questions:
Is it true that God made Christ, the Word incarnate, the centre of
the cosmos, and hence the centre of all created persons?
Is it true that, in consequence of this, created persons should be
united to him by partaking of his intelligence, will, and life?
Is it true that, in force of this union, all created persons become
united to each other in force of the principle that two things united
to a third are united to each other?
Is it true that God has effected all this in order to elevate human
society to the society of his eternal life?
Is it not true that the Catholic Church is nothing but that?
Then the Catholic Church is _cosmological law, one, divine,
universal, imperative_.
We pass to the fourth class of consequences, those which regard the
Theanthropos in relation to all the moments and persons of the cosmos.
I. The Theanthropos was intended by God before and above all other
works.
Every one is aware that an intellectual agent, in effecting his
works, follows a different order from that which he pursues in
planning them; in other words, the order of execution which an
intellectual agent follows is in the inverse ratio of the order which
he follows in idealizing them. In an architect's mind the end and
use of a building is first in order, and he idealizes and shapes
his building according to the object intended. In the execution of
the work the order is inverted, the building is effected first, the
object and use are attained afterward.
The order followed in idealizing a work is called by schoolmen the
order of _intention;_ that which is pursued in executing the work,
the order of _execution_. When we say, therefore, that the hypostatic
moment and the Theanthropos are the first of God's external works,
we mean, of course, in the order of intention; we mean that they were
intended by God first and before every other work when he resolved
to act outside himself;[133] so that the incarnation was determined
upon, not only independently of the sin of man, but would have taken
place even if man had never fallen.[134]
The metaphysical reason of this consequence is found in the relation
which means bear to the end. It is absolutely necessary that an
intellectual agent should intend primarily and chiefly that object
which is best calculated to attain the end he has in view in his
action; which best fulfils his intention and is the most appropriate
and nearest mean.
Now, the hypostatic moment, and consequently Christ, attains better
than any other moment or individual the object of the external action
of God, as we have shown. Therefore Christ was intended by God first
and above every other work.
This consequence is poetically described by the inspired author of
the Proverbs, in those beautiful lines so well known:
"The Lord possessed me from the beginning of his ways, before
he made any thing from the beginning.
"I was set up from all eternity, and of old before the earth
was made.
"The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived;
neither had the foundations of water as yet sprung out.
"The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been
established; before the hills I was brought forth.
"He had not made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of
the world.
"When he prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a
certain law and compass he inclosed the depths," etc.[135]
2. Consequence. The Theanthropos is the secondary end of God's
external works.
For, in a series of means necessary to the end, that which is
first and chief is also end in respect to the other means. Christ,
therefore, being the first and chief means to attain the end of the
external act, is also end in reference to the other moments, and
consequently the secondary end of the cosmos. "All things," said St.
Paul to the Corinthians, "are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ
is God's."
3. Christ is the secondary type of the cosmos. Ontologically
speaking, the end determines and shapes the nature and perfections of
the means, and bears to the means the relation of type and exemplar.
Now, Christ is the secondary end of the cosmos; he is, therefore, the
secondary model and type of the exterior works; in other words, he is
the best and supremest expression of God's infinite excellence, the
archetype of the cosmos; therefore he is also the secondary type of
the cosmos.
4. Christ is the universal mediator between God and his works.
As in the bosom of God the Word is the medium in the genesis of
his eternal life, the link which connects the Father and the
Spirit; so, outside of God, the incarnate Word is the mediator, the
medium universal and absolute, between God and his works, the link
connecting the infinite and the finite.
For, in the first place, the very nature of the hypostatic moment
makes him such. He is the _Word_, that is, the very Godhead, with
his infinite nature and perfections, under the termination of
intelligibility.
He is man, comprehending in his human nature all the various elements
of substantial creation. Both the Godhead and the human nature
subsist of that one termination of intelligibility. It is evident,
therefore, that the incarnate Word is essentially, by the very nature
of the hypostatic union, the medium between the infinite and the
finite.
Moreover, every intellectual agent is linked to his work by the type
of it existing in the intelligence, without which knowledge the agent
could never communicate with his work. The divine Artist of the
cosmos, therefore, is in communication with it by the eternal cosmic
type residing in his essence--the Word. Now, Christ is the Word
incarnate, and, as such, is the type of the cosmos hypostatically
united to its expression, the intelligible and objective life
personally linked to the subjective. He is, therefore, the medium
between the objective and subjective cosmos, and consequently between
the cosmos and God.
Hence Christ is essentially the mediator of creation, both in the
natural and supernatural moment; inasmuch as by him and through him
all things were made in both orders.
He is essentially the mediator of the continuation of existence in
both orders; since the same action, by which all things were made,
through him continues to hold them in existence.
He is essentially the mediator of the action of creatures in both
orders; since the same action by which all things are made to exist,
and to continue in existence through him, incites them to action and
aids them to develop their faculties. He is essentially the mediator
of perfection and beatitude; because the same action, which incites
and aids all existences, both in the natural and supernatural order,
to develop their faculties, must also perfect them, and bring them to
their final completion. And in the very act of beatitude, when the
dawn of the vision of God shall flash before the mind of created
spirits, the Theanthropos shall be the mediator between them and the
superabundant and dazzling effulgence of the infinite, by aiding and
invigorating their intellect with the light of glory.
"In him (Christ) were all things created in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible. He is before all, and by him all things
consist."[136]
5. Christ is the supreme universal objective science; the supreme
universal objective dialectic.
In the ontological order intelligibility and reality are one and the
same thing; every thing real being by the very fact intelligible, and
_vice versa_.
Now, Christ is the infinite and finite reality, hypostatically united
together. He is, therefore, the infinite finite intelligibility, and
consequently the universal objective science.
He is also the supreme universal objective dialectic; for he is
essentially the type and the form of all reasoning. The form of all
reasoning consists in the comparison of two terms with a third, with
a view of deducing their agreement or disagreement. Christ is at once
the infinite universal term, and the finite and particular term; both
terms agreeing together in the oneness of his divine personality. He
is, therefore, the type and form of all reasoning, and the objective
dialectic.
6. He is the light of all finite intelligences. Because, in the first
place, he is the space of essences, so to speak; being the subsisting
intelligibility of the Godhead.
Secondly. Because in his individuality there is the ontological
agreement of all the problems of the human mind, and the solution of
all the questions relative to the infinite and the finite, to time
and eternity, to the absolute and the relative, to immutability and
movement, to cause and effect, etc.
Thirdly. Because he is the incarnate Word, creating, supporting,
elevating and perfecting all created intelligences, in force of his
essential office of universal mediator of the cosmos.
7. Christ is the supreme universal and objective morality.
The moral perfection of the cosmos consists in the voluntary
realization of the final perfection to which it is destined by its
archetype.
Now, Christ is the archetype of the cosmos. Therefore, he is the
supreme objective morality. He is also supreme morality in the sense
of his inciting and aiding the cosmos in the voluntary reproduction
and realization of the type, in force of his office of mediator.
Therefore, etc.
8. Christ is the supreme objective realization of the beautiful.
The beautiful lies in variety reduced to unity by order and
proportion. Christ is the infinite and finite, the two beings most
distant, brought together into the unity of his divine personality by
order and proportion, as it is evident to every mind that has grasped
the nature of the hypostatic moment.
He is, therefore, the supreme, universal realization of the beautiful.
9. Christ is the supreme and universal king and ruler of the universe.
For he is the medium of the creation, preservation, and action of
the cosmos; he is its secondary end and exemplar; he is the type and
light of intelligence, the law of morality and of the beautiful.
The cosmos, therefore, is subject and dependent upon him for so many
reasons, and consequently he is the supreme ruler of it.
10. He is the centre of all the other moments and persons of the
cosmos; all things gathering around him as their chief, their
exemplar, their mediator.
"I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End." (Apoc. i. 8.)
FOOTNOTES:
[130] We could not say the human nature is divine, nor could we say
the human nature is God, or _vice versa_; but we can only predicate
the concrete terms of the concrete. The metaphysical reason is,
that the foundation of this interchange of names and properties of
both natures lies in their being both concrete in the subsistence
of the Word. If we consider them abstractly, they are separate, and
consequently cannot interchange attributes.
[131] St. John, ch. xvii., _passim_.
[132] The idea comprehends other conditions which it is not necessary
to unfold now.
[133] "Dico Deum primaria intentione, qua voluit se creaturis
communicare, voluisse mysterium Incarnationis et Christum Dominum ut
esset caput et finis divinorum operum sub ipso Deo." (Suarez, _De
Incarnatione_, Disp. v. sect. ii.)
[134] Suarez, Ubicum.
[135] Prov. ch. viii.
[136] St. Paul Colos. ch. v. 16.
BRITTANY: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS POEMS.
SECOND ARTICLE.
More than a year has elapsed since we expressed a hope to present
our readers with some further specimens of the ancient poetry of
Brittany. We then gave, translated from their rendering into French
by M. de Villemarqué, a portion of bardic poems, for example, _The
Prophecy of Gwench'lan_; _The Submersion of the City of Is_; _The
Changeling_, and _The March of Arthur_. These, as well as the
dialogue between a Druid and a child, (which is perhaps too long for
insertion here,) _The Plague of Elliant_, and portions of _Lord Nann
and the Fay_, retain much of their scientific and often alliterative
form, a part of which is their arrangement in tercets, or strophes of
three lines rhyming together.
We now proceed to fulfil our promise with regard to the ballad of
_Lord Nann_, which, however, it may be well to preface with some
remarks upon that portion of Breton mythology which it illustrates.
The principal supernatural agents in the popular poetry of Brittany
are the dwarfs and the fairies.
The common appellation of these elfish beings is _Korrigan_, whether
masculine or feminine, from korr, little, (diminutive, korrik,) and
gan or gwen, genius.
The Goddess Koridgwen is said by the Welsh bards to have had nine
attendant virgins, called the nine Korrigan. This also was the name
of the nine priestesses of the Isle of Sein.
The Breton fairies not only bear the same name as the Keltic
goddesses and consecrated virgins, but are accredited with the same
powers of foretelling future events, of curing by magical charms
diseases otherwise incurable, of transporting themselves from one end
of the world to the other in a moment of time, and of taking whatever
forms they please.
Every year, at the return of spring, they hold, on the green turf
near some fountain, a grand nocturnal feast. In the midst of the
most delicate viands there sparkles a cup of crystal, of which the
splendor is so great that there is no need of torches, and like the
magic vase of the British Keridgwen, containing a marvellous liquid,
one single drop of which conveys the knowledge of all sciences, and
of all events, past, present, and to come.
The favorite haunts of the Korrigan are always by springs of water,
especially those which are in lonely places in the neighborhood of
Druidic remains called dolmens, and from which the Holy Virgin, who
is said to be their especial enemy, has not yet chased them. Their
traditional aspect is much the same as that of the other fairy races
of European nations; their delicate and aerial frames being about two
feet in height, perfect in symmetry, and clad in the very thinnest of
ethereal textures. But all their beauty is nocturnal only. By the
light of day, which they hate above all things, they are hideous,
red-eyed, wrinkled, and old; their whole appearance betokening fallen
intelligences. The Breton peasants assure us that they are great
princesses who were struck by the curse of heaven for refusing to
embrace the Christian faith when the first missionaries preached it
in Armorica. The peasants of Wales declare them to be the souls of
Druidesses, condemned to do penance.
