{433}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. I., NO. 4. JULY, 1865.


THE TRUTH OF SUPPOSED LEGENDS AND FABLES. BY H. E. CARDINAL WISEMAN. [Footnote 79 ]


[Footnote 79: From "Essays on Religion and Literature. By Various Writers." Edited by H. E. Manning, D.D. London; Longman, Green & Co. 1865.]

The subject of the address which I am about to deliver is as follows: Events and things which have been considered legendary, or even fabulous, have been proved by further research to be historical and true.

Before coming directly to the subject upon which I wish to occupy your attention, I will give a little account of a very extraordinary discovery which may throw some light upon the general character and tendency of our investigation. In the year 1775 Pius VI. laid the foundation of the sacristy of St. Peter's. Of course, as is the case whenever the ground is turned up in Rome, a number of inscriptions came to light; these were carefully put aside, and formed the lining, if I may so say, of the corridor which unites the sacristy with the church. It was observed, however, that a great many of these inscriptions referred to the same subject, and a subject which was totally unknown to antiquarians: they all spoke of certain Arval Brethren—Fratres Arvales. Some were mere fragments, others were entire inscriptions.

These, to the number of sixty-seven, were carefully put together and illustrated by the then librarian of the Vatican, Mgr. Marini. It was an age when in Rome antiquarian learning abounded. There were many, perhaps, who could have undertaken the task, but it naturally belonged to him as being attached to the church near which the inscriptions were found. He put the fragments together, collated them one with another, and with the entire inscriptions. He procured copies at least, when he could not examine the originals, of such other slight fragments as seemed to have reference to the subject, the key having now been found, and the result was two quarto volumes, [Footnote 80] giving us the entire history, constitution, and ritual of this singular fraternity. Before this period two brief notices in Varro, one passage in Pliny, and allusions in two later writers, Minutius Felix and Fulgentius, were all that was known concerning it. One merely told the origin of it from the time of the kings, and the others only stated that it had something to do with questions about land; and there the matter ended. Now, out of this ignorance, out of this darkness, there springs, through the researches of Mgr. Marini, perhaps the most {434} complete account or history that we have of any institution of antiquity. So complete was the work, in fact, that only two inscriptions relating to this subject have been found since; one by Melchiorri, who undertook to write an appendix to the work; and the other in 1855 in excavating the Dominican garden at Santa Sabina, which indeed threw great light upon the subject. From these inscriptions we learn that this was one of the most powerful bodies of augurs or priests in Rome. Yet neither Pliny, nor Livy, nor Cicero, when expressly enumerating all the classes of augurs, ever alludes to them. Now, we know how they were elected. On one tablet is an order of Claudius to elect a new member, so to fill up their number of twelve, in consequence of the death of one. They wrote every year, and published, at least put up in their gardens, a full and minute account of all the sacrifices and the feasts celebrated by them. They were allied to the imperial family, and all the great families in Rome took part in their assemblies. They had a sacred grove, the site of which was perfectly unknown until the last inscription, found in 1855, revealed it. It was out of Porta Portese, on the road to the English vineyard at La Magliana. There they had sacrifices to the Dea Dia, whose name occurs nowhere else among all the writers on ancient mythology. It is supposed to be Ceres. They had magnificent sacrifices at the beginning of the year. There are tablets which say where the meetings will be held, whether at the house of the rector or pro-rector, leaving the date in blank, to be filled in the course of the year. We are told who were at the meetings, especially who among the youths from the first families—four of whom acted somewhat as acolytes; and we are told how they were dressed, which of their two dresses they wore. Then there is a most minute ritual given. We are told how each victim was slain; how the brethren took off the toga praetexta, their crowns and golden ears of corn, then put them on again, and examined the entrails of the sacrifices; all as minutely detailed as the rubrics of any office of unction and coronation could possibly be. Then we are told how many baskets of fruit they carried away, and what distribution there was of sweetmeats at the end, every one taking a certain quantity. All this is recorded, and with it their song in barbarous Oscan or early Etruscan, perfectly unintelligible, in which their acclamations were made. So that now we know perfectly everything about them. I may mention as an interesting fact, that Marini's own copy of his work on the Arval Brethren, two quarto volumes, having their margins covered with notes for a second edition, which was never published, and filled with slips of paper with annotations and new inscriptions of other sorts, which he subsequently found, is now in the library at Oscott.

[Footnote 80: Atti e Monumenti dei Fratelli Arvali. Da Mgr. Marini. 2 tom. Roma, 1795. ]

What do I wish to draw from this account? It is that history may have remained silent upon points which it seems impossible, in the multiplicity of writers that have been preserved to us, should not have cropped out, not have been mentioned in some way, not even have been made known to us through innumerable anterior discoveries. One fortunate circumstance brought to light the whole history of this body. How unfair, then, is it, on the reticence of history, at once to condemn anything, or to say, "We should have heard of it; writers who ought to have told us would not have concealed it from us." For a circumstance may arise which will bring out the whole history of a thing, and make that plain and clear before us which has been scouted completely by others, or of which we have been kept in the completest ignorance.

I could illustrate this by several other examples which I have collected together, but I foresee that I shall not get anything like through the subject I propose to myself. But here is one such instance bearing on Scripture truth. It was said by infidel writers {435} of the last century, "How is it that there could have been such a remarkable occurrence as the massacre of the Innocents without a single profane historian ever mentioning it—Josephus, if no one else?" Of course the answer was, "We do not know why, except that we might give plausible reasons why it should not have been noticed." That is all we need say. It is our duty to accept the fact. We must not reject things because we cannot find corroboration of them all at once. We may have to wait with patience; the world has had to wait centuries even before some doubted truth has come out clearly.

I. The subject which I wish to bring before you is one of those which, perhaps beyond any other, may be said to be considered thoroughly legendary, and even perhaps worse:—it is the history of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand companions, virgins and martyrs. At first sight it may appear bold to undertake a vindication of that narrative, or to bring it within the compass of history by detaching from it what has been embellishment, what has been perhaps even wilful invention, and bringing out in its perfect completeness a history corroborated on all sides by every variety of research. Such, however, is the object at which I aim to-day; other instances may occupy us afterward.

It has, in fact, been treated as fabulous by Protestants, beginning with the Centuriators of Magdeburg down to the present time. There is hardly any story more sneered at than this, that an English lady, with eleven thousand companions, all virgins, should have met with martyrdom at Cologne, and should have even gone to Rome on their journey by some route which is very difficult to comprehend; for they are always represented in ships. Hence the whole thing has been treated as a fable. But the more refined Germanism of later times takes what is perhaps meant to be a mitigated view, and treats it as a myth, that is, a sort of mythological tale. Thus the writer of a late work, [Footnote 81] entitled the History, or fable, of St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, printed in Hanover, in 1854, considers that St. Ursula is the ancient German goddess Rehalennia, and explains the history by the mythology of that ancient divinity.

[Footnote 81: Die Sage von der heilige Ursula und den, 11,000 Jungfrauen. Von Oskar Schade. Hanover, 1854. ]

But let us come to Catholics. A great number have been staggered completely by this history, and have said, "It is incredible; it is impossible to believe it; we must reject it: what foundation is there for it?" Some have tried to search one out; and perhaps one of the most ingenious explanations, though the most devoid of any foundation, is that which Sirmondus and Valesius [Footnote 82] and several other Catholics have brought forward—that there were only two saints, St. Ursula and St. Undecimilla, and that this last has been turned into the eleven thousand. This name Undecimilla has nowhere been found; there have been some like it, but that name is not known. The explanation is the purest conjecture, and has now been completely rejected. But still many find it very difficult to accept the history. If they were interrogated, and required to answer distinctly the question, "What do you think about St. Ursula?" there are very few who would venture to face the question and say, "I believe there is a foundation for it in truth."—For that is all one might be expected to say about a matter which has come down to us through ages, probably with additions.—"I believe the substance of it; it has been so altered by time as to reach us clogged with difficulties; still I believe there were martyrs in great number who had come from England that were martyred at Cologne." But there are few who like to talk about it: most say it is a legendary story. Even Butler only gives about two pages of history. He rejects the explanation which I have {436} just mentioned; but he throws the whole narrative into the shade, and passes it over with one of those little sermons which he gives us, to make up for not knowing much about a saint; so that his readers are left quite in the dark.

[Footnote 82: Acta Sanct. Bolland, Oct. tom. ix. p. 144. ]

Then unfortunately while many Catholics have been inclined to look at it as more legendary than historical, they have been badly served by those who have undertaken the defence or explanation of the event. There may be many here who have gone into what is called the golden chamber in the church of St. Ursula at Cologne, and have seen that multitude of skulls and bones that line the walls, and have been inclined to give an incredulous shrug and to say, "How could these martyrs have been got together? where did they come from? how do we know they were martyrs?"

We generally content ourselves with looking at such things through the eyes of Mr. Murray's traveller who tells us about them. Accordingly we look round at these startling objects, and say, "It is very singular; it is very extraordinary." But there is very little awe, very little devotion felt by us; while, to a good native of Cologne, it is the most venerable, sacred, and holy place almost in Christendom. He prays earnestly to the virgins of Cologne, and considers that they are his powerful patrons and intercessors.

However, little has been done to help us. Works have been published in favor of the truth of this history, but then they have run into excess. The most celebrated of all is one by a Jesuit named Crombach, who was led to compose it by Bebius, another learned Jesuit, whose papers were unfortunately burned in a conflagration at the college in Cologne. Crombach in 1647 published two large volumes entitled "St. Ursula vindicata." In them he has included an immense variety of things. He has accepted with scarce any discrimination works that are entitled to little or no credit—contradictory works; he has mingled them all up; and he insists upon the story or the history being true with all details. The consequence is that the work has been very much thrown aside, or severely attacked.

Yet it is acknowledged that it contains a great deal of valuable information, together with an immense quantity of documents which may be made good use of when properly examined, when the chaff is separated from the wheat. On the whole, however, it has not been favorable to the cause of the martyrs.

Now, however, there has appeared such a vindication, such a wonderful re-examination of the whole history, as it is impossible to resist. It is impossible to read the account of St. Ursula given in the 9th volume for October of the Bollandists, published in 1858, without being perfectly amazed at the quantity of real knowledge that has been gained upon the subject, and still more at the powerful manner in which this knowledge has been handled;—an erudition which, merely glancing over the pages and notes, reminds us of the scholars of three hundred years ago, in whom we have often wondered at the learning which they brought to bear on any one point.

This treatise occupies from page 73 to 303, 230 pages of closely printed folio in two columns. I acknowledge that it is not quite a recreation to read it, but still it is very well worth reading. All documents are printed at full length. Now, it so happened, that just after the volume had come out, I was at Brussels, and called at the library of the Bollandists, and had a most interesting conversation with Father Victor de Buck, the author of this history. He gave me an interesting outline of what he had been enabled to do. He told me that when they came to October 21, and he had to write a life of St. Ursula and her companions, his provincial wrote to him from Cologne and said, "Take care what you say, for the people are tremendously alarmed lest you should knock down all their traditions, and I {437} do not know what will be the case if you do." He replied, "Don't be at all afraid; I shall confirm every point, and I am sure they will be pleased with what I have to say." He was kind enough to put down in a letter the chief points of his vindication for me; but I have lost it, and so there was nothing left but to read through the whole of this great work. But, beside, a very excellent compendium has appeared, which takes pretty nearly the same view on every point, and approves of everything the author has said; indeed some points are perhaps put more popularly in it, though the history is reduced to a much smaller compass. I have the work before me. It is entitled, "St. Ursula and her Companions: A Critical, Historical Monograph. By John Hubert Kessel. Cologne, 1863." It is a work which is not too long to be translated and made known. What I have to say, after having gone through this preliminary matter, is, that I lay claim to nothing whatever beyond having been diligent, and having endeavored to grasp all the points in question, and reduce them to a moderate compass. I have changed the order altogether, taking that which seems to me most suitable to the subject, and co-ordinating the different parts and facts so as to make it popularly intelligible. In this I have the satisfaction to find that in a chapter at the end of the book, in which the history is summed up, exactly the same order is taken which I have adopted here. It will not be necessary to give a reference for every assertion that I shall have occasion to make; but I may say that I have the page carefully noted where the subject is fully drawn out and illustrated.

Now, let me first of all give, in a brief sketch, what Father de Buck considers the real history, which has been wrapt up in such a quantity of legendary matter—that which comes out from the different documents laid before us, as the kernel or the nucleus of the history, as Kessel calls it. He supposes that this army of martyrs, as we may well call them, was composed of two different bodies: a body of virgins who happened, under circumstances which I shall describe to you, to be at Cologne, and a body of the inhabitants, citizens of Cologne, and others, very probably many English and other virgins who had there sought safety. It may be asked how came these English to be there? About the year 446 the Britons began to be immensely annoyed by the incursions of the Picts and Scots, which led to their calling in (after the manner of the old fable, about the man calling in the dogs to hunt the hare in his garden) the Anglo-Saxons, who in return took possession of the country; and the inhabitants that they did not exterminate they made serfs. At this period we know the English were put to sad straits. Having so long lain quiet and undisturbed under the Roman dominion, they had almost lost their natural valor, and were unable to defend themselves. There was, therefore, a natural tendency to emigrate and get away. They had already done this before; for as De Buck shows, with extraordinary erudition, the occupation of Brittany or Armorica was a quiet emigration from England, which sought the continent, and also established colonies in Holland and Batavia, and by that means obtained a peace which they could not have at home. We have a very interesting document upon this subject. The celebrated senator Aëtius was at that time governor of Gaul; the Britons sent to him for help, and this is one passage of a most touching letter which has been preserved by Gildas: "Repellunt nos barbari ad mare, repellit nos mare ad barbaros; oriuntur duo genera funerum; aut jugulamur aut mergimur." [Footnote 83] They were tossed backward and forward by the sea to the barbarians, and by the barbarians to the sea; when they fell upon the barbarians they were cut to pieces, and when they were driven into the {438} sea "mergimur"—we go to the bottom. It does not mean that they ran into the sea, but that they went to their ships, and many of them perished in the sea by shipwreck or by sinking—"aut jugulamur aut mergimur." That shows that the English were leaving England to go to the continent. I am only giving you the web of the history, without its proofs; but I quote this passage to show it is not at all unlikely that at that moment, when they were in a manner straitened between the barbarians of the north and those coming upon them in the south, a great many of them went out of the country, and that especially being Christians they would wend their way to Catholic countries. Religious and other persons of a like character, we know, in every invasion of barbarians, were the first to suffer a double martyrdom. This is a supposition, therefore, about which there is no improbability, that a certain number, I do not say how many, of Christian ladies of good family, some of them, perhaps, royal, got over to Batavia or Holland (where there have been always traditions and names of places in confirmation of this), and made their way to Cologne, which was a capital and a seat of the Roman government, a Christian city, and in every probability considered a stronghold, both on account of its immense fortifications, and on account of the river.

[Footnote 83: Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, pars i., cap. xvii. Ed. Migne: Patrologia, tom. lxix., p. 342.]

Well, then comes the history, very difficult indeed to reconcile, of a pilgrimage to Rome, which it is said they made; but let us suppose that instead of the whole of them a certain number of them might go there. It is not at all improbable that at that time, as De Buck observes, a deputation, or a certain number of citizens and others, did go to Rome to obtain assistance there, as their only hope against the invasion, which I shall describe just now. There is no great difficulty in supposing this; and assuming that some of the English virgins also went, that would be a foundation for the great legendary history, I might say the fabulous history, which has been built upon it. Now, there is a strong confirmation of such a thing being done. St. Gregory of Tours [Footnote 84] mentions that at this very time Bishop Servatius did go to Rome to pray the Apostles Sts. Peter and Paul to protect his country and city against the coming invasion, and he saw no other hope of safety. He must have passed through Cologne exactly at that time, and, therefore, there is nothing absurd or improbable in supposing that some inhabitants of Cologne went with him as a deputation to Rome, and that some of the English virgins may have accompanied them. In the year following, Attila, the scourge of God, the most cruel of all the leaders of barbaric tribes who invaded the Roman empire, was marching along the Rhine with the known view of invading Gaul, and not only invading it, but, as he said, of completely conquering and destroying it; for his maxim was, "Where Attila sets his foot no more grass shall ever grow"—nothing but destruction and devastation. I will say a little more about the Huns later. In the meantime we leave them, in 450, on their way to cross the Rhine, with the intention of invading and occupying France. Attila united great cunning with his barbarity; he pretended to the Goths that he was coming to help them against the Romans, and to the Romans that he was going to help them to expel the Goths. By that means he paralyzed both for a time, until it was too well seen that he was the enemy of all. It is most probable, knowing the character as we shall see just now of the Huns, that the inhabitants of the neighboring towns would seek refuge in the capital, and that all living in the country would get within the strong walls of cities. We have important confirmation, at this very time, in the history of St. Genevieve, [Footnote 65] who was {439} a virgin living out in the country, but who, upon the approach of the Huns, hastened, we are told, immediately to seek safety in Paris, and was there the means of saving the city, by exhorting the inhabitants to build up walls, to close their gates, and to fight. This they did, and so saved themselves. That is just an example. When it is known that throughout his march Attila destroyed every city, committing incredible barbarities (ruins of some of the places remaining to this day), not sparing man, woman, or child, it is more than probable that there would be a great conflux and influx to the city of Cologne, where the Roman government still kept its seat, and where, of course, there was something like order, although we have unfortunate proofs, in the works of Salvianus, [Footnote 86] that the morality of the city had become so very corrupt that it deserved great chastisement. However, so far all is coherent. In 451, after Attila had gone to France, and had been completely defeated, he made his way back, greatly exasperated, burning and destroying everything in his way, sparing no one. Then he appeared before Cologne; and this is the invasion in which it is supposed the martyrdom took place.

[Footnote 84: S. Greg. Turon., Hist. Franc., lib. ii., cap. v. Ed. Migne: Patrologia. tom. lxviii., pp. 197, 576.]

[Footnote 85: Vid. Tillemont, Hist. des Emp., vi. p. 151. Acta Sanct. Boll., Jan. tom. i. in vit. S. Genovevae.]

[Footnote 86: De Gubernatione Dei, Ed. Baluzii, Paris, 1864, pp. 140, 141. ]

Having given you what the Bollandist considers the historical thread, every part of which can be confirmed and made most probable, I will now, before going into proofs of the narrative, direct your attention for a few minutes to what we may call the legendary parts of the history. When we speak of legends we must not confound them with fables, that is, with pure inventions. We must not suppose that people sat down to write a lie under the idea that they were edifying the Church or anybody. There have been such cases, no doubt; for Tertullian mentions the delinquency of a person's writing false acts of St. Paul, and being suspended from his office of priest in consequence. Such follies have happened in all times. We have had many instances in our own day of attempts at forging documents, and committing the worst of social crimes; but old legends as we have them, and even the false acts as they were called, were no doubt written without any intention of actually deceiving, or of passing off what was spurious for genuine. The person who first suggested this was a man certainly no friend of Catholics, Le Clerc, better known by his literary name of Clericus; who observes that school exercises were sometimes drawn from martyrdoms, as in our day from a classical subject, as Juvenal says of Hannibal:

      "I demens et saevas curre per Alpes
  Ut pueris placeas et declamatio flas."

Not that students professed to write a real history, but they gave wonderful descriptions of deeds of valor and marvellous events which had never occurred, and were never intended to be believed. In the same way, at a time when nothing but a religious subject could create interest, that sort of composition came to be applied to acts of saints and martyrs; so that many books and narratives which we have of that description may be thus accounted for. It is much like our historical novels, or the historical plays of Shakespeare, for instance. Nobody imagines that their authors wished to pass them off for history, but they did not contradict history; they kept to history, so that you may find it in them; and you might almost write a history from some of those books which are called historical works of fiction. In early times such compositions were of a religious character. Then came times of greater ignorance, and those works came to be regarded as true historical accounts. But, are we to reject them on that ground altogether? Are we to say, any more than we should with regard to the fictitious works of which I have just spoken, that there is no truth in them? We should proceed in the same way as people do who seek for gold. A {440} man goes to a gold-field, and tries to obtain gold from auriferous sand. Now suppose he took a sieve full, and said at once, "It's all rubbish," and threw it away; he might go on for a long time and never get a grain of gold. But if he knows how to set to work, if he washes what he obtains, picks out grain by grain, and puts by, he gets a small hoard of real genuine gold; and nobody denies that when, many such supplies are put together they make a treasure of sterling metal. So it is with these legendary accounts. They are never altogether falsehoods—I will not say never, but rarely. Whenever they have an air of history about them, the chances are that, by examining and sifting them well, we may get out a certain amount of real and solid material for history.

The legendary works upon these virgins are numerous and begin early. The first is one which I shall call, as all our writers do, by its first words, "Regnante Domino." This is an account of traditions, evidently written between the ninth and eleventh centuries. It is impossible to determine more closely than this. But we know that it cannot have been written earlier than the ninth century, nor later than the eleventh. It contains a long history of these virgins while in England, who they were, and what they were; of a certain marriage contract that was made with the father of St. Ursula, a very powerful king; how it was arranged that she should have eleven companions, and each of these a thousand followers; how they should embark for three years and amuse themselves with nautical exercises; how the ships went to the other side of the channel. It is an absurd story and full of fable, but there are three or four most important points in it. Geoffrey of Monmouth comes next. He gives another history, totally different from that of the "Regnante Domino;" but retains two or three points of identity. His is evidently a British tradition, which, of course, it is most important to compare with the German one; and we shall find how singularly they agree. Then, after these, come a number of legends called Passiones, long accounts filled with a variety of incongruous particulars which may be safely put aside; but in the same way germs or remnants of something good, which have been thus preserved, are found in them all, and when brought together may give us some valuable results. We next meet with what is more difficult to explain—the supposed revelations of St. Elizabeth of Schönau, and of Blessed Hermann of Steinfeld. It is not for us to enter into the discussion, which is a very subtle one, of how persons who are saints really canonized and field in immense veneration—one of them, Hermann, singularly so—can be supposed to have been allowed to follow their own imaginations on some points, while at the same time there seems no doubt that they lived in an almost ecstatic state. This question is gone into fully; and the best authorities are quoted by the Bollandist. It would require a long discussion, and it would not be to our purpose, to pursue it further. These supposed revelations are rejected altogether. Now we come to positive forgeries, consisting of inscriptions, or of engraved stones with legends carved upon them. One of these mentions a pope who never existed, and also a bishop of Milan who never lived, beside a number of other imaginary people. From the texture and state of these inscriptions there can be no doubt whatever that they are absolute forgeries, and the author of them is pretty well discovered. He was a sacristan of the name of Theodorus. In order to enhance the glory of these virgins, they are represented, as you see in legendary pictures, as being in a ship accompanied by a pope, bishops, abbots, and persons of high dignity, who are supposed to have come from Rome with them. All this we discard, making out what we can from the sounder traditions.

And this is the result. There are {441} two or three points on which, whether we take the English or the German traditions, all are agreed. First, we have that a great many of these virgins were English: that the Germans all agree upon; the earliest historical documents say the same. Secondly, that they were martyred by the Huns: that we are told both by the English and the German writers. It is singular that they should agree on such a point as this; and you will see how—I do not say corroborated, but absolutely proved it is. The third fact is, that there was a tremendous slaughter at the time, a singular slaughter of people committed at Cologne by these Huns. This comes out from all the legendary histories, which agree upon this point, and we can hardly know how they should do so except through separate traditions; for they evidently have nothing else in common. Their separate narratives we may reject as legendary.

Thus we come to an investigation of the true history, and see how it is proved. And first I must put before you what I may call the foundation-stone of the whole history on which it is based—the inscription now kept in the church of St. Ursula. It had remained very much neglected, though it had been given by different authors, until, when the Bollandists were going to write their history, they took three casts of it; one they gave to the archbishop of Cologne, another they kept for themselves; the third—I cannot say what became of it, but I think it went to Rome, having been taken by De Rossi. I could not afford to have a cast brought here, but I have had a most accurate tracing made of it. Those of you who are judges of graphic character will see the nature of the letters; they are capital, or uncial letters. First, you may ask what is the age of this inscription? It is pretty well agreed that it cannot be later than the year 500—that would be fifty years after that assigned to the martyrdom of the virgins. De Buck, who is really almost hypercritical in rejecting, says he does not see a single objection to the genuineness of this inscription. There is not a trace of Lombard or later character about it; it is purely Roman. The union of some of the letters is just what we find about that time in Roman inscriptions. It is then, as nearly as one can judge, of the age I have mentioned—about the year 500. De Rossi, passing through Cologne three or four years ago, examined it and pronounced it to be genuine, and said it could not be of a later period than that. Dr. Enner, a layman of Cologne, when writing his "History of Cologne," could not bring himself to believe that the inscription was so old, and he sent an exact copy in plaster (perhaps that was the third) to Professor Ritschl, the well-known editor of Plautus, and a Protestant, at Bonn. I have a copy of the Professor's letter here, in which he says that he has minutely examined the inscription, and that he cannot see anything in it to make it more modern than the date assigned to it, and that it contains peculiarities which no forger would ever hit upon, such as the double i, and other forms. He says, "I am not sufficiently acquainted with the history of St. Ursula to connect it in any way; but I have no hesitation in saying that the inscription cannot be later than the beginning of the sixth century;" which, you see, takes us back very nearly to the time when the martyrdom is supposed to have occurred. Then I may mention that the very inscription is copied in the next historical document that we have, as being already in the church. This is the translation of the inscription, of which I present an exact copy:

"Clematius came from the East; he was terrified by fiery visions, and by the great majesty and the holiness of these virgins, and, according to a vow that he made, he rebuilt at his own expense, on his own land, this basilica." Then follows a commination at the end, which is not unusual in such cases. Now, every expression here is to be found in inscriptions of the time.


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For instance, "de proprio;" "votum;" "loco suo" (sometimes it is "loco empto"), meaning of course land which one made his own, or which was his own before. There had been then a basilica—not the church that now exists, but a basilica—at the tombs where these saints were buried, which we shall have to describe later. He rebuilt the basilica fifty years after the martyrdom, destroyed no doubt during the constant incursions of barbarians. It was probably a very small one; for we know that at Rome every entrance to the tombs of martyrs had its basilica. De Rossi has been successful in finding one or two. One was built by St. Damasus, who wrote: "Not daring to put my ashes among so many martyrs, I have built this basilica for myself, my mother and sister;" and there are three niches at the end for three sarcophagi. It is universally allowed that there never was a catacomb without its basilica. In fact, in that of Pope St. Alexander, and Sts. Evantius and Theodulus, found lately, there is a basilica completely standing, and the bodies of these saints were found—one under the altar—and the others near it. Then from the basilica you go into the catacomb. So that nothing is more natural than that in the place where these martyrs were buried, Clematius should rebuild their basilica. After this monument we proceed to the next genuine document, though one of a later date, and by an unknown author—the "Sermo in Natali." This, there is no doubt, was written between the years 751 and 839; and I will give the ingenious argument by which this date is proved. But first it quotes the inscription I have read, with the exception of the threat at the end; in the second place it mentions that the virgins were probably Britons—that it was not certain, but the general opinion was that they had come from Britain; thirdly, it attributes the martyrdom to the Huns; fourthly, it insinuates what is of great importance in filling up the history, that it is by no means to be supposed that they were all virgins, but that many were widows and married people. The reason for fixing the earliest date at 751 is, that it quotes Bede's Ecclesiastical History, which was written in that year, giving apparently his account of the conversion of Lucius; though one cannot say that it is certainly a copy from Bede, because Bede himself copied from more ancient books, and both may have drawn from the same source. Then it could not have been written after 839 for two reasons. In 834 there was a tremendous incursion of other barbarians—of Normans; and it is plain from our book that there had been no such invasion when it was written; nothing was known of it, because the writer speaks of countries, particularly Holland, as being flourishing, which were completely destroyed by them. There is also this singular circumstance. In speaking of the great devotion to the virgins in Batavia, the writer states that this happened at a time when Batavia was an island formed by the two branches of the Rhine. Now in 839 an inundation completely destroyed it, one of the horns or arms being entirely obliterated. Therefore that gives us a certain compass within which the book was written. The author himself was a native of Cologne—for in referring to the inhabitants he once or twice speaks of "us"—and he would therefore be familiar with the traditions of the people. He says there was no written history at that time; he defends the traditions, and shows how natural it was that the people should have kept them. I ought to mention that he calls the head of the band of martyrs Pinnosa. He says, "She is called in her own country Vinosa, in ours Pinnosa;" and there is evidence that this was the name first given to the leader; how, by what transformation, it came to be St. Ursula, we cannot tell; it is certain that up to that time hers was not the name of the leader. Afterward Pinnosa appears on the list, but not as the chief, St. Ursula being the prominent name.

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After that period there comes a mass of historical proofs that one can have no difficulty about. From 852 there are an immense number of diplomas giving grants of land to the nuns of the monastery of St. Ursula, at her place of burial. There is no doubt of the existence of that church, from other documents. Then the martyrologies repeat the whole tradition again and again. Thus, then, we fill up that gap of four hundred years (from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800). There is the inscription; there is the "Sermo in Natali," which quotes it, and gives old traditions; and afterward there are diplomas and other testimonies which are abundant.

We now proceed to compare the whole tradition with history, with known history, for after all this is our chief business. When we possess a tradition of a country and people, we ask, "What confirmation, what corroboration, have we? what does history tell us?" Let us then see what history does tell. It tells us, in the first place, that in the year 450 Attila was known to be coming to invade and take possession of Gaul, having been ejected from Italy. His army is said by contemporary writers to have been composed of 700,000 men. It was a hostile emigration. They brought their women and children in carts, as the Huns always used to do, and they of course marched but slowly. They went along both sides of the Danube, and got at length into France. De Buck, by a most interesting series of proofs, makes it almost as evident as anything can be that they crossed over at Coblentz, therefore not coming near Cologne. They entered, as I have said, into Gaul, destroying everything in their march. Some of their barbarities and massacres are almost incredible. After devastating nearly the whole of the country, they besieged Orleans. The inhabitants having been encouraged to resist, at last succeeded in obtaining certain terms; that is, Attila and his chiefs went into the city and took what they liked, but left the city standing. After this they were pursued by the general whom I have mentioned—Aetius, a Gaul, but who got together all the troops he could, Goths, Visigoths, Franks, and others, who saw what the design of these horrible barbarians was.

A most tremendous battle was now fought, that of Catalaunia (Châlons-sur-Marne), in which contemporary historians tell us 300,000 men were left on the field; but that number has been reduced to 200,000. Such battles, thank God! we seldom hear of now-a-days. Attila, routed, immediately took to flight, and got clear away from his pursuers. He went through Belgium, destroying city after city, leaving nothing standing, and massacring the people in the most barbarous way.

Here comes the most difficult knot of the whole history. Authors agree that Attila now made his way into Thuringia, that is to the heart of Germany; he must therefore be supposed to have got clear over the Rhine, and marched a long way through the country. On this subject De Buck has one of the most exquisite and beautiful geographical investigations, I should think, that have ever appeared. He proves, so that you can no more doubt it than you can doubt my having this paper before me, that there was Thuringia which lay on this side of the Rhine; he proves it by a series documents taken from mediaeval writers, and from inscriptions, that there was a Thuringia which stretched from Louvain to the Rhine. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive how Attila could have got, as by a leap, into the very midst of Germany. He traces the natural course of march (which you can follow by any map), taking the cities destroyed as landmarks, and brings him to this province; and when there, there was no possible way of crossing the Rhine but by Cologne; there was the only bridge, the only military pass of any sort. So there can be no doubt that the Huns, exasperated by their tremendous losses, and by being driven {445} out of Gaul, which they intended to occupy, having revenged themselves as they went on, were obliged to go through Cologne; and if you calculate the date of the victory, and consider the country through which Attila passed, destroying everything as he went, you bring him almost to a certainty to Cologne about the 21st of October, nearly the day of the martyrdom. The "Regnante Domino," which attributes the martyrdom to the Huns, corroborates all this account, which is the result of a most painstaking examination, extending over many pages.

Next we come to another important point. Why attribute this massacre to the Huns? Because there was no other invasion and passage of savages except that one. It accords, then, both with geographical and chronological facts. We have the martyrs at Cologne at the very time when these barbarians came.

But we must needs say something about the Huns. There is no question that the Huns were the most frightful, cruel, and licentious barbarians that ever invaded the Roman empire. They were not of a northern race, Germans or Scandinavians; they were, no doubt, Mongols or Tartars; they came from Tartary, from Scythia, and settled on the Caspian sea; they then moved on to the mouths of the Danube, and again to Hungary, and rolled on in this way toward the richer countries of the west. There are several authors of that period—Jornandes, Procopius, and others—who describe them to us. [Footnote 87] They tell us that when they were infants their mothers bound down their noses, and flattened them in such a way that they should not come beyond the cheek-bones; that their eyes were so sunk that they looked like two caverns; that they scarified all the lower part of the face with hot irons when young, so that no hair could grow; that they had no beard, and were more hideous than demons; that they wore no dress except a shirt fabricated by the women in the carts in which they entirely lived; it was never changed, but was worn till it dropped off, under a mantle made entirely of wild-rat skins. Their chaussure consisted of kid skins round their legs, with most extraordinary shoes or sandals, which had no shape whatever, and did not adapt themselves to the form; the consequence was that they could not walk, and they fought entirely on their wretched horses. They had no cuisine except between the saddle and the back of the horse, where they put their steaks and softened them a little before eating; but as to drink, they could take any amount of it. With regard to their morality it cannot be described. The writers of that age tell us that no Roman woman would allow herself to be seen by a Hun. They were licentious to a degree, and they carried off all the women they could into captivity; probably they destroyed a great many; which was their custom when they became a burden to them. These, then, were the sort of savages that reached Cologne.

[Footnote 87: Ammianua Marcellinus, lib. xxxi., cap. ii. ]

They had another peculiarity; of all the hordes of savages that invaded the Roman empire, they are the only ones that used the bow and arrow. The Germans hardly made any use of the bow, except a few men who mixed in the ranks; as a body their execution was with the sword, the lance, and the pike. The use of the bow was distinctly Tartar, or Scythian. Then we are told that their aim from horseback was infallible; that when flying from a foe they could turn round and shoot with perfect facility; that they rode equally well astride or seated sideways like a woman; in fact that they flew and turned just like the Parthians and Scythians from whom they were descended. In this great battle of Catalaunia they either lost heart or steadiness, and they could not fire upon their enemies, so that they were pursued and tremendously routed. That their mode of fighting was by the bow and arrow, you {446} will see in the representations given in the beautiful shrine at Hamelink, where the martyrs are fired into by the barbarians with bows and arrows. Let us see what this has to do with our question. The "Regnante Domino," which we have mentioned as legendary, gives a most beautiful description of the mode of dealing with the bodies. The writer says that when the inhabitants saw that the enemy were gone they came out, and in a field they found this great number of virgins lying on the ground. They collected their blood, got sarcophagi, or made graves, and put them in; "and there they lay, as they were placed," the writer says, "as any one can tell who has seen them," evidently suggesting that he had seen them. Now, in the year 1640, on July 2, Papebroch, an authority beyond all question, and Crombach, whose word may be relied on as that of a most excellent and holy man, were at the opening of the tombs. From all tradition this was no doubt the place of the stone of Clematius; there has always been a convent there; and you remember that part of the inscription which threatens eternal punishment to those who should bury any but virgins there. It is now called "St. Ursula's Acker," a sort of sacred field where the basilica was. Here they were buried, and so they remained undisturbed except by some translations of the middle ages, which do not concern us. In 1640 there was a formal exhumation, and eye-witnesses tell us what they saw. A nuncio came afterward to verify the facts.

I will give you the account of how these bodies were found. Many of them were in graves, in rows, but each body separate, there being a space of a foot between them. In other places there were stone sarcophagi in which they were laid separately. Then Crombach describes that there were some large fosses, sixty feet long, eight feet deep, and sixteen wide, containing a large number of bodies. They were placed in a row with a space between them; at their feet was another row; then a quantity of earth was thrown on, and another row was placed, and so on, until you came to the fourth. Every skeleton in the three rows was entire, and they all looked toward the east. They had their arms crossed upon their bosoms, and almost every one had a vessel containing blood, or sand tinged with blood. The fourth, or upper stratum, consisted of disjointed bones, and with these also there were vessels containing blood or colored sand. In this way, the writer says, he saw a hundred bodies. Then there was this remarkable circumstance about their clothes. Eutychianus, [Footnote 88] the pope, had published a decree that no body of a martyr was ever to be buried without having a dalmatic put upon it; and clothes in abundance were found upon these bodies.

[Footnote 88: Acta SS. Bolland. Octob., tom, ix., p. 139. Constant. Rom. Pont. Epist. Paris, 1721, p. 299. ]

Another important discovery was, that immense quantities of arrows were found mingled with the bones; some sticking in the skull, others in the breast, others in the arms—right in the bones. So it was clear that all these bodies had been put to death by means of arrows, and there was no other tribe but the Huns which made use of the arrow as its instrument of death. I may add that there were no signs of burning, or of any heathen burial about them. This also is most important. I have said that there had been other exhumations in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There are pictures of these, and there are sarcophagi preserved in which bodies were found. These are laid in exactly the same manner as others were found in 1640. Crombach says the whole had been done most scientifically, that the distances were all arranged by measure, so that there was not a quarter of a foot difference anywhere.

Now, I ask, could these bodies have been put there in consequence of a plague, or an earthquake, or any event of that kind? Putting aside the arrows found in immense quantities, and the {447} vessels containing blood, we know that when people die in a plague to the number of hundreds, a foss is made, and they are thrown in, and there is an end of them. This could not have been a common cemetery. It contained nothing but the bodies of these women (I will speak of their physical characteristics later), all laid in studied order, with great care, and with such peculiarities, and all evidently buried at the same time. After reading all this, may we not exclaim with St. Ambrose, "We have found the signs of martyrdom," and with St. Gaudentius, "What can you desire more to show that they were all martyred?" [Footnote 89] And who does not see here confirmed the history of Clematius? Comparing the whole with traditions, both English and German, it seems to me that you have as much proof as you can reasonably require.

[Footnote 89: S. Ambros., class, i., epist. xxii Ed Ben., tom, iii., p. 927. S. Gaud., Serm. in Dedic. SS. XL. Martyr, ap. Migne, tom, xx., col. 963.]

Having given you concisely the facts and corroborations of history, let me now proceed to answer objections.

And, first there is the question, Were all these martyrs? Well, if they were to be tried by the rules established very justly in the modern Church, it would no doubt be difficult to say; because how can you prove that each of these women laid down her life voluntarily for Christ? The tradition of Cologne is that they would not sacrifice their virtue to those heathens, and that they were surrounded and shot. But in those times a wider meaning was sometimes attached to the word "martyr." There were what are called martyres improprie dicti, where there could not be the same kind of evidence as in the case of others; or martyres latiore sensu. A person was called a martyr when he was put to death without his will being consulted, as in the case of our own St. Edmund, and in the case of St. Wenceslaus, who was put to death without being interrogated as to whether he would remain a Christian or not, and many others. De Buck shows that there was nothing more common. We have the remarkable case of the Theban legion—another instance of a large number of men being surrounded and cut down by soldiers without being questioned as to whether they were in a state of grace, or whether they were prepared to die. The deed was done in odium religionis, by people who merely looked to the gratification of their own passions and their desire for revenge. In those days the question of such persons being martyrs would be a very simple one, if it were known that they were killed by the Huns in hatred, as was supposed, of their virginity and because of their resistance. We have in martyrologies the account of Nicomedia and its twelve thousand martyrs. De Buck supposes that the number included all the martyrs of the persecution. And the 6,700 of the Theban legion are explained in the same way.

The next question is, Were these persons all virgins? Who can know? It is quite certain that even married persons, when martyred, had sometimes the title of virgins given to them. Many instances are supplied by the martyrologies and offices. St. Sabina, [Footnote 90]for instance, is called a virgin martyr, though she was a married person. It was considered that martyrdom raised all women to a higher degree of excellence. There are some curious questions, too, arising, which would not very well do for a discussion here. It is, however, sufficiently proved that when there was a great number of virgins, and others were mixed with them, the nobler title was given to all. Just as, if you have a great many martyrs and some confessors united, the title of martyrs is applied to all, as they are included in one office, each sharing in the glory of martyrdom. The "Sermo in Natali" expressly tells us that it was not supposed at its early period that all were virgins, but that there were ladies of all ranks and children amongst them. Indeed, some remains of children were found.

[Footnote 90: Acta SS. Bolland. Octob., tom, ix., p. 143.]


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Then comes the question, Were there eleven thousand? Certainly not as all one company. It is supposed, and there appears nothing unreasonable in it, that when once the rage of the Huns was excited they would give way to an indiscriminate massacre, and that the eleven thousand most probably included persons who had sought refuge, perhaps their own captives, and probably a great number of the inhabitants of the city.

But does it not seem a frightful number of persons to be massacred? Not by the Huns. In the year 436 these same Huns slaughtered at once in Burgundy 30,000 men. They were of the same race, the same family of men, as Tamerlane, who had 70,000 heads cut off in Ispahan. And the Turks, when they took the island of Chios, reduced the population of 120,000 to 8,000. So that those slaughters, which to us seem so fearful, are not to be considered in the same light when occurring in those times. We have a frightful example in the case of Theodosius and the inhabitants of Thessalonica. It is said that 15,000 persons were put to death in the theatre for a simple insult. The most moderate calculation is that by St. Ambrose, who gives the number as 7,000. Human life, of course, was not then regarded as by us, especially by men who devastated whole cities and burned them to the ground. Hence the difficulty as to the number of persons, including among them not merely the followers of St. Ursula, but the bulk of the female inhabitants, is explained.

Another question arises, Were they English, or were there English amongst them? That is answered unhesitatingly, Yes. All the traditions, English and German, agree that these ladies had come from England and sought refuge.

I have mentioned the facilities for emigration, and the way in which many went out of the country; so that there would be nothing wonderful in a certain number of British women being at Cologne at that time. Now there is this curious fact illustrating the subject. Very lately the Golden Chamber, as it is called, adjoining the church, where the chief remains are deposited, was visited by Dr. Braubach and Dr. Gortz of Cologne, Dr. Buschhausen of Ratingen, and others, who examined the skulls and pronounced them to be Celtic, not German. The Celtic characteristics, as given by Blumenbach and other writers, are quite distinct—the chin falls back considerably, the skull is very long, and the vertex of the head goes far behind—quite distinct from the Romans or Germans. Moreover, with the exception of ten or fifteen out of from eighty to a hundred, they were all the bodies of females. Now all the writers—all that I have seen at least—say that there could not have been an emigration of some hundreds of women without some men, some persons to guard them, and these would be with them and would share their martyrdom. Then, in the next place, they were all young people, there was no sign of their having died of a plague or any other casualty, but they appeared to be strong, healthy young women; which of course, as far as we can judge, verifies the narrative to the utmost.

I now leave you to judge how very different historical research has made this legend, as it is called, appear, and how much we have a right to regard it in a devotional spirit, as the inhabitants of Germany certainly do. I do not say that there have not been many exaggerations, false relics, and stories; but critical investigation enables us to put all these aside, and to sift their evidence. But certainly we have a strong historical verification of what has been considered until within the last few years as legendary, not only by real discoveries which have come to light, but also by a right use of evidence which before had been overlooked and neglected.

The whole of what I have said relates to events. But my subject embraces "events and things." The latter part remains untouched, and I have {449} yet to show how things or objects which have been looked upon as fabulous have been proved to be real and genuine.

II. I proceed, therefore, to objects which have been, or may be, easily misrepresented, as if asserted to be what they are not, and involving an imputation of imposture on the part of those who propose them to the notice or veneration of Catholics.

I will begin with a rather singular example, but one which, I trust, will verify the assertion which I have made; and if time permits, I will multiply the examples by giving two or three other instances.

I do not know whether any of you in your foreign travels have visited the cathedral of Chartres; I have not seen it myself, but I believe that it is one of the most noble, most majestic, and most inspiring of all Gothic buildings on the continent. The French always speak of it as combining the great effects of a mediaeval church, more perhaps than any other in their country; and as my address will relate to that cathedral, I think it is necessary to give a little preliminary account of it; at the same time warning you that I do not by any means intend to plunge into the depths of the singular mystery in which the origin of that cathedral is involved. It takes its rise from a Druidical cavern which was for some time the only church or cathedral. Over that the Christians—for the town was early converted to Christianity—built a church, of course modest, and simple, and poor, as the early churches of the Christians were; but in this was preserved, with the greatest jealousy, and with the deepest devotion, what was called a Druidical image of Our Lady, which was always kept in the crypt, for it was over the crypt that the church was built. It was said to have existed there before the building of the church; but into that part of the history it is not necessary to enter. In the year 1020 this poor old church was struck by lightning, was set on fire, and entirely consumed. The bishop at that time was one of the most remarkable men in the French Church—Fulbert, who has left us a full account of what was done in his time there. He immediately set to work to build another church, proposing that it should be perfectly magnificent according to all the ideas of the age; and to enable him to do so, he had recourse to our modern practice of collecting money on all sides. Among others Canute, king of England and Denmark, and Richard, duke of Normandy, and almost all the sovereigns of the north contributed largely. The result was the beginning of a very magnificent church. The singularity of the building was this, that everybody labored with his hands, not only men, but women, not only the poor, but the noble. These furnished with their own hands provisions or whatever was necessary for the workmen. However, after Fulbert's death, like most undertakings of that class, the work became more languid; and before it was completed (that was in 1094), the building, in which there was a great quantity of wood used, was again burnt to the ground. Well, this time it was determined that there should be a splendid church, such as had never been seen before; and here, again, that same plan of working with their hands was adopted to an extent which, as stated in an account given us by Haymon and one or two others, seems incredible. The laborers relieved one another day and night, lighting up the whole place with torches; provisions were abundantly furnished to all the workmen without their having to move from their places. In fact, the writer says that you might see noblemen, not a few, but hundreds and thousands, dragging carts or drawing materials and provisions; in fact, not resting until, in 1160, seventy years after the destruction, the church was consecrated; and there it remains, the grand cathedral church of Chartres at this day.

Now, it may be asked, what was {450} there which most particularly made Chartres a place of such great devotion, and so attached the inhabitants to its cathedral that they thus sacrificed their ease and comfort so many years to build a church worthy of their object? It was a relic—a relic which had existed for several hundred years at that time in the church, which made it a place of pilgrimage, and which was considered most venerable. What was this relic? The name which it has always borne in the mouths of the simple, honest, and devoted people of Chartres and its neighborhood, and in fact of all France, is La Chemise de la Sainte Vierge—that is, a tunic which was supposed and believed to have been worn by the Blessed Virgin, her under-clothing, and was of course considered most venerable from having been in contact with her pure virginal flesh. However, you may suppose that you require strong proof of such a relic at all, and you will remember that my object is to show how things which may have been doubtful, and perhaps considered almost incredible, have received great proof and elucidation by research. I do not pretend to say that in all respects you can prove the relic: the research to which I allude is modern, but it may guide us back, may confirm a tradition, may give us strong reasons in its favor, showing that it has not been received without good ground, though it may not be able to penetrate the darkness which sometimes surrounds the beginning of anything in very remote antiquity. I am not going, then, to prove the relic, but I am going to show you the grounds on which it had been accepted, and then come to the modern verification of it.

The history is this. A Byzantine writer of the fourteenth century, Nicephorus Calixtus, [Footnote 91] tells us that this very relic was in the possession of persons in Judaea, to whom it was left by our Blessed Lady before her death; that it fell, in the course of time, into the hands of a Jew in Galilee; that two patricians of Constantinople, Galbius and Candidus, traced it, purchased it, and took it to Constantinople, where, considering themselves in possession of a great treasure, they concealed it, and would not let it be known (this was in the middle of the fifth century); that the Emperor Leo, in consequence of the miracles which were wrought, and by which this relic was discovered, in spite of those who possessed it, immediately entered into negotiations, obtained it, and built a splendid church in Constantinople expressly to keep it; and that the church so built was considered as the safety, the palladium as it were, of the city of Constantinople. He mentions another fact which is important; that is, that there were at that time in Constantinople three other churches, each built expressly for the preservation of one relic of our Lady. I mention these facts for this purpose: there is a very prevalent idea, I believe among Catholics as well as certainly among Protestants, that what may be called the great tide of relics came into Europe through the crusades; that the poor ignorant crusaders, who were more able to handle a sword than to use their discretion, were imposed upon, and bought anything that was offered to them at any price, and so deluged Europe with spurious and false relics. Now, you will observe, that all that I have been relating is referred to an age quite anterior to the crusades, or to any movement of the west into the east. It is true that Nicephorus Calixtus is a comparatively modern writer, but he could bear testimony to churches that were existing, and tell by whom they were built. The mere writer of a hand-book can trace out the history of a church or any other public monument which is before the eyes of all: but he was not of that character: he was a historian, and he tells us that there were [Footnote 92] three churches in Constantinople, just as we might say that {451} in Rome there is the church of Santa Croce, built by Constantine to preserve the relics of the cross. Nobody can doubt that the church was built for the relic, that the relic was deposited there, and that earth from the Holy Land was put into its chapel. Monuments like that preserve their own history. Therefore, when this writer tells us that these churches existed from that period, we can hardly doubt that he could arrive at a knowledge of such facts; and at any rate it removes the impression that these wonderful relics were merely the sweepings, as it were, of Palestine during a fervent and pious but at the same time ignorant and unenlightened age.

[Footnote 91: Hist. Eccles., lib. xv., cap. xxiv.]

[Footnote 92: Hist. Eccles., lib. xv., cap. xxv., xxvi.]

Thus, we get the history so far. Now, we know that there was no one who valued relics to such an extent as Charlemagne. We see, by Aix-la-Chapelle and other places, what exceedingly curious relics he collected. I am not here to defend them individually, because I do not know their history; nor is it to our purpose. He was in close correspondence with the east, from which he received large presents; for it was very well known what he valued most. There was a particular reason for this. The Empress Irene at that time (Charlemagne died in 814) wished to have his daughter Rothrude in marriage for her son Porphyrogenitus, and later offered her own hand to himself.

Many relics existed at the time of this correspondence; and as presents are now made of Arab horses and China services, so were they then made of relics, which, if true, monarchs preferred to anything else. Now, there is every reason to suppose that among the presents sent by Irene to Charlemagne was this veil or tunic. [Footnote 93] There is in the cathedral of Chartres a window expressly commemorating the passage of this relic from the east to Chartres. Secondly, the relic, as you will see later, was, up to a few years ago, wrapped in a veil of gauze, which was entirely covered with Byzantine work in gold and in silk, which had never been taken off; and it was wrapped up in it till the last time it was verified. We have every reason to suppose that it had come from Constantinople, and that it was delivered at Chartres in that covering. In the third place, it is historical—there is no question about it, for all chronicles and authorities agree upon the point—that Charles the Bald, the grandson of Charlemagne, being obliged to leave Aix-la-Chapelle, in consequence of going to settle in France, which was the portion of the empire allotted to him, took the relic away, and deposited it in the cathedral of Chartres. So that, as far as we can trace a transaction of this sort, there seems to be as much evidence as would be accepted in respect to the transmission of any object of a profane character from one country to another. There is the correspondence of the workmanship; there are the records of the place; and there is the fact that the relics were brought from Aix-la-Chapelle, where Charlemagne had collected so many relics that he had received from Constantinople. Mabillon, who certainly is an authority in matters of ecclesiastical history, says it would be the greatest rashness to deny the genuineness of this relic. "Who will presume to deny that it is real and genuine?" This is in a letter to the bishop of Blois, in which he is expressly treating the subject of discerning true relics. Everything so far, therefore, helps to give authenticity to this extraordinary relic which made Chartres a place of immense pilgrimage.

