nation or the Church, nor even in the sove-
reign. Henry remained, in faith, a Catholic, until his death.
The common idea is that the Reformation caused the
separation from Rome, and that the establishment of the
Royal Supremacy arose from an alteration of religion.
This is an entire error. The Royal Supremacy was
established simply for purposes of policy. It was merely a
means of riveting the yoke of tyranny. In the statutes
establishing it no religious reasons are assigned for it.
The reasons assigned were only reasons of expediency.
The measure was consummated in 1534. And for years
afterwards — until the accession of Henry's heir — no change
of religion took place. It was not even professed that the
Royal Supremacy was established from a disbelief in the
Divine sanction of the Papal Supremacy. This is most
remarkable. The common idea is that the English
Church and nation " shook off," as the phrase is, *' the
yoke of Rome,'* from a sincere conviction of its unscrip-
tural and unchristian character, and the "errors of
Romanism." This is the ^universal impression, among

VOL. XLI—No. LXXXl. * 1

2 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

even educated classes in this country ; nay, to some extent
it is the idea of many Catholics ; at all events to this
extent, that the English Church, or parliament, under
Henry, renounced the Roman Supremacy. Yet it is alto-
gether a delusion. The king compelled his church and
parliament — for he was despotic — not to renounce the
Roman Supremacy, but to accept his own. It was not
that they" shook off '* a yoke. They yielded to a yoke ;
the yoke of kingly tyranny. They put their necks, and
the necks of their posterity, under the yoke of a tyranny
more atrocious than had ever been before imposed upon
the most enslaved of civilized and Christian nations.
They did so from no religious motives, nor upon any
religious opinions at all. They were not asked to do so
upon any religious grounds. Their enactments upon
the subject were not professedly based upon any religious
opinions. They did not even disavow the lawfulness
of the Papal Supremacy. They took no such broad
and pseudo-Scriptural ground. J They simply admitted
the King to be Head of the Church in this country.
It might be, that logically, and theologically, this was
inconsistent — as of course practically it was — with the
Papal Supremacy. But they did not^ profess to deem
it so, or if they did, they did not dare to disavow the
Divine authority of the See of St. Peter. They simply
said, " It is expedient, and is the royal pleasure, that the
Papal Supremacy shall not be exercised in this country,'*
which was no more, in principle, than had been said by
parliament for two centuries before. Under Edward III.
parliament had declared that the Papal Supremacy should
not be exercised in this country except at the pleasure of
the sovereign, and now Henry only got his parliament to
declare that it was his pleasure that it should not be exer-
cised at all. Where was the difference in principle ? The
supreme power in any country is that which has the
supreme decision as to the exercise of power, whether
spiritual or temporal. Henry's predecessors had, with the
aid of servile parliaments, already acquired the power of
restricting the exercise of the Papal Supremacy at their
pleasure. He prevented its exercise at all. This was not
i\ change of religion. It was simply a spiritual rebellion.
Henry said to the Holy Father, *' You shall not determine
any ecclesiastical causes arising in this realm. You shall
not interfere in the nomination of bishops or archbishops."

1856.] The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 3

But he did not deny that the Pope was the Father of the
Church. It is true that Henry asserted that he was
Supreme Head of the Church in this country. But this
was only puttinpj into words what his predecessors had
virtually asserted by their acts ; that is, that they had the
power of saying how far the Papal Supremacy should be
exercised in this country. And there can be no doubt
that so much had men's minds been sophisticated by the
subtle but false distinctions between spiritual and tem-
poral, and the royal power of deciding what was *' spiri-
tual" and what was '' temporal," that many would see no
distinction in principle between the new assertion of the
Royal Supremacy and the previous assertions of the royal
authority, the effect of which virtually was to make the
exercise .of Papal Supremacy 'dependant upon the royal
pleasure. They desired no more than to suspend its
exercise entirely. But we repeat, neither he nor his
servile parliament dared to deny its existence, or repu-
diate its lawfulness, and they only set up reasons of policy
and' expediency against allowing its exercise.

What those reasons were, we have shown from the
statutes, and will show by the result. The statutes avowed
in the most shameless way two leading motives, the king's
jealousy about " treasure going to Rome," and his impa-
tience about the marriage with Anne Boleyn. Immedi-
ately upon the establishment of the Royal Supremacy
Cranmer confirmed the marriage with Anne, and parlia-
ment made it treason to ** slander it," i.e., to dispute its
validity! Dr. Lingard justly directs the particular
attention of his readers to this iniquitous act, which, as he
truly observes, though soon swept away, served as a pre-
cedent for subsequent legislation of a similar character ;
in some respects continued down to our own times; as in
the royal marriage acts. It was made treason by an
English parliament to deny the validity of a marriage con-
tracted during the lifetime of a wife, with whom the sove-
reign had cohabited for twenty years, and whose marriage
with him had only been declared void by one of his own
creatures — the wretched Cranmer — and by a parliament
of slavish creatures like him ! And we are taught to
regard the Royal Supremacy as associated with emancipa-
tion of mind and the rise of " freedom" and enlighten-
ment, and the " reformation" of religion. With religion
it had nothing on earth to do ; and as to emancipation it

4 Tlie Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

was simply the riveting of one of the most grinding,
degrading tyrannies that had ever been known. Lust and
rapacity were ahnost avowed and clearly betrayed, as the
motives for its establishment, even upon the face of the
very statutes effecting it. And lust having been satiated
in the union with Anne, rapacity was speedily gratified in
the oppression of religious houses. Here again v/e pause
to remark upon the common error that these and simikir
measures had any origin in a change of opinion on the
part of Church or nation. Not at all. They simply
resulted from the royal will. The Church of England
never pronounced any opinion upon these or any other
matters, except as the mere mouthpiece and at the abso-
lute dictation of the sovereign. They had admitted the
king to be her head on earth, and of course could not dis-
pute the will of her head. She was enslaved, as was the
nation. These measures were the measures merely of the
crown. In fact, the first effect of the suppression of the Royal
Supremacy was the establishment of the most iniquitous and
execrable tyranny. How should it have been otherwise ?
It had been the great bulwark against tyranny. It had
only been suppressed through servility to the royal will.
And now tyranny had no restraint. The very assertion of
the Royal Supremacy was the assertion of royal irresponsi-
bility. And the people found a remedy only in rebellion.
When some of the heads of "religious houses refused to
betray their trusts at the royal will, and were arraigned
for treason, juries could not be brought to convict — so
monstrous was the iniquity — until threatened personally
by Henry's infamous minions with the fate they were
made the instruments of inflicting on the poor monks.
They were convicted, ** and the sentence of the law was
executed with the most barbarous exactitude,'' wrote Dr.
Lingard. ** They were suspended, cut down alive, em-
bowelled, and dismembered." ^ Such were the horrors
which accompanied the suppression of the Papal Supre-
macy. Advocates of the Church of England disclaim any
responsibility for them. The responsibility is immaterial.
What is material is this, that whatever assent the Church
of England gave to the anti-papal and anti-Catholic legis-
lation of this or subsequent reigns, was extorted from her
under a terrorism, which resulted from these horrors, and
under peril of the laws by which they were perpetrated.
Her assent, therefore, while sufficient to unchurch her and

1856.1 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 5

cut her off from Catholic communion, was not an act to
which her members can appeal as any evidence of her own
sincere conviction or mdeed of her own teaching. She had
made herself the mistress of a tyrant ; she ceased to teach.
She merely became the mouthpiece and the tool of
tyranny. Henceforth she only echoed with servile acqui-
escence the erratic utterances of an arbitrary voice. From
the moment she admitted the Royal Supremacy she had
surrendered all right of independent judgment, she spoke
only at the royal will. So far from having emancipated
herself, she had enslaved herself. She could not denude
herself of responsibility. But she deprived herself of
authority. She derived no excuse from her enslavement,
for it was the result of her cowardice, and her mean sur-
render of her function. She chose to be enslaved rather
than to suffer. From that moment she had no free voice,
and having no free voice she could never after claim to be
listened to by her children. It did not please the tyrant
at that moment further to tamper with her faith, and she
was permitted to retain it for some years longer. But she
had solemnly surrendered to the sovereign the trust she
had received to teach it, and submitted to his power of
changing it when it should so please him. To this hour
the Church of England, as by law established, has never
been permitted by the crown freely to speak her own mind
upon the subject of the Roman Primacy and the Catholic
faith. And though chargeable with all the guilt of heresy
and schism, because she bowed beneath the yoke of
tyranny which imposed them, heresy and schism can
derive no shadow of excuse from her assumed authority.
She has never dared to declare freely and truly her mind,
ever since it became dangerous to declare the truth. She
preferred to be sordid, and she deserved to be enslaved.
She kept — not the faith — but the temporalities. She
bowed tamely to tyranny. She had never, even up to this
time, no, nor until long after she had surrendered her free-
dom and become enslaved, had she ever professed the least
doubt as to the Catholic faith. Her submission to the
Royal Supremacy was wrung from her by terror, and her
acquiescence in the measures which resulted from it had
the same cause. The vulgar notion that the Church of
England shook off the yoke of Rome because of the errors
of Rome, is an absurd error. The Church of England
never professed to find any errors in the Catholic faith, so

6 The Reformation the Result of Tijranny. [Sept.

long as she was free. She professed to find them out lonf?
afterwards, at the bidding of the power to which she had
become enslaved. They who justify their schism or their
heresy by the supposed authority of the State Church, lean
indeed not merely upon a broken but a rotten reed. For
she had never, "while free, spoken a word against the
CathoUc faith or the supremacy of Rome. And never
said she a word against either until she had become so
enslaved as to hold her very existence at the will of a
tyrant, and was ruled by his minions under all the terrors
of the axe, and the horrors of the gibbet ; — not until after
the murder of Fisher, the martyrdom of More, the
butchering of monks and abbots, and the wholesale
slaughter of the people.

The wholesale slaughter of the people, for the people
rebelled ; and heresy and schism can no more claim the
credit of \\\efree suffrages of the English nation than the
English Church. The English people never became Pro-
testant until they had become enslaved. The deaths of
Fisher and More, and the execution of the monks, spread
horror and terror throughout the country. Erasmus wrote
that the English lived under such a systeni of terror that
they dared not write to foreigners nor receive letters from
them ! The spirit of the nation soon rose against this
revolting system, and the whole of the north of England —
from the Tweed to the Humber — was in rebellion. The
insurgents distinctly complained of the suppression of the
monasteries, and the elevation [into power of men like
Cranmer and Cromwell, whom they denounced as secret
enemies of the Church of Christ. The Archbishop of
York, and several peers, placed themselves at the head of
the rebellion, but unhappily tyranny proved too strong.
The struggle was too late. The fetters of arbitrary power
had already been too firmly rivetted, and England was
enslaved. But from that time until the Great Rebellion —
which was the result of a reaction against the royal
tyranny now established and was the retribution of the
Reformation, — aye, even until the Revolution, and long
after, there were a constant succession of insurrections in
one part of the kingdom or another, showing how
intensely the people of this country were attached to their
ancient faith; how reluctant they were to relinquish it,
how opposed they were to the rise of Protestantism, and
how it was [forced upon them by royal tyranny ; royal

1856.] The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 7

tyranii}'-, which could never have succeeded iu enslavhig
them had it not been for the suppression of the Supremacy
of the Holy See, which had so long proved the bulwark of
freedom, and of which the downfall was the downfall of
liberty in this country.

And who were the most active agents in thus enslaving
England ? Among others one John Russell, who with the
Pagets, the Seymours, and other profligate parasites of
royalty, were now rising into rank and wealth upon the
ruins of the religious houses. The priors of the three
Charterhouses — of London, Axeholm, and Belleval — had
been executed as traitors for refusing to betray their
trusts, and the abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury, and
Reading, endured the like fate for the like reason. Whit-
ing, the Abbot of Glastonbury, a " very sick and weakly
old man," was sent to the Tower, and brought to confess
that he concealed some of the monastery church plate from
the king's minions. He was doomed to a felon's death,
and the Lord John Russell of that day, the first of the
race who was ennobled — ennobled for such services to a
tyrant as we are about to narrate — wrote .thus to Crom-
well:—

" My lorde, this shall be to ascerteyne that on Thursday tho
Abbott was arrajned and the next daje putt to execution with two
others of his monkesfor the robbjiag (!) of Glastonberye Churche, the
sejde abbott's body being devyded in foure parts; and hedd stryken
off ; whereof one quarter standyth at Welles, another at Bathe and
at Ylchester and Brgwater the rest, and his hedde upon the Abbey
gate at Glaston."

Such were the sanguinary and sordid services for which
the house of Russell was raised to the peerage, a peerage
which we believe has very rarely descended in their house
in a direct line from father to son. Sir Henry Spelman
could tell us the reason why : God's curse on sacrilege.
Sir Henry assures us that the bill for the suppression of
the religious houses did not pass until Henry had sent for
some of the members and declared that if it did not pass
their heads should come off. The house of Russell sup-
ported such measures, as will be seen, with more than
their votes. They shed the blood of venerable men the
sooner to grasp their prey, and the names of Tavistock
and NVoburn Abbey, aye and of Convent-ga.rden, attest
the origiu of what would be a pauper peerage, but for tho

8 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

plunder of the monasteries. Such is the house which has
ever since displayed so natural an animosity against Ca-
tholicity, and discovers in it something calculated ** to en-
slave the reason and degrade the soul V

In the meantime, those who dared to differ from the
royal will in matters of religion were burnt, under the aus-
pices of Latimer and Cranmer, the Protestant ** martyrs.'*
What a monument of Protestant ignorance and prejudice
is the "Martyr Memorial" at Oxford! erected to the
memory of men who themselves burnt men to death, for
differing from their royal master in religion ! Latimer
preached at the martyrdom of Forest the friar, whose crime
was thus described in an inscription upon his gallows :

" Forest the prior
That infamous liar,
That wilfullj' will be dead ;
In his contumacy
The gospel doth deny,
The king to he supreme head.'*

The royal supremacy thus had its victims, under the
duspices of the apostles and ** martyrs'* of Protestantism.
Are our readers aware that there have never, in this country,
nor we believe elsewhere, been any sufferers of death for
opposition to the Papal Supremacy ? The few who suffered
subsequently for heresy under a Catholic sovereign suffered
for reviling the most sacred dogmas of the faith; not for
simply disbelieving, nor even for merely denying any doc-
trine ; least of all for denying the Papal Supremacy. The
Papal Supremacy was consecrated by martyrdoms, but
inflicted none. And it was a royal rebel against the Holy
See who first made it capital to deny matters even of disci-
pline, such as the celibacy of the clergy.

^ At the same tinie the personal rancour, not less than the
bigotry and rapacity of the tyrant, were gratified at plea-
sure. The Lord Thomas Howard, brother to the Duke of
Norfolk, was attainted to appease his jealousy. The Mar-
quis of Exeter, Lord Montague, and others fell victims to
his enmity, and the envy of the Seymours at the close of
his execrable reign, procured the murder of a nobler victim,
the accomplished and illustrious Earl of Surrey, the heir
of the house of Norfolk ; while his father was marked for
slaughter, and only escaped by the providential death of

1856.] The Reformation tJie Result of Tyranny. 9

the tyrant himself. Who were the harpies that thirsted
for the blood of the Howards, that they might batten on
their spoils ? Those upstart minions of the JKussells, the
Herberts, the Pagets, and the Seymours, who were now
laying the foundation of their fortunes, in spoliation,
slaughter and rapine ; servile sycophants to one of the
most abominable tyrants who had ever filled the throne of
a Christian nation. The Lord Russell had obtained leave
from the king to take lands of the Duke of Norfolk
to the value of ,£200 a j'ear ; Seymour to the value of
£666 ; Herbert to the value of £266 ; and so on. They
were all it seems dissatisfied with their respective shares of
the spoil. The very day of Henry's death a bill was sent
to the commons to secure a grant of lands to Paget, so
greedy were these minions for their prey. And now they
became parties to an infamous imposition which was prac-
tised upon the nation in the setting up, by false testimony,
of a pretended will of Henry's, which had never been
duly signed, and which was set up in order to secure to
them the virtual sovereignty of the realm under the appear-
ance of a ** council.'* The retribution which followed
them was terrible and exemplary, and the more remarka-
ble as it is the first evidence of that ** conspiracj' of an
oligarchy'* which was formed at the era of the Keforma-
tion to usurp the government of England, and keep it in
the hajids of a few " great families," that is, new families ;
for all these conspirators were new men, who had risen to
rank and wealth upon the ruin of the Church, and the
wreck of the religious houses, and who sought to exclude
the ancient nobility of England from their proper influence
in the Government. The chief conspirators were Seymour
the Earl of Hertford and his brother Seymour, Lord
Russell, Rich, Paget, and Herbert ; their first acts were
for their own aggrandizement. Hertford was made Duke of
Somerset; Seymour, Rich, (ancestor of the house of Holland)
Paget, and Herbert, were made barons; and ample provision
was made for the new peers to enable them to support their
dignities. To Paget, Herbert, and others were assigned
manors and lordships which had belonged to the dissolved
monasteries, or still belonged to the existing bishoprics ;
while Somerset grasped lands to the value of ,£800 a year,
with a pension of £300 a year from the first bishopric which
should become vacant ; and the incomes of a deanery and
six prebends in different cathedrals. What good reasons

10 7%e Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

had these hungry harpies to exult in the Royal Supremacy
and rejoice in the suppression of Popery ! Soon Somerset
got his satellites, Russell, Cranmer, and Paget, to concur
in a treasonable instrument conferring on him alone the
whole power of the Crown ; and when Somerset and his as-
sociates had established an unconstitutional tyranny in the
state, they set about to change the creed of the country. Now
it was, and not until now, years after the church had been
enslaved by a profligate monarch, and now was become
enslaved to a rapacious and unprincipled oligarchy, now it
was, and not until now ; now, and under the auspices of
these conspirators, that the ** Reformation" really began.
Until now, no change had taken place in the religious faith
of the country. And now it was changed, not at the will
of the national Church, but of its oppressors and plunder-
ers, a band of unscrupulous conspirators. These were the
apostles of Protestantism, Cranmer and Seymour, or
rather Seymour and Cranmer ; for Seymour aided by his
satellites was for the time sovereign, and Cranmer was his
servile tool. With what motives the conspirators acted in
their religious measures as to religion, if their characters
could leave doubtful, their' acts'render clear ; for the mea-
sures tending to change the religion were accompanied by
others confiscating all the church property which the result
of those changes would be to make " superstitious." They
proposed to suppress the chantries, colleges, and free chapels,
and the funds destined for the support of ** obits," anni-
versaries and church-lights, and all the lands of ** guilds,"
and ** fraternities" for pious purposes. Even Cranmer,
aware of the real object of the bill, spoke against it, says
Dr. Lingard, with some warmth : " But as the harpies of the
court were eager to pounce on their prey, he deemed it
prudent to withdraw his opposition." Ah, fit type of
Protestant prelacy, always supple and servile to courtly
influence, and ready to acquiesce in any measures the mo-
ment opposition became perilous. The Royal Supremacy
had been admitted by men of such character, and only such
men of such character, could ever condescend to accept
an episcopate, schismatic, degraded, and despoiled.

Under such auspices the *' Book of Common Prayer"
was in its original iovxn. established; its original form,
which, as many of our readers are aware, differed most
essentially from its present form, so as to put the admirers

185G.J The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 11

of the Church of England in an extremely embarrassing
dilemma.

It is a curious circumstance that the only temporal peer
of any high influence who protested against the act estab-
lishing it was the Earl of Derby, who boasted that his
*' nay" would remain on record as long as parliament
remained. Alas ! its record now exists to reproach the
house of Derby for having swerved from their spirited
ancestor's courageous fidelity to the old faith of England.
But we mjast say this of the house of Derby, that it is
free from that stain of sacrilege which so disgraces most
of the houses of his whig rivals ; and it contrasts nobly in
this respect with the history of the Seymours and the
llussells. The house of Derby was too spirited to become
the parasites of profligate tyranny, and so escaped the con-
tagion of that sin of sacrilege which in that age had such
terrible retributions. Somerset's brother Seymour, of
Sudeley, (mark, Sudeley had belonged to an Abbey,
and he and his brother had shared the spoils of many
religious houses ;) now entered into a rivalry with his
brother, which ended in his brother bringing him to the
block. Then Russell and Paget and others united in
destroying Somerset, and ultimately he was brought to the
block. Meanwhile, the people, enraged at the monstrous
sacrileges of the conspirators, rose in rebellion, and Russell
and s'Herbert were active in slaughtering them, for which
services they got earldoms ; and hence, out of such achieve-
ments, arose the titles of Bedford and Pembroke. So these
wicked men went on working their nefarious plots, and
one after another meeting their just retribution ; ** deside^
rium peccatorum peribit /"

These were the men under whom the tyranny of the
"royal supremacy" was rivetted upon the nation: and
it was made treason to deny it ! That the tyranny now
rampant however was that of an oligarchy less than of a
monarchy — an oligarchy of abandoned men who had
risen into wealth and rank upon the ruin and the plunder
of the Church ; — is plain from this fact, that Somerset had,
from an obsequious and servile council, filled with his
flatterers and fools, obtained a confirmation of a commis-
sion practically vesting in him the whole power of the
crown ! Ere long the new tyranny pressed heavily upon
the people and drove them to revolt. The suppression of
the monasteries having caused an increase of mendicancy.

12 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept,

the most cruel statutes were passed to punish the unhappy-
creatures who were guilty of begging their bread. They
were actually adjudged to be the slaves of the reformers,
and to be burnt in the face with red hot irons, and
branded with the initial letter of the word slave !
Such was one of the first fruits of the progress of the
**free spirit" of Protestantism. And this statute was

Fassed under the auspices of Cranmer, then archbishop,
t is true it was repealed in two years ; but only in conse-
quence of revolt. By acts of parliament passed by the
same men who had enacted these cruel and atrocious
statutes — the holy sacrifice was supressed, and the Calvin-
istic service instituted.

The people at once arose in arms. Let it be observed
we are not now entering into the theological question at all.
Indeed we will assume for the moment that Calvinism
was truth. What we are concerned in showing is, that
it was imposed upon the nation against its will ; by force
of arms, with bloodshed and with slaughter ; by all the
fell weapons of a cruel tyranny. The people rose in a
great part of England. And Dr. Lingard truly states
that if the insurrections were finally suppressed, it was
only with the aid of foreign troops : the bands of adven-
turers who had been raised in Italy, Spain, and Germany,
to serve in a war against Holland, abandoned mercenaries
— the brigands of Enrope — ready to fight in any cause for
pay. Yes, let the alarming fact be never forgotten, the
liturgy of the Established Church was imposed on a
reluctant nation by force of arms, and by foreign merce-
naries. Not that the new nobility — the heads of the
upstart houses which had been built on plunder and
founded on confiscation — were wanting in their efforts
to enslave their fellow countrymen ; but they could not
succeed without the aid of foreign brigands, paid out of
the spoils of the ancient Church, and brought over to
slaughter its defenders. The Herberts, the Pagets, the
Russells, and the Greys, they were active enough in the
bloody work. Herbert, the ancestor of the House of
Pembroke, — Russell, the progenitor of the man who wrote
the Durham letter, — Grey, Somerset, and others of this
infamous oligarchy, slew the people without mercy in
every part of the country merely for rising in defence of
their altars — in defence of the ancient religion of England.
Tens of thousands perished on the field, — thousands were

185G.1 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 13

slain with cruelty — more fell in cold blood. We hear a
good deal from protestant writers of the cruelties alleged
to have been perpetrated under James II., on suppressing
the rebellion of Monmouth. But we never hear from
these partial historians of the enormous atrocities com-
mitted by the apostles of the new religion originally
established. " During ;| these disturbances," (writes the
venerable Lingard, in one of his interesting notes,)
" martial law was executed in every part of the kingdom ,
and often, as we are told, with little attention to justice.
Sir A. Kyngstone, provost of the western army (which was
under Lord Russell) distinguished himself by the promp-
titude of his decision, and the pleasantry with which
he accompanied it. Having dined with the mayor of
Bodmin, he asked him if the gallows was sufficiently
strong. The mayor replied that he thought so. " Then,"
said Kingstone, " go up and try," and hanged him
without further ceremony. On another occasion, having
received information against a miller, he proceeded to
the mill, and not finding the master at home, ordered his
servant to the gallows, bidding him be content, for it was
the best service which he had ever rendered his master."
Such were the horrors and such the terrors, under which
the new service was forced upon the people of this country.
Such were the inaugural exercises of the rise and progress
of this ** true religion" and *' spirit of freedom," which
we are told are the characteristics of Protestantism.

Meanwhile the head of that abandoned oligarchy, who
perpetrated these atrocities for their own sordid purpose,
carried his tyranny to a stretch of insolence previously
without parallel in the history of England, and which
at last scandalized even his servile associates. tHis
friend Paget wrote to him, *' of late your grace is grown
in great choleric fashion, whenever you are contraried
in that which you have conceived in your head." A
quaint reproach but just. His rapacity was equal to his
tyranny, and was indeed, its main motive. He had
grasped two hundred manors or estates out of the spoils
of the Church. To build Somerset House, he had
demolished the parish church, ordered the bishops to
give up their episcopal residences, and to get materials he
had pulled down several chapels and religious houses.
Sacrilege brought its retribution. Kassell and Herbert,
with the army that they had used so cruelly in the west

14 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. \ Sept.

aorainst theu' countrymen, conspired against him with
Warwick, and the servile Cranmer, ever ready to join
with the strongest ! Paget, and a crowd of similar
creatures, soon deserted Somerset; and his fate was sealed.
Before long, Warwick, surpassing in insolence the tyrant
he had supplanted, unsatisfied with the dukedom of
Northumberland, actually conspired to get the crown into
his family ; — a height of insolence to which as yet, no
subject of the realm not of royal blood, in his mad-
dest flights of ambition had ever dared to soar. The
Protestant Protector, under the influence of a purer
religion, and the impulses of evangelical principles, pre-
sumed to conspire, and to conspire by the darkest means,
by the aid of the first Protestant primate, (for Cranmer,
as usual, servile to the party in power, soon joined in the
conspiracy) to set aside the true heir to the crown, and
substitute a private subject! There is little doubt that
the young king fell a victim to these vile machinations,
for he perished so soon as he came under the power of
Northumberland. The wicked Ridley seconded the
servile Cranmer, and had the impudence to preach at
Paul's Cross, maintaining the illegitimacy of Mary !
But the loyalty of England, then as on so many other
occasions, championed by Catholics, speedily crushed the
insolent conspiracy. And the daughter of the virtuous
Catherine ascended the throne.

Now to have a right impression of the reign of Mary
with reference especially to religion, it is necessary to
take a retrospective view of the state of opinion in the
nation up to the time of her accession. And Dr. Lingard
took the just view as it appears to us, when he wrote that
although her subjects in general were attached to the
ancient worship, they had a strong antipathy to the papal
jurisdiction. The new service, he truly states, and we
have surely shown, had been established upon ** compul-
sion, not upon conviction." But the supremacy of the
Pontiff," continues the historian, " appeared in a different
light. Its exercise in England had been abolished for
thirty years." That is, abolished formally by law. In
previous articles, we have shown that practically, and in
effect, it had been abolished for a century and a half.
'* T'he existing generation knew no more of the Pope^
his pretensions, or his authority, than luhat they had
learned from his adversaries." Ah! and that was

1856.] The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 1 5

almost true of some generations before; and it is true,
alas ! in a great degree, of most of the generations since
that era. And it is our object in these papers to show that
to these views of the authority of the Papacy, are to be
ascribed the calamities of England and of Europe ; the
decline of true knowledge, the fall of real liberty, the
growth of tyranny, and all the other evil fruits of heresy.
'* His usurpation and tyranny had been the favourite theme
of the .preachers*' (as it has been of the writers) " and
the reestablish nient of his supremacy had always been
described to them as the worst evil which could befall their
country. In addition, it was said and believed, that the
restoration of ecclesiastical property was essentially
connected with the recognition of the papal authority."
Ah, there was the rub. " If the spoils of the Church had
been at first confined to a few favourites and purchasers,
they were now become by sales and bequests divided
and subdivided among thousands, and almost every
family of opulence in the kingdom had reason to depre-
cate a measure which, according to the general opinion
would insure the compulsive surrender of the whole or
a part of its possession."

<-:■ Thus, then, the bulk of the people, by ignorance and
prejudice, and the body of the wealthier classes, from
interest, were estranged from the Papacy : while even
among such as were free from corrupt influences of self-
interest, by reason of the long growth of anti-papal
traditions, and the spirit of anti-papal legislation, a feeling
very far from that of loyal and hearty fidelity to the
Papacy existed in England, or, indeed, anywhere in
Europe. And then as to the Sovereign herself, the com-
mon idea of her character, as that of a blind and bigotted
adherent of the Holy See, is founded upon utter ignorance.
She was a pious Catholic, but like thousands of pious
catholics in that age, not merely laymen, but priests and
prelates, she was very far from realizing the degree of
obedience due to the Vicar of Christ, and did not
hesitate to disobey him whenever she pleased. It may
startle many to read this of Mar}'-, but it is as true of her
as it is of almost all Catholic Sovereigns, in that or any
other age : even of those who, by comparison, may be
called ''good;" — they preferred their own will to that of
the Pope. Thus Ferdinand " the Catholic," as he is
called, hanged men who brought into his country Papal

16 The Re/ormationthe Result of Tyranny. f Sept.

Bulls against his will: just as our own Edwards did
or threatened to do. And as Edward II. ordered a Papal
legate to be stopped and searched at Dover, so Mary pre-
vented a Papal legate from entering her dominions when
she apprehended that he might thwart her will. In the
statute reestablishing the Papal Supremacy was an express
reservation of those '* rights of the regalty** which the Crown
of England had ever asserted ; comprising the statutes of
prcemunire and provisors, which as we have seen practi-
cally neutralized that supremacy ; and so thoroughly, that
when Henry VIII. dared to destroy it, and when Mary
wished to obstruct it, they had neither of them anything to
do but to enforce those statutes.

The truth is that the sacredness of the Papal Supremacy',
as a part of the Catholic religion, was hardly appreciated
or acknowledged in that age. It was imagined, as it had
been imagined ever since kingly tyranny had been riveted
on the nation, that there might be the Catholic faith and
worship without any practical or active principle of obedi-
ence to the Holy See. Theoretically and as a question of
theology, it was admitted ; but practically and virtuall.y it
was not realized. Hence the fall of religion and of liberty
in this country. And Mary failed to retrieve their errors,
because she retained that evil principle which had caused
it, the latent principle of resistance to Papal authority ; i.e.
the principle of a power in. legislation, or in sovereignty,
to limit and restrain it ; to prescribe the field for its exer-
cise or the scope for its action ; to say ** thus far and no
further." This involved of course the practical and logical
destruction of the Papal Supremacy ; for it iniplied that the
political power of a nation was superior to it ; and that at
the pleasure of the latter it might be resisted, as it was
resisted, by Mary, not less than by Henry ; by Henry
yill., not more than by Edward III. And it is the ."more
important to observe this since, in ignorance of it, whatever
odium belongs to the character of Mary's reign, is asso-
ciated with the Papacy ; whereas, beyond a formal re-
acknowledgment of the Papal Supremacy, to no greater
extent than it had been admitted by those sovereigns who
had most limited and restrain ol it, there was no recogni-
tion of the authority of the Holy See, and little or no
definite obedience to it ; so little indeed, that the Pope was
compelled in order to attain the nominal recognition of

1856.] The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 1 7

his authority to relinquish the sacred right to restitution,
and he was not even able to change his legate.

The Queen, with something of the imperious and re-
bellious spirit of her father, preferred her relative Cardinal
Pole, and refused to receive his successor. So little did
she understand of the obedience due to the Holy See. In
truth she governed England, or her ministers did for her,
with the aid of her councils and her parliament, with very
little recourse to the Holy See. It is true that for the most
part she governed justly ; but on the other hand they, and
not the Holy See, must bear the responsibility of other
measures, taken without its sanction, but with the sanction
of the council and the parliament. In some able papers
on this subject some time ago our contemporary the Ram-
bler showed that these measures of persecution were adopted
not only without the sanction of the Holy See, but against
the wishes of the Papal Legate, and not at the will of the pre-
lates nor of the Queen, but at the instigation of the council;
which comprised many false friends and treacherous foes of
the Church ; men anxious about the preservation of the
spoils they had acquired from her property, and desirous of
promoting a reaction against her by some acts of cruelty
which should counteract the impressions produced by their
own atrocities in former reigns. Too well they succeeded.
And the flames of Smithfield, lighted up by the deceit and
insidious agency of the enemies of the Papacy, its covert
foes, or its false or half-hearted friends, destroyed the
Catholic religion in England ; and sowed the seeds of
bitter prejudices and violent passions which survive to this
day. Let this fact be impi*essed upon the minds of all who
read; that as the first statutes for the burning of heretics
were passed under Henry IV. by the enemies of the Papacy,
by the very parliament which passed the last of the series
of anti-papal statutes, and desired to confiscate the property
of the Church ; so the burning of heretics was enforced
under Mary by the enemies of the Papacy, and by the very
men who,uponherdeath,eagerly joined in destroying it, and
who had the best reasons for desiring to destroy it, as they
were gorged with Church plunder, and were harpies ever
eager for prey ; sycophants ever servile to power. Yes !
it is an historical fact, that force was never resorted to
in this country against religious opinions properly speak-
ing at all, except by the Protestants. For the Lollards
under Henry IV. , or the Protestants under Mary, were rebels

VOL. XLl.— No. LXXXI. 2

18 The Reformation tJie Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

and traitors, aud rebelled against lawful authority, the law
and religion established by the common law of the realm.
But be that as it may, the sword was never unsheathed,
the stake was never erected, the fire was never lighted to
destroy heretics, but by enemies of the Papacy."' The
truth is, that Mary, not herself sufficiently loyal to the
Holy See, failed to receive the obedience she failed to
render ; and thus in her instance, as in numerous others,
received the retribution of a half-hearted and hesitating
obedience to God. She knew the Pope was Christ's vicar,
and nominally acknowledged him as such. But she did
not obey him as such. And hence she was left to her own
councils, and they, alas ! betrayed her. When the Pope
thought proper to change his legate in England, *' Mary's
respect for the Papal authority, '* writes Dr. Lingard,
** did not prevent her from having recourse to the pre-
cautions which had so often been employed by her pre-
decessors. The bearer of the papal letters was arrested,
his despatches sent to the queen, and the letters of revoca-
tion secreted or destroyed. Thus Pole never received
official notice of his recall."

And in that very same year the Queen and Pole died,
within twenty-four hours of each other. Mary had failed
to render the sacrifice of obedience to the Vicar of Christ ;
she had adhered to her own will, chosen her own council-
lors, and followed their measures. The result was that
she failed in re-establishing the Catholic religion, which
can only be founded upon the rock of loyalty and fidelity
to the successors of St. Peter. Her life was shortened by
disappointment, and her reign closed to usher in the
re-establishment of heresy and tyranny ; we say heresy
and tyranny, for Mary was no tyrant to the people ; and
we have already shown, and shall soon see again, that the
decline of Catholicity was ever the fall of liberty. When
gome servile minion wrote a work recommending to her
absolutism, she asked the opinion of honest Gardiner, who
paid indignantly, " Madam, the book is nought," and she
burnt it. What was the character of the reign of Eliza-
beth? Three words describe it. Heresy, tyranny, and

• Since Dr. Lingard wrote, such books as Mr. Maitland's learned
work on the Reformation have amply established this, even on Pro-
testant authority.

1856. j The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 19

immorality. First tyranny. The principles which Mary's
Catholic councillors repudiated, the Protestant queen car-
ried out. She made herself absolute, not merely over the
lives and liberties of her subjects, but their consciences.
She arrogated to herself spiritual supremacy not less than
temporal, and made it treason to deny it ! She abrogated
by force the religion recognized by the common law, and
the ancient constitution of England, and which, in accor-
dance with that constitution, she had taken an oath to
maintain. Her instruments in rivetting the yoke of
tyranny upon England were the members of that infamous
oligarchy who had tyrannized over it in the name of
Edward — Russell, and Herbert, and Grey, and Seymour.
New peerages were created to secure the subserviency of
the upper house, and in the lower a majority was secured
by sending to the sheriffs lists of court candidates, out of
whom the members were to be chosen. These acts, aided
by cruel statutes, denouncing the terrors of capital punish-
ment against all who resisted the royal tyranny, made the
Queen absolute.

The Catholic bishops were to a man deprived of their
sees, for refusing to recognise the queen's spiritual supre-
macy, she having herself sworn to govern according to the
ancient religion and constitution which were based upon
the Papal Supremacy. Even had she any right to the
throne at all, (which she could not have, being a bastard,)
this enormous stretch of tyranny would, by the recognized
constitutional principles of mediaeval Europe, have deprived
her of it. Men talk of the tyranny of James II. in attempting
mildly to coerce Protestant prelates into a little toleration of
Catholicism. Here we have a Protestant queen at one blow
depriving the entire hierarchy of the country, for refusing
to take a novel oath, unheard of until the reign of tyranny
had commenced in England, and directly at variance with
the common law and the ancient constitution of the
realm, and with the sovereign's oaths at the coronation.
Yet we never hear from Protestant writers of the tyranny
of this ; and those who write so falsely about Papal dis-
pensations of faith with heretics, forget the Protestant
power of dispensations by which Elizabeth, their favourite
paragon of royal and virgin virtue, obtained the crown hy
an oath she scrupled not speedily to disregard, in the
oppression and persecution of a large body of her subjects.
In the same way those who declaim about the cruelties of

20 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. \ Sept

Mary are oblivious of the fell penal laws enacted by Eliza-
beth, and manage always to forget that Mary made no
penal laws, and only allowed the execution of those already
in existence, whereas the restoration of Protestantism was
inaugurated by the enactment of the most cruel and
bloody set of penal laws ever known in any country since
the times of pagan persecution. Servile heretics were, by
the royal authority, thrust into all the sees of the kingdom,
and they readily reinvested in their mistress all the ecclesi-
astical property which Mary had restored to the Church,
from the plunder vested in the crown, and also agreed to
a statute, by which the Queen was empowered on the
vacancy of any bishopric to take possession of the land
belonging to it, (with the exception of the chief mansion-
house and domain) on condition that she gave in return an
equivalent in tithes and parsonages appropriate ; — the reign
of that system of pluralities and non-residence and mis-
appropriation of tithes which form such a scandal in the
Establishment. The oath of supremacy was then tendered
by these servile instruments of tyranny to the clergy of
the different dioceses. In general it was refused, writes
Dr. Liugard, " the deans, prebendaries, archdeacons,
and the leading members of the universities, who sacri-
ficed their offices and emoluments, and in some cases
their personal liberty, to the dictates of their consciences:
but among the lower orders of the clergy, many thought
proper to conform : some through partiality for the new
doctrines : some through the dread of poverty : some
under the persuasion that the present would soon be
followed by a new religious revolution.'' Merely observ-
ing, with regard to that portion of the lower orders of the
clergy who it is supposed conformed through partiality
for the new doctrines, that they could hardly have been
sincere in their partiality for anything except emoluments ;
since they were all contentedly administering the catholic
sacraments and services under Mary — we draw attention
to this passage, as doing the highest honour to the old
Catholic hierarchy of England at this, (the real era of the
alteration of religion) — and, as showing at the same time
the means by which heresy was established in this
country; — brute force. With regard to the character of
the Catholic hierarchy, it should ever be remembered to
their honour that all the bishops, and almost all the deans,
prebendaries, heads of houses, archdeacons, and other

1856. 1 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 21

dignitaries of the higher orders of the clergy, were faith-
ful to the Church, and' even confessors of Christ. And
it is worthy of remark that the conformists to heresy
were among the lower orders of the clergy, the least
educated, the most likely to be low-minded and sordid in
their character, most subservient to the powerful and the
rich. This is a fact fatal to the theory of those who as-
cribe the Reformation to the fault of the Church or the
country, and especially to her clergy having grown too
wealthy, or too haughty, or too worldly. The simple fact,
that the higher orders of her clergy were faithful to the
truth, and were impregnable to all the temptations of
wealth, and all the blandishments of power, disproves this
theory, and destroys the idea so favourite among mean
and sordid-minded men, that it is good to keep the Church
poor, for which pretence they have plundered her in
every country and at every time. Hypocrites ! as if
riches could be good for them if evil for churchmen ; as if
wealth had not been, even by the most worldly or the least
spiritual-minded churchmen, devoted, upon the whole, to
far nobler and more liberal uses than by the laity. Ah !
the monuments of churchmen's use of wealth are, or were,
to be seen in sacred fanes or noble edifices, dedicated to
religion, or charity, or education, in every city of Chris-
tendom ; but the memorials which the rebellious of the
laity have left, are the ruins, which form the silent and
reproachful records of their violence, their rapine, and
their sacrilege ! To return, however, to the character of
the higher order of the clergy in the time of Elizabeth, we
repeat the great fact, that they remained in time of fiery
trial faithful to the truth, and proof against all temptations
to betray it. The fact was, either that they had risen
greatly in character since the time of Henry VIII., when
they acknowledged the Royal Supremacy, or, (which is
perhaps more correct,) they had then been deceived and
entrapped into a step of which experience had since taught
them the fatal effects. And now they were faithful to their
sacred trust, and refused to betray it at the bidding of a
tyrant.

Before passing from this triumphant proof of their fide-
lity, let us remind our readers of another fact as much to
the credit of the religious orders, that in the reign of
Henry VIII., even the subservient parliament, which
passed edicts of spoliation at the tyrant's will, left on record

22 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

a tribute to the memory of the religious of that age, in
the acknowledgment, which stands recorded on the
statute book, that in ** all the largo houses religion was
right well observed." These great facts establish beyond
all doubt the sincerity, the purity, the fidelity of the great
bulk of the clergy, religious and secular, at the time of the
Reformation, and especially of the prelates and abbots,
(many of whom met martyrdom in defence of their trust,)
and the higher orders of the clergy. So that the common
notion that the Reformation in some degree proceeded
from the "corruption" or " worldliness" of the prelacy,
and the higher order of the clergy, is as utterly false as
are all the other calumnious traditions coined by the
knaves who destroyed the Church, and made current by
weak and credulous men, who in every age are to be found
more ready to repose faith in her enemies than in herself.
No, the real cause of the religious revolution called the
Reformation, and which, as we have surely shown, had
nothing to do with religion, and was rather destruction
than revolution, was the worldliness and wretchedness not
of the clergy, but of the laity ; who resenting the influence
exercised by the Church, in restraining their vices, and
resisting their evil passions, joined the crown in a conspi-
racy to cripple her sacred power ; and when she refused to
be chained, to destroy it altogether, that they might no
longer have any check upon their wickedness, and might
satiate at once their pride, their lust, and their rapacity.
Ever since the time of our Edwards a wicked monarchy,
and a wicked aristocracy had been labouring at their
accursed work, loading the Church with all the odium
which belonged to their own vices ; laying upon her the
obloquy of their profligate expenditure and waste of the
people's money in wild wars and abandoned excesses — •
above all depreciating and deriding the power of the Holy
See, the sole obstacle in the way of their design to create
an utterly sordid and subservient hierarchy ; doing her
utmost to weaken and restrain the exercise of the Papal
Supremacy, by legislation and by corrupt judicial coercion ;
and in the end entirely prostrating it and substituting the
Royal Supremacy, which was sure to have sympathy with
worldlings, since it was in itself the insolent triumph of
worldliness, the setting up of an earthly power against that
of Christ's Vicar — the setting up of the human against the
Divine— the setting up, in the person of the civil ruler, of a

1856.] The Reformation the Result of Tyranny, 23

power wlilch more than any other seems to correspond
with that of Antichrist, as described in Scripture, because
a power essentially opposed to that of Christ, or exercised
in the Church by the visible headship of St. Peter. There
was the true origin and the real cause of the awful destruc-
tion impiously and ludicrously called the Reformation.
Through all its successive stages — from Edward to Eliza-
beth— the authors and agents in it were wretched men
who worked for evil ends and by evil means, and in the
long-run effected their object, the subjugation of the
power of the Church to their own will. They worked
for evil ends, for they showed by their acts in every
age that their ends were plunder and spoil, and they
rose to rank and wealth on the ruins of things sacred.
They worked by evil means ; their means were brute
force, tyranny, cruelty, and calumny. They sought at
first to enslave the English Church, and for a time suc-
ceeded, by ensnaring her. But this was only for a time.
And they could not ultimately triumph save through bare-
faced tyranny and brutal force. The great fact is indis-
putable, that the English Church never freely assented to
the religious destruction called the revolution. Up to the
time of the abolition of the old English episcopate hierarchy
by Elizabeth, the Church of England had never freely
adopted the change of religion.

And of course after that time, the thing called a church
never could freely act at all ; since the bishops were mere
nominees of the crown. The Church of England, we
repeat, never freely adopted the religious revolution called
the Reformation. Under Henry VIII. she adopted the
Royal Supremacy, under compulsion, and under deception.
Death was actually inflicted on many eminent persons who
deemed it blasphemous assumption ; and on the other hand
the tyrant deceived many by disclaimers as to his con-
structions or application of it. But n» change of religion
took place under that tyrant ; what occurred under
Edward was too transitory and imperfect to amount to
an effective alteration of the national religion ; the real
work was done under Elizabeth! and was done by the
entire disruption of the English Church. Even bishops
were deprived, and intruders thrust into the sees by the
arbitrary power of the crown. All the prelates and higher
orders of the clergy, and the entire bulk of the clergy,
save only such of the lower orders as had proved them-

24 The Reformation tfie Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

selves tiraeservers by retaining benefices under Mary,
resisted the alteration of the ancient faith. There was not
any " reformation,'* therefore by the Church of England.
It was simply an arbitrary alteration by the power of the
crown. The crown being absolute — more absolute in its
tyranny than that of the Sultan of Turkey — claimed
sovereign dominion over the souls and consciences of men,
and said, *'you shall change your religion.'* There was
not a reformation but a revolution, nay it was rather a
destruction than a reformation. The Church of England
refused to be revolutionized, she was simply destroyed.
She refused to be enslaved ; she ceased from that hour to
exist. What was substituted for her was a mere state
establishment, filled by sordid creatures, dependents npon
the crown. The Church of £ngland never adopted
the Heformation.

The people understood this, and rose in rebellion under
Elizabeth as they had done under Edward and Henry.
** There are not ten men," says Sadler (quoted by Dr.
Lingard) " in all this country, (the north), who favour and
allow of her Majesty's proceedings in the cause of religion.'*
Observe the phrase : her 3Iajesti/'s proceedings. No one
for a moment imagined that the English Church had any
part in them. The complaint was that the English
Church was suppressed. The proceedings of her Majesty
in the cause of religion, which were the avowed excuse
of the rebellion^ consisted as we have seen in destroying
the Church. The measure was simply one of tyranny,
was so regarded. The rebellion failed, by reason of the
want of union among the nobility, and the mutual dread of
betrayal which formed so melancholy a feature of their
character, and painfully showed the decay of the old Eng-
lish spirit of truth and fidelity. That they were, most of
them, (the old nobility,) now, at all events, averse to the
religious revolution which had been effected, and which
they saw amounted to the establishment of absolutism, is
manifest ; but it was now too late. They had raised the
monster of tyranny, and could not destroy it when they
would. Dr. Lingard points out significant evidences that
even among those of the nobility who affected to be loyal
many were so more from mutual jealousy, and apprehen-
sions as to their safety, than from sincere attachment to
their sovereign ; or still less from approval of the establish-
ment of her spiritual and temporal absolutism. Theirs

1856.] The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. 25

had been the guilt of betraying the Church, and theirs
was now the retribution. It was their turn now to suffer
tyranny. The rebellion, with their servile assistance, was
suppressed with cruel slaughter ; and then, one after
another, ensnared in Cecil's net-like intrigues, they were
drawn to the block. And what remained of the old
English nobility after the wars of the Roses was extir-
pated by the judicial murder of the Tudors. After the
reign of Elizabeth, our peerage no more resembled or
represented the old English nobility, than did the State
Establishment resemble or represent the old Englisli,
Church. The axe did its work. The houses of Nor-
thumberland and of Neville were destroyed ; the house
of Norfolk was all but extirpated, and only escaped
destruction by its union with the house of Arundel ; and
that again narrowly escaped extermination. The ven-
geance of heaven fell righteously and heavily on the
English nobility, which had now for many generations,
and during two centuries, conspired with the crown to
enslave the Church, and the small residue of them which
was not extirpated was enslaved. Except the Catholic
peerages, there is hardly one which, in the same family or
line now represents any of the old English peerages. With
those exceptions, there are hardly any anterior to the reign
of Henry. The illustrious house of Derby""" is the only
one which occurs to our minds as a Protestant peerage
which is an exception to the rule. The titles in some
instances remain, but have been transferred to other
families. In Catholic peerages alone, with rare excep-
tions, the titles and families remain united. Even of those
Protestant peerages which were created after the wars of
the Roses, few remain but such as were, under Elizabeth,
covertly Catholic. Thus the houses of Pembroke and
Derby were always regarded with suspicion as secretly
Catholic. The peerage of England, however, was too
thoroughly prostrated to do more than conspire. They
had lost, if not their ancient courage, at all events all
mutual confidence ; and they did but live to ruin and
betray one another. The nobility of England was
destroyed ; along with that old Church which they had

* The barony of De Ros is very ancient, but has passed out of
the family of the original holder.

26 The Reformation the Result of Tyranny. [Sept.

basely deserted. The iron of tyranny entered into their
souls.

The history of no nation supplies any record of a tyranny
so revolting, so debasing, and so oppressive. Espionage
and inquisition were among its instruments ; every noble-
man had spies among his servants ever ready to betray
him ; and for those who refused so to betray, tyranny
had all the terrors of the torture. Such were the means
by which the suppression of the ancient religion of
England was accomplished. Said we not truly when we
said that it was simply the triumph of tyranny ? So long
as the Catholic Church existed, (and she existed only so
long as the supremacy of the Holy See was acknowledged
and obeyed,) tyranny could not be thoroughly established.
The Church once prostrated, tyranny achieved its triumph.
No Turkish tyranny ever exercised a more atrocious abso-
lutism than that of Elizabeth ; nay, not one half so atro-
cious, for a Turkish sovereign could never dare to alter
the religion of his subjects. The establishment of Protes-
tantism was eflPected by excesses of tyrannical cruelty more
odious and hideous than ever disgraced the fell domina-
tion of the Pagan or the Saracen. Confessions were
extorted by the agonies of torture j and then the victims
were dragged to execution for crimes they had never com-
mitted. No Englishmen dared to express the least
opinion upon any matter of Church or State. For a few
words spoken by a country gentleman of the Queen's
infamous paramour Leicester, ho and his family were
arrested and thrown into a dungeon; and he was tortured
and executed. No one can conceive the state of abject
terror in which our forefathers lived under the glorious
reign of the virgin Queen. It is something hideous and
sickening even to contemplate in history. Meanwhile
cruel penal laws were passed and executed with fell tenacity
of purpose. And he who writes these lines has heard the
man who denounced the Catholic religion as tending to
" enslave the soul," and is fond of declaiming about the
** free spirit** of Protestantism, defend these laws, because,
as he says, they were enacted for political purposes ! No
doubt they were. What cared the tyrant for religion ?
What did ever t^'rant care about religion ? What did any
tyrant ever care about, save his own power and will ?
And according to the Protestant defenders of the penal
policy of the Keformation, cruel persecution is excusable.

1856.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 27

if perpetrated for political purposes ! i.e. for the purpose of
establishing tj^anny ! As if persecution ever was perpe-
trated for any other purpose ! or as if, even if it were, it
could on that account be any the more vile than if perpe-
trated for the sake of establishing tyranny ! As if it was
any palliation for the fiend-like cruelties of Elizabeth that
they were inflicted in order to rivet on her subjects a most
revolting tyranny ; and under terror of it to extirpate their
ancient religion, because it was inimical to such tyranny !
What an unconscious tribute does this view of her apolo-
gists render to the character of the Catholic Church !
Tyranny could not be established until that Church was sup-
pressed. And it could not be suppressed, save by bloodshed
and torture, which brought about a reign of terror ! Ah,
had the people and the peerage of England remained true
to the Church, they would never have groaned under this
horrible despotism. Had the Church always been as true
to the Holy See as she was at the last, (alas, too late for
anything but martyrdom), she would never have had to
choose between being enslaved and destroyed ; for the
nation would have been true to her. The fall of the
supremacy was the fall of the Church, and the fall of the
Church was the fall of liberty.

Art. II. — 1. Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and
Meccah. By Richard F. Burton, Lieutenant Bombay Army.
Vol. HI. London : Longman, 1856.

2. First Footsteps in East Africa; or an Exploration of Harar. By
R. F. Burton. 8vo. London : Longman, 1856.

MR. BURTON has at length completed the Narrative
of his Pilgrimage by the_ publication of a third
volume, which contains the Pilgrimage to Meccah.

The reader may recollect, that having successfully
accomphshed the first part of his hazardous enterprise,
the pilgrimage to Medinah, thisactive traveller reverted to
the great project of exploring the interior of Arabia, which
he had proposed,, to the consideration of the Geographical

28 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

Society, and for which, though it had at the time been
regarded as impracticable, an opportunity seemed now to
present itself. He had been informed that a pilgrim
caravan regularly came each year from Muscat, on
the Eastern coast, to Medinah ; and he hoped, by joining
this caravan, on its return after the pilgrimage, to traverse
with tolerable security and ease, as well as with much
advantage as an explorer, the whole breadth of that vast,
and to Europeans, utterly unknown region. To his great
disappointment, however, he learned at Medinah, that
this pilgrim caravan had long ceased to arrive from the
East ; and that, if he entertained the thought of crossing to
Muscat, he must do so as an independent traveller. To
perform the journey in Bedouin fashion is an enterprise
which few Europeans could dream of undertaking. The
distance is about fifteen hundred miles through a barren
desert, and, even with the Bedouins themselves, occupies
from nine to twelve months ; and we may form some idea
of the daring and determined character of Mr. Burton,
from the fact of his seriously contemplating such a project,
and actually entering into private negotiations with one of
the chiefs for the purpose of carrying it into execution.

These negotiations, however, proved a failure. In addi-
tion to other difficulties which arose, Mr. Burton's Bedouin
friend confessed that, in the existing circumstances of
Arabia, no small party could, with the slightest prospect
of security, attempt even a journey of a few days in the
Desert, much less the transit of the entire peninsula ; and
Mr. Burton was reluctantly compelled to fall back upon
the ordinary round of the pilgrimage, and pursue his way
to Meccah in the company of the regular caravan.

There are four roads from Medinah to Meccah. The
Darb El Sultani, or "Sultan's Way," which, for the
most part follows the coast line, is already known from
the description of Burckhardt. There is a second, by the
Wady El Kura, which is often taken by dromedary cara-
vans, and which has a regular supply of wells, together
with a well secured right of passage. A third, called the
** Tarik El Ghabir," is avoided by the great caravans on
account of its rugged passes. Mr. Burton took the Darb
El Sharki, or "Eastern Road," by Suwayrkiyah, Zari-
bah, and El Birkat, a distance, upon the whole, of about
two hundred and fifty miles.

The caravan received the signal to start early on the

1856.1 Burton^s Meccah and East Africa. 29

>

morning of the 31st of August, 1853, and at at nine a.m.
Mr. Burton parted at the " Egyptian Gate" from his
Medinah friends ; and, still attended by " the boy Moham-
med,'* whom we have already met as the companion of Mr.
Burton's Medinah pilgrimage, took his place in the long
line of pilgrims. The number, to judge from appearance,
was at least seven thousand, some on foot, some on horse-
back, or in litters, or bestriding the splendid camels of
Syria, Mr. Burton describes no less than eight grada-
tions of pilgrims. The lowest hobbled with heavy staves.
*' Then came the riders of asses, camels and mules. Re-
spectable men, especially Arabs, mounted domedaries,
and the soldiers had horses : a led animal was saddled
for every grandee, ready whenever he might wish to leave
his litter. Women, children, and invalids of the poorer
classes sat upon a * haml musattah,* — bits of cloth spread
over the two large boxes which form the camel's load.
Many occupied shibriyahs, a few, shugdufs, and only the
wealthy and the noble rode in Takhtrawan (litters), carried
by camels or mules. The morning beams fell brightly
upon the glancing arms which surrounded the stripped
Mahmal, and upon the scarlet and gilt litters of the gran-
dees. Not the least beauty of the spectacle was its won-
drous variety of detail : no man was dressed like his
neighbour, no camel was caparisoned nor horse clothed in
uniform, as it were. And nothing stranger than the con-
trasts ; — a band of halt-naked Takruri marching with the
Pacha's equipage, and long-capped, bearded Persians
conversing with Tarbushed and shaven Turks."

The expenditure of these various grades of course varies
exceedingly. A man and his wife have been known to
start from Alexandria with but five pounds to defray the
entire expense of the pilgrimage, excepting only the
slender stock of provisions which they can carry upon
such a journey. And upon the other hand, the minimum
expenditure for mere necessaries (exclusive of gifts and
luxuries,) of a man who journies from Damascus in a
takhtraivan, or litter of the first class, to Meccah and
back again, would be twelve hundred pounds !

The journey through the Desert in most respects resem-
bles that between Cairo and Suez ; but Mr. Burton takes
occasion from it to enter at some length into an account
of the varieties of the Arab race, which will be read with
interest. The Bedouins of the Hejaz present many points

3d Btirton*s Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

of reseml)lance with the kindred tribes of the greater
Desert. Their manners have the same freedom and sim-
plicity which are the common characteristic of all primi-
tive races ; vulgarity and affectation, as well as awkward-
ness and embarrassment, being, as he well observes, words
of civilized growth, unknown to the people of the Desert.
Some of their every-day usages, however, natural and
unconstrained as they seem in their desert home, would
provoke many a smile in European society. Thus, when
two friends meet, they either embrace, or they both ex-
tend the right hand, clapping palm to palm ; their fore-
heads are then either pressed together, or they move their
heads from side to side, while for minutes together they
continue their mutual inquiries. The well-known " Gaab
El Burnt," or **guni)owder play," too, would prove rather
startling. When a friend approaches the camp, those who
first catch sight of him, shout out his name, gallop up with
lance in rest, and with that fierce air, which even in their
friendliest moods they never lose, firing their matchlocks,
and executing in sport various other evolutions, which, to
a stranger, bear the most unequivocal appearance of hosti-
lity, and which, in more than one instance, have filled
with alarm the very parties in whose honour they were
intended.

Even among the more civilized members of the pilgrim
caravan, this desert life is a wild affair enough. ^ Mr.
Burton one day observed a Turk and an Arab in violent
altercation, although neither of them could speak a word
of the language of the other ; the cause of the dispute
being, simply, whether the Arab camel driver should per-
mit the Turk to add to the camel's load a few dry sticks,
which he had picked up, as fuel, upon the march. The
pilgrim persisted in placing the sticks upon the camel.
The driver as perseveringly flung them oft'; till at last,
screaming with rage, and hustling one another furiously,
the Turk dealt the Arab a heavy blow. That night the
pilgrim was mortally wounded, his stomach being ripped
up with a dagger ; and when Mr. Burton inquired his fate,
he was coolly assured that he "had been comfortably
wrapped up in his shroud and placed in a half-dug grave !
This is the general practice in the case of the poor and
solitary, whom illness or accident incapacitates from pro-
ceeding. It is impossible to contemplate such a fate
without horror : the torturing thirst of a wound, the burn-

.1856.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 31

ing sun heating the brain to madness, and — worst of all,
for they do not wait till death — the attacks of the jackal,
the vulture, and the raven of the wild."

The extraordinary patience and docility of the camel
are nowhere seen in such a striking light as amid
the disorder and confusion of these crowded marches.
The driver has an established language by which he sig-
nifies his wish to the animal. " Ikh, ikh!" makes them
kneel ; " Yahh, yahh !'* urges them to speed ; *' Hai,
hai !'* suggests cautipn ; and so on for all conceivable
contingencies. Indeed, all their docility and all their
patience are needed in such scenes (and this forms
the staple of the pilgrimage,) as the following.

" Darkness fell upon us like a pall. The camels tripped and
stumbled, tossing their litters like cock-boats in a short sea ; at
times the shugdufs were well nigh torn off their backs. When
we came to a ridge worse than usual, old Masud would seize my
camel's halter, and, accompanied by his son and nephew bearing
lights, encourage the animals with gesture and voice. It was a
strange, wild scene. The black basaltic field was dotted with the
huge and doubtful forms of spongy-footed camels with silent tread,
looming like phantoms in the midnight air ; the hot wind moaned,
and whirled from the torches sheets of flame and fiery smoke,
whilst ever and anon a swift-travelling Takhtrawan, drawn by
mules, and surrounded by runners bearing gigantic mashals, threw
a passing glow of red light upon the dark road and the dusky mul-
titude. On this occasion the rule was 'every man for himself.'
Each pressed forward into the best path, thinking only of preceding
others. The Syrians amongst whom our little party had become
entangled, proved most unpleasant companions : they often stopped
the way, insisting upon their right to precedence. On one occa-
sion a horseman had the audacity to untie the halter of my
dromedary, and thus to cast us adrift, as it were, in order to make
room for some excluded friend. I seized my sword ; but Shaykh
Abdullah stayed my hand, and addressed the intruder in terms
sufficiently violent to make him slink away. Nor was this the only
occasion on which my companion was successful with the Syrian?.
He would begin with a mild * Move a little, 0 my father !'
followed, if fruitles?, by * Out of the way, 0 father of Syria !* and
if still ineffectual, concluding with a ' Begone, O he !' This ranged
between civility and sternness. If without effect, it was followed
by revilings to the ' Abusers of the Salt,' the ' Yezid,' the ' Off-
spring of Shimr.' Another remark which I made about my com-
panion's conduct well illustrates the difference between the Eastern
and the Western man. When traversing a dangerous place, Sliaykh
Abdullah the European attended to his camel with loud cries o

82 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

• Hai ! Hai!' and an occasional switching. Shaykh Abdullah tha
Asiatic commended himself to Allah by repeated ejaculations of

* Ya Satir ! Ya Sattail' " — Personal Narrative, Vol. iii. pp. 113-116.

One of the stages of the journey, El Zaribah, is fixed by
usage for the pilgrim's assuming the Haji garb, or what
is called the ceremony of El Ihram. On the afternoon
of the appointed day, before the afternoon prayer, a barber
attends the intended pilgrims, to shave their heads, cut
their nails, and trim their mustachios. The pilgrims
must next bathe, and according to some doctors, perfume
themselves. Next comes the investiture with the pilgrim
dress. It consists of two long white cotton cloths, with
narrow red stripes and fringes, six feet long, by three-and-
a-half broad, and may best be described as closely re-
sembling the ordinary dress of the baths in the East. One
of the cloths, which is called the Rida, is thrown over the
back, and leaving the arm and shoulder bare, is gathered
in a knot at the right side. The second cloth, called
** Izar," is wrapped round the loins, covering the person
from the waist below the knee, and is secured at the
middle by having the ends underlapped. The head is
kept bare, as is also the instep ; — the only covering
allowed for the foot being a sandal, like that of the capu-
chin. All these formalities are scrupulously exacted from
the aspirant to the pilgrimage ; and Mr. Burton, true to
the same strange laxity of principle which we observed in
his former volumes, not only did not hesitate to comply
with them all, but even submitted freely to the still more
unequivocally censurable ceremonial which followed the
adoption of the *' Ihram.*' Only conceive a Christian
gruitleman, ** placing himself with his face in the direction
of Meccah/' and in so many express words "vowing the
Ihram of Hajj (pilgrimage) and the ' umrah,' (or little pil-
grimage,) to Allah Almighty;" then ** performing a two-"
prostration prayer," that *' Allah may enable him to
accomplish jhe two, and may accept them both, and make
both blessed to him ;" then reciting the " Talbiyat" — a
fm-ther act of adjuration and praise to Allah, which is
** repeated as frequently as possible, till the conclusion of
the ceremony." (p. 125-6.) We know not how these things
Liay appear in the eyes of Mr. Burton's co-religionists. It
is true that Burckhardt led the way for him in this course
of systematic mummery ; but in the days of Burckhardt's

1856.] Burton^s Meccah and East Africa. 33

pilgrimage, the public mind had hardly recovered from the
shock of the fearful religious revolution which had but just
passed over it, and the religious instinct of men had
scarcely recovered its tone Nor can we believe that an
age of serious and solemn thought will accept even such
information as Mr. Burton brings home without reprobat-
ing, or at least deploring the manner by which it was
obtained.

All the other conditions of the pilgrimage are in keeping
with these. The pilgrims during the Hajj are debarred
from all pursuits which tend to take away life — from
** killing game, causing an animal to fly, or even pointing
it out for destruction.*' They are not permitted even " to
scratch themselves, save with the open palm, lest vermin
should he destroyed, or a hair uprooted by the nail !" For
any infraction of them or other details of this complicated
observance, they are obliged to sacrifice a sheep! And it
is understood that the victim is sacrificed " as a confession
that the offender deems himself worthy of death !" (p. 126.)

The female pilgrims are not exempt from the obligation
of assuming the ihram, but for them the costume is
different. The wife and daughter of one of Mr. Burton's
Turkish fellow-pilgrims assumed the ihram at the same
time with himself, but they appeared merely " dressed in
white garments;" the only striking peculiarity of their
pilgrim costume being that ** they had exchanged the

* lisam,' that coquettish fold of muslin that veils without
concealing the lower part of the face, for a hideous mask,
made of split, dried, and plaited palm leaves, with two

* bull's-eyes' for light." He could not help laughing at
the strange figure which they presented, and '* to judge
from the shaking of their shoulders, they were not them-
selves less susceptible to the merriment which they had
caused." The reason why women are obliged to resort to
this very unbecoming substitute (which might well indeed
be called an " ugly,") is, that as during the Hajj it is not
permitted that the veil should touch the face, it is neces-
sary to adopt an inflexible mask, which, by always main-
taining the same position, avoids the danger of possible
contact.

Upon the journey to Meccah the caravan encountered
no less a personage than Abd el Muttalib bin Ghalib, the
present Sherif of Meccah. He is described as '* a dark,
beardless old man with African features, derived from h'm

VOL. XL1.-N0. LXXXI. 3 '

34 Biirton*8 Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

mother. He was plainly flressed in white garments and a
white muslin turban, which made him look jet black ; he
rode an ambling mule, and the onl3'^ emblem of his dignity
was the large green satin umbrella borne by an attendant
on foot. Scattered around him were about forty match-
lock-men, mostly slaves. At long intervals, after their
father, came his four sons, Riza Bey, Abdullah, Ali, and
Ahmed, the latter still a child. The three elder brothers
rode splendid dromedaries at speed ; the/ were young men
of light complexion, with the true Meccan cast of features,
showily dressed in bright-coloured silks, and armed, to
denote their rank, with sword and gold-hilted dagger.*'

The position of the Sheriff of Meccah is, in many
respects, peculiar. The political governor of the Ilejaz is
of course the Pacha Ahmed, who rules as the representa-
tive of the Sultan. But the Sherif has a spiritual as well
as a temporal character ; and, in virtue of this relation,
aided by the national antipathies entertained for the Turks
by the Arab population, he is enabled to exercise a very
considerable controul, and in many instances has suc-
ceeded in thwarting most effectually the measures of the
Turkish Pacha and his part3^

The journey, iivall about two hundred and fifty miles,
occupied eleven days. The first sight of the Holy City
which the Haji obtains, affords another occasion for the
renewal of the complicated ceremonial of the pilgrimage.

*' We halted as evening approached, and strained our eyes, but
all in vain, to catch sight of Meccah, which lies in a winding valley.
By Shaykh Abdullah's direction, I recited after the usual devotions,
the following prayer. The reader is forewarned that it is diflBcult
to preserve the flowers of Oriental rhetoric in a European tongue.

" '0 Allah! verily this is thy safeguard (Aran) and thy Sanctuary
(Haram) ! Into it whoso entereth becometh safe (Araiu). So deny
(Harriin) my flesh and blood, my bones and skin, to hell-fire. O
Allah! Save me from thy wrath on the day when thy servants
shall be raised from the dead. I conjure thee by this that thou
art AUali, besides whom is none (thou only), the merciful, the com-
passionate. Aud have mercy upon our lord Mohammed, and upon
the progeny of our lord Mohammed, and upon his followers, one
and all!' This was concluded with the 'Talbiyat,' and with au •
especial prayer for myself.

" We again mounted, and night completed our disappointment.
About 1 A. M. I was aroused by general excitement. ' Meccali I
Meccah !' cried some voices; • The Sanctuary ! O the Sanctuary 1*
exclaimed others ; and all burst into loud ' Labbayk,' not un<

1856.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 36

frequentlj broken bj sobs. I looked out from mj litter, and saw
bj the light of the southern stars the dina outlines of a large citj, a
shade darker than the surrounding plain. We were passing over
the last ridge by an artificial cut, called the Sanijat Kudaa. The

* winding path' is flanked on both sides by watch-towers, which
coraraand the ' Darb el Maala,' or road leading from the north into
Meccah. Thence we passed into the Maabidah (northern suburb),
where the sherifs palace is built. After this, on the left hand,
came the deserted abode of the Sherif bin Aun, now said to be a

* haunted house,* Opposite to it lies the Jannat el Maala, the holy
cemetery of Meccah. Thence, turning to the right, we entered the
Sulaymaniyah or Afghan quarter. Here the boy Mohammed, being
an inhabitant of the Shamiyah or Syrian ward, thought proper to
display some apprehension. These two are on bad terms ; children
never meet without exchanging volleys of stones, and men fight
furiously with quarter-staves. Sometimes, despite the terrors of
religion, the knife and sabre are dra^vn. But these hostilities have
their code. If a citizen be killed, there is a subscription for blood
money. An inhabitant of one quarter, passing singly through
another, becomes a guest ; once beyond the walls, he is likely to
be beaten to insensibility by his hospitable foes.

" At the Sulaymaniyah we turned off the main road into a bye-
way, and ascended by narrow lanes the rough heights of Jebel
Hindi, upon which stands a small whitewashed and crenellated
building called a * fort.' Thence descending, we threaded dark
streets, in places crowded with rude cots and dusky figures, and
finally at 2 a. m. we found ourselves at the door of the boy Moham-
med's house." — Vol. iii. pp. 142-146.

The caravan, arriving at Meccah on the morning of the
7th Z'ul Hijjah, (11th September,) anticipated by a day the
commencement of the regular term of pilgrimage ; and Mr.
Burton had time to visit the Haram before he entered upon
the solemn religious visitation of it, which forms the great
duty of the Hajj.

This celebrated enclosure, the chief, although by no
means the sole object of the Meccah pilgrimage, is in
Moslem eyes the holiest sanctuary upon earth, ranking in
this respect before the mosque of the city of the Prophet
itself. It is called indifferently Bait Allah, (House of
Allah,) and (from its form) Kaabah, (cube house), and
stands in an enclosed oblong square, 250 paces long, by
200 broad, with a colonnade upon the eastern side, from
which paved causeways, admittinor four or five persons to
walk abreast, lead towards the Kaabah. This bnilding,
and all its sacred appurtenances, are minutely described

36 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

by Mr. Burton, who adopts as his text the well-known
description of Burckhardt, (who spent three months in
Meccah,) corrected and illustrated by his own observa-
tions. The building itself has little of interest.

" ' Towards the middle of this area stands the Kaabah ; it is 115
paces from the north colonade, and 88 from the south. For this
want of symmetry we may readily account, the Kaabah having
existed prior to the mosque, which was built around it, and enlarged
at different periods. The Kaabah is an oblong massive structure,
18 paces in length, 14 in breadth, and from 35 to 40 feet in height.
It is constructed of the grey mekka stone, in large blocks of different
sizes joined together, in a very rough manner, with bad cement.
It was entirely rebuilt, as it now stands, in a. d. 1627. The torrent
in the preceding year had thrown down three of its sides, and, pre-
paratory to its re-erection, the fourth side was, according to Asamy,
pulled down, after the Olemas, or learned divines, had been con-
sulted on the question whether mortals might be permitted to
destroy any part of the holy edifice without incurring the charge of
sacrilege and infidelity.'

" * The Kaabah stands upon a base two feet in height, which
presents a sharp inclined plane. Its roof being flat, it has at a
distance the appearance of a perfect cube. The only door which
affords entrance, and which is opened but two or three times in the
year, is on the north side and about seven feet above the ground.
In the first periods of Islam, however, when it was rebuilt in a. u.
64 by Ibn Zebeyr (Zubayr), chief of Mecca, it had two doors even
with the ground-floor of the mosque. The present door (which,
according to Azraky, was brought hither from Constantinople in
A. D. 1633), is wholly coated with silver, and has several gilt orna-
ments ; upon its threshold are placed every night various small
lighted wax candles, and perfuming pans, filled with musk, aloe-
wood, &c.' " — Vol. iii. pp. loi'lSS.

The most venerable object, however, contained in the
Kaabah is the " Hajar el Aswad," or ** Stone of Destiny.'*
It is now called the ** Black Stone" of Meccah ; although
all the Moslem doctors agree that it was originally white,
but became black through the sins of men.

" * At the north-east corner of the Kaabah, near the door, is the
famous ' Black Stone ;' it forms a part of the sharp angle of the
building, at four or five feet above the ground. It is an irregular
oval, about seven inches in diameter, with an undulating surface,
composed of about a dozen smaller stones of different sizes and
shapes, well joined together with a small quantity of cement, and
perfectly well smoothed: it looks as if the whole had been broken

1856.] Burton's Meccah and Bast Africa. 87

into many pieces bj a violent blow, and then united again. It is
very difficult to determine accurately the quality of this stone,
which has been worn to its present surface by the millions of touches
and kisses it has received. It appeared to me like a lava, contain-
ing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish
substance. Its colour is now a deep reddish brown, approaching
to black. It is surrounded on all sides by a border composed
of a substance which I took to be a close cement of pitch
and gravel of a similar, but not quite the same, brownish colour.
This border serves to support its detached pieces ; it is two or
three inches in breadth, and rises a little above the surface of
the stone. Both the border and the stone itself are encircled by
a silver band, broader below than above, and on the two sides, with
a considerable swelling below, as if a part of the stone were hidden
under it. The lower part of the border is studded with silver
nails.' "—Vol. iii. pp. 158-162.

The other objects of pilgrim veneration, though some-
what inferior in sacredness, are for the most part reputed
memorials of the same events, or at least of events con-
nected with the names of Abraham or Ishmael.

" " ' In the south-east corner of the Kaabah, or, as the Arabs call
it, Rokn el Yemany, there is another stone about five feet from the
ground ; it is one foot and a half in length, and two inches in
breadth, placed upright, and of the common Meccah stone. This the
people walking round the Kaabah touch only with the right hand ;
they do not kiss it.

" On the north side of the Kaabah, just by its door, and close to
the wall, is a slight hollow in the ground, lined with marble, and
sufficiently large to admit of three persons sitting. Here it is thought
meritorious to pray: the spot is called El Maajan, and supposed to
be where Abraham and his son Ismail kneaded the chalk and mud
which they used in building the Kaabah ; and near this Maajan
the former is said to have placed the large stone upon which he
stood while working at the masonry. On the basis of the Kaabah,
just over the Maajan, js an ancient Cufic inscription ; but this I
was unable to decipher, and had no opportunity of copying it.'" —
Vol. iii. pp. 162-164.

Still more venerable is the " Myzab," the spout which
carries the water of the roof and discharges it upon the
grave of Ismail, where the pilgrims fight eagerly for it as
it falls, in order to carry it home as a sovereign remedy.

" ' On the west (north-west) side of the Kaabah, about two feefc
below its summit, is the famous Myzab, or water-spout, through
which the rain-water collected on the roof of the building is dis.

38 Burton's Meccah and East Aft^ica. [Sep

charged, so as to fall upon the ground; it is about four feet in
length, and six inches in breadth, as well as I could judge from
below, with borders equal in height to its breadth. At the tviouth
hangs what is called the beard of the Mjzab ; a gilt board over
which the water flows. This spout was sent hither from Con-
stantinople in A. H. 981, and is reported to be of pure gold. The
pavement round the Kaabah, below the Myzab, was laid down in
A. H. 826, and consists of various coloured stones, forming a very
handsome specimen of mosaic. There are two large slabs of fine
verde antico in the centre, which, according to Makrizi, were sent
thither, as presents from Cairo, in a. ii. 241. This ia the spot where,
according to Mohammedan tradition, Ismayl the son of Ibrahim,
and his mother Hajirah are buried ; and here it is meritorious for
the pilgrim to recite a prayer of two Rikats. On this side is a
semicircular wall, the two extremities of which are in a line with
the sides of the Kaabah, and distant from it tliree or four feet, leav-
ing an opening, which leads to the burial place of Ismayl. The wall
bears the name of El Hatyra ; and the area which it encloses is
called Hedjer or Hedjer Ismayl, on account of its being separated
from the Kaabah : the wall itself also is sometimes so called.* '' —
Vol. iii. pp. 164-166.

Opposite to each of the four sides of the Kaabah stands
a small building, called "Makam/' one set apart for the
Imaums of each of the four orthodox sects of Mahome-
tanism — the Hamfy, the Shafey, the Hanbaly, and the
Maleky; and the adherents of these several sects take
their stations respectively in the immediate vicinity of the
building appropriated to their sect, and there commence
the ceremonial of the pilgrimage. The Makani es Shafey
is built over the celebrated holy well of Meccah, Zem-Zem,
which is connected in Moslem tradition, (differently by
different doctors,) with the story of Agar and Ismael in the
Wilderness.

As the Kaabah has but a single entrance, and this at a
distance of seven feet from the ground, there is a moveable
ladder or staircase sliding upon low wheels, and capable of
a Imitting four persons abreast, which, upon the days when
pilgrims are admitted to the House of Allah, is moved up to
the wall. There are various explanations of this curious
rite, which perhaps is in some way connected with the
analogous continuation of the Persian fire temples. The
Kaabah is opened but three times in the year.

There is another small building close to the Kaabah
called the Makam Ibrahim, (the praying place of Abraham.)
" It is supported by six pillars about eight feet high, four of

1856, 1 Burton^ s Meccah and East Africa. 39

which are surrounded from top to bottom by a fine iron
railing, while they leave the space beyond the two hind
pillars open ; within the railing is a frame about five feet
square, terminating in a pyramidal top, and said to con-
tain the sacred stone upon which Ibrahim stood when he
built the Kaabah, and which with the help of his son
Ismayl he had removed from hence to the place called
Maajen, already mentioned. The stone is said to have
yielded under the weight of the Patriarch, and to preserve
the impression of his foot still visible upon it ; but no hadjy
has ever seen it, as the frame is always entirely covered
with a brocade of red silk richly embroidered. Persons
are constantly seen before the railing invoking the good
offices of Ibrahim ; and a short prayer must be uttered by
the side of the Makam after the walk round the Kaabah
is completed."

Mr. Burton thinks that Burckhardt is wrong in stating
that no one is ever permitted to see the stone which bears the
footmark of Abraham. He himself was offered permission
to do so on payment of five dollars ; but the sum was be-
yond the range of his finances at the time. It will be re-
collected that in the eyes of the Moslem, Ibrahim (Abra-
ham) stands next in holiness to Mahomet himself; and
that the memorials of him which it is reputed to contain are
one of the great sources of the venerableuess of the Meccau
Mosque. The stone alluded to above still shows, Mr.
Burton was informed, the impress of two feet, especially
the big toes ; and one of the favourite devotions of the pil-
grims is to rub their eyes and faces with water which has
been consecrated by being poured into these cavities.

So much of preliminary description was necessary to the
better understanding of the actual ceremonial of the pil-
grimage. Mr. Burton's share in the strange mockery has
at least the attraction of novelty to recommend it. We
hardly know in what sense to receive his description of the
feeling which he experienced on the first sight of the Bait
Allah.

" Scarcely had the first smile of morning beamed upon the rugged
head of Abu Kubajs when we arose, bathed, and proceeded in our
pilgrim garb to the Sanctuary. We entered by the Bab el Ziyadali,
or principal northern door, descended two long flights of steps, tra-
versed the cloister, and stood in sight of the Bait Allah.

" There at last it laj, the bourn of my long and wearj pilgrim-
age, realizing the plans and hopes of many and many a year. The

40 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept

mirage medium of Fancy invested the huge catafalque and its
gloomy pall with peculiar charms. There were no giant fragments
of hoar antiquity as in Egypt, no remains of graceful and har-
monious beauty as in Greece and Italy, no barbaric gorgeousness
as in the buildings of India; yet the view was strange, unique, and
how few have looked upon the celebrated shrine 1 I may truly say
that, of all the worshippers who clung weeping to the curtain, or
who pressed their beating hearts to the stone, none felt for the
moment a deeper emotion than did the Haji from the far north.
It was as if the poetical legends of the Arab spoke truth, and that
the waving wings of angels, not the sweet breeze of morning, were
agitating and swelling the black covering of the shrine. But, to
confess humbling truth, theirs was the high feeling of religious
enthusiasm, mine was the ecstasy of gratified pride." — Vol. iii. pp.
198-200.

Without entering, however, into what after all is a
purely personal consideration for himself, our sole concern
at present is with the narrative of his performances during
the pilgrimage ; and although we are not disposed to join
with those "jocose editors" who, as he told us in his
former volume, have been rallying him as ** turning
Turke," we cannot help thinking that to our readers
he will seem, by his own account, to have come very close
to it.

He was attended throughout by " the boy Mohammed.**
They entered the Bait Allah *' through the Bab Beni
Shay bah, the * Gate of the Sons of the Old Woman.*
There they raised their hands, repeated the Labbayk, the
Takbir, and the Tahlil; after which they uttered certain
supplications, and drew their hands down their faces. Then
they proceeded to the Shafei's place of prayer — the open
pavement between the Makam Ibrahim and the well Zem
Zem, — where they performed the usual two prostrations in
honour of the mosque. This was followed by a cup of holy
water and a present to the Sakkas, or carriers, who, for
the consideration, distributed a large earthen vaseful in
Mr. Burton's name to poor pilgrims. They then advanced
towards the eastern angle of the Kaabah, in which is
inserted the Black Stone ; and, standing about ten yards
from it, repeated with up raised hand, ' There is no god
but Allah alone, whose covenant is truth, and whose
servant is victorious. There is no god but Allah, without
sharer, his is the kingdom ; ' to him be praise, and he
over all things is potent.' After which they approached as
close as they could to the stone. A crowd of pilgrims

1856,] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 41

preventing their touching it that time, they raised their
hands to their ears in the first position of prayer, and then
lowering them, exclaimed, O Allah (I do this), in thy
belief, and in verification of thy book, and in pur-
suance of thy Prophet's example — may Allah bless him
and preserve ! O Allah, I extend my hand to thee, and
great is my desire to thee ! O accept^ thou my supplica-
tion, and diminish my obstacles, and pity my humiliation,
and graciously grant me thy pardon/ After which, ag
they were still unable to reach the stone, they raised their
hands to their ears, the palms facing the stone, as if touch-
ing it, recited the Takbir, the Tahlil, and the Hamdilah,
blessed the Prophet, and kissed the finger-tips of the
right hand.*'

At this point the pilgrim commences the ceremony called
" Tawaf or ** circumambulation.'* The route which he
is to follow being marked by a low elliptical structure of
polished granite, which encircles the Kaabah. As they
pass round the pilgrims recite a series of prayers at the
various stations appointed for this purpose. We pray
attention to their tenor, as recorded by Mr. Burton him-
self:

" I repeated, after my Mutawwif, or cicerone, ' In the name of
Allah, and Allah is omnipotent ! I purpose to circuit seven circuits
unto almighty Allah, glorified and exalted !' This is technically
called the Niyat of Tawaf. Then we began the prayer, ' 0 Allah (I
do this) in thy belief, and in verification of thy book, and in faith-
fulness to thy covenant, and in perseverance of the example of the
Prophet Mohammed — may Allah bless him and preserve !' till we
reached the place El Multazem, between the corner of the Black
Stone and the Kaabah door. Here we ejaculated, ' 0 Allah, thou
hast rights, so pardon my transgressing them.' Opposite the door
we repeated, ' 0 Allah, verily the house is thy house and the Sanc-
tuary thy Sanctuary, and the safeguard thy safeguard, and this is
the place of him who flies to thee from (hell) fire !' At the little
building called Makam Ibrahim we said, ' O Allah, verily this is
the place of Abraham, who took refuge with and fled to thee from
the fire I — 0 deny my flesh and blood, my skin and bones to the
(eternal) flames !' As we paced slowly round the north or Irak
corner of the Kaabah we exclaimed, * 0 Allah, verily I take refuge
with thee from polytheism, and disobedience, and hypocrisy, and
evil conversation, and evil thoughts concerning family, and pro-
perty, and progeny I' When fronting the Mizab, or spout, we
repeated the words, ' 0 Allah, verily I beg of thee faith which shall
not decline and a certainty which shall not perish, and the good

42 Burton's Meccah and Bast Africa. j Sept.

aid of thj Piophet Mohammed — may A-llah bless him and preserve!
O Allah, shadow me in thy shadovr on that day when there is no
shade but thy shadow, and cause me to drink from the cup of thy
Prophet Mohammed — may A.llah,' &c. ! — 'that pleasant draught
after which is no thirst to all eternity, 0 Lord of honor and glory !•
Turning the west corner, or the Rukn el Shami, we exclaimed, ♦ O
Allah, make it an acceptable pilgrimage, and a forgiveness of sins,
and a laudable endeavour, and a pleasant action (in thy sight), and
a store which perisheth not, 0 thou glorious! 0 thou pardoner 1'
This was repeated thrice, till we arrived at the Yemaui, or southern
corner, wliere, the crowd being less importunate, we touched the
wall with the right hand, after the example of tlie Prophet, and
kissed the finger-tips. Between the south angle and that of the
Black Stone, where our circuit would be completed, we said, * 0
Allah, verily I take refuge with thee from infidelity, and I take
refuge with thee from want, and from the tortures of the tomb, and
from the troubles of life and death. And I fly to thee from igno-
miny in this world and the next, and implore thy pardon for the
present and for the future. 0 Lord, grant to me in this life pros-
perity, and in the next life prosperity, and save me from the punish-
ment of fire.' "—Vol. iii. pp. 205-208.

It is difficult to treat lightly a subject so solemn, and yet
there is h.irdly any except a tone of levity, in which this can
be alluded to without pam. Nor did it end here. This was
but a single " shaut" or course of circumambulation ; and
there are no less than seven prescribed. Mr. Burton went
through them all. He performed the first three " at the pace
called Harwalah, very similar to the French' pas (jfi/mnas-
tique,' orTarammul, that is to say, 'moving the shoulders
as if walking in sand.' The four latter are performed in
Taammul, slowly and leisurely ; the reverse of the Sai, or
running. The Moslem origin of this custom is too well
known to require mention. After each Taufah, or circuit,
we being unable to kiss or even to touch the Black Stone,
fronted towards it, raised our hands to our ears, exclaimed,
* In the name of Allah, and Allah is omnipotent !' kissed
our fingers, and resumed the ceremony of circumambula-
tion, as before, with * Allah, in thy belief,' &c. \"

When, at the conclusion of the whole series of the
Tawaf, it was resolved that they should kiss the stone, it
proved a matter of no little difficulty from the crowd and
confusion which prevailed all around it. But '* the boy
Mohammed" redeemed his fame in this crisis ; and, with
the assistance of half a dozen stout Meccans, ultimately
wedged* his way through the " thin and light-legged

ISoG.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 43

crowd. '* Having thus obtained possession of the stone by
right of conquest, they monopolized it for about ten
minutes ; and whilst kissing it and rubbing his hands and
forehead to it, Mr. Burton observed it so narrowly as to
satisfy himself that it is an aerolite of extraordinary size.
All travellers, indeed, who have seen it are agreed in con-
sidering it of volcanic formation.

There remains yet another scene, of still, if this be pos-
sible, more revolting mummery than what we have de-
scribed, although here too, Mr. Burton relates it with the
same unconsciousness of any impropriety. After having
succeeded in forcing his way to the stone, he underwent a
similar struggle in order to approach another spot of re-
puted sanctity, called El Multazem. Here he ** pressed
his stomach, chest, and right cheek to the Kaabah, raising
his arms high above his head, and exclaiming, * O Allah!
O Lord of the ancient house, free my neck from hell-fire,
and preserve me from every ill deed, and make me content-
ed with that daily bread which thou hast given to me, and
bless me in all thou hast granted !' Then came the
Istighfar, or begging of pardon : * I beg pardon of Allah
the most high, who, there is no other Allah but he, the
living, the eternal, and to him I repent myself!* After
which they blessed the Prophet, and then asked for them-
selves all that their souls desired most.

After embracing the Multazem they next repaired to the
Shafei's place of prayer near the Makam Ibrahim, and
there recited two prostrations, technically called * Sunnat
el Tawaf,' or the (Prophet's) practice' of circumambulation.
The chapter repeated in the first was * Say thou, O ye in-
fidels :' in the second, * Say thou he is the one God.*
** We then,** he proceeds, *' went to the door of the build-
ing in which is Zem Zem: there I was condemned to
another nauseous draught, and was deluged with two or
three skinfuls of water dashed over my head en douche.
This ablution causes sins to fall from the spirit like
dust. During the potation we prayed, * O Allah,
verily I beg of thee plentiful daily bread, and profit-
able learning, and the healing of every disease !' Then
we returned towards the Black Stone, stood far away
opposite, because unable to touch it, ejaculated the
Tekbir, the Tahlil, and the Hamdilah : and, thoroughly
worn out with scorched feet and a burning head — both

44 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

extremities, it must be remembered, were bare, and various
delays had detained us until ten a.m. — I left the mosque."
Mr Burton, however, is not always the pilgrim. In the
evening he returned to the Bait Allah as a spectator.

" In the evening, accompanied by the boy Mohammed, and followed
by Shaykh Nur, who carried a lantern and a praying-rug, I again
repaired to the ' Navel of the World ;' this time aesthetically, to
enjoy the delights of the hour after the ' gaudy, babbling and
remorseful day.* The moon, now approaching the full, tipped the
brow of Abu Kubays, and lit up the spectacle with a more solemn
light. In the midst stood the huge bier-like erection, —

'Black as the wings
Which some spirit of ill o'er a sepulchre flings,' —

except where the moonbeams streaked it like jets of silver falling
upon the darkest marble. It formed the point of rest for the eye ;
the little pagoda-like buildings and domes around it, with all their
gilding and fretwork, vanished. One object, unique in appearance,
stood in view — the temple of the one Allah, the God of Abraham,
of Ishmael, and of his posterity. Sublime it was, and expressing by
all the eloquence of fancy the grandeur of the One Idea which
vitalised £1 Islam, and the sternuess and stedfastness of its vo-
taries.

" The oval pavement around the Kaabah was crowded with men,
women, and children, mostly divided into parties, which followed a
Mutawwif; some walking staidly, and others running, whilst many
stood in groups to prayer. What a scene of contrast! Here stalked
the Bedouin woman, in her long black robe like a nun's serge, and
poppy-coloured face-veil, pierced to show two fiercely flashing orbs.
There an Indian woman with her semi-Tartar features, nakedly
hideous, and her thin parenthetical legs, encased in wrinkled tights,
hurried round the fane. Every now and then a corpse, borne upon
its wooden shell, circuited the shrine by means of four bearers,
whom other Moslems, as is the custom, occasionally relieved. A
few fair-skinned Turks lounged about, looking cold and repulsive,
as their wont is. In one place a fast Calcutta ' Khitmugar '
stood, with turban awry and arms akimbo, contemplating the view
jauntily, as those gentlemen's gentlemen will do. In another,
some poor wretch, with arms thrown on high, so that every part of
his person might touch the Kaabah, was clinging to the curtain and
sobbing as though his heart would break." — Vol. iii. pp. 215-217.

The feeding of the sacred pigeons he left to " the boy
Mohammed," continuing in the meanwhile to watch the
curious incidents of the pilgrimage which presented them-
selves during the evening. One of them, a fit of the

1656. 1 Burtons Meccah and East Africa. 45

* Malbus' or religious frenzy into which the devotees hot
uufrequently fall, is strange and revolting in the extreme.
He hoped to wear oat the piety of the pilgrims, and to
obtain, at the close of the day of prayer, a space during which
the Mosque might be comparatively empty and might
afiford him an opportunity for closer examination. But he
waited in vain. The crowd remained throughout un-
diminished. He could not even succeed in stealing a bit
of the curtain of the Kaabah ; and the only reward of his
waiting was that, by a judicious use of his eyes, by furtively
** stepping and spanning," and by an occasional secret
employment of the tape, he " managed to measure all the
objects about which he was curious." (p. 222.)

After the ceremonies of the pilgrimage of the Bait Allah,
came the visitation of the sacred places around Meccah,
Among these Mount Arafat holds a high place. It owes
its repute to a well-known legend. "When our first parents
forfeited heaven by eating wheat, which deprived them of
their primeval purity, they were cast down upon earth.
The serpent descended at Ispalian, the peacock at Cabul,
Satan at Bilbays (others say Semnan and Seistan), Eve
upon Arafat, and Adam at Ceylon. The latter, determin-
ing to seek his wife, began a journey, to which earth owes
its present mottled appearance. Wherever our first father
placed his foot — which was large — a town afterwards arose ;
between the strides will always be * country.* Wander-
ing for many years, he came to the Mountain of Mercy,
where our common mother was continually calling upon
his name, and their recognition gave the place the name
of Arafat. Upon its summit Adam, instructed by the
archangel, erected a * Madaa,' or place of prayer ; and
between this spot and the Nimrah mosque the pair
abode till death."

Arafat is distant from Meccah about twelve miles ,* but
the journey under the broiling sun of September is full
of fatigue and even of danger. Mr. Burton himself saw
four men fall down and die amid the fanatical crowd
among whom he pressed his way.

The pilgrim encampment at Arafat presented a curious
scene.

" From the Holy Hill I walked down to look at the camp arrange-
ments. The main street of tents and booths, huts and shops, was
bright with lanterns, and the bazaars were crowded with people

48 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

and stocked with all manner of eastern delicacies. Some anoma-
lous spectacles met the eye. Many pilgrims, especially the soldiers,
were in laical costume. In one place a half-drunken Arnaut stalked
down the road, elbowing peaceful passengers and frowning fiercely
in hopes of a quarrel. In another, a huge dimly lit tent, reeking
hot, and garnished with cane seats, containing knots of Egyptians,
as their red tarbushes, white turbans, and black zaabuts showed,
noisily intoxicating themsefves with forbidden hemp. There were
frequent brawls and great confusion ; many men had lost their
parties, and, mixed with loud Labbayks, rose the shouted names of
women as well as men. I was surprised at the disproportion of
female nomenclature, — the missing number of fair ones seemed to
double that of the other sex, — and at a practice so opposed to the
customs of the Moslem world. At length the boy Mohammed
enlightened me. Egyptian and other bold women, when, unable
to join the pilgrimage, will pay or persuade a friend to shout their
names in the hearing of the Holy, with a view of ensuring a real
presence at the desired spot next year. So the welkin rang with
the indecent sounds of O Fatimah ! 0 Zaynabl O Khayzaran!
Plunderers too, were abroad. As we returned to the tent we found
a crowd assembled near it ; a woman had seized a thief as he was
beginning operations, and had the courage to hold his beard till
men ran to her assistance. And we were obliged to defend by force
our position against a knot of grave-diggers, who would bury a little
heap of bodies within a yard or two of our tent." — Vol. iii. pp. 260-
262.

Perhaps, however, the most curious of all the ceremoni-.
als connected with the Meccan pilgrimage is the '* Ramy,"
or " Lapidation" — the " Stoning of" the Devil.*' As a pre-
liminary, our pilgrims had provided themselves with some
pebbles gathered at Muzdalifah. These pebbles they
washed " with seven waters" on the morning of" the
ceremony, and bound up in a corner of their *' Ihram."

" We found a swarming crowd in the narrow road opposite the

* Jamrat el Akabali,' or, as it is vulgarly called, the Sliaytan el
Kabir — the 'Great Devil.' These names distinguish it from another
pillar, the ' Wusta,' or ' central place,' (of stoning), built in the
middle of Muna, and a third at the eastern end, 'El Ula,' or the

* first place.'

*' The ' Shaytan el Kabir ' is a dwarf buttress of rude masonry,
about eight feet high by two and a half broad, placed against a
rough wall of stones, at the Meccan entrance to Muna. As the
ceremony of ' Ramy,' or Lapidation, must be performed on the first
day by all pilgrims between sunrise and sunset, and as the fiend
was malicious enough to appear in a rugged pass, the crowd makes
the place dangerous. On one side of the road which is not forty

1856.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 47

feet broad, stood a row of shops belonging principally to barbers.
Oq the other side is the rugged wall of the pillar with a chevaux
de /rise of Bedouins and naked boys. The narrow space was
crowded with pilgrims, all struggling like drowning men to approach
as near as possible to the Devil; — it would have been easy to run
over the heads of the mass. Amongst them were horsemen with
rearing chargers. Bedouins on wild camels, and grandees on mules
and asses, with outrunners, were breaking a way by assault and
battery. I had read Ali Bey's self-felicitations upon escaping this
place with ' only two wounds in the left leg,' and had duly provided
myself with a hidden dagger. The precaution was not useless.
Scarcely had my donkey entered the crowd than he was over-
thrown by a dromedary, and I found myself under the stamping
and roaring beast's .^tomach. By a judicious use of the knife, I
avoided being trampled upon, and lost no time in escaping from a
place so ignobly dangerous. Some Moslem travellers assert, in
proof of the sanctity of the spot, that no Moslem is ever killed
here : I was assured by Meccans that acjidents are by no meaas
rare.''— Vol. iii. pp. 282-284.

The worst results to our pilgrims, however, were these
buflfets and a bloody nose for ** the boy Mohammed ;*' and
at last, "findhig an opemng, they approached within five
cubits of the place, and holding each a stone between the
thumb and the forefinger of the right hand, cast it at the
pillar, exclaiming, * In the name of Allah, and Allah is
Almighty ! (I do this) in hatred of the Fiend and to his
shame.' After which came the Tahlil and the ' Sana,' or
praise to Allah.'' The seven'stones being duly thrown,
they retired, and entering the barber's booth, took their
places upon one of the earthen benches around it.

This was the time to remove the Ihram or pilgrim's
garb, and to return to Ihlal, the normal state of El Islam.
*' The barber," says Mr. Burton, ** shaved our heads,
and, after trimming our beards and cutting our nails,
made us repeat these words : ' I purpose loosening my
Ihram according to the practice of the Prophet, whom
may Allah bless and preserve ! O Allah, make unto
me in every hair, a hght, a purity, and a generous
reward ! In the name of Allah, and Allah is Al-
mighty !' At the conclusion of his labour the barber
politely addressed to us a * Naiman' — Pleasure to you !
To which we as ceremoniously replied, * Allah give thee
pleasure !' We had no clothes with us, but we could use
our cloths to cover our heads and defend our feet from the
fiery sua ; and we now could safely twirl our mustachios

48 " Burton^ s Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

and stroke our beards, — placid enjoyments of which we
had been deprived by the laws of pilgrimage."

Scarcely had they returned from Muna to Meccah, when
" the boy Mohammed'* came to Mr. Burton in a state of
great excitement to inform him that the long-desired
opportunity of inspecting the interior of the Kaabah had
now arrived, as it then was and for a short time would
remain empty. He gladly availed himself of the moment,
and notwithstanding the fear of detection which it was im-
possible to suppress, he contrived i^pt only to make an
accurate observation of all its parts, but even to draw a
rough plan of it with a pencil upon his white * Ihram.' "
This plan will be found in his volume, (p. 288.) We shall
transcribe the description.

*' Nothing is more simple than the interior 'of this celebrated
building. The pavement, which is level with the ground, is com-
posed of slabs of fine and various coloured marbles, mostly however
white, disposed chequer-wise. The walls, as far as they can be
seen, are of the same material, but the pieces are irregularly
shaped, and many of them are engraved with long inscriptions in
the suls and other modern characters. The upper part of the walls,
together with the ceiling, at which it is considered disrespectful to
look, are covered with handsome i*ed damask, flowered over with
gold, and tucked up about six feet high, so as to be removed from
pilgrims' hands. The ceiling is upheld by three cross-beams, whose
shapes appear under the arras ; they rest upon the eastern and
western walls, and are supported in the centre by three columns
about twenty inches in diameter, covered with carved and orna-
mented aloe wood. At the Iraki corner there is a dwarf door,
called Bab el Taubah (of repentance), leading into a narrow passage
built for the staircase by which the servants ascend to the roof: it
is never opened except for working purposes. The ' Aswad ' or
' As'ad ' corner is occupied by a flat-topped and quadrant-shaped
press or safe in which at times is placed the key of the Kaabah.
Both door and safe are of aloe wood. Between the columns and
about nine feet from the ground ran bars of a metal which I could
not distinguish, and hanging to them were many lamps said to be
of gold. This completes the upholstery work of the hall.

"Although there were in the Kaabah but a few attendants engaged
in preparing it for the entrance of pilgrims, the windowless stone
walls and the choked-up door made it worse than the Piombi of
Venice ; the perspiration trickled in large drops, and I thought
with horror what it must be when filled with a mass of jostling and
crushing fanatics. Our devotions consisted of a two-prostration
prayer, followed by long supplications at |;he Shami (west) corner,
the Iraki (north) angle, the Yemani (south), and, lastly, opposite

1856.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa, 49

the soutltern third of the back wall. These concluded, I returned
to the door, where payment is made. The boy Mohammed told
me that the total expense would be seven dollars. At the same
time he had been indulging aloud in his favourite rhodomontade,
boasting of my greatness, and had declared me to be an Indian
pilgrim, a race still supposed at Meccah to be made of gold. Wlien
seven dollars were tendered they were rejected with insolence. Ex-
pecting something of the kind, I had been careful to bring no more
thau eight. Being pulled and interpolated by half a dozen attend-
ants, my course was to look stupid, and to pretend ignorance of the
language. Presently the Shaybah youth bethought him of a contri-
vance. Drawing forth from the press the key of the Kaabah, he partly
bared it of its green-silk gold-lettered etui, and rubbed a golden
knob quatrefoil shaped upon my eyes, in order to brighten them.
I submitted to the operation with good grace, and added a dollar —
my last — to the former offering. The Sherif received it with a
hopeless glance, and, to my satisfaction, would not put forth his
hand to be kissed. Then the attendants began to demand vails. I
replied by opening my empty pouch. When let down from the door by
the two brawny Meccans, I was expected to pay them, and accordingly
appointed to meet them at the boy Mohammed's house; an arrange-
ment to which they grumblingly assented. When delivered from
these troubles, I was congratulated by my sharp companion thus :
* Wallah Effendil thou hast escaped well! some men have left their
skins behind.' "—Vol. iii. pp. 288-293.

The privilege of entering the Kaabah is one which does
not fall to the lot of all pilgrims. Many of the poorer
class decline to do so because of the expense, others from
reluctance to incur the religious obligation which a visit
to that holy place is supposed to impose upon the visitant,
obligations so stringent that Mr. Burton's companion,
Umar EfFendi, a devotee of the first water, abstained from
this visitation. A man who sets foot within the sacred
precincts of the Kaabah is " thenceforth for ever" bound
never again to walk barefooted, never to touch fire with
his fingers, and never to tell lies. The last-named obli-
gation is one which few conscientious Mussulmen can
afibrd to contract.

The last rite connected with the visit to the Kaabah is
thesacrifice. This, it is true, is not a rite of absolute obli-
gation, but a mere Sunnat, or practice of the Prophet, for
which a substitute may be accepted, — the ordinary substi-
tute being a fast of ten days, three during the pilgrimage,
and the remaining seven at some subsequent time. Mr.

VOL. XLL-No. LXXXI. 4

50 Burton's Mcccah and East Africa. [Sept'

Burton, consiiiering the reduced condition of his finances,
was fain to adopt the alternative.

** After their departure we debated about the victim, which 13
only a Sunnat, or Practice of the Prophet. It is generally sacrificed
immediately after the first lapidation, and we had already been
guilty of delay. Under these circumstances, and considering the
meagre condition of my purse, I would not buy a sheep, but con-
tented myself with watching my neighbours. They gave them-
selves great trouble, especially a large party of Indians pitched
near us, to buy the victim cheap ; but the Bedouins were not less
acute, and he was happy who paid less than a dollar and a quarter.
Some preferred contributing to buy a lean ox. None but the Sherif
and the principal dignitaries slaughtered camels. The pilgrims
dragged their victims to a smooth rock near the Akabah, above
which stands a small open pavilion, whose sides, red with fresh
blood, showed that the prince and his attendants had been busy at
sacrifice. Others stood before their tents, and directing the victim's
face towards the Kaabah, cut its throat, ejaculating, • Bismillah !
Allahu Akbarl' The boy Mohammed sneeringly directed my atten-
tion to the Indians, who, being a mild race, had hired an Arab
butcher to do the deed of blood ; and he aroused all Shaykh Nur's
ire by his taunting comments upon the chicken-heartedness of the
men of Hind. It is considered a meritorious act to give away the
victim without eating any portion of its flesh. Parties of Takruri
might be seen, sitting vulture-like, contemplating the sheep and
goats ; and no sooner was the signal given, than they fell upon the
bodies, and cut them up without removing them. The surface of
the valley soon came to resemble the dirtiest slaughter-house, and
my prescient soul drew bad auguries for the future.'' — Vol. iii. pp.
302-304.

We must pass over the remainingr pious visitations which
Mr. Burton accomphshed ; — the '* Days of Drying Flesh ;'*
the visit to the ** Majarr el Rabsh," the " Dragging-Place
of the Ram/* (the animal which was substituted for Ismail,
according to the Mahometan tradition, in Abraham's
sacrifice, at the command of the Archangel Gabriel — ) ;
the ** Little Pilgrimage ;" and lastly, the visits to the holy-
places in the environs, seventeen in number ; all of which,
with the exception of four, he contrived to include in the
circle of his pilgrimage. It may better amuse the reader
to record a scene of a more earthly character, a Meccan
dinner-party, at which Mr. Burton was a guest, just before
leaving the Holy City.

" Before leaving Meccah I was urgently invited to dine by old

1856.] Burton's MeccaJi and East Africa. 51

AH bin Ya Sin, the Zem Zemi ; a proof that he entertained inor-
dinate expectations, excited, it appeared, by the boj Mohammed,
for the simple purpose of exalting his own dignity. One day we
"were hurriedly summoned about 3 p. m. to the senior's house, a
large building in the Zukah el Hajar. We found it full of pilgrims,
amongst whom we had no trouble to recognise our fellow-travellers,
the quarrelsome old Arnaut and his impudent slave-boy, Ali met
us upon the staircase and conducted us into an upper room, where
we sat upon divans and with pipes and coflFee prepared for dinner.
Presently the semicircle rose to receive a eunuch, who lodged
somewhere in the house. He was a person of importance, being the
guardian of some dames of high degree at Cairo or Constantinople :
the highest place and the best pipe were unhesitatingly offered to
and accepted by him. He sat down with dignity, answered diplo-
matically certain mysterious questions about the damas, and then
glued his blubber lips to a handsome mouthpiece of lemon-coloured
amber. It was a fair lesson of humility for a man to find himself
ranked beneath this high-shouldered, spindle-shanked, beardless
bit of neutrality, and as such I took it duly to heart.

" The dinner was served up in a * Siui,' a plated copper tray
about six feet in circumference, and handsomely ornamented with
arabesques and inscriptions. Under this was the usual Kursi, or
stool, composed of mother-o'-pearl facets set in sandal wood ; and
upon it a well-tinned and clean-looking service of the same material
as the Sini. We began with a variety of stews ; stews with
spinach, stews with bamiyah (hibiscus), and rich vegetable stews.
These being removed, we dipped hands in ' Biryani,' a meat pillaw,
abounding in clarified butter ; ♦ Kimah,' finely chopped meat ;
* Warak Mahshi,' vine leaves filled with chopped and spiced mutton,
and folded into small triangles ; ' Kabab,' or bits of roti spitted in
mouthfuls upon a splinter of wood ; together with a * Salatah ' of
the crispest cucumber, and various dishes of watermelon cut up
into squares. Bread was represented by the eastern scone ; but it
was of superior flavour and far better than the ill-famed Chapati of
India. Our drink was water perfumed with mastic. After tho
meat came a 'Kunafah,' fine vermicelli sweetened with honey and
sprinkled with powdered white sugar; several stews of apples and
quiuces ; ' Muhallibah,' a thin jelly made of rice, flour, milk, starch,
and a little perfume ; together with squares of Rahah, a comfiture
highly prized in these regions, because it comes from Constantino-
ple.. Fruits were then placed upon the table ; plates full of pome-
granate grains and dates of the finest flavour. The dinner con-
cluded with a pillaw of boiled rice ana butter ; for the easier dis-
cussion of which we were provided with carved wooden spoons.

''Orientals ignore the delightful French art of prolonging a dinner.
After washing your hands, you sit down, throw au embroidered
napkin over your knees, and with a • Bismillah,' by way of grace,
plunge your hand into the attractive dish, changing ad libitum,

52 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

occasionally sucking your finger-tipa as boys do lollipops, and vary-
ing that diversion by cramming a chosen morsel into a friend's
mouth. When your hunger is satisfied, you do not sit for your
companions ; you exolaim 'Al Hamd I' edge away from the tray,
■wash your hands and mouth with soap, display signs of repletion,
otherwise you will be pressed to eat more, seize your pipe, sip your
coffee, and take your ' Kaif.'

"Nor is it customary, in these benighted lands, to sit together
after dinner — the evening prayer cuts short the siance. Before we
arose to take leave of Ali bin Ya Sin a boy ran into the room, and
displayed those infantine civilities which in the East are equivalent
to begging for a present. I slipped a dollar into his hand ; at the
sight of which he, veritable little Mecsan, could not contain his joy.
* The Kiyal !' he exclaimed ; • the Riyal! look, grandpa', the good
Effendi has given me a Riyal I' The old gentleman's eyes twinkled
with emotion : he saw how easily the money had slipped from my
fingers, and he fondly hoped that he had not seen the last piece.
'Verily thou art a good young man!' he ejaculated, adding fer-
vently, as prayers cost nothing, ' May Allah further all thy desires.*
A gentle patting of the back evidenced high approval." — Vol. iii.
pp. 3G0-364.

At the close of the Holy Week at Meccah pilgrims com-
monly devote a few days to worldly pursuits and to plea-
sure, as a sort of compensation for the mortifications and
restraints of the holy time. Mr. Burton had no further
inducement to remain, and accordingly set out for Jeddah,
the seaport resorted to by pilgrims, and reached that city
safely, after an adventurous journey, still attended by his
faithful " boy Mohammed.'* From this companion of his
long pilgrimages he parted at Jeddah, and sailed for Sue^
in a small steam boat, the '* Dwarka,'* which had been
sent by the Bombay Steam Navigation Company, to
cany the Indian pilgrims back from the Hejaz.

Here the Pilgrimage closes. But, as the reader is pro-
bably aware, the character of Haji does not cease with
the actual pilgrimage itself, but is a permanent possession,
carrying with it certain privileges which subsist during the
lifetime of the pilgrim. Mr. Burton has availed himself
of this advantage ; and #e expedition into Eastern Africa
and the visit to the forbidden city of Harar, which form the
subject of a new work from his pen, is one of the first
fruits of those immunities which the Haji character is
supposed to involve. The Directors of the East India Com-
pany, and the Council of the Geographical Society, were for

1856.1 Burton^s Meccah and East Africa,, 53

a long time desirous to obtain reliable information as to the
geography and the productive resources of the Somali
country — the great tract which stretches along the eastern
coast, south of the Strait of Bab El Mandeb, as far as Cape
Gardafui, and extends to a considerable distance into the
interior. A still greater object of attraction for adventu-
rous explorers, is the city already alluded to, Harar, the
capital of the ancient Kadijah empire. The most daring
of the African travellers. Salt, Krapf, Isenberg, Barker,
Rochet, and many of our own missionaries, had attempted
it in vain. Its repute was almost as bad as that of Tim-
buctoo in Western Africa. An ancient prophecy was
said to have foretold that the footsteps of the Frank within
its walls would speedily be followed by decline and ruin, and
death was decreed as the punishment of any too daring
infidel who should be discovered within its forbidden
precincts. The subject altogether is so new, and Mr.
Burton's work contains so much information regarding it,
that we shall be readily pardoned for extracting from it
more copiously than is our wont.

As regards the Somali expedition, a formal commission
for this purpose was given nearly four years since, to Dr.
Carter, of Bombay, who is already favourably known in
connexion with the maritime survey of Eastern Arabia;
but owing to a change in some of the official departments,
the project was suspended ; nor was it revived till Mr.
Burton's return from El Hejaz, in 1854, when it was
resumed on a much more comprehensive scale. Three
other officers, of much experience and enterprize, were
associated with Mr. Burton; and one of these was sent to
Berberah, a town upon the coast,, for the purpose of dis-
arming suspicion, by a continued residence, and of produc-
ing a favourable impression as to the intentions of the
strangers. ^ Mr. Burton himself set out on the more
hazardous journey to Harar.

True to his Haji tastes, he would have desired to com-
mence his journey on the auspicious 6th of the month
Safar, sacred in the Moslem calendar, which corresponds
with our 28th of October ; but with all his zeal they were
unable to start till the following day, Oct. 29, 1854, when
they sailed from Aden ; and the Haji consoled himself for
the loss of the more auspicious sailing day, by carefully
repeating " before entering into the open sea, the Fatihah

54 Burton* s Meccah and East Africa. fSept"

prayer, in honour of the Shaykh Majid, inventor of the
mariner's compass."

After a scorching voyage across the Indian Ocean, Mr.
Burton reached Zayla on the 31st of the same month,
where he remained for nearl}' a month engaged in prepara-
tions for the more perilous adventure, upon which he was
then to enter. That he did not suffer his Haji accompUsh-
ments to lie hidden, will appear from the following curious
scene.

•' On Friday, our Sunday, a drunken crier goes about the town,
threatening the bastinado to all who neglect their five prayers.
At half-past eleven a kettle drum sounds a summons to tlie jami,
or cathedral. It is an old barn rudely plastered with whitewash;
posts or columns of artless masonry support the low roof; and the
smalluess of the windows, or rather air holes, renders its dreary
length unpleasantly hot. There is no pulpit ; the only ornament
is a rude representation of the Meccan Mosque, nailed like a pot-
house print to the wall ; and the sole articles of furniture are
ragged mats and old boxes containing tattered chapters of thet
Koran in greasy bindings. I enter with a servant carrying a prayer
carpet, encounter the stare of three hundred pair of eyes, belong-
ing to parallel rows of sqatters, recite the customary twobov
prayer in honour of the mosque, placing a sword and rosary before
me, taking up the Cow chapter (No. 18) loud and twangingly. At
the Zohr, or midday hour, the Muezzin inside the mosque, standing
before the Khatib or preacher, repeats the call to prayer, which the
congregation, sitting upon their shins and feet, intone after hira.
This ended all present stand up, and recite every man for himself,
a two-bow prayer of Sunnat or Example, concluding with the bless-
ing on the prophet and the salam over each shoulder to all brother
believers. The Khatib then ascends his hole in the wall which
serves for pulpit, and thence addresses us with, ' The peace be upoa
you, and the mercy of Allah, and his benediction ;' to which we
respond through the Muezzin, ' And upon you be peace and Allah's
mercy I' After sundry other religious formulas and their replies,
concludiug with a second call to prayer, our preacher rises, and iii
the voice with which Sir Hudibras was wont

' To blaspheme custard through the nose,'

Preaches El Waaz, or the advice-sermon. He sits down for a few
minutes, and then rising again recites El Naat, or the Praise of the
Prophet and his Companions. These are the two heads into which
the Moslem discourse is divided; unfortunately, however, there is
no application. Our preacher who is also Kazi or judge, makes
several blunders in his Arabic, and he reads his sermons, a thing
nevsr done in El Islam, except by the modi<^ docti. The discourse

ISSG."! BmtorCs Meccah and East Africa. 55

over, our clerk who is, if possible, worse than the curate, repeats
the form of call termed El Ilamah ; then entering the Mihrab or
niche, he recites the two-bow or Friday litanj, with, and in front of,
the congregation. I remarked no peculiarity in the style of praying,
except that all followed the practice of the Shafeis in El Yemen,
raising the hands for a moment instead of letting them depend
along the thighs, between the Rukaat or bow and Sujdah or pros-
tration. This public prayer concluded, many people leave the
mosque ; a few remain for more prolonged devotion." — (p. 60-2.)

We leave our Anglican friends to discuss with Mr.
Burton the justice and good taste of the following
parallel.

" There is a queer kind of family likeness between this scene and
that of a village church, in some quiet nook of rural England.
Old Sharmarkay, the squire, attended by his son, takes his place
close by the pulpit ; and although the Honoratiores have no padded
and cushioned pews, they comport themselves very much as if they
had. Recognitions of the most distant description are allowed
before the service commences : looking round is strictly forbidden
during prayers ; but all do not regard the prohibition, especially
when a new moustache enters. Leaving the church, men shake
hands, stand for a moment to exchange friendly gossip, or address
a few words to the preacher, and then walk home to dinner. Tliere
are many salient points of difference. No bonnets appear in public:
the squire, after prayers, gives alms to the poor, and departs
escorted by two dozen matchlock men, who perseveringly fire their
shotted guns." — (pp. 62-3.)

The most interesting portion of the narrative of his
residence at Zayla consists of sketches of the people of
the Somali, and other almost equally unknown regions of
East Africa. The character of the Eesa Bedouins,
although they exhibit more intelligence than the tribes of
the interior, is in some respects one of the most repulsive
to be found even among the odious races of Central Africa,
the horrors of whose moral condition have contributed
more to convert it into a waste and *' howling wilderness,"
than its dreary and desolate physical characteristics. The
Eesas have most of the bad qualities of their more savage
countrymen, only somewhat softened and disguised by
the lower arts of civilization.

" In character the Eesa are childish and docile, cunning, and defi-
cient in judgment, kind and fickle, good humoured and irascible,
warm-hearted, and infamous for cruelty and treachery. Even the
protector will slay his protege, and citizens married to Eesa girla

6^ Burton's Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

send their wives to buy goats and sheep from, but will not trust
themselves amongst their connexions. 'Traitorous as an Eesa,' is a
proverb at Zayla, where the people tell you that these Bedouins
with the left hand offer a bowl of milk and stab with the right.
Conscience, I may observe, does not exist in Eastern Africa, and
Repentance expresses regret for missed opportunities of mortal
crime. Robbery constitutes an honourable man : murder — tho
more atrocious the midnight crime the better — makes the hero.
Honour consists in taking human life. Hyaena-like, tho Bedouins
cannot be trusted where blnod may be shed. Glory is the having
done all manner of harm. Yet the Eesa have their good points :
they are not noted liars, and will rarely perjure themselves : they
look down upon petty pilfering without violence, and they are
generous and hospitable compared with the other Somal.'' — pp.
175-6.

*' The life led by these wild people is necessarily monotonous.
They rest but little from 11 p.m. till dawn, and never sleep in the
bush, for fear of plundering parties. Few begin the day with
prayer, as Moslem should : for the most part, they apply them-
selves to counting and milking their cattle. The animals, all of
which have names, come when called to the pail, and supply the
family with their morning meal. Then the warriors, grasping their
spears, and sometimes the young women, armed only with staves,
drive their herds to pasture : the matrons and children, spinning
or rope making, tend the flocks, and the Kraal is abandoned to the
very young, the old, or the sick. The herdsmen wander about,
watching the cattle, and tasting nothing but the pure element, or a
pinch of coarse tobacco. Sometimes they play at Shahh,
Shantarah, and other games, of which they are passionately fond,
with a board formed of lines traced in the sand, and bits of dry
\rood or camel's earth acting pieces, they spend hour after hour,
every looker on vociferating his opinion, and catching at the men,
till apparently the two players are those least interested in the
game. Or, to drive off sleep, they sit whistling to their flocks, or
they perform upon the Forimo, a reed pipe generally made at
Harar, which has a plaintive sound uncommonly pleasing. In the
evening, the Kraal again resounds with lowing and bleating : the
camels' milk is all drunk, the cows' and goats' is preserved for but-
ter and whey, which the women prepare : the numbers are once
more counted, and the animals are carefully penned up for the
night. This simple life is occasionally varied by birth and mar-
riage, dance and foray, disease and murder." — pp. 179 80.

Their religion is a curious mixture of the old Sabseisin
with the leading tenets of Mahommedanism. Mr. Burton
was made quite at home among them by his Haji cha-
racter and Haji experience, and on some occasions did
not hesitate to officiate in this capacity.

1856.1 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 57

" The Somal hold mainly to the Shafei school of El Islam ; their
principal peculiaritj is their not reciting prayers over the dead,
even in the towns. The marriage ceremony is simple. The price
of the bride and the feast being duly arranged, the formula is
recited by some priest or pilgrim. I have been often requested to
oflBciate on these occasions, and the End of Time has done it by
irreverently reciting the Fatihah over the happy pair. The Somal,
as usual amongst the heterogeneous mass, amalgamated by El Islam,
have a diversity of superstitions attesting their Pagan origin.
Such, for instance, as their oaths by stones, their reverence of
cairns and holy trees, and their ordeals of fire and water, the
Bolungo of Western Africa. A man accused of murder or theft,
walks down a trench full of live charcoal, and about a spear's length,
or he draws out of the flames a smith's anvil, heated to redness ;
some prefer picking four or five cowries out of a pot of boiling
water. The member used is at once rolled up in the intestines of a
sheep, and not inspected for a whole day. They have traditionary
seers, called Tawuli, like the Greegre-men of Western Africa, who,
by inspecting the fat and bones of slauglitered cattle, ' do medicine,*
predict rains, battles, and diseases of animals. This class is of both
sexes. They never pray or bathe, and are therefore considered always
impure ; thus, being feared, they are greatly respected by the vul-
gar. Their predictions are delivered in a rude rhyme, often put for
importance into the mouth of some deceased seer. During the
three months called Rajalo, the Koran is not read over graves, and
no marriage ever takes place. The reason of this peculiarity is
stated to be in imitation of their ancestor, Ishak, who happened
not to contract a matrimonial alliance at such epoch ; it is, how-
ever, a manifest remnant of the pagan's auspicious and inauspi-
cious months. Thus, they sacrifice the camels in the month
Sabuh, and keep holy with feasts and bonfires the Dubshid, or
New Year's Day. At certain unlucky periods, when the moon is
in ill omened Asterisms, those who die are placed in bundles of
matting, upon a tree, the idea being that if buried, a loss would
result to the tribe." — pp. 112-13.

Having at length completed the preparations for the
journey, and the equipment of his party, our Haji set out
for Harar in the latter part of November. The disguise,
however, which he assumed, though it included the
Haji character was, properly speaking, that of a mer-
chant— a Moslem merchant, ** a character not to be con-
founded with the notable individuals seen on Change.
Mercator in the East is a compound of tradesman,,
divine, and T. G. Usually of gentle birth, he is every-
where welcomed and respected, and he bears in his
mind and manner that, if Allah please, he may become

68 Burton's Meccah and East Africa. | Sept.

prime minister a month after he has sold you a yard of
cloth. Commerce appears to be an accident, not an essen-
tial, with him ; yet he is by no means deficient in acumen.
He is a grave and reverend signior, with rosary in hand,
and Koran on lips, is generally a pilgrim, talks at dreary
length about holy places, writes a pretty hand, has read,
and can recite much poetry, — is master of his religion,
demeans himself with respectability, is perfect in all

Eoints of economy and politeness, and feels equally at
ome whether Sultan or slave sit upon his counter. He
has a wife and children in his own country, where he
intends to spend the remnant of his days ; but the world
is uncertain — ' Fate descends and man's eye seeth it not*
— * the earth is a charnel house ;* briefly, his many wise
old saws give him a kind of theoretical consciousness that
his bones may moulder in other places but his father-
land."

After a journey of about five weeks, he reached the For-
bidden City on the 3rd January, 1855. It needed all his
eastern experience, and. all his boldness and determina-
tion, to battle with the many obstacles which were
thrown in his way ; but he successfully overcame them,
and has had the glory of being the first to penetrate
its mysteries, long an object of deep curiosity. We must
make room for a portion of his description of the city.
It would be hard not to sympathize with the feel-
ings under which he first beheld it; for although "the
spectacle, materially speaking, was a disappointment,*'
although nothing conspicuous appeared to the approach-
ing party, *' but two grey minarets of rude shape ;"
and though many would have "grudged exposing their
lives to win so paltry a prize/' yet no traveller with
the true spirit of travel, and the enterprise which it engen-
ders, could forget that '* of all who ever attempted it, none
had ever yet succeeded in entering that pile of stones,**
or shut his mind against the inspiration which this
thought must bring with it, to one whose travelling plea-
sures consist mainly in the novel and exciting scenes
which travel in unknown lands seldom fails to supply. <

" The present city, Ilarar, is about one mile long, by half that
breadth. An irregular wall, lately repaired, but ignorant of can-
non, is pierced with five large gates, supported by oval towers of
artless construction. The material of the houses and defences

1856.J Burton's Meccah and East Africa. ■ 59

are rough stones. The granites and sandstones of the hills,
cemented like the ancient Jalla cities, with clay. The only large
building is tlie Jami, or cathedral, a lon^ barn, of poverty-stricken
appearance, with broken down g?.tes, and tvro white-washed mina-
rets of truncated conoid shape. They were built by Turkish archi-
tects, from Mocha and Hodaydah ; one of them lately fell, and has
been replaced by an inferior effort of Harari art. There are a few
trees in the city, but it contains more of those gardens which gives
to Eastern settlements that pleasant view of town and country
combined. The streets are narrow lanes, up hill and down dale,
strewed with gigantic rubbish heaps, upon which repose packs of
mangy, or one-eyed dogs, and even the best are encumbered with
rocks and stones. The habitations are mostly long, flat-roofed
sheds, double storied, with doors composed of a single plank, and
holes for windows pierced high above the ground, and decorated
with miserable wood-work ; the principal houses have separate
apartments for the women, and stand at the bottom of large
court-yards, closed by gates of Helens stalks. The poorest classes
inhabit ' Gambisa,' the thatched cottages of the hill cultivators.
The city abounds in mosques, plain buildings, without minarets,
and in graveyards, stuffed with tombs, — oblong troughs, formed
by long slabs, planted edge-ways in the ground. I need scarcely
say that Harar is proud of her learning, sanctity, and holy dead;
the principal saint buried in the city is, Shaykh Umar Abadir El
Bakri, originally from Jeddah, and now the patron of Harar ;
he lies under a little dome in the southern quarter of the city,
near the Bisidimo Gate.'' — pp. 321-23.

The population of Harar numbers about eight thou-
sand.

" The Soraal say of the city that it is a paradise inhabited by
asses : certainly the exterior of the people is highly unprepossess-
ing. Amongst the men I did not see a handsome face : their
features are coarse and debauched ; many of them squint, others
have lost an eye by small-pox, and they are disfigured by scrofula
and other diseases : the bad expression of their countenances jus-
tifies the proverb, ' Hard as the heart of Harar.' Generally the
complexion is a yellowish brown, the beard short, stubby, and
untractable as the hair, and the hands and wrists, feet and ancles,
are large and ill-made. The stature is moderate-sized, some of the
elders show the ' puddings sides' and the pulpy stomachs of Ban-
yans, whilst others are laok and bony as Arabs or Jews. Their
voices are loud and rude. The dress is a mixture of Arab and
Abyssinian. They shave the head, and clip the mustachios and
imperial close, like the Shafei of Yemen. Many are bareheaded,
some wear a cap, generally the embroidered Indian work, or the
common cotton Takiyah of Egypt : a f^w affect white turbans of

60 Burton's Meccah and East Africa, [Sept.

the fine Harar work, loaelj twisted over their ears. The bodj
garment is the Tobe, worn flowing as in the Somali countrj, or girt
with the dagger-strap round the waist: the richer classes bend
under it a Futah or loin-cloth, and the dignitaries have wide A.rab
drawers of white calico. Coarse leathern sandals, a rosarj, and a
tooth-stick, rendered perpetually necessary by the habit of chewing
tobacco, complete the costume : and arms being forbidden in the
streets, the citizens carry a wand five or six feet long.

" The women who, owing probably to the number of female slaves,
are much the more numerous, appear beautiful by contrast to their
lords. They have small heads, regular profiles, straight noses, large
eyes, mouths approaching to Caucasian type, and light yellow com-
plexions. Dress, however, here is a disguise to charms. A long,
wide, cotton shirt, with short arms, as in the Arab's Aba, indigo-
dyed or chocolate-coloured, and ornamented with a triangle of
scarlet before and behind — the base on the shoulder and the apex
at the waist — is girt round the middle with a sash of white cotton
crimson-edged. Women of the upper class, when leaving the house,
throw a blue sheet over the head, which, however, is rarely veiled.
The front and back hair parted in the centre, is gathei-ed into two
large bunches below the ears, and covered with dark blue muslin or
net-work, whose ends meet under the chin. This coiffure is bound
round the head at the junction of scalp and skin by a black satin
ribbon, which varies in breadth according to the wearer's means ;
some adorn the gear with large gilt pins, others twine it in a Taj
or thin wreath of sweet-smelling creeper. The virgins collect their
locks, which are generally wavy, not wiry, and grow long as well as
tliick, into a knot, tied a la Diane, behind the head : a curtain of
short close plaits escaping from the bunch, fall upon the shoulders
not ungracefully. Silver ornaments are worn only by persons of
rank. The ear is decorated with Somali rings or red coral beads,
the neck with necklaces of the same material, and the fore-arms
with six or seven of the broad circles of buffalo or other dark horns,
prepared in Western India. Finally, stars are tatooed upon the
bosom, the eyebrows are lengthened with dyes, the eyes are fringed
with kohl, and the hands and feet stained with henna.

" The female voice is harsh and screaming, especially when heard
after the delicate organs of the Somal. The fair sex is occupied at
home spinning cotton thread for weaving robes, sashes, and turbans;
carrying their progeny perched upon their backs, they bring water
from the wells in large gourds borne upon the head ; work in the
gardens, and — the men considering, like the Abyssiuians, such work
a disgrace — sit and sell in the long street, which here repre-
sent the Eastern bazaar. Chewing tobacco enables them to
pass much of their time, and the rich diligently anoint them-
selves with i^hee, whilst the poorer classes use remnants of fat
from the lamps. Their freedom of manners renders a public
flogging occasionally iudisponsable. Before the operation begins,

185G.J Barton's Meccah and East Africa. 61

•»
a few gourds full of cold water are poured over their head and
shoulders, after which a single-thonged whip is applied with
vigour. Both sexes are celebrated for laxity of morals. High and
low indulge freely in intoxicating drinks, beer and mead. The
Amir has strict patrols, who unmercifully bastiuado those found in
the streets after a certain hour. They are extremely bigoted, espe-
cially against Christians, the effect of their Abyssinian wars." — pp.
325 8.

'*' The picture of Harar would be incomplete without the
figure of its governor.

" A delay of half an hour, during which state affairs were being
transacted within, gave me time to inspect a place of which so
many and such different accounts are current. The palace itself
is, as Clapperton describes the Fellatah Sultan's state-hall, a mere
shed, a long, single-storied, windowless barn of rough stone and
reddish clay, with no other insignia but a three coat of whitewash
over the door. This is the royal and imperial distinction at Harar,
where no lesser man may stucco the walls of his house. The
court-yard was about eighty yards long by thirty in breadth, irre-
gularly shaped and surrounded by low buildings : in the centre
opposite the outer entrance was a circle of masonry, against which
were propped divers doors.

" Presently the blear-eyed guide with the angry voice returned
from within, released us from the importunities of a certain
forward and inquisitive youth, and motioned us to doff our slippers
at a stone step or rather line about twelve feet distant from the
palace wall. We grumbled that we were not entering a mosque,
but in vain. Then ensued a long dispute in tongues mutually
unintelligible, about giving up our weapons: by dint of obstinacy
we retained our daggers and my revolver. The guide raised a
door curtain, suggested a bow, and I stood in the presence of
the dreaded chief.

" The Amir, or as he styles himself, the Sultan Ahmad bin
Sultan Abibakr, sat in a dark room with whitewashed walls, to
which hung — significant decorations — rusty matchlocks and
polished fetters. His appearance was that of a little Indian
Rajah, an etiolated youth twenty-four or twenty-five years old,
plain and thin bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows
and protruding ejes. His dress was a flowing robe of crimson
cloth, edged with snowy fur, and a narrow white turban lightly twist-
ed round a tall crimson cap of red velvet, like the old turkish head-
gear of our painters. His throne was a common Indian Kursi, or
raised cot about five feet long, with back and sides supported by a
dwarf railing : being an invalid he rested his elbow on a pillow,
under which appeared the hilt of a Cutch sabre. Ranged in double
line, perpendicular to the Amir, stood the ' court,' Ms cousins and

62 Burion*3 Meccah and East Africa. [Sept.

nearest relations, with right arms bared after the fashion of Abys-
sinia.

" I entered the room with a loud * Peace be upon ye I' to which
H, H. replying graciously, and extending a hanfl, bony and yellow
as a kite's claw, snapped his thumb and little finger. Two cham-
berlains stepping forward, held my forearms, and assisted me to
bend low over the fingers, which however I did not kiss, being
naturally averse to performing that operation upon any but a
woman's hand. My two servants then took theit turn : in this
case after the back was saluted, the palm was presented for a repe-
tition. These preliminaries concluded, we were led to and seated
upon a mat in front of the Amir, who directed towards us a frown-
ing brow and an inquisitive eye.

" Some inquiries were made about the chiefs health : he shook
his head captiously and inquired our errand. I drew from my
pocket my own letter : it was carried by «, chamberlain, with hands
veiled in his tobe, to the Amir, who after a brief glance laid it upoa
the couch, and demanded further explanation. I then represented
in Arabic that we had come from Aden, bearing the compliments
of our Daulah or governor, and that we had entered Plarar to see
the light of H. H.'s countenance: this information concluding
with a little speech describing the changes of Political Agents in
Arabia, and alluding to the friendship formerly existing between
the English and the deceased chief Abubakr.

" The Amir smiled graciously.

** This smile I must own, dear L., was a relief. We had been
prepared for the worst, and the aspect of affairs in the palace Was
t)y no means reassuring.'' — pp. 296-9.

The Amir's government, it need hardly be said, is
tolerably absolute.

*' The government of Harar is the Amir. These petty princes
have a habit of killing and imprisoning all those who are suspected
of aspiring to the throne. Ahmed's great-grandfather died in jail,
and his father narrowly escaped the same fate. When the present
Amir ascended the throne he was ordered, it is said, by the Makad
or chief of the Nolo Gallas, to release his prisoners or to mount his
horse and leave the city ; thi*ee of his cousins, however, were, when
I visited Harar, in confinement : one of them since that time died,
and has been buried in his fetters. The Somal declare that the
state dungeon of Harar is beneath the palace, and that he who once
enters it, lives with unkempt beard aud untrimmed nails until the
day when death sets him free.

" The Amir Ahmed's health is infirm. Some attribute his weak-
ness to a fall from a horse, others declare him to have been
poisoned by one of his wives. I judged him consumptive. Shortly
after my departure he was upon the point of death, and he

1856.] Biirton^s Meccali and East Africa. 63

afterwards sent for a physician to Aden. He has four wives;
No. 1. is the daughter of the Gerad Hirsi ; No. 2. a Sayyid
woman of Harar ; No. 3. an emancipated slave girl; No. 4. a
daughter of Gerad Abd el Majid, one oi his nobles. He has two
sons, who will probably never ascend the throne ; one la an infant,
the other is a boy now five years old.

" The Amir Ahmed succeeded his father about three years ago.
His rule is severe if not just, and it has all the prestige of
secrecy. As the Amharas say, the 'belly of the master is not
known :' even the Gerad Mohammed, though summoned to
council at all times, in sickness as in health, dare not oflFer un-
calied-for advice; and the queen dowager, the Gisti Fatimah, was
threatened with fetters if she persisted in interference. Ahmed's
principal occupations are spying his many stalwart cousins, indulg-
ing vain fears of the English, the Turks, and the Haji Sharmar-
kay, and amassing treasure by commerce and escheats. He judges
civil and religious causes in person, but he allows them with little
interference to be settled by the Kazi, Abd el Rahman Bin Umar
el Harari : the latter though a highly respectable person, is seldom
troubled, rapid decision being the general predilection. The
punishments, when money forms no part of them, are mostly accord-
ing to Koranic code. The murderer is placed in the market street,
blindfolded and bound hand and foot ; the nearest in kin to the
deceased then strikes his neck with a sharp and heavy butcher's
knife, and the corpse is given over to the relations for Moslem
burial. If the blow prove ineffectual, a pardon is generally granted.

*' When a citizen draws dagger upon another, he is bastinadoed in a
peculiar manner ; two men ply their horsewhips upon his back and
breast, and the prince in whose presence the punishment is carried
out, gives the order to stop. Theft is visited with amputation of
the hand. The prison is the award of state offenders ; it is terrible,
because the captive is heavily ironed, lies in a filthy dungeon, and
receives no food but what he can obtain from his family — seldom
liberal under such circumstances — buy and beg from his guards.
Fines and confiscations, as usual in the East, are favourite punish-
ments with the ruler. I met at Wilensi an old Harari whose gar-
dens and property had all been escheated, because his son fled from
justice after slaying a man. The Amir is said to have large hoards
of silver, copper, and ivory; my attendant, the Hammal, was
once admitted into the inner palace, where he saw large boxes of
ancient fashion supposed to contain dollars. The only specie cur-
rent in Harar is a diminutive brass piece called Mahallak, hand-
worked, and almost as artless a medium as a modern Italian coin.'*
—pp. 331-5.

Mr. Burton had the honour of an introduction to the
Privy Council of Harar.

"After a day's repose, we were summoned by the treasurer, earl/

64 BurtorCs Meccdh and East Africa. [Sept.

in the forenoon, to wait upon the Gerad Mohammed sword in hand,
and followed by the Hammal and Long Guled, I walked to the
' palace,' and entering a little gronnd-floor-room on the right of,
and close to the audience-hall, found the minister sitting upon a
large dais covered with Persian carpets. He was surrounded bj
six of his brother Gerads or councillors, two of them in turbans, the
rest with bare and shaven heads ; their robes, as is customary
on such occasions of ceremonj, were allowed to fall beneath the
waist. The lower part of the hovel was covered with dependents,
amongst whom mj Somal took their seats ; it seemed to be customs'
time, for names were being registered, and money changed hands.
The Grandees were eating Kat, or as it is here called ' Jat.' One
of the party prepared for the Prime Minister the tenderest twigs
of the tree, plucking off the points of even the softest leaves.
Another pounded the plant with a little water in a wooden mortar ;
of, this paste, called ' El Maduk,' a bit was handed to each person,
who, rolling it into a ball dropped it into his mouth. AH at times,
as is the custom, drank cold water from a smoked gourd, and
seemed to dwell upon the sweet and pleasant draught ; I could not
but remark the fine flavour of the plant after the coarser quality
grown in Yemen. Europeans perceive but little effect from it-
friend S. and I once tried in vain a strong infusion — the Arabs,
however, unaccustomed to stimulant and narcotics, declare that,
like opium eaters they cannot live without the excitement. It
seems to produce in them a manner of dreamy enjoyment,
which, exaggerated by time and distance, may have given rise to
that splendid Myth, the Lotos, and the Lotophagi. It is held by the
Ulema here, as in Arabia, 'Akl el Salikin,' or the Food of the Pious;
and literati remark that it has the singular properties of enliven-
ing the imagination, clearing the ideas, cheering the heart, dimin-
ishing sleep, and taking place of food. The people of Harar eat it
every day from nine a.m. till near noon, when they dine, and after-
wards indulge in something stronger, millet-beer and mead.

" The Gerad after polite enquiries seated me by his right hand,
upon the dais, where I ate Kat and fingered my i-osary, whilst he
transacted the business of the day. Then one of the elders took from
a little recess in the wall a large book, and, uncovering it, began to
recite a long dua of blessing on the Prophet; at the end of each period
all present intoned the response, ' Allah bless our lord Mohammed
and his companions one and all !' This exercise lasting half an
hour afforded me the opportunity, much desired, of making an im-
pression. The reader misled by a marginal reference, happened to
say, ' angels, men, and genii :' ' The Gerad took the book and
found written, ' man, angels, and genii.' Opinions were divided as
to the order of beings, when I explained that human nature, which
amongst Moslems is not a little lower than the angelic, ranked
highest, because of it were created prophets, apostles, and saints,
whereas the other is but a ' Wasitah/ or connection between the

1856.] Burton's Meccah and East Africa. 65

Creator and His creatures. My theology won general approbation,
and a few kinder glances from the elders.