Their breath is deadly. Should any wayfarer trouble the waters of
their fountain, or, near their dolmen, come upon them suddenly, he is
almost sure to perish; particularly if it be on a Saturday, the day
consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, against whom they bear an especial
hatred. They also have a great aversion to any token of religion,
fleeing at the sound of a consecrated bell or at the sight of a
soutane.
Like certain of their European cousins, the Korrigan have a decided
_penchant_ for stealing the infant offspring of the human race, with
the object of regenerating their own. Therefore does the peasant
mother of Brittany place round the neck of her babe a scapular or a
rosary, that he may be secured against every elfish device, under the
protection of Our Blessed Lady.
The changelings whom the Korrigan are accused of leaving in the place
of the children whom they carry away are of the race of dwarfs,
and also bear the name of korr, korrik, and korrigan; as well as
kornandon, gwanzigan, or duz. This last name is that of the father of
Merlin, and of an ancient divinity worshipped in that part of Britain
which is now the county of York.
These dwarfs, we are told, are little, black, and hairy monsters,
with the claws of a cat, the hind legs of a goat, and a voice harsh
and broken with age. They it was who, ages ago, raised the huge
stones of the menhir and dolmen, and hid beneath them untold hoards
of treasure. Around these, when the stars are out, they are fond
of dancing, to the primitive song which consists in an incessant
repetition of the names of all the days of the week except Saturday
and Sunday, of which they studiously avoid all mention. Wednesday,
the day of Mercury, is always observed by them with especial
festivities. It was they, say the peasants, who engraved the mystic
characters on the Keltic stones of the Morbihan, and especially those
at Gawr-iniz, or the Isle of the Giant. He who, like Taliessin, could
read them, would learn all the places of their hidden treasure, and
to him all the secrets of science would be revealed.
The dwarfs are less dreaded by the country people than the fays, as
being rather comically mischievous than wholly malicious. The peasant
who has taken the precaution to sprinkle himself with holy-water
passes fearlessly by the lonely dolmen in the solitudes which they
haunt.
We were taught in our early youth that it is to her white cliffs that
Albion owes her name; but M. de Villemarqué suggests that she is
more probably indebted for it to the god Mercury, the Keltic Hermes,
who was the chief divinity worshipped by the insular Britons, under
the name of _Gwion_. Their island was especially placed under his
protection, and called for that reason the _Isle of Gwion_, or of
_Alwion_. The same learned author remarks upon the apparent identity
of the Gwion of Britain and the Gigon of the Tyrians and Phoenicians,
the divinity being in each case revered as the god of commerce, the
inventor of letters, and the patron of all the arts, and represented
in each case by the figure of a dwarf carrying a purse.
The dwarfs of Brittany possess all the attributes of Gwion, the heavy
purse included, and are evidently a part of the Keltic mythology. It
is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine the date
of poems of which they form the subject. The burden of the ballad of
_Lord Nann_ comes down from the cradle of the Indo-European nations,
and, in numerous localities, finds expression in various forms. The
one of which we here give a translation probably dates from the fifth
or the sixth century.
The name _Nann_ is the diminutive of the Breton Reunan.
LORD NANN AND THE FAY.
Lord Nann and his bride, both plighted
In youthful days, soon blighted,
Were early disunited.
Of snow-white twins a pair,
Yestreen the lady bare;
A son and daughter fair.
"What cheer shall I get for thee,
Who givest a son to me?
Say, sweet, what shall it be?
"From the forest green a roe,
Or a woodcock from where, I trow,
The pond in the vale lies low?"
"For venison am I fain,
But would not give thee pain
For me the wood to gain."
But while the lady spoke,
Lord Nann took his lance of oak,
And mounting his jet-black steed,
Rode forth to the wood with speed.
When he gained the greenwood shade,
A white hind from the glade
Fled, of his lance afraid.
Swift after the hind he flew;
The ground shook 'neath the two,
So swiftly on they flew,
And late the evening grew.
The heat streamed from his face,
From the horse's flanks apace,
Till twilight closed the race.
A little stream was welling,
'Mid softest moss up-swelling,
Hard by a haunted dwelling,
The grot of a Korrigan.
By the streamlet's brink
He stooped to drink,
For sore athirst was Nann.
The Korrigan sat there,
By the edge of her fountain fair,
Combing her golden hair.
Combing her hair with a golden comb,
For all is of price in the Korrigan's home.
"And who, so rash, art thou,
Troubling my water's flow?
Thou shalt marry me now," the Korrigan said,
"Or for seven long years shalt wither and fade,
Or in three days hence in the grave be laid!"
"I've been married a year," quoth he;
"So think not I marry thee.
Nor through seven long years shall I wither and fade,
Nor in three days hence in the grave be laid.
Dead in three days I shall not be:
I will die when it pleases God, not thee.
Yet die this moment would Seigneur Nann,
Far rather than marry a Korrigan."
"Dear mother mine, I am sorely sick;
Let my bed be made, if you love me, quick.
Let not a word to my wife be told:
I am under the ban
Of a Korrigan;
Three days, and you'll lay me in the mould."
In three days' time the young wife said,
"My mother, tell me why the bells are ringing,
And why, so low, the black-stoled priests are singing?"
"A poor man, whom we lodged last night, is dead."
"My mother, say to me,
My Lord Nann, where is he?"
"My daughter, to the town he's gone;
To see thee he'll come anon."
"And tell me, mother dear,
My red robe shall I wear,
Or shall I my robe of blue put on,
When I must to the church be gone?"
"My child, the mode is come to appear
At church in naught but sable gear."
As up the church-yard steps she went,
On a new-made grave her eyes were bent.
"Who of our kin is lately dead,
That I see in our ground a grave new-made?"
"Alas! my child, in that grave hard by,
That new-made grave which thou dost espy--
I cannot hide it--thy lord doth lie!"
Upon her knees she sank down then,
Nor ever rose she up again.
Within the self-same tomb, at close of day,
The gentle lady and her husband lay.
Behold a marvel! When the morning shone
Two spreading oaks from out that grave had grown,
And 'mid their branches, closely intertwining,
Two happy doves of dazzling whiteness shining.
Sweetly they cooed at breaking of the day,
Then forth together swiftly sped their way.
With gladsome notes they circling upward flew,
Together vanishing in heaven's deep blue.
The foregoing ballad is reproduced under no fewer than fifteen
different variations in Sweden and Denmark, where it is entitled,
_Sire Olaf and the Dance of the Elves_. In its Servian form of
_Prince Marko and the Wila_, the latter, instead of taking the life
of the hero, exacts both his eyes and the four feet of his horse.
* * * * *
Numerous as are the _traditions_ relating to the dwarfs, the _songs_
of which they are the subject are very rare. The one we are about
to give is apparently intended as a satire upon the tailors, that
ill-used class which in all warlike nations has been condemned to
ridicule. In Basse-Bretagne, no one pronounces their name without
raising the hat, and adding, "Saving your presence."
It will be remarked that the name of Duz (diminutive, duzik) is,
among others, given to the dwarfs, which, M. de Villemarqué observes,
was that borne by the genii of Gaul in the days of St. Augustine, who
speaks of them as "Dæmones quos _Duscios_ Galli nuncupant."[137]
It is said that a traveller being upon one occasion drawn into
their circling dance, and finding the refrain of "_dilun, dimeurs,
dimerc'her_," etc., somewhat monotonous, ventured to add the words
_Saturday and Sunday_, when the sudden explosion of outcries,
threatenings, and rage among the assembly was so great that the rash
adventurer was half-dead with fear. We are told that if only he had
added, "And so the week is done," the long penitence to which the
dwarfs are condemned would have ended.
AR C'HORRED.
(THE DWARFS.)
Paskou le Long, the tailor brave, turned thief on Friday night.
No more _culottes_ had he to make, since all men went to fight--
To fight against the Frankish king, and for their own king's right.
He took a spade; he sallied forth, and to the grotto went,
The grotto of the dwarfs: to find their treasure his intent;
And digging deep for hidden hoards, beneath the dolmen bent.
Ha! here's the treasure. He has found it! Home in haste he hies.
To bed he goes. "Quick! shut the door, and shut it fast," he cries,
"Against the little _Duz_ of night:" and trembles as he lies.
"Eh! Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."...
Ah poor soul!
They climb and swarm upon his roof, and there they make a hole.
My hapless friend, they have thee! haste! throw out the treasure,
whole!
Poor Paskou! Holy-water take, and well besprinkle thee,
And cast the sheet about thy head; still as a dead man be,
Nor stir in any wise. "Ah! how I hear them laugh at me,
And cry, 'If Paskou can escape, a cunning man is he!'
"O heavens! here is one; and see, his head the hole is hiding;
His eyes like embers glow, as down the bed-post he comes sliding;
And after him, one, two, three, four; ah! multitudes, are gliding.
"They bound, they dance, they race, they tumble wildly o'er the
floor."...
"Eh, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday....
"Two, three, four.
"Eh, little tailor, dear!--five, six, seven, eight, and something
more.
"Dear little tailor, surely thou art strangled with the clothes!
Dear little tailor, only show a bit of thy dear nose!
Come: let us teach thee how to dance--dance, dance, for late it grows.
"Come: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ... little tailor, thou'rt a knave!
Come, rob the dwarfs again, and see what treasure thou shalt have.
Dance, wicked little tailor, dance; and dance into thy grave!"
The money of the dwarfs is worth nothing.
* * * * *
_The Plague of Elliant_ commemorates a frightful pestilence which,
in the sixth century, desolated not only Armorica, but the whole of
Europe. Those who were attacked by it lost their hair, their teeth,
and their sight; became yellow and languid, and speedily died. The
parish of Elliant, in Cornouaille, was one of several from which the
whole population perished. The neighboring country, especially that
around Tourc'h, was preserved from the scourge by the prayers of a
hermit named Rasian.
We are told by M. de Villemarqué that the ballad of The _Plague of
Elliant_ is never sung without the addition of the following legend:
"It was the day of the _Pardon_ (the feast of the patron saint) at
Elliant; a young miller, arriving at the ford with his horses, saw a
fair lady in a white robe seated on the bank of the river, a little
staff in her hand, and who requested him to convey her over the
water. 'Oh! yes; assuredly, madame,' replied he, and already she was
on his horse's crupper, and soon deposited on the other side. Then
the fair lady said to him, 'Young man, you know not whom you have
brought over: I am the Plague. I have just made the tour of Brittany,
and I go to the church of the town, where they are ringing for mass;
all whom I strike with my staff will quickly die; as for yourself,
fear nothing; no harm shall happen to you, nor yet to your mother."
"And the Plague kept her word," adds the Breton peasant; for does not
the song itself say that none but
"A widow poor of sixty, and her only son, are left?"
The following is most probably only a fragment of the original:
THE PLAGUE OF ELLIANT.
Thus spake the holy bard who dwells not far from Langolen.
'Twixt Langolen and Le Faouet, the father Rasian:
Let every month a mass be said, ye men of Le Faouet,
A holy mass for all the souls the plague has rent away.
From Elliant, bearing heavy spoils, at last the plague has gone:
Seven thousand and a hundred slain, and left but two alone.
Death has come down upon the land, and Elliant has bereft:
A widow poor of sixty, and her only son, are left.
"The plague is at my cottage door, and when God wills," she said,
"She will come in, and we go out, among the other dead."
Go look in Elliant market-place, and mow the waving grass;
Save in the narrow rut whereby the dead-cart used to pass.
Oh! hard must be the heart of him, whoever he may be,
Who would not weep, such utter desolation could he see.