[Footnote 93: See note at p. 455.]

Bringing it down so far, we may ask, what was the common, and we may say the vulgar, opinion of the people regarding it? It had never been opened, and was never seen until the end of the last century. The consequence was, that it was called by the name I have mentioned. It was represented as a sort of tunic. It was the custom to make tunics of that form, which were laid upon the shrine and {452} worn in devotion; they were sent specially to ladies of great rank, and were so held in veneration that it was the rule, that if any person going to fight a duel had on one of these chemisettes, as they were called, he must take it off; as it was supposed his rival had not fair play so long as he carried it upon him. In giving an account of the building I forgot to mention the wonderful miracles in connection with the relic there, which are believed by everybody to have taken place. It is even on record that the Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche went to Chartres pour se faire enchemiser before he went to war.

In 1712, we find that the relic was in a cedar case richly ornamented with gold and jewels—the original case in which it had arrived. The wood being worm-eaten and crumbling, it was thought proper to remove and clean it, and put it in some better place. The cedar case had no opening by which it could in any way be examined, and the bishop of the time, Mgr. de Merinville, proposed to open it. He chose a jury of the most respectable inhabitants of the town, clergy and laity, to assist. The box was unclosed, and the relic was found wrapped up, as I have said, in the veil of Byzantine work. The veil was not unclosed, so that they did not see the relic itself. The debris of the box was swept away, and the relic, as it was, was put into a silver case that had been prepared; this was locked up, and then deposited in a larger shrine distinct from all the other relics. The procès verbal still exists in the archives of Chartres giving an account of all that took place, from which the account I have given you is taken.

Infidelity was then spreading in France, and, as you may know, a great deal of ridicule was thrown on this relic. It was said that such a garment was not worn in those days, that the system of dress was quite different, and that it was absurd to imagine any article like this. Now, as no one had seen the relic, there was no way of answering these reproaches. In 1793, three commissioners came from the French government, went into the sacristy, and imperiously desired to look at the relic; it was very richly enshrined, and they intended to carry it off. The shrine was brought to them, as the procès verbal of the second examination relates, when they seemed to be seized with a certain awe, and said, "We will not touch it; let it be opened by priests." Two priests were ordered to open the box, and they did so. These men had come prepared to have a good laugh, and scoffing at this wonderful relic. For antiquarians had been saying that such inward clothing was not known so early as the first century, but that instead a long veil used to be wrapped round the body.

Well, they found a long piece of cloth four and a half ells in length—exactly what had been said should be the proper garment. The commissioners were startled and amazed, and said, "It is clear that this is not the relic the people have imagined; perhaps it is all an imposture." They then cut off a considerable piece and sent it to the Abbé Barthélemy, author of the "Travels of Anacharsis" and member of the Institute—a man who had made the customs and usages of antiquity his study; they did not tell him where it came from, but desired him to give an opinion of what it might be. He returned this answer: that it must be about 2,000 years old, and that from the description given him it appeared to be exactly like what the ladies in the East wear at this day, and always have worn—that is, a veil which went over the head, across the chest, and then involved the whole body, being the first dress worn. I ask, could a verification be more complete than this? And, recollect, it comes entirely from enemies. It was not the bishop or clergy that sought it. The relic was in the hands of those three infidel commissioners, who sent a portion to Paris without saying or giving any hint of what it was (they {453} wanted to make out that the whole was an imposture), and the answer was returned which I have mentioned, and which is contained in the procès in the archives of the episcopal palace at Chartres. If any one wants to read the whole history, I refer him to a most interesting book just published by the curé of St. Sulpice (Abbé Hamon), entitled "Notre Dame de France, ou Histoire du Culte de la Sainte Vierge en France." The first volume, the only one out, contains the history of the dioceses of the province of Paris.

I will proceed to a second popular charge, and it is one the opportunity of easily verifying which may never occur again. It refers to the head of St. John the Baptist, or, shall I say, to the three heads of St. John the Baptist? Because, if you read English travellers of the old stamp, like Forsyth, you will find that they make coarse jokes about it. Forsyth, I think, says something about Cerberus; but more gravely it has been said, that St. John must have had three heads—one being at Amiens, one at Genoa, and another at Rome; that at each place they are equally positive in their claims; and that there is no way of explaining this but by supposing that St. John was a triceps.

When we speak of a body you can easily imagine that one piece may be in one place, another in another, a third elsewhere, and so on. That is the common way in which we say that the bodies of saints are multiplied; because the Church considers that the place which contains the head or one of the larger limbs of a saint, or the part in which, if a martyr, he was killed or received his death-wound, has the right of keeping his festival and honoring him just as if it had the whole body. Therefore, in cathedrals and places where festivals are held in honor of a particular saint, where they have relics, which have perhaps been sealed up for years, and never examined, they often speak as if they have the entire body. This is a common practice, and if I had time I might give you an interesting exemplification of it. [Footnote 94] Suffice it to say, that according to travellers there are three heads of St. John. Now as I have said, a body can be divided, but you can hardly imagine this to be the case with a head.

[Footnote 94: Since published in The Month, "Story of a French Officer." (See CATH. WORLD, No. 1.)]

A very interesting old English traveller—Sir John Mandeville—went into the East very early, and returned in 1366; soon after which, almost as soon as any books were published, his travels appeared. He is a very well-known writer. Of course you must not expect that accuracy in his works which a person would now exhibit who has books at his command and all the conveniences for travelling. He was not a profound scholar: he believes almost whatever is told him, so what we must do is to let him guide us as well as he can, and endeavor to judge how far he is right. I will read you an extract, then, from Sir John Mandeville: [Footnote 95]

[Footnote 95: "Travels," chap, ix., p. 182. Ed. Bohn.]

"From thence we go up to Samaria, which is now called Sebaste; it is the chief city of that country. There was wont to be the head of St. John the Baptist inclosed in the wall; but the Emperor Theodosius had it drawn out, and found it wrapped in a little cloth, all bloody; and so he carried it to Constantinople; and the hinder part of the head is still at Constantinople; and the fore part of the head to under the chin, under the church of St. Silvester, where are nuns; and it is yet all broiled, as though it were half burnt; for the Emperor Julian above mentioned, of his wickedness and malice, burned that part with the other bones, as may still be seen; and this thing hath been proved both by popes and emperors. And the jaws beneath which hold to the chin, and a part of the ashes, and the platter on which the head was laid when it was smitten off, are at Genoa; and the Genoese make a great feast in honor of it, and so do the Saracens also. And some men say that the {454} head of St. John is at Amiens in Picardy; and other men say that it is the head of St. John the bishop. I know not which is correct, but God knows; but however men worship it, the blessed St. John is satisfied."

This is a true Catholic sentiment. Right or wrong, all mean to honor St. John, and there is an end of it. We could not expect a traveller going through the country like Sir John, not visiting every place, but hearing one thing from one and another from another, to tell us the exact full truth. But we have here two very important points gained. First, we have the singular fact of the division of the head at all. We occasionally hear of the head of a saint being at a particular place, but seldom of a part of a head being in one place and a part in another. Here we have an unprejudiced traveller going into the East; he comes to the place where the head of St. John used to be kept, and he finds there the tradition that it was divided into three parts, one of which was at Constantinople, one at Genoa, and another at Rome. Then he adds, "Other people say that the head is at Amiens." So much Sir John Mandeville further informs us: he mentions the places where it was reported the head was, telling us that it was divided into three.

This is a statement worthy of being verified. It was made a long time ago, and yet the tradition remains the same. It was as well believed in the thirteenth century in the East, at Sebaste, as it is in Europe at the present moment.

The church of S. Silvestro in Capite, which many of you remember, is a small church on the east side of the Corso, entered by a sort of vestibule: it has an atrium or court, with arches round, and dwellings for the chaplains; the outer gates can be shut at night so as to prevent completely any access to the church. The rest is an immense building, belonging to the nuns, running out toward the Propaganda. When the republicans in the late invasion got hold of Rome, the first thing, of course, which they did was to turn out the monks and nuns right and left, to make barracks; and the poor nuns of S. Silvestro were ordered to move. The head of St. John is in a shrine which looks very brilliant, but is poor in reality. I think it is exposed high beyond the altar, and the nuns kept it in jealous custody in their house. The republicans sent away the nuns in the middle of the night, at ten or eleven o'clock, just as they were, with what clothes they could get made into bundles: there were carriages at the door to send them off to some other convent, without the slightest warning or notice. The poor creatures were ordered to take up their abode in the convent of St. Pudentiana. The only thing they thought of was their relic, and that they carried with them. The good nuns received them though late at night, and did what they could to give them good cheer; they gave up one of their dormitories to them, putting themselves to immense inconvenience.

When the French came to Rome, they found S. Silvestro so useful a building for public purposes that they continued to hold it, but permitted the nuns to occupy some rooms near the church. I was in Rome while they were still at my titular church, and went to visit the nuns attached to it. Their guests asked, "Would you not like to see our relic of St. John?" I said, "Certainly I should; perhaps I shall never have another opportunity." I do not suppose it had been out of their house for hundreds of years. There is a chapel within the convent which the nuns of St. Pudentiana consider a sacred oratory, having a miraculous picture there, to which they are much attached; and in this they kept the shrine. On examination I found that there was no part of the head except the back. It is said in the extract I have read to you that the front part of the head is at Rome; but it is the back of the skull merely; the rest is filled up with some stuffing {455} and silk over it. The nuns have but a third of the head; and the assertion that they pretend to possess the head, which travellers make, is clearly false. I can say from my own ocular inspection that it is but the third part—the back part, which is the most interesting, because there the stroke of martyrdom fell. I was certainly glad of this fortunate opportunity of verifying the relic.

Some time afterward I was at Amiens. I was very intimate with the late bishop, and spent some days with him. One day he said to me, "Would you wish to see our head of St. John?" "Yes," I replied, "I should much desire it." "Well," he said, "we will wait till the afternoon; then I will have the gates of the cathedral closed, that we may examine it at leisure."

We dined early, and went into the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where the relic was exposed, with candles. After saying prayers, it was brought, and I had it in my hands; it was nothing but the mask, the middle and back portions being totally wanting. You could almost trace the expression and character of the countenance in the bony structure. It was of the same size and color as the portion which I had seen at St. Pudentiana; but the remarkable thing about it is that there are stiletto marks in the face. We are told by Fathers, that Herodias stabbed the head with a bodkin when she got it into her hand, and here are the marks of such an operation visible. You could almost say that you had seen him as he was alive. I have not seen the third fragment, but I can hardly doubt that it is a portion of the same head, and that it would comprise the parts, the chin and the jaw, because there is no lower jaw in the front part, which is a mere mask. The only other claimant is Genoa, and its relic I have not seen. But this is exactly the portion allotted by Mandeville to that city. I have, however, had the satisfaction of personally verifying two of the relics, each of which comprises a third part of the head, leaving for the other remainder exactly the place which our old traveller allots to it.

Mr. Cashel Hoey, one of our learned contributors, has kindly furnished me with a most interesting corroboration of this account. It is an extract from the Revue Archéologique, new series, Jan. 1861, p. 36, in a paper by M. Louis Moland, entitled "Charlemagne à Constantinople," etc., giving an account of a MS. in the library of the Arsenal, anterior to the thirteenth century.

The following is the account of the relic which the emperor is stated to have brought from Constantinople to Aix-la-Chapelle:

"Li empereres prist les saintuaires tot en disant ses orisons, si les mist en eskerpes (écharpes) totes de drap de soie et si les enporta molt saintement avoec lui trosqu Ais la Capele en l'eglise Nostre Dame qu'il avoit ediflie. Là fu establis par l'apostolie (Le Pape) et par les archevesques et les evesques as pelerins li grans pardons, qui por Deu i venoient. Oiés une partie des reliques, que li empereres ot aportées: il i fu la moitiés de la corone dont Nostre Sires fu coronés des poignans espines. Et si i ot des claus dont Nostre Sires fu atachiés en la crois al jor que li Jui le crucifierent. Et si i ot de la vraie crois une pieche et del suaire Nostre Segnor, O le chemise Nostre Dame."




{456}

From The Month.

MADAME SWETCHINE AND HER SALON.


The salons of Paris form a distinctive feature of French society. Nowhere else is the same thing exactly to be found. Frenchwomen have a peculiar gift for conversation, due in a great measure to their graceful language, with its delicate shades of expression. We are prone to smile at French sentimentality, or to apply their own word verbiage, prefacing it with unmeaning. But when the epithet does truly fit, it is because the real thing has been abused, not because it does not exist. Conversation in France is cultivated as an art, just the same as epistolary style: both form an important branch of female education. When the soil is bad, the attempt at culture only betrays more clearly native poverty; in other words, a mind of little thought or taste becomes ridiculous in straining after the expression of what it can neither conceive nor feel. But when a well-informed and cultivated intelligence blossoms into keen appreciation of the beautiful, no language so delicately as French conveys minute shades of thought and feeling. 'Tis not repetition, then, but variety; and when such an instrument is handled with feminine tact, perfection in its kind is achieved.

No wonder that salons are exclusively French from the days of Julie de Rambouillet down to Madame Récamier. No wonder at the influence exercised by a woman who really has a salon. Few, very few, arrive at this result. Thousands may receive; hundreds glitter in the gay world of fashion, renowned for beauty, wit, good dressing, or good parties; two or three at most in a century are the presiding spirits of their social circles, and that is what constitutes having a salon. No one quality alone will do it; a combination is required; not always the same, but one or two together, whichsoever, attracting sympathy and producing influence. Influence—the effect, not the quality itself—can never be absent.

Strangers settling in Paris have had their salon; but we do not know that they could transport it with them to any other atmosphere. Beside Madame Récamier—whose rare beauty, joined to her goodness and her tact, helped to form her salon—two other women in our day, or just before it, have been the leading stars of their circles. Others, no doubt, there are; but the names of these three have escaped beyond Paris. Strange to say, two are foreigners, and both of these Russians. Except, however, as regards country and influence, no comparison can of course be established between the Princess Lieven and Madame Swetchine. One sought and gained a political object; the other accepted circumstances, and found them fame.

Madame Swetchine was already thirty-four years of age when she arrived in Paris. She had no beauty, and no pretensions to wit; indeed, her timidity was such that her expressions were always obscure when she began to speak; and it was only by degrees, as she went on, that she gathered confidence, and then her language flowed with ease, betraying, rather than fully revealing, the deep current of thought beneath. Still her advantages were many. As regards outward circumstances, she possessed good birth and high position; her manners were such as the early culture of a polished court bestows; she was accustomed to wield a large fortune, and to hold a prominent place in the social world. These were advantages that might be fairly set against the absence of beauty, wondrous as is that charm: beside, her person was not unpleasing. Though {457} small, she was graceful in her motions; despite little blue eyes, rather irregular, and a nose of Calmuck form, her face wore a soft kindly expression that attracted sympathy. Her complexion was remarkably fresh and clear.

But Madame Swetchine possessed innate qualities of heart and mind of the rarest description, that only unfolded themselves gradually the more closely she could be observed. Unlike mankind in general, the better she was known, the more was she beloved and admired. Her intelligence of richly-varied powers had been carefully cultivated; what she acquired in youth, with the aid of masters, had been since matured by her own unceasing study, and by reading of the most widely-discursive character. Not only was she familiar with ancient and modern literatures, perusing them in their originals, but she also conversed fluently in all the languages of Europe. Her imagination, enthusiastic and wild almost, as belongs to the north, successfully sought for outpourings, both in music and painting. By a strange combination, no natural quality of mind was more remarkable in Madame Swetchine than her good sense: the only feature that shone above it was her eminent gift of piety.

But virtues, and particularly religious virtues, proceed from the heart quite as much as from the intelligence; often, indeed, far more especially. Madame Swetchine possessed the warmest feelings, a nature both loving and expansive. As daughter, wife, and friend she evinced rare devotion; but the sentiment and thought that most filled heart and mind was undoubtedly her love for God.

What a rich assemblage of qualities is here! how strange that they should go to make up a Parisian woman of fashion! Such, however, in its most usual acceptation, Madame Swetchine never was: she never mingled in the light brilliant world; but she did form the centre of attraction to a large circle she had her salon.

General Swetchine, deeply wounded by the emperor, who lent too ready credence to unfounded reports whispered against so faithful a subject, would not stoop to justify himself, but quitted Russia in disgust, accompanied by his wife. When they reached Paris, in the spring of 1816, Louis XVIII. was on the throne of France. Madame Swetchine found now restored to their high positions those friends of her youth whom as exiles she had known and loved at St. Petersburg. Her place was naturally amongst them; new intimacies were soon added to the old. The Duchesse de Duras, authoress of Ourika, and friend of Madame de Staël, gained a strong hold on her affections. Yet it did not seem at first as if Madame Swetchine were destined to so much influence in French society. Modesty made her reserved. Madame de Staël had been invited to meet her at a small dinner-party; and Madame Swetchine, though seated opposite, was intimidated, and allowed the meal to pass over without speaking or scarcely raising her eyes. Afterward Madame de Staël came up and said, "I had been told that you desired my acquaintance; was I misinformed?" "By no means," was the reply; "but it is customary for royalty to speak first." Such was the homage she paid to genius.

At first it had seemed uncertain how long General and Madame Swetchine might remain absent from Russia; but after the lapse of a few years they took up their definite residence in Paris. Their hotel, Rue St. Dominique, was hired on a long lease, and fitted up as a permanent abode. They sent for their pictures and other articles from St. Petersburg. The general occupied the ground-floor; Madame Swetchine took the rooms above. Her apartments consisted of a salon and a library commanding an extensive view of gardens. Here it was that her friends used to assemble; not many at a time, but successively. She never gave soirées, and her dinner-parties consisted of a few intimates round a small table. Her hours for {458} reception were every day from three till six, and then from nine till midnight. Debarred by her health from paying visits, she contented herself with receiving in this manner; and for thirty years a continuous stream of persons was for ever passing on through her rooms. She had not sought to form it; but there was her salon, and one of a peculiar character.

Two features distinguished it: the religious tone that prevailed, and the absence of party spirit. Madame Swetchine herself was eminently religious, and she had a large way of viewing all things. Her influence, though partly moral and intellectual, was ever chiefly religious; and she gave that presiding characteristic to the atmosphere around. So long as faith and morality were not attacked, all other points she considered secondary, and admitted the widest diversity of opinion on them. Her own views on all subjects were firmly held, and she expressed them with freedom. There could be no mistake about it. In religion she was a strict Catholic, and in philosophy Christian; in politics she preferred a liberal monarchy; but far from seeking to give that color to her salon, she would not allow any friend holding the same views to try to impose them on others. This was equally the case in matters of art and taste; she tolerated nothing exclusive; but the principle is much more difficult to be followed out when applied to politics, which involve interests of such magnitude, appealing to all the passions, and especially in such an excitable atmosphere as that of Paris. Nothing better shows Madame Swetchine's tact and gentleness of temper than her intimacies with men of such different stamps, and the way in which she made them to a certain extent amalgamate. But the above qualities would have failed to do it, had their spring been a worldly one; hers flowed truly from the Christian charity with which her whole soul was full. In this she and her salon were unique.

She lived to see two great revolutions in France: the one of 1830, and that which substituted the republic for Louis Philippe, ending with the empire. Members of all these régimes were among her visitors. Ministers of state under the Restoration, those who embraced the Orleans cause, men belonging to the republican government, ambassadors from most of the foreign courts in Europe; all these in turn enjoyed her conversation, some her esteem or affection, according to the degrees of intimacy and sympathy. Her own feelings, as well as convictions, lay with legitimists; but others were no less welcomed, and some of various parties were highly valued. True, however, to religion, she never gave her friendship to men not devoted to the interests of the Church. Her great object was to do good to souls, but in a quiet, unostentatious, womanly way; gently leading to virtue, never inculcating it. This of course became more exclusively her province as she grew older.

She was truly liberal in all her sentiments; not assuredly from indifference, but through a large philosophy of spirit that allowed for diversities of opinion in all things not essential. At the same time her own convictions were unflinchingly avowed, as well as her ideas and tastes in smaller matters.

The men with whom she was most intimate have all more or less been known to fame, and are eminent also for their religious spirit. We might begin a list with Monsieur de Maistre at St. Petersburg, when she was but twenty-five; then following her to Paris, see her make acquaintance with his friend Monsieur de Bonald; exercise maternal influence over MM. de Falloux, de Montalembert, and Lacordaire; and finally wind up with Donoso Cortès, the Marquis de Valdegamas, Prince Albert de Broglie, and Alexis de Tocqueville.

Each one of the distinguished personages above has figured prominently on the great stage, more or less renowned in politics and letters, and {459} always holding a high moral character. It may seem fastidious to recall their titles to fame. In our day, when all are acquainted with continental literature, who is not familiar with the witty author of the Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, although it be permitted somewhat to ignore the rather dry philosophical works of his friend de Bonald? Monsieur de Falloux, with filial love, has raised a monument to Madame Swetchine that will endure beside his life of Pope Pius V., and jointly with the remembrance of his political integrity. Who that has followed the late history of Europe does not know Donoso Cortès, the great orator, whose famous three discourses in the Spanish chambers instantaneously reached so far and wide, whose written style is the very music of that rich Castilian idiom, and whose liberal political views kept pace with his large Catholic heart? Soeur Rosalie and Madame Swetchine together soothed his dying hours. The author of La Démocratic en Amérique has been indiscreetly praised, but none can deny his ability, Prince Albert de Broglie, doctrinaire in his views, still advocates with talent the cause of religion and of constitutional monarchy. These two latter were among the latest acquisitions to Madame Swetchine's salon.

MM. de Montalembert and de Falloux were like her sons; she knew them from their early manhood, called them by their Christian names, loved and counselled them as any mother might. But if her influence over them was so salutary, we cannot help admiring most the unswerving attachment of these young men to her; Madame Swetchine's letters show her expostulating with Comte de Montalembert, then little past twenty, and endeavoring to convince him he is wrong. He will not yield; but acknowledges afterward the justness of her views, and allows now these letters to be published. Alfred de Falloux is the son sent for when danger seems impending; he tends her dying couch in that same salon where he had so often and for so many years walked with her conversing; to him she confides her papers and last wishes.

The celebrated Père Lacordaire was very dear to her; and she certainly acted the part of a mother toward him. Monsieur de Montalembert presented him to her when Abbé Lacordaire was but twenty-eight, and quite unknown. His genius—which she immediately discerned—and his ardent soul interested her wonderfully. Soon after he became connected, through Abbé de Lamennais, with the journal L'Avenir; by his own generous and oft-repeated avowal she kept him from any deviation at this trying moment. "You appeared to me as the angel of the Lord," writes he, "to a soul floating between life and death, between earth and heaven."

Nor was this the only time. Her letters show her following him with breathless interest through his chequered career, and assuring him of her warm undying friendship, "so long as he remains faithful to God and his Church."

And this was a beautiful affection, whichever side we view it. For more than twenty years it lasted; that is, for the rest of her life. The ardent young man is seen with the erratic impulses of his glowing intellect, yet docile to the motherly admonitions of his old friend; and by degrees, as time mellows him somewhat—though it never could subdue nature altogether—he sinks into a calmer strain, still asking advice, and taking it, with language more respectful, though not a whit less tender. Madame Swetchine brought to bear on him a species of idolatry; she admired his genius to excess, and loved his fine nature as any doting parent might; but these sentiments never rendered her blind to his faults; and she constantly blended reproof with admiration, while strenuously endeavoring to keep him ever in the most perfect path. She had the satisfaction of seeing him, ere she departed this life, safely anchored in a religious order, and the Dominicans fairly re-established in France; one of her pre-occupations on her death-bed, after bidding him adieu, was to secure {460} that his letters should be one day given to the public. For thus she knew he would be better appreciated.

Other names of men well-known in the Parisian world of letters, or for their deeds of charity, might here be added as having adorned her salon. There was the Vicomte de Melun, connected with every good work (literary or other) in the French capital; and her two relatives, Prince Augustin Galitzin and Prince (afterward Père) Gagarin. The former still writes; the latter, erst a gay man of fashion and then metamorphosed into a zealous Jesuit, is now devoting his missionary labors to Syria.

And lastly may be named one who, though he never mingled in the world of her salon, yet visited Madame Swetchine and esteemed her greatly. Père de Ravignan presided at one time in her house over meetings of charitable ladies, who were afterward united with the Enfants de Marie at the convent of the Sacré Coeur.

Nor were her friendships exclusively confined to men. Madame Swetchine had not that foible into which many superior women fall of affecting to despise their own sex; and which always shows that they innately, unconsciously often, separate their individual selves from all the rest of womankind as alone superior to it. Hers was a larger view: she loved souls; and "souls," says one of her aphorisms, "have neither age nor sex." When shall we in general begin to live here as we are to do for ever hereafter?

She had had her early friendships in Russia, and most passionate they were; too girlish in their romantic enthusiasm, too wordily tender in expression; but time mellowed these affections, without wearing them out. The two principal women-friends of her youth in Russia, after her sister, were Roxandre Stourdja, a Greek by birth, afterward Comtesse Edlinz, and the Comtesse de Nesselrode. Both of these in later years visited her Paris salon. But she also formed several new French intimacies. Her grief for the loss of Madame de Duras, when death deprived her of that friend, was a little softened by her warm sympathy for the two daughters left, Mesdames de Rauzan and de la Rochejacquelain. If she saw most of the former, the latter had for Madame Swetchine a second tie through her early marriage with a grandson of the Princesse de Tarente, whom Madame Swetchine had so revered in her girlish days at St. Petersburg. Both the Duchesse de Rauzan and Comtesse de la Rochejacquelain were very beautiful; and Madame Swetchine dearly loved beauty, especially when combined, as in them, with grace and elegance, cleverness and piety. For both the sisters were remarkable: one had more fascinating softness united with good sense; the other was more witty and brilliant. The last country-house visited by Madame Swetchine shortly before her death was the chateau de Fleury, belonging to Madame de la Rochejacquelain, where we read that she loved to find still mementos of the Princesse de Tarente.

Madame Swetchine was very intimate with Madame Récamier, her fellow-star as leader of a contemporary salon. She greatly prized her worth. Another friend much loved was the Comtesse de Gontant Biron, in youth eminent for her beauty, and always for her many virtues. Among younger women distinguished by Madame Swetchine were Mrs. Craven, née la Ferronaye; the Princess Wittgenstein, lovely as clever, a Russian by birth, and a convert to the Catholic Church; and quite at the last period, the Duchess of Hamilton.

She was always partial to youth, taking a warm interest in anything that might minister to the welfare or pleasures of that age. Thus she liked the young women of her acquaintance to be well dressed, and would admire their taste or try to improve it, even in that respect, with perfectly motherly solicitude. Those going to balls frequently stopped on their way to show their toilettes to Madame Swetchine; and not seldom, too, they would {461} return in the morning to ask advice on graver matters, or to display the progress of their children. The good Madame Swetchine did to persons of the world by quiet friendly counsel is incalculable; she never spared the truth when she thought it could be of use, and as she had great perspicacity, she was not often deceived. Beside, her natural penetration became yet keener, not only by long experience, but also by the numerous confidences she received from the many souls in a measure laid bare before her. M. de Falloux has well said that she "possessed the science of souls, as savants do that of bodies." However one might be pained at what she said, it was impossible to feel wounded; her manner was so kind, and her rectitude of intention so evident. And thus did she render her salon useful: living in public, as it might appear, surrounded chiefly by the great ones of earth, her thought was yet ever with God, and she positively worked for him day by day without even quitting those few rooms. Nay, so completely is Madame Swetchine identified with her salon for those who knew her through any part of the thirty years spent in Paris, that it is difficult for our idea to separate her from it.

Even materially speaking she seldom left it. With a simplicity that seems strange indeed to our English notions, she caused her little iron bedstead to be set up every night in one of her reception-rooms; each morning it was doubled up again and consigned to a closet. During her last illness it was just the same; she lay in her salon, the only difference being that then the bed remained permanently. Not an iota else was changed in the aspect of her apartment; no table was near the sick-couch with glass or cup ready to hand; what she wanted in this way she signed for to a deaf-and-dumb attendant, Parisse, whose grateful eyes were ever fixed upon her benefactress, to divine or anticipate what might be wished. And there, too, she died.

To us with our exclusive family feelings, or indeed to the general human sentiment that courts the utmost privacy for that solemn closing scene, there is something which jars in the account of Madame Swetchine's last days on earth. Doubtless all the consolations of religion were there to hallow her dying moments; she continued to the last to devote long hours to prayer; and by an enviable privilege she possessed a domestic chapel blessed with the perpetual presence of the Blessed Sacrament; but what strikes us strangely is, that her salon had chanced to remain open while extreme unction was being administered; and so, as it was her usual reception hour, the few friends in Paris at that season (September) continued to drop in one by one, and kneeling, each new-comer behind the other, prayed with and for her. Those last visitors were Père Chocarn, prior of the Dominicans; Père Gagarin; Mesdames Fredro, de Meyendorf, and Craven; Messieurs de Broglie, de Falloux, de Melun, and Zermolof. But the strange feeling we cannot help experiencing must be reasoned with. Her salon and her friends were to Madame Swetchine home and family.

And now it might seem that nothing more could be said of her; but, in truth, a very small portion has yet been expressed. Beside the six hours devoted to reception, the day counted eighteen more. There were religious duties to be performed, and home duties no less imperative; there were the poor to be visited, and there were the claims of study, which Madame Swetchine never neglected up to the latest period of existence. All these calls upon her time were recognized by conscience, and therefore duly responded to. Madame Swetchine was, of course, an early riser; by eight or nine o'clock she had heard mass, visited her poor, and was ready to commence the business of the day.

After breakfast, an hour or two were devoted to General Swetchine, who liked her to read to him. During the {462} last fifteen years of his life, and his death only preceded hers seven years, he had become so deaf as to enjoy general society but little; but he would not allow her to give up her receptions on that account, as she wished to do. The rest of the morning was employed in study with strictly closed doors, only opened to cases of misfortune, and these Madame Swetchine never considered as intrusions. Her confidential servant knew it well, and did not scruple to disturb her when real want or sorrow begged for admittance. Her persevering love of study is well illustrated by her own assurance, but a few months before her death, that even then she never sat down to her writing-table without "feeling her heart beat with joy." She advised Mrs. Craven always to reserve a few morning hours for study, saying the quality of time was different at that period of day.

Several hours in the evening were again spent with the general. At midnight, when all visitors departed, Madame Swetchine retired to rest; but her repose never lasted much beyond two in the morning. Painful infirmities made her suffer all day long, and at night debarred her from sleep. Motion alone brought comparative ease, and therefore it was that, with intimate friends, she carried on conversation walking up and down her rooms. At night, suffocation increased, as also a nervous kind of excitement. It was at these hours, during the intervals snatched from pain, that she mostly composed the writings which M. de Falloux has given to the world. No wonder that they bear the impress of the cross; nor can we marvel that she speaks feelingly and scientifically of resignation, for good need had she to practise that. Such were usually her twenty-four hours in Paris.

If we look back to the past, religion had not always been the guiding principle with Madame Swetchine. Her father, M. Soymonof, was a disciple of Voltaire, and he brought her up without any pious training. She never even repeated morning or evening prayers; simply attended the imperial chapel as a matter of course. But Voltaire did not excite her admiration; his infidelity was too cold, his immorality too coarse; it was Rousseau who charmed her. His passionate language pleased her imagination, and the pages of La Nouvelle Héloise were almost entirely transcribed, to be again and again dwelt on. She could not detect the sophistry beneath. But the first deep sorrow of her youth taught her prayer, and brought her to the feet of God, never to abandon him. M. Soymonof was suddenly snatched from his children by death, and Madame Swetchine, the anguish of this bereavement, turned to heaven for help and consolation. Another sorrow, the nature of which we ignore, overtook her at this period; and, to use her own expression, she "threw herself then into the arms of God with such enthusiasm as naught else ever awakened."

The first effect was to render her a fervent adherent of Russian orthodoxy; but her mind was too philosophic to rest long satisfied with half conclusions. She was struck with the piety of French Catholics at St. Petersburg; especially the modest merit of the Chevalier d'Augard won her highest esteem. Finally, after much voluminous study, and despite the resistance her rebellious spirit loved to oppose to what she at first called M. de Maistre's "dogmatic absolutism," she entered the Catholic Church.

The absurd idea that religion renders the heart cold has been too often refuted to need any comment here. But it may be said that Madame Swetchine affords another example of how much devotion, by purifying human feeling, intensifies it also. God had given her a loving nature; and as her piety deepens with years, so does her tender affection for family ties, for friends, country, and finally for all the poor, suffering, helpless ones of earth. Her first great attachment was for her father, and so her first great sorrow was at his loss; for thus intimately {463} are love and pain ever conjoined in this world. Another deep affection of childhood and early youth, extending through life, was for her sister. Madame Swetchine was quite a mother to this child, ten years her junior. When she married, she still kept her with her; and when the young sister also married, becoming the wife of Prince Gagarin, Madame Swetchine became a mother also to the five boys who were successively brought into the world. "They are all my nephews," would she say; "but the two eldest are especially my children." And well did they respond to the feelings of their aunt, scarcely separating her from their own parent. When she shut herself up for study, it was their amusement to try and get her out to play with them; if she remained deaf to entreaties, the little boys would besiege her door, making deafening noises with their playthings, until she mostly yielded and let them in. A very short time before her death, when Madame Swetchine could hardly sit or speak, she assembled a large family party of young nephews and nieces, with their preceptors and governesses, to dine at her house, and was greatly diverted with their innocent mirth.

There is something disappointing in Madame Swetchine's marriage. The favor enjoyed by Monsieur Soymonof at court, her own position as maid-of-honor to the Empress Marie, her birth, fortune, extreme youth, and many individual qualifications, all alike rendered her a fitting match for any man in the empire. She certainly could have chosen. Several asked her hand. Amongst them was Count Strogonof, young, rich, noble, and talented. But Monsieur Soymonof preferred his own friend General Swetchine; and Sophie, we are told, accepted with affectionate deference her father's choice. The general was twenty-five years her senior, and though a fine military-looking man, with noble soldier-like feelings, scrupulously honorable, and with much to win esteem, yet he does not appear the sort of person suited to her ardent enthusiastic temperament. He possessed qualities fitted to command the respect of a young wife; but not exactly those that win her to admiration and love. Wherever honor was not concerned, he lapsed into his natural apathy: neither intellect nor imagination were by any means on a par with hers. And the girl of seventeen who prematurely linked her fate with his was full of romance: nurtured as she had been by a fond ill-judging father, with Rousseau to guide her opening thought, her early dreams probably had fed on some chivalrous St. Preux with whom to course the stream of life. Perhaps she was dreaming of wedding some stern military personification of the same. What an awakening there must have been! Was this the second deep sorrow that clouded her nineteenth summer? Was there a struggle then? Then did she "fling herself into the arms of God" victorious.

There is no clue to trace aught of this save that which guides to the usual windings of the human heart. Madame Swetchine was far too nice in her sense of duty, and far too delicate in feeling, to allow any such admissions to escape.

The devotion of a life-time was given unreservedly to General Swetchine. She never knew the happiness of becoming a mother, the tie that would of all others have been dearest to her heart. But the general had bestowed paternal affection on a young girl called Nadine Staeline, and Madame Swetchine also generously insisted on adopting her. Nadine, welcomed to their roof, was treated by Madame Swetchine like her own child.

Her attentions to the general continued unremitting. When he quitted Russia, she accompanied him to Paris; when he was summoned to return, though condemned to banishment from St. Petersburg and Moscow, she profited by the respite gained to go alone in her old age and infirmity to plead his cause herself with the emperor. Nor did she complain of the illness in Russia that followed such fatigue, for {464} her suit was granted. Still less did she regret the yet more serious malady that overtook her on returning to Paris with the glad tidings that brought such relief to his declining years. He lived to the age of ninety-two, and her grief at his loss was intense. Then indeed it was the long companion of a life-time that was taken from her; and we all know the tender attachment that strengthens with years between two persons who pass them together, and mutually esteem each other.

The general, on his part, always showed Madame Swetchine affection that had gradually become mixed up with a species of veneration. Though he never thwarted her religious views, he did not himself embrace them; he liked to see her Catholic friends, even priests, and especially Père de Ravignan; but remained satisfied with the Greek Church. Beside her duties as a wife, we have seen Madame Swetchine embrace those of a mother toward young Nadine. She never slackened in them until Nadine by her marriage ceased to require their exercise. Then she contrived to gratify her maternal instincts by undertaking the charge of Helene de Nesselrode, the daughter of her friend, just aged fourteen, and whose health demanded a warmer climate than that of Russia. Nor did she give her up till Helene married.

Faithful to all the sentiments she experienced, and warm in her friendships, Madame Swetchine's most enthusiastic attachment appears to have been for Mademoiselle Stourdja. It dated from her early married life, and continued through the whole of existence. At first it well-nigh provokes a smile to see how, scarcely parted for a few hours from her friend, she rushes to her pen, that it may express the pangs of separation. But girlhood has not passed over, ere thought, reason, duty, figure largely in the letters of Madame Swetchine. Her correspondence was extensive, and portrays herself just as she appeared in daily life—a wise, gentle, and affectionate friend or counsellor, as circumstances might dictate. Nowhere does this show her to greater advantage than in the letters—too few, unfortunately—that we possess from Madame Swetchine to Père Lacordaire. The difference between the two minds is striking. Her good sense and exquisite judgment contrast with his fiery impetuosity of thought and feeling; it is evident that her soul moves in the serene atmosphere of near union with God; while he, the religious of already some years' standing, is yet battling with strong human torrents. How gently she calls him up a higher path, never forgetting her womanhood nor his priestly character. His tone becomes much more religious; with rare candor and simplicity he sees and owns past imperfections.

Patriotism was one of her ardent sentiments, and she considered the feeling as a duty incumbent on women no less than men: of course, conduct was to be in accordance. Like many Russians, love of country centred for her in devotion to the sovereign; and of this her letters afford curious exemplification. She calls Alexander "the hero of humanity," and, after enumerating his many perfections, rejoices that this young sage is our emperor! When her husband was harshly summoned back to Russia, that the disgrace of exile from court might be inflicted, she exclaims: "God knows that I have never uttered a word of complaint against my sovereigns, nor so much as blamed them in heart!" Strange loyalty this to our modern western notions!

Her tender charity toward the poor began to show itself at an early age. At twenty-five in St. Petersburg she was already the soul of all good works there: nor did she content herself with merely giving alms, nor even with seeking to promote moral improvement; her ingenious kindness displayed itself also in endeavouring to procure pleasure or innocent amusements. She took flowers to those she visited, or tried to adorn their rooms with pictures. The {465} friendless deaf-and-dumb girl whom she had adopted became her constant attendant; and Madame Swetchine bore with her violence of temper until the defect was partly overcome.

She undertook the charge of a poor boy at Vichy, because his many maladies and their repulsive nature rendered him an object almost of disgust. Each summer that she returned there, he was among the first to greet her, sure of the kindest welcome. For years all his wants were supplied at her expense; and when he died, she said he had now become her benefactor.

To know Madame Swetchine thoroughly, her writings must be read. They were never meant for publication, but are either self-communings, or thoughts poured out before God. Some of her aphorisms are touchingly delicate in sentiment.

"Loving hearts are like paupers; they live on what is given them."

"Our alms form our sole riches, and what we withhold constitutes our real poverty."

Her prayers and meditations may be used with advantage for spiritual reading. Her unfinished treatise on Old Age is very beautiful; but more exquisite still is that more complete one on Resignation. Any passage chosen at random would show elevated thought.

"The first degree of submission produces respectful acquiescence to God's will; then this sentiment becomes transformed into a pious and sincere acceptation full of confidence; until confidence itself gradually acquires a filial character."

"Faith," she says, "makes resignation reasonable, and hope renders it easy."

"The love of God draws us away from our long love of self."

"Patience is so near to resignation, that it often seems one and the same thing."

She acknowledges that the hardest trials of resignation are found in those misfortunes irreparable here on earth. Such are death, old age, physical infirmity, loss of worldly honor, final impenitence. But the death of those we love, she says, may be deeply mourned in the midst of resignation; and our own certain death affords not only a counterbalance to such affliction, but also to the other evils of life. Old age is a halt between the world overcome, and eternity about to begin. Physical infirmities make us live in the atmosphere of the gospel beatitudes; we are then truly the poor ones of Christ, or rather poverty itself. The world sometimes forgets, but never pardons; what matters, provided virtue remain unscathed, or that it be restored through repentance?

"Suffering teaches us how to suffer; suffering teaches us how to live; suffering teaches us how to die."

And here we take our leave of this remarkable woman, who offers such a bright example to our generation.




{466}

From The Dublin Review.

RECENT IRISH POETRY.


Lays of the Western Gael and other Poems. By SAMUEL FERGUSON. London: Bell & Daldy. 1865.


Poems. By SPERANZA (LADY WILDE). Dublin: Duffy. 1864.


Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland. A modern Poem. By WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. London: Macmillan & Co. 1864.


Inisfail, a Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland. By AUBREY DE VERE. Dublin: Duffy. 1864.


In the palmy days of Young Ireland, its writers and speakers were particularly prone to the quotation of that strange saying of Fletcher of Saltoun: "If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a country." It has been the destiny of Young Ireland to make and to administer the laws of other countries than that for which its hot youth hoped to legislate. But it has certainly left Ireland a legacy of excellent ballads. A glance at the fortunes of some of the more prominent members of this brilliant but ill-fated party, as they present themselves to view at this moment, suggests curious contrasts and strange reflections. Mr. Gavan Duffy, who was assuredly the source of its noblest and wisest inspirations, after having within ten years occupied high office in three Victorian ministries, and laid the impress of his organizing genius deep on the constitutional foundations of that most rising of the Australian states, is on his way home from Melbourne for a brief European vacation. Mr. John Mitchel, [Footnote 96] who represented the more violent and revolutionary section of Young Ireland, was, before the American war commenced, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, one of the most extreme organs of secession, and afterward visited Paris with the hope of inducing the Emperor Napoleon to invade Ireland; but since the war was declared, he has resumed his post at Richmond—sometimes writing articles that are supposed more particularly to forecast President Davis's policy; sometimes serving in the ranks of General Lee's army as the driver of an ambulance wagon. His eldest son fired the first shot that struck Fort Sumter, and afterward was himself struck at the heart in its command by a northern bullet. Mitchel's favorite lieutenant, Devin Reilly, on the other hand, died in office at Washington, and his illness was attributed at the time to over-fatigue in one of the earliest of those great electioneering contests in which the supremacy of Mr. Lincoln finally came to be established over Mr. Stephen Douglas, "the little giant of the west," and the only man, in Mr. Reilly's ardent conviction, who could have saved the American Union. Mr. D'Arcy McGee, whose character bore to that of Devin Reilly about the same relation as Mr. Duffy's did to that of Mr. Mitchel, is at present a leading member of the executive council of Canada, and (the Duke of Newcastle was of opinion) the ablest statesman of British America; in proof of which it may suffice to say, that the project of the Canadian confederation was in a great degree originated and elaborated by him. The handsome young orator, whose fiery eloquence surpassed in its influence on an Irish audience in the Rotunda even the most brilliant effects of Sheil at the old Catholic Association, is now to be recognized in a bronzed and war-worn soldier, under {467} the style and title of Major-General Thomas Francis Meagher, of the United States army, commanding a division, which, after Sherman commenced his marvellous march on Savannah, was sent forward to hold the southern section of Tennessee, and was last heard of in camp at Chattanooga. One of this orator's favorite disciples, Eugene O'Reilly, holds an equivalent rank; but his line of service has lain not in America, but in Asia—his allegiance is not to the President Abraham Lincoln, but to the Sultan Abdul Aziz; he is known to all true believers under the style of O'Reilly Bey, one of the earliest of the Christian officers who took rank under the Hatti Hamayoun; and his sword's avenging justice was freely felt among the Mohammedan mob who horrified Christendom five years ago by the massacres of Syria. What region of the earth is not full of the labors of this party, sect, and school of all the Irish talents, of whom may well be sung the antique Milesian elegy, to which their prophet and guide gave words that complain "they have left but few heirs of their company?" [Footnote 97] The rabid violence and the underbred vulgarity of style which belong to so many of the Irish Nationalist party of the present day, are all unlike even the errors of Young Ireland. That party, though it tragically failed in fulfilling its hopes at home, has at all events justified its ambition abroad; and it was always and everywhere singularly true to its ideas. Scattered as it is, broken, and often apparently divided against itself, its members have not failed to yield loyal, valiant, and signal service to whatever cause they espoused or country they adopted. Its poets have had a principal hand in framing the constitutions of states manifestly destined to future greatness. Its orators have led forlorn hopes against fearful odds; and, whether in the marshes of the Chickahominy or in Syrian defiles, have not known how to show their backs to the enemy. It would be easy to trace over a far wider range the fortunes of its members since the great emigration that scattered them in the years that followed their catastrophe in '48. It is possible any day to find a Young Irelander, who at a more or less brief period after Ballingarry abiit, evasit, erupit, in the red baggy breeches of the Zouave, or in judicial crimson and ermine at the antipodes; in the black robe of a Passionist father or the silk gown of a queen's counsel; surveying a railroad in Dakotah, or organizing brigands in Sicily; helping in some subordinate way the Emperor Maximilian to found the Mexican empire, or on the high road to make himself a Yellow Button at Peking. As for American generals north and south, and colonial law-givers east and west, their names are legion and the legion's name very much begins with Mac or O'. May they make war and law to good advantage! It was not given to them to make either for Ireland; but, if Fletcher of Saltoun was a wise man in his generation, they in theirs have left their country a far more precious heritage.

[Footnote 96: Our American readers need hardly be reminded that some of the biographical statements which follow are very wide of the truth.—Ed. C. W.]

[Footnote 97: As truagh gan oidir 'n-a bh-farradk—literally, "What a pity that there is no heir of their company." See the "Lament for the Milesians," in "The Poems of Thomas Davis." Dublin: Duffy.]

Irish poetry certainly existed before Young Ireland, and was even considered, like oratory, to be a quality naturally and easily indigenous to the Irish genius. Moore had not unworthily sustained the reputation of his country in an age of great poets; and it was Moore's own avowed belief that his "Irish Melodies" were the very flowering of his inspiration, and were indeed alone warranted to preserve his fame to future ages. But neither Moore, nor any other poet of Irish birth, had attempted to give to the Irish that poetry "racy of the soil," wherein every image and syllable smacks of their own native nationality, which Burns and Scott, and a host of minor poets, had created for the Scotch. This is the work which Young Ireland deliberately and avowedly attempted, and in which it has assuredly succeeded. When the effort was first made, it is {468} told that several of the writers who afterward wrote what, in its order of ballad poetry, is unexcelled in the language—and notably Mr. Davis were quite unaware of any possession of the poetic faculty, and took to the task as a boy takes to his tale of Latin spondees and dactyls at college. But the stream was in the rock, and when the rock was tapped the stream flowed. In the course of less than a year "The Spirit of the Nation" was published, in which, with much undeniable rubbish, there appeared a number of ballads and songs that won the admiration of all good critics; and to which the far more important testimony of their popular acceptance is still given in the form of continuously recurring and increasing editions. A Scotch publisher— Mr. Griffin, of Glasgow—ten years ago had heard such accounts of this curious flood-tide of Irish verse, that he thought it might be a safe speculation to try whether, despite its politics, it might not make its way in the British market. The edition was very soon exhausted, and the book is now, we believe, out of print. These facts are of even more value than the high opinion which so experienced and accomplished a critic as Lord Jeffrey expressed about the same time of the poetic gifts of Davis and Duffy; for by universal consent the test of sale loses all its vulgarity when applied to that most ethereal compound of the human intellect, poetry. The poet is born, and not made, according to Horace; but in so far as he is made anything by man, it is by process of universal suffrage over the counter. Gradual, growing, general recognition, testified by many editions, at last, in the course of thirty years, establishes the irrefragable position of a Tennyson; against which a Tupper, long struggling, in the end finds his level, and lines trunks.

Much of the poetry of this time was, consciously or unconsciously, mimetic—mainly of Sir Walter Scott and of Lord Macaulay, whose "Lays of Ancient Rome" had recently been published. Scott, indeed, more distinctly suggested the elements out of which the Young Ireland poetry grew. Burns wrote in a peculiar provincial dialect, and with the exception of a few glorious lyrics, which will occur to every reader's recollection, he wrote for a district and for a class. But in Scott's mind all the elements of the Scottish nationality were equally confluent and homogeneous—the Highlander, the Lowlander, and the Islander; the Celt, the Saxon, and the Dane; the laird, the presbyter, and the peasant; and his imagination equally vivified all times—from those of the Varangians at Constantinople to those of the Jacobites at Culloden. But in Ireland there was no formed dialect like the Lowland Scotch, with a settled vocabulary and a concrete form. The language of the peasantry in many parts of the country was the same sort of base English that a foreigner speaks—scanty in its range of words, ill-articulated and aspirated, loose in the use of the liquid letters, formed according to alien idioms, and flavored with alien expletives. The language of the best of the ballads of the peasantry was that of a period in which the people still thought in Irish, and expressed themselves in broken English, uttered with the deep and somewhat guttural tones of the Celt, and garnished now and then with the more racy epithets, or endearments, or shibboleths, of their native speech. For a time the example of Lord Macaulay's ballad poetry prevailed, with its long rolling metre, its picturesque nomenclature, its contrasts rather rhetorical than poetical. It was possible to describe that decisive charge of the Irish brigade at Fontenoy, which Mr. Carlyle treats as a mere myth, in strains which instantly suggest those of the "Battle of Ivry." And so did Davis in a very memorable ballad; but the likeness was mainly in the measure, and Lord Macaulay had no copyright in lines of fourteen feet. The poem itself was Irish to the manor born; and, it might be pleaded, was only as like the verse of Lord Macaulay as the prose of Lord Macaulay is like the prose of Edmund Burke. {469} Beyond this task-work, however, which, although very ingeniously and fluently done, was still as much task-work as college themes, there arose a difficulty and a hope. Was it possible to transfuse the peculiar spirit of the Irish native poetry into the English tongue? The researches of the Archaeological Society were at this time rapidly disentombing the long-hidden historical and poetical treasures of the Irish language. Many of these had been translated by Clarence Mangan, in a style which did not pretend to be literally faithful, but which so expanded, illustrated, and harmonized the original that the poem, while losing none of its idiosyncrasy, gained in every quality of grace, freedom, and force. The rich, the sometimes redundant array of epithets, the mobile, passionate transitions, the tender and melancholy spirit of veneration for a vanishing civilization, for perishing houses, scattering clans, and a persecuted Church—some even of the more graceful of the idioms and more musical of the metres—might surely be naturalized in the English language; and so an Irish poetical dialect be absolutely invented in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was known how an Irish peasant spoke broken English, and put it into rhyme that did not want a strange wild melody, that was to more finished and scholarly verse as the flavor of poteen is to the flavor of Burgundy. But how would an Irish bard, drawing his inspiration from the primeval Ossianic sources, and thinking in the true ecstatic spirit of the Irish muse, speak, if he were condemned to speak, in the speech of the Saxon? This was the bold conception; and no one who is familiar with the poetry of Ireland during the last twenty years, will deny that it has been in great part fulfilled.