" Prayer concluded, a chamberlain whispered the Gerad who
arose, deposited his black coral rosary, took up an inkstand,
donned a white ' Badan' or sleeveless Arab cloak over his cotton
shirt, shuffled off the dais into his slippers, and disappeared.
Presently we were summoned to an interview with the Amir ;
this time I was allowed to approach the outer door with covered
feet. Entering ceremoniously as before, I was motioned by
the Prince to sit near the Gerad, who occupied a Persian
rug on the ground to the right of the throne. My two attend-
ants squatted upon the humbler mats in front, and at a greater
distance. After sundry inquiries about the changes that had
taken place at Aden, the letter was suddenly produced by the
Amir, who looked upon it suspiciously, and bade me explain its
contents. I was then asked by the Gerad whether it was my inten-
tion to buy and sell at Harar; the reply was, ' we are no buyers or
sellers ; we have become your guests to pay our respects to the
Amir, whom may Allah preserve! and that friendship between the
two powers may endure.' This appearing satisfactory, I added in
lively remembrance of the proverbial delays of Africa, where two
or three months may elapse before a verbal letter is answered, or a
verbal message delivered, that perhaps the Prince would be pleased
to dismiss us soon, as the air of Harar was too dry for me, and my
attendants were in danger of the small pox, then raging in the
town. The Amir, who was chary of words, bent towards the Gerad,
who briefly ejaculated, * The reply will be vouchsafed.' With this
unsatisfactory answer the interview ended.'' — pp. 346 — 50.

His stay at Harar was but of two days. He returned to
the coast; not, however, at Zayla, from which he had set out,
but at the more southern port of Berberah, where he hoped
to organize at his leisure a far more effective and system-
atic exploring expedition. This hope was frustrated by an
unfortunate collision with the native population, which
terminated in bloodshed, and so exasperated the ah'eady
sufficiently violent antipathy with which all foreigners are
regarded, as to render any further attempt to penetrate the
ijiterior perilous in the extreme, or rather indeed, utterly
hopeless. He returned, in consequence, to England; and
the first fruits of his leisure are before us in the works now
under review.

The appendix contains several interesting papers, one of
which is an account of an attempt by Lieutenant Barker
in 1841, to reach Harar by a different route from that

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXI. 6

66' Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade. [Sept.

chosen by Mr. Burton. It will be read with much
interest.

Tlie essay on the Ilarari language, with a tolerably ex-
tensive vocabulary (Appendix 2,) is an interesting addition
to our materials for the study of those African languages
which belong to the Arabian stock. It forms a useful sup-
plement to the researches of Fresnel, Arnauld, Krapf, and
the other philosophers who have devoted themselves to this
enquiry.

Mr. Burton's " East Africa/' though, as a whole, no
donbt, less curious and novel than his Medinah and
Meccah, will, we believe, be read by most persons
with more real pleasure. Exhibiting everywhere the
same thorough acquaintance with eastern life and man-
ners, and the same almost intuitive appreciation of
the true Oriental spirit, it is far more free from that unbe-
coming levity, and that strange indifFerentism, not to use a
more grave term of reproof, which we have had so many
occasions to condemn in the former publications.

Of both works it must be confessed that they evince a
spirit of enterprise as well as a familiarity with Oriental life
and manners, and a fitness for Oriental research, such as
have not been found united in any traveller since the days
of Niebuhr and Burckhardt.

Art. III. — " The Jesuits^ London: Religious Tract Society.

MOST of our readers have either seen or heard of those
classical places of resort known as the " Transpon-
tine" theatres. If it has ever been their fate to have wit-
nessed a performance of the legitimate drama at one of
those popular temples of amusement, they must have
observed die exceeding favour with which a certain class
of characters were received. They will have remarked
that a most striking feature about these personages was
that they always approached perfection, as near as would
seem attainable upon this grovelling sphere of ours. Spot-
less in every relation of life, breathing the noblest and most

1856.] Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crnsade. 67

inspiring sentiments, and rising superior to the very com-
plicated snares and temptations laid for them, they wend
their weary way through life and through the play, cheered
only by their conscience and the rapturous applause of a
virtuous audience.

Foremost in this favoured class must be placed our
excellent fellow-countryman. The British Tar, so admir-
ably impersonated by Mr. T. P. Cooke and Mr. Hicks,
(the immortal " 'icks,") of the Victoria theatre. And it
must indeed be confessed that one of the most perfect of
earth's creatures is the British Tar of the " Wictoria.'*
It is he who in forcible language denounces as unworthy
the name of Briton the wretch who " 'aving 'eard the cry
of a female in distress," hesitates to fly to her assistance.
It is he who clad in the traditional check and the room}'-
nether garments, comes rushing in to the rescue of the
aforesaid unhappy lady, calling on the assailants in the
traditional form of si^eech, to " Belay there ;" and it is he
who upon this admonition being disregarded, engages the
whole party at fearful odds, and so brings on the tradi-
tional ** terrific combat." It is he, too, who amid the
breathless suspense of pit and galleries, springs over the
** practicable" gunwale to save a drowning fellow-creature.
What applause as he reappears bearing his " inanimate
burden V And that such noble traits of character may
not go unrewarded, we not unfrequently find him at the
end of the piece (as in the melodrama of the Charming
Polly) raised to the dignity of captain or even admiral !

Not less amiable is his brother philanthropist, the
Yorkshireman, with his barbarous dialect, emphatic
thumps over the region of the heart, and tiresome homi-
lies. Nor must we forget the Irishman, that extraordinary
composite creation which from the day that Shadwell
brought Teague O'Divilly on the stage as a type of the
Irish priesthood, down to within a few years of our own
time, has been popularly accepted as the standard model
for drawing natives of the fimerald Isle. We pass over
the ''faithful servant" immortalized in Nickleby,the testy
father (better known in the profession as the " Heavy
Father," and better still cm the French boards as the
*'Pere Noble,") always disinheriting his son, and happily
reconciled to *' the dog" at the end of the piece: and
lastly, the reduced gentleman who has seen better days,
poor yet proud, and who gets periodically afiected on the

68 Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade, [Sept.

score of his "wife and chee-ild:", because these characters
are somewhat more founded in nature than the others, and
in spite of their being so hackneyed, have really some
claims to popular sympathy.

The virtuous Tar aforesaid, and the Yorkshireman with
his overdone sensibilities, we need hardly observe, have no
existence in the world about us. They are mere fancy
creations. Why, in the first place, are such amiable dis-
positions to be confined to the Ridings of Yorkshire ?
Who ever saw a sailor with such an exquisitely-trimmed
beard, or with such unimpeachable white trousers, or with
such noble ideas on morality and the social virtues, or with
such fluency of language and elegance of diction ? Dioge-
nes himself, lantern in hand, might explore every frigate
in the fleet without the remotest chance of stumbling on
such a being. No one will of course deny that they are a
brave, simple, honest class of men ; but still they are far
from being endowed with the virtues of Preux chevaliers.
Nay, if anything, they are an unrefined and even coarse
body of men. A curious speculation might here arise, as to
how we are to account for the lowest dregs of the popula-
tion taking delight in such chivalrous and almost Quixotic
excellence, a question which it is unnecessary to enter
into now, and which a " hopeful" man, to use a Carlylism,
might solve by imputing it to that yearning after *' the
good" which always lingers in the breasts of even the most
debased of human creatures.

But there is yet another stereotyped character who is
frequently seen to stalk across the boards, and whom we
have purposely reserved for this place, viz., ** The Jesuit
Priest." For as we have just seen that there exists in the
popular mind a tendency to set up for itself a fanciful (and
untrue) image of what it admires, so it is but natural it
should seek to set up an image of what it hates, and an
image equally unfaithful with the other. Both are equally
devoid of corresponding prototypes. Accordingly the sort
of stuffed figure which is brought on the stage as " a Jesuit
Priest," represents him not as he is, but as popular preju-
dice would have him. Like the snow image which boys
construct with unwearying toil only to knock to pieces in
a few moments ; or more like the waxen models which,
it was whispered, Catherine dei Medicis used to make of
her enemies, and melt away afterwards before a slow fire.

The features of the stage Jesuit are well known. He

1856.1 Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. 69

generally makes his appearance in some Jacobite play, it
being the tradition that he should be always implicated
in the treasonable designs of those days. He is a dark
gloomy man, with grave but insinuating accents. He is
usually clad in a " sad coloured" suit, or perhaps *' a
riding-dress of the period," with a flowing wig and jack
boots. There is always some mysterious despatch about
which he is interested. He is wont to have influence over
the ladies of the play, especially the mistress of the man-
sion, the wife of his "honoured patron," but at the same
time treats her despotically, addressing her sternly as
** daughter," and bringing spiritual terrors to play upon
her for divers mundane purposes. He has a trick of intro-
ducing himself, at awkward moments, through *' the slid-
ing j>aneV' in preference to the door, and usually pitches
his voice in a bass key. When the lovers are arranging
their own private matters in the wood, his form is seen
among the trees at the back ; and after overhearing their
plans, he then (vide -stage direction,) " smiles grimly and
exit." Paterfamilias in the boxes feels a proper indigna-
tion as he points him out to his off'spring. And what
delight at the end, when the soldiers come in the queer
cocked hats *' of the period," and the unhappy man is led
off"! Douglas Jerrold's pretty comedy of " The House-
keeper" has a most '* efiective" Jesuit among its Drama-
tis Personge.

But as the drama is addressed only to a limited circle,
it was found advisable (and profitable too) that this popu-
lar portrait should be more widely disseminated, and by a
more practicable medium. Having been found to do so
well on the stage, the Jesuit was forthwith introduced into
the Novel. In this shape the character was found so
satisfactory that all the leading novelists of the day betook
themselves to the manufacture. There is a certain pic-
turesqueness about the mythic Jesuit which makes him
highly important in works of fiction. Accordingly Mrs.
Gore, Mrs. Trollope, Mrs. Maberly, Miss Sinclair, Charles
Lever, Ainsworth, and even Thackeray, have all intro-
duced him with great efiect. We must not forget the im-
portation from other countries — the Peres Rodin and
D'Aigriquy of Eugene Sue, and Spindler's German con-
ception of the same idea.

It is amusing, too, to observe how faithfully the estab-
lished model is followed by them all. For tlae Jesuit of

70 Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. [Sept.

the novel, as for his brother of the stage, there is a trafii-
tional mode of treatment. He of the novel deals more in
speeches than in action. He delivers long harangues
about his order, and about the end justifying the means.
These are all generally for the special behoof of some rich
and romantic devotee, whom ** the wily priest" is trying
.to bring over to leave her property to " The Order.*' The
Provincial and even tlie General are often brought ni)on
the scene. Some of them, like Mr. Ainsworth's imperson-
ation, are familiar with the poisoned draught; while
Thackeray's Father Holt draws a pistol from his holster
and shoots his man dead upon the spot. But these are
violent distortions of the character.

Straws floating on the surface will show the direction of
a current, and we cannot but regard the favour with which
these caricatures are received as a certain symptom of the
deep and lasting hate with which the Society of Jesus is
regarded. And yet we will venture to say that it is from
these two sources, (these unfaithful images, the work of
their own hands,) that the English people derives all its
knowledge of the order ! . It would not be too much to say .
that no body of men have ever been so cordially or so
groundlessly hated ; and stranger still, in most cases by
people who have never seen, heard, or even read of them ;
a prejudice which seems to have been born with them, and
to have grown with their growth. Not a crime in the cata-
logue of sins, but has been laid to their door. In fact,
these overwhelming charges, this unnatural wickedness,
would necessarily incline the cool and reflecting mind to
pause and bethink him that it were just possible that such
charges, from their very monstrousness, might be over-
drawn.

But it is not our task to be the apologists of the Jesuits.
From the early days of their institution to the present
time, has flown a full and constant stream of abuse in the
shape of bulky volumes, treatises and pamphlets, swelling
stronger with every age, until at last for a while it swept
them under. We intend in this paper presenting a few
specimens of these fierce diatribes, to show the foul and
vindictive manner in which the little band has been
assailed. These we shall take at random, limiting our-
selves to the small brochures and lighter musquetry of the
time, which, as we said, are as significant of the course of
prejudice, as are straws of the direction of a current. We

1856.1 Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. 71

do not propose to ourselves to attempt any refutation —
hardly even to suggest any antidote beyond the virulence
of the slander itself, which like an overdose of poison
defeats itself by its own excess. In truth we shall be con-
tent if we provoke a smile at the absurdity which charac-
terizes even the most malignant of these productions.

Of the celebrated *' Lettres Provinciales," the most
deadly shaft ever aimed at the society, we shall content
ourselves with saying what Voltaire has written in his
" Siecle de Louis XIV." ** On tachait dans ces lettres
de prouver qu'ils avaient uu dessein forme de corrompre

les nioeurs des hommes Mais il ne s'agissait pas d'avoir

raison, il s'agissait de divertir le public." The work is
too well known to require further notice here. But we
will turn to one who, though not so formidable an adver-
sary, had the merit at least of being a good hater;
we mean the great literary leviathan Joseph Scaliger.
One of the Society was presumptuous enough to dis-
sent from the views of the autocrat on some matter of
criticism. The consequence is a deluge of vituperation
on the whole body. Hearken a moment to the following,
which, in the fuhiess of his heart, he poured fortli unto
his friends, the young Vassani, who had been sent to be
educated under this gentle master.

" The Jesuits," says he, " are like sea-gulls, Strip those birds
of their wings and scarcely anything is left. So, in like manner,
strip the Jesuits of their abusive language and their calumnies,
and you shall find nothing sound, nothing erudite ; or at least,
precious little. They wish to draw the direction of letters altogether
to themselves, and teach only what concerns their own interests.
We are all a deal too gentle with them ; we ought to show them

their own donkey natures (a^nerie) .There are three sorts of

Jesuits ; the married ones, (i.e. laymen in the world,) such as
Velser and Lipsius ; and the unmarried ones, who are either
preachers or not. They wish it to be believed that they know
Greek and Hebrew, but they know nothing except th«ir metaphysics:

while that is nothing but a mass of sophisms The Jesuits are

great corrupters of Books Tha Jesuiis are Devils Incarnate:

(Diables en chair): they have small fry, who write and hunt fjr
them, while they have only to select and judge. The Jesuits are
admirably taken care of. They eat of tlie most delicious dishes,
and drink the finest wines ; thus their wits are sharpened. There
are a few decent Jesuits, such as And, Schott, and F. Ducee. At
this time they are the plagues of religion and letters. Many of
ithem are atheists (! 1) that is the more learned portion, those wha

72 Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade. [Sept.

read our writers.* There are tvro classes of them, those who pass
their lives in courts, and who are men of the world; and those who
are entombed in the libraries ; sheer pedants, who must always be

scribbling, right or wrong. They are always chattering In

their constitutions it is set down that they are to live on the more
delicate kinds of meat, such as chickens and the like — for the
other kinds only dull the intellect. But they give them to the
younger members only.''t

He finally concludes with one parting shot :

" Coton is 9. fool : and so in truth is every Jesuit."

And this, be it remembered, of the celebrated Pere
Coton, one of the shrewdest spirits the order ever pos-
sessed. It is indeed amusing to watch the fiery critic,
raging like some wild animal, and lashing himself into
fury whenever the odious name is mentioned. It has the
effect upon him that the piece of scarlet has upon the bull.
Epithets of the choicest kind are showered on them with-
out stint, culminating generally with his favourite one of
"ass." This indeed seems to have been a popular term
with the polite reformed controversialists of that day ; for
we find Osiander, when reduced to extremity, ingeniously
eliciting it from his opponent's name. Thus, from ** fran-
ciscus cosTERUS jesuita" he gets the effective anagram of
" CERTO TU ES ASiNUS AFRicus : SIC." But retribution
was at hand ; for another Jesuit retorted on him with
equal ingenuity, and in his own coin. He transformed

"LUCAS OSIANDER PRJ^DICANTIUs" iutO " NIL TU ASINE
CARPES ; I AD CARDUOS."

As to what Scaliger has said in the " good set terms'*
we have quoted, touching the abusive language held by
the order, it will at once occur to any one at all familiar
with the controversies of the time, that it was the Oalvi-
nists who were always notorious for calumnies and out-
rageous forms of speech ; while the Jesuits, on the other
hand, treated their adversaries almost too courteously and
gently. Few, too, even of their enemies will accuse them
of knowing nothing except their metaphysics. As to their
mode of diet, it can only be said that if beef and mutton

• A naive admission,
t Scaligerana, p. 117. Colon. Agrip. 1667.

1856. 1 Cumosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. 73

were not so conducive to the improvement of the intellect
as the finer sorts of meat, they were quite right in abstain-
ing from such food. It is curious that the two j'oung men
who had been placed nnder the critic's care shewed their
appreciation of his teaching by embracing the Catholic
Faith.

We pass to another doughty enemy of the order —
Gaspar Scioppe ! And that he may not lack due weight
and authority, we shall furnish him with an introduction
from Scaliger's own hand, " Scioppius" says he, " scripsit
adversus Jesuitas. II vent monter trop haut, et est ridi-
cule comme le singe qui tant plus monte-t-il haut, tant
plus montre-t-il le derriere." Every scholar knows the
graceful history of the Jesuit Strada, its elegant Latin,
exciting episodes and descriptions. Its author had, how-
ever, the misfortune of incurring the anger of Scioppe,
who forthwith launched a volume at his head, bearing the
alliterative title of "In-fiimia Famianse Stradse.^' This
assumed to be a Philological Review of the Jesuit's work,
but it sei'ved the author as a convenient medium for
delivei'ing himself of the most virulent abuse against the
Society in general. In the early part of his work he con-
fines himself to critical observation, acid enough to please
the heart of a Croker or " Immortal Jeffrey ;'' but light-
ing on the name of Arias Montano, at length he finds the
long coveted opportunity arrived. Such a diatribe is seldom
to be met with, extending as it does to the length of nearly
forty pages. Among other things he sets himself seriously
to prove that St. Ignatius really received instruction in
many things from the arch enemy of mankind in the flesh.
The casual mention al_the Mendicant Friars furnishes
him with another text.

" When the Jesuit Fathers are providing for their wants, they
keep in mind the advice Joseph gave to Pharaoh, viz., to heap up
good store of corn in his garners. Truly this is a wondrous thing,
(and plainly the finger of God is here!) that in this age of ours, so
perverse and greedy (as other religious orders experience, making
so little by begging) the Jesuiis should know how to extract from the
public whatever they find necessary for themselves, and do it so
effectually. We must surely set it down as a miracle that men
of a griping and penurious nature cannot bring themselves to
refuse these Jesuits anything 1 So that plainly this miracle (of
Jesuitism) must be matched with that wrought by God in favour of
his own people or the Egytians, when they gave over to the Jews

74 Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade. j Sept.

whatsoever they demanded. The same takes place in respect to
the Jesuits, so that they bear oflF with them whatever they ask for :
which is a sure proof that they are under the special providence of
God, and are dearly loved by him!"*

And so on in the same pleasant style. He, too, strange
to say, later on embraced the creed he used to assail with
such bitterness.

We next come to a curious little work with the
following exciting title : ** le cabinet jesuitique con-
tenant plusieurs pieces, tres curieuses des Reverends
Pferes Jesuites, avec un liecueil des Mysteres de L'Eglise
Romaine.**! A taking title truly ! How greedily would
the owlets of Exeter Hall clutch the volume, and with
trembling hands turn over the *' pieces tres curieuses.**
There is a delicate irony, too, in giving them their ecclesi-
astical titles in full. The frontispiece is admirably calcu-
lated to stimulate curiosity, and gives good promise of the
cheer provided inside. A Jesuit in the full dress of his
order stands in the centre with the globe under his arm,
(not the newspaper of that name), while a human head
wrapt up in a handl^erchief is seen hanging from his hand.
Just from beneath his robe peeps out the cloven foot. A
minister of the Established Church in a handsome wig is
on his knees beside him with his hand tied, and is under-
going a painful process of having a sharp instrument driven
into his eye by a creature with horns and tail. Behind,
another Jesuit is busy saying mass, dressed in defiance of
all canonicle rules in a broad leafed Quaker's hat, and a
black cloak.

Among the "pieces tres curieuses" are the "avis
secrets de la Societe de Jesus,*' which, as the author in-
forms us, was found at the sacking of one of their colleges
by the Duke of Brunswick, and by him politely presented
to the " Peres Capucins," to whom we are indebted for
their being given to the world. Then follows a profane
parody on the "Pater Noster,** supposed to be addressed
by them to Philip of Spain ; and another on the Ave Maria
addressed by the French to their queen, commencing ia
this fashion ; —

* Amstel. 1663, p. 159.
t Colc^ne (no date).

1856.] Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade. ' 75

Lors que Judas trabit son Maistre en le baisant,
II dit, Ave Rabil ceux de la Compagnie
De Jesus, comma luy, en trahissaut ta vie
Avec celle du Roj, bumbles te vont disant

Ave Maria I

Ces bannis pour avoir tird, par trahison
La dent du Roy defunct, d'une bonteuse fuite
Avoient este cbassez : mais il eureut en suite ^
Pour en tirer le coeur, une abolition.

Ghatia. Pleka!*

Further on comes a " right merrie'* ballad entitled
* * Jesui tographia. ' '

1. Opulentas civitates
Ubi sunt commodotates
Semper quaeruut isti PatresI

2. Claras cedes, bonum vinum
IJonum panem, bonum linum
Et pallium tempestivum.t

And so on for- nearly fifty stanzas. It will be obsei*ved
how the " stock" charge of good living is brought up once
more. In fact, it was all through a most valuable weapon
in the anti-Jesuitical crusade. We have seen a compara-
tively modern ballad, similar in tone and metre to the one
just quoted, but which with all its animosity is so spirited
that we cannot resist the temptation of giving it here.

IN JESDITAS.

1. Mortem norunt aniraare, 2. Tanquam Sancti adorantar,

Et tumukus suscitare Tanquam Reges dominantur,

Inter Reges, et sedare Tanquam Fures depredanturl

3. Dominantur Temporale
■ Dominantur Spirituale

Dominantur omnia male.

4. Hos igitur Jesuitas, 5. Vita namque Christiana

Heluoues, Hjpocritas, Abborret ab bac Doctrina

Fuge, si coelestia quseras! Tanquam ficta et insana!

Returning to our pamphlet, we find some verses of the
kind known as ** Bouts rimes," then so much in vogue at
the French court, addressed with the same ironical respect

* P. 151. t P. 162.

76 Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade. [Sept

we before noted, to " Messieurs les Reverends Pferes
Jesuites." Here is a short specimen : —

Jesuites! vos Esprits sont toujours au Bivac

Vous etes plus mechants que des dragons D'Afrique

Et toujours plus pensifs q'un faiseur de Musique

Vous reves quelqu'usure ou quelqu'autre Micmac !

Marchands de ble, de vin, de bois, etde tabac

Vous tireriez, ma foyl de I'argent d'une brique.

Rieu ne peut echapper a votre politique

Car vous en S9avez_ prendre et ab hoc et ab had*

Taking our leave of this facetious production we pass on
to the *' Jejuniuni Jesuiticum," or ** Jesuitical Fasting/*
which professes to be an exact account of how Lenten
manners are managed by the Society. Its members, (who
are politely styled throughout the work *' Satan's own
children,'* are bemonstered in the usual fashion. There
are divers pleasant tales recorded which almost seem as if
they had been cut out of a *' Standard" or ** Morning
Herald" of yesterday. Tales of aged females, a prey to
mortal sickness, sending to the Jesuit confessor to beg for
leave to eat a little meat, sternly and inflexibly refused.
A second application is made, accompanied by a few gold
pieces, and lo ! the required permission is accorded. No
name, place, or date, of course. This, by the way, is a
peculiarity common to most of these productions.

But here is something stimulating, smelling of sulphur
and brimstone : *' The conclave of Ignatius, or his enthro-
nization at the late meeting in hell !"t An imaginary
description of an assembly of the Society in that tropical
locality where the speakers ingeniously unfold their vari-
ous schemes and villanies.

Brimstone again ! " Pyrotechnica Loyolana ! Ignatian
Fireworks, or the fiery Jesuits temper and behaviour.
Exposed to Public View for the sake of liONDON. Qy a
Catholic Christian. * Out of their mouths issue fire and
SMOAK and brimstone !' Rev. ix. 17.*'I This is a rare

* Prancof. 1595. P. 179.

f Conslave Ignatii: sive ejus inn uperislniferni comitiis enthroni-
zatio. London, 1680.

X London, Printed for G. E. C. T., 1667.

1856.] Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Crusade. 77

work ill every sense of the word, written in the quaintest
old English imaginable ; and which in its tales of horror
must leave behind it every book of the kind. Not an
atrocity that can be conceived but is stuffed into it. Here
is a droll idea — speaking of St. Ignatius on a certain occa-
sion, ** Belike the cacodsemon or ill spirit that used to
accompany him at Mass, did then act him ; as he did F.
Coton when he conversed with the witch ; yet the most
cunning of them in their magick practises have sometimes
been met with (i.e. over reached) as at Prague, while five
Jesuits were playing the devils, a sixth real Devil came
from hell into their company and so hugged one of them,
that he died within three days after." It will be recol-
lected that a similar intrusion was said to have taken place
some years ago at a theatre in London, which had been a
chapel previously: when the scenic representatives of
Satan found themselves assisted in bearing off Don
Giovanni by the real " original old established" party.
Here are a few choice epithets for what he calls the
*' Ignatian Rookeries.'* *' These Furies whose colledges
and Professed Houses are the receptacles of the guilty, the
Refuges of Dishonesty, the Shops of Iniquity, the Acade-
mies of Impiety, the Chairs of Infection, the High Places
of Anti-Christ, &c., &,c." Another forcible and taking
title is *' The New Art of Lying covered by Jesuites under
the vaile of Equivocation.""' This, strange to say, is writ-
ten in a gentler and more philosophical spirit. So much
cannot be said for " Les Jesuites mis sur L'eschaufaut

Sour plusieurs crimes capitaux,"f written by an apostate
esuit, who lays on his colours with a profusion that would
do honour to an Achilli ; among other things he gives an
account of how children are made away with by the society
to a startling extent. The mention of this reminds us of
a little Latin pamphlet entitled, " Ars Mentiendi Calvi-
nistica," wherein a similar charge is alluded to and refuted.
This really laughable accusation is worth giving here. It
sets forth that on a certain day in August, 1600, a great
supper of Jesuits came off at their house in Madrid, and
that the company having indulged rather freely, a violent
quarrel and general melee took place, which, awful to
relate, ended in the massacre of all the members of the

London, 1634. f Ley den, 1648.

78 Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. [Sept.

society present, by each others hands ! After this frig^ht-
ful tragedy, a judicial examination of the premises being
instituted, no less than three hundred childrens' heads(!)
were discovered !

Next let us turn to " The Jesuits Unmasked ! or Poli-
tick observations upon the ambitious pretensions and subtle
intreagues of that cunning society/*'^ At the commence-
ment we find this notice : ** To prevent mistakes of impor-
tance be pleased to remember that there are four sorts of
Roman I*riests, namely, Clergimen, Monks, Fryars,
and Jesuites.*' These latter being thus defined ; "A
Society of Priests of an Hermaphorodite order, for they
are neither clergimen, monks, or fryars, yet pretend to be all
these together and statesmen to boot." tlaving thus pre-
vented " mistakes of importance," he proceeds to open the
old ground where his fathers dug before him, and which
has been worked with untiring vigour to the present day.
The ending is amusing : —

" Finally I pr6test again that 'tis my hearty desire the Jesuits or
Ignatiana may reap the benefit of this pamphlet; for whatsoever
they say, I love them. Yet I dare not hope they will profit by what
I have done ; for that these fathers have an invincible obstinacy in
the defence of their greatest enormities, and like Apes break the
glass wherein they behold themselves so ugly instead of amending
their deformities.

" Would to God this were

"THE l:MD."t

The " Parrarell of the Doctrine of the Pagans with the
Doctrine of the Jesuits," | is only worthy of notice here
from the choice and appropriate text of Scripture it bears
upon its title page: ** I will discover thy skirts upon thy
face... and I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make
thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing stock." The argu-
ment is stale enough, being the same in principle as that
which Middleton brought forward in times nearer our own
with considerable success. We next stumble on the
"Tableau des Peres de La Societe," which is comical
enough, but we shall only give '* a brick of the Babel," as
Lord Byron says, in the shape of the last two lines : —

* London, 1679. + P. 27.

X London, at the Buck and Sun, 1726.

1856.] Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. 79

" Allez abomlnables pestes
AUez au Diable a qui vous estes."

" Ex pede Herculem,'' the rest is in the same happy-
vein. Their fertility of inveatioii in book titles is perfectly
wonderful. Here is one pretty elaborate : —

"The Jesuites Looking -glasse! whereia thej may behold Igna-
tius (their patron) his Progresse. their own. Pilgrimage; His life,
their beginning, proceedings and propagation, which may serve as
a forewarning for Eniiland to chase away in time this tkatteuols
and insociable Societie, or dis-ordered Jesuitical Order. B7 L. O.
that hath beene aa occular wituesse of their Imposture and
Hipocrisie."*

This instructive work is to be had at the " Signe of the
Blue Bible.'* The reader will not fail to remark the inore-
nious play of words in "insociable Societie/* and "dis-
ordered order." All through the book we are told of
** Colledges*' having so many " Fellows" a title we believe
not as yet known in the '* Insociable Societie." We are
further given a complete list of all the Houses and " Fel-
lowes/' over the world ; for, as the chronicler sorrowfully
adds, " these infernall frogs are crept into the West and
East;" but as some consolation, when Riga was captured
by the king of " Sweathland," ** the Jesuits were con-
strained to forsake that nest which is now turned to better
use." He finishes with a passage Exeter Hall might
envy : ** For this wicked and idolatrous, Bloodye Societie
would (if they could) cut the verie throats of all true Eng-
lishmen that are true professors of God's Holy word ; and
bring in an Army of Spanish Cannibals to tyrranize over
us like so many infernal Belzeebubs !"t This was the true
chord to touch. In those days any talk of bringing the
Spaniards down upon them was the true mode of awaken-
ing the sympathiesof every honest Englishman. ** Spanish"
and ** Popish" were then almost convertible terms.
That every Spaniard was a Papist, and that every Papist
had more or less of the Spanish Leaven in him, were
two essential articles of the Briton's faith. Every dis-
appointed buccaneer who had been beaten off in his
attempts upon the golden shores along the Spanish maiji.

London, 1620. t ?• 69.

80 Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. [Sept.

brought, home tales and histories of murders tortures, foul
deeds that shun the light, and even as alluded to above,
of Cannibalism. So, our author was exceedingly wise in
his generation in coupling the ** Societie" with a name
so odious to all loyal, noble, freehearted, and liberal
minded Britons !

Mr. Gee, of the University of Oxford, next claims our
attention. Let us introduce

" The Foot out of the Snare : with a detection of sundry late
practices and impostures of the Priests and Jesuits in England.

ri. Popish Books lately dispersed in our kingdom.
•' XVhereunto is ' ^* '^^'® Printers, sellers, binders, and dispersers
added a J °^ ^^^^ Bookes.

r.„*„i^ .,„ „# 1 3. Romish Priests and Jesuites resident about

Catalogue of j London.

^4. Popish Physicians practising about London.

"The Fourth edition carrying also a gentle excuse unto Master
Musket for stiling him Jesuit.''*

Considering all the information this work professes to
give,' it might fitly be denominated " The Papist Hunter's
Yade Mecum ;" but alas, and alack-a-day ! there is more
upon the title than is contained inside : the ** practises and
impostures" are indeed enumerated, but no ** detection'*
could we find ! The headings of the chapters are of a
spirited character, that of the first beiuff to this efiect : —
** A sluttish feast of Popish Tales and Fitters, (?) most of
them of the New Dressing by bungling cooks of the
Pope's Kitchen : together with sauce for divers of them.'
The second chapter promises still better entertainment: —
** The second service being two dishes, dressed by the
slippery equivocating Master-Cook, Father Persons, or
rather he himself served in for a Suttelty, to feed the eyes,
and not the taste of the beleeving Guests." This introduces
some hard hitting, and two harmless stories are related
and so Father Persons is ** served in for a suttelty."
Another chapter, dropping all metaphors of the cuisine,
begins in this fashion : — " A chapter of later Dog-Tricks :
more petty cubs of the same Fox hunting for silly Gos-
lings." In the course of this our attention is called to

• •* London, sold at the great south dore of Pauls, 1624."

1856.] Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. 81

what he terms " a pretty young suckhig Lie." Then we
have a chapter on *' Other hooks to pull in Patrimonies
and Moneys into the box of these jugglers." The follow-
ing extract on the casting out of devils may be found
amusing.

" Now the company of Priests for potency of Breath do put down
Leno, Hell, the Divell and all 1 for the Divell who can well enough
endure the loathsome odors and evaporation of Hell is not able to
endure the vapour issuing from the mouth of a Priest, but had
rather go to Hell than abide the smell. And hence it is that in the
baptism of children the Priest breatlies and spets into the mouth of
the child — which no doubt is very soveraigne, especially if the
Priest lungs be but a little ulcerated. One Will Trayford and
Sarah Wills being possessed, Trayfords Divell rebounded at the
dint of the Priests breath, and was glad to get him out at Traj-

fords right eare like a mouse Yea this is but a flea biting to the

Priest glaves, his hose, his girdle, his shirts."

Then we are told the names of sundry of these
" Divells," such as " Lustie Dick, Killico, Hob, Corner-
Cap, Purre, Haberdicut, Cocobatto, Kelicociim, Wilkin
Smolkin," &c., &c. "Kelicocam" and "Smolkin" seem
to us right good names for *' Divells," especially for such
eccentric " Divells" as Will Trayford's.

Turning now to the sort of " Hue and Cry" list which
is appended to the book, we find some very graphic por-
traits, such as " F. Harvay, a very dangerous Jesuite ;'*
" F. Townsend, alias Ruckvvood, a Jesuite, a little black
fellow very compt and gallant, lodging about the midst of
Drury Lane," Then we have the two Fathers Palmer,
*' both Jesuits lodging about Fleet Street, very rich in
apparell. The one a flanting fellow, useth to weare a
Scarlet cloak over a crimson Sattin Suit." Lower down
we find some one characterized as " a very poisonous
fellow," and another unoffending Father as " a limping
hobbling Priest." Nor must we forget *' Father Ward, a
ruffler with a Rapier by his side."

The success of this pamphlet was so great, that Mr.
John Gee was induced to give the world another, entitled
" New shreds of the old snare broken by the foot of J.
G."""" It is introduced by the following pleasant rhyme,—

* Loudon, 1624.
VOL. XLL— Xo. LXXXL

82 Curiosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. [Sept.

" All who can sing or say

Come and hearo a Jesuites Plaj."

This is in the same quaint style as the other, but in
other respects is dull enough, though one of the chapters
begins, " The secoud comodie of a female apparition acted
by the thrice honourable company of Jesuit-Players to the
Pope's Holiness."

We next come to a swollen vellum-bound tome, extend-
ing to some 1300 pages, rejoicing in the title of ** Le
mercure Jesuite."'*" This first saw the light at Geneva,
and so great things might reasonably be expected from it.
It turns out, however, to be nothing more than a sort of
**recueil" of official documents, decrees, and the like.
But at the end a little bit of drollery is introduced in the
shape of a quasi facetious post mortem dialogue, (in the
manner of Mr. Landor,) between M. Servin, a couucillor
of Parliament, and the Pere Coton, before alluded to.f
The two are supposed to meet in Hades, when the Coun-
cillor, **faute de meilleur compagnie," as the book says,
joins the Jesuit. ** Good morning, mon Pere, what brings
you here ? — Coton. Good morning — you see I am dead
too, like yourself. — Servin. Parlez vous sans equivoque ?
— Coton. Certainly. Equivoques 1 find are not in vogue
here. — Servin. Where are yon going now? — Coton. I
wish to reach the Elysian Fields. — Servin. So do I. —
Coton. If that be so, we can go together. — Servin. I see
only one objection, and that is this ; you folk by the rules
of your order are obliged to walk in pairs. Now I have no
wish to appear to belong to your society, by being found in
your company, or in short, to be taken for a Jesuit — espe-
cially in these parts," &c., &c., and so on. The whole,
however, is conceived in a more temperate spirit than the
usual run of such effusions.

Let us pass now to ''serious considerations for
repressing the increase of Jesuites, Priestes and Papists,
without Shedding of Blood. Written by Sir 11. C. and

f)resented to King James of Happie Memorie.''| Well
lere is a tolerant spirit at last, one with gentle, liberal
views ! Nothing of the sort. He merely disapproves of

* Gen. 1G3I. f P. 9tS.

t 16H.

1856.] Curiosities of the Anti-Jesuit Onisade. 83

shedding blood because it had unfortunately been found
useless as an arm of restraint. We should, he thinks,
cast about for some other more efficacious method.
** Therefore/' says he, " except it be demonstrated the
whole Roman Citie which consists not of one Broode but
of a succession of Persons, may be cut off at the first
stroake as one entire head, I see no cause to think our
state secured by sitting on the skirts of some few Semina-
ries, leaving in the meantime a multitude of snarlers
abroad, who already shewe their teeth and only wait
opportunity to Bite fiercely." He is blessed, however,
with a certain Pharisaical charity, for ** Although it hath
been affirmed of the Church of Rome quod pontificum
GENUS SEMPER CRUDELE nevorthelesse out of charity let us
hope that all Divels are not so black as they are paynted."
His notable scheme is that a good round sum should be
devoted to acquiring secret information " which may be
readily obtained from Sivill, (Seville) Valadolid, Doway,
Louvaine and other places : and by forewarning given of
their approach they may be luaited for at the Ports and
from thence soon conveied to a safe lodging." Having
thus provided for what he calls ** The whole Regimente of
Jesuites," he anticipates that England would be at length
free from annoyance. In support of his views he mentions
a curious circumstance, viz., that Walsingham, by means
of secret bribes, knew of the departure of every priest and
seminarist from Rome, Douay or other colleges, and so
was enabled to receive them on their landing and have
them ** conveied to a safe Lodging."

A little pamphlet, if it can be so termed, of five or six
pages, printed on the vilest of paper, as if for selling in the
streets, purposes to be *^ A Letter from a Jesuit, or the
Mystery of Equivocation.""" This, it says, was inter-
cepted in some mysterious manner, and is now laid before
the public, to put them on their guard against those
*' Jesuits who are to be seen ruffling in courts, exchanges,
everywhere in muffling habits of hectoring gallants."
The intercepted letter is certainly a most ingenious com-
position, and professes to be a letter of introduction given
to a Friar by a Jesuit in Paris. Bat, as will be ^een,
the Friar knew not what he was carrying.

With allowaace.'' Anno Dora. 1679.

1l

84 Curiosities of the Ant I- Jesuit Crusade. jSept.

[letteu.]

"Mr. Q. an Irish Friar of the Order of St. Benedict
Is the bringer uuto you of News from rae bjr means

Ofthis letter, he is one of the most discreet wise and least

Vitious persons that 1 ever yet (amongst all I have conversed with)
Knew & hath earnestly desired me to write to you in his favour &
To give him a letter for you of credence in his behalf & my

Kecomendatioa which thus grauted to his merit I assure you rather than to his
Importunity &c. &c."

This seems a simple letter eiiouf^b, and to use the words
of the writer, ** I dare lay a wager the honest reader sees
no more harm in all this than the siil.y Fryar did that
carried it. But alas ! deceiving a poor Fryar with such a
neat piece of gullery is nothing to the practises of the
politicians of the right Roman breede." As so by divid-
ing the letter as it were into two columns, and reading
them first straight down, a very different meaning will be
discovered. 0 these Jesuits !

But perhaps we have dwelt long enough upon this
strange class of productions. We shall therefore throw
together a few of the more piquante titles we have as yet
not touched upon, and then conclude. We have not
ventured to unfold the secrets of ** cabbala ! ou Touver-
ture de Caballe Mysticalle des Jesuites, revele par songe
a un gentilhomme,"""' nor the valuable information con-
tained in the " Paradoxa Jesuitica.'* We have not
touched upon the " Jesuite Disarme," nor upon his
brethren, the ** Jesuita Vapulans," and "Jesuita lleva-
pulans," nor upon the "Jesuitic! Templi Stupenda," all
no doubt interesting. We have likewise passed over the
*' lielatio de Stratagematis et sophismatis Politicis Jesui-
tarum Societatis ad monarchiam Orbis Terrarum sibi
conficiendam," as also " A Letter from a Jesuite iji Paris
to his correspondent in London, showing the most effec-
tual way to ruine the Government of Protestant Religion,'*
also the " Colloquium Jesuiticum" and the " Anatomia
Societatis Jesu," with scores more, the recapitulation of
which would only be wearisome.

In closing our random notice of these long-forgotten
writings, still curious for the analogy which they bear to
the weapons of modern literary crusade, the best commen-

* Lcyden, 1602.

1856.1 Cariosities of the Anti- Jesuit Crusade. 85

tary we can make upon them is a remark of the acute
Uayle's, viz., that in his day there were numbers of per-
sons who honestly beheved all the calumnies in the
** Anti-Coton," (a satire af^ainst the Jesuit of that name,)
although its falsity had been proved in a manner convinc-
ing to all but those destitute of good sense. This opinion,
coming from a not always unprejudiced quarter, ought to
have proportionate weight. But, in conclusion, it may
be asked, why have we thus chosen to disinter these
poor effusions of malignity instead of allowing them to
moulder away unthought of and forgotten ? Why not let
the turgid stream roll on without calling attention to its
existence? But as we before remarked, we were anxious
to show the outrageous, and even laughable extent to
which the '* begriming'* of the Society had proceeded, and
from the fact of its being overdone infer its total ground-
lessness. As in the course of common life, if a man's
character be extravagantly blackened, it has often the
effect of helping him back to his good name ; for the wise
naturally think, when some of the charges are so ridicu-
lous, others may turn out equally groundless. It is on
this principle that we have written.

But in truth this animosity to the Jesuits will, we think,
remain one of the great unsolved problems of the human
race. Such deadly malignity, such poisoned and en-
venomed hatred, is almost incredible, and very nearly
allied to insanity. We might be almost tempted to ex-
plain it as a feeling near akin to the horror a certain dark
personage is supposed to entertain of holy water. Without
entering into this speculation now, we shall only say that,
though the Jesuits have borne their part in the trials and
tribulations of that immortal Church, to which they have
been such faithful children, like her they have risen
triumphant above them all. Already is the Great Order
making rapid way towards its olden grandeur. It is
spreading in the East and in the West. Its colleges are
rising on the banks of the Mississippi and the Ganges.
And we venture to predict that, at the time the famous
Eastern traveller shall be seen standing on the broken
arch of London Bridge, sketching the ruined temple of
St. Paul's, there will be found in the sunny lands left
behind him, many a dome and spire, many a snowy pile
raised to religion and education by the hands and labours
of the children of Loyola !

86 Guizot's Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

Art. IV. — History of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of
Charles IT. By M. Guizot. Translated by Andrew R. Scott.
2 vols., 8vo. London : Richard Bentley, 1856.

THIS book is a valuable sequel to the History of
Oliver Cromwell and the English Commonwealth,
which engaged our attention at the time of its appearance,
and a notice of which appeared in the Number of this
Journal for July, 1854. Most of what then occurred to
ns in the way of observation upon the peculiar fitness of
the distinguished author for the prosecution of the studies
to which he had devoted himself, and in the benefit of
which the public had been 'so large a sharer, is equally
applicable to the matter in hand. Himself a witness, an
actor, a leader and a victim under revolutionary govern-
ments, sagacious of all their springs and all their move-
ments ; disabused if man ought to be, or could be, oi
their illusions; learned in the analogies that all revolu-
tions present to students of history, from the days oi
Harmodius and Aristogiton to the Deux Decembre ; pos-
sessing in addition a peculiar inclination for the study
of English history, or at least particular phases of it; and
having withal the indispensable acquirements of scholar-
ship in an uncommon degree ; M. Guizot has quali-
fied himself for the production of the work before us,
by a close and conscientious investigation of all the
evidence, historical or documentary, that could throw
light upon a very obscure but most instructive period of
Constitutional History. His perfect familiarity with all
the books of reference bearing upon the previous subjects
of inquiry to which we adverted in our former paper, is
equally noticeable in his treatment of the short period
preceding the restoration. Price, Ludlow, Skinner,
Clarendon, Whitelock, Cooke, Baker, Hutchinson, Bur-
ton, the Commons Journals, and an almost infinite variety
of documentary authorities have been carefully collated,
and are constantly referred to. The same features of
style also, or nearly the same, are everywhere observable.
We have hardly at any time remarked M. Guizot more
sober of embellishment, or less visionary than in the present
volumes. Although the colouring is not very vivid, though

1850.] GidzoVs Richard Cromwell Bf

the work is quite free from professional portrait-painting,
or Macaulayism of any kind, it cannot be said that the
interest is allowed to languish ; as the details, though
numerous, are not too minute; are never unimportant, are
evidently accurate, and hang so closely together that the
student never loses sight of their connexity. One is
pleased, moreover, to miss altogether the swagger and
self-sufficiency so remarkable in some of our own histo-
rians, the absence of which, although not an argument of
sound scholarship, is generally found to characterize it.
We have, of course, very often had occasion to notice
M. Guizot's facts and views, as who has not had that is
in contact with the literature of the day ? and doubtless
our observations include consideral)le varieties of opinion ;
but we are not aware of his ever having betrayed any-
thing like the assumption which men in this country,
not the twentieth part the tithe of Guizot m learning, or
worth of any kind, perpetually exhibit in virtue of shal-
low information, strong prejudices, and active fancy. It
is not, indeed, that M. Guizot does not sometimes exhibit
extraordinary complacency in fondling a pet theory, which
of course, according to the caprice or dispensation that
guides paternal likings, is often an ill-favoured one ; nor
that we ourselves can claim credit for particular tenderness
on such occasions in dealing with what seems open to cen-
sure. This not only the paper to which we have already
alluded, but another, taken at random, in the same Num-
ber, (The Theory of Jesuit History,) will sufficiently show.
But the praise of learning, more especially constitution.il
learning, sobriety of judgment in the absence of very
powerful disturbing agents, sound philosophy from time to
time, and a general spirit of candour, it is rarely possible
to refuse to M. Guizot, and they are nowhere more per-
ceptible than in the History of llichard Cromwell.

We believe that, previously to the publication of M.
Guizot's work, there were few personages in English
history of whom less was known than Richard Cromwell ;
and few periods involved in greater obscurity than that of
his few months of office, for it can hardly be called power,
and the stormy weeks immediately preceding the Restora-
tion. Why that has been so, with such ample materials at
hand for accurate and interesting history, it is perhaps need-
less to enquire. A period of transition such as that occu-
pied by the administration of Richard Cromwell, is always

88: GmzoVs Richard Cromwell. \ Sept.

full of the instruction to be gathered from delicate con-
junctures, great opportunities lost or caught at the bound,
resources husbanded or squandered, the best policy
defeated by the irresistible course of circumstances, or
only developing itself when no policy can avail. But, be
that as it may, this whole mine of constitutional and
historical learning, remained till within the last few
years closed against wi\y one who did [not choose to con-
sult, as M. Guizot has done, volumes and state papers
without end. We are very far indeed from saying that
Dr. Lingard did not avail himself of every source of infor-
mation open to him in common with M. Guizot, or that
his History does not, within the proper range of its
duties, convey to us a clear and faithful picture of the
period to which M. Guizot's studies have been more espe-
cially directed ; but what we mean to convey is, that it
was reserved for M. Guizot to lay bare the whole anatomy
of the time to the general reader, to show him all its
facts and all their bearings, in a work of moderate dimen-
sions.

It is a comparatively vulgar triumph of genius to found
an empire or a dynasty; but to perpetuate it is the pre-
rogative of few. The greater and the more overpowering
the merit of the man; the more eftectually it crushes
opposition, bridles discontent, and silences murmurs ; the
more real is the danger for his successor probably of very
different materials from the great man himself; unless the
latter has had that surpassing genius of organization
which enabled him to transmit his power with his
memory. Hence it is, perhaps, that the modest worth of
Washington was more really serviceable to his country
than splendid talent, in the foundation of a government,
which, although from the circumstances of the case, it
seemed to be somewhat out of joint, has notwithstanding
held together, and promises to hold together for a con-
siderable time ; and under which a cluster of small colonies
has grown to a great nation. Indeed, had Cromwell had
the honesty and simple-mindedness of Washington, had
he been less of a diplomatist, and understood less accu-
rately the art of governing, so far at least as it is
supposed to include chicanery and deceit, it is not very
clear that the English people, although disinclined to the
republic as it afterwards was to the revolution, might
not have come in course of time to regard it as a

1856.] Ouizofs Richard Cromwell. 89

re£?ular government: and from ntter inability to over-
throw it, and with the example of Holland before their
eyes, have grown reconciled to a state of things which,
whatever may be its defects, is certainly compatible with
progress and secnrity at home, as well as respect and
power abroad. The very efforts however which the Pro-
tector made to consolidate his power and secure its trans-
mission to his sons, involved the destruction not only of
his own family, but of the republican form of government,
as it kept constantly before the eyes of the people, not a
pale reflection, but the quick and vigorous substance of
monarchical power wanting only the name ; while the
people never ceased to connect both the name and the
thing, with the family of Stuart.

Trusting in all probability to the favourable chances
always belonging to possession, Oliver determined upon
handing down his own title and power to his son Richard,
with regard to whose defects of character it is possible he
may have been somewhat blinded by parental affection,
but whose inferiority to himself in every particular must
have been well known, and a constant source of appre-
hension to him. He must have felt too that the sectaries in
and out of the army, and all other uneasy spirits whom he
had himself been able to cajole or intimidate, would soon
take advantage of his removal to intrigue against the
power of his son, perhaps to subvert, but at all events to
unsettle it.

And with perpetual inroads, to alarm.
Though inaccessible his fatal throne.
Which if not victory was jet revenge.

Perhaps he may have relied upon some latent strength of
character, which circumstances might develop in Richard,
but if so, the event proved how signally he was mistaken.
** An addressing house of Commons," says ]3nrke, ** and
a petitioning nation ; a house of Commons full of con-
fidence, while the nation is plunged in despair ; in the
utmost harmony with ministers whom the people regard
with the utmost abhorrence ; who vote thanks when the
public opinion calls upon them for impeachments; who
are eager to grant when the general ruin demands account ;
who in all disputes between the people and the administra-
tion pronounce against the people ; who punish their dis-

90 Ou'izot's Richard Cromivell. [Sept.

orders, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to
them ; this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things
in the Constitution.""'^ But Richard Cromwell was des-
tined to succeed to something more difficult and more
unmanageable than this. He had to deal with an ad-
dressing house and a petitioning army; petitioning too in
the style in which an army knows how to petition. He
had a parliament sufficiently obsequious, and a nation
utterly impracticable ; he had a show of union in the
houses, and sectaries outside ready to tear each other, bui
anxious to begin by quartering him. He had committees
adjusting the limits of prerogative and privileges, while a
majority of the men of action were looking for pure democ-
racy. He had his counbil of state in Whitehall, and councils
of officers elsewhere suggesting measures which were looked
upon as commands. To govern without parliament was im-
possible, and with parliament little less so. If his house of
Commons was unanimous and devoted, it would not repre-
sent the people, and if it did represent the people, it could
reflect nothing but anarchy. Oliver would have doubtless
continued equal to the. occasion, for his very name was
sufficient to secure the undisputed succession to his son.
M. Guizot has however disabused the general reader of
a very vulgar error, which represented Richard Cromwell
as a good-natured good-for-nothing youth, perfectly satis-
fied to keep the throne warm for Charles, although rather
anxious to get rid of the responsibility and toil of govern-
ment ; at least this is the impression left upon our mind by
that popular book of fiction called Goldsmith's History of
England, which found its way into the hands of most
school boys some twenty years ago, and is still regarded
as an authority by the simple. It would appear, however,
that Richard was by no means wanting ni ability, and
that he had rather a taste for government, that is to say
for the civil list, palatial quarters, guards of honour,
and the other concomitants of royalty ; although he was
almost as much an enemy to work as his worthy successor
Charles. But so far from gladly relinquishing his autho-
rity, he clung to it with a tenacity that has seldom
been observed in real princes, remaining in Whitehall

• Thoughts on the causes of the present discontent.— Works,
vol. ii., p. 289.

1856.] Guizofs Richard Cromwell. 91

for a considerable time after he had been dismissed
from the protectorate, and taking care not to notice the
civil hints he received from the officers to accommodiite
himself elsewhere ; nntil gentle thongh firm compnlsion had
been applied, and not nntil his little bill npon the nation
had been dnly honoured. He was not without a certain
grace of manner either, that recommended him to all
with whom he had to deal, officially or otherwise ; nor was
he destitute of tact in nice and difficult conjunctures : but
these qualities are only useful when found in combination
with others, in which he was singularly deficient, naraelj'',
resolution and promptitude. Those who were about his
person conceived a real attachment for him, and he could
hardly be said to have an enemy anywhere, even amongst
those who most opposed his pretensions, and were most
hostile to his father. Accordingly his government seemed
to begin under the best auspices ; and if something like real
discontent showed itself from the outset,he found the appear-
ance at least of satisfaction with which his accession to the
protectorate was greeted, and also the composition of his
first parliament, so satisfactory ; that his own spirits and
those of his friends revived. There seemed, in a word, to
be a general accord amongst men, to submit to his govern-
ment for want of better, if for no other reason ; so that the
French Ambassador conceived great hopes of the popu-
larity and stability of the second protectorate, and wrote
to Cardinal Mazarin to that effect. But as the following
extract will show, those difficulties had already begun to
surround him from which it was not in his character to
rescue himself.

" If Hyde could have read the hearts, or even the letters, of
Cromwell's own sons and their most devoted adherents, he would not
thus have lost their confidence. In the midst of this general and
eager submission to their government, they were filled with anxiety
and disquietude, and felt convinced already that their success was
superficial and illusory, and their peril imminent. Three of them
in particular, enlightened by their own pressing interests or by their
great experience, Henry Cromwell in Dublin, and Thurloe and
Lord Faulconbridge in London, took no false or flattering view of
their position. On the 7th of September, by the same messenger
who conveyed to Henry Cromwell a detailed account of his father's
death, Thurloe thus wrote to him : ' I must needs acquaint your
Excellency that there are some secret murmurings iu the army, as
if his Highness were not general of the army, as his father was ;

92 Gtihofs Richard Cromwell. jSept.

and would look upon liim and the army as divided ; and as if the
conduct of the armj should be elsewhere, and in other bands. I
am not able to saj what this will come to, but I think the conceit
of any such thing is dangerous.' A week later, on the 14th of
September, Lord Faulconbridge wrote to his brother-in-law : ' All
seemingly wears the face of calmness, but certainly somewhat is
brewing underhand. A cabal there is of persons, and great ones,
held very closely and resolved, it's feirerl, to rule themselves, or
set all on fire. Tliese forebodings found immediate credence from
Henry Cromwell ; naturally restless, distrustful, and melancholy.
As soon as he learned that his fatlier's life was in danger, and
before he received intelligence of his death, he had almost despaired
of the future. * If no settlement be made in his life-time,' he wrote
to Thurloe on the 8th of September, ' can we be secure from the
lust of ambitious men % Nay, if he would declare his successor,
where is tliat person of wisdom, courage, conduct, and (which is
equivalent to all) reputation at home and abroad, which we see
necessary to preserve our peace ? Though I know none like his
Highness, yet lie himself is not sufficient for these things but by
and through his communion with God.' When Cromwell was dead
Henry immediately had liis brother Richard proclaimed in Dublin,
and wrote to him soon after, on the I8tli of September ; ' I lost no
time, and I used what diligence and industry I could, according to my
bounden duty, to make your llighness's entrance easy and your

government established Now I humbly beg your llighness's

pardon for what I am about to say : I may not, unless your High-
ness commands me against my will and condemns me to my grave,
any longer undergo the charge I did in your father's life- time ; I
am not able to live always in the fire.' And he, therefore, implored
Richard to permit him to come to London to converse with hira
open-heartedly on the reasons wliich led hira to desire retirement,
and on tlieir common dangers. ' I do think it dangerous,' he adds
in a subsequent letter, written on the 20th of October, ' I do think
it dangerous to write freely to your Highness, or for you to do it to
me, unless by a messenger that will not be outwitted or corrupted ;
for I make no question but that all letters will be opened which
come either to or from your Highness, which can bo suspected to
contain busine-!S.' The sons of Cromwell had good reason to feel
anxious and uneasy. Thoir father's body lay in state at Somerset
House ; and yet the impression which his death had produced, and
the unanimous assent which it had gained to the appointment of
his successor, had already ceased to bo anything more than a vain
outward show. The personal ascendancy of a great man is never
revealed witli more striking clearness than after his decease ; and
the innumerable pretensions that rise up in the void which he leaves,
give tlie measure of the space which he alone could fill, republicans
and cavaliers, generals, officers, and soldiers, mystical sectaries
and free thinkers, parliamentary and regimental orators, all the

1856.] Guizofs Richard Cromwell. 93

parties that Cromwell had held in check, the malcontents who
trembled before hiii), and the ambitious men wlio bowed beneath
his irresistible superiority, the high-minded patriots and the chime-
rical visionaries whom he had offended, indeed all those various
classes whom by consent "or force, by persuasion or constraint, he
had reduced alike to silence and inaction, — began again after an
interval of a few days, to hope and to act, at first with some reserve
and with little noise, but era long with presumption and almost
with publicity. Under the pretext of uniting in devotional exercises,
the officers met on every Friday at Wallingford House, the resi-
dence of Fleetwood, whose rank, as Lieutenant-General of tlie
Army, rendered him the natural centre around which they rallied,
and whose weak-minded vanity, pious aff"ectation, and ambitious
wife, made him an easy dupe to military or popular factions. The
more ardent malcontents had their secret meetings at the house of
Desborough, a rough, haughty, obstinate soldier, who used to boast
that he liad prevented Cromwell from making himself king, and
who yielded with great unwillingness to Richard's Protectorate,
although he iiad openly acknowledged it himself, and induced others
with wliom he had influence to do the same. At these meetings
all the questions of the day were debated, feelings of discontent
were expressed, and projects of all kinds suggested; and the spirit
of sedition spread from these foci throughout the main body of the
Army, where the Anabaptists, Quakers, Millenarians, and other
subaltern enthusiasts whom Cromwell himself had never been
able to crush, resumed at the same time their turbulent and
inflammatory preachings." — Vol. i. pp. 11-14.

On the other hand Richard early " received assurance
of the friendly dispositions" of the foreign powers with
whom his father had been in alUance. The sycophancy of
Cardinal Mazarin is rather nauseous, but it were to be
wished after all that England had adopted towards France
under the French Republic, and even under Bonaparte ;
tiie same moderation that she was thus early taught by
France and which she has lately learned to put to account
with so much advantage. The ambition of Napoleon was fed
by the resisttmce of England, whose subsidies only created
armies for him to annihilate and furnished him with pre-
texts of conquest, until Heaven itself interfered so visibly
for his downfall in Russia. J3ut it is not less true that
Cardinal Mazarin needlessly lowered the dignity of the
crown he served, not only in the expression of his sorrow
for the death of Oliver, but in the style whether of his
condolence or his congratulations offered to Richard.
Richard's request that foreign courts should go into mourn-

94 GuizoVs Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

iiig for his father as it was their habit to do on the death
of sovereign princes, was anticipated by the serviUty of the
French court.

Nothing can be more fulsome than the adulation admin-
istered by Cardinal Mazarin, nor, on the other hand,
can anything exceed the meanness of the details of cor-
ruption into which he entered. The correspondence of
the Cardinal with M. de Bordeaux, the French ambas-
sador, is perhaps the most instructive portion of the
History. While expressing and feeling a certain interest
in the continuance and security of Richard's Govern-
ment, Mazarin spares no injunction to the ambassador to
make him acquainted with every circumstance that might
enable him to ta'Jce -advantage of its weakness. He con-
descended to bribe Lord Faulconbridge with a present of
**two handsome barbs" and even wishes to be informed
what kind of jewels Lady Faulconbridge would fancy ;
yet at a later period we see France and Spain equally
anxious to secure the favour of the now despised Charles
to the extent of being desirous to seize his person, in order
that it might appear his restoration was due to them, and
that he might be found upon their territories and thence pass
over to his own when the time should come. The follow-
ing is Cardinal Mazarin's letter of congratulation to
Richard on his accession to the Protectorate.

" Cardinal Mazarin to the Protector.

"Paris, September 25, 1658.
*' Sir,

" I have so many reasons for being sensibly affected by the
death of his late most Serene Highness, the Protector, that I shall
not employ many words to express to your Most Serene Highness
the grief which it has caused me, which I well feel to be one of
those which are contained in sad silence because they are beyond
expression. And truly, even if I did not regard the interest of the
king and of the state, on the loss of a prince so illustrious, and so
well intentioned towards the crown, he gave me, even in the last
moments of his life, such glorious and such obliging marks of his
esteem, confidence, and friendship, that I cannot sufficiently regret
his loss. But what mitigates in some degree my displeasure at
this most unfortunate occurrence is, to find that your supreme
Highness has been proclaimed his successor with such universal
applause, and that I am fully persuaded that you will not only
conform to his views for the establishment of an indissoluble union
trith France, but that you will be pleased to honour me with the

1856. 1 GuizoVs Richard Cromwell. 95

same good will which His Highness entertained towards me, as I
have a very strong desire to deserve it bj my services." — Vol. ii.
p. 445.

We should be glad to make more frequent extracts
from this portion of M. Guizot's work, but we are so com-
pletely embarrassed in the choice, and the correspondence
is so uniform in its features, that we have thought it more
desirable to confine ourselves to the body of the book ; nor
does anything occur to us at this moment more interest-
ing than Richard's meeting with his first parliament.
The scene is faithfully described by M. Guizot. It is
singularly characteristic of the man and the situation.
The ill-suppressed indignation of the republican members
of the House of Commons, on being summoned to attend
the Protector at the bar of the House of Lords, showed
with sufficient clearness what forbearance the Protector
had to expect from a body of men, the most active, sin-
cere, and enthusiastic in the state, and held out an indif-
ferent prospect of a quiet or happy protectorate. The
Protector himself, or his immediate advisers, seem to
have had a clear perception of the difliculties of his position,
and Richard's speech to the two houses is about the most
judicious that could have been contrived. Full of the
scriptural jargon of the period, it does not express the
same confident assurance of divine protection, which
Oliver seemed to think was his by right of conquest.
While his own accession to the protectorate is treated
as a matter of course, he does not take the airs of legiti-
macy, or seem to say, he is at the helm in his own right.
He very carefully, but not too ostentaciously, puts for-
ward his father, in whose place he has been made to
stand, and for whose memory and merits alone he seems
to claim regard. At the same time he is not wanting in
modest promises to govern by means of parliament, and
to co-operate with every well considered measure that
shall emaniite from the two Houses. The Lord Com-
missioner Fiennes, on the other hand, in the same cant-
ing style, two-thirds psalmody and one-third business,
cleverly breaks to the House the duty they are expected
to perform. He informs them that their functions are
somewhat those of what in modern times would be called
a constituent assembly, but at the same time he gives
them .warning, although not in a tone of warning, that

96 OuizoVs Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

thej' are spared the trouble of devising or attempting any-
thing like organic change ; they are not called upon, he
says, to construct, but merely to consolidate, and at the
utmost, to embellish. This however is rather hinted at,
and to be guessed, though easily guessed, from his highly
figurative speech, than bluntly put. He never for one
moment has the appearance of stating that it is intended
to limit the privileges of the parliament, or narrow its dis-
cretion. But it is assumed throughout that, although the
exercise of certain functions rightly appertains to them
as legislators under a new order of things, yet the order in
question, although new, is settled, and not subject to dis-
cussion. The *' Petition and Advice" are treated as the
ark of the constitution, not to be profanely approached or
irreverently scanned. It is taken without controversy to
be a species of sacrilege to lay hands upon the work of the
great master, hardly cold under the hand of death, and
at the same time expression is given to a degree of confi-
dence in the houses generally, better calculated to keep
waverers in the direct line than any threat or peremptori-
iiess of manner could have been. We subjoin the passage.

" On the whole, and with the exception of a few irregular and
contested elections, the Assembly was freely chosen, and composed
for the most part of independent men; among its five hundred and
sixty-four members, there were about fifty determined Republi-
cans. A hundred, or a hundred and forty members who wavered
between the Protector and the Republic, seventy-two lawyers, a
hundred oflBcers, and others in the employment of the Govern-
ment, and two hundred persons of neutral or unknown opinions.
Oil ascertaining this result of the elections, the Protect<)r and his
advisers expressed neither confidence nor discouragement. ' The
men in the Parliament are very numerous, and beyond measure,
bold,' wrote Lord Faulconbridge to Henry Cromwell, on the loth of
February; 'but they are more than doubly over-balanced by the
sober party. So that, though this make tlieir results slow, we see
uo great cause as yet to fear.' Thurloe who, in general, was but little
inclined to hope, entertained even less misgivings, and grew ani-
mated at the approach of the conflict, like a wary and veteran
partisan. * Our enemies on all sides are active,' he wrote to Henry
Cromwell, on the 4th of January, 'and will leave no stone unturned

to give us trouble, both at home and abroad This is like to be

a very troublesome scene ; and, I persuade myself God will bless
courage and lively actions, and will be displeased with desponden-
cies and melancholy motions. I can say by experience, that, I
never in all my life made a true judgriient of things in a melan-
choly frame and temper of spirit ; and whatever measures I took

1856.1 Guizofs Richard Cromwell. 97

■whilst I was in that case, I wholly disliked them when I was out of
it, and have fully resolved with myself uever to do anything, or
take up any resolutions, whilst I am melancholy, having always
found my thoughts erroneous at such a time. The cause is as good
as ever, and the same that ever it was, and the enemies are baffled
men, and if we can believe that God will be with us, He will be
with us ; and who then can be against us ?'

" On the 27th of January, 1659, Richard, attended by a pom-
pous retinue, proceeded by water to the parliament-stairs, and after
waiting a few moments in the House of Lords, repaired to West-
minster Abbey, Major-General Desborough bearing the sword of
state before him. The members of both houses were already assem-
bled in the church, as we are told, ' sparsira end in confusion,'
After a sermon had been preached hy Dr. Goodwin, as the audience
were rising to depart, a quaker standing near the pulpit suddenly
addressed the congregation with incoherent exhortations. Richard
paused, heard him to the end, and returned to the House of Lords.
Tlie Usher of the Black Rod was then sent, by his order, to sum-
mon the members of the House of Commons to attend him.

" Several of them, who had formed part of the procession, were
there already, standing at the bar according to ancient usage ; but
about a hundred and sixty had collected in their own House, and
wlieu the Usher came to summon them, not more than ten or
twelve obeyed his call. ' I went up as one of your servants,' said
Sir Arthur Haslerig afterwards, ' to see in what order we should
be. I saw where the Lords were. I asked where the Commons
should be, and they said, ' At the bar, where were servants and
footmen.' More than a hundred and fifty members remained in
the House of Commons; while in the other House, Richard, after
standing for a moment uncovered, resumed liis seat and his hat,
and opened the Session of Parliament. His speech was short and
simple, but expressed in a royal tone, * I believe there are scarce
any of you here,' he said, ' who expected some mouths since to
have seen this greatassembly at this time, in this place, in peace,...

Peace was one of the blessings of my father's government He

died full of days, spent in great and sore travail ; yet his eyes were
not waxed dim, neither was his natural strength abated, as it was

said of Moses. He was serviceable even to the last He is gone

to rest, and we are entered into his labours It is agreeable, not

only to my trust, but to my principles, to govern these nations by
tlie advice of my two Houses of Parliament,

" Through the goodness of God, we are, as I have told you,

at this time, in peace ; but it is not thus with us, because we have
no enemies. There are enough, both within us and without, who
would soon put au end to our peace, were it in their power. It
will be becoming your wisdom to consider cf the securing ol' our
peace against those who. wc all know are, and ever will be, our
implacable enemies. What the means of doing this are, I sluiU
VOL. XLl.-Xo. LX.\XI. 7

98 Guizofs Richard Cromwell. [Sept

refer to you. This I can assure you, that the armies of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, are true and faithful to the peaco aud

good interest of these nations If they were not the best army

iu the world, you would have heard of inconveniences, by reason

of the great arrear of pay which is now due unto them This

being matter of money, I recommend it particularly to the House
of Commons. You have, you know, a war with Spain, carried on
by the advice of parliament. He is an old enemy, and a potent
one, and therefore it will be necessary, both for the hooour and

safety of these nations, that that war be vigorously prosecuted

The other things that are to be said I shall refer to my Lord

K' eper Fiennes I recommend unto you, my Lords, and you,

Gentlemen of the House of Commons, that you will iu all your
debates maintain and conserve love and unity among yourselves,
that therein you may be the pattern of the nation, who have sent
you up in peace, and with their prayers, that the spirit of wisdom
and peace may be among yi.u. And this sliall also be my prayer
to you ; and to this let us all add our utmost endeavours for making
this a happy Parliament.'

" Lord Commissioner Fiennes began his speech in the tone of a
true courtier. ' The wise man,' he said, ' having proposed this
question — ' What can the man do that cometh after the king?' —
he answereth himself thus — ' Even that which he hath already
done.' And to the like question at this time, ' What can he say
that speaketh after his Highness?' The like answer may not
be unfitly returned, 'Even that which hath been already spoken.'
His speech as this opening indicated, was a mere commentary
on that of the Protector. A commentary expressed in emphatic
and involved language, amid the mazes of which the idea and
plan of conduct entertained by the Government were, neverthe-
less, discernible. ' His late Highness,' he said, ' as you know,
and the whole world knows, was a man of war, yet he died in
peace, and left these nations in peace at home, and victorious

abroad But that is not all ; his late Highness not only left

these three nations in peace, within, and betwixt themselves, but
he left them in unity. And as it was his and the late Parliament's
worthy work and caro to unite these three nations into one com-
monwealth, so His Highness hath held it incumbent upon him to
bring them united to, and in this Parliament, according to the
practice of the late Parliament, and the express declaration of
their intention. Tliat all Parliaments for the future should be

Parliaments of the three nations And all the materials of this

House are so fitted and squared beforehand, by the Humble
Petition and Advice, and other good laws made by the late Par-
liament, that by the help of God there will be no need of any now
hammering, nor that there shall be heard the noise of any ham-
mer or axe, much less of spear or sword, or any tool of iron, fur
what is to be further done in the building of this house The

1856.] Guizot's Richard Cromivell. 99

Petition and Advice hath not taken in anjthing that should have
been left out, nor left out anything that is essential ; but, whoever
shall well weigh the same, and look into it with a single eye, will
find that both our spiritual and civil liberties have been squared,
stated, and defined therein, with a great deal of care and exact-
ness And yet, there is still behind a great and glorious work

in the location and composure of these parts, though never so well
fitted. The application of things to" persons, and of persons to
things, and the right jointing and cementing of one part to the
other, by a spirit of love within, and establishment of due and
necessary order without, will make this House to rise up into a
strong, a perfect, and a beautiful sti'ucture and fabric amongst us.
What then remains but that His Highness, and both houses of
Parliament should set about this noble work, till they have brought

it to perfection? We have a wholesome and divine counsel to

preserve us from falling into the snare of the grand enemy of our
peace ; and that is, to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of
peace. What is that bond of peace ? In a moral sense, it is
that treble knot of true love and good understanding between
His Highness and the two Houses of Parliament ; in a public
consideration it is the constitution of our Government, whereby
we have another treble cord, besides that of the three nations
united into one Commonwealth, namely, the constitution of their
supreme Legislative power, consisting of a single person and two
Houses of Parliament. Which cord, while it is kept well twisted
together, will be a great strength to itself, to the nation, and to
the people of God, in these and all our neighbouring nations round
about us ; but if it once begin to unravel, and the two ends fall
one from another, and from tlie middle, all will ran to ruin.' That
the Protectoral form of Government should bo regarded as firmly-
established, and that its basis should be respected as much as that
of an ancient monarchy, was the chief aim of Richard and his
counsel. ' That which all here seem to be fixed in,' wrote Thurloe
to Henry Cromwell, on the 14th of December, 'is to adhere to the
Petition and Advice ; and if the foundation thereof be admitted,
namely, a single person and two Houses of Parliament, I hope we
may agree in all other things.' "

The difficulties of the Protector were now hourly on the
increase — his parhameut, pliant as it was, required the
utmost management. It soon exhibited a respect and
tenderness for the good old cause, that were matter of well
grounded apprehension to Richard and his advisers. Th,e
oath of fidelity to the Protector ; the constitution of parlia-
ment itself involving the very existence of " the other
house," and matters of an equally exciting kind were vehe-
mently debated ; and although by all the arts with which

100 Ouizofs Richard CroniiuelL [Sept.

constitutional government, has made ns familiar, parlia-
mentary majorities were secured, and shining victories ob-
tained ; there was real discomfiture in nearly all his
triumphs. But in the very infancy of these debates he was
compelled to use an act of vigour, which if he had knowu how
to adhere to and repeat, he might have given to events a dif-
ferent turn. He was obliged to dissolve a council of officers.
It was a hazardous experiment in his hands, for the army
knew nothing of Richard, and notwithstanding his general
popularity even with ihem, the officers were fully deter-
mined that their day should come, although they did not
perhaps fully realize the extent of their victory. At length,
although Monk, who was destined to act so large a part
in the Restoration of Monarchy, and fill a space propor-
tionately large in English history, was absent from the
scene of parliamentary conflict and intrigue ; the army
triumphed, and Richard was forced to dissolve his first par-
liament, and thus prepare {'ov his own deposition with
almost as little ceremony as his father had used to any of
tlie assemblies decorated with the name of parliament
during his reign.

Perplexed in what wa.y to give a complexion of legality
to their proceedings, the officers determined to recall
the remnant of the Long Parliament and act under its
sanction, but Richard was spared the humiliation of un-
doing his father's work. Neither did the officers take that
responsibility upon themselves. They called upon the
speaker Lenthall to issue his writs to the remaining
members of that assembly, thereby leaving it to be
understood that the Long Parliament was the sovereign
authority of the country, unlawfully deposed and put
aside for a time, and not now reconstituted, but reviving
and reappearing by its own intrinsic virtue and undoubted
right. Richard was all the while treated with for-
bearance if not with respect ; the memory of his father
still overshadowed him, nor did the revived parliament
while deposing him from power, and annulling all that
had been done in contempt of their privilege, fail under
the direction of the army to make a decent provision for
him in his enforced retirement. But although the Com-
monwealth was apparently restored, it was manifestly
dying out. The old Cromwellian system of purges was
vainly resorted to in order to shut out those whose influ-
ence was supposed to be adverse to pure republicanism.

1856.] GuisoCs Richard Cromwell. lOl

Those members who had been arbitrarily excluded in 1G48,
were as arbitrarily excluded now, none bein<? permitted
to sit except those who had continued to sit until the expul-
sion of the parliament by Cromwell in 1653. Hence tlie
revived parliament lost infinitely more in character than
it acquired in unanimity. It could not complain of
injustice with clean hands. The legality of its decisions
was open to question, as they were come to in the absence
of members forcibly and unlawfully excluded, and a pre-
cedent was established incompatible with the purity
or Siifety of parliamentary government ; while at the
same time the hopes of the royalists everywhere revived,
not so much at any actual prospect of success, as owing to
a universal and tacit, but perfectly well understood agree-
ment amongst men that the revival of monarchy was
inevitable.

It is about this period that Monk comes prominently
into view, and all the features of his character are brought
out. The promptness of his adhesion to the Long Parha-.
ment ; the impenetrable dissimulation which deceived as
it was intended, and as was its perfection, friends and
enemies, royalists and republicans in a like degree ; the
cautiousness with which he kept his conduct always under
the protection of legality ; the tact with which he preserved
the devoted attachment of his army while at the same time
he so ostentatiously set the civil above the military
power; the skilfulness of his precautions against the
jealousy of the parliament which he bewildered rather than
convinced by his professions of respect and loyalty ; these
and the other features of character are well developed
and properly insisted upon by M. Guizot. Nor is his
description wanting in power. On the contrary we follow
with great interest every step of Monk in his return
from Scotland and his encounter with Lambert, until we
see him finally installed in his quarters in London, after
having sagaciously procured the removal of the forces,
on whose attachment he could not rely. His conduct
during the few days of existence allowed to the Long
Parliament is not the least remarkable throughout his
career, and the readiness with which he suppressed a
movement in the city then so zealous in favour of the
free parliament he was believed to have resolved upon ;
the steadiness with which he upheld the authority of tlie
assembly, whose end he was hastening — the decision with

102 Ou'tzoVs Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

which he staked liis popularity upon tlie execution of his
orders in the conftdence that he should soou recover and
justify it; and the course of events which proved him to
have guessed accurately, are graphically detailed by M.
Guizot, and we had marked for extract this last episode
of Monk's career, but we prefer giving insertion to his
interview with his relation Greenville, an agent of the
King, as being more characteristic, though perhaps not
quite so interesting. We give the extract accordingly,
and perhaps at greater length than we can afford.

" The day novr drew near when the parliament was at length to
pronounce its own dissolution. On the evening of the 15th
of March, a number of persons citizens and people were
assembled in front of the Royal Exchange ; at about five
o'clock a man came up with a ladder, a pot of paint, and a
brush ; he was accompanied by some soldiers, as thougli he had
come by the order or with the consent of the general. He rested
his ladder against a wall, in a niche of which, twenty years before, a
statue of Charles I. had stood ; but after the King's execution, the
statue had been pulled down, and the following inscription in Latin
written in its place : — Ex'U Tyrannus Regum ulthnus Anno libertatis
Anglioe restitutcB primo, Annoque Domini, 1648. The painter went up,
effaced this inscription with his brush, and throwing his cap in the
air shouted, ' God bless King Charles II.' His proceedings were
hailed by the crowd with loud acclamations ; and bonfires were
immediately kindled in the courtyard of the Exchange and in the
neighbouring streets. On the next day, the 16th of March, the
parliament met, the question arose in whose name should the writs
be signed, ordaining the election and as?enibly of the new parlia-
mt^nt, which was to meet on the 25th of April. ' In King Charles's,*
said Prjnne, ' after the death of the King his father, this parliament
was in law dissolved. King Charles II. alone can summon another.*
This legal question was overruled, and it was decided that the writs
should issue under tlie authority df the Republican government
in the name of the keepers of the liberties of England. The in-
structions which were to be given to the Council of State, which
was to carry on the administration of affairs in the interval between
the two parliaments were then discussed ; one of the articles con-
ferred on it the power to send ambassadors or agents to foreign
princes. Scott rose and demanded that an exception should be
made to the exercise of this power, and that the council should be
debarred from sending any agent to Charles Stuart. This proposi-
tion created a great tumult in the house. ' I demand in my turn,'
said Mr. Crewe, a zealous Presbj'terian, ' that before we dissolve
ourselves, we should bear our witness against the horrid murder of
of the King and protest that we had neither hand nor heart in that

1856. 1 Oiiizofs Richard Cromivell. 103

afFair.' Numerous voices were heard in support of that suggestion,
some speaking like Mr. Crewe with sincere indignation, and others
hastening from ciwardice to denounce the deed which they had
formerly approved. Scott at length succeeded in obtaining a hear-
ing, ' Although,' he said, ' I know not where to hide mj head at this
time,«I dare not refuse to own tiiat not only my hand but my lieart
also was in it, and I can desire no greater honour in this world than
that this inscription should be engraved on my tomb. Here lieth
one who had a hand and a heart in the execution of Charles Stuart,
late King of England.' Scott's voice was drowned by cries of repro-
bation ; he left the house accompanied by several of his friends.
The dissolution bill was passed and that Long Parliament which for
twenty years had been the real sovereign of England, and which in
spite of all its faults, wrong doings, and reverses, was destined to
occupy so large a space in the history of |its country, and
exercise so powerful an influence over its after fortune, hastened
to separate, amid irreverent marks of the public joy after having
voted as a last resolution : ' That Friday the 6th day of April, 1660,
be set apart for a day of public fasting and humiliation, to be
solemnized throughout the nation under the sense of the great and
manifold sins, and provocations thereof, and to seek the Lord for
His blessing upon the parliament now shortly to be assembled, that
the Lord will make them healers of our breaches, and instru-
ments to restore and settle a government in the nation upon a
foundation of truth and righteousness.'

" Three days after the dissolution Monk granted Sir John
Greenville an interview in St. James' Palace, not however in his
own apartments, but in the room of his confidant, Morrice, and
under the seal of the strictest secrecy. Greenville had for a long
time been unsuccessfully soliciting this favour ; left in possession
of that letter from the King to Monk, of which Nicliolas Monk on
his journey to Scotland had declined to be the bearer, he had
sought in vain since the General's arrival in London for an
opportunity of delivering it to him, and conversing with him on
its contents. On the grouud of their relationship Greenville paid
frequent visits to Monk, who received him kindly, but studiously
avoided any private conversation with him. In vain did Greenville
persist in remaining in the reception-room later than other visitors.
As soon as he found himself alone with liim. Monk invariably dis-
missed him with some such phrase as ' Good night, cousin, I liave
business to attend to,' or ' 1 am going to bed.' When the Long
Parliament was on the eve of its dissolution, Greenville applied to
Morrice, who was his relation also, in order to obtain an interview
with the General. Monk sent Morrice to him and suggested that
he might confide to him as their mutual friend wiiatever he might
have to communicate, and that he might be sure that Morrice
would faithfully report all he said to the General. Greenville
obstinately refused to do this. ' My commission,' he said, * is to

104 Giiizot's Richard Cronnvell. [Sept

the General liluiself, and it is of such a nature, and of so great
importance, that I can and will impart it to liim alone. If he
still persists in denying me a private hearing, I am resolved to
speak to him wherever I may meet him next.' Touched by so
much perseverance and discretion combined, and thinking more-
over that the proper moment had arrived, Monk, as soon aut the
parliament liad ceased to exist, sent word to Greenville that he
would receive him on the next day.

" On the evening of the lOtli of March, Greenville proceeded to
St. James' to the apartments of Morrice, whom he found alone.
Monk came in shortly afterwards by a private staircase. Morrice
left them and posted himself at the door. As soon as they were
alone, * I am infinitely obliged to your Excellency,' said Greenville,
'for this opportunity of discharging myself of a trust of great
importance both to yourself and to the whole kingdom, which has
long been deposited in my hands. Whatsoever may become of me,
I think myself very happy in having this good occasion of perform-
ing the commands of the King, my master.' He then presented to
Monk tlie King's letter, together with his own commission, autho-
rizing him to deliver it. Monk stepped back, and with great gravity
holding the letter in Ins hand without opening it, asked Greenville
how he dared to speak to him on such a matter, and whether he
liad fully considered the danger he ran in so doing. • I duly con-
sidered this matter long ago,' answered Sir John, ' with all the
danger that might attend it, and nothing would deter me from the
performance of my duty in this and other particulars, at his
Majesty's command; but I was the more encouraged to undertake
this business in regard your Excellency cannot but remember the
message you received in Scotland by your brother!' Without ven-
turing any reply, and changing his manner altogether, Monk took
Greenville by the hand and embraced him affectionately. * Dear
cousin,' lie tlien said, * 1 thank you with all my heart for the pru-
dence, fidelity, care, and constancy you have shown in this great
affair, and I am much pleased also at your resolute secrecy in it ;
for could I have understood that you had revealed it to any man
living since you first trusted my brother with it, I would never
have treated with you, which now I shall do most willingly, and
■with you the rather because you are one of my nearest kinsmen,
and of a family to which I owe many obligations.' Monk then
opened the King's letter, and after having read it, ' I hope,' he said,
' the King will forgive what is past both in my words and actions,
according to the contents of his gracious letter ; for my heart was
ever faithful to him, but I was never in a condition to do him service
till now ; and you shall assure his Majesty that I am now not only
ready to obey his commands, but to sacrifice my life and fortune in
his service ; to witness this 1 call this honest man from the door ;'
and he called Morrice into the room. Tney conversed together for
some minutes, Monk insisting on the great difficulties and dangers

l&56."j Gidzofs Richard Cromwell. 105

which yet stood in their way, and pointing out what, in his opinion,
tlie King ought to do to surmount them. Greenville requested him
to put what he had said into writing, and to send it to the King by
a messenger of his own. ' No,' replied Monk, ' secrecy is the best
security ; if his letter should be intercepted before I have completed
reforming the army, it would be impossible for me to keep it in
temper or hinder the subversion of all I have hitherto done. I am
unwilling by indiscretion to venture a relapse. You shall be ray
messenger, without letters ; and the king would have no reason to
give credit to a messenger from me, but he surely will believe his
own envoy. In concert with Mr. Morrice write down the substance
of our discourses, that it may serve for your instruction, and come
here to-morrow evening that we may read them together.' Monk
then withdrew in haste to put au end to an interview which his
attendants might have remarked.

" Greenville returned the next evening, his instructions were
ready prepared ; Monk promised the King his active and devoted
service, and advised him first to grant a general amnesty, from
which four persons at most should bo excepted ; secondly, to ratify
and confirm in their acquisition the possessors of confiscate pro-
perty, whether they had obtained it by gift or purchase ; and
thirdly, to secure liberty of conscience to all his subjects ; and
fourthly, to remove out of Flanders and the whole Spanish terri-
tory, and to take up his residence at Breda, not less for his own
safety than for the satisfaction of his friends in England, who
placed no confidence in the disposition of Spain towards him. When
he had diligently perused and commented upon these instructions,
Monk asked Greenville if he was quite sure not to forget any part
of them, and on receiving au answer iu the affirmative, he threw
the paper into the fire, charging him not to commit them again to
writing till he came to Brussels, where the king then was, and
then to communicate them to none but his Majesty.

"Before he withdrew, Greenville told the General that the King
had authorized him to offer to him for himself and his officers au
annual sum of £100,000, to be paid to them for life, together with
the office of Lord High Constable of England for himself, and the
right of appointing any one of his friends to some other great office
under the crown. But Monk, notwithstanding his aversion, had
too much sense not to be aware that a man who is paid in advance
loses his value, 'No,' he said, 'there is sufficient reward in the con-
science and satisfaction of serving ray prince and obliging mj
country, I will not sell my duty nor bargain for my allegiance; so
that for any regards towards me I am wholly resolved to trust to the
good pleasure of his Majesty.'''— Vol. ii. pp. 166-73. .,

We pass over the interval between the dissolution of the
Long Parliament, and the election of the Free Parliament,

106 OiOzot's Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

or Convention, that recalled the King. Although all that
occurred on these occasions, and throughout the entire
period is full of interest, and questions of great moment
were agitated in that last assembly. The debate on the
amnesty is peculiarly interesting, but we only pause to
express our sorrow that the constitutional questions which
found their settlement in the deplorable revolution of 1688,
were not diposed of then, when the same conditions might
have been laid upon the King that were fixed by the first
revolutionary parliament ; and from beneath which it was
the incessant study of all the Georges to wriggle. Had
the bill of rights dated from the restoration of Charles,
we never should have heard of William and Mary, the
civil wars in Ireland, the wars with France, the Williamite
confiscations, and the centuries of worse than slavery
that oppressed the Catholics of the empire. We think,
however, a review of this period would be incomplete
without M. Guizot's own picture of the closing scene.
Although the passage is a long one, the reader would not
easily pardon us were we to curtail it.

" At daybreak the army, more than thirty thousand strong, was
drawn out in battle array on Blackheath, wliere it silently awaited
the coming of the King, It was sad and disquieted> but resigned
to its fate. It had seen all the governments that it loved, the
Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell, and its own dominion fall one
after another ; among its leaders the majority and these tlie greatest
of them all, had gone over to the royal cause, others still popular
among the inferior ranks were proscribed and compelled to fly for
having formerly maintained a deadly conflict against the King.
The republican spirit, military pride, and religious ardour were still
powerful in the array ; but it no longer had confidence either in
those who commanded or in itself, and bowing its head beneath the
secret consciousness of its errors it accepted the restoration of
monarchy as a necessity, regarded submission to the civil power, as
a duty and devoted itself to the maintenance of public order, and the
preservation of private interests. The King arrived, accompanied
by his brother and attended by his staff, with Monk at its head, and
by a brilliant cavalcade of volunteers, elegantly dressed and adorned
with plumes and scarfs. As tliey pranced about in every direction,
an officer, bending towards Monk, whispered in his ear, ' You had
none of these at Coldstream. But grasshoppers and butterflies
never come abroad in frosty weather.' Many men in the ranks
shared in these feeliiigs of ill humour. But Charles was young,
vivacious and affable ; he presented himself gracefully to the army,
and singularly enough it was the anniversary of his birth day ; he

1850. J GuizoCs Richard Cromivell. 107

•was just thirty yerxrs of age. He was well received ; Colonel
Kuiglit, on behalf of all the regiments, presented to him an address
full of the utmost protestations of loyalty, which the soldiers con-
firmed rather by their submissive countenances than by their
acclamations. The King left Blackheath, delighted at haviog got
through this trial satisfactorily. Arriving at St. George's Fields he
met the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Common Councilmen of the
city of London, who were awaiting him, in a richly decorated hat,
to offer him their addresses and a collation. He halted there for a
few moments, and was more cordially received, and felt more at his
ease amid the throng of citizens than among the ranks of the army.
His road from St. George's Fields to Whitehall, was one continued
ovation ; he was preceded aud followed by numerous squadrons of
mounted guards, and volunteers magnificently dressed and capari-
soned ; the train bands of the City and of Westminster, and the
various corporations with their banners, formed a double line
through which he passed ; the sheriffs, the aldermen, and all the
municipal oflScers of the city, with a host of servants in splendid
liveries crowded round him ; the Lord Mayor with Monk on his right
hand, and the Duke of Buckingham on his left bearing the sword
before him ; five regiments of cavalry formed his escort, the streets
■were strewn witix boughs and flowers, the houses hung with flags,
the windows, balconies, and the roofs crowded with innumerable
spactators, men and women, nobles and citizens, all in their gayest
attire ; the cannons of the tower, the bells of the churches, the
bands of the regiments, and the shouts of the crowd, filled the air
with a deafening and joyous sound. ' L stood in the Strand, and
beheld it, and blessed God,' says an eye-witness. ' All this was done
•without one drop of blood shed, and by that very army which
rebelled against him, but it was the Lord's doing, for such a res-
toration was never witnessed in any history, ancient or modern,
since the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity ; nor
was so joyful a day and so bright ever seen in this nation, this hap-
pening when to expect or effect it was past all human policy.'

"Charles himself expressed his delight and surprise with some
little irony. ' I doubt not,' he says, * it was my own fault I was
absent so long ; for I see no one who does not protest he has ever
wished for my return.'

*' He arrived at Whitehall somewhat later than he had announced,
for it was seven in the evening when he reached the palace. The
two houses were awaiting him. He received them each in turn,
the Lords in the great hall of the palace, and the Commons in that
same banquetting hall through which, eleven years before, the
King his father had walked on his way to the scaffold. The two
speakers, the Earl of Manchester and Sir Harbottle Grirastone,
addressed the King in speeches at once pompous and sincere, aud
expressing in terms of somewhat laboured eloquence, of monarchical
enthusiasm, of attachment to the religion and liberties of the

108 GidzoVs Richard Oromwell. [Sept.

country ; Lord Manchester more particularly explained his views
with tirm frankness: 'Great King,' he said, 'give me leave to speak
the confidence as well as the desires of the peers of England. Be
jou the powerful defender of the true Protestant Faith, the just
asserter and maintainor of tho laws and liberties of your subjects ;
80 shall judgment run down like a river, and justice like a mighty
stream.' Charles was doubtless struck by this expression, for, ia
replying to Lord Manchester, he repeated it almost literally. ' I
am so disordered by this journey,' he said, 'and with tho noise still
sounding in my ears, which I confess was pleasing to me because it
expressed tho affections of my people, that I am unfit at the present
to make such a reply as I desire. Yet tliis much I shall say unto
you, that 1 take no greater satisfaction to myself in this my change
than that I find my hftart really set to endeavour by all means the
restoring of this nation to prudence and happiness ; and I hope by
the advice of my Parliament to effect it. Of this also you may be
confident, that next to tho honour of God, from whom principally
1 shall ever owe this restoration to my crown, I shall study the
•welfare of ray people, and shall not only be a true defender of the
faith, but a just asserter of the laws and liberties of my subjects.*
The King's answer to the house of Commons was very similar but
somewhat shorter ; and he excused himself from further dis-
coui'se with them on the ground of extreme fatigue. The two
houses took their leave. The King was in fact so utterly wearied,
that ho was unable to proceed as he had intended to Westminster
Abbey on that day, in order to take part in the solemn thanksgiving
service and ho ended the day which had witnessed the re establish-
ment of monarchy in England by oBFeriug up his prayers to God ia
the reception room at Whitehall.

" At the same moment, throughout the kingdom thousands of
hearts full of joy, were also raising themselves in thanks to the
Almighty, and praying him to bless the King whom ho had restored
to his people. The restoration of Charles II. was not the conse-
quence, but the cause of a passionate outburst of the monarchical
spirit. Devastated by the civil war, ruined by confiscations,
baffled in all its attempts at insurrection and conspiracy, conquered
in turn by all its enemies, by the Presbyterians, the Republicans,
tho Cromwellians, and soldiers, — tlTe Royalist party had given up
the conflict, but had not renounced its opinions or its hopes. At
once in action and persevering, it had suff'erod the rule of all suc-
cessive tyrannies whether strong or weak, glorious or disgraceful,
•watching them pass with anger or contempt, and waiting until God
and necessity should put the king once more in the place of this
chaos. While thus waiting the Royalists found themselves joined
by most of their former adversaries in succession ; from conviction,
from passion, from resignation, or from personal interest, tho Pres-
byterians, the political reformers who would not be and did not
think themselves revolutionists, a great many Cromwellians, both

.1856.] Guizot's Richard Cromwell 109

civilians and soldiers, and even some Republicans, took advantage
of one conjuncture or another to range themselves beneath the
banner of monarchy, and what was still more important, that por-
tion of the population which had held aloof from all parties, those
innumerable, and unknown spectators who merely look on at
political struggles and derive from these only their conduct and
their faith, — this mass of the people could now see safety and find
hope only in the re-establishment of the monarchy. On the 29th
of May, 1660, the Royalist party, which had not conquered, had
not even fought, was nevertheless national and all powerful — it was
England."

The period which followed suggests to M. Guizot one of
those subtle political problems on which he so much loves
to speculate.

"England might justly think herself entitled to trust in her
hopes ; she was not unreasonable in her requirements ; weary of
great ambitious, and disgusted with innovations, she only asked for
security for her religion, and for the enjoyment of her ancient rights
under the rule of her old laws. These the King promised her. The
advisers who then possessed his confidence, Hyde, Ormonde,
Nicholas, Hartford, Southampton, were sincere Protestants, and
friends of legal government. They had defended the laws during
the reign of the late King. They had taken no part in any ex-
cessive assumption of power on the part of the Crown. They had
even co-operated in promoting the first salutary measures of reform
which had been carried by the Long Parliament. They expressed
themselves resolved, and so did the King, to govern in concert
with the two houses of parliament. The great council of the
nation would therefore be always by the side of royalty, to miti-
gate and, if necessary, to restrain its action, Everything seemed
to promise England the future to which her desires were limited.

"But when great questions have strongly agitated human nature
and society. It is not within the power of men to return at their plea-
sure unto a state of repose; and the storm still lowers in their hearts,
when the sky has again become serene over their heads. In the
midst of this outburst of joy, confidence, and hope, in which
England was indulging, two camps were already in process of for-
mation ardent iu their hostility to each other, and destined ere
long to renew, at first darkly but soon openly, the war which seemed
to be at an end. During the exile of the sons of Charles I., one
fear had constantly preyed upon the minds of their wisest counsel-
lors and most faithful friends ; and that was, lest, led astray by
example and seduced by pleasure, they might adopt a creed, ideas,
and manners foreign to their country — the creed, ideas, and man-
ners of the great courts of the continent. This was a natural fear,
and fully justified by the event. Charles II. and his brother, the

110 GuizoVs Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

Duke of York, returned in fact into England the one an infidel
liljertine. who falsely gave himself out to be a Protestant, and the
other a blindly sincere Catholic ; both imbued with the principles
of absolute power ; both dissolute in morals ; the one with elegant
and heartless cynicism, the other with shocking inconsistency ;
both addicted to those habits of mind and life, to those tastes and
vices which render a court a school of arrogant and frivolous cor-
ruption, which rapidly spreads its contagious influence through the
higher and lower classes who hasten to the court to imitate or
serve it.

" Afar from the court among those laborious artizans of the
towns and in the families of the landowners, farmers, and labourers
of the country districts, the zealous and rigid Protestantism of the
nation, with its severe strictness of manners and that stern spirit
of liberty which cares neither for obstacles nor consequences, hardens
men towards themselves as well as towards their enemies, and leads
them to disdain the evils which they suffer or iuflict, provided they
can perform their duty and satisfy their passion by maintaining
their right, now took refuge. The Restoration had scarcely giveu
any glimpses of its tendencies, and yot the Puritans were already
preparing to withstand it, feeling they were despised, and expecting
soon to be proscribed, but earnestly devoted, no matter at what
risk or with what result, to the service of their faith and of their
cause ; unyielding and frequently factious sectaries, but indomitable
defenders, even to martyrdom, of the Protestant Religion, the moral
austerity and the liberties of their country.

" Ou the very day after the Restoration, the court and the
Puritans were the two hostile forces which appeared at the two
opposite extremities of the political arena. Entirely monopolized
by its joy, the nation did not see this, or did not care to notice it.
Because it had recovered the king and the parliament, it believed
that it had reached the termination of its trials, and attained the
summit of its wishes. People are short-sighted. But their want
of foresight changes neitlier their inmost hearts nor the course of
their destiny ; the national interest and feelinjs, which in 1640
had caused the revolution, still subsisted in 1660, in the midst of
the reaction against that revolution. The period of civil war was
passed; that of parliamentary conflicts and compromises was begin-
ning. The sway of the Protestant Religion and the decisive
influence of the country in its own government, — these were the
objects which revolutionary England had pursued. Though cursing
the revolution and calling it the rebellion, royalist England never-
theless prepared still to pursue these objects, and not to rest until
she had attained them.'' — Vol. ii. pp. 256-264.

The scene detailed in this extract, and the reflections it
embodies, will sufficiently account for its perhaps unusual
length. Of the scene itself we shall say nothing. Fancy

1856.] Guizot's Richard Cromivell. Ill

and truth have each had more than one turn at describing
it. The return of Charles makes a fascinating picture in
romance, as well it may, and M. Gnizot has given us the
uliembellished truth. But the reflections it prompts to the
reader, as well as those it suggested to the author, are full
of matter as melancholy as it is instructive. Charles II.
was doubtless the worst prince that ever reigned in Eng-
land, for if we had leisure to follow out the investigation,
there is not one of her many bad princes who would suffer
by comparison with him. This is partly because his vices
were all of the meaner and less kingly description. There
is nothing to establish satisfactorily that he was what is
popularly called an infidel ; on the contrary, the presump-
tion is, that he was a speculative Catholic, as in his dying
moments he sought the consolations of religion, but this
presumption deepens the shade of a character when all is
shadow, and there is not a solitary light. His denial of God
in the outward profession of Protestantism, not only on the
occasion of his return, but throughout the whole of his
reign, indefensible as it is in the eye of God and of honour,
would only argue a weakness too common, at least amongst
aspirants to a throne. The Duke of York was almost
more guilty in that respect than his heartless brother, for
with stronger religious opinions he too continued a pro-
fessing Anglican during the greater portion of his brother's
reign. Hardly a year passes that some Lutheran or Evange-
lical princess from Germany does not embrace the Greek
faith as a matter of course, and without causing particular
scandal or provoking remonstrance from her co-religionists.
Henry IV. of France set an earlier example still of what
to all appearance was the abandonment of religious belief
ill exchange for a crown ; but he extended his protec-
tion to those who had once been his fellow Protestants,
and during his life they were not only free from perse-
cution, but continued in the full enjoyment of their rights.
It was in the power of Charles to have mitigated at least,
the persecution of the English Catholics, as his grandfather
had established for a time the security and privileges of the
French Protestants. Out of regard possibly for the French
alliance then so much valued, the English Catholics, not-
withstandiug their former fidelity to the cause of royalty,
were less molested under the government of Cromwell than
they had ever been since the days of Mary, or were destined
to be till perhaps the time of George HI., and it cannot be

112 Guizofs Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

pretended that Charles, under favour of that loyalty which
greeted his arrival, and which was not to be extinguished
by all the vices of his character, might not have kept the
Catholics, already forgotten and below contempt, almost
completely out of view. With the exercise of that tact
which he had so much at command when interest or
pleasure called it forth, he might have turned the pub-
lic mind into other channels, and saved the coimtry the
disgrace of some of the penal laws which overload the
statute book, more perhaps in his reign than in any other.
His unhesitating sanction of every penal enactment, his
still more odious countenance of the impostures of Gates
and Bedloe, the impassiveness with which he saw the
scaffold drenched with the blood of his innocent friends,
form a picture of selfishness, poltroonery, and cold-
bloodedness, that ought to make the character of the
voluptuary at once more dreadful and more loathsome than
any other that history presents.

In Ireland his ingratitude and cruelty are still more
apparent. The act of settlement stands the most unex-
plained, the most superfluous piece of ingratitude on
record. The convenient designation of ** innocent
Papists" had been adopted in the act of settlement, so
as to secure some compensation to the Catholic loyalists ;
and there was no reason of expediency, however petty,
much less any high reason of state to prevent Charles
from extending it so as to include all those who had lost
their estates in his father's defence. He must have sanc-
tioned the arrangement under which the soldiers of Crom-
well held the lands of the confessors of royalty, from pure
apathy and indolence. An Irish parliament could readily
have been found to reinstate in their possessions those
noble sufferers as meritorious at least as any who had
adhered to the King in England, without a word of com-
plaint at home ; where attainders and confiscations, less
just than those should have been then, were looked upon as
the natural and not undesirable consequences of the restora-
tion. But so far from adopting any such course, he gave
his approval to the worst of the many confiscations that
impoverished the Irish Catholics, men who had they
loved their own barns better than his house, in their
remoteness from the great theatre of the civil war, not-
withstanding the twofold odiousness of their characters as
Catholics and Irishmen, should have possessed the land

1856. 1 GuizoVs Richard CromwelL 113

in peace, and whose descendants must at this day have
been the principal proprietors in Ireland. It surely would
not have cost the royal conscience much to connive at jus-
tice, to do mercy by stealth, to be grateful by stratagem,
but he was of those who seem born " to make men waver
in their faith, and hold communion with Pythagoras;"
unless it be perhaps that the deficiency of reason saves the
brute creature from some of its attendant vices; for among
the anecdotes read of beasts we have many evidences of
love and remembrance, and some illustrations of revenge,
but not one instance of ingratitude.

Were we disposed to agree with M. Guizot in his expla-
nation of the perfidy, hard-hearted ness, and treachery of
Charles, we should accept his imputed infidelity as an
explanation of the entire. A consistent infidel, if such
there be, should acknowledge no restraints but those which
limit nis power of enjoyment. Impunity is his morality.
But independently of the fact already noticed, of his
having at his last moments had recourse to the aid
of the religion whose members he had himself, under
his own sign manual, proscribed or condemned ; there
are too many instances in history of princes whose faith
was strong but barren, and whose lives were not only a
scandal to religion, but a reproach to humanity. The
very first Christian emperor, whom however we are far
from wishing to degrade by a general comparison with
Charles, the great Constantine himself, furnishes a melan-
choly example of the extent to which a dead faith is con-
sistent with immorality of the most heinous description.
The murderer of Crispus and Fausta was in speculation
a sincere Christian, learned in the niceties, we might
almost say the technicalities of Christian belief, and in prac-
tice as munificent a benefactor of the Church as its entire
history can show. A greater still than he, Charlemagne,
was notorious for less terrible but almost more pernicious
scandals. Henry VIII. was not only orthodox but a zealot
on every point of Catholic belief but one. Louis XIV.
and our own unfortunate James are examples of earnest
faith, insufficient to set bounds to the coarsest immorality,
and even George IV., though destitute of faith, honour, or
religion ; a monster, who had as little the bowels of huma-
nity as the complexion of a man ; who violated every duty
and profaned every relation of life ; whose vengeance
respected no sanctuary, and whose love was more abomin-

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXl. 8

114 Quizofs Richard Cromwell. [Sept.

able than his revenge ; even he who was only not as
vicious as Charles, because he had not equal opportuni-
ties, even he had his religious scruples, even he was
susceptible of bigotry, could appeal to the sentiments of
** his excellent and revered parent," and was able to distil
a tear before giving his sanction to the removal of Catholic
disabilities.

George certainly had no religion, but we consider
Charles to have been in the position of the Irish patriot,
who when reproached with selling his country, had the
candour to admit the sale, and congratulated himself upon
having so saleable a commodity as a country in the mar-
ket. And it was to this sale of his religion that most of
the errors and disasters of the next reign are attributable.
The cold-hearteduess and cowardice with which he allowed
the public mind in England to be wrought to that pitch
of fanaticism, of which the English mind alone is capable,
but which may be averted by a little discernment ;
produced that mutual exasperation between the country
and James, which made the country anxious to exclude
James from the sovereignty, and determined James to
pursue the infatuated course he followed, in order to rid
himself of the enemies he dreaded, and with so much
reason. Hence the incessant alarms of Popish plots and
massacres, that literally threw the entire country into
periodical madness. Hence the passing of the test act
towards the close of the reign of Charles, by which Catho-
lics were first excluded of necessity from the House of
Lords. Hence the attempt to exclude the Duke of York
from the succession, and hence, in a word, all the calami-
ties of the succeeding reign, and all the miseries that v/ere
entailed upon the Catholics of the empire for more than a
century, and from the effects of which they still suffer,
partly in yet unremoved disabilities, but more in the cowed
spirit, subdued tone, undignified attitude, imperfect union,
and want of masculine education, which years of political
subjection and social inequality, or compassionate patron-
age, more demoralizing still, had conspired to produce.
Had the King of England the magnanimity or the policy
to forget the quarrels of the Duke of York, as the King of
France abandoned the quarrels of the Duke of Orleans,
our destiny might have been very different ; but it is not
the less true that the unfortunate policy he adopted origin-
ated in the heartlessness of his brother, and that our suf-

1856.1 Guizot's Richard Cromwell. 115

feriiigs are as much ascribable to the wickedness of Charles
as to the infatuation of James.

M. Guizot is only correct when he says that the royalist
party included all England, for although it was given to
Monk to be the principal agent in the restoration, and
although but for him it is possible the restoration might
never have taken place, contrary to the wishes and feelings
of the people ; it is not the less true that never was a move-
ment more hearty or more spontaneous than that of the
English people for the recall of its prince. Nor was this a
coolly reasoned proceeding, grounded upon a calculation
of advantages and disadvantages, and resulting from a com-
parison of the monarchical and republican forms of govern-
ment. It was a simple, unreasoned, instinctive return of
the people to a system into which it had grown, and from
which it had been violently divorced. It was the rebound
of the tree, the righting of the vessel. It might be traced
in that adherence to monarchial forms and titles of nobility
that was remarkable throughout the duration of the Com-
monwealth, and which Cromwell thought to have con-
verted to his own advantage. But this feeling in England
had identified itself with the fortunes of one family, and
therein lay one of the differences between the restoration
of the Bourbons and that of the Stuarts. Apart from the
consideration that the family of Bourbon had been restored
by foreign arms, although it may to a certain extent have
been welcomed by the country, it is plain that Bonaparte
had taught the French people to associate the idea of
monarchy with another family than that of their ancient
kings. Monarchy was in the French manners and tradi-
tions whatever might be written in their laws, but monar-
chy had ceased to be necessarily connected with the name
of Bourbon, and late events have proved it to be most
acceptable under the rule of a Napoleon. During the con-
stitutional presidency of Napoleon III., persons were not
wanting to encourage a well-known general to play the
part of Monk, a part for which his supposed discretion and
taciturnity were considered to qualify him. Perhaps he
entertained no such views himself, but had he known and
understood the history of the English restoration, he should
have missed from the French nation a condition of mind
essential to the success of his project, and which was so
apparent in the English people at the close of the Com-

116 Ouizofa Richard Cromwell, [Sept.

monwealth, enthusiasm for the family to be restored, as
identified with the principle to be reinstated.

We also fully concur with M. Guizot when he states
that the day after the Restoration the hostile camps were
pitched, whose battle was to be decided in 1668, but we
consider his description of the Enghsh people as distin-
guished from the English Court very highly coloured : as
in fact, one of those winding up flourishes in which even the
gravest historian will sometimes indulge without any very
careful adherence to the state of facts. The ** zealous and
rigid Protestantism,'* for instance, ** of the nation" which
was to be found amongst the citizens of the towns and the
landowners, farmers, and labourers, is one of the things
which we at home are less able to understand than is M.
Guizot. In the first place, what is called the Protestant
religion of England, or English Protestantism has always
been to us a fable and a mystery. Swedish Protestantism,
Genevan Protestantism, perhaps Anglican Protestantism is
a something to be understood ; but English Protestantism,
such as M. Guizot speaks of, and in virtue of which the
Times claims for England, identity of religion with
America, reminds us of nothing more forcibly than of an
ingenious toy the companion of our infancy, and called, we
believe, a half- penny fairy, either end of which might serve
for head or feet, which set upon its feet would stand upon
its head, or placed upon its head would recover its feet with
a nimbleness our wonder and delight. As to identity of
religion, or rather of religions between America and Eng-
land, one might as well speak of uniformity of instinct in a
menagerie, a uniformity at any moment susceptible of
illustration by opening the cages of the animals. But the
extension of this rigid Protestantism with its severe strict-
ness of life to the farmers and labourers of England, is one
of the few mistakes that betray the foreigner in M. Guizot.
Never since the northern insurrection under Elizabeth, has
the English peasant been remarkable, or almost appeared
susceptible of religion of any kind. The English rustic in
manner, intelligence, and appearance is less removed from
animal nature than the peasant of any other country. Eng-
land, with intellect running over and often sadly to waste,
can afford to make this acknowledgment, and she is not the
less for that in the van of intellectual progress, but her
peasantry is at present, and has been as far back as we can
trace, the dullest and most unintelligent, we do not

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 117

say ill Europe, but in any country, and it is very much to
be doubted whether, at the time of the Restoration, it was
one whit more capable of zealous and rigid Protestantism,
or of severe strictness of manners than it is found to be at
the present day.

Taking the history, however, as a whole, and having re-
gard to the importance and previous obscurity of the epoch
over which it travels ; looking to the serious truths which it
brings to the surface, and the characters it takes asunder
for inspection ; viewing it also as a sequel to the earlier
works of M. Guizot upon passages of English history ; and
making allowance for the peculiar frame of mind induced
by M. Guizot's religious and political opinions, we can
say no less than that his labours are worthy of praise, and
entitle him to the especial gratitude of Englishmen, over
and above what is due to him from the student of general
history.

Art. V. — De Immaculato Deiparce semper Virginis Conceptu CaroU
Passaglia Sac. e. S. I. Commentarius. 3 Partes, Roma, 1854-1855.

IN introducing to the English reader this elaborate disser-
tation on the Prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, we
must, first of all, offer our tribute of respect and gratitude to
the distinguished theologian, who in these days of popular
compendiums and light literature, has sustained the char-
acter of the illustrious society to which he belongs, by the
publication of the most learned and the most complete
theological treatise of the present century. Although
Professor Passaglia may be regarded as only in the com-
mencement of a career which promises to contribute in no
small measure to the progress of Sacred Science, he has
already reached an eminence sufficiently conspicuous to
connect his name in the annals of theology with the ablest
writers of a past generation. There are few men who
combine within themselves a greater number of those
particular qualities which constitute a theologian of the
first order. For to a profound and impassioned love of the

118 Passagia on the Prerogatives of Mary. |Sept.

Btufly to which his life is devoted, he iinitei3 an extensive
acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers, a familiarity
with the labonrs of St. Thomas and his nnmerous com-
mentators, and an accurate knowledge of hermenentical
science. No one can peruse, for example, the treatise on
the primacy of St. Peter, without perceiving that its author
is fully able to cope with the best biblical scholars of
Protestant Germany ; and that too, in a department of
sacred literature, which has neither been so extensively
nor so carefully studied by Catholics, as its great importance
would appear to demand. In England the writings of
Professor Passaglia are as yet but little known. This is
to be attributed in part to the necessities of the country,
which render it almost impossible for men who are inces-
santly occupied with missionary work to spare time for
more abstract pursuits ; and in part it is owing to other
causes. But we entertain a strong conviction, that in
proportion as the science of theology is afforded more
extended opportunities of taking root amongst us, and in
proportion as the Church herself, increasing in the number
of the priests who serve her altars, becomes strengthened
and consolidated throughout the land, not only will the
learned works of this Professor be readily awarded their
due mead of praise and consideration, but we shall find
that national energy of character which is ever attempting
fresh practical works to the glory of God, eager to devote
itself with equal promptitude and alacrity of spirit, to the
illustration and the defence of sacred dogma.

We have no desire in the following pages to carry our
readers into the midst of any angry or heated controversies
concerning the conception of the Blessed Virgin. Con-
troversy indeed there must always be, so long as the
thousands around us continue to refuse to Mary that
honour and that homage which her dignity demands : but
still it may be attempered and kept, as far as possible, in
the back ground, and this we shall at present endeavour
.to do. It would not indeed be desirable to forget that we
are writing in the midst of a great Protestant people,
whose errors respecting the holy Mother of God, must be
met and confuted at every turn; but such confutation is often
more effectually achieved by a plain statement of the truth,
than by any laboured attempts at polemical discussion.
Although, therefore, we cannot promise to abstain alto-
gether from controversial reflections, we shall obtrude such

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 119

reflections as seldom as we can. Oar object Is to write
for Catholics rather than for Protestants, with a desire of
presenting to their view a mine of theology as yet but
little explored, — a mine full of the richest treasures of
Christian piety and devotion, the sacred object of which is
the Virgin Mother of God. And the one point to which
above all others we would earnestly request their attention
is the following. We propose to show how, in all ages of
the Church, one idea of the ever Blessed Virgin — and only
one — has pervaded the minds of the faithful, has penetrated
Saints and people alike, is drawn out and dwelt upon in
ecclesiastical hymns and offices, sermons and treatises, and
has filled with the odour of its sweet savour the entire
atmosphere of the Catholic world. Two years ago t'le
Church explicitly and formally declared the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception to be a doctrine that has ever been
contained in the deposit of revelation ; and she then
rejoiced the Catholic world, by putting beyond the
possibility of doubt a truth which we had always believed.
But nevertheless if we reflect upon the dignity and the
prerogatives of Mary, and if we attempt to analyze the
conceptions of our own minds in order to obtain a clear
apprehension of the ineffable purity of her who gave
human nature to God, notwithstanding the aid of the
recent definition, we shall find ourselves unable to form a
grander idea of her super-eminent sanctity, than that
which had indoctrinated the minds of the Catholic Body
in all the preceding periods of its existence; and we shall
find it equally impossible to express this conception in
language more emphatic, more warm, or more exhaustive
of its theme, than in the language commonly used by the
doctors and preachers of early and mediaeval Christianity.
When then the ancient doctors of the Church set them-
selves to contemplate the dignity and the prerogatives of
the Blessed Virgin Mother, the first thought which arose to
their minds was, that she was undoubtedly a new thing
upon the earth, a new creation — new in the sense that
she was totally unlike the rest of mankind with respect to
the purity which adorned her, the graces that God had im-
parted to her, and the love which He bore to her from all
eternity.* She was not merely the greatest among the

Passaglia De Concept. Virgiuis. P. i. pp. 19-46,

120 Passaglia on tlie Prerogatives of Mary. jSept.

saints, but sbe belonged, in tbeir conception, to a wholly
different order of sanctity ; so that she was not only in
herself a new and singular work of God, without an equal
and without a rival, but her nature and her praises could
not be accurately expressed, otherwise than by the forma-
tion of new phrases and new forms of speech. Hence in
the hymns of the oriental Church, as well as in ecclesias-
tical sermons, and other works professedly setting fortli
the praises of Mary, the epithet nova, new, is constantly
applied to her. She is called ** the Joy of the world, the
new star of heaven," " the new star about to bring forth the
new sun," "the new testament," ^'ihenew Virgin who is to
expiate the crimes of the old one," and it is confessed that
all the graces and gifts with which God had enriched Mary
were incredible and wondrous, exceeding the limits of
nature, and surpassing the boundaries of reason.'''

But she who was a new thing upon the earth was like-
wise to the devout mind of the Catholic Church, a para-
dox of grace, a mystery, and a miracle. The graces of
Mary were sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, they
were above thought, and more than glorious. Those
epithets horrifica, tremenda, terribilis, ineffahilis, which
the Fathers so frequently apply to the Sacrifice of the
Mass, are no less frequently applied to express the great-
ness of the prerogatives of Mary. She is the beginning
of joy, the end of the curse, a mighty canticle for the con-
templation of heavenly as well as earthly intelligences;
and one who far exceeds the mind and reason of man — a
Virgin terrible to the sight ; shining as the sun, most pure,
sweet and tremendous, and whose beauty and perfection
cannot be altogether apprehended. She is a Light which
obscures the light of the Seraphim, as the rising sun

* See the Mencea of the Greek Church passim. The Menaea are
a collection of hymns in praise of God, the Virgin, and the
Saints, used in the daily offices of the oriental Cliurch. They are
of graat antiquity, being almost all anterior to the Photiau Schism.
The hymns of the Church are of much value as evidence of its doc-
trine; not only on account of their general antiquity, and their
universal use and acceptation amongst the faithful, but also because
they have been for the most part composed by some of the greatest
Bishops and Saints of Christendom. St. Basil, St. Augustine, and
St. Celestine appeal to the ancient hymns of the Church in proof
of doctrine. See Passaglia P. i. p. 22. note, and P. iii. p. 1954. seq.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 121

darkens the light of the stars ; the ornament of nature, the
image of the Creator, on whom the Divine Artist has
expended all the care and skill of His Art. Hence the
author of Sermons on the Salve Regina, who lived about
the time of St. Bernard, thus expresses his sense of Mary's
dignity ; *' If I had an hundred tongues, and an hundred
mouths, a voice strong as iron, I cannot say ought that is
worthy of thee, O Mary, Star of the sea. Virgin truly
Blessed." "How can I make mention of thee, O
Mary?" he continues, "how praise thee? Thy greatness
is above the heavens and thy glory above all the earth, so
that neither in heaven can there be found any creature who
can worthily praise thy greatness, nor is there upon earth
who can express thy glory. For no one neither in heaven
nor upon earth hath been found worthy to open the book
of thy prerogatives and worthily to loose its seven seals."""'
St. Ephraem calls her " the Bride of God, by whom we
are reconciled to Him, miracle beyond the power of
thought, one, the fame of whom reaches the ear, yet
cannot be explained to the mind,"t Epiphanius, or the
writer who passes under his name, applies to her the words
of the Apocalypse, " There appeared a great miracle in
heaven, a woman clothed with the sun," '* a great miracle
in heaven," he continues, " a woman bearing light in her
arms: a great miracle in heaven, another cherubical
throne."! Gregory of Thessalonica calls her the ** seat of
divine graces, and adorned with all the gifts of the divine
Spirit." St. John Damascene, in allusion to the Virgin's
death, exclaims, *' To-day the Treasury of Life, the Abyss
of Grace, is overshadowed by life-bearing death. "§ And
the Greek Church in the following words gives utterance
to its belief that Mary, herself a miracle of grace, is the
repository of all the graces of God. ** Hail, 0 thou that
art venerable, the Abyss of the gifts of God ! Hail, For-
tress of our salvation. Virgin Mother of God, alone fully
worthy of praise." And once more, " We knew that in

* In Antiph. Salve Begina, Serm. ii. inter, opp. Bernardi, vol. ii.
t Prec. iv. opp. Gr. Lat. t. iii. >

X Inter. Epiphanii Op. torn. ii.
§ Orat. 2. in Deiparse Dormit. §§ 2.

122 Passagliaon the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

tliee have been deposited the whole abyss of frraces."* In
a word, it was the constant doctrine of the Fathers, when
they endeavoured to form or express the Catholic idea of
Mary, that in her resides the plenitude of Divine Grace,
that her purity was such as to merit the dignity of the
Divine Maternity, that she is dearer to God than all other
creatures, that her sanctity and purity is second to that of
God alone, and that her merits and her excellence can
never be sufficiently celebrated. Hence we have St.
Peter Chrysologus instructing us that the grace which
is bestowed upon others partially was given in its plenitude
to the holy Virgin. f We have St. Ephraem saluting her
as the Plenitude of the graces of the August Trinity,
occupying the second place to the Divinity. We have
Modestus of Jerusalem delivering the same doctrine, and
St. Bernard draws a comparison between Mary and the
Angels, declaring that she is ** more excellent" than they,
because she has received the name of Mother, which is
more excellent than that of minister, and to which of the
angels was it ever said : Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in
te. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee ?\ We have
St. Thomas also declaring it as his belief that the Blessed
V irgin obtained so great a plenitude of grace as to become
propinquissima, as near as possible to the Author of
Grace. § We have St. Bonaventura, the holy son of St.
Prancis, penetrated with the conviction, that Mary is one
than whom God cannot make a greater. We have the
testimony of the learned Renandot that there is no doc-
trine to which the liturgies of the oriental communions
bear more constant witness than the doctrine that the
Blessed "Virgin is the most excellent of all creatures, and
in the closest possible union with God.|| Finally, we have
the Greek Church expressing its belief that the Virgin was
worthy to be chosen the Spouse of God and the Mother
of the Onhf-be^otten ; vfhiie the same truth is expressed

* Men. 29 April, 30 Jan.

■f S. Petri Clirysol. He Annunt. Serm. 143. S. Ephraem. Prcc.
0pp. Gr. and Lat. torn. 3. Modest. Encora. in B. V. n. 2.

% S. Bernard. Serm. de Nat. B. V. de Aquaeductu.

, § Sum. 3. par. q. 27 ar. 5. ad 1. S. Bonavent in 1. dist 44..

(1 In obserr. ad liturgicas Syriacas.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 123

in the well-known an tiphon of t^e Latin Church, Beata
Virgo Cnjus Viscera meriierunt portare Christum
JJominum. Blessed Virgin, luhose sacred W^omb was
worthy to hear Christ the Lord. And St. Thomas
teaches us in what seuse it is true that the lofty purity of
the holy Virgin merited the singular gift of the Divine
Maternity — namely, that from the grace given to her she
merited such a grade of purity and sanctity, as that she
could suitably (congrue) become the Mother of God ; since
it is impossible for a creature to merit this dignity in any
other seuse.'''

* This is a suitable place for anticipating an objection which
may be made against the line of argument pursued in the treatise
■we have undertaken to review. It may be said that while the
author quotes promiscuously from the Fathers and ecclesiastical
writers from the third century to the middle ages, he neither
arranges them in any chronological order, nor lajs any particular
stress upon the very early Fathers, nor quotes at all from writers
of the second century, and seldom from those who flourished in
the third and fourth. This objection goes on the hypothesis, that
the whole value of tradition is restricted to the first three or four
centuries of Christianity. But nothing can be more narrow-minded,
more untrue, nor more inconsistent with the practice of the Church.
in ancient, as well as in modern times. Those who adopt this
theory are compelled to be inconsistent with themselves. For if
they want the best ancient authority on grace, they will refer to
Augustine, or on the Trinity to Athanasius, or on the two Wills
in Christ to Maximus, or on the distinction of natures to Leo the
Great ; and yet none of these authors is older than the fourth
century, and Maximus is much more recent. They forget that
the Church is at all times one, and, like any other great institution,
has its peculiar spirit or instinct which is at all times the same,
and in virtue of which it would repel from it any doctrine foreign
to its real element. They forget that there is a growth and
progress in the Church by which dogma becomes better known,
better understood, more clearly apprehended, and more explicitly
developed. They forget that this idea of referring every disputed
question to one or two centuries of Christianity had hardly any
existence either within or without the Church until the Protestant
Reformation. And they forget that they are insisting upon a rule
of controversy which is opposed bj the invariable practice of the
ancient councils of the Church, and of such men as Augustine,
Basil, Cyril and Leo, who appealed not to the remotest antiquity,
but to comparatively later fathers and doctors. — See Passaglia,
Par. iii. p. 1980 et seq. and Petavius de Incara. L. ziv. c. 15.

124 Passaglla on the Prerogatives of Mary. jSepf.

Such, then, is the picture of the Blessed Virgin which
has ill all ages possessed and penetrated the Church of
God. No Catholic writer can be found who, if he says
anything in praise of Mary, does not, with more or less
fulness, elucidate this same idea. She is a singular, a
bright, and a lucid star, in the midst of a dark firmament.
All the other children of Adam (excepting her own divine
Son) are stained with sins of origin and action. Even
when they best correspond with the grace of God, and
have received the largest share of His gifts, they still too
often experience a depth of inward wretchedness and
misery, which ever keeps them conscious of their native
j<^ weakness. But this law doeS/ apply to the holy Virgin.
In her all is light, and in her there is no darkness at all.
She is a novelty in the creation of Gad, — ^a miracle of
purity, — -a treasure house of all the highest 'and noblest
graces of heaven, — one to whom these graces have been
given not in measure and partially, but in all the pleni-
tude with which God Himself can bestow them, — a Virgin
whose glory human thought cannot fathom, and whose
praise human language cannot adequately express; who
is not to be contemplated as in any sense upon the same
level with the rest of creatures, but who is more exalted
and more glorious than all saints and angels, archangels,
cherubim, and seraphim, who alone of the human race
was divinely prepared, and was found worthy to become
the Mother of God ; and who in consequence of this
dignity, as well as of the graces which prepared her for
it, approached as nearly as a creature can possibly
approach, to the Infinite Excellence of God Himself.

We shall not now stop to point out how this idea vir-
tually and implicitly embraces within it the doctrine so
recently promulgated by the Church, respecting the im-
munity of the holy Virgin from original sin. We content
ourselves for the present with asserting the universality
of this portrait of Mary in the minds of all the writers of
the Church. It is not merely impossible to find an ac-
credited Catholic author who says a single word in con-
tradiction to this supernatural image of the Virgin, but it
is, as we have said, impossible to find an accredited writer
who does not, with more or less fulness of expression,
and with more or less warmth of devotion, delineate in
his praises of Mary the very same idea. It is a portrait
engraven upon the Catholic mind in characters so dee^

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 125

that even the hardest infidelity can with difficulty efface
it. This image of Mary is an everflowing source of per-
petual consolation to the just. It presents the last ray of
hope to the ungodly. It is the constant meditation of the
Saints. In a word, it takes so firm a hold upon the mind,
as to force men to give it utterance in an innumerable
variety of epithets, and in a multitudinous classification
of new terms. As the names applied to Almighty God
in the Sacred Volume, enable us to acquire a clearer
apprehension of His Divine Nature — as St. Athanasius em-
ployed the epithets applied in Scripture to the Son with a
view to establish His consubstantiality with the Father,
and as St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzen used the
same kind of argument to prove the divinity of the Holy
Spirit, so we may allege the vast variety of epithets applied
to the Blessed Virgin, in ecclesiastical monuments and
writings, not only as signs of the existence in the Church's
mind of an unvaried and ineffable idea of the Virgin, but
as proof of the faith of the Universal Church as to her
spotless purity, and supereminent sanctification.*

The epithets applied to the Holy Virgin in the works of
the Fathers and in other monuments of the Church, are
capable of many divisions. Professor Passaglia arranges
them under eight heads, but it will be sufficient for our
purpose to divide them into the two principal classes into
which they most conveniently fall. The first class includes
those epithets in which any defect, or any stain of sin is
denied to the Blessed Mary, and these may therefore be
termed negative epithets. The second class is positive^
and consists of those expressions by which the sanctity
and goodness and purity of the Virgin are set forth with
different degrees of intensity. They are both to be found
promiscuously in the works of the Fathers and ecclesias-
tical writers of the Church ; and although, taken separately
they may not be sufficient for the requirements of a formal
proof, taken in connection with each other, and, as a whole,
they not only establish beyond question the nature of
that idea of the Virgin which was impressed upon the
mind of the Church, in ancient and in mediaeval time?,
but they likewise bear direct testimony to the implicit
belief in the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception.

Passaglia P. i. p. 47 et seq.

126 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

Nothing is more frequent in the tradition of the Church
than the use of those expressions relating to the Virgin
which exchide the notion of her having been stained, or
disfigured, by the very least spot of sin. Dr. PassagHa,
whose knowledge of the Fathers no man of learning will
refuse to respect, confesses that there is scarcely a single
epithet excluding the notion of defilement by sin, which
has not been applied to the Blessed Virgin by the common
consent of antiquity. For example, she has been termed
\he faultless, the Immaculate, the undefiled, the unpol-
luted, the uncoiftaminated, the incorrupt, the unadulter-
ate, without the least admixture of ought that stains. The
epithets o/ioj/xos and aa-vCKos faultless and immaculate, accord-
ing to their etymology signify a perfect freedom from
every stain, defect, and ftiult. In the Sacred Scriptures
they are applied to Jesus Christ, who is described as "a
Lamb without spot and undefiled,"'^ and in the septua-
gint version of the Old Testament, to the pure and spotless
victims for the Levitical Sacrifices. In the liturgies also
/of the Church they are applied toj the Eucharistical gifts,
which in almost all the liturgical offices of the East and
West are called, pure, holy, and immaculate. These
terms, then, indicate the greatest possible exemption from
defilement and sin, and in this sense they are used with
reference to Christ Jesus, to the victims representing and
typifying His Sacrifice, and to the Eucharistical Gifts that
are changed into His Body and Blood. The other appli-
cation of them is Mary. She is universally called the
Immaculate — the immaculate Dove who could not be
taken by the snares of Satan — the immaculate Lamb
which bitterly wept at the foot of the Cross on which lay
that other Lamb, Jesus Christ | — that holy and immaculate
Virgin who merited to be chosen by Christy hi order to

♦ 1 Pet. i. 19. In Eph. v. 27, afuoiws is applied to the Church
in Glory, (according to the best interpretation) and in Heb. iy. 14,
to Clirist, who by the Spirit offered Himself without fault to God.

f These quotations are taken from an ancient ecclesiastical
book of the Greek Church called the Triodion, which contained
the offices used by the Greeks between Septuagesima Sunday
and Holy Saturday. — See Passaglia, P. i. p. 05, &c.

1856.] Fassaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 127

become tlie corporeal temple of God, in which the pleni-
tude of the Divinity dwelt corporally."'''

But Catholic devotion was not contented with these
simple though expressive epithets of unspotted purity. It
endeavoured to give a further enunciation to the idea of
Mary's super-eminent and singular sanctity. It seemed
almost cold to say merely that the holy Virgin was un-
spotted and undefiled — piety urged men to use still stronger
language, and to call her altogether unspotted, completely
and entirely immaculate. This epithet {navdixw^ios) is con-
stantly to be found in the hymns of the oriental Church,
and in the writings of the Greek Fathers. George of
Nicomedea thus sings of Mary's beauty and prerogatives :
" Christ loved thy beauty, O completely and entirely
immaculate {vavufiwfie) and He made thy womb His
dwelling, in order that the human race might be redeemed
from base passions, and its ancient beauty restored. Ador-
ing Him we glorify thee." And St. John Damascene,
(who was in a certain sense to the Eastern Church what
Bt. Thomas has been to the Western, and who is therefore
the very best exponent of the faith and religious feeling of
the ancient oriental communions,) pra3'S to the Virgin in
these words :— " Hail thou hallowed and divine Tabernacle
of the Most High. For through thee joy is imparted to
those who cry. Blessed art thou amongst women, O Lady
altogether and entirely immaculate " [^avdiiwfie)^ And
elsewhere he says, ** Thou alone, in all generations, Virgin
undefiled, art manifested the Mother of God. Thou ai't
the Seat of the Divinity, O completely and entirely im-
maculate."\ The same intensity was given to the other
terms with which the devotion of our fathers delighted to
paint the perfections of the Virgin. She was not only com-
pletely and entirely immaculate, but she was also altogether
pure and untouched by defilement, altogether spotless,
completely and entirely incorrupt, — language which
although negative rather than positive in its character,
removes the sacred Virgin Mother from the ranks of those
who are born in sin and corruption, and places her in an

* Pseudo-Augustinus, Sermon, ad Virgines, &c. (Serm. 198, inter
Augustian.)

t See the quotations in full in Passaglia, P. i. p. 103 et seq.

128 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

order of a singular prerogative, of which she alone is the
privileged subject.

Turning from these descriptions of the Blessed Mary,
which exclude from her nature the very least spot of fault,
we meet with another class of epithets which are meant to
set forth in positive and direct terms, the excellence of her
peculiar sanctity.""' The mere enumeration of these epithets
is sufficient to awaken in the mind the deepest feelings of
devotion towards her of whom they have been predicated.
Seldom is mention made in ecclesiastical documents of
the blessed name of Mary, but she is termed either the
Holy, the Chaste, the Pure, the Beautiful, the Comely, or the
Blessed, the Venerable, the Happy, Full of Grace, Blessed of
God, Most dear to God. And even these epithets do not
seem sufficient to express all that the Church inwardly
feels respecting her high prerogatives of singular holiness.
Hence they were varied in every conceivable manner ;
sometimes being put in the superlative degree, the Most
Holy, the Most Beautiful, the Most dear to God, &c., and
sometimes being so altered as to indicate still more the
intensity of the idea for which the mind of the Church was
seeking a suitable mode of expression ; such as altogether
holy J in every respect beautiful, Fully- Blessed, completely and
altogether most holy. Nor did even this satisfy the devotion
of the Church. It fretted and chafed at the poverty of
human language, which was unequal to supply it with a
formula that could adequately express its own deep-seated
perception of Mary's beauty and greatness. It en-
deavoured to supply this defect by accumulating epithet
upon epithet, and thus in some measure at least conveying
the idea of greater sanctity than ordinary words can indi-
cate. Consequently we find the holy Fathers addressing
Mary in some such language as this: — Innocent Virgin,
immaculate, free from every fault, undefiled, unpolluted, holy
in mind and body, growing as the lily amid the thorns. And
again, " flail, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou, most Beautiful and most Glorious of
Women. The Lord is with thee, who art altogether
venerable, altogether Glorious, altogether good. The
Lord is with thee, thou that art worthy of Veneration,
Incomparable, exceeding all brilliancy, altogether resplen-

Passaglia, P. i. p. 123 et seq.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 129

dent with light, worthy of God, thou that art to be
Blessed." '"" And St. Ephraem ahnost exhausts the
copious vocabulary of the Greek tongue. ** O my Lady,
more than holy, Mother of God, and full of grace. Parent
of God more than Blessed, Mother of God most dear to
God, Vessel of the divinity of the Only-begotten, thy Son,
the Immortal, and of the Invisible Father, altogether im-
maculate, altogether undefiled, altogether unpolluted,
altogether* irreprehensible, altogether worthy of praise,
altogether incorrupt, altogether beatified, altogether
inviolate, altogether venerable, altogether honourable,
altogether to be blessed, ever to be remembered, altogether
desirable. Virgin in Soul, in Body and in Mind."t

A similar accumulation of epithets is to be met with in
the ancient Liturgies of the Church, almost as often as
the name of Mary is mentioned.^ She is called in the
Liturgy ascribed to St. Feter, " the Holy, Glorious, and
ever Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord and God and
Saviour Jesus Christ." And again, " Our Immaculate
and Glorious Lady Mother of God, and ever Virgin
Mary." In the Liturgy of St James she is designated as
** Our Immaculate, onost glorious Lady Mother of God,
and ever Virgin Mary." " It is just that we should call
thee truly Blessed, the Mother of God, ever blessed, and
in every way immaculate and the Mother of our God, more
honourable than the Cherubim, and more glorious than
the Seraphim, who without Corruption didst bring forth
God the Word; thee truly Mother of God we glorify."
And once more, ** In thee all Creation rejoices, O Full
of Grace, as well the Angelic hierarchy as the human race.
Thou who art the hallowed Temple, the Spiritual Paradise,
the Glory of Virgins, from whom God took flesh, and of
whom our God, who is before all ages, is made a Child ;
and hath made Thy womb more large and more ample
than the heavens themselves. In thee all Creation re-
joices, O full of Grace, Glory be to Thee." In other
offices of the Church, she is called the Glory of KingSy

* Theodorus Ancyranus, Orat. in Christ nativ. § 11. & 12. apud
Gallandium Tom. 9.

T Ad SS. Matrem Dei precat. 4. 0pp. Gr. Lat. Tom. 3.

X Passaglia. P. i. p. 201. & seq.
VOL. XL!.— No. LXXXI. 9

130 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept

Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, the Protection of the
World, the Mother of the Giver of Life and Saviour,
who conceived in the Womb the Creator of the Universe,
the propitiation of the World ,X^aar^fJiov)^ the Urn of
the JJivine Manna, the Golden Lamp of Light, the
Spouse of God.

It' the more simple of the epithets which we have here
grouped together, were taken by themselves, and apart from
the other expletives applied by antiquity to owr Blessed
Lady, they would perhaps, hardly be sufficient to illustrate
and prove the Prerogatives of the Mother of God. For all
the Saints are " holy." They are all ** Venerable.'* They
are all ** Pure," and all are super-eminently " blessed."
So that these expressions state indeed what is most true
with respect to the Virgin, but they do not necessarily and
obviously statefmore fully what is applicable to her, tlian-
to all other chosen vessels of Grace. It would, therefore,
be unfair to deduce any doctrine of the Church from ex-
pletives which are common to others as well as to Mary.
jBut no one would wish to do so. The epithets we have
brought together are useful as evidence and as proof of the
doctrine of the Church, (1) so far as they are peculiar, and
not common to others, and (2) so far as their cumulative
force, their variety and their multiplicity, betraj'^the uncon-
scious endeavour of the Catholic mind, to give vent, as it
were, to that grand, noble, and supernatural portrait of the
Virgin Mother, which Almighty God has so ineffaceably
sculptured upon its most inward sanctuary. Now no one
will deny, that although the terms holy and pure ai^e, in
a certain sense common to all the Saints, the words
^avdfiufjios and iravdaTriKos are Hot SO. Nor will it be
denied that it would seem unreal, exaggerated, and untrue,
to apply to any mere Saint of heaven, however highly
exalted, the mass of epithets, negative, positive, and
cumulative, with which Christian antiquity delights to
express the Purity and the Pre-eminence of Mary. The
Church worships with affectionate veneration such Saints
as Luigi of Gonzaga, Catherine of Sienna, Agnes and
Agatha. They belonged also to an order of sanctity,
which had progressed in correspondence with grace from
the moment that the waters of baptism had bestowed a
new life upon their souls. With still greater veneration
the Church worships Joseph the Spouse of Mary, and John
Baptist, of whom God Himself testifies, that there is not a

185G.J Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary, 131

gi'eater than he among those who are bom of woman.
But who would speak of these Saints as Christian anti-
quity speaks of Mary ? Who would apply to them a mul-
titude and a variety of terms, which if they mean anything
at all, must mean that the person to whom they are applied
\& negatively free from the faults, the weakness, the infir-
mity, and the sinful lot of humanity, and is positively
enriched with all the treasures of Divine Grace, and that
too, above measure ? Who would say even of these illus-
trious servants of God, that they possessed " the Plenitude
of the Grace of the Holy Trinity?" Such language is
manifestly applicable to Mary alone, and in attempting to
give expression to her praises, it is employed both in the
liturgical monuments of the Church, and in the works of
her best and holiest doctors. Open any work of antiquity
which professes to treat of the Blessed Virgin Mother and
of her wonderful Power and Glory, and you will find almost
in every page expressions and epithets associated with
her name, which if possible, exceed in signification, in
power, and in tenderness, the sweet devotional language
of Alfonso Liguori. Consider the tone of mind which
must have suggested, and have dictated such epithets.
Give to these epithets no more than their fair, usual, and
genuine meaning. Connect them all together, remember-
ing that they are applied to one only among the children
of men ; and you will come to this three- fold conclusion :
— (1) that ineffable beyond all power of words 'is that
idea of the Beauty, the Sanctity, the Power, and the
Prerogatives of Mary, which has been implanted in the
universal Catholic mind, as the correlative of Faith in the
Dignity and the Deity of her Incarnate Son ; (2) that this
idea is utterly irreconcilable with the opinion that she
who, in the language of our Fathers, is not merely the
holiest among creatures, but is the Plenitude of God's
Grace, tota sanctitas, tota pulcritudo, tota innocentia,
could ever have been under the power of Satan, an alien
from God, and a child of wrath, even though the duration
of this state of sin should have been but for a second ; and
(3) that although the doctrine of the Virgin's Immaculate
Conception was never formally and explicitly proposed to
Christian antiquity, yet it is virtually and implicitly con-
tained in those very epithets which antiquity delighted to
cumulate upon the Mother of God, so that had any other
doctrine inconsistent with this perfect and compl«»te Inno-

132 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

cency and Sanctity been brought before the Fathers, they
woulfl have recoiled from it with detestation and with
horror."'