See, eighteen carts all piled with dead stand at the graveyard gate;
And eighteen carts all piled with dead, behind their turn await.
Nine children of one house there were, who on one tumbrel lay,
Which their poor mother dragged alone along the burial-way.
Their father followed, whistling, for his reason all had fled;
The mother wailed, and called on God, and pointed to her dead.
"Oh! bury my nine sons," she cried. "Oh! lay them in the ground;
A rope of wax I promise that shall thrice your walls surround,
Your church and sanctuary both therein shall be enwound.
"Nine sons I brought into the world: Death has not spared me one;
On my own hearth he struck them down, and left me all alone.
None have I now who might to me a drop of water give:
Ah! why am I not stricken too; for wherefore should I live?"
The cemetery full is piled, high as its walls, with dead;
The church heaped to the steps: the fields must now be hallowed.
In the church-yard I see an oak, and from its topmost bough
A white sheet hangs, the truce of death; for all are buried now.
There is no surer remedy, in the estimation of the Breton peasantry,
against an epidemic than to make a song about it. "The Plague,
finding herself discovered, fled away." Thus, as one among many
examples of the practical utility of the popular poetry, we find that
when, some years ago, Brittany was severely visited by the cholera,
no attention was paid to the printed circulars which were issued by
medical and magisterial authority; all the preparation made by the
people to meet it was _to dig an extra number of graves_, until a
popular poet put into verse the good advice concerning preventives
and remedies which, when placarded in official prose, had been
passed by with no more notice than a grave and incredulous shake of
the head. But a week after the composition of the "Song upon the
Cholera" it was heard in every remote hamlet or farm throughout
Brittany. The verses in themselves were detestable, in the way of
poetry; no matter, the cholera, finding itself the subject of a
song, would take flight. From the power attributed by the people to
poesy arises the Breton proverb, "Poesy is stronger than the three
strongest things: stronger than evil, than tempest, or than fire."
And again, "Song is the calmer of all sorrow." All the Keltic poems,
which, like _The Plague of Elliant_, are written in strophes, are
sung throughout to some national air, however lengthy they may be.
"I remember," writes M. Émile Souvestre, "that one day, arriving at
the _Pardon_ of St. Jean du Doigt, near Morlaix, I heard a blind man
who was singing Breton verses on the Nativity: in passing by again
in the evening, I found him still in the same place, continuing his
subject, which was by no means concluded, and which, he informed me,
it required an entire day to get through, though he did not yet know
the whole."
It is impossible to compute the number of the popular poems of
Brittany. The author just quoted considers that eight or ten thousand
would not reach the reality; and he proceeds to describe the manner
in which they mingle with the very _air_ of the country, as follows:
"No words can do justice to the intoxicating sensation which
he who understands our old language experiences, when, on a
fine summer evening, he traverses the mountains of Cornouaille,
listening to the songs of the shepherds. At every step the
voice, perhaps of a child, perhaps of an aged woman, sends
forth to him from the distance a fragment of some antique
ballad, sung to melodies such as are never now composed, and
narrating the miracle of a former time, or a crime committed
in the valley, or an attachment which has broken the heart.
The couplets answer one another from rock to rock; the verses
sport in the air like the insects of the evening; the wind
carries them by gusts into your face, with the perfume of
the black-wheat and the rye; and, immersed in this poetic
atmosphere, enchanted and meditative, you advance into the
midst of the rural solitudes. You perceive great Druidic
stones, clothed with moss, leaning toward the border of the
wood; feudal ruins, half-hidden in the thickets or breaking
the slope of the hills, while at times, on the heights of the
mountain, figures of men, with long hair flying in the wind,
and strangely clad, pass like shadows between you and the
horizon, marked out against the sky, which is just beginning to
be illumined by the rising moon. It is like a vision of bygone
times; like a waking dream that one might have after reading a
page of Ossian."
* * * * *
We will close our present article with a translation of the Sône
of Per Cöatmor, as promised in our last; hoping in a future one to
conclude our notice of the more ancient and "learned" poetry of
Brittany, that is, that which was composed according to the bardic
rules, with some curious fragments relating to Merlin the Magician
and Merlin the Bard; to be followed by specimens of the historical
poems of Brittany.
BRETON SONE.
"Not to Rouen, not to Paris, go I, friend, with thee.
What among the folk of the High Country should I see?
Treacherous ice, whereon one slips and falls, they say to me.
"Only to the mortuary I my steps will bend;
To the village mortuary with thee will I wend,
And behold the bones; for one day we must die, my friend.
"Bare of fleshly garb, the bones lie there, by day and night.
Where is now their skin so soft, and where their hands so white?
Where their souls? oh! where, my friend? In darkness or in light?
"Ah friend! when the preachers preach, you laugh at what they say.
'In _this_ life you will dance? Ah! well, so in the next you may.
There's a hall prepared below for dancers mad and gay.
'Carpeted with points of steel, where barefoot dancers fly,
Lit with fiery prongs which demons brandish, as they cry,
Dance, young man! to dances and to pardons who would'st hie.'"
"Silence, maiden! mock me not, but give me love for love;
Take me for thy spouse; our life shall sweet and joyful prove.
Henceforth pardons nor the dance my spirit e'er shall move."
"Not fifteen was I, my friend, when to the church I went.
'Leave the world,' my angel whispered, 'leave its discontent.
To the veil and cloistered life henceforth thy will be bent.'
"Girl, forget thy convent dream; believe and marry me.
Safer, stronger than the convent walls my care shall be.
With a sheltering love, sweet maid, will I encompass thee."
"Youth, not so; but let thy heart toward another lean;
Let some fairer maid from me thy fond affection wean;
Twere an easy task; good looks are thine, and portly mien."[138]
'Fairer maid than thou, nor any _like_ to thee, will I.
_Thee_ must I have, nor worse, nor better: if not thee, I die.
Stay, and let this silver ring around thy finger lie."
"No bright ring of earthly troth my finger shall ensnare.
Heaven's espousal ring alone my hand shall ever bear:
That high bond of love nor chance nor changes can outwear?"
"Maiden, if thou speakest truly, profitless and vain
All the time which I have spent thy favor sweet to gain.
For the pleasures that are past I nothing reap but pain!"
"Youth, what days for me thou mayst have lost, will I repay
Praying for thy soul's good speed and health by night and day;
So to blessed Paradise thou mayst not miss the way."
FOOTNOTES:
[137] _De Civit. Dei_, lib. xv. cxxiii.
[138] M. Souvestre's note to this passage is, "En Bretagne, aux yeux
des paysans, la corpulence est une grande beauté; c'est un signe de
distinction, de richesse, de loisir," etc.
LINES.
FROM THE LATIN OF THEODULPHUS, BISHOP OF ORLEANS, A.D. 820.
Adspice ne vitiet tumidus præcordia fastus,
Dum loca sublimis editiora tenes,
Dumque favent populi vallaris pluribus unus,
Undique te septum prosperitate putes;
Neve quod es demant oblivia segnia menti,
Ultima sit semper conspicienda dies.
Ut valeas omni vitiorum sorde carere,
Hoc quod es aspicito, non tamen id quod habes.
Ipse licet sedeas gemmis ornatus et ostro,
Post carnis putridus tempora pulvis eris.
Corpus enim fulvo quod nunc accingitur auro
Squalenti intectum veste premetur humo.
Quod mare, quod terræ, quod et aer gestat edendum,
Eheu! sordidulus post cinis illud erit.
Quemque tegunt celsis laqueata palatia tectis,
Parvaque conquereris culmina magna satis,
Clausus in angustâ modicâque tenebris urnâ
Vixque domus tibimet corpore major erit.
Plura quid enumerem? Visu quod cernitur aptum,
Visibus humanis quod favet atque placet,
Post vitam vermis, post vermem pulvis habebit,
Voce Tonantis erit, quum redit, unde venit.
TRANSLATION.
O thou who, seated in the place of power,
Dost hear the praise and see the prostrate crowd,
When all things smile upon thy prosperous hour,
Let not thy heart be proud!
Be not with dull oblivion overcast;
Keep ever in thy sight life's certain goal;
Consider what thou art, not what thou hast.
And so be pure of soul.
Thou sittest to-day in purple and in gold;
Thy vesture is with jewels clasped to-day;
How soon the squalid earth-robe will enfold
The little mouldering clay!
Of all earth nourishes--the flocks of air,
The life that ocean in its deep maintains--
Of all the plenty spread for banquets rare--
What nothingness remains!
Now lofty painted ceilings shield thee well;
Now thy broad halls too narrow seem to be;
Scarce larger than thy mortal frame, the cell
Will soon suffice for thee.
What further say? O all that doth rejoice
Our human eyes! O all with beauty rife!
The worm! the dust! and then--the thunder-voice
That calls the dead to life!
C. E. B.
GERALD GRIFFIN.
In October, 1823, there arrived in the city of London a young man
from the south of Ireland, unknown and without a friend in that vast
metropolis. A stranger in a strange land, he brought with him nothing
but a cultivated mind, a fresh, vigorous constitution, a pleasing
address, a spirit of self-reliance amounting almost to a morbid
dislike for every thing savoring of patronage, a slender purse, and
a few manuscript plays, the labor of boyhood's leisure hours. His
experience of life had been confined to his own peaceful household on
the banks of the Shannon, and the society of a few intimate friends
of his family. His contributions to literature amounted simply
to some sketches published in the newspapers of his native city,
Limerick, and the, to him, precious burden he bore with him in this
his first adventure into the unknown world. Thus provided, he aspired
with all the glorious confidence of youthful ambition to no less a
mission than the reformation of the modern drama, and the infusion of
moral sentiment into works of fiction, even then fast acquiring those
deleterious qualities which so thoroughly permeate them in our day.
This young literary knight-errant was Gerald Griffin, who, born
on the 12th day of December, 1803, had not yet completed his
twentieth year. The story of his early life, as told by the pen of
an affectionate brother, is remarkable principally for the calm,
holy atmosphere of parental love by which it was surrounded, and
the judicious mental training to which he was subjected even from
his earliest infancy. His father, Patrick Griffin, a descendant of
an ancient Irish family, seems to have occupied a social position
equally removed from penury and affluence; such a one, at least, as
enabled him to support his large family with comfort, and provide
each of his children with an education not only suitable to their
condition, but more extensive and varied than at that time was
considered necessary for the sons and daughters of the middle class.
He was a man of robust constitution, facile temper, an ardent
nationalist, and well read in the history and antiquities of his
country. His mother, a woman of more than ordinary cultivation
and great religious fervor, was entirely devoted to her household
duties and the moral training of her children, and we cannot better
convey an idea of the character of this admirable woman than by
transcribing the following extract from one of her letters to her son:
"I have, my dear Gerald, travelled with you through your
mortifying difficulties, and am proud of my son--proud of his
integrity, talents, prudence, and, above all, his appearing
superior to that passion of common minds, revenge; I must own,
fully provoked to it by ----'s conduct. I hope, however, they
may soon have to seek you, not you them. Perhaps, after all,
it may have been as well that we did not know at the time what
you were to endure on your first outset. We should in that
case have been advising you to come out here, which perhaps
would have been turning your back on that fame and fortune
which I hope will one day reward your laudable perseverance
and industry. When the very intention you mention of paying us
a visit delights me so much, what should I feel if Providence
should have in reserve for me the blessing of once again
embracing my Gerald?"