The poet to whom its execution is especially due can hardly be called a Young Irelander in the political sense of the word. But Young Ireland was a literary school as well as a political sect; and any one who remembers, or may read, Mr. Ferguson's wonderful "Lament for Thomas Davis," which it is to be greatly regretted he has not included in the present edition of his poems, will recognize the strong elective affinities which attached him to their action and influence. As it is, this volume is by far the most remarkable recent contribution of the Irish poetical genius to English literature. Mr. Ferguson has accomplished the problem of conveying the absolute spirit of Irish poetry into English verse, and he has done so under the most difficult conceivable conditions—for he prefers a certain simple and unluxuriant structure in the plan of his poems, and he uses in their composition the most strictly Saxon words he can find. But all the accessories and figures, and still more a certain weird melody in the rhythm that reminds the ear of the wild grace of the native music, indicate at every turn what Mr. Froude has half-reproachfully called "the subtle spell of the Irish mind." It is not surprising to find even careful and accomplished English critics unable to reach to the essential meaning of this poetry, which, to many, evidently appears as bald as the style of Burns first seemed to southron eyes when he became the fashion at Edinburgh eighty years ago. And yet to master the dialect of Burns is at least as difficult as to master the dialect of Chaucer, while Mr. Ferguson rarely uses a word that would not be passed by Swift or Defoe. Before one of the most beautiful, simple, and graceful of his later poems a recent critic paused, evidently dismayed by the introduction, of which, however, not willing to dispute the beauty, he quoted a few lines. It was an old Irish legend, versified with surpassing grace and spirit, of which this is the argument. Fergus MacRoy, king of Ulster in the old pagan times, was a very good king of his kind. He loved his people and they loved him. He was handsome, and strong, and tall. He bore himself well in war and in the chase. He drank with discretion. {470} Nevertheless his life had two troubles. He did not love the law; and he did love a widow. To listen as chief justiciary to the causes, of which a constant crop sprang up at Emania, tares and corn thickly set together, troubled him sorely. To make verses to the widow, on the other hand, came as easy as sipping usquebaugh or metheglin. He proposed, and though a king was refused; but not discouraged, pressed his suit again and again. And at last Nessa the fair yielded, but she made a condition that her son Conor should sit on the judgment-seat daily by his stepfather's side.. This easily agreed, Nessa became queen, while, as Fergus tells the tale:

  While in council and debate
  Conor daily by me sate;
  Modest was his mien in sooth,
  Beautiful the studious youth,

  Questioning with eager gaze,
  All the reasons and the ways
  In the which, and why because,
  Kings administer the laws.

In this wise a year passed, the youth diligently observant, with faculties ripening and brightening as his majesty's grew more consciously rusty and slow; and then a crisis came, which Mr. Ferguson describes in verses of which it is hard to say whether they best deserve the coif or the laurel, for in every line there is the sharp wit of the lawyer as well as the vivid fancy of the poet:

  Till upon a day in court
  Rose a plea of weightier sort,
  Tangled as a briery thicket
  Were the rights and wrongs intricate

  Which the litigants disputed,
  Challenged, mooted, and confuted,
  Till when all the plea was ended
  Naught at all I comprehended.

  Scorning an affected show
  Of the thing I did not know,
  Yet my own defect to hide,
  I said, "Boy judge, thou decide."

  Conor with unalter'd mien,
  In a clear sweet voice serene,
  Took in hand the tangled skein,
  And began to make it plain.

  As a sheep-dog sorts his cattle,
  As a king arrays his battle,
  So the facts on either side
  He did marshal and divide.

  Every branching side-dispute
  Traced he downward to the root
  Of the strife's main stem, and there
  Laid the ground of difference bare.

  Then to scope of either cause,
  Set the compass of the laws,
  This adopting, that rejecting,—
  Reasons to a head collecting,—

  As a charging cohort goes
  Through and over scatter'd foes,
  So, from point to point he brought
  Onward still the weight of thought

  Through all error and confusion,
  Till he set the clear conclusion,
  Standing like a king alone,
  All things adverse overthrown,

  And gave judgment clear and sound:—
  Praises filled the hall around;
  Yea, the man that lost the cause
  Hardly could withhold applause.

In these exquisite verses, the language is as strict to the point as if it were taken from Mr. Smith's "Action at Law;" but the reader will remark how every figure reminds him, and yet not in any mere mimetic fashion, of the spirit and illustrations of the Ossianic poetry. Nevertheless each word taken by itself is simple Saxon. Its Celtic character only runs like a vein through the poem, but it colors and saturates it through and through.

The greatest of Mr. Ferguson's poems, however, is undoubtedly "The Welshmen of Tirawley," a ballad which, we do not fear to say, is unsurpassed in the English language, or perhaps in even the Spanish. Its epic proportion and integrity, the vivid picturesqueness of its phraseology, its wild and original metre, its extraordinary realization of the laws and customs of an Irish clan's daily life, the stern brevity of its general narrative, and the richness of its figures, though all barbaric pearl and gold, give it a pre-eminent place among ballads. Scott would have devoted three volumes to the story, were it not for the difficulty of telling some of its incidents. Mr. Ferguson exhibits no little skill in the way that he hurries his readers past what he could not altogether omit. For the facts upon which the ballad is founded are simply horrible, and they are historically true.

After the time of Strongbow, several Welsh families who had followed his flag settled in Connaught. Among {471} these "kindly Britons" of Tirawley, were the Walshes or Wallises, the Heils (a quibus MacHale, and, possibly, that most perfect instance of the Hibernis ipsis Hibemior, the archbishop of Tuam); also the Lynotts and the Barretts, with whom we are at present more particularly concerned. These last claimed descent from the high steward of the manor of Camelot, and their end is a story fit for the Round Table. The great toparch of the territory was the MacWilliam Burke, as the Irish called the head of the de Burgos, descended from William FitzAdelm de Burgo, conqueror of Connaught, and therein commonly called William Conquer—of whom the Marquis of Clanricarde is the present lineal representative; being to Connaught even still somewhat as the MacCallummore is to Argyle, more especially when he happens to be in the cabinet, and to have the patronage of the post-office. Now the Lynotts were subject to the Barretts, and the Barretts were subject to the Burkes. But when the Barretts' bailiff, Scorna Boy, came to collect the Lynotts' taxes, he so demeaned himself that the whole clan rose as one man, even as Jack Cade, and slew him. Whereupon the vengeful Barretts gave to all mankind among the Lynott clan a terrible choice—of which one alternative was blindness; and the bearded men were all of their own preference blinded, and led to the river Duvowen, and told to walk over the stepping stones of Clochan-na-n'all; and they all stumbled into the flood and were drowned, except old Emon Lynott, of Garranard—whom accordingly the Barretts brought back and blinded over again, by running needles through his eyeballs.

  But with prompt-projected footsteps, sure as ever,
  Emon Lynott again crossed the river,
  Though Duvowen was rising fast,
  And the shaking stones o'ercast,
  By cold floods boiling past;
      Yet you never,
      Emon Lynott,
  Faltered once before your foemen of Tirawley.

  But turning on Ballintubber bank, you stood
  And the Barretts thus bespoke o'er the flood—
  "Oh, ye foolish sons of Wattin,
  Small amends are these you've gotten,
  For, while Scorna Boy lies rotten,
      I am good
      For vengeance!"
  Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.

  For 'tis neither in eye nor eyesight that a man.
  Bears the fortunes of himself and his clan,
  But in the manly mind
  These darken'd orbs behind,
  That your needles could never find,
      Though they ran
      Through my heartstrings.
  Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.

  But little your women's needles do I reck,
  For the night from heaven never fell so black,
  But Tirawley and abroad
  From the Moy to Cuan-an-fod,
  I could walk it, every sod,
      Path and track,
      Ford and togher,
  Seeking vengeance on you, Barretts of Tirawley!

And so leaving "loud-shriek-echoing Garranard," the Lynott, with his wife and seven children, abandons his home, and takes refuge in Glen Nephin, where, in the course of a year, a son is born to him, whom he dedicates from the first breath to his vengeance. He trains this boy with assiduous care to all the accomplishments of a Celtic cavalier;

  And, as ever the bright boy grew in strength and size,
  Made him perfect in each manly exercise,
  The salmon in the flood,
  The dun deer in the wood,
  The eagle in the cloud,
      To surprise,
      On Ben Nephin,
  Far above the foggy fields of Tirawley.

  With the yellow-knotted spear-shaft, with the bow,
  With the steel, prompt to deal shot and blow,
  He taught him from year to year,
  And trained him, without a peer,
  For a perfect cavalier,
      Hoping so—
      Far his forethought—
  For vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.

  And when mounted on his proud-bounding steed,
  Emon Oge sat a cavalier indeed;
  Like the ear upon the wheat,
  When the winds in autumn beat
  On the bending stems his seat;
      And the speed
      Of his courser
  Was the wind from Barna-na-gee o'er Tirawley!

Fifteen years have passed and the youth is perfected in all the accomplishments of sport and war, and the Lynott thinks it is time to return to the world and work out the scheme of his vengeance. So the father and son quit their mountain solitude, and journey southward to the bailey of Castlebar; and in a few fine touches the picture of Mac William's grandeur, as it strikes {472} the boy's wondering eyes, rises before us; the stone house, strong and great, and the horse-host at the gate and their captain in armor, and the beautiful Bantierna by his side with her little pearl of a daughter. Who should this be but the mighty MacWilliam! Into his presence ride the Lynotts; and, after salutations, the old man declares his business. He has come to claim, as gossip-law allows, the fosterage of MacWilliam's son. Ever since William Conquer's time, his race were wont to place a MacWilliam Oge in the charge of a Briton of Tirawley; and the young Lynott was a pledge for his father's capacity in such tutelage. When MacWilliam saw the young Lynott ride, run, and shoot, he said he would give the spoil of a county to have his son so accomplished. When Lady MacWilliam heard him speak, and scanned his fresh and hardy air, she said she would give a purse of red gold that her Tibbot had such a nurse as had reared the young Briton. The custom was allowed. The young MacWilliam was sent under the guidance of old Lynott into Tirawley, and Emon Oge remained as a hostage in Castlebar. So back to Garranard, no longer the "loud-shriek-echoing," old Lynott returns—

  So back to strong-throng-gathering Garranard,
  Like a lord of the country with his guard,
  Came the Lynott before them all,
  Once again o'er Clochan-ua-n'all,
  Steady-striding, erect, and tall,
      And his ward
      On his shoulders;
  To the wonder of the Welshmen of Tirawley.

And then the young Tibbot was taught all manner of feats of body, to swim, to shoot, to gallop, to wrestle, to fence, and to run, until he grew up as deft and as tough as Emon Oge. But he was taught other lessons as well, which were not in the bond of his foster-father.

  The lesson of hell he taught him in heart and mind;
  For to what desire soever he inclined,
  Of anger, lust, or pride,
  He had it gratified,
  Till he ranged the circle wide
      Of a blind
      Self-indulgence,
  Ere he came to youthful manhood in Tirawley.

Shame and rage track his passage, till one night the young Barretts of the Bac fell upon him at Cornassack and slew him. His body was borne to Castlebar. The Brehons were summoned to judgment; and over the bier of MacWilliam Oge began the plea for an eric to be imposed upon the Barretts for their crime; and the Brehons decreed the mulct, and Lynott's share of it was nine ploughlands and nine score of cattle. And now the ultimate hour of the blind old man's vengeance had come, not to be sated with land and kine. "Rejoice," he cried, "in your ploughlands and your cattle, which I renounce throughout Tirawley." But, expert in all the rules and customs of the clans, he asks the Brehons, Is it not the law that the foster-father may, if he please, applot the short eric? And they say it is so. Whereupon, formally rejecting his own share of the mulct, he makes his award—that the land of the Barretts shall be equally divided on every side with the Burkes, and that MacWilliam shall have a seat in every Barrett's hall, a stall in every Barrett's stable, and needful grooming from every hosteler for every Burke who shall ride throughout Tirawley for ever. And then, in a speech full of barbaric sublimity and tragic concentration of passion, he confesses "the patient search and vigil long" of his vengeance. It is almost unjust to break the closely-wrought chain of this speech by a single quotation, and we have been already unduly tempted to extract from this extraordinary poem; but, perhaps, this one verse may be separated from the rest as containing the very culmination of the old man's hideous rage.

  I take not your eyesight from you as you took
  Mine and ours: I would have you daily look
  On one another's eyes,
  When the strangers tyrannize
  By your hearths, and blushes rise
      That ye brook
      Without vengeance
  The insults of troops of Tibbots throughout Tirawley.

Another moment and he has done. "Father and son," says MacWilliam, {473} "hang them high!" and old Lynott they hanged forthwith; but young Lynott had eloped with MacWilliam's daughter to Scotland, and there changed his name to Edmund Lindsay. The judgment of the short eric was, however, held good; and the Burkes rode rough-shod over the Barretts, until, as Mr. Ferguson, almost verbally versifying the Chronicle of Duald Mac Firbis, says:

  Till the Saxon Oliver Cromwell,
  And his valiant Bible-guided
  Free heretics of Clan London
  Coming in, in their succession,
  Rooted out both Burke and Barrett;

a process of eviction which Mr. Ferguson, not merely for the sake of poetical justice, but out of the invincible ignorance of pure puritanical Protestantism, appears on the whole very highly to approve.

This ballad is indeed unique in its order: no Irish ballad approaches its wild sublimity and the thoroughness of detail with which it is conceived and executed. The only Irish narrative ballad which can bear a general comparison with it is Mr. Florence MacCarthy's "Foray of Con O'Donnell," a poem as perfect in its historical reality, in the aptness of all its figures, illustrations, and feats of phrase to a purely Celtic ideal, and which even surpasses "The Welshmen" in a certain easy and lissome grace of melody, that falls on the ear like the delicately drawn notes of Carolan's music. But this grace is disdained by the grim and compressed character which animates every line of Mr. Ferguson's ballad. His other works, fine of fancy and ripe of phrase as they are, fall far below it, "The Tain-Quest" does not on the whole enthral the reader, or magnetize the memory. "The Healing of Conall Carnach," and "The Burial of King Cormac" are poems that will hold their place in many future Books of Irish Ballads; they are unusually spirited versifications of passages from the more heroic period of early Irish history; but excepting occasional lines, they only appear to be the versifications of already written legends. The ballad of Grace O'Malley, commonly called Grana Uaile, may be advantageously contrasted with these, and it contains some verses of singular power—as, for example, where the poet denies the imputation of piracy against this lady who loved to roam the high seas under her own commission—

  But no: 'twas not for sordid spoil
  Of barque or sea-board borough,
  She plough'd with unfatiguing toil
  The fluent-rolling furrow;
  Delighting on the broad-back'd deep
  To feel the quivering galley and sweep
  Strain up the opposing hill, and sweep
  Down the withdrawing valley.

"Aideen's Grave" is a poem of a different kind, full of an exquisite melancholy grace; and where Ossian is supposed to apostrophise his future imitator, it is as if he thought after the manner of the Fenians, but was withal master of every symphony of the English tongue:

  Imperfect in an alien speech
  When wandering here some child of chance,
  Through pangs of keen delight shall reach.
  The gift of utterance,—
  To speak the air, the sky to speak,
  The freshness of the hill to tell,
  Who roaming bare Ben Edar's peak,
  And Aideen's briery dell,
  And gazing on the Cromlech vast,
  And on the mountain and the sea,
  Shall catch communion with the past,
  And mix himself with me.

There are lines in this poem that a little remind us of Gray, as—

  At Gavra, when by Oscar's side
  She rode the ridge of war;

and again in the "Farewell to Deirdre" there is something in the cast and rhythm of the poem, rather than in any individual word or line, that recalls Scott's "Farewell to North Maven." But to say so is not to hit blots. Mr. Ferguson's is beyond question the most thoroughly original vein of poetry that any Irish bard of late days has wrought out; and in laying down this volume we can only regret that the specimens he has thought worthy of collection are so few in comparison not merely with what he might have done, but with what he actually has done. For {474} this modesty, let us hope that the prompt penance of a second and enlarged edition may atone.

We have said that though Mr. Ferguson could hardly be called a Young Irelander in politics, all the elective affinities of his genius tended toward that school of thought. But Lady Wilde, then known if she wrote prose as Mr. John Fanshawe Ellis, and if she wrote verse as Speranza, had an extraordinary influence on all the intellectual and political activities of Young Ireland. It was a favorite phantasy of that time, when Lamartine's book was intoxicating all Young Europe with the idea of a grand coming revolutionary epopoeia, and the atrocities of socialism in France and Mazzinianism in Italy had not yet horrified all Christendom, to find the model men for a modern Plutarch in the ranks of the Girondists. Notably Meagher was supposed to be gifted with all the qualities of Vergniaud, and Speranza to have more than the genius of Madame Roland. But when we come to real comparisons of character, the parallel easily gives way. If Smith O'Brien was like any Frenchman of the first revolution, it was Lafayette. Mitchel had in certain respects a suspicious resemblance to the earlier and milder phases of Robespierre's peculiar intellectual idiosyncrasy. The base of Carnot's character was that faculty for organization which was the mainspring of Gavan Duffy's various and powerful genius. The parallel was, even so far as it went, intrinsically unjust. Lamartine's glowing imagination gave to the Girondists a grandeur largely ideal. It is fair to say that Meagher's oratory was on the whole of a higher order than Vergniaud's; and certainly Madame Roland, great as may have been the influence of her character and her conversation, has left us no example of her talent that will bear comparison with Lady Wilde's poems or prose.

These poems, however, if full justice is to be done to them, ought to be read from first to last with a running commentary in the memory from the history of those few tragic years whose episodes they in a manner mark. One poem is a mournfully passionate appeal to O'Connell against the alliance with the Whigs, which was charged as one of the causes of the secession. Another is a ballad of the famine, with lights as ghastly as ever glowed in the imagination of Euripides or Dante, and founded on horrors such as Greek or Italian never witnessed. There is then a picture of "the young patriot leader"— which an artist would characterize as a decidedly idealized portrait of Meagher—that American general who has since proved his title to be called "of the sword." Again, a gloomy series of images recalls to us the awful state of the country—the corpses that were buried without coffins, and the men and women that walked the roads more like corpses than living creatures, spectres and skeletons at once; the little children out of whose sunken eyes the very tears were dried, and over whose bare little bones the hideous fur of famine had begun to grow; the cholera cart, with its load of helpless huddled humanity, on its way to the hospital; the emigrant ship sending back its woeful wail of farewell from swarming poop to stern in the offing; and, far as the eye could search the land, the blackened potato-fields, filling all the air with the fetid odors of decay. Again and again such pictures are contrasted with passionate lyrics full of rebellious fire, urging the people to die, if die they must, by the sword rather than by hunger—and sometimes, too, with an angry, unreasonable, readily-forgiven reproach to the priesthood, who bore with such noble fortitude and self-immolating charity the very cross of all the crosses of that terrible time.

It is a curious fact, and reminds one of the myth of Achilles' heel, that O'Connell, who marched among his myriad foes like one clad in panoply of mail from head to foot, with a sort of inexpugnable vigor and endurance, not to be wounded, not to be stunned, with his buckler ready for every {475} thrust, and a blow for every blow that rained on his casque, was weak as a child under the influence of verse. Any one who may count over the number of times his favorite quotations, such as the lines beginning "Hereditary bondsmen" from "Childe Harold" for example, crop up in the course of his speeches, will be inclined to say that his fondness for poetry was almost preposterous. It was always tempting him, indeed, into dangerous ways—for while his prose preached "the ethereal principles of moral force," and the tenet that "no political amelioration is worth the shedding of a single drop of human blood," his favorite quotations were strictly in favor of fighting. The "hereditary bondsmen" were to "strike the blow;" and the Irish are a nation only too well disposed to interpret such a precept literally. Moore's melodies were always at the tip of his tongue; and Moore's "Slave so lowly" is indignantly urged not to pine in his chains, but to raise the green flag forthwith, and do or die. Some verses of O'Connell's own, of which he was at least equally fond, began:

  Oh Erin! shall it e'er be mine
  To see thy sons in battle line?

It was not altogether politic, especially when Young Ireland was gaining the ascendant, to use such quotations habitually; but the temptation seems to have been irresistible. So, on the other hand, may be conceived his excessive sensitiveness to anything sounding like a reproach that reached him through the vehicle of verse. When Brougham or Stanley or Peel struck their hardest, they got in return rather more than they gave—when the whole House of Commons tried to stifle his voice, over all the din Mr. Speaker heard himself with horror called upon to stop this "beastly bellowing." But when Moore wrote those lines—so cruelly touching, so terribly caustic—"The dream of those days," which appeared in the last number of the Melodies, the Liberator was, it is said, so deeply affected that he shed tears. So again, these lines of Speranza, which appeared in the Nation at the time of the secession, stung him to the very heart:

  Gone from us—dead to us—he whom we worshipped so!
    Low lies the altar we raised to his name;
  Madly his own hand hath shattered and laid it low—
    Madly his own breath hath blasted his fame.
  He whose proud bosom once raged with humanity.
    He whose broad forehead was circled with might;
  Sunk to a time-serving, driveling inanity—
    God! why not spare our loved country the sight?

  Was it the gold of the stranger that tempted him?
    Ah! we'd have pledged to him body and soul—
  Toiled for him—fought for him—starved for him—died for him—
    Smiled though our graves were the steps to hi s goal.
  Breathed he one word in his deep, earnest whispering?
    Wealth, crown, and kingdom were laid at his feet;
  Raised he his right hand, the millions would round him cling—
    Hush! 'tis the Sassenach ally you greet.

It is a curious and, indeed, a very touching trait in O'Connell's character that an imputation conveyed in this form had a power to wound him which all the articles of the morning papers and all the speeches of the evening debates had not. This redoubtable master of every weapon of invective, whose weighty words sometimes fell on his adversary like one of Ossian's Titans hurling boulders, or again burst into a motley cascade of quip, and crank, and chaff, and wild, rampant ridicule, that (sometimes rather coarse and personal) was at its best, to other rhetoric, as the music of an Irish jig is to all other music, nevertheless had his Achilles' tendon. The man who loved to call himself "the best abused man in the universe" was as weak before the enemy who attacked him according to the rules of prosody as if he lived in the age when every Celt in Kerry piously believed that a man, if the metre were only made sufficiently acrid, might be rhymed to death, in the same manner {476} as an ancestor of Lord Derby was, according to the Four Masters. [Footnote 98]

[Footnote 98: "John Stanley came to Ireland as the king of England's viceroy—a man who gave neither toleration nor sanctuary to ecclesiastics, laymen, or literary men; but all with whom he came in contact he subjected to cold, hardship, and famine; and he it was who plundered Niall, the son of Hugh O'Higgin, at Uisneach of Meath; but Henry D'Alton plundered James Tuite and the king's people, and gave to the O'Higgins a cow in lieu of each cow of which they had been plundered, and afterward escorted them into Connaught. The O'Higgins, on account of Niall, then satirized John Stanley, who only lived live weeks after the satirizing, having died from the venom of their satires. This was the second instance of the poetical influence of Niall O'Higgin's satires, the first having been the Clan Conway turning gray the night they plundered Niall at Clodoin, and the second the death of John Stanley."—Annals of the Four Masters. A.D. 1414.]

Lady Wilde's verse has not at all the same distinctively Celtic character as Mr. Ferguson's. He aspires to be

  Kindly Irish of the Irish,
  Neither Saxon nor Italian;

and his choice inspirations come from the life of the clans. Speranza's verse, so far as it has a specially Irish character, is of the most ancient type of that character. It is full of oriental figures and illustrations. It is, when it is most Irish, rather cognate to Persian and Hebrew ways of thinking, forms of metaphor, redundance of expression—in its tendency to adjuration, in its habit of apostrophe, in its very peculiar and powerful but monotonous rhythm, which seems to pulsate on the ear with the even, strident stroke of a Hindoo drum. Where this peculiar poetry at all adapts itself to the vogue of the modern muse, it is easy to see that Miss Barrett had very great influence in determining the mere manner of Lady Wilde's genius. When in the midst of one very powerful poem, "The Voice of the Poor," these lines come in—

  When the human rests upon the human,
    All grief is light;
  But who lends one kind glance to illumine
    Our life-long night?
  The air around is ringing with their laughter—
    God has only made the rich to smile,
  But we—in our rags, and want, and woe—we follow after,
    Weeping the while.

—we are tempted to note an unconscious homage to the author of "Aurora Leigh." But the character of Lady Wilde's verse is far more colored by the range of her studies than by the influence of any special style. The general reader, who may not breathe at ease the political atmosphere of the earlier part of this volume, will pause with pleasure to observe the spirit, grace, and fidelity of the translations which succeed. They are from almost every language in Europe, whether of Latin or Teutonic origin, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Swedish, Danish, and Russian. Among these may be mentioned in particular two hymns of Savonarola, which are rendered so exquisitely that one is tempted to suggest that the "Carmina Sedulii," with much more of the ancient Irish hymnology, are as yet untranslated into the tongue now used in Ireland. It is a work peculiarly adapted to her genius. The first quality of Lady Wilde's poetry is that lyrical power of which the hymn is the finest development; and her most striking poems are those which assume the character of the older and more regular form of ode.

The readers of Mr. William Allingham's early writings were in general gratefully surprised when it was announced that he was the author of a very remarkable poem, of the order of eclogue, which appeared by parts in Fraser's Magazine in 1863. His earlier poems, chiefly songs and verse of society, were pleasing from a certain airy grace and lightness; but on the whole their style was thin and jejune. Of late, his faculties have evidently mellowed very rapidly, and his language has become more animated, more concentrated, and more sustained. "Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland" has had, as it were, a triple success—the success of a pamphlet, the success of a novel of Irish life, and its own more proper and legitimate success, as a regular pastoral, skilfully conceived, carefully executed, in which the flow of thought is sustained at a very even, if not a very lofty level throughout, {477} and whose language is on the whole admirably harmonized, full of happy allusional effects, of quaint, minute, picturesque delineation, and of a certain graceful and easy energy. Mr. Gladstone has quoted some of its lines in a speech on the budget as an excuse for maintaining the duty on whisky; and he is not the only Englishman who has derived from its perusal an unexpected insight into some of the more perplexing problems of Irish life. Certainly, Mr. Allingham's views of Irish society, when he touches on questions of religion and politics, are not our views. He is an Ulster Protestant by religion, and an advanced liberal (we take it) in politics. But making those allowances, it must be admitted that he shows the poet's many-sided sympathetic mind in every page of this very remarkable poem. "It is," as he fairly says, "free from personalities, and neither of an orange nor a green complexion; but it is Irish in phraseology, character, and local color—with as little use as might be of a corrupt dialect, and with no deference at all to the stage traditions of Paddyism." It is divided into twelve chapters, and it is written in pleasantly modulated pentameters.

The story is of the life of a young squire, who was on the point of declaring himself a Young Irelander in his youth. His guardian, to cut the folly short, sent him incontinently to Cambridge, thence to the continent. He returns to Ireland in his twenty-sixth year, and finds the population decimated by the famine, and agitated by agrarian conspiracy. The neighboring gentry are bent, as conacre has ceased to pay, on supplanting the population by cattle. The population suppurates into secret societies. Laurence Bloomfield, long revolving the difficulties of his lot, and abhorring pretty equally the crimes of each class against the other—determined, moreover, to be neither exterminator, demagogue, nor absentee—resolves to live among the people of his estate like a modern patriarch, and see what patience, kindness, a good understanding, and enlightened management may be able to effect. He extinguishes the Ribbon lodge, fastens his tenantry by equitable leases to the glebe, and gradually finds in the management of his estate a career of easy, pleasant, and even prosperous power. In the course of ten years, Lisnamoy has become an Irish Arcadia, and Mr. Allingham's honest muse rises accordingly to sing a hero even more memorable in his way than the Man of Ross.

Bloomfield first promulgates his peculiar views of territorial administration at a dinner of his landlord neighbors in Lisnamoy House, where the wholesale eviction of the tenantry of a large neighboring district is proposed on the plea that—

      "This country sorely needs
  A quicker clearance of its human weeds;
  But still the proper system is begun,
  And forty holdings we shall change to one."

  Bloomfield his inexperience much confessed,
  Doubts if the large dispeopled farms be best,—
  Best in a wide sense, best for all the world
  (At this expression sundry lips were curl'd),—
  "I wish but know not how each peasant's hand
  Might work, nay, hope to win, a share of land;
  For ownership, however small it be,
  Breeds diligence, content, and loyalty,
  And tirelessly compels the rudest field,
  Inch after inch, its very most to yield.
  Wealth might its true prerogatives retain;
  And no man lose, and all men greatly gain."

It is from the ill-concealed contempt of his class for such thoughts as these, that Bloomfield's resolution to remain in Ireland and administer his own estate arises.

The story, as it is evolved, presents some charming sketches of character. Hardly even Carleton has delineated so admirably the nature and habits of the Irish peasant family as Mr. Allingham has done in his picture of the Dorans. How easy and natural, for example, is the portrait of Bridget Doran:

  Mild oval face, a freckle here and there,
  Clear eyes, broad forehead, dark abundant hair,
  Pure placid look that show'd a gentle nature,
  Firm, unperplex'd, were hers; the maiden's stature
  Graceful arose, and strong, to middle height,
  With fair round arms, and footstep free and light;
  She was not showy, she was always neat
  In every gesture, native and complete,
  Disliking noise, yet neither dull nor slack,
  Could throw a rustic banter briskly back,
  Reserved but ready, innocently shrewd,—
  In brief, a charming flower of womanhood.

{478}

The occasional sketches of Irish scenery are also very vividly outlined. This of Lough Braccan is not perhaps the best, but it is the most easily detached from the text:

  Among those mountain skirts a league away,
  Lough Braccan spread, with many a silver bay
  And islet green; a dark cliff, tall and bold,
  Half-muffled in its cloak of ivy old,
  Bastioned the southern brink, beside a glen,
  Where birch and hazel hid the badger's den,
  And through the moist ferns and firm hollies play'd
  A rapid rivulet, from light to shade.
  Above the glen, and wood, and cliff, was seen,
  Majestically simple and serene,
  Like some great soul above the various crowd,
  A purple mountain-top, at times in cloud
  Or mist, as in celestial veils of thought,
  Abstracted heavenward.

We may give another specimen of Mr. Allingham's power of delineation, which shows that he has studied Irish country life as well as Irish scenery and Irish physiognomy.

  Mud hovels fringe the "fair green" of this town,
  A spot misnamed, at every season brown,
  O'erspread with countless man and beast to-day,
  Which bellow, squeak, and shout, bleat, bray, and neigh.
  The "jobbers" there each more or less a rogue,
  Noisy or smooth, with each his various brogue,
  Cool, wiry Dublin, Connaught's golden mouth,
  Blunt northern, plaintive sing-song of the south,
  Feel cattle's ribs, or jaws of horses try.
  For truth, since men's are very sure to lie,
  And shun, with parrying blow and practised heed,
  The rushing horns, the wildly prancing steed.
  The moistened penny greets with sounding smack
  The rugged palm, which smites the greeting back;
  Oaths fly, the bargain like a quarrel burns,
  And oft the buyer turns, and oft returns:
  Now mingle Sassenach and Gaelic tongue;
  On either side are slow concessions wrung;
  An anxious audience interfere; at last
  The sale is closed, and whisky binds it fast,
  In case of quilting upon oziers bent,
  With many an ancient patch and breezy rent.

This is as true a picture in its way as Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur's "Horse-fair."

Mr. Aubrey de Vere's "Inisfail" comes last on our list, but certainly not least in our estimation. No poet of Young Ireland has like him seized and breathed the spirit of his country's Catholic nationality, its virginal purity of faith, its invincible patience of hope, and all the gentle sweetness of its charity. Young Ireland rather studied the martial muse, and that with an avowed purpose. "The Irish harp," said Davis, "too much loves to weep. Let us, while our strength is great and our hopes high, cultivate its bolder strains, its raging and rejoicing; or if we weep, let it be like men whose eyes are lifted though their tears fall." Mr. de Vere has tried every mood of the native lyre, and proved himself master of all. His "Inisfail" is a ballad chronicle of Ireland, such as Young Ireland would have thought to be a worthy result of all its talents, and such as, in fact, Mr. Duffy at one time proposed. But it must be said that its heroic ballads are not equal to those of Young Ireland. Some one said of a very finished, but occasionally frigid, Irish speaker, fifteen years ago, that he spoke like "Sheil with the chill on." A few of Mr. de Vere's ballads have the same effect of "Young Ireland with the chill on." They want the verve, the glow, the energy, the resonance, which belong to the best ballads of "The Spirit of the Nation." Of the writers of that time, Mr. D'Arcy McGee is perhaps, on the whole, the most kindred genius to his. Mr. de Vere has an insight into all the periods of Irish history in their most poetical expression which Mr. McGee alone of his comrades seems to have equally possessed. Indeed, if Mr. Me Gee's poems were all collected and chronologically arranged—as it is to be hoped they may be some day soon—it would be found that he had unconsciously and desultorily traversed very nearly the same complete extent of ground that Mr. de Vere has systematically and deliberately gone over. But though no one has written more nobly of the dimly glorious Celtic ages, and many of his battle-ballads are instinct with life, and wonderfully picturesque, it is easy to see that Mr. McGee's best desire was to follow the footsteps of the early saints, and the Via Dolorosa of the period of the penal laws. These, {479} too, are the passages over which Mr. de Vere's genius most loves to brood, and his prevailing view of Ireland is the supernatural view of her destiny to carry the cross and spread the faith. Young Ireland wrote its bold, brilliant ballads as a part of the education of the new nationality that it believed was growing up, and destined to take possession of the island—"a nationality that," to use Davis's words again, "must contain and represent all the races of Ireland. It must not be Celtic; it must not be Saxon; it must be Irish. The Brehon law and the maxims of Westminster, the cloudy and lightning genius of the Gael, the placid strength of the Saxon, the marshalling insight of the Norman; a literature which shall exhibit in combination the passions and idioms of all, and which shall equally express our mind, in its romantic, its religious, its forensic, and its practical tendencies. Finally, a native government, which shall know and rule by the might and right of all, yet yield to the arrogance of none;—these are the components of such a nationality." And such was the dream that seemed an easy eventuality twenty years ago. But Mr. de Vere writes after the famine and in view of the exodus. His mind goes from the present to the past by ages of sorrow—of sorrow, nevertheless, illumined, nurtured, and sustained by divine faith and the living presence of the Church. So in the most beautiful poem of this volume, he sees the whole Irish race carrying an inner spiritual life through all their tribulation in the guise of a great religious order of which England is the foundress, and the rules are written in the statute-book. We cannot select a better specimen of the thorough Catholic tone of Mr. de Vere's genius, and of the vivid power and finished grace of his poetry, than this:

  There is an order by a northern sea
    Far in the west, of rule and life more strict
  Than that which Basil rear'd in Galilee,
    In Egypt Paul, in Umbria Benedict.

  Discalced it walks; a stony land of tombs,
    A strange Petraea of late days, it treads!
  Within its court no high-tossed censer fumes;
    The night-rain beats its cells, the wind its beds.

  Before its eyes no brass-bound, blazon'd tome
    Reflects the splendor of a lamp high hung:
  Knowledge is banish'd from her earliest home
    Like wealth: it whispers psalms that once it sung.

  It is not bound by the vow celibate,
    Lest, through its ceasing, anguish too might cease;
  In sorrow it brings forth; and death and fate
    Watch at life's gate, and tithe the unripe increase.

  It wears not the Franciscan's sheltering gown;
    The cord that binds it is the strangers chain;
  Scarce seen for scorn, in fields of old renown
    It breaks the clod; another reaps the grain.

  Year after year it fasts; each third or fourth
    So fasts that common fasts to it are feast;
  Then of its brethren many in the earth
    Are laid unrequiem'd like the mountain beast.

  Where are its cloisters? Where the felon sleeps!
    Where its novitiate? Where the last wolf died!
  From sea to sea its vigil long it keeps—
    Stern foundress! is its rule not mortified?

  Thou that hast laid so many an order waste,
    A nation is thine order! It was thine
  Wide as a realm that order's seed to cast,
    And undispensed sustain its discipline!

It is another curious illustration of the Hibernis ipsis Hibernior that a de Vere, who is, moreover, "of the caste of Vere de Vere," should have so intimate a comprehension of the Celtic spirit as is often shown in these poems, especially in the use of those allegories which are so characteristic of the period of persecution, and in some of his metres that appear to be instinct with the very melody of the oldest Irish music. Here, indeed, we seem to taste, in a certain vague and dreamy sensation, which the mere murmur of such verses even without strict reference to the words produces, all the charm of which that ancient poetry might have been capable, if it were still cultivated in a language of living civilization. Several of these poems, if translated into Irish verse, would probably pass back without the change of an idiom—so completely Celtic is the whole conception of the language. The dirges, for example, appear on a first reading to be only English versions of Irish poems belonging to the time of the Jacobites and the Brigade—until, as we examine more carefully, we observe that the allegory is {480} wrought out with all the finish of more modern art, and that the metaphors are brought into a more just inter-dependence than the native bard usually thought necessary.

The tenderness that approaches to a sort of worship of Ireland under the poetical personification of a mother wailing for her children, again and again breaks out in Mr. de Vere's verse; and in all the range of Irish poetry it is nowhere more exquisitely expressed. The solemn beauty of the following verses is like that of some of those earliest of the melodies, whose long lines, with their curious rippling rhythm, were evidently meant for recitation as well as for musical effect:

  In the night, in the night, O my country, the stream calls out from afar;
    So swells thy voice through the ages, sonorous and vast;
  In the night, in the night, O my country, clear flashes the star:
    So flashes on me thy face through the gloom of the past.

  I sleep not; I watch: in blows the wind ice-wing'd and ice-fingered:
    My forehead it cools and slakes the fire in my breast;
  Though it sighs o'er the plains where oft thine exiles look'd back, and long lingered,
    And the graves where thy famish'd lie dumb and thine outcasts find rest.

Hardly less sad, but in so different a spirit as to afford a contrast that brings us to a fair measure of the variety of Mr. de Vere's powers, is a poem of the days of the brigade. The wife of one of the soldiers who followed Sarsfield to France after the capitulation of Limerick, and entered the Irish brigade of Louis XIV., is supposed, sitting by the banks of the Shannon, to speak:

  River that through this purple plain
  Toilest (once redder) to the main,
  Go, kiss for me the banks of Seine!

  Tell him I loved, and love for aye,
  That his I am though far away—
  More his than on the marriage-day.

  Tell him thy flowers for him I twine
  When first the slow sad mornings shine
  In thy dim glass; for he is mine.

  Tell him when evening's tearful light
  Bathes those dark towers on Aughrim's height,
  There where he fought, in heart, I fight.

  A freeman's banner o'er him waves!
  So be it! I but tend the graves
  Where freemen sleep whose sons are slaves.

  Tell him I nurse his noble race,
  Nor weep save o'er one sleeping face
  Wherein those looks of his I trace.

  For him my beads I count when falls
  Moonbeam or shower at intervals
  Upon our burn'd and blacken'd walls:

  And bless him! bless the bold brigade—
  May God go with them, horse and blade,
  For faith's defense, and Ireland's aid!

Here the abrupt transition of tone in the last verse from the subdued melancholy of those which precede it is very fine and very Irish. One can fancy the widowed wife, in all her desolation, starting, even from her beads, as she thinks of Lord Clare's dragoons coming down on the enemy with their "Viva la for Ireland's wrong!"

Twenty years have now passed since "The Spirit of the Nation" gave some glimpses of the mine of poetry then latent in the Irish mind. In 1845 Mr. Gavan Duffy published his "Ballad Poetry of Ireland"—a book which had the largest sale of any published in Ireland since the union and probably the widest influence. Upon this common and neutral ground Orange-man and Ribbon-man, Tory, and Nationalist, were perforce brought into harmonious contact; and "The Boyne Water" lost half its virus as a political psalm when it was embalmed side by side with the "Wild Geese" or "Willy Reilly." Behind the produce of his own immediate period, Mr. Duffy, in arranging his materials, could only find a few ballads by Moore, a few by Gerald Griffin, a few by Banim, Callanan, Furlong, and Drennan, that could be accounted legitimate ballad poetry. The rest was fast cropping up while he was actually compiling his collection, under the hot breath of the National movement, in a lavish and luxuriant growth. This impulse seems to have spent itself some years ago. Anything of real merit in the way of Irish poetry does not now appear in periodical literature more than once or twice in a year; and Mr. Thomas Irwin is the only recent writer whose verse may fairly be named in the same breath with that which we have now noticed. A rich grace and finish of {481} expression, a most quaint and delicate humor, and a fine-poised aptness of phrase, distinguish his poetry, which is more according to the taste that Mr. Tennyson has established in England than that of any Irish writer of the day.

Irish poetry seems now, therefore, to have passed into a new and more advanced stage of development. Here are four volumes, by four separate writers, of poems, old and new—all published within a year; and all, we believe, decidedly successful, and in satisfactory course of sale. Mr. Florence MacCarthy's poems had previously gone through several editions, and won enduring fame—perhaps more widely spread in America than even at home, on account of a quality somewhat kindred to the peculiar genius of the best American poets, and especially Longfellow, Poe, and Irving, that the reader will readily recognize in his finely-finished and most melodious verse. Nor should we omit to mention, in cataloguing the library of recent Irish poets, "The Monks of Kilcrea," a long romantic poem in the style of "The Lady of the Lake," which contains many a passage that Scott might own, but of which the writer remains unknown. Thus Irish national poetry is accumulating, as it were, in strata. Mr. Duffy set on the title-page of his "Ballad Poetry" the Irish motto, Bolg an dana, which not all his readers clearly understood; but which, to all who did, seemed extremely appropriate at the time. "This man," say the Four Masters, speaking of a great bard of the fifteenth century, "was called the Bolg an dana, which signifies that he was a common budget of poetry." And this was all that Mr. Duffy's Ballad Poetry professed to be. But what was only a budget of desultory jetsam and flotsam in 1845 is taking the shape of a solid literature in 1865; and those twenty golden years have at all events been well filled with ranks of rhyme.




{482}

From The Month.

CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.


CHAPTER VIII.


After I had been musing a little while, Mistress Bess ran into the room, and cried to some one behind her:

"Nan's friend is here, and she is mine too, for we all played in a garden with her when I was little. Prithee, come and see her." Then turning to me, but yet holding the handle of the door, she said: "Will is so unmannerly, I be ashamed of him. He will not so much as show himself."

"Then, prithee, come alone," I answered. Upon which she came and sat on my knee, with her arm round my neck, and whispered in mine ear:

"Moll is very sick to-day; will you not see her, Mistress Sherwood?"

"Yea, if so be I have license," I answered; and she, taking me by the hand, offered to lead me up the stairs to the room where she lay. I, following her, came to the door of the chamber, but would not enter till Bess fetched the nurse, who was the same had been at Sherwood Hall, and who, knowing my name, was glad to see me, and with a curtsey invited me in. White as a lily was the little face resting on a pillow, with its blue eyes half shut, and a store of golden hair about it, which minded me of the glories round angels' heads in my mother's missal.

"Sweet lamb!" quoth the nurse, as I stooped to kiss the pale forehead. "She be too good for this world. Ofttimes she doth babble in her sleep of heaven, and angels, and saints, and a wreath of white roses wherewith a bright lady will crown her."

"Kiss my lips," the sick child softly whispered, as I bent over her bed. Which when I did, she asked, "What is your name? I mind your face." When I answered, "Constance Sherwood," she smiled, as if remembering where we had met. "I heard my grandam calling me last night," she said; "I be going to her soon." Then a fit of pain came on, and I had to leave her. She did go from this world a few days after; and the nurse then told me her last words had been "Jesu! Mary!"

That day I did converse again alone with my Lady Surrey after dinner, and walked in the garden; and when we came in, before I left, she gave me a purse with some gold pieces in it, which the earl her husband willed to bestow on Catholics in prison for their faith. For she said he had so tender and compassionate a spirit, that if he did but hear of one in distress he would never rest until he had relieved him; and out of the affection he had for Mr. Martin, who was one while his tutor, he was favorably inclined toward Catholics, albeit himself resolved to conform to the queen's religion. When Mistress Ward came for me, the countess would have her shown into her chamber, and would not be contented without she ordered her coach to carry us back to Holborn, that we might take with us the clothes and cordials which she did bestow upon us for our poor clients. She begged Mrs. Ward's prayers for his grace, that he might soon be set at liberty; for she said in a pretty manner, "It must needs be that Almighty God takes most heed of the prayers of {483} such as visit him in his affliction in the person of poor prisoners; and she hoped one day to be free to do so herself." Then she questioned of the wants of those Mistress Ward had at that time knowledge of; and when she heard in what sore plight they stood, it did move her to so great compassion, that she declared it would be now one of her chiefest cares and pleasures in life to provide conveniences for them. And she besought Mistress Ward to be a good friend to her with mine aunt, and procure her to permit of my frequent visits to Howard House, as the Charter House is now often called: which would be the greatest good she could do her; and that she would be most glad also if she herself would likewise favor her sometimes with her company; which, "if it be not for mine own sake, Mistress Ward," she sweetly said, "let it be for his sake who, in the person of his afflicted priests, doth need assistance."

When we reached home, we hid what we had brought under our mantles, and then in Mistress Ward's chamber, where Muriel followed us. When the door was shut we displayed these jewelled stores before her pleased eyes, which did beam with joy at the sight.

"Ah, Muriel," cried Mistress Ward, "we have found an Esther in a palace; and I pray to God there may be other such in this town we ken not of, who in secret do yet bear affection to the ancient faith."

Muriel said in her slow way: "We must needs go to the Clink to-morrow; for there is there a priest whose flesh has fallen off his feet by reason of his long stay in a pestered and infected dungeon. Mr. Roper told my father of him, and he says the gaoler will let us in if he be reasonably dealt with."

"We will essay your ointment, Mistress Sherwood," said Mistress Ward, "if so be you can make it in time."

"I care not if I sit up all night," I cried, "if any one will buy me the herbs I have need of for the compounding thereof." Which Muriel said she would prevail on one of the servants to do.

The bell did then ring for supper; and when we were all seated, Kate was urgent with me for to tell her how my Lady Surrey was dressed; which I declared to her as follows: "She had on a brown juste au corps embroidered, with puffed sleeves, and petticoat braided of a deeper nuance; and on her head a lace cap, and a lace handkerchief on her bosom."

"And, prithee, what jewels had she on, sweet coz?"

"A long double chain of gold and a brooch of pearls," I answered.

"And his grace of Norfolk is once more removed to the Tower," said Mr. Congleton sorrowfully. "'Tis like to kill him soon, and so save her majesty's ministers the pains to bring him to the block. His physician, Dr. Rhuenbeck, says he is afflicted with the dropsy."

Polly said she had been to visit the Countess of Northumberland, who was so grievously afflicted at her husband's death, that it was feared she would fall sick of grief if she had not company to divert her from her sad thoughts.

"Which I warrant none could effect so well as thee, wench," her father said; "for, beshrew me, if thou wouldst not make a man laugh on his way to the scaffold with thy mad talk. And was the poor lady of better cheer for thy company?"

"Yea, for mine," Polly answered; "or else for M. de la Motte's, who came in to pay his devoirs to her, for the first time, I take it, since her lord's death. And after his first speech, which caused her to weep a little, he did carry on so brisk a discourse as I never noticed any but a Frenchman able to do. And she was not the worst pleased with it that the cunning gentleman did interweave it with anecdotes of the queen's majesty; which, albeit he related them with gravity, did carry somewhat of ridicule in them. Such as of her grace's dancing on Sunday before last at Lord Northampton's wedding, and calling him to witness {484} her paces, so that he might let monsieur know how high and disposedly she danced; so that he would not have had cause to complain, in case he had married her, that she was a boiteuse, as had been maliciously reported of her by the friends of the Queen of Scots. And also how, some days since, she had flamed out in great choler when he went to visit her at Hampton Court; and told him, so loud that all her ladies and officers could hear her discourse, that Lord North had let her know the queen-mother and the Duke of Guise had dressed up a buffoon in an English fashion, and called him a Milor du Nord; and that two female dwarfs had been likewise dressed up in that queen's chamber, and invited to mimic her, the queen of England, with great derision and mockery. 'I did assure her,' M. de la Motte said, 'with my hand on my heart, and such an aggrieved visage, that she must needs have accepted my words as true, that Milor North had mistaken the whole intent of what he had witnessed, from his great ignorance of the French tongue, which did render him a bad interpreter between princes; for that the queen-mother did never cease to praise her English majesty's beauty to her son, and all her good qualities, which greatly appeased her grace, who desired to be excused if she, likewise out of ignorance of the French language, had said aught unbecoming touching the queen-mother.' 'Tis a rare dish of fun, fit to set before a king, to hear this Monsieur Ambassador speak of the queen when none are present but such as make an idol of her, as some do."

"For my part," said her father, when she paused in her speech, "I mislike men with double visages and double tongues; and methinks this monseer hath both, and withal a rare art for what courtiers do call diplomacy, and plain men lying. His speeches to her majesty be so fulsome in her praise, as I have heard some say who are at court, and his flattery so palpable, that they have been ashamed to hear it; but behind her back he doth disclose her failings with an admirable slyness."

"If he be sly," answered Polly, "I'll warrant he finds his match in her majesty."

"Yea," cried Kate, "even as poor Madge Arundell experienced to her cost."

"Ay," quoth Polly, "she catcheth many poor fish, who little know what snare is laid for them."

"And how did her highness catch Mistress Arundell?" I asked.

"In this way, coz," quoth Polly: "she doth often ask the ladies round her chamber, 'If they love to think of marriage?' and the wise ones do conceal well their liking thereunto, knowing the queen's judgment in the matter. But pretty, simple Madge Arundell, not knowing so deeply as her fellows, was asked one day hereof, and said, 'She had thought much about marriage, if her father did consent to the man she loved.' 'You seem honest, i' fait said the queen; 'I will sue for you your father.' At which the dam was well pleased; and when father, Sir Robert Arundell, came court, the queen questioned him his daughter's marriage, and pressed him to give consent if the match were discreet. Sir Robert, much astonished, said, 'He never had heard his daughter had liking to any man; but he would give his free consent to what was most pleasing to her highness's will and consent.' Then I will do the rest,' saith the queen. Poor Madge was called in, and told by the queen that her father had given his free consent. 'Then,' replied the simple one, 'I shall be happy, an' it please your grace.' 'So thou shalt; but not to be a fool and marry,' said the queen. 'I have his consent given to me, and I vow thou shalt never get it in thy possession. So go-to about thy business. I see thou art a bold one to own thy foolishness so readily.'"

"Ah me!" cried Kate, "I be glad not to be a maid to her majesty; for I would not know how to answer her {485} grace if she should ask me a like question; for if it be bold to say one hath a reasonable desire to be married, I must needs be bold then, for I would not for two thousand pounds break Mr. Lacy's heart; and he saith he will die if I do not marry him. But, Polly, thou wouldst never be at a loss to answer her majesty."

"No more than Pace her fool," quoth Polly, "who, when she said, as he entered the room, 'Now we shall hear of our faults,' cried out, 'Where is the use of speaking of what all the town doth talk of?'"

"The fool should have been whipped," Mistress Ward said.

"For his wisdom, or for his folly, good Mistress Ward?" asked Polly. "If for wisdom, 'tis hard to beat a man for being wise. If for folly, to whip a fool for that he doth follow his calling, and as I be the licensed fool in this house—which I do take to be the highest exercise of wit in these days, when all is turned upside down—I do wish you all good-night, and to be no wiser than is good for your healths, and no more foolish than suffices to lighten the heart;" and so laughing she ran away, and Kate said in a lamentable voice,

"I would I were foolish, if it lightens the heart."