That such was really the mind of Catholic anti-
quity will become still more evident, if we reflect upon
the very wide distinction that exists between the warm
and glowing language of the Fathers, who were never
tired of coining new terms by which to celebrate the
praise of Mary, and the cold, though respectful, homage
paid to the holy Virgin in the writings of those few modern
Catholics who denied that Mary was conceived without
Sin.f Professor Passaglia most abundantly shews that,
while the Fathers never cease to praise Mary*s purity,
scarcely any epithets occur to their minds, which they do
not consider to be helow that which is due to the Inno-
cence and Sanctity of the Virgin. Whereas the writers

* No less an authority than Petavius objects to the argument
in favour of the Immaculate Conception drawn from the use of the
epithets, illibatam, incorruptam, impoUutam, &c. , especially when em-
ployed by the Greeks, since they may mean nothing more than
that the Blessed Virgin was cleansed from Original Sin in the womb
before her birth. But Professor Passaglia conclusively answers,
that Petavius's objection relates to only one class of epithets, and
those negative ones ; and that had he been familiar with the almost
innumerable variety of the epithets by which the Blessed Virgin's
purity is expressed, he could hardly have made this objection.
Moreover it is confessed that no conclusive argument for the Im-
maculate Conception can be drawn from any one class of simple
epithets ; but in order to afford a solid argument, they must be
looked upon and be taken together as a whole, when considering
their cumulative force and their immense diversity, they certainly
do afford a strong reason to believe that the mind of the Church
always excluded, at least implicitly, the notion of Original Sin
from its idea of the Virgin. Petavius himself would appear to have
been practically of the same opinion, since he gives as his own
ground for believing the Immaculate Conception, that he was
moved to do so by the common sense of the faithful, which ever
witnessed that nothing was created by God more chaste, more pure,
more innocent, more removed from every stain of sin, than the
Virgin, Yet how is this common seme of the faithful to be better
ascertained than by their usual mode of speaking of her, and of
addressing her ? Passaglia, P. I. p. 358. Petavius De Incar. 1. 4.
c. 9 and 10.

t Passaglia, P. I. p. 354, acq.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 133

to whom we have alhided were sparing indeed, and we
might ahnost say, kikewarm, in their descriptions of onr
Lady's Purity. They were especially timid and cautious
in making use of the term Immaculate ; a term
which is the peculiar and the appropriate designation of
Mary, in the primitive liturgies of the Church, and in
almost all the ancient hymns and discourses written or
delivered in her praise. Had the Church felt with this
small band of cold and moderate writers, she would likewise
have been timid, cold, and cautious, as they were; but
since genuine Catholic devotion could never endure to be
for one moment cold or lukewarm towards the Virgin
Alother, and since the Fathers, who declare the mind of
the Church, lose themselves in their eflforts to discover
expressions strong enough, and comprehensive enough, to
convey their idea of her uucontaminated Purity, we
are justified in concluding, that St. Anselm, or the writer
who goes under his name, declares the sense of antiquity
and of the Church, when he says, ** Nothing, () Lady, is
equal to thee, with thee nothing can be compared. For
all that is, either is above thee, or is below thee ; what is
above thee is God alone ; what is below thee is all that is
not God. This thy excellence who shall behold ? Who
sh all reach?"""-

But the mind of antiquity will appear still more clearly
by contrasting it, not with the momentary lukewarmness
of a few Catholics, but with the acknowledged attitude of
the Protestant communions with respect to the Blessed
Virgin Mary. We do not allude to this attitude for a
purely polemical purpose, but simply because it presents a
convenient and a suitable illustration in point. It is no
unkindness and no exaggeration to assert, that in the true
pi'otestant spirit, there is a deep, and latent, even though it
may be an unconsicous, hatred of the Mother of God. The
mere mention of her holy name is sufficient to awaken and
to stir up a protestant feeling. — Say a single word in her
honour; call her by the least conspicuous and the least
significant of her titles, and protestantism instantly, and
as it were inevitably, assumes a hostile position, puts itself
upon its guard, withdraws from you its confidence, and is
prepared to resist to the uttermost the slightest attempt

* De Concep. Virg. Passaglia, p. 355.

134 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

to soften the heavy hardness of its stony heart. In the
Anglican Comtnunion, it is true, there are certain days
throughout the year, which are called feasts of the Blessed
Virgin, but can anything be conceived more sad and
melancholy, more cold and uninviting, than these Angli-
can commemorations of Mary ? They are more properly
fasts than feasts. They are the gaunt and awful spectres
of those Catholic festivals, which used once to cheer up
and gladden the popular heart of the nation. They are
called festivals of Mary, but Mary's name remains un-
noticed and uncommemorated by them. The few other
Saints whom Anglicanism professes to honour, have their
names mentioned in the collect for the day, but even this
cold tribute of respect is not conceded to the Mother of
God. The rule is on such days, to avoid as much as pos-
sible any allusion to the Holy Virgin, or if allusion must
be made in a sermon or address, with the exception of a
small and diminishing section of the establishment, the
occasion is improved into an attack upon the Catholic
Church. The preacher labours hard to make out that
Mary was like the rest of mortals, and has been unduly
exalted by the Church of Christ. He is loud and earnest
in deprecating any honour being paid to her Sacred
Name, and he warns his hearers and friends against adopt-
ing the very least practice of Catholic devotion, lest they
should be led on from one step to another, until at length,
instead of a faint admiration of God's Holy Mother,
they should come to cast themselves at her feet with un-
bounded confidence and love. Should the preacher chance
to belong to that coldest of all phases of protestantism
— the learned Anglican high church School, whose heroes
of theology, as of sanctity, are **the standard divines of
the Church of England," he may feel it necessary to make
a few admissions in favour of the honour and dignity of
Mary ; but he will so hedge in all that he says, so pare it
down, and so guard it against the possibility of bearing a
Catholic interpretation, that after it has been thus strained
and diluted, it will be found to differ in little, if at all,
from the more violent declamations of his less learned
protestant neighbours. But woe to the over-zealous
minister who, carried away by his incipient conceptions of
Mary's grandeur, ventures to give utterance in a sermon to
those new and beautiful thoughts. Immediately the whole
neighbourhood is thrown into consternation. Men meet

1856, 1 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 135

each other with anxious looks, and demand what they are
to expect next. His best friends take side against him,
and loudly express their astonishment, how one who could
beheve Mary to be God's own Mother, and to be free from
sin, could continue to make outward profession of the
reformed religion. The Churchwardens assemble the
Vestry, and present a spirited remonstrance to the un-
lucky cause of all this confusion, at the same time that
they forward a strong address to the Bishop, The Bishop
demands the ill-omened discourse, examines it, is uncer-
tain what judgment to pass, and unwilling to offend either
party, succeeds in displeasing both. But the upshot of
the whole matter is this — that the man who had ven-
tured to tell the people he was addressing, how the Vir-
gin Mother is more holy than all others among the
creatures of God, more worthy of love, and more near to
the Godhead itself, must either renounce the position he
has occupied, or else, for the future, seal his mouth
against the praises of Mary. Those who are familiar
with the spirit of the Established Keligion, must admit
that all this is not only probable in itself, but would most
certainly take place, if the occasion arose. And if so, it is
plain that there exists the widest contrariety between the
spirit of Christian antiquity, and the religious feeling of
the most moderate among the protestant Communions.
The latter will scarcely tolerate a single word, casually
uttered, in honour of the Mother of God. It will loudly
and indignantly reject and scorn any teaching that calls
upon it to exhibit the slightest practical reverence to the
Virgin. The former cannot find words sufficient to ex-
press the depth of its love, nor the greatness of its per-
ception of Mary's Prerogatives. It has no sympathetic
chords in unison with that cold religion which almost
ignores the existence of the Mother of God : while it is
one in mind, in spirit, and in feeling, with the Catholic
Church of the nineteenth century ; so much so that in
point of fact, St. Alfonso in his books of devotion, and
Pius IX. in his decisions of doctrine, do no more
than give expression to that very same idea of Mary
which had been engraven so profoundly upon its intellect
and its heart.

But although much more may be said with respect to
these and other epithets applied to the sacred Virgin, we
must proceed to a different and not less interesting

136 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

branch of onr inquiry. Almost all Christians are pre-
l)arefl to admit that there are two senses attaching to the
Sacred Scriptures, one of which is attached to the
grammatical meaning of the words, and is therefore called
the literal sense, while the other relates to the things signified
hy the words y and is termed the spiritual sense, founded upon
the literal, and pre-supposing it. For example: in the
Psalms which mention Jerusalem, David, or Solomon,
the obvious literal sense relates to some circumstances
connected with the earthly city of Jerusalem, and its two
sovereigns. But the city of Jerusalem, in the language
of Scripture, is a typical thing, having a mystical signifi-
cation of its own; and the same may be said of its two
kings. Both of them typify and represent the Messiah ;
and hence while what is sung of the material Jerusalem
and of its two kings, literally and properly indeed applies
to them, over and above this literal sense, and founded upon it,
there is a deeper signification under which is shadowed
forth some great truth, which relates not to the types,
but to their more glorious anti-types. Nor can there
be any doubt of the real existence in Scripture of this
spiritual sense, as intended by the Spirit of God ; unless,
indeed, the unanimous and unbroken tradition of the
Jewish, and the Christian Church is to be set aside as
unworthy of attention, and unless large portions of the
Sacred Scriptures are to remain without any meaning
whatsoever. A question, however, may arise as to the
application of this spiritual sense. It may, for example,
be doubted if the most holy Virgin be one of those whom
the Holy Ghost has foreshadowed in the Old Testament
Scriptures by means of types and figures. The answer is
two-fold : First, that such is the relation existing between
the Son and the Mother, that if the former be shadowed
forth in the Old Testament by signs, and symbols, and
figures, it is reasonable to expect that the latter would
be likewise represented by suitable types and emblems.
A Virgin so wonderful, so singular a novelty among the
creatures of God, enriched beyond measure with the
abundance of heavenly gifts and treasures, it was natural
should be symbolized under the forms and types of the
Old Covenant, as she has been openly manifested in the
New. But at all events, and this is the second solution
of the difficulty, such is the belief of Christian antiquity.
Nothing is more universal in the Church than the persua-

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 137

sion that Mary is prefigured by types and emblems under
the Old Law : and since the universal belief of the Church
can only proceed from the teaching and inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, we may be certain that there are such types
and figures of the i31essed Virgin contained in the spiri-
tual sense of the Holy Scriptures ; although it does not
follow that everything asserted to be a type of Mary is
necessarily such, according to the intention of the Holy
Spirit. Without, however, entering upon this matter, it
will be sufficient for us to mention the more obvious and
the more ordinary figures in which Catholic devotion,
whether correctly or not, detected the resemblance of the
Virgin Mother, and at the same time to point out the
argument which is to be drawn from the appropriation of
these types to Mary in favour of Her Glorious and Singu-
lar Prerogatives. According, then, to Christian anti-
quity, the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Altar, and even
the Victims offered in Sacrifice thereon, prefigured in a
certain measure the holy Mother of God. St. John
Damascene calls her ** the holy Temple of God, which the
spiritual Solomon, that Prince of Peace, built and in-
habited ; a temple^ not adorned with gold, but in place of
gold shining with the Spirit.""'^ Hesychius terms her a
temple incorrupt, and a tabernacle free from evei-y stain,
and a living Temple (Templum Animatum). Epiphanius
(or pseudo-Epiphanius,) regards her as the Immaculate
Temple of the Word of God ; J3asil of Seleucia as a Temple
truly worthy of God : Gregory of Nazianzen, as a Temple
out of which the Holy Spirit formed another Holy Tem-
ple ; **for the Mother is the Temple of Christ, but Christ
the Temple of the Word :" and Gregory of Nicomedia, as
the hallowed Tabernacle , the home of Glory, the indis-
soluble Temple, of which that of the Jews was the figure
and the symbol.

According to St, Ephraem, our Blessed Lady is '* the
holy Tabernacle, built by the spiritual Beseleel.'* Accord-
ing to Modestus she is a rational Tabernacle (rationale
Tabernaculum), and according to pseudo-Jerome, " Christ
is in Mary as the Bridegroom in his Chamber, and
the Body of Mary is as it were a Tabernacle." la

* See these and the following quotations in full in Passaglia, Par. L
Sec. 3. p. 363, and seq.

138 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

the Ecclesiastical Monuments of the Copts and of the
Greeks we find such language as the following : *' They
call Thee Just, 0 Blessed among women, because Thou
art the Second Tabernacle which is named the holy of
holies.** And again, ** By the Divinely constructed
Tabernacle, together with the Seraphim covering the holy
of holies, Moses formerly prefigured thee, 0 Virgin, at the
same time representing in type Thy immaculate offspring,
Christ, about to assume flesh from thee.'* Methodius breaks
out into the most glowing praise of Mary. " Hail our Joy,
that ceaseth not for ever. Thou art the beginning of our
feast. Thou the Middle, and Thou the End ; the very
precious Pearl of the kingdom, in truth the fatness of the
Victim, the Living Altar of the Bread of Life. Hail,
Treasure of the Love of God^ Hail, Fountain of the
philanthropy of the Son. Hail, mountain overshadowed
by the Holy Spirit." And George of Nicomedia, in allu-
sion to the Presentation of the Virgin in the Tem-
ple, adds, " Thus the altogether unspotless Lamb, more
acceptable than all other sacrifices, is brought to the
Temple to be offered a holocaust to the Creator, not by
means of the shedding of Blood, but b^ the oblation of
Her own surpassing purit}'.**

In the Tabernacle of which Almighty God had shown
the pattern to Moses on the Mount, there were three
things of more than ordinary sanctity."' There was the
Ark of the Covenant, in which were deposited the two
tables of the Law, the Golden Urn containing a portion of
the Manna with which the people had been fed in the
wilderness, and the rod of Aaron, that had blossomed in
witness that God had chosen him to be the head of the
Jewish Priesthood. There was the propitiatory or the
mercy seat, which was a golden casement covering and
protecting the Ark. And again, there was the Holy of
Hoiiea, that part of the Tabernacle within the Veil, where
the Ark of the Testimony was placed, and into which the
High Priest alone entered once in the year. Now,
although the holy Fathers saw in this holy place with
its sacred deposit other types and figures, they also
regarded them as in some true sense symbolising the
Blessed Virgin. She was " the Mercy-Seat of the

Passaglia, P. i. p. 391 and seq.

1856,] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 139"

World," "the Urn of the Divme Manna," " the most
Divine Propitiatory," " the Mercy-Seat of all Mankind,"
inasmuch as it was She in whose most chaste womb He
who was the true Propitiation of the] world jay concealed
and hid. She was the Ark of Sanctification, preserving
within herself Him who had come to fulfil all the Law and
the prophets, who is the living Manna, the divine Bread
and Life of the Soul, and who moreover in His own Per-
son is not only the Head and Source and Plenitude of that
Priesthood which reconciles man to God, but is likewise
the All-Sufficient Sacrifice by which the Expiation is
made and applied. *' Arise, O Lord, into Thy Rest,"
sings the Psalmist, " Thou and the Ark of Thy Sanctifi-
cation;" and the author of the sermons attributed to
Gregory of Neocaesarea, thus comments on his words :
*'For truly the Ark is the Holy Virgin, within and with-
out adorned with gold, who hath received the whole
treasure of Sanctification. Arise, O Lord, from the bosom
of the Father, that Thou mayest raise up the fallen race
of our first parent." And another ancient writer says,
** O perfectly undefiled and immaculate, whom David
calls the Ark of Sanctification, but Solomon the Golden
couch and throne, and the Valley of Lilies, that is of
Divine Virtues, and the paradise planted by God."''' Pro-
clus, the friend and disciple of Uhrysostom, subjoins: " This
(Virgin) is the sacred place to sin inaccessible ; she is the
temple sanctified to God ; the golden altar of whole burnt
ofi^erings, the ark within and without adorned with gold,
that is to say, sanctified in body and spirit. "t

As Mary was " the Mercy Seat," and "the ark of the
Covenant," so was she in the highest and truest sense
"the holy of holies."t In her most chaste womb the
source and centre of all that is holy rested, and dwelt, and
as Jesus is the Fountain of Sanctity, so the Place of His
nurture. His growth, and His rest, was watered and
bedewed with the most copious showers of His Grace.
" She herself," says Tarasius, "is the Holy of Holies."
Isidore of Thessalonica has left us a discourse upon the

* Inter, opp. Athanasii. Tom. 2. orat in Deiparae descript.
t Orat. in Deiparara. sec. 17. apud Galland. Tom. 9.
:X Passaglia, P. 1. p. 403. seq.

140 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

Blessed Virgin entering the Holy of Holies in the temple
at Jerusalem, in which he teaches, that although this
inner department of the temple was the most sacred place
in all the world, yet as the light of the caudle fades and
becomes faint before the bright shining of the sun, so
did " the Holy of Holies'* become faded and useless, after
Mary had entered the temple. Hence it has been done
away with, a holier house having arisen, the anti-type
having succeeded the type, and Mary, the true Holy of
Holies, having taken the place of the material sanctuary.

From those types and figures of the Holy Virgin, which
the piety of our fathers discovered in the worship and
ritual of the Jewish Church, we must pass on to notice
some remarkable applications of another kind. We would
however, again remind our readers, that our inquiry has
nothing to do with the question, whether each and all of these
typical applications are such as the Holy Spirit directly
and formally intended to foreshadow by the thinors and the
persons mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures. That there
are more obvious and more direct applications of some of
these types, is, of course, evident ; but still all that is
necessary to establish the point we have in view is confined
within a very narrow limit. It is simply this ; we desire
to know in what language and with what conceptions our
ancestors in the faith spoke and thought of Mary ; what
figures and emblems recurred to their minds whenever they
contemplated her purity and her greatness ; and finding
that antiquity agreed in applying to the Virgin Mother of
God certain types and representations which are also
applied sometimes to the Church, and sometimes to Jesus
Christ Himself, we desire to discover the peculiar sense
in which our Fathers referred these types to Mary, and
to trace out the supernatural idea of the Virgin, which
prompted them to see in these things, figures and emblems
of the Mother of God. Hence we are directly and imme-
diately concerned with the mind of the ancient doctors
and preachers of Christendom, rather than with any
formal question of biblical interpretation. What did they
think of Mary ? What was that idea which without inter-
mission occupied their thoughts and their minds, when
writing, preaching, or meditating upon the Holy Virgin ?
What types did they perceive in the Sacred Scriptures,
which in their opinion were applicable to the Mother of
God ? Why did they choose these types rather than others?

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 141

And what did they mean by them ? What prerogatives,
what perfections, and what gifts must they have beheved
Mary to have been in the enjoyment of, in order to render
her a fit subject for the application of these types ?

It is certain that Christian Antiquity found in the Ark of
Noah, and in that Bethel where Jacob saw the angels of
God ascending and descending from heaven, emblems of the
especial prerogatives of Mary.""" She was also compared
with that holy ground on which Moses stood when God
appeared to him in the Bush, and commanded him to take
his shoes from off his feet. She was in the opinion of
the fathers, the Fiery burning Bush itself, and the holy
Mount of Sinai. She was Sion, the Holy City, the fleece of
Gedeon, and that Swift Cloud upon which the Prophet
declares that *' the Lord will ascend and will enter into Egypt,
and the idols of Egypt shall he moved at His presence, and the
heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof."^ In the
judgment of the Fathers, Mary was ** that book that is
Sealed, which when they shall deliver it to one that is learned
they shall say. Read this, and he shall answer 1 cannot, for it is
8ealed."l She is, moreover, that closed Gate of which
Ezechiel says,§ *' And the Lord said to me. This gate shall be
shut : it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it :
because the Lord God of Israel hath entered in by it : and it
shall be shut." She was the Paradise of Pleasure in which
man had had his earthly home during the first days of his
innocence ; and that land on which the Curse of God had
never rested: and the tree of Life which was planted in the
midst of the Garden, and a Heaven itself upon the earth.

A Greek Father to whom we have more than once referred,
thus institutes a comparison between the waters of the De-
luge and those of Baptism: "Come," writes Proclus,|| " be-
hold a wonderful and a new deluge, greater and more excel-
lent than the deluge which was in the time of Noah. For
there, the waters of the Deluge destroyed the human race ;
here, the waters of Ba[)tism, the power of Christ who is
baptised, hath recalled the -dead to life. There, Noah

:, * Passaglia P. I. p. 408. et seq. •

t Isaias xix. 1.
X Isaias xxiz. 11. § Ezechiel xH v. 2.

I Orat. vii. in S. Theophania, apud Gallandium. Tom. 9.

142 PassagUa on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

ma<ie an Ark of uncorrupted wood : but here, Christ, the
Spiritual Noah, hath composed the Ark of His Body from
the Iiicorrupted Mary." St. Ephraem invokes the Virgin,
as the ** holy Ark through which we are saved from the
deluge of sin."""' And Ohrysippus in the oration on the
Praises of Mary,t thus exclaims, ** An ark truly royal, an
ark most precious is the ever Virgin Mother of God, an
ark which hath received the treasure of all sanctification ;
not that ark, in which were all kinds of animals, as in the
Ark of Noah ; not that ark in which were the tables of
stone, as in the ark which accompanied the Israelites
through the Wilderness ; but an Ark, whose Architect and
Indweller, whose pilot and merchant, whose Companion of
the way and whose Captain was the Creator of the whole uni-
verse, who upholdeth all things in Himself, but is Himself
comprehended by none." A Latin writer! draws {out the
analogy between Mary and the Ark of Noah, in these forcible
terms : *' We read," he says, "that there were two arks
in the Old Testament, one the ark of the Deluge, the other of
the Covenant. But in the New Testament there were three
others. The first is the ark of the Church, the second of
Grace, the third of Wisdom... ...The ark of Noah signified

the ark of the Church, the ark of the Covenant signified
the ark of Grace, to wit, the Sanctity of Mary. By the
ark of Wisdom we understand the most holy humanity of
Jesus Christ. The ark of Noah also signified the ark of
Grace, that is, the excellence of Mary. For as by that
all who were within it escaped the deluge, so by this do
all escape the shipwreck of sin. Tliat one was built by
Noah that he might escape the deluge, this Christ pre-
pared for Himself that He might redeem the human race.
Through that ark eight souls only are saved ; through this
all are called to eternal life. Through that, a few are
delivered : through this salvation is brought to all man-
kind."

When Jacob was proceeding on his journey into Mesopo-
tamia, he came to a certain place, where he rested for the

* Prec. 4. 0pp. Gr. Lat Tom. 3,

t Orat. de Laudibus Deiparaa. Bib. Gr. Lat. Tom. 2.

t Ekbertus Schonaugiensis, Serm. de B. M. n. 6. Intr. opp.
Bernardi, Tom. v.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 143

night, and in his sleep the Almighty God appeared to him,
and promised him His blessiiiof and protection. The
Sacred narrative adds, that ** When Jacob awaked out of
sleep, he said, indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.
And trembling he said, how terrible is this place, this is no
other but the house of God and the gate of heaven."'-'^ Accord-
ing to St. John Damascene,! " this terrible place, and this
gate of heaven," is the Blessed Mother of God, who is
also the trne Ladder by which we ascend from earth to
heaven. '* Mary," says another writer,]; ** is made the
window of heaven, because through her God poured forth
the true light upon the world. Mary is made the heavenly
Ladder, because through her God descended upon the
earth, that through her man might merit to ascend to the
heavens. Mary is made the restoration of women, because
through her they are proved to be withdrawn from the
ruin of the primitive curse." And the offices of the Greek
Church invoke Mary in the administration of Extreme Unc-
tion, as *' Mother of God, ever Virgin most holy, sure pro-
tector, harbour and wall, ladder and tower of defence,
have mercy, have pity, for to thee alone does the sick man
fly for protection. "§

She who is the Ladder uniting the earth with heaven, is,
moreover, the holy Land, the city of God, and the Mount
of Zion. In the words approach not hither, for the place is
holy, which God spake to Moses from the fiery bush, are
aptly expressed, according to primitive piety, the Sanctity
of the Virgin Mother of Christ. ** Behold, the holy place
of God is here clearly pointed out ; the city of the King
made glorious on every side, she who presenteth man to
paradise, and maketh him familiar with Christ."]] ** The
Deipara," writes St. Germanus, ** is called Sion ; there
shall come out of Sion one who shall deliver and turn away
iniquity from Jacob. The Lord hath chosen Sion, He
hath chosen it for a habitation to Himself. She is called

* Genesis xxviii. 16, 17.

t Orat. 1 and 2, in Nativ. Deiparae.

:t Pseudo-Augustiuus, Serm. ra. Nat. Dom. Inter, opp. Augustini.
Turn. V.

§ Eucholog. in Officio. S. Olei.

U Men. die 4. Sept ibid, die 7.

144 Padsaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

Civitas — glorious things are spoken of thee, thou city
of God. God is in the midst of her, and she shall not be
moved. Hail, thou new Sion, and holy Jerusalem, sacred
city of God the mighty King, in whose towers God Jlini-
self is known, and through the midst of which He hath
passed, preserving it unshaken, moving the nations, and

5rostrating kings."""' ** Hail, mistress of mankind, most
loly Deipara, from whom He who is God over all, and the
most merciful Lord,partaker of our whole mortalnature, sin
only excepted, hath come forth into the world, and hath
made us worthy to share His Divine Nature, who hath
enriched thee with grace to be His intelligible city, and
the Lord of Hosts hath called thee to be His city. Hail,
Harbour all beauteous and full of light ; who hath been
made by God the true Mother of God ; for the human race
tossed about on the ocean of this life hath been preserved
in thee, and through thee eternal gifts and graces have
been obtained from Him who hath made thee wonderful
in this world, and super-glorious in the world to come."t

To these expressions of the primitive devotion to the
Blessed Virgin, we must be content to subjoin only one or
tw-o additional extracts, in which our Blessed Lady is
compared to the Paradise of Pleasure, to the Tree of Life in
the midst of the Garden, and to heaven itself. ** Hail Mary,"
says St. John Damascene, " full of grace, in name and in.
reality more pleasant than all gladness, of whom Christ
was born into the world, the immortal cause of joy; who
didst heal the sorrow of Adam. Hail Paradise, Garden
more blest than Eden, where the plant of eveiy virtue hath
taken root and sprung up, and in which the tree of Life
hath appeared : by whose means we have returned to our
pristine habitation, and the sword of fire hath been put to
flight." — ** Thou art the spiritual Eden, more holy and
more divine than that ancient one ; for in that Eden the
earthly Adam had his dwelling ; but in thee the Lord who
descended from heaven. "| *' Hail," writes St. Ephraem,
** Song of the Cherubim, and hymn of the Angels. Hail
peace and joy of the human race. Hail Paradise of

* Orat. in Deiparaj Nativ. apud Combefisiurn Auctar. torn. i.

+ Moflestus. Encom. in Deiparam.
X Orat. 2. in Deipara; Nativ. and Orat. 1. in Deiparse dormit.

1856.1 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 145

delights Hail Tree of Life. Hail Wall of the faithful,
Plarbour of those in danger. Hail Revocation of Adam.
Hail Price of Eve's Redemption. Hail fountain of grace
and immortality. Hail Sealed fountain of the Holy Ghost.
Hail most Divine Temple. Hail Seat of God. Hail thou
pure Virgin, who hast crushed the head of the most wiclced
Dragon, and hast cast him bound into the Abyss. Hail
refuge of the afflicted. Hail Solution of the curse, through
whom Joy hath appeared to the world on account of thine
Offspring, O Most Immaculate Virgin. Hail Mother of
Christ, the Son of the true God.""' St. Ephraem also re-
peatedly calls her the tree of Life — a favourite symbol of the
Virgin in the devotional exercises of oriental writers. So
also is she styled another heaven upon earth. \ For instance,
the author who goes under the name of Gregory of
Neocsesarea, supposes the Father to address the Arch-
angel Gabriel in these words, when about to send him to
the Blessed Virgin, — " Go to the domicile worthy of my
Word : go to that other heaven which is upon earth." St.
Germanus salutes her as ** the living throne of God, the
beauteous house of Glory, the Chosen Vessel which God
had set apart for Himself, the Propitiatory of the Whole
World, and the heaven declaring the glory of God." —
'* Thou art the heaven and the seat of God, and the recep-
tacle of all purity. Thou art the certain Joy of the Whole
World. Thou art the bestower of Life. Thou the inter-
poser to stay the curse. Thou conciliatest a Blessing."
And according to James the Monk, on the nativity of the
Deipara, ** The Prophets and the Just rejoiced, beholding
thy day, to wit, this thy natal day, in which was revealed
the mystery of the Incarnation, in which He who elected
thee from the whole human race, through thee conferred
joy upon all creatures, which no one can take away. They
saw thee, the throne of the Cherubim, the royal Chamber,
the super-celestial heaven, the most holy temple, the
tabernacle of many titles." In the Psalter attributed to
St. Anselm Mary is called *' Heaven of heaven, house of
God, Vessel of Mercy, who sendeth the angels when and
where she will." And lastly, in the hymns of the Greek

♦ Orat ad Deiparam. 0pp. Gr. Lat. Tom. 3.

t Passaglia P. i. p. 498 and seq.
VOL. XLI.-No. LXXXI. 10

146 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary, [Sept.

Church,""' we find the same figure applied to her. "He
who hath stretched out the heaven by His Will, hath
shown thee anotliRr heaven upon the earth, 0 spotless
Deipara, and from thee hath appeared to those who sit in
darkness. To-day earth rejoices, for it has seen the new
and most delightful heaven of God brought forth : in which
He that dwelleth bodily shall elevate men above the
heavens, and shall deify all with His goodness." " Thou
art the heaven, 0 Parent of God, from which hath arisen
to us the Sun of Justice, who illuminates us with the light
of knowledge, O innocent Mother of God." ** Thou art
made the sublime heaven of God, the King of all, O com-
pletely immaculate. His pure Palace and Chamber, radiant
with divine grace." ''Rejoice thou who alone hast caused
joy to man. Rejoice thou heaven and throne of the
Cherubim, most glorious Palace of the King of ages, 0
Lady free from every stain."

The object of Professor Passaglia in dwelling upon
these patristic types and figures of the Blessed Virgin
Mary is twofold. It is, in the first place, to bring clearly
and prominently into view the opinion entertained by the
Church in all ages of the singular and perfect purity of
the Deipara ; and although he warns us against attaching
too much importance to these symbols, taken separately
and by themselves, yet he is strong in his conviction, that
as a whole, and in conjunction with other kinds of proof,
they exhibit, beyond the possibility of any reasonable
doubt, the mind of antiquitj'^ respecting the sanctity of the
Holy Virgin. From this unanimous conviction of the
Church as to the purity of Mary, he deduces in the second
place, the particular doctrine of the Immaculate Concep-
tion. Granted that Mary is so pure as to be justly and to
be appropriately termed a heaven of heavens, a heaven
upon earth, a JParadise of delights, and a Tree of Life,
it follows as a natural, and as an inevitable consequence,
that at no period of her existence could she have ever been
the servant and the victim of sin. If nothing defiled can
enter into heaven, — if man was rendered unfit for para-
dise, the very moment he had contaminated himself by
sin, — if the Tree of Life be in its direct antitype, the
Blessed Sacrament, the very source and fountain of all

See Passaglia P. i. p. 505.

1856.] Passagliaon the Preroffatives of Mary. 147

grace, it would be absurd, and worse than absurd, to find
in these symbols, the t^'pes and foreshadowings of Mary's
virtues and of Mary's prerogatives, unless those virtues
and prerogatives were really such as had belonged to her,
and had grown with her, from the instant of her concep-
tion. But lest our readers should suppose that this
is, after all, an unwarranted straining of the poetical
imagery of the Fathers, we would ask them to put them-
selves in the attitude of meditation upon the prerogatives
and graces of the Virgin Mother, and to mark down the
language in which they would naturally endeavour to give
expression to their own idea of Mary's purity. We have
at this day advantages which our Fathers had not. The
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is no longer con-
tained obscurely, implicitly, and by implication, in the
teaching of the Church, but constitutes an explicit part of
our faith. We therefore in this age know with the clearest
possible light the sacred character of Mary's Immaculate
Conception. We know that no stain of Adam's sin has
ever, even for a moment, sullied the parity and the super-
natural sanctity of her nature, which has always been
holy, always innocent, and always hallowed by God. Yet,
let us endeavour to express this faith in human language,
and what terms shall we employ ? We shall find it im-
possible to say more than our Fathers have said before us.
Mary is the heaven of heavens, the Tabernacle of the
most high, the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat of
God, the throne of His continual and uninterrupted Pre-
sence. Whatever type or emblem in the highest degree
foreshadows and symbolises unspotted purity, is naturally
the type and emblem of Mary. Whatever words indicate
in the clearest and in the strongest manner, unsullied
holiness, are properly and rightfully applied to Mary. We
look around for expressions which can adequately deline-
ate the supernatural prerogatives of the Virgin Mother,
known to us now is all their completeness, by the light of
faith, and we naturally break out into the strongest terms
that human language can invent ; but after all, we find
ourselves merely repeating the types, and figures, and
emblems, and expressions of antiquity, which, as it were,
has already anticipated the decisions of the Church, and
has been beforehand with us in exhausting the resources
of earthly vocabulary in honour and praise of Mary. It
is therefore no exaggeration to infer that there undoubt-

148 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. \ Sept.

edly exists a most remarkable likeness between the
ancient Christian idea of the Virp^in's pnrity, and that
which has received its latest perfection from the defi-
nition of the Church. It is impossible that all these
expressions, and all these types, should really mean
nothin^^. It is impossible that they should all be mere
ebullitions of heated and romantic imaginations. No doubt
the imaginations of devout Catholics can never meditate
upon the prerogatives of Mary, without being strained
to their very utmost extent ; but when they have been
thus stretched to the most extreme limits of the natural
faculties, we find that they do no more than paint, picture,
and try to realize that same perception of the Virgin's
purity which the Church has recently declared to be a
truth, ever contained in the deposit of revelation. If then,
\\\ the one hand, we cannot express our idea of the purity
of Mary, enlightened and educated as it has been, by the
recent decisions of the Holy See, in words more precise,
more exact, or more complete, than those already appro-
priated to that purpose, by Christian antiquity ; and if on
the other the Fathers of the Church, as often as they
attempted to meditate upon the dignity and the greatness
of the holy Virgin, in reality put forward a picture of her
singular prerogatives, in no essential point at variance
•with that which we should at this day draw, we cannot
fairly be charged with any kind of special pleading, if we
conclude, (1) that the ancient idea of Mary is the percep-
tion of a being endowed by God with every conceivable
kind and degree of purity ; and (2) that within this idea is
necessarily, virtually, and implicitly included the particu-
lar hypothesis of her Immaculate Conception.

The divergence between the Catholic Church and the
modern schools of heresy is remarkably apparent in their
respective treatment of the Sacred Scriptures. Protes-
tantism professing to regard the inspired volume with the
deepest reverence, is continually by its acts giving the lie
to its professions. For, not contented with rejecting a
large portion of the Holy Scriptures as being in its opinion
nnworthy of divine inspiration ; not satisfied with setting
aside the acknowledged standard and rules of interpreta-
tion, and with rejecting, whenever it suits its convenience,
the literal sense of the Sacred Words, the true protestant
spirit treats the Bible, as it does everything else that is
holy, with a cold, hard, and scornful scepticism. Where

1856.] Passaf/Ua on the Prerogatives (>f Mari/. 149

there is mystery the literal meaning is denied and ex-
plained away. Where certain expressions of Scripture
appear to fall in with and to favour its own peculiar con-
ventionalities, those expressions are explained with a rigid
severity, totally inconsistent with the laws of true inter-
pretation. The Bible, in such hands, is either an armory
of protestant polemics, or a collection of dry, barren, phari-
saical rules of conduct, imposing burdens upon men's
consciences, which God Almighty never willed to impose,
and inculcating a rigid and constrained code of morals, as
unlike the sweet, cheerful, and holy law of Christ, as the
light of the sun is unlike the darkness of night. There
are no doubt cases of exception to this statement, inas-
much as individuals are very often much better than the
system which has formed and trained them ; but the state-
ment itself is true. Protestantism lacks love, generosity,
and depth of feeling ; and these deficiencies are remark-
ably manifested in its use and interpretation of the Scrip-
tures. The Catholic religion, on the other hand, brings
to the st-udy of the Sacred Scriptures all that warmth and
all that devotional feeling which is a distinguishing cha-
racteristic of its inner life. It is not afraid of the Inspired
Volume, of which it is both the witness and keeper, there-
fore, it admits, defends, and protects the literal sense of
the Bible. It believes, the Sacred Scriptures to be the
Words of Him whose Wisdom is infinite, and whose
actions, and whose dealings with men are themselves full
of mystery, and hence its threefold use of Scripture,
according to the letter, according to the figure, and by
accommodation. At all tirpes the Church has applied the
words of Scripture to other objects besides those whicli
are intended by the inspired writers themselves ; not,
indeed, meaning by this, to supersede the literal and spiri-
tual senses, or to convey the impression that such ecclesi-
astical applications are really entertained in Scripture, or
rest upon its authority ; but simply intending to point out
some quality, some virtue, or some prerogative, in the
object of this new application, which, in its own judgment,
is suitably and aptly expressed by certain words of the
Sacred Volume. This is what is called accommodation.
The piety of the Church has made the Scripture its daily
food of meditation. When it seeks to express itself in a
suitable manner about the glory of God, or the gifts of Hia
saints, it naturally employs the very words of the Holy

150 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

Scripture itself. It is upon this principle that all its sacred
offices have been constructed. The introit, the offertory,
and the communion in the Mass, are almost alwa^'s pas-
sages of Scripture accommodated by the Church to the
particular festivals of the day. So also are the antiphons
and versicles, and other portions of the offices contained
in the Breviary. In a word, the natural language of the
Church is the language of Scripture, and it employs this
language, either (a) to state a truth, or doctrine, or fact,
as the holy Volume literally contains and states it ; or (b)
to teach some truth, fact, or doctrine, of which the type
and emblem is to be found in the Old Testament Scrip-
tures, and is there designed by the Holy Ghost ; or
finally, (c) to illustrate some fact or truth in the kingdom
of grace, by words which most appropriately apply to this
fact or truth, although the Inspired Author did not intend
to make such application of them, when he first committed
them to writing. Such, then, is the nature of accommo-
dation. It is the pious application of sacred words to
other objects than those designed by the sacred writers ;
and this being the case, it is evident that since this
accommodation rests upon no other authority than that of
the Church itself, it cannot be urged as any proof what-
ever that the application it intended to make was really
designed by the Holy Spirit. The fact that the Church
has accommodated certain words of Scripture to illustrate
the graces of a saint, or to teach any holy lesson, proves
indeed that the Church has seen that these words may be
fitly applied to this particular object, but it proves no
more than this ; consequently, any argument founded upon
the accommodation of Holy Scripture is invalid, except in
as far as it brings into view the idea or perception of the
Catholic mind with respect to a particular truth of fact.
You can use the accommodation of Scripture in order to
ascertain the opinion of the Church, or of antiquity, with
regard to some particular truth or object ; you cannot
employ the accommodated words of the Sacred Volume to
prove that the Holy Spirit, by these words, intended in
any way whatever, to indicate, or illustrate, this truth or
object.

We have been particular in laying down the nature of
the argument from accommodation, in order that the use
made of it by Professor Fassaglia may not be misunder-
stood. The Fathers and Christian writers of the Church

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 151

delighted to apply to the Blessed Virgin several parts
of the Sacred Scriptures, in which they seemed to find
epithets and images that expressed in the fittest terms
their own idea ot" her supernatural prerogatives. They
applied to her in an especial way the Song of /So/omon, which
according to the general opinion of Theologians has only
a mystical, and no literal sense ; and in this mystical
sense, it relates either to the union of the soul with God,
or to the union of the Church with Christ."' But as Mary
is the most excellent member of the Church, on whom is
conferred in its fulness the grace that is partially bestowed
upon others, it is not unnatural to infer, that all which is
expressed in this canticle, with respect to the magnificence,
the beauty, the order, and the sanctity of the Church,
applies in the highest degree to her own super-eminent
perfection. Hence, what we read in the Song of Solomon
concerning the fairness, the beauty, the stainlessness of the
bride languishing with love for her beloved, has been,
accommodated by the Christian writers and by the Church,
to express the purity of Mary, as well as her intimate union
with Christ. It would take up too much space to shew by
means of many quotations how extensively accommo-
dations of this canticle to the Virgin occur in the patristic
and ecclesiastical writings of antiquity ; they are to be
found in the Mozarabic and Coptic Missals, the hymns of
the Greek Church, the missals and breviaries of the Latin
Church, in various other ecclesiastical monuments, and in
the writings of St. John Damascene, Tarasius, Methodius,
Modestusof Jerusalem, St. Ephraem, Psellus, Anastasius
of Antioch, St. Germanus, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, and
most mediceval authors. In these and other documents of
Christian antiquity, we find the most beautiful passages of
this mystic song directly applied to the Sacred Virgin. She
is the flower of the field and the lily of the valley. She it is,
of whom it is said, " Behold thou art fair, O my love, behold
thou art fair." It is Mary whom the beloved calls to
" Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful
one and come.'' It is Mary, whose magnificence and
■whose sanctity diffuses as it were a fragrance of the sweetest
savour over the whole world. " Who is she that goeth
up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke, of aromatic spices.

• Passaglia, P. II. p. 523, et seq.

152 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

of myn'h, and frankincense, and of all the powder of the
perfumer ?'* It is her beauty which enraptures the beloved,
and constrains him to exclaim, ** How beautiful art thou
my love, how beautiful art thou !" " Thou art all fair, O
my love ; and there is no stainin thee." " Tota pulcra
es arnica mea, et macula non est in te." ** My spouse
is a garden inclosed, a garden inclosed, a fountain sealed
up.'* " Thou art beautiful, O m3'^ Love, sweet and comely
as Jerusalem, terrible as an army set in array.*' ** One
is my dove, my perfect one is but one. She is the only
one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The
daughters saw her and declared her most blessed ; the
queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Who
is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the
moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array ?**
Such are the passages which the ecclesiastical monuments
of the oriental Church""' apply to the Blessed Lady.
** Thou art all fair, 0 Virgin, all fair, all brilliant, thou that
didst bear the light and God ; thou alone also art alto-
gether magnificent. Illumine, therefore, the eyes of my
heart inhaling thy glory 0 Lady, and wounded with a long-
ing for it." Again, " the Lord who inhabited thine unpol-
luted womb, hath shewn thee to be all pure and glorious."
** Hail Temple of God and throne of crystal. Hail veil of
Moses, Hail garden of Solomon, hail city of the Son of
Jesse, "t In the homiliarium of Alcuin we read, ** Thou art
a garden inclosed 0 Holy Mother of God, and the hand of
sinner hath never intruded to despoil it of its fair flowers. "f
In the words of another Latin writer, ** Thou art all beauti-
ful 0 more than glorious Virgin Mary ; thou art all beautiful
and there is no stain in thee ; thou art all beautiful in soul
through the perfect beauty of all the virtues and gnaces
that arlorn thee ; thou art all beautiful in thy conception,
because thou wert created f >r the sole purpose, that thou
shouldest be the temple of the Most High God ; thou art
all beautiful, because thou gavest birth to the Divine
Word, who is the splendour of the Father's glory, whose
beauty the sun and moon regard with wonder. No turpi-

• See Passaglia. P. II. p. 566 and seq.
t Office. Maron. ad prituam Sabbathi.
Idiota. Coutemp. de V. M. la Bib. Pat. de la Eigne. Tom. iii.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 153

tude, nor vice, nor sin ever entered into thy glorious soul,
and no spiritual beauty, grace, nor virtue was ever wanting

to it Whatever gift had been bestowed on any of the

saints to thee was not denied, but all the privileges of all
the saints have been heaped together upon thee. No one
is equal to thee, no one is greater than thee, but God
alone ; because the Holy Spirit coming upon thee, and the
power of the Most High overshadowing thee, who wert
pre-adorned with all the ornaments of virtue, hath increased
thy beauty, purity, and wisdom, and the grace and splen-
dour of all thy virtues Thou art therefore all beautiful,

most glorious Virgin, not in part, but altogether, and the
stain of sin, whether mortal, or venial, or original is not in
thee, never was, nor shall be ; but all natural, spiritual,
and heavenly gifts and graces are ever with thee.** Psellus,
a Greek writer of the eleventh century, speaking in the
person of the beloved, thus comments on the words tota
pulcra es, et macula non est in te : " Thou art beautiful
in mind, soul, and body ; in body, as being thoroughly
purified from all evil passions, and adorned with every
kind of virtue ; in soul as being separated from all base
things, and beautified by obedience to the words of
the Law ; and in mind, as being delivered from empty
thoughts, and made glorious and divine by grace through
the Holy Spirit. And therefore no stain is in thee,
because thou art near to me (the Beloved) on account of
perfection.** By St. John Damascene Mary is called all
beautiful, all near to God, raised above Cherubim and
Seraphim, and made next (proxima) to God."--' And once
more ; St. Peter J3aniian adds, commenting upon the
words, *' Who is this thatcometh up from the desert, flow-
ing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?'* ** This is
that Queen whom the daughters of Sion saw and called
most blessed, and the queens praised her. But to-day she
ascends from the desert, that is, from the world, exalted
to the lofty eminence of the regal throne. Flowing with
delights, he says, truly flowing, because many daughters
have collected riches, thou hast surpassed them all. But
her delights cannot be numbered, because while she
receives the Holy Spirit, she conceives the Son of God, she
gives human nature to the King of glory, she penetrates

* Orat. 1. in Deiparce Natiy.

154 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

the heavens, laden with riches and flowing with delights,
she flies to her own eternal kingdom, leaning upon her
beloved. The King of Victories is the Father of the
beloved, in whom He was well pleased ; upon Him that
happier mother leans, and reclining on the golden couch
of the Divine Majest}'', rests within the arms of the Spouse,
her own Son. 0 how great is the dignity, how special
the power to lean upon Him whom the angelic powers
behold with reverence.""

In addition to the Song of Solomon, the Church has
accommodated to the Blessed Virgin Mary other portions
of the Sacred Volume, and in particular different passages
from the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus,
besides several of the Psalms of David. These passages
are familiar to all who are acquainted with the offices of
the Blessed Virgin in the Roman Breviary, and with the
lessons appointed to be read in them upon the principal
festivals. They are to be found chiefly in the 8th
chapter of Proverbs, the 24th chapter of Ecclesiasticus,
and the 1st and 4th chapters of Wisdom. In the
8th of Proverbs we read, *' The Lord possessed me
in the beginning of his ways, before he made anything,
from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of
old before the earth was made. The depths were not as
yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the foun-
taiiis of waters as yet sprung out... ...When he prepared

the heavens I was present, when with a certain law and
compass he enclosed the depths....! was with him forming

all things, and was delighted every day, playing before him
at all times, playing in the world, and my delights were to
be with the children of men.'* These verses are aeeommo-
dated to the Deipara in the Mozarabic Missal as well as
in the Missal of the Roman Church. And it was in allu-
sion to this passage that Christian antiquity called Mary
the possession of the Lord, His prcedium et habitaculum ;
and that it spoke of her election before all generations, her
preparation before all ages, her predestination in eternity,
and her production in time, her dignity set up from eternity,
as Regind et domina Uaiversorum.\ The propriety, moreover,
of this accommodation depends upon its applicability to the

* Serm. xi. de Deiparee Assumpt.
t PassagHa, P. ii. p. 639, et seq.

1856."] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 155

purity and the sanctity of the Virgin. They appropriately
express the wonder of her conception, the singular excel-
lence of the graces with which she was endowed, her super-
natural elevation and separation from all other created
beings, the g:lory and the beauty of her immaculate person,
and the ineffable love with which the Almighty loved her
from all eternity. But they are inapplicable, and some-
thing more than inapplicable, unless all this be true of
Mary, unless she indeed be the triumph and perfection of
the works of God, the sublime and innocent Mother of
Jesus, human in all that is pure, and good, and lovely, and
tender, and hoi}' in human nature elevated and enriched
by grace — i)ut never, even during one instant of time,
stained and dishonoured by contamination with the
slightest touch of human frailty.

Another very beautiful application of Scripture to
delineate the peculiar prerogatives of the Holy Virgin, is
founded upon the 24th Chapter of Ecclesiasticus ; Wisdom
there says of herself: " I came out of the mouth of the

Most High, the first-born before all creatures Then

the Creator of all things commanded, and said to nv^, and
He that made me rested in my tabernacle. And He said
to me, let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thy inheritance in
Israel, and take root in my elect. From the beginning,
and before the world was I created, and unto the world to
come I shall not cease to be ; and in thy holy dwelling-
place I have ministered before Him. A.nd so was I estab-
lished in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and
my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an
honourable people, and in the portion of my God his inheri-
tance, and my abode is in the full assembly of the Saints.
I was exalted like a cdlar in Libanus, and as a cypress
tree on Mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm-tree in
Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho. As a fair olive
tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the water in the

streets, was I exalted As the vine I have brought

forth a pleasant odour, and my flowers are the fruit of

honour and riches In me is all grace of the way and

of the truth ; in me is all hope of life and of virtue.
Come over to me all ye that desire me, and be filled with
my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my
inheritance above honey ami the honey-comb.** This
sublime description of the wisdom of God is accommodated
to the Blessed Virgin in all the offices used on her festivals

158 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

throughout the Latin Church. It is besides, applied to
her by many Fathers and commentators of antiquity, and
among: them, by St. Germanus, St. Ephraem, Proclus,
St. John Damascene, Tarasins of Constantinople, Modes-
tus of Jerusalem, St. Anselm, St. Hildephonse, St. Peter
Damian, and a host of others. These writers either
directly apply the very words of Ecclesiasticus to the Holy
Vir^^in, or else they select different types and emblems
from the chapter before us, and use them to express their
conception of the greatness of Mary. And it is evident
that the fitness of these most remarkable accommodations
depends altogether upon the existence of a certain analogy
between wisdom itself and the prerogatives of the Mother
of God. Unless some such analogy exist, this accom-
modation would be idle and vain ; and unless, therefore,
we are prepared to accuse the Church of having rashly,
and without due deliberation, appropriated those passages
to the Virgin, we must confess that the Holy Virgin is one
who approaches as near as a created being can possibly
approach to the Scriptural portrait of wisdom. Hence we
are bound to admit that in the judgment of the Church and
of its ancient writers accommodating these portions of Scrip-
ture to the Blessed Virgin, there is no creature, whether
angel or man, whom the Blessed Virgin does not wholly
surpass in dignity, in grace, in innocency, and in glory.
For she it is who is the Queen of Sion and Jerusalem,
that is, of the Church militant and the Church trium-
phant. She it is in whose sacred tabernacleJier Creator
vouchsafed to rest. She it is whom the unanimous voice
of the Church commemorates as alone holy amidst
the daughters of men, alone worthy that God should
rest within her sacred womb, the lily among the thorns,
the olive ever verdant, and the morning star, shining with a
brilliant light upon the world, and by the very splendour of
its brilliancy manifesting itself as most immaculate and most
innocent. Moreover, it is Mary into whose bosom the
divine bounty has poured forth all the treasures of heaven.
It is she who stands forth amidst angels and men, exalted
far above all, ** like a cedar in Libanus, and as the cypress
tree on Mount Sion.** She is the instrument of salvation,
so that through her and in her all things are renewed, life
repaired, the power of death destroyed, the graces of
heaven conveyed to man, heaven itself opened, and man
united with Christ his God and Saviour, She was united

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 157

with Jesus ill nature, because she was consubstantial
with Him ; in innocency of life because, as He was, and not
otherwise than He was, so she was ever pleasing to God ;
and she was united with Him in gifts, inasmuch as she
shared by participation those offices and those gifts which
were vested in Him by right and without measure. This
is the great lesson with regard to Mary, which the Chris-
tian Fathers and writers are ever inculcating in their
hymns, panegyrics, and discourses. It is the idea of the
Virgin brought out and formed into shape by such teach-
ing as this, which they attempted to illustrate by the
accommodation of this wonderful chapter of Ecclesiasticus.
And it is impossible not to perceive that in the judgment
of the Church and of her doctors, there really does exist a
true analogy between the wisdom of God, and His lovely
mother, an analogy which cannot be supposed for a
moment, unless Mary be acknowledged to be the most
pure, the most holy, the most beautiful, and the most per-
fect among the creatures of God.

We are compelled to omit many beautiful accommoda-
tions from the book of Psalms, all tending to give expres-
sion in words to the Catholic idea of Mary, and to pass on
to consider those testimonies from Scripture, which in the
opinion of the author before us, as well as of other experi-
enced theologians, directly witness to the purity of the
Virgin, and to her exemption from the stain of Original
Sin. It must be borne in mind that there are two ways in
which a truth or doctrine may be contained in the
inspired volume. It may be contained in the express
and explicit words of Scripture, which, when interpreted
in their plain and grammatical sense, are at once seen to
enunciate the truth or doctrine. For example, when
Moses exclaimed, ** Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is
one Lord," we perceive the unity of God to be the truth
and doctrine which these words most obviously enunciate.
And when the Apostle John says, ** the Word was made
flesh and dwelt amongst us ;'* we see that he intended to
set forth in plain language the doctrine of the incarnation
of the Son of God. But the Scriptures declare truths, not
only expressly and in so niany words ; they also contain
them implicitly and virtually, and they are found to be coin-
prised within the language of the sacred volume by legiti-
mate analysis and by plain logical deduction. Thus our
Blessed Saviour deduces the doctrine of the Resurrection

158 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. jSepf.

from the words, " I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and
of Jacob." The Council of Nice infers the consubstan-
tiality of the ISon from the Scriptural testimonies respect-
ing His divinit3\ And in the same way other Synods of
the Church liave deduced from similar scriptural language
very many important doctrines of the faith, which are
believed not only by all Catholics, but by the more ortho-
dox divisious of Protestantism.""' These doctrines, although
not verbally contained in Scripture, are legitimately and
fairly deduced from it ; and cousequeutly are admitted by
all who admit the authority of scripture itself, to be as
truly contained in scripture, as those more obvious truths
which it explicitb'' enuuciates.

It is in this latter sense, namely, as a doctrine really
contained in the Scripture, and legitimately deducible
from it by plain logical inference, that the first promise
of mercy and of reconciliation made to mankind after the
fall testifies to the perfect and uncontaminated purity of
Mary. Hardly had the justice of God denounced sen-
tence upon our guilty parents, when His love and His pity
intervened, and even while pronouncing judgment, caused
Him to break forth into words of mercy. " I will put
enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and
her seed ; she (or it) shall crush thy head, and thou shalt
lie in wait for her (or his) heel." This celebrated pas-
sage is divided into two parts : the first of which declares
that God will place a barrier of enmity b<kween the ser-
pent and the woman, between his seed and her seed ; and
the second expresses the consequences that should result
from this enmity, namely, the crushing of the serpent's
head. It is very evident that in addressing these words to
the destroyer of the human race, the Almighty intended
to inform him that the instrument by which he had over-
thrown the happiness of man should become the instru-
ment of his own punishment and ruiu. A woman brought
sin and death into the world, and it was a woman who
was to bring back grace and life. Satan had entered into
friendship with her who, in *the natural order, was the

* e. g. the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and
from the Son as from one principle, the existence in Clirist of two
wills and of two operations ; the union of the Son with human
nature secundum hypostasim, &c., &c.

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 159

mother of all living. He had approached her as it were
stealthily. He insinuated himself by degrees into her
confidence. He professed himself to be her friend, and
to have no other object in view than to take the side of
man, against an arbitrary restriction of the Divine Power.
And it was through the semblance of friendship that he first
of all deceived, and then destroyed by sin, the mother of
the human race. Now Almighty God, in this prophecy
of redemption, declares that He will employ the instru-
mentality of woman to avenge Himself of the ruin of man-
kind. He will raise up another woman between Satan
and whom there shall be perpetual enmity. No friend-
ship shall grow up between them. The same device Satan
will never again be able to employ. He will not be able
to steal into the confidence of this second woman, to hold
intercourse with her, and to represent to her under a false
colouring the holy acts and commands of God. *' I will
put enmities," says the Almighty Avenger, ** between
thee and the woman." Every word in this sentence is
emphatic and full of meaning. 1 luill put, and place
from the very beginning, and not as under another hypo-
thesis it would have been, ** I will excite and stir up here-
after enmity between those who are to be friends for a time."
The enmity between the second woman and the serpent is
antecedent and not consequent ; hence it is enmity that
has its commencement in the very conception of this
second woman. No sooner has she real life and exist-
ence than a barrier is drawn by the power of God
between her and him, who deceived and destroyed the
first parents of mankind — a barrier which shall never be
removed. "I will put enmities." In the original He-
brew it is rendered still more emphatic by the use of the
definite article, and therefore indicates not that enmity
which all the just and holy bear in common against the
devil, but that peculiar, that uninterrupted, that primor-
dial and eternal enmity which existed from the very
beginning between the sorpgnt and the seed of the woman,
and which the words of tho prophecy obviously apply to
the woman herself, in an equal portion and degree with
her divine seed. No one can doubt that the hostility be-
tween Christ and the devil is the most dire that can
possibly be imagined. No one can doubt that the barrier
between Christ and the devil was formed and placed at
the very moment of His Incarnation, and that it is as

160 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. |Sept.

impossible for any friendship to exist, or to have existed,
between the two, as it is for God to change Ilis Nature.
But the Scripture dechires that the very same enmity
which divides the woman's seed and the serpent, will sepa-
rate the serpent from that woman herself. No distinction,
no reservatit)n, no qualification, is made. ** I will put the
enmity between thee and the woman." What, then, can
this hostility mean, except an enmity which, beginning at
the very moment of her conception, has separated her for
ever from the destroyer of our first parents, has kept her
free from the possibility of being seduced by his snares,
and has preserved her from the contagion of his infamous
conversation ? And that such is the obvious and neces-
sary meaning of these celebrated words, we can hardly
bring ourselves to believe that any intelligent Christian
can now-a-days doubt."""

Professor Passaglia, and other eminent authorities, rely
upon the former part of this primitive prophecy of reconci-
liation for one Scriptural proof of the uncontaminated

* Professor Passaglia (Par. ii. p. 827) gives the following answer
to the question — How is it that if this text from Genesis so clearly
prove the Immaculate Conception of Mary, so few people have
seen its force, and that so many learned and pious men have
doubted whether there is a single sentence in Scripture wliich has
even a probable reference to this doctrine ? (1^ He denies that
the real bearing of tliis passage was unknown to the Fathers, and he
proceeds to prove by quotations from the ancient Authors, that,
although they may not state the argument in the same order, and
in the same way as he does, yet that they give in substance the
very same explanation as he does. (2) Secondly, he replies, that
difficult passages of Scripture were not brought out and made clear
until heresies and controversies had directed men's attention to
them. The doctrine of the Trinity was not perfectly discussed
until the Arian heresy, nor that of Penance until the Novatian,
nor the doctrine of JBaptism until the Donatists endeavoured to
introduce the practice of re-baptising. (3) He answers with Vin-
centius Lirinensis, that there is in the Church of Christ an in-
crease, a progress, and a growth of divine knowledge. The
intelligence, the knowledge, the wisdom, not only of individuals,
but of the whole Church increases, although always in the same
dogma, the same sense, and the same opinion. As the Scripture
says, pertransibunt plurimi et miiUiplex erit scientia. (Dan. xii, 4.)
And according to Gregory the Great, " Urgente etenim mundijine,
supema scientia proficit^ et largius cum tempore excrescit,''^

185G.J Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary, 161

purity of the Virgin. There is, as our readers are aware,
a difference of reading in the second clause of the prophecy,
which has given rise to a controversy between Cathohcs
and Protestants, which learned men on both sides are at pre-
sent disposed to repudiate as unmeaning and useless. The
controversy has turned upon the genuineness and propriety
of the Vulgate version, which translates the original
Hebrew pronoun by the feminine ipsa, instead of the mas-
culine iiyse, or the neuter ipsud. This is in reality a ques-
tion of comparatively slight moment, so far as any matter
of doctrine is concerned. It possesses interest and impor-
tance as a question of biblical criticism, but it in no way
affects any truth of revelation. Regarding it then as a
ftiir point for criticism, and examining it, as we ought to
do, in an honest and dispassionate spirit, with the single
wish to discover the true reading, and with the conviction
that no dogma of the Church can ever receive the least
injury from any fair and just criticism, there is only one
conclusion at which we can arrive. The great weight of
authority is in favour of the masculine or neuter reading.*
All the Hebrew codices which are known favour the mas-
culine or neuter reading, with the exception of three,
that are certainly known to have the feminine, and five
others that are said to contain it, but about which there is
doubt. The masculine or neuter is also found in all the
known Samaritan MSS., in all the Greek versions, with
perhaps one exception, in all the Chaldaic paraphrases, in
all the Syrian and x\rabic versions, in the old Italic, and
in the original version of St. Jerome. Among the
Fathers of the Church, all the Greek Fathers, without
exception, use the masculine or neuter reading, which was
also in use amongst all the Latin Fathers until the middle
of the fourth century, and even after that period we find it

* Passaglia, Par. iL p. 916 et seq. See also Melchior Canu?. de
Locis theolog. Lib. 2. cap. 15. De Rubeis, in app. de Var. lect. v. T.
p. 207 seq. vol. 4, and Patrizi De Immaculata Mariae Origino a Deo
praedicta Disquisitio. Romse 1853. The Biblical researches of Pro-
fessor Patrizi are of the greatest value to the theological student,
and are entirely free from that narrow prejudice which is afraid to
look at things as thejr really are. Unfortunately, however, t^e
learned Professor has chosen to write in such peculiar and difficult
Latin, that very few people, it is to be feared, will have sufficient
patience to peruse his works.

VOL. XLL— No. LXXXI. 11

162 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mai'y. [Sept.

in the writings of St. Jerome, St. Leo the Great, and St.
Peter Chrysologus. On the other hand, there is scarcely
any critical authority for the feminine reading. Whatever
there is consists chiefly of three Hebrew MSS., of five
others, alleged to contain the feminine reading, but of
which we cannot be certain, with perhaps one Greek ver-.
sion, unknown to critics, but mentioned by an old
Scholiast, himself equally unknown. The feminine read-
ing is however supported by almost all the Latin Fathers
and writers posterior to the fifth century, as well as by St.
Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others, who flourished at
the end of the fourth and at the beginning of the fifth.
The great weight of authority therefore is evidently
in favour of the neuter or masculine reading, so that
it would be against all the laws of critical science
not to conclude that this reading is part of the real and
genuine text of the passage in Genesis. It is conse-
quently impossible to found any argument for the preroga-
tives of Mary upon the latter clause of this prophecy, as
translated by the present Vulgate, since an argument
founded upon a doubtful reading cannot be expected to
bring with it much weight or chance of conviction. Never-
theless it would be a great mistake to conclude that the
feminine reading ipsa is without a true meaning and signi-
ficance. It cannot indeed be urged as a direct argument
with those witliout, and it does not constitute in strictness
the original and genuine text. Still it is afi ecclesiastical
reading of high antiquity. It is older than St. Jerome's
translation or revision of the old Italic Version,""" and has
been used, as we have said, both by Ambrose and Augus-
tine. Since the sixth century it has prevailed throughout
the Western Church, and is supported by the present
edition of the Vulgate.t It is impossible, therefore, to treat

* Passaglia, P. ii. p. 930.

t It may perhaps be desirable to say a few words on the degree
of respect due from Catholics to the Vulgate Version of the Scrip-
tures. On purely literary grounds none but the most ignorant and
the most prejudiced would refuse a very high degree of respect to a
version so celebrated, so universally used throughout Christendom,
so venerable for its antiquity, founded upon a still older translation,
which it has incorporated within itself, and revised by so great a
man as St. Jerome. But Catholics are bound to respect and esteem

1856.] Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 163

it otherwise timn with respect and reverence. If not the
origfinal reading, it is an authorised interpretation of that
reading. It contains a meaning which although not
directly comprised in the original text, is however virtually
included within it, and consequently it is a fair deduction
from the Scriptural language to say, that since the very
same enmity has ever existed between Satan and the
Woman, as has always existed between Satan and the
Woman's Seed, it follows that they both crush and destroy
the Serpent's head, the one mediately, the other imme-
diately / in scholastic language, the one is the instru-
mental cause, {causa instriimentalis,) the other the
principal ca.use, {causa princeps) ; Mary crushes the Ser-
pent's head by giving birth to Jesus, and Jesus by the
prowess of His own Power and Virtue.

The contrast between Eve and Mary is constantly dwelt
upon in the patristic and liturgical monuments of the
Church. This conti'ast is to be met with in the writings
of almost all the Fathers, from Justin to St. Bernard. It
is dwelt upon with much unction and fervour by the writers
of mediaeval Christianity. It is brought out in the prayers
and offices of the ancient Mozarabic, Gallican, and other
missals, especially in the prefaces for the various feasts of
our Lady. In a word, it pervades the whole devotional
and hortatory literature of the Church, and its origin lies
in the very cradle of Christianity. When St. Paul drew
out a contrast between the first Adam and the second, he
naturally suggested the existence of a similar contrast
between Eve and Mary. And the Fathers very soon

it upon other grounds as well. Being the only version of the Scrip-
tures formally authorised by the Church, they are bound to believe
that it contains no error aifecting any matters of d )ctrine. But
they are at liberty, if they possess the necessary qualifications, to
study the Scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek texts ; nor
are they prohibited from preferring a dififerent reading from that
adopted by the Vulgate, as being more in accordance with the
original texts, provided that they neither innovate upon tlie doc-
trine of the Church, nor forget the degree of authority which the
Vulgate really possesses. The Church, by approving the Vulgate,
does not mean to say that it is a translation incapable of impr.'V^e-
roent, but merely tliat it is a fair and good version, and that while
it may be open to amendment in particular places, it gives cor-
rectly and in substance the true sense of the original texts.

164 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept

began to dilate upon it. Their teachinf? when brought
together amounts in substance to the following : — ""(a) that
Mary is the new and second Eve, as Christ is the new and
second Adam ; and therefore, as Adam was a type of Jesus
so Eve was a type of Mary, (b) The enmity between this
second Eve and the serpent is in every way similar to that
which existed between the serpent and the second Adam ;
and, consequently, it is deadly, implacable, and without
interruption, (c) In Mary the fall of Eve is restored ; the
prudence, the obedience, and the faith of the former
making reparation for the imprudence, the disobedience,
and the unbelief of the latter, (d) God who condemned
Eve, crowns Mary with glory, (e) As death flowed from
the first Eve, so did life from the second ; as all that is
evil came through Eve, so through Mary comes all that is
good ; as Adam was renewed in Christ, so is Eve in Mary.
(t) By Mary salvation and life is within the reach of all, as
by Eve all fell into ruin and death, (g) It is only on
account of Mary that Eve is, and is called, the mother of
the living, (h) Mary raised Eve from her fall, restored
Adam, despoiled hell, and opened the gates of paradise ;
(i) a curse was pronounced upon Eve ; it is abolished by
Mary, who is altogether blessed ; (k) as we all die through
Eve, so do we all live through Mary, we gain the adoption
of sons, and return to our pristine dignity. (1) The new Vir-
gin hath expiated the evil deed of the old ;^and (m) lastly,
as all censure Eve, so all praise Mary. The whole force of
these antitheses depends on the hypothesis upon which
they are founded ; namely, that Mary is a Being wholly
different from all other members of the human race, in the
unspotted purity, and in the super-abundant holiness,
which adorned and which filled her from the first moment
of her existence. J^irectly, they point out the judgment
of antiquity respecting the prerogatives of Mary, while
indirectly they elucidate the doctrine of her Immaculate
Conception.

But the singular prerogative of Mary is inculcated in
the New Testament no less than in the old. It is very
plainly, and clearly taught in the Angelical salutation,
recorded in the first chapter of St. Luke's gospel.

» Passaglia, P. II. p. 872-3.

1856. 1 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 165

Nothing is of more frequent recurrence amongst ancient
writers than commentaries, paraphrases, and sermons
upon the archangel's address to Mary ; and they all in
substance contain the same teaching, that the words are
new, the salutation new and unheard before, that although
many times angels have been sent to visit the favoured of
God, yet never did a heavenly messenger say to any
other than Mary, "Hail full of grace/' Angels appeared
to Abraham, to Jacob, to St. Joseph, and to St. Peter;
in almost every age of the Church they have been sent
to converse with and to illuminate the great servants of
God, and yet this peculiar salutation — Ave gratia plena,
was never addressed to any except to her who had been
predestined to be, but was not at the time, the Mother of
God. Since then this salutation is new, it must have a
new sense and signification. It is addressed to Mary
alone of the human race, and to her only is it really appli-
cable, therefore there must be something in Mary which
renders these words appropriate to her alone. There are
thousands of other creatures, archangels, angels, and
saints, who are pre-eminently holy and blessed ; but yet
this salutation never has been and never could be applied
to them. Surely, then, the reason is obvious, why it is
alone suitably addressed to the ever Blessed Virgin. It
is because while others enjoy grace in part, she
possesses it in all its entireness. It is because she is really
and truly /ttZZ of grace, and has been full of grace, not only
from the moment of the Incarnation, but before that great
mystery was accomplished within her. And if she was
full of grace, even before she had become de facto the
Mother of God, how is it possible that she could ever have
been the slave of sin ?

But again, almost each word in this salutation is
emphatic, and when properly understood discloses the pre-
eminent sanctity of the Blessed Virgin. We would how-
ever at present insist principally upon the expression
Kcxapnujijievij as indicating the possession of grace in its
plenitude and entireness. Had not the Protestants allowed
themselves to be carried away by prejudice, and by the
spirit of their heresy, they would never have pared down
the meaning of this participle into " hi</hli/- favoured."
The feebleness and the inadequacy of this translation is
obvious, and we may safely assert that it would never have
suggested itself to the Protestant mind had it not beeii

166 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

their aim to derogate as much as they possibly could from
the honour and pm'ity of the Mother of God. It is one of
the most objectionable renderings in the authorised Angli-
can version of the New Testament, the compilers of
which, whatever their faults in other respects, were men of
too real learning to have unwittingly condemned the univer-
sally received translation of the Churah, gratia plena. It
is true that in the matter of Greek and Ilebrew learning it
would be absurd to place them on a level with the scholars
of modern times. It is true also, that in their version of
the New Testament, they often give an incorrect or inade-
quate sense to the original text, in consequence of not
having been well acquainted with the niceties of the Greek
tongue, which led them, amongst other omissions and
mistakes, to overlook altogether the force of the Greek
article, and to give many feeble renderings of the original
in consequence of other deviations from a sound method
of translation." But still they were not, for the most part,
behind the learning of their age, so that when they differed
from the usual readings of the received versions, they did
so either through a desire to adhere more exactly to the
import of the original Greek, or because, as in the case
before us, their judgments were warped by a dishonest
polemical bias. The ancient translation, however, has out-
lived its enemies. Not only has it its foundation in the
universal sense of the Church, which in all its*^ersions and
comments, whether Latin, Syrian, or Greek, has invariably
interpreted /s-exa/JiTcD/tcVj; by gratia plena, but it has gained the
approbation of many of the most learned among the foreign
Protestants. According to a German Critic, xap^'^f^
signifies gratia aliquem cumido, I heap grace upon any one.
Hence Kexapi-Toifievrj is gratia cumulata seu plena, laden or
filled with grace, x'a/""'^'^'" also signifies gratia mactare seu
cumulare, to cumulate or load with grace, and in this sense
it is used by St. Paul, Eph. i. 6, "He hath laden us with
grace in the beloved." The same Protestant writer
further observes that all Greek verbs ending in oio have a
cumulative or an intensitive sense, and therefore, accord-
ing to its native signification, Kcxapnwfiepti ought to be ren-

• Contrast, for example, PhlHppians, ii. 5 — 9, in the Greek with
the English Protestant version, and the feebleness and inadequacy
of its translation will be very manifest.

1856.] PcLSsaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 167

dered, enriched with the treasures of grace in such a man-
ner as to fill with this divine gift both body and soul.""'

From the testimony of Scripture to the purity of the
Virgin, Professor Passaglia proceeds in his concluding
volume to gather the judgment of tradition with respect to
the excellency of the Divine Maternity of Mary, the
character of the union existing between herself and her
Divine Son, the part which the Counsels of God allotted
to her in the reparation of the human race, the object and
the antiquity of the feast of the Immaculate Conception,
and many other points of equal moment. Into these sub-
jects, deeply interesting as they are, we have neither time
nor space to enter at present. To treat them with anj^-
thing like the consideration which they deserve, would lead
us be3'ond our limits, and we could not stray so far without
incurring the risk of exhausting our readers' patience.
Passing them over, therefore, although it is with great
reluctance that we do so, we must sum up what has been
already stated, with one or two concluding observations.

1. And first, it may be useful to say a few words with
respect to the part taken by the Holy See in the celebrated
controversies about the Immaculate Conception. t These
contentions could not arise in the Church without the say-
ings and writings of the different parties engaged in them,
being broug'ht to the notice of the Apostolic Chair; for the
most illustrious and the most conspicuous men in their day
loudly called upon the Roman Church to interpose its
authority, and to put an end to these disputes, some of them
denouncing the introduction of a feast not formally recog-
nised by Rome, and others objecting to the doctrine which
that feast was really intended to commemorate. But how
did the Apostolic See respond to these calls upon its inter-
ference ? It is a significant fact, that in the midst of this
angry controversy the voice of the Roman Church remained
unheard until the time of Sixtus IV. It kept '* Silence,
yea even from good words." It was the depository and
the guardian of the Catholic faith. It was its office to
discern the true from the false, to preserve untarnished the
brightness of the true faith, and to repress with the strong

• Valckenar in Scholis. ad Luc. i. 28, quoted in Passaglia, P. ii.
p. 1003, note.

t See Passaglia, Tom. iii. pp. 2058, 9.

168 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. [Sept.

hand of divine authority all innovations upon its belief and
worship. Men conspicuous before the eyes of the Chris-
tian world, men too whom Kome honoured and prized,
called upon her to interpose, and to put down a movement
which they considered to be fraught with danger to the
discipline or the faith of Christendom. But still the voice
of Peter remained silent. It beheld the devotion of the
Immaculate Conception diffusing itself rapidly throughout
the Church, and yet it uttered not a single word by which
that devotion might be either checked or rooted out. In
the midst of theological disputations it went on in its own
even and tranquil course, celebrating its own feast of the
Conception,""" and acting as if no great question were really
agitating the Church. And when at length it opened its
mouth, it was only to favour and promote the devotion to
the Immaculate Conception, by granting indulgences to
those who should practise it ; and while still conceding
liberty of opinion about the doctrine itself, it nevertheless
denounced and forbade the use of any expressions by which
that doctrine might be condemned. The same spirit
pervaded the subsequent constitutions of the Apostolic See.
They were all framed with a view to foster and difi^use the be-
lief in the Immaculate Conception, and to discourage gradu-
ally the opposite opinion, until the time should arrive for a
more formal exposition of its own faith. Surely there is a
deep Sacrament, if we may be allowed to srty so, in this
wonderful /Silence of the See of Rome. There is an
eloquence in this silence which speaks more plainly than
many words. Never has a Roman Pontiff" held his peace
when the cause of truth required that he should speak.
Never has the faith been assailed but Rome has con-
founded the world with the thunder of her denunciations.
When, therefore, she is silent, she would speak to us by
this very silence. It is a testimony on her part to the
immaculate purity of the Virgin Mother. It is her own
voice declaring this doctrine to be contained within the
deposit of revelation. She allowed men to agitate indeed
and to discuss this question for a time, while she looked on
with a careful eye, and while her silence itself guarded the
implicit truth entrusted to her care. She permitted dis-
cussion that the doctrine might be the more carefully

* See Passaglia, P. iii. p. 1745 et seq.

1856."! Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary. 169

brought out, the more fully apprehended by the faithful,
and the better prepared to assume its due position in the
analogy of the faith. But all the while she was really and
effectually guarding, protecting, and advancing it. She
held her peace, but this was in itself an approbation both
of the doctrine and of the devotion connected with it. Her
very silence, therefore, was not only a declaration of the
truth, — it was a divinely-suggested means by which she
favoured and promoted its growth and progress.

2. But on one point there could be neither growth nor
progress. If we have succeeded in presenting to our readers
a sufficiently clear notion of the line of argument pursued
in the great work which we undertook to review, we
have succeeded in placing before them a certain per-
ception of the Catholic idea of Mary, as it has been ever
perpetuated in the Catholic Church. We have seen that
It is the grandest idea that can possibly occupy the human
mind, next to that of Almighty God, an idea moreover,
which human thought cannot fully grasp, nor human lan-
guage express. In giving expression to their inward
perception of the beauty and holiness of Mary, our
fathers have exhausted the rich resources of the Greek
and Latin tongues; and if we would desire to put
into words our own thoughts and aspirations about
Mary, we can only repeat the language that was long
ago familiar to them. In this, therefore, there can be
neither growth nor progress ; and the reason is, because
human language can go no further than it has gone.
Sometimes, indeed, we are charged by the heretics with
employing expressions in praise of the Blessed Virgin
which were wholly unknown to Christian antiquity. If
this charge were true, it would redound to our credit,
for what can, be more natural or more fitting than that
we should endeavour to discover a mode of speech which
should adequately express the dignity and the power of
the Immaculate Virgin ? But as a matter of fact, the
charge is without foundation. Our ancestors have been
beforehand with us, and have said all that we could
possibly say. What stronger and more emphatic expres-
sions can be used, than to call Mary the head and cause
oF our salvation, the Mother of the common salvation^
the horn of power by which Satan's strength is broken,
she who saves the world, who is the author and the cause
of the common joy, the solace of nature, the repairer and

J 70 Passaglia on the Prerogatives of Mary, [Sept.

restorer of mankinrl,tlie solution of the curse, the expiator
of sin, and a merciful propitiation with the Lord?^
And yet these, and terms still more emphatic than these,
are employed by such men as Irenseus,! and Augustine,|
John Damascene, and Anselm, the compilers of the
ancient offices of the Church, and the authors of those
ancient Greek hymns, which were composed before the
schism of Photius. It is therefore evident that in all ages
of the Church there has been but one idea, and one
mind, and one tongue, concerning the prerogatives of the
Mother of God. Mary herself in her song of praise ex-
claimed, " behold from henceforth all generations shall
call me blessed ;** and the Catholic Church has taken up
her holy song, and gone forth resounding it throughout
the four corners of the globe. Trouble and persecution
have passed over^the Church and her children, but neither
it nor they have ever waxed cold in their love to Mary.
Her name has been the Church's great watchword
against heresy, the .weapon with which it is enabled to
destroy the enemies of the faith. It is not afraid to speak
the praises of Mary, to exalt her dignity, and to proclaim
her power. Nay, it is driven on by an interior instinct,
which it cannot, and which it would not, repress, to declare
the glories of Mary, by every means within its power. O
infallible mark of the true Church ! Solomon detected
the real mother of the child by that natural feeling which
recoiled from beholding it slaughtered before her eyes ;
and a similar instinct draws the heart of the real spouse
of Christ close to the heart of Mary. The mother cannot
be separated from the Son. The innocence and sanctity
of the one is indissolubly associated with the Divine per-
fections of the other; men cannot love the one, and be cold
or indifferent to the other. The true bride of the Son
must be the loving daughter of the mother. That, there-
fore, which is the true Church of Christ must ever fulfil in
its theology, its piety, and its spirit, the Virgin's own pre-
diction, *' all generations shall call me blessed." It must
be zealous for the honour of Mary, as being the Mother of

♦ Passaglia, P. III. p. 1417.

f Irenseus, Cont. llaer. Lib. III. c. 33.

X Lib. 1. Cont. Julian, c. 3.

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 171

its God and Saviour. It must defend the prerogatives of
Mary, as it would defend any other vital doctrine of Chris-
tianity. It must infuse into its members a solid and a
tender devotion to the Virgin, which may grow with their
growth and strengthen with their strength. It must invo-
cate her name and confide in her power, and implore her
aid. In a word, it must be known throughout the world
for the homage and the worship which it delights to pay to
the holy name of Mary, accustoming its chiHren to asso-
ciate that immaculate and powerful name with every cir-
cumstance of their lives, and to use it in union with the
name of her Son, as their best protection and sweetest
consolation, in the last moment of their earthly pilgrim-
age.

Art. VL — (1.) Pius IX. and Lord Palmerston. By the Count dk
MoNTALEMBEUT. Loudou : Dolmaii, 1856.

(2.) De VElat des choses d Naples, et en Italie, Lettres d, G. Bowter^
Esq., Membre du Parlement Britauique. Par Jules Gondon, 8vo.
Paris : Bray ; London : Dolman. 1855.

IT has been frequently observed, that a certain periodi-
cal fever seizes the religious constitution, or protestant
body, or whatever else it calls itself, in the British Empire.
Its etiology is indeed obscure : but its symptoms are
pretty regular, its diagnosis simple, its treatment obvious.
It has its sudden access, violent exacerbation, and gra-
dual decline. It begins by a shuddering and shivering,
a palor and tremor, a frisonnement of horror, a frightful
shaking and quaking of the entire system, of course
accompanied by a chattering of the jaws, a jibbering and
grimacing, which sometimes mounts to the sublimity of
the awful, but quickly slips into the proximate gulf of the
most ludicrous. The mind it is which thus affects t.he ,
body; for it is full of some terrible illusion, a horrid
phantom, generally of foreign features, and most papis-
tical combinations. An idea haunts it of something that

172 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

tho Grand Duke of Tuscany has done, or that the King
of Naples is doing, or that the Pope of Rome does, or
that Austria is going to do. To cold shivering succeeds
fever hot and high, frantic declamation, mouthing expos-
tulations ; braggart threats, and magniloquent prophecies;
talk of squadrons, broadsides, and bombardments ;
suggestions of assassinations,"'^ proposals to encourage
poniard-insurrections, republicanism, socialism, universal
confusion, confiscation, and extermination, so that we
may see parliaments instead of consistories, and potatoes
in place of maccaroni. The Thames must flow in Italy,
and the present Times must be the future of Italians.
Well, this stage too has its end. We all know, how
fever most kindly resolves itself — in the copious deliques-
cence of over-strained excitement ; and as in the canine
race the palpitating tongue throws off the heat of the
entire frame, so is it with the intermittent ague of this
faction, for it is not, thank Heaven, the nation. Its long
lolling organ of loquacity, by degrees discharges the
feverish excandescence j the blood- shot eye again grows
dim ; and the roaring bull-dog, which simulated the
British Lion or the JSritish Bull, (closely allied in our
national, as in Assyrian, mythology) is pronounced to be
worse in his bark than in his bite. It is wonderful how
a few leaders, complimenting the nation on being the
grandest in the world, declaring any ticke4*of-leave man
in England to be more moral than any Roman priest, and
any pauper, for whom a coroner's inquest brings a verdict
of "starvation," to be happier, hungered to death in a
British garret, than a Neapolitan prince, dining in a palace,
and boasting that we are the very finest fellows in crea-
tion, and all others but puppy-dogs, and recapitulating
what we could have done, but hav'nt, what we may yet
do, but won't : it is, we say, wonderful how a few self-
complacent articles of this stamp give the newspaper pub-
lic sufficient satisfaction, and gradually let down the
agitated pulse.
The Hierarchy, the Dogmatic definition, the Austrian

* A short time ago, Mr. W. Savage Landor, true to his name,
complained that there were no great men now-a-days to deal with
despots, as was done in classical ages : and the Times, true to its
inconsiiitency, of course iiisert^d the amiable insinuation. ,

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 173

Concordat, the Madiai, have had their fits ; slighter
attacks have fitted into their intervals. But there is one
on now, of longer duration than usual, and of perhaps
more persevering obstinacy ; although the violence of its
paroxysm is in part subsiding. Its dog-days are over,
and it will be difficult to blow up the fire again to its pris-
tine fierceness. Already the symptoms of decline are
observable, in the Italian people being told, that the day
they drive the Anstrians out of Italy, they will have our
hearty sympathy (which we suppose means a subscription
and a Times commissioner) ; that when Piedmont goes
to war with that power the Board of Ordnance will have
plenty of cannons at Woolwich to lend it ; (is this official,
or within the courtesies of peace?) and finally that we
must be careful in selecting the person whom we send to
Naples — not at the head of a fleet, furnished with tons of
six-inch mortars and bushels of undiseased grape (now
rare in Italy), but as our peaceful minister, and courtly
plenipotentiary. These tame insults, which bear in them
all the impotence of baffled spite, convince us, that the
Italian fever is on the wane, and will soon give way to
the mild treatment of silent contempt, hitherto in other
attacks, so successful.

It may seem unbecoming to direct our reader's atten-
tion to newspaper politics, and more especially to those
of one journal, out of many; indeed it may appear to be
a departure from the therapeutic principle which we have
laid downjn our last sentence. But we hardly see any
other way of handling the subject before us. Whatever
may be the real intentions, or views, of governments
interested in Italian politics, it is certain that *' the public"
is expected to believe, that they are only to be learnt from
the revelations of English foreign correspondents ; while
the facts on which it has to form its judgments, directed
by the appropriately called " leaders," are nothing more
than the " reports" gathered by those gentlemen, who
admirably adapt them to the home demand, and second
most charmingly the views forestalled by their employers.
To treat therefore of the attempts so actively made, to
lash on public feeling to the madness of another war, or to
the meanness of a razzia on the territory of a weak power,
or even to the incendiarism of kindling a civil and intes-
tine war, with no international right, or even national
gain to warrant it, it is necessary to descend to the

174 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

unpleasant regions of daily working mischief, and try to
unravel the web of its inconsistent, and therefore jinjust,
conduct.

Unfortunately, for a time, it appeared as if the great
vessel of the state was swinging round, under the impulse
of concurrent breezes, and swerving from its course, and
more majestic movement, to obey the tide which had set
in, so strongly in one direction. It was clear that, from
Lord Lyndhurst in the House of Lords, to Lord John
Russell in the Commons, the statements of correspon-
dents, who for ought that any one knows may live in
Printing-house Square, were considered sufficiently accu-
rate and important, to serve as the basis of parliamentary
questions or resolutions, tending to commit the country to
warlike or revolutionary pledges. Fortunately, as we have
good reason to believe, Government was in possession of
information, more authentic in its source, more unsuspi-
cious in its channels, and more honest iu its purposes, of
facts not cooked for the newspaper public, and of expla-
nations obtained by honourable negotiations. This was
probably the cause of that total change of tone which per-
vaded the ministerial side of the closing debate on Italian,
politics,^ in the last session..

A noble Lord, who has been floundering in his poli-
tical career, ever since his one great, and fatal blunder of
trying to combine the two characters of a,*liberal and a
bigot, attempted, at the beginning and at the end of the
last parliament, to repair his bankrupt fortunes in the
political market. He tried to seize on the national mind,
through one of its favourite thoughts, that of universal
education ; and after a recess of lecturing and snatchings
at popularity, he sought to constitute himself the director
of a great but not political movement, and create a new
section of state power, in which he might rule. He sig-
nally failed ; his scheme broke down : no personal sympathy
or confidence cheered him on to further efforts on that field.
Thanks to Providence, the author of the Durham letter
was not entrusted with the duty of providing education for
Catholic children. But Italy afforded another ground on
which to rewin lost popularity ; feeling on it was at its
fever-height ; ministers seemed to have committed them-
selves by hasty declarations, and injudicious speeches. It
looked as if only some one was wanted to put the torch-
nay, a very small brimstone-match was enough — to the

1856. 1 Italy and the Papal States. 175

train ; and so blow np two or three small principalities for
Mazzini's gratification. Happily, as we have intimated, a
better light had shone on the ministerial path ; perhaps
the Connt de Montalembert's article had found its way
to the Prime Minister's, as it had to the ex-Chancellor*s,
table ; and suddenly Europe was partly surprised, partly
amused, and wholly delighted, to hear once more, from
our statesmen's lips, words of prudent reserve, and sound
principle, — a return to the forgotten maxims of non-inter-
vention.

AVe are not certainly admirers' of the modern system of
calling sovereigns by contemptuous names, a lesson learnt
at the great French revolution, when irreverence of words
easily passed to more than that in deeds. We do not think
we should like to hear that our Queen was so familiarly
dealt with abroad ; and to say the least, there is a vulga-
rity, and, mt verba venia a snobbishness in the practice.
However, when men lose their temper, this quality crops out
of them, if in them. We were not, thf^reFore, surprised, a
few days ago, to see an article in the Times, descending to
the level of Punch, by calling the King of Naples, King
Bomba. And certainly we could not help remarking, that
if he ever deserved the name, it was lately, when he *' put
in" a shell so judiciously, by his answer to our remon-
strance, as utterly to demolish the approaches, parallels,
and batteries, by which he seemed utterly doomed to be
annihilated. In this answer, the substance of which seems
tolerably known, two points, or in more Saxon phrase,
two hits, are made, which have especially excited the
anger and indignation of the anti-Italian press. These
are, the simple assertion of independent sovereignty, with
all the rights of autocracy or self-government ; the other
is the rather taunting insinuation, that we had better look
first at home, and not throw stones from glass habita-
tions.

In offering any comments on these considerations, let it
be understood, that we do not wish to hazard an opinion
on the good or evil that is practised in Naples. Jf some
even of the statements published concerning that kingdom
be true, we heartily deplore them. We abhor cruelty,
undue severity even ; injustice in every form. Even
criminals must be treated as fellow-men, and their punish-
ment must not be aggravated by wanton and capricious
infl.iction. Neither do we intend to enter into discussion

176 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

as to the preference of any form of government. We love
our own, we live happy under its constitution, because it
is a constitution, which that of Piedmont is not, nor that
of Spain, nor that of Portugal, nor of any other imitations.
But this feeling is nothing to the purpose. There surely
never was a worse government than that of Turkey, from
its seraglio and its abominations, to its frontiers and their
raids. Let any one read L^ayard's account of the treat-
ment of the Jacobite christians by the pachas of Asia,
and say, could anything be more cruel, brutal, and unjust
than the wholesale massacres annually committed? And
3'et this and fifty other atrocities upon christians, and hun-
dreds of robberies, and exterminations in distant provinces,
and a religion everywhere of filthy fanaticism, did not pre-
vent England's going to war to defend the rights of that
despotism, and buttress up its rotten civilization, with the
bayonets and the corpses of a magnificent army.

The principle was, that all these matters were not of our
attribution ; and that the internal concerns of the Ottoman
empire was no concern of ours. And therefore, we con-
clude, that there can be no pretence for aggression of one
state, in that which was not allowed to be an excuse for
withholding from another powerful aid. But Count de
Montalembert pushes his argument further. For he argues
with great force, because with great justice; you surely
are not going to interfere in the internal affJkrs and condi-
tion of a European state, with the very army, which you
collected, and have maintained, and made to die, in sup-
port of the principle of non-intervention.

But coming nearer to the point, we may be expected to
explain the «/*, which we marked significantly in our
last paragraph but one. What, do you not believe the
accounts poured out upon us by the correspondents of our
journals, men highly paid, and therefore above all suspi-
cion ? Frankly and honestly we do not. We have had so
many impossible stories told by these writers, or at least
by their informers, we have been able so often to test them
ourselves, not only by the topography, the circumstances,
and persons introduced, but by actual local verification,
that we have come to the conclusion, that in all matters
where the prejudices of parties are to be gratified, (espe-
cially of religious party,) or where the line taken by a jour-
nal must be maintained by statements, even unscrupulous
fictions are furnished for this purpose. When Bon Migu«l

ISoCj Italy and the Papal States. 177

was on the throne of Portugal, accounts of executions (as
of one for sacrilege) were sent over, minutely detailed
which had never taken place ; and the correspondent being
reproached for it on that spot, defended or excused
himself, by saying, that he had been sent over to supply a
certain class of information, and that if he did not furnish
what the public palate hungered for, his occupation would
soon be gone.

But we will give one or two specimens from Italy. A
few years ago it was stated most circumstantially that all
the political prisoners at Paliano in the Roman States,
joined by their guards, had escaped, reached the sea, and
been received on board a French vessel of war. Any one
acquainted with the situation, and character of the place,
or having common notions of the relations of the French
navy to the government, might have at once seen the sheer
absurdity of the tale. But it was of course believed, and,
though contradicted on the continent, was of course never
contradicted in English papers ; and no doubt is believed
to this day ; as much as the story that the Pope escaped
from Rome in a livery is believed and annually repeated
in Exeter Hall, notwithstanding its repeated contradiction,
and the genuine and touching narrative of the Countess
Spaur. We will however give another specimen, still
more detailed. During the year 1853, when great distress
prevailed through Europe in consequence of a bad harvest,
an account was given of a terrible bread riot at Terni, by
a paper of high Anglican tendencies. Nothing could be
more minute. The starving people rose, and surrounded
the governor's palace, crying out for bread. He haughtily
replied from his balcony, that straw was good enough for
them. This exasperated the crowd ; the gates of his house
were forced ; he was seized and thrown out of the window ;
his corpse was savagely mangled, its mouth filled with
straw, and thus, we believe it was paraded through the
streets. Could any one suspect that so particular an ac-
count might be an invention? at least that it had no foun-
dation in fact ? Well, not two years after we happened to
be passing through this industrious and flourishing city,
and had occasion to see the governor. We put a general
question or two as to the condition of the place, and he ^
replied that it was very flourishing. Had there been no
famine? ^ No; for the rich and nobles had made large
subscriptions, and had taken care that nobody should

VOL. XLl— No. LXXXI. \%

Its Italy and the Papal States. \ Sept.

starve. No riots? None; for the place was very loyal.
How long had he been governor? for we remembered
another erentleman there a few years back ? Nearly three
years. How then, we at length ventured to ask, is it not
true that there were bread riots in the city, and that some
one was killed ? He laughed, and replied, ** You probably
read in the papers that I was killed : but here I am to
assure you that the whole was a lie from beginning to
end." We may add, that the story had been at once con-
tradicted in the foreign j^apers, but of course never in the
English ; though in this instance, we believe, a contradic-
tion was requested.

We could give plenty more such examples ; and we are
thoroughly convinced that the stories of correspondents
must be swallowed, not with a grain, but with a good
bushel, of salt. Let us suggest to our readers one simple
test of the purpose of foreign correspondents, and, let us
add, of their usefulness. A paper boasts, or tells you, that
it has its own correspondents, one at Turin, and another
at Naples. You naturally understand the advantage of
this to be, that you have an honest, honourable, trust-
worthy, and truthful man at each city, whose duty and
whose instructions are, to keep the British public au
courrant of all that goes on in each, of a nature to
interest and instruct that impersonation. yThis surely is
the truth ; the truth about each capital and its kingdom ;
the materials upon which the reader can come to his own
impartial conclusion. _ No place is perfect after all.
There is evil in one city and in the other, as there was
in Jerusalem ; there is light surely and shadow in both ;
there are virtues as well as crimes, good deeds and bad,
wicked men and religious, defects mingled with excel-
lences. Then if you find, that our correspondent at
Turin never tells you anything that is distressing, dis-
couraging, or unamiable, writes with a bird of paradise
quill, and rose-water ink, can find nothing to blame, but
all to praise, no crimes to record, no offences to report,
has nothing to write about banditti, poisons, persecutions,
bad finance or court-scandals ; if, on the other hand, you
perceive that your Naples correspondent can find nothing
to repeat but the same stories of Mr. Gladstone's pam-
phlet, nothing to write about but political persecutions,
tawdry processions at which alone the king is made ever
to appear, savage instructions to lazzeroni, and the army ;

1856.1 I^^^^y ^^^<^ *^^ Papal States. 179

when you never hear him recount a single good act of
king or priest, or noble, of any improvement in city or
country, of one bright little act of grace, generosity or
virtue ; what can you conclude, but that each correspon-
dent has his distinct instructions, in contradiction to those
of his friend, which may be supposed to be expressed in
something of this form. *' Remember, gentlemen, that in
the great and generous mind of the British public, Sardinia
is up, and Naples is down. Don Whiskerandos is the
favourite, and Bomba has 100 to one taken against him.
Oue has therefore to be written up, and the other down.
Act, therefore, like men of noble and impartial minds.
There is good and there is evil in this world. You go to
Turin, there you must find all the good. And you to Naples,
there you must collect the bad. By serving up the two,
we act impartially. You must each furnish us with the
due proportion of the quality confided to your industry.
Mind then, from Naples nothing good, from Turin nothing
evil. We will mix, them, and make them effervesce
together."

We ask our readers, is not this the impartiality of
modern history ? Are we left, or enabled to judge equita-
bly of either of these states, by the information furnished
us by the periodical press ? Are not black and white, light
and darkness, life and death, we might carry the contrast
beyond these, fit comparisons of the contrasts presented by
the almost daily intelligence ministered to us, and by the
leading articles which follow it ? And can anyone imagine
that it is TRUTH, and the whole truth in either case ?
When Piedmont has to be cried up, what are the topics?
We are told of its railroads, its one harbour, its cultivated
territory, its finely organized army, its popular king. And
all this is attributed to its having a constitution, that is a
parliament. But we are never told of its heavy taxation,
of its ruined finances, of its discontented populations. By
the budget of 1855 its expenses exceeded its receipts by
12,501,708 francs, and the national funded debt amounted
to within a fraction of 616 millions of francs j to which
must now be added the English loan, and other expenses
of the war. The public is not informed that crime has _
increased and is increasing (while it is diminishing in other
states of Italy,) to such an extent, that the minister of
grace and justice has demanded for last year's balance-
sheet, an increase of more than 109,435 fr., on account of

%

180 Italy and the Papal States. \ Sept.

the increase of prisoners. Has the public been as well
informed on the subject of Sardinian prisons and dungeons,
as it has on that of the Neapolitan ones? Has it been
told that this model kingdom, with a population of five
millions, had last year in its prisons 40,500 delinquents, a
proportion far beyond that of the Roman States, and a
number greater than that of all committed for trial in
England and Wales, with a population of nearly
19,000,000 ? Has it been communicated to us, that pri-
soners are detained more than a year there, in prison,
awaiting trial, without bail, or mainprize, or habeas-corpus,
to relieve them? That this was the case with those whom,
in Rome or Naples, our public instructors would call
** political prisoners," but there '* rebels ;" those poor
peasants who were taken in a petty rising, in the vale of
Aosta, some of whom were acquitted after a year's hard
imprisonment, while no mercy was shown to the convicted?
But this severity, which would have been called tyranny
and cruelty in another less favourite state, was applauded
as a proof of the energy of that so-called constitutional
government.

Such facts as we have stated (suppressing much more
matter) would surely not have been omitted by the Neapo-
litan correspondent, had they occurred under his inspec-
tion. And our readers will agree, that they have their
weight in coming to a decision on the real state of the
country, in other words on the results of the experiment
which is being tried upon Italian soil. Is their suppres-
sion honest ? Is not suppression of truth sometimes a lie ?

But on the other hand, let any *' constant reader'*
endeavour to combine, before his mental eye, what he has
read within these late months, on Naples, in the bulk of
our papers, and out of its lines, make a picture of that
country. Why, all that we have ever before read, or may
possibly have seen, of its reputed beauties, the truly celes-
tial hue of its sky reposing itself on the water below no less
serene and uurippled as itself; the bay studded with
islands of the most delicate tints, like rough gems rising
out of a burnished shield : the amphitheatre of hills built
up round it by a better architect than man, partly clad
with all that nature gives of lavish luxnriancy, partly
clothed with castles, churches and palaces ; all this, and a
thousand- fold more, seems to disappear from our eyes, and
the Naples of the newspapers rises before us, a den of misery.

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 18t

oppression and ruin. A haggard and care-worn set of
spectral nobles parade indeed its unswept streets, while a
mass of sickly and hunger-stricken paupers dance franti-
cally to the sound of their own clattering jaws, in the glare of
a plague-shooting sun. No improvements of course; no new
buildings ; no railroad ; no harbours ; no highways, made
or making. Everything must be tumbling to pieces, every
industry is paralyzed. Vesuvius alone won't be put down
by the police, or its regulations (if it make any) against
smoking, or even incendiary proceedings. If you go to
call on a friend, the chances are, that you are coolly told
he has changed lodgings for some ergastolo or other, where
you must ask for him as No. 173,000, or so ; and when
you return home rather sad, you are not surprised to find
a policeman, with a bunch of picklocks there, who, with a
melancholy smile, is looking over your weekly bills. Of
course you know it is his hebdomadal visit domiciliary
which he is making. And, equally of course, you know
you have been dogged everywhere in your walk by a phan-
tom spy, who always walked under the shadow of the
houses ; everybody is ; and no doubt that spy is followed
by one on himself; and this class again have lesser spies
that sight 'em ; and so, like the succession of fleas, on ad
infinitum. All Naples is inhabited by only two classes,
the spied and the spies, that is Englishmen and natives.
The king is depicted as a compotmd of what can only be
described by two French words, the favoitche and the bete,
who dares not appear in his own capital, but skulks at
Caserta, or Fortici, (much as our own royal family may be
said to do at Balmoral or Osborne) for fear of assassina-
tion, and who totally neglects all public business, and does
nothing for his kingdom or people. And this kingdom of
course is fast falling into barbarism ; no doubt its vine-
yards are rapidly turning into sylvan wildernesses, and its
cities dropping into rotting ruins. And to crown, and
account for, all this misery, an army of foreign mercena-
ries, Swiss indeed and not Anstrians, oppress and overawe
the people pining after universal suffrage, and representa-
tive institutions.

Such is the picture of Naples, as sketched for us by the
foreign correspondent's pen, and coloured freely by the
editor's brush. We are' sure that any newspaper reader,
who believes what he reads, will come, or has come, by
dint of having the same story dinned weekly into his ears.

182 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept

to the conception of some such an idea as this, of the
present condition of this once flourishing kingdom.

But upon reflection, does not this overcharged picture
not only lose its black tints, but reduce its monstrous oat-
lines to much the ordinary proportions of good and evil?
If Naples were really what newspapers make it, is it credi-
ble that England and France should have thought it im-
portant to court its alliance, at the beginning of the war,
and invite it, no less than Piedmont, to join its troops to
theirs? How differently was Naples spoken of then I
How its importance was even exaggerated ! How we were
told that its position on the map, and in the scale of
European nations did not permit the allies to overlook its
partizanship, though passive, or even its neutrality ! Was
not the refusal of Naples to become our ally, the very
head and front of its offending ? Had not, at least, the
deeper enmity, since entertained and expressed towards it,
its root in its denial of concurrence? Naples has an
effective peace army of 56,375 men, augmentable at once
to a war footing of 103,264 ; without counting invalids and
veterans; and a fleet composed of 2 ships of the line
(eighty-fours) ; 5 frigates of 50, one of 48, and one of 46
cannons; 2 corvettes of 22 and 14; 2 brigs; 1 cutter;
besides a steam fleet of 12 frigates (10 of 300, one of 400,
and one of 450 horse-power) and 14 smaller vessels, in all
thirty-eight sail, with even larger steam 'vessels now
upon the stocks.'' Now suppose that Naples had put
at the disposal of the allies 20,000 men, and a fair propor-
tion of this navy, would it have encountered the obloquy
and abuse, since heaped upon it ? We certainly think not.
The papers vituperated Austria, and nicknamed the king
of Prussia for the same reason. Only Austria became
useful to us, and they suspended their unseemly declama-
tions ; and Prussia is a Protestant country, and a royal
branch of our kingdom is to be shortly engrafted on its
regal stem. And no one has ever found our daily press
hard upon a protestant state, whatever may be its viola-
tion of constitutions, or its religious persecutions. But we

• The Piedmontese army consists of 47,524 troops. Its navy has
in it eight frigates, (four being steamers) and no larger ships ; but
a large fleet of smaller vessels, making in aU 40 sail.

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 183

repeat, that if Naples had thrown itself into the war, and
had plunged itself into a new debt to please us, there
never would have been a talk of ships in its bay and of
the bombardment of Capodimonte.

However, let us look a little closer at the view of
Naples, presented to us by our impartial correspondents.
The moment Piedmont began railroads, this was pointed
out triumphantly as a mark of progress, due to free insti-
tutions. Yet Tuscany preceded it ; and Naples too,
beginning near the capital, but gradually extending its
lines, so that internal and external communication, by
this means of transport will, before long, be complete. The
present king has established works which would have been
admired in any other country. He has made his array
independent of foreign manufactures, by the construction
of an arsenal, where everything requisite for war is manu-
factured, from the percussion cap, to the mortar or gun of
largest calibre. From the windows of his palace the king
can overlook the whole establishment ; while a private way
enables him to visit it, as he frequently does, without pre-
vious notice. We doubt if there be any government works
superior to these in any other part of Europe ; it is like
a small city, for above five thousand persons live within
its walls.

\> This is entirely the king's creation ; but he has done as
much for the navy. At Pietrarsa, on the coast going to
Portici, he ten years ago laid the first stone of a naval
arsenal, or dock -yard, on a scale of similar comprehensive-
ness. Every piece of metal-work required in ship-building
is there manufactured, from the copper bolt, to the steam
engine of 300 horse-power. It is the king's own eye that
watches over every improvement in these works, which
are not behind-hand in any modern appliances of science."'^'

But while treating of improvements, which of course are
things unheard of when Naples is described, we cannot re-
sist calling our readers' attention to a little paragraph which
probably slipped through the notice of most of them. Of
course it did not appear in the letters of the correspondent
there, but found its way unobserved, probably, into the
Times of Sept. 1.

Gondon, p. 168.

184 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

" Pai'is, Saturday, Aug. 30, 6 p.m.

"Accounts from Biarritz," says the Moniteur, "state that sea^
bathing has been of great service to the Empress, and that the
climate is most favourable to the health of the Imperial Prince.
The Emperor takes the most lively interest in the improvement ot
the port of Bayonne, on which subject the Chamber of Commerce
of the town has presented a very important report to His Majesty.
The Emperor, after a long conversation with the engineer of the
port, gave orders for the immediate adoption of means for removing
the bar, by adopting the system invented by some Italian engineers,
and which has been attended with the best results under similar
circumstances at the mouth of the Reggui-Lagui, near Naples."

The river alluded to is no doubt the Lagni, north of
Naples. But what astonishes us is, that, if tlie Emperor,
who is so clever and well-informed an engineer, had to
look beyond his own territories for the best means to
remove a bar, or clear out a harbour, he did not turn to
England the perfect, rather than to Naples, the most
behindhand of countries. Yet so it is. He did not give
orders to follow the dredging system of the Thames, or of
Portsmouth, but to copy the methods successfully practised
at Naples. We wonder it the correspondent of that city
has ever alluded to so important a work. If not, he would
be enlightening the public more usefully, by giving us the
particular system so successfully pursued, in ^ matter most
interesting to a maritime and insular nation, than by
eternally describing the festivals and the dungeons of that
country.

We believe that we may fairly say, that a comparison,
between the financial condition of Sardinia and Naples
would be entirely in favour of the latter. While the first
has a, funded debt, including the late loan of two millions,
of 24,000,000 sterling with a population under five mil-
lions, Naples, with a population of above nine millions, has
a debt scarcely if at all greater. Indeed a comparison of
the debts in different countries would show, that scarcely
one can compare with this much abused kingdom. In
Belgium the population, and the debt are nearly the same
as in Sardinia. Portugal, a constitutional state, a favourite
ever of England, lately for obvious reasons still more so,
after having brought into the treasury the confiscated
wealth of its Church, finds itself with a population of six
millions and a debt of .£20,000,000, with a yearly deficit of
Berious magnitude. Denmark, Saxony, Wurtemburg, or

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 185

other smaller states, accounted prosperous, will not'gain
by a financial comparison. And two things must be kept
in mind : first, that Naples has not impounded in the royal
treasury the endowments of" colleges, hospitals, religious
and knightly orders, bishoprics, and parishes, as Sardinia
has done (hiding for a time a gulf of debt) ; and secondly,
that it has had to recover from the heavy expense of revo-
lutionary contest, especially in Sicily, where the treasury
was soon emptied, and its contents were applied to hostile
purposes, by the rulers of the hour.

Still, among the many heads of accusations sent over
weekly by the favoured writer, who can penetrate behind
the curtains of the royal councils, but never seems to
notice what goes on in the street, we read no mention of
bread riots as at Lisbon, or of starvation as in London ;
nor even do the accounts speak of grinding taxation, of
murmurs by the people against the burthens laid on them.
On the contrary, we believe that there is fully as much
hien-etre, competency and comfort, diffused through the
population of that maligned kingdom, as in any other
country of Europe, Belgium not excepted.

But we must be permitted to say a few words on the
personal character of its monarch. No catholic, whatever
his political opinion or bias may be, can have failed to
admire, without drawback, his conduct towards the present
Pontifi^, when he sought refuge at Gaeta. In generosity,
m royal magnificence, without extravagance or display, as
to a distressed sovereign ; in filial duty, deference, and
reverence as to the Head of the Church ; more still in the
most difficult point of all, in delicacy of behaviour, such as
quenched every feeling of subjection, yet cherished the
happy relations of host and guest, it would be impossible
to find a flaw in the conduct and manner of this calumni-
ated Prince. We, at least, are bound to feel grateful to
him for his behaviour then. But surely further, we are
bound not to believe him to be the sort of monster that he
is represented to us. A religious, sincerely believing
christian must not be so lightly condemned. Again, look
at what is said. If Ferdinand of Naples had been a
debauchee, a man of scandalous life, a libertine in his own
palace and family, if a single imputation of immorality
could have been fastened on his character, or even insinu-
ated against him, does any one imagine that he would not
have been long since held up to the execration of this most

186 Italy and the Papal States. f Sept*

moral nation, as it is styled? Of course, we know, that a
monarch at the head of a favourite government may be
all that we have declared the king of Naples not to be,
and never have this public wrath drawn upon him. This
is in the system. But look at Spain. For some time
before the overthrow of the moderate party, the way was
prepared for it, by a series of correspondent's letters, and
their superstructure of leaders, declaiming against the
immoraHties of the court, as public scandals, which must
be removed, and attacking the personal conduct of the
sovereign in a way which, even if true, would not have been
decent. Things were so put and urged, as to insinuate
the necessity of a downfall of throne and dynasty, nor was
it obscure, towards which side of Spain English politicians
turned their finger, to point out a substitute. But, from
the moment that Espartero was once in power, the Con-
cordat repudiated, the sale of the church lands reopened,
religious expelled, and relations with Rome suspended, we
have heard not one word more about the Queen's or the
court's morality. The former might be a Herodias, and
the latter a Babylon, for anything that liberal journalists
cared, so long as their own views prevailed.

In truth, there is only one crime or vice which is never
forgiven, and that is what they call fanaticism, bigotry, and
superstition. And when we see this charge so liberally
made against the King of Naples, we have trie consolation
of knowing what it means, and that his moral character is
unassailable. In fact, we have little doubt, that if our
readers have had to frame their ideas of him from the let-
ters in the papers, they must have come to the conclusion,
that he can hardly venture into the presence of his sub-
jects for fear of assassination, but lives mostly at Caserta,
as Tiberius did at Capri, in complete seclusion. We hear
of him attending public aud popular feasts, such as that of
Pie di grotta, which of course proves his fanaticism. Yet,
we doubt if any sovereign in Europe, except perhaps the
Pope, exposes his life more openly and more continuously
than he. Every Tuesday he gives audience to every mili-
tary man that comes for it, from the general to the private,
without exception. No permission, or previous announce-
ment is requisite. A secretary or aide-de-camp enquires
from each the object of his coming, and each enters in his
turn, unless the number of applicants exceeds the measure
of the time, when the more urgent are admitted, and the
rest desired to return the following Tuesday, Every

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 187

Friday the railway to Caserta takes a multitude of people,
of all rauks, if the king be there ; otherwise he gives audi-
ence in his palace. The poorest man or aged woman is
permitted to approach the king, and speak with him face to
face. Often on each of these days. King Ferdinand sees
from fifty to two hundred persons, not passing before him
in embroidered coats and fictitious pigtails, to kiss his
hand, but in a homely garb, earnestly laying before him
their grievances, or pleading their necessities. This is, of
course, very unconstitutional, and a great bore for a sove-
reign. A written memorial which will receive the stereo-
typed answer signed by a young Seymour, Dimdas, or
Hobhouse, to the eftect that the Secretary of State has
laid it before his Majesty, and has received no instructions
thereon, is a less troublesome way of getting rid of applica-
tions. But it must be allowed, that one's old notions of
kingly dignity, as only more highly-burnished kindness,
and our ancient ideas about St. Lewis and St. Edward,
and good Alfred, are more allied to this form of crown
prerogative, and make it look more like the paternal type
of royal majesty, than state balls, and drawing-rooms. At
least it disproves the constant insinuation that he who acts
on the system is afraid of his subjects* revengeful ire.
There is another fact, which probably was mentioned,
though not in a way to counteract opposite habitual
impressions, that ought not to be omitted. When Vesu-
vius committed terrible ravages, on its last eruption, Fer-
dinand did not merely head a subscription for the relief of
his suffering subjects. He drove his own carriage to the
spot, through dense crowds of the terrified inhabitants, who
poured benedictions on his head, distributing abundant
succour, providing for their wants, and superintending
operations necessary to check the destructive element. If
it was great, and deserved glory for the Emperor of France
to have acted similarly at the late inundations, it surely is
not less to the King of Naples to have anticipated this
conduct. " We have passed through fire and water,"
they may say together ; but certainly one" of the two
elements presents more terrors than the other; and he who
encountered it has at least his right to a fair share of the
common praise. ^^

• Many persons, no doubt, believe that the king relies for his
defence mainlj on his foreign troops. It is therefore well to state
that of his army of 56,000 troops, only 10,000 are Swiss,

188 Italy and the Papal States. j Sept.

' But enough of this. The manner in which this king
has been treated by the so-called liberal, but in truth the
most illiberal, press of protestant England, is not merely
unseemly and ungenerous, but to the last degree, mean and
unmanly. Never has the idea of enquiry and verification
entered into a single mind belonging to the party ; and we
are not surprised, if the Government of Naples, irritated
and ulcerated by the wanton and often ruffianly attacks of
the press, kept its conduct and deserts more in view, than
the calm usages of cool-blooded diplomacy, in its answer
to the remonstrating Powers ; whose opinions, it judged,
not without reason, had been exaggerated, and warped, by
the persevering intensity of newspaper assaults. It repelled
with more warmth perhaps than the guarded formularies of
international correspondence permit, the claim to interfere
in the internal concerns of an independent state ; and it
fell into the still more pernicious error, of indulging in the
forbidden luxury of a retort. It adopted what in the
rhetoric of newspapers is contemptuously denominated a
Tu qaoque line of remonstrance. The classical origin of
the phrase does not certainly make it applicable to the
actual case ; and so likewise it has been named " the
retort discourteous,'* and from its effects it might be not
unaptly named, *' the retort disconcerting." The first sen-
sation in the columns of the Times seemed to resemble
very much that which agitated those of The temple of
Dagon in Gaza, when a certain blind corn-grinder, whom all
had been scoffing, gave them a shake. It certainly threw
the gentlemen who there preside over the destinies of
Europe, quite off their balance. The whole establishment
seemed to stagger with the unexpected revolt. The worm
of Naples presuming to rise against the foot that had con-
descended to tread on it ! The first explosion of wrath and
amazement was grand ; grand as anything which Dennis of
Dunciad celebrity ever wrote, — " thunder from a mustard-
bowl.*' It simply expressed amazement, that the king of
the Two Sicilies should presume to insult those, who can
at once annihilate him by a fleet of steamers. It was the
old story of the folly of quarrelling with the master of a
hundred legions. Facts, reasoning, all was overlooked, in
the dismay at such huge provocation. Whether the
editorial department telegraphed to the fleet to be ready to
get under way, we have not learnt ; but surely one must
not be surprised, if the Neapolitan coinage in future bear

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 189

the leprend of " Ferdiricand IT. by tbe grace of God, and
the sufferance of the Times, king of the Two Sicihes."

Let ns, however, be just and equal-handed ; and praise
as well as censure. One paper, at least, despised perhaps
by those who do not love cheap and good popular instruc-
tion, but likely to work its way into a high position, a
paper too, which had been no friend to Naples, or its
politics, took a more good-natured, or even generous view
of the king*s reply. We allude to the Morning Star, one
of the most successful penny papers ; [and we give its
article at full length, for it deserves it.

" The explosion of wrath with which the retort of the King of
Naples has been received by our press is extremely amazing.''
(amusing ?) " For years past we have been holding this man up to
the general execration of mankind, branding him with every epithet
of infamy and scorn which our vocabulary could supply, stigmatis-
ing his government as a curse and scandal to humanity, and devot-
ing him and his generally to the infernal gods, with wonderful energy
and unctian. And now, when we approach him in the attitude of
stern dictation, and demand of him that he should alter l)is whole
policy, and regulate the affairs of his kingdom according to our will,
we are bejond measure surprised and scandalized that he does not
meekly bow his head and drink the cup of humiliation we have
presented to his lips, with an effusion of heartfelt gratitude to us
for our interference. We do not say that King Ferdinand may not
have deserved all the abuse we have lavished upon him. Nothing
could well be worse than the system of rule he has adopted. But
the ludicrous thing is, that after such treatment we should have
expected him to regard us as friendly counsellors, or be astonished
that he should have spurned even good advice from those who
had so long overwhelmed him with every species of indignity and
insult.

"^But the fact is that this poor king had evidently mistaken his
own position altogether. He imagined, as he says, that he was the
monarch of an independent state. This, however, he is now told
very explicitly, by our journals, was a complete error. He was, in
fact, only a kind of proconsul or viceroy raised to power by the
British nation, and destined to occupy that post during good
behaviour. He has not governed to our mind. By the recent
remonstrance we are told ' we gave him another chance,' which he
has thrown away. There is nothing for it, therefore, but that he
should be recalled or deposed by the will of the English people, atid
his kingdom given to another.

" Now we would venture with the utmost diffidence to submit to
the great authorities who advocate this theory, an idea that has
often of late occurred to us. It is this — would it not be bettei: at

1 90 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

once to place all Europe under a British commission who shall take
charge generally of all its civil and political administrations? We
have so admirably managed our own affairs for the last twenty or
thirty years, in every part of the world, that nothing, surely, but
judicial infatuation could prompt the nations to decline such a pro-
tectorate as we have suggested. Does any one doubt this assertion,
as to the perfect success with which we have fulfilled our own func-
tions of government in every quarter of the globe ? Let him cast
his eye back to the pages of history, and see how peacefully,
humanely, and successfully we have dealt with our vast and various
dependencies. In Ireland have we not had secret societies, coer-
cion bills, Rathcormac massacres, desolating famines, and popular
insurrections, succeeding one another without intermission until
within the last five or six years ? In almost all our colonies we
have had, during the same pei'iod, chronic disaffection, and in many
of them — witness Canada, Jamaica, the Ionian Isles and Ceylon —
open rebellions, which have been ruthlessly and bloodily suppressed.
In India we have been engaged externally in a series of wars of
aggression and conquest which have never ceased for two consecu-
tive years, and internally in extorting by the most revolting
tortures an exorbitant revenue from the impoverished inhabitants.
In our relations with other nations we have distinguished our-
selves by our Chinese aud Affghan and Kafl&r and Burmese wars,
and by quarrels which have brought us again and again to the
very verge of war with nearly all the leading nations of Chris-
tendom,

'* After this, who will doubt our competence to undertake the
general superintendence of Europe ? And doe9*not Europe im-
peratively need it ? Cast your eye abroad for a moment. Is
France in such a condition as is satisfactory ? Ought we not to
address an instant reclamation to its ruler for the revival of con-
stitutional government, the recall of its exiled citizens, and the
establishment of the freedom of the press, to be carried into effect
under our sanction and supervision ? As for Austria, who can
doubt that a Times commissioner at Vienna, to overlook the affairs
of the empire, would be an immense improvement on the pre-
sent condition of things ? Prussia obstinately refused to fight
with us during the late war, and is generally far from what she
should be, and would profit immensely by British surveillance.
Would it not be well to instruct Lokd Ghanville to propose to
the young Emperor of Russia that he ^should submit all his
reputed schemes of reform and progress to the judgment of a
Mentor to be appointed by this country — say, Mr, Ukquiiaht ? As
for Spain and Portugal, it is only necessary that we should resume
the patronage we liave so long exercised, and which was never so
much needed as now.

" We submit that this scheme is conceived most accurately in
that spirit of comprehensive philanthrophy which our journalists

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 191

so constantly enforce. In due time it may be extended to other
parts of the world beside Europe. That tlie United States need
British counsel and intervention who can doubt ? So assuredly
does China, and Persia, and Japan, and, in short, who does
not ?"

^ There is so much well "put in this article, that we need
not repeat it, nor even comment on it. But something
may be added to it. Is it not a matter of fact, that under
the constitutional government of this country, at the very
time that it is not merely expostulating with, but menacing,
Naples, there are constantly being discovered, evils of the
same character as those which are made subjects of re-
proach, aud of remonsU'ance, with that kingdoni ?

First, as to rebellions ; have we been as lenient as the
king of Naples in dealing with them? Were we so in the
Ionian islands, at the last revolution ? Did we not execute
summarily more men than have suffered on the scaffold in
that kingdom ? And yet there was not a remonstrance ;
on the contrary the commissioner was promoted in rank
after his severity. In Ceylon it has been the same. But
surely England was not lenient towards the deluded
Chartists, or the unfortunate partisans of Smith O'Brien.
Transportation is well known to be one of the most dread-
ful of punishments, as complete a leveller of the educated
man, the cultivated mind and the committer of mere poli-
tical offence, (so light when committed against a foreign
monarch I) to the degrading level of the respited murderer,
or the ferocious burglar, as the cells of Procida, or the
Vicaria. It is not many years since the case of Barber
excited great feeling. We have not the statement then
put forth at command, but we should be glad if any of our
readers who have, would refer back to it. We think they
would find he was treated no better than Poerio, the hero
of Neapolitan sympathizers. He was associated with the
vilest malefactors ; chained to them, if we remember right,
made to work in a common gang, at tasks to which he was
unaccustomed, many miles beyond the frontiers of civili-
zation, and without a single comfort. But what was worse
when at last royal grace was extended to him, he was
stripped of his convict attire, and no other clothing pro-
vided for him, and he was simply dismissed to find his way
as he could, without money, guide, or knowledge of the
country, across a territory of many miles, exposed to the

192 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

danf^er of death from starvation, savages, fatigue, or per-
haps wild animals. Do our readers remember the case of
the Dorsetshire labourers, and their treatment ? Now it
may be very uncourteous in a king called to account for
being severe upon political delinquents, to remind his
reprovers that he is not going beyond their examples ; but
to those who have taken on themselves the unofficial duties
of public instructors, and who seldom lecture a foreign,
state without inviting it to look at our conduct, and copy
our bright example at home, it must be considered a very
just rebuke.

But further, we cannot complain, if our neighbours when
goaded to retort, should not let us exactly select our terms
of comparison. We are proud of our treatment of prison-
ers. We point with pride at the massive and grim edifices,
constructed on geometrical lines, and capped by one soli-
tary chimney, which grace every county town, as monu-
ments of our solicitude for culprits, and even convicted
felons. We tell the foreign visitor how many tens of thou-
sands, each has cost the rate-payers; we show exultingly the
ingenioiis arrangements for draining, warming, ventilating,
bathing, and securing the health of our criminals. We
invite tliem to feel the beds, how fresh and elastic, to taste
the diet, so abundant and so nom'ishing, the bread so
white, the meat so ruddy ! No foreign prison system on
this side of the Atlantic, certainly, is conij^rable to ours;
it is our pet charity. And hence, no doubt, if an English-
man condescends to visit a foreign prison, he passes along
with a look of disdain, his head is thrown back, as^ if it
were bnoyed up by a tide of nu savoury odours, (very pos-
sibly it is so), all looks mean and old, and not at all com-
fortable, which is his first requirement in a prison ; and he
wonders that the government does not throw down a solid
building, which cost the last generation half a million, and
build up a better, on the model of Pentonville. We repeat,
that we are justly proud of our prisons, and foreigners
admit it.

But they have their side of the medal too. We fear-
lessly invite them to visit our jails; we do not so eagerly
press them to inspect our workhouses. They court our
enquiry, on the contrary, into their treatment of the poor.
They are of opinion (no doubt poor Christians ! they ai'e
mistaken) that between the treatment of culprits and of
the poor, any difference should b& in. favour of the latter.

1856."] Italy and the Papal States. 193

Upon this principle they act ; and if a Neapolitan might
not ask an Englishman to come and admire his prisons,
he would not be ashamed, or afraid, to invite him to come
and be edified by his ^ Ibergo dei Poveri. We have on
three difierent occasions, in this Review, given an account
of Italian charitable institutions :'^ and it is not necessary
for us to do more than refer our readers back to these
articles. We will only dwell for a few moments on what
was said about Naples. The visitor to that city will not
fail to observe a building, like the abode more of royalty
than of poverty, presenting a grand front of 1250 feet long,
and 140 high, built after the designs of the eminent archi-
tect Oav. Fuga. Had it been completed, it would have
been one of the grandest edifices of Europe. That it was
not, we may thank the revolution and not the monarchy.
The works were arrested by the great French convulsion,
which led to the subversion of the royal houses of Italy.
It has, l*^owe^'^r, a noble counterpart in the similar institu-
tion at Genoa, which fortunately was commenced much
earlier, and so completed. In this Neapolitan poor-house,
for so we must call it, are, or were a few years ago, poor of
all ages, and both sexes, carefully separated. The male
inmates are, 2220. The old, to the number of 800, pass
their time in the quiet practice of their trade> or in duties
about the house. The young from seven years upwards,
are trained and exercised in every occupation from the
most mechanical to the most liberal, from the weaver*s or
carpenter's handicraft, to the artistic employments of
modelling, engraving, and painting : not to omit music,
vocal and instrumental. There too is a school for deaf
and dumb ; and in a separate, but independent establish-
ment, another for the blind, containing two hundred pupils.
In this noble house, the most strict attention is paid to the
morals and rehgious state of the inmates. The least child
has a separate bed, the airy dormitories are under
watchful inspection all night, prayers are regularly attended
by all. Mass of course in the morning. There are four
resident chaplains, and twenty-four confessors who come
twice a week. The food too is excellent and abundant.

* "Charitable institutions of Rome,'* vol. vi. Jan. 1839, p. 111.
" Charitable Institutions of Genoa," vol. xiv., Feb, 1843, p. 97.
•' Charitable institutions of Naples,'' vol. xv., Aug. 184:3, p. 29.

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXI. 13

194 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

In addition, there is tlie hospice for old people, at San
Gennaro, containing about 1,600, half men, half women.
But for merely a cursory enumeration of some of the many
magnificent charities which hoifbur Naples, we must
again refer our kind readers to the article ah'eady cited.

What we wish principally to press on his attention is
this. The felon is the predilect object of public charity in
England ; the poor, abroad. An aged man or woman
does not feel degraded, when pacing the ample cloisters
and halls, or walking in the orange-planted courts of San
Michale at Rome, nor do its boys consider themselves
outcasts, when every year, though clothed in homely
sacking, they exhibit their architectural drawings, their
carpets, and their cloths, to cardinals, princes, and even
the Pontiff himself, at their annual visit, or display their
musical powers at Carnival before an audience of polished
taste. Nor do the inhabitants of the Alberto of Naples or
of Genoa reckon it to be a reproach, that stricken by one
hand of Providence with want, they have found the other
held out in the charity of their fellow-christians. They
are cheerful, they are thankful, they are contented.
Every one speaks kindly to them, harshness, still less cru-
elty, is unknown to them.

Coming nearer home, we would recommend our readers
to procure and peruse tlie excellent wor^lately published
under the name of ** Flemish Interiors ;" and they will
learn how boundless, how tender, and how truly catholic,
is the attention to every form of misery in Belgium. How
is it, that in England, an honest man or respectable
woman shrinks from the threshold of the "Union," as
from degradation and pollution, and will often face starva-
tion sooner than its hated charity ? How has it become
almost a proverb, that in England, " poverty is a crime?'*
Is it not because an instinctive feeling, confirmed by ex-
perience, makes the poor know it? In the framing of our
whole code for the poor, the primary object has ever been,
to make public relief as repulsive as possible, to make
application for it the last of extremities. The rule given
for the forming of its dietary was that it should be barely
sufficient for existence, the most painful separations of
families are strictly exacted, even the comforts of religion
are grudgingly permitted. It is in this system that
foreigners study our weakness, as we do theirs in their
prisons ; and we may boldly ask, who is right ?

1856. J Italy and the Papal States. 196

We speak to them reproachfully of prisoners crowded
miwholesomely, badly fed, and treated scornfully. What
is this more than comes out repeatedly, about our Unions?
It is but a few months, since Sir B. Brodie gave a report
on the treatment and condition of the poor in St. Pan-
cras's Workliousai standing in the midst of wealthy and
enlightened London. It is too fresh in public memory to
require detailed repetition. But we there read, with hor-
ror, of the victims, not of crime, or of vice, but of poverty,
herded together in cellars, low, damp and unwholesome;
some sleeping on benches, some on the ground, some
heaped upon one another, on wretched couches, in such a
state as no prisoners in an Italian dungeon would be
allowed to remain. The very room in which paupers had
to wait for the pittance doled out to them, was so low^
so ill-ventilated, that wonder was expressed, that some ac-
cident had not occurred, or some epidemic had not broken
out. And there seemed to be even an aggravation of
wanton cruelty in the manner, in which the poor creatures
were made to wait for hours on hours, and even a con-
siderable portion of the day. Within these few days, an
enquiry has been conducted in Mary-le-bone Workhouse,
in which the free application of the stick to female pau-
pers was clearly established, without sentence of court, or
any jurisdiction. The facts are indisputable : yet the
parochial authorities have virtually acquitted the accused,
on account of the insubordination, and profligacy of the
ill-treated. We do not murmur at this decision, which
probably is very just; but why make that a crime un-
pardonable in foreign prisons, which you admit may be
necessary at home, in poor-houses? Have not foreigners
some ground to boast, that their poor are not so gross, so
violent, so undisciplined, as to require prison treatment,
and to retort upon us our treatment of those who have no
other imputation against them than that of poverty, when
we taunt them with want of tenderness to criminals ? Does
the reader remember the horrible account published very-
few years back, of paupers being found gnawing the halt-
putrid remains of tendon or sinew, on the bones cast into
their yard for crushing ? Has that ever occurred in any
establishment of "charity" on the continent? And in-
deed, the very nick-name, which our national institution
has received, that of Bastile, is enough to prove how allied

196 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

in public thought, are the abodes of crime and of desti-
tution.

Similar to the receptacles of bodily misery, are those
destined to receive the sufferers from mental affliction.
Here indeed we have done much ; but not so much as to
entitle us to boast. Side by side with^our noble prisons
stand our no less magnificent Asylums. Each county, and
almost each borough has furnished itself with an edifice of
princely dimensions, and most scientific arrangement, fcjr
the cure or alleviation of every form of insanity. All this
is admirable. But let us not forget, that before we had
made any great strides in the right direction, in this
science, the asylums at Aversa near Naples, and at
Palermo, could have taught us everything which modern
treatment now practices. Hand-cufts, strait-waistcoats,
and all such implements of bodily, and mental, torture,
had been banished in these beautiful institutions, while we
were investigating the condition of private mad-houses,
and the parochial treatment of lunatics in private custody.
Nay we are not right as yet. The "Report of the Com-
missioners in Lunacy'* on Bethlehem Hospital, ordered
to be printed by the House of Commons in Dec. 1852 dis-
closes an appalling absence of proper control, and the
exercise of wanton and coarse ill-treatment.

But even coming to prisons themselv^, 'we cannot be
surprised that our own short-comings in this favourite
branch of our charity, should be now closely numbered,
and somewhat unkindly recounted. The investigation
into Birmingham gaol not many years back revealed a
treatment of prisoners, not to be surpassed anywhere
abroad. A leathern collar, a strait-waistcoat, and buckets
of water on a wintry day, in an icy cell, were simultaneous
applications, under the eyes of visiting justices. Suicide,
if not manslaughter, was the result. Nor should we for-
get the terrible discovery made only a few months back,
on occasions of Sabbatarian commotion in the Parks, of
the dangerous condition of the cells attached to one of the
principal police-courts of the metropolis, dangerous to
life, and infecting the constitutions of those who, yet
unconvicted, or rather uncommitted, were confined in them
for the night. This state of things had been under tlie
eyes of inspectors, detectives, sergeants, policemen, nay
of magistrates and high police authorities, for no one
li^ows how long, without any remedy being applied.

1856.] Italy and tlie Papal States. 197

Before closing this subject of the Tu quoque aflFront,
let us suggest that the Report on the use of torture in
India, has been no secret on the Continent. It has been
well read ; and the connivance of our rulers, in that vast
peninsula, at a cruel system of illegal torture, cannot
increase in the minds of foreigners their estimate of
our rights to exact tenderness, and clemency towards
others.

There is, however, a higher view of this whole subject,
than that which a provoked and irritated. State may enter-
tain. It is that which high-minded friends of England,
standing aloof from party questions here, may take of it.
Surely, if any man of great acquirements and unimpeached
morality can be called an admirer of England and its con-
stitution, it is the Count de Montalembert. To our mind
his admiration of some points is greatly exaggerated. But
so much the more impartial witness is he here. The drift
of perhaps the most home-thrusting passages, in his pam-
phlet, indeed the very pith of the whole seems to lie in this
thought. It has always been the policy of truly great
nations to protect the weak, and awe the strong,

"^Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."

to keep the just balance of power even, by a readiness to
succour the oppressed, and to check the mighty oppressor.
But the policy of Lord Palmerston, and that, of course, of
all who admire it, is exactly the contrary, and therefore
the very opposite to the great, the generous, and the mag-
nanimous. It is to insult, to bully, and to menace Powers
of infei'ior strength, that lie defenceless before our fleet ; to
allow full latitude to the strong to do as they please, to
fill up any amount of injustice or severity. The contrasts
which he makes are positively picturesq^ue. The high hand
with which the wretched Pacifico case was carried against
unresistmg Greece, and the silence about Poland in the
negotiations with Russia, form a rich pair of comparative
diplomatic pictures, and were well seized on by the uner-
ring sagacity of Lord Lyndhurst, to be exhibited in the
House of Lords. Prussia may violate its constitution, as
we before remarked, and public indignation does not rise
higher than the very low level of Punch's indignation ;
but the Pope, though foiled in his generous eflforts, by the
very men who were most benefited by them, is expected to
restore, what they overthrew, and is insulted at least

198 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

meekly, because, like most men, he will not, twice in his
life, fall into the same pit, dug for his feet. The most
wonderful contrast of all, however, has been our long and
patient bearing of anything from America, in. matters
which really did concern us, with our dictation and our
threats at Naples, in affairs which truly were none of
ours.

But since the Count wrote, there has been a more
precious specimen of the two-handed justice of our press,
and we may add of our government, (so busy in one
instance, so passive in the other) which, though fresh still
in everybody's memory, deserves to be recorded. On the
25tli of August last appeared in the T'imes a letter headed
** The French political prisoners at Cayenne.'* It was as
follows : —

*« To the Editor of the Times,

■ •* Sir, — In February, 1855, I received a letter that was signed as
follows: — ' Fassiliez, a political prisonei-, transported in June 1848,
and who has now been working for 14 months, like many others
among his fellow sufferers, under acliain of 401b. in weight, with a
cannon-ball at the end of it.'

" In that letter, dated ' St. Joseph, Island of Despair, September
1854,' the gratuitous and unheard-of acts of bajrbarity were stated
which are inflicted at Cayenne upon men belonging to all classes of
society — artists, tradesmen, workmen, barristers, physicians, far-
mers, journalists, scholars — these men having been violently driven
out of their country, not in consequence of any lawful judgment,
but by the mere impulse of political passions. I was requested to
lay before the civilized world the heart-rending details, which I did
as far as my power went.

" Since that period no change whatever appears to have taken
place in the situation of these unfortunate people, who are subject-
ed to forced labour {travaux forces) on a lonely rock, surrounded by
the sea, at a distance of about 6,000 miles from their native land.

" Six month ago a second letter was forwarded to me relating
what follows : —

" ' Every ship that comes from the pestilential shores of Cayenne
brings the death of a new victim. The latest victim is Peret, some
time major of Beziers, a most generous-hearted man, feeling acutely,
while he was rich, that many of his fellow-creatures were perishing
of hunger, and ready to spare neither his fortune nor his life to the
cause of humanity. Having been deported to Cayenne, without
trial, for resisting the coup d'etat of the 2nd of December, he
attempted, with six fellow-prisoners, to escape irom that living
tomb. They put to sea at u\g\xi in a boat. Two hours after they

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 199

■were driven on the rocks. Peret, entangled in his cloat, was
drowned. The six others survived. But what an existence ! For
two days thej lived on what shell-fish they could find on a desolate
rock in the midst of the ocean, that threatened every moment to
overwhelm them. At last one of them resolved to risk his life for
the rest. Seeing no succour come he threw himself into the sea,
and, after three hours' swimming, reached the land. Unhappily
the land was French Guiana. He could only save his life on con-
dition of surrendering himself a prisoner. His five companions
were rescued from the devouring sea only to be cast into another
dungeon — tomb for tomb.'
" Now, Sir, here is a third letter which has just reached me : —

" • To M. Louis Blanc those deported to Cayenne, with urgent
request to make public this appeal : —

" ' Those deported to French Guiana make an appeal to the
feelings of justice and humanity of all honest men, to whatever
party they may belong.

" ' At the very moment when so much is spoken in Prance of
clemency and generosity, while so many families are lulling them-
selves with the hope of clasping to their hearts the dear ones whose
absence they have so long lamented, the political victims in French
Guiana are treated in a manner worthy of the darkest ages of
barbarity.

*' ' It is certainly a painful task to unveil such an account of
iniquity ; but how is it possible to pass over in silence the unjust
and cruel behaviour of French officers towards their fellow-country-
men ? Let it be known, therefore, that we are unspeakably tortured
on the flimsiest pretences, while people, deceived by the solemn
declarations of the French Government, think perhaps that every
prison is open and that we are at liberty. Let it be known, for
instance, that out of five men lately arrested for some talk it had
been the fancy of an overseer to invent, two were tied to a stake
and dealt with as the most vile ci'iminals. On their being reluctant
to submit to an ignominious punishment soldiers were called for,
who, rushing upon the victims, bruised them with blows, tore off
their beards, and, reckless of shrieks with which wild beast would
have been moved, bound them with cords so fast as to make the
blood gush.

" • To relate all we suffer is more than we can possihly do. Our
cheeks kindle with shame, and our hearts are bleeding. Suffice it
to say that, while the French Government has its clemency cried
up everywhere, there are Frenchmen in Guiana who do gasp for
life. Nor are they allowed the sojourn of the Island of Despair,
horrible as it is ; barbarous administrators drag them violently on
the continent, to compel them to a labour of eight hours a-day in
the marshy forests, from which pestilential vapours are continually
rising.

200 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

"* We refused to submit to this outrage upon laws, to this muF'
derous attempt ; we claimed promised liberty. The answer is
' death !' — a magnanimous answer, after the birth of a prince I

" * Is there, indeed, for us any other prospect but imminent
death 1 With no proper food, no garments, no shoes, no wine since
February last, is there any chance that we should long be able to
bear both the influence of an exhausting toil and a deadly climate ?
Again, where is the law which assimilates political pioscripts to
galley slaves ? From beneath the brutal force that weighs upon us,
heaped up together, almost breathless, but strengthened by the
courage we draw from the sacredness of our cause and our hope iu
the triumph of justice, we protest against the violence which is
offered to us. May public opinion bo moved at our misfortunes,
and energetically rise against deeds so well calculated to bring to
shame a nation reputed the most enlighteued and civilized iu the
world.' "

Here follow ' tliirty-eiglit signatures, after which the
writer thus concludes : —

" * These are the lines, Sir, the insertion of which In your columns
I earnestly request, not as a Republican — not even as a Frenchman
— but as a man ; for this is not a question of political feeling, it is
one of simple justice and humanity. Let it be carefully remem-
bered that the tortured victims are men who have never been tried
by any lawful court, nor prosecuted by any form of law. It lies in
your power, Sir — as I said on a similar occasioi^— that the groan
they utter from the place where they are, so to speak, buried alive
should be heard in the world of the living. The French press is
gagged, and whoever has recently resided in France must of neces-
sity know — as stated in a letter addressed by Mr. Aytoun to the
most influential paper in this country — ' that when the press is
controlled by an arbitrary Government every species of injustice,
jobbing, and oppression may be perpetrated, uncommented upon,
and even unknown to the great majority of the population.' Such
being the case in France, the liberty of the English press remains
the only possible resort for the oppressed to have the justice of
their complaints at least examined, I apply, therefore, to the Eng-
lish press, and that all the more confidently since I read in T/ie
Times a few days ago : — ' The press is emphatically the representa-
tive of the people. If wisely directed it guards the interests of all
classes and conditions of society, and has a right in turn to the
sympathies and assistance of all.'

"'I remain. Sir, your most' obedient servant,

" ' Aug. 23. " ' Louis Blanc' "

Such is the first mise en scene of this new tragedy. We
certainly have no sympathy with M. Louis Blanc, nor

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 201

with his clients, except as poor deluded men, whose errors
we deplore, and whose eternal welfare we most earnestly
desire. And further, if .they are the victims of ag^rravated
severity, and unrighteous treatment, we sympathise with
them as sincerely and as heartily as any one does with
Neapolitan state prisoners. But we are not inclined to
believe, at first sight, such terrible recitals. This, however,
is not now our subject.

Two days passed over, spent no doubt in discussing and
deciding how so grave a matter was to be treated, how the
edge of such a cutting Tu guoque was to be turned. The
prima facie evidence was too strong to be altogether set
aside. Indeed there was evidence too definite for even the
Times to brush away. On the 28th, therefore, the follow-
ing appeared ; and we trust we shall be forgiven for repro-
ducing an article, which, as a specimen of good writing,
and of that polished tone which that paper can assume, is
worth perusing, even a second time.

