Thunder of Achilles' wheel,
When the fair long locks trailed downward,
And the shriek made Ilium reel.
Conquering torches, steep to steep,
Flashed along the wine-dark deep.
But my heart--that restless roamer--
Quit those fields of kingly strife,
That old world of Greece and Homer,
For the world of love and life.
Dead, like leaves on autumn clay,
Those old gods and wonders lay.
O the spirit's aspiration,
Glorious through all nature's bound!
The soul yearning through creation--
All the sought, and all the found!
Oh! what is--and what shall be
In far immortality?
For truth's marvels well are able
All of fiction to eclipse,
And the wine of classic fable
Tasteless palls upon the lips.
From the living fount of truth
Wells the soul's immortal youth.
Still at times when basks the river
The long summer afternoon,
When the broad green pastures quiver
In the rippling breeze of June,
I unclose the Iliad's pages,
To unearth those buried ages.
But no Ilium now, nor tragic
Plains I find in Homer's lay;
With a new and stranger magic
Now it leads another way--
Whirls me on a sudden track
To my merry childhood back.
All that fresh young joy rejoices,
Beats the child heart as of yore,
And again I hear--oh! voices
That I thought to hear no more,
Till--the dusk has round me grown;
Close the book--the dream has flown.
C. E. B.
THE WORKS OF GERALD GRIFFIN.[208]
Of the works of fiction in the English language of which the first
half of this century has been so prolific, Ireland has contributed at
least a fair proportionate share. Her writers in this department of
literature are numerous, and their productions have been generally
received with due favor on this side of the Atlantic as correct
portraitures of the habits and manners of a people in whom we take so
deep an interest, and whose very contradictions of character render
them interesting studies for the curious and philosophic. Of so large
a number four at least deserve special notice, standing, as they
do, prominently in the front rank of Irish authors and exhibiting
in a marked degree a pleasant diversity of talent and invention, as
varied as the peculiar characteristics of the provinces to which
they belong. Carleton, for example, was an Ulster-man, rugged and
ungraceful, yet possessing a deep vein of caustic humor, while his
figures are struck out as distinctly as if his pen had some of the
power Of Michael Angelo's chisel; John Banim was the embodiment of
Leinster propriety and stability; Lever is never so much at home as
at the mess-table of the "Rangers," or when endangering the neck
of his hero or heroine over a Galway fence; while through Gerald
Griffin's pages flow, now gently as a meandering stream and anon
with the impetuosity of a mountain torrent, the poetry and passion
of Munster. Still, in the strictest sense, none of these novelists
can be considered national; yet all are true to Irish character. To
those unacquainted with the radical difference of mind, temperament,
and even physique, which is to be found in so comparatively small
a country, this may seem paradoxical; but it is nevertheless true.
Mickey Frees and Lowry Lovbys are plentiful enough in Ireland,
but only in their respective sections; while Valentine McClutchy
terrifies the northern tenant each recurring gala-day, and Banim's
Paddy Flynn, to use the pithy remark of Sir Philip Crampton, "is
hanged twice a year regularly in the south of Ireland."
If any of them be entitled to the term national, that honor should
be awarded to Griffin, who in his _Invasion_, _Duke of Monmouth_,
and some minor stories, has travelled out of his favorite province
with some degree of success. But even in his wanderings in Wicklow,
Taunton dene, and the wilds of Northumbria, we are constantly
catching glimpses of the Shannon and Killarney. The reason of
this is obvious. He aimed to be a strict and minute copyist of
nature; and nature to him was bounded by the lovely scenery of
Munster and the people with whom he had been in daily intercourse
for almost the whole of his short life. His power of observation,
thus limited, became intensified, and what he lost in breadth of
view and amplitude of knowledge, he gained in the distinctness and
fidelity of his pictures. Besides, the merits of the true novelist,
like those of the painter, should never be estimated by the square
of the canvas, but by his faithfulness, either to human figure,
action, and circumstance, or to the embodiment of noble ideas. It
is not so difficult as it may seem to call up imaginary kings and
princes, noble lords and ladies, clothe them with all the gorgeous
panoply so easily found in the pages of dear old Froissart, or in
the latest book of fashions, and make them speak and act in the most
approved manner of our modern romances, because few of us care to
inquire into the correctness either of design or execution. Cervantes
and Goldsmith painted the men and manners of their day with rare
fidelity, and their works will be read by the learned and unlearned
as long as the languages in which they wrote shall exist; and no one
can doubt that two of the most popular authors of our time, Balzac
and Dickens, no matter how inferior in some respects to the authors
of _Don Quixote_ and the _Vicar of Wakefield_, have truly held up to
us panoramas of modern society in the two great cities of Europe. For
Gerald Griffin we may not, perhaps, claim the universality of those
great masters; but in purity of expression, truthfulness to nature,
and delicacy of moral perception he is the equal of any of them.
There are some persons conversant with Irish character who maintain
that its essential element is neither gayety nor combativeness, but
melancholy, and sustain their apparently singular theory by reference
to the national music and poetry. Griffin's writings would afford
an additional argument in favor of this position. His genius was
decidedly tragic, his muse sad and retrospective. His pauses to give
us a glimpse of fireside enjoyment appear to be more as tributes to
old home memories, than as arising from any natural desire to linger
over the recollections of such tranquil scenes; and his snatches
of humor and merriment seem thrown in artistically, not so much
to relieve the sombre shading of his picture as to give its most
prominent figures greater depth and boldness. He also labored under
the disadvantage of all tragic minds; for, though he never can be
said to have ignored the "eternal fitness of things" in rewarding
the good and punishing the wicked, we close many of his volumes with
a feeling more akin to sorrow than rejoicing, and while admitting
the righteousness of his judgments, we sigh to think how God's best
gifts to man may be turned to his own destruction. It seems to be the
law of tragedy that the bad men must be more men of action than the
good, in order to produce the proper effect. They dress better, talk
more persuasively, and display high mental and physical qualities
which, say what we may, will generally provoke a certain sympathy
for them, evil as may be their acts. This inherent defect Griffin
labored to modify, if he could not entirely eradicate. His moral
heroes are good enough in their way, but their virtues are of too
negative a character. Kyrle Daly, in the _Collegians_, and young
Kingsly, in the _Duke of Monmouth_, have all the qualities we could
desire in a friend or brother; but while we honor and respect them, a
something akin to sympathy is clandestinely stealing out to the proud
and wilful Hardress Cregan, and even to the cool malignity of that
unparalleled scoundrel, Colonel Kirke. O'Haedha, in the _Invasion_,
is an exception. He is _sui generis_ in Griffin's pantheon, being not
only a man of pure morality and well up in the lore of his times,
but he is also a chieftain governing wisely and firmly, a man of war
as well as of love and peace, strong in his affections and hatreds,
living, moving, and breathing like one who has a subtle brain, warm
blood, and a powerful arm to enforce his authority. He is decidedly
not only Griffin's grandest conception, but will stand in favorable
comparison with any we can recall in historical romance.
The _Collegians_ is Gerald Griffin's best known and most popular
novel; and, when we consider the early age of the author at the
time it was written, and the circumstances amid which it was
composed, we are equally surprised at his knowledge of the springs
of human action, and at the excellences of the book, both as regards
correctness of style and completeness of plot. Though the working
of some of the strongest passions of our nature is portrayed in
it--love, hatred, revenge, ambition--there is nothing about them
sensational or melodramatic; and though many different characters
are introduced, and incidents necessarily occur in a short space
of time, there is nothing hurried or disjointed, one character
acting upon another and each event following and hinging on the
one preceding so gracefully and naturally that the reader is borne
along on an unbroken current, as it were, from cause to effect till
he reaches the final catastrophe. It is related that a portion of
this admirable book was written in court while the author, who had
attained considerable proficiency as a short-hand writer in London,
was engaged in reporting an important law case. During an interval
in the proceedings, Griffin took out his manuscripts, and, as was
his habit, when a moment of leisure presented itself, proceeded to
continue his story, regardless of his surroundings. It happened that
Daniel O'Connell was employed professionally in the suit, and not
knowing the writer, and supposing him to be occupied transcribing his
notes, looked over his shoulder to read the evidence; but finding
that it was something very different from the dry question and
answer of counsellor and witness, the great advocate turned away in
silent indifference. He little thought at the time that the quiet,
industrious young reporter was Gerald Griffin, and that the work upon
which he was so intently engaged was the _Collegians_--a work which,
from the day of its publication, was ever the favorite solace of the
hours of relaxation of that illustrious statesman.
The moral of the book, however, is its greatest merit. The character
of Hardress Cregan is inimitably drawn. Young, gifted both in person
and mind, with a disposition naturally inclined to good, but warped
and misled by a fond, proud, worldly mother, and the example of a
dissolute father and his associates; early left to his own guidance
and the indulgence of his whims and fancies, he descends from the
high position in which we find him at the opening chapter, through
all the stages of crime--parental disobedience, ingratitude, deceit,
debauchery, and finally murder. Through each step in guilt we can
trace the cause of his ruin--moral cowardice, false pride, absence
of self-control, alternating or uniting, but always with disastrous
effect, until in the culminating scene, in which, torn by remorse
and conscious guilt, he leaves his native shores a condemned felon
and dies at sea, we feel that the punishment, no matter how severe,
is but in strict accordance with our highest sense of retributive
justice. Nor are the almost equally, though perhaps unconsciously,
guilty parents forgotten. Like a just judge, Griffin not only
punishes the actual perpetrator of crime, but metes out penalties to
those whose duty it is to correct the excesses of youth, restrain
their passions, and lead them by precept and example to the practice
as well as the knowledge of good, and who neglect the sacred trust.
What parent, after reading the _Collegians_, can contemplate without
a shudder the pangs of the haughty mother and the utter hopelessness
of her dissipated husband, when they found their only child, so
tenderly nurtured and so thoroughly schooled, torn from their arms
in chains, and dying the death of an outcast and a convict. Their
punishment abided in their parental hearts, and the author goes
no further. Many years ago, we casually overheard one of the most
thoroughly read, as well as one of the most profound thinkers in
America, say, upon being asked his opinion of the _Collegians_,
that he considered it the best novel in the language; for, while it
made you hate the crime, it did not take away your charity for the
criminal; an opinion which we think will be concurred in by all who
have attentively read the book and applied the moral it contains.
Kyrle Daly is an antipode of his friend and fellow-student, Hardress
Cregan. His filial reverence and moral rectitude are depicted in his
every action, and his whole character is as beautiful and lovable as
that of the other is dark and fraught with terrible warnings. Not
that young Daly is presented as a model lackadaisical individual, by
any means; but as a strong man of matured mind and deep feelings,
true in friendship and trusting in love; yet withal guided by the
dictates of his religion and directed by the authority and advice of
his father and mother, a weakness, if it be one, we are sorry to say,
not often indulged in at the present day.
Did the limits of our article permit, we might furnish many extracts
from this remarkable novel in testimony of the high opinion of the
merits found in its pages by so many distinguished scholars, but the
_Collegians_ is now so generally read that this is hardly necessary.
We transcribe, however, the following brief sketch of a morning on
the Shannon, and a breakfast scene, as a specimen of the author's
power of minute description of rural scenery and felicitous rendering
of social life:
"They had assembled, on the morning of Eily's disappearance, a
healthy and blooming household of all sizes, in the principal
sitting-room, for a purpose no less important than that of
dispatching breakfast. It was a favorable moment for any one
who might be desirous of sketching a family picture. The
windows of the room, which were thrown up for the purpose
of admitting the fresh morning air, opened upon a trim and
sloping meadow, that looked sunny and cheerful with the bright
green after-grass of the season. The broad and sheety river
washed the very margin of the little field, and bore upon its
quiet bosom (which was only ruffled by the circling eddies
that encountered the advancing tide) a variety of craft, such
as might be supposed to indicate the approach to a large
city. Majestic vessels, floating idly on the basined flood,
with sails half-furled, in keeping with the languid beauty
of the scene; lighters burdened to the water's edge with
bricks or sand; large rafts of timber borne onward toward the
neighboring quays under the guidance of a shipman's boat-hook;
pleasure-boats with gaudy pennons hanging at peak and topmast;
or turf-boats with their unpicturesque and ungraceful lading,
moving sluggishly forward, while their black sails seemed
gasping for a breath to fill them--such were the incidents that
gave a gentle animation to the prospect immediately before the
eyes of the cottage dwellers. On the further side of the river
arose the Cratloe hills, shadowed in various places by a broken
cloud, and rendered beautiful by the checkered appearance
of the ripening tillage and the variety of hues that were
observable along their wooded sides. At intervals, the front of
a handsome mansion brightened up a passing gleam of sunshine,
while the wreaths of blue smoke, ascending at various distances
from among the trees, tended to relieve the idea of extreme
solitude which it would otherwise have presented.