"Content thee, good Kate," I said; but in so low a voice none did hear. And she went on,

"Mr. Lacy is gone to Yorkshire for three weeks, which doth make me more sad than can be thought of."

I smiled; but Muriel, who had not yet oped her lips whilst the others were talking, rising, kissed her sister, and said, "Thou wilt have, sweet one, so great a contentment in his letters as will give thee patience to bear the loss of his good company."

At the which Kate brightened a little. To live with Muriel was a preachment, as I have often had occasion since to find.

On the first Sunday I was at London, we heard mass at the Portuguese ambassador's house, whither many Catholics of his acquaintance resorted for that purpose from our side of the city. In the afternoon a gentleman, who had travelled day and night from Staffordshire on some urgent business, brought me a letter from my father, writ only four days before it came to hand, and about a week after my departure from home. It was as follows:

"MINE OWN DEAR CHILD,—The bearer of this letter hath promised to do me the good service to deliver it to thee as soon as he shall reach London; which, as he did intend to travel day and night, I compute will be no later than the end of this week, or on Sunday at the furthest. And for this his civility I do stand greatly indebted to him; for in these straitened times 'tis no easy matter to get letters conveyed from one part of the kingdom to another without danger of discovering that which for the present should rather be concealed. I received notice two days ago from Mistress Ward's sister of your good journey and arrival at London; and I thank God, my very good child, that he has had thee in his holy keeping and bestowed thee under the roof of my good sister and brother; so that, with a mind at ease in respect to thee, my dear sole earthly treasure, I may be free to follow whatever course his providence may appoint to me, who, albeit unworthy, do aspire to leave all things to follow him. And indeed he hath already, at the outset of my wanderings, sweetly disposed events in such wise that chance hath proved, as it were, the servant of his providence; and, when I did least look for it, by a divine ordination furnished me, who so short a time back parted from a dear child, with the company of one who doth stand to me in lieu of her who, by reason of her tender sex and age, I am compelled to send from me. For being necessitated, for the preservation of my life, to make seldom any long stay in one place, I had need of a youth to ride with me on those frequent journeys, and keep me company in such places {486} as I may withdraw unto for quietness and study. So being in Stafford some few days back, I inquired of the master of the inn where I did lay for one night, if it were not possible to get in that city a youth to serve me as a page, whom I said I would maintain as a gentleman if he had learning, nurture, and behavior becoming such a person. He said his son, who was a schoolmaster, had a youth for a pupil who carried virtue in his very countenance; but that he was the child of a widow, who, he much feared, would not easily be persuaded to part from him. Thereupon I expressed a great desire to have a sight of this youth and charged him to deal with his master so that he should be sent to my lodgings; which, when he came there, lo and behold, I perceived with no small amazement that he was no other than Edmund Genings, who straightway ran into my arms, and with much ado restrained himself from weeping, so greatly was he moved with conflicting passions of present joy and recollected sorrow at this our unlooked-for meeting; and truly mine own contentment therein was in no wise less than his. He told me that his mother's poverty increasing, she had moved from Lichfield, where it was more bitter to her, by reason of the affluence in which she had before lived in that city, to Stafford, where none did know them; and she dwelt in a mean lodging in a poor sort of manner. And whereas he had desired to accept the offer of a stranger, with a view to relieve his mother from the burden of his support, and maybe yield her some assistance in her straits, he now passionately coveted to throw his fortune with mine, and to be entered as a page in my service. But though she had been willing before, from necessity, albeit averse by inclination, to part with him, when she knew me it seemed awhile impossible to gain her consent. Methinks she was privy to Edmund's secret good opinion of Catholic religion, and feared, if he should live with me, the effect thereof would follow. But her necessities were so sharp, and likewise her regrets that he should lack opportunities for his further advance in learning, which she herself was unable to supply, that at length by long entreaty he prevailed on her to give him license for that which his heart did prompt him to desire for his own sake and hers. And when she had given this consent, but not before, lest it should appear I did seek to bribe her by such offers to so much condescension as she then evinced, I proposed to assist her in any way she wished to the bettering of her fortunes, and said I would do as much whether she suffered her son to abide with me or no: which did greatly work with her to conceive a more favorable opinion of me than she had heretofore held, and to be contented he should remain in my service, as he himself so greatly desired. After some further discourse, it was resolved that I should furnish her with so much money as would pay her debts and carry her to La Rochelle, where her youngest son was with her brother, who albeit he had met with great losses, would nevertheless, she felt assured, assist her in her need. Thus has Edmund become to me less a page than a pupil, less a servant than a son. I will keep a watchful eye over his actions, whom I already perceive to be tractable, capable, willing to learn, and altogether such as his early years did promise he should be. I thank God, who has given me so great a comfort in the midst of so great trials, and to this youth in me a father rather than a master, who will ever deal with him in an honorable and loving manner, both in respect to his own deserts and to her merits, whose prayers have, I doubt not, procured this admirable result of what was in no wise designed, but by God's providence fell out of the asking a simple question in an inn and of a stranger.

"And now, mine only and very dear child, I commend thee to God's holy keeping; and I beseech thee to be as mindful of thy duty to him as thou {487} hast been (and most especially of late) of thine to me; and imprint in thy heart those words of holy writ, 'Not to fear those that kill the body, but cannot destroy the soul;' but withal, in whatever is just and reasonable, and not clearly against Catholic religion, to observe a most exact obedience to such as stand to thee at present in place of thy unworthy father, and who, moreover, are of such virtue and piety as I doubt not would move them rather to give thee an example how to suffer the loss of all things for Christ his sake than to offend him by a contrary disposition. I do write to my good brother by the same convenience to yield him and my sister humble thanks for their great kindness to me in thee, and send this written in haste; for I fear I shall not often have means hereafter. Therefore I desire Almighty God to protect, bless, and establish thee. So in haste, and in visceribus Christi, adieu."

The lively joy I received from this letter was greater than I can rehearse, for I had now no longer before my eyes the sorrowful vision of my dear father with none to tend and comfort him in his wanderings; and no less was my contentment that Edmund, my dearly-loved playmate, was now within reach of his good instructions, and free to follow that which I was persuaded his conscience had been prompting him to seek since he had attained the age of reason.

I note not down in this history the many visits I paid to the Charter House that autumn, except to notice the growing care Lady Surrey did take to supply the needs of prisoners and poor people, and how this brought her into frequent occasions of discourse with Mistress Ward and Muriel, who nevertheless, as I also had care to observe, kept these interviews secret, which might have caused suspicion in those who, albeit Catholic, were ill-disposed to adventure the loss of worldly advantages by the profession of what Protestants do term perverse and open papistry. Kate and Polly were of this way of thinking—prudence was ever the word with them when talk of religion was ministered in their presence; and they would not keep as much as a prayer-book in their chambers for fear of evil results. They were sometimes very urgent with their father for to suffer them to attend Protestant service, which they said would not hinder them from hearing mass at convenient times, and saying such prayers as they listed; and Polly the more so that a young gentleman of good birth and high breeding, who conformed to the times, had become a suitor for her hand, and was very strenuous with her on the necessity of such compliance, which nevertheless her father would not allow of. Much company came to the house, both Protestant and Catholic; for my aunt, who was sick at other times, did greatly mend toward the evening. When I was first in London for some weeks, she kept me with her at such times in the parlor, and encouraged me to discourse with the visitors; for she said I had a forwardness and vivacity of speech which, if practised in conversation, would in time obtain for me as great a reputation of wit as Polly ever enjoyed. I was nothing loth to study in this new school, and not slow to improve in it. At the same time I gave myself greatly to the reading of such books as I found in my cousins' chambers; amongst which were some M. de la Motte had lent to Polly, marvellous witty and entertaining, such as Les Nouvelles de la Reine de Navarre and the Cents Histoires tragiques; and others done in English out of French by Mr. Thomas Fortescue; and a poem, writ by one Mr. Edmund Spenser, very beautiful, and which did so much bewitch me, that I was wont to rise in the night to read it by the light of the moon at my casement window; and the Morte d' Arthur, which Mr. Hubert Rookwood had willed me to read, whom I met at Bedford, and which so filled my head with fantastic images and imagined scenes, that I did, as it were, fall in love with {488} Sir Launcelot, and would blush if his name were but mentioned, and wax as angry if his fame were questioned as if he had been a living man, and I in a foolish manner fond of him.

This continued for some little time, and methinks, had it proceeded further, I should have received much damage from a mode of life with so little of discipline in it, and so great incitements to faults and follies which my nature was prone to, but which my conscience secretly reproved. And among the many reasons I have to be thankful to Mistress "Ward, that never-to-be-forgotten friend, whose care restrained me in these dangerous courses, partly by compulsion through means of her influence with my aunt and her husband, and partly by such admonitions and counsel as she favored me with, I reckon amongst the greatest that, at an age when the will is weak, albeit the impulses be good, she lent a helping hand to the superior part of my soul to surmount the evil tendencies which bad example on the one hand, and weak indulgence on the other, fostered in me, whose virtuous inclinations had been, up to that time, hedged in by the strong safeguards of parental watchfulness. She procured that I should not tarry, save for brief and scanty spaces of time, in my aunt's parlor when she had visitors, and so contrived that it should be when she herself was present, who, by wholesome checks and studied separation from the rest of the company, reduced my forwardness with just restraints such as became my age. And when she discovered what books I read, oh, with what fervent and strenuous speech she drove into my soul the edge of a salutary remorse; with what tearful eyes and pleading voice she brought before me the memory of my mother's care and my father's love, which had ever kept me from drinking such empoisoned draughts from the well-springs of corruption which in our days books of entertainment too often prove, and if not altogether bad, yet be such as vitiate the palate and destroy the appetite for higher and purer kinds of mental sustenance. Sharp was her correction, but withal so seasoned with tenderness, and a grief the keenness of which I could discern was heightened by the thought that my two elder cousins (one time her pupils) should be so drawn aside by the world and its pleasures as to forget their pious habits, and minister to others the means of such injury as their own souls had sustained, that every word she uttered seemed to sink into my heart as if writ with a pen of fire; and mostly when she thus concluded her discourse:

"There hath been times, Constance, when men, yea and women also, might play the fool for a while, without so great danger as now, and dally with idle folly like children who do sport on a smooth lawn nigh to a running stream, under their parents' eyes, who, if their feet do but slip, are prompt to retrieve them. But such days are gone by for the Catholics of this land. I would have thee to bear in mind that 'tis no common virtue—no convenient religion—faces the rack, the dungeon, and the rope; that wanton tales and light verses are no viaticum for a journey beset with such perils. And thou—thou least of all—whose gentle mother, as thou well knowest, died of a broken heart from the fear to betray her faith—thou, whose father doth even now gird himself for a fight, where to win is to die on a scaffold—shouldst scorn to omit such preparation as may befit thee to live, if it so please God, or to die, if such be his will, a true member of his holy Catholic Church. O Constance, it doth grieve me to the heart that thou shouldst so much as once have risen from thy bed at night to feed thy mind with the vain words of profane writers, in place of nurturing thy soul by such reasonable exercises and means as God, through the teaching of his Church, doth provide for the spiritual growth of his children, and by prayer and penance make ready for coming conflicts. Bethink thee of the many holy priests, yea and laymen also, who be in uneasy {489} dungeons at this time, lying on filthy straw, with chains on their bruised limbs, but lately racked and tormented for their religion, whilst thou didst offend God by such wanton conduct. Count up the times thou hast thus offended; and so many times rise in the night, my good child, and say the psalm 'Miserere,' through which we do especially entreat forgiveness for our sins."

I cast myself in her arms, and with many bitter tears lamented my folly; and did promise her then, and, I thank God, ever after did keep that promise, whilst I abode under the same roof with her, to read no books but such as she should warrant me to peruse. Some days after she procured Mr. Congleton's consent, who also went with us, to carry me to the Marshalsea, whither she had free access at that time by reason of her acquaintanceship with the gaoler's wife, who, when a maid, had been a servant in her family, and who, having been once Catholic, did willingly assist such prisoners as came there for their religion. There we saw Mr. Hart, who hath been this long while confined in a dark cell, with nothing but boards to lie on till Mistress Ward gave him a counterpane, which she concealed under her shawl, and the gaoler was prevailed on by his wife not to take from him. He was cruelly tortured some time since, and condemned to die on the same day as Mr. Luke Kirby and some others on a like charge, that he did deny the queen's supremacy in spiritual matters; but he was taken off the sledge and returned to prison. He did take it very quietly and patiently; and when Mr. Congleton expressed a hope he might soon be released from prison, he smiled and said:

"My good friend, my crosses are light and easy; and the being deprived of all earthly comfort affords a heavenly joy, which maketh my prison happy, my confinement merciful, my solitude full of blessings. To God, therefore, be all praise, honor, and glory, for so unspeakable a benefit bestowed upon his poor, wretched, and unworthy servant."

So did he comfort those who were more grieved for him than he for himself; and each in turn we did confess; and after I had disburdened my conscience in such wise that he perceived the temper of my mind, and where to apply remedies to the dangers the nature of which his clearsightedness did foresee, he thus addressed me:

"The world, my dear daughter, soon begins to seem insipid, and all its pleasures grow bitter as gall; all the fine shows and delights it affords appear empty and good for nothing to such as have tasted the happiness of conversing with Christ, though it be amidst torments and tribulations, yea and in the near approach of death itself. This joy so penetrates the soul, so elevates the spirit, so changes the affections, that a prison seems not a prison but a paradise, death a goal long time desired, and the torments which do accompany it jewels of great price. Take with thee these words, which be the greatest treasure and the rarest lesson for these times: 'He that loveth his life in this world shall lose it, and he that hateth it shall find it;' and remember the devil is always upon the watch. Be you also watchful. Pray you for me. I have a great confidence that we shall see one another in heaven, if you keep inviolable the word you have given to God to be true to his Catholic Church and obedient to its precepts, and he gives me the grace to attain unto that same blessed end."

These words, like the sower's seed, fell into a field where thorns oftentimes threatened to choke their effect; but persecution, when it arose, consumed the thorns as with fire, and the plant, which would have withered in stony ground, bore fruit in a prepared soil.

As we left the prison, it did happen that, passing by the gaoler's lodge, I saw him sitting at a table drinking ale with one whose back was to the door. A suspicion came over me, the most unlikely in the world, for it was against all credibility, and I had not seen so much as that person's face; but in the shape of his head and the manner of {490} his sitting, but for a moment observed, there was a resemblance to Edmund Genings, the thought of which I could not shake off. When we were walking home, Mr. Congleton said Mr. Hart had told him that a short time back a gentleman had been seized, and committed to close confinement, whom he believed, though he had not attained to the certainty thereof, to be Mr. Willisden; and if it were so, that much trouble might ensue to many recusants, by reason of that gentleman having dealt in matters of great importance to such persons touching lands and other affairs whereby their fortunes and maybe their lives might be compromised. On hearing of this, I straightway conceived a sudden fear lest it should be my father and not Mr. Willisden was confined in that prison; and the impression I had received touching the youth who was at table with the gaoler grew so strong in consequence, that all sorts of fears founded thereon ran through my mind, for I had often heard how persons did deceive recusants by feigning themselves to be their friends, and then did denounce them to the council, and procured their arrest and oftentimes their condemnation by distorting and false swearing touching the speech they held with them. One Eliot in particular, who was a man of great modesty and ingenuity of countenance, so as to defy suspicion (but a very wicked man in more ways than one, as has been since proved), who pretended to be Catholic, and when he did suspect any to be a Jesuit, or a seminary priest, or only a recusant, he would straightway enter into discourse with him, and in an artful manner cause him to betray himself; whereupon he was not slow to throw off the mask, whereby several had been already brought to the rope. And albeit I would not credit that Edmund should be such a one, the evil of the times was so great that my heart did misgive me concerning him, if indeed he was the youth whom I had espied on such familiar terms with that ruffianly gaoler. I had no rest for some days, lacking the means to discover the truth of that suspicion; for Mrs. Ward, to whom I did impart it, dared not adventure again that week to the Marshalsea, by reason of the gaoler's wife having charged her not to come frequently, for that her husband had suddenly suspected her to be a recusant, and would by no means allow of her visits to the prisoners; but that when he was drunk she could sometimes herself get his keys and let her in, but not too often. Mr. Congleton would have it the prisoner must be Mr. Willisden and no other, and took no heed of my fears, which he said had no reasonable grounds, as I had not so much as seen the features of the youth I took to be my father's page. But I could by no means be satisfied, and wept very much; and I mind me how, in the midst of my tears that evening, my eyes fell on the frontispiece of a volume of the Morte d' Arthur which had been loosened when the book was in my chamber, and in which was picture of Sir Launcelot, the present mirror of my fancy. I had pinned it to my curtain, and jewelled it as a treasure and fund of foolish musings, even after yielding up, with promise to read no more therein, the book which had once held it. And thus were kept alive the fantastic imaginings wherewith I clothed a creature conceived in a writer's brain, whose nobility was the offspring of his thoughts and the continual entertainment of mine own. But, oh, how just did I now find the words of a virtuous friend, and how childish my folly, when the true sharp edge of present fear dispersed these vapory clouds, even as the keen blast of a north wind doth drive away a noxious mist! The sight of the dismal dungeon that day visited, the pallid features of that true confessor therein immured, his soul-piercing words, and the apprehensions which were wringing my heart—banished of a sudden an idle dream engendered by vain readings and vainer musings, and Sir Launcelot held henceforward no higher, or not so high, a {491} place in my esteem as the good Sir Guy of Warwick, or the brave Hector de Valence.

A day or two after, my Lady Surrey sent her coach for me; and I found her in her dressing-room seated on a couch with her waiting-women and Mistress Milicent around her, who were displaying a great store of rich suits and jewels and such-like gear drawn from wardrobes and closets, the doors of which were thrown open, and little Mistress Bess was on tiptoe on a stool afore a mirror with a diamond necklace on, ribbons flaring about her head, and a fan of ostrich-feathers in her hand.

"Ah, sweet one," said my lady, when I came in, "thou must needs be surprised at this show of bravery, which ill consorts with the mourning of our present garb or the grief of our hearts; but, i' faith, Constance, strange things do come to pass, and such as I would fain hinder if I could."

"Make ready thine ears for great news, good Constance," cried Bess, running toward me encumbered with her finery, and tumbling over sundry pieces of head-gear in her way, to the waiting-woman's no small discomfiture. "The queen's majesty doth visit upon next Sunday the Earl and Countess of Surrey; and as her highness cannot endure the sight of dool, they and their household must needs put it off and array themselves in their costliest suits; and Nan is to put on her choicest jewels, and my Lady Bess must be grand too, to salute the queen."

"Hush, Bessy," said my lady; and leading me into the adjoining chamber, "'tis hard," quoth she, holding my hand in hers,—"'tis hard when his grace is in the Tower and in disgrace with her majesty, and only six weeks since our Moll died, that she must needs visit this house, where there be none to entertain her highness but his grace's poor children; 'tis hard, Constance, to be constrained to kiss the hand which threatens his life who gave my lord his, and mostly to smile at the queen's jesting, which my Lord Arundel saith we must of all things take heed to observe, for that she as little can endure dool in the face as in the dress."

A few tears fell from those sweet eyes upon my hand, which she still held, and I said, "Comfort you, my sweet lady. It must needs be that her majesty doth intend favor to his grace through this visit. Her highness would never be minded to do so much honor to the children if she did not purpose mercy to the father."

"I would fain believe it were so," said the countess, thoughtfully; "but my Lord Arundel and my Lady Lumley hold not, I fear, the same opinion. And I do hear from them that his grace is much troubled thereat, and hath written to the Earl of Leicester and my Lord Burleigh to lament the queen's determination to visit his son, who is not of age to receive her." [Footnote 99]

[Footnote 99: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1547 to 1580: "Duke of Norfolk to the Earl of Leicester and Lord Burleigh; laments the queen's determination to visit his son's house, who is not of age to receive her."]

"And doth my Lord of Surrey take the matter to heart?"

"My lord's disposition doth incline him to conceive hope where others see reason to fear," she replied. "He saith he is glad her majesty should come to this house, and that he will take occasion to petition her grace to release his father from the Tower; and he hath drawn up an address to that effect, which is marvellous well expressed; and, since 'tis written, he makes no more doubt that her majesty will accede to it than if the upshot was not yet to come, but already past. And he hath set himself with a skill beyond his years, and altogether wonderful in one so young, to prepare all things for the queen's reception; so that when his grandfather did depute my Lord Berkeley and my Lady Lumley to assist us (he himself being too sick to go out of his house) in the ordering of the collation in the banqueting-room, and the music wherewith to greet her highness on her arrival, as well as the ceremonial to be observed during her visit, they did find that my lord had so {492} disposedly and with so great taste ordained the rules to be observed, and the proper setting forth of all things, that little remained for them to do. And he will have me to be richly dressed, and to put on the jewels which were his mother's, which, since her death, have not been worn by the two Duchesses of Norfolk which did succeed her. Ah me, Mistress Constance, I often wish my lord and I had been born far from the court, in some quiet country place, where there are no queens to entertain, and no plots which do bring nobles into so great dangers."

"Alack," I cried, "dear lady, 'tis not the highest in the land that be alone to suffer. Their troubles do stand forth in men's eyes; and when a noble head is imperilled all the world doth know of it; but blood is spilt in this land, and torments endured, which no pen doth chronicle, and of which scant mention is made in palaces."

"There is a passion in thy speech," my lady said, "which betrayeth a secret uneasiness of heart. Hast thou had ill news, my Constance?"

"No news," I answered, "but that which my fears do invent and whisper;" and then I related to her the cause of my disturbance, which she sought to allay by kind words, which nevertheless failed to comfort me.

Before I left she did propose I should come to the Charter House on the morning of the queen's visit, and bring Mistress Ward and my cousins also, as it would pleasure them to stand in the gallery and witness the entertainment, and albeit my heart was heavy, methought it was an occasion not to be overpast to feast my eyes with the sight of majesty, and to behold that great queen who doth hold in her hands her subjects' lives, and who, if she do but nod, like the god of the heathen which books do speak of, such terrible effects ensue, greater than can be thought of; and so I gave my lady mine humble thanks, and also for that she did gift me with a dainty hat and a well-embroidered suit to wear on that day; which, when Kate saw, she fell into a wonderful admiration of the pattern, and did set about to get it copied afore the day of the royal visit to Howard House. As I returned to Holborn in my lady's coach there was a great crowd in the Cornhill, and the passage for a while arrested by the number of persons on their way to what is now called the Royal Exchange, which her majesty was to visit in the evening. I sat very quietly with mine eyes fixed on the foot-passengers, not so much looking at their faces as watching their passage, which, like the running of a river, did seem endless. But at last it somewhat slackened, and the coach moved on, when, at the corner of a street, nigh unto a lamp over a shop, which did throw a light on his face, I beheld Edmund Genings. Oh, how my heart did beat, and with what a loud cry I did call to the running footmen to stop! But the noise of the street was so great they did not hear me, and I saw him turn and pursue his way down another street toward the river. My good uncle, when he heard I had verily seen my father's new page in the city, gave more heed to my suspicions, and did promise to go himself unto the Marshalsea on the next day, and seek to verify the name of the prisoner Mr. Hart had made mention of.

[TO BE CONTINUED. Page 600]




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From The Cornhill Magazine.

MODERN FALCONRY.


Hunting and hawking were, as every one knows, the great sports of our forefathers. Angling was but little understood before the time of Walton and Cotton, and not thoroughly even by those great masters themselves. In the olden time, the bow and arrow, being scarcely adapted for fowling, were used almost exclusively against large game, such as deer; the crossbow was perhaps not a very efficient weapon; and the art of shooting flying with a fowling-piece may be said to be of recent invention. It is true that, a couple of hundred years ago, men (the sportsmen of those days) might have been seen, armed with a match-lock, or some such wonderful contrivance, crawling toward a covey of basking partridges, with the intention of shooting them on the ground; and Dame Juliana Berners, who wrote upon falconry in the middle of the fifteenth century, invented a fly-rod of such excessive weight that the strongest salmon-fisher in these days would be unwilling to wield it. But this was sorry work, and we can well understand that, of itself, it was very far from satisfying a sport-loving people. They still held by the old sports. Hunting and hawking were in their glory when what we now call "shooting" and "fishing" were scarcely understood at all. Deer were in abundance, and so was other game, especially if we consider the few people privileged to kill it. In those days, though not in these, the most sportsmanlike way was the most profitable; and more quarry could be taken with dogs and hawks than in any other, and perhaps less legitimate, manner.

Hunting we retain, as our great and national sport, though circumstances, rather than choice, have led to our exchanging the stag for the fox. But falconry, the great sport of chivalry, once the national sport of these islands, has been permitted so nearly to die out that but few people are aware of its existence amongst us. That it does still live, however, though under a cloud,—to what extent and in what manner it is carried out,—it is the purport of this paper to show.

The causes of the decrease, and almost the loss, of this sport are obvious enough. Amongst the chief are, the present enclosed state of the country; the perfection—or what is almost perfection—of modern gunnery, and of the marksman's skill, and the desire to make large bags. Add to these, perhaps, the trouble and expense attendant upon keeping hawks. But the links have at no time absolutely been broken which, in England, unite falconry in the time of Ethelbert to falconry of the present day. Lord Orford and Colonel Thornton took them up and strengthened them at the end of the last, and the beginning of the present, century. Later still, the Loo Club in Holland saved falconry from extinction in England, because its English members brought their falcons to this country, and flew them here. The Barrs, first-rate Scotch falconers, and John Pells, of Norfolk, helped the course by training and selling hawks; and a work entitled "Falconry in the British Isles," published in 1855, together with some chapters which appeared rather later in one of the leading sporting newspapers (and were afterward collected in a volume), served to create or encourage a love for falconry.

It was said that the present Duke of St. Albans, the grand falconer, would take to the sport con amore, and not as a mere form; but this is very far indeed from being the case. {494} The Maharajah Dhuleep Singh was perhaps the most considerable falconer of the present day; and last season but one he killed 119 grouse with his young hawks; but he has lately given up the greater part of his hawking establishment. In Ireland there are some good falcons, flown occasionally at herons, and frequently, and with great success, at other quarry; many officers in the army are falconers; and, in the wilds of Cheshire, there lives a poor gentleman who has flown hawks for fifteen years, and contrives, through the courtesy of his friends, to make a bag on the moors with his famous grouse-hawk "The Princess," and one or two others.

Those who have been accustomed to regard falconry as entirely a thing of the past, and the secret of hawk-training as utterly lost as that of Stonehenge or the Pyramids, will be surprised to hear that there are, at the present time, hawks in England of such proved excellence, that it is impossible to conceive even princes in the olden time, notwithstanding the monstrous prices they are said to have paid for some falcons, ever possessing better. When a peregrine falcon will "wait on," as it is called, at the height of a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards above her master, as he beats the moors for her, and, when the birds rise, chase them with almost the speed of an arrow; when she is sure to kill, unless the grouse escapes in cover; when she will not attempt to "carry" her game, even should a dog run by her, and when she is ready to fly two or three times in one morning—it can easily be imagined, even by those who know nothing of falconry, that she has reached excellence.

And so, in heron-hawking. If a cast of falcons, unhooded at a quarter of a mile from a passing heron (especially a "light" heron, i. e., a heron going to feed, and therefore not weighted), capture him in a wind, and after a two-mile flight, it is difficult to suppose, caeteris paribus, that any hawks could possibly be superior to them. And, as such hawks as we have described exist, the inevitable conclusion is, that where falconry is really understood, it is understood as well as it ever was; or, in other words, that modern falconry, as far as the perfection of individual hawks is concerned, is equal to ancient.

Our forefathers, excellent falconers as they were, chose to make a wonderful mystery of their craft; and when they did publish a book on the subject of their great sport, its directions could only avail the gentry of those exclusive times. In examining these books, one is sometimes almost tempted to doubt whether the writers really offered the whole of their contents in a spirit of good faith; at any rate, some of the advice is very startling to modern ears; and no sane man of the present day would dream of following it. Perhaps the reader would like an extract. Here, then, is a recipe for a sick hawk, extracted from The Gentleman's Recreation, published 1677: "Take germander, pelamountain, basil, grummel-seed, and broom-flowers, of each half an ounce; hyssop, sassafras, polypodium, and horse-mints, of each a quarter of an ounce, and the like of nutmegs; cubebs, borage, mummy, mugwort, sage, and the four kinds of mirobolans, of each half an ounce; of aloes soccotrine the fifth part of an ounce, and of saffron one whole ounce. To be put into a hen's gut, tied at both ends." What was supposed to be the effect of this marvellous mixture, it is somewhat hard to divine; but our modern pharmacopoeia would be content with a little rhubarb and a few peppercorns. With regard to food, we are told, in the same work, that cock's flesh is proper for falcons that are "melancholick;" and that "phlegmatick" birds are to be treated in a different way—possibly fed on pullets. Were this paper intended as a notice of ancient, instead of modern falconry, we might multiply instances to show the extreme faddiness of the old falconers.

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Simply to tame a hawk is excessively easy. To train it, up to a certain point, is not at all difficult. But it requires an old and practised hand to produce a bird of first-rate excellence.

The modern routine of training the peregrine falcon is shortly as follows: Young birds are procured, generally from Scotland, either just before they can fly, or just after. They are placed in some straw, on a platform, in an outhouse, which ought to open to the southeast. They are furnished each with a large bell (the size of a very small walnut) for the leg; and each with a couple of jessies (short straps of leather) for both legs. If they are unable to fly, the door of the coach-house (or whatever the outhouse may be) should be left open; but if they have tolerable use of their wings, it will be necessary to close it for the first few days. They are fed twice a day with beefsteak—changed, occasionally, for rabbit, rook, or pigeon; and, if the birds are very young, the food must be cut up small; but it is improper to take them from the nest until the feathers have shown themselves thoroughly through the white down. A lure is then used. This instrument need be nothing more than a forked and somewhat heavy piece of wood (sometimes covered with leather), to which is fastened a strap and a couple of pigeons' wings. To this meat is tied; and the young hawks are encouraged to fly down from their platform, at the stated feeding times, to take their meals from it, the falconer either loudly whistling or shouting to them the while. Presently, and as they become acquainted with the lures, they are permitted to fly at large for a fortnight or three weeks; and, if the feeding-times be kept, the lures well furnished with food, and the shout or whistle employed, the hawks will certainly return when they are due; unless, indeed, they have been injured or destroyed when from home, by accident or malice. This flying at liberty is termed "flying at hack." When the young hawks show any disposition to prey for themselves (though the heavy bells are intended slightly to delay this), they are taken up from "hack," either with a small net, or with the hand. They are then taught to wear the hood, and are carried on the fist. In a few days they are sufficiently tame to be trusted at large, and may be flown at young grouse or pigeons, the heavy bells having been changed for the lightest procurable. At this period great pains are taken by the falconer to prevent his bird "carrying" her game; for it is obvious that, were the hawk to move when he approached her, he would be subject constantly to the greatest trouble and disappointment. The tales told in books about hawks bringing quarry to their master are absurd; the falconer must go to his hawk. Such is a sketch of the training in modern times of the eyas or young bird. Wild-caught hawks, however, called "haggards," are occasionally used. These, though excellent for herons and rooks, are not good for game-hawking, as it is difficult to make them "wait on" about the falconer, and all game must be flown from the air, and not from the hood; i.e., by a hawk from her pitch, and not from the fist of her master. Haggards, of course, are never flown at "hack." The tiercel, or male peregrine, is excellent for partridges and pigeons; but the female bird only can have a chance with herons, and is to be preferred also for grouse and rooks.

We have in this country several trained goshawks, which are flown at rabbits; also sometimes at hares and pheasants. The merlin, too, is occasionally trained: the present writer flew these beautiful little birds at larks for years; but gave them up in 1857, and confined himself entirely to peregrines and goshawks. The sparrow-hawk, the wildest of hawks, is sometimes used for small birds. The hobby is hardly to be procured. The Iceland and Greenland falcons are prized, but are rarely met with.

These large birds are called gerfalcons; and, when very white, and good in the field, fetched extravagant prices in the old times. They may now sometimes be procured untrained for £5 or £6 each; but the peregrine is large enough for the game of this country.

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It may be interesting to know, in something like detail, what a flight at game, rooks, pigeons, or magpies is like how it is conducted, and to what extent the sagacity of hawks may be developed. To this end, we will give a sketch or two of what is being done now, and what will be done in the game season.

At this season of the year, and in this country, falconers are obliged to be content with rook, pigeon, or magpie flying. Such quarry is flown "out of the hood," and not from the air; i.e. the hawk, instead of "waiting on" over the falconer in expectation of quarry being sprung, is unhooded as it rises, and is cast off from the fist. At least the only exception to this is when pigeons are thrown from the hand in order to teach a hawk to "wait on."

It will be understood that, in the following description, the peregrine is supposed to be used, for a long-winged hawk is necessary for the flights about to be described, and the merlin is too small to be depended upon for anything larger than a black-bird, or a young partridge; though the best females are good for pigeons.

Let us go out to-day, then, and try to kill a rook or two on the neighboring common. The hawks are in good condition; not indeed as fat as though they were put up to moult, but with plenty of flesh and muscle, and wind kept good by almost daily exercise. We have a haggard tiercel and a haggard falcon; also two eyas falcons; all are up to their work and have been well entered to rooks. We shall not trouble ourselves to take out the cadge to-day, for our party is quite strong enough to carry the hawks on the fist. Only two of us are mounted, a lady and a gentleman; the rest will run. The lady would carry the little tiercel, but she is afraid lest she should make a blunder in unhooding him, as her mare is rather fresh this morning; but her companion, who has flown many a hawk, willingly takes charge of him.

We are well on the common now; and lo! a black mass on the ground there, with a few black spots floating over. Hark to the distant "caw!" A clerical meeting. "Let us give them a bishop, then," says the bearer of the tiercel, which is called by that name. The wind is from them to us. The horseman and his companion canter onward; we follow at a slow run. The horses approach the flock; the black mass becomes disturbed and rises; the "bishop" is thrown off with a shout of "Hoo, ha! ha!" and rushes amongst his clergy with even more than episcopal energy. There is full enough wind; the rooks are soon into it, and ringing up in a compact body with a pace which, for them, is very good. His lordship, too, is mounting: he rose in a straight line the moment he left the fist, but he is now making a large circle to get above his quarry. He has reached them, but he does not grapple with the first bird he comes near, though he seems exceedingly close to it. But there is something so thoroughly systematic in his movements, something which so suggests a long and deadly experience, that even the uninitiated of the party feel certain that he is doing the right thing. He is nearly above them. A rook has left the flock—the very worst thing he could possibly do for his own sake: he has saved the bishop the trouble of selection. He makes for some trees in the distance, but it is inconceivable that he can reach them. There! and there! Now again! He is clutched at the third stoop, and both birds, in a deadly embrace, flap and twist to the ground together. The rest are high in the air, and a long way off.

It must not be considered that this tiercel did not dash at once into the whole flock because he was afraid to do so. He had no fear whatever; but nature or experience taught him that a stoop from above was worth half-a-dozen attempts to fly level and grapple.

"It's poor work after all," said one of the party, who had run for it notwithstanding; "these brutes can't fly, {497} and it's almost an insult to a first-rate hawk to unhood him at such quarry. Even the hawks don't fly with the same dash that one sees when a strong pigeon is on the wing. Beside, it's spoiling the eyases for game-hawking; when they ought to be 'waiting on' over grouse, they will be starting after the first rook that passes."

"My good fellow," answered another, "you must hawk rooks now, or be content with pigeons, unless you can find magpies (we will try that presently): there are no herons anywhere near (and I don't know that the eyases would fly them if there were); and, as for flying a house-pigeon, which has been brought to the field in a basket, though I grant the goodness of the flight, I don't see the sport. If we could find wood-pigeons far enough from trees, I should like that. As for the game next season, there are not many rooks on the moors; and, as these falcons would fly rooks even if they had not seen them for a year, I don't think we are losing much by what we are doing. It is exercise at any rate; and, beside, I assure you that I have seen an old cock-rook, in a wind like this, live for a mile, before one of the best falcons in the world, where there was not a single tree to shelter him."

We are compelled to go some distance before we can see a black feather; for rooks, once frightened, are very careful; or rather, we should have been so compelled had it not happened that an old carrion-crow, perhaps led near the spot by curiosity, is seen passing at the distance of about two hundred yards. The passage-falcon is instantly unhooded and cast off; and, as we are now in the neighborhood of a few scattered trees, it takes ten minutes to kill him; and a short time, too, for he has "treed" himself some eight or ten times in spite of our efforts to make him take the open.

Our time is short to-day; but let us get a magpie, if possible, before we go home. Our fair companion is fully as anxious for the sport as we are. Only a mile off there is a nice country; large grass fields, small fences, with a bush here and there. We have reached it. A magpie has flown from the top of that single tree in the hedgerow, and is skimming down the field. Off with the young falcons: wait till the first sees him; now unhood the second. Ah! he sees them, and flies along the side of the hedge. Let us ride and run! Get him out of cover as fast as possible, while the hawks "wait on" above. Pray, sir, jump the fence a little lower down, and help to get him out from the other side. Hoo-ha-ha! there he goes. Well stooped, "Vengeance," and nearly clutched, "Guinevere," but he has reached the tree in the hedgerow, and is moving his long tail about in the most absurd manner. A good smack of the whip, and he is off again. And so we go on for a quarter of an hour, riding, running, shouting, till "Guinevere" clutches him just as he is about to enter a clump of trees. Who-whoop!

Such is rook-hawking and magpie-hawking. In an open plain, and on a tolerably still day, a great number of rooks may be killed with good hawks. Either eyas or passage-falcons may be used. Last year, one hundred and fifty-two rooks and two carrion-crows were killed by some officers, on the finest place for rook-flying in England, with some passage-hawks and two eyases. In 1863, ninety rooks were killed, near the same spot, with eyases. Tiercels are better than falcons for magpie-hawking, as they are unquestionably quicker amongst hedgerows, and can turn in a smaller compass. One tiercel has been known to kill eight magpies in a day; but this is extraordinary work.

To prevent confusion, it may be as well to mention here that the term "haggard" and "passage-hawk" both mean a wild-caught hawk; while "eyas" signifies a bird taken from the nest or eyrie.

Heron-hawking requires an open country, with a heronry in the neighborhood. The quarry is flown at generally by passage-hawks; but a few {498} very good eyases have been found equal to the flight.

Game-hawking is conducted in the following manner: Let us suppose, in the first instance, that the falconer is living in the immediate neighborhood of grouse-moors, and that he wishes, on some fine morning at the end of October or the beginning of November, to show his friend a flight or two at grouse, without going very far for the sport. The old pointer is summoned; "The Princess," an eyas falcon in the second plumage, is hooded; and the walk is commenced.

Now, very early in the season on the moors, and through the whole of September with partridges, it is better to wait for a point before the hawk is cast oft, for this saves time, and you know that you have game under you; but at that period of the season which we have named, grouse rise the moment man or dog is seen, and you would have a bad chance indeed were you to fly your hawk out of the hood (i.e., from the fist) at them. The best way is to keep your dog to heel, not to talk, and, just before you show yourself in some likely place, to throw up the falcon. When she has reached her pitch, which she will soon do, hurry the dog on, run, clap your hands, and get the birds up as soon as may be.

The hill is ascended, "The Princess" is at her pitch—where she would remain, following her master and "Shot" the pointer, for ten minutes if necessary. Some minutes pass: an old cock-grouse, put up by a shepherd-dog, rises a couple of hundred yards off. Hoo-ha-ha-ha! "The Princess" vanishes from her post, more rapidly than the knights in "Ivanhoe" left theirs. She does not droop or fly near the ground (she has had too much experience for that), but almost rises as she shoots off after him. Had he risen under her, she would have cut him over; but this is a different affair. They are soon out of sight down the hill; but a marker has been placed that way. "I think she has killed him, sir," he shouts presently; "but it's a long way. No, she's coming back; she must have put him into cover." Up and down hill, it would take us twenty minutes to get there; and see! she is over our heads, "waiting on" again, and telling us, as well as she can, to spring another. A point! how is that?—only that there are some more which dare not rise because they have seen her. "Hi in, 'Shot!'" Again the falconer's shout startles his friend; again "The Princess" passes through the air like an arrow. "All right this time, sir," cries the marker; "I see her with it under yon wall." She has scarcely begun to eat the head as we reach her. One more flight. She is lifted on the grouse; the leash is passed through the jesses, and then she is hooded. Let us rest for ten minutes. Again, she is "waiting on," again she flies; but this time, though we see the flight for three-quarters of a mile, the birds top a hill, and we are an hour in finding them. The grouse, however, is fit for cooking even then; only the head, neck, and some of the back have vanished: it is plucked nearly as well as though it had been in the hands of a cook. That will do, and very good sport, too, considering we had but one hawk. Let us now feed her up on beef, and hood her.

In the very early part of the season, with grouse, and commonly with partridges, it is usual (as we have hinted) to wait for a point; the hawk is then cast off, and the birds are sprung when she has reached her pitch.

Goshawks, which may be occasionally procured from the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, or directly from Sweden or Germany, are considered by some falconers to be difficult birds to manage. That they are sulkily disposed is certain; but in hands accustomed to them, and when they are constantly at work, they are exceedingly trustworthy, even affectionate, and will take as many as eight or ten rabbits in a day. They are short-winged hawks, and have no chance with anything faster than a rising pheasant; they are {499} excellent for rabbits, and a few large ones will sometimes hold a hare. In modern practice they are never hooded, except in travelling, and are always flown from the fist, or from some tree in which they may have perched after an unsuccessful flight.

There are probably, in these islands, about fifteen practical falconers, three or four of whom are professional; of the latter, John Pells and the Barrs are well worthy of mention.

John Pells was born at Lowestoft in 1815, and went, when he was thirteen, with his father to Valkneswaard to take passage-hawks for the Didlington Subscription Club; so that he was very soon in harness. The elder Pells commenced his career at the age of eleven, and was in every respect a perfect falconer; he was presented by Napoleon I. with a falconer's bag, which is now in possession of the Duke of Leeds. He died in 1838. The present John Pells has had all possible advantages in his calling, and has made every use of them. He was falconer to the Duke of Leeds, to Mr. O'Keeffe, to Mr. E. C. Newcome, to the late Duke of St. Albans, and now attends to the hawks which the present duke is bound, either by etiquette or necessity, to maintain. Pells also sells trained hawks, and gives lessons in the art of falconry. He was at one time an exceedingly active man, and spent six months in Iceland, catching Iceland falcons. After enduring a good deal of cold and fatigue, he brought fifteen of these birds to Brandon, in Norfolk, in November, 1845. He is now too stout and too gouty for strong exercise, but his experience is very valuable.

Too much can hardly be said in raise of John and Robert Barr (brothers). Their father, a gamekeeper in Scotland, taught them, in a rough way, the rudiments of falconry, They are now, and have been for a long time, most accomplished falconers, When in the employment of the Indian prince Dhuleep Singh, John Barr was sent to India to learn the Indian system of falconry. There is some notion now of his being placed at the head of a hawking club about to be established in Paris; and English falconry might well be proud of such a representative. Beside the Pells and the Barrs, we have Paul Möllen, Gibbs, and Bots—and one or two more—all good.

In consequence of the great rage for game-preserving which obtains in the present day, it does not seem unlikely that the peregrine falcon may, in time, be as thoroughly exterminated in Scotland and Ireland as the goshawk has already been. At present, however, falconers find no difficulty in procuring these birds, if they are willing to pay for them. In a selfish point of view, therefore, they have nothing of which to complain. But it might become a question, at least of conscience, whether mankind have the right, though they possibly may have the power, of blotting out from the face of creation—so long as there is no danger to human life and limb—any conspicuous type of strength or of beauty. The kingfisher is sought to be exterminated on our rivers, the eagle and the falcon on our hills; and it is brought forward in justification of this slaughter—at least it is brought forward in effect—that the sportsman's bag and the angler's creel are of much more importance than the wonderful works of God. To all that is selfish in these strict preservers of fish and of game it may be opposed that part of the food of the kingfisher consists in minnows; that the fry of trout and salmon, when not confined in breeding-boxes, are rarely procured by this bird, which constantly feeds upon the larvae of the Dytiscce and Libelluae, the real foes of the fry; that the peregrine falcon, though she undoubtedly kills very many healthy grouse, purges the moors of diseased ones, and drives away the egg-stealing birds. And to all that is generous in these martinets of preservation it may be submitted that true sport has other elements than those of acquisition and slaughter; that the pleasure of a ramble on the hills {500} or by the river is sadly dashed if you have struck out some of the beauty of the landscape; and that the incident of a flight made by a wild hawk, or the flash of a kingfisher near the angler's rod, is as lively and as well worth relating as the fall of an extra grouse to the gun, or the addition of another trout to the basket.




From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.


CHAPTER I.


I could have wished that the incidents which I am about to describe in the following tale had taken place in some locality with a less Celtic, and to English tongues a more pronounceable, name than Boher-na-Milthiogue. I had at first commenced the tale with the word itself, thus: "Boher-na-Milthiogue, though in a wild and remote part of Ireland," etc. But I was afraid that, should an English reader take up and open the book, he would at the very first word slap it together again between the palms of his hands, saying, "Oh, that is quite enough for me!" Now, as my English readers have done me vastly good service on former occasions, I should be sorry to frighten them at the outset of this new tale; and I have therefore endeavored to lead them quietly into it. With my Irish friends no such circumlocution would have been necessary. Perhaps, if I dissever and explain the word, it may enable even my English readers in some degree to approach a successful attempt at its pronunciation. I am aware, however, of the difficulty they experience in this respect, and that their attempts at some of our easiest names of Irish places are really laughable—laughable, at least, to our Celtic familiarity with the correct sound.

Boher is the Irish for "bridge," and milthiogue for a "midge;" Boher-na-Milthiogue, "the midge's bridge."

There now, if my English friends cannot yet pronounce the word properly, which I still doubt, they can at least understand what it means. It were idle, I fear to hope, that they can see any beauty in it; and yet that it is beautiful there can be no Celtic doubt whatever.

Perhaps it might have been well to have written thus far in the shape of a preface; but as nobody nowadays reads prefaces, the matter would have been as bad as ever. I shall therefore continue now as I had intended to have commenced at first.

Boher-na-Milthiogue, though in a wild and remote part of Ireland, is not without a certain degree of natural and romantic beauty, suiting well the features of the scene in which it lies.

Towering above a fertile and well-cultivated plain frown and smile the brother and sister mountains of Slieve-dhu and Slieve-bawn, the solid masonry of whose massive and perpendicular precipices was built by no human architect. The ponderous and scowling rocks of Slieve-dhu, the brother, are dark and indistinct; while, separated from it by a narrow and abrupt ravine, those of Slieve-bawn, the sister, are of a whitish spotted gray, contrasting cheerfully with those of her gloomy brother.

{501}

There is generally a story in Ireland about mountains or rivers or old ruins which present any peculiarity of shape or feature. Now it is an undoubted fact, which any tourist can satisfy himself of, that although from sixty to a hundred yards asunder, there are huge bumps upon the side of Slieve-bawn, corresponding to which in every respect as to size and shape are cavities precisely opposite them in the side of Slieve-dhu. The story in this case is, that although formerly the mountains were, like a loving brother and sister, clasped in each other's arms, they quarrelled one dark night (I believe about the cause of thunder), when Slieve-dhu in a passion struck his sister a blow in the face, and staggered her back to where she now stands, too far for the possibility of reconciliation; and that she, knowing the superiority of her personal appearance, stands her ground, as a proud contrast to her savage and unfeeling relative.

Deep straight gullies, worn by the winter floods, mark the sides of both mountains into compartments, the proportion and regularity of which might almost be a matter of surprise, looking like huge stripes down the white dress of Slieve-bawn, while down that of Slieve-dhu they might be compared to black and purple plaid.

"Far to the north," in the bosom of the minor hills, lies a glittering lake—glittering when the sun shines; dark, sombre, and almost imperceptible when the clouds prevail.

The origin of the beautiful name in which the spot itself rejoices I believe to be this; but why do I say "believe?" It is a self-evident and well-known fact.

Along the base of Slieve-bawn there runs a narrow roadeen, turning almost at right angles through the ravine already mentioned, and leading to the flat and populous portion of the country on the other side of the mountains, and cutting the journey, for any person requiring to go there, into the sixteenth of the distance by the main road. In this instance the proverb would not be fulfilled, that "the longest way round was the shortest way home." Across one of the winter-torrent beds which runs down the mountain side, almost at the entrance of the ravine, is a rough-built rustic bridge, at a considerable elevation from the road below. To those approaching it from the lower level, it forms a conspicuous and exceedingly picturesque object, looking not unlike a sort of castellated defence to the mouth of the narrow pass between the mountains.

This bridge, toward sunset upon a summer's evening, presents a very curious and (except in that spot) an unusual sight. Whether it arises from any peculiarity of the herbage in the vicinity, or the fissures in the mountains, or the crevices in the bridge itself, as calculated to engender them, it would be hard to say; but it would be impossible for any arithmetician to compute at the roughest guess the millions, the billions of small midges which dance in the sunbeams immediately above and around the bridge, but in no other spot for miles within view. The singularity of their movements, and the peculiarity of their distribution in the air, cannot fail to attract the observation of the most careless beholder. In separate and distinct batches of some hundreds of millions each, they rise in almost solid masses until they are lost sight of, as they attain the level of the heathered brow of the mountain behind them, becoming visible again as they descend into the bright sunshine that lies upon the white rocks of Slieve-bawn. In no instance can you perceive individual or scattered midges; each batch is connected and distinct in itself, sometimes oval, sometimes almost square, but most frequently in a perfectly round ball. No two of these batches rise or fall at the same moment. I was fortunate enough to see them myself upon more than one occasion in high perfection. They reminded me of large balls thrown up and caught successively by some distinguished {502} acrobat. During the performance, a tiny little sharp whir of music fills the atmosphere, which would almost set you to sleep as you sit on the battlement of the bridge watching and wondering.

By what law of creation, or what instinct of nature, or, if by neither, by what union of sympathy the movements of these milthiogues are governed—for I am certain there are millions of them at the same work in the same spot this fine summer's evening—would be a curious and proper study for an entomologist; but I have no time here to do more than describe the facts, were I even competent to enter into the inquiry. Fancy say fifty millions of midges in a round ball, so arranged that, under no suddenness or intricacy of movement, any one touches another. There is no saying amongst them, "Keep out of my way, and don't be pushin' me," as Larry Doolan says.

So far, the thing in itself appears miraculous; but when we come to consider that their motions, upward to a certain point, and downward to another, are simultaneous, that the slightest turn of their wings is collectively instantaneous, rendering them at one moment like a black target, and another turn rendering them almost invisible, all their movements being as if guided by a single will—we are not only lost in wonder, but we are perfectly unable to account for or comprehend it. I have often been surprised, and so, no doubt, may many of my readers have been, at the regularity of the evolutions of a flock of stares in the air, where every twist and turn of a few thousand pairs of wings seemed as if moved by some connecting wire; but even this fact, surprising as it is, sinks into insignificance when compared with the movements of these milthiogues.

But putting all these inquiries and considerations aside, the simple facts recorded have been the origin of the name with which this tale commences.


CHAPTER II.