Gerald united in himself the leading characteristics of both parents
in a remarkable degree. His love of home forms the constant theme of
his letters, while his attachment to country and delicate moral sense
may properly be said to have tinged every page of his prose, and
inspired every line of his poetry. His brothers and sisters, eight in
number, were equally worthy of such progenitors, and of the author of
_The Collegians_; the former becoming distinguished members of the
liberal professions, and the latter, in most instances, adopting the
habits and worthily fulfilling the duties of a religious life.
When the young Gerald was about seven years old, his father,
abandoning business in Limerick, removed some miles from that city,
and settled on a farm pleasantly situated near the confluence of
the little river Oavaan and the Shannon. Here the future novelist
and poet spent ten of the happiest years of his life. Surrounded on
all sides by scenery the most picturesque, wood, mountain, lake,
and river, his youthful imagination, so susceptible of impressions
of physical as well as moral beauty, found ample scope. Reserved in
manner even with his playmates, he was wont to shun their society,
and wander alone for hours through the fields or by the riverside,
his gun or fishing-rod unused, and his whole being drinking in the
beauties of the ever-varying landscape, or gazing wonderingly on
the distant "lovely hills of Clare," the boundary of his world.
His love for the supernatural and his fondness for fairy lore were
early developed in this sylvan retreat, where every ruin had its
tragic history, every graveyard its especial ghost, and every rath
and cairn its appropriate legend. How far such constant communings
with nature had a tendency to disqualify him for the stern battle
of life which he was destined afterward to wage with such varying
fortune, we cannot undertake to say; but doubtless often, when in
poverty and exile, the recollection of those years so tranquilly
and innocently spent must have brightened many a solitary hour, and
it is certain that to this early development of a taste for moral
beauty we are indebted for some of the most vivid and truthful of his
word-paintings.
But his mind was not altogether occupied in contemplation. His
education, begun in Limerick, was assiduously continued in the
country under the direction of a visiting tutor and the older members
of his family, until at an early age he had mastered not only the
rudiments of the French language, but had acquired a comparatively
extensive and accurate knowledge of the English classics. He was
especially fond of poetry, and was accustomed, even when a child,
to copy out passages from Goldsmith and Moore; and his application
to his studies of all kinds was so intense that he is described by
his relatives as being invariably in the habit of sitting at his
meals with a book open before him, and two or three in reserve ready
to his hand. Goldsmith's _Animated Nature_ was one of his favorite
books, and he endeavored to turn it to practical account by copying
its illustrations, and rearing with his own hand numbers of the
little song-birds to be so plentifully found in the neighborhood.
In the year 1814, we find him for a short time at the school of a
Mr. O'Brien, in Limerick, deep in the fascinating pages of Horace,
Ovid, and Virgil, the latter of whom, as might be expected, was his
favorite poet, and so earnestly did he explore this, to him, new mine
of poesy that he is said to have attained a remarkable proficiency in
the Latin tongue at an age when other children are but imperfectly
acquainted with their vernacular. Though soon deprived of the
valuable supervision of Mr. O'Brien, he continued his readings of the
classics for several years at a neighboring school, and in maturer
years evinced in conversation and composition a decided preference
for this branch of his early studies.
In 1820, the delightful family circle at Fairy Lawn was broken up.
Mr. Griffin, senior, his wife and several of their older children,
emigrated to this country, and settled near Binghamton, in the
State of New York. Gerald, with one older brother and two younger
sisters, was left under the protection of the oldest remaining
brother, Dr. William Griffin, then a practising physician in Adare,
a pretty village a few miles from Limerick. The separation from
the two beings he loved best on earth was a sad calamity for the
affectionate lad; but hope, that star which always shone brightly
for him no matter how cloudy the horizon, consoled him for what he
believed to be only a temporary bereavement. "Gerald," says one
of his sisters in a letter to America, "has a biscuit from your
sea store, which he says he will produce at the first meal we eat
together in Susquehanna." The change of residence had one advantage,
however; for while it did not interfere with his home studies, or
even with his rambles in search of fresh scenery and old traditions,
it gave him an opportunity of often visiting the city, and forming
the acquaintance of young men of congenial tastes, principal among
whom was John Banim, one of the authors of the celebrated _Tales
of the O'Hara Family_. He became also a frequent attendant at such
theatrical performances as the place at that time afforded, and even
contributed reports, sketches, verses, and leading articles to the
local journals, which, if they were not very profitable or widely
known, "obliged him," he tells us, "to write with quickness, and
without much study." But the young man had already drunk too deeply
of the unpolluted waters of English and Latin lore to be satisfied
with the superficial nothings of provincial journalism, or to relish
the crudities of the dramatic pieces with which the wandering
players were then accustomed to regale the unsophisticated people of
second-class cities. The modern drama seemed to him flimsy in its
construction, and, if not positively immoral, certainly in tendency
falling far short of its legitimate object, which, as the great
dramatist tells us, "is and was to hold the mirror up to nature,"
etc. He reflected seriously on the possibility of its reformation,
and, like a true reformer, zealously set to work to accomplish this
desirable purpose, encouraged no doubt by the applause which greeted
the appearance of his young countryman's _Damon and Pythias_. He
wrote about this time three or four plays, none of which were ever
presented to the public; and of the names and plots of all but one
we are ignorant. That was called _Aquire_, and being a production
of considerable merit, judging from the favorable opinion of it
expressed by Banim and other theatrical critics to whose inspection
it was confidentially submitted, would very probably have met with
success on the stage had not the author's over-sensitiveness induced
him to withdraw it altogether, after endeavoring two or three times
to procure its representation. His next step was to leave Ireland for
a wider sphere of action; but it was only after repeated and urgent
solicitation, and upon reading over this drama, which seemed to
contain many excellences, that his brother and guardian, Dr. Griffin,
consented to gratify his longing to visit London, where he felt he
would have unlimited scope to develop his idea of reform. The consent
gained, Gerald left home for the first time, radiant with hope and
confident of success.
A youthful aspirant for literary honors could not have made his
_début_ at a more unpropitious time. London was then, as now, the
great maelstrom which drew into its vortex most of the enterprise and
genius of the three kingdoms, and, alas! proved the grave of too many
overwrought and unappreciated minds. The fame of Byron, Moore, and a
host of contemporary poets was then in its zenith, and the refulgence
of their genius eclipsed the light of all lesser stars which might
have shone brightly in any other atmosphere. The stage was so
completely neglected or debased that the legitimate drama had given
place to spectacular frivolities, and hundreds of plays of merit were
offered every year to the London managers only to be rejected. The
wonderful success of Sir Walter Scott as a novelist had produced a
crowd of plagiarists, as inferior in ability as they were formidable
in prolixity, who had filled the shelves of the booksellers with
the veriest trash, and satiated _ad nauseam_ the public taste for
romance. Even the field of Irish fiction was apparently fully
occupied. Maria Edgeworth's justly admired tales were in every
household, and the stronger and brighter imagination of Banim had
already plumed its pinions, and tried its first flight with marked
success. The era of patronage, when the great and wealthy of the land
esteemed it a privilege to throw the ægis of their protection over
the artist and man of letters, had passed away, perhaps happily, for
ever, and that of Bulwer and Dickens, Thackeray and Lever had not
arrived; men whose magic pens seem to have realized the alchemist's
dream, and turned every thing they touched into gold. It was well for
the young adventurer that these difficulties did not at once present
themselves, or, if discerned at all, it was through that enchanting
halo with which youth surrounds the future.
On Gerald's arrival in London, his first step was to procure
respectable lodgings; his next to place in the hands of some person
connected with the stage, but whose name has not transpired, a copy
of one of his plays for criticism and acceptance. This person, though
the only one to whom the friendless lad was able to procure an
introduction, took the piece with warm professions of friendship, and
promised it his early consideration; but, after retaining it for some
three months, sent it back, "wrapped up in an old newspaper," without
a word of comment, explanation, or apology. The interval was one of
painful suspense for the aspiring writer, somewhat relieved by the
genial and unselfish kindness of Banim, whose residence in London he
soon discovered. Although having had but a slight acquaintance with
Gerald, and being himself very few years his senior, and still on the
threshold of fame, John Banim, to his immortal credit be it said,
extended to his junior countryman the hospitality of his house, and,
what was much more grateful, the sunshine of his genial conversation
and the refuge of his cheerful fireside. He went even further: with
a total absence of professional jealousy, he took _Aquire_, read it
over carefully, commended its best passages, pointed out the errors
to be erased, the superabundant metaphor and mere poetic imagery to
be pruned, and used all his efforts to procure its representation.
Gerald was deeply grateful. "What would I have done," he writes to
his brother, "if I had not found Banim? I should never be tired of
talking about and thinking of Banim." It was at the suggestion of
this invaluable friend that, in the early part of the following
year, he wrote _Gisippus_, and many of its most striking scenes
owe something to the matured judgment of the author of _Damon and
Pythias_. This play, written, as he tells us, on little slips of
paper in coffee-houses, though one of great merit, for originality
of conception, dignity of language, and startling incidents, was not
acted till two years after the author's death; and when Macready at
length introduced it to the public, it was received with great favor,
and still, to use a theatrical phrase, "keeps the boards."
But months passed wearily away in the strange city, and Gerald's
hopes were as far as ever from fruition--months spent in fruitless
efforts to obtain some sort of employment that would enable him to
support himself, while he waited the pleasure of managers and danced
attendance on theatrical committees. Again and again he applied
for the position of reporter on the press, but was answered that
the places were all filled. He might have become a police-news
reporter, but he was told that it was "hardly reputable." He wrote
for the literary weeklies, but was cheated by every one of them; he
contributed to the larger magazines, and his articles were inserted;
but when payment was requested, "there was so much shuffling and
shabby work" that he left them in disgust; he commenced the study
of Spanish, with a view to coöperate with Valentine Llanos in the
translation of Spanish dramas; but Colburn and the other publishers
told him that it was "entirely out of their line." At last he
undertook with avidity to translate from the French a volume and
a half of one of Prevot's works for two guineas--about ten and a
half dollars. It is no wonder, then, that in the bitterness of
his extremity he wrote to his sister, "If I could make a fortune
by splitting matches, I think I would never put a word in print."
Though practising the most rigid economy, the occasional remittances
he received from his brother, many of them unsolicited, did not
suffice for his ordinary wants; he was compelled to give up his first
lodgings and seek others in a more obscure part of the city, and was
even obliged to refuse the pressing invitations of his friend Banim
to meet Doctor Maginn and other celebrities, at the house of the
former, for want of proper apparel. "The fact is," he writes home at
this time, "I am at present almost a complete prisoner. I wait until
dusk every evening to creep from my mouse-hole, and snatch a little
fresh air on the bridge close by."