*' It is continually asserted that the populations of Europe, under

their respective GovernmeutSj form a family of nations. Each

member of this community is supposed to feel an interest in the

happiness and prosperity of every other, and it follows that advice

may be legitimately tendered and opinions expressed, so long as

. intemperance and acrimony are avoided. The old law of nations,

made by monarchs for raonarchs, does indeed forbid tlie interference

of one State with the internal concerns of another. Yet even this

is found not to be always practicable in our own day ; the governed

are in so many ways at variance with their rulers, who so often are

blind to their own and their country's advantage, that no jurist toiU

question the right of Joreign Poicers sometimes to tender their advice or

their mediation, as, for instance, in the case of Florence or Naples, It

therefore becomes the special duty of leading States to set an

example of magnanimity and moderation in their internal policy.

When a despot like King Ferdinand has notliing to urge against

English rule except to repeat some exploded commonplaces about

the unhappy Irish and the downtrodden Hindoo, we feel how well,

how mildly, and yet successfully, the concerns of this vast empire,

with its various aud widely sundered races, must be administered.

If the splenetic Camarilla of Naples can bring nothing against U3

except this vague jargon of the continental press, we may certainly

accept it as an involuntary tribute to our people and institutions.

However, we are desirous of no superiority on this scoi'e. It is the wish of

every Englishman that other communities, whatever he their form of

government, should dwell under a merciful and temperate rule. Above

all, this country must regret any unnecessary severity in the admin-

202 Italy and the Papal States. f Sopt.

istration of a State which has been its ally in a groat war, and is
still united to us by common memories and aims. The repufation of
the French Government is to some extent a matter of importance to
Englishman, for, if the two countries are to act in concert, any
argument or taunt directed against the conduct of one must wound
the other. We cannot therefore refrain from calling attention to
the reports which occasionally reach Europe of the treatment of the
French political prisoners at Cayenne. Now, we do not wish to
endorse any particular statements that have appeared. There
may he falsehood ; there may he exaggeration ; it is only as a duty,
from which it would be cowardice to shrink, that we point out what
the world says, and what our own common sense must induce us to
believe true.

" Among the colonies which remain to France is a tract of that
uncultivated region of the South American coast known by the
name of Guiana. The climate and general character of this terri-
tory are well known. Situated almost under the Equator, the heat
would be intolerable even if it were an island or a lofty tableland.
But the physical nature of the country adds to the terrible effects
of the climate. Sluggish rivers roll down to the sea through dense
forests, and at their mouths heap up shoals of mud. The little
cultivation that takes place is on the banks of these streams, where
the wood has been cut down for a few miles on either side. Every-
where else is the pathless impenetrable jungle. Scorching suns,
thick matted vegetation, growing, withering, and rotting through
centuries, with a soil of alluvial mud beneath, make Guiana one of
the most fatal regions of the world for men o^ European birth.
Even the richness of the soil has hardly been able to tempt the
adventurous English and Dutch to settle numerously in Deraerara,
Essequibo, Berbice, and Surinam, names sufficiently notorious, and
which we generally associate with everything that is most ugly and
monstrous in the reptile and insect worlds. Indeed, this seething
soil is prolific of the most odious forms of life, and its snakes and
lizards, its toads and beetles, its swarms of flies and fleas, its mos-
chetos, of more than ordinary size and venom, are enough to deter
the most adventurous settler. Such is the region to which a vast
number of men of French birth and culture have been deported
within the last few years for political offences. It is indeed an
objection to the theory of unceasing pi'ogress that in the present
day an act should be possible from which the most absolute Bocrbon
of the 17th century would have shrunk. What is the condition of
these unhappy Frenchmen, transported for their political conduct,
some by the judgment of drum-head courts-martial, some without
any trial at all ? From the statements sent us by M. Louis Blanc,
and printed in our Monday's impression, we learn that in that
scorching climate and that fcBtid atmosphere men work laden with
a chain 401b. in weight, with a cannon-ball at the end of it.
Thirty-eight of the prisoners sign a letter detailing their sufferings.

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 203

Allowing for some exaggeration of expression, we cannot doubt the
hideous misery of their lot. • We are,' they say, ' unspeakably
tortured on the flimsiest pretences.' Men are * tied to a stake and
dealt with as the most vile criminals.' ' There are Frenchmen in
Guiana who do gasp for life; nor are they allowed the sojourn of
the Island of Despair, horrible as it is. Barbarous administrators
drag them violently on to the continent, and compel them to labour
eight hours a day in the marshy forests, from which pestilential
vapours are continuallj rising.' ' Is there,' continues the letter,
'any other prospect for us but imminent death? With no proper
food, no garments, no shoes, no wine since February last, is there
any chance that we should long be able to bear both the influence
of an exhausting toil and a deadly climate?* Such is the condi-
tion at this moment of a large number of Frenchmen ' belonging to
all classes of society — artists, tradesmen, workmen, barristers,
physicians, farmers, journalists, scholars.' It may be urged that
their statements are untrue ; hut in the main tliey cannot he untrue.
When we say Cayenne we say everything. Nearly two centuries since
it was looked upon as an odious feature in the tyranny of the
Stuarts that they transported white men to the West India Islands.
In the present day it would never enter the mind of any English
Minister to send the vilest felons to labour under the Equator.
We hold ourselves the largest part of Guiana, but who would propose
to convert such a region into a penal settlement ? We hesitate
even about the Gulf of Carpentaria through a feeling of humanity.
In fact, transportation to such a region includes sufiFerings to which
not even the most guilty should be subjected. It is a sentence of
death — death lingering and horrible — death to which a file of
musketeers or the guillotine would be mercy.

" It must also be remembered that these men are political pri-
soners. We do not, indeed, pretend that no political offence is deserv-
ing of severe punishment. Insun'eclion and civil war cause a hundred-
fold as much misery as an individual murder, and the man who plunges
a country into disorder to gratify his own ambition, may he justly treated
u/ith any rigour which the laws provide. But we must consider the
conditiou of France within the last few years. Tumults, revolu-
tions, coups d'etai, have inaugurated several successive Governments.
The young, the enthusiastic, the ill-taught have plunged into the
disorders of the time, and it is cruel to treat them with the rigour
due to conspirators who have plotted against and assailed a regular
Government. The men who are perishing at Cayenne are no
Catilines, for there was no settled and venerable constitution to
conspire against; they are merely those conquered in a political
strife in which they stood on a moral equality with their antag-
onists, and are guilty only because they are unsuccessful. A large
proportion of these men were transported, after a hurried trial or
no trial at all, on the occasion of the coup d'etat oi December, 1851.
In this matter it must be allowed that thej had the right on their

'204 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

side. It maj certainly be declared that the present ruler of France
was justified iu forcibly terminating the then existing order of
things, and it may be shown how prosperous and succossful France
has subsequently become. But those who resisted the coup d'etat
cannot be condemned on any such ground. They were in thsir
own right. They defended the Government which existed, and to
which the powers of the State had sworn allegiance. That it was
expedient to break this oath and change the constitution may be
true, but still this does not affect the legality of resisting such an
unauthorized measure. All jurists hold that the defence oi b, de
facto Government is no political crime, and yet these men, or the
few that are left of them, have expiated a few hours' resistance by
nearly five years of misery. On the whole, we cannot but hope
that something will be done to remove what we cannot but feel is a
scandal to Europe. It is not now only that attention has been
turned to what is passing in the swamps of South America, though
the importance of European events and the hope that some change
would take place have hitherto kept the English public silent.
But now, in the name of humanity, we are obliged to speak. We
trust that the government which has deserved so well of the world
will consider the fittest means of alleviating sufferings which are
plainly out of all proportion to the offences committed."

We have marked a few passages, which appear to us
particularly deserving of attention. How respectful, how
bland, how deferential is the whole tone of ^his elegant and
elaborate reprehension ! Nay so much so, that in order to
say something strong, the poor King of Naples is dragged
in, willy nilly, to receive a vicarial chastisement, on the old
royal principle of justice. " A despot like king Ferdi-
nand," and ** the splenetic Camarilla of Naples,*' who
have no more to do " dans cette galere" than Prester
John, or the man i'the moon, are pulled in by hook or by
crook, much on the same ground as a certain wolf, by a
river, alleged for tearing a lamb. Somebody must be
devoured, and if I daren't use my teeth on the right one,
why I must whet them on anybody. How cautious about
the facts — how guarded against exaggeration ; but ** the
world says" so and so. Then how for the first time it is
discovered that rebellion is indeed a grievous crime —
worse than murder, and worthy of the severest punish-
ment ; and if ever, then, by induction from the writer's
argument, most particularly when the rebellion is for the
overthrow of an established government. Now, why, in
the name of common justice, have not these modes of
extenuating, and palliating, been ever applied to Italy?

1856. 1 Italy and the Papal States. 205

Why is every atrocity believed as soon as stated ? Why
is every tale swallowed, if only it speaks for the immora^
lity and savageiiess of princes and kings ? Why are the
rebels of Italy, where rebellion has been ever allied with
assassination and murder, to be considered only as " poli-
tical prisoners," as men punished for ** opinion?"

But again why does not Mr. Gladstone rush, during the
recess, to Cayenne, and verify these shocking statements,
and put a greater name on his pillory of kingly disgrace ?
Why is not the Emperor urged to grant a general amnesty
to political offenders, as comprehensive as we demand from
Naples? We will venture to say, that if anything, coming
near these statements, had been half as plausibly asserted
about Tuscany or Modena, we should have had the politi-
cal bells still ringing the changes on them, and the people
conjured, for the sake of humanity, to send out a squadron
forthwith, and put at end to the tyranny and its tyrants.
How differently lame and impotent the conclusion of the
matter ! As if to'contrast with the mealy-mouthed censure
of the leader, there appeared almost alongside of it, a let-
ter from ** our own correspondent" at Naples, all boiling
with holy indignation (he complains of the dog-day heats)
about Poerio, Pironti, &c., made up with notes of inter-
jections, and *' alas, alas !'* sneers at the king, because he
would attend, as usual, the festival of Pie di grotta ; and
at his ships, because they "follow him like puppets
wherever he goes;" as if we had not the same puppet-
show in England ! It is truly disgusting to contrast the
two articles. They show how truly our policy is the reverse
of the Roman : it is,

" Spernere subjectos, asaentarique superbis."

But the Paris correspondent had a higher game to play.
Instead of picking up his information like the other in
caflfes and billiard-rooms, he goes to ** official quarters,"
to verify M. Louis Blanc's statements. They are all, and
probably most justly, contradicted. Everything is either
denied, modified, or explained. Why was this course
never pursued in Naples ? This was on the 29th and on
the SOth M. Louis Blanc inserted, in the same paper, a
second letter, commenting on this contradiction, from
which we will only trouble the reader with one extract.

" The facts stated iu the letter The Times baa so fairly inserted

206 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

aad so romarkablj commented upon have taken place in a very
remote country, whither no man is likely to go for the express pur-
pose of verifying them. The French government is perfectly aware
of the fact, and this is the reason why it screens so confidently
behind a bold denial of some of the statements held forth the moral
responsibility it has incurred. I have little doubt that the King of
Naples, although in a much less favourable condition, is as ready
to affirm that there is nothing but falsehood in the accusations
levelled at him. Fortunately, the question is one of common
sense."

And so ends, no doubt for ever, unless we quarrel with
France, which Heaven forbid, all question about the fate
of French political prisoners. They may pine or fester
in the swamps of Guiana, be devoured piece-meal by its
vermin, or worn out by its fetters, for anythin.fr that the
English press will care ; so long as it does not happen in
Southern Europe.

We have extended this paper already so far beyond what
we intended, in writing of Italy in general, and the injus-
tice with which it is treated, illustrating the subject chiefly
from Naples, that we have left ourselves but little space
for what deserves more attention from us, the condition of
the Papal States. And here indeed we wish to confine
ourselves almost exclusively to figures andlstatistical facts.
Tho principles of this Review are well known ; its attach-
ment to the person of the Holy Father, its fidelity to every
doctrine, usage, and feeling of the Roman Church, are noto-
rious all over the world. We expect to be considered as
partisans. Any mere declaration of our own impressions
would be received with suspicion ; and many would easily
conclude, that the protestant, or nominally-catholic corres-
pondent of a hostile paper is more likely to arrive at infor-
mation, and pass impartial judgments, than any one whose
position enabled him to command official returns, and to
have at least this guarantee for his veracity (besides
any personal character) that he is not obliged to write
at all. If things are not to his mind, he needs not to take
up his pen. He has no pensum of horrors to make up
weekly, no chronique scaridaleuse to compile for religious
gohe-mouches. He is not forced to be

•' Like Caterfelto, with his hair on end.

At his own wonders wondering for his bread,"

We repeat therefore, that all our statements shall be

1856.1 Italy and the Papal States. 20?

derived from official documents, not indeed prepared for
us, but drawn up for a higher object.

The first Lord of the Treasury was pleased to remark,
in his place in Parliament, that Rome had never possessed
so good a government, as during the brief period of the
Roman republic, under the presidency of Mazzini. There
was something so outrageously extravagant in this, that
it fell at once to the ridiculous. The vault had overleaped
the hors'fe. Consequently this ministerial assertion was
published in the Roman official paper ; that the subjects of
the State, who certainly entertain respect, and perhaps a
higher feeling towards the British Empire, might really
know the extent of benevolence, sympathy and common
sense, which counterbalanced these sentiments, on the
other side. It showed clearly that the heart of the min-
ister was with the subverters of order and religion, and
that it preferred the rule of revolutionary violence to that
of legitimate order. Now, whatever may be the opinion
entertained .here, of the relations between the people of
those States, and their ecclesiastical rulers, the latter at
least were clearly convinced, that Lord Palmerston's
estimate went far beyond the mark. But taking a view
within more reasonable compass, we sho-uld think, that a
great majority of newspaper readers on Italy have formed
a pretty settled notion, that every thing in the Pontifical
States is not merely stationary, but retrograde ; that every
concession made by the Pope, at the commencement of
his reign has been recalled ; and that the Government has
settled down into the old system of exclusively ecclesiasti-
cal rule.

This however is not correct. The Parliament indeed
was justly dissolved, and has not been revived. Nor do
we think that the disgraceful conduct of that body, on the
day of Count Rossi's assassination on its stair-case, could
be atoned for in any other way, than as Rome stamped
with infamy the rule of kings. But a form of govern-
ment has been preserved, or substituted for it, analogous
to that which the Emperor of the French has established
in his country. His Decree of Dec. 31, 1852, presents
pi'etty nearly the model of the Roman *' Council of State."
Each minister proposes the laws and regulations which he
considers necessary or useiul in his own department, to
the Council of Ministers, where it is discussed, and, if
approved, is referred to the Council of State. This body

208 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

is composed of fifteen members, almost all laymen. In
many cases relating to administration, its jnrisdiction is
absolute ; in matters of legislation, their vote requires the
sanction of the Sovereign. There is, besides, another
legislative body, entirely occupied with matters of finance.
It is composed of members proposed by the provincial
councils, with an ^addition of one-fourth of the number,
added by the Crown. In its attributions it closely cor-
responds to the French Imperial ** Legislative body."
Possibly it is currently thought, that the financial adminis-
tration is arbitrary ; but it is not so. A budget, minutely
detailed, is prepared, and submitted to the examination of
this Chamber. When revised and approved, it is published.

This form of control is carried throughout the provin-
cial and municipal administrations. The President of
each province, corresponding to the Prefect in France,
has a small council of four lay consultors, whose votes are
decisive in all matters of estimates and local taxes. He
has also a provincial chamber, composed of representatives
of the difterent divisions of the province. We can safely
say, that in no country. of Europe is the principle of muni-
cipal self-government, descending down to the smallest
communes, or parishes, more fully recognized, or more
practically carried out, than in the States of the Church.
This has always been so, but never so much as, at
present.

The administration of justice, in civil cases is arranged
as follows. Where the sum disputed does not exceed
five dollars, the heads of the municipal council decide :
causes from 5 to 200, go to judges of county courts, of
whom there are 180 out of Rome, all laymen. Beyond
that sum, the case goes to ** collegiate tribunals,'* of
which there are eighteen out of Rome, each composed of
three laymen : and this forms a court of appeal from the
decisions of the single magistrates. The poor are
exempted from all costs and fees, and the tribunal ap-
points them an advocate, at the public charge.

The Council of ministers, or the Executive, is com-
posed as follows: 1, A Secretary of State, or Prime
Minister; 2, A minister of War; 3, one of the Interior;
4, one of Finance ; 5, one of Commerce, Public Works,
&c. There is a minister also of education ; but we believe
he does not take his seat at the Council of ministers.

The Secretary of State is almost of necessity a Cardinal.
To his office belong the diplomatic relations between the

1856.1

Italy and the Papal States.

209

Holy See, and other countries, which regard generally
ecclesiastical affairs, the conclusion of concordats and
treaties, and matters belonging to the high duties of the
Head of the Church. His office is the centre of communi-
cation with the nunciatureis throughout the world. The
other ministers may be prelates or laymen, and have been
either ; that of war is of course an officer. But we are by no
means ready to concede the point, that in a government,
the very civil head of which is an ecclesiastic, the higher
offices of the state are not to be open to those of the same
class, if fully competent for it. And the probabilities will
be, that persons there who have followed the ecclesiastical
career may be found often more efficient, and better trained
to the higher duties of administration, than most laymen.
Certainly in England itself, there is no reason for looking
back with scorn or shame upon our clerical Lord High
Chancellors, as unsuited, by their more sacred character,
for functions judiciary, and administrative, then accumu-
lated in that office. It is not necessary to enter into any
details of the duties, or occupations of the different minis-
ters, because they are much the same as in other
countries, especially in France, which has been more closely
copied.

But we think it will not be out of place to give here the
statistics of the different departments of state, to show the
proportion of clergy and laity, composing their personel,
and also the amount of salaries enjoyed by the two classes.
A full and most detailed set of tables was published during
the Pope's residence at Gaeta, giving the wages even of
the lowest servant in every department of the government,
civil and ecclesiastical. And from this Mr. Bowyer drew
his accurate, and we believe startling, information, com-
municated in one of his many timely, earnest, and well-
seasoned speeches on Italy, during the late session. The
following summary, however, is drawn up officially for the
present year.

Numbers employed!

Amount of salaries, dollars.

MiNISTRr

Clerks

Laymen

Clerks

Laymen

Interior

278

3,271

110,206

637,602

Finance

7

3,084

10,329

730,268

Commerce, «&c.

1

347

2,400

69.808

War

0

125

0

51,885

Education

3

9

1,320

1,824

Total

289

6,836

124,256

1,491,389

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXI.

14

210 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

It is important to add, that of the 289 clerical employes
here set down, 179 are chaplains to prisons, or otherwise
employed in purely ecclesiastical functions ; so that literally
the number of clergy holding situations in the different de-
partments of the State amount to 110, while the laymen are
G,835. At the same time, it will be seen, that the public
money which goes to laymen, is beyond all proportion,
greater than that which finds its way into clerical purses.

The Secretary of State's office is not here included,
because its expenses are not defrayed out of the taxes, as
those of the others are, but are borne entirely by the
Civil List. Suffice it to say, that it employs three eccle-
siastics, with salaries amounting to 3600 dollars, aud
eighteen laymen, receiving 8340 dollars.

Before leaving this subject, we must meet a difficulty
which may present itself to some reader. Are there not,
he will say, a great number of ecclesiastical congregations,
as they are called, or Commissions, for the discharge of
religious and clerical duties, belonging, not merely to the
lloman States, but to the government of the whole Catho-
lic Church, the offices for which must give employment
to a great number of clergy, and press heavily on the
public funds ? And is it fair that trie inhabitants of so
small a State, not more than three millions in number,
should bear the burthen of taxation necessary for a pur-
pose, in which they have no interest ? We think we can
answer these questions satisfactorily.

1. There are established in Rome, seventeen such congi'e-
gations as are alluded to. Of these some have duties as-
signed to them of a purely ecclesiastical character, and con-
se luently are in great measure (only three exclusively) ad-
ministered by clergymen. Such are the Penitentiary, which
gives employment to 26 clerks, and two laymen ; the Con-
gregation so called of " Bishops and Regulars," which has
13 of the first and only two of the second ; and that for
the interpretation of the Council of Trent, which employs
eight ecclesiastics, and two seculars. But on the other
hand, several of the Congregations manage affairs of a
more mixed character, though primarily ecclesiastical,
that is depending on the spiritual, not the temporal, autho-
rity of the Sovereign Pontiff^ Such are those connected
with collation of benefices, issuing of bulls, granting of
matrimonial dispensations; and in these lay officials much
predominate. For example, in Propaganda, and the

1856.] lidtf/ and the Papal States. 211

administration of vacant benefices connected with it, there
are 40 priests and 68 laymen employed ; in the Fabbrica
(Commission for the care of St. Peter's) three priests and
87 laymen ; in the Apostolic Chancery, four priests and
60 laymen ; in the Dataria 9 priests and 55 laymen.

2. Taking all these ecclesiastical congregations together,
we have the following results. Collectively they employ
158 ecclesiastics, and 317 laymen. The salaries of the
first amount to D. 38, 148; those of the others to D. 61,846.
We could give every detail, down to fractions.

3. The expenses of all these offices are defrayed entirely,
either from the fees paid by those who have business in
them, or, and indeed principally, from estates or other
properties belonging to them, or from the civil list. The
people have not to bear any additional burthens for
them.

To exhaust this part of our subject at once, we will say
a few words on the civil list. The papal court is generally
Supposed to be very magnificent, and so it is in its ecclesi-
astical functions, and in the decent splendour of its high
officials. But then, there are no ladies to be dressed ;
there is no family to educate ; there are no levees, no
court balls, no dinners even, for the Pope always dines
^lone. One man of very temperate and modest habits,
M^hose daily table is estimated at a dollar a day, and who
never varies his simple costume of a white cloth or serge
enssock does not personally require much. The whole
civil list, therefore, amounts to 600,000 dollars a year, tliac
is about £120,000, the income of more than one English
iiobleman. Now let us see what it is charged with. VVe
will summarily enumerate the leading heads.

The maintenance of the Pope and his court — the allow-
ance to Cardinals*"'— the maintenance of the Nunciatures
throughout the world (96,000 dollars) — expenses, as said
above, of some ecclesiastical congregations — the papal
Chapels and their functions — the repairs and improvements

* On occasion of the debate on the retiring pensions of two eccle-
s'lastical peers lately, a remark was made, that the sums thej
claimed were actually equal to what Cardinals had in Rome. Jn
reality a Cardinal, resident in Rome, and not otherwise provided
for, receives 4000 dollars a year, that is about £700, and nothing^
more. Tiiia is their ordinary income.

. 212 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

of the three pontifical palaces in Rome, the Vatican, the
Quirinal, and the Lateran, and of the villa at Castel
Gaiidolfo, their gardens, &c.— the repairs of the fronts of
the Basilicas, and of the Pantheon — the preservation and
improvements of all the Galleries, Museums and Libraries
— the maintenance of the JNoble Guard, the Palatine and
Swiss Guards — finally the pay, maintenance, superan-
nuation, and gratuities of the servants of the palace.

Thus we see how moderate is the Sovereign's demand
on the purses of his people, and how much is thrown upon
his income, which elsewhere would fall upon the estimates
of the country. And the greater part of what is done with
this allowance is truly more for the enjoyment of the public
and of strangers, and for the advancement of art, than for
any personal gratification.

We should suppose, that the surest test of good or bad
government is the commercial and financial one. There
may be difference of tastes as to modes of ruling, Lord
Palmerston may not be disposed to quarrel with the hor-
rible butcheries of priests at San Callisto committed by
Zambianchi, or those perpetrated by the finance- troops,
during the republic, and with the\nowledge of its rulers.
Perhaps he has not thought it necessary to inquire into the
truth of these events, or he considers them natural results
of rebounding liberty. But in England, we believe that
there will be generally but one sentiment, on the value of
that proof which comes from prosperity.

After the restoration of the pontifical government by the
Congress of Vienna, improvement became so rapid, that
public burthens were rapidly diminished. In 1826 Pope
Leo XII. made considerable reductions in the taxes ; and
yet the income annually exceeded the expenditure. The
rebellion, however, which broke out in 1830, and led to the
first Austrian occupation, threw upon the Government
extraordinary expense, and rendered the first loan neces-
sary. Still by degrees, economical reforms, and good
management, kept down, and reduced the annual deficit,
till in 1847, this did not exceed 350,000 dollars, or about
^£75,000 per annum. Now came the republic, and its
glorious administration. It increased taxation, it levied
forced loans or contributions, it carried off, under pretext
of gifts, the plate of the rich, it melted down the bells of
churches ; it of course stopped, and appropriated all eccle-
siastical payments from the funds, audcivil list, &c. Yet

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 213

in spite of all this, and the pretensions of all revolutionary
governments to great economy, and disinterestedness, the
deficit in the two years of liberal rule reached the exorbi-
tant sum of 6,600,000 dollars. But this was not all. Up to
that period, Rome had always possessed an abundant cir-
culating medium, of pure, undebased native and foreign
coinage. This indeed formed a contrast with other Italian
States. Paper money had been introduced by the new
Roman Bank ; but only for larger sums, and even then it
was returned to be cashed, almost as soon as issued. But
during the republican rule, all silver and gold, and almost
all copper had disappeared, and no money was left in the
country but a vile depreciated paper money. This base
trash, left in circulation, on the restoration of the pontifical
government, amounted to 8,000,000 of dollars. This
depreciated circulating medium pressed heavily, and even
ruinously, on the commerce of the country, and paralyzed
all industry. The Government found itself obliged to take
up the paper, at immense sacrifices, and for this purpose
contract a new loan. The paper money was thus with-
drawn and destroyed. But this operation, one of the lega-
cies of the cherished republic, added a heavy additional
burthen to the annual expense, of no less than D. 1,400,000,
which added to the previous annual deficit of 350,000, and
to as much more required by the foreign occupation, made
the whole annual deficit amount to 2,100,000.

No one, we imagine, will make the Papal Government
responsible for this. At the same time, how was this dif-
ference between income and expenditure to be supplied ?
In any other country the answer would have been simple —
by increased taxation, in addition to strict economy. Not
so at Rome. The moment this was done, our press and
its correspondents could see nothing but priestly tyranny,
and pontifical exaction, in the imposition of a new tax.
We will content ourselves with saying, that we believe
that, even with these extraordinary burthens, the amount
of taxation is lighter in the Roman, than in the Sardinian,
States. The new taxes levied were such as before existed
in all Italian principalities. The efiects of these measures
have been already beneficially felt. Notwithstanding the
extraordinary expenses to which the Government has been
subject, to repair the ruins, material and social, of the late
Triumvirate rule, the annual deficit has been gradually
reduced, so that from 2,000,000, it had come down last

214 Italy and tke Papal States. \ Septi

year to slightly over one million. In the estimates for this
year, it has been set down for only 750,000 ; with every
hope, that, if foreign agitators are not allowed to disturb
the country, it will have shortly disappeared.

Besides the increase of taxation, which has been very
light, much has been done to improve the revenue. The
returns before ns show a considerable diminution in the
expense of its collection. At the same time the adminis-
tration of many sources of revenue, which used to be
farmed, has been taken into the hands of the treasury,
which thus secures to the public the immense profits made
by the contractors ; and the contraband introduction of
goods has been notably repressed. The consequence has
been a considerable increase in the duties on merchandise.
Indeed, here again we have the financial test applicable to
goodness of government.

In 1846, the net income from custom-house dues was
D. 4,234,212. In 1847 it was still above 4,000,000.
In 1848, under the Republic, it fell to 3,805,807;
and in the following year to 2,943,589. The very
next year, on the restoration of the pontifical Govern-
ment, it rose again to 3,647,912 : the following year, to
4,383,221. And so it has continued steadily increasing,
till this year it has been calculated at 5,34:6t039, showing a
balance in favour of the Pope's administration, as com-
pared with Mazziui's, of 2,402,450 dollars. We may add,
that the proportion of the present year past, when our
accounts were made out, showed an increase beyond the
estimate.

The papal States have never made any pretensions to
the character of a maritime country. Genoa, Livorno and
Naples, on the side open to the stream of commerce, pre-
vent the possibility of a small port like Civitavecchia
attracting or absorbing any great portion of European, or
Trans- Atlantic, enterprise. And the other side of Italy
presents a small outlet or inlet for foreign merchandise. A
coasting trade is the chief maritime resource for the har-
bours of the Pope's temporal dominions. It may be well,
however, to say what will suffice to prove, that even in
this department of national prosperity, the test is favour-
able, and shows improvement and progress. There is no
going back at least.

Year.

Persons employed.

1837

6867

1846

8U86

1851

9110

1854

9711

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. il5^

MARITIME COMMERCIAL SATISTICS OF IHE PAPAL STATES.

No of Vessels. Tonnage.

1186 20,904:10

1323 26.280:59

1667 30,983:20

1893 31,037:90

la the meantime, notwithstanding the many distresses
which have weighed upon this small sovereignty, it has not
neglected to make many, and important, improvements in
this portion of its charge. The smaller ports, which serve
as places of refuge to the small coasting, and fishing,
craft, on both coasts, have been enlarged, deepened, or
even newly constructed. On the Adriatic side, the Corsi-
nian Port at Ravenna has been widened ; a navigable
canal carried within the walls of the city : and the pier
prolonged, so that the anchorage of the Austrian
Lloyd steamers is close to the lighthouse. In Ancona
a new dock-yard has been constructed, the piers have
been thoroughly repaired, and steam machinery is in
progress for cleansing the harbour. The small havens of
Sinigaglia, which gains such importance during its fair,
and of Pesero, a thriving town, have been quite renewed,
while at Cesenatico new piers have been thrown out into
the sea, and a promising Barbour has been erected. On
the other side, besides considerable improvements at
Civitavecchia, a completely new port has been made at
Terracina, and measures are being concerted for the res-
toration of the great Neronian port, at Porto d'Anzo, the
ancient Antiura, with a railroad of easy construction from
Rome.

All these works, and these improvements may appear
trifling to us, who can afford to spend a million or two
upon a harbour of refuge, and go on with immense works
at the same .time at Holyhead, Dover, Great Grimsby and
the Channel Islands. But it is not fair to depreciate a
small, and poor power, by comparing its undertakings with
those of a mighty and gigantic one, fully so in its own esti-
mation. But compare countries of equal, or approaching
dimensions, and we will not shrink from comparison. Let
us know what the pets of England, the Hesses, and
Anhalts, and Coburgs do for the improvement of their prin-
cipalities ; and we believe that they will present quite

216 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

equal grounds for foreign interference, and for daily revil-
ing, with the papal States.

Again, these States have no claim to be considered a
manufacturing country. But yet the increase of native
production, whether for exportation or for home manufac-
ture, has been considerable, when referred to its proper
standard of comparison. The hemp exported, of the very
finest quality, amounts to the value of D. 2,517,461 ; the
value of silk is little under a million. Steam engines
are now employed for this manufactory, in upwards of ten
cities, or towns, of the States. The same may be said of
woollen manufactures, which, we are assured, compete with
the produce of any other country. Agricultural societies,
with exhibitions and prizes, have been established in many
cities : that of Bologna publishes its Transactions. Indeed,
in the university of that city, and elsewhere the Govern-
ment has endowed professorships of Agriculture.

The other day (Sept. 15) the Times published a state-
ment of the respectable Italian paper the Bilancia, that
the pontifical army amounted to 14,500 men. This was
followed, as a matter of course, by a contradiction from the
Opinione, which pretended to bring down the numbers to
8,000. Wow, in its enumeration, it totally omits, what the
Roman Government, and no doubt the Bilancia too, in-
cludes in its military statistics, the Gendarmerie; consist-
ing of 4,700 men, divided into three batallions. These
added to the 8,000 men whom the Opinione admits would
give 12,700, not a very distant approach to the 14,500,
But in truth, this is under the mark. The papal army has
to be raised to 18,500 men ; and only 3,000 are wanting
to make it up. As there is no system of conscription, or
compulsory service, as in almost every other country on
the Continent, it is only by voluntary enlistment that this
little army has been, or can be, made up. The present Pope
has established a military college for cadets, and we have
reason to believe, that in the clothing, lodging, and train-
ing of the troops, in the organization, promotions, and dis-
cipline of the army, the best models of foreign military
establishments have been followed, and with the best
results. All this, too, is a new creation since the republic,
which had established no less than 127 independent mili-
tary governments, and instead of decently fed and clothed
troops, left behind it only a disorganized and demoralized
drove of tattered scamps, with barracks plundered to bare-

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 217-

ness, and dilapidated almost to ruin. There could not be
said to exist the germ of a new army.

We must now enter on the subject which most of all
interests the English mind, when it is agitated about Italy,
and Rome in particular : that of political prisoners, and
exiles. So strong is the morbid sympathy sometimes
excited by this class of men, that so far from the belonging
to it being considered a crime or a symptom of crime, it is
supposed to shelter rather from the imputation of crime —
almost to justify its commission. Hence, when a man is
once declared, or rather declares himself, to be, a " political
refugee," nobody thinks of asking how, or why he became
such, or why he has not, like many, sought to return home.
He may, like Liverani or Zambianchi have massacred
dozens of victims in cold blood ; he may, like Calandrelli,
have destroyed private property with reckless wantonness ;
he may, like hundreds, have entered private houses, and
carried off carriages, jewels, and valuables."" In other
words, he may be morally and socially, a burglar, a high-
way robber, and even a murderer. But the cloak of poli-
tical delinquencies covers all these dark crimes with its
jaunty folds, and the noble lady proudly shakes the blood-
stained hand of the bearded assassin, who has access to
her drawing-room, in the dubious character of a political
exile. Or the interest may run up higher, as in the case of
Murray, who happened to have an English name, though
he spoke not a word of English, and was a Roman subject.
Indicted, convicted, and condemned to death, for partici-
pation in the cold-blooded assassination of F. Kellaher, a
most edifying and charitable Irish friar, he was protected,
and his case was taken up by our government (in defer-
ence to public outcry) as a purely political one. Not
merely commutation of sentence was demanded, but abso-
lute liberation; and we believi^ this has at length been
extorted.

It was stated most unblushingly in this matter, that the

* Plate, jewels, and all sorts of moveable property were extorted
by threats, and as compromises for personal security, from rich
families : even the church plate of absent Cardinals (e. g. Card.
Fransoni's) was obliged to be surrendered. On the restoration of
the Government, 2815. pieces of valuable property were' found, not
yet appropriated, and were restored to their lawful owners ;^ mere
fragments of the general wreck.

218 Itahj and the Papal States. [Sept.

culprit had been condemned, without any communication
made of indictment, or evidence. This is not only false,
but impossible according to the Roman procedure. In trials
for ordinary offences the accused and the witnesses are
confronted, and oral examination is permitted. But where a
crime has arisen out of the political secret society's decrees,
no one would give evidence, and expose himself to the
certainty of assassination, if he were not concealed from
knowledge. Nothing can be more lamentable than this;
but whose fault is it ? Must crimes remain unpunished
because a club of murderers is banded together to stab or
shoot any one that shall assist in bringing them to justice?
Or is it not an exceptional mode of proceeding rendered
necessary, for a time, by this appalling state of things ?
The only exception therefore made, is the not confronting
of the witnesses personally with the accused, where the
latter has committed his crime from political motives, or
in concert with the murderous secret societies. But every
particle of evidence is communicated to him, being taken
in writing, and the most unlimited communication in pri-
vate is allowed between the arraigned and his counsel.

In examining the state of crime, therefore, in a country,
■which has been long under the sway of political faction,
often breaking into actual revolution, we must distinguish
between the ordinary offences against the person, and
against property, which exist in every kingdom, or repub-
lic on earth, and those which are the result of an extraor-
dmary cause. We must, however, in the first instance
state the gross number of criminals and prisoners of all
classes. In the monthly returns before us, we find the
prisoners divided into two classes, first of persons awaiting
trial, or taken up on suspicion, and secondly of persons
under sentence, and undergoing its punishment. Taking
from these returns a monthly average, we have the follow-
ing results.

la 1854 we have belonging"to the 1st Class, 6,526 :

" " " ' lid, 6480. Total 13,006 per month.

In 1855 " " 1st Class 5,608 :

" " lid. Class 6,315. Total 1 1,923 per month.

It must be remembered that the second class includes all'
who in England would be in the hulks, or in Portland and
Spike islands, or in Dartmoor, or other convict establish-
ments, or would be ticket-of-leave men, or in any penal

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 2t^

settlement. All these remain at home, engaged in pnblic
works, in simple detention. The number of persons repre-
senting the actual crime of the country is in the first class,
which does not contain those committed during the month,
but all actually in custody in an average month. What
we wish to observe is, that the averages thus given, while:
they represent naturally a smaller diminution (of 165) in
persons under sentence, offer a considerable diminution (of
918) in the number of prisoners to be tried. Both together
give a diminution of above 1000 in the monthly average.
Hence the item of maintenance of prisoners was diminished
in 1855 by D. 36,823 upon the expense of the preceding ;
year.

Our readers will naturally enquire what is the proportion
of political prisoners. Here a distinction also is necessary.
The law distinguishes between the merely political offender,
those guilty of conspiring against the safety, or peace of
the State, by words, writings, &c., and those guilty of
ordinary crimes, as theft or murder, but committed " per
motivo di setta," su^h as the murder of Count Kossi, the
sacrilegious infamies committed in churches, or the burn-
ing publicly of cardinal's carriages. These are crimes at
common law ; but are referred to the category of political
crimes. Now taking into the account the whole of this
class of delinquencies, the entire number of political pri-
soners in the four state prisons of San Michele at Rome,
Ancona, Paliano and Forte Urbano, amounts to 338,
comprising 12 under trial, when the statement was drawn
up. Out of this number, those condemned for what we
should call purely political offences (high- treason according
to the Statute of Edward III.) does not reach one hundred.
All the rest are for crimes.

Surely this is very different from the popular belief.
We are certain, that there are many and many kind-
hearted, and not revolutionarily disposed, persons, who are
under the conviction, that thousands of unfortunate men,
fathers of families, and highly promising youths, are
pining in the dungeons of Roman prisons, for nothing more
than having expressed liberal opinions, perhaps an admi-
ration of the British constitution. We can assure them
that this is a mere illusion. We have stated the simple
truth. And we can further affirm that these numbers are
continually diminishing, through the clemency of the kind-
est of men, the Sovereign Pontiff. Between January 1,

220 Italy and the Papal States. | Sept.

1855, and May 15, of the present year, he granted either
complete pardon, or diminution of punishment, to 65 per-
sons convicted or accused of common offences committed
through political motives, and to 47 guilty of purely poli-
tical offences ; in all 112 individuals. We say " convicted
or accused," because in nine cases, the sovereign clemency
consisted in quashing proceedings commenced or fiuished,
without proceeding to sentence. In the first class of
offences, the entire punishment was remitted, in 41 cases ;
in the second, in 18 ; in all, fifty-nine.

But further, it will be asked, is there not an immense
number of exiles and refugees, who cannot, or dare not,
return to their homes in the Papal States, for having
taken part in the late republic, and for other causes ? A
certain number undoubtedly there are, though far from
equal to what is popularly asserted. We must divide these
refugees into two classes.

The first comprises those who were formfilly excepted
from the amnesty of Sept. 184&. The following summary
gives the statistics of this class.

Excluded as members of the Ti-iumvirate, Constituent

Assembly, and Provisional Government .« „. 200

ka military chiefs ... ... ... ^.. 83

283
Subtract those who were foreigners ... ... .... 21

Total of subjects, excluded from the Amnesty ... 262

Civilians since pardoned and admitted to the benefit of

the Amnesty ... ... ... ... ... 35

Military Officers ditto ... ... ... ... 24

Total of individuals pardoned ... ... ... 59

Total of persons still in banishment ... .... ... 203

There is another, however, and a larger class of volun-
tary exiles not formally excepted irom the Amnesty, but
who would not be allowed to enter the Papal States, with-
out special permission. The gross numbers is 1273, but as
of these 629 are not natives of them, the number of sub-
jects amounts to 644. Of these again 152 are persons who
either have had banishment inflicted as their sentence, or
who have asked for it, as commutation of punishment; so
that the numbers is finally reduced to 492. \Many of these
cauuot return, because they would immediately be arrested

1856.] Italy and the Papal States. 22X

for common crimes ; the rest are admissible upon
petition, if their conduct while abroad, has not compromised
them.

A few words on the subject of the papal prisons will close
this portion of our labours. Mr. Baxter, a young M.P.,
addressed an oration (as the Americans call it) the other
day, to the constituency of Montrose. Of course he was
strong on Italy, and could not pass the Pope by, without
flinging his handful at him ; well sure of a good response
in the land of cakes, to which as yet

"The Pape's a pagan full of pride,'*

and where the inhabitants of a civilized town can look on
with glee at a catholic chapel in flames, and prevent their
extinction, as cannily as they would have done in Knox's
time. He threw his jibe at the papal prisons, by some such
remark as this : that he supposed they were as bad, or the
same, as king Bomba*s. What he knew on the subject
mattered not; what he meant, or what his hearers under-
stood him to mean, probably he himself neither knew nor
cared. It was a good thing to say, because it was some-
thing against the Pope, and it was a sure hit because no
one in the assembly would care a bit whether it was true
or false, nor enquire into its truth or falsehood. A popular
assembly has capacious jaws, and a wide swallow ; and a
popular speaker knows well how to open the first wide, and
cram the second tight. The operation is too quick and
pleasant, for the taste and savour of the pill to be dis-
covered. Mr. Baxter is a popular speaker, and knows of
course what he is about. But whatever may be the
sources of his information on the subject, we most earnestly
and confidently assure our readers, that they are most in-
accurate. As to the political prisoners, no hardship is
inflicted on them. Of the 326 prisoners, above enumer-
ated, 208 are at Paliano, an ancient palace and castle of
the Colonna family, healthily and airily situated in the
country. !Nor has there been any case of epidemic dis-
orders in any of the papal prisons, as in ours. In Decem-
ber 1844, there were according to the official report, in
Pentonville prison, 719 sick out of 741 prisoners. Such
a case has never been known in Rome. As to the ordi-
nary gaols, we remember well, a celebrated English phil-
anthropist who had visited the prisons all over Europe,

222 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

tellinsf us that out of England he had found none superior
to them ; that when they were built, they were far superior
to ours, and to those of any other country ; and that they
were clean and remarkably healthy. He even made the
same observations to the late Pope, who interrogated him
on the subject.

The present Pope has done much to improve the prisons.
The female prisoners are under the care of religious of the
Good Shepherd ; the boys under that of the Brothers of
Mercy established at Malines, and lately introduced into
our own Reformatory at Hammersmith. We know that
every report on prison discipline has been forwarded to the
Government of Rome, and that every anxiety is felt, and
practically exhibited, to carry out all modern improvements,
under the care of a special Commission. A spacious
prison to contain 250 inmates, is just being finished at
Possombrone, on the cellular system.

Before leaving the regions of crime, let us say a few
words, on one of the favourite common-places of our
Italian newsmongers, the supposed revival of the old sys-
tem of brigandage. We will not repeat our remark, that
no instances of its practice ever reach the English public
from Piedmont; we will content ourselves with observing,
that no case is overlooked in the Pope's States, by the
diligence of our correspondents. We may feel pretty sure
that no English travelling-carriage, or Italian vettura is
stopped and plundered, without its being as eagerly seized
on by the letter- writer, as it was by the bandit-chief. Cer-
tauily, if anything more atrocious than we have heard of
had happened on the high-road from Rome to Naples, no
matter on which side of the frontier, had some Mrs.
Popkins and her four Popichini (we believe silch are the
heroes of one of W. Irving's robber tales) not had her
throat cut indeed, but received a severe fustigation,
so solemn a gi'ound of appeal to the British conscience for
a small fleet of eighty-fours, or the dismissal of Cardinal
Antonelli would uever have been overlooked. We will
therefore take it for granted, that no injury to the life or
person of any one, though some to the dresses, especially
under the present regime, has resulted from the romantic
mode of robbing long prevalent in Italy. A man (some-
times a wooden one) propped against a tree, pointing a
blunderbuss towards the middle of the road; a farouche,
but handsome brigand wearing a breast-plate of silver dag-

1856.1 ^^^k ««^ ^^'« Papal States. 223

ger-handles, and pistols, and an exaggeratedly pointed
bat, politely asking the passengers to alight, and handing
the ladies down ; a gentle request to become ** bocca a
terra ;*' a desire to know which you prefer, to lend your
keys or have your solid leathers ripped up with a dagger ;
a fumbling over of the wardrobe, a subtraction of unneces-
sary valuables; the rumbling sound of distant wheels or
horses, and a hasty "buon^iorno," is the moving panorama,
as Albert Smith might give it, of a rencontre with these
free-booters ; no, for sandals form an indispensable part
of the costume.

Seriously speaking indeed, this is all far from pleasant,
and no Government has done its duty, which does not
make every exertion to put the system down, where it
exists. Still it is a consolation to know, that hitherto no
violence has been done, no carrying away to the moun-
tains, no huge ransoms exacted. This then is an Italian
class of crime sincerely to be deplored. But we cannot
help observing, that there is something narrow and un-
generous in the plan of singling out some failing or delin-
quency peculiar to a country, or arising almost from its
physical character, and from which we are natui*ally ex-
empt, and making that the standard of our self-compla-
cency. If we say : " look at Italy ! you cannot travel
along the high- way there, without being robbed, as our
fathers were on Hounslow Heath, or Blackheath. What
a government, what a police !'* why may not an Italian,
^ngle out drunkenness as his test of moral civilization,
and after visiting London, tell all he had seen of men and.
women reeling along at night in beastly intoxication, and
recite some of the scenes in police courts of a morning, of
wives pommelled to death by drunken husbands, and
magistrates repeating six times a day to. man, after mnn,
that he was the gi'eatest brute he had ever known ? Why
should he not have an equal right, upon this one compari-
son of the two countries, where his own is pure and oura
most filthy, to boast of the superiority of his own in. every-
thing regai'ding morals ?

But we should reply, that this w^isno fair test; for the.
difference of climate, and of country and of race wouldl
account for this dissimilarity of habits. Be it so. There:
is no doubt, that kindness and generosity will seek for
such explanations. In ancient Venice we believe that
Qssassiaatlou was attribuj^ble to politiculj and domestia

224 Italy and the Papal States. [Sept.

jealousies. In Ireland crime is mostly agrarian. In America
the rifle and the revolver, the bowie-knife and the cane,
are freely used in the very streets, to adjust newspaper, or
party squabbles. Italy, a country were the most fertile
plains touch the feet of inaccessible mountain steeps, and
where a road after leaving a city soon plunges into end-
less rows of trees, or even forests, where different States
touch and bound one another, affording ease of flight,
tempts the poor and desperate, the wild mountaineer and
the liberated or escaped galley-slave, to brigandage. It is
his easiest, his safest, and his most gainful crime. He
rushes down from his mountain watch-crag on the luxu-
rious carriage tottering under its glossy imperials, stops
it, fills his money bags, and is with one foot on each side
of the frontier line, with cocked musket, till all is quiet,
again. Is it matter of particular congratulation with our-
selves, that we have no banditti — off" the stage ?

But who has ever told us yet, that gentlemen may be
any evening garrotted in the Toledo or Largo di Castello
at Naples, or the Corso in.Rome? Can we account for
this Thuggism of London, Liverpool or Leeds, by the
peculiar conformation of the squares of Belgravia, or
Castle Street ? If Italians hear, that a man early in the
evening, in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, for instance, maybe seized
by the throat from behind, choked, have his pockets rifled,
and be left robbed, and half dead, with no more chance of
help (for when has a garrot robbery been stopped in the
act ?) than the man on the highway from Jerusalem to
Jericho, would he not have a right to say, that as such
robbery, where attempt to murder is coordinate, or ante-
cedent, is never heard of out of England, this is a more
wicked, dangerous, and ill-governed country, with a worse
police, than any in Italy ? We will not speak of our Pal-
mers or Doves, and the domestic scenes which they have
laid bare, nor of " quietness,'' nor of burial-clubs; nor of
child-murder, and woman-bruising : nor of burglaries, nor
of Agapemones, nor of Sadleirisms, and British Banks,
Pauls and Strachans ; nor of many other crimes, which
had they happened at Rome, would have furnished
letters and paragraphs enough, on the demoralized state
of the country.

It would be unfair to conclude this article, without some
topic more agreeable to writer and to reader, than prisons
and banditti. In the course of it, we have had more than,

\

1856. 1 Itali/ and the Papal States, 225

one occasion to mention the improvements gradually made
in the present pontificate, in spite of many obstacles and
difficulties. We will add a summary notice of some more,
which could not enter into our former enumerations.

A telecrraphic communication has been established
between Rome and its two frontiers, passing through all
the principal provinces and cities, and joining the Neapo-
litan line at the south, and the European one at the north.
— Gas has been established throughout Rome. — A railroad
has been opened to Frascati, as the first instalment of the
line to Ceprano, and so by San Germano toJNaples. — Con-
tracts have been signed by the Government witli a Com-
pany for the line from Rome to Civitavecchia, and for the
great Italian trunk-line from Rome to j3ologna. — In the
meantime splendid roads have been made, or completed,
particularly the Via Flaminia Lauretana, along the Adri-
atic, supported by immense works, and perfected by a
splendid bridge across the wide bed of the unmanage-
able Metaurus. — Speaking of bridges we may mention
that, besides one built conjointly with the Tuscan Govern-
ment, the Pope has built six over different rivers or tor-
rents, on the north road. Nor should we overlook the
magnificent viaducts between Albano and Genzano, the
first one particularly, which we heard pronounced by a
great railway-contractor to be equal to anything that has
been done of that kind in England. — Still less should we
omit the complete drainage of the Ostian marshes, and of
those of the Eerrarese valleys, both undertaken with great
vigour, and with the aid of steam power.

Useful scientific works have been prepared, such as a
most elaborate census now in the press, compiled with
immense labour, and great precision, the work of many
years. An important work on the decimal S3'^stem in
measures has been published, 'and spread at the expense of
Government, to prepare the way for its adoption. A splendid
survey has been made, with most accurate and valual)le in-
struments, and with wonderful exactness, of the Via Appia,
by E. Secchi, S.J., compared with that formerly made
by the celebrated F. Boschovick ; to serve as a base for
a triangular survey of the whole States, and a new map
of Italy.

As to education, the Dublin University Gazette has
already made known what the present Pope has done for
it. We may simply mention, the great Seminario Pio

VOL. XLl— No. LXXXI. 13

226 The Catholic University [Sept.

built and endowed by him for eighty-two ecclesiastical
students (one from each Diocese of his States), the Col-
legio Pio for English students, and one in his own native
city of Sinigaglia.

To encourage the Arts, he has done no less. The
Academy of St. Luke has been transferred to a more
ample and beconiiing site, and ten additional gold medals
have been allotted to it for annual prizes. The museums
have been immensely enriched, that of the Lateran espe-
cially by the creation of a new Christian museum, and by
the first-class statues of Sophocles and the Braschi Anti-
nous. The complete restoration of the Basilica of St.
Agnes, the termination of St. Paul's, the adornment of
the Confession of the Lateran, the immense works in the
Catacombs, their repairs and restoration to their primitive
form, by means of the ecclesiastical commission, the clear-
ing of the Appian way ; in fact innumerable other great
and useful works will crown the present pontificate with
even worldly glory. This will survive no doubt the
miserable attempts so industriously and so perseveringly
made to deprive it of its just reputation. It is not indeed
to this worldly side that we are accustomed to look, when
we contemplate the Holy Father's greatness on earth.
Still it is consoling to find, that even the reverse of his
medal is full of merit, and presents an image of active
and useful goodness, in this utilitarian age.

Art. VII. — 1 . Repoi'l of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed io enquire
into the State, Discipli7ie, Studies, and lievenues of the Universiti/ of
Dublin, and of THnity College ; together with Appendices, containing
Evidence, Svggestions, and Correspondence. Presented to botli
Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Dublin :
Alexander Thorn, 1853.

2. Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the arrange'
ments in the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancers/, for promoting tite
Stadyi of the Law of Jurisprudence: together with Appendices.

1856.] and Legal Education. 227

Presented to both Houses of Parliament bjr Command of Her
Majesty. London : 1855.

3. Report on the Condition and Progress of ike Queens University in
Ireland, from 1st September, 1854, to 1st September, 1855. B/
the Right Hon. Maziere Buadt, Vice Chancellor of the Uui-
yersitj, and Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. Presented to both
Houses of Parliament bj Command of Her Majestj. Dublin,
1855.

4. A BiU to Repeal and Amend certain Laws and Statutes Relating to
the University of Dublin. Prepared and brought in bj Mr.
Napier and Mr. George Alexandeu Hamilton. Ordered bj tha
House of Commons to be printed, 23 May, 1856.

THE friends of the Catholic University should at once
fix their attention on the above Bill introduced into
the House of Commons by the representatives of its most
formidable rival. If that Bill pass in its entirety, and the
law as to the admission of attornies and barristers to prac-
tice remain subjected to no other modification, it is idle to
expect that that great body of youths who in Ireland look
to the law as an occupation, should spend three or four
years of the most critical period of life within the walls of
the Catholic University, and then have to begin again and
to spend five years in the pursuit of the profession.

The difficulties which have already beset the career of
this institution are sufficiently great, without having the
additional ones which will be virtually provided for it by
this Bill of Messrs. Napier and Hamilton, and yet these
are of such a nature that the friends of the University in
Parliament cannot well be requested to oppose the progress
of the measure. As this is a matter of vital importance to
the cause of Catholic education, so far as the profession of
the law is concerned, let us briefly, and from the authorities
before us, and in their very words, lay the facts before the
reader.

Suppose two young men provided, one with a degree
from the Catholic University, and the other with a degree
from the Dublin University, wish to go to the bar, and
present themselves for admission to the Honourable Society
of King's Inns, they are at once respectively informed by
the Rules of that Society, of the very marked difference
between them. These Rules, which are to be found in the
Report of the Dublin University Commission, p. 356, are
as tollows-T-(the italics being of our own devising).

228 The Catholic University [Sept.

•« Rules of the Honourablb Society of King's Inns, with regard to
the admission of Students into the Society, and to the degree of
Barrister-at-Law. Hilary Term, 1852.

** 1. Every person desirous to be admitted a Student into this
Society shall, in order thereto, present at the Under-Treasurer's
office, three clear days at the least before the first day of Term, a
memorial in the printed form, No. 1, which memorial is to be
signed and lodged by the Student himself, and the certificate
annexed thereto signed by a practising Barrister of at least ten
years' standing.

" 2. Every Student on presenting such memorial, shall produce
a certificate of having paid at tlie Stamp Office the Stamp Duty of
twenty-five pounds sterling, and, also, pay to the Under-Treasurer
the sum of twenty-one pounds ten shillings and four pence, includ-
ing five pounds five shillings for admission to the King's Inns*
Library ; five pounds five shillings for lectures under the recent
system of legal education — the balance being the ancient fee for
admission into the Society as a Student.

" 3. Every Student not a Graduate of the University of Dublin,
Oxford, Cambridge, London, or the Queen's University of Ireland,
shall keep nine Terms' Commons in the Dining Hall of the Society,
and also eight Terms* Commons in one of the four Inns of Court
in London, and shall lodge with the Under-Treasurer a certificate
of having kept said eight Terms' Commons in one of the said Inns
of Court in London, on presenting his memorial to be admitted to
the degree of Barrister-at Law.

*• 4. Every such Student, if a Graduate of any of the said Uni-
versities, is only required to keep six Terms' Commons in the
Dining Hall of the King's Inns, and also six Terms' Commons ia
one of the Inns of Court in London.

•' 5. Every Student admitted into the Society after the first
day of Trinity Term, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, if a
Graduate of the University of Dublin, Oxford, Cambridge, London,
or the Queen's University in Ii'eland, shall, as a condition precedent
to being called to the bar, produce certificates of his having
attended txoo complete courses, at least, of lectures, viz. : — one com-
plete course of lectures of any two, at his option, of the four Law
Professors, namely, the Law Professors of the University of Dublin,
and those of the King's Inns, and at least five-sixths of the lectures
of each Session or University Term.

•' 6. Every Student admitted into the Society after the above
date (if not a Graduate of one of the said Universities) shall as a
condition precedent to being called to the Bar, produce certificates
of his having attended /our Courses of Lectures, viz. : — one Course
of tlie Lectures of each of the said four Professors, and, at least, tive-
sixtlis of the Lectures of each Session, or University Term ; in such
manner, however, that every such Student shall be engaged not

1856.] and Legal Education. 229

less than three years in the study of the law in Ireland, exclusive
of the two years necessary for keeping Terms in Euglaad, in every
one of which three years, one complete Course of Lectures must be
kept ; but this rule and the preceding one are not intended to
affect the number of Terms' Commons required by the present
Rules of the Society to be kept by Students of the King's Inns,
prior to being called to the Bai'.

"7. If from illness, or other sufficient cause, any Student should
be prevented from completing any Course of L3cture3 necessary
towards being called to the Bar, the Legal Education Comnaittee
have power to direct wliat further attendance, if any, shall be
sufficient in such case. Rules as to legal education, Xo. 3.

" 8. Every such Student having complied with the foregoing
rules, desiring to be admitted to the Degree of a Barrister-at-Law,
and being of the full age of twenty-one years, shall present a
memorial in the printed form No. 2, at the Under-Treasurer's office,
three clear days at the least before the first day of Terra, said
memorial to be signed by the Student himself ; the certificate
annexed thereto to be signed by a practising Barrister of at least
ten years' standing, and the declaration at foot thereof, by a
Bencher.

"0. Every such Student, so applying for admission to the
Degree of a Barrister-at-Law, shall, on presenting his said
memorial, pay to the Under-Treasurer the sum of thirty-two pounds
eighteen shillings and nine pence, being the ancient fee payable to
the Society thereon, and lodge at the same time a certificate of
having paid fifty pounds stamp duty, at the stamp office — also, a
certificate of having kept the requisite number of Terms from one
of the Inns of Court in England ; an 1, if a Graduate of any of the
said Universities, shall also lodge a Testimonium from such Univer-
sity, of having obtained the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, or
Bachelor of Law thei-ein.

"By Order,

" (Signed) Conway E. Dobbs,

" Under-Treasurer.'*

Thus the one must spend in the pursuit five years, and
attend four courses of lectures, and the other spend only
three years and attend only two courses of lectures.

Suppose again, that instead of going to the bar they
propose to become solicitors, the like difference prevails,
and the one must spend five and the other only three
years in the pursuit. This difference in the case of solici-
tors is entirely owing to the statutes in that behalf, while
in the case of barristers it is the work ot the Honourable
Society of King's Inn, who strain a point, and violate the

230 The Catholic University [Sept.

letter of a statute, in order to secure protection to the
vested interests of the chartered universities. Non noster
hie Sermo. Dr. Anster, the Kegius Professor of Civil and
Canon Law in T.C.D., havinor stated that the number of
terms required to be kept in England by graduates, was
eight, and being asked bj- what authority the necessity of
keeping them was imposed says : —

« By an Act of Parliament of Henrj^VIIL (33 Hen. VIII. [Ses-
sion 2] Chap. 3, Irish), no person shall be admitted as'a Pleader in
any of tho four Courts, or to argue any matter in law, &c., who has
not been for the space ' of years complete demurrant and

resiant in one of the Inns of Court in England.' The blank before
the word * years' exists in the Statute ; and I believe the eight
Terms required has been fixed as the shortest that would satisfy the
word * years.' "

If eight Terms were fixed as the shortest period that
would satisfy the word " years/* what could the Professor
say to six Terms ? It is obvious that so far as complyinjEf
with the statute is concerned, the Society might as well
have fixed two Terms.

This statute of Henry VIII. was dwelt on very much
by the witnesses before the Dublin University Commis-
sion, and that body recommended its repeal. This recom-
mendation, with others, remained unnoticed by our legis-
lators till last session, when the members for the University
proposed their Bill for carrying some^ of them into effect.
The second clause, ^of this Bill recites and provides, as
follows : —

" II. And whereas by an Act of the Parliament of Ireland, made
in the second Session of the said Parliament holden in the thirty-
third year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, and chapter
three, intituled ' An Act touching Mispleading and Jeofailes,' it is
by section three of said Act enacted in the words following ; that
is to say, ' That no person or persons that now is or hereafter shall
be admitted or allowed in any of the king's principal courts withia
this His Grace's realm in any cause or matter, whatsoever it be,
or yet to make or exhibit to or in any of the said Four Courts, any
declaration or bill, plea in bar, replication, or rejoinder, or to give
evidence to any jury, unless it be for the King's majesty, or to argue
any matter in law, or yet to do or minister any other thing or things
in any of the said Four Courts which customarily hath been used to
be done by one learned or taken to be learned in the King's laws,
but such person and persons hath or shall bo for the same Act one
time or several times by tiie space of years complete at the

1 856.1 and Legal Education. 231

last resiant and demurrant in one of the Inns of Court within the
realm of England, studying, practising, or endeavouring them-
selves the best way they can to come to the true knowledge and
judgment of the said laws, upon pain of one hundred shillings to
every person or persona offending contrary to the Provisoe last
before specified, or anything therein contained :' And whereas the
provisions of the said Act were made perpetual by another Act of
the said Parliament of Ireland, made in the First Session of the
said parliament holden in the eleventh year of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and chapter Five, intituled * An Act for reviving the
statute against gray merchants, the statute for servant's wages,
and the statute for jeofailes :' And whereas the Provost and Senior
Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, have recently increased the
salary and emoluments of the Regius Professor of Feudal and Eog-
lish Law in the University of Dublin, and also the salary and emolu-
ments of the Regius Professor of Civil Law in the said University,
and have enlarged the course of legal education to be pursued
therein, and the benchers of the honourable Society of King's Inns,
Dublin, have recently established a professorship of the law of per-
sonal property pleading, 'practice, and evidence, and a professorship of
constitutional, criminal, and other Crown Law : And whereas by
arrangements entered into between the said Provost and Senior Fel-
lows of Trinity College, Dublin, and the benchers of the said Society
of Kmg's Inns, the lectures and teaching of the said Four Professors
are available for the education of the students at law and the estab-
lishment of a complete School of Law in Ireland, and the compul-
sory attendance of the students at one of the Inns of Court ia
London by force of any statute as aforesaid is inconvenient, and cal-
culated to inter/ere with the freedom of such arrangements as mat/ from
time to time be made for the systematic teaching of the Professors of the
School of Law in Ireland, and the regular attendance of the students
thereat : Be it therefore enacted, that tlie herein-before recited pi'ovision
of the said Act of the thirty- third year of the reign of King Henri/ the
Eighth, and the provisions of the said Act of the eleventh year of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, so far as the said last-mentioned Act makes
the said recited provision of the said Act of Henry the Eighth per-
petual, be and are hereby repealed.''

Ill the Report of the Dublin University Conimissioners,
the idea of a sort of partnership in legal education between
T. C. D. and the King's Inns, was shadowed forth in
many passages. In one on this very subject they say —

" From the position of the University of Dublin in the Metropolis
of Ireland, where the Law Courts are situate, and from the connec-
tion already established between the College and the Benchers of
the King's Inns, a complete Law School might well be developed
under their joint superintendence."

232 The Catholic Universifij [Sept.

The above clause in Mr. Napier's Bill suggests so
strongly the idea of this partnership between these institu-
tions as an established fact, that it behoves the friends of
the Catholic University to look after its interests before the
proposed arrangement is completed under tlie avowed and
express sanction of Parliament. But before we proceed to
point out what steps they should take for this purpose, we
had better state also what is further proposed in favour of
graduates seeking to become attorneys.
*- The Dublin University Commissioners recommended
*' that the stamp duty on articles of apprenticeship to an
attorney or solicitor should be remitted or reduced in
favour of those who have incurred the expense of an uni-
versity education." The grounds on which they base this
recommendation are thus stated : —

" From the provisions of several Acts of Parliament for the regula-
tion of the professions of Attorney and Solicitor, it is manifestly the
intention of the legislature to promote the acquisition of academic
education, both in arts and law, amongst those preparing for these
branches of the legal profession. For this purpose, the period of
apprenticeship is shortened by two years in favour of those who cfbtain
the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and by one year in favour of those
■who have attended the lectures and passed the examinations of the
Professors of Law in the University of Dublin, or in the Queen's
University, during two collegiate years. Dr. Anster states that
*this class of students do not come within the arrangements with
the King's Inns, and no rule has yet been made by the Board on
the subject of their attendance at lectures and examinations.' We
have no doubt, however, that, as the law school makes progress,
the Board will make arrangements to include in it the class of
students referred to.

" The object of the legislature — the encouragement of a higher
scale of education amongst those preparing for the professions of
Attorney and Solicitor — would be much more generally and eflfec-
tually secured than at present, if a remission or reduction of the
heavy stamp duty of c£l20. now imposed on articles of clerkship or
apprenticeship to attorneys or solicitors, were allowed to those who
had incurred the expanse of a university education. The great
expense which this stamp duty imposes on young men, or on their
parents, must often exhaust the funds that would bo much more
advantageously applied in securing a liberal education. The same
reasoning is applied in the Report of the Board, which we have
already quoted, to the higher branches of the legal profession.
*lf,' say the Committee, ' we were permitted to add the same time
and expense to the studies of a law student which he must now

185G.] and Legal Education. 233

spend in London, It would be very easy to render the law school of
the university more efficient.'

" These heavy taxes on the entrance to the legal professions
counteract in a great measure the benefits of exhibitions and
scholarships as means of assisting joung men to enter such pro-
fessions; for what the successful student gains by the public
endowment in the form of an encouragement, to the diligent culti-
vation of his talents, is shortly afterwards taken from him in the
form of a tax on his admission to the professions in which he can
best make his talents and acquirements serviceable to the commu-
nity."

When this report was made, the stamp duty was <£120,
but in 1854 Mr. Gladstone reduced it to <£80. Mr. Napier
proposes that it should be still further reduced in favour of
the graduates of the Chartered Universities. The follow-
ing is the ground for this proposition, as stated in the
preamble to the third clause of his Bill.

" And whereas in consideration of the learning and abilities re-
quisite for the taking of the degree of Bachelor of Laws in
the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the
University of Dublin, the University of Durham, the London
University, and the Queen's University of Ireland, it is by
several Acts of Parliament now in force provided that in the
case of any person who shall first have taken the degree of Bache-
lor of Arts or Bachelor of Law, in any of the said Universities
and shall in the manner and upon the conditions in the said
Acts serve as a clerk to an attorney or solicitor, for the space of
three years under articles of apprenticeship in that behalf, such
person shall be qualified to be admitted as an attorney or solicitor,
as fully as any person having been bound and having served five
years would in other cases be qualified to be admitted : and where-
as it is just and expedient that persons who have or shall have
incurred the expense of a University Education, and taken such
degree of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Laws, in any of the said
Universities, and who are bound to serve a clerkship of three years
only, should not be required to pay the same amount of stamp
duty upon such articles of apprenticeship as if they had not taken
sucli degrees, and had been bound to serve a clerkship of five
years."

This Bill was not pressed last session because the
Chancellor of the Exchequer would not yield to this last
proposition, and another for allowing a drawback of the
paper duty on all works published at the University press,
but it will be pressed next session, and probably carried.
The friends of the Catholic University cannot with any

234 The Catholic University [Sept.

show of reason resist its progress. Their duty should be
rather to get a charter for the University or to have all privi-
leges in favour of education in chartered universities abolish-
ed. The latter we consider the more feasible alternative.
Some two years back a charter was not utterly hopeless,
but it is so now. The present government, with a general
election near at hand, would never run the risk of such a
measure, in the face of the Protestant prejudices of Eng-
land lashed to fury, by the Maynooth cry. We may be
mistaken, but it is easy for those whom it most concerns,
to inquire at the Castle whether the charter will be now
sealed, and a Bill proposed to Parliament to put its eleves
on a footing with those of Oxford, Cambridge, l)ublin,
Durham, London, and the Queen's University of Ireland.
They may put the seal, but they will not carry the Bill,
and unless they do, the charter would be little better than
waste paper. ^ ^ .

The other course — to demand free-trade in education —
is the only practical one. There is no sound reason why
^reat establishments, with immense resources, and all the
iavour and patronage of the state at their back, should
require the additional protection of the privileges which we
have just enumerated. The continuance of such privileges
is a gross injustice to the Catholics of Ireland. Why
should Irish Catholics, who do not choose to go to Trinity
College, or the Queen's University, be obliged to spend
two years more in the pursuit of a profession than their
Protestant competitors, who have no scruples in seeking
knowledge in such places ? Or why should such Irish
Catholics be in a worse position than their brethren in
England, who, so far as the Bar is concerned, are now
precisely on an equality with their Protestant competitors?
Some years back the distinction which still exists in
Ireland in favour of graduates existed in some of the Inns
of Court in England, but now the one uniform course for
all students, whether graduates or not graduates, is the
keeping of twelve Terms. This is thus stated in the
report of the Commissioners for inquiry into the Inns of
Court in England.

I. " All that is at present required of a person wishing to become
a Student of the Law in England, with the view of being ultimately
called to the Bar, is that he become a Member of one of the four
Inns of Court, wbich is efifected by making a formal application for
that purpose, merely stating to tlie authorities of such laa who

1856.] and Legal Education. 235

and what he is, with a certificate of his respectability, signed by
two Barristers, attached to it ; that he keep twelve Terms, by
dining a certain number of times in the Hall ; and that he attend
during one year the Lectures of two of the Readers appointed by
the Council of Legal Education, or at his option submit to a public
Examination, which is compulsory only upon those who do not
attend the Lectures."

So in Scotland, the possessor of an university degree
seems to enjoy no special privilege over others. From the
above report we learn that —

" 2. In Scotland,'by the existing regulations, three qualifications
are at present indispensable to the admission of ' Intrants' or
students, into the faculty of law. It is required of every candidate
that he give evidence of general scholarship, that he pass two
examinations upon the Civil and the Scotch Laws, and lastly that
he prepare a Latin thesis upon a title of the Pandects. This
system, however, being deemed insufficient, the faculty of advo-
cates at Edinburgh have lately made a report upon the subject,
recommending a much more strict and comprehensive course of
legal study, with examinations both in general knowledge and in
law."

We next turn to this Report of the Faculty, and it is
conclusive in favour of our suggestion. After pointing out
the reasons for the Bar maintaining its^ reputation as a
learned body, the Faculty say —

" Influenced by these considerations, the Committee are unani-
mously of opinion that evidence both of general and legal learning,
should be afforded by every candidate for admission to the bar.
The proper evidence of general scholarship is a University Degree, and
if evidence of that be produced, no examination need be mado
as to general education. But such a test as this the Committee
were unwilling to require absolutely and exclusively as it might
bear hard upon persons of humble family and straitened circum-
stances, whose means have denied them the advantage of a college
education. Such men ought to have the door of admission open to
them as freely as to their more wealthy and aristocratic rivals ;
and many such have achieved success, and shed lustre upon the
profession. Several, too, have been drafted into the legal from
other Professions, which they have quitted after prosecuting them
for years. If such persons possess the requisite abilities and know-
ledge, it would be a hardship to them and a loss to the Faculty
that they should be refused access to the Bar merely because of
the want of a University education in their youth.

" To avoid these evils, the Committee are prepared to recom-
mend that, as regards general scholarship, it should not be iadi3->

236 The Catholic University [Sept.

pen sable to produce any Certificates of University education. All
that ought to be insisted upon is, proof of the possession of the
requisite liberal education. It is a matter of indifference in what
way that may be acquired, whether by private study or public
instruction. And having arrived at this conclusion, the remaining
point for determination was the mode of ascertaining the fact.
In regard to this, it seemed to the Committee to be the most expe-
dient course to subject the candidate to an examination upon
certain branches of general knowledge conducted by men to whose
hands it may be reasonably and safely entrusted. By an arrange-
ment with persons of learning, as will be explained immediately, tlie
Committee believe that an effiiuent Board of Examiuators could be
procured in whom the Faculty would have confidence. And the
subjesta to which they would confine the examination would be the
following four : — First, Latin ; secondly, Greek ; ihirdli/. Ethical
and Metaphysical Philosophy; a.iid fourthly, Logic (or in the option
of the candidate) Mathematics."

We turn next to America. The commissioners for
inquiry into the Inns of Court examhied two American
lawyers, one from Philadelphia, the other from New York.
In Philadelphia the preliminaries for admission to practice
involve only a certain attendance in the office of an attor-
ney, and passing an examination in general and profes-
sional knowledge. In New^ York, since 1846, all that is
required is to pass an examination before three counsel-
lors appointed by the Supreme Court. ^ The evidence of
the New York lawyer, who, by the bye, is described in the
Report as General Thomas, gives such an ample account
not only of the preliminaries to admission, but of the whole
career and practice of the counsellor afterwards, that we
are tempted to lay it in extenso before our readers.

" GENERAL THOMAS EXAMINED.

"994. Are you conversant with the practice of Law in the
United States? — I am.

" 995. In what State are you most conversant with the practice
of Law ? — New York. I have lived in three or four States.

•*996. Have you practised yourself ? — Yes; but I was admitted
to practice at a very late day. I spent the early part of my life in
the army, and I was not admitted till more advanced in life than
when men usually enter the profession in America, and have only
been in practice eight years.

" 997. You can, therefore, better inform the Commissioners of
the modern system of Procedure ? — Yes ; I can also state what was
the previous system, because I commenced my studies under the
original system, and was admitted under the new system.

185G.] and Legal Education. 237

" 998. What was the original course of proceeding In the State
of Neve York, with reference to any gentleman who wished to
become an Advocate ? — He was required to have graduated at
some college, and to have entered his name in an attorney's
office, and pursued there, under the direction of an attorney, the
study of Law for three years. He was then examined before three
persons, appointed by the Supreme Court of the State, and if he
passed a satisfactory examination, he was then, by the supreme
Court, licensed to practise Law as an Attorney. He was required
to practise as an attorney for three years, and I ought to mention
that he was required both at the first and at the second examina-
tion, to produce a certificate of good moral character.

•* 999. From whom was that certificate obtained ? — From re-
spectable counsellors known to the examiners. At the end of
three years of practice, as an attorney, he was required to undergo
an examination on the principles of Law. The first examination
was chiefly upon tha practice. On the second examination, pre-
viously to being admitted as a Counsellor, he was examined upon
the principles of Law very thoroughly by three Counsellors appoint-
ed by the Supreme Court, and if that examination proved satisfac-
tory, he was then admitted to practise as a Counsellor, and could
then appear and argue Cases in Court, and not till then. Previ-
ously he ccmld only appear as an attorney.

" 1000. The filrst procedure before he was admitted as an attorney
involved general knowledge, as tested by his having been at some
University, and a practical knowledge of Laws tested by his
having been in some Solicitor's office ? — That was the practice ia
the State of New York up to 1846.

" 1001. Besides his having practised as an attorney, was there
any intervening course of study prescribed to him beyond the fact
that he had passed a general examination in Law ? — No, that was
not prescribed to him ; he studied where he pleased, except that
upon his first examination, he was required to produce the Certifi-
cate of an Attorney, that he had been a student or clerk in his
office, for the period of time mentioned.

" 1002. With regard to the general knowledge which was re-
quired at his first examination, was it necessary that the Univer-
sity, at which he had studied, should be in the State ? — No; in
any one of the United States.

" 1003. Was it required that he should take a Degree ? — Yes,
of Bachelor of Arts.

1004. How many years, usually speaking, are students at the
University before they obtain their Degree ? — Four years.

" 1005, When a person is admitted as a Counsellor, does he still
continue to practise as an Attorney, does he combine the two ?—
Yes, he may practise either as an Attorney, or as a Counsellor.

" 1006. What change in the system has taken place since the year
1846? — Since that period the Examination has been for Admission

238 TIi4 Catholic University [Sept.

to the Bar, and a person once admitted is admitted to practise in
all the Courts of the State. There are no Degrees, therefore, of
Attorney and Counsellor recognised bj the Law. A candidate for
Admission to the Bar is required to be examined by three Counsel-
lors, appointed by the Supreme Court, and licensed by the Supremo
Court to practise Law as before, but after having obtained this
License, he is then admitted to practise as an Attorney, or Solicitor,
or Counsellor, as he may get employment

** 1007. Is he required still to produce a Degree from a University?
—No Certificate whatever. The Law is thrown open to everybody
who can undergo the examination, and produce a Certificate of good
moral character. It is not necessary that he should have attended
an Advocate's office, or any other office whatever. The only
advantage of having taken a Degree is, that on its being produced
before the Examiners, it would probably have an effect with them.
A Degree at one of the Law Schools would have a very great effect
in making the Examination a mere nominal one. The Law requires
nothing but that he should pass an Examination satisfactory to the
Court,

•• 1008. Is this one Examination now extended to the Principles
of Law as well as the Practice ? — To some general Principles, but
it is chiefly confined to Practice.

" 1009. How many hours does the Examination take, ordinarily?
— Not more than half an hour, at the greatest extent. I have
attended several Examinations, and I think no one was examined
more than half an hour.

*' 1010. In practice, have many been refused admittance since
this New Regulation ? — Considering the number admitted, I think
not. I think I may say that there is as much Free Trade allowed
in the Law as it is possible for one to conceive.

" 1011. Looking at the duration of the Examination, is it much
more than a matter of form ? — It is very much a matter of form.
It does not test the Candidate's knowledge of Law.
♦'1012. Is it Oral ?— Yes.

" 1013. Are there no Written Papers required ? — No.
*• 1014. Nor any Latin Theses ? — Nothing of the kind. They are
examined by those Counsellors who have been appointed for the
purpose by the Court. Probably forty or fifty young men come in
together, and they Examine each one. I think I place the length
of time to its greatest extent when I say half an hour, and often
it does not exceed five minutes.

"1015. And you say also that it is merely formal ? — As far as
regards testing one's knowledge of Law, or ability to practice, it
certainly is so ; but this Examination is confined chiefly to the
Practice of the Law, the mode of bringing Actions, their nature, and
generally those questions with which an Attorney iis supposed to be
familiar.

1856, 1 and Legal Education. 239

" 1016. Are''private communications received, with reference to
the impeachment of moral character ? — I think they are.

" 1017. The Examiners consider themselves open in that respect ?
—Yes, they do, to the best of my knowledge.

" 1018. The party himself would be informed what the objection
was ? — Yes.

" 1019. Is there any Examination as to Scholarship at all?— »
No.

" 1020. Is there none whatever, as to any acquaintance with the
Latin language ? — No. The new Code abolishes all Latin terms.

"1021. Was this change cotemporaneous with that which took
place with the fusion of Law and Equity ? — Yes.

" 1022. What proportion of the young men who have been annu-
ally admitted to the Bar since the change, have passed through a
University, do you think ? — I should think four-fifths.

" 1023. So that it is a general rule in the United States, to go
through a University where there is a very good Legal Education and
Legal Examination, before coming to the Bar ? — I no not mean
that four-fifths go through the Law School, but at least that pro-
portion take the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, and many of them,
besides, take a Degree at a Law School or University. We think
that that portion of the community who have to employ Lawyers
believe that education is necessary, although some men who have
not had the advantages of goiu": through College and graduating at
a University, may acquire this knowledge elsewhere, yet our people
believe that the knowledge acquired in a Collegiate Education, is
necessary, as a general principle ; and it seems to be a recommen-
dation with every one who employs a legal man to do his business,
that he should have had a regular education. It is so much in his
favour. But occasionally we find a man who has acquired this
knowledge through other channels.

" 1024. Is it competent to any person who is an Advocate, to
exercise any other calling, a trade, for instance ? — It is competent,
but it is altogether unknown.

" 1025. It has been stated to the Commissioners, that in Phila-
delphia there is a mode of bringing Professional opinion to bear
upon the Profession, by means of a Club or Association ; is there
anything of that description in New York ? — There is nothing more
than the Law Association.

" 1026. Do the majority of the Members of the Profession belong
to that Association ?-^They do ; at least all those who are at all
distinguished.

" 1027. Would the opinion of that Body have any weight, or is it
their habit to express an opinion upon Professional or Non-Profes-
sional conduct ? — 1 think not, as an Association ; but I think there
is no Profession in the United ^States, which has so much weiglit,
as the Legal Profession.

240 Tlie Catholic University [Sept.

** 1028. You think it is simplj left to general Public opinion ? —
Yes.

" 1029. What Superintendence is there over the Bar. Take the
case of a Barrister forgetting the Rules of Honourable Conduct, in
what way would his conduct be censured ; would he be degraded ?
— The Court have power to degrade him, and the Public opinion
of the Bar, which is very effective, could very well be concentrated
upon such an individual, but the Court has the power to degrade
him.

*• 1030. As far as you can judge, you conceive that that has been
a sufficient practical check ? — Yes.

" 1031. Have you had any experience at all of the effect upon
the Bar of the old and new Systems as to whether the one or the
other works best ? — I do not know that my opinion would be worth
very much on that point, as roy knowledge of the Bar has been
chiefly under the new system.

" 1032. In England, Barristers who practise in the Courts of
Law, are rarely found in Equity, and vice versa, consequently thejr
have different courses of study, and very frequently different orders of
Legal Mind. Did anything corresponding with that exist in the
United States, under the old system ? Was the Bar divided into
the Bar belonging to the Courts of Equity, and the Bar belonging
to the Courts of Law ? — Yes, it existed to some extent. Those men
who had a peculiar qualification for appearing in the Courts of
Equity were generally selected, both by their brother Lawyers, and
by their reputation amongst Clients for the particular Court in
which they excelled ; but there was no Legal designation that they
should appear in one or the otiier Court, all having liberty to appear
in whatever Court they might select.

" 1033. But practically, were they separated ? — Practically, in
many cases, they were. I could point the Commissioners to many
Barristers who appeared in a Court of Equity alone; many who
took up the subject of Conveyancing ; others who appeared almost
entirely in the Courts of Appeals, and so on. I ought to say that
that divides the Bar to a certain degree, even yet. There are many
eminent men of Legal knowledge, who have devoted themselves
entirely to the business of Conveyancing, who never appear in Court
at all, but who may appear where they please. Then there are
others who do nothing but appear in Court constantly ; and there
are men of large Legal attainments, who remain in tlieir offices all
the time, and prepare the Cases for otliers acting as Attorneys ; so
that, practically, I consider that tlie Bar has divided itself to suit
the circumstances of the case, although the lines are not so dis-
tinctly marked as if they were recognized by Law.

" 1034. When admitted as an Advocate at New York, do you at
once practise in the Supreme Court of the States ? — Yes ; and a
person may appear in his own case, without ever being admitted to>

1856.] and Legal Education. 241

the Bar, and may argue his own case ; but practically, that is not
often the case.

" 1035. Is the State of New York divided into Districts for the
purpose of the Administration of Justice ? — It is.

" 1036. Are you admitted to all the Districts ? — To any part of
the State.

•• 1037. The Examining Body is usually at New York ? — Yes, or
where the Supreme Court holds its session.

"1038. Are you satisfied with the working of the new system,
or should you wish to see any change? — I am satisfied with the
new system entirely : it is the system that exists in all the States
which were never Colonial States. The practice of admission to
the Bar was always the same in the new States as now exists in
the State of New York ; but an examination was required, to admit
persons to practise.

"1039. And a certificate of character? — Yes; in all the new
States, that is what is required now. The examination is, per-
haps, a mere form in most of them ; but the client looks to the
man whom he employs, and he takes the responsibility, whether he
gets a man of talent and character, or not ; and generally the
clients are most astute in finding out those things with us.

" 1040. You trust to the public to find that out ?— Yes.

" 1041. Several of your eminent legal writers have been pro-
fessors at universities, have they not? — Yes.

"1042. Was not Judge Story a Professor? — Yes, he was.

" 1043. Are the judges selected from advocates, or professors at
universities ? — Advocates always.

" 1044. Are the judges elected at New York? — Yes, they are.

" 1045. Has that been the case recently ? — It has been so since
the last change.

"1046. Are they elected for a term of years? — Yes; for eight
years.

"1047. That has only now just been tried; the eight years are
now about to expire ? — Yes.

" 1048. The election is generally renewed, is it not, for one
term? — Yes. The judges of some of the courts are elected for a
shorter period than eight years ; the eight years applies to judges
of the highest court ; but those judges who are competent, and
who are willing to be re-elected, have generally been re-elected ; I
hardly know an exception ; but unfortunately, the salaries are
very small, and we cannot get the first-class barristers to go on the
bench; they will not leave a lucrative practice, to accept the
office of judge unless they happen to have accumulated a fortune,
when they will do it for the honour.

"1049, What is the salary in the higher court?— The salary
in the Court of Appeals in the State is not so high as in the
city, because, in the city of New York, persons are supposed to
have larger expenses. The salary in the Court of Appeals is only

VOL. XLi.— No. LXXXI. * X6

242 ITie Catholic University [Sept.

about 2,500 dollars, about 500Z.; in the city of New York, the
salary of the Superior Court Judges is 3,500 dollars, about 700Z.

*• 1050. You speak of being satisfied with this almost formal
examination. In New York, and in every State, are there not
abundant means for every young man about to enter upon the
study of the Law, to obtain, in the State, a legal education? —
Yes.

" 1051. That is provided ?— Yes.

" 1052. So that a young man has not to seek a legal educa-
tion for himself, but there are places where he may obtain it, if
he desires it ? — Yes ; legal education in America is chiefly ob-
tained in a lawyer's oflSce; but a small portion of those admitted
to the bar take a degree at a Law University. They take the
degree of Bachelor of Arts, and then he enters in an attorney's
effice: some go to the law school or university, and take a degree
before entering into an attorney's office.

" 1053. You are aware of the practice that existed in England
till recently, that a student of law was obliged to seek the best
education he could find, and that no means were provided for him.
That has never been the case in New York, has it ? — No ; places
have been always open to the student.

" 1054. And .degrees conferred in law ? — Yes ; in many of the
colleges of the United States, we have law schools ; most of our
students who resort to the schools, go to the school at Newhaven,
in the State of Connecticut, or Cambridge, in the State of Massa-
cbussets.

" 1055. Have you had your attention called to the distinction
in this country between an Attorney and a Counsel ? — No, I
have not.

" 1056. The Attorney here does all the practical part, and the
Counsel only opens his mouth in court ? — We think that the inter-
course of the Client with the Counsellor has a very beneficial influ-
ence upon society. If a Client comes with a bad cause, or one in
which he is guilty himself, the Counsellor, if he is a man of the
station and character which most Counsellors possess or occupy, a
direct personal influence upon the client would be exercised, that is
beneficial in correcting his morals, if they be bad, and in prevent-
ing his bringing into litigation a matter which has not a plausible
and fair appearance of justice.

" 1057. You approve very much of the amalgamation of the two
branches of the profession in one person ? — Yes.

•' 1058. Do you mean to say, that in New York it is the province
of the Counsel to ascertain the facts from the party ? — It depends
altogether upon the nature of the case. If it is a case of great
magnitude, (I am not speaking now of criminal la^, but questions
of property,) the Counsel always has an interview with the Client
liimself ; he wishes to understand distinctly the grounds of the
action.

1856.] wid Legal Education. 243

** 1059. That Is after the materials of the case, the facts,, have
been previously investigated and laid before him in the brief, is it
not ? — No ; it is in the outset. That is a privilege which the Client
claims, of seeing the Counsel, and conferring with him, whether he
is to go to law or not.

" 1060, How is the evidence hunted up?— That is done by the
Attorney and Client, but the Counsel sees personally the leading
witnesses.

" 1061. Who is the Attorney, as distinct from the Counsel ? —
The offices are divided according to the nature of the business. A
man begins to practice law in New York, for instance, and he has
one or two cases. He then does all the business himself ; but his
business increases, and he has more than he can do himself, and
he then employs a clerk, who takes a part of it off his hands ; then
he employs an attorney, and the cases that require no investiga-
tion, such as bringing a common action, would be commenced by
the attorney, without seeing the counsellor, unless there was a
special request made in the matter.

" 1062. So that the attorney is nominated and employed by
the counsel ? — Yes ; he generally belongs to his office.

" 1063. And generally speaking, there is a partnership, is there
not ? — ^Yes. The moment the business becomes sufficiently im-
portant to justify the taking in a partner, the counsel takes in
this man whom he has employed as attorney, or some one else, as
his partner, and he does the ordinary business of the office, while
the other goes into court.

" 1064. Are there men of considerable eminence, such as the
late Mr. Webster, who never act in any other way than as counsel ?
—Yes.

" 1065. Practically, in all important cases, there is the same
division of labour between the counsel and the attorney, in the
United States, as exists in this country ? — Exactly so ; but it is
rendered so by circumstances. If you go into States which are
new, where the population is spare, there are few law-suits, and the
counsel will sit in his office half the day, and talk with a client,
for he has nothing else to do ; of coarse, in that case, he needs no
attorney.

" 1066. Is not the effect of this system, that in all simple causes,
only one agent is employed ? — Yes.

" 1067. Therefore it is much cheaper in practice than the
system pursued in tliis country, of having two agents in every case?
— ^Yes ; this is certainly true.

" 1068. Can you give the Commissioners any idea of the
expenses of a suit, so for as the counsel's fee goes? — For the first
class counsel th« fees will vary from 50 dollars to 2,000 dollars ;
if the Fee were above that, it would be a case out of the ordinary
magnitude.

" 1069. For what class of case would a fee of 50 dollars be coa-

244 The Catholic University (Sept.

sidered adequate remuneration ? — It would depend somewhat upon
the amount involved. It would be a very small amount involved
wlien 50 dollars would be a compensation.

" 1070. How many of such cases might be disposed of in a
dvy? — A dozen probably ; but where the fee was 500 dollars,
probably it would take the whole day, and very often longer,

"1071. Does that include the whole of the remuneration to
the counsel in that suit? — No ; there are certain costs that are
allowed, and which are specified by law.

" 1072. Which the losing party pays ? — Yes. Sometimes the
court tliink proper to decree that each party shall pay their own
costs. An important counsel would hardly appear for less than
1 00 dollars, to make an argument.

" 1073. Does the counsel fix the fee, or how is it fixed ? — In this
way. Whenever a suit is undertaken, the party ascertains from
the clerk probably, or some one who has employed him before, or
from his own knowledge of the matter, that he ought to pay him
a retaining fee at the commencement ; that is ordinarily not very
much. If the suit is an important one, ho gives him a 100 dollars
at once, and perhaps more, depending on the nature of the case.
When the argument in the case takes place, the clerk sends in a
bill for 500 or 1,000 dollars, as he thinks fit.

" 1074. Is that merely for pleading, or are there any charges
for copying papers ? — The costs are all separate. He sends in a
bill for ' Arguing the Cause in Court of Appeal, 500 dollars,' or
whatever the chai'ge may be.

" 1075. In the case of a gentleman who confines himself solely
to the duty of an advocate, his fee would be arranged by the
attorney or advocate conducting the cause ? — No ; he would send
in a charge in his own name, or that of the firm, and probably
there are fewer of those bills disputed than any others in the
world.

" 1076. It is recoverable by law ? — Yes.

" 1077. Is it a quantum valeat ? — If it were to be resisted, it
would be left, of course, to the court and to the opinion of lawyers
of some standing, whether it was too gi-eat a fee or not.

" 1078. Would not the court refer it ?— Yes.

" 1079. It could be sued for before a jury, could not it ? —
Yes.

" 1080. Does that fee go to the partnership, or to the advocate
alone ? — To the partnership.

-' ;"1081. The bill is sent in as a partnership bill ? — Yes. The.
bill is sent in as a partnership bill for arguing cause, so-and-so,
and the name of the firm.

" 1082. What would be the fee in a common case like a Bill of
Exchange ? — In the State of New York, it would be about 2\ per
cent. lu the Southern States, it is 5 per cent, invariably, any-

1856.] , and Legal Education. 245

where, on the amount recovered, no matter how large it is, when
a debt is collected.

" 1083. If nothing is recovered, is nothing paid? — The expenses
are usually paid ; but nothing' more.

" 1084. Is that the case, whether the action is disputed or not;
suppose a Bill of Exchange pleaded for delay ? — Ordinarily, there
is nothing in the Southern States, except the commission.

" 1085. In ordinary causes, it does not depend upon success ? —
No.

" 1086. What do you call sending a bill for selection, must you
go to court ? — Yes ; you must go to court by a regular suit, if a
demand by counsel is unsuccessful.

" 1087. Is not 2i per cent, rather high upon a large bill, if there
is really no defence ? — Yes ; but ordinarily, in the State of New
York, and in all the great commercial cities, there is a special
agreement made in those matters, when it varies from the ordinary
rules in collection cases.

"1088.^nthe case of a bill of 1,000^., 25Z. is a large fee, if
there is really no dispute ? — Yes."

Let us not be misunderstood as suggesting the amalga-
mation of the two professions, as in America. We quote
the above merely to show that in that practical country
they have upon consideration set aside the privilege here-
tofore conferred upon an university decree, and admit all
alike to practise who can pass the examination.

In England at present it is a moot point whether an
examination before admission to practise should not be
compulsory. The witnesses examined before the Commis-
sion gave different opinions on the subject, but no one
proposed to do what the Irish Benchers do — impose an
additional two years' probation upon those who have not
the mystical and metaphysical aid of a degree from a
royally-chartered university.

The course, then, for our friends to pursue, is to insist
that for all students, whether graduates or not graduates,
a three years' apprenticeship, or attendance at Terms,
shall be sufficient for admission to practice as attorneys or
barristers, and that the stamp duties for all should be
exactly the same. The Dublin University Commissioners
have repeatedly urged that the power of admission to the
Bar in Ireland should be "entirely entrusted to the Ben-
chers of the King's Inns.*' We doubt the propriety of
giving them this absolute power, and we think the cause
of legal education would be served if they were kept in
wholesome fear of competition, by allowing all persons

246 The Catholic University and Legal Education. | Sept.

called to the Bar in England, to practise here on produc-
ing a certificate of their call, just as is done in the colo-
nies. Something of this kind was done here in 1792.
Prior to the Emancipation Act of that year, the English
Inns of Court had been in the habit of admitting Catholics
a3 students, and to practise under the Bar as Special
Pleaders and Conveyancers. The strict letter of the
Penal Laws had been enforced against them in this
country. In order to remedy this, the 7th and 8th Sec-
tions of that Act, the 32nd Geo. 3, ch. 21, provided that
any Catholic who had been entered before the 20th
January, 1792, as a student in any of the Inns of Court in
England, should be entitled to be entered in the King's
Inns *' as of the day on which the certificate of his entry
into such English Inn of Court bears date," and to be
admitted to the Bar as if he had been entered a student in
the King's Inns ** on the day of the date of the said English
certificate." It will be easy to improve upon this prece-
dent. We have an exact precedent in the case of another
learned profession. There is a College of Surgeons in
St. Stephen's Green, but the difficulties interposed by it
to an admission to the rank and dignity of a surgeon are
so great,,that most of our medical students find it cheaper
and more convenient to go to London and obtain their
diplomas there, than to wait for them here. We need
scarcely add that it is just as lawful for them to kill and
slay their Celtic'brethren under letters of license from the
dissecting establishment in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, as under
any from its rival in Stephen's Green. We have also the
satisfaction to state that the latter establishment has of
late seen the unwisdom of its courses, and has taken, or is
about to take, stops for making it as cheap for Irish stu-
dents to buy their diplomas in the home, as in the foreign
market. If we pursue a like course of treatment with the
establishment in Henrietta Street, we shall soon find it
amenable to justice and common sense, and then the
Catholic University will have, so far as the legal profes-
sions are concerned, that which alone it wants, fair play
and no favour.

247

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

I. — (1) Adelaide, Qiieen of Italy ; or the Iron 'Crown, An Histori-
cal Tale. Bj William Bernard MacCabe. London : Dolman,
1856.

(2) Florine, Princess of Burgundy. A Tale of the First Crusaders.
By William Bernakd AIacCabe. Second edition, Dublin :
Duffy, 1855.

One of the most fertile sources of anti-Catholic preju-
dice, not only in England, but in every Protestant country
of Europe, has been the active and unscrupulous use which
writers of various degrees of ability have made of the
so-called Historical Novel, as an instrument of misrepre-
sentation. So universal is the influence which it exer-
cises, and so numerous the classes which it is enabled to
reach, that the apologist of Catholic principles in vain
recurs to the ordinary and serious means of vindication
in order to counteract it. We have never ceased, there-
fore, to represent the mistaken indifference of which Catho-
lics have so long been guilty, in leaving to their adversaries
the all but undisputed possession of the field of historical
fiction, and to urge, by every argument, the necessity of
encountering an evil from which we have so long suffered,
by turning to the vindication of the truth, what has from
immemorial use become the exclusive vehicle of falsehood
and of calumny.

Among those of our popular writers who have felt
most sensibly the importance of this policy, and who,
even in the scanty intervals of an anxious and busy
career, have devoted themselves most earnestly to its
service, is the able author of ** Bertha," Mr. MacCabe.
The laborious and extensive historical researches in which
he was long engaged during the compilation of his Catholic .
History of England, have peculiarly fitted Mr. MacCabe
for the lighter task to which he has since devoted some
of his occasional hours of leisure. He has already turned
to a useful and interesting account more than one episode
of mediaeval history ; and we rejoice to find that he has
been repaid ,by a steady and increasing popularity. The

248 Notices of Booh. [Sept-

larft-e circulation of his "Bertha" and " Florine," both ot
which have been reprinted in a cheap and popular form, is
a pleasing evidence of the growth of a taste among our
people for higher and better qualities in a work of fiction,
than the ephemeral excitement of an ingenious plot or a
series of startling adventures.

But among all Mr. MacCabe's tales we can confidently
predict for that now before us, " Adelaide, Queen of
Italy," the largest circle of readers, and the most permanent
as well as most general success. It is founded upon the
romantic story of that beautiful princess, the daughter of
Rodolf of Burgundy; and it has an especial historical inte-
rest in relation to our own times, inasmuch as it details
with singular clearness and force the complicated series of
causes in the affairs of Italy, which first led to the interpo-
sition of that German influence, which, with few interrup-
tions, has ever since been maintained in the Italian Penin-
sula.

With perhaps a less variety of personages than is found in
his former stories, " Adelaide'' contains more of individual
character, and developes each individual character with
greater care and minuteness. Lothaire, Berengar, and
Adalbert, are drawn from the very life. We hardly know
in the whole range of historical fiction, a more charming
sketch than that of the heroine Adelaide j and its beauty
is, if possible, enhanced by the contrast of the revolting
but most just and truthful delineation of Willa, the wife of
Berengar.

We must, however, leave*"to our readers the pleasure of
discovering for themselves the details of the narrative, which
is as full of dramatic interest as it is of solid historical infor-
mation. But we cannot help obsei*ving, as an evidence of the
writer's artistic skill as well as of his sound religious feel-
ing, that he has drawn this beautiful and edifying story from
one of the darkest and most painful periods of mediaBval
history, — a period from which even Cardinal Baronius has
turned away in sorrow and dismay. And yet in this Mr,
MacCabe has not once compromised the truth of history.
Without disguising a single one of the horrors of the
period, he has turned them to their true account as a
moral lesson, and as an illustration of God's providence
towards His Church in her humiUation no less than in her
glory.

1856.} Notices of Books. 24^

II. — Flemish Interiors. By the writer of "a Glance behind the
Grilles." Longman and Co., Paternoster Row, London.

This work supplies a great desideratum in English
literature. We have plenty of Hand-books instructing
the Tourist in the materiel of the countries, which he has
to travel through ; but we have few or none concerning
the morale of those countries.

The book before us treats of the religious, charitable,
and educational establishments of Belgium; — a country
where the church has for the last twenty-five years enjoyed
the fgreatest freedom, and has turned that freedom to a
noble account. The churches and chapels — the religious
houses for both sexes — the hospitals — the orphanages — the
asylums for the aged or infirm — the schools, whether
elementary, or of a higher kind, whether for the people or
for the upper classes — successively pass nnder review.
Though the same class of objects has often to be described,
yet has the author with a happy talent placed those objects
nnder different aspects, and thus avoided tedious or
irksome repetition. With the account of some religious
house is'often interwoven a brief history of the rise and
progress of the order or congregation, to which it may
belong ; or pleasing or edifying anecdotes of some of its
more eminent members are interspersed in the narrative.

Nor is the book confined to an account of the religious
or educational institutes of Belgium. The social customs
and manners of her remarkable people are occasionally
noticed ; and 'the adventures, more or less incident to all
travelling, related as they are with a natural liveliness,
form a very pleasing back-ground to the graver objects
depicted,' in the work. The conversations of eminent
personages, whom the author meets with, impart a more
life-like interest to the narrative ; while a happy memory-
enables the writer to transcribe remarks heard in snch
conversations, and even long fragments of important
sermons. The descriptions of different localities are very
graphic ; the style is easy and natural, though we should
suggest a less frequent use of French words and phrases ;
and considerable acquaintance with classical as well as
with modern literature is evinced. Rumour has ascribed
the work to a lady ; and, indeed, there are many of those
minute traits and delicate touches, which betray the
feminine hand.

We shall in our next Number give a fuller critique of
this useful as well as interesting work. -

250 Notices of Books. ' [[Sept.

III. — General Comte de Ehandow. A Transparency. Translated
from the MS. of Baron Frederick de Dachenhausen. Richardson
and Son, London, Dublin, and Derby, 1856.

" General Comte de Rhandow'* is a very unequal story.
Some of its scenes are sketched with great vigour and
elegance, while others (although but a few,) are extrava-
gant and improbable to the very last degree. The general
aim and tendency of the tale, however, are admirable, and
if a few pages could be modified or suppressed, would
deserve our warmest commendation.

IV. — The Histoiy of Sedgley Park School, Staffordshire. By F. C.
Hdsenbeth, D.D., A.n Old Parker. Richardson and Son, London,
Dublin, and Derby, 1856.

Dr. Husenbeth*s task in the preparation of this history
has plainly been a labour of love. It is intended, of course,
mainly for those who, like the venerated author, are con-
nected with Sedgley Park by that dearest of all ties which
binds men from youth to age to the Alma Mater, For them,
especially, it is full of curious and pleasant reminiscences.
But there is no English Catholic to whom it will not be
heartily acceptable. A.S a contribution to Catholic history,
it fills up a space which a few years more would have left
hopelessly blank ; and preserves a number of interesting and
even important facts, both general and personal, the know-
ledge of which, had not Dr. Husenbeth hastened to record
them, would have perished with the generation which is
now on the eve of passing away.

For the '* Parkers" it has too many charms to need any
recommendation at our hands. To the students of the
Catholic history of the last century, it will supply much
curious and interesting information, which it would be
hopeless to seek in any other quarter.

V. — Mediaeval Preachers and MedicBVcd Preaching. By the Rev. J,
M. Njbale, M.A. London : Mozley, 1856.

The reader may recollect a very striking article on
Mediaeval Preaching, which appeared in the Christian
Remembrancer for July 1854. Mr. Neale, the writer of
that article, has been induced to expand it into the present
volume. He has multiplied the specimens of the preachers

1856.1 Notices of Books. 251

upon whose sermons the article was founded, and he has
arranged them in chronological order ; so that what was
originally but a sketch, is now not merely an interesting
historical summary, but to some extent a valuable practical
treatise, from which our modern preachers may derive
much solid instruction.

The volume is, of coarse, addressed to Mr. Neale's
brethren of the Establishment. But we may claim it as
our own upon a twofold title — the right of inheritance as
well as the title of doctrinal tradition.

VI. — The Blessed Sacrament ; or the Works and Ways of God. By
Frederick William Faber, D.D. Priest of the Oratory of St Philip
Neri. Second Edition. London, Dublin, and Derby : Ricliardsoa
and Son.

In modern literature it is found that no works are more
eagerly received by the public than those which give, in an
easy form, the results of deep science. Dr. Faber has
effected in theology a concession, like that which popular
progress is asking and obtaining in the lower sciences.
And the result would seem to be no less acceptable. Of
his three heart- stirring treatises, '* All for Jesus,"
** Growth in Holiness,'* and " The Blessed Sacrament,"
the first has already reached its sixth edition in England ;
and the second edition of the present work is dated just
eleven months after the appearance of the first. In this
edition, the preface, after specifying three classes of emen-
dations made, (it is with humility declared,) in consequence
of the criticisms of friends — goes on to say : — ** One objec-
tion which some have made, I have been unable to meet,
viz., that the minute theological teaching of the schools
will not be popular. But in truth I wrote the book with
the hope it would be so. To meet this objection, therefore,
I must either have left it unvv-ritten, or now withdraw it
from circulation. But it is an objection, the value of
which nothing but the event, that is, success or failure, can
really decide. The book must make the experiment at its
own risk. It hopes to find not a few with whom an in-
crease of theological knowledge is only another expression
for an increase in the love of God."

252 Notices of Books. (Sept.

VIL — Questions of the Scd. Bj J. T. Heckeb. Now York : Appleton
and Co., 1855.

The object of Mr. Hecker's book is to press into the
service of the Church the profound and anxious specula-
tions in which the new transcendental school of America
delights to indulge. His work is a " Philosophy of Reli-
gion," addressed chiefl}'' to thinkers of this school. It
abounds in brilliant and eloquent passages, and for a cer-
tain class of readers cannot fail to prove both useful and
attractive.

VIII. — Calvinism in its Relations to Scripture and Reason. Bj tlie
Rev. Alexander Munro, Professor ia the Scotch College, Vallado-
lid. Glasgow : Margej, 1856.

During the last fifteen years the engrossing interest of
the Tractarian movement has attracted the whole current
of Catholic controvery into that single channel. We have
lost sight of all other forms of dissent from the Church.
The older subjects of discussion for a time have gone into
abeyance. Questions which used to occupy the first place
in every dispute between Protestants and Catholics — the
authority of the Church, the sufficiency of Scripture — the
Real Presence, and many similar discussions, have of late
been assumed as points which it was no longer necessary
to examine. In a word, the whole field of controversy has
been shifted, with the shifting of parties and principles
which this new phase of Protestantism has occasioned.

And yet throughout this entire time there has been a large
and influential section of Protestants upon whom this new
form of the controversy has been completely thrown away,
and who have clung to the old tenets of Protestantism with
an earnestness heightened by the very desertions which
they witnessed all around. And in Scotland, particularly,
the fervour of the Calvinistic zeal has not only outlived the
novelties of Tractarianism, but has gained even strength
from the reaction which these novelties produced.

It is with no little satisfaction, therefore, that we wel-
come the return to the olden forms of controversy, of which
Mr. Munro has set the example in the admirable work
upon our table. It is a complete and methodical, although
thoroughly popular, examination of the entire system of
Calvinism, not only in its relations to Scripture, but in all

1856.] Notices of Books. 253

its moral and philosophical bearings. The work is indeed,
in the best sense of the word, a complete and systematic
examination of the articles of the Westminster Confes-
sion.

Some portions of the volume, therefore, especially the
first chapter, necessarily traverse the same ground which
has commonly been taken by Catholics in their older con-
troversies; but the second and third chapters will be almost
entirely new to English readers. They regard the more
peculiarly characteristic tenets of Calvinism, and contain
many striking and original views of the awful and myste-
rious questions which it involves. The work is in many
respects one of the most important acquisitions to our
stock of popular controversial literature which we have
received for several years.

IX. — 1. The National Review, April 1856. Theobald, London.

2. — National Democratic Review, April and May, 1856. Wash-
ington : Buell.

3. — Putnam's Monthly, January, 1856. New York : Dlx and
Edwards. London : Sampson, Lord, and Co.

4.— The Lamp. New Series. Nos.ML, III., IV., 1856. London:
Dolman.

5. — Catholic Institute and Magazine. Nos. 2, 3, 6, 7, 9. 1856.
Liverpool : Rockliff and Son. London : Burns and Lambert.

6. — Tlie Book a7id its Missions. Specimen Number, 1856. Dedicated
to the British and Foreign Bible Societies. Bagster and Sons.

We propose to class together this miscellaneous collec-
tion of periodical literature, although of very different pre-
tensions. The National Review is a work of considerable
merit ; out of nine articles six consist of genuine literary
criticism ; somewhat superficial perhaps, but refined, acute
and vivacious. We may bring it as a charge against one
of the writers, that in reviewing Macaulay's history he has
passed too slightly over those cardinal points upon which
depend this author's fitness to be an historian at all ; but
it would be difficult to find a more delicate analysis of his
style, both of thought and writing, and of the fascination
which it exercises. The same may be said of a criticism
upon the poetry of Rogers. A long article upon the
** Characteristics of Goethe" is very interesting, and writ-

254^ Notices of Books. [Sept.

ten with much excellent feeling, 'both for morality and
literature ; although in respect to the former the writer is
driven into some inconsistencies from his unwillingness to
admit the plain truth of Goethe's character, that his was
one of the many instances of a luxuriant poetic intellect,
accompanying a cold bad heart ; as if thrifty nature had
stunted the moral qualities in proportion to the vigorous
development she had given to the intellect.

In politics this new Review does not appear superior to
the prejudices of the day, but nevertheless the subject is
treated sensibly, and with fairness. And for Theology,
there is a long clever article upon ** Mediatorial reli-
gion," in which the whole system of the Christian faith
is taken to pieces, considered, debated upon, and put
together according to fancy, in a style which must greatly
suit the views of the "enlightened nineteenth century."
These two important points being thus arranged so as to
be no hindrance, we augur success for a work of unques-
tionable spirit and power.

The ** Democratic Review," an American periodical,
is also new ; and we find some indications of its being
Catholic in faith ; but so uncatholic in spirit, so boisterous,
fierce, and unreasoning ; we cannot feel that its success,
if it should succeed, will in any single point be beneficial
to religion or to humanity. Slavery as an institution of
the land is upheld and justified ; not a modification sug-
gested, or a hope held out ; it is simply considered with
reference to the convenience of the slave owner. We
have nothing to say to the American politics of the
Review, of which the leading points are opposition to
the Know-nothings and limitation to the power of Con-
gress over individual States. With regard to other nations,
"hatred to England is the one passion expressed ; aggres-
sion the one law admitted. There are few of our readers
who do not know something of American newspapBrs: from
the most rampant amon^^st them they may form an idea
of the style in which this review addresses the ** Noble
Democracy" upon these points ; calling upon them " to
plant themselves upon high ground, to re-write the laws of
nations ; to abrogate by an American dash of the pen, the
dull and time-worn rescripts of constitutional and monar-
chical Europe," &c., &c., <fec.; in plain English urging
as a matter of right the seizure of the whole soil of the
new world for the United States of America. After this

1856."! Notices of Books. 255

we are told " when our national flag shall be not only the
beacon, but the protector, of the world ; then, indeed,
will the political millennium have arrived ; then, indeed,
will the mind of man pour forth the unrestrained torrents
of its love and wisdom; then, indeed, may the arts and
sciences aspire to their Utopian perfection. Our fate is in
our own hands, and the path is clear before us. To the
Genius of American liberty, we repeat, there is nothing
impossible !"

Putnam's Monthly is not Catholic ; rather the contrary.
It has some pretensions in point of literature, but the
articles are eccentric ; rather too much so to render a
judgment upon the first number a safe one. In the first
article the ** Shakespearian Drama" is, with some wit and
more audacity, denied altogether to be the work of William
Shakespeare ! the " pet horse-boy at Blackfriars, the wit
and good fellow of the London link holders, the menial
attache and eleve of the playhouse, the future actor and

joint proprietor of the new Theatre on the Bank-side"

** this Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe, this mild, respecta-
ble obliging man," is, with some ingenuity and eloquence,
declared to have been incapable, from position and charac-
ter, of producing these wonderful plays.

The theory is that they were entrusted to him, by " One
with learning broad enough, and deep enough, and subtle
enough ; one with nobility of aim and philosophic and
poetic genius enough, to be able to claim his own, his own
immortal progeny, undwarfed, nnblinded, undeprived of
one ray or dimple of that all providing reason that informs
them; one who is able to reclaim them, even now, cured
and perfect in their limbs, and absolute in their numbers,
as he conceived them." Shakespeare, it seems merely
received these plays, treated them as part of the furniture*
of his theatre, is termed '* traitor and miscreant" for tak-
ing so little care of them, and we are told that of this heavy
retired country gentleman... this old tradesman, this old
showman and hawker of plays, this old lackey" we may
*' enlarge the vacant platitudes of the forehead as we will
pile up the artificial brains in the frontispiece to any
height which the credulity of an awe struck public will
hesitate to pronounce idiotic," and so on, but that we are
merely idealising a creation of our own. We have been
amused by the audacity of this paradox ; but taken more
seriously, it is a crime thus to invade the memory of* the

256 Notices of Books. [Sept.

mighty dead, without real and tangible grounds to which
the author can make no pretension. But enough of this.
There follows an article or two upon the natural scenery
of America, which are highly graphic, one or two which
have to us all the raciness of genuine portraitures of foreign
manners ; and some criticisms too utterly warped by reli-
gious prejudice to be considered in any other light than as
smart pieces of writing.

We turn now to the far more interesting Catholic
imblications.

" The Lamp" contains a great deal of useful miscella-
neous information, chiefly Catholic, in the newspaper
style ; its reprints of the Jew of Verona, and the transla-
tion of Bossuet on the Apocalypse, are valuable, but there
is a great want of selection in the original contributions:
one we cannot refrain from mentioning ; it must, we think,
have escaped the attention of the Editor ; it is a hymn
for Holy Saturday, and touches upon some of the deepest
and most tender mysteries of the Faith, in a style of which
we can give no idea without quotation. We will select
the following :

" Then I will kneel by Mary dear,
Her beating bosom I will hear,
"While she is weeping near the grave,
Of Him who came all men to save.
And shall I softly say, ' Mamma,'
You are disconsolate and careworn ; Ah I
Why not make your chaplain say
Mass for your husband's soul to-day ?"

And much more of the same character against which,
, for its absurdity and almost profane irreverence, we cannot
too strongly protest.

The Catholic Institute contains some amusing tales,
and a few well-written articles. Its An ti- English ^feel-
ing we regret ; but if it must needs be indulged,[(and
with some Catholics it has become almost a new
article of the creed,) let it be at least expressed with
so much of logic and dignity, as may not bring ridicule
upon ourselves. Montalembert's eulogy of England and
her institutions, has called down upon both a storm of
invectives, exceedingly indiscriminating, and as we
think, often unjust ; but, be that as it may, is there much

1856.] Notices of Boohs. . 257

sense in such a passage as the following? It is intro-
duced by an angry tirade against the English constitution.

*' Such was not the ideal of a monarchy stamped with the divine
approbation. Let us look, for a few moments, at that most inter-
esting crisis of the Old-Testament history, the request of the
Israelites for a human king, * to judge us as all nations have.'
The sin of that people was, that, insensible of their wonderful pri-
vilege and honour in having the Almighty Himself for their Sove-
reign, they desired, from mere secular motives, to fall into the
rank of the idolatrous people round them, and obstinately said, in
the face of the patriot Samuel's remonstrances, ' Nay, but we will
be like all nations ; and our king shall go out before us, and fight
our battles.' What, then, did the prophet say in reply ? Did he
tell them they should have a constitutional king ? one who, instead
of fighting their battles, should stay at home, with every appliance
that security and luxury could give, while the blood of his generals
and soldiers was shed like water far away ; one whose sole power
should be that of choosing a prime minister, to act as long as the
majority of the ' representatives of the people' should be pleased to
allow him ? One whose very words, addressed to this assembly on
the greatest interests of the kingdom, should be composed for him,
Bud recited by him as a parrot might be taught to recite them ?
No : such precious ideas had not entered men's heads in those
days, but were reserved for Hume's, Smollet's, and Walpole's to
cherish aud admire. The prophet Samuel gives a verj diflferent
description of the nature of the kingly office, and says, * They shall
be the bight of the king that shall reign over you. He will take
your sons and put them in his chariots, and make them his horse-
men, and running footmen to run before his chariots,* and will
appoint of them to be his tribunes and centurions, and to plough
his fields and reap his corn, and make him arms and chariots.
Your daughters also will he take, to make him ointments, and be
his cooks aud bakers. And he will take your fields and give them
to his servants. Moreover, he will take the tenth of your corn
and revenues to give his eunuchs and servants. Your servants
also, and handmaids, and goodliest young men will he take away,
and put them to his worL' Now, the plain English, so to speak,
of all this was, ' If you have a king, he must be really one.
Almighty God will not allow you to trifle with one of His own
attributes, reflected in a vicegerent. Your king will not be your
highest public servant but your master.'' And so it proved. And
the moral of the history, to uS Christians and Catholics, is this ;

♦ This is just what was done by the kings of France, and, to
qualify the runners by giving them additional breath, a particular
operation was performed on them : — their spleens were cut out.
VOL. XLI — No. LXXXI. 17

258 Notices of Books. [Sept.

that, instead of looking, with stupid admiration, on what is called
a ' constitutional monarchy.' we should despise it as a contemptible
humbug, entirely the offspring of Protestantism, and never realized
among men till first the * Reformation,* and theu the Revolution
of 1G88, had perverted our glorious old Saxon and Catholic sys-
tem, and brought in the present corrupt and heartless oue, infal-
libly pregnant with the seeds of its own decay.''

We think an Englishman might not nnfairly retort that
all human institutions were ** pregnant with the seeds of
their own decay." That the model king ofFered no temp-
tation to exchange for him ani/ system that would work
at all, and that as, according to the writer's own showing,
Saul (and most of his succeSfeors probably,) were direct
chastisements from God, a nation might be pardoned for
endeavouring to avoid such a visitation as long as possible.
If we have not spoken flatteringly of these two Catholic
Magazines, it is not that we do not admit their merits,
and also the great difficulties through which they must
have struggled in order to attain to their present position,
but we would gladly see them aim still higher, in order to
ensure the full measure of usefulness, of which they are
capable ; they should not rest so much upon their exclu-
sive Catholicity ; but having in view the great talent and
research with which Protestant publications of the same
class are conducted ; we could wish that they would com-
bine greater variety of subjects, more general information,
and a more polished and earnest style of writing, with
the merit which they now possess, and the sound religious
sentiments they have always advocated.

We now introduce the very first number of a work
entitled " The Book and its Missions,'* which has oddly
enough been sent to us ; it professes ** to meet a want long
expressed by collectors for Bible Societies, of something
which shall tell their subscribers what is being done with
their money.*' If it would do this fairly, it would be a not
unprofitable task to collate its statements with those of our
far-famed ** Annals for the propagation of the Faith.**
Take China, for instance, read (with some envy,) the
statement of ^39,000. having been allotted for the sole
purpose of distributing bibles in CHiina, with j6l,00U more
for the expense of carriage— then study the results;
" seven additional excursions have been undertaken into
the interior; and by this means about 1,000 New Testa-
ments, 2,000 portions of ditto, and 600 Bibles, have been

1856.] Notices of Books. 259

distributed. The circulation is already bringing forth fruit ;
persons come to see us from distant parts, who have read
and approved the Scriptures; and some appear to have
derived saving benefit from their perusal/' Then follows
an account of the interior of China, quoted avowedly
from the travels of Hue, after which we hear in a few lines
concerning Messrs. Cobbold, Medhurst, and Edkin, that
they had travelled over 500 miles of the country, through
seven Chinese cities, and across hills 4,000 feet high, and
were everywhere well received ; the result of the expedi-
tion is summed up in this, that " they found the priests
very civil, some of them intelligent, and all eager for
books.'' Messrs. Burdon and Taylor have distributed
109 Testaments and 400 portions of Scripture, (by whose
authority we wonder are these ** portions" doled out to the
Bible-reader,) and Messrs. Muirhead and Edkins, 150
Testaments and 30 Bibles, and upon the conduct of some
of their readers these books are believed to have had a
** marked influence." Mr. Medhurst has given away 690
New Testaments, and 100 Bibles, and adds, *' The Col-
porteurs we have engaged have been out several times
distributing the Scriptures in a quiet and judicious man-
ner. They have sometimes met with opposition on ac-
count of attacking the superstitions of the Chinese, but a
little friendly talk has allayed the ferment. They have
both of them kept journals, and one has a list of the
names of persons to whom he has given copies.'* This is
absolutely the whole result obtained in China ;. in other
countries it is very similar, — let it be compared with our
bishoprics, colleges, convents, martyrs, and confessors of
the Faith, and it will be seen that the Roman Catholic
Missionary, who is patronizingly spoken of, as ** having
travelled far and wide in the East, with his patine, his
crucifix, and his rosary," has at any rate had thejBivine
blessing upon his labours..

X. — The Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regenei'ation. By J. B.
MozLEY, B. D. Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Loudon :
Murray, 1856.

We think it sufficient to inform our readers of the pub-
lication of this work. The writer is already known to
them, and neither the subject nor the mode of treating it,
require any fresh notice.

260 Notices of Books. [Sept.

XL— 3/ecKtaftons of Divine Love; or, a Spiritual Retreat of Ten
Dayt, on the Love of God, as Displayed in the Great Truths and
Mysteries of the Christian Beligion. From the French of the
Rev. Father Vincent Huby, S. J. Revised bj a member of the
Society of Jesus. Dublin : Gerald Bellew.

No recommendation is required for this new edition of
tiie Meditations of the eminent French Jesuit and servant
of God, Father V. Huby, who died in the odour of sanc-
tity. As a popular adaptation of the Exercises of the
great Master of the spiritual life, St. Ignatius, this work
will be found excellently suited to meet the wants of those
Christians who devote themselves to the salutary practice
of mental prayer, or who make spiritual retreats at stated
times.

XII. — An Outline of the Life of the Very Rev. Antonio Rosmini,
Founder of the Institute of Charity. Translated from the Italian
by Sisters of the Convent of our Lady at Greenwich. Edited
by the Rev. Father Lockhart. London, Dublin, and Derby :
Richardson and Sou.

Few men more remarkable in the Age or in the Church,
has this nineteenth century produced, than Rosmini,
Archpriest of St. Mark, at Rovereto. To propound such
a theory original and Christian, in the doctrines of percep-
tion and of existence as should refute by supplanting them
the false metaphysics of the time, sensism, idealism,
materialism, and pantheism ; to establish religion on a
new vantage-ground, like that the Fathers gave it from
Plato, and the Schools from Aristotle — this was one work
of Rosmini's, and yet he was denounced as the bringer in
of an infidel philosophy ; the honoured friend of three
Popes, he was made a mark for the bitterest suspicions of
some Catholics, and blackened by the praises of sworn foes
to the papacy ; a consultor of the Sacred Congregation of
the Index, he was himself once and again a defendant at
its bar ; and once smitten by its censure ; yet only that he
might surprise and edify all Christendom by the childlike
Catholic humility of his submission; charged with dis-
affection to the Church and of leanings to the idolatries of
" Young Italy," he was in his life a model of the self-
renouncing perfectness of an ecclesiastic ; and the Founder
of Religious Congregations, charged by high sanction with

1856.] Notices of Books. 261

holy purposes, and especially with that of England's mis-
sion ; sending to us with his rule and benediction holy
priests of his land, and drawing to his Order fervent and
devoted converts of our's. Such, and other features will give
to the Life of Kosmini, when fully written, scope enough to
raise and satisfy interest. The present ** outline'* pretends
to no such object. It is rather the tribute of affection to a
beloved Father, than a biography in the usual sense. It
tells us of Rosmini's virtues, of his gigantic labours in
letters, in philosophy, in religion, in charity ; of his crush-
ing heart- trials, and the saintly heroism they elicited — but
it avoids altogether the polemic aspect of Rosmini's career.
We are promised a full life, but no author's name is men-
tioned. The translation is well done. Prefixed is a lucid
summary of Rosmini's philosophy by the learned Father
Gustaldi, of Rugby; and subjoined is the complete list, in
Italian, of Rosmini's works. These two additions would
alone give the " outline" much value for the student.

XIII. — The Eighth of December, 1854. Some account of the Defini-
tion of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, with
the Dogmatic Bull of His Holiness (in Latin and English) ; and
a preface by a Priest of the Diocese of Westminster. London :
T. Jones, 10, Paternoster Row.

The Rev. dignitary who introduces this little publication
to the Catholic public (for we recognise the initials of a
Chamberlain of His Holiness at the end of the preface), truly
remarks that a complete and corrected narrative of so impor-
tant an event as that of December 8th 1854, in a permanent
and convenient form, together with the Dogmatic Bull of the
Holy Father, cannot fail to be acceptable to the servants
of Mary. The account seems very carefully and correctly
written ; and it is introduced with some appropriate
remarks on the general subject of devotion to the Blessed
Virgin, with especial reference to Protestant misrepresen-
tations respecting the recent definition. The author (to
whom we are also indebted for the sketch of the life of St.
Edward we lately noticed, and some other publications,)
quotes the remarkable words of the Protestant Bishop
Hall, expressing devotion to the Blessed Virgin : " How
worthily is she honoured of men, (says Dr. Hall,) whom
the angel proclaimed beloved of God ! O ! Blessed Mary,
we cannot bless thee, we cannot honour thee too muchp

262 Notices of Books. [Sept.

that deifies thee not, [thus expressing exactly, though uu-
consciously, both the doctriue and practice of the Cathohc
Church.] That which the angel said of thee thou hast
prophesied of thyself. We believe the angel and thee.
All generations shall call tliee blessed by the fruit of whose
womb all generations are blessed." We observe that a
Protestant quarterly bestows some attention upon this
most interesting publication.

XIV. — 1. Hardwiclce's Shilling Peerage, for 1856. By Edward
Walford. Esq., M.A. Balliol College, Oxford. London: Hardwicke,
26, Duke Street, Piccadilly.

2. — Hardxoiclce's Shilling Baronetage and Knightage, for 1856. By
Edward Walford, Esq., M.A. liailiol College, Oxford. London:
Hardwicke, 26, Duke Street, Piccadilly.

3. — Ilardwickes Shilling House of Commons. By Edward WALFonD,
Esq., M.A., Balliol College, Oxford. London: Hardwicke, 26,
Duke Street, Piccadilly.

4. — Ha7'dwicke''s Electoral Representation of the United Kingdom, from
the Reform Act of 1832 down to the present time. By Edward
Walfoiid, Esq. M. A., Balliol College, Oxford. London : Hardwicke,
2Q, Duke Street, Piccadilly.

5. — Rardwicke''s Annual Biography for 185G. By Edward Walford,
E.-SQ., M.A., Balliol College, Oxford. London : Hardwicke, 26,
Duke Street, Piccadilly.

We heartily recommend this series of publications to
our readers, who will find in them an immense quantity
of useful, and for the most part, accurate information, in
the cheapest possible form; and should, as we hope will
be the case, Mr. Walford carry forward his design, each
year will necessarily increase the value and importance of
his publications. The Electoral Manual contains some
valuable introductory remarks, which show in an unmis-
takeable form how much the actual number of Irish mem-
bers falls below its equitable proportion. This work also
presents a bird's-eye view of the Electoral history of every
County and Borough since 1832, and leaves a column of
remarks for carrying on the history during the current
year. Perhaps wisely, the Author has not given any
information as to the .politics of any of the members. The
biography is an excellent idea, and appears .to us to be
executed with great accuracy.

1856.] Notices ofBooTcs. 263

XV. — Personal Reminiscences of the Oxford Movement, with Illus-
trations from Dr. Newman^ s " Loss and Gain.'^ A Lecture
Addressed to the Islington Catholic Popular Club. By
Frederick Oakelet, M. A. Oxon. Loudoa : Burns and Lambert,
1855.

'' When shall the history of the Oxford movement be
written in its entirety? May such a history be reason-
ably expected with the present generation ? Or is it to
be executed piecemeal by different actors, each describing
his own share, and the immediate circle in which he
formed an item ? If it is destined to the latter fate, to be com-
posed in detached pictures and fragmentary sketches, we
trust that they will fall into the hands of artists such as the
author of these charming " Personal Reminiscences." No
one who knows Mr. Oakeley need be told of the brilliancy,
the terseness, the racy English character of his writing, and
above all, of the genuine tenderness and depth of feeling which
pervades them. In none of his published works are these
nigh qualities displayed more lavishly than in the admi-
rable Lecture to the Club which he has himself organ-
ized, which has been published under this pleasing title.
Few who have passed through the scenes which he de-
scribes, can read these Reminiscences without emotion.
Few we are sure of those whose hearts still cling to the
fond hope which so long supported the earnest and sincere
men who were the partners and companions of his strug-
gle, can fail to derive warning, mingled with consolation,
from the result as he depicts it. In a few slight touches
Mr. Oakeley does thorough justice to the noble concei)-
tion of Charles Reding. WouH. that every generous child
of Anglicanism could realize the picture which he draws,
and lay it earnestly to heart !

XVL — The Philosophy of the Stomach, or an exchisively Animal Diet
the most Wholesome and fit for Man. By Bkunard Moncriff.
London : Longman, 1856.

This book commences with an account of Mr. Moncriff;
his tastes, opinions, history, health, and matrimonial views.
It launches then into speculations of Deistical German
Philosophy, which we think we have met with before; in the
present instance they have their use, for they lead us — in
a round about method, to the conclusion that the centre.

264k Notices of Books. [Sept.

and primary object of importance throughout creation, is
the human stomach ; and that its great type and model is
the stomach of Mr. Moncriff. Of course we have then
the story of that wearisome old gentleman, Lewis
Cornaro, and an account of Mr. Moncriff *s having, in
emulation of him, lived for six months mainly upon milk
and sweet almonds, and being all the better for it ! Hav-
ing thus brought himself, he says, to his original condi-
tion of babyhood, having the world before him as to the
choice of diet, he resolved to live entirely upon animal
diet, "without any vegetable or condiment whatever:"
and he describes himself as having attained through this
diet to such a charming condition of mind and body, that
we think really a young lady might do worse than take
the hint thrown out in his preface. Seriously, it is
astonishing how many plausible arguments are given in
favour of his system, which is most ingeniously advo-
cated.

XVII. — Descriptive and Historical Notices of some Eemarhahle Nor-
thumbrian Castles, Churches, and Antiquities, vnth Biographical
Notices of Eminent Persons. By William Sidney Gibson, Esq.,
F.S. A. F. G. London : Pickering.

The three volumes which constitute this elegant work,
may almost be considered as distinct books. They have
been published at different dates, and the subjects are
given rather as they have arisen spontaneously under the
author's pen, than according to any exact design. In the
second volume of the series, Mr. Gibson has collected,
into a short memoir, many interesting particulars of the
young heroic Earl of Derwentwater, one of those few cha-
racters upon which the mind can rest with unmixed plea-
sure : not less good than he was magnanimous, his fidelity
to his religion merited that bright crown of happiness,
without which the destiny of such a man would ^ have been
a tragedy indeed. Shorter biographical notices of the
worthies of former days, and genealogical histories ^ of
several noble families are introduced in connection with
the scenes the author has visited. These volumes contain
notices of nineteen of the most interesting spots in Nor-
thumberland ; castles, ruined monasteries, long established
charities, and parish churches, which have an historical
as well as an architectural interest. Mr. Gibson, himself a

1856.1 Notices of Books. 265

member of Antiquarian, Architectural, and Archaeological
societies, is well qualified in every way to do them justice ;
he has as keen a sense of natural, as he has an instructed
taste for architectural beauty. Stronger than either, per-
haps, is his love of moral worth, and a value for what is
venerable and orderly, which will infallibly procure for him
the epithet of Puseyite, amongst the generality of his
readers. How, indeed, can any man write from predilec-
tion on such subjects as Mr. Gibson has chosen, without
deserving the appellation ? We would fain hope that with
such feelings as his, he will not long continue on such
**debateable land." We can only say that to Catholics
there is not one of these works of former ages, the history
of which does not bring gratification ; not one of the con-
trasts incidentally afforded, between the National Church
of a former, and that of the present age, which does not
heighten that gratification by a feeling of grateful triumph.
Mr. Gibson, however, has no insidious intention; he
labours heartily to do justice to every praiseworthy cha-
racter and incident belonging to the Church of England ;
and, amongst others, we read with awe and wonder the
record of the virtues and good works of Bernard Gilpin ;
be it permitted to us to notice and lament over him espe-
cially. Would that he had been less excellent, or that his
kindred had not cause to grieve over him as a fallen star — •
fallen from that firmament in which he should have shone
with such a glorious lustre !

XVIII. — 1. Third Yearly Report of the Cork Young Men^s Society.
Cork : Roche, 1856.

2. The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay. A Lecture delivered before the
Young Men's Society of Limerick. By Brother Stephen
O'Donnea Dublin : Duffy, 1856.

There are evidences of life and energy, literary as well
as religious, in this young institution, the significance of
which it is impossible to overrate. The Cork Report is
an extremely able, practical, and satisfactory document,
and appears to place the fortunes of the Society in that
city beyond all the perils which are incidental to every new
undertaking. Mr. O'Donneirs lecture is a very pleasing
and popular, as well as learned, summary of the story of
one of the most curious episodes in the entire history of

266 Notices of Books. [Sept.

colonization. We trust that the example of these active
and meritorious branch-societies will find imitators in all
the leading Catholic communities throughout the empire.

XIX. — Authentic Account of the Occupation of Carlisle in 1745. By
Prince Charles Edward Stuart. Edited by George Gill Mounaey.
London : Longman and Co. 1856.

There are episodes in history — brief periods — of which the
events address themselves in an unusual manner to the feel-
ings of the heart ; and produce rich crops of heroic virtues
and great deeds. Such events have an interest far beyond
any which they derive from tlieir intrinsic importance ; and
such a one was the attempt of the last of the Stuart line to
regain his inheritance. All details concerning this period
are acceptable to us. Foets and novelists have long
illustrated the cause of the chevalier ; we have now a
glimpse at it from another point of view ; we have here
the feelings of the besieged defenders of Carlisle, awaiting
** under great apprehensions" the arrival of this ** rabble"
of "rebels." The most important letters which Mr.
Mounsey has here given to the public, are those of Dr.
Waugh, Chancellor of the Diocese ; who writes to his
friends and to influential persons in London, minute
accounts of the dangers and preparations of the towns-
people of Carlisle ; so miniUe and so graphic, that it is
difficult not to believe, that the' delays of the existing
government in suppressing insurrection were intentional ;
and with a deliberate purpose of laying a trap for the
Jacobites, and thus more efiectually crushing them ; the
humanity of which device would have been in complete
accordance with the subsequent conduct of the government
which was better served than it merited. Dr. Waugh, Cap-
tain Gilpin, Colonel Durand and others, did what good men
might, in defence of the town ; but the North Country
Militia pleased on that occasion (only) to be of Cuddie
Headrigg's opinion. They saw no reason why a man
should fight " let a 'be when he's angry," and they clearly
were not angry just then, so they went home, and the city
surrendered. Dr. Waugh then quitted the town, and left
his curate to guard his house and property from the rebels
first, and then from the army of the Duke of Cumberland,
which latter task he seems to have found by far the
hardest of the two. The good Doctor was more zealous

1856.1 Notices of Boohs. 267

as a steward than as a general intelligencer ; but still
his miscellaneous correspondence is valuable, and we
think the public are indebted to Mr. Mounsey for his
care in preserving and editiug it. All the details which
are given are authentic and interesting ; we must not
blame the editor for the omissions of which we complain.
Yet it does seems curious that scores of good men and
true ; embarked in an unselfish, and at least a pardonable
cause; including in their numbers the young, the high-born,
and the chivalrous, should be butchered in such a repulsive
and fearful manner; after months of cruel treatment, under
the eyes of their neighbours and countrymen ; and their
fate not give rise to an expression of horror or of pity. Yet
not one such do we find in all this correspondence, while the
town was filled with suffering prisoners awaiting transpor-
tation or a miserable death. When the Duke of Cumber-
land threatened to give the Cathedral bells for a perqui-
site to his artillei'y, abundant pluck and energy were shewn
in defending them, and they were preserved ; but for their
brave and loyal fellow-countrymen not so much stir was
raised by the gentry of those days, as now becomes a matter
of course whenever a convicted murderer is sentenced,
though with all humanity and caution, to the death he has
deserved. We should like to know what change is going
on in the nature of the human heart.

XX. — The Sea- Side Lesson Book, or, the Common Things of the Sea
Coast. Groombridge, 1856.

This tiny lesson book contains sound information upon
every point on which a child by the sea-side is likely to be
curious. We should advise any family so situated to pro-
cure it, as they will find it really useful.

XXI. — Leaves of Grass. Horsell, Loudon, 1856.

We have glanced through this book with disgust and
astonishment ; — astonishment that any one can be found
who would dare to print such a farrago of rubbish, —
lucubrations more like the ravings of a drunkard, or one
half crazy, than anything which a man in his senses
could think it fit to ofier to the consideration of his fellow
men. Where these bald, confused, disjointed, caricatures
of blank verse have any meaning, it is generally in-
decent ; several times execrably profane. We should not
have bestowed one line of notice upon such an insult to

268 Notices of Books. [Sept.

common sense and common propriety, as this book, but
that, to our unspeakable surprise, we find bound up with
it extracts from various American papers highly lauda-
tory of this marvellous production : and we think it right
to call the attention of our American readers to the fact,
that any (even of the meanest) of their literary critics,
should be mistaken enough to lend a sanction to such
trash as this.

XXII. — The Story of the War in La VendSe, and the Little Chouan-
nerie. Bjr George J. Hill, M. A. Burns and Lambert.

This is the most complete, and consequently the most
interesting, history we have yet seen, of one of the most
glorious passages which history, ancient or modern, can
produce. It is, we believe the only narrative which em-
braces the whole of the period from the time when the
discontent of the Vendeans broke into open rebellion in
March 1793, until the treaty by which, at the end of two
years they obtained religious liberty, indemnity for their
losses, and peace which continued without important in-
terruption until 1832, when the Duchesse de Berri appeared
in La Vendee to throw the interests of herself and hei* family
again upon the loyalty of these brave people. This nar-
rative connects the war of the Vendeans with the
Chouannerie of Brittany, which was formidable to the
Republic, and which was able to obtain from the terrible
Emperor Napoleon terms honourable and satisfactory.
In 1804 the ancient College of Vannes was reopened,
and was immediately filled with youthful heroes, the
sons of those heroes who had fought for their religion.
These brave men having secured its freedom, now sought
to maintain a priesthood to dispense its blessings to them-
selves and to their children. A glorious college it was,
worthy of its origin and of its objects; the deeds of its
voung students may truly be termed the ** romance of
history." The old traditions of religion and loyalty had
struck deep root amongst them; uneasy during the in-
creasing severity of the last years of Napoleon's reign : but
unsubdued in spirit, they resented his insults to the Pope,
more than they dreaded that of the dangers of the conscrip-
tion; and their joy may be conceived when the return of Louis
XVin. promised to satisfy every desire of their devout and
loyal spirits. — Their joy was short ; Napoleon returned from

1856.] Notices of Books. 269

Elba ; but neither the allegiance of these brave boys nor
the Breton peasantry, was to be transferred from hand to
hand, like that of so many called their betters. They
rose in arms. The account of their gallant struggle is
taken almost entirely from the narrative of M. Rio ; — him-
self one of the ** little boys'* amongst them; upon hi in
the Professor made the first attempt, hoping, on account
of his childish years, to persuade him to give up the little
silver cross which he wore, and for which the authorities
intended to substitute an Imperial Eagle. The spirit and
boldness with which the child refused it, raised him to the
rank of a leader amongst his comrades ; and such he con-
tinued during the short but severe campaign, in which —
badly armed, and only disciplined by their own self-taught
exertions, these youths were constantly, and often victo-
riously, opposed to the veteran soldiers of the Empire.
A glorious peace ensued which lasted until a Bourbon of
another generation endeavoured once again to arouse the
population of these provinces to incur death and disaster
in the cause of that family.^ She was mistaken; the
Vendeans had fought for their God first, then for their
sovereigns. By the former they were rewarded ; they
von freedom of conscience, the return of their expatriated
priests ; the re-establishment of their churches and their
colleges. From the Bourbons, whom they so long loved
and defended, what was their reward ? The Bourbons
have passed away, and we would not bear hardly upon a
family not yet extinct ; could they ever again recover
political importance, what a lesson might be drawn from
this history. Buring the whole of the struggle the Ven-
deans found their princes to be their enemies, ever incit-
ing them to perseverance when success was hopeless,
luring them with false promises, sowing dissension
amongst their chiefs, and confusion within their councils ; —
never once did the ]3ourbon princes set foot in France, to
share the dangers of their adherents. Will it be believed
that Turrean, the leader of " the infernal columns ;" above
all others, the devastator of these provinces, arraigned
even before the convention for his cruelties, was named by
Louis XVIIL, Chevalier de St. Louis! While liofflet
and Cathelinean were refused admission into the royal
gallery of Vendean generals, because they came of peasant
blood ! ! But we are exceeding our limits and will only
add that this history is compiled from the memoirs of eye-

270 Notices of Books. [Sept.

witnesses, actors in those grand and terrible scenes; that
it is filled with instances of virtue and vice, of sufFering,
vicissitude, and triumph, carried to the highest point of
which human nature is capable, and which are narrated
with energy and feeling worthy of the subject.

XXIII. — The Iliad of Bomer, faithfully translated into tinrhymed
English Metre, by F. W. Newman. London : Walton and
Maberley, 1856.