Winifred Cavana was an only daughter, indeed an only child. Her father, old Ned Cavana of Rathcash, had been always a thrifty and industrious man. During the many years he had been able to attend to business—and he was an experienced farmer—he had realized a sum of money, which, in his rank of life and by his less prosperous neighbors, would be called "unbounded wealth," but which, divested of that envious exaggeration, was really a comfortable independence for his declining years, and would one of those days be a handsome inheritance for his handsome daughter. Not that Ned Cavana intended to huxter the whole of it up, so that she should not enjoy any of it until its possession might serve to lighten her grief for his death—no; should Winny marry some "likely boy," of whom her father could in every respect approve, she should have six hundred pounds, R.M.D.; and at his death by which time Ned hoped some of his grandchildren would make the residue more necessary—she should have all that he was able to demise, which was no paltry matter. In the meantime they would live happily and comfortable, not niggardly.

With this view—a distant one, he still hoped—before him, and knowing that he had already sown a good crop, and reaped a sufficient harvest to live liberally, die peacefully, and be berrid dacently, he had set a great portion of his land upon a lease during his own life, at the termination of which it was to revert to his son-in-law, of whose existence, long before that time, he could have no doubt, and for whose name a blank had been left in his will, to be filled up in due time before he died, or, failing that event—not his death, but a son-in-law—it was left solely to his daughter Winifred.

Winny Cavana was, beyond doubt or question, a very handsome girl—and she knew it. She knew, too, {503} that she was "a catch;" the only one in that side of the country; and no person wondered at the many admirers she could boast of, though it was a thing she was never known to do; nor did she wonder at it herself. Without her six hundred pounds, Winny could have had scores of "bachelors;" and it was not very surprising if she was hard to be pleased. Indeed, had Winny Cavana been penniless, it is possible she would have had a greater number of open admirers, for her reputed wealth kept many a faint heart at a distance. It was not to be wondered at either, if a wealthy country beauty had the name of a coquette, whether she deserved it or not; nor was it to be expected that she could give unmixed satisfaction to each of her admirers; and we all know what censoriousness unsuccessful admiration is likely to cause in a disappointed heart.

Amongst all those who were said to have entered for the prize of Winny's heart, Thomas Murdock was the favorite—not with herself, but the neighbors. At all events he was the "likely boy" whom Winny's father had in his eye as a husband for his daughter; and in writing his will, he had lifted his pen from the paper at the blank already mentioned, and written the name Thomas Murdock in the air, so that, in case matters turned out as he wished and anticipated, it would fit in to a nicety.

The townlands of Rathcash and Rathcashmore, upon which the Cavanas and Murdocks lived, was rather a thickly populated district, and they had some well-to-do neighbors, beside many who were not quite so well-to-do, but were yet decent and respectable. There were the Boyds, the Beattys, and the Brennans, with the Cahils, the Cartys, and the Clearys beyond them; the Doyles, the Dempseys, and the Dolans not far off; with the Mulveys, the Mooneys, and the Morans quite close. The people seemed to live in alphabetical batches in that district, as if for the convenience of the county cess-collector and his book. Many others lived still further off, but not so far (in Ireland) as not to be called neighbors.

Kate Mulvey, one of the nearest neighbors, was a great friend and companion of Winny's. If Kate had six hundred pounds she could easily have rivalled Winny's good looks, but she had not six hundred pence; and notwithstanding her magnificent eyes, her white teeth, and her glossy brown hair, she could not look within miles as high into the clouds as Winny could. Still Kate had her admirers, some of whom even Winny's fondest glance, with all her money, could not betray into treachery. But it so happened that the person at whom she had thrown her cap had not (as yet, at least) picked it up.


CHAPTER III.

It was toward the end of October, 1826. There had been an early spring, and the crops had been got in favorably, and in good time. There had been "a wet and a windy May;" a warm, bright summer had succeeded it; and the harvest had been now all gathered in, except the potatoes, which were in rapid progress of being dug and pitted. It was a great day for Ireland, let the advocates for "breadstuffs" say what they will, before the blight and yellow meal had either of them become familiar with the poor. There were the Cork reds and the cups, the benefits and the Brown's fancies, for half nothing in every direction, beside many other sorts of potatoes, bulging up the surface of the ridges—there were no drills in those days; mehils in almost every field, with their coats off at the digging-in.

"Bill, don't lane on that boy on the ridge wid you; he's not much more nor a gossoon; give him a start of you."

"Gossoon aniow; be gorra, he's as smart a chap on the face of a ridge as the best of us, Tom."

{504}

"Ay; but don't take it out of him too soon, Bill."

"Work away, boys," said the gossoon in question; "I'll engage I'll shoulder my loy at the end of the ridge as soon as some of ye that's spaking."

"It was wan word for the gossoon, as he calls him, an' two for himself, Bill," chimed in the man on the next ridge. "Don't hurry Tom Nolan; his feet's sore afther all he danced with Nelly Gaffeny last night."

Here there was a loud and general laugh at poor Tom Nolan's expense, and the pickers—women and girls, with handkerchiefs tied over their heads looked up with one accord, annoyed that they were too far off to hear the joke. It was well for one of them that they had not heard it, for Nelly Gaffeny was amongst them.

"It's many a day, Pat, since you seen the likes of them turned out of a ridge."

"They bate the world."

"They bang Banagher; and Banagher, they say—"

"Whist, Larry; don't be dhrawing that chap down at all."

"I seen but wan betther the year," said Tim Meaney.

"I say you didn't, nor the sorra take the betther, nor so good."

"Arra, didn't I? I say I did though."

"Where, avic ma cree?"

"Beyant at Tony Kilroy's."

"Ay, ay; Tony always had a pet acre on the side of the hill toward the sun. He has the best bit of land in the parish."

"You may say that, Micky, with your own purty mouth. I led his mehil, come this hollintide will be three years; an' there wasn't a man of forty of us but turned out eight stone of cup off every ten yards a a' four-split ridge. Devil a the like of them I ever seen afore or since."

"Lumpers you mane, Andy; wasn't I there?"

"Is it you, Darby? no, nor the sorra take the foot; we all know where you were that same year."

"Down in the lower part of Cavan, Phil. In throth, it wasn't cup potatoes was throublin' him that time; but cups and saucers. He dhrank a power of tay that harvest, boys."

Here there was another loud laugh, and the women with the handkerchiefs upon their heads looked up again.

"Well, I brought her home dacent, boys; an' what can ye say to her?"

"Be gor, nothing, Darby avic, but that she's an iligant purty crathur, and a credit to them that owns her, an' them that reared her."

"The sorra word of lie in that," echoed every man in the mehil.

Thus the merry chat and laugh went on in every potato-field. The women, finding that they had too much to do to enable them to keep close to the men, and that they were losing the fun, of course got up a chat for themselves, and took good care to have some loud and hearty laughs, which made the men in their turn look up, and lean upon their loys.

Everything about Rathcash and Rathcashmore was prosperous and happy, and the farmers were cheerful and open-hearted.

"That's grand weather, glory be to God, Ned, for the time of year," said Mick Murdock to his neighbor Cavana, who was leaning, with his arms folded, on a field-gate near the mearing of their two farms. The farms lay alongside of each other—one in the town-land of Rathcash, and the other in Rathcashmore.

"Couldn't be bet, Mick. I'm upward of forty years stannin' in this spot, an' I never seen the batin' of it."

"Be gorra, you have a right to be tired, Ned; that's a long stannin'."

"The sorra tired, Mick a wochal. You know very well what I mane, an' you needn't be so sharp. I'd never be tired of the same spot."

"Them's a good score of calves, Ned; God bless you an' them!" said Mick, making up for his sharpness.

"An' you too, Mick. They are a fine lot of calves, an' all reared since Candlemas."

{505}

"There's no denying, Ned, but you med the most of that bit of land of yours."

"'Tis about the same as your own, Mick; an' I think you med as good a fist of yours."

"Well, maybe so, indeed; but I doubt it is going into worse hands than what yours will, Ned."

"Why that, Mick?"

"Ah, that Tom of mine is a wild extravagant hero. He doesn't know much about the value of money, and never paid any attention to farming business, only what he was obliged to pick up from being with me. He thinks he'll be rich enough when I'm in my clay, without much work. An' so he will, Ned, so far as that goes; but it's only of book-larnin' an' horse-racin' an' coorsin' he's thinkin', by way of being a sort of gentleman one of those days; but he'll find to his cost, in the lather end, that there's more wantin' to grow good crops than 'The Farmer's Calendar of Operations.'"

"He's young, Mick, an' no doubt he'll mend. I hope you don't discourage him."

"Not at all, Ned. The book-larnin 's all well enough, as far as it goes, if he'd put the practice along with it, an' be studdy."

"So he will, Mick. His wild-oats will soon be all sown, an' then you'll see what a chap he'll be."

"Faix, I'd rather see him sowing a crop of yallow Aberdeens, Ned, next June; an' maybe it's what it's at the Curragh of Kildare he'll be, as I can hear. My advice to him is to get married to some dacent nice girl, that id take the wildness out of him, and lay himself down to business. You know, Ned, he'll have every penny and stick I have in the world; and the lease of my houlding in Rathcashmore is as good as an estate at the rent I pay. If he'd give up his meandherin', and take a dacent liking to them that's fit for him, I'd set him up all at wanst, an' not be keeping him out of it until I was dead an' berrid."

The above was not a bad feeler, nor was it badly put by old Mick Murdock to his neighbor. "Them that's fit for him" could hardly be mistaken; yet there was a certain degree of disparagement of his own son calculated to conceal his object. It elicited nothing, however, but a long thoughtful silence upon old Ned Cavana's part, which Mick was not slow to interpret, and did not wish to interrupt. At last Ned stood up from the gate, and smoothing down the sleeves of his coat, as if he supposed they had contracted some dust, he observed, "I'm afear'd, Mick, you're puttin' the cart before the horse; come until I show you a few ridges of red apples I'm diggin' out to-day. You'd think I actially got them carted in, an' threune them upon the ridges: the like of them I never seen."

And the two old men walked down the lane together.

But Mick Murdock's feeler was not forgotten by either of them. Mick was as well pleased—perhaps better—that no further discussion took place upon the subject at the time. He knew Ned Cavana was not a man to commit himself to a hasty opinion upon any matter, much less upon one of such importance as was so plainly suggested by his observations.

Ned Cavana, too, brooded over the conversation in silence, determined to throw out a feeler of his own to his daughter.

Ned had himself more than once contemplated the possibility as well as the prudence of a match between Tom Murdock and his daughter. The union, not of themselves alone, but of the two farms, would almost make a gentleman of the person holding them. Both farms were held upon unusually long leases, and at less than one-third of their value. If joined, there could be no doubt but, with the careful and industrious management of an experienced man, they would turn in a clear income of between five and six hundred a year; quite sufficient in that part of the world to entitle {506} a person of even tolerably good education to look up to the grand-jury list and a "justice of the pace."

The only question with Ned Cavana was, Did Tom Murdock possess the attributes required for success in all or any of the above respects? Ned, although he had taken his part with his father, feared not. Ay, there was another question, Was Winny inclined for him? He feared not also.

The other old man had not forgotten the feeler he had thrown out either, nor the thoughtful silence with which it had been received; for Mick Murdock could not believe that a man of Ned Cavana's penetration had misunderstood him. Indeed, he was inclined to think that the same matter might have originated in Ned's own mind, from some words he had once or twice dropped about poor Winny's prospects when he was gone, and the suspense it would be to him if she were not settled in life before that day; "snaffled perhaps by some good-for-nothing, extravagant fortune-hunter, with a handsome face, when she had no one to look after her."

There was but one word in the above which Mick thought could be justly applied to Tom; "extravagant" he undoubtedly was, but he was neither handsome—at least not handsome enough to be called so as a matter of course—nor was he good-for-nothing. He was a well-educated sharp fellow, if he would only lay himself down to business. He was not a fortune-hunter, for he did not require it; but idleness and extravagance might make him one in the end. Yet old Mick was by no means certain that the propriety of a match between these only and rich children had not suggested itself to his neighbor Ned as well as to himself. He hoped that if Tom had a "dacent hankerrin' afther" any one, it was for Winny Cavana; but, like her father, he doubted if the girl herself was inclined for him. He knew that she was proud and self-willed. He was determined, however, to follow the matter up, and throw out another feeler upon the subject to his son.


CHAPTER IV.

It was now the 25th of October, just six days from All-Hallow Eve. Mick would ask a few of the neighbors to burn nuts and eat apples, and then, perhaps, he might find out how the wind blew.

"Tom," said he to his son, "I believe this is a good year for nuts."

"Well, father, I met a couple of chaps ere yesterday with their pockets full of fine brown shellers, coming from Clonard Wood."

"I dare say they are not all gone yet, Tom; an' I wish you would set them to get us a few pockets full, and we would ask a few of the neighbors here to burn them on All-Hallow Eve."

"That's easy done, father; I can get three or four quarts by to-morrow night. Those two very chaps would be glad to earn a few pence for them; they wanted me to buy what they had; and if I knew your intentions at the time, I should have done so; but it's not too late. Who do you intend to ask, father?"

"Why, old Cavana and his daughter, of course, and the Mulveys; in short, you know, all the neighbors. I won't leave any of them out, Tom. The Cavanas, you know, are all as wan as ourselves, livin' at the doore with us; and they're much like us too, Tom, in many respects. Old Ned is rich, an' has but one child—a very fine girl. I'm old, an' as rich as what Ned is, and I have but one child; I'll say though you're to the fore, Tom—a very fine young man."

Old Mick paused. He wanted to see if his son's intelligence was on the alert. It must have been very dull indeed had it failed to perceive what his father was driving at; but he was silent.

"That Winny Cavana is a very fine girl, Tom," he continued; "and I often wonder that a handsome young fellow like you doesn't make more of her. She'll have six hundred pounds fortune, as round as a hoop; beside, whoever gets her will fall in for that farm at her {507} father's death. There's ninety-nine years of it, Tom, just like our own."

"She's a conceited proud piece of goods, father; and I suspect she would rather give her six hundred pounds to some skauhawn than to a man of substance like me."

"Maybe not now. Did you ever thry?"

"No, father, I never did. People don't often hold their face up to the hail."

"Na-bockleish, Tom, she'd do a grate dale for her father, for you know she must owe everything to him; an' if she vexes him he can cut her out of her six hundred pounds, and lave the interest in his farm to any one he likes; and I know what he thinks about you, Tom."

"Ay, and he's so fond of that one that she can twist him round her finger. Wait now, father, until you see if I'm not up to every twist and turn of the pair of them."

"But you never seem to spake to her or mind her at all, Tom; and I know, when I was your age, I always found that the girls liked the man best that looked afther them most. I'm purty sure too, Tom, that there's no one afore you there."

"I'm not so sure of that, father. But I'll tell you what it is: I have not been either blind or idle on what you are talking about; but up to this moment she seems to scorn me, father; there's the truth for you. And as for there being no one before me, all I can say is that she manages, somehow or other, to come out of the chapel-door every Sunday at the same moment with that whelp, Edward Lennon, from the mountain; Emon-a-knock, as they call him, and as I have heard her call him herself. Rathcash chapel is not in his parish at all, and I don't know what brings him there."

"Is it that poor penniless pauper, depending on his day's labor? Ah, Tom, she's too proud for that."

"Yes, that very fellow; and there's no getting a word with her where he is."

"Well, Tom, all I can say is this, an' it's to my own son I'm sayin' it—that if you let that fellow pick up that fine girl with her six hundred pounds and fall into that rich farm, an' you livin' at the doore with her, you're not worth staggering-bob broth, with all your book-larnin' an' good looks, to say nothin' of your manners, Tom avic." And he left him, saying to himself, "He may put that in his pocket to balance his knife."

Thus ended what old Murdock commenced as a feeler, but which became very plain speaking in the end. But the All-Hallow Eve party was to come off all the same.

A word or two now of comparison, or perhaps, more properly speaking, of contrast, between these two aspirants to Winny Cavana's favor, though young Lennon was still more hopeless than the other, from his position.

Thomas Murdock was more conspicuous for the manliness of his person than for the beauties of his mind or the amiability of his disposition. Although manifestly well-looking in a group, take him singly, and he could not be called very handsome. There was a suspicious fidgetiness about his green-spotted eyes, as if he feared you could read his thoughts; and at times, if vexed or opposed, a dark scowl upon his heavy brow indicated that these thoughts were not always amiable. This unpleasing peculiarity of expression marred the good looks which the shape of his face and the fit of his curly black whiskers unquestionably gave him. In form he was fully six feet high, and beautifully made. At nineteen years of age he had mastered not only all the learning which could be attained at a neighboring national school, but had actually mastered the master himself in more ways than one, and was considered by the eighty-four youngsters whom he had outstripped as a prodigy of valor as well as learning. But Tom turned his schooling to a bad account; it was too superficial, and served more to set his head astray than to correct his heart; and there were some respectable {508} persons in the neighborhood who were not free from doubts that he had already become a parish-patriot, and joined the Ribbon Society. He was high and overbearing toward his equals, harsh and unkind to his inferiors, while he was cringing and sycophantic toward his superiors. There was nothing manly or straightforward, nothing ingenuous or affectionate, about him. In fact, if ever a man's temper and disposition justified the opinion that he had "the two ways" in him, they were those of Thomas Murdock. His father was a rich farmer, whose land joined that of old Ned Cavana, of whom he was a contemporary in years, and with whom he had kept pace in industry and wealth.

Thomas Murdock was an only son, as Winny Cavana was an only daughter, and the two old men were of the same mind now as regarded the future lot of their children.

A few words now of Edward Lennon, and we can get on.

He was the eldest of five in the family. They lived upon the mountain-side in the parish of Shanvilla, about two "short miles" from the Cavanas and Murdocks. His father and mother were both alive. They were respectable so far as character and conduct can make people respectable who are unquestionably poor. Their marriage was what has been sarcastically, but perhaps not inaptly, called by an English newspaper a "potato marriage;" that is—but no, it will not bear explanation. The result, however, after many years' struggling, may be stated. The Lennons had lived, and were still living, in a small thatched house upon the side of a mountain, with about four acres of reclaimed ground. It had been reclaimed gradually by the father and his two sons—for Emon had a younger brother—and they paid little or no rent for it. The second son and eldest daughter were now at service, "doin' for theirselves;" and those at home consisted of the father, the mother, the eldest son, and two younger daughters, mere children. For the house and garden they paid a small rent, which "a slip of a pig" was always ready to realize in sufficient time; while a couple of goats, staggering through the furze, yoked together by the necks, gave milk to the family.

Edward, though not so well-looking as to the actual cut of his features, nor so tall by an inch and a half, as our friend Murdock, was far more agreeable to look upon. There was a confident good-nature in his countenance which assured you of its reality, and the honesty of his heart. His figure, from his well-shaped head, which was beautifully set upon his shoulders, to his small, well-turned feet, was faultless. In disposition and character young Lennon was a full distance before the man to whom he was a secret rival, while in talent and learning he had nothing to fear by a comparison. He had commenced his education when a mere gossoon at a poor-school with "his turf an' his read-a-ma-daisy," and as he progressed from A-b-e-l, bel, a man's name; A-b-l-e, ble, Able, powerful, strong, until finally he could spell Antitrinitarian pat, he then cut the concern, and was promoted by his parish-priest—"of whom more anon," as they say—to Rathcash national school, where he soon stood in the class beside Tom Murdock, and ere a week had passed he "took him down a peg." This, added to his supposed presumptuous thoughts in the quarter which Tom had considered almost his exclusive right, sowed the seed of hatred in Murdock's heart against Lennon, which one day might bear a heavy crop.

That young Lennon was devotedly but secretly attached to Winny Cavana there was no doubt whatever in his own mind, and there were few who did not agree with him, although he had "never told his love;" and as we Irish have leave to say, there was still less that his love was more disinterested than that of his richer rival. There was another point upon which there was still less doubt than either, and that was that Winny Cavana's heart secretly leaned to "Emon-a-knock," as {509} young Lennon was familiarly called by all those who knew and loved him. One exception existed to this cordial recognition of Emon's good qualities, and that was, as may be anticipated, by Thomas Murdock, who always called him "that Lennon," and on one occasion, as we have seen, substituted the word "whelp."

Winny, however, kept her secret in this matter to herself. She knew her father would go "tanterin' tearin' mad, if he suspected such a thing." She conscientiously endeavored to hide her preference from young Lennon himself, knowing that it would only get them both into trouble. Beside, he had never (yet) shown a decided preference for her above Kate Mulvey. Whether she succeeded in her endeavors is another question; women seldom fail where they are in earnest.

It is not considered amongst the class of Irish to which our dramatis persona belong as any undue familiarity, upon even a very short acquaintance, for the young persons of both the sexes to call each other by their Christian names. It is the admitted custom of the country, and Winny Cavana, rich and proud as she was, made no exception to the general rule. She even went further, and sometimes called young Lennon by his pet name. As regarded Tom Murdock, although she could have wished it otherwise, she would not make herself particular by acting differently. The first three letters of his name, coupled with the scowl she had more than once detected on his countenance, sounded unpleasantly upon her ear, Mur-dock. She always thought people were going to say murder before the "dock" was out. She never could think well of him; and although she called him Tom, it was more to be in keeping with the habit of the country, and as a refuge from the other name, than from a friendly feeling.

These were the materials upon which the two old men had to work, to bring about a union of their landed interests and their only children.


CHAPTER V.

The invitations for All-Hallow Eve were forthwith issued in person by old Murdock, who went from house to house in his Sunday clothes, and asked all the respectable neighbors in the politest manner. Edward Lennon, although he could scarcely be called a neighbor, and moreover was not considered as "belonging to their set," was nevertheless asked to be of the party. Old Murdock had his reasons for asking him; although, to tell the truth, he and his son had a difference of opinion upon the subject. Tom thought to "put a spoke in his wheel," but was overruled by the old man, who said it would look as if they were afraid to bring him and Winny Cavana together; that it was much better to let the young fellow see at once that he had no chance, which would no doubt be an easy matter on that night: "it was betther to humiliate him at wanst."

Tom was ashamed not to acquiesce, but wished nevertheless that he might have had his own way. Edward Lennon lived too far from the Murdocks for the old man to go there specifically upon the mission of invitation; and the moment this difficulty was hinted by his father, Tom, who was not in the habit of making such offers, was ready at once to "go over to Shanvilla, and save his father the walk: he would deliver the message."

There was an anxiety in Tom's manner which betrayed itself; and old Mick was not the man to miss a thing of the kind.

"No, Tom a wochal" he observed, "I won't put such a thramp upon you. Sure I'll see him a Sunda'; he always comes to our chapel."

"Fitter for him stick to his own," said Tom.

"It answers well this turn, at all events," replied the old man.

Upon the following Sunday he was as good as his word. He watched young Lennon coming out of the chapel, and asked him, with more cordiality than Tom, who happened to be by, approved of.

{510}

Had nothing else been necessary to secure an acceptance, the fact of Tom Murdock being present would have been sufficient. The look which he caught from under the rim of Tom's hat roused Lennon's pride, and he accepted the old man's invitation with unhesitating civility. Lennon on this, as on all Sunday occasions, "was dressed in all his best;" and that look seemed to say, "I wonder where that fellow got them clothes, and if they're paid for:" he understood the look very well. But the clothed were paid for,—perhaps, too, more promptly than Tom's own; and a better fitting suit, from top to toe, was not to be met with in the whole parish. A "Caroline hat," smooth and new, set a wee taste jauntily upon his well-shaped head; a shirt like the drifted snow, loose at the throat, but buttoned down the breast with tiny blue buttons round as sweet-pea seeds; a bright plaid waistcoat, with ditto buttons to match, but a size larger; a pair of "spic-an'-span" knee-breeches of fine kersey-mere, with unexceptionable steel buttons and blue silk-ribbon strings, tied to perfection at the knee; while closely-fitting lamb's-wool long stockings showed off the shape of a pair of legs which, for symmetry, looked as if they had been turned in a lathe. Of his feet I have already spoken; and on this occasion they did not belie what I said.

Old Mick desired Edward Lennon "to bring Phil M'Dermot the smith's son with him. He was a fine young man, a good dancer, and had mended a couple of ploughs for him in first-rate style, an' very raisonable, for the winther plowing."

Tom Murdock did not want for fine clothes, of course. Two or three suits were at his command; and as this was Sunday, he had one of his best on. It was "given up to him" by most of the girls that he was the handsomest and best-dressed man in the parish of Rathcash, and some would have added Shanvilla; yet he now felt, as he stole envious glances at young Lennon, that his case with Winny Cavana might not be altogether a "walk over." All Tom's comparisons and metaphors had reference to horse-racing.

This little incident, however, cut young Lennon out of his usual few words with Winny; for, as a girl with a well-regulated mind, she could not venture to dawdle on the road until old Murdock had done speaking to Emon: she knew that would be remarked. She had never happened to see old Murdock speaking to Emon before, and her secret wonder now was— "Could it be possible that he was asking Edward Lennon for All-Hallow Eve?"

Quite possible, Winny; but you scarcely have time to find out before you meet him there, for another Sunday will not intervene before the party.


CHAPTER VI.

The last day of October came round apace, and about six o'clock in the evening the company began to arrive at old Mick Murdock's. Winny Cavana and her father took their time. They were near enough to make their entree at any moment; and Winny had some idea, like her betters, that it was not genteel to be the first. She now delayed, however, to the other extreme, and kept her father waiting, under the pretence that she was finishing her toilet, until, on their arrival, they found all the guests assembled. Winny flaunted in, leaning upon her father's arm, "the admired of all admirers." Not being very learned in the mysteries of the toilet, I shall not attempt to describe the dresses of the girls upon this occasion, nor the elaborate manner in which their heads were set out, oiled, and bedizened to an amazing extent, while the roses above their left ears seemed to have been all culled from the same tree.

{511}

Altogether there were about sixteen young persons, pretty equally divided as to boys and girls, beside some—and some only—of their fathers and mothers. Soon after the arrival of Ned Cavana and his daughter, who were the guests of the evening, supper was announced, and there was a general move into the "large parlor," where a long table was set out with a snow-white cloth, where plates (if not covers) were laid for at least twenty-four. In the middle of the table stood a smoking dish of calcannon, which appeared to defy them, and as many more; while at either end was a raking pot of tea, surrounded with cups and saucers innumerable, with pyramids of cut bread-and-butter nearly an inch thick.

The company having taken their seats, it was announced by the host that there were "two goold weddin'-rings in the calcannon;" but whereabouts, of course, no one could tell. He had borrowed them from two of the married women present, and was bound to restore them; so he begged of his young friends, for his sake as well as their own, to be careful not to swallow them. It was too well known what was to be the lot of the happy finders before that day twelvemonth for him to say anything upon that part of the subject. He would request of Mrs. Moran, who had seen more All-Hallow Eves than any woman there present—he meant no offence—to help the calcannon.

After this little introduction, Mrs. Moran, who by previous arrangement was sitting opposite the savory volcano, distributed it with unquestionable impartiality. It was a well-known rule on all such occasions that no one commenced until all were helped, when a signal was given, and a simultaneous plunge of spoons took place.

Another rule was that all the married persons should content themselves with tea and bread-and-butter, in order that none of them might possibly rob the youngsters of their chance of the ring. Upon this occasion, however, this restriction had been neatly obviated by Mrs. Moran's experience in such matters; and there was a knock-oge of the same delicious food without any ring, which she called "the married dish." The tea was handed up and down from each end of the table until it met in the middle, and for some time there was a silent onslaught on the calcannon, washed down now and then by a copious draught of tea.

"I have it! I have it!" shouted Phil M'Dermott, taking it from between his teeth and holding it up, while his cheeks deepened three shades nearer to the color of the rose in Kate Mulvey's hair, nearly opposite.

"A lucky man," observed Mrs. Moran, methodically, who seemed to be mistress of the mysteries. "Now for the lucky girl; and lucky everybody will say she must be."

The words were scarcely finished when Kate Mulvey coughed as if she were choking; but pulling the other ring from her mouth, she soon recovered herself, declaring that she had nearly swallowed it.

Matters, as Mrs. Moran thought, had so far gone quite right, and a hearty quizzing the young couple got; but, to tell the truth, one of them did not seem to be particularly satisfied with the result. The attack upon the calcannon from this point waxed very weak, for the charm was broken, and the tea and bread-and-butter came into play. Apples and nuts were now laid down in abundance, and the young girls might be seen picking a couple of pairs of nice nuts out of those on the plate, as nearly as fancy might suggest, to match the figures of those whom they were intended to represent upon the bar of the grate. Almost as if by magic a regiment of nuts in pairs were seen smoking, and some of them stirring and purring on the flat bar at the bottom of the grate, which had been swept, and the fire brightened up, for the purpose. Of course Mrs. Moran insisted upon openly putting down Phil M'Dermott and Kate Mulvey of the rings; for in general there is a secrecy observed as to who the nuts are, in order to save {512} the constant girl from a laugh at the fickleness of her bachelor, should he go off in a shot from her side, and vice versâ. And here the mistress of the mysteries was not at fault. Kate Mulvey, without either smoking or getting red at one end (which was a good sign), went off like the report of a pistol, and was actually heard striking against the door as if to get out. There was a general laugh at Mrs. Moran's expense, who was told that it was a strong proof in favor of putting the pairs down secretly.

But Mrs. Moran was too experienced a mistress of her position to be taken aback, and quietly said, "Not at all, my dears. I have three times to burn them, if he does not follow her; but he has three minutes to do so."

As she spoke there was another shot. Phil M'Dermott could not stand the heat by himself, and was off to the door after Kate Mulvey.

This was a crowning triumph to Mrs. Moran, who quietly put back the second pair of nuts which she had just selected for another test of the same couple, and remarked that "it was all right now."

The couples, generally speaking, seemed to answer the expectations of their respective match-makers better than perhaps the results in real life might subsequently justify. It is not to be supposed that on this occasion Tom Murdock and Winny Cavana did not find a place upon the bar of the grate. But as Winny had given no encouragement to any one to put her down with him, and as the mistress of the mysteries alone could claim a right to do so openly, as in the case of the rings, their place, with the result, could be known only to those who put them down, and perhaps a confidant.

There were a few pops occasionally, calling forth exclamations of "The good-for-nothing fellow!" or "The fickle lass!" while some burned into bright balls—the admiration of all the true and constant lovers present.

The next portion of the mysteries were three plates, placed in a row upon the table; one contained earth, another water, and the third a gold ring. This was, by some, considered rather a nervous test of futurity, and some objections were whispered by the timid amongst them. The fearless and enthusiastic, however, clamored that nothing should be left out, and a handkerchief to blind the adventurers was produced. The mystery was this: a young person was taken outside the door, and there blindfolded; he, or she, was then led in again, and placed opposite to the plates, sufficiently near to touch them; when told that "all was right," he, with his fore-finger pointed, placed it upon one of the plates. That with the earth symbolled forth sudden, or perhaps violent, death; that with the water, emigration or ship-wreck; while that with the ring, of course a wedding and domestic happiness.

Young people were not generally averse to subject themselves to this ordeal, as in nine cases out of ten they managed either to be previously acquainted with the position of the plates, or, having been blindfolded by their own bachelor, to have a peep-hole down by the corner of their nose, which enabled them to secure the most gratifying result of the three.

With this usual course before his mind, Tom Murdock, as junior host, presented himself for the test, hoping that Winny Cavana, whom he had asked to do so, would blindfold him. But in this instance he had presumed too far; and while she hesitated to comply, the mistress of the mysteries came to her relief.

"No, no, Tom," she said, folding the handkerchief; "that is my business, and I'll transfer it to no one; come outside with me."

Tom was ashamed to draw back, and retired with Mrs. Moran to the hall. He soon returned, led in by her, with a handkerchief tied tightly over his eyes; there was no peep-hole by the side of his nose, let him hold back {513} his head as he might, Mrs. Moran took care of that. Having been placed near the table, he was told that he was exactly opposite the plates. He pointed out his fore-finger, and threw back his head as much as possible, as if considering, but in fact to try if he could get a peep at the plates; but it was no use. Mrs. Moran had rendered his temporary blindness cruelly secure. At length his hand descended, and he placed his finger into the middle of the earth.

"Pshaw," said he, pulling the handkerchief off his eyes, "it is all humbug! Let Lennon try it."

"Certainly, certainly," ran from one to the other. It might have been remarked, however, if any one had been observing, that Winny Cavana had not spoken.

Young Lennon then retired to the hall with Mrs. Moran, and was soon led in tightly blindfolded, for the young man was no more to her than the other; beside, she was strictly honorable. The plates had been re-arranged by Tom Murdock himself, which most people remarked, as it was some time before he was satisfied with their position. Lennon was then placed, as Tom had been, and told that "all was right." There was some nervousness in more hearts than one as he pointed his finger and brought down his hand. He also placed his finger in the centre of the plate with the earth, and pulled the handkerchief from his eyes.

"Now, you see," said Tom, "others can fail as well as me;" and he seemed greatly pleased that young Lennon had been as unsuccessful as himself.

A murmur of dissatisfaction now ran through the girls. The two favorites had been unfortunate in their attempts at divination, and there was one young girl there who, when she saw Emon-a-knock's finger fall on the plate with the earth, felt as if a weight had been tied round her heart. It was unanimously agreed by the elderly women present, Mrs. Moran amongst the number, that these tests had turned out directly contrary to what the circumstances of the locality, and the characters of the individuals, would indicate as probable, and the whole process was ridiculed as false and unprophetic. "Time will tell, jewel," said one old croaking crone.

A loud burst of laughter from the kitchen at this moment told that the servant-boys and girls, who had also been invited, were not idle. The matches having been all either clenched or broken off in the parlor, and the test of the plates, as if by mutual consent, having been declared unsatisfactory, old Murdock thought it a good opportunity to move an adjournment of the whole party, to see the fun in the kitchen, which was seconded by Mrs. Moran, and carried nem. con.

[TO BE CONTINUED. Page 657]




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Translated from Etudes Religieusea, Historiques, et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jesus.

A CITY OF WOMEN.

THE ANCIENT BEGUINAGE OF GHENT.

BY THE REV. A. NAMPON, S.J.


According to some authors, St. Begghe, daughter of Pepin, Duke of Brabant, and sister of St. Gertrude, must have given her name to those pious assemblages of Christian virgins and widows called from very remote times beguinages.

These holy women, united under the protection and the rule of St. Begghe, had nothing in common except the name with those Beguines whose errors were condemned by the council of Vienne.

Beguinages exist at Ghent, Antwerp, Mechlin, Alost, Louvain, Bruges, etc., etc. The rule is not in all places the same, but everywhere these pious establishments are places of refuge open to devout women, wherein they may sanctify themselves by prayer, labor, and retirement from the distractions of the world.

Let us transport ourselves to the capital of Flanders. From the centre of that tumultuous city, in which industry, commerce, activity, and pleasure reign supreme, are separated two other smaller towns of venerable aspect—closed to the world, destitute of shops, coaches, public criers, and all modern inventions. These two towns are the Great and the Little Beguinage.

These places are delightful oases, wherein you breathe a pure air, where, in the noonday of the nineteenth century, you find the simplicity of the faith and customs of antiquity. They are surrounded, as they were five or six centuries ago, by a ditch and a wall; you enter them by a single gate carefully closed at night, and not less carefully watched all day. This gate, surmounted by the cross, was formerly protected by a drawbridge.

As soon as you have passed through this gateway, you are forcibly struck with the calm and pious atmosphere of this peaceful city, and with the grave and edifying looks of its female inhabitants. I say female inhabitants, for no man has ever dwelt in this enclosure. The priests who serve the beguinages only enter to fulfil their sacred offices, and have no place therein save the pulpit, the altar, and the confessional. The dress of the inmates is not elegant, but it is in strict conformity with the model traced in their thirteenth century rule.

All the streets, which are at right angles, are named after saints. The houses are also distinguished by the names, and frequently by the statue, of some saint, under whose protection they are placed; thus you may read, gate of St. Martha, gate of St. Mary-Magdalen, etc., etc.

The houses, which are whitewashed annually, display in their furniture, as in their construction, no other luxury but a charming cleanliness. They are of two kinds, convents and hermitages. The convents are inhabited by communities, each governed by a superior. The hermitages, which resemble very much the dwellings of the Carthusians, consist of two or three bed-rooms, a parlor, a kitchen, and a small garden. Prominent among the convents is the dwelling of the superior-general, called Grande Dame, who has charge of the infirmary, and who is conservator of the documents, traditions and pictures, which date from five or six centuries ago. Lastly, in the midst of this peaceful city rises the house of God, a large church, very commodious and clean, surrounded by a {515} cemetery, in conformity with an ancient custom, which all the beguinages, however, have not been able to retain.

The object of these societies is very clearly stated in a paragraph of the rule of the beguinage of Notre Dame du Pré', founded at Ghent in 1234. We retain the old style:

"Louis, Count of Flanders, of Nevers, and of Rethel, etc., etc., to all present and to come makes known, that Dame Jane, and Margaret, her sister of happy memory, who were successively Countesses of Flanders and of Hainault (as we are, [Footnote 100] by the grace of God), having remarked that in the Flemish territory there were a great number of women, who, from their condition in life and that of their parents, were unable to find a fitting match; observing that honorable persons, the daughters of nobles and burgesses, who desired to live in a state of chastity, could not all enter into convents of women, by reason of their too great number, or for want of means; remarking, moreover, that many young ladies of noble extraction and others had fallen into a state of decadence, so that they were reduced to mendicity, or to a painful existence, to the dishonor of their families, unless they could be provided for in a discreet and becoming manner; incited by God, and with the advice, knowledge, and consent of several bishops and other persons of probity, the aforesaid countesses founded, in several cities of Flanders, establishments with spacious dwellings and lands, called beguinages, where noble young ladies and children of good families were received, to live therein chastely in community, with or without vows, without humiliation to themselves or their families, and where they might, by applying themselves to reasonable labor, procure their food and clothing. They founded among others a beguinage in our city of Ghent, called the beguinage of Notre Dame du Pré, enclosed by the river Scheldt, and by walls. In the centre is a church, a cemetery, and a hospital for infirm or invalid beguines, the whole given by the before-mentioned princesses, etc."

[Footnote 100: This bull is in the original French: "Comteses de Flandre et de Hainault, comme nous aussi, par la grace de Dieu."]

Those young persons who desire to be admitted to the beguinage must first become postulants, and afterward make their noviciate in the convents or communities. They remain there even after their profession up to thirty years of age. Thus are they protected during the most stormy period of life by the watchfulness of their superior and their companions, by prayer and labor in common. Later they can enjoy without danger a larger measure of freedom. They then live two or three together in one of the hermitages, where they pass their time in exercises of prayer and labor, to which the early years of their cenobitical life have accustomed them.

"The great beguinage at Ghent," says M. Chantrel, "contains four hundred small houses, eighteen common halls, one large and one small church. There are sometimes as many as seven hundred beguines assembled in the church. The assembly of these pious women, in their ancient Flemish black dresses, and white bonnets, is very solemn and impressive. The novices are distinguished by their dress. Those who have recently taken the veil have their heads encircled by a crown.

"The beguines admit within their enclosure, as boarders, persons of the gentler sex, of every age and condition, who find in these establishments an asylum for the inexperience of youth, or a calm and peaceful sojourn where those who are tired of the world may pass their days without any other rule than that of a Christian life. In the great beguinage at Ghent there are nearly two hundred secular boarders, who live either privately or in community with the nuns."

Among the novices of the great beguinage at Ghent there lived, fifteen years ago, a Mlle, de Soubiran, the niece of a former vicar of Carcassonne. For twenty years this worthy ecclesiastic had communed with Almighty God, in incessant prayers, to obtain an {516} answer to this question: "Would it be a useful work to introduce, or rather to resuscitate, beguinages in France?"

Monseigneur de la Bouillerie, whose eloquence and zeal for good works have made him famous, interpreted in a favorable sense the signs furnished by a concurrence of providential circumstances; and a small establishment was opened twelve years ago, in a suburb of Castelnaudary, under the direction of the Abbé de Soubiran. Since 1856, it has had its postulants, novices, and professed sisters.

The buildings of the new beguinage were too small and poor. This defect was remedied by a great fire which consumed them, and compelled their reconstruction on a larger plan, and with better materials than the planks and bricks of the original buildings.

There is doubtless a vast distance between this feeble beginning and the extensive beguinage in Belgium, which so many centuries have enlarged and brought to perfection. But Mlle, de Soubiran and her first companions brought with them from Flanders the old traditions, with the spirit of fervor and of poverty and humble labor. The trials which they have undergone have only improved their work. They are happy in the blessing of their bishop, and his alms would not be wanting in case of need.

The Castelnaudary beguinage is already fruitful. A second establishment is forming at Toulouse, on the Calvary road. Those of our readers who are acquainted with the capital of Languedoc know the situation of that road, but all Christians have long since learnt that the road to Calvary is the way of salvation.

Suffice it for the present that we notice the existence of these two establishments. We shall have at a future time to narrate their progress and development.




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From The Month.

THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS.

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.

§ 1.

GERONTIUS.


  JESU, MARIA—I am near to death,
    And thou art calling me; I know it now.
  Not by the token of this faltering breath,
    This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,—
  (Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)
    'Tis this new feeling, never felt before,
  (Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)
    That I am going, that I am no more.
  'Tis this strange innermost abandonment,
    (Lover of souls! great God! I look to thee,)
  This emptying out of each constituent
    And natural force, by which I come to be.
  Pray for me, O my friends; a visitant
    Is knocking his dire summons at my door,
  The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt,
    Has never, never come to me before.
  'Tis death,—loving friends, your prayers!—'tis he!…
  As though my very being had given way,
    As though I was no more a substance now,
  And could fall back on naught to be my stay,
    (Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole refuge, thou,)
  And turn no whither, but must needs decay
    And drop from out this universal frame
  Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss,
    That utter nothingness, of which I came:
  This is it that has come to pass in me;
  O horror! this it is, my dearest, this;
  So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray.


  ASSISTANTS.

  Kyrie eleïson, Christe eleïson, Kyrie eleïson.
  Holy Mary, pray for him.
  All holy angels, pray for him.
  Choirs of the righteous, pray for him.
  Holy Abraham, pray for him.
  St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, pray for him.
  St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Andrew, St. John,
  All apostles, all evangelists, pray for him.
  All holy disciples of the Lord, pray for him.
  All holy innocents, pray for him.
  All holy martyrs, all holy confessors,
  All holy hermits, all holy virgins,
  All ye saints of God, pray for him.

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  GERONTIUS.

  Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man;
      And through such waning span
  Of life and thought as still has to be trod,
      Prepare to meet thy God.
  And while the storm of that bewilderment
      Is for a season spent,
  And, ere afresh the ruin on thee fall,
      Use well the interval.

  ASSISTANTS.

  Be merciful, be gracious; spare him, Lord.
  Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him.
  From the sins that are passed;
      From thy frown and thine ire;
            From the perils of dying;
            From any complying
            With sin, or denying
            His God, or relying
  On self, at the last;
      From the nethermost fire;
  From all that is evil;
  From power of the devil;
  Thy servant deliver,
  For once and for ever.

  By thy birth, and by thy cross,
  Rescue him from endless loss;
  By thy death and burial,
  Save him from a final fall;
  By thy rising from the tomb,
            By thy mounting up above,
            By the Spirit's gracious love,
  Save him in the day of doom.

  GERONTIUS.

  Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
      De profundis oro te,
  Miserere, judex meus,
      Parce mihi, Domine.
  Firmly I believe and truly
      God is Three, and God is One;
  And I next acknowledge duly
      Manhood taken by the Son.
  And I trust and hope most fully
      In that manhood crucified;
  And each thought and deed unruly
      Do to death, as he has died.
  Simply to his grace and wholly
      Light and life and strength belong,
  And I love supremely, solely,
      Him the holy, him the strong.

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  Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
      De profundis oro te,
  Miserere, judex meus,
      Parce mihi, Domine.
  And I hold in veneration,
      For the love of him alone,
  Holy Church, as his creation.
      And her teachings, as his own.
  And I take with joy whatever
      Now besets me, pain or fear,
  And with a strong will I sever
      All the ties which bind me here.
  Adoration aye be given,
      With and through the angelic host,
  To the God of earth and heaven,
      Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
  Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
      De profundis oro te,
  Miserere, judex meus,
      Mortis in discrimine.

  I can no more; for now it comes again,
  That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain,
  That masterful negation and collapse
  Of all that makes me man; as though I bent
  Over the dizzy brink
  Of some sheer infinite descent;
  Or worse, as though
  Down, down for ever I was falling through
  The solid framework of created things,
  And needs must sink and sink
  Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still,
  A fierce and restless fright begins to fill
  The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,
  Some bodily form of ill
  Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse
  Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs and flaps
  Its hideous wings,
  And makes me wild with horror and dismay.
  O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!
  Some angel, Jesu! such as came to thee
  In thine own agony. ……
  Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me. Mary, pray for me.

  ASSISTANTS.

  Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour,
  As of old so many by thy gracious power:—Amen.
  Enoch and Elias from the common doom; Amen.
  Noe from the waters in a saving home; Amen.
  Abraham from th' abounding guilt of heathenesse; Amen.
  Job from all his multiform and fell distress; Amen.
  Isaac, when his father's knife was raised to slay; Amen.
  Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment-day; Amen.

{520}

  Moses from the land of bondage and despair; Amen.
  Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair; Amen.
  And the children three amid the furnace-flame; Amen.
  Chaste Susanna from the slander and the shame; Amen.
  David from Golia and the wrath of Saul; Amen.
  And the two apostles from their prison-thrall; Amen.
  Thecla from her torments; Amen:
            —so, to show thy power,
  Rescue this thy servant in his evil hour.

  GERONTIUS.

  Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep.
  The pain has wearied me. …Into thy hands,
  Lord, into thy hands. …

  THE PRIEST.

  Proficiscere, anima Christiana de hoc mundo!
  Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul!
  Go from this world! Go, in the name of God,
  The omnipotent Father, who created thee!
  Go, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
  Son of the Living God, who bled for thee!
  Go, in the name of th' Holy Spirit, who
  Hath been poured out on thee! Go, in the name
  Of angels and archangels; in the name
  Of thrones and dominations; in the name
  Of princedoms and of powers; and in the name
  Of cherubim and seraphim, go forth!
  Go, in the name of patriarchs and prophets;
  And of apostles and evangelists,
  Of martyrs and confessors; in the name
  Of holy monks and hermits; in the name
  Of holy virgins; and all saints of God,
  Both men and women, go! Go on thy course;
  And may thy place to-day be found in peace,
  And may thy dwelling be the holy mount
  Of Sion: through the same, through Christ, our Lord.

§ 2.


  SOUL Of GERONTIUS.

  I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed.
  A strange refreshment: for I feel in me
  An inexpressive lightness, and a sense
  Of freedom, as I were at length myself,
  And ne'er had been before. How still it is!
  I hear no more the busy beat of time,
  No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;
  Nor does one moment differ from the next.
  I had a dream; yes:—some one softly said
  "He's gone;" and then a sigh went round the room.
  And then I surely heard a priestly voice
  Cry "Subvenite;" and they knelt in prayer.

{521}

  I seem to hear him still; but thin and low,
  And fainter and more faint the accents come,
  As at an ever-widening interval.
  Ah! whence is this? What is this severance?
  This silence pours a solitariness
  Into the very essence of my soul;
  And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet,
  Hath something too of sternness and of pain.
  For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring
  By a strange introversion, and perforce
  I now begin to feed upon myself,
  Because I have naught else to feed upon.

  Am I alive or dead? I am not dead,
  But in the body still; for I possess
  A sort of confidence, which clings to me,
  That each particular organ holds its place
  As heretofore, combining with the rest
  Into one symmetry, that wraps me round,
  And makes me man; and surely I could move,
  Did I but will it, every part of me.
  And yet I cannot to my sense bring home,
  By very trial, that I have the power.
  'Tis strange; I cannot stir a hand or foot,
  I cannot make my fingers or my lips
  By mutual pressure witness each to each,
  Nor by the eyelid's instantaneous stroke
  Assure myself I have a body still.
  Nor do I know my very attitude,
  Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel.

  So much I know, not knowing how I know,
  That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,
  Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.
  Or I or it is rushing on the wings
  Of light or lightning on an onward course,
  And we e'en now are million miles apart.
  Yet . … is this peremptory severance
  Wrought out in lengthy measurements of space,
  Which grow and multiply by speed and time?
  Or am I traversing infinity
  By endless subdivision, hurrying back
  From finite toward infinitesimal,
  Thus dying out of the expanded world?

  Another marvel; some one has me fast
  Within his ample palm; 'tis not a grasp
  Such as they use on earth, but all around
  Over the surface of my subtle being,
  As though I were a sphere, and capable
  To be accosted thus, a uniform
  And gentle pressure tells me I am not
  Self-moving, but borne forward on my way.
  And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth

{522}

  I cannot of that music rightly say
  Whether I hear or touch or taste the tones.
  Oh what a heart-subduing melody!

  ANGEL.

    My work is done,'
        My task is o er,
            And so I come,
            Taking it home,
    For the crown is won.
            Alleluia,
    For evermore.

    My Father gave
        In charge to me
            This child of earth
            E'en from its birth,
    To serve and save,
            Alleluia,
    And saved is he.

    This child of clay
        To me was given,
            To rear and train
            By sorrow and pain
    In the narrow way,
            Alleluia,
    From earth to heaven.

  SOUL.

  It is a member of that family
  Of wondrous beings, who, ere the worlds were made,
  Millions of ages back, have stood around
  The throne of God:—he never has known sin;
  But through those cycles all but infinite,
  Has had a strong and pure celestial life,
  And bore to gaze on th' unveiled face of God,
  And drank from the eternal fount of truth,
  And served him with a keen ecstatic love.
  Hark! he begins again.

  ANGEL.

    Lord, how wonderful in depth and height,
            But most in man, how wonderful thou art!
    With what a love, what soft persuasive might,
            Victorious o'er the stubborn fleshly heart,
        Thy tale complete of saints thou dost provide,
        To fill the throne which angels lost through pride!

{523}

    He lay a grovelling babe upon the ground,
            Polluted in the blood of his first sire,
    With his whole essence shattered and unsound,
            And, coiled around his heart, a demon dire,
        Which was not of his nature, but had skill
        To bind and form his opening mind to ill.

    Then was I sent from heaven to set right
            The balance in his soul of truth and sin,
    And I have waged a long relentless fight,
            Resolved that death-environed spirit to win,
    Which from its fallen state, when all was lost,
    Had been repurchased at so dread a cost.

    Oh what a shifting parti-colored scene
            Of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay,
    Of recklessness and penitence, has been
            The history of that dreary, lifelong fray!
        And oh the grace, to nerve him and to lead,
        How patient, prompt, and lavish at his need!

    O man, strange composite of heaven and earth!
            Majesty dwarfed to baseness! fragrant flower
    Running to poisonous seed! and seeming worth
            Cloaking corruption! weakness mastering power!
        Who never art so near to crime and shame,
        As when thou hast achieved some deed of name;

    How should ethereal natures comprehend
            A thing made up of spirit and of clay,
    Were we not tasked to nurse it and to tend,
            Linked one to one throughout its mortal day?
        More than the seraph in his height of place,
        The angel-guardian knows and loves the ransomed race.

  SOUL.

  Now know I surely that I am at length
  Out of the body: had I part with earth,
  I never could have drunk those accents in,
  And not have worshipped as a god the voice
  That was so musical; but now I am
  So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possessed,
  With such a full content, and with a sense
  So apprehensive and discriminant,
  As no temptation can intoxicate.
  Nor have I even terror at the thought
  That I am clasped by such a saintliness.

  ANGEL.

    All praise to him, at whose sublime decree
            The last are first, the first become the last;
    By whom the suppliant prisoner is set free,
            By whom proud first-borns from their thrones are cast;
        Who raises Mary to be queen of heaven,
        While Lucifer is left, condemned and unforgiven.