Staggering under the weight of disappointment and poverty, he was
yet to encounter the additional torture of ill health. Stooping
constantly over his desk, he contracted an affection of the lungs,
the unaccustomed dampness of a London fog had given him rheumatism,
and he was occasionally attacked with violent palpitations of
the heart, which endangered life itself. The joyous spirit which
had soared like a bird beneath its native skies on the banks of
the Shannon, drooped its wings in the heavy miasma of the Thames;
fagging, unrequited labor made his days a burden and his nights
sleepless; his wardrobe was so threadbare that for months at a time
he would not stir abroad in the daylight, and consequently did not
meet the face of an acquaintance, and his supply of food so meagre
that he was often obliged to dispense with the commonest necessaries
of life. Indeed, so reduced had he become in circumstances at this
time that a friend of his relates that, having lost sight of him
for several days, and apprehending the true cause of his absence,
after long searching he discovered him in a veritable garret, and,
though it was past midnight, still endeavoring to work on his
manuscripts. But what must have been his astonishment when he wrung
from Gerald the unwilling but unostentatious confession that he had
been without food for three consecutive days? It is unnecessary to
say that his immediate wants were supplied by the kind friend who had
thus timely visited him, though not without some hesitation on the
part of the recipient of the favor. Still, nothing could daunt his
indomitable will, no misfortune could lessen the self-consciousness
of his ability to achieve ultimate success, or break down his proud,
too proud, spirit of personal independence. He might easily have
obtained money from his relatives in Ireland; but he forebore to
accept from them what his susceptibilities led him to suppose they
could ill afford, and even his true friend Banim, upon incidentally
discovering his situation and tendering him in the most delicate
manner some pecuniary assistance, was met with a decided and not
over courteous refusal. His enforced poverty likewise had a very
injurious effect on his prospects as a dramatic author; for, unable
to mingle on an equality with men connected with the stage, he lost
all chance of personal intercourse with managers and critics, and
finally conceived such a distaste for or indifference to his first
affection, the drama, that he relinquished for ever the design of
reforming the stage, the hope that had lain nearest to his heart and
had prompted his self-imposed exile from his native country. Though
few men loved literature more for its own sake, or are, fortunately
generally called upon to offer more sacrifices at its shrine, the
vital question with him had now become narrowed down to the very one
of existence itself; for, to use his own expression, "he preferred
death to failure."
Thus nearly two years passed away in London, and, sick at heart and
enfeebled in body, he felt thousands and thousands of times, as he
writes to his parents, that he could have lain down quietly and died
at once, and been forgotten for ever. But in this his darkest hour a
ray of hope unexpectedly crossed his gloomy path, and with all the
hopefulness of a rejuvenated spirit he hailed it as the harbinger of
a new and more prosperous epoch. A Mr. Foster, having accidentally
become acquainted with his almost hopeless condition, procured him
employment at fifty pounds a year as reader and corrector for a
publisher, and his gifted countryman Maginn, immediately upon hearing
of his reduced circumstances, obtained for him a situation on _The
Literary Gazette_, which soon led to a profitable connection with
other journals of a like character. To all these he contributed
articles in prose and poetry on every imaginable topic, and
displayed such an adaptability and versatility of talent that his
services were not only well rewarded by their respective publishers,
but very generally appreciated by the reading community. Many of the
tales and sketches which at this time came from his pen were sent in
and published anonymously, or simply signed "Joseph," his name in
confirmation, so strictly did he endeavor to preserve his incognito,
and trust to the intrinsic merits of his contributions for their
acceptance. Though he wrote to his mother that by reason of his new
employment he was enabled to pay off all the debts he owed at the
close of the year 1825, his varied productions could not have been
very remunerative, certainly not in proportion to the labor expended
on them; for we find him during the next session of Parliament
engaged as a reporter in the House of Commons.
The vehemence with which he seized hold of this opportunity, and
the ardor with which he pursued his new calling as reporter and
journalist, show that he felt he had at last discovered a clue that
would lead him out of the labyrinth of his difficulties, and his
success fully justified the confidence in his own powers which had
never forsaken him. Opportunity, so much desired by all young men of
ability, which comes to some unsought, and as persistently flies the
approach of others, had at length presented itself to Gerald Griffin,
and he lost no time in profiting by the occasion. Association with
authors whose works he was obliged to examine, criticise, and
sometimes revise, naturally led him to compare his own capacity for
production with theirs, and to arrive at the conclusion that he also
was able to produce works of prose fiction equally meritorious,
and as worthy the commendation of moralists as epic poetry or the
drama. Satisfied on this point, he at once relinquished his dramatic
aspirations, and prepared himself with all the enthusiasm of his
nature to enter the lists as a novelist. In his "small room in some
obscure court, near St. Paul's," he called up the recollections of
past days, of the lovely Shannon, the mountain ranges of Clare, the
wakes, fairs, and festivals of the Munster peasantry, the humor,
shrewdness, pathos, and frolic he as a child had witnessed, and
perhaps to some extent shared, and he resolved to essay an Irish
novel illustrative of these familiar scenes. Having first tried short
stories for the literary weeklies, and found them eagerly read and
highly appreciated, he commenced a series of tales to be published
in book form, which he designed to call _Anecdotes of Munster_, but
which were afterward known under the general title of _Holland-Tide_.
Pending the appearance of this his first continued effort, his labors
were as varied and as unremitting as ever--correcting for the press
the lucubrations of unskilled writers, reviewing in the weekly papers
the various books that the metropolitan publishers were constantly
inflicting on the public, writing theatrical criticisms, sketches,
poetry, and political articles--doing any thing and every thing, in
fact, no matter how foreign to his tastes, as long as they honorably
secured him present competency and a reasonable prospect of finally
accomplishing his grand purpose. At one time he describes himself
as busy revising a ponderous dictionary; at another, collecting
materials for a pamphlet on Catholic emancipation. Now he is promised
£50 for a piece for the English opera, and again he acknowledges the
receipt of several pounds for reports furnished a Catholic newspaper
recently started. His leisure moments, if he can be said to have had
any, were devoted to versification, while his parliamentary duties
kept him out of bed till three, and sometimes five o'clock in the
morning. His brother William, who visited him in London in 1826, thus
describes his altered appearance and his methodical manner of life:
"I had not seen him since he left Adare, and was struck with
the change in his appearance. All color had left his cheek,
he had grown very thin, and there was a sedate expression of
countenance unusual in one so young, and which in after years
became habitual to him. It was far from being so, however, at
the time I speak of, and readily gave place to that light and
lively glance of his dark eye, that cheerfulness of manner and
observant humor, which from his very infancy had enlivened
our fireside circle at home. Although so pale and thin as I
have described him, his tall figure, expressive features,
and his profusion of dark hair, thrown back from a fine
forehead, gave an impression of a person remarkably handsome
and interesting.... He was indefatigable at his work; rose
and breakfasted early, set to his desk at once, and continued
writing till two or three o'clock in the afternoon; took a turn
round the park, which was close to his residence; returned and
dined; usually took another walk after dinner, and returning to
tea, wrote for the remainder of the evening, after remaining up
to a very late hour."
The series of tales, published by Simpkin and Marshall late in
this year brought Griffin £70 sterling, and at once established
his reputation as a powerful and original writer, and an accurate
delineator of Irish peasant character. Its reception by the public
and the gentlemen of the critical profession was so generally
favorable that, feeling assured he had at length entered on the
right road to distinction, and that his future was no longer
doubtful, Griffin gave up his various engagements with the press,
and not unwillingly, it is to be presumed, laid down for ever the
load of literary drudgery which had so long bowed his spirit to the
earth. His fortitude had been severely tested, not by one great
calamity, but by a series of trials, harder to be borne, and had
remained unshaken; his constancy of purpose had been proof against
all allurements to swerve from the honorable pursuit of letters; and
it is not too much to affirm, on the authority of many who knew him
intimately, that his moral character remained unsullied amid all the
temptations which usually beset a young man of his isolated condition
in every large city. His first success was naturally followed by a
desire to revisit his home, a wish in which he had long secretly
indulged, but which was now strengthened by intelligence of the
dangerous illness of a favorite sister. He arrived at Pallas Kenry,
his brother's residence, in February, 1827, but unfortunately a few
hours after the death of this young lady, an event which, coupled
with his feeble health, destroyed for a time the pleasure which
he had anticipated from a trip to Ireland, and the renewal of his
acquaintance with those peaceful scenes the remembrance of which had
so cheered his absence.
"I started for Limerick at a very early hour to meet him," says
his brother, "and I cannot forget how much I was struck by the
change his London life had made in his appearance. His features
looked so thin and pale, and his cheeks so flattened, and, as
it were, bloodless, that the contrast with what I remembered
was horrid; while his voice was feeble, and slightly raised
in its pitch, like that of one recovering from a lingering
illness. It was affecting, in these circumstances, to observe
the sudden and brilliant light that kindled in his eyes on
first seeing me, and the smile of welcome that played over his
features and showed the spirit within unchanged."
The unremitting attention of his relatives, however, at length
assuaged his mental grief and bodily sufferings, and his mind,
naturally resigned, gradually resumed its wonted tranquillity. He
spent the summer months at Pallas Kenry in the undisturbed enjoyment
of home, but still industriously occupied with his pen.
"When engaged in composition, (says his biographer,) he made
use of a manifold writer, with a style and carbonic paper,
which gave him two and sometimes three copies of his work.
One of these he sent to the publisher, the others he kept by
him, in case the first should be lost. He had his sheets so
cut out and arranged that they were not greater in size than
the leaf of a moderate-sized octavo, and he wrote so minute a
hand that each page of the manuscript contained enough matter
for a page of print. This enabled him very easily to tell how
much manuscript was necessary to fill three volumes. His usual
quantity of writing was about ten pages of these in the day.
It was seldom less than this, and I have known it repeatedly
as high as fifteen or twenty, without interfering with those
hours which he chose to devote to recreation. He never rewrote
his manuscript, and one of the most remarkable things I noticed
in the progress of his work was the extremely small number
of erasures or interlineations in it, several pages being
completed without the occurrence of a single one."
The result of this diligent application was the first series of
_Tales of the Munster Festivals_, embracing _The Half-Sir_, _The Card
Drawers_, and _The Shuil Dhuv_, with which he proceeded to London,
and which he disposed of to his publishers for £250, a price that
would now be considered totally inadequate, but which forty years
ago was looked upon as ample remuneration for that species of labor.
The work, though decidedly superior to _Holland-Tide_, was much less
favorably received by the critics, and Griffin had now to pay the
penalty of success by having the children of his brain held up to
public censure, as not being formed true to nature, or as acting
in a manner contrary to the canons of London society. Though such
strictures generally emanated from persons who either would not or
could not understand the peculiarities of the people of Ireland,
he felt keenly alive to their praise or censure, particularly the
latter; nor does he seem to have exhibited that callousness which
his long acquaintance with the press, and the class of men who are
sometimes permitted to sit in judgment on their superiors, might have
taught him.
Having remained long enough in London to superintend the publication
of the tales, he gladly returned to Pallas Kenry, where he spent
nearly a year in the undisturbed society of his relatives and a few
friends living in his neighborhood. These latter must have been few
indeed, for he is described as still of a very shy and reserved
disposition, except when among intimate friends; and though shown
every mark of esteem and hospitality by his countrymen, he had
so great an abhorrence of being lionized that he seldom accepted
invitations, save such as could not in ordinary politeness be
rejected. Not that his temper was soured or that his conversational
powers were deficient, but home was to him the centre and only object
of attraction. "Would you wish to view at a distance our domestic
circle?" asks his sister in one of her letters to America. "William
and I are generally first at the breakfast table, when, after a
little time, walks in Miss H----; next Mr. Gerald, and, last of all,
Monsieur D----. After breakfast our two doctors go to their patients;
Gerald takes his desk by the fire-place and writes away, except when
he chooses to throw a pinch or a pull at the ringlets, cape, or
frill of the first lady next to him, or gives us a stave of some old
ballad."