A new transhition of Homer*s Iliad is an event in litera-
ture. Mr. Newman is, in scholarship, well equal to this
great undertaking, to which he has brought not only learn-
ing, but deep and careful consideration. In an introduc-
tory chapter, the translator has laid down the principles by
which he has been guided in his selection of the metre,
and in the liberty he has used in the choice of language,
in order to avail himself of all the wealth of the English
vocabulary, and of the flexibility of all its admissible
idioms, to meet the requirements of the original Greek.
We cannot undertake to enter upon anything like a critical
examination of its merits as a translation. We must, con-
tent ourselves with drawing the attention of our readers to
its publication, and giving an opinion upon its merit as an
English poem. This, after all, is the great criterion of
success. For although we agree with Mr. Newman, that
the object of a translator should not be to obliterate all
that is characteristic of the original, and foreign in its
colouring, for the sake of losing, in the smoothness of an
original work, the fact of its being a translation, neverthe-
less, in whatever language, the poem should retain the
beaut}* and the charm that will obtain for it a general
acceptance. This new version of the Iliad is rough, and
at times rugged ; the metre is not easy to catch, or to read
musically, and at times the hurrying impetuosity of the
narrative produces some degree of obscurity. But in this
hurrying impetuosity there is to us a great charm. In
spite of the beauty of Pope's versification, we have ever
felt that its continuous evenness gives a feeling of same-
ness, and lessens the passion as well as the reality of the
narrative. In this more faithful version we are sensible
that it regains this natural earnest character ; multitudes
of minute traits of life-like simplicity and feeling reappear.
The interest of the poem is diversified and its vigour

185G.] Notices of Books. 271

increased by an absence of that redundancy of words which
rhyme must always render necessary. With epithets that
paint, and words that burn, there comes often a more ten-
der spirit. We have not space for many extracts, but the
following passage will illustrate our meaning. For the
benefit of juxta- position we will give it from both versions,
and first from that with which our readers are already well
acquainted. (Book vi.)

" Hither great Hector passed, nor passed unseen
Of royal Hecuba, his mother queen.
(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face
Surpassed the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race.)
Long in a strict embrace she held her son,
And pressed his hand, and tender thus begun ;
* Oh Hector ! say, what great occasion calls
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls ?
Com'st thou to supplicate th' Almighty power,
With lifted hands from Ilion's lofty tower ?
Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crowned,
In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground.
And pay due vows to all the gods around.
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul,
And draw new spirits from the generous bowl.
Spent as thou art witli long laborious fight.
The brave defender of thy country's right.'

" * Far hence be Bacchus' gifts,' (the chief rejoin'd) :

'Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind,

Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind.

Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice

To sprinkle to the gods, its better use.

By me that holy office were profan'dl

III fits it me, with human gore distained

To tlie pure skies these horrid hands to raise,

Or offer Heaven's great sire polluted praise.

You with your matrons go, a spotless train 1

And burn rich odours in Minerva's fane.

The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold,

Most priz'd for art, and laboured o'er with gold,

Before the goddess' honoured knees be spread,

And twelve young heifers to her altar led.

So may the power, aton'd by fervent prayer,

Our wives, our infants, and our city spare,

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire.

Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire.

Be this, 0 mother, your religious care ;

I go to rouse soft Paris to the war ;

272 Notices of Books, [Sept

If jet not lost to all the sense of shanie>

The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame.

Oh would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace.

That pest of Troj, that ruin of our race!

Deep to the dark abyss might he descend,

Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end.'

This heard, she gave command, and summon'd came

Each noble matron and illustrious dame.

The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,

"Where treasured odours breath'd a costly scent.

There lay the vestures of no vulgar art,

Sidonian maids embroidered every part,

Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore.

With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.

Here as the queen revolved with careful eyes

The various textures and the various dyes.

She chose a veil that shone superior far,

And glowed refulgent as the morning star.

Herself with this the long procession leads ;

The train majestically slow proceeds."

The following is Mr. Newman's translation, (line 250.)

*♦ Just then, benign in tenderness, his mother came across him,

Leading with her Laodike, the fairest of her daughters;

And closely did she press his hand, and spake, his name pronounc-
ing;

• And why, my child, thns comest thou,:» leaving the hardy battle I

Achaia's children (luckless name!) around the city warring.

Sorely, I guess, outwear the folk ; and thee thy mind commanded.

To come andjraise thy hands to Jove, upon the city's summit.

But stay, and let me bring thee wine. With wine, as honey pleasant

Shalt thou libations make to Jove, and other gods immortal,

Firstly ; and afterwards thyself shalt by the draught be

strengthened.

Wine to a man all wearied increase th mighty vigour ;

As wearied art thou, my son, thy kinsmen's lives defending.*

Great Hector of the motley helm, then spake to her responsive:

' Raise not to me, heart soothing wine, O venerable mother.

Lest thou my limbs unnerve, and steal my memory of valour.

It shameth me, the sparkling wine, to pour with hands unwashed

To Jupiter ; nor may a man with gore and filth bespattered :

To Saturn's gloomy-clouded son offer a seemly worship.

But thou with gifts of incense, seek Athene booty-driving

Within her temple gathering the aged women rouud thee.

Out of thy sacred closet choose the robe which in thy palace

Largest and loveliest may be and to thyself the dearest ;

This do thou place upon the knees of ample-haired Athene,

1856.] Notices of Books. 273

And pledge thy vow to consecrate twelve heifers In her temple,

Yearlings unknowing of the goad if that she deign to pity

The city of the Troians, their wives and infant offspring.

If she from sacred Ilium may ward the son of Tydeus
That spearsman wild and truculent, stout counsellor of terror.

Do thou within her fane approach Athene booty-driving :

But I must Alexander seek and summon him if haply

He will to feel reproaches. Oh I that earth might yawn to gulp

him.

For troth ! a grievous pestilence to mighty-hearted Priam

And all his sons, and all his folk the Olympian hath reared him.

If to the house of Aides him I beheld descending

Seemeth my mind would then be rid of misery's remembrance.

He spake. Then she unto her halls departing gave commandment

To her attendants, they forthwith about the city gather'd

The aged women. She herself went to her perfumed chamber.

Where robes of curious broidery many and large were treasured.

Wrought by Sidonian women whom the godlike Alexander

Himself from Sidon brought to her over the broad flood sailing

In that emprize of voyage which bare off the high-born Helen,

Of these did Hecuba take one for honour to Athene,

Which was in varied broideries most beautiful and largest.

Like to a star its brilliance was and undermost she found it.

Then forth she hied; and after her poured many aged women.''

In this version we can better imagine the mother coming
to meet Hector, with her fair young daughter at her side :
there is more straightforward tenderness in her maternal
greeting; and Hector's gentle refusal of the wine, that
his limbs may not be unnerved, nor his spirit relaxed,
touches us more than the small homily which Pope has
put into his mouth. There is less personal petulance, and
more of the chieftain's noble sorrow in his mention of his
brother; and the ** aged women," who pour into the temple
after their queen, are more pathetic than Pope's *' spotless
train" of matrons and illustrious dames. Slight touches
these, but no lover of poetry will deny their value.
Whether the characteristics of old Homer's genuine poem
will in general estimation counterbalance the flowing
melody and graceful polish of Pope's Iliad, we cannot ven-
ture to foretell ; we think it doubtful. But we ourselves
have no hesitation in preferring it. In this, of all English
versions, we seem best to taste the flavour and the strength
of this antique epic, the model of heroic poetry,

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXI. 18

274 Notices of Books, [Sept.

XXIV. — Botlmell. A Poem in Six Parts. By W. Edmonstone
Ajtoun, D.C.L. Blackwood and Sons, 185C.

We have no hesitation in saying that this is a poem of
the first order. It has every requisite for exciting the
imagination and the feelings. The idea upon which it is
founded is simple, yet full of grandeur ; Bothwell — alone
— wrestling, with instinctive bravery against the fear of
death and the horrors of remorse, — pours forth in the
depths of his Danish dungeon, the torrent of his agonized
remembrances,

"Cold — coldl The wind howls fierce without;

It drives the sleet and snow;
"With thundering hurl, the angrj sea

Smites on the crags below.
Each wave that leaps against the rock

Makes this old prison reel —
God I cast it down upon my head

And let me cease to feel !
Cold — cold ! The brands are burning out,

The dyings embers wane ;
The drops fall plashing from the roof

Like slow and sullen rain."

This is the opening of the poem ; the captive recalls the
scenes of his past life with all the vividness and fire of
heartfelt passion, he pleads for [himself against the despair
which over-masters him; he lays bare his fierce ambition,
his scorn of his competitors, his rough fidelity to the land
he lived in ; but with these are shown the main-spring of
a manly love, a half adoring passion for Mary, as woman
and as queen, which gives an indescribable tenderness
and pathos to the story. The Author has shown admi-
rable knowledge of human nature in the character he
ascribes to Bothwell ; and the narrative never once flags
in interest, or loses its life-like character. ^ The man
tells of events that have been as it were, burnt in upon his
memory; he recalls keenly the incidents, and the feelings
awakened by each successive event, he interrupts himself
with groans of sorrow or remorse, he suggests excuses,
recalls the counsels of his friends, the perfidy of his foes,
bursts into flashes of vindictive fierceness, which again
expire in the piteous wailings of the hopeless prisoner ; and
in the pauses of his anguish, the sea which he looks out

1856.] Notices of Books. .275

upon, or the church bells sounding even in his prison,
recall bright visions of his own castle among his native
mountains : or feelings of more softened penitence. We
cannot do justice to this noble and original poem ; we have
not space to give by extracts an idea of the beauty and
spirit of its versification ; but we recommend it to our
readers, who will, we doubt not, find much enjoyment
in its perusal. •

XXV. — 1. Commence ; or, the Truds of May Brooke. By Mrs. Anna
H. Dorsey. Dunigan, New York, 1856.

2. The Hamiltom ; or, Sunshine in Storm. By Cora Berkley,
Dunigan, New York, 1856.

These two beautiful stories will be an acquisition to
any young person's library. They contain nothing ex-
citing to the passions, or in other words, novel-like ; yet
they are full of incidents, life-like, and of real and
stirring interest ; thus the sentiments and precepts of
religion which it is the object of both stories to incul-
cate, are naturally called forth ; there is no appearance
of parade in their expression ; no need of long explana-
tory speeches. The saintly little heroines will have sym-
pathy from the gayest children in their strength of piety.
And, so far as we have observed, there is no fear of such
sympathy being misled by anything incorrect, in the sen-
timents or principles. Something there is at times in the
language which strikes an English ear as vulgar, but
this is of little consequence, and it is vain to criticize
what would probably be justified as national.

XXVI. — The Four Martyrs. Translated from the French of A. F.
Rio. London : Burns and Lambert, 1856.

We confess to peculiar opinions concerning Biographies,
and have often read with distaste and peevish criticism,
the endless volumes of " Memoirs,'' of men about whom
all that was really worth knowing, might have been con-
densed into a few pages. M. Rio's work is of a difierent
kind ; in one short volume he has narrated the lives of
four of those heroes of virtue, who, if they are of an
inferior order to the Canonised Saints, are yet beacon
lights on the path of honour and truth; glorious names.

276 Notices of Boohs. [Sept,

which it is a great deed to preserve for immortality. First
of the number is Philip Howard, doubtless now the
Patron Saint of his noble house, who on account of his
religion suflfered eleven years' captivity, in Elizabeth's
loathsome dungeons, and died at length under all
the torments which could be devised by her ingeni-
ous cruelty. Ansaldo Ceba is the next ; he scarcely can
be called the martyr of charity ; but the perseverance and
fervour with which he sought for the salvation of a friend,
whom he never saw, but whose great intellectual and
moral powers he desired to convert to the service of God,
affords a striking instance of the exercise of this grace.

The life of Helen Comaro is one that belongs especially
to the Middle Ages ; she was a beautiful young woman, of
wonderful genius ; prompted by the ambition of her
father, who looked upon her as the glory of his house, and
whom she could not resolve to disappoint, she attained
the highest honours of learning ; in every kind of which
she excelled ; admitted doctor in philosophy and arts in
Padua, her sex alone prevented her being made doctor
also in theology. The Venetian Senate adjourned a
debate on public business that they might hear Helena
Comaro, and that no honour might be wanting, her hand
was sought for an illustrious marriage. But these dis-
tinctions were far more glorious as crosses, than as
worldly honours ; vowed to chastity, torn violently from
prayer and contemplation, simple, sorrowful, humble, and
holy ; the interior trials of this pure soul will never in
this world be known ; but enough is shown even in this
short narrative to fill us with amazement at such a miracle
of grace and nature.

The last hero of the series was indeed a martyr, truly
the last of the Crusaders, a Christian soldier, hero, and
saint ; nothing seems wanting to the glory of a name too
little remembered. Marco Antonio Bragadino, defender
of Famagosta, in the Island of Cyprus. The heroic perse-
verance with which he withstood the utmost efforts of the
Sultan, averted from the shores of Italy the scourge of the
Moslem forces ; who were afterwards defeated at Lepanto.
It pleased God that at last Bragadino should be compelled
to surrender to the foe ; and the brutal infidels revenged
their lost honour by breaking all treaties, and causing their
venerable prisoner to be flayed alive ; then, even under
their knives, he vindicated by his words of forgiveness.

1856.1 Notices of Books. 277

prayer, and peace, his title to the epithet of Christian
martyr. The story is told with spirit and power worthy
of the subject, and the translator has done justice to both.
We say again we cannot have too many such biographies.

We shall, in our next Number, insert an article on Mr.
Fronde's extraordinary work in defence of Henry VIII.,
and we much regret our inability to publish it in this
Number.

BICHABDSON AUD SON, PKINTEfiS, DEKBY.

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

DECEMBER, 1856.

AiiT. I. — Memorials of His Time, bj Hkniiv Cockburk. 1 vol. 8ro.
Edinburgh : Adam aud Cliarles Black, 1856.

IT is one of the vulgarisms of political quackery, we had
almost said of political knavery, to institute compari-
sons between the more uKxlern history of Ireland and that
of Scotland ; to contrast the prosperity of the latter with
the misery of the former; to expatiate upon the political
influence of the one country side by side with the political
nullity of the other ; and to draw conclusions favourable to
the superior sagacity, general good sense, and general right-
mindedness of Scotland. Ireland, says one or other of the
leaders of English opinion, was long discontented with her
act of union ; so was Scotland. Ireland rebelled twice ;
so did Scotland. Ireland was defeated as a matter of
course ; so was Scotland ; but Scotland subsided into
calm, riches, commercial greatness, literary distinction,
and political influence; and so did not Ireland. It is then
usual to advert to the eminent qualifications of Irishmen
for success in every department of life, civil or military ; to
notice the remarkable men from Ireland, who have
adorned the literature, or propagated the boundaries of the
empire ; to speak with a kind of jealousy of the worth and
talent that foreign nations have recruited in Ireland ; to
insist upon the amount of industry and enterprise which
the same foreign countries are continually abstracting
from that place, and incorporating into tbeir own great-
ness; next to inquire why it is that Irishmen are not
everything they ought to be at home ; and finally, after
playing with the question for a wiiile, as with a curious
yet simple puzzle, to give it up in despair, and advise the
Irish to stick close to business, to avoid excitement, to
forget their own history, to pay their tithe rent charge

VOL. XL I.— No. LXXXII. 1

280 . Cockburn's Memorials of his Time. |Dec.

punctually, to look upon its recipients as part of a beneficent
institution intended to last; to regard national honour as a
delusion, and embrace any amount of dishonour for the
sake of quietness. No one can deny that this is in sub-
stance the advice given to Ireland upon all occasions by
those even who are supposed to represent liberal opinions.
Lord Elgin, however, in the course of a long and honour-
able life of experience, has found reason to hold and to give
expression to very different views from those which it is
the fashion to put forward regarding Ireland and Scotland.
*' I think," he says, "the results which have attended the
connection between England and Scotland, and England
and Ireland, will go very far to show how little a nation
gains which succeeds in forcing its own foreign institu-
tions, foreign laws, and foreign religion upon a reluctant
and high-spirited people. Oh, gentlemen, I fear, I greatly
fear that we have not yet read that most valuable but most
painful lesson to its close, for rely upon it, that if ever a
collision takes place between those two great branches of
the Anglo-Saxon race, which dwell on the opposite shores
of the Atlantic, that calamity, the most grievous that can
befall either country, will be attributable to the humilia-
tions which in bygone days England has sought to impose
upon Ireland.'* And Lord Elgin is right when he lays so
much stress upon the humiliation sought to be imposed,
and so very effectually imposed upon Ireland, in bygone
days as he says, but existing, as we say, in a great
measure to the dishonour and danger of the nation at the
present hour. These very humiliations to which Ireland
has been subjected, have been more fatal to her interests,
more injurious to her morality, and more obstructive of
her progress, social, political, and industrial, than any one
of her wrongs, or all her wrongs taken together, merely in
so far as they are wrongs, and do not necessarily imply
dishonour, degradation and the extinction of public spirit.
In point of mere wrongs, that is to say, of political
wrongs, Scotland for a long period had very little the
advantage of Ireland, if we are to judge from the picture
shown up to us by Lord Cockburn in his interesting
volume. The so-called electoral system previous to the
Reform Bill, did not require the aid of corruption to ren-
der an election a still more fictitious and unreal procedure
in Scotland than in England or Ireland. Political prose-
cutions were many degrees more serious in theu: conse-

1856.] Cockburn's Memorials of his Time. 281

quences, and the law regarding political offences far
more severe in Scotland than it had ever been in
Ireland. In the latter country, too, public opinion,
although in a very rudimentary state, was not without
influence for many years before it had struggled into light
in Scotland ; and political changes amounting to revolu-
tion, had been effected in Ireland with a high hand against
all the power and resources of government before Scotland
was emancipated from Dundas. But owing to the faci-
lities presented by the structure of the electoral body, cor-
ruption, as might be expected, prevailed in Scotland to that
degree that it soon came to be a creed better understood
than the Institutes of Calvin, or the Westminster Cate-
chism, that there was no God but office, and that Dundas
was his prophet. ** There was then," says Lord Brougham,
speaking of the meridian hour of the Dundas influence,
** no doubt ever raised of the stability of the ministry or of
Mr. Dundas* ample share in the dispensations of its
favours. The political sky was clear and settled to the
very verge of the horizon. There was nothing to disturb
the hearts of anxious mortals. The wary and pensive Scot
felt sure of his election if he but kept by the true faith, and
his path lay straight before him, the path of righteous
devotion, leading unto a blessed preferment. But our
northern countrymen were fated to be visited by some
troubles. The heavens became overcast; their luminary
was for a while concealed from devout eyes. In vain they
sought him, but he was not. Uncouth names began to be
heard. Instead of the old convenient and intelligible alter-
native of * Pitt or Fox,' ' Place or Poverty,* which left no
doubt in any rational mind which of the two to choose,
there was seen — strange sight ! hateful and perplexing
omen ! a ministry without Pitt, nay, without Dundas, and
an opposition leaning towards its support. Those who are
old enough to remember that dark interval may recollect
hovv the public mind in Scotland was subdued with awe,
and how men awaited in doubting silence the uncertain
event, as all living things quail during the solemn pause
that precedes an earthquake.

*' It was in truth a crisis to try men's souls. For a while
all was uncertainty and consternation, all were seen flut-
tering about like birds in an eclipse or a thunder-storm ;
no man could tell whom he might trust ; nay, worse still,
no man could tell of whom he might ask anything. It was

282 Cockhurn's Memorials of h'i8 Time. [Dec.

hard to say not who were in office, but who were likely
to remain in office. All true Scots were in dismay and
distraction. It might truly be said they knew not which
way to look, or whither to turn. Perhaps it might be yet
more truly said they knew not when to turu. But such a
crisis was too sharp to last ; it passed away, and then was
to be seen a proof of Mr. Dundas's power amoug his
couutrymeu, which transcended ail expectation, aud almost
surpassed belief, if indeed it is not rather to be viewed as
an evidence of the acute foresight, the political second
sight of the Scottish nation. The trusty band in both
houses were found adhering to him against the existing
government; nay, he held the proxies of many Scottish
peers in open opposition. Well might his colleague
exclaim to the hapless Addington on such unheard of cir-
cumstances, * Doctor, the Thanes fly from us!' When
the very Scotch peers wavered, and when the Grampian
hills might next be expected to move about, it was time to
think that the end of all things was at hand ; and the
return of Pitt and Security, and Patronage and Dundas,
speedily returned to bless old Scotland, and reward her
providence or her fidelity, her attachment at once to her
patron and herself."

But under all her wrongs, with the whole power and
patronage of the country in the hands of one man, with
political morality almost utterly destroyed, with all inde-
pendence silenced, with juries ready to convict any man of
anything, and judges armed with a discretion of punish-
ment for sedition, ranging between one year's imprison-
ment and transportation for life — Scotland had never been
humbled ; her laws, though bad, might, as things were then
understood, be looked upon as her own. There were no
foreign institutions, foreign laws, and above all, no foreign
religion seated in abhorred supremacy over all that claimed
her natural allegiance. Her dignity was left untouched by
defeat, and whatever degradation she incurred by her poli-
tical subserviency, was partly her own choice and partly a
result of her institutions, not an acquiescence in disgrace
imposed by foreign authority. Pride, though reprehensible
and unreasonable in an individual, is not only permissible
but of primary necessity in a nation. To deprive a people
of that chastity of honour, that jealousy of reproach, that
persuasion of excellence which are guarantees of public
spirit and public virtue, will ruin it more effectually thau

1856.1 [ Cockburn's Memorials of his Time. 283

anything else that power and ingenuity can compass.
Since the day of Bannockburn the pride of Scotland never
had been effectually humbled, and her successful resistance
to the establishment of a spurious episcopacy, pver what
had unfortunately come to the national Calvinism, has a
closer connection with her present prosperity and imposing
attitude in the councils of the empire than men are apt to
suppose. Even those rebelUons so often drawn into a
parallel with the two Irish insurrections of '98 and 1801,
have nothing in common with the two latter movements.
Excepting the massacre of Glencoe, there was little to
disgust Scotland with the government of William, and
still less with the House of Hanover. The Scotch were
actuated by attachment to their ancient dynasty, although,
if we are to take the Scottish chieftain, quoted by Lord
Cockburn, as a sample of the general spirit, love of phni-
der would seem to have been the animating principle of
the two rebellions ; for when asked by a friend whether in
accompanying Prince Charles Edward in his march, he
really thought the House of Hanover couLl be driven from
the throne, the chieftain candidly admitted he thought
nothing at all about the matter, as his great anxiety was
to see *"' Donald riflin' Lunnun." When the Irish, on the
contrary, attempted to rise, perhaps the views of the body
of the insurgents were not very distinct; they fought
neither for pretenders, nor chieftains, nor plunder, but they
were galled by a real yoke, they felt a real goad, they
endeavoured to escape from intolerable misery and dis-
grace, from the smarting of literal whips, from the fester-
ing of bona fi<le chains, they fought, whatever might be
the dreams of republican leaders, for life and altar and
bread. And although great and peaceful victories have
been achieved for freedom in Ireland since those unhappy
years, she yet retains marks of dishonour and inferiority
which diminish her self-respect, and are more obstructive
of pi'ogress and amelioration than any amount of wrong :
although in the case at least of the Protestant establish-
ment the most intolerable dishonour is linked to the most
grievous wrong.

Now it might be supposed from these remarks that the
book of which we offer a notice is political in character; so
it is; but not purely, or even principally political. It sketches
with peculiar truth and animation successive phases of
Scottish life, social and pohtical, and we attached ourselves

284 CockhurrHs Memorials of Ids Time, [Dec.

at once to the latter ; because feeliiif? as we do, considerable
jealousy of the hterary eminence and material prosperity of
Scotland, we also felt that it was in great measure to be
attributed to the favourable circumstance which we have
attempted to describe; and because we yet feel with a
strength of conviction not likely to diminish, that Ireland
must remain as she is until her honour be vindicated by
the fall of the Anglican establishment, and every other
institution that stands in the way of good citizenship,
and patriotic pride ; transforming one class of our country-
men into a garrison or a colony, and banding the other as
a confederacy of discontented, angry, contemned and
half caste natives. It would not be fair, however, to omit
noticing Lord Cockburn's charming volume as a picture
of social life. The plan of the book is very simple indeed.
It might almost be called the annals of Edinburgh, for
such in fact its pages are, and the running commentary
with which they are illustrated and embellished, is full of
that happy humour, that large benevolence and genial phil-,
osophy for which only two other men are, or wei e equally
remarkable with Lord Cockburn, we need hardly say
we mean Sydney Smith and Charles Dickens. It includes
the eventful period from 1779 to 1830, from the time
when George the Third was king ; when the Bourbons
reigned in France, and the United States were provinces ;
when Ireland was a distinct and rather saucy kingdom ;
when the Catholics in their humiliation were the wonder
.and the pity of the world ; and the House of Commons
was a constitutional fiction ; to the period when the
Bourbons proper had disappeared a second time, after the
world had been convulsed to restore them ; when America
had grown to be a great and haughty rival of the Empire ;
when Ireland had been changed into west Britain, the
Catholics transformed into freemen, and the House of
Commons into a representative assembly. It also traverses
an interval during which powdered pig-tails and small
clothes were the badges of loyalty, and pantaloons or clean
hair the emblems of jacobinism. It embraces the sera of fur
collars and the cotemporaneous reign of terror in the realms
of fashion that has given to white neckerchiefs the well
earned title of chokers, and causes Beau Brummell to be
remembered as the llobespierre of dandyism. It takes in
an epoch stained by all the enormities of female costume,
from the puff sleeves, short waists, and slim skirts ; to

185G.] Cockbiirri's Memorials of his Time. 285

the voluminous folds of the sleeve called leg-of-mutton,
and the cavernous recesses of the coal-scuttle bonnet.
It casts a lingering glance at the cTaret and toddy
that redeemed many of the errors of the time it chroni-
cles, and accompanies us through all the changes of dinner
hour, to mark the advance of civilization. It takes us
through the days of Adam Smith, Ferguson, Playfair,
Robertson and Dugald Stewart, to the generation of
Brougham, Sydney Smith, Scott, Jeffreys, and Cockburn.
Something in short is said of everything and everybody in
a way, that to our mind at least, presents a more agree-
ably shifting, and yet more regular picture of a period
marked by great and striking transition than anything
we remember to have read. We shall hardly deserve to
be excused, however, for keeping the reader so long with-
out an extract, and accordingly we offer one in which
Lord Cockburn gives a graphic description of his early
school-days, interspersed with serious reflections, which
those who are in any way concerned with education would
do well to lay to heart. The glimpses it affords of the terror-
ism and immorality by which the Tory supremacy was
maintained in Scotland, and of the meannesses to which it
never scrupled to descend, are very characteristic, nor do we
believe that the history even of Ireland shews anything
more disgusting.

" In October 1787 I was sent to the High School. Having never
been at a public school before, and this one being notorious for its
severity and riotousness, I approached its walls with trembling, and
felt dizzy when I sat down amidst above 100 new faces. We had
been living at Leith, for sea bathing, for some weeks before ; and I
was taken to school by our tutor. The only thing that relieved my
alarm as Ke hauled me along was the diversion of crossing the arches
of the South Bridge, which were then unfinished, on planks. The
person to whose uncontrolled discipline I was now subjected, though
a good man, an intense student, and filled, but rather in the
memory than in the head, with knowledge, was as bad a school-
master as it is possible to fancy. Unacquainted with the nature of
youth, ignorant even of the characters of his own boys, and with not
a conception of the art or of the duty of alluring them, he had
notliiiig for it but to drive them; and this he did by constant and
indiscriminate harshness.

"The effects of this were very hurtful to all his pupils. Out of
the whole four years of my attendance there were probably not ten
days in which I was not fld^ged, at least once. Yet I never entered
the class, nor left it, without feeling perfectly qualified, both in

286 CockhurrCs Memorials of his Time. [Doc.

ability and preparation, for its whnle business ; which, being con-
fined to Latin alone, and in necessarily short tasks, since every one
of the boys had to" rhyme over the very same words, in the very
same way, was no great feat. But I was driven stupid. Oh ! tlie
bodily and mental wearisomeness of sitting six hours aday, staring
idly at a page, without motion and without thought, and trembling
at the gradual approach of the merciless giant. I never got a sin-
gle prize, and once sat hoobie ac the annual public examination.
The beauty of no Roman word, or thought, or action, ever occurred
to me ; nor did I ever fancy that Latin was of any use except to
torture boys.

"After four years of this class, I passed on to that of the rector.
Dr. Alexander Adam, the author of tlie work on Roman Antiqui-
ties, then in the zenith of his reputation. He had raised himself
from the very dust to that high position. .Never was a man more
fortunate in the choice of a vocation. He was born to teach Latin,
some Greek, and all virtue. Li doing so he was generally patient,
though not, when intolerably provoked, without due fits of gentle
wratli ; inspiring to his boys, especially the timid and backward;
enthusiastically delighted with every appearance of talent or good-
ness ; a warm encourager by praise, play, and kindness ; and con-
stantly under the strongest sense of duty. The art of teaching has
been so immeasuratdy improved in good Scotch schools since his
time, that we can scarcely estimate his merits now. He had most
of the usual peculiarities of a schoolmaster ; but was so amiable
and so artless, that no sensible friend would have wished one of
them to be eveu softened. His private industry was appalling. If
one moment late at scliool, he would hurry in, and explain that he
had been detained 'verifying a quotation ;' and many a one did he
verify at four in the morning. He told me at the close of one of
his autumn vacations of six weeks that, before it had begun, he
had taken a house in the country, and had sent his family there,
in order that he himself might have some rustic leisure, but that
having got upon tlie scent of some curious passages (his favourite
sport) he had remained with his books in town, and had never eveu
seen the country house.

" He suffered from a prejudice likely to be injurious in those
days. He was no politician; insomuch that it may be doubted
whether he ever knew one public measure or man from anotiier.
But a Latin and Greek schoolmaster naturally speaks about such
things as liberty, and the people, and the expulsion of tho Tarquins,
and republics, and this was quite sufficient for the times ; especially
as any modern notions that he had were popular, and he was too
honest, and too simple, to disguise them. This innocent infusion
of classical patriotism into the mind of a man whose fancy dwelt in
old Rome, made him be watched and traduced for several years.
Boys were encouraged to bring home stories of him, and of course
reported only what they saw pleased. Often, and with great agi-

1856.] Cockhurn's Memorials of his Time. 287

tation, did the worthy man complain of the injustice which tolerated
these youthful spies ; but his cliief sorrow was for the corruption to
which the minds of his pupils were exposed. I remained at the
rector's class two years." — pp. 3-6.

In the course of the next few pages we are introduced
to the author's only two companions at the High-school
who reached any great eminence ; but to make up for that,
the eminence they did attain to was enough to make the
character of any school, unless of one where, as in this
instance,their distinction was acquired in spite of their train-
ing, and could in no possible way have been a consequence
of it. These men were Horner and Brougham. No one
that has been at school can fail to recall incidents of his
own school-days in reading the passage.

*' They had the barbarity to make us be in school during sum-
mer at 7 in the moruiug, I once started out of bed, thinking I
was too late, and got out of the house unquestioned. On reaching
the High School gate, I found it locked, aud saw the yards, through
the bars, silent aud motionless. I withdrew alarmed, and went
near the Tron Church to see the clock. It was only about two or
three. Not a creature was on the street ; not even watchmen, who
were of much later introduction. I came home awed, as if I had
seen a dead city, and the impressiou of that hour has never been
effaced.

" Not one of the boys of my class has reached any great eminence;
which indeed has been attained by ouly two boys who were at any of
the classes of the High School in my time. These two were Frauds
Horner and Henry Brougham.

" Horner, with whom I was at the rector's class for one year,
was then exactly what he coutiuueii afterwards to be — grave, stu-
dious, honourable, kind ; steadily pursuing his own cultivation ;
everything he did marked by thoughtfulness and greatness. Before
leaving the school we subscribed for a book which we presented to
the rector ; a proceeding theu unprecedented. It fell to Horner as
the dux to give it, and he never acquitted himself better. It was
on the day of ilie public examination; and after the prizes were
distributed, aud the spectators thought that the business was over, he
stood forth with one volume of the book in his liand, and in a dis-
tinct though tremulous voice, and a firm but modest manner,
ad'iressed Adam in a Latin speech of his own compositioa not
exceeding three or four sentences, expressive of the gratitude aud
affection with which we all took leave of our master. The effect
was complete, on Adam, on the audience, and the boys. I was far
down iu the class, aud can still recal the feeling of enthusiastic but
despairing admiration, with which I witnessed the scene. I thought

288 Cockburn's Memorials of his Time. , [Dec.

Horner a god, and wondered what it was that made such a hopeless
difference between him and me.

•• Brougham was not in the class with me. Before getting to the
rector's class, ho had been under Luke Fraser, who, in his two
immediately preceding courses of four years each, had the good for-
tune to have Francis Jeffrey and Walter Scott as his pupils.
Brougham made his first public explosion while at Fraser's class.
He dared to differ from Fraser, a hot but good natured old fellow,
on some small bit of latinity. The master, like other men in power,
maintained his own infallibility, punished the rebel, and flattered
himself the affair was over. But Brougham reappeared next day,
loaded with books, returned to the charge before the whole class,
and compelled honest Luke to acknowledge that he had been wrong.
This made Brougham famous throughout the whole school. I
remember, as well as if it had been yesterday, having had him
pointed out to me as ' the fellow who had beat the master.' It was
then that I first saw him.

" As mere school years, these six were very fruitlessly spent.
The hereditary evils of the system and of the place were too great
for correction even by Adam; and the general tone of the school
was vulgar and harsh. Among the boys, coarseness of language
and manners was the only fashion. An English boy was so rare,
that his accent was openty laughed at. No lady could be seen
within the walls. Nothing evidently civilized was safe. Two of
the masters, in particular, were so savage, that any master doing
now what they did every hour would certainly be transported.

" Before we left the school Adam made us a sensible and affect-
ing address. In order to encourage us all to go on with our studies
voluntarily and earnestly, he pointed out the opposite tendencies
of early eminence, and of early obscurity, upon boys; warning
those who had been distinguished against presumption, and those who
had hitherto been unnoticed against despair ; and explaining to both
that, even in the very next stage, he had often known them change
natures; the one from fancying that nothing more required to be
done, the other from discovering that they had everything to do.
I drank in every syllable of this well-timed discourse, and felt my
heart revive. And a very few years proved its justice. The same
powers that raise a boy high in a good school, make it probable
that he will rise high in life. But in bad scliools, it is nearly the
very reverse. And even in the most rationally conducted, superi-
ority affords only a gleam of hope for the future. Men change,
and still more boys. The High School distinctions very speedily
vanished ; and fully as much by the sinking of the luminaries who
had shone in the zenith, as by the rising of those who had been
lying on the horizon. I have ever since had a distrust of duxes,
and thought boobies rather hopeful.

" I doubt if I ever read a single book, or even fifty pages, volun-
tarily, when I was at the High School. The Spectator was the first

1856. J Cockburri's Memorials of his Time. '289

book I read, from the sheer pleasure of reading, after I left it." —
pp. 8-12.

Before quittlnf:^ this period of theautlior's experience we
sViall copy one other chapter of his academical life, not so
much for its value as a picture, as because it rebukes with
modesty the cant of the day, which seeks to disparage
classical learning, and talks of cramming boys with Latin
and Greek, as if Latin and Greek represented languages
merely, and not the perfection of whatever is human in
literature. Indeed, we are not aware of ever having heard
this contemptible common place from anyone who could
pretend to the character of a scholar, although it is un-
questionably true, not that undue attention has been given
to classical learning, but that modern literature and lan-
guages have been treated with stupid neglect. We need
only point to America for an instance of a system such as
educational reformers of the present day would introduce,
not corrective of our own, but its opposite in every particu-
lar. The newspaper is almost the only literary produc-
tion of America, and with few exceptions journalism is less
distinguished for ability and morality in America than in
any other, even the most despotic country. Education is
there almost exclusivel}^ commercial and utilitarian. There
are a few sickly institutions in America called universities,
some of them even bearing the names of seats of learning
in this country, but they are in no respect similar to any-
thing spoken of in Europe as an university ; still less is
there anything in America to represent Eton, Rugby, and
Harrow, those fine and characteristic establishments upon
which M. de Montalembert dwells with such pardonable
enthusiasm in his *' Avenir d'Angleterre."

" In October 1793 I was sent to the College of Edinburgh.

*'Mj first class was for more of that weary Latin; an excellent
thing, if it had been got. For, all I have seen since, and all I felt
even then, have satisfied ine that there is no solid and graceful
foundation for boy's minds like classical learning, grammatically
acquired ; and that all the modern substitutes of what is called
useful knowledge, breed little beyond conceit, vulgarity, and general
ignorance. It is not the mere acquaintance with the two immortal
languages that constitutes the value, though the value of this is
incalculable, but the early discipline of the mind, by the nece?sarv
reception of precise rules, of which the use and the reasonableness is
in due time disclused. But the mischief was that little Latin was

290 Cockhurn's Memorials of his Time. [Dec.

acquireil. The class was a constant scene of unchecked idleness,
and disrespectful mirth. Our time was worse tlian lost.

" Andrew Dalzel, tlie author of Collectanea Grajca and other
academical books, taught my next class — the Greek. At the
mere teaching of a language to bojs, he was ineffective. How is
it possible for the elements, including the very letters, of a lan-
guage to be taught to one hundred boys at once, by a single lectur-
ing professor ? To tiie lads who, like me to whom the very alpha-
bet was new, required positive teaching, the class was utterly
useless. Nevertheless, though not a good schoolmaster, it is a
duty, and delightful, to record Dalzel's value as a general exciter
of boy's minds. Dugald Stewart alone excepted, he did me more
good than all the other instructors I had. Mild, affectionate,
simple, an absolute enthusiast about learning — particularly clas-
sical, and especially Greek ; with an innocence of soul and of
manner which imparted an air of honest kindliness to whatever he
said or did, and a slow, soft, formal voice, he was a great favourite
with all boys, and with all good men. Never was a voyager, out
in quest of new islands, more delighted in finding one, than he
was in discovering any good quality in any bumble youth. Ilis
lectures (published injudiciously by somebody in 1820 or 1821)
are an example of the difference between discourses meant to be
spoken to boys, and those intended to be read by men. Yet our
hearts bore witness how well they were conceived, at least as he
read them, for moving youths. He could never make us actively
laborious. But when we sat passive, and listened to him, he in-
spired us with a vague but sincere ambition of literature, and with
delicious dreams of virtue and poetry. He must have been a hard
boy whom these discourses, spoken by Dalzel's low, soft, artless
Toice. did not melt.

" Dalzel was clerk to the General Assembly, and was long one
of the curiosities of that strange place. He was too innocent for
it. Tlie last time I saw this simple and worthy man was very
shortly before his death, the near approach of which he was quite
aware of, at a house he had taken on the Bennington Road. He
was trying to discharge a twopenny cannon for the amusement of
his children ; but his alarm and awkwardness only terrified them
the more ; till at last he got behind a washing-tub, and then,
fastening the match to the end of a long stick, set the piece of
ordnance off gloriously. He used to agree with those who say, that
it is partly owing to its Presbyterianisra that Scotland is less clas-
sical than Episcopal England. Sydney Smith asserted that he
had overheard tlie Professor muttering one dark night in the
street to himself, 'If it had not been for that confounded Solemn
League and Covenant we would have made as good longs and
shorts as they."' — pp. 18—21.

We now pass to a sketch of a different description, but

1856. 1 Cockhurn's Memorials of his Time. 291

several of the features of which are recognizable here as
well us in Scotland, and can not only be recalled by men
who number fewer years than did the illustrious author of
these memorials, but have left many traces in particular
circles, and some in our general manners. Lord Cockburn
introduces us to the elaborate etiquette of a dinner in the
oUlen time, and the oj3piessive absurdities with which it
was accompanied. Use of course made it alias familiar
and as easy as what we consider the perfection of ease and
uurestraint in our modern dinners or social reunions of
any kind.

" Healths and toasts were special torments ; oppressions which
cannot now be conceived. Every glass during dinner required to
be dedicated to the health of some one. It was thought sottish
and rude to take wine without this — as if forsooth there was nobody
present worth drinking with. I was present, about 1803, when the
late Duke of Buccleuch took a glass of sherry by himself at the
table of Charles Mope, then Lord Advocate ; and this was noticed
afterwards as a piece of Ducal contempt. And the person asked
to take wine was not invited by anything so slovenly as a look,
combined with a putting of the hand upon the bottle, as is practised
by near neighbours now. It was a much more serious affair. For
one thing, the wine was very rarely on the table. It had to be
called for ; and in order to let the servants know to whom he was
to carry it, the caller was obliged to specify his partner aloud.
All this required some premeditation and courage. Hence timid
men never ventured on so bold a step at all ; but were glad to
escape by only drinking when they were invited. As this ceremony
was a mark of respect, the landlord, or any other person who
thought himself the great man, was generally graciously pleased
to perform it to every one present. But he and others were always
at liberty to abridge the severity of the duty, by performing it by
platoons. They took a brace, or two brace, of ladies or of gentle-
men, or of both, and got them all engaged at once, and proclaiming
to the sideboard — ' A glass of sherry for Miss Dundas, Mrs. Murray,
and Misj Hope, and a glass of port for Mr. Hume, and one for me,'
he slew them by coveys. And all the parties to the con tracts were
bound to acknowledge each other distinctly. No nods, or grius,
or indifferences; but a direct look at the ohject, the audilde utterintr
of the very words — ' Your good health,'' accompanied by a respectful
inclination of the head, a gentle attraction of the right hand towards
the heart, and a gratified smile. And after all these detached
pieces of attention during tlie feast were over, no sooner was the
table cleared, and the after dinner glasses set down, than it became
necessary for each pei-son, following the landlord, to drink tlie
health of every other person present, individually. Thus, where

292 Cockhurn's Memorials of his Time. [Dec.

there were ten people, tliore were ninety healths drunk. This
ceremonj was often slurred over by tlie bashful, who were allowed
merely to loolc the benediction ; but usage compelled them to look
it distinctly, and to each individual. To do this well, required
some grace, and consequently it was best done by the polite ruffled
and frilled gentlemen of the olden time.

" This prandial nuisance was horrible. But it was nothing to
what followed. For after dinner, and before the ladies retired,
there generally began what were called ' Rounds ' of toasts ; when
each gentleman named an absent lady, and each lady an absent
gentleman, separately ; or one person was required to give an
absent lady, ani another person was required to match a gentle-
man with that lady, and the pair named were toasted, generally
with allusions and jokes about the fitness of the union. — And, worst
of all, there were ' Sentiments.' These were short epigrammatic
eentences, expressive of moral feelings and virtues, and were
thought refined and elegant productions. A faint conception of
their nauseousness may be formed from the following examples,
every one of which I have heard given a thousand times, and which
indeed I only recollect from their being favourites. The glasses
being filled, a person was asked for his, or for her, sentiment, when
this or something similar was committed — ' May the pleasures of
the evening bear the reflections of the morning.' Or, ' May the
friends of our youth be the companions of our old age.' Or, ' Deli-
cate pleasures to susceptible minds.' ' May the honest heart never
feel distress.' * May the hand of charity wipe the tear from the
eye of sorrow.' * May never worse be among us.' There were
stores of similar reflections; and for all kinds of parties, from the
elegant and romantic, to the political, the municipal, the ecclesi-
astic, and the drunken. Many of the thoughts and sayings survive
still, and may occasionally be heard at a club or a tavern. But
even there they are out of vogue as established parts of the enter-
tainment ; and in some scenes nothing can be very oflfensive. But
the proper sentiment was a high and pure production; a moral
motto; and was meant to dignify and grace private society.
Hence, even after an easier age began to sneer at the display, the
correct course was to receive the sentiment, if not with real admi-
ration, at least with decorous respect. Mercifully, there was a
large known public stock of the odious commodity, so that nobody
who could screw up his nerves to pronounce the words, had any
occasion to strain his invention. The conceited, the ready, or the
I'eckless, hackneyed in the art, had a knack of making new senti-
ments applicable to the passing accidents, with great ease. But it
was a dreadful oppression ou the timid or the awkward. They
used to shudder, ladies particularly — for nobody was spared, when
their turn in the round approached. Many a struggle and blush
did it cost ; but this seemed only to excite the tyranny of the
masters of the craft ; and compliauce could never be avoided except

1856.1 Cockhurn' s Memorials of his Time. 293

by more torture than yielding. There can scarcely be a better
example of the eraetical nature of the stuff that was swallowed
than the sentiment elaborated by the poor dominie at Arndilly.
He was called upon, in his turn, before a large party, and having
nothing to guide him in an exercise to which he w^s new, except
what he saw was liked, after much writhing and groaning, he come
out with — ' The reflection of the moon in the cawm bosom of the
lake.' It is difficult for those who have been born under a more
natural system, to comprehend how a sensible man, a respectable
matron, a worthy old maid, and especially a girl, could be expected
to go into company ouly on such conditions.''— pp. 36-40.

A matter of very practical interest at the present day is
the increase of Judaism amongst the professing rehgioua
public of Protestants, in the observance of the Sunday. It
always struck us as a rather singular caprice of private
judgment to fasten upon practices which our Lord singled
out for emphatic condemnation and endeavour to transfer
them to the Christian discipline. One is lost in wonder to
conceive how a Protestant using the right of interpretation
for himself and reading the passages in which the Lord of
the Sabbath rebuked the ancient Sabbatarians by word,
argument, and example, should insist upon all that the
Saviour discouraged. While we are glad to see the Sun-
day protected from the desecration of traffic, there is to us
no form of intolerance more odious, more contemptible, or
more anti-christian than that which seeks to convert the'
Christian Sunday into a worse than Jewish Sabbath, sub-
stituting inaction for rest, and public debauchery or private
sotting for rational amusement. We could not expect
Lord Cockburn to feel as strongly upon a matter of this
kind as people born out of Scotland, and the modesty with
which he gives expression to his own sentiments is not the
least attractive feature in the passage we are about to
quote. For our own part we believe that notwithstanding
the array of petitions which the advocates of Judaism
are able to parade in the house; notwithstanding
all the marches they may be enabled to steal, or the
cat-like dexterity of their surprises ; in spite of their tracts
and denunciations ; public opinion under the influence of
men like Cockburn, and with moderation and steadiness
to ballast it will eventually prevail and crush as hateful
a tyranny as any ever sought to be exercised over
conscience. In Scotland, perhaps, this cannot happen
for a long time. Bigotry is entrenched too strongly

294 Cockburn's Memorials of his Time. \ Dec.

ill that interesting country to be easily driven from her
favourite position, and it must be borne in mind, tliat
the peculiar biprotry of the place is of a nature more
difficult to be dealt with than that of any other country
in Europe. It is well known that the observance of the
Sabbath finds no more indignant vindicator than the
pious Christian who spends the whole interval from
Saturday night to Monday morning at or under the table,
whether of his own house or of the public-house.

" There is no contrast between those old days and the present
that strikes me so strongly as that suggested by the differences in
religious observances ; not so much by the world in general, as by
deeply religious people. I knew the habits of the religious very
■well, partly through the piety of my mother and her friends, the
strict religious education of her children, and our connection with
some of the most distinguished of our devout clergymen. I could
mention many practices of our old pious which would horrify mo-
dern zealots. The principles and feelings of the persons commonly
called evangelical, were the same then that they are now; the
external acts, by which these feelings and principles were formerly
expressed, were materially different. In nothing do these differ-
ences appear more strikingly than in the matters connected with
the observance of Sunday. Hearing what is often confidently
prescribed now as the only proper mode of keeping the Christian
Sabbath, and then recollecting how it was recently kept by Chris-
tian men, ought to teach us charity in the enforcement of obser-
vances, which, to a certain extent, are necessarily matters of
opinion.

" It is not unusual for certain persons to represent Scotland, but
particularly Edinburgh, as having been about the beginning of
this century very irreligious. Whenever any modern extravagance,
under the name of piety, is attempted to be corrected by showing
its inconsistency with the practice of the pious of the last age,
this is sure to be met by the assertion that the last age was not
merely irreligious, but generally infidel. Tliere are some with
whom this idea is suggested by the mere echo of the words of David
Hume. With others it is necessary for the promotion of a more
ascetic system than the last age would have borne. And, with
many it is taken up from mere policy; as for example, when
Establislied Churchmen, who maintain the necessi*^y for college
tests, are referred to the long success of the College of Edinburgh
without tests, the answer is nearly certain to be that the College of
Edinburgh used to be tainted by infidelity.

" I attest that, so far as I ever saw or heard, this charge is
utterly false. I am not aware of a single professor to whom it
Was ever applied, or could be applied justly. Freedom of discus-

1856.] Cockburn's Memoirs of his Time. 295

sion was not in the least combined with scepticism among the
students, or in their societies. I never knew nor heard of a single
student, tutor, or professor, by whom infidelity was disclosed, or in
whose thoughts I believed it to be harboured, with perhaps only
two obscure and doubtful exceptious. I consider the imputation
as chiefly an invention to justify modern intolerance.

" As to the comparative righteousness of the present and the
preceding generation, any such comparison is very diflScult to be
made. Religion is certainly more the fashion than it used to be.
There is more said about it; there has been a great rise, and con-
sequently a great competition of sects; and the general mass of
the religious public has been enlarged. On the other hand, if we
are to believe one half of what some religious persons themselves
assure us, religion is now almost extinct. My opinion is that the
balance is in favour of the present time. And I am certain that it
would be much more so, if the modera dictators would only accept
of that as religion, which was considered to be so by their devout
fathers."— Pp. 42-45.

We shall offer no apology for giving one of the author's
political sketches somewhat at length. It is not easy to
conceive anything more hopeless than the prospects of
liberal opinion in Scotland at the time which Lord Cock-
burn describes, and we believe we were correct in saying
that at no period since the revolution did Ireland exhibit
Buch absolute political prostration as was witnessed in
Scotland from the suppression of the last rebellion to the
few years preceding the reform movement. Lucas, Moley-
neux, and Swift, exposed themselves to considerable risk
by their outspeaking in Ireland, but they never could have
uttered or written a syllable in Scotland under the reign of
Pitt and Dundas ; still less would it have been possible for
a man like O'Oonnell to organize a public association tak-
ing upon itself many of the functions of government, dissolv-
ing and reappearing at the wave of the Magician's wand as
circumstances required, but always in defiance of, and in op-
position to the government. Had Ireland, though degraded,
been as incapable of political action as Scotland, O'Connell
never could have appeared, and emancipation never could
have been achieved. The band of Scottish liberals was
bold but not exactly heroic, although they had the morti-
fication to see mediocrity promoted and exalted in con-
sequence of a political connexion which men less honour-
able than themselves might have joined in despair of their
country and their cause. But mere sacrifice without action

VQL. XLI.-No. LXXXII. 2

296 Cockbum'8 Memoirs of his Time. [Dec.

and vigorous exertion never could have won reform for Scot-
land under the then existing state of things, nor could the
Edinburgh Review, powerfully as it advanced the liberal
interest, have operated upon Scotland alone. Reform
was achieved by England and Ireland, it was granted under
the pressure of a movement that threatened revolution ;
and though public opinion in Scotland was evidently ripe
for the change, as subsequent events have proved, that
opinion never could have struggled to the surface, so as to
make itself seen and heard, if the success of reform
depended upon Scotland. That country, it is not to be
denied, furnished some of the great wrestlers to the strug-
gle, but Scotland was not their field of triumph, and we
believe it never could have been. There is no painting or
flourishing in the account given by Lord Cockburn. It is
a strict and dry statement of fact, as will readily appear
from the passage itself.

" The principal leaders of the true Whig party were Henry
Erskine, who had recently been Lord Advocate ; Adam Gillis,
John Clerk, and David Cathcart, all afterwards judges ; Archibald
Fletcher, Malcolm Laing, James Graham, and John Macfarlane,
advocates ; and James Gibson, Writer to the Signet. Some
brighter names, especially that of Jeffrey, had not yet come into
action ; and there were a few stout- hearted brethren, who, though
too obscure to be now named, formed a rear rank on whom those
in advance could always rely. The profession of these men armed
them with better qualities than any other avocation could supply in a
country without a Parliament — with talent, the practice of speak-
ing, political knowledge, and public position ; but their personal
boldness and purity marked them out still more conspicuously for
popular trust. It was among them accordingly that independence
found its only asj'lum. It liad a few silent though devoted wor-
shippers elsewhere, but the Whig counsel were its only open cham-
pions. The Church can boast of Sir Harry Moncreiff alone as its
contribution to the cause ; but he was too faithful to his sacred
functions to act as a political partisan. John AUen and John Thom-
son, of the medical profession, were active and fearless. And the
College gave Dugald Stewart, John Playfair, and Andrew Dalzel.
Of these three, mathematics, which was his chair, enabled Playfair
to come better off than his two colleagues ; for Dalzel had to
speak of Grecian liberty, and Stewart to explain the uses of liberty
in general ; and anxiously were they both watched, Stewart, in
particular, though too spotless and too retired to be openly
denounced, was an object of great secret alarm. Not only virtuous,
but eloquent in recommending virtue to the young, he united
ISero'a objections both to Virgiaius the rhetorician, and Rufus

1856. J Cockhurn^s Memoirs of his Time. 297

Musonius the philosopher — ' Virginiutu Flavum et Musonium
Bufura claritudo nominis expulit. Nam Virginius studia juve-
num eloquentia, Musonius praeceptis sapientiae, fovebat' (Tacitus
— An. Lib. 15, cap. 71). A couatrj gentleman with any public
principle except devotion to Henry Dundas, was viewed as a wonder,
or rather as a monster. This was the creed also of almost all our
merchants, all our removable office holders, and all our public cor-
porations. So that, literally, everything depended on a few law-
yers ; a class to which, in modern times, Scotland owes a debt of
gratitude which does not admit of being exaggerated. Nor have
any men, since our revolution, been obliged to exercise patriotism
at greater personal risk or sacrifice. Could there have been the
slightest doubt of their purity or courage, public spirit must have
been extinguished in Scotland. The real strength of their party
lay in their being right, and in the tendency of their objects to
attract men of ability and principle.

" With the people put down, and the Whigs powerless. Govern-
ment was the master of nearly every individual in Scotland, but
especially in Edinburgh, which was the chief seat of its influence.
The infidelity of the French gave it almost all the pious ; their
atrocities all the timid ; rapidly increasing taxation and establish-
ments all the venal ; the higher and middle ranks were at its com-
mand, and the people at its feet. The pulpit, the bench, the bar,
the colleges, the parliamentary electors, the press, the magistracies,
the local institutions, were so completely at the service of the party
in power, that the idea of independence, besides being monstrous
and absurd, was suppressed by a feeling of conscious ingratitude.
And in addition to all the ordinary sources of government influence,
Henry Dundas, an Edinburgh man, and well calculated by talent
and manner to make despotism popular, was the absolute dictator
of Scotland, and had the means of rewarding submission, aud of
suppressing opposition, beyond what were ever exercised in moderu
times by one person, in any portion of the empire.

" The true state of things, and its effects, may be better seen in
a few specific facts, than in any general description.

" As to our Institutions — there was no popular representation ;
all town-councils elected themselves ; the Established Church had
no visible rival ; persons were sent to the criminal courts as jury-
men very nearly according to the discretion of the sheriff of their
county ; and after they got there, those who were to try the
prosecution were picked for that duty by the presiding Judge,
unchecked by any peremptory challenge. In other words, we had
no free political institutions whatever.

" The consequences of this were exactly what might have been
expected, and all resolved into universal prostration. The town-
couucils who elected the burgh members of Parliament, and the
1500 or 2000 freeholders who elected the county members, formed
so small a body that a majority, and indeed the whole, of thcox

298 CockhurrHs Memoirs of his Time. [Dec .

were quite easily held by the Government strings ; especially as
the burgh electors were generally dealt with on a principle which
admitted of considerable economy. Except at Edinburgh, there
was only one member for what was termed a district of four or five
burghs. Each town-council elected a delegate ; and these four or
five delegates elected the member ; and instead of bribing the
town council, the established practice was to bribe only the dele-
gates, or indeed only one of them, if this could secure the majority.
Not that the councils were left unrefreshed, bnt that the hooks
with the best baits were set for the most effective fishes. There
was no free, and consequently no discussing, press. For a short
time two newspapei's, the Scots Chronicle and the Gazetteer, raved
stupidly and vulgarly, and as if their real object had been to cast
discredit on the cause they professed to espouse. The only other
newspapers, so far as I recollect, were the still surviving Caledonian
Mercury, the Courant, and the Advertiser ; and the only other
periodical publication was the doited Scots Magazine. This maga-
zine and these three newspapers actually formed the whole regular
produce of the Edinburgh periodical press. Nor was the absence
of a free public press compensated by any freedom of public speech.
Public political meetings could not arise, for the elements did not
exist. I doubt if there was one during the twenty-five years that
succeeded the year 1795. Nothing was viewed with such horror,
as any political congregation not friendly to existing power. No
one could have taken a part in the business without making up his
mind to be a doomed man. No prudence could protect against the
falsehood or inaccuracy of spies j and a first conviction of sedition
by a judge-picked jury was followed by fourteen years' transporta-
tion. As a body to he deferred to, no public existed. Opinion was
only recognized when expressed through what were acknowledged
to be its legitimate organs ; which meant its formal or oflBcial
outlets. Public bodies therefore might speak each for itself ; but
the general community, as such, had no admitted claim to be con-
sulted or cared for. The result, in a nation devoid of popular
political rights, was, that people were dumb, or if tliey spoke out,
were deemed audacious. The wishes of the people wore not merely
despised, but it was thought and openly announced as a necessary
precaution against revolution, that they should be thwarted. I
knew a case, several years after 1800, where the seat-holders of a
town church applied to Government, which was the patron, for the
promotion of the second clergyman, who had been giving great satis-
faction for many years, and now, on the death of the first minister,
it was wished that he should get the vacant place. The answer,
written by a member of the Cabinet, was, that the single fact of
the people having interfered so far as to express a wish, was con-
clusive against what they desired ; and another appointment was
instantly made.''— Pp. 84-90.

1856.1 Cochhurn's Memoirs of his Time. 299

We never experienced more difficulty in the selection of
extracts, a difficulty arising from their abundance and
uniform excellence. The whole book is one for reading,
as every book ought to be, far more than for comment.
There is no attempt at style, " nothing is extenuated nor
aught set down in malice." It is impossible to trace a
particle of ill-will in the author towards any of his political
opponents ; and although his description of men, especially
as to their personal appearance, is very graphic indeed, it
never can be said to be malevolent, or anything else than
humorous and accurate. His gentleness and sincerity
are very striking when he deals with some of Sir Walter
Scott's mistakes, to which many men, even upon Cock-
burn's own showing, would give a harsher name. His
tenderness for the great name and worth of Scott, while
it leads him to vindicate the motives of so decided an
opponent, do not at all blind him to the criminality of
some of his actions, for which it is very difficult indeed
to suggest a motive consistent with sound morality or
honourable feeling. It seems to cost him unaffected
pain when he is obliged to notice the failings of the
worthy, as he seems to enjoy a hearty and almost
grateful gratification in awarding praise wherever it may
be due. Few readers of ordinary intelligence, and with
ordinarily good hearts, will rise up unimproved from the
perusal of this work, whatever may be their political
opinions or connexions. The philosophy of much that he
has written is a matter of course now, and has found
acceptance where no one hoped it could be made to pene-
trate ; but it is not the less forcibly or gracefully urged, or
less attractive in the garb in which he has presented it,
than if it came before us for the first time. At one moment
we are drawn off by the ludicrous correctness of some sketch
of social or political character and accordingly we set it
down for extract, when we are suddenly caught by some
description of more serious import, and immediately
embarrassed in our choice. We wavered for a considerable
time between his detail of the terrible formalities of the
old Scotch ball, whose proprieties were as unalterable as
the laws of the Medes and Persians, and his description of
Lord Eskgrove, a political judge. Our hesitation was the
greater as we cannot afford ourselves another extract, and
at length we fixed upon the judge, as we in Ireland have

300 Cockburn* 8 Memoirs of his Time* ' |Dec.

had many individuals of the species, and it might be useful
to compare them with a Scottish variety.

" Eskgrove was a very considerable lawyer; in mere knowledge
probably Braxfield's superior. But he had nothing of Braxfield's
grasp or reasoning, and in everything requiring force or soundness
of head, he was a mere child compared with that practical Hercules.
Still he was cunning in old Scotch law.

" But a more ludicrous personage could not exist. When I first
knew him he was in the zenith of his absurdity. People seemed
to have nothing to do but to tell stories of this one man. To be
able to give an anecdote of Eskgrove, with a proper imitation of his
voice and manner, was a sort of fortune in society. Scott in those
days was famous for this particularity. Whenever a knot of f)er-
sous were seen listening in the Outer House to one who was talking
slowly, with a low muttering voice and a projected chin, and then
the listeners burst asunder in roars of laughter, nobody thought of
asking what the joke was. Tliey were sure that it was a successful
imitation of Esky; and this was enough. Yet never once did he
do or say anything which had the slightest claim to be remembered
for any intrinsic merit. The value of all his words and actions
consisted in their absurdity.

" He seemed, in his old age to be about the average height; but
as he then stooped a good deal, he might have been taller in reality.
His face varied, according to circumstances, from a scurfy red to a
scurfy blue; the nose was prodigious; the under lip enormous, and
supported on a huge clumsy chin, which moved like the jaw of an
exaggerated Dutch toy. He walked with a slow stealthy step-
something between a walk and a hirple, and helped himself on by
short movements of his elbows, backwards and forwards, like fins.
The voice was low and mumbling, and on the bench was generally
inaudible for some time after the movement of the lips showed that
he had begun speaking; after which the first word that was let
fairly out was generally the loudest of the whole discourse. It is
unfortunate that, without an idea uf his voice and manner, mere
narrative cannot describe his sayings and doings graphically.

" One of his remarks on the trial of Mr. Fysche Palmer for
sedition — not as given in the report of the trial, but as he made
it — is one of the very few things he ever said that had some little
merit of its own. Mr. John Haggart, one of the prisoner's counsel,
in defending his client from the charge of disrespect of the king,
quoted Burke's statement that kings are naturally lovers of low
company. * Then, sir, that says very little for you or your clientl
for if kinggs be lovers of low company, lo«r company ought to be
lovers of kinggs.' " — pp. 118-120.

" Brougham tormented him, and sat on his skirts wherever he
went, for above a year. The Justice liked passive counsel who let
bimdawdle on with culprits and juries in his own way; and conse-

1856.] Cockburn's Memoirs of his Time, 301

quently he hated the talent, the eloquence, the energy, and all the
discomposing qualities of Brougham, At last it seemed as if
a court day was to be blessed by bis absence, and the poor Justice
was delighting himself with the prospect of being allowed to deal
with things as he chose ; when, lo! his enemy appeared — tall, cool,
and resolute. ' I declare,' said the Justice,' ' that man Broom, or
Broug-ham is the torment of ray life !' His revenge, as usual, con-
sisted in sneering at Brougham's eloquence by calling it or him the
Harangue. ' Well, gentle-men, what did the Harangue say next ?
Why it said this' (misstating it) ; ' but here, gentle-men, the
Harangue was most plainly wrongg, and not intelligibilL'

" As usual, then, with stronger heads than his, everything was
connected by his terror with republican horrors. I heard hira, in
condemning a tailor to death for murdering a soldier by stabbing
him, aggravate the offence thus, ' and not only did you murder
him, whereby he was berea-ved of his life, but you did thrust, or
push, or pierce, or project, or propell, the le-thall weapon through
the belly-band of his regimen-tal breeches, which were his
Majes-ty'sT

" In the trial of Glengarry for murder in a duel, a lady of great
beauty was called as a witness. She came into Court veiled. But
before administering the oath Eskgrove gave her this exposition of
her duty — ' Youngg woman ! you will now consider yourself as in
the presence of Almighty God, and of this 'Fligh Court. Lift up
your veil; throw off all modesty, and look me in the face.'

" Sir John Henderson of Fordell, a zealous Whig, had long
nauseated the civil court by his burgh politics. Their Lordships
had once to fix the amount of some discretionary penalty that he
had incurred. Eskgrove began to give his opiaion iu a very low
voice, but loud enough to be heard by those next him, to the effect
that the fine ought to be fifty pounds ; when Sir John, with his
usual imprudence, interrupted him, and begged hira to raise his
voice, adding that if the judges did not speak so as to be heard,
they might as well not speak at all. Eskgrove, who could never
endure any imputation of bodily infirmity, asked his neighbour,
* What does the fellow say ?' * He says that, if you don't speak
out, you may as well hold your tongue.' * Oh, is that what he
says ? My Lords, what I was sayingg is very simpell. I was only
saying* that in my hurabell opinyon, this fine could not be less
than two hundred and fifty pounds sterling' — this. sum being roared
out as loudly as his old angry voice could launch it.

•' His tediousness, both of manner and matter, in charging juries
was most dreadful. It was the custom to make juries stand while
tlie judge was addressing them ; but no other judge was punctilious
about it. Eskgrove however insisted upon it ; and if any one of
them slipped cunningly down to his seat, or dropped into it from
inability to stand any longer, the unfortunate wight was sure to be
reminded by his Lordship that ' these were not the times in which

302 Cockhurn's Memoirs of Ids Time. [Dec.

there should be any disrespect of this high court, or even of the
law.' Often have I gone back to the court at midnight, and found
him, whom I had left mumbling hours before, still going on, with
the smoky unsnufFed tallow candles in greasy tin candlesticks, and
the poor despairing jurymen, most of the audience having retired
or being asleep; the wagging of his Lordship's nose and chin being
the chief signs that he was still char-ging.

" A very common arrangement of his logic to juries was this—
'And so, gentle-men, having shewn you that the pannell's argu-
ment is utterly impossibill, I shall now proceed for to shew you that
it is extremely improbabilL*

" He rarely failed to signalize himself in pronouncing sentences of
death. It was almost a matter of style with him to console the
prisoner by assuring him that, * whatever your religi-ous persua-shou
may be, or even if, as I suppose, you be of no persua-shon at all,
there are plenty of rever-eud gentle-men who will be most happy
for to shew you the way to yeternal life.'

" He had to condemn two or three persons to die who had. broken
into a house at Luss, and assaulted Sir James Colquhoun and
others, and robbed them of a large sum of money. He tirst, as was
his almost constant practice, explained the nature of the various
crimes, assault, robbery, and hame-sucken — of which last he gave
them the etymology; and he then reminded them that they attacked
the house and the persons within it, and robbed them, and then
came to this climax — • All this you did; and God preserve us! joost
•when they were sitten doon to dennerl''' — pp. 121-4,

We have passed over many descriptions of distinguished
men and great doings of the time, which we should
gladly have given. Such are his sketches of Robert-
son, Dugald Stewart, and Chalmers, his account of the
Scottish volunteer corps, that were to have repelled the
French invasion, of the newspaper libels, that at one
period set every two men in Edinburgh together by
the ears, and were near drawing Scott into a duel, of the
great fire which consumed a portion of the Parliament
Close, with many other scenes of Edinburgh life, which,
although interesting to Scotchmen chiefly, belong to
general literature from the descriptive power they display ;
and are still more valuable for the spirit of charity, true-
heartedness, and free thought, that seems to. animate
them. Other portions of the work are exclusively
Scotch, and almost quite without interest for the general
reader; but, taking tlie "Memorials'* as a whole, they
are well worthy of their author. In one chapter we
have an account of a meeting in favour of Catholic

1856. 1 Cockhurn' s Memoirs of his Time. 303

emancipation, in which Lord Cockburn of course took
part. As it was ShieFs eloquent observation, but not
more eloqent than true, that if the monuments in West-
minster Abbey were to be appealed to on the great ques-
tion of the day, the array would be on the side of justice:
so the Edinburgh meeting comprised all the living worth
of Scotlaud ; although the fanatical crowd was as
thoroughly Protestant as Lord George Gordon's mob.
The petition in favour of emancipation received about
eight thousand signatures, and the petitions against it
not less than four times that number. ^ One of the con-
cluding chapters gives an account of Trinity hospital, an
asylum for decayed women of the better class, not such as
would necessarily be considered gentlewomen, even in
the enlarged acceptation of the word, but simply persons
who had seen better days. In reading it we are forcibly
remiuded of one of Dickens's Christmas tales, in which he
describes some similar charity, the shell probably of a
Catholic charity, whose substance had been eaten out in
the progress of the reformation. The descriptive powers
of Cockburn appeared to us quite on a level with those of the
great novelist, and we felt, notwithstanding his playfulness
of manner, that what he stated was the simple truth.
Indeed, it hardly appears possible to carry painting in
words, either portrait-painting or landscape, much farther
than has been done by Lord Cockburn. His humour is
perfectly quiet and unconstrained. It appears to have
welled upwards, and sparkled naturally without any aid
from art or study. His sentiment appears to be equally
his own, and we believe it could hardly belong to a better
man. He never attempts to dogmatise, although he treats,
as admitted truths, a great many doctrines that in his
earlier years would have been supposed to qualify him or
any other man for Bedlam or the hulks. From first to
last, he has the air of regarding the reader as a familiar
friend, one that he can talk to without ceremony or prepa-
ration, with whom he delights to exchange ideas, and who
he knows will be pleased with him. The reader is not to
be envied who should not feel himself at his ease with
Cockburn.

It is matter of regret that the " Memorials" stop short
at the year 1830, for Lord Cockburn's experience did not
assuredly cease to be valuable then; but he probably
thought the period of transition was almost over, and

304 CockhurrCa Memoirs of his Time. [Dec.

probably too the increase of his own duties deprived him of
a leisure which must have proved so valuable to us. When
about to bring the volume to a close, he had just been
named Solicitor-General, with Jeffreys as Lord Advocate.
He looked forward with hope, anxiety, and courage, to
the struggle which was before the liberals of that day. An
exciting and eventful period, as he anticipated, was before
him. The Tories were dismayed and somewhat stunned
by recent occurrences, but they were by no means de-
feated, or at least not decisively so, at the arrival of Lord
Gi'ey to power. Perhaps, after all, reform was not so
much due to the power of its promoters at home as to
events abroad, and it is very doubtful whether it was not
more than half won in the streets of Paris during the
now untalked-of and utterly forgotten days of July.
The French revolution of that year, like every other
French revolution, made itself felt all over Europe, and
nowhere more than in England. It gave the last strong
and irresistible impulse to the reform movement. True
it was, the Revolution. of 1830, although in a great measure
owing to the intrigues of the unfortunate man in whose
favour it resulted, had been precipitated by the infatuation
of Charles X. and his advisers. Its ostensible cause was
in the extreme measure resorted to by the crown of that
coimtry, in excess of its constitutional prerogatives.
Nothing of the kind was at all likely to provoke revolu-
tion in England. The Princes of the House of Hanover,
were as fondly attached to the prerogative, and as anxious
to increase it as any of their predecessors, but they had
learned caution sufficiently to enable them to preserve
appearances, and place their opponents technically in the
wrong if they proceeded to extremities. But to a country
suffering under real wrong, and injustice of an aggravated
character, as England actually was in her parliament-
ary representation of that period, revolution was a dan-
gerously easy lesson, and as in the case of Catholic eman-
cipation, it soon came to be believed that resistance
without bloodshed was impossible. Demonstrations of
•*the most alarming chanicter, and plainly of a nature to
hitimidate and overawe the legislature were openly
countenanced, or secretly abetted by the aristocratic pro-
moters of the reform movement, nor was the measure
finally carried without a stern and almost successful resist-
ance from the party calling itself conservative, and whose

1856.] Cockhum's Memoirs of his Time. 305

real strength in the country was not sufficiently estimated,
as appeared a few years later, after it had been rallied and
disciplined by Sir Robert Peel, Before the Reform Bill
became law, the House of Lords had to be literally terri-
fied into submission by the threatened creation of peers
sufficient for the carriage of the measure, ajid there can
be now no doubt that had the peers persisted in rejecting
reform, and had the crown declined the exercise of the
prerogative, to which it must have been advised, revolu-
tion, or at least insurrection, was quite inevitable.

Although not so completely behind the scenes, or so
prominently upon the stage as his countryman, Lord
Brougham, yet, as an old and trusted member of the
party, as one, the fascination of whose mind and charac-
ter must have endeared to many, who were foremost in
the struggle, Lord Cockburn must have been able to fur-
nish interesting particulars of individuals and parties at
the time when the struggle was hottest. However, we
have reason rather to thank the author for what he has
contributed to our information and amusement, than to
find fault with him for the omission of what might have
prolonged our gratification and added to our instruction.
Doubtless he was engaged in more effective service, and it
is quite possible that he may have contributed more to the
success of the measure, than men who rated higher, not as
men of worth, but as politicians. He could at least have
told us what was said and done in Scotland during that

{►eriod; and it must have been very dry, and very spirit-
ess indeed, if his narrative could not have clothed it with
interest. It might also have been very full of instruction,
or rather must have been, for we have a good deal to
learn of the Scotch in respect of the tactics by which they
maintain an ascendancy in the House of Commons, alto-
gether out of proportion with their numbers or intelligence.
That they have a system of combination upon Scotch
questions, independently of their party divisions, is well
known, and that the great liberal majority of Scotland,
without any express declaration to that effect, constitutes
a solemn league and covenant, and makes its terms with
the government as a recognized power through its accre-
dited agent, the Lord Advocate, is an ascertained fact.
It is not so much the political as the religious differences
of the Irish that forbid anything like harmonious action
between the principal political parties, for we do not now

306 Cockbum's Memoirs of his Time. ("Dec.

speak of the divisions which exist between the fractions
of what once was known as the liberal party in Ireland.
The accord existing between the Scottish liberals can-
not have been the work of an hour or of a day ; it must
have taken time and skilful workmen to build it up, and
we should have been glad to follow it in the early stages
of its construction.

It is deeply to be regretted that we have no Cockburn
to give us the memorials of his time on Ireland during
the same period. He would have had, of course, to
work upon far different materials; for, although Ireland
and its capital furnished many great and venerable
names to the empire during that period, their greatness
was not of the same stamp as that of the Scottish patriots
and philosophers, fragments of whose memories have
been preserved to us by Lord Cockburn. For a long
time also the star of O'Connell was too vivid, to
admit of lights less brilliant being noticed or catalogued;
but the whole period was, notwithstanding, full of in-
struction, and prolonged beyond the political life of man.
The Memorials of the reform agitation in particular
would show a series of sacrifices on the part of the Irish
constituencies, of which, even yet, the English form only
a faint idea. Heroism had grown to be a matter of course,
and every county in Ireland was anxious to emulate the
example of Clare. The tenant under sentence of death,
it might almost be said, voted for reform, although his
heart yearned as tenderly towards his wife and little
ones, who were soon to be turned adrift because their father
had a conscience, as the heart of either tory or reforming
candidate. And yet, when Irish reform was in question,
such was not only the coldness, but the enmity of the
British Reformed Parliament, that the Bill for Ireland was
suffered to be trimmed, and pared, and gnawed away to
that degree, that it hardly presented one feature of what
had been accomplished for England with so high a hand,
and mainly by Ireland. We take leave, then, of Lord Cock-
burn's Memorials, with the feeling of having been engaged
upon a book which unites pleasure and improvement in as
remarkable a degree as almost any other that we know;
and to such of our readers as have not yet seen it,
we doubt not the few extracts we have been enabled to
afford, will offer an inducement to seek acquaintance with
the original.

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 307

Art. II. — 1. History of Engl<ind ; from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death
of Elizabeth. By the Rev. J. A. Proude, M.A. Vols. i. and ii.
Londou : J. W. Parker and Son, 1856.

2. Lirufard's History of England. Sixth Edition, vols. iv. V. and vi.
Londou : Dolman.

THE apolofjist of tyranny must share its infamy. He
who justifies iniquity vohinteers indeed a kind of vica-
rious complicity. Arguing that he might commit it, he
implies that if he were so inclined, he would. The Church
teaches that there are many more ways of contracting the
actual guilt of mortal sin than the mere commission of it.
To vindicate the criminal is to partake of the , shame, if
not of the crime.

We should have thoiight the day was long gone by for a
vindication of such a monster as Henry VHI. We hardly
could have imagined any one hardy enough even to palli-
ate the appaling guilt of his revolting deeds of lust and of
blood. We should have deemed it almost a libel on such
a body of gentlemen as the Anglican clergy, to suppose it
possible that any one of them could descend to such a
degradation. But we were mistaken. We ^had under-
rated the depraving power of a false system, with all its
manifold sophistications, and its habitual stifling or per-
verting of the moral sense. The last, let us hope the
lowest, development of Anglicanism is before us — an
elaborate apology for the enormous iniquities of the Eng-
lish Nero — the Eighth Henry. Nay, i\ot apology, the
word is not strong enough, to describe a thorough and
entire vindication of the royal monster ! Mr. Froude does
not quail, nor flinch, nor falter in his foul work. He fol-
lows the tyrant step by step in his horrible career, with an
ever ready sophistication, with servile justification, with an
ahnost admiring regard. Almost ! rather let us say an
altogether admiring and reverent regard ! We^declare we
do not exaggerate. We fear, however, that our readers
will hardly credit us, and we hasten to quote some of the
very expressions of the book to give some idea of it.

Henry is described as having been ** faithful (with one
exception) to his wife's bed," up to the time of his inti-

308 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [DeCi

macy with Ann Boleyn.* His desire for a divorce was
** not occasioned by any latent inclination for another
woman;'* not at all. It arose from the deepest anxiety
about the succession to the throne. Henry, in fact, got rid
of his wife from a sense of duty. And when he got tired
of Ann he got rid of her, equally from a sense of duty. And
so as to the third, the fourth, the fifth. Mr. Froude quotes
with sympathy and complacency the hypocritical language
in which the horrible tyrant tries to disguise the deformity of
his depravity. ** The King's Highness having above all
other things his intent and mind ever founded upon such
respect unto Almighty God as to a Christian and Catholic
prince doth appertain, knowing the fragility and uncer-
tainty of all earthly things, and how displeasant unto God,
how much dangerous to the soul, how dishonourable and
damageable to the world, were it to prefer vain and transi-
tory things unto those that be perfect and certain, hath in
this cause and matter of matrimony always cast from his
mind the darkness of falsity," &c., &c. We really cannot
quote any more of the atrocious cant of which Mr. Froude,
with the utmost calmness, copies entire pages, ** in order
to show," as he says, ** the spirit in which Henry entered
upon the question." So that he entirely credits all the
hypocritical pretences of the tyrant, and goes on to declare,
that in dealing with the " obstacle" to his desires, i.e., his
marriage with a woman who had been his wife for twenty
years, he displayed '* a most efficient mastery over him-
self!" Need we cite more? Is not this enough to mark
the character of a writer who can so tamper with his own
moral sense, or so trifle with the interests of truth ? Not
only have we said enough to describe t\iQ book, but we
have almost stated enough to demolish it.

What can be the worth of it? What reliance can be
placed on the statements of such a writer? How far can
we confide in his accuracy, when it tasks our charity to
credit his sincerity ? One might predicate beforehand that
his statements must be false, his citations unfair, his

^' * What that " exception" is in Mr. Froude's idea, he does not
inform us. He is, indeed, to Henry's vices very blind. He is
silent as to Henry's having debauched Ann's sister, (if not her
mother as well,) a fact so well known, that Lingard even suspects
it was the reason for afterwards annulling the marriage with Anu.

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 30d

quotations garbled, and his facts fabrications. And it
is so.

At the outset we must notice the fallacy of eulogies on
the character of Henry at the era of the divorce, about
1530, founded upon the Letters of Giustiniani, the Vene-
tian ambassador, written in 1515. Fifteen years of royal
self-indnlgence had worked a great change. Very different
was Henry in the morning of his life and the opening of
his reign, under the influence of his exemplary wife and of
his most able minister, Wolsey ; very different was he then
to what he became when he had shaken off, under evil
influences, both his consort and his councillor. His apolo-
gist represents him (as we have seen) still the same ; nay,
he makes his conduct about the divorce an act of virtue !

The first erross unfairness in Mr. Fronde's book is, in
the giving Henry the credit, not only of his own education,
but of the national prosperity in the early part of his
reign. He is eloquent upon Henry's attainments^ and
takes care not to mention that his education had been
entrusted to an ecclesiastic ; as he also avoids mentioning,
when speaking of the English nobility, that they could
find no worthier places for the education of their children
than the mansions of prelates. A more important question
is, that as to the administration of the government in the
early portion of Henry's reign. Mr. Fronde glows with
enthusiasm in describing the prosperity of the country, and
by his eulogies on Henry leaves his readers to suppose that
his was the glory of it all. Certainly no one would ever
gather from his language that during all this period Henry
was engaged in his pleasures, and that the government
was mainly in the hands of Wolsey, This is the mean
spirit of suppression and sophistication in which the whole
work is written. How different is the work of an honest
Protestant, like Gait, for instance, vvho gives to Wolsey
all the glory of the earlier half of Henry's reign, and
contrasts it with the disasters of the latter half.
^ Mr. Froude is eloquent upon the character and condi-
tion of the people of England at this era. " The habits of
all classes were open, free, and liberal." " The priest had
enough to supply him in comfort with the necessaries of
life. The squire had enough to provide moderate abun-
dance. Neither priest nor squire was able to establish any
steep differences in outward advantages between himself
and the commons among whom he lived. We read of

310 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny, [Dec.

* merry England/ we hear of the * glory of hospitality.'
In such frank style the people lived ; hating idleness, want,
and cowardice ; carrying their hearts high, and having
their hands full." ** Looking at the state of England as a
whole, I cannot doubt that under Henry," (it ought rather
to be under Wolsey,) " the body of the people were pros-
perous, well fed, loyal, and contented. In all points of
material comfort they were as well off as they had ever
been before, better off than they have ever been in later
times.'* Such is a picture of Catholic England drawn by
a Protestant writer, but by one who takes care to conceal
the share the Church had in it all, and ignores the fact
that an ecclesiastic had ruled England during the period
he describes. He refers to the ** guilds" or fraternities
which so served to develope commerce in that age, but he
speaks of them as if they were civil institutions, and takes
care to conceal the fact that they were ecclesiastical in
their origin. But above all is this mean spirit of suppres-
sion shown in the way he speaks of education. ** Of the
education of noblemen and gentlemen we have contradic-
tory accounts." Such is the terse vague statement studi-
ously framed in order to avoid disclosing the fact that the
*' education of noblemen and gentlemen" was only to be
obtained under the auspices of ecclesiastics. *' The uni-
versities were well filled, by the sons of yeomen chiefly.
The cost of supporting them at the colleges was little, and
ivealthy men took a pride in helping forward any boys of
promise." From this artful and sophistical statement,
(especially the latter sentence,) who would suppose that to
the Church all this was owing; that if ** the universities
were filled — chiefly with the sons of yeomen,*' it was by
means of her cathedral grammar schools, and the endow-
ments attached to them, (long since swallowed up by the
rapacity of Protestant deans and chapters,) and that of
** wealthy men," " helping forward boys of promise," very
few instances could be discovered except in Churchmen,
of whom there were so many, such as Wayneflete and
Wykeham.

In the next sentence we come, however, to that which is
the pith of the book — vilification of the Catholic clergy in
those times. *'It seems clear that as the Reformation
drew nearer, while the clergy were sinking lower and lower,
a marked change for the better became perceptible in a
portion at least of the laity." Mark the admirable sophis-

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 311

try of that last expression, " a portion, at least." It is a
safe phrase, very safe; it will cover a world of mental
reservation. It must be true in a sense, for at what period
might it not be said that a change for the better became
perceptible "in a portion, at least, of the laity?'* The
writer abstains from very distinctly defining the por-
tion he points to. He insinuates, however, that they were
the disciples of progress. For he observes that " the more
old-fashioned of the higher ranks were slow in moving, for
as late as the reign of Edward VI. there were peers of par-
liament unable to read.'* The obvious effect of this clever
way of expressing it is, that the " old fashioned" gentry,
i.e., the adherents to the ancient faith, v/ere those who
were indifferent to education ; the very reverse being the
fact, and the *' reforming" nobles being as ignorant as
they were sensual.

After this it is hardly necessary to say, that in alluding
to the invention of printing, Mr. Fronde carefully avoids
mentioning that its introduction into England was owing
to Cardinal Bourchier, and that the first press was set up
under the auspices of monks.

We desire, however, to direct particular attention to
the sophistical mode in which Mr. Fronde deals with one
part of his subject, not very consistently with his previous
account of the condition of England. He says that, as a
** sentimental opinion prevails, that an increase of poverty
and the consequent enactment of poor laws was the result
of the suppression of religious houses, and that adequate
relief had been previously furnished by these establish-
ments;" **he desires to dissipate a foolish dream," and
declares that "at the opening of the sixteenth century,
before the suppression of the monasteries had suggested
itself in a practical form, pauperism was a state question
of great difficulty." With a characteristic infirmity of
memory he forgot when he wrote this, the fact which else-
where he refers to, that so early as the reign of Henry IV.,
the "suppression of the monasteries" had been ''sug-
gested" in a practical form by the House of Commons.
He asserts that, " though for many centuries the religious
houses fulfilled honestly their intentions, so early as the
reign of Richard II., it was found necessary to provide
some other means for the support of the impotent poor,
the monasteries having begun to neglect their duty." A
more monstrous mis-statement .was never made. It is

VOL. XLL— No. LXXXII. ' Z

312 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

entirely and absolutely Mse. Mr. Froude has evidently
searched the statute book, and we cannot think that he
has failed to find, though he has carefully failed to notice,
the statutes of Edward II., recognizing the oppressions
exercised upon the religious houses, of the nobility quar-
tering their retainers upon them, and thereby impoverish-
ing them, and preventing them in many instances from
exercising their customary hospitality. And there is no
statute ascribing a decline of their almsgiving to any other
cause. Mr. Froude himself alludes to the statute of
Edward III. against beggars, but that, in its terms, in-
volves no reBection upon the monasteries, (especially when
coupled with the other act to which we have just alluded,)
and construed by the light of contemporary history, and
other similar statutes. It clearly betrays an animus hostile
to the poor. Its purview is not their relief, but their
oppression. The same spirit which had dictated the
statutes of mortmain, the statutes of prcemunire, and the
statutes of provisors, and the other acts directed against
the Church, dictated cruel laws against the poor. The
feudal system had so far declined as regards the lower
orders, that great numbers of them had become free
labourers. The object of the aristocracy was to reduce
them as much as possible to serfdom. In other words, to
force the poor to work for the rich, on the terms the rich
chose to offer. This could not be done save by the coer-
cion of starvation. And this coercion could not be exer-
cised without checking the relief obtainable from the
religious houses. This was partly the reason for the
statutes of mortmain. But those statutes only checked
the foundations of new religious houses. To cripple the
old ones other acts were desired. And one of them was
the very one we have referred to — the act of Edward III.
against able bodied beggars. Mr. Froude admires it, but
we doubt if he perceives its scope. Its effect was, that it
became penal for any man who "could" work, i. e., was
physically able to work on any terms, fair or unfair, — to ask
alms at the gate of a monastery. Of course the result was,
that under the pressure of starvation, the poor were forced
to work on any terms the richer order chose to offer.
Starve they could not. And if they resorted to a monas-
tery for relief, they were liable to be punished. It might
be that the wages offered would barely keep soul and body
together, and were wickedly, iniquitously unjust. Never-

1856. 1 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 313

theless, tliey must accept such hard terms, and work with-
out fair wages. Woe unto them if they went to the hos-
pitable door of the monastery ! This was the law to which
Mr. Froude complacently refers ; and to enforce it further
the Act of Richard II. was passed, to which he also refers,
as providing means for the relief of the impotent poor ! A
more ludicrous misrepresentation we never knew ! The
scope of the statute is to prevent any but impotent persons
asking for relief; and in order to do so, it prohibits asking
for relief without a license from the authorities : who were
to judge of the * impotency.' That is to say, even a poor
man, unable to work, could not, without a license, ask relief
from a religious house ! And this is the law which Mr.
Froude represents as providing other means for the relief
of impotent poor !

That our accounts of these acts is the true one, is appa-
rent, not only from the history of the age, which mentions
many outbreaks of the " common people," caused by these
oppressions, but likewise from two other statutes which
Mr. Froude has forsrotten to mention ; one, the statute of
labourers, (Henry VI.) the other the Act of Henry V.,
providing for the visitation of religious houses. The for-
mer of the two acts followed out the policy of the acts of
Edward and Richard ; the other provided that the bishops
or royal commissioners might visit religious houses to
correct. any abuses. Had there been any neglect of duty
on the part of the monasteries, this act could easily have
been enforced against them. This statute has a most im-
portant bearing upon the whole question of the suppression
of the religious houses, and one which Mr. Froude doubt-
less perceived when he suppressed it. He actually desires
tts to believe that Henry, in his visitation of the religious
houses, had no idea of their spohation or suppression !
!Not in the least. He only desired their reformation. If
that were so, (and if it is not really trifling with our readers
to discuss so impudent a pretence,) why did he not enforce
the Act of Henry V., which provided that the bishops
should visit, and that only in houses of royal foundation
should there be commissioners? The bishops were not
to be reproached with a rebellious spirit ; they acknow-
ledged the Royal Supremacy ; they were, however, men
of some piety, honesty, and character. And hence a
set of obscene and servile men, ready instruments of
tyranny, and apt inventors of calumny, were chosen for

314 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. \ Dec.

the foul work of maligning the venerable institutions it
was pre-deterniined to suppress. But Mr. Froude has
omitted to mention a recital in the first act for the sup-
pression of the smaller houses, which gives the lie to all
the calumnies the tyrant's tools invented, the recital '*that
in the larger houses religion was right well observed ;*' i. e.,
the rule of the religious life, comprising of course, charity
and hospitality.

Mr. Froude declares that Henry VIII. treated the poor
generously, and that the suppression of the religious
houses was for their benefit! In all the history of contro-
versy we never remember a more audacious assertion,
and one more disqualifying its author for the task of truth.
What did the poor themselves think? Speaking of the
suppression of the monasteries, Weever says, "It was a
pitiful thing to hear the lamentation that the people in the
country made for them, for there was great hospitality kept
among them." But Mr. Froude says the poor did not
know what was best for them. It was better that they
should be forced to labour on public works, and Henry
found the means for this in the funds of the dissolved
monasteries ! Really this is insulting us. Does Mr.
Froude really imagine any one believes he supposes the
funds were applied to such objects? He is not able to
afford a solitary instance of it, while on the other hand he
carefully suppresses the notorious fact of their application
to purposes of personal profligacy. But let another ancient
writer speak. " To abuse the poor commons it was told
them that by suppressing the monasteries they would never
hear of tax or subsidy more. This indeed was as pleasing
a bait for the people as could be desired, and it took accord-
ingly ; they hit willingly at it, but the hook sticks in their
jaws at this day.'* Why, even in the time of Wolsey, the
funds raised by the suppression of smaller houses were so
grossly misspent, as to cause the great Cardinal the most
poignant grief, and elicit from him the most piteous
complaints.

Let us now listen to a Protestant contemporary of our
own on the subject. " It is highly probable that from the
time of the Conquest till the reign of Edward III., Eng-
land was little troubled with either vagrant, beggar, or
pauper. The * patrimony of the poor' was found in the
possessions of the Church." So writes Mr. Pashley, the
Chairman of the Middlesex Sessions, in his work on the

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 315

Poor Laws. " It was not until after Edward^s wars with
France, and after the industry and wealth of towns came
into existence, that we first notice traces of any consider-
able class of free labourers.'* It will be observed that
this respectable writer does not in the least ascribe
any blame to the religious houses, but, on the contrary,
attributes the rise of vagrancy to causes over which they
had no controul. The same learned author estimates that
three millions of our people receive — constantly or occa-
sionally— parochial relief. The vulgar cry about the reli-
gious houses, repeated by Mr. Fronde, (taken from Hume,)
is, that they " had one-third of the land.'* The answer is,
that if it were so, they supported all the poor, and that now
the cost of their relief is seven millions : one-third of our
ordinary annual expenditure, exclusive of the interest on
the national debt. So much for Mr. Froude's views as to
the poor.

We must notice more particularly the manner in which
Mr. Fronde deals with the character of the religious
houses and of the clergy at large. It is long since a work
so malignant and unscrupulous was put forth, and it is
indeed a miserable contrast to tl^e learned and candid
work of Maitland. Has the Anglican Church retro-
graded? Has it re-descended into the coarsest, vilest, and
basest depths of bigotry, and there silenced all instincts of
justice, steeled itself against all impulses of charity, buried
all sense of truth, and lost all sense of shame ?

In his preface Mr. Fronde says : ** To determine who
are, and who are not, admissible as witnesses, is the chief
difficulty in studying the history of the Reformation. For
example, how are we to believe the invectives of Cardinal
Pole against Henry VIH?" One would have thought a
far better example would have been the invectives of the
royal commissioner against the religious houses. But the
*' difficulty" as to the admissibility of witnesses against
the clergy or the religious houses is soon determined by
Mr. Fronde, and in the simplest way. He admits any
witnesses against them, — none in their favour. This is
literally the case. He quotes as gospel the infamous
statements of the miscreants sent to destroy them, — the
minions of the tyrant who was thirsting to devour his
destined prey, wretches whose foul spirit is betrayed by
the very language they employ, and who have written
their own character as sordid, sensual, and unscrupulous ;

316^ An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

their filthy imaginations gloating on the iniquities they
desired to find, and their wicked minds eager to invent
what they failed to discover. These scandalous state-
ments Mr. Froude is not ashamed to transcribe, at the
same time coolly adding, that he " will not discuss their
truth," and quietly ignoring their notorious infamy and
subserviency, giving their statements as absolute verity,
and utterly suppressing all testimony in favour of the
monks ; all matter of defence or exculpation !

Dr. Liingard, in his moderate way states : " The charges
against the monks are ex parte statements, to which the
accused had no opportunity of replying. Of the Commis-
sioners some were not very immaculate characters, and
all were stimulated to invent and exaggerate by the known
rapacity of the king, and by their own prospects of per-
sonal interests." He supports this moderate statement
by abundant authority, even on the testimony of Fuller.
Of one of the Commissioners, Dr. Loudon, Fuller says :
** He was no great saint, for afterwards he was publicly
convicted of perjury, and adjudged to ride with his face
to the horse tail," to which may be added, (citing Strype)
that he was condemne4 to do public penance at Oxford,
for incontinency with two women, the mother and daugh-
ter. As to another Commissioner, Bedyl, it appears
from a letter of one of his colleagues, given by Fuller,
that he was an artful and profligate man. ** If we may
believe, (says Dr. Lingard,) " the Northern agents.
Lay ton and Lee, were not much better." Mr. Froude
only mentions the names of the two latter. It will be
remembered that he represents that the king did not
desire to plunder the religious houses, but only to reform
them. To this, the only answer it is worth while to make,
is the significant statement for which Dr. Lingard cites
the contemporary authority : ** When Giffard gave a
favourable character of the House, the king maintained
that he had been bribed." The Abbess of Godstow thus
wrote to Cromwell: ** Dr. Loudon is soddenlye commyed
unto me with a great route with him, and doth threaten
me and my sisters, saying, that he hath the king's com-
mission to suppress the house. When I shouyde hym
playne that I wolde never surrender to his hands, being
an unequal enemye, he began to inveigle my sisters one
by one, as I never herde the king's subjects had beeu
Jbandled." ** And notwithstanding that. Dr. Loudon

1856."] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 317

like an untrue man, hath informed you that I am a spoiler
and a waster ; I have not alienated one halporthe of the
goods of the house." This reminds us that Mr. Froude
actually represents it as a crime in the monks, their occa-
sionally secreting the treasures of their houses from the
rapacious search of the Royal Commissioners ! It was
for this that poor Whiting, the Abbot of Glastonbury, was,
as others were, actually convicted and executed ! And
we have an Anglican clergyman not ashamed to vindicate
these horrible atrocities ! and not ashamed to quote as
true all the statements of the king's disreputable minions,
carefully suppressing every fact and every testimony in
favour of those who are thus held up to execration on
ex parte and interested evidence ! Of course he conceals
the fact (for instance) that when Cranmer named the
clergy for his cathedral, he chose twenty-eight from the
monks of Christ Church, one of the most maligned of the
monasteries. Dr. Lingard remarks on this fact, that
Cranmer must have known the charges against them, and
could not have believed them. Does Mr. Froude really
believe them? We are persuaded he does not. For he
declines to discuss the question of their truth, while giving
them to the world, as an authentic and uncontradicted
evidence, admitting of no answer ! He coolly publishes
what he knows to be calumnies, concealing and suppress-
ing the facts which show them to be so. Nay, he goes
beyond them, and in language of his own, elaborated to
the utmost heights of rhetoric, accuses two-thirds of the
monks in England of living in the grossest immorality.
A blacker, falser, and more malignant calumny never
emanated from the father of lies. If there were any truth
in it, the tyrant could have obtained proof of it without
resorting to the agency of vile and disreputable tools. As
it is, there is not an atom of credible evidence of it. And
there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, all of
which Mr. Froude most meanly ignores. For example,
we will cite from the work of an honest Protestant, one
among many hundreds of proofs we could collate in behalf
of the religious houses. It is from an interesting paper
written by an actual witness, and published by Sir Henry
Ellis, in his Third Series of Contemporary Letters, and
re-published by the antiquary, NichoUs, as ** giving a
striking picture of the flood of avarice, spoliation, and
oppression, which was let loose at the dissolution of

318 Au Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

monasteries.'* The writer saj'S that he asked his uncle,
who had shared in the general scramble, " whether he
thought well of the religious persons, and of the religion
then used ? He told me, yea, for he did see no cause to the
contrary. Well, said I, then how came it to pass you wa8
so ready to spoil and destroy the thing that you though^
well of? What should I do, said he? Might I not, as
well as others, have some profit of the spoil of the abbey ;
for I did see all would be carried away, and therefore I
did as others did.'* ** Thus you see, that, as well they
which thought well oj the religion then used, as they which
thought otherwise, could agree well enough, and too well
to spoil them ! Such a devil is covetuousness and mam-
mon !'* These are the reflections, and such is the evi-
dence of an eye witness; and those who have read as much
as Mr. Fronde has done, must be well aware that this is
only a specimen of innumerable other and similar evi-
dences in favour of the religious houses. In suppressing
them he has damaged his own character far more danger-
ously than theirs.

But if we are compelled to speak strongly of Mr.
Froude's course as ^regards the regular clergy and the
religious of both sexes, we must, if possible, use language
still stronger to describe his conduct with respect to the
secular clergy. In the one case he merely used the evi-
dence of miscreants, such as it was, and suppressed proofs
of a clearly contrary character. In the other case he has
not been contented with suppression, he has resorted to
such arts of unfair selection, untrue citation, and utter
misrepresentation, as to justify the charge of fabrication.
Moreover, in his eagerness indiscriminately to malign, he
has lapsed unconsciously into an inconsistency, reminding
us continually of the infirmity of memory, which is a
proverbial misfortune of mendacity. His charge is not
merely that " among the clergy the prevailing offence was
not crime, but licentiousness," but that **the grossest moral

Profligacy in a priest was past over with indifference !'*
le appeals, in proof ot this monstrous statement to the
Act books of the Consistorial Courts of London, selec-
tions from which had been published by the pluralist.
Archdeacon Hale, who, we believe, receives from half-a-
dozen sources, some £66,000. a year out of the revenues of
a church founded and endowed by Catholics, — lives in the
monastery of the Charter-house, and uses his learned

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 319

leisure for the purpose of casting odium on the Church,
upon whose munificence he Uves, and the monks whose
place he has usui'ped. These ** acts" are, as upon in-
spection will be apparent, only extracted from the books,
and they are what the French call "acts oi accusation.'*
In most instances the entries given terminate with the
appearance of the accused party,'"" leaving the trial and the
result uncertain. And now let us point out, that Mr.
Froude himself, when railing against these ecclesiastical
courts, says, that ** all charges, whether well founded or
ill, met with ready acceptance in the courts.'* No doubt
this, in a certain sense, is true, as it is of all courts,
because the truth of a charge can only be known by trial.
But Mr. Froude did not perceive how the fact bore upon
the truth and fairness of his inferences. In passing, we
may describe another gross inconsistency. In describing
the condition of England, he had said that *' the habits of
all classes were open, free, and liberal," that ** the people
lived in frank style," that they were *' prosperous, loyal,
and contented, and better off than they have ever been
since." But when he is reviling the ecclesiastical system
of the country, he* describes the people as labouring under
•an ** enormous tyranny," the jurisdiction of the consisto-
rial courts. He complains (curiously enough,) that they
** took cognizance of offences against chastity, drunkenness,
scandal, defamation, and other delinquencies, — matters,
all of them in which it was well, if possible, to keep men
from going wrong, but offering wide opportunities for injus-
tice!" And he describes the charges against the laity m
these courts as mostly for trivial offences against ecclesi-
astical rather than moral law ; mortuary claims, non-*
payment of offerings, &c., while the charges against the
clergy were all for gross inmiorality. " An active imagi-
nation," he says, **may readily picture to itself the
indignation likely to have been felt by a high-minded peo-
ple, when forced to submit their lives, their habits, and
most intimate conversations and opinions to a censorship
conducted by clergy of such a character." " And we can
imagine what England must have been, with an unde-
fined jurisdiction over general morality ; such a system for
the administration of justice was perhaps never tolerated

The usual entry being comparuit.

320 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec

in any country." And he describes the very people as
groaning under an enormous and vexatious tyranny, whom
he had before described as ** contented and happy, and
better off than they have ever been since.'*

Passing from the glaring inconsistency of these state-
ments, let us look at the gross perversions of fact by which
the calumnies on the clergy are supported. He actually
cites indiscriminately as cases of proved depravity, all the
entries in the act books ; although they are for the most
part merely ex parte accusations previous to the appearance
of the accused parties. He suppresses the fact that in the
cases in which the result is stated, the result is more often,
as regards the charges against clergymen, acquittal than
conviction. He takes care to conceal the fact that the
charges against the clergy for immorality, are very few as
compared with those against the laity. He makes general
charges against the clergy on the authority of one or two
isolated instances, and those sometimes instances, not of
conviction, but of accusation. He picks out with indus-
trious malignity, out of several hundreds of entries, the
only one or two bad cases he could discover, and then with
an affectation of forbearance says : '* 1 might multiply
such instances indefinitely , but there is no occasion for
me to stain my pages with them ;" and leaves and leads
his readers to imagine, what indeed he elsewhere states,
that the body of the clergy were stained by such im-
moralities, and that the laity were disgusted with the
damnation of an immoral clergy !

Now what are the facts, as apparent upon the face of the
very records on which he relies for proofs of his horrible
calumnies on the Catholic clergy ? There are (in round
numbers) above five hundred entries in the work from which
he cites. They are all in the London courts, where, for
obvious reasons, (and especially through the residence of
Henry's corrupt and immoral court) there would be the
greater likelihood of finding any immoral clergy. They
range over nearly two centuries, from 1465 to 1636. They
include, therefore, nearly a century before and after the
Reformation. The overwhelming majority are accusations
against the laity, and mostly for heinous immorality. "" Of

* In 1468 we have this entry, which suggests rather fabricated
charges than committed crimes, as far as the priests and friars were

1856."! Jn Anglican Apology for Tyranny'. 321

the accusations against the clergy, there is a compara-
tively small number, perhaps in above 500 cases about 20.
And out of these cases in which any determination is
accorded, the result is usually, an acquittal,! and generally
upon the testimony of several persons as well as the
accused clergyman. And there are not perhaps above
half a dozen instances out of the whole in which a convic-
tion is accorded against a clergyman ; not more than one
or two in which religious persons are convicted of heinous
crime. On the other hand there are numerous instances

concerned. "Thomas Cowper et ejus uxor Margareta pronuboB
horribiles et instigant mulieres ad forulcandum cum quibus cum
que laicis religiosis fratribus minoribus et nisi fornicant in domo
sua ipsi diffamabunt nisi voJuerunt dare eis ad yoluntatem eorum :
et vir est pronuba uxori et vult reliuquere earn apud fratres
minores pro peccatis habeudis." We suspect that this is one of
the two entries on which Mr. Fronde most relies for his reckless
and wholesale aspersions on the religious. But what does it really
prove? That these wretches tried to corrupt them. Mr. Fronde
evidently takes these entries for indirect evidence against the
clergy ; but surely unjustly so. In 1489 we have this entry : " W.
Stamford notatus est pronuba inter M. et domo Goteham et alios
presbiteros et diversos homines suspectos adv in diem per dies et
noctes." There is another entry acusing a certain Margareta,
"communis meretrix conversatur quotidie cum presbiteris et
nonullis cdiis laicis sinistri opinionis et mali nominis: comparuit ille
et negavit articulum et purgavit se cum vicinis viz; K. Russell, L.
Hunt, E. Bremer : et dimiltitur.^' So that she clears herself by
the testimony of her neighbours. But if she had not done so, what
does so vague a charge prove as against the priesthood?

t For instance, " D. Patreius presbiter commisit incestum cum
quadam Rosa Williamson filia sua spirituali, et quotidie conver-
satur cum eadem nimis suspiciosa in camera sua. Vircitatus, illo
die comparuit : negavit articulum, et purgavit se propria manu et
dimittitur." So the priest cleared himself. A siiijilar entry
follows, as to another, " Johannes Warwick quondam clericua
adulteravit, &c.'' Another priest is accused " quod servientem
rapuisse et negavit articulum et purgavit se : comparuit cum
purgatoribus suis : et prcesidens declaravit eundem legitime^ purgatun
et dimiltilur.''' Another case, ^^ purgavit se ;'' with the testimony
of not less than nine persons ; " quam purgationem dominus admisit :
et restituit eum bonasjamce.''' That is to say, he was sent out of court
without a stain of suspicion.

322 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

in which priests are the accusers,"' and complain of persons
as common slanderers for aspersing their character by
false accusations of immorality ; and either charitably for-
give their accusers on confession of their slander, or obtain
convictions. And there are many entries to show that tho
character of those who were accusers of the priests was not
liiiely to be such as to give any weight to their accusations.
Their language is coarse, impious, and impure ; and such
as shows shocking familiarity with the crimes they impute.
And upon the whole the result of a perusal of their entries
upon any fair and impartial mind, would be, not so much
that the clergy, as that the laity were depraved ; that too
many of the laity, because of their depravity, resented the
constant endeavours of the clergy to check their immorality;
that in many instances they revenged themselves by false
accusations of incontinency against the clergy ; that they
had been corrupted by the evil example of an impure
sovereign and a vicious court ; in which they saw their
king living for years in open adultery with a woman whose
sister (if not her mother also) he had debauched ; that fol-
lowing his example in. impurity, they likewise followed it
in rebellion against the Church, which struggled to prevent
it ; and that knowing that in any contest with the ecclesi-
astical authority they would have the sympathy and sup-
port of the crown, they met the remonstrances of the clergy
with defiance, and retaliated with defamation.

At all events these ** acts" go far more to prove immo-
rality against the laity than against the clergy. And it is
manifest that immoral men would hate and slander a
faithful clergy ; who in every way would seek to repress
their licentiousness, and would often rescue the victims of
their seduction. Mi). Fronde says, these ** acts" «how
that the people disliked the ecclesiastical courts. No
doubt the sordid and sensual portion of the people disliked
them. And they would for the same reason dislike the

* Sometimes others accused of participation in their crime are com-
plainants ; for example, Alicia Nicholson communis deffamator
viciiiorum morura diffamavit uxorem J. Modj in Anglicis, "here et
prestos liore." Mody comparuit cum purgatoribus. In another
instance, " II. Brewster communis deffamator vicinorum et
praestura deffamavit dom.* T. Appulby rectorem culesce : et idem
rector remisit sibi delectum." So it is to be presumed the slander
was confessed.

1856. J An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 323

clergy just in the proportion in which they were faithful
in resisting licentiousness. The fact that a priesthood is
unpopular among a licentious people is a fact in favour of
the priesthood. And the fact of popular aversion, to the
extent to which it existed, accounts for, as it would
naturally provoke, a great deal of false accusation against
them. Moreover the very functions and position of the
priesthood would peculiarly expose them to such accusa-
tions, and render it difficult for them to refute tHem. In
several instances the ground of accusation was merely the
resorting of some woman to a priest ; which might often
be for confession ; assuming it to be so, the priests would be
obviously in some difficulty as to disproving the accusa-
tions and would have to rely more upon character ; as in
fact they appear to have done, and successfully in several
cases.

There are, therefore, ample reasons to account for far
more accusations even than there appear to have been,
and ample reason also to account for the rareness of convic-
tions as compared with accusations. And certainly the
fact that out of some thousands of clergy, in the large
diocese of London, there were, in the greater part of a
century, so very few cases of convictions for immo-
rality, (judging from the proportion of instances in Mr.
Hales' book, we should say not twenty,) speaks strongly in
their favour.

For the infamous assertion of Mr. Froude that "the
grossest moral profligacy in a priest was passed over with
JndiflFerence," not only is there not the least atom of proof,
but the very facts he states show its falsehood. For
example, in one of the rare instances he can detect of the
conviction of a priest for incontinence, the offender was put
to the painful penance of appearing publicly more than once
in the presence of a congregation at High Mass, and pre-
senting tapers in acknowledgment of his crime. It appears
also that he was fined 6s. 8d. With characteristic disin-
genuousness Mr. Froude observes on this : " An exposure
too common to attract notice, and a fine of 6s. 8d. was
held sufficient penalty for a mortal sin !" As to the
offence being common we have already shown the false-
hood of the assertion. As to the exposure not being any
part of the penalty, we may not imagine the feelings of
Mr. Froude if he fancy that it would not have been a
penalty infinitely greater than any pecuniary penalty or

324 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

any imprisonment possibly could have been. But with
regard to the amount of the fine, let it be noticed that
(as Mr. Froude himself states elsewhere, but of course
takes care to conceal here), the sum of 6s. 8d. was a
fifteenth part of a priest's whole yearly income ; which
ordinarily was only £5 a year ; a sum at that time suffi-
cient for his support. Let us ask Mr. Froude to what
species of punishment clergymen in the Church of Eng-
land are subjected, when they lapse into incontinence or
drunkenness. The case is not by any means unfrequent :
far more frequent than is known generally, for a few years
ago an Act of Parliament, the Church Discipline Act, was
passed, for the purpose of hushing them up by private
enquiries. Notwithstanding this, cases constantly occur,
within this very year, several of great atrocity ; within the
last few months one of a criminal character; and we ask,
supposing there is no criminal offence cognizable by the
law, what is the penalty ? No exposure ; (the most effectual
proceeding in the case of a clergyman,) nothing but a pecu-
niary penalty ; not always even suspension ; hardly ever
deprivation ; never degradation. And what man not
utterly degraded would not prefer suspension and exclusion
from the sacred office to a painful public exposure ?

And this leads us to remark upon another unfairness of
Mr. Froude, in keeping out of sight the evidences the
ecclesiastical records afford of the immorality of the clergy
after the Reformation. The cases not only became more
numerous,""' but the whole body of the clergy became so

* In 1544 there is the following ludicrous complaint: — "The said
parsoue dothe checke. his parjslie lykeneynge them uuto galled
horses, when they be rubbed they will wy nee : spekynge it iu the
pulpyt. Item John Colte mysseusiug his tonge with chydinge
against the said parsone in the Churche in servis time, and in the
tyrae of his sermonde, sainge unto him, Prest fyndest (thou) it in
ye boke that my bake (back) is galled?"

In another instance, 1595, the parson was accused of encouraging
an adulteress. In 1601, one Bonting complains to the arch-dean of
Essex of the rector of Warley, "for drinking in his own Church;"
"for being dronke tliirty times since Easter, and synging most
filthye songes,'' &c. The accuser bitterly complains of such " cater-
pillers or spiders in God's Church, which- do nothing but suck the
Hwete and spyn such webs as make the enemies of Christ's Gos-
pel to laugh at and jeer such ministers," Several similar cases
occur in the same year : fruits of the " Reformation."

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 325

degraded, that Elizabeth herself called them "'hedgfe
priests;" respectable women would not marry them, and
an act of parliament had to be passed to prevent them dis-
gracing their office by degrading marriages ! Take the
ondition of the Anglican clergy during the eighteenth
century ; we should be sorry to insult the memory of the
Catholic clergy of the sixteenth by comparing them. The
pages of Smollett and Fielding pourtray their coarseness
and their sensuality. In our own lifetime we have had
instances of clerical depravity transcending anything that
can be discovered in the age of the Reformation. A
bishop has been forced to fly the country for a crime not
to be named, and within the last few years a rector was
convicted of incest with his own daughter. Instances of
simony, impurity, and inebriety, are frequent. Until
lately the Dean and Chapter of Westminster were pro-
prietors of the foulest houses in London, a whole nest of
brothels, and the suppression of the abomination (if it is
suppressed) is owing not to their own sense of decency, (for
they resisted all the remonstrances of public opinion, and
were even deaf to numerous denunciations in parliament),
but it is due simply to the improvements carried on by the
Board of Works in Westminster. We defy Mr. Froude
to find such a foul fact as that in the sixteenth century.
And we declare that, although we by no means consider
the Anglican clergy as a body immoral, we would not for
a moment admit that in point of morality they are equal
to the Catholic clergy of the age of the Reformation. We
are sure of this, that it would be impossible to ascribe
to them such immoral sentiments as are to be found
in the work of Mr. Froude. A single specimen will
suffice. He makes it matter of grave and severe reproach
against Catherine that she did not, when her husband
was tired of her, at once retreat into a convent, and let
him marry some other woman ! This is Anglican mo-
rality ! And such is the man who reviles the Catholic
clergy at the era of the Reformation.

Before passing from this part of the subject, we must
notice one matter, not only as throwing very great light
upon it, but as illustrating the Anglican clergyman's idea
of literary honesty and controversial candour, we should
rather say common fairness and truthfulness. After seek-
ing to cast odium on the clergy, he takes a story out of
Hale, about one Hun, who having been imprisoned in the

326 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

Lollarcfs' Tower, was found hanging in his cell. " An
inquest/* says Mr. Froude, ** was held upon the body,
when a verdict of wilful murder was returned against the
Chancellor of the Bishop of London, and so intense was
the feeling of the city that the Bishop applied to Wolsey
for a special jury to be chosen on the trial. *For assured
lam,' he said, 'that if my Chancellor be tried by any
twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set in favour
of heresy, that they will cast and condemn my clerk,
though he were as innocent as Abel.' " And here he
stops. Who would suppose, from this notice of the case
that the inquisition was so monstrous on the face of it, that
any sensible man on the mere reading of it could see that
it was the result of a malicious conspiracy ; that the
Bishop's apphcation was not for a special jury, but to
have the indictment so far as regarded his chancellor
quashed ; that he appealed not merely to Wolsey, but to
the House of Lords, and publicly denounced the coroner's
jury as "perjured catiffs;" that the case was examined
into by the Attorney General before the king in cabinet,
and that the result was, that the indictment or inquisition
as regarded the Bishop's Chancellor was quashed. The
wretched man who was found hanging had doubless hung
himself, as many of the heretics did, under the influence of
the dark spirit which possessed them. Mr. Froude him-
self gives an instance, out of Fox. A youth at Cambridge
hung himself, an open Bible before him, his finger pointed
to a passage upon predestination. The horrible habit of
Buicidehad now entered into the nation. It came with
heresy. Until now it had been unknown in the country.
We never have discovered a solitary instance of it before
the rise of Protestantism, and from that time to the pre-
sent it has been awfully common in every country pos-
sessed by Protestantism, and above all in England.

There is one important fact we ought not to omit to
mention, as respecting the calumnies against the clergy in
that age. In 1529 the Commons presented their petition
to the King, an elaborate indictment against the Church,
comprising many charges, mostly frivolous, but embodying
every possible accusation against the clergy. Now in this
petition there is no accusation against them of immo-
ratify. Can any one believe that if the character of the
clergy as a body had been as Mr. Froude represents it, it

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 32T

would not have been made a formidable charge in this bill
of indictment a^jainst the Church ?

It is strange that it should never have struck Mr.
Froude, and that it should never strike writers of his class,
that the more they blacken the character of the prelacy or
the clergy at the era of the Reformation, the more they
weaken the moral character of the Reformation itself. For
the foundation of it was the recognition of the royal supre-
macy, which preceded by nearly a quarter of a century any
religious alteration. And the only ecclesiastical ground
on which that supremacy can be vested, is its pretended
recognition by the prelacy and clergy in convocation.
Passing by for a moment the objection that it was not a
voluntary recognition, but entirely enforced and compul-
sory, we wonder it should never occur to the revilers of
the Catholic clergy of that age, that the more degraded
their character is represented, the more utterly worthless
was their recognition of the royal supremacy, and the more
suspicious must a doctrine appear which was conceded by
so discreditable a body. When the Anglican controver-
sialist affects to find any ecclesiastical foundation for the
monstrous assumption of spiritual power implied in the
royal supremacy, he takes care not to revile the character
of the Catholic Church at the era of the Reformation ; on
the contrary, he enhances and extols it as a venerable
body, to whose voice and authority he appeals.

There is still another view of this matter, which it is
extraordinary should not present itself to the minds of
writers like Mr, Froude, who are perfectly aware of the
facts on which it rests. It is this. That the worse and
more worldly, not to say wicked, the clergy of the English
chuvch are conceived to have been, at the era of t'le
Reformation, the more powerful becomes the argument in
favour of the Papacy, and against the Royal Supremapy.
For, as we have shown in former articles, the Holy See
had long lost all effective power over the episcopate, and-
had for centuries been practically all but deprived of the
exercise of its supremacy. Even Mr. Froude, (fortunately
not seeing the force of the fact,) freely confesses it. ** The
chapters had long ceased to elect freely. The Crown had
absorbed the entire functions of presentation, sometimes
allowing the great ecclesiastical ministers to nominate
themselves. The Papal share in the matter luas a
shadow." Most true. So it had been ever since the

VOL. XLI.-Xo. LXXXII. 4

328 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

evil era of the statutes o( prcemunire and provisors. The
Papacy had practically lost its power over the episcopate,
and therefore over the clergy. If the Pontiff rejected the
regal nominations, which in rare instances he was abso-
lutely obliged to do, when they were too infamous to be
submitted to, the'see was kept vacant, and the greatest dis-
orders ensued. If a prelate nominated by the Pope was
hardy enough to assume to enter on the see, the crown
lawyers prosecuted him under the statutes of praemunire,
and the whole temporalities of his see svere declared for-
feited, added to which he might be imprisoned for life.
This is the argument we have on former occasions urged
as wholly exonerating the Holy See from any responsibi-
lity for any evils that may have existed in the English
Church for ages anterior to the Reformation. Whatever
evils there were, they were results not of Papal but of royal
influence, and are so many cogent arguments against the
royal supremacy.

The episcopal nominees of the crown might be expected
to be courtly, and the clergy they ordained might be
expected to be worldly. But the most worldly-minded of
prelates would present no fair topic of reproaches against
the Church, and especially the Holy See, until it was
ascertained who nominated him. And of course indirectly
the same argument applies to the assumed ignorance or
immorality of the clergy.

But we recur to what we have maintained, that the
prelacy of England were not worldly, that the clergy as a
body were far from immoral. And it rather speaks strongly
for the vitality of the Church that, even after having for
ages been exposed to the enervating influences of a system
of royal patronage, so little of worldliness, so much of
worthiness, should be found in her episcopate and her
priesthood in this country. That there was some taint of
worldliness in them,we not only do not deny, but strenuously
contend. For if there had not been any, how could they
have been brought to admit the impious assumption of the
royal supremacy ? Mr. Fronde himself sees this, and here
again with happy unconsciousness, while eagerly pouring
out sarcasms on the episcopate and clergy, he undermines
the only pretended basis for the royal supremacy. He
scoffs at the servility of the English church in acknow-
ledging it! There is, alas! some truth in the charge,
gome reason for the scoff. But it comes curiously from an

1856.] All Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 3^9

Anglican, a devout believer in the royal supremacy ! For
if the clergy who admitted the claim are justly reproached
with servility, surely the claim must have beeu impiety and
tyranny?

It is in touching upon this topic, however, that Mr.
Froude makes one of his very rare approaches towards
truth. It is unhappily true, as he observes, that had the
episcopate and clergy resisted at the outset, the impious
chiim to the supremacy must have been withdrawn in con-
fusion. Henry never could have ventured to slay an entire
episcopate, or have sought to extirpate a clergy ! In fact,
he never ventured to slay any one for rejecting the supre-
macy until convocation had been coerced into acknow-
ledging it. And Fisher, who had himself joined with
Warham, the Primate, and the rest of the episcopate, in
conceding it, sharpened the sword by which he was fated
to fall. Nay, even More may be said to have done so, for
he had ever, until, too late, he saw his fatal error, upheld
the impious statutes oi' prcemunire, in the fetters of which
the king now cast the clergy of England. Still they had
only to resist, and risk the loss of a little money, or in some
cases their liberty, and they would have triumphed, and
the Church would have been saved. They did not resist,
and she fell. What was the reason of their tame conces-
sion ? They attached too little importance to the Papal
supremacy.

We have one more observation to offer before finally
dismissing this subject. It is this. That it is undeniable,
and is indeed asserted by Mr. Froude, that at this time
there was widely spread infusion of Lutheran ideas among
the people, and of course a proportionate aversion to the
Catholic clergy. The acts of the Ecclesiastical Courts
reveal this in many ways, especially in the bitterness of th^
language used not only against the priesthood, but the
principles and practices of the Church. Truly this must
go far to account for the accusations against the clergy.

At all events there are ample causes to account for these
accusations,"" and while there is very little evidence of

* Among others, the spread of heresy. There is ample evideuce
that the persons most infected with the new ideas on religion were
riost envenomed against the priests, and commonly defamed them.
Take the following entries for example. " Johannes Forest com-

330 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

their truth, it is clear that as regards the body of the
clergy they are calumnies. Indeed, as against the body of
the clergy there is no evidence that the feeling of the
respectable part of the nation was, as Mr. Froude repre-
sents. The petition of the Commons is in itself powerful
evidence of this. There is another proof of it, which Mr.
Froude himself states with an unconscious inconsistency.
He dwells in another part of his work on the popular com-
motion and wide-spread dissatisfaction caused by Henry's
measures, and ** tiie extreme peril of the government."
How was this, if the whole body of the people had groaned,
as he tells us, under ** the enormous tyranny" of the
Church, and had been disgusted with the immorality of
the clergy, regular and secular? Surely had this been so,
the nation would have rejoiced at the suppression of the
religious houses, and the prostration and spoliation of the
Church. On the contrary, they rose into rebellion all over
England ; they were in a state of disaffection for half a
century afterwards ; their insurrections were repeatedly
put down with cruel slaughter ; and this indeed was
the excuse urged for the penal laws.

This fact is in itself sufficient to show what value we can
attach to Mr. Fronde's representations of the feeling of

munis diffamator vicinorum : citatus est : absolutus est et diraittitur
ex gratia.'' Then follows a raeraorandura, stating, — *' Joliannes
Forest has bene suspendjd ii times out of ye Cliyrch, and he sayeth
that ye prest ys curst for God schall a soyeil (absolve or assoil) hyni
agayne ; furthermore he sayes that all ye prestys aud doctyrs are
but harlotmongers." Johannes Forest was clearly a Lutheran.
*' Nicholaus Calffet Radulphus Austen communes susurones conspi-
ratores et libertatum ecclesiasticarum contradictores violatores ao
ecciam in quantum possunt eversures uomina sinistra sacerdotibus
imponentes Auglice horson prestes et horemongeres, eccam sic
dicendo, ' I wold there wore never a prest in Ingland.* A wish
which savours strongly of the new doctrines. "Johannes Oste
quia dicit quod ilia die quo videt presbiterum est infirmus, et cum
seipso male contentus, gaudet quoque eum et quando videt aut
audit aliquorera presbiterum in aliqua tribulatione seuvexatione :
ultra dicit quod fuit conscius indictatorum plurime ez eis. Etquod
vellet iri 60 miliaribus pro uno presbitero indictando, voccando que
€08 horsyn Prestes : they shal he inJyted as many as oomyes to my
handeling/* This persecutor of the priests was doubtless a sound
Pioteetant. And other entries show that the men of "the nev
opiuious," were not the most moral.

1856.] An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. ■ 331

the body of the nation as regards the great body of the
clergy. The clergy as a body were disliked only by two
classes, the heretical and the immoral, and these, although,
alas ! too numerous, did not compose the great body of the
nation.

The insurrections of the people at and after the close of
Henry's reign, were in a great measure owing to the opera-
tion of his diabolical laws against almsgiving. And no
part of Mr. Fronde's work is more painful and shameful
than that in which he apologises for the act of 1536, of
which he truly states that Henry himself was the author.
It was just after the act for the suppression of the religious
houses. An act had already passed, in 1531, five years
before, ordaining that able-bodied persons — men and women
— asking for alms, should, if they could not give account
how they lawfully got their living, that is to say, if they
were out of employment, (for asking of alms was unlawful)
at once be tied naked to the end of a cart and scourged
through the town, until their bodies were bloody ! The
policy of this infernal statute was no doubt, by deterring
poor people from asking alms of religious houses, to dimi-
nish the sense of their value to the country. But the act
of 1536, framed by Henry himself, after the suppression of
the religious houses, had a policy and purpose still more
diabolical. *' The sturdy vagabond," i.e., the able-bodied
person, man or woman, asking alms when out of employ-
ment, and having no means of obtaining a livelihood, was
condemned on the second offence to lose the whole or a
part of the right ear, and for a third offence to suffer death
as a felon ! Death as a felon was the penalty for asking
alms ! And mark — by reason of the suppression of reli-
gious houses, thousands of monks and nuns were cast out
houseless and destitute upon the country, and were under
the necessity of begging or starving. They might indeed
hire themselves out as slaves, for the mere scraps that
might be cast to them by the inhuman wretches who con-
nived in carrying out this cruel statute, and probably
desired to get their labour on such terms as to make them
really slaves. And to this they were practically enforced,
for if thrice caught asking ailms, they were doomed to the
death of felons ! Such was the fate reserved by Henry
and his parliament for the religious of both sexes, rendered
destitute by their measures of spoliation I Slamry, starva^
tion, or death as felons ! Mr. Froude, although a little

332 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. IDec.

staggered by the penalty of death, approves of the policy
of lihese internal statutes on the whole, as severe but
salutary humanity ! Let us give his own account of the
state of the law as regarded the poor, not forgetting that
religious men and women formed a large portion of them.
** For an able-bodied man to be caught a third time beg-
ging was held a crime deserving death. The poor man
might not change his master at his will, or wander from
place to place. If out of employment, preferring to be
idle," (whether preferring it or not,) " he might be
demanded for work by any master of the craft to which he
belonged, and compelled to work, whether he would or
no." (And of course on any terms offered him.) " If caught
begging he was flogged at the cart's tail. If caught a
second time his ear was slit or bored through with a hot
iron. If caught a third time he suffered death as a felon."
So the law of England remained for sixty years, until all
the religious of both sexes had perished miserably from
the earth, doubtless many of them being hanged like dogs, for
the mere asking of alms ! And this was the first fruit of
the Reformation !

We must give a specimen of Mr. Fronde's morality on
another subject. Of course in his endeavours to blacken
the character of the Catholic clergy at the eve of the
Reformation, he does not forget to make the most of the
so-called persecutions. It requires all his powers of exag-
geration to make much of them, seeing that on his own
statement there were only five executions for heresy in
Smithfield during five years, 1629 to 1533, and it requires
all his powers of misrepresentation to render the Church,
and least of all the Papacy, responsible for these acts, see-
ing that they took place in pursuance of statutes passed by
enemies of the Church, with a political rather than a reli-
gious purvieu ; and they occurred under a king who ruled
despotically, and was at that very time at open variance
with the Apostolic See, and entering into actual schism.
However, such as they are, of course Mr. Fronde makes
the most of them, and at the same time, with Anglican
inconsistency, palliates all the cruel atrocities of Henry
himself, and with Anglican unfairness forgets to reckon up
the horrible executions for mere begging, of which there
must have been fifty for every one which took place at all
on account of heresy, if indeed any did, for this is more
than doubtful on Mr. Fronde's own account ; seeing

1856. 1 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 333

that all the instances he gives are cases either of
mischievous proselytism or of open outrage. The statutes
against heretics were passed, be it remembered, by a par-
liament hostile to the Papacy and jealous of the Church,
from experience of the politically pernicious tendency of
the new doctrines. And certainly the instances given by
Mr. Froude fully confirm this opinion, and also attest the
truthfulness of Mr. Maitland's view, in entire accordance
with it. Take, for example, the case of the sacrilegious
outrage upon Dovercourt Church, which Mr. Froude
narrates with such complacency. There was a Rood there
very much venerated. Four heretics, *' their consciences
burdened to see the honour of God so blasphemed by such
an idol," (the image of the Incarnate God Himself!)
went one night, like thieves as they were, to the Church,
tore down the crucifix, with the tapers kept for the ser-
vices, and burnt them sacrilegiously. This is Mr.
Fronde's own expression, but he seems marvellously insen-
sible to the force of it. For he highly approves of the out-
rage ! The act was undoubtedly robbery, and sacrilegious
robbery.. At this moment the law of England would treat
it as such. But Mr. Froude commends it as a '* stroke
of honest work against the devil." That is to say, if men
disapprove of the reverence paid to the crucifix, they are at
liberty to break into a church at night and destroy it !
Such is Anglican morality ! Now for Anglican bigotry.
Of course the miscreants met the fate their outrage
deserved. Mr. Froude himself says, " Their fate perhaps
was inevitable." And then he adds, " Better for them to
be bleaching on the gibbets than crawling at the feet of a -
wooden rood and believing it to be God !"

From what has been already seen, our readers will be
prepared for, and appreciate, the tone of Mr. Froude as
regards the Pope and his conduct in reference to the
divorce. He starts by coolly assuming that " if the Pope
had been free to judge only of the merits of the case, it is
impossible to doubt that he could have cut the knot either
by granting a dispensation to Henry to marry a second
wife, (the first being formally, though not judicially sepa-
rated from him,) or in some other way." The Pope, the
Supreme Pastor of the Church, to grant a dispensation
to have two wives ! And this is the argument of an
Anglican, who denies the power of the Pope to dispense
with even a canonical disability against marrying a de-

834 ' An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

ceased b?'other's wife. For it was on this supposed want
of power that the whole argument in favour of the divorce
is rested ! And when Mr. Fronde says that this ques-
tion is one on which there can be no doubt, — he only
exhibits his own recklessness in the cause of his idol
Henry; for it does so happen that the House of Lords have
been sorely perplexed upon the question, and come to
decisions far from decisive upon it, while the House of
Commons have distinctly declared itself against the no-
tion, that the marriage with a deceased brother's wife is
contrary to the law of God. We appeal to the British
Parliament as being the authority most likely to have
weight with a sound Protestant — at all events with Mr.
Froude. For ourselves, and all good Catholics, it is
enough to know that it has always been held that the
Holy See had a power of dispensing with the canonical
disability in question. The Anglican prelates, who,
during the debates in the Lords last Session, stoutly
maintained that marriages within such degrees of affinity
are contrary to God's law, studiously confounded con-
sanguwity with affinity, and took care never to advert to
the command in the Mosaic law, ** to raise up seed to a
deceased brother, by marrying his widow ;" a command
distinctly broufrht under the notice of our Lord, and not
disavowed by Him. In the face of all this, it is almost
unscrupulous in Mr. Froude to pretend that it was clear
the Pope could not dispense the canonical prohibition of
these marriages, and that Clement VH. could have had
no doubt that Henry was entitled to dissolve his marriage
with Catherine on that ground, — after twenty years coha-
bitation. It is too much, even from an Anglican. And the
Anglican prelates, in appealing solemnly to the ancient
Canons on the question, which prohibit just as much
second marriages, as marriages of cousins, (prohibitions
to which several of them have been amenable,) were
guilty of as flagrant insincerity as Henry himself, when,
after twenty years cohabitation with his wife, he professed
a " scruple of conscience" as to his marriage, exactly at
the time he fell in love with another woman.

It seems incredible that any gentleman professing the
sacred character of a minister of religion, should assert
belief in the sincerity of the ** scruple," and vindicate the
conduct of which it was the pretext; — yet this is what Mr.
Froude does. And on the other hand, and obviously this

1856.1 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 335

is his motive and aim, he does his utmost to blacken the
character of Clement VII., and fix upon it the charge of
tergiversation, insincerity, and falsehood. Will it be
accredited that he assumes to do this almost entirely on
the testimony of Henry himself, or his servile ministers,
instruments and agents ? Recalling to our reader's recol-
lection the sage observation of Mr. Fronde, in his preface,
that *' the great difficulty in studying the history of the
Reformation, is to determine who are admissible wit-
nesses," we assure them he gets rid of the " difficulty"
as regards Henry, very easily, rnerely by admitting his
testimony, or that of his agents, in his own favour, and
excluding anything against it. A simple process, but
somewhat unscrupulous, and such as to show that Mr.
Froude would have made an admirable and acceptable
agent for Henry himself, whom, as he avowedly mag-
nifies as a hero, he doubtless would have served with all
his soul.

Throughout, he misrepresents and calumniates Clement,
by giving us the account, not merely of his conduct, but
of his motives, drawn for Henry by his agents, and of
course coloured to his taste, and suited to his purposes.
Mr. Fronde seems to have had a passing suspicion that
this might not be considered quite fair, for he coolly ob-
serves that they could have had no wish to deceive him \
As if tlie instruments of a tyrant, sent abroad to promote
his projects, had no interest in inducing him to fancy that
their influence was effective for that purpose. And be it
observed that the misrepresentations they commit con-
sist in artfully confusing their accounts of what the Pontiflf
said with what they supposed, or professed to suppose,
to be his secret motives and intentions ; and so giving ta
the whole a colour and complexion, calculated to please
their master and suit his purposes, while also conveying to
his mind an impression of their ingenuity and influence.
The accusations against the Pontiff of insincerity and
inconsistency, are all based upon these accounts of Henry's
agents, and on close inspection, can be traced to their own
artful confusion of what they heard with what they sup-
posed,— what they state with what they suggest. This
artifice would of course serve Henry's purposes and suit
their own.

At the outset let it be observed, that on Henry's applica-
tion to the Pope for a declaration against the marriage

336 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. fDec

with Catherine, every influence, hnmanly speaking, was
ill his favour; supposing the Pontiff open to any bias, it
could not have been against him, for Catherine was the
aunt of Charles V., whose troops had just sacked Rome,
and then held Clement virtually a prisoner. Ranke states
truly, that when Clement, shut up in the Castle of St.
Angelo, was abandoned by all, Henry found means to send
him assistance ; from this cause (he adds) the Pope was
perhaps more kindly disposed towards Henry, personally,
than towards any other sovereign. And he quotes Con-
tarini, who says, ** His Holiness loves the English king,
and was at first strictly united to him.** Ranke is a
writer whom Mr. Froude must have read, — how is it that
he does not imitate the candour of the German author, in
bringing forward this view, which has a strong bearing
ui)on the accusation he urges against the Pontiff, founded
in the first instance upon his profession of readiness to
oblige Henry as far as possible, by opening process in the
suit? This is all that the Pope promises. Less he could
hardly concede, in a matter of such importance, urged by
a powerful prince, hitherto faithful to the Holy See. This
was all that Henry at first could have asked. It was all
he did ask. It was what the Pope could not refuse. It
was all that the Pontifi^ promised, viz., to permit a suit
to be commenced to ascertain the validity of the mar-
riage with Catherine. For, be it observed, that the appli-
cation was not, and could not be, for a divorce. It was
for a judicial declaration that the marriage was void on
account of the invalidity of the Papal dispensation. Mr.
Froude cites a letter of Knight, the king's agent, stating
that the Pope expressed his willingness to grant a com-
mission to commence the suit, so soon as he should be
liberated from the presence of the imperial army. It does
not seem to have occurred to Mr. Froude that this was due
to the dignity of the Holy See, which could hardly, with
propriety, take a step in a matter so deeply interesting to
the emperor while the imperial troops occupied the Papal
States. Howev-er, the commission issued, and the suit was
commenced. It was a suit in the Papal court. It was
commenced by Henry. It is strange that Mr. Froude does
not seem to have observed that this was a distinct admis-
sion of the Papal jurisdiction. So far from it he seeks
studiously to represent that Henry had never acknow-
ledged it ! On the contrary, he invoked it.

1

1856.] Jn Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 337

At the urgent instance of the king, the Papal Legate,
Campeggio, came to this country to hear the cause. Mr.
Froude tells us, that in passing through Paris, the Legate
let out that his instructions and intentions were merely
to evade a determination of it. It is highly probable that
a Papal Legate should so commit himself ! And the only
authority for the statement is a letter of the Duke of
Suffolk, who had married Henry's sister. Mr. Fronde
then states that *' Campeggio urged the Queen, or was
directed to urge her," (he does not say by whom directed,
the authority he cites is an English state paper,) " in the
Pope's name, to take the vows and enter a religious
house." " The proposal was Wolsey's," says Mr. Fronde,
and was adopted by Campeggio." He says also that Cam-
peggio's instructions were to arrange a compromise. But
does he really imagine that the compromise contemplated
by the Legate, was that Henry should marry again ? He
does nnt venture to state as much, but clearly intends to
hint it. That the suggestion is as groundless as it is mon-
strous is obvious. Mr. Froude himself states that Cathe-
rine said she was ready to take the vow of chastity if
Henry would do the same.

This clearly shows her understanding of the Legate's
compromise. It would have answered the king's pre-
tended scruple of conscience, for what more was necessary
to that end than authorized separation from Catherine ?
But that was not at all the kind of compromise Henry
wanted. And let us pray the reader's attention to the
following, which is equally characteristic of Henry and of
his admirer, our author. Mr. Froude states, " That she
told the legates her answer appears certain from the fol-
lowing passage," (in the king's instructions to his ambas-
sador at Rome) " sadly indicating the services of policy to
which, in this unhappy business, honourable men allowed
themselves to he drawn." Mark the mildness of the lan-
guage— describing the vile and base ' device' which is
then stated.) *' i or as much as it is likely that the queen
shall make marvellous difficulty to enter into religion or
take vows of chastity "" '"" "" unless the king
do the same ; — the king's ambassadors shall instruct them-
selves by their secret council if his grace should promise so
to enter religion on vows of chastity for his pnrt — only thereby
to induce the queen thermnto, whether the Pope's holiness
may dispense with the king's highness for the same promise, oath^

838 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. fDec.

or vow.** Here we have Mr. Froude's hero, Ilenry, who
afterwards denied the dispensing power of the Pope,
desiring to avail himself of it if possible, to get rid, not
merely of a promise, but an oath or vow, to enter into a
religious state, contracted for the fraudulent purpose of
entrapping his wife into the same state ; in order that he
might be free to marry again ! Mr. Froude, who is ehi-
borate and unscrupulous in concocting charges of insin-
cerity against the Pontiff, passes by the iniquitous conduct
on the part of Henry without comment, except this unac-
countable marginal note — " Wrong provokes wrong.*'
Whose ** wrong " provoked the " wrong " thus meditated
by Henry? We presume he means that of which he
repeatedly complains — the obstinacy of Catherine in not
making way for the king's marriage with her rival ! As
if she had the power of so doing ! as if her entering a reli-
gious state could allow Henry's committing adultery or
polygamy ! Such is the Anglican idea of moral theology
and matrimonial morality ! It was Henry's idea, but
not Catherine's; and not the Legate's. And so their
compromise came to nothing. And the suit proceeded.