{524}

§ 3.


  SOUL.

  I will address him. Mighty one, my Lord,
  My guardian spirit, all hail!

  ANGEL.

            All hail, my child!
    My child and brother, hail! what wouldest thou?

  SOUL.

  I would have nothing but to speak with thee
  For speaking's sake. I wish to hold with thee
  Conscious communion; though I fain would know
  A maze of things, were it but meet to ask,
  And not a curiousness.

  ANGEL.

            You cannot now
    Cherish a wish which ought not to be wished.

  SOUL.

  Then I will speak. I ever had believed
  That on the moment when the struggling soul
  Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell
  Under the awful presence of its God,
  There to be judged and sent to its own place.
  What lets me now from going to my Lord?

  ANGEL.

  Thou art not let; but with extremest speed
  Art hurrying to the just and holy Judge:
  For scarcely art thou disembodied yet.
  Divide a moment, as men measure time,
  Into its million-million-millionth part,
  Yet even less than that the interval
  Since thou didst leave the body; and the priest
  Cried "Subvenite," and they fell to prayer;
  Nay, scarcely yet have they begun to pray.
  For spirits and men by different standards mete
  The less and greater in the flow of time.
  By sun and moon, primeval ordinances—
  By stars which rise and set harmoniously—
  By the recurring seasons, and the swing,
  This way and that, of the suspended rod
  Precise and punctual, men divide the hours,
  Equal, continuous, for their common use.
  Not so with us in th' immaterial world;
  But intervals in their succession

{525}

  Are measured by the living thought alone,
  And grow or wane with its intensity.
  And time is not a common property;
  But what is long is short, and swift is slow,
  And near is distant, as received and grasped
  By this mind and by that, and every one
  Is standard of his own chronology.
  And memory lacks its natural resting-points,
  Of years, and centuries, and periods.
  It is thy very energy of thought
  Which keeps thee from thy God.

  SOUL.

            Dear angel, say,
  Why have I now no fear at meeting him?
  Along my earthly life, the thought of death
  And judgment was to me most terrible.
  I had it aye before me, and I saw
  The Judge severe e'en in the crucifix.
  Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled;
  And at this balance of my destiny,
  Now close upon me, I can forward look
  With a serenest joy.

  ANGEL.

            It is because
  Then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not fear.
  Thou hast forestalled the agony, and so
  For thee the bitterness of death is passed
  Also, because already in thy soul
  The judgment is begun. That day of doom,
  One and the same for the collected world—
  That solemn consummation for all flesh,
  Is, in the case of each, anticipate
  Upon his death; and, as the last great day
  In the particular judgment is rehearsed,
  So now too, ere thou comest to the throne,
  A presage falls upon thee, as a ray
  Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot.
  That calm and joy uprising in thy soul
  Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense,
  And heaven begun.

§ 4.


  SOUL.

          But hark! upon my sense
  Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear,
  Could I be frighted.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)




{526}

From The St. James Magazine

EXTINCT SPECIES


The study of geology teaches us that our planet, has undergone many successive physical revolutions, the crust of it being made up of layer upon layer, after the manner of the successive peels of an onion. Each of these successive depositions constitutes the tomb of animal forms that have lived and passed away. Now it is a fresh-water or a marine shell that the exploratory geologist discloses; now the skeleton, or parts of a skeleton, from the evidence of which a comparative anatomist can reproduce, by model or picture, the exact forms. Occasionally science has to build up her presentment of animals that were, from the scanty evidence of their mere footfalls. As the poacher is guided to the timid hare, crouching in her seat, by the vestiges of her footprints on the snow, so the geologist can in many cases arrive at tolerably certain conclusions relative to the size and aspect of an extinct animal by the evidence of footsteps on now solid rock. And if it be demanded how it happens that now solid rocks can bear the traces of such soft impressions, the reply is simple. There evidently was a time when these rocks, now so hard and solid, were mere agglomerations of plastic matter, comparable for consistence to ordinary clay. It needs not even the weight of a footfall to impress material of temper so soft as this. The plashes of rain are distinctly visible upon many rocks now hard, and which have only acquired their consistence with the lapse of countless ages.

The geologist's notion of the word "recent" comprehends a span of time of beginning so remote that the oldest records of human history fade to insignificance by comparison. Since this world of ours acquired its final surface settlement, so to speak, numerous species have become extinct. The process of exhaustion has gone steadily on. It has been determined by various causes, some readily explicable, others involved in doubt. It is a matter well established, for example, that all northern Asia was at one time, not geologically remote, overrun by herds of mammoth creatures which, as to size, dwarf the largest elephants now existing; and which, among other points distinguishing them from modern elephants, were, unlike these, covered by a crop of long hair. Very much of the ivory manufactured in Russia consists of the tusks of these now extinct mammoths, untombed from time to time.

Tilesius declares his belief that mammoth skeletons still left in northern Russia exceed in number all the elephants now existing upon the globe. Doubtless the process of mammoth extinction was very gradual, and extended over an enormous space of time. This circumstance is indicated by the varying condition in which the tusks and teeth are found. Whereas the gelatine, or soft animal matter, of many specimens remains, imparting one of the characteristics necessary to the being of ivory, other specimens have lost this material, and mineral substances, infiltrating, have taken its place. The gem turquoise is pretty generally conceded to be nothing else than the fossilized tooth of some extinct animal—probably the mammoth.

Curiosity of speculation prompts the mind to imagine to itself the time when the last of these gigantic animals succumbed to influences that were finally destined to sweep them all from the earth. Had men come upon the scene when they roamed their native wilds? Were those wilds the same as now as to climate and vegetable growths? {527} Testimony is mute. Time silently unveils the sepulchred remains, leaving fancy to expatiate as she will on a topic wholly beyond the scope of mortal intelligence.

Inasmuch as bones and tusks of the mammoth are dug up in enormous quantities over tracts now almost bare of trees, and scanty as to other vegetation, certain naturalists have assumed that in times coeval with mammoth or mastodonic life the vegetation of these regions must have been richer than now, otherwise how could such troops of enormous beasts have gained their sustenance?

On this point Sir Charles Lyell bids us not to be too confident affirmatively. He remarks that luxuriance of vegetable growth is not seen at the time being to correspond with the prevalence of the associated fauna. The northern island of the New Zealand group, at the period when Europeans first set foot there, was mostly covered by a luxuriant growth of forest trees, of shrubs and grasses. Admirably adapted to the being of herbivorous animals, the land was wholly devoid of the same. Brazilian forests offer another case in illustration; a stronger case than the wilds of New Zealand, inasmuch as the climate may be assumed as more congenial to the development of animal life. Nowhere on earth does nature teem with an equal amount of vegetable luxuriance; yet Brazilian forests are remarkable for almost the total absence of large animals. Perhaps no present tract is so densely endowed with animal life as that of South Africa, a region where sterility is the prevailing characteristic; where forest trees are rare and other vegetation scant; where water, too, is infrequent.

Present examples, such as these, should make a naturalist hesitate before coming to the conclusion that Siberian wilds, even as now, were wholly incompatible with the existence and support of troops of mammoths or mastodons. Speculating now as to the latest time of the existence of mastodons in Siberia, a circumstance has to be noted that would seem to countenance the belief in the existence of it up to a not very remote period of historic times. In the year 1843, the season being warmer than usual, a mass of Siberian ice thawed, and, in thawing, untombed one of these animals, perfect in all respects, even to the skin and hair. The flesh of this creature furnished repast to wolves and bears, so little alteration had it undergone. Another mastodon was disentombed on the Tas, between the Obi and Yenesei, near the arctic circle, about lat. 66° 30' N., with some parts of its flesh in so perfect a state that the bulb of the eye now exists preserved in the Moscow museum. Another adult carcass, accompanied by an individual of the same species, was found in 1843, in lat. 75° 15' N., near the river Taimyr, the flesh being decayed. Associated with it, Middendorf observed the trunk of a larch tree (Pinus larix), the same wood that now grows in the same neighborhood abundantly.

It is no part of our intention to discuss the causes of mammoth extinction. This result has assuredly not been caused by any onslaught of the destroyer man. The Siberian wilds are scantily populated now, and it has never been suggested that at any anterior period their human denizens were more plentiful. Nature often establishes the balance of her organic life through a series of agencies so abstrusely refined, and acting, beside, over so long a period, that they altogether escape man's cognizance. The believer in the God of nature's adaptation of means to ends will see no reason to make an exception in animal species to what is demonstrated by examples in so many other cases to be a general law. The dogma, that no general law is without exceptions, though one to which implicit credence has been given, may nevertheless be devoid of the universality commonly imputed. On the contrary, the application of this dogma may extend over a very narrow field; may be only referable to the codifications, artificial and wholly {528} conventional, which mankind for their convenience establish, and under a false impression elevate to the position of laws. If logical proof in syllogistic form be demanded as to the proposition that laws established by nature have no exceptions, the fulfilment of demand would not be possible; inasmuch as human reason is too impotent for grasping, and too restricted in its energies for investigating, the multifarious issues which the discussion of such a thesis would involve. As coming events, however, are said by the poet to cast their shadows in advance, so, as heralds and harbingers of truths beyond logical proof, come beliefs, faiths, even moral convictions. Of this sort is the assurance of the balance established by nature at each passing epoch of being in the world.

The naturalist is impressed with the firm belief that the number of animal species existing on the earth, and the number of individuals in each species, are balanced and apportioned in some way and by some mysterious co-relation to the needs of the universe.

Some presumptive testimony in favor of this belief is afforded by the discussion, barely yet concluded, relative to the effect of small bird destruction. Without any more elaborate reasoning on this topic than follows necessarily as the result of newspaper reading, the general concession will be made by any one of unbiased mind, that if small bird destruction could be enacted to its exhaustive limits—if every small bird could be destroyed—the aggregate of vitality thus disposed of would be balanced through the increase of other organisms. Insect life would teem and multiply to an extent proportionate with the removal of an anterior restraining cause.

The nature of the topic on which we are engaged does not force upon us the question whether such proportionate increase of insect life be advantageous or disadvantageous. What we are wholly concerned in placing in evidence is the balance kept up between vital organisms of different species by nature. Nor is the balance of vitality established between different animal species. It also may be traced, and even more distinctly, between the vegetable and animal kingdoms; each regarded in its entirety. Vegetables can only grow by the assimilation of an element (carbon) which animals evolve by respiration, as being a poison. Consideration of this fact well-nigh forces the conclusion upon the mind—if, indeed, the conclusion be not inevitable—that if through any vast cataclysm animated life were to become suddenly extinct throughout the world, vegetable life would languish until the last traces of atmospheric carbon had become exhausted, and then perish.

In maintenance of her vital balance through the operation of some occult law, it often happens that animals that have ceased to be "obviously useful," as taking part in a general economy around them, are seen to die out. Whilst wolves and elks roamed over Ireland the magnificent Irish wolf-dog was common. With the disappearance of wolves the breed of wolf-dogs languished, and has ultimately become extinct. As a matter of zoological curiosity many an Irish gentleman would have desired to perpetuate this gigantic and interesting race of dogs; but the operation, the tendency to vital equilibrium has been over-strong to be contravened—the race of Irish wolf-dogs has fleeted away. Speaking now of the huge Siberian mammoths, from which we diverged, of these faith in nature's balanced adaptation assures us that they died out so soon as they ceased to be necessary as a compensation to some unknown force in the vital economy.

Spans and periods of time, such as those comprehended by the human mind, and compared with the normal period of individual human existence, dwindle to nothingness when attempted to be made the units of measurement in calculations involving the duration of species. Perhaps the data are not available for enabling the most careful investigator to come to an approximate {529} conclusion as to the number of years that must elapse before the race of existing elephants, African and Indian, will become extinct, departing from the earth as mammoths have departed. The time, however, must inevitably arrive for that consummation under the rule of the present course of things.

Without forest for shade and sustenance the race of wild elephants cannot exist; and, inasmuch as elephants never breed in captivity, each tame elephant having been once reclaimed from the forests, it follows, from the consideration of inevitable results, that sooner or later, but some day, nevertheless, one of two possible issues must be consummated—either that man shall cease to go on subduing the earth, cutting down forests and bringing the land into cultivation, or else elephants must become extinct. Who can entertain a doubt as to the alternative issue? Man has gone on conquering and to conquer from the time he came upon the scene. Animals, save those he can domesticate, have gone on fleeting and fleeting away. It is most probable, nevertheless, that one proportionate aggregate of vitality has at every period been maintained.

The most marked examples of the passing away of animal species within periods of time, in some cases not very remote, pronounced of even in a historical sense, is seen in the record of certain gigantic birds. The largest individuals of the feathered tribes now extant are ostriches; but the time was when these plumed denizens of the Sahara were small indeed by comparison with existing species. Some idea of the bulk of the epiornis—an extinct species—may be gathered from a comparison of the bulk of one of its eggs with that of other birds. According to M. Isidore Geoffroy, who some time since presented one of these eggs to the French Academy of Sciences, the capacity of it was no less than eight litres and three-fourths. This would prove it to be about six times the size of the ostrich's egg, 148 times that of an ordinary fowl, and no less than 50,000 times the size of the egg of the humming-bird. The egg exhibited was one of very few that have been discovered; hence nothing tends to the belief that it was one of the largest. The first knowledge of the existence of this gigantic bird was acquired in 1851. The sole remains of the species hitherto found are some egg-shells and a few bones. These suffice, however, for an ideal reproduction of the creature under the synthetical treatment of comparative anatomy. The epiornis inhabited Madagascar. The creature's height could not have been less than from nine to twelve feet, and the preservation of its remains is such as to warrant the belief in its comparatively recent existence.

Of a structure as large as the epiornis, probably larger, though differing from the latter in certain anatomical particulars, according to the belief of Professor Owen, is a certain New Zealand giant bird, called by him the dinornis. As in the case of the Madagascar bird, the evidence relating to this is very recent. Some few years ago an English gentleman received from a relative settled in New Zealand some fragments of large bones that had belonged to some creature of species undetermined. He sent them to Professor Owen for examination, and was not a little surprised at the assurance that the bones in question, although seemingly having belonged to an animal as large as an ox, were actually those of a bird. The comparative anatomist was guided in coming to this conclusion by a certain cancellated structure possessed by the bony fragments, a characteristic of the bones of birds. For a time Professor Owen's dictum was received with hesitation, not to say disbelief, on the part of some people. The subsequent finding of more remains, eggs as well as bones, soon justified the naturalist's verdict, however. Not the slightest doubt remains now upon the mind of any zoologist relative to the past existence of the dinornis; nay, the {530} impression prevails that this feathered monster may be living in some of the more inaccessible parts of the southern island of New Zealand at the present time. Be that as it may, the dinornis can only have become extinct recently, even using this word in a historical sense, as the following testimony will make manifest:—

A sort of mummification prevailed amongst the Maories until Christianity had gained ground amongst them. The process was not exactly similar to that by which Egyptian mummies were formed, but resembled it, nevertheless, in the particular of desiccation. Smoking was the exact process followed; and smoked Maori heads are common enough in naturalists' museums. In a general way Maori heads alone were smoked, certain principles of food economy prompting a more utilitarian treatment for entire bodies. Nevertheless, as a mark of particular respect to some important chief now and then, affectionate survivors exempted his corpse from the oven, and smoking it entire, set it up amongst the Maori lares and penates as an ornament. This explanation is not altogether par parenthèse, for it brings me to the point of narrating some evidence favorable to the opinion that the dinornis cannot have been extinct in New Zealand even at a recent historical period. Not long ago the body of a Maori was found in a certain remote crypt, and resting on one hand was an egg of this bird giant. Contemplate now the bearings of the testimony. The Maori race is not indigenous to New Zealand, but arrived there by migration from Hawai. Not alone do the records of the two groups of Pacific islands in question advert to such migration, but certain radical coincidences of language lend confirmation. It is further a matter of tradition that the migration took place about three hundred years ago. Now, even if the recently discovered specimen of Maori mummy art had been executed on the very first advent of the race, the period elapsed would be, historically speaking, recent. The laws of chance, however, are adverse to any such assumption; and, moreover, the degree of civilization—if the expression may be used—implied by the dedication of an entire human body to an aesthetic purpose, instead of devoting it to one of common utility—could only have been achieved after a certain lapse of time.

According to Professor Owen, there must have been many species of dinornis. The largest individuals of one species, according to him, could not have been less than four yards high. According to the same naturalist, moreover, these birds were not remarkable by their size alone; they had, he avers, certain peculiarities of form establishing a link between them and the cassowary and apteryx: the latter a curious bird still found in New Zealand, but very rare nevertheless.

Of colossal dimensions as were the dinornis and epiornis, the size of both sinks into insignificance by comparison with another giant bird, traces of which, and only traces, are discoverable in North America, at the epoch when the deposit of the conchylian stage of Massachusetts was yet soft enough to yield under the feet of creatures stepping upon its surface. Footsteps, indeed, are the only traces left of these giant birds, and they are found side by side with the imprints of drops of rain which fell on the yielding surface in those early times. Mostly the footmarks only correspond with three toes, but occasionally there are traces of a fourth—a toe comparable to a thumb, only directed forward, not backward. Marks of claws are occasionally found. Every trace and lineament of the Massachusetts bird is marvellously exceptional. The feet must have been no less than fifteen inches long, without reckoning the hinder claw, the length of which alone is two inches. The width must have been ten inches. The intervals between these footmarks correspond evidently with the stride of the monster, which got over the ground by covering successive stages of from {531} four to five feet! When we consider that the stride of an ostrich is no more than from ten to twelve inches, the application of this record will be obvious. Here closes the testimony already revealed in respect of this bird, except we also refer to it—which is apocryphal—certain coprolites or excrementitious matters found in the same formation.

For the preceding facts naturalists are indebted to the investigations of Mr. Hitchcock. The evidence adduced leaves no place for doubt as to the previous existence of a giant bird to which the traces are referable. Naturalists, however, were slow to come to this conclusion; so extraordinary did it seem that a bird should have lived at a period so remote as that when these geological formations were deposited. To gain some idea of the antiquity of that formation, one has only to remember that the conchylian stage is only the fifth in the order of time of the twenty-eight stages of which, according to Alcide D'Orbigny, the crust of the earth is made up, from the period of primitive rocks to the present date. However, many recent facts have tended to prove that several animals, mammalians and saurians amongst others, are far more ancient than had been imagined; after which evidence these giant bird footprints have lost much of the improbability which once seemed to attach to them.

Pass we on now to the traces of another very curious bird, the existence of which has been demonstrated by Professor Owen, according to whom the creature must have lived at the epoch of the schists of Sobenhofen. The name given by Professor Owen to this curious extinct bird is archeopterix. Its peculiarities are so numerous that for some time naturalists doubted whether it should be considered a reptile or a bird; between which two there exist numerous points of similarity. And now, whilst dealing with bird-giants, it would be wrong not to make some reference to a discovery made in 1855, at Bas Meudon, of certain osseous remains, referable to a bird that must have attained the dimensions of a horse; that floated on water like a swan, and poised itself at roost upon one leg. Monsieur Constant Prevost, the naturalist who has most studied the bird, gave to it the name of gastornis Parisiensis. The bony remains of this creature were found in the tertiary formation in a conglomerate associated with chalk, which refers the gastornis to a date more remote than any yet accorded to any other bird.

From a bare record of facts contemplate we now our planet as it must have been when inhabited by the monstrous birds and reptiles and quadrupeds which preceded the advent of man. These were times when animated forms attained dimensions which are now wholly exceptional. That may be described as the age when physical and physiological forces were dominant, as the force of moral agency dominates over the present, and is destined, as appearances tend to prove, to rule even more fully hereafter. Might it not seem that in nature an economy is recognizable similar to the economy of human existence? Can we not recognize an antagonism between the development of brute force and of the quality of mind? Would it not even seem that nature could not at one and the same time develop mental and corporeal giants? The physiological reign has only declined to prepare the advent of moral ascendancy. Giant bodies seem fading from the earth, and giant spirits commencing to rule. Humanity is progressive; is not its progression made manifest by these zoological revelations? The first bone traces of human beings range back to an epoch posterior to the monstrous quadrupeds entombed in the diluvium. Hereafter giants, probably, will only be seen in the moral world, grosser corporeal giant forms having become extinct. The physical gigantesque is not yet indeed banished from the earth, but the period of its {532} banishment would seem to be at hand.

The probability is that all the great birds to which reference has been made were, like the ostrich, incapable of flight. This defect, when contemplated from the point of view suggested by modern classifications, seems one of the most remarkable aberrations of nature of which we have cognizance. For a bird to be deprived of what seems the most essential characteristic of bird-life—to be banished from the region that we have come to regard as the special domain of bird-life—bound to the earth, forced to mingle with quadrupeds—seems to the mind the completest of all possible departures from established type.

Thoughts such as these result from our artificial systems and classifications. Apart from these, the conditions of giant walking birds that were, and to a limited extent are, will be found to harmonize well with surrounding conditions. Suppose we take the case of the ostrich for example; this bird being the chief living representative of giant bird-life remaining to us from the past. In the ostrich, then, do we view a creature so perfectly adapted to conditions which surround it that no need falls short and no quality is in excess. A complete bird in most anatomical characteristics, it borrows others from another type. The sum of the vital elements which normally, had the ostrich been like flying birds, should have gone to endow the wings, has been directed toward the legs and feet, and thereupon concentrated. Bird qualities and beast qualities have mingled, and, as we now perceive, have harmonized. If to the ostrich flying is denied—if it can only travel on foot, yet is it an excellent pedestrian. A quality of which it has been deprived we now find to have been transmuted into another quality—the ostrich has found its equivalent.

Reflecting thus, we cease to pity the ostrich; we begin to see that nature has been supremely wise, our classifications only having led us into error. A new thought dawns upon our apprehension; instead of longer regarding the ostrich as furnishing an example of nature's bird-creative power gone astray, we come to look upon this creature as designed upon the type of ordinary walking animals, and having some bird characteristics added. Assuredly this point of view is better than the other; for whereas the first reveals nature to us through the distorting medium of an abstraction, the other shows us nature herself. It is not a matter of complete certainty that the bird-type, as naturalists explain and define it in their systems, exists; but there can be no doubt as to the existence of the ostrich. In this mode of expression there is nothing paradoxical; and doubtless, when we come to reflect upon it, the case will not fail to seem a little strange that we are so commonly in the habit of testing the inequalities of beings by reference to systems, instead of following the opposite course, viz., that of testing the value and completeness of systems by reference to the qualities of individuals they embrace. Naturalists invent a system and make it their touchstone of truth; whereas the real touchstone would be the creature systematized. The ostrich simply goes to prove that the zoological types imagined by naturalists are endowed with less of the absolute than philosophers in their pride of science had imagined. Animal types are not the strangers to each other that artificial classifications would make them appear.

Nor is flexibility of bird-type only manifested by the examples wherein a bird acquires characteristics of quadrupeds and other walking animals. Wings may even become metamorphosed into a sort of fins, thus establishing a connection between bird-life and fish-life. This occurs in the manchot, a bird not less aquatic in its habits than the seal—of flying and walking almost equally incapable—a bird the natural locomotive condition of which is to be plunged {533} in water up to the neck. Assuredly nothing can be more absurd than the attempt to recognize, in these ambiguous organizations, so many attempts of nature to pass from one type to another.

No matter what religious system one may have adopted, or what philosophical code: the interpretation of nature (according to which she is represented as making essays—trying experiments) is alike inadmissible. Neither God omniscient, nor nature infallible, can be assumed by the philosopher as trying experiments. There are, indeed, no essays in nature but degrees—transitions. Wherefore these transitions? is a question that brings philosophy to bay, and demonstrates her weakness. It is a question that cannot be pondered too deeply. Therein lies the germ of some great mystery.

Reverting to bird-giants, past and present, it is assuredly incorrect to assume, as certain naturalists have assumed, that flying would have been incompatible with their bulk. There exist birds of prey, of whose bodies the specific gravity does not differ much from that of the ostrich, and are powerful in flight nevertheless. Then another class of facts rises up in opposition to the hypothesis, that mere grandeur of dimensions is the limit to winged flying. Neither the apteryx nor the manchot fly any more than the ostrich. Neither is a large bird, nor, relatively to size, a heavy bird. As regards the epiornis, the position is not universally acceded to by naturalists that the creature was like the ostrich, the apteryx, and cassowary, a mere walking bird. An Italian naturalist, Signor Bianconi, has noted a certain peculiarity in the metatarsal bones of the creature which induces him to refer it to the category of winged birds of prey. If this hypothesis be tenable, then a sort of giant vulture the epiornis would have been: one in whose imposing presence the condor of the Andes would have dwindled to the dimensions of a buzzard. Further, if Signor Bianconi's assumption hold good, then may we not have done amiss in banishing the "roc" to the realms of fiction? Old Marco Polo, writing in the thirteenth century, described the roc circumstantially, and the account has been long considered as either a fiction or a mistake. Signor Bianconi, coming to the rescue of his fellow-countryman, thinks that the Italian traveller may have actually described a giant bird of prey extant at the time when he wrote, but which has now become extinct.

A notice of extinct birds would be incomplete without reference to the dodo, the very existence of which had been lately questioned; so completely has it fleeted away from the earth. Messrs. Broderip, Strickland, and Melville, however, have amply vindicated the dodo's claim to be regarded a former denizen of the world we live in. The dodo was first seen by the Dutch when they landed on the Isle of France, at that time uninhabited, immediately subsequent to the doubling of Cape Horn by the Portuguese. These birds were described as having no wings, but in the place of them three or four black feathers. Where the tail should be, there grew instead four or five curling plumes of a grayish color. In their stomachs they were said to have commonly a stone as big as a fist, and hard as the gray Bentemer stone. The boat's crew of the Jacob Van Neck called them Walgh-vogels (surfeit birds), because they could not cook them or make them tender, or because they were able to get so many turtle-doves, which had a much more pleasant flavor, so that they took a disgust to these birds. Likewise, it is said that three or four of these birds were enough to afford a whole ship's company one full meal. Indeed, the sailors salted down some of them, and carried them on the voyage.

Many descriptions of the dodo were given by naturalists after the commencement of the seventeenth century; and the British Museum contains a painting said to have been copied {534} from a living individual. Underneath the painting is a leg still finely preserved; and in respect of this leg naturalists are agreed that it cannot belong to any existing species. The dodo must have been a curious bird, if Mr. Strickland's notion of him be correct; and Professor Reinhardt, of Copenhagen, holds a similar opinion. The dodo, these naturalists affirm, was a vulture-like dove—a sort of ugly giant pigeon—but with beak and claws like a vulture. He had companions or neighbors, at least, not dissimilar in nature. Thus a bird called the solitaire inhabited the small island of Roderigues, three hundred miles east of the Mauritius. Man has exterminated the solitaire, as well as other birds nearly allied, formerly denizens of the Isle of Bourbon.

The dodo will be seen no more; the race has fleeted away. Among birds, the emeu, the cassowary, and the apteryx are species rapidly vanishing; amongst quadrupeds, the kangaroo—the platypus: others slowly, but not less surely. After a while they will be gone from the earth wholly, as bears, wolves, mammoths, and hyenas have gone from our own island. The Bos primigenius, or great wild bull, was common in Germany when Julius Caesar flourished. The race has become wholly extinct, if, indeed, not incorporated with the breed of large tame oxen of northern Europe. The urus would have become extinct but for the care taken by Russian emperors to preserve a remnant in Lithuanian forests. The beaver built his mud huts along the Saone and Rhone up to the last few generations of man; and when Hannibal passed through Gaul on his way to Italy, beavers in Gaul were common. Thus have animals migrated or died out, passed away, but the balance of life has been preserved. Man has gone on conquering: now exterminating, now subjecting. Save the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air, the time will perhaps come when creatures will have to choose between subjection and death. Ostriches would seem to be reserved for the first alternative, seeing that in South Africa, in southern France, and Italy, these birds have lately been bred, domiciled into tame fowls, in behalf of their feathers. Very profitable would ostrich farming seem to be. These giant birds want no food but grass, and the yearly feather yield of each adult ostrich realizes about twenty-five pounds sterling.




{535}

From Chambers's Journal.

A DINNER BY MISTAKE.


"Only one poun'-ten a week, sir, and no extras; and I may say you won't find such cheap airy lodgings anywhere else in the place; not to speak of the sea-view;" and the bustling landlady threw open the door of the tiny sitting-room with an air which would have become a Belgravian lackey. It certainly was a cosy, sunny little apartment, with just such a view of the sea, and of nothing else whatsoever, as is the delight of an inland heart, I was revolving in my mind how to make terms on one most important point, when she again broke forth: "I can assure you, sir, I could have let these same rooms again and again in the last two days, if I had not given my promise to Mrs. Johnson that she should have them next Friday fortnight, and I would never go from my word, sir—never! though this month is our harvest, and it's hard for me to have the rooms standing empty. As I told my niece only yesterday, I won't let forward again, not to please anybody, for it don't answer, and it worrits me out of my life. And I'm sure, sir, if you like to come for the fortnight, I'll do my utmost to make you comfortable; and I always have given satisfaction; and you could not get nicer rooms nowhere."

"No," said I, taking advantage of her pause for breath; "these are very nice. I—I suppose you don't object to smoking?"

The good woman's face assumed a severe expression, though I detected a comical twinkle in her eye. "Why, sir, we always do say—but if it's only a cigar, and not one of them nasty pipes"—

I smiled: "To tell the truth, it generally is a pipe."

"Is it now? Well, sir, if you please, we won't say anything about it now. We have a lady-lodger upstairs, and if she should complain, I can but say that it is against my rules, and that I'll mention it to you. And so, sir, if you please, I'll go now, and see to your portmanteau being taken up;" and thereupon she vanished, leaving me in sole possession.

I threw my bag and rug on to the sofa, pushed a slippery horsehair armchair up to the window, and sat down to rest and inhale the sea-breezes with a certain satisfaction at being in harbor. As I before remarked, the prospect was in the strictest sense of the words a sea-view. Far away to east and west stretched the blue ocean; and beside it, I could see only a steep grass-bank just beneath my window, with a broad shingly path running at its base, evidently designed for an esplanade, though no human form was visible thereon. Away to the right, I just caught a glimpse of shelving beach, dotted with fishermen's boats; and of a long wooden jetty, with half-a-dozen figures slowly pacing from end to end, while the dismal screeching of a brass band told of an attempt at music more ambitious than successful. It was not a lively look-out for a solitary man, and I half wished myself back in my mother's comfortable house at Brompton. However, I was in for it now; and I could but try how far a fortnight of open air and exercise would recruit my wasted strength. I had been reading really hard at Oxford through the last term, and my very unusual industry had been followed by a languor and weariness which so awakened my dear mother's solicitude that she never rested till she had persuaded Dr. Busby to prescribe sea-air and a total separation from my books. She could not come {536} with me, as she longed to do, kind soul! but she packed my properties, and gave endless instructions as to diet, all of which I had forgotten before I had accomplished the first mile of my journey. I don't know why I came to that out-of-the-way watering-place, except that I was too languid to have a will of my own, or to care for the noisy life of country-houses full of sportsmen. So, on the following morning, behold me in gray travelling suit and wide-awake, strolling along the beach, watching the pretty bathers as they dipped their heads under water, and then reappeared, shaking the dripping tresses from their eyes. Then there were the fishermen, brawny, bare-legged Goliahs, setting forth on their day's toil, and launching their boats with such shouts and cries as, to the uninitiated, might indicate some direful calamity. The beach was alive now, for the whole visiting population, such as it was, seemed to have turned out this bright September morning, and were scattered about, sketching, working, and chattering. I scanned each group, envying them their merry laughter and gay talk, and half hoping to recognize some familiar face among those lazy lounging youths and sun-burned damsels; but my quest was fruitless, and I pursued my lonely way apart.

Really, though, the little place improved upon acquaintance. There were fine bold cliffs, just precipitous enough to make a scramble to the top almost irresistible; there were long stretches of yellow sand and shallow pools glittering in the sunlight; and there was a breeze coming straight from the north pole, which quickened my blood, and brought the color into my sallow cheeks, even as I drank it in. I bathed, I walked, I climbed, I made friends with the boatmen, and got them to take me out in their fishing-smacks; but still, with returning vigor, I began to crave not a little for some converse with more congenial spirits than these honest tars and my loquacious landlady. I inscribed my name on the big board at the library; I did all that man could do to make my existence known, but nearly a week passed away, and still my fellow-creatures held aloof. I had been out for the whole of one windy afternoon tossing on the waves, watching the lobster-fishing, and came in at sunset tolerably drenched with spray, and with a terrific appetite. As I opened the door of my little sitting-room, I beheld—most welcome sight—the white dinner-cloth, and lying upon it a card—a large, highly-glazed, most unmistakable visiting-card. With eager curiosity, I snatched it up, but curiosity changed to amazement when I read the name, "Sir Philip Hetherton, Grantham Park." Sir Philip Hetherton! Why, in the name of all that's incomprehensible, should he call on me? I had never even heard his name; I knew no more of him than of the man in the moon. Could he be some country magnate who made it a duty to cultivate the acquaintance of every visitor to Linbeach? If so, he must have a hard time of it, even in this little unfrequented region. My impatience could not be restrained till Mrs. Plumb's natural arrival with the chops; and an energetic pull at the bell brought her at once courtesying and smiling.

"I suppose," began I, holding the card with assumed carelessness between my finger and thumb—"I suppose this gentleman, Sir Philip Hetherton, called here to-day?"

"Oh yes, sir, this afternoon; not an hour ago."

"He inquired for me?"

"Yes, sir; he asked particularly for young Mr. Olifant, and said he was very sorry to miss you. He's a very pleasant-spoken gentleman, is Sir Philip."

"Ah, I see. Is he often in Linbeach? Does he know many people living in the place?"

"Well, I don't think he has many friends here, sir; at least, I never understood so; but he owns some of the {537} houses in the town, and he is very kind to the poor. No one is ever turned away empty-handed from his door, and I've a right to say so, sir, for my brother's widow lives in one of the lodges at Grantham. He put her into it when her husband was drowned at sea, and he's been a good friend to her ever since."

All this was not what I wanted to find out, but I had learned by experience that Mrs. Plumb's tongue must have its swing. I now mildly brought her back to the point: "Does he see anything of the visitors?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir. He sometimes rides in of an afternoon, for Grantham is only four miles from Linbeach; but I don't think he ever stays long."

So it was not apparently an eccentric instance of universal friendliness, but a special mark of honor paid to me. It grew more and more mysterious. However, there was nothing to be gained by pumping Mrs. Plumb further; and as I was discreetly minded to keep my own counsel, I dismissed her. But meditating long and deeply over my solitary dinner, I came at length to the unwelcome conclusion, that Sir Philip Hetherton must have been laboring under some strange delusion, and that I should see and hear no more of him. I was rather in the habit of priding myself on my judgment and discrimination; but in this instance they were certainly at fault, for within three days, I met him face to face. I was strolling slowly along one of the shady country lanes which led inland between cornfields and hedge-rows, when I encountered a portly, gray-haired gentleman, mounted on an iron-gray cob, and trotting soberly toward Linbeach. He surveyed me so inquisitively out of his merry blue eyes, that the thought crossed me, could this be the veritable Sir Philip? I smiled at my own vivid imagination; but I must confess that before I had proceeded another half mile, I faced round, and returned to Linbeach for more briskly than I had left it. I had scarcely stepped into Mrs. Plumb's passage, when that personage herself met me open-mouthed, with a pencil-note in her hand. "Oh, Mr. Olifant, I wish you had come in rather sooner. Sir Philip has been here again, and as he could not see you, he wrote this note, for he had not time to wait. I was quite vexed that it should happen so."

Evidently the good woman was fully impressed with the dignity of the event, and not a little flattered at the honor paid to her lodger. I opened the note, and it contained—oh marvel of marvels!—an invitation to dinner for the following day, coupled with many warm expressions of regard for my family, and regrets at having been hitherto unable to see me.

"I told Sir Philip that I thought you had only gone down to the beach, sir; but he laughed, and said he should not know you if he met you. I suppose you don't know him, do you, sir?" Mrs. Plumb added insinuatingly.

"No." said I; thinking within myself that the baronet need not have been quite so communicative. However, this confession of his, at any rate, threw same light upon the subject, and suggested a solution. He might have known my father or mother. Of course, indeed, he must have known them, or somebody belonging to me. His own apparent confidence began to infect me, and I wrote off an elaborate and gracefully-worded acceptance; and then sat down to my pipe, and a complacent contemplation of all the benefits that might accrue to me through his most praiseworthy cordiality. "After all," I reflected, "'tis no matter where one goes; friends are sure to turn up everywhere;" and thereon arose visions of partridge-shooting in the dewy mornings, to be followed by pleasant little dinners with my host and a bevy of lovely daughters. But on the morrow certain misgivings revisited me, and I came to the conclusion that it would only be the civil thing to ride over to Grantham in the afternoon, and get through {538} the first introductions and explanations before appearing there as a guest. Accordingly, I hired a long-legged, broken-winded hack, the only one to be got for love or money, and set forth upon my way. It was a fruitless journey; the fatal "not at home" greeted my ears, and I could only drop a card, turn the Roman nose of my gallant steed toward home, and resign myself to my fate.

Seven o'clock was the hour named for dinner, and I had intended to be particularly punctual, but misfortunes crowded thick upon me. The first white tie that came to hand was a miserable failure. My favorite curl would not be adjusted becomingly upon my brow; and the wretched donkey-boy who had solemnly promised to bring the basket-carriage punctually to the door, did not appear till ten minutes after the time. Last of all, when I had descended "got up" to perfection, and was on the point of starting, I discovered that I was minus gloves, and the little maid-of-all-work had to be sent fleeing off to the corner shop, where haberdashery and grocery were picturesquely combined. So it fell out that, despite hard driving, it was several minutes past the hour when we drew up under the portico at Grantham. I had no time to compose my nerves or prepare my opening address. A gorgeously-arrayed flunkie appeared at the hall-door; a solemn butler, behind, waved me on to the guidance of another beplushed and bepowdered individual; and before I fully realized my position, I stood in a brilliantly-lighted drawing-room, full of people, and heard my name proclaimed in stentorian tones. The next moment, the florid gentleman whom I had encountered on the previous day came forward with outstretched hands and a beaming face, and a perfect torrent of welcomes burst upon me.

"Glad to see you at last, Mr. Olifant, very glad to see you; I began to think there was a fate against our meeting. Let me introduce you. Lady Hetherton—my daughter—my son Fred. Come this way, this way."

And I was hurried along helpless as an infant in the jovial baronet's hands. How could I—I appeal to any reasonable being—how could I stand stock-still, and, under the eyes of all that company, cross-examine my host as to the why and wherefore of his hospitality? It will be owned, I think, that in what afterward occurred I was not wholly to blame. Lady Hetherton was a quiet well-bred woman, with a mild face and soft voice; she greeted me with a certain sleepy warmth, and after a few placid commonplaces, resumed her conversation with the elderly lady by her side, and left me to the care of her son, a bright, frank young Harrovian, with whom I speedily made friends. Really it was very pleasant to drop in this way into the centre of a genial circle, and I found my spirits rising fast as we talked together, con amore, of cricket, boating, hunting. A fresh arrival, however, soon disturbed the party, and, directly afterward, dinner was announced. Sir Philip, who had been busily engaged in welcoming the last comers, led off a stately dame upon his arm, and we followed in procession, a demure young daughter of the house being assigned to me. We were slowly making our way round the dining-room, when, just as we passed the end of the table, Sir Philip turned and laid his hand upon my shoulder.

"I have scarcely had time for a word yet," he said; "but how are they all in Yorkshire?"

I don't know what answer I gave; some one from behind begged leave to pass, and I was borne on utterly bewildered. Yorkshire! what had I to do with Yorkshire? And then, all at once, the appalling truth burst on me like a thunder-clap—I was the wrong man! Yes; now I recalled a certain Captain Olifant, whom I had once met at a mess-dinner, and who, as I had then heard, belonged to an old Yorkshire family. We could count no sort of kinship with them {539} but here I was, for some inexplicable reason, assumed as one of them, perhaps as the eldest son and heir of their broad acres, and regaled accordingly. My situation was sufficiently unpleasant, and in the first impulse of dismay, I made a dash at a central seat where I might be as far as possible from both host and hostess. But my manoeuvre failed. Lady Hetherton's soft tones were all too audible as she said: "Mr. Olifant, perhaps you will come up here; the post of honor;" and of danger too, in my case; but there was no help for it, and I went. As I unfolded my napkin, striving hard for a cool and easy demeanor, I mentally surveyed my position, and decided on my tactics. I could not and would not there and then declare myself an embodied mistake; I must trust to chance and my own wits to carry me through the evening, and leave my explanations for another season. Alas! my trials full soon began. "We had hardly been seated three minutes, when Lady Hetherton turned to me.

"We were so very glad you were able to come to-night, Mr. Olifant; Sir Philip had quite set his heart upon seeing you here. It is such a great pleasure to him to revive an old friendship; and he was saying that he had almost lost sight of your family."

I murmured something not very coherent about distance and active life.

"Ah, yes, country gentlemen have so much to do that they really are greatly tied at home. I think, though, that I once had the pleasure of meeting a sister of yours in town—Margaret her name was, and she was suffering from some affection of the spine. I hope she is better now?"

"Much better, thank you." And then, in the faint hope of turning the conversation, I asked if they were often in town.

"Not so often as I should wish. Sir Philip has a great dislike to London; but I always enjoy it, for one meets everybody there. By-the-by, Olifant, the Fordes must be near neighbors of yours. I am sure I have heard them speak of Calveston."

I did not dare to say they were not, lest inquiries should follow which might betray my extreme ignorance of Yorkshire geography in general, and the locality of Calveston in particular; so I chose the lesser peril, and answered cheerfully; "Oh yes, quite near within an easy walk of us."

"What charming people they are!" said Lady Hetherton, growing almost enthusiastic. "The two eldest girls were staying here last spring, and we all lost our hearts to them, they were so bright and pleasant; and Katie, too, is growing so very pretty. She isn't out yet, is she?"

"No; I fancy she is to be presented next year," I responded, reflecting that while I was about it I might as well do it thoroughly. "She ought to make a sensation."

"Ah, then," said Lady Hetherton eagerly, "you agree with me about her beauty."

"Oh, entirely. I expect she will be quite the belle of our country balls." And then, in the same breath, I turned to the shy Miss Hetherton beside me, and startled her by an abrupt inquiry whether she liked balls. She must have thought, at any rate, that I liked talking, for her timid, orthodox reply was scarcely uttered, before I plied her with fresh questions, and deluged her with a flood of varied eloquence. Races, archery, croquet, Switzerland, Paris, Garibaldi, the American war, Müller's capture, and Tennyson's new poem, all played their part in turn. For why? Was I not aware that Lady Hetherton's conversation with the solemn old archdeacon opposite flagged from time to time, and that, at every lull, she looked toward me, as though concocting fresh means of torture. But I gained the day; and at length, with secret exultation, watched the ladies slowly defiling from the room. Poor innocent! I little knew what was impending. The last voluminous skirt had scarcely disappeared, when Sir Philip left his chair, and advancing {540} up the table, glass in hand, seated himself in his wife's place at my elbow. I tried to believe that he might intend to devote himself to the arch-deacon, but that good gentleman was more than half inclined to nod, and my left-hand neighbor was deep in a geological discussion; so I sat on, spell-bound, like the sparrow beneath the awful shadow of the hawk. Certainly, there was not much outward resemblance between that bird of prey and Sir Philip's comely, smiling visage, as he leaned forward, and said cheerily: "Well, now, I want to hear all about them."

It was not an encouraging beginning for me, but I had committed myself with Lady Hetherton too far for a retreat. Like Cortes, I had burned my ships. Before I had framed my answer, the baronet proceeded: "I don't know any of you young ones, but your father and I were fast friends once upon a time. Many's the lark we've had together at Harrow, ay, and at Oxford too; for he was a wild-spirited fellow then, was Harry Olifant, though, I daresay, he has settled down into a sober country squire long ago."

It was plain that Sir Philip liked to hear himself talk, and my courage revived.

"Why, yes," I said; "years and cares do work great changes in most men; I daresay you would hardly know him now."

"I daresay not. But he is well, and as good a shot as in the old Oxford days?"

"Just as good. He is never happier than among his turnips." And then I shuddered at my own audacity, as I pictured my veritable parent, a hard-worked barrister, long since dead, and with about as much notion of firing a gun as one of his own briefs.

"Quite right, quite right," exclaimed Sir Philip energetically, "and we can find you some fair sport here, my boy, though the birds are wild this year. Come over as often as you like while you are at Linbeach; or, better still, come and slay here."

I thanked him, and explained that I was staying at Linbeach for the sea-air, and that I must be in town in a few days.

"I'm sorry for that. We ought to have found you out sooner; but I only chanced to see your name at the library last Friday. And so you are at Merton?"

"Yes, I'm at Merton," said I, feeling it quite refreshing to speak the truth.

"Ah, I'm glad your father's stuck to the old college; you could not be at a better one. That boy of mine is wild for soldiering, or I should have sent him there."

The mystery stood revealed. I had recorded my name on the visitors' board as H. Olifant, Merton College, Oxford; and by a strange coincidence, Sir Philip's former friend had belonged to the same college, and owned the same initial. The coincidence was indeed so complete, that it had evidently never dawned upon the baronet that I could be other than the son of his old chum. He sat now sipping his wine, with almost a sad expression on his honest face.

"Ah, my lad," he said presently, "when you come to my age, you'll look back to your old college and your old friends as I do now. But what was I going to ask you? Oh, I remember. Have you seen any of the Fordes lately?"

I glanced round despairingly at the geologists, but they were lost to everything except blue lias and old red sandstone, and there was no hope of effecting a diversion in that quarter.

"Well, no—not very lately," I responded slowly, as though trying to recall the exact date when I last had that felicity. "To tell the truth, I don't go down into those parts so often as I ought to do."

"There's a family for you!" Sir Philip went on triumphantly; "how well they are doing. That young George Forde will distinguish himself one of these days, or I'm much mistaken; and Willie, too—do you know {541} whether he has passed for Woolwich yet?"

I could not say that I did, but the good baronet's confidence in Forde genius was as satisfactory as certainty.

"He's sure to pass, quite sure; never knew such clever lads; and as for beauty—that little Katie"—But here the slumbering archdeacon came to my aid by waking up with a terrific start and a loud "Eh!— what! time to join the ladies."

There was a general stir, and I contrived to make my escape to the drawing-room. If I could only have escaped altogether; but it was not yet half-past nine. The tall footmen and severe butler were lounging in the hall, and I felt convinced that if I pleaded illness, Sir Philip would lay violent hands on me, and insist on my spending the night there. After all, the worst was over, and in the crowded drawing-room, I might with slight dexterity avoid all shoals and quicksands. So I ensconced myself in a low chair, guarded by a big table on one side, and on the other by a comfortable motherly-looking woman in crimson satin, to whom I made myself agreeable. We got on very well together, and I breathed and chatted freely in the delightful persuasion that she at least knew no more of the Fordes than I did. But my malignant star was in the ascendant. I was in the midst of a glowing description of the charms of a reading-party at the lakes, when Sir Philip again assailed me: "Well, Mrs. Sullivan," he said, addressing my companion, "have you been asking after your little favorite?"

"My little favorite?" repeated Mrs. Sullivan inquiringly.

She did not know whom he meant, but I did; I knew quite well.

"Katie Forde, I mean; the little black-eyed girl who used to go into such ecstasies over your roses and ferns—you have not forgotten her yet, have you?"

No, unluckily for me, Mrs. Sullivan had not forgotten her. I was charged with a string of the fond, unmeaning messages which ladies love to exchange; and it was only by emphatically declaring that I should not be in Yorkshire for many months, that I escaped being made the bearer of sundry curious roots and bulbs to the fair Katharine.

But Sir Philip soon interrupted us: "There's a cousin of yours in the next room, Mr. Olifant," he said, evidently thinking that he was making a most agreeable announcement: "she would like to see you, if you will let me take you to her."

I heard and trembled. A cousin. Oh, the Fordes were nothing to this! Why did people have cousins; and why, oh why, should every imaginable evil befal me on this disastrous evening! Such were my agonized reflections while with unwilling steps I followed my host to execution. He led me to a young lady who was serenely examining some prints. "I have brought him to you, Miss Hunter; here's your cousin, Mr. Olifant."

She looked at me, but there was no recognition in her eyes. How could there be, indeed, when we had never met before! What would she do next? What she did do was to hold out her hand with a good-humored smile, and at the same time Sir Philip observed complacently: "You don't know one another, you know." Not know one another; of course we didn't; but I could have hugged him for telling me so; and in the joy of my reprieve, I devoted myself readily to my supposed cousin, a bright, pleasant girl, happily as benighted regarding her real relatives as I was about my imaginary ones. The minutes slipped fast away, the hands of the clock pointed at ten, the guests were beginning to depart, and I was congratulating myself that the ordeal was safely passed, when, happening to turn my head, I saw Sir Philip once more advancing upon me, holding in his hand a photograph book. My doom was sealed! My relentless persecutor was resolved to expose me, and with diabolical craft had planned the certain {542} means. Horrible visions of public disgrace, forcible ejection, nay, even of the pump itself, floated before my dizzy brain, while on he came nearer and ever nearer. "There!" he exclaimed, stopping just in front of me, and holding out the ill-omened book—"There! you can tell me who that is, can't you?"

It was a baby—a baby of a year old, sitting on a cushion, with a rattle in its hand, and it was of course unlike any creature I had ever beheld. "Hm, haw," murmured I, contemplating it in utter desperation; "children are so much alike that really—but"—as a brilliant idea suddenly flashed on me: "surely it must be a Forde!"

"Of course it is," and Sir Philip clapped me on the back in a transport of delight. "I thought you would recognize it. Capital! isn't it? The little thing must be exactly like its mother; and I fancy I see a look of Willie in it too."