"The interior of the cottage was not less interesting to
contemplate than the landscape which lay before it. The
principal breakfast-table (for there were two spread in the
room) was placed before the window, the neat and snow-white
damask cloth covered with fare that spoke satisfactorily for
the circumstances of the proprietor, and for the housewifery
of his helpmate. The former, a fair, pleasant-faced old
gentleman, in a huge buckled cravat and square-toed shoes,
somewhat distrustful of the meagre beverage which fumed out
of Mrs. Daly's lofty and shining coffee-pot, had taken his
position before a cold ham and fowl which decorated the lower
end of the table. His lady, a courteous old personage, with a
face no less fair and happy than her husband's, and with eyes
sparkling with good nature and intelligence, did the honors of
the board at the further end. On the opposite side, leaning
over the back of his chair with clasped hands, in an attitude
which had a mixture of abstraction and anxiety, sat Mr. Kyrle
Daly, the first pledge of connubial affection that was born to
this comely pair. He was a young man already initiated in the
rudiments of the legal profession; of a handsome figure, and
in manner--but something now pressed upon his spirits which
rendered this an unfavorable occasion for describing him.
"A second table was laid in a more retired portion of the
room, for the accommodation of the younger part of the family.
Several well-burnished goblets, or porringers, of thick
milk flanked the sides of this board, while a large dish of
smooth-coated potatoes reeked up in the centre. A number
of blooming boys and girls, between the ages of four and
twelve, were seated at this simple repast, eating and drinking
away with all the happy eagerness of youthful appetite.
Not, however, that this employment occupied their exclusive
attention; for the prattle which circulated round the table
frequently became so boisterous as to drown the conversation
of the older people, and to call forth the angry rebuke of the
master of the family.
"The furniture of the apartment was in accordance with the
appearance and manners of its inhabitants. The floor was
handsomely carpeted, a lofty green fender fortified the
fireplace, and supplied Mr. Daly in his facetious moments with
occasions for the frequent repetition of a favorite conundrum,
'Why is that fender like Westminster Abbey?'--a problem with
which he never failed to try the wit of any stranger who
happened to spend a night beneath his roof. The wainscoted
walls were ornamented with several of the popular prints of the
day, such as Hogarth's Roast Beef, Prince Eugene, Schomberg at
the Boyne, Mr. Betterton playing Cato in all the glory of
'Full wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair;'
of the royal Mandane, in the person of Mrs. Mountain,
strutting among the arbors of her Persian palace in a lofty
_tête_ and hooped petticoat. There were also some family
drawings done by Mrs. Daly in her school-days, of which we
feel no inclination to say more than that they were prettily
framed. In justice to the fair artist, it should also be
mentioned that, contrary to the established practice, her
sketches were never retouched by the hand of her master, a
fact which Mr. Daly was fond of insinuating, and which no
one who saw the pictures was tempted to call in question. A
small book-case, with the edges of the shelves handsomely
gilded, was suspended in one corner of the room, and, on
examination, might be found to contain a considerable number
of works on Irish history, for which study Mr. Daly had
a national predilection, a circumstance much deplored by
all the impatient listeners in his neighborhood, and (some
people hinted) in his own household; some religious books,
and a few volumes on cookery and farming. The space over the
lofty chimney-piece was assigned to some ornaments of a more
startling description. A gun-rack, on which were suspended a
long shore gun, a brass-barreled blunderbuss, a cutlass, and a
case of horse-pistols, manifested Mr. Daly's determination to
maintain, if necessary, by force of arms, his claim to the fair
possessions which his honest industry had acquired.
"'Kyrle,' said Mr. Daly, putting his fork into a breast of cold
goose, and looking at his son, 'you had better let me put a
little goose (with an emphasis) on your plate. You know you are
going a-wooing to-day.'
"The young gentleman appeared not to hear him. Mrs. Daly, who
understood more intimately the nature of her son's reflections,
deprecated, by a significant look at her husband, the
continuance of any raillery upon so delicate a subject.
"'Kyrle, some coffee?' said the lady of the house; but without
being more successful in awakening the attention of the young
gentleman.
"Mr. Daly winked at his wife.
"'Kyrle!' he called aloud, in a tone against which even a
lover's absence was not proof, 'do you hear what your mother
says?'
"'I ask pardon, sir--I was absent--I--what were you saying,
mother?'
"'She was saying,' continued Mr. Daly, with a smile, 'that you
were manufacturing a fine speech for Anna Chute, and that you
were just meditating whether you should deliver it on your
knees or out of brief, as if you were addressing the bench in
the Four Courts.'
"'For shame, my dear! Never mind him, Kyrle; I said no such
thing. I wonder how you can say that, my dear, and the children
listening.'
"'Pooh! the little angels are too busy and too innocent to pay
us any attention,' said Mr. Daly, lowering his voice, however.
'But, speaking seriously, my boy, you take this affair too
deeply to heart; and whether it be in our pursuit of wealth,
or fame, or even in love itself, an extreme solicitude to be
successful is the surest means of defeating its own object.
Besides, it argues an unquiet and unresigned condition. I have
had a little experience, you know, in affairs of this kind,' he
added, smiling and glancing at his fair helpmate, who blushed
with the simplicity of a young girl.
"'Ah sir!' said Kyrle, as he drew nearer to the breakfast-table
with a magnanimous affectation of cheerfulness, 'I fear I have
not so good a ground for hope as you may have had. It is very
easy, sir, for one to be resigned to disappointment, when he is
certain of success.'
"'Why, I was not bidden to despair indeed,' said Mr. Daly,
extending his hand to his wife, while they exchanged a quiet
smile, which had in it an expression of tenderness and of
melancholy remembrance.
"'I have, I believe, been more fortunate than more deserving
persons. I have never been vexed with useless fears in my
wooing days, nor with vain regrets when those days were ended.
I do not know, my dear lad, what hopes you have formed, or
what prospects you may have shaped out of the future; but I
will not wish you a better fortune than that you may as nearly
approach to their accomplishment as I have done, and that time
may deal as fairly with you as he has done with your father.'
After saying this, Mr. Daly leaned forward on the table, with
his temple supported by one finger, and glanced alternately
from his children to his wife while he sang in a low tone the
following verse of a popular song:
'How should I love the pretty creatures,
While round my knees they fondly clung!
To see them look their mother's features,
To hear them lisp their mother's tongue;
And when with envy time transported,
Shall think to rob us of our joys,
You'll in your girls again be courted,
And I--'
with a glance at Kyrle--
'And I go wooing with the boys.'"
We cannot close this imperfect sketch of the _Collegians_ without
commending the treatment of the humbler personages introduced,
equally free as they are from that stilted phraseology and broad
caricature which too often disgrace Irish novels and so-called Irish
plays. Poor Eily O'Connor, in all her simple innocence and ignorance
of the world, is a beautiful creation; and though travestied in three
or four different forms on the stage, she still holds a lasting place
in our affections. Her meeting with her discarded lover, Myles Murphy
the mountaineer, presents us a scene of touching pathos such as only,
we imagine, an Irish peasant could express in his native tongue:
"'There is only one person to blame in all this business,'
murmured the unhappy girl, 'and that is Eily O'Connor.'
"'I don't say that,' returned the mountaineer. 'It's no
admiration to me you should be heart-broken with all the
persecution we gave you day afther day. All I'm thinking is,
I'm sorry you didn't mention it to myself unknownst. Sure it
would be betther for me than to be as I was afther, when I
heerd you were gone. Lowry Lovby told me first of it, when I
was eastwards. Oh ro! such a life as I led afther. Lonesome as
the mountains looked before, when I used to come home thinkin'
of you, they looked ten times lonesomer afther I heerd of that
story. The ponies, poor crathers--see 'em all, how they're
lookin' down at us this moment--they didn't hear me spring
the rattle on the mountain for a month afther. I suppose they
thought it is in Garryowen I was.'
"Here he looked upward, and pointing to his herd, a great
number of which were collected in groups on the broken cliffs
above the road, some standing so far forward on the projections
of rock as to appear magnified against the dusky sky, Myles
sprang the large wooden rattle which he held in his hand, and
in an instant all dispersed and disappeared, like the clan of a
Highland chief at the sound of their leader's whistle.
"'Well, Myles,' said Eily, at length collecting a little
strength, 'I hope we'll see some happy days in Garryowen yet.'
"'Heaven send it! I'll pack off the boy to-night to town,
or I'll go myself, if you like, or I'll get you a horse and
truckle, and guide it myself for you, or I'll do any thing in
the whole world that you'll have me. Look at this. I'd rather
be doing your bidding this moment than my own mother's, and
heaven forgive me, if that's a sin! Ah Eily! they may say this
and that o' you, in the place where you were born; but I'll
ever hold to it, I held to it all through, an' I'll hold to it
to my death, that when you darken your father's door again, you
will send no shame before you.'
"'You are right in that, Myles.'
"'Didn't I know I was? And wasn't it that that broke my heart!
If one met me afther you flitted away, an' saw me walking
the road with my hands in my pockets and my head down, an' I
thinking; an' if he sthruck me on the shoulder, an' "Myles,"
says he, "don't grieve for her, she's this an' that," and if he
proved it to me, why, I'd look up that minute an' I'd smile in
his face. I'd be as easy from that hour as if I never crossed
your threshold at Garryowen! But knowing in my heart, and as my
heart told me, that it never could be that way; that Eily was
still the old girl always, an' hearing what they said o' you,
an' knowing that it was I that brought it all upon you--O Eily!
Eily!--O Eily O'Connor! there is not that man upon Ireland
ground that can tell what I felt. That was what kilt me! That
was what drove the pain into my heart, and kept me in the
doctor's hands till now.'"
Altogether different in design and scope is the _Invasion_, a
historical novel intended to describe the institutions, manners, and
ways of life of the ancient Irish, and it is much to be regretted
that it is so little read by the descendants of that peculiar
people, especially by those who turn aside from the difficulties of
nomenclature presented by the actual history of Ireland. With the
same motive that actuated Scott to present the otherwise unattractive
and obscure facts of the early history of Britain in the fascinating
garb of romance, our author, always deeply imbued with love of
country and reverence for the past, sought in this book to give
a complete picture of the public, social, and religious life of
his ancestors as it was known or supposed to exist in the eighth
century, before the repeated incursions of the Northmen had desolated
their valleys, razed their towns, and pillaged their churches and
seats of learning. To most men of a fine imagination and poetic
temperament like Griffin, the study of laws long disused and customs
forgotten centuries ago, wrapt up as they were in a language almost
unintelligible to modern scholars, would have presented insuperable
difficulties; but to him it seems to have been a labor of love, and
it is a source of lasting regret that his opportunities for research
were not in proportion to his diligence. The invaluable records
of Irish history and antiquities since brought to light through
the labors of O'Curry, Pietrie, O'Donovan, and others, were then
slumbering in the mouldy archives of Trinity College, or scattered
in inaccessible places over England and the continent; nor are we
aware that the author of the _Invasion_ had such thorough knowledge
of his native language as would enable him to decipher those ancient
manuscripts, even had he the facility for so doing. The barbarous
policy of the dominant power, which formerly not only sought to
destroy the language of the conquered people by prohibiting its being
taught in colleges, but made it penal to allow it to be spoken in
the humbler country schools, was equally interested in keeping from
the world at large the Irish people's records and book of laws, the
evidences of their former glory and greatness and the muniments of
their nationality; and even in this advanced age we owe mainly to
local enterprise and private generosity whatever contributions to
ancient Irish history we have been favored with for the last twenty
years. The government of England is willing to spend annually tens
of thousands of pounds sterling to facilitate the discovery of the
sources of the Nile or to encourage the translation of the high-flown
vagaries of East Indian poets; font it cannot afford, it appears, a
miserable allowance to rescue from obscurity the annals of one of the
most ancient and civilized nations of Europe; a nation, too, that has
the misfortune to be called an integral portion of the British empire.