Mr. Froude next accuses the Pontift' of insincerity in
recalling the cause to Rome ; as if it could make any dif-
ference in principle or in result, whether the hearing were
in England or in Rome, if the determination was with the
Pontiff; or as if there could be any peculiar privilege for a
-prince who wanted to get rid of his wife to have his case
heard in his own dominions. Even if that were decent,
it could not be important ; ultimately it must be decided at
Rome. It would be unimportant unless the case were to
be determined by his own creatures. And to that he came,
at last. Mr. Froude lays great stress on the recal of the
cause to Rome, as altering the whole position of the king.
" So long as a legate's court sat in London, were men
able to conceal from themselves the fact of a foreign juris-
diction." If they were, they could not conceal it from the
English lawyers, who, nnder the statutes of prcemunire
denounced such exercise of papal jurisdiction just as much
in London as at Rome : the question being not as to the
locality but the forum. Mr. Froude's distinction has
neither law nor logic in it ; and when he adds, " If Henry
could have stooped to plead at a foreign tribunal, the spirit
of the nation would not have permitted him to inflict so
great a dishonour on the free majesty of England," be

185G.1 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 339

really writes nonsense ; not only because all the English
monarchs had pleaded at the papal court, (even Henry II.
at the height of his quarrel with St. Thomas), but because
Henry himself had already done so — had invoked the
jurisdiction of the court at iJome— had acknowledged it,
and had submitted to it. He who has submitted to a court
cannot prescribe to it its course ; and the court of any
power is most naturally and properly held where that
power resides. Let us remind Mr. Fronde that Henry
himself drew no such distinction as he relies on ; for he
had Wolsey cast in the penalties of prcemimire for exercis-
ing the papal jurisdiction in London. Really it will not
do for Henry's admirers to defend him on a frivolous dis-
tinction which Houbers and his lawyers never allowed.
Henry never disputed the papal jurisdiction until he saw
that it was to be exercised against him. He had been
living for some years with Anne Boleyn : — the Pope at the
end of 1532 issued a Brief commanding him under pain of
excommunication to separate from her. And next year the
** Act of Appeals " was passed by Henry's servile parlia-
ment ; which, as Mr. Froude states, destroyed the validity
of Queen Catherine's appeal to Rome ; and it placed a
legal power in the hands of the English judges to proceed
to pass sentence of divorce, as Cranmer speedily did.
Even Mr. Froude cannot disguise his sense of the iniquity
of this statute. '* Our instincts tell us that no legislation
should be retrospective. And when Catherine had married
under a papal dispensation, it was a strange thing to turn
upon her and say, not only that the dispensation in the
particular instance had been granted unlawfully, but that
the Pope had no jurisdiction in the matter, by the laws of
the land which she had entered." "Strange," indeed;
and something more than strange ! But not so strange as
that Mr. Froude — after writing those lines, so just and true,
— should go on to say, " The king and his ministers
had always consistently denied the validity of Catherine's
appeal." How could it be consistently denied, when, as
he himself had already stated, " That the Pope had
authority, was substantially acknowledged in every appli-
cation that was made to him ;" the original application
having been by Henry himself! In such a maze of sophis-
try and inconsistency does Mr. Froude involve himself in
attempting to extenuate the arbitrary atrocities of a tyrant!
The most extraordinary inconsistency of all is that which

340 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

he betrays in denouncing, on the one hand the papal power
of dispensing with the canonical disability in the case of
the marriage with Catherine, and on the other hand, in
denouncing the Pope for not summarily disposing of that
marriage ; whether by dissolution, declaration of invalidity^
or divorce, he does not seem quite clear ; hxit somehow he is
certain, the thing ought to have been done. Does he not
see that if the Pope had power to determine the marriage
invalid, he had power to determine it to have been valid ?
and that if one Pope could decide upon a dispensation, bis
predecessor must have had equal power to decide upon it ?
And that if no fresh light could be thrown upon the facts,
there could be no decency or consistency in reversing a
former judgment? No fresh light was thrown upon the
facts, yet Mr. Fronde actually treats it throughout as clear
and undisputable, that the Pope's duty was to declare the
marriage, which a former Pope had allowed, and had been
for twenty years recognized by the Church, was invalid !
He speaks of it simply as a question between Henry and
the Emperor. He accuses the Pope of leading Henry's
agents to believe that he was using his best endeavours to
subdue the emperor's opposition. Can Mr. Fronde really
believe that this was the only obstacle to the dissolution of
the marriage ! If he does, his unacquaintance with the
question is astonishing.

Even if it were so, his statement that the Pope did make
this representation and imply that he considered Henry's
cause just, rests on the accounts given by Henry's agents
of their interviews with the Pontiff; and even those
accounts, artfully framed as they are, are far from bearing
out the statements. For instance, on one of Bennet's
letters he says, " Speaking of the justness of your cause
His Holiness said," what? merely that the lawyers were
more favourable to Henry than the divines; not a fact very
strong in his favour. And it will be observed that the
words ** speaking of the justness of your cause" are the
words not of the Pope, but of Henry's agent, who thus
gives a kind of colour to the conversation. The Pontiff's
words, as he states them, are merely to the effect that the
lawyers agreed that the dispensation could not be valid
unless upon good and sufficient cause as to which he
declared that he had diligently enquired. ** And his
Holiness promised nic" (continues Henry's agent) '* that
he would herein use all good policy and dexterity to im-

18561 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 341

print the same on the emperor's head ;" " which done, he
reckoneth many things to be invented that may be
pleasant and profitable to your'Highness." Such expres-
sions as " policy and dexterity," seems to savour more of
the spirit and style of Henry's artful emissaries. What
it was which (as they represented) the Pope was to " imprint
on the emperor's head," is not at all clear, but it is quite
consistent with all that is stated that it may have been
simply what the Pope had just before been stated to have
said, viz., that the question was as to the sufficiency of
the cause for the dispensation. And altogether from the
tone of these communications of Henry's agents, we sus-
pect that they often *' invented things" " pleasant unto his
Highness." Can anyone in his senses believe that what
Cassalis states is true : — '* His Holiness assured me he
had laboured to induce the emperor to permit him to satisfy
your Majesty,"' if, as Mr. Froude leaves his readers to sup-
pose, the satisfaction referred to was a dissolution of the
marriage? But was that what the Pope referred to, in
the word "satisfied;" even supposing that he uttered the
word at all? Here we know not whether more to admire
the dexterity of Cassalis or of Mr. Froude ; of Henry's
agent or Henry's admirer. Both of them manage to leave
this impression on the mind. But it is plain it is a false
impression. For a few days later Bonner brought, from the
Pope the propositions to which he must have referred,
whether or not he used the words ascribed to him. What
were those propositions ? A general council, or the appoint-
ment of a legate elsewhere than at Rome to hear the
cause. What is there in the conduct of the Pontiff char-
acterized by inconsistency or insincerity ? Contrast it with
Henry's. What was his course ? He had originally
invoked the Papal authority. He had subsequently anti-
cipating a decision against him affected to appeal to a
council. That was now offered to him. And he evaded
and declined it. What more conclusive evidence could be
afforded oF his own consciousness of the iniquity of his con-
duct and the dishonesty of his case ?

But we entreat attention to one matter, which illus-
trates in a striking manner the arts of misrepresentation
resorted to by Henry's agent ; and suggests strongly the
suspicion of absolute fabrication. Mr. Froude himself
iidniits the practices of corruption resorted to by them iu

342 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. [Dec.

order to influence the opinions of the Universities. And
those who practised bribery would not stick at f'or<?ery.

There is a real or pretended letter of Cassalis, (and by
Mr. Fronde's own account Cassalis was a traitor,)
written in 1530, in which he states that the Pope distinctly
proposed to him that Henry should be allowed
to have two wives! We should scarcely notice this
seriously but for what follows. It will be observed that
here is pretended to have been a distinct proposal by the
Pope, which would effectually answer Henry's purpose ;
.ind was in fact the very proposal Henry himself had enter-
tained two years before. It is not easy to explain how the
Pope should have objected then to what he afterwards
proposed ; or why Henry should not have eagerly seized
what he had two years before suggested. That, supposing
the Pope ever made this monstrous proposition, Henry did
not accept it is clear, for two years afterwards the negotia-
tions are still continued ; the cause is still proceeding.
And in 1532 there is another letter (as Mr. Froude sup-
poses, from Cassalis,) in which the Pope is represented to
have said, ** It would have created less scandal to have
granted your Majesty a dispensation to have two wives than
to concede what 1 was then demanding." Assuming that
the Pope said this, it is pretty plain that he must have
meant it in the reverse sense to that in which Cassalis
represents ; and that his meaning must have been this :
** What you propose is so execrable that even polygamy
would cause less scandal to the Church!" The a<rent,
however, affects to fancy the Pontiff to have been making
a proposition, instead of suggesting a reductio ad
absurdam, but he adds, ** I cannot tell how far this sug-
gestion of the Pope would be pleasing to your Majesty.
Nor indeed can I feel sure in consequence of what he said
about the Emperor, that he actually would grant the dis-
pensation." Now as to what the Pope had " said about
the Emperor" there is nothing in the letter of his having
said anything about the Emperor. What the agent states
is, that the Pope continued to " speak of the two wives,
admitting that there were dificuUies in the way of such
an. arrangement !! principally it seemed,' (i.e. it seemed
to the agent; who just here took care not to state what
the Pope said) *' because the Emperor would refuse his
consent;" his consent to Henry's living in polygamy ! As
if that could affect the matter one way or the other. And

1856. 1 An Anglican Apology for Tyranny. 343

indeed the agent himself immediately adds, that he does
not see how it could ! Now when we consider that the
agents of Henry here aflfect to be ignorant how he will like
the supposed proposition ; although he had instructed them
to sound the Court of Rome about it four years before ;
and when it is also observed that the agents profess in 1532
to be uncertain whether the Pope would really after all
grant the dispensation of polygamy, although by their own
account he had himself distinctly made the proposal two
years before ; is it not wonderful that any sensible person
should consider, or affect to consider these accounts as
credible ?

Inconsistency was never more gross and glaring than
that which is betrayed by Mr. Froude in his strictures on
the character of Clement. In vol. 1 he is described as '" a
genuine man," "hot tempered," and altogether ill-fitted for
tricks of dissimulation. In vol. 2 he is described as of
*' infinite insincerity," "as reckless of truth," "as false,
deceitful, and treacherous." Such is the rancour with
which this AngHcan minister "reckless of truth" and
without even a fair pretext, assails the character of a Pon-
tiff whom Ranke, the German Lutheran, describes as one
whose " conduct was remarkable for blameless rectitude."
From the first, in this business of Henry's marriage the
conduct of Clement was clear and consistent. His char-
acter is blackened on the doubtful testimony of Henry's
corrupt instruments. But there is not an atom of credible
evidence upon which he can be charged with insincerity.
And it outrages the plainest dictates of natural justice to
condemn anyone on the faith of statements made behind
his back, by the partisans of the tools of his enemy !
Clement never knew what was represented of his language
by the emissaries of Henry. And but for the spirit of
bigotry which Mr. Froude betrays, and which we know
destroys all sense of justice, charity, or truth, we should
be surprised to find even an Anglican clergyman heaping
calumny upon a venerated name, on the credit of onesided
representations, of which he never was cognizant, and in
which we have exposed the grossest contradictions and the
most suspicious indications of fabrication. It is pitiable to
find a man of Mr. Fronde's talent so destitute of generosity,
charity, or candour, as to deal thus unjustly with the char-
acter of a Pontiff who certainly was ill-fated, cruelly beset
with difficulties, and grievously afilicted with oppression,

VOL. XLL-No. LXXXII. 5

344 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

but who, rather than sacrifice a principle or betray his con-
science, endured them all with calm and heroic courage ;
although they broke his heart and weighed him down to
the grave. Such a character as his, however, it is not for
men like Mr. Froude to appreciate. He cannot under-
stand the heroism which suffered a martyrdom rather than
sacrifice a woman. And he has neutralized his calumny by
his own morality. The man who could admire a Henry
is not one whose voice can condemn a Clement. The
author who can see a hero in a lustful and sanguinary
tyrant, will not see the martyr in the oppressed, the
afflicted, and the conscientious Pontiff,

Art. III. — 1. The Power of the Pope, durwg the Middle Ages ; or, an
Historical Inquiry into the Origin of the Temporal Power of the
Holy See, and the Constitutional Laws of the Middle Ages, Relat-
ing to the Deposition of Sovereigns. By M. Gosseliw, Director of
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris. Translated by the Ilev.
Matthew Kelly, Saint Patrick's College, Maynooth. (Library of
Translations.) 2 vols. Loudon : C. Dolman, 1853.

2. UEglise et V Empire Romain au IV. Siecle. Par M. Albert de
Broglte, Premiere Partie, Regue de Constantin, 2 vols. Paris :
Didier ot Ce. 185G.

3. TJie Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes; its Origin; the
Vicissitudes through which it has passed, from St. Peter to
Pius IX ; is it the Life of Rome, the Glory of Italy, the " Magna
Charta'' of Christendom ? Discussed Historically by the Very
Rev. Canon Miley, D.D., Rector of the Irish College, Paris.
Author of " Rome under Paganism and the Papacy," " History
of the Papal States," &c. lu three volumes. Volume the first,
Dublin : J. Duffy ; Paris : Perisse, freres, 1856.

4. Ilistoire de Photius, Patriarche de Constantinople, Auteur du Schisme
des Grecs. Par M. L'Abbe Jager, Chanoine llonoraire de Paris
et de Nancy, Professor d'Histoire a la Sorbonne, 2© Edition.
Paris : A Vaton, 1845.

5. History of the Byzantine Empire, from D OCX VI. to ML VII. By
George Flnlat, Honorary Member of the Society of Literature.

„ Edinburgh : W. Blackwood, 1853.

1856.1 Temporal Sovereignttj of the Pope. 345

6. The History of the Papacy to ilie Period of the Reformation. By
the Rev. J. E. Riddle, M.A., Minister of St. Philip and St.
James, Leckhampton, 2 vols. London : R. Bentley, 1854.

. Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the Great Latin Patri-
archate. Books i. and ii. From the First to the Close of the
Fifth Century. By Thomas Greenwood, M.A., Camb. and Durh.,
F.R.S.L., Barrister-at-Lavf. London : C. J. Stewart, 1856.

" A LL the great heresies which have prevailed in
X^ modern times," writes a recent learned and accom-
plished author, " began by disregarding the Papacy, or by
attempting to deprive the Holy See of the affection due to
it, or of some of its prerogatives ; and we ought, whenever
we meet with a disposition to restrict the Papal power,
whether in favour of the Episcopacy or the Presbytery,
the secular authority or the brotherhood, to suspect it of
an heretical tendency. Our Lord founded His Church on
Peter, and Peter lives in his successor. ZJbi Petrus, ibi
JLcclesia."'[

This subject has been at all times variously treated by
Catholic and non-Catholic authors. Catholics have endea-
voured to show the divine mission of St. Peter, and of his
lineal successors, the Popes of Rome, not for the
purpose of subserving any temporal ambition, nor the
maintenance of any peculiar political views ; whilst anti-
Catholics have argued against the Supremacy of St.
Peter, and the Sovereignty of the Pope, for the double
purpose of justifying schism, and maintaining peculiar
political views identified with a successful revolt, or a
triumphant heresy. The question is mainly " rehgious"
with Catholics — mainly "political" with anti- Catholics.

In accordance with their mode of regarding this topic,
the enemies of the Papacy have contrived to make *' the
temporal sovereignty of the Pope" one of the prominent
political questions of the day. It is as a '* political"
rather than a ** theological" question they insist upon its
consideration. In so treating it they pervert it to mis-
chievous purposes. By descending at least for a time to
tlie ground they have chosen to occupy, and grappling with
them and their arguments, we believe we shall be able,
(aided by the opinions and authority of friends and foes,)

* Brownson's Quarterly Review, (New Series) vol. iii. p. 79, art.
" Luther and the Reformation."

346 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

to unveil their hypocrisy, to lay bare their pretences, and
to render abortive the evil they would wish to perpetrate.

We must bear in mind that the war now waged against
the Papacy, and in which Anglicanism, its state-craft, and
its statesmen are taking so prominent a part, is but a
phase of the old dispute so long carried on between the
Church and the World.

The principles that are at issue are the same now for
centuries as the Church is the same — the names and the
pretences of the assailants have varied, but the object
aimed at has ever been one and identical.

The Church insists upon " the supremacy of God over
man, of heaven over earth, and of the soul over the body ;"
whilst the enemies of the Church insist upon ** the sub-
serviency of religion to human institutions," upon ** the
supremacy of the world over the Church." It was to
enforce these principles that Paganism made millions of
martyrs, that Csosarism has been untiring in its persecu-
tions, and that demagogues, imitating the conduct of
Pagans, and kings, and nobles, under the pretence of
** nationality," or of " liberty," demand that the Church
shall become as " a bondslave to themselves.""*

That which the enemies of the Papacy are, beyond all
other things, anxious to prove, in the present temper of the
times, is that the temporal sovereignty of the Pope is
incompatible with *' liberty," with ** nationality," with
*' the happiness of mankind," with *' the good government
of states."

To make out these propositions they resort to various
expedients.

They maintain, first, that the Pope is not the lineal
descendant of St. Peter, and to show this they have had
the hardihood to affirm that *' St. Peter had never been in
Kome."t

* Bfownson's Quarterly Review, (Second Series) vol. ii. pp. 236,
237.

f This was a favourite " no-Popery'' fiction, and is still repeated
by peripatetics proselytizing in dark comers, and remote localities ;
but at last, those who would, if they could, sustain it, are from very
»hame, for its reckless and barefaced untruthfulness, compelled to
abandon it. For example, it is in these grudging and reluctant
terms the indisputable fact is admitted by Anti-Catholic authors: —

•' But was iSt. Peter ever in Rome at all ? Some writers are dis-

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 347

Secondly, the enemies of the Papacy assert, that sup-
p ising the Popes to be the lineal descendants of St. Peter,
as bishops of Rome, still they are not, of right, temporal
sovereigns.

posed to deny the fact ; but, as it appears to others, without suffi-
cient reason. It is the opinion of the learned and candid Dr.
Burton, that St Peter arrived in Rome., in company with St. Mark
the Evangelist, at about the time of St. Paul's release ; and he
gives his reason for thinking that here, at this time, that Apostle
came in collision with Simon Magus, and exposed his imposture ia
some efectual manner, which was afterwards recorded with the addi-
tion of a fabulous adventure. It was also, per/jap5, on this occasion
that St. Mark wrote his Gospel. After this St. Peter left Rome, and
it is not improbable that, according to ancient tradition, he preached
the Gospel in Egypt. * * * Not long after this second arrival
of St. Paul at Rome, he appears to have been joined by St. Peter ;
and there seems to be no reason to call in question the account which
represents those apostles having suffered martyrdom at Rome on the
same day, after a strict confinement of some duration in the Mamer-
time prison at the foot of the Capitol. This event profeafi/y took
place in the year 67, or at the beginning of 68. It is probable that
St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, was beheaded, and that St. Peter suf-
fered crucifixion. Origen adds, concerning St. Peter, that he was
crucified with his head downwards, in humble token of his sense of
un worthiness to suffer in precisely the same manner as his Lord
and Master : but it is impossible to say what degree of credit ought to
be attached to this statement, and some think that this circumstance
bears the appearance of a fictitious or ostentatious humility, little
suited to the character of the apostle, or to the grave ciraitnstances in
which he was placed {\) In the second century, the tomb of St.
Paul was pointed out on the road to Ostia, and that of St. Peter on
the hill of the Vatican. The accounts of other circumstances said
to have been connected with the death of these apostles, being
derived from the spurious Roman Martyrology, or from other doubtful
sources, must be here passed over as wholly without foundation" —
Riddle, History of the Papacy, vol. i., pp. 8, 11, 12.

" But with regard to the personal presence of St. Peter at Rome,
the ' Constitutions' contain a single notice, and that of a very equi-
vocal character. In the forty-sixth chapter of the seventh book, the
words following are put into the mouth of the Apostle Peter : ' Now
concerning those bishops which have been ordained by us in our
lifetime, we make known unto you that they are the following, viz.,
James of Jerusalem, the brother of the Lord ; and after his death,
JSimeon, the son of Cleophas, was bishop there ; after him, the
th ird, was Judas, the son of James ; of Csesarea in Palestine, Zac-
c 4 eus, the publican, was the first bishop : after him, Cornelius
and the third, Theophilus ; but of Antioch, Evodius was (ordained

348 Recent Writers on the \ Dec.

Thirdly, those enemies of the Papacy maintain, that the
independence of the Church, as typified by the sovereignty
of the Pope, is incompatible with the independence of the
Commonwealth, whatever be its form — an Empire, a King-
dom, an Oligarchy, or a Republic ; that no Nation can be
great, no People^ happy, and no Ruler free, where the
Church is not an instrument in the hands of the State — a
College rather than a Church — and those who preside over

by me, Peter, but Ignatius by Paul. Again, at Alexandria,
Armianus was ordained by Mark the evangelist ; and next after
him Avilius, by Luke, who was also an evangelist. Of the Roman
Church, Linus, the son of Claudia, the first bishop, was ordained by
Paul ; but tlie second, after the death of Linus, was ordained. by
me, Peter,' &c. The list closes with the words, 'These are the
bishops who were intrusted by us in tlie Lord to preside over the
churches.*

" This passage does not, however, import more than that, in the
third and fourth centuries, it was believed, or intended hy the writers
to be believed, that St. Peter had, by the laying on of his hands,
ordained Clement bishop of Rome ; and it is improbable that the
compilers, or authors, would have ventured upon such a statement
if they had not thought the world in some sort prepared to receive
it by antecedent tradition." Thomas Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, p.
49. This author, (Mr. Greenwood) according to his own account of
himself, is but an indifferent collector of facts, for undertaking to
write on history, he refers to certain " Chronological tables of Eccle-
siastical History," of which he gives this account —

" A work I have seen in MS., and lament I had not time to con-
sult V* See note C. p. 53.

Mr. Greenwood appears to ns to be an Anglicanised Bunsen —
a writer with a preconceived theory to work out, i.e., with an obsti-
nate prejudice to maintain, which no amount of evidence can
shake, impair, nor disturb, like his great prototype, Bunsen, who
on one occasion thus expressed himself —

" If," says Chevalier Bunsen in his book " The Constitution of the
Church of the Fathers,'^ "if an angkl from heavbn should manifest
to me, that by introducing or asserting, or favouring only, the
introduction of such an episcopacy into any part of Germany, I
should not only make the German nation glorious and powerful
over all the nations of the world, nay, combat successfully the
unbelief, pantheism, and atheism of the day, / should not do it, so
UELP ME GOD I" See review in Daily News, July 20, 1847.

As to the fact of St. Peter being in Rome, and his martyrdom
there, see the authorities quoted i*: Dr. Miley's Temporal Sovereignty
of the Popes, pp. 11, 12.

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Vope. 349.

its flocks, and serve at its altars appointed^ by, or under
the direct control of the State.

According to them the claims of the Papacy are " un-
founded," and the exercise of its powers, at home and
abroad, a downright mischief. The temporal sovereignty
of the Pope rests, they say, on no solid basis ; the spiritual
supremacy of the Pope in all lands, outside the Papal
States, is, they affirm, the cause of evils innumerable to
those who govern, and those who are governed. Cajsar,
according to them, is constituted by God, but the Pope-
dom is a human invention ; and hence they would place
in the hands of Csesar the Sceptre and the Keys, whilst as
regards the Pope they will yield to him nought but abhor-
rence, and [bestow upon him nothing but abuse, and slan-
der, and vituperation. Him they will excommunicate in
their conventicles, and if they have the power and the
opportunity, they will expel him from his throne. The
principles of those No-Popery politico-religionists, were
fully developed in the reign of Charles II., when sated with
the innocent blood of Catholics, shed in consequence of the
Titus Gates, Russell, and Shaftesbury plot, they, through
their celebrated University of Oxford, on the 21st of July,
1683, declared,

'• That all and singular the readers, tutors, and Catechists should
diligently instruct and ground their scholars in that most necessary
. Doctrine, which in a manner is the badge and character of the Church
of England, of submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
eake, teaching that this submission and obedience is to be clear, abso-
lute, and WITHOUT exception of ani/ state, or order of men."*

*In the Times newspaper of October 23rd, 1856, there is pub-
lished a letter from a person holding, we believe, an official position
in connection with the University of Oxford — the same University
which sanctioned the slavish doctrine above quoted. The attentioa
of the Times newspaper is requested by one of its correspondents to
this person — a Professor of Italian in Oxford University — on the
ground that " the Professor" is one of those " Italians, schooled for
centuries iu suffering, educated in a national religion by the patriot
teach&rs, who are now prepared to carry into practice the precepts of
that religion.^'

Two extracts from the letter of the Oxford — Italian — Professor,
will give to the reader an insight into what is the character of the
Italian *^ national religion,^' of which this pious Professor is a
member.

We quote the Oxford — Italian— Professor's own words :—

350 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

The enemies of the Papacy prefer arguing this as a poli-
tical question, first, because it is the most popular mode of
discussing it in these countries; and, secondly, because

•' Let English politicians and English friends of Italy depend on
this — the real, the true Italian question is not one of partial
arrangements of homoeopathic administration reforms, of forcing
the King of Naples, or the pope to grant and swear to-day what they
will FORSWEAR and withdraw to-morrow, as they ever have done,
through the connivance and preponderance of Austrian politics iu
the peninsula.''

And, again, we have this fine passage : —

" the subterranean working of the Papal Hierarchy, fore-
boding in the emancipation of Italy, a last blow to its wretched
decrepitude."

These are specimens of the Italian "national religion,'^ ior the
advancement of which there has been formed in England, to buy
cannon, and purchase guns, a committee, called " the Committee of
the Emancipation of Italy Fund."

The Oxford Italian professor is worthy of the University that has
bestowed upon him an office, and of the Anglican gun-and-cannon-
Committee which hail him as 2k religious patriot; for this Oxford
Italian Professor is no less a personage than Aurelio Saffi, one of
the confederates in that Roman triumvirate in 1849, of which the
notorious Mazzini was the leader. We know what is the new-
fangled " national religion" which finds high favour in Oxford Uni-
versity, and with " the Committee of Emancipation of Italy Fund,"
not merely by Professor Saffi's words, but by his recorded acts as a
Koman republican triumvir.

On the 29th of March, 184:9, Mazzini, Arraellini, and Saffi, became
triumvii's at Rome, their accession to power being prepared by
atrocious crimes of the republicans, the perpetration of which was
admitted by Saffi, as a Minister of the Roman Republic, in a
proclamation, published March 5, 1849.

We now give the dates and substance of some of the Decrees of
the Roman triumvirate.

6th April, 1849, Decree of Roman triumvir (Saffi, &c.) for the
emission of paper-money to the amount of 251,595 soudi.

9th April, 1849, Decree of Saffi, ifec, fining the Canons of the
Chapters of the Vatican 120 scudi each, for having refused to obey the
government order as to religious ceremonies, commanded by it I

10th April, 1840, Decree of Saffi, &c., declaring all non-contribu-
tors to the forced loan " traitors," and imposing a penalty of 25
per cent on all who did not pay within seven dajs.

1 1th April, 1849, Issue of paper money of 24 baiocchi each to the
amount of 200,000 scudi, ordered by Saffi, &c.
16th April, 1849, a proclamation by Saffi, &c., orgauizitig

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 351

for the purpose of upholding the changes effected at the
Reformation, they have, through their statesmen, always
maintained a foreign and a domestic No-Fopery policy.

History teaches by example ; and it is to be regretted
that up to this time the lessons, which a true reading of
the past events of English history, were calculated to
impress upon the minds of Catholics, have been lost for
them ; because there has been no one who, in recording
those events, had placed his hand upon the clue to English
state-craft, from the days of Cecil to Palmerston. And
yet, look at English history, and it will be at once seen
that coincident with the concoction of " the thirty-nine
articles'' as the basis of " the Church as by law estab-
lished,"' Anglicanism has constantly fostered, as a system
of government, a foreign and a domestic An ti- Catholic
policy. This double policy may be described in two words :
the foreign pohcy has been "Anti-Papal," the domestic,
** Anti-Social."

For the present we refrain from dilating upon the
domestic Anti- Catholic policy, so untiringly pursued by
our rulers on this and the other side of the Channel. Suffi-
cient is it to remark that the domestic policy was either
barefaced persecution, or pretended conciliation, and the

an army of 50,000 men — an army that never existed but on
paper — the only military force in Rome defending the Republic and
triumvirate being composed of vagabonds who had been driven out
of all other parts of Italy.

27th April, 1849, Decree of Saffi, (kc, abolishing the observance of
religious vows.

29th April, 1849, Decree of Saffi, &c., regulating the payrp,enl of
clergy.

50th April, 1849, Decree of Saffi, &c., respecting the Blessed
Sacrament I

2nd May, 1849, Requisition of Saffi, &c., for the silver plate of
Citizens, as money was sadly wanted to defend the Republic.

lOtli May, 1849, Appeal of Saffi, &c., to the French troops to
revolt, «fcc.

But we have quoted sufficient to show that Saffi, the Roman
triumvir, is a fitting professor of that " national religion' which
Anglicanism has been seeking to import into Italy — that in the
Anti-Papal war he is a worthy envoy of Anglicanism, a suitable
lecturer for Oxford University, and the Gun-and-Cannon, Sword-
aud-Dagger Committee of the Emancipation of Italy fund, in
England.

35:3 Recent Writers on tlie [Dec. .

latter so cunningly and malevolently contrived, that it
never was yet propounded without effecting the object it
had in view, that is, of exciting dissension, creating divi-
sion, and promoting disunion amongst the Catholic sub-
jects of the English government. At one time it made a
quarrel between Seculars and Regulars, when both were
enduring martyrdom for the faith in EngUsh jails, and on
English scaffolds. At other times it created unseemly
conflicts between priests and laymen, between English and
Irish Catholics. An oath of allegiance— an arrangement
respecting bishops, or an Archpriest, or Vicars Apostolic
— " Securities"— ** a veto" — ** pensioning the clergy" —
"domestic nomination." The proposal came from the
government in the garb of friendship, but always tended to
weaken the Catholic body : it was an apple of discord with
the words " detur pulchriori," to be interpreted ** a gift
for the most loyal ;" and never was the direct intention of
the gift more candidly disclosed than in the letter of Lord
Ormonde, when referring to his dealing with the Irish
Catholics, who had been plundered of their estates for
defending the cause of the king against his rebellious sub-
jects in England :—

" My aim was to loork a division among the Romish clergy, and I
believe I had accomplished it to the great security! of the government
and the Protestants, and against the opposition of the Pope, and his
creatures and nuncios.^'*

With this key to the domestic policy of Anglicanism, a
useful, instructive, and practical narrative could be given
of the acts and words of sovereigns and statesmen who
have influenced the destinies of this empire from the days
of Elizabeth to the reign of Victoria.

That, however, with which we have here most to do, is
the foreign anti-Catholic policy of Anglicanism. The
very subject to the discussion of which we are now forced
— an impeachment of the temporal sovereignty of the
Fope — is part and parcel of the Anglican anti-Catholic
foreign policy ; and that policy has been at all times anti-
Papal, and upon all occasions aggressively intermeddling
with the independence of foreign nations. Frequently
has it appeared in arms on the Continent, — constantly has

• Carte, ii. App. 101. See Lingard's History of England, vol. ix.,
p. 30, note 1. (London, I8o>5.)

1856."] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope, SSl

it promoted mischief by pecuniary supplies, and never has
it ceased for a day to carry on intrigues for the distur-
bance of Catholic states, and to shake the stability of
Catholic thrones. In accordance with its dictates anti-
Catholic rebels were aided in the Netherlands, in Scot-
land, and in France, in the reign of Ehzabeth ; in Ger-
many during the reign of James I., in Rochelle under
Charles I., and amid the Alps under the blood-stained
sway of the Bible-reading idol of modern infidels — Oliver
Cromwell.

Now-a-days we see revived under such Anglican " Sec-
retaries for Foreign Affairs" as Palmerston, and Russell,
Malmesbury, and Clarendon, all the wickednesses perpe-
trated under former sovereigns. There has been, for
instance, as in the days of Elizabeth, an open interference
with arms, for the purpose of accomplishing anti- Catholic
revolutions in Spain and Portugal ; and there has been
the covert policy of James I., pursued in Italy, Germany,
and Hungary, whilst the artful sympathies of a Cromwell
have been revived in Sardinia and Sicily.

The similarity between the feats of the anti-Catholic
Anglican policy in times past and present does not
stop there. _ The same events, and almost the same
actors to deliver the same no-Popery speeches come upon
the public stage again ; and 1851, and 1856, are nothing
more but a dull repetition of what had been already
said or done in 1678 and 1679. Place the sayings and
the doings, the inventions and the contrivances of the
undisguised infidel Shaftesbury, the well-known Dr.
Titus Gates, and the notorious Lord William Russell,
by the side of the sayings and the doings of Exeter-
Hall Shaftesbury, the acataleptical-apocalyptic Dr. Gum-
ming, and the Durham-letter-writing Lord John Russell,
and it will be seen that the latter are all dry and drivel-
ling, as plagiarists ever prove to be — flat, bald, and mise-
rable imitations, ^ close copyists, and only deserving of
remark, because, in their hatred of the Papacy, they have
used as their own the same evil words spoken long pre-
viously, and resorted to the same vile arts which had
already brought shame and infamy upon the memory of
their progenitors. It is the anti-Papal tragedy of " JJon
Carlos," borrowed from the original Schiller, and "done
into English" by a poor poetaster of the abbey-plunder-
ing, convent-garden-possessing tribe of Russell.

354 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

The campaign that is now carried on against the tem-
poral sovereignty of the Pope, commenced in November,
1850, — it commenced with a Titns Gates declaration from
the Prime Minister against the Pontiff, and his Hohness's
creation of CathoHc bishops in England — it appealed to
the passions of the mob by infamous processions through
the streets of London ; and it sought for sustaiument in
public opinion by the concoction of petitions, and the
invention of fictitious signatures.

And what was all this but a plagiarism from the no-
Popery doings in 1678 and 1679 ? For amongst other things
which Titus Gates had been incited to swear was, that ** the
Pope, by a very recent Bull had already appointed certain
individuals, whom he named, to all the bishoprics and dig-
nities in the Church of England, under the persuasion
tfcat, by the murder of the king, the Catholic religion
would rise to its former ascendancy."

How were these, and other accusations against the
Catholic sovereigns of Europe, sustained ?

*• Shaftesbury and his associates resolved to keep alive the fears
and jealousies of the people, and to harass and intimidate the king.
1. On the 17th of November, the anniversary of the accession of
Queen Elizabeth, a most extraordinary pageant, calculated to make
a deep impression on the minds of the populace, was exhibited at
the expense and under the superintendence of the Green Ribbon
Club. First, appeared the bell-man, walking with slow and solemn
pace, and exclaiming at intervals, * Remember Mr. Justice Godfrey !'
next came a man dressed in the habit of a Jesuit, bearing on horse-
back the figure of a dead body ; then followed representations of
nuns, monks, priests. Catholic bishops in copes and mitres, Protestant
bishops in lawn sleeves, six cardinals with (heir caps, and last of all

the pope in a litter, accompanied by his arch- counsellor the devil.

Fireworks were exhibited and at a given signal the Fope and his
attendance were precipitated into the jiames with a tremendous shout,
tlie echo of which, it is observed in the official account published by
the party, reached by continued reverberations, to Scotland, and
France, and Rome itself, damping them all with dreadful astonish-
ment."

Another expedient suggested by the fertile brain of
Shaftesbury was, to petition. With this view the king-
dom was parcelled out into districts, to each of which
particular agents were assigned.

"'From North's account,' observes Dr. Lingard, 'it appears

1856.J Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 355

that the art of getting up petitions arrived at perfection in its very in-
fancy. The agents traversed the districts allotted to thera, procuring
the signatures of those who could write, and the hieroglyphics of
clowns ; adding in many cases the names of the absent, or of per-
sons not in existence. When the petition had been returned to the
committee in London, the head rolls were cut ofif ; and glued in
succession to each other, and the whole collection attached to one
form of petition similar to that which had been sent to the
country."*

These things happened in England in 1678 and 1679,
and they were re-enacted in England in 1850 and 1851.

And so, from age to age the same base arts are re-
sorted to, and the same vile system pursued with regard
to the Catholic religion, and its venerable head — the living
representative of that great Apostle, for whom the sove-
reignty of Rome was destined when the Primacy was
bestowed upon him by the Divine Founder of Chris-
tianity.

As a pagan mob, that would not be Christianized, was
incited by emperors, and invoked by senators, and urged
on by philosophers to seek out Pontiffs and drag them
from their Papal throne, in cell or in catacomb, and
crucify them outside the Ostian gate, or have them torn
in pieces in the arena ; so now, mobs that ought to be
Christian, but that have been paganized by Anglicanism
at home, or Philosophism abroad, are encouraged to make
war against the Pontiff, and to rob him of his princi-
pality.

" Christiani tollantur' dictum est duodecies.''t

^ This war against the Papacy is carried on in a variety
of forms and under manifold shapes. It is debated against

* Lingard's History of England, vol. ix. pp. 176, 224, 225. We
do not design to carry further tlie parallel between the doings of
the No-?opery faction at two different periods of history ; but to
those who take an interest in comparing the sentiments expressed
by two unprincipled politicians, we recommend a perusal of
the impeachment of the five Catholic lords, by Lord William
Russell, and the denunciation of the Pope and Catholic sovereigns
of Europe, by Lord John Russell. See Lingard, ix. p. 232, and
Debate in House of Commons, May, 9th, 1851, Hansard's Parlia-
mentary debates, (third series), vol. cxvi. pp. 826, 827.

^ t See Milefs Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, vol. i, p. 82.

356 Becent Writers on the [Dec.

in' parliament, " Decernitur in Senatu persecntio." Tliere
is a crusade against it in diplomacy. Mintos, Bulwers,
Culling Eardleys, Rodens, liussells, take upon thera-
Belves the functions of missionaries, to stir up rebellions
against it, whilst grave, erudite, and studious gentlemen
lock themselves up in their closets, and there tax their
■wits, and rack their imaginations, and ransack encyclo-
psedias to show that it is an evil that ought for the sake of
** sound political economy," of ** good government," of
" liberty," and " nationality," and *' all that sort of
thing," be abated now, at once and for ever !

Amongst such grave, erudite, and studious gentlemen,
may be classed Mr. George Finlay, a very laborious
author, and one of whose works we strongly recommend
to the attention of our readers ; for in his '' History of the
Byzantine Empire,'' he has, unintentionally, contributed
some useful materials for the due consideration of those
who undertake to determine against the advantages to
society, arising alike from the temporal sovereignty, and
the spiritual supremacy of the Pope.

Mr. Finlay is a ** philosophical" historian — he is an
avowed ** political economist" — he has a theory of per-
fection in all that relates to the government of human
affairs, and his standard in that respect is " the British
Constitution in Church and State," as altered and
amended by " the glorious Revolution of 1688 !" Hence
questions of Church discipline, matters affecting forms of
faith are with him either of secondary importance or
downright puerilities — the happiness of a people is guaged
by imports and exports, and the power of a state in its
internal administration, is to be tested by the grand fact,
lias it or has it not. Church and Churchmen under com-
plete control ^

With such opinions, and such convictions he has traced
out, as he supposes, the first germs of the temporal sove-
reignty of the Pope in the administration of Italian
affairs by Gregory the Great ; and he has given a narra-
tive of the Greek schism, and pronounced judgment upon
the conduct of the principal actors on both sides. His
work, then has much to do with the subject in hand ;
and it is of interest, if not of paramount importance, to
know what are the views and sentiments of so pure an
Anglican, and so unmitigated an utilitarian. The inore
strictly Mr. Finlay 's pa.ius- taking labours ai*e examined.

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 357

the more useful will they be found in helping one, of un-
prejudiced mind, to arrive at a just conclusion ; for Mr.
JFinlay is so learned, and so generous in dispensing his
acquired knowledge to his readers, that he frequently says
more than he intended, and supplies facts that are in
direct opposition to his arguments. You have only to
watch him well, and you will readily perceive that he
fairly, fully, frankly, and completely refutes himself. His
genius is *' of the earth, earthy," but his heart is better
than his head, so that whilst he is prepared to hail as a
hero every Greek emperor, who has acted on the Angli-
canized statesmen's principles in dealing with *' the
Papacy," and " spiritual supremacy," yet he shows that
his " heroes" were " villains ;" and he does not disguise
from the public the results of their anti-Papal, and anti-
Church policy. Mr. Finlay approves, of course, of the
schism of Photius, and the separation by schism of the
Greek from the Latin Clmrch ; Mr. Finlay approves, of
course, of the Greek emperors, making the Byzantine
patriarchs as much slaves of the state as if they were
Protestant Archbishops of Canterbury ; Mr. Finlay ap-
proves, of course, of the head of the state in Constanti-
nople being the master, depot, or head of the Greek
Church, as he approves in England of the Established
Church being the bondwoman of the state, and of the pre-
lates being indebted for their mitres, not to any " gifts of
the Holy Ghost," but to the favour they have found (no
matter how acquired,) in the eyes of successful political
partizans.

Having thus introduced Mr. Finlay to our readers, we
shall by a few extracts make him still better known to
them. Here is his account of the first period of the Byzan-
tine Empire, of the Iconoclast heresy, and the motives in
which it originated : —

"The first' period (of the Byzantine Empire) commences with
the reign of Loo III., in 716, and terminates with that of Michael
III. 867. It comprises the whole history of the predominance of
the Iconoclasts in the Established Church, and of the reaction
which reinstated the orthodox in power. It opens with the efforts
by which Leo and the people of the empire saved the Roman law
and the Christian religion from the conquering Saracens. It
embraces a long and violent struggle between the government and
the people, the emperors seeking to increase the central power by annihi-
lating every local franchise, and even the right of private opinion among

358 Recent Writers on the [Dec,

their subjects. The contest concerning image-worship, from the pre-
valence of ecclesiastical ideas, became the expression of this struggle.
Its object was as much to consolidate the supremacy of ilie imperial
auihonty, as to purify the practice of tlie Church. The emperors
wished to constitute themselves the fountains of ecclesiastical as com-
pletely as of civil legislation.'''* *

It will be observed we are quoting from an anti-Papal,
thoroughly Anglicanised author; and yet here is his
description of a Pope and an Emperor— -the one contending
for the Church as founded by Christ, and the other
against it. Mark what were the political principles iden-
tified with this struggle, in which the combatants were, on
the one side Gregory the Second, and, on the other, Leo,
the Isaurian.

" The Pope of Rome had long been regarded by orthodox Chris-
tians as the head of the Church ; even the Greeks admitted his
right of inspection over the whole body of the clergy, in virtue of
the superior dignity of the Roman See. From being the heads of
the Church, the popes became the defenders of the liberties of the people.
In this character as leaders of a lawful opposition to the tyranny of
the imperial administration, they grew up to the possession of im-
mense influence in the state. This poicer, having its basis in demo-
cratic feelings and energies, alarmed the emperors, and many attempts
were made to circumscribe the papal authority. But the popes them-
selves did more to diminish their own influence than their
enemies, for, instead of remaining the protectors of the people,
they aimed at making themselves their masters. Gregory II., who
occupied the papal chair at the commencement of the contest with
Leo, was a man of sound judgment, as well as an able and zealous
priest, "t

So far, then, we have the authority of an anti-Papal
writer for declaring that the exercise of the spiritual power
of the Pope was devoted to the defence of the liberties of
the people. Bnt we now come to the exercise of sovereign
power by the Pope, as a protector of the municipal institu-
tions of Italy against the aggressions of a foreign despot.

• Finlay's History of the Byzantine Empire, p. 10, Book I., c. i.
Compare with this Miley's History of the Fapal States, vol. i. pp.
227, 228, 234, 236, 442, (Loudon, 1850.)

t Ibid. Book i. c. i. p. 46. For Mr. Finlay's account of the
"Origin of Papal Authority in the Church," see Book i., c. 3, 2 3,
pp. 211-16.

r

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 359

Mr. Finlay regards this assumption of power as an act of
rebellion! but still, it will be seen, he is not very severe in
its condemnation : —

" Gregory died ia 731 . Though he excited the Italian cities to
resist the imperial power, and approved of the measures thoy
adopted for stopping the remittance of their taxes to Constantinople,
he does not appear to have adopted any measures for declaring
Rome independent. That he contemplated the possibility of events
taking a turn that might ultimately lead him to throw off his
allegiance to the Emperor Leo, is nevertlieless evident, from one of
his letters to that emperor, in which he boasts very significantly
that the eyes of the west were fixed on his humility, and that if
Leo attempted to injure the Pope, he would find the west ready to
defend him, and even to attack Constantinople. The allusion to
tiie protection of the king of the Lombards and Charles Martel, was
certainly, in this case, a treasonable threat on the part of the
Bishop of Rome to his sovereign. Besides this, Gregory IL excom-
municated the exarch Paul, and all the enemies of image-worship
who were acting under the orders of the emperor, pretending to
avoid the guilt of treason by not expressly naming the Emperor
Leo in his anathema. On the other baud, when we consider that
Leo was striving to extend the bounds of the imperial authority in
an arbitrary manner, and tliat his object was to sweep uway evn'y
barrier agciiiist the exercise of despotism in the Church and State, we
must acknowledge that the opposition of Gregory was founded in
justice, and that he was entitled to defend the municipal inxlitutions and
local usages of Italy, and the constitution of the Romish Church, even
at the price of declaring himself a rebel.''*

The Pope, Gregory IL, was in the estimation of Mr.
Finlay, ** a rebel ;" but still one, for whose treasons some
palliation was to be found in the circumstances that forced
him to revolt. We now come to one of Mr. Finlay's
*' heroes," whose prudence he admires, and whose policy he
lauds, for he portrays principles and characteristics that
distinguish the Statesmen of England from the period
of " the reformation" to the present day. The Greek
Emperor, so praised and so admired by Mr. Finlay was
named Nicephorus : —

"He eagerly pursued the centralising policy of his Iconoclast prede-
cessors, and strove to render the civil poicer supreme over the clergy
and tlie Church. He forbade the patriarch to hold any communications

* Ibid, Book i. c. 1. p. 49.
VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXII

360 Recent Writers on the \ Dec.

vAth the Pope, whom he considered as the patriarch of Charlemagne;
and THIS PKUDENT measuke has caused mucli of the virulence with
whicli his memory has been attacked bj ecclesiastical and orthodox
historians."*

As a proof, how consistent is Mr. Finlay in his views, as
an Anglican, upon political and ecclesiastical matters, we
cannot retrain from contrasting his account of Nicephorus
with that of one of the Saints of the Catholic Church.

" Theodore Studita was one of those who attended the patriarch
on this occasion (an interview with the Emperor Leo V., the
Armenian) and his steady assertion of ecclesiastical supremacy rendered
him worthy, from his hold and uncompromising views, to have occupied
the chair of St. Peter. He declared plainly to the Emperor, that
he had no authority to inter/ere with the doctrines of the Church, since
his rule oidy extended over the civil and militari/ government of the empire.
The Church had full authority to govern itself. Leo was euraged at this
ljoldness."t

We now, however, come to that portion of Mr. Finlay's
work which renders it peculiarly interesting, viz., his
reference to the Greek schism which began with the elec-
tion of the notorious Photius. That schism was sustained
by the Greek court ; and in the extracts that follow are
detailed its consequences to the state, and the people, to
the Church and liberty, to the aristocracy, the clergy, and
the commonalty.

"The election of Photius, which was evidently illegal, only
increased the dissensions already existing in the Church ; but they
drew off the attention of the people in some degree from the politi-
cal abuses, a.nd enabled Bardas to constitute the civil pawer judge in
ecclesiastical matters. Ignatius and the leading men of his party
Avere imprisoned and illtreated ; but even the clergy of the party of
Pliotius could not escape beiiiir insulted and carried before the ordi-
nary tribu7ials, if they refused to comply with the iniquitous
deraamls of the courtiers, or ventured to oppose the injustice of the
government officials.''^

The temporal sovereignty of the Pope was derided — his
spiritual supremacy was repudiated. Let us mark the

• Ibid, Book i., c. 2, § 1. p, 112.

t Ibid. Book i. c. 2, sec. 3, p. 141.

X Ibid. Book i. c. 3, § 3, p. 209.

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 361

consequences to State and Church in Constantinople, of
their independence of Rome : —

*' The legislative views of Basil I. were modelled in conformity
to the policy impressed on the Byzantine empire by Leo III. Tliey
were directed to vest all legislative power in the hands of the
emperor, and to constitute the person of the sovereign the centre oflaio
as much as of fiyiancial authority and military power. The senate
had continued to act as a legislative council fi'om time to time
during the Iconoclast period, and the emperor had often invited it
to discuss important laws, in order to give extraordinary solemnity
to their sanction. Such a practice suggested the question whether
the senate and the people did not still possess a right to share in
the legislation of the empire, which opportunity might constitute
into a permanent control over the imperial authority in this branch
of government. The absolute centralization of the legislative au'hority
in the person of the emperor, was the only point which prevented the
government of the Byzantine empire from being theoretically an
absolute despotism, when Basil I. ascended the throne, (867) and
he completed that centralization The privileges formerly pos-
sessed by the provincial proprietors, the remains of the Roman
curiae, or of the more recently formed municipalities that had grown
up to replace them, were swept away as oifensive to the despotic

power The bishops now lost their position of defenders of

the people, for as they were chosen by the sovereign, the dignitanes of the
Byzantine Church were remarkable for their servility to the civil
power.

** The promulgation of the Basilica may be considered as mark-
ing the complete union of all legislative, executive, judicial, finan-
cial, and administrative power in the person of the emperor. The
Church had already been reduced to complete submission to the imperial
authority. Basil, therefore, may claim to be the emperor who
established arbitrary despotism as the constitution of the Roman
empire. The divine right of the sovereign to rule as God might be
pleased to enlighten his understanding and soften his heart, was
henceforth the recognised organic law of the Byzantine empire.''f

A coDKTLT CLEUGY. " The attachment of the people had once ren-
dered the patriarch almost equal to the emperor in dignity, but the
clergy of the capital were now more closely connected with the
court than the people. The power of the emperor to depose as well
as to appoint the patriarch was hardly questioned, and of course the
head of the Eastern Church, occupied a very inferior position to
the Pope of Rome. The Church of Constantinople, filled with
courtly priests, lost its political influence, and both religion and

t Ibid. Book ii., c. 1, § 1, pp. 281, 282, 283.

362 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

civilisation suffered hy this addi/ional cental izaiion of power in the impe-
rial cabinet. From this period we may date the decline of the Greek
Church."*

NiCEPiioRus 11. " The Emperor prohibited the foundation of any
new? monasteries and hospitals, enacting that only those already in
existence should be maintained ; and he declared all testamentary
^ donations of landed property in favour of the Church, void. He also
excited the anger of the clergy, by forbidding any ecclesiastical
election to be made until the candidate had received the imperial appro-
bation. He was in the habit of leaving the wealthiest sees vacant,
and either retained the revenues or compelled the new bishop to
pay a large portion of his receipts annually into the imperial trea-
sury.'' f

In pao^e 386, the author (Mr. Finlay) gives the following
character to the man whose acts he thus describes : —

" His conduct was moral, and he was sincerely religious; but ho
was too enlightened to confound the pretensions of the Churcli with
the truth of Christianity, and, consequently, in spite of his real
piety, he was calumniated by the clergy as a hypocrite.''

In pages 388-389, these facts are stated by Mr. Finlay.

•' The worst act of his roign, and one for wliich the Byzantine
historians have justly branded him with merited odium, was his
violation of tlie public faith, and the honour of the eastern empire,
by adulterating the coin, and issuing a debased coin, called the
tetartiron. This debased money he employed to pay the debts of tlie
state, while the taxes continued to be exacted in the old and pure coin
of the empire.'^

And yet Mr. Fitilay says of the man who so acted , that
he was " sincerely religious," and had " real piety,'* and
was not ** a hypocrite !"

And in page 397, " one of the mo^t virtuous men and
conscientious sovereigns, that ever occupied the throne of
Constantinople ! '*

Mr. Fiiilay tells his readers in p. 397, that "the
Court of Constantinople was so utterly corrupt, that it was
relieved from all sense of responsibility," whilst its aris-
tocracy ** knew no law but fear and private interest" and
the people, it is said in p. 427, were '* careless of honour
and truth."

* Ibid. Book ii., c. I, § 4, pp. 355, 356.
t Ibid. Book ii., c. 2, § 1, p. 390.

ISSG."] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 363

And all these evils, it is admitted by a most intolerant
and even furiously bigoted no-Popery historian,"' are con-
sequent upon the successful conflict waged against the
Pope as a temporal Sovereign, and as the supreme bead of
the Christian Church.

" Videbat quippe haec universa civitas, et patiebatur : videbant
judices et acquiescebaiit : populus videbat et applaudebat : ac sic
diffuso per totam urbem dedecoris, sceierisque cousortio!"f

By the quotations from Mr. Finlay's book we conceive
that we have shewn, first, the low and mundane view he has
taken of this great question; and, next, that we have
made plain, by quotations from his own yjages, how com-
pletely he exposes the mischief of the principles he main-
tains, and how their enforcement led to the degradation of
the Greek Empire — of its Church, its clergy, its nobility
and its people.

In a different — it may be said, in a far different spirit is
such a subject approached by Catholic authors, like to the
Abbe Jager in his *' Histoire de Photius," and the Prince
de Broglie in his book *' L'Eglue et L' Empire
domain,*' even though, (like Mr. Finlay,) they do not
touch but a small portion of the temporal sovereignty of

* A few references to Mr. Fiulay's opinion of .other autliors, will
demonstrate that we do no injustice in tlie terms we apply to him.
Of Artaud's valuable work, *' Historit des Souverains Pontifes
Romain,''^ he says that it is "more remarkable for popish bigotry
than for historical accuracy,'' (p. 49, note 1). The Abbe Jager's
truly admirable work, '^Histoire de Photiiis is declared to be a. pre-
judiced and not very accurate work,'' (p 209, note 7). And again
it is described as being violent in its opinions and inaccurate in
its facts,'' (p. 278, book ii., c. 1, § 1.) Of the Lives of the Saints,
collected in the greatest work that was ever published, the Acta
Sanctorum of the Bollaudists, Mr. Fiulay's opinion is that tliey are
" the dull legends of saints," (p. 178, note 1), and again, •• fables that
have been preserved or neglected from their unnatural stupidity,'*
(p. 147, see also note 1, same page, and p. 206, note 1.) And these
are the terms which he applies to. the illustrious saints.

"The fanatic,'^ (Athanasius) thought that he " (Nicephorus),"
should have preferred the idle life of a cell to the active duties of a
palace," Book ii., c. 1, sec. 1, p. 387.

t Salvianus Gallus, De vera Jitdicio et Providentia Dei, Lib. vii.
p. 200, (Venice, 1696.)

664 Recent Writers on the fDec,

the Popes. In dealing with tlie portion that each has
selected for himself, it can be said of them, what cannot
he affirmed on behalf of Mr. Finluy, viz., that there is no
inconsistency between their opinions and their statements,
and that, maintaining as they do the snpremacy of the
Pontiff, they appeal with confidence to all the events of
history, and all the evidence supplied by indisputable facts
to sustain their judgment and corroborate their views.

With respect to these authors (Jager and De Broglie) it
may be mentioned that the work of Abbe Jager has
already deservedly reached the second edition ; whilst that
of the Prince de Broglie is not many weeks published. In
regretting that we cannot afford the space, in this article,
to give an analysis of either, we strongly recommend both
to our English Catholic booksellers, as well worthy of
being translated. It is but due to the first to state, that we
have not found one word in Photius which we would
desire to see cancelled ; but as to the second, we are reluc-
tantly compelled to say that its illustrious and well-
intentioned author, in his desire to conciliate the carping
French philosophers with the Church, has made con-
cessions which the Church will not tolerate. To more
than one passage the objection of the reverend and erudite
Gueranger is well-founded : —

" Malgre les intentions pleinement orthodoxes de I'auteur. on
regrette d' y rencontre plus d' une trace de cet esprit pbiloso-
pliique."*

We regard such, however, but as the defects of a young
author educated in the midst of Parisian society where
such writers as Guizot, Thierry, Cousin, and Thiers have
shone as stars. Reflection, further readiug, a more pro-
found study of original ecclesiastical authorities, combined
with a generous, docile. Catholic spirit, will serve to correct
such failings.

It would not be candid either as regards the author or
the public to conceal that there are defects in the book of
M. de Broglie ; but at the same time it is only an act of
common justice to him to declare that his book is a most
valuable contribution to the history of a period (greatly dis-
figured by the infidel Gibbon) in which the ways of Provi-

See Univers, October 12th, 19tli, November ith. 16th 30th, 1856.

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 365

dence were made manifest by tlie marvellous triumph of
the Christian religion, and developement of the spiritual
supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. If fault, defect, or
failure can be shewn in any part of such an undertak-
ing, the Prince de Broglie has the assured consolation
which cheered on his countryman, Raonl de Caen, when
he commenced his ** Gesta Tancredi Priucipis."

" Me quidem in hac parte sentio infirmum : sed de ejus, id

est Christi firmitate totus pendeo, cujus vexilliferum, et triumphos
describere iateiido."*

Catholic France may, with justice, boast of its nobility,
when it can count amongst them so gifted an author as
the Count de Montalembert, and amongst its young litera-
teurs so earnest a student, and so ripe a scholar as the
Prince de Broglie. Would that ive — in these countries
— could point to one titled author fitted to take rank with
either. There luas one preparing himself for such tasks,
a diligent reader, a devout Catholic ; but he, the last
of his race, has fallen into a premature grave! — and, so
far as this world is concerned, his aspirations for literary
distinction must remain unknown, and a century hence his
name will be forgotten ! Such has been the will of Pro-
vidence, which orders events, not in accordance with
man's wishes ; but for his ultimate and never-ending happi-
ness.

We have referred to books, of recent date, which deal
with this subject in a fragmentary form ; but there are
others, in which it is treated of in its entirety. There is
first, the work of M. Gosselin, for an admirable translation
of which we are indebted to the Rev. M. Kelly, one of the
Professors of Maynooth, — the first of a series of volumes,
{"Library of Foreign- Translations") that has not yet
received that amount of patronage from the Catholic com-
munity to which its spirited publisher, Mr. Dolman, is
entitled.! Next, there is the interesting work of Dr.
Miley, the first volume of which has just been issued from
the press, and the value of which can be better appreciated

* Gesta Tancredi Principis, auct. Radulp. Cadomens. Praefat, ia
Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. Vol. v. p. 286. (Milan, 1724.)

+ The work of M. Gosselin has been already noticed by us, and
at some length.

366 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

by extracts than by any praises in our power to bestow
upon it.

The question of ** The temporal sovereignty of the
Popes" is pre-eminently the question of the day. It
presses for attention in Parliament, and for discussion in
all classes of society. The enemies of the Papacy in these
countries are many, and of those who ou<rht to be its sup-
porters, some are inert, some are indifferent, some are
Ignorant, and numbers are mis-informed. Prejudice,
ignorance, apathy, bigotry, malevolence, and " the Prince
of this world" are the enemies against which the defenders
of Rome must contend.

It is well that at such a time, and under such circum-
stances a prominent part in defence of ** the temporal
sovereignty," that which, in fact, includes " the spiritual
supremacy" of the Pope, should be assumed by an Irish
Catholic priest, the child of a country, which no persecu-
tion, however flagrant, and no artifices, however cun-
ningly contrived, could ever shake in its allegiance to the
Papal See, — the priest of a people who lost lands, money,
life itself, every thing but their honour and their faith,
rather than abjure the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, or
permit the independence of their Church to be compro-
mised, by the interposition of the smallest barrier between
the Chair of St. Peter, and the island-diocese of St.
Patrick.

The *' nationality" of Irishmen is embodied in the
" Catholicity" that came to them from Rome ; and hence
Rome, its Pontiffs and its shrines of Saints, are regarded
as the home, and the heart's resting-place, not less of the
Irish priest than of the Irish patriot. To Rome its relics,
its present and its past sacerdotal sovereign lords, fealty
and h)ve, loyalty and veneration are due ; and hence the
sentiments of the apologist of the papacy in 1856 are iden-
tical with those of Saint Furseus in 650: —

" 0 Roma triumphis Apostolorum superexaltata, Martyrum rosis
dfcorata, Confessorutn liliis candidata, Virginum palniis dulcorata,
meritis corura roborata, qnte tot et tanta contines sancta Sanctorum
corpora, esto Salutata, ut nuvquam succumhat auctoritas fua, sanctorum
Patrum dignitate et sapientia hactenus rohorala ; qua corpus Christi
videlicet beata mater Ecclesia viget solidata.^'*

♦ Act. Sanct. (Januar.) Vol. ii. pp. 60, 51.

1856. 1 Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 367

Our renders need not be informed that the question of
the Temporal Sovereiprnty of the Popes is not new to Dr.
Miley. It is now thirteen years since we noticed in this
Journal his first contribution to this important sutyect.
The detailed History of the Papal States, which he pub-
lished in the year 1850, attests the industry and zeal with
which during this long interval he has devoted himself to
the same engrossing study.

The immediate occasion of the present work we shall
best explain in the author's own language.

"Although laboriously and deliberately prepared beforehand, as
to its matter, this work may nevertheless, in a certain sense, be said
to be what is termed, by the French, an ouvrage d'actualite et de
circonstance ; for, certainly, it never would have appeared in its
actual shape, had not the want of popular works of the kind become
but too painfully manifest on a recent occasion, when Press and
Parliament were resounding with the outcry got up by the Anglo-
Sardinian conspiracy against the Temporal Sovereignty of the
Popes.

" While on the side of the most unprovoked and unjust aggres-
sion, and of outrage the most revolting tn every sense of right
and propriety, not to speak of reverence, gratitude, or religion, a
thousand voices — some purchased by gold plundered from sanctuary
and cloister, others instigated by bigotry and unprincipled lust of
office, were clamouring fiercely, but without even a pretence of
aru'ument, for the subversion of a throne the most ancient and
august, the most popular as well as the most legitimate in the
world ; how feeble, hesitating, deprecatory ; how utterly bereft of
power to abash or repel the assault, were the voices — insignificant,
even in number — that were raised in defence.

" Yet what would have been the effect, if some orator, like
the great O'Connell, possessed with full knowledge of the cause
and with faith in its sacredness, had risen in Parliament, not,
indeed, to deprecate, or to plead extenuating circumstances, but
with eloquent indignation to scathe the hypocritical traducers of a
dynasty which is, and has been, for 1500 years, the life of Rome —
tlie salvation, the hope, the glory of Italy ; of a dynasty to which
European civilization owes its existence, and on which, by divine
ordination of the Redeemer, his Church depends for her liberty and
efficiency in working out the ends for which he poured out his most
adorable blood J • . • »

" The Popes not only saved^the inhabitants of the.Pagan city often,
and founded Christian Rome, and frequently restored it when
ruined ; they rescued Italy over and over again, from age to age —
Irom Vandals, Goths, Greeks, Lombards, Saracens, to speak only of
ancient times. Theirs, also, was the miracle by which the atrocious

368 ' Recent Writers on the [Deo,

barbarian hordes, rushing in on the West, from the fourth to the
tenth century, have been regenerated ; won to Christianity ; trans-
formed into civilized Europe.

"Oh, what an inspiring theme to vindicate the transcendaut
merit, the dazzling glory of sucli a dynasty — merit and glory which
could ring from foes like the 'infidel Gibbon' such testimonies as
these; • Like Thebes, or Babvlon, or Carthage, the name of Rome
might have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been
animated by a vital principle — the dynasty of the Popes — which
again restored her to honour and dominion.'* And again in
another place, ch. xlix. of the same History, he says of tlie
Popes: — 'The public and private indigence (of the Romans) was
relieved by their ample revenue ; and the weakness or neglect of
the Greek emperors compelled them to consult, both in peace and
war, the temporal safety of the city. The same character was
adopted by the Italian, the Greek, or the Syrian who ascended the
chair of St. Peter, and after the loss of her legions and provinces, the
geniiis and fortunes of the Popes again restored the supremacy of
Bovie.'

•' To St. Gregory the Great, he says, the title of Saviour of Italy
and ' Father of his Country' must be assigned, and that in the
gratitude of the nation rescued by him fi'ora destruction, * he found
the best right of a sovereign.''

" And agam, when the * Golden age' of order, peace, happiness,
thus secured by St. Greg6ry and the succeeding Pontiffs, was sub-
verted by a second and more terrific series of invasions, and that
chaotic barbarism and brutal feuds and tyranny replace the Carlo-
vingan Empire (that wonderful creation of the Papacy), to whom is
the glory of once more rescuing Europe from ' hopeless slavery*
assigned by a writer not less erudite or less hostile to the Papacy,
and far more eloquent, than the historian of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire ? * To the Popes,' says Sir James Stephen,
• to the Popes of the middle ages was assigned a province, their
abandonment of which would have plunged the Church and the
world into the same hopeless slavery. To Pope Gregory VII. were
first given the genius and the courage to raise himself and his suc-
cessors to the level of the high vocation.'!

"The projectors and organizers of the Crusades— the high political
wisdom of which, as well as the benefits incalculable they conferred,
the world has been at length taught to appreciate as they deserved
— the life and soul of the war in defence of European civilization
waged for ages against the ' Crescent,' the pontiffs, whose legates
were viceroys of Syria ; who fostered the military orders ; who per-

* History of the Decline and Fall, &c.
t Edinburgh Review, April 1845. Art. " Hildebrand," p. 327.

1850.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 369

suaded feudal Europe to abandon rapine, violence, ravaging home-
steads and harvests by fire and sword, to • take the cross;' who
organized the victories of Toledo de las Navas, of Lepanto : and of
wliom such heroes as Scanderbeg and Jean Sobieski were proud to
be the marshals — they have established well their claim to rank in
fame, as in the same succession, with the great tiara-crowned heads
■who rise before us surrounded by the Lombard, the Tuscan League,
humbling Barbarossa, rooting out such monsters as Eccellino and
the Hohenstauffens, defending, pacifying, preserving the republics of
medigeval Italy. What was said of the Roman Senate applies with
still greater force to the Papal dynasty : ' It was great, not once
but always.'

*• As for Rome during the absence of the Pontiffs, it declined —
fell into such a state of decay, misery, and barbarism, that ' it
no longer presented the appearence of a city — Ut nulla civitatis
facies in ea videretur ;' and its iew inliabitants, abject, boorish,
looked like the veriest dregs of the earth. — ' Dixisses,' says a con-
temporary writer, 'omnes cives aut inquilinos esse, aut ex extrema
omnium hominum fece eo migrasse.'*

" The Popes return. — A new and remarkable epoch is dated from
the accession of Nicholas the Fifth. The modern City of Rome, as
we now behold it, is founded amongst the ruins of the primitive and
mediceval cities of the Popes ; the ' States' acquire a unity of
organization, in which they continue to progress, t'lsmg pari passu
■with the new and wonderful city, their capital, and privileged to a
singular degree with the enjojment of peace and prosperity, during
a succession of three hundred and forty years, that is, until the
captivity of Pius VL

" In thinking of the abuse, the outrages of which this dynasty
has been recently made the object by a Press and a Parliament,
set on by prompters and Prime Ministers, worthy to rank with
those who led the debates in the Sanhedrim of Caiphas, and gave
the mot d'ordre before the ' Lithostrotos' of Pilate, ■who, with a
soul to appreciate such memories as attach to the Papacy, but
must be tired with an impetus like that which made the first
Frank king cry out, on hearing St. Remi describe the outrages

of Calvary : 'Oh, wliy was I not there with my warriors?'

" With that passage before him, who but must avow that to save
the Papacy from being damaged by feeble, hesitating, discrediting
attempts at defence, and challenge for it not immunity from
outrage but unbounded admiration, it is only necessary its fasti
should be made easily accessible.''t

* Platina in Vit. Martini V.
f MiLEv's Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, Preface, pp.
V. to xiii.

570 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

The volume now published is divided into three
epochs. The first being from the Pontificate of the
Prince of the Apostles to the transfer of the seat of
Empire to Byzantium under Constantine ; the second,
from the, as it might be deemed. Abdication of Con-
stantine, in favour of the successor of St. Peter, to the
annihilation of Pagan Rome by the Barbarians; third,
from the foundation of Papal Rome to the establishment of
" a New Italy," under the auspices of the Pontifi^s.

Our extracts, with one exception, shall be confined to
the first of these periods. The entire subject is thus strik-
ingly introduced,

"The roots of this dominion," (the temporal sovereignty of the
Popes,) " strike deep into the Catacombs, and the ruins to which
the Pagan Empire of Rome was reduced by the barbarians ; they
attach themselves to the shattered tlirone of the Caesars, as well as
to the tombs of the Apostles, and derive the sap of power from
both.

" In the law that governs its growth, and never fails to repair its
reverses, this realm of the Pontiffs is like no other realm. Rising
up out of utter insignificance and obscurity, so that the learned are
at a loss to know how or when or where it begins ; never ceasing,
during the phases of it rise, to develope itself with uniformity that
knows neither irregularity nor interruption ; and, when once con-
stituted, re established by means of the most singular as often as it
is damaged or overthrown — this Sovereignty of the Successors of a
* Fisherman' impresses us, at the first glance, as something involv-
ing a mystery ; we are forced to ask ourselves, can such a dynasty
be the work of purely human agencies ?

" When the precise date of its origin, and the particular events
from which it took rise, are to be determined, antiquarians of the
greatest learning are at fault — perplexed hopelessly. The discre-
\>ancie3 between them are not as to days, or months, or years ; it
amounts to several centuries — in one instance to eight, in another
to seven ; for while, ou the one hand, such writers as Nicholas
Alamanni, Grasvius, Thomassin, De Maistre, Orsi, Giannone, Cenni,
with several others, will have it, that the origin of th.is sovereignty
is to be discovered in the commotions excited by the Iconoclast
heresy, commencing a.d, 726, it is, on the otlier hand, insinuated
by Gibbon, that the Popes were not possessed of the kingly prero-
gative (strictly speaking) until the time of Martin V., a.d. 1417-
1431; and by Ranke, when treating of the Papal States, it is
asserted that Julius II., a.d. 1503-1513, 'must be regarded as their
founder ;' we have a host of the highest names, such as Bossuet,
De Marca, Natalis Alexander, Lebeau, Bernardi, Velly, Magnin, iu
favour of the view that the sovereign power of the Popes is to be

L_

1856.1 Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 371

traced to the liberality of Cliarlemagne and Pepin. This is denied
by Muratori, who couteads that their only valid title is to be found
ia the prescription of ages. Obviously by none of these theories is
the difficulty renioved.

"Not by the theory of the 'Donations,' because before ever the
Frank kings set foot in Italy, previously to their acts called * dona-
tions,' but more properly speaking only * restitutions,' the * Patri-
mony of St. Peter,' — the Papal States — exist. The ' Rights of St.
Peter,' the ' Confines of St. Peter,' the * Plenary Rights of St.
Peter,' — ' Justitias Plenarias Beati Petri,' — ' his Patrimony,' — such
are the titles under which their ' restitution' is demanded from the
Lombard usurpers by Pope Stephen II., and then by Gregory III.,
60 early as the times of Charles Martel, and long before the Franks
are induced to cross the Alps.

*• Far from pretending to any right over Rome, it is after for-
mally asking and being granted permission by the reigning Pontiff,
Hadrian I., that Charlemagne enters its gates for the first time ;
not as a dictator, but as a devout pilgrim, and guest of the Pope ;
and it is clear from the coUectiou of letters in the Codex Carolinus,
that what has been proved regarding Rome applies equally to the
rest of the States.*

'* The genuine meaning of the acts of the two hero kings, charn*
pions and adjutants of the Apostolic See, is well brought out in the
following passage'from a French writer who has made this subject
his peculiar study.

•* ' Before the expedition of Pepin into Italy,' he says, * the Holy
See possessed there a true sovereignty, founded on the legitimate
will of the peoples, who, in the extremity to which they were
reduced, had freely confided to the Popes their temporal interests ;
from whence we ought to conclude, that Pepin and Charlemagne
were not, properly speaking, the founders, but only the protectors
and supporters of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See, and
that tlie result of their expeditions into Italy was not precisely to
establish there tliis sovereignty, but to protect, to consolidate it ;
to render it definitively independent of the Byzantine Emperors.'

"Therefore, it is not in the * Donations' this sovereignty takes
its rise.

"If we ascend higher still, we everywhere find that St. Peter is
the object «f 'restitutions' by the Lombards, ' gifts' by the Franks,
* submissions' of the peoples.

" It is to St. Peter the inhabitants of the States, in the midst of

* "Expleta vero eadem oratione [at the tomb of St. Peter] obnixo
deprecatus est isdem Francorura rex antedictum almificum Poutiti-
cem, iili licentiam tribui ingrediendi ad sua orationum vota, per
diversas Dei ecclesias persolvenda." — Anast. Bxbli. in vita Hadr.

372 Recent Writers on the [Dec.

their abandonment and sufferings, have recourse for help, and vow
eternal fealty. * They sought refuge with St, Peter,' says a con-
temporary writer, ' and yielding themselves up to the Pope, made
oath of allegiance and fealty to the Prince of the Apostles, and to
the said Pope, his vicar.' Again, speaking of other populations
who were anxious to follow the same course, it is said ; ' They
longed most anxiously to yield themselves subjects of St. Peter, and
of the Holy Roman Church.'

'* For love of St. Peter, the valiant Pepin draws his victorious
sword ; he affirms with the solemnity of an oath that for no other
motive had he encountered the risks of battle on many a hard-
fought field ; and that for all the treasures on earth, he would not
take back what he had once made oblation of to St. Peter.

"When Charlemagne visits Rome, it is on his knees he mounts
the steps leading to the portals of St. Peter's, devoutly impressing
a kiss on each step as he ascends — * omnes gradus, sigillatim ejus-
dem sacratissimae Beati Petri ecclesise deosculatus est.'* When he
renews the acts of his sire, King Pepin, it is still to the ' Blessed
Peter' the same cities and territories are conceded.f

"Thus it is, that history, when thoughtfully searched, ever leads
us to the right path ; in this instance, as I set out with saying, it
conducts us to the catacombs, and before the judgment seat of
Nero, where St. Peter stands doomed to martyrdom, as the true
fountain-head of this mysterious Sovereignty.

" Startling as it may appear at first, this assertion — that tem-
poral independence, exemption from earthly control, the right to
have no power above him but that of his Divine Lord and Master — •
this assertion, at first sight so anomalous, when the nature of St.
Peter's charge is considered, becomes a self-evident verity. Nothing
easier than to test this ; one solitary argument will be enough to
place the subject in the clearest light. The argument is this :

" That Christ conferred the supremacy of His Church on St.
Peter— a supremacy not alone of honour but of jurisdiction ; made
him the viceroy of His kingdom on earth; invested him with his
own authority to decide all controversies, judge all causes regarding
truth and error, right and wrong, vice and virtue ; to reward and
punish, bind and loose, with an authority identical with His own.
This can no more be doubted, than that the words of the Gospel, in
which all these prerogatives are solemnly conferred on St. Peter,
are truly the words of Christ.J

* Anast. in Vita Hadr.

f " Christianissimus Carolus Fraucorum rex, ascribi jussit per
Etherium religiosum ac prudentissimum capellanura et notarium
suum, ubi concessit easdem civitates et territoria Beato Petro." —
Anast. ib.

I Matt. xvi. 13-20 ; John, xxi. lC-19, &c.

185G.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 373

" Therefore, it must have been the will and design of the Re-
deemer that a sphere wherein such a supremacy could be exercised
should be prepared and sequestrated from all human control, wher-
ever the See of St. Peter was to be established finally. Otherwise,
the prerogatives would be nugatory ; and, as reason and piety for-
bid such a thought, it follows that the temporal sovereignty over a
realm ' ample enough for liberty, too limited for domination,' essen-
tially and jure divino attaches to the spiritual supremacy which
from St. Peter has devolved on the Popes.

•* What more derisive than the idea of a supremacy such as that
of St. Peter ' entrusted' to a ' domestic slave.' Gibbon's synonyme
for a Patriarch of Constantinople ; and in Kome, under the dicta-
torship, whether of an emperor or king, a republic, senate, parlia-
ment, or cabal — even if decorated with the title of ' constitutional
ministry' or ' responsible cabinet' — would not the Popes be as
degraded, as trammelled in the exercise of their supremacy (not to
speak of the abuses of their election), as where the tiara'd slaves
and creatures, too often sycophants, of the Byzantine court?"* —
Ibid. First Epoch, ch. i. pp. 1 — 6.

In addition to the authorities here quoted, to show the
necessity of maintaining the temporal sovereignty of the
Pope, as the. head of the Catholic Church, we may refer to
an opinion expressed by a writer, who is as little disposed
to favour the Pope, or Catholicity, as the author of '* the
Byzantine Empire : — '* How is the Pope to exist without
Kome ? The fact is, that the plans which have been pro-
posed at different times for the separation of the temporal
imd spiritual power of the Pope have been conceived by
those who are ignorant of the complicated nature of his
authority, or by those who desire to undermine it as a step
to its final overthrow. ""' "" '"' "" Could the Pope fix
his throne in the ftiid-heavens the scheme might be feasi-
ble ; but, as he must remain in a city made with hands, he
must occupy in it the place cither of a prince or a subject.
It was a favourite project of Buonaparte to establish the
Pope at Paris, and, through the Ecclesiastical puppet, to
sway the conscience of Europe by Nuncios, as effectively
as he domineered over its policy by Generals and Diplo-

* " While the Patriarch of Constantinople was a domestic slave
under the eye of his master, a distant and dangerous station, amidst
the barbarians of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the
Popes." — Gibbon, Decl, and Fall, &c., ch. xlix.

314t Recent Writers on the • [Dec.

matlsts. His scheme would have failed — he would have
only created a schism, and lost all by grasping at too
much. A bishop with patriarchal powers would have
arisen in every country of any consequence, ruling the
national church under the dictation of the crown, or less
invidiously by means of a synod. "■"'

Perhaps we should apologize for the length of the follow-
ing extract, but we are unwilling to curtail it, because it is
calculated to arouse the timid, and inspire faith into the
hearts of the doubting. We commend it to the earnest
perusal of every Catholic who hitherto has looked upon
*' the temporal sovereignty of the Pope*' as a question
involving considerations rather of human policy than of
religious convictions.

" It is true, as we have seen, and as we heard St. Leo proclaim,
that the Prince of the Apostles entered Rome as a conqueror. It
is true that, bj divine appointment, his mission was to attack, over-
throw, and trample in the dust all that the ' seven-hilled city' most
gloried in, cherished, was determined to defend with resistless fury;
and on the ruins of all this, and on the high place of her pride, the
sanctuary of her gods, the * hill of all her triumphs.' — Oli, horror
for the haughty race — to plant the execrated symbol of the Cruci-
fied I Nevertheless, St. Peter taught those, whom his preaching
and miracles made the first Christians of Rome, that theife wa3 to
be no revolt, no disobedience or evasion of tlie laws; that all social
duties were to be religiously fulfilled; that Nero was to be obeyed
and even honoured ! * Be ye subject, therefore, to every creature
for God's sake ; whether it be to the king as excelling, or to gover-
nors as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the
praise of the good ; for so is the will of God, that by doing well
you may put to silence tiie ignorance of foolish men; as free, and
not as making liberty a cloak of malice — but a»the servants of God.
Honour all meu ; love the brethren ; fear God ; honour the king.'t
And that this phrase top ^aaiXea ri/iaT« refers to Nero can hardly
be doubted ; for ^aaiXtvs with the Greeks has the same force as
* imperator' with the Romans.

" And when St. Paul comes at length to join the prince of tlie
apostles in labouring to perfect the Roman Church, of which the
faith had already become ' renowned through the whole world,*

• Quarterly Revieio, (December, 1851,) p. 231, art. " Farini's His-
tory of the Roman States."

t St. Peter, 1 Epist. ii. 13, 17.

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. tftB

what lie teaches, on this head, only re-echoes the words of St.
Peter.*

•'Unlike the high-flown, pretensious systems of the philosophers
of Greece and Rome, what St. Peter taught was no sterile theory.
The heart of the Christian, as formed by St. Peter, was a living source
of charity, incessantly prompting to self-sacrifice fof the love of the
neighbour ; his all-absorbing study was, practically and every day
to live in imitation of him ' who went about doing good,' qui circuit
benefaciendo.

"Hence, wherever he was found, in the senate, in the public
baths, in the forum, or on the tented field (he kept aloof from the
circus and theatres as from so many temples of heathenism), at the
loom, the anvil, the quern, or in whatsoever station he had been
fixed by Providence, the Christian became conspicuous for the
integrity of his morals, and wrung, even from bis persecutors,
the confession that his life corresponded with the arduous code
which he professed.

" In the religion of St. Peter there was nothing antisocial or tend-
ing to encourage or authorize revolt; Christianity, such as he and his
successors have ever taught it, warred with nothing that was not a
curse to humanity. There was nothing bright, honourable, pure,
or beneficent with which it would not have coalesced ; or rather,
it had affinities to attract and harmonize around itself whatever
was capable of being sanctified, or turned to good. Music, archi-
tecture, painting, sculpture, poetry, all the arts, in short, that help
to humanize, to soothe, or elevate the anguished or lethargic spirit,
as was proved by the after history of the popes, it would have
fostered. It would have shamed the Muses into self-respect, by
leading them from whence they drew only the inebriety of the pas-
sions, to purer fountains of inspiration. As for man, it would have
elevated him, from being a serf of Satan, to fill the throne from
which that once bright spirit fell. Even as a citizen, it would have
ameliorated his condition, by establishing an imperishable recipro-
city of truth, equity, and good offices between man and man, and
by hallowing all his social ties ; by inculcating obedience for con-
science sake upon those who are subject, warning those that are
high that there is One still higher ; and, in season and out of season,
by commending charity to all. Woman it would have exalted to
an eminence so august, as to render her influence the corrective of
the brutality of which heretofore she had been the instigation and
the slave. By hallowing the connubial state, and maintaining its
indissolubility, Christianity would have made the domestic circle a
miniature of the Church, a preparatory school for heaven ; it would
have taught mankind no longer to regard their own offspring as
they did those of unclean animals, but to reverence, nay, to regard

* Romans, xiii. ]-7.
VOL. XLI.-No.*LXXXII.

376 Recent Writers on the [Dec

tliem with awe, as being clients of the angels. It had a solace for
every affliction, an expiation for every trespass ; it took even from
death its sting ; and had it met from the world the reception it
merited, although it would not have led the banished race back
again to Eden, for that was not its object, it would have done better
fctil), by exalting mortals, even here, above the power of adversity;
and by preparing them for an immortality crowned with bliss and
glory, such as ' eye hath not seen, ear heard, nor hath it entered
into the heart of man to picture.'

•' But the hatred with which the world pursued its Redeemer,
nailing Him to the cross, was to be the inheritance of His disciples,
and pre-eminently of him whom He elected and constituted Prince
of the Apostles, supreme head of His divine spouse, the Church.

" Why then did Rome reject St. Peter ? For tlie self-same rea-
son that Jerusalem rejected His divine Lord, the ' Immortal King
of Ages.' The same satanic hatred which had doomed the
Redeemer to the gibbet, thirsted for the blood of His disciples,
especially of St. Peter (as we see by the act of Herod), and pursued
them even ' unto foreign cities.' The Sanhedrim concocted a scheme
to render them odious over the whole world. ' With this view,*
says St. Justin Martyr, ' their emissaries were sent into all countries
■with rescripts, or letters, setting forth that the Nazarenes were au
execrable sect, who adored as God one who had been put to death as
a criminal, pretending that He had arisen on the third day, whereas
His dead body had been stolen away by themselves while the
Roman guards were asleep ; and that they jvore wont in their mys-
teries to immolate a new-born infant, sprinkled over with flour, and
to feed upon its flesh and blood previous to their indulging in the
most unnatural excesse?.'

" Throughout the entire pagan world these atrocious slanders mot
with ready credence, and were nowhere received with greater
avidity than at Rome ; hence in the mock trial, when the Ciiristians
and tlieir prince were dragged before Nero, and accused of having
set fire to the city, it was not for that crime (for it was too notori-
ous that Nero himself was its author, but as being 'enemies of the
human race.' they were condemned. Tacitus, iu his Annals, relates
the matter thus : —

" • But when neither by state-craft, nor bribing the multitude,
nor the display of sacrifices and lustrations, as if to appease the
gods, he could remove the infamy of having ordered the city to be set
on fire, Nero substituted criminals, and punished with tortures the
most exquisite — qucesitissimis — certain wretches detested for their
enormities, and whom the populace called Christians. Christus,
the founder of the name, was put to death in the reign of Tiberius,
by the procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate ; but, repressed (by this
means) only for a moment, the pestilent superstition broke out
again, not alone through Judaea, the cradle of the mischief, but in
Rome itself, become the sink into which flow the abominations of

1856.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 377

the whole world, to be there nurtured, enshrined and worshipped —
qiice cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque.

" * Accordingly,' continues Tacitus, ' some having been arrested
who readily confessed they were Christians, next, from what they
said, a vast multitude — mullitudo ingens — were found guilty, not,
indeed, of burning Rome, but of being the enemies of the human
race. And in their deaths they were also made to contribute to
the public amusement, some being covered with the hides of wild
beasts, to be hunted and torn to pieces by dogs, some being nailed
on crosses, and others being set on fire, having been smeared over
with combustible matter, that their flaming bodies might, when
night came on, shed light 'upon the festival of which the gardens
of Nero, who had them thrown open for that purpose, were the
scene.'

" Behold at length discovered the true source from which the
temporal sovereignty of the Popes takes its rise. By the act of
Nero, which doomed the prince of the apostles to the cross, and the
Christian name to extermination, a new sovereignty arose, per force,
in the very heart of Pagan Rome. While the Cassars reigned on the
* Seven Hills,' St. Peter and his successors were compelled to reign
in the Catacombs over 'SuBrEUKANEAS Rome,' inhabited by a people
outlawed as 'enemies of the human race' — odio humani generis
convicti — and thus obliged to form a separate state. From this
hour forth, the ' Seven Hilled City ' becomes the theatre of inter-
necine war between two hostile dynasties — the one that of tho
Csesars, haughtily erect on the highest eminence of human grandeur,
and armed with all the forces of the world ; the other, that of a
Jewish fisherman, self-humiliated, meek, endeavouring, but in vain,
to shelter itself in sandy-crypts and caverns, amongst the relics of
the dead. What more manifest than that St. Peter and the popes
of the martyr epoch, thus forced to reign over ' Christian Rome,'
while struggling to conquer, that is, to convert, the ' Harlot City,*
were as strictly speaking kings — were as clearly invested with
sovereignty as in all that concerned the exercise of the supremacy
as Hadrian the First, Innocent the Third, Sixtus the Fifth — in a
word, as any of the Pontiffs who wielded the temporal sceptre of
the papacy in any of its palmiest daya? During close on three
centuries, this dynasty, though crushed by the repeated strokes of
persecution dealt down on its undefended head, is seen to graduate
in power, serenely and uninterruptedly, until it is beheld enthroned
in the palace of the Roman emperors — venerated, feared, implicitly
obeyed, looked up to with child-like docility and love by those
atrocious, brutalized, and indomitable barbarians who have utterly
subverted the empire of the ' Seven Hilled City,' and overwhelmed
the ' Roman World ' in social chaos, apparently irremediable, until,
under the auspices of this same dynasty, especially by that stroke
of inspiration of the third St. Leo, it started into CHaisTii^^iDOM,

378 Recent Writers on tlie [Dec.

■wrlth Charbmagae. Ihe Crowned of God, the champion and defender
of the See of St. Peter, at its head."*

To this theory of the providential ordination of the Tem-
poral Sovereignty of the Popes, a natural objection pre-
sents itself.

" If Providence had occupied itself, so much as it pretended,
about the establishment of the Papal States, would it have failed
to occupy itself equally with their defence ? Would it not have
discomfited, from age to age, and by means the most uuforeseea
and extraordinary, all the efforts of earth and hell to divert that
realm from its sacred to a secular destiny ?

" Such is the objection. What is the answer to it ? It is this : —
if history be interrogated, it will tell us that what the objection
insists on as congruous on the part of Providence, is precisely that
which has happened. In fact, what else is it that imparts to the
history of Christendom, during more than a thousand years, its
unity and most absorbing interest, but the marvellous interven-
tions by whicli have been defeated so many and such formidable
efforts to ' secularize' the Papal States ?

" From the day that Constantino, to make way for the throne of
the Pontiffs, removed to the remote shores of the Euxine the throne
of the C^SARs, during now more than fifteen hundred years, what
efforts, how multifarious, how apparently irresistible, to make Rome
a ' secular capital !' How inevitably most of them seemed destined
to succeed ! How utterly, and by what startling, unthought-of
ways, have they not been one and all defeated !

" After the transfer of the empire by Constantino, his sons, and
tlie sons of Theodosius, return to reign in Italy ; but a hand, the
same that menaced Attila, seems to beckon them off from Rome ;
Rome is interdicted them, and Milan and Ravenna become the
capitals of the West ! Then appear the barbarians ; they are
driven on as if by preternatural fury to possess themselves of Rome.
Alaric the Goth, Geiiseric tlie Vandal, take it in turn ; but it is as
if the same invisible power that terrified the 11 un from approaching
it, will not suffer either Goth or Vandal to tarry there. After a
brief halt, and without any visible cause to disturb them in their
conquest, they seem in haste to depart, like executioners after
accomplishing their appointed task. Further on, Herulians and
O-trogoths endeavour to found a kingdom in Italy. Rome is taken
and retaken ; they can capture, pillage, reduce it to solitude, but
there none of them can reign. The capital of Odoacer, of Theodoric,
Vitiges, Totila, is at Ravenna — it. is anywhere but at Rome. The

* Miley's Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, First Epoch, ch. iii.
pp, 16-22.

1856.1 Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. 379

Byzantine Romans arrive under Belisarius and Narses, but it is
only to prevent the Ostrogoths from taking root in, from ' secularis-
ing' the predestinated patrimony of St. Peter. They, too, are
warned off from Rome. The Byzantine capital of Italy is not
Rome ; it is still Ravenna.

" The Greeks, in their turn, are driven out by the Lombards.
These, of all the invaders, have most set their hearts on making
Rome their own. ' No language can convey an adequate idea,' says
St. Gregory the Great, ' of what we (Romans) have had to suffer,
daily and without intermission, from the Lombard incursions, during
the last five and thirty years !' This was in a.d. 604, and their
assaults on Rome are to be renewed during the hundred and seventy
years which follow ; but as if by miracle all miscarry, are utterly
baffled, though ona can hardly tell how; and at one time it is
Milan, for a much longer period it is Pavia, but never Rome,
even for a moment, that is the Lombard capital.

" The kings of this race of people seem to be instigated by some
evil spirit, goading them to attack, and ravage, and usurp what is
called, in the muniments of the times, the rights — 'justitias' —
the patrimony of St. Teter, the fines Sti. Petri — 'confines of St.
Peter' — and that in defiance of the most solemn oaths, in the face
of treaties, and despite the supplications of the Pontiffs, who had
uniformly treated them with the most paternal forbearance, and
even loaded them with favours 1

"And signal was the judgment by which, in righteous punish-
ment of their rapacity and perfidy, they were overtaken! Their
dynasty was ignominiously extinguished, while victory was attached
for ever to the banners of the Franks by whom the chastisement
was inflicted, and who as religiously respected the rights of St.
Peter, as they had chivalrously defended them.

" The Saracens or Agareni, sous of Hagar, as they were called
in those days, were the next to renew the effort to ' secularise' the
Papal States. The wisdom and constancy of the Pontiffs defeated
them, even forced them, as war captives, to help to build up new
bulwarks and walls of defence round about the city of St. Peter.*

" Amidst the anarchy in which Christendom was plunged by the
Norman, Saracen, and Hungarian invasions, overwhelming it on all
sides at once, an effort — oh, what a hideous one ! — was made by
the feudal chiefs, the Counts of Tusculum, the Cenci, the Roman
Barons, to make spoil of the patrimony of the Apostles. This
brought the Teutonic kings from beyond the mountains. As many
of the dynasties of the latter — Othos, Henries, Frederics, Saxons,
Hoheustuuffens, Swabians — as coveted the capital and states of the
Popes, became anathema and withered ! On the other hand, we
behold how it fares with the line of Hapsburg — substituted by the

• Anast. Bib. in Vit. S. Leon IV.

380 Recent Writers on the {Dec.

Tenth Gregory in the pride of place from which the impious
Swabian was hurled down — and which never wore the glorious title
• Apostolic' with greater lustre than ia the person of Francis Joseph,
at the present day.

" How account for a defence into which all nations and dynasties
are pressed by turns, unless we recognize in it the work of Him
who gave to Christ the ' nations for his inheritance ;' Who holds
in his hand the world of peoples and of princes ; and Who, in the
visions of Ills Prophets, foreshowed how this sovereignty, set up
amidst the ruins of Pagan Empires, was never to pass to any other
dynasty or nation ? Ostrogoths, Greeks, Lombards, by turns defend
the Patrimony which they had each endeavoured to usurp ; by
turns, they resist the rescinding of the decree establishing over
Rome and Central Italy the divine right of the Popes. For the
Franks, this championship is an heirloom of glory. . To be false, or
even indifferent, in this case would be to abjure the brightest pages
in their history, and their right, by prescription, to rank first among
Christian nations and form the vanguard of the army of the Cross.
The feudal usurpers of the rights of St. Peter are punished by Teu-
tonic kings. They, when they prevaricate and invade the same
rights, are chased bj the gallant Normans of Southern Italy. When
a degenerate few conspire with the Swabian persecutors, as do the
Mazziuis and Cavours with English statesmen of the Minto-Palmer-
ston school at present, the true hearted Italians rallied with the
Popes to resist the scheme to 'secularise,* and to the cry of 'San
Pietro I' achieved such victories as throw into the shade those the
Pagan Romans were proudest of.

" To come to our own times — the vicissitudes in which the Papacy
has been tried, do they not not read like a chapter of the
ancient Testament, wherein we are permitted to behold the actioa
of Providence, unveiled and in all its divine magnificence )

" As yet we are too much dazzled by its lustre, perhaps to be able
to discern aright, the last, the grandest stroke which on a sudden,
and after the double shipwreck of his fortunes, transports the heir
of the Napoleon-dynasty, fi*om a fortress-prison to the platform of
the imperial throne !

" In the person of his successor, St. Peter is again * in chains ;*
his patrimony is usurped, his city is become the stronghold of the
wicked, his tomb and sanctuary are profaned ! The hour for the
great amende, for a reparation worthy to be ranked with that made
by Constautine, has come I Penance has long since expiated the
hero's fault, and tlie great and good work which it had spoiled (that
of the restoration of Religion in France) revives with all its merit,
in the sight of that Being who 'bestoweth and taketh away realms,*
rewarding an hundred fold, as in the case of the ancient Romans,

ISSG.] Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope. ^81

even the least perfect good work.* The rights of St. Peter are vin-
dicated with a devoted heroism worthy the hosts of Charlemagne :
the hand of Pius IX. is lifted to bless his 'deliverer ;' and then,
hut not till then, Napoleon III. ascends the throne !

" To deny the immediate agency of heaven in this series of won-
ders— connecting Napoleon III. with Charlemagne and Constantiue
— whai else is it but to deny that there exists a Providence at all ?"t

It will be seen from the above extracts that, so far.
Dr. Miley, in explaining the origin of the temporal sove-
reignty of the Roman Pontiff, has taken ground entirely
different from that ordinarily selected by its apologists and
historians. Independently of the historical explanation
assigned by Orsi, and admirably developed by M. Gosselin
in his excellent treatise, Dr. Miley endeavours to discover
its germ in the primitive constitution of the Church, or at
least in the providentially arranged circumstances even of
its very earliest history. As the basis of an argument of
the fitness and congruity of such a power in the Head of
Christ's Church, we fully sympathize with this endeavour,
and recognize the zeal and industry with which evidence
is brought from all sides to bear upon its illustration ; but
it would be wrong to regard it as a conclusive proof, or
even to rely upon any inference from it as certain or
decisive. To suppose that the temporal sovereignty of the
Pope is in any way an essential part of the idea of his
Headship of the Church, would, of course, be at variance
with the facts of history ; and although the argument
drawn from the history of the Church in the days of per-
secution, and from the. relations which she bore to the
State under Constantiue and his successors, is so far valu-
able as exhibiting the order of events by which the world
was prepared, for what was destined after the disruption of
the empire, to be the great central and conservative power
for the maintenance of civilization and even of society
itself, it must not be extended beyond this, which is its
just and legitimate application.

In the succeeding volumes the purely historical argu-
ment will come more directly under consideration — an
argument from which even Napoleon himself could not

* Vide St. Augustin, De Civ. Dei.
+ Ibid. Second Epoch, ch. x. pp. 227-230, 233.

382 Recent Writers on the, ^c. [Dec*

honestly escape. Nor do we fear that with all the jubilation
of English Statesmen and English scribes, the history of
our times is destined to witness any departure from that
long and unbroken series of events by which, in the midst
of internal revolution and domestic anarchy, God's provi-
dence has ever maintained the paternal rule of the chief
Pastor of His Church. Perchance it may come to pass
that English Statesmen, even in our day, shall find
enough to occupy them in their own domestic Church
affairs. The throne and chair of St. Peter will remain ;
but the doom of Anglicanism is pronounced ; it stands
self-condemned in its ** Gorham Controversy" on baptism,
in its " Denison Decree" against the Eucharist, and in the
scandalously demoralised condition of its population.
Let its adherents— its clergy and its bishops, look to them-
selves. This age has been pregnant with great events, and
even now, they know not the day nor the hour when
another Boniface may, to the joy and consolation of prince
and people, be sent from Rome, and bringing with him a
commission from the representative of the chief of the
Apostles, may be urged on to the great work of a real,
searching, thorough and sweeping Reformation, in the
words of the Pontiff Gregory III. —

" Nee enim hahebis licentiam frater pro incepti laboris utilitate in
wno morari loco, sed confirmatis cordibus fratrum et omnium Fidelium,
qui rarescunt in illis Hesperiaa partibus, ut tibi Domiaus aperuerit
viaiu salutis, prsedicare non desistas, et ubl locum inveneris,
secundum canouicam traditionem eos tenere edoce : ex hoc enim
magnum mercedis prseraium tibi prseparabk ; quoniam omnipotent!
Deo nostro facies plebem perfectam."*

* Baronius a. 739. sec. 4. Vol. iz. p. 139.

1856.] The Great EehtUion and the Anti Catholic Faction. 383

AuT. IV. — Dr. Lingard's Histort/ 'of England. Sixth edition, vols,
vii.-yiii. Londou : Dolman.

WE have shown that the Reformation was the con-
summation of royal tyranny. We will now show
that the Rebellion was its result and its retribution, and
resulted iu a tyranny not less odious even than that of
royalty. It was not merely the result of a re-action from
the tyranny of royalty, it was the substitution of another
system of tyranny. Its earlier triumph was the tyranny
of an aristocracy. Its later development was the more
vulgar form of the tyranny of plebeian bigotry. It was in
either case merely a change of tyranny. It is not less a
fallacy to regard the Rebellion as the victory of liberty,
than to regard the Reformation as its rise. On the con-
trary, the Reformation was rather the triumph of tyranny
in one form, and the Rebellion its triumph in another, as
the Revolution was its triumph in yet another. In each
of the two later eras we had simply a shifting of the seat
of power, a change in the kind of tyranny.

Mr. Carlyle, in his hero-worship, admits that Protes-
tantism, which he calls a revolt against spiritual sove-
reignty (a strange instance of confusion of ideas, since it
was rather the submission to spiritual sovereignty, — the
spiritual authority of a royal tyrant,) was in the form of
Puritanism, a revolt against earthly sovereignty. This he
terms the second act, while he terms the French revolu-
tion the third. We think this is the truth, but then, as
usual with Protestant writers, it is only part of the truth.
The rest of it in this instance is, that puritanism was the
most hateful form of tyranny that had ever been endured
in a Christian country. We propose to illustrate the one
part of the view, and to demonstrate the other.

"Nor is the interest of the question purely historical, nor
relating merely to the past. It has a present and a pain-
ful interest. For what was the Rebellion but the triumph
of an anti- Catholic faction? and what is the most lamen-
table feature of the present aspect of domestic affairs but
the revival of this faction, and the resuscitation of all its
long latent bigotry ? We have within the last few years
actually had a clamour for a retrograde policy as regards

384 Tlie Great Rehelllon [Dec.

relipfion, — nay, even a cry, or yell of frantic bigotry has
occasionally been heard for a repeal of emancipation, and
a recurrence to the hateful system of persecution and
exclusion, which cursed this country at the era of the
Rebellion. At such a crisis, what more iuteresting and
instructive than to see how England and Ireland fared
under the domination of that vile anti- Catholic faction,
whose savage fanaticism found its triumph in the subver-
sion of our liberties under the most odious thraldom?
The subject has all the more interest on account of the
endeavours always made to associate the ascendancy of
this faction with liberty, and especially liberty of con-
science ! Let us see the results of an anti- Catholic
policy, pursued to its full extent, as shown in the fearful
traged}* of the Rebellion, and all its odious and oppres-
sive tyranny. The QuarUrli/ has pronounced for an
anti-papal policy. Let us look at its ultimate results at
a period when the no-popery fanaticism had fully satiated
its savage spirit. Let us trace the origin of the revolu-
tionary spirit, and the elements out of which it arose.

No doubt it was, as regards the body of the people, a
reaction from the tyranny of royalty as established by the
Royal Supremacy. This reached its climax of absur-
dity in the person of James L, as it had attained its
highest pitch of sanguinary atrocity under Henry and
Elizabeth. Under the Tudors this tyranny of the soul
was horrible ; under James it was, at least as regards the
Protestant part of the community, rather ludicrous. It
is true that even in the reign of James sectarians were
burnt, but this system soon provoked murmurs, which
prevented its continuance, and as regards Protestants the
tyranny soon dwindled down from atrocity to absurdity.
It is true that, with the inconsistency of bigotry, the sec-
tarians could not see the atrocity of a system of persecu-
tion directed against the Catholics, which they revolted
at when put in force against themselves. The Puritans
liad an objection to be burnt themselves, and had not
faith enough for the fiery trial ; but they very vehemently
desired to burn the Papists, and all along were persever-
ing in their clamours for burnings. But, as regards them-
selves, they saw in its full force the absurdity, the blas-
phemy of the claim to the Royal Supremacy, and there
wanted nothing to enhance its absurdity. Coke, in his
Essay on the Ecclesiastical Power of the Crown, raised

185G.] and the Anti-Catholic Faction. 385

it to a pitch of extravagance, as monstrous as his own
degrading servility. And the Hampton Court contro-
versy with the Puritans brought out the farcical aspect of
the Royal Supremacy, and the disgraceful servility which
was alike its root and its result, in the most ludicrous
manner. ** The Bishops," said the king, " spake by the
power of inspiration (!)" *' 1 wist not what they mean,'*
says a quaint writer, "and the spirit was rather foul-
mouthed." Not that James wanted shrewdness ; he could
plainly see the connexion between roj^alty and episcopacy,
and he certainly ** spake with the spirit of prophecy,"
when he said that puritanisni would lead to a revolution.
*' Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick, shall meet,
and at their pleasure censure me and my council, and all
our proceedings. Then AVill shall stand up and say. It
must be this. Then Dick shall reply. Nay, but we will
have it thus." A prediction thoroughly verified when
the puritans had gained the sway, and ** Praise-God-
Barebones," and his fellow tinkers and cobblers thuust the
yoke of their vulgar tyranny upon the country. But it
must have roused Englishmen to the keenest sense of
contempt, when obsequious Anglican prelates declared
that " his majesty spoke by the special assistance of
God's Spirit," and " that their hearts melted within them,
to hear a king, the like of whom had not been seen since
the time of Christ." Those who desire to see a more
striking specimen of the degrading servility and shocking
blasphemy, of which the Anglican prelates were guilty, in
their adulation of royalty, may see one in the preface to
the *' authorized version of the Scriptures."

That all this produced its natural result in the popular
mind, and tended to render royalty ridiculous and odious,
can scarcely be doubted. Look, for example, at the early
history of the younger Vane : " He was always," says his
friend, Sikes, ** against the exercise of coercive magiste-
rial power in religion and worship. How grossly absurd
must it appear, even to the common reason of mankind,
that such as take upon them to be rulers, should give the
rule to others' consciences in point of religion, when they
many times have no religion at all in themselves, nor any
other conscience but a dead or seared one, hardened in
the most brutish vileness that the basest of men can be
guilty of. But if the ruler do plausibly pretend to some-
thing of religion, what a changeable thing will religion be

386 The Great Rebellion [Dec.

at this rate ! as fickle as the magistrate's judgment, at
least as his person ; for the next ruler may be of another
persuasion, as this nation hath experienced off and on
betwen popery and the Protestant profession, in Henry VIII.,
Edward VI., and the two queens, Mary and Elizabeth.'*
Such were the sentiments no doubt of many more vulgar
minds than Vane's, and it does not at all militate against
the argument that this reaction from the ridiculous tyranny
of the royal supremacy was one main cause of the popular
tendency towards the rebellion, that there was a manifest
inconsistency in the puritans resenting the absurdity of the
royal supremacy on the grounds of its introducing uncer-
tainty as to religion, when they themselves made religious
uncertainty a principle, by making religious variety a
necessity; and they showed a worse inconsistency when
they were in power, by establishing a still more stringent
religious tyranny themselves. Inconsistency is not always
an evidence of insincerity, but in this instance it is no part
of our case to deny, but rather to contend, that puritauism
was characterized by glaring hypocrisy.

As regards the mass of the people, however, they were
deceived before they became deceivers, and their fanaticism
arose rather from ignorance than insincerity. It was not
among them that the rebellion found its origin ; it was not
they who originally or ever voluntarily adopted the heresy
of the reformers. On the contrary we have seen that not
only under Henry but all through the earlier part of the
long reign of Elizabeth they were disaffected to the change
of religion, and required coercion into submission. Towards
the end of her reign, indeed, the infection of that puri-
tauism which she and her predecessors hardly tolerated,
and alike detested and despised, had been diffused through
the great body of the nation, favoured chiefly by the
ineffable absurdity of the royal supremacy; and at the
same time inspired towards Catholicism with a bitter
hatred, the result of prejudice caused by calumny working
on ignorance. But as the affection to the Catholic religion
did not cease among the ranks of the people, so neither
did the spirit of rebellion originate among them. The
reformation and the rebellion were equally the evil work
of the aristocracy. An appetite for Church lands was the
chief cause of their achievement of the religious revolution,
a fear of losing them the main motive of their adoption
of the civil revolution which succeeded.

1856. J and the Anti-Catholic Faction. 387

But the English aristocracy had learnt something far
worse during a century of Protestantism, than an appetite
for spoliation ; they had become habituated to insidious
devices and treacherous intrigues. For half a century,
under the fell domination of Elizabeth, there had existed
a hideous and revolting system of espionage and trickery
by which men were involved in the meshes of pretended
conspiracies and concocted plots ; that they might be made
more easily the victims of royal vengeance. We need
not do more than mention the names of Northumberland
and Norfolk ; need we recall the name of Mary ? The
very mention of the name brings back upon the mind
with painful force the dark and diabolical plots, by which
Puritanism in England, and Presbyterianism in Scotland,
sought to sacrifice the fair queen, who had drawn upon
herself the deadly hatred of all who hated the Catholic
Church. But for this anti-Catholic fanaticism Eliza-
beth never could have dared so to satiate her malice as
she did ; it was to this that she again and again appealed
with fatal success. She kept the English people in a
continual fever of alarm by rumours of Popish conspira-
cies for her assassination ; and she was in close alliance
with the miscreant Murray, and that band of bold bad
men, who were playing, !in league with her, the same
foul part in Scotland. Who needs now to be reminded
of the casket of forged letters, by which that vilest of all
miscreants — he — the '* good Lord Murray," whom. Calvin-
ism honours as the patron of its apostle — furnished the
pretext for taking the life of his sister and his sovereign,
and then basely sold her to her murderess ? Or who need
be told again the tale, which Tytler told so powerfully, of
the dark schemes of assassination in which the Presbyte-
rian noblemen engaged, in union with Knox, and those
other preaching wretches, who planted the new religion,
and who, to ruin the reputation of their lovely Catholic
queen, first made her young husband jealous of her, then
incited him to join in a savage murder in her very pre-
sence,— next had him blown up into the air, with crafty
and deadly machination, in order to cast the guilt of his
death upon her; then surrendered her person to the em-
braces of a brutal ruffian, — and lastly, now that she was
despoiled, dishonoured, and deserted, and deprived of the
sympathy of her people, drove her into the power of the

388 The Great Rebellion [Dec.

malignant woman, who'had all along been the secret mover
of these dark designs ?

Her successor, James, had profited by his experience,
and followed the example of his predecessor. He soon
showed his taste for anti-Popery plots. He was poor, and
he was rapacious ; and although arbitrary in disposition,
was too cowardly to plunder his Protestant subjects, at
least as much as he would fain have done. So he thought
to make the Catholics a prey. A.nd he did so by
means of the Gunpowder Plot, which was obviously an
imitation of the Presbyterian Gunpowder Plot, by which
poor Mary had been ruined with such truly fiend-like
artifice. To the day of his death the mean-spirited tyrant
was wont to call it " Cecil's plot ;'* and whether or not
one or two desperate wretches had been got to join in a
powder plot, this is plain enough, that the whole affair
was the contrivance of the government. And we call
attention to this, not only because it has never yet been
put in its true aspect, but because it bears so strongly
on the moral of oiu* history, when compared with what had
followed, and with what succeeded it. It is a remarkable
thing, that tendency to dark and diabolical plotting, which
resulted from the establishment of Protestantism. Begun
by the sanguinary policy of royal tyranny, it became at last
implanted in the nature of the aristocracy, who had at first
suffered under it, and learnt at last the foul arts by which
they had been enslaved, and practised them on others.
And by degrees it became a kind of habit of mind in the
nation at large, which has never been entirely uprooted. A
passion for plots seemed at length to take possession of the
English national mind. The reason is plain ; the history of
Protestantism is a history of plots. The old religion was
rooted up only by a centiu'y of infernal plotting and un-
scrupulous villainy. There was plotting under Elizabeth —
plotting under James — plotting all through the Rebellion —
plotting at the Restoration — plotting at the Revolution.
There is a wonderful consistency in spirit and in purpose,
all through the successive developements and results of
Protestantism. Dark chimeras of crime are conjured up
to throw a shade of horror on the vision of Catholicism,
and distort it, and deform it to the popular mind, and
thus keep up and preserve what V)y. Newman has called
the Protestant traditions. Hence the policy of Protes-
tantism from the outset has been a policy of calumny, and

1856.1 and the Anti- Catholic Faction. 389

its course that of the father of lies, " who was a murderer
from the beginning.'* This was made mnnifest in the
plots devised under Elizabeth by the wily Burleigh, and
it is the true organ of the pretended powder plot which
the crafty spirit of Cecil contrived for the sordid purposes
of the Scottish tyrant ; whose mind from his infancy was
imbued with an evil inclination for intrigue, and whose
mean nature ravened after spoil.

We do not believe in the Powder Plot In any other
view than as a plot of the government ; and we repeat, this
has never to our satisfaction been put in its true light, at
least in any Catholic work. Yet the elements for such a
view of it are to be found in the candid and acute essay of
Jardine. It is plain "he did not believe in it. But it is a
Protestant tradition, and must be kept up. Let us im-
press one great fact upon our readers. We have no
account of the Plot except that luhich James and his min-
ions chose tofurmsh. Mr. Jardine says: " The Relation
printed and carefully circulated by authority soon after the
trial occurred, is imperfect and garbled. Even the speeches
are not reports of what was actually said. There are
anachronisms observable, which obviously point to a date
for their composition later than that of the trial. In fact,
this Relation, like the other tracts printed with it,'' (the
king's speech, and the discourse of the manner of discover-
ing the plot,) '* was published, not for the purpose of con-
veying accurate information, but of supjyressing and colour-
ing the truth, and circulating such a version of the story as
suited the objects of the government." What those objects
were is plain from the use to which the conspiracy was
actually turned by Cecil — the extortion of money from the
Catholics.

•* The most laborious examinations were principally
directed," (says Jardine,) ** to ascertain the extent to which
the Catholic nobility and the Jesuit priests were concerned
in the conspiracy. With respect to the former no positive
evidence Avas obtained, and no threats, promises, or torture,
could draw from the principal conspirators the slightest
inculpation of the Jesuits. At last Catesby's servant
yielded to the means which had been employed on the other
conspirators without effect," (which included torture,) " and
revealed certain facts, which were supposed to be sufficient
to involve Garnet and Green way as accomplices." What
Jardine thought of this is pretty clear from what he adds.

390 Tlie Great Rebellion [Dec

" Whether believed or not by the government, the statement
appears to have answered the object they had in view." That
the government did not believe in the plot, so far as any
persons of repute, and especially the priests, were concern-
ed, is clear from this, that the first procedure adopted was
by bill of attainder, the effect of which was, (says Jardine,)
** to declare the lives of several persons to be forfeited, who
had been arraigned or heard in their own defence : a pro-
position more unjust and illegal had never been made to
parliament since the odious bills of attainder in the reign
of Henry VIII/* Let our readers mark this, and remem-
ber that our object is to illustrate the results of the Refor-
mation, and to show that it was the triumph of tyranny,
and that the Rebellion was its retribution. The atrocious
course first conceived was too scandalous, and seems to have
been disapproved of in the Lords. The government then
resorted to means more secret but more horrible. Men
were tortured in prison (until their agonies drove them, in
some cases, to suicide,) in order to force them to confess
crimes of which they were not guilty, and afford proofs of
the pretended "plot." Had it really existed, there could
have been no need of such horrid expedients to procure
proofs, for there were full a hundred persons in custody,
many of whom had been actually taken in arms. But the
truth is, they had been driven to desperation by suspicions
of treachery. They were rather the victims of a plot than
its contrivers. The treachery of Tresham is palpable, and
his death in the Tower only one of the dark deeds which
that place witnessed under the tyranny of Protestantism.
It was either a murder or a suicide, and if the latter, caused
by torture^or remorse. Jardine freely admits that Owen
may be said to have died under torture, or to have sought
refuge in self-murder, in order to escape its agonies. He
also admits that Oldcorne's *' confession" was " probably
given under torture." Who can doubt it? Who can
seriously doubt that all the prisoners were tortured ? Who
can believe that any pretended ** confessions" were
genuiue ? For ourselves, we do not believe in any one of
them, not even that of Fawkes. Jardine remarks the sus-
picious circumstance that the first of his pretended examina-
tions, giving a full account of the "plot," does not appear
to have been signed by Fawkes, though endorsed by Coke.
Was it a forgery, or, if genuine, was it extorted by agonies
of torture, so fearful as to deprive the wretched man of the

1856.] ~ and the Anti-Catholic Faction. 391

power of writing his name ? There are inconsistencies in
the government story which even Jardine has not observed.
That examination is dated the 8th November, and gives a
full account of the plot, yet on the 9th, Wood, the Governor,
writes to Cecil, *' I have prevailed so much at the length
with my prisoner, plying him with the best persuasions^^'
(persuasions ! the horrible persuasions of the rack !) ** I
could use, as that he has promised me to discover to your
lordship all the secrets of his heart, only not to be set down
in writing." Why, if the examination of the 8th Novem-
ber is genuine, he had already confessed everything. But it
was not genuine. It was a fabrication. Jardine points out
gross instances of garbling of the papers by Coke. And it
is really impossible to say that there is any valid proof that
there was any powder plot at all, except as concocted by
Cecil. For all we can be certain of is, that Fawkes was
found in a cellar under the parliament house, with a groat
many barrels of gunpowder, and a bundle of faggots ; for
the rest, — who put them there — who got him there — or
what was the real origin of the affair — we know nothing
except the tale the Government told : and what with the
treachery of Tresham, the trickery of Cecil, the torturings,
th»forgings, and the garblings, of which the government
were guilty, no one can discover credible evidence of
anything except this, which is plain and palpable enough ;
that the King and Cecil wished to make out a plot
against the Catholic gentry and the Catholic clergy, as a
pretext for persecution and spoliation.

Such were the auspices under which the men were born
and bred, who played their parts in the grim tragedy of the
Kebellion, Brought up in a dark atmosphere of pretended
plots and anti-Catholic conspiracies, their minds were
inured to trickery and intrigue, and they were ready to
practise for their selfish purposes the vile arts, of which they
had acquired such long experience, and with which they
had now become so fatally familiar. The aristocracy of
England were fully imbued with the spirit of plotting, and
the system of exciting popular fanaticism, by pretended
plots of the Papists, which had been devised by royal
tyranny, was now to be pursued by an artful oligarchy, who
by this means prostrated the monarchy, and inflicted upon
the son of James a dreadful retribution for all the innocent
blood which had been shed during the reigns of the tyrants
who established Protestantism. The nobles turned against

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXII. 8

The Great Rebellion [Dec

the monarchy its own evil weapons, and as they had been
the eager agents of tl.e Reformation, they were now become
the instigators of tl.e KebeUion. And they effected the
one revolution as they had effected the other, mainly by
means of working on an an ti- Catholic fanaticism, by
practising the lesson which royal tyranny had taught.

We have seen the crime, now let us look at the retribu-
tion. Nothing is more certain than that the Rebellion, in
its origin, was the conspiracy of the aristocracy, and that
the chief weapons were appeals to anti-Catholic bigotry.

Every one must remember how the gloomy puritans
were perpetually pressing the king to put in force the
penal laws : and how artfully they endeavoured to pro-
duce the impression that their sovereign was friendly to
Catholicism. Here again we are reminded by a recent
indecent ebullition of bigotry, that though writing of the
past we are also writing of the present; for, not long
since, the son of Mr. Perceval wrote in the public
pjipers, that if our gracious sovereign were to embrace
Popery, she would lose her throne. The spirit of bigotry
is still the same. It was by pandering to this spirit in the
people that " the proud stern puritanical aristocracy
destroyed the monarchy. And under the auspices of €he
aristocracy the same fanatic spirit is being at this very
time appealed to, by the *' Protestant Alliance," as the
basis of a new conservative party !

Nothing can be elearer than that the original promoters
of the rebellion were among the ranks of the aristocracy.
Who was Pym but a profligate aristocrat, whose treasonable
intrigues were facilitated by means of his amours with
noble ladies? Who was Elliot, the ancestor of the earls
of St. German? (their very title derived from a confiscated
abbey, suggesting at once the origin of the family, and a
reason for their inclination to the rebellion,) — who was
Elliot, we ask, but an aristocrat? Who was Rich, the
ancestor of the house of Holland ? Who were Essex and
Waller, and Vane, but aristocrats ? as were Bedford and
Pembroke, the descendants of the Russells and Herberts,
who had been the ready minions of the tyranny of Henry,
and, having greedily shared the spoils of his rapacity, had
hereditary reasons for hating ** Papacy" and promoting
that cry against it which proved the most potent instru-
ment of the lebellion. The very families who had most
profited by the spoils of the reformation were the earliest

1856.] and the Anti- Catholic Faction. 39S

agents in the rebellion. It was the retribution upon the
monarchy inflicted by the aristocracy. When they had
inflicted it, they had in their turn to endure it. They who
had subverted the throne were supplanted themselves, and
a viler and more vulgar herd set their heels upon the necks
of the EngUsh nobles, who having first plundered the
Church had then destroyed the Crown.

In the earlier stages of the movement towards rebellion,
every one is aware how heartily the House of Lords co-
operated. The judicial murder of Strafibrd (the first of a
long series of such legislative assassinations which ended
with the sacrifice of Lord Stafibrd to the same savage
sport of Puritanism, restored to temporary vigour by the
horrid frenzy of the ** Plot,") could not have been effected
without their assent. And so of Laud. These were the first
victims in the dread tragedy of the rebellion ; the taste of
whose blood stimulated the tiger- thirst for blood, which
once aroused could scarcely be appeased. They were
victims, be it observed, not of popular, but of aristocratic,
vengeance. It was a conspiracy of aristocratic rivals,
who had set their hearts upon having the head of Strafford.
They roused the people to clamour for it, but they formed
the, conspiracy in aid of which they stimulated the cry. It
was the vengeance of Pym, not of the people, which was
slaked in Strafford's blood. And this was the first stage
in the history of the rebellion. So of the second. They
were no vulgar traitors who actually commenced it by the
overt act of shutting the gates of Hull against their sove-
reign. The Hothams belonged to the aristocracy as much
as the haughty Lords and Commoners, who stimulated
them to this audacious act, and who afterwards punished
their returning loyalty by their summary execution. Such
were the sanguinary acts which inaugurated the rebellion,
and they were the acts of the aristocracy.

There can be no doubt that they were the authors of
the rebellion, and that they were its authors for their own
ends and aims. That their motives were their own
aggrandizement is abundantly plain. In the first place,
the far-celebrated " Resolutions," passed by the com-
mons in 1628, contained nothing that was not clearly
intended for the benefit of the aristocracy, and to assist
them in their impending struggle with the Crown, a strug-
gle of which their earlier claims were but the pretext.

The first three relating to persoual liberty, and the writ

394 The Great Rebellion [Dec.

of habeas corpus, which really concerned only the aristo-
cracy and gentry, although nominally claimed for the
whole community ; for at that period the parties disaffected
towards the crown were only of the aristocratic class ; and
that their apprehensions were rather for themselves than
for others, is indicated by the language of the second
article, which asserts that the writ of habeas corpus ought
to be granted to every man imprisoned or restrained,
*' though it he at the command of the king or of the privif
council.*' The plain truth is, that it was only the aristo-
cratic instigators of rebellion who were at all likely to be
imprisoned by the command of the king or privy council,
as Lord Kimbolton, Pym, Elliot, and others, were at that
very time apprehending they would be. And it is obvious
that the protection of the writ of habeas corpus could only
be required to be enforced in such cases, for in all others
the writ, lying as it did at common law, had never been
disputed, added to which, in common cases after all, the
writ was, could be, and is at this moment of no practical use
except in the rare case of magistrates exceeding their
jurisdiction, for in casQS in which they act within their
jurisdiction in committing any common person, provided
they simply show that they have so acted, the cause of
committal cannot be controverted, however monstrous may
have been the injustice, even although, as it was put in a
modern case, the magistrate has determined anything so
absurd as that a man-of-war is a bum-boat ! Such is
the slender protection given by the law of England to the
personal liberty of the common people, even under this
Doasted writ of habeas corpus; and those who are
acquainted with the operation of our magisterial jurisdic-
tion, are aware that it involves constantly the most heinous
and odious oppression, which, save in rare cases of excess
of jurisdiction, is wholly without redress. It was not, then,
for themselves that the aristocratic instigators of rebellion
were anxious when they claimed that the writ of habeas
corpus should be granted to every man imprisoned, even
at the command of the king or council. For well they
knew that by the law of England regarding magisterial
jurisdiction, the writ could afford no practical redress in
the great bulk of common cases, never, where the charge
was within the cognizance of a magistrate, as it would be
in any common case. It would not be so in uncommon
cases of committal for acts of incipient rebeUion, which

1856.] and the Anti-Catholic Faction, 395

might not amount to treason, but might be of so dan-
gerous a tendency that the sovereign's only remedy might
Be in a power of summary arrest. Nor is there anything
more *' unconstitutional" in such a power in cases of peril
to the government, than of danger to the public peace, nor
any greater violation of liberty in issuing a warrant for the
apprehension of a person on suspicion of treason than of
any vulgar felouy. It was not for the common people that
these aristocrats struggled, but for themselves, and to win
security and gain weapons for the prosecution of their
dark designs.

So of the last article, as to tonnage and poundage, which
none but the wealthy would be called upon to pay, and
which was not complained of by the people, but disputed
by a country gentleman of good property. In the " patriot-
ism" of Hampden there was as much hypocrisy as in that
of Sydney at a later period. What cared either of them
for the people ? The people were -little, if at all, affected
by the measures of the crown, which only touched the
rich, and whether they were arbitrary or not, rather spared
the masses. Hampden, the conscientious patriot, so
zealous for liberty when his pocket was touched, cared not
a straw for the sacred rights of conscience, or the principle
of liberty, when cruelly outraged in the persons of the
Catholics, just as modern liberals, true descendants of
these political purists, have proved themselves ready to
impose fetters upon others while prating of freedom for
themselves. The fact was, that Hampden was engaged
with Elliot and Pym in a conspiracy, along with others,
aristocrats like themselves, to destroy the throne, and
erect a tyranny worse than that of royalty, the tyranny of
an oligarch3^ And they thought they found in the case of
ship monej' a good occasion for popular excitement. They
improved it to the utmost, and created an excitement
which but for them would never have existed. ;

Whether the crown was right or not is immaterial to
our argument, which is, that the instigators of the rebel-
lion were playing a deep game for their own purposes, and
cared not a jot for popular rights.

In the Petition of Right they did their best to engraft
into it popular claims, or complaints, but could scarcely
find any. The first article, about forced loans, obviously
only related to the wealthier classes. So of the second,
as to persons committed by command of the king. With

396 The Great Rebellion [Dea

respect to the other two articles — billetting soldiers in
private houses, and punishment of soldiers by martial law
— it may suffice to show the insincerity of these pretended
patriots, that in both these respects the law always has
remained the same, and it is so at this moment !

A far truer idea of the real motives and objects of these
men may be gained by attending to one or two simple
facts, bearing upon their continual clamour against Popery.
They were men the fortunes of whose families had been
made in most instances by grants of Church lands. And
the crown had shown a disposition to resume these grants.
In Scotland this had been begun by James, and even by
his predecessors, and continued by Charles ; and there
are some traces of similar measures in England, combined
with certain steps for the recovery of divers royal demesnes,
restoration of the bounds of forests, &c. AH these were
matters concerning only the wealthy, and amply account
for the activity of the aristocracy in instigating rebellion,
and the comparative quiescence of the mass of the people
until its later stages, when they had been long practised
upon by the arts of the leaders in the movement. More-
over, it may serve to elucidate the real motives of these
traitors, to observe that they were eager to impoverish and
ruin the Papists, by enforcing the fines for ** recusancy,**
because the result of their ruin was, that the wealthier
neighbours easily seized their lands, or got possession of
them at very low rates. Dr. Lingard mentions Rush-
worth himself as an instance of this. Not only, then, had
the aristocracy hereditary reasons for dreading the restor-
ation of the Catholic religion, but very powerful motives
for pressing the prosecution of the Catholics. A third
object was attained by this course, that it afforded a means
of practising on the credulity and arousing the bigotry of
the body of the people. And at the same time it presented
a ready pretext for their own insidious advances upon the
sovereign power. That this was their secret object from
the first is plain from this, that the Earl of Bedford wished
to barter the blood of Strafford for the power of appoint-
ment to all the chief offices of state. What a striking
instance of retribution is it to find the descendant of the
ruffian Russell, who was Henry *s ready agent in butcher-
ing ahbots, that their lands might become the royal
prey, now bargaining with his sovereign about the blood
of his favourite minister !

1856.] and the Ant'i-CatJiolic Faction. 397

Nor is it less instructive to remark that the power of
exercising this insolent tyranny on the sovereign had been
gained by practising upon the popular passions by preju-
dices against the Catholic religion, and that it was a set
of No-Fopery conspirators who were ah-eady sharpening
the axe for the slaughter of their sovereign !

That it was a no-Popery conspiracy, and of the
aristocracy, there are many proofs. Not the least striking
is this fact stated by Whitelock. One Saltmarshe, a
puritan minister, so lately as 1643, pubHshed a pamphlet
in which he urged among other things, " that all means
should be used to keep the king and his people from a
union ; that the war ought to be cherished under the
notion of popery, as the surest means to engage tlie
people ; and that if the king would not grant their de-
mands, then to root him out and the roy.il line, and to
collate the crown upon somebody else." Precisely what
was done at the second Revolution, the continuation or
consummation of the Rebellion, and equally the result of
the conspiracy of a no-Popery faction, and the " conspiracy
of an oHgarchy."

That the object of the conspiracy from the first was,
the subversion of the monarchy, and the establishment of
an oligarchical tyranny, is manifest from many facts and
traits recorded of the conspirators. The principal of them
were Pym, Vane, and Marten ; and of the latter, Clar-
endon tells us, that he very early in the history of these
events avowed himself adverse to kingly government, and
declared that " 07ie man was not 'wise enough to rule.**

That these men were not for a republic, in any demo-
cratical sense, but for an oligarchy, is apparent from the
simple fact that the Government they desired to, and at
first did, establish, was substantially that which was after-
wards in reality established at the Revolution by an
oligarchy ; the administration of affairs by a council of
the leading men among themselves. They themselves
were mostly of the aristocratic class. Their aversion to
the house of Lords was not the result of any hostility to
an aristocracy, but only to a chamber of the legislature
which tended to clog their own action. Some of the most
prominent of the leaders of the rebellion were themselves
Peers, and it is impossible to consider as other than aris-
tocrats, men such as Vane, who lived in the lordly hall of
Raby.

398 The Great Rebellion \ Dec.

Not less certain is it that the conspirators were profli-
gate and nnprincipled men, than that they were haters of
Popery, and that they belonged to the aristocracy. Mr.
D'Israeli has displayed the profligacy of Pym ; and as to
Marten, he was quite of a congenial character so far as
libertinism was concerned. Aubrey describes him as " a
great lover of pretty girls ;" he was separated from his
wife, as Milton was ; and later in his history, even after
the commencement of the melancholy tragedy in which he
pla^-ed so mischievous a part, we find his embarrassments
attributed to his profligacy. These men, too, were as
rapacious as they were profligate ; and Marten came into
collision with the Lords because they were not so forward
in passing ordinances for seizing the estates of delinquents,
as the commons, or rather the leaders of the rebellion,
desired ; for what reason it is hardly necessary to say, the
estates of recusants or delinquents were equally likely to
be appropriated on very easy terms (as the instance
already referred to of llushworth illustrates), by the con-
spirators, or their satellites.

Never, surely, was there a conspiracy in the name of
liberty, organized by a band of men for baser ends, or by
viler means. The two leading conspirators, Pym and
Vane, were equally execrable, for their malignancy, if not
for personal profligacy ; and their enmity to Strafford led
them both to descend to the lowest depth of perfidy and
meanness, in order to satiate their vengeance on their
victim.

In all history there is no more detestable deed recorded
than that by which these conspirators plotted away the
life of Strafford ; and it is only in the acts of the no-
popery faction that we can find any parallel for conduct,
the black baseness of which, looked at in any light, or
any point of view, is not to be palliated.

The impeachment of Straftbrd had been concocted by
the consi)irators with the utmost care; and it was about
to fail. The case so carefully concocted and so ably con-
ducted broke down. At the latest hour, Pym, (who had
sworn to have Strafford's head), came forward with the
story, vouched by Vane, that some months before the
meeting of the parliament. Vane had told him that he had,
on perusal of his father's papers (the elder Vane being
Secretary of State) accidentally met with a paper containing
the result of the cabinet council on the dissolution of the

1856.] and the Anti-Catholic, Faction. 399

last parliament ; and showed him a little paper in his
father's hand-writing, containing notes of what had been
said; and among other things this: that Strafford had
recommended the king to bring over an Irish array to
coerce his English subjects. Nothing could have been
conceived more calculated to inflame to the utmost the
passions of the commons and of the people. Well had
the crafty conspirators forced their bolt, and with deadly
aim they directed it. The house was instantly in a
flame. Vane rose and confirmed Fym's statement, and
his account (according to Clarendon) was, that his father
had sent him to his cabinet for a deed, and that he from
curiosity had looked at other secret papers, and had thus
discovered the memorandum in question, and had shown it
to Pym, and given him a copy, replacing the original in
the cabinet. We need scarcely state the sequel. That
little piece of paper murdered Strafford. And looking at
Vane's own account of the matter it is abundantly clear
that, supposing it to have been genuine, he w&s guilty of
the greatest baseness to his father and to his sovereign (to
say nothing of Strafford), in purloining secret papers from
the cabinet of one minister of state, and using it for the
purpose of slaughtering another. That paper, assuming
it to have been genuine, was the record of what had passed
at a cabinet council, in the secrecy of which his father's
honour and his own were surely equally concerned. What
would be thought of Lord Stanley stealing from the desk
of the Earl of Derby a secret paper, the minute of a
cabinet council assembled when his father was in office;
and sending it to a newspaper, or reading it in a speech,
in order to blast the character of one of his father's
colleagues ! Yet that would be nothing compared to what
Vane committed, even assuming the paper to have been
genuine, for he used it for the purpose of an extra-judicial,
arbitrary, and ruthless legislative murder.

But the paper was not genuine. It was forged by Pym
and Vane. That*it must have been so will appear in a
moment. Their own account was that it had been dis-
covered months before the meeting of parliament, long
before the impeachment. The articles had been prepared
with great care and the most cruel craft, but not a word
had been said of the charge of bringing over the Irish.
Pym pretended that the reason was a reluctance to com-
promise the character of Vane's father. But the elder

400 Tfie Great Rebellion [Dec.

Vane sat by durin;? the disclosure, and, according: to
Clarendon, **tlie scene was well acted between the father
and son," the father affecting to be extremely wroth with
the son for his breach of confidence. Of course on the
supposition that the paper was forged, the father must have
been privy to the forgery. And what reason can be
assigned for his having in good faith made and kept such
a mischievous minute, once more assuming it to have
been genuine? Why should it have been preserved?
What useful purpose could it have answered? The
alleged recommendation had not been carried out. It
must have been, if it had ever been made, a mere
suggestion in the course of discussion. It cannot be sup-
posed to have been made at the council board, in the pre-
sence of Strafford. Why should it have been made after-
wards? When was it made afterwards ? Even assuming
it to have been made by the elder Vane before it was found
by his son, it could have been made for no imaginable
purpose unless a mahgnant and a mischievous one. The
minute was it56fc? for a malignant and a mischievous pur-
pose. It was placed in the cabinet by the younger Vane.
Its production was under suspicious circumstances. There
were evidences of collusion between father and son. There
was no rational explanation for the honest and innocent
existence of the paper at all ; still less of its pretended
discovery ; less still of its long delayed production. One
thing is clear, that it answered a deadly end ; it enaJ>led
Pym and Vane to satiate their long-rankling enmity on
Strafford. And our own belief is, that it was their fabri-
cation in concert with the elder Vane. What an infamy,
in any view of the matter, clings to this incident in the
conspiracy of the oligarchy ! Well might Clarendon speak
of the *' foul acts they" (the conspirators) *' could give
themselves leave to use to compass anything they proposed
to do ; as, in truth, their method was first to consider what
was necessary to be done for some public end, and what
might reasonably be wished for that public end, and then
to make no scruple of doing anything which might pro-
bably bring the other to pass, let it be of what nature it
would, and never so much concern the honour or interest
of any person who they thought did not or would not
favour their design." Well might Dr. Lingard ad<l,
** This assertion seems to be fully supported by the facts."
. That the ends of the conspirators were simply power,

185G.1 and the Anti- Catholic. Faction. 401

wealth, office, and influence for themselves, is plain from
the eagerness with which they grasped at these attrac-
tions. We have already mentioned how the Earl of
Bedford oflered to barter the blood of Strafford for the
control of all the great offices of state. Soon after the
king was forced to confer the chief offices on the Earls of
Hertford, Essex, and Leicester, and Lord Say and Sele.
The Earl of Holland was already in command of the
forces in the north. And ere long the leaders of the
rebellion betrayed their real design, the virtual usurpa-
tion of sovereign power.

No sooner was the king deprived of the able assistance
of Strafford, than they began to encroach on the royal
prerogatives, and actually assumed, of their own authority,
to make " ordinances.** Tliis was in itself a rebellion
and a subversion of the constitution. The pretext under
which it was done was that which the puritan preachers
so strenuously upheld — a zeal against Popery. The Com-
mons affected to believe that more than a hundred mem-
bers were marked out for assassination ! and then, amply
verifying that fable of the wolf and the lamb, which has
so often, alas ! been illustrated by the persecuting charac-
ter of Protestant puritanism ; they denounced seventy
Catholic noblemen and gentlemen as " dangerous," and
deserving to be kept in close custody. The real reason
for these being deemed *' dangerous'* was their known
loyalty, which led the Catholic gentry everywhere to
adhere to their sovereign, even although he had dealt with
them hardly and treacherously. For of Catholic loyalty
it may be truly said, that it is

" True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shone upon."

And good reason had these vile conspirators to dread
the loyalty of Catholic chivalry.

Having taken these precautionary measures to guard
themselves against it, the conspirators now resolved to
usurp the command of the army, and so render themselves
absolute masters. They appointed a council of war, and
passed an ordinance, authorizing the Earl of Leicester to
raise men for the service in Irehmd, i.e., for the persecu-
tion of the Catholics in that country. They had previously
passed a resolution, in concert with the upper house.

402 The Great RehclUon [Dec.

" never to consent to the toleration of the Catholic wor-
ship in Ireland, or in any part of the king's dominions."
Thus they artfully appealed to the bigotry of the No-
Popery faction, and sought to make intolerance the basis
of rebellion. They at the same time entered into treason-
able intrigues with Scottish presbyterians, and sought to
seduce the English army from their allegiance ; and alto-
gether the facts fully confirm the accusation which their
sovereign made against them, that they were seeking to
stimulate a war of religion as a cover for their rebellion ;
that they had conspired to alienate from him the affections
of iiis people, to excite disobedience in the army, and sub-
vert the due authority of parliament, extorting assent to
their decrees by mobs and terror ; and that they had
invited the Scottish army into England, and actually
levied war against their sovereign. All this was before the
memorable attempt to seize the five ** members/' (who
certainly were undoubted traitors,) and immediately after-
wards the leaders of the conspiracy absolutely seized the
Tower, and the two. important garrison forces of Ports-
mouth and Hull. All this was before the lapse of a year
after the murder of Strafford, and before any conduct on
the part of the king at all excusing such overt acts of
treason and rebellion. He was, in fact, forced from the
metropolis by the combinations of the conspirators, and
obliged to withdraw into the northern counties, and there
the feeling of the people was so strongly in his favour that
the gentry voluntarily formed him a body-guard. Most
truly does Dr. Lingard say, that in the appeals now made
by the king and parliament to the people, he had plainly
the advantage, claiming nothing more than the admitted
rights of a constitutional sovereign ; while they, shrinking
from the open avowal of their real objects, sought to jus-
tify themselves by maintaining that there existed a design
to bring in Popery, that the sovereign was governed by a '
Popish council, and that the papists wore about to rise in
England as their brethren had done in Ireland — allegations
calculated indeed to operate on the minds of the ignorant
and imprejudiced, but which, from the frequency of repe-
tition, without the semblance of truth, began to be looked
npom by thinking men as false and chimerical. Secretary
Nicholas writes thus to the king, (as Dr. Lingard cites,)
'* Ye alanne of popishe plots amuse and fright the people
here more than anything, and therefore that is ye

1856. 1 and tlie Anti- Catholic Faction. 403

drum that is so frequently beaten upon all occasions."
We need not remind our readers of Butler's description of

" The pulpit, drum ecclesiastic !
Beat witii fist, instead of a stick.''

The puritan preachers, and the puritan pamphlets, were
then as they were after the Restoration, in the days of
Titus Gates, or again at the era of the He volution, the
main agencies employed by the no-;npery faction to
affright and inflame the people into a co-operation with
rebellion. The design of a *' massacre" by the " papists'*
was the bugbear held up before the popular mind to excite
horror and alarm. And all history attests the fatal truth
that no passion is so ferocious as fear. By the constant
dread of massacre the English people were habituated to
the idea of massacre, and degraded to the lowest depths of
cruel bigotr}^

> iThe pretext most successfully used by the conspirators
for the. promotion of their ends, was the insurrection in
Ireland. We happen to have at hand a decisive confirma-
tion (if any were needed) of the authority of Lingard on
this head. In Taylor's Protestant " History of the Civil
wars in Ireland," it is stated most truly,—'* While they
affected the most ardent zeal for the cause of the Irish
Protestants, and sent them promises of assistance, they
kept the supplies which they had collected, and the army
which they had assembled, to overawe their sovereign in
England."

And for what reason ? On what grounds ? Simply that-
the leaders of the conspiracy might usurp the sovereignty.
Already they had seized two of the chief forts ; they now
claimed to have all the forts placed in their hands. They
had already organized a militia under their own control ;
they now demanded the army and navy. They voted a
levy ot 16,000 men in opposition to the king ; gave Warwick
the fleet and Essex the army. Tiiey were, in fact, at war
with their sovereign, and, we repeat, for no other purpose
than to usurp sovereign authority, which in truth they had
already assumed. When the king, who had not yet taken
any hostile steps, pressed for their demands, he with diffi-
culty obtained any answer; aud the ** articles" they at
length put forward contain not a solitary claim which could
be of the least practical benefit to the country, while, on

404 The Great Rebellion. [Dec.

the contrary, containiiif? much that could conduce only to
its oppression. They demanded that tiie great offii;ers of
state should be chosen with the approbation of parliament,
(i.e., be given to their own faction, they haviui? quite the
control of parliament,) that the militia should be under
their command, that the Church should be changed, (that
is, more puritanized,) and that the Catholics should be
persecuted. It was actually demanded that the children
of Catholics should be brought up as Protestants. Such
was puritan tyranny. Such was the malignity of that
no-popery faction which originated the rebellion.

When Dr. Lingard says that these men, so eager in the
pursuit of civil, were the fiercest enemies of religious free-
dom, we readily assent to the latter but utterly deny the
former part of the observation. They were not engaged
in the pursuit of freedom at all. They were intent oa
establishing, not liberty, but slavery. They aimed at
destroying the monarchy and enslaving the nation. And
they succeeded. They had commenced the combat with
the Crown by protesting against forced loans ; and now
they themselves inflicted a forced loan upon the country,
and levied contributions under terror of confiscation. The
war was now begun into which they had wickedly dragged
the country, and its first fruit was the hateful excise which
to this day we retain — the most obnoxious species of
impost, and a characteristic legacy of those pretended
patriots who brought about the rebellion and the revolu-
tion. Pretending to have been scandalized by the loans of
ship-money which affected only the wealthy, they now, by
their own arbitrary authority, imposed the odious excise
duties, which have ever since pressed heavily on industry
and inflicts annoyance on the great body of the people.
The hypocrisy of puritanical patriotism is palpable and
revolting. They plunged the nation into civil war under
cover of religious bigotry, in order that they might usurp
and abuse the power of sovereignty and enslave their
country under the tyranny of an oligarchy.