I could endure no more. Another such victory would be almost worse than a defeat; and while "my cousin" was rhapsodizing over the infantine charms so touchingly portrayed, I started up, took an abrupt farewell of my host, and despite his vehement remonstrances, went off in search of Lady Hetherton, and beat a successful retreat. As I stepped out into the portico, the pony-trap which I had ordered drove up to the door, and jumping in, I rattled away toward Linbeach, exhausted in body and mind, yet relieved to feel that each succeeding moment found me further and further from the precincts of Grantham. Not till I was snugly seated in the arm-chair in Mrs. Plumb's parlor, watching the blue smoke-wreaths wafted up from my best beloved pipe —not till then could I believe that I was thoroughly safe, and begin to review calmly the events of the evening. And now arose the very embarrassing inquiry: What was next to be done? Sir Philip's parting words had been an energetic exhortation to come over and shoot, the next day, or, in fact, whenever I pleased. "We can't give you the grouse of your native moors," he said as a final thrust, "but we can find you some partridges, I hope;" and I had agreed with a hypocritical smile, while internally resolving that no mortal power should take me to Grantham again. Of one thing there could be no doubt—an explanation was due to the kind-hearted baronet, and it must be given. Of course I might have stolen off from Linbeach still undiscovered, but I dismissed the notion instantly. I had gone far enough already—too far, Sir Philip might not unnaturally think. No; I must write to him, and it had best be done at once. "Heigh-ho," I sighed, as I rummaged out ink and paper, and sat down to the great work; "so ends my solitary friendship at Linbeach." It took me a long time to concoct the epistle, but it was accomplished at last. In terms which I would fain hope were melting and persuasive, I described my birth and parentage, related how I had only discovered my mistaken identity after my arrival at Grantham, and made a full apology for having then, in my embarrassment, perpetuated the delusion. I wound up by the following eloquent and dignified words: "Of course, I can have no claim whatever to continue an acquaintance so formed, and I can only tender my grateful thanks for the warm hospitality of which I have accidentally been the recipient." The letter was sealed and sent, and I was left to speculate how it might be received. Would Sir Philip vouchsafe a reply, or would he treat me with silent contempt? I could fancy him capable of a very tolerable degree of anger, in spite of his bonhomie, and I blushed up to my brows when I pictured quiet Lady Hetherton recalling my remarks about Miss Katie Forde. The second day's post came in and brought me nothing; and now I began to be seized with a nervous dread of encountering any of the Grantham Park party by chance, and this dread grew so {543} unpleasant that I determined to cut short my visit, and return to town at once. My resolution was no sooner made than acted on. I packed my portmanteau, settled accounts with Mrs. Plumb, and went off to take my place by the next morning's coach. Coming hastily out of the booking-office in the dusk, I almost ran against somebody standing by the door. It was Sir Philip, and I stepped hastily back; but he recognized me at once, and held out his hand with a hearty laugh. "Ah, Mr. Olifant, is it you? I was on my way to your lodgings, so we'll walk together;" and not noticing my confusion, he linked his arm in mine, and continued: "I got your letter last evening, when I came in from a long day's shooting, and very much amazed I was, that I must own. I did not answer it at once, for I was half-dead with walking, and, beside, I always like talking better than writing, So now I have come to tell you that I think you've behaved like an honest man and a gentleman in writing that letter; and I'm very glad to have made your acquaintance, though you are not Harry Olifant's son. As for the mistake, why, 'twas my own fault for taking it for granted you must be the man I fancied you. My lady is just the least bit vexed that we should have made such geese of ourselves; but come over and shoot to-morrow, and we'll give you a quiet dinner and a bed in your own proper person; and she will be very glad to see you. Mind I expect you."

After all my resolutions, I did go to Grantham on the following day; and my dinner by mistake was the precursor of a most pleasant acquaintance, which became in time a warm and lasting friendship.




From All the Year Round.

NOAH'S ARKS.


In Kew Gardens is a seldom-visited collection of all the kinds of wood which we have ever heard of, accompanied by specimens of various articles customarily made of those woods in the countries of their growth. Tools, implements, small articles of furniture, musical instruments, sabots and wooden-shoes, boot-trees and shoe-lasts, bows and arrows, planes, saw-handles—all are here, and thousands of other things which it would take a very long summer day indeed even to glance at. The fine display of colonial woods, which were built up into fanciful trophies at the International Exhibition of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, has been transferred to one of these museums; and a noble collection it makes.

We know comparatively little in England of the minor uses of wood. We use wood enough in building houses and railway structures; our carriage-builders and wheelwrights cut up and fashion a great deal more; and our cabinet-makers know how to stock our rooms with furniture, from three-legged stools up to costly cabinets; but implements and minor articles are less extensively made of wood in England than in foreign countries—partly because our forests are becoming thinned, and partly because iron and iron-work are so abundant and cheap. In America, matters are very different. There are thousands of square miles of forest which belong to no one in particular, and the wood of which may be claimed by those who are at the trouble of felling the trees. {544} Nay, a backwoodsman would be very glad to effect a clearing on such terms as these, seeing that the trees encumber the ground on which he wishes to grow corn crops.

The wood, when the trees have been felled and converted into boards and planks, is applied to almost countless purposes of use. Of use, we say; for the Americans are too bustling a people to devote much time to the fabricating of ornaments; they prefer to buy these ready made from Britishers and other Europeans. Pails, bowls, washing-machines, wringing-machines, knife-cleaning boards, neat light vehicles, neat light furniture, dairy vessels, kitchen utensils, all are made by the Americans of clean, tidy-looking wood, and are sold at very low prices. Machinery is used to a large extent in this turnery and wood-ware: the manufacturers not having the fear of strikes before their eyes, use machines just where they think this kind of aid is likely to be most serviceable. The way in which they get a little bowl out of a big bowl, and this out of a bigger, and this out of a bigger still, is a notable example of economy in workmanship. On the continent of Europe the wood-workers are mostly handicraftsmen, who niggle away at their little bits of wood without much aid from machinery. Witness the briar-root pipes of St. Claude. Smart young fellows who sport this kind of smoking-bowl in England, neither know nor care for the fact that it comes from a secluded spot in the Jura mountains. Men and women, boys and girls, earn from threepence to four shillings a day in various little bits of carved and turned work; but the crack wages are paid to the briar-root pipe-makers. England imports many more than she smokes, and sends off the rest to America. M. Audiganne says that "in those monster armies which have sprung up so suddenly on the soil of the great republic, there is scarcely a soldier but has his St. Claude briar-root pipe in his pocket." The truth is, that, unlike cutties and meerschaums, and other clay and earthen pipes, these briar-root productions are very strong, and will bear a great deal of knocking about. The same French writer says that when his countrymen came here to see our International Exhibition, some of them bought and carried home specimens of these pipes as English curiosities: not aware that the little French town of St. Claude was the place of their production.

In Germany the wood-work, so far as English importers know anything of it, is mostly in the form of small trinkets and toys for children. The production of these is immense. In the Tyrol, and near the Thuringian Forest, in the middle states of the ill-organized confederacy, and wherever forests abound, there the peasants spend much of their time in making toys. In the Tyrol, for example, there is a valley called the Grödnerthal, about twenty miles long, in which the rough climate and barren soil will not suffice to grow corn for the inhabitants, who are rather numerous. Shut out from the agricultural labor customary in other districts, the people earn their bread chiefly by wood carving. They make toys of numberless kinds (in which Noah's Ark animals are very predominant) of the soft wood of the Siberian pine—known to the Germans as ziebelnusskiefer. The tree is of slow growth, found on the higher slopes of the valley, but now becoming scarce, owing to the improvidence of the peasants in cutting down the forests without saving or planting others to succeed them. For a hundred years and more the peasants have been carvers. Nearly every cottage is a workshop. All the occupants, male and female, down to very young children, seat themselves round a table, and fashion their little bits of wood. They use twenty or thirty different kinds of tools, under the magic of which the wood is transformed into a dog, a lion, a man, or what not. Agents represent these carvers in various cities of Europe, to dispose of the wares; but they nearly all find their way back again {545} to their native valleys, to spend their earnings in peace.

Many of the specimens shown at the Kew museums are more elaborate than those which could be produced wholly by hand. A turning-lathe of some power must have been needed. Indeed, the manner in which these zoological productions are fabricated is exceedingly curious, and is little likely to be anticipated by ordinary observers. Who, for instance, would imagine for a moment that a wooden horse, elephant, or tiger, or any other member of the Noah's Ark family, could be turned in a lathe, like a ball, bowl, or bedpost? How could the turner's cutting tool, while the piece of wood is rotating in the lathe, make the head stick out in the front, and the ears at the top, and the tail in the rear, and the legs underneath? And how could the animal be made longer than he is high, and higher than he is broad? And how could all the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the swellings and sinkings, be produced by a manipulation which only seems* suitable for circular objects? These questions are all fair ones, and deserve a fair answer. The articles, then, are not fully made in the lathe; they are brought to the state of flat pieces, the outline or contour of which bears an approximate resemblance to the profile of an animal. These flat pieces are in themselves a puzzle; for it is difficult to see how the lathe can have had anything to do with their production. The truth is, the wood is first turned into rings. Say that a horse three inches long is to be fabricated. A block of soft pine wood is prepared, and cut into a slab three inches thick, by perhaps fifteen inches in diameter; the grain running in the direction of the thickness. Out of this circular slab a circular piece is cut from the center, possibly six inches in diameter, leaving the slab in the form of a ring, like an extra thick india-rubber elastic band. While this ring is in the lathe, the turner applies his chisels and gouges to it in every part, on the outer edge, on the inner edge, and on both sides. All sorts of curves are made, now deep, now shallow; now convex, now concave; now with single curvature, now with double. A looker-on could hardly by any possibility guess what these curvings and twistings have to do with each other, for the ring is still a ring, and nothing else; but the cunning workman has got it all in his mind's eye. When the turning is finished, the ring is bisected or cut across, not into two slices, but into two segments or semicircular pieces. Looking at either end of either piece, lo! there is the profile of a horse—without a tail, certainly, but a respectably good horse in other respects. The secret is now divulged. The turner, while the ring or annulus is in the lathe—a Saturn's ring without a Saturn—turns the outer edge into the profile of the top of the head and the back of a horse, the one flat surface into the profile of the chest and the fore legs, and the other flat surface into the profile of the hind quarters and hind legs, and the inner edge of the ring into the profile of the belly, and the deep recess between the fore and hind legs. The curvatures are really very well done, for the workmen have good models to copy from, and long practice gives them accuracy of hand and eye.

An endless ring of tailless horses has been produced, doubtless the most important part of the affair; but there is much ingenuity yet to be shown in developing from this abstract ring a certain number of single, concrete, individual, proper Noah's Ark horses, with proper Noah's Ark tails. The ring is chopped or sawn up into a great many pieces. Each piece is thicker at one end than the other, because the outer diameter of the ring was necessarily greater than the inner; but with this allowance each piece may be considered flat. The thick end is the head of the horse, the thin end the hind quarter; one projecting piece represents the position and profile of the fore legs, but they are not separated; and similarly of the hind {546} legs. Now is the time for the carver to set to work. He takes the piece of wood in hand, equalizes the thickness where needful, and pares off the sharp edges. He separates into two ears the little projecting piece which juts out from the head, separates into two pairs of legs the two projecting pieces which jut out from the body, and makes a respectable pair of eyes, with nostrils and mouth of proper thorough-bred character; he jags the back of the neck in the proper way to form a mane, and makes, not a tail, but a little recess to which a tail may comfortably be glued. The tail is a separate affair. An endless ring of horses' tails is first turned in a lathe. A much smaller slab, smaller in diameter and in thickness than the other, is cut into an annulus or ring; and this ring is turned by tools on both edges and both sides. When bisected, each end of each half of the ring exhibits the profile of a horse's tail; and when cut up into small bits, each bit has the wherewithal in it for fashioning one tail. After the carver has done his work, each horse receives its proper tail; and they are all proper long tails too, such as nature may be supposed to have made, and not the clipped and cropped affairs which farriers and grooms produce.

This continuous ring system is carried faithfully through the whole Noah's Ark family. One big slab is for an endless ring of elephants; another of appropriate size for camels; others for lions, leopards, wolves, foxes, dogs, donkeys, ducks, and all the rest. Sometimes the ears are so shaped as not very conveniently to be produced in the same ring as the other part of the animal; in this case an endless ring of ears is made, and chopped up into twice as many ears as there are animals. Elephant's trunks stick out in a way that would perplex the turner somewhat; he therefore makes an endless ring of trunks, chops it up, and hands over the pieces to the carver to be fashioned into as many trunks as there are elephants. In some instances, where the animal is rather a bullet-headed sort of an individual, the head is turned in a lathe separately, and glued on to the headless body. If a carnivorous animal has a tail very much like that of one of the graminivorous sort, the carver says nothing about it, but makes the same endless ring of tails serve both; or they may belong to the same order but different families—as, for instance, the camel and the cow, which are presented by these Noah's Ark people with tails cut from the same endless ring. Other toys are made in the same way. Those eternal soldiers which German boys are always supposed to love so much, as if there were no end of Schleswig-Holsteins for them to conquer, are—if made of wood (for tin soldiers are also immensely in request)—turned separately in a lathe, so far as their martial frames admit of this mode of shaping; but the muskets and some other portions are made on the endless ring system. All this may be seen very well at Kew; for there are the blocks of soft pine, the slabs cut from them (with the grain of the wood in the direction of the thickness), the rings turned from the slabs, the turnings and curvatures of the rings, the profile of an animal seen at each end, the slices cut from each ring, the animal fashioned from each slice, the ring of tails, the separate tails for each ring, the animal properly tailed in all its glory, and a painted specimen or two to show the finished form in which the loving couples go into the ark—pigs not so much smaller than elephants as they ought to be, but piggishly shaped nevertheless.

All the English toy-makers agree, with one accord, that we cannot for an instant compete with the Germans and Tyrolese in the fabrication of such articles, price for price. We have not made it a large and important branch of handicraft; and our workmen have not studied natural history with sufficient assiduity to give the proper distinctive forms to the animals. {547} The more elaborate productions—such as the baby-dolls which can say "mamma," and make their chests heave like any sentimental damsels—are of French, rather than German manufacture, and are not so much wooden productions as combinations of many different materials. Papier-mache, moulded into form, is becoming very useful in the doll and animal trade; while india-rubber and gutta-percha are doing wonders. The real Noah's Ark work, however, is thoroughly German, and is specially connected with wood-working. Some of the more delicate and elaborate specimens of carving—such as the groups for chimney-piece ornaments, honored by the protection of glass shades—are made of lime-tree or linden-wood, by the peasants of Oberammergau, in the mountain parts of Bavaria. There were specimens of these kinds of work at our two exhibitions which could not have been produced in England at thrice the price; our good carvers are few, and their services are in request at good wages for mediaeval church-work. We should be curious to know what an English carver would require to be paid for a half-guinea Bavarian group now before us—a Tyrolese mountaineer seated on a rock, his rifle resting on his arm, the studded nails in his climbing shoes, a dead chamois at his feet, his wife leaning her hand lightly on his shoulder, his thumb pointing over his shoulder to denote the quarter where he had shot the chamois, his wooden bowl of porridge held on his left knee, the easy fit and flow of the garments of both man and woman— all artistically grouped and nicely cut, and looking clean and white in linden-wood. No English carver would dream of such a thing at such a price. However, these are not the most important of the productions of the peasant carvers, commercially speaking; like as our Mintons and Copelands make more money by everyday crockery than by beautiful Parian statuettes, so do the German toy-makers look to the Noah's Ark class of productions as their main stay in the market, rather than to more elegant and artistic works.




{548}

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

BY CARDINAL WISEMAN.


[In the autumn of last year a communication was made to his eminence the late Cardinal Wiseman by H. Bence Jones, Esq., M.D., as Secretary of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, requesting him to deliver a lecture before that society. The cardinal, with the prompt kindness usual to him, at once assented. The Shakespeare Tercentenary seemed to prescribe the subject, which his eminence therefore selected.

The following pages were dictated by him in the last weeks of his life. The latter part was taken down in the beginning of January; the earlier part was dictated on Saturday the fourteenth of that month. It was his last intellectual exertion, and it overtaxed his failing strength.

The Rev. Dr. Clifford, chaplain to the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, who acted as his amanuensis, states, from the lips of his eminence, that the matter contained in these pages is the beginning and the ending of what he intended to deliver. We have, therefore, only a fragment of a whole which was never completed except in the author's mind.]


I.


There have been some men in the world's history—and they are necessarily few—who by their deaths have deprived mankind of the power to do justice to their merits, in those particular spheres of excellence in which they had been pre-eminent. When the "immortal" Raphael for the last time laid down his palette, still moist with the brilliant colors which he had spread upon his unfinished masterpiece, destined to be exposed to admiration above his bier, he left none behind him who could worthily depict and transmit to us his beautiful lineaments: so that posterity has had to seek in his own paintings, among the guards at a sepulchre, or among the youthful disciples in an ancient school, some figure which may be considered as representing himself.

When his mighty rival, Michelangelo, cast down that massive chisel which no one after him was worthy or able to wield, none survived him who could venture to repeat in marble the rugged grandeur of his countenance; but we imagine that we can trace in the head of some unfinished satyr, or in the sublime countenance of his Moses, the natural or the idealized type from which he drew his stern and noble inspirations.

And, to turn to another great art, when Mozart closed his last uncompleted score, and laid him down to pass from the regions of earthly to those of heavenly music, which none had so closely approached as he, the science over which he ruled could find no strains in which worthily to mourn him except his own, and was compelled to sing for the first time his own marvelous requiem at his funeral. [Footnote 101]

[Footnote 101: The same may be said of the celebrated Cimarosa.]

No less can it be said that when the pen dropped from Shakespeare's hand, when his last mortal illness mastered the strength of even his genius, the world was left powerless to describe in writing his noble and unrivalled characteristics. Hence we turn back upon himself, and endeavor to draw from his own works the only true records of his genius and his mind. [Footnote 102]

[Footnote 102: Even in his lifetime this seems to have been foreseen. In 1664, in an epigram addressed to "Master William Shakespeare," and first published by Mr. Halliwell, occurred the following lines: "Besides in places thy wit windes like Maeander. When (whence) needy new composers borrow more Thence (than) Terence doth from Plautus or Menander, But to praise thee aright I want thy store. Then let thine owne words thine owne worth upraise And help t' adorne thee with deserved baies." Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 160.]


{549}

We apply to him phrases which he has uttered of others; we believe that he must have involuntarily described himself, when he says,

          "Take him all in all,
  We shall not look upon his like again;"

or that he must even consciously have given a reflection of himself when he so richly represents to us "the poet's eye in a fine phrenzy rolling." ("Midsummer-Night's Dream," act v., scene 1.)

But in fact, considering that the character of a man is like that which he describes, "as compounded of many simples extracted from many objects" ("As You Like It," act iv., scene 1), we naturally seek for those qualities which enter into his composition; we look for them in his own pages; we endeavor to cull from every part of his works such attributions of great and noble qualities to his characters, and unite them so as to form what we believe is his truest portrait. In truth, no other author has perhaps existed who has so completely reflected himself in his works as Shakespeare. For, as artists will tell us that every great master has more or less reproduced in his works characteristics to be found in himself, this is far more true of our greatest dramatist, whose genius, whose mind, whose heart, and whose entire soul live and breathe in every page and every line of his imperishable works. Indeed, as in these there is infinitely greater variety, and consequently greater versatility of power necessary to produce it, so must the amount of elements which enter into is composition represent changeable yet blending qualities beyond what the most finished master in any other art an be supposed to have possessed.

The positive and directly applicable materials which we possess for constructing a biography of this our greatest writer, are more scanty than have been collected to illustrate the life of many an inferior author. His contemporaries, his friends, perhaps admirers, have left us but few anecdotes of his life, and have recorded but few traits of either his appearance or his character. Those who immediately succeeded him seem to have taken but little pains to collect early traditions concerning him, while yet they must have been fresh in the recollections of his fellow-countrymen, and still more of his fellow-townsmen. [Footnote 103]

[Footnote 103: As evidence of this neglect we may cite the "Journal" of the Rev. John Ward, Incumbent of Stratford-upon-Avon, to which he was appointed in 1662. This diary, which has been published by Doctor Severn, "from the original MSS.," preserved in the library of the Medical Society of London, contains but two pages relating to Shakespeare, and those contain but scanty and unsatisfactory notices. I will quote only two sentences: "Remember to peruse Shakespeare's Plays—bee much versed in them, that I may not bee ignorant in that matter, whether Dr. Heylin does well, in reckoning up the dramatick poets which have been famous in England, to omit Shakespeare" (p. 184). Shakespeare's daughter was still alive when this was written, as appears from the sentence that immediately follows: it seems to us wonderful that so soon after the poet's death a shrewd and clever clergyman and physician (for Mr. Ward was both) should have known so little about his celebrated townsman's works or life. ]

It appears as though they were scarcely conscious of the great and brilliant luminary of English literature which was shining still, or had but lately passed away; and as though they could not anticipate either the admiration which was to succeed their duller perceptions of his unapproachable grandeur, or the eager desire which this would generate of knowing even the smallest details of its rise, its appearance, its departure. For by the biography of Shakespeare one cannot understand the records of what he bought, of what he sold, or the recital of those acts which only confound him with the common mass which surrounded him, and make him appear as the worthy burgess or the thrifty merchant; though even about the ordinary commonplace portions of his life such uncertainty exists, that doubts have been thrown on the very genuineness of that house which he is supposed to have inhabited.

Now, it is the characteristic individualizing quality, actions, and mode of executing his works, to whatever class of excellence he may belong, that we long to be familiar with in order to say that we know the man. What matters it to us that he paid so many marks or {550} shillings to purchase a homestead in Stratford-upon-Avon? The simple autograph of his name is now worth all the sums that he thus expended. One single line of one of his dramas, written in his own hand, would be worth to his admirers all the sums which are known to have passed between him and others. What has become of the goodly folios which must have once existed written in his own hand? Where are the books annotated or even scratched by his pen, from which he drew the subjects and sometimes the substance of his dramas? What vandalism destroyed the first, or dispersed the second of these valuable treasures? How is it that we know nothing of his method of composition? Was it in solitude and sacred seclusion, self-imprisoned for hours beyond the reach of the turmoil of the street or the domestic sounds of home? Or were his unrivalled works produced in scraps of time and fugitive moments, even perhaps in the waiting-room of the theatre, or the brawling or jovial sounds of the tavern?

Was he silent, thoughtful, while his fertile brain was seething and heaving in the fermentation of his glorious conceptions; so that men should have said—"Hush! Shakespeare is at work with some new and mighty imaginings!" or wore he always that light and careless spirit which often belongs to the spontaneous facility of genius; so that his comrades may have wondered when, and where, and how his grave characters, his solemn scenes, his fearful catastrophes, and his sublime maxims of original wisdom, were conceived, planned, matured, and finally written down, to rule for ever the world of letters? Almost the only fact connected with his literary life which has come down to us is one which has been recorded, perhaps with jealousy, certainly with ill-temper, by his friend Ben Jonson—that he wrote with overhaste, and hardly ever erased a line, though it would have been better had he done so with many.

This almost total absence of all external information, this drying-up of the ordinary channels of personal history, forces us to seek for the character and the very life of Shakespeare in his own works. But how difficult, in analyzing the complex constitution of such a man's principles, motives, passions, and affections, to discriminate between what he has drawn for himself, and what he has created by the force of his imagination. Dealing habitually with fictions, sometimes in their noblest, sometimes in their vilest forms—here gross and even savage, there refined and sometimes ethereal, how shall we discover what portions of them were copied from the glass which he held before himself, what from the magic mirrors across which flitted illusive or fanciful imagery? The work seems hopeless. It is not like that of the printer, who, from a chaotic heap of seemingly unmeaning lead, draws out letter after letter, and so disposes them that they shall make senseful and even brilliant lines. It is more like the hopeless labor of one who, from the fragments of a tesselated pavement, should try to draw the elegant and exquisitely tinted figure which once it bore.

This difficulty of appreciating, and still more of delineating, the character of our great poet, makes him, without perhaps an exception, the most difficult literary theme in English letters.

How to reduce the subject to a lecture seems indeed a literal paradox. But when to this difficulty is added that of an impossible compression into narrow limits of the widest and vastest compass ever embraced by any one man's genius, it must appear an excess of rashness in any-one to presume that he can do justice to the subject on which I am addressing you.

It seems, therefore, hardly wonderful that even the last year, dedicated naturally to the tercentenary commemoration of William Shakespeare, should have passed over without any public eulogy of his greatness in this our metropolis. It seemed, indeed, as if the magnitude of that one man's genius was too oppressive for this generation. It was not, I believe, an undervaluing {551} of his merits which produced the frustration of efforts, and the disappointment of expectations, that seemed to put to rout and confusion, or rather to paralyze, the exertions so strenuously commenced to mark the year as a great epoch in England's literary history. I believe, on the contrary, that the dimensions of Shakespeare had grown so immeasurably in the estimation of his fellow-countrymen, that the proportions of his genius to all that had followed him, and all that surround us, had grown so enormously in the judgment and feeling of the country, from the nobleman to the workman, that the genius of the man oppressed us, and made us feel that all our multiplied resources of art and speech were unequal to his worthy commemoration. No plan proposed for this purpose seemed adequate to attain it. Nothing solid and permanent that could either come up to his merits or to our aspirations seemed to be within the grasp either of the arts or of the wealth of our country. The year has passed away, and Shakespeare remains without any monument, except that which, by his wonderful writings, he has raised for himself. Even the research after a site fit for the erection of a monument to him, in the city of squares, of gardens, and of parks, seemed only to work perplexity and hopelessness.

Presumptuous as it may appear, the claim to connect myself with that expired and extinct movement is my only apology for my appearing before you. If, a year after its time, I take upon myself the eulogy of Shakespeare, if I appear to come forward as with a funeral oration, to give him, in a manner, posthumous glory, it is because my work has dropped out of its place, and not because I have inopportunely misplaced it. In the course of the last year, it was proposed to me, both directly and indirectly, to deliver a lecture on Shakespeare. I was bold enough to yield my assent, and thus felt that I had contracted an obligation to the memory of the bard, as well as to those who thought that my sharing what was done for his honor would possess any value. A task undertaken becomes a duty unfulfilled. When, therefore, it was proposed to me to perform my portion of the homage which I considered due to him, though it was to be a month too late, I felt it would be cowardice to shrink from its performance.

For in truth the undertaking required some courage; and to retire before its difficulties might be stigmatized as a dastardly timidity. It is a work of courage at any time and in any place to undertake a lecture upon Shakespeare, more in fact than to venture on the delivery of a series. The latter gives scope for the thousand things which one would wish to say—it affords ample space for apposite illustration—and it enables one to enrich the subject with the innumerable and inimitable beauties that are flung like gems or flowers over every page of his magnificent works. But in the midst of public, or rather universal, celebration of a national and secular festival in his honor, in the presence probably of the most finished literary characters in this highly-educated country, still more certainly before numbers of those whom the nation acknowledges as deeply read in the works of our poet as the most accomplished critic of any age has been in the writings of the classics—men who have introduced into our literature a class-name—that of "Shakespearian scholars"—to have ventured to speak on this great theme might seem to have required, not courage, but temerity. Why, it might have been justly asked, do none of those who have consumed their lives in the study of him, not page by page, but line by line, who have pressed his sweet fruits between their lips till they have absorbed all their lusciousness, who have made his words their study, his thoughts their meditation,—why does not one at least among them stand forward now, and leave for posterity the record of his matured observation? Perhaps I may assign the reason which I have before, that they {552} know, too, the unapproachable granduer of the theme, and the rare powers which are required to grasp and to hold it.

Be it so; but at any rate, if in the presence of others so much more capable it would have been rash to speak, to express one's thoughts, when there is no competition, may be pardonable at least.

And yet, when everybody else is silent, it may be very naturally asked, Have I a single claim to put forward upon your attention and indulgence? I think I may have one; though I fear that when I mention it, it may be considered either a paradox or a refutation of my pretensions. My claim, then, to be heard and borne with is this—that I have never in my life seen Shakespeare acted; I have never heard his eloquent speeches declaimed by gifted performers; I have not listened to his noble poetry as uttered by the kings or queens of tragedy; I have not witnessed his grand, richly-concerted scenes endowed with life by the graceful gestures, the classical attitudes, the contrasting emotions, and the pointed emphasis of those who in modern times may be considered to have even added to that which his genius produced; I know nothing of the original and striking readings or renderings of particular passages by masters of mimic art; I know him only on his flat page, as he is represented in immovable, featureless, unemotional type.

Nor am I acquainted with him surrounded, perhaps sometimes sustained, but, at any rate, worthily adorned and enhanced in accessory beauty, by the magic illusion of scenic decorations, the splendid pageantry which he simply hints at, but which, I believe, has been now realized to its most ideal exactness and richness—banquets, tournaments, and battles, with the almost deceptive accuracy of costume and of architecture. When I hear of all these additional ornaments hung around his noble works, the impression which they make upon my mind creates a deeper sense of amazement and admiration, how dramas written for the "Globe" Theatre, wretchedly lighted, incapable of grandeur even from want of space, and without those mechanical and artistical resources which belong to a later age, should be capable of bearing all this additional weight of lustre and magnificence without its being necessary to alter a word, still less a passage, from their original delivery. [Footnote 104 ] This exhibits the nicely-balanced point of excellence which is equally poised between simplicity and gorgeousness; which can retain its power and beauty, whether stript to its barest form or loaded with exuberant appurtenances.

[Footnote 104: The chorus which serves as a prologue to "King Henry V.," shows how Shakespeare's own mind keenly felt the deficiencies of his time, and almost anticipatingly wrote for the effects which a future age might supply:

          "But pardon, gentles all,
    This flat unraised spirit that hath dar'd,
    On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
    So great an object. Can this cock-pit hold
    The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
    Within this wooden O the very casques
    That did affright the air at Agincourt.
    …
    Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
    Into a thousand parts divide one man,
    And make imaginary puissance:
    Think, when we talk of horses, that ye see them
    Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
    For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings."]

After having said thus much of my own probably unenvied position, I think I shall not be wrong in assuming that none of Shakespeare's enthusiastic admirers, one of whom I profess myself to be, and that few of my audience, are in this exceptional position. They will probably consider this a disadvantage on my side; and to some extent I must acknowledge it—for Shakespeare wrote to be acted, and not to be read.

But, on the other hand, is it not something to have approached this wonderful man, and to have communed with him in silence and in solitude, face to face, alone with him alone; to have read and studied and meditated on him in early youth, without gloss or commentary, or preface or glossary? For such was my good or evil fortune; not during the still hours of night, but during that stiller portion of an Italian {553} afternoon, when silence is deeper than in the night, under a bright and sultry sun when all are at rest, all around you hushed to the very footsteps in a well-peopled house, except the unquelled murmuring of a fountain beneath orange trees, which mingled thus the most delicate of fragrance with the most soothing of sounds, both stealing together through the half-closed windows of wide and lofty corridors. Is there not more of that reverence and that relish which constitute the classical taste to be derived from the concentration of thought and feelings which the perusal of the simple unmarred and unoverlaid text produces; when you can ponder on a verse, can linger over a word, can repeat mentally and even orally with your own deliberation and your own emphasis, whenever dignity, beauty, or wisdom invite you to pause, or compel you to ruminate?

In fact, were you desired to give your judgment on the refreshing water of a pure fountain, you would not care to taste it from a richly-jewelled and delicately-chased cup; you would not consent to have it mingled with the choicest wine, nor flavored by a single drop of the most exquisite essence; you would not have it chilled with ice, or gently attempered by warmth. No, you would choose the most transparent crystal vessel, however homely; you would fill at the very cleft of the rock from which it bubbles fresh and bright, and drink it yet sparkling, and beading with its own air-pearls the walls of the goblet. Nay, is not an opposite course that which the poet himself censures as "wasteful, ridiculous excess?"

  "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily;
  To throw a perfume on the violet.
  …
  Or with a taper light
  To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to varnish."
            ("King John" act iv., scene 2.)

You will easily understand, from long and almost apologetic preamble, in the first place, that I take it for granted that I am addressing an audience which is not assembled to receive elementary or new information concerning England's greatest poet. On the contrary, I believe myself to stand before many who are able to judge, rather than merely accept, my opinions, and in the presence of an assembly exclusively composed of his admirers, thoroughly conversant with his works. A further consequence is this, that my lecture will not consist of extracts—still less of recitations of any of those beautiful passages which occur in every play of Shakespeare. The most celebrated of these are present to the mind of every English scholar, from his school-boy days to his maturer studies.


II.


It would be superfluous for a lecturer on Shakespeare to put to himself the question, What place do you intend to give to the subject of your discourse in the literature of England or of Europe? Whatever difference of opinion may exist elsewhere, I believe that in this country only one answer will be given. Among our native writers no one questions that Shakespeare is supremely pre-eminent, and most of us will probably assign him as lofty a position in the whole range of modern European literature. Perhaps no other nation possesses among its writers any one name to which there is no rival claim, nor even an approximation of equality, to make a balance against it. Were we to imagine in England a Walhalla erected to contain the effigies of great men, and were one especial hall to contain those of our most eminent dramatists, it must needs be so constructed as to have one central niche. Were a similar structure prepared in France, it would be natural to place in equal prominence at least two figures, or, in classical language, two different muses of Tragedy and of Comedy would have to be separately represented. But in England, assign what place we may to those who have excelled in either branch in mimic art, {554} the highest excellence in both would be found centered in one man; and from him on either side would have to range the successful cultivators of the drama.

But this claim to so undisputed an elevation does not rest upon his merits only in this field of our literature. Shakespeare has established his claim to the noblest position in English literature on a wider and more solid basis than the mere composition of skilful plays could deserve. As the great master of our language, as almost its regenerator, quite its refiner—as the author whose use of a word stamps it with the mark of purest English coinage—whose employment of a phrase makes it household and proverbial—whose sententious sayings, flowing without effort from his mind, seem almost sacred, and are quoted as axioms or maxims indisputable—as the orator whose speeches, not only apt, but natural to the lips from which they issue, are more eloquent than the discourses of senators or finished public speakers—as the poet whose notes are richer, more wondrously varied than those of the greatest professed bards—as the writer who has run through the most varied ways and to the greatest extent through every department of literature and learning, through the history of many nations, their domestic manners, their characteristics, and even their personal distinctives, and who seems to have visited every part of nature, to have intuitively studied the heavens and the earth—as the man, in fine, who has shown himself supreme in so many things, superiority in any one of which gains reputation in life and glory after death, he is preeminent above all, and beyond the reach of envy or jealousy.

And if no other nation can show us another man whose head rises above all their other men of letters, as Shakespeare does over ours, they cannot pretend, by the accumulation of separated excellences, to put in competition with him a type rather than a realization of possible worth.

Until, therefore, some other writer can be produced, no matter from what nation, who unites in himself personally these gifts of our bard in an equally sublime degree, his stature overtops them all, wherever born and however celebrated.

The question, however, may be raised, Is he so securely placed upon his pedestal that a rival may not one day thrust him from it?—is he so secure upon his throne that a rebel may not usurp it? To these interrogations I answer unhesitatingly, Yes.

In the first place, there have only been two poets in the world before Shakespeare who have attained the same position with him. Each came at the moment which closed the volume of the period past and opened that of a new epoch. Of what preceded Homer we can know but little; the songs by bards or rhapsodists had, no doubt, preceded him, and prepared the way for the first and greatest epic. This, it is acknowledged, has never been surpassed; it became the standard of language, the steadfast rule of versification, and the model of poetical composition. His supremacy, once attained, was shaken by no competition; it was as well assured after a hundred years as it has been by thousands. Dante again stood between the remnants of the old Roman civilization and the construction of a new and Christian system of arts and letters. He, too, consolidated the floating fragments of an indefinite language, and with them built and thence himself fitted and adorned that stately vessel which bears him through all the regions of life and of death, of glory, of trial, and of perdition.

A word found in Dante is classical to the Italian ear; a form, however strange in grammar, traced to him, is considered justifiable if used by any modern sonneteer. [Footnote 105] He holds the place in his own country which Shakespeare does in ours; not only is his terza rima considered inimitable, {555} but the concentration of brilliant imagery in our words, the flashes of his great thoughts and the copious variety of his learning, marvellous in his age, make his volume be to this day the delight of every refined intelligence and every polished mind in Italy.

[Footnote 105: Any one acquainted with Mastrofini's "Dictionary of Italian Verbs" will understand this.]

And he, too, like Homer, notwithstanding the magnificent poets who succeeded him, has never for a moment lost that fascination which he alone exercises over the domain of Italian poetry. He was as much its ruler in his own age as he is in the present.

In like manner, the two centuries and more which have elapsed since Shakespeare's death have as completely confirmed him in his legitimate command as the same period did his two only real predecessors. No one can possibly either be placed in a similar position or come up to his great qualities, except at the expense of the destruction of our present civilization, the annihilation of its past traditions, the resolution of our language into jargon, and its regeneration, by a new birth, into something "more rich and strange" than the powerful idiom which so splendidly combines the Saxon and the Norman elements. Should such a devastation and reconstruction take place, whether they come from New Zealand or from Siberia, then there may spring up the poet of that time and condition who may be the fourth in that great series of unrivalled bards, but will no more interfere with his predecessor's rights than Dante or Shakespeare does with those of Homer.

But further, we may truly say that the legislator of a people can be but one, and, as such, can have no rival beyond his own shores. Solon, Lycurgus, and Numa are the only three men in profane history who have reached the dignity of this singular title. The first seized on the character of the bland and polished Athenians, and framed his code in such harmony with it, that no subsequent laws, even in the periods of most corrupt relaxation, could efface their primitive stamp, cease to make the republic proud of their lawgiver's name.

Lycurgus understood the stern and almost savage hardihood and simplicity of the Spartan disposition, and perpetuated it and regulated it by his harsh and unfeeling system, of which, notwithstanding, the Lacedaemonian was proud. And so Numa Pompilius comprehended the readiness of the infant republic, sprung from so doubtful and discreditable a parentage, to discover a noble descent, and connect its birth and education with gods and heroes; took hold of this weakness for the sanction of his legislation; and feigned his conferences with the nymph Egeria as the sources of his wisdom. No; whatever may become of kings, legislators are never dethroned.

And so is Shakespeare the unquestioned legislator of modern literary art. No one will contend that, without certain detriment, it would be possible for a modern writer, especially of dramatic fiction, to go back beyond him and endeavor to establish a pre-Shakespearian school of English literature, as we have the pre-Raphaelite in art. Struggle and writhe as any genius may—even if endowed with giant strength it—will be but as the battle of the Titans against Jove. Huge rocks will be rolled down upon him, and the lightning from Shakespeare's hand will assuredly tear his laurels, if it do not strike his head. Byron could not appreciate the dramatic genius of Shakespeare; perhaps his sympathies ranged more freely among corsairs and Suliotes than among purer and nobler spirits. Certainly he speaks of him with a superciliousness which betrays his inability fully to comprehend him. [Footnote 106] And yet, would "Manfred" have existed if the romantic drama and the spirit-agency of Shakespeare {556} had not given it life and rule? So in other nations. I shall probably quote to you the sentiments of foreign writers of highest eminence concerning Shakespeare, not as authorities, but as illustrations of what I may say.

[Footnote 106: Lord Byron thus writes to Mr. Murray, July 14, 1821: "I trust that Sardanapalus will not be mistaken for a political play . . . . You will find all this very unlike Shakespeare; and so much the better, in one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of writers."—Moore's Life of Lord Byron.]

Singularly enough, the greatest of German modern writers has nowhere recorded a full and deliberate opinion on our poet. But who can doubt that "Götz von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand," and even the grand and tender "Faust," and no less Schiller's "Wallenstein," belong to the family of Shakespeare, are remotely offsprings of his genius, and have to be placed as tributary garlands round his pedestal. To imagine Shakespeare even in intention removed from his sovereignty would be a treachery parallel only to that of Lear dethroned by his own daughters.

But still more may we say that, in all such positions as that which we have assigned to Shakespeare, there has always been a culminating point to which succeeds decline—if not downfall. It is so in art. Immediately after the death of Raphael, and the dispersion of his school, art took a downward direction, and has never risen again to the same height. And while he marks the highest elevation ever reached in the arts of Europe, a similar observation will apply to their particular schools. Leonardo and Luini in Lombardy; the Carracci in Bologna; Fra Angelico in Umbria; Garofalo in Ferrara, not only take the place of chiefs in their respective districts, but mark the period from which degeneracy has to date. And so surely is it in our case, whatever may have been the course of literature which led up to Shakespeare, without pronouncing judgment on Spenser, or "rare Ben Jonson," it is certain that after him, although England has possessed great poets, there stands not one forward among them as Shakespeare's competitor. Milton, and Dryden, and Addison, and Rowe have given us specimens of high dramatic writing of no mean quality; others as well, and even these have written much and nobly, in lofty as in familiar verse; yet not one has the public judgment of the nation placed on a level with him. The intermediate space from them to our own times has left only the traces of a weak and enervated school. It would be unbecoming to speak disparagingly of the poets of the present age; but no one, I believe, has ventured to consider them as superior to the noble spirits of our Augustan age. The easy descent from the loftiest eminence is not easily reclimbed.

Surely, then, we may consider Shakespeare, as an ancient mythologist would have done, as "enskied" among "the invulnerable clouds," where no shaft, even of envy, can assail him. From this elevation we may safely predict that he never can be plucked.


III.


The next point which seems to claim attention is the very root of all that I have said or shall have still to say. To what does Shakespeare owe this supremacy, or whence flow all the extraordinary qualities which we attribute to him? You are all prepared with the answer in one single word his GENIUS.

The genius of Shakespeare is our familiar thought and ready expression when we study him, and when we characterize him. Nevertheless, simple and intelligible as is the word, it is extremely difficult to analyze or to define it. Yet everything that is great and beautiful in his writings seems to require an explanation of the cause to which it owes its origin.

One great characteristic of genius, easily and universally admitted, is, that it is a gift, and not an acquisition. It belongs inherently to the person possessing it; it cannot be transmitted by heritage; it cannot be infused by parental affection; it cannot be bestowed by earliest care; neither can it be communicated by the most finished {557} culture or the most studied education. It must be congenital, or rather inborn to its possessor. It is as much a living, a natural power, as is reason to every man. As surely as the very first germ of the plant contains in itself the faculty of one day evolving from itself leaves, flowers, and fruit, so does genius hold, however hidden, however unseen, the power to open, to bring forth, and to mature what other men cannot do, but what to it is instinctive and almost spontaneous. It may begin to manifest itself with the very dawn of reason; it may remain asleep for years, till a spark, perhaps accidentally, kindles up into a sudden and irrepressible splendor that unseen intellectual fuel which has been almost unknown to its unambitious owner.

In our own minds we easily distinguish between the highest abilities or the most rare attainments, when the fruit of education and of application, and what we habitually distinguish as the manifestation of genius. But still we do not find it so easy to reduce to words this mental distinction; the one, after all, however gracefully and however brightly, walks upon the earth, adorning it by the good or fair things which it scatters on its way; the other has wings, and flies above the surface—it is like the aurora of Homer or of Thorwaldsen, which, as it flies above the plane of mortal actions, sheds down its flowers along its brilliant path upon those worthy to gaze upward toward it. We connect in our minds with genius the ideas of flashing splendor and eccentric movement. It is an intellectual meteor, the laws of which cannot be defined or reduced to any given theory. We regard it with a certain awe, and leave it to soar or to droop, to shine or disappear, to dash irregularly first in one direction and then in another; no one dare curb it or direct it; but all feel sure that its course, however inexplicable, is subject to higher and controlling rule. But in order to define more closely what we in reality understand by genius, it may be well to consider its action in divided and more restricted spheres of activity. For although we habitually attribute this singular quality to many, and often but on light grounds, it is seldom that we do so seriously and deliberately without some qualifying epithet. We speak of a military genius, of a mechanical genius, of a poetical genius, of a musical genius, or of an artistic genius. All these expressions contain a restrictive clause. We do not understand when we use them that the person to whom they were attributed possessed any power beyond the limits of a particular sphere. We do not mean by the use of the word genius that the soldier knew anything of poetry, or the printer of mechanism. We understand that each in his own profession or stage of excellence possessed a complete elevation over the bulk of those who followed the same pursuits; a superiority so visible, so acknowledged, and so clearly individual, that no one else considered it inferiority, still less felt shame at not being able to rise to the same level. They gather round them acknowledged disciples and admirers, who rather glory to have been guided by their teaching, and formed on their example.

And in what consisted that complete though limited excellence? If I might venture to express a judgment, I would say that genius in these different courses of science or art may be defined a natural sympathy with all that relates to each of them, with the power of giving full and certain execution to the mental conception. The military genius is one who, either untrained by studious preparation, or else starting out of the lines in which many were ranged level with himself, seizes the staff of command, and receives the homage of comrades and superiors. While others have been plodding through the long drill of theory and of practice, he is found to have discovered a new system of the science, bold, irregular, but successful. But to possess this genius, there must be a universal sympathy with all that relates {558} to its own peculiar province. The military genius of which we are speaking must embrace or acquire that which relates to the soldier's life and duty, from the dress of a single soldier, from his duties in the sentry-box, or on the picquet, to the practice of the regiment and the evolutions of a field-day; from the complete command of tens of thousands on the battle-field, with an eagle's eye and a lion's heart, to the scientific planning, on the chessboard of an empire, of the campaign, which he meditates, move by move and check by check, till the final victory is crowned in the capital city. He who has not given proof of his being equal to all this, has not made good his claim to military genius. But such a one will find, wherever he puts his hand, generals and marshals, each able to command a host, or to take his place in his roughest of enterprises.

I need not pass through other forms of genius to reach similar results; Stephenson, from the labor of the mine, creating that system of mechanical motion, which may be said to have subdued the world, and bound the earth in iron links; Mozart giving concerts at the age of seven that astonished gray-headed musicians; Raphael, before the ordinary age of finished pupilage, master of every known detail in art of oil or fresco, drawing, expression, and grand composition; Giotto, caught in the field as a young shepherd by Cimabue, drawing his sheep upon a stone, and soon becoming the master of modern art. [Footnote 107] These and many others repeat to us what I have said of the military genius—an inborn capacity, comprehensive and complete, with the power of fully carrying out the suggestions of mind. Had there been a single portion of their pursuits in which they did not excel, if the result of their work had not exhibited the happy union and concord of the many qualities requisite for its perfection, they never would have attained the attribution of genius.

[Footnote 107: The early manifestation of artistic power is so frequent and well known, that it would be superfluous to enumerate other instances. The expression "anch' io son pittore" is become proverbial. One of the Carracci, on being translated from an inferior profession to the family studio, was found at once to possess the pictorial skill of his race. At the present, Mintropp at Düsseldorf, and Ackermann at Berlin, are both instances of very high artists, the one in drawing, the other in sculpture, both originally shepherds.]

If this sympathy with one branch of higher pursuits passes beyond it and associates with it a similar facility of acquisition and execution in some other and distinct art or science, it is clear that the claim to genius is higher and more extensive. Raphael was before the world a painter, but he could scarcely have been so without embracing every other department of art. Before the science of perspective was matured or popularly known, when, in consequence, defects are to be found in the disposition of figures, and in the adjustment of aerial distances, [Footnote 108] his architecture shows an instinctive familiarity with its rules and proportions; a proof that he possessed an architectural eye. And consequently the one statue which he is supposed to have carved, and the one palace which he is said to have built, show how easily he could have undertaken and executed beautiful works in either of those two classes of art. In Orcagna and Michelangelo we have the three branches of art supremely united; and the second of these adds poetry and literature to his artistic excellence. In like manner, Leonardo has left proof of most varied and accurate mechanical as well as literary genius.

[Footnote 108: See Mr. Lloyd's article on "Raphael's School of Athens," in Mr. Woodward's Fine Art Quarterly Review, January, 1864, p. 67.]

It is evident, however, that while a genius has its point of concentration, every remove from this, though wider, will be fainter and less complete. We may describe it as Shakespeare himself describes glory, and say:

  "Genius is like a circle in the water,
  Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
  Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught."
        ("Henry VI.," act i., scene 3.)

The sympathies with more remote subjects and pursuits will be rather the means of illustration, adornment, and {559} pleasing variety, than for the essential requirements of the principal aim. But though less minute in their application, in the hand of genius they will be wonderfully accurate and apt.


IV.


All that I have been saying is applicable in the most complete and marvellous way to Shakespeare's genius. His sympathies are universal, perfect in their own immediate use, infinitely varied, and strikingly beautiful, when they reach remoter objects. And hence, though at first sight he might be classified among those who have displayed a literary genius, he stretches his mind and his feelings so beyond them on every side, that to him, almost, perhaps, beyond any other man, the simple distinctive, without any qualification, belongs. No one need fear to call Shakespeare simply a grand, a sublime genius.

The centre-point of his sympathies is clearly his dramatic art. From this they expand, for many degrees, with scarce perceptible diminution, till they lose themselves in far distant, and, to him, unexplored space. This nucleus of his genius has certainly never been equalled before or since. Its essence consists in what is the very soul of the dramatic idea, the power to throw himself into the situation, the circumstances, the nature, the acquired habits, the feelings, true or fictitious, of every character which he introduces. This forms, in fact, the most perfect of sympathies. We do not, of course, use the word in that more usual sense of harmony of affection, or consent of feeling. Shakespeare has sympathy as complete for Shylock or Iago as he as for Arthur or King Lear. For a time he lives in the astute villain as in the innocent child; he works his entire power of thought into intricacies of the traitor's brain; he makes his heart beat in concord with the usurer's sanguinary spite, and then, like some beautiful creature in the animal world, draws himself out of the hateful evil, and is himself again; and able, even, often to hold his own noble and gentle qualities as a mirror, or exhibit the loftiest, the most generous, and amiable examples of our nature. And this is all done without study, and apparently without effort. His infinitely varied characters come naturally into their places, never for a moment lose their proprieties, their personality, and the exact flexibility which results from the necessary combination in every man of many qualities. From the beginning to the end each one is the same, yet reflecting in himself the lights and shadows which flit around him.

This extraordinary versatility stands in striking contrast with the dramatic productions of other countries. The Greek tragedian is Greek throughout—his subjects, his mythology, his sentences, play wonderfully indeed, but yet restrictedly, within a given sphere. And Rome is but the imitator in all its literature of its great mistress and model.

  "Graiis eloquium, Gratis dedit ore rotundo, Musa loqui."

Even through the French school, with the strict adhesion to the ancient rule of the unities, seems to have descended the partiality for what may be called the chastely classical subjects. Not so with Shakespeare.

Who, a stranger might ask, is the man, and where was he born, and where does he live, that not only his acts and scenes are placed in any age, or in any land, but that he can fill his stage with the very living men of the time and place represented; make them move as easily as if he held them in strings; and make them speak not only with general conformity to their common position, but with individual and distinctive propriety, so that each is different from the rest? Did he live in ancient Rome, strolling the Forum, or climbing the Capitol; hear ancient matrons converse with modest dignity; listen to conspirators among the columns of its porticos; mingle among senators around Pompey's {560} statue; or with plebeians crowding to hear Brutus or Anthony harangue? Was he one accustomed to idle in the piazza of St. Mark, or shoot his gondola under the Rialto? Or was he a knight or even archer in the fields of France or England during the period of the Plantagenets or Tudors, and witnessed and wrote down the great deeds of those times, and knew intimately and personally each puissant lord who distinguished himself by his valor, by his wisdom, or even by his crimes? Did he live in the courts of princes, perchance holding some office which enabled him to listen to the grave utterances of kings and their counsellors, or to the witty sayings of court jesters? Did he consort with banished princes, and partake of their sports or their sufferings? In fine, did he live in great cities, or in shepherds' cottages, or in fields and woods; and does he date from John and live on to the eighth Henry—a thread connecting in himself the different epochs of mediaeval England? One would almost say so; or multiply one man into many, whose works have been united under one man.

This ubiquity, if we may so call it, of Shakespeare's sympathies, constitutes the unlimited extent and might of his dramatic genius. It would be difficult to imagine where a boundary line could at length have been drawn, beyond which nothing original, nothing new, and nothing beautiful, could be supposed to have come forth from his mind. We are compelled to say that his genius was inexhaustible.


V.


This rare and wonderful faculty becomes more interesting if we follow it into further details.

I remember an anecdote of Garrick, who, in company with another performer of some eminence, was walking in the country, and about to enter a village. "Let us pass off," said the younger comedian to his more distinguished companion, "as two intoxicated fellows." They did so, apparently with perfect success, being saluted by the jeers and abuse of the inhabitants. When they came forth at the other end of the village, the younger performer asked Garrick how he had fulfilled his part. "Very well," was the reply, "except that you were not perfectly tipsy in your legs."