Under such sweet influences, so different from his wretched life
in London, the greater part of his best work, _The Collegians_,
was written. Two or three subjects for a successor to _Shuil Dhuv_
had been selected and partly developed; but having the fear of the
critics before his eyes, he laid them aside unfinished. The spring
and summer of 1828 thus passed away fruitlessly; but at length a
theme presented itself that satisfied his judgment, and he set
about writing on it with all possible expedition. _The Collegians_
was originally published in three volumes, one and a half of which
Griffin brought with him to London in November. The remaining portion
was written in that city in such hot haste that he was obliged
frequently to deliver his sheets of manuscript without having time
to reread or revise them. This work, on its first appearance, was
received with the greatest favor; it placed the author at once at
the head of the novelists of his own country, and gave him a high
rank among the writers of the English language--a verdict which the
experience of posterity has fully confirmed.
Of the writers of that day Griffin's favorite, as might be expected,
was Sir Walter Scott. He had a profound respect for the historical
romances of that great man, and, with an ambition honorable to his
patriotism, he resolved to abandon for a time the portraiture of
local and modern life, and attempt to do for his native country what
the author of _Ivanhoe_ had so admirably done for Great Britain.
Accordingly, in the spring of 1829, he removed to Dublin, where he
spent several months in the study of ancient history and in visiting
on foot several parts of Ireland, the topography of which he designed
to introduce into his new work. The fruit of his antiquarian labors
was _The Invasion_, which appeared during the winter of the same
year, a short time after the publication of a second series of
_Munster Festivals_. But though it had an extensive sale and was
highly praised by the more learned, it did not, from the very nature
of the subject and the remote epoch treated, establish itself in the
affections of the public so generally as his previous and subsequent
writings. While in the Irish capital, he was introduced to Sir
Philip Crampton and other distinguished scholars, from all of whom
he experienced the most flattering attention. His fame, indeed, had
preceded him among all classes of his countrymen, and their warm and
discriminating encomiums, diffident as he was to a fault, must have
fallen pleasantly on his ear, and not the less so when they were
expressed in the mellifluous accents he was accustomed to hear from
his infancy. A closer intimacy with the congenial spirits of his own
country appears to have worn off a great deal of his natural reserve;
for we now find him mentioning that he had met Miss Edgeworth, and
was anticipating the pleasure of an introduction to Lady Morgan and
other contemporary celebrities. In the latter part of this year he
also formed the acquaintance of a lady residing in the south of
Ireland, which soon ripened into a lasting friendship, founded upon
similarity of tastes and mutual esteem. The name of the lady is not
given in his life, and we know her only as the recipient of several
pleasant gossiping letters, addressed to her by the initial "L.," and
by the many beautiful poems dedicated in her honor. A married lady,
the mother of a numerous family, and Griffin's senior by several
years, she exercised a wholesome and judicious influence over a mind
naturally sympathetic but peculiarly sensitive, such as none of his
own sex could or would have attempted. In company with her husband
and relatives he made a prolonged visit to Killarney, the romantic
beauty of whose lakes filled him with the most intense delight.
In the winter of 1829, he was again in London, which city he was
obliged to visit each succeeding year till 1835, to attend to his
subsequent works; _The Christian Physiologist_, _The Rivals_,
_The Duke of Monmouth_, and _Tales of My Neighborhood_, appearing
in nearly regular annual succession. The intervening time was
generally spent in acquiring material for these works, or at the
watering-places enjoying his well-earned repose. It was on the
occasion of one of those flying trips across the channel, in 1832,
that, being requested by the electors of Limerick to present, on
their behalf, a request to Moore that he would consent to represent
them in Parliament, Griffin deviated from his route and called on
that celebrated poet at Sloperton Cottage. In a playful account of
this ever-memorable interview, addressed to his friend "L.," he says:
"O dear L----! I saw the poet, and I spoke to him, and he spoke to
me, and it was not to bid me to 'get out of his way,' as the king
of France did to the man who boasted that his majesty had spoken to
him; but it was to shake hands with me, and to ask me, 'How I did,
Mr. Griffin,' and to speak of 'my fame.' _My_ fame! Tom Moore talk
of my fame! Ah the rogue! He was humbugging, L----, I'm afraid. He
knew the soft side of an author's heart, and perhaps had pity on my
long, melancholy-looking figure, and said to himself, 'I will make
this poor fellow feel pleasant, if I can;' for which, with all his
roguery, who could help liking him and being grateful to him?"
In 1838, he projected a tour on the continent; but was induced to
change his purpose for a shorter one in Scotland, from which he
derived not only great pleasure, but restored health. His diary of
the trip, originally taken in short-hand notes, has been published,
and abounds in good-natured criticisms on the manners and customs of
the people he met on his journey, and some very fine descriptions of
the scenery of the Highlands, which fell under his observation.
Gerald Griffin's last novel, as we have intimated, appeared in 1835,
when only in the thirty-second year of his age. He had succeeded
in the fullest sense as a novelist, in giving to the world in half
a score of years some of the healthiest and most fascinating books
in our language; had won the applause of the gifted and good alike,
and, in a pecuniary point of view, had secured himself against all
probability of dependence. Still, in a certain sense, he was not
content. The pursuit of fame, as he had on more than one occasion
predicted, had alone given him pleasure--its acquisition brought
him no permanent satisfaction. Whether in abandoning the drama he
had departed from his true path, or that his early insight into
the mysteries of authorship had led him to underrate the labors
of those whom the world is allowed to know only at a distance, or
that his mind, naturally of a serious and religious turn, now fully
developed, instinctively arrived at the conviction that only in the
performance of those duties and sacrifices imposed on the ministers
of the Gospel could be found his real sphere of action, or whether
all these causes acted upon him with more or less force, certain it
is that he now began to contemplate a radical change in his life. We
know that he relinquished writing for the stage with reluctance, and
that as early as 1828 he commenced the study of law at the London
University; but it was not for two or three years afterward that his
friends noticed his growing inclination for the life of a religious.
From that time his poems, those beautiful scintillations of his soul,
began to exhibit a higher fancy and a purer moral power than could
be drawn even from patriotism, or the contemplation of mere natural
objects. His conversation assumed a graver tone, and his letters to
his friends, formerly so pleasantly filled with gossip and scraps of
comment on the persons and literature of the day, were mainly taken
up with graver topics.
This change, we are satisfied, was the effect of grave and due
deliberation, and not the result of caprice or disappointed ambition.
It had been remarked that his letters to the different members of
his family during his residence in London, while filled with minute
details of his literary labors, fears, and aspirations, seldom
touched on religious matters, and hence it has been inferred that
during his sojourn there he had neglected the practical duties of the
faith of his boyhood; but this supposition is altogether gratuitous.
In familiar intercourse with men of his own age and pursuits, he may
have given expression to crude or speculative opinions without that
proper degree of reverence which older minds exercise in dealing with
such important questions; but we have the assurance of his nearest
relatives and of those few who enjoyed his friendship that this
weakness was seldom indulged in. However, Griffin in a spirit of
self-condemnation, which we cannot help thinking disproportionate to
the supposed offence, inaugurated his new mode of life by endeavoring
to remove from the minds of his former associates any wrong
impressions such conversations might have produced. In an admirable
letter written to a literary friend in London, under date January
13th, 1830, he says:
"Since our acquaintance has recommenced this winter, I have
observed, with frequent pain, that not much (if the slightest)
change has taken place in your opinions on the only important
subject on earth. Within the last few weeks, I have been
thinking a great deal upon this subject, and my conscience
reproaches me that you may have found in the worldliness of
my own conduct and conversation reason to suppose that my
religious convictions had not taken that deep hold of my
heart and mind which they really have. I will tell you what
has convinced me of this. I have compared our interviews this
winter with the conversations we used to hold together, when my
opinions were unsettled and my principles (if they deserved the
name) detestable, and though these may be somewhat more decent
at present, I am uneasy at the thought that the whole tenor of
my conduct, such as it has appeared to you, was far from that
of one who lived purely and truly for heaven and for religion."
With a short visit to Paris and his tour in Scotland, Griffin
practically bade adieu to the outside world, and, retiring to Pallas
Kenry, prepared himself for admission into the order of the Christian
Brothers. We learn from one of his letters to friends in America that
he had at first designed to offer himself as a candidate for the holy
ministry, and had even commenced a preparatory course of theological
study; but distrust of his vocation for a calling requiring so
many qualifications led him to select the more quiet but highly
meritorious sphere of a humble teacher of little children.
"I had long since relinquished the idea," he writes, "which I
ought never to have entertained, of assuming the duties of the
priesthood; and I assure you that it is one of the attractions
of the order into which I have entered, that its subjects
are prohibited (by the brief issued from Rome in approval
and confirmation of the institute) from ever aspiring to the
priesthood."
Having destroyed all his unpublished manuscripts, including _Matt
Hyland_, a ballad of considerable merit of which only a fragment
remains, and taken affectionate leave of his friends, the author of
_Gisippus_ and _The Collegians_, in the prime of his manhood and the
fulness of his fame, left his home for ever, entered as a postulant
the institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Dublin,
September 8th, 1838, and on the 15th of the following month, the
feast of St. Teresa, was admitted to the religious habit.
"I have," he writes, "entered this house, at the gracious call
of God, to die to the world and to live to him; all is to be
changed; all my own pursuits henceforward to be laid aside, and
those only embraced which he points out to me."
Gerald Griffin, or, as we must henceforth know him, Brother Joseph,
entered on the performance of his new duties with his characteristic
ardor and in a spirit of unostentatious obedience, which elicited the
admiration of the community to a greater extent than the display of
mere intellectual accomplishments could have done. "Nothing," said
the superior general of the order, "could exceed the earnestness with
which he discharged every duty; nothing was done by halves; nothing
imperfectly; he seemed as if he had nothing else to do but that which
he was doing." The following extract from a letter written soon after
his removal to the North Cork monastery, the succeeding year, while
it shows a touch of his old playful style, illustrates also that
cheerfulness of spirit which so preëminently marks the character of
the members of all the religious orders of the church, the result of
the consciousness of useful labor well done:
"I was ordered off here from Dublin last June, and have been
since enlightening the craniums of the wondering Paddies
in this quarter, who learn from me with profound amazement
and profit that o x spells ox; that the top of the map is
the north, and the bottom is the south, with various other
branches; as also that they ought to be good boys, and do as
they are bid, and say their prayers every morning and evening,
etc.; and yet it seems curious, even to myself, that I feel a
great deal happier in the practice of this daily routine than
I did while I was roving about your great city, absorbed in the
modest project of rivalling Shakespeare and throwing Scott into
the shade."
From this time till his death, which took place a year after his
removal from Dublin, Brother Joseph remained in the North Cork
monastery, his time divided between teaching the children of the
poor and in that inner preparation for the end so unexpectedly near
at hand, and to which he no longer looked forward, as he once had
done, with apprehension. Until a very short time before his demise,
he was in excellent health, and his conduct was marked by that
serenity of manner and cheerfulness of speech which showed that the
tempest-tossed spirit had at length found a haven of refuge. He
visited his home but once, and then for a brief period, returning
without pain or regret to his prayers and studies, among the latter
of which was the compilation of a series of pious tales, intended for
the use of the Brothers' schools, but which were never completed. His
death, the result of typhus fever which set in on the 31st of May,
and terminated fatally twelve days after, is thus simply but tenderly
described by the director of novices, who was one of the witnesses of
the edifying scene:
"On the morning of the day when his last illness took an
unfavorable turn, he called the person in attendance on him to
his bedside, and quietly told him 'he thought he should die of
this sickness, and that he wished to receive extreme unction.'
His confessor, by a merciful dispensation of providence, was
then in the house, and expressed his opinion that, as a matter
of precaution, it was best to administer it. He repaired to
his bedside, presented him the holy viaticum, and administered
extreme unction. He received them with the most lively
sentiments of love and resignation, as well as the utmost
fervor and devotion. During his illness, not a murmur or sigh
of impatience escaped him; not a sentiment but breathed love,
confidence, and resignation; not a desire but for the perfect
accomplishment of the will of Him to whom his habits of prayer
had so long and closely united him."
Thus lived and died one whom it would be faint praise to call one
of the brightest and purest ornaments which this century has given
to English literature. The various creations of his fancy will long
hold a high place in the hearts of all who admire the beautiful
and revere the good; but the moral of his own life is the noblest
heritage he has left us. True to the instincts of his Catholic birth
and training, he passed through the temptations of sorrow, poverty,
and vanities of a great city for years, preserving his faith unshaken
and his morals unsullied; with courage and tenacity of purpose, the
attributes of true heroism, he surmounted obstacle after obstacle,
which might easily have daunted older and stronger men, till he
reached a proud position in the literature of his country; and when
surrounded by all that is supposed to make life valuable--personal
independence, devoted friends, and worldly applause--he gently
and after mature self-examination took off his laurels, laid them
modestly on the altar of religion, and, clothed in the humble garb of
a Christian Brother, prepared to devote his life to unostentatious
charity. Even his very name, that he once fondly hoped to write
on the enduring tablets of history, he no longer desired to be
remembered; for on the plain stone that marks his last resting-place
in the little graveyard of the monastery is engraved simply the words,
BROTHER JOSEPH. DIED JUNE 12, 1840.
THE UNFINISHED PRAYER.
"Now I lay me"--say it, darling;
"Lay me," lisped the tiny lips
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending,
O'er her folded finger-tips.
"Down to sleep"--"to sleep," she murmured,
And the curly head dropped low;
"I pray the Lord," I gently added,
"You can say it all, I know."
"Pray the Lord"--the words came faintly.
Fainter still, "my soul to keep;"
Then the tired head fairly nodded,
And the child was fast asleep.
But the dewy eyes half-opened
When I clasped her to my breast;
And the dear voice softly whispered,
"Mamma, God knows all the rest."
THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.
NUMBER FIVE.
For another month the Vatican Council has pursued the path originally
marked out for its labors with a calmness and steady perseverance
which no outside influences can disturb. In the beginning of its
sessions sensational correspondents described what they saw and what
they did not see--praised, mocked, or maligned as their humors led
them or as their patrons desired, and poured forth abundant streams
of amusing anecdotes, acute guesses, and positive assurances. The
correspondence of one week was found to contradict that of the
preceding week, and was itself contradicted the week following.
Now, though wit, and drollery, and sarcasm may please for a time,
human nature, after all, desires truth. And as men saw these
contradictions, they came to understand how thoroughly untrustworthy
were these correspondents; and the writers, ever on the alert to
catch the first symptoms of popular feeling, have, in great part,
dropped the subject. The only influence which such writings as these
have had on the prelates of the council was to supply them with
abundant topics for amusement in their hours of relaxation.
Another class of writers have all along treated, and still continue
to treat, of the council and its action with earnestness of purpose,
and are making strenuous efforts to guide and control or to check
its course on subjects which they believe to have come or which may
come up before it. We speak of those who are moved by religious or
political feelings. Day after day and week after week, Italian,
French, German, and English newspapers are taking one side or the
other on these subjects, and write on them, if they do not always
discuss them. At times you may find an article learned, well
written, replete with thought, and suggestive, perhaps instructive.
But generally the articles are only such as may be looked for in a
newspaper--superficial and with an affectation of smartness. However
their brilliancy, ofttimes only tinsel, may please their world of
readers, among the bishops in the council they have, and can have, no
weight whatever. It would, indeed, be surprising if they had.
Beyond the papers, there come pamphlets, many of them ably and
learnedly written. It is to be lamented that too often the writers
have allowed themselves to be carried away by excitement, and to use
language which calls for censure. Still, they profess to discuss the
questions gravely, and to present the strongest arguments in favor
of their respective sides. We will not say that such writings are
not privately read and maturely weighed by the fathers, and in fact
carefully studied, so far as they may throw light on subjects of
doctrine or discipline to be examined. But they certainly have not
had the power to accelerate or retard, by a single day, the regular
course of business before the council.
Some weeks ago, the papers of Europe were filled with articles
announcing the approaching action of several governments, and the
measures they would take to influence the pope and the bishops, so as
to control their action by the apprehension of possible political
results. What precise amount of truth and what amount of exaggeration
there was in the vast mass of excited utterances on this subject,
we are not yet able to say. Perhaps it may hereafter be discovered
in sundry green books, red books, and yellow books. This much is
certain: the council was not even flurried by it. We are assured
that in all the debates not the slightest reference was ever made
to the matter. As we write the whole subject seems to be passing
into oblivion. Even those who spoke most positively only a few weeks
ago, seem to have forgotten their assertions about the intended
interference of this, that, or the other government.
There is a majesty in this calm attitude of the sovereign pontiff,
and of the council, which does not fail to command the respect
even of worldlings and unbelievers. They can with difficulty, if
at all, comprehend the great truth on which it is based and which
produces it. The Catholic would scarcely look for any other attitude
from our prelates. The bishops of the Catholic Church, assembled
in council, are not politicians or servants of the world, seeking
popularity or fearing the loss of it. They fear not those who can
slay only the body, but Him who can slay both body and soul. They
are assembled, in the name of Christ our Lord, to do the work to
which he appointed them. They must proclaim his doctrines and his
precepts; they must promote the extension of his kingdom, and must
zealously and unceasingly seek the welfare and salvation of souls for
whom he shed his blood on Calvary. They are men, and, as subjects
or citizens, they are bound to give, and each in his own home
does give, unto Cæsar all that is Cæsar's. But they are Christian
bishops, and they must not fail to give, and to instruct and call
on all men to give, unto God the things that are God's. Assembled in
the Holy Ghost, they do not seek to discover what is popular--what
may be pleasing or what contrary to the opinions, or prejudices, or
passions of to-day, whether in the fulsome self-adulation, because
of our vaunted progress, or in the intrigues and plans of worldly
politics and national ambitions. They stand far above all this folly,
and are not plunged into this chaos. They have to set forth clearly
the one divine truth of revelation, which has been handed down from
the beginning, and which they see now so frequently impugned and
controverted, or set aside and forgotten. It is precisely because the
world is setting it aside, that this council has met and will speak.
Our divine Saviour himself declared that the world would oppose the
teachers of his truth as it had opposed him. The history of the
eighteen hundred years of her existence is, for the church, but a
continuous verification of that prophecy. The fathers of the Vatican
Council cannot lose sight of the lesson thus given. It should purify
their hearts and strengthen their souls. For they, of all men, must
believe most truly and earnestly in the truth and the reality of
Christianity and the greatness of the work in which they are engaged.
Hence, when the murmurs or the clamors of the opposition of the world
come to their ears, they are not filled with fear or with surprise.
Of all miracles, they would look on this as the greatest, that, as
the Vatican Council speaks, the passions and earthly interests and
prejudices of men should at once die out or grow mute, and that no
voice should be heard in opposition, no arm be raised to arrest or
thwart, if it could, the work of God. This they do not look for.
Opposition must come, and they must not fear it, nor shrink from
encountering it while at their post of duty. As they become conscious
of its approach, they can but gird themselves the more energetically
to their work, and seek the guidance and strength of which they have
need from on high.
When we closed our last article, the prelates of the council were
busily engaged, in accordance with the new by-laws, in writing out
their observations and criticisms on several draughts that had
been put into their hands. This work, so far as then required, was
finished on March 25th. But on the 18th, the meetings of the general
congregations, or committees of the whole, were resumed, and have
been held since then on the 22d, 23d, 24th, 26th, 28th, 29th, 30th,
and 31st of March, and April 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, and
19th.
The business of the council has entered on a new stage. Our readers
will remember that early in December last the first draught or schema
on matters of faith was placed in the hands of the bishops; and that
after some weeks of private study it was taken up for discussion in
the general congregation held on the 28th of December. In our second
article we gave some account of the character of this discussion,
in which no less than thirty-five of the prelates took part. At its
conclusion the draught was referred for emendations to the special
committee or deputation on matters of faith, to which were also sent
full reports of all the discourses in the discussion. This committee
held many meetings, and went over the whole matter two or three times
with the utmost care, hearing the authors of the draught and weighing
the arguments and observations made in the general congregations.
They divided the schema or draught into two parts, and now reported
back the first part amended, containing an introduction and four
chapters, with canons annexed.
This new and revised draught or schema, so presented to the
bishops--in print, of course, as are all the conciliar documents--was
again to be submitted to a renewed discussion and examination, first
in general on its plan as a whole, and then by parts, first on the
introduction, and then successively on each of the four chapters
which composed it. A member of the deputation or committee on faith
opened the discussion by speaking as the organ of the committee, and
explaining and upholding what they had done. Many other fathers took
part in the lively discussions which followed. The speeches were very
brief and to the point, only one of them exceeding half an hour,
and several not lasting more than five minutes. Those who wished to
speak sent in their names beforehand to the presiding cardinals, as
on former occasions, and were called to the pulpit in their regular
order. The spokesman of the committee, or, in fact, any other member,
might, during the course of the debate, take the pulpit to give
some desired explanation or to reply to a speaker. All who wished
to propose further amendments or changes were required to hand them
in in writing. This the speakers generally did at the conclusion
of their discourses. When at length the discussion on any special
part--for example, on the introduction--was terminated, that portion
of the schema and all the proposed amendments were referred again to
the committee. The amendments were printed, and a few days after,
in a general congregation, the whole matter would come up for a
vote. The committee announced which of the amendments they accepted.
They stated briefly the reasons for which they were unwilling to
accept the others. The fathers then voted on each amendment singly,
unless, indeed, as sometimes happened, the author, satisfied with the
explanation or replies given, asked leave to withdraw it.
This chapter or portion of schema, or draught, was then again
printed, introducing into it the amendments that had been thus
adopted; and it was again submitted as a whole to the vote of the
fathers.
All these votes were taken without unnecessary expenditure of time.
When a question was proposed, all in the affirmative were called on
to rise, and to remain standing until their number was ascertained.
They then sat down, and all in the negative were in their turn
summoned to rise, and to remain standing until they were counted.
As there are usually over seven hundred prelates present and voting,
it is clear that if the numbers on each side are nearly even, there
might be some difficulty in settling the vote. But the evil did
not occur. It so happened that on every vote the majority was so
preponderating in numbers that an actual count was not necessary. It
is said that only on one occasion they were nearly evenly divided.
The important question happened to be whether the insertion of a
certain comma between two words in the text before them would make
the sense more distinct or not. The division of sentiment on so
small a matter caused some amusement; but it was evidence of the
painstaking care with which even the minutest points are scrutinized
and cared for.
When the introduction and each one of the chapters with its
accompanying canons had been thus separately passed on, the entire
schema as a whole was submitted to the fathers for a more solemn and
decisive vote. This was done in the general congregations held on
April 12th and April 19th. The vote was taken, not, as in deciding on
the details, by the act of rising, but by ayes and noes.
This was first done in the congregation of the 12th, in the following
manner: The secretary from the lofty pulpit called the prelates one
after the other, according to their ranks and their seniority in
their several ranks, naming each one by his ecclesiastical title.
The cardinals presiding were called first, the other cardinals next,
then the patriarchs, the primates, the archbishops, the bishops, the
mitred abbots, and the superiors of the various religious orders
and congregations having solemn vows. As each prelate was called,
he rose in his place, bowed to the assembly, and voted. The form
was _Placet_, if he approved entirely; _Placet juxta modum_, if
there were any minor point which he was unwilling to approve; or
_Non placet_, if he disapproved. In the second case, he handed in a
written statement of his opinion and vote on that point, and assigned
the reasons which moved him to this special view. The assessors of
the council immediately received these manuscripts, and delivered
them to the presiding legates. As the name of each one was called,
if not present, he was marked _absent_; if present and voting, two
or three of the officials, stationed here and there in the hall,
repeated with clear bell-like voices the form of words used by the
prelate in voting, so that all might hear them, and that no mistake
could be committed as to any one's vote. The whole procedure occupied
about two hours. When it was over, the votes were counted before all,
and the result declared. This was in reality the most solemn and
formal voting of the bishops on the matter so far before them. Each
one's judgment is asked, and he must give it. It was evident the
bishops voted after mature study, and with an evident singleness and
simplicity of heart before God.
The special matters urged in the written and conditional votes were
again, and for the last time, examined by the committee or deputation
on matters of faith, they reported the result of their discussion in
the congregation of April 19th, and the precise form of words was
settled, to be decreed and published in the third public session,
which will be held on Low-Sunday.
It thus appears that nothing will be put forth by the council without
the fullest study and examination.
1. The _schemata_, or draughts, as presented to the council, are the
result of the studies and conferences of able theologians of Rome,
and of every Catholic country.
2. The _schema_ is subjected to a thorough debate before the general
congregation or, committee of the whole, or under the by-laws, it is
placed in the hands of each one of the bishops, and every one who
thinks it proper gives in writing his remarks on it, and proposes his
emendations.
3. The _schema_, and these remarks and proposed amendments, are
carefully considered by the deputation or committee to whom they are
referred, whose office it is to prepare for the council a revised
and amended draught. The twenty-four members of the _deputation_ are
picked men, and the examination and discussion of the subjects by
them has proved to be all that the fathers looked for--most thorough
and searching.
4. Again, on their revised report, the matter is a second time
brought before the general committee, and is again discussed by the
fathers, who are at liberty still to propose further changes and
amendments. As a matter of fact, these turn mostly on minute details
and on forms of expression.
5. Again, in the light of those proposed amendments, it is examined
and discussed by the committee, who make their final report,
accepting or not accepting the several amendments, and assigning to
the congregation the reasons for their decision on each point. They
thus enjoy the privilege of closing the debate.
6. Then follows the voting. One portion of the _schema_ is taken up.
The amendments touching it, so reported on by the committee, are one
by one either adopted or rejected, and then the whole portion is
passed on. One after the other the remaining portions are taken up,
and acted on in the same manner. The amendments are first disposed of
one by one, and then each portion is separately voted on. Finally,
all the parts as separately adopted are put together, and on the
whole _schema_ so composed a more solemn vote is taken by ayes and
noes.
This concludes the, so to speak, consultative action of the council
on that _schema_. It is now ready for a solemn enactment and
promulgation in the next public session of the council. (This session
was held on Low-Sunday.--ED. C. W.)
The time is approaching when the first portion of the decisions and
decrees of the Vatican Council will be given to the world in the
third public session, to be held on Low-Sunday. Already enough has
come to light, in the better informed presses of Europe, to let us
know the general tenor of what we shall soon hear. As it has become
a matter of notoriety, we may speak of the subjects so said to be
treated of.
The state of the world, and the errors and evils to be met and
condemned in this nineteenth century by the Vatican Council, are
very different from those which all previous councils were assembled
to resist. The heresies then to be encountered denied this or that
doctrine in particular, and erred on one or another point. But
they all admitted the existence of God, the reality and truth,
at least in a general way, of a revelation from heaven through
Christ our Lord, and the obligation of man to receive it, and to be
guided by it in belief and practice. Now, the world sees but too
many who go far beyond that. Then, so to speak, the outposts were
assailed. Now the very citadel of revelation is attacked. Schools
of a falsely called philosophy have arisen which, with a pretended
show of reasoning, deny the existence of God, of spiritual beings,
of the soul of man, and recognize only the existence of physical
matter. Or if they speak of God, it is by an abuse of terms, and
in a pantheistic sense, holding him to be only the totality of all
existing things, a personification of universal nature; or else,
if they wish to be more abstruse or more unintelligible, God is,
according to them, the primal being, a vague and indefinite first
substance, by the changes, evolutions, emanations, and modifications
of which all existing things have come to be as they are. Many are
the phases of materialism, pantheism, and theopantism in which German
metaphysicians revel, and call it high intellectual culture. The pith
of all of them is atheism, the denial of the real existence of God.
The English mind is, or believes itself to be, more practical and
matter-of-fact. It does not wander through the dreamy mazes of
German metaphysics. It has no taste for such excursions. But there
is a school in England which, under the pretence of respecting
facts, reaches practically the same sad results. It tells its
disciples of what has been termed the philosophy of the unknowable
and unintelligible, and declares that man, possessed only of such
limited powers of knowledge as experience proves us to have, cannot
conceive, cannot really know, cannot be made to know, any thing of
God, the self-existent and absolute, eternal, infinitely wise and
infinitely perfect, and that these words are merely conventional
sounds, in reality meaningless, and conveying no real thought to the
mind. Hence, he is to be held at once the wisest philosopher and most
sensible man who discards them altogether, who throws aside all these
useless, cloudy, unintelligible subjects, and occupies himself with
the immediate and actual world around him, of which alone, through
his senses, his experiments, and his experiences, he can obtain
some certain and positive knowledge. This they call independence
and freedom of science. In many minds it would be pure atheism, if
pure atheism were possible; in many others, it has produced and is
producing a haziness of doubt, and an uncertainty on all these points
touching the existence and the attributes of God, as in practice
leads to almost the same result.
The French mind is active, acute, sketchy, imaginative, logical,
and practical. On a minimum quantity of facts or principles it will
construct a vast theory. If facts are too few to support the theory,
imagination can readily supply all that are lacking. The theory,
if logically consistent, must be reduced to practice; opponents
must stand aside or be crushed down. The theory must rule. From the
days of Voltaire, if not before, France has seen men deny religion
under the guise of teaching philosophy. The sarcasms, and at times
the brilliancy of their writings, have made French authors the
store-house from which infidels in other nations draw their weapons.
It was in France that a national decree enacted that there is
no God, and it is in France and in Belgium that the societies of
so-called _Solidaires_ exist, the members of which solemnly bind
themselves to each other to live and die, and be buried, without any
act of religion. Too full of confidence in their powers of mind to
accept the English system, and to acknowledge there is any subject
they cannot master; too impressionable and practical to live in the
cloud of German metaphysical pantheism, the French _philosophers_
are prone to deify man, instead of universal nature. Whether they
follow Comte in his earlier theories, or Comte in the very different
theories of his old age, or whether they devise some other theory,
it is generally man they place on the throne of the Deity. This
worship of man, this spirit of humanitarianism, and this belief in
the progressive and indefinite perfectibility of mankind, which they
hold apart from and in antagonism to the belief which worships God as
the Creator and Sovereign Lord, and places man the creature subject
to him, runs practically through many a phase of their character in
modern times.
These three systems--of course more or less commingled in their
sources--have been extended to every portion of the civilized world.
The German system has passed into Denmark, Holland, and Sweden;
the French into Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and in some measure
through them into Southern America. In the United States, we have
been comparatively free from them. We owe it, probably, to the fact
that with us all men are so busy trying to amass fortunes that they
have little time and less taste for such abstruse speculations.
True, through the vast German immigration, we have received some
portion of the German system. But so far it has scarcely spread
among our citizens of other nationalities. The English system,
strange to say, scarcely exists except in its vaguer influences. The
French system, introduced years ago, has struck deeper roots, and
has a wider influence. But, on the whole, the mass of our people
has a firm unshaken belief in the real truth of Christianity as a
revealed religion. Although very often men are exceedingly puzzled
to know what are the specific doctrines, still they have not lost
the traditions of their fathers, and have not fallen into positive
unbelief. How long these words will remain true, who can tell?
Luxury and the general demoralization becoming so familiar, and the
systematic godless education of our youth, will soon perhaps place
us in the van of those nations who seem to have been given up to the
foolishness of their hearts.
Meanwhile the church knows that she is debtor to all--that her
mission is to preach the Gospel of Christ to all nations. Seeing in
what manner so many are going astray, so far as even to deny the
God that made them and redeemed them, and knowing that he has sent
her as a messenger from him to them, she raises her voice, and, in
clear, steady, clarion tones that will ring through the world, she
proclaims again that he is the one true God, eternal and almighty,
the Creator whom all men must know and must serve, and unto whom they
will all have to render a strict account. This assembled council is
itself evidence, clear as the noon-day light, of her existence, and
her office in the world. Men may not shut their eyes to the fact. Her
words are clear: "He whom ye deny exists, and speaks to you through
me. He whom ye scoff at is your Creator and Lord, from whom ye have
received all that ye have. He whom ye deride is long-suffering, and
wills not your death, but that ye repent and come to him. Through
me he admonishes, he invites, he warns you." Will these men hearken
to her voice, or rather, the voice of God through her? Does not the
God they would deny give, as it were, sensible testimony of his
existence, his power, and his authority, evidence which they cannot
ignore or overlook save by a wilful and deliberate effort on their
part? They cannot fail to see the church claiming to be his. Her
unbroken existence through eighteen centuries and her continued
growth and advance despite opposition, and, still more, despite the
quiet natural force of all human agency, external and internal,
which under the ordinary laws of human things would have sufficed to
disrupt and to destroy her a hundred times, an existence and a growth
which could have proceeded only from a supernatural power, and which
constitute a standing miracle in the history of the world, demand
their attention and their respect. Her claim to be divinely founded
and divinely supported, they must not scout with flippancy. They must
at least receive it with respect, and examine its grounds. The most
solemn assembly of that church, the most imposing assembly the world
has looked on, an assembly authorized by the organization which he
gave to that church, and therefore authorized by him, speaks to them
in his name and by his authority. Will they receive the message, or
will they turn away? Some there are who would not believe, if one
rose from the dead. But we may hope and pray that others will hearken
to the words of the Lord, and learn that to know and fear the Lord is
the beginning of true wisdom. Above all, we may hope that many who
have not yet advanced too far on the dangerous road may become aware
of their danger and their folly, and return to the paths of true and
salutary doctrine.
Next to those who, following the systems we have indicated, or on
any other grounds pretend to do away with the existence of God, come
those who admit his existence, but do not admit that he has given
a revealed religion to mankind. It is unnecessary to go over the
various groups into which they may be divided. There always have
been and will be men who will try by one huge effort to throw off
the yoke of religion. And what is there for doing which men will
not try to assign some reason? In the last century, and the early
portion of the present one, men sought such reasons in the alleged
contradictions of the Scriptures, in the mysteriousness of Christian
doctrine and the inability of the human intellect to comprehend them,
in the procrustean systems of ancient history which they invented, or
in alleged defects of the evidences of Christianity, or, finally, in
their pet theories of metaphysics. At present the tendency is to base
the rejection of revealed religion on its alleged incompatibility
with the discoveries of natural sciences in these modern days.
Geology, anthropology, in fact, the natural sciences with scarcely
an exception, have been in turn laid under contribution or forced to
do service against the cause of revelation. We have men appealing to
this or that principle or fact as an irrefragable evidence by modern
science of the false pretensions of Christianity.