The first stage in the history of the rebellion closes with
the life of Pym. He left Vane and Marten, the master
minds, to rule ; Cromwell was still only the minister of
the will of the now triumphant oligarchy. The adminis-
tration of affairs was practically in the hands of half-a-
dozen leading men, of whom these two were the most
influential. The second stage in the history of the tragedy

1856.] and the Anti-Catholic Faction. 405

comprises the period from the death of Pym to the retire-
ment of Vane, shortly before the murder of the king.
This period comprises the disastrous civil war, into the
horror of which the conspirators had wickedly phmged
England for the sake of their own selfish ambition. The
" self-denying ordinance" was the first great movement
upwards of those viler and more vulgar elements of the
rebellion, which were destined soon to displace the more
generous spirits who had been gradually and reluctantly
drawn into it. With cunning art this ''ordinance" required
the surrender, by members of parliament, of all mditary
commands conferred by the authority of parliament. This
removed Essex, Manchester, and Waller, but retained
Cromwell, who was now appointed second in command
under Fairfax. The craftier schemer was rising. And
this was his first great movement. His next was the ex-
pulsion (no doubt at his secret instigation) of the Presby-
terian majority of the Commons, who still clung to
monarchy. Then came the slaughter of the sovereign, and
then Cromwell's assumption of power in concert with Vane
and Marten, and one or two others of less consequence.
Then swiftly followed the last stage in the eventful his-
tory— Cromwell swallowing up his associates in the con-
spiracy and seizing the sole rule of England.

This was the consummation. The substitution of one
tyrant for another, (even at the best), the only difference being
that he was usurper as well as tyrant. This is assuming the
king to have been a tyrant, which as regards the Protestant
portion of his subjects we can scarcely admit. Most cer-
tainly when the conspirators began the rebellion, it wa^
they, not he, who laboured to subvert the constitution and
establish tyranny. And the sequel showed it to be so.

Dr. Lingard truly states that during all this period the
government established in England was an oligarchy.
'* A few individuals," he Rays, ** under the cover of a
nominal parliament, ruled the kingdom with the power of
the sword." At last this power centred in one person,
and England was ruled by parliament embodied in
Cromwell. When the usurper entered London in triumph
the servile recorder told him in an address of congratnla-
tion, that he was destined "to bind kings in chains
and their nobles in fetters of iron." He certainly bonnd
the nation in these chains and fetters. Truly does Dr.
Lingard say that the oligarchy, whose tyranny he had

406 The Great Rebellion [Dec.

absorbed, had exercised a power far more arbitrary than
had ever been claimed by the king; they punished sum-
marily on mere suspicion, and by their committees they
established in every county a knot of petty tyrants who
disposed at will of the liberty and property of the inhabi-
tants. Lilburn was condemned to a fine of £7,000 and
banished for life, merely for accusing Haslerig and other
** commissioners" of imposture and iniquity. Nay, per-
sons— even civilians — were put to death by sentence of
court martial without any legal trial ; and after the civil
war had closed, merely on a vague charge of conspiring
the destruction of the form of government established
by law ; as if there was any law at all in the tyranny of
the parliament oligarchy, who thus dared to take men's
lives for disputing their usurpation.

Of course Cromwell did not prove less tyrannical ; Lil-
burn, who had returned from banishment, was arraigned
and tried for his life, and was only rescued by a jury. And
while republicans (whom he dared not murder) were im-
prisoned, royalists were hung without mercy. Risings
took place all over the country, showing how hateful was
his rule ; and they were everywhere repressed by the sword
and cruelly avenged by the hangsman. Scotland and
Ireland likewise were subdued by the sword ; and we need
not do more than remind our readers of the horrors of
Drogheda and Dundee.

It was in Ireland, however, that the fell tyranny of purl-
tanism was most horribly displayed. It had been distinctly
stipulated by treaty that the Irish should have liberty of
religion, and that no Irish recusant should be compelled to
assist at any form of service contrary to his conscience.
When the treaty, however (wrote Lingard), was presented
for ratification, this concession shocked and scandalized the
piety of the saints. The first part was instantly negatived,
and the second was only carried, with a proviso, that it
should not give any encouragement, allowance, counte-
nance, or toleration, to the exercise of the Catholic worship.
Crouiwell formed the design not only of suppressing the
Catholic religion, but of extirpating the Catholic popula-
tion. Under pretence of an enquiry into the alleged
** massacres" of Protestants, an arbitrary tribunal was
appointed to proceed, in a manner the most summary,
against any Catholic who had killed a Protestant out of
battle for ten years past, and two hundred Catholic

1856. J ' and the Anti-Catholic Faction, 407

gentlemen were put to death under this commission — no
enquiry being made as to the murders of Catholics by-
Protestants. That only two hundred Catholics should
have been put to death by this tribunal in an enquiry
extending back more than ten years, is sufficient disproof
of the monstrous stories of "massacres" which had so
long served the puritans as bugbears to affright and inflame
the people of England. We may be sure that such a tri-
bunal was not very scrupulous, and, as Lingard says, its
procedure was far too summary to allow of any sufficient
enquiry, or to amount to any thing like a trial.

The common people were dealt with in a manner bar-
barous and brutal beyond all parallel in any Christian
nation. The men were slaughtered or driven to find safety
in exile, their wives and families were seized and sent as
slaves to the West Indies ! Sir W. Petty estimates, that
not less than six thousand boys and women were thus
sent, and Lingard says, they were sold for slaves. Another
author cited by Lingard estimates the number by myriads,
and tliis must be far nearer the truth, for besides the men
slaughtered, forty or fifty thousand were forced into exile,
and the families thus left in destitution were mostly dis-
posed of in the inhuman manner described !

After the conquest of Jamaica the Protector, to people
it, sent two thousand young Irish boys and girls ! And
Dr. Lingard cites a document, which was in his possession,
to show that whole ship loads of them were exported to
Barbadoes and the dangerous plantations. Henry Crom-
well, in proposing to send a cargo, wrote thus to Thurlow:
** Who knows but it may be a means to make them
English — I mean rather Christian ?" These inhuman
men while displaying all the barbarity of the bigotry which
brutalized their minds, were so blinded by pride as to
fancy themselves saints, and their victims as heathens 1
Such is the ordinary character of puritanism.

The constitution of England, as settled on the fashion
of puritanism, prosecute I not only '* papists'* but ** prela-
tists;" and in Evelyn we read of a Protestant episcopal
assembly dispersed by the civil power. In Scotland, pres-
byterianism was as much suppressed as *' popery'* in Ire-
land, or prelacy in England. The religious intolerance of
puritanism was exhibited in all its inconsistency, and
iniquity ; denying to others the liberty of conscience they

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXII. 9

408 The Great Eehellion. [Dec

claimed for themselves, and showing that their zeal for
conscience was only a pretext for tyranny.

The rule of Cromwell was one of such odious oppression
that it goaded men, not only into insurrection, but re-
peated attempts at assassination, whicli kept him in such
a state of apprehension, that at last, from the very cruelty
of fear, he became an assassin himself. Not only were
extrajudicial murders committed by the High Court of
Justice, but suspected persons were secretly assassinated
in prison. More than one instance of this is mentioned
by Lingard, and he cites a contemporary statement ex-
pressly significant, ** that several persons were taken out
of their beds and carried none knew whither." It was of
common occurrence that freemen were arrested and im-
prisoned without cause. The reign of puritanism was
tyranny, whether under the form of an oligarchy or of des-
potism. It was a tyranny infinitely more arbitrary and
sanguinary than England had ever suffered before.

Nor "was it, as it is usually supposed, compensated by-
successful administration of affiiirs abroad. It is a strangely
mistaken impression that it was so. On the contrary,
England never sustained such humiliation as she endured
when the Dutch fleet triumphed in the channel, and if her
honour was ultimately and hardily upheld, it was never
decisively avenged ; nor is any thing due to the Common-
wealth for the vigour and bravery of Blake. The treaty
with the Dutch, as Dr. Lingard shows, was nothing for the
Protector to be proud of; nor was any thing gained from
France, except the gratification of his personal ambition
by her abandonment of the Stuart cause. The attempt on
Hispaniola was a disgraceful failure, and no advantage
was attained from the war with Spain, which was carried
on in so piratical a spirit. It has always seemed to us one
of the strongest instances of the deluding influence of pre-
judice that the rule of Cromwell, merely because he was
an unscrupulous impersonation of the spirit of no popery
fanaticism, should be always represented as so " liberal **
and enlightened at home, and so able, bo vigorous, and
successful abroad. It is difficult to say which portion of
the representation is most false. He was but a vulgar
tyrant after all, and a very poor ruler. Had he been a
royal tyrant, he would have been represented as equally
incompetent, and sanguinary. His bigotry has atoned for
all. lie was a ** good hater " of Popery, and that has

1856.] and the Anti-Catholic Faction. 409

served to elevate, if not to canonize, him. He had not
a spark of the spirit of charity to throw even an appa-
rent charm over the dull and leaden yoke of his tyranny.
He was but a successful schemer, and an unscrupulous
ruler. He was made hateful and cruel through fear ; he
had men slain in prison, and walked about with pistols
in his pocket, trembling at the idea of the vengeance
his cruelty had provoked ; wan and haggard with the
haunting horrors which pursued him. If he believed the
degrading cants he poured forth, what must we think of
his intellect? If he did not, what of his hypocrisy ? Such
was the man whom Carlyle ranks among his heroes ! and
whom England has delighted to honour. Heaven help
the nation which has such an ideal of heroism ! The
truth is, the secret of the sympathy between the modern
English mind and the character of Cromwell is simply in
its bigotry. He was an embodiment of the blind hatred
of Rome, which is at this moment as bitter in this country
as ever. The spirit of the Puritans survives among us
still ', and all that unscrupulous policy has been practised
in our own times, by which, in the days of the rebellion,
they stimulated the bigotry of the ignorant.

We have seen within the last few years a " Papal Bull"
forged in order to excite the pious horror of Exeter Ho 11
fanatics ; and more recently still the credulity of English
bigotry has been roused to the highest pitch of excite-
ment by a stupid story about a Papist massacre in Ire-
land ! Our readers may almost have forgotteu the wicked
fabrication which for a few weeks served the purpose of
the "father of lies," the narrative of a railway '* massa-
cre," which turned out to be but a railway blunder after
all ! How thoroughly identical was the spirit of this foul
invention of the No-Popery faction with the spirit shown
by them at the time of the Rebellion, by continually
harping upon rumours of Irish massacre ! It has ever
been their characteristic to act upon the maxim they so
falsely impute to the Church, that the end sanctifies the
means. There is even nowbefore us the Report of the ** Irish
Church Missions Society," of which the shameless men-
dacity is absolutely astounding. It reveals a marvellous
insensibility to shame, or a wonderful confidence in the
ignorance and credulity of their readers, that such mon-
strous falsifications should be put forward by a Society
which numbers amongst its members all the leading **evan-

410 The Great Rehdlion and the Anti Catholic Faction.^ [Dec

gelical" noblemen and gentlemen of the three conntries !
That the Catholic prelates have just been induced to
** make an apparent concession to the demands of the
people, by authorizing the publication of the Scriptures in
English," is one of the statements ! And we learn from
the same Report that the Society sells the Douay Bible,
on the fly leaf of which appears the sanction of the Catho-
lic Hierarchy, and even a quarter of a century ago, to the
improved translation, and recommending its perusal by
the faithful with right dispositions ! The pious men who
prepared the Report had this sanction before them (refer-
ring to the former translations, two or three hundred years
old,) when they put forth the audacious ftilsehood we have
quoted. What can be thought of modern puritan mora-
lity? It has not improved much since the evil era of
their triumph at the Rebellion. But, what must be
thought of the intellectual degradation of the puritans, as
a body, when we find them swallowing such statements
as these — (which we assure our readers are taken from
the last Report,) that a priest applied to a magistrate for
permission to have a procession of "the Virgin,'* who
was to have been mounted on an ass, that had actually
been consecrated for the purpose ! Nay, this is nothing
to what follows. *' Strange as it may appear, we have it
also on a host of evidence that we cannot doubt, that

Mr. " (prudent blank !) " having announced his

purpose of casting out the devil, in his chapel, there
appeared, and passed rapidly across the chapel, a figure,
suitably got up, [and breathing out fiery smoke." We
find that the Society spends about £40,000 a year, de-
rived from the ** enlightened" Protestant people, who
swallow these absurdities, and that most of their money
is represented to be spent in sending out " readers,'' who
furnish these statements, and circulating ** tracts" which
publish them. It is not surprising to hear that the emissa--
ries of the Society have in various places been rudely
treated, and *' covered with filth." No physical filth
could be foul enough fitly to distinguish the mercenary
wretches who can fabricate and circulate such atrocious
falsehoods, — creatures with only brains enough for bias-,
phemy, and who, with ludicrous impiety, affect to pity the
** benighted Irish Papists." What we are surprised at
is, that noblemen and gentlemen of character, should, by
their names, sanction such execrable inventions, and that

1856.] Madame D'Arbouville's Poems and Novels. 411

a people so sensible as the English and Scotch should
credit them. But there is no blindness like that of
bigotry, and no bigotry like that of the no-popery fanati-
cism. It seems to degrade the intellect — to deaden the
feelings — to lower the whole moral nature. No parallel
can be found to its modern manifestations, except in its
exhibition at the era of the Rebellion. There is a perfect
accordance between its spirit at the present time, and
that which led the Pnritan leaders at that period to speak
of the Irish as not Christians. The no-popery faction is
always. and everywhere the same in its spirit and its tem-
per, which are as alien to truth and charity, as to faith
and morality. No atrocity is too shocking, no absurdity
too glaring, when Catholics are to be affected or attacked.
Any artifices are lawful which may lend an impulse to
bigotry. All sense of shame is stifled under the cloak of
a spurious piety. No stretch of mendacity is too gross to
be covered by the cloak of hypocrisy. Such was the vile
faction which brought about the Rebellion, and now
would fain recur to Persecution.

Art. V. — Poesies et J^ouvelles de Madame D'Arbouville. (Se vend
au profit de deux (Euvres de Charlte.) Paris Libraire D'Amjot
Editeur ; 8, Rue de la Paix. 1855.

*' TN this world in which we live a few years, in which
X we are happy a few hours, if there are a few days in
which we do not weep, it is when, after having uttered the
first cry of a new sorrow in the midst of an indifferent
crowd, we restrain our tears and groans, we hide our grief
from every eye, we make of it a hidden idol in the sanc-
tuary of our hearts." Such is the promising commence-
ment of the most cheerful, of Madame D'Arbouville's
Tales, and such is the lively and happy tone of feeling
which she maintains throughout her works. They are one
monotonous but not unmusical lament over the vanity and
mournfulness of life.
Madame D'Arbouville is the most sentimental of

412 Madame D'Arbouville's [Dec.

authors. Of all writers who have selected the maudlin
style of literature, she appears about the best. She has a
fatal facility for the pathetic, an inexhaustible inventive
faculty in calamities and miseries. Her works are, we
think, the most utterly lugubrious productions we have
chained to encounter. Sterne's most sentimental passages
are cheerful, and the *'Man of Feeling'*is jocular incompari-
son. The sorrows of Werther are merely pleasant excite-
ments, compared with sorrows of the happiest of Madame
D'Arbouville's proteges. In most other tales, novels, or
dramas, however pathetic, the sun breaks through at times,
the reader is relieved by occasional gleams of wit or joy-
fulness, or is at least deluded into some faint hope of a
happy denoument. But Madame D'Arbouville's works
are covered with one unbroken gloom. All her art is em-
ployed to deepen and darken their sombre tint, the land-
scape is barren, the day is cloudy, the season is a perpetual
winter. The unrelenting calamities thicken and accumulate
page by page. The grief she depicts is wholly depressing;
its only effect, as described by her, is to render the organ-
ization still more delicate and sensitive to every breath of
misfortune. There is little in her works of that grief
which strengthens while it purifies ; which, while it confers
experience and sympathy, develops a manliness and
endurance formerly latent. Her persons are lifeless, hope-
less, unresisting. They feel nothing of that excitement of
the battle of life which grows more intense as difficulties
increase.

Life, such is the moral Madame D'Arbouville appears
to teach, is at best to be borne, not enjoyed. To a person
of sensibility, every day brings its burden of wounded
feeling and irretrievable loss. The present is full of dis-
comfort. The past furnishes matter only for imavailing
remorse and regret. The contemplation of the future
inspires not hope but anxiety, and a foretaste of inevitable
calamity. Life is not so much a scene of trial as of suffer-
ing. You cannot disregard its miseries, unless indeed you
become void of sensibility (in which case you are out of the
pale of Madame D'Arbouville's sympathy altogether).
Its sorrows are innumerable and its anxieties inevitable.
It is impossible by resignation, or by any system
of quiescence to cease to feel them. The sorrows of
life nmst be accepted and borne, a certain joyless
calm and quietism will succeed at length, and Chris-

1856.] Poems and Novels. 413

tianity will confer some consolation, by pointing to a
speedy release, and revealing a future repose.

Such is a fair unexaggerated account of the tone of
feeling and sort of incident, which, as t'.ie reader will find,
pervades Madame D'Arbouville's works. Weak, effemi-
nate and morbid, as we are accustomed to consider such
lamentations, and as they often undoubtedly are ; alto-
gether unnatural, and in some views contemptible, as is her
account of life and of man, yet her works are by no means
to be dismissed with a light contempt. If they deserved
to be so, we should not, of course, have thought fit to bring
them under the special notice of our readers. On the
contrary they possess very high merit. They take rank
with the very best of the sentimental school, and have in
a very high degree the excellencies which are often found
in conjunction with the faults we have mentioned ; they
abound in passages of very great poetical feeling and
beauty, in descriptions which prove no slight understanding
and observation of nature, in touches of exquisite,
womanly sensibility, sometimes true to our deepest feel-
ings,— genuine toucRes of nature, " which make the whole
world kin," but oftener it is true somewhat morbid and
diseased, — yet, like feeble flowers, possessing a bloom all
the more delicate and brilliant, because unhealthy and
forced. Her pathetic power is of the most effective kind,
but its influence on the reader is more remarkable than
agreeable. Whichever of her tales he may select for first
perusal, he will find in the highest degree affecting, and
he may enjoy in reading it the luxury of a pleasing im-
aginative melancholy in full perfection; but the next tale
and the next are merely monotonous repetitions of the
same depressing dose ; the most gloomy reflections are
accumulated and reiterated ; the most painful descriptions
are elaborated with a certain unswerving determination,
and with unfailing skill and power, till the unhappy reader,
thoroughly bewildered at the discovery that he has been
living all along in a world of such unmitigated misery,
closes the book in a state of general despondency and
complete collapse.

It will be evident to our readers, from the foregoing
remarks, that Madame D'Arbouville's writings are in
direct and remarkable opposition to, and protest from,
our present prevailing tastes, their defects are such as we
abhor, their merits such as we cannot appreciate. Had

414 Madame D*Arhouville'8 [Doc.

they beep written in English now, her admirers would
have been few and exceptional, perhaps select, and yet it
appears to us equally clear that had they been published
in England some forty years ago, they would have caused
no little sensation, and would have been hailed with general
applause. But our taste in such matters has undergone a
striking revolution. The sentimental school, properly so
called, is nearly defunct with us, at least, with one or two
important exceptions, only the dregs of it remain, only
gross and absurd caricatures — which pander to the weakest
tastes — of a style of literature which, although never unob-
jectionable, was yet by no means devoid of genius and no-
bleness. Our popular taste requires now for its literary food
something at once more palpable and coarser. A " spas-
modic poem,'* breathing only gross passion and blasphemy,
is received with avidity ; but refinement of sentiment and
exquisite sensibility we regard as tokens of weakness, and
despise them accordingly, after our fashion of despising
everything not our own. Our better novelists, on the other
hand, prefer to describe a lively and active life, or, if they
paint misfortunes and difficulties and miseries, they are
chiefly those of poverty, or disease, or disappointed ambi-
tion, or of some other of those palpable misfortunes which
are within the apprehension of all, and, indeed, the expe-
rience of most ; and such misfortunes they love to paint
not as overcoming the sufierer, but as themselves overcome,
or at all events borne with cheerfulness and manliness.
Rightly or wrongly we are too self-satisfied to appreciate
pictures of despair, or to sympathize with examples of
meek and sufiering resignation. We depend for our hap-

Einess chiefly on solid, tangible material comforts, and
ardly at all on the exercise of the finer sensibilities and sym-
pathies, or at least we seem to have given up in despair the
attempt to obtain any satisfaction from them. With a good
dinner, a sound digestion, and quiescent creditors, a British
subject is happy and will ** face the devil," and any
grief unconnected with appetite, stomach or purse is sen-
timental, romantic and dyspeptic, and the patient is in
need of nothing but proper medical treatment. If a man
have to go to the infirmary, the poor-house, or through the
Gazette, he gets pity enough, (not much assistance, it is
true), but if any man or woman should, like Madame
D'Arbouville's personages, break his or her heart for

1856.] Poems and Novels. 415

love, it is a case either of affectation or silliness, and in
either view to be despised.

From this turn of thinking it has resulted that our im-
aginative literature partakes too little of the sentimental,
and is altogether too gay and hard, too formally realistic,
to represent human life either worthily or truly, and we
venture the assertion that some infusion in our works of
fiction of Madame D'Arbouville's exquisite and yet deep-
toned sensibility, would be a manifest improvement both
as regards the poetical conception and the truthful delinea-
tion of human life. Without this poetical intensity and
subtlety of feeling, we miss alike the truth, and the
nobility of man.

For in our anxiety to confine ourselves to painting
rigorously after nature, we are liable to fall into a very
considerable error, and are apt to take into account, and
treat as the whole of life, only that part of it which is
obvious, and open to every day observation and inspection,
and to disregard as the dreams of poets, and as having no
corresponding reality in nature, those finer emotions which
are felt more than they are expressed , which are paraded
the less, the more certainly they are experienced ; and
which, therefore, are not discoverable by the ordinary
observer at all, however careful aud faithful, but are learned
rather by self-reflection, and by the experience of genius.

Many again think that the palpable and obvious calami-
ties of life are so great, that more fanciful griefs are but
child's play in comparison, that with so many wanting
bread before our eyes, with criminality, fraud, and wretch-
edness on every side, it is both absurd and wrong to con-
cern ourselves with sentimental and, as they think,
imaginary sorrows. This feeling also, however just within
certain limits, is not without its injurious effects, both in
literature and in life. For in our regard for others, we are
too apt to neglect the more difficult duty of looking after
ourselves ; in our care for the lower wants of the masses,
the higher intuitions of our own being are forgotten : those
vague and quenchless longings, which were wont to be
regarded as the very crown of thorns of our humanity,
cease to be felt ; our feelings lose in force and intensity as
they gain in diffusion, and the single-hearted and infinite
love and friendship and devotion of former times, are apt
in our own time to be dissipated in a loquacious and con-
ceited general philanthropy.

416 Madame UArhouvilles [Dec.

Th'inkinof, then, that this absence or barrenness of senti-
ment is one of tlie most notable defects in the literature
and the life of the day, we think it may not be altoi|ether
useless to direct the notice of our readers to Madame
D'Arbouville's works, which are certainly as sentimental
as the most sensitive genius could require — and consider-
ably more so.

This lady was not, as the tone of her works may seem
to indicate, an unfortunate or unhappy woman ; on the
contrary, few can boast of lives half so pleasant, and few,
it appears, could have enjoyed life with greater cheerful-
ness and satisfaction ; so that her dolorous strains do not
express any sad experience of life of her own, but ai*e
rather the offspring of a certain bent to reverie and imagi-
native melancholy. Neither was Madame D'Arbouville a
** femme de lettres,*' strictly so called. She wrote princi-
pally to please herself, and a few of her tales were printed
for private circulation. She possessed, however, an exqui-
site taste and a highly-cultivated mind, and her course of
life was excellently adapted for the cultivation of literature
and poetr}'. Her mother, Eliza de Houdetot, afterwards
Madame de Bazancourt, and her more famous grand-
mother, Madame de Houdetot, a heroine of Rousseau, were
both ladies of very remarkable attainments and of great
refinement. She herself, Sophie de Bazancourt, married,
in 1832, M. D'Arbouville, an officer in the French army.
At first Madame D 'Arbouville lived with her husband in
various garrisons in France, during which time we may
believe she acquired that susceptibility to natural scenery
which ornaments her writings ; and afterwards, when her
husband was ordered to Algiers, and when her health did
not permit her to accompany him, she returned to Paris,
where she resided, generally admired and loved, for the
rest of her life.

" She did not," writes M. do Barante, the author of a biogra-
phical notice prefixed to her works, '* seek for fame by her Poetry
or her Tales. On the contrary, she communicated them to few, and
did not speak of them at all. She loved to please by the charm of
her conversation, by the sweetuess of her character, by sympa-
thizing kindness. To assume the position of Authoress and ' femme
de Lettres,' would have appeared to her a disturbance of family
comfort, and an infidelity to the privacy of intimate social life.
She obtained, to the height of her wish, the sort of success she
desired. ..Site had gained the position which she had dreamed of

1856.] Poems and Novels. 417

and hoped for when young. She formed the centre of a distin-
guished society. She gathered around her men of wit and of
lettres, or important from their position, and women amiable with-
out frivolity."

So in a happy and not ungraceful manner passed
Madame D'Arbouville's life. For some time previous to
its close she suffered considerably from illuess, but never
lost her perpetual cheerfulness and amiabilit}'. She died in
MarCh, 1850. Certain of her tales, which had been printed
for private circulation had been more extensively published
without her sanction, and some of her other works, in a
more or less imperfect form, had somehow crept into pub-
lic life. It was on this account resolved to pubhsh at
length Madame D'Arboufille's Poems and Tales, which,
we are bound to say, stood in no need whatever of any
such apology for their publication.

Madame D'Arbouville's Tales here published are six in
number — Marie Madeleine, Une Histoire Hollondaise, Le
Medecin du Village, Une vie heureuse, Luiggina and Re-
signation. Of these Une Histoire Hollondaise is without
doubt the best ; we know of nothing at once more poetical
and affecting. The descriptive skill displayed in it is admir-
able, and a halo of most poetical fancy surrounds all its
scenes and characters. The motionless Dutch river, with
its reeds and willows, the dull flat landscape, the sombre
sky, the lonely house of M. Van Amberg, with the silent,
repressed, and stern life of its inmates, powerfully impress
the imagination and haunt the memory. They contrast
admirably with the animated life and young love of the
heroine, Christine, and convince the reader beforehand
that in such a climate, material and spiritual, her youth
was too bright to last. The effect of the convent life on
Christine is painted with power. The liveliness, anima-
tion, and affection of the young girl are replaced by a
serene and passionless quietism, expressed by Madame
D'Arbouville with wonderful skill. But upon this tale,
and upon Le Medecin de Village, we cannot afford now to
dwell, because, as many of our readers may recollect,
translations of them were published in Blackwood's Maga-
zine some years ago, how obtained we are not aware. We
were then greatly impressed with their very exquisite
beauty and pathos, and we have no doubt they yet dwell
in the recollection of many of our readers. Therefore

418 Madame D'Arhouville's [Dec.

driven to make a selection, we omit further notice of Tales
which we suppose to be ah'eady more widely known than
the others.

Luigcrina is the most ambitious of Madame D'Arbou-
ville's Tales, but not the most successful. The reader
will find the characters ably drawn, and he will remark
numerous passages of surpassing interest, introduced and
worked up with a degree of skill and ingenuity which we
very seldom see equalled in English novels. But^ by
attempting a more elaborate plot, and introducing more
variety of character than usual, Madame D' Arbouville has,
we think, gone somewhat out of the sphere in which she
has no superior, out of that range of character and sympa-
thy which her feelings enable lier to comprehend so com-
pletely, and to express so well ; and consequently we do
not tliink Luiggina a favourable example of her writings.
The works in which Madame D' Arbouville excels resem-
ble cabinet pictures, in which one admires the finish of the
painting, the purity of the colouring, and the admirable
expression of that pathetic sentiment in the delineation of
which she is unrivalled. But Luiggina is a larger and
more crowded canvass, in which her excellencies do not so
imperatively compel attention, while in various parts she
attempts a style for which she is but slightly qualified.
Luiggina, besides, is too long a story to admit of any satis-
factory notice in our pages.

'* Resignation" we do no more than notice; though by
no means devoid of beauties, it is by far the most feeble
production amongst Madame D'Arbouville's published
works.

We therefore select for more detailed remark ** Marie
Madeleine," and " Uue vie heureuse," tales, which
although not equal to the ** Histoire Hollondaise," yet
afford unquestionable proof of Madame D'Arbouville's
fine genius, and are completely characteristic of her style.

"Marie Madeleine" commences with the lugubrious
passage with which we began our review, and proceeds for
some pages in the same hopeful strain. The scene of the
tale, so to speak, is so characteristic of Madame D'Arbou-
ville, so obviously designed to intensify the gloom of the
story, and so well calculated for that end, that we ought
not to omit it. It is just the kind of 'Vcircnmstance"
with which she loves to clothe her works.

1856. 1 Poems and Novels. 419

* "It was a cold morning in February. The snow, whirled about
by the gusts of wind, did not fall to the ground till for a long time
it had wavered uncertainly in the air. The sky was grey, and
appeared to stoop as though to wrap the earth in a humid shroud.
The ground was covered with a thick layer of snow ; no bird was
on the wing, no insect was visible. All nature was dead. There
is a sweet sadness iil contemplating these seasons of tlie grief of
things that are lifeless. We feel the better that we have not paid
for intelligence by the faculty of suffering, and that thought is a
privilege and not a compensation. Yes, on that day the trees, the
grass, the ants, hid under the frozen earth, everything suffered as
we, everything lamented and appeared to weep.

" I walked slowly towards Belleville — towards these few houses
which are too near Paris to be a village, and too far from the city
to be a faubourg. I went to seek, after ten years absence, a friend,
for it is the fashion to accord that name to any one who has been at
college with you, and addresses you familiarly by your christian
name ; a friend then, whom I could not refrain from informing of
my return. I proposed to myself to take him by surprise at Belle-
ville, whither, as I had chanced to learn, he had retired.

" I had left Paul D'Ercourt devoting himself to the study of
medicine, and decided, notwithstanding the repugnance of his
family, to become a doctor. I did not well understand how that
could have induced him to live at Belleville, where there was every
possible obstacle to the exercise of his profession ; — but in sad
hearts, nothing'excites curiosity very vividly ; it is of little use to
attempt to explain the world we live in.

" After having wearily climbed the hill at the entrance of Belle-
ville, I left on the right the inhabited streets, and followed the
course of the walls, which, running very near one another,
formed narrow lanes. My feet sank deep in the snow, the sky was
charged with clouds, all around me was a desert. At some distance
a few stones had fallen out of the wall, and I could see through the
cleft a wide horizon gloomy and cloudy. A plain, devoid of every
vestige of verdure, stretched as far as the eye could reach. At the
end of the most solitary of these narrow streets was a small house,
bare, sad, gloomy, like all around it. I pushed the first gate I saw.
It opened back on a mass of snow, in which lay some dead branches.
In the spring there may here have been a little garden, enclosed by
walls, but then the space only added to the deserted air of this
melancholy dwelling.

" I approached the house, it was open, but no one replied to my
repeated knockings. I ascended the stair, and opening at chance
a third door, I entered the study^of Paul D'Ercourt.

" I stood immoveable before tlie spectacle which met my eyes.
The room was small, lighted by a single window, which looked out
on the immense plain of snow which 1 had already seen. Upon the
3ide-table were arranged in order heads of all sorts of anigials.

420 Madame D'Arbouville*s [Dec.

from the smallest bird to the skulls of wild beasts. All these skulls
were shining, thorouglilj cleaned and scoured, mounted with cop-
per, and placed under glasses. On the table in the middle were
heaped together heads of men, some of them entire, others cut in
two. The gloomy light piercing the narrow window, fell faintly on
that mass of bones ; these hideous heads, with their hollow eyes,
turned to me, showing death in all its disenclianting horror, speak-
ing only of the skeleton which the earth reclaims, without recalling
the soul which heaven awaits. There was something so unexpected
in the room that I shut the door, and turned away. 1 saw before
me another chamber, towards which I went. This time I was bet-
ter prepared for the sight which awaited me, yet I felt an equal
horror and disgust. Round the room there were rows of shelves of
black wood, one above the other. Upon these shelves were placed
heads of the dead. On one side of the room one might read these
words, • IJeads of Criminals.' The opposite side bore the inscrip-
tion, ♦ Heads of Idiots,' and a little apart from it was written,
* Heads of great men.' "

Paul D'Ercourt, who in this cheerful manner pursues
his studies in Phrenology, is the narrator of the story of
Marie Madeleine. She appears on the stage suddenly and
mysteriously enough, Paul D'Ercourt*s old and silent
housekeeper, the only person he could prevail on to live in
his desolate chamber of horrors, one morning is more
silent than usual, and is discovered in bed in articulo
mortis. Marie Madeleine opportunely appears to supply
her place.

" One cold morning in January," says Paul, " at a time when the
last of the poor had retired to shelter, I heard some one knock
timidly at the door of my study. 1 resignedly laid down my pen
and bade him enter.

** There entered a young girl whose appearance struck me with
surprise. I wish I could give any idea of the lovely form which
Btood before me. She was tall, feeble, slender. She wore a black
woollen dress, and her two hands, white and delicate, slightly
trembling, held across her breast a shawl black as her robe, which
hung upon her shoulders. She was white and pale as I did not
believe any living being could have been. Under her small
mousseline bonnet her hair was bound up with a ribbon. Smooth,
and without curl, it bent lightly over her forehead. Her deep blue
eyes were barely visible through her long eyelashes. — They were
drooping and full of tears. Her lips, without any colour, trembled
like all her feeble body. I have never seen so much appearance of
suffering in one so young. There was life, no more. There was
^ot yet death, It was a dream, and my eyes seemed to have

1856.] Poems and Novels. 421

deceived me. Astonished and agitated, I rose quickly. ' Wliat do
you wish,' said I, * Madame ?'

" She stretched her hand to a sofa which was beside her, as if to
support herself. Her head fell back, and I thought she was about
to faint. But she made a strong effort, and with eyes bent on the
ground she murmured — ' Pardon, Sir, I suffer. I have come from
a distance, the cold has made me ill; it is nothing.*

" I had gone towards the sofa. She had sunk upon it, her head
falling on her breast, her white hands clasped and resting on her
knees. In a few seconds she slowly raised her head ; for the first
time her eyes were directed to me. This movement, without
doubt, exhausted the strength still left her, and she fainted.

** I remained immoveable by the lifeless body of this fair young
girl. I looked at her in silence. If her whole appearance was
delicate and refined, her dress was poor and coarse. That black
robe bore witness to a long continued grief ; the. dress had beeu
worn out long before the grief.

'• Little by little animation returned ; she opened her eyes, and
I waited anxiously while she spoke.

" 'Sir,' she said, with more calmness than she had hitherto
shown, ' I trust this appearance of weakness will not terrify you, it
will not return, and 1 am stronger than you would believe. Excuse,
I entreat you, the unusual manner of my visit, and let it not make
you refuse my request.'

" • How can I serve you. Mademoiselle?'

" ' I know. Sir, that you seek one to replace your old housekeeper,
who has been dead for a month. I have come to offer you vaj
services.' "

III vain Paul D'Ercourt pleads her evident weakness ;
the roughness of the work he requires, the solitude of
his life, and the impropriety of a young girl living with
him alone, — Marie remains firm. Paul is compelled to
yield, and Marie is installed ^as his housekeeper. Day
after day Paul sits in his study, enthusiastically pursuing
his grim investigations on the heads of criminals, idiots,
and great men, and Marie Madeleine is seated at her
spinning wheel, silent and motionless, — first in the room
below, and then, when winter becomes more severe, in
his study beside him. Sometimes Paul detects her look-
ing at him with a strange, wistful expression, and when
he speaks, she listens as if entranced ; yet her answers
are wholly apart from his questions, ; as if she did not
hear, or could not understand them. She begins de-
cidedly to interfere with his hitherto undivided affection
for his skulls. He concludes for certain that she has
fallen in love with him, and he, for his part, has become

42*2 Madame D'Arbouville's. [Dec.

enthralled by the continual presence of her sweet and
lovely form, lighting up and adorning his stern and mel-
ancholy hermitage. We pass over, as not immediately
connected with the main story, Paul's account of his love
for Madeleine, whom he desires to marry. To his aston-
ishment, she earnestly entreats him to forbear to speak on
the subject, as on the one hand she cannot be his wife,
and on the other, she passionately desires to remain in
his house. Mystified completely, Paul sets down her
refusal to diffidence and modesty, and presses his suit.
"Madeleine," he says, "we must part for ever, or
be united for life. Reflect, choose, decide my fate."
"Let us separate for ever," she murmured, and she
leaves the house, after having assured him that she knew
of a shelter to which to betake herself. The next morn-
ing, on opening his door, he finds that Madeleine had
fainted at the threshold, and had lain there throughout
the whole winter night.

•' One might see that she bad knelt down to praj, for her hands
remained clasped.

" I took her in my arms — I carried her to the parlour — I lighted
the tire — I brushed away the snow, which covered her. On my
knees beside her I watched for the first symptoms she should give
of returning life. Little by little the warmth revisited her frozen
limbs, — her lips moved — her eyelids opened.

" ' Madeleine, my much loved Madeleine,' cried I with palpitating
heart.

" She looked at me, then, throwing herself in my arms, and
clasping hers round my neck;

" • 0 my Godl' she murmured, ' am I then in heaven ?'

" But soon Madeleine's arms were removed fi-om me ; she raised
her head, looked around her, passed her hand across her forehead,
as if to collect her confused ideas.

"*Alas! alasl' she said, bursting into tears.

"'Madeleine,' said I, warmly, 'you return not again to quit
me; is it not so ? You have suffered too much for us to be sepa-
rated ! You feel as I do, that it is impossible!'

" ' Ah ! Monsieur Paul,' said Madeleine, * I knew well when quit-
ting you, that I could not live without you ! When I told you
that I would find a friend who expected me, — that friend — it was
the Good God ! I went away to die, since I could remain no longer
here ! Only, last night I wished once more to see you. I knew
not whether God would permit me to meet you again in heaven,
and I wished to engrave your form well in my memory, that your
image might be before me throughout eternity.'

1856.] Poems and Novels. 423

"'Dear Madeleine,' I cried, pressing her to my heart, 'I will
find jou again in heaven; but ^our two lives must be one on the
earth.'

" She repelled me gently.

" * Alas 1 Sir,' she said, * you do not know what makes me speak
thus, and I do not wish to tell you. Nothing of our future is
changed. The cold seized me as I knelt on that stone, and I
fainted; but I did not return again to take my place in' this house;
I will not remain longer thau to-morrow ! Leave me to my
fate!'

" ' But, Madeleine, you are madl'

'* ' It is possible,' she said, gently, ' I have been so they tell me,
er at least I have been very ill ; and it is a great misfortune that
I did not die of my illness.' "

The next morning Paul himself leaves the house, en-
trusting Marie to the care of" an old occasional servant.
He is shortly recalled by.the news of her death. She has
left an account of her life, which solves the mystery of her
conduct, and which is itself the main story.

Near Brest, by the sea shore, Marie Madeleine had
lived with her father, Pierre Dormer, an old sailor ; a
quiet and lonely life, spent in tending her flowers, in read-
ing the few books she could find, and in passing long
hours musing dreamily on the rocks beside the sea.

One day an officer came to their house, — he had been
wounded,— has been ordered by his physician to the sea
side, and in short is in search of a lodoring. Weak and
wearied, he is welcomed by Pierre Dormer and his
daughter.

" Thus*' wrote Marie, after relating her meeting with

the stranger, " passed my first interview with Charles

D'Ercourt — with your brother. Thus arose the cloud
which contained the thunderbolt destined to ruin my
life."

Meanwhile, the old and sweetly mellowed story need
not be told, that the health of Charles D'Ercourt is re-
established, and that he and Madeleine plunge into all
the romance of a first love. Her father watches their
affection with pleasure, and Charles and Madeleine are
affianced. One day, however, Charles appears pale and
sad; he has just been informed that he must take a long
voyage, and his ship, the *' Gustavo Adolphe,'* is about
to sail.

Charles away — Marie falls into a state of half sad, half

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXII 10

4^ Madame D'Arhouville's [Dec*

pleasing reverie. Her steps instinctively wander to the
sea. Perhaps fancifully, yet very beautifully, Madame
D'Arbouville writes:

"It was with a feeling of pleasure tliat I allowed the wayes to
bathe my feet ; some of them had borne Charles's ship. 1 said to
mjaelf, they have passed near to my beloved.

' " As the lamb leaves some of its wool on each thorn-bush, our
love had left some recollection on every shrub on the plain, on
every rock by the sea. As I looked around, everj-thing I saw
appeared to have a voice, and to say to me, 'he was here.* "

A year passes, day after day, from morning to night,
Marie watches for the return of her betrothed. At last,
one evening, the *' Gustave Adolphe" is recognized off
Brest.

*' I went to my chamber," writes Marie, " I sat beside the
open window, and plunged in an extasy of happiness. I awaited
the day.

♦' O who could tell the blessedness of that night of hope, of that
night of waiting for a happiness so near and so sure, that it waa
happiness itself. How fair did nature seem during that festival of
the heart ! Heaven showed all its stars ; tlie pure azure seemed
filled with angels, who that night regretted the earth ! The flowers
exhaled their sweetest odours, tho waves did not break on the
shore, but came slowly there to |)lay and to caress it, — the breeze
stealing over the surface of tlie waves, seemed no more to moan,
but to sing — the leaves were not shaken by it, but trembled with
joy; the trees bent as though to salute the waking of the beautiful
morning, — and I, my heart beat within me, as though it would
burst its feeble covering.

" For some hours I had mused thus, as immoveable with joy, as
I have ever been with sorrow, when suddenly a flash lighted up
the night. I looked out — my God I had I then been a long time
there, having ceased to see wliat 1 looked at — to hear what was
passing around me ? I had turned my thoughts from tho world
without, to fix them within me, ou the celestial joy which shone
through my heart ! Wliat a change met my ejes ! The stars
had fled, my beautiful heaven had disappeared, and the storm
announced itself evcr^'where.

" I hastened out of my room, and ran down to my father.

" * Father ! father 1' cried I, ' do you hear the tempest?'

"'Very well, "my child,' said I'ierre Dormer, tvy'mg to seem

calm, 'it will pass and tomorrow tho day will be calm for the

entry into port of the Gustave Adolphe.'

" 'My father,' cried I, in despair, ' the ship is near the banks,
and the wind blows towards the land.'

" • lleassuro yourself, Marie Madeleine. Tho Gustave Adolphe

185G. 1 Poems and Novels. 425

will have foreseen the storm, and it will have had time to gain the
open sea. I have been in worse storms than this, and come safelj
out of them, my child.'

" * Mj father, were you ever anywhere so bristling with reefs ?'
"The cottage seemed every moment about to yield to the force
of the storm. The branches of trees groaned and broke. The
brilliant lightning made the night brighter than day. 0 Monsieur
Paul, have you ever heard the great voice of the tempest and tho
squalls of the hurricane, and said to yourself, that the life of one
you loved was in their hands? How weak and little do we feel in
th3 presence of the elements, and know that God has made mightier
creatures than man.'*

Meantime the vessel labours in tbe storm. Guns of
distress are heard at intervals. Marie and her father have
run to the harbour of Brest, where the sailors are manning
their boats to go to the aid of the wrecking vessel. The
last signal ^of distress is heard. The ship has struck on
the reefs.

" It sways once or twice, the prow and the stern alternately
touching the sea, then a horrible cry pierces heaven, louder than
the thunder, louder than the storm, — the Gustavo Adolphe had
disappeared, and the waves rolled smoothly over the engulphed
ship. But immediately, The long boat! the long boatl cried every
one. The long boat is lauuched into the sea. The crew are
saved.

" In fact, long boat towed by the vessel of the pilot, made for
port. But as it approached the shore, we saw with affright that it
contained only five or six men. The whole crew had not had time
to get into it.

" O my God, who are those who are saved ?

" On my knees I hid my face in my hands : I could look no
longer,

" * I will remain thus,' said I, 'prostrate on the ground. If
Charles descends from that boat he will see me, and in his arms I
will return to life — if not — here I must die.

" I have no idea of tho time which passed.

"A moment came, when I felt the hand of my father placed on
my shoulder, — and I heard his voice, sad and grave, say to me —

♦* ' Rise, my child! God has received his soul and He will

Lave pity on us.'

"I look around. The heaven was serene, — the sea hardly
ruffled by a few waves, without foam; the stars re-appeared be-
tween the clouds, — the dawn brightened one of the sides of the
horizon, and my ifather and I were alone on the beach.''

We think no one will deny that this whole passage in

436 Madame D'Arbouv: lie's \ Doc.

power, interest, and beauty, is hardly to be surpassed,
and ol' itself justifies all the encomiums we have lavished
on our authoress.

For a long time Marie is deprived at first of conscious-
ness altogether, and then of reason : on awaking from her
trance she finds herself waited on by her old nurse alone.
Her father also is dead.

Partially recovered Marie desires to continue by the
sea shore, and brood on the recollections of her love, but
an additional cause of suffering troubles her : she finds
she can no wise recall to mind the image of Charles. He
appears distinctly enough in her dreams, but when she
awakes, nothing but a vague and uncertain recollection
remains. This we think many will recognise as finely
conceived and true to nature. Suddenly she remembers
that Charles had told her of his brother, born on the same
day, and resembling him in every particular. The nurse,
too, tells her that this brother had come from Paris to see
after her comfort, and that in form, and voice, and heart,
the brothers were the same. Here, then, Marie imagines
that she may find some relief from her grief. Gazing on
and listening to Charles's brother, she may yet again
seem to see and to hear her betrothed. Hence her visit
to Paris, where, learning the death of Paul D'Ercourt's
housekeeper, she adopts the design of offering herself in
her place ; hence too her desire not to quit his house, her
hanging on the tones of his voice, without much regarding
what he said ; hence, too, when she awoke from her
trance, and found herself in his arms, she thought for the
moment she had died, and was in heaven, locked in hor
lover's embrace ; hence, too, when Paul D'Ercourt left,
the source of her life was gone, and she died.

Such is the story of Marie Madeleine. We have en-
deavoured to present the reader with a faithful outline,
translating such passages as appeared fittest for quotation,
that he might be able to judge for himself of Madame
D'Arbouvi lie's style. We have not of course been able
as we could have wished, to convey the beauty of tone
which marks it throughout, but which isolated quotations
fail to preserve. The verdict of our readers will not, we
dare say, be one wholly of approval. The power and
beauty of some of the descriptions may be admitted, but
the plot will be pronounced unnatural, extravagant, im-
probable, the subject morbid, and the treatment sentimen-

1856.] Poems and Novels. 427

tal. The justice of these censures we know not well how
to deny or palliate, except by suggesting what nobody
(except Kingsley, by his example,) seems now-a-days in-
clined to admit, that, let a story be ever so improbable,
nay, let its incidents be as impossible as you please, if it
show fine and poetical feeling, and abound in true pas-
sion, emotion, and thought, any want of probability, or of
possibility, in its structure and plot, may be passed over
as of minor, and even of insignificant importance.

We must glance much more cursorily at *' Une vie
heureuse/' as Madaine D'Arbouville's Poems remain
behind, and cannot he dismissed unnoticed. "Une vie
heureuse" is, notwithstanding its title, the most gloomy
and melancholy of Madame D'Arbouville's works, carry-
ing in that very title an insinuation of the only conditions
under which life can be happy, the full bitterness of which
will be apparent immediately.

The narrator is an old lady, going in the Tale under the
name of Jeanne ; she is telling to her children a story of
her youth.

On the death of the mother of Jeanne, her aunt. La
Marquise D'Evigny, a gentle lady, but grave and sad,
conveys her to her chateau. At the door, Helen, daughter
of the Marquise, and the enjoyer of the vie heureuse,
receives them,

" We had not opened the door, when a voice, young and tender,
cried, 'my mother, mj dear mother.' Then a young girl, leaping
on the footboard of the carriage, which was just let down, knelt
and kissed with ardour the hands of my aunt. In a moment she

raised her head and looked at her mother O my children, how

can I paint Helen, my friend, my sister I Helen, as I saw her for
the first time! Her large black eyes glanced with delight. Her
hair, brown and silken, was thrown back, and revealed a forehead
white and pure, in which one could have counted every vein ; her
figure slender and light, was bent gracefully. She smiled and
wept at once ; her hands trembled in pressing those of my aunt ;
her bosom heaved with her agitated breathing, — in trutii, the soul
shook the body, till one would have thought it would have been
crushed under the weight of the emotion.''

Helen appears too happy a companion for the young
girl, so newly an orphan. Everything enchants her; her
happiness appears inexhaustible. They go together into
the garden.

428 Madame D^Arhouville's LDec.

" ' What a lovely day,' said Helen, ' how the sun shines, and how
beautiful are the flowers.'

" I looked around, — the weather appeared to roe dull and cold —
I thought the sun broke through nowhere, and I did not see a sin-
gle flower.

"•Dear Cousin,' said I, smiling, 'you are a poet indeed — you see
the sun where there is nothing but a cloud, and the flowers where
I seo nothing but withered grass.'

" ' 'Tis I who see bettor, and farther than you,' replied Helen.
- " ' Dear Sister,',' said I, ' while we are alone, let us converse a
little — tell me — does your mother suffer ? why is she so sad ?'

'• ' Sad, I have never seen her sad.*

" • But, her eyes are continually filled with tears.'

" ' I — I see her always smiling.'

"I looked at Helen almost with terror.''

Gerard, Helen's brother, a soldier, comef? to the chateau,
but must leave the following day. All the time ho
remains, Helen says he will not go, and when he has left,
she says he will return immediately. Shortly, however,
the Marquise is informed that her son Gerard has fallen
in battle. Jeanne finds her in ,lier ,bed- chamber, weep-
ing silently over the fatal letter.

*' • And poor Helen !' said I, * what will she do when she learns
of this calamity ?' ,

•' My Aunt grasped my arm quickly :

*" She must not know of it,' cried she, * she must never know
of itl'

•' I stood confounded.

" ' How, not know of her brother's death?*

" ' Yes! yesl' said my aunt eagerly, ' do "you wish that I should
lose my daughter too ? Be silent Jeanne, for the love of heaven bo
silent.'

" ' But my Aunt, it will be impossible.'

"* Impossible... It must be — I desire it. — ^Do you not see that
Helen's life hangs by a thread ? Do you not know that the Pliysi'
cian has told me that the first sliock will kill her ? Jeanne, since
you have been here, and seen me suffer like a martyr, and weep
night and day, have you discovered nothing ? Do you not see that
Helen is...'

♦• • Finish, Aunt, for mercy ! finish.'

"'That Helen is mad!' said the Marquise D'Erigny, sinking
back on the couch.

" I stood without motion, without tears, without words before
that unhappy mother, as she wept."

^ The history of Helen had been a tale of disappointed

1 856 . ] Poems and Novels. 4 29

love. The young man whom she loved, and to whom she
was betrothed, had, as she suddenly learned, married
another. A brain fever, a long period of unconsciousness
followed, and when Helen awakes from her stupor it is
with a smile. She had sunk into a sweet and happy
madness, had forgotten the desertion of her lover, and
expected every moment to see him return.

'* One might say," writes Madame D'Arbonville in her
graceful fanciful way, " that in depriving her of reason, God
had sent her the Angel of Hope, to remain seated by her
side, and to hide from her by the covering of his wings
the world through which she passed."

The ph^'sician warns her mother that she must be
allowed to remain under her delusion, and that the least
shock would cause her death.

By the death of Gerard, the estate passes to the heir
male, and the Marquise, Helen, and Jeanne must quit
the Chateau. Helen smiling and sajnng,'/* Weep not my
mother, we will soon return.*'

We pass over the remainder of the story rapidly. In an
inn they meet by chance with Raymond, Helen's former
lover. She receives him with enchantment, but the shock
of delight is too great for her feeble frame.

" Helen was dying," so the story closes, " but without a struggle,
without suffering. White as one is never who is to i-emain ou
earth. She was stretched languidly on the bed, her pale face lean-
ing on her mother's hand, which she kissed from time to time,
whilst her eyes, already dim but full of love, remained fixed on
Raymond, she spoke, and amongst broken accents, we heard these
words: —

" ' I am happy — yes very happy ! I love, I am loved — My friend
has been far away. He has reniembered me — He has returned to
call me his wife, to spend all his life with me. Mj mother has
blessed hira — Gerard will return— Jeanne will marry him — We will
return to our beautiful Chateau, we will live, we will die together —
O I am happy I thanks, my God !'

" And her soul fled, leaving her motionless and still smiling in
the midst of us. Yes she died smiling. And Raymond had forgot-
ten her, Raymond was married. Gerard was dead — the Chateau
was sold, she died at twenty — but all this was concealed from her,
and she expired saying, ' 1 am happy.'

" 0 my God ! my God ! to be happy on the earth which Thou
hast made, is it necessary to know nothing, to be ignorant of our
own lot ? Must we believe in the love of those who have forgotten
U3, of the return of those who will never return, of the existence

430 Madame D'ArbouviUes \ Dec,

of that which is no more? Should the truth always crush our
hearts, can we live only when deceived ] Is the world only an im-
mense abyss of desolation, of which our shallow faculties cannot
sound the depth? All things in life a blank, and then death. ..is thi»
the whole, my God ?''

Such is Madame D'Arbouville's account of a happy life,
and such apparently is the only condition under which she
imagines a happy life is possible. It is some consolation to
know that her own experience contradicted in the most
decisive manner, her sentimental theory.

Madame D'Arbouville's Poems form the first of the
three volumes which contain her works. There is not
here enough to raise Madame D' Arbouville to the rank of
a true Poetess, but there is a capacity for Poetry, and
many of the gifts which go to making of the Poet. Much
of what she has written is excellent, and all is good enough
to inspire the wish that she had written more. Almost ;ill
her Poems are musical and abound in tenderness and
graceful fancy. Some of them are of higher merit. She
possesses feeling, taste, fancy, sometimes imagination, or
what seems like it, and ability to give expression to each
of her gifts, but her imaginative flights, although not un-
successful, are laboured and difficult, and consequently,
"when she exerts her imagination, she ceases to feel, the
imagination on the stretch, the other powers are kept in
abeyance. She is destitute of passion, and of all earnest-
ness of thought, when she is in earnest it is in the expression
of a tender, womanly vein of sentiment, and that is sensi-
bility rather than earnestness. She has nothing that can
be called poetic enthusiasm or inspiration of any sort, either
in love of the beautiful, or of tke good, or of the true; nor
yet that abounding rejoicing in action which is the life of
some poets. She has no Muse. She is neither a realist
nor an idealist but a sentimentalist. Taste and tender-
ness, a love of reverie and harmonious verse are the chief
charms of her poetry. She has great merit as an idyllic
and pathetic poetess, but is seldom successful in more
ambitious flights. Her Poems consist chiefly of a series of
Lyrics and sentimental pieces under the general title of
** Le Manuscrit de ma Grande Tante,*' a romance called
** Stella," and a short comedy — " Mefiance n'est pas la
Sagesse."

Those classed under the title of Le Manuscrit do not

1856.] Poems and Novels. 431

appear to have any connection or unity, or attempt at it,
unless a prevailing tone of melancholy and reverie, suited
to the character of the supposititious authoress ' ma grande
tante,' can be said to constitute a sort of unity.

We pass over the narrative of the discovery of Le
Manuscrit, excellent as it is, having already iUustrated
Madame D'Arbouville's prose style. We should have
wished to present our readers with translations of some of
the Poems, but found it impossible to render the plaintive
melodiousness which is so charming in the original ; we
thei'efore quote in French.

We think " La Fille de L'Hotesse" exceedingly grace-
ful.

" Du via ! Nous sommes trols ; du vin, aliens, du Tin !
Hotesse! nous voulons chanter jusqu'au matin
As-tu toujours ta vigne et ta fille jolie ?
L' amour, le vin, voila les seuls biens de la vie.

•' Eutrez, seigneurs, entrez, le vent est froid, la nuit,
Ma vigne donue un vin qui brule et rejouit
Le soleil a muri les raisins qu'elle porta
Mon vin est clair et boa-buvez !...Ma fille est mortel

" Morte ? — Depuis un jour — Morte, la belle enfant !
Laisse nous la revoir. Plus de vin, plus de chant!
Que ta lampe un instant eclaire son visage
Chapeau bas, nous dirons la priere d'usage.

•'Et les passants criaient 'Du vin, aliens du vin !
Hotesse ! nous voulons chanter jusqu 'au matin
As-tu toujours ta vigne et ta fille jolie ?
L' Amour, le vin, voila les seuls biens de la vie.

" Le premier voyageur s'inclina prSs du lit
Ecartant les rideaux, a demi-voix il dit
Belle enfant, maintenant glacee, inanim^e
Pourquoi mourir sitot-et moi, je t'aurais aimee.

" Et Ton disait en bas. * Du vin, aliens, du vin !
Hotesse ! nous voulons chanter jiisqu' au matin
As-tu toujours ta vigne et ta fille jolie ?
L' Amour, le vin, voila les seuls biens de la vie.'

" Le second voyageur s'inclina pres du lit
Et fermant les rideaux, a demi voix il dit
'Moi je t'aimais enfant ; j'aurais ete fidele
Adieu done pour toujours, d toi qui fus si belle.

432 Madame D'Arbouville's [Dec.

** Et Ton disait en bas: ' Du vin, allons, du vin !
Ilotesse ! nous voulous chanter jusqu' au matin
As-tu toujours ta vigue et ta JBlle jolie ?
L'Amour, le vin, voila les seuls biens de la vie.

*• Le dernier voyageur s'lnclina pr^s du lit
Baisant sa front de marbre, a demi voix il dit
' Je t'aimais et je t'aime, enfant si tot enfuie
Je n'airaerais que toi jusqa 'au soir de ma vie.'

*• Et Ton disait en bas, ' Du vin allons du vin !
Hotesse ! nous voulons chanter jusq 'au matin
As-tu toujours ta vigne et ta fille jolie ?
L'Amour, le vin, voila les seuls biens de la vie.'

" Et la mere a genoux disait, mais sans plenrer
* Un^^coeur pur en ces lieux ne pouvait deraeurer
Un bon ange veillait sur ma fille innocente
EUe pleurait ici, dans les ciel elle chant !'

" Et Ton disait en bas : ' Du vin, allons, du vin !
Hotesse ! nous voulons chanter jusqu'au matin
As-tu toujours ta vigne, et ta fille jolie ?
L'Amour, le vin, voila les seuls biens de la vie.

" Entrez, Seigneurs, entrez ! le vent est froid, la nuit
Ma vigne donne un vin qui brule et rejouit
Le soleil a miiri les raisins qu'elle porta
Mon vin est clair et bon ; buvez!...Ma fille est mortel"

" Une course" is in a higher mood, and is a noble poem,
but we have not space to quote it. The course is the race
of life, the future, which is hoped for, expected, and aimed
at — appears first to be life, at a later sta^e it is death, and
finally it is heaven, " the sacred glory with which the con-
soling hand of God shall crown our brows." The follow-
ing serenade is very beautiful :—

" Mere quel doux. chant me reveille ?
M'lniut ! Cost I'heure ou I'on sommeille
Qui pent pour moi venir si tard
Veiller et chanter a I'ecart?

" Dors, mon enfant, dors ! c'est un reve
En silence la nuit s'acheve
Mon front repose aupres de tien
Je t* embrasse et je n'entends rien
Nul ne donne de serenade
A toi, ma pauvre enfant npialade.

18oG.] Poems and Novels. 433

'',0 mere ! ils descendent des cieux
Ces son3. ces chants harmonioux
Nalle voix d'homme u'est si belle
Et c'est un ange qui m'appelle !
Le soleil brille, il m'eblouit
Adieu, ma mere, bonne nuit !

*• Le len'lemain, qnand vint I'auroro
lia blanclie enfant dorraait encore
Sa mere Tappelle en pleurant
Nul baiser I'dveille I'enfant
Son ame s'etait envolee
Quand les chants Tavait appelee.''

We give the following ''Petition d'une flenr — a nne
dame chatelaine pour la construction d'une serre," as an
example of a fanciful and somewhat graceful style not
unusual with our.authoress.

" Paurre fleur, qn'un rayon da soleil fit eclore
Pauvre fleur, doubles jours n'ont qu'une courte aurora
II me faut, au printenips, le soleil de bon Dieu
Et quand I'hiver arrive, uu asi'.e et du feu
On ma dit — j'en fremis — qu'au fojer de la serre
Je n'aurai plus ma place, et mourra sur la terre
Au jour ou I'hirondelle, en fuyant les frimas
Vole vers les pays ou I'hiver ne vient pas.
Et moi, qui de I'oiseau n'avais pas I'aile legere
Sur tout, centre le froid, j 'avals compt6, ma mere I
Pourquoi m'abandonner? Pauvre petite fleur
Ne t'ai-je pas ofi"ert I'eclat de ma couleur
Mon suave parfume jusqu'au jours do i'autorane?
Ne t'ai-je pas donne ce que le ciel rae donne.

*'Si tu savais, 'ma mere, il est dans ce vallon,
Non loin de ton doraaine, un jaune pappillou
Qui versera des pleurs, et mourr.i tie sa peine,
En ne rae voyant plus ii la saison prochaine
Des sues des auti'es Hears ne voulant se nourir

Fiddle a sou ami il lui faudra raourir !

Puis uno abeille aussl, sur mon destin, s'alarrae,
Sur ses ailes j'ai vu briller plus d'une larme

Elle m'aime, et m'a dit que j'amais, sous le ciel,
Jeune fleur, dans son sein n'avait eu plus deux miel.
Souvent une fourmi, centre le vent d'orage

Vient chercher vers le soir I'abri de mon feuillage

Te parlerai-je aussi de Tinsecte filant.

Qui sur mes verts rameaux s'avau9ait d'un pas lent.

434 Madame D'Arhoiivilie's [Dec.

De son r^seau leger appuj6 sur ma lige,

A tout ce qui dans I'air ou bourdonne ou voltige,

Tend un piege adroit, laborieuse labeur

Que ta main detruise en detruisant ma fleur?

Et puis, quand vient la nuit, un petit ver qui brillo

Me choisit, chaque soir, et son feu qui scintillo

Lorsque mes scours n'ont plus pour elle que I'odeur

Me permet de montrer i'eclat de ma couleur.

"Tu vois je suis aim^e ! et cette lieureuse vio

Me serait, a I'hiver, par tes ordres ravio?

Cast ton or qui ma fait quitter moii bon pays

Ou, des froids ouragans je u' avais nuls soucis;

Aussi je pleurait bieu au moment du vojago

L'exile c'est un malheur qu'on comprend a tout S.ge! —

Mais une vieille fleur, estimee en tons lieux,

M'a dit qu'aupres de toi mon sort serait heureux ;

Qu'elle avait souvenir, jusques en sa vieillesse

D'avoir fleuri pour toi de temps de sa jeunesse;

Qu'aussitot qu'on te voit, t'aimer c'est un devoir,

Qu'aimer parait bien doux quand on vient de te voir

Que tu n'as pas un coeur qui trompe I'esperance

Que tes amis te sont plus chers dans la souffrance,

Et que petite fleur, fletrie et sans odeur

Trouverait a I'hiver piti6 pour son malheur

Que tout ce qui gemit, s'incline, souffre et pleura

Cherche, sans se tromper, secours dans ta demeure

Que tes soins maternelle eloignant les autans

Aupres de toi toujours on se croit au printemps !

" Aliens, construis pour nous une heureuse retraite

Et Dieu te benira car c'est lui qui ma faite

Et simple fleur des champs, quoique bien loin des cieuz
Comme le chene altier trouve place a ses yeux."

This — and many of Madame D'Arbouville*s poems are
like this— is graceful and pretty, but perhaps trifling
enough ; but one cannot judge of Madame D'Arbouville's
capacity for poetry, without having read " Stella/' a poem,
which, written by any one, would call for special notice.
It is a very beautiful fragment, finely conceived and suc-
cessfully begun, but not only unfinished, but a decided
failure at the close. It is not so much a poem which its
authoress has left unfinished, as one which she has begun
and been unable to finish ; at all events the latter half of
it, to be worthy of the beginning, would require to be
written anew ; but the conception and commencement are
worthy of any one.

1856.] Poems and Novels. 435

The prologue is very fine. A guardian angel is in
heaven. The other angels inquire wherefore he is there,
while the soul he was appointed to guard was still on the
earth, and while ** the angels of death had not yet loosed
his chain."

" I have not come hither," replies the guardian angel,
** in quest of my eternal repose ;' .

'• Car I'ange de la mort le plus beau de nos angea
Le plus heureux parmi nos celestes phalanges
Celui qui va chercher les pauvres exiles
Et qui leur dit tout bas : ' Dieu vous a rappeles,'
Ange d'amour qui vient prendre sur la terre
Et les porta en ses bras au sejour de lumiere
La mort, laisse celui qui me fut confie,
Et men sort a son sort, reste toujours lie.''

The Guardian Angel "proceeds to tell that the soul
entrusted to him was exposed to the most severe tempta-
tions from the evil spirits, was sinking fast into a state of
grievous and mortal sin, and was in imminent danger of
irretrievable reprobation. The Guardian Spirit's care and
eftbrts for his salvation are utterly in vain. The Tempter
is too powerful ; the passions of the unhappy soul too
strong, and unless the prayers of the angels may avail, he
seems doomed to perdition. The angels intercede. In
answer to their prayer, a soul is created, and sent to earth,
which, in human form, and by means of human sympa-
thies, may baffle the Tempter more powerfully than the
Guardian Spirit could, and win the erring and sinful soul
to virtue and religion.

The first canto of the poem opens with the following
beautiful description of a night in Norway,

" La nuit etait venue, une nuit de Norwege

Les monts et les vallons etaient converts de neige,

Gomme une jeune fiUe au fond de son cercueil

Que couvre un voile blanc, chaste embl^me de deuil,

Sous un linceul de neige ainsi dorraait la terra,

Le ciel ou languissait une faible lumiere

Gardant le jour, la nuit une m^me paleur

De sol glacee semblait refleter la couleur

Des sombres arbres verts I'immobile feuillage

Restait muet, ainsi que I'onde sur la plage

Tout se taisait Partout le silence ou la mort.

Comme ce qui u'est plus, ou comme ce qui dort.

436 Madame D'Arbouville's [Dec.

Dans cette longue nult, sans ombre, sans luiniere,

Entre le ciel si pale et cette froide terre,

On voyait se levait une Iiumide brouillard

Spectre mjsterieux echappant au regard

Leger fantome errant sur I'ecume de I'onde

Comme cherchant a fuir loin d'un si triste moude

De loin, Christiana, calme fille du Nord

Etait sans bruit, sans voix, comme un enfant qui dort ;

Sur le bord de la mer paisiblement couchee.

Vers son onde tranquille avec grace penchee,

La ville a I'Ocean semblait ouvrir ses bras

En lui disant : 'Sois calme et ne ra'eveille pas,'

0 longue nuit du Nord, silencieuse et belle

Qu'a nos regards emus vous etos solenuelle ?

Votx'e austere repos et vos pales clartes,

Sont un baume puissant pour nos coeurs agit^s

Tout s'apaise quaud vient votre immense silence,

Nous en seutons soudaiu la magique influence

Devant votre grandeur, tout nous parait petit

Tout ce qui doit finir pour nous s'aneantit,

Venant de votre ciel, des voix mysterieuses

Descender consoler les ames malheureuses

Et leur celeste chant murmure autour de nous

En ber9ant nos douleurs : ' Amis eiidormez-vous !'

O Nuit ! que vous devez adorer la Norwege

Ses grands lacs et ses monts, ses sapins et sa neige.

La, nul festin bruyant, bravant votre courroux.

Par ses mille flambeaux ne lutte centre vous

Nulle clamour ne vient troubler votre domain !

Dans la froide Norwege, 0 Nuit, vous 6tes reine

Votre deuil se repand grave et majestueux

Sur la terre soumise ainsi que sur les cieux."

From a lonely dwelling by the sides of the mountains, a
gentle soft voice breaks the silence of night.

" Que me veux-tu, Seigneur ! et quel sera men sort ?

Puurquoi de mon printemps eloignes-tu la mort

Quaud tons ceux quo j'aimais sont couches sous la picrre

Pourquoi me laisser seul a langufr sur la terre?

II ne me reste rien, fiele et craiutive enfant '

Rien de ce qui benit, rien de ce qui defend

Comme une pale flcur sur sa tige chancelle

Quand un leger zephyr souflSe en passant pros delle,

Ainsi je m'arretais sur le seuil de la vie

J'h^sitais a marcher, par le jour ehlouie

Et ma m^re pleurait sur mon faible berceau,
Redoutant de le voir se changer en tombeau.

1856.] Poems and J^ovels. 437

Mon fr^re, qu a la guerre entrainait sou courage,
Laissait, eu m'embrassant, des pleures sur niou visage.
Moil pere s'eloignait en detouruant les yeux,
Quand ma mere, a geuoux, demandait grdca aux cieux
Pource jeune rameau, dont le naissaut feuillage
S'inclinait pour mourir sous un ciel sans uuage,
Eh bien ! de leur journee ils n'out pas vie le soir,
Et je les pleurs tous dans notre vieux manoir !
Les Cedres grands ets forts, quand souffla la temp^te
Ont coucbe sur le sol leurs orgueilleuses tetes;
Les vaisseaux qui voguaient majestueux et fiers,
En pleiu jour, sout sombre dans I'abime des mers ;
Et moi, tremblante enfant, objet de taut d'alarmes
Sur ceux qui me pleuraient, je viens verser des larmes.

" O toi, Dieu Createur, toi qui frappes le fort,

Et conduis par le main le faible vers le port;

Toi qui fis le soleil pour donuer la lumiere,

Les tieurs pour exhaler leurs parfums sur la terre,

Les oiseaux pour chauter des chants harmouieux,

L'etoile pour briller dans I'espace des cieux

O toi qui protegais mon eufance affaiblie

Dis moi, mon Dieu, dis moi, qu'attendstu de ma vie.

Quel panfum vers les cieux puis-je done exhaler ?

Quel chant, venu de moi, peut vers toi s'euvoler ?

Quand I'eclat du soleil a I'horizon se voile,

De qu'elle obscure nuit, mou Dieu, suis-je l'etoile ?

Quand tout autour de moi sous la voute de ciel

Porte, comme I'abeille, a la ruche son miel,

Moi, qui ne donne rien, pourquoi me laisser vivre ?

Pourquoi le long chemin que tu me fais poursuivre ?

Nul ne peut, ici-bas, s'appujer sur ma main,

Et recevoir par elle ou secours ou soutien ! "

It is the voice of Stella, an orphan left alone in the
northern solitude, a soul predestined, and instinctively
restless and unquiet, till her mission is fulfilled.

We pass over tlie arrival of Stella's sister from a distant
convent, and the very beautiful accouut of her daily life of
selt-devotion and works of charity. But the company of
her sister fails to cheer Stella. She grows paler and
weaker day by day. " She languishes like a plant
deprived of its native sun. She wishes to quit her soli-
tude, to go — she knows not where," but some unknown
goal attracts her with irresistible force. Her sister yields ;
they traverse Germany, Belgium, England, France, and
Switzerland, and still ^Stella says, ** Let us go on,"

438 Madame D'Arhouville's [Djc.

impelled by her mysterious instinct. They reach Genoa,
and, at length, at the threshold of the palace of Liiiggi
Ornano, a young nobleman of notorious wickedness and
profligacy, Stella sinks exhausted : her perpetual disquiet
has disappeared, her countenance^ assumes an expression
of serenity and peace. *' Je suis bien ici,'* she says,
" restons." The soul has reached the scene of the labours
for which she was created ; her mysterious longing is at
an end. This portion of the poem is incomplete ; the
wanderings of Stella and her sister, are told in the way of
heads of narrative merely, to be afterwards developed and
elaborated into poetry. But the conception as yet is admi-
rable, and the poem, in so far as written, is, thus far, of a
very remarkable order. Stella herself is of that order of
high poetical creations so seldom met with in fiction. She
is clothed in a wondrous romance; half of earth, half of
heaven ; with the feelings of humanity, she acts under an
overruling influence altogether divine. She is mysterious
and romantic as Una herself of the milk-white lamb ; —
while there appears an undercurrent of moral significance,
seeming to suggest that, in truth, all are Stellas, with this
diflerence only, that their spiritual destiu}--, although not
less certain than that of Stella, is secret and unknown.

From this point the poem greatly deteriorates. Madame
D'Arbouville is much more in her element in describing the

fure fairy Stella, than in painting the sinful career of the
talian noble, Ornano. There is in this part of the poem
a total want of that demoniacal vigour, which one bargains
for and expects, when seeing among ihe dramatis personre, a
man given over to Satan. This is a sort of character
which required the pen of a Byron — and a Byron, either as
regards his faults of style, or his power, Madame D'Ar-
bouville, of course, is not. Hence Luiggi Ornano is not
the dark powerful sarcastic child of sin, we looked to
meet, but, on the contrary, an altogether weak, twaddling,
imbecile sort of sinner, with some genius for dissipation,
and with a strong bias to, but paltry faculty for, atheism
and blasphemy. He is at least as much fool as knave. We
shall therefore think ourselves at liberty to notice the rest
of the poem in the most cursory manner, and without any
quotation.

We have first Ornano in a long and somewhat common-
place conversation with a monk, who denounces his ini-
quities in the round and uncourteous manner usual with

1856. 1 Poems and Novels. 439

monks whose heads are only imaginary. This part of the
poem, although somewhat wearisome, has fine and power-
ful passages, but its use in forwarding the piece is by no
means apparent.

The third canto describes a feast at the palace of Ornano ;
we have, however, little of the revelry of the feast, if any
there were, the greater part of the canto being devoted to
a wholly sentimental discussion upon love, between the
** wicked nobleman," Ornano, and a young man, Roller,
a lover of Stella, very mawkish, very pure, and very green.
As to this part of the pdem, we confess ourselves at a loss
to say whether the cause of vice or of virtue be worse sup-
ported, and whether the feeble wickedness of Ornano, or
the imbecile virtue of Koller be the more tedious and
disgusting.

The purport of these passages is to impress on the pure
mind of the reader a horror of the vices of Ornano,
and thus to increase the importance of the mission of
Stella — Ornano being, as the reader will already have
ingeniously discovered, the identical soul for whom the
guardian angel ascended to heaven to intercede. Having
finished all this undramatic moralizing, the authoress
remembers Stella, whom she has left sitting at the thresh-
old of Ornano's palace. Ornano has observed the beauty
of the stranger, and the instinct of Stella recognises, half
consciously, the soul for whose salvation she had been
created. As a somewhat commonplace result of this
celestial machinery, Stella and Ornano are married, and
the process of salvation begins in the soul of the latter.
Ornano could laugh at his guardian angel, but must needs
obey his wife.

But the Tempter does not so easily lose his hold on
Ornano, and the temptation to which he yields is a some-
what vulgar and foolish one. A damsel, for whom in
the days of his sin he appeared to care but little, reap-
pears, and Ornano deserts Stella on the first temptation ;
and with the woful lament of Stella on this untoward
event, the poem so far as written, closes. It is as well that
it went no farther, for we fear that if continued, it would not
have much improved, at least we doubt so, judging from
the argument or heads of the proposed conclusion. Ac-
cording to the argument, Ornano and his new mistress flee
in a ship from Stella; Stella, impelled by her divine
instinct, follows in a little skiflf. She stands up, stretches

VOL. XLI.— NO.LXXXH. 11

440 Madame D'Arbouville's Poems and Novels. [Dec.

out her hands to the faithless Ornaiio — stumbles and falls
into the sea — Ornano's love returns at the sight — he leaps
into the sea to save her, and so in true sentimental fashion,
they are drowned together, and are found, of course, locked
in a mutual embrace. " Perhaps," says the authoress,
"his devotion purified at length from human passion,
obtained from the Highest the salvation of the sinner."
** No one can know, but they say that when the ship
returned to port bearing the bodies of Ornano and Stella,
there was heard, as if it were a choir of seraphims, singing
a psalm of* triy^jiph and deliverance." Whether Stella
continued to exist,' or returned to her original nothingness
after the purpose for which she had been created, was
served, we are left uninformed. _, .^

** Mefiance n'est pas la sagesse," is a very pleasant
Comedy, with plenty of spirit and wit, but too defective in
dramatic incident to be suited for the stage. We -ar«
compelled to omit further notice of it, recommending it to
such as love the most fascinating of all forms of literature,
a witty, spituelle and interesting Comedy.

We have thus, with necessary brevity, given our readers
a very imperfect account of the somewhat remarkable
works of Madame D'Arbouville. We think that their
merit justifies us in introducing them to the notice of
English readers. Her poetry we find graceful and fanci-
ful, sometimes truly poetical, but do not claim for it any
extraordinary praise ; had the poems been alone, we would
hardly have thought them worthy of lengthened review.
But Madame D'Arbouville's tales appear to us much more
remarkable, and, apart from their great excellence, we
think it not unuseful to direct attention to a style of narra-
tive which seems to have disappeared from among ourselves
— a narrative which depends for its interest on the deline-
ation of refined and sensitive emotions, and for its pathos,
not on details of calamity, but on the representation of
wounded feelings. The sensitive heart, the soul devoted
to musing and reverie, the old love with the whole heart
are the feelings which Madame D'Arbouville delights to
express, and we love to read her stones all the more
because they so completely contrast with the hard and
every-day style of the sentiment of English novels. We
read the latter, and are often never raised a foot from the
atmosphere of common and vulgar life. In Madame
D'Arbouville's tales^ with all their faults, we feel that yet

1856. J The Present Catholic Dangers. 441

again, we are reading poetry and romance, a poetry, some-
times exquisite and original ; a romance, not created by
unusual or wonderful incidents, but by the romantic and
poetical feelings attributed to the characters. We know
of no tales of the sort, which, in narrative skill, pathos and
exquisite fancy surpass the tales of Madame D'Arbouville ;
they are very different from any similar productions of our
own day and country, and in the qualities we have men-
tioned, they are far superior.

Art. VI. — The Rambler, October and November, 1856.

DURING the twenty years' existence of this Review,
through vicissitudes and struggles not easily paral-
leled in the history of such publications, we believe it
entitled to one commendation, that of consistency of pur-
pose. It was established for an end which it has steadily
kept in view. Thoroughly able and willing to sympathise
with the difficulties, the traditions, the deep- worn feelings
of catholics, almost before the dawn of the brighter era of
conversion, church-building, educational movement, and
religious bibliopolism had appeared on the horizon, its con-
ductors endeavoured gently and gradually to move forward
the catholic mind, without shocking, or violently drawing
away or aside, thoughts familiar to it, and growing side
by side with its best inheritance. They avoided all the
trouble! waters and eddies of domestic contention ; nor is
it among the least of many praises due to the illustrious
O'Connell, who was one of its founders, that wrapped up
as his whole external life was in politics, he consented that
the new quarterly should not involve itself in their vortex,
even to advocate his own views, but should steer its own
course along a calmer stream, and try to bear along with it
peaceful and consenting minds.

Whatever seemed useful to forward the interests of
catholics, just released from the thraldom of ages, to sug-
gest greater boldness, opener confession of faith, better
taste, and especially greater familiai'ity with the resources

442 The Present Catholic Dangers. fDec-

of catholic ritual, catholic devotion, or catholic feeling, was
diligently studied and carried on, for years, with a steady-
purpose, that did its work. NVe believe, as yet, that had
the task been undertaken, without respect to the actual
and necessary condition of catholics, with the idea that
they were a humdrum set that wanted startling, and a
slumbering body that required a good shaking, it would
have totally failed.

At the same time, it need not be said, that with per-
fectly the same feehng, and for the same purpose, the
Keview kept its eye upon whatever could assist the pro-
gress of religion, externally to the Church. For the same
principle of treating even those honestly in error with
respect, and avoiding collisions, always useless ones, of
temper, was observed, while attacking error, or striving to
remove prejudice.

Why should we now recall such old matters to our
readers' minds ? We answer, because never more than at
this moment, have we felt it necessary to keep these princi-
ples before them and ourselves. We claim once more the
right to speak to them as we once used to do, believing
that we are as well acquainted with the real character of
catholics in England as others can be ; for it has been our
study of years under phases with which the experience of
many cannot have made them acquainted : believing also
that circumstances call again for the exercise of any influ-
ence, which a past good use of it justifies from any charge,
of seeking it except for our public benefit. It is in fact,
the fear of seeing disunion, or party-spirit creep in amongst
us, a separation begin into contending sections, if not with
failure of charity, with loss of power, which urges us to
speak. Let us not be accused of wishing, or aiming at,
the unity of stagnation ; or desiring to see catholics think
alike on matters of politics, science, literature, or art. Let
them have their tastes and their humours, about basilical,
Byzantine, Gothic or Grecian architectures, about Gre-
gorian, Palestrinian, or German music. Let there be any
variety of philosophical schools, from Descartes to Ros-
mini, or let us fight about nominalism or realism once
more. Nay in theology itself, dogma being safe, let men
range themselves under the banners of different schools, be
Thomists or Scotists, if they do not despise such antiquated
names, or select any of the methods freely allowed by the
Church, of treating doctrines, iutellectually or historically.

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers. 443'

taking Klee or Mohler for a model. And in matters of
action, let there be variety of opinions, and methods; let
each one prefer his own form of charity and his own fashion
of giving — only let him give it — take his own way of satis-
fying his devotion among the varieties offered him for
choice; indulge his preferences for particular religious
institutes ; like more or less of government interference, or
of purely secular learning, in our education ; vote, or not, at
elections as he likes : get rid of churchrates where he can,
or pay them if he prefers. On these and'a thousand other
subjects — indeed on all except matters of faith or catholic
practice — we do not wish to pull or drive people into
uniformity of views. Like all persons of sincere and hearty
convictions, we should indeed be glad to see all agreeing
with us, and we claim the right of advocating our own
ideas with all the earnestness of a good conscience. But
we will not quarrel with those that will not adopt them,
nor will we despise them for it.

But there surely is a point at which differences should
cease, when even an Apostle, who permitted every latitude
admissible in grave matters, could say that he had heard
with pain that there were contentions springing up, and
exhort the Faithful to be of one mind, beyond the narrow
boundary of strict faith. The moment differences create
parties, that is, distinct bodies disposed to look suspiciously
or contemptuously on one another ; or so sundered that
they will not have a joint action, or that the one paralyses
the eflforts of the other in a common cause ; or beginning
to speak of one another by peculiar names, we have symp-
toms of "contention," and weakening disunion, sure to
produce evil effects.

Let us, merely at present by way of illustration, take
note of our educational position. The great bases of its
present system were laid down with considerable care, and
after grave and long discussion. It was a new condition
of things. Catholics, for the first time saw themselves
become recipients of public assistance, and brought into
a friendly connection .with government. An extensive
machinery was necessary, was created, and brought into
action, to be intermediate between the two, the Catholic
body and the State. Inspectors, training schools, certifi-
cated teachers, salaried pupils, building grants, capitation
money, and many new, and hitherto unknown persons,
things, and terms came suddenly into play amongst us, all

444 The Present Catholic Danrjers. [Dec.

of course introducing, and pfradually strengthening, the
power of the latter. To counterbalance, regulate, or, if
you please, to check, this, we had, and have, a Committee
as admirably composed as we think possible, clerical and
lay, not more sanctioned by authority, than they are by
public approbation. Surely .the whole security of the
system rests on the accurate adjustment of this portion of
its machinery, to the working of the other. Yet the Poor-
school Committee depends, for its existence, upon public
support. Withou't its funds, and their distribution, it
could not even exist ; yet these come from collections, and
subscriptions, that is, from sources immensely swayed by
popular motives, and popular feelings.

Let any reasonable man answer, whether it was not
most natural in Catholics generally, to be diffident, not to
say worse, and consequently cautious, in receiving this
unexpected offer of government assistance ? They were
not used to kindness, or to disinterested advances. The
first time that a child, taken from a prison or a workhouse,
sees a hand raised to caress it, it shrinks from it, as pre-
pared to give it a blow. Whenever aid had been awarded
in Catholic Ireland, it had been always accompanied
either with restrictious that greatly neutralized its value, or
with expectations which considerably diminished it. Of
the latter case the best example is Maynooth. Because
its grant has not made the Irish priests smoothly indif-
ferent, or trimly subservient, there is a cry to withdraw it,
as a failure. Of the former let the Archbishop of Dublin's
recent Pastoral, give evidence, by showing the trammels
with which Catholic education is hampered in Ireland.
What then, we repeat, more natural than that a *' Timeo
Danaos" feeling should have existed in the minds of
many excellent and virtuous men, when gifts were offered
for education ? How many jealousies arose (for we are
jealous of our little ones' souls) about the amount of right, -
or influence that a protestant, and possibly illiberal, gov-
ernment might acquire and exercise over our education,
and the extent to which religious instruction might be
tampered with. These fears were alleviated by the confi-
dence placed in the Committee organised by the Bishops,
as a safeguard against such a danger, as well as for other
great purposes.

But if a party is formed, or gradually springs up, intent
on augmenting, to the utmost, government influence and

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers/ 445

frovernment interference, ridiculing apprehensions which
ought to be respected, desiring to force every school under
the reach of State patronage, encreasing the preponder-
ance of secular instruction, in fine destroying the balance
between a danger in many people's eyes, and its correc-
tive, by strengthening the governmental, beyond the reli-
gious, element, the natural consequence is strong reaction.
Apprehensions disregarded will ripen into alarm ; schools
will be withdrawn from inspection ; subscriptions to a
system which will be deemed treacherdlis will diminish ;
the Poor School Committee will be crippled, if not para-
lysed, and its influence and weight be lessened. The
safeguard which we now possess will be lost, and the
many schools which must remain inspected will be only
worse ofll And the ulterior consequence maj' be, that one
day or other, a compulsory system may be introduced,
justified on the very ground of our withdrawal from state-
assistance, without our having any responsible or organ-
ized body, to fight the battle of religious education. Ought
we not, therefore, whatever may be our opinions on this
subject, to avoid erecting them into a war-cry, and arous-
ing angry feelings, which can only hurt ourselves ? . Why
taunt and goad, those who are repugnant, to enter into a
system which no competent authority has made compul-
sory ? Why allow, or justify, encroachments, instead of
watching them jealously, in all that regards education ?
And why on the other hand push that jealousy to ex-
tremes, or recommence a question supposed to have been
settled, as to the principle of government aid, and secular
inspection? Instead of going to war among ourselves, as
there is danger of our doing, on this all-important subject,
is there not a point at which, preserving our different
opinions, we can all rally, so as not to inflict injury either
on our temporal profit, or on our religious liberty ? We
feel that there is: and therefore think, that a warning
voice may be raised without presumption, against a grow-
ing dissension among ourselves, likely to be fraught with
evil consequences.

What we have written on edflcation has been by way of
illustrating, how an urgent occasion may arise for inter-
posing any influence which this long established organ of
the catholic mind may possess. To resume the thread of
our observations — we can easily imagine that others, with
the best motives, may consider another mode of dealing

446 The Present Catholic Dangers. {HyQe,

with catholic interestfl, greatly preferable, to that which
we have pursued. They may condemn the processes
hitherto followed for advancing religion, as slow and uiien-
ergetic ; they may believe that we have gone on a wrong
track, and ought to tread more intellectual paths: or they
may have come to the conclusion that old and effete ideas
and methods still exist, which want total abolition, and
replacing with others more suited to an age of progress.
Such, at any rate, seem to be the sentiments and desires
of those who speak to the whole world, in the following
terms which we grievously deplore, as calculated to cause,
or to encrease dissension in the catholic body.

" Whatever is the fault of our published views, their lack of
* breadth and comprehension* is rather a consequence of our want
of ability to say wliat we mean in a masterly manner, and of the
necessity that encompasses us to observe silence on many things,
than of our want of perfect and intimate convictioa of the truth
which Dr. Brownson so well unfolds. England, and especially the
little remnant of Catholic England, lives very much on tradition —
lives by the past. We cannot criticise the past without breaking
with that on which our editorial existence depends. We have to
write for those who consider that a periodical appearing three
times in the quarter, has no business to enter into serious ques-
tions, which must be reserved for the more measured roll of the
Quarterly. Our part, it seems, is to provide milk and water, and
sugar, insipid ' amusement and instruction,' from which all that
might suggest and excite real thoughts has been carefully weeded.
These are the conditions sometimes proposed to us, as those oa
which our publication will be encouraged, We may, indeed, be as
severe as we like in showing that there is not a jot or scrap of
truth in any of the enemies of Catholics ; that all who oppose us,
or contend with us, are both morally reprobate and intellectually
impotent. We have perfect liberty to make out, by a selection of
garbled quotations, how all the sciences of the nineteenth century
are ministering to their divine queen ; how geologians and physi-
cal philosophers are proving the order of creation as related by
Moses ; physiologists the descent of mankind from one couple j
philologists the original unity and subsequent disrupture in human
language ; ethnographers in their progress are testifying more and
more to that primeval division of mankind into three great races,
as recorded by Moses ; while any serious investigation of these
sciences, made independently of the unauthoritative interpreta-
tions of Scripture, by which they have hitherto been controlled and
confined in the Catholic schools, would be discouraged as tending
to infuse doubts into the minds of innocent Catholics, and to sug-
gest speculation where faith now reigns. People, forsooth, to whom

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers. 447

the pages of the Times, the Aihenceum, and the Weekly Dispatch,
with all their masterly infidelity, lie open, will be exposed to the
danger of losing their faith if a Catholic speculates a little on ques-
tions of moral, intellectual, social, or physical philosophy, — if he
directs his mind to anything above writing nice stories, in illustra-
tion of the pleasantness and peace of the Catholic religion, and the
naughty and disagreeable ends to which all non-Catholics arrive in
this world and the next, — to anything more honest than defending
through thick and thin the governments of all tyrants that profess
our religion, and proving by ' geometric scale,' that the interior of
a Neapolitan pi-ison is rather preferable to that of an English gaol.
"We only wish we saw our way clearly to be safe in speaking out ia
a manner still more after Dr. Brownson's heart.'' — Bamblery OcLj
p. 316.

This manifesto, or programme contains two sides, con-
cerning which we may feel very differently. For the
writers of it may be quite justified on the one, and not on
the other. They may be quite right in what they say of
themselves, and very wrong in their censures on their
brethren. It is certain that Divine Providence has made
Its own distribution of personal gifts, and worldly advan-
tages ; and has bestowed them more liberally upon some
than upon others. And where this is the case, it is not
improbable that there will be a consciousness of possessing
them, and of a call to employ them. Those who are repre-
sented in the passage^ quoted, no doubt, belong to this
class, and have full right to know it. They separate them-
selves in intellectual condition from " the little remnant of
catholic England," and feel that they are able and ready
to instruct it. They assure us that all which they have
hitherto written is but the milk of babes, not the food of
the strong, which that poor etiolated body would not bear.
They give the list of matters which they could discuss and
treat of, but dare not, ** moral, intellectual, social, or
physical philosophy." That they are able to do all this
and more, we have no reason to doubt. The pages of their
journal give proof of great abilities carefully cultivated, by
reading and thought : and they are no doubt conscious of
more than we, from without them, can judge. We are
ready, therefore, to take their own word for their estimate
of their powers, and to be grateful that they have been
bestowed upon them, and sincerely hope that they may
long enjoy them, and usefully employ them. With
unfeigned convictions we say to them, in the name of " the

4^ ' The Present Cailiolic Dangers. [Dec.

little remnant" to which we belong, " Nos stulti propter
Christum, vos auteni prudentes in Christo ; nos infirmi,
vos aulem fortes ; vos nobiles, nos autem ignobiles/' And
we will go on further, speaking of the intellectual appetite:
** Usque in banc horani et esurimus, et sitimus, et nudi
sum us, et colaphis cajdimur." (1 Cor. iv. 10, 11.)

While, however, we accept cordially this frank claim to
superior quahfications for the office of public instructors,
we must be allowed to demur to the manner in which it is
made ; in other words, we must protest against the con-
trast, by which it is made prominent. The writers tell us
what they could and would do, were 'they not prevented by
the incapacity of the catholic public to appreciate their
productions. Or rather so low is our level in the scale of
intellect, that ** milk, sugar and water," mingled in the
proportions that give insipidity, are the only beverage they
could presume to offer ns with chance of success. We are
a set of people who would be pleased by reading, " that
there is not a jot or scrap of truth in any of the enemies of
catholics," in other words, by any extent of calumny of
our adversaries ; who desire to have our convictions
strengthened by garbled quotations on geology, physiology
and ethnography ; and believe that readers will be exposed
to danger of losing their faith, if the writers of the Ram-
bler should do anything ''more honest than defending,
through thick and thin, the governmeuts of all tyrants who
profess our religion."

To this statement we strongly object, as ungrounded
and unprovoked. It sounds like an echo from our ranks of
an old protestant clamour against catholics. In their
name, we repudiate the charge, with sorrowful indignation.
That Catholics, neither in Germany, nor in France, any
more than in England, will bear with indifference conse-
quences to be drawn from science, at variance with autho-
rized interpretations of scripture, we know most certainly.
They could not allow any doctrine of physiology to be
taught them which led to a pre- Adamite theory, or one of
plurality of races, inconsistent with the doctrine of the
fall, original sin, and redemption ; nor any system of
ethnography which denied the salvation of " eight souls"
by the ark. But, faith secured, we have never found any
stint on the part of Catholics in England or elsewhere, in
permitting latitude of theory and of hypothesis, where
science and revelation had to be reconciled. We feel con-

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers. 449

fident, that if the writer in the Rambler had favoured them
with his account of scientific researches, drawing no con-
sequences contrary to faith, he would have been allowed to
speculate and theorize to the full, without rebuke. For if
ever there has been fault found, it can only have been
where the discussion was purely theological, and went even
beyond what could have been characterised as bold.

To tell the truth, we are at a loss to discover the ground
of this wholesale and degrading charge, by a few persons,
against the great bulk of their brethren in religious belief.
We find the Rambler on the table of every respectable
catholic house, in the hands of the clergy, in the library
of colleges, in the reading room of every catholic Institute
or club, under direction of la3'men or clerks. We have
never heard it spoken of save with respect, and even admi-
ration : except in the theological views alluded to, and the
paragraph on which we are commenting. Surely it has
received its full share of public applause, as well as its
fair share of so limited a patronage as catholic literature
can well expect. While number after number of the
Dublin Review is not favoured even with a passing notice
by any catholic newspaper, scarcely a week is allowed to
elapse by any of them, after the monthly appearance of
the Rambler, without a glowing eulogium, and copious
extracts in each. Are all these symptoms of unpopularityj
in the catholic reading world, or of a want of appreciation
of the high qualities of the work? Certainly the call for
** nice stories in illustration of the peace and pleasantness
of being a catholic," or for more water and sugar in their
milk, has never reached our ears. Another thing too
strikes us forcibly. The writer sympathizes with Dr.
Brownson " in the course which he has so boldly chosen,
and so successfully pursued" (p. 317) and wishes only to
be able to imitnte him; but he does not ** see his way
clearly to be safe" in so doing. Is then the Catholic
intellect so much lower in England than in America ?
Yet Brownson's Quarterly is reprinted in London, and
must have a good circulation to make this worth while.
If his writings then are not protested against by English
Catholics but read with avidity that requires a special
edition, why should the Rambler fear a different recep-
tion from what he obtains here, for following the same
path ? How will Dr. Brownson reconcile the fact about
himself, with the assertion about the Rambler? We

460 The Present Catholic Dangers. [Dec.

believe that the Rambler has had as fair play as any
other catholic journal ; has obtained a circulation equal
to more than an average one in such a straitened circle
as catholic society ; and has been amply rewarded in praise
and general estimation."' It may not indeed have exer-
cised any practical influence, nor led public opinion amongst
us. But the reason of that is obvious, and may be found
in the very paragraph under consideration. Its writers
do not attempt to throw themselves into the true position
of catholics. They stand aloof, and do not share the real
burthen of catholic labour. They lecture admirably, criti-
cise, find imperfections in what is done ; give excellent
theoretical instruction on our duties as catholics. But
they address us rather as a speaker does from the hustings,
from without and above the crowd addressed. Can it be
otherwise, if they take us to be such a body as they have
represented us to our protestant fellow-countrymen, in the
passage which we have quoted ? No influence will ever
be obtained without identification of ourselves, with those
whom we wish to lead. Let these writers, whose ability
we are the first to avow, feel that interest in our work
which can only be gained by sharing its pains and trou-
bles, and they will know the effect of an occasional cheer-
ing word to those that toil, instead of a continual chapter-
ing, and telling them that they have all to learn.

But this brings us to the second reason for our deploring
the expression of such contemptuous sentiments respecting
the " catholic remnant" of England ; it is, that this intel-
lectual separation of a knot of able persons from it, is at
once the creation of party, upon the very worst ground,
that of a distinction of old, and new, catholics. We all
know, how again and again the English press has endea-
voured to divide us, and this has been the very wedge by
which they have vainly striven to cleave us. Their efforts
have been vain. Our own sentiments on the subject we
shall have occasion to express later. But it is too clear
that the writer, whom we have quoted, draws a line be-
tween himself and colleagues on one side, and the general
body of Catholics on the other; between writers and

♦ The " extensive circulation" of the Eambler it avowed in a
notice attached to the most interesting account given in its last
number, of the persecution under James I.

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers. 451

readers ; between those who would mstruct, and " those
ou which their editorial existence depends." And it would
be mere affectation to ignore, that the line is meant to
divide some belonging to what the same Journal elsewhere
calls the "convert portion'* from thfe "old Catholic.**
(Dec. p. 450) We say some : because we know there are
hundreds of converts, who join us in deprecating the form-
ing of such a distribution of members of one Church, and
wish not to be distinguished by a party-term from the mass
of its members.

Indeed, it was an illustrious convert, who would be sorry
to be recognized as such, by any peculiarity of notions, who
struck as much by the simple and dignified severity of his
remarks, upon the desire to draw such a distinction. It
was, he remarked, ungenerous. And we understood his
meaning to be this. If a family had been unjustly plun-
dered of its wealth by confiscation, could we otherwise
characterise the conduct of a person who had been
enriched by the spoliation, and now recognized its injus-
tice, should he taunt or upbraid the sufferers with their
poverty, and draw their attention to his own abundance ?
For 300 years, " usque ad banc horam,*' Catholics have
been debarred from the resources for high education, en-
dowed by the Wykehams, the Wainfleets, the Wolseys,
the Lady Margarets, their ancestors in the faith. Every
national institution for classical, or scientific, training has
been closed against them, first Eton, Harrow, Rugby,
Winchester, Shrewsbury, then Oxford and Cambridge.
They have not been allowed, without surrender of faith, to
walk their stately quadrangles, or meditate in their beauti-
ful meadows. No scholarship, or fellowship, or lectureship
or mastership has allured them to long study, or given
them honourable leisure for its pursuit, or crowned it with
rewards. The names of tripos, and wranglers, and
first-class men, and double-first-class have formed no part
in their vocabulary. All these immense advantages Catho-
lics have fore-gone, only because the price for them was too
high, the loss of their faith. They preferred sending their
children abroad in disguise, and at risk of ruinous penalties,
for education. Well, the great continental revolution
swept away their noble establishments, with the wreck of
everything holy. Yet the love of good learning was not
extinct. Without endowments, almost without resources,
they have been toiling from then till now in erecting

452 The Present Catholic Dangers. [Dec.

colleges, and like ants bearing large loads, almost beyond
their strength, to replace their ruined retreats of learning.
In the meantime what they lost, others have enjoyed. At
the tremendous price of separation from the faith, and the
dreadful risk of eternal perdition, they have possessed the
blessing, (shall we call it so ?) of a full and elevated secular
education, in those ancient halls of Catholic foundation. A
loving grace has granted to them in addition that which
the " old Catholics" had only been allowed as compensa-
tion ; they are Catholics (God be praised !) as well as these,
only rich in all that which had been taken from them, and
the gates of which had been as jealously guarded against
them with a flaming sword, as the way to the tree of know-
ledge was to fallen man. To them has been given the
double fruit of the tree of knowledge, and of the tree of
life : to others the second only.

But under the circumstances is there not something un-
kind, to say the least, in twitting these, in worldly estima-
tion less favoured brethren, with an intellectual inferiority,
supposing it to exist ? in reproaching them for not having
possession of what had been taken from them, and assert-
ing superiority because one has had the advantage of it?
Ought not such honours to be borne meekly ? Brought
into the Church with a generous and spontaneous
acknowledgment, that they are only a restitution of what had
been robbed from her, a restoration of what she had been
stripped of? Should the old family, so to uchingly described
by our most eloquent writer, as mysteriously dwelling in
the quaint mansion among the trees, be reprehended if it
has grown up somewhat *' living on the past,*' while no
present enjoyment was allowed it? If the present supply of
intellectual food for its children was cut off, what more
natural than that it should turn to its stores of past thrift
and careful provision, and cling rather tenaciously to what
afforded at once honour and consolation ? It is not a little
to have ** a past" on which to live, to have branches on
the family-tree tipped with ruddy blossoms, and an occa-
sional lily brightly peeping through its gloomy foliage ; to
have in one's pedigree the name of a man who was drawn,
hanged, and quartered for the faith, or of a woman who was
pressed to death for conscience sake, of a learned writer or
of a lady abbess, either a perpetual exile from home, and
country. It is an honour worth dwelling on, to have had
heavily to contribute to those exorbitant extortions which

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers. 453

the Ramhler is so laudably making known in its " Glimpse's
of the working of the penal laws under James I. ;" or to
be able as yet to show the priest's hiding-hole, such as
there was at ** Preston-hall/' and the place of the old
chapel in the garret. Nor can we think, that the owners
of such records and monuments will easily yet let them go
into oblivion. For, although the present is no moment for
dreamy listlessness, and we must go on plunging, and
swallowing of the wave, which hurries us forward beyond
the middle of this boastful and pregnant nineteenth cen-
tury, we cannot but believe that an old plank torn and
preserved from the ancestral mansion, will bear a youth
more buoyantly and more safely through the whirlpool to
which he is hastening, than scientific theories and philoso-
phical refinements ; and while too many of these will be
found shivered on rocks, or turned bottom upwards by
stronger and ruder craft that will follow, the solid old robur
of simple faith enwrapped in family recollections will
gallantly outride the storm.

If we deprecate the attempt to divide Catholics into two
classes, it is because we do not admit their real existence.
On the day of Pentecost, and for a long time after, the
entire Church was composed of converts. There was only
one class in it then. Did they alter into something else,
as time went on ? Did they, or their children call them-
selves " old Christians," and treat the new comers, as in
any respect one whit inferior to themselves ; or did these
consider themselves as possessing a single advantage over
others ? Had such contentions as these arisen, they would
have soon fdt the heavy and indignant lash of the apostolic
scourge. Inside the Church, or outside it, forms the only
distinction ; with Christ or against Him ; gathering with
Him or scattering away from Him. And so has it been
ever since, and so God grant it may be for ever ! Let
us indeed learn to value the distinctive gifts which every
class of men brings to the common stock. But once
thrown in there, let them be like the treasure of the new
Church at Jerusalem, the property of all, and let none
presume to point, or single out, his personal contribution.
There let them all ferment in one leaven of charity as
common food, the rich mellow grain of last year's harvest,
and the hard shrivelled seed of ages ago, well blended
and kneaded together, the Apostle's symbol of perfect
unity.

454 The Present Catholic Dangers. [Dec.

"What conversion has brought to the Catholics of this
country is beyond all measure and all estimation. Not
churches, nor monasteries, nor schools, nor convents, nor
hospitals, nor institutions of charity, however grand, beau-
tiful, edifying or useful they may be, bear remote com-
parison in their value to our minds, with the grace of con-
version. In the sixth number of this Review we avowed
its principles and our feelings in these words : — ** The
course which we shall pursue shall be consistent and perse-
vering. We seek not the wealth of our Anglican neigh-
bours, nor their establishments, nor their political power,
nor their usurped influence. All these things we esteem
as dross. But we covet their brotherhood in the faith,
and their participation in our security of belief, and their
being bound to us in cords of love through religious unity.
For these things we will contend unceasingly, and to the
utmost of our power, and God defend the right !" (Vol. iii.
p. 79.) This feeling can claim no praise ; it is natural as
an instinct can be.

After all what can a church be, even if built up, not of
rag, or ashler, or dressed stone, but of marble from Car-
rara or granite from Egypt, to be compared to the living
Church, which conversion has built with living stones,
many as precious and as chosen, as those which Venetian
merchants brought from the East, to adorn as well as sup-
port the walls of St. Mark's, or which early Emperors
plucked from the crumbling wallsof sumptuous, but decay-
ing, temples, for the basilicas which they raised ? What
carving, or cresting, what pinacle or fretted spire, what
moulding or painting, or gilding can stand in comparison
with the splendid and even dazzling adornment which our
holy Church has received from the genius, the abilities, the
learning, and the piety of rnany who have joined her ;
from the fertility of one versatile, yet most accurate mind,
the rich outpouring of another's eloquent devotion, the
grave yet pleasing fecundity of a third, the sterner logic of
a fourth, the poetry, and song of several, and the varied
literary powers of many. They have flooded the catholic
commonweal with new light, enough to redound, and from
it influence, with a characteristic peculiarity, the general
literature of the country. Nor need we speak of architec-
ture, painting, music, artistic learning, legal knowledge,
forensic skill, medical science, linguistic attainments, and of
manyotherbranchesofmentalculture, in which someof those

1856.1

The Present Catholic Dangers.

455

whom we would lovingly invite not to keep reckoning of
** the time of their ignorance/' so excel as to be publicly
honoured, and are sure to leave the traces of their passage
marked on the annals of their respective pursuits.

But in fact, why speak under figure of what these
admirable men have done for the Church ? If they have
been stones in the spiritual edifice, they have been among
the best builders of the material house, with its many con-
sequent blessings ; if they have figuratively adorned the
one by their transcendent qualities, they have really done
so by their active liberality. Every Catholic knows how,
perhaps in the Diocese which he inhabits, a mission or
church has sprung up through the charity and zeal of
some recent convert. But we doubt if many are aware of
the extent to which the material extension of religion has
gained through their exertions. To make known the
greatness of our obligations is a pleasing duty. So far
from grudging praise where it is due, we know of no occu-
pation more congenial to ourselves, or more likely to edify
and encourage our readers. We therefore insert a list, as
complete as we have been able to make it, of the new mis-
sions in England and Scotland, which owe their origin
entirely to converts ; even at the risk of somewhat wound-
ing the sensibility of their founders.

CHURCHES, MISSIONS, &c. ERECTED BY CONVERTS.

Place.

Diocese.

Person.

Description, '

Abbotsford.

K Dis. Scotland.

Mr. Hope Scott.

Chapel.

Abingdon.

Southwark.

Mr. Bowyer.

Church & Mission.

Beiuiunt.

Newport and

Menevia.

Mr. Wegg Prosser.

Do.

Botleigb Grange.

South wark.

Mr. Beste.

Chapel.

Bridgend.

Newport and

Menevia.

. Mr. Nicholl.

Church & Mission.

Broinpton.

Westminster.

V. Rev. Dr. Faber.

Do.

Campden.

Clifton.

Tiscount Campden.

Do.

Carstairs.

W. Dis. Scotland.

Mr. Monteith.

Chapel.

Charnwood Forest.

Nottingham.

Mr.A.L.Phillippa.

St. Bernard's

Abbey.
Church & Mission.

Chiselhurst.

Southwark.

Mr. Bowden.

Crooke.

Hexham.

Rev. S. Rooke.

Do.

Dalkeith.

E. Dis. Scotland.

Lady Lothian.

Do.

Edgbaston.

Birmingham.

Very Rev. Dr.

Newman.

Do.

Erdington.

Do.

Rev. D. Haigh,

Church.

Errwood.

Shrewsbury.

. Mr. Grimshaw.

Chapel & Mission.

Frome.

Clifton.

Rev. R. Ward.

Church & Mission.

Fulham.

Westminster.

Mrs. Bowden.

Do.

Galashiels.

E. Dis. Scotland.

Mr, Hope Scott.

Do.

GrantuUy.

Do.

Sir W.S.Urummond

Do.

Grace- Diea.

Nottingham.

Mr. A.L. Phillipps.

Do.

Great Grimsby.

Do.

Mr. B

Mission.

VOL. XLI,— No. LXXXII.

12

456

TJie Present Catholic Dangers.

[Dec.

Place.

Diocese.

Person.

Description.

Great Marlow,

Northampton.

Mr. Scott Murray.

Church & Mission.

Han well.

Westminster.

Miss llabnett.

Chapel & Mistiou.

Huntly Burn.

E. Dis. Scotland,

Lord II. Kerr.

ChapeL

Jedburgh.

Do.

Lady Lothian.

Church & Mission.

Kelso.

Do.

Mr. H. Scott.

Chapel & Mission.

Levenshulme.

Sal ford.

Mr. Grimehawe.

Church & Mission.

London.

Westminster.

Miss White.

Schools.

Longworth.

Newport and

Menevia. .

Mr. Phillipps.

Chapel & Mission.

Murthly.

E. Dis. Scotland.

Sir W.S Drummond

Church & Missiott.

Pantasaph.

Shrewsbury.

Lord Feilding.

Do.

Ramsgate.

Southwark.

Mr. Pugin.

Do.

Rugby.

Birmingham.

Capt. Washington

Hibbert.
Lady Clare.

Do.

Ryde.

Southwark.

Do.

St. Wilfrid's.

Birmingham.

V. Rev. Dr. Faber.

Cliurcb, Mona»-
tery &. Mission.

Shepshed.

Nottingham.

Mr. A. L. Phillipps.

Do.

Tnllymet.

E. Dis. Scotland.

Mr. Dick.

Do.

Weston Hall.

Birmingham.

Mr. Debarry.

Chapel & Mission..

Wbitwick.

Nottingham.

Mr. A. L. Phillipps.

Church & Mission.

Walsingham.

Hexham.

Rev. T. Wilkinson.

Do.

Woodchester.

Clifton.

Mr. lieigh.

Do. & Monastery.

Woodhill.

E. Dis. Scotland.

Mr. Trotter.

Church & Mission.

Yealnipton.

Plymouth.

Mr. Bastard.

Do.

Forty-three missions, which in all human probability
would not have existed are due exclusively to converts^
within a short period, to the unspeakable happiness, and
spiritual profit of thousands of poor catholics in their
neighbourhood, and the spread of religion, through multi-
plied conversions. To this list might be added many other
places, where existing missions have been supported, and
raised out of extreme poverty, and where churches or
chapels have been enlarged or beautified by this class of.
catholics, or where they are the rnain contributors towards^
though not founders of, a new mission.

On another topic we have not touched. But every
catholic heart will glow with admiration, affection and
gratitude, when he considers the high examples of gene-
rous sacrifice, and renunciation of every worldly advantage
and blessing which late years have afforded, the accession
which our religious orders have received, the many affect-
ing devotions which have been made known and propa-
gated, the new Institutions that have attained maturity or
are still in a state of progress, the many evidences of great
virtues and genuine piety which are daily displayed, in fine
the daily development, in every sense and on every side, of
sterling, solid catholic religion. All this has been co-ordi-
nate with the tidal flow of conversion, which has set in^
after dark time of ebb-flood, towards the catholic Church.

1856.] 57te Present Catholic Dangers. 457

If there be still any who, instead of wishing all these good
things to belong to all, would fain have them estimated as
the possession or the glory of a few, let it be so ; and we
can only conclude this subject by again saying to them,
** Divites facti estis, sine nobis regnatis ; et utinam regne-
tis, ut et nos vobiscura regnemus/' (1 Cor. iv. 8.)

But we should be unjust to those whom we have endea-
voured to assist in forming a true estimate of the immense
blessings, beyond individual salvation, which God has shed
upon His Church, through her manj- new children, " her
joy and her crown," if we did not also add a few words, in
reference to them. An inclination to think slightingly of
them, and to depreciate their intellectual character has
suggested this article, written with much pain and reluc-
tance. And this is now increased by our being compelled
to do that against which we are striving, to speak of Catho-
lics as forming two classes, a division whic'i we are writing
simply, if possible, to abolish. It is only fair then to say,
that higher merit can scarcely be conceived, than that of
abiding fidelity through generations, to a persecuted,
humbled, and plundered Church. The article already
alluded to, as in this month's number of the Rambler
gives from authentic and official documents the amount of
one year's forfeit-money, paid by catholics in the tenth year
of James I. , as ,£371,060: a sum which, calculating the
different values of money, and the population of the king-
dom, seems almost incredible. When we look at the lists
of recusants in different counties, and see how many fami-
lies have fallen away, melted or crushed under the terrific
pressure of peual exactions, or worried into final apostacy,
and when, on the other hand, we find in those lists names
yet remaining among our best families, we cannot but con-
clude that a most signal grace, and singular Providence,
have been their dispensation, in the destinies of this Empire.
Further, when we consider, that they did in ages of perse-
cution what others are justly praised for having done in
times of peace, that they kept up chapels at the risk of
domestic treachery and neighbourly spite, maintained
priests for themselves and poorer dependants, in hourly
fear of pursuivant's domiciliary visits, which brought often
all the worst evils of a sacked city into their mansions,
without even the restraint of discipline, that out of their
properties, chronically attenuated by the sweating of
monthly fines, and further depleted by the irregular drain

458 The Present Oafliolic Dangers. [Dec.

of compositions'and exactions, they even endowed, as far
as law permitted, missions and chaplaincies which still
continue, or are perhaps the foundation or nucleus of most
flourishing' congregations, it is not presumptuous to ask,
respect and gratitude for such men and their descen-
dants. And even yet do we see new missions rise through
the unaided liberality of catholics from birth. '^^

But there are great, though not very glorious, burthens
which rest almost entirely on the shoulders of the poor old
remnant. Our charities and poor schools in many in-
stances yet are, where they were before any new influx of
intelligence and zeal poured into the Church. These in-
deed play about the pinnacles and beautiful things of the
Temple, but scarcely as yet reach the coarse, but neces-
sary, foundations. We have thought it worth while analy-
sing the published lists of several London charities,
and we will ffive the results, to show, what is yet done in
the old-fashioned way of our fathers, towards helping the
poor. We will suppress names, and be content with facts.
And these we will collect from the most opposite ends of
the metropolis.

No. 1. Charitable Institution for all London. Annual
subscribers 324, of whom 12 are converts, 3- are not
catholics.t

No. 2. Similar charity. Subscribers 208, of whom 22
are converts, 4 not catholics.

No. 3. Schools in the City. Subscribers 78, of whom
9 are converts, 8 not catholics. Most of the converts
belong to the middle class-.

No. 4. Schools in the centre of London. Subscribers 77,
of whom 2, perhaps 3, are converts.

No. 5. Schools at the West end of London^ Subscribers
317, of whom 15 are converts.

* Such are Cheadle, Romford, Mortlake, Gainford, Otley, The
Grange, Scarthingwell, Sickliag Hall, Broadway, Avon Dasset, Sut-
ton, &c. The last mentioned place is well worthy of particular
mention. A handsome stone church with spire, schools and monas-
terj, are all due to the liberality of one person, who not many years
ago was a day-labourer on rail-roads.

I We may occasionally have mistaken a protestant name for a
catholic one ; but this must form a very slight deviation from
accuracy.

1856."| The Present Catholic Dangers. 459

No. 6. Orphanage. Subscribers (ladies) 102, of whom
11 are converts.

We could enlarge this list, but thus much will suffice
for our purpose. These and other charities of vast practi-
cal importance, some of them remote from the wealthier
quarters of London, but some of them in the very midst
of that favoured region, have yet to look for their support
to the class that represents catholics, as they stood before
any great addition to their numbers, by recent happy
events. As we enumerate subscribers, we exclude the
poor, whose drops collected at sermons, or by meetings, do
not entitle them in our usages to nominal returns. The
subscribers therefore here given are persons ranging from
the nobleman to his servant, from the merchant on
'Change, to the petty shopkeeper. Look at No. 5, a
charity which supports three boys' schools, three girls', and
three infants' schools, besides an evening school for girls
and young women, and a Sunday-school for boys and young
men. About 900 infants, children, and young women are
educated. Yet though this occurs in the most central
part of London, we see how little adventitious aid comes
to the old supporters of the work. We dwell upon this
instance, not from any wish to draw invidious conse-
quences, but because we so often hear, and even read,
intimations, ^hat old Catholics care or know very little
about education of the poor, that they want much en-
lightenment on the subject, and in fact have hadall to
learn of late. A little study of the history of our charities,
of the dates of their foundations, of their struggles, of
their enlargements, of their ramifications, of their many
vicissitudes, would perhaps show our censors that we have
not been leading quite the life of dormice, even through
*' the winter of our discontent," long as it lasted.

We know that we still retain old-world ways, exploded
in the more refined modern plans of charity, and if the
latter could be made to answer, and answer better, we
have no objection to substitute them. But unfortunately,
whether through want of practical lessons, or from defect
in the materials we have to work on, every attempt to
depart fi*om those ancient metliods has signally failed.
One great advocate for the education of the poor says : *' I
am opposed to all charity dinners on principle, so I regret
I cannot support your charity, which depends on one.'*
Another is averse to an excursion, another to a tea-party.

4G0 The Present Catholic Dangers. \ Dec.

This gentleman will not subscribe where there is no inspec-
tion, that one will not where there is. Here one has a
scruple about giving his money, unless the rooms are
better ventilated, there another will do nothing till the
starving priest has nuns. In fine, principles rise up, upon
secondary details, always sufficiently strong to strangle
the master principle, that children must be educated, and
the poor maintained. Were this made the primary law,
suprema lex, the contribution would come in and do its
good, even though wrapped up in a protest against its
being expected to subject the giver to [the dyspepsia of a
public dinner. But let it be remembered that the great
body of our contributors, by an immense majority, is com-
posed of those who genuinely represent the Anglo-Saxon
race ; whom every witness to their propensities, before the
Normans enei-vated them, from St. Augustine toFroissart,
attests to have been solid feeders, whom St. Gregory
advises his disciple to humour in their natural taste, by
letting them have a beef-feast on great festivals, and who
alone identify in their vocabulary the two ideas of expan-
sion of soul and plenitude of body, in the phrase " good
cheer." To "be of good cheer/* and to "have good
cheer" naturally go together. Yet more seriously, let it
be remembered, that the great bulk of these generous alms-
givers are men whose day is given to work and toil, and
who never sit round tables bright with light and silver, and
offering more than homely variety of viands. A social
evening, in an ample decorated hall, where they meet
many friends, where all is copied, however imperfectly,
from aristocratic usages, in look and in attendance, where
they are in company with a few high-born but meek-
minded persons, who yet condescend, in these days of sup-
posed equality, to dine with the artisan and the citizen,
where they are addressed by some one of superior station
as friends and fellow-catholics, where, after all, they are
in no danger of their hearing anything hurtful, but may
occasionally have a tear brought to their eye, at the tale
of sorrow and poverty that is told them, and certainly their
hands guided to their purses by their own best feelings, an
evening thus occasionally spent by honest men of this
class, will not surely be one of those convivial scenes that
will embody' itself, at the last hour, in a dance of hobgob-
lins, painted by Turner. We acknowledge that there is
something heroic in submitting to be tortured by

1856.] The Present Catholic Dangers. 461

evil food, and poisoned by bad wines, at a tavern,
and more so occasionally entre nous, in being doomed
to listen to lame speeches that hobble on, supported
by the crutches of occasional cheers. But after all the
thing is bearable, and not worse than a table d'hote
abroad, or an old stage-coach dinner in England, or
O ! worse than a:ll, a meal half way between Dover and
Ostend. And really charity is worthy of an occasional
act and display of heroism. But, if any of the gentle-
men, who so dislike the system of a charity dinner, that
they will rather see the poor starve, than eat one them-
selves, would for once stoop so low, we believe that the
sight of many honest, earnest faces, expanding beneath the
gentle influence of charity, and the sound of their applaud-
ing voices, whenever a sentiment is spoken on what is dear
to a catholic heart, the Pope, the bishop, the clergy, the
nobility, charity, virtue, education, the child, the old man,
the sick, would thaw the prejudices of another school in
which propriety held a higher place than humility, and
orderly dispensation is more esteemed than somewhat
tumultuous charity. We believe that many who went this
year as guests would consent to go, next, as stewards.

However, we have transgressed our limits, in this
Apician excursus from our main object. 'SThe system,
good or bad, is that by which thousands of children are
educated, and hundreds of orphans clothed and fed, and
hundreds of aged men and women warmed and supported.
Alms-houses have been built by it, orphanages have been
erected, churches and schools in part raised. And this
great, or rather necessary work falls upon the shoulders
of the industrious middle class, aid^d indeed by those
whose names have, for many years headed their subscrip-
tion lists with solid donations, and whose fathers before
them saw the same assistance afforded to the same un-
perishing cause. And thus we fear the work will have to
continue for one generation at least to come, in spite of the .
liberal counsel which we constantly receive, in rather vague
terms, of how much better everything might be, or ought
to be, if the present system were wholly given up, and
we only instead of it — ha! that is just what we want to
know, but can never get told us.

Let us take for instance, an article in the November
number of the Rambler, said to be written by a priest,
evidently a zealous one, on our poor schools. There is

462 The Present Catholic Dangers. ^Dec.

very much indeed, in the paper, worthy of great attention
and commendation. But we cannot conceal from our-
selves, that the writer has not had many opportunities of
obtaining accurate acquaintance on .some points. For
instance, he writes as follows :•—

'* There is yet one thing more indlspensal)le to the success of our
schools. We must utterly get rid of the idea that schools are t<>
be the means of supporting needy, broken-down men and women, or
persons whom, from any motive, we desire to provide for." — p. 333.

A few pages before he thus speaks of the managers of
Catholic schools : —

" They think we live In those good old times, when the squire's
butler, now past active service retired into private(?) life as village
school-master ; or when a cook or lady's-maid worn out vith years
and service, was bj an economical arrangement installed into the
oflBce of schoolmistress.'' — p. 327.

These passages struck us, when we read the article, as
particularly noticeable ; and we were not surprised to see
our newspapers seize on. them as a seasonable lesson to
worthy squires, and a well-merited rebuke to dunces who
found schools. As we do not remember the times when
the routine of Catholic literary promotion was from the
pantry and kitchen to the school-chair, we cannot speak
of them, further than to say, that before there were train-
ing schools, a steady butler, who had read prayers for the
servants and led the choir, and perhaps in early youth had
tried his vocation in a religious house (such instances are
not even now impossible) or a lady's maid who had been
educated in a convent (not so rare case either) might have
made as good a teacher as was to be got by taking on-e up
at haphazard. But let that pass. Is it meant to be
insinuated, that now among Catholics it is usual to make
the school a provision for the senility or anility of broken-
down dependants? Is this an ** idea" which they are
seriously invited to "get rid of?" Let us ask, if it be
not rather true, that neither the training-schools nor the
Poor-school Committee can supply half the applications
made for trained masters and mistresses ; if the heads or
secretaries of these institutions have not to ansWer that
the demand is far beyond the supply ; if persons supposed
to have opportunities of knowing, are not constantly
applied to, if they are acquainted with any good master or

1856.] Tlie Present Catholic Dangers. " 463

mistress ; in short, if the writer of the foregoing advice
himself can lead us to any such, who want occupation, but
are kept out of employment, because Catholics prefer
broken-down old men and women ? We certainly think
that, in his zeal he has formed a very unjustifiable estimate
of Catholic ideas on education.

Again, he attributes the poor condition of many of our
schools to the ignorance of the clergy of the practical
working of education. He suggests that the management
of a pooi'-school should form part of seminary training.
But he at once sees the objection, the want of poor-schools
attached to these establishments. We see many other
difficulties, and one of them is a want of even a text-book
for this branch of edu-cation. We have grammars of every
language, manuals, , introductions, institutes for every
present branch of our education. If the writer, after hav-
ing told us much that we ought not to do, and something
that we ought to do, would tell us how, we should be
thankful. Let us have a really practical manuduction,
instead of an essay. We have a Directorium for ascetic
and mystic theology, let us have a scholastic one. As the
priest who has written the paper before us '* has had great
experience and success" in his schools, and we have no
reason to doubt it, let him give us the result of the one,
and the secret of the other. Let us have ** the priest iii
his school," beginning with all that relates to material
arrangements, plans, elevations, benches, desks, maps,
apparatus, books, and other appliances ; then giving all
that should be known about government grants, examina-
tions, inspection, pupil-teachers, <fec. After that may
come all that is desirable to be known about real school
matters : How is a good master or mistress to be pro-
cured ; what should be exacted in their respective qualifi-
cations, salaries, duties, hours of attendance, other occu-
pations ? Next we might be usefully instructed in the best
methods of managing the secular teaching, the distribution
of day and week, and year, over the many and varied
exactions of modern education. Then comes the moral
part, the priest's own portion, catechism, instruction,
prayers, more particular instruction for the three sacra-
ments of youth, arrangements for confession, attendance
at mass and other services, joining Church services, music,
ceremonies, and communion. Borne of the first things
may be picked up in protestant books, or Inspectors*

464 The Present Catholic Dangers. lDcc.

Reports, or back numbers of the " Poor-School ;" but a
digest of even those, and the whole of what forms the
priest's duty systematically arranged, for many who have
not leisure to read up, or " beaver" genius for organiza-
tion would be a truly valuable work. Into this book would
enter, what the writer seems to have found so easy, the
best means of collecting, securing and administering school
monies, forms of accounts, school-books and forms for
noting attendance, application, progress and character.
And then we should expect to find accurate instructions
and valuable suggestions on rewards and punishments, the
moral treatment of children, and individual formation of
character, the manner of infusing into a school a high
religious tone, and true devotion. The book would con-
tain prayers, suited to children and schools, plans of cate-
chetical instructions, subjects for graduated examinations,
rules of conduct and management for the master, atten-
tion to whom is as necessary as to the children. Here
is indeed] a piece of work for somebody, and we should
think for nobody better than the author whom we have
indicated. It would be of immense service, and get us
out of the region of visionary perfection into that of prac-
tical operativeness. To preach for a hundred years that
to have a good school we must have a good master, that
to understand the management of one we must study it,
that to be good managers we must have thoughtfuhiess
and foresight, vigilance and continual struggling (P. 329)
will never bring any sensible improvement into the system.
For the truth is, want not of will, but of practical guidance,
is our great evil : and any one who will remove this will
be the great solver of our educational problem.

As we are engaged on this paper, we cannot refrain from
indulging on a topic which it opens, one of almost daily
encounter. It is another, though a very little instance of
the present tendency to range Catholics on different sides.
The following is our theme.

" Amongst Catholics one finds two sorts of people. Some, when
speaking about our present position in this country, can see in it
nothing but what is cheering and deliglitful. Your couleur-de rose
man lives in a poetical atmosphere of his own. Openings of new
missions, churches, and schools, functions, devotions, sermons, con-
versions,— these are his talk and his life. Were there ever, thinks
he, such glorious times as these ; such palmy days for the Church ?
.In his excited fervour ho can see nothing but progress, nothing that

185g.] Tlie Present Catholic Dangers. 465

is not enchanting, hopeful, and glorious. On the other hand there
is a select little circle of croakers who make it their business to
undeceive those who are under any such delusion. Our position is
most unreal, say they ; and nothing is to be expected from it but
the most dire calamities. Every present success is with them but
the precusor of debts, difficulties and disasters. There is a flaw in
©very undertaking, a black spot in every character, which seems as
a target for their grumblings. The whole of our present position
is unsound and rotten ; and if it does not end in a great smash, it
is only because of God's providence over-ruling His Church.

" For ourselves being of a philosophic turn of mind, we think
that there is a great deal to be said on both sides. To the gentle-
men of rose-coloured minds we urge, that there is an old-fashioned
proverb about glittering gold which is still as applicable as ever ;
that the croakers and grumblers are, many of them, no visionaries,
but clear-headed and thoughtful men, who not only really see the
faults and failings they speak of, but also feel them most keenly :
and if we do not take their view, it is not because there is no truth
in it, but because it is only one side of the picture, and one, too,
that leads to no results. Yes, gentlemen croakers and grumblers,
jou are right ; there are plenty of flaws and black spots ; plenty
that is unreal, unsound, rotten ; but this is not peculiar to our age
or country, nor to the present state of religion amongst us.'' — P.
321-2, November.

We certainly must plead guilty to belonging to the first
of these classes. This Review was founded upon a couleur
de rose principle. It was started simply in hopefulness, in
buoyant, bounding confidence, that there was " a good
time coming." Nay, its complexion at birth was deeper
than the paly rose-bud — it was sanguine. There were
croakers then as much as now ; men who liked the cine-
raria better than roses, preferred cypress to myrtle, the
raven to the nightingale. What was prospect then is
retrospect now: Were the croakers right then, in prophe-
cying that not a single conversion would emerge from the
** Oxford Tracts," that the eloquent voice in St. Mary's
would never resound in a catholic pulpit, and that there
was no more vitality in the " movement," than there was
in the time of Laud, or of the Non-conformists. All was
to them a sham. It is plain then, that carrying back the
two parties twenty years, the roseate people were safer
than the sooty. What reason have we to believe the order
to be reversed, and the future of to-day to be different from
that of years ago ? There was indeed a moment, when the
dark foreboders seemed to have it all then* own way : when

466 The Present Catholic Dangers. [Dec.

the atrocious onslaught on the Hierarchy began. Then
indeed there were more than ugly omens ; something worse
than mares' tails in the clouds, and Mother Carey's
chickens on the curling waves ; there were breakers ahead,
there was a scowling lea-shore, there was a hissing trough
of sea, there was a murky sky above head, and there wag
roaring blast around the frail looking bark of England's
cathoHcity. Well, she drove straight on, neither ported
her hehn nor put it hard a lee, she unshipped not her top-
gallants, nor closereefed her mainsail, but trusted to the
heavenly steersman, who sometimes appears to slumber in
the boat, but always awakes in time. This was a glorious
time for the prophets of evil ; their predictions were com-
ing most satisfactorily true: all the consolations of past
years had been delusive ; we had been going much too
fast, and the whole was going to end in what is denomi-
nated *' universal smash."

Now, if it had pleased God to give us a much harder
trial, and subject us to a harsh, and searching, and long
persecution, had we been pushed back civilly (in one sense
of the word) into the last century, we should have remained
still couleur de rose. Never did sweeter rose of resigna-
tion blow, than Job upon his dunghill. We should have
seen the Hand of God in our humiliation and depression,
and should have made every effort to suppress the croak
that rose into our throat. Was Job wrong in looking at
his own future brightly from that vilest seat, with [earth-
quakes, pillagers, pestilence all round him; and what was
worse, with three good hearty croakers seated before him
for seven days and seven nights, then, with his gentle wife
to back them, bidding him take as gloomy a prospect as
possible of everything, past, present, and to come ? The
worldly hero may boast that reverses have plundered him
of all but his honour ; the Christian will admit that, bereft
of all else, his enemy cannot pluck hope from his bosom.
So thought Job ; and he was right.

But it pleased God that we should not endure so severe
a tribulation. The storm subsided, we found ourselves
again in smooth water, to be troubled again only if it pleases
God. Is not this liberation an encouragement to our hope ?
Did not the trial prove that the trustfulhad been right, and
the despondent mistaken ?

If then among Catholics" there must be two parties
designated by colours, we will hold to the Bianchi, be

1856. 1 The Present Catholic Dangers. 467

who choose of the JVeri. And the paragraph before us
proposes good motive for our preference. '* Openings of
new missions, churches, schools, functions, devotions,
sermons, conversions," are things, orj, facts, sohd and
palpable on which hope may stand and rest; they are
iinmistakeable realities which may be entered into account.
The sanguine man as he is called reckons them up, and
finds they come to something at the end of the year, to
cany forward into the next ; for they are durable, and
not evanescent, perennial not annual. But the dark-eyed
man who sees a *' black spot" everywhere (physically this
would indicate a diseased organ) sees in reality nothing,
but only absence of something, the " blot" is merely a
screen interposed between the object and the vision. In
plain language, the croaker sees the defects on everything,
its imperfections, its short comings ; he cannot deny the
existence of the thing. " We have new churches," he
says, " it is true ; but thousands never go into them ;
schools, but with inferior education ; devotions, but they
are merely passing excitement ; conversions, but they are
more than counterbalanced by perversion." Now let all
this be true. If thousands neglect going to the new
churches, hundreds do go to them, who did not go at
all ; schools with imperfect education are better than no
schools at all, and the education may be improved in
them ; devotions may excite, but a single good commu-
nion more, and some scores of acts of faith and love addi-
tional have their fruit ; and as to conversions, suppose the
fact to be true that for every Puseyite gained two poor
Irish are lost, as one is not efiect of the other, one may
surely rejoice at that which is good, and rather have it
than not, while we deplore the loss. It is plain that every
one of those things, which are enumerated as forming the
hopeful man's joy, is a diminution of every reason
which the desponding one has for his dark views. Every
new church, mission or school, must remove a blot or dark
spot from the system.

But this is a deeper and graver subject than it looks at
first sight. That men who overlook all defects are wrong,
and that in their calculations they will be as mistaken, as
an astronomer would be, who should overlook the mutual
perturbations of the planets, there can be no doubt. But
that they who can never see anything but faults, repine
and grumble ever, and will not look about them with a

468 The Present Catholic Dangers. [Dec.

cheerful eye, are at least equally wrong, is no less certain.
A middle course is therefore to be chosen, and what is
this ? To say " I will be neither one nor the other," is
almost equivalent to proclaiming indifference. This will
not do. The true medium seems to us very clear, and we
hope has its rule highly sanctioned. Does the croaker
and grumbler look at the work before him, as that of God
or of man ? Surely not as the first ; or it would be blas-
phemy to murmur. He looks then at the whole as man's
work, as the fruit of his industry, skill, and ability,
" Openings of missions, churches, schools, <fec.,'* are all
in his eyes only results and evidences 'of activity, good
management, human powers. He picks holes in them,
and criticizes them as he would the opening of new worldly
institutions. He has no confidence in their solidity or
duration, because the^ come from a perishable work-
man.

The sanguine man may be easily understood to reason
contrariwise. The progress of religion is God's care, and
can be granted by Him alone. Every step gained, every
advantage secured, is a new blessing from Him, and surely
any manifestation of His blessing, any evidence of His
love is " enchanting, hopeful, and glorious." And what
is every new ** opening of mission, church or school,"
every solemn "function" performed with the requirementg
of the liturgy, every '* devotion" such as that of the Forty
Hours, every "conversion," but an outward sign of that
superintending watchfulness, which makes the rising up
of a new church or school in a desolate district as true a
mark of itself, as is the springing up of the snowdrop or
the crocus an evidence of care over the earth. Each may
be humble, but each is God's work.

But while in this, which is of God, we rejoice and exult,
and feel sanguine of success, we will go all the way with
the murmurers and discoverers of black spots and flaws,
the moment we turn from the beautiful work to its clumsy
instruments. That he is a useless servant, that he is only
in others' way who would do better, that he is blundering,
feeble, obstructive, and doing all as badly as possible, is a
conviction quite as consistent with the full belief in a
man, that, not by or through him, but in spite of him,
God's work will go on prosperously, blessedly and glori-
ously.

This we hold, and have always held, to be the middle

1856.'\ Tlie Presenl Catholic Dangers. 469

way between these two conditions of mind, and principles
of action ; and they seem to ns, as we have said, highly
and potently sanctioned. To sow in tears, but with the
confidence that God will give increase, and that there will
be sheaves for somebody to carry at harvest-home is surely
a consoling thing. While the Apostles were taught^ to
think despicably of themselves, and to expect nothing
from themselves, they were equally taught to be most san-
guine as to the final results of their labours.

We know that your sanguine man is supposed to live in
a sort of mesmeric exhilaration, in an atmosphere of
laughing gas, which quite incapacitates him for practical
life, and hourly duties. He is always dreaming, and pro-
vokingly happy when everybody else sees nothing but
disaster and approaching ruin. We believe on the con-
trary, that no one suffers more acutely than he. Giving
the eternal grumbler credit for rejoicing, in his own satur-
nine way, when evident good does appear, he has in addi-
tion to this pleasure the lugubrious joy of being glad,
whenever hopes are disappointed, and his own Cassandran
prophecies come true. But the sanguine man draws his
hope to its highest tension, and if it break, it strikes him
fearfully. He has been planning and studying something
"enchanting and glorious;" it has been a vision in hia
dream, a beautiful thought in his waking hour, a fervent
aspiration in his prayers. He has brought it to the very
verge of execution ; an insuperable obstacle intervenes ;
and all is dashed to the ground. He is laughed at as a
visionary, despised as a mere enthusia=;t. No one can
tell what he may suffer. Happy, if he steal away in silence
to say, ** Yes, in spite of all, it will be done; it is too
good to fail. But not by me, for I am not worthy of so
great a work." He remains sanguine to the end. To
** hope against hope" is not certainly anywhere chid in
Scripture.

Would to heaven, that we could blend these two "sorts
of Catholics" into one, acting harmoniously on this sim-
ple principle, of croaking about our own work, and being
sanguine about God's. All other party- feeling would soon
disappear.

While the whole drift of this article has been to depre-
cate the division of ourselves into different sects, we have
not been able to treat of the most important. We greatly
fear the differences, and angry discussions that are rising

470 The Irish in England. [Dec.

amongst us on the subject of Education, chief!}'' in what
regards Government assistance, and Inspection. What
we said at the beginning of this article was only by way
of illustration; the breadth and depth of the subject
remain to be scanned. It would require as much as we
have written to treat the subject even inadequately.
Besides it has acquired a greater importance than becomes
the pages of a Review.

We will therefore conclude by the expression of an
earnest hope, that all will combine to strengthen the
bonds of unity amongst ourselves, especially with a Par-
liament approaching, in which feelings hostile to the
Church will not be coerced by the anxieties of war. What
may be done or said no one can foresee, nor will we close
our writing by a croaking speech. Only let us keep united,
and trust not to man, and we have nothing to fear. Our
real dangers can only spring within ourselves.

Art. VIT. — The Great World of London. By HisiinY Mayuew.
Parts 1 — 9. London: David Bogue.

AMONG the different races of which the vast population
of England is composed, there is one which presents
to any ordinary observer the most evident and indubitable
marks of a complete isolation from the rest. Although
legally united under the same form of government, en-
titled to the same privileges, and subjected to the same
political burdens, the Irish are still as truly " aliens" in
race, in religion, and in feeling, from the great mass of the
British nation, as they were three hundred years ago. A
settlement of Irish existed from time immemorial in Lon-
don and elsewhere ; but the influx from Ireland has im-
mensely increased during the last fifty or sixty years.
Long before the famine of 1846, they had dispersed them-
selves in large bodies over the country, searching for
employment and the means of subsistence. The misery,
the poverty, and the want which they had to endure at
home ; the hope of bettering their condition on the more

1856.1 ThB Irish in England. 471

favoured soil of Britain ; the demand for labour in the
large mercantile and manufacturing cities, the attraction
of the harvest and the hop gathering, the migratory spirit
itself of the people, all these have been the causes of their
surprising immigration into England. At present they
form a large and an increasing portion of the lower popula-
tion of the country. They are to be found almost every-
where throughout the length and breadth of the land. We
can form some idea of the vast multitudes of Irish in Eng-
land, by bearing in mind that of the Catholic population
of the country, which is every day swelling its numbers,
the overwhelming majority are natives of Ireland. It
was the complaint of the Roman satirist, that go where he
would he was sure to meet with a hungry Greek.

*' Graeculus esuriens in ccelum, jusseris, ibit."

And we can well imagine a sturdy and phlegmatic Saxon
giving wrathful utterance to a similar lamentation with
respect to the Irish. You meet them on the highways
*' tramping'* the country, with a patience and a diligence
worthy of a more profitable occupation. In the streets of
London you encounter light-hearted and happy looking
Irish boys, and you cannot but wonder at the strange des-
tiny which has transplanted them from the rural scenes,
and the holy wells, and the green fields, and the purple
mountains of their native land into the midst of the busy"
Babylon of the world. The poor girls, who eke out a
scanty subsistence by the sale of flowers, are, many of
them, natives of Ireland. The stout hodder or bricklayer's
labourer has probably come from the county of Cork.
The Irish have invaded the ancient trade of the English
costermonger, usurped his rights, and carried off a portion
of his profits. They are in the arsenal at Woolwich, in
tlie factories of Norwich and Kent, in the farm houses of
Essex and Sussex, in the market gardens near London,
in the police and the army, and among those valiant
sailors who guard our coasts from smugglers and the
French. It is some destitute and friendless Irish girl, aged
from sixteen to twenty years, who is maid of all work to
the humblest class of London shopkeepers, as well as to
that low grade of Jewish householders who inhabit the
unaristocratic neighbourhood of Spitalfields. In a word,
the lower class of Irish are to the rest of the population of

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXII. 13

472 The Irish in England. [Dec.

England what the Hebrews were to the Egyptians ; with
this material difterence, that whereas the hitter inhabited
the most favoured part of Egypt, and ate the fatness of the
land, the Irish are congregated together in the poorest, the
most squalid, the most neglected, and the most destitute
corners of our cities, while their food is very often the
crumbs which fall from the rich man's table.* Or more
properly, they are to the English what the Gabaonites
were to the Israelites in Canaan ; that is to say, they have
become, by cruel misfortune, and by hard necessity,
" hewers of wood and drawers of water*' to the proud
Anglo-Saxon race.