Now, in Shakespeare there is no danger of a similar defect. Whatever his character is intended to be it is carried out to its very extremities. Nothing is forgotten, nothing overlooked. Many of you, no doubt, are aware that a controversy has long existed whether the madness of Hamlet is intended by Shakespeare to be real or simulated. If a dramatist wished to represent one of his persons as feigning madness, that assumed condition would be naturally desired by the writer to be as like as possible to the real affliction. If the other persons associated with him could at once discover that the madness was put on, of course the entire action would be marred, and the object for which the pretended madness was designed would be defeated by the discovery. How consummate must be the poet's art, who can have so skilfully described, to the minutest symptoms, the mental malady of a great mind, as to leave it uncertain to the present day, even among learned physicians versed in such maladies, whether Hamlet's madness was real or assumed.

This controversy may be said to have been brought to a close by one of the ablest among those in England who have every opportunity of studying the almost innumerable shades through which alienation of mind can pass. [Footnote 109] And so delicate are the changeful characteristics which Shakespeare describes, that Dr. Conolly considers that a twofold form of {561} disease is placed before us in the Danish prince. He concludes that he was laboring under real madness, yet able to put on a fictitious and artificial derangement for the purposes which he kept in view. Passing through act by act and scene by scene, analyzing, with experienced eye, each new symptom as it occurs, dividing and anatomatizing, with the finest scalpel, every fibre of his brain, he exhibits, step by step, the transitionary characters of the natural disease in a mind naturally, and by education, great and noble, but thrown off his pivot by the anguish of his sufferings and the strain of aroused passion. And to this is superadded another and not genuine affection, which serves its turn with that estranged mind when it suits it to act, more especially that part which the natural ailment did not suffice for. Now, Dr. Conolly considers these symptoms so accurately as well as minutely described, that he throws out the conjecture that Shakespeare may have borrowed the account of them from some unknown papers by his son-in-law, Dr. Hall.

[Footnote 109: "A Study of Hamlet," by John Conolly, M.D., London, 1863. In p. 52 the author quotes Mr. Coleridge and M. Killemain as holding the opinion that Shakespeare has "contrived to blend both (feigned and real madness) in the extraordinary character of Hamlet; and to join together the light of reason, the cunning of intentional error, and the involuntary disorder of a soul."]

But let it be remembered that in those days mental phenomena were by no means accurately examined or generally known. There was but little attention paid to the peculiar forms of monomania, or to its treatment, beyond restraint and often cruelty. The poor idiot was allowed, if harmless, to wander about the village or the country, to drivel or gibber amidst the teasing or ill-natured treatment of boys or rustics. The poor maniac was chained or tied in some wretched out-house, at the mercy of some heartless guardian, with no protector but the constable. Shakespeare could not be supposed, in the little town of Stratford, nor indeed in London itself, to have had opportunities of studying the influence and the appearance of mental derangement of a high-minded and finely-cultivated prince. How then did Shakespeare contrive to paint so highly-finished and yet so complex an image? Simply by the exercise of that strong sympathetic will which enabled him to transport, or rather to transmute, himself into another personality. While this character was strongly before him he changed himself into a maniac; he felt intuitively what would be his own thought, what his feelings, were he in that situation; he played with himself the part of the madman, with his own grand mind as the basis of its action; he grasped on every side the imagery which he felt would have come into his mind, beautiful even when dislorded, sublime even when it was grovelling, brilliant even when dulled, and clothed it in words of fire and of tenderness, with a varied rapidity which partakes of wildness and of sense. He needed not to look for a model out of himself, for it cost him no effort to change the angle of his mirror and sketch his own countenance awry. It was but little for him to pluck away the crown from reason and contemplate it dethroned.

Before taking leave of Dr. Conolly's most interesting monography, I will allow myself to make only one remark. Having determined to represent Hamlet in this anomalous and perplexing condition, it was of the utmost importance to the course and end of this sublime drama, that one principal incident should be most decisively separated from Hamlet's reverse of mind. Had it been possible to attribute the appearance of the Ghost, as the Queen, his mother, does attribute it in the fifth act, to the delusion of his bewildered phantasy, the whole groundwork of the drama would have crumbled beneath its superincumbent weight. Had the spectre been seen by Hamlet, or by him first, we should have been perpetually troubled with the doubt whether or not it was the hallucination of a distracted, or the invention of a deceitful brain. But Shakespeare felt the necessity of making this apparition be held for a reality, and therefore he makes it the very first incident in his tragedy, antecedent to the slightest symptom {562} of either natural or affected derangement, and makes it first be seen by two witnesses together, and then conjointly by a third unbelieving and fearless witness. It is the testimony of these three which first brings to the knowledge of the incredulous prince this extraordinary occurrence. One may doubt whether any other writer has ever made a ghost appear successively to those whom we may call the wrong persons, before showing himself to the one whom alone he cared to visit. The extraordinary exigencies of Shakespeare's plot rendered necessary this unusual fiction. And it serves, moreover, to give the only color of justice to acts which otherwise must have appeared unqualified as mad freaks or frightful crimes.

What Dr. Conolly has done for Hamlet and Ophelia, Dr. Bucknill had previously performed on a more extensive scale. In his "Psychology of Shakespeare" [Footnote 110] he has minutely investigated the mental condition of Macbeth, King Lear, Timon, and other characters. On Hamlet he seems inclined to take a different view from Dr. Conolly; inasmuch as he considers the simulated madness the principal feature, and the natural unsoundness which it is impossible to overlook as secondary. But this eminent physician, well known for his extensive studies of insanity, bears similar testimony to the extraordinary accuracy of Shakespeare's delineations of mental diseases; the nicety with which he traces their various steps in one individual, the accuracy with which he distinguishes these morbid affections in different persons. He seems unable to account for the exact minuteness in any other way than by external observation. He acknowledges that "indefinable possession of genius, call it spiritual tact or insight, or whatever term may suggest itself, by which the great lords of mind estimate all phases of mind with little aid from reflected light," as the mental instrument through which Shakespeare looked upon others at a distance or within reach of minute observation. Still he seems to think that Shakespeare must have had many opportunities of observing mental phenomena. I own I am more inclined to think that the process by which the genius of Shakespeare reached this painful yet strange accuracy was rather that of introversion than of external observation. At any rate, it is most interesting to see eminent physicians maintaining by some means or other that Shakespeare arrived by some sort of intuition at the possession of a psychological or even medical knowledge, fully verified and proved to be exact by the researches two centuries later of distinguished men in a science only recently developed. Mrs. Jameson has well distinguished the different forms of mental aberration in Shakespeare's characters, when she says that "Constance is frantic, Lear is mad, Ophelia is insane." [Footnote 111]

[Footnote 110: Pages 58 and 100.]

[Footnote 111: "Characteristics of Women." New York 1833, p. 142.]


VI.


This last quotation may serve to introduce a further and a more delicate test of Shakespeare's insight into character. That a man should be able to throw himself into a variety of mind and characters among his fellow-men, may be not unreasonably expected. He has naturally a community of feelings, of passions, of temptations, and of motives with them. He can understand what is courage, what ambition, what strength or feebleness of mind. Inward observation and matured experience help much to guide him to a conception and delineation of the character of his fellow-men. But of the stronger emotions, the wilder passions, the subdued gentleness and tenderness, the heroic endurance, the meek bearing, and the saintly patience of the woman, he can have had no experience. Looking into himself for a reflection, he will probably find a blank.

{563}

It has often been said that in his female characters Shakespeare is not equal to himself. The work to which I have just alluded meets, I think completely, this objection, which, I believe, even Schlegel raises. It required a lady, with mind highly cultivated, with the nicest powers of discrimination, and with happiness of expression, to vindicate at once Shakespeare and her sex. The difficulty of this task can hardly be appreciated without the study of its performance. Its great difficulty consists in the almost family resemblance of the different portraits which make up Shakespeare's female gallery. There is scarcely any room for events, even for incident, still less for actions, say for bold and unfeminine deeds. Several of the heroines of Shakespeare are subjected to similar persecutions, and almost the same trials. In almost every one the affections and their expression have alone to interest us. From Miranda, the desert-nurtured child in the simplicity of untempted innocence, to Isabella in her cloistered virtue, or Hermione in her unyielding fortitude—there are such shades, such varying yet delicate tints, that not two of these numerous conceptions can be said to resemble another. And whence did Shakespeare derive his models? Some are lofty queens, others most noble ladies, some foreigners, some native; different types in mind and heart, as in the lineament or complexion. Where did he find them? Where did he meet them? In the cottages of Stratford, or in the purlieus of Blackfriars? Among the ladies of the court, or in the audience in his pit? No one can say—no one need say. They were the formations of his own quickened and fertile brain, which required but one stroke, one line, to sketch him a portrait to which he would give immortality. Far more difficult was this success, and not less completely was it achieved, in that character which medical writers seem hardly to believe could be but a conception. We may compare the mind of Shakespeare to a diamond pellucid, bright, and untinted, cut into countless polished facets, which, in constant movement, at every smallest change of direction or of angle caught a new reflection, so that not one of its brilliant mirrors could be for a moment idle, but by a power beyond its control was ever busy with the reflection of innumerable images, either distinct or running into one another, or repeated each so clearly as to allow him, when he chose, to fix it in his memory.


VII.


We may safely conclude that, in whatever constitutes the dramatic art in its strictest sense, Shakespeare possessed matchless sympathies with all its attributes. The next and most essential quality required for true genius is the power to give outward life to the inward conception. Without this the poet is dumb. He may be a "mute, inglorious Milton;" he cannot be a speaking, noble Shakespeare. I should think that I was almost insulting such an audience, were I to descant upon Shakespeare's position among the bards and writers of England, and of the modern world. Upon this point there can scarcely be a dissentient opinion. His language is the purest and best, his verses the most flowing and rich; and as for his sentiments, it would be difficult without the command of his own language to characterize them. No other writer has ever given such periods of sententious wisdom.

I have spoken of genius as a gift to an individual man. I will conclude by the reflection that that man becomes himself a gift; a gift to his nation; a gift to his age; a gift to the world of all times. That same Providence which bestows greatness, majesty, abundance, and grace, no less presents, from time to time, to a people or a race, these few transcendent men who mark for it {564} periods no less decisively, though more nobly, than victories or conquests. On England that supreme power has lavished the choicest blessings of this worldly life; it has made it vast in dominion, matchless in strength; it has made it the arbiter of the earth, and mistress of the sea; it has made it able to stretch its arm for war to the savage antipodes, and, if it chose, its hand for peace to the utter civilized west; it has brought the produce of north and south to its feet with skill and power, to transform and to refashion in forms graceful or useful, to send them back, almost as new creations, to its very source. Industry has clothed its most barren plains with luxuriant crops, and with Titan boldness hollowed its sternest rocks, to plunder them of their ever-hidden treasures. Its gigantic strength seems but to play with every work of venturesome enterprise, till its cities seem to the stranger to overflow with riches, and its country to be overspread with exuberant prosperity.

Well, these are great and magnificent favors of an over-ruling, most benignant Power; and yet there is a boast which belongs to our country that may seem to be overlooked. Yet it is a double gift that that same creating and directing rule has made this country the birthplace and the seat of the two men who, within a short period, were made the rulers each of a great and separate intellectual dominion, never to be deposed, never to be rivalled, never to be envied. To Newton was given the sway over the science of the civilized world; to Shakespeare the sovereignty over its literature.

The one stands before us passionless and grave, embracing in his intellectual grandeur every portion of the universe, from the stars, to him invisible, to the rippling of the tiny waves which the tide brought to his feet. The host of heaven, that seemed in causeless dispersion, he marshalled into order, and bound in safest discipline. He made known to his fellow-men the secret laws of heaven, the springs of movement, and the chains of connection, which invariably and unchangeably impel and guide the course of its many worlds.

In this aspect one's imagination figures him as truly the director of what he only describes—as the leader of a complicated army, who, with his staff, seems to draw or to send forward the wheeling battalions, intent on their own errands, combining or resolving movements far remote; or, under a more benign and pleasing form, we may contemplate him, like a great master in musical science, standing in the midst of a throng, in which are mingled together the elements of sublimest harmonies, confused to the eye, but sweetly attuned to the ear, mingling into orderly combination and flowing sequence, as they float through the air, which, though he elicit not nor produce, he seems by his outstretched hand to direct, or, at least, he proves himself fully to understand. For what each one separately does, unconscious of what even his companion is doing, he from afar knows, and almost beholds, understanding from his centre the concerted and sure results of their united action. And so Newton, from his chamber on this little earth, without being able more than the most helpless insect to add power or give guidance to one single element in the composition of this universe, could trace the orbits of planet or satellite, and calculate the oscillations and the reciprocal influences of celestial spheres.

Then his directing wand seems to contract itself to a space within his grasp. It becomes that magic prism with which he intercepts a ray from the sun on his passage to earth; and as a bird seizes in its flight the bee laden with its honey, and robs it of its sweet treasure—even so he compels the messenger of light to unfold itself before us, and lay bare to our sight the rich colors which the rainbow had exhibited to man since the deluge, and which had lain concealed since creation, in every sunbeam that had passed through our atmosphere. And further still, he bequeathes that wonderful alembic of light {565} to succeeding generations, till, in the hand of new discoverers, it has become the key of nature's laboratory, in which she has been surprised melting and compounding, in crucibles huge as ocean, the rich hues with which she overlays the surfaces of suns and stars, yet, at the same time, breathes its delicate blush upon the tenderest petals of the opening rose.

And all the laws and all the rules which form his code of nature seem engraved, as with a diamond point, upon a granite surface of the primitive rocks—inflexible, immovable, unchangeable as the system which they represent.

Beside him stands the Ruler of that world, which, though even sublimely intellectual, is governed by him with laws in which the affections, even the passions, the moralities, and the anxieties of life have their share; in which there is no severity but for vice, no slavery but for baseness, no unforgivingness but for calculating wickedness. In his hand is not the staff of authority, whether it take the form of a royal sceptre or of a knightly lance, whether it be the shepherdess's crook or the fool's bauble, it is still the same, the magician's wand. Whether it be the divining rod with which he draws up to light the most hidden streams of nature's emotions, or the potential instrument of Prospero's spells, which raises storms in the deep or works spirit-music in the air, or the wicked implement with which the witches mingle their unholy charm, its cunning and its might have no limit among created things. But it is not a world of stately order which he rules, nor are the laws of unvarying rigor by which it is commanded. The wildest paroxysms of passion; the softest delicacy of emotions; the most extravagant accident of fortune; the tenderest incidents of home; the king and the beggar, the sage and the jester, the tyrant and his victim; the maiden from the cloister and the peasant from the mountains; the Italian school-child and the Roman matron; the princes of Denmark and the lords of Troy—all these and much more are comprised in the vast embrace of his dominions. Scarcely a rule can be drawn from them, yet each forms a model separately, a finished group in combination. Unconsciously as he weaves his work, apparently without pattern or design, he interlaces and combines in its surface and its depth images of the most charming variety and beauty; now the stern mosaic, without coloring, of an ancient pavement, now the flowing and intertwining arabesque of the fanciful east; now the rude scenes of ancient mediaeval tapestry like that of Beauvais, and then the finished and richly tinted production of the Gobelins loom.

And yet through this seeming chaos the light permeates, and that so clear and so brilliant as equally to define and to dazzle. Every portion, every fragment, every particle, stands forth separate and particular, so as to be handled, measured, and weighed in the balance of critic and poet. Each has its own exact form and accurate place, so that, while separately they are beautiful, united they are perfect. Hence their combinations have become sacred rules, and have given inviolable maxims not only to English but to universal literature. Germany, as we have seen, studies with love and almost veneration every page of Shakespeare; national sympathies and kindred speech make it not merely easy but natural to all people of the Teutonic family to assimilate their literature to that its highest standard. France has departed, or is fast departing, from its favorite classical type, and adopting, though with unequal power, the broader and more natural lines of the Shakespearian model. His practice is an example, his declarations are oracles.

Still, as I have said, the wide region of intellectual enjoyment over which our great bard exerts dominion, is not one parcelled out or divided into formal and state-like provinces. While the student of science is reading in his {566} chamber the great "Principia" of Newton, he must keep before him the solution of only one problem. On that his mind must undistractedly rest, on that his power of thought be intensely concentrated. Woe to him if imagination leads his reason into truant wanderings; woe if he drop the thread of finely-drawn deductions! He will find his wearied intelligence drowsily floundering in a sea of swimming figures and evanescent quantities, or floating amidst the fragments of a shipwrecked diagram. But over Shakespeare one may dream no less than pore; we may drop the book from our hand and the contents remain equally before us. Stretched in the shade by a brook in summer, or sunk in the reading chair by the hearth in winter, in the imaginative vigor of health, in the drooping spirits of indisposition, one may read, and allow the trains of fancy which spring up in any scene to pursue their own way, and minister their own varied pleasure or relief; and when by degrees we have become familiar with the inexhaustible resources of his genius, there is scarcely a want in mind or the affections that needs no higher than human succor, which will not find in one or other of his works that which will soothe suffering, comfort grief, strengthen good desires, and present some majestic example to copy, or some fearful phantom. But when we endeavor to contemplate all his infinitely varied conceptions as blended together in one picture, so as to take in, if possible, at one glance the prodigious extent of his prolific genius, we thereby build up what he himself so beautifully called the "fabric of a vision," matchless in its architecture as in the airiness of its materials. There are forms fantastically sketched in cloud-shapes, such as Hamlet showed to Polonius, in the midst of others rounded and full, which open and unfold ever-changing varieties, now gloomy and threatening, then tipped with gold and tinted with azure, ever-rolling, ever-moving, melting the one into the other, or extricating each itself from the general mass. Dwelling upon this maze of things and imaginations, the most incongruous combinations come before the dreamy thought, fascinated, spell-bound, and entranced. The wild Ardennes and Windsor Park seem to run into one another, their firs and their oaks mingle together; the boisterous ocean boiling round "the still vexed Bermoothes" runs smoothly into the lagoons of Venice; the old gray porticos of republican Rome, like the transition in a dissolving view, are confused and entangled with the slim and fluted pillars of a Gothic hall; here the golden orb, dropped from the hand of a captive king, rolls on the ground side by side with a jester's mouldy skull—both emblems of a common fate in human things. Then the grave chief-justice seems incorporated in the bloated Falstaff; King John and his barons are wassailing with Poins and Bardolph at an inn door; Coriolanus and Shylock are contending for the right of human sensibilities; Macbeth and Jacques are moralizing together on tenderness even to the brute. And so of other more delicate creations of the poet's mind—Isabella and Ophelia, Desdemona and the Scotch Thane's wife, produce respectively composite figures of inextricable confusion. And around and above is that filmy world, Ariel and Titania and Peas-blossom and Cobweb and Moth, who weave as a gossamer cloud around the vision, dimming it gradually before our eyes, in the last drooping of weariness, or the last hour of wakefulness.




{567}

MISCELLANY.

ART.

Domestic.—The south gallery of the new academy is the largest and best lighted of the several exhibition rooms, and contains some of the most ambitious pictures of the year. As the visitor, pausing for a moment to survey the paintings, drawings, studies, architectural designs, and miscellanea which are hung around the four sides of the open corridor at the head of the grand staircase, turns naturally into the great gallery, through whose wide entrance he catches glimpses of the art treasures within, so do we propose to conduct the reader thither without further parley. Here confront us specimens of almost every subject legitimate to the art, and of some not legitimate—great pictures and little pictures, grave pictures and gay pictures, landscape and genre, history and portraiture, beasts, birds, fishes, and flowers. At either end of the room hangs a full-length portrait of a gentleman of note, which challenges the visitor's attention, be he never so reluctant. No. 464, the late Governor Gamble, of Missouri, by F.T.L. Boyle, belongs to a family only too numerous among us (we speak of the picture only), and whose acquaintance one feels strongly inclined to cut in the present instance. But that is impossible. There stands the familiar lay-figure in the old conventional attitude, which we feel sure the governor never assumed of his own accord. The marble columns, the draped curtain, the library table and the books—all the stock accessories in fine—are there; and either for the purpose of pointing a moral, of instituting a personal comparison, or of calling attention to its workmanship, the governor blandly directs your attention to a bust of Washington. He might be intending to do any one or all of these things so far as the expression of his face affords an indication. The idea on which the portrait is painted is thoroughly false, and ought to be by this time discarded; but year after year artists continue to mint these modish, stiff, and ridiculous figures, when with a little regard to common sense they could produce portraits which all would recognize as natural and effective. Especially is this the case with the present picture, which evinces considerable executive ability. The other portrait to which we alluded, No. 412, a full length of Ex-Governor Morgan, painted by Huntington, for the Governor's Room in the City Hall, is one of the least creditable works ever produced by that artist, cold and repulsive in color, awkward in attitude, and unsatisfactory as a likeness.

Occupying a less prominent position than either of these pictures, but conspicuous enough to attract a large share of attention, is the full-length portrait of Archbishop McCloskey, No. 438, by G.P.A. Healy. Mr. Healy, though never very happy as a colorist and often disposed to sacrifice characteristic expression to a passion for painting brocades and draperies, has generally succeeded in imparting a refined air to his portraits, however feeble they might be as likenesses. The present work is coarse in expression, and untrue as a likeness. It is a mistake to suppose that a free, rapid touch is adapted to every style of face. The small and delicate features of the archbishop, with their shrewd, yet refined and benevolent expression, cannot be dashed off with a few strokes of the brush, but require careful painting, and, above all, patient painting. Mr. Healy's portrait of Dr. Brownson in last year's exhibition, though of little merit as a painting, was much better than this. No. 448, a portrait of the late Peletiah Perit, by Hicks, is one of the most creditable specimens of that very unequal painter that we have recently seen. Mr. Perit is sitting easily and naturally in his library chair, and is not made to assume the attitude of a posture-master for the time being, in order that posterity may know how he did not look in life. The likeness is not remarkable; but the accessories are carefully painted and agreeably colored. No. 423, portrait of a lady, by R.M. Staigg, is exactly what it assumes to be—a lady. In the refined air of the gentlewoman which the artist has so happily conveyed, he recalls some of the female heads of Stuart, though in the present instance he had no wide scope for the display {568} of Stuart's charming gift of color. The resemblance is more in the general sentiment than in any technical qualities. Almost adjoining this work is another portrait of a lady, No. 425, by W.H. Furness, a forcible example of the naturalistic school, of great solidity of texture and purity of color. There is intelligence, earnestness, and strength in this face, and in the attitude, though the latter, as well as the accessories, is studiously simple. Baker and Stone contribute some attractive portraits to this room. No. 454, a lady, by the latter, is a good specimen of a style neither strong nor founded on true principles, but which, on account of a certain conventional gracefulness, which amply satisfies those who look no deeper than the surface of the canvas, will always find admirers. No. 458, a portrait of Capt. Riblett, of the New York 7th Regiment, by Baker, is a clever work, noticeable for the easy pose of the figure, the clear fresh coloring, and the firm handling.

Two other portrait pieces may be noticed in this room, of very opposite degrees of merit. They illustrate a method of treating this branch of the art which has become popular of late years, and which seeks to combine portraiture with genre; that is to say, the figures represent real personages, but to the uninitiated seem merely the actors in some little domestic scene. Any subject verging on the dramatic is of course inappropriate to this method. Thus the stiffness too often inseparable from portraiture and its unsympathetic character to a stranger are avoided, and the "gentlemen" and "ladies" who have monopolized so much space on the walls awaken an interest in a wider circle than when appearing simply in their proper persons. No. 441, "A Picnic in the Highlands," by Rossiter, presents us with portraits of some twenty ladies and gentlemen, including a fair proportion of generals, who have been ruthlessly summoned from the pleasures of the rural banquet or of social intercourse to place themselves in attitudes which a travelling photographer would blush to copy, and be thus handed down to posterity. In submitting to this dreadful process Generals Warren and Seymour afforded a new proof of courage under adverse circumstances; and one scarcely knows whether they deserve most to be pitied, or the artist to be denounced for putting brave men in so ridiculous a position. The picture is simply disgraceful, and would naturally be passed over in silence had it not been hung in a position to challenge attention, while many works of merit are placed far above the line. Thirty or forty years ago, when the academy was glad to enroll painters of the calibre of Mr. Rossiter among its members, such productions were perhaps acceptable on the line. But have hanging committees no appreciation that there is such a thing as progress? The other picture above alluded to is No. 435, "Claiming the Shot," by J.G. Brown. It represents a hunting scene in the Adirondacks, and though thinly painted, with no merit in the landscape, and of a general commonplace character, tells its story with humor and point. We have not the pleasure of knowing the party of amateur hunters whose good-natured altercation forms the subject of Mr. Brown's picture, but their faces are perfectly familiar to us, and may be seen any day on Broadway, until the shooting season summons them to a purer atmosphere than our civic rulers permit us to breathe. That good-looking and well-dressed young man, with the incipient aristocratic baldness, and the languid, gentleman-like air, reclining in a not ungraceful attitude on a stump, and whose incredulous shake of the head denotes that he will not resign his claim to the successful shot—is he not a type of our jeunesse dorée? And who has not met the portly, florid gentleman, his face beaming with good nature and good living, who claps our young friend on the back and advises him to give it up? The earnest expression of the half-kneeling hunter, clinching the argument as he identifies his bullet-hole in the side of the slain buck, is well rendered, as is also that of another florid gentleman who looks on, a quiet but highly amused witness of the dispute. In the background are a party of guides and boatmen engaged in preparing supper for the disputants, over whose perplexity they appear to be indulging in a little quiet "chaff." We imagine that the faces of the principal actors in this group are good likenesses, and we feel sure that to see them thus depicted amidst scenes suggesting healthful out-door sports will be pleasant to their friends.

{569}

From portraits we pass naturally to figure pieces, and first pause with astonishment before No. 394, "The Two Marys at the Sepulchre," by R.W. Weir. Here is a work which has doubtless cost much thought and patient labor, but which is so hopelessly beneath the dignity of the subject as to seem almost like a caricature. When will modern painters recognize that sacred history is a branch of their art not to be attempted except under very peculiar and favorable circumstances?—that the artist must feel and believe what he paints, unless he wishes to degenerate into insipidity? We do not desire to impugn Mr. Weir's sincerity, but a work so cold, lifeless, and void of propriety shows that he is either hiding his light under a bushel, or is incapable of feeling, perhaps we should say of reflecting, the religious fervor which should be associated with so awful a scene. Had he even stuck to the conventional forms and accessories which have satisfied six centuries of Christian painters, he might have produced something of respectable mediocrity. But modern realism would not permit this, and therefore the Virgin is represented as a commonplace middle-aged woman, who might as well be Mr. Weir's housekeeper, and whose mawkish expression is positively repulsive. Of St. Mary Magdalen the attitude, figure, and expression are not less inappropriate. Surely these personages are raised above the level of ordinary women—no believer in Christianity will deny that—and cannot the painter so represent them? In other respects the picture has little merit, being stiff and mannered in the drawing and of a mixture of dull gray and salmon in its local coloring.

The most conspicuous landscape in this room is Bierstadt's immense view of the Yo Semite Valley in California, No. 436, which occupies the place of honor in the middle of the south wall. For months past the artist has been announced as at work on this picture, and in view of the great merits recognized in his "Rocky Mountains," public expectation has been raised to a high pitch. But public expectation has been doomed to disappointment this time, for the Yo Semite is much inferior to its predecessor, though, in several respects, both works show the same characteristics in equal perfection. They have breadth of drawing, admirable perspective, and convey an idea of the solemn grandeur of nature in the virgin solitudes of the west. But while in the older work Mr. Bierstadt succeeded in forgetting for a time the academic mannerisms which he brought with him from Germany, in the present one he has, unconsciously, perhaps, lapsed into them again, and produced something of great mechanical excellence, and with about as much nature as can be seen through the atmosphere of a Düsseldorf studio. Yellow appears to be his weakness, and the canvas is accordingly suffused with yellow tints of every gradation of tone; not a luminous yellow which the eye may rest upon with pleasure, but a hard, dusty-looking pigment, without warmth, or transparency, or depth; such a yellow as never tinged the skies of California or any other part of the world, but is begotten of men who derive their ideas of nature from copying pictures of landscapes, instead of going directly to nature. The grass and the foliage which receive the sunlight are of a dirty, yellowish green, those in the shadow of the great mountain ridge on the right of the scene of a yellowish black, the very rocks and water are yellow, and if Indians or emigrants had been introduced into the foreground, we feel convinced they would have received the prevailing hue. Only in the mountain peaks, checkered with sunlight and shadow, does the artist seem to escape from this thraldom to one color, and paint with force and truthfulness. The picture is therefore a failure; and yet viewed from the head of the great stair-case, across the open space, and through the entrance to the exhibition-room, it has a mellowness of tone and truthfulness of perspective which almost induce us to retract our criticism. Approach it, however, and the illusion vanishes. Another Californian scene by Bierstadt, in this room, No. 472, "the Golden Gate," shows the artist's predominant fault even more conspicuously, and is not only unworthy of him, but absolutely unpleasant to look at. No. 487, "Among the Alps," by Gignoux, is a solidly, though coarsely painted work, and notwithstanding a prevalent cold, leaden tone, tolerably effective. The idea of solemn repose is well conveyed, although scarcely one of the details is truthfully rendered. The water of the mountain lake is not water, but an opaque mass, the trees and rocks are so slurred in the drawing as to be {570} unrecognizable by the naturalist, and the shadows are unnecessarily deep and sombre. Such painting, however, pleases the multitude, who do not care much for absolute truth, provided effect is obtained; and Mr. Gignoux's picture is considered very fine indeed. No. 466, "A Mountain Lake in the Blue Ridge," by Sonntag, is a fine piece of scene painting, and, if properly enlarged, would form an excellent design for a stage drop-curtain. As a representation of nature it is false in nearly every detail. And yet no landscape painter deals more readily and dexterously with the external forms of American forest scenery, or perhaps has more neatness of touch; and none, it may be added, has wandered further from the true path.

No. 465, "Greenwood Lake," by Cropsey, is a pleasanter picture than we commonly see from this artist, who, to judge from his productions, scarcely ever saw a cloudy day, and has a very indifferent acquaintance with shadows. Here is a still, serene summer afternoon, in the foreground a newly-mown hayfield, with a group of mowers and rakers, just pausing from their labor, and beyond the placid bosom of the lake. Despite its somewhat monotonous uniformity of tone, the picture is pervaded by an agreeable sentiment of repose, characteristic of midsummer; and as an honest attempt to portray a pleasing phase of nature it is welcome. No. 493, "Afternoon in the Housatonic Valley," by J.B. Bristol, represents the period of the day selected by Mr. Cropsey, but the tone of his picture is lower and cooler, and the coloring more harmonious. Its most noticeable feature is a noble mountain in the background, whose wooded sides afford fine contrasts of light and shadow. No. 494, "A Foggy Morning—Coast of France," by Dana, evinces more desire to catch the secret of rich coloring than success. It is not by scattering warm pigments about, without regard to harmony or gradation, that Mr. Dana can attain his end; and so far as color is concerned he shows no improvement upon his work of former years. In composition he wields, as usual, a graceful pencil, and his children are pleasingly and naturally drawn.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE. By Edward, Earl of Derby. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. 430 and 457. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.

There have been several translations of the Iliad into English verse, but, practically, only three have hitherto been much in vogue. The first of these, by Chapman, is a work of considerable spirit, of a rude, fiery kind; but it is unfaithful, and has long been antiquated. Pope's brilliant and thoroughly un-Homeric version will always be popular as a poem, though anything more widely different from the original was probably never published as a translation. Cowper is verbally accurate, but tame and tiresome. A translation in blank verse, by William Munford, of Richmond, Va., appeared in Boston some twenty years ago, but does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserved.

Lord Derby appears to have avoided nearly all the defects and combined nearly all the merits of his predecessors. He has aimed "to produce a translation and not a paraphrase; not, indeed, such a translation as would satisfy, with regard to each word, the rigid requirements of accurate scholarship, but such as would fairly and honestly give the sense and spirit of every passage and of every line, omitting nothing and expanding nothing, and adhering as closely as our language will allow, even to every epithet which is capable of being translated, and which has, in the particular passage, anything of a special and distinctive character." The testimony of critics is almost unanimous as to the success with which he has carried out his design. His translation is incomparably more faithful than either of those we have mentioned. He almost invariably perceives the delicate shades of meaning which Pope was {571} not scholar enough to notice, and he is often wonderfully happy in expressing them in English. His language is dignified and pure; his style animated and idiomatic; and his verse has more of the majestic flow of Homer than that of any previous translator. He has produced by all odds the best version of the Iliad in the English language.

That a statesman should have succeeded in a task of this sort, where Pope and Cowper failed, is strange indeed. But let our readers judge for themselves: we give first a somewhat celebrated passage from Pope—the bivouac of the Trojans, at the end of the eighth book—premising that Pope prefixes to it four lines which have no equivalent in the Greek, and which are not only an interpolation but a positive injury to the sense:

  "The troops exulting sat in order round,
  And beaming fires illumined all the ground.
  As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
  O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
  When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
  And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
  Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
  And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
  O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
  And tip with silver every mountain's head;
  Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
  A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
  The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
  Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
  So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
  And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays:
  The long reflections of the distant fires
  Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires;
  A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
  And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field,
  Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
  Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send,
  Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn,
  And ardent warriors wait the rising morn."

This is not a faultless passage, but no one can help admiring the felicitous imagery, the vivid word-painting, the wonderful harmony of the versification. Yet what reader of Homer will hesitate to prefer Lord Derby's simpler and almost strictly literal rendering?

  "Full of proud hopes, upon the pass of war,
  All night they camped; and frequent blazed their fires.
  As when in heaven, around the glittering moon
  The stars shine bright amid the breathless air;
  And every crag, and every jutting peak
  Stands boldly forth, and every forest glade;
  Ev'n to the gates of heaven is opened wide
  The boundless sky; shines each particular star
  Distinct; joy fills the gazing shepherd's heart.
  So bright, so thickly scattered o'er the plain,
  Before the walls of Troy, between the ships
  And Xanthus' stream, the Trojan watchfires blazed.
  A thousand fires burnt brightly; and round each
  Sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare;
  With store of provender before them laid,
  Barley and rye, the tethered horses stood
  Beside the cars, and waited for the morn."

Take now the description of Vulcan serving the gods at a banquet, from the conclusion of the first book. Cowper gives it as follows:

  "So he; then Juno smiled, goddess white-armed,
  And smiling still, from his unwonted hand
  Received the goblet. He from right to left  [Footnote 112]
  Rich nectar from the beaker drawn, alert
  Distributed to all the powers divine.
  Heaven rang with laughter inextinguishable,
  Peal after peal, such pleasure all conceived
  At sight of Vulcan in his new employ.
    So spent they in festivity the day,
  And all were cheered; nor was Apollo's harp
  Silent, nor did the muses spare to add
  Responsive melody of vocal sweets.
  But when the sun's bright orb had now declined,
  Each to his mansion, wheresoever built
  By the same matchless architect, withdrew.
  Jove also, kindler of the fires of heaven,
  His couch ascending as at other times
  When gentle sleep approached him, slept serene,
  With golden-sceptred Juno by his side."

[Footnote 112: Just the reverse,—from left to right, Cowper's blunder is serious, because to proceed from right to left was looked upon by the Greeks as unlucky.]

{572}

Cowper is better than Pope here; but Lord Derby is the most literal and by far the best of the three. His lines have a dignified simplicity not unworthy the father of poetry himself; yet the translation is nearly verbatim:

  "Thus as he spoke, the white-armed goddess smiled,
  And smiling from his hand received the cup,
  Then to th' immortals all in order due
  He ministered, and from the flagon poured
  The luscious nectar; while among the gods
  Rose laughter irrepressible, at sight
  Of Vulcan hobbling round the spacious hall.
    Thus they till sunset passed the festive hours;
  Nor lacked the banquet aught to please the sense,
  Nor sound of tuneful lyre, by Phoebus touched,
  Nor muses' voice, who in alternate strains
  Responsive sang; but when the sun was set,
  Each for his home departed, where for each
  The cripple Vulcan, matchless architect,
  With wondrous skill a noble house had reared.
    To his own couch, where he was wont of old,
  When overcome by gentle sleep, to rest,
  Olympian Jove ascended; there he slept,
  And by his side the golden-thronèd queen."

If our space permitted we might easily extend these comparisons, and show that Lord Derby excels other translators in every phase of his undertaking—in the rude shock of war, the touching emotions of human sentiment, the debates of the gods, and the beauties and phenomena of nature. We cannot refrain, however, from quoting a few passages of conspicuous excellence.

Hector's assault on the ships in the fifteenth book is thus spiritedly rendered:

  "Fiercely he raged, as terrible as Mars
  With brandished spear; or as a raging fire
  'Mid the dense thickets on the mountain side.
  The foam was on his lips; bright flashed his eyes
  Beneath his awful brows, and terribly
  Above his temples waved amid the fray
  The helm of Hector; Jove himself from heaven
  His guardian hand extending, him alone
  With glory crowning 'mid the host of men,
  But short his term of glory; for the day
  Was fast approaching, when, with Pallas' aid
  The might of Peleus' son should work his doom.
  Oft he essayed to break the ranks, where'er
  The densest throng and noblest arms he saw;
  But strenuous though his efforts, all were vain;
  They, massed in close array, his charge withstood;
  Firm as a craggy rock, upstanding high
  Close by the hoary sea, which meets unmoved
  The boist'rous currents of the whistling winds,
  And the big waves that bellow round its
  So stood unmoved the Greeks, and undismayed.
  At length, all blazing in his arms, he sprang
  Upon the mass; so plunging down as when
  On some tall vessel, from beneath the clouds
  A giant billow, tempest-nursed, descends:
  The deck is drenched in foam; the stormy wind
  Howls in the shrouds; th' affrighted seamen quail
  In fear, but little way from death removed;  [Footnote 113]
  So quailed the spirit in every Grecian breast."

[Footnote 113: We are particularly struck with the excellence of Lord Derby's translation of this magnificent image when we contrast it with Mr., Munford's:

  "As on a ship a wat'ry mountain falls,
  Driven from the clouds by all the furious winds;
  With foam the deck is covered, pitiless
  The deafening tempest roars among the shrouds;
  The sailors, whirled along by raging waves.
  Tremble, confused and faint; immediate death
  Appears before them."

Yet, no less an authority than the late President Felton, of Harvard, pronounced Munford's the best of all English metrical versions of the Iliad.]

In book sixth Hector is accosted by his mother on his return from the battle-field. She offers him wine, wherewith to pour a libation to Jove and then to refresh himself. Lord Darby's translation of his answer is very neat and very close to the original:

{573}
  "No, not for me, mine honored mother, pour
  The luscious wine, lest thou unnerve my limbs
  And make me all my wonted prowess lose.
  The ruddy wine I dare not pour to Jove
  With hands unwashed; nor to the cloud-girt son
  Of Saturn may the voice of prayer ascend
  From one with blood bespattered and defiled."

We close our extracts with a few lines from book third. Priam, sitting with "the sage chiefs and councillors of Troy" at the Scaean gate watching the hostile armies, thus addresses Helen:

  "'Come here, my child, and sitting by my side,
  From whence thou canst discern thy former lord,
  His kindred and his friends (not thee I blame,
  But to the gods I owe this woful war),
  Tell me the name of yonder mighty chief
  Among the Greeks a warrior brave and strong:
  Others in height surpass him; but my eyes
  A form so noble never yet beheld,
  Nor so august; he moves, a king indeed.'
  To whom in answer, Helen, heav'nly fair:
  'With rev'rence, dearest father, and with shame
  I look on thee: oh, would that I had died
  That day when hither with thy son I came,
  And left my husband, friends, and darling child,
  And all the loved companions of my youth:
  That I died not, with grief I pine away.
  But to thy question; I will tell thee true;
  Yon chief is Agamemnon, Atreus' son,
  Wide-reigning, mighty monarch, ruler good,
  And valiant warrior; in my husband's name,
  Lost as I am, I called him brother once.'"

LIFE OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. By William Forsyth, M.A., Q.C., author of "Hortensius," "Napoleon at St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe," "History of Trial by Jury," etc., and late fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Two volumes, 8vo., pp. 364 and 341. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

Mr. Forsyth has a very correct notion of the business of a biographer. His object has been not only to tell Cicero's history but to describe his private life—to make us acquainted with minute details of his domestic habits, and to represent him as far as possible in the same manner as he would a man of the present generation. "The more we accustom ourselves," he says, "to regard the ancients as persons of like passions as ourselves, and familiarize ourselves with the idea of them as fathers, husbands, friends, and gentlemen, the better we shall understand them." He has therefore carefully gathered up from the letters and other writings of the Roman orator those little bits of personal allusion, domestic history, and unconsidered trifles which indicate, more clearly sometimes than important actions, the bent of one's mind or the inmost character of one's heart; and he has arranged them with great skill, and a good eye for effect. He shows but slight literary polish; his style is not elegant, nor always clear, nor even dignified; but he has a logical way of putting things, a happy knack of arrangement, and a habit of keeping to the point and throwing aside superfluous matter, for which we dare say he is indebted to his training as a pleader in the courts. As a lawyer, too, he is specially qualified to give the history of the causes in which Cicero's orations were delivered; and this he does better than we have ever seen it done before, explaining the narrative by copious illustrations from modern jurisprudence. But if in some respects he writes like a lawyer, in another very important point his practice as an advocate seems not to have affected him. He is thoroughly impartial. He sums up Cicero's character more like a judge than a queen's counsel. He admires him but not blindly; holding the safe middle path between the excessive veneration shown by Middleton and Niebuhr and the unreasonable animosity of Drumann and Mommsen. He admits that Cicero was weak, timid, and irresolute; but these defects were counter-balanced by the display, at critical periods of his life, of the very opposite qualities. In the contest with Catiline and the final struggle with Antony he was as firm and brave as a man need be. One principal cause of his irresolution was an anxiety to do what was right. If he knew that he had acted wrongly, he instantly felt all the agony of remorse. His standard of morality was as high as it was perhaps possible to elevate it by the mere light of nature. The chief fault of his moral character was a want of sincerity. In a different sense of the words from that expressed by St. Paul, he wished to become all things to all men, if by any means he might win some. His private correspondence and {574} his public speeches were often in direct contradiction with each other as to the opinions he expressed of his contemporaries. His foible was vanity. He was never tired of speaking of himself. As a philosopher he had no pretensions to originality, but he was the first to make known to his countrymen the philosophy of Greece, which until he appeared may be said to have spoken to the Romans in an unknown tongue. He adhered to no particular sect, but affected chiefly the school of the new academy. He was a firm believer in a providence and a future state. As an orator his faults are coarseness in invective, exaggeration in matter, and prolixity in style. "Many of his sentences are intolerably long, and he dwells upon a topic with an exhaustive fulness which leaves nothing to the imagination. The pure gold of his eloquence is beaten out too thin, and what is gained in surface is lost in solidity and depth."

The position of Cicero with respect to the political parties into which the republic was divided in his time is not so well described as his personal character. While Mr. Forsyth displays industry and good judgment in collecting and arranging the little traits which go to make up a life-like portrait, he lacks the comprehensive and philosophical view with which Merivale has recently surveyed the same period of history. Forsyth writes as one who, having mingled with the busy crowd in the forum, should come away and tell us what he had seen and heard, and describe the men with whom he had talked. Merivale surveys the scene from a distance; and though his perception of individual objects is less distinct than Forsyth's, his view is broader and takes in better the relative situations and proportions of the various features spread out before him. Both are excellent in their kind: the historian is the more instructive, the biographer the more entertaining.


BEATRICE. By Julia Kavanagh, author of "Nathalie," "Adele," "Queen Mab," etc., etc. Three volumes in one. 12mo., pp. 520. New York: D. Appleton & Company.

The readers of "Adele" and "Nathalie" will hardly be prepared for what awaits them in the novel now upon our table. Miss Kavanagh has won a high reputation by her delicate pictures of quiet home life, and thorough analyses of female character. But lately the prevailing thirst for sensational stories appears to have enticed her away from the old path, and led her to attempt a style of novel which will no doubt please the majority of readers better than her earlier efforts, though as a work of art it is inferior to them. It is by no means however a merely sensation story. The heroine is painted with all Miss Kavanagh's accustomed clearness and skill; although the uninterrupted series of plots and counterplots, the dramatic terseness of the dialogue, and the effectiveness of the situations, tempt one to forget sometimes, in the absorbing interest of the narrative, the higher merit of vivid and truthful drawing of character. That of Beatrice is charmingly conceived, and admirably worked out, recalling those delightful heroines who first gave Miss Kavanagh a hold upon the popular heart. Beatrice is a spirited, proud, natural, warm-hearted girl, born in poverty and fallen heiress unexpectedly to great wealth. Her guardian and step-father, Mr. Gervoise, subjects her to innumerable wrongs in order that he may get possession of the property. Poison even and a mad-house are hinted at. The book is principally a narrative of battle between the defenceless girl and this villain. Our readers who may wish to know how the struggle ends are referred to the book itself; they will have no reason to regret the time they may spend in reading it.


GRACE MORTON; OR, THE INHERITANCE. A Catholic Tale. By M.L.M. 12mo., pp. 324.


THE CONFESSORS OF CONNAUGHT; OR, THE TENANTS OF A LORD BISHOP. A Tale of our Times. By M. L. M., author of Grace Morton, etc. 12mo., pp.319. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Company.

These are both religious stories. The first is inscribed to the Catholic youth of America, and the scene is laid in Pennsylvania. The second is founded upon the evictions in 1860, in the parish of Partry, Ireland, of a number of tenants of the Protestant bishop of Tuam, who had refused to send their children to proselytizing schools. The well-known missionary, Father Lavelle, is a {575} prominent figure in the book, slightly disguised under the name of Father Dillon.


A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME. By M. l'Abbé J.E. Darras. First American from the last French edition. With an Introduction and Notes, by the Most Rev. M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Numbers 6, 7, and 8. 8vo. pp. (each) 48. New York: P. O'Shea.

We are pleased to learn that two valuable appendices are to be added to the American translation of this important work; one by an eminent Jesuit on the history of the Church in Ireland, the other by the Rev. C.I. White, D.D., on the history of the Church in America. The English version of the book ought thus to be far superior to the original French. The numbers appear with great promptness, and present the same neat and tasteful appearance which we took occasion to praise in noticing some of the earlier parts.


LIFE OF THE CURÉ D'ARS. From the French of the Abbé Alfred Monnin. 12mo., pp. 355. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

It is only six years since Jean Baptist Marie Vianney, better known as the Curé of Ars, closed his mortal life in that little village near Lyons which will probably be henceforth for ever associated with his name. "A common consent," says Dr. Manning, in a preface to the book before us, "seems to have numbered him, even while living, among the servants of God; and an expectation prevails that the day is not far off when the Church will raise him to veneration upon her altars." He was the son of a farmer of Dardilly, near Lyons, and appears to have inherited virtue from both his parents. God gave him neither graces of person nor gifts of intellect. His face was pale and thin, his stature low, his gait awkward, his manner shy and timid, his whole air common and unattractive. His education was so defective that his teachers hesitated to recommend him for ordination. But the want of human learning seems to have been supplied by supernatural illumination. When he went to Ars, virtue was little known there. To say that he speedily wrought an entire reformation is but a faint expression of the extraordinary effect of his ministry. Drunkenness and quarreling were soon unknown. At the sound of the midday Angelus the laborers would stop in their work to recite the Ave Maria with uncovered head. Men and women used to repair to the church after their work was done, and often came again to pray at two or three o'clock in the morning. The curé himself, it may be said, never left the church except to discharge some function of his ministry, to take one scanty meal a day, of bread or potatoes, and to sleep two or three hours. In the seventh year of his ministry he founded an asylum for orphan or destitute girls which he called "The Providence." It is believed that he was miraculously assisted in providing food and clothing for these poor children. Once the stock of flour was exhausted, except enough to make two loaves. "Put your leaven into the little flour you have," said the curé to the baker, "and to-morrow go on with your baking as usual." "The next day," says this person, "I know not how it happened, but as I kneaded, the dough seemed to rise and rise under my fingers; I could not put in the water quick enough; the more I put in, the more it swelled and thickened, so that I was able to make, with a handful of flour, ten large loaves of from twenty to twenty-two pounds each, as much, in fact, as could have been made with a whole sack of flour."

It was in consequence partly of circumstances of this nature connected with the Providence, and partly of the reputation of M. Vianney as a spiritual director, that a stream of pilgrims set in toward Ars that has continued to flow ever since. Before the close of his life, as many as eighty thousand persons are said to have visited him in a single year, by a single route. Most of them came to confess; many to be cured of deformities or disease; others to ask advice in special difficulties. The number of cures effected at his hands was prodigious. His labors in the confessional were almost beyond belief; for thirty years he spent in this severest of all the duties of a parish priest sixteen or eighteen hours a day. Penitents were content to await their turn in the church all night, all the next day—even two {576} days. Devout persons were so eager to get relics of him during his life, that whenever he laid aside his hat or his surplice the garment was immediately appropriated. So after a time he never put on a hat, and never took off his surplice.

It seemed at last that his humility could no longer endure the veneration that was paid him. He resolved to retire to a quiet place, and spend the rest of his life in prayer. He attempted to escape secretly by night; but one of his assistant priests discovered his purpose, and contrived to delay him, until the alarm was sounded through the village. The inhabitants were roused at the first stroke. The clangor of the bell was soon mingled with confused cries of "M. le curé!" The women crowded the market-place and prayed aloud in the church; the men armed themselves with whatever came first to hand; guns, forks, sticks, and axes. M. Vianney made his way with difficulty to the street door, but the villagers would not let him open it. "He went from one door to another," says his old servant, "without getting angry; but I think he was weeping." At last he reached the street, and stood still for a moment, considering how to escape. His assistant made a last effort to persuade him to remain. The populace fell at his feet, and cried, with heart-rending sobs, "Father, let us finish our confession; do not go without hearing us!" And thus saying, they carried rather than led him to the church. He knelt before the altar and wept for a long time. Then he went quietly into his confessional as if nothing had happened.

We would gladly quote the whole of the beautiful scene of which we have attempted to give an outline; but our space forbids. We must pass over also the graphic description of the abbé's death and funeral, as well as the narrative of the extraordinary sufferings which made his life one long purgatory. Let our readers get the book, and they will find it as interesting as a romance.


THE LIFE OF JOHN MARY DECALOGNE, STUDENT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. Translated from the French. 18mo., pp. 162. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This edifying narrative of the short and almost angelic career of a school-boy who died in the odor of sanctity, in his seventeenth year, was a great favorite with our fathers and grandfathers, but we believe has long been out of print. Its re-publication is a praiseworthy adventure, which we hope will have the success it deserves. The book is especially recommended to lads preparing for their first communion.


The New Path, for June (New York: James Miller, publisher), is devoted wholly to the fortieth annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. Our spicy little contemporary has no mercy on the artists.


Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record, the first number of which was published in London last March, is "a monthly register of the most important works published in North and South America, in India, China, and the British Colonies; with occasional notes on German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian books." We believe it is the first systematic attempt to bring the young literature of America and the East before the public of Europe. We commend it to the attention of our book-writing and publishing friends.


The American News Company issue a little pamphlet on The Russo-Greek Church, by a former resident of Russia. Its aim is to expose the absurdity of the attempts at union between the Russian and Protestant Episcopal Churches.




BOOKS RECEIVED.


History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.

The History of the Protestant Reformation, etc. By M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth revised edition. Baltimore: John Murphy & Company.

Ceremonial for the use of the Catholic Churches in the United States of America. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

Meditations and Considerations for a Retreat of One Day in each Month. Compiled from the writings of Fathers of the Society of Jesus. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

The Year of Mary. Translated from the French of the Rev. M. d'Arville, Apostolic Prothonotary. Edited and in part translated by Mrs. J. Sadlier. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.