This necessarily limited knowledge of the epoch which he proposed
to illustrate, while it in some degree unfortunately lessens the
authority of the novel in an antiquarian point of view, does not
impair its harmony of design, or weaken the moral and intellectual
beauty of its entire composition; and even its technical defects
are, to a great extent, corrected in the edition before us, by the
insertion, in the form of an appendix, of the very valuable critical
notes of the late Professor O'Curry. The principal figure in the
book is O'Headha, (O'Hea,) a young chieftain born on the day of
his father's death in battle. It describes the ceremonies of the
marriage of his parents and of his own baptism, as introductory to
his career. His education is supposed to be conducted at Mungharid
(Mungret) Abbey, then famous for the number and rank of its scholars;
and this gives the author an opportunity of describing the monastery,
a description which may be taken as applying equally to the many
similar institutions of piety and learning which at that time, and
for centuries before, dotted the then happy island:
"Unlike many of the religious foundations of that period,
which were constructed, after the national manner, of wood,
the college of Muinghairid was a damhliag, or stone building,
and its grouted fragments, diffused at this day over an
extensive tract of ground, demonstrate the masonic skill of
its founders. The religious, who were of the order of St.
Mainchin, the founder of the abbey, and of prodigious number,
had, as is usual in such establishments, their various duties
appointed to them. Some devoted themselves wholly to a life of
contemplation and of manual labor. Others employed themselves
in the care of the sick, the entertaining of strangers, the
giving of alms, and the instruction of the numerous youth who
flocked hitherward in great numbers from different parts of
the island, from the shore of Inismore, and even from those of
some continental nations. Those who were skilled in psalmody
succeeded each other in the choir, night and day, which for
many a century sent forth its never-ceasing harmony of praise;
while far the greater number were employed in cultivating with
their own hands the extensive tracts of ground which lay around
the convent and the neighboring city. Morn after morn, regular
as the dawn itself, the tolling of the convent-bell, over the
spreading woods which then enriched the neighborhood, awoke the
tenants of the termon-lands, warning them that its cloistered
inhabitants had commenced their daily rule, and reminding them
also of that eternal destiny which was seldom absent from the
minds of the former. The religious, answering to the summons,
resumed their customary round of duties. Some aided the almoner
in receiving the applications of the poor and attending to
their wants. Some assisted the chamberlain in refitting the
deserted dormitory. Some were appointed to help the infirmarian
in the hospital. Some aided the pittancer and cellarer in
preparing the daily refection, as well for the numerous
members of the confraternity as for the visitors, for whose
accommodation a separate refectory was furnished; and after the
solemn rite of the morning, at which all assisted, had been
concluded, the great body of the monks departed to their daily
labor on the adjoining tillage and pasturage lands.
"Sometimes at this early hour the more infirm and aged, as
well as the more pious of the neighboring peasantry, were seen
thridding their way along the woodland paths to mingle in the
morning devotions of the religious. The peasant as he trotted
on by his car, laden with the produce of the season, paused
for an instant to hear the matin hymn, and added a prayer that
heaven might sanctify his toil. The fisherman, whose curach
glided rapidly along the broad surface of the river, rested on
his oars at the same solemn strain, and resumed his labor with
a more measured stroke and less eager spirit. The son of war
and rapine, who galloped by the place, returning with sated
passions from some nocturnal havoc, reined up his hobbie at
the peaceful sounds, and yielded his mind unconsciously to an
interval of mercy and remorse. The oppressive chieftain and
his noisy retinue, not yet recovered the dissipation of some
country _coshering_, hushed for a time their unseemly mirth
as they passed the holy dwelling and yielded in reverence the
debt which they could not pay in sympathy. To many an ear the
sounds of the orison arrived, and to none without a wholesome
and awakening influence."
Arrived at manhood, the future chieftain is duly installed in office
according to the prevailing customs of the sept, and henceforth we
find him performing all the duties appertaining to his high position,
including his attendance at the triennial assembly of Tara, _à
propos_ to which we have an elaborate and highly interesting account
of that historical gathering of all the estates of the kingdoms into
which the island was then divided. A romantic adventure, ending in a
love scene, of course, brings him among the Hooded people, the last
remnant of those who, rejecting the teachings of St. Patrick and his
disciples, continued to practise the Druidical rites in seclusion;
and, as a consequence, we find a detailed description of the objects
and forms of that extinct species of idolatry. The invasion itself,
the first descent of the Northmen on the coast, successfully repulsed
by O'Hea's forces, naturally leads to a disquisition on the gloomy
superstition and uncouth manners of those terrible barbarians. Thus
we find grouped together, gracefully and artistically, the leading
historical features of the period, the old superstitions and the
beneficent fruits of the new faith, the faults and follies, virtues
and graces of the christianized Celts, contrasted with the physical
prowess and ferocious temperament of the hordes who were so soon to
deluge with blood, not only Erin, but the adjacent isles and the
greater part of the coasts of Europe. Strange to say, the _Invasion_
is the only Irish historical novel ever written, and, as Augustin
Thierry was induced to write his celebrated history of the _Norman
Conquest of England_ by reading Scott's _Ivanhoe_, may we not hope
that some present or future writer may be inspired by the _Invasion_
to give us a detailed and intelligible account of the Danish wars in
Ireland?
The _Duke of Monmouth_ is also a historical novel, but more modern in
its character and incidents. It is intended to describe the condition
of the people of the rural districts in the west of England about the
close of the seventeenth century; and the principal events upon which
the story depends are the invasion of England by the ill-starred Duke
of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II., during the reign
of the latter's successor, the fatal battle of Sedgemoor, and the
execution of the adventurer and his principal followers. The style is
faultless, the prominent actors mostly taken from real life, though
few are truthfully drawn. Still, we cannot but regret for the sake of
poetical justice that Griffin chose this subject for a novel, from
the fact that the truth of history compelled him to let the notorious
Kirke, who figures so largely in his pages, go unwhipped of justice.
The portrait of this infamous soldier, whose vices were proverbial,
is thus briefly sketched:
"He beheld before him a man somewhat over the middle size, and
rather spare than otherwise; his features not ill-looking, but
marked by that expression of malign placidity which is no less
characteristic of the genuine tyrant than all the ogre-like
contortions and grimaces vulgarly associated with the idea of
habitual cruelty. There was something like a smile upon his
lips; but it was a smile that spoke not of benevolence of the
heart, and held out no light of promise to the hope of the
supplicant. His very courtesy, all easy as it was, seemed the
refined dissimulation of a callous nature. There was a kind
of sternness in his very courtliness of manner, a severity
even in the smoothness and gentleness of his demeanor and
discourse, that was more withering than the open violence of
the unmasked and ruffian oppressor. At times, too, it was said
he could be all the savage; but it was only when the security
of his position afforded a free scope to license. His hair
was already tinged with gray, though in so slight a degree as
to be scarcely perceptible. His complexion had much of the
sallowness, but little of the languor, usually acquired by long
residence in tropical countries; and, as he stood glancing
rapidly over the paper which he held in his hand, it might be
judged from the keenness and concentration of his look that his
mind, in like manner, had lost nothing of its activity beneath
the enervating influence of an African sun."
Notwithstanding the fault referred to, the book is one that merits
attention both as being the production of the author's more mature
years and as furnishing us an insight into the modes of life,
manner of living, and unreasonable preconceptions of politics and
religion of the humbler classes of England at the period immediately
preceding the downfall of the house of Stuart. The so-called
reformation in that country, while it deprived the peasantry of all
the attractions and consolations of true religion, as well as of the
innocent sports and pastimes so much encouraged by the church, left
nothing in their stead to lighten the heavy burden of labor save
the sensual attractions of the ale-house, or the more invigorating,
if more hazardous, luxury of rebellion. Deprived of the refuge
always afforded by the eleemosynary institutions of the monks to the
deserving needy and afflicted, the wants of the widow and the orphan
were neglected, the poor became poorer and more discontented, and
the nobles more haughty and overbearing. The reformers succeeded
in unsettling the religious faith of the masses, as the wars of
the Commonwealth destroyed their ideas of authority and obedience.
Hence followed in rapid rotation the restoration of Charles II., the
dethronement of James, the Scotch rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and
many if not all the evils which have afflicted the people of Great
Britain up to the present time--evils which have become so glaring
that a thousand acts of parliament cannot hide them, and distress,
ignorance, and its attendant vices, so gross and general as to be
beyond the cure of the poor-house and the penitentiary. Considered
in the aggregate, England is one of the wealthiest countries in the
world. Individually, her people are the poorest in Christendom; for
she contains within her boundaries a larger percentage of paupers and
those who live by crime of various degrees than any civilized country
on the face of the globe.
It was while in this transition state, from "merrie" England in
Catholic times to her present anomalous condition, that the Duke of
Monmouth, relying on the ignorance and anti-Catholic prejudices of
the rustic population, resolved to dispute the possession of the
throne with James II., whose only fault, in the eyes of his enemies
at that time, was his desire to concede some degree of toleration
to his dissenting and Catholic subjects. Monmouth's miserable
failure is a matter of history; but in this book we have likewise a
glimpse of the feeling of the people who followed his standard, and
which afterward led to the elevation of William of Orange, and of
the sentiments which actuated the British portion of that prince's
army in his subsequent wars in the sister island. The author also
gives a very just idea of Monmouth and his subordinate rebels. The
duke himself is represented as possessing all those exterior graces
which are said to have distinguished the Stuarts, with more than
all their vices and instability of character--false to his friends,
cringing to his enemies, superstitious without faith, and ambitious
without the courage or capacity to command success. Fletcher, his
chief counsellor and best officer, is a keen, hard-headed, but
passionate Covenanter, a theoretical republican of the Roundhead
school engrafted on the antique; Lord Grey and Ferguson are simply
respectable adventurers, equally destitute of honesty or brains,
and worthy instruments in so desperate an enterprise. In comparison
with those men, the devotion of young Fullarton to a hopeless
cause becomes less blamable; and even the ultra loyalty of the old
cavalier, Captain Kingsly, is respectable.
In addition to what we have before remarked of the design of this
work, there is a feature in its composition which by some readers
may be considered a grave defect. The interest which surrounds the
heroine, Aquila Fullarton, from the very beginning of the tale
deepens by degrees until it becomes painfully intense, and the
scene between her and Kirke, wherein that monster perpetrates one
of the greatest crimes known to humanity, and she in consequence
loses her reason, though founded on well-authenticated facts, and
described with all the delicacy of diction possible, is almost too
horrible to receive mention. The necessarily gloomy pages of the
story are occasionally enlivened by the introduction of two Irish
characters--brothers--Morty and Shamus Delaney, who, like so many
of their countrymen, then and since, have left home to seek their
fortunes, and find themselves in Taunton on the eve of the stirring
events related in the novel. Morty, being of a practical turn of
mind, forthwith enlists in "Kirke's Lambs;" but Shamus, whose tastes
are also pugnacious, but whose ambition is to wear epaulettes, takes
service on the other side, and raises a company of ragamuffins not
unlike that which shamed the redoubtable Falstaff at Coventry. There
are many exquisite bits of humor scattered through Griffin's works,
which might be quoted as evincing his keen appreciation of the
ludicrous; but we prefer to extract the following address of Captain
Delaney to his command, for the benefit of our military readers who
have neglected studying the articles of war. Shamus _loquitur_:
"'Well, I see ye're all here, exceptin' those that's absent.
Well, then, fall in, fall in, an' much good may it do ye! An'
now attind to my ordhers, an' mind 'em well. Every man is to
fight, an' nobody is to run; that's plain enough. Secondly,
any man that wants arms, is to fight hard _for_ 'em first, an'
to fight _with_ 'em at his aise afther. Thirdly, any booty
whatsomever that any o' ye may take in the war, such as goold
rings, watches, sails, valuable clothing, an' the likes--but
above all things, money--ye're to bring it all to me. Do you
hear me?'
"'Ay, ay, ay!'
"'Very well. Because I'm captain, ye know, an' best judge how
it ought to be divided. For it is one o' the maxims of war,
that it's the part o' the common sodgers for to fight, an' for
the ladin' officers for to have all the call to the booty an'
the likes, how 'tis to be shared, an' what's to be done with
it. Do ye hear?'
"'Ay, ay!'
"'An' if there's any thing that's very dangerous--certain
death, for instance--as a place where one would be blown up,
an' the likes, it's the custom o' war for the common sodgers
to have it all to themselves, an' for the officer to give 'em
ordhers for to face it, but to stay behind himself, bein' more
valuable. Do ye hear?'
"'Ay, ay!'
"'An' if there be a scarcity o' food or clothin', or beddin',
an' the likes, or a dale to do, sech as diggin' threnches an'
the likes o' that, then it's the custom o' war for the officer
to have the first o' the victuals an' things that way; but
the sodgers is to have the first o' the labor always. Do ye
understand?'
"'Ay, ay!'
"'Very well, why. Now, mind the word! Shoulder your picks!
Quick, march!'"
Of Griffin's minor works, included under the titles of _Tales
of the Munster Festivals_ and _Tales of my Neighborhood_, the
_Rivals_, _Barber of Bantry_, and _Shuil Dhuv_ are decidedly the
most entertaining. The latter particularly, though irregular in
composition, is a story evincing great dramatic power and knowledge
of the human heart. The dark-eyed hero, if such he may be called, who
gives the title to the tale, stands out before us in all the enormity
of his guilt as distinctly as if he had been an actual acquaintance,
and we venture to say that there are few who have read the book but
have experienced that feeling. In this story, also, Griffin departs
from his usual custom of avoiding personal description of his female
characters, and gives us an elaborate picture of his heroine, which,
whether it be drawn from life or the creation of his own imagination,
calls up before us an image of surpassing loveliness.
Griffin's other tales, such as the _Half-Sir_, _Card-Drawing_,
and _Tracey's Ambition_, have all much merit, and, though not so
prolonged as those we have mentioned, exhibit in a greater or lesser
degree the skilful hand and rich imagination of the author. The
_Christian Physiologist_, comprising a series of beautiful tales
intended to illustrate the use and abuse of the senses, is worthy a
place near the writings of that friend of childhood, Canon Schmidt.
As a poet, Griffin is remarkable for the beauty of his delineations
of natural scenery, his elevation of sentiment and purity of
conception. His lyrics remind us of Moore, and are scarcely inferior
to some of the best of that immortal bard's in feeling and choiceness
of metaphor; but being somewhat deficient in rhythm, they have never
found much favor in the drawing or concert-room, "A Place in thy
Memory, Dearest," "My Mary of the Curling Hair," and one or two
others excepted. Many of his poems were from time to time contributed
to the London journals, while he was yet a literary drudge in that
city; others are to be found interspersed in his novels, and not a
few were written to gratify his friends, and were first given to the
public when his entire poetical works, as far as it was possible,
were collected together in book-form, and now fill a large volume,
not the least important of the present edition. We are not aware
that he ever attempted an epic or any thing more extended than the
beautiful ballad of _Matt Hyland_, of the merits of which we can only
judge by the fragment which has been preserved, the original having
been destroyed by the author immediately previous to his joining
the order of Christian Brothers; nor do we think his ambition ever
soared to higher flights than songs and short descriptive poems. The
most meritorious of these, or, at least, the one which has obtained
the greatest popularity, is the _Sister of Charity_, written on
the occasion of a dear friend becoming a religious; and, though
several gifted pens have been employed on the same subject, we know
of none who has embodied so true an appreciation of the self-denial
and entire devotion which mark that order--the boast and glory of
all womanhood. Several of his best pieces, indeed, are written in
the same devotional spirit, particularly the following verses, in
illustration of a seal, representing a mariner on a tempestuous ocean
who, reclining in his bark, fixes his eye on a distant star, with the
motto--
"SI JE TE PERDS, JE SUIS PERDU.
(IF I LOSE THEE, I'M LOST.)
"Shine on, thou bright beacon,
Unclouded and free,
From thy high place of calmness,
O'er life's troubled sea!
Its morning of promise,
Its smooth seas are gone,
And the billows rave wildly--
Then, bright one, shine on.
"The wings of the tempest
May rise o'er thy ray,
But tranquil thou smilest,
Undimmed by its sway;
High, high o'er the worlds
Where storms are unknown,
Thou dwellest, all beauteous,
All glorious, alone.
"From the deep womb of darkness
The lightning flash leaps,
O'er the bark of my fortune
Each mad billow sweeps;
From the port of her safety
By warring winds driven,
Had no light o'er her course
But you lone one of heaven.
"Yet fear not, thou frail one,
The hour may be near
When our own sunny headlands
Far off shall appear;
When the voice of the storm
Shall be silent and past,
In some island of heaven
We may anchor at last.
"But, bark of eternity,
Where art thou now?
The tempest wave shrieks
O'er each plunge of thy prow;
On the world's dreary ocean
Thus shattered and lost--
Then, lone one, shine on,
If I lose thee, I'm lost."
Of his dramas but one remains to us, _Gisippus_, and enough dramatic
ability is displayed in that to make us regret that Griffin abandoned
writing for the stage so early in life. We are inclined to imagine
that a young man, scarcely twenty years of age, who was capable of
managing so successfully a subject that required the highest powers
of Boccaccio, could in his maturer years have effected even greater
things. However, we must console ourselves with the reflection that
what has been lost to the drama, we have gained in the excellent
works before us; and as the drama is necessarily limited to the few,
the world is also the gainer by the change.
FOOTNOTE:
[208] _The Life and Works of Gerald Griffin._ 10 vols. 12mo. New
York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.
III.
Of all arguments brought forward by _Janus_ to undermine what he
would term the historical groundwork of papal supremacy, and the
prerogatives exercised by the successors of St. Peter, none seem
to have greater weight, or more forcibly convince his admirers,
than the long narration on "Forgeries;" and hence throughout his
work the "Isidorian fabrications" play a great _rôle_. Ostensibly
these forgeries are developed at great length with a view of
merely overthrowing and combating this "powerful coalition" of
ultramontanism, but in reality the arguments deduced from these
forgeries go far beyond this _avowed_ intention of our authors.
Up to the ninth century no change had taken place in the constitution
of the church, as they readily admit:
"But in the middle of that century, about 845, arose the huge
fabrication of the Isidorian decretals, which had results far
beyond what its author contemplated, and gradually but surely
changed the whole constitution and government of the church."
(P. 76.)
1st. In our first article (p. 330) we have already pointed out
this illogical inconsistency of _Janus_, when assuming a lawful
development of the constitution of the church in the first eight
centuries; whereas he by no means defines what he understands by a
_lawful_ development of the _divine_ constitution of the ancient
church. How can he, therefore, decide that the Isidorian decretals
wrought an entire and unlawful development of the rights and
privileges of the primacy?
2d. If the _picture of the organization of the ancient church_ is
quietly, and as a matter of course, presented as one of _divine_
origin,[209] we have no hesitation in declaring that picture a false
one, and contrary to the most ancient history of the church. It
cannot even claim apostolic origin in so comprehensive a meaning
as _Janus_ would have it. The different grades of the hierarchy,
established between the primacy and episcopacy, is the result of a
_historical_ development, whereas _divine_ institution can only be
claimed for the _primacy_ and _episcopacy_ themselves.[210]
What difference is there between bishops as to power and jurisdiction
over one another by _divine_ right? If patriarchs, primates, and
metropolitans have exercised certain prerogatives _greater_ than
those enjoyed by other bishops, will _Janus_ tell us that this is
owing to divine origin? How, then, will he account for the fact that
no such distinction was universally acknowledged[211] until the
_third_ century in the east? nay more, that in the west there were
no metropolitans before the latter half of the _fourth_ century, if
we except Africa, and even in this latter country many bishops were
exempt, and directly subject to the see of Rome?[212]
It is a notorious fact, though _Janus_ elsewhere so boldly denies
it, that the bishops of Rome deputed other bishops as their
representatives in many provinces, who by that very fact exercised
authority over other bishops, because to them the popes delegated
the exercise of primatial prerogatives. Thus, the Bishop of
Thessalonica is constituted, by the pope, Primate of Illyricum, and
the Bishop of Arles, Primate of Gaul.
There are still many letters of the popes addressed to the bishops
of Thessalonica as early as the fourth century, by Innocent I.,
Boniface I., Celestine I., and Sixtus III., wherein instructions are
given concerning the exercise of the _special_ power conferred on
them.[213] Hence it came to pass that certain episcopal sees retained
that high rank granted to their first incumbents, either as primates
or metropolitans, after having acted in the beginning in the quality
of apostolic legates. St. Leo the Great, in his letter to Anastasius
of Thessalonica, says:
"We have intrusted our charge in such a way to you that you
are called on to _share_ our solicitude, _not_ possessing the
plenitude of power."[214]
To grant to the Bishop of Rome the honor of being the "first
patriarch," is nothing less than ignoring or setting aside numerous
and indubitable facts _long before_ the existence of the Isidorian
decretals.[215] We should like to be informed by _Janus_ and his
abettors where the documents exist proving the rights of patriarchs
as of _divine_ institution? All canonists of any repute maintain that
the preëminence of rank and jurisdiction accorded to patriarchs,
primates, and metropolitans is _not_ due to the episcopate by
_divine_ institution; but, on the contrary, all agree that this
is a concession, whether _express_ or _tacit_, on the part of the
popes of Rome as successors of Peter, being admitted by them to
a _participation_ of their primatial prerogatives. Hence all are
the representatives of the primacy, whenever they are appealed to
as a _higher_ tribunal, and as such can only lawfully hold this
preëminence among their brother bishops as long as they do not come
in conflict with the divinely established order in the church, which
consists in the principle that the pope possesses, by _divine_
ordinance, _jurisdiction over the entire episcopate_. Pope St. Leo
the Great gives a beautiful portrait of this organization in the
church very dissimilar from that of _Janus_.[216]
"The connection of the whole body demands unanimity, and
especially unity among the prelates. While the dignity is
common to all, there is no general equality of order; because
even among the blessed apostles, though sharing the same
honor, there was a difference of power, (_quædam discretio
potestatis_,) and while all were equally chosen, yet to one
was given the prerogative of presiding over the others.[217]
From which precedent also arose a distinction among bishops,
and with perfect order was it enacted that all should not in
like manner assume all powers, but that there be in every
province some who exercise the right of _first_ judges among
their brethren; and again, that there should be some (bishops)
in the larger cities possessing more ample powers, through
whom the care of the universal church devolves upon the one
chair of Peter, and that in this manner there may never be any
separation from the head."
3d. According to _Janus_, Nicolas I., by means of the Isidorian
forgery,
"opened to the whole clergy in east and west a right of appeal
to Rome, and made the pope the supreme judge of all bishops and
clergy of the whole world." (P. 79.)
That "bold but non-natural" torturing of the seventeenth canon of
the Council of Chalcedon attributed to Nicolas I., is nothing else
but a pure fiction on the part of _Janus_. The letter sent by the
pope to the Emperor Michael III. is a document evincing the learning,
sagacity, and prudence of Nicolas I., in that grave disturbance
caused by Photius and corrupt courtiers against the lawful patriarch,
Ignatius of Constantinople.
When the latter, for the conscientious discharge of his pastoral
duty and vigilance toward a licentious court, had been violently
deposed, and Photius, a relative of the emperor, put in his place,
recourse was had to Rome to obtain sanction of these proceedings. The
pope sent legates to Constantinople to investigate the matter laid
before him; these in their turn, being partly misled, partly bribed,
ratified all that had been done. Pope Nicolas, upon hearing this,
excommunicated the legates and annulled the election of Photius.
The latter, seconded by the intrigues of the court, protested
against this act of the pope whose authority he had previously
invoked. Hence, Nicolas I., in the above-mentioned letter, reasons
by _analogy_ that the seventeenth canon of the Council of Chalcedon,
respecting appeals to primates or to the patriarch of Constantinople,
was in a higher sense applicable to the _Bishop_ of Rome.[218] It
clearly follows from the canon in question[219] that it merely
intended to regulate the several instances of appeal for clerics, and
alluded to the special privilege of appealing to the Patriarch of
Constantinople.[220]
In the present instance, however, is it not evident that the
patriarch could not be his own judge, and, since a final decision
was demanded, on whom did this right devolve, we may ask, if not on
the Bishop of Rome? A similar and even more striking argument may
be seen in the letter addressed by Nicolas I. to the Frankish king,
Charles the Bald. Rothad, Bishop of Soissons, having been deposed by
Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, appealed to Pope Nicolas, who, after
examining, caused the bishop to be restored; and in his reasons for
doing so sustains, first, the _divine_ right of the chair of Peter
to receive appeals and to act as supreme judge; and then goes on
stating that, as the canon of Chalcedon granted the right of judging
to the primates or to the see of Constantinople, in like manner also,
and with much more reason, must the same rule be observed regarding
the right of the see of Rome. If, therefore, adds the pope, Rothad
of Soissons appealed to the chair of Peter conformably to the Synod
of Sardica, this action was perfectly lawful, and there were many
precedents for this in history; as, for example, the appeals made
by St. Athanasius to Julius I. and St. John Chrysostom to Innocent
I.[221] Here, then, the reader will judge of the _historical_
fairness of our authors, when asserting that Pope Nicolas I., by
torturing a single word against the sense of a whole code of law,
"managed to give a turn to a canon of a general council."
Are we to believe, upon the sole word and authority of _Janus_, that
the whole constitution of the church underwent a change by means of
these Isidorian decretals, when so many men, distinguished for their
learning and deep researches, have exploded this theory long ago
advanced by the Magdeburg Centuriators? It is certainly nothing else
than presumption and arrogance to disparage the knowledge and science
of so many eminent men,[222] who unanimously agree on the following
points: 1. That the pseudo-Isidorian decretals were not written with
a view of exalting the papal power, but rather that of the bishops.
2. That the contents of this collection are, for the most part, taken
from ancient and genuine documents. 3. That the fictitious decretals
contained therein are quite generally known, and even these imply
nothing novel or contradictory to the then established discipline of
the church. 4. It is certain that this collection was _not_ compiled
at _Rome_, and much less known or used by Pope Nicolas as a _genuine_
document of binding force.
It will be necessary to support these points by a few and, we
hope, unexceptionable arguments. _Janus_ might have indeed spared
himself the pains of such a minute and tedious disquisition on these
Isidorian forgeries, as many[223] of similar disposition with himself
made extensive use of this unauthorized collection of pseudo-Isidore,
in order to show upon what grounds were based the principles of
the present constitution of the church, and particularly that the
prerogatives exercised by the Roman see rested on these forged
documents. If the power of the Bishop of Rome had no other foundation
but the Isidorian forgery, then indeed might we be obliged to join in
the triumphant chorus of _Janus_ and his abettors; but the question,
not to be misplaced or adroitly shifted, is simply this: Did the
prerogatives exercised by the popes need these forgeries to establish
the lawfulness of their claims? It is to no purpose to conceal and
cover up, as it were, the principle in question by tedious and showy
digressions--whether these decretals were fictitious and whether
they were used; but the whole problem to be solved is, Has the
pseudo-Isidorian collection introduced or enforced an _innovation_
in the _ancient_ constitution of the church, as it was in vigor at
that period, or were the principles enunciated by pseudo-Isidore
conformable to the doctrine of the church and in accordance with the
canons of former councils, or not? What does it matter whether one or
another theologian, and even a pope, made use of these decretals, not
doubting of their genuineness, and consequently deceived, provided
nothing new and unwarranted by previous tradition was thereby
acknowledged or enacted? If such a theologian as St. Thomas Aquinas
was deceived as to a spurious passage of St. Cyril, and followed
herein by Bellarmine, is that enough to condemn their whole system or
to impeach their honesty?
We might by such a method of arguing overthrow the entire historical
edifice of the first thousand years of the church, and begin to
build up a new system on this _tabula rasa_ with the aid of this
hypercritical process of _Janus_ and his school, and we scarcely
doubt but that he himself would be in the worst plight.
It is certainly true that the author of the Isidorian decretals, as
he himself avows in the preface, wished to give a complete code of
ecclesiastical laws to the clergy, though for the greater part he
insists on such points of discipline as were at that time greatly
endangered and often neglected.
"The immediate object," says _Janus_, "of the compiler of this
forgery was to protect bishops against their metropolitans and
other authorities, so as to secure absolute impunity." (P. 77.)
This should be effected, of course, by the right of appealing to
Rome, and, consequently, making the pope the supreme judge of all
the bishops and clergy, that is, of the entire church. These are the
principles that worked their way and became dominant; and that they
"revolutionized the whole constitution of the church, introducing a
new system in place of the old on that point," our authors assert
"there can be no controversy among candid historians." (P. 79.) With
all deference to the historical erudition of our authors, we cannot
refrain from interrogating history and assuring ourselves of the
truth of these grave charges.
Having once granted that Christ intrusted Peter and his successors
with the chief care of his flock--both pastors and people--it is
impossible to suppose that in this supreme charge should not be
included the right of hearing appeals and giving final decision;
for where could this preëminence find any application, if the whole
church be thus cut off from communicating with its head?
The Synod of Sardica had formally defined this right of hearing
appeals in several of its canons, as our authors acknowledge, though
their efforts to cancel this ancient testimony and to do away with
the binding force of these canons are useless and unavailing; for the
canons of the Council of Sardica[224] did nothing more than solemnly
acknowledge what had been handed down from _apostolic_ times,
attesting the doctrine of the church as fully practised long before.
We may be permitted to signalize two most remarkable and indubitable
instances from history. Marcianus, Bishop of Arles, having espoused
the heretical doctrine of Novatian, was denounced by Faustinus of
Lyons, and other bishops, to the see of Rome; at the same time
Faustinus also informed St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who, in his
turn, begged Pope Stephen to terminate this affair by his power as
supreme pastor of the church, requesting the deposition of Marcianus
and the appointment of another in his place.[225] Another no less
conspicuous proof we find in the fact of the two Spanish bishops,
Basilides and Martial, in which case St. Cyprian[226] approved of
the action of Pope Stephen, and saw no usurpation of power when the
latter restored Basilides to his bishopric, and only regretted that
by a false statement of facts the pope was misled and deceived.[227]
Our argument becomes more conclusive from the following great event
in the eastern church, where the jurisdiction in the _greater causes
(causæ majores)_ appears in most resplendent light. In the case
of Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, when the Eusebians,[228]
supported by the weak and tyrannical Emperor Constantius, drove him
from his episcopal see, we find, first, that a numerous assembly of
Egyptian bishops who met at Alexandria appealed to Pope Julius I.
After the Arian Synod of Antioch in 314, Gregory, a Cappadocian, was
forced on the episcopal see of Athanasius, and the latter, with the
Bishops Marcellus of Ancyra, Lucius of Adrianople, Asclepas of Gaza,
Paul of Constantinople, and many others, fled to Rome, imploring the
protection of Pope Julius, who caused a synod to be held in 343, at
which a great number of _eastern_ prelates from Thrace, Cœlésyria,
Phœnicia, and Palestine attended. The case of St. Athanasius and
his fellow-exiles was examined, and they were declared innocent of
the charges brought against them, and reinstated in their sees, from
which only violence and force kept them for some time. Here, then, we
have another argument for these high prerogatives exercised by the
Bishop of Rome _four years before_ the Synod of Sardica. Confront
this fact with the following passage from our authors:
"Only after the Sardican Council, and in reliance solely on it,
or the Nicene, which was designedly confounded with it, was a
right of hearing appeals laid claim to."[229]
We have to deal with men of far too _evasive_ minds, in the authors
of this "contribution to ecclesiastical history," to limit ourselves
to any one point of their argumentation. If, on the one hand, we
adduce from history long _before the existence_ of the Isidorian
forgeries, the testimony of such great and holy popes as Innocent
I.,[230] Zozimus,[231] Boniface I.,[232] Celestine I., Leo the
Great,[233] Gelasius I.,[234] and even before, Julius I.,[235] (337
to 352,) who all claim, assert, and exercise the right of final
decision as supreme judges for both east and west, from whom there
is no appeal, and this, too, in all great and weighty matters,
(_graviora negotia_,) as Pope Gelasius says; then we are told
that this right rests only on the canons of Sardica, and that the
"fathers gave the see of Rome the privilege of final decision." If,
on the other hand, we show ourselves satisfied with so ancient and
indubitable an authority as the great Synod of Sardica, why, then,
does _Janus_ resort to the simple _expedient_ of declaring that the
"Sardican canons were never received at all in the east"? Nor can
his _bon-mot_, in styling _greater causes_ (in which final decision
is reserved to the Roman see) an "elastic term," supply the want
of logic and historical accuracy. A slight acquaintance with the
historical incidents connected with the Council of Sardica[236] will
at once convince every unbiased mind that the opposition came from a
party of reckless Eusebians, who withdrew from the synod when they
could not attain their nefarious object, and repaired to Philippolis
in order to crown their treacherous proceeding by excommunicating
such holy and illustrious prelates as Athanasius and the aged Hosius,
legate of Pope Julius, and even the pontiff himself, who remained
steadfast in their defence of the Nicene doctrines. And such are the
reasons, let it be observed, which cause _Janus_ to say that the
canons of Sardica were not at all received in the east. What can be a
more convincing proof than their insertion into collections or codes
of law compiled by official authority,[237] having been inserted not
only in the Latin collection of Dionysius,[238] under the pontificate
of Anastasius II., about the year 498, and later in the Spanish code
called _Liber Canonum_, commonly attributed to Isidore of Seville,
but also in the _Greek_ collection of canons by John Scholasticus,
and in the _Nomocanon_ compiled by the same author, who died
Patriarch of Constantinople in 578.[239]
From these premises we arrive at the following conclusions: 1st,
that the right of appeal to Rome and her jurisdiction, in all
_greater causes_, was taught and practised in the church at _least_
four centuries before the Isidorian decretals were known; 2d,
that the jurisdiction of the pope as supreme judge of the whole
church is triumphantly attested by historical documents of the
same age; 3d, that the canons of Sardica acknowledged a _divine_
right of the bishops of Rome--merely introducing a new _form_ that
affected the _application_ and _exercise_ of this right, from which,
however, the popes could deviate for reasons of wise and prompt
administration.[240]
In this connection we must briefly notice another charge made by
_Janus_, namely, that on the fabrication of pseudo-Isidore,
"was based the maxim that the pope, as supreme judge of the
church, could be judged by no man." (P. 78.)
In this maxim our authors discover the foundation of the edifice of
papal infallibility already laid. If such be the case, let us inquire
whether this maxim was not known before pseudo-Isidore. A synod of
Rome held in 378, under Pope Damasus, declared in a letter to the
Emperor Gratian[241] that it was sanctioned by ancient custom that
the Bishop of Rome, since his case was not submitted to a general
council, should answer for himself before the council of the emperor;
_but this was only to be understood in accusations of civil and
political offences_. The highest judicial authority in the church
having been vested by Christ in Peter and his successors, their
voice was the judgment from which there was no appeal; neither did
any bishop or any assembly of bishops receive power over the head of
the church. This principle, acknowledged by civil codes in temporal
principalities, was likewise solemnly affirmed by the Roman synod
in the year 501, which was called by King Theodoric to examine
the complaints brought against Pope Symmachus, and to judge him
accordingly. But behold the declaration of the assembled bishops,
protesting that it belonged to the bishop of the apostolic chair of
Peter to convene a synod; for it was a thing unheard of that the
high-priest of the aforesaid see should be placed in judgment before
his own subjects.[242] The bishops pronounced that he was innocent
before men, and left all to the tribunal of God. An apology, written
for this Roman synod by the Deacon Ennodius,[243] afterward Bishop of
Pavia, declared that a council on the more important affairs could
be assembled only by the pope, or at least must be confirmed by him.
Another striking passage illustrating this principle is to be found
in the letter of Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, addressed to the senators
of the city of Rome in the name of the bishops of Gaul, as follows:
"That the pope, as superior, could be judged by no one
according to reason or law; and that if this privilege of the
pope be called in question, the whole episcopacy would be
shaken."[244]
_Janus_ likewise lets Pope Nicolas assert, on the strength of the
Isidorian forgery, "that the Roman Church keeps the faith pure, and
is free from every stain." (P. 80.) Now, who does not know that
beautiful testimony of St. Irenæus, according to which "the whole
church, that is, all the faithful, must be in union with this church,
on account of its more powerful principality; in which communion the
faithful of the whole world have preserved the tradition that was
handed down by the apostles"?[245]
That the words in question employed by St. Irenæus, _propter
potentiorem principalitatem_, are by no means capable of the
construction as meaning _greater antiquity_, is clearly demonstrated
by Dr. Döllinger.[246] St. Irenæus likewise concludes from the
uninterrupted succession of bishops in the Church of Rome by saying,
"When, therefore, you know the faith of this church, you have learned
the faith of the others." St. Cyprian, too, uses the following
expressive language, "He who does not preserve the unity of this
church, how can he hold the faith?"[247]
Theodoret, about the year 440, calls the Roman see
"That most holy see which possesses the supremacy of the
churches in the whole world, in virtue of many privileges,
and above all others, of this one, that she has always
remained free _from the stain of heresy_; nor has any one had
possession of it holding any thing contrary to faith, but she
has preserved entire this apostolic privilege!"[248] "Nec ullus
fidei contraria sentiens in illa sedit, sed apostolicum gratiam
integram servavit."
We might multiply our references[249] on this point to exhibit
the _historical_ fabrications of _Janus_ and his school; but we
trust that all judicious and discriminating minds will have come
to the conclusion, from the testimonies already adduced, that the
pseudo-Isidorian principles have neither changed nor _revolutionized_
the _ancient_ constitution of the church, and that the papal
prerogatives, at which our authors seem so very much incensed, did
not stand in need of forgeries--least of all, of those that came
from the "Isidorian workshop;" and we, at the same time, apprehend
that they will have to go further back--perhaps to the apostolic
fathers--to trace _another_ history of the constitution of the church
and the prerogatives claimed by the successors of St. Peter.
As to the materials from which these Isidorian decretals were
formed, we may briefly state that they were ancient documents to
which the author had access. In many instances he attributes some
_genuine_ letters of popes to others than their real authors, and
many other spurious documents had already been inserted in private
collections, as the brothers Ballerini have demonstrated most
clearly by their profound researches. Sixteen pieces of this kind
are enumerated by them.[250] According to the most ancient code,
this collection of pseudo-Isidore is divided into three parts, as
we find in the _Codex Vaticanus_, n. 630, recorded by Ballerini;
and in more recent times,[251] this codex being brought into the
library of Paris, Camus compared it again with four other manuscript
_codices_.[252] Part I. comprises the fifty apostolic canons which
were compiled about the time of the Council of Chalcedon, as is
generally supposed; fifty-nine spurious letters of the first
thirty popes, from Clement to Melchiades;[253] the introduction to
the whole is taken partly from the old Spanish collection, which
circulated under the name of St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville. Part
II. gives, after a brief preface, the false act of donation by the
Emperor Constantine;[254] two introductory pieces, one taken from
the _Spanish_ code, the other from the _Gallic_ code;[255] lastly,
the acts of Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish councils, as the
Spanish code of the year 683 recorded them. In the third part we find
another introduction copied from the Spanish collection, and then
follow in order of time the decretals of the popes, from Sylvester
(died 335) to Gregory II., (died 731.) Among these latter there are
thirty-five _forged_ letters and several false councils, though, let
it be clearly understood, in many portions the _contents_ of these
forged decretals corresponded to _genuine_ documents which the author
extracted for this purpose.[256] Two councils are falsely attributed
to Pope Symmachus. All these records of pseudo-Isidore cover the
whole field of ecclesiastical discipline; they are partly dogmatical,
directed against the errors of the Arians, Nestorians, and
Monophysites; partly they contain moral precepts and exhortations;
partly they refer to liturgy, giving the accompanying ceremonies to
the administration of the sacraments; another no less conspicuous
part is the enactments of papal decrees and canons of councils,
regarding the protection of the clergy against arbitrary oppression,
accusations, and depositions, the security of ecclesiastical
property, the dignity and rights of the Roman Church, the appeals to
the apostolic see, and the prerogatives of patriarchs, metropolitans,
and bishops. From all this we can infer, that the object of the
author in compiling this code was a very comprehensive one, and he
drew quite copiously from the Scriptures, from the Roman pontifical
book,[257] the historical books of Rufinus[258] and Cassiodorus,
the author of the _Historia Tripartita_;[259] also from the writings
of the Latin fathers, and from many collections or commentaries of
Roman law. By a subsequent multiplying of copies, several changes and
additions were made during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.[260]
Having already produced testimonies to prove that the
principles--which are said to have "surely but gradually changed
the ancient constitution of the church" by means of these Isidorian
fictions--were known and acknowledged long _before_ pseudo-Isidore,
we have thereby made good our third point, and we can fully concur
in the following conclusion of a learned historian, who says of the
pseudo-Isidorian code:
"Had his book been in open variance with the chief points of
the prevailing discipline, it would at once have awakened
suspicion; examinations would have been instituted, and in an
age which possessed critical acumen sufficient to detect the
falsity of the title of a book (the _Hypognosticon_) which was
circulated under the name of St. Augustine, the imposition
would have been detected--an imposition which, such as it
really was, lay concealed, because the principles and laws of
ecclesiastical discipline of the age corresponding with the
contents of the work, they excited no surprise."
That the Isidorian collection was not compiled at Rome, is admitted
by all historians[261] and canonists of any standing;[262] nor did
_Janus_ dare to revive an antiquated and unfounded opinion of this
import. However, we have to deal with another no less hazardous, nay,
we might state at once, _false_ assertion in the following lines:
"About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest popes,
together with certain spurious writings of other church
dignitaries and acts of synods, were then fabricated in the
west of Gaul, and _eagerly seized upon by Pope Nicolas I. at
Rome_,[263] to be used as genuine documents in support of the
_new_ claims put forward by himself and his successors." (P.
77.)
In order to judge fairly of this whole question raised by _Janus_,
and by others before him, we may be pardoned for premising that the
collection of pseudo-Isidore became first known in Gaul about the
middle of the ninth century. The most recent document which has been
traced is the Synod of Paris, of 829, from which extracts are made.
Other researches have led Ballerini[264] and others to suppose that
the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in the year 836, was known to the
author, since he dwells at great length on the rights of primates or
apostolic vicars, which dignity was restored in France, or western
Gaul, after a long interruption, in the year 844. Mention is first
made of these decretals at the Synod of Chièssy,[265] in 857, so that
the time of their compilation must certainly be assigned between
these last-named dates of 845 and 847. We might arrive at a more
precise time by the fact that a collection of _Capitularies_,[266]
made by Benedict, _levita_ or deacon of Mainz, between the years
840 and 847, contains entire passages _identical_ with those in the
pseudo-Isidorian code. The only explanation of this similarity is
either to be sought in the fact that both collections come from the
same author, or that the Capitularies of Benedict have copied from
the Isidorian code; and in that issue, the latter must have been
compiled before the year 847.[267] The correspondence between Pope
Nicolas I. and Hincmar of Rheims attracted general attention to the
pseudo-Isidorian collection, and in this way Pope Nicolas I. was
first apprised of their existence, as is evident from his letter
to the bishops of Gaul,[268] where he upholds the authority of the
papal decretals in general, independently of their insertion in
any collection. The pope mentions the sources from which the Roman
Church took its ecclesiastical discipline, alluding to the codex of
Dionysius. The objection usually brought forward, that the pope says
that these decretals were preserved in the _archives of the Roman
Church_, does not refer to the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, since
there is only question of the authority to be attributed to those
documents in general.[269] Hincmar, who had previously appealed to
the pseudo-Isidorian collection, later rejected the authority of
those decretals which seemed to condemn his own views and position
in the affair with Hincmar, Bishop of Laon.[270] To leave no doubt
on this head in the mind of the reader, we submit the very words of
Nicolas I.:
"We do not unreasonably complain," (addressing the bishops of
Gaul,) "that you have set aside the decrees of several bishops
of the apostolic see in this matter. Far be it from us of
not receiving with due honor either the decretals or other
enactments concerning ecclesiastical discipline, all of which
the holy Roman Church has preserved and given over to our care,
retaining them previously in her archives and in ancient and
genuine monuments."[271]
A few lines further the same pope exhibits the inconsistency of
Hincmar and other bishops, when acknowledging only such decretals
as favor their own position, and rejecting others merely because
they were not found in the code known to themselves. The principle,
as though the authority of a decree of the popes or a synod was not
to be recognized unless it has been received into some code, is
combated and the whole issue comes to this, whether such decrees are
authentic and genuine. In fine, the pope in this epistle combines
an extraordinary knowledge of the ancient canons with great force
of logic and historical accuracy. Our conclusion is that Pope
Nicolas I. has never appealed to the pseudo-Isidorian decretals,
though he frequently had occasion to do so. This is admitted by
the reformed preacher Blondel,[272] and by Blasco,[273] and, among
other modern historians, by Dr. Döllinger, who remarks that Pope
Nicolas I. "makes no use of the Isidorian collection, adduces none
of its decretals, and it may be even doubted whether he had seen the
work."[274] During the eleventh century only, the popes begin to
quote from pseudo-Isidore. Here, then, we have given another specimen
of the "historical fairness" and "canonical erudition" of _Janus_
and associates; and if our authors imagined that it was enough to
_impose_ on their readers by the mass of "original authorities,"
they have indeed succeeded to some extent, and we have but one
restriction to make, that is, that they cannot be saved from the
charge of _deliberate falsification_. For, singularly enough, and
much to the credit of the historical erudition of _Janus_, let it be
remarked that there is always something in the authorities quoted
bearing on the point under discussion. Who is there who does not see
that _Janus_ stamps himself as a falsifier of history, whenever he
mutilates and distorts the contents of authorities quoted by him? In
conclusion, we wish to allude to one more insidious passage of our
authors, when they say,
"The spurious character of the Isidorian decretals had been
exposed by the Magdeburg Centuriators, and no one with any
knowledge of Christian antiquity could retain a doubt of their
being a later fabrication." (P. 319.)
Alas! Nothing easier than to claim this merit for such _candid_
and _impartial_ historians as the avowed champions of Lutheranism!
Besides the doubts entertained by Hincmar and other bishops in the
ninth century, a writer of the twelfth century, Peter Comestor,[275]
called the genuineness of this collection in question. In the middle
of the fifteenth century, the learned Cardinal Nicolas Cusanus[276]
and such an eminent divine as John de Turrecremata[277] proved the
fictitious character of the most ancient papal decretals contained in
pseudo-Isidore; they were followed in these investigations by other
eminent scholars, both in Germany and France, _before_ the dawn of
the sixteenth century, and hence no trophies on this field could have
been won by the _historians_ of Magdeburg!
If, notwithstanding all these elucidations, a certain Jesuit,
Turrianus, wrote in defence of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals,
we do not see how from this fact _Janus_ concludes that the
"Jesuit order were resolved to defend them." (P. 319.) Did not the
illustrious Jesuit Bellarmine acknowledge the fictitious character of
pseudo-Isidore? And yet our authors thus boldly continue as follows:
"Bellarmine acknowledged that without the forgeries of the
pseudo-Isidore, ... it would be impossible to make out even a
semblance of traditional evidence." (P. 319.)
We are sorry to say that we have not been able to discover any such
admission on the part of Cardinal Bellarmine; but on the contrary,
when answering the objection of the Centuriators concerning the
fictitious letters of the first thirty popes to Melchiades, we find
the following clear view on this subject:
"Although I do not deny that some errors have slipped into
these letters, nor do I dare to claim for them undoubted
authority, yet I doubt not but that they are of very ancient
origin."[278]
It was not precisely on the faith of the Isidorian collection or
its compiler that Bellarmine used any of these documents; but he
endeavored to demonstrate their authenticity according to the rules
laid down by historical criticism. It is simply false that he made
"copious use of the Isidorian fictions." None deserve greater credit
for the clear and elaborate elucidation of this great question of
pseudo-Isidore than the brothers Ballerini, who have supplied an
immense material whence the eminent canonists and historians of
our days have been enabled to weigh every thing carefully, and the
result has been a glorious one to _Catholic_ learning and science.
The attempts which have been made for three hundred years, and more,
to create a fictitious foundation for the present constitution of
the Catholic Church, and to brand it with the specious appellation
of _forgery_--these inglorious attempts, we say, have in our days
been renewed by _Janus_ and his deluded admirers. If _Janus_ hoped to
strengthen his position by a novel method, we dare assert his signal
failure--indeed, our enemies have secured a poor and feeble leader.
Should the present contribution produce further curiosity, and lead
to more extended and serious researches on this subject, we are
confident enough to express the hope that many unfounded prejudices
will be thereby dispelled, and the triumph of _ancient_ and _present_
Catholic doctrine be hastened.[279]
FOOTNOTES:
[209] P. 69.
[210] Thomassin, Vet. et Nov. Eccl. Disc. l. i. capp. vii. xlv.
[211] See Canon vi. Council of Nice in 325, which recognizes the
patriarchal rights of Antioch and Alexandria, in the east, introduced
by ancient custom. (τὰ ἀρχαῖα ἔθη.)
[212] Schelestrate, Eccl. Afric. sub prim. Carthag. Thomass. l. c. c.
xx. n. 8.
[213] Constant. Ep. Rom. Pontif. Inn. I. ep. 13. Bonif. I. ep. 4.
Coelest. I. ep. 3. Sixt. III. ep. 10.
[214] "Vices enim nostras ita tuæ credidimus caritati, ut in partem
sis vocatus sollicitudinis, non in plenitudinem potestatis." Ep. 14.
ad Anast. Thessal. edit. Ball. tom. i.
[215] The name of _patriarch_ is first mentioned in the Council of
Chalcedon, Act 3, where Pope St. Leo is thus addressed: "Sanctissimo
et universali Archiepiscopo et _Patriarchæ_ magnæ Romæ." (Labbe, Col.
tom. iv.)
[216] Leo M. ep. 14, cap. 11.
[217] "Quum omnium par esset electio, uni tamen datum est, ut cæteris
præemineret."
[218] Mansi, xv. col. 202.
[219] Cf. canon ix. of the same council.
[220] That is, in the East. Pithœus, Codex Canon. Vetus, p. 102,
(edit. Paris.)
[221] Mansi. l. c. p. 688.
[222] Thomassin, Ballerini, Devoti, Walter, Philipps, Schulte,
Döllinger, Blondel, Luden, Schönemann, the last three Protestants,
all of whom, says _Janus_, betray a very imperfect "knowledge of the
decretals." (P. 78.)
[223] Launoy, Arnould, Febronius, Baluze, De Marca.
[224] Held A.D. 447.
[225] Epist. 47.
[226] See Epist. 45, ad Antonian.
[227] Döllinger, Church Histor. vol. i. pp. 260, 261, 262.
[228] Named after the ambitious Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, an
ardent follower of _Arius_.
[229] P. 66.
[230] Apud Constant. Epist. Rom. Pontif. Epist. 37, ad Felic. col.
910.
[231] Epist. I. ad Episc. Gall. col. 938.
[232] Epist. ad Episc. Illyr. col. 1038.
[233] Epist. ad Episc. Vienn. Prov. (Baller Opp. tom. i. col. 634.)
[234] Epist. ad Episc. Dardan. (Hardouin Concil. tom. ii. col. 909.)
[235] Epist. ad Euseb. col. 385, ap. Const.
[236] Döllinger, _Hist. of the Church_, vol. ii. pp. 103, 109.
[237] The code of Dionysius presented by R. Hadrian to Charlemagne,
known hence in Gaul as the Codex Hadrianeus.
[238] Biblioth. Jur. Canon. tom. i. p. 97-180. Fr. Pithœus, Codex
Canon. Eccl. Rom. Vet. pp. 119, 120, can. iii. vii. (edit. Paris.)
[239] Biblioth. Jur. Canon. tom. ii. pp. 499, 603.
[240] Döllinger, _Hist. of the Church_, vol. ii. p. 229, gives
several remarkable instances of such exceptions.
[241] Concil. Rom. ad Gratian. Imperat. cap. 11.
[242] Mansi, tom. viii. p. 247.
[243] Libell, Apologet. Ennod. apud Mansi, tom. vii. p. 271.
[244] Epist. ad Senator. Urbis Rom. ann. 502. Mansi, viii. col. 293.
[245] "In qua (Eccl. Rom.) ab his qui sunt undique conservata est ea,
quæ est ab apostolis traditio." Adv. Hær. l. iii. c. 3.
[246] Hist. vol. i. p. 257. If "potentior principalitas" signified
only _greater antiquity_, how could the church of Rome claim
preëminence above the churches of Antioch and Ephesus?
[247] "Hanc Ecclesiæ unitatem qui non tenet, _tenere se fidem
credit_?" De Unit. Eccl. p. 349. (Edit. Wir.)
St. August, in his 43d epist., says of the church of Rome, "Semper
viguit apostolicæ cathedræ principatus."
[248] Epist. cxvii. ad Renat. Presbyt. Rom.
[249] The very words of pseudo-Isidore on the purity of the "faith of
Rome" are literally transcribed from the epistle of Pope Agatho to
the Emperor Constantine in the year 680. (Mansi, tom. xi. col. 239.)
[250] De Antiquis Collect, pars iii. capp. iv. Gallandi, Sylloge.
tom. i. p. 528 sqq.
[251] About 1809, under Napoleon.
[252] _Notices et Extraits des Manuscr. de la Biblioth. Nation._ tom.
vi. p. 265 sqq.
[253] Died 313.
[254] Which was already known from its being inserted in former
collections.
[255] Known in the fifth century. (Quesnel's edit.)
[256] Blondel. Prolegom. cap. 12. Blascus, De Collect. Canon. Isid.
Mercat. cap. ii. Gallandi, tom. ii. p. 100.
[257] Muratori's edit. tom. iii. pars i. Rer. _Italic._ Script.
[258] Rufinus translated nine books of Eusebius, to which he added
two more.
[259] Edit. Ven. 2 vol.
[260] Blondel, Proleg. cap. 18.
[261] See Alzog's Hist. vol. i. § 186.
[262] Philipps, Compend. of Canon Law, vol. i. p. 52.
[263] The italics are our own.
[264] Ball. Part. iii. cap. 6. n. 13. Galland, t. i. p. 540.
[265] Mansi. tom. xv. col. 127.
[266] Laws of the empire of Charlemagne, divided into _Capitula_ or
chapters.
[267] Baller. de Canon. Collect. p. iii. cap. cit.
[268] Epist. 42. ad Univ. Episc. Gall. in the year 865. (Mansi, xv.
col. 695.)
[269] Mansi, xv. col. 693, et sqq.
[270] Epist. ad Hinc. Laudun. tom. ii. (edit. Sirmondi,) Paris.
[271] "Sancta Romana Ecclesia conservans, nobis quoque custodienda
mandavit, et penesse in suis archivis, et vetustis rite monumentis
recondita veneratur." (l. c. col. 694.)
[272] Prolegom. cap. 19.
[273] De Collect. Isid. cap. 4.
[274] Ch. Hist. vol. iii. p. 202.
[275] Blasc. De Collect. Canon. Isidor. (Galland Syllog. tom. ii. c.
v. p. 30.)
[276] De Concordia Cath. lib. iii. cap. 2.
[277] Summa Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 101.
[278] De Rom. Pontif. lib. ii. cap. xiv.
[279] The English translation of Dr. Hergenröther's complete and
masterly refutation of _Janus_, which we reviewed some time since in
the original German, is announced in the English papers as nearly
ready, and will be for sale at the office of this magazine as soon as
it is issued.--ED. CATHOLIC WORLD.
THE SUPERSTITION OF UNBELIEF.
When an age has abandoned God, sensuality delivers it over, like
Faust, to the devil, and he becomes its deity. Unbelief is everywhere
followed by superstition. Where the gods are not, the demons reign,
says a modern German poet. "We are ready to believe every thing when
we believe nothing," remarks Chateaubriand. "We have augurs when we
have no longer prophets; witchcraft when we have no longer religious
ceremonies. When the temples of God are closed, the caves of the
sorcerers are opened."
It is certainly a monstrous pairing when, with boasted
enlightenment, fortune-telling, card-divining, and the other
superstitions of darkness go hand in hand. But it is nevertheless
an old and well-known fact-one constantly demonstrated by human
experience--that unbelief is invariably associated with the grossest
superstition. A rapid glance at the history of peoples in all other
essentials most widely differing from each other will readily prove
this.
Beginning with the Hindoos, the oldest people on the earth, we find
that A. W. Schlegel has already effectually refuted the theories
of modern writers on religion by demonstrating to us a steady
retrogression from the spiritual to the sensual, from belief to
unbelief and superstition. Dubois, who had spent thirty years among
the Brahmins, and studied their philosophy, traces the degrading
superstition into which the Hindoos have lapsed to their having lost
faith in the religion of their ancestors. Once their schools taught
the maxim, Before earth, water, air, wind, fire, Brahma, Vishnu,
Chieva, sun, and stars, there was the only and eternal God, who had
sprung out of himself. These pure ideas of religion have long been
abandoned for an atheistic materialism. A superstitious demonology,
spirit-raising, sorcery, and magic have grown out of this unbelief,
and the same people now adore Kapel, the serpent, and Gamda, the
bird. They observe annually a feast in honor of Darhba, an ordinary
weed, and offer up sacrifices to spade and pick. To kill a cow is
by them considered a crime more heinous than matricide, and their
philosophers esteem it a great piece of good luck, a sure passport
to paradise, if they can catch hold of a cow by the tail instead of
the head, when dying. "Modern materialism," observes Dr. Hæffner,
comparing the unbelief of the Hindoos with our own, "has closely
approached the abyss of Buddhism." Manifestations like Mormonism, or
the spiritualism of New York, Paris, and Berlin, already suggest to
us the religious and moral practices of the Hindoos, and we bid fair
soon to reach their lowest and vilest forms--the Lamaism of Thibet
and Ceylon. As in the opening of the present century, admiration of
genius led men to adore the poetical genius of Schiller and Goethe,
so, changing their idols, they will eventually worship those who
have deified matter. The Buddhas of modern atheism can only be the
materialistic notabilities of the day; and for this reason a humorous
writer recommends Carl Vogt for Delai-Lama, he being not only a high
scientific but a great political authority.
Passing from the east to the west, we find, and especially in Roman
history, that the increase of superstition has steadily kept pace
with the diminution of faith. The religious decadence of ancient Rome
dates from the close of the Punic wars and the domestic commotions
of the republic, at which period we first notice that strange
hankering after what is obscure and mysterious in paganism, and
which attained its zenith under the Cæsars. This remark applies,
however, more to the cities than the country; for, from the days
of Augustus down to those of the Antonines, the latter had not yet
been so generally corrupted as the former. Sulla, the dictator--to
cite a few examples--put the utmost confidence in a small image of
Apollo, brought from Delphi, which he carried about on his person,
and which he embraced publicly before his troops with a prayer for
victory. Augustus, who allowed himself to be worshipped as a god in
the provinces, regarded it as an evil omen to be handed the left
shoe instead of the right when he rose in the morning. He neither
set out on a journey after the Nundines nor undertook any thing of
importance during the Nones. When one of his fleets had been lost at
sea, he punished Neptune by excluding his image from being carried
in procession at the Circensian games.
After the doctrine of Polybius, that religion is nothing more than
a tissue of lies and traditions, began to prevail at Rome, the
phenomena which usually attend the decadence of a people became
plainly apparent. Those who are familiar with the epidemic capers
of the fanatics of that age, who jerked their heads and distorted
their limbs while pretending to utter the will of the gods, will be
reminded of that moral and religious degradation which has produced
the same effects in all countries and times--effects distinctly
visible among all Christian peoples into whose life the ancient
heathenism still enters, or where false civilization once more
tends to barbarism. The story of Alexander of Obonoteichos shows
the extremes to which superstition may lead men. This audacious
impostor buried in the temple of Apollo, at Chalcedon, but so that
they could be easily found, a set of bronze tablets, promising that
Esculapius and his father Apollo would shortly come to Obonoteichos.
He also secreted an egg containing a small snake, and mounted the
next day the altar in the market-place to proclaim as one inspired
that Esculapius was about to appear. He produced the egg, broke
its shell, and the people rejoiced over the god who had assumed
the form of a serpent. The news of this miracle attracted immense
crowds. A few days later, Alexander announced that the serpent-god
had already reached maturity, and he exhibited himself to the public
in a partially darkened room, dressed as a prophet, with a large
tame serpent--secretly imported from Macedonia--so twisted around
his waist that its head was out of sight, and its place supplied by
a human head of paper, whence protruded a black tongue. This new
serpent-god, Glykon, the youngest Epiphany of Esculapius, received
the honors of temple and oracle service. Alexander became a highly
respected prophet; Rutelia, a noble Roman, married his daughter, and
the prefect Severian asked him for an oracle on taking the field
against the king of the Parthians.
If we wish to see how the same impostures are reënacted in our own
times, we need only read the accounts of certain evening amusements
at the Tuileries. There sat one night the Emperor Napoleon III.,
the Empress Eugenie, the Duke de Montebello, and Home, the medium.
On a table before them were paper, pens, and ink. Then appeared a
spirit-hand, which picked up a pen, dipped it into the ink, and
wrote the name of Napoleon I. in Napoleon's handwriting. The emperor
prayed to be permitted to kiss the spirit-hand, which advanced to
his lips, and then to those of Eugenie. This _séance_, and one of a
similar kind at the Palais Royal, where the Red Prince, known for his
hatred of the church, devoutly watched the ball which Home caused to
move over a table, remind us involuntarily of the Jesus-contemning
apostate Emperor Julian, as he followed Maximus, the Neo-Platonist,
into a subterranean vault for the purpose of seeing Hecate, and
looking credulously on when the former secretly set fire to a figure
of Hecate, painted in combustible materials on the wall, and at the
same time let fly a falcon with burning tow tied to his feet. Fuller
information on this subject the curious may glean from the stories
published in the French journals, of hands growing out of table-tops
and sofa-cushions, which furnish the Paris _élite_ with the only
luxury of terror it seems still capable of enjoying; or they may
consult the numerous patrons of the fashionable clairvoyants and
physiognomists, the Mesdames Villeneuve, of the Rue St. Denis, as
well as the successors of Lenormand, the famous coffee-grounds seer,
toward whom Napoleon I. felt himself irresistibly attracted, (though
he sent the luckless Cassandra occasionally to prison,) and whom the
Empress Josephine held in high esteem.
The eighteenth century furnishes some striking illustrations of
our theory. An epidemic tendency to unbelief, like that which
characterizes this century, is without precedent since the dawn of
Christianity. Its fruits recall the worst abuses of the Manichæans
and the Albigenses. We do not here allude to the thousands of
innocent superstitions, which Grimm says are a sort of religion for
minor domestic purposes, and may be met with in all ages, but to
those more glaring ones which show how inseparable are an arrogant
unbelief and the grossest superstition. Hobbes, who labored already
in the seventeenth century to undermine the Christian religion,
was so afraid of ghosts that he would not pass the night without
candles. D'Alembert, the chief of the Encyclopædists, used to
leave the table when thirteen sat down to it. The Marquis D'Argens
was frightened out of his wits at the upsetting of a salt-cellar.
Frederick II. had faith in astrology. At the court of his successor,
General Bishopswerder imposed on the king by magic tricks, and his
accomplice, Wöllner, who raised spirits by the agency of optic
mirrors, became minister. The custodian of the National Library
at Paris related to Count Portalis that some time previous to the
great revolution books on fortune-telling and the black arts were
in general demand. Oerstedt speaks of a man who paraded his atheism
with great insolence, but whom nothing could have tempted to pass
through a graveyard after dark. Napoleon I. dispatched, in 1812, a
special messenger to Beyreuth, with instructions not to be lodged
in the apartments which the "white woman" of the Hohenzollerns was
reputed to haunt. In the same way we see by the side of this league
of unbelieving philosophers spring up such superstitious sects as
the Butlerians, whose head, Margaret Butler, with Justus Winter for
God the Father, and George Oppenzoller for God the Son, represented
herself to be the Holy Ghost.
The alleged miraculous cures on the grave of Paris, the Jansenist
deacon, in the first, and the exorcisms of the devil by Gassner, in
the second half of the eighteenth century, form another instructive
chapter in the history of superstition. While the Archbishop of
Vontimiglii, the Bishop of Sens, and other distinguished prelates,
denounced the cures performed with the earth from the grave of Paris
as a cheat, Montegon, the atheist, wrote three volumes to prove their
authenticity. While the Archbishop of Prague and the papal chair,
by a decree of the Congregation of Rites issued in October, 1777,
condemned the miraculous pretensions of Gassner, Walter, Leitner,
and other deistic physicians, upheld them. While the mountebank
Cagliostro, who pretended to have learnt in Egypt the secret of
generating magical powers from reflecting surfaces, was called to
account at Rome, the Free-Masons of Holland made him visitator, and
_fêted_ him in their lodges. The unbelief of the eighteenth century
reached at last its culminating point during the French revolution in
the abolishment of the Supreme Being, though the rites of Mlle. Aubry
or Mme. Momoro were as silly as the worship of the cotton plucked
from Voltaire's _robe de chambre_. The names in the philosophical
calendar remind us strongly of the Hindoo worship of the spade
and pick, and who knows but some super-enlightened atheist may be
prepared to subscribe to the Brahminic dogma about the ox, an animal
which has already played a prominent _rôle_ at a red-republican
festival? Burke's prediction has been fulfilled, "If we discard
Christianity, a coarse, ruinous, degrading superstition will replace
it."
This war against faith and every thing spiritual has continued
into the nineteenth century, until once more gross materialism is
found on every side. Already, during the fourth decade, the darkest
superstition threatened to overwhelm the so-called intelligent world
with the manifestations of magnetism. The campaign against the
supernatural opened with the trial of the devil. As the Strasbourg
_Catholic_ satirically observed, the very day and hour had been fixed
when it was required that he should establish his own existence by
tangible proof. Disregarding the summons, the scamp was promptly
declared _in contumaciam_ outlawed and cashiered along with the
entire host of unclean spirits. The same summary mode of treatment
was pursued with the opposite side, and the same judgment was
passed on the angels, cherubim, and seraphim. All were pronounced
to be equally tasteless, scentless, inaudible, and imponderable,
and declared to be mere creatures of the imagination. Their Lord
and Master was next put on trial; at first very considerately with
closed doors and in a secret inquisitorial manner. The results of
the trial were put on record, and for a while imparted only to the
initiated, who gradually divulged the news to the masses. At last
the spirituality of our own soul was arraigned, and its activity
explained as the result of a mere change of matter. The Beelzebub of
ancient superstition was thus exorcised and expelled; but he soon
returned to the house which the besom of criticism had cleaned, and
brought back with him seven other evil spirits, so that nothing
was gained by the proceeding. The age, having cut loose from the
invisible, naturally plunged into a most abject dependence on the
visible. As the negro races kneel before their fetiches, trees and
serpents, so this century kneels before sleeping somnambulists,
dancing and writing tables, and mixtures and nostrums from the
apothecary shop.
Should civilization much longer continue on the present road,
the most deplorable consequences must follow. As in all former
times, so in this age unbelief has led where it always will
lead--to superstition. Man, created for immortality, needs the
wonderful, a future, and hope. When such a sceptical enlightenment
as distinguishes modern philosophy has sapped the foundations
of religion, its absence leaves in his thoughts and feelings an
immeasurable void which invites the most dangerous phantoms of the
brain. The moment man boldly declares, "I no longer believe in any
thing," he is preparing to believe in all things. It is high time
that so-called philosophy should again draw near to that religion
which it has misunderstood, and which alone is capable of giving to
the emotions of the heart a generous impulse and a safe direction.
REFORMATORIES FOR BOYS.--METTRAY.
It needs but a slight glance at the condition of things around us
to discover, as a consequence of the criminal and most deplorable
neglect of the moral education of a large proportion of our children,
that if they be not already on the broad road to ruin, they give, at
least, little hope of becoming useful members of society. This remark
is intended chiefly, but not exclusively, for boys, whose constantly
increasing lawlessness, connected with the steady growth of crime
among us, cannot fail to awaken the most serious apprehensions in the
mind of every attentive observer of passing events, while nothing
adequate to the emergency is offered to check this growing evil;
yet on the children of the present generation are based our hopes
for the future of our country. Every one knows with what facility
these young, fresh minds may be guided toward what is truly good;
for, though the tendency of our human nature to the descending scale
in morals as well as in physics is sufficiently evident, the one
may be counteracted with almost as much certainty as the other, if
judicious measures be early taken to give them a right direction.
The writer has had much experience in the domestic training of boys,
and yields the heartiest adhesion to the precept, "Train up a child
in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from
it." This training, however, is not by means of pampering animal
appetites or self-will, but by inculcation of strict though gentle
laws of obedience and self-denial. These habits once acquired, a
solid basis is laid for good principles and conduct, and these can, I
venture to say, _always_ be fairly established within the first ten
years of life, which have been justly pronounced the most important
period of human existence, for they contain the germ from which the
future character is formed. A profound thinker remarks, that "in the
education of the family is concentrated the strength of the nation;"
an observation which may well be applied to these United States,
where the moral character of every individual, through our system
of universal suffrage, assumes a certain weight, and thus, to a
greater or less extent, influences the best interests of the whole
country. We may here be permitted, in view of the immense importance
of this education of early childhood, to suggest a hint of a strange
inconsistency which is scarcely ever noticed in the systems of
education adopted to prepare the fathers and mothers of our posterity
for their respective callings. Everywhere, even where _moral_
influences are neglected, means are provided for the preparation of
boys for their career in life; yet, notwithstanding the multitudinous
volumes of philanthropy expended upon "woman's sphere," "her rights,"
etc., etc., we have scarcely heard of a single well-directed effort,
beyond the _chances_ of the domestic circle, to educate young women
in the supreme, the inexpressibly momentous knowledge of the vocation
that must surely be the lot of nearly every one of them. They are
destined to be mothers--to train up tender minds for time and for
eternity! To them is confided the most precious of our earthly
treasures; for what is untold gold but dust in comparison with the
well-being of our children? Why are they not imbued with the most
profound respect for the dignity of motherhood, as well as instructed
conscientiously in its practical duties and responsibilities?
When the mother's work is ill done, or, as is but too often the case,
totally neglected, of what avail are the labors of the professor,
but to make a bad man intellectually strong and more capable for
the accomplishment of his evil designs? Who can predict the safety
of the noblest structure if superimposed on a false or insecure
foundation? Knowledge is a power equally available for good or evil
purposes, according to the direction given by the moral force that
applies it. May the Almighty disposer of events teach us even at this
late day to learn wisdom from the experience of the past. If, for
example, a single volume were prepared and placed among the closing
studies of the course in girls' schools, embracing instructions in
the duties of woman--as mistress of the family, as the wife, the
mother, whose highest faculties are requisite in the early training
of children--and if the whole were placed in so attractive a garb
as to win their love and admiration for these womanly duties and
perfections, might we not hope that many young and guileless minds
would be gained from the mazes of folly ever ready to obscure their
true instincts and affections? Craving pardon for this digression, we
proceed to the primary object of this article.
A VISIT TO THE AGRICULTURAL AND REFORMATORY COLONY OF METTRAY,
NEAR THE CITY OF TOURS, FRANCE.
This admirable institution, which has received the highest stamp
of public approbation in the form of more than eighty kindred
institutions that have adopted its rules and practice as their
models, in France, Belgium, and other countries, was founded about
thirty years since, by the venerable M. Demetz, at that time a
distinguished magistrate, in union with a saintly man[280] whose
honored remains repose in the neighboring cemetery. M. Demetz still
lives to bless and guide this noble monument of his early wisdom and
beneficence.
In the midst of a beautiful and highly cultivated rural district, the
pretty village of Mettray is built in the form of a spacious hollow
square, and consists of some twenty or thirty detached cottages of
brick, symmetrically placed on two opposite sides of the quadrangle,
each having pendent roofs to protect the walls. A circular basin of
running water occupies the centre, and the open space is planted with
fine shade-trees. Between each of the cottages there is a gallery
about thirty feet wide, and roofed to protect from rain the plays
of the inmates of the adjoining cottages. All are white and of two
stories, chiefly covered with climbing vines and flowers.