It is this people, thus scattered throughout the land^
and increasing every day in numbers and in importance,
although occupying at present the lowest position in the
scale of national estimation, whiqh constitute the imme-
diate and pressing charge of the Church. They are her
children, and whatever be their faults or their shortcom-
ings in other respects, at all events they cannot be accused
of unfaithfulness to the profession of the Catholic faith.
To the Church they have been steadfast, through good
report and through evil report ; and she has now to take
them by the hand, to draw out, and to cultivate the good
seed which her sacraments have planted in their souls ; to
educate them as well socially as religiously, and by means
of them, and through them, to impress herself gradually,
and favourably, upon the nation at large. It is, therefore,
of [the first moment, that all who are interested in the
extension of the Catholic Church in England, should
devote their very best efforts towards bringing into shape,
and order, and discipline, that vast body of Catholics
which is comprised within the Irish poor. But, in order
to do this with profit, and with effect, we must understand
those whom we would wish to influence and to train. The

* The Irish street-sellers, I am informed, buy tvro-thirds of all
the refuse, the other third being purchased by the lower class of
English costermongers, — "the illegitimates" — as they are called.
"We must not consider the sale of the damaged fruit so great an
evil as it would, at the first blush, appear, for it constitutes perhaps
the sole luxury of poor children, as well as of the poor themselves,
wlio, were it not for the half-penny and farthing lots of the refuse-
sellers, would doubtless never know the taste of such things. —
London Labour, vol. i. p. 118.

1856.J The Irish in England. 473

Irish poor form a study by themselves. They have their
own modes of thought, their own national character, their
own ways of giving expression to their religious feelings,
their own habits and their own prejudices. To deal with
ihem to any purpose, we must be able both to understand
their national character and their national peculiarities,
and to some extent at least, be pre-disposed to sympa-
■thize with their feelings. We confess that whenever we
discover in those who have had opportunities of becoming
acquainted with them, an inaptitude to understand the
Irish poor, and an incapability of appreciating them, we
are always tempted to attribute it to one or other of these
causes. It may proceed from the absence of that Catholic
instinct which no mere education can bestow. Or it may
'be the result of a certain stiffness and severity of tone,
which is to some extent common to the Catholics, no less
than to the Protestants, of England ; or it may be the
effect of a refinement which almost amounts to a disease,
■which is fastidiously intolerant of all that does not cor-
respond with its own peculiar type of religious propriety,
^ud which is as little at its ease in the churches of Rome or
Naples, as in dealing with the poor of Ireland. In addi-
tion to their other difficulties, the Irish in this country, as
in America, have to contend with a prejudice universal
against them. It is useless to deuy the existence of such
;a prejudice, and it would be unfair and untrue to assert
that it is founded upon the difference of religion alone. The
Catholicity of the Irish, no doubt, magnifies and increases
this national prejudice against them; but the pi-ejudice
itself existed when the two people were Catholic. It is a
prejudice of race, not of religion, and it has its foundation
in a natural difference of temperament, character, and
<lisposition. But its effect with those who come in contact
with the Irish is too frequently to render them incapable
of producing any useful impression upon that people,
because, incapable of putting themselves into the position
of so different a race, unravelling their modes of thouf^ht,
and seeing things from their own point of view. Thus
they become to each other like men who are speaking in
unknown tongues. Each party fails in his attempts to
make the other comprehend his meaning, and each de-
parts more and more strengthened and confirmed in his
hereditary prejudices — the Irish longing for those who will
be able to understand him, and the English more strongly

474 Tlie Irish in England. [Dec.

convinced than ever that all Irishmen are. impracticable —
are in fact nothing better than rogues, vagabonds, and
liars.

We shall not, we trust, be considered presumptuous, if
we confess that it is our desire in the present article to set
the character of the Irish poor in its true light before our
readers. We have no object to serve except the cause of
truth, and justice, and charity. We acknowledge to
entertain a genuine appreciation and admiration of the
real Irish poor, especially as they are to be seen in their
own country ; but we are not going to be carried away by
any mere sentiment of a natural liking. We shall state,
with fairness and with candour, all that we honestly be-
lieve is to be said for, and all that is to be said against,
the Irish in England. We shall not hide the good, nor
shall we disown the bad. We shall endeavour to describe
them to the best of our power, as they really are. And
whatever conclusions we shall draw with jespect to their
claims upon our sympathy, and to their capabilities of
improvement, shall be founded upon the actual character
and condition of the people, such as we conscientiously
believe, and shall show it to be.

I. Although the large masses of Irish which are to be met
with in the great towns of England, are considered even by
the lower classes of the English population to occupy a still
lower grade in the social system than themselves, yet it
can be shown by the most indisputable testimony that
there is a remarkable difference between the two classes,
so far as religion and as morals are concerned. The faith of
the Irish is proverbial, and it is really marvellous. In
Ireland, one of the most ancient Catholic countries in
Europe, it appears at the present day, in all the freshness
and joyousness of a first fervour, blended with the deep
and tranquil convictions of a long hereditary Catholicism ;
and when the Irish poor migrate into this more prosperous
country, they carry with them this one treasure, ** more
precious than rubies," which, as a body, they never part
with. It is the bond of union which keeps them together,
and which supports them under a thousand trials and
temptations. It is neither a barren nor a dead faith, but
the key which unlocks the doors of their hearts, and the
spring which, in a certain sense, controls their thoughts
and their actions. Of the Irish in England, as at home,
it may be asserted with perfect truth, that they ** live by

1856.] The Irish in England. 475

faith." They are in a peculiar and a striking way a
supernatural people. They never lose sight of the unseen
world. God and His Mother, and the Saints, are ever
present with them. The Invisible is inseparably mixed
up with their modes of speech as well as with their habits
of thought. Were an angel from heaven in human form
to enter one of the lordly palaces of London, when the
town is crowded with the great and noble of the land, what
reception would he encounter from those who know no
superiors in the refinement of manners, and in material
civilization ? There can be no doubt that he would find
himself very much out of place in the costly mansions of
Belgrave and Grosvenor squares. Here and there, indeed,
he might fall in with a stray convert lately reconciled to
the Church, or he might meet with the scions of some
ancient family, which had never abandoned the Catholic
faith ; but these encounters would be too few and far
between to remove the uncomfortable strangeness of his
position. For he would find himself in the midst of a
class, rich in everything that this life can bestow, but
miserably poor in all that relates to the life to come. He
would find himself among a people wholly given up to the
idolatry of the world ; and he would discourse to them in
an unknown tongue, and offend their taste, were he to
begin and speak concerning the objective glory of God, to
tell them of the rays of ineffable brightness which encircle
the brows of the Madonna, of the happiness of the saints,
of the holy souls continually passing from their temporary
state of purgation into the eternal Presence of God, and
of others yet detained in this sacred prison house, and
** out of the depths" crying to their brethren upon the
earth, to aid them by their alms and their prayers. But
let him leave behind him all that grandeur and that mag-
nificence, on which the world sets so high a value, and
from the aristocratic halls of Belgravia let him pass to the
crowded dens of the " mere Irish," and here — strange as
it may appear — the angel and companion of the Most
High will find himself at home. It is true that he will
have to put up with the ofFensiveness of the Cork or the
Connauglit brogue, with no small amount of dirt, and with
a total absence of "respectability;" but angels being
unlike men, can better tolerate these little vulgarities. The
angel of God will feel at home, not with the highest, but
with the lowest of our vast population. In the Irish courts

476 The Irish in England. [Dec-.

lie will Le iinderstooil and appreciated, if he collect tlie-
poor people around him, and tell them of God, of Mary7
;nid the Saints. Their Catholic instinct will detect in a
moment the true messenger from heaven. Every ear will
be eager to hear the tidings of the world unseen, and as
his narrative increases in interest, many an eye will be
moistened with a half- re pressed tear of joy, and many a
breast will throb with real emotion, and fervent will be the-
prayers for his blessing,, and loud the acclamations of
" Glory be to God," ** Praised be His holy Name," and
** the heavens be your bed."

Any one who is practically acquainted with the Irish
poor knows how intimately religion and the faith forms
the great idea of their lives. They are essentially a reli-
gious people, and their religion is the faith of the Holy
Catholic Church. It would be impossible for them as a
body, unless they become radically changed and corrupted,
ever to become Protestants. They possess that quality of
mind, which is a characteristic of all Catholic countries,
but which perhaps in its highest development distinguishes
the Spaniard and the Italian — namely, a theological cast
of mind, which penetrates to the root of Catholic dogma,
and sees clearly the impossibility of the truth of any other
religion than the Catholic. The poor in this country, even
more than at home, live in the midst of controversy.
Wherever English and Irish work together, whether in
the fields, the gardens, the dockyards or the factories, the
Catholic religion is sure to be the subject of conversation,
and the priest and the blessed Virgin the favourite objects,
of attack. Yet who ever heard of an Irishman giving an
inappropriate answer? Who ever heard of his defending
the worship of the Holy Virgin upon insufficient grounds ?
Too often he is illiterate, and too often he is ignorant of
many things which he ought to know ; but the fathers of
Ephesus had not a more clear perception of the relation
between the Mother and the Son, than the very humblest
and least instructed of the Irish poor. What good, says
the Protestant, can your Virgin Mary do for you, that you
are continually praying to her? you know that she is not
our Redeemer. True, is the short and the accurate reply
of the poor Catholic, but then she is His Mother : and
the profoundest theologian could not give a better> nor
more conclusive answer. A loose sort of Presbyterian, dis-i
puting with an old Irish woman about our Blessed Lady*

1856.] The Irish in England. 477

observed in an irreverent manner, that he was surprised at
the honor which Catholics pay to the Virgin ^lary, be-
cause after all he did not see that she was any better than
his mother or her own ; to which the Irish woman replied,
*' Well at all events, if there be no difference between the
mothers, there's a wonderful difference between the chil-
dren." Another zealous Irish Catholic, being very
anxious to secure the baptism of a little puny infant just
born, its Protestant mother made no other objection to her
wish, except that it was not worth while to take any trou-
ble about such a poor little premature creature ; to which
the quick and ready answer, exhibiting at once the natural
wit and instinctive theology of the Irish people — was, " that
little creature as you call it, has a sowl as big as yours or
mine." It is the same, if the matter in controversy be the
unity of the Church, the Blessed Eucharist, or the Invoca-
tion of Saints. The Irish Catholic sees the docrine with
the clearness of a marvellous faith, and however he may
reply to the objections of his opponent, his answers are sure
to be theologically sound, and to the point. We have no
doubt that the priests, both in England and Ireland, who
are in constant communication with the people, could give
innumerable illustrations in proof of what we have here
asserted.

One of the most favourite objects of attack, in the daily
controversies between Protestant and Catholic is the
priest. He bears in his person the reproach of Christ.
Every eye is directed towards him with an unfriendly or an
inquisitive glance, as he passes along the streets, and every
tongue is filled with his reproach. In England, more than
in any other part of the civilized world, the Catholic priest
has reason to feel the force and the consolation of our
Saviour's words, '* If the world hate you, ye know that it
hateth me before you." Now there is nothing which mwe
readily excites the fiery zeal and anger of the Catholic
poor, (and at the best of times they are very ** near their
passion,") than this incessant, never ending abuse of the
priest. The Irish retain the most profomid veneration for
the Sacerdotal office and character. This veneration is in
no way the effect of superstition, nor is it a mere personal
feeling of attachment. It is strictly theological. They
see in the priest a man clothed with the greatest, the most
awful, and withal the most benign power which God ever
committed to man. They see in him one on whose soul ia

478 The Irish in England. [Dec.

stamped the seal and character of that eternal Priesthood
which is according to the order of Melchisedech, and they
regard him as such. To them the priest is the ** man of
God," as the prophets were to the devout Israelites of old.
As the ** man of God'* he is received with all the welcome
of an Irish heart. As " the man of God" his blessing is
eagerly and devoutly coveted ; and in case of accident and
sickness his benediction is more eagerly sought than the
remedies of the doctor, and is often more effectual in work-
ing a cure. One might almost fancy that those early
Christians, who laid the beds of their sick in the streets, in
order that the shadow of Peter passing by, might over-
shadow them, or who brought aprons and handkerchiefs
from touching St. Paul's body to lay upon the sick that
they might recover, were natives of the Emerald Isle : —
so identical is their Catholic instinct, their mutual neglect
of all the laws of respectability, and their complete careless-
ness of what was due to themselves and to society — dis-
played, as it was, by such acts of bad taste, as dragging
afflicted people in their beds into the public streets, and
stripping themselves in their very churches and *' upper
rooms" of neckcloths arid aprons !

It is natural, indeed, that some personal feeling should
be mingled with this theological perception of the Sacer-
dotal character. The priest is the father and the friend to
whom they naturally turn in all their cares and sorrows.
He is a friend long tried and never found wanting. He
has been for centuries almost the only person above their
own condition in life upon whose disinterestedness they
could place the most perfect reliance. For their sakes he
has not hesitated to brave sickness or death, and what is
often much harder to be borne — the scorn, contempt, and
hatred of the world. He has protected them from assaults
upon their religion, and he has dared to vindicate their
social and their civil rights. He has stood between them
and their oppressors, and he has brought down the malice
of the powerful upon his own head, in order to screen
from injustice his hapless flock. No wonder, therefore,
that the hearts of the poor should beat with joy as the
priest's footstep is heard to approach their lowly abodes ; no
wonder that they should shower down a thousand blessings
upon his head in return for his Sacerdotal benediction ;
and no wonder that their countenances should light up with
joy as be gives them a kind and a friendly recognition.

1^56. 1 The Irish in England. 479

As ill other coiintries, the little children run up to kiss the
priest's hand as he passes by their dwelling, so even in
the midst of Protestant London, the priest is instantly
recognised by the Catholic children of* Ireland, who vie with
each other who sliall be the iirst to give a glad and hearty
salutation to *' his rivirince." But whatever thoughts of
home, or sudden emotions of joy at encountering a real and
genuine friend in the midst of the cold atmosphere of a
great Protestant city, may indeed be mixed up with the
habitual veneration of Irish Catholics for their priest, these
mere human feelings are not sufficient to account for the
respect universally shown to them. Its root lies deeper.
They see in the priest the anointed of the Lord ; and it is
not for any personal reason, but on account of his spiritual
consecration and character that he occupies so elevated a
place in their religious minds. And it is perfectly consis-
tent with this view of the reverence which an Irishman feels
for his priest, that he should often exhibit a preference
for the priests of his own country over those of any other.
They naturally understand his habits of thought, and modes
of expression in a way in which no foreigner can under-
stand them ; and they thus command an amount of personal
confidence on his part, which is a legitimate addition to
the reverence felt for him in his Sacerdotal character.

We may here observe that those who have been brought
up in the Protestant religion, and have afterwards
received the singular and wonderful grace of reconciliation
to the Church, will be the very first to admit that in certain
points an hereditary has the advantage over an acquired Ca-
tholicity. The latter is in many instances distinguished for
its great fervour, its spirit of sacrifice, its courageous sever-
ance of worldly ties for the love and the truth of God, its
abilities, its practical energy, and its accurate knowledge of
the temper and character of the people of this country ; but
there are finer and deeper traits of Catholicity, the growth
of years, and the result of the earliest training, in which it
must ever feel its own deficiency. Such traits, for exam-
ple, are simplicity and an absence of self-consciousness,
a certain habitual quietness and gentleness of tone, a
greater caution in permitting itself to speak about its
neighbour, a good kind of scrupulousness, and this instinct
of reverence for the priest, not because he is clever, or
attractive, or gentlemanly, but because he is a priest of the
jQhurch, In an acquired Catholicity there is very often a

4&0 The Irish in England. [Dec.

rnmarkable kindness and a remarkable courtesy towards
the priests, and there is no want whatever of outward
respect. Sometimes, indeed, there is much more of genu-
flection, and of such external forms, than you find eveit
among the Irish. J3ut along with all this, personal
qualities and adventitious circumstances have uncon-
sciously a greater influence on the minds of the latter class
than of the former. There are no doubt many exceptions to
tliis rule on either side, but still we think that we have stated
what is true. The reverence for the priestly office, founded
not on personal qualities, but on the tlieological dogma,
will be found more indigenous in the old Catholic than in
the convert ; except, indeed, in those cases where the for-
mer is corrupted by a cowardly and unworthy assimilation
to Protestantism. But no such assimilation can ,be found
among the Irish poor. Although they are on all sides
hemmed in by various sects of Protestants ; although both
here and in their own country, almost every conceivable
effort has been made, and is still making, to change their
Calholic fervour into Protestant stiffiiess, they are, not-
withstanding, totally devoid of the least taint of Protes-
tantism. It has not been able to make the smallest
impression upon them. It is completely and altogether
alien to their thoughts, feelings, and habits. In spite of
all the Protestant schools which have been opened for
their children, and of all the Protestant missionaries who
have been sent to enlighten their darkness, and of all tha
Protestant tracts which have been distributed at their
houses, they are as utterly unconscious of a single Protes-
tant idea as those happy peasants of Italy, to whose simple
minds the Protestant is some rare and ungainly species of
infidel. In the Irish poor, therefore, you will find this
quality of an ancient and hereditary Catholicism. You
will find them, indeed, with their likings and dislikings,
like all the rest of the world ; but deeper than these transi-
tory feelings, you will find a genuine reverence for the
priest of God, as such, in full vigour and energy, as a living
portion of their wonderful faith.

It is another effect of the influence which religion holds-
iipon their minds, that they will often make incredible
exertions to hear Mass and attend to their duties. Many
are the hardships to which poor servant girls expose them-
selves through their endeavours to go out on a Sunday
morning to hear Mass. And unknown or unnoticed by

1856. 1 The Irish in England. 481

any human eye, many a silent tear is shed by the Irish
domestics of the lowest class of Jewish tradesmen, because
their mistress treats them with more than usual harshness
upon the Christian Sunday, and rarely can they steal even
half an hour in the early morning to make a brief and hur-
ried visit to the nearest chapel. In the country men and
women think nothing of walking many miles to hear Mass.
They will walk nine, ten, and even twelve miles, that they
may be present at Mass in the nearest Catholic chapel,
and be regular in doing this on every fine Sunday through-
out the year. In this respect they resemble the Presb}'-
terian peasantry of Scotland, who will also walk a great
distance through the desire to hear a sermon. But we
have never heard of any Presbyterian walking many miles
■without food, whereas it is a matter of every week's occur-
rence with the Irish, even those who are advanced in
years, to walk long distances fasting, in order that they
may go to Communion. And as they are thus assiduous
in their exertions to assist at the holy sacrifice, so are they
especially careful to secure baptism for their children, and
the last sacraments for themselves and their relatives.
Very few Catholic natives of Ireland pass from this world
without the last sacraments. The3'^ send for the priest even
upon the most trivial occasions. If they have a pain in
their finger, or an unusual attack of lowness of spirits,
whatever be the hour of the day or night, the priest is
summoned to the bed-side, and frequently discovers —
almost to his disappointment — that there is nothing what-
ever the matter with them. This eagerness in sending for
the priest is doubtless the excess of a right principle, and
is attended sometimes with serious inconvenience to those
to whom every moment of time is precious ; but it is an
excess on the right side ; and it is far better that a priest
should now and then be put to a vexatious annoyance, than
that the people should become careless in a matter of great
consequence to the salvation of their souls. As to bap-
tism, it is very seldom that an Irish Catholic neglects to
secure the baptism of his children. This is a point about
which even the .most negligent Catholics are careful.
Those who are married to Protestant husbands, and whose
children are often baptised by the Protestant minister, will
bring their children privately, and without the knowledge
of their husbands, to the Catholic priest, that they may be
conditionally and rightfully baptised. And many a little

482 The Irish in England. [Dec.

Baint now in heaven owes his salvation to the faith and the
piety of some poor Irish servant, who procured for him a
blessing which his own parents despised or neglected.

It has been often remarked that the poor make far
greater sacrifices to assist one another, and are more
liberal and charitable than the rich. This, as a general
rule, applies to the poor of all religions, and is, in its mea-
sure, as true of the Protestant as of the Catholic. Exam-
ples frequently occur, even among the English poor, of
great kindness to their neighbour in the hour of sickness
and distress. We have known instances in which the
greatest tenderness and attention was shown to sick neigh-
bours, by the English poor, attended even with imminent
risk to their own lives ; and where acts of affection and
charity were performed which were worthy of a Catholic
people. But the Catholic poor from Ireland are without
question pre-eminent for their charity and benevolence one
to another. They will never send away a poor man from
their doors without giving him something for the love of
God. They lend each other money in their necessities,
and that too, when the lender can ill afford to part with it.
They lend each other not only money, but clothes — bonnets
and gowns, and shawls, and even shoes, in order that the
borrower may be able to go decently to mass. They make
great sacrifices, by living sparingly and denying themselves
many a little comfort which they might otherwise enjoy
in order to lay up money for the purpose of sending assis-
tance to parents, brothers, sisters, and cousins. Incredi-
ble sums of money are annually sent by the Irish from
England and America to their poor relatives at home.
They hold ** raffles,'' not for the sake of amusement nor of
gain, but in order to make up a collection when one of
their neighbours is about to get married, or has hired a
new house and wants money to fit it up, or wishes to try
his fortunes in America, or to return back to Ireland. In
these, and in many other ways besides, they are continu-
ally aiding and supporting each other, giving of their
penury, redeeming their sins, and laying up for themselves
treasure in heaven. And it is in this way that their alms
and charities are often not only far more abundant, but
likewise far more meritorious, than those of the rich.
There are many rich Protestants, and many rich Catho-
lics, who give liberally^ and abundantly to what they con-
sider to be calls of charity. But it is very hard for those

1856.] The Irish in England. 483

who are " clothed in purple and fine linen, and who fare
sumptuously every day/' to realize in any practical way
the wants and the distresses of the poor. They set aside
a certain portion of their yearly income — and it may be a
liberal portion — and they distribute this in works of cha-
rity. But they can have little actual acquaintance with
the daily condition of the poor, and they can hardly be
called on to make the constant and self-denying sacrifices
which the poor make every day for. the sake of one
another. They do not know what it is to come home
after a long day's hard work, and to be suddenly called
upon to share an already too scanty meal with a hungry
stranger. They do not know what it is to deprive them-
selves of absolute necessities of food and raiment, that
they may help a sick parent, or assist a more needy neigh-
bour. Nor can they know what it is to part with the very
clothes from off their own backs, that they may clothe,
those still more naked and destitute. O there will be a
wonderful change of position when rich and poor meet
together in heaven. Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaU
tavit humiles. The high and the noble, and the rich and
the ** respectable," will have to give way, and to take a
place lower than those who are here the offscouring of the
earth. It will be a great revolution.

But the charity of the Irish Catholic poor is not restrict-
ed to aiding the necessities of their poorer relatives and
neighbours. From their scanty and precarious earnings
they give largely and liberally to the service of religion.
They support our priests and build our churches. Speak-
ing relatively, they give far more than the rich in retribu-
tions for masses j and in other acts of almsgiving. Mr.
Kelly, writing to the editor of the Weekly Register, with
reference to his new church in the Commercial Road, says,
*' With a few trifling exceptions in remote years, added to
the amount received from benefactors the last two or three
years, it may be truly said that the purchase of the ground,
walling in, and law expenses, and the building of the
church, up to the present time, have been paid for by the
pence of the poor.'* And the Catholic priest of Alderney,
writing in the same paper^ informs us that altogether there
are 500 French Catholics in his mission, yet they contri-
bute nothing to the Church. He is supported entirely by
the Irish poor. The same testimony, we are confident, will
be given by all those priests who have knowledge or expe-

484 77ie Irish in England. [Doc.

rience of the Irish poor. Many will remember instances
in which the poor have hoarded up money, amounting
sometimes to large sums, that they might have it laid out
in the adornment of the Altar of God, or bestowed in some
other way in promoting His glory ; and no greater affront
■could be offered to them than a refusal to accept these
gifts. In fact, the greatest blow and^ heaviest dis-
couragement which could befall the Church in this country,
would be the withdrawal from it of the Irish poor. It is
very well to have rich people ; they are of great utility, if
■they are really good and generous, and their reward here-
after will be abundant ; but after all, it is the poor who
constitute the real bulwark of the Church. They support
it by their prayers, by their faith, by their patience, by
their sacrifices, by their sufferings, and by their generous
offerings from scanty and hard-earned wages.

In noticing another effect which the Catholic faith has
impressed upon the Irish poor, we desire to advance nothing
that is in any way exaggerated or beyond the strict limit
of experience and of fact. Human nature is the same,
whether it be found in Catholics or in Protestants, its
desires, its passions, its evil inclinations, are the same,
and the temptations to commit the common sins of unclean-
ness act as powerfully upon the one as upon the other.
No greater theological mistake can be committed than that
of representing the Catholic Church in some such light as
the Donatists imagined the ideal community to which
they applied its name. The Church is as a net cast into
the sea, which gathers of every kind. It will be without
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, when it has put off its
present mortality, and entered upon its state of glory in
heaven ; but so long as its members are composed of flesh
and blood, a corrupt nature, and a weak will, it will be
grieved and troubled by the presence of sin within its fold ;
it will have to lament the crimes and the scandals of its
children, no less than to rejoice in the virtues and graces
of its heroes. We shall therefore find among the Catho-
lic poor, as well as others, too numerous and too painful
cases of sins against chastity and purity. A certain pro-
portion of those unhappy creatures, who disgrace the streets
of our large towns by the public profession of the most
degrading form of impurity are, alas ! lost children of the
Catholic Church, and natives of Catholic Ireland; although
what proportion these poor women may bear to the entire

1856.] The Ii-ish in England, 485

number of the same class we have been unable to ascertain.
All we can say is that they form a minority ; and as far as
we have been able to learn, they have fallen into this mis-
erable life, from one or other of the following causes.
Sometimes they are Irish, born in England, and they have
been driven into the streets, in consequence of the cruelty,
the neglect, and the mismanagement of their parents.
Sometimes it is a step-father or step-mother who refuses
to give them support ; and as Irish girls often find it diffi-
cult to get places, they are thus thrown upon the wide
world, without a home, or friend, or even a piece of bread
to keep them from starving. Sometimes, simple and igno-
rant girls come over to this country in the vain hope of an
honest livelihood ; and they are immediately entrapped
into some loathsome den of vice by those demons in
human form who trade upon the ruin of the souls and
bodies of their fellow creatures. This at least is the
experience of those who have had the best opportunities
of forming a correct judgment upon the matter. " They
send them," we have been informed in a private commu-
nication, ** over to this wicked city ignorant and simple
to look for work, and they seem to get into mischief from
want. There is, however, with them a foundation of faith
and religion, however dormant, which once roused, easily
leads them to make any atonement for the past."

In estimating then the purity of the Irish poor, we are
bound in justice to make a fair deduction for those cases of
scandal and of sin which do really exist among them. But
when we have made this deduction, the genuine and the sin-
cere purity of the Irish people will still be the most remarka-
ble feature in their character. Purity is the rule ; impurity
the exception. There are certain kinds of sin which are
almost wholly unknown among them. A young woman
dreads nothing so much as bringing disgrace upon herself
and upon her family. Mothers in general take great care
of their daughters in this respect. Their elders and com-
panions in the same court or village, counsel, advise, and
watch over them, should they be living with strangers and
apart from their immediate relations. They will endeavour
to keep them at home in the evenings, restrain them from
frequenting the low theatres and other places of amuse-
ment, and caution them against keeping company with the
loose ** English" around them. Rarely does it happen
that an Irish girl forms any improper connection previous

486 The Irish in England. [Dec.

to her marriage ; and more rarely still is there any infi-
delity in the married state. In a word, before an Irish
Catholic girl has lost her self-respect, and plunged into
vice, she must have broken through some of the most
powerful restraints, both of religion and of association.
She must long have neglected the ordinary duties of the
Catholic life — her prayers, mass, confession, and commu-
nion. She must have exhibited an obstinate and disobe-
dient spirit towards her parents, joined with a contemptuous
disregard of their admonitions and authority, not very
usual with the Irish. She must have disconnected herself
from all her well conducted associates and companions.
She must have done no little violence to her own deep-
seated knowledge of duty and sense of right ; and she
must have had the effrontery to fly in the face of that
** public spirit,'' which on all these matters exists to a very
high degree among the Irish Catholic poor. So long as
an Irish girl is in any way true to herself, she has every-
thing to keep her from going wrong. Her own religious
feelings, and those of her relatives and friends, alike con-
tribute to preserve her from vice. However little instruc-
tion she may have received, at least she has learnt to
entertain a fear of this one sin. Often and often are these
poor creatures exposed to great and violent temptations.
Want, and poverty, and wretchedness, and misery, are in
general no good school wherein to acquire and to preserve
the unearthly jewel of a pure heart, and yet, where is the
poverty greater than that of the Irish ? They come over
to this country, searching for the means of subsistence.
Unknown and friendless, almost every door is closed
against them. " No Irish need apply" is the motto and
the rule of many a Catholic, as well as Protestant family.
Friendless and houseless, not unfrequently their only home
is the open canopy of heaven, and their only bed the cold
pavement of the street. Not unfrequently worn with
care and disappointment, they cast themselves down at
the inhospitable gales of some city union, or take rest for
the night in some deserted barn in -the country; but in the
midst of their desolation, the Hand of Almighty God is
over them, and His angels cover them with an invisible
protection, as they shielded Agnes and Agatha in the
times of old. An evil thought, or an unholy suggestion, is
not suffered to approach them; the midnight spirit of im-
purity passes them by, leaving them unassailed, and

1856.] The Irish in England. 487

the shadow of the Almighty shelters them from harm.
*' Scuto circumdahit te Veritas ejus; non timebis a ti-
more nocturno. A sagitta volante in die, a negotio
perambulante in tenehris; ah incursu, et dcemonio meri-
diano; Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te : utcus-
todiant te in omnibus viis tuis."

Nor can it be maintained that this remarkable purity of
the Catholic poor can be ascribed to causes which are
purely natural. We are sometimes told by those who
cannot deny the facts, and yet strive to avert their force,
that this absence of impurity in the women of Catholic
Ireland, is the result of a natural coldness of temperament
in the character of the race. But nothing can be more
preposterous than such an hypothesis. It is destitute of
the faintest support in experience or fact. For, in the
first place, human nature is always substantially the same,
and to no sins is it more naturally inclined than to the sins
of the flesh. And secondly, the Irish are an imaginative,
an irrascible, and, as is often said, an unstable people ;
and surely, these are the very qualities which, more than
any others, predispose to sins against purity. Lastly, the
Irish are, virtually, the same race as the Welsh. They
belong to different branches of the same Celtic stock; and
yet the Welsh are known to be the most immoral people
in Europe, excepting, perhaps, the Swedes. No. It is no
difference of race or temperament which has created this
remarkable feature in the Irish character. It is not radi-
cal or national. It is religious. It is the Catholic faith
which makes them, as a body, chaste and pure. It is the
tone of mind formed by the Catholic religion, the re-
straints imposed by her teaching and control, the inno-
cence cherished by her sacraments, — it is this, and this
alone, which makes the Irish coster-girl of London differ
from her Protestant companions in trade, and the Irish
women in general, simple, and pure, in the midst of sur-
rounding vice and filthiness.

What has been advanced already we have no hesitation
in asserting, can be corroborated by almost any one who
has any real acquaintance with the Irish in England.
There are priests in London, and other large towns
throughout the country, men of long experience, who have
laboured for years in the poorest parts of those towns, who
will testify to the accuracy and truth of all that we have
said. But we prefer to call in the aid of a witness, whose

VOL. XLI.-No. LXXXII. U

488 The Irish in England. [Dec.

testimony is Deyond all suspicion, because he is neither an
Irishman nor a Catholic, and because the interests involved
in his publications are in no way promoted by the descrip-
tions he has given of the Irish in England. There are
those who would like his works all the better if they con-
tained some round abuse of the Catholic poor, and if
they magnified and dwelt upon their faults and failings,
without any mention of their good qualities. We cannot,
therefore, refer to a more unexceptionable, and a more
trustworthy witness, than Mr. Henry Mayhew, a Protes-
tant gentleman, who has made the condition, the habits,
the prejudices, and the opinions of the poor in London his
particular study. This witness has the further advantage
of being already well and favourably known to the public.
Almost every one is acquainted with his extremely inter-
esting work on London Labour and the London Poor,
which was reviewed a few years ago in this Magazine, and
from whose pages we shall now make a few extracts,
already perhaps familiar to our readers, but which they
will not be reluctant to peruse a second time, in confirma-
tion of the opinions we have advanced.

In his inquiries into the condition of the Irish poor,
Mr. Mayhew found that —

"Almost all the street Irish are Roman Catholics. ... I found,"
he says, " that some of the Irish Roman Catholics, but they had been
for many years resident in England, and that among the poorest or
vagrant class of the English, had become indifferent to their creed,
and did not attend their chapels, unless at the great feasts or festi-
vals, and this they did only occasionally. . . . One Irishman, a
fruit seller, with a well-stocked barrow, and without the complaint
of poverty, common among his class, entered keenly into the subject
of his religious faith when I introduced it. He was born in Ireland,
but had been in England since he was five or six. He was a good
looking, fresh-coloured man, of thirty or upwards, and could read
and write well. He spoke without bitterness, though zealously
enough. ' Perhaps, Sir, you are a gintleman connected with the
Protestint clergy,' he asked, 'or a missionary?' On my stating
that I had no claim to either character, he resumed ; * will, Sir, it
don't matther. All the worruld may know my riligion, and I wish
all the worruld was of my riligion and betther rain in it than I am;
I do indeed. I'm a Roman Catholic, Sir, (here he made the sign of
the cross) God be praised for itl 0 yis, I know all about Cardinal
Wiseman. It's the will of God, I feel sure that he's to be 'stablished
here, and it's no use ribillin' against that. I've nothing to say
against Protistants. I've heard it said, it's best to pray for them.'

1856."! The Irish in England. 489

' The street people that call themselves protistints are no riligiou
at all at all. I serrave Protistant gintlemin and ladies too, and
sometimes thej talk to me kindly about riligion. They're good
custhomers, and I have no doubt good people. I can't say what
their lot may be in another worruld for not being of the true faith.
No Sir, I'll give no opinions — none.'

" This man gave me a clear account of his belief that the Blessed
Virgin (he crossed himself repeatedly as he spoke) was the Mother
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was a mediator with our Lord, who
was God of heaven and earth, of the duty of praying to the holy
saints, of attending mass — (' but the priest,' he said, ' wont exact
too much of a poor man, either about that or about fasting ') — of
going to confession at Easter and Christmas times at the least — of
receiving the body of Christ, * the rale prisince ' in the holy Sacra-
ment— of keeping all God's Commandments — of purgatory being a
purgation of sins — and of heaven and hell. I found the majority of
those I spoke with, at least as earnest in their faith, if they were
not as well instructed in it as my informant, who may be cited as an
example of the better class of street-sellers.'' — P. 107, vol. 1.

Mr. Mayhew encountered a less favourable specimen of
an Irish emigrant in the person of " a very melancholy
looking man, tall and spare, and decently clad," who gave
him a correct account of his faith, but with hesitation, and
who evidently felt rather spitefully than otherwise against
Cardinal Wiseman. Had he been a gentleman he would
have been a moderate Catholic, and a devoted admirer of
Dublin Castle and ** the Lord Lieutenant/*

Mr. Mayhew next describes the religious zeal of the
Irish whom he visited.

" As I was anxious to witness the religious zeal that characterizes
these people, I obtained permission to follow one of the priests as
he made his rounds among his flock. Everywhere the people ran
out to meet him. He had just returned to them I found, and the
news spread round, and women crowded to their door-steps, and
came creeping up from the cellars through the trap-doors, merely
to curtesy to him. One old crone as he passed cried : ' You're a
good father. Heaven comfort you,' and the boys playing about
stood still to watch him. A lad in a man's tail-coat and a shirt
collar that nearly covered in his head — like the paper round a bou-
quet— was fortunate enough to be noticed, and his eyes sparkled,
as he touched his hair, at each word he spoke in answer. At a
conversation that took place between the priest and a woman who
kept a dry fish stall, the dame excused herself for not having been
up to take tea ' with his riverince's mother lately, for thrade had
been so busy, and night was the fullest time.' Even as the priest

490 The Irish in England. [Dec,

walked along the streets, boys running at full speed would pull ap
to touch their hair, and the stall- women would rise from their
baskets ; while all noises — even a quarrel — ceased until he had
passed by. Still there was no look of fear in the people. He called
them all by their names, and asked after their families, and once
or twice ' the father ' was taken aside, and held by the button while
some point that required his advice was whispered in his ear.

" The religious fervour of the people whom I saw was intense.
At one house that I entered the woman set me marvelling at the
strength of her zeal, by showing me how she contrived to have in
her sitting-room a sanctuary to pray before every night and morning,
and even in the day, 'when she felt weary and lonesome.' The
room was rudely enough furnished, and the only decent table was
covered with a new piece of varnished cloth. Still, before a rude
print of our Saviour, there were placed two old plated candlesticks,
pink, with the copper shining through : and here it was that she
told her beads. In her bedroom, too, was a coloured engraving of
*the Blessed Lady,* which she never passed without curtesy-
ing to.

" Of course [continues our author] I detail these matters as mere
facts, without desiring to offer any opinion here, either as to the
benefit or otherwise of the creed in question. As I had shewn how
the English costermonger neither had nor knew any religion what-
ever, it became my duty to give the reader a view of the religion
of the Irish street-sellers. In order to be able to do so as truthfully
as possible, I placed myself in communication with those parties
who were in a position to give me the best information on the
subject. The result is given above, in all the simplicity and im-
partiality of history." — Vol. i. p. 108.

Speaking of the women street- sellers of London, Mr.
Mayhew thus describes the state of religion amongst them :

" As regards the religion of the women in street trades, it is not
difficult to describe it. The Irish women are Roman Catholics.
Perhaps I am justified in saying that they are all of that faith. . . .
The poor Irish females in London are for the most part regular in
their attendance at mass, and their constant association in their
chapels is one of the links which keeps. the street-Irish women so
much distinct from the street-English. In the going to, and
returning from, the Roman Catholic TJhapels, tliere is among these
people — 1 was told by one of the most intelligent of them — a talk
of family and secular matters — of the present too high price of
oranges to leave full sixpence a day at two- a-penny, and the proba-
ble time when cherries would be ' in ' and cheap ' plaze God to
prosper them.' In these colloquies, there is an absence of any
interference by English street-sellers, and an unity of conversation
and interest peculiarly Irish. It is thus that the tie of religion,

1856.] The Irish in England. 491

working with the other causes, keeps the Irish in the London streets
knitted to their own ways, and is likely to keep them so, and perhaps
to add to their numbers.

" It was necessary to write somewhat at length of so large a class
of women who are professors of a religion, but of the others the
details may be brief; for as to the great majority, religion is almost
a nonentity. ... A few women street-sellers, however, do attend
the Sunday Service of the Church of England. ... A few others,
perhaps about an equal number, attend dissenting places of worship
of the various denominations — the methodist chapels comprising
more 'than half. If I may venture upon a calculation founded on
the result of my inquiries, and on the information of others who felt
an interest in the matter, I should say that about five female
street-sellers attended Protestant places of worship in the ratio of
a hundred attending the Roman Catholic chapels." — Vol. i. p. 461.

^ The testimony of this writer, who has certainly had great
opportunities of arriving at the truth, will further corro-
borate what we have said (upon grounds altogether
independent of his work) with respect to the difficulties
and trials of poor Irish servant girls, in their endeavours
to attend to their religious, duties.

" There is, moreover, another cause which almost compels the
young Irish girl into the adoption of some street calling. A peevish
mistress, whose numerous family renders a servant necessary, but
whose means are small or precarious, becomes bitterly dissatisfied
with the awkwardness or stupidity of her^Irish handmaiden ; the
girl's going, or ' teasing to go,' every Sunday morning to mass is
annoying, and the girl is often discharged or discharges herself ' in
a huff.' The mistress, perhaps with the low tyranny dear to vulgar
minds, refuses her servant a character, or in giving one, suppresses
any good qualities, and exaggerates the failings, of impudence,
laziness, lying and dirtiness. Thus the girl cannot obtain another
situation, and perforce perhaps she becomes a street-seller." — Vol.
i. p. 460.

Here is the account of one of these] street-sellers, who
had been in service: —

" Some of my places were very harrud, but shure, again, I met
some as was very kind. I left one because they was always wanting
me to go to a methodist chapel, and was always running down my
religion, and did all they could to hinder my ever going to mass.
They would hardly pay me when I left, because I wouldn't listen
to them, they said, — the haythens! — when they would have saved
my souL They save my soul, indeed ! The likes o' thim !'* — Vol. i.
p. 467.

492 The Irish in England. \ Dec.

As to the morality of the Irish women, the testimony of
Mr. Mayhew confirms in a remarkable manner all that we
have asserted. Of the women and girls who sell fruit in
the streets, he says, that they ** present two characteris-
tics which distinguish them from the London coster-
women generally — they are chaste, and unlike * the coster-
girls,' very seldom form any connection without the sanc-
tion of the marriage-tie. They are moreover, attentive to
religious observances.'* — vol. i. p. 104.

Again — the amusements of the street Irish are not those
of the English costerraongers, though there are exceptions,
of course, to the remark. The Irish fathers and mothers
do not allow their daughters, even when they possess the
means, to resort to the *' penny gaj^s" or "the twopenny

hops" unaccompanied by them I may here observe,

in reference to the statement that Irish parents will not
expose their daughters to the risk of what they consider
corrupt influences — that when a young Irishwoman does
break through the pale of chastity,. she often becomes, as
I was assured, one of the most violent and depraved of,
perhaps, the most depraved class. — p. 109.

" The difference in the street traffic, as carried on by English-
women and Irishwomen is marked enough. The Irishwoman's avo-
cations are the least skilled and the least remunerative, but as
regards mere toil, such as the carrying of a heavy burthen, are by
far the most laborious. . . The Irish wroman more readily unites
begging with selling than the Englishwoman, and is far more fluent
and even eloquent. She pays less regard to truth but she unques-
tionably pays a greater regard to chastity. When the uneducated
Irishwoman, however, has fallen into licentious ways, she is, as I
once heard it expressed, the most • savagely wicked * of any.'' — P.
458.

''The single women in the street callings are generally the
daughters of street-sellers, but their number is not a twentieth of
the others, excepting they are the daughters of Irish parents. The
costermongers' daughters either help their parents, with whom they
reside, or carry on some similar trade ; or they even form connec-
tions with the other sex, and easily sever the parental tie, which
very probably has been far too lax or far too severe. . . . With the
Irish girls the case is different; brought up to a street life, used to
whine and blarney, they grow up to womanhood in street-selling,
and as they rarely form impure connections, and as no one may be
induced to offer them marriage, their life is often one of street
celibacy." — Vol. i. p. 459.

In making the following extract we do not of course

1856.] The Irish in England. 493

intend to justify the wild anger and the semi-barbarous
revenge of a half drunken and ignorant man, but we use' it
as a remarkable illustration of the popular sense of the
degradation brought upon all the members of a family,
when one of the srirls goes wrong. It is remarkable in two
respects. 1st. Natural affection is usually so strong
among the Irish that nothing except a deep sense of
wrong and shame could root it out of the heart even of a
half drunken wretch ; and 2nd. the people, although terri-
fied at the wild vengeance of the brother, do not interfere
or say a word to the contrary. So strongly do they feel
that the young woman deserved the curse of God for the
disgrace she had brought upon herself and others.

The Irish servant whose testimony we have quoted with
respect to the difficulty which people in her position find in
attempting to attend Mass, gives to Mr. Mayhew the fol-
lowing scene from her early life. Her father, she says,
died from the effects of a broken leg.

" Mother wasn't long after him, and on her death-bed she said,
so low I could hardly hear her, ' Mary, my dailint, if jou starruve.
be vartuous. Rimiraber poor lUen's funeral.' When I was quite
a child. Sir, I went wid mother to a funeral — she was a relation—
and it was of a youug woman that died after her child had been
borren a fortnight, and she wasn't married ; that was Illen. Her
body was brought out of the Lying-in Hospital — I've often heard
spake of it since — and was in the Churchyard to be buried ; and
her brother, that hadn't seen her for a long time, came and wanted
to see her in her coAn, and they took the lid oflf, and then he cur-
rased her in her coflSn afore bus ; she'd been so wicked. But he
wasn't a good man hisself, and was in dhrink too ; still nobody
said anything, and he walked away.. It made me ill to see Illen in her
coffin, and hear him curruse, and Pre remimbered it ever since.'' —
Vol. i. p. 466.

It is unnecessary to adduce the testimony of Mr.
Mayhew to corroborate our assertions with respect to the
mutual charity of the Catholic poor towards one another.
The fact is universally admitted, and is often the subject
of conversation among the English poor, who although as
we have said, frequently extremely kind and charitable to
their neighbours, have no bond of association which keeps
them together, and makes them ready to submit to pecu-
niary sacrifices for their still poorer brethren, as we find
among the Irish. " Tell me," said a Protestant trades-
man to a very intelligent young Catholic journeyman,

494 The Irish in England. [Dec.

** Tell me, bow it is, that you Irish keep so much together,
and help one another with money and assistance when you
are in need ? why there is nothing of the kind amongst
us?" "It is," replied the Catholic, "because we are all
one ; we all belong to one Church, and hold the one faith,
whereas your people are split up into diflPerent parties."
" I dont like the Irish," said an English costermonger to
Mr. Mayhew, " but they do stick to one another far more
than we do." ** I think," said another costermonger,
" there is a family contract among the Irish, that's where
it is."

But we should not do full justice to this division of our
subject if, before turning to the less pleasing side of the
picture, we did not say a few words about the known fide-
lity of the people to the Catholic religion. It is difficult
for those who are not in the same class of life to estimate,
in a true measure, the sufferings to which the poor are
exposed every day, and every hour of their lives, on
account of their faith. It debars them not merely from
advantageous positions and profitable employments, but
frequently from the very means of subsistence. The
Catholic servant is either driven to a street life, because
her conscience will not permit her to conform to the
oppressive requirements of her situation, or she is subjected
in retaining it to a series of petty and harassing persecu-
tions, the hardship of which can with difficulty be estimated
by those who are not acquainted with all the facts of the
case. We speak with certain knowledge when we say
that many poor Catholic female servants annually relin-
quish their places in Protestant, and especially in Jewish
families, in order to disch!irge their Easter obligations.
In fact, the Catholic religion is everywhere spoken against,
and the poor have to realise, in all its sternness, the cross
which the Faith has commanded them to carry. ** Ye
shall be hated by all men for my name's sake." All the
rich gifts annually distributed among the poor at Christ-
mas and other seasons, are withheld from the poor Catho-
lic, not because he is Irish, (for the English are too
generous to restrict their benevolence within a narrow
nationality,) but because they cannot be given to those who
are not Protestants of one kind or another. The least
unfaithfulness would be certain to secure some of these
gifts and advantages. A clever or intelligent young man
or womau would be taken up by the missionaries, the Pro-

1856. 1 The Irish in England. 495

testant curates, and the benevolent gentlemen of the
Evangelical Alliance, if he merely hinted a secret distrust
of his Church, and offered to listen to Protestant instruc-
tion. The poor know this well. England stands before
them with a loaf in One hand and in the other a scroll, with
the word Apostasy in large characters written upon it.
They have poverty, and want, and sickness in their homes.
The winter is severe, work is slack, the children are half
starving — tall boys and strong girls sit with listless apathy
and a vacant gaze, meditating as it were upon their want
and wretchedness — the fathers and mothers know not where
to turn for food to fill their hungry mouths, or for clothes
to cover their nakedness. One word would suffice in many
and many a case to alter their temporal position. From
want they would be changed to plenty and to comfort. If
they would only allow their names to appear in the next
report of the city missionaries — if they would become
members of some Baptist, Methodist, Independent,
Mormonite, or Church of England congregation — if they
would malign their priests and blaspheme the Mother of
God — whatever else they might lose, at all events they
would be gainers for the present, so far as money, and
clothes, and employment are a gain. Yet the cases of
apostasy are fewer than are commonly supposed, for hard,
indeed, is it to overcome the tenacity of an Irishman's
faith. He will sometimes, alas, permit himself, under the
pressure of grinding want, to be carried to the verge of
open apostasy ; but we believe that the instances are com-
paratively rare in which he actually oversteps the boundaiy
line. He may indeed allow his name to swell the prose-
lyting statistics of some reformation society, and himself to
be paraded, to his own deep shame, before a gaping Pro-
testant congregation ; but so long as he stops short of the
extreme and final step which separates him from the com-
munion of the Church, there is a hope, which we believe
in the great majority of cases is eventually realised, that
he will' repent of his great sin when his end is in prospect,
and will die a reconciled penitent in Catholic unity. But
the mass of the people, considered ns a class, are, without
question, faithful to the Church. Their faith has hitherto
stood the severest temptations, and it has stood unmoved.
The rain descended, and the floods came, and beat against
it, and it fell not, because it was founded upon a rock.
And therefore among the most prominent characteristics

496 The Irish in England [Dec.

of the Catholic Irish poor, we must always ascribe a place
of proud pre-eminence to the unbroken fidelity of a faith a
thousand years old.

Nor can it be said that the steadfastness of the Irish to
the Catholic religion is the result of national sympathies
and national prejudices ; that it is a political as fully as
much as a religious feeling ; and that the Celtic dislike of
Protestantism has its foundation in a Celtic antipathy to
the Anglo Saxon race. Of all the calumnies raised
from time to time against the Irish poor, none is more
groundless nor more unfair than this one. They are much
more likely to forget their country than to forget their
faith : and it would be much nearer the mark to say that
they are Irish because they are Catholics, than that they
are Catholics because they are Irish. We are no friends
to nationality, wherever it is to be met with, whether it be
English, or Irish, or French. There is only one nation-
ahty which is not only consistent with, but is in some
degree a real portion of true Catholicism. The more
Roman a people is in its principles, its attachments^ and
its sympathies, the more thoroughly is it Catholic. And
the reason of this is, because Rome is the centre and the
source of Catholicism. It is the fountain from which faith
and discipline, and rite and ceremony, alike emanate. It
is the city and the nation of the Church, and it is impossible
to be in heart and soul devoted to the Church, without
being in heart and soul devoted to Rome. But all other
nationalities are aberrations from the true development
of a Catholic spirit, and they are therefore always to be
kept in check, and, if possible rooted out. If, then, there
be any nationality in the religious temper and spirit of the
Irish, we neither defend, approve, nor excuse it. By all
means away with it, cut it down and trample it under foot.
But this " nationality," whatever it be, has nothing to do
with the fervour and the stability of their faith. And how-
ever extensive may be their Anti- Saxon prejudices, these
prejudices are not allowed to intrude themselves into the
domain of religion. The Irish may wish to avenge them-
selves on England for the tyranny and ill-usage of many
centuries ; but their revenge is that of a Christian people.
They would wish to introduce, as they are doing, the
Catholic religion into the land, and to win over to its pale,
those who now live and die in hostility to its sacred influ-

1856.] The Msh in England. 497

ences. They would do to England what in ancient time's
Greece did to Rome : —

" Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio."

They would build churches, plant missions, make known
the mysteries of the faith, and win back to the Catholic
communion a race which had once been one of its brightest
ornaments. And this we are convinced is the only revenge,
as it is the sweetest and holiest, that they would wish to
take. The least practical acquaintance with the manners
and dispositions of the real Irish poor, would be sufficient
to prove the truth of what we now say. • When one of their
neighbours or acquaintances is converted to the Church,
you will see in their manners and expressions the marks of
the most genuine joy and satisfaction. If he be on a sick
bed at the time of his conversion, or in danger of death,
they will say, *' And sure then its a comfort that he has
been received, for now we can pray for him,*' that is, in
the event of his death. Moreover, none rejoice more sin-
cerely at the numerous conversions that are taking place
among the higher classes of this country than do the poor
Irish. And by whom, too, have the English converts been
received with greater enthusiasm, and with a gladder wel-
come, than by the Catholics of Ireland? Witness the
crowds which flocked from all parts to hear the sermons of
any of our more distinguished converts who have visited
Ireland. Witness the profound reverence paid to Dr. New-
man, and the high estimation in which he is held, we do
not say by the dignitaries of the Church, for this is only
natural, but by the vast body of the poor of Ireland. It is
a well-known fact that no preacher is a greater favourite
with the poor Irish than Dr. Newman; — a remarkable evi-
dence, indeed, of that high and delicate perception of theo-
logical power, and that deep appreciation of personal sanc-
tity, which characterises them, when we remember that Dr.
Newman's style of preaching, however attractive to the edu-
cated and refined, is not of that peculiar kind which is gene-
rally thought mostlikely to work upon the feelings of a fervid
people. Truly these are proofs, if any proof be needed, of
the absurdity of the calumny to which we have referred. No,
you have wrested from the Irish their lands, their homes,
their churches, and their religious establishments. You
have made them exiles and wanderers over the face of the

498 The Irish in England. [Dec.

earth. You have kept them in a condition of the lowest
servitude for many centuries. You have reduced them to
want, and misery, and^ degradation, and now you will
crown your deeds of injustice by attempting to rob them
of that which constitutes their glory and their crown. You
would make the fidelity which has resisted the gold of
England, and which has remained unmoved in the midst
of famine and starvation, the miserable eflfect of a mere
national antipathy. You would degrade a rare and won-
derful supernatural gift into an unworthy and unchristian
prejudice. This is certainly to add insult to injury, and it
not only is unsupported by the faintest testimony or fact,
but the thought itself is in every way unworthy of a gene-
rous mind. Whatever else may be the faults of Ireland,
at least we must acknowledge with thankfulness, that as
a body her people have been, and are, faithful to the Church.
II. — It is with a heavy heart that we turn from the
more agreeable picture of the Catholic poor, to fulfil our
promise of stating plainly and honestly all that is to be
said against y as well as all that is to be said for the
Irish in England. And first then, it is a melancholy,
but indisputable, fact, that a large proportion of the
juvenile thieves of London are ** Irish Cockneys,** that
is, the children of Irish parents born in London. We
make this statement on the authority of Mr. Mayhew, in
his extremely interesting and valuable description of *' the
Great World of London," now in course of publication.
Nothing can be fairer nor more free from the vulgar pre-
judices encouraged by ** Exeter Hall" and its followers,
than the tone in which Mr. Mayhew writes about
Irish crime. — He states the fact which is incontestable,
but he also adds explanations of the fact which to some
extent at least, account for the disproportion between the
Irish and other thieves. The English law which in
matters aflecting life and death is so majestic and so just,
is in lesser things too frequently arbitrary and severe, and
as administered by a magistracy neither over enhghtened
nor over refined, often degenerates into positive injustice
and tyranny, and is frequently made subservient to the
vulgar prejudices and accidental humours of some coarse
city magistrate or some ignorant country squire. Many of
our juvenile offenders are committed to prison, for such
offences as " heaving stones," ** getting over a wall,"
" stealing 4d," and " stealing bread." One poor boy had

1856.] Tlie Irish in England. 499

to pay the penalty of one month's imprisonment for the
heinous offence of ** going into Kensington Gardens to
sleep;" since it is a crime in the sight of English law, if
a man " hath not where to lay his head." According to
Mr. Mayhew, (1) the greater portion of boys confined in
Tothill-fields prison, are there for picking pockets, indeed,
as many as 6Q in 194 ; (2) next to the picking- of pockets,
the purloining of metal constitutes the largest proportion of
the offences committed by the young ; (.3) some few boys
are committed for serious.offences ; (4) many of the other
offences belong to the class perpetrated by those who are
expressively termed " sneaks," namely, those who pilfer
bread, oats, beans, rags, &c., &c. In addition to these
there is a small class of boys who have stolen smallwares
from their employers ; but these, adds Mr. Mayhew, are
most inexperienced offenders, and belong to a class who
at least have been engaged in industrial occupations, and
who should be in no way confounded with the young
habitual thieves.

" 6. Further, there is a considerable number who are confined
for offences that not even the sternest-minded can rank as crime,
and for which the committal to a felon's prison can but be regarded
by every righteous mind, not only as an infamy to the magistrate
concerned, but even as a scandal to the nation which permits the
law-officers of the country so far to outrage justice and decency.
To this class of offences belong the spinning of tops, the breaking of
windows, the ' heaving ' of stones, the sleeping in Kensington Gar-
dens, getting over walls, and such like misdemeanours, for many of
which we see, by the above list, that the lads were suffering their
first imprisonment. Now the latter conclusion serves to shew that
juvenile crime is not always begotten by bad, or no parental care,
but springs frequently from a savage love of consigning people to
prison for faults that cannot even be classed as immoral, much less
criminal."— P. 420.

Mr. Mayhew makes the following sensible remarks upon
Irish juvenile delinquency ; and as we have stated the fact
upon his authority, we are contented to accept also his own
explanation of the fact.

" A large proportion of the London thieves are ' Irish Cockneys,'
having been born in London of Irisli parents. This shows we believe,
not that the Irish are naturally more crimiual than our own race,
but simply that they are poorer, and that their children are, con-
sequently, left to shift for tliemselves, and sent out to beg more
frequently than with our people. Indeed juvenile crime will bo

500 The Irish in England. [Dec.

found to be due, like prostitution, mainlj to a want of proper
parental control. Some have wondered why the daughters of the
poorer classes principally serve to swell the number of our street-
walkers. Are poor girls naturally more unchaste than rich ones ?
Assuredly not. But they are simply worse-guarded, and therefore
more liable to temptation. The daughters of even middle class
people are seldom or never trusted out of the mother's sight, so
that they have no opportunity allowed them for doing wrong : with
the poorer classes, however, the case is very diflferent ; mothers in
that sphere of life have either to labour for their living, or else to
do the household duties for themselves, so that the girl is employed
to run errands alone from the tenderest years, and when her limbs
are strong enough to work, she is put out in the world to toil for
herself. She has no maids to accompany her when she walks abroad,
and often her only play-ground is the common court in which her
parents reside. The same circumstances as cause the ranks of our
' unfortunates ' to be continually recruited from the poorer classes,
serve also to keep up the numbers of our juvenile delinquents, and
draft fresh supplies from the same class of people. . . . That this
constitutes the real explanation of juvenile delinquency, is proved
by the fact that a large proportion of young criminals have either
been left orphans in their early childhood, or else they have been
subject to the tender mercies of some step-parent.'' — P. 386-7.

" We have before remarked, that the greater number of the pro-
fessional thieves of London, belong to what is called the Irish-Cock-
ney tribe ; and at the boys' prison at Tothill Fields we can see the
little Hibernian juvenile ofifenders being duly educated for the ex-
perienced thief. Some bigots seek to make out that the excess of
crime in connection with the Irish race is due directly or indirectly
to the influence of the prevailing religion of the country ; and
small handbills are industriously circulated among the fanatic
frequenters of Exeter Hall, informing us how, in papal countries,
the ratio of criminals to the population is enormously beyond that
of Protestant kingdoms. From such documents, however, the
returns of Belgium are usually omitted, for these would prove that
there is really no truth in the theory sought to be established,
since it is shewn, by the tables printed by Mr. M'Culloch, in his
' Geographical Dictionary,' that where the ratio of criminals to the
poor population of the country as in papal Belgium 1-9 and in
Romanist France 2-3 to every 10,000 individuals, it is in Protes-
tant England as many as 12-5 to the same definite number of peo-
ple, and in Sweden as high as 87-7 ; so that it is plain that mere
difference of religious creeds cannot possibly explain the different
criminal tendencies among different races of people.

" As to what may be the cause of crime in Ireland we are not
in a position to speak, not having given any special attention to
the matter; but the reason why there appears a greater proportion
of Irish among the thieves and vagrants of our own country, admits

1856.] The Irish in England. 501

of a very ready explanation. The Irish constitute the poorest
portion of our people, and the children, therefore, are virtually orphans
in this country, left to gambol in the streets and courts, without
parental control, from their very earliest years ; the mothers, as
well as the fathers, being generally engaged throughout the day in
some of the rude forms of labour or street trade. The consequence
is, that the child grows up not only unacquainted with any indus-
trial occupation, but untrained to habits of daily work ; and long
before he has learned to control the desire to appropriate the articles
which he either wants or likes, by a sense of the rights of property
in others, he has acquired furtive propensities from association with
the young thieves located in his neighbourhood. He has learnt
too — which is much worse — thieves' morals, morals which once in
the heart, it is almost hopeless to attempt to root out. But what-
ever be the cause, the fact is incontestable, that a very large pro-
portion of the juvenile prisoners are the children of Irish parents.
Indeed as one looks up and down the different forms in the boys'
Oakum-room at Tothill Fields, the unmistakeable gray eyes are
found to prevail among the little felons associated there.*' — P. 402-
404.

It is grievous to contemplate the fearful loss which the
Church is annually sustaining in consequence of the
profligate training and abandoned lives of these outcast
children ; how many souls the temptations and the vices
of London are day by day leading on to inevitable destruc-
tion, while no hand is stretched out to rescue them.
Great will be the reward of those who apply themselves to
discover some remedy for juvenile crime. We may hope
that the establishment and the efficient working of " Re-
formatories" will be attended with a proportionate success;
but it would be better, as it is certainly far easier, to pre-
vent crime than to eradicate it after it has once taken firm
root in the heart. Would that some good and earnest man
to whom God has given the ability and the means, were
induced to set on foot an home and a refuge for the desti-
tute and orphan boys of London. Such an institution
should be situated in this country, within easy reach of
London, and yet far enough away to cut off all dangerous
and pernicious influences. Little boys should be received
into it at the very earliest ages. They should be removed
ere they could be conscious of the ^tmosphere of vice in
which they were born, and ere they could be corrupted by
the bad language and vicious morals of those with whom
their lot is cast. They should be placed under the care
of the Church, and from their earliest years trained be-

502 The Irish in England. [Dec.

neath her wing. They should be taught industrial occu-
pations rJong with the ordinary branches of secular instruc-
tion ; and living, as they would do, in an atmosphere of
faith and religion, they would be thus, not merely re-
claimed, but preserved from vice, and as a body would
certainly become useful and valuable members of the
Church and the commonwealth. An efficient orphanage
or asylum for destitute little boys, who are too youn^ to
have committed crime, would become a valuable auxiliaiy
to the Reformatories which have been lately set on foot.
And both together would in a very short time effect a
visible change in the condition and the morals of those
destitute Irish children, whose misfortune it is, more than
their fault, that they are no sooner born into the world,
than they are through the very circumstance of their desti-
tution and poverty thrown into the thickest part of the vice
and wickediiess of ^ London.

We must bear in mind the great poverty of the Irish
poor, in passing judgment upon another fault, which truth
compels us to notice. If, as we have said before, a large
proportion of the well-conducted Irish make great sacri-
fices in order to attend mass and the sacraments, there
are many who live in a total neglect of the duties of their
faith. Some have never been at mass since they landed
upon the shores of England, and as to other duties, they
are equally neglected and lost sight of. They have con-
tracted a careless habit of omitting all religious obliga-
tions, and year after year only tends to increase their
apathy and indifference. An Irishman of this class is a
type of humanity by no means interesting or attractive.
He is deficient in the independent character, the manly
bearing, and thej honest virtues of the English, while he
has trampled to the dust the supernatural gifts which
would have elevated and raised him. He is like the un-
just steward, who neither feared God nor regarded man ;
and he carries about with him an abandonment of self, a
sense of degradation, and a recklessness of character which
is one of the strongest, and most efficient, incentives to
crime. It is, however, rare to find such persons altogether
past recovery. If, i^ideed, they be professed vagrants and
** trampers," and have for a long time been addicted to
this gipsy kind of life, — if they be notorious and confirmed
drunkards, or if they be connected with low livery stables,
with the turf and horse-jockeying, or with the vicious

1856.J The Irish in England. ^ 503

haunts of our soldiers, then we fear that their recovery is
hopeless : but in ordinary cases they are still open to
religious impressions, and there is still a chord in their
hearts which, sooner or later, may be effectually moved.
Moreover, there is an excuse for some, at least, of those
who, from one year's end to another, are absent from the
great Sacrifice of the Church. It is their extreme poverty.
They cannot do in England what they were used to do at
home. The women canjiot go to mass with caps in place
of bonnets, with broken shoes, or perhaps with no shoes at
all. The odious goddess of ** respectability" reigns su-
preme in this civilized land, over Catholic and Protestant,
over rich and poor alike. All do homage at her shrine,
and burn incense before her ; and, therefore, the poor
Catholic cannot join in the offices of the Church, unless
she has her bonnet, and her shawl, and her cloak, and her
good shoes, and her gloves, and we know not what else
besides. Moreover, many a poor boy and girl are kept
away from their duties through want of real and pressing
necessities. They are at the mass "in heart," as they
will tell you, but how can they personally appear among
decent people, themselves being all in disorder and wretch-
edness ? They have no better clothing than the miserable
rags which they wear from week to week, and which are
not sufficient to keep them from the cold. They have
shoes, so thin and worn, as to be hardly fit to bear them
•to the place where they earn their three or four shillings a
week. And how shall they procure the cheapest and most
ordinary raiment? They cannot purchase it with money,
for they have it not ! And they cannot obtain it from the
rich, for the rich, too often, know nothing, and care
nothing, about them. Alas! the hard hand of poverty
weighs heavily upon them. Their misery and their suffer-
ings are known to God alone, — and shall we, who have
never experienced the depressing and deadening effects of
habitual destitution, dare to pass upon their apparent neg-
ligence a stern and* a severe sentence ? God and His
«weet Mother forbid ! " Let him that is without sin cast
the first stone at her ;" for how many of those who are in
a, better class of life would bear with patience and with for-
titude a sudden and a terrible reverse of fortune? how many
would have the moral courage under such altered circum-
stances to appear in the presence of their equals, clothed

VOL. XLL— ^io. LXXXII. 15

504 The Irish in England. [Dec.

in rags, and in worn out garments, with distress and want
too visibly stamped upon their brows ?

Complaints are fn quently made about the ignorance of
the Irish population in England, and it cannot, we believe,
be denied,'* that there is a true foundation for these com-
plaints. They are often, no doubt, exaggerated. The
Ignorance is not so great as is sometimes supposed. For
it must be borne in mind that a large proportion of the
Irish poor have learnt their religiqn through the medium
of the Irish language. It is the tongue in which they
both think and pray. English is to them a foreign lan-
guage, and while they are speaking it, they are really
translating Irish idioms into Saxon forms of speech. Hence
it may very often, and very naturally, happen that they do
not understand an English expression, or an English ques-
tion, whereas, were the same things said to them in Irish,
they could at once reply to it. This gives them, at times,
an appearance of being ignorant of things which they
ought to know, and which they do know in their native
language. It is only fair to mention this, and unless those
who have to deal with them bear this in mind, they will be
constantly committing serious mistakes, and be unwit-
tingly doing them a wrong and an injury. Still it must
be acknowledged that you sometimes encounter cases
where the religious instruction has been very superficial
and inadequate. There has been a want of accurate cate-
chetical teaching, and it would seem as if no attempt had
been niade to do more than instruct them in those mat-
ters which are absolutely necessary to be known. From
this want of instruction they suffer in a thousand ways,
for ignorance is the parent of vice. It is ignorance which
leads to drunkenness and other vicious propensities. It is
ignorance which fills our prisons with men, women, and
boys. It is ignorance which breaks out into anger, pas-
sion, and fighting. It is ignorance which leads parents to
neglect their children, and children to disobey their
parents, and which leads both to trifle with their faith, to
receive bribes from the proselytizers, and to apostatize from
the Catholic Church. Whenever you meet with drunken-
ness, fighting, and apostasy, as a general rule, you see the
signs and the effects of ignorance ; and if you would check
and stop the former, it must be by doing all in your power
to remove the latter. And there is this great advantage
in dealing with the Irish people. They .ai-e quick and

1856.1 The Irish in England. 505

intelligent, they possess retentive memories ; they have an
aptitude for learning, and it always gives them pleasure to
phice themselves under instruction. They set a high
value upon such education as is within their reach, and
they often make many sacrifices in order to secure it.
Hence there is no great difficulty in persuading them to
submit to instruction, and still less in fixing it upon their
minds. We can say with perfect truth, that were the
Irish thoroughly grounded and systematically catechised
in Christian doctrine, they would take their proper rank
as one of the most intelligent people in Europe.

It is sometimes urged as a defect in the Irish Catholic
mind that there is little apparent devotion to the Blessed
Sacrament ; that many on coming into a church will
scarcely genuflect before the altar, and seldom think of
making a visit to Him who dwells thereon. But this com-
plaint must be received with certain qualifications. That
there is among the more uneducated and less instructed
of the Irish poor, an absence of such devotion to the Blessed
Sacrament, as we commonly meet with in foreign coun-
tries, must, we fear, be admitted; but then the reason
evidently is, because it has never been evoked. Most of
these people come from the country parts of Ireland, and
in the country chapels the Blessed Sacrament is rarely
reserved. These chapels are, for the most part, closed
from Sunday to Sunday, like the Protestant churches ;
and they are within bare, unadorned, and sometimes even
unprovided with a tabernacle in which the Sacrament
could be reserved. This has most probably arisen from
the missionary and provisional condition of the Irish
Church, and from the difficulty of guarding the Blessed
Sacrament when the priest's residence happens to be far
from his church. But it is sufficient to account for this
apparent defect of devotion to the Holy Sacrament of the
Altar. We say apparent, because it results from a mere
want of education, of the opportunity to call it forth, and
not from any want of faith. The vast number of frequent
communicants among the poor in their own country, and
in England, are proofs that they not only believe, but
appreciate, and cherish, and find great consolation in the
Real Presence of Jesus upon earth. Another proof that
this devotion only requires to be drawn out and educated
in order to manifest its depth and its reality, may be
gathered from the undoubted fact, that the recent iutro-

506 The Irish in England. [Dec.

diiction of tlie Quarant* Ore into the churches of Dublin
has ehcited an amount of devotion to the Most Holy Sacra-
ment, which might challenge competition with that exhi-
bited in any other part of the Catholic world. Besides, we
must remember that there are really very few opportunities
for rich or poor to make daily visits to the Blessed Sacra-
ment. The churches are few in number, and sometimes
in remote and inconvenient situations ; while the hard
necessities of daily occupation and labour fill up every
moment of time, so that even where there is the will there
may not be the way. Moreover, the age and the country
in which we live are both of them adverse to devotion to
the Blessed Sacrament. Our life is a restless disquietude.
It is a life of great material energy and activity, of eager-
ness to get on, of haste to become rich, and of throbbing,
feverish, mental excitement. There is one word which
will fitly describe the anxious and busy life of an English-
man in the nineteenth century, and that word is Restless-
ness. And there is nothing which renders men more
incapable of tranquil contemplation, and of quiet prayer
before the Blessed Sacrament, than the busy, restless
life, which the temper and the necessities of the times
imposes upon rich and poor alike. Any thing which would
act as a restraint upon^. this busy, feverish state of exis-
tence, and which would train the young and the old to
make reparation to Jesus Christ by daily visits to the
Blessed Sacrament, would be an inestimable gain to the
Church and society ; for after all, the great power which
upholds religion and conquers the world is prayer; and
when the hands of the Catholic people are constantly
uplifted in prayer, in the very presence of their God,
the world is impotent to do them any real harm ; heresy
trembles and is put to confusion in its strongholds, souls
are rescued from the delusions of the devil, and the glory
of God is more and more extended upon earth.

A great excuse is to be made for those mixed marriages
which frequently take place between Irish Catholic girls
and Protestant labourers and small artizans. It is cer-
tainly a great matter in a temporal point of view for a poor
girl who comes over to this country, without parents or
relations, to secure for herself a permanent home, where,
whatever her other trials may be, she is at all events pre-
served from dangers and temptations to which she would be
inevitably exposed. The children of such marriages, as

1856.] The Lnsh in England. 507

we have said before, are always baptized in the Catholic
Church, and their mothers will undergo great hardships in
order to procure for them this privilege. Sometimes,
also, if they be earnest and well conducted Catholics, the
wives succeed in effecting their husband's reconciliation to
the Church, and we believe that where tliis effect does not
follow, it arises, in the majority of instances, from the fact
that the-women are utterly careless about their religious
duties, or are too profoundly ignorant to command the
respect and attention of their partners. Perhaps the great
majority of these men have no religion at all. They know
no doctrine, nor prayers, nor religious rule of life. They
rarely are seen to enter any place of worship, unless on
some odd occasion they accompany their wives to Mass or
Benediction. They are indeed'as prejudiced and as bigoted
as their neighbours against the Catholic Church, but in
spite of these prejudices they are not always inaccessible to
better influences. They share with the body of their
countrymen an undefined curiosity to inquire and learn
about the Church, and they have a favourable impression
of its spirit of almsgiving, and of its motherly care of the
poor. Often, too, they have a superstitious fear of the

5riest, and sometimes a latent belief in his divine mission,
lence we are inclined to believe that in many cases the
blame of their remaining unreconciled to the Church must
be laid to the charge of their wives. If these latter were
diligent in fulfilling their own religious obligations, obser-
vant of prayer, zealous for the Church, and careful to set
a good example, many of these mixed marriages would
have a happier result than is at present the case. But
however this be, it is the fact, that in the majority of
instances these mixed marriages entail upon the women
nothing but sin and misery. They are prevented from
attending Mass, because they must remain at home on the
Sunday to prepare their husband's late breakfast and early
dinner; and as he is utterly indifferent to religious obser-
vances, he soon compels his wife to be the same. Not
unfrequently these men are addicted to hard drink, and
then they waste the substance that should have been laid
out in the support of their families ; and when they after-
wards cannot obtain all the creature comforts to which
they are accustomed, they give vent to their spleen by the
ill-treatment of their wives, whom they regard as belonging
to an inferior and a lower caste in society. The children

508 The Irish in England. [Dec.

having: such examples continually before them at home,
grow up as may be imagined. They have neither faith
nor morals. Baptized in the Catholic religion, their reli-
gious training is either altogether neglected, or they are
sent by their fathers to the national schools, there to be
indoctrinated with the Protestant heresy. Upon the whole,
the class of Irish women who are married to Protestant
husbands are among the most hopeless of all who belong
to the Church. It is true that you will now and then meet
with bright examples to the contrary. You will meet with
very earnest women, who take great care to bring up their
children well, instruct them in their prayers, bring them
to confession, keep them from the heretical schools, watch
over their daughters, preserving them from loose com-
panions and dangerous influences, and who labour with
much zeal for the conversion of their unbelieving hus-
bands. But in general it is not so. In general they
become debased and degraded, the miserable butts and
the wretched slaves of their besotted husbands ; while
occasionally they come out in the character of persons
aspiring to ^'gentility," who are consequently ashamed of,
or indifferent to, their faith ; and of all forms of Irish
nationality preserve us from Irish '* gentility !"

But if any over-zealous admirer of the Irish poor would
have his faith in their good qualities put to the severest
test, he must make an excursion into those parts of England
where the hops are gathered in the months of August,
September, and October. The Irish have a positive mania
for hop-gathering. It is a wild and unrestrained kind of
life which seems to give them intense pleasure. It is, as
they suppose, a short and expedite mode of laying up such
a sum of money as will keep them going during the severe
months of the winter. Consequently they flock in great
numbers to the hop district from all parts of England, but
especially from Bristol, Norwich, Brighton, and London.
We believe that there are fewer importations from Ireland
now than there used to be formerly. Tly3y put up in barns,
sheds, out- houses, in fact, in aiiy place where they can erect
a covering to preserve them from the wind and rain. You
will find the men, women, and children of eight or ten
families all occupying the same room, or rather the same
shed, with neither chair nor table, nor luxury of the hum-
blest kind, and with no more costly couch than a wisp of
clean straw. Such situations are not favourable to the

1856.] The Irish in England. 509

discharge of religious duties, nor do they tend to develop
civilization. They are too frequently scenes of drinking,
quarrelling, and swearing, but we believe, rarely, of any
gross immoralities. Yet even here you must bear in mind
the Divine precept, not to judge according to the outward
appearances. For in these miserable sheds, and in the
midst of these curious groups of apparently half civilized
beings, you will find many and many a soul dear to God,
and living in the unbroken enjoyment of His love. You
will find many well conducted women and girls against
whom the breath of calumny cannot be raised, and whose
diligent use of the Sacraments is worthy of all commenda-
tion. You will find many a little boy from the Oratorian
schools of compassion, or from the borough, or Webb-
street, or the Commercial-road, whom the angel of God
has kept pure and innocent in the midst of his abject
poverty. We must not judge the poor too harshly, nor
suppose that indifference to material comfort necessarily
betrays the presence of a low and corrupt interior. It is
no part of our theology that outward comfort any more
than outward cleanliness is akin to godliness. No doubt,
the fact of different families crowding together into the
most wretched bams, is often attended with danger to
morals, and is always more or less a hindrance to piety ;
but how can it be helped ? The poor must live. They
must lay up, if they can get it, for the hardships of the
approaching winter. The hops likewise must be gathered,
and we must therefore tolerate the evils which cannot alto-
gether be removed. The most that can be done is to
endeavour to mitigate these evils, by the presence and the
control of religion. It would be a great gain to the Church,
if sufi&cient funds could be got together and placed at the
disposal of the Bishop of the Diocese, with a view to the
opening of a mission in the town of Maidstone, which is
in the very centre of the hop district. A permanent chapel
and a resident priest would give these people the oppor-
tunity of attending to the obligations of their faith, and in
this way would operate in checking many scandals and
evils that are at present uncontrolled. Some such plan we
have been informed, was actually set on foot a few years
since through the instrumentality of a distinguished convert,
who had then just given up, for God's sake, a rich benefice
in the neighbourhood ; but it came to nought through the
want of money, and through the want of priests. But there

510 The Irish in England* [Dec.

is no reason why the attempt should not be renewed.
There are few places where a new mission is more needed,
and where its eflfects upon the people would be more bene-
ficial.

In our judgment, the most dangerous and unsatisfactory-
part of the Irish character is their hasty and passionate
disposition. As they express it themselves they are very
" near their passion ;" and in this, as in many others, they
bear a strong resemblance to a southern race. This sud-
den violence of temper leads them into a thousand scrapes
from which a cooler and more self-possessed people would
be free. It, leads them at times to the committal of acts
which appear to be more criminal and malicious than they
are in reality. For like madmen, when one of these fit*
of anger seizes upon them, they lose all selt-control.
They become beside themselves with ungovernable rage
and wild revenge. Like hot-headed children they fly on
a sudden into a violent passion, deal blows all around,
injure, it may be, their best friends, and when they come
to their senses agiiin, ai'e extremely sorry for their faults,
and extremely penitent for what they have done. But it
myst always be remembei'ed (1) that these fits of unlicensed
passion are more likely to seize upon those who have not
been properly instructed and trained ; and (2) that they
are very seldom so abandoned to their rage as to refuse to
listen to the mediation of the priest, and to be assuaged
and calmed by his admonitions. This fault, therefore, is
by no means beyond the reach of cure. Religious influ-
ences can be brought to bear upon them, and they are-
very seldom used without success.

But the favourite and universal accusation brought against
the Irish, is that of a disregard to truth, and we suppose that
we should be charged with the same fault, if we did not
allow them to be brought in guilty. The charge, then, is true„
so far as it implies the existence in the people of a suspi-
cious temperament which makes them, first of all, think
why you have asked them such or such a question, before
they venture to make you a reply. And this suspicious
temperament is partly a natural characteristic of the race,
and it is partly the effect and the offspring of long mis-
government and oppression. The Irish have long been
accustomed to look with distrust upon the acts of those
above them, even when those acts have had all the appear-
ance of springing from a real desire to do them good.

1856.] The Irish in England, 511

And the plain reason is, because at home their landlords,
the Protestant clergy, and the government, have rarely
held out a helping hand to them, without having some
ulterior and selfish object in view. Either they wished to
get rid of them from their properties, or they were seeking
to undermine their faith, or were attempting to rob them
of some political right ; on this account, suspicion is
natural to this class of Irish, and suspicion inevitably leads
to equivocation and falsehood. It must, however, be borne
in mind that there is an essential difference between the
ordinary Protestant notions on the subject of veracity, and
the true doctrine on that most important question of moral
theology. There is a vast amount of phraseology which
to Protestant England would be characterised as simply
false, which in the Catholic estimate is either mistatement
of the most venial description, or is no fault at all, or is a
positive duty under certain circumstances. The Irish, no
doubt deal largely in this sort of deceptive or evasive
language. They are also, as every one knows, a highly
imaginative people, and often represent subjects rather in
the form which they assume in their own minds, than
according to the literal facts of the case, as tested by a more
rigorous and prosaic standard.

Again, the charge is true, so far as it is confined to the
very ignorant and very uninstructed. But it is not true,
to any serious extent, if it be brought against those who
are careful and conscientious about their religious duties.
Such persons are as scrupulous about telling truth, as the
most rigid Saxon could wish them to be ; and you very
seldom find them transgressing the real bounds of truth
and falsehood. But here we must request those who are
the most sevei*e in their censures of the Irish poor on this
point, to have the goodness to look a little nearer home.
A straightforward and honest regard for material truth —
i.e. for truth in the natural order, has always been one of the
good natural qualities of the English ; and as it is no part
of our object, to run down a great nation, we cheerfully
and gladly pay our tribute of admiration to this attractive
feature in the Anglo-Saxon character. But at the same
time, it must, in fairness, be stated, that at the present
day, either this good quality occupies a less prominent
place in the national character than it used to occupy, or
else it is grievously overlaid by the mischief of a false civi-
lization. We see this quality of a honest and straightfor-

512 The Irish in England. [Dee.

ward regard for truth of the natural order, in little Eudish
children, who are perhaps the finest children in the world,
and of whom we cannot help feeling with St. Gregory of
old — Angli utinam Atigeli. But it disappears as they
grow up. and when they come to mix in the world, and to
take their place with men, it very often vanishes altogether.
Witness, for example, the false returns that are made
every year to the commissioners oF the inconie tax, and
what are these, but so many deliberate falsehoods and lies?
Witness again, the frauds that are continually committed
in trade, the adulteration of food, and the various imposi-
tions practised upon the public by tradesmen and shop-
keepers. Or to take examples of another kind, read the
newspapers, observe with what unscrupulous coolness the
most prominent journals colour or deny facts, and diffuse
calumnies, whenever a purpose is to be served by doing so,
whenever it is judged expedient to malign the character of
a foreign sovereign, or to misrepresent the conduct and
motives of the Catholic Hierarchy. Observe too how
members of Parliament will vote black white, and white
black, in order to please their constituents, to support or
oppose the Government, and to secure their seats. Observe
too with what eagerness the public mind will seize upon the
most unlikely falsehood against an obnoxious person or an
obnoxious creed, believe it readily, pass it from mouth
to mouth, reproduce it in a thousand different forms,
and yet refuse to receive its confutation, however earnestly
urged upon them ; and lastly, witness the surprising
coolness with which the Protestant clergy, in order to
gain credit for themselves, or to screen themselves from
the charge of *' Popery," will bear grave and deliberate
false witness against the Catholic Church ; how men in
the highest positions in the Anglican Church, who have
many Cat'iolic relations, and who cannot, therefore, plead
the excuse of ignorance, flippantly put forth in their
speeches and their writings, the most absurd and the most
calumnious statements about ** Rome," which the least
diligence, or the slightest desire to know the truth, would
prevent them from asserting. These things are not con-
sidered to be offences against the truth, simply because
they are so common ; but the fact that they are com-
mon caimot alter their intrinsic malice. They are, in fact,
crimes of a deep dye. They are falsehoods of a far graver
character than anything that usually falls from the lips of

1^56. 1 The Irish in England. 513

an unlettered Irish peasant. They are sins of *' false
"witness, lyinff, and slandering" aj^ainst the one and only
Ohurch of God, and as such, whatever men may think of
them, they are recorded in the book of the Divine judg-
ments. In passing sentence, therefore, upon the untruth-
ful propensities of the Irish poor, we must not lose sight of
the spirit of reckless disregard to truth, whenever interest
or prejudice stands in the way, which is extensively preva-
lent amongst all classes in this country ; and if we must say
which is the graver sin, the most offensive to God, and
the most hurtful to man, we must acknowledge it to be
that which carries a lying-spirit into those momentous
matters which affect the higher and graver interests of
mankind.

Such then is the great body of the Catholic poor of Eng-
land in their material civilisation, their vices, and their
virtues. As the Church upon earth does not consist exclu-
sively of the just and of saints, we do not expect to find
any larofe body of men without many a fault and many a
sin. The tare has been sown in the same field with the
wheat, and both must grow up together until the harvest.
And therefore although it must ever be a source of pjiin to
know that there are Catholics who are wholly ignorant of
all that they ought to know and do, and that there are
others who neglect and trample on the grace which has
been so abundantly bestowed upon them, this can never
cause offence or scandal to those who remember, what the
Church of Christ really is, and is intended to be. Yet
although the poorer Catholic classes in this country are not
without their serious faults of ignorance and of vice, yet
looking at them as a body, and on the whole, we have every
reason to be thankful. They are not, as a body, inferior
to the poor of any Catholic country, although they have had
comparatively few advantages ; and they contrast favoura-
bly in every respect, except the point of greater comfort,
with the Protestant poor in the midst of whom they dwell.
The Established Church in England has told more severely
in its effects upon the English poor, than upon any other
class in the community. It has done them no good, even
in a social point of view. It has, no doubt, distributed at
certain seasons gifts and presents of money, and clothes
and bread, to a selected few in the different parishes ; but
it has never been able to reach, and to come at, the large
masses of poor hidden iu the lanes and alleys of our great

514 The Irish in England. [Dec

towns. It has simply stood between them aiifl the only
Body which could really give them a religion. It has
acted towards them like the dog in the manger: it will
not, and cannot, take care of them itself,^nd it will not allow^
the Catholic Church to enter in and to reclaim its own
lost children. And what is the consequence ? It is, that
the heresy of three hundred years has made fearful and
terrible havoc among the poor of England, who are natu-
rally a religious people, and who possess many manly and
many attractive qualities which claim our admiration and
respect. The heresy of three hundred years has completely
extinguished in them every spark of faith, and left them in
a condition of almost hopeless indifference to all religious
belief. It has left them in a state of ignorance which
would be incredible, if we had not daily proof of its misera-
ble existence. It has so loosened the very fundamental
notions of moral obligations, that chastity is undervalued,
thousands habitually live in concubinage, without even know-
ing it to be wrong, and the indissolubility of the marriage
tie is denied, not only by the poor themselves, but even by
their professed religious teachers. These teachers are very
powerful to undo and to destroy, but they are impotent in
their attempts to build up again. They are wholly without
influence among the very classes which stand in most
need of pastoral superintendence, and who are so far from
feeling any attraction towards those who are set over them
by law, that they more commonly dislike and despise them.
Thousands of the children of the poor live and die unbap-
tized ; and more infants are lost, to heaven out of Protestant
England than from any other nominally Christian country
in the world. And worse, perhaps, than all, it is the
untaught and uncared for wives and daughters of these
neglected poor, who year by year, are being added to the
numbers of those ignorant creatures, who suffer themselves
to become the deluded victims of the most loathsome form
of Protestantism that has as yet appeared in the world.
Such have been the effects of three hundred years heresy.
Such has been the work, most effectually, we must confess,,
achieved by an Established Religion, which has had in its
favour, every advantage of wealth, power, influence, position,
refinement, learning, and unbroken prosperity, which the
money and the pride of England could bestow upon it.

The Catholic poor, on the other hand, have had neither
money, nor clothes, nor bread. They are the Pariahs of

1856.] The IHsh in England. 515

society — the very poorest of the poor. In a strange and an
unfriendly country, everything is against them. The very
air is redolent of Protestantism, which loses no opportunity
of treating, with a vulgar scorn, no where else to be found,
the religion of Jesus Christ. Every year the nation gives
itself up to an annual pastime of insult to the Catholic faith,
and the public journals defend this systematic insult as a
rational and proper amusement. The poor have to bear,
as we have said before, incredible hardships for their
Church, while, like all other men, they are exposed to
the usual temptations to betray God for lucre's sake. Yet
what is their normal condition, as a body and as a class in
society ? They are a people peculiarly open to impressions
of religion. They have a clear, a definite, and an objec-
tive faith. They profess a religion, and they love it.
They pray, and they frequent the public worship of God,
from which the poor of the establishment either voluntarily
absent themselves, or else are practically excluded. Th ey
are amenable to the control of the Church, and they respect
and have confidence in their clergy. The women are
modest and chaste, and the seraglios of the Mormonites do
not receive their supplies from the daughters of Ireland.
The men abstain from intoxicating liquors in the ratio of
six hundred Catholics to three hundred Protestants. -^ They
have a desire to improve, to raise themselves in the scale
of civilization, and they eagerly catch at any way of doing
so, by means. of learning and instruction. They have, as
a general rule, no politics, are in no way connected with
■chartists, or revolutionists, or with any parties dangerous
to the peace of the state. And they are all this in spite of
the enormous disadvantages under which, socially and
religiously, they labour in England. Surely then the
Church may well regard these the poorest, but not the least
faithful of ^her children, with some degree of pride and
satisfaction. No one maintains, or would wish to main-
tain, that they are, in all respects, what they ought to be,
and what they may yet become : but such as they are at
the present moment, they form a good and an excellent
material, which with comparative ease may be moulded
into shape, and raised in the scale of Christian civilization.

* London Labour, &c., vol. i. p. 114.

616 The Irish in England. [Dec.

They need instruction, training, and education. They
have, indeed, a natural good breeding, and a courtesy of
manner about them which is peculia#ly attractive, aud
which, in the poor, never degenerates into vulgarity. But
there are many other points in which they are deficient,
and these they can only learn gradually, under the control
of religion and under the softening influence of good edu-
cation. But as we have said, they constitute, as a whole,
a good and an easy material to work upon. And when wa
speak of the Irish poor, we must remember that they have
never had a chance of being other than they are. It is only
within the present century that they have emerged from
the heavy hand of oppression and of tyranny, such as no
other nation in Europe ever groaned under; and therefore
instead of being a worn out and effete people, their future
is still before them. What that future shall be, depends
in some measure, upon what is done with the present gene-
ration in England and in Ireland. By a careful pastoral
superintendence, by opening to them all the rich resources^
and sweet consohitions of Catholic devotion, by accustom-
ing them to the functions of the Olmrch in all their beauty
and magnificence, by solid and accurate catechetical and
secular instruction, by education of the mind, and by
accustoming the women to more feminine occupations, the
Irish poor could be indefinitely elevated in the social scale ;
and as they would willingly meet half way the Catholic
Church and the Catholic priests in their eff()rts to improve
them, their future may very easily behold them an en-
lightened and happy Catholic nation, blending the manli-
ness and energy of their Saxon neighbours, with the
cheerfulness and softer traits of a CathoHc people.
^ This great work has set in alreadv ; it has begun in the
right direction, and in the right manner. Speaking of
England alone — to which we are at preseut restricted — •
we apprehend that the work which has been done by
the Church within our own time is almost marvellous— ^
marvellous when you consider what has been actually
accomplished, and the poverty of those who have had to-
accomplish it. Wherever, too, a mission has been started,
'there a congregation springs up, and children are brought
together ; and the labourer receives encouragement ta
practise his religion ; and confessions are heard,, and out-
casts are reclaimed ; and some check is put upon the acts
of prosely tizers, and thus a good beginning is made : tho

185G."1 TJie Irish in England. 517

bread is cast upon the waters, which is to be found after
many days.

A good beginning is made, but it is only a beginning.
The work which the OathoUc Church must try and do in
England is, for magnitude and importance, beyond all
calculation. It must endeavour to bring home the duties
and the blessings of religion to every Catholic house and
family throughout the land. It must endeavour to re-
claim those poor orphans and destitute boys, who, at.
present, form the staple supply of the rogues, and the
thieves, and the bad characters of London. It must
endeavour to rescue from their deplorable misery those
fallen women, who were born in her communion, but who
have so fearfully sinned against their own souls. It must
educate the people, morally, religiously, socially. It must
train up every Catholic boy and every Catholic girl
throughout the country in good and holy principles. This
is the work that lies before it, and stands pre-eminent,
even as compared with that other great work of endea-
vouring to reclaim from heresy those who are not less
really her children, because they have been, for the pre-
sent, lost to her fold. But how is this gigantic task to be
accomplished ? We speak not, now, of that supernatural
assistance which ever accompanies and attends the Church
of Christ, which supports her in her difficulties, and mans
her for her holy work. She is always sure to have the
Divine blessing preceding, accompanying, and following
her steps ; but as God Almighty works through human
instrumentality, and by visible means, the Church must
be assisted in her might}' labours, by the prayers, the
exertions, and the energies of all her members. There is
not a single Catholic in the country who has not a direct
interest in furthering to the utmost of his power the edu- .
cation, training, social amelioration, and religious super-
intendence of the Irish in England. The poor constitute
the wealth of the Church, in the same way as political
economists tell us that a large population is the wealth of a
nation. When St. Lawrence was commanded to exhibit
and surrender to the pagan governor the treasures of his
Church, he brought forth the poor who were under his'
charge, adding, that these were the treasures of the
Church, and it was no human inspiration which suggested
him to give this noble answer. Politically and religiously
the poor are the wealth of ^the Church. It is the pkoor

"518 The Irish in England. ["Dec.

which enable missions to be started, and the practical
-working of Catholicism to be exhibited in the midst of an
heretical population. It is the poor which affords to the
•Church an opportunity of bringing into play her various
organized methods of employing her members in labours
^f charity, — her convents for education, her Christian
Brothers, her sisters of charity, her orphanages, and her
•convents of the Good Shepherd. It is the poor which call
into exercise the charity of the priestly office, and by the
•care and attention which they demand and receive, mani-
fest to the whole world the intrinsic difference that
exists between the Catholic priest, who lives for the good
and the benefit of the people, and the heretical minister
whose time and thoughts are occupied by the cares of a
wife and family. The poor, therefore, are essential to the
-energetic and efficient working of the Church ; and a
community which loses its title to be " the Church of the
poor," loses one of the noblest characteristics of the true
Church of Jesus Christ. All, therefore, who love the
Church, will love the poor, and will labour willingly for
their improvement. You have them at your very doors,
ready and willing to be taught, if you will only set about
it in the right way. Give them schools, and give them
priests ; educate them mentally and socially ; bring to
bear upon them all these kinder and gentler influences, to
which they have too long been strangers; condescend to'
go among them, and visit them at their homes, to say a
friendly word to them, to listen to their little complaints and
troubles, and to laugh them out of their faults and preju-
dices. Do not be too austere in your censures of their
many failings, nor expect to meet with perfection in the
crowded alleys and lanes of London. You must, indeed,
remember that we are all but men, and high and low have
equally their faults and sins. You must prepare yourself
to meet with much disappointment, and with some ingra-
titude. Those in whom you took the greatest interest will
now and then turn out contrary to all your expectations.
Some will go on well for a time, and afterwards take a
sudden turn, and fall away. Well, these things are hard
to be borne, but it will do you good to learn these practi-
cal lessons, if you are taught by them to labour not for
yourself, nor for man, but for God alone. Depend upon
it, however, that in the long run, you will have consolation
enough. No man ever yet repented of having devoted his

1856.] The Irish in England. 519

time, his labour, and his money, to God, the Church,
and the poor. It is certainly a far more rational course of
life than to pass one's days in mere vanity and selfishness.
It is a more profitable investment of wealth, than to waste
it upon silks and satins, and the foibles of dress. And as
every man has his day of reckoning, his '* day of darkness
and distress," his day of preparation for future judgment,
we must add one further reflection. To have given heart
and soul, and time and money, to God and the poor, will
doubtless afford you happier thoughts in " that day," and
a more pleasant retrospective, and a more tranquil con-
science, and a more joyful hope, than if, hanging on the
outskirts of fashionable society, you had expended your
last sixpence in devoted attendance upon all "the lord
lieutenants" who ever entered the Castle of Dublin, or in
obsequious waiting on all those second-rate noblemen who
did you the honour to admit you into their houses in town.
But as we have said the poor are not only the wealth of the
Church, seen from a religious point of view, they also form
its strength regarded politically. Whatever political con-
sideration the Catholics in this country can expect to
receive from the governments of the day, is entirely due to
the fact that they are the co-religionists of the poorest and
lowest class in the community. No government at the pre-
sent day can afford to deal out any very hard measures
against the Church of a large minority of the poorer classes.
Whatever their private feelings may be, at all events they
can have no desire that the vast Catholic population of
London should be left without spiritual superintendence,
to sink into vice and immorality, and to swell the numbers
of our public criminals. At present they know them to
be upon the whole a peaceable body of men, who trouble
themselves but little with the politics of the country ; but if
the Irish were once to lose their faith, to cease to entertain
any respect for their priests, and to become infidels and
Protestants, they would at the same time join the ranks of
Chartists and revolutionists, and would be distinguished
even among such companions for their still greater violence
and desperation. All politicians, and all aspirants to the
government of this country, are aware of this, and there-
fore they would be the last persons to press too heavily
upon the Catholic Church in England. It is not^because
they love us, but because they fear the'poor, and because
they know that we alone can train and control them. But

VOL. XLI.— No. LXXXII. 16

520 The Irish in England. [Dec.

take away the Catholic poor from our large towns and
cities, send them all back to their own country, or trans-
port them to the furthest ends of the world, and then what
treatment should we receive from Protestant England ?
We should be either left alone, because our numbers and
our consequence would be alike contemptible, or we should
be a second time trodden to the dust, because it could be
done with impunity. In either case we should have no
political status or consideration whatsoever, since without
the poor of Ireland our numbers would not exceed those of
many of the Protestant sects. It is the same also with
America and the British colonies. Wherever the English
tongue is spoken, there the Celtic Catholic carries^ the
cross of Christ. Mr. Gladstone may dream of a new
Catholicity hereafter to spring up, and to be founded upon
the similarity of language, and the community of commer-
cial interest. The writers in the Times may look forward
to that distant period when England and America, the
mother and the daughter, united under the banner of a
common language and a common Protestantism, shall
dictate laws to the world, and overthrow the See of Rome,
but we apprehend that these dreams and visions are never
destined to be realised. Whatever troubles may hereafter
be permitted to afflict the Holy See, it is extremely impro*
bable that they will come from the union of America with
England. Protestantism must change its nature before it
can ever become a bond of union ; and the political inte-
rests of America are not likely to be exactly coincident
with those of England. But Providence is making use of
the English language and of English enterprise, although
for a purpose which will not meet with the approbation
either of Mr. Gladstone or the Times. The English
carry with them wherever they go the Irish Catholic poor ;
and he brings his religion along with him, and builds
churches and founds missions in America, Australia, and
New Zealand. In these strange lands the Irish rise to
comfort, wealth, and influence; and their political conse-
quence is even now beginning to be felt throughout the
empire. Thus then we see that even politically, and
speaking humanly, the poor are the wealth and the strength
of the Church. Be it our part to fit them for their new
positions and their new places. Be it ours to improve
them ere they leave our shores, that they may not carry
with them the faults and the habits which in this country

1856.1 Notices of Books, 521

bring them into so much trouble, and often cause them to
be called by harsher names than they deserve. Be it ours
to keep alive the band of brotherhood which unites the
scattered members of the Church in one communion and
fellowship, by a holier and a stronger bond than a simi-
larity of language, and a unity of commercial relations.
Above all, be it our most anxious care, that go where they
may throughout the world, they may know, understand,
and practice their holy religion ; and retaining unimpaired
that wonderful faith, which they have inherited from their
fathers, may illustrate it by gentleness, and purity, and
love, and by ail the virtues of a genuine Catholic people.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

1. — 1. PxincK's Pocket Booh for 1857. — *' Brown, Jones, and Robinson.*'
2. — Bradshaio's Railway Guide.— " Electric Telegraph."

WE are quite as much as any one can be in favour of
dealing seriously with serious matters, and only a
martinet would compel us to treat every subject gravely.
We liked a laugh when we were children, and we are reluc-
tant to be cheated of a laugh now-a-days. Yet we look
around us and find that the world has adopted a different
view. Every improvement lessens our chance of being made
cheerful, and we can sympathise with the weaver who must
have thought that a shuttle went more merrily across the
loom when he could hear himself laugh and sing than
when he saw it shot to and fro amidst the din and buzzing
of a thousand wheels. If any one looks quietly about him
he will find that, one by one, the chances and hopes of fun
are disappearing before the progress of mechanical
changes, like the red squirrels before the spread of a
Yankee colony in their native woods. We raise our voices,
and no echo brings back to us the joyous sounds that we
loved to hear in childhood. We were schoolboys, and if
we asked a dear parent or absent playmate to write us a

622 Notices of Boohs. (Dec.

letter, it came brimful of stories, and riddles, and puns.
These fell off in quantity, aye, and in quality too, when
Rowland Hill persuaded the saies in Parliament to intro-
duce the penny postag'e. What was the consequence?
Bankers and merchants could send prices current and
bills of lading; attorneys could write more letters at
their invariable charge of six-and-eightpence ; people who
had nothing to do could torment people who had more than
enough on their hands with questions not worth answer-
ing ; but our brothers found that their letters were not as
lively as the square sheets that their big brother used to
get when he was at their age. Still there was a way, if
the will had remained, to make a letter bearing a Queen's
head welcome and amusing to the reader, and you could
underline the word that contained the point of your sen-
tence, but Dulness stretched out his leaden fingers to
inform us that he had invented the Electric Telegraph, and
that it was ready to write your letters for you, provided you
would pay double for all that was underlined, and provided
you would contract your say into twenty words. Twenty
words are soon said, and the reader discovers that
brevity has ceased to be the soul of wit. Your speech
darts like lightning, but no flush of genius marks its
course. Philosophers reasoned about the matter, and set-
tled that the Electric Telegraph must be extended to
France, and now they hope to make it drag its length to
America ; but who ever received hj it a lively repartee
from a Parisian correspondent, and who can persuade
himself that it will bring us the latest Jonathan fresh and
racy from the far West ? The Liverpool brpker uttered a
melancholy truth whilst the merits of the American line
were being proclaimed at Liverpool a week or two since,
when he exclaimed, ** That's the way to tell the price of
cotton.''

Some said that the Telegraph was the necessary accom-
paniment of Steam Engines and Railways, and we believe
them, for they are fit music for one another. When our
fathers travelled, they could hear the stirring notes of
the horn, as it woke up the peaceful inhabitants of
the roadside cottages in the early dawn, but now the
sleepers are startled, if the ceaseless rumbling of the trains
has not made them as deaf as the villagers of Herodotus,
who lived near the cataracts, by the sharp screech of a
steam-whistle. We liked to scramble over the top of the

1856.1 Noticei of Books. 523

coach to hear the droll wit of the driver, or the odd
remarks of the guard, but who loiters to chat with their
\modcrn representatives ? There were no traveller's libraries
m those days, volumes of stupid essays by unknown,
writers, or reprints of prosy dissertations, that ought to
have been allowed to sleep for ever, like mummies in the
pyramids, in the gloomy recesses of the Quarterly and
Edinburgh. Every one was obliged to listen and talk,
and half the stories that live in our memory at this hour
must have been gathered amongst the outside passengers,
who sufifered cold before wrappers and rugs were known,
and who felt hunger before refreshment rooms had been
invented. We were luckj'' when we could lessen our
fatigue and increase our speed by a lift on a stage coach,
for at times we found ourselves listening to the irregular
treat! of soldiers during their march from one garrison to
another. There was fun and life enough at such seasons
if you chanced upon an Irish officer or an Irish company;
and there were occasions, too, when a kind captain could
show his heart and nation : *' You are tired, MuUins, get
on my horse." The man obeyed, and rested his musket
on the saddle ; ** Come," exclaimed the captain, " shoulder
your musket ; I intended the horse to carry yourself but
not your gun into the bargain." JDuring a march the
officers had many opportunities of knowing the character
and temper of the men, and shared gladly in the hearty
laughter that followed a witty remark uttered in the ranks.
Our officers travel at a reduced rate in first-class carriages,
and their faithful companions in arms packed closely
together in the second class, are restless and nois3'-, or
cheerless and sleep3^ All this while the navy has shared
the common fate, and the blue jackets cannot find the
same animation of spirits in their uew-fangled ships. The
screw that propels them is strikingl^'^ emblematical of the
economy of their rulers, and with its grumbling and grat-
ing sound seems to forbid and check the frolic of other
days. How could Dibdin indite a cheering lay of a fun-
nel, and how would his muse be moved amidst the hissing
and clanking of an engine under deck ? Who can wonder
that Charley Napier felt that sailors had lost the fun of
their forefathers, and with the fun the vigour and the
dauntless hearts that responded to the signals of Rodney
and Nelson?
Is not the same decline of spirit manifest everywhere ?

524 Notices of Boohs, [Dec*

Boys graduate under Lord Shaftesbury to become shoe-
blacks, and Eton will soon for})id cricket balls to those-
who cannot describe from Euclid their curve from the bat.
The House of Lords sighs in vain for the keen sayings of
Henry Brougham ; and along the benches of the IrLouse of
Commons no O'Connell scatters the sparks of his ready
wit. The Manchester politicians would enforce all the-
rigour of the protective laws if any one should dare to spoil
their statistical enumerations with a pun, or to tell an
amusing anecdote of the times when the house was pleased
to smile at the pertinacious Josejth Hume in his annual
endeavours to limit Tory expenditure. Even the acute
men at the Bar trade on the witticisms of a bye-gone age,,
and if law-reform^ goes on, we shall live to find Baron
Alderson's jokes insipid, and his attempts to provoke a
laugh will become

" Dry as a law-lW)ok, dry as the Lord Mayor,
Dry as the fountains in Trafalgar Square."

Like one of his predecessors, he may try a joke and be-
obliged to reserve the point. The world will not listen to-
our trifling, and we shall be smartly chid if we strive to
make the best of everything. And so we must not expect.
Sydney Smith to return, and we must allow each succes-^
sive number of Punch to grow more dull than its prede-
cessors, for in these matter-of-fact days we have no wish to-
be amused, and we think with the frogs,* that what is sport
to others is death to us. The English nation some months^
ago resolved to have a public holiday, but it was against
the national temper to be amused. ** Ces Anglais,'* says
Froissart, ** mangeaient grandement, buvaient largement
et s'amusaient mainte- tristement a la maniere de leur
pays." When the war ended, we vainly supposed that
every one would exclaim,

" 0 once again who would not be a boy ?"

and that fireworks allowed by Parliament would sparkle
about and cheer us like very children. A brushmaker in the
Borough did make a slight attempt to alter the general for-
mality of the rejoicings, and the following inscription
appeared over his house — ** In memory of a" (here was
represented a conspicuous) ** brush with- the Russians.*'
But when we came to read the classified details of rockets.

1856-1 Notices of Books. 625

and fountains, and wheels, and candles, we imagined we
were reading the heavy list of dishes after a city dinner,
and we felt that fun had departed, and that it was time for
us to compose the history of its decline.

Under these impressions we look with a natural anxiety
to the recurrence of our old annual friends of the comic
order, and rejoice to say that in some at least of these, we
can announce that " Fun*' so far from having retrograded
appears to be making satisfactory progress — as for example
the " Punch's Tocket Book" for 1857 ; and we learn
with'great satisfaction that our excellent friends '* Brown,
Jones, and Robinson" promise to extend their travels,
and that their excursions continue to amuse an increas-
ing circle of lovers of fun.

H. — The Office and Work of Universities. By John Henry Newman,
D. D. Longman and Co.: London, 1856.

" The Catholic university " is beyond all doubt the
greatest question of our times, all success to it, and uni-
versal support from all Catholics ! Why should any cavils
or irritating discussions be ventilated among us? We
read in a recent Monday's Times an extract from the
preceding Saturday's Catholic newspaper as a proof,
according to the Times, of the admitted failure of the
Catholic university ! Whatever may have been the inten-
tion of the Catholixj writer of the extract ; however he may
have kept within the limits of fair discussion ; we- entreat
him to recollect ** the chiel amang us taking notes," in a
spirit of the bitterest hostility and most malignant dread of
our success. Surely such a consequence of discussions,
(however legitimate when we are not in an enemy's coun-
try), ought never to be lost sight of in writing for the
public ; and we are confident that we shall not be misun-
derstood in making these warning observations. We
however must own that we find great consolation in infer-
ring from the remarkable eagerness of the Times, which
cannot lose one day in publishing a '* faihu'e," that that
wily journal is fully alive to the consequences of the " suc-
cess " of the university, and is well convinced that such
** success " is inevitable. The publication which has called
for this notice is a reprint of Dr. Newman's contributions
to the "Catholic University Gazette," which bear all the
mai'ks of his originality and genius ; and will well repay au

526 Notices of Books. [Dec.

attentive perusal by any one (and that ought to be every
Catholic) who wishes to understand and appreciate the
enormous advantages which must result from the success
of a Catholic university. It would in such a notice as this,
be out of place to attempt any discussion of this interesting
and important topic, and it is unnecessary for us to do so,
as our readers are well aware how deep an interest this
Review has at all times taken in the promotion of Catholic
education in every form and country.

III. — The Catholic Almanack, and Guide to the Service of the Church,
for the Year of Grace, 1857. (Cam permissu Card. Archiep.J
Richardson and Son, London, Dublin, and Derby.

The publication for one penny of the mass of useful
matter which will be found in this publication is, surely,
one of the wonders of modern times. In addition to tho
usual information of an x\lmanack, and Catholic Calendar,
we find a notice of Hampton Court and Cardinal Wolsey
and a variety of Ecclesiastic Statistics of England since the
establishment of the Hierarchy, and numerous useful reli-
gious and other admonitions, and other matter of con-
siderable interest. We rejoice at the multiplication of cheap
sources of useful information ; and we trust that this
attempt at the cheapest possible circulation of useful and
necessary knowledge may be adequately encouraged.
Those who may wish to possess a more • elaborate edition
of the work will find it in the form of an illustrated and
interleaved Pocket-Book and Diary.

IV. — An Elementary Greek Grammar, based on the latest German
Edition of Kuhner. By Chaules O'Leary, M. A. Professor of
Greek in Mount St. Mary's College, Maryland. New York, Sadlier
and Co. Dolman : London, 1856.

This work has the very great merit of simplicity and
clearness. It professes to be and is essentially elementary ;
and is a selection from, rathei* than an abridgment of the
two larger German works of Kuhner, the great merit of
which has long been recognised. Our school literature is
under great obligations to our brethren in America ; as for
example, in the valuable but very unimposing edition of
Horace, by Authon. The small Greek Grammar of the

1856.] Notices of Books. 527

American " St. Mary's," will, we hope, find its way into
•our own *' St. Mary's" and our other colleges, in which, it
is with great satisfaction we state it, there is a rapidly in-
creasing attention to an accurate and fundamental know-
ledge of Greek, which can in no way be so well promoted
as by the use of a plain and intelligible Grammar. We
say " plain and intelligible" under the pressure of our
recollection of having had to find our way to a knowledge
of which we knew nothing through the medium of Latin of
which we knew next to nothing. In these respects at least
our generation is growing wiser.

V. — An Exposition of the Author's Experience as one of the Assured in
the Alliance British and Foreign Life and Fire Insurance Company^
&c. By Andrew Van Landau, Esq., Attornej-at-Law. Loudon :
Bartlett, 1856.

This pamphlet raises a question of great importance to
the interests of the public, and is worthy of attentive peru-
sal by all who wish to effect any assurance on Life. Our
readers are well aware that in nearly every existing office
for Life Assiirance the profits are so arranged as to give a
large portion of them in the way of bonus to the assured,
and so as to increase the value of the Policy at a very-
rapid rate after a considerable lapse of years. In the early-
stage of assurance the proprietors retained the whole of the
profits; and instances are within our knowledge of old as-
surances in which the assurer, without receiving any bonus,
paid for many years a rate of premium which was greatly-
higher than the rate which the office had subsequently adopt-
ed as sufficient even with the addition of a share of profits; the
offices acting on the principle that "a bargain is a bargain,"
and overlooking the obvious equity and justice of relieving
parties who had entered into a bargain in ignorance of the
true nature of the contract. We cannot therefore be sur-
prised that the interests of the public may sometimes be
sacrificed to those of the proprietors. In the cases to which
we allude the older offices had reformed their original
scheme ; and, as we believe, in the majority of the well
conducted offices the assured receive a well defined and
large share of the profits, and their interests are further
protected by a publication of full accounts. The specific
method adopted by any particular office is a question for the

528 Notices of Booksi [Dec,

gravest consideration on the part of a person who is about
to effect an insurance which he intends to be a provision for
his family. Thus in the old Equitable the profits are given
exclusively to a specified number of the oldest assurers ;
and in many others profits begin to be divided only after
a specified number of years ; and the relative values of
offices in this respect will be tested by ascertaining the
practical q^^antity of bonus on two policies effected on the
same day and on the same life, and for the same amount,
in any two given offices, at the end of a given number of years.
Applying that test to certain offices which are mentioned in
the pamphlet, and which we will call A and B, our author
asserts that the following is the startling result. If
.£1500 had been insured on the same day in each
of the two offices on the same man's life, and he had.
died after making thirty-one annual payments, his estate
would receive from office A, bonuses to the amount
of <£326 19s. lOd. only ; whereas his estate would re-,
ceive from office B, bonuses to the amount of £1642.
lOs. Od. If these results are accurately arrived at by
our author, there can be no question that such a differ-
ence arising from skill or the want of it in the selection,
of an office, calls for the gravest investigation on the
part of the public. The result of any two given,
systems of life assurance must be arrived at by the
combination of various circumstances including among
the most important their relative quantities of business
and their relative modes of dividing the profits. The
pamphlet before us raises the latter question by drawing
attention to the principle adopted by the *' Alliance." By
the terms of assurance in that office, the assured's share
of profits is left undefined and is made to depend on the
will of the directors, who, however, profess (and under such
circumstances are bound) to act in a spirit of **' fairness and
liberality to the assured." But according to this pam-
phlet, their measure of " fairness and liberality," is
evinced by their having appropriated profits to the amount
of £853,156, as follows: — To the Directors and Share-
holders £611,703, and to the assured .£266,008. Assuming
these figures to contain a correct representation, (as to
which we have no other means of forming any judgment,)
we cannot help thinking that the question thus raised is
deserving of consideration, not only as regards this particular-
office, but also because it proves as we think that the Legis-

1856.1 Notice* of Books. 529

lature might well be called upon to protect the interests of
the public in regard to contracts for Lite Assurance, on
the ground that the nature of such a contract is necessa-
rily beyond the reasonable comprehension of nineteen-,
twentieths of the persons who are obliged to insure their
lives, and of whom ninety-nine out of one hundred never
think of making any inquiry into the particular scheme of
the office in which they insure. It is no part of our duty
or wish to enter into the particular grievances which this
Pamphlet professes to expose, but we think a notice of it
is well warranted for the pm'pose of drawing the attention
of our readers to a more careful consideration of a subject
which applies to a very numerous class, and involves pecu-
niary consequences of the greatest importance to the well-
being of families.

VI. — The Golden Prayer Book; a Complete Manual of Devotion for
Christians who, Living iu the World, Aspire to Perfection.
London, Dublin, and Derby : Richardson and Son.

This Manual combines the important elements of com-
pleteness and cheapness ; and supplies some deficiencies
of **the Garden of the Soul." Most of the other excel-
lent Manuals which have been published from time to
time, are too expensive to meet the popular want. In the
Golden Prayer Book, our Clergy and the managers of
our schools (to whom a considerable reduction is made)
may supply their poor, and their children, with an excel-
lent Catholic Manual at a very cheap rate. The matter is
well and judiciously selected, by a zealous and energetic
priest of the Diocese or Westminster, and the work bears
the Imprimatur of His Eminence the Cardinal Arch-
bishop.

VI L — The History and Antiqu^ies of St. David's, By W. B. Jones,
M.A., and K H. Freeman, M.A. Loudon : Parker and Co. 1856.

To the numerous class who take a deep interest in the
development and progress of Ecclesiastical Architecture,
\ye cannot too strongly recommend this very beautiful pub-
lication ; its artistic excellences being beyond all praise.
The architectural history of this very remarkable Cathe-
dral occupies nearly half the work, and is rich in designs
and descriptions of the greatest interest to the Architect

630 Notices of Boohs. [Dec.

and the Antiquary. Readers who may expect to find some
new licrht thrown upon the early religious history of the
Cathedral will probably be considerably disappointed in
.turning over the twenty pages which are devoted to St.
David and his history. Kor do his successors, including
Giraldus, appear to us to fare much better than the founder.
There is, however, a considerable collection of historical
and statistical notices, which probably contain all that zeal
and industry can supply for illustrating a subject which
appears to us to be singularly wanting in religious
interest.

VIII. — Shadows of iheBood ; or Types of our Sufering Redeemer, Jesu»
Christ, occurring in the Book of Genesis: beiug the substance of a
series of Moral Discourses, delivered ia the Church of the
Assumption, London, during the Lent of 1856. By the Rev.

- John Bonus, B. D., Graduate of the University of Louvain, and
Missionary Apostolic. London, Dublin, and Derby : Richardsoa
and Son.

Mr. Bonus's, interesting volume — we believe his first
publication — comes to us with the Imprimatur of Cardinal
Wiseman, and we have little to do, therefore, but to bear
testimony to its literary merit and edifying tendency.
The precise ground upon which he has entered, (as he
remarks in his preface,) has been as yet untroddeit, evea
by our most eminent preachers ; though it is one which
cannot fail to be most interesting to the pious reader. He
has taken the portions of Scripture which are read in the
Divine Office during the penitential season from Septua-
gesima to Easter ; and with the helf> of the patristic and
mediaeval writers, has given to the Catholic public the
Christian sense of the Old Testament, showing how clearly
the Cross and Passion of our Blessed Redeemer were fore-
shadowed under the Old Law, and discoursing separately
on the various types of Our Sufiering Lord. Thus, Adam
is contrasted with "Jesus, the Expiation;** Abel is the
type of *• the Priest of Calvary ;" Noah of ** the Saviour ;"
Abraham of ** the Example of obedience ;" Isaac of " the
Victim;" Melchisedech of "the Priest of the Mass;"
Jacob of " Jesus the Supplanter ;" and Joseph of our
Saviour as "rejected by the Jews, aud accepted by
the nations." "It is the character of prophecy," says
the devout author, " to exhibit future personages, scenes.

1856.] Notices' of Books. 531

and events, wrapped ever in that pale and misty
atmosphere which belongs to allegory ; as the early
twilight exhibits objects indistinctly, and invested
with a certain haziness, which is only then dispelled so
as to discover their full outlines and proportions, when

the light of the morning breaks forth S. Paulinus,

(he says) in one of his epistles, has perhaps expressed my
thought in one word : * The Prophecies veil Him, Whom
the Gospel reveals.' '* The Rev. author has performed
his task in a very satisfactory manner, and we have great
pleasure in recommending these discourses to the Catholic
public. He apologises for his frequent quotations from
the Latin Vulgate, (which, however, are always trans-
lated,) by reference to illustrious examples ; and those
of our readers who are familiar with the popular works
of St. Alphonsus and others, will not find this practice
an inconvenience, even though they may not be acquainted
with the Latin language.

IX. — Fundamental Philosophy. By the Rev. James Balmes. Trans-
lated from the Spanish by Henry Brownson, M.A. 2 Vols.
New York : Sadlier and Co. ; London : Dolman, 1856.

Our readers will recollect that on two occasions this
Review has drawn attention to the admirable work of the
celebrated Balmes, on European Civilization ; and in those
notices our appreciation of his genius and*of his services to
the great cause has been very fully recorded. As we are
going to press we are favoured with a copy of Mr. Brown-
son's translation of a still more important work of this
illustrious author ; and as only a most careful and patient
study of so long a work on so important a question could
warrant a notice of it on our own responsibility, we must at
present confine ourselves to a short extract from the pre-
face which bears the signature of our most respectable
CoUaborateur Dr. Brownson — *' His work on the bases of
Philosophy is his master-piece, and taken as a whole,
the greatest work that has been published on that impor-
tant subject in the nineteuth century." "He has

advanced far, corrected innumerable errors, poured a flood
of light on a great variety of profound, intricate, and impor-
tant probleius, without introducing a new, or adding any-
thing to confirm an old error." Our reliance on the judg-
ment of Dr. Brownson warrants us in giving every publicity

532 Notices of Books. [Dec.

to these opinions, and we have no donbt he may be fully
relied on when he ;idds, ** This is high praise; but the
philosophic readef will concede that it is well founded." We
hope however, to have an early opportunity of expressing
*our own sentiments on this most important subject ; as
there is no greater desideratum in our literature than a
well reasoned refutation of the numerous fundamental
errors of Locke, Paley, Hume, Condillac, Fichte, Schel-
ling, Spinoza and others ; and we do not exaggerate when
we express our firm belief that in this country it is essen-
tial to reconstruct the whole system of Christian philosophy
from its very first foundations ; and whoever will substan-
tially assist in this great work will be entitled to our
utmost praise and gratitude.

X.—^l. Catechism of the Diocese of Paris. Translated from the
French by M. J. Piercy. Londou, Dublin, and Derby :
Richardson and Son.

2. Abridgment of the Catechism of Perseverance. Translated from tlie
French by L. Ward. London : C. Dolman ; and Richardson and
Son.

These two simple works offer to the instructors of youth
ample materials for teaching the history of religion, its moral
teaching, its dogmas, and its mysteries. In the religious
teaching, and in the schools in France, the Catechism of
Paris is read in conjunction with the Catechism of Per-
severance, and the results, as we know, are admirable ;
and in some of our own schools this system has been
adopted with remarkable success.

In No. 5 of the Catholic School, 1 Sess. 1856, Mr. Scott
Nasmyth Stokes, as one of her Majesty's Catholic Inspec-
tors of Schools, bears the following testimony to the value
of one of these catechisms: "Many young teachers of
exemplary conduct, and fair attainments, are most im-
perfectly acquainted with sacred history and the records
of the Church. And perhaps I may still further suggest,
in the way of remedy, that a portion of every pupil-
teacher's time might be devoted, with great propriety,
to the mastering of such works as the Catechism of Per-
Bftverance." None can doubt the propriety of extending
this knowledge to the pupils themselves.

The Bishop of Northampton in his approbation of the
Catechism of the Diocese of Paris, declares it to be " suit-

1856.J Notices of Books. 533

^ble from its peculiar plan, as well for the elementary
instruction of young persons, as for the edification and
benefit of those of riper years." Great pains have been
taken with both the works, and foot notes referring to
authorities have been added to the last editions of both
the Catechisms, and this edition of the Catechism of
Perseverance has been carefully collated with the large
original work and with hagiographic and other authorities
of undoubted accuracy. To these advantages we may
add, that the modern names of places mentioned in the
conversion of nations, are accurately given ; and many
chronological and other errors have been corrected. We
can recommend these two sister works as safe and useful
books of instruction and reference for all who wish to
make themselves or others thoroughly acquainted with
the principles of Catholicity.

XI. — Homes Introdvtct'ton to the Holy Scriptures. 4 vols., Tenth
Edition. London : Longman and Co., 185S.

The fourth volume of this tenth edition of our old ac-
■quaintance, contains *' An Introduction to the Textual
Criticism of the New Testament," which purports as to
** the critical part" to be *' re-iuritten," and as to " the
'remainder" to be 'S-evised and edited by Samuel Pri-
•deaux Tregelles, L.L. D." So that in one very important
element the work must be considered as new and original.
This subject requires careful consideration, and a sufficient
space for its discussion. These we cannot at present
afford ; but we propose to do so at an early period. In
other respects the work does not call for any further notice
or criticism.

XII. — The Nature of Chrisfs Presence in the Eucharist ; or the true
Doctrine of the Real Presence vindicated in opposition to the
fictitious Real Presence asserted by Arclideacon Denison, Mr. (late
Archdeacon) VVilberforce, Dr. Pusej, with full proof of the real
character of the attempt made by those authors to represent
their Doctrine as that of the Church of England and her Divines.
By W. GooDE, M.A., &c. London : Hatchard, 1856.

The title page and preface of this work abundantly show
that its object is to influence the pending cause of Mr.
Denison, and to indoctrinate the lay minds of the Mem-

534 Notices of Books, Dec.

bers of her Majesty's Privy Council with the Low Church
views of this question. In this view of the publication, and
considering it as part only of the evidence in a pending
suit, we think it would be premature for us to enter upon
any discussion of the merits of the undertaking ; especially
as our Catholic conclusion on the whole matter is neces-
sarily foregone, and is perfectly well known to Mr. Goode-
to be so. We however cannot but observe* in the interests
of civilization and of charity that Mr. Goode has not in this
work abandoned the unsparing use of hard words, which
has characterized his former publications. He well knows
that they bi*eak no bones and strengthen no arguments ; and
we should be ghid if he could estimate the extent of the
regret which this inconvenient practice has occasioned to
many who, differing toto coelo from Mr. Goode in all his
opinions, cannot but respect his zeal and industry, and
estimate his private worth. If as we anticipate the Lay
Tribunal of ultimate appeal for the establishment shall
decide that her real doctrines are simply Zwinglian, and
that her members, if sincere, must renounce her commu-
nion, or must abandon all semblance of belief in any real
presence of our blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist, W9
shall probably find it our duty to review the several deci-
sions on this important question as they bear upon th&
awful position of those members of the Establishment who-
have heretofore clung to her communion under an impres-
sion (we should rather call it hallucination) that she did
in fact hold some kind of Dogmatic Belief in some kind
of real presence ; an impression which this ultimate
Lay Tribunal of appeal — should it take its instructions
from Mr. Goode — -will effectually remove.

While we are employed upon this notice we read with
shame and indignation those portions of the judgment of
Sir John Dodson in the case of Mr. Liddell, which in the
plainest terms bring against the Catholic Church the
direct charge of idolatry of the material Cross. We were
aware of the extent of ignorance of our doctrines which is
frequently exhibited in quarters which ought to be well in-
formed as to our belief as a question of fact; but
nevertheless we were not prepared to believe until we read
it in print that the learned judge, as he is reported, should
have believed that such a charge could be true,, and still
less that he should have found his proof in the language
of our offices, and in particular in the " Dulce Lignum,

1856.1 Notices of Books. 585

which he is reported to have quoted. We do not know
how far this imputation will be t'ound to constitute the sub-
stantial foundation for his decision. If this shall prove to
be the case we shall pause before we can bring ourselves
to believe that the high judicial intellects and intecrrity
which will have to decide this question in the Privy
Council can be prevailed upon to give any weight to a
charge which we had fondly hoped had long since been
exploded and abandoned by all but bigots of the lowest
intelligence and information. We must not, however, be
very sanguine, as we know by experience that we must
prepare ourselves for finding that no imputation is too
absurd to be believed of the Catholic religion by a large
portion of our fellow-countrymen,

VOL. XLI.-No. LXXXir. 17

5c6

INDEX TO VOL. XLI.

Ahd el Mullalib, 33.

Acts of Parliament regulating the terms to be
kept by legal students, 228.

Act, Books, entries in them, 320.

Act of Appeals, 339.

Albefgodii, Poveri, 193.

^«!7('/ica/ Salutation, Protestiint version of, 166.

Anglicanism, its policy towards the Catljolic
Cliurch, 352 — its foreign policy, 352— its simi-
larity now and in all times, 353.

Arafat Mount, legend concerning, 45.

Arabs the, tlieir manners, 30.

Arbouville Madame de, her works, 411— her life,
416-sketch of tier tales, 417 extract,4i9.

Aristocracy of England, retribution on them for
oppressing tlie Chorcli, 25.

Barber, the Convict, cruel treatment of, 191.

Jilack Stone of Meccali, 37.

Books, notices of, 247-521.

Broglie M. de, his work on L'Eglise, &c., 363,

Brougham Lord, school anecdote of, 288.

Burton Mr., his pilgrimage to^eccah, 27 — his
caravan, 29. — expenses of Journey, ib. — his
assuming the Hiiji garb, 32— submits to tlie
observances of Mahommeilanism, 32. 34, 4: —
meets the sheriff of Meccah, 33— visits the
haram, 35 — liis entrance to tiie Bait Allah,
39, 44— Ills pilgrimage to Mount Arafat, 45 —
ceremony of the Hamy, 46— lays aside the
pilgrim's garb, 49— describes sacrifices, 50— a
dinner party, 50— his Somali expedition, 53 —
reaches Zayla, 54— describes the people of the
Somali, 55- enters the city of Harar, 58 —visits
the Amir, 61— and the privy council, 63.

Camels, their docility. 31.

Catholics, persecuting ordinances against them
by the House of Commons, 401 —recent cal-
umnies against them, 409— liberty of tliought
amongst them advocated, 442— tlieir educa-
tional position, 443— and disadvantages, 451
— not to be divided into two parties, 453—
praise allotted to new Catholics, 454— and to
the old 457— advised to be hopeful 465- and
united, 469.

Cassalis, letters of his concerning the Pope's con-
versations, 342.

Charles II., king, his return to England, 106—
his character, iii.

Charily, modes of collecting, 459— dinners, 460.

Churdi, Catholic, in England, her surrender of
her powers, 5— was in fact not reformed but
destroyed, 24.

her devotion to the B. V., contrasted with

the feelings of heretics, 133 — accommodation
of Scriptures, 150— work it has done, 516—
has still to do in England 517.

of England, her dealings with the

poor, 513.

Corrcspondtnts, newspaper, instructions sent to

them, 178— illustrated by their acconnts of
Ikdmontand Naples, 181.

Clement, Pope, institutes inquiry into the validity
of Henry's marriage, 336— his recall of the
cause to Home, 338— grounds of his opposii Ion
to Henry's divorce, 340— supposed propasi-
tion, 342.

Clergy, Catholic the, their high character under
tlije persecutions of Klizabeth, 20— their charac-
ter after the Reformation, 324.

— — Catholic, what tliey really were before
the Reformation, 328— the Pope not responsi-
ble for their worldliness, ib.— attached too little
importance to the Papal supremacy, 329 —
feeling of the nation towards them, 330.

—^ Anglican, their immorality in the 18th
century, 325— and in the present, ib.

Cockburn, Lord, his "Memorials of his time,"
284 — his school days. 285 — dinners, 290—
extracts, 295— description of a judge, 300.

Committei', poor school, its position, 445.

Congregations, ecclesiastical, in Rome, 210.

Contentions, symptoms of, 443, dangers of it
in the educati(mal que.stion, 444.

Converts to the faith, missions founded by them,
455— conversion, grace of, 454.

Cromwell Richard, his ditHculties. 90, 91— his
character, 91— his alliances, 93 — his meeting
with his parliament, 95— dissolves his parlia-
ment, 100.

, his rise into power, 405— his tyranny,

406 — in Ireland, ib. — his foreign policy, 408
—his cruelty, ib.— Ills bigotry, 409.

Dalzel, Andrew, 290.
Derby, House of, 11.
Dinners, the etiquette of formerly, 291.

E«sa the, people of the Somali, 53.

Elgin, Lord, upon the impolicy of the treat-
ment of Ireland, 280.

Elizabeth, Queen, her tyranny, 19 — enactn cruel,
penal laws, 20- destroys the old nobility, 25.

. Queen, 387— her treachery, lb.

England, her treatment of those who havo.
rebelled against lier, 191— her treatment of
criminals and paupers compared, 192, 195—
comparison of her policy to weak and strong
nations, 197.

Epithets, applied by tlie Church to the Blessed
Virgin, 125 — first class or negatives, ib.—
second class of positive, 128— implicitly con-,
vey the idea of her Immaculate Conception,^

J3I-
Eskgrove, Lord 299-
Exiles, from Romei 220.

Ferdinand, king of Naples, his conduct to the
Pope, 185— his character, ib— his popularity,
i86^noble behaTlour at the eruption of Vesu-

I.NDPX.

53T

vius, 187— reply of his gorernment to the
remonstrances of tlie allied powers, 188.

Finances of Rome, history of their management,
2t2.

Finlay, Mr. 356— extract from his work, 357 —
his testimony in favour of the Popes, 358, S59i
361— his account of Nleephorus, 362.

Froude, Mr., his vindication of Henry VIII.,
fallacy of his eulogies upon the commence-
ment of his reign, 309 — insinuations against
the Catholic clergy, 310— falsehood respect-
ing the provision for the poor, 311 — receives
all witnesses against it, none for the monas-
teries, 315— character of the commissioners
employed in their suppression, 316— his mean-
ness and craft, 317 — gross charges against the
secular clergy, 318 — utterly without founda-
tion, 320— omits the misconduct of the clergy
after the reformation, 324 — immorality of his
own sentiments, 525 — instance of his unfair-
ness, 326 — ad:nits that the Papal power in the
English Church was .snuill, 327— vindication
of Henry's acts, 331— his approval of sacri-
lege, 333— opinions of the Pope's dispensing
power, 334— misrepresents the Pope, 335, 341 —
his character, 343.

Guizot, U. his history of Cromwell, 8S — extracts

from, 91, 96, 102, 106, 1C9.
Gunpowder Plot, 388, 389.

ffabecu Corpus, writ of, 394.

Ilale, Archdeacon, pluralist and slanderer, 3 18.

Hampden, 395.

Jiarar, the city of, 58— its governor, 62.

Henry VIII., his acts acainst alms giving, 331 —

bis device to entrap Catherine into a convent.

337.
Horner, 287.

Iconoclasti, heressy of the, 357.

Immaculate conception, the doctrine of, 119 —
may be truly deduced from the Scriptures,
158— from the parallel between Mary and
Eve, 158, 164,— from the Angelical Salutation,
ib,

— ^^— conception, part taken by the Holy
See in the controversies concerning, 167.

Ipse, ipsa, or ipsud, controversy as to which
word In Genesis, 161,

Ireland, evil results of the humiliations imposed
upon her, 280— her wrongs compared with
those of Scotland, ib.

Irish, their loyalty to the Holy See, 366— their
influx into London, 470— prejudice against
them, 473— their faith, 474— fidelity to the
Church, 494— their distresses, 491, 503— igno-
rance, 504— appaient want of fervour to the
B. Sacrament, 505 — Irish hop gatherers, 508 —
their violence 510 — want of truth, 511 — their
condition in general, 515 — their love of the
priesthood, 478— desire to hear mass, 481 — to
receive the sacraments, ib. — their charitj',
482— purity, 485— their offences, 498.

Irisliwomen, differences between them and
Englishwomen of the poorer classes, 490.

Jesuits, the, popular representation of, 68—
attacks upon them by Voltaire, 71— Scaliger,
ib.— Scioppe, 73— various, 74— by Mr. Gee,
80.

Jager, Abbe, his work on Photius, 364.

James, King, 388,

/ardiae Mr., his essay on the gtinpowder plot.

Kyngstone,, Sir A., worse than Judge Jefferie

13-
Kaabah, the, 35-48— that the herb, 64.

Loudon, Dr., Commissioners against the monas^
teries, 316.

ilakam, Ibrahim, the 38.

Marriage with a brother's widow, 334.

Marriages, mixed, 506.

Martyrs, the' Protestant, 8.

Mary, Queen of England, disobedient to Papal
authority, 15, 16, 18 — refusal to receive the
successor of Cardinal Pole, 17 — her persecu-
tions opposed by the Popes, and promoted by
an anti-catholic council, 17.

Mayhew, Mr., his account of the Irish poor, 488,
499.

Mazarin, Cardinal, his addres.ses to Richard
Cromwell»93.

Meccah, first sight of, 35.

Miley, Dr., his history of the Papacy, 367,— ex«
tracts, 370, 374.

Monasteries act, empowering bishops to visit and
reform them, 313 — ■which might have been
and was not acted upon by Henry VIII., ib. —
their charity, 314 — interesting testimony of
an eye witness in their favour, 317.

Monk, General, loi — his interview with Gren-
ville, 102.

Morning Star ne'wspaper, extract from, 189.

Murray, convicted Roman assassin, whom the
English protected, 217— his trial, 218.

Myzab, the, 37.

Naples, description of it by the press, 181 — cause
of the enmity felt for it, 182— condition of its
army and navy, ib. — railways and arsenals,
183 — clearance of the mouth of the Lagni, 184
— its finances, ib.— compared with those of
other countries, lb. — how the poor are-treated
there, 193.

Nicephorus, Emperor, 359.

Nicephoms II., 362,

Northumberland, Duke of, death of the king at-
tributed to him, 14.

Oligarchy, conspiracy of an, 9, 11, la.

Patsaglia, Professor, his eminence, 117— his
work.s, 118.

Peter, St., heretic testimony to the fact of his
having been sit Rome, 346.

Petition of rights, 395.

Petitions, how got up, 355.

People, the English, never became Protestant
till they were enslaved, 6.

Persecution, religious, never set on foot but by
enemies of the Papacy, 18.

Photius, his election, 360.

Piedmont, condition of its finances, 179— increase
of crime, ib.

Plot, the gunpowder, 389.

Plots, the history of Protestantism, 388.

Poor, the, their treatment abroad, 194— com-
pared with what they receive in England, 195
—statutes made against them In middle ages,
312, 331— eulogised by Mr. Froude, ib— their
grief for the loss of the monasteries, 314—
Protestant, 513— Catholic, 514— are the wealth
of the Church, 517.

Pope Pius IX., his moderate habits, 211— his
clemency, 219— his public works, 225— bene-
fits to education, ib. >

Popes, tlie, their authority long obnoxious to the
people of England, 15— disobeyed by sove-
reigns, ib.— hardly appreciated in that age.

538

INDEX.

i6— how their power is considered by anti-
Catholics, 346— Protestant testimony to their
use of their power, 358, 350.

Popes, the, their great political deeds, 367— ne-
cessity for their temporal power, 373— origin
of it. 377— its preservation by i:*rovidence,
379-

Pritits, Catholic, dislike felt for them, 477.

Prisoners, political, or otherwise, in Rome, 217
— their number constantly diminishing
throngli the Pope's klndnoss, 219— their treat-
ment, 221. .

Prisons in England, 192. ^

P'Ublic, the British, 171.

Puritans, their treachery to king and people,
403— impose the excise taxes, 494— their per-
secution of Catholics, 407.

Pym. 398.

Rambler, the, extract from, 446— endeavours to
create dissension, 450— false charges intuuat-
ed, 462.

Rebellion, the great, 383— originated with the
aristocracy, 386, 39T, 392— parallel between
the spirit existing then and now, ib.— its mo-
tive the desire of retaining plundered proper-
ty, 396— progress of, 401.

of the people against the laws of the

Calvinists, I2.

Reform, Bill of 1830, 304.

Reformation, so called, in England, when it
really began, 10— cruel enactments by which
It was supported, 11— was imposed upon the
people by foreign mercenaries, 12 — was not
occasioned by tlie corruption of the clergy, 22
character of the men and the measures of
that period, 23.

RetitU), Dublin, its career, 441.

Rome, its government, 207— proportion of priests
and laymen employed, 209— civil list, 211 —
history of its financial condition, 212— im-
provements in its marine, 215— its public
works, lb.— manufactures, 216— tlie army, ib.
its political prisoners, 217— state of crime in it,
222— great public works lately completed,
225.

, to her only nationality is allowable,

496.

Russttt, Lord John, in days of the Reformation,

7-
, Lord John, his attempt to regain popu-
larity, 174,

Sabbath, observance of, 293.

,S <ffi, the Oxford Professor, 349.

Scotland, lier political wrongs, 280— were not of

a kind to Immble lier, 282— hopelessness of

liberal opinions there, 295.
Scriptures, Holy, interpreted by a literal and a

spiritual sense, 136— narrow and unworthy

Interpretation of them by Protestants, 148—

Catholic use of Scrlptn^e^ 149,

Society, Irish Church Missions, falsehoods circu-
lated by it, 409.

Somerset, Duke of, liis promotion, 9— obtaina
the command of the whole power of the crown,
ii«— lus insolence and rapacity, 13 -his deatta,
14.

Song of Solomon applied to the B. V. Mary.
151.

5<a«u/M against alm.sgivlng, 331— against here.
tics, 333.

Strafford, Lord, judicial murder of, 393— hi« im-
peachment, 398— forged papers produced
asiainst him, 399,

Suicide, came in with the Reformation, 326.

Supremacy, Royal, its establishment in England,
I— its results, 4— was established by terror*
ism, ib.

— , Royal, in matters of religion, 384.

Thomas, General, his examination concerning
legal education, 236.

Titnes. the, its anti- Italian declamations. 172—
its assertions often unworthy of belief, 176 —
Instances of this, ib.— contrast of its remon-
strances with France and Naples, 201.

Types, by which the B. V. Mary U preflgurerfln
Scripture, 137, 141.

University, Catholic, injury it would snslsin
from a proposed act of parliament, 227.

- — of Oxford, its decree of absolute •nb-
mission to man, 349.

Vane, the conspu-ator, 392, 397, 398— his for-
gery. 399-

Virgin, the Blessed, the one idea always enter-
tained of her in the Church, 119— that she
was a new creation, ib.— a mystery, 120— uni-
versality of this idea, 124— proved by the
ei)ithets applied to her, 125, 169— which in-
volve the idea of her Immaculate Concep-
tion, 131— Protestant feeling towards her, 133
— typically prefigured in Scripture, 137—
otlier emblems of her, 141 — which can only
express her immaculate conception, 146 —
Song of Solomon accommodated by the
Church to her praises, 151— other passages
so applied, 154— 24th chapter of Ecclesia.sti-
cus also, 155— prophecy in Genesis concern-
ing her, 160— difference in the 2nd c]au^e
of that prophecy, ib. — contrast between her
and Eve. 163— veneration paid to her by the
Irish, 476.

Vulgate, ilie, degree of authority possessed by
this version, 162.

Whiting, Abbot, his martyrdom, 9.
Worklwtues in England, 195.

Zayla, 54